Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Those All-American Teams That Work Together



Julie L. Myers, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement:

"Our teams working together across six states today sent a strong message to those who choose to disregard our nation's laws"


Can you imagine "teams" working together to cause fear and terror - work that has de-humanized their "captives." They pick up teenage girls who skipped school. They pick up people and assume they are undocumented until they find proof otherwise, which is difficult since most people don't carry around their passports. They pick up people who walked a thousand miles to find a low paying job that would at least provide enough money to feed their kids.

What can I compare this to? The Gestapo looking for people like Anne Frank in Amsterdam? The dog catcher looking for stray animals? Or a bunch of grownups who are playing a dangerous game of tag (and enjoying it - just look at how they high-five each other when they make a hit)

You know those executioners in period movies? I just saw "Anne of a Thousand Days." As I saw the man in the black mask ready to cut off her head, I wondered what happens to executioners who are reincarnated.

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30 illegal immigrants arrested in Chicago area, ICE officials say


More than 200 illegal immigrants who had previously been ordered out of the country were arrested in Illinois and five other states during a four-day sweep that ended Monday, federal officials announced.

In the Chicago area, federal agents arrested 30 people from Poland, Mexico, Romania and nine other countries -- part of a continued escalation of enforcement against illegal immigration that has stirred fear and anger in immigrant enclaves across the country.

"Our teams working together across six states today sent a strong message to those who choose to disregard our nation's laws," Julie L. Myers, head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Tuesday. "If you ignore a judge's order of removal, ICE will find you, arrest you, and you will be returned to your home country."

About 72,000 "fugitive aliens" have been arrested since 2003, department officials said in a news release. In the Chicago area, 632 people have been arrested during such sweeps between October and last week, said Gail Montenegro, a local ICE spokeswoman.

Activists are preparing for another season of demonstrations.

Next month, a three-day conference scheduled in Pilsen will culminate in preparations for yet another march through the Loop, said Jorge Mujica, one of the chief organizers for the March 10 Coalition.

Planning also is under way for a "1,000-mile march" from St. Paul to Washington next month that will cut through Chicago.

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aolivo@tribune.com

1 comment:

Marie-Theresa Hernández, PhD said...

I am not sure ICE is an idiotic agency - but I can say that much of their behavior appears adolescent- --

In August 2006 I had a long conversation with a sociology professor at the University of Vera Cruz in Mexico. He had been doing interviews with the people in the mountains surrounding Vera Cruz. He said the poverty was so extreme in these areas that it was hard to imagine. He also said that many people owned small farms that were used as collateral for money to pay the coyotes (smugglers) and get the migrant into the U.S. Once the person made it, if by chance they were detained by ICE and deported - they ended up back home, even more vulnerable than before because they had lost their farms(since they did not make the money they were hoping to earn in the U.S.) and had no way to work for or raise the thousands of dollars they borrowed.

From what he told me it sounded like a true humanitarian crisis.