McCain's Delirium

For me it isn't about Democrats and Republicans, although I must say that the GOP has really entrenched itself into the Dark Side these past eight years.  Democrats oftentimes aren't any better.  But once in a while the ridiculous nature of either party stands out so much it is impossible to stay quiet...  As has happened with the nomination of Governor Palin for VP.

Obama hasn't made the same inane mistakes as McCain, but he is yet to convince me he can deal with a hard headed and often unintelligent Congress...

"[McCain's]... last-minute choice of a woman he barely knows to be his running mate underscored concerns about his impulsiveness, and her utter lack of experience in world affairs undermined his claimed seriousness about national security." Washington Post

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The McCain Paradox
Americans know the man better than they understand where he would lead the country.
Washington Post
Editorial
Monday, September 1, 2008; A12

LAST WEEK, the Democrats faced the task of presenting a relative newcomer to politics as their nominee for president. This week, the Republicans face a different challenge, one greatly complicated now by the anticipated arrival of Hurricane Gustav on the Gulf Coast. After a long career of public service, and on his second presidential campaign, John McCain is a familiar figure to many Americans. But where he would lead the nation is less clear to many, and his vice presidential selection last week didn't help. Out of respect for potential hurricane victims in Mississippi, Louisiana or Texas, Republicans may nominate Mr. McCain without the usual fanfare of a party convention -- and without nearly as much public attention as Barack Obama attracted last week. That only heightens the difficulty of the task Mr. McCain faces: to offer a vivid picture of why he wants to be president and what he would hope to accomplish.

Mr. McCain's journey to this nomination in many ways encapsulated his legend as a fighter, maverick and man of principle. Last summer, with his campaign broke and his chances written down to zero by the experts, Mr. McCain threw away the standard playbook -- and much of his staff -- and appealed directly to the people of New Hampshire in a grass-roots, no-frills campaign. Though the war in Iraq was deeply unpopular, he refused to trim his conviction that America should stick with it. As opponents reversed long-held positions to appeal in ugly ways to anti-immigrant sentiment, Mr. McCain insisted on his more humane approach.* And against considerable odds, he outlasted the field.

In the half year since clinching, however, Mr. McCain has failed to offer a fully coherent case for his presidential bid. Reformer, fiscal hawk, outsider, insider, values candidate, wartime leader -- he has tried on each of these. He has offered specific proposals -- corporate tax cuts, offshore drilling, League of Democracies -- but has yet to assemble them into a framework of priorities. Having at one time opposed President Bush's tax cuts in part because of their unfairness, Mr. McCain doubled down on them, with scant concern for inequality or fiscal responsibility. His last-minute choice of a woman he barely knows to be his running mate underscored concerns about his impulsiveness, and her utter lack of experience in world affairs undermined his claimed seriousness about national security.

One reason for the incoherence undoubtedly is that Mr. McCain has the misfortune to share party membership with a deeply unpopular incumbent. Asserting independence without offending the dwindling band of Mr. Bush's loyalists hasn't been easy. But at the convention, Mr. McCain has to draw a line. Does he offer "four more years," as the Democrats allege? If not, how will he change course?

Over the course of his career, Mr. McCain has broken with his party and even risked his political future in the service of principle. Campaign finance, climate change, immigration, the Iraq war surge, opposition to torture -- given how few contemporary politicians can cite even one such occasion of risk-taking, Mr. McCain's list has to win admiration. But to win votes in November, being admirable is not enough. Mr. McCain has to convince Americans that he has a vision of where he wants to lead the country, and the judgment and character to do so.

for link to WaPo editorial click here

*Some pro-immigrant academic colleagues of mine say that McCain's immigration position was not so bad earlier in the campaign...who knows what his policy is now.

link to image

Praying for bad things? - KARMA will get you eventually, if not sooner

James Dobson and his associates think it is ok to pray for rain on a party - people are saying that the Republicans got their karma with Hurricane Gustav hitting New Orleans at the same time as the GOP convention.

He is playing until the last of his days

If you think about all the evil things that have occurred since Bush's inauguration in January 2001, the stepped up raids are only more of the same.  Bush is certainly leaving his mark... as the New York Times Magazine says "[Bush]...is arguably the most disliked president in seven decades."  It seems like Bush/Cheney are trying to intensify this negativity by stepping up the raids.  What is wrong with these people?  It is like Bush (happily sending out ICE raiders as his time draws near?

link to cartoon

DHS says that they WON'T apply immigration enforcement laws during Gustav Evacuation

It is important to hold DHS to their word. With the evacuations and people leaving their homes for protection, we must hold them to their word that no checkpoints will be present at this time.

Remember what Immigration did during the fires in California not long ago?
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AUGUST 31, 2008

***For Immediate Release***



New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice

Contact Saket Soni at 504-881-6610 or 773-550-9339



IMMIGRANT WORKERS GAIN KEY ASSURANCE FROM HOMELAND SECURITY;

NO CHECKPOINTS ALONG EVACUATION ROUTES FROM GUSTAV

Immigrant workers demanding a safe evacuation from the path of Hurricane Gustav received key assurances from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that no immigration enforcement actions or checkpoints would occur in the evacuation process or along evacuation routes. The New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice gained the assurances for safe passage of immigrant workers just as mandatory evacuations began across the Gulf Coast. The exact agreement is below.

As Gustav approached, immigrant workers and their families feared evacuation due to anticipation over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints. Of the over 200 surveys of day laborers which the Workers' Center conducted as Hurricane Gustav approached, the fear of detention and deportation by DHS was identified as the single greatest obstacle to accessing humanitarian relief. "We want to take our families to safety. We should not have to face deportation as we escape from the storm" said Dennis Soriano, an organizer with the Congress of Day Laborers.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers arrived in the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to assist in the reconstruction of New Orleans and other cities. However, even as they were contributing to the rebuilding efforts, they faced extraordinary abuse, including high levels of wage theft, police brutality and massive immigration raids.

"This agreement would be the first clear assurance of safety from the federal government to immigrant workers who came to the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Katrina" said Saket Soni, Director of the Workers' Center. "It's a small victory on the path to a humane and just relief effort."

Despite these assurances, immigrant workers and their advocates expressed concern about the treatment immigrants would receive in the relief effort. "Once we have evacuated safely, will DHS come to the shelters?" asked Soriano; "When we are returning home to rebuild the city, will we face DHS checkpoints on our way back?"

"We hope that these public assurances from DHS will be the first step towards a Memorandum of Understanding that clearly establishes what we all know: there's no place for immigration enforcement in humanitarian relief" said Jennifer Rosenbaum, Counsel to the Workers' Center. Ms. Rosenbaum has represented hundreds of immigrant workers in post-Katrina New Orleans efforts.

Soni said immigrant workers would continue to fight for access to the relief. "Just like everyone else who was forced to leave, immigrant workers and their families want to stay safe in the shelters, and they want to come home to New Orleans and help rebuild their city."

The New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice is a membership based organization that works with African-American and immigrant workers in the post-Katrina landscape.



###

AUGUST 31, 2008
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
OFFICE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES


Gustav

· All residents of the Gulf Coast region need to evacuate.

· There are no immigration enforcement operations, and there are no

immigration enforcement checkpoints associated with the evacuations.

· The Department of Homeland Security's top priorities in any emergency are life-saving and life-sustaining activities, preventing the loss of property to the extent possible, and assisting with a speedy recovery of the affected region.

Gustav

· Todos los residentes del la región de la Costa del Golfo deben evacuar.

· No hay operacions de inmigración, y no hay puntos de inmigración asociados con las evacuaciones.

· Las prioridades mas altas del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional (DHS por sus siglas en Ingles) en cualquier emergencia son las de salvar y sostener la vida, preevenir la pérdida de propiedad lo tanto posible, y asistir con la recuperación de la región afectada.

ICE Immigrant Surveillance at Head Start Program?

Where else is ICE watching?  If they are hanging around Head Start Centers, they must be other places too.  

"Several kids and babies died in the fields because parents were fearful of sending them to Head Start," jsonline.com

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Group says it's harming kids of illegal migrants, who then avoid the centers altogether

By GEORGIA PABST Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Aug. 30, 2008, 9:49PM

MILWAUKEE, WIS. — Immigration enforcement officials are now targeting migrant and seasonal Head Start centers in some states as part of efforts to track down illegal immigrants, the executive director of the National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association says.

Yvette Sanchez, president of the Washington, D.C.-based association, was in Milwaukee recently for a meeting of the national board of directors at United Migrant Opportunity Services Inc.

She said immigration surveillance is emerging as one of the top three issues for the group, comprising migrant and seasonal Head Start directors, staff, parents and friends. Financial appropriations and the need for more bilingual materials are the others, she said.

"Several kids and babies died in the fields because parents were fearful of sending them to Head Start," she said in an interview.

"Since early 2007, many of our programs started to notice that Border Patrol of Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicles were parked outside their centers, and some were following buses picking up children," she said.

Jason Ciliberti, supervisory Border Patrol agent in Washington, D.C., said it's not the agency's policy to stake out Head Start centers.

"It could have happened if we believe there was an immigration violation afoot, but it's not our policy or practice, I believe."

Gail Montenegro, a spokeswoman with ICE in Chicago, said: "Generally, our operations avoid actions at school settings. ... However, we will take into custody during these targeted operations anyone encountered who may be in the country illegally."

In testimony before the congressional subcommittee on work force protections in May, ICE officials were provided with a list of dates and places regarding ICE activities near migrant and seasonal Head Start programs in Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and New Mexico, according to a letter sent to ICE officials in Washington by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

"We ask that ICE enforcement and intimidation tactics near migrant and seasonal Head Start centers cease immediately," U.S. Reps. Joe Baca, D-Calif., Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and Ruben Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, wrote.

"Parents were fearful of going to the centers or letting their kids get on the bus, and enrollment went down in some parts," Sanchez said.

In Tennessee, one family took their baby with them to the fields and left the baby in the truck where the baby died, she said.

Not a requirement
The criteria for participating in migrant and seasonal Head Start programs is low family income and agricultural employment, she said. "Since the Head Start program was started in 1965, we have never asked families if they are citizens, and it's never been a requirement," she said.

Migrant and seasonal Head Start programs operate in 39 states and serve more than 30,000 migrants and 3,000 children of seasonal farm workers, she said.

Migrant and seasonal Head Start programs serve children from 6 months to school age and also provide a variety of health and transportation services.

United Migrant Opportunity Services operates Head Start programs in Wisconsin that serve 530 children.

Cris Cuevas, director of the United Migrant program, said centers here have not been targeted by immigration officials.

for link to article lick here

Is using "Legacy" a way to cheat on admissions?

A professor at UCLA is saying that the university if circumventing admissions policies and using race as a factor in admissions.  What a shame that giving kids better opportunities is a violation of state law.

Before people get too upset about this - it would be good to take a look at the policy of Legacy at prestigious universities (which we all know really count as a way of reaching positions of power in the U.S.) -  When Legacy goes away and guys like GW Bush no longer can get into a fancy school on the basis of who their fathers are, then people have the right to start complaining about other types of affirmative action (yes, Legacy is affirmative action too, but for rich people).

from Wikipedia:

"Legacy preferences or legacy admission is a type of preference given by educational institutions to certain applicants on the basis of their familial relationship to alumni of that institution. (Students so admitted are referred to as legacies or legacy students.) There is a long history of this practice at American universities and colleges. The Ivy League institutions are estimated to admit 10% to 15% of each entering class based upon this factor.

Former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers has stated, "Legacy admissions are integral to the kind of community that any private educational institution is." In the 1998 book The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions, authors William Bowen, former Princeton University president, and Derek Bok, former Harvard University president, found "the overall admission rate for legacies was almost twice that for all other candidates."

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UCLA accused of illegal admissions practices
A professor resigns as an admissions committee member, saying the university is factoring race into acceptance decisions, a violation of state law.

By Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 30, 2008

Arguing that UCLA admissions policies are being manipulated to circumvent the state's ban on consideration of applicants' race, a professor there has resigned from a faculty committee that he says refused to allow him to study the matter.

Political science professor Tim Groseclose resigned Thursday from the Committee on Undergraduate Admissions and Relations with Schools, saying high-ranking university administrators and fellow committee members are engaged in a "coverup" to block illegal activity from being discovered.

"A growing body of evidence strongly suggests that UCLA is cheating on admissions," he wrote in an 89-page report posted on a UCLA website.

University officials called the report unsubstantiated and argued that Groseclose took a rise in the university's enrollment of black students as evidence that admissions officials were tampering with the process, without considering other factors such as increased outreach activities.

"He's taking an outcome and from that deducing a cause," said Tom Lifka, associate vice chancellor for student academic services.

Proposition 209, a 1996 voter initiative, bars California's public universities from considering race and other factors such as religion in the admissions process. In ensuing years, the number of black students at UCLA and many other UC campuses dwindled. By 2006, only 103 entering freshmen and 108 transfer students at UCLA were black, the lowest level in more than three decades.

Prompted by campus and community concerns about the lack of student diversity, UCLA decided in 2006 to move to a "holistic" application process, in which applicants' grades, test scores, extracurricular activities and other factors were no longer reviewed separately. Rather, achievements could be considered in the context of their personal experiences, Lifka said.

UCLA officials have said the new process is fairer to all applicants, and they have emphasized that admissions officials continue to abide by the restrictions imposed by Proposition 209.

Yet, since the admissions change was implemented, starting with the class that entered UCLA in fall 2007, the number of black students on campus has edged up. This fall, for example, 230 of 4,889 freshmen are African American, along with 100 transfer students. University officials attribute this increase to the holistic approach, as well as community outreach.

But Ward Connerly, a former UC regent who helped lead the drive for Proposition 209, said Groseclose's report buttressed his suspicions that university officials may be violating the law in their efforts to boost the number of black students on campus. His organization, American Civil Rights Institute, will probably file suit against the university in coming months, he said.

"They caved under the pressure from the NAACP and others in Los Angeles who want to see an increase in the number of black students," Connerly said. "There are so many ways you can rig the system."

Attempts to reach Groseclose on Friday were unsuccessful, but he wrote in his report that admissions officials often learned of students' race in personal application essays, and factored it into admissions decisions.

"It is obvious that the admissions staff was under intense pressure to admit more African Americans," he wrote.

He noted that black applicants' chances of admission increased with the holistic approach, while acceptance rates of other low-income students declined, particularly among Vietnamese, a point Lifka did not dispute.

Groseclose said in the report that he requested access to student applications to study the matter but was denied because of what he was told were privacy concerns. The university turned to another UCLA professor to conduct the research.

"Because I cannot properly conduct the duties with which I am charged as a member of CUARS, I am therefore resigning, in protest, from the committee," Groseclose wrote. "To do otherwise would condone and make me complicit in what appears to be illegal activity."

Lifka responded that the university uses 165 application readers and that they are told not to consider race. Each application is randomly distributed to two readers, so their ability to collude would be difficult, he said.

Lifka said it was vital for the university to pick a researcher who did not have a stated position on the admissions debate. "This is a highly charged political issue," he said.

The subject of whether Groseclose ought to have access to the data divided the committee. Attempts to reach several committee members were unsuccessful, and one said she had been told to refer media calls to the university.

Duncan Lindsey, a public affairs professor and a committee member, said he disagreed with Groseclose's beliefs that race was factored into admissions decisions, but strongly supported allowing him access to data. "We're a public university," Lindsey said.

In his report, Groseclose wrote that diversity could be increased without violating the law, perhaps by admitting students who finish in the top 1% of their high school class.

Connerly said students ought to be told that any mention of race in applications would be grounds for denial.

University officials called that idea untenable and noted that Proposition 209 also bars admissions based on other factors, such as gender.

"Where do we draw the line?" UCLA spokeswoman Claudia Luther asked.

seema.mehta@latimes.com

for link to LAT article click here

Beauty Queens and the Glass Ceiling

Twenty years ago in another life, I used to love to shop at the Houston's Galleria.  That beautiful wool and silk suit at Lord & Taylor was my goal.  After a few years I had lots of them.

As the years went by and I left a well paying career for academia, I began to realize that I didn't have to look like a Barbie doll to be successful.  Part of the pressure came from being a woman in the United States.  We all know that being a gorgeous size 4 gets us almost anywhere these days.

The other is being of Mexican descent, and having spent a few years living in Mexico in the late 90s, I realized that women south of the Rio Grande not only had to be very attractive, they had to wear their sexuality as a mask - complete with the most expensive make-up they could afford (that by the way was purchased at Houston's Galleria).

I guess I am still somewhat vain.  I worry about my weight, - ask my 26 year old daughter what type of clothes won't make me look too matronly.  But the days of the wool-silk suits and expensive high heel shoes are over.  No more scrambling in the morning to fix my hair and put on eye makeup.  

There have been drawbacks - my second cousin in Monterrey, Mexico once asked me, "What happened to you?  You used to be so pretty?  Your eyes used to be so big?"  - She wasn't asking me this because I was so wrinkled or fat.  At that time I was basically as I had been in my early 30s in those respects.  She asked the question because I no longer "dressed up" - and put on eye make-up.

It is true that men no longer stop me to say something nice - mostly I don't miss that.  I was once told I looked like a Barbie doll - the more I thought about that comment the more I realized that being told I look like an inanimate object is no compliment.

Now that I am into the comfortable shoe phase I bask in being respected for the books I write, the conversations I have, and the intellectual community I belong to.  Yes, my husband thinks I'm pretty, but thank goodness his opinion is not based on my spending thousands of dollars a year on clothes  and make-up.

A few days ago I was interviewed by a group of young people from Mexico City - they had traveled to Los Angeles and Houston to interview successful Latinas - after having interviewed some successful women in Mexico.  They were shocked when I told them that in graduate school the women wore minimal if any makeup and didn't wear high heels (in the late 90s).  I told them that there were often comments that women who took on these trappings were seen as less serious intellectually.  Plus, it is so much more comfortable to work 18 hour days at a computer if you aren't wearing pointed toe spikes.

Bringing us to our current news of Sarah Palin being nominated for VP - I am fairly sure that McCain and his buddies had the beauty queen thing on their minds when they picked Sarah. Maybe they think that being like Barbie is the only way to break the glass. What a shame.

link to image

Palin as VP? Rove Must Have Been Asleep

If McCain were to be elected and the moment arose that Palin would have to take over, I might consider moving to some isolated area in Montana and hope not to see any other human beings for a while.

If someone believes that being the Mayor of a suburb with a population of 8,000 people is enough to prepare one for the presidency, then they have lost their marbles. Looks like Palin already has by accepting McCain's deranged offer.

Perhaps all of this has come about because of the GOPs desperation - they know they are in trouble, and have resorted to schemes that would make even Karl Rove shudder.

a few thoughts on Palin:

while Hillary is not my favorite person - I must say, Palin is no Hillary Clinton -

as for luck less VP candidates - Palin makes Dan Quayle look good. 

Does anyone see similarities to GHW Bush's pick of Clarence Thomas for Supreme Court?

P.S. turns out Rove wasn't asleep after all.  McCain just ignored him - see Huffington Post article by S.Blumenthal "Why Palin? McCain vs. Rove"
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Mr. McCain's Choice
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has some appealing qualities. But could she step in as president?
Saturday, August 30, 2008; A22

Washington Post Editorial

AT FIRST GLANCE, there appears to be much to admire in Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, Sen. John McCain's choice as his vice presidential running mate. Just 44 years old, she is a talented and upbeat person who excelled in basketball and beauty pageants, music and moose hunting. Since entering politics she has shown independence and a clear moral compass. On Alaska's oil and gas commission, she blew the whistle on a fellow Republican's conflict of interest. Her 2006 campaign for the state's highest office began as an insurrection against her party's old guard. In choosing her, Mr. McCain said that Ms. Palin's experience equips her to help "shake up Washington."

There is no surprise in the fact that Ms. Palin is a conservative on the issues that matter most to the Republican Party's base. She is an opponent of abortion and a particularly outspoken advocate of letting oil and gas companies drill on public lands -- including Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a position that not even Mr. McCain, who favors offshore drilling, has embraced. But politically, Mr. McCain's choice was a stunner. He bypassed safer choices, such as Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, in favor of a relative unknown.

Now Mr. McCain can say he is giving voters a chance to make history by electing the first woman to be vice president. He is also hoping Ms. Palin's down-to-earth "hockey mom" persona will appeal to those working-class Democrats, especially women, who voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton in the primary -- though many supporters of abortion rights may be insulted by that proposition.

But the most important question Mr. McCain should have asked himself about Ms. Palin was not whether she could help him win the presidency. It was whether she is qualified and prepared to serve as president should anything prevent him from doing so. This would have been true for any presidential nominee, and it was especially crucial that Mr. McCain -- who turns 72 today -- get this choice right. If he is elected, he will be the oldest man ever to serve a first term in the White House.

In this regard, count us among the puzzled and the skeptical. Not long ago, no less a Republican strategist than Karl Rove belittled Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as a potential running mate for Barack Obama, noting that picking him would appear "intensely political" because Mr. Kaine's experience consisted of only three years as governor preceded by the mayoralty of Richmond, which Mr. Rove called "not a big town."

Using Mr. Rove's criteria, Ms. Palin would not fare well. Her executive experience consists of less than two years as governor of her sparsely populated state, plus six years as mayor of Wasilla (pop. 8,471). Absorbed in Alaska's unique energy and natural resource issues, she has barely been heard from in the broader national debates over economic policy and health care. Above all, she has no record on foreign policy and national security -- including terrorism, which Mr. McCain posits as the top challenge facing America and the world. Once the buzz over Ms. Palin's nomination dies down, the hard questions about her will begin. The answers will reflect on her qualifications -- and on Mr. McCain's judgment as well.

for link to WaPo editorial click here

link to photo

Our potential VP in Vogue

Sarah Palin on the cover of Vogue


sorry, I couldn't resist

The Word on Obama from London

My best friend is what some people here call a "naturalized citizen" -- she was born in another country and decided to become an American citizen, even though she didn't have to - She is a traditional Mom... makes sure she makes dinner for her kids everyday, doesn't serve them processed foods (like I did) - seems to do almost everything with her husband.

She's been telling me lately that she doesn't think Obama will come through. He hasn't said he will stop the ICE raids. She is fed up with national politics.

But something happened last night. She watched Obama. I had to depend on her opinion since I didn't turn the tv on except to see about hurricane Gustav. She said Obama convinced her that he could actually do something good for the country. This is a woman who voted for Bush in 2000 (she just recently admitted that to me).

Ok Obama - show us you mean what you say.



--

Micheal Tomasky's Blog

Politics and Other Stuff

guardian.co.uk
August 29, 2008

Denver is a very nice city, but it doesn't remotely have the transportation infrastructure to handle this week's onslaught. So, as my wife and I left Invesco Field after Barack Obama's speech, the only choice was the usual one – to walk – and the only place to go was across a bridge that thousands and thousands of people were funneling into from many directions and despite the presence of various fences and barricades and jersey walls.

It was a nightmare, and under other circumstances (particularly ones where they served beer, which they did not Thursday night), distemper and impatience and testy rhetoric and maybe even a fight or two would've ensued. But this night all was calm. People were patient and cooperative. An African American woman walking in front of us carrying two small American flags turned to us to remark on this.

I use this as metaphor for the speech because I thought, while it was not one of those rhetorical barnburners for which the candidate is famous, it accomplished something else, more subtle but maybe more profound. Obama made his speech not about him but about his audience. He gave away some of his power this night and gave it to the people (sure enough, "Power to the People," John Lennon's somewhat unfortunate radical-chic anthem from 1971, was among the background music piped into the stadium before Obama spoke).

This to me was the single most important thing about the speech. There were other important aspects to it, and I'll get to those, but the main victory Thursday night was that he successfully made the night not about him in a way that could feed into the Celebrity/Messiah/The One/He Who Makes the Clouds Part narrative that the McCain camp has so successfully deployed.

The concerns that the speech-event would feed that narrative were palpable. You know – this was all about his endless ego and so on. There's no denying the man has an ego, but the worst fears of Obama partisans were not confirmed. He said explicitly at one point, "What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you." The non-verbal presentation worked as well. The stage set as initially described, a Roman temple of some sort, seemed horrifying and an awful choice sure to feed GOP themes. But in reality it turned out to be fine. It more resembled the Rose Garden portico of the White House than any place where Caligula hosted bacchanals. And anyway it didn't appear that any columns showed on television at all.

I haven't watched any TV coverage as I write these words but it's my strong bet that they're not talking any Messiah nonsense. And if the speakers at next week's GOP convention will try to poke fun at the speech on those grounds, they'll get laughs in the hall, but I will bet that the jokes won't resonate outside the pews of the already-believing. The speech was more workmanlike than that. And workmanlike was just what was called for under the circumstances.

He talked a lot about the economy. He did not – the speech's one failing, to my ear – have a short and strong bumper-sticker phrase describing the guiding philosophy of his economic plan. But after this speech, anyone who highly and mightily demands that Obama produce specifics will merely be showing his ignorance and laziness. He also focused on his empathy for working people's concerns.

And speaking directly before him were six or seven regular Americans who'd been hit hard by the Bush economy. Each was fantastic, especially Barney Smith, an Indiana factory worker and lifelong Republican who is disgusted with his party and voting for Obama.

It was Smith, not the silver-tongued one, who (surely by design – another way the night was not about Obama) got off the single most memorable line of the evening: "We need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney."

He took on John McCain in a tough and tonally just right way. He accurately painted McCain as a joke of an intellect on economic questions, and (again, subtly, but clearly) on foreign policy, he described a sort of crazy person whose experience has not given him superior judgment at all. Among the three of them, Obama, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden made a sharp case against a McCain presidency.

Obama also addressed questions about his resume and experience, albeit indirectly. But he dealt with the questions about his preparedness and seriousness less with words than with demeanor. He did not look like a guy Thursday night whom Putin could push around and did not sound like a guy who couldn't run the army (about 15 generals also took the stage to endorse him).

It was just the right speech for the occasion. He did not aggrandize himself. He explained the seriousness of the task at hand in a way that did not send his shock troops over the moon in Messiah ecstasy. Rather, he equipped them with battle armor – and with determined serenity about what they had to do until November 4.

And that was why everyone behaved in such an orderly way as they exited through a veritable obstacle course. They're armed. They were given agency Thursday night, not made into abject Barack-o-maniacs. And that, for a campaign that's banking on winning this election on the strength of thousands of volunteers, may have been the most important thing, more important even than how the media received it.

The Word on McCain from London

I just saw the McNeil Lehrer Report discussing Obama at the Democratic convention.... how in the world can anyone compare Gov. Palin, a former beauty queen, to Obama, a Harvard Law School Graduate, who was president of the Harvard Law Review? - the journalist from Pennsylvania who angrily said both Palin and Obama were equally not experienced must have been asleep when he was speaking. 

The woman journalist from Tampa said that Michelle Obama was a liability to her husband because she was seen as aggressive and assertive? Since when are women supposed to be quiet? Especially a woman with an Ivy League legal education?

