War On You: Breaking Alternative News » Immigration

House passes immigration Dream Act Published on 12-09-2010

WarOnYou — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 23:54:49 +0000

The bill gives young illegal immigrants a path to citizenship if they enroll in college or enlist in the military. Supporters call its passage historic — but Democrats probably don’t have enough votes to get it through the Senate.

By Lisa Mascaro and Kathleen Hennessey Tribune Washington BureauDecember 9, 2010

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Reporting from Washington —

The House passed a landmark youth immigration bill known as the Dream Act on Wednesday night largely along party lines, but the measure faces a tough test in the Senate as Democrats struggle to pass priority legislation in the waning days of this Congress.

Eight Republicans joined in approving the bill, 216 to 198. Thirty-eight Democrats voted no. The measure offers a path to citizenship for young people who were brought to this country illegally before age 16 and who have enrolled in college or entered the military.

President Obama said the passage was historic. “This vote is not only the right thing to do for a group of talented young people who seek to serve a country they know as their own by continuing their education or serving in the military, but it is the right thing for the United States of America,” he said in a statement.

Obama called on the Senate to follow suit.

The bill could come up there as soon as Thursday but is unlikely to attract the necessary 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Republican senators have vowed to block all legislation until a stalemate over the George W. Bush-era tax cuts is resolved. Obama and the GOP have reached a deal, but Democrats haven’t signed on.

The Dream Act isn’t the only Democratic priority at stake.

Earlier in the day, the Senate postponed at least until Thursday a vote on repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the 1993 ban on openly gay personnel in the military.

Democrats worked late into the night trying to strike a deal with the few Republican senators who support lifting the policy but who have asked for more time to debate it.

The lame-duck congressional session offers Democrats their best chance to pass both bills because, in January, Republicans will hold the majority in the House and more seats in the Senate.

The House passed the Dream Act after a late, hastily scheduled vote. Proponents called it the most significant immigration legislation to pass the House in a decade.

“Let’s give the dream kids an opportunity. They are American in every way but a piece of paper,” said Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), a leading supporter. “We have come here to support the rule of law, yes, but to change the law when it is unfair.”

A handful of Republicans in both chambers criticized the Dream Act as “nightmare” amnesty legislation bound to be abused and easily subject to fraud. They said it would create more competition for work in a recession.

“The American people want us to focus on creating jobs and getting Americans back to work. This will prevent Americans from getting jobs,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R- Texas). “It puts the interest of illegal immigrants ahead of those of law-abiding Americans.”

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

From the L.A. Times

hanalad at 2:38 PM December 09, 2010Check out our “hard working” Dream students in action!

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/m/montebello-flag.htm

Melvin Painter at 2:28 PM December 09, 2010It’s bad enough that we have to take care of the crappy anchor babies, now the liberal want us to take care of illegals. It will be the American Taxpayers who will be footing the college bills of these illegal aliens. Every one of these illegals will be applying and be granted grants, waivers, and scholarships all on the basis of their so-call liberal created poverty status. The liberal’s have a no accountability bill that will do nothing to enforce what it in it. It’s time to follow Mexico’s lead on immigration, and and throw every illegal in jail until they are deported.

costaricabob at 2:24 PM December 09, 2010This is an Obamination, this is going to break the bank of all hardworking legal citizens of the U.S. and put us so far in debt we can never recover, but of course that is what Obama and his administration want to create a socialist state………

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Private Prison Interests Behind Arizona Immigration Law

WarOnYou — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 02:51:49 +0000

Private Prison Interests Behind Arizona Immigration Law

October 29th, 2010

“I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.”

—Fight Club

Via: NPR:

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch.

“The gentleman that’s the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger,” Nichols said. “He’s a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman.”

What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.

“They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community,” Nichols said, “the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate.”

But Nichols wasn’t buying. He asked them how would they possibly keep a prison full for years — decades even — with illegal immigrants?

“They talked like they didn’t have any doubt they could fill it,” Nichols said.

That’s because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona’s immigration law.

Research Credit: JH

Ariz. gov. slams ‘foreign interference’ in immigration lawsuit case

WarOnYou — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 02:27:36 +0000

Ariz. gov. slams ‘foreign interference’ in immigration lawsuit case

Published on 10-08-2010

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Source: Politico
In a new twist in the fight over Arizona’s immigration law, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday asked a federal court to disallow foreign governments from joining the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit to overturn the law.

The move comes in response to a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling issued Monday, allowing nearly a dozen Latin American countries — Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Chile — to submit friend-of-the-court briefs in Justice’s challenge to SB 1070, which Brewer signed into law in April and is considered one of the nation’s toughest immigration-enforcement measures.

“As do many citizens, I find it incredibly offensive that these foreign governments are using our court system to meddle in a domestic legal dispute and to oppose the rule of law,” the Republican governor said in a statement shortly after the state’s motion was filed Tuesday evening.

“What’s even more offensive is that this effort has been supported by the U.S. Department of Justice. American sovereignty begins in the U.S. Constitution and at the border,” she added. “I am confident the 9th Circuit will do the right thing and recognize foreign interference in U.S. legal proceedings and allow the State of Arizona to respond to their brief.”

Brewer and her supporters have said the state law is necessary because the federal government has failed to protect the border and enforce immigration laws. But the Justice Department — with strong backing from President Barack Obama — sued to block the Arizona law on constitutional grounds.

Responding to the suit, a federal judge in July put some of the most contested parts of the law on hold, including a provision that requires police officers to check the immigration status of individuals they stop for other offenses if there is “reasonable suspicion” they are in the country illegally.

Brewer, who has vowed to take the case to the Supreme Court, appealed the decision to the 9th Circuit Court, which will begin hearing arguments in San Francisco on Nov. 1, one day before the midterm elections.

The Arizona law is a top political issue nationally. Cities from San Francisco and Seattle to Baltimore have joined a friend of the court brief opposing the Arizona law, while 11 states — including Texas, Florida and Nebraska — filed an amicus brief backing the law.

In July, more than 80 Republican members of Congress signed their names to an amicus brief filed by the conservative Immigration Reform Caucus. They included Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, David Vitter of Louisiana and John Barrasso of Wyoming, and Reps. Lamar Smith of Texas, Steve King of Iowa and Trent Franks of Arizona.

