As always, we’re not taking sides, but according to Stephen Dinan in The Washington Times, Tom Tancredo has issued a press release which :

demands that his fellow congressman and presidential candidate disavow a supporter’s open letter that criticizes the Minutemen who patrolled the U.S.-Mexico border and opposing assimilation for Hispanic immigrants.

The letter is from Abelardo J. Arias, Esquire [send him mail] and was published on LewRockwell.com, with the following objectionable passage:

Ron Paul represents the 14^th Congressional District of Texas, a border state with many problems. As a result of these problems we have seen overt racism from people like the Minutemen and other self-armed vigilantes who patrol the border. But there are many Americans who are not racist but just want our laws to be obeyed and respected.

An Open Letter to Hispanics On Behalf of Ron Paul

There’s more–Tancredo pointed out that the letter

“…written on behalf of Ron Paul labels the Minutemen as racists, supports a pathway to citizenship, and denounces assimilation and the use of the English language in America,” Tancredo said. “Congressman Paul needs to write off this radical diatribe as nothing more than a rogue supporter misusing his name, or publicly support the views that are exhibited in this letter.”

Of course, it’s always difficult to be held responsible for your supporters. And as for the Minutemen being racist, maybe someone should tell  Mr. Arias about Jim Gilchrist endorsing Huckabee. You don’t suppose Mike Huckabee would let a racist endorse him, do you?

I subscribe to the SPLC’s Hatewatch and Nativist News so I can find out what they’re worried about, (their Hatewatch mixes stories of actual crimes with gloating about people being arrested for distributing fliers) and I came across this:

Albuquerque (Assault)
Published on 09-11-2007
More than 20 male Indian students at the University of Mew (sic)Mexico were allegedly assaulted by a man who said `Namaste` — a traditional Indian greeting — after the attacks.

Followed above by

Albuquerque (Assault)
Published on 09-12-2007
“Turan Johnson, 34, was arraigned on three counts of alleged battery in attacks on two East Indian students at the University of New Mexico. “

So I went looking for the original story. I found the student newspaper had published a story with an amazing fact in it:

The students said the attacks seem to have been done by the same man.

Detective Robert Rush of UNM Police said it’s too early to say for sure. The police would not release the man’s description. [Emphasis added]

Sgt. John Guilmette of the Albuquerque Police Department said the most important thing the students can do is report any attacks immediately.

Guilmette said the department is stretched thin on resources, but can notify bicycle police about the incidents and send plain-clothes officers to the area.

Police can’t arrest anyone because the crimes are misdemeanors that weren’t committed in the presence of an officer, he said.

The attacks probably aren’t hate crimes, Guilmette said.

He said the man is most likely mentally disturbed and not specifically targeting Indians.

“I can guarantee you, you’re not the only people getting hit by this guy,” he said. “If he’s that angry, I guarantee he’s hitting other people, too.”

Indian students report racially charged attacks, By Bryan Gibel, UNM Daily Lobo, September 11, 2007

Not only would the police not release the man’s description, neither did the student newspaper, which was talking to the victims. Finally some of the students fought back, chased him and wouldn’t let him get away(good for them):

APD and UNM Police arrested Johnson on Wednesday evening near Central Avenue and Vassar Drive after an altercation between Johnson and several UNM students, said John Walsh, a spokesman for APD.

Conrad said Johnson, a transient, told officers he attacked the Indian students because, “We are at war with them.”

Walsh said there is no guarantee Johnson will be kept off the streets until the warrant has been issued.

The University Mental Health Center will release Johnson on Saturday, according to a press release.

Johnson was also arrested June 22 on charges of assaulting an Indian student, Conrad said.

He said students played a key role in catching Johnson when they confronted him Wednesday as he was assaulting another student near campus.

“This would not have taken place without their assistance,” he said. “They helped the police by, one, refusing to be a victim, and two, calling the police and pursuing this individual until he could be picked up.”
…
Potluru said he realized Johnson could be the man who had been attacking Indian students in the area, so he and Bezerra went to help Aldosari.

“We were high on courage and low on skill,” he said. “We just went for it. We were on adrenaline at that point. We knew we had to do something about what had been going on.”

Johnson tried to get on a bus at Central Avenue and Yale Boulevard, but the bus driver kicked him off, Polturu said.