The woman from Tampa reminded me of those things I read when I was researching the cemetery book - like the 1936 University of Texas dissertation on plantations in Texas that said a certain black state representative from Texas (in the 1890s) was too assertive and haughty.

Truthfully, both parties fudge and play their games, but these kind of maneuvers are disgusting.

If Palin is only a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, you can take it another way, considering McCain's history with women, his wife should be careful.

a word from the London Guardian:

click here to see video on the Guardian's response to McCain's choice of running mate. 

P.S. Take a look at Palin's 2008 hairdo, it looks like the hair of a woman belonging to the Jehovah's Witnesses (or similar fundamentalist religious denomination)

.

first photo - Sarah Palin in 1984

second photo - John McCain in 1973

third photo - Sarah Palin

A couple of nice words from Obama

I hope he is for real.  I hope he is for real

Even though he only threw out a couple of sentences on immigration and mothers being separated from babies - maybe there is a chance that he is not making all this up thinking he can get the Latino vote.

Obama, whose father benefited from U.S. immigration policy - who is the quentissential example of the U.S. as an immigrant nation...  can he do it? does he want to?  Or will he have to cave in to the nativists, thinking this is necessary in order to get elected?

Barak Obama at the Democratic National Convention:

"We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. 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. This, too, is part of America's promise, the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort."

Photo of Obama (at left) 

Photo at right by Steve Rubin

Was it suicide or murder?

-----
Autopsy: Immigrant inmate had blunt trauma
No conclusion on how wounds were inflicted
By HARVEY RICE Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Aug. 28, 2008, 11:34PM


GALVESTON — An autopsy report released Thursday is unlikely to resolve a dispute over whether a 17-year-old illegal immigrant was beaten by League City police before hanging himself in the Galveston County Jail.

The report said Arturo Chavez had a half-inch wound on the right side of his head, black eyes and marks on his back, but reached no conclusion as to how the wounds were inflicted.

"There is blunt trauma," said Stephen Pustilnik, Galveston County chief medical examiner. "Whether you would call that a beating, I don't know. He could have hit his head on something or something could have hit him in the head."

A Galveston County Sheriff's Office report says Chavez was being housed in the medical wing of the jail when he hanged himself Aug. 3 because nurses were unsure whether bruising around his eyes was caused by infection or injury.

His parents, who live in Guatemala, have filed a federal lawsuit accusing League City police of using excessive force and Galveston County jail officials of ignoring his suicidal tendencies.

Chavez, who entered the country illegally, was arrested for driving without a valid license and was being held for immigration officials Aug. 1, when he bolted from his cell, according to League City police reports.

Officers struck Chavez three times with a baton and shocked him with a Taser twice after he tried to scale a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, according to the reports.

The reports says he caused $300 in damage to the fence and was taken to the hospital for a cut hand.

Police accused him of escape, resisting arrest and criminal mischief, then transferred him to the Galveston County Jail.

Chavez, who was taking classes at Clear Creek High School and working as a busboy at a Webster restaurant, gave a false name to League City police and jail officials — Juan Esteban Baten Tzun — and lied about his age, saying he was 19.

Unsure about the cause of his black eyes, jail nurses placed Chavez in a special cell for prisoners with communicable diseases that prevents air from circulating to other parts of the lockup, according to sheriff's reports.

Reports said he complained that his eyes hurt and that he seemed to be tolerating his cell even though he felt claustrophobic.

The cell is next to the padded suicide cells that are supposed to be under constant observation and checked every 15 minutes.

The reports show Chavez was screened, and his answers gave no indication of suicidal tendencies.

A guard reported that Chavez, referred to as Batentzun in the reports, and another inmate were watching Apollo 13 on television from their cells about 6:40 p.m.

Chavez asked the guard several times for permission to make a phone call, but was denied because he already had made a call that day, the report says.

About 10:19 p.m. the inmate across the hall from Chavez's cell reported seeing him hanging in his cell.

Chavez had tied a blanket to a shower head, pulled it across a partition and tied the other end around his neck.

Guards and nurses cut him down, administered CPR and used a defibrillator in a failed attempt to restart the heart with an electrical jolt, all to no avail, the reports say.

A log sheet shows that he was taken to the University of Texas Medical Center at Galveston, where he was pronounced dead about 11:11 p.m.

harvey.rice@chron.com

for link to Houston Chronicle article click here

Bait and Switch --- Enroll in E-Verify and Lose Your Employees

More on the Laurel, Mississippi ICE Raid
-----

Businesses Cite a Catch-22 After Miss. Immigration Raid

By Spencer S. Hsu, Alejandro Lazo and Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, August 28, 2008; A01

The arrests this week of nearly 600 immigrant workers at a manufacturing plant in Laurel, Miss., are fueling a national debate over a federal system to check new hires' work documents, a program whose expansion the Bush administration has made a cornerstone of its fight against illegal immigration.

In what they called the largest immigration sweep at a single site in U.S. history, federal agents raided a Howard Industries electrical transformer plant Monday despite the fact that the company last year joined the work eligibility system, called E-Verify.

The White House has called the program a key weapon against illegal hiring, proposing to expand it to nearly 200,000 government contractors this fall, covering about 4 million U.S. workers. Thirteen state legislatures have enacted similar legislation, and Congress is debating whether to extend E-Verify this fall.

Major U.S. employers assailed the expanding crackdown, saying it creates a Catch-22. If businesses fail to enroll in E-Verify, they run the risk of a raid by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said. But if they sign up, they face added costs, labor disruptions and discrimination complaints -- as well as the risk that flaws in the program won't stop all illegal hiring or prevent government raids, they said.

"I think it's a mistake on the part of a company to think that simply because they [enroll] that they are going to be protected from any kind of government audit or raid," said Myles Gladstone, vice president of Miller & Long, of Bethesda, a major construction firm based in the Washington area.

At issue is a program that is supposed to help employers abide by laws that bar the hiring of illegal immigrants. E-Verify allows companies to check federal Social Security and immigration databases to determine whether an employee is authorized to work.

However, a key weakness in E-Verify is that while it can determine whether a Social Security number presented by a worker is valid, it often cannot determine whether the number belongs to the applicant. Many workers try to evade detection by using another person's identification.

That was allegedly the case Monday, when dozens of U.S. agents sealed entrances to Howard Industries' Mississippi plant, stopping production while they executed a criminal search warrant for evidence related to aggravated identity theft, fraudulent use of Social Security documents and other crimes. A civil search warrant for illegal immigrants was also executed, turning up suspect workers from Mexico, Guatemala, Germany, Peru, Brazil, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama, the government alleged.

About 475 workers were sent to a detention center in Jena, La., for deportation; 106 were released for humanitarian reasons to tend to a child or a medical condition pending court appearances; nine were juveniles transferred to a refugee resettlement agency, and eight face charges of criminal identity theft.

A spokeswoman for ICE noted the investigation began two years ago, before Howard joined E-Verify.

In its only comment on the raid, Howard Industries released a statement saying: "Howard Industries runs every check allowed to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants for jobs. It is company policy that it hires only U.S. citizens and legal immigrants."

The circumstances echoed a December 2006 raid on six plants operated by meat processor Swift & Co., now JBS Swift & Co., after which the company reported $53 million in losses, even though it was a longtime participant in the record-checking system.

Bush officials say such attacks are a smokescreen by industry groups, who oppose the program because it works. They note that many opponents embraced E-Verify last year, when they expected it to have less bite as part of a broad overhaul that would have legalized many immigrant workers.

But one of the lessons of last year's failed immigration legislation is that the American public wants to see tougher enforcement at U.S. workplaces before it will expand immigration or legalize those in the country unlawfully, said Stewart A. Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security.

"We have to have strong enforcement if we're ever to have a chance for comprehensive reform," Baker said.

Baker said the government is fixing E-Verify's flaws as it prepares to expand the initiative. Bush officials in early June proposed to triple the number of companies in the program, mandating participation by 169,000 federal contractors and requiring them for the first time to verify the eligibility of existing employees, not just new hires.

Enrollment in E-Verify has grown from 3,000 companies to 82,000 since it was expanded nationwide in 2003, but participation remains voluntary and covers 1 percent of an estimated 6 million U.S. employers and about 11 percent of annual hiring.

The proposed changes would double E-Verify's reach, covering more than 20 percent of U.S. hiring, federal officials said.

Business groups call the proposal an election-year power play that goes far beyond what Congress intended in 1996 when it created the voluntary system.

Although the government estimated the change will cover about 3 percent of the 153 million-member U.S. workforce, companies say the impact would be far greater, as contractors and subcontractors with even a small piece of the $430 billion that the federal government awards each year would need to review their payrolls. The U.S. chamber claims the rule would cost $10 billion to implement, 100 times the government's estimate.

"Without very significant changes, we would look at all options to stop a final rule, including a court challenge," said Randel K. Johnson, vice president and spokesman for the U.S. chamber.

Critics also say that E-Verify is not accurate enough, which could lead to discrimination against legal, foreign-born workers. Sorting out problems also threatens to swamp already overburdened Social Security administration offices that have their hands full tending to other work.

About 4.1 percent of 435 million Social Security records used by E-Verify contain errors -- or 17.8 million records -- the agency's Office of the Inspector General stated in June 2007. The system wrongly rejected foreign-born U.S. citizens 9.8 percent of the time in the first half of 2007, and it erroneously flagged noncitizens who had been authorized to work 1.4 percent of the time, a study last year found.

Federal officials insist that E-Verify is ready for prime time. In early 2007, 94.2 percent of workers were automatically verified. Another half-percent were mistakenly rejected, but workers were eventually able to clear up the problem, usually within two days. The remaining 5.3 percent of workers walked away, which officials said suggested that they were illegal.

The system has fixed errors that arose when workers enter the country legally or become citizens without notifying Social Security. Many remaining mistakes involve people who fail to report name changes after marriage or divorce.

Homeland Security has begun requiring workers who are permanent residents or noncitizens to present photo IDs that can be compared with their images in federal records. However, E-Verify lacks a similar check for people posing as citizens. As a result the system is feeding a black market for selling Social Security numbers, some of them stolen, business owners said.

"I think the general public thinks it's an answer-all to this whole illegal-worker-identity theft problem and it's not," said Bernie Kohl Jr., owner of Angelica Nurseries in Kennedyville, Md.

Kohl said E-Verify also creates a temptation for employers to discriminate against hiring legal immigrants because they don't want to hassle with trying to sort out the system's mistakes.

Congress still must decide whether to extend E-Verify beyond November. While the House voted 407 to 2 to extend it for five years, it required Homeland Security to pay the bills for the increased workload on Social Security and ordered new studies about its effectiveness. The Senate has yet to vote. Meanwhile, 13 states require some use of E-Verify, while Illinois has voted to bar it, creating a patchwork of laws likely to grow next year. Locally, Virginia lawmakers last winter rejected an attempt to mandate participation in E-Verify; no requirement exists in Maryland and the District.

for link to WaPo article click here

Nightmares with ICE Raids

*By: JR
May 1st actions in Houston





I am not sure if it is affecting me as much as i think or if these ICE Raids are having unconscious effects on my mind.

I really don't talk about these ICE Raids to a lot of people, but i think about it a lot... maybe too much that i even have dreams about it- well, more like nightmares really.

Perhaps ever since I read Dr. Camayd-Freixas' article on the Raid in Postville, Iowa i became so much more aware of how real these attacks against our families have become. I have realized in the vulnerable position we are in.

Last Friday i had a nightmare where i was trying to protect and hide my family from being arrested and taken by ICE (interestingly, ICE officials later became part of the military). In this nightmare i could see families being taken by vans as if they were cattle- i could see their faces that projected sadness and fear. My brothers were taken and i was not able to see them again. At the end of the dream all my family had been taken away and i was the only one trying to seek refuge among families that would agree to hide me.

I woke up and i called my parents to see that they were okay-they were, but i didn't want to tell my mom about what i had dreamed... i didn't want to scare her. Monday came and the Mississippi raid came.

I can't begin to imagine what it would be like if my family was taken away, if my dad or brother were to be taken away. I honestly hope that these attacks against our families come to an end soon. It often happens where things get worse before they can get any better, i just wonder how much worse this situation will get.

DREAMer Benefits Unfair to Foreign Students Here on Visas?

A couple of years ago, in one of my Hispanic literature classes, the students had a discussion about in-state tuition for DREAMers.  A few students who were in the country on visas were very angry that they should pay such high tuition while undocumented students were allowed in-state tuition rates.

It is logical that foreign students who get stuck with 250% increases in tuition would be angry.  Yet it is important to remember that DREAMers have been living in the U.S. since they were young children - moving through the educational system as if they were born here -- many no even knowing they are undocumented.

There is assumption that foreign students here on visas are all very wealthy...  There is some truth to this in that oftentimes, it costs a great deal of money to obtain passports - which is especially difficult in Mexico since 70% of the population lives in poverty -  Many DREAMer's families could not have afforded to send their child to the U.S. to college using the route of a passport and visa.

Just about every DREAMer I have ever met has been in the U.S. for at least 10 years, speaks fluent English, and sees themselves as American.  It would be great if this would be enough to make them citizens.  

When foreign students get angry about the high tuition rates they pay, maybe it would be helpful to remember that they don't have to experience a panic attack every time there is word that an ICE raid is about to occur.  That in itself is worth paying the higher tuition.

----

Utah: In-State Tuition for Illegal Immigrants Unfair to Foreign Students?
KCPW News, Aug 27, 2008
By Elizabeth Ziegler

(KCPW News) The debate about the state's controversial law granting in-state tuition for illegal immigrants will surface again at the Immigration Interim Committee meeting tonight in Park City. An Indonesian student and a University of Utah instructor will testify that the law is unfair to foreign students who are charged more expensive out-of-state tuition. Adjunct professor Rebecca Cowden says she's worked for years with people from developing countries, and we should give those here on student visas tuition breaks, too.

"I just don't think the label that I don't like foreigners applies. I'm just saying: It just feels like we're held hostage and this is nutty," Cowden says. "If they have enough money to do this, then please, could we expand it to the legal students and could we expand it to the other American citizens. And the ugly truth, I suspect, is that we don't have the money and we just don't know what to do."

Advocates, such as Utahan's for the American Dream Co-Chairwoman Karen Crompton, are wary of efforts to outlaw the tuition break. Crompton, who is also the executive director of Voices for Utah Children, says many have grown up as Americans. Under the current law, illegal immigrants who graduate after attending at least three years of high school in Utah qualify for in-state tuition. The law initially passed the Legislature in anticipation of the federal Dream Act, sponsored by Utah's U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch. But the bill failed to pass Congress.

Crompton agrees a college education is too expensive for many students, but she feels the financial challenges unique to illegal immigrants warrant giving them cheaper tuition.

"Getting an education is tougher for everyone these days because of the financial cost and fewer loans being available. And in fact, students of undocumented parents have very few financial options. They're not eligible for federal grants or loans, nor grants from universities," Crompton says. "So they really have a tough job ahead of them. And so I think we should really reward and encourage their effort, which is really to achieve the American dream."

An attempt to reverse the law failed to gain Legislative support earlier this year. However, a sweeping immigration reform bill, S.B. 81, was approved.

thanks to nilc.org for passing this on

Campaign to stop "HATE TV"

Because people like Dobbs and Glen Beck need to be stopped and removed from the airwaves, it's sad the in this case "money-talks" an that's why they strive amongst the nativists/anti-immigrants...

Ya basta! Tengan respeto y dignidad a sus sumejantes.
Hate TV corrupts they minds of people, gracias NCLR, I suggest Black and Brown Unity!!!

STOP THE HATE DEBATE on IMMIGRATION!

IT HAS BEEN SUGGESTED THAT A COUNTER-SHOW BE AIRED AS WELL....WHAT NETWORK WILL TAKE THE LEAD ON THIS GREAT IDEA!?

Who do these mean people sleep at night? But unless they actually experience it they will never know what it's like to be an immigrant.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please forward far and wide.

Major Hispanic Group Launches ' Hate Speech' Campaign.

The country's leading Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization is set to begin a campaign targeting several newscasters and presidential candidates for what it deems "rhetoric that demonizes immigrants and Hispanic Americans."

The National Council of La Raza, which includes nearly 300 affiliated organizations, will launch a new initiative on Thursday titled "We Can Stop The Hate," aimed at curtailing the influence of CNN's Lou Dobbs and Glenn Beck as well as MSNBC political commentator Pat Buchanan. In addition, the organization is petitioning for Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee to renounce the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, a cofounder of the Minuteman Project, an anti-immigration group.

"There's a bully in the room," said Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CE, "and each of these candidates has a choice. They can stand up to the bully or they can cater to him. It is a question of courage or cowardice. To date, we have seen far too little courage."

The NCLR campaign, which will likely last through the presidential election, will catalogue the use of code words that paint immigrants as threats. The website accompanying the launch will included fact sheets and video samples documenting examples of inflammatory immigration-policy rhetoric.

The organization has requested a meeting with senior executives at CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, to discuss the philosophical viewpoints of their respective anchors and commentators. The ultimate goal of the campaign, officials say, will be to stem the "surge in hate speech and violence" that has emerged in the immigration debate.

"The immigration issue deserves serious debate and serious solutions," said Murguía. "We cannot have that debate as long as hate has the floor."

View the "We Can Stop The Hate" website by clicking here.

Open Letter to the Democratic National Committee

August 28, 2008

Dear Democratic Party,

Now that you are together with your thousands of supporters, please use this opportunity to make a strong public statement against ICE raids.  Show us you really believe in a democracy and that you are not just pandering to those who hate.

dreamacttexas.blogspot.com

link to photo

Mississippi ICE Raid: "no company executives detained"

People clapped when those arrested were taken away.  WHAT IS THAT?  At the least it shows how much hatred and resentment is around.

And again, as always, the company executives were not arrested.  As far as I know the only time there have been arrests is if the company administrators were foreigners.  

Does this mean that ICE only wants the low wage workers who are "breaking the law."  What about the high paid bosses who are also "breaking the law" by hiring undocumented people?  Are they immune?  It appears this is so.

All this betrays reason... but then, our present administration (Bush & Co.) has never shown the ability to reason as their strong point.

An added note.  Now that the Democrats are all together, the "party of the people" could use this opportunity to make a strong statement against raids.  I am not holding my breath. 

----

Sun Herald -Biloxi/Gulport
Posted on Wed, Aug. 27, 2008
Fear grips immigrants after Miss. plant raid
By HOLBROOK MOHR

...Nearly 600 immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally were detained, creating panic among dozens of families in this small southern Mississippi town.

...The superintendent of the county school district said about half of approximately 160 Hispanic students were absent Tuesday.

Roberto Velez, pastor at Iglesia Cristiana Peniel, where an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the 200 parishioners were caught up in the raid, said parents were afraid immigration officials would take them.

"They didn't send their kids to school today," he said. "How scared is that?"

One worker caught in Monday's sweep at the plant said fellow workers applauded as immigrants were taken into custody. Federal officials said a tip from a union member prompted them to start investigating several years ago.

Fabiola Pena, 21, cradled her 2-year-old daughter as she described a chaotic scene at the plant as the raid began, followed by clapping.

"I was crying the whole time. I didn't know what to do," Pena said. "We didn't know what was happening because everyone started running. Some people thought it was a bomb but then we figured out it was immigration."

...John Foxworth, an attorney representing some of the immigrants, said..."There was no communication, an immediate loss of any kind of news and a lack of understanding of what's happening to their loved ones," ...

..."We have kids without dads and pregnant mothers who got their husbands taken away," said Velez's son, Robert, youth pastor at the church. "It was like a horror story. They got handled like they were criminals."

...[Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman]...said agents had executed search warrants at both the plant and the company headquarters in nearby Ellisville. She said no company executives had been detained, but this was an "ongoing investigation and yesterday's action was just the first part..."

Associated Press Writers Shelia Byrd in Hattiesburg, Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson and Eileen Sullivan in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

for link to complete Sun Herald article click here

link to top photo
link to bottom photo

Typical phrase of the nativists...What part of legal immigration don't you understand?

Los gringos need to check out this chart before saying "get in line"....it's not that simple!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can You Navigate the Immigration Maze to U.S. Citizenship?

Chart shows how complicated becoming an American is for even the most skilled workers
The immigration debate is often reduced to - why don't immigrants just get in line and come into this country legally?

If only it were that simple. A new chart details how complicated the immigration maze is, demonstrating the countless requirements that must be met, and the red tape that must be navigated, by everyone from English soccer star David Beckham to an Indian engineer. What's the best-case immigration scenario? Five or six years: If you are the spouse or a minor child of a U.S. citizen, you should be able to enter the country and get a green card. Then, after three to five years, you can apply to become a citizen. The worst case scenario? You are an unskilled worker hoping to make a better life for yourself in America. "Unlike previous periods in our history, there is virtually no process for unskilled immigrants without family relations in the U.S. to apply for permanent legal residence," the chart by Reason Foundation and the National Foundation for American Policy states.

Click here to view the chart.

The Bad Dream*

It is 4 am.  You are in your own bed, in your own house.  You wake up in a sweat.  You have just had a nightmare.  In Spanish this is called a pesadilla.

Even though you are now awake, you are not totally sure where you are.  You look around and see familiar things from your bedroom.  You get up and walk to the next room.  The kids are there, sleeping --  All is ok. 

You heart is pounding. You sit on your bed and think about the dream.

It starts with a loud heavy knock on your front door.  Someone breaks through, there are men in black uniforms, with rifles in their hands.  They are screaming.    "Get up Mexican - we are sending you back home."  Your kids wake up  -  they are crying.  The dog is barking.  One of the officers threatens to kill the dog if it doesn't shut up.  The kids scream even more.  

The men in black take your family away in a white van.  In a few days you find yourselves deep in the interior of Mexico, hundreds of miles from anyone you know.  You have $40.00 in your pocket.    You can't believe this happened to you in America.  Your kids are American citizens.  You have been here for 20 years, came at the age of 4  when your father lost his job and there wasn't enough money for food. 

A few seconds later you find yourself standing on a dark street corner in a small mountain village of San Luis Potosi.  You are alone, where are your kids?

Suddenly the dream ends.

• photo detail, for link click here

Perry, Iowa: Is it the next ICE target?

----

Town Wonders if it's Next to Face Immigration Raid

By HENRY C. JACKSON
The Associated Press/Washington Post
Tuesday, August 26, 2008; 10:00 AM

PERRY, Iowa -- Immigration agents had barely left Postville when word hit Perry, about 200 miles to the southwest, that another raid was coming.

The rumor, which turned out to be false, spread like prairie fire through this central Iowa city's Hispanic community, reflecting a new reality for many small towns that can't be shaken.

In places like Perry, where Hispanics now make up at least a quarter of the population, residents are left wondering, "Are we next?"

"We are more vulnerable now," asked Angelica Cardenas, 28, who works in Perry's school system. "There is always fear of something like this, but with these raids, we know now it's real."

The government's shift to high-profile immigration raids _ 389 people were arrested at Postville's Agriprocessors Inc. on May 12, and 350 were rounded up at Howard Industries Inc. of Laurel, Miss., on Monday _ has instilled fear in towns across the country.

"These raids have really highlighted the difficulties towns face in this situation," said Ana-Maria Garcia Wahl, an associate professor of sociology at Wake Forest University who studies immigration issues in the Midwest and South. "I'm not sure all of these towns have an ability to cope and provide the crisis intervention."

Postville has lost more than a quarter of its pre-raid population of 2,300. Besides the detained workers, scores more fled or went into hiding.

People were pushed out of jobs and homes. Children were separated from parents. Businesses verged toward collapse...

for link to complete AP/WP article click here

NYT on the Laurel, Mississippi ICE Raid

detail of photo from NYT

-----

August 26, 2008
Hundreds of Workers Held in Immigration Raid

By ADAM NOSSITER

New York Times

LAUREL, Miss. — In another large-scale workplace immigration crackdown, federal officials raided a factory here on Monday, detaining at least 350 workers they said were in the country illegally.

Numerous agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement descended on a factory belonging to Howard Industries Inc., which manufactures electrical transformers, among other products.

As of late Monday afternoon, no criminal charges had been filed, said Barbara Gonzalez, an agency spokeswoman, but she said that dozens of workers had been “identified, fingerprinted, interviewed, photographed and processed for removal from the U.S.”

The raid follows a similar large-scale immigration operation at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, in May when nearly 400 workers were detained. That raid was a significant escalation of the Bush administration’s enforcement practices because those detained were not simply deported, as in previous raids, but were imprisoned for months on criminal charges of using false documents.

The mass rapid-fire hearings after the Postville raid took place in a temporary court facility on the grounds of the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo, Iowa. An interpreter was later sharply critical of the proceedings, saying the immigrants did not understand the charges against them.

An immigrant rights group in Jackson, Miss., the state capital, was critical of Monday’s raid, saying families with children were involved.

“It’s horrific what ICE is doing to these families and these communities,” said Shuya Ohno, a spokesman for the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance. “It’s just hard to imagine that this is the United States of America.”

In Laurel on Monday afternoon, several dozen family members of immigrants waited for news of their relatives at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. There were several small children. A priest at the church who identified himself only as Father Sergio refused to allow interviews with the families or answer any questions, saying only: “People are afraid. We need to calm them. There are mothers and children involved.”

Entrances to the sprawling plant, in an industrial section south of town, had been blocked off by ICE. A nearby fast-food restaurant was full of the blue-shirted agents, one of whom would say only that a “little inspection” was under way at the facility.

A woman entering the church grounds with four small children said several of the youngsters’ parents had been detained. The woman, Mary Troyer, said she was a translator for many of the families.

“I don’t like this at all,” Ms. Troyer said. “I don’t understand it. They have come here to work. It’s very sad.”

The ICE spokeswoman, Ms. Gonzalez, said the workers would be taken to an ICE detention center to “await the outcome of their cases.” She said 50 would be “released into the community” instead of being sent to the center, for “humanitarian reasons,” including medical difficulties or the need to take care of children.

She said no lawyers were present while the workers were being interrogated. “Everyone will have due process under law,” Ms. Gonzalez said.

Late Monday afternoon, the grim-faced workers, some of them handcuffed, were lined up near white and silver buses as the rain poured down.

In a statement issued after the raid, Howard Industries, one of the largest employers in the region, acknowledged that it was “visited” by immigration agents trying to determine if its employees were citizens or otherwise legally authorized to work in the country.

“Howard Industries runs every check allowed to ascertain the immigration status of all applicants for jobs,” the statement said. “It is company policy that it hires only U.S. citizens and legal immigrants.”

Bill Chandler, executive director of the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance, called the Laurel raid a violation of human rights.

“We’re very disturbed at what’s happened,” Mr. Chandler said. “It’s a real contradiction between our proclaimed values of hard work and family in Mississippi and the actions of local law enforcement, and ICE. I think it’s a real affront to our values. They’re creating their own terrorism by going after workers.”

