Patriotic Immigration Reform Movement Loses a Warrior

The patriotic immigration reform movement lost one of its most creative warriors last week.

Terry Anderson, the self-described “prisoner of South Central,” an African-American Los Angeles talk show host, succumbed to pancreatic cancer and died on July 7.

Anderson was the loud voice of the Sunday evening The Terry Anderson Show. The show, built around the single issue of immigration, was known for “articulating the popular rage.” It aired on KRLA radio and the internet.

And rage he did. Articulately. Against La Raza, John McCain, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Janet Napolitano, Cardinal Roger Mahony, Lindsey Graham, Antonio Villaraigosa, and the Obama Administration. In short, any sanctimonious phony who had allowed the country he loved – especially his corner of southern California – to be invaded by illegals.

For an auto mechanic, whose idea of a fashion statement was donning overalls, he was a natural communicator with a commanding presence.

Speaking at last month’s Phoenix Rising rally, he boiled down his ’90 Day Immigration Solution without Confusion’ proposal to a politically-incorrect slogan: “When the border’s secured, we begin deportation.”

Anderson expounded:

You make it where they can’t live here. You make it when they can’t incarcerate, medicate, educate, and they will leave. And when they leave, they will go home. I want them to do that with all dignity, folks. Nobody hurt. Nobody harmed.

But here’s the thing. If they don’t go home, we give them a 90-day amnesty. At the end of day 91, you are a federal fugitive in this country. One year in prison the first time you’re caught. Five years the second. Ten years the third. I guarantee there will be no five year sentences. Amnesty to get their affairs in order. Sell the house. Get rid of the dog. Do whatever you gotta do. The point is we have got to make the message here that you cannot stay in our country.

The Anderson Amnesty Plan – gotta love it!

Terry Anderson admitted to being apolitical until 1986. That’s when he learned of the Reagan Administration’s plan to legalize illegals. He instinctively knew that was an unjust scheme. That realization launched his quest as a pro-enforcement immigration activist and his entry into syndicated radio as a populist’s populist. His show’s tagline? “If you ain’t mad, you ain’t payin’ attention!”

Anderson, ever colloquial, offered his qualifications for being a broadcaster, thusly:

I live next door to people who have chickens in their yard. I live next door to people who hang their laundry on the fence. I live next door to people who have three families in a two-bedroom home … I live on the same block where every wall is graffiti with MS-13 and 18^th Street gang graffiti.

As a black American, he dared to describe what it was like to be the odd man out in the Nuevo America, where illegal aliens eschewed zoning ordinances, defaced property, and turned the old neighborhood into occupied territory.

My children go to schools where their education is dumbed down by bilingual education. I went to schools, there, that were 90% black, when I was there; they are now 94, 95, 96% Hispanic. Now you say, what’s the big deal? Those are all either illegal alien children or, what I call, jackpot babies.

Anderson would also share how his son, as a high school graduate, applied for over 40 jobs, and got rejected from them all because he didn’t speak a foreign language.

Yes, it was personal, and Anderson had enemies among the deranged race baiters. But his observations weren’t malicious. They were matter-of-fact. His war stories gave him enormous credibility as a commentator, and disenfranchised Americans loved to listen.

The show was ten-years-old when Anderson passed away. To say his departure from this life was abrupt is an understatement.

Terry Anderson, husband, father, grandfather, patriot, and citizen journalist.

Thank you for paying attention, and making so many of us mad.