Migrants Used to Justify a Homeland Security Police State

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http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/959

Peter Phillips: Migrants Used to Justify a Homeland Security Police State
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Mon, 04/23/2007 - 10:46am. Guest Contribution

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
By Peter Phillips

Threats of terrorism and 12 million "illegal" immigrants are being used to justify new police-state measures in the United States. Coordinated mass arrests, Big Brother spy blimps, expanded detention centers, repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act, and suspension of habeas corpus have all been recently implemented and are ready to use against anyone in the U.S.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) flooded Mexico with cheap subsidized U.S. agricultural products that displaced millions of Mexican farmers. Between 2000 and 2005, Mexico lost 900,000 rural jobs and 700,000 industrial jobs, resulting in deep unemployment throughout the country. Desperate poverty has forced millions of Mexican workers north to feed their families.

In the wake of 9/11, Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) has conducted workplace and home invasions across the country to roundup "illegal" immigrants. ICE justifies these raids under the rubric of keeping our homeland safe and preventing terrorism. The real goal is to disrupt the immigrant work force in the U.S. and replace it with a tightly regulated non-union guest-worker program. This policy is endorsed by companies seeking permanent low-wage workers through a lobby group called Essential Worker Immigrations Coalition (EWIC). EWIC's 52 members include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Wal-Mart, Marriott, Tyson Foods, American Meat Institute, California Landscape Contractors Association, and the Association of Builders and Contractors.

A new program established by the Department of Justice in cooperation with Homeland Security uses the code-name Operation Falcon (Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally). Operation Falcon carried out three unprecedented federally coordinated mass arrests between April 2005 and October 2006. More than 30,000 fugitives, including immigrants, were arrested in the largest dragnets in the nation's history. The operations directly involved over 960 agencies including FBI, ICE, IRS, Homeland Security, and other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.

To accommodate the detention of tens of thousands of people, in 2005, Homeland Security awarded Halliburton's subsidiary KBR a $385 million contingency contract to build detention camps in the United States. According to the Halliburton Web site, "The contract provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs."

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