The immigrant had lived the American dream.

A 41-year-old father of three, he owned two homes, some commercial property and ran and owned a successful heating and cooling business.

“I earned the respect of my clients,” said the immigrant, who put down roots in Chicago.

One big problem, though, this immigrant to America was here illegally. He didn’t cross a border. He didn’t climb over some ill-begotten border fence. His last name doesn’t fit the stereotype fashioned by the right-wing culture crowd on talk radio and cable television.

No, Andrezj Derezinski came to the U.S. in an entire legal manner 18 years ago. He stepped on American soil via a valid visa and passport. But Derezinski, or “Peter,” as he was called in the U.S., stayed in the country after his visa expired, becoming one of the nearly six million illegal immigrants who became undocumented in this manner. All told, up to 45 percent of the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. are visa overstayers.

You don’t hear much about these sort of illegal immigrants from the right-wing culture crowd. CNN’s resident hatemonger, Lou Dobbs, doesn’t have any storylines with the words “Broken Visas,” headlining any of the reports on his slanted program. You won’t hear Fox News fathead Sean Hannity every push a guest on his show with questions like: “Mr. Homeland Security Secretary, when are we finally going to secure our leaky visa system?”

Nope. For the right-wing culture crowd it’s all about broken borders and securing the border, (the southern one, of course, nary a mention of the little country of Canada to our north), and so an illegal immigrant named Derezinski isn’t going to being demonized on CNN’s daily diatribe on broken borders. It doesn’t fit the script, the stereotype always being nurtured and pushed by the right-wing culture types who have assigned themsleves the task of protecting America’s sovereignty and purity from the Mexican hordes.

It would be informative for Dobbs, Hannity and their demagogic ilk to read the page 1 story in this past Thursday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal. In a rare piece of reporting that goes beyond the usual media framework about how all illegal immigrants are Mexicans, the Journal story not only tells the story of Derezinski, the Polish illegal alien, but also details how many such immigrants fit his description.

Relatively few of the illegal aliens who are visa overstayers are from Latin American countries. The vast majority are from European countries, (i.e. Polish, British, French), and then followed by visa overstayers from the Phillippines, India, Korea, China and Vietnam. Gee, are they, too, crowding our public schools, using our medical and health care facilities, and all on food stamps, too, just like the Mexicans?

No, Derezinski, like the vast majority of Latin American immigrants here illegally, are hard-working, pay taxes, own property in many cases, and are raising American-born children. In Chicago alone, the Journal reports that there are about 70,000 Polish illegal immigrants, second only to the city’s undocumented Mexican population.

“Illegal immigration isn’t just a Latino issue,” said Frank Spula, president of the Polish-American Alliance, in the Journal article. “Polish people who overstayed their visas are here with family and property, and they just can’t pack up and leave.”

Gee, sound familiar? Sorry, Mr. Derezinski, what part of illegal don’t you understand?

And so, on April 10, the day the Journal story was published, Andrezj “Peter” Derezinski was deported back to Poland, leaving his American wife and three U.S.-born children behind. America, after all, can’t afford to have such hardened criminals in our midst.

Joaquin C. Tijerina, Official Chisme Blogger

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