Immigrant agencies feel rise in harassment

Officials at local organizations that aid immigrants and refugees say they have experienced an increase in hate mail and threatening phone calls.

“In the 10 years since we opened our office, I had never experienced any threats until last year,” said Anne Curtis, director of Bridge Refugees Services of Chattanooga, an agency that works with churches and other organizations to help settle refugees.

Ms. Curtis said they started to receive phone calls, letters and e-mails last year from an individual who disagreed with their work on behalf of refugees. She said they had to call the police twice because they felt threatened by him.

“I feel sad that people forget all of our families were immigrants at one point and that they don’t want to take the time to understand the difference between a refugee and people immigrating here legally or illegally for other reasons,” she said.

Chattanooga resident Rick Pinson, who said he doesn’t support bringing refugees to the United States, said he doesn’t believe “American soldiers who fought and died for this country did so it could be given away to people from other countries, and that taxpayers be required to pay for their welfare.”

America Gruner, president of the Coalition of Latino Leaders in Dalton, Ga., and Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, said they also have seen a spike in the number of hate e-mails and phone calls they receive.

Ms. Gruner said they have gotten several threatening phone calls since they started the organization in 2006, mostly from people telling them to go back to their country and accusing them of registering undocumented immigrants to vote.

“Last year, when we started a campaign to encourage Hispanics to vote, we received several calls telling us we were breaking the law by registering illegals,” Ms. Gruner said.

Dr. Douglas C. Bachtel, demographer at the University of Georgia, said that a lot of the anti-immigrant sentiment comes from the state of the economy and from politics.

“As the economy starts to tighten up they’ll see them (immigrants) as a threat taking scarce resources,” he said. “But it’s also a form of racism and total ignorance.”

Michael Cutler, with the Center for Immigration studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates for less immigration, said there are other ways of expressing your opinion without attacking someone.

“This is America, people are entitled to have different opinions ... (but) there is a difference between expressing your opinion and threatening someone,” he said.

Mike Feely, a City Council member and director of the St. Andrew’s Center, a community outreach group, said better communication is needed.

Although he said the St. Andrew’s Center hasn’t received any hate e-mails or phone calls. However, the majority of ministries that work with immigrants often are subjected to those sentiments.

“A poisonous atmosphere has been developed and that’s why I think we would benefit from discussions in a place where people can come and talk about this (immigration) without being labeled,” he said.

Catalina Nieto, spokesperson for the Tennessee Immigrants and Refugees Rights Coalition, said they have also begun an initiative to dispel some of the myths people have about immigrants, which in many cases are the origin of the negative comments.

“We want to talk about the positive contributions immigrants make to the state,” Ms. Nieto said. “I’ve noticed that every time people interact with refugees or immigrants, they begin to understand their situation better and become less negative (about the presence).”