After the Iowa raid, the federal interpreter said many of the immigrants did not understand the charges to which they pleaded guilty. But federal officials said the judges in the cases believed that the guilty pleas had been made freely and voluntarily.


Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

for link to NYT article click here

In case of a raid where do the children go?

This is bitter-sweet because, well you know...kuddos for GISD.

~~~~~~~~~~

Garland ISD makes plans to care for students if parents are deported
10:45 PM CDT on Friday, August 22, 2008
By STELLA M. CHÁVEZ /
The Dallas Morning News
schavez@dallasnews.com


Garland school district officials want to be prepared in case federal authorities crack down on illegal immigrants.
They aim to ensure that no student is left behind or with nowhere to go should Immigration and Customs Enforcement detain mom and dad.

Beginning this school year, Garland ISD will ask all parents to list the names and phone numbers of six emergency contacts other than themselves. The district also is instructing employees on which district office to contact if a child is left parentless.


For the complete article please click here.

The ICE Raids in Mississipi

ICE continues its raids. Now it is Mississipi.

-----
Biloxi-Gulfport Sun Herald
Posted on Mon, Aug. 25, 2008
ICE raids Miss. plant
seeking illegal workers
By HOLBROOK MOHR

Federal immigration agents arrested some 350 suspected undocumented
workers in a raid on a Mississippi electrical equipment plant Monday,
authorities announced, hours after sealing all entrances amid reports their
sweep had idled normal operations.
Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, confirmed the arrests in the raid that she said
targeted Howard Industries Inc. of Laurel. Authorities said more people could be
arrested.

The company produces dozens of products ranging from
electrical transformers to medical supplies, according to the company's Web
site.

"This is a targeted enforcement operation that is part of an
ongoing ICE investigation that has revealed that illegal aliens are employed at
Howard Industries," Gonzalez said, adding late Monday that agents were still
interviewing plant workers.

She declined to say how many federal agents
were involved in the raid, but said they acted on a tip provided by a union
worker.

Another agency spokesman, Brandon Montgomery, told The
Associated Press outside the plant Monday afternoon that agents were talking
with everyone who worked at the sprawling plant to determine their residency
status.

He said that 50 of those suspected of being illegal workers were
eligible for some form of "alternative to detention" - a concession that could
allow them to be placed on a monitoring device while awaiting a caseworker for
"humanitarian reasons" such as children in their care.

All plant
entrances were blocked, with tents set up at some ICE checkpoints to keep agents
out of a steady rain. Motorists traveling on roads behind the plant were stopped
by officers in unmarked vehicles and told to leave.

People leaving the
plant told The Hattiesburg American newspaper that so many illegal immigrants
were arrested that operations were shut down. It wasn't clear how many workers
the plant employed.

A recording at Howard Industries plant on Monday
said the telephone switchboard was closed.

Billy Howard, the company's
chief executive officer, did not immediately respond to a message left by The
AP. A man who answered a phone call at the company's security station said
reporters would have to call back Tuesday.

Howard Industries was founded
in the 1960s. In 2002, state lawmakers approved a $31.5 million, taxpayer-backed
incentive plan aimed at helping to expand its operations.

The raid is
one of several nationwide in recent years.

On May 12, federal
immigration officials swept into Agriprocessors, the nation's largest kosher
meatpacking plant, in Iowa. Nearly 400 workers were detained and dozens of
fraudulent permanent resident alien cards were seized from the plant's human
resources department, court records showed.

for link to Sun Herald article click here

So this is the part where I stop listening to Daddy Yankee

What is going on in the world!?

Is there something wrong in the water? Does Daddy Yankee not realize how bad this is?!

Ugh....I can't even look at him anymore!


August 25, 2008, 1:04 pm
McCain’s Yankee Doodle Daddy

Elizabeth Holmes reports from Phoenix on the presidential race.

John McCain made it clear who his daddy was Monday morning.

Daddy Yankee, the hip-hop star from Puerto Rico, endorsed the Republican candidate Monday morning. Wearing black aviator shades in the library of Central High School here, Daddy Yankee said, “I believe in his ideals and his proposals to lead this nation…He’s been a fighter for the Hispanic community.”

The students gathered for the event clearly were not told ahead of time that Daddy Yankee was part of the deal. As the Latin-Grammy-winning recording artist walked into the room, the girls shrieked and screamed, grabbed each other by the hands and gasped at the sight of him. One girl fanned the tears from her eyes.

“I just wanna say thank you, Daddy Yankee,” McCain said.

At the urging of McCain, Daddy Yankee hugged and kissed many of the girls on the cheek and shook hands with the guys. Meanwhile, McCain, holding the microphone, had a huge grin on his face.


More


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Federal Financial Aid for College Available to Qualified Battered Immigrants

Recently, we received good news that would benefit battered immigrant students. Today, a friend from El Paso sent me a message letting me know that her financial aid advisor told her that there was no such thing for battered immigrant students (She is an HB 1403 Student and also qualifies under VAWA).

It was more like the financial aid advisor did not want to look up this information nor wanted to help her. This is not new to me, many of us (DREAMers) end up fighting struggle after struggle just to get through one flight of stairs most of the time.

Please let others know that if eligible, some DREAMers may benefit under this new amendment.

By DINAH WILEY
Public Benefits Policy Attorney

The National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), and Legal Momentum are pleased to announce that the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) has determined correctly that "qualified" battered immigrant students are eligible for federal financial aid under the same rules that apply to citizens and other eligible immigrants. DOE is developing procedures for providing aid to these domestic violence survivors while protecting their confidentiality.

This victory is due not only to advocacy by organizations serving immigrant domestic violence survivors, but also to the persistence of a few incredibly dedicated students who overcame enormous obstacles in order to pursue their education. These students spent years working to ensure that they and others in their situation will have the means to survive while improving their ability to contribute to the country's future.

Immigrant domestic violence survivors and their children with (1) an approved I-130 relative petition filed by a spouse or a parent, (2) an I-360 self-petition under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that is either approved or sets forth a prima facie case, or (3) an approved application for suspension of deportation or withholding of removal under VAWA should now be able to obtain federal financial aid, assuming that they meet the other eligibility criteria. During this period, while DOE revises its materials, it has set up a process for working with financial aid officers to assist these students.

If you are working with battered immigrant students who may be eligible for financial aid and who wish to apply during the next few months, the staff at Legal Momentum has agreed to work with you to move these cases. You can contact Lacy Carra or Soraya Fata at Legal Momentum (202-326-0040). If you have questions about this notice, you can also write to NILC's Tanya Broder or Dinah Wiley, or to LAFLA's Sheila Neville.

For more information Click here

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The Death of Arturo Chavez

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Teen's hanging in jail fuels many questions
Arrest for illegal turn starts the end of migrant's dream
By DANE SCHILLER Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Aug. 22, 2008, 11:25PM


Adolfo Chavez, 27, with belongings of brother Arturo, reflects Wednesday in Webster on the teen's apparent hanging 48 hours after Arturo's arrest. Officials are still investigating his death, which has been ruled a suicide.

Read the plaintiff's complaint in Arturo Chavez's death
Read the League City Police Department's arrest report

LEAGUE CITY — The 17-year-old's lifeless body was frozen in a sitting position in solitary-confinement at the Galveston County Jail.

Arturo Chavez's back was flush against a 7-foot partition for the cell's shower. A blue blanket was twisted into a noose, with one end wrapped around his neck, the other tied to a shower head.

He apparently hanged himself about 48 hours after being arrested for what started as an illegal left turn.

It may never be known what swept over Chavez, who illegally emigrated from Guatemala four years ago and spent much of his time trying to improve his English and working to send money home.

"If he did it, it was because he was so beaten down he couldn't take the pain," his older brother Adolfo Chavez said of the suicide.

What is certain is that his life was similar to those of countless people who live in the shadows of society due to their immigration status, and that things hurtled out of control after police pulled him over the night of Aug. 1.

Officials are still investigating his death, ruled a suicide.

A federal lawsuit was filed by Chavez's parents against the League City Police Department, Galveston County and Sheriff Gean Leonard. The lawsuit contends not enough was done to keep Chavez from killing himself.

Those who knew Chavez said, like many undocumented immigrants, he feared any run-in with authorities as it would likely mean he would be deported.

He left Central America when he was 13 and wanted more out of life than he could get with tips loading baggage at a bus station.

Relatives say it took him nearly 15 days to get to Houston, including sneaking into Mexico and riding a passenger bus north.

He crossed the Rio Grande and hiked through South Texas.

Human smugglers demanded $3,500 to guide him, a hefty sum met with help from family and friends.

In Houston, he was known for his hustle and held out hope his improving English skills would get him promoted from busboy to waiter.

Chavez's death was a mystery as much as a shock, said Mario Garcia, who owns the restaurant where Chavez worked.

"I don't understand how you can go from making a mistake to losing your life, I'm dumbfounded by it," Garcia said. "There are two sides to every story, and the truth is probably somewhere right in the middle."

$100 sent home weekly
The kid known by his family as niño, Spanish for boy, had come a long way since leaving his indigenous village. He was sending home at least $100 a week to help his mother, father and sister.

He was not only working full time, but attending Clear Creek High School's program to help newly arrived international students.

He wore woven bracelets made of blue and white yarn — the colors of Guatemala's flag — as well as an anklet with the U.S.A.'s red, white and blue.

"He was very proud of his Mayan heritage," said Elizabeth Laurence, one of his teachers. "He was a feisty young fellow, popular and wanted to learn English very much. He wasn't timid; he tried to use it."

Things were going well with his girlfriend, Jhoseline Martell, whom he met at school.

As the police cruiser's lights flashed behind him near Louisiana Street and League City Parkway, Chavez dialed Martell on his cell phone and stuffed it in his pocket.

"He said the police have stopped me, just listen," recalled Martell, 15.

He normally rode a bicycle to avoid such trouble, but he had recently bought a used green Honda sedan.

He had no driver's license, no insurance and what turned out later to be a fake identification card.

He was arrested and taken to jail. His mugshot was taken while he wore the red shirt from his job as a busboy.

Excessive force alleged
All he had made for himself in the U.S. seemed to hang in the balance as Chavez was locked up at the police station and awaiting transfer to county jail.

At one point, when the holding-cell door was opened, Chavez bolted for freedom, according to a police report.

With officers running behind, the 5-foot-3-inch Chavez made it outside and scrambled up a chain-link fence, but was grabbed by the feet.

The wire atop the fence ripped into his hands.

In the scramble, he was shocked twice with a taser and hit multiple times with a baton, according to police.

Houston attorney Randall Kallinen said the officers used excessive force to apprehend Chavez.

"He had been severely beaten," said Kallinen, who added that a head injury could bring on suicidal thoughts — a mix worsened by solitary confinement. Results of an autopsy are pending.

Gary Ratliff, assistant chief of the League City Police Department, said officers used the minimum of force to catch the fleeing prisoner.

"None of us know what this kid was thinking; no one knows what pushed him to that regard," he said of suicide.

"I really seriously feel for that family. That is a void you just can't fill," he said.

Body sent to Guatemala
Adolfo Chavez, who wears a Rosary identical to the one his brother was buried with, spoke quietly as he described how Arturo came to America to chase a dream.

He also recalled their last phone conversation from jail.

The kid always fighting for a better life sounded broken.

He was now looking at escape charges, resisting arrest, and his body ached.

Adolfo said Arturo asked him to call his parents.

"He said, 'Tell them I love them, and I've always tried to be a good son. I can't take it anymore.' "

Arturo Chavez's body was back in Guatemala last week for a funeral at his parents' home. Family and friends had to raise $6,000 to send his remains back home.

Relatives in the U.S. couldn't afford to attend.

His father, Juan Chavez, said he could hardly believe the condition of his son's body. His face, skull and back were bruised.

His legs were swollen. One hand was torn up.

"He's at peace now," the father said.

dane.schiller@chron.com

for link to Houston Chronicle article click here

ICE Vows MORE Deportations

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Associated Press Online
August 22, 2008 Friday 10:26 PM GMT

Immigration agency vows more enforcement
By AMY TAXIN, Associated Press Writer
Section: DOMESTIC NEWS


DATELINE: SANTA ANA Calif.

Federal immigration officials vowed Friday to intensify efforts to track down illegal immigrants after scrapping a trial "self-deportation" program that attracted only eight volunteers.

Though the 2 1/2-week effort produced few volunteer deportees among illegal immigrants who are under court orders to leave the country, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said his agency will arrest more of them this year than last and still more next year as more agents are assigned.

"We are going to continue our enforcement of immigration law whether it is convenient for people, or whether it's not convenient," Jim Hayes, ICE's acting director of detention and removal operations, told reporters.

"Congress has mandated that we enforce these laws and that is what we intend to do," he said.

Immigrant advocates accused ICE of using the failure of the "Scheduled Departure" program to justify raids that have caused many illegal immigrants to live in fear of a pre-dawn knock on the door. They ridiculed the self-deportation program, saying it gave people no incentive to surrender.

"It seems to me ICE used this as nothing more than a publicity ploy as a means to justify their harsh enforcement of immigration law," said Charles Kuck, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Kuck said he supports enforcement but that ICE could handle cases in a gentler way after arresting people at home. Instead of jailing them, for example, they could allow them to wear ankle bracelets while preparing to depart.

The self-deportation pilot program gave illegal immigrants up to 90 days to leave the country and was intended to quell criticism that its enforcement is heavy-handed and disruptive to families. Critics noted that those who participates were barred from returning to the United States for as long as a decade.

The program applied to only about 457,000 of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants nationwide. It was open only to those who have ignored judicial orders to leave the country but have no criminal record.

The program was offered in five cities: Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Phoenix, San Diego and Santa Ana. ICE estimates that 30,000 eligible immigrants live in those areas.

ICE has been steadily expanding the number of agents charged with finding fugitive illegal immigrants. Its fugitive operation teams made more than 30,000 arrests during the last fiscal year, nearly double from the previous 12-month period.

Hayes said that during the time the self-deportation program was going on, the teams made 1,300 arrests.

Critics say ICE often arrests others who just happen to be at home when agents come looking for fugitives. About 31 percent of immigrants arrested by the teams last year had no order to leave the country or criminal record.

ICE has also been increasingly raiding workplaces, including nearly 400 people in May at an Iowa meatpacking plant, the largest single-site raid in U.S. history.

The eight volunteers include an Estonian man in Phoenix, a Guatemalan man and Indian couple in Chicago, a Salvadoran man in Charlotte, a Mexican woman in San Diego and a Guatemalan man and Lebanese man in Santa Ana, according to ICE.

ICE spent $41,000 to advertise the program. Hayes said the government saved money because the cost of detaining the eight who turned themselves in would have been $54,000.

LEXIS NEXIS

Most Police Against Being Immigration Enforcers

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Cox News Service

August 22, 2008 Friday

STUDY FINDS MOST LOCAL POLICE PREFER TO LEAVE ENFORCING IMMIGRATION LAWS TO THE FEDS

by NIN-HAI TSENG
Washington General News
Cox New Service

WASHINGTON - Local and state police should leave immigration enforcement up to federal agencies, the preliminary findings of a Police Foundation study found.

Through a series of focus groups that brought together academics, law enforcement officials, human-rights groups and other stakeholders, the foundation found that most prefer having federal authorities enforce immigration laws instead of the nation's local police and sheriff's departments.

The Police Foundation is an independent nonprofit that seeks to help law enforcement officials improve policing. Its findings, which will be included in a full report in the coming months, were presented at a two-day conference hosted by the foundation that ended Friday.

Some local officials said their agencies lack the expertise and resources to deal with detaining illegal immigrants. By helping to conduct crackdowns, community police and sheriff's agencies risk straining trust with locals who police rely on for tips to fight crime, they say.

"If the community doesn't trust us, it makes our job harder," said El Paso Mayor John Cook, one of several speakers at the conference who touched on the growing fear within many communities following immigration raids.

Cook and other local leaders urged Congress to work diligently on comprehensive immigration reform as they struggle to make sense of what they see as incoherent federal policies.

The mayor, who supports providing undocumented immigrants with a path toward legalization, added that the city's officers aren't nearly as trained as federal agents in enforcing immigration laws. The lack of expertise puts the city at risk of expensive lawsuits, Cook said, pointing to one in Katy, Texas.

Cook is among many Texas officials who have opposed being part of a federal program that allows locally designated officers and deputies perform immigration law enforcement duties through training with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

The Travis County Sheriff's Office also does not participate in the program.

"We don't have enough man power to enforce the local and state laws right now," Sheriff Greg Hamilton said Friday. "By us bringing in another area of enforcement, all it's going to do is diminish what we were sanctioned to do -- crime fighting."

Hamilton added that immigration policies are not easily understood.

"I'm not talking about two weeks of training or three weeks of training," he said. "There are hundreds and hundreds of different visas."

Like many agencies, however, the sheriff's office does ask foreign-born individuals in its custody if they are authorized to be in the country. If they are undocumented, ICE gets involved.

But some feel local agencies have a critical role. More than 60 local law enforcement agencies, including the Collier County Sheriff's Office in Florida, have officers and deputies enforce immigration laws through training with ICE.

"This issue of racial profiling is relatively untrue," Collier County Sheriff

Donald Hunter said, responding to criticisms of policing tactics used to spot unauthorized immigrants.

The sheriff added that his agency is focused on deporting gang members not authorized to be in the country.

There are an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. The population is relatively young. It's also made up of mostly families, about 7.1 million, said Jeff Passel, a senior demographer with the center who presented the statistics at the conference. About 22 percent are "mixed status families" in which the children are U.S. citizens.

Nin-Hai Tseng's e-mail is ntseng@coxnews.com

from Lexis Nexis

Alamance County Commissioner Bill Lashley: "If you can't prove they're here legal...ship 'em back to Mexico."

Marxavi Angel Martinez, photo courtesy of Marilyn Tyler

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Immigration Arrest Raises Concerns

The News & Observer -Raleigh/Durham NC
KRISTIN COLLINS, Staff Writer

Alamance County has been identifying and deporting illegal immigrants from its jails for more than a year, but now a librarian's arrest has some worried that county officials may be using another tool -- public health department medical records.

The concerns stem from a State Bureau of Investigation probe of the county health department. Some county officials, who called in the agency, think department employees were helping illegal immigrants work under false names.

The sheriff has suggested that the librarian's arrest was related to her care at the health department but has not said whether medical information was used to identify her. The woman's arrest and the circumstances surrounding it have become so contentious that some residents are organizing against the county's efforts to drive out illegal immigrants.

"To go after productive citizens who have been our neighbors and friends for years? It's insane," said Marilyn Tyler, a retired librarian from Burlington who knew the arrested woman. "We can't just stand by and let this happen."

The librarian, Marxavi Angel Martinez, 23, is a former cheerleader and honor student who grew up in the county, friends say. Few who knew her had any idea that her parents brought her from Mexico illegally as a toddler.

Martinez, who was arrested in the library, is charged with four federal felonies, all related to what authorities say was her use of a dead person's Social Security number. If found guilty, she would face several years in prison before being deported.

According to the federal complaint against Martinez, Sheriff Terry Johnson turned her in. Johnson has become well known for his efforts to deport illegal immigrants, but he has promised not to pursue people unless they land in his jail for other crimes.

Johnson's spokesman, Randy Jones, said Johnson received a tip that Martinez had lied about her citizenship when applying to work for the library.

"That is not a situation where you can say, 'We're not going to tell anybody,' " Jones said.

False names as red flag

The controversy arose in May, when the county's health board heard that employees at the public clinic would write notes to illegal immigrants' employers excusing them for illness. In the notes, they called the patients by false names, the officials said. The names, they said, were different than those on the medical records.

Some county officials asked the sheriff to investigate the practice. The sheriff called in the SBI, and the medical director and a nurse were suspended.

SBI spokeswoman Noelle Talley confirmed that the investigation is continuing. She said the SBI is investigating only county employees and that the SBI had no part in the arrest of the librarian.

But Martinez's arrest in mid-July raised concerns that the county may be examining confidential medical information. Johnson told reporters that Martinez got prenatal care at the department. He also said the tip about her immigration status came from a county employee and was related to the health department investigation.

Johnson declined to be interviewed. Jones, his spokesman, said he could not elaborate on how Martinez's arrest was related to her use of the health department. He said the sheriff's department is not combing through medical records.

Chris Hoke, a lawyer with the state Division of Public Health, said using confidential medical records to find illegal immigrants would be unacceptable. He worries it might be happening in Alamance County but hasn't been able to get answers to his questions from local authorities.

 At the least, Hoke said, Alamance officials are probably discouraging people from using health services. Hoke said federal and state regulations guarantee health services regardless of immigration status. And he said that immunizations, prenatal care and treatment for contagious diseases are important to all. "Even if they're not excluding folks, you can set a tone where you scare people off," Hoke said. Alamance backlash Alamance County commissioners recently passed a resolution that the health department offer only emergency services to illegal immigrants. The resolution is largely symbolic: State and federal laws override it. 

County Commissioner Bill Lashley, who proposed the resolution and is a member of the health board, said he hopes to drive out illegal immigrants by denying them health care. He said he wants all patients to prove legal status, a measure Hoke said would be illegal. "If they can't prove they're here legal," Lashley said, "ship 'em back to Mexico."   Lashley was among the county leaders who requested an investigation of the health department. Keith Whited, a Burlington lawyer and health board chairman, said county employees should not help illegal immigrants use false identities. However, he said he has no concerns about the health department serving illegal immigrants. "Getting care is not a crime," Whited said. "But they were assisting them to commit a fraud on their employers." Since Martinez's arrest, immigration officials have begun deportation proceedings for Martinez's husband, her parents and her sister, said her lawyer, David Smith of Greensboro. Her son, who is nearly 2, is a U.S. citizen. Smith said he didn't know why the family was targeted. Federal officials typically go after criminals or workers in large plants. None of Martinez's family members has been accused of crimes unrelated to immigration, and many who know the family say they were law-abiding community members. Martinez's sister worked for a law firm. "It's unusual to see situations go to this extreme," Smith said. A group of supporters, including Tyler, the retired librarian, has been driving to Winston-Salem for Martinez's federal court appearances, watching silently as she is brought into court in shackles. Jessica Henriquez-Fuentes, a friend of Martinez's and a lifelong Alamance resident, said many wonder whether the sheriff plans to target other immigrants. "Do they randomly pick somebody with a Hispanic last name and just try to figure out what the deal is?" Henriquez-Fuentes said. Jones said the sheriff will continue to report crimes when he gets tips. 

kristin.collins@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4881

 ****** CORRECTION

A story on Wednesday's front page incorrectly identified Marxavi Angel Martinez as a librarian. She was a library employee.

for link to News & Observer article click here

From the Journal "LIBRARIAN" Re: Marxavi Martinez

Marxavi Angel Martinez

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Library Worker’s Arrest in N.C. Raises Privacy Concerns

LIBRARIAN

No. 7.30. 2008. 129

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

“To go after productive citizens who have been our neighbors and friends for years? It’s insane,” said Marilyn Tyler, a retired librarian from Burlington who knew the arrested woman. “We can’t just stand by and let this happen.”

Alamance County has been identifying and deporting illegal immigrants from its jails for more than a year, but now a library worker’s arrest has some worried that county officials may be using another tool — public health department medical records….

Marxavi Angel Martinez’ arrest in mid-July raised concerns that the county may be examining confidential medical information. Sheriff Terry Johnson turned her in. Johnson has become well known for his efforts to deport illegal immigrants, but he has promised not to pursue people unless they land in his jail for other crimes.Johnson’s spokesman, Randy Jones, said Johnson received a tip that Martinez had lied about her citizenship when applying to work for the library. Johnson told reporters that Martinez got prenatal care at the department. He also said the tip about her immigration status came from a county employee and was related to the health department investigation.

see:

Resolution in Support of Immigrant Rights
WHEREAS, America’s immigrants are a strong and valuable part of the social fabric of this nation; and
WHEREAS, The ALA Library Bill of Rights states that the person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views; and
WHEREAS, The library community opposes all attempts at the local, state and federal level to restrict access to information by immigrants; and

WHEREAS, Restriction of access is a direct violation of the ALA Library Bill of Rights and Policy #60, Diversity, which states that “The American Library Association (ALA) promotes equal access to information for all persons and recognizes the ongoing need to increase awareness of and responsiveness to the diversity of the communities we serve”; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That ALA strongly supports the protection of each person’s civil liberties, regardless of that individual’s nationality, residency, or status; and, be it further

RESOLVED, That ALA opposes any legislation that infringes on the rights of anyone in the USA or its territories, citizens or otherwise, to use library resources, programs, and services on national, state, and local levels.”
Adopted by the American Library Association Council

Wednesday, January 22, 2007
Seattle, Washington

for link to Librarian article click here

Also see:
“Librarians as Advocates for the Human Rights of Immigrants,” Progressive Librarian (summer 2007): 51

.

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REFORMA position on the Marxavi Angel Martinez case
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 at 5:13am
August 11, 2008

To Whom It May Concern:

REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, expresses its deep concern and distress over the recent arrest in North Carolina of Marxavi Angel Martinez, a Latina staff member of Graham Public Library in Alamance County, North Carolina.

Created in 1971 REFORMA has as one of its goals the recruitment of bilingual, bicultural librarians to serve the growing Latino population of the United States. We also encourage, support, and defend all Latino library workers of all ranks in the profession.

Our association has a long and strong record in supporting fair immigration policies and human rights. Please visit our web page http://www.reforma.org/ to view the resolutions, actions and tool kits that our members have developed to combat the current xenophobia and racism in our midst.

It is thus with an immense sense of indignation that we condemn the arrest of Ms. Martinez. The manner in which she was arrested is deplorable; the place where this arrest took place is unthinkable: The Graham Public Library where she worked! The library—a traditionally safe space for the public—was transformed, in this instance, to a dangerous place where anyone can be arrested for their immigrant status. As a library organization, REFORMA has worked so long and so hard –fought tooth and nail -to make libraries accessible to all members of the community, to have a diverse collection that reflects the population of the community, and to make the libraries the cultural and educational oasis that welcomes people of all races, shapes and colors.

And now this!

REFORMA cannot remain silent. Ms. Martinez arrest affects us all: native born citizens, new and old immigrants and, of course, Native Americans-the truly indigenous people of this country. Ms. Martinez treatment by the law enforcement officials of Alamance County, North Carolina is a library, immigration and human rights case—all wrapped in one. Additionally, the immigration issue touches on the history and legacy of colonialism, genocide, and injustice whose perverse effects still can be seen and felt by the communities served by REFORMA. As a library organization, REFORMA also advocates the confidentiality of personal information of library employers and patrons.

Likewise in the sister health professions, patient privacy should not be violated. Using confidential medical records to determine immigration status is unacceptable.

The REFORMA Executive Committee, the Board, and the membership of our organization will engage in and encourage positive actions to address this divisive issue in our country. To address the financial situation that her incarceration has placed on Ms. Martinez and her family, REFORMA has created a PayPal link on our website (http://www.reforma.org/) to help the Angel Martinez family. REFORMISTAS will also write letters to appropriate authorities, call members of Congress, and disseminate this information far and wide in every conceivable medium: TV, radio, the Internet, and local and national newspapers. We should not let another Martinez-like incident surface again. It should not happen in a library and it should not happen to a library employee. Most of all, it should not happen in our time.

Our hearts go out to Ms. Martinez and her family.

Sincerely,

Luis Chaparro, President 2008-09
“Bibliotecarios al Servicio del Pueblo”
