DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... 2 immigrants in U.S. illegally are named to Huntington Park commissions

Julian Zatarain always assumed the doors of City Hall were closed to him because he is here illegally, arriving from Sinaloa in 2007 when he was 13.

The 21-year-old college student found other outlets for service, such as volunteering for the Red Cross and with an organization that helps young people like him get access to educational resources.

Then on Monday, Zatarain proudly accepted an appointment to the Huntington Park parks and recreation commission. Another immigrant here illegally, Francisco Medina, 29, won an appointment to the health and education commission.

"I'm speaking out for people like me," Zatarain said. "I'm not doing anything wrong."

Their appointments mark a bold — and controversial — step by the small southeast Los Angeles County city to boost the participation of these immigrants in city government.

The working-class communities along the 710 Freeway have long been entry points for immigrants from Mexico and Latin America — a good portion arriving illegally.

The demographics have resulted in much lower-than-average voter turnout, with some elections dropping below 10% in the last decade. In one election in Bell, only 2% of the voting-age population cast ballots; balloting in nearby South Gate brought out only 3%.

There is also the belief that the lack of civic engagement has helped foster the corruption that has plagued city halls across southeast L.A. County, most notably the Bell scandal over public officials' salaries that resulted in national headlines and multiple criminal convictions of top leaders.

People who are in this country illegally cannot vote or seek elected office, but officials in Huntington Park said their status should not stop them from helping govern in other ways.

"Our population includes documented and undocumented immigrants, and I wanted to make sure everyone could participate," Huntington Park Mayor Karina Macias said. "If we're going to talk about transparency, being open and having a community that's involved, then the conversation also has to include undocumented immigrants. I'm hoping other cities are looking at what we're doing here."

Macias said the city began accepting new applications for commission posts two months ago, and officials began wondering what would stop them from appointing people who are living in the country illegally.

State law does not prohibit people who are in the country illegally from serving as appointed commissioners.

Both men are required to undergo full background checks. And unlike other city commissioners, Zatarain and Medina won't receive a monthly stipend, which generally ranges from $25 to $75.

"These two gentlemen have thousands of hours of volunteer work," said Jhonny Pineda, a Huntington Park councilman who formally appointed both men. "They are qualified but it just turns out they are undocumented."

Experts say the move reflects a growing effort in heavily Latino cities to push for more inclusion of people without legal status in public life. Several years ago, Maywood — which is next door to Huntington Park — made national headlines by declaring itself a "sanctuary" for those who are in the country illegally and repealed practices that some considered anti-immigrant.

"It's all about inclusion in civic engagement and also about using the resources a city has, and the No. 1 resource in any city are its people," said Fernando Guerra, a political science professor who also serves as director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

This inclusion is also occurring at the state level. California this year began issuing driver's licenses to people without legal status. This summer, the California Legislature passed a measure that provides healthcare to many immigrants who are in the country illegally.

The U.S. Census Bureau last month said Latinos are now the largest ethnic group in California. But Latinos still have lower income levels than whites, and many believe the low voter turnout is blunting their political influence.

Reaction to the appointments has been decidedly mixed inside and outside Huntington Park.

Linda Caraballo, a former councilwoman and resident of Huntington Park, said that while she doesn't oppose the people who are in the country illegally, she is against the appointments of the two men, fearing it would produce bad press for the city.

"There are more qualified people," she said. "How could they be policy advisors if they can't even vote for the council members? This is just going to bring media attention, it's going to create national debate and it is something the city of Huntington Park doesn't need."

Robin Hvidston, executive director of We the People Rising, an immigration enforcement group in Claremont, said the appointments take two commission seats from U.S. citizens.

"To appoint commission seats to individuals who are breaking federal laws demonstrates that lack of respect for U.S. law," she said.

But others argued that it's important for immigrants to feel like they have a stake in how their communities are governed. When more people care about these issues, the chances of corruption are lessened, said Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute — a Latino-focused public policy and research organization.

"The environment of where corruption flourishes is an environment where there is almost always a low level of scrutiny in monitoring and accountability and that is always characteristic of low level civic engagement," he said. "The participation in commissions is a logical and healthy step forward."

