Open Veins

A parable.

2011-10-28T13:01:00.001-04:00

A man lives in an apartment building that pays a super to maintain the plumbing system, and one day he goes into his kitchen and sees water leaking onto the floor. He calls building management, and they say, “Just put a bucket under it and some tape on it, and don’t worry,” and he does. As the days go by, the leak continues, even as he works at emptying the bucket; but eventually, while he’s at work, the bucket overflows. He calls the building, and they say they’ll send someone, but they don’t. And the leak continues, and the floor becomes warped, and mildew grows on it, so he spends hours scrubbing but has to eventually start eating in his bedroom. And the leak continues, raining down into the apartment below, so he makes more and more furious phone calls, and they do nothing. And eventually he says he will withhold his rent, and they do not answer. And then he does withhold rent, and they sue him for back rent, the damaged floor in his apartment, the damaged ceiling below, the costs of the phone calls he made to them, and the salaries of the people who answered the phones, as well as the cost of the invisible plumber.

And, finally, after he makes a counter-suit and several calls to newspapers and the city, they send a plumber, and he appears and says, “What do you want me to do?”
The man replies, “Uh, fix that big leak.”
“Yeah, but how?” asks the plumber. “If you can’t tell me how you want me to fix the leak, what do you expect me to do?”
The man looks at him and says: “I don’t need to know how to fix the leak. All I need to know is that the floor is wet and you are the plumber.”

Kol Nidre Occupies Wall Street

2011-10-12T11:15:00.002-04:00

This past Friday hundreds of people gathered on Liberty Street in downtown Manhattan -- right across Broadway from Occupy Wall St. -- and held a religious ceremony, one mandated by their tradition and conjoined by them with the protest across the street. This article in The Forward reflects the event very well -- the most communal and positive and still serious service I've perhaps ever attended, the most honest and vital as well.

In these days, what we call the High Holidays, Jews reflect on the deeds of the past year, consider their own shortcomings and rejoice in the limitless possibilities of the new year, to live clean, honest, and conscious lives in the days to come -- with a focus on community and humanitarianism.

The fact that on Yom Kippur we confess and ask forgiveness from G-d as a community -- not as individuals -- for a long list of sins we, personally, may not have committed has always struck me as important. This year, at this service, I realized this is what the Occupy movement helps us to do -- because of course the step after confessing our faults as a community is to take steps as a community to remedy those faults. We have allowed this system to grow up, so now we must, first, acknowledge the faults and, second, truly address them.

Friday's service, utilizing Occupy's 'human microphone' since it had no permit for technological sound amplification, was the full Kol Nidre, during which the community renounces all lightly made vows, oaths created under duress and, according to one of the leaders of the service, those vows we make through bad habits. We ask for a clean slate for the new year in which we hope to focus on only the most important and holy actions. During the ceremony, the gathered crowd also made the traditional expiation for a long list of transgressions -- one amended for the occasion, which included the line:
For failing to defend Israel.

This felt a little awkward in the circumstances, until it was followed immediately by:
And for failing to defend Palestine.

Along these lines, in the only other alteration of the service, one of leaders asked that, instead of chanting the traditional Aleynu prayer, members of the gathered call out a social commitment they wanted to make for the new year and all those who wished to take it up also called out "Aleynu". It proved a particularly rousing, engaging, and moving moment -- again, particularly when two women called in unison, something akin to: "I will take responsibility for the treatment of Palestine" and people cheered.

I asked an orthodox couple at the ceremony about this, about my surprise that this certainly religious group would prove so focused on social justice and openly declare a position that few would associate with religiously observant American Jews.

She looked at me and said, "If you actually read Torah, you have to be like that."

------
Occupy Sukkot begins today at Occupy Wall Street with the building of a "civil disobedient sukkah" in observance of the "eight-day festival of Sukkot [which] reminds us of the abundance we have, and how very fragile that abundance is". Check out the information here.

If you see something, say something.

2011-10-11T23:00:00.002-04:00

As the Occupy movement continues to grow and to spread, we see the growth also of a kind of intangible value to the protests, what stands side-by-side, almost invisibly, with the declared demands and causes, what underlies perhaps the most important facet of the uprisings' significance: The appearance of true and widespread dissent in the United States of America.

While the great gripe the protests voice about the American economic-political system -- this one in which we fire teachers (and cut after-school programs and arts and sports and AP classes) while funding several wars, erase pensions while giving tax money to the banks who gambled away those pensions, and so on -- remains clear to many of us, many have noted how shocking and important it is that people are simply saying: Enough. I'm pissed off, and I'm pissed of enough to plant myself in the street next to other people who are pissed off about the same shit.

At the very least, the Occupy movement has shattered the apathy of many Americans. Indeed, the people who have taken to the streets around the country are doing a favor for all of us who cling to our little crumbs of the pie and try to keep our eyes closed. They have altered the inertia; they have woken up many of us and hopefully will continue to wake up more, so that we stop allowing the rich and powerful and greedy to lead us around by our noses to toil in their service.

Paul Krugman -- Nobel Prize winner in Economics and professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University -- wrote in yesterday's New York Times a very clear piece about the effects of the protests on the mindsets of "wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor" as seen by how they "react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is". He points out the overreacting, panicked terms some politicians, finance figures, and commentators have been using towards the protests. He contends they do so because they don't like seeing themselves called out and "realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is."

Because that's partially what we have at stake here, a moral issue -- do we want the United States to be a place where each is out for him/herself and will sell his grandmother -- or, rather, yours (Social Security/Medicare...) to get ahead? That has never been our creed, though it has often, if not always, been our practice.

This reminds me of Christopher Hitchens's Letters to a Young Contrarian and the more recent (and hot-selling) short essay by Stéphane Hessel, a 94-year-old who fought the Nazis and participated in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, called in English Time for Outrage!. These publications share an admiration of the importance -- indeed the fundamental importance -- of questioning the status quo, of rocking the boat, of contradicting the party line, of expressing your anger.

This, in part, is what the Occupy movement is already doing for us: It opens a space for dialogue and contemplating -- and perhaps acting on -- ways to create a better society. It gives us a chance. At the least it should cause us to examine ourselves; at the most, who knows?

Who Are the 99%?: a return to vitality

2011-10-06T12:03:00.011-04:00

Ok. It seems I’ve returned to blogging. (Please forgive my rust.) I haven’t written since election day 2008; in fact, since his acceptance speech that night, I have not watched Barack Obama at all. I have barely followed any news with any specificity. I knew ahead of time I couldn’t handle it. I knew reality would never match up with the glorious dreams many of us shared that night, that the events that would transpire in our country and, indeed, around the world, would prove horrific to stomach. Until the horror landed on my doorstep. Until I could ignore it no longer. And—until Hope rode again along with it. I give thanks that this has happened, is happening. It is no mystical occurrence. It’s come borne on the backs of Americans (a term I apply to any person within the borders of this nation, regardless of immigration status), namely those who have ‘occupied’ Wall Street over the last few weeks.

Most of us have done our best to ignore them or discredit them – Who are “they”? What do they want? What’s their plan? What are their demands?

Most of the mainstream media coverage – though this seems to be changing, a touch, perhaps – has followed this sheepish, cynical, and demeaning line of attack. My friends are mostly artists and graduate students. Many of them have asked me the same questions. My family, liberals, too. Maybe we all figured this country's hallmark protest movement here (the “hippies”) failed and deserved to. Maybe we’re too scared to risk what little we have. Maybe we’re afraid the “protestors” are… right. We miss the point.

The point is not: What is their structure? Who is the leader? What is his five-year plan? What will they really accomplish?

The point is rather: We – different, dis-unified, dissimilar – have come together to stand up and alter the tide that’s sweeping us all under. To shake our society and force it to break the inertia that deadens us and leads us to follow, like lemmings, our fellow fools over the cliff to a dismal demise. It's true that "they" have no one demand nor a clear list of demands, but reflects not the competency of the protestors but rather the very reason for protest: so many things need changing in this country that we cannot attack one item at a time (see health care), but rather, we must alter the underlying nature of our system. We must change ourselves.

In that sense, I don’t care what the goals are. The act itself is what matters to me. That we not only awaken and recognize the dismal state we’re in but that we see we’re not the only ones and that we can come together. That we stand up not only for ourselves but for each other – for those who cannot or will not stand up, too. That we at least put up a (nonviolent) fight.

Can we by pure accumulation of mass, change the gravity field that currently pins us down? Where government by the (rich) people and for the (corporations that now count as) people does not continue to work its own self-serving agenda unimpeded by the People it manipulates to keep running its con-game? Yes, I understand this is how government often works, but let’s not make it so easy for them, alright?

When Goldman-Sachs is the biggest bank on Wall St. and Goldman-Sachs alumni serve at top levels in the U.S. Government, we have a problem. When people are losing their life savings and college savings when Lehman Brothers collapses, but Lehman Brothers employees get huge sums of taxpayer money at the same time, we have a problem. When, in the midst of high unemployment, massive personal debt, and irrational credit-interest rates, Credit Suisse North America reports great earnings, we have a problem. Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges lays this out rather nicely in this rather contentious interview.

I have, to a large degree, chosen my own situation – barely part-time employment, no health care, a significant credit-card debt. As things go, I will never buy a house or be able to retire. But I chose it only by not going to business school or law school – by following my own dream, the one promised me by this country. I chose it by not sticking to a job – for a Wall Street bank – that had no job security and provided actually no benefits. I chose it by not sticking with a job that made me desperately miserable, had no chance for advancement, and provided meager health care and no dental coverage. I chose it by dedicating myself to the full-time job of artist – in addition to the part-time job of substitute teacher and private tutor, since to actually earn a living as an artist in this society is largely absurd.

Still, I could choose law school. I could choose finance. Med school. Corporate marketing. Telecommunications consulting. If I took out massive loans. I’m, relatively, in a position to do that – ignoring that it’s never taken me less than eight months of searching to get a ‘real’ job. So could -- assuming somehow they could pay for it and could gain admission -- all the “kids” who have joined this burgeoning movement, all of the people who marched yesterday. Of course, if we did, our country would have no: schools, cars, restaurants, garbage collection, running water, electricity, roads, buildings or motherfucking art. (Among a lot of other things.) There would be little where people did things for each other and not just for themselves. I don’t want to live in that place. I suspect neither do you.

So, if you want to question the motives of the people around the country stirring up trouble, just think for a moment. Remember that, unless you are part of the top 1% richest Americans, they’re actually enduring your scorn to help you.

So, the 99% aren’t a well running organization. Considering how our political institutions function in this country, I say: Good. So, they have not articulated their demands to your liking – that’s part of the point. Their mere presence should remind the rest of us that we need to think outside the boxes to which we’ve become accustomed. We need to wake up. So, they have no plan beyond staying in the street as long as it takes for a tidal change in sentiment across this nation that maybe can lead to tangible changes. I’m okay with that. As we saw with the election of Barack Obama and also with the toppling of Mubarak in Egypt, among other events, the act of uniting people and changing something in and for ourselves can be its own victory, no matter what follows.

God Bless Us

2008-11-05T02:29:00.003-05:00

For all those who made calls and knocked doors, for all those who left home and worked in the campaign, for all those who sent money, for all those who talked to a friend or neighbor, for all those who wrote, for all those who prayed, for all those who went to the polls, thank you. We the people have tonight taken an unprecedented step, opening a door to a wide open future for us and for the world. Let's make it great.

Sloppy Democracy: A Tale of Election Woe

2008-11-04T15:00:00.009-05:00

I set out for the polls at noon with a light heart that now has sunken. At the end of short walk in sunshine of a glorious autumn day, I arrived at my designated polling place -- the Peter Roujet Middle School in Brooklyn -- and approached the information table, excited to exercise this most sacred of American duties. I told the woman my address; she looked in her materials and told me to get in line for the 20th district. I did.

Immediately in front of me in line were three young, Latino Brooklynites, voting for the first time. They were excited about it. But when, after about 15 minutes, they reached the table to get their voter cards, they found that not one of them was in the list of registered voters. They were offered paper affidavit ballots instead. They refused, thoroughly unconvinced that such ballots would be counted. They stormed out. During the minor fracas, a middle-aged Latino came to back the young men, saying he'd been turned down the previous year -- despite his having lived in the same house in that neighborhood for the past 30 years.

"They're trying to keep out votes out," he said, half-yelling. "But that's okay. The black man is still gonna win. White man trying it again."

This rattled me. Then I stepped to the table.

"He's in the wrong place. He should be at 15."
"The information table sent me here."
"She'll take you over to the front of the line."

Another poll worker appeared and led me to the front of the massively long line for district 15 and offered me to the three workers there. They told us to wait. She told me, "I'll be right back." She never reappeared. The workers at the table snapped at me, told me I had to get in the back of the line. I explained the situation -- they'd already heard it from the worker who'd brought me to them. They resisted. Told me I was being unfair. I started to step towards the back of the line, when one of them said, "Fine. I'll take care of you after we take three more people."

After two people were processed another poll worker approached the table.

"The computer fixed now?" they asked him.
"Seems to be."
"Take him," they said, laughing and gesturing to me. "Take him. You, go with him."
"Where?"
"Just go with him. You want to vote on the computer?"
"Why? And is it even working?"
"It's fine. It's fine," he told me. "If you don't like it you can come back and get in line."

What was this? Testing mattresses?

I went with him. Woodrow, a very affable, elderly African-American, seated me at a small desk with slight blinders on the sides and fed a voting form into the machine on the desk.

He said, "You can read, right? Just read the screen. Ask me if you have any questions. It will be fine."

I looked at the machine, made by a company called AutoMark. I realized it was essentially an automated way to fill out a 'handwritten' affidavit ballot, the kind given to people who don't appear on the list of registered voters. Would my vote go into that pile? Would it then even get counted? And would this happen just because I'd been sent to the wrong line and the poll workers didn't want to deal with me?

I stepped easily through the two-way, linear, touch-screen process. It was a simple system that notified you if you tried to move onto the next race without having looked at all the choices for the previous one. And it double checked if you tried to skip a race altogether. But I balked at the multiple listings for some of the candidates. What happens if I voted for Obama/Biden as the Working Families Party? Would that vote stick to the people or the party? Why were Obama/Biden Democrats at the top of the list, followed by three listings for McCain/Palin (Republican/Conservative/Independence)? And why were those four the only choices visible on the first page?

When I finished making my selections, the machine proffered a summary page to review my choices before finalizing them. It then spit the form back out, now blacked in at the appropriate places. Woodrow handed me an envelope -- just like those I'd seen given to the affidavit voters. I filled out my name and address on the envelope, dated and signed it. But what to do about the section that said I "MUST" mark one of three choices, explaining why I was filling an affidavit ballot? I wasn't. None of the choices applied to me.

Woodrow said, "Just write 'BMD'. Even though it says you must choose one, you don't have to."
I thought: Isn't that a surefire way to have my vote disqualified?

I questioned him about it, but he smiled and tried to reassure me. I folded my printout, sealed it in the envelope, after folding it awkwardly because it didn't fit, and handed it back to him. He told me then he'd take it back over to the table, the one with the workers who'd snubbed me.

Dazed, I stood in the hallway of the middle school for a few minutes. What had just happened? When I managed to wander out, I started talking to a young man who had used the computer right after me. He had no idea what had just happened.

He said, "The guy just came over to the line and asked if anyone knew how to use a computer. I raised my hand, and he told me to go with him."

He seemed even less clear than I on how we'd just voted and if we'd managed to disqualify our votes unknowingly and at the hands of the poll workers.

Woodrow was helpful and honest with me. When I asked, he told me he and his wife had had a four-hour training with this BMD ("Ballot Marking Device" " I discovered when I got home and Googled it) and then had operated one during the primaries. He seemed confident. I'm less so. I hadn't even filled in a Voter Card. Would my vote be tossed in with the affidavit ballots of people not on the registered voters list? Does that mean it will be counted? Will it even get into the system? Did this particular BMD make an internal record my vote and store it on its hard-drive? Does it have a hard-drive, or was it just an easier way of marking a 'hand-marked' ballot?

Look, I know that here in Brooklyn a few votes here or there probably won't make a difference nationally. But my experience illustrates some of the grave problems with our hodgepodge election system. Even within one polling place, I witnessed at least three different forms of casting ballots, and at least minor chaos resulted. What could be the result of millions of such places, multiplying each others' errors all over the country?

I also saw three young voters storm out, possibly forever, soured on the whole idea of voting because of the inefficiencies of the system that suddenly seemed to line up with the oppressiveness they'd experienced in previous interactions with the state. And, I had just literally attached my name to my vote. So much for the privilege of the secret ballot.

Yes, this may have taken place in a district that was probably already in the bag for one candidate; but if it happens here it can happen in states with a much closer margin. Obviously, these things degrade our democracy. They depress voter turnout and threaten the chance that the will of the people really be done. This was not voter suppression (though my general impression has been that, historically, Democrats try to get more votes counted and Republicans try to get more votes discounted) but it might as well have been. It may be worse. It's our own incompetence.

Fired up! Ready to go!

2008-11-04T11:28:00.003-05:00

Sen. Obama's final pre-vote rally last night, in Manassas, Virginia. No doubt that we need him to lead us.

First Voting Photo of the Day and God Bless Dixville Notch

2008-11-04T10:21:00.007-05:00

A couple of you have already sent us comments about your voting experiences -- from Japan to Mississippi to New Jersey -- and if more of you feel so moved to send such things our way, we'd be honored. And if you need to vent your anxiety or share any other thoughts on this exciting, thought-filled day, please do.

Oh, and if you hadn't yet heard, at least two New Hampshire towns have chosen Sen. Obama: He won early-voting and traditionally Republican Dixville Notch, NH, 15-6. Watch the vote count here. And he took Hart's Location with 17 votes to Sen. McCain's 10.

Final Words In This World

2008-11-04T00:38:00.008-05:00

Election Eve and I'm scared shitless. Maybe because I think polls are inaccurate, sensationalist crap. Maybe because I've never yet backed a winner for the Presidency. (Admittedly, this is only my third time voting for it.) Maybe I'm hedging my bets, so that a let-down won't hurt so hard. Maybe I'm a pessimist. But, really, I think it's this: A win by Barack Obama would be such an indescribably great and wonderful occurrence that I can't really believe it will happen.

A President Obama would mean so much -- almost, dare I say it, on a cosmic level -- that I find the possibility Nov. 5 could dawn with him as President-elect only fantasy. (What would follow an Obama inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009, is a problem for another day. I can't consider policy anymore. For now our universe is a closed system, consisting of one choice. Beyond that, nothing.)

Over the last few weeks I've found myself too sickened, too distraught, too concerned to parse my thoughts or analyze coherently enough to write, thanks to the dastardliness of Mr. McCain's campaign, during which the man sold all his principles; the deja vu of proud ignorance and rabid hatreds riled by Mrs. Palin; the overconfidence of Obama supporters; my constant dread the worst will always happen. Rather than be torn asunder and rabidly consumed by the furor of this violent, national circle jerk, now barreling into climax, I retreated.

While in hiding, I've firmed my belief that polls such as have yanked us around by our collective genitalia for the last months are bunk at their mildest and, at their harshest, severely imperil our political process. I've firmed my belief that we must have a nationally standardized voting process that ensures greater accuracy and transparency. For the Crusaders of Democracy the mechanisms of our own systems cry out embarrassingly for help. So much so that both sides in this election have vociferously called for greater diligence to prevent voter fraud (Republicans) and voter stifling (Democrats).

Yet this need for transparency must extend beyond candidate vetting and campaign finances. It must infuse the White House. And only one of the two campaigns has shown anything other than wretched disregard for transparency, truthfulness and human decency -- and it's not the one that once touted itself as the Straight-Talk Express, an engine than long ago went off the rails. America deserves better.

As we should have learned over the passed eight years, America also deserves a leader who relies more on fact and brainpower than his own arbitrary whims and fantasies. One who actually values the education so-often debated on the campaign trail.

I want a President who is smarter than I am. Someone who understands better than I how to make a government work best for its people and the world. One who is better educated and a better diplomat.

If you consider casting your vote for the guy who seems just like you (despite his several homes and numerous cars), consider this: Do you really think you should be President? If you think one guy is better to have a beer with, go drink with him, but for God's sake don't vote for him. (Anyway, he'll have more time for that drink with you if he's not busy running the country.)

Give me a public servant with a brain and with knowledge. And give me one who wants to help people -- not one who thinks war and the enforcement of a unilateral morality are the sole purposes of government. Not one who incites hatred and anger but one who values peace and co-existence, so that We the People can simply enjoy our rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. How do you expect a President to educate our children well, so they can compete in the world, when he did his damndest to get expelled from the institution of higher learning to which his family legacy handed him admission -- and who now mocks people who have worked hard for, earned and utilize an American education?

Electing Obama would be so great in large part because of what he represents. Not as the USA's first non-white President (though that would be historic and important) but because, despite what culture-war mongers like Sarah Palin would have you believe, he truly represents the best of America. Not only the part of it the Republican candidate for Vice President called the 'real America', but the expansive, encompassing, living, breathing, roaring underdog-mutt of a nation that we are. Obama is pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps; he represents the best of America and would best and most effectively represent us to the world -- and run our country.

After all, the Presidency is not an honor to be earned. Which candidate deserves the office more is a malignant consideration. The Presidency is not an honor. It's a job. You don't hand an old-timer the reigns of your company based on what he's given to the place. It's not an honorary position. You hand the job to the candidate who will not only represent the best of the company and stay truest to its mission but will best guide the company day-by-day towards its greatest potential. Don't vote for John McCain because he 'deserves' to be President. If you wish to truly honor his decades of service to America give him what he's earned: a rest.

In a few hours, we, the great, brash American experiment will launch ourselves onto a new vessel, in hopes it will serve us better than our current sinking wreck, as we continue our heaving and rising and plunging through ever-turbulent seas. Which of the two proffered ships will we choose to carry us onward?

Despite my raging doubts, I hope that as you read this you're visualizing your recently passed or soon-to-come trip to the voting booth and are eagerly awaiting 7 p.m. EST when the first polls close. As we sit poised on the edge of a potential turning point for our country and our time, I sit and hope that we as a nation put our collective balls on the table and take a step towards the future and not the past, a step towards change in which even I can believe.

Republican Off The Rails

2008-09-25T07:31:00.006-04:00

I just woke up nauseous and panicked from a nightmare -- what I thought was only a nightmare at first. Then I remembered it could be real. In it, I saw hundreds of screaming people lining a small roadway, waving (poorly-made) signs, begging the candidates to stop their campaigns and fix the economy.

This is absurdity. Suddenly, Pres. Bush is feeling left out of all the excitement, so he calls an urgent press conference and requests the two Presidential candidates return to the Hill and save the day. John McCain has jumped on his horse, slung his six-shooters on his hips and is ready to ride to the rescue, eschewing Friday's Presidential debate and, hell, the entire campaign until this problem is solved. Why?

Do we really need Mr. McCain trying to dig us out of financial crisis that was already visibly underway when he was telling us "the fundamentals of the economy are still strong"? Is the man whose candidacy was bolstered at the GOP convention by Fred Thomson's mocking Democrats for worrying over the health of the economy really who we need trying to fix this mess? The man who spent his career fighting regulation on Wall Street will suddenly save the day by implementing regulations on Wall Street? Suddenly, now that Sen. McCain has finally been convinced that there's a problem with unfettered financial gambling when it imperils his campaign, everybody has to stop what they're doing? The man who, at a Republican primary debate last December, was quoted as telling reporters: "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," McCain said.

But even so, even if we really need all our legislators involved on this immediately, why cancel the debate? Does Mr. McCain need more time to study? Can he not work on legislation for two days and then handle an hour-and-a-half debate? A President needs to be better than that.

Sen. McCain would have us believe that canceling the debate and suspending the campaign would be a selfless choice. But simply by saying that, by claiming to put politics aside to work together, Mr. McCain is making a solely self-serving political move. He bets that the American public won't see that he's just trying to use our financial woes to gain points in the polls based on his character, his willingness to sacrifice, to work out a problem everyone else has already been working on for days while he's campaigned. Sen. McCain's suggestion isn't really a suspension of the campaign, it's rather an attempt to bring the campaign to Capitol Hill. As Rep. Barney Frank said about the impending arrival of the candidates:

"We're going to have to interrupt a negotiating session tomorrow between the Democrats and Republicans on a bill where I think we are getting pretty close, and troop down to the White House for their photo op," said Frank, the House Financial Services Committee chairman. "I wish they'd checked with us."

Harold Meyerson suggests that McCain, realizing that Obama is more right on the economy than he is, will use the pressure of pseudo-bipartisanship in national crisis to erase the distinction between them in the minds of the public.

And, by avoiding debate with Sen. Obama, Sen. McCain is continuing the traditional Republican ploy of hiding from scrutiny, hiding from the people. Now, when we need to hear from it most, the so-called straight-talk express tries to slip into a dark tunnel. If the Democrats -- and we the people -- don't nail McCain's ass to the wall on this, they might as well roll over now. And that would make for a real nightmare.

No More Moose-Stepping

2008-09-23T09:43:00.005-04:00

"The Media" has always received its criticism -- charges of bias and spinelessness and unfairness all at once (even on these pages). That's fine. Mostly, it's deserved. It's necessary, even if not always right. (Even when revelatory reports make the front pages, we the people still re-elect George W. Bush. At some point we citizens hold responsibility.)

Currently, as always in campaign season, the press is drawing allegations of unfairness to the candidates. But the allegiance of the news media lies not primarily with fairness but with truth and justice. If only we adhere to that amongst the calculated maelstrom of accusations of bias from the Right and pussyfooting from the Left, if we could stand on moral high ground and respond to charges of unfairness with "But it's true, so shove off", rather than, "Oh, no, sorry; we didn't mean to upset you; we'll fix it", we can allow the flaming arrows of criticism to rain upon us without concern. The media's job is not be liked after all. If we're nice to everyone -- or indiscriminately derisive -- then we fail.

This is not rec-league soccer where everyone plays the same amount regardless of the benefit to the team. We are here to lay bare the machinations of government and advocate for the best for the American people and the world. Sometimes one side deserves more rebuke than another.

Let's take this page from what Gov. Palin spat at us at the GOP convention: "I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country." We do not exist to please our readership. Nor are we part of anyone's PR machine. We defer to no one but blind Justice and bright-eyed Truth.

Of course this is idealism. Those in the business of news also have other concerns and agendas -- legitimate and il- -- that compromise their work. So, those of us who serve no corporate master now can bear the realistic burden of truth telling.

So, with that, Open Veins officially endorses Barack Obama and Joe Biden of the Democratic Party. (As if that weren't obvious.) These are, of course, not perfect politicians. We hold certain concerns with them and will continue to make those known and look for others. To keep them honest as we can. We will attempt to maintain H.L. Mencken's perspective of politicians, looking at them only down.

But the Democratic is without hesitation the better ticket for America and our global co-habitants. Better by miles than a once-principled politician who, running on his integrity and authenticity, has now sold many of those principles and flipped positions on many issues in his heat for the Oval Office. And the provincial boss who despite her cries of revolution brings with her more of the fanatical, proud-to-know-nothing bullying that has blundered through the White House, the country and the world for the past eight years.

Sen. McCain touts himself as an agent of change, yet he has served in politics for nearly 30 years after more than 20 years in the military, which surely must be counted as part of the much-derided Institution. John S. McCain III is both son and grandson of Navy admirals. He is hardly new blood. His campaign has proven himself just another GOP cutout. Even on the topic of rebellion, first he criticized Sen. Obama as not having spent enough time in Washington; now he criticizes him as being a Washington insider. ABCNews nicely lays out some of the basic contradictions in the Republican campaign here.

One of the foremost concerns recently has been McCain's multiplicity of positions about the economy, which even after the collapse of Bear Stearns he said was still strong. After a career of pushing for de-regulation in financial markets and then his almost unbelievable lack of awareness of the already-underway financial catastrophe, McCain suddenly became Mr. Regulation only after disaster struck (the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and AIG), to the point that claimed he would fire the head of the SEC, a power the President does not have. A President must surely have greater foresight than that -- and a greater sense of reality. Jonathan Alter of Newsweek goes further in depth on this here.

Both the ABC and Newsweek pieces lead us to another great concern about McCain. He has gone from a true straight-talker to just another shifty politician who hides from public inquiry. ABC says that the formerly constantly available candidate has given way to one who hasn't held a press conference since Aug. 13, has diligently avoided the reporters covering his campaign and rarely speaks in public without a script. Who else has been famous for this? Presidents George W. Bush and Richard M. Nixon. Haven't we learned enough from those two men to shun the promise of an opaque White House?

In addition to its failings on policy, despite its incredulous rhetoric about hope and strength and change, this Republican ticket and its campaign -- often disingenuous; playing traditional, self-serving party politics; not sticking to its guns as promised; playing to our fears and delusions and hatreds; thinking that Americans will buy an anti-feminist as VP just because she has the correct private parts -- is mired in cynicism, and that's no way to lead America.

Pulling Back the Curtain: In Their Own Words

2008-09-09T11:48:00.008-04:00

On The Daily Show from Sept. 3, Jon Stewart lets GOP honchos -- including Sarah Palin herself -- expose their own hypocrisy in their bashing of the media for even talking about the GOP VP nominee in anything other than flattering... deference. Hypocrisy is a moral issue. The real revelation here is what the hypocrisy illuminates: That the pick of Palin is purely a self-serving, political move by the GOP, intended to put their interests as the Republican Party above those of the nation. It also reminds us of what we all claim to know but seem to constantly forget: Politicians are lying to you. Especially when they tell you they're not lying to you.

For those who can't watch the video, here are some highlights:

In one clip, Karl Rove lauds Palin for having been mayor of -- "I think" -- the second-largest city in Alaska. In a clip from last month, Rove blasted Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia for having been only governor for three years (Palin has served 1.5) and mayor of Richmond, which he derides as being "not a big town" (it has more than 20 times the population of Wasilla) and called Obama's considering of Kaine an "intensely political choice".