http://www.reforma.org

A Snitch that Killed a DREAM

If you read your English class assignments in high school you know that Anne Frank's family was sent to a concentration camp because someone "snitched"  - perhaps that person was thinking it was very important to adhere to the laws of the Nazi's who had taken over Holland (where the Franks lived).  After all, illegal is illegal and Anne Frank was an illegal Jew hiding in the attic of an old building.

That is all fine and good, but what do you do if the law you are following is WRONG?  The law that killed Anne Frank was wrong -  we all know that now.

Fast forward sixty years....  now its a young woman named Marxavi Angel Martinez in Graham, NC.  Someone thought it would be very important to follow the letter of the immigration law  - so now Marxavi and her family are caught in a web of a disastrous policy -  (sound familiar?)

Martinez is also a DREAMer, coming here at age 3, but never able to regularize her immigration status.  In high school she was an honor student.  She is well respected in her community - people are demanding she be freed... At least there are some people in Graham with a conscience.  

If Marxavi is able to stay in the U.S. and return to college, being only 23, she would also qualify for the DREAM Act.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-deported24-2008aug24,0,7117147.story

From the Los Angeles Times
DISPATCH FROM GRAHAM, N.C.
Immigration arrests roil Graham, N.C.

The pending deportation of an exemplary young woman raised in the town has outraged many residents and prompted questions about the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.
By David Zucchino
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 24, 2008

GRAHAM, N.C. — Marxavi Angel Martinez was a child of small-town North Carolina. She grew up here, in the rolling Piedmont region, and was a high school honor student and cheerleader before settling into a job at the Graham Public Library. At 23, she lived in a tidy white trailer at the Cedar Creek Mobile Home Park with her husband and 16-month-old son.

Her carefully tended life came crashing down in July when she was accused of using a phony Social Security number and lying on her job application.

Martinez's parents had brought her to the United States from Mexico on valid visas when she was 3 years old. But they never left the country, in violation of the law. That made Martinez an illegal immigrant, and so she was placed in federal detention, facing deportation.

Her arrest outraged many Graham residents and drew harsh criticism from immigration reform advocates.It also put a spotlight on the sheriff's office, which denied that it was waging a campaign to round up illegal workers.

At a contentious meeting of the Alamance County Board of Commissioners this month, Chairman Larry W. Sharpe asked Sheriff Terry Johnson whether he was "profiling" Latino residents.

Recent arrests of immigrants, Sharpe said, had "gotten out of control."

The sheriff responded: "If you want to come here illegally and live in this country, do not violate any laws."

An increased push in recent months to enforce the nation's immigration laws has snared those, like Martinez, who were raised in the United States -- as well as day laborers, repeat immigration offenders and other criminals.

Local law enforcement agencies also have been working with federal immigration agents under a program, known as 287(g), meant to focus on serious crimes, such as drug trafficking, gang activity and terrorism. The deputy who arrested Martinez at the library was assigned to such a task force.

A week after Martinez was jailed, the same deputy arrested her husband on the same charges at his job at a local Biscuitville restaurant. According to friends, Martinez's parents then turned themselves in to federal authorities. All are being processed for deportation.

Martinez's arrest followed a June 14 incident in which an Alamance County deputy arrested an undocumented Latino driver on Interstate 85. Local media reports said the deputy had left the woman's children -- ages 14, 10 and 6 -- out on the highway at night to fend for themselves for eight hours.

Randy Jones, the sheriff's spokesman, said the deputy had obtained permission from the woman to leave her children in the care of a male passenger.

According to Jones, Martinez was arrested after an informant told the sheriff that a library employee was using a stolen Social Security number.

The tip came as state authorities were investigating the Alamance County Health Department, whose employees allegedly had been writing work illness excuses using illegal immigrants' false names. Officials have said they found no evidence of wrongdoing. But Martinez's arrest prompted suspicion among immigration reform advocates that authorities had tracked her through confidential medical records, which the sheriff's office has denied.

Jones said that Martinez had "self-identified" her illegal status by using a dead person's Social Security number. After pleading guilty to misuse of a Social Security number, a felony, Martinez was released Aug. 13 on $25,000 bond and placed under house arrest pending deportation hearings.

After Martinez's arrest, the county began checking all of its new employees against a Department of Homeland Security database to verify Social Security numbers. The Sheriff's Department does not target illegal workers or ask criminal suspects about their immigration status, Jones said, "but we have the legal responsibility to act on allegations of a felony crime."

The problem, said Martinez's lawyer, David B. Smith, it that immigration authorities fail to distinguish between undocumented workers who commit serious crimes and those who live productive, law-abiding lives.

Martinez declined to comment on the case.

But Marilyn Tyler, a retired librarian, called the situation in town "pathetic."

"The sheriff's office is using all this energy and time on one woman to tear her life apart, but why?" she said. "This is a situation where you have to use judgment."

Crystal Williams of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. said federal authorities fail to exercise the prosecutorial discretion commonly used by local law enforcement. The approach taken by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, she said, is one of "no discretion whatsoever. . . . If they find anyone in violation, they arrest them."

A 2000 memo from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the predecessor to ICE, does instruct agents to consider such mitigating factors as long-term U.S. residency, lack of a criminal record and "expressions of opinion" by community members.

ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said that while the agency does exercise discretion, it has instituted some policies that supersede parts of the 2000 memo. Those policy documents are not publicly available.

Whatever the policy, said Rachel Crabtree, a friend of Martinez, "no one in her family is working, and they don't know how much longer they'll be able to live on what they've got."

"Everything has been taken from her -- her driver's license, her library card," Crabtree said, adding that for the first few days after Martinez's arrest, "I really felt like she died."

Friends said they are helping the family raise money and plan to support them at deportation hearings.

"It's different if it's criminal, but [Martinez] was just a young girl working part time at the library," said a friend, Viviana Maltby.

Tyler, the retired librarian, said that with Martinez's arrest, the county's public library system has been deprived of one of its few bilingual workers.

"This is such a loss," Tyler said. "It's not just her family and friends that are harmed. It's all of us."

david.zucchino@latimes.com

Special correspondent Pressley Baird in Graham, N.C., contributed to this report.

They won't deport a GOLD Medalist!

This is just another example of the commitment and loyalty people have for this country. I am proud of him and his parents did the right thing by coming to this land of opportunities.

kudoos!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
U.S: Blog: Deport Olympic Gold Medalist Henry Cejudo -
Son of Undocumented Immigrants!
No Borders and Binaries,
August 19, 2008
By Prerna In

"I'm here and this is my dream. So it's cool."Cejudo, crying the moment the match ended and wrapping himself in an American flag, defeated Tomohiro Matsunaga of Japan 2-2 on tiebreaker and 3-0 in the best-of-three match.He is the son of undocumented Mexican immigrants who bypassed college to pursue his dreams of being an Olympian and won the gold medal in the freestyle wrestling event-the first U.S. champion of the sport's lightest weight class since 1960."He's testament to the fighting spirit of America," his coach Mike Duroe said. "This means so much to him. Gold medals are the American dream."At just 5-feet-4 and 121 pounds, Henry Cejudo is the the youngest of six children. The Denver Post reported on July 31:Being the youngest, Cejudo said, "I always had to fight for things - blanket, remote control, food."In Phoenix, Cejudo remembers living in rough apartment complexes where crime was ever present, murders not unusual."I never forget where I come from," he said. "The struggles, everything, I just use it as motivation."That fire comes out when he's on the mat, even in a practice match here, where you can feel his intensity."You're going to lose if you think you are," he said. "I was always like that, ever since I was a little kid, I've always had that mentality."

Please check out the rest of the story by clicking here.

WARNING: Imminent ICE RAID in Hattiesburg, Mississippi

From the Mississippi Immigration Rights Alliance:

"Physical indications show that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids are imminent in Central and Southern Mississippi in the coming days, mainly targeting residences and poultry plants. If you have any questions or observe any activity bearing out the effects of this operation, please contact our Central office at (601)968-5182."

TalkLeft the Politics of Crime

August 23, 2008 Saturday 12:06 AM EST

ICE Raid Appears Imminent in Mississippi

by Jeralyn

A workplace raid a la Postville, Iowa appears imminent in Mississippi. From the Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance:

A series of preparations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the Gulf Coast has local advocates on edge about the possibility of yet another worksite raid, and yet another devastating blow to businesses, families and communities in the name of immigration enforcement.

"The preparations we are seeing ICE make are alarmingly similar to what occurred immediately prior to the raid on the Agriprocessors, Inc. Kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, a few months ago, " said Patricia Ice, an immigration attorney and spokesperson for MIRA. ICE has reportedly booked dozens of rooms in hotels on the Gulf Coast. They may be checking in as early as tonight.

More....


Perhaps even more worrisome are the reports that the federal court in Hattiesburg is being readied for a response similar to the response to the raid in Postville, when nearly 400 plant workers were arrested on trumped up identity theft charges, and slammed through criminal prosecution and judicial removal (being forced to waive all their criminal defense and immigration claims) within just days of the raid.

"What happened in Postville was an absolute travesty of justice that must never happen again," said Ms. Ice. "ICE must assure that any future enforcement actions are conducted in a humane manner and that detainees are permitted their constitutional rights to due process and to legal counsel."

FROM LEXIS NEXIS:


Aug. 23, 2008 ( delivered by Newstex) -- A workplace raid a la , Iowa appears imminent in Mississippi.

From the : A series of preparations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the Gulf Coast has local advocates on edge about the possibility of yet another worksite raid, and yet another devastating blow to businesses, families and communities in the name of immigration enforcement. "The preparations we are seeing ICE make are alarmingly similar to what occurred immediately prior to the raid on the Agriprocessors, Inc. Kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, a few months ago, " said Patricia Ice, an immigration attorney and spokesperson for MIRA. ICE has reportedly booked dozens of rooms in hotels on the Gulf Coast. They may be checking in as early as tonight.

 More.... Perhaps even more worrisome are the reports that the federal court in Hattiesburg is being readied for a response similar to the response to the raid in Postville, when nearly 400 plant workers were arrested on trumped up identity theft charges, and slammed through criminal prosecution and judicial removal (being forced to waive all their criminal defense and immigration claims) within just days of the raid. "What happened in Postville was an absolute travesty of justice that must never happen again," said Ms. Ice. "ICE must assure that any future enforcement actions are conducted in a humane manner and that detainees are permitted their constitutional rights to due process and to legal counsel." ... Newstex ID: TALK-0001-27611238

A Backlash Protest -A Good Idea

Today dreamacttexas received a comment saying that Americans could stand up to the deluge of immigrants by not doing business with companies that hire undocumented people.  Actually I think this is a great idea.

How would you go about this?

First you would need to be like those 2 kids in New York City who went to different seafood restaurants to check and see if the meals listed on the menus really were of the fish the restaurant stated. (see Fish Tale has DNA Hooks:  Students Find Bad Labels, NYT, August 21, 2008)

Since as the anonymous commentator states, there are so many millions of people against immigration, it should be easy to recruit a few to find just who our American companies are that hire "illegal" immigrants.  Once you have the real facts (if you can find them) then make your choice.

List the companies that are "breaking the law" - and don't do business with them.  See who you end up with.

I can promise you, there will be very few businesses who are really good at filtering undocumented immigrants 

There will be a few complications you will have to ponder...  would you stop flying out of Dulles Airport because the subcontractors who work there hire undocumented people?  Will you stop eating any type of meat? I can promise you there couldn't be more than a handful of meat processing plants in the nation that do not hire undocumented workers.

You will also have to stop eating lettuce, spinach, broccoli, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, oranges, and watermelons.  Oh, that means you can no longer eat anything that requires canned tomatoes, tomato sauce or paste.  (Oh no! that means no Italian pasta!  What would Paul Newman do in this situation?  Maybe he will start importing his tomatoes from Latin America.)

If you don't believe this information, just contact your state association of business or your local group of agricultural growers...

And be sure to let dreamacttexas know the outcome of your experiment.

for link to newspaper ad click here

Almost Deported, DREAMer Goes to Georgetown University

What a difference in one year.  If only other DREAMers could have the same opportunities...

The sound quality of this video is very poor

---

Once facing deportation, student heads to college
An undocumented student from Miami arrived in Washington, D.C., to attend Georgetown University.

BY KATHLEEN McGRORY AND ANDRES VIGLUCCI
aviglucci@MiamiHerald.com

Just a year ago, Killian High star grad Juan Gomez barely avoided a forcible return to his native Colombia, a country he scarcely knows, when classmates, civic leaders and members of Congress rallied to help him stave off deportation.

Now he's off -- not to South America, but north to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., alma mater of Bill Clinton, where he has been admitted as an international student on scholarship.

Shortly after stepping off an early flight from Miami on Thursday, Gomez, 19, found himself engaged in an all-American activity -- shopping at a Target to outfit the dorm room he will share with a student from California.

''It's been really exciting,'' Gomez said before leaving Miami.

For Gomez, the one off-note was the absence of his parents, who were deported to Colombia in October.

''They were a little sad that they won't be able to go up with me,'' Gomez said.

Julio and Liliana Gomez brought Juan and his older brother, Alex, to the United States in 1990 with tourist visas in a fruitless bid for political asylum, but the family stayed in the country for more than a decade despite a deportation order.

When immigration authorities detained the family last year, Juan and Alex became causes celebres, symbolizing the plight of tens of thousands of young immigrants who are in legal jeopardy because they were brought to the country as children by their parents without authorization.

A widely publicized grass-roots campaign led by the teens' friends led to two principal efforts, including a bid to pass the so-called DREAM Act, which would allow young immigrants in their situation to stay by going to college or serving in the military. That effort stalled amid last year's acrimonious debates over immigration.

Then came private bills filed by U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Sen. Christopher Dodd that, if passed, would allow the brothers to stay permanently. Immigration officials granted the young men a stay of deportation until Congress takes up the bills sometime early next year. U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen also has backed efforts to let the brothers stay.

Opponents of the DREAM Act have said Congress should not reward immigrants who flout the law regardless of their youth or talents.

''We can't solve the problem by encouraging more people to come here,'' said Mike Cutler, a former immigration agent and fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, a group that advocates cuts in legal and illegal immigration.

``Do I feel bad for this kid? Yes. But it comes back to parental responsibility. Bringing a child unlawfully into this country with all of that uncertainty jeopardizes the well-being of that child.''

Supporters say it's foolish to cast away bright, able young people whose education represents substantial public investment.

''To deport them or waste their talents is a terrible brain drain for our country as well as a loss of the tax dollars already invested in their education,'' said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, which represents the Gomez brothers.

After their parents and grandmother were deported, Juan and Alex continued to live in the family's Kendall home. Juan took a job at a local Outback Steakhouse to save money for college. Alex, 20, has also been working at a restaurant and will attend Miami Dade College. He hopes to be a firefighter, his brother said.

Juan spent a year studying in Miami-Dade's Honors College.

''It was a great year,'' he said. ``I made some good friends. But in the middle of the year, I decided I was going to apply to schools again.''

The acceptance to Georgetown as a transfer student came with a $42,000 competitive scholarship, not quite enough to cover tuition and expenses for a year. Juan will be a sophomore and take courses in business and finance, preparation for a career in investment banking or law.

He was accompanied to Washington by Bette Ellen Quiat, the mother of buddy Scott Elfenbein, now at Harvard, who helped organize the campaign for the Gomez brothers.

Quiat was helping Juan pick out cool-weather clothes and dorm furnishings as he spoke on a cellphone.

''I'm pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff,'' Juan joked. ``I'm really appreciating this help.''

Otherwise, the unflappable young man said he was not in the least cowed by the new challenge he's taken on.

''Honestly, I'm not nervous at all,'' he said.

Nor has he given up on staying for good. He said he will continue to hope for passage of the private bills and push for the DREAM Act.

''I wouldn't have applied [to Georgetown] if I really thought I'd be leaving in a year,'' he said. ``I feel like my best chances of staying in this country are going to a prestigious institution like Georgetown.''

for link to Miami Herald video on Juan Sebastian Gomez click here

for link to Miami Herald article click here

PROTEST FOR AN IMMEDIATE MORATORIUM ON THE RAIDS

Information recently received from our Houston friends:


A MORATORIUM ON THE RAIDS NOW! NOT AFTER THE ELECTIONS!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Houston's Raid Rapid Response network

Today many cities around the nation ask for a moratorium on the raids which continue to split families and wreck the lives of many hard working individuals in the U.S. WE join together with Chicago, San Diego, San Francisco, New York City, Detroit, Portland Philadelphia, and many other cities around the nation. We will, with one voice, call for an end to the raids which seek to arrest more than half a million people before years end.

Please join the national protests against the ICE raids and deportations this
Friday, 4pm at the USCIS office on 126 Northpoint Dr., Houston.

What:
Protest for immediate moratorium on recent ICE raids and its plans to arrest and
deport 500,000 immigrants.

When:
Friday, August 22, 2008, 4PM.

Where:
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, USCIS
126 Northpoint Drive
Houston, TX 77060

Who: Houston's Raid Rapid Response Team and community leaders

For more information contact:

Miles Rodriguez
(617)372-0911


The Houston Raid Rapid Response Network is a coalition of organizations who's goal is to help families, before, during, and after a raid. The group intends to help these people by having resources available to the victims, such as social services and legal services

Trouble The Water - The Real Trouble with the U.S.

Trouble the Water is said to be the most accurate and realistic film about Hurricane Katrina's affect on New Orleans.  The film won the prestigious Sundance Award and is opening today in New York and Los Angeles.  Click here for opening dates in other cities.

The destruction of New Orleans is really about the rupture of America-- it was a long time coming.   NOLA was the home of the busiest slave market in the country, it is also known as the capital of hedonism (where our own President Bush sowed his wild oats in his younger days), where Americans could enter Sodom and Gommorha without paying a price for their sins.

This is a movie worth watching.

ICE Raids and Doing the Right Thing

"As the illegal immigrants were being arrested, the state police superintendent assured Tobin and other clergy that his officers would not launch immigration raids. State police later said they were just assisting in a federal investigation." - AP


It is an interesting phenomenon. Many people around the country think that ICE raids are part of following the "letter of the law" --- that they are necessary because "illegal is illegal" --- now a Roman Catholic bishop is saying the just opposite --- that the raids are immoral and that government employees who refuse to participate should be able to take a stand as conscientious objectors. Novel idea isn't it?

A couple of days ago I was flying back from Argentina and while I was in line for the immigration check point in Houston I thought about what it must be like to work for the U.S. government as an ICE officer. The person checking my U.S. passport looked like he was in his late 30s, had a Spanish surname. He was congenial and polite (unlike some others I have encountered). As I spoke with him I wondered, what is it like for him to work in that job? Does he ever feel bad when he directs someone to be detained? Does he think that detaining families with small babies at international airports is necessary so the letter of the law can be followed?

A colleague of mine who recently graduated from a prestigious private university on the east coast was telling me that every time his wife and children (ages 1 and 2) fly back from their country of origin (Mexico) the wife and kids get detained at the Houston airport -- for hours. The kids start howling after a while and everyone gets miserable. The family has figured out that if they let the kids cry the detainment ends up being much shorter.

The conversation with my colleague leaves me wondering, why in the world would ICE detain a woman with a valid green card, whose husband is a tenure track professor (in political science no less) - why does this happen every time she travels back home?

Is the nice ICE officer who attended me one of the guys who stopped my colleague's wife? I wonder how he felt about it when he saw the mother holding the green card with two kids in diapers.

I guess to be an ICE officer you need to have the idea of "illegal is illegal" firmly planted in your mind. Only thing is, being that we are all human beings, you can bet that ICE officer has his own way of justifying what is right and wrong. Does he jaywalk? Has he ever run a yellow light? Did he ever cheat on an exam in college? Did he ever tell a little white lie? Did he ever get too much change at the grocery store and not tell the clerk? Has he ever told his wife she looks good in a dress when she really looks awful?

-----

RI Bishop Wants U.S. to Halt Mass Immigration Raids

By RAY HENRY
The Associated Press/Washington Post
Thursday, August 21, 2008; 4:37 PM

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Rhode Island's Roman Catholic bishop is calling on U.S. authorities to halt mass immigration raids and says agents who refuse to participate in such raids on moral grounds deserve to be treated as conscientious objectors.

Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin asked for a blanket moratorium on immigration raids in Rhode Island until the nation adopts comprehensive immigration reform. Tobin made the requests in a letter sent Tuesday to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Boston...

Tobin's action comes during a heated debate over illegal immigration in heavily Catholic Rhode Island. Authorities recently raided six courthouses looking for illegal immigrant maintenance workers and Gov. Don Carcieri, himself a Catholic, signed an order requiring state police and prison officials to identify illegal immigrants for possible deportation.

"We believe that raids on the immigrant community are unjust, unnecessary, and counterproductive," the bishop's letter says. It urges individual federal agents to consider the morality of their actions and refuse to participate if their conscience dictates.

In such cases, he said, "we urge the Federal Government to fully respect the well-founded principles of conscientious objection."

...Tobin is bishop of the Diocese of Providence, which covers the entire state. Some 60 percent of Rhode Island residents call themselves Roman Catholic, a higher percentage than any other state.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called U.S. immigration policies "morally unacceptable," saying they keep families divided and encourage the exploitation of migrants.

While the bishops' conference has said the federal government has a right to launch raids, it believes they are often counterproductive, said Kevin Appleby, director of the conference's Office of Migration and Refugee Policy.

He said Tobin's letter is unique because it asks that ICE agents be excused from raids on religious or moral grounds.

"I think it's an interesting idea because, from our reports, a lot of these raids have really impacted families and individuals and really terrorized communities," Appleby said. "It should be logical that some agents think that tactic is too harsh and might not want to participate."

Tobin said he decided to write the letter after hearing about the plight of suspected illegal immigrants arrested during raids in June and July.

The July raid on the Rhode Island courthouses occurred as Tobin was attending the first meeting of a panel charged with monitoring the implementation of Carcieri's crackdown on illegal immigrants.

As the illegal immigrants were being arrested, the state police superintendent assured Tobin and other clergy that his officers would not launch immigration raids. State police later said they were just assisting in a federal investigation.  

For more information from the Providence, Rhode Island Diocese:  http://www.dioceseofprovidence.org

for link to complete AP/WaPo article click here

DREAMer Hiu Nui Ng Dies in Prison from Untreated Cancer

Hiu Nui Ng had been in the U.S. for decades. He attended and graduated from an American university.... His immigration status was derailed years ago when an immigration letter was sent to the wrong address. He married a U.S. citizen. He was arrested when he applied for a Green Card.

Even though DHS and ICE say that they are now doing a great job of caring for detainees, apparently this information is incorrect. Hearing how detention officers treated Mr. Hiu Nui Ng, it seems like we are being told about Nazi officers in a concentration camp. Their treatment of Mr. Ng was abominable.

He died of untreated cancer.

----

Listen to Democracy Now program on the Death of Hiu Nui Ng

Cancer-Stricken 34-Year-Old Chinese Computer Engineer Dies After Being Denied Care in Private US Immigration Prison

Democracy Now
August 19, 2008

Earlier this month, a thirty-four-year-old Chinese computer engineer, Hiu Lui Ng, who overstayed his visa, died in a Rhode Island immigration detention center. He had cancer in his liver, lung and bones, and a fractured spine. Despite repeated complaints of severe pain, Mr. Ng was refused independent medical evaluation by immigration officials. Before Mr. Ng died on August 6th, he told his sister that the nurses at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island had told him to “stop faking” his illness. We speak to immigration attorney Joshua Bardavid, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Renee Feltz, co-creator of the site

We turn now to the sprawling detention system within this country that some have likened to a gulag and a series of domestic Guantanamo Bays: The immigration prisons that over 300,000 people pass through each year.

Earlier this month a 34-year old Chinese computer engineer, Hiu Lui Ng, who overstayed his visa died in a Rhode Island immigration detention center. He had cancer in his liver, lung, and bones, and a fractured spine.

Despite repeated complaints of severe pain Mr. Ng was refused independent medical evaluation by immigration officials, the New York Times reported. Instead he was taken in shackles to another prison two hours away where an immigration officer tried to convince him to withdraw his appeals and accept deportation.

Before Mr. Ng died on August 6th he told his sister that the nurses at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island had told him to “stop faking” his illness.

Mr. Ng’s story is the latest in a series of similar cases of neglect and abuse at the hands of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency or ICE.

Investigations by the Washington Post and New York Times earlier this year revealed that as many as 83 detainees have died in or soon after ICE custody in the five years since the agency was created in March of 2003.

When contacted for response ICE said they could not comment on Mr. Ng’s death because it is under investigation.

Congress is responding to these deaths with legislation aimed to improve conditions for non-citizens in ICE custody. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren from California and Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey sponsored the House and Senate versions of the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act of 2008.

Joshua Bardavid, immigration attorney in New York. He is representing Hiu Lui Ng’s family.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Democratic Congress member from California. She serves as Chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law.

Renee Feltz, investigative journalist based in New York City and creator with Stokely Baksh of the award-winning multimedia investigative project BusinessOfDetention.com. Part of this project featured on MotherJones.com, and another part will be featured in an upcoming issue of NACLA.

for link to NY Times editorial on Ng's death click here

Welcome to the Wild West in Wilbarger County Texas

Texas Governor Rick Perry has moved his state back a century by supporting teachers carrying guns in a small school district near the Oklahoma border.

Can you imagine a harried teacher worried about No Child Left Behind having to deal with the responsibility of carrying a gun amidst hundreds of kids? I wouldn't want my kid in that school. All you need to do is read the papers to see that many gun accidents (and deaths) occurr when young people get a hold of a gun.

You would think Wilbarger County Texas is in danger of being taken over by terrorists. Well, maybe it is, the name of the group is the NRA (National Rifle Association).


-----


[Texas Governor Rick] Perry supports district that will let teachers carry guns

Associated Press/Houston Chronicle
Aug. 19, 2008, 3:10AM


AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry indicated Monday he supports a tiny school district's decision to allow teachers and staff to pack guns for protection when classes start later this month.

Trustees at the Harrold Independent School District approved a policy change last year to allow employees to carry concealed firearms to deter and protect against school shootings.

"There's a lot of incidents where that would have saved a number of lives," Perry said.

Texas law outlaws firearms on school campuses "unless pursuant to the written regulations or written authorization of the institution."

District policy requires a teacher carrying a gun to school to have a Texas concealed handgun license, be authorized by the district to carry the weapon, have training in crisis management and hostile situations and use ammunition designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls.

"The issue with handguns is the training and registration," Perry said. "After that, you're trained and registered."

The 110-student district is 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth on the eastern end of Wilbarger County, near the Oklahoma border. It has about 50 teachers and staff members

Asked if other school districts should take similar measures, Perry said, "It's up to those local school districts."

Superintendent David Thweatt has said the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff's office, leaving students and teachers without protection.

Thweatt said officials researched the policy and considered other options for about a year before approving the policy change.

for link to image click here


for link to article click here

Bad Hires: The Consequences of Incompetent Immigration Judges

