Little Girl Who Challenged First Lady Is Right: Obama Is Deporting More Immigrants Than Ever

[Bluebear]

...But surely she was wrong, in suggesting that President Obama is a particular danger to undocumented immigrants? Perhaps she was confusing him with the governor of Arizona or something?

Well, actually, it turns out the little girl was right. Obama's Department of Homeland Security has been deporting more undocumented immigrants than President Bush's ever did.

The number of deportations each year more than tripled during the Bush era -- and has kept going up since then. During fiscal year 2009, the first full fiscal year of Obama's presidency, 387,790 immigrants were deported -- almost 100,000 more during the last full fiscal year of the Bush presidency...

But, Sharry said, Obama's record is a far cry from what many of his supporters were expecting. "It's remarkable that Barack Obama as a candidate spoke so movingly about how our enforcement priorities were wrong -- and now he's exceeded the Bush administration level," Sharry said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/20/little-girl-who-challenge_n_583432.html

[EFerrari]

1. My thread on the Dream Act that he said he supporeted sank like

a stone.

Tell me those pretty lies.

[Bluebear]

3. 1 out of 4 DUers SUPPORT the Arizona bill.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8377777&mesg_id=8377777

So I guess we can't expect too much.

[blondeatlast]

16. I was having a delightful day and then I posted that poll.

I only wish the supoporters would be more forthcoming with their reasons--but it might push them dangerously close to the DU Rule line.

[Confusious]

57. HAHA

I only wish the supoporters would be more forthcoming with their reasons

You don't care about that. You already have your mind made up about why they support it, as evidenced by your next line:

but it might push them dangerously close to the DU Rule line.

I can only think one reason you might think that. They're a bunch of racists, right?

Nobody around here cares about the reasons. They're just a bunch of red-neck DINO racists. It's a lot easier to brush them off like that then actually THINKING about any of the points they make.

[William Z. Foster]

142. begging your pardon

I have read, considered, and thought about all of your points and reasons and ideas. And I have refuted them, with very well supported and documented responses. Then you disappear, showing up again later to repeat the same points as though there was no debate about them, as though they had not been refuted.

Claiming that people are merely accusing you of being "a red-neck DINO racist" - as though you were somehow being treated unfairly and being persecuted - is a disingenuous way to deflect people's attention and make a mess of the discussion. That is a trick perfected by the right wing hate radio jocks - anytime racism gets discussed at all they play all hurt and innocent and offended - "how dare you call me a racist!" - or accuse the other person of "playing the race card" and that effectively shuts down any discussion and gives them complete freedom to spout whatever they like without being challenged on it.

What I said on that other thread was this - I don't know and I don't care if you "are" a racist. I do not think racism is an interior state, but rather is found in what people say and do. I said that whether or not a person "is" a racist, that supporting the bill in Arizona was supporting racism. I can defend and support that statement to the satisfaction of all decent and fair-minded observers. You have not, and I believe cannot, come up with a response to that consistent with being a Democrat, liberal or progressive that is not an overt expression of racism, or that is not clearly illogical.

[Confusious]

143. I beg your pardon, was I talking to you?

I haven't given you all my reasons. I came to the conclusion, after an attempt, that no matter what I said, it would be dismissed as racism.Do you spend your time banging your head against a wall? I don't.

You can also say " Go ahead and list your points", but people don't change their spots that quick. If you're unwilling to listen and dismissed me that easily yesterday, you're just as unwilling today.

Claiming that people are merely accusing you of being "a red-neck DINO racist" - as though you were somehow being treated unfairly and being persecuted - is a disingenuous way to deflect people's attention and make a mess of the discussion. That is a trick perfected by the right wing hate radio jocks - anytime racism gets discussed at all they play all hurt and innocent and offended - "how dare you call me a racist!" - or accuse the other person of "playing the race card" and that effectively shuts down any discussion and gives them complete freedom to spout whatever they like without being challenged on it.

I was pointing out the person said they cared about the reasons for supporting the law, and then in the next breath already knew "racism" was the reason for it, so why even ask the question? I didn't claim or even say that they were playing the race card. I probably should have posted the sarcasm tag along with "red-neck DINO racist", but I was in a hurry.

Point A in that your mind is already made up, no matter what, and you're just looking for things to confirm your view.

I said that whether or not a person "is" a racist, that supporting the bill in Arizona was supporting racism. I can defend and support that statement to the satisfaction of all decent and fair-minded observers.

Of course, I have never said whether or not I agree with the law. I just pointed out people's flaws in their view of the language of the law. You automaticly assume I support it because I corrected people about it.

It would be the same as if I pointed out the flaws in people's view of what the NAZI's believe, and you taking that and claiming I was one. Very logical don't you think?

Point B in that your mind is already made up, no matter what, and you're just looking for things to confirm your view.

You have not, and I believe cannot, come up with a response to that consistent with being a Democrat, liberal or progressive that is not an overt expression of racism, or that is not clearly illogical.

No, not to you satisfaction, which I believe I will never be able to do. I don't believe in open borders, nor do I believe that people here illegally should be allowed to stay or work. Anything less then that is going to be racism in your eyes.

I don't think a lot of people could live up to your standard. I get the feeling if someone said "I hate Humus" you would twist it into something like " They hate the food, therefore they hate middle easterners, and since they are brown, they hate all brown people, therefore a racist." It's not very logical, and it is the exact same thing as thinking that because I don't like illegal immigrants, I don't like ALL immigrants, and therefore a racist.

Point C in that your mind is already made up, no matter what, and you're just looking for things to confirm your view.

As far as calling me illogical, this from someone who called the supply and demand curve an invention of Allen Greenspan. I don't have a lot of faith in your abilities at logic.

[William Z. Foster]

151. not so

My mind is no more "made up" then yours is. I have reached a conclusion, yes. The anti-immigrant hysteria originated in, is energized by, is being promoted by racists. I can support and defend that. I haven't heard any convincing argument, I haven't heard any argument at all contradicting that. All I hear is "I am not a racist" as though that meant anything, or "not all anti-immigrant people are racists" which also means nothing. Not all people supporting the wars are bloodthirsty war-mongers, either. So what? The effect is the same. Who cares about whether they are nice people or not? They are supporting illegal wars.

Comparing racism to liking this or that food - I don't know how to respond to that. Perhaps this is an effect of seeing racism as a matter of personal likes or dislikes. Don't know. That is the most bizarre argument I have ever seen on this subject.

What does Greenspan have to do with this? You are getting desperate, and you are attacking the messenger rather than responding to the message - ironically, the very thing you are falsely accusing me of doing. I have not labeled you or called you anything. I have dismantled your arguments, not attacked you as a person.

[Confusious]

144. As for your articles

I read them, I don't think I would get the same courtesy.

What is looks like is the immigration authority needs serious reform, but you seem to want to do away with it. Do you do that with everything?

There was a time in world war 2 that the torpedoes our subs used wouldn't detonate. If you had been in charge would you have said "Just stop using torpedoes?" Seems it would be the same thing. Don't bother reforming if it doesn't work right, just do away with it.

What a way to work.

[William Z. Foster]

154. thanks

Thanks for reading the material. That is all I ask.

I have not advocated anything like this - "you seem to want to do away with it." Can't argue a point I didn't and wouldn't make. I agree that "the immigration authority needs serious reform" and have not said anything inconsistent with that.

Are you making an analogy between the purpose of the immigration service and weapons of war? That suggests that you think the purpose of the immigration service is to wage war against someone.

Here is a better analogy - if the torpedoes WERE detonating, in port, and killing civilians and crews, then yes, I would advocate a suspension of the use of those torpedoes. Wouldn't you? That would not prevent building a better torpedo. Would people then say "OMG you are advocating that we don't have torpedoes and be defenseless against the German subs!!!" That is analogous to the "OMG you are advocating totally open boarders and to let us be overrun and let terrorists and criminals have their way with us!!!"

[pintobean]

61. I think this was

over that line:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8377777&mesg_id=8377851
and one of the reasons no one bothered to explain their support.

[harkadog]

67. The moderators locked you out of that thread

So I guess you were the one close to the DU rule line.

[EFerrari]

23. One of those kids is gay and his family came from Iran. n/t

[elocs]

31. Wow, 28 out of 142 votes in the poll. Now that certainly is a definitive reflection

of the 158,000+ registered DUers.

[dkf]

76. It got locked so most couldn't vote

[TexasObserver]

40. Actually, it's 36 posters who chose to vote in that poll.

Even that is 36 too many, but it helps to keep those raw numbers in perspective. Those who support such a measure may show up to vote in the poll in greater numbers than they truly represent at DU.

I would argue they're a minuscule part of the DU membership, and probably not progressives at all.

[Bluebear]

2. wrong spot

.

[suffragette]

4. That's a powerful article, video and graph

Thanks Bluebear.

[Bluebear]

8. Another opinion posted at the exact time as you

I don't think the fractures in the country can be mended at this point. :(

[suffragette]

17. I feel that way sometimes, too

But I keep trying.

I appreciate your posts. Hang in there.

:hug:

[SpartanDem]

5. Is HuffPo really trying to spin that enforcing the law

is bad a thing?

[Bluebear]

6. Yes, they are a bunch of libs who support lawlessness & anarchy

[Lance_Boyle]

7. Nobody's deporting immigrants (unless they commit felonies).

The people being deported are illegal aliens, not immigrants.

[Bluebear]

10. Super, then you'll feel safer at night.

[Dank Nugs]

11. Incorrect. This is beginning in my town, because of Arizona.

http://alibi.com/index.php?scn=feature&story=32228

It's not a policy or a policy change, says Mayor Richard Berry. Instead, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement setting up shop in the newly refurbished Prisoner Transport Center is an agreement. In fact, he says, the old policy is still in place that only allows Albuquerque Police Department officers to check into someone's immigration status if it's relevant to an investigation. But that’s not the case for the feds. Every single person arrested by APD or the county sheriff who ends up at the transport center in downtown Albuquerque will have their immigration status evaluated by ICE. "I want 100 percent of the people checked," Berry says in an interview. "I want racial profiling out of the equation."

ICE has been in the Prisoner Transport Center since May 10. The new processing procedure doesn't cost the city any money, according to spokesperson T.J. Wilham. Though the timing of the announcement was bad given Arizona's controversy, it couldn't be avoided, he adds. The center was just renovated, and the ICE deal has been in the works for months.

"I want 100 percent of the people checked. I want racial profiling out of the equation."

Mayor Richard Berry

Gov. Bill Richardson, who's been outspoken in national media against SB 1070, wouldn't comment on Berry's move as of press time. But on Tuesday. May 18, it was reported that the governor ordered the Children, Youth and Families Department to report violent juvenile criminals who are citizens of other countries to ICE.

City Councilors Rey Garduño and Ken Sanchez decried Berry’s plan and carried a resolution at the Monday, May 17 Council meeting to rescind it. They also proposed a boycott of city contracts or services from Arizona. Both failed in 5-4 votes.

Jose Armas is the co-chair of the Latino/Hispano Education Improvement Task Force that works with the state's Department of Education. He says it's unfortunate that Albuquerque's mayor has chosen to "make political hay out of a tragic situation that's happening in this country, all being accelerated by what was passed in Arizona."

"There are the same prospects for unlawful detentions and the same prospects for racial profiling."

Peter Simonson, executive director of ACLU-NM

But Berry wants to make one distinction clear: This isn't an immigration issue; it's a public safety issue. Though he agrees that the majority of immigrants in Albuquerque are law-abiding citizens, this procedure keeps the streets of Albuquerque safe. "Whether you're born and raised here or part of the immigrant community, no one wants to be a victim of crime," he says.

