Immigration Re-Formed

[lofter1]

Immigration into the US and the status of immigrants who are already here are shaping up to be one of the biggest issues in upcoming elections ...

Sensenbrenner Awakens A Sleeping Giant (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/sensenbrenner-awakens-a-s_b_17894.html)

Max Blumenthal
Huffington Post
Mar. 25, 2006

I have just returned from the largest, most energized demonstration I have ever witnessed in my life. Over 500,000 people (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protest26mar26,0,3771225.story?coll=la-home-headlines) filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles to march against HR 4437, (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.04437:) a bill authored by Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner (http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011692.html) (heir to the Kotex fortune) which would turn 11 million undocumented immigrants into felons, punish anyone guilty of providing them assistance, and construct an iron wall between the US and Mexico.

The rally reached a crescendo as thousands of demonstrators lined the walls and bridges above the 101 freeway waving flags and cheering while an endless parade of cars and trucks blasted their horns in support. It was the sound of a sleeping giant awakening.

In passing HR 4437 and whatever draconian and utterly counter-productive bill emerges from the Senate, the congressional Republicans have become their party's worst enemy. They have cast their white, Southern base in conflict with the Latino constituency the RNC and the Bush White House realize they must win over if they are ever to achieve a so-called "Republican majority."

A leading researcher of the neo-Confederate movement, Ed Sebesta, (http://templeofdemocracy.com/) submitted an illuminating analysis of the GOP's immigration quandary to me by email yesterday. Here are some excerpts:

In regards to Hispanics and the GOP I think the big development is that Hispanics are immigrating in large numbers now into the Southeast, or I should say the former Confederate states, excepting Texas and Southern Florida. It isn't something largely confined to the Southwest and major urban centers outside the South. This is where the base of the Republican party is. There has developed a reaction against this immigration in these areas.
The Neo-Confederate movement and a lot of other movements have taken up this issue...

These reactionary elements and others see immigration as an issue to take control of conservatism in the South, if not the nation...

Suddenly the Republican party is going to have to try to get votes from two groups that will be increasingly at odds with each other. Also, what happens to Hispanics in Alabama will get back to Hispanics in California.

Hispanic immigrants didn't grow up as minorities and don't have the habits of deference or accomodations to prejudice. They may be poor or disadvantaged materially, but they don't have internalized anti-Hispanic values.

They will have no inclination to accommodate themselves to a subordinated role, and no prior history of accomodation to subordination. They will challenge anti-Hispanic tactics and efforts in the Southeast, not give in to them. They will not have religious leaders saying that some anti-Hispanic measure is okay.

Deprived of any substantive issues ahead of this year's mid-term congressional elections, the Republicans have reached into their deck and drawn the race-card. (http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20060410&s=blumenthal) Introducing a stream of anti-immigrant legislation specifically directed against brown-skinned workers is the GOP's post-Bush, post-9/11 strategy.

And as they advance their short-term political goals, the congressional GOP institutionalizes a culture of hypocrisy which punishes immigrants publicly while paying them privately. To quote a sign that hung today on an overpass above the 101 freeway, "We built your houses, we growed [sic] your food, and now you call us criminals?"

[lofter1]

Los Angeles Immigration Rally Draws Thousands

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/03/26/national/immigration583.jpg
Karl Gehring/Associated Press
Thousands of immigration advocates marched through downtown Los Angeles
in one of the largest demonstrations for any cause in recent U.S. history.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 26, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Immigration-Rallies.html

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Thousands of immigration advocates marched through downtown Los Angeles in one of the largest demonstrations for any cause in recent U.S. history.

More than 500,000 protesters -- demanding that Congress abandon attempts to make illegal immigration a felony and to build more walls along the border -- surprised police who estimated the crowd size using aerial photographs and other techniques, police Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr. said.

Wearing white T-shirts to symbolize peace, the demonstrators chanted ''Mexico!'' ''USA!'' and ''Si se puede,'' an old Mexican-American civil rights shout that means ''Yes, we can.''

In Denver, more than 50,000 people protested downtown Saturday, according to police who had expected only a few thousand. Phoenix was similarly surprised Friday when an estimated 20,000 people gathered for one of the biggest demonstrations in city history, and more than 10,000 marched in Milwaukee on Thursday.

