By Allan Wall
03/25/2012
In 2011, the state of Alabama passed Alabama HB 56, the Hammon-Beason Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act to fight illegal immigration in the state of Alabama. Given the federal government’s longtime impeachment-worthy refusal to do its job, this was a valiant effort and a poll last week showed that Alabama voters overwhelmingly support it.
But of course the usual suspects went ballistic and are still in a state of hysteria. Far-Left pressure groups, the Obama Administration (but I repeat myself), the Mexican government and 15 other Latin American countries took it to court, as did domestic Treason Lobby groups. Additionally, grandstanding clergymen have railed against the law, while activist judges have blocked parts of it. Yet the law itself remains, for now at least.
Leaving no stone unturned, a group of HB 56 opponents has just traveled all the way to South Korea (!) to fight it.
Why go to South Korea to fight an Alabama law?
The key is Hyundai, one of the world’s biggest automobile manufacturers, which has several big plants in Alabama. The Treason Lobby mob attacking HB 56 has targeted Hyundai, and other foreign car companies operating in Alabama, in an effort to get them to take sides in a dispute over U.S. immigration policy.
As reported on the website of Treason’s Voice (well, it calls itself America’s Voice — it’s so totalitarian that it even tried to silence the herbivorous Federation for Immigration Reform a couple of years ago):
Activists fighting for a repeal of Alabama’s immigration law, HB 56, announced today that they have called on the state’s auto manufacturers to stand with them against Alabama’s “backward immigration policy.” “There is no fix for H.B. 56,” Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said during the call. “The only option that makes any sense — and the only option that will help Alabama restore its reputation in the U.S. and with the international business community — is for the legislature to approve a complete repeal of this obnoxious law.” Activists want to make clear that HB 56 is causing a civil rights and humanitarian crisis across the state, and that the silence of foreign investors who do business there is effectively an endorsement of Alabama’s extremist law.
Immigration Advocates Ask Auto Manufacturers to Stand Against HB 56, Alabama’s Anti-Immigrant Law, by Van Le, America’s Voice, February 6, 2012
This was followed up by formal letters from the aforementioned Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights to the three automakers, to Hyundai, Honda and Daimler AG (of which Mercedes is a subsidiary).
According to CNN
“The National Council of La Raza, the NAACP, the United Auto Workers and the Southern Poverty Law Center have requested meetings with auto executives hoping to discuss how the bill is affecting the state’s image and, potentially, its economy.”
So far though, the companies are trying to stay out of it:
Mercedes representatives did not return repeated e-mails or a phone call from CNN requesting comment about the groups' outreach. Honda did not return e-mails. Chris Hosford, a spokesman for Hyundai, confirmed in an e-mail that the company had received the groups' letter and said the company does not take a position on the immigration law one way or the other.
Alabama immigration law foes seek automakers’ support, By Joe Sutton, CNN, February29, 2012
Interestingly, a German Mercedes-Benz executive and later a visiting Japanese Honda employee have each been arrested under authority of HB 56. At least they can’t say Alabama is just profiling Mexican mestizos!
(The Mercedes-Benz executive’s arrest was treated as if it were some kind of horrible mistake, but he was driving a rental car without any of the following — his driver’s license, his passport, or his visa.[Mercedes-Benz Executive from Germany Arrested in Alabama Under Immigration Law, Fox News Latino, November 21, 2011])
It is to these three foreign companies’ credit that they are not getting involved in the HB 56 controversy. It is, after all, an internal American matter. And why would they want to get mixed up in all this when all they really want to do is assemble automobiles?
If it gets too complicated, they might just pull up stakes and leave Alabama.
These companies are pressured into participating in a sort of “secondary boycott”, defined as “a group’s refusal to work for, purchase from, or handle the products of a business with which the group has no dispute…an attempt to influence the actions of one business by exerting pressure on another business.” It’s questionably legal, but seems to be emerging as a new Leftist tactic — ask Rush Limbaugh.
And the Open Borders boosters aren’t giving up . Recently, they organized a trip to Seoul, South Korea, where they went straight to Hyundai headquarters to harass the automakers there. (They plan to send delegations to Daimler and Honda later. Who’s paying for this?)
The delegation to South Korea was headlined by the aforementioned Wade Henderson of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Dae Joong Yoon of the National Korean American Service and Education Consortium, and Eliseo Medina, the Mexican-born International Secretary-Treasurer of the SEIU.
(I’ve written about Medina before. Two years ago, he gave a speech, openly boasting that an amnesty of illegal aliens means millions of new voters for the Left — see my SEIU V-P Gets It- Amnesty is About Gaining Millions of Leftist Voters. So why don’t the Republicans get it?)
The anti-Alabama delegation made contact with Korean labor unions, which were happy to sign on to the cause. They met with Hyundai shareholders, and held a press conference outside of the company’s Seoul headquarters. They stood behind a big banner reading “Repeal Alabama’s Anti-Foreigner [sic] Law” in English, with a lot of Korean writing underneath. (You can watch videos of the press conference here and hear Henderson’s speech and Medina’s speech, each of which had to be translated to Korean for the audience.)
If you don’t want to suffer through it, here are the low points:
Of course, Henderson had to bring up the civil rights era — “Alabama has a well-known past”. He claimed that the state was “sacred ground” where blood had been shed, where he and Eliseo Medina had recently marched in a re-creation of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march, this time in defense of illegal aliens.
Henderson said HB 56 was “horrible” and “so bad” and called on Hyundai and the other foreign automakers to “speak out against this”.
Opponents of the Alabama law make this same old and tired comparison with Jim Crow and the Civil Rights era. But, in fact, they are separate issues. Today, Alabama is dealing with an illegal alien invasion. But black Americans were citizens.
Wade Henderson, like many other black leaders, ignores the fact that mass immigration hurts grassroots black Americans, most of whom don’t support it anyway. [See An Examination of Minority Voters’ Views on Immigration, by Steven A. Camarota, Center for Immigration Studies, February 2010]
But black people continue to vote for politicians who keep importing more workers — just like white people.
Anyway, back in Seoul, Eliseo Medina delivered his oration, speaking of workers in Alabama who “do not have proper documents” are “forced to live in the shadows of our society”. HB 56, he proclaimed, “violates basic fundamental human rights”. Medina called on Hyundai to “speak up”, telling the company that if they don’t speak up to do the right thing, at least do it as a “good business decision”.
Medina boasted that there are 50 million Latinos, and they form the “fastest growing demographic in my country.”(He means America.) Hyundai, he was saying in effect, if you don’t stand up for us Latinos, then you “can’t ask us to buy your cars”.
Medina challenged Hyundai: “Latinos are waiting to see whether Hyundai will stand with us or with the human rights violators in Alabama.”[American Civil Rights Leaders in Seoul, South Korea Report on Meeting with Hyundai Re: H.B. 56, by Mahwish Khan, America’s Voice, March 16th, 2012.]
So this has what it’s come to: The federal government won’t enforce the law, so Alabama has to do it on its own. But the state is beset with opponents and saboteurs on every side. Some of these opponents go to foreign countries to harass foreign companies, seeking to draw them into the fray as well.
The bottom line: the Treason Lobby has no limits to its goals. It intends to sabotage the rule of law and radically transform the historic American nation. And it doesn’t care what you think about it.
Are you going to allow them to prevail?
American citizen Allan Wall moved back to the U.S.A. after many years residing in Mexico. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.