Peter Simonson, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, says he's concerned the plan will erode trust between police and immigrants in Albuquerque. (That's a concern in Arizona, too, according to Phoenix New Times reporter Stephen Lemons, and in fact law enforcement agencies have criticized the incoming law for that reason.) It's possible, says Simonson, for innocent people and victims of crime to be detained. He emphasizes that someone who is arrested has not been convicted of a crime. Though not an everyday occurrence, it’s not uncommon for police to respond to a domestic violence call and not be able to distinguish between the abuser and the victim and arrest both parties, he adds. "That sets up a situation where an immigrant victim of domestic violence is being treated like a criminal."

Berry says the mixed messages being sent to the public are detrimental. He says the ICE agreement won’t harass victims or witnesses. He wants people to feel safe coming forward about crimes they've experienced or seen, he adds. "Unless you find yourself under arrest at the Prisoner Transport Center, that's where ICE is. Our officers are still out there to protect the community."

Simonson says Berry’s move is the first example of Arizona’s anti-immigration stance invading New Mexico. The laws are similar in that they filter a broad swath of people, he says, some of whom might be innocent of any crime or live in the United States legally. "There are the same prospects for unlawful detentions," Simonson says, "and the same prospects for racial profiling." And what's to keep officers from making arrests they normally wouldn't make in an effort to weed out undocumented immigrants? he asks.

Berry says he has tremendous faith in the Albuquerque Police Department. "You're giving us hypothetical situations that don't have anything to do with our policy," Berry says. "Judge us on the agreement that we made. We are going to keep an eye on it and we assume everyone else will be keeping an eye on it as well, and that's fair."

[Lance_Boyle]

12. that doesn't appear to say anything about legal residents being deported... n/t

[Dank Nugs]

14. Doesn't negate the fact that it violates the 4th n/t

[Better Today]

20. It does? How so?

[Dank Nugs]

21. It is a blanket policy, not limited in scope to the crime the person being arrested is accused of

Once you're found guilty and convicted in a court of law, then I would say this is reasonable. But to screen every single person being arrested for immigration status, before they've been convicted, regardless of the crime committed is not reasonable.

[Better Today]

24. Being sent back to your home country, is not criminal punishment, though.

An example would be, being in a park after it's official closing time, like after sunset. The police can force you to leave without finding you legally guilty of anything. These folks are being asked to leave, not go to jail, not pay a fine, no criminally related action is being taken. Simply putting them back where they came from.

[Bluebear]

25. Yeah, along with 4 kids born in the US who have never known anything different.

Wonderful.

[Better Today]

28. I believe those children should stay with their parents, but have US citizenship to return

upon their adulthood. I guess if you think its best to separate the families and make the children wards of the state, that's an option, I just don't see it as a good one.

[pampango]

52. Protecting American children is one of the Progressive Caucus' goals with immigration reform.

Border Security and Law Enforcement

• Uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in immigration laws.
• Minimize the militarization of our border communities and respects local residents that live along the border.
• Oppose the use of state and local police for immigration law enforcement.
• Ensure immigration enforcement is humane and does not violate the human rights of our communities or tear families apart.
• Oppose ICE raids that unfairly target particular ethnic groups, violate basic due process principles, and negatively impact U.S. citizen children.

http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?ContentID=205&ParentID=0&SectionID=93&SectionTree=93&lnk=b&ItemID=203

[William Z. Foster]

115. of course it is

Loss of employment, often months in detention, separation from family, and on and on.

Imagine if you were suddenly held in prison incommunicado for a few months, abused and denied medial care and legal counsel and family visits, and then were shipped to an impoverished village somewhere. What makes you think it would be any different for an immigrant - or in some cases citizens! - who are treated this way?

How is this not "punishment?" It is horrific punishment, certainly "cruel and unusual" by any standards and therefore illegal on those grounds alone.

[Confusious]

59. Are you a lawyer?

Once you've been arrested, they can charge you with other crimes.

I.e. Arrested for drunk driving, and they find drugs in your pockets gets you a drug charge on top of the drunk driving charge.

If they have search warrant, they can only seize those things spelled out in the search warrant, nothing else.

I know the last one from experience.

[suffragette]

15. Not so sure about that

From the OP's article:
The final bar, representing the projections for fiscal year 2010, is the subject of some contention, however. It's based on an internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo published by the Washington Post in February. In the memo, James M. Chaparro, the agency's head of detention and removal operations, told field offices to step up their deportations, particularly of "non-criminal aliens" -- and he disclosed that the agency had a goal for FY2010 of deporting 400,000 immigrants, 250,000 of whom, or 62 percent, were expected not to have committed any crimes.

That would be up yet another 3 percent over last year. But ICE has since withdrawn that memo, however, saying portions did not reflect actual policies.



http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1003/100327washingtondc.htm
ICE statement in response to March 27 Washington Post article

"ICE is required by Congress to submit annual performance goals as part of the budgetary process and our longstanding focus remains on smart, effective immigration enforcement that places priority first on those dangerous criminal aliens who present risk to the security of our communities.

This focus has yielded real results – between FY2008 and FY2009, criminal deportations increased by 19% and this priority continues in FY10 with 40% more criminal aliens removed to date as compared to the same period last year.

Significant portions of the memo cited in The Washington Post (3/27/10 - Becker/Hsu) did not reflect our policies, was sent without my authorization, and has since been withdrawn and corrected.

We are strongly committed to carrying out our priorities to remove serious criminal offenders first and we definitively do not set quotas."

- Assistant Secretary John Morton

Additional facts:

* Criminal removals/ returns increased by almost 22K between FY2008 and FY2009.
* Overall, criminal and non-criminal removals/ returns increased by 5% between FY2008 and FY2009, while criminal removals/ returns alone increased by 19%.

I added the bold. So a memo from a head official was made public, the department then backtracked from the stance in the memo and said they weren't doing that. But in their statement about this, they cite two increases. Yes, the increase of deporting criminals was larger, but they also cite an increase that includes "non-criminal " as a category.

[Dank Nugs]

9. No surprise here

He's a hypocrite. Extends citizenship to a member of his extended family who had been here illegally for over a decade, yet deports others.

So much for the rule of law. It applies only to those who do not have political influence or money. Fuck this.

[grantcart]

13. Increased deportations are the result of a massive increase in border security

that is years in the making.

These deportations are largely within 10 miles of the border.

Since the President took office he has reduced internal ICE operations and moved more ICE officers to the border.

Another substantial change in the President's handling of illegal immigration is that ICE officers were transferred from internal investigations to being stationed at state prisons.

Now, for the first time, we have ICE officers who are working at state prisons (in California we now have large ICE offices at all state prisons) to find inmates convicted of felonies and have them deported.

This is the problem of just quoting statistics without knowing what is going on. ICE agents who were going far from the border and trapping people going about their normal duties, a practice common under Bush, has been replaced with the systematic examination of dangerous felons in prisons.

It is not without its problems. Some Central American countries are complaining that they are now being flooded by deportations from US prisons and they are now faced with huge increases in gang populations.


http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/3450/a-long-walk-from-honduras

The Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act along with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act increased the federal government’s ability to deport immigrants convicted of various felonies. Thus a mass exportation of felons and gang members from North to Central America began.

Where deportation based on criminal conviction previously had been limited to violent offenses and mostly exempted immigrants with permanent resident status, the 1996 laws rendered a larger number of people deportable. They also stripped judges of some discretionary power to make exemptions. Some 2,449 Central Americans were deported from the U.S. in 1996, compared with an average of 6,600 annually in subsequent years, according to Department of Homeland Security figures.




Behind the statistics are these facts:

Most of the deportations now are the result of enforcement action of very new arrivals, ICE operations now are heavily concentrated on undocumented aliens who also have criminal convictions.

The facts are that the girls mom has a reduced chance of being deported if she stays out of trouble than under George Bush.

[ecstatic]

27. + 1 NT

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. 1.5% of illegal aliens in the US are criminally deported each year?

Nope, no problem here.

[Better Today]

19. If they are here illegally, why would we not deport them? I'm confused as to the problem here.

I don't think they should be treated badly or harmed or anything like that, but to deport them back to where they came seems like a perfectly logical thing to do.

[Bluebear]

22. No problem, glad you feel safer

[Better Today]

26. Safer? What are you talking about? I said nothing about safety one way or another.

If they are here illegally, I see no problem returning them to their home country. I don't feel safer or less safe with that, it's just the right thing to do.

[Bluebear]

29. 'it's just the right thing to do' - you're all heart.

Like "letting" those American kids come back in their adulthood. You rock!

[Better Today]

30. Sorry, but illegal is illegal. Getting sent back isn't criminal punishment, and

just like children whose parents leave the US by choice, or for jobs, or for military; they should stay a family unit until the children are adults and choose to return.

Heart has nothing to do with it.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[getthefacts]

33. The problem is that the government

is not willing to deport 12 million people. Especially because it would probably bring the U.S. economy to a halt. So, if the government is not going to take drastic action, they might as well stop the hypocrisy and regularize the situation of people living in the shadows.
Moreover, what to do with the young Americans who were brought here by their parents when they were very young? These kids know no other country.

[Better Today]

35. Oh, the kids again. Well, y'know many kids are moved to places they don't know

because they are part of a family unit that moves. Get over it. If they were born here, then they should have citizenship to return when they are adults or when their parents re-enter legally.

[Bluebear]

36. "Get over it" - disgusting.

[getthefacts]

37. You misunderstood me

Many undocumented were brought here as very young children and grew up knowing the U.S. as their home country. Most of them don't even speak their parents language...

[Better Today]

38. This happens to children, moving to places they don't know and don't know the

language, for all manner of reasons. Are you suggesting that no child should be forced to go with their families when their families move to new places? It makes no sense to suggest this is any different than any move by any family that inconveniences children, and most moves do inconvenience children. Just a fact, nothing new, nothing to get excited about.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fruittree]

70. I understand the first part of your comment and your

overall point but I honestly don't see how they can not speak their parent's language. How would they communicate?

[EFerrari]

74. By the time I was twelve, I could understand my grandmother

but had lost almost all my Spanish. Luckily, I went to El Salvador and had to speak nothing but for a summer. That was close.

It happens. Parents talk to their kids in Spanish and the kids answer in English and they do understand each other.

[Spike from MN]

55. Hey, c'mon now Bluebear.

Better Today said s/he doesn't want them "treated badly or harmed or anything like that." S/he is entirely willing to have them deported without beating the absolute living crap out of them first. Isn't that enough for you? After all, you can't ask for more than that.

[Bluebear]

73. I had to use the ol' ignore feature.

Somebody whose writings about people's lives are so smug and insensitive is not in my immediate circle lol!

[lunamagica]

43. The problem is that Obama promised immigration reform on his first year in office

Instead deportations have increased.

He broke a promise he made when he was running for office.

That's the problem.

[Better Today]

45. Perhaps increased deportation is part of his reform, otherwise, it's Congress that

has to do this, not the President, and I am not going to blame Obama because Congress, specifically the Senate, has been in such a state as to only address something like 4-5 issues to the House's 200+. If the Senate won't take it up, or hasn't managed itself in a way to find the time, that isn't Obama's fault.

[lunamagica]

49. Then he shouldn't have promised something he knew he couldn't deliver n/t

[NYC Liberal]

46. At what cost are we going to do this?

How many rights do what have to cede to find the "illegals" and deport them? How much money are we going to spend rounding people up?

You can deport as many people as you want, but they are not going to stop coming.

[Bluebear]

47. +

[Better Today]

56. Well, unless you plan on having 100% open borders, those costs must be incurred.

[William Z. Foster]

65. false dichotomy

Obviously.