"roughly 40 immigration judges awarded positions based on partisan interest, not experience or merit, will make decisions that carry serious and sometimes life-threatening consequences for those seeking relief from deportation." ACLU

Remember how the U.S. Supreme Court decided that a presidential candidate without enough votes could win an election? Just think about what is going on now with our country - and how it would have been different if our Supreme Court justices would have avoided "partisan interest?" What consequences! - No Iraq, no torture, Habeas Corpus would still be alive, and most of our administration would not be liable for prosecution of war crimes.

On a much smaller scale (but no less important), how about people in the lower rung of the USJD? The consequences of one unethical immigration decision affects the life of not just one immigrant, - but that person's family and future descendants.

As I think about this I remember what my 80 year old favorite aunt once told me... she said "thank goodness my father was able to come to the United States. What would it be like if we lived in Salltillo, Coahuila [Mexico]? What a different [and much more painful] life we would have had!"

One thing I know for sure, if our family had stayed in Mexico, it would be highly unlikely that this blog would exist -


----

Clean House at Justice Now
Monday, August 18, 2008; Page A10

The Aug. 14 editorial "Justice at Justice" failed to grasp the consequences of politicized hiring decisions at the Justice Department. The fallout from less qualified judges and lawyers enforcing the law is tantamount to a denial of justice, so we need to root out bad hires now. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey is satisfied to let the personnel evaluation process weed out the incompetent over time.

In the meantime, roughly 40 immigration judges awarded positions based on partisan interest, not experience or merit, will make decisions that carry serious and sometimes life-threatening consequences for those seeking relief from deportation.

Most people facing deportation are not represented by lawyers; there is no right to counsel in immigration court. The principal responsibility for ensuring due process and fairness lies with the immigration judge. If judges in place now are demonstrably less qualified than those who were passed over for political reasons, that situation must be rectified at once -- not with the passage of time.

It is up to Congress to ensure that the Justice Department cleans up, not covers up, the politicized hiring.
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MICHAEL W. MACLEOD-BALL
Chief Legislative and Policy Counsel
Washington Legislative Office
American Civil Liberties Union
Washington

for link click here

Past is Present for the Roma

Some human beings have a propensity for hate.

In 2008 -

Palestinians are hated in Israel

Arabs are hated by many in the Western World

African immigrants are hated in Spain

Immigrants from Latin American countries are hated by many in the U.S. (white middle and upper class immigrants don't count, if you are undocumented from Ireland you are ok)

The Roma are hated in Italy.

----
'Why do the Italians hate us?'

• Dan McDougall
• The Observer,
• Sunday August 17 2008

It is an image that shocked the world: two young Gypsy children lie dead for three hours on an Italian beach while, feet away, a carefree couple enjoy a leisurely picnic. Dan McDougall travels to the Roma camps of Naples to meet the dead girls' mother and finds fear and bitterness - and a country in danger of forgetting its far-Right past.

click here for link to photos of the girls


Pulling each other by the hair, the Roma children scrap as they take turns at flicking their skinny wrists over the flaming funeral candles. Before the same Orthodox Christian shrine, their grandmother recites the Lord's Prayer in a gravelly Romany tongue.

'Am Mora Dat con san ando cheri.' The words leave her mouth in whispers as she crosses herself and kisses a gold crucifix around her neck. The smallest child, no older than four, runs towards me, sticks out her tongue, and gestures a V for vaffanculo - the ubiquitous Italian fuck off - and disappears outside.

The damp ceiling of the two-room prefabricated hut the Gypsies call home is on the verge of collapse. The plastic-film windows, looking out on to the drab exterior walls of Naples's most infamous prison, are so flimsy they wobble in the faint breeze. There are mattresses everywhere: on the floor, propped up against the sink. Like the inhabitants, they are thin and threadbare. The only nod to modernity is a gigantic home entertainment consul in the corner, spewing out a DVD of distorted recordings of Balkan folk songs. The wake we are attending in Naples's most notorious Romany camp has been going for 10 days. Alcohol is scattered around the room; clear, foul-smelling moonshine sits overflowing from plastic cups and reclaimed Peroni bottles; a half-blind mongrel sleeps fitfully among the detritus of a thousand hand-rolled cigarettes.

Alongside a sepia portrait of the revered Capuchin friar, Padre Pio, stand blurry digital prints of 13-year-old Cristina and 11-year-old Violetta Djeordsevic - two Roma sisters whose sudden deaths in the shallow waters of a public beach on Italy's Amalfi Coast last month encapsulated the threat of racism in modern Europe. It is a tragedy that has focused international attention on the ragged edge of Italy's most chaotic city. The teenagers' youth and beauty in the photographs, strangely, comes as a shock. Up until now, like most of the world, I had only seen their prostrate bodies, covered by short beach towels, with just their feet left exposed, on the scruffy beach at Torregaveta, a decrepit seaside suburb on the outer edge of the Bay of Naples.

On the morning of 17 July, Cristina and Violetta, along with their cousins Manuela and Diana, had made the regular journey from the dismal camp we are sitting in to one of Naples's most popular beaches. Walking two miles to the nearest public transport link, and skipping aboard the local train that skirts the coastal cliffs of the city, the girls planned to sell trinkets - small wooden turtles carved by Nigerian immigrants - to daytrippers along the bay. At Torregaveta, after a long hot day with no sales, the sisters dared each other to jump from rocks into the sea. Violetta went first and disappeared, swept beneath the waves. Cristina, the eldest, jumped in to save her. Both drowned, clinging on to each other.

What happened next shocked the world.

The girls were recovered from the sea by a passer-by and later declared dead by a lifeguard who called for help as Manuela and Diana wept, banging their tiny fists on the corpses.

As the police arrived, their cousins, distraught and in shock, were taken away to contact relatives. Two beach towels were used to cover the dead Roma girls. And then something extraordinary occurred.

Summer beach life resumed around the bodies for three hours until an ambulance finally showed up. In the most striking image of all, a couple nonchalantly ate a picnic while looking on at the scene. Another threw a frisbee nearby. The indifference, picked up by newspapers and TV stations across the world, was seen by the country's liberal elite to be the final straw. The most senior Catholic in Naples, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, was the quickest to point out the coarsening of human sentiment which the behaviour in Torregaveta represented: 'Cristina and Violetta,' he told the Italian media, 'had faced nothing but prejudice in life and indifference in death; an unforgivable truth.'

In Rome, the government winced. Masters of realpolitik, they knew that the deaths of Cristina and Violetta, both born in Italy but full-blood Roma, had come at a bad time for the nation, forced in recent months to defend itself to its European neighbours on charges of discrimination against Gypsies and immigrants. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who swept to power for a third time on a thinly disguised anti-immigration ticket, was in the middle of a controversial yet populist programme of fingerprinting the country's 150,000 Roma, some of whose families have been in Italy since the middle ages. According to critics it has become impossible to disguise the Fascist undertones of these actions, and they point to the fact that the first expulsions of Gypsies took place in 1926 under Benito Mussolini. The dictator's political heirs, the 'post-fascist' National Alliance, are now coalition partners in Berlusconi's government.

In May this year, rumours of an abduction of a baby girl by a Gypsy woman in Naples triggered an orgy of violence against Roma camps by thugs wielding iron bars, who torched caravans and drove Gypsies from their slum homes in dozens of assaults, orchestrated by the notoriously violent local mafia, the Camorra. The response of Berlusconi's government? 'That is what happens when Gypsies steal babies,' shrugged Roberto Maroni, Italy's interior minister and a key Berlusconi ally.

For the 10m Europeans all loosely labelled as Roma or Gypsies, life is an endless procession of marginalisation and prejudice. Corralled into settlements across the continent, 84 per cent of Roma in Europe are estimated to live below the poverty line. Perhaps even more shocking is the lack of a more detailed picture. Official indifference and reluctance on the part of the Roma themselves means data on life expectancy, infant mortality, employment and literacy rates are sparse. Yet all are likely to be lower than those of mainstream society.

The plight of the Roma has been a part of European life since their mysterious migration from Rajasthan around 1,000AD. Queen Elizabeth I was the first who sought to expel the Roma from England. German Emperor Karl VI ordered their extermination in 1721. In parts of the Balkans, Roma were traded as slaves until the middle of the 19th century. In the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Roma perished in the Nazi Holocaust, known in Gypsy folklore as the Porrajmos or 'The Devouring'. How Roma like Cristina and Violetta came to be born in Naples has more to do with the modern legacy of war in the Balkans. In the early Nineties, thousands of Gypsies crossed the Adriatic after the outbreak of fighting in Yugoslavia and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. For many of the Gypsies, the majority of whom were illegal immigants, lawless Naples was the place where they could disappear into the chaos.

It's 6.30am in the graffiti-strewn centro storico of Old Naples. Two young priests whizz past on an ancient canary-yellow Vespa, the engine putt-putting through the silent streets. Running a red light and skirting the baroque entrance to the chapel of San Lorenzo Maggiore, the seminarians roughly scrape the kerb and abandon the scooter. They are late for morning prayers. Down through the narrow cobblestone streets, far below them, is the harbour and the azure Mediterranean.

Sparkling in the morning sunshine, the waters of the bay stretch west, out towards the dark mass of Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei, the 'burning fields', the volcanic plateau the Greeks once thought were the gates to hell.

Morning comes slowly here. Old men, their wrinkled faces as scorched and cracked as the dry earth, are the first to emerge, setting out white plastic chairs on the narrow streets outside their tenement homes as their wives clatter pans indoors and get on with their morning chores.

Armed with soapy water and sponges, a ragged group of municipal workers sets about removing hundreds of posters that have appeared across the city overnight. 'Diritti per tutti' (Rights for all). 'White, black, yellow, red. Stop apartheid now,' they proclaim beneath crude images of fingerprints. Beneath the new posters lie fading old ones calling for the mass deportation of Naples's Roma Gypsies and immigrants.

'Italy is divided on these girls, on the fate of the Roma. The conscience of the people has been pricked. You can see this on the walls of our city,' says Francesca Saudino, our early morning guide and a campaigning Naples-based lawyer with Osservazione, a nationwide pressure group for Roma rights. 'The reaction to the death of these children goes beyond anything that has happened before. The incident has exposed a long-held social realism in our country: that many working-class people think the Roma no better than animals, and the government is using this xenophobia to win votes and popularity. People are ashamed. The deaths of these girls has come to represent something more, perhaps a battle for Italy's soul.'

We are heading to Scampia, the toughest and most lawless public housing estate in Europe. The taxi driver, reluctantly taking us there, isn't pleased. He is charging us 'treble' and doesn't tire of telling us, spitting out the demand at each traffic light between puffs of his cigarette.

Scampia is home of the infamous public housing towers known as Le Vele (the Sails), the place where Naples's many drug addicts come to score the cheapest high-grade heroin and crack cocaine in the EU. A land of outsiders and lawbreakers living on the fringes of society, the district is also home to the majority of the city's Roma. At the municipal entrance to the estate, with a nod to Dante's Inferno, someone with a canister of red spray paint has written: 'Abandon hope all ye who enter here.'

Our first sight is a string of burnt-out cars. It looks and feels like the Farza district of Kabul. The buildings appear as if they've been beset by a natural disaster. The elevators in most are gone. Broken pipes spew water everywhere and the forecourts are covered with knee-deep garbage. The air outside smells of burning tyres. From the drab high-rise flats, conspicuous lookouts scan the roads for undercover police or special drug enforcement teams. Scampia has long been a key base for the narcotics arm of the Camorra.

Our driver drops us in the middle of Via Cupa Perillo alongside the carcass of a Fiat Punto. It marks the entrance to Campo Autorizzato, Scampia's only official Roma camp - a couple of hundred caravans and prefabs strung on a narrow spit of land overshadowed by the high walls of Naples's notorious Carcere Di Secondigliano prison. It is the place where Cristina and Violetta were born and lived all their lives.

'This is a reclaimed swamp,' says Francesca. 'Some 700 Roma live here without running water, toilets, sewers, garbage disposal or proper heating and cooking facilities.'

As we approach the entrance, children play beside a polluted creek amid excrement spewed by an open-air communal toilet. Standing waiting for us in the centre of the roughshod tarmac road is Miriana Djeordsevic, the mother of the two dead girls. Shrouded in black with thin silk slippers on her feet, she is clutching the last photograph of her dead daughters. The mood around her is tense. In the days since the girls died, Miriana's extended family have been forced to give their fingerprints to the authorities. In recent weeks, Roma groups from here have demonstrated, wearing the black triangles Gypsies were forced to wear in the concentration camps.

Inside Miriana's home, vodka is offered, poured by a tattooed man covered in gold chains and bracelets. Grinning through blackened teeth he offers no introduction. Most of the Roma women from this camp work as day labourers in agriculture, others, the elderly and the children, beg. But some of the men run one of the biggest car theft and stripping-down rackets in southern Italy. Others, living deeper in the shadows, earn their money from selling drugs and violence. Looking around the room it is clear this black economy does not produce wellbeing or health or luxury, only symbols of power, wealth and social advancement among the men. Their half-naked infants and wives look as unhealthy as some women and children in sub-Saharan Africa.

'The girls drowned in the sea,' Miriana tells me firmly. 'There has been talk in the newspapers, lies, that they were murdered, that there was no postmortem. They drowned in the sea, playing like the innocents they were. The real crime was what happened around them. Those people by the water, they ignored the children, like they were dead dogs washed up in the Mediterranean. My daughters were not subhuman.'

Miriana hands me another photograph of Violetta. She is posing in a ruffled pink dress. 'She wanted to be a dancer. She didn't want to go to school. She only wanted to be beautiful. Cristina was a bad influence on Violetta. She didn't like school. She hated living in the camp. Her grandmother said she was just trying to find her place somewhere, but she would've grown into a strong woman. She had the will and the determination. Above all she wanted to be able to walk into the shops in the city, look at the dresses without being chased by the police. She would cut dresses out of magazines and place a cut-out of her head on to them. It was her way of escaping. Violetta just watched. She worshipped her big sister.

'In the days after the girls died a Catholic priest visited us and apologised for the local people on the beach, who he said had misunderstood the situation. I asked him why the Italians hated us, why they looked at the bodies of two dead children and smeared on sun cream and he had no answers. He wept and told me the Roma were still God's children. I told him it doesn't feel like it. We are the ones the Italians blame for the poverty outside the camp. That is their own making, not ours, not my children's fault.'

Miriana is barely 30 but looks a decade older. Married at 14 and a mother of five by her early twenties, she escaped the Bosnian-Serbian border area as a teenager, hoping for a new life in Italy. All three of her surviving children are unschooled. The youngest don't have birth certificates. They simply don't exist and she wants to keep it that away. One of the last things Cristina and Violetta did was to be fingerprinted by the authorities. 'Cristina and Violetta gave their fingerprints shortly before they died. Violetta was upset. She ran away and started crying. She thought the police were coming to take her away. Cristina was angry and scrubbed the ink from her thumb. She understood everything. She knew we were being treated like animals. She died knowing she had no real hope of a better life.'

Later, as we walk around the camp, we are faced down with intimidating glares. One man spits at my feet. The ethnic fingerprinting drive, part of a broader crackdown on Italy's 3.5m recent economic immigrants and carried out in an atmosphere of hysterical rhetoric about crime and security, has left the Roma more bitter than ever. Catholic human rights organisations have damned the fingerprinting of Gypsies as 'evoking painful memories' of the Nazi persecution. The chief rabbi of Rome insisted this week that it 'must be stopped now'. Amos Luzzatto, former head of the Italian Union of Jewish Communities, said that the policy of fingerprinting recalled 'days when I could not go to school, and people would point at me saying: "Look Mummy, it's a Jew." This is a country that has lost its memory.'

But Massimo Barra, head of the Italian Red Cross, which has been monitoring the process, insisted last week that the aim was to integrate Roma people into Italian society. If children were fingerprinted, it would be done 'as a game', he said. 'We are building bridges, not walls.'

Officially, the reasons for the fingerprinting programme appear simple enough: to allow the government to compile accurate census data and ensure that Gypsy children go to school. But human rights groups are concerned. As part of sweeping anti-immigration measures the prime minister has also appointed special commissioners to 'deal' with Gypsies in the three major Italian cities - Naples, Milan and Rome.

According to Francesca Saudino, fingerprinting lies at the heart of the anguish and disenchantment felt by the Roma. 'The Italian right blames much of the country's street crime on the Roma, in particular on children sent out by adults to rob and steal,' she said. 'This is an hysterical inaccuracy. There are an estimated 152,000 Roma in 700 camps across Italy and the Interior Ministry hopes to dismantle them all. Thirty per cent have Italian citizenship, but the rest are immigrants, many from Romania and the Balkans. We suspect that the Gypsies are being identified only so that they can be expelled.'

She added: 'A third of Neapolitan children don't go to school at all or have to repeat years. Illiteracy here is at Third World levels. The children who live on the outskirts of Naples, in the Spanish quarters and in Piscinola, San Giovanni a Teduccio, Poggioreale, Secondigliano and Torre del Greco, they are all the same, they hate school, their teachers and the selectivity of the system. They hate Italy and the Italians, too. Many are the children of Russian immigrants, but they are not fingerprinted or treated as outlaws. You cannot have one law for the Roma and one law for everyone else.'

At the core of the issue, according to human rights groups, are several key politicians. One of them is Umberto Bossi, head of the Northern League, a small party of restyled former Fascists, anti-immigrant forces and traditional conservatives. Bossi has emerged as Italy's kingmaker, the power player who was key in returning Silvio Berlusconi to office in the recent elections and who many believe will continue to call the shots. Bossi and three other members of his party were given choice seats in the new cabinet, including control of the Interior Ministry, which oversees police and most domestic security. Bossi is a man who once advocated shooting at boats bringing immigrants to Italy's shores.

The Northern League emerged in the early Nineties as a party advocating the secession of Italy's wealthier north from the rest of the country. The party these days has toned down the secession rhetoric. Instead, it campaigns for more autonomy and 'devolution' of central government powers to regional authorities. Bossi was named Minister for Reforms in the new government, an ideal platform for changing the law to give more autonomy to the north.

Another cabinet post went to the Northern League's colourful Roberto Calderoli, best remembered for appearing on TV in a T-shirt emblazoned with a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, and for planning to parade pigs on land where Muslims were attempting to build mosques. Berlusconi's other main partner in government is the National Alliance, a party formed as a successor to Mussolini's Fascists. Its leader, Gianfranco Fini, who has struggled to distance himself from his neofascist past, became speaker of the lower chamber of parliament.

Yet Giuliano Ferrara, formerly Berlusconi's media spokesman and now a prominent editor and TV pundit, claims the rise of the right is a myth. 'It was entirely predictable that once Berlusconi returned to power a Greek chorus would appear to warn us all that Italian democracy is in danger, that Italy is introducing mass deportations and concentration camps,' he said. 'In reality, violence against immigrants and Gypsies has been limited.' The true problem, Ferrara says, is that Italy, more than any other country in Europe, has had to cope with an influx of immigrants who end up living in poverty on the edges of cities - the very margins in which Italy's own poorest people live. 'There is no ethnic persecution in Italy,' Ferrara insists. 'To draw broad comparisons with what happened to the Jews, who were exterminated, is irresponsible.'

Ironically, Europe is supposedly in the middle of a 'Decade of Roma Inclusion', a €30bn project launched by the EU in 2005 when the governments of the countries with the largest Roma populations - Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia - agreed to close the gap in education, employment, health and housing. Ask the Gypsies themselves and they will tell you it has had little effect on their lives. As the Open Society Institute, funded by billionaire George Soros, who has widely supported the Roma, said in a recent report, most governments see the answer to the Roma problem in terms of 'sporadic measures' rather than coherent policies. When asked what lay at the heart of the problem, one MEP said: 'Look. We want to help them. We don't lack the laws and we don't lack the money. The problem is political will in countries like Italy and, ultimately, the Roma themselves - many don't want to be part of society, even if society is trying to help them. There is no trust, only bitterness and scepticism. In the case of Italy, it is on both sides.'

'My name is Veronica Selimovic and I am Italian,' cries the barefoot Gypsy child as she skips nimbly through mud and oil-slicked puddles at Camp Nomadi Aurelia on the outskirts of Rome. Young men stand among graveyards of wrecked cars and rusting bodywork, smoking smuggled cigarettes. All around us are burnt tyres, cartridge cases, condoms. The Gypsies are restless. They look prepared to leave in the dead of night; they claim it is with good reason. The political figure now presiding over their camp is the National Alliance's Gianni Alemanno, who was elected mayor of Rome in April. As he took office his supporters gave the Fascist salute, chanting 'Duce, Duce'.

Clutching a black and white photograph of her father, 60-year-old Satka Selimovic's glaucomic eyes water and droop as she recalls her life on the fringes of Italian society. 'I was born in Italy, on the outskirts of Venice, after the Second World War. My family thought life would offer us a second chance. I told this to my own children, that life would turn out to be better and they say this to my granddaughter, Veronica. People may say we are bitter and to blame for our own isolation, but we tell each new generation of Roma they will be included and accepted and each time it feels like a betrayal.'

click here for link to article

Russia & Georgia - It's all about Oil & Gas

When the DREAM Act passes early next year, lets hope Congress does not include the military option like it did last October (07). It would be outrageous to tell DREAMers they have to fight Russia for oil and gas. If our government tries to convince us that this conflict is about freedom - then we will know for sure that they must think Americans are morons.

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Democracy Now
Friday, August 15, 2008

Russia-Georgia Conflict Fueled by Rush to Control Caspian Energy Resources

Human Rights Watch has accused both Russian and Georgian forces of killing and injuring civilians through indiscriminate attacks over the past week of fighting. Professor and author Michael Klare joins us to talk about how the Russian-Georgian conflict is largely an energy war over who has access to the vast oil and natural gas reserves in the Caspian region...

we’ve poured hundreds of millions of dollars into beefing up the Georgian military. And this is unmistakable in the State Department and military Department of Defense justifications for arming the Georgian military, specifically to protect the BTC pipeline against sabotage and attack. So, looking into the Pentagon and State Department documents, there’s no question that this is about energy security, not about democracy or human rights or the other justifications that have been given...

I believe that the Russians have always been resentful of this effort by the United States to bypass Russia...it is the ambition of the Russian leadership, especially Vladimir Putin, to dominate the flow of oil and natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe, so they could maximize the profit and the political advantage of dominating the flow of Caspian energy to Europe. And by building these alternate pipelines, the US is trying to undercut Russia’s political and economic power in Europe. That’s what this is about. It’s a geopolitical contest between the US and Europe for—between the US and Russia for influence in Europe.

So, by clinging to these enclaves, this is Russia’s insurance policy, I guess you could call it, or veto power, over the American strategy, because they’re saying, “From our positions in these enclaves, we can sever those pipelines whenever we want,” which is exactly what they attempted to do this week. They did in fact bomb or attack the pipelines. And what they’re saying to the Europeans is, “You can build pipelines through Georgia, but we can snap them whenever we want.” And I think that the message that they’ve been sending to the Europeans is, “Don’t think that you could build more pipelines through Georgia and they’ll be safe. They’ll never be safe.”

...what’s underway in Europe is an effort headed by the EU to try to get under the thumb of Gazprom’s dominant role in the delivery of natural gas. Gazprom now delivers something like one-fourth of Europe’s natural gas. And if Gazprom has its way, it will double the amount of natural gas it supplies to Europe.

This has many Europeans and the United States deeply worried, because it kind of undercuts NATO’s independence. So, under American prodding, Europe has plans to build an alternative energy natural gas system called Nabucco, after the opera by Verdi, and this would go right through Georgia. And I think one of the major objectives of Russia’s incursion into Georgia is to say to the European leadership, “Your ideas about Nabucco are futile, because we can smash the Nabucco system anytime we want.”

Michael Klare, [is a] defense analyst for The Nation, director of the Five College Program for Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst. His latest book is Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy.

for link to complete interview click here

Greenspan recommends more "skilled immigrants" - what about DREAMers?

Greenspan's idea of bringing in skilled immigrants to stabilize the U.S. housing market is interesting. Not a bad plan. But hopefully the DREAM act will pass early in the next administration, which should make thousands of skilled workers available to the U.S. labor market...

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Greenspan housing solution: Admit more "skilled immigrants" to stablize U.S. housing market

LA Land - Los Angeles Times Blog
August 14, 2008
Jeush1nc

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is arguing that the most effective solution to the housing downturn is for the United States admit more "skilled immigrants" who would earn enough to buy houses and stabilize the housing market.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the 82-year-old economist estimates there are 800,000 units of "excess supply" housing for sale in the United States, and predicts the housing market will not recover until those homes are sold.

From the Journal: "He did offer one suggestion: 'The most effective initiative, though politically difficult, would be a major expansion in quotas for skilled immigrants,' he said. The only sustainable way to increase demand for vacant houses is to spur the formation of new households. Admitting more skilled immigrants, who tend to earn enough to buy homes, would accomplish that while paying other dividends to the U.S. economy.

More: "He estimates the number of new households in the U.S. currently is increasing at an annual rate of about 800,000, of whom about one third are immigrants. 'Perhaps 150,000 of those are loosely classified as skilled,' he said. 'A double or tripling of this number would markedly accelerate the absorption of unsold housing inventory for sale -- and hence help stabilize prices.'"

Also in the Journal interview, Greenspan sharply criticized the Bush administration's rescue plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, reasoning the government should have nationalized the companies instead of supporting them as for-profit, shareholder-owned entities. He says the administration and Congress should have "wiped out the shareholders."

-- Peter Viles
Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to peter.viles@latimes.com.

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/816965/32360390

The Dark Ages of the early 21st Century

as I was reading for my current research project, I found a passage that fit so well in the early 21st century political climate of the United States.

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... before long, [there]...gave way to a period in which the intellectual openness of the preceding three centuries was tried and found guilty. During this period, social structures and philosophical assumptions were overthrown by climatic changes, famine, and a series of plagues...; political ideals and ethical standards were challenged...Western thought degenerated into pragmatic skepticism or mystic fideism, into flaccid subjectivity or stolid dogmatism...

There was no challenging of faulty logic by good logic, no mustering of sound arguments to overturn the unsound. Just a simple albeit effective anathema sit-one that would lead, to Luther's famous curse upon "the whore, Reason," and, on the other, to authoritarian reforms..."

This passage is from The Key to the Name of the Rose by A.Haft, J.White, and R.White, 1999. pages 25-26.

A Note on ICE "Doing Its Job"

some are saying that ICE is doing its job well. In response to that statement I have two comments/questions:

1. If ICE is currently following rules set up by DHS (breaking into people's houses, picking up U.S. citizens etc), and doing a good job. Then perhaps we must question the ethics of our administration, Michael Chertoff and DHS - do the new rules order ICE officers to defy the U.S. Constitution?

2. If ICE is doing so well picking up undocumented people, then how do you evaluate ICE not arresting employers? There are rules and laws on the books for them too? Why is ICE ignoring these?

Who does ICE Really want to Catch?

"They asked me if my mom was a Mexican and if she had her papers or a green card. I answered all their questions, telling them my mama didn't need a green card, that she was born in Florida."

Immigration Is Snaring U.S. Citizens In Its Raids
ｂy Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 16, 2008; A03

Marie Justeen Mancha was at home alone when she heard strange voices inside the house. As she crept down a hallway to make sure she wasn't hearing things, the voices erupted into shouts.

" 'Police! Illegals!' "

Testifying in a House subcommittee hearing, Mancha recalled the words she said the immigration agents shouted during the September 2006 raid on her home. She was 15 at the time, a Mexican American, born in Texas but living in Reidsville, Ga.

"I walked around the corner from the hallway and saw a tall man reach toward his gun and look straight at me," Mancha, now 17, said in a thick Southern accent. "My heart just dropped."

As the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement compiles a record number of arrests through household and work-site raids seeking illegal immigrants, a growing number of U.S. citizens such as Mancha say they have gotten caught in the net.

The agency, known as ICE, a division of the Homeland Security Department, recently reported that its arrests in the current fiscal year have surpassed last year's record total of about 4,900. The number of arrests has soared since 2005, when a Government Accountability Office report concluded that work-site enforcement was not a priority for ICE.