We then see a clip of Bill O'Reilly telling people to back off the issue of Palin's having a pregnant teenage daughter, that it's a "personal" family issue. Then we see a clip of Bill O'Reilly talking about the teenage pregnancy of Jamie Lynne Spears, in which he concludes that her pregnancy proves that her parents are "pinheads" and obviously have no control over their daughter.

Top McCain adviser Dick Morris, on the floor at the GOP convention derides the "deep sexism" that has resulted in the media's talking about Palin. Then a clip from a few months ago: "When a woman wants to be President, she shouldn't complain based on gender....This is what Hillary always does when she's under fire: She retreats behind the apron strings."

We even get a nip from Palin herself. Just watch. This is good journalism.

(Thanks to the three of you who brought this clip to our attention.)

Technorati tags: politics, Palin, Republican, Obama,President, Biden, McCain, Stewart, Rove.

Opening the Doors of Reason

2008-09-08T16:20:00.007-04:00

In Let Them In: The Case for Open Borders, a book released in May, Wall Street Journal editorialist Jason L. Riley debunks some of the main arguments for restricting immigration -- and does it primarily from a pro-free-market perspective. We've pushed these facts for a long time, here on Open Veins, but it's nice to see them validated by people who, judging from our current political climate, should stand on the opposite side of the wall.

Speaking of reason, Riley took his stance to ReasonTV. (Nice transition!) He says that a general increase in population has no real tie to a nation's prosperity: He cites the rich though densely populated Hong Kong and the sparsely populated but desperately poor region of sub-Saharan Africa. Riley says that because there is no fixed number of jobs in this country immigrants aren't stealing jobs from other Americans.

As for homeland security issues, he argues that if we were to let economic migrants in legally, they would cease to function as potential shields for people entering the country who might actually threaten us.

He agrees that there are of course costs in health care and education associate with illegal immigration -- though they're generally overstated. But he thinks the benefits outweigh those costs. The problem, he says, is that the costs of immigration happen on a local level but many of the benefits go to the Federal government -- payroll and other Federal taxes paid by undocumented immigrants who will never collect those benefits and a majority of whom, according to Riley, work on the books. In my mind, this explains much of the reason why so many localities have attempted to pass their own immigration laws. They see the costs only and not the benefits. This is compounded by the propagandizing by those using the issues for their own political gain, as Riley says. Generally, as we know, those are conservatives.

But, in this talk that he gave at the "market-liberal" CATO Institute, Riley says this:

"No self-respecting free-markets advocate would ever dream of supporting laws that interrupt the free movement of goods and services across international borders. But when it comes to laws that hamper the free movement of workers who produce those goods and services, too many conservatives today abandon their free-market principles.... Ronald Reagan gives way to Pat Buchanan." (I agree with Reaganites? More evidence that political parties and ideologies are generally counterproductive to reason. How much better if we could all operate only on the level of issues.)

In his talk at CATO, Riley makes arguments that debunk the reactionary hysteria created by Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly and their ilk that we're suffering some massive, illegal-immigrant crime wave:

"Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years have repeatedly found that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or be behind bars than the native born."

He mentions that welfare case loads have fallen during the years of the current illegal-immigrant boom and that "it's clear that immigrants have benefited the U.S."

I won't go through all of his talk. It's short. Watch it. But I leave you with his closing, after he explains that the immigration wave of the early-20th century was much more massive in relation to the U.S. population than what we have now and didn't destroy the country: "Today's immigrants aren't different. They're just newer."

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Dobbs, undocumented, alien,O'Reilly, Illegal, Riley.

On The Trail: Defending the Fourth Estate

2008-09-08T13:07:00.005-04:00

By now, a lot of people have seen this video of Sarah Palin in which she exhorts an audience at her church in now-famous Wasilla to pray for her natural-gas-pipeline project. And I just couldn't help but be reminded of one of my favorite moments in the life of another wildly charismatic, oil loving Westerner -- "family man" Daniel Plainview who submits himself to a maniacal baptism in order to get himself… an oil pipeline. Watch Gov. Palin (starting at around 2:02), then watch this scene, paying very careful attention to what Plainview smugly mutters to himself in the very last seconds, knowing he's pulled one over on the dupes.

Obviously, that's just a joke. But, actually, one would think that, after eight years of Pres. Bush, so many people have come to realize that the ambitious sometimes use their perceived or real religion to get what is best for them as individuals. After the failures of Bush, in this same video, we have Palin calling the war in Iraq "a task that is from God" (around 3:46).

A sandstorm has swirled not only about Palin herself but about the appropriateness of this media vetting of her. Partly because of some sensationalist, hysterical reporting and rumor-mongering and partly because of a manufactured mistrust of The Media among many Americans, intentionally fostered by the Republican Party, we have seen a backlash from people who think the media is just being unfair and mean to Palin. Have lines been crossed in terms of investigating familial issues? Probably. But is much of this investigating of a person vying to hold the second-highest office in our country legitimate? Of course. That is why the news media exist.

The Fourth Estate is not just a business sector -- and if it is, it's certainly not a lucrative one for most of us these days – neither is it entertainment. The news media exist to investigate and present information useful to the people, to poke holes in the self-serving rhetoric of politicians – in short, to keep our government honest. Do we often fail in this? Of course. But better to let the world hate us because we point out unpleasant truths than to let them go on believing the fallacies fed them. We fail most direly when we accept the spoon-feeding ourselves – as we surely did, by and large, in the justification of the invasion of Iraq. That is why the Founders of our nation put freedom of the press right up there at the top. They understood how essential a free press is to the functioning of democracy and justice.

Some of the darkest periods of our history have come hand-in-hand with a stonewalling of the press by the White House. Nixon did it most famously. George W. Bush has done it as well. By keeping distant from the press they refused to answer to the people. By keeping themselves sequestered they fostered an impression of invulnerability. By avoiding public scrutiny they escaped a true vetting by and for the people and therefore were free to operate of their own in will, instead of working for us. Our leaders must remain accountable to the people. Inherent in our nation is the belief in checks and balances to ensure enduring justice and democracy. The media must be a part of that.

I just read the New York Post – which I would guess the Right doesn't consider part of The Media; go figure – and saw their ringing endorsement of McCain. Mentioned in one of their articles is that Palin is finally going to start meeting the press -- now that she's been coached -- perhaps towards the end of this week, in a sit-down with Charlie Gibson. The Post quotes McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis as saying about the VP candidate's having to answer questions from the press, "Until at which point in time we feel like the news media is going to treat her with some level of respect and deference, I think it would be foolhardy to put her out into that kind of environment." That's one perspective. For sheep. And talk about elitism. It's also a dangerous harbinger of what a McCain White House could look like. Deference? This is The USA. I hold, rather, with H.L. Mencken: "The only way a reporter should look at a politician is down."

Also, this criticism of the media for actually telling facts about Palin seems to come with an inherent sexism, as if they're saying: 'Don't pick on her; she's just a cute, little lady. Be nice to her, you meanies. Because of that, I'm going to vote for her.' (Personally, I think anyone who casts their vote based on their impression that the media are mean, are spitting in the face of the right and privilege and duty of voting, in fact in the whole concept of democracy.)

But the strangest – though not surprising – hypocrisy of it all is the sudden insistence that (Republican) politicians' personal lives are off limits. Palin's religious beliefs are off limits – but we'll still insist that Obama is a secret Muslim with foreign allegiances AND that the Christian church he attended for years hates America.

The questions that arise from all of this are: Will people believe just what they want to believe? Meaning, if they want to like Palin, will they see the media as bullying her and ignore the legitimate as well as the illegitimate things they report about her? Will people believe the truthful reporting or just turn away from it and back up the Right's New Sweetheart?

Ultimately, was Hunter S. Thompson correct when he wrote that honest politicians have a tough time winning because "We are not a nation of truth lovers"?

Because the facts certainly seem to bear that Palin is already being dishonest with the American people: Her condemnation of earmarks in her acceptance speech and the lie that she turned down the money really rankles me – and should us all. And that her reticence so far to really meet the public – and the GOP machine's attempts to block out true media inquiry into her as a politician – would imply that both she and the party are aware of her shortcomings and that they want to ensure that the image they're creating for her is the only one voters see. This is, of course, not a new trick, nor the sole property of the GOP.

The Democrats are of course playing their politics as well. This push towards appealing to everyone is certainly a political decision – though it does dovetail with the Obama campaign's ideology of national unification. The Republicans have touted the unification idea as well. But the difference in message seems to be that Obama wants to fudge the lines of the Democratic Party to include everyone; whereas, McCain's campaign wants everyone to get in step with the Republicans – who now of course contend they are not in any way related to the Republican Party that's held power for the last eight years. (I'd rather point out that, contrary to their current rhetoric, they certainly have stronger ties to the GOP of George W. Bush than to the Republican Party Abraham Lincoln took to the White House.)

I am still struck by the turn in this campaign towards a more traditional election than we expected. Familiar charges levied and familiar platforms pushed – and the familiarity, despite the attempts at causing mass amnesia in the American public, of the Republican candidates' similarities to the themes of the George W. Bush campaigns. Despite the claims of change, we're again hearing about God, guns, sticking to principles, gustiness. Although I guess there is one noticeable difference here: Bush was a straight shooter, whereas McCain is a straight talker. The king is dead; long live…

Technorati tags: politics, Palin, Republican, Obama,President, Biden, McCain, media.

The Widening Gyre: In Which the War Hero Makes His Case and PBS Loves It

2008-09-05T10:52:00.006-04:00

RNC Day 4:

In the aftermath of Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech last night in St. Paul, as the balloons and confetti rained down from the rafters -- with several hundred more people now arrested outside -- Judy Woodruff lauded McCain's speech and the effect it had on the Republican delegates swarming around her on the convention floor. Her PBS colleagues, for the most part considered part of the "liberal media" that the GOP has spent the last week (and, really, many years) bashing, agreed. Only Mark Shields said he'd seen better speeches from McCain and fixed on the gap between his claim of change and the traditional Republican positions that he espoused in the speech. Even David Brooks, generally towards the right, agreed.

We'll bring you more soon, but what do you think?

I spoke to one Brooklynite last night who thinks the Dems are totally sunk already, that McCain and, particularly, Palin have energized the GOP and that the Republicans are just to much better at politicking than Democrats that they'll maintain control of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She has a point. These self-proclaimed straight-talking, non-politicians are damn good at politics. It reminds me of the old saying that the greatest trick the Devilhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

But a politics writer I talked to today, also in Brooklyn, thinks that there's no real reason for Dems to worry. He thinks the fallacies of this "new" Grand Old Party will not fool enough of the American populace -- and hinted that he knows someone hot on the trail for proof of at least some of the seemingly wild rumors about Sarah Palin.

I don't think the Dems need the wild rumors substantiated. There look to be enough inconsistencies with the issues firmly in the real of politics that should call her seriously into question.

________

Around 200 people -- including some 19 journalists were arrested during protest actions yesterday in St. Paul, according to this article in The Washington Post, bringing the week's total to around 600.

Technorati tags: politics, Palin, Republican, Obama,President, Biden, McCain, convention, protests.

The Widening Gyre: In Which the Hockey Mom Storms the Castle (and Joy Reigns in the Convetion Hall).

2008-09-04T01:23:00.004-04:00

RNC Day 3:

Gov. Sarah Palin officially accepted the Republican nomination for Vice President tonight amidst a flurry of attacks on Sen. Barack Obama. "Prosperity" took over as the theme of the night from yesterday's "Service" – though at least three speakers retold parts of the tale of John McCain's time as a POW, and national security remained a rallying high point.

Three of McCain's former competitors for the nomination spoke this evening, though it was the former lieutenant governor of Maryland Michael Steele who launched the convention's now-favorite chant – "Drill, baby, drill!"

Mitt Romney – in what PBS commentators called his obvious bid for 2012 – made fervent attacks on Washington, which he called "liberal", as the Republicans do their best to ignore that they hold the White House now and have for nearly eight years. But Romney, who really came off like a slick ad-man, scuddled the message a little when he said: "It's time for the party of big ideas and not Big Brother" in reference to "liberal" Washington. Mostly, Romney talked economy, criticizing "liberals" for allegedly wanting to take the same path Europe – whose economy is much stronger than ours – has taken. He, too, in touting what seems to be a common GOP theme, painted Obama as unwilling to fight terrorism. Even David Brooks said that Romney's speech was "way Right".

Then, Mike Huckabee, really a compelling, charming speaker, opened by thanking the "elite media" and their "tackiness" for uniting the party and country behind the GOP ticket, referring to the flurry of coverage of the life of Palin. (This seems to be the way to try to get the press to not ask questions, which is, indeed, our job. That refusal to submit to questions and information worked wonders for Nixon and W., of course.) The former Arkansas governor also hinted that the change Democrats promise is to change freedom, security and prosperity to other things and that Sen. Obama brought back from his recent trip to Europe "European ideas" to take liberty and livelihood away from the American people. He also claimed that Palin won more votes in her mayoral race than Sen. Joe Biden received in his bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Rudy Giuliani gave the keynote address, pretty much launching with his recount of McCain's P.O.W. internment. He mocked Obama for having an Ivy League education and, in what seems like it will be a theme of the GOP ticket, Obama's work as a community organizer as being, essentially, worthless experience. Giuliani attacked Obama's record in the Illinois legislature, saying he abstained on 130 votes and therefore would not be a good decision-maker like the "tested" McCain. His slogan line: "Change is not a destination, just as hope is not a strategy."

Then he got to his pet topic, which he called the "most important" of all: terrorism. He even chided Democrats for not having talked enough about 09.11.01 during their convention, saying they "gave up on America". The crowd seemed to really get behind him – but maybe more because they could feel the evening's zenith upon them.

And she didn't disappoint them. Sarah Palin proved herself a confident, relaxed, rousing speaker tonight – and an aggressive one. She seemed to revel in pounding the well if smugly delivered zingers in the speech. Palin started off by introducing her family. Though hers certainly doesn't have the moving drama of the Biden family tale delivered last week, the family (including the suddenly flown-in boyfriend of the eldest Palin daughter) is cute, and Palin made what looked like a really honest and impassioned pledge to advocate for children with special needs.

In introducing herself – though with little more information than we already had – she really played on her self-termed "hockey mom" status. In fact, that brought one of her best lines: "What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick." She did refer to herself as "average", which is supposed to appeal the I'd-like-to-have-a-beer-with-that-guy voters who so love(d) George W. Bush. Of course, this always raises the question: Shouldn't the leaders of our country be more than average? To which the counter is generally: You're an elitist. Palin really killed with her pro-small-town platform, particularly with her reference to Obama's now infamous bitter-guns-and-religion comment that will surely continue to haunt him down the line. The question is, of course, will Republican "small-town" Americans beat out Democratic "regular" or "middle-class" Americans.

Palin only touched on foreign issues – mostly relating to oil – including stating in regards to Iraq that we have "victory within sight". Mostly she ran down her own declared resume of standing up to lobbyists, special interests and "good ol' boys". She talked about reducing the sizes of the governments she's run, cutting spending, giving oil profits to Alaskan citizens, getting rid of the previous governor's luxury jet (on ebay?) and the office's personal chef. And she lauded her using the gubernatorial veto in the public interest, particularly for fighting "wasteful spending".

She also recounted that she'd basically told Congress to shove it when they wanted to give her earmark money to build the "bridge to nowhere". That Alaska would build it herself and wouldn't be party to "pork-barrel" earmarks – one of McCain's most touted crusades and certainly a prominent point for the GOP's reformist argument. After the speech, Mark Shields pointed out that Palin actually didn't refuse that earmark. She took it. So much for the straight-talk express and populist reform.

And Palin really went at Barack Obama. She said he's written two memoirs but no laws. That he would reduce the strength of America. (Though as recently as last week Obamam said he would "finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan ... [and] rebuild our military to meet future conflicts.") That he would "take your money" by imposing a "massive tax burden" (even though Obama says he will cut income taxes by small business and working families). That there is "only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you" – thus furthering the convention's assurances that war is the way to peace and that the activities with which Obama has filled his life are worthless to America. In sum, she said that Obama is mere talk while McCain has deeds behind him. She even took a swipe at Democrat-beloved JFK, saying that McCain is a "true profile in courage", with guts and character.

And that seems to be the Republicans' message going into the climax of their convention: character. As even David Brooks – who, like most of the other PBS commentators, lauded Palin's performance tonight – said, "Where's the policy?" The follow-up to that is: "Will that matter?"

Technorati tags: politics, Palin, Republican, Obama,President, Biden, McCain, convention.

The Widening Gyre: In Which the GOP Gets Rolling

2008-09-03T00:36:00.006-04:00

RNC Day 2:

The Republicans got their convention into full swing tonight – though with hardly a mention of the word "Republican". The messages of the night seemed to be, first, that a McCain/Palin ticket is the ticket of reform in Washington, that they are the real change candidates. Implied in this is a rejection of the last eight years of Republican control of the White House. Despite Pres. Bush's speech tonight, the word from this year's RNC is that the party, somehow, had nothing to do with Bush's administration – that Obama/Biden are part of the Washington machinery, the "swamp", and that McCain/Palin would bring a reformist spirit and a record of accomplishment.

Second, continuing in the same vein, we heard the call of the cult of the individual. Rarely, did tonight's speakers tout Republicans as Republicans; rather, we heard names: Teddy Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan (in a shoddy video tribute), George H.W. Bush, John McCain.

Third, we heard about military. Unsurprisingly, the convention spent the most time on this. P.O.W.s, other veterans and the siblings of a soldier killed in Iraq received acknowledgment. And all night the crowd waved signs that said mostly "Country First" and "Service". Several speakers lauded McCain's support of the troop 'surge' as evidence of his legislative bravery, his wisdom and his dedication to the troops. Even Pres. Bush mentioned this -- though he didn't mention who put the troops there, ill-equipped, in the first place.

Fred Thompson gave the bang-up speech of the evening. He really galvanized the crowd, less with his nimble (if dubious) slights of Obama -- only a smooth-talker, "the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee to ever run for president" -- and more with his militaristic rhetoric and his lauding the rough-and-tumble personalities of the candidates -- like Palin's ability to field-dress a moose (that's a hunting term, for you weenie liberals out there). Thompson, chuckling, even managed to sell McCain's impressive accruing of demerits at the Naval Academy, driving a hot rod and dating a stripper as signs of an admirable rebellious quality that helped get him through what he suffered in Vietnam.

But the peak of the speech came with Thompson's telling of McCain's life story – particularly his horrific treatment for more than 5 years in the hands of the Vietcong. Unquestionably it was powerful and effective. Even moving. The terrors McCain endured surely extend far beyond even the imaginations of most of us. Thompson did acknowledge that McCain's tortures as a POW do not qualify him to be President; but, he said, they do reveal his character, which, he implied, does.

Thompson did mock the Dems for thinking we're in some "Great Depression" but later invoked the current "economic downturn" when slighting Obama's ideas on taxes. He also, in an except to the message of the night, invoked the accomplishments of "the Republicans" in among other things, balancing the budget in the '90s. He failed to mention Pres. Clinton -- and to mention the huge imbalance the following Republican administration has created. But the crowd liked it. And he ended strong, with a plea to "keep America the greatest country that the world has ever seen."

Sen. Joe Lieberman followed Thompson – referring to himself as a Democrat though he's currently an Independent. The Democrats' nominee for VP eight years ago, Lieberman seemed to make the crowd really unsure how to react, and his speech started slowly. The delegates didn't really seem to go for his party-isn't-important spiel. But he hit stride with his touting of McCain, the candidate's courage to stand up alone for his beliefs, his claim to not really being a politician, and how a President McCain would best protect the USA -- with a good offense.

The party luminaries interviewed on the floor tonight, at least by MSNBC, seemed to have all received the same talking-points memo. They all now tout Gov. Palin as more experienced as an executive than Sen. Obama, particularly when charged that they'd nominated an inexperienced VP while running on charges that Obama was inexperienced and therefore unqualified. She's 'governed' they say, and he hasn't. Of course, by that measure, neither has McCain. It's a semantics game that the GOP has often played well and that Dems have not. Pols -- like Sen. Sam Brownback -- got behind the message but did seem unconvincing in their delivery that they believed Palin the best choice.

It's also a slight shift in message from the first reaction, which seemed to be "So what?" and "But she's just going for VP, not President." So, the message on the already beleaguered Palin is that she's experienced as an executive, brave and a stranger to Washington -- and that any mention of her personal life, particularly by The Media, is classless and irrelevant and, basically, some sort of unfair fabrication.

But will the Republican's self-distancing work? Has the nation so quickly forgotten the last eight years – and the present? Or, as tonight charged, are these new Republicans who reach beyond party lines? Maybe they're right. Shouldn't the particular candidates matter more than their party affiliations? Ideally, new blood is new blood regardless of the mascot. But, as tonight's speakers continually reminded us, we do not live in an ideal world.

A repeated message of the evening was "You may not agree with our candidates on all the issues, but you'll agree they're the best people for the job." Will that be enough to keep the White House in elephantine hands? Should it? Should voters ignore candidates' stances on issues – or at least be willing to give on some topics? And would McCain and Palin really operate independently of their party, particularly the fat-cats and corporate interests they claim ready to destroy? Should the public rely on the GOP itself having changed since it brought Bush into power twice?

The one refrain from the past eight years that neither Bush nor Thompson nor Lieberman avoided – despite all their talk of reform and progress – was that we live in a dangerous world, surrounded by enemies who seek our destruction. That dovetails (ironically) with the militaristic fetishism of the evening. Will Americans vote out of fear again? That, Democrats might say, is more of the same.

And it brings this question: Is military service the only way to serve our country? And this follows hard upon: Can we measure experience? (This topic seems a disaster for either party to try to own now.) Lastly, who seeks the center in this election? And will it work?

The Democrats, despite more direct attacks on their opponent (as far as we've seen from the RNC), seem to be searching for that center, to appeal to all Americans – or at least the fabled 'middle class'. The Republicans, despite their claims to speak for the real America, their inclusion of Lieberman and their mentions of environmentalism and women's progress, in the more recent actions of McCain and the choice of Palin, seem to be talking firmly to their more conservative base. Perhaps no other topic received as enthusiastic crowd reaction tonight as that of abortion.

What Democrats must be watching now is how the Republican strategy will unfold over the next two days. That will help them determine their next steps and set into motion the home stretch of this race.

Questions still linger about the early confusion in the St. Paul convention. Has the slow start really been just in deference to the hurricane that hit the Gulf coast? Or did that coincide with disorganization within the party coming out of the DNC and McCain's choosing Palin? Are the Republicans taking a page out of the playbook of George W. Bush – and therefore of Richard Nixon – by standing not too long in the sun of public scrutiny? Would that be a sign of things to come from candidate and perhaps President McCain? A continually opaque White House would certainly not be the spirit of reform in Washington.

Regardless, the Republicans (though they might not want that moniker at the moment) seem to have gotten themselves on a roll and seem bloody dedicated to uniting behind their (new?) party lines.

Technorati tags: politics, Palin, Republican, Obama,President, Biden, McCain, convention.

The Widening Gyre: Mere Anarchy in Minnesota?

2008-09-02T13:22:00.007-04:00

RNC Day 1:

With eyes turned to St. Paul for the RNC's wind-tossed convention, has chaos ensued for the Republicans? Or are things under control? I know the news first in the hearts and minds of many are the circumstances surrounding Gov. Sarah Palin's upcoming entry into the blissful post of... Grandma. We'll get to that in a minute. But first, we'll look at the news from the streets of St. Paul where chaos has really erupted.

Over the weekend police raided potential protesters' residences and rallying points in the St. Paul area, cuffing people as they searched their homes and confiscated computers and notebooks among other things. Monday, police arrested around 300 people out of the estimated 10,000 that had taken to the streets -- in both sanctioned and unsanctioned protest actions. Several reporters were arrested as well and apparently sustained minor injuries -- including Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman and two of her colleagues. (Read and watch here.) AP photographer Matt Rourke also was arrested.

The Minnesota National Guard are in the streets as well; pepper spray and tear gas were flying, batons and tasers in use -- and splinter protesters smashed windows and tried to block roads. (An on-the-scene story here.)

And the convention hasn't really started. The Republicans are running a stripped-down event in deference to Hurricane Gustav. Last night involved a presentation by Laura Bush and Cindy McCain and some fundraising efforts for Gustav relief.

But most of the news right now is, of course, V.P.-nominee Sarah Palin's teenage daughter's pregnancy -- and the host of bizarre rumors of scandal and cover-up that have accompanied that revelation. History seems to show that such revelations matter less in the polls than the reactions to them -- like George McGovern's backing then dumping Tom Eagleton in '72 after revelations of his history of mental illness; like the crusade against Bill Clinton, not for committing lewd acts in the Oval Office but rather for lying about them. My sense is the Republican machine is historically much better at handling/taking advantage of such issues. After all, Nixon won by a landslide with Vietnam still raging -- even after the Watergate story broke.

So, what will happen here? Will this reflect more on Palin's qualities or on McCain's sometimes impulsive judgment? Will Republicans accept this as a humanizing tale of real-life American hardship and familial love and support as many have said? Or will the circumstances -- and serious questions about Palin's roles in more political intrigue, including an ethics probe -- send the GOP bid for the White House into tailspin?

Sen. Obama came out with a strong statement declaring candidates' lives and those of their children way off limits and said the focus needs to remain on politics. He told the press to lay off these stories. But the discussion continues everywhere else. It's too juicy to ignore.

But for those quick to cheer each new rumor or revelation about Alaska's governor as leading towards a sure victory for Dems, you must ask how this could play out. Right-leaning America has an historical view of the press as holding a lefty bias -- so they and others might be inclined to see coverage of these alleged scandals simply as further evidence of bias and unscrupulousness and forgive the acts themselves. In that case, these scandals could galvanize the GOP and their self-termed 'maverick' ticket -- or at least prove a non-factor. Those reactions have already come out -- notably from Nicolle Wallace, a top McCain adviser, who blamed the "Democratic bloggers" for hate-peddling.

Anyway, here's the re-arranged schedule for the convention today:

President George W. Bush (via satellite)

First Lady Laura Bush

U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.)

Former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson (Tenn.)

U.S. House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio)

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman (Minn.)

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.)

Robert M. "Mike" Duncan, Chairman of the Republican National Committee

Jo Ann Davidson, Co-Chairman of the Republican National Committee and Chairman of the 2008 Republican National Convention Committee on Arrangements

Technorati tags: politics, Palin, Republican, Obama,President, Biden, McCain.

The Widening Gyre: The GOP Follows the DNC with a Curious Choice for VP.

2008-08-29T14:47:00.006-04:00

Sen. John McCain introduced the country to his choice for VP today and in doing so may have tossed a real wild card into the race for the White House. His pick: The 44-year-old Republican governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin. That's right: For the first time in history, the GOP will run a woman on its Presidential ticket. It's actually the only time for either party other than Democrat Geraldine Ferraro's run for VP in 1984.

But who is Sarah Palin? Joining a candidate running on his experience, Palin served four years on city council and six years as mayor in her hometown of Wasilla (pop.<10,000) before winning Alaska's gubernatorial race in 2006. Previously, she earned a degree in journalism with a minor in politics from the Univ. of Idaho and subsequently worked as a sports reporter, co-owned a commercial fishing business with her husband and owned an all-terrain vehicle business before being appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which she chaired from 2003-4. And, yes, she was runner up for Miss Alaska in 1984.

She has presented herself as a reformer, having become embroiled early on in exposing alleged corruption even within her own party. She opposes abortion rights and supports opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling.

In her appearance today, Palin referenced Seneca Falls and paid homage to both Ferraro and Hillary Clinton for having paved the way for her own push to shatter the glass ceiling.

So, how will this effect the race? Will the pull for disgruntled Clinton supporters work coming from an anti-choice, anti-gay-rights, pro-drilling, fur-wearing, creationist Republican? Will Republicans want to get behind someone less experienced than Sen. Obama -- a woman who looked more like she might be McCain's daughter rather than his running mate? Or will they go for a pro-life, hunting, fishing, pretty mother of five, whose eldest has served in Iraq? Will she win over voters as a reformer and change candidate as she at least hinted at today?

Will the Democrats -- particularly Sen. Biden -- have to tread a lightly when talking about Gov. Palin to avoid claims of male chauvinism Republicans probably stand ready to hurl at them? Biden should be expected wipe the floor with Palin in debates, but will he have to watch coming off like a bully or risk a version of the "asshole" charges that Al Gore garnered when he ran for President?

Ultimately, everyone seems to be asking, is Sarah Palin the person this country wants next in line for the Presidency behind 72-year-old John McCain? (Happy birthday to him.)

Reactions from across the country included these from Palin's new opponents:

Democratic nominees Barack Obama and Joe Biden (joint statement): “We send our congratulations to Governor Palin and her family on her designation as the Republican nominee for vice president. Her selection is yet another encouraging sign that all barriers are falling in our politics and while we obviously have differences over how to best lead this country forward, Governor Palin is an admirable person and will add a compelling new voice to this campaign.”

They let others take up the first signs of attack:

Barack Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton: “Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency. Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies — that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same.”

Read more here.

Technorati tags: politics, Palin, Republican, Obama,President, Biden, McCain.

The Widening Gyre: In Which the Candidate Obamarocks the Coliseum (and the Commentators on MSNBC and PBS).

2008-08-29T00:37:00.018-04:00

DNC Day 4:

Barack Obama sounded his trumpet tonight from a mountain in Colorado, and you'd think the walls of Jericho shook. The first African-American Presidential candidate from a major U.S. party accepted the Democratic nomination with an aggressive speech that sent the Convention crowd into a frenzy and kept it there for over an hour. Commentators on PBS (except for David Brooks who lauded the content of the speech but thought Obama underperformed in the delivery)and MSNBC (including Pat Buchanan) obviously and effusively thought the speech a wild success, maybe even historic. And most seemed impressed at how aggressively Obama spoke to and of Sen. John McCain.

