Oklahoma's Ethnic Cleansing Part I

Two German Jewish boys wearing the yellow star.






The Oklahoman posted an editorial earlier this week admonishing Latino activists for comparing HB 1804 to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Darfur.

It is supposed to be an insult to compare them. This conclusion has been made before when the current nativism is compared to the Holocaust.

Of course, at this moment, they are not totally the same. But if you recall, there were many different stages before they arrived to their horrible end. Where was Germany at this time when the Jews were beginning to be rounded up? If I recall correctly there were raids in Germany too.

And as for the yellow star Jews had to wear in Germany... the state of NY is working on a different kind of yellow star.... the driver's license that singles out people who are undocumented.

For those baby-boomers who may remember the film The Diary of Anne Frank - their family was turned in by a neighbor. They were taken away and all died but Anne Frank's father.

What activists are trying to do is help keep the U.S. from this sort of tragedy. Unfortunately by not correcting the false statement about how much immigrants cost the state of Oklahoma, The Oklahoman is encouraging a bad ending.

November 3, 2007
Officers see few changes from law
By Ron Jackson and Julie Bisbee
Staff Writers
The Oklahoman


House Bill 1804, one of the stiffest illegal immigration laws in the U.S. arrived with a collective shrug from those called to enforce it.

"As far as I'm concerned, it's going to be business as usual,” said Scott Jay, Beckham County sheriff. "I don't see where it's going to have any impact at all on local law enforcement.”


The law requires local law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of anyone arrested for a felony or a DUI in a federal database known as the Status Verification System. Those who prove to be undocumented and are arrested for a crime are then required to be jailed without bail and reported to federal agents.

Jay and other authorities claim that process has been ongoing across Oklahoma under federal law.

"I'm already getting calls from citizens saying so-and-so is illegal and so-and-so is illegal,” Jay said. "I think there is a misconception by a lot of citizens who think we are now going to go out, round up all the illegal immigrants and shoot them back down to Mexico. That's just not going to happen.

"We don't have the time, the facilities or the manpower.”

In fiscal year 2007, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 7,400 illegal immigrants from its Dallas area district, which includes Oklahoma. Of those deported, agency spokesman Carl Rusnok said 4,950 had been convicted of a crime.

"We already work very closely with local law enforcement agencies in Oklahoma,” Rusnok said. "Will we get more calls for deportation because of this new law? Who knows? If so, we'll accommodate as we can ...

"But, as always, we will prioritize our resources.”

‘We deal with that'
Roger Mills County Sheriff Joe Hay already thinks the new law creates a great dilemma for him.

"I've got a 28-bed jail with 22 prisoners already in there,” Hay said. "Now I'm sworn to uphold the law, but where am I supposed to put them?”

Hay points to another aspect of the new law — one that makes the employment of an illegal immigrant or renting a home to an illegal immigrant a crime. That part of the law will go into effect July 1.

"We've got a feed mill over here filled with illegal immigrants,” Hay said. "Twenty-eight Social Security cards kicked back as not matching those workers. How do I know? The feds told me so.

"So do we go in and shut that place down? There are no American citizens around here who will work those jobs. They (American citizens) are all in the oil field making $80,000 a year.”

While immigration advocates rallied against the new law Thursday, law enforcement in Tulsa spent the day quashing rumors that a woman was arrested for driving her illegal immigrant boyfriend. The alleged incident was reported by Miguel Rivera, president of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, according to the Tulsa World.

"That's just urban legend,” Tulsa County deputy Catherine Curtain said. "That's absolutely not true.”

Tulsa County is the only county in the state that has a partnership with Immigration, Customs and Enforcement to track the immigration status of people arrested for crimes, Undersheriff Brian Edwards said.

ICE agents are at the county jail and assist with deportation proceedings for illegal immigrants jailed for crimes. The county has been checking immigration status since June, Edwards said.

Thirty Tulsa County deputies have been trained to aid in immigration enforcement. Despite increased personnel to handle immigration, Edwards said no one will be targeted because police suspect they weren't legally born in the country.

"For us to go door-to-door checking everybody's paper is physically impossible,” Edwards said. "We deal with people who commit crimes. If they are in the country illegally, we deal with that.”

‘Trying to figure it out'
In Enid, officers won't add immigration enforcement to their list of duties, Capt. Dean Grassino said.

"We're not rounding people up,” Grassino said. "We'll cooperate. If they do an immigration enforcement action, we'll assist. But we're not going to send officers out to businesses to check workers' papers and stuff. That's stuff we're not going to do.”

Grassino said when a person is arrested and taken to jail the immigration status is verified. When the status can't be verified, officials make a call to immigration enforcement.

In Texas County, where a large number of immigrant workers have jobs at hog farms, Sheriff Arnold Peoples said Oklahoma's new law isn't going to change how his deputies do their job.

"We're not doing anything different than we've been doing since 1992,” Peoples said.

As part of the booking process at Peoples' jail, deputies check each prisoner's immigration status. If they are in the country illegally, prisoners are held for a statutory maximum of 72 hours. If federal immigration officers don't arrive before that time, the prisoner must be released.

"As far as the law, we'll do whatever the district attorney advises us to do, but we're still trying to figure it out,” Peoples said.

Peoples compared the new law to "sticking your finger in the hole in the dam.”

On the local school front, the new law also ushered in concerns over whether the children of illegal immigrants would be pulled from classes. Administrators in the Guymon Public Schools — 60.4 percent Hispanic — braced for the unknown.

Nothing happened.

"It had no effect on us,” said Doug Melton, Guymon superintendent. "Usually when there has been a big drop off in attendance, they let me know. But I never got any calls.”

‘Districts are exempt'
State schools Superintendent Sandy Garrett sent a memo to superintendents statewide Sept. 20, stating, "While the new law requires certain agencies to check the legal status of individuals seeking services, school districts are exempt from this requirement.”

School administrators, however, will be required to use the federal database after July 1 like any other employer to verify the citizenship status of prospective workers.

The new bill also prohibits anyone from collecting social services without documentation to verify citizenship. Yet little, if any, change appears to be on the horizon in that regard.

Since July, a federal law has required all applicants to show a "one-time proof of citizenship” to state Department of Human Services officials before qualifying for SoonerCare or food stamps.

All applicants need to prove citizenship are documents such as a birth certificate, driver license, or state ID — documents state agents have long said can be easily purchased underground.

"Obviously, many people will produce very, very good fakes,” said Mary Leaver, a DHS spokeswoman.

"We're not experts, but our staff does know what to look for since they are familiar with those documents. But, actually, We don't foresee any changes.”

Last year, illegal immigrants costs Oklahoma taxpayers more than $9.7 million in SoonerCare, Leaver said.

http://newsok.com/article/3163120/?print=1

photo: http://www.twafa.org.uk/Fascism/images/2boys.gif

Worth a Good Chuckle on a Saturday Morning

Why am I not surprised that this has happened, especially in Texas

News: November 2, 2007

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=556552

WilCo's Latest Snafu
Immigrant detention center
By Patricia J. Ruland

The dirty little secret is out: The T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center, a detention facility for immigrant families in Taylor, has employed undocumented workers, as well as contractors with criminal records. The revelation has put Williamson Coun­ty, which administers the center for owner-operator Correc­tions Corporation of America, in an embarrassing legal bind. The infractions, ironic as they are, were cited in an official reprimand of CCA by the U.S. Immigration and Cus­toms Enforcement and addressed to County Judge Dan Gattis on May 23. The reprimand only came to light in October, when WilCo commissioners began airing concerns about mounting liability. But it was an alleged sexual assault of a detainee by a guard on May 19 that was the most likely source of the county's jitters over liability. WilCo and CCA were to "ensure that such an incident not occur again," the reprimand stated.

Commissioners initially voted to notify ICE and CCA of the county's intention to terminate its contract, but they reversed course at their Oct. 9 meeting after CCA put on a pageant to save the lucrative deal. CCA employees pleaded for their jobs, and a teacher described her pride at teaching "Third World children who ... don't know how to use a toilet."

It was the liability issue that most consumed commissioners. CCA lawyer Jay Brown insisted that 2006 court decisions had strengthened commissioners' "governmental immunity" against such claims. The court took the bait, resolving to discuss the matter in executive session. However, the American Civil Liberties Union, which has won 10 lawsuits filed on behalf of 26 immigrant detainees, is currently analyzing the county's liability.

According to a far-reaching report – "Locking Up Family Val­ues: The Detention of Immigrant Families" – published by the Women's Commission for Refugee Women & Children and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Hutto staff and providers may have crossed the line numerous times. In an interview, the report's author, Michelle Brané, said the report addresses only the more serious documented incidents. In the medical wing, for example, pregnant detainees were X-rayed with no lead screen; detainees received dental work without anesthesia; pregnant women were not allowed milk and were shackled when taken outside the facility for checkups. Additionally, the report reveals that overheated water scalded children at times. To punish children deemed unruly, guards "would turn up the air conditioning so that the room became very cold" and would turn off hot water for bathing, the report states. But the worst offense was that so-called errant parents and their children lived under the threat of being separated.

