Alleged O'Malley threat
At 44, had he not been arrest for allegedly threatening the governor of Maryland, Walter Abbott might still be eligible for a job with the U.S. Border Patrol. It would probably be a good career move -- and give him a job with a mission in which Abbott believes. Too bad he wasn't available last week -- he was under home detention after release from the Baltimore County Detention Center -- when Border Patrol officials came to downtown B-town to recruit new agents.
The recruitment event, held at the Marriott Inner Harbor, was part of the federales' larger effort to increase the number of Border Patrol agents in the United States by 50 percent. The job fair was March 23. Abbott, a self-employed contractor who seems obsessed with illegal aliens, had been released from jail a couple of days earlier. Charged with sending a threatening e-mail to Gov. Martin O'Malley, Abbott originally had been held on $2 million bail. At a bail review hearing, Baltimore County District Court Judge Bruce Lambdin released Abbott, placed him on home detention to await trial, and ordered his handgun destroyed.
Abbott allegedly sent an e-mail to the governor's official Web site threatening to strangle O'Malley. What was his beef? O'Malley, he claimed, supports illegal immigrants and illegal immigrants, says Abbott, "have ruined my life."
Abbott, in a telephone interview Sunday, claimed illegals have hurt his ability to get construction work over the years and stifled a home-improvement business he tried to start in the late 1980s. When he sought work hanging drywall at various locations in Baltimore County, Abbott says, he was told workers from Mexico were getting the jobs, and at lower wages.
"Since then, I've learned how to do everything. I can build a house from the ground up," he said. "Now here they are, getting into every line of work, and I get hired to go and do whatever they can't or whatever they screw up. . . . My complaint is these companies give work to illegals and they pay them cheap -- you can't compete."
I asked Abbott how he knows the workers he sees at job sites illegally entered the United States. His support of that belief was shaky, or certainly based on second-hand information. Work had been slow this winter when he wrote to O'Malley, he said, but he conceded that home improvement work always seems to slow during the cold months.
Abbott says he belongs to the Maryland Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and a group called Help Save Maryland, an immigrant-obssessed organization that "provides an effective voice for citizens frustrated by our out-of-touch Maryland politicians." The MMCDC vows "to report to the proper authorities . . . any elected official, government agency, private organization, religious institution or business entity which knowingly aids, facilitates, recruits or employs people who have entered America illegally."
He opposes O'Malley, Abbott said, because "he supports CASA, he supports illegal workers."
That was a reference to CASA de Maryland, an immigrants-rights organization that provides citizenship education, job training, legal services, health outreach and general advocacy for the state's growing Latino population. It grew out of the need to assist refuges coming out of Central America in the 1980s.
Abbott said he has received phone calls of support from people, who share his views of the immigrant problem (and/or O'Malley), and hail him a hero.
I find this odd. Abbott does a lot of blaming, attributing to "illegals" most of his problems of the last two decades, including an unsuccessful effort to secure a loan. Most of the conservatives I've heard from over the years despise the blame-someone-else victim mentality and believe it to be an ingredient of welfare dependency.
I asked Abbott why, if he knew of illegals, he had not reported them to federal authorities. That would probably have been more effective than attacking O'Malley.
Abbott said he had "tried to call" the Immigration and Naturalization Service but had been frustrated by the INS's automated switchboard. "There were too many buttons to push," he said. "How to get a green card, how to get a work permit -- everything except how to get them out of here."
Comments
Assemblywoman Mimi Walters, a Republican from Oceanside, California stated illegal immigrants cost California taxpayers an estimated $9 billion each year. Even Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich agrees with this statement. In the last few months Democrat Kay Bailey Hutchinson added an amendment to the our border fence, that would gut it indefinitely by December 2008.
Unfortunately their are other traitors amongst us, such as the globalist open border, free traders whose major agenda is the free movement of people throughout the North American Continent.
Our only chance to terminate this ridiculous situation is enacting the FEDERAL SAVE ACT? When the new personage steps into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, then we will be seeing the 12 to 20 million getting a path to citizenship. Once a new amnesty is signed into law, then nobody will be able to stop the next tsunami of destitute, uneducated illegal humanity pouring across our borders. A new amnesty will be seen as an open door for yet another future welcome to the world.
