BILL FISHBURNE Senior Editor The Tribune Newspapers

EDITORíS NOTE: The following opinion column appeared in last Thursdayís edition of The Asheville Tribune, a general-interest community weekly newspaper that espouses a conservative editorial stance. Tribune Senior Editor Bill Fishburne chose to respond ó in a two-page spread with the banner headline ìLetter to John Northî ó to a July 3 editorial that appeared in the Daily Planet. North, who is the Planetís publisher and editor, will respond next week.

Fishburne headed his column with the following italicized preface that is being reprinted here verbatim, except for a correction of the Web address.

The Asheville Daily Planet ran an editorial in its July 3rd edition entitled ìEmbrace, donít bash, immigrants.î The first paragraph set the tone for the piece, saying, ìJudging by the inflammatory and borderline-racist rhetoric at the Action Clubís June 23 Stop Illegal Immigration Rally ó such as Asheville City Councilman Carl Mumpower labeling illegal immigration ëcultural terrorismí ó the Republican Party is gearing up for another hate-war, this time on ëillegal aliens.íî

The entire editorial may be found HERE.

This writer served as master of ceremonies for that event and on July 4, I responded to the Daily Planetís charges.

Dear John,

I take deep personal offense at your comments in this weekís Daily Planet editorial. Specifically, your opening sentence: ìJudging by the inflammatory and borderline-racist rhetoric at the Action Clubís June 23 Stop Illegal Immigration Rally...the Republican Party is gearing up for another hate-war, this time on ëillegal aliens.íî

As Master of Ceremonies for the event I personally vetted each speakerís background to insure that none were racists and that neither hatred nor intolerance was a factor in their presentations. I heard nothing at the rally to persuade me otherwise except for one seemingly deranged man who spoke from the audience and blamed the worldís ills on the Catholic Church. Perceiving him to be unbalanced I simply said ìThank you for giving us your opinionî and went to the next speaker.
As an Anglo-Catholic I would never agree with anything that individual said. It was, however, an open forum.

The remainder of your editorial is as baseless as the comments of the deranged man. The rally was not racist. The rally was not opposed to legal immigration. The rally was not proposing new laws or new restrictions on legal immigration.

The rally was about the crisis in illegal aliens invading our country to take advantage of our freedoms and our economic system without due process. As a people, Americans have the right to control our border. Abrogating that right makes us not a nation, just a destination.

Crossing into the United States illegally is a crime under federal law. There are punishments for this crime. The rally was about the criminals who have invaded our country. The rally was about what impact these criminals have on our society. The rally was about what can be done to put an end to this continuing crime wave, and how to protect American culture.

The problem with your editorial, and your newspaperís editorial position, is that you do not accept these facts.

John, those of us who participated in the Rally are not racists. I have lived and worked for many years amongst the people of Central and South America. I speak Spanish, badly at times, fluently at others. As a soldier I worked with citizens and soldiers from Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Panama, Honduras and Guatemala, plus the Dominican Republic. As a civilian I worked in steaming hot factories in Nicaragua, Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Panama and other countries where we spoke nothing but Spanish. I found the people in each of these countries to be bright, hard-working, creative and thoroughly delightful to be around at work and at play.

In Panama in the 1960ís I commanded a Special Forces A-Team whose job was to work with indigenous people to help them lift themselves out of poverty, to improve their health and to defend themselves against the raids and incursions of radical leftists such as the communist revolutionaries sent to CA and SA by Fidel and Raul Castro. My B-Team, prior to my arrival, was the one that trained the Bolivian Rangers who captured iconic communist guerilla leader ChÈ Guevara in 1967. At Bocas del Toro, Panama, in 1969, I participated in a medical civic action program that treated 1500 local villagers and in the overwhelming response to our efforts I personally delivered two babies.

In Nicaragua during the Contra revolution I saw first-hand the evils of communism, its shallow ideology and callow disregard for human rights and human life. I saw friends taken away from their families never to be seen again and a once-thriving economy reduced to ruin by the system the Sandinistas imposed. One memorable night in 1981 I went to a thatched-roof, open-wall restaurant to watch a prize fight between an American and a Nicaraguan for the worldís lightweight championship. As I lustily cheered (alone) for the American I suddenly found my table totally covered with mugs of beer and platters of steak bought for the crazy American by the Nicaraguans present as a sign of their love of America, and all we stand for.

