MAN EVICTED FOR ENGLISH WILL SUE FOR DISCRIMINATION

American flag comes down from office as landlord pushes Spanish plaza ‘vision’
World Net Daily
September 1, 2007

STUART, Fla. – The battle over a South Florida business ordered out of its location purportedly because the tenant speaks English and not Spanish is now headed for the legal system.
Tom McKenna, who recently sold his Seacoast Water Care business to a competitor, told WND he now plans to sue his landlord for discrimination.
“Not reverse discrimination, but discrimination,” McKenna said. “I’m being discriminated against whether I’m Hispanic or whether I’m English. The fact that somebody’s singling me out because I don’t speak a specific language or I don’t fit their criteria of what I should be in this particular plaza I don’t think is fair.
“If it were reversed and I was Hispanic and there were two other American businesses in here occupying the other storefronts and the owner of the property said to the Hispanic business owner, ‘Guess what? You’ve got 30 days to move your business outta here because … I want an English-speaking plaza serving the English people in the area,’ there’d be a firestorm from all civil-rights groups across the country including the ACLU.”
WND spoke with McKenna during a small “end of an era” ceremony yesterday outside the vacated office where the Stuart, Fla., resident based his water-conditioning business for the last seven years.
An American flag flying from the top of Seacoast’s former headquarters was taken down, and a small group of friends and former colleagues were treated to free hot dogs and beer.
McKenna had Old Glory flying as a sign of American pride, while he vented his frustration. He believes many illegal aliens are being given preferential treatment over U.S. citizens.
“There are a lot of people [who over the years] came from other parts of the world who didn’t speak English. They came in the early 1900s and they learned that the only way they were going to further their career and to further their families’ wealth was to learn English – and they did. It seems like now it’s reverse, like, ‘OK, they’re Spanish and we gotta learn Spanish because we gotta get along with them.’”
“It’s great to have two or three languages, but if you don’t have a second language, why should I be forced out of my little plaza because my sign doesn’t say ‘El Seacoast Agua’?”…..

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=57432

DOCTOR FIRED OVER HOSPITAL'S ILLEGAL ALIEN CARE POLICY

California travesty

By Mark Cromer
August 27, 2007

Dr. Gene Rogers had a pretty good idea of what was coming when he saw his supervisor and a county security officer arrive at his office door. His supervisor was holding paperwork; the security guard was holding an empty box.

Dr. Gene Rogers knew what they had come to do, and why they were doing it. As the medical director for Sacramento County's Indigent Services program for the better part of the past decade, Dr. Rogers has waged a long fight against the central California county's practice of providing non-emergency medical care to illegal immigrants — a policy he says violates federal law and results in the poorest American citizens being denied the care they deserve.

That fight cost Dr. Rogers his job. In a two-sentence memo to Dr. Rogers, the county's Health and Human Services director, Lynn Frank, informed him that he was fired, but thanked him for his services. No reason for his termination was offered, but then he didn't really expect one. "Sacramento County knowingly violated state and federal laws, misappropriated taxpayer revenues and diverted funds designated for indigent citizens to pay for services delivered to illegal aliens," Dr. Rogers said. "And they did so even as they cut the budget."

Fired earlier this month, Dr. Rogers is the latest casualty on a frontline in the struggle over illegal immigration that's often overshadowed: the battle that has simmered throughout government agencies. Many government employees remain silent in the face of what's happening — fearful for their jobs and perhaps doubtful that they would make a difference. But Dr. Rogers, a Vietnam veteran, felt compelled to become a conscientious objector to the status quo.

The local cost of the medical treatment provided to illegal immigrants is small when contrasted to the billions of dollars the state and federal governments spend every year on the "undocumented," but the numbers have grown dramatically. According to county health officials, the hundreds of illegal immigrants who were being treated through the indigent program in the mid-1990s have now grown to thousands of people, with the annual cost to taxpayers swelling into the millions of dollars.

Ironically, when Dr. Rogers, 67, took the position of medical director for the indigent services program back in 1999, he arrived in the Central Valley with hardly a clue (let alone an opinion) about illegal immigration and its impact on social services. He had one goal: to provide the best care possible for those who need it most.

As the years went by, however, that egalitarian perspective began to be tinged with cynicism as he watched poor citizens get squeezed out of the system even as illegal immigrants gleefully manipulated it, all while bureaucrats facilitated the rampant violations of the very laws they were entrusted to enforce.

"I've seen cases and case histories of patients who essentially have come up from Mexico for the express purpose of being treated here, and then leaving to return home," Dr. Rogers said. "I've watched illegal immigrants brazenly demand free, non-emergency health care that was meant for our poorest citizens. I've heard them and their families complain. They feel entitled to it." Dr. Rogers filed a lawsuit in 2003 after county officials "stonewalled" him when he questioned why they were cutting budgets while still providing non-emergency medical treatment to people who have no legal right to be in the country.

