AVWatch: Los Angeles is the "new Ellis Island"

Speaking in front of a National Education Association convention, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said that:

Los Angeles is an immigration hub, the new mayor said, and "the city of America's hopes and dreams."

"Make no mistake, it's irrefutable. This is the new Ellis Island," Villaraigosa said in a speech to some 9,000 delegates at the National Education Association's annual Representative Assembly.

"And we know that it is the public schools that have been the avenue, the route for that American dream," he said.

Hopefully there were at least one or two intellectually honest educators who said something like the following (to themselves of course):

That's nuts! Ellis Island was an entry point for legal immigrants! Ellis Island is, in fact, the exact opposite of the current self-serve system in which anyone who manages to sneak over the border or overstay their visa declares themselves an immigrant.

The former MEChA leader isn't the first to make this claim. See the post "Los Angeles is the Ellis Island of the West Coast" and its followup The "L.A. Opens Office of Immigrant Affairs" story just gets worse and worse. In that case, the person making the claim heads an organization that reportedly works with the Mexican government. Could they be writing the new mayor's speeches?

Immigration2005b · Tue, 07/05/2005 - 17:26 · · Importance: 1

Comments

LA doesn't screen immigrants, but so far as those celebrating immigration of undesirable diversity get their way, it is devoted to the evasion of any screening. If the public schools are to have such a social mobility role as suggested in LA, why would they promote English language illiteracy and non-fluency, and pursue Spanish and other foreign culture maintenance and separatism? Is that more like Ellis Island, or the Warsaw ghetto, or an impoverished, besotted Indian reservation, as an ideal?

Posted by: John S Bolton at Jul 6, 2005 12:25 PM

24Ahead.com

Independent, in-depth coverage of immigration, politics, and media bias since 2002. Also: multiculturalism, Los Angeles, California, privacy, and occasionally celebrities and wacky humor...

If you can't find what you're looking for, see the About page or use the navigation features to the right.

Start here