Brewer’s motion should resonate among conservative legal scholars worried about giving foreign legal systems a voice in American jurisprudence. These concerns are a reaction to a school of legal thought arguing that American judges should look to foreign laws and courts for assistance in interpreting the U.S. Constitution, particularly in regard to basic human rights issues. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is arguably the leading spokesperson for this approach, as noted in a 2005 New Yorker profile.

The state of Arizona’s motion could also strike a chord with those on the right who are convinced that President Barack Obama (and Bill Clinton before him) want to make U.S. laws subordinate to international courts, particularly the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Under Clinton, the United States signed a treaty to join the court weeks before leaving office in January 2001, though the Senate never ratified his action. Months later, President George W. Bush pulled the United States out of the treaty, saying he worried foreign governments would try to prosecute U.S. troops for alleged war crimes.

Shadow Elite: Selling Out Uncle Sam & Outsourcing American Power

WarOnYou — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:59:23 +0000

Shadow Elite: Selling Out Uncle Sam & Outsourcing American Power

This is the first of a Shadow Elite series, investigating the game-changing effects of government contracting on the most vital government functions.

It’s one of those ideas that might seem sensible at first-glance: retired military officers hired to serve as “senior mentors” to the armed forces. Only on closer inspection are the potential conflicts of interest revealed: the retired officers were paid by contractors, advising on military services even as they were consulting for companies seeking to sell military products, as reported by USA Today. When news of the program came to light, Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered changes, but the paper reported Tuesday that “senior mentors will not have to disclose their business ties or finances to the public, under a [July 8 Defense] directive…That falls below what [Defense Secretary Gates] initially called for….”

This Pentagon program is not simply an isolated conflict of interest story, or “coincidence of interest”–where players craft roles across organizations to serve their own agendas, instead of those of the organizations for which they supposedly work. It illustrates the perils of a governing landscape that has transformed in recent years: where once federal employees executed most government work, today more than 75 percent of that work, measured in terms of jobs, is contracted out and many of these jobs involve government functions. Many contractors are integrally involved in formulating and influencing policy on issues ranging from defense (as seen in the mentoring program), to the economy and energy to homeland security and intelligence. Even when many, if not most, of these contractors perform admirably, whether contractors always have the public interest at heart, or whether, beholden to shareholders, they might have their own, is a crucial question.

The Washington Post reported this week on the influence of contractors and the unmanageable growth of the intelligence community since 9/11. I also studied this development (in the area of intelligence and beyond) as part of my research for my book Shadow Elite and in a follow-on study (supported by the Ford Foundation), Selling Out Uncle Sam: How the Myth of Small Government Undermines National Security, soon to be released. In addition to interviews with government and contractor officials, I poured through piles of Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports, inspectors general audits,and congressional testimony evaluating the role of contractors in federal agencies. And a key finding that emerges is that information that once was or should be in official hands is being privatized, ceded to government contractors, at a time when government oversight is increasingly overwhelmed and undercut.

When information that is supposedly of and for government is in private hands, it is not just that government often isn’t kept in the loop. The information, and the power that goes with it, can be used to serve private agendas with the risk of corporate and private players influencing policy to suit those agendas. This is far more insidious than simply hiring a contractor to provide food service or even contracting security assistance in a war-zone like Iraq. Contractors are now routinely carrying out what’s known as “inherently governmental functions,” the work so fundamental to the public interest that only federal workers should conduct. The privatization of information is especially dangerous when these core functions are outsourced.

Take the case of the Pentagon senior mentors. Under that program, the selection of mentors, the identity of their defense clients, and the mentors’ pay levels were locked in a black box beyond government and public scrutiny. The latest news suggests that mentors won’t have to disclose financial interests, but even if that changes, and the officers eventually adhere to new ethics regulations, or are hired directly by the Pentagon as part-timers, this will only chip away at the margins of the information deficit. The fact is that, while contributing their invaluable experience, these officers also glean invaluable inside information. It is hard to imagine that they erase what they learn as mentors when they conduct their work as defense industry executives or consultants, and vice-versa.

In the area of the economy, contractors manage – and more – taxpayer stimulus and bailout money, giving them access to should-be government information. With regard to the $700 billion so-called TARP money, the Treasury Department hired several contractors to set up a process to disburse the bailout funds. The government also enlisted money manager BlackRock to help advise and manage the Bear Stearns and AIG rescues. BlackRock also won a bid to help the Federal Reserve evaluate hard-to-price assets of Freddie Mac and Morgan Stanley. The Wall Street Journal said:

BlackRock’s multiple hats put it in the enviable position of having influence on setting the prices of both the assets it is buying and selling.

Another big area of concern is in the outsourcing of information technologies. An estimated upwards of three-quarters of governmental IT was outsourced even before the major Iraq war-related push to contract out. While outsourcing certain IT functions, such as computer network services, may be unproblematic or even desirable, IT often can’t be separated from other mission-critical operations. Contractors often control crucial databases. For instance, in a 2004 Homeland Security mega-contract, Accenture LLP was granted up to $10 billion to supervise and enlarge a mammoth government project to track foreign citizens entering and exiting the U.S.

How did private and corporate interests seize the upper hand from government? A key reason for the information deficit is the sharp decline in the number of government oversight officials, relative to contractors. In theory, contracts and contractors are overseen by government employees. But the number of civil servants who could potentially oversee contractors fell during the Clinton administration and continued to drop during the Bush years. The contracting business boomed under Bush, while what is commonly called the “acquisition work force”–government workers charged with the conceptualization, design, awarding, use, or quality control of contracts and contractors–has remained virtually constant.

The paucity of oversight is the reason large procurement operations are identified by the GAO as “high risk” due to “their greater susceptibility to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement.” It also leaves government officials dangerously in the dark about what’s going on, since contractors frequently control the information. Government officials are often reliant on what the contractors report and recommend, especially when a sole contractor carries out a given program or project (as is often the case).

As a top GAO official, Katherine Schinasi reported that, in many cases, government deciders scarcely supervise the companies on their payrolls. (And routinely, contractors are also hiring and overseeing other contractors.) Nearly a year before the 2003 Iraq combat began, the army reported to Congress that its best guess was that it directly or indirectly employed between 124,000 and 605,000 service contract workers–a discrepancy of half a million workers. And, as the GAO’s director of acquisition and sourcing management reported,

At this point, DOD [the Defense Department] does not know how well its services acquisition processes are working, which part of its mission can best be met through buying services, and whether it is obtaining the services it needs while protecting DOD’s and the taxpayers’ interests.