For me, the speech was indeed arresting and grand, though the Senator did lose me a bit amidst the lists of 'ordinary Americans', which pushed the limits of credulity and patronization, and of all the things he has planned to accomplish once in office, in which he seemed to promise to make everyone happy, find a satisfying middle ground on just about every issue. He says he'll find a way to honor the alleged right to bear arms AND practice gun control. He gave a pretty brave mention of gay rights but still implied he supported only civil union benefits and not marriages.

And he said this: "Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers." A expectedly simplistic note to be sure -- and a reference to the dubious charge that "illegal workers" are part of the reason for the economic woes of 'ordinary Americans'; but not really enough to judge from. For a former civil-rights lawyer and professor of Constitutional law, I want him to come out stronger on immigration and other issues of justice.

With this list of compromises, he made me wonder if he really thinks he can do it all. Is it campaign bluster? Or is it entrenching himself in a truly centrist and not liberal position -- as the excited Buchanan said afterwards? Or could he actually make these compromises happen? These questions the campaign and, perhaps, his Presidency must bear out.

His style was commanding -- and more than several of his turns of phrase whip sharp. For example:

"But the record's clear: John McCain has voted with George Bush ninety percent of the time. Senator McCain likes to talk about judgment, but really, what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than ninety percent of the time?"

He went after every charge against him specifically and with policy proposals and numbers and really worked to explain those specifics in his plans. Obama seemed to focus on economic issues for the working middle class and on the American spirit and fair treatment for veterans. About promise. And he rose to a preacher's intensity and cadence when he drew his speech through its crescendo. He did look strong and Presidential -- and in a way I've never seen before. At some points he sounded like he was about to challenge John McCain to a fist fight. I'm not sure I've heard a Democrat speak so strongly before.

The oration capped a well orchestrated evening that involved a great speech by Al Gore and -- perhaps the best of the night: Speeches from some of those oft-invoked 'ordinary Americans', including two life-long Republicans, who shared their stories of hardship and threw their support behind the Democratic ticket. Barney Smith's call for a President who "puts Barney Smith before Smith-Barney" was a lightning bolt of genius or luck for the Dems.

Sen. Obama made his full and total pitch for the Presidency between his aggressive and policy-driven speech and the personal, humanizing story told in the preceding film. The speech may well prove historic -- but my sense is it will prove historic more because of what it may come to represent than actually what it was.

Regardless, the Democrats have thrown down the gauntlet with their convention. Now eyes will turn to find out Sen. McCain's choice for his running mate and, starting Sept. 1, to Minnesota for the Republicans' rebuttal.

I end this post with the words with which the Democratic candidate for President left the stage tonight, phrases that brought him back from policies and campaign promises to his high-minded visions for the USA, visions that if he keeps them close at heart and alive in action could make him the improbable new leader we desperately need:

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours - a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot.

And it is that promise that forty five years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could've heard many things. They could've heard words of anger and discord. They could've been told to succumb to the fear and frustration of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead - people of every creed and color, from every walk of life - is that in America, our destiny is inextricably linked. That together, our dreams can be one.

"We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried. "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."

America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done. Not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for. Not with an economy to fix and cities to rebuild and farms to save. Not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone. At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess.

Thank you, God Bless you, and God Bless the United States of America.

You can read and watch his speech here , among other places.

Technorati tags: politics, DNC, convention, Obama,President, democrats, McCain.

The Widening Gyre: The DNC Does Its Business in the Hall (and One Protester Does His in a Bottle) While There's Some Heat in the Streets.

2008-08-28T07:07:00.010-04:00

DNC Day 3:

Today's main protest action came after (who else?) Rage Against the Machine played in the Denver Coliseum, and some of the crowd -- thousands according to the AP; at least 3,000 by The Denver Post's count -- marched towards the convention hall behind a cadre of veterans against the war. The group hoped to get the nominee's response to a letter they'd delivered earlier, calling for "immediately removing U.S. troops from Iraq, providing full health-care benefits to returning veterans and paying reparations to Iraqis for the damage done during the war."

As the protest approached the convention center with no response from inside where Pres. Bill Clinton was speaking, tensions ratcheted outside as the police threatened the marchers with pepper spray and arrest. Then two Obama staffers emerged, met with representatives of Iraq Veterans Against the War and apparently offered them a meeting with Obama's liaison for veterans' affairs. The crowd dispersed, seemingly content.

Earlier in the day, a Denver cop was reported to his superiors for violating departmental policy by having political bumper stickers on his police vehicle -- McCain stickers, by the way -- and for refusing to identify himself to a citizen who approached him about the stickers. And an ABC News producer was arrested while filming outside a hotel, "attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting", according to a statement released by the network. (They actually arrested him after telling him to stop blocking the sidewalk. Why can't cops do this to the goddamn tourists in Times Square?) And a UMass student was actually arrested for having feces in a bottle, which police say he was going to use as a weapon. The kid claims it was coffee with soy milk. I'm not sure which is worse.

Speaking of shit-slinging, inside the convention hall Dems further whipped themselves into a frenzy, most noticeably with speeches from Fmr. Pres. Bill Clinton, the official nomination of and acceptance by Sen. Joe Biden to run for VP -- and a "surprise" appearance by the O-man himself, who had just arrived in town. Biden's son Beau, Delaware's Attorney General and a Captain in the the state's Army National Guard who will soon return to Iraq, introduced his father in a pretty touching speech. Their family's story is such a compelling one -- the first Mrs. Biden and their baby daughter's being killed in a car crash; Joe's raising the two boys by himself until he and the boys -- as they say -- married the second Mrs. Biden, the Senator's commuting from D.C. to Delaware every day to work and be with them. The newest VP candidate gave an effectively rousing address to the convention (except for that hackneyed call-and-response business that they tried again).

And I have to say that the speeches from the two Bidens really won me over to the oldest and whitest guy the Party is putting forth this year. If you'll allow me to put down my professional cynicism for a moment, Biden certainly seems like a strong, upright, intelligent and experienced politician and dedicated family man -- just what the Dems want of him. They're peddling love and family and hope. I'm excited to see what the GOP pushes. I have trouble imagining they'll be the same things.

I'll file an update on today's immigrants' rights march in Denver -- which organizers are calling March Against Borders: No One is Illegal -- when I get the info. It's supposed to start at 10:30am MDT/12:30pm EDT. For more frequent and on-the-ground updates for that and all convention news check out the Colorado Indymedia Center and The Denver Post.

Technorati tags: politics, DNC, convention, protests,police, democrats, Biden, Obama.

The Widening Gyre: It's official.

2008-08-27T18:50:00.004-04:00

For the first time in the 232-year history of the United States of America, a major political party has nominated an African-American as its candidate for President.

As one-by-one the state delegations lauded themselves and then announced their votes for the nomination, some maneuvering took place, so that New York could be the state to make official the nomination of Sen. Obama. Illinois, Obama's state, got to speak but then passed on declaring its votes. The convention center went wild as Sens. Clinton and Schumer and Gov. Patterson of New York made their way through the throngs to join their delegation.

Sen. Clinton then took the microphone and moved that "the convention suspend the procedural rules and suspend the further conduct of the role-call vote...and I move Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois be selected by this convention by acclamation as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States."

Chants of "HILL-a-RY! HILL-a-RY!" erupted. Party chair Nancy Pelosi took a vocal, all-at-once, yea-no vote -- well, really a yea vote since she didn't let the nos respond, but it was just a formality anyway -- and the Democrats made their choice.

The scene was impressive, even for this here cynic of a writer. Whether you trust a single politician or put any stock in the effectiveness of our republican democracy, considering the failings of our two-party system, and even with questionable behaviors out in the streets of our nation, still, something changed today, something way too long in coming. I contend it still means something that today a woman claimed the Presidential nomination for an African-American. Let's see if we can make it really mean something. Let's make good on all this 'promise' they keep talking about.

The Widening Gyre: In Which We Look Outside the Walls and Start to Ask Real Questions.

2008-08-27T12:22:00.006-04:00

DNC Day 2:

To begin, I didn't watch all the hubbub last night in Denver. I was, well, hell, I'm not sure. Just not planted in front of the TV. When they start paying me for this, then they can have me on the job 24/7. I did watch all of Hillary Clinton's speech off the magical Interweb this morning. Looks like she did a bang-up job for what the Dems expected of her. It was a good, strong speech, and she hit all the expected points and hit them well: uniting behind Obama, the middle class, families, health care, women's rights, slammed McCain adeptly. And she really engaged the crowd, eventually sending them into a frenzy with her invocation of Harriet Tubman's instructions to her charges on the Underground Railroad to "keep going" no matter what to reach freedom. This seems to be the pushing point of the Dems: the hopeful struggle towards the future, achieving the promise of America for everyone, children.

She also swept through a litany of cliches in the midst of it all. Not unsurprising, but still a bit unpalatable. And of course she harped on rights for everyone. I'm all behind that. But it's a bit tough to listen to that while knowing that outside the hall where Mrs. Clinton spoke protesters were having showdowns with riot squads. Mainstream media has touched little on this -- except for FOX's rather hilariously screwing with the "leftist" protesters, as they called them. It looked like a Daily Show piece. Sadly, people out there will see it as real news.

It started Monday when, according to Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman, police sprayed marchers with pepper spray and arrested 91. She quoted this witness:

"I’m Steve Nash with Denver CopWatch. We’re a police accountability group that observes the police, and tonight we watched protesters block the street about a block from here. It’s about fifty protesters in the street. The police came at them in riot gear from both sides and hemmed them in. Then they refused to let anybody out, including people who were just on the sidewalk in the group, who were not actually trying to block the street. I saw one older legal observer who begged for the police to let him out, and they refused. They pushed him back into the crowd. Then they donned their gas masks and began pushing the media and legal observers and the public a block away in each direction and in a very aggressive manner."

Goodman's report added that many of the police involved were not wearing visible identification as required by law. For an invocation from Bob Dylan (that should please the protesters): "The executioner's face is always well hid."

Tuesday apparently saw far fewer arrests, though The Denver Post reports -- with video evidence -- that a policeman knocked to the ground one woman who was asking him a question as he told her to "Back it up, bitch."

Of those swept up Monday, The Post writes,

"More than 100 people were arrested at Civic Center in a clash with police that began after officers entered the park and confronted demonstrators.

"Of those, 54 made bond, 13 pleaded guilty in return for a sentence of time served, nine pleaded guilty and were ordered to pay a fine, and 28 were dismissed by the court, said Lt. Ron Saunier, a Denver Police Department spokesman.

"The four remaining behind bars had warrants against them from various jurisdictions."

The protesters seem to be a motley mix of groups -- many of them anti-war and pro-democracy. But they seem to be operating under an umbrella organizaiton called DNC Disruption '08.

According to the group's website, this looks like a decently organized week of protest actions. (You can read the schedule on their site.)

Tomorrow, they plan to have an immigrants' rights march -- which I imagine will be the only mention for this issue beyond the typical, hokey -- and minimal -- lip service from inside the convention hall. HRC did mutter in her speech that we are a "nation of immigrants and of laws." That portends no sign of the change the Dems keep promising, just more of the middle-of-the-road pandering to the enforcement heads.

Obviously, immigration is a touchy subject to bring up in this election -- particularly confusing now because Obama and McCain have not really distinguished themselves on it recently. McCain of course co-sponsored with Sen. Kennedy one of the immigration bills that almost passed last year -- but that contained the infamous 'path to citizenship' that infuriates conservatives, so be sure he won't mention it.

But nor would it be advantageous for Obama to bring it up since he's made no strides on the issue in any noticeable way in either direction. But with the Dems continuing to spew rhetoric about loving the working class, that the American dream is for all of us not just the privileged few, that, as HRC said, there are "no limits to what is possible in America" -- and that the Dems believe in everyone's rights, as they keep reminding us with repeated history lessons on Civil and Women's Rights, I want to hear something about this issue. Yes, it would take some bravery, but that's what they keep telling us they have now, these people of the Democratic Party. And that's what they keep asking of the public.

They laud the promise of America but emphasize the need for increased border security. They say they champion civil rights but do not even mention the flabbergasting abuses of civil rights going on pretty much every day all over the country in the form of raids on suspected and unsuspected "fugitive" immigrants, abusive detentions, the militarization of the border. They use rhetoric about the immigrant history of our country and its marvelous diversity to inflame their supporters; they tell us to be brave, to "keep going" in electing their candidate, but don't seem brave enough to risk votes by adhering to the principles they espouse and give voice to the plight of millions of people -- documented and un- -- living in our country.

They want civil rights? Here:

"Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality."

That's Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We'll do a more in-depth look at immigration as a campaign issue later. That's it for now.

Technorati tags: politics, DNC, convention, immigration,protests, democrats, McCain, Obama, Clinton.

The Widening Gyre: We Fall in Love with Michelle Obama (and Remember Why We Always Wanted to Shake Nancy Pelosi).

2008-08-26T13:31:00.013-04:00

Since I figure I should back my belief that immigration issues do not stand alone but rather tie in with so many other concerns, we'll be widening the scope a bit as to the stories we cover here at Open Veins -- particularly during this campaign season. We'll start with remote coverage of the conventions.

DNC Day 1:

The Democratic Party launched its 2008 convention last night but did it backwards. They started with a whimper -- but they did end with a bang. Maybe they just don't have that much ammo, but this election's 'change' party seems to be saving the best for last or pacing themselves or bid(en)ing (sorry) their time. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- whom I certainly admire (I guess) for her achievements as both the first woman Speaker and first Italian-American Speaker -- drifted out of the gate with a fumbling, spacey address during which she repeatedly led the mildly interested delegates in a chorus of "John...McCain...is wrong." It felt like an episode of Romper Room -- if the hostess had been popping Valiums. I think she talked about issues, but she turned me off so much that I tuned out. It gave me flashbacks to her and Harry Reid's trying to respond to one of Bush's State of the Union addresses.

The highlights of the night for the Democrats were Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Ma.) and Michelle Obama. Jackson, Jr., delivered a spine-tingling speech, proving himself a very effective orator both in terms of style and content. He argued a strong and specific case for the candidacy of his party's presumptive nominee, which, I suppose, is the reason our two political parties hold these tacky, bloated self-love fests every four years.

The nostalgia vote of the night goes, unsurprisingly, to Sen. Kennedy who, despite a recent diagnosis of cancer in the brain -- and apparently against doctors' orders, not only made an appearance but gave a rather rousing speech -- and a good one, talking some issues and not just rhetoric and fluff. The Ken Burns-made film introducing him was solid, particularly in its historical scope, though I'm not sure all the shots of the Kennedys on their sailboat and commentary from Sen. John Kerry, forever the Flip-Flop King, were really the best choices politically. As if the Democrats needed to foster any more charges of East Coast elitism. But Teddy did give a helluva speech.

And then She appeared. Can I write in Michelle Obama instead of her husband in November? Perhaps that takes it a tad too far. But watching her last night I left asking myself why they've hidden Mrs. Obama from us all this time. The pundits (at least on PBS) said that having her speak was an attempt to put a real face on her husband, to let the American public get to know him better. And I think it did to some degree. The stories of their courtship were humanizing, and her admiration of him is clear. But I think it's all the more clear because we now know her better. Her family's story is compelling, and she-- look, I really have nothing against Laura Bush. Or against librarians. She's spent her life educating children, nothing to scoff at (though her marital choices...) But Mrs. Obama proved herself so damn impressive in her own right as a professional and as a family woman. Plus, she is a compelling speaker. Seemingly completely at ease, totally natural, she really did hold the crowd of delegates in rapture.

As for the PBS coverage, I really do appreciate Jim Lehrer and his team (like poor Judy Woodruff trying to find delegates in the crowd who could put a sentence together). Frankly, I'm not sure I could watch any of the other networks for that long. And it is nice that they have academicians as commentators. But I'm looking forward to see how they cover the Republicans -- and if they use the same experts as last nights' historians who were so excited over the Democrats that I'm guessing they had to change their pants when the cameras were off of them. Yes, I welcomed their historical and substantive insights -- not one comment about any of the speakers' outfits -- but settle down, boys. Flex those critical-thinking muscles, so I don't feel like an ass for believing you.

Also, did you not feel like mentioning the Nazis who may have been planning to try to assassinate Sen. Obama? I know this campaign is all about unification, and I realize these guys who were arrested are probably just some ineffectual little junkies -- but it's taken only one ineffectual little junkie in the past. And it's the truth. Besides this is the fun stuff conventions are made of.

As a final note on night 1 in Denver, I'm guessing they let the Party regulars handle the music for the big night; but, dear god, you're nominating a man whose campaign is supposedly run by a whole mess of scruffy 20-somethings. Please, for the rest of the week let one of those hip grass-rooters plug in his/her iPod and bring the event into the modern era -- or at least an eon with decent musical taste. I totally blank on what your speakers have said when I have to choke down vomit because you're playing songs I hear only at bad bar mitzvah parties. I thought you were running on the 'change' ticket.

Overall, the Democrats better shore up the production value of their convention and give the people more moments like Jackson's, Kennedy's and Obama's speeches and no more like Pelosi's, if they don't want to increase the already existing risk of blowing an election a lot of otherwise-reasonable people have called a sure thing.

Technorati tags: politics, DNC, convention, Kennedy,Pelosi, democrats, McCain, Obama.

Politicized Postings Prove Problematic

2008-08-25T14:29:00.009-04:00

Asylum seekers have found themselves disproportionately rejected by immigration judges who Bush administration officials illegally vetted for political affiliations during hiring. The New York Times reports on a Justice Department study that examined the denial rates of 16 of the 31 judges whose politics were checked ahead of time and compared them to the denial rates of other judges who had not passed through the illegal political review process. Each of the 16 examined had decided at least 100 cases; nine of them rejected asylum claims at rates significantly higher than their peers; three at lower rates; four remained in line with local averages.

The administration apparently used the posts as rewards for political service. The Times writes:

"Among the judges selected were a member of the 2000 Bush-Cheney Florida recount team, people who worked for Republican lawmakers and a former Republican state official in Illinois backed by Karl Rove, at the time the White House political adviser."

The administration contends that the improper hiring methods don't negate the judges' qualifications. And it seems it will prove difficult, if not impossible, to actually do anything about these judges. The political vetting apparently stopped in 2007, and there may not be a way to remove the judges or a will to reassign them. Their jobs are protected by the very statues that were broken in their hiring.

In fact, one of the judges, Garry Malphrus, has since been appointed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) -- the body that previously reversed at least one of his asylum denials. (In that case, regarding a Somali woman, he refused to acknowledge the persecutory nature of female genital mutilation even though DHS counsel had agreed to it and the U.S. State Dept. determined that it is practiced on 98 percent of Somali women.) Before that appointment, Malphrus, reports The Times, "denied asylum 66.9 percent of the time, compared with an average denial rate of 58.3 percent among other judges at his court in Arlington, Va. [and is] a former associate director of the White House Domestic Policy Council."

But the problems of justice in the immigration courts extend beyond these hiring improprieties and their ripple effects. TRAC (a data resource project at Syracuse Univ.) previously reported great inconsistencies in asylum approval rates not only from region to region but from judge to judge. Certainly, jurisprudence relies on the subjectivity of the person on the bench, but our legal system is of course required to be standardized enough to ensure equality under it. This doesn't seem to be the case with the immigration courts.

Asylum seekers are not generally the immigrants we discuss during our national debates. Some people who apply for asylum do it with meager if not meritless claims as attempts to gain legal status; but so many of them legitimately meet our standards for political asylum -- based in a fear of persecution in their home countries. Often this persecution could take the form of imprisonment, assault, torture and/or execution of the asylee or his/her family. These are not simply people looking for a better economy to feed their families, send their kids to school or follow the American Dream. Asylees just want to stay alive -- and to exercise the basic rights we in our country hold dear, like the freedom of speech, religion, and political affiliation, without a fear of persecution.

That these 16 particular judges deny asylum more often than their peers makes them only more egregious in a departmental trend of denial. The Times says that 60 percent of asylum claims are denied overall while these 16 judges had an average denial rate of 66.3 percent. Injustice in the immigration courts has been so flagrant in the recent past that even Alberto Gonzalez, then the Attorney General, who since left the post amid a sandstorm of improprieties in politicized hirings, once described some immigration judges whose conduct "can aptly be described as intemperate or even abusive and whose work must improve."

Consider the case of Milton Teahjay who had been appointed to a government post in his native Liberia under the dictator Charles Taylor. When he began to voice opposition to some of Taylor's activities, Teahjay had to flee the country. Newspaper articles in and outside of Liberia and U.S. State Dept. reports substantiated Teahjay's claim that his life would be in severe peril if he returned to Liberia -- explicitly because he had publicly opposed a murderous dictator (whom even the USA didn't like). (There are of course questions as to Teahjay's role in the oppressive government.) This unusually sterling claim for asylum was originally denied by a judge because Teahjay arrived 15 minutes late for a hearing due to traffic on the roads -- though he'd been on time for all of his previous appointments with the immigration service. I don't think it a stretch to say one instance of tardiness should not condemn a man to death.

There has also been a trend of the BIA's rejecting or refusing to rule on appeals without giving substantive reasoning as required by law.

These difficulties in the system should not cause concern among bleeding hearts only. When the system for legal immigration -- particularly for people who face possible imprisonment and/or death in their homelands -- suffers from such deep flaws, surely would-be asylees have a greater propensity to duck the system entirely and join the shadowy masses of the undocumented.

Technorati tags: politics, immigration, undocumented, border, illegal, judges, Bush, asylum, courts, justice.

The Squeeze Is On: Mayberry on Lockdown

2008-08-24T14:59:00.006-04:00

It looks like Border Patrol has realized we have a northern border as well as a southern one. The Washington Post reports that Homeland Security has beefed up operations on the Vermont/Canada border – even inside towns that straddle what until recently was an invisible line. Local residents interviewed for the article seem sadly resigned and accepting of the increased enforcement presence and the barricades being erected through their lives – even down the middle of residential streets – dividing neighbors and families who until now had lived without regard for the international boundary and, somehow, survived.

On the one hand, the vengeful one, it's about time that the failings and humiliations of border militarization reached our boundary with Canada. Since DHS has regularly used the specter of terrorism to drum up support for border enforcement, it seems just that the northern border finally has to deal with the militarization and disruption that the southern border has contended with for years: After all, the north provides much more convenient access to potential terror targets (think how far terrorists would have to travel to find something worth blowing up if they crossed into Arizona) and lies much closer to places where terrorist activity has actually been discovered in the USA (Detroit, Buffalo, etc).

On the other hand, increased enforcement in the north is nearly as ridiculous as it is in the south. Do they really expect to shut down 4,000 miles of border? And for what? In a connection I still can't quite understand though I've heard it so many times now, DHS uses rhetoric about increased danger since 9/11/01 – the threat of terrorism – to justify attempts to stop drugs and 'illegals'. (Who knew that Vermonters imported drugs?)

That alone contains a strange gap in reasoning; but, according to the Border Patrol itself, the Vermonters/Canadians interviewed by The Post didn't even know they were under threat from drugs and 'illegals' until the Border Patrol showed up and told them so: "They never considered themselves in danger," says agent Fernando Beltran. In fact, unsurprisingly, violence arrived with the BP.

As The Post says,

"[W]ith the increased Border Patrol presence, the North is starting to look more like what border residents of Texas, California and Arizona have been seeing for years.

"As that presence has increased, so has the risk of violence."

The article quotes another local BP agent, Norman Lague: "There's a lot of violence on the southern border, so some of that's going to transfer up here."

Measures DHS claims will make U.S. citizens safer actually increase the rate of violent incidents? Go figure.

But I'm still hung up on the short-sighted view of history under which we operate – our refusal to learn from the past that eases our acceptance of today's idiocies. In what sounds to me like a way of justifying border enforcement in the south by claiming it's natural, agent Lague says that "there's a delineated line with Mexico. . . . Here, if you were to walk around this town, you would probably walk into Canada and not even know it."

Contrary to the ideas of agent Lague -- who spent five years working the USA-Mexico border -- there are many places along our southern boundary without delineation. And the reason there's any delineation at all there is that we created it.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 settled the Mexican-American War (during which the U.S. Marines invaded and occupied Mexico City) and ceded to the USA Mexican territory that now makes up all of California, Nevada, and Utah, most of Arizona and parts of New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming. The Gadsden Purchase in 1853 established today's southern border of Arizona (and part of New Mexico) – currently the busiest corridor for illegal border crossings into the USA.

So, to say migrants who cross that border now are invading our land seems just a bit reactionary. We didn't even start enforcing the border -- and disrupting hundreds if not thousands of years of local life -- until much later. So, when people are dying in the wilderness, trying to enter the USA from Canada, maybe I'll have a touch more sympathy for people for whom home "may have been Mayberry before, but it's not anymore," according to BP agent Fernando Beltran.

All this is to say that, as absurd as this increased border enforcement in the north is (and it certainly is), sympathy for these Vermonters really seems even more absurd in comparison, especially looking at how easily they've acquiesced. What have we become that locals in one of the now-divided towns say: "We living in a different world now. It's too bad." and "We understand that Border Patrol and Homeland Security have a job to do. . . . The general public doesn't understand what's crossing that border, whether it's drugs or illegals." (Wait. I thought the whole thing was about terrorism.)

Vermont BP agent Mark Henry sums up the whole sad mess, as he justifies the surge in enforcement:

"It was freer before, but we live in a different world now."

We'll have to change "The Star-Spangled Banner" -- though I'm not sure we want to kick off the Super Bowl with "the laa-and of the people who used to be more freee-EEEEEE." But, judging from the recent past, we'd just get used to it.

Technorati tags: politics, immigration, undocumented, border, illegal, Canada, terrorism, drugs.

Americans Detained in China

2008-08-22T10:55:00.009-04:00

My friend Michael Liss is one of several Tibetan-freedom activists/journalists detained by the Chinese government since Tuesday. The six Americans are being held because of public protest actions they took during the Olympics in Beijing.

Mike has been a passionate supporter of and activist for Tibetan freedom for many years now. Having traveled in the region several times before -- and because of his long-standing involvement -- he knew full well the risks he was taking in China. But he saw them as worthwhile risks, considering the cause.

International pressure on the Chinese government will help bring these folks home (so that Mike can regale us ad nauseum with his tales of international freedom-fighting). Several major publications have finally taken notice -- The Washington Post and The New York Times.

International pressure will also further illuminate the predatory and abusive nature of the Chinese regime, behavior our government pays little more than lip service. The Times also reports:

"Two photographers for The Associated Press were also roughed and taken into custody, according to news agency reports and press freedom advocates. The police questioned them for 30 to 40 minutes and took the memory cards from their cameras.

"The Foreign Correspondents Club of China has received dozens of complains from foreign journalists who have been detained, trailed or had equipment damaged by the police."

Of course this is not an immigration issue; but, when free speech and press freedoms are curtailed anywhere, it's a cause of concern for all of us. Plus, lest you think this has nothing to do with you: abusive Chinese government + inaction = continued Chinese migration to the USA.

You can find out more about Mike and his fellow detainees here.

Back on the Scene

2008-08-21T16:27:00.012-04:00

With just more than two months until the USA chooses its next President, the nation's focus seems to lie squarely on John McCain and Barack Obama (and sometimes Paris Hilton). Though immigration issues seem, as yet, to have little if any share of the spotlight on the campaign trail, things on the ground are perhaps hotter than ever.

We've witnessed more actions and counter-actions on the local level. The largest workplace raids in history have paired with continuing pre-dawn raids on individuals' homes -- both of which sometimes sweep up U.S. citizens, legal residents and other non-removable individuals with what many allege to be an appalling disregard for human rights. In one instance, legal advocates have filed a complaint on behalf of a group of individuals against ICE and some of its employees for alleged civil rights violations. There are further allegations of ICE's abusing detainees while in custody, like this story about a man whose cancer and broken spine went untreated until his death while in the hands of ICE. And DHS now seems to enjoy using small and often long-ago criminal infractions (like stealing a pen) as grounds for deporting documented immigrants.

Yet, pro-enforcement advocates say, for perhaps the first time, that enforcement of immigration laws is happening -- and helping. They cite the Census Bureau's report of sinking numbers of less-educated Hispanic migrants as a sign that enforcement is working, that the undocumented population is declining; although, they acknowledge that our floundering economy probably has an effect on migration, as well.

This all leaves me with a lot of questions. With public attention turned largely towards how many houses McCain owns (7) and whether Obama wears a flag pin in his lapel (he does now) -- and whether Paris is really going to run -- has ICE been left to its own devices? And has it overstepped its bounds? What happened to all the blustering and attempted legislation on Capitol Hill that we saw so much of in the recent past? With so many of us scrambling to put food on the table and casting wary eyes towards winter heat prices, have immigration concerns taken a necessary back seat? Or do the battles now take place more on local levels, as the national political scene remains embroiled in other crises and trends? Do our economic woes push us further into scapegoating the foreign-born? Or are undocumented immigrants adding to the economic woes? Is enforcement effectively reducing the undocumented population? If so, is it doing it in a way we can live with?

Now that we've returned from our hiatus, Open Veins will delve into these and other questions, particularly during the crescendo of the election cycle. We'll also bring you the exclusive story of a Salvadoran man recently wrongly arrested and detained by ICE who claims that -- on top of his wrongful arrest and attempted removal from the country -- he suffered humiliation and civil rights violations at the hands of our Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Stay tuned. And welcome back.

Technorati tags: politics, immigration, undocumented, detainees,raids, illegal, ICE, McCain, Obama.

Barack on Immigration, II

2007-06-29T11:13:00.000-04:00

Here's what his campaign website has to say about his positions on immigration. I'm still dubious about his support of beefed-up border militarization, which he then admits has only made the situation worse. Is this just lip service to show he's tough on enforcement? He certainly has good facts there about the negative effects of the militarization. The last three sections on this page, Improving Legal Immigration, Bringing People Out of the Shadows, and Honoring our Immigrant Troops are right on the money. Is there a gap between how Senator Obama's office presents his immigration stance and how his -- separate -- campaign office does? How do we as voters find our candidates' real voices? We'll approach this again as elections near.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Congress, undocumented, alien,Senate, Illegal, bill, Barack, Obama.