What we are seeing is not discussion, but a relentless effort at inserting talking points into every discussion about this - the same talking points again and again no matter how many times they have been thoroughly refuted.

Where are these talking points coming from? They are being used to whip the public into a frenzy of mob violence and to build support for police state measures, and so are very dangerous and can't be ignored.

Do we need a new strategy for dealing with this propaganda effort? It is much more work refuting the talking points with facts and reasoned argument than it is to just keep throwing them out there, which puts the truth at a distinct disadvantage. The same misleading and inflammatory slogans appear dozens, sometimes hundreds of times a day just here, and it is happening everywhere online and off.

[NYC Liberal]

140. I am not willing to cede any civil rights, nor should anyone else.

Newspaper editors and protestors were arrested and imprisoned during WWI for criticizing the government during wartime. American citizens were rounded up and put into camps during WWII for "national security." We all know about Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, and everything else from the past 8 years. And there are countless other examples of civil rights being violated in the name of "THE LAW" or some other reason. There were excuses for all of them.

"Terrorism" was the excuse for torture, indefinite detention, and all the other civil rights violations perpetrated under the Bush Administration. "Protecting the border" seems to be the excuse made by some here for more of it.

[guruoo]

112. So we should secure the border first, then grant blanket amnesty to those already here?

[Catherina]

34. Sad n/t

[glen123098]

41. Why do I even bother voting.

[nomorenomore08]

42. Oh yeah, nothing wrong with separating a little girl from her mother...

And what? "A path to citizenship"? That's crazy! Too many Mexicans in my town already! :sarcasm:

[ProSense]

44. So Bush didn't do his job and President Obama doing his is bad?

The chart shows that non-criminal deportations increased slightly in fiscal year 2009 and is expected to be drop below 2008 levels this year. Also these are fiscal year totals so FY 2009 includes at least one-quarter of 2008.

Frank Sharry, the executive director of the pro-immigration group America's Voice, credits Obama with "one significant rollback" relative to the Bush years, "which was of high-profile workplace raids."

Obama Quietly Changes U.S. Immigration Policy

<...>

Beginning next month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said, those who arrive in the United States fleeing torture or persecution abroad will no longer automatically be welcomed with handcuffs and months in a jail cell. Instead, many of those seeking protection will again be permitted to live freely in the country while their applications for permanent asylum are considered by an immigration judge.

<...>

The Obama administration's new policy, which will end such routine incarceration, had been urged by everyone from the bipartisan United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. And there is no reason to believe that the risks will rise significantly. There is considerable evidence, for instance, that alternative programs to monitor those released will ensure that they comply with whatever ruling a judge finally reaches.

Other initiatives show this more nuanced approach as well. The workplace raids, which were intended to send a warning to companies that hired unauthorized workers, mostly just hurt the workers themselves. Last year, only 13 companies were prosecuted for hiring undocumented workers. Now, the Obama administration is instead focusing on expanded audits of the paper trail that companies must keep on their workforce. Arrests and deportations of workers are down, but hefty fines against the companies are up, providing strong incentives for them to maintain a legal workforce. This is hardly a benign approach - ask the families of the 1,800 immigrant workers who were fired from American Apparel in Los Angeles following an audit - but it marks a departure from the Bush policy of summarily jailing and deporting any unauthorized workers arrested in the raids.

The recent initiatives are only first steps, and the administration is still facing criticism from its own liberal allies that it is simply continuing the Bush administration's enforcement policies. Indeed, by any of the hard measures - detentions, criminal prosecutions, deportations, the number of Border Patrol agents - there has been no softening of the toughest immigration enforcement campaign in recent U.S. history. Still, the changes in the last year are significant, even if they are as yet little recognized. Indeed, the Obama administration itself has not made much effort to advertise the new measures. With the tough fight looming ahead next year on comprehensive immigration reform, it is easy to understand why.

link

Destroys the whole Obama is worse than Bush meme.

[William Z. Foster]

48. maybe the worst betrayal of any

It was such a nightmare police state of terror with Bush, and so many millions were so sure they had been promised an end to the nightmare with the new administration. Instead, it has gotten much worse. How can that be? It was so bad under Bush. No one could imagine it getting worse, and yet it has - dramatically so.

So many worked so hard for so long to turn the rural Midwest blue, and so much progress was made. How can it all be gone so completely and so quickly? It is gone, maybe forever.

It is heartbreaking what is happening now. With the new administration we have all all-out extra-Constitutional police state war against small family farmers and farming communities AND a stepped up war of terror against the immigrants and all brown people. Grade school children interrogated at the school bus stop, people isolated and abused and interrogated to rat on family members and co-workers, people disappearing, people threatened with felonies if they offer an immigrant a ride or a meal, children abandoned at school, families split up, everyone living in fear.

You wanted it white America - and this cuts across party lines and is about "white" and nothing else - and you've got it. The consequences for all of us will be severe and last a long time. This will not turn out well - count on that. It never does.

I am not going to argue with people about this for two reasons. First you do not care, that is abundantly clear. You will get your hatred out and nothing will stop you. Second, it is dangerous to people I care about and possibly to me to reveal the details that would be required to "prove" what I am saying here.

Happy now, white America? Or are you just getting warmed up?

[Bluebear]

50. Quite a rant, wzf.

'This will not turn out well - count on that. It never does.' - - Right you are.

[upi402]

51. I hear ya. I thinks it's slightly better though.

but not where it matters most - Obama is a different side of the same damn corporatist coin.

[William Z. Foster]

53. well,...

We can follow current events, we can engage in partisan bickering, we can mock Palin and the rest, we can parse fine points of policy, we can follow polls and trends and we can even argue about smoking and riding bikes. Meanwhile, paramilitary swat teams operating completely illegally are rounding people up and a reign of terror has descended on millions of people. That is getting worse, not better, and that comes after something quite different was promised before the election.

[upi402]

54. "paramilitary swat teams ...rounding people up" ?

Could you provide links and sources for me please? I've missed that completely.

[William Z. Foster]

63. you have to be kidding

I want to ask you a favor. Be honest. Do you truly not know, or is this a ploy? I fear that what is happening is not visible to very many in the general public. I am trying to assess what people do and do not know so we can formulate a plan for alerting people.

In the past when people taunt like this and demand proof, much time and effort is spent only to find out that they were not sincere and didn't really care what "proof" was provided. That makes it difficult to know what is and what is not effective in alerting people, difficult to know what people do and do not know about this. They will say "ha ha that is a lie,m show us the proof" and then when you do, they disappear and then demand the same thing again somewhere else. In other words, it is a tactic, used for the purpose of derailing and distracting and breaking up discussions and consideration of this.

If there were even a slight possibility that what I am saying were true, you would be very interested in that, would you not? Wouldn't everyone? Wouldn't you be motivated yourself to find out?

It would not take long visiting immigrant rights websites to learn about this. That is something people - Democrats and liberals and progressives - would want to do on their own, is it not? if not, why not?

If you are sincere, and really do not know, maybe you can offer suggestions about how to get the truth to the public. So many people have posted and written about his is so many places for so long, and there have been articles, LTTEs and on and on.

How could anyone not know about this? What is it going to take?

[William Z. Foster]

129. your request was vague

Your request betrayed such a profound ignorance on this topic, and it is hard to tell from what you have said just where the gaps in your knowledge may be.

I tried to cover as much ground as I could, guessing from your statements what it might be you were having difficulty with. If you are still unclear about anything, there is much more material, documentation, and research available. We have barely scratched the surface.

At your service.

[Confusious]

58. Are there millions of paramilitary swat teams?

Don't see other states with Arizona laws. Haven't heard the entire country has brown shirt squads rounding people up in the streets.

Other countries do a lot worse to illegal immigrants, Mexico pre 2008, for example.

Your bar is kinda set low for the "reign of terror". What's next? "It's a reign of terror! They've raised the price of beer!"

[William Z. Foster]

64. can't tell with you, either

Do you truly not know? Or is this a ploy?

[Confusious]

66. Sure, show me some links

Of course, I don't believe every thing I read on the internet, unless it's about research at a University, NASA or some other RESPECTABLE scientific organization.

I don't believe people like PETA, Greenpeace or other wacko sites for the most part, but I read.

You already have a mark not in your favor. If it says it's a "civilian" paramilitary i.e. "regular citizens" rounding these people up, I don't believe it. They would get in SOOOO much trouble.

paramilitary swat teams operating completely illegally

And what do they do with these people that they've rounded up illegally? Give them to INS or ICE? They did it illegally. Take them to the border? Border patrol is going to check people at the border. I've crossed the border. I got the third, fourth and tenth degree. And that was just back from CANADA.

( Of course, if I ask these questions, I fully expect the "You don't want to know" or "You don't want to see." No, I see a lot, more then most. I just don't allow myself to be blinded by emotion or something I really, really, really want to believe. If I really, really, really want to believe it, and it happens, I check it multiple times.)

If it's the government, if it's by the book and they have a warrant, then I see nothing wrong with it, because that's how the system works. Are you going to tell me that you're against warrants and the legal system?

Unless you're just against them in the case of brown people.

[William Z. Foster]

69. don't really know what you are talking about

Are we in an argument about something?

Not sure what you are looking for; less so than when you issued your initial challenge.

I will think about whether to do anything, and how to do it.

[William Z. Foster]

101. links

I am showing you some links, as per your request.

[William Z. Foster]

71. I will post a few things

Statement I made such as "illegal round ups" and "reign of terror" and "paramilitary raids" have been questioned.

It is difficult for me to imagine that anyone following politics, any Democrat, liberal or progressive could be unaware of what is happening. I suspect that the demands for "links" and "proof" are tactics for pushing an anti-immigrant agenda and nothing more.

Guilty by Immigration Status

Guilty by Immigration Status reveals that immigration policing is causing a disturbing pattern of abuses and rights violations – a pattern that has severely and detrimentally affected the livelihood and safety of entire families, workers and communities across the U.S. In particular, the report describes how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), along with other police, public officials and agencies, routinely trumped the civil rights and constitutional protections of a person in order to question, detain and/or jail them solely based on their actual or perceived immigration status.

The pattern of DHS practices and policies illustrated in the report gives evidence to a dramatic expansion and consolidation of an "immigration control regime," under which the human rights of immigrants, including legal permanent residents and U.S. citizens, are routinely violated at the U.S.-Mexico border and in the U.S. interior. Unless the components of this regime are halted and dismantled, the long-held promise of immigration reform – the lifting of millions of immigrant workers and their families out of a life of fear and exploitation – will be severely undermined.

Guilty by Immigration Status is the second annual report of the Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network, or HURRICANE, an initiative of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. The findings are drawn from 141 stories of human rights abuse reported and documented by HURRICANE members and partners, including 25 interviews offering first-hand testimony from immigrant workers, families, and community members directly affected by immigration enforcement policies and practices in 2008. HURRICANE also tracked 118 incidents of ICE immigration enforcement operations or high profile raids through extensive documentation from newspaper articles, scholarly journals, advocate reports and interviews with affected persons and reporting by community groups and other institutions.

http://www.nnirr.org/hurricane/GuiltybyImmigrationStatus2008.pdf

Amnesty International, in its report "Jailed Without Justice" should answer any questions people have about the abuses going on.

JAILED WITHOUT JUSTICE

This report focuses on the human rights violations associated with the dramatic increase in the use of detention by the United States as an immigration enforcement mechanism. In just over a decade, immigration detention has tripled. In 1996, immigration authorities had a daily detention capacity of less than 10,000. Today more than 30,000 immigrants are detained each day, and this number is likely to increase even further in 2009.

