The deep shame of our treatment of illegal immigrants

notice: fair use violation, but too important not to post in full...

from today's nyt...

July 13, 2008

Editorial

The Shame of Postville, Iowa

Anyone who has doubts that this country is abusing and terrorizing undocumented immigrant workers should read an essay by Erik Camayd-Freixas, a professor and Spanish-language court interpreter who witnessed the aftermath of a huge immigration workplace raid at a meatpacking plant in Iowa.

The essay chillingly describes what Dr. Camayd-Freixas saw and heard as he translated for some of the nearly 400 undocumented workers who were seized by federal agents at the Agriprocessors kosher plant in Postville in May.

Under the old way of doing things, the workers, nearly all Guatemalans, would have been simply and swiftly deported. But in a twist of Dickensian cruelty, more than 260 were charged as serious criminals for using false Social Security numbers or residency papers, and most were sentenced to five months in prison.

What is worse, Dr. Camayd-Freixas wrote, is that the system was clearly rigged for the wholesale imposition of mass guilt. He said the court-appointed lawyers had little time in the raids’ hectic aftermath to meet with the workers, many of whom ended up waiving their rights and seemed not to understand the complicated charges against them.

Dr. Camayd-Freixas’s essay describes “the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see” — because cameras were forbidden.

“Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of 10.”

He wrote that they had waived their rights in hopes of being quickly deported, “since they had families to support back home.” He said that they did not understand the charges they faced, adding, “and, frankly, neither could I.”

No one is denying that the workers were on the wrong side of the law. But there is a profound difference between stealing people’s identities to rob them of money and property, and using false papers to merely get a job. It is a distinction that the Bush administration, goaded by immigration extremists, has willfully ignored. Deporting unauthorized workers is one thing; sending desperate breadwinners to prison, and their families deeper into poverty, is another.

Court interpreters are normally impartial participants and keep their opinions to themselves. But Dr. Camayd-Freixas, a professor of Spanish at Florida International University, said he was so offended by the cruelty of the prosecutions that he felt compelled to break his silence. “A line was crossed at Postville,” he wrote.

our so-called fairly-elected government has done nothing BUT cross lines for years and the shame of it all just keeps accumulating...

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Round 'em up, lock 'em up - now we're not sending illegal immigrants back home, we're sending them directly to prison

Yippee-ti-yi-yo
Get along little dogies
It’s your misfortune and none of my own
Yippee-ti-yi-yo
Get along little dogies
You know that Wyoming the federal prison
will be your new home

well, 's-CUSE ME...! forget about those halliburton detention centers (see previous post)... now it's straight to federal prison for all you poor bastards just trying to earn a living wage...

In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents.

The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Until now, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported.

empathy...? compassion...? fuhgeddaboudit...

Matt M. Dummermuth, the United States attorney for northern Iowa, who oversaw the prosecutions, called the operation an “astonishing success.”

Claude Arnold, a special agent in charge of investigations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said it showed that federal officials were “committed to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws in the workplace to maintain the integrity of the immigration system.”

The unusually swift proceedings, in which 297 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced in four days, were criticized by criminal defense lawyers, who warned of violations of due process. Twenty-seven immigrants received probation. The American Immigration Lawyers Association protested that the workers had been denied meetings with immigration lawyers and that their claims under immigration law had been swept aside in unusual and speedy plea agreements.

The illegal immigrants, most from Guatemala, filed into the courtrooms in groups of 10, their hands and feet shackled. One by one, they entered guilty pleas through a Spanish interpreter, admitting they had taken jobs using fraudulent Social Security cards or immigration documents. Moments later, they moved to another courtroom for sentencing.

The pleas were part of a deal worked out with prosecutors to avoid even more serious charges. Most immigrants agreed to immediate deportation after they serve five months in prison.

The hearings took place on the grounds of the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, in mobile trailers and in a dance hall modified with black curtains, beginning at 8 a.m. and continuing several nights until 10. On Wednesday alone, 94 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced, the most sentences in a single day in this northern Iowa district, according to Robert L. Phelps, the clerk of court.

Mr. Arnold, the immigration agent, said the criticism of the proceedings was “the usual spate of false allegations and baseless rumors.”

The large number of criminal cases was remarkable because immigration violations generally fall under civil statutes. Until now, relatively few immigrants caught in raids have been charged with federal crimes like identity theft or document fraud.