“That’s when the fight first started,” he said. “Of course we were scared. He was a big guy, and we don’t have experience in fighting, but we didn’t want him to get away.”

Bezerra, whose yellow T-shirt was stained with drops of blood, said he was punched in the mouth during the fight.

“I was bleeding quite a bit,” he said. “My arms and my hands were all red.”

Potluru said Johnson ran across the street and tried to get in the back of a pickup truck stopped at an intersection.

Johnson left the truck after the driver told him to get out, he said.

Johnson then ran a few blocks up Central Avenue where he was arrested near Vassar Drive.

Suspect held in attacks on students (Video) , by Bryan Gibel ,UNM Daily Lobo, September 11, 2007

Good stuff, but…still no description? I was able to find a blog post by one blogger who had noticed the same thing, and he linked to the only two stories he could find with a picture–one from Indolink, 15 Desi Students Attacked In U.S , and one from KOB.com, Channel 4 News locally. Here it is

Accused UNM attacker in court

By: Jeff Maher, Eyewitness News 4, Matthew Kappus, KOB.com

September 16, 2007

The man suspected of a rash of hate crimes on the UNM campus was in court Sunday. He pleaded not guilty to three counts of battery.

Turan Johnson, 34, has a history of bizarre behavior.

He said in court that he is a student at an Indian medicine school in Albuquerque and said he has never used a gun before. Johnson made several odd claims Sunday.

“I have 12 Chinese girlfriends,” he told the judge.

Police suspect Johnson is behind a series of beatings on East Indian students near the UNM campus. The students were kicked and punched.

They told police they were attacked because of their race. Johnson was given a mental evaluation which helped police decide to charge him with a hate crime.

He is being held on a $10,000 bail.

So…neither the police nor the student paper could describe him while he was still out there attacking people, and the Indian students could be warned what to watch out for. Then he’s arrested, and the story is about race, and they still can’t describe him. (For the benefit of blind people reading this story through assistive technology, Mr Johnson is an African-American.)

It’s a funny thing when the SPLC mentions the race of the victim, but not the race of the hater. Of course, they might not know, either, as it appears the information is closely held. But this, and a host of similar stories (scroll down, the first on the list will be this one) are part of the reason you need VDARE.com–and we need your donations.

For today’s lesson in the wages of multiculturalism, let’s go beyond merely illiterate to pre-literate, including people who need instruction in pencil holding. Talk about job security for the Refugee Industrial Complex! Tribal folk from Somalia and Sudan require help and lots of it.

Apparently pre-literate people haven’t yet grasped the idea that sounds can be represented as symbols. Perfect for teachers who desire a real challenge in the classroom!

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Before Bob Jansen can teach English to the adult immigrants in his lowest-level class, he has to show about a quarter of them how to hold a pencil.

Adult education teachers like Jansen are finding themselves starting from scratch as uneducated immigrants and refugees from conflict regions of Africa and rural areas of Mexico and Central America flock to the United States.

An estimated 400,000 legal and 350,000 illegal immigrants are unable to read or write even in their native language, according to a July 2007 report from the Migration Policy Institute, an independent Washington think tank. [...]

One hand of the government is letting preliterate people come here as refugees,” said David Holsclaw, director of Don Bosco Community Center’s English as a Second Language Program, which serves about 2,500 students a year. “And another hand of the government is making it hard to serve them because they want to tie our funding to testing.”

It’s easy to understand why immigrants struggle if they aren’t literate in their native languages, said Barbara Van Horn, co-director of the Goodling Institute for Research in Family Literacy at Pennsylvania State University.

“They haven’t made the connection between their oral language and the fact that what is printed, those letters represent sounds that are used to make up words,” she said. “They don’t have that basic understanding of what literacy is about.”
[Programs Focus on Illiterate Immigrants, Google AP Dec 18 2007]

Once these refugees learn the basics of reading, surely their skills in cattle herding and building fires will make them hot job prospects.

The Washington Post’s continuing bias against true, meaningful immigration reform runs throughout their editorial and news pages. Today, the Post finally ran my letter commenting on their racist remarks in that December 13 editorial–The Immigration Swamp, subtitled As the presidential campaign intensifies, so does the nativist ferocity.

You can read the letter here:Terms of the Immigration Debate Wednesday, December 19, 2007, and read what I said about it on VDARE.COM here: Democrat Says Open Borders Rhetoric Getting Desperate And Vicious.