Illegal Pete’s is a Colorado burrito chain with locations in Denver and Boulder–and a problem with Hispanics.
On October 22, about 30 people gathered in Fort Collins to ask its owner, Pete Turner, to change the name of the chain, which will soon open an outlet there.
The reason: Apologists for illegal immigration believe that “illegal” has become the new “I-word.”
They believe that referring to someone as an “illegal alien” or “illegal immigrant” is dehumanizing.
But Turner didn’t have anything like that in mind when he named his burrito chain.
Peter Turner
Turner responded to critics by saying “Illegal” is a reference to a novel he read in college, and “Pete’s” refers to his own name and that of his father.
He added that he had helped pay for some employees to become citizens.
But those at a meeting in Fort Collins compared the name to a racial slur used against blacks or hanging a Confederate flag in the restaurant’s window.
“We have been getting emails comparing me to the KKK,” said Turner, who opened Illegal Pete’s in 1995.
The meeting ended on an ominous note, with its moderator, Kim Medina warning: “Let us know whether we should be there to protest or celebrate [the opening of the Fort Collins restaurant] on Nov. 13.”
“Social context is hugely important,” said Medina, a Fort Collins immigration attorney. “We’ll never get to big issues, such as immigration reform, until we can solve these smaller issues of language.”
Which goes directly to the heart of Politically Correct speech.
In 2012, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimated there were 11.4 million illegal aliens living in the United States.
Their top countries of origin are:
- Mexico (59%)
- El Salvador (6%)
- Guatemala (5%)
- Honduras (3%)
- Philippines (3%)
In 2012, 643,474 illegal aliens were arrested. More than 69% were from Mexico.
In 2012, 419,384 illegal aliens were deported from the United States. Approximately 47% of these had prior criminal convictions.
- Deported to Mexico (73%)
- Deported to Guatemala (9%)
- Deported to Honduras (7%)
- Deported to El Salvador (4%)
That’s according to DHS. But the truth is that with so many millions of illegal aliens invading the United States on a daily basis–and doing their best to remain uncaught–nobody really knows how many there are.
Current estimates based on national surveys place their numbers from 7 to 20 million.
Then there are the costs such unending waves of illegal immigration imposes on legitimate American citizens.
According to a study by the conservative Heritage Foundation:
- The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that in 2010, 5.5 million children and illegal alien parents lived in the U.S.
- About 1 million of these were born abroad and were brought into the U.S. unlawfully; the remaining 4.5 million were born in the U.S. and are treated under law as U.S. citizens.
- Overall, some 8% of the children born in the U.S. each year have illegal alien parents.
- The fiscal cost of illegal immigration must include the costs associated with these children, since these inevitably result from the illegal immigration of their parents.
- The average earnings per worker are dramatically lower in illegal alien households.
- Illegal aliens are far more likely to be poor.
- Over one-third of such households have incomes below the federal poverty level, compared to 18.8% of legal immigrants and 13.6% of U.S. citizens.
- Poorly educated men and women make up a disproportionate share of the illegal alien population. They tend to have low wages and pay comparatively little in taxes.
- Households headed by an illegal alien received an average of $24,721 per household in direct benefits, means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services in FY 2010.
Click here: Cost of Unlawful Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayers
So much for the fiscal costs of illegal immigration.
Other costs are not so easily measured–but can be dramatic and tragic.
Consider the recent case of Marcelo Marquez, 34, of Salt Lake City, Utah. Arrested on October 24, he is a suspect in a Northern California shooting spree that left two sheriff’s deputies dead.
Marquez and his accomplice, Janelle Marquez Monroy, 38, are being held without bail and face multiple felony counts, including murder, attempted murder and carjacking.
According to Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Marquez is actually an alias for a man named Luis Enrique Monroy-Bracamonte. He was deported twice from the United States.
The first deportation came in 1997 after an arrest and conviction in Arizona for narcotics possession. He was arrested and sent back to Mexico again in 2001.
Which, finally, gets back to the realities of Politically Correct speech.