“To my knowledge, the magnitude of these indictments is completely unprecedented,” said Juliet Stumpf, an immigration law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore., who was formerly a senior civil rights lawyer at the Justice Department. “It’s the reliance on criminal process here as part of an immigration enforcement action that takes this out of the ordinary, a startling intensification of the criminalization of immigration law.”

the government line: "an astonishing success"... the government response to the weaselly, unpatriotic, bleeding hearts who have the gall to be concerned about how real, honest-to-god human beings are being treated: "the usual spate of false allegations and baseless rumors"...

and what about the EMPLOYERS who hired these poor stiffs and have been making money hand over fist on their backs...?

< crickets >

what a great time to be alive in the u.s. of a...

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Round 'em up, ship 'em out

Yippee-ti-yi-yo
Get along little dogies
It’s your misfortune and none of my own
Yippee-ti-yi-yo
Get along little dogies
You know that Wyoming the immigrant detention center
will be your new home

more exciting news from the ice office of detention and removal operations...

Federal immigration agents have arrested 905 people in California in the past three weeks after a statewide search for those who had violated orders to leave the country. The operation was the latest in a series of national sweeps by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The arrests were the result of collaboration among teams in Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco that began on May 5.

“The focal point of this operation were people who had exhausted all of their due process in the courts,” said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. “They have a final order of removal issued by a U.S. immigration judge, and they’ve failed to depart.”

In the process of seeking each person on the list, Ms. Mack said, agents often encountered friends, family members and others who had violated immigration laws.

“Agents may come to a house looking for a target, and someone answers the door, or there are other people in the house who have also violated immigration laws,” she said.

Brian DeMore, acting director of the federal Office of Detention and Removal Operations in Los Angeles, said agents took into custody any person they encountered during an arrest who had violated immigration laws. Agents set out with a target list of just over 1,500 “fugitive aliens,” Mr. DeMore said, referring to people who have ignored orders to leave the country.

yee-ha...! gotta keep them halliburton-built people warehouses operatin' at full capacity...!

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"Papers, please" - getting people used to the idea of suprise law enforcement raids and "disappeared" people

news flash... it ain't just about immigration... first of all, note the first paragraph... that's right... it's now expanded to include identify theft and document fraud... you don't have the proper papers...? what a shame... it's off to the detention center for you... what's that you say...? your children are in daycare and there'll be no one to pick them up or care for them...? what a shame... it's off to the detention center for you...

Officials say more than 290 people have been arrested at Pilgrim's Pride poultry plants in five states on suspicion of identity theft, document fraud or immigration violations.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials announced the figures Wednesday, the day of the raids. Authorities say the raids were part of a long-term investigation. Pittsburg, Texas-based Pilgrim's Pride says it cooperated fully and faces no charges.

More than 100 people were arrested for immigration violations in both Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Moorefield, West Virginia.

In Mount Pleasant, Texas, 45 people were arrested for alleged false use of Social Security numbers.

In Live Oak, Florida, more than 25 people face administrative charges of immigration violations, and will also face identity theft or document fraud charges, officials say.

In Batesville, Arkansas, more than 20 were arrested on federal warrants for alleged document fraud or identity theft.

imagine the scenario... you're an employee of pilgrim's pride... the ice agents come swooping in, lock the place down, and start checking people off against a list... everyone has to produce identification... the person you've worked right next to for the past year, the one who invited your children to her son's birthday party, gets pulled out of line and taken away... you're distressed but also relieved that nothing happened to you...

just wait... your turn is coming...

the horror of the "disappeareds," a tactic pioneered and tested by the u.s. in latin america (see "los desaparecidos" and operation condor), is coming back home... i've posted on this many times before (see here), but it's important to realize that we are being slowly but surely led to an acceptance of such treachery in our very own country... make no mistake... it IS happening...!

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T. Don Hutto, America's "family prison"

corrections corporation of america runs this delightful, resort-like facility just north of austin, texas...

Watch this short film on the T. Don Hutto "residential facility", the nation's for-profit family prison for non-criminal immigrant families. ... all » This prototype for privatized family detention is located just north of Austin, TX. As they get rich off our tax-dollars, corporations terrorize and traumatize families just trying to keep survive. A determined people stand in solidarity with the families inside Hutto and work to close this immoral prison.

(thanks to brasscheck tv...)

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"Tens of millions of workers in America go to work every day [where] they could be swept up in a massive raid conducted by armed government agents"

are you an american citizen...? do you believe you have constitutional rights...? do you believe those rights should be extended to everyone, no matter what their status, who is on american soil...? so do i, but we are a friggin' long way from that these days...