Concerning the alleged sexual assault of a detainee, the question remains: Why was the guard not arrested or prosecuted? No one at the Oct. 9 commissioners' meeting seemed to know or care. CCA Senior Vice President Damon Hininger said the county was investigating the case, but Sheriff James Wilson said he didn't know the whereabouts of the case file and that District Attorney John Bradley had decided to forgo prosecution. FBI spokesman Erik Vasys said a subsequent federal inquiry was scrapped, too, but concurred that guard-on-detainee sexual contact is a felony in Texas and generally regarded as official oppression. Neither the sheriff's office nor the FBI has jurisdiction in the case, officials from both agencies said. Carl Rusnok, spokesman for ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility, said that the county's investigation "clearly established it was not sexual assault, after evidence and statements from the CCA employee and detainee indicated and established that the encounter was consensual." ICE believes the county should have the case file, since it served as the primary investigative agency. ICE also referred the case to the FBI for any potential federal charges. Ultimate­ly, on June 12, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Austin declined to prosecute the case. Two days later, ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility closed its case.

In any event, the alleged incident created a major stir. The detention facility was cordoned off, and a police officer noted in a report that an injury had occurred and a rape test was performed at a local hospital. But with no arrest, specific tapes or test results might never be disclosed. Detainees reacted in fear, Austin immigration lawyer Barbara Hines said. "Some of my clients were worried after the incident because they had adolescent daughters," Hines added. Generally, said Brané, author of the Hutto report, a climate of fear existed at Hutto, with alliances between detainees and guards forged for "protection." "I interpreted 'alliances' to mean 'favors,'" Brané said. That, coupled with the threat of separation from family members, could have contributed to a milieu of extortion, even retribution. ICE, too, grew concerned about detainee safety, noting in its reprimand, "Sub-contractors were found to have criminal histories that were not conducive to the family residential environment of the facility and those workers were denied access."

If law enforcement passed the buck on the alleged assault, ICE is currently assuming no blame for the 10 undocumented workers the agency arrested and deported. Nor is CCA at fault, according to Rusnok. "It is the responsibility of the provider of services [not CCA] including subcontractors to ensure the workers they provide have legal status," he said. Could it be that there's only one culprit left in the equation – the county?

As the Hutto story continues to unfold, immigration activists again this week called on officials to close the controversial detention center. A crowd of activists arrived at the Williamson County Courthouse Tuesday after a vigil and two-day walk from the facility in Taylor.

previously posted on Immigration Prof Blog

Nativism on Film: 9500 Liberty Project

Annabel Park and Eric Byler are a few of many young people around the country who are producing films on immigration. Check out their website: http://9500liberty.blogspot.com/

Raw Look at Immigration Crucible
Pr. William Web Serial Aims to Foster a Deeper, More Civil Discourse

By Nick Miroff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 3, 2007; A01

In one video, a man furious about hearing Spanish at a hardware store berates a group of Latino families with a lecture on American history, telling them "my ancestors were here before the Constitution." A little girl shyly reminds him: "The Indians were here before the Americans."

In another clip, a woman asks county officials not to forget "who was responsible for 9/11 -- illegals," while a man tells them, "Don't confuse the 9/11 with the 7-Eleven. . . . The guys at the 7-Eleven just want to work."

Other scenes show worried, frustrated residents denouncing a "foreign invasion" and warning of "civil war," to which one scowling young man taunts: "Bring it."

The illegal-immigration clash that has consumed Prince William County neighborhoods and government halls is now showing up in serial form on YouTube, archived and freely available in all its raw intensity.

The footage, posted by local filmmakers Annabel Park and Eric Byler, is neither pretty nor polished. But the couple adds a chapter nearly every day, offering all sides a chance to be seen and heard, as well as a forum for well-mannered debate to those willing to engage in it.

Park and Byler describe their project as an interactive documentary that aims to defuse tensions and explore the complexity of the issue. Their clips are loaded with the unfiltered emotions that have flooded county streets and county politics, but the filmmakers allow the material to stand on its own, without narration or commentary. A more complete documentary might come later, they say, but for now their goal is to edit and upload the footage as fast as possible to their site, http://www.youtube.com/9500Liberty.

"What you normally do is shoot, then edit, then enter film festivals," said Byler, 35, a Gainesville resident. "On that trajectory, people would see this film for the first time next summer. That's a long time to wait. If the movie is meant to create dialogue, why release it after things may have already shifted?"

With little more than a basic video camera and laptop computers, Byler, Park and a third partner, Jeff Man, have spent the past few months filming Prince William's efforts to enact the region's toughest measures targeting illegal immigrants. Before the county supervisors voted last week to cut off certain services to illegal immigrants and increase immigration enforcement by the police, Byler and Park recorded the session of emotional public testimony, which lasted more than 12 hours.

Excerpts of the testimony have been posted in installments on their site, along with their most-viewed clip, set at the so-called Liberty Wall in Manassas, which has been viewed more than 38,000 times.

The five-minute video tracks the fate of a large banner in Manassas that reads "Stop Your Racism to Hispanics" and hangs from the last wall of a recently demolished house at 9500 Liberty St. -- "at the intersection of Liberty and Prince William Street," the filmmakers note. The banner has been a symbol of the county's tension, as well as a target for it, having survived a dud Molotov cocktail attack only to later be ripped in half by vandals.

"People are writing to us and saying, 'What can we do?' " Park said. "They want to get involved."

Park, 39, was born in Korea but grew up in Houston and Rockville. Before Prince William became a flashpoint for the nation's immigration debate, she led a successful campaign for a U.S. House resolution urging Japan to apologize for the sexual enslavement of "comfort women" during World War II.

Since then, Park said she has declined several job offers from lobbying groups, opting instead to follow Prince William's rocky effort to rid its communities of illegal immigrants. Park said she and Byler, as Asian Americans, are able to bridge the conflict's undercurrent of antagonism between whites and Hispanics.

"We went into this feeling it was about election-year politics and racism," she said. "But the more we learn about it, the more we see how multifaceted it is."

In one video viewed 26,000 times in its first week, a group of Latino children run and play outside the chambers of the Board of County Supervisors, seemingly oblivious to the charged debate unfolding indoors. A Woodbridge high school teacher cautions the board's chairman, Corey A. Stewart (R): "The very people you are trying to oppress today, their children may rise up tomorrow and stand in judgment of you."

For Byler, an independent director whose 2002 film "Charlotte Sometimes" was hailed as a "breakthrough for Asian American filmmaking" by critic Roger Ebert, the roots of the 9500 Liberty project trace to George Allen's calling an Indian American "macaca" last summer.

Byler, the son of a white U.S. Army officer and a Chinese American mother, spent much of his childhood in Burke. He said he was teased often about his appearance.

"Watching George Allen look into the camera and point and say you are not the real Virginia, the real Virginia is the people who are laughing with me at you, reminded me of this whole thing that was never resolved," Byler said.

"I've always been sensitive to situations where people are being singled out."

After the macaca incident, Byler and Park moved back to Virginia from Los Angeles and volunteered for Democrat James Webb's Senate campaign against Allen, helping to raise money among Asian Americans.

Although they worked on a Democratic campaign and their video clips show a sympathy for Latino immigrants' fears about racism and discrimination, Byler and Park have sought to capture all sides of the debate on illegal immigration. One of their most-viewed videos shows a meeting of the anti-illegal immigrant group Help Save Manassas, and others include interviews with Stewart, whose reelection campaign slogan is "Fighting illegal immigration."

"They're really trying to do a service," said George Taplin, director of the Virginia chapter of the anti-illegal immigrant group Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, who appears in two videos about the now-defunct Herndon day-laborer center. Taplin praised the videos' fairness but said he thought the couple's editorial balance was missing in their administration of viewer comments on their YouTube page.

"What I'm seeing as far as the reaction is rhetoric and people calling each other names. That's not going to help anything," Taplin said. "You don't get dialogue going by fanning hatred and discontent."

Like Taplin, some viewers have accused Byler and Park of censorship for rejecting their comments on the 9500 Liberty page. Byler and Park maintain that they are trying to keep the discussion free of hate speech or racism, especially as viewings of their videos have increased and comments have begun arriving from viewers elsewhere in the United States and abroad.

"We don't approve the ones that are going to lead to violence," Byler said. Some of the hate-filled diatribes that arrived in the past week were so disturbing that they notified federal authorities, he said.

Byler says that viewers need to watch several of the videos to understand the larger picture of Prince William's illegal-immigration debate. The clips have appeared on blogs and elicited hundreds of comments. But despite the couple's efforts at peacemaking, there is little sign of reconciliation in their videos, though no shortage of resentment, fear and bitterness.

Still, Park said she is not discouraged.

"I see a lot of hope in this," she said. "Ultimately, the only way to heal the community is to work together to end the fighting and to collaborate on solutions that address the real grievances people have."

A Few Lessons on Immigration

Cycles of the Rio Grande
by Puretaos


Informing U.S. society about the mechanics of immigration has been difficult. The hysteria is growing no matter what anyone says. For those who still believe they could use a little information, here is a book review on three recent publications that speak about U.S.-Mexico immigration.

Borderlands
The fates of the United States and Mexico -- and of all their citizens -- are inextricably linked.

Reviewed by Pamela Constable
Washington Post
Sunday, November 4, 2007; BW03



REVOLUTION OF HOPE The Life, Faith, and Dreams of A Mexican President | By Vicente Fox and Rob Allyn | Viking. 375 pp. $27.95

EX MEX From Migrants to Immigrants | By Jorge G. Castaneda | New Press. 222 pp. $25.95 (forthcoming in December)

MONGRELS, BASTARDS, ORPHANS AND VAGABONDS Mexican Immigration and the Future of Race in America | By Gregory Rodriguez | Pantheon. 317 pp. $26.95

Relations between the United States and Mexico have long been poisoned by the problems of cross-border migration. The northward human flow has been welcomed by business but reviled by nativists, distorted by outside wars and catastrophes, and debated with equal hypocrisy and mistrust in what Vicente Fox, Mexico's president from 2000 to 2006, calls a "bleak pattern of mutual misunderstanding."