When contractors have superior information, they have the edge over their government overseers. Disincentives for contractors to share unbiased information are many, ranging from extra work required to the possibility that the information could become available to potential competitors or that it could lead to discovery of contractor activities that might be disapproved. And when officials receive incomplete or skewed information, the public interest easily can be compromised. Even when government officials approve projects and decisions, they sometimes may be merely rubber stamping the work of contractors.

With regard to many arenas of government, government investigators have raised questions about who drives policy–government or contractors?–and whether government has the information, expertise, institutional memory, and personnel to manage contractors. Or is it the other way around?

A few years ago, the Wall Street Journal asked in a headline whether the U.S. government was “outsourcing its brain.” With contractors able to hoard public information, influence policy, and put blinders on government supervision, the unavoidable answer to that question appears to be “yes’. Government that literally doesn’t know what it is doing can scarcely be operating effectively. Moreover, it is vulnerable on all fronts.
Linda Keenan edits the Shadow Elite column.

Justice Department plans to sue over Arizona law

WarOnYou — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 02:41:07 +0000

Okay, so let me see if I have this right. The US Government says it is okay for Israel to attack and kill humanitarian aid works (including Americans) outside the borders to Gaza, yet Arizona is to be blocked from keeping Mexican drug criminals from crossing over into their state?Does that make any sense at all to anyone?

By Terry Frieden, CNN Justice Producer

(CNN) — Obama administration lawyers are planning to file a legal challenge to a controversial Arizona immigration law within a month, according to a senior administration official.

The Justice Department would not confirm the claim, saying only that “The Justice Department is continuing to review the law.”

Federal government lawyers who have been working on the expected challenge for several weeks will most likely file their arguments in federal court in Phoenix in the days leading up to July 28, when the statute is scheduled to take effect, the official said.

Although the Justice Department indicates no final decisions have been made at this point, officials were put on the spot when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a recent television interview in Ecuador the government “will be bringing a lawsuit” in the case.

Administration officials have indicated the question of Arizona usurping federal authority to control the border and enforce immigration law is the most likely federal point of attack against the state law signed by Gov. Jan Brewer earlier this year.

17 States Now Filing Versions of Arizona’s Immigration Bill SB 1070

WarOnYou — Sat, 22 May 2010 05:12:42 +0000

17 States Now Filing Versions of Arizona’s Immigration Bill SB 1070

May 21, 2010

For National Release

CONTACT: Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC)
(866) 703-0864 WilliamG@alipac.us
www.alipac.us

One of America’s national organizations fighting against illegal immigration is announcing that 17 states are now filing versions of Arizona’s SB 1070 law which is designed to help local police enforce America’s existing immigration laws.

Numerous national and local polls indicated that 60-81% of Americans support local police enforcing immigration laws.

“Our national network of activists have been working overtime trying to help the state of Arizona and the brave Arizonans who have passed this bill,” said William Gheen, President of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC. “Arizona no longer stands alone and we have now documented state lawmakers filing, or announcing they will file, versions of the Arizona bill in seventeen states! We will not stop until all states are protected from invasion as required by the US Constitution.”

ALIPAC has documented the following 17 states are following Arizona’s lead in response to citizen pressure.

ARKANSAS, IDAHO, INDIANA, MARYLAND, MICHIGAN, MINNESOTA, MISSOURI, NEBRASKA, NEVADA, NEW JERSEY, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, PENNSYLVANIA, RHODE ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, TEXAS, UTAH

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) has helped to pass some form of immigration enforcement legislation in over 30 states, while the group has also gained a national reputation for defeating legislation designed to give licenses, in-state tuition, and other taxpayer benefits to illegal aliens in 20 states.

ALIPAC’s President, William Gheen is a former campaign consultant, Legislative Assistant, state lobbyist, and Assistant Sgt-At-Arms staffer in North Carolina who has turned his local experiences into a political battle plan by driving the national operations of ALIPAC.

“The Federal government has been hijacked by special interests that are neglectful of their duties and even hostile towards the rightful citizens of America,” said William Gheen. “It is incumbent upon our states to protect American lives, property, jobs, wages, security, and health, when the Executive Branch fails to honor its Constitutional responsibility to do so by enforcing our existing border and immigration laws.”

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC lobbied state lawmakers and AZ Governor Jan Brewer to pass SB 1070, which strictly prohibits racial profiling while empowering local police officers to enforce immigration laws.

ALIPAC’s activists have been working for almost four weeks now to encourage state lawmakers across the nation to file versions of SB 1070, to help alleviate boycotts and other political antagonism towards Arizona. Citizen activist are being asked to call, e-mail, visit, and fax their state lawmakers to encourage them to support existing SB 1070 type bills or to file them as soon as possible.

For a list of the 17 states joining Arizona’s push for this kind of legislation, and to view the associated documentation, please visit our tracking link for updated information at….
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-196989.html

Arizona vs. Mexico: Crime and Illegal Aliens:

WarOnYou — Mon, 17 May 2010 00:33:32 +0000

What exactly are the rights of those that come into the country illegally? Should they enjoy the same Constitutional Protections as Naturalized Citizens of the United States? Of course, we are talking about Civil Rights and Due Process, Miranda Rights, etc.

The answer of course, is that all human beings deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, but to enter into this country illegally is a violation of both Federal and State Statutes. Thus, illegal aliens are criminals because they are, well, illegal aliens. When I spent two years in South America, I carried my Visa and Passport with me at all times. No one ever asked for them, but I still had them on me, and they still had the right to ask me for them anyplace and anytime they wanted to.

I knew people that overstayed their Visas. They were unable to find employment because it was illegal to hire them. They were ineligible for Medical Care because they were not citizens. They could not attend school for the same reason. They did have one other thing in common, they were all American citizens living in the country illegally!

Mexico is no different:

“First, Mexico put its military and police forces on its porous, zigzagged, mountainous, crime-ridden southern border with Guatemala. Chiapas – the South Carolina-sized southern Mexican state that shares the longest border with Guatemala – is Mexico’s poorest, most illiterate state. About Chiapas, one United Nations human rights commissioner said, “Mexico is one of the countries where illegal immigrants are highly vulnerable to human rights violations and become victims of degrading sexual exploitation and slavery-like practices, and are denied access to education and health care.” (Source)

So, Mexico does not provide free education or healthcare to illegal immigrants. How are they treated otherwise?