At the gathering at the Hay-Adams hotel in the District, witnesses and members of the 10-person panel accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials of using arrest warrants for a limited number of illegal immigrants who work at a given company as a pretext to detain the entire workforce, including many U.S. citizens, while agents determine whether there are additional illegal immigrants among them.

"Tens of millions of workers in America go to work every day without . . . an awareness that at their workplaces, without any warning, they could be swept up in a massive raid conducted by heavily armed government agents," said Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and chairman of the National Commission on ICE Misconduct and Violations of 4th Amendment Rights. "Workers are not aware that they could be detained at gunpoint. That they could be handcuffed. . . . That they could be denied any contact with family members or legal counsel."

The commission heard testimony from two workers who are U.S. citizens who said they were detained for several hours during an ICE raid of six Swift meatpacking plants in December 2006. The union has filed a class action on their behalf.

Afterward, Pat Reilly, an ICE spokeswoman who attended the hearing as an observer, said the agency's procedures for questioning workers during raids at businesses are fair and humane and have been routinely upheld by courts.

"I would imagine that some people may be detained beyond what they feel is reasonable. But it's subjective," she said. "What we're trying to do is get to the bottom of who has the right to be here and who might be posing as a U.S. citizen."

there is a deeper, darker, underlying purpose of these raids, and that is to produce fear and get us accustomed to seeing heavily armed federal agents sweeping through places that we once felt safe, and to instill the belief that, "wow, that could be ME they're hauling away..." and if you think that isn't part of the plan, i've got a private island off the coast of belize i want you to consider purchasing...

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A NYC business success built on the backs of low-wage illegal immigrants

fresh direct is an online, high-end, grocery company in nyc...

from the nyt...

The company has grown in five years from a dot-com dream to a $200 million business, and its Web site features “celebrity shopping lists” from quintessentially New York figures like Spike Lee, Edward I. Koch and Cynthia Nixon, a star of “Sex and the City.”

But now an eruption of low-tech troubles is drawing a spotlight to what lies behind the computer screen. Last week, the company abruptly lost more than 100 of the roughly 900 employees at its huge plant in Long Island City, Queens, including many of its most experienced workers, when they learned that federal officials planned to check their immigration status.

It is battling not one, but two unions that want to represent the workers, with the election to be held this weekend. City labor leaders and several elected officials rallied at City Hall on Friday to accuse the company and immigration authorities of trying to block the union drive.

And when Fresh Direct held a job fair this week, though hundreds of applicants lined up in the cold, many lost interest as soon as they learned about the low starting pay and low-temperature workplace: $7.85 an hour to pick and pack groceries at night, in 38-degree chill, often for more than eight hours at a stretch. “They said, ‘Dress as warm as you can,’” reported one disenchanted applicant, Joy Brewster, 22, as she emerged from a group job interview with a toss of her head. “I don’t think so. I’d be stiff as a board.”

Another applicant, Eibar Amaya, 47, an immigrant from Colombia who is now a United States citizen, gave his verdict in succinct, if imperfect English: “Pay too little, no good.”

a $200M business, catering to celebrities, and, no doubt, charging celebrity prices, pays $7.85 an hour for a night job, standing in the cold, in nyc, one of the most expensive cities in the country... just another fine story of fabled american entrepreneurial spirit...



told ya they weren't cheap...

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Kansas R's dumping abortion in favor of immigration (and the violence and hypocrisy that comes with it)

interesting...

from the la times...

[A]s the political season revs up, the executive director of the Kansas Republican Party has issued a stern warning to his fellow conservatives: Abortion is not a winning issue.

"This is not something that the Kansas GOP is going to go out and lead on," Christian Morgan said.

Morgan said that he and his party remain firmly opposed to abortion. Most Republican voters in Kansas feel the same, he said. But Morgan also believes that those voters are fed up with years of fruitless political and legal maneuvering aimed at driving abortion clinics out of business. They would much prefer to see an all-out focus on curbing illegal immigration or cutting taxes, he said.

In an e-mail rebuffing an antiabortion activist who asked for more GOP support, Morgan explained: "My job is to win elections. . . . Your agenda does not fit my agenda."

so, kansas r's are "fed up" with the "fruitless" campaign against abortion and its related violence, so they're choosing to put their money on the wedge issue of immigration and ITS violence instead, eh...? let's see how THAT'S working for them...

this is from the southern poverty law center in an introduction to a list of the more egregious physical and psychological violence waged against latinos in the past two and one-half years...