Most Americans today are probably not in the mood to listen to what Fox, or any other Mexican, has to say on the subject. With an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country, many Americans feel besieged by a tide of Spanish-speaking strangers, angry at the U.S. government for failing to stop it, and unsympathetic to the plight of people who break American laws to escape poverty their own leaders have failed to alleviate.

But there is another side to the story and thoughtful voices from across the Rio Grande that need to be heard amid the shrillness of this emotionally charged moment. They remind us that Mexico, too, is grappling with the issue of how to feed and keep its workers, that its leaders are also constrained by domestic politics and posturing, that its emerging democracy is making it a better neighbor. They also point out that Mexican Americans are a permanent part of our society and that Mexico's economic future is ultimately linked with ours.

Fox's book, Revolution of Hope, written in English and launched with a U.S. tour, makes a direct plea to the American people to see Mexican immigrants in a kinder light. He wants us to have patience with Mexico's fledgling efforts at political and economic reform, and to seek common solutions rather than building walls. His tone is often hyperbolic, but his message is heartfelt.

"A Mexican farm boy who crawls across the barbed wire at the Rio Grande desperately loves his homeland," Fox writes. "Only the gnawing hunger and low wages on one side of the border, and the golden promise of economic opportunity on the other" drive him to flee to an alien land where hard, dirty work awaits him.

Fox views these emigrants, whether legal or illegal, as both Mexican "heroes" and American assets. He argues that they are helping America compete with global rivals as well as providing Mexico with an economic safety valve.

A rancher known for blunt, salty language, Fox is both a proud, sentimental Mexican and an ardent admirer of America. He helped end 70 years of ossified one-party rule and took office in 2000, eager to open up Mexico's economy and seek a long-elusive immigration pact with Washington, banking on his friendship with President Bush.

But as he recounts with deep regret, the prospects for any agreement collapsed with the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001. A day of terror plunged Washington into a war Mexico could not support, and gave fearful, angry Americans "a pretext for acting out their xenophobia." At home, Fox's economic agenda was thwarted by domestic opponents, and his dream of peaceful democratic transition marred by an ugly election controversy.

In part, Revolution of Hope is an effort to redeem Fox's legacy. It is laden with bromides and self-indulgent asides -- the nostalgic memories of his childhood ranch, the gee-whiz accounts of visiting China or meeting the pope. He comes across as temperamental but guileless, self-absorbed but humble -- an appealing persona that has been further tarnished by recent reports of Fox's lavish, post-presidential lifestyle.

But the book becomes relevant to American readers only when Fox switches from "I" to "we." When he talks about Mexico's future, he is also talking about ours. When he lashes out at American insensitivity, he also criticizes Mexican isolationism. When he lauds the courage of illegal immigrants, he also rues Mexico's inability to pay them enough to stay. "Our greatest failure," he confesses, "is that they are leaving still."

Fox is premature in his vision of a North American common market where the free flow of goods and workers will benefit all sides. As long as wages are 10 times higher on one side, the flow will remain hopelessly lopsided. But he is prescient in his parallel arguments about the mutual opportunities and challenges faced by both countries, and about their inevitable need for each other in a tough global economy.

Revolution of Hope will not stop the furor over illegal Latino immigrants, but it does make us ponder the futility of building physical and emotional barriers against them. Mexico's own history, Fox points out, shows that "we cannot live forever with a wealthy few inside the walls and the masses locked outside." The American way of life, he adds, "cannot exist in a Fortress America."

Jorge G. Castaneda, a Mexican intellectual who served as Fox's foreign minister, covers much of the same ground in his forthcoming Ex Mex, but he makes a more tightly argued and documented case for the advantages of Latino immigration. His monograph, stuffed with statistics, strives for academic objectivity while acknowledging the author's pro-Mexican bias.

Castaneda focuses on several issues that help explain the sudden panic over a phenomenon many decades old. One is the collapse of "circularity," a longstanding Mexican tradition of seasonal labor migration to the States and back, which was halted by new immigration laws in the 1990s that stiffened penalties for immigrants caught sneaking in a second time. Several recessions in Mexico, an economic boom in the United States and implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement also exacerbated the influx of illegal immigrants.

Eventually the surge reached a "tipping point," he says, creating "the impression that the United States was literally being swamped." Mexican migrants also moved deeper into U.S. territory, putting down roots in communities with little exposure to immigrants, "bringing their families to join them in places where Spanish had never been spoken, chiles and tortillas were never eaten." The emotional backlash was "inexcusable," he writes, but also "understandable."

But Casta¿eda also argues persuasively that the "pull" factor luring illegal immigrants to U.S. jobs remains as strong as ever, and that they perform tasks that are too dirty or dangerous to attract native Americans. He focuses on meatpacking plants in Iowa, where federal immigration agents staged a series of raids in 2006. Despite public resentment of the workers, he says, 76 percent of local residents in one poll said immigrants "take jobs other Iowans don't want."

A sharp-eyed student of American politics, Castaneda offers a trenchant if jargon-filled analysis of the recent congressional debacle over immigration reform. He echoes Fox's urgent call for bilateral action, but he warns more coolly that nothing, neither walls nor deportations, will stop poor Mexicans from crossing the Rio Grande until the region's severe economic imbalance begins to change.

Despite its unappealing title, Gregory Rodriguez's Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds provides a fascinating excursion through the history of Mexican immigrants in the United States. Full of instructive revelations and forgotten facts, the book shows how the treatment and status of immigrants have always been hostage to the vicissitudes of history -- from the Gold Rush to the invasion of Iraq.

The best sections of this book by a MexicanAmerican columnist for the Los Angeles Times cover events that occurred long ago. But by putting the current tensions in a solid historical context, Rodriguez offers hope that they too will eventually subside and be followed by a cooler spell in which a lasting, more rational solution can prevail over the politics of fear and bigotry.

He first traces the racial history of the Spanish colonial era, when inhabitants were rigidly stratified according to their mix of Indian, black and European blood ("Spaniard and Indian beget mestizo, Mestizo and Spanish woman beget castizo . . . . Barcino and mulatto woman beget coyote" and so on). Moving into the post-independence era, he explores Mexico's northern cities like San Antonio and Los Angeles, where the mestizo populace was increasingly challenged by Anglo settlers.

The U.S. defeat of Mexico's army in 1848 was a victory for both American slavery and territorial expansion, but the war also sparked debate over "the character of the Mexicans," whom many whites viewed as a lowly "mongrel race." "Even as their nation expanded," Rodriguez writes, "Americans recoiled in horror at the thought of absorbing an alien population."

During the next century, millions of Mexicans immigrated to the United States. Some managed to rise in society, but far more remained marginalized and subject to abuse and discrimination from Anglo vigilantes, bosses and pioneers. At the same time, American dependence on cheap labor from Mexico became an enduring fact: Workers were first press-ganged to build highways or pick fruit, then brought in seasonally under the "bracero" temporary labor program. Yet American society remained ambivalent, welcoming these workers in prosperous times and turning nativist during recessions.

Today the country is full of frenzied alarm once more, and neither Fox's personal plea, Castaneda's reasoned arguments nor Rodriguez's history lesson can compete with the fear and anger of the times. But on a calmer day, such thoughtful voices may yet find an audience among concerned Americans who realize that the fate of Mexico's economy, democracy and human populace is inextricably linked with ours.





Pamela Constable is a staff writer and former foreign correspondent for The Washington Post. She has reported periodically from Mexico and Central America since 1983.

image: http://puretaos.com/artists/ArmsBill/CyclesOfTheRioGrande.shtml

Countering Anti-Immigration With TV ADS

What can be done in this rabid anti-immigrant environment? It has been relatively easy to report on people being detained, laws being enacted, and the U.S. Senate bickering. However, its been near impossible to write about how to respond to this dilemma. The protests helped initially, but once the anti-immigrant side organized itself, there was no stopping the negative avalanche.

Now for a change, there is a group countering the new anti-immigrant measures...with PR - the Ayuda Business Coalition is making a statement with its new ads regarding immigration to be aired on CNN.

Hopefully this is just the beginning.

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Immigration Ad to Air This Weekend
Latino Group's Counterpoint Precedes Virginia Election
By Cecilia Kang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 3, 2007; D01

A regional group of Latino business leaders is launching a television advertising campaign this weekend in hopes of countering anti-illegal-immigrant measures they fear will spread throughout Virginia.

The centerpiece is an ad that claims to show what happened when Riverside, N.J., passed a resolution penalizing employers who had hired illegal immigrants. Images of empty buildings and signs of shop liquidations and closures flash across the screen. The ad explains that Riverside rescinded its measure one year later.

"The moral: Virginia, let's be careful what we wish for," a narrator warns.

The ads are scheduled to air throughout Virginia on CNN several times over the weekend and on Tuesday, when the state is scheduled to hold elections.

In buying the commercial time, the business group, Ayuda Business Coalition, is taking a decidedly different approach in its fight against recent crackdowns on illegal immigrants than other groups, which have organized work boycotts and demonstrations.

"We want to do this in an organized way that doesn't expose us to look like we aren't respectable or disciplined," said Mariano Claudio, a coalition member.