However unless citizens get off their duff, and make their raised voices known, THE SAVE ACT will stay dormant. They must call, write email their representative AND REGISTER their OUTRAGE at ongoing efforts to keep our country from enforcing its immigration laws!
Posted by: Dave | March 30, 2008 11:27 AM
I think you are patronizing Mr. Abbott. You say he "seems obsessed" with illegal aliens, and belittle him because he can't personally prove that workers he sees at job sites are here illegally.
The fact of the matter is that anyone who says that all of the competitors Mr. Abbott lost business to hire only legal workers is either a liar or a fool. And YOU would be obsessed with illegal aliens, too, if you had lost your ability to earn a living because of them. Journalists can afford to be sympathetic to illegal aliens, because so far few of them have lost their jobs to illegal immigrants willing to blog for 1/3 the pay. (Although that day may come sooner than you think.)
Everyone likes to talk about illegal aliens coming to the US to follow the "American Dream." What about vulnerable US citizens like Mr. Abbott who see their chance at the American Dream stolen by greedy businesses and corrupt politicans who turn a blind eye to law-breaking on a massive scale?
Posted by: Paul Mendez | March 30, 2008 2:07 PM
Your Bias is showing a little. Should we refer to you as writing-obsessed? If not, a fairer representation of "Help Save Maryland" might be "an organization focused on illegal aliens". I doubt that "Help Save Maryland" is "obssessed" (sic) with legal immigrants (unlike illegal aliens, immigrants are those who are ruled by our Immigration Laws).
Likewise, I doubt that CASA de Maryland is fighting for the rights of legal immigrants, as legal immigrants already have rights. No, I suspect that CASA advocates only for rights of illegal aliens.
Bruce Blodgett
Posted by: Bruce Blodgett | March 30, 2008 3:11 PM
CASA de Maryland is little more than an illegal alien promotion organization. Nearly all of their "work" is in two areas: (1) helping illegal aliens get jobs. Legal immigrants have no use for CASA, since legal immigrants can get jobs the same way that citizens get jobs.
(2) helping illegal aliens avoid deportation. The even published a book last year that was dedicated to explaining how to avoid have immigration status checked and how to avoid to being deported when living here illegally.
Posted by: Jose | March 30, 2008 5:39 PM
Rodricks, if you think that Abbott is an aberation, better do a better job of journalistic research before writing another sophomoric essay. The lack of overt attacks on illegals, by both black and white Blue Collar citizens, belies the growing anger within that group.
As a practicing attorney for over 24 years, I have seen the damage caused by criminal, illegal, mostly Hispanic-Mexican, illegal aliens. Identity thieft, document fraud; Do you get the picture Rodricks? This nation is based upon the Rule of Law.
When criminal conduct is given a wink, or is institutionally ignored, and by that act of misfeasance, or malfeasance, law abiding citizens are put at a disadvantage, the conditions are than ripe for Night Riders and Vigilanties. Get it, Rodricks?
Continue to be flippiant, Rodricks, things just continue top get worse.
Posted by: John | March 30, 2008 5:45 PM
I rarely read Mr. Rodericks's column as I find him to be too much of a bleeding heart. Here is an easy solution:
1. Outsource our prison system. That's right, pay some other state, say, Maricopa County, Arizona to take our criminals. That will get them away from Baltimore, and maybe the thought of no visit or a county with a les than sympathetic stance on criminal activity will dissuade these knuckleheads from a repeat performance.
2. Ship all illegals to Nicaragua or Africa. Doesn't matter where they originated. No Social Security number, no green card, NO SAFE HAVEN.
3. Similar to "Starship Troopers" citizenship should not be a birth-right. It should be earned by service to ones country - and NO not necessarily in the armed forces either. Service towards your fellow man. Gone will be the day when teh 39 week pregnant illegal drops her little bundle of joy in some shanty in Texas, New Mexico or California only to declare the kid a citizen and thereby moma and daddy get to stay.
Posted by: Marc | March 31, 2008 1:03 AM