More than 300,000 men, women and children are detained by US immigration authorities each year. They include asylum seekers, torture survivors, victims of human traffi cking, longtime lawful permanent residents, and the parents of US citizen children. The use of detention as a tool to combat unauthorized migration falls short of international human rights law, which contains a clear presumption against detention. Everyone has the right to liberty, freedom of movement, and the right not to be arbitrarily detained.

An important safeguard against arbitrary detention is the ability of an individual to challenge his or her detention before an independent judicial body. The US criminal justice system provides individuals detained and charged with criminal offenses with the opportunity to challenge their detention before a court and provides legal counsel for individuals who cannot afford to pay themselves. However, individuals detained on the basis of civil immigration violations are not provided with such safeguards. Many individuals are held in immigration detention without access to an immigration judge or judicial body and have to represent themselves if they cannot afford a lawyer. Factors such as whether an individual is apprehended at the border, whether an individual is apprehended within the United States, and whether an individual has been convicted of certain crimes may determine whether that individual is detained and what kind of review, if any, takes place.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/uploads/JailedWithoutJustice.pdf

America's Secret ICE Castles

"If you don't have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he's illegal, we can make him disappear." Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008. Also present was Amnesty International's Sarnata Reynolds, who wrote about the incident in the 2009 report "Jailed Without Justice" and said in an interview, "It was almost surreal being there, particularly being someone from an organization that has worked on disappearances for decades in other countries. I couldn't believe he would say it so boldly, as though it weren't anything wrong."

Pendergraph knew that ICE could disappear people, because he knew that in addition to the publicly listed field offices and detention sites, ICE is also confining people in 186 unlisted and unmarked subfield offices, many in suburban office parks or commercial spaces revealing no information about their ICE tenants--nary a sign, a marked car or even a US flag. (Presumably there is a flag at the Veterans Affairs Complex in Castle Point, New York, but no one would associate it with the Criminal Alien Program ICE is running out of Building 7.) Designed for confining individuals in transit, with no beds or showers, subfield offices are not subject to ICE Detention Standards. The subfield office network was mentioned in an October report by Dora Schriro, then special adviser to Janet Napolitano, secretary of Homeland Security, but no locations were provided.

I obtained a partial list of the subfield offices from an ICE officer and shared it with immigrant advocates in major human and civil rights organizations, whose reactions ranged from perplexity to outrage. Andrea Black, director of Detention Watch Network (DWN), said she was aware of some of the subfield offices but not that people were held there. ICE never provided DWN a list of their locations. "This points to an overall lack of transparency and even organization on the part of ICE," said Black. ICE says temporary facilities in field or subfield offices are used for 84 percent of all book-ins. There are twenty-four listed field offices. The 186 unlisted subfield offices tend to be where local police and sheriffs have formally or informally reached out to ICE. For instance, in 2007 North Carolina had 629,947 immigrants and at least six subfield offices, compared with Massachusetts, with 913,957 immigrants and one listed field office. Not surprisingly, before joining ICE Pendergraph, a sheriff, was the Joe Arpaio of North Carolina, his official bio stating that he "spearheaded the use of the 287(g) program," legislation that empowers local police to perform immigration law enforcement functions.

http://www.thenation.com/article/americas-secret-ice-castles

Terrorizing Immigrants

Latino immigrants, people of color, Muslims, and anyone called a threat to national security are most vulnerable.

by Stephen Lendman

America's homeland is repressively militarized and unsafe. Habeas rights, judicial fairness and other constitutional protections are ignored. Lawlessness prevails. Everyone is vulnerable. Freedom is at risk. Police state repression is deepening. Knowing the dangers is a wake-up call for action. Latino immigrants, people of color, Muslims, and anyone called a threat to national security are most vulnerable.

Ahead, expect stepped up militarized harshness, extinguished civil and human rights, and intensified crackdowns. Streets will be patrolled. Privilege will be protected from beneficial social change, the kind fast disappearing in a nation disengaged from its soul, always one more in name than fact, now a memory. As a result, complacency and indifference no longer are options. Activism is the antidote for change.

http://baltimorechronicle.com/2010/042610Lendman.shtml

[William Z. Foster]

75. the ACLU

Immigrant's Rights

No Human Being is Illegal

The Constitution guarantees the fundamental rights and civil liberties of every person in this country. Upholding the rights of the politically disenfranchised is vital. When the government has the power to deny legal rights and due process to one group of people, it outs all our rights in danger.

Americans' most basic constitutional rights are severely threatened when people's ability to go to court are restricted or denied. The due process and equal protection clauses embodied in our Constitution and Bill of Rights apply to every "person," and are not limited to U.S. citizens. However, lawful immigrants are routinely denied their constitutional right to a day in court, and judges must automatically deport them regardless of how minor the infractions, how long they have lived here or whether they have a citizen spouse or children.

http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/due-process

ICE's Misplaced Priorities: The Numbers Speak for Themselves and the Stories Cry Out for Justice

Is it unusual for ICE and the localities to waste limited resources meant for targeting perpetrators of the most dangerous crimes by going after individuals with great potential like Jessica? Unfortunately not. Jessica is just one of the untold numbers of hard-working people who get caught up in the local immigration enforcement programs, including 287(g). In a sense, Jessica's case is very unusual, as she actually won respite (albeit temporary) from deportation. Most people in her situation, faced with prolonged detention at a jail, oftentimes isolated and hours away from their families, opt to give up their immigration case and are subsequently deported.

An ACLU of Georgia report released in October 2009 (PDF) recounted stories of 10 community members in Cobb and their families impacted by 287(g). As documented by the report entitled, "Terror and Isolation in Cobb: How Unchecked Police Power under 287(g) had Torn Families Apart and Threatened Public Safety," mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters are torn apart from their families every day in Cobb County, many with little recourse.

According to the data ICE released in November 2009, out of 113,000 noncitizen individuals identified in the program during its first year of operation, more than 101,000, or close to 90 percent, were never charged with or convicted of dangerous crimes. "Secure Communities" is in fact designed to sweep up any foreign-born individual who is arrested by local law enforcement for any reason whatsoever, including traffic infractions, even if that person is never charged with, or convicted of, any crime at all. An alarming 5 percent of the total number of individuals identified were actually U.S. citizens, testifying to the inaccuracy and incompleteness of the federal agency databases against which fingerprints are matched.

http://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights-racial-justice/ices-misplaced-priorities-numbers-speak-themselves-and-stories

No End in Sight: Immigrants Locked Up for Years Without Hearings

The United States is not a country that arrests people and then detains them without a hearing for months or even years. Unfortunately, this is what is happening to thousands of immigrants held in detention centers that are often hundreds of miles away from counsel and family.

The Constitution guarantees every person a day in court — not just U.S. citizens — but immigrants who are awaiting a determination on their immigration status are often denied this basic due process protection.

Over the last several years, the use of detention as an immigration enforcement strategy has increased exponentially, and immigrants, including lawful permanent residents and asylum seekers, have been detained for prolonged periods of time without any finding that they are either a danger to society or a flight risk.

http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/no-end-sight-immigrants-locked-years-without-hearings

Much more at the ACLU website.

http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/

[William Z. Foster]

77. Racial Profiling

Racial Profiling in the ICE Criminal Alien Program

The goal of the Criminal Alien Program (CAP) is to improve safety by promoting federal - local partnerships to target serious criminal offenders for deportation. Indeed, the U.S. Congress has made clear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "should have no greater immigration enforcement priority than to remove deportable aliens with serious criminal histories from the United States, …" The Warren Institute’s analysis of arrest data pursuant to an ICE-local partnership in Irving, Texas demonstrates that ICE is not following Congress' mandate to focus resources on the deportation of immigrants with serious criminal histories.

This study also shows that immediately after Irving, Texas law enforcement had 24-hour access (via telephone and video teleconference) to ICE in the local jail, discretionary arrests of Hispanics for petty offenses — particularly minor traffic offenses — rose dramatically. This report probes the marked rise in low-level arrests of Hispanics. Specifically, the report examines whether there was an increase in lawless behavior in the Hispanic community in Irving or whether there was a change in local policing priorities. The Warren Institute's study of arrest data finds strong evidence to support claims that Irving police engaged in racial profiling of Hispanics in order to filter them through the CAP screening system.

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/policybrief_irving_0909_v9.pdf

[William Z. Foster]

81. Immigration Myths and Facts

So many here seem to be completely lacking in background on this issue, and stubbornly repeat refuted and debunked talking points again and again. For that reason, this may be useful here.

Immigration Myths and Facts

from the ACLU (excerpts)

MYTH: Immigrants are a drain on our social services.

FACT: By paying taxes and Social Security, immigrants contribute far more to government coffers than they use in social services.

In its landmark report published in 1997—arguably the most thorough national study to date of immigration's fiscal impacts—the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Sciences concluded that on average, immigrants generate public revenue that exceeds their public costs over time—approximately $80,000 more in taxes than they receive in state, federal and local benefits over their life times. This same conclusion was reached in 2007 by the Council of Economic Advisers in their report to the Executive Office of the President where they state that "the long-run impact of immigration on public budgets is likely to be positive," and agree with the NRC report's view that "only a forward-looking projection of taxes and government spending can offer an accurate picture of the long-run fiscal consequences of admitting new immigrants."

MYTH: Immigrants have a negative impact on the economy and the wages of citizens and take jobs away from citizens.

FACT: Immigration has a positive effect on the American economy as a whole and on the income of native-born workers.

In June 2007, the President's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) issued a report on "Immigration's Economic Impact." Based on a thorough review of the literature, the Council concluded that "immigrants not only help fuel the Nation's economic growth, but also have an overall positive effect on the American economy as a whole and on the income of native-born American workers." Among the report's key findings were that, on average, U.S. natives benefit from immigration in that immigrants tend to complement natives, not substitute for them.

Immigrants have different skills, which allow higher-skilled native workers to increase productivity and thus increase their incomes. Also, as the native-born U.S. population becomes older and better educated, young immigrant workers fill gaps in the low-skilled labor markets.

MYTH: Immigrants—particularly Latino immigrants—don't want to learn English.

FACT: Immigrants, including Latino immigrants, believe they need to learn English in order to succeed in the United States, and the majority uses at least some English at work.

Throughout our country's history, critics of immigration have accused new immigrants of refusing to learn English and to otherwise assimilate. These charges are no truer today than they were then. As with prior waves of immigrants, there is a marked increase in English-language skills from one immigrant generation to the next.18 In the first ever major longitudinal study of the children of immigrants, in 1992 Rambaut and Portes found that "the pattern of linguistic assimilation prevails across nationalities." The authors go on to report that "the linguistic outcomes for the third generation—the grandchildren of the present wave of immigrants—will be little different than what has been the age-old pattern in American immigration history."

While many first-generation Latino immigrants are unable to speak English, 88 percent of their U.S.-born adult children report that they speak English very well. And studies show that the number rises dramatically for each subsequent generation. Furthermore, similar to other immigrants, Latinos believe that they need to learn English in order to succeed in the United States, and believe they will be discriminated against if they don't. Most Latino immigrants (67%) report that they use at least some English at work.

MYTH: Immigrants don't want to become citizens.

FACT: Many immigrants to the United States seek citizenship, even in the face of difficult requirements and huge backlogs that can delay the process for years.

Most immigrants are ineligible to apply for citizenship until they have resided in the U.S. with lawful permanent resident status for five years, have passed background checks, have shown that they have paid their taxes, are of "good moral character, demonstrate knowledge of U.S. history and civics, and have the ability to understand, speak and write English." In addition, people applying for naturalization have to pay a fee, which increased by 69% in 2007 from $400 to $675, making it much harder for low-income immigrants to reach their dream of becoming Americans.