Coalition members fear the recent passage of an anti-illegal-immigration resolution in Prince William County has created momentum for state legislators to introduce similar measures in the General Assembly when it convenes in January. Prince William lawmakers limited some social services to illegal immigrants and stepped up enforcement efforts against those who have been convicted of crimes.

"Some call what happened in Prince William a success. Our longer-term goal is to start building effective arguments for what we know is a fight coming in Richmond," said Mauricio Vivero, executive director of District-based immigrant advocacy group Ayuda, which is running the project.

The Ayuda Business Coalition encompasses about 100 business leaders and includes the head of the Salvadoran American Chamber of Commerce and Carlos Castro, the owner of Todos Market. The group said it has raised $100,000 for lobbying and media advertising. Sosa and Associates, a Latino-owned public relations firm, produced the TV commercial for free...


for complete article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/02/AR2007110201891_pf.html

Missouri Gov: Hunt Down Illegal Immigrants

An editorial in the Oklahoman criticizes people comparing the current anti-immigration avalanche with Kosovo or Darfur. Its true that only a few thousand have died (in the desert). But the numbers are growing. What is happening in even larger numbers is an ancient term banishment. In ancient Greece and Rome banishment was often used instead of execution.

Is it necessary to use the term "hunt down?" It sounds downright barbaric and a lot like ethnic cleansing. Its the new catch praise in Missouri. see below:

----
States turning up heat on illegal immigrants
By Carey Gillam
Reuters
Thursday, November 1, 2007; 2:01 PM
In the Washington Post

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - Minor traffic violations do not usually warrant a press release from a governor. But when state police stopped a van on a Missouri road for "following too closely" and found it was carrying 10 presumed illegal immigrants, Gov. Matt Blunt was quick to tout the incident as part of a new state program to hunt down undocumented aliens.

"We will make every effort, implement every tool, and take every step to ensure the laws against illegal immigration are enforced," declared Blunt, announcing the arrests as he pursued tough new measures to push undocumented immigrants out of the state.

Missouri's efforts are among several now being seen around the nation as state and local officials race to make their territory as unappealing as possible for the nation's estimated 12 million undocumented individuals.

The campaign has drawn the ire of religious organizations, civil rights groups and some employers, who argue the actions are unfairly harassing and intimidating both illegal and legal immigrants.

"You're starting to see this around the country. They're trying to scare people and they're saying 'We don't want you here,"' said William Sanchez, lead attorney for the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, which has filed suit to stop a new Oklahoma law that became effective Thursday.

Immigration law historically has been the role of the federal government. But Congress has deadlocked on efforts at immigration reform, frustrating those outside Washington who say illegal immigration puts a strain on schools, health care, and other community services and costs Americans jobs.
UNPRECEDENTED ACTIVITY

Forty-three states enacted 182 immigration-related laws this year, "an unprecedented level of activity," according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

More than two dozen cities and counties have also introduced measures aimed at curbing illegal immigration, though many have been turned back by legal challenges.

Measures vary widely but many focus on penalizing employers of undocumented workers, restricting public benefits, and making it hard for illegals to find places to live.

Oklahoma's new law is widely seen as the toughest in the nation, making it a felony to transport or harbor people without legal status, requires local law enforcement and businesses to enforce federal immigration restrictions, and reduces public benefits for illegal immigrants.

"Illegal aliens will not come to Oklahoma or anywhere else if there are no jobs waiting for them. They will not stay here if there is no government subsidy," said the law's sponsor, Oklahoma Rep. Randy Terrill, a Republican who believes the measure will make illegal immigrants "self deport."

Both critics and supporters said the punitive measures could prompt thousands to flee the state, a factor that has lawmakers in other states eyeing similar measures.

"We are drafting our own legislation patterned after Oklahoma," said Utah Sen. Bill Hickman. "We're developing two different groups in society - those that have to obey the law and those that don't. Society can't function very well that way."

Critics of the crackdown say local and state lawmakers have no constitutional authority to try to enforce immigration law, and the crack down is making it hard to find workers.

"Reform of immigration law should occur through Congress. It is a federal issue," said the Rev. Steve Copley, a United Methodist pastor. This week he announced the formation of the Arkansas Friendship Coalition, which opposes laws targeting immigrants. Tyson Foods Inc. and Alltel Corp. officials are among the members.

"We're a nation of immigrants and the same hopes and dreams they share are the same hopes and dreams most of us share about a good life for our families," said Copley.

In Missouri, Gov. Blunt has taken the opposite tact. Not only is he pushing state law enforcement to verify immigration status of people suspected of crimes, but also ordered audits of state contractors to ensure their employees are legal.

Over the last two months, Missouri law enforcement has arrested 85 people after immigration checks and has worked out a deal with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to designate certain county jails to hold detainees.

"This is how we're doing business henceforth," said Missouri director of public safety Mark James. "We have 1,000 highway patrol, 100 water patrol and 30 to 40 capital police officers to work on this. If we can help that cause, then we're doing something proactive."

(Additional reporting by Ben Fenwick in Oklahoma City)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/01/AR2007110101107_pf.html

Felonies and Lost In-State Tuition in Oklahoma

The Oklahoman conveniently does not mention that people who give undocumented people rides in their cars can be charged with a felony.



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Churches witness immigration policies playing out among Latino families
The Oklahoman
November 2, 2007
By Lillie-Beth Brinkman

There are stories like that of two sisters – one who can go to college on in-state tuition and the younger one who won’t because of changes in Oklahoma’s new state law, effective Nov. 1. Because of deportation fears, some people in the community are too scared to call police for legitimate reasons, such as domestic violence. Rumors spread that families are moving out of state due to recent law enforcement crackdowns based on existing federal immigration laws..[Father] Taylor has noticed a slight decline in the numbers of those who attend mass at his church regularly.

“People are very nervous about things right now,” Taylor said. “It’s really hard to live in a community and hear people say they don’t want you here.”

The new Oklahoma law known as House Bill 1804 will, among other things, require employers to check legal documentation in hiring and will restrict the state-offered benefits available to illegal immigrants, including access to in-state tuition at Oklahoma’s higher education institutions. It does not prevent emergency health care for undocumented immigrants or keep them from attending public schools in Oklahoma.

At the federal level, lawmakers continue to debate immigration issues such as whether to require employers to match Social Security numbers with a proper name.

And recently, local law enforcement officers worked with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in raids targeting violent street gang members. The actions led to the arrest of 65 people, many of whom were in the United States illegally and eligible for deportation.

The Catholic churches are working to reassure their parishioners and provide them with the information they need about the laws. Both Sacred Heart and Little Flower Catholic Church have been trying to get information to the public through recent workshops and informational meetings.

“I think the majority of the people know what is going on,” the Rev. Jenaro De La Cruz of Little Flower Church. He said he urges his parishioners not to be scared and said that many of them are already permanent U.S. residents or American citizens.

For the church, immigration is a moral issue.

“The Catholic Church’s position is that we respect every single human person. Each person has an intrinsic dignity from God,” said The Most Rev. Eusebius J. Beltran, archbishop of the Archdiocese in Oklahoma City.

“When we see something that is unjust, against the person, we take exception to it and we try to change it.”

Beltran said that the Catholic Church considers U.S. immigration policies to be unjust, especially because many of the people coming to this country aren’t given a fair hearing. Some have been waiting since the early- to mid-1990s for a hearing on their immigration status; until their case is heard, they cannot work in this country legally.

“As a result, many of those people especially from Mexico and Central America, come to the United States illegally,” he said “They come out of desperation. They come seeking a better life for themselves and their families.”

The new Oklahoma law may also jeopardize some services that agencies provide to Latino residents who are in this country illegally. Taylor wondered, for example, whether there would be repercussions for a church if the child of an undocumented worker goes on a church ski trip. Right now, it is unclear what fallout will occur from the Oklahoma law, which is being challenged in court by the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders.

Taylor thinks any law regarding immigrants should “facilitate immigration so it can be done in an orderly way,” he said.

“People have a God-given right to immigrate,” Taylor said. “The right to immigrate is not absolute. It has limits. But it is a God-given right.”

Others disagree, saying that the 500,000 or so immigrants who come to the United States illegally each year should not have access to the government’s resources and that they take jobs away from U.S. citizens.

Taylor contends that people have a right and an obligation to provide for their families, and for many Hispanics, the only way to do so is to come to the United States for jobs, Taylor said.

“People who come here looking for a better future [sic]come here seeking something good,” Taylor said.


http://newsok.com/article/keyword/3162653/

Democracy Now - Immigration & the 2008 Presidential Election

Richardson is garnering more support due to the GOP's extreme antipathy towards immigration. Mel Martinez resigned as resigned as Chair of the RNC, Lionel Sosa, a strong Republican supporter has decided to back Richardson.

Amy Goodman discusses these issues along with recent statements of anti-immigration rhetoric on today's program.


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AMY GOODMAN: The 2008 presidential election is a year from this Sunday. Although immigration is not yet a major campaign issue, it is one that presidential hopefuls can’t afford to ignore. At 15% of the population, Latinos form the largest non-white community in the United States, and Latino voters are an increasingly important constituency.

And Latino support for the Republic Party is steadily dropping. Lionel Sosa, a longtime Republican supporter and Hispanic marketing consultant, announced Tuesday he will no longer back Republicans, is instead supporting New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Sosa said Republican presidential hopefuls are “fighting to see who is more anti-immigration,” he said.