An ICE spokesman did not respond directly to a question about complaints that U.S. citizens and legal residents are getting swept up in the raids. "We target egregious employers, those who have built their business model on hiring an illegal workforce," spokesman Brandon Alvarez-Montgomery said in a statement this week. "This practice undercuts legal, law-abiding companies and can create an environment where employee welfare and labor standards are not enforced."

But there have been significant missteps. More than 100 citizens and legal residents were snared along with nearly 140 illegal immigrants in a raid on a software company in Van Nuys, Calif., early this year. Five citizens in Texas joined a lawsuit against the department, asserting that they were subjected to unreasonable search and seizure when agents raided a meatpacking plant where they worked last year. An African American worker said in a hearing that he was handcuffed and detained for hours without food and water during a raid on an Iowa meatpacking plant in 2006.

Immigration officials and anti-illegal-immigrant advocacy groups say the raids have proved effective, forcing Mexican nationals and others to think twice before sneaking across the border, and have instilled fear in illegal immigrants already here.

Critics say the raids and arrests have also led members of Congress to launch investigations and to a mounting number of lawsuits.

On its Web site, the American Immigration Law Foundation has summarized at least 10 lawsuits stemming from the raids, including the case of 7-year-old Kebin Reyes, a U.S. citizen who was held for hours when agents raided his home in the San Francisco Bay area and held his father, Noe, on suspicion of entering the country illegally. In June, the government agreed to a $30,000 settlement, according to the foundation.

Critics also point out that detention facilities used to hold suspected illegal immigrants and legal immigrants convicted of crimes are overflowing. The number of immigrant inmates has surpassed 40,000, and officials are struggling to find money to detain them and pay for medical expenses. The American Civil Liberties Union and news reports by The Washington Post and others have tracked cases of detainee illnesses that have gone untreated and cases in which inmates may have died for lack of treatment.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who chairs the immigration subcommittee before which Mancha testified, said aggressive enforcement and arrests will not work without changes in the law to allow illegal immigrants to work legally and get on a path to citizenship.

"At this record rate of arrests, it would still take 2,943 years to deport the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants," said Lofgren. During a recent raid at a kosher meatpacking plant in Pottsville, Iowa, she noted, ICE put those it had detained in a cattle barn. "That's where the majesty of the judicial system and the deportation process was dispensed, there in the cattle barn," Lofgren said.

Lofgren also cited the case of Pedro Guzman, a U.S. citizen who was turned over to ICE by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and removed to Tijuana.

In testimony about the case in February, attorney Rachel E. Rosenbloom of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College, said Guzman, 29, had a significant cognitive disability and could not read or write, but the police agencies accepted his signature on a document consenting to be transferred.

"The . . . removal of Mr. Guzman is not an isolated incident," Rosenbloom said.

Mancha said she feared that she might be deported until she convinced the agents in her home that she was a citizen. "They asked me if my mom was a Mexican and if she had her papers or a green card. I answered all their questions, telling them my mama didn't need a green card, that she was born in Florida."

At the same hearing in February, Mike Graves, a U.S. citizen who has worked at a Swift meatpacking plant in Marshalltown, Iowa, for 21 years, testified that he was swept up in a 2006 raid "that felt like an attack."

Meatpackers at Swift plants in Cactus, Tex., joined a class-action lawsuit filed last year by the United Food and Commercial Workers against the DHS and ICE that seeks to prevent agents from conducting mass raids. Several plaintiffs said they were subjected to unreasonable searches and seizures.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081503208_pf.html

North Carolina keeps denying immigrant students

Colleges to bar illegal immigrants
By Lynn Bonner and Kristin Collins
(Raleigh) News & Observer
Posted: Friday, Aug. 15, 2008

Leaders of the state's community colleges voted today to close their doors to illegal immigrants until they complete a study and come up with a permanent policy.

The decision today by the State Board of Community Colleges marks a reversal from Thursday, when officials indicated they were inclined to admit illegal immigrants pending the outcome of the study.

Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, the Democratic candidate for governor, made the motion to ban illegal immigrants from community colleges while the study is ongoing. Eleven board members voted in favor of the motion. The board's chairman did not ask for "no" votes, noting that the 11 in favor were a majority of the 16 members eligible to vote.

The study represents the colleges' attempt to navigate a charged political atmosphere.

Several state politicians have already promised to try to pass laws this year that would deny admission to illegal immigrants, effectively nullifying any decision the board makes. Both candidates for governor have come out against college education for illegal immigrants.

And this week, U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, a Charlotte Republican, said she plans to introduce a bill in September that would withhold federal funding from colleges and universities that knowingly admit illegal immigrants.

During a committee meeting Thursday, some board members said they had gotten heated messages from constituents on both sides of the issue.

In that environment, they said, there is no sense in making a hasty decision. Some said a well-researched policy could dissuade lawmakers from getting involved.

Wake Up America, it is the age of globalized labor

ICE has been busy the last few days. Raids in North Carolina and one at Dulles Airport are letting us know that ICE has decided to make itself very busy the last months of 2008. As usual, the Bush administration is looking at things with a really bad case of astigmatism and refuses to wear its glasses like your kid used to do in 1st grade. The pattern continues of undocumented immigrants being blamed for ¨sneaking¨(awful word for something much more complicated) across the border when American employers smile a sigh of relief everytime one makes it through and comes to work for them. Can you call one person a sneak if the other thinks it is great??

Besides a few nativists crazies (sorry, its that the anti-immigrant people often seem to lose their sense of reason with their name calling tactics) and obviously Bush and company, most of the country really thinks it is ok for people to come and work here, and even feels a tinge of guilt about how undocumented workers are being treated. But please, don´t call them sneaks -- they are just responding to a call for workers...

An administration who puts much of its effort in listening to its populace talk on its cell phones, reading email, and playing games with blogger sites, could really help the country if it would instead spend more time analyzing the GLOBAL LABOR situation, and would lobby Congress to pass some constructive laws. But as usual, our current government (Congress included) puts little value in a thinking mind. Instead it has gladly jumped into a World of War Craft that attacks people who crossed into the wrong territory.
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A Misguided Crackdown
Treating the symptoms, but not the cause, of illegal immigration
Washington Post
Friday, August 15, 2008; A20

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/14/AR2008081403047.html?sub=AR

CONGRESS'S FAILURE to enact a workable immigration system last year
prompted the Bush administration to redouble its previously lethargic efforts at
enforcing existing immigration laws. The get-tough campaign -- more workplace
raids and arrests along the Mexican border, plus a smattering of criminal cases
against employers -- has two goals. One is to show a doubting public that the
feds mean business. The other is to make things so miserable for businesses that
corporate lobbyists join in the fight for meaningful immigration reform.

The results of this enforcement-only strategy have meant that
undocumented workers are suffering the brunt of the misery even as businesses
continue to employ millions of them. A new study by the Center for Immigration
Studies, which opposes illegal immigration, suggests this strategy has helped
prompt hundreds of thousands of undocumented workers to leave the country; the
economic slowdown has added to the pressure by depriving them of jobs. Still,
the administration's strategy of emphasizing punishment rather than prevention
underscores the need for a more durable solution.

Seen as raw data, the
numbers of illegal workers taken into custody in raids at meatpacking plants and
other workplaces are striking. Agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
made some 5,000 workplace arrests last year, 10 times as many as in 2002. Some
recent sweeps have been dramatic, including a raid in May on Agriprocessors, a
huge meatpacking plant in Iowa where 390 undocumented workers were arrested;
many of them were charged with document fraud and received prison terms before
their likely deportations.

But compare the arrests -- as well as 90-odd
criminal cases brought against various employers -- against the ongoing reality
of some 8 million undocumented workers, and the feds' efforts look modest. No
doubt, some employers have felt the heat (partly from tougher state laws) and
are checking prospective workers' documents more closely. Hiring more
immigration agents has certainly increased the peril, and the cost, of sneaking
across the southern border.

But the basic legal and economic dynamics
that created the nation's dysfunctional immigration system remain largely
unchanged. Despite the economic dip, there is still demand for unskilled labor
that native-born Americans cannot supply. That demand will perk up when the
economy does. The number of visas available for unskilled workers -- 66,000 per
year -- is laughably inadequate. Many thousands of workers continue to enter the
country illegally or enter legally and then overstay their visas. A practical
approach would acknowledge both the demand for unskilled labor and the fact that
5 percent of the American workforce consists of undocumented workers. It would
raise the quota of temporary employment visas, establish a better system for
employers to verify the legal status of job applicants and offer undocumented
workers a way to register themselves and eventually earn citizenship. Critics
will howl about an amnesty, but realists will see it is the way to address the
reality of immigration and labor in a globalized marketplace.

for link to article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/14/AR2008081403047.html?sub=AR

ICE Raids Construction Site at Dulles Airport

ICE Raid at Dulles Airport, arrests workers construction site. ICE official tells reporters:

"No one is being threatened or interrogated," he said. "They are all being given due process."

42 Workers Detained In ICE Raid At Dulles

By N.C. AizenmanWashington Post Staff WriterThursday, August 14, 2008; B01

Forty-two workers suspected of being in the country illegally were detained yesterday at Dulles International Airport as immigration authorities checked the identities of people entering one of the employee entrance gates.

Although immigration officials were still investigating, they say the detainees, all of whom are men, were Latin American construction workers involved with some of the extensive building projects underway at the airport.

"There's no indication that any of the aliens were involved in any terrorist activity at all," said Mark McGraw, deputy special agent in charge with the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

McGraw said the operation began about 5 a.m., when ICE agents working in conjunction with airport and transportation authorities set up a checkpoint at one of the southern drive-through entrances.

"ICE agents were stationed at the security gate, and we reviewed all the identity documents of all the people entering at that moment," McGraw said. "When we determined that the alienage or identity of someone inside a vehicle was in question, we recommended further inspection."
A similar operation at the airport in June 2006 resulted in the arrest of 55 workers.
McGraw said that although such large-scale checkpoint inspections are infrequent, they are part of the agency's wider, daily efforts to guard the nation's airports.

"This is a critical, sensitive facility so . . . of course we pay particular attention to it," he said. "It's one of the highest priorities of the Department of Homeland Security."

The workers were being detained administratively on immigration violations, McGraw said. Federal officials were trying to determine whether criminal charges were warranted against the workers and their employers.

Advocates for immigrants, with the National Capital Immigrant Coalition, complained that ICE officials refused to grant the detained men access to a lawyer even though the advocates arranged for one as soon as they were contacted by some of the workers' relatives.

According to Kimberly Propeack, advocacy director for CASA de Maryland, a member of the coalition, the lawyer reached ICE's office in Fairfax City in the afternoon, after the men were detained, but was told that because they had not been fully processed, they could not be informed that he was willing to represent them.

"Our understanding is that [ICE] has been interrogating the workers without legal counsel, despite the fact that an attorney has been literally knocking on the door to get in to help them," Propeack said.

Advocates, who held a protest in front of ICE's Fairfax office last night, were also concerned that officials might decide to move the men quickly to detention facilities in a distant state, as often happens to immigrants picked up by ICE.

"Some of these workers are likely to have viable legal claims to stay in the United States," Propeack said. "They may qualify for asylum; they may have pending immigration applications. But if they are moved away from their families, who are the only ones likely to find them legal help, the likelihood that they will find legal representation is very slim."

McGraw said that it was not clear where the men would be detained but that if they are moved from Virginia, it would be because of a lack of bed space. He said ICE intended to grant the men access to their families and a lawyer as soon as they were fully processed.

"No one is being threatened or interrogated," he said. "They are all being given due process."

for link to WP article click here

ICE Raids Continue, One Today in Asheville, NC

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Advocates meet with arrested workers
asheville citizen-times

Josh Boatwright • jboatwright@citizen-times.com • and John Boyle • updated August 13, 2008 12:38 pm

WOODFIN – Latino advocates Tuesday night met with people arrested for immigration violations during a raid at a Woodfin manufacturing plant and began planning ways to help them.

Some who were released on order to appear in immigration court said they were frightened and didn’t know where to find other employment. Family members of others who were still being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement said they were having problems contacting their loved ones, advocate Edna Campos said.

“To hear the devastation and just the fear that was instilled in them, the worry to the families, and the worry about facing unemployment,” said Campos.

“That was probably the most important thing; to give them the chance to talk in a safe place about what happened with them.”

Campos and other community members are assessing family needs and plan to hold a public vigil soon so others who are concerned can get involved.

Family members of one woman detained in the raid told Campos that she had papers proving her citizenship and had been wrongfully arrested.

Federal immigration agents raided Mills Manufacturing plant Tuesday morning, arresting 59 people on charges related to immigration violations.

Agents on the scene had put the number arrested at 57, but a statement released by ICE today put the total at 59.

The workers used fraudulent documents to get jobs at the company, a government defense contractor that makes parachutes, said Del Richburg, a special agent with ICE.

Richburg called the raid the largest ever in Western North Carolina and said it was part of the agency’s focus on homeland security issues, which includes checks on military contractors.

Mills Manufacturing is not the target of the investigation and has been cooperative, the agency said. Company officials did not know the workers were illegal, Richburg said.

Some workers taken into custody have been with the company for years, said John Oswald, Mills Manufacturing executive vice president and chief executive officer.

Workers just before the raid were told to gather in a warehouse, said Jessica Arrendondo, an employee who was not detained in the raid.

Law enforcement officers entered the warehouse from one door and immigrations moved in from another, Arrendondo said.

The workers apprehended were bused to the Henderson County Detention Center for processing with plans for some who have health or family-related issues to be taken back to the Woodfin plant under order to appear later in an immigration court, Richburg said.

Others could be moved to Charlotte or Georgia before their court appearance, he said.

A bus carrying 29 workers arrived at the plant a little before 5 p.m., with some workers declining to comment.

Teresa Lopez, a mother of two boys, said she was scared but treated well during the processing. Lopez said she did not know when she will be required to make a court appearance.

The majority of workers arrested are from Mexico. Some also are from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Ecuador, ICE spokesman Ivan Ortiz-Delgado said.

Ortiz-Delgado said the agency targets employers that provide services crucial to national security and infrastructure like airports, power plants and defense contractors.

“That doesn’t mean that we only investigate those employers, but we give priority to those because they are critical infrastructure,” Ortiz-Delgado said.

Richburg said the raid was the only one planned Tuesday, but would not comment on whether ICE expected to conduct more local operations in coming days and weeks.

Mills Manufacturing was unaware of any improperly documented workers, said Oswald, the company’s chief executive officer. His company checks all employees’ documents, which typically include driver’s licenses, Social Security cards or Green Cards, Oswald said.

It does not have experts who can detect sophisticated forgeries, he said.

Employers have to walk a fine line “between discriminating and making sure we get documented employees,” Oswald said, stressing that Mills does “everything required by law and everything allowed by the law to prevent the hiring of undocumented workers.

“It’s very, very challenging,” Oswald said. “We’re only allowed to look at so many documents. There is a new system called E-Verify, to make sure they are who they say they are. But we’re only allowed to look at the documents they give us, and if at face value they appear to be legitimate, that’s all we’re able to do.”

His company does employ the E-Verify system now, Oswald said, but that does not help with previously hired workers.

“We reject a lot of people for false documents — a lot of them we are able to reject on their face value,” Oswald said. “But some are so perfect, the forgeries are so perfect, it’s very, very difficult to tell.”

Some of the workers ICE rounded up Tuesday have been with Mills for five years. Their salaries would range from $9 and hour to $14, Oswald said, and the plant does offer retirement and health insurance.

“We’re trying to hire the best people we can get,” Oswald said. “A lot of these (applicants) come to us from the Employment Security Commission.”

Mills employs 175 people and the removal of 59 workers will affect the plant’s delivery schedule. It will not affect production, and the company remains healthy and has sufficient contracts right now, Oswald said.

In a press release Tuesday morning, Asheville City Councilman and congressional candidate Carl Mumpower took some credit for the action at Mills, saying an employee there contacted him several weeks ago and “we developed a connection with ICE in Charlotte on Mills Manufacturing. I am grateful for their follow-through and will continue to press this issue.”

“It is wrong that this company has so flagrantly ignored immigration law and the importance of employing American workers,” he said.

Oswald called Mumpower’s assertions “infuriating” and said it “speaks to a true lack of understanding of the issue.”

The raid apparently sent ripples through another north Buncombe manufacturing Tuesday morning, as several dozen workers at the Arvato Digital Services plant in Weaverville left after word spread about the Mills raid.

Andy Meltzer, a public relations consultant for Arvato, said the number of employees who left the building was “somewhat less than 50.”

“I would not classify it as a mass exodus,” Meltzer said. “Also, many of them returned to work later.”He also noted that the employees’ stated reasons for leaving were varied and that “many were involved with workers” at Mills Manufacturing and had to address issues such as child care.

Arvato staffs its Weaverville facility through Employment Staffing Inc. of Shelby, and all of the employees are temporary workers. The company has 1,197 full-time and temporary workers.

ICE agents said they are addressing humanitarian concerns about the Mills workers, such as making sure their children have someone to care for them.

Numerous people drove up to the plant in the hours after the raid trying to get information about family members who worked there.

Tim Nolan, a nurse practitioner who said he works among Asheville’s Latino community, arrived at the factory site during the raid and questioned ICE agents about targeting workers there.

“To cart them away in a bus is an injustice and to put it under the façade of homeland security is a lie,” Nolan said.

Oswald noted that the workers are “good people” trying to raise families and get by.

Family members wanting information on people arrested today may contact ICE by calling (704) 679-6140.

Staff writer Mike McWilliams contributed to this article.

link directly to this article:
http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=200880813120

VOTE TO END MORATORIUM IN NORTH CAROLINA COLLEGES

North Carolina was doing great until they banned immigrants from attending college...112 students will benefit from the hopeful vote to end the moratorium that banned undocumented immigrants from going to community colleges...After attending NC schools they aren't welcomed into higher institution, what kind of message does that send to others in high school...?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NC: Don't Blame Undocumented Students
Charlotte Observer,
August 6, 2008
By Elena Botella

On Aug. 14 the State Board of Community Colleges will vote on whether to end the moratorium that banned illegal immigrants from degree programs within the system. The issue is being called into question after the state's attorney general, under advisement from the Department of Homeland Security, reversed his position on admitting illegal immigrants, noting that their acceptance would not be a violation of federal law.N.C.

AT A CROSSROADS

North Carolina thus stands at a crossroads. The clarification offered by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division of DHS allows our state to make whichever decision we regard as most sound.
From a cost-benefit perspective, the state benefits greatly from admitting illegal immigrants. Stephen Scott, president of Wake Technical College, has noted that illegal immigrants, who pay out-of-state-rates, offer a tuition that is a boon to the state's budget. They pay more than it costs the state to provide them the classes.
While the decision will ultimately involve this sort of economic analysis, the State Board of Community College should also consider the personal aspect of this situation. Individuals who crossed the border at a young age with their family are hardly the ones who should be held accountable for the issue of illegal immigrants. The teenagers effected by the decision are mostly hard-working individuals, who have overcome a number of obstacles and hope to obtain education (at out-of-state-rates) at community colleges so they can function as normal members of society. These adolescents were not, for the most part, the ones who made the decision to cross the border. They are, however, easy scapegoats and targets for a society unsure of the role immigrants will play in the years to come.

North Carolina should avoid punishing students for their parents' actions and, instead, recognize the drive for self improvement that led these students to apply for admission in the first place.
It is tantalizingly easy to view the issue as a mere policy decision, rather than to consider its effects on individual lives. The decision will effect a small fraction of people - of the nearly 300,000 curriculum students in community colleges statewide, officials say only 112 are illegal. A much more important consideration involves the psychological effect that blocking access to further education has on students. Students who are illegal immigrants and have no viable pathway to higher education have fewer incentives to succeed in high school and to contribute in positive ways to the communities in which they live.
According to the National Immigration Law Center, about 65,000 students graduate from U.S. high schools each year who have been in this country more than five years but face limited prospects for jobs or further education because they were brought here by parents who came illegally. Among those we know of who have been prevented from working legally or completing their education are valedictorians and honor students.

GIVE STUDENTS AN OPPORTUNITY

Even if the moratorium is lifted, these students will continue to face a number of obstacles. As noted by Ricardo Sanchez, chairman of the Latino Educational Achievement Project in Seattle, even students with access to college "still have considerable obstacles. Even with a degree they still won't be able to work here legally."Our country's immigration problem is not their fault. Our state and our nation must work to develop legitimate pathways - not roadblocks - for minors who immigrated with their family at a young age.

E-Verify Commentary by the Christian Science Monitor

With E-Verify coming up, it seems worthwhile to post a recent article by the Christian Science Monitor on the subject:

With E-Verify, too many errors to expand its use?
Database aims to make it easy for employers to check worker immigration status. Critics say the accuracy rate is too low.
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 7, 2008 edition

New York - Two hours after Fernando Tinoco started his new job at a meatpacking plant in Chicago, he was escorted by security guards to the office and fired.

The reason: Company officials had entered his Social Security number into the Department of Homeland Security's E-Verify system. It's a mostly voluntary program designed to give employers a fast, easy way to check a person's immigration status. Mr. Tinoco's information came back as a "tentative non-confirmation," meaning that he may not be a citizen. He was shown the door.

But Tinoco is a citizen and has been since 1989. Immediately after his firing a few months ago, he went to a Social Security office and got a letter confirming his legal status. It was too late.

"I went back and the security guard chased me away, told me not to come back to the company because I was fired," he says in a phone interview.

President Bush's recent executive order mandating that all federal contractors use E-Verify and legislation pending in Congress that would make the program mandatory for all employers nationwide have heightened concerns among critics that thousands of legal Americans will be unfairly denied jobs. That's because E-Verify relies mainly on the Social Security database, which the Government Accountability Office has found to be fraught with errors. Studies have also shown that almost half of employers who are already using E-Verify are not abiding by rules designed to protect citizens like Tinoco.

Advocates acknowledge that E-Verify's 94 percent accuracy rate could be improved, but they insist that its benefits outweigh any imperfections. They contend that it's an easy, straightforward way for employers to comply with immigration law. Better education of employers can ensure it's used properly, they say.

In the middle are many immigration experts and economists. Worksite enforcement, they say, is crucial to controlling illegal immigration. But they also note that America's current immigration system is broken and not meeting the needs of the economy. That's why there's a steady flow of illegal, low-wage workers entering the US. These experts are concerned that imposing E-Verify nationwide now without broad immigration reform would severely damage the economy.

"We have significant sectors of the economy that need large numbers of low-­skill workers, yet we don't have legal channels for these immigrants to come in," says Judy Gans, manager of immigration policy at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "The question is: What are we doing to the economy by imposing worksite enforcement before the legal channels are there to meet the economy's needs?"

E-Verify used to be called the Basic Pilot/Employment Eligibility Verification program. It was created by Congress in 1997 as a voluntary pilot program to give employers an electronic way to verify employees' Social Security numbers. It's now operated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration and is used by almost 70,000 employers nationwide. It's currently voluntary, except in a handful of states like Arizona.

Other states are wary of E-Verify. Illinois even has a law forbidding employers from using it because of concerns about its accuracy, although the state has agreed not to enforce its law until a court case challenging it is resolved. California legislators are considering a similar ban on the use of the program.

E-Verify advocates say the program has enough safeguards to protect citizens. Workers who are given a "tentative non-confirmation" – meaning there's a problem with their Social Security number – have eight working days to clear up discrepancies in the government's database, they note. And employers who use E-Verify are held harmless it if turns out they unknowingly hired an illegal immigrant.

"If you're an employer, you're no longer required to be a document expert," says Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform in Washington. "With E-Verify, you can tap into an automated Internet database that runs against almost 500 million records. It's fast, easy, and free to use. What's not to like?"

Critics have found quite a bit not to like. They note that a study commissioned by DHS itself found that for every thousand names put into the system, 58 come back as tentative nonconfirmation. Of those, about five people successfully contest the finding that they're not legally eligible to work in the US. DHS officials and advocates like Mr. Dane believe that means the other 53 applicants are probably illegal and the system is discouraging them as it should. But critics note that there's no way to know if those 53 were in the US illegally. The study commissioned by DHS also found that a substantial number of employers did not follow the E-Verify rules designed to protect citizens.

"We really don't know what the situation is with that 5.3 percent [who don't contest their tentative nonconfirmations]," says Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington.

He did an analysis using the same Social Security database that E-Verify uses. The government acknowledges that the database has an error rate of 4.1. That means that about 17 million people's names may not be exactly correct or there was an error when the information, like date of birth, was entered. Though they are here legally, those residents would come back as "tentative non-confirmations."

"As a matter of simple math, that means that if E-Verify were to go national, on the first day 1 in 25 legal new hires would be bounced out of the system and asked to go down to the Social Security office and straighten out the problem," he says.

That raises Mr. Harper's broader concerns about the program – that it would encourage employers and workers to operate "under the table" and that it could prompt even more identity theft and document fraud. "Conservatives are supposed to want people to work – not on welfare, not working under the table," he says. "Here's a system where we really don't know what's happening with 5.3 percent, but it looks like more than 1 in 100 lawful employees are being sent packing."

But supporters argue that clearing up discrepancies in the Social Security database is a "public service." They say there could be some initial disruptions to the economy, including a substantial loss of tax revenue from illegal workers who are now paying taxes. But they argue there will be long-term benefits to the economy.

"Of course some portion of illegals working on the books will stop doing so and either start working under the table or go home," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C. "Either one is going to result in their no longer paying taxes. But enforcing the law is supposed to get those people out of their jobs: They're not here legally."

for link to CS Monitor article click here

E-Verify Final Comments Due Today, August 11

From the Immigration Policy Center

Defective E-Verify Expands Despite Flaws
Experts' Comments Slam Employment Authorization Program

August 11, 2008

Washington, DC--Final comments are due today on a rule that would make E-Verify mandatory for approximately 200,000 public and private federal government contractors and their 4 million employees. Employers, labor unions, privacy experts, and immigrant advocates are all submitting comments that express deep concern about the impact of E-Verify on American workers. The Department of Homeland Security should heed their advice before a vast new expansion of E-Verify is considered.