Despite these barriers, The Pew Hispanic Center's report on U.S. Census data shows that the proportion of eligible immigrants who have acquired citizenship rose to 52% in 2005, "the highest level in a quarter of a century." In the 2007 fiscal year, DHS received 1.4 million citizenship applications—nearly double from last fiscal year 26—and between June and July of 2007, naturalization applications increased 350% compared to last year.27 In his testimony to Congress, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director, Emilio Gonzalez, referred to this increase as "unprecedented in the history of immigration services in our nation."

MYTH: Immigrants don't pay taxes.

FACT: Almost all immigrants pay income taxes even though they can't benefit from most federal and state local assistance programs and all immigrants pay sales and property taxes.

According to the 2005 Economic Report of the President, "more than half of all undocumented immigrants are believed to be working 'on the books'…… contribute to the tax rolls but are ineligible for almost all Federal public assistance programs and most major Federal-state programs." According to the report, undocumented immigrants also "contribute money to public coffers by paying sales and property taxes (the latter are implicit in apartment rentals)."

All immigrants (legal and undocumented) pay the same real estate taxes and the same sales and other consumption taxes as everyone else. The University of Illinois at Chicago found in 2002 that undocumented immigrants in the Chicago metro area spent $2.89 billion annually from their earnings and these expenditures generated $2.56 billion additional spending for the local economy.

Legal immigrants pay income taxes and indeed many undocumented immigrants also pay income taxes or have taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks—even though they are unable to claim a tax refund, Social Security benefits or other welfare benefits that these taxes support. In the Chicago metro area for example, approximately seventy percent of undocumented workers paid payroll taxes, according to the University of Illinois study from 2002.32 In the Washington Metro Region, immigrants paid the same share of the region's overall taxes (18 percent) as the rest of the population (17.4 percent), according to a 2006 Urban Institute study.33 This study also points to the fact that immigrants' tax payments support both local and state services in addition to the federal government.

The Social Security Administration (SSA) holds that undocumented immigrants "account for a major portion" of the billions of dollars paid into the Social Security system—an estimated $520 billion as of October 2005. The SSA keeps a file called the "earnings suspense file" on all earnings with incorrect or fictitious Social Security numbers and the SSA's chief actuary stated in 2005 that "three quarters of other-than-legal immigrants pay payroll taxes." Their figures show that the suspense file is growing by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 to 7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes.

MYTH: Immigrants send all their money back to their home countries instead of spending money here.

FACT: Immigrants do send money to family members, making it possible for more people to stay in their home countries rather than migrating to the United States. Importantly, sending remittances home does not keep immigrants from spending money in the United States.

It's true that remittances are the biggest sources of foreign currency for most Latin American countries and surpass any amount of foreign aid sent by the U.S. The money sent by immigrants to their family members allows many people to stay in their home countries who might otherwise feel compelled to migrate to the U.S.

And while 51 percent of Latino immigrants send remittances home,36 they are spending their money in the United States as well. In fact, a 1998 study found that immigrants become net economic contributors after 10 to 15 years in the U.S.

In addition to paying taxes and Social Security, immigrants spend money on goods and services in the United States. A study of Latino immigrants in California found significant gains in home ownership between those who had been in this country for ten years (16.4 percent are homeowners) and those who had been here for over thirty years (64.6 percent).38 Furthermore, a 2002 Harvard University study of U.S. Census data found that there were more than 5.7 million foreign- born homeowners in the United States.39 The study found that foreign-born new homeowners are buying their homes by saving more than native-born homebuyers and stretching their incomes more.

MYTH: Immigrants bring crime to our cities and towns.

FACT: Immigrants are actually far less likely to commit crimes than their native-born counterparts.

Even as the undocumented population has increased in the United States, crime rates have decreased significantly. According to a 2000 report prepared for the U.S. Department of Justice, immigrants maintain low crime rates even when faced with adverse social conditions such as low income and low levels of education.42

Although incarceration rates are highest among young low-income men and many immigrants arriving in the U.S. are young men with low levels of education, incarceration rates among young men are invariably lower for immigrants than for their native-born counterparts. This is true across every ethnic group but the differences are especially noticeable among Mexicans, Salvadorans and Guatemalans, who constitute the majority of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Even in cities with the largest immigrant populations, such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami, violent and non-violent crime rates have continued to decline.

Even after taking into account higher deportation rates since the mid 1990's, and reviewing the 1980 and 1990 censuses, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ascertained that, "18-40 year-old male immigrants have lower institutionalization rates than the native born each year and by 2000, immigrants have institutionalization rates that are one-fifth those of the native born." In fact, according to the NBAR study, the newly arrived immigrants are particularly unlikely to be involved in crime.

MYTH: Most immigrants are undocumented and have crossed the border illegally.

FACT: Two thirds of immigrants are here lawfully—either as naturalized citizens or in some other lawful status. Moreover, almost half of all undocumented immigrants entered the United States legally.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, one third of all immigrants are undocumented, one third have some form of legal status and one third are naturalized citizens. This applies to immigrants from Latin America as well as others.

Almost half of all undocumented immigrants entered the United States on visas that allowed them to reside here temporarily—either as tourists, students, or temporary workers. This means they were subject to inspection by immigration officials before entering the country, and became undocumented only when their visas expired and they didn't leave the country.

MYTH: Weak border enforcement has led to high rates of undocumented immigration. We should increase enforcement and build a wall around our border.

FACT: Increased border security and the construction of border fences have done little to curb the flow of immigrants across the United States border. Instead, these policies have only succeeded in pushing border crossers into dangerous and less-patrolled regions, and increased the undocumented population by creating an incentive for immigrants not to leave.

Building a wall along the entire 2000-mile southern U.S. border would be prohibitively expensive. According to a study by the Cato Institute, rather than acting as a deterrent to those attempting to cross the border, increased enforcement has only succeeded in pushing immigration flows into more remote, less patrolled regions, resulting in a tripling of the death rate at the border and decreased apprehensions, and creating a dramatic increase in taxpayer money spent on making arrests along the border (from $300 per arrest in 1992 to $1,200 per arrest in 2002).

Furthermore, increased border enforcement has actually increased the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. at any one time. The increased risk and cost to immigrants of crossing the border has resulted in fewer undocumented immigrants returning to their home countries for periods of time as part of the decades-long circular migration patterns that characterize undocumented immigration from Mexico up until the 1990s. Instead, immigrants stay in the United States for longer periods of time, often choosing to immigrate their families to avoid longer periods of separation.

http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/immigration-myths-and-facts

[William Z. Foster]

82. Reform, on Ice

Reform, on Ice

NYT March 1, 2010

The administration has doubled down on the Bush-era enforcement strategy, unleashing the Border Patrol, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local law enforcement agencies and setting loose an epidemic of misery, racial profiling and needless arrests. The intense campaign of raids and deportations has so clogged the immigration courts that the American Bar Association has proposed creating an independent court system that presumably would be better able to command adequate resources.

Tensions and anger in immigrant communities are rising. Religious and business groups are urging change — for moral reasons and because they believe that bringing immigrants out from the shadows would help the economy. Young students who have patiently waited for the Dream Act — a bill to legalize immigrant children who bear no blame for their status — are frustrated. Groups across the country are planning to march on Washington this month, demanding action on reform.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/opinion/02tue2.html

[William Z. Foster]

83. U.S. Border Enforcement Prioritizes Non-Violent Migrants Over Dangerous Criminals

U.S. Border Enforcement Prioritizes Non-Violent Migrants Over Dangerous Criminals

A January 2010 Warren Institute report highlights the impact of Operation Streamline (a program that focuses on prosecuting border crossers) on immigration enforcement and how increased attention on nonviolent border crossers has taken resources away from investigating smuggling operations. An additional report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) shows that federal immigration prosecutions rose to record levels during fiscal year 2009, and that a shift in priorities has created the largest number of federal immigration prosecutions of non-violent border crossers ever. Thus, while the federal government spends billions of dollars prosecuting non-violent immigration violators, more serious criminals involved in drugs, weapons, and organized crime face a lower probability of prosecution.

Data shows:

* The federal government is focusing on low level immigration crimes, while prosecutions of smugglers and drug traffickers are way down. Immigration prosecutions now account for over one half of all federal prosecutions, while federal prosecutions of non immigration-related crimes have decreased. The majority of these immigration prosecutions are for low-level crimes, mainly first time illegal entry. In contrast, smuggling and drug trafficking charges were brought less frequently. Drug prosecutions currently represent approximately 16% of the total number of federal prosecutions. Between 2003 and 2008, weapons prosecutions decreased 19% and drug prosecutions declined by 20%.

* Border prosecutions of first time crossers take resources away from prosecuting serious violent crimes. A May 2010 study by the Warren Institute at the University of California, Berkeley Law School found that increased federal criminal prosecution of first time illegal border crossers has channeled law enforcement resources away from prosecuting more serious crimes, such as drug crimes. The Warren Institute also looked at districts that focus on more serious border crimes. In the Southern District of California, the U.S. Attorney's Office has decided to target the border crossers who have already been deported or who have substantial criminal records. This approach ensures that U.S. attorneys have the time and resources to prosecute other crimes along the border. As a result, the district leads the nation in prosecutions of alien smuggling and importing controlled substances.

http://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/news-media/press-releases

[William Z. Foster]

84. Enforcement Gone Wild

Enforcement Gone Wild

(press release - permission to reprint granted)

Washington, D.C. - Today, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a long-awaited report that offers a damning critique of the 287(g) program, confirming many of the criticisms levied against the program by community leaders, law enforcement officials, and immigration groups, including the Immigration Policy Center. Despite problems with the 287(g) program, it has recently been expanded to additional jurisdictions.

The report, The Performance of 287(g) Agreements, identifies numerous shortcomings that lead to abuse and mismanagement and raises serious questions about the wisdom of state and local immigration enforcement partnerships with ICE.

According to the report, the 287(g) program:

* Is poorly managed and supervised, and ICE has not instituted controls to promote effective program operations;

* Lacks strict guidelines for implementation, which results in different implementation methods in different jurisdictions;

* Lacks an adequate and consistent vetting process for jurisdictions that apply for the program, as well as for officers applying to be deputized under the program;

* Does not gather data necessary to track how the program is being used;

* Lacks a process for reviewing Memorandums of Agreement (MOAs) on a regular basis, and for modifying or terminating an MOA as necessary.

* Has not taken action against law enforcement agencies that are clearly violating the terms of the MOA, nor adequately trained deputized officers about immigration law or their authority under the MOA;

* Lacks public outreach efforts, and often provides the public with misleading or inaccurate information about the 287(g) program.

This report follows on the heels of recent revelations and reports that ICE is failing to prioritize genuine threats to the community. The Washington Post recently reported that a senior ICE official sent a memo to field offices outlining an enforcement strategy which emphasized large enforcement quotas rather than focusing on serious criminals. Similarly, the OIG found that 287(g) programs have not prioritized serious criminal immigrants, and performance standards by which local officers are evaluated focus on the number of immigrants encountered, not the seriousness of their crimes.