Sosa’s defection comes on the heels of the abrupt resignation of Senator Mel Martinez of Florida as the chair of the Republican National Committee. Martinez also cited frustration with his party’s anti-immigrant [tenor]. Countrywide, Latino support for Republicans has been slipping since 2004, when over 40% of Latinos voted for George W. Bush. In 2006, this dropped to less than 30%. Pollster John Zogby said last year that the Republican campaign against illegal immigration is “a key factor in Hispanic disillusionment.”

Rightwing radio hosts have played an important role in the anti-immigrant campaign. Let's turn now to an excerpt of Savage Nation host Michael Savage’s radio broadcast on July 5th of this year. This is Michael Savage commenting on a student-led fast in San Francisco that called for immigration reform.

MICHAEL SAVAGE: Then there’s the story of college students who were fasting out here in the Bay Area. They’re illegal aliens, and they want green cards simply because they’re students. I don’t understand how this two and two adds up. I would say: let them fast ’til they starve to death. Then it solves the problem, because then we won’t have a problem about giving them green cards, because they’re illegal aliens. They don’t belong here, to begin with. They broke into the country. They're criminals. Why do I owe them a green card? Because they're going to my colleges for free? This makes no sense at all. Go give your talents to your home country. Go be an engineer there. You stole the education from us; now give it back to your home country. Go make a bomb where you came from. This is unbelievable.

AMY GOODMAN: That was rightwing radio host Michael Savage on July 5.

To discuss the growing importance of immigration in the coming election, I’m joined by two guests. Jorge Mursuli is the national executive director of Democracia USA, a national nonpartisan Latino civic engagement project founded in 2004 by People for the American Way. Deepak Bhargava is the executive director of the Center for Community Change, a forty-year-old community building group based here in Washington, D.C. We welcome you both to Democracy Now!

Jorge, let’s start with you. Talk about Hispanic/Latino voting strength in this country now. What are the states we're talking about where we’re actually going to see a majority minority in this country?

JORGE MURSULI: Well, I mean, I think that obviously there are states like California that have over three million Hispanic voters; you have Texas, obviously, and New York and Illinois, that sort of make up a large bulk. But what you're starting to see in the Southwest, in states like New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, is that that’s really where a lot of the population is moving to, that’s really where the significant gains are being made electorally for the Hispanic community. And then you have, sort of on the other side, you have Florida, who is not only growing in terms of -- continuing to grow in terms of electorally, but also demographically you’re starting to see a much more progressive voting population there. So that’s really the way to look at it, I think.

I mean, clearly, outside of that, you have a lot of new communities that are -- the truth of the matter is that one of the reasons you're seeing a lot of these local anti-immigrant ordinances is because you’re starting to see Hispanic populations or immigrant populations, in general, in the places that people have never seen them before: Raleigh, Durham, you’re starting to see Georgia; Omaha, Nebraska; Iowa; Oregon; etc. So, I mean, it really is happening everywhere, but where we're looking at it in ’08 is, I believe, you know, Florida, the four states that I mentioned in the Southwest, and then you have, of course, the stalwart, the foundations, which is California, Texas, Illinois and New York.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to play an excerpt of Bill O'Reilly's radio program. This was recorded by the media watch group Media Matters, which has posted the clip on its website.

BILL O’REILLY: America is run primarily by white Christian men, and there is a segment of our population who hates that, despises that power structure. So they, under the guise of being compassionate, want to flood the country with foreign nationals -- unlimited, unlimited -- to change the complexion -- pardon the pun -- of America. Now, that's hatred, too. […]

Now, this is a theme of the New York Times, that if you oppose the immigration bill, that you hate Latinos. Now, there's a segment that does, but most oppose it on policy. They just think it's bad policy, rewarding bad behavior. Bad policy. But the New York Times, which is an open-border, “OK, let everybody in” concern -- that's what they want, because they want a totally different power structure in America.

Number one, they realize that 40 million new citizens -- and that's, you know, probably the estimate that if you let all the illegal immigrants and all their extended families come here, which is what the New York Times want, would wipe out the two-party system. You'd only have a Democratic party, because new immigrants are probably going to break three-to-one Democrat, and that's what the New York Times wants. But more than that, they want to change the white Christian male power structure. That's what they want.

Now, these are hidden agendas. The New York Times would never cop to that, ever, but if you read consistently their editorials, they have no solution to border security. They don't want any sanctions on illegal aliens who come here and even commit crimes. They want criminal aliens to stay. And they don't want any sanctions on businesses who continue to hire illegal aliens even after the Z visa is issued.

It's an open border: "Let them all in, anybody who wants to come here." That's insane. We don't have America then. America disappears. That's where Pat Buchanan is right. You let that happen, there's no more United States of America. It's gone. You have United States of the World, because everybody comes here with no restrictions. So you've got racism on the anti-Latino front, and you have racism on the anti-Christian white male front. Aha! Isn't that interesting?

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Bill O'Reilly in his radio show. This is a nation run by “white Christian men,” and immigrants don’t like this, which is why they’re coming here. Your response, Deepak?

DEEPAK BHARGAVA: Well, we’re seeing a real campaign of racialized hate in this country. And I wish it was just this talk shows and Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage, but we’re actually seeing it play out in government policy.

So, just a couple stories to give you a flavor for how deeply and profoundly this is going wrong. Edimar, a thirty-four-year-old Brazilian immigrant was stopped this August in Rhode Island, routine traffic stop, picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, put in custody, wasn’t allowed access to his medication; he died an hour later.

Second story, Peggy --

AMY GOODMAN: His mom tried to bring --

DEEPAK BHARGAVA: His sister tried to -- pleaded with the police to allow them to bring him his medication, was denied. He died.

Second story, Peggy, a homeowner in Long Island, for the second time her home was raided by ICE for somebody who didn’t in fact live there and had never lived there. Her family was terrorized for hours. Peggy is a United States citizen.

So we're seeing this administration unleash a wave of terror in communities, and it’s clearly targeting Latino communities. There’s explicit racist hate talk radio and television that’s pumping up the volume. We're in a very, very dangerous place in the United States, in terms of the level of the discourse.

AMY GOODMAN: Have you seen, Deepak, the Latino, the Hispanic community changing -- I mean, this pulling away from the Republican Party because, though they may disagree over immigration themselves --

DEEPAK BHARGAVA: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: --and immigration policy, the way it’s being addressed?

DEEPAK BHARGAVA: It’s clearly become an issue not just for undocumented immigrants, or even for legal immigrants, but Latinos who have been in the country for many generations are finding themselves attacked and scapegoated, being told they don’t belong in the United States. And I think this is producing a tidal wave of response in Latino communities to this level of hate. What we have yet to see is a response from other communities, where we see a response to this kind of hate.

AMY GOODMAN: What are you doing at Democracia USA, Jorge, around the country? How are you organizing for the election?

JORGE MURSULI: Well, in a lot of different ways. Obviously, we are -- we hope that we are able to, and I think we will be able to, take this sort of this angst, you know, the anxiety, this sort of reaction that you’re seeing in immigrant communities -- in the Hispanic community, in particular -- against this kind of vitriol that we're seeing from the rightwing conservatives in this country, like what we just heard, and turn that into electoral power, teach folks in communities that may not have had that -- the voting registration experience, may not know how to register, may not know how to vote, but certainly know, “My god, I now have to get involved. I now have to do something, because the kinds of things that I’m hearing are sort of unacceptable.” So we're certainly doing that.

We're also helping people organize in communities around issues that are important to them. Some of them have to do with immigration. There’s like, I think, 220-something local municipalities that have dealt with anti-immigrant ordinances, where the hate has been really real obvious. Ordinances are being passed where they’re fining landlords for $1,000 a day, for example, for renting to quote/unquote "illegal aliens." These kinds of things are happening to people. Their families are being separated, as the examples that you just heard. They're very dramatic kinds of things; they’re not just policy. And that is, I think, the issue for most Hispanics, is that these are not just policy issues. These are life-changing issues. They’re very dramatic in many instances.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you surprised when Mel Martinez quit as head of the RNC?

JORGE MURSULI: You know, that’s a good question. I don’t know that surprise -- I guess I wasn’t surprised, because in the end, when you have an immigrant experience, it’s hard for you to separate yourself from that. You know. He’s a Peter Pan kid. He was separated from his parents.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean by “Peter Pan kid.”

JORGE MURSULI: Peter Pan -- Cuban immigrants in the early ’60s who wanted to see where the revolution was going sent their kids to the United States through the Catholic Church. And thousands and thousands of kids were separated from their parents, some of them for six, seven, eight years, before their parents got here from the United States. He was one of them.

He knows about family separation. He knows about what it’s like to be in a country and not understand the language and have to sort of create a new life. And he has been one of those people that has benefited from the opportunities and the American dream. He’s a great example of that, and, you know, regardless of his ideology. So at the end of the day, I think that stung him, and the fact that his colleagues were speaking of immigrants in such disparaging manner had to have stung him in many ways.

AMY GOODMAN: And the changing Cuban population in Florida?

JORGE MURSULI: Well, that’s a very interesting thing. I mean, there’s several ways to look at it. The demographic is changing in several ways, where Cubans are no longer the majority in Florida. There’s also within the Cuban community a huge shift from the Republican to the Democratic Party. And part of that has to do with two reasons. One is that the younger Cubans have a tendency to think differently about the relationship between this country and Cuba, and thus the -- all that rhetoric that I think the Republican Party sort of feeds off. But additionally, there’s also lots of Cubans that arrived in the ’80s and the ’90s that have a different, also, immigration experience from the elders. So what you're seeing is those sort of rightwing folks have a tendency to be, you know, sixty, seventy, eighty years old. And, of course, you know, nobody lives forever, so I think that demographic is slowly changing.