Zatarain, who is attending Santa Monica College, said he chose the parks and recreation commission because he believes he can help the city provide better services for residents.

He said he first thought about getting involved in government after the city picked a new trash hauler and garbage started piling up on streets.

"I was upset," Zatarain said. "Why was my city dealing with this...? I came to realize, I wanted to get involved and help."

LA Times Link

Que the GOP, Fox and friends meltdown: 3, 2, 1... lol

I'm curios though - I guess our country wants illegals to be able to vote. It now appears that, it's starting, that illegals can hold political office. Yet, "illegal", or part of it, means they don't have social security numbers, and might just not pay taxes.........do I have all that right?

I mean, businesses are forced to verify citizenship (whether they do or not is a question), but illegals can now be here and hold jobs that are payed for by legals?

Do I have that right, or did I miss something?

I still find it hard to grasp on why people seem to get so confused by the term illegal. I believe it's an easy word to understand.

If your first act of entering our nation was illegal, everything after words means nothing. You broke our laws when you entered our country. It's time for you to go now.

Screw the GOP, Fox.......it seems to me, the whole country should be upset. And, for those that aren't upset, why aren't they?

I'm not upset due to the ridiculous cost and red tape you must go through to get here. We champion this nation as "The Land of Endless Opportunity", but we forget to add an asterisk. That asterisk reads the following: "Only if you jump through five billion hoops blazing with fire"

They are not illegals, they are only just misunderstood yoots.

illegal immigrant is a straight forward term.

...and these guys are doing jobs Americans would do! So that's equally uncool!

Illegal immigration is obviously a huge issue here in Tucson. The federal government does woefully too little to combat the problem. But I don't think wasting time chasing around those who are productive members of society is a prudent use of time and resources. There's a woman here now who does a lot of good for the community holed up in her church to avoid deportation. We should spend less focus on people like her or these two, and more on the revolving door of illegals coming in and out of jail. We're obviously not going to stop illegal immigrants from coming in, but we can certainly narrow the focus towards pulling out the weeds, so to speak.

Like, the guy that killed the lady in San Fran? Deported 5 times? Convicted felon? http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/03/us/san-francisco-killing-suspect-immigrant-deported/index.html

Well, at least he was in a "sanctuary city".

Yeah, I don't get that either.

I had to fill out I-9 forms on every new employee, check documentation as to their identity and their eligibility to work, legally, in the US. It was a real pain in the butt.

So how do these people just hire illegals, and advertise the fact that they hire illegals, and face no federal consequences?

Yes it is, but don't understand how'd you be an expert on that since you OBVIOUSLY break our drug laws... unless you just love the art of burning MJ plant and musical rant of your favorite quote...do you speak at public schools on evil of drug use?

+1, why aren't legal citizens complaining and taking jobs from illegals....don't get it.

I'm not saying it was right to make them commissioners, but I was very much looking forward to reading the remarks on this thread!

Hahahahaha!

We have to have a standard. Sadly we don't. We have different rules for different people. I also understand rules can't always be black and white. I do believe we need to start with protecting Americans first. How can we help others if our own house is in chaos?

As a born American, this story disgusts me 100%.

What a complete and total joke...

You ought to be as upset as anyone - regardless of the "D" or "R" connotation. Regardless of liberal or conservative.

Apparently illegals are now not only allowed, but they can hold taxpayer paid jobs???

I think being upset is the first thing - changing it is the next thing.

The guy came here from a region controlled by a drug cartel when he was 13 years old. He got an education and found stable employment. I don't see what's so upsetting about him having a government job.

That's a neat story. Almost book worthy. Now, what part of "illegal" do you not understand?

So, he came from a place where, apparently everyone was controlled by a drug cartel? (drugs are bad)

He got an education here? At taxpayer expense no less. And he found a job, at taxpayer expense. And you see no problem with that??

So, the guy fled his drug riddled country to sneak across the border illegally, and has lived off the tax payer since? And you see no problem anywhere?

Would you be in favor of having no border patrol or immigration office?

He may be a great guy - but he's here illegally. Did you catch that? He's here illegally. Anything and everything after that matters not. Where he came from doesn't matter - he is here illegally. He got his education here, as an illegal, he's collecting a gov't. paycheck as an illegal. Period.