There's no doubt that the tone of the raging national debate over immigration is growing uglier by the day. Once limited to hard-core white supremacists and a handful of border-state extremists, vicious public denunciations of undocumented brown-skinned immigrants are increasingly common among supposedly mainstream anti-immigration activists, radio hosts and politicians. While their dehumanizing rhetoric typically stops short of openly sanctioning bloodshed, much of it implicitly encourages or even endorses violence by characterizing immigrants from Mexico and Central America as "invaders," "criminal aliens" and "cockroaches."

meanwhile, arguably one of the more vicious individuals to implicitly condone a violent response to immigration problems displays what has become the oh-so-predictable repub hypocrisy... ladies and gentlemen, i give you the odious tom tancredo...

from max blumenthal in alternet...

When Tancredo (presidential candidate and R-CO) hired a construction crew to transform his drab basement into a high-tech pleasure den in October 2001, however, he did not express concern that only two of its members spoke English. Nor did he bother to check the workers’ documentation to see if they were legal residents of the United States. Had Tancredo done so, he would have learned that most of the crew consisted of undocumented immigrants, or “criminal aliens” as he likes to call them. Instead, Tancredo paid the crew $60,000 for its labor and waited innocently for the completion of his elaborate entertainment complex.

During the renovation process, two illegal workers hired by Tancredo were alerted to his reputation for immigrant bashing. They went straight to the Denver Post to complain. Tancredo “doesn't want us here, but he'll take advantage of our sweat and our labor,” one of the workers complained to the Post on September 19, 2002. “It's just not right.”

The Post report momentarily threw Tancredo on the defensive. In a fiery speech soon after the story’s publication, Tancredo blamed his foibles on the INS. “I haven't the foggiest idea how many people I may have hired in the past as taxi drivers, as waiters, waitresses, home improvement people,” he boomed from the House floor. “I haven't the foggiest idea how many of those people may have been here illegally, and it is not my job to ask them.” Then defiance gave way to vitriol as the congressman dubbed undocumented immigrants, “the face of murder.”

Only days before the Post’s story appeared, Tancredo had personally reported an honor student profiled in the Denver Post to the INS because the 14-year-old was not a legal resident of the United States. The stunt forced the boy’s family to go into hiding.

now tell me that calling undocumented immigrants "the face of murder" isn't an implicit invitation to violence...

i've mentioned before that i had a one-degree of separation moment with tancredo when i was living in colorado in 2002... my friend, the vice consul at the mexican consulate in denver, was being seriously slimed by the vile tancredo for merely doing his job, helping his own country's citizens, one of whom was the honor student mentioned in the last paragraph of the excerpt above... i won't bore you with the details, but anyone who has followed tancredo's history of bile can easily fill in the blanks...

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We've created an environment of fear so intense that illegal immigrants are afraid to save themselves from fire?

great jumping jeebus on a ritz cracker...

Immigrants from south of the border, many illegal, provide the backbone of menial labor in San Diego, picking fruit, cleaning hotel rooms, sweeping walks and mowing lawns.

[...]

[F]our bodies were found in a burned area in southeastern San Diego County, a region known for intense illegal immigration.

[...]

Terri Trujillo, who helps the immigrants, checked on those in the canyons, urging them to leave, too, when she left her house in Rancho Peñasquitos ahead of the fires.

Ms. Trujillo and others who help the immigrants said they saw several out in the fields as the fires approached and ash fell on them. She said many were afraid to lose their jobs.

“There were Mercedeses and Jaguars pulling out, people evacuating, and the migrants were still working,” said Enrique Morones, who takes food and blankets to the immigrants’ camps. “It’s outrageous.”

Some of the illegal workers who sought help from the authorities were arrested and deported.

[...]

The Border Patrol also arrested scores of illegal immigrants made visible by the fires. Agent Fisher of the Border Patrol said 100 had been arrested since the fires started Sunday.

[...]

The American Civil Liberties Union said it had received reports that people had been denied help at shelters because they lacked proper identification. Officials have been checking identification to prevent people not affected by the fires from taking advantage of the free food, clothes and other services.

[...]

Wayne A. Cornelius, a political scientist at the University of California, San Diego, who studies border questions, said that if the past was a guide there would be more friction over the fires and their effects on illegal immigrants.