However, I mean, it’s not so black and white. We still have to continue to invest in those communities. We still have to sort of introduce them to the democratic process with a progressive point of view.

AMY GOODMAN: Deepak, voter ID laws, how do they affect the immigrant community?

DEEPAK BHARGAVA: This is a huge new issue, so states are passing voter ID laws across the country that may be targeting immigrants, to start, but their effect is not only to discourage immigrants, but low-income people, African Americans, seniors, anybody who’s unlikely to have documentation or driver’s license, are being discouraged from participating. And it should be noted that it’s really extending to the mainstream community. So, Oklahoma, a law went into effect yesterday that would make it a crime, with up to a year in prison, to transport an undocumented immigrant, even if you're saving them from a fire, from a flood, taking them to the emergency room. So we’re seeing a level of criminalization that’s not just going to chill immigrant communities.

AMY GOODMAN: So you see a person who is in a car accident --

DEEPAK BHARGAVA: Correct.

AMY GOODMAN: -- and you want to race them to the hospital --

DEEPAK BHARGAVA: Yes, and it would be a crime --

AMY GOODMAN: -- you’re supposed to ask them for their papers.

DEEPAK BHARGAVA: You’re supposed to ask them for their papers, and if they’re undocumented, you’re supposed to leave them at the side of the road.

AMY GOODMAN: And this has gone into effect in Oklahoma.

DEEPAK BHARGAVA: It is the law of the land in Oklahoma. I’m sure there will be constitutional challenges to it. But we are seeing a kind of race to the bottom now, with states and localities competing to see how badly they can treat immigrants and immigrant supporters. And I think it’s a campaign, really, to chill participation in these communities, and also it’s a campaign to chill support for these communities from other progressive allies.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, how are you organizing against this?

DEEPAK BHARGAVA: Well, we’re supporting community groups around the country to fight these ordinances and fight these state initiatives, and we’re trying to do outreach to other communities -- the religious community, progressives, African Americans -- so we can build a wall of solidarity against this hate that we’re facing.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you both for being with us, Jorge Mursuli, national executive director of Democracia USA, and Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change, based in Washington, D.C.

To purchase an audio or video copy of this entire program, click link to DN website or call 1 (888) 999-3877.


transcript of interview: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/02/1336244

Rick Noriega's Campaign For Senate

You may recall that Texas has in-state tuition for DREAM ACT students thanks to Texas State Legislator Rick Noriega.

His opponent is John Cornyn who voted against the DREAM ACT in October 2007. The group Democracy for America is gathering signatures to in support of Noriega's campaign nationally.

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Democracy for America (DFA) is one of the largest grassroots, membership organizations in the country. DFA is a political action committee dedicated to supporting fiscally responsible, socially progressive candidates at all levels of government -- from school board to the presidency.

The national organization took note in September when Rick became the first candidate to ever win an endorsement of Democracy for Texas, the DFA state level group.

Now, Democracy for America has promised to officially back Rick if we can collect 5,000 signatures on a petition hosted on DFA's website. Click below to help us reach that goal!

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/supportrick

This endorsement will send a huge message to people all across America about how Texans are ready for a new U.S. Senator. Winning this endorsement will have a strong impact on many other national organizations taking notice of what we've begun here in Texas.

Add your voice via the link below and join the chorus calling on DFA to endorse Rick!

http://www.democracyforamerica.com/supportrick

More voters, elected officials, and organizations have been pledging to vote for Rick every day.

Let's add Democracy for America to the growing list.

Sincerely,

Sue Schechter
Campaign Manager
Noriega for Texas
Democrat for U.S. Senate
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photo: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1018/832071828_7fe38df35b_m.jpg

Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats

How far will Democrats run as the pressure increases?

Where to go now if the Democrats have run over their own type of fence - trying to get away from anything that looks like empathy towards undocumented immigrants.?

If Richardson doesn't join them, he may actually be worth voting for. Lets see what happens when the pressure is on for him to join the pack.

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Roberto Lovato
Don't Look to Democrats for Immigrant Rights

Posted November 1, 2007 | 03:42 PM (EST)
Huffington Post



After the death of the DREAM Act last week, Monday's Democratic debate gave immigrants and their defenders even more to mourn. Sen. Chris Dodd, who has tried to court immigrant votes with his Spanish fluency, floated a new campaign tactic. Dodd declared that drivers' licenses are "a privilege, not a right," referring to New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposal to offer a different type of licenses to undocumented immigrants. Sen. Hillary Clinton flip-flopped around the issue. "They are driving on our roads," said Clinton, only to dispute Dodd's claim that she supported the policy.

The real threat looming on the electoral horizon is that more and more Democrats are joining Republicans in capitulating to the public antipathy against immigrants.

Among these disconcerting developments were statements about immigration made last week by Illinois Democratic Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the powerful chairman of the House Democratic Caucus and an architect of the Democratic congressional victories of 2006. Immigration "has emerged as the third rail of American politics, and anyone who doesn't realize that isn't with the American people," Emanuel was quoted as saying. He also added, "This issue captures all the American people's anger and frustration not only with immigration, but with the economy. This is a big problem."

As one of the top Democrats central to plotting strategy and raising money towards their 2008 campaigns, Emanuel is nothing less than dangerous. Such statements mean that candidates and incumbents need to stay away from immigration issues. Dodd's anti-immigrant debut and Clinton's vacillation seamlessly follow the script written by the Democratic moneymen and strategists like Emmanuel. And the debate was just the latest performance.

Consider the theatrics given us by the crop of recently elected "pragmatists" like Montana Sen. Jon Tester and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill. Both ran to the hard right of even the most basic immigration reforms earlier this year. And when the DREAM Act came up for a vote last Tuesday, they joined the Republicans in denying the "dream" to immigrant students.

To know where this comes from one needs to look back to 1994 -- the beginning of contemporary anti-immigrant politics in the form of California's Proposition 187, which sought to deny health and education benefits to the children of the undocumented. Most students of immigration politics trace the origins of the Republican anti-migrant kulturkampf (culture war) to then-California Gov. Pete Wilson and the Republican Party. But along with Wilson and his dour republicans, Pres. Bill Clinton also played a major role.

As the search for a new approach to immigration politics begins, it is important to remember that the exponential increase in immigrant deaths in the desert began not with the patrols of aging Minutemen but with Clinton, who launched "Operation Gatekeeper" in 1994. Two years later, Clinton also signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) in the wake of the Oklahoma bombing, which criminalized immigrants, and subsumed immigration law under criminal law, in a process some legal scholars call "crimmigration."

That the Democrats are, once again, starting to march against migrants is less a signal to the Republican movement than a sign of something else. Rather than continue DREAM Acting with Democrats, the immigrant rights movement may see the need to get back to what first brought immigrants -- and many in this country - hope: power-building and direct action like last year's marches.

The very possibility of the DREAM Act and of "immigration reform" itself was not born in the rotting bosoms of the two parties. It was born of dreaming and acting on the part of those with nothing to lose. Elections and politicians alone will not solve either the immigration crisis or the even greater general social crisis that approaches. Politicos need to be inspired by or scared of immigrant power from below.

Until immigrant power makes itself better known through intelligent strategy and intrepid action, the Democrats will continue the rightward tilt seen in the recent debate and the DREAM Act will remain dead.

Time to DREAM -- and Act.

article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roberto-lovato/dont-look-to-democrats-f_b_70792.html?view=print

cartoon: http://www.hnsa.org/doc/pt/know/img/pg3.jpg

When Will Democrats Open Their Eyes About Immigration?

It finally hit Hillary in the face a few nights ago. She seesawed back and forth about driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants. Her colleagues pounced on her, but if they were put in the same specific situation what would they do?

Bill Richardson is the only one that has the courage to say something - or maybe he knows something the others don't. Perhaps he realizes that the 12 million know lots of voters - and believe it or not, could influence the election from the shadows.


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Issue of Illegal Immigration Is Quandary for Democrats
Many Voters Want a Tougher Stance Than Candidates Offer

By Perry Bacon Jr. and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 2, 2007; A04

Until Tuesday night, the Democratic presidential candidates had largely ignored the subject of illegal immigration. The topic, Democratic strategists concluded, was fraught with too much potential for alienating general election voters.

But after Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) struggled to answer a question during Tuesday's debate about whether she supports a proposal to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, the topic burst into the forefront of the primary campaign and exposed a quandary for Democratic candidates, who broadly embrace immigrant-friendly policies.

While voters are in line with Democratic positions on issues such as Iraq and health care, immigration remains a thornier subject. Polls suggest that most Americans want to allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country and create ways for them to obtain citizenship, but party strategists say the voters who care most about this issue are those angry about illegal immigration and want to hear a tougher message.

"The reality is that this is an issue where people support what Democrats have to say on a policy level, but Democrats do not reflect the emotional tone and intensity of the electorate," said Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist.

Immigration, chief Clinton strategist Mark Penn said, is emerging as "a new wedge issue" for Republicans, who will attempt to use it to paint Democrats as weak on border security.

When asked about New York Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer's proposal to provide driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, Clinton initially refused to answer, but her campaign put out a statement the next day saying she does support such as move.

The moment was more than just a stumble for the Democratic front-runner. It also illustrated the fine line Democrats, who depend heavily on the Hispanic vote and soft-pedal the idea of harsh penalties for people who enter the country illegally, will have to walk on the issue.