Immigrants as Superheroes

2007-06-29T09:37:00.000-04:00

Do yourself a favor and check out this exhibit from Mexican-born photographer Dulce Pinzón. The shots are great -- and often beautiful. And the message, that immigrant workers -- in this case Mexicans in New York -- are superheroes for the tribulations they endure to help their families back in Mexico, strikes an important chord.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Congress, undocumented, alien,Pinzon, superheroes, photography.

Barack Weighs In on Immigration

2007-06-28T16:10:00.000-04:00

From the Senate press office of Sen. Barack Obama (not his campaign office):

OBAMA STATEMENT ON THE SENATE'S FAILURE TO PASS COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) released the following statement on the Senate's failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform:

"Today, the U.S. Senate failed the American people by blocking progress on immigration reform for the second time in two years. By failing to pass a bill, we have done nothing to solve the problem of the more than 2,000 immigrants who cross our borders every day and the 12 million undocumented who are already here, nor have we addressed the very real concerns of American citizens who rightly believe we should protect our borders."

"This bill was by no means perfect, but even though there were provisions that some of us disagreed with, we should have worked to find common ground on a solution to a problem that isn't going away anytime soon. The American people sent us to Washington precisely to take on tough issues like immigration, and they're tired of a politics that holds progress hostage because of Congress' inability to come together and get things done."

###

An unsurprisingly politic response from presidential hopeful Obama tells us very little about any real passion he might have for working on immigration issues. Thankfully, he admits the bill's imperfections -- and he certainly takes a more realistic view of our legislative process than I have in these pages, by lauding the need for compromise. (But I'll stick to grounded ideals since I'm not trying to rustle up votes.)

I hold a spot in my heart for this eloquent, young star of the Democratic party, a man who could make a much needed and historic change in the Presidency, but I am a bit dismayed by the language used here where his statement refers to the "problem" being the immigrants themselves -- with no mention of the huge problem of the system that really lies at the base of our current turmoil on this issue. Ditto to his pandering to the security-focused masses with the same slight of hand that the government continues to use to paint immigration as an issue of homeland security. It seems to me this kind of thinking holds us back and Obama could lead us forward if he'd step out of line. Let's see.

(I must admit I haven't looked deeply into the Senator's track record on this. I'm told he proposed several amendments to this late bill that may actually have made improvements in the areas of fairness and family unification. Here's what his campaign website has to say about his positions on immigration.)

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Congress, undocumented, alien,Senate, Illegal, bill, Barack, Obama.

This just in-- Senate Bill Fails

2007-06-28T11:54:00.000-04:00

46-53 is the final tally. Too much politicking, too little thinking. Perhaps a series of separate, smaller measures -- like independent passage of the direly needed Dream Act -- would eventually add up to meaningful reform and avoid the whirlwind of rhetoric and plotting that has marred this legislative effort for more than a year.

And yet, while the politicians and talking heads have ranted and blundered about, ICE makes its own rules, running roughshod, as the saying goes, over the defenseless; USCIS bureaucracy and restrictiveness continue to fodder our undocumented population; and those panicked among us remain in the dark unassuaged.

But what will happen now? Will another proposal pop up on the floor? Would such a bill be any different? Will the President's supposed pet project find the back burner in his pursuit of a decent legacy? Do we have to wait until after the'08 elections? How can we progress?

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Congress, undocumented, alien,Senate, Illegal, bill.

Words and Wisdom

2007-06-27T19:37:00.000-04:00

More amendment coverage from The Washington Post, including this:

The defeated amendments were among at least 26 measures up for consideration. Some are designed to stiffen the bill in response to criticism from conservatives, while others are aimed at weakening provisions that immigrants' rights advocates or employers consider too burdensome.

Look at the language used here, the clean, aggressive, powerful terms applied to the conservatives -- "designed", "stiffen the bill", the alliterative crispness of "criticism from conservatives". Compare with the flaccid images of "weakening provisions" and "consider too burdensome", which, of course, make the pro-reform camp sound like a bunch of insidious, wishy-washy whiners.

Again, we run up against how important a role language and the nuance of ideas play in our politics and our lives -- how carelessly we wield them and how oblivious so many of us remain to their influence and their power. Again we see that we cannot simply cry out, beat our heads against the wall, pushing for action. We must open our awareness, cast off the blinders that block out the world around us, and cease to remain slaves to our small-minded wills.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Congress, undocumented, alien,Senate, Illegal, bill.

Beating around the...

2007-06-27T13:27:00.000-04:00

It appears the Senate's embattled immigration proposal, back on the table, faces further struggle but one less amendment, one that would have required all undocumented adults to return home to apply for the new bill's provisions. The amendment, proposed by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) lost by a vote of 53-45. (From the AP.)

These so-called "touch-back" provisions -- which already exist in the bill in some form -- make little sense from either a practical or humanitarian perspective. Considering the understandably low level of trust many immigrants hold for immigration authorities -- and the time they'd have to spend, attempting to leave the country, applying for the program, and waiting for the notoriously slow system to process their claims -- how many undocumented immigrants would really pop their heads up and follow such a regulation? Considering the possibility of not being able to return at all -- and the time wasted away from their jobs and families -- I doubt many would acquiesce. Would two undocumented parents of young, U.S.-citizen children really leave their kids here to touch back? It's unreasonable. (And I'm not even discussing those who would be in physical danger if they returned home.) That means we won't have reduced the undocumented population. So what's the point of a provision like this? It's just punitive.

Without her amendment, Hutchison said shortly before the vote, "the amnesty tag that has been put on this bill will remain. It is the key issue in the bill for the American people."

The amnesty tag would remain only because Hutchinson and her ilk find the label advantageous -- because it makes "the American people" close their eyes to the realities of the bill and the nuances of the immigration debate. Allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for a path to legality and perhaps, eventually, achieve permanent residency and citizenship, by paying fees and fines and enduring bureaucracy is hardly an amnesty. They will have paid for their illegality. And even if it is, it might still be the right thing to do.

As for further amendments:
Also expected to be voted on is an amendment by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., that would bar illegal immigrants from eventually getting green cards.

Democratic amendments to give family members of citizens and legal permanent residents more chances to immigrate are also slated for votes. (AP)

Bond's idea reveals a rather insidious intent -- to allow immigrants to work here legally but not have a chance at permanent residency. So we can use their labor and send them back home. Certainly, this is all some immigrants want. But for others, it would signal one more slamming door.

The aforementioned Democratic amendments seek only to reverse the provisions in the bill itself that cut the types of familial relationships through which documented immigrants can bring relatives though legal venues. It's no advance. Another reason to vote down this ludicrous "compromise".

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Congress, undocumented, alien,Senate, Illegal, bill.

No Dice (Back to Roulette)

2007-06-08T11:09:00.000-04:00

It looks like the newest immigration bill has lost its steam, its supporters failing in a vote that would have ended debate on the bill's content and called for a final decision.

This article by Charles Babington from the AP falls for some of the blunders of misinformation that have held up the process towards real reform. For instance, Babington writes that conservatives' "interests overlapped with those of pro-labor groups concerned about a flood of low-wage workers". That's only a partial truth: For years, many labor unions have been at the forefront of the movement for more-humane and less-regulated immigration for two central reasons: First, as unions of workers, they believe in the rights of all workers to a decent wage and humane working conditions, no matter their country of birth or the color of their skin. Second, those concerned about the undocumented stealing "American jobs" by working for less and in poor conditions should embrace legalizing the undocumented. The only reason they can undercut wages (if indeed they do) is because they aren't recognized by the government. If we legalized their status, then they would have to compete with U.S. workers on an even plane -- and only those best workers would earn jobs. (To say that some people deserve those jobs simply because they were born here is ludicrous -- and contradicts conservatives' own arguments against a welfare state.)

Some brief text analysis:

"In a recent poll by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, 55 percent of the respondents said penalizing employers who hire illegals is the best way to reduce illegal immigration. One in four said more border agents is the best answer, and 7 percent favored more border fences."

And yet, pro-enforcement legislators insist on using "what the American people want" to justify massive (and expensive) militarization of the border.

"When the word 'amnesty' was not invoked, 62 percent of Republicans said they favored letting illegal immigrants now in the country obtain citizenship if they have jobs, pass background checks and pay fines. But only 47 percent of Republicans said they favored giving amnesty to illegal immigrants if they met those same conditions."

And so we see how deeply words and their meanings, perceived or real, effect our thoughts -- and therefore how important it is to educate ourselves and each other on the realities of situations, so we can see through linguistic manipulation. Those Republicans polled actually favored the reality of a path to citizenship, opposing it only when they saw a different label affixed to it.

"Democrats, independents and moderate and liberal Republicans were most concerned about jobs, but conservative Republicans were about equally concerned with jobs and terrorism."

This really speaks for itself, but I want to point out a related fact that recently came to my attention. Immigration regulation used to reside under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice. Now it's part of Homeland Security. See that? The focus went from Justice to Security. That strikes me as a bad sign.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Congress, undocumented, alien,Senate, Illegal, bill.

Compromise Isn't Always Right

2007-06-07T08:45:00.000-04:00

Many of those writing on this new immigration proposal fixate on Republican opposition to the bill’s “pathway to citizenship” for undocumented immigrants. But such coverage conveniently ignores the strong opposition among the comprehensive-reform camp -- who perhaps have more over which to object. Not only does the bill attempt to tighten our borders -- an ineffective means of reducing undocumented migration that will kill increasingly more people even than it does now -- but it severely hamstrings the meager laws already in place by actually cutting back on the types of relationships through which documented immigrants and U.S. citizens can bring their relatives here and making the process much more difficult for those who will still qualify. What that means is more undocumented immigrants in the USA (because they can’t come through official venues) and more families divided by other people’s politics. So much for family values.

Now, the bill seems in danger itself -- mostly because of the amendments legislators keep trying to tack onto it, crowing about what “the American People” want. Frankly, I’m not sure how they know what people want -- it certainly can’t be from what they called “hearings” last year, which were rather tax-payer-funded campaign stops for anti-immigrant legislators at which they barred opinions that differed from theirs, if they let the American people speak at all.

There is certainly a vociferous pro-enforcement presence in this country now -- unsurprising in the current terrified, nationalistic era in which we toss aside the facts of situations and follow our guts or the guts of the mob without reason. Regardless, if the wizened members of our government (the judiciary) had done what “the American People” wanted 50 years ago, racial segregation would have lasted a lot longer than it did in this country. With our appalling blindness to knowledge and reality, should we sightless really be guiding each other? Of course not. But then who will lead us? Start reading.

(Open Veins will bring you a more detailed examination of the bill when we can. We must follow our own words, after all.)

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Congress, undocumented, alien,Senate, Illegal, bill.

Justice with a Bay View, but Cold Wind in Chicago

2007-04-26T09:27:00.000-04:00

Oakland has joined neighboring San Francisco in reaffirming its status as a sanctuary city and pledging to refuse helping the feds conduct immigration raids, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Both Mayor Ron Dellums and Council President Ignacio De La Fuente have proposed resolution to these effects. The Chronicle says de la Fuente's bill "would give refuge to any undocumented immigrant regardless of national origin."

It's important to note that these sanctuary declarations are not new -- cities passed them in the 1980's and are merely making a statement by reinforcing -- and updating -- them now.

Police Chief Wayne Tucker said that local police are "too busy" fighting crime to waste time helping enforce immigration laws.

City Councilwoman Jean Quan "noted that her great-grandfather was allowed to come to the this country to work but was not allowed to apply for citizenship. She said it is important not to repeat the mistakes of past generations. She said that immigration raids break up families because many children born here have parents who are here illegally."

She makes several important points here. First, keeping families together is the humane and right course to take. Removing parents of U.S. citizen kids not only devastates the people involved, but it also might make the kids wards of the state, suddenly supported by taxpayer money. So, this arguement should make sense to the family-values/small-government party, which is what the GOP is supposed to be. It does seem to make sense to some of them -- even Pres. Bush pays it lip service, though his insistence on enforcement alongside a path to citizenship make dubious those claims. But too many on both sides of the aisle make it clear we value the families of native-born USians only.

Second, avoiding the mistakes of the past seems like an obvious goal. The main problem with that is people don't know enough about the past. For instance, anti-immigration folks say things like "Well, my grandparents came here legally, so these people should, too." But, well, the legal process was just a wee bit different then. Remember, no one is saying "everybody should be illegal". They're saying "no one should be illegal", that the laws must change. And why?

The Mayor said it best:

"Immigration is the Civil Rights issue of our time," Dellums said. "In order to realize the Model City vision, we must treat everyone fairly and humanely. It is not appropriate policy to intimidate and harm people that are already here. There are millions of immigrants in this country and we must approach this issue with enlightened and compassionate immigration policy."

But what's up in the rest of the country? Read this from UPI:

Federal raid triggers Chicago protest
Apr 25 01:01 PM US/Eastern
CHICAGO, April 25 (UPI) -- Residents of a predominately Hispanic Chicago neighborhood took to the streets in protest after heavily armed U.S. immigration agents raided businesses.

"Soldiers bombarded our neighborhood," Baltazar Enriquez told the Chicago Sun-Times. "It looked like they were marching into Iraq."

Heavily armed federal officers in bullet-proof vests, locked down a strip mall Tuesday in a Southwest Side neighborhood known as Little Village, Enriquez said. The raid triggered a protest of 250 to 300 people that lasted into the evening, the newspaper said.

The federal agents were searching for sellers of fake Social Security and resident alien green cards, authorities said, refusing to say how many people were arrested in the search.

Those arrested were to appear in federal court Wednesday. Neighborhood activists said the raid may have been to intimidate people from participating in a downtown May 1 march and rally to protest recent federal raids nationwide, the Chicago Tribune said.

(Copyright 2007 by United Press International)

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, San Francisco, undocumented, alien,children, Illegal, raids, Oakland, Chicago.

Safe in SF

2007-04-23T15:00:00.000-04:00

San Francisco's mayor has forbidden city employees from aiding in any federal raids on immigrants, reinforcing the city's status as a sanctuary, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Mayor Gavin Newsome said: "Our action is to stand strong in opposition to these raids... to make sure that we are not contributing in any way, shape or form. Even legal immigrants are fearful. This just sends a chill to a lot of people."

Part of the reason legal immigrants are fearful is that federal officials often arrest people based on faulty evidence -- if they have any at all.

The Chronicle adds: "In the course of serving deportation warrants, the officials said, other people whom officers suspected of being illegal immigrants were questioned and then arrested. Of at least 65 Marin County residents arrested in March, for example, just five had been ordered deported."

Officials like to conduct home raids in the middle of the night, often breaking down doors and dragging people -- parents and children alike -- out of their beds. A man quoted in the Chronicle article recounts how he and his family, including his 4- and 10-year-old daughters -- all legal immigrants -- were lined up against the wall for an hour in their home by federal officers acting on wrong information.

Again, how does one suspect someone of being "illegal"? It's one thing to act on specific information -- though it seems our current shoot-first-ask-questions-last mentality leaves little room for vetting the veracity of such information. It's quite another to arrest people on impulse, just as going to the supermarket for some vanilla to bake your mother a birthday cake, you might snatch up some over-processed junk food for yourself while waiting on line to pay. It looks good, but it's not what you came for -- and should you really have it anyway without reading the back of the package?

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, San Francisco, undocumented, alien,children, Illegal, raids.

A Revelatory Essay.

2007-04-17T14:46:00.000-04:00

Ruminations on the History of Immigration to these United States of America; and Proposed Solutions to the Current Blight of Illegal Immigration: Advice to a Strong Congress, Resolute President, and Magnificent Citizenry in Search of Peace – on the Occasion of New York's Immigrant History Week.

______________________________________________________

Our land had always been wild, powerful, and bursting with resources. It drew first the ancient Asian wanderers who strayed across the Bering, descended into these lands and scrounged and fought in the dust throughout the centuries. Finally, the Europeans arrived. Dutch and English, noble emissaries of a clean and loving and righteous god, they set about liberating the descendants of the Asians from the eternal fires of Hell and the savagery of their earthly ways. And they began the process of taming the proud stallion that was the land, drawing it up to its full potential of productivity. They arrived openly, helmets gleaming in the daylight, faces shining with the glow of Goodness. They held legal deeds to the lands that they settled, as peaceful as lambs, with only one goal of aggression: to build the Greatest Nation the World had yet seen.

Now, in the early morning of the 21st century, America gazes out across the globe over which She reigns supreme – first in Freedom, first in Industry, and first in Godliness – and finds Herself assail’d from all sides, like the glorious Empires of the past, by those infidels jealous of all we’ve constructed in this land over some 400 years, the forces of chaos that with each passing moment draw us down towards entropy.

Like waves against a sturdy ship, they crash against us, threatening to swamp us in their desperation. The first major swell, mostly from southern and eastern Europe, washed upon us at the turn of the 20th century, and we managed to absorb the influx but at no small cost to our prosperity. Under the weight of those masses our Stock Market was pulled down into a crash. And still we suffer the descendants of those uncouth Irish and Greeks and Jews with their feasts of Saint Patrick, their gyros, their discoveries of polio vaccine, and other destructive influences. Despite those drawbacks we tried to welcome them, flinging open the ports of Our Nation.

Today, millions of Latin Americans, Africans, and Arabs swarm through our borders under cover of darkness or falsified documents, circumventing our laws and systems and constructing their own shadow societies underneath our own. Everywhere they rise against us. A multitude of Gibberish tongues taint God’s English. Turbans obscure mullets. Tacos threaten Spam.

In a more logistical consideration, our systems, engineered and balanced for our calm and peaceful citizenry cannot support such chaos. Already, our land and its resources groan under the weight of production.

We currently estimate between 3 and 200 million illegals live in Our Nation – working, eating, sleeping, and, most disconcertingly, breathing. They like to do many of these things indoors. That means they use electricity, as well as the oxygen in our air, which puts further strain on our already dire energy situation. (If you recall, when the Foreign controllers of oil supply turn against us, we must stockpile gasoline in the tanks of our SUVs.)

But let us not blame them, fellow people of the Good Book. The children of Babel, writhing in their dusky poverty, cannot help but lust after our City on the Hill, our bright beacon amidst the storm of the world. Alas, other nations have not built as well as we. And now, citing misunderstood definitions of History and Justice, their citizens demand entrée into our fair land.

We must determine a solution to this blight. Our leaders have spent several hours over the last year considering possible recourses, based on information gathered from deep in their own brains. Somehow, no satisfactory solution has arisen. I, too, have put my mind to the grindstone, as it were, and, after many minutes of thought I believe I have found our answer.

Shutting the borders of the country will not work. It will stymie our minute incursions into Mexico and Canada and unnecessarily delay travel plans. This problem requires a multi-pronged approach. First, those already here must conform to new regulations. If they have been here for more than 10 years (10plussers), they may continue as they are. Having accustomed them to our feeding off of them, we will let them continue to nourish us, build and clean our homes, landscape our lawns, and rear our children. Their already-born offspring will be trained at our new Labor Schools in the Midwest. Meanwhile, the adults will wear white face paint every day, go by the names John (men) and Susan (women), and speak English only, in the regional accents of their employers. They will also receive mandatory vasectomies and hysterectomies free of charge. Several prominent sociologists have assured me that these methods will improve the lives of our new neighbors and help them assimilate more rapidly into Our Nation.

Second, those who entered Our Nation between 5 and 10 years ago (5-10ers) will also receive the free sterilizations and scholarships, and, having shown their resilience to hard labor under difficult conditions, will be relocated to factory towns in our new Alternative-Energy Belt. There they will personally power the generators that let Our Country do its great work.

Third, those who entered fewer than 5 years ago will be sent to Detroit.

As for those arriving now and in the future, we will welcome them into cities we will erect for them and the 5-10ers in the Alternative-Energy Belt (where we will build the Labor Schools, as well), no great distance from the immigrants’ homeland of Mexico. (Just the slightest rumor of work will motivate them to move to the appropriate locations. We'll transport them by pickup truck from the corners where they gather. So desperate, they'll follow anyone anywhere, and at least these trucks won't be sealed.) To save costs to U.S. citizens, we will house our new neighbors in large, communal tents. There they can work, eat, and sleep and continue their non-traditional-family lifestyles of dwelling more than four people to a house, talking loudly, and, occasionally, showing genuine affection.

Men who are fit enough will spend the days manually turning turbines inside generators to create electricity. Women of child-bearing age will bear children. Young males will train in the Labor School before graduating to work at the generators. Young females will cook for the community and prepare to create more workers. We will provide them no garbage facilities based on the recommendations of several prominent anthropologists, who say that immigrants are used to living in their own waste, and depriving them of that would show an appalling lack of cultural sensitivity. Workers will, of course, do all construction in the Alternative-Energy Belt, including erecting tents for new arrivals and building the incinerators into which they will pitch any troublemakers and those unfit to work or procreate. Only carbon-based immigrants may be burned because our top engineers have developed a system to harness the burn-off and use the pure carbon dioxide to nourish new forests, which the immigrant children will plant.

As a final solution the problems of immigrant breathing, natural-born citizens of this country may continue to breathe both in and out, while all newcomers must exhale only.

Some may discredit my solution as soft, considering it provides for all needs of new immigrants: They have work, may stay with their families, may speak what Gibberish-tongue they like, and may live in a familiar environment of containment, filth, and chaos. However, we must and do care for them. My plan will also benefit the American people greatly. Think of it: No more rolling blackouts in California. No more reliance on foreign oil. No need to drill for oil in Alaska. Americans will breathe cleaner air -- and no longer will we face the consternation of determining who is an Illegal before shooting them: Just look for any non-white-faced, accented immigrant.

As we take our first strides into this new century, such rational solutions must continue to guide us, just as they guided our forefathers in their cotton-picking dilemma. The future looks ever brighter, America. It can be ours.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, history, Mexico, America.
(Painting by Ray Butler.)

Asylum from the System

2007-04-03T12:28:00.000-04:00

CNN.com ran an AP story today about an immigration judge's granting political asylum to a couple from the Congo. It's a lovely story and certainly an exciting day for David and Regina Bakala and their children. But the piece comes off as rather naive, failing to understand the immigration system or at least to put this case in context.

According to the article, Regina had been fighting an order of deportation for 10 years, since a judge rejected her claim for asylum in 1997, her allegations of rape and imprisonment perpetrated by Congolese troops seemingly ignored by the court. She says her lawyer at the time mishandled the case. She only received residency now as a derivative of David's asylum claim, based on a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, stemming from months of torture.

Asylum cases are denied frequently -- and often on technicalities. Consider Milton Teahjay, a Liberian who, as a member of the opposition party, became part of Charles Taylor's government. After displeasing Taylor, Teahjay fled attempts on his life and escaped to the USA. His face and name dotted the landscape as an enemy of Taylor's oppressive dictatorship. His name floated up as a possible successor once Taylor was deposed. He surely would have faced death had he returned to Liberia -- even after Taylor fled death squads loyal to him continued to operate. Yet an immigration judge rejected his asylum claim because Teahjay arrived 15 minutes late for a hearing, delayed by traffic on the roads. He had arrived promptly for all of his other hearings, but the judge took this excuse to sentence the man to death by removal from the country.

Now, that might be an extreme example, but many such deserving asylum cases (these are not economic refugees) end in defeat because of technicalities, lawyer error, or unjust jurisprudence -- and not based on the merits of the case. The inefficiency of the system is also a problem. Should it really have taken 10 years since Bakala's original denial for her to receive the decision she deserved? With a system so inefficient and riddled with unfairness, no wonder so many immigrants prefer to risk living off the radar.

The Bakalas' story spotlights a church that helped push through their cases. The couple's lawyer said "it seemed insurmountable at the start, but publicity and the church's support helped." Most cases aren't blessed with that kind of support. So consider the injustice of a system that one must manipulate with outside, institutional backing and publicity to win what (at least without first-hand knowledge of the evidence) looks like an open-and-shut case. What about those people -- as deserving or more than the Bakalas -- who don't have that kind of support? How are they to trust such a system? How are we?

Border fences and workplace raids have nothing to do with this. That's why what advocates call "comprehensive reform" must accompany the headline discussions of enforcement and guest-worker programs.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, refugee, asylum, Congo,Liberia.

Material Support Bar Lifted -- Kind Of

2007-03-06T14:31:00.000-05:00

In the Federal Register today, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff published notice of his decision not to apply the material support of terrorism bar to certain would-be immigrants. The bar is a provision, created in earlier legislation and expanded in the USA Patriot and REAL ID Acts, intended to help prosecute those who don't commit acts of terror but in other ways support terrorism.

However, the provision has been used to deny political asylum and refugee status to two classes of deserving applicants -- those who have been or supported freedom fighters and people whom terrorists have compelled into assistance by force.

Several studies have documented these cases, enumerating among their examples a Colombian man kidnapped and forced at gunpoint to dig graves; a Burmese girl who, at the age of 11, gave water to revolutionary fighters staying in her family's home; a Liberian woman raped by roving rebel soldiers who took over her home and forced her to do their laundry and otherwise serve them. These people were all denied entrance on the rationale that they had aided terrorists. Even U.S. troops who served in Iraq or Vietnam could fall into the terrorist category under these definitions, for taking up arms against sovereign governments.

Chertoff's new decisions exempt people who can prove they aided terrorists only "under duress" and those related to certain groups that match up with U.S. policies -- groups our government considers pro-democracy fighters in Burma, Myanmar, Tibet, and Cuba -- and those groups alone. This is a good step. It provides a more consistent front to U.S. policies -- of the Cold War. Fighting oppression in any other countries, particularly in any our government likes, still makes you a terrorist in our immigration system.

But, for those it does protect, this decision -- if adhered to by immigration officers and judges -- may save lives. Remember, these are in large part not "illegals"; they are trying to come here through official channels, having fled injustice, oppresion, and persecution. Many have been designated refugees by the United Nations. They're not searching for a better life, they're just trying to stay alive.

This takes us back to a favorite point at Open Veins, that ignoring nuance and specificity in the debate over and legislating of immigration policy spells disaster. Many of the denied should qualify under our existing policies, if not for the vague tenets of "material support" and "terrorist organizations". Were the terms better defined in writing, had our legislators paid more attention to detail, this problem would not have arisen.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, refugee, asylum, terrorism,Burma, Tibet, Myanmar, Cuba, Chertoff.

Wild (Sem)antics in the FLA

2007-02-28T12:30:00.000-05:00

Sen. Frederica Wilson (D-Miami) of the Fla. state legislature has proposed a bill banning use of the term "illegal alien" from official state business, according to news-press.com.

Perhaps my familiarity with the legal language around immigration has numbed me to the strangeness of the term. But "alien" certainly rankles me less than "illegal".

But Wilson says: "An alien to me is someone from out of space....'Illegal,' I can live with, but I like 'undocumented' better."

But isn't "illegal" used much more in common parlance and public debate? And doesn't it carry flagrant connotations (and denotations) of criminality? It seems a much more problematic word -- particularly when used as a noun. (The headline of the news-press.com article is an ironic case-in-point.) Also, I'm not sure we should take advice on diction from someone who says "out of space" rather than "outer space".

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Florida, undocumented, alien,children, Illegal.

"It's very horrible here. We need help."

2007-02-23T17:04:00.000-05:00

Among the immigrants held in U.S. family detention facilities is an Iranian couple and their 9-year-old, Canadian son who were on a direct flight from Guyana to Canada when their plane made an emergency landing in Puerto Rico because a passenger on the plane died from a heart attack. In Puerto Rico U.S. immigration officials arrested them for not having U.S. visas -- despite the fact they never intended to pass through U.S. territory. After several days in a Puerto Rican jail, the "Majid" family has been held at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Texas for almost three weeks. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! radio interviewed the "Majid" family today. (They asked their identities remain concealed.)

Apparently, Majid and his wife lived in Canada for ten years, during which time they had their son. When they lost their case for political asylum, they were deported to Iran, where they were immediately taken into government custody. Majid told Goodman:

"I was in Iran a small cell for six months, and lots of torture and hitting. Now I have physical problem and knee problem and lots of things. And they took my wife to other prison, where we have no news from each other."

He said the government held his wife on and off for more than a year. Eventually the family escaped and was on their way back to Canada -- but have ended up at Hutto in rather abject conditions.

Goodman spoke to 9-year-old "Kevin" who said:

"I’m sleeping beside the washroom, and I can't -- and I’m upstairs. I can't go to the washroom all the time. And there's a lot of smell coming out from the washroom. And the food is garbage. And the school is very bad. I can't learn anything good. And I have asthma, and I got sick in here. I can't stay here anymore."

By "washroom" he meant "toilet". Apparently, he's sleeping next to a toilet in an old prison cell. Kevin said his mother has also fallen ill during the almost three weeks that the family has spent in Hutto so far. They have law students from an immigration clinic working on their case but have neither been charged nor had a hearing.

"Majid" explained where things stand and why he asked his true identity remain hidden:

"We are in very bad situation, because I don't trust here immigration, because the first time they said lots of things to us, but they broke their promise. [He says they told him the family would be held in a hotel and then let free.] ....But now they said we're going to deported. OK, maybe we deported. And we are like this. We are in 100% in danger. If our whole full name goes, it's 200% in danger, because especially United States -- if you go from other country, you have less risk with government. If you go from United States, because they said “US is our enemy,” they said, Iranian authorities says, OK? But that's why we are in more and more trouble if we go back, because they will say, “Why you go to US and this happen?”

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Iran, ICE, prison,children, Illegal.

More Abuse Reports in Detention

2007-02-22T11:09:00.000-05:00

"Help us and ask us questions," scrawled in child's handwriting on a torn slip of paper recently found its way into the hands of a visitor at a detention center for immigrant families in Texas. The Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services visited T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Texas and the Berks Family Shelter Care Facility in Pennsylvania where they interviewed detainees and ICE officials and have written a report on their findings.