America has a distinctive culture. It is a culture formed in the crucible of freedom forged with blood and steel, and cooked in our wonderful melting pot. It is based on English Common Law, belief in Godís Holy Word, Natural Law, our Constitution which gives government its powers, and the rights reserved to our States and citizens thereof under the Bill of Rights.

Other cultures do not share this legacy. Their constitutions by and large grant rights to citizens and hold all other rights to the government. The citizens of these nations may be the nicest, finest people you could ever hope to meet, as my anecdotal stories above illustrate, but they are not Americans. They donít understand us and unless they come here legally and go through the process of becoming citizens, they never will be Americans.

When I was in the Army I was willing to lay down my life in defense of the rights of villagers throughout Latin America. The Army placed me in positions where that sacrifice was eminently possible, yet I was fortunate enough to come through it and return home to tell the tales, and with a vast new appreciation of what we have, and how it is so different from the cultures I had just seen.
A person who has gone through this, who has put his life on the line for a people with different skin colors and a different language, is no racist.

The crisis of illegal immigration is not ìginned up.î There is a crisis. As speaker after speaker clearly outlined we face the loss of American culture, the bankruptcy of our social support system and the Balkanization of our society as we build an ill-begotten culture based on the successful commission of the crime of sneaking into the United States.

Your decision to profit from this influx of illegal aliens by creating a Spanish language newspaper speaks volumes about your personal lack of faith in America and the rule of laws that are empowered by our Constitution.

As I noted in my remarks between major speakers at the Action Club rally, there is a legal theory in the United States known as the ìFruit of the Poisonous Tree.î This holds that evidence obtained illegally in a criminal case cannot be used in the trial, and neither can any additional evidence gained as a result of the illegal first evidence. Such secondary evidence is the fruit of the poisonous tree. The term was first used in Nardone v. United States, 308 U.S. 338, 60 S. Ct. 266, 84 L. Ed. 307 (1939). This case dealt with information gained through an unauthorized wiretap. There was no real question of the guilt of the defendant, Frank C. Nardone, but his conviction was overturned because the initial evidence, which led to seizure of alcohol and evidence of smuggling, had been obtained
illegally.

The argument has been used in other cases where criminal actions lead to benefits to those who commit the crimes. The logical extension of this argument is that no benefits should accrue to aliens or their children who gain illegal access to residence in the United States. Section 3304(a)(14) of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) uses this theory to require State Employment Security Agencies to take actions to deny illegal aliens filing claims for unemployment compensation. The intent of these laws is, in brief, to prohibit paying unemployment compensation to an alien whose wage credits are based on services performed while the alien was not legally entitled to employment within the United States.

Those benefits are reserved for citizens and for aliens who are in the United States with legal work permits.

It is no stretch to realize that all other benefits accrued while residing in the U.S. illegally should also be denied. This would include houses, cars, bank accounts and, most importantly, the potential for citizenship for the alien and their children.

These were some of the issues presented and discussed at the Action Clubís Stop Illegal Immigration rally.

You can say these are harsh ideas and you can say everyone deserves a chance in life. But these ideas are less severe than the punishments and regulations imposed by our neighbor, Mexico, where Gringos cannot even own property. I have a friend, Eric Jackson, who is editor and publisher of the left-wing Panama News. Jackson says the national sport of Panama and CA is to cheat Gringos out of their money when they attempt to make real estate investments where the laws that apply to citizens of those countries most often do not apply to legally resident non-citizens.
There is a problem whenever one class of people take it upon themselves to violate the law, interpret it to their own purpose, and take advantage of a nationís generosity to undermine the rule of law itself. This is the fundamental issue in the case of illegal immigration, and your paper does a great disservice to all American Citizens in blaming the messenger for bringing forth the message.
Cordially,

BILL FISHBURNE
Senior Editor
The Tribune Newspapers