All of the Democratic contenders have embraced some form of "comprehensive reform" -- including a failed measure, backed by President Bush, that would have given about 12 million illegal immigrants a path toward legal citizenship. Most of the Republican presidential candidates opposed that legislation and have focused their rhetoric on improving border security.

Polls showed a majority of Americans supported that legislation, but two-thirds also thought the United States was not doing enough to stem the tide of illegal immigration, according to an ABC News poll taken in September. Among the Democratic presidential candidates, only Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) broke with Clinton and opposed the driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.

According to a CNN poll last month, 76 percent of Americans oppose giving licenses to illegal immigrants, compared with 23 percent who favor it.

Democracy Corps, a polling group run by Democratic strategists Stan Greenberg and James Carville, put out a memo this week addressing the challenges immigration presents to the party.

"Voters want control of the borders and workplace and recreating an immigration system that works and oppose driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, positions supported by two thirds of the country," said the memo, which was released before the debate.

But noting that many African Americans, a strongly Democratic group, oppose creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, they wrote "this is a real wedge issue that Democrats need to get right."

The complexity was underscored last month, when Democratic Rep.-elect Nikki Tsongas, wife of the late senator and presidential candidate Paul Tsongas of Massachusetts, barely won a special election for a Democratic-leaning congressional seat in Massachusetts after her opponent focused on illegal immigration, particularly Tsongas's backing of driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.

At a September forum in Miami hosted by the Latino television network Univision, Dodd, Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) were all sharply questioned about why they had voted in Congress to build a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border.

All three noted their support for broader rights for Latino immigrants, both legal and illegal, but they said tighter border security is important.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the only Hispanic in the Democratic presidential field, called the idea of a border fence "a terrible symbol."

But unlike the Republicans, who have been very specific in how they would fight illegal immigration, the Democrats have said little except when asked about the issue, not addressing the most explosive elements, such as whether to build a fence on the southern U.S. border or to give immigrants sanctuary in urban areas.

"Any Democrat who tried to use immigration as a wedge issue would find themselves without much of a constituency in the party," Penn said, explaining why it has not been a hot topic in the Democratic nominating contest.

Democratic strategists remain hopeful that the GOP's anti-illegal immigration rhetoric will hurt them among Latinos, a growing electoral group, 44 percent of whom voted for Bush in 2004, a number Democrats hope to shrink. The Republican contenders have skipped several forums hosted by Latino groups during the campaign.

After Tuesday's debate, a group of Democratic strategists moved to tamp growing fears among party candidates across the country, warning them not to duck the issue and coaching them on how to defuse the topic in a conference aimed at next week's off-year elections in Virginia and Arizona.

Former Clinton aide Simon Rosenberg, head of NDN, a Democratic think tank, said that despite Clinton's answer and Spitzer's problems in New York, Democrats will win the argument if they show they have a "big vision."

"The way this is going to be fought out is not over isolated incidents like this, but whether there are leaders in this country who have a big vision to solving a vexing problem," Rosenberg said. "Every Democrat in this country is for comprehensive immigration reform. The Republicans have a different position that doesn't poll as well: orienting themselves toward complaining instead of solving the problem."

Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.


article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/01/AR2007110102668_pf.html

photo:
http://a.abcnews.com/images/Politics/ap_richardson_070906_ms.jpg

Colleges as Immigration Enforcers

Arizona State University is in a predicament as are many other high ed. institutions around the country... and DREAM ACT students are caught in the middle.
-----
Arizona's Colleges Are in the Crosshairs of Efforts to Curb
Illegal Immigration
Sara Hebel,
Chronicle of Higher Education
November 2, 2007,


Arizona's strict new limits on educational benefits for undocumented
immigrants that took effect at the beginning of this year have brought
new scrutiny to the state's colleges and their students and forced
educators to assume an awkward role as enforcers.

In the wake of a ballot measure that nearly three quarters of Arizona
voters approved a year ago, officials at the state's community colleges,
universities, and Education Department have redirected thousands of
students and adult learners who are not legal residents of the United
States to privately financed scholarships and education programs. The
new law prevents those individuals from paying lower, in-state tuition,
receiving state financial aid, or enrolling in the state's
adult-education classes.

The institutions also have spent thousands of dollars revamping their
admissions and registration processes to meet the new law's requirements
that they begin to document their students' residency status and keep
track of how many people cannot verify they are living in the country
legally.

Michael M. Crow, president of Arizona State University, says
institutions are in a "difficult position" in the state's immigration
debate. As colleges put in place the requirements of the new law, known
as Proposition 300, he says, they are honoring their core educational
mission by working to help immigrant students struggling to pay the
higher tuition that the law requires such institutions to charge. At the
same time, college officials also know that a large number of state
residents would rather these immigrants be deported than enrolled in the
state's universities at all.

Other States Have Immigration Laws

Without federal action on broad immigration reforms, states like Arizona
are passing their own laws to try to deal with the growing number of
illegal immigrants who are arriving in their towns and to respond to the
urgent debates about what public resources should be available to those
immigrants. Ten states have enacted laws to specifically allow some
illegal immigrants who are graduates of state high schools to pay
in-state tuition at public colleges. (One state, Oklahoma, has repealed
its law, although some illegal immigrants will still be eligible for the
cheaper rates under the state regents' policy.)

Advocates of the approach argue that helping these students obtain a
higher education will pay economic dividends by training people who have
grown up in the United States to become part of a better-educated work
force.

Taking a different approach, Georgia has enacted a law that its colleges
believe prevents them from charging in-state tuition to any illegal
immigrants. The restrictions on educational benefits in Arizona, where
an estimated half-million undocumented immigrants live, are among the
broadest. Advocates of these policies say taxpayers should not have to
subsidize the higher education of individuals who have violated U.S.
immigration law.

During the first six months the Arizona law was in effect, more than
4,600 people in Arizona were denied state-based financial aid, prevented
from paying cheaper in-state tuition, or rejected from adult-education
classes, according to a report released this summer by the state's Joint
Legislative Budget Committee.

Colleges have no way of knowing how many other potential students did
not even show up at their doors because of the new law. But at the
state's largest community-college district, Maricopa, enrollment dipped
by 3 percent this fall, even though the region's population is growing.
Administrators believe the drop is due, at least in part, to Proposition
300.

"There are a lot of good students who have been impacted by this," says
Mary Lou Massal, dean of enrollment services at Glendale Community
College, which is part of the Maricopa district. She says her college,
for instance, can no longer provide state financial aid to help some
immigrant students who have participated in the institution's honors
program and a bridge program that helps prepare high-school students for
college.

Proposition 300 also has further complicated an already-complex mix of
state and federal laws on education and immigration, Mr. Crow says, that
leave institutions trying to respond to policies that seem to be at odds
with one other.

Arizona's Constitution, for instance, requires the state to educate
every child from the age of six to 21. The U.S. Supreme Court has also
ruled that public elementary and secondary schools must enroll all
children, regardless of immigration status. And the state's Board of
Regents requires that Arizona's three public universities admit all
applicants who meet certain academic criteria.

Now Proposition 300 adds another wrinkle by making it more difficult for
some of those qualified students who have attended the state's public
schools to afford to attend Arizona's colleges.

"For us," Mr. Crow says, "it's confusing."

Monitoring Private Donations

The new law also has brought greater scrutiny to university operations.

Dean Martin, who was the lead sponsor of Proposition 300 and is now the
state's treasurer, wants to ensure that the state's institutions are not
violating the new law by using public resources when their foundations
award privately financed scholarships to illegal immigrants, who now
face tuition that is more than three times as high as that of in-state
students.

Mr. Martin says he learned earlier this fall that Arizona State may have
used a process that violated the law as the university's foundation gave
out nearly $2-million in private scholarships to about 200 undocumented
students.

If employees of the university have any say in awarding the aid to
specific undocumented immigrants, Mr. Martin says, that would be
illegal, even though all of the foundation funds came from private
sources. That is because foundation funds would become public money if
they are deposited in university accounts before they are allocated to
students. He has asked the state's Board of Regents to investigate what
public universities are doing and to establish procedures for the
institutions to follow.

"My interest is less in saying 'I gotcha,' but rather in making sure
that everyone follows not only the letter but the spirit of the law,"
Mr. Martin says, especially since the ballot measure passed by such a
wide margin.

After local newspapers reported that funds from Arizona State's
foundation were going to support undocumented students, and that public
funds may have been involved in administering the aid, Mr. Martin says
his office was flooded with hundreds of calls, including about a dozen
from donors to the university who "were very upset."

But Mr. Crow says he does not know of a single donor who has called the
university to complain, though he says various other members of the
public have expressed their unhappiness that scholarships, even private
ones, go to undocumented immigrants.

Mr. Crow also says the university and its foundation have been following
the law in how they distribute scholarships. University officials
provide a list of students with financial need to the foundation, and
then the foundation alone decides who will receive the scholarships, he
says. Many undocumented immigrants have risen to the top of that list
and are receiving the private aid because they need aid more now that
they are charged out-of-state rates, he adds.

This fall, full-time in-state undergraduates pay close to $2,500 per
semester at Arizona State, while students considered to come from out of
state have to pay just over $8,500 per semester.

Community Colleges Reach Out

Elsewhere, Maricopa Community College officials also direct undocumented
students to the district's foundation to apply for scholarships that are
financed by private foundations and individual donors.

Steve Schenk, chief executive officer of the Maricopa Community Colleges
Foundation, says the foundation has long had some donors who have
specified that they want their money to be given only to U.S. citizens.
But he says no additional donors have put that restriction on their
gifts since Proposition 300 was passed.