''We construct your schools. We cook your food,'' rapper Jorge Ruiz said after performing at a Dallas rally that drew 1,500. ''We are the motor of this nation, but people don't see us. Blacks and whites, they had their revolution. They had their Martin Luther King (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/martin_luther_jr_king/index.html?inline=nyt-per). Now it is time for us.''

Many protesters said lawmakers were unfairly targeting immigrants who provide a major labor pool for America's economy.

''Enough is enough of the xenophobic movement,'' said Norman Martinez, 63, who immigrated from Honduras as a child and marched in Los Angeles. ''They are picking on the weakest link in society, which has built this country.''

The U.S. House of Representatives (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/house_of_representatives/index.html?inline=nyt-org) has passed legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, require churches to check the legal status of people they help, and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border.

The Senate is to begin debating the proposals on Tuesday.

President Bush on Saturday called for legislation that does not force America to choose between being a welcoming society and a lawful one.

''America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address, discussing an issue that had driven a wedge into his own party.

Bush sides with business leaders who want to let some of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants stay in the country and work for a set period of time. Others, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/bill_frist/index.html?inline=nyt-per), say national security concerns should drive immigration reform.

But many protesters rejected claims the national security claim, noting that the legislation would hurt Hispanics the most.

''When did you ever see a Mexican blow up the World Trade Center? Who do you think built the World Trade Center?'' said David Gonzalez, 22, who marched in Los Angeles with a sign that read, ''I'm in my homeland.'''

Between 5,000 and 7,000 people gathered Saturday in Charlotte, carrying signs with slogans such as ''Am I Not a Human Being?'' In Sacramento, more than 4,000 people protested immigration legislation at an annual march honoring the late farm labor leader Cesar Chavez.

The demonstrations are expected to culminate April 10 in a ''National Day of Action'' organized by labor, immigration, civil rights and religious groups.

Associated Press writers Bob Jablon and Kim Nguyen contributed to this report.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press (http://www.ap.org/)

[lofter1]

500,000 Pack Streets to Protest Immigration Bills

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2006-03/22614192.jpg
(Bob Chamberlin / LAT)
Thousands protest against House-passed HR 4437, an anti-immigration bill
that opponents say will criminalize millions of immigrant families and anyone
who comes into contact with them.

The rally, part of a massive mobilization of immigrants and their supporters,
may be the largest L.A. has seen.

By Teresa Watanabe and Hector Becerra
Times Staff Writers
LA Times
March 26, 2006

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immig26mar26,0,7628611.story?coll=la-home-headlines

A crowd estimated by police at more than 500,000 boisterously marched in Los Angeles on Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall along the U.S.' southern border.

Spirited but peaceful marchers — ordinary immigrants alongside labor, religious and civil rights groups — stretched more than 20 blocks along Spring Street, Broadway and Main Street to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting, "Sí se puede!" (Yes we can!).

Attendance at the demonstration far surpassed the number of people who protested against the Vietnam War and Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that sought to deny public benefits to undocumented migrants but was struck down by the courts. Police said there were no arrests or injuries except for a few cases of exhaustion.

At a time when Congress prepares to crack down further on illegal immigration and self-appointed militias patrol the U.S. border to stem the flow, Saturday's rally represented a massive response, part of what immigration advocates are calling an unprecedented effort to mobilize immigrants and their supporters nationwide.

It coincides with an initiative on the part of the Roman Catholic Church, spearheaded by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, to defy a House bill that would make aiding undocumented immigrants a felony.

And it signals the burgeoning political clout of Latinos, especially in California.

"There has never been this kind of mobilization in the immigrant community ever," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "They have kicked the sleeping giant. It's the beginning of a massive immigrant civil rights struggle."

The demonstrators, many wearing white shirts to symbolize peace, included both longtime residents and the newly arrived, bound by a desire for a better life.

Arbelica Lazo, 40, illegally emigrated from El Salvador two decades ago but said she now owns two businesses and pays $7,000 in income taxes each year.

Jose Alberto Salvador, 33, came here illegally four months ago to find work to support the wife and five children he left behind. In his native Guatemala, he said, what little work he could find paid $10 a day.