“San Diego likes its illegal migrants as invisible as possible,” Mr. Cornelius said. “So whenever something happens that calls attention to their presence, it is fodder for the local anti-immigration forces.”

so much for a natural disaster bringing people closer together... why don't we just turn trained hunting dogs loose to go flush them out of the brush and chase them right into police wagons...?

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"ICE why did you take my mom? I want her back"

(see "oops" below...)

this is sad... it's also wrong...

Hundreds of Hispanics marched on Reno streets Wednesday in protest of a raid last week by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at 11 McDonald's restaurants.

The crowd was filled with young people who skipped school and mothers pushing strollers.

Six-year-old Julio Rodriguez, a first-grader at Smithridge Elementary School, carried a sign that said: "ICE why did you take my mom? I want her back."



Other Hispanic and community leaders met at a different spot to talk about how to tame community tensions and formulate a plan to deal with the fallout of last week's raids, which led to the arrest of 54 illegal immigrants.

are they here to destroy the fabric of the united states...? no... they only want what all of us want - financial security and a better life...

What the Hispanics who have immigrated to Northern Nevada really want to do is work, said Erica Lopez of Reno.

"If it wasn't for us, they wouldn't eat," the 20-year-old said. "We make their food."

She shouted to the counter protesters, "You need us."

i've often said that if all the hispanics in this country, legal or otherwise, were to stop working at the exact same moment, the country would immediately have to shut down...

but here's the really tragic part...

Many young people in the crowd said they were concerned how the raids split up families and wanted to show their support. Some wore duct tape over their mouths -- to signify people they believe do not have a voice -- and handcuffs.



"That's pretty wrong that the raid destroyed the families," said Maritza Solis, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Cold Springs Middle School. "We're only here to work, not to destroy the United States."

i've posted here before about my friend from mexico who, after three unsuccessful tries, managed to make it across the border to work construction with his brother in kansas, only to die in an automobile accident less than a year later, leaving a wife and daughter - my goddaughter - back in mexico without a husband or a father... these people are people, human beings, men and women who love and care for their families, not political pawns... this is absolutely not the way to handle the problem... meanwhile, mcdonald's business in the area takes a slight dip but will soon be back to business as usual... after all, the business of america is business...

[OOPS]

like a dummy, i forgot to cross-reference this post to the post i put up this past saturday about the immigration and customs enforcement office of detention and removal 2003-2012 strategy, titled ENDGAME [PDF], one of the more horrifying and orwellian documents i have ever run across...

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The border fence protects the environment

from those scummy, litterbug, illegal immigrants who are leaving their families behind and risking their lives trying to find a better life...

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Monday defended the construction of a fence along the southwest border, saying it's actually better for the environment than what happens when people illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico line.

"Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas," Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment."

there's one thing that officials in the bush administration have in common... they all have the sensitivity and compassion of a goddamed toilet seat...

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Endgame: The Office of Detention and Removal of the ICE/DHS

residentcynic at daily kos has put up an excellent post on just how the u.s. and our esteemed department of permanent detention for irritating and annoying people homeland security plans to solve the problem of aliens, potential terrorists and all of us who might disagree with or oppose the policies of our government...

I recently spent some time on the web researching the Bush Doctrine and neocon (Straussian)-based policy. What I didn’t expect to find was an operational government program which targets immigrants and "potential terrorists" on a grand scale. Never missing an opportunity for Orwellian titles, the Department of Homeland Security has named this little gem "ENDGAME." [PDF]

Its goal is "the removal of all removable aliens, (including illegal economic migrants, aliens who have committed criminal acts, asylum-seekers required to be retained by law) or potential terrorists." (Executive summary of document)

Can't "potential terrorist" mean, well, anybody?

it's worth reading and i definitely encourage you to do so...

here's the cover page and introduction of the endgame document [PDF] referenced above...





be sure to note the date, 27 june 2003... public law 107-296 [PDF], which established dhs, was passed by congress on 25 november 2002... the office of detention and removal, the unit responsible for the execution of the endgame strategy, was not integrated into dhs until march 2003, not long after dhs began operation as a department... this 49-page strategy was published a mere 6 months after dhs was established and a mere 4 months after the unit was incorporated into dhs... this tells me that the strategy was on the shelf, ready to go long before that...

another interesting item is that the endgame strategy [PDF] references the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798...

The Detention and Deportation Program, now the Office of Detention and Removal (DRO), was established in a 1955 reorganization of the INS to carry out a mission first articulated in the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. The Alien and Sedition Acts included the earliest deportation legislation, which empowered the
President to order the departure from the United States of all aliens deemed dangerous. Legislation since then has expanded the detention and removal operations and redefined the classes of aliens to be deported or excluded. The basic mission, however, remains the same: Remove all removable aliens.

for those of you who may not be familiar, here's a little bit about the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798...