"The OIG report is further evidence that the Administration has yet to distinguish between deporting large numbers of immigrants and making us safe," said Mary Giovagnoli, Director of the Immigration Policy Center. "In the rush to engage state and local law enforcement on federal immigration matters, ICE has created a program that lacks oversight, undermines community relations, and breeds mistrust. As proven time and time again, a deportation-driven strategy exacts a high toll on individuals and communities with little real impact in stopping illegal immigration."

http://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/news-media/press-releases

[William Z. Foster]

86. Memo to President Obama and Congress

Memo to President Obama and Congress: Act Now to Increase Accountability, Oversight in Immigration System

Wednesday, 31 March 2010 13:39

A series of leaked memos related to the U.S. government's immigration enforcement policies this week have exposed an urgent need for President Obama and Congress to strengthen oversight and increase transparency within the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Published in The Washington Post, the memos show that in February, the director of ICE’s Detention and Removal Operations encouraged agents in the field to increase arrests of men and women without criminal histories to reach deportation quotas. Assistant Secretary of ICE John Morton's efforts to distance the agency from these memos since their release show an unacceptable lack of oversight and accountability within an agency that detains and deports nearly 400,000 people per year.

"These memos, and ICE's response, contradict commitments made by President Obama, Secretary Napolitano, and John Morton to reduce the number of people unnecessarily detained," said Mary Meg McCarthy, executive director, Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC). "The credibility of the Obama Administration's leadership on immigration issues has been compromised by the inconsistencies and injustices in its immigration policies."

http://www.immigrantjustice.org/press/detention/quotas.html

[William Z. Foster]

88. Obama continues brutal immigrant detention policies

Obama continues brutal immigrant detention policies

The Obama administration announced plans Thursday to revamp the federal immigration detention system in what is chiefly a cosmetic effort to deflect criticism of the brutal and unconstitutional treatment meted out by the government to tens of thousands of immigrants awaiting deportation.

Insofar as there is any actual content to the announced measures, it will mean a greater centralization of the "civil detention" system and a more efficient and accelerated means to track, process and deport undocumented immigrants. This has dangerous implications for the democratic rights of not only immigrants, but also native-born Americans.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security) officials announced the creation of a new office to oversee the system of 350 local jails, private-for-profit prisons and federal detention centers that the government contracts or operates. The system holds some 31,000 immigrants at any given time, and up to 400,000 persons each year.

According to the National Immigration Law Center, these numbers have steadily increased, from 6,259 in 1992, to approximately 20,000 in early 2006, to the current figure of 31,000. The growth in the number of immigrant detainees is due to increased immigration raids at homes and workplaces, policies that make deporting even lawful permanent residents easier and a requirement that all immigrants, including asylum seekers, be detained before they are deported.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/dete-a07.shtml

[William Z. Foster]

89. Human Rights Watch

Locked Up Far Away

The Transfer of Immigrants to Remote Detention Centers in the United States
December 2, 2009

This 88-page report presents new data analyzed for Human Rights Watch by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) of Syracuse University. The data show that 53 percent of the 1.4 million transfers have taken place since 2006, and most occur between state and local jails that contract with the agency, known as ICE, to provide detention bed space. The report's findings are based on the new data and interviews with officials, immigration lawyers, detainees, and their family members.

Each year in the United States, several hundred thousand non-citizens<2> (378,582 in 2008) are arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials. They are held in a vast network of more than 300 detention facilities, located in nearly every state in the country. Only a few of these facilities are under the full operational control of ICE—the majority are jails under the control of state and local governments that subcontract with ICE to provide detention bed space.

Although non-citizens are often first detained in a location near to their place of residence, for example, in New York or Los Angeles, they are routinely transferred by ICE hundreds or thousands of miles away to remote detention facilities in, for example, Arizona, Louisiana, or Texas. Detainees can also cycle through several facilities in the same or nearby states. Previously unavailable data obtained by Human Rights Watch show that over the 10 years spanning 1999 to 2008, 1.4 million detainee transfers occurred. The large numbers of transfers are due to ICE’s broad use of detention as a tool of immigration control, especially after restrictive immigration laws were passed in 2006, and the absence of effective policies and standards to prevent unnecessary transfers.

Any governmental authority holding people in its custody, particularly one responsible for detaining hundreds of thousands of people in dozens of institutions, will at times need to transport them between facilities. In state and federal prison systems, for example, inmate transfers are relatively common, even required, in order to minimize overcrowding, respond to medical needs, or properly house inmates according to their security classifications. Transfers in state and federal prisons, however, are much better regulated and rights-protective than transfers in the civil immigration detention system where there are few, if any, checks. The difference in the ways the US criminal justice and immigration systems treat transfers is doubly troubling because immigration detainees, unlike prisoners, are technically not being punished. But thus far ICE has rejected recommendations to place enforceable constraints on its transfer power.

This report examines the scope and human rights impacts of US immigration transfers. It draws on extensive, previously unpublished ICE data Human Rights Watch obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, as well as scores of interviews with detainees, family members, advocates, attorneys, and officials. As detailed below, we found that such transfers are even more common than previously believed and are rapidly increasing in number, more than doubling from 2003 (122,783) to 2007 (261,941) and likely exceeding 300,000 in 2008 once the final numbers are in. The impact on detainees and their families is profound.

http://www.hrw.org/en/node/86760/section/2

[William Z. Foster]

92. Immigration Program Expands, Despite Abuse Record

Immigration Program Expands, Despite Abuse Record

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has made a name for himself using controversial tactics targeting illegal immigrants in Arizona. The chief law enforcement officer of Maricopa County and author of the book "America's Toughest Sheriff," Arpaio boasts that he's arrested some 30,000 undocumented immigrants, many of whom he's put to work on chain gangs, paraded in pink underwear before news cameras, and housed in sweltering plastic tents clustered behind coils of concertina wire.

But as William Finnegan recently documented in The New Yorker, Arpaio's publicity stunts – enabled by a federal immigration program known as 287(g) that deputizes local authorities to enforce federal immigration laws — aren't just humiliating. Prisoners have filed thousands of legal claims of abuse against Arpaio and his deputies – and by families of those who’ve died under his watch. A federal investigation found Arpaio's deputies used "stun guns" on inmates strapped into restraint chairs; some have died in those chairs. One lawsuit brought by a dead prisoners' family ended in an $8 million settlement after "a surveillance video that showed fourteen guards beating, shocking, and suffocating the prisoners, and after the sheriff's office was accused of discarding evidence, including the crushed larynx of the deceased."

Although Arpaio is now the target of a federal investigation for civil rights violations, he’s never lost his authority to enforce the federal immigration laws under the 287(g) program.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is in charge of that program, and recently announced its expansion to 11 more jurisdictions. The former U.S. Attorney and then Governor of Arizona, Napolitano was reportedly allied with the politically popular Arpaio and long tolerated his abuses, referring at a press conference to the lawsuit she settled with him while a federal prosecutor as "lawyerly paperwork."

http://washingtonindependent.com/52197/immigration-program-expands-despite-abuse-record

[ShortnFiery]

97. Whoa! Amazing research data provided.

I'm going to seriously rethink my opinions/perspectives on this issue.

Sincere thanks. :thumbsup:

[William Z. Foster]

99. you made my evening

Thank you. That is all I ask - that people listen.

[ShortnFiery]

106. You're most welcome.

My entire extended family has a distinctive right wing libertarian bent. Sometimes I find myself slipping into "the dark side" albeit it's not at all intentional.

I've come to the realization over the past couple of days that given the increased public anxiety and increasing encroachments on our civil rights, "there but for the grace of God go I."

If the populace is whipped up into a security FEAR frenzy, every American Citizen could ALSO be considered either a potential "terrorist" and/or an "undocumented worker."

It's time to find our humanity and cease with all the warmongering and needless incarcerations of good people.

Yes, I've had an epiphany ... and my mind is not that easy to change.

Thanks again. :-)

[William Z. Foster]

134. yeah

No problem. I appreciate your willingness to look at things anew - it is rare and very admirable and inspiring.



on edit - notice I didn't say anything about "the road to Damascus" LOL.

[William Z. Foster]

94. Troubling record of sexual abuse in immigrant detention centers

Troubling record of sexual abuse in immigrant detention centers

In the last several years, rates of detention have soared. U.S. Immigration officials detain over 200,000 individuals and spend more than $600 million dollars on detention each year. A report released in 2004 by Just Detention International, a national human rights organization, entitled "No Refuge Here: A First Look at Sexual Abuse in Immigration Detention," calls attention to the troubling problem of sexual abuse in immigration detention centers in the United States.

The report focuses on three central issues: (1) the considerable reported record of sexual abuse of detainees, (2) the lack of substantive policies and procedures in place to address such abuse, and (3) immigration officials' refusal to allow independent monitoring of conditions for detainees. JDI calls on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to implement more detailed and comprehensive standards for the prevention and treatment of sexual assault in facilities that hold immigration detainees.

Immigration officials have raped detainees and have abused their authority by exchanging goods and privileges for sex. Threats of violence and deportation have been used by immigration staff to coerce detainees into performing sex acts. Staff members have watched female detainees when they are dressing, showering, or using the toilet and some regularly engage in verbal degradation and harassment of detainees. Detainees have also reported groping and other sexual abuse by staff during pat frisks and searches.

http://latinainstitute.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/troubling-record-of-sexual-abuse-in-immigrant-detention-centers/

[William Z. Foster]

95. Immigrant Children Beaten in Detention

Immigrant Children Beaten in Detention

A new lawsuit filed against a private contractor who runs an immigrant child detention center claims nine teenagers were beaten and abused by employees who work for Cornell Companies. The company has been cited by immigration officials for safety problems in the past. The Hector Garza facility in San Antonio handles young immigrant "males with serious behavioral and psychological impairments."

"I think the general American has no idea these kids even exist,” said Susan Watson, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid attorney for the nine plaintiffs, “When our own government treats them this way, they deserve their day in court," she said.

So no only were these teenagers beaten (conveniently by contractors, not U.S. officials so that the country can claim clean hands), but they may have psychological problems. These are young people who are separated from their families. Young people crossing the border without their parents, maybe looking to meet up with parents who were already inside the U.S.

One of the plaintiffs is described in court documents as a 16-year-old Honduran male identified as C.C. Arriving at the border alone, C.C. was put into custody for a week by Border Patrol agents. He was later transferred to the Hector Garza Center, where court filings claim a teacher "severely battered C.C. punching and kicking him, then beating him with a chair as he lay on the floor."

http://vivirlatino.com/2008/05/20/us-family-values-immigrant-children-beaten-in-detention.php

[William Z. Foster]

96. Prison for Immigrant Children

Prison for Immigrant Children

T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Texas "used" to be a prison. But now the Department of Homeland Security is nice enough and is using it to “house” immigrants being considered for deportation or asylum and their children. This includes pregnant women.

...double-layered chain link fence topped with concertina wire in places. Or the uniformed, handcuff-toting correctional officers – called "counselors" – and the tight two-person cells where mothers and children live for weeks or months awaiting their fate.

A prison by any other name is still a prison.

Children are allowed milk but pregnant women are not. Food is served through a slot, like in any other prison. Children within the facility are allowed one hour of playtime outside a day and one hour of English schooling (even if they don’t speak or understand English). Misbehaving children are threatened to be taken away from their parents by guards. None of the people inside Hutto have criminal records. Their crime? Being undocumented or seeking asylum.

This year Congress reaffirmed its instruction to the U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agency to stop separating families and only use detention as a last resort. Families should be housed in "non-penal, homelike environments until the conclusion of their immigration proceedings."