Now, they are pushing to shut down these centers on the grounds that they treat families inhumanely and hope to stop the government's creation of further similar facilities, according to the AP.

"'What hits you the hardest in there is that it's a prison. In Hutto, it's a prison,' said Michelle Brane, detention and asylum project director for Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children." [AP]

Until recently, children of people in immigration proceedings were simply taken from their parents. So, keeping them together should be an improvement. However, because these are the first facilities of their kind, "there are no standards for family detention, but both facilities violated various aspects of existing standards for the treatment of unaccompanied children and adults in immigration proceedings." [From actual report.]

Other findings by the groups:

-At Hutto, cell door systems prevent parents from attending to children after "lights out." At the Berks shelter, children over 5 sleep separately from their parents.

-Until recently, Hutto children were given one hour of schooling a day, five days a week. That recently has been increased to four.

-Teachers at the Hutto center are not required to be licensed in Texas and the state's family welfare agency exempted Hutto from child care licensing requirements.

-Separation and threats of separation were used as disciplinary tools on adults and children. [AP]

"• Hutto is a former criminal facility that still looks and feels like a prison, complete with razor wire and prison cells.

• Some families with young children have been detained in these facilities for up to two years.

• People in detention displayed widespread and obvious psychological trauma. Every woman we spoke with in a private setting cried.

• At Hutto pregnant women received inadequate prenatal care.

• Families in Hutto received no more than twenty minutes to go through the cafeteria line and feed their children and themselves. Children were frequently sick from the food and losing weight.

• Families in Hutto received extremely limited indoor and outdoor recreation time and children did not have any soft toys." [From actual report.]

Berks seems to be run better, allowing more time for recreation and more activities for children. But both facilities treat non-convicts, including women and children, like criminal prisoners. Because they have no guidelines, they discipline both children and adults inconsistently and without regard for age differences among children. The groups also found that both facilities violated standards about denying access to counsel, food, hygiene products, clothing, etc., and resorting to corporal punishment.

The AP quotes White House Press Sec. Tony Snow justifying the facilities, "You have to do the best with what you've got." If this is the best the ICE can do, then it needs some discipline itself.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Latino, ICE, prison,children, Illegal.

Virginia to Cut Funds for Helping People

2007-02-15T13:00:00.000-05:00

Virginia House Bill 2937, passed by the Delegates in Jan., proposes that organizations receiving state or local funding cannot “use those funds to provide benefits or assistance to ineligible persons such as undocumented immigrants”. Nancy Lyall and Teresita Jacinto of the Woodbridge Workers Committee, have published an op-ed in The Washington Post, condemning the bill for its inhumanity, on the basis that children, the sick, and other needy will suffer unduly when homeless shelters, English schools, and church groups cease functioning as they do now.

Charity, particularly religious, obviously has a close history with immigration -- from Emma Lazarus's poem on the Statue of Liberty to the Sanctuary Movement -- which is not surprising, considering its central role in Judeo-Christian scripture. In Mark 25:34-40, the King welcomes into heaven those who helped strangers during their times on earth and damns those who did not. The instruction of the verses is obvious, that we must help “the least of these my brethren”, not only those who mean something to us or have done something for us. This sentiment is an echo from the Torah, which clearly instructs the faithful -- on many occasions -- to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and welcome the stranger into our homes because we once were (and could be again) strangers in another land. (Deut. 10:19, “Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”) The Bible puts no qualifications on whom to help, and we mortals do not get to judge our fellows' worthiness.

Some ire puffed up recently when someone started a “deport Santa” movement to mock the anti-immigrant law in Hazleton, Pa. What kind of response would a “Jesus was an illegal immigrant” campaign get? The (earthly) reason the son of man entered the world in a manger full of animals instead of a house is that his parents were immigrants -- Joseph and Mary lived in Nazareth but were returning to Bethlehem, Joseph’s hometown, to be counted in the Roman census. They were poor, and there was no room at the inn, so the pregnant woman and her husband had to sleep in the manger. These were migrants on the road in need of help -- and look what came from them. (I’m certainly not the first to make this point.)

In a country like ours where a majority of the population claims to follow the mandates of the Bible, one would think such arguments would give rise to according results, that calling on the public’s sense of humanity and charity would lead to the striking down of measures like Virginia House 2937. But, while many people of faith do take up the cause of charity, the assault on unjust immigration legislation hasn’t worked this way. Somehow, advocates just sound like more bleeding-heart, terrorist-loving liberals. History tells us the tactic Lyall and Jacinto use in their piece, harping on the individuals who will suffer from this bill, will prove ineffective.

However, the writers do have several important points buried in their piece and imply another. They mention that denying medical aid to a diabetic now could result in a larger amount of tax money spent later, if the man becomes gravely ill from lack of care. They mention that non-immigrants and legal migrants will suffer from cutting funding to such groups. They also make note of the important point that, "Current federal immigration policy provides no legal avenue for their presence”. (A blow to those who say, “We’d welcome them if they just came legally.")

But the implied point of the piece -- the most important -- is that these measures will not stop people from coming here, with or without documentation. No one crosses the desert on foot because a particular homeless shelter in Virginia has warm coats. In fact, simply by staying here -- and, for those who came that way, by crossing the border -- our undocumented population has already shown a willingness to endure hardships that should assure us that just being meaner to them won’t solve our “problem” of having them here. It just proves us cruel.

Now this is not my call to religion, or even a rank chastisement of the hypocrites of faith (well, maybe a bit). Rather, consider this a plea that, even should many of us not follow these tenets of religion, we should not impede charitable organizations, hospitals, and schools by cutting off their funds on such grounds as those proposed in Virginia's House Bill 2937.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Latino, Virginia, Christianity,religion, Illegal.

Internment Camps Reappear in the USA

2007-02-02T13:15:00.000-05:00

Men, women, and children held indefinitely in windowless tents. Divided into "pods". Denied hearings and access to counsel. Sometimes having to eat with their hands. Sent outside for recreation on a cold, windy day without even long sleeves. No, not Children of Men, which, it seems, has nothing to do with the future. We're doing this now. Read on. (I've highlighted some of the more striking passages.)

Border Policy's Success Strains Resources
Tent City in Texas Among Immigrant Holding Sites Drawing Criticism

By Spencer S. Hsu and Sylvia Moreno
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 2, 2007; A01

RAYMONDVILLE, Tex. -- Ringed by barbed wire, a futuristic tent city rises from the Rio Grande Valley in the remote southern tip of Texas, the largest camp in a federal detention system rapidly gearing up to keep pace with Washington's increasing demand for stronger enforcement of immigration laws.

About 2,000 illegal immigrants, part of a record 26,500 held across the United States by federal authorities, will call the 10 giant tents home for weeks, months and perhaps years before they are removed from the United States and sent back to their home countries.

The $65 million tent city, built hastily last summer between a federal prison and a county jail, marks both the success and the limits of the government's new policy of holding captured non-Mexicans until they are sent home. Previously, most such detainees were released into the United States before hearings, and a majority simply disappeared.

The new policy has led to a dramatic decline in border crossings by non-Mexicans, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

But civil liberties and immigration law groups allege that out of sight, the system is bursting at the seams. In the Texas facility, they say, illegal immigrants are confined 23 hours a day in windowless tents made of a Kevlar-like material, often with insufficient food, clothing, medical care and access to telephones. Many are transferred from the East Coast, 1,500 miles from relatives and lawyers, virtually cutting off access to counsel.

"I call it 'Ritmo' -- like Gitmo, but it's in Raymondville," said Jodi Goodwin, an immigration lawyer from nearby Harlingen.

An inspector general's report last month on a sampling of five U.S. immigration detention facilities found inhumane and unsafe conditions, including inadequate health care, the presence of vermin, limited access to clean underwear and undercooked poultry. Although ICE standards require that immigrants have access to phones and pro bono law offices, investigators found phones missing, not working or connected to non-working numbers.

With roughly 1.6 million illegal immigrants in some stage of immigration proceedings, ICE holds more inmates a night than Clarion hotels have guests, operates nearly as many vehicles as Greyhound has buses and flies more people each day than do many small U.S. airlines.

Gary Mead, assistant director of ICE detention and removal operations, said the agency is proud of its record, calling Raymondville "a modern, clean facility" that meets federal standards -- "which we believe are among the highest you'll find anywhere." Mead added: "We think the conditions of confinement there are both humane and consistent with all the rights they should be entitled to."

Despite its spartan conditions, the facility in Willacy County, 260 miles south of Austin, is a key to President Bush's drive to create a channel for temporary foreign workers and a path toward legalization for as many as 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.

To do so, the government must convince skeptics that it can credibly enforce laws aimed at illegal immigrants and their employers, and can hold and deport those caught by the U.S. Border Patrol. At the same time, the administration and its allies argue that even additional detention beds will be overwhelmed without new channels for legal immigration.

Accordingly, the United States has embarked on a huge prison building and contracting campaign, increasing the number of illegal immigrants detained from 19,718 a day in 2005 to about 26,500 now, and a projected 32,000 this summer.

About 80 percent of ICE's beds are rented at 300 local and state jails nationwide, concentrated in the South and Southwest, or at eight sites run by contractors such as the Corrections Corporation of America and Geo Group Inc., in places such as Houston, San Diego and Aurora, Colo.

ICE recently added a 1,524-bed facility in Stewart County, Ga., and a 512-bed center in Taylor, Tex., for immigrant families, both run by Corrections Corp.

With the new beds, the administration has imprisoned and deported virtually 100 percent of non-Mexicans caught since August, under faster proceedings that deny hearings to all but asylum seekers.

The administration says this has deterred many others. After quadrupling over four years, the number of non-Mexicans apprehended fell 35 percent in 2006, to 108,026.

But immigration experts and U.S. authorities say the impact of the prison boom will be hard to sustain and still is absorbing only a drop in the bucket of illegal immigration. The Border Patrol made 1.1 million apprehensions last year -- mostly Mexicans who were promptly returned across the border -- but estimates 500,000 people evaded capture or entered legally and then overstayed visas.

An additional 630,000 are at large, ignoring deportation orders, and 300,000 more who entered state and local prisons for committing crimes are to be deported but will probably slip through the cracks after completing their sentences.

U.S. authorities acknowledge that gains from the latest crackdown will be fleeting without the major changes the president wants.

"The short answer is, it is not sustainable," Mead said. "There comes a point where we can't detain any more people. Hopefully, prior to getting there, the deterrence factor will kick in."

The increased tempo of operations is a strain. ICE has no modern nationwide system to track its facilities' populations. It relies on an antiquated computer system created in 1984.

Every day since July, six officers have manually tracked and transferred detained immigrants among 24 regional offices, matching bodies to vacant beds and airplane seats in a Detention Operations Coordination Center, Mead said. "We have all of the information," he said. "It's a question of automation."

Legal advocates contend that some of the older facilities where immigrants are housed are in deplorable condition and that growing pains afflict even new facilities.

Under fire in Taylor, for example, ICE has expanded hours of daily schooling for children from one to seven hours to meet Texas guidelines.

In Willacy County, one of the country's poorest, ICE has set up 10 huge tents on concrete pads, surrounded by 14-foot-high chain-link fences looped with barbed wire. Each "sprung structure" holds about 200 men or women, divided into four "pods." Similar temporary buildings were used for troop recreational facilities in Iraq.

The center is part of a chain of facilities in South Texas with 6,700 new immigration detention beds. At a cost of $78 a night per bed (compared with an ICE average of $95 a bed), the Willacy facility is not only cheaper than any bricks-and-mortar prison but also faster to construct, move or dismantle, Mead said.

Detainees are subject to penal system practices, such as group punishment for disciplinary infractions. The tents are windowless and the walls are blank, and no partitions or doors separate the five toilets, five sinks, five shower heads and eating areas. Lacking utensils on some days, detainees eat with their hands.

Because lights are on around the clock, a visitor finds many occupants buried in their blankets throughout the day. The stillness and torpor of the pod's communal room, where 50 to 60 people dwell, are noticeable.

Goodwin described a group of women who huddled in a recreation yard on a recent 40-degree day with a 25-mph wind. "They had no blanket, no sweat shirt, no jacket," she said. "Officers were wearing earmuffs, and detainees were outside for an hour with short-sleeved polyester uniforms and shower shoes and not necessarily socks."

Perhaps more troubling, lawyers said, large numbers of immigrants have been transferred from Boston, New York, New Jersey and Florida, far from their families and lawyers. Because some immigration judges do not permit hearings by teleconference, detainees are essentially deprived of counsel.

Immigration violators in the United States are held on civil grounds and have no right to appointed lawyers. But federal guidelines call for providing them law libraries, telephones and phone numbers for legal aid.

Joining a lawsuit last week, the American Civil Liberties Union alleged that severe overcrowding at a Corrections Corp. facility in San Diego poses an unconstitutional risk to detainees' health and safety, arguing that as administrative detainees, illegal immigrants should be treated better than convicted criminals.

The National Lawyers Guild and five other groups petitioned the Department of Homeland Security last month to set binding regulations for detention sites, saying U.S. standards set in 2000 are not enforceable.

And the New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee has announced a campaign to stop ICE's use of county jails.

"The standards are there," said David A. Martin, a former general counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, ICE's predecessor agency, who advocates concentrating detention centers in perhaps 10 cities to ensure access to lawyers and oversight. "But there are some real indicators federal standards are not well monitored or policed. We ought to do better."

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Latino, ICE, prisons,detainees, Illegal.

USCIS Hikes Immigration Fees

2007-02-02T10:07:00.000-05:00

USCIS plans to increase fees for immigration applications by an average of 96 percent, according to a notice placed yesterday in the Federal Register (Doc E7-1631). For instance, the cost of a green-card application (I-485) will rise from $325 to $905. USCIS says the higher fees will not only pay towards all general and existing costs but will help fund a streamlining of the immigration process, including new technologies and more staff, in an attempt to eliminate the department's notorious backlog. They are also intended to reflect increases in cost of living and inflation.

"The proposed fee increases range from $65 to $2,350, depending on the type of immigration or naturalization benefit for which the application or petition is submitted. Fifteen fees will increase by amounts between $65 and $200; eight fees will increase, and one will decrease, by amounts between $200 and $300; one fee will
increase by amounts between $300 and $400; and six fees will increase more than $400." (From FR Doc E7-1631.)

The jump in the I-485 cost and that of other applications will include the costs of "interim benefits" often filed by applicants while their cases are pending -- permission to work and to travel, for example -- so that these additional fees will not be paid at separate times but all at once. However, it seems the petitioner would still need to file the additional forms but will simply have paid ahead of time. There is no guarantee that the petitioner will need these benefits as USCIS projects and will therefore have paid for services not rendered.

USCIS also claims that the ending of certain temporary admission programs will cut the department's revenue, thereby necessitating increases in fees in other areas. For instance, INA section 245(i) allows relief for particular applicants who pay a $1,000 penalty on top of the application fees -- but only if they filed on or before April 30, 2001. The program can be legally re-enacted but hasn't been, resulting in drastically declining revenue for USCIS -- and further increasing of the undocumented population because people can't adjust their status. USCIS also cites its program of Temporary Protective Status, which it can extend to nationals of certain countries facing a crisis like civil war or natural disaster. Of course if USCIS worries about losing income from the current TPS groups' no longer needing the service, others are available for inclusion.

Immigrants can apply for fee waivers on certain grounds. But, for instance, if granted a fee waiver on the basis of inability to pay, the applicant may lose his/her case because most applicants must show they can support themselves financially once here. Fees can become compounded as asylees do not have to pay application fees, and the costs of their cases get pushed onto other applicants. In addition, petitioners must pay further fees to appeal certain decisions, file to re-open a case, file for a cancellation of removal, etc.

The proposed increases will take effect on April 2. Before that time the public may file opinions on the matter. Several members of Congress have already done so.

(The Washington Post also reported on this.)

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Latino, USCIS, law,Green Card, Illegal.

Laws Before Justice in Herndon

2007-01-29T15:27:00.000-05:00

Stephen J. DeBenedittis, the mayor of Herndon, Va., a DC suburb with a huge population of immigrants, particularly from El Salvador, published a letter in The Washington Post this past Sunday to declare his respect for the "rule of law" and his willingness to embrace legal immigrants into his community. Since taking office Mr. DeBenedittis has moved forward several measures similar to those springing up in towns across the nation, intended to deter the undocumented from settling in these communities.

He writes: "This does not mean we are unwelcoming to immigrants, nor does it mean we are against any ethnic group. It means that we respect and seek to follow the law of the land."

Yet, Mr. DeBenedittis then contradicts himself, saying, "Workable, enforceable reforms to immigration laws and policies must be enacted."

In doing so, he exposes the contradiction inherent in deriding undocumented immigrants for not respecting the established "rule of law" while at the same time calling for changes in that "rule", in order to deter or punish the undocumented. If, as the mayor claims, illegality is the problem and not the immigrants themselves and he's willing to make new laws in this arena as he's shown by his initiatives, then why not encourage change in the laws of admission to the USA, making them more permissive and therefore more in step with the realities of immigration, and enforce them justly? This way, Mr. DeBenedittis would have more legal immigrants to welcome into his town, which he claims to be so keen to do.

No, this "law of the land" rhetoric seems either false-hearted or misplaced. Respect for the law should be tempered by a sense that the law exists to serve the cause of justice, not to serve itself. Otherwise, were our judges this forthright, we might witness more of this backwards occurrence, described in Billy Bragg's song "Rotting on Remand":

"I said there is no justice
As they led me out of the door.
And the Judge said, 'This isn't a court of justice, son.
This is a court of law.'"

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Latino, laborers, law,racial, Illegal.

Racial Profiling in Enforcement?

2007-01-25T10:54:00.000-05:00

ICE took into custody 24 day laborers in Baltimore city two days ago, using methods that may amount to racial profiling, according to an internal e-mail from Washington-area members of the American Immigration Lawyers Assoc.:

"Witness accounts indicate that Latino workers were separated from other ethnic groups for questioning, and passers-by who appeared Latino were also being detained and questioned."

The e-mail called on members to help a local Latino group identify and support those apprehended, who now sit in Salisbury Detention Center, and address "the racial profiling issue which appears to have been very blatant."

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Latino, laborers, ICE,racial, Illegal.

State of the Union

2007-01-23T23:53:00.000-05:00

Pres. Bush's sixth State of the Union address came and went without any strikingly new thoughts on immigration. Call it pandering to various constituencies or working for compromise, Bush maintained his call for both "laws that are fair" and "borders that are secure"; a temporary-worker program and twice as many Border Patrol backed by "new infrastructure and technology".

Yet his call for "laws that are fair" stops with this worker program, leaving out the full complexity of the insufficiencies of our immigration law -- like the "material support" bar that, for instance, denied asylum to a woman held captive, raped, and forced to work by a rebel group in West Africa by saying she aided terrorists. (Several such instances have been reported.)

More importantly, it ignores the paralyzing failings of our immigration system itself, so backlogged and politically prejudiced that it fails those who actually qualify under our stringent laws of admission, either through the delay of justice or the unreasonable discretion of judges. Should a man sit in prison for months, even years, awaiting adjudication of his claim for political asylum? Should a U.S.-citizen child, born and raised in this country, whose mother has outstayed a visa, face the fate of either (1) deportation to a destitute and unruly land she's never visited, where medical care is impossible and warring factions use rape or amputation of children to fight their battles, or (2) life as a ward of the state and an ostensible orphan? (I've worked on several cases just like that myself.)

A temporary-worker program would certainly prove a relief valve of sorts, allowing the natural cycles of worker migration to resume, but it's not enough -- particularly if it proves to be the program that's temporary, as the official transcript of the President's speech implies, and not the workers. (Of course that implication might result from poor punctuation, writing "temporary worker program" instead of "temporary-worker program", rather than poor policy making.)

In his address the President also called for workplace enforcement of immigration laws, just as his executive branch announced several hundred more such arrests and deportations this week. From the West Coast to the East, immigrants were taken into custody for alleged violations. No charges have been brought against the people who employed them.

Pres. Bush demanded we resolve the status of the undocumented "without animosity", a noble thought indeed. Yet we continue to treat undocumented migrants as dangerous criminals or enemy combatants of some sort, even without proof of wrongdoing, as last week's report reminded us. And even the quickest survey of commentary from anonymous writers online to t.v. personalities to elected legislators reveals the wide spread of a fallacious nightmare in which murderous, malicious hordes of foreigners swarm into our country to destroy it.

The President also said that, "our country requires an immigration system worthy of America". Is such xenophobic behavior worthy of the USA? Are walled, medieval cities worthy of the land of the free and the home of the brave? Was war-torn Berlin? Soldier-lined borders? Federal agents kicking down doors at 4 a.m. to take people away? Are these the things America deserves?

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Bush, ICE,Union, Illegal.

New Report of Immigrant Neglect

2007-01-17T11:20:00.000-05:00

ICE has mistreated suspected undocumented immigrants in several detention centers nationwide, according to a government report released yesterday. The Washington Post reports that ICE and the private contractors to whom it outsources some of its detainees "denied timely medical treatment to some of the immigrants, failed to disclose and justify disciplinary actions against them, and improperly limited access to relatives, lawyers and immigration authorities".

This news doesn't shock the immigrant community, particularly since 09.11.01 and the Special Registration of Muslim- and/or Arab-type men. Many of those men found themselves detained without cause or the one phone call afforded others seen as criminals. And insiders of the immigration system have long dealt with indefinite detentions while a backed-up system crawled towards examining cases.

Critics of the new report claim the government has presented a watered-down assessment, leaving out reports of more severe abuses, "which they said included physical beatings, medical neglect, food shortages and mixing of illegal immigrants in administrative custody with criminals." Aside from the clear-cut abuse, someone who has allegedly overstayed a visa should not share a cell with a convicted murderer. This is why we have prisons of varying levels of security.

Some claim that those not here legally do not deserve the protection of our laws -- despite our founders' assertions that The Constitution applies to all people. (Those old, white men of course may have had a different concept of "people" than we have today.) But we should not punish people with our laws if we do not allow them the protections those laws provide. That's not how our system was intended to function.

Regardless, ICE's attempts at raising the detention rate of undocumented people add strain to a system that, as this report indicates, can't support its current burden -- despite DHS Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers's protests and only partial acceptance of the report. But the U.N. plans to investigate.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Prison, ICE,U.N., Illegal.

Testing II

2007-01-17T10:25:00.000-05:00

The only acceptable answers for our sample citizenship test, according to USCIS:

1. She fought for women’s rights.

2. The Federalist Papers

3. Everyone must obey the law.
Leaders must obey the law.
Government must obey the law.

4. The Missouri River

5. Because there were 13 original
colonies
Because the stripes represent
the original colonies

6. The spread of communism
The Soviet Union [USSR and
Russia are also acceptable.]

7. U.S. diplomat
Oldest member of the
Constitutional Convention
First Postmaster General of the
United States
Writer of “Poor Richard’s
Almanac”

8. 1787

9. You can practice any religion
you want, or not practice at all.

10.Print money
Declare war
Create an army
Make treaties

Apparently, THE "major concern" during the Cold War was EITHER Communism OR The Soviet Union. Look, either ask for "a" concern or declare only one possibility for "the" concern. As for Susan B., the question as it's so vaguely worded could be answered: Wore dresses. Was an avid reader. Liked long walks on the beach. Or ended up on a silver dollar.

The freedom of religion answer is just loony. The government has established that, for instance, certain Caribbean religions involving the practice of animal sacrifice are not allowed. The practice of polygamy, once popularized in Mormonism (though now largely out of fashion), has been outlawed. And don't even get me started on the constraints we've placed on practicing Islam. And we may not physically impede most people from practicing anything that doesn't look like Christianity, but we certainly ostracize them a lot of the time. Now, to be fair, the question doesn't claim that this country allows freedom of religion as it defines the term (though other questions here do). So then why put this question on this test?

And rule of law. Ah, yes. "Those illegals don't respect the rule of law!" Anything that says "Everyone must obey" sounds a bit ominous to me, particularly since many folks tout respect for the "rule of law" even by those from whom they would refuse the benefits of the law, i.e. non-citizens must follow our laws but don't receive the benefits of our highest law, The Constitution. And recent history shows us that the President can, if not flaunt the law, simply skirt it to his own ends. That kind of thinking makes us hypocrites. Perhaps a question that teaches that should appear on the test as well.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Citizen, Constitution,USCIS, Test.

So U Wanna B a Citizen?

2007-01-03T10:49:00.000-05:00

USCIS recently released the questions and answers of the pilot version of a new citizenship test, the one legal residents have to pass as part of their applications for citizenship. USCIS will start testing the exam questions on applicants early this year, hoping to finalize a new exam more angled towards the "concepts of democracy and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship". Out of the 144 questions in the pool, applicants have to answer correctly 6 out of the 10 asked of them.

Some people have long wondered how native-born citizens would fare on this exam. So, let's test ourselves. Read the 10 questions below, drawn straight from the pilot citizenship exam, and send a comment with your answers (or wait until I post the answers and send in your score). Also, if you want to send in some snide, funny answers, please do.

1. What did Susan B. Anthony do?
2. What group of essays supported the passage of the Constitution?
3. What is the "rule of law"?
4. What is the longest river in the United States?
5. Why does the flag have 13 stripes?
6. What was the major concern of the US during the Cold War?
7. Name one thing Benjamin Franklin is famous for?
8. When was the Constitution drafted?
9. What does freedom of religion mean?
10.Name one thing only the Federal government can do.

[I did handpick these, so they're not random. I could have asked, Who was the first President? or Which sitting member of the Executive branch recently shot a man in the face?]

The point, however, is not the injustice of demanding of new citizens a knowledge of our government than many of us do not possess. After all, we hand them a sheet with all the answers on it ahead of time: To become real students of the USA, they just have to learn by rote, spit out the right responses on test day, and go on their ways, immediately forgetting what they'd learned.

The glaring problem with this test is that it rather boldly attempts to indoctrinate our new citizens with simplistic thought and some debatable, politically motivated answers like "Everyone has the right to bear arms" -- and that several of the answers are, well, wrong.

Steven Lubet illuminates this in a piece at Salon.com, in which he attests that answers to as many as 19 of the 144 questions on the test are incorrect. For example:

"The dumbed-down answers to the pilot questions end up penalizing applicants who actually understand the Constitution. Thus, anyone who wants to guarantee a passing score should probably memorize the many misconceptions found in the USCIS pilot answers, such as the following:

"A member of Congress represents all citizens in that representative's district (wrong; he or she represents all people in the district, including noncitizens).

"Only state governments can provide police protection and fire departments, issue drivers' licenses, and provide education (wrong; the federal government can, and does, provide those services on military bases and in the District of Columbia).

"Elections in the United States are always held in November (wrong; federal elections are in November, but state and local elections -- and federal primaries -- are held in many other months).

"It is the responsibility of U.S. citizens, and only citizens, to vote and serve on juries (idealistic, but still wrong; jury service can be legally required, but voting is strictly optional -- and in any event, noncitizens may be allowed to vote in certain state and local elections).

"Only U.S. citizens may apply for federal jobs (seriously wrong, especially given the context; permanent resident aliens -- meaning pretty much everybody who takes the citizenship test -- are eligible for employment by many agencies of the federal government, including the U.S. Postal Service)."

Lubet also throws in some levity at the end, adding President Bush's theoretical responses to some of the questions. The test does prove good for some laughs, but it also shows that, even in a smaller matter like the citizenship test, USCIS and its system need deep reformation. A legal venue for immigration this flawed deserves much of the blame for our large, undocumented population. Who wouldn't skirt a system this stupid?

(You can find the whole pilot test here.)

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Citizen, Constitution,USCIS, Test.

The Future of Immigration

2006-12-31T11:33:00.000-05:00

Alfonso comes from Mexico. He has a talent for crossing borders and worked temporarily in the USA a few times before settling here with his family. He has helped provide millions of Americans with things they so desperately crave -- and that infinitesimally few of us can provide for ourselves. But almost none of us would know his face because Alfonso works behind the scenes. Alfonso directs films.

In Children of Men, Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá también, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) drops viewers into a dystopian near future in which England's is the last remaining government and the world's women have become infertile. Anarchic violence reigns as freedom-fighters -- terrorists? -- battle the government and each other. Clive Owen, in a wonderful, subtle turn as an emotionally crushed, alcoholic bureaucrat, finds himself, as Theo, in the employ of a group known as The Fishes who want him to transport a "'fugee" girl to the coast. Yes, it's a quest film, but Cuarón's pacing varies such that this never feels like Run, Lola, Run.

Critics have showered the film with accolades, and deservedly so. Emmanuel Lubezki's camera work has some astonishing moments, and the actors -- including Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Claire-Hope Ashitey -- turn in solid performances. But the reason this "future" film works, the reason it bests, say, Minority Report is that it's not about the future: It's about the present. Granted, many films have tried to show us how our current mistakes will grow into future catastrophe -- among them the excellent V for Vendetta (which has much in common with Children of Men) and the atrocious The Island. But Children of Men, adapted from the novel by P.D. James, is much smarter and better-made than The Island and much more realistic and literal than the mostly fantastic and metaphorical V for Vendetta. That's why it's so scary. The tragedy of 2027 extends naturally from today's direction of restriction, balkanization, religious fanaticism, environmental degradation, disease, and, most vividly, immigration.

In 2027 England, armed guards hold immigrants in cages along city streets. Large screens remind citizens to "Report Illegal Immigrants". Black buses reading "Homeland Security" transport the undesirables to deportation camps. In a rather deft way, the film blends imagery of the machinery of U.S. immigration with that of the Holocaust. The deportation camp at Bexhill that the characters visit is nothing more than a recreation of the Warsaw Ghetto, a blockaded section of a town that, converted into a slum, serves as a prison. And when violence comes to Bexhill, it can't help but recall the famed uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto as the outmatched rebels, hiding in an apartment building, exchange fire with the army in the street.