“Typically, when Mexican authorities catch illegal aliens, they place them overnight in a detention center, then bus or fly them back to their country of origin. Despite the fact that Mexico militarized its border and deported 203,128 illegal immigrants in 2004, many illegals get through by bribing corrupt military and police.” (Ibid)

Note that there is no trial or hearing. No free public defender. No court expenses. The Police and military simply arrest them and place them in a detention center, until they can be returned to their country of origin. But, then again, they actually enforce their border with Guatemala, so it is extremely difficult to get into Mexico in the first place. Since Guatemalans have no right to be in Mexico illegally in the first place, they have no right to stay there and are shipped back to the country of origin.

Now about those that commit other crimes. Here are some FBI statistics:

New FBI Statistics on Crimes Committed by Illegal Aliens (Source)

CaPoliticalNews ^ | November 12, 2006 | FBI/INS

INS/FBI Statistical Report on Undocumented Immigrants

2006 (First Quarter) INS/FBI Statistical Report on Undocumented Immigrants

CRIME STATISTICS:

95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.

83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens.

86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens.

75% of those on the most wanted list in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Albuquerque are illegal aliens.

24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally

40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally

48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally

29% (630,000) convicted illegal alien felons fill our state and federal prisons at a cost of $1.6 billion annually

53% plus of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas are perpetrated by illegal aliens.

50% plus of all gang members in Los Angeles are illegal aliens from south of the border.

71% plus of all apprehended cars stolen in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California were stolen by Illegal aliens or “transport coyotes”.

47% of cited/stopped drivers in California have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 47%, 92% are illegal aliens.

63% of cited/stopped drivers in Arizona have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 63%, 97% are illegal aliens

66% of cited/stopped drivers in New Mexico have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 66% 98% are illegal aliens.

BIRTH STATISTICS 380,000 plus “anchor babies” were born in the U.S. in 2005 to illegal alien parents, making 380,000 babies automatically U.S.citizens.

97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the American taxpayers.

66% plus of all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers

So, back to Mexico:

“– If outsiders do not enhance the country’s “economic or national interests” or are “not found to be physically or mentally healthy,” they are not welcome. Neither are those who show “contempt against national sovereignty or security.” They must not be economic burdens on society and must have clean criminal histories. Those seeking to obtain Mexican citizenship must show a birth certificate, provide a bank statement proving economic independence, pass an exam and prove they can provide their own health care.” (Source)

And Due Process:

“Foreigners may be kicked out of the country without due process and the endless bites at the litigation apple that illegal aliens are afforded in our country (see, for example, President Obama’s illegal alien aunt — a fugitive from deportation for eight years who is awaiting a second decision on her previously rejected asylum claim)….

– Law enforcement officials at all levels — by national mandate — must cooperate to enforce immigration laws, including illegal alien arrests and deportations. The Mexican military is also required to assist in immigration enforcement operations. Native-born Mexicans are empowered to make citizens’ arrests of illegal aliens and turn them in to authorities. (Ibid)

Arizona is Right

WarOnYou — Wed, 12 May 2010 17:34:56 +0000

Arizona is Right

By Maria Fotopoulos

>From President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder and California Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg to legislators such as Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and members of the L.A. City Council, political opportunists are lining up against American citizens. It’s beginning to look like a conspiracy! They are using the Arizona law just signed by Gov. Jan Brewer (R) to further polarize the illegal immigration debate and cry for “reform,” that is, amnesty.

The Arizona law was immediately attacked by open-borders activists such as Grijalva, who went so far as to advocate a boycott of his own state in which he was elected to serve American citizens. Here in California the word “boycott” also is being bandied about, along with threats to tear up government contracts with Arizona. Comedian George Rodriguez is even getting into the theater act, asking for all people with the last name of Rodriguez not to go to Arizona. “That’s a few million people,” he joked. All this is getting media coverage, while the fact that 70 percent of Americans want our immigration laws enforced is all but ignored. How are so many politicians – and the stray comedian – so out of touch?

For decades, the federal government has failed to enforce existing immigration laws to the point that we now have an estimated 12 to 30 million people living in the United States illegally. Those numbers are staggering in their implications. No other country tolerates such abuse of its borders and disrespect of its own citizenry. Arizona finally said “enough” when it passed the legislation that will allow law enforcement officers to ask for proof of residency if individuals are suspected of being in the country illegally. This falls in line with Rasmussen Reports that found 73 percent of voters believe law enforcement officers should check immigration status during traffic stops. As well, the law will make it illegal for people to knowingly transport illegal aliens and will overturn the sanctuary policies of local governments and agencies.

Arizona has been under attack in recent years on several fronts – an unchecked increasing illegal population and crime. From 2000 to 2008, the number of illegal aliens in Arizona skyrocketed by 70 percent. The state, with a population of 6.6 million, has an estimated illegal alien population of 500,000 and a prison population that includes nearly 6,000 Mexican nationals (14 percent of the inmate population).

Then last year, Phoenix was given the dubious distinction of being the kidnap-for-ransom capital, with 370 reported kidnappings, second only to Mexico City. As a major thoroughfare for drug and human trafficking, Arizona – and Phoenix – has become a war ground for drug cartel battles. Most often the kidnappers are Mexican criminals sometimes helped by local street gangs in Phoenix, according to police.

Beyond the sheer numbers and the crime, Arizona, like other states with large numbers of illegal aliens, is dealing with the associated costs of illegal immigration. For example, in emergency rooms and public schools one in seven children is a direct or indirect product of illegal immigration.

Arizona is trying to take on what the federal government has failed to do for years – carry out its responsibilities to American citizens. Arizona is right, and the courage it is showing should motivate other states in the union. Thomas Jefferson would be proud.

Maria Fotopoulos is a Senior Writing Fellow for the Santa Barbara-based organization, Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS | capsweb.org), where she writes about the population-sustainability connection. Reach her at mariaf@turbodogcommunications.com, on Twitter at TurboDog50 and Facebook at Maria K. Fotopoulos.

http://www.caglecartoons.com/column.asp?ColumnID={643AD829-732E-4614-8469-0A75F3336C8E}

The Economics Beneath Immigration Reform

shamuscook — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:54:06 +0000

The Economics Beneath Immigration Reform

By Shamus Cooke

How convenient for Goldman Sachs. Just as most working people were demanding that the Goldman bosses and other Wall Street criminals either be massively fined, jailed or worse, the nation’s attention is suddenly forced to react to the racist immigration law in Arizona. And although the two incidents are not directly related, they represent a trend that is likely to increase in the months and years ahead.