The Alien and Sedition Acts were four laws passed by the Federalists in the United States Congress in 1798 during the administration of President John Adams, which was waging an undeclared naval war with France, later known as the Quasi-War. Proponents claimed they were designed to protect the United States from alien citizens of enemy powers and to stop seditious attacks from weakening the government. The Democratic-Republicans, like later historians, attacked them as being both unconstitutional and designed to stifle criticism of the administration, and as infringing on the right of the states to act in these areas. They became a major political issue in the elections of 1798 and 1800. One act (the Alien Enemies Act) is still in force in 2007, and has frequently been enforced in wartime. The others expired or were repealed by 1802. Thomas Jefferson held them all to be unconstitutional and void, and pardoned and ordered the release of all who had been convicted of violating them.

i haven't finished unpacking yet after coming back from argentina via texas... maybe i should just leave the stuff in my bags in case i have to make a hasty exit when they come for me...

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THIS is a presidential candidate

THIS is a presidential candidate...?

Thompson elaborates on conservative stand

The candidate's views: Punish doctors, not patients, for early abortions; rein in judges on gay marriage; deport illegal immigrants.

wingnuttery... just what we need more of...

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Tom DeLay and Zell Miller are both certifiable

ordinarily, i wouldn't give the teeniest, weeniest crap about what comes out of either tom delay's or zell miller's mouth, but these are two for the books...

flatulent idiocy number one...

"I contend [abortion] affects you in immigration," DeLay told the Washington-area [gathering of College Republicans]. "If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 30 years, we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today. Think about it."

flatulent idiocy number two...

Former Georgia Democratic Senator Zell Miller gave a speech to an anti-abortion conference earlier in the year that linked abortion to illegal immigration. Miller also blamed abortion for other societal ills, such as the state of America's Social Security system and difficulty in recruiting soldiers for the Armed Forces.

the reason illegal immigration has been tolerated (and continues to be tolerated) is that it's a steady source of cheap labor for american business people who want to continue to keep profit margins and executive compensation soaring... it's the very same reason george bush was supporting the failed immigration bill, because it would have kept the labor supply flowing over our southern border...

even without those unborn children, there are more than enough bona-fide american citizens to fill all those jobs, but, since the pay is shit and the working conditions are shit, and it's impossible to keep body and soul together by working those jobs, they're left to the desperate folks who manage to make it across the border, usually leaving their families and all they've ever known behind for the chance to work for shit wages, which are still 3-4x more than they could earn back home...

as for social security, illegal immigrants are the best thing ever to happen to that program... many illegals register with a fake social security number so that they can be employed... all that money that goes in, they will never see again... this has provided a windfall to the social security fund in the billions...

delay and miller are both yapping, pandering fools who couldn't find their asses with both hands...

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"A system called 'democracy' now gives peasants something called 'the vote'”

newsweek's howard fineman on bush's suicide mission on immigration policy...

Though I’ve never heard him use the term, my guess is that George W. Bush sees himself as a hacendado, an estate owner in Old Mexico.

That would give him a sense of Southwestern noblesse, duty-bound not just to work “his” people, but to protect them as well.

His advisor, Carlo Rove, has explained that a system called “democracy” now gives peasants something called “the vote.” It would be shrewd, Rove said, for hacendados to grant their workers’ citizenship.

That’s the best explanation I have for why Bush is in the midst of what may be a suicide mission on immigration policy—embarrassing for him and ruinous for his party.

fineman nails it with the "us vs. them" thinking, but fails completely to point out just who has been pouring gasoline on that fire virtually every day since 9/11...

As always, conservatives, who thrive on alienation, are spoiling for a fight. Now they have found it. Among the branch of conservatism fixed on “Us v Them” thinking, the enemy for decades was Communism. After the fall of The Wall, the “neocons” found a replacement Them in jihadist Islam. The old America-Firsters—what we used to call “isolationists,” who distrust foreign commitments—now have a homeland Them, in the form of 12-20 million illegal immigrants, most from Mexico.

i would hope george would feel free to embark on as many of these "suicide missions" as he cares to... the sooner he succeeds, the better off the country and the rest of the world will be...