For anyone who lives in or has visited the borderlands of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, or California, the rumbling Homeland Security buses packed with undocumented people won't seem a strange sight at all. In fact, minus the cages and the physically enforced ghetto (there are those who argue that we bind minorities in our ghettos economically), not much differentiates ICE now from England's Homeland Security in the imagined future. We encourage citizens to rat out "illegals"; we round up undocumented people and either bus them towards deportation or incarcerate them (particularly now that we've officially ended "catch and release"). We blame the "illegals" for all of our problems.And we do, in fact, have a form of the cages, though ours are less dramatic: ICE and DHS vehicles parked along roads and in parking lots near the border serve as mobile cages for detainees.

Just as in Cuarón's future, with our terminology and generalizations we dehumanize immigrants. We make "immigrant" a race, a breed of man, a class of undesirables. Children of Men, perhaps because it uses groups of people somewhat atypical of the U.S. immigration debate (Middle Easterners and Eastern Europeans -- and maybe some USians), hurls this mechanism back in our faces. Setting the film in the UK has the same distancing effect. By presenting us an outside perspective on a diverse world of immigrants and hinting at the disasters that drove them into exile, it reminds us that "immigrant" is just a status conveyed by chance and disaster, not an inherent nature.

In a particularly poignant moment, Theo switches into broken English to save Kee, the 'fugee girl, from a Homeland Security guard who has already thrown Mary (a Fish) off the HS bus and into captivity. This act of momentarily assuming the mantle of "immigrant" screams the term's transient and shallow nature.

But Children of Men most importantly shows us how immigration is not a problem in itself. It is not an issue. It is not a root cause but an effect of all the other disasters and bad choices we make. The real threat to our national sovereignty comes from the restriction, balkanization, religious fanaticism, environmental degradation, and disease and the way that we and our governments respond to these problems. People on the receiving end of migration have trouble recognizing that, or perhaps they think that immigration, even as an effect, should not involve them. But Children of Men shows us that it does. Because if, in 20 years, only one government still exists and chaos reigns even in the good ol' US of A, then who will be among those migrating?

As we step into 2007, we, particularly in the USA, should heed this warning. If we don't work on stopping the driving factors behind mass migrations, and if we continue to bar people fleeing problems we helped cause, we'll have a much bigger "immigration problem" on our hands.

Alfonso comes from Mexico, so he knows about these things from a different perspective. Thankfully, he has a knack for crossing borders and speaks a native language we can all understand -- cinema.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Children, Cuaron,Film, Illegal.

Congressman Calls to Keep Muslims Out of USA

2006-12-21T14:58:00.000-05:00

Congressman Virgil Goode (R-Va.) fears Muslim immigrants will destroy the USA. He recently went on the attack against newly-elected Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) -- the first Muslim ever elected to Congress -- who has drawn ire for insisting he swear on the Koran, rather than on the Christian Bible, when sworn into office. Goode sent letters to his constituents, warning them that:

"[I]f American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped." (From the C-ville Weekly.)

Somehow, Goode believes that trampling the U.S. Constitution and its Amendments will "preserve the values and beliefs" of this country. He makes no claims about terrorism, saying that the mere presence of Muslims in this nation will destroy it. His statements lend further credence to the idea that many proponents of restricted immigration either push their policies out of their own bigotry and preponderance for scapegoating or think that such positions will serve their self-interests, keeping them in elected office by manipulating their constituents' fears and natural prejudices.

The Washington Post reports that Rep. William J. Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.) has criticized Goode, saying Goode "wrongfully equates the issue of immigration with a fear of Muslim integration in our society." That's good. But Pascrell seems to take a backhand slap at immigrants as he defends Muslim-Americans: He sounds like he's defending only his Muslim-American constituents and slighting both Muslim and non-Muslim immigrants. Does he agree with Goode that immigration in general damages our society? Looking at his voting record, probably not. But this reminds us that both our public figures and we in the media should take heed of how we speak and how we present the spoken word. At least Goode doesn't blunder on that in this case: He has defended his words as accurate.
________________
A side note: While re-reading The Constitution and The Declaration of Independence today, I came across this among the list of grievances that justified the secession from England and its King:

"He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the Conditions of new Appropriations of Lands."

Does this no longer hold? Have we grown enough? Do new and different people help our nation progress, or do they undermine our "traditional" culture?

(Thanks to Bill Scher at Liberal Oasis for blogging on this.)

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, House, Congress,Ellison, Illegal, Goode, Muslim.

Maine Bends Sinister

2006-12-21T14:34:00.000-05:00

This article from a The Bangor Daily News proves the dangers inherent in local law enforcement’s attempting to police immigration law in the course of regular duties. It seems an officer pulled over a vehicle carrying several Mexican men "after noticing a broken window" (presumably on the vehicle), which seems like a rather strange reason to make a traffic stop. Three of the men were arrested on the spot, though on what grounds the article does not make clear. (The driver was found to not have a U.S. driver's license, however that's not always grounds for arrest.) The other seven "will be questioned to determine whether they have committed an administrative immigration violation". Evidence came second to suspicion in this case -- just as some critics of local immigration enforcement worried it would. It seems that we in the land of the free and home of the brave must now carry identification papers at all times or risk arrest -- even though we don’t have a national ID. And the men are apparently here making Christmas wreaths. This sounds like a distopian novel by some morose Eastern European writer.

The article also mentions that earlier this year, the same police department made a similar batch of arrests after stopping a car that didn't have a license plate. In that case, "None of the passengers spoke English, prompting Ellsworth police to call immigration officials." Enough said.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, House, GOP,Maine, Illegal, Christmas, English.

Raids, A Court Decision, and Romney Acts

2006-12-15T13:26:00.000-05:00

ICE raided meat-packing plants in six states this week, targeting Social Security fraud -- not immigration violations -- among undocumented workers. Some 1,300 people found themselves detained and bused away from the plants.

According to The Washington Post:

"In a brief teleconference with reporters, Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for ICE, said that "the signal we're intending to send here is, 'We're serious about work site enforcement, and those individuals who steal identities of U.S. citizens will not escape action from us.' " She said the government would also pursue vendors of fake documents, former workers and legitimate residents who sold their Social Security numbers."

ICE won't target, it seems, the large corporations who hire these workers and lure people to commit ID fraud, if it continues to pursue fraud and not immigration violations. (Swift & Co., whose plants ICE raided won't be charged with anything, though it certainly lost a day of business.) This way, it can please anti-immigration camps and the big businesses who reap the benefits of undocumented workers. Only the workers lose.

An Associated Press article presents the thesis that consumers and various parts of the meat industry will suffer higher costs with elimination of cheap, immigrant labor. But a good portion of the article refutes that idea, and, indeed, claims that not much has changed in the industry from the raids -- except for the lives of the 1,300 or so people arrested.

But, again, unions have taken a stand on the side of "illegal" workers, so often accused of undermining their native-born counterparts:

"These actions today by ICE are an affront to decency," said Mark Lauritsen, a spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which sought an injunction in court to halt the raids and planned protests around the country. Federal agents essentially stormed plants "in an effort designed to terrorize" workers, he said. [Wash. Post]
_________________________
The ACLU announced that Escondido, Ca., agreed to not enforce its new city ordinance that would ban renting apartments to undocumented immigrants -- a proposal similar to that in Hazleton, Pa. The decision comes as part of a settlement to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU and other groups who argued "that the ordinance was illegal and unconstitutional on a number of grounds, including that it was preempted by federal law and violated due process and the property, fair housing and contract rights of both landlords and tenants."

It also calls into question a major issue in policing undocumented immigration: How to identify suspects without evidence already in hand? How does one identify an undocumented immigrant "in the act"? Police might pull over a driver swerving or driving too slow or too fast, observed behaviors that suggest some kind of danger to the public. But how to pull over a suspected "illegal"? What observed behavior suggests a person doesn't have papers or has overstayed a visa? Perhaps he speaks Spanish -- like millions of documented migrants and native-born U.S. citizens. Perhaps he has brown skin. Perhaps, as one local vigilante group in Calif. told it's potential members, he carries "stolen" oranges in plastic a bag for his lunch.

Undocumented immigration rarely has real witnesses (unless authorities target the purveyors of false or stolen identification) and relying on neighbors who suspect the person next door of not having papers is merely to fall prey to paranoia and xenophobia -- because the answer to how to identify an undocumented immigrant in most cases is purely by perceived ethnicity. From there stems the dangers inherent not only in locally operated immigration enforcement but in ordinances like Escondido's and Hazleton's -- and in the measure enacted by Gov. Mitt Romney (R., Mass.).

Gov. Romney, on his way out of the governor's mansion and eying the White House, "signed an agreement Wednesday that allows Massachusetts State Police troopers to detain illegal aliens they encounter over the course of their normal duties", according to The AP. The troopers, drawn from units dedicated to violent crimes, gangs, drug enforcement, and community action would receive five weeks of training by ICE before adding to their jobs new duties -- trying to bust similarly dangerous villains, like undocumented apple-pickers, nannies, and Gov. Romney's own landscapers.

As The Boston Globe reported earlier this month, the Romney family, for about ten years, has used a landscaping company "that relies heavily on workers like these, illegal Guatemalan immigrants, to maintain the grounds surrounding his pink Colonial house" and that of his son, down the street. But Romney leaves office on Jan. 4, and his Democratic successor plans to look into dismantling this new program, which now looks like little more than another politician's attempt to protect his own posterior, lunge for a higher throne, and still make no real progress on immigration.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, House, Escondido,Romney, Illegal, Crime, English.

Some Claim Immigrants "Make Us Safer"

2006-12-11T14:50:00.000-05:00

This article from The New York Times provides evidence that threatens the theory that immigrants, particularly undocumented ones, cause crime rates to rise. That theory lies at the foundations of many anti-immigrant laws, like the one in Hazleton, Pa., proposed after two undocumented immigrants were charged with murder. The NYT article examines the results of studies like by of Robert J. Sampson, chairman of the sociology department at Harvard, who argues that the opposite may, in fact, be true: Immigrants' determination to succeed and fit in and the traditional family values many bring with them make them more likely to be more law abiding than the native-born U.S. population. However, as immigrants produce further, more-assimilated generations, crime rates among the families rise. Is it our existing social framework that criminalizes the children and grandchildren of immigrants?

Do Immigrants Make Us Safer?

December 3, 2006
By EYAL PRESS

Although the midterm election failed to render a clear verdict on illegal immigration, the new Democratic Congress may enact sweeping legislation tightening border controls and allowing more guest workers next year. If that happens, the rancorous debate about how undocumented workers affect jobs and wages in the United States will be rejoined. So, too, will an equally rancorous, if less prominent, debate: Do immigrants make the U.S. more crime-ridden and dangerous?

In an age of Latino gangs and Chinese criminal networks, the notion that communities with growing immigrant populations tend to be unsafe is fairly well established, at least in the popular imagination. In a national survey conducted in 2000, 73 percent of Americans said they believe that immigrants are either “somewhat” or “very” likely to increase crime, higher than the 60 percent who fear they are “likely to cause Americans to lose jobs.” Cities like Avon Park, Fla., have considered ordinances recently to dissuade businesses from hiring illegal immigrants, whose presence “destroys our neighborhoods.” Even President Bush, whose perceived generosity to undocumented workers has earned him vilification on the right, commented in a speech this May that illegal immigration “strains state and local budgets and brings crime to our communities.”

So goes the conventional wisdom. But is it true? In fact, according to evidence cropping up in various places, the opposite may be the case. Ramiro Martinez Jr., a professor of criminal justice at Florida International University, has sifted through homicide records in border cities like San Diego and El Paso, both heavily populated by Mexican immigrants, both places where violent crime has fallen significantly in recent years. “Almost without exception,” he told me, “I’ve discovered that the homicide rate for Hispanics was lower than for other groups, even though their poverty rate was very high, if not the highest, in these metropolitan areas.” He found the same thing in the Haitian neighborhoods of Miami. In his book “New York Murder Mystery,” the criminologist Andrew Karmen examined the trend in New York City and likewise found that the “disproportionately youthful, male and poor immigrants” who arrived during the 1980s and 1990s “were surprisingly law-abiding” and that their settlement into once-decaying neighborhoods helped “put a brake on spiraling crime rates.”

The most prominent advocate of the “more immigrants, less crime” theory is Robert J. Sampson, chairman of the sociology department at Harvard. A year ago, Sampson was an author of an article in The American Journal of Public Health that reported the findings of a detailed study of crime in Chicago. Based on information gathered on the perpetrators of more than 3,000 violent acts committed between 1995 and 2002, supplemented by police records and community surveys, it found that the rate of violence among Mexican-Americans was significantly lower than among both non-Hispanic whites and blacks.

In June, Sampson and I drove out to a neighborhood in Little Village, Chicago’s largest Hispanic community. The area we visited is decidedly poor: in terms of per capita income, 84 percent of Chicago neighborhoods are better off and 99 percent have a greater proportion of residents with a high-school education. As we made our way down a side street, Sampson noted that many of the residents make their living as domestic workers and in other low-wage occupations, often paid off the books because they are undocumented. In places of such concentrated disadvantage, a certain level of violence and social disorder is assumed to be inevitable. As we strolled around, Sampson paused on occasion to make a mental note of potential trouble signs: an alley strewn with garbage nobody had bothered to pick up; a sign in Spanish in several windows, complaining about the lack of a park in the vicinity where children can play. Yet for all of this, the neighborhood was strikingly quiet. And, according to the data Sampson has collected, it is surprisingly safe. The burglary rate in the neighborhood is in the bottom fifth of the city. The overall crime rate is nearly in the bottom third.

The safety of neighborhoods like these has received little attention in the debate about immigration — or, for that matter, the debate about crime. Ever since cities like New York began cracking down on panhandling and loitering in the mid-1990s, a move that coincided with a precipitous drop in violence, policy makers have embraced the so-called broken-windows theory, which emphasizes the deterrent effects of punishing such minor offenses. Lately, though, scholars have begun to question whether “broken windows” deserves all the credit for diminishing crime after all. Some researchers have linked progress to the cessation of the crack epidemic. Others point to an improved economy, community-policing initiatives or even the legalization of abortion, which reduced the number of poor, unwanted children growing up in high-risk neighborhoods.

Sampson’s theory may be the most provocative yet. Could America’s cities be safer today not because fewer unwanted children live in them but because a lot more immigrants do? Could illegal immigration be making the nation a more law-abiding place?

There are, to be sure, scholars who take issue with this rosy picture. Wesley Skogan, a political scientist at Northwestern University, has spent the past 13 years tracking violence and social disorder in the white, black and Latino communities in Chicago. In a new book, “Police and Community in Chicago: A Tale of Three Cities,” just out from Oxford University Press, Skogan concludes that the big success story took place not in immigrant areas but in African-American ones, where participation in community-policing programs was highest and violence fell the most. “About two-thirds of the crime decline in Chicago since 1991 took place in black neighborhoods,” Skogan says. In Hispanic communities, by contrast, Skogan found that the fear of crime, as measured in surveys of residents, and real social disorder — gang activity, loitering — actually became worse as the foreign-born population increased. Skogan acknowledges that Hispanic immigrants don’t show up much in arrest records, but he says he believes part of the explanation for this rests in the fact that those who are undocumented go to enormous lengths to “stay off the radar.” Many also come from a country, Mexico, where distrust of law enforcement is endemic, which is why he suspects they underreport crime and participate less in community-policing programs, as his study found.

Sampson doesn’t deny that crime may be underreported in immigrant neighborhoods. Nonetheless, he is quick to note that as the ranks of foreigners in the United States boomed during the 1990s — increasing by more than 50 percent to 31 million — America’s cities became markedly less dangerous. That these two trends might be related has been overlooked, he says, in part because immigrants, like African-Americans, often trigger negative associations regardless of how they actually behave. Not long ago, Sampson and Stephen W. Raudenbush, a sociologist who teaches at the University of Chicago, conducted an experiment to test this idea. The experiment drew on interviews with more than 3,500 Chicago residents, each of whom was asked how serious problems like loitering and public drinking were where they lived. The responses were compared with the actual level of chaos in the neighborhood, culled from police data and by having researchers drive along hundreds of blocks to document every sign of decay and disorder they could spot.

[Article continues in comment section for this post.]

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, House, GOP,Security, Illegal, Crime, English.

An Addendum

2006-12-08T16:52:00.000-05:00

In addition to the small-town laws listed in the last posting, this article from Breitbart has this description of a new law in Nevada:

"In Pahrump, a desert outpost in the Western state of Nevada with a growing immigrant population, the local council in November voted an English-only ordinance along with a measure barring residents from flying a foreign flag unless it is placed below an American flag. Violators face a 50-dollar fine and 30 hours of community service."

Using a common tongue for interacting with government of course makes sense on one level. But shouldn't Americans be free to speak whichever language they choose? Shouldn't access to government in a democracy reflect the attributes of the population? In other words, if a large portion of your population speaks Spanish, shouldn't the government use the language as well? What seems to lie at the base of these changes is basic. These laws have appeared in towns that received influxes of immigrant populations only recently, so:

"William Ramos, director of the Washington office of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), said the anti-immigrant measures are more a knee-jerk reaction than a thoughtful response to community problems."

Naturally, people who have not had much exposure feel frightened and act defensively, as if under attack, when a new element enters their town. But those feelings do not excuse such un-American measures.

The flag question seems even more problematic: It is a direct attack on the Constitutionally mandated right to freedom of speech. Charging a private citizen with a crime for flying another nation's flag above or instead of a flag of this country is ironic at best and unpatriotic at worst.

But the Pahrump measures and their kin come as part of what proponents call the defense of "our" culture, this sense some hold that the USA is defined not by its declared principles of freedom, liberty, and equality but by racial, ethnic, and linguistic demographics. So, then how do we draw the line? Is this to be a white, Christian nation? If so, why did our forefathers bring millions of black "pagans" here? Do we count Jews on the inside? Asians? What do we do about the Native Americans? After we institutionalize language -- rather than letting it reflect us -- do we then do the same with race and marriage? Will the government recognize only unions between whites? In short, these types of measures do not serve even the cause attempting to curtail undocumented immigration; they seek merely to intimidate those who don't fit into the "right" box.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, House, GOP,Security, Illegal, Crime, English.

Immigration Legislation Into the Future

2006-12-07T23:55:00.000-05:00

Since last we touched on the topic here, the future of immigration legislation has been tossed to the wind by the November elections. Pro-restriction Republicans seemed convinced that their hard line on immigration was so in sync with the sentiments of the American people that it would carry them to electoral victory, particularly in the southwest and south. They may have spoken too soon.

In the months leading up to the election, candidates aiming for seats on each side of the aisle hurled forth their ideas and proposals for immigration reform, and the GOP-led Congress seemed determined to get things done. With the passage of the Secure Fence Act, Congress and the White House approved the construction of hundreds of miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border, though they did so without approving the funding needed to actually build the fence. This left many of us to wonder if all the immigration gusto was just to rustle up votes before the election. Now we’ll find out if all the hot air was just that, or if it will serve to fill the sails of some sort of change in the course of immigration legislation and enforcement -- and what tack that course will take in the soon-to-be-Democrat climes of Capitol Hill.

Will the winds dissipate now that they have outlived their political usefulness? Will they shift from the direction of restriction and enforcement-only towards legislative reform? Will the lame-duck Republicans try to finish the job they started?

The American Immigration Lawyers Assoc. (AILA) notes in a recent press release that “a giant impediment to meaningful reform of our immigration system has been dislodged.” The group’s president, Carla Tapia-Ruano, said, "The rigid, impractical position on undocumented immigration set forth by hard-liners failed to connect with voters.”

But some enforcement-only advocates claim that it was the situation in Iraq that swung the voting levers to the Democrats' candidates and not immigration, that the American electorate favors a hard line on immigration but saw Iraq as taking priority.

Still others, like the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform (FAIR), claim that Democrats took back the Hill under the steam of enforcement-only attacks on sitting Republican legislators, saying, “In countless races across the country Democrats pointed to Congress’ failure to control illegal immigration.”

Regardless of whether the election was a referendum on immigration, however, the next several months may tell whether the torrent of promises blustered about on the campaign trail will translate into legislative action once the new Congress convenes -- and what form that action will take.

But actions underway around the country continue at the local level, perhaps unfettered by national changes. On Oct. 31, a federal judge blocked the enacting of the now infamous Hazleton, Pa., law that would have forbidden renting living space to undocumented immigrants, among other things. Nov. 3 saw the filing of a lawsuit against Escondido, Ca., “charging that the city’s anti-immigration ordinance is unconstitutional and illegal under federal and state law,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). And a coalition of pro-immigrant groups has filed a class-action lawsuit in Maricopa County, Az., hoping to have declared unconstitutional a local law under which, the groups claim, over 300 migrants have been charged with felony crimes for allegedly conspiring to transport themselves across the border.

This new Congress, our 110th, must preempt more local chaos with a strong reformation of our immigration laws and processes at a federal level. Our legislators and courts have established that the Constitution mandates that control over immigration issues belongs to the Federal government alone -- and not to the whims of small-town mayors scattered across our country. Immigration concerns our national borders, and we as a nation must take strong strides towards fixing not only the system but our outlook. We must refuse to let fear cloud our good sense and bigotry to stymie our compassion. We must decide to uphold our national creeds that pledge freedom, democracy, and equality to all people, and we must enter the next legislative sessions -- and the next Presidential election -- resolute, fair, and brave as we tout ourselves to be.

[This is my most recent article for the newly remixed NYRemezcla.]

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, House, GOP,Security, Illegal.

Berlin Wall in Our Backyard

2006-09-30T09:58:00.000-04:00

The Senate has matched the failures of the House. Yesterday, just in time for campaign-time recess, the Senate approved -- by a count of 80 to 19 -- a bill to construct 700 miles of double-layered fencing along our southern border. Our Senators, who passed a more comprehensive and bi-partisan immigration bill in May that the House never considered, made no changes to the House's most recent vote ploy, and "[t]he president has indicated that he will sign [the bill]," according to The Washington Post. This from the one party that wore flip flops to its national convention in 2004 to mock Sen. John Kerry's alleged waffling on issues and the other party that tries to convince us it's just as strong as its opponents.

We, as a young and uninformed nation, used to have the excuse that we did not know about our politicians' overarching self-interest that far outweighed reason, integrity, and the well-being of our nation and, indeed, the world. Information did not break and spread so efficiently. Now it does. We have watched it all play out before us. We have shrugged, sighed, and shaken our heads. We have had no effect.

We watch as our lawmakers blatantly mock their duties to us to pander to extremists and the uninformed in preparation for an election almost upon us. They transparently use taxpayer money to fund partisan campaign stops, masquerading as open hearings, and we roll our eyes. They have taken the easiest route of no debate, of over-simplistic treatment of a complicated and important issue to ensure that they, both as individuals and as political parties, hold or gain seats at the polls.

This would be shameful enough were the effects of such behavior merely political. They are not. Our ignorantly drawn border long ago split at least one nation -- the Tohono O'odham -- that existed before ours. Our enforcement of inappropriate and insufficient immigration laws has disrupted the natural migrant cycles and increased the undocumented population of this country that it purported to eliminate. And instead of recognizing this, thinking, and changing tactics, we will continue to exacerbate the situation. We will dig the hole deeper at the expense of taxpayer dollars and human lives.

This new fencing -- if it can be built through the harsh desert landscape of ravines and rivers and jagged mountain peaks that stretch along the border -- will leave 1,300 miles of our southern border uncovered. That's 1,300 miles of borderlands in which people will attempt to cross and continue to perish in the wilderness -- and 1,300 miles of borderlands through which our undocumented population should continue to grow. And that's if this particular show of commitment to "security" lasts beyond election day: Congress has approved only $1.2 billion of the $6 billion it's estimated the fence will cost, according to The Post.

The argument that this wall will help secure us from terrorism also fails. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who until this past week stood for more comprehensive immigration reform, claims this wall will help fight terrorism: "'Fortifying our borders is an integral component of national security,' Frist said. 'We can't afford to wait.'" (WP)

But not even in the Tucson sector of the border, which has seen the highest migrant flows, has Border Patrol encountered even a hint of terrorist activity, according to Sam Lucio, a Supervising Agent for that sector. We have, however, heard of terrorist action on airplanes and even an alleged terror cell in Detroit. Perhaps we should ground all planes and wall up the Motor City. It worked so well for Berlin.

With the passage of this bill -- and the possible re-elections of the pandering politicians who seek to enact it -- hostilities, xenophobia, and ambient fear will continue to grow among us, as will our undocumented population and the death tolls of migrants. Everyone stands for disappointment except the politicians looking to keep their jobs -- and the already booming human-smuggling business that will surely boom even harder with this new measure. These men and women on Capitol Hill are our public servants, yet we are serving them. With this bill, the American people lose.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, House, GOP,Security, Illegal.

Onions, Beds, and Free Trade

2006-09-29T11:14:00.000-04:00

Supporting the "doing jobs Americans won't do" argument for guest workers and a possible path to legalization is further evidence of a shortage of labor on at least in some farms in the USA. The always-excellent blogging of Scott Henson points out the further damage more reckless enforcement inflicts on U.S. farms and the lunacy of spending much more taxpayer money on immigration detention centers to hold the people who have traditionally worked those farms.

But Henson leaves out a point that I think must always appear in this section of the immigration debate: Sufficient guest worker provisions or a path to legalization would provide higher standards for all workers because no one would be working illegally. Therefore, no one would undercut the labor market, workers' rights, or opportunities for "American workers". No cheaper, illegal Mexican labor would take jobs (at least some of which it seems U.S. workers won't staff anyway). The playing field would be even.

(The cheap-labor-for-low-food-prices argument so often attributed to and espoused by pro-comprehensive-reform advocates doesn't fly at the top of the flagpole for me, though affordable food is very important to those without unlimited budgets.)

Next comes the tough question as to whether more farms will be forced to cross the border in the other direction to reap the benefits of cheaper labor as certain free trade agreements not only allow them to do but mandate the other nation to provide. That would certainly undercut the U.S. workers and economy.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Workers, ICE, Immigrants.

ICE Bequeaths More Enforcement Power

2006-09-28T11:00:00.000-04:00

The number of areas around the country where state or local law enforcement is enforcing immigration laws has grown, according to two recent articles in The Washington Post. Through the "287 (g)" program, a provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE has deputized local officers to do some of its work in seven areas, with about a dozen more in negotiations to start similar programs.

This may sound like a good idea to some -- enforce our laws, however inadequate they may be -- but the plan has flaws throughout. According to traditional interpretation of the Constitution, the Federal government alone has the authority to enforce immigration law, essentially because immigration deals with national -- not state or county -- borders. Federal enforcement also hopes to ensure a uniform -– and fair -- application of immigration laws. Random counties' enacting immigration laws as they see fit results in a patchwork of legality, where police hunt foreigners in one county but not in the next; where a traffic violation can lead to deportation in this state but not the neighboring one.

And this leads to the major probability that police will pull over drivers for what we might call a DWF -- Driving While Foreign-looking -- or DWL -- Driving While Latino. According to the Post: "The House earlier this month was weighing a measure ‘reaffirming’ the authority of local law enforcement agencies to arrest people on suspicion of violating immigration laws." How does one come to suspect someone of immigration violations on sight?

Indeed, the first Post article cites the case of Mexican national Guadalupe Lara who “was pulled over by police after buying a pack of cigarettes”. In Lara’s case the police ended up discovering an undocumented person, but how could they suspect him? Because of his perceived ethnicity, which has nothing to do with immigration status.

In the second article, the Post quotes John DeNoyer, a former council member in Herndon, VA, which just became the latest locale to join the ICE program:

“‘Would I be profiled as a suspected terrorist or illegal alien because I have a beard and often turn brown toward the end of an outdoor summer?’ he asked. ‘Please do not glorify and nurture the xenophobic hysteria that is affecting our town.’"

That hysteria has enveloped many communities in the USA, stoking the flames of hostility towards all immigrants and native-born U.S. of various ethnicities.

"Texas, New York and California might be used to large influxes of illegal immigrants -- but we're not," said Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James, who favors stronger enforcement. "James Carville had it right: We're just Mayberry with a major airport." (WP)

Few were used to living in a slaveless society or attending racially integrated schools. Fear of change is a rather poor reason for avoiding progress. Neither is James’s attitude the only one taken by law enforcement:

"In the Montgomery County area, we've taken more the track that we celebrate diversity," said Gaithersburg Police Chief Mary Ann Viverette, who is also the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. (WP)

"The law enforcement community is split on this issue," said Gene Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. (WP)

But reactionary behavior does seem to be the will of the immigration authorities, according to Robert J. Hines, who heads the deputization program for ICE:

"When you are removing the criminal element from the community, it's hard to point a finger and say it's a bad thing," Hines said. (WP)

Notice he says "the" criminal element. If undocumented immigrants were "the" criminal element in "the" community, why did national crime rates drop throughout the 1990s as the undocumented population increased? This is called scapegoating. Put everyone's sins onto one funny-looking goat and send it off into the wilderness to expiate the village. This country did it to the earlier Irish immigrants; Germans in the Nazi era did it to Jews.

Nevertheless, Hines says that "in the past three months, hundreds of state and local departments have inquired about [acquiring the power of immigration enforcement]."

The Post also cites this from one of our national legislators: "No more excuses," U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick (R) said at a news conference..., calling for tougher enforcement. "You're drunk. You're driving. You're illegal. You're deported. Period."

It's decidedly un-American to enforce laws unequally, but consider that an undocumented immigrant, like Lara, ends up arrested and deported for violating an open-container law, while Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) gets police escorts and rehab for drunkenly crashing his car.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, House, ICE, Immigrants.

Post-ing on Immigration

2006-09-15T09:47:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post provides two interesting articles on immigration today, one an editorial from two of the authors of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and the other a profile of the Tohono O'odham, the American Indian nation in Arizona that has become the grass the elephants trample in the immigration stampede.