Because of the economic crisis, massive unemployment, corporate bailouts, home foreclosures, and criminal activity of Wall Street, the majority of people in the U.S. have never been as passionately anti-corporation. But the corporate owned media plus the wealthy, elite-controlled Congress reacted quickly to these intolerable circumstances and fought back.

They took the fight over public opinion to the airwaves, and massively pushed the blame for the dismal state of the U.S. economy onto those unable to defend themselves — immigrants.

One can either focus their political rage on the billionaires who dominate the economy and Congress —Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, etc. — or those millions of undocumented immigrants, many who get paid lower than minimum wage and are living in society’s shadows.

The corporate media would rather you focus on immigrants. Thus, Fox News and virtually all other media outlets spew nightly venom at a vulnerable public, looking to get revenge on immigrants who “ruined America.” There is an obvious connection to this type of racist propaganda and the increase in hate crimes against Latinos that has exploded over the years.

Latinos are blamed for everything from lower wages, violent and non-violent crimes, to just about everything else. There is no exaggeration to say that Hitler played a similar blame-game for Germany’s economic and social woes with Jews and other minorities.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles was quoted in The New York Times when he correctly pointed out: “Every time we have an economic downturn, there is a new attack on immigrants…” (May 1, 2010).

The right-wing exploits this claim when they accuse immigrants of lowering the wages of “native” U.S. workers, but the full truth of why a tidal wave of immigrants entered the U.S. is never told.

In reality, the same Wall Street corporations that in part caused the current recession and benefited from it via bailouts are also responsible for the destruction of the Mexican economy and the consequent migration wave.

Bill Clinton’s 1994 “Mexican bailout” was supposedly used to save the Mexican economy from disaster. In reality, much of the money went to Wall Street investors who helped inflate the Mexican economy but didn’t get out in time when the bubble burst (similar to the recent housing bubble in the U.S.).

Bill Clinton used U.S. taxpayer money to bailout Wall Street via the Mexican government, but Mexico still had to pay back the money that went to Wall Street. The Mexican loan came with devastating strings attached: state industries were to be privatized; the Mexican currency was devalued; state workers were fired by the hundreds of thousands; and social services were slashed. The ruinous results sent hordes of desperate Mexicans north to escape poverty and starvation.

When this massive fraud was being orchestrated, Republican Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato continued his opposition to Clinton by actually telling the truth about the bailout: “The rescue plan has failed. And we are just perpetuating a myth if we think we are helping anyone except rich investors, who the United States has saved while everyone else in Mexico starves.” (The New York Times, April 2, 1995).

Who benefits?

U.S. Corporations. The Mexican economy was cracked open to rich U.S. investors who take advantage of slave wages south of the border, while also benefiting from the Mexican migration to the U.S. that corporations use to drive down wages in the U.S. (corporations in the U.S. massively advertised in Mexico to bring more workers across the border).

If Latino immigrants in the U.S. are not afforded basic civil rights — including the right to form unions without being deported — they become easily exploitable by corporations; wages for all workers in the U.S. consequently drop. This sad state of affairs will continue if the Democrats’ anti-immigration bill is passed.
But the Democrats are given a right-wing shield for their new policy by the extremely racist Arizona law. The conservative Washington Post analyzed the Democrats plan in an article accurately entitled: “Senate Democrats’ Plan Highlights Nation’s Shift to the Right on Immigration.” However, it is the Democratic Congress that is shifting right, not the “nation” (minus the Fox News far right).

The article reports that the Democrats’ plan “includes a slew of new immigration enforcement measures aimed at U.S. borders and workplaces. It would further expand the 20,000-member Border Patrol; triple fines against U.S. employers that hire illegal immigrants; and, most controversially, require all American workers — citizens and non-citizens alike — to get new Social Security cards linked to their fingerprints to ease work eligibility checks.” (May 1, 2010).

And:

“Critics of the [Democrats’] law… said its enforcement will open a window on the huge social, economic and government costs of removing 11 million people, as well as the constitutional challenges of doing so without racial profiling or expanding police powers. Most Americans do not want that, they say, but firm and fair policies that uphold the law, bolster U.S. workers and the economy, and respect the nation’s immigrant heritage.”

Obama and the Democrats have again betrayed another key constituency. Their shift to the right is the outcome of a crumbling economy that cannot be corrected without directly confronting the gigantic wealth and power of U.S. corporations. These corporations control the Democratic Party, who can only respond by the same immigrant scapegoating that the Republicans advocate.

To shield themselves from popular anger, the U.S. corporate elite is promoting the most right-wing ideas to millions of people, so that social passions can be channeled towards society’s victims: immigrants, minorities, homosexuals, women who choose to get an abortion, etc. Workers organized in unions are also being targeted.

If the fragile U.S. economy crashes again, these dangerous ideas will find more receptive ears. At the height of the Great Depression, when working-class Americans started to fight back against corporate interests, the US government intervened to shift the countries focus: thousands of Latino immigrants and citizens were rounded up on trains and shipped to Mexico.

To combat immigrant scapegoating, immigrants, all workers and progressive people must demand and fight that corporations and the rich shareholders pay for the economic crisis through progressive income and corporate taxes, while also demanding that ICE workplace raids, detentions and deportations be stopped immediately!

Arizona Passes Strict Immigration Bill; Gives Police the Power to Stop and Verify the Immigration Status of Anyone Suspected of Being Illegal

WarOnYou — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:29:04 +0000

April 14th, 2010

Your papers, please.

Via: Wall Street Journal:

Arizona lawmakers on Tuesday passed one of the toughest pieces of immigration-enforcement legislation in the country, which would make it a violation of state law to be in the U.S. without proper documentation.

It would also grant police the power to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being illegal.

The bill could still face a veto from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer. A spokesman for Ms. Brewer said she has not publicly commented on the bill. Ms. Brewer, a Republican, has argued for stringent immigration laws.

Under the measure, passed Tuesday by Arizona’s lower house, after being passed earlier by the state Senate, foreign nationals are required to carry proof of legal residency.

Immigrants’ rights groups roundly criticized the bill. “The objective is to make life miserable for immigrants so that they leave the state,” said Chris Newman, general counsel for the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “The bill constitutes a complete disregard for the rights of nonwhites in Arizona. It effectively mandates racial profiling.”

