New York Times gets it wrong again.

It's amazing that the New York Times is held up as such a great institution, when their reporting is so consistantly sloppy.

Here's the letter I wrote to their news editor today:

New York Times editor,


Your April 14, 2006 article (on the nytimes.com) by Paul Vitello titled "Path to deportation can start with a traffic stop" says the following in paragraph 4:

"In Costa Mesa, Calif., for example, in Orange County, the City Council last year shut down a day laborer job center that had operated for 17 years, and this year authorized its Police Department to begin training officers to pursue illegal immigrants — a job previously left to federal agents."

That statement is not factually correct.

I live in Costa Mesa and have read about this situation and if you research it, you will see that the city of Costa Mesa has NOT authorized it's police department to begin training officers to pursue illegal immigrants. They have only voted to begin the negotiation that will allow some of their officers to be trained to determine the immigration status of persons already arrested for other crimes.

Here is the actual text from the city council meeting. It took me all of five minutes to find it on line and I can send you the complete .pdf file if you wish.

City Council Agenda - December 6, 2005

Request from Mayor Mansoor to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Bureau to conduct Federal immigration investigations in Costa Mesa.

Recommendation: Provide direction to staff on securing an agreement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement regarding use of the Costa Mesa Police Department personnel to enforce immigration laws on individuals arrested and brought into the City’s custodial facility

ACTION:
1. Directed a request to the County Board of Supervisors to include Costa Mesa Police personnel under the County’s application to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for Cross-Designation training in accordance with the Draft Proposal by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department of October 2005, and if approved training would be limited personnel from the City’s SED Gang Detail and the Detective Bureau; and

2. Directed a request to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to secure a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Cross- Designation training of Civilian Custody personnel employed by the City of Costa Mesa, and authorized the City Manager and the Chief of Police to a negotiate the terms of the MOU with ICE, with the final document to be brought to the City Council for consideration along with any budget authorizations or amendments, as needed; and

3. Directed that dialogue be opened and to work with Congressman Dana Rohrabacher to assist in the work with ICE, (3-2, Council Member Dixon and Council Member Foley voting no).

Thank you for your time,

Louis Villaescusa
Costa Mesa, CA

Costa Mesa immigration rally

So today loudogblog went to the Costa Mesa city hall to see the "big" rally. The first thing that I noticed was that the turnout was only about 2000 people. There were many people that I know who were worried about massive traffic congstion in light of last week's rally in Los Angeles. It rained until about 10 am and I suspect that supressed the turnout. The protest was quite orderly but the speakers were handicapped by the terrible audio system. It was fuzzy and distorted and occasionally suffered from dropouts and radio interference. There was a lot of talk about registering to vote (I guess that they're pretty confident that they'll get citizenship soon) and they compared the plight of the illegal immigrants to the internment of the Japanese during WW II and women not being able to vote over a century ago. "It was legal then, but that didn't make it right." was the chant. Here is the very small counter protest to the immigration rally in Costa Mesa today. Although they were a small group, a few of them were quite loud and one guy with silver hair and a jeans jacket was having way too much fun.

They did wise up and bring mostly American flags this time. I actually saw two entrepreneurs selling American flags on different corners a couple of blocks away.

The morning rain did eventually clear and it was a great day by about 11 am.
All in all, it was quite uneventful.

I will say that not one of the speakers, even the local Teamsters rep, mentioned the fact that the proposed law that they were protesting here in Costa Mesa would only allow the local police to check the immigration status of people arrested for committing felonies.

So in a sense, this was a rally to protect illegal immigrants who commit felonies.

Some people.

Loudog

A blast from the past

This billboard was quite popular last summer