Letters to the Editor: Anti-Immigrants Sentiment

AV-LULAC’s response to the comments made during the June 15, City Council meeting by Members of the Freedom Coalition submitted to the City Council during their meeting on June 16, 2022

At yesterday’s Palmdale city council meeting, many members of the Freedom Coalition expressed some of the vilest anti-immigrant sentiments we’ve heard in a public forum in a very long time. These individuals did not hold back during their hate-filled diatribe causing many of us to gasp incredulously. Their main focus of complaint seemed to be that their tax dollars via AV Measure funds were being spent to serve the undocumented. They did not want a single cent going to serve this community.

Never mind that the immigrant population in Palmdale is 40,000 and that only a small portion are undocumented, approximately 88 % are here legally. Never mind that 65% (110,500) of the Palmdale population is Latino and that the vast majority support the immigrant community, many of whom are family members. Never mind that elected officials have a constitutional obligation to represent every single resident of the city and that the tenet, as old as the country itself, no taxation without representation, is a bedrock of our constitution. Immigrants are afforded services in the U.S. partially because of this principle which come into vogue because they pay taxes.

What sense does it make to keep immigrant children from receiving an education as Prop 187 once proposed? What sense to keep them from receiving health services? Can we not see that this would ultimately end up hurting ourselves? The COVID crisis exposed the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Immigrants comprise a large portion of this population and it is imperative that resources focus on them especially now that inflation is taking yet another toll and the City is a novel position to help mitigate this problem.

AV-LULAC long believed that there might be a link between today’s Freedom Coalition and the Minute Men of the recent past, their xenophobic rants are almost identical. We wonder if they know that the immigrant community, because of their large youth population, stands to rescue Social Security which is set to expire in the 10 to 15 years. If you want to stop SS benefitssooner, stop immigration from Latin American countries and watch what happens. Finally, for all of you who consider yourselves Christians, know that the Bible admonishes one to be hospitable to foreigners and sojourners hundreds of times.

In closing, City Council should disavow themselves from such statements lest they be accomplices in silence. We know that they should not stop anyone from exercising their freedom of speech, but such expression deserves nothing but condemnation from our leaders and we expect nothing less from you.

In regard t the issue of conflict of interests, we would like to propose a simple solution. Instead of taking up all of the applicants in mass, take up each application separately and let those who have no conflict vote on those with whom they have no conflict and those who have conflicts, recuse themselves from voting on those applications with whom they have a conflict only.

Respectfully submitted by Xavier Flores for AV-LULAC

Photo : Vladimir Gomez