More than 500 years ago, Niccolo Machiavelli observed the differences between image and reality:
For men in general judge more by the eyes than by the hands, for every one can see, but very few have to feel. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are….
The viewpoint of the Hispanics taking issue with Peter Turner clearly falls into this vein: If we can ban “illegal”–as in “illegal alien”–from the language, people will forget about the hordes of illegal aliens invading the United States every day.





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AN ALTERNATIVE TO OBAMA AMNESTY
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on November 25, 2014 at 12:01 amRepublicans are furious that President Barack Obama has decided to grant what they consider unconditional amnesty to millions of illegal aliens living within the United States.
But they don’t agree about what to offer as a counter-proposal.
Here is one suggestion.
If Americans decide they truly want to control access to their own borders, there is a realistic way to accomplish this.
“Undocumented immigrant”–illegal alien–entering the United States
(1) The Justice Department should vigorously attack the “sanctuary movement” that officially thwarts the immigration laws of the United States.
Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.
These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that do not allow municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status.
(2) The most effective way to combat this movement: Indict the highest-ranking officials of those cities who have actively violated Federal immigration laws.
In San Francisco, for example, former District Attorney Kamala Harris–now California’s Attorney General–created a secret program called Back on Track. Its purpose: To provide training for jobs that illegal aliens cannot legally hold.
She also prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from deporting even those illegal aliens convicted of a felony.
(3) Indicting such officials would be comparable to the way President Andrew Jackson dealt with the threat South Carolinians once made to “nullify” any Federal laws they didn’t like.
Jackson quashed that threat by making one of his own: To lead an army into that State and purge all who dared defy the laws of the Federal Government.
(4) Even if some indicted officials escaped conviction, the results would prove worthwhile.
City officials would be forced to spend huge sums of their own money for attorneys and face months or even years of prosecution.
And this, in turn, would send a devastating warning to officials in other “sanctuary cities” that the same fate lies in store for them.
(5) CEOs whose companies–like Wal-Mart–systematically employ illegal aliens should be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates.
They should be indicted by the Justice Department under the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, the way Mafia bosses are prosecuted for ordering their own subordinates to commit crimes.
Upon conviction, the CEO should be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least twenty years.
This would prove a more effective remedy for combating illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S./Mexican border. CEOs forced to account for their subordinates’ actions would take drastic steps to ensure that their companies strictly complied with Federal immigration laws.
Without employers luring illegal aliens at a fraction of the money paid to American workers, the flood of such illegal job-seekers would quickly dry up.
(6) The Government should stop granting automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens in the United States.
A comparable practice would be allowing bank robbers who had eluded the FBI to keep their illegally-obtained loot.
A person who violates the bank robbery laws of the United States is legally prosecutable for bank robbery, whether he’s immediately arrested or remains uncaught for years. The same should be true for those born illegally within this country.
If they’re not here legally at the time of birth, they should not be considered citizens and should–like their parents–be subject to deportation.
(7) The United States Government–from the President on down–should scrap its apologetic tone on the right to control its national borders.
The Mexican Government doesn’t hesitate to apply strict laws to those immigrating to Mexico. And it feels no need to apologize for this.
Neither should we.
(8) Voting materials and ballots should be published in one language: English.
In Mexico, voting materials are published in one language–Spanish.
Throughout the United States, millions of Mexican illegals refuse to learn English and yet demand that voting materials and ballots be made available to them in Spanish.
(9) Those who are not legal citizens of the United States should not be allowed to vote in its elections.
In Mexico, those who are not Mexican citizens are not allowed to participate in the country’s elections.
The Mexican Government doesn’t consider itself racist for strictly enforcing its immigration laws.
The United States Government should not consider itself racist for insisting on the right to do the same.
(10) The United States should impose economic and even military sanctions against countries–such as China and Mexico–whose citizens make up the bulk of illegal aliens.
Mexico, for example, uses its American border to rid itself of those who might demand major reforms in the country’s political and economic institutions.
Such nations must learn that dumping their unwanteds on the United States now comes at an unaffordably high price. Otherwise those dumpings will continue.
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