The bill’s author, State Sen. Russell Pearce, was in a committee session Tuesday and couldn’t be reached, his offices said. Mr. Pearce, a Republican, represents the city of Mesa, in Maricopa County, whose sheriff, Joe Arpaio, has gained a national reputation for his tough stance on immigration enforcement. A spokesman for Mr. Arpaio didn’t return a request for comment.

America’s Secret Prisons for Undocumented Immigrants

WarOnYou — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:32:38 +0000

America’s Secret Prisons for Undocumented Immigrants

by Andrew Joad

World Socialist Web Site – 2010-02-01

There are at least 186 secret detention centers maintained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) within the borders of the US, according to an article published in the Nation magazine in December. Drawing on a report by Amnesty International (AI) entitled “Jailed without Justice,” it estimates that 415,000 people have been held at these facilities, which are operated under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security as so-called “sub-field offices” of the ICE. Their purpose is to deny undocumented immigrants due process and any means by which they can effectively lobby for their rights.

“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear,” explained ICE Executive Director for the Office of State and Local Coordination James Pendergraph at an August 2008 police and sheriffs’ conference, according to the AI report.

In October 2009 an assistant to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano first revealed the existence of the secret prisons to the secretary, without making the locations public. The author of the December 16 article in the Nation, Jacqueline Stevens, obtained “a partial list” of the secret facilities from an ICE officer.

These prisons include unmarked rooms without beds, showers, toilets, or windows in office parks and commercial building spaces. Stevens reports that some 84 percent of persons arrested by ICE are at first “housed” in such sub-field offices.

For example, according to her article and Ahilan Arulanantham, director of Immigrants’ Rights and National Security at the ACLU of Southern California, an underground parking ramp at a federal building in Los Angeles is called B18 and houses up to 100 immigrants a day without any hygiene, medical, or legal services.

Legal professionals struggling to assist these people found captives chained together. They are continuously rotated between the below-ground parking ramp detention pen and locals jails, to which they are transported in unlabeled and windowless vans. This makes it extremely difficult to establish the identity or whereabouts of those being held. Relatives and attorneys have searched for family members for weeks and months to no avail.

In her article, Stevens reviews the case of Mark Lyttle, who has bipolar disorder and a learning disability. He was 31 years old when he was held at a Cary, North Carolina in an unmarked “sub-field” office in “an office park adjacent to gated communities, large artificial ponds and an Oxford University Press production plant.” He had been snatched out of “the medical misdemeanor section of a nearby prison” by ICE agents and spent his time in detention begging officials not to ship him to Mexico.

The ICE file from the FBI reportedly identified Lyttle as a US citizen. He was initially denied a hearing before an immigration judge, until he landed in Lumpkin, Georgia, where agents arranged for him to appear before the court. He had no legal representation and the judge, a former ICE prosecutor, “ignored Lyttle’s pleas … and signed his removal orders.” His panicked mother and two brothers searched the Cary area obituary columns before they discovered that he was spending Christmas in “a shelter for los deportados (the deported)” in Mexico.

Conditions in the secret jails described in the AI report bear similarity to many of the illegal detention facilities maintained by the US overseas. Indeed, an attorney working for a detained immigrant compared the jails and the treatment of his client to Washington’s program of extraordinary rendition. “Jailed without Justice” identifies at least 90 people who have died in these facilities either due to abuse suffered while in captivity or medical conditions that were left unattended.

The following incident, which had initially been reported in May 2008 by the Washington Post, was recounted in the AI report.

“Geovanny Garcia-Mejia, 27, from Honduras, died on March 18, 2006. He was detained at the Newton County Correctional Center in Texas. He had been placed in a medical unit, where he was found writing on the floor with his blood, internal records show. But he was returned to the jail’s general population after a psychologist wrote in his chart, ‘No idea why he is in suicide cell.’ He hanged himself 12 days later, on his 27th birthday. The local sheriff concluded that guards who should have been checking him every 15 minutes ‘made no rounds through the night…’”

Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, the Philippines and China are the top five countries of origin for immigrants trapped in the ICE’s detention pens. Officials take advantage of individuals’ lack of English-language skills in order to deny them due process and/or terrorize them into accepting deportation. The mental anguish created by the conditions of detention drives many to despair.

“Jailed without Justice” told the story of a 34-year-old Mexican woman arrested in front of her home and in the presence of her autistic three-year old, US-born son on a petty theft charge by local police. She was jailed for 24 days. She spoke no English, and while being interviewed by an ICE official, was urged to promptly accept deportation. In the course of her detention, fearing permanent separation from her family and loss of her child, she attempted to hang herself.

For family members, efforts to secure the release of their loved ones and fight deportation often entail huge expenditures. For example, AI reported the story of an Indian man who fled to the US in 1999 after being imprisoned and tortured several times for “political activities.” In 2006 the ICE detained him and demanded a $15,000 bond for his release. His wife arranged the payment with a bondsman while her husband applied for asylum. Upon his release, he appeared, as required, at all his immigration hearings for over two years. After his final hearing, at which he testified as to the details of his torture, the ICE re-arrested the man and hauled him before a second immigration judge, who demanded another bond payment of $80,000. The man’s family and friends tapped their credit cards and mortgaged their homes in order to fork over this sum.

Immigrant incarceration in the US has risen dramatically in the last ten years, from a “daily detention capacity” of 10,000 in 1996 to over 30,000 presently. The Obama administration has continued the policy of its predecessors in this regard. The rise in immigrant incarceration over the past 15 years has been so dramatic that authorities have had to contract out the process to some 350 county and state jails.

AI estimates that about 67 percent of incarcerated detainees are jailed in these facilities, with the remainder put in the secret immigration pens and facilities run by for-profit contractors, whose reimbursement is said to be between $60-$90 per person a day.

The running of these facilities is increasingly becoming a source of revenue for cash-strapped local governments. As noted in an article in the Denver Post last April, “El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa has tapped a new source of revenue: illegal immigrants.” The sheriff is leasing jail space to ICE for an average of 150 immigrants a night. He has sent some 17 of his deputies to Pendergraph’s departmental training school to learn how to “initiate deportations without waiting for federal agents.” ICE is reportedly paying $62.40 per night per immigrant, plus transport mileage, netting the jail 10 percent of its annual budget and El Paso County $3.6 million.