In fact, in the wake of Proposition 300, he says, he has heard from a
handful of foundations and individuals who have specifically said they
want their money to go to help undocumented students.

Across the Maricopa district, which enrolls about 170,000 students at 10
institutions, the number of students who are counted as coming from out
of state more than doubled, to 11,000 this fall from 4,800 a year ago.
Officials say they believe Proposition 300 played a significant role.

Ms. Massal of Glendale Community College says her institution has
actively sought to reach out to students who were likely to be subject
to the new restrictions to encourage them to enroll and make them aware
of how they could reduce their tuition bills.

The college held informational forums about the law and called many
individuals, including students who were enrolled in
English-as-a-second-language classes and who were identified by groups
that serve the Hispanic community.

Some students were not aware that they could still enroll at all, Ms.
Massal says, and many others did not know they had options to reduce
costs, such as by taking fewer courses. At Maricopa district colleges,
students who are classified as out-of-state pay $90 per credit hour if
they take less than seven credits in a semester and $280 per credit hour
if they take seven or more. In-state students pay $65 per credit hour.

Meanwhile, at Arizona's Department of Education, officials are sending
some of the more than 1,400 adults, or about 12 percent of applicants,
who are blocked from the department's courses because of their
immigration status to private programs. In the aftermath of Proposition
300, more churches and other community groups are starting to offer
literacy, English-language, and other classes, says Karen Liersch, state
director of adult education services.

She is worried about what the effects of Proposition 300 will be in a
state where more than one in four people speak a language other than
English at home and more than 16 percent of people 25 years and older
have not completed high school.

"There is a big need for adult literacy," she says. "It's important for
the Arizona economy and the Arizona work force."

She and other educators in the state still hope that Congress will
eventually enact new federal laws to lessen the pressure on states and
their institutions to figure out how to respond to the constant flow of
people coming across their borders.

"The federal government is not doing its job," says Fred Boice,
president of the Arizona Board of Regents. As a result, he says, Arizona
voters obviously felt they needed to take control.

"To punish college students seems pretty severe," he says of how Arizona
residents responded in crafting Proposition 300. "But, in my view, it
was a frustration measure."

http://chronicle.com
Section: Government & Politics
Volume 54, Issue 10, Page A15


http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=sgcQdmdjhzgywrYgzmNGmf4gTwx5KJXs

Driving in New York - Part III A License is a Necessity NOT a Privilege

Do you think Senator Dodd really believes that driving is a privilege? If he does, then there is something wrong with his logic - How can anyone think that by denying undocumented immigrants driver's licenses this nation will be safer.

If people are so worried about terrorism, one possibility could be that passports be required to board planes. But for driving, everyone would have the same type of license that does not indicate different levels of security. That way by showing a license, undocumented drivers will not be at risk for being identified - and those paranoid against terrorism types could feel secure that only real Americans could board planes (of course that is assuming that all real Americans are law abiding).

Its strange that no one (that I know of) has proposed this idea. Maybe its because the U.S. is just using driving as another excuse to emotionally and financially torture undocumented people. For those of you that have lived in Los Angeles, Houston or other big metro areas with poor public transportation - you know that its torture not to drive a car.

Its also torture for a driver to be hit by a car driven by a person without a insurance.

-----
Charles Karel Bouley
Public Safety Is Illegal
Huffington Post
Posted October 31, 2007 | 01:15 PM (EST)


...[The] issue is, do we give driver's licenses to illegals. Sen. Dodd says hell no, driving is a privilege and we should not give privileges to those here illegally. He doesn't apply that same rule to health care because, well, after all, if the illegals get sick, we could get sick.

I wonder if I'm the only one that doesn't see the logic in that. If taking care of illegals is a public health issue, then why isn't them driving on our roads unlicensed and untrained a public safety issue? Guess spreading the flu is worse than running over someone or crashing in to a family of four on their way home from Dairy Queen.

The obvious answer to the question is, yes, everyone driving on the road should have a license no matter their immigration status. The DMV is not the INS. The federal government's failed border policy is not their problem or the problem of those of us that happen to drive in major cities like New York or Los Angeles, Miami or El Paso.

Of course it makes sense, Mrs. Clinton. And anyone that thinks it doesn't is caught up in the Republican propaganda machine vilifying those undocumented workers already here. But what's worse is they are advocating unsafe freeways and city streets. They claim to care about America and its sovereignty but not the people on its roads.

Driving is dangerous. Ten times the people die on our roads every year then on 9/11 and yet we do little to make them safer, truly safer. Of course, we have yet to make America safe after 9/11, so we don't really care, do we? I live in Los Angeles, and I don't see immigration status when I'm driving, only tail lights and sig alerts, freeway closures from fatal accidents, and yes, it's a standing joke here that when two cars collide 24 people are killed. Why is that funny? It's not, but it alludes to the fact that there have been several terrible accidents in which vans or cars filled with undocumented workers have crashed and multitudes of passengers are killed because they are crammed in to the vehicles tighter than 1970s college students in to a VW Bug.

Not licensing all drivers regardless of immigration status is like saying some pilots don't need to have pilot's licenses or train engineers needn't have any training. It's ludicrous.

Driving is not a privilege, it is a necessity. Very few American cities have adequate public transportation thanks to big oil. Urban areas are spread out so far that just going grocery shopping can wrack up 10 miles round trip. We have a love affair with cars, and have made cities accordingly (which, incidentally is why we are at war). Surviving without a car is next to impossible in some places, particularly if you are working two jobs and have a family.

I am not going to debate immigration here. Immigration is not the issue. Who is driving next to you in two tons of fiberglass and metal at high speeds is, and how and if they are qualified to do so.

Vehicles kill more people than terror in this country every year. Those vehicles are driven by people. Accidents happen to even the best of drivers. It seems absurd that we would not want to know that at least everyone on the roads have had some kind of test or training.

Hillary Clinton did make one mistake: she should have had the fortitude to stand up to these idiots and remind them their kids are strapped in car seats, just one mistake away from being broadsided.

Keeping everyone safe on American roads is a family value. It's a health and safety issue. And making sure everyone on the roads is licensed is not a matter of immigration, it's a matter of common sense.

There's a saying in my community, "we're here, we're queer, get used to it..." Well, there's a new saying in the new millennium. "They're here, they drive, get over it." Go ahead and stand on your moral high ground about how people in this country illegally deserve no benefits at all. Just be sure you're not standing on that high ground in the middle of an uncontrolled intersection where traffic is not visible for at least 100 feet in all directions. Someone who doesn't know the rules for approaching that intersection could send you flying in to the air 20 feet or so. And when you land, bleeding and broken, you can at least take comfort in the fact that you denied them the ability to learn how to drive by our rules and laws. It should be a comfort in intensive care.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-karel-bouley/public-safety-is-illegal_b_70587.html

4437 Resurrected in Oklahoma

In an Oklahoma repeat of what the House of Representatives did in the winter of 2006, the Oklahoma legislature has passed a law that makes it a "felony to harbor or transpost undocumented works" and "presents illegal immigrants who arrested from posting bond."

The law goes into effect this week, but Catholic Charities of Oklahoma City has decided to continue to "serve the needy regardless of their immigration status."

What didn't happen in Washington is occuring in the states. Both aspects of the law - the charge of felony for transporting or harboring and the prohibition against posting bond - can be questioned as to their legality.

The ACLU should pick up on the prohibition against posting bond, which is clearly an abuse of Human Rights.

----
October 31, 2007
Houston Chronicle
Blog post by Mizanur Rahman

Sweeping law targeting illegal immigration looms

All eyes are on Oklahoma this week where one of the most stringent anti-illegal immigration laws in the country goes into effect Thursday.

The sweeping law would prohibit illegal immigrants from getting jobs and state benefits, and would make it a felony to harbor or transport undocumented workers. The law also prevents illegal immigrants who arrested from posting bond.

But on the eve of the legislation's effective date, pressure is mounting against the measure. There are already media reports of thousands of immigrants fleeing the state, putting construction projects at a standstill. Employers are worried about the effects of the law.

The Associated Press reported that a representative of Catholic Charities on Tuesday delivered almost 1,100 signed pledges opposing the law to Gov. Brad Henry's office. From the AP story:

Richard Klinge, director of advocacy and legal services for Catholic Charities, carried a foot-tall stack of pledges into Henry's office from parishioners at the predominantly Hispanic Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Oklahoma City.

The pledges vow "opposition and defiance" to the law scheduled to go into effect Thursday that targets illegal immigrants. In spite of the law, Klinge said the church will continue to serve the poor and needy regardless of their immigration status.

One of the familiar arguments for curbing illegal immigration is that the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. cost the government billions of dollars.

But a story in The Journal Record raises questions about whether Oklahoma's law will actually cost more to enforce. The story says the author of the legislation asserted that illegal immigrants "cost the state untold millions of dollars to provide schooling, emergency health care and welfare benefits, along with increased costs for incarcerating illegal immigrants and even for maintaining public roads traveled upon by illegal aliens."

However, there's a cost to losing this pipeline of workers. An excerpt from the story:

Instead of allowing those working toward citizenship to continue contributing to the state's economy both as laborers and consumers, the state will be removing a segment of its work force and dumping those workers into an already overcrowded prison system until they can be deported, said opponents of the law. Furthermore, the state will soon have to address the fact that deportees often leave behind dependants of all ages who may or may not be U.S. citizens.

http://blogs.chron.com/immigration/archives/2007/10/post_43.html