The lawsuit is currently under appeal in federal court, but its impact was felt in the state capital, causing a nervous Latino Legislative Caucus in California last year to push through a bill by state Sen. Deborah Ortiz that explicitly allows counties to "opt" to provide non-emergency medical care to illegal immigrants. Sacramento County also responded, Dr. Rogers said, by seeking to alienate him from his prior relationships with county medical staff and by methodically preparing to fire him — with a little humiliation thrown in along the way. On one occasion, Dr. Rogers said, he was forced to sit through a staff meeting in which his supervisors asked case-management nurses one by one if they had any issues or problems with him. None said they did, but it was a humiliating experience.

"I am concerned that you continue to focus on patients' immigration status," Program Manager Nancy Gilberti said in a negative work review, "which is outside your and [the] program's purview." Mrs. Gilberti's remarks reflect a prevailing culture that has emerged in government: a culture that will not tolerate anyone who dares to draw a distinction between American citizens and illegal immigrants. It is a culture that now pervades police departments, public schools and universities, social services and health care.

But when someone like Dr. Rogers speaks up to question the impact on citizens of such allocation of funds for health services like those in Sacramento, the response is clear: Sit down and shut up — or else.

But considering that a young Dr. Rogers started his medical career trying to save the lives of horrifically wounded American soldiers in the jungles of Vietnam, Sacramento County's apparatchiks picked the wrong target this time. For Gene Rogers himself, his crusade is deeply rooted in those grim battlefields he found himself on more than 30 years ago. He watched young men fight and die, men who sacrificed all for the very distinction that citizenship brings to Americans.

It's a distinction that Sacramento County and so many others may choose to ignore, but for Dr. Rogers, that loyalty is a sacred trust he is determined to keep.

Mark Cromer is a senior writing fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070827/EDITORIAL/108270019/1013&template=nextpage

TERRY FUNDERBURK

Terry Funderburk and Illegal Immigration

by Douglas Gibbs - Filed Under Immigration, Douglas Gibbs

Terry Funderburk is a businessman. His business is in the construction industry in Columbia, South Carolina. He runs an honest business and is proud of it. According to Terry, however, his business is being put out of business because of companies hiring illegal aliens to do the same kind of work at “slave wages.”

Mad as hell, he decided to do something about it!

American Citizens, we do what we can to make a living, and the government is unwilling to enforce the laws on the books when it comes to an invasion from the south, or to stop invaders from any point of the border as a national security issue, for that matter, which in the long run puts us at risk in so many ways. Heck, certain members of the government even complains that the oil companies are making too much money! Do you know where that profit goes? Stock holders. Folks like you and me investing in stocks so that they can have some kind of retirement since the government has squandered Social Security. Now, folks like Terry can’t make ends meet because the government refuses to enforce the laws on the books.

Do we blame Terry Funderburk for being angry?

Terry is the new image of the American Worker. He took a stand, and was arrested for it. This is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. This current system is favoring those that are not even citizens with preferential treatment.

Terry says: “It is time to get angry, fellow Americans, it is time to get out of your homes and start setting things right again. It is time to vote out all of the bums who are profaning this great nation and to set her right again. It is time to take back our country.”

Terry Funderburk will be my guest on August 15th on Political Pistachio Radio
(Atlas Shrugs will be my guest this coming Saturday!). Tune in live, and call into the show to let your voice be heard! Be angry! Terry is correct! It is time to take back our country.

Other bloggers posting about this story:

Radio Patriot
Common Sense America

Contributed by Douglas V. Gibbs of Political Pistachio.

http://amerpundit.com/2007/08/09/terry-funderburk-and-illegal-immigration/

BUSINESS OWNER KICKED OUT

English-speaker says landlord's message is clear

By Geoff Oldfather (Contact)
Sunday, August 5, 2007

Tom McKenna is a longtime Stuart businessman who speaks only English.

He says that's why he's being kicked out of the storefront on South Dixie Highway where he has run Seacoast Water Care for seven years.

"I don't know how else to put it," said McKenna, 51.

I'm not sure I do either.

On July 5 — the day after Independence Day — McKenna received a letter from landlord Ivan Munro telling him to consider another location.

Munro said in his letter he wants to have "quality tenants serving the Spanish need in the area."

"I guess I don't serve the 'Spanish need,' whatever that means," McKenna said.

"I have plenty of Spanish-speaking workers come in here to buy water for their landscaping crews," he said. "And people in the neighborhood use the vending machines out front to fill their water bottles for their homes."

The building is on the east side of Dixie Highway, south of Indian Street in Golden Gate. Directly south of McKenna's store, across Southeast Ellendale Street, is a Texaco gas station where men, most of whom speak primarily Spanish, gather to wait for someone to hire them for day labor.

The population of the Golden Gate neighborhood east of McKenna's store also has become mostly Spanish-speaking.

To McKenna, that's irrelevant, as it should be. A customer is a customer is a customer.

But all the signs for the check-cashing store and the Mexican restaurant that share the building with McKenna are in Spanish.

Apparently the signs for Seacoast Water Care don't fit in. They're in English.