For months Congress has heatedly debated the merits of E-Verify -- a small, voluntary electronic employment authorization program run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in collaboration with the Social Security Administration (SSA). Several bills have been introduced to expand E-Verify and make it mandatory for all employers. Groups ranging from employers to unions to immigrant advocates and privacy specialists have warned against the expansion of the program until significant improvements are made, citing the problems a mandatory system would create for employers and U.S. workers alike. Most notably, during hearings that highlighted the massive drawbacks of E-verify, witnesses described the huge burden that an expanded E-Verify would put on SSA, resulting in longer waiting times for American workers seeking their benefits. Analysis of the program and evidence coming from those who have used it indicate that the current program is seriously flawed, ineffective, and could potentially cost thousands of U.S. citizens and legal residents their jobs due to database errors.

On July 31, 2008 the House of Representatives voted to extend E-Verify for another five years, keeping it a voluntary program. The House also mandated reports on the program's usage and effectiveness, and reimburse the Social Security Administration for expenses they incur. Similar legislation is now being considered in the Senate. Meanwhile, several states, including Arizona, Mississippi, and Oklahoma have made E-Verify mandatory. The experiences in these states offer a cautionary tale. In Arizona, employers have already been erroneously notified that native-born U.S. citizens are not authorized to work, businesses have decided not to invest additional dollars in the state, industries are unable to find enough workers, and the state economy may lose as much as $10 billion.

Before any new expansion of the deeply flawed E-Verify program is considered, the Department of Homeland Security must scrupulously review today's comments and address these troubling concerns.

###

The Immigration Policy Center has produced numerous reports and analyses of E-Verify and the various bills introduced in Congress to expand the program. For more information on E-Verify and other timely issues, please see IPC's webpage, www.immigrationpolicy.org.

For more information contact Andrea Nill, 202-507-7520 or email anill@ailf.org


IPC is a division of the American Immigration Law Foundation.

The Gypsies Did It - or so the Italians tell us

The War with the Gypsies in Italy could become a frightening replay of the past. Any type of "anti-group" sentiment that is sweeping a country has the potential to be dangerous.

Things escalated after a Roman woman was murdered by a Romanian immigrant who was undocumented.

Considering the anti-immigration hysteria that is going on in the west - how much of Italy's reaction is realistic and and how much is hysteria?

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Italians Welcome Army on Streets as Anti-Gipsy Sentiment sweeps the Country
When soldiers arrived with submachine guns to fight crime last week outside Rome's Saxa Rubra metro station, residents of the quiet commuter suburb applauded and shouted "bravo".

The London Telegraph
By Nick Meo in Rome
August 9, 2008

"It's great to see the army here," Luigi Cabras, 60, a civil servant, said with enthusiasm. "There used to be lots of petty stealing, but it's much better now. And the gipsies who were camped around here have gone, thank God."

The station is hardly crime-plagued; a littering problem, some pickpocketing, and car park break-ins, all blamed on gipsies from the squalid camp which used to be next to the station until bulldozers moved in a fortnight ago.

But everybody knows why combat veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq have been deployed, the first time the army has been on the streets of Italy since anti-Mafia operations in the 1990s.

Mr Cabras gestured towards a nearby field and shook his head sadly. "Before things change, you have to have a dead body," he said. What he pointed at was the spot where an admiral's wife was raped and beaten to death in November, in one of Rome's most shocking murders for years.

Giovanna Reggiani, 47, a housewife and religious education teacher, was walking back to her car along a badly-lit road when she was attacked by an illegal immigrant from Romania.

The gipsy community around Saxa Rubra claims that the man arrested for the crime, 24-year-old Nicolae Mailat, was not in fact a gipsy, despite his being detained on one of their camps. But the incident has provoked a nationwide backlash against Italy's 150,000-strong gipsy community, which has seen them portrayed as one of the biggest threats to the Eternal City since the Barbarian invasions.

Gipsies, also known as Roma, have been in Italy for centuries, ever since their ancestors arrived as metalworkers and merchants from India. Many live in houses rather than itinerant camps and have intermarried with Italians, sending their children to school and integrating into society.

But over the past decade, their numbers have almost doubled as poorer, uneducated gipsies arrived from Eastern Europe, some fleeing Balkan wars, others simply in search of a better life, creating additional strains with a host community that has never entirely accepted them.

Unlike many Rome intellectuals, who complain about authoritarianism, Saxa Rubra's white-collar workers are delighted to see the military fully-armed as they set off for work. Fabio Monaci, 25, who has been giving the soldiers discounts at his sandwich shop, feels much safer. "Crime is a real worry in Italy now," he said gravely as he poured an espresso. "But it won't be so bad if we get into a new era of discipline."

That is exactly what is promised by new prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, a Right-wing populist who has just ridden into power for the third time with his ex-fascist and xenophobic Northern League allies on a wave of popular fear about crime.

Sending 3,000 troops to guard railway stations and tourist spots has been Mr Berlusconi's boldest move yet, and judging from the mood in the suburbs, the soldiers have won the hearts and minds of the commuting classes, even if they have not struck much of a blow against crime. So far one pickpocket has been detained in the nationwide operation – the military has orders to arrest only suspects caught in the act.

British tourists, who are out in force in Rome's piazzas and trattorias, were a little surprised. "Has there been a coup?" was the bemused response of one pensioner from Scotland.

But after the murder of Mrs Reggiani, most Italians are pleased to see them. The killing was particularly shocking for Romans because their city is considered relatively safe by the standards of other European centres – there is nothing comparable to London's current knife crime epidemic, for example.

Mr Berlusconi declared a "Roma emergency", produced a disputed dossier of alleged immigrant muggings, robberies and murders, and promised to dismantle illegal gipsy camps. So far 700 have been identified. Even more controversial in a nation whose Fascist rulers helped the Nazis deport Jews and gipsies during the Second World War, fingerprinting of gipsies has started, despite the European Union saying the programme encourages xenophobia, and a Roman Catholic group describing it as racist.

On the streets of northern Rome such reservations are hard to find. "All our problems come from foreigners getting drunk, smashing windows and stealing," said Anna Maria Mercure, who at 80 is old enough to remember an earlier era of Italian discipline. "Mussolini had his positive side. The streets were safe in his day."

Whether they are genuinely more dangerous now is disputed, but even Left-wingers are as concerned as those on the Right and aware that there is no straightforward solution to a difficult and emotive social problem. And whatever the truth of the matter, gipsy encampments up and down the country are the main targets as long-simmering tensions erupt into open hostility.

The residents of the Rome suburb of Centocelle, a pleasant, tree-lined district of modest apartment blocks, finally lost patience last week with the gipsies in a local camp called Casalina 900, a miniature shanty town where rats and naked children run amid piles of half-burnt rubbish. The residents, mainly gipsies who fled the Balkans, have coexisted uncomfortably with their Italian neighbours for more than a decade.

That all came to an end last week when camp residents burnt some old tyres instead of taking them to the dump, creating clouds of acrid black smoke. In the current political climate, it became the catalyst for a near riot, with Centocelle's residents staging a demonstration in the middle of a major highway.

"I would kill them all," said Virginia Cristell, a mother in her 40s. "Send them to the country – or send them somewhere. They are dirty and there are lots of problems with burglary and thieving. They make toxic smoke."

Soon her second wish will come true. Rome's new Right-wing mayor, Gianni Alemanno, promised the middle-class troublemakers that if they gave up their road protest he would get rid of the camp.

For the inhabitants of Casalino 900, the bulldozers will be another of life's frequent disasters. Afterwards they will scavenge what possessions they can and move off to some other patch of unoccupied land.

The camp has been sealed off by police, but The Sunday Telegraph found a hole in the fence. Inside we found dislike of Italy and fear of the future. But the teenage mothers suckling infants have grown up in Rome and most speak only Italian. One camp resident, Najo Adzovic, 37, said he had deserted the Federal Yugoslav Army and fled to Italy when he was ordered to slaughter 15 Muslims during the Balkan wars. "I don't like the police outside our camp or the military presence on our streets," he said. "There is some petty crime committed by gipsies because our people are poor, but we are not all criminals."

The fingerprint policy that has them so worried – and fearful that the Government is trying to drive them out of Italy – has been drawn up by the junior party in Mr Berlusconi's coalition, Alleanza Nationale. Until it reinvented itself in the 1990s, it was a neo-fascist party.

Marco Marsilio, a member of Italy's lower house of parliament, is an amiable young politician who made an articulate case for fingerprinting. He said it was to help protect gipsy children who he insisted were bought and sold as beggars; critics claim he is nothing but a myth peddler.

"The Leftists aren't able to understand this fear of crime because they have an ideological prejudice against law and order," said Mr Marsilio. His colleague, Alessandro Cochi, laughed off a 1930s-style propaganda poster in his office of a wild-eyed man giving a stiff-arm salute; he was not a fascist, he said, nor was Italy suffering a fascist wave.

That, however, is not the view of Goffredo Bezzecchi, 69, an Italian gipsy who came close to death after Italian Fascists tried to send his family to the death camps. They escaped before they could be deported. Mr Bezzecchi, who was fingerprinted at his home near Milan last month, feels history is at risk of repeating itself. "These things were done in the Fascist days when gipsies were killed or sent to concentration camps," he said. "The politicians should remember that we are human, not garbage."

for link to article click here

Immigration Policy is a Civil Rights Minefield

Juan Williams (blog post from LA Times below) has a good point, immigration is about Civil Rights these days. While our government is waiting to decide about the Civil Rights of non-citizens, human rights in the U.S. is going down the tubes. What kind of nation has a national police force (ICE) that periodically raids factories, homes, malls, and churches looking for what they consider "major lawbreakers" who actually committed a misdemeanor when they entered the U.S. without a visa?

Of course all of this is unsettling for many African Americans. If one group of vulnerable people is being tormented like this, why couldn't it happen to Blacks whose experience in the U.S. contains multiple narratives of disrespect and violence.

The U.S. is in scapegoating mode these days, and things will only get worse with $4.00 a gallon gas.
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Immigration: the next civil rights battlefield
Point: Juan Williams
Los Angeles Times
Dust Up - August 9, 2008

Civil rights in America are individual rights. And when it comes to protecting individual rights today, the key political and social battlefield in America is the rights of immigrants.

In other words, immigration is the civil rights issue of today.

Some people are reluctant to acknowledge that the fight over civil rights doesn't belong to any one group but is part of an ongoing American struggle for equal justice. But the fight is not limited to the greatest social movement America has ever seen -- the African American struggle for equal rights under law. In fact, there are major civil rights debates today about provisions of the Patriot Act. That too is a civil rights debate that is critical to the future of the republic.

But the defining civil rights issue at the start of the 21st century is immigration. Last year's polarizing political discussion in Congress on immigration reform, the effort to demonize illegal immigrants and the effort to pit one minority group against another are evidence that immigration is as compelling today as was the effort to end legal segregation in the 1950s and '60s.

With Latinos being the largest minority group in America, the conversation about civil rights had to change. The two-way conversation between blacks and whites -- with blacks demanding equality while expressing grievance and whites locked in a struggle with entitlement as well as conscience and guilt -- has become a three-way conversation. The Latino population and the growing number of immigrants from around the world -- Asian, Eastern European, African and others -- are all contributing their own views of America and racial equality.

Latinos and blacks in most of the country have a common bond as minorities. In a big city such as Los Angeles, there is also increasing competition for political power. Blacks have long been the gatekeepers of minority political power, but the sheer size of the still-growing Latino population is forcing new hands onto the levers of power. Youth gangs and jail inmates are too often separated by black, Latino and white as a method of control that leads to enmity and violence.

In a city such as L.A., the large number of Latinos also creates new issues, such as whether English should be the official language of the city or the state, the education of children who come to school but don't speak English, and, of course, the cultural shifts that come with the increasing presence of music, fashion and slang that comes from Latinos. So there is no question that the discussion of civil rights has been changed by immigration and the dramatic demographic shifts that now have one-third of our nation made up of people of various colors.

Juan Williams is a senior correspondent for National Public Radio, a Fox News analyst and author of "Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America -- and What We Can Do About It."

Why immigration makes African Americans nervous
Counterpoint: Erin Aubry Kaplan

Juan,

Civil rights certainly belong to more than one group -- they're individual and collective. That goes without saying. Blacks are most closely identified with civil rights battles for a very good reason: From almost the moment they were freed from slavery, they were denied their due rights by law and by custom for 100 years. They were denied their rights even though the 14th Amendment "guaranteed" due process and equal protection under the law. The federal legislation of the 1960s was the most famous outcome of a long effort by blacks to attain those guaranteed rights and finally become full citizens in their own country. That effort is still going on.

This is qualitatively different from the battle for immigrant rights. This isn't to say that immigrants aren't entitled to civil rights, that their civil rights aren't routinely violated or that they don't endure discrimination. But to replace the ongoing struggle of black Americans with the struggle of immigrants as the premier civil rights movement in the country at the moment is to foster the kind of destructive competition among ethnic groups that you say you deplore.

While there is indeed a "common bond" between blacks and Latinos based on the fact they share living spaces in cities like L.A., their histories are different. Their experiences and expectations of the United States are different. They assimilate at very different rates and for different reasons (while regarded as "others," Latinos have always been considered more "white" than blacks and therefore more socially acceptable). They are not a single minority. Cooperation between black and brown should never be discouraged, of course, but that cooperation has to be built on a shared understanding of differences, different agendas and even tensions. Unfortunately, there's little political will to do this, at least in California: Black leaders are too threatened by the surge in Latino populations and political representation, and Latinos are numerous and established enough to not need blacks at all, politically or otherwise. We can sit and talk all day long about how we need to get together, but a more valuable conversation would be about why we haven't gotten together very effectively so far.

Frankly, black people have a right to be nervous about their status on the national agenda -- because they aren't on it. Even though the effects of discrimination and racial neglect still abound (schools in many areas are more segregated than ever, and it was recently revealed that the rate of HIV/AIDS infection among blacks has been massively underreported for years), they're being told that their issues are no longer relevant. They're being told that simply because immigrant communities are growing or Barack Obama is running for president, they've lost a claim to their own interests and concerns; the best they can do is merge them with somebody else's. This is patronizing at best and disenfranchising at worst. No wonder that a recent Pew research poll found that blacks on the whole are disturbingly pessimistic about their own future. Such a dim view of things is not good for anybody's America.

Erin Aubry Kaplan is a freelance writer and contributing editor to Opinion. She is a former weekly columnist for The Times and a former LA Weekly staff writer. She blogs at threebrothersandasister.blogspot.com.

for link to LA Times blog post click here

Your Rights During an ICE RAID

Who would have ever thought that in the United States we would have to be distributing information to people so they could protect themselves from the government. Of course we can't forget Jim Crow and the problems with law enforcement that African Americans had during the Civil Rights movement.*  Even so, I guess I was living in la la land thinking that this didn't happen here...

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What You Need to Know to Protect Yourself from Raids

El Pregonero, News Report, Andrea Acosta, Translated by Elena Shore, Posted: May 01, 2007 NEW AMERICA Media

Traducción al español


In light of the series of raids being carried out in the metropolitan area by immigration agents in recent months, the organizations Casa de Maryland (Maryland House) and Detention Watch Network have written a guide to protect immigrants. Among the recommendations, they emphasize the following:

IF YOU ARE ARRESTED
• You have the right to remain silent.

• Don’t lie.

• Just say: “I need to talk to my lawyer.”

IF YOU ARE UNDOCUMENTED
• Don’t give them any information about your immigration status.
• Don’t give them false documents and don’t carry documentation from another country.
• Giving them your name or foreign documents could be used to start a deportation process against you.

IF THE POLICE COME TO YOUR HOUSE
• Don’t open the door. Ask them to pass you their warrant under the door.
• You have the right to see the warrant. It should include the signature of a judge and the areas of the house they can search.
• If the agents enter your house without a warrent, write down their names and identification numbers. Tell them they don't have your consent to enter. Write down the names, addresses and phone numbers of any witnesses.

IF IMMIGRATION AGENTS COME TO YOUR WORK
• Agents have to present a warrant or have the permission of the employer to enter.
• Don’t run. This could make it look as if you have something to hide.
• Remain calm.

IF YOU ARE STOPPED IN THE STREET
• If they stop you in the street without a written warrent, they can only arrest you if the agents have evidence that you are not a citizen.
• Don’t tell them your immigration status or where you were born.
• Don’t carry false documents or documents from your country.


GENERAL ADVICE
• Write down the name of the agent, agency (FBI, Police Department, ICE), badge and identification number.

• Don’t sign any document before speaking with your lawyer.

• Contact your family, a lawyer, your union and your consulate.

• Carry all of these numbers with you. You have the right to make a phone call.

• Ask them to pay your bail and give them a copy of your “Notice to Appear”
(the document that contains immigration charges).

• The police have 48 hours (not including weekends and holidays) to charge you before they release you (immigration authorities can have an additional 48 hours). If they don’t release you, call your lawyer or community organization.

• Carry a piece of paper with you that says, in English: “I want to talk to my lawyer.”

• Make a plan with friends and relatives in case of a raid. Make sure you arrange beforehand who is going to take care of the children and elderly, who is going to pay the bail, deporation costs, and the rent or mortgage.

• If you suspect that a relative has been detained, call (202) 305-2734 to locate him or her. They will ask you for the name, date of birth and identification number (it begins with an A and is included on the green card and on your work visa).

• Keep your immigration papers, birth certificate and passports in a safe place and make sure a relative knows where they are.

*for a taste of the real world, try to get a hold of a copy of "Eyes on the Prize" - it is about the U.S. Civil Rights movement in the 50s-60s-and early 70s.  Interesting history to this DVD.  It was produced in the early 70s but was not obtainable for decades.  Now it can only be purchased by educators through PBS.

San Jose students teaching about protection during ICE Raid

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Community Theatre Teaches ICE Raid Survival Skills

El Mensajero, News Report, Clarisse Céspedes, Translated by Elena Shore, Posted: Aug 09, 2008 Share/Save/Bookmark

Editor’s Note: A group of college students in San Jose, Calif., is using interactive theatre to teach immigrants what to do to avoid being arrested by immigration agents. Clarisse Céspedes reports for Spanish-language newspaper El Mensajero in San Francisco.


SAN JOSE, Calif. — ... Today, in a city known as the birthplace of high-tech, a group of Hispanic students is resurrecting popular theatre, and using it to help instruct immigrants in an urgent task: protecting them from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

The series was organized by Students Advocates for Higher Education (SAHE) from San Jose State Univesity, COCHITLEHUAL-LI ("dream" in the Mexican indigenous language Nahuatl) from Evergreen Community College, and LULAC (the League of United Latin American Citizens).

In its opening performance, the curtain goes up and various workers appear who are suddenly interrupted by immigration agents asking for their papers. They perform the scene twice: The first time, the workers get arrested; the second time they don’t. The only difference in the two scenes is the way the workers respond to the ICE agents.

The MC, student Luis Ruelas, leads a discussion with the audience, asking them what they would do in real life to avoid falling into the hands of immigration authorities, and the best way to get out of it if they do.

More and more people now carry what they call a “red card,” an information card that can be shown to ICE agents by immigrants who want to avoid saying anything that could incriminate them. The card explains that the worker has the right to remain silent and ask for a lawyer. But few people know that they should also have a phone card with them so they can make a call if they are arrested, and a separate piece of paper with the phone numbers of their emergency contacts. “You know this, but in the moment you get nervous and you forget what you have to do. Listening to all of this, I remember and I feel safer,” explains José Antonio, who works in roofing. “You have to speak forcefully, not bow down, if something like this happens,” he adds.

Lawyers Mark Silverman of the Immigrants Legal Resource Center in San Francisco and Richard Hobbs of Santa Clara County tell the audience all the details they need to know, and advise them to learn to fit in and go unnoticed. They suggest that they should maintain their cars in good condition and not drink when they go to parties. “These are difficult times and you have to be more ready than ever,” says Cecilia Tabares, a mother who lives in San Jose.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO OPEN THE DOOR

This is one of the hardest lessons. When the curtain goes up again and shows two women talking in their home, a groan can be heard from the audience. “They even go to your house, with your family… That hurts,” observes Manuel, an audience member.

Raids on people’s homes have been the distinguishing mark of U.S. immigration policy in recent years, opening a wound that does not heal.

The audience learns that nothing in the world can force them to open the door to a stranger because their family is at stake and they don’t want their children to live through the drama of seeing their parents arrested. Even if the agents ask for someone who doesn’t live there, even if they say they are the police, the door should not be opened.

The students ask for a volunteer from the audience and a woman climbs on stage. She knows her role well without being told what to do, and although it appears that the ICE agents are about to knock the door down, she stays calm. She isn’t intimidated by an arrest warrant. She asks them to slip their identification under the door and when they say it doesn’t fit, she asks them to leave.

This concludes the scene that students call "the migraine," the nightmare scenario that will stay with audience members for years to come.

CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION

When the curtain goes up again, two students are sitting in their dorm room, in an episode the performers call "Detained Dreams." One of them is talking on the phone to his mother in Mexico.

Immigration agents arrive and ask for someone who isn’t there. In passing, they ask the student who opened the door where he’s from and where his identification is. Telling them that he’s Mexican results in his arrest.

The audience learns that universities and community colleges keep information about their students completely confidential.

When the scene is repeated, the actor who plays the student tells the agents that if they want personal information, they’ll have to go to the university’s administrative office, and the curtain goes down to the sound of applause.

for link to complete article click here

thanks to http://immigration.mixx.com for passing this along

Immorality Reigns in the West's Immigration Wars

It just isn't the United States that is violating the constitutional rights of immigrants - take a look at Europe:

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Tear down the walls
Europe's war against immigration is immoral and unwinnable. It's time for a radical rethink

Philippe Legrain
The Guardian, Friday, August 8, 2008

Europe prides itself on being a continent of human rights, freedom and international solidarity. Yet it is fighting an increasingly dirty war against immigration, with casualties mounting every day. The biggest victims are the poor and the vulnerable, who are demonised as "illegal" or "bogus". But EU governments are also doing huge harm to the societies they purportedly want to protect.

Britain continues to hunt down unauthorised migrants and is planning to introduce ID cards for foreigners. In Italy, Gypsy camps have been burned down, and the Berlusconi government, far from protecting the targets of such racist attacks, is whipping up animosity against them and fingerprinting them. Spain is increasing its efforts to stop desperate Africans from reaching European soil, causing thousands to die each year as they take longer and more dangerous routes to avoid detection. Last month 15 people died of dehydration and exposure when their boat engine failed as they tried to reach Almería, on the Costa del Sol. The previous week 14 people drowned when their boat sank off nearby Motril.

Those lucky enough to escape death en route to Europe now face being locked up when they arrive. The EU's new "return directive", which was recently approved by European interior ministers and MEPs, allows governments to imprison - sorry, detain - unauthorised migrants for up to 18 months. Why? For daring to cross a border in search of a better life.

As the EU begins to adopt a common approach to immigration, the British government is helping to draft Europe-wide measures that attract little coverage in the UK. Frontex, the EU's border force, is helping southern European governments to patrol the Mediterranean and around the Canaries. And while the return directive was front-page news in Spain, it was a footnote in Britain.

There is plenty more to come. Nicolas Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian migrant, has made cracking down on migration a priority for France's EU presidency, which lasts until the end of this year. His proposed migration pact aims to make it easier for the EU to attract highly qualified migrants, establish common European refugee and asylum policies by 2010, beef up policing of the EU's borders, and expel more illegal migrants. EU leaders are due to decide on the plans in October.

They should reject them. Europe's clampdown on immigration is neither fair nor sensible. Undocumented migrants are not criminals, nor are they an invading army. They are human beings less fortunate than ourselves. Most come to do jobs that comfortable Europeans no longer want to do, but as Europe's front doors are closed, they have to creep in through the back. Far from threatening Europe's ageing societies, they are reinvigorating them. What's more, the billions of pounds they send home dwarfs the sums that European governments give in aid.

The cruel irony is that, despite all the suffering they cause, Europe's increasingly costly border controls fail to keep foreigners out. Instead, they foster people-smuggling and an ever-expanding shadow economy in which illegal migrants are vulnerable to exploitation, labour laws are broken and taxes go unpaid. They also encourage people who would rather work temporarily to remain permanently, because migrants fear that if they go home they will not be able to return to Europe. Surveys of Senegalese migrants in Italy show that most would prefer to spend part of their time working in Europe and part back home, just as the Poles who commute back and forth to Britain do. A sensible immigration policy would facilitate this.

· Philippe Legrain is the author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them
mail@philippelegrain.com

for link to Guardian article click here

An epidemic of McDonalds

painting by
Fernando Botero 

A few days ago I went to a water park with my family.  Being a middle aged woman, I was very self conscious about hanging around in a bathing suit.  

It might not be the nicest thing to say, but after seeing all the 200+ lb. women around in bathing suits, I felt much better. 

While the following article laments how fat we all are, the real problem is not our lack of control while we eat.  It is that there is SO LITTLE that we can eat that isn't bad for us.  We of the McDonald's, frozen pizza generation are learning too late.  Before you know it, you are 42 years old and you wear a size 24W bathing suit.  You never ate much desert, but lots of bread with so much high fructose corn syrup.... so you didn't have a chance.

I go to the grocery store and in every single aisle there are things we shouldn't eat. EVERYTHING has high fructose corn syrup or transfats -- even the bread (at the store I shop at there is only one brand that doesn't have this poisonous stuff). Most every major road I drive in Houston has a dialysis center, especially in the Latino neighborhoods.

Our growing size is not because there is something wrong with us.  There is something wrong with our capitalist system that is all about selling -- doesn't matter if it is good or bad food, it needs to be sold -  even if people die from eating too much of it.

p.s. having done a demographic survey at the water park of women from different ethnic and racial groups, I can say that Latinas do not have the market cornered on obesity.   Just a note, recently immigrated women from Mexico are very rarely overweight.  But take a look at their cousins who have been here 10 years...and have gotten used to the American diet.

see article on the banning of fast food restaurants in south Los Angeles:  LA Times "Council Bans Fast Food Restaurants in South L.A."

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August 10, 2008

New York Times
GUEST COLUMNIST
Honey, I Plumped the Kids

By OLIVIA JUDSON
LONDON

...pregnant females with access to junk food ate, on a daily basis, roughly 40 percent more food (by weight) and 56 percent more calories than rats that just had chow. Moreover — and this is the interesting bit — pups whose mothers ate junk food while pregnant and lactating had a greater taste for food high in fat and sugar than those whose mothers did not. The junk-food pups ate more calories and were more prone to gaining weight.

What goes for rats does not necessarily go for humans. Nonetheless, such results are thought-provoking. As everyone knows, humans are getting fatter and fatter. According to the World Health Organization, 400 million adults around the world weighed in as obese in 2005. In the United States, more than a third of women between 20 and 39 are obese, some of them extremely so. For the first time in history, large numbers of obese women are having children.

Being obese during pregnancy is dangerous for the mother and expensive for the health care system. But does it affect the babies?