The conditions in immigrant detention centers are leading to mounting anger and desperate actions inside the facilities. On January 19, ICE detainees at the Varick Federal Detention Center in Lower Manhattan went on a hunger strike. According to the New York Times, a Jamaican detainee in one dorm at Varick reported that “all hell broke loose” at the facility, with inmates refusing to follow scheduling protocols and passing out fliers protesting detention policies and practices. An ICE SWAT team arrived and used pepper spray and beatings to put an end to the protest, which apparently was inspired by inmates finding out about similar protests occurring at other facilities. Some people were put in isolation, while others were moved to detention centers in other states. The Department of Homeland Security issued its customary denial of detainee abuse.

Obama positioning for immigration reform (Instant Citizenship For Illegals)

WarOnYou — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 04:54:14 +0000

Source: Seattle Times

With the health-care battle still unfinished, the Obama administration has been laying plans to take up an issue that could prove even more divisive — a major overhaul of the nation’s immigration system.

Senior White House aides privately have assured Latino activists that the president will back legislation next year to provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented workers now living in the United States.

In addition to the citizenship provision, the emerging plan will stress efforts to secure U.S. borders against those trying to cross illegally. But that two-track approach was rejected repeatedly in the past by Republicans and other critics who insist a border crackdown must demonstrate its effectiveness before any action on citizenship is considered.

Whatever proposal Obama puts forward will likely be complicated by the calendar: Midterm elections are in November, and polls show the public is more worried about joblessness and the fragile economy than anything else.

The White House already has a packed agenda for 2010: economic recovery, global-warming legislation and tougher regulation of financial institutions.

In an effort to enlist the kind of business support that helped drive its health-care initiative, for example, administration officials have reached out to the National Restaurant Association, which represents an industry that employs thousands of immigrants. Earlier this year, the new head of the association, Dawn Sweeney, met with Cecilia Munoz, a White House aide involved in the issue, and expressed interest in cooperating.

“It’s an extremely important issue for our members,” said Sweeney, whose group could exert grass-roots pressure on lawmakers.

As a candidate, Obama vowed to take up immigration during his first year in office. That deadline will come and go. Further delay could anger Latino voters, who came out in force for the president and congressional Democrats in 2008.

“The bulk of the people needing immigration reform are Latino,” said Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, D-Ariz. “There’s a level of disenchantment about where we’re going. … And if you don’t give the Latino community a reason to participate (in the elections) you weaken your base even more.”

For an immigration bill to have a realistic shot of passing next year, political analysts said, the particulars would have to be agreed upon by the spring. Delay would increase the likelihood of the issue being derailed by the November elections.

An immigration bill was introduced in the House earlier in the month, and Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who chairs a subcommittee on immigration, is heading the effort to cobble together a bipartisan coalition in the Senate.

But Democrats may not have a lock on one prominent Republican who has worked in the past to revamp the immigration system: Arizona Sen. John McCain.

McCain backed George W. Bush’s failed attempt to overhaul immigration in his second term. But he has not committed to supporting the Obama bill, saying he worried the president would not endorse a temporary guest-worker program.

Organized labor, an important part of the Democratic base, has voiced opposition to a guest-worker program under which more immigrants could enter the country on a temporary basis. The White House would not reveal its position on guest-worker issue.

Council on Foreign Relations backs amnesty for illegals, opposes Arpaio-style raids

WarOnYou — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:05:16 +0000

Source: Phoenix Business Journal

The uber-establishment Council on Foreign Relations said Wednesday it favors granting legal status to many of the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., creating a guest worker program for low-skilled foreign workers to come and work in the U.S and opposes local police getting to conduct immigration raids.

The CFR issued an immigration policy report Wednesday that looks to lift caps on foreign university students in the U.S. and allow skilled foreign graduates to get more work visas. The international policy group also wants to create legal paths to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S.

The CFR also said local police should not take lead roles in immigration enforcements and workplace raids. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas have been conducting immigration raids and prosecutions against businesses hiring illegal immigrants, as well as drop-houses used by smugglers trafficking illegal immigrants into Arizona from Mexico.

The CFR report does not specifically mention Arpaio but the Valley’s sheriff is the most notable local enforcer of immigration laws in the U.S.

The CFR’s recommendations on guest workers and amnesty mirror plans to be pushed in Congress this year by President Barack Obama. Arizona State university professor Raul H. Yzaguirre and former Florida governor Jeb Bush served on the CFR task force that wrote the recommendations.

The group also wants the U.S. to tweek or ease some post 9/11 security measures that have discouraged immigration and foreign tourism into the U.S. and want the U.S. government to develop new technologies to secure border areas, verify workers’ employment status and enforce immigration laws.

The New York-based CFR is a heavyweight international policy group whose members includes powerful politicians, CEOs and university presidents as well as multinational corporations, media firms and private equity firms.

The Council’s corporate members include Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, American Express, Chevron, ExxonMobil Corp., Rothschild North America Inc., News Corp., General Electric, KBR Inc., Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Co., Soros Fund Management and Google Inc.

U.S. Sen. John McCain, former Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Arizona State University President Michael Crow and Thunderbird School of Global Management president Angel Cabrera are Arizonans that are CFR members.

Other notable CFR members include:

• Former U.S. Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, James Baker and Madeline Albright.

• Former U.S. Treasury secretaries Henry Paulson and Robert Rubin.

• Financier George Soros and JP Morgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon.

• Former Federal Reserve Bank chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker.

• Former presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and former vice president Dick Cheney.

• Media notables such as NBC’s Tom Brokaw, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, Newsweek International editor and CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria and New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs “Punch” Sulzberger.

Democrats and Republicans Join Hands Over Immigration

shamuscook — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 06:42:29 +0000

By Shamus Cooke

Even the most optimistic Obama supporter should cringe in response to the White House’s recent “bi-partisan immigration talks.” What could Democrats and Republicans possibly have in common over immigration? Quite a lot it turns out.

An enormous sell-out is being prepared for the U.S. immigrant population and Latinos especially — who came out in record numbers in many swing states to vote for Obama last year. Attached to these votes are huge expectations.

Obama has, again, shifted another campaign promise far to the right — pro-immigration reform has turned into its opposite. And like all of his other betrayals, Obama is attempting to sell this one to the public as a “compromise.” But immigration, like health care, peace, the environment, etc., has very little room for backroom deals and finding a “middle ground” with an increasingly hysterical right wing.

The basis for a Democrat/Republican compromise on immigration started with a “concession” from the Democrats. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer is now shaping immigration policy for the party, a move that has greatly appeased Republicans, since the formal head, Ted Kennedy, was seen as being too liberal.