"As much as we need this country, we love this country," Salvador said, waving both the American and Guatemalan flags. "This country gives us opportunities we don't get at home."

On Monday, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to resume work on a comprehensive immigration reform proposal. The Senate committee's version includes elements of various bills, including a guest worker program and a path to legalization for the nation's 10 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants proposed by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.)

In addition, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has introduced a bill that would strengthen border security, crack down on employers of illegal immigrants and increase the number of visas for workers. Frist has said he would take his bill to the floor Tuesday if the committee does not finish its work Monday.

Ultimately, the House and Senate bills must be reconciled before a law can be passed.

President Bush has advocated a guest worker program and attracted significant Latino support for his views.

In his Saturday radio address, Bush urged all sides of the emotional debate to tone down their rhetoric, calling for a balanced approach between more secure borders and more temporary foreign workers.

Largely in response to the debate in Washington, hundreds of thousands of people in recent weeks have staged marches in more than a dozen cities calling for immigration reform.

In Denver, police said Saturday that more than 50,000 people gathered downtown at Civic Center Park next to the Capitol to urge the state Senate to reject a resolution supporting a ballot issue that would deny many government services to illegal immigrants in Colorado.

Hundreds rallied in Reno, the Associated Press reported.

On Friday, tens of thousands of people were estimated to have staged school walkouts, marches and work stoppages in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Atlanta and other cities.

In addition, several cities, including Los Angeles, have passed resolutions opposing the House legislation. At least one city, Maywood, declared itself a "sanctuary" for undocumented immigrants.

Despite the significant opposition to the crackdown on illegal immigrants shown by the turnout in recent rallies, a recent Zogby poll found 62% of Americans surveyed wanted more restrictive immigration policies, and a Field Poll last month found that the majority of California voters surveyed believed illegal immigration was hurting the state.

"Polling has consistently shown that Americans don't want guest workers or amnesty," said Caroline Espinosa, spokeswoman for NumbersUSA, a Washington-based immigration control group that says its e-mail list of 1 million and 140,000-member roster of activists have more than doubled in the last year.

Espinosa said current levels of both legal and illegal immigrationwould push the U.S. population to 420 million by 2050, "leading to a tremendously negative impact on the quality of life in the United States."

According to a U.S. Census Bureau survey a year ago, the nation's 35.2 million immigrants — legal and illegal — represent a record number. California led the country with nearly 10 million, constituting 28% of the state's population overall and one-third of its work force.

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2006-03/22615695.jpg
(Gina Ferazzi / LAT)
Many protesters carried American flags as they marched.

The swelling number of immigrants has clearly influenced the political calculus of those involved in the issue, including political and religious groups. The Republican Party, for instance, is split among those who want tougher restrictions, those who fear alienating the Latino vote and business owners who are pressing for more laborers — mostly Latin Americans — to fill blue-collar jobs in construction, cleaning, gardening and other industries.

Some Republicans fear that pushing too hard against illegal immigrants could backfire nationally, as with Proposition 187. Strong Republican support of that measure helped spur record numbers of California Latinos to become U.S. citizens and register to vote. Those voters subsequently helped the Democrats regain political control in the state.

"There is no doubt Proposition 187 had a devastating impact on the [California] Republican Party," said Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican political consultant. "Now the Republicans in Congress better beware: If they come across as too shrill, with a racist tone, all of a sudden you're going to see Republicans in cities with a high Latino population start losing their seats."

The effects of the nation's growing Latino presence also are evident in religious communities. This week, for instance, the president of the 30-million-member National Assn. of Evangelicals is scheduled to issue a statement supporting immigration reform, including a guest worker program. It will be in concert with the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, conference president.

Rodriguez, whose Sacramento-based group serves the nation's 18 million evangelical Christian Latinos, said it took "a lot of persuasion" to broker the joint statement with Ted Haggard, president of the evangelicals group. Rodriguez said he warned the group that failure to support comprehensive immigration reform would have long-term political repercussions.

Latino evangelical Christians voted for Bush at a 40% higher rate than Latinos overall, he said, but they would probably turn away from conservative candidates and causes without support on immigration.