There are reasons to think it might. The period between conception and birth is crucial — after all, you’re growing from a single cell into a baby. Your heart is being built; your brain is being wired. Exposure to alcohol during this time can disrupt brain development; lack of iodine may permanently stunt growth. Being starved in the womb can lead to health problems such as heart disease later in life, especially if food becomes abundant. So what about overnourishment? Does an “obese” environment in the womb somehow predispose babies to obesity later on?

...the results of several studies suggest that the very fact of a woman being obese during pregnancy may predispose her children to obesity. For example, one study found that children born to women who have lost weight after radical anti-obesity surgery are less likely to be obese than siblings born before their mother lost weight. Another study looked at women who gained weight between pregnancies; the results showed that babies born after their mothers put on weight tended to be heavier at birth than siblings born beforehand. Since the mother’s genes haven’t changed, the “fat” environment seems likely to be responsible for the effect.

Why might this happen? Perhaps an “obese” environment in the womb alters the wiring of the developing brain so as to interfere with normal appetite control, fat deposition, taste in food, or metabolism. Studies on other animals suggest that parts of the brain that control appetite develop differently under “obese” conditions. And in humans, one study has found that babies born to obese mothers have lower resting metabolic rates than babies whose mothers are of normal weight.

For most of our evolutionary past, the problem has been avoiding starvation. An environment awash with sugars and fats is, therefore, an evolutionary novelty: in hundreds of millions of years of evolution, this is the first time such foods have been abundant. Giant quantities of fats and sugars have not, historically, been available to a developing fetus, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they do have a harmful impact.

If this is right, it raises the alarming possibility that the obesity epidemic has a built-in snowball effect. If children born to obese mothers are, owing to the environment in the womb, predisposed to obesity, they may find staying thin especially hard. Reversing the epidemic may thus rest on helping women to lose weight before they conceive and helping them to eat a balanced, non-junk-food diet while they are pregnant. The well-being of the next generation may depend on it.

Olivia Judson, a contributing columnist for The Times, writes The Wild Side at nytimes.com/opinion.

for link to NYT essay click here

More Problems with Our Food Supply: Now its Beef

How does E. coli get into our meat?

Our food supply is continuing to show problems.  Now it is beef from Whole Foods - the place where groceries are more expensive because they are supposed to be higher quality.

Unbeknownst to Whole Foods, their meat processing company was subcontracting with someone else for ground meat.  Big mistake.

So now it is no beef, no tomatoes, and no jalapeños.  Sounds like all the ingredients for tacos (except the tortillas).  Is there something symbolic in all of this?

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Whole Foods Recalls Beef Processed At Plant Long at Odds With USDA

By Annys Shin and Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 10, 2008; A01

Whole Foods Market pulled fresh ground beef from all of its stores Friday, becoming the latest retailer affected by an E. coli outbreak traced to Nebraska Beef, one of the nation's largest meatpackers. It's the second outbreak linked to the processor in as many months.

The meat Whole Foods recalled came from Coleman Natural Foods, which unbeknownst to Whole Foods had processed it at Nebraska Beef, an Omaha meatpacker with a history of food-safety and other violations. Nebraska Beef last month recalled more than 5 million pounds of beef produced in May and June after its meat was blamed for another E. coli outbreak in seven states. On Friday it recalled an additional 1.2 million pounds of beef produced on June 17, June 24 and July 8, which included products eventually sold to Whole Foods. The recall is not related to the recent spate of E. coli illnesses among Boy Scouts at a gathering in Goshen, Va.

Whole Foods officials are investigating why they were not aware that Coleman was using Nebraska Beef as a processor, spokeswoman Libba Letton said.

The chain's managers took action after Massachusetts health officials informed them Aug. 1 that seven people who had gotten sick from E. coli O157:H7 had all bought ground beef from Whole Foods. The same strain has sickened 31 people in 12 states, the District and Canada...

for complete WP article click here

for link to image click here

When is education a BAD thing?

In the U.S. 19th Century South, education for African Americans was considered a bad thing. Many people said that Freedmen could not benefit from learning, it really wasn't about that. It was about teaching people to read and write and communicate - that could have terrible consequences (for people supporting Jim Crow) because then these new students could start telling everyone how bad things were in the U.S. South - they could even band together and start organizations like the NAACP or the ACLU.

 The law changed. It is now that every American citizen is guaranteed an education. The question is about undocumented immigrant kids (DREAMers) -- The Supreme Court ruled that all children living in the U.S. should have access to an education, but some states have been questioning this under pressure from nativists who think that undocumented kids are wasting valuable education money.

But when is education a waste? When does one lose if  all are being educated? Those who are against DREAMers going to college forget that an educated (and working) DREAMer population pays taxes - and that productive members of society generally don't commit crimes (isn't there a study showing that most people in prison had problems in school?)

The US News article below has stirred up a lot of controversy. When you read it try to remember stories you may have heard of African American schools being burnt down in the the South in the late 19th century. There may not be any fire involved this time, but it is basically the same thing.



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Should Colleges Enroll Illegal Immigrants

A new front line in the immigration debate: access to higher education

U.S. News & World Report

By Eddy Ramírez
Posted August 7, 2008
She was a national finalist for a prestigious science award and graduated as the valedictorian of her high school class. Now, a senior at a public university in Illinois, she is poised to graduate in the spring with a degree in bioengineering and a 3.84 grade-point average. Despite her impressive academic credentials, Cecylia faces an uncertain future. A native of Poland, she has resided in the United States unlawfully for most of her 21 years. Unless federal immigration laws change and allow undocumented students like her to become legal residents, she won't be able to put her degree to use and work as an American engineer.

Preshika, an undocumented immigrant student, studies for law school in her bedroom in California." title="Preshika, an undocumented immigrant student, studies for law school in her bedroom in California.">
Preshika, an undocumented immigrant student, studies for law school in her bedroom in California.
(Timothy Archibald for US News & World Report)
For this woman and other undocumented students, who asked not to be identified by their full names for fear that they or their families could be at risk, graduation day—whether it's high school or college—is filled with worry. While a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision entitles illegal immigrants to a free education from kindergarten through high school, neither Congress nor the courts have figured out what to do with the estimated 65,000 undocumented immigrant students who graduate from high school each year once they decide to attend college. Resolving the question of their access to higher education ultimately depends on a federal decision on whether—and how—to move the estimated 11 million-plus illegal immigrants in the United States toward proper citizenship status. A proposed federal law called the Dream Act would enable undocumented students who have attended U.S. schools and met other conditions to gain legal status and qualify for some student aid. But, so far, the meas-ure has failed to win enough support in Congress, leaving states to cobble together their own policies for handling these students in higher ed.

Statewide ban. Some legal scholars believe the federal government has already made a stand. In 1996, Congress passed a law barring states from giving unlawful residents "postsecondary education benefit[s]" that they don't offer to U.S. citizens. But since then, state legislatures in Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, and six other states have waived out-of-state tuition fees for illegal immigrant students.

The pressure for a firm federal decision is building, though it doesn't appear Congress will address the issue soon.

Heightened concern about the slowing economy and illegal immigration already has led some states to close the doors of higher education on undocumented students. This summer, South Carolina became the first state to ban such students from all of its public colleges and universities. Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, and Oklahoma have also drawn a line in the sand and now deny illegal immigrants in-state tuition benefits. Supporters of these policies say that scarce education dollars should be spent on making college more affordable for U.S. citizens, not illegal immigrants. "At a time of economic hardship for so many Americans, we need to worry about American students," says William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee.

Gheen's group has vigorously opposed colleges offering admission and discounted tuition to undocumented students in fast-growing North Carolina. On August 15, the state's 58 community colleges will consider whether to remove or continue a ban on illegal immigrants. Community college officials adopted the ban in May after the state attorney general's office advised them that admitting unlawful residents conflicted with federal law. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has since told the state that federal law does not bar colleges from admitting illegal immigrants. Immigrant-rights groups are now urging North Carolina's community colleges to once again open their doors to all students.

Advocates of open access say it's cruel and wrongheaded to deny undocumented students higher education and an opportunity to obtain legal status. They argue that these students would ultimately pay more taxes and make greater contributions as professionals and citizens. Jacqueline, a native of Mexico who has lived in North Carolina since she was 8, says undocumented students like her should not be punished for their parents' actions. "So unless they literally kick me out," the 20-year-old says, referring to the pending decision by the community colleges, "I won't leave." Jacqueline says she wants to become a teacher one day and help immigrants learn English. Graig Meyer, who heads a mentoring program for students in the area and has taken Jacqueline under his wing, says: "We have a huge teacher shortage in the state. And [Jacqueline] is exactly the type of student we should be encouraging to go to school."

While an overall crackdown on illegal immigrants in North Carolina has caused some families to flee the state, undocumented students there and elsewhere say they have no intention of returning to their birth countries. Mark, a native of the Philippines who has lived in rural Illinois and California since the age of 5, has grown up a typical American teenager. He listens to the Red Hot Chili Peppers and roots for the St. Louis Cardinals. "English is the only language I speak," says the 25-year-old, who lost legal status after overstaying his visa. "I couldn't see myself ever going back."

Like other illegal students, Mark lives in a state of limbo. He's working to pay for community college classes while waiting for Congress or the courts to take action. To raise awareness about their plight, Mark and other "Dreamers," as undocumented students call themselves because of their hope for Dream Act legislation, have sent letters and made calls to members of Congress. They have also forged strong communities online, where they tell their stories and sometimes raise money for their education.

Facing uncertainty about how their citizenship status will affect their chances of getting a job, some undocumented students currently enrolled in higher education are staying in school longer and, in some cases, pursuing postgraduate degrees. Preshika, a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant from Fiji who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, is considering law school while she waits for a green card. In Cali-fornia, she and other graduates of the state's high schools are exempt from paying the steep out-of-state tuition fees that would otherwise discourage many of them from going to college. She already has two degrees: a bachelor's in political science and a master's in international relations.

Tuition lawsuit. But California and other states are now under heavy pressure to repeal in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants. Kris Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, represents a group of students who are suing California. Their suit alleges that California is violating a 1996 federal law that prohibits states from favoring illegal immigrants over U.S. citizens. California's tuition rate for out-of-state students is about four times the in-state tuition that undocumented students living there are eligible to receive. According to Kobach's calculations, California taxpayers spend $200 million every year to subsidize the in-state tuition of an estimated 25,000 undocumented students enrolled in the state's public colleges. A judgment in favor of Kobach and his clients might force California to reimburse out-of-state students and drop its in-state tuition policy for illegal immigrants. An appeals court is expected to issue an opinion on the matter soon.

Zan Brennan, the mother of a 2005 graduate of the University of Kansas, says it's an outrage that illegal immigrants in states like California and Kansas can claim in-state tuition while U.S. citizens from neighboring states must pay higher fees. In 2005, her daughter, Brigette, unsuccessfully sued Kansas after being told she would have to pay out-of-state tuition even though she went to a Kansas high school. The reason: Her family lived on the other side of the state border, in Kansas City, Mo.

Cecylia, the undocumented student from Poland, remains hopeful that a new president and federal lawmakers will support a pathway for students like her to become legal residents. Her professors have encouraged her to pursue graduate school. But Cecylia shows little enthusiasm for the idea. For her, graduation day could be bittersweet.

for link to US News article click here

detail of image from book cover "Mis-Education of the American Negro" by Carter Woodson for link click here

If you made 132 % more what would you do?

Dr. Nestor Rodriguez, very dear friend and colleague of mine is leaving Houston. He was offered a much better position at another university, with a 52% pay increase and great research support (only well funded private universities and land grant colleges like UT and TAMU can do this). We had a luncheon for him yesterday. A few of us wanted to cry. This is one great scholar. He has done more for immigration studies than just about anyone else I have ever heard of. He was also a great mentor, to me and other faculty to have been trying to handle the maze of academic politics.

Professor Rodriguez has been with our university for over 24 years. Some would wonder, why leave? Is the money that important? Well, lets not be stupid about this. Who wouldn't consider a 52% pay raise? I sure would, wouldn't you?

Well, take this idea a bit further, and think of people who would get a 132% pay raise if they immigrate to the United States (can you imagine, and that is without papers!). Of course their relatives in Mexico and Guatemala would cry, but they would also be relieved. Maybe with one person leaving to make more money the family could eat better, and maybe some of the children could attend high school/preparatoria (it is not free in many Latin American countries). What a deal.

I'm sure Dr. Rodriguez is thinking the same thing.

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On Immigration, It's the Economy, Stupid

By Marcela Sanchez
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, August 8, 2008; 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON -- A new effort to clear this country of illegal immigrants comes courtesy of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which this week began asking more than 450,000 people who are in violation of deportation orders to come forward, get their personal affairs in order and volunteer to return to their home countries.

Coincidentally, a new report by a think tank that advocates for restricting immigration into the United States shows that hundreds of thousands of people here illegally already have been self-deporting because of increased immigration-enforcement efforts. From August of last year until May, according to calculations by the Center for Immigration Studies, the illegal immigrant population declined by about 11 percent, from 12.5 million to 11.2 million. At that pace, the CIS argues, the current number could be cut in half in five years.

But don't hold your breath -- immigration and demographic experts are not buying into such a scenario. They agree that there has been some increase in the number of undocumented people leaving the country, but they don't believe you can say with any certainty what those numbers are.

CIS' figures are based on an extrapolation of U.S. Census data that does not specify legal status. Critics contend this is not enough for a sound scientific measure. Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California at San Diego, described the CIS metric as so "grossly imprecise" that it renders the rest of the analysis "essentially useless."

Moreover, claiming that the fluctuation is due to enforcement is little more than wishful thinking, say academics who study immigration. Based on surveys and other research, they conclude that if undocumented immigrants are indeed "self-deporting," it is more likely due to a softening U.S. economy. "They have access to less work ... and their living expenses in the U.S. have risen due to higher fuel and food prices," said Cornelius.

The ICE deportation program and the CIS report are symptomatic of an immigration debate gone awry. Indeed, no amount of enforcement at the border or the workplace can counter the draw of available jobs with better earning potential.

A recent report by the Center for Global Development found that even by the most conservative estimates, a 35-year-old Mexican male with nine years of education would make 132 percent more working in the United States than in his home country. For a Bolivian, the increase would be closer to 270 percent; and for a Haitian, more than 740 percent.

Of course, those who advocate an enforcement-only approach also offer economic arguments to support their position. One of their key sources has been Harvard professor George Borjas, who has argued that cumulative immigration over the previous 15 years contributed to a 3 percent decline in the wages of U.S. workers.

This spring, however, Borjas revised his previous research to conclude that the effect on the average wages of U.S. workers from all immigration, documented and undocumented, was exactly zero percent. An immigration policy that continues to obsess over an impact that may be close to zero is one that has lost perspective.

If you were to coolly assess the economic impact of immigration, you'd think that more significant facts and figures would inform the debate. Then as a consequence, Hispanic immigrants might feel more welcome than they do today.

According to a report issued last month by the New York-based Council of the Americas, it makes economic sense to help Hispanic workers fully integrate into the U.S. economy. English-speaking immigrants earn 17 percent more than non-English speakers; the average immigrant's lifetime tax payments exceed the cost of services he or she will use by $88,000; and, in 2010, there will be 3.2 million Hispanic-owned businesses generating a total of $465 billion in revenue.

At a Capitol Hill event to launch the report, Rep. Charles A. Gonzalez, D-Texas, regretted how immigration advocates "lost our way" by allowing opponents to define immigration as something to be deterred rather than welcomed. Without the U.S. business sector becoming more outspoken, he added, it will be hard to put the issue on the right track.

Bob Merchent, vice president for New Orleans operations at Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, agreed, saying that U.S. companies should lead the charge. It "is to everyone's benefit to embrace all of the folks ... who are willing to work," he said in an interview. "If you got businesses out there doing it," the rest will follow.

Wishful thinking? Perhaps. But at least there appear to be more substantive and scientifically sound data to back it up.

Marcela Sanchez's e-mail address is desdewash@washpost.com.

North Carolina Community Colleges to Vote on Letting DREAMers Enroll

NC: Don't Blame Undocumented Students
Charlotte Observer, August 6, 2008
By Elena Botella

On Aug. 14 the State Board of Community Colleges will vote on whether to end the moratorium that banned illegal immigrants from degree programs within the system. The issue is being called into question after the state's attorney general, under advisement from the Department of Homeland Security, reversed his position on admitting illegal immigrants, noting that their acceptance would not be a violation of federal law.

N.C. AT A CROSSROADS

North Carolina thus stands at a crossroads. The clarification offered by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division of DHS allows our state to make whichever decision we regard as most sound.

From a cost-benefit perspective, the state benefits greatly from admitting illegal immigrants. Stephen Scott, president of Wake Technical College, has noted that illegal immigrants, who pay out-of-state-rates, offer a tuition that is a boon to the state's budget. They pay more than it costs the state to provide them the classes.

While the decision will ultimately involve this sort of economic analysis, the State Board of Community College should also consider the personal aspect of this situation. Individuals who crossed the border at a young age with their family are hardly the ones who should be held accountable for the issue of illegal immigrants. The teenagers effected by the decision are mostly hard-working individuals, who have overcome a number of obstacles and hope to obtain education (at out-of-state-rates) at community colleges so they can function as normal members of society. These adolescents were not, for the most part, the ones who made the decision to cross the border. They are, however, easy scapegoats and targets for a society unsure of the role immigrants will play in the years to come.

North Carolina should avoid punishing students for their parents' actions and, instead, recognize the drive for self improvement that led these students to apply for admission in the first place.

It is tantalizingly easy to view the issue as a mere policy decision, rather than to consider its effects on individual lives. The decision will effect a small fraction of people - of the nearly 300,000 curriculum students in community colleges statewide, officials say only 112 are illegal. A much more important consideration involves the psychological effect that blocking access to further education has on students. Students who are illegal immigrants and have no viable pathway to higher education have fewer incentives to succeed in high school and to contribute in positive ways to the communities in which they live.

According to the National Immigration Law Center, about 65,000 students graduate from U.S. high schools each year who have been in this country more than five years but face limited prospects for jobs or further education because they were brought here by parents who came illegally. Among those we know of who have been prevented from working legally or completing their education are valedictorians and honor students.

GIVE STUDENTS AN OPPORTUNITY

Even if the moratorium is lifted, these students will continue to face a number of obstacles. As noted by Ricardo Sanchez, chairman of the Latino Educational Achievement Project in Seattle, even students with access to college "still have considerable obstacles. Even with a degree they still won't be able to work here legally."

Our country's immigration problem is not their fault. Our state and our nation must work to develop legitimate pathways - not roadblocks - for minors who immigrated with their family at a young age.

for link to Charlotte Observer click here*

Elena Botella's article could not be located in the Charlotte Observer.  Link came from nilc.org

A Little Experiment with Your Imagination

Addendum: Sunday August 10, 2008
the author of the essay below is MARC MAZIQUE (see photo top).

The photo (below) originally posted is not of Mr. Mazique (who is African American), but of a 2007 Nobel Prize Winner for Chemistry, Gerhard Ertl (of Germany).

Now the question is: what kind of reaction did you have to the article below when you only saw Ertl's photo?

There has been lots of research on the premise that people take white males much more seriously and believe them more often than males of color, or women of any color.

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

A few days ago dreamacttexas undertook a small experiment. We are of the theory that you are more likely influenced by an opinion of someone you "idealize" or highly respect than someone who is not widely known for his/her credentials.

Below is an essay by a well educated, informed person, regarding the 14th amendment (U.S. law regarding birthright citizenship).

Tomorrow I will post the actual identity and background of that person (and the link for the photo). Since you have no actual information at this moment, just imagine it is a he-- and is an Ivy League graduate who is a close relation to a U.S. Senator

-----

In late May, the state Republican Party held its 2008 convention in Spokane and adopted a platform for the upcoming election cycle. In one section, "Borders, Immigration and Homeland Security," the party staked out a position in clear opposition to a right protected under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, that of birthright citizenship.

The text reads, "Legal immigration can best be facilitated by a transparent, traceable and enforceable guest worker program that does not include amnesty or birthright citizenship" (emphasis added).

This position should deeply trouble all fair-minded Americans, not just immigrants. It threatens to weaken 140 years of civil rights tradition in this country and institutionalize a regressive and racist policy under the guise of defending America.

The 14th Amendment ratified in July 1868 includes several clauses fundamental to the establishment of civil equality (due process, equal protection and citizenship). Enacted with the 13th and 15th amendments in the years following the Civil War, the 14th Amendment has served as the foundation for all manner of struggles for civil rights. Unfortunately, its history has also been one of continual challenge and outright subversion by those seeking to deny the equality and dignity of people of color.

African-Americans have a special understanding of how those enemies of equality operate. At every point they have suffered crimes, from denial of basic rights (such as the vote) to the very right to exist (in the form of lynchings and murder). Those attacks frequently have been justified and carried out through legal means (Jim Crow and other segregationist policies) and defended in the interests of maintaining law and order (racial profiling and police brutality). The message has been clear: an ongoing rejection of the equal status of blacks.

It is because of this special understanding, wrought out of a history of oppression, that African-Americans should be disturbed by the state GOP's push to redefine the current reading of the 14th Amendment. Birthright citizenship, as laid out in this amendment, was primarily intended to extend citizenship to former slaves and their descendants.

However, it has come to be legally understood as extending to all people born within the United States, and it has enabled the children of immigrants from many different places of origin and ethnicities to integrate into both the body politic and civil society....

However focused or narrow the efforts of the anti-immigrant movement and their allies appear, they have consequences for all Americans. But they bear a particular danger for the civil equality of people of color. African-Americans and all people of conscience need to recognize that when the civil rights of any are under attack, it is an attack on us all. We should stand together, both in defense of one another and of ourselves.

Postville, Workplace Abuse, and the Rules of Kosher Food Production

Symbol for Kosher certified food products

It is going to take more than a few advocates to get immigration reform moving in the U.S.  The Latino community cannot do it alone.  Even though the percentage of those people who are rabid nativists is very small, their hysteria has been infectious.  

The power, education, and financing of the American Jewish community could really make a difference.  It was probably a good thing that the Postville ICE raid took place at a Kosher plant.  When religion enters the picture place often are more likely to take action.

-----

The Nation
Keeping Kosher
August 18, 2008
by Naomi Sobel


On May 12 federal agents conducted the largest workplace immigration raid in US history at a kosher meat-processing factory in Postville, Iowa, where they detained more than 300 undocumented Latino workers and threw most of them in jail on dubious criminal charges. The raid received some coverage in the mainstream press but has gained serious traction within the Jewish news media, which have been focusing attention on workplace abuses and animal cruelty at the Postville plant since at least 2004. While the New York Times has written eleven articles on the raid, the Forward and the Jewish Week (both weekly publications) have run twelve and fourteen, respectively, and the JTA-- an international Jewish wire service--has posted twenty-five.

Rosalind Spiegel of the Jewish Labor Committee attributes the unusual level of interest on the part of Jewish papers mostly to the size and brutality of the Postville raid, but she says there are other factors to consider. The bust has mobilized people in the Jewish community who don't often take public action--from rabbinical students to summer campers--to ask the question, "What does it mean to keep kosher in this century?" To that end, Jewish groups are developing ways to combine the ritual requirements of keeping kosher with ethical concerns about worker treatment and environmental standards, including community-supported agriculture groups, meat-buying co-ops and a new labeling system, Hekhsher Tzedek, to certify products as both kosher and produced in accordance with fair labor practices.

Leah Koenig, editor of the Jewish food and politics blog The Jew & The Carrot, points to this "tradition of doing social justice work from a place rooted in Jewish values" to explain why the raid "struck a nerve" in the Jewish community. "This is who's representing us and making the meat that we eat!" says Koenig.

for link to The Nation article click here

Fixing one DREAMer is not enough

This Editorial piece nails right on the point that many have been trying to make for a very long time. Now, I am writing from the perspective of another DREAMer looking at the stories of Marie Gonzalez, Arthur Mkoyan for example, and many other DREAMers who have become poster children for our cause.

I think that it is pretty great that Arthur has gotten a private bill sponsored and thus allowed to stay in order to get his education worked out. I also think that it is amazing that Marie has been allowed to stay after many battles in order to finish her college years... but this is not enough. There are many, MANY wonderful, outstanding, and incredible DREAMers that just like Arthur deserve a private bill sponsored in their names. There are many more who also deserve an education to be sponsored by anyone that would come to meet them and know the super human beings that they are.

At the end, one is not enough.

You might recall the story of Arthur Mkoyan, who came to Fresno as a 2-year-old from Armenia and graduated as his high school valedictorian with a 4.0 GPA.

He was accepted to the University of California, Davis, where he planned to major in chemistry. But his parents were unable to get legal status, so the family was about to be deported to Armenia, a country Mkoyan doesn't know.

Happily, Mkoyan got something of a reprieve. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced a private bill, temporarily stopping his family's deportation. While the legislation is pending, the government cannot send the family back to Armenia. So Mkoyan can go on with his life, for now. His lack of legal status, however, means he cannot get state or federal loans to go to UC Davis, which costs about $25,000 a year.

But Mkoyan got lucky again. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday that a Danville resident, Sherry Heacox, will pay the cost for him to be educated at UC Davis.

The Senate should revive the DREAM Act and pass it. It's not enough to fix the situation for only one kid.

Rest of article

New Rules for Comments to dreamacttexas

As of today, there will be new rules for commenting on dreamacttexas. We still welcome any comments, they don't have to necessarily be pro-immigrant.

Unless you are a DREAMer, the new requirement is that you use your name and location. We know this may limit the number of people who are willing to post, but we feel that using "anonymous" only encourages hate speech.

DREAMers can continue post anonymously, if they distinguish themselves as such - but hate language from either side will not be tolerated.  We are aware that DREAMers need to remain anonymous because of safety reasons.


Again, DREAMers can post anonymously, but everyone else has to use their real name or we will not approve the post. If you choose to write something against the DREAM act or other immigration policy, just remember to be reasonable, back up what you say, and DON'T INSULT anyone.

Texas Senate Race: Producing a Plan Instead of Complaining

Looking at the comments to this article in the Houston Chronicle - the first thing I have to say is that

"Lovin55" does not have the righ