If he were such an upstanding person, perhaps at some point in time he would've tried to become a legal citizen? Maybe?

We can't do nothin till we shut the flood gates on that danged border! Just wasting time if they are gonna keep on pouring thru.

Not really. According to the article, he more than gave back to the community. He's a taxpayer himself, and has logged extensive community service hours.



Not really. Again, going by the article, he seems to be a contributing member of society who pays his taxes and volunteers his time. I really don't see the point or benefit in firing or deporting him for something his parents did when he was prepubescent. We need more taxpayers concerned with improving our communities, not less.



I would imagine he's applied for the lottery. Most in his situation do. I can't say for sure, though. And if he's only been here for 16 years, his odds probably aren't very high.



Absolutely not.

So whats the point of having laws if we are not going to enforce them?

so me smoking weed is as bad as coming to this country illegally.

ok.

So what are you saying? You seem to want to throw meat to the wolves and then sit back and laugh at the feeding frenzy... do you have a position?

Here is mine... Both of these guys seem like upstanding guys who were brought here as children so I don't hold it against them as much as I would an adult. They seem like the kind of guys that we would want to fast-track to citizenship rather than kick out... but I'm against putting them on government commissions until such time as they can be made legal.

Didn't you know, that's just a feel good fix, and they'd just go around it anyway.

glad to know that you understand your solutions were stupid.

Well then I guess we should just throw open the Border and offer
Statehood to Mexico.

Gosh, did I forget to use that purple font again? Your lack of solutions is more stupid, not to mention foolish.

Did you notice that just about every European country is building fences to keep illegals out of their countries?

A real solution could be to make immigrating to the US legally fairly easy, and actively deporting illegals who don't wish to become legal residents. Of course this removes a big boogeyman come election time...

The biggest problem is that nobody is doing ANYTHING.

The laws as the exist aren't getting changed, they're just being deliberately, bltantly ignored.

That is not how the Law is supposed to work. You enforce it as-is and when it doesn't work, you change it.

May as well just disband I.C.E. and open the borders at this point; they aren't doing anything, so why bother funding them?

*slow clap*... amen brother.

Tend to agree with this post. The only person willing to talk about immigration is Trump.

Noone seems to do anything aside more it more appeasing for them to migrate illegally. Shelter, dental and Healthcare and so much more, right outta the tax payers dime for someone who won't even pay a dime in US taxes.

In addition to Purple's comments, laws are clearly there, but not enforced. It's time to start hitting these states hard and where it'll hurt them the most, funding. Don't want to follow or enforce the laws, make them then.

Times have changed since the days of Ellis Island and etc and the more/longer it continues to be neglected, the harder it becomes to start to fix.

/end rant

J/C

What causes people to not come the "right way"?

Probably the fact that one could start out a baby faced boy when applying for citizenship and end up looking like ZZ Top by the time you're approved.

That needs to change.

That's easy to answer. The system is screwed up and it costs too much and takes too long. Legal immigration needs to be fixed. Illegal immigration needs to be stopped.

BTW, there is currently a class action lawsuit in the works for those people that immigrated legally, in case the government legalizes all the illegals.

This is not a loaded question but, how long do you think it should take? And what should we be checking for?

You can enforce laws while still discerning things on a case by case basis. I know that's difficult now with jammed immigration courts, but I've never liked the liberal notion that individuals (in this case, judges) can't be trusted to make decisions on a case-by-case basis, to the point where they need to be told by the federal government how to rule. They're called "judges", not clerks. That's how we ended up with mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines where judges are forced to hand down sentences they disagree with. In the specific case discussed in the article, I don't see the point or benefit in firing or deporting the guy. As I said before, there is an increasing shortage in this country of taxpayers who actively strive to improve their community. I don't see the point in losing one because their parents brought them here when they were 13. A lot of illegals need to go. I'm not arguing that. But some are making things better, not worse, and I see no problems with making exceptions in those cases. In the end, nothing will get solved until the federal government gets proactive.

How come politicians, especially those on the right, fail to propose a decent solution to expedite, and lower the cost of legally getting into the country?