But Hutto is far from a homelike environment. Instead, everybody, including children, must wear prison-issued uniforms. If not housed in the same cell, a parent can't comfort their crying child at night unless a guard gives permission. Children aren't allowed to keep the pictures they color.
Many women have reported being shackled when traveling for routine doctor appointments. According to the detention report, one woman being screened for tuberculosis told the radiologist she was five months pregnant, but the doctor refused to give her a lead screen to protect her fetus during the X-ray.

http://vivirlatino.com/2007/02/27/prison-for-immigrant-children.php

[William Z. Foster]

98. Detained immigrant children face legal maze

Detained immigrant children face legal maze

When "Marta" was 12, she entered the United States illegally, hoping to join her mother, who had left her in Central America years ago to search for work. Three years later she was sitting in immigration detention by herself waiting to be deported back home to her grandmother, who was dying of cancer.
Detained children

Her case is typical of the 7,211 children known to have entered the United States illegally in 2008 by themselves, according to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement, which runs the shelters where the children are detained. Children come searching for family members or a way out of poverty with little understanding of the legal ramifications they face.

Marta had something not every child in those circumstances receives -- legal representation. A lawyer employed by the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, a nonprofit legal assistance group, took her case. It made the difference between being deported and getting a shot at a visa.

But not every child will go before a judge with a lawyer. Last year, as many as 50 percent of the children detained went before judges with no lawyer, according to Wendy Young, director of Kids in Need of Defense. She says it could get worse, because the organizations that provide free legal defense for these children are struggling financially and cutting back.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/22/lia.detained.children/index.html

[William Z. Foster]

100. The Big Business of Family Detention

The Big Business of Family Detention

When President Barack Obama made it his first act in office to shut down Guantánamo Bay prison, he effectively ended one shameful chapter in our country's embarrassingly large book of human-rights abuses. It was not so much redemption as a reminder that this country has a long, long way to go when it comes to detention, due process, and the Geneva Convention. It's not just alleged terrorists that are suffering from our inhumane treatment. It's also children.

The United States is currently holding 30,000 immigrants in detention while they await hearings. The country operates three family immigrant detention centers, the most notorious of which is the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, a former prison currently under the private management of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The 600-bed center detains families who are awaiting asylum or immigration hearings, a major departure from past federal policy. Pre-September 11, families charged with immigration violations (which are not criminal violations) or who came to the country asking for asylum were generally allowed to live independently as long as they agreed to attend a hearing.

The transition from "catch and release" to "catch and detain" has been riddled with controversy. Immigrant detention became a boom business under the Bush administration, which supplied the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency's (ICE) $1 billion-plus detention budget. Private contractors get $200 a head per day for family detention and lobbied hard for the policy shift: Mother Jones reports that "in 2004, when Congress passed legislation authorizing ICE to triple the number of immigrant detention beds, CCA's lobbying expenditures reached $3 million; since then, it has spent an additional $7 million on lobbyists."

The bottom line is not just economic, however. Children and families have suffered inexcusable indignities under this new policy, which treats them like convicted criminals instead of asylum-seekers and potential citizens. Despite the fact that myriad human rights and community groups -- such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Immigration Studies -- have condemned the practice of detaining children in prison-like environments, ICE is seeking to open three new family detention centers, doubling its capacity. As of this writing, ICE still hasn't released the names of the winning contractors and/or locations, but the announcement is expected to be made sometime this year with the new facilities scheduled to open in 2010.

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_big_business_of_family_detention

[William Z. Foster]

104. Mass Firings, The New Face of Immigration Raids

Excellent articele that sheds light on the consequences of the "go after the employer" idea, and shows the hypiocrisy in that position.

Mass Firings, The New Face of Immigration Raids

Nevertheless, whether or not they're motivated by economic gain or anti-union animus, the current firings highlight larger questions of immigration enforcement policy. "These workers have not only done nothing wrong, they’ve spent years making the company rich. No one ever called company profits illegal, or says they should give them back to the workers. So why are the workers called illegal?" asks Nativo Lopez, director of the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana. The Hermandad, with roots in Los Angeles' immigrant rights movement going back to legendary activist Bert Corona, has organized protests against the firings at Overhill Farms and American Apparel. "Any immigration policy that says these workers have no right to work and feed their families is wrong and needs to be changed," he declares.

President Obama says sanctions enforcement targets employers "who are using illegal workers in order to drive down wages — and oftentimes mistreat those workers." This restates a common Bush administration rationale for workplace raids. Former ICE Director Julie Meyers asserted that she was targeting "unscrupulous criminals who use illegal workers to cut costs and gain a competitive advantage." An ICE Worksite Enforcement Advisory claims "unscrupulous employers are likely to pay illegal workers substandard wages or force them to endure intolerable working conditions." Curing intolerable conditions by firing or deporting the workers who endure them doesn’t help the workers or change the conditions, however. But that’s not who ICE targets anyway. Workers at Smithfield were trying to organize a union to improve conditions. Overhill Farms has a union. American Apparel pays better than most garment factories. In Minneapolis, the 1200 fired janitors at ABM get a higher wage than non-union workers – and they had to strike to win it.

ICE's campaign of audits and firings, which SEIU Local 26 president Javier Murillo calls "the Obama enforcement policy," targets the same set of employers the Bush raids went after – union companies or those with organizing drives. If anything, ICE seems intent on punishing undocumented workers who earn too much, or who become too visible by demanding higher wages and organizing unions. And despite Obama’s notion that sanctions enforcement will punish those employers who exploit immigrants, at American Apparel and ABM the employers were rewarded for cooperation by being immunized from prosecution. ICE threatened to fine Dov Charney, American Apparel's owner, but then withdrew the threat, according to attorney Peter Schey. Murillo says, "the promise made during the audit is that if the company cooperates and complies, they won't be fined. So this policy really only hurts workers."

And the justification for hurting workers is also implicit in the policy announced on the White House site: "remove incentives to enter the country illegally." This was the original justification for employer sanctions in 1986 – if migrants can't work, they won't come. Of course, people did come, because at the same time Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, it also began debate on the North American Free Trade Agreement. That virtually guaranteed future migration. Since NAFTA went into effect in 1994, over six million Mexicans, like Dolores Contreras, have been driven by poverty across the border. "The real questions we need to ask are what uproots people in Mexico," Hing says, "and why U.S. employers rely so heavily on low-wage workers."

http://mlyon01.wordpress.com/2009/12/14/mass-firings-the-new-face-of-immigration-raids/

[William Z. Foster]

110. Dignity, Not Detention

Dignity, Not Detention

American Friends Service Committee

The issue of detention has become more pressing as recent news reports demonstrate the lack of accountability and structure in the detention system, as the Obama administration continues to detain more people each day, as ICE officials are once again engaging in workplace raids, and as the cost to taxpayers of detaining people continues to skyrocket.

Over 300,000 immigrants a year are detained in a secretive web of 350 private, federal, state and local jails, and prisons at an annual cost of more than $1.7 billion to taxpayers. The GEO center in Aurora, CO is estimated to cost taxpayers close 1.8 million dollars a year.

Over eighty percent of detained immigrants go through the immigration system with no lawyer. Immigrants can be detained for months or years without any meaningful judicial review of whether they should be released. While detained, immigrants face horrific prison conditions, including mistreatment by guards, solitary confinement, the denial of medical attention and limited or no access to their families, lawyers and the outside world. In many cases, these conditions have proven fatal: since 2003, a reported 107 people have died in immigration custody.

http://afsc.org/resource/%E2%80%9Cdignity-not-detention-campaign-continues-press-release

[EFerrari]

120. Good job, William.n/t

[Bluebear]

145. Thank you for all your hard work, WIlliam.

[treestar]

60. That's an oversimplified way of looking at it

It's not as if he can just halt deportations willy nilly. Illegal aliens under current law can be deported. I think most of them should get amnesty, but that's not the law yet. If it's not, there is no reason for the government not to deport them at all. As for the number increasing, that's not going to mean anything but that there are more of them who've reached that stage.

[William Z. Foster]

72. thought you were an ally?

I am posting the less simplified way of looking at it.

[treestar]

141. I'm just saying the law now is such that if people are deportable, there is

not something wrong with the government deporting them.

It's unjust in that the law is unjust, but the law being there, I don't expect Obama to halt all deportations.

Though he did do that for the little girl's mother, or at least, is not allowing ICE to use the little girl's slip to target her mother.

[William Z. Foster]

152. yes there is

Yes there is something wrong with what the government is doing.

Justice denied anywhere is justice denied everywhere.

You could not have read any of the material I posted and still be saying these things.

[Barack_America]

62. I can't help but notice the 2009 and 2010 numbers are from different sources...

...than the other years.

[Bluebear]

68. And?

[Barack_America]

78. May not be based on the same method of calculating the numbers, for one.

Sorry, it's just the scientist in me being picky.

[Bluebear]

80. Gotcha, certainly 2010 is just a "goal" that the government has set for this year

I'm betting they will exceed their goal!

[johnaries]

85. No, you are missing the point which makes your comparison chart

completely invalid.

It would be different if we had a standardized method to determine absolute numbers. But in this case we do not.
we are dealing with pure estimates. Since different sources use different methods of estimates, you cannot mix different estimates if your purpose is to create a timeline comparison. Unless, of course, you want to "fudge" the numbers in order to prove a false point.

He makes a good point. The fact that your comparison chart mixes sources makes the entire chart not only invalid but highly suspect for ulterior motives.

edit: kan't spel. :)

[William Z. Foster]

90. enough

I am posting, and will continue to post, all of the documentation necessary to support the position that the OP is taking.

It will, I am sure, be ignored, and then we will hear the same discredited and refuted talking points again tomorrow on thread, after thread, after thread.

See the posts above, and dispute the findings of the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and other reputable organizations and never mind the absurd nitpicking about charts and the malicious insinuations against the OP.

[EFerrari]

126. I found this about San Francisco. ICE is going to have an uphill battle here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8382106&mesg_id=8388933

[Bluebear]

91. Well, it's not "my" chart, so march right over to their site & tell them they have ulterior motives

Here's their website, have at it, amigo:

http://americasvoiceonline.org/

[johnaries]

135. But you used the chart as the basis of your OP.

If the chart is wrong, then you have no argument. Your entire OP is WRONG.

You should do more research and base your opinions on more information than just a single source. That's why most serious Scientific publications won't publish any results until they have been independently verified.

Otherwise, the Intelligent Design people make perfect sense. And we're no different from them.

[William Z. Foster]

79. let's dig in

You are a scientist, and picky. There is a wealth of information on this topic. Let's for once get serious, really dig in and look at this issue in depth rather than trading talking points back and forth.

[johnaries]

87. That's fair.But misleading and invalid charts only obscure the issue.

I agree. Let's look into this issue seriously. And let's also reserve judgement until we have some real data and not bullshit charts.

[William Z. Foster]

93. huh

I would say nitpicking and going on and on about charts is what might obscure the issue.

Ready when you are to look into the issue seriously.

[ShortnFiery]

102. Sadly, if the "authorities" are now only locking up undocumented or past visa immigrants,

the average American is not going to care much. Not unlike the latest court ruling that allows DOD to capture and INDEFINITELY hold "suspects" at Bahrain. Translation: If it doesn't affect ME or MINE then it doesn't exist.

I'm not disrespecting my fellow Americans for sadly it's part of the human condition. I wish that our higher power would have extended more compassion when he/she created us.

Americans will begin to care A LOT when they or their loved ones are snatched off of the streets and held incommunicado for indefinite periods of time. And the foregoing will happen sooner rather than later.

If we have another significant terrorist attack, be prepared to be treated EXACTLY like undocumented workers. You best not ever speak out against anything that our government is doing unless you wish to be arrested and indefinitely detained.

But again, no significant numbers of American Citizens will care until it HITS HOME.

[johnaries]

103. Charts have an emotional impact. They can be used to great effect

and be very misleading.