Munro pretty much admitted that's one of the reasons he wants McKenna to move.

"I can have a vision, can't I? And his business just doesn't fit there," Munro said. "He's not a good tenant, that's my opinion. He's been late on the rent."

Munro said he had other problems with McKenna: a forklift that was never moved from the front of the store and salt and other supplies in messy piles in an unprotected side yard facing Dixie Highway.

But what Munro said about prospective tenants is the real clincher.

"Mexican people come in, you know they're going to stay. You know they're going to pay the rent," Munro said.

I guess seven years in the same location isn't staying power.

And as far as the rent goes, don't rent to mainly English-speaking guys like McKenna — if you follow Munro's business model.

Munro is a private business owner, and he can do anything he wants with his property including fulfill his "vision."

But there's a double standard, and I don't think Munro is a villain as much as he's the symptom of a bigger societal ill: Try telling a minority business owner to leave so you can bring in a quality tenant to serve the need of the English-speaking population.

You'd have activists organizing protests so quick it'd make the annual snowbird migration seem slow.

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2007/aug/05/no-headline-05sgfcol/

GARY PAPINEAU

Competing with illegal workers
The fight for American jobs
By Richard Haddad, Payton Roundup
Tuesday, April 5, 2005

Standing on the sidewalk alongside Highway 87 in Payson, Gary Papineau holds a cardboard sign that reads, "I need work." But unlike other roadside panhandlers you might see in larger municipalities, Papineau's sign includes his phone number.
"I need a job," Papineau said. "I've seen people do this in Phoenix, but they're just looking for money. I'm really looking for work. Finding a job in this town isn't easy."
Papineau, who has experience in drywall work, blames part of his job-seeking woes on the increasing number of illegal immigrants crossing the U.S. border from Mexico. And with the opening of The Home Depot in Payson, Papineau believes the problem will only get worse.
"It's bad because most the (day laborers) workers are all from Mexico," he said. "I've lived up here for 13 years and I can't get a job with any of these companies. They move all these Mexicans up here to take the jobs. But here I am, an American, and they won't hire me."
"Home Depot's official policy is that undocumented workers are not allowed on our property," Shane Monahan, store manager for Payson's Home Depot, said. "I know it runs rampant in the Valley, but they are working with the Phoenix P.D. and trespassing charges are being filed and will be filed. I won't tolerate it at this store. I understand the sensitive nature of this -- that they're trying to support their families, but I've got a business to run and I can't let them sit out there and antagonize my customers."
Papineau is living with relatives in Payson, but said he has had to go to Phoenix to find work.
"I would stay up here if I had a job," he said.
Papineau is not alone in his concern over the loss of jobs for Americans.

AMERICAN CARPENTER CAN'T GET JOB

Today's THV

Jerod Clark, Reporter
Created: 12/1/2006 5:22:30 PM
Updated: 12/1/2006 11:19:52 PM

Alleged Border Patrol Impersonator Speaks

The sign in Carl Wynn’s front yard says, “Contractors who hire Mexicans are traitors,” tells it all when it comes to his opinion of illegal immigrants."I've been a carpenter all my life. It's what I've done all my life. Frame house right here in West Little Rock for these same builders. When the Mexicans come in and work for half price, we can't work for that price,” says Wynn. “I can't get no more work."Wynn says he spent his time going to construction sites in the city and taking video of workers he thinks are here illegally in hopes of getting them deported.Wynn says, "I've had guns pulled on me. My buddy's had a knife pulled on him."For safety, Wynn says he wore the uniforms, which made him look official. Police confiscated them Thursday. Investigators say the clothes are border patrol uniforms. Wynn disagrees.He says, “This is what was on the front pocket and it says citizens task force, it doesn't say I was a police officer. Only twice was I asked if I was a border patrol agent and I told them both times, ‘No I'm not, I'm a citizen.’"Police also confiscated a badge Wynn says is a collector's item.“I never wore the badge,” says Wynn. “I was going to, but when I put it on in front of the mirror I thought that was too much, I'll get in trouble for that."Wynn is also charged with sending threatening letters to construction company owners. He says they were full of facts on immigration law and his rights.He says, "People have the authority and absolute right to enforce citizens arrest and I think that's what got me arrested. Because the last pamphlet I sent him said he could be arrested by citizens and I could arrest him.”Police confiscated spikes they say Wynn left at work sites that punctured tires."When they chase me, I run in my car, I throw those down. I drive away. If they run that far, they step on them," he says.Graham Smith's construction company was a target of Wynn’s tactics and he did not think it was harmless."I feared for my employee’s safety and for mine and my family’s safety. If he's doing this at my office, what's to say he wouldn't come to my house and do that too," he says.Police arrested Wynn Thursday, but he says he's far from done. “I plan on doubling my efforts because I don't think I've done anything wrong and I'm going to be putting up more flyers and signs than I ever have," Wynn says.Wynn is charged with criminal mischief and sending harassing communications. Police say he could also face federal charges.