"I had to do a lot of asking: Will Hispanics ever vote for conservative candidates again, or partner with white evangelicals if they were silent while our brothers and sisters and cousins were being sent out of the county on buses?" Rodriguez said.

Churches were just one force behind Saturday's rally.

Several immigrant advocates said that the ethnic media were a significant factor in drawing crowds. News outlets repeatedly publicized it and even exhorted marchers to wear white shirts. Churches announced the rally too. Although a police spokeswoman estimated the crowd at 500,000 based on helicopter surveillance, rally organizers said it was closer to 1 million.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa briefly addressed the rally.

"We cannot criminalize people who are working, people who are contributing to our economy and contributing to the nation," Villaraigosa said.

In contrast to demonstrations 12 years ago against Proposition 187, Saturday's rally featured more American flags than those from any other country. Flag vendors were soon overwhelmed by demonstrators holding out dollar bills.

Father Michael Kennedy, a longtime immigrant advocate and pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, said that past demonstrations were more heavily Mexican or Mexican American, but the House bill had rallied protesters across religious, national and ethnic lines.

One was Korean immigrant Dae Joong Yoon, executive director of the Korean Resource Center in Los Angeles. Yoon said the Korean community was more inflamed over the House bill than Proposition 187 because it would penalize not only undocumented immigrants but also businesses that hired them and anyone who helped them.

He said the Korean-language media has intensified coverage of the House bill in recent weeks.

"The Korean community is shocked and outraged over this inhumane legislation," Yoon said. "Everybody would be affected by it."

The Associated Press was used in compiling this report.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

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Photos of the March from the LA Daily News ...

More Photos + Full Story: http://www.dailynews.com/

http://lang.dailynews.com/socal/gallery2/news/032606_march/2.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:stopTimer();gotoNextImage();)
Gene Blevins/Staff Photographer
A crowd of 500,000 plus Latino workers and immigrants march
in downtown Los Angeles to city hall to protest against
anti-immigrant H.R. 4437 federal bill that would instantly
criminalize millions of undocumented workers.

http://lang.dailynews.com/socal/gallery2/news/032606_march/4.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:stopTimer();gotoNextImage();)
Gene Blevins/Staff Photographer

http://lang.dailynews.com/socal/gallery2/news/032606_march/11.jpg (http://javascript<b></b>:stopTimer();gotoNextImage();)
Gene Blevins/Staff Photographer

Copyright © 2006 Los Angeles Newspaper Group (http://www.langnews.com/)

[BrooklynRider]

I wonder if these crowd sizes just amplify the feeling that there are too many illegal immigrants in the U.S. I also wonder what the response will be, since illegal aliens can vote?

[lofter1]

A Border War
By Holly Bailey
Newsweek
April 3, 2006 issue

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12017855/site/newsweek/

The lights were on, the cameras were rolling, but the special guest star was nowhere to be found. Last Friday afternoon, 55 men and women from 30 countries sat in a Denver conference room, clutching small American flags as they waited to be sworn in as U.S. citizens. The 12:15 starting time had come and gone, and some people were getting impatient. "For heaven's sake," one woman said, sighing. "What is the holdup?" A few minutes later, they had the answer. Tom Tancredo, the Republican congressman, was coming to welcome the new citizens. He was hard to miss when he breezed in, 25 minutes late, dressed in a dark suit and an American-flag necktie. Even so, few in the room recognized him until one man whispered, "He's the guy who sits on the border chasing illegals."

Tancredo may not be a household name yet, but he's doing everything he can to change that. As the House and Senate debate the nation's immigration and border-security laws, the four-term Coloradan has positioned himself as the loudest, angriest voice against the estimated 11 million illegal aliens now living in the United States. They are "a scourge that threatens the very future of our nation," he says. He laments "the cult of multiculturalism," and worries about America's becoming a "Tower of Babel." If Republican presidential candidates don't put the problem atop the agenda in 2008, he says he'll run himself, just to force the front runners to talk about it. Not that he thinks he'd win the White House. He declares himself "too fat, too short and too bald" to be president. If the Republicans lose the election because he's too tough on the issue, he says, "So be it."

Not so long ago, Tancredo was regarded as little more than a noisy pest on Capitol Hill. His colleagues shook their