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A heartfelt tribute to someone I lost

when i read this article in today's nyt, it was like a kick to the stomach... my dear good friend, julian, whom i had met in mexico and who had honored me by making me the padrino to his daughter, was killed and his body returned to mexico precisely as the article states...


Gabriela Acevedo, at a memorial for her brother Héctor,
who was working illegally in Arkansas when he died in a
car crash with two other young men. His body, like those
of many Mexicans who die in the United States, was repatriated.

Last year, Mexican consulates across the United States recorded 10,622 shipments of bodies for burial back home, 7 percent more than in 2005 and 11 percent more than in 2004. The consulates, which do not track the immigration status of the deceased, spent $4 million in 2006 to help repatriate bodies to Mexico, up from $3.4 million in 2005.

julian tried three times to get over the border, each time paying money he couldn't afford to coyotes to smuggle him across... on the fourth try, he made it and joined his brother in kansas, working construction... in october 2004, he was killed in a car crash on a kansas highway... i miss him...

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Immigration has a human face

the persistent dehumanization of the immigration issue makes me furious, and this la times story gives me goosebumps... i have been, done and seen much of what it describes, including having a very close friend who, after three tries to get across the border, finally made it, only to die in a car accident in kansas while working construction with his brother, leaving his wife and a four year-old daughter - my goddaughter - back in mexico to fend for themselves...

and it's not only the dehumanization, it's the characterization of illegal immigrants as criminals, drug pushers and terrorists... sure, some may be, but i think the incidence of those types in the immigrant population is no more, and probably less, than the population at large...

Angelica Salas, who graduated in 1993, was back for another degree — this time an honorary doctorate. Her parents were in the audience last Sunday, standing and applauding proudly as she entered the hillside theater.

They had come to the United States illegally roughly 40 years ago out of economic desperation. They made a life, became legalized and raised a family.

And now their 36-year-old daughter Angelica, smuggled into the country by an aunt at age 5, was being called up to the podium by Dean Eric M. Frank, who spoke of her work to convince both Democrats and Republicans that the immigration system is badly broken.

[...]

Her job is to tell stories, Salas told me. It's not as easy for people to stand back and scream after they've heard a story and made a connection.

[...]

But Salas believes the tone of the debate has been and will continue to be changed by humanizing it.

the article's author, steve lopez, shares some powerful stories of his own...

I know she's right. I know because of the gardener who was shot in the chest on a job in Inglewood and returned the next day because he'd promised the homeowner he'd be done by Christmas.

I know because of the Mid-City school volunteer who lives in a cramped one-bedroom apartment with her children. If I went and saw the impoverished Mexican village she came from, she told me, I'd understand why she was so happy. So I did, and I do.

and here's angelica's story...

Serefino Salas, a broad-shouldered young man hungry for work in the 1960s, came to the United States from Durango, Mexico, in the bracero program. He later sneaked back to work at a Los Angeles laundromat, followed by many years as a racetrack groomer.

Rosie Astorga came shortly after her husband did and worked in the garment industry, while relatives in Mexico cared for Angelica and her sisters Rosa and Nidia.

Angelica doesn't recall much about being smuggled across the border, escorted by a 14-year-old aunt. But she remembers getting caught, being sent back and making it through on her next try. After two years of separation, the whole family was together, but it didn't last.

"My mother's factory was raided," says Angelica, who recalls her father searching for help after his wife was deported.

Salas discovered that because his wife had given birth to a son while living in Los Angeles, the child was a citizen and they could all become legalized under a program in place at the time.

Today, everyone in the family is a success, most of them living in Pasadena. Instead of being kept in the shadows at minimum-wage jobs, with no chance to improve their lot or make a bigger contribution, Salas became a roofer, Mrs. Salas is a hospital janitor, Rosa is a fifth-grade teacher, Nidia works in production for HBO and Serefino Jr. is a groundskeeper at Dodger Stadium.

angelica is absolutely correct... it's knowing about people like this that will make the immigration debate a human one, which, after all, is what it should have been in the first place...

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Crafting new punishment for America's lowest-paid, most exploited workers

in its tradition of punishing the innocent and rewarding the guilty, the bush administration proposes its NEW, IMPROVED immigration plan...

The White House's draft plan, leaked last week, calls for a new "Z" visa that would allow illegal immigrant workers to apply for three-year work permits. They would be renewable indefinitely, but would cost $3,500 each time.

To get a permit and become legal permanent residents, illegal immigrants would have to return to their home country, apply at a U.S. embassy or consulate to re-enter legally and pay a $10,000 fine.