And in case you're wondering, yes, I have been involved in several presentations. I am a Six Sigma Black Belt. Please Google it. One of the things that my Black Belt teachers drilled into our heads was "does your data make sense in the real world?". Because it was so easy to subconsciously manipulate the data and statistics to fit your preconceived ideas. But there are checks you can perform.

So, one thing that I hate is when someone presents data without doing their homework. The thing that I absolutely hate is when someone purposely manipulates data to prove their pre-conceived theory. The Right does it all the time. I thought that the Left was "better than that", at least for the most part.

When I see someone on "our side" doing the same thing, it sets me off!

:rant:

Now, if you want to discuss the issue, please present your case. I'm willing to listen.

[William Z. Foster]

105. so do talking points

I am posting lots of text above, so you will not have to rely on pictures for your understanding of this issue.

[Bluebear]

109. Good luck with that one. nt

[Bluebear]

107. You have a hell of a nerve, I will give you that. /ignore

[johnaries]

108. "Nerve"? Really? Because I seek the Truth?

If you want to ignore me for that, well, please do. That still won't change the Truth.

[William Z. Foster]

111. we are trying to do our homework

We are trying to do our homework on this issue. Your petty nitpicking about charts is distracting us.

[johnaries]

116. ? ??? "Nitpicking"? It's a LIE. I'm trying to help you w/homework.

People use charts to LIE all the time. But people tend to believe charts. But any chart is only as good as the data that the chart is based on. If the data is wrong, then the chart is wrong. A good example is the recent FOXNEWS pie chart that equalled more than 100% that was all over the net.

Disputing the data a chart is based on is not "nitpicking" - it is vital. It makes all the difference between the Truth and a Lie.

The chart presented in the OP is a LIE. That is the bottom line.

[William Z. Foster]

125. it is not a lie

Enforcement is up. I have documented that. You apparently do not want people to read that documentation, and have found some petty and bogus excuse to use to distract people and malign and discredit the OP. It is very transparent.

[johnaries]

130. If the data is not accurate, it is a LIE. Period.

If you have other evidence, please present it.

[William Z. Foster]

136. this data?

"During fiscal year 2009, the first full fiscal year of Obama's presidency, 387,790 immigrants were deported -- almost 100,000 more during the last full fiscal year of the Bush presidency..."

Does the chart vary from that? 2010 is a projection, yes? What's the problem?

[johnaries]

137. Why should I believe that? Where did those figures come from?

"What's the problem?" The problem is, I have no reason to trust your figures. You may be right, but why should I believe you?

You gave me a quote, but where did that quote come from? I'm guessing you just pulled it out of your ass. Putting quote marks around it doesn't make it so.

I've worked in my company for over 20 years, and I've seen bullshit before. There have been many times when I thought I was going to be fired for being honest, but so far I have been spared for speaking the truth while those above me who tried to manipulate the truth were "allowed to pursue other career opportunities".

I would like very much to investigate this matter further. However, to investigate it seriously I must do so seriously. The evidence presented so far is either "here-say" or "manipulated". The fact that the data presented has been manipulated makes me doubt any "here-say" evidence and makes me suspect that those presenting this evidence have an "ulterior motive".

I would like to keep an Open Mind, but you have given me the impression that you do NOT have an Open Mind and are pushing a particular agenda.

Therefore, be prepared that any evidence you offer will be scrutinized carefully. As, actually, all evidence should be.

Please do not be upset if I question your sources. I am only looking for the Truth.

As you should be.

[William Z. Foster]

153. then don't

I haven't asked you to believe me.

I posted the most respected and authoritative sources I could find. There are many more like that. Read them and make up your own mind. I don't expect to reach everyone. If I don't reach you it is not the end of the world.

[butterfly77]

113. what was she challenging her..

to do go write the bill?

[Bluebear]

117. Oh yeah I forgot, the President has NO say in legislation, right?

Poor guy, waiting in the Oval office waiting for SOMETHING to cross his desk.

[butterfly77]

156. Oh, I guess that question can 't be asked..

Can I ask another one? When this legislation is written can it say anywhere that some can be sent back to their home country?or should everyone here already be allowed to stay? Tell me what should be the main points to the bill? I will tell you one..Jail and fine employers...

[EFerrari]

119. Damn kids always bringing up stuff we don't want to talk about.

[Bluebear]

122. Como se dice "pipe down, kid" en espagnol?

:silly:

[EFerrari]

124. Caillese! = KAI -eh-seh

:hi:

[butterfly77]

157. Yeah, you kids seem to think that..

the immigration issue is only about hispanics. I want everyone included HB1 visas recipents come out!come out wherever you are! Illegals coming across the canadian border..

[William Z. Foster]

114. no charts here

ICE Numbers Belie Obama Promise on Immigration Enforcement

The Obama administration had long promised to shift the focus of immigration enforcement from workers to employers. In real terms, that means less of the high-profile raids like those at electronics and meatpacking plants in Postville, Iowa and Laurel, Miss. that characterized the last years of the Bush administration. Those led to the arrests of hundreds of immigrant workers, but only a trickle of employer prosecutions.

Instead, as John Morton, assistant secretary of Homeland Security under President Obama, promised in a rare public speech earlier this year at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., his agency would "focus on the employer" and pursue "aggressive criminal and civil enforcement against (employers) who knowingly violate the law." "But it hasn't been done," said Crystal Williams, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA).

Although Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) worksite arrests appear to be trending down, worksite raids continue. I-9 or Employment Eligibility Verification audits designed to spot unauthorized workforces have leapt in number. Meanwhile, ICE’s own statistics — which the agency shared with New America Media — show that the agency’s efforts to investigate employers have yet to yield an increase in prosecutions. In fact, the opposite happened — ICE brought less charges against employers in 2009 than it had the previous year.

...

Taken together, the total number of ICE cases referred to the federal courts ballooned to 20,411 in fiscal year 2009 — a 12 percent increase over the prior year — according to data from the Transactional Records Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University.

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=d16434d06ea38b81f6425cfa5944433c

[William Z. Foster]

118. Immigrant advocates say immigration enforcement worse under Obama

Immigrant advocates say immigration enforcement worse under Obama

Advocates who spoke at today’s press conference in Washington, D.C. angrily pointed to statistics that showed a significant acceleration in immigration enforcement over President Bush’s last year, with over 387,000 immigrants deported since Obama's inauguration. As a result, livelihoods were lost, local economies affected, and families split apart, the advocates said.

"These are the same enforcement practices that we marched against during the Bush administration," said Angelica Salas, director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

On any given day, Salas added, over 32,000 immigrants are under detention in jails and prisons around the country awaiting deportation.

The advocates said they felt betrayed by an Obama administration that promised to take their concerns into account and then became more aggressive than its predecessor in cracking down on immigrants.

http://www.alternet.org/immigration/145963/immigrant_advocates_say_immigration_enforcement_worse_under_obama

[William Z. Foster]

121. Republicans Wanted

Republicans Wanted
NYT March 12, 2010

On Thursday, President Obama held meetings on immigration reform with immigrant advocates and labor and religious leaders, with Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham, and with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He came out reiterating his "unwavering" commitment to comprehensive immigration reform. We've heard that before; what we’d rather know is when the bill is coming, what it will look like and what he is going to do to get it passed. Enough with the talk.

People who met with Mr. Obama asked the same thing. His response: Get some Republicans on board, then we'll discuss it. The fate of immigration reform, then, hangs on its ability to win Republican votes. In today’s Washington, that’s enough to make anyone want to reach for the plug and pull it.

Fixing immigration was supposed to be different from all the other dead-end Congressional trench battles, because of one thing: bipartisan support. There was always a lot for Republicans to like: conservative arguments that reform is good for business, reunites families, bolsters national security - and pleases Latino voters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/opinion/13sat3.html

[William Z. Foster]

123. Immigration Raids Tear Families Apart Again

Immigration Raids Tear Families Apart Again

Relatives of the detainees and others call on President Obama to stop splitting families and reform broken immigration system

oday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested twenty-nine individuals as they raided two restaurants, one office and several homes in Maryland. Throughout the day, ICE agents and police went from location to location in Anne Arundel and Baltimore Counties rounding up workers and taking them off the job and from their homes. This is just the latest in a series of raids in Maryland which are tearing families apart and terrifying immigrant communities.

"Everyday, tens of thousands of hardworking immigrants in Maryland leave their families to go to work, and tonight twenty-nine of our brothers are detained as their families are left to grieve," said Gustavo Torres, Executive Director of CASA de Maryland. "This is not an acceptable way to treat members of our community who work hard every day to make Maryland strong for us all."

Family members of one of the detained individuals will be at the press conference to speak to the impact of the raid on their family. They will be joined by others to call on President Obama and the United States Congress to show leadership in fixing our broken immigration system.

http://www.casademaryland.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1170:immigration-raids-in-maryland-tear-families-apart-again&catid=45:press-release&Itemid=128

[William Z. Foster]

127. a challenge

I have posted links to and excerpts from over 20 articles and reports and studies.

I do not believe that any Democrat, progressive or liberal could read that material and continue to make anti-immigrant posts, unless they were in fact expressing bigotry and hatred under the guise of their "arguments."

I dare anyone to read that material - should we not be informed on issues before we aggressively post about it over and over again? - and then devise an anti-immigrant position that is consistent with the party's values and that is not racist. I do not believe it can be done.

Again and again, those speaking out against racism and in defense of immigrants and civil rights and the Constitution have been pummeled by the same talking points, they have been maligned and attacked. Often there are demands for "links" and "proof."

OK, now you have your links and your proof. If people are unwilling or unable to respond to the material in those studies and articles, there can be only one conclusion - they are not seriously interested in this issue, they are interested in spreading hatred and bigotry. There is no third alternative.

[bluestateguy]

128. Nothing wrong with enforcing existing laws on the books

That what we should be doing. Heavy-handed new laws like Arizona's are dead wrong, however.

[William Z. Foster]

131. not the issue

At issue is the government obeying the law, starting with the Constitution. Let's enforce those "laws on the books."

[johnaries]

132. There is the legal argument "as enforced",

I agree with you, "technically" this law only reinforces Federal Law. The problem is not really how it is written, but the fact that it cannot be enforced without "racial profiling" which is also prohibited within the law.

Basically, regardless of how well some think the law was written, the law cannot be carried out without violating the law, itself. Although it's more complicated than I present here, the law says that racial profiling is prohibited but also required. It also says that if Local Law Enforcement does not perform racial profiling that local citizens can sue them.

I would not want to be a cop in AZ right now. If you ask for someone's "papers" you could get sued for racial profiling. If you don't do racial profiling, you could get sued by anyone who happens to be around anytime a Hispanic is also around.

Anyway you look at it, although we need a better immigration policy, the AZ law SUCKS!

[EFerrari]

147. Treating working people like stray dogs is wrong, no matter how it's justified. n/t

[Unvanguard]

133. This needs to STOP. NOW.

No more deportations. Not one more.

[Swamp Rat]

146. +1

Not one more.

[Common Sense Party]

138. It looks like NON-criminal deportations are DOWN this year

While CRIMINAL deportations are up.

So, what's the problem?

[EFerrari]

148. Well, that isn't the case.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8378001&mesg_id=8388335

[Mojeoux]

139. Your Links are Illuminating.

I pray for those kids.

I think Im Ref. should start with allowing letting undocumented people get driver's licenses.

This could be a first start.

A lot of people just want to go into undocumented homes and just drag them all away.

This is cruel and foolish.
Out sourcing good jobs by greedy tax dodging corporate rats are the enemies of our economy.

We can't have "America the Brave," right next to a country that is living in the "Grapes of Wrath."

[Name removed]

149. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

150. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LWolf]

155. k&r