In the IRCA piece, former Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli (D-Ken.) and Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) of course laud their work, explaining the tenets of their bill, its continued relevancy, and the results of the failures to fully enact it. Along the way, they repudiate the House bills passed last year and this and show support for the more comprehensive Senate legislation. IRCA makes the news these days only as an example of the failure of "amnesty" on the enforcement-only side, but the bill contained several provisions that have arisen today as the harsher measures promoted by enforcement folks -- border fencing, increased surveillance technology, better law-enforcement training, and penalties for employers of undocumented people. It also included a new guest-worker visa and a path to legalization for some migrants.

Mazzoli and Simpson blame subsequent administrations for the failure of their "comprehensive" bill -- for which they say they led a bipartisan effort to research and debate immigration through commissions, field hearings, and expert recommendations. But the current state of "reform" -- particularly on the side of the House -- seems blind to this legislation of just 20 years ago. If our lawmakers can't see that far back, how can we expect them to consider the full history of immigration issues in the USA? It doesn't look good.

One of the main rallying cries of the enforcement camp -- including groups from the House to FAIR to the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps -- is that the government has failed to enforce laws already on the books. By this they mean only the enforcement measures and willfully ignore the path to legalization and guest-worker provisions included in the same law. That should throw a strong shadow of doubt on their true motives: They want the "rule of law" only when it applies the restrictive elements they endorse. If they were honest, they would admit that rather than the "rule of law" they simply want to apply the law they think is right. Just like their opponents, they think some laws just and some unjust. So, let's toss out this already ridiculous "rule of law" stipulation -- which is merely a smokescreen that increases criminalization mindset and hatred of immigrants -- and get down to examining the real nature of immigration and determining what needs be done.

The Tohono O'odham story shows just how adversely some U.S. policies -- especially our creation of rather arbitrary national borders -- and poor cultural training of law enforcement have given rise to very un-American results. Border Patrol's kicking down doors of family homes in the middle of the night to demand the nationality of the people inside? Setting up militarized outposts on private property without any sort of permission?

Border Patrol has had little authority on the reservation, as the tribe invoked its sovereignty to keep out discriminating forces. In recent years, the tribe has let federal agencies have a greater presence on their land, to help deal with the increased flow of drug trafficking forced onto tribal territory by the militarization of the border in other areas.

But the feds continuously, it seems, have trouble respecting the laws and people inside the borders of the reservation. So, we have people crossing borders in violation of any respect for people or laws there, in order to stop other people from crossing borders in violation of any respect for people or laws.

The tribe has allowed the federal government more leeway to help protect them from the negative effects of drug smuggling, mostly, and migrant traffic. But it seems the Border Patrol have turned a lot of their energy towards policing the Tohono O'odham, as the Post article makes clear.

Complicating matters is the fact that the invading foreign hordes of yesteryear -- the settlers of the USA -- drew their southern border so that it divided the traditional home of the native citizens of the land, and now Tohono O'odham live on each side of the U.S.-Mexican border.

This passage from the Post article strikes me as particularly emblematic of our generally patronizing attitude towards native peoples of this hemisphere:

"The tribe is home to the Shadow Wolves, a storied, largely Indian unit of U.S. Customs and Border Protection that uses ancient tracking techniques to chase down drug smugglers. But after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the Border Patrol has run the Shadow Wolves and has shifted their focus away from drugs and toward immigrant smuggling, prompting several senior officers to quit."

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, House, GOP, Immigrants.

Insecurity in the House

2006-09-14T10:52:00.000-04:00

The House brought forth yet another enforcement-only bill yesterday, according to The LA Times. Nicole Gaouette writes that the "Secure Fence Act", on which the House will vote today, calls for the construction of 700 miles of new fencing, "pushes for border agents to use greater force, and calls for more border surveillance using cameras, ground sensors and satellites." She also says the House plans to launch several similar bills in the run-up to the November elections.

The new bill sounds almost identical to H.R. 4437, which the House passed last December -- with the notable exception of the provision that would make it a felony, in many cases, to interact with an undocumented person. Both bills promote very costly enforcement measures that have been proven to fail in slowing the influx of undocumented immigrants into the USA and have served only to increase the population of those without papers, the deaths of both migrants and law enforcement officials, and tax-payer spending. The House has not attempted to negotiate on the immigration bill the Senate passed in the spring.

As Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), one of the spearheads of this effort, said yesterday: "We are not close to … a consensus now. The best solution is to go forward with strong immigration enforcement."

We can't agree, so let's just do what I want? That makes sense.

Perhaps it does make sense when one considers the way Sessions and company have behaved on this issue: Gaouette also reports that House members claim this new bill and those to follow emerged from needs they ascertained in the field "hearings" they conducted this summer, events at which Congressmen did the majority of the talking, not the listening (and certainly not hearing). The moments they did listen they reserved only for supposed experts they knew already supported their enforcement-only views. The public was not allowed to participate, despite the fact that we funded these little excursions, which, it seems, turned out to be little more than self-interested campaign stops on the tax-payers' dime -- just as this new bill seems to be but a ploy for votes rather than a serious attempt to fix our immigration problems.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, House, GOP.

Sellz and Strauss Freed from Charges

2006-09-12T11:32:00.000-04:00

No More Deaths reports that a judge in the 1st U.S. District Court dismissed charges against two humanitarian-aid volunteers last week, stemming from an incident that happened last summer -- and that could have landed the two in jail for years. Judge Raner C. Collins ruled that Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss, both then 23 years old, had made reasonable efforts to ensure their actions fell within the law when they tried to transport three very ill undocumented migrants to a medical clinic.

The migrants suffered from heat-related illnesses and could not keep down water after several days trekking through the desert -- and would very likely have died without immediate treatment, something that calling the Border Patrol would have delayed or impeded entirely, according to what NMD volunteers told me in June. The men did not receive the full treatment, however, because Border Patrol arrested them and the two volunteers before they reached the clinic.

The arrests spurred the founding of the "Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime" movement within No More Deaths -- and even inspired a rollicking, old-school, folk song by local, Arizona singer Desert Rat. The incident has lead to greater cooperation between humanitarian groups and the Border Patrol -- a particularly welcome though obviously not effective-enough occurrence, considering that, "this year, more than 171 migrants have perished in Arizona," according to NMD.

The Arizona Star has more on the story -- and a whopping message board of comments.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Sellz, humanitarian.

Progress on the Move?

2006-09-02T15:35:00.000-04:00

A four-day march in support of immigrants' rights and immigration reform launched yesterday from Chicago's Chinatown. The 50-mile trek will end on Monday at the door of House Speaker Dennis Hastert's home office in Batavia, Ill. This is something we mostly haven't heard about thanks to a lack of coverage outside the Chicago region. (Check out the rather anemic coverage in The Washington Post.) Several hundred people, according to The Chicago Tribune, are making the journey, stopping to pray and rally at various places along the way.

Miller Lite has donated some $30,000 to the effort -- in hopes of making good after having donated to U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), who sponsored the draconian immigration bill that the House passed last December.

Chicago has long served as a crux of cultures and has emerged as a hotbed during the swell of the debate over immigration. Recently, Elvira Arellano, an undocumented migrant from Mexico, was granted sanctuary in a church in the Midwestern metropolis. She hopes to avoid deportation because of the hardships her expulsion would cause for her seven-year-old, U.S.-citizen son, who officials originally planned to turn over to the state. Law enforcement has so far resisted entering the church to arrest her.

In other news (--I've always wanted to say that), enforcement of the beleaguered Hazleton, Penn., law cracking down on undocumented immigrants will not go into effect on Sept. 11 (coincidence?) as originally planned. The law will impose penalties on landlords' renting to and employers' hiring people without valid papers. It will also make English the town's official language. The ACLU and various Latino-advocate groups have sued to have the law declared unconstitutional because the Constitution grants only the Federal government authority to enforce immigration laws -- and because the law would promote discrimination against legal immigrants and U.S. citizens of Latin descent.

But the delay does not come from a change of heart on the part of the city, according to Mayor Lou Barletta.

"'We're not enforcing it because we are in the midst of amending it,' said Barletta, who has championed the law. "'The amended ordinance will be even stronger and more defensible.'" (From the AP.)

The city has seen protests both for and against the law, complete with Confederate flags.

Similar battles are raging in cities and towns around the country, with proponents of these laws claiming that the Federal government's "failure to enforce our immigration laws" leaves them no other choice. They argue also that undocumented migrants are ruining their standards of living. (The Hazleton law emerged after two undocumented migrants were charged with murder.) But the argument against such measures -- the worry of enforcement that discriminates against immigrants -- certainly has precedent in U.S. law -- at least as far back as the famousYick Wo v. Hopkins in 1886. Should we continue to repeat those mistakes out of shortsightedness and panicked prejudice?

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Chicago, rally, rights, Hazleton.

Coming up: More Rallies for Immigrants' Rights

2006-08-30T13:30:00.000-04:00

Check out this information on an immigrant-rights rally in D.C. for next Thursday, September 7.

The Washington Post reports on the planning of this new wave of rallies here. I understand the plan is to energise the movement, show the powers that be that "we" won't go away. And I think it's very important for pro-comprehensive-reform advocates to step up their presence in the public sphere, particularly now: It seems the enforcement-only folks have been dominating the forum in print, on the airwaves, and in government. So a re-energizing should help: It's essential. Without the firepower in official venues -- rather than just on the street level -- real reform seems very unlikely.

But I think those who raise concerns about new marches hurting the cause have a valid point. (Although I think those comments tend to come from anti-immigration sources.) One of the major fears and sources of rhetoric for the anti-immigration camp stems from this image of a foreign invasion overrunning the streets of "our" nation. So won't a show of thousands of foreigners overrunning the streets of our nation just bolster those fears? I don't know. We shall see.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, rally, rights.

La cara de El inmigrante (The Face of The Immigrant)

2006-08-30T09:50:00.000-04:00

Out of the muck of simplistic analyses and black-and-white reactionism over immigration, a small jewel of a documentary has grown that lets various sides voice themselves and still drills down to the catalysts underlying the actions of various players. El inmigrante, a film by John Sheedy and brothers John and David Eckenrode, centers on the murder of undocumented Mexican migrant Eusebio de Haro by Bracketville, Texas, resident Sam Blackwood in 2000. It illuminates this case of injustice well, but it also uses the incident as a launching pad for an investigation of broader issues, simply by letting people of varying opinions speak.

El inmigrante opens with an absolutely beautiful shot of ranchera musicians, playing, silhouetted against an evening sky. Then the camera pans to a few white-painted wooden crosses that commemorate Mexican migrants who have died during their sojourns.

The film hops from interview to interview with figures on various sides of the debate, slowly building from general commentary on illegal-immigration issues into the story of the 23-year-old, murdered Mexican. Viewers hear from people like Neil Slozar and Joe Segura of the El Paso Border Patrol, Kinney County Sheriff Buddy Burgess, Bracketville Councilwoman Mary Flores, Bracketville News editor Jewel Robinson, Cindy Kolb of Civil Homeland Defense, and Chris Simcox, President of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, the last two of whom have stationed themselves in the Arizona borderlands.

The film crew also traveled to San Felipe de Torres Mochas, a town deep into Mexico and the home of the de Haro family. There, viewers meet Eusebio’s parents, Paciano and Mercedes, and his seemingly endless stream of brothers and sisters, eventually focusing on Diego, apparently the next-eldest son of the family, who tells great stories about the boys’ adolescent mischief.

El inmigrante then jumps the border back to Bracketville to hear friends and acquaintances of Sam Blackwood and his wife, Brenda, speak about them. Back in San Felipe, we hear that Eusebio had set off in search of “el típico sueño americano”, and arrived in Terro, Texas, where he found counstruction work. But he ended up deported to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, in May of 2000, his young daughter and her mother still in Texas. He then tried to re-enter the country in the company of a young man named Javier Javier Sanchez. The details of the re-entry and the murder come from Javier’s video-taped testimony and related details from local Sheriff Burgess, the first to arrive on the scene, and Diego. (It’s not clear where Diego got his information.)

The story comes out as follows: Eusebio and Javier swam the Rio Grande to cross into Texas, subsisting on soda and chips. After some time walking and finding themselves out of supplies, with no town in sight, the young men came across the Blackwoods’ home and knocked on the door. When they asked Mrs. Blackwood -- in English -- for water, she turned them down, telling them she was sure they would rob her. They then heard her tell someone inside to call the Border Patrol. The young men left and continued on their way. A few minutes down the road, a car approached them. Sam, 74, emerged from the vehicle and started shooting at Eusebio and Javier with a pistol. The young men turned and tried to run, but Sam hit Eusebio in the back of the leg, the bullet, a particular type of practice ammunition, tearing an even larger exit wound in the front of his leg. Javier hesitated and then kept running. Brenda approached Eusebio and told him to use his fingers to stop up the wound. Sam stayed where he was -- about 100 feet from the bleeding Eusebio, who asked Sam, “What did you do that for?” Blackwood lit his pipe and had a smoke.

Sheriff Burgess arrived in time to see Eusebio take his last breaths, as the Blackwoods stood, watching. Blackwood later claimed self defense, but the medical examiner said that Eusebio’s having been shot from behind from such a distance made that impossible. Sam faced a grand jury for an indictment of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, according to Burgess, but the “deadly weapon” part somehow got dropped. That moved the trial from the federal level to a local county courthouse where Blackwood was found guilty and sentenced to two years probation. For murder.

“Lastimadamente,” said Eusebio’s uncle, Jorge de Haro, “la historia de los inmigrantes es así.” (Unfortunately, this what the history of immigrants is like.)

The call about the murder hit Eusebio’s family hard, but the verdict made things worse. “Son racistas,” said Paciano; they’re racist for not applying the law fairly.

Diego was so devastated that he fled to the USA “para distraerme”, to distract himself. He endured days waiting on the banks of the river for his transport across and, once on the other side, walked 38 hours non-stop to reach safety -- in a tiny room and a construction job where he has but one friend.

But Paciano and Mercedes seem sadly devastated rather than enraged.

“No le deseamos mal,” Paciano said of Blackwood. (We don’t wish him harm.)

“No lo juzgamos,” added Mercedes. (We don’t condemn him.)

Mostly they talked about the sadness of losing their son and how it has changed their lives.

“Hay un vacío, y nadie lo llena,” said Paciano. (There’s a void, and no one fills it.)

Paciano appears a sensitive and philosophical soul, as he gently and sometimes tearfully expounds on the unending cycle of violence between Mexicans and residents of the USA, and he highlights the injustice of the situation.

“¿Qué pasaría si los mexicanos tuvieron esa fuerza que tiene los Estados Unidos? ¿Qué pasaría si los que emigraron fueron de alla para acá y les hicerian daño? ¿Que se sentía? Se siente mal. Se siente feo.”

(What would happen if the Mexicans had the power that the USA has? What would happen if those who emigrated went from there to here and people hurt them? How would it feel? It feels bad. It feels ugly.)

Diego echoes these sentiments from the USA: “Un americano pasa por México como en su casa. ¿Y los mexicanos no pueden pasar así [en los EEUU]?” (A person from the USA goes around Mexico like he’s in his own house. And Mexicans can’t do that in the USA?)

Mary Flores makes a similar point, putting words into the mouths of anti-immigration folks: “You come onto my land; I kill you. But I can come into yours.” The filmmakers lay these words over footage of a couple of preppie blonde guys leaving the famed, tourist bar Señor Frog’s, presumably in Tijuana.

We see a de Haro family picnic in a field and hear about Eusebio, the joy he brought his parents, “las buenas memorias”, which are all they have left of him.

Then back to Simcox and company who make rather militant and aggressive remarks, especially when juxtaposed with the words of the de Haros. And this distinction, made by the participants themselves by the words they speak, forms the pinnacle benefit of El inmigrante. Seeing the chasm between respect for the dignity of life by some -- including among the members of the Border Patrol and Sheriff Burgess -- and the fearful if not hateful aggression on the part of the vigilantes and some of the Bracketville residents, illuminates the most dire, life-and-death facets of the political debate over immigration to the USA, the faces of those living the effects of politics. For instance:

Simcox, interviewed while on patrol with an AK-47, uses the catch-phrase “rule of law” and demands that the President deploy “the National Guard and the military under Homeland Security and...line that border with a civilian-type, military, police force.”

Sheriff Burgess: “Putting the army on the border would just cause problems.”
_____
Roger Burnett, rancher: “The white race is gonna be gone” if immigration keeps up like this.

Diego de Haro: “Todos somos humanos. Todos somos iguales.” (We’re all human beings. We’re all equal.)
_____
Kolb, who also goes armed: “We don’t know what’s coming across this border. Could be weapons of mass destruction, disease, poverty.”

Segura, Border Patrol: “Ninety percent of border crossers are just regular people, looking for work.”
_____
Kolb: “If people from other countries know that they’re gonna be shot if they cross that fence, then they’re not gonna cross that fence.... [T]hey’re all illegals, and they’re all equally guilty.”

Slozar, BP: “Just because you’re not an American citizen doesn’t mean you don’t have the same rights someone else has.”
_____
Burnett: “We should send [each immigrant] back [to Mexico] with an AK-47 and a box of shells. And that way they can take over their government and make it better.”

Paciano: “Nunca vamos a parar. ¿Qué hay de hacer? Pues pensarle un poquito y acabar con la agresión, acabar con todo y mirarlos como gente, gente humana, gente que sabemos pensar.”
(Our cycle of violence won’t stop. What can we do? Well, we have to think a little and stop the aggression, stop everything and see each other as people, human beings, people who know how to think.)

And the film leaves us here, with pleasant scenes of the de Haros' family life, a picnic, the handmade fireworks that are the family business sparkling in the evening sky, life struggling to move forward, scarred by the past and prepared to hope for the future, human, while militant forces mass on the other side of the border. Justice may stumble, but El inmigrante does not.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Simcox, inmigrante.

Buchanan Blusters On

2006-08-25T10:09:00.000-04:00

I had planned simply to ignore the publication of Pat Buchanan's latest ouvre, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America, because of its many counterproductive and ludicrous claims. But it seems like the USA has taken some notice. The book debuted as the #1 bestseller on Amazon.com (-- its subsidiary Borders uses the same list); Barnes and Noble has it at #10; Powell's doesn't offer the book (but they have Things Fall Apart at #14, so that may tell us nothing); and Wal-Mart has the book in the eighth spot on its top-50 list -- frightening, perhaps, even ignoring the correspondence between the political leanings of those companies and the book's rank on their lists. (Amazon and Wal-Mart donate to Republicans, Barnes and Noble and Powell’s to Democrats.)

But this article on the blog ThinkProgress does a good job dismantling Buchanan's myopic analysis of immigration to the USA. (The blog comes from The American Progress Action Fund, "a nonpartisan organization.... that advances progressive ideas and policies.")

The article matches quotations from Buchanan's book with similar nativist sentiments by sources from various points in American history when fears of immigrants and immigration have flared -- including some surprising words from Benjamin Franklin. Here are a few examples:

_______
Immigrants will not be able to assimilate:

Where the Italians wanted to be part of our family, millions of Mexicans are determined to retain their language and loyalty to Mexico. They prefer to remain outsiders. They do not wish to assimilate and the nation no longer demands that they do so. [Buchanan, p. 28, 2006]

VERSUS

Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Languages or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion. [Benjamin Franklin, 1751]

Immigrants are responsible for crime:

Many Hispanics, as a matter of fact, you know what culture they are assimilating to? — the rap culture, the crime culture, anti-cops, all the rest of it. [Buchanan, 8/22/06]

VERSUS

“The Irish fill our prisons, our poor houses. … Scratch a convict or a pauper, and the chances are that you tickle the skin of an Irish Catholic. Putting them on a boat and sending them home would end crime in this country.” [Chicago Post, 1868]
________

The article would benefit from an examination of The Dillingham Commission Reports, the Senate immigration reports from 1911 for which our some elected officials actually researched, personally, the facts about immigration to this country -- even traveling overseas to do so -- and accepted pleas from the public. (Compared to today's House "hearings", those earlier excursions seem Herculean.)

Many of the same fears that today form the basis of the anti-immigration/anti-immigrant platform have sprung up before in our history. They proved unwarranted. Despite that, their current incarnations still pose a threat, especially when (somewhat-) respected public figures publish them in widely-bought books and when our populace lives in a constant state of fear towards the rest of the world and, often, our own government. Tony Blankley lauds Buchanan's book in The Washington Times, echoing as truth and promoting as a guiding principal an equivalent to Malcolm X's denunciation that "The Seal and the Constitution reflect the thinking of the founding fathers that this was to be a nation by white people and for white people. Native Americans, blacks, and all other non-white people, were to be the burden bearers for the real citizens of this nation."

This must serve as yet another rallying call for rational thought and better dissemination of the knowledge that we have. Caving into mass panic with a blind eye towards reality, knowledge, and justice will surely lead us down a perilous path. Now, how do we proceed?

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Buchanan.

Stop the Attack on America's Culture

2006-08-24T09:18:00.000-04:00

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff toured parts of the U.S.-Mexican border this morning with Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) and Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), which was "in no way meant to signal an endorsement" of the legislators' so-called compromise bill on immigration, according to The Washington Post. Chertoff talked about the drop in apprehensions -- though not acknowledging the possibility that enforcement policies are not deterring migrants but rather that migrants are evading apprehension.

However, part of what Chertoff said during his visit, as quoted in The New York Times, helps clarify some of the damage done by anti-immigration reductivism:

"'Let’s register them; let’s track them,' Mr. Chertoff said of the immigrants. 'Let’s collect taxes from them, and let’s just be sure that we know who they are because they have secure identification.'"

Listening to official rhetoric and perusing online forums, I've seen that people have very different understandings of the term "open borders". Some see such borders as ones through which anyone can pass at any time, without documentation, without even handing over a passport for scanning by customs officials. Others might see them as borders which allow a relatively free but monitored flow of people in both directions. Very few people really want open borders of the former definition -- and no one in government has advocated that. However, proliferation of that term -- like the overuse and criminalization of the word "amnesty" -- has created what seems to be a large population that cries foul at any policy that would let anyone in, even through a legal process. These people either refuse to read the legal proposals or simply refuse to believe them: They want to see this as a battle between security (closed borders) and anarchy (open borders). Yet again, this epidemic of black-and-white thinking rots the American brain and threatens to destroy any chance for genuine debate and genuine reform.

What makes the most sense is the second definition of "open borders". Enforcement, in this sense, has resulted only in deaths, millions of dollars in costs to U.S. taxpayers, and a failure to stop the growth of the undocumented population here. But, of course we should have regulated points of entry, where people show their passports and visas -- just like we do at, say, JFK or Regan National or Logan. No mainstream proposals advocate turning a blind eye to the border with any country; however, many advocate a more accepting legal standard that makes rational sense for the real situation in front of us -- and not the imaginary one conjured up by fear, selfishness, and bigotry.

If we increase the ability for people to enter the country legally, we will have established a sort of self-straining method that will automatically weed out whatever terrorist or drug threats exist. Again, most people crossing without documents don't do it because they're naturally bad people who enjoy breaking laws. They do it because no legal venue exists for them. If we provided a better legal venue, they would enter legally. This would, theoretically, eliminate objections from those folks who say they don't dislike immigrants but just want them to come legally. (And if they kept complaining after that, they'd have exposed themselves as liars and xenophobes.)

Under this proposal, only those who pose a real threat would be sneaking across the border in the dead of night. That means fewer mere migrants would die or suffer time in prison (on taxpayer dollars) and fewer U.S. resources would be wasted on patrolling for, apprehending, processing, detaining, and deporting people who really pose no threat to this country. It would serve as boon to all those who complain about the monetary cost of immigration and of the Senate bill in particular. (Why aren't more of those people up in arms about members of the House using their taxpayer dollars for campaign stops masquerading as hearings about immigration? The House has and plans to hold these "hearings" only in places where Republicans face tough races in November -- and in Iowa and New Hampshire, the key primary states -- and only for crowds that already agree with the enforcement-only theory.)

It would also mean we'd know exactly who was entering the country on a much larger scale, rather than the current system, which forces people to skirt detection and hence enter without a screening process. And it could eliminate the human smuggling industry across the USA-Mexico border.

Reducing the debate to merely a question of "open borders" or not, "amnesty" or not, ignores the realities of the situation and proves only several things about the anti-immigration folks who spew these terms every time the second hand ticks across the clock: They really only care about the issue as far as it can win them an election; and/or they want to horde the bounties of America all for themselves; and/or they just don't like people from other countries. And that's decidedly un-American.

For, those who fight against tolerance towards all people, generosity of spirit, and liberty for others while claiming to defend "American culture" prove themselves hypocrites and worse. What has made the USA such a beacon for the world is that its culture is not contained in one type of folk dance or one religion or one language. The culture of the United States of America consists of our creeds, our principals, and our liberties. Immigration doesn't threaten to destroy American culture. We do.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Congress, Chertoff.

Immigration Dialogues in the Next Week, NYC

2006-08-23T16:37:00.000-04:00

Below are both the English- and Spanish-language press releases from the NYCPP. These folks do some very interesting organizing and advocating around the city. Definitely worth at least a look -- particularly since, despite the huge effect that immigrants have on the New York City area -- the House has yet to announce plans to hold any "hearings" here.
_______________________

Dialogue on Comprehensive Immigration Reform

Join us for an update and discussion on the status of the immigration bills
in Congress; how global trade policy impacts immigration in the US; and how
you can get involved in fighting for immigrant rights at the local level.

Queens
Saturday, August 26th
5:30 PM
Community Church
81-10 35th Avenue (Corner of 81st Street)
7 Train to 82nd Street

Washington Heights
Sunday, August 27th
4:30 PM
Isabella Geriatric Center
515 Audubon Avenue (Corner of 190)
1 Train to 191 Street or Bus 101 to 190 Street

South Bronx
Wednesday, August 30th
6:00 PM
Rafael Hernandez School P.S./ I.S. 218
1220 Gerard Avenue (Corner of 167 Street)
4 or D Train to 167 Street

For more information and to reserve your seat please call:
Bronx & Washington Heights: Sussie Lozada 212-388-2149
Queens: Luz Rodriguez 212-388-2119

The New York Civic Participation Project (NYCPP) is a Project of La Fuente, a
Tri-state Worker and Community Fund, Inc. and a collaboration of SEIU Local
32BJ, AFSCME DC 37, Make the Road By Walking, the National Employment Law
Project, Laborers Local 79, and UNITE HERE Local 100.

---------------------------------------

Dialogo sobre la Reforma Migratoria

Venga e infórmese sobre las propuestas migratorias en el Congreso. Además,
entérese de cómo la política de la economía global impacta la inmigración
hacia los Estados Unidos, y de cómo usted se puede unir a la lucha por los
derechos de los inmigrantes a nivel local.

Queens
Sábado, Agosto 26th
5:30 PM
Iglesia Comunitaria
81-10 35th Avenue (Esquina Calle 81)
Tren 7 a la Calle 82

Washington Heights
Domingo, Agosto 27th
4:30 PM
Isabella Geriatric Center
515 Audubon Avenue (Esquina calle 190)
Tren 1 a la Calle 191 o Bus 101 a la Calle 190

South Bronx
Miércoles, Agosto 30th
6:00 PM
Escuela Rafael Hernandez P.S.218
1220 Gerard Avenue (Esquina Calle 167)
Tren 4 o D a la Calle 167

Para más información y para reservar su lugar por favor llame a:
Bronx & Washington Heights: Sussie Lozada 212-388-2149
Queens: Luz Rodriguez 212-388-2119

El Proyecto de Participación Cívica de Nueva York (NYCPP) es un Proyecto de
La Fuente, un Fondo tri-estatal comunitario-laboral, Inc. Y una colaboración
de SEIU Local 32BJ, District Council 37, Se Hace el Camino al Andar, National
Employment Law Project, Laborers Local 79, and UNITE HERE Local 100.

GOP BS

2006-08-21T12:03:00.000-04:00

The Washington Post publishes an alarmist article today by Jonathan Weisman that makes a GOP electoral victory feel all but certain -- if it rides the back of a firestorm of ire over immigration. Weisman and the Post, however, do not deserve the bulk of the blame for the article's attitude. Their coverage reflects the visibility and aggression of anti-immigration factions among politicians, vigilantes, and a few people among the general populace, all of which garner -- as they intend to -- more attention than the voices of reason, moderation and humanity. And they do it all in the service of fear-mongering to keep themselves in their cushy government jobs, while the people they claim to represent get left behind in the dust of poverty by the same politicians' other policies.

Consider this from the article, about the House "hearings" on immigration:

"Last week, House Republican field hearings in San Diego explored the societal and governmental costs of illegal immigrants' use of health-care facilities and welfare. Another in Houston looked at 'the criminal consequences of illegal immigration.' One near here, in Sierra Vista, examined the nation's strained technical capacity to monitor 'the efforts of terrorists and drug cartels' trying to 'infiltrate American soil.'

"At a field hearing Tuesday in Gainesville, Ga., Rep. Charles Whitlow Norwood Jr. (R-Ga.) brushed off complaints by those who wanted a more balanced witness list.'What I wanted was witnesses who agree with me, not disagree with me,' he told reporters."

Those holding these stumping sessions under the guise of informational hearings on the public's wants need to acknowledge what they're really doing -- trying to shake up a hornets' nest of voters with misleading if not false propaganda for their own personal benefits.

Unfortunately, withholding the complete facts and making unfounded connections really works in a culture that values overarching "principals" more than active thinking. Consider this statement from the article, about an attendee of a political rally in Arizona:

"Ewing railed against Bush's immigration policies, saying he failed to deploy enough resources on the border, and against the war in Iraq, where '2,600 Americans have died . . . for nothing.'" Ewing favors building a huge border wall.

Now, to some, this might sound like Ewing has consistent principals: We need to be stronger. Really, though, it's a contradiction. If the man really cared about people dying for nothing, he wouldn't support militarization of the border. If he believed in blasting out the enemy with more troops, to defend the country, he wouldn't think U.S. soldiers had "died ... for nothing" in Iraq. The only consistency here is a self-centered fear, founded on false premises.

Says a woman named Sally Hawk: "I think they ought to shoot them. I don't have anything against Mexicans. I just want them here legally."

Granted, Hawk's statement is ridiculous, but it shows what results can arise from tactics like those of the House GOP. Does this sound like a person who uses rational thought or principal to guide her? I want people to cross the street legally, too, but shooting jaywalkers on the spot won't solve the problem (-- and, obviously, it's morally reprehensible). Also, we don't punish all crimes with the death penalty. This looks like another case of forcing justice to take a back seat to a misunderstood version of "the law", rather than having the law serve justice as it should.

"Mike Hellon, a former Arizona GOP chairman running in the primary here, said, 'Not since the Watergate year of 1974 have I seen an issue so dominant in an election.'"

In reality, Hellon is wrong. It's not that immigration that has become a focal point of politics this year: Rather, as for the past five years, a faltering regime of politicians continues to foster fears and wind them up into irrational politics, again, for personal gain. This isn't a debate on immigration and what we really need to do about it; it's a fantastic horror story to keep us from daring to leave our beds at night and seeing the bad things mommy and daddy are doing downstairs. Worse, it has had the effect of stirring up dangerous hatreds that are actually resulting in the deaths of human beings and discrimination against others, in sum, an erosion of the basic American principals.

Weisman knocks part of the problem on the head, though he does it too far towards the end of the article:

"Most of the Democratic candidates are confident that their broader assault on Republican policies will prevail in November."

"Democratic candidates", most of whom at least seem to side with a more -- though not fully -- rational point of view on this issue than many of their Republican counterparts, "are confident". They're not "taking action" or "holding hearings". And maybe they're right. Maybe just letting the fire burn out -- like I've chosen to ignore the publication of a new moronic Pat Buchanan tirade -- and focusing on Republican failures in other areas bests tossing lighter fluid into the flames. That is a fairly typical Democrat solution these days, especially if "some Democrats worry that immigration hard-liners may be accurately gauging the temper of the times -- and that the GOP has found an antidote to its woes". So is this:

"[Former Arizona state senator Gabrielle Giffords] said the GOP thrust can be parried with a tough Democratic response that blames Republican inaction for the crisis that illegal immigrants have visited upon resource-strapped schools, health-care systems and law enforcement agencies."

That might work well for the elections, and that's good for the DNC. (Weisman roundly ignores here the Republicans on the side of comprehensive reform.) But it sells out the cause of justice and won't help bring us closer to the immigration reform we so sorely need.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Congress, GOP.

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy

2006-08-15T11:07:00.000-04:00

That Chris Simcox's Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (not to be confused with Jim Gilchrist's Minuteman Project) has thrown up smokescreens about who has donated money to the vigilante border patrol group should surprise no one -- despite the group's claim in its training manual that it has a "policy of honesty and transparency when dealing with anyone, especially the press". And apparently some current and former members of the MCDC have questioned where some of the hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone.

According to this Washington Times article:

"Some of them have since challenged claims by Mr. Simcox that MCDC 'spent probably about what we collected' to pay for supplies for Minuteman volunteers on the border, including satellite phones, radios, flashlights, maps, portable toilets, thermal imaging cameras, night-vision cameras, computers, water and food."

What about the guns? Do volunteers have to supply their own? This article doesn't mention firearms, and the MCDC training manual doesn't list guns on the supplies list, though it does mention volunteers should ask about local regulations once they arrive. As Simcox writes in the "About us" section of the group's website, by participating in the MCDC, you, too, can join "one of the most important, socially responsible, and peaceful movements for justice since the civil rights movement of the 1960s". Fine. So why does Simcox carry an AK-47 with him while out on patrol? (I think it's an AK-47. I have to plead ignorance on the subject.) He makes no effort to hide his assault rifle from, for example, the cameras of filmmakers of the stunningly powerful documentary El inmigrante (which I'll be reviewing shortly). Nor does his patrol companion hide the pistol he carries in his hip holster.

I mean, I get it: Second Amendment, self-defense from the "drug dealers, criminals and potential terrorists" Simcox and company believe are pouring into the USA along with the "human flood breaching our Homeland Defense [that] is not necessarily the enemy per se". But I fail to see how patrolling the border with an AK-47 in one hand, a Stars-and-Stripes cap on your head, and a cigar clenched in your teeth, hoping to wrangle up some "illegals", is just as "socially responsible, and peaceful" as walking in suits and dresses while holding hands and singing. The contrast deepens even more when one considers that Simcox advocates sending thousands of members of the military and National Guard to line the border and establishing work details for captured border violators, while the Civil Rights Movement advocated extending equal treatment under the law and voting rights to all members of our democracy. There's no need to continue. To even consider the comparison borders on blasphemy.

The problem, though, is that the MCDC and similar groups do have some support and some influence on public opinion, at least symbolically -- and that can have an impact on national politics. Beyond that, even if they impact one single person directly in the borderlands, they've had too big of an impact. They advocate respect for the law but take it into their own hands. Their hypocrisy alone makes them suspect.

(For more on Simcox and others of his ilk, keep an eye out for my review of El inmigrante.)

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border, Minuteman.

Save the Left! (Idealism alert.)

2006-08-08T13:09:00.000-04:00

I'd like to discuss a topic only tangentially related to immigration but lying forefront in my mind these days – the state of the leftist activist movement(s) of the world, a wide band of which came out to the rollicking Manu Chao concert in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, last night. (Manu's song "Clandestino" laments the plight of undocumented migrants to the USA, so there's my connection.) Manu Chao has developed himself into the soundtrack for the anti-globalization movement, the Zapatista movement and other darling causes of his following – among which I count myself, along with the hippies, punks, revolutionaries of many ilk and various other leftists. During the show both Manu and the crowd got behind sentiments like "stop White House terrorism", and Manu made an important point of the need to stop fighting violence with violence and combat it instead with education and dialogue. (But when the rockets are raining on you already, what do you do?)

I spotted a girl in the front row with a hand-made sign that read: "Lebanon: say something". She held up the sign for the entire several hours of the concert. The band never really said anything on the topic, though it did a quick shout-out to Palestinians.

This column from an Australian paper crystallizes the thoughts that went through my head last night – and that resurface whenever I find myself among this particular group with whom I agree on so many political issues. There's this sense that if you don't agree with the party line on everything, than you can't be part of the club – and you're the enemy. But isn't this the same sort of blind adherence to ideology that we on the left deride in our right-wing counterparts? And isn't such adherence dangerous and irresponsible? So when I hear people shout "No more war!" and "Fuera, fuera, Israel!" (Out, out, Israel!) but never condemn Hizbullah for admittedly starting the violent outbreak and for continuing to send missiles into civilian areas, indiscriminately killing people, I have to question the shouters' dedication to "No more war!" – and the justice of their movement as a whole.

Despite what one might believe about the extent of Israel's military retaliation -- or the Israeli government's general modus operandi -- why does the left often insist that Israeli civilian lives value less than those of various Arabs (while many others do the opposite)? How can one scream for peace and a cessation in the killing of civilians but on one side only? Why are Israeli citizens responsible for what the Israeli military does, when Lebanese citizens are faultless in their government's harboring of Hizbullah and doing little to stop the military aggression exploding from its neighborhoods and endangering its own citizens? If we are to condemn violence and demand justice, we must do so from everyone.

The "left" needs to remind itself that it can fall into the exact same pitfalls of hatred, hypocrisy, and irrationality as its opponents on the right. That's why this article in the Wall Street Journal not only frightens me as a Jew and someone who's not so into bigotry but insults and disappoints me as someone who generally would be considered way towards the left side of the political spectrum in this country, which forces me to align myself with the Democratic Party. In this piece, Lanny J. Davis, friend of and campaigner for Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), expresses his dismay with the hate he never expected to find on the left side of the aisle. Here are some of the examples Davis cites of internet statements about Lieberman:

"• On "Lieberman vs. Murtha": "as everybody knows, jews ONLY care about the welfare of other jews; thanks ever so much for reminding everyone of this most salient fact, so that we might better ignore all that jewish propaganda [by Lieberman] about participating in the civil rights movement of the 60s and so on" (by "tomjones," posted on Daily Kos, Dec. 7, 2005).

"• "Good men, Daniel Webster and Faust would attest, sell their souls to the Devil. Is selling your soul to a god any worse? Lieberman cannot escape the religious bond he represents. Hell, his wife's name is Haggadah or Muffeletta or Diaspora or something you eat at Passover" (by "gerrylong," posted on the Huffington Post, July 8, 2006)."

I'm no fan of most of Mr. Lieberman's politics. His obsequious imitations of Pres. Bush in matters of "faith-based" governance and his hawkishness have soured me on him as a leader. But the responses above are as sick as those of the anti-immigrant folks on the message boards of The Arizona Daily Star, whose enlightened declarations below came in response to this article about the crash of an SUV, carrying more than 20 people as it fled Border Patrol in Yuma, AZ. Nine people died and twelve were injured, including a pregnant woman. Read on:

"10. Comment by Rich O. (darkhorse) — August 8,2006 @ 7:17AM
Rating: 5 Thumbs Up

Boo Hoo! I never cry when criminals die. Just think how many more thousands of dollars would have been spent on these 9 people plus all of their families.

22. Comment by Steve S. (#6590) — August 8,2006 @ 9:53AM
Rating: 2 Thumbs Up

Freakin ****s! If they would just stay in Mexico, this would not happen. I knew right away they were ****s when I heard 22 people in a Suburban.

Do you know why they only used 10000 Mexicans at the Alamo??

They only had 1 truck!

26. Comment by Clifford P. (Patriot) — August 8,2006 @ 10:16AM
Rating: 0 Thumbs Up

NINE DOWN, MILLIONS TO GO. If the ILLEGAL ALIENS in this country want SYMPATHY they can find it in the dictionary, it's somewhere between
SH_T AND SYPHILIS."

Would these folks still feel the same knowing how much money they would save in cases like this by loosening immigration laws, therefore not having the BP out chasing undocumented immigrants (at a cost of $1,700 per arrest), and therefore not having folks end up in the hospital? (See my last posting.)

Judging from their statements, I fear that they would. So, it's not an issue of politics, or even one of money. Deep-seated bigotry runs beneath the facades of political arguments, along the opposing banks of blind ideologies, before crashing into a sea of discord -- and more violence. At the font of the river then, Manu, lay down your education. And how does one combat the missiles, literal and figurative, flying many ways across the sky before we can shut off the font? That, I don't know. But that doesn't mean we stop pushing on any front. Como dice Manu, "Próxima estación -- esperanza. Hope -- always."

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Lebanon, Israel, Lieberman, Manu Chao.

All the President's Toys

2006-08-04T10:23:00.000-04:00

This article from the AP reports on Pres. Bush's visit yesterday to inspect the troops at the border before retreating to his Texas ranch for vacation. He looked at some vehicles and hi-tech surveillance equipment and petted some Border Patrol horses. He then made a statement:

"'We have an obligation to secure our border and we have an obligation to treat people with decency and respect,' the president said after his tour. He spoke of using motion and heat sensors, infrared detection equipment and other high-tech devices to catch illegal immigrants."

So, to "treat people with decency and respect", we will force them out of settled areas and into the desert and hunt them with "motion and heat sensors, infrared detection equipment and other high-tech devices"? That doesn't sound very decent to me. Or very sporting. And it will not help reduce migration to this country or the undocumented population already here. It has already done the opposite.

The non-visual sensors have proven particularly problematic because they get triggered by other desert inhabitants -- wildlife and ranchers' cattle. I saw this first-hand while on a patrol with No More Deaths in the Arizona desert in an ominously gloomy and quiet area. The two volunteers and I smelled death in the bottom of a ravine and found several dozen vultures nesting in the trees. We spread out to search for the source of the smell; but, finding nothing, we continued along the trail. A few minutes later, we heard the thudding sound of helicopter blades chopping the air. The sound grew louder. Then we saw a military-green helicopter come over a ridge, pointed directly at us. As it neared, we could see a man with a large weapon leaning out of the door, looking at us. The chopper hovered directly over us for a second and then buzzed away into the grey sky. We must have set off a hidden sensor.

It was a pretty terrifying feeling, isolated in the wilderness like that -- and we knew where we were, had a way out, and were not in the commission of any sort of violation. But we knew the stories about BP helicopters' "dusting" groups of migrants, swooping down on top of them to about 10 feet about the ground and hovering there for several minutes. This causes people to scatter and often lose themselves in the desert. Separated from their guides and companions, this can be a death sentence. According to one of the NMD volunteers, over half of the 68 people the group medically evacuated last year reported being dusted. Decency and respect, indeed.

However, the major argument against increased border enforcement and militarization comes from the simple fact that it does not reduce the undocumented population in the United States of America. In fact, it has the opposite effect. By making entry -- and re-entry -- into this country so difficult and the penalties so severe, we are scaring millions of migrants who would return home into staying here. It has also fed the boom in the smuggling business: With crossing so difficult, people pay more money for the services of coyotes.

Prof. Douglas Massey, PhD, of Princeton University has published extensively on this subject and testified on the findings of his studies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on October 18, 2005. Writing in his article "Backfire at the Border"(pdf), Dr. Massey has found that since the USA began to crack down on immigration in 1986, "the number of foreign-born workers entering the Unites States each year has not diminished". The much-derided amnesty of 1986 came with several other provisions -- sanctions on employers who hire undocumented workers, more funding for the Border Patrol, and Presidential authority to declare an "immigration emergency".

Despite pro-enforcement cries that the government has not followed these policies to the necessary extent, enforcement has actually increased and failed to bring about the intended results. The beefing up of border militarization began in 1993 in El Paso, Texas, with Operation Blockade, followed the next year by Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego, which brought flood lights and 14 miles of fencing to the border. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 added layers of fencing in San Diego and tougher penalties for all involved in undocumented entry, as well as "funding for the purchase of new military technology and... for hiring 1,000 Border Patrol agents per year through 2001."

The consequences of these policies -- and, by extension, the developments the President praised yesterday -- have been increased deaths of migrants, a drastically increasing cost to the U.S. taxpayer, no reduction in undocumented migration, and an increase in undocumented people within the USA. (From shooting fish in a barrel, the Border Patrol now has dumped them all into the sea and must expend much more energy and funding to apprehend them. Dr. Massey writes that the cost of apprehending one migrant was "around $100 per arrest" in 1986 and grew to $1,700 by 2002.)

So, forget "decency and respect": Increased militarization of the border, with all its fun gadgets and imposing barricades, has done and will continue to do nothing towards stemming the "flood" or the "invasion" or whatever it is that some of our compatriots fear will destroy us. On the contrary, it has held captive a vast portion of the migrant population that would have returned home, thereby increasing the alleged burdens of that population on U.S. taxpayers and workers.

Sadly, despite the dissemination at least in academic cirles and before the U.S. Senate of research like Dr. Massey's, our politicians keep playing politics, repeating mistakes to win votes, and much of our media continue to skirt some major issues like researched conclusions, as in this article on Bush's stop yesterday in The Washington Post.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Border.

The Times Tells Selective Truths

2006-08-03T11:47:00.000-04:00

The Senate has passed funding for 370 miles of border fence and 500 miles of vehicle barriers, according to this piece from The Washington Times.

The Times calls this "an abrupt about-face" because the Senate rejected similar funding on July 13. Says pro-enforcement Sen. Jeff Sessions:

"People heard from their constituents after they voted to authorize the fence in May and then voted against funding it a couple of weeks ago."

Maybe. But that ignores basic principals of our legislative process: Legislators often end up rejecting provisions they support -- evidenced in this case by the inclusion of fence-building clauses in the immigration bill they sent to the House -- because they are included alongside provisions they do not support. It does not necessarily show a change of heart on the part of the Senators. The Times would have done well to interview any of the 66 Senators who did the "about-face" rather than asking Sen. Sessions to speculate on their motives.

In fact, the article does acknowledge this right at the end, when discussing Sen. Bill Frist's "switching" his vote.

According to Frist's spokeswoman, "her boss feared what homeland-security programs might be cut under that earlier amendment.

"Other top Republicans seconded that explanation as the reason they voted against the last amendment and for this one."

So, this does not mean that Senators suddenly "heard from their consituents" and some sort of burgeoning tide of pro-fence sentiment in this country. This funding was included in S. 2611, the bill the Senate sent to the House in May and that the pro-enforcement folks have been deriding ever since. Those who claim the Senate is finally hearing the people have not been paying attention. However, mentioning this earlier in the article might ruin The Times's pro-enforcement agenda -- by telling the truth.

The article makes another rather dubious claim here:

"But the Guard's presence has led to a 25 percent drop in apprehensions at the border compared with the same time last year, suggesting the troops are having success in preventing illegal aliens from trying to cross."

A lot of factors play into how many apprehensions the BP makes. Consider the current deadly heat wave that's killing people across the country. Now consider trekking through the desert in it. Also, the state of uncertainty over Mexico's still-undecided presidential elections could have a role in the number of people trying to cross. And the fact that the BP has caught fewer people could also mean that more people are getting through -- and/or dying in the desert.

But The Times makes a good point -- though not surprisingly -- in calling out Democrats, particularly Rep. Nancy Pelosi, on their politicking.

"Democrats seized on the report as evidence Mr. Bush has fallen short on a key measure of homeland security.

"'The record is clear: for more than five years, the president has failed to secure our borders and to enforce our immigration laws,' said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, who added that Republicans in Congress have let Mr. Bush get away with under-funding the Border Patrol and have delayed 'real immigration reform' by fighting among themselves over whether to do enforcement first or pass a broad bill."

Pelosi's statement seems to affirm Democratic commitment to acting like Republicans rather than taking an independent stand on issues other than Bush-bashing.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics, Senate.

A World of Grey

2006-08-03T11:35:00.000-04:00

I want to thank Dr. King for the following quotation -- and blogger-journalist Josh Wolf for bringing it to my attention. It makes a good point to the "law-and-order" crowd.

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I think it goes also for those who break an unjust law in furtherance of their basic human rights.

Wolf currently sits in a Bay area jail for refusing to turn over to authorities video footage he took at a political protest.

A Culture of "No"

2006-08-01T12:13:00.000-04:00

This study from TRAC Immigration, reported in The New York Times, quantifies a phenomenon that many on the inside of the immigration process have known for a while: Our system of legal immigration is biased and flawed. (That's why the American Immigration Lawyers Assoc. has consistently pressed for comprehensive immigration reform.) And it reminds us of the unequal treatment under the law that we apply to immigrants, based on our political agendas.

Here's an example. In the 1980s Cuba bustled with Soviet-backed industriousness. The industries worked, but much of the population suffered under political and social repression. In El Salvador, chaos reigned. An oppressive military dictatorship and its right-wing militias engaged in warfare with rebels that devastated the country, massacred uninvolved civilians, caused a refugee crisis, and disrupted the economy. U.S. immigration policies at that time allowed any Cuban who touched U.S. soil to stay, and our government furnished many with discounted college tuitions and other aid to help the transition to life here. On the Salvadorans who managed to reach our country we slammed the door. Why? Because we were playing politics. The USA supported – in training and weapons – the homicidal Salvadoran dictatorship, while it vehemently opposed Cuba's communist ties. So we welcomed Cubans in order to highlight the negative sides of Fidel's government but rejected those Salvadorans with legitimate asylum claims because it might embarrass the "friendly" government that they fled.

Now, it seems, our politics instruct us to reject legitimate asylum claims in a way that we remain consistent with the fear-peddling that has characterized much of our government's activities since 9/11/01.

According to this study, since the beginning of 2000 we still rejected a vast majority of Salvadoran asylum claims (80 percent), "while fewer than 30 percent of asylum seekers from Afghanistan...were denied." What's special about Afghanistan in that period? Oh, right, we were thinking about deposing their government.

The study claims: "Ten percent of the nation’s immigration judges denied asylum cases in 86 percent or more of their decisions, while another 10 percent of judges denied asylum cases in 34 percent of their rulings during that same time period."

Also, it seems that the Cuba/El Salvador bias continues:

"The study echoes a report released last year by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an agency created by Congress in 1998. The commission study, which examined the processing of asylum cases from 2000 through 2004, found that more than 80 percent of Cubans were given a permanent right to stay in the United States, along with more than 60 percent of Iraqis. By contrast, just more than 10 percent of those from Haiti and fewer than 5 percent from El Salvador were granted asylum."

And I'm going to quote a whole chunk of Ms. Swarns's article because it's so important when considering the problems associated with undocumented immigration and with the behavior of our federal government:

"The handling of asylum cases has become a delicate issue recently as federal appeals judges have assailed what they have described as a pattern of biased and incoherent decisions from immigration judges in asylum cases, which make up the bulk of immigration appeals.

"In September, the federal appeals court in Philadelphia said it had been repeatedly forced to rebuke immigration judges for “intemperate and humiliating remarks.” Citing cases from around the country, the court described “a disturbing pattern” of misconduct in immigration rulings that sent people back to countries where they had said they would face persecution.

"In November, Richard A. Posner, a prominent and relatively conservative federal appeals court judge in Chicago, concluded that the handling of asylum cases by immigration judges had “fallen below the minimum standards of legal justice.”

"Concerned about what he described as 'intemperate or even abusive' conduct by some immigration judges, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales called for a comprehensive review of the immigration court system in January."

Read that again. Alberto Gonzales criticized officials for abusive behavior.

An AP article in The Washington Post adds that:

"'The goal of any court system is evenhanded justice,' said Susan Long, a Syracuse University professor and co-director of the clearinghouse. 'The results certainly raise questions about whether that goal is being achieved.'"

It quotes Gideon Aronoff, president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, as saying that "success in asylum claims is a matter of "luck of the draw.'" That's not how our legal system should work.

This is what happens when we let judicial decisions rest solely in the hands of the politicized executive branch, which, headed by the President, also serves as the prosecutor in these cases -- and do so without legitimate oversight or any real opportunity for appeal. If we unjustly reject those for whom our laws already provide, whose lives are directly in danger if they stay in their home countries, what choice do those for whom we won't even nominally provide have, aside from dodging a system they know won't work?

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics.

A Moral Imperative

2006-07-31T16:02:00.000-04:00

Looking at this article, about vacationers rescuing 88 African migrants in the Canary Islands, we should remind ourselves that immigration problems do not exist in the USA alone. And we need to take this as a sign, not that "those people" are invading all over, that civilization is under attack from the pagan hordes. Rather, we need to recognize that maybe these mass movements of people tell us something about our world that we need to fix. Perhaps the disparity between the rich nations and the poor has grown so great that it's reaching a breaking point. And maybe we need to work together to do something more about it.

Those anti-immigration folks – at least in this country – who propound a humanitarian concern for those attempting to come here never-the-less shirk their responsibilities. They might claim, as Ira Mehlman of FAIR did to me, that the USA does what it can to improve the situations in other countries that drive people to our shores but that no ethical system in the world would demand us to impoverish ourselves to help other people. But it doesn't seem to be enough – at least not enough to counterbalance the enforcement movement, which has the direct effect of causing a humanitarian crisis. (By making both legal and illegal entry more difficult, enforcement forces people to their deaths in remote regions of the desert.)

Can we really justify killing migrants just because we spend some money on foreign aid? The issue gets even more complicated when we recognize that the USA has caused or at least exacerbated so many of the drivers for immigration to this country without a serious attempt to take responsibility for those actions.

Again, this is not an all-or-nothing issue in which we must choose between shutting our doors to those in need or ending up on the streets. We can take political steps that are morally responsible. Again, we need to push deeper, towards the heart of the problem, rather than obsessing over battling only the symptoms that affect us. We're not supposed to be that selfish of a people.

Technorati tags: Immigration, Politics.

House of Ill Repute

2006-07-28T09:28:00.000-04:00

The House continues its attempt to backpedal on immigration reform with its plan for 21 hearings around the country in August, according to this article by Rachel L. Swarns in The New York Times. Even Senate Republican Arlen Specter (Penn.) derides the hearings as useless; while Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) accuses House Republicans of attempting to stall progress and political posturing to boost their chances in the November elections.

Consider this from the article:

"Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House majority leader, said the hearings, which will take place in 13 states, would expose what he described as “troubling provisions” in the Senate’s immigration bill."

So even Rep. Boehner implies that these are less hearings than stumping stops for House Republicans to promote themselves and their immigration "solution". These hearings will be declamatory rather than exploratory. They will serve to tell the American people what to think, rather than finding out what the people want.

Earlier this week, Rep. Pence (R-Ind.) and Sen. Hutchinson (R-Tex.) put forth a new proposal that includes a temporary worker program that could begin only after the President certified the borders were secure, which he could do only after two years. That would mean two more years of chaos and no solution. Perhaps the most ludicrous part of the plan would require all who wished to apply for the program to leave the USA and apply for the visa. Guess how many would actually do that and risk denial of reentry? You got it. The chance of compliance looks even smaller when one considers the rest of the provisions: The temporary visa would last only two years, though it could be renewed. Only after 12 years could the applicant achieve eligibility for permanent residence -- and after five more years could he apply for citizenship. Seems like it would be easier to just hide beneath the radar.

But some of the Republican House leadership likes this plan. Again, from Swarns's article:

"'Before we can look at other immigration issues, we must first secure the borders,' Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, said at a news conference. 'I’m not endorsing any one plan, but that does start to look at a pathway, that type of a solution, possibly to get this job done.'”

On the first point, as The Dude would say, "That's just, like, your opinion, man." And it sounds nice and tidy, as reductionist statements often do, but it's not necessarily correct. Frankly, in my opinion, man, the border will become more secure when we reform the immigration system -- and when we stop scape-goating immigrants for all of our other fears. And ignoring all other facets of immigration reform in favor of focusing solely on securing the borders seems pretty ignorant -- but a nice set up to play on voters' fears of the "invasion" and the terrorist threat through our southern border of which our law enforcement has no evidence, according to at least one Border Patrol spokesman.

Hastert's second point seems to reinforce his purely political aspirations here. He won't endorse a plan, but he likes that the Pence-Hutchinson plan will "start to look at a pathway...possibly to get this job done." What ringing support for actually reforming things. Kinda. Sorta. Maybe. At least until November.

Immigration

New York Invaded!

2006-07-26T13:29:00.000-04:00

Today, Jim Gilchrist and company brought the Minuteman Project to New York City, to the World Trade Center site. A crowd of fewer than 40 people mixed with almost as many members of the media in a fenced-in little corner at Liberty and Church, right next to Ground Zero. It was the first stop for the book tour of MINUTEMEN: The Battle to Secure America’s Borders, written by Gilchrist and Dr. Jerome Corsi. And the Minutemen used the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01 as the central rallying point for clamping down on immigration, utilizing heavily bellicose rhetoric and dubious statistics.

Much of the talk was nasty. "This is not the first time I have faced Satan," said Gilchrist. "Yes, we have names for them, too....Satan will once again back down under the rule of law."

"Monsters" was a word used frequently. Gilchrist claimed that 28,000 people have been murdered by undocumented immigrants in the USA since 9/11 -- and 95 percent of the killers have been Mexican. Speakers consistently said that immigrants killed the thousands of people who died on 9/11.

(While some of the known 9/11 terrorists had violated immigration laws, that does not a cause-and-effect link make. Timothy McVeigh could not have bombed the Oklahoma City Federal Building if he didn't have the rental truck. So let's close all the rental businesses.)

One man, holding one end of a sign that read "STOP THE INVASION" barked at a Telemundo reporter: "You gonna broadcast this in English, so my family can hear it?" To which one of his comrades replied something about subtitling and Spanish-language TV causing his high cable bill.

Added another man, wearing a Border Patrol hat: "My mother came here legally.... She didn't bring any disease like half of these people."

All the while, a group of immigrants' rights protesters that surely outnumbered the Minutemen chanted and waved signs -- "MinuteKlan", etc. -- and chanted from their corral across Liberty Street.

Frankly, I didn't expect such harsh, violent, and paranoid language from a group that claims to be "not a call to arms, but a call to voices seeking a peaceful and respectable resolve", according their website. But they see this as a war against murderous hordes.

Minuteman speakers -- including a representative from a 9/11 families group who lost his son in the WTC -- constantly and fervently evoked the ghosts of the USA's founding fathers, all soldiers who have ever died for this country, and the victims of 9/11 to demand that politicians start "honoring their oaths of office" and enforce immigration laws -- or leave their posts. (That includes Pres. Bush.) And they bellowed often about law and order. (See my previous post.)

That ignores the facts that the Boston Tea Party was technically a terrorist act, but it was breaking of laws that served the interests of justice; many non-citizen immigrants have died in service to the USA; "Mexican" workers -- as MM supporters view all undocumented immigrants -- did not murder thousands on 9/11; and that many of those who died that day were foreign-born. Gilchrist also remarked that people in San Diego know that the USA is being colonized. That's an historically ignorant and hypocritical argument since the USA colonized that very same territory when it belonged to Mexico.

The Minutemen eventually hustled Gilchrist -- a former Marine -- out of the event when protesters left their corner and marched across the street towards (and past) the Minutemen. NYPD seemed to do a good job keeping the groups from clashing -- although at one point it looked like a small-in-stature Latino protester was about to go at it with a tall, muscular, union-brother Minuteman. The exchange went like this:

"Go back to Mexico!"
"I'm not from Mexico. I'm from [unintelligible]."
"Well go back there, then!"

Then they lunged towards each other from opposite sides of the metal barricade, and NYPD intervened.

Both sides called each other Nazis. And at least several aggressive, white men circled the MM group chanting things like "Racists go home" and "The Nazis lost in '45".

The small MM crowd had a variety of images, from button-up conservatives, to tourist-dressed middle-aged women, to biker-looking guys with do-rags and big mustaches, to a perky young woman in short shorts and a US-flag bandana (who cheerily referred to the protesters as "idiots and babies".)

As the crowds lessened somewhat and the microphone opened up to random MM speakers, the protesters chanted "Welcome to New York. Now learn Spanish."

Frankly, today revealed a culture of fear, scapegoating, and hatemongering that really disappointed me. (And a good bit of that goes for the protesters. How best to disprove the idea that immigrants are a wild, combative mob than to show up as a wild, combative mob?)

More on this later.

Immigration