W.T.F...!?!? illegal immigrants in the u.s., if they're lucky, earn roughly $12,000 per year, or $36,000 over three years, and that's gross, not net... so, the u.s. is asking them to pay a full 10% of their gross income in order to continue working for slave wages... if they're wanting to go THAT route, i suggest the EMPLOYER coughs up the money for the work permit... as for the fine and the process for becoming a legal resident, that's just plain viciously punitive...

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Punish the innocent, ignore the guilty, praise and honors for the perpetrators

it's the american way...

Under rules adopted by Congress in 1996, a judge cannot allow illegal immigrants to remain in the United States merely because they have a child who is a U.S. citizen. Instead, parents must prove that if they were deported the child would suffer "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" -- a standard often interpreted to apply to serious medical cases only.

which leads to this shameful and completely unnecessary situation...

Although [Jessica Guncay's] father, Jury Guncay, 45, remains in custody, [her mother, Ana] Tapia, 40, was released several hours after the raid so Jessica would not be left without anyone to care for her. But the black monitoring bracelet around Tapia's ankle testified to the limited nature of that reprieve: She must remain under partial house arrest until her case comes up in immigration court.

Her chances of winning a stay of deportation appear slim.

ah, the united states of america, where, after years and years of turning a blind eye to cheap labor crossing the border to be exploited by united states business interests, surprise, surprise...! now that we've let them in, who gets punished...? why, THEY do, of course... and what happens to those business interests...? they lose some cheap labor and then go hire some more... (or, in the case of circuit city, they FIRE their workers so they REPLACE them with cheap labor...) punishment...? not so much... and the policy-makers and enforcers who are taking parents away from their children...? why, they're REWARDED for doing their jobs...

The inscription on the Statue of Liberty reads...

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

what's happened to my country...?

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Prisoners working on farms and in call centers. Are immigrant "detainees" next?

ya know, i don't have anything against inmates in correctional institutions being expected to work, but i have major problems with using them to subsidize business... it would seem to me, in my congenitally fevered state, that there would be a huge incentive for business to use MORE inmates in order to reduce the cost of doing business, and for government to incarcerate MORE people to supply the demand...

In a pilot program run by the [Colorado] state Corrections Department, supervised teams of low-risk inmates beginning this month will be available to harvest the swaths of sweet corn, peppers and melons that sweep the southeastern portion of the state.

Under the program, which has drawn criticism from groups concerned about immigrants’ rights and from others seeking changes in the criminal justice system, farmers will pay a fee to the state, and the inmates, who volunteer for the work, will be paid about 60 cents a day, corrections officials said.

what i want to know is what "fee" the farmers will be paying...

A group calling for changes in sentencing, the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, is also uneasy about the program. The group views the inmates’ pay as problematic.

“This feels like the re-invention of the plantation,” said Christie Donner, the group’s executive director. “You have a captive labor force essentially working for their room and board in order to benefit the employer. This isn’t a job training program. It’s an exploitative program.”

But Ari Zavaras, executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, said the merit of a hard day’s work outdoors was invaluable to an inmate.

“They won’t be paid big bucks, but we’re hoping this will help our inmates pick up significant and valuable job skills,” Mr. Zavaras said. “We’re also assisting farmers who, if they don’t get help, are facing an inability to harvest their crops.”

it was back in 2004 that this story appeared...

About a dozen states — Oregon, Arizona, California and Iowa, among others — have call centers in state and federal prisons, underscoring a push to employ inmates in telemarketing jobs that might otherwise go to low-wage countries such as India and the Philippines. Arizona prisoners make business calls, as do inmates in Oklahoma. A call center for the DMV is run out of an all-female prison in Oregon. Other companies are keeping manufacturing jobs in the USA. More than 150 inmates in a Virginia federal prison build car parts for Delco Remy International. Previously, some of those jobs were overseas.

At least 2,000 inmates nationwide work in call centers, and that number is rising as companies seek cheap labor without incurring the wrath of politicians and unions. At the same time, prison populations are ballooning, offering U.S. companies another way to slash costs.

i also would like to know what the call centers are paying...

when those being held in immigrant detention centers start being used in this fashion, the full plan will be revealed in all its ugliness...

Two advocacy groups for refugees said on Wednesday that the Bush administration routinely detained immigrant families in prisonlike housing that separated young children from their parents and sometimes provided inadequate medical care, food and educational opportunities, despite calls from Congress to house such families in “nonpenal, homelike environments.”

ah, the united states... ya gotta love it...

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