The New York Times noted, “[Schumer] is likely to be tougher on stemming illegal immigration, and less prone to support civil liberties for illegal immigrants…” (June 26, 2009)

In a recent speech, Schumer outlined the “principles” that united the two-party system around immigration. The New York Times explained:

“The speech was notably tough-sounding, but the principles were solid. Illegal immigration is wrong. The borders and workplace need tighter enforcement. Illegal immigrants must be required to register, learn English and pay taxes — or face deportation. But they should also be allowed to seek citizenship. The path back to a lawful system is through legalization and an improved, well-managed immigration flow.” (June 26, 2009)

Apologists for the Democrats will undoubtedly focus on the last two sentences, but even these have dire implications. What, for example, is a “well-managed immigration flow?”

And this is where the Republicans offer counsel: “border security” will be immensely strengthened to keep out “undesirable” (mainly Latino) immigrants, while others will be allowed in the country, legally, through “guest worker” programs.

The big corporations within the Republican Party — much like the big corporations inside the Democratic Party — are always desperate for the cheapest possible labor. Recruiting immigrants to work for them as “guest workers” means that immigrants are allowed in the country on a short-term basis, as long as they are totally compliant and do not seek higher wages or unionization. Protesting dangerous working conditions in this case equals deportation; fundamental worker rights are withheld.

The big labor confederations — the A.F.L-C.I.O and Change To Win — have shamelessly agreed to the above “general principles” of the Democrat/Republican immigration policy. However, they correctly came out against the guest worker program… but for the wrong reasons.

While mentioning the exploitative nature of guest worker programs, many unions also focus on the fact that these programs — by denying guest workers the right to unionize — lower the wages of workers in the U.S. Some subtly blame immigrants for it. Many unions oppose any increase in immigration. This nationalistic argument is at work in nearly every sentence of the far right-wing’s tirades against immigration. It deserves a deafening rebuttal, not creatively disguised racism.

Yes, it’s true that the intentions of guest worker programs are to get the cheapest possible labor for corporations. And, yes, it is true that this, in turn, has the effect of lowering the wages of U.S. born workers. The unforgivable error that some unions commit — which applies with equal weight to many self-professed “progressives” — is that the blame is “shared” between corporations and immigrants: both are seen as being equally culpable in the ‘immigration crisis” and the attack on the U.S. working-class.

Immigrants, however, are victims of larger socio-economic forces. These forces prevent immigrants from being able to meet the most basic needs in their home country, such as feeding their families. On the other hand, the mega-employers and their pet politicians in the U.S. are in fact controlling these economic forces, to the detriment of native and foreign workers alike.

It is no coincidence that the corporate-inspired free-trade agreements — NAFTA and CAFTA — caused a sea of immigration to the U.S., while likewise helping to off-shore U.S. manufacturing in search of slave wages — both of these phenomena only benefit large corporations and the super wealthy that own them.

The Democrats have conceded the immigration issue to the Republicans because they benefit equally from it. Not only do both groups require exploitative “guest worker programs” for their corporate donors, but also benefit immensely from the scapegoating effect. For example, the Democrats are now beginning to be correctly viewed by most Americans as “tools of Wall Street”, especially after the bank bailouts. Better that the resulting rage be directed towards society’s most vulnerable people.

This is why it is especially sad that labor unions and some national immigrant right’s organizations have opportunistically fallen behind the Democrats/Republicans “immigration reform,” the inevitable result of which will be further border militarization and consequent deaths along the border, while increasing immigrant scapegoating and consequent hate crimes. Workplace intimidation will also increase.

If the emerging reform becomes law, it will be a springboard for the extreme right, like the Minutemen, who will benefit from the bill’s scapegoating essence, while also incorrectly denouncing the Republicans and Democrats for granting “amnesty.”

The honest “left,” therefore, must do the opposite. Promoting “amnesty for all” is the only consistent, progressive argument around immigration — all others fall victim to the evils of scapegoating and “border security.” The foundation for an “equality for all” argument lies not only in the fact that immigrants are workers too, but in recognition that the immigration issue is used as a central wedge to divide and conquer all working people, thus allowing a tiny financial elite to dominate the country in the pursuit of endless wars and corporate bailouts.

U.S. immigration policy must return to its roots — most eloquently explained by the inscription at the Statue of Liberty:

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

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscook@yahoo.com

California Helps Illegal Immigrants Skirt Federal ID Law

WarOnYou — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 08:20:35 +0000

The nation’s most populous state is on the verge of passing a law to give special driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants who won’t meet the security standards under a federal measure designed to protect the country from terrorists.

By 2011 all states must verify the authenticity of every driver’s license applicant by confirming that documents—such as a birth certificate or passport—submitted to get the card are legitimate and that the applicant is in the United States legally.

California legislators plan to accommodate illegal immigrants who don’t meet the identification requirements for the new federally approved licenses by issuing special cards. Recently passed by the California Senate and heading to the Assembly, the measure allows illegal aliens to still get a driving-only license with a clear mark indicating that it does not meet the federal law.

The Democratic lawmaker (Gilbert Cedillo) who authored the bill—dubbed California Real ID after its federal counterpart—says it’s a pragmatic policy that will ensure all drivers are trained and licensed therefore making state roads and highways safer. Cedillo also claims that all of the state’s public safety and law enforcement agencies support his plan even though it contradicts the federal mandate.

The Real ID Act was passed by Congress in 2005 to protect national security by establishing standardized driver’s licenses nationwide that will be less prone to fraud and will prevent terrorists from abusing them as did several of the September 11 hijackers.

A newly created federal database will link all licensing data and states must check it before issuing a license to assure that the applicant has not been banned from driving in another state. Residents of states that don’t comply with the law will be greatly inconvenienced because their driver’s licenses will not be accepted as proof of identification at airports, federal buildings or when applying for any sort of federal benefits.

So far, Utah is the only state that has a two-tiered system that issues illegal immigrants special driver’s licenses. Wisconsin is set to become the second to offer illegal aliens the perk with a provision in the state budget that must still be approved by the legislature and governor. California, a renowned sanctuary state, could soon become the third.

Judicial Watch Blog

War On You: Breaking Alternative News » Immigration

House passes immigration Dream Act Published on 12-09-2010

The bill gives young illegal immigrants a path to citizenship if they enroll in college or enlist in the military. Supporters call its passage historic — but Democrats probably don’t have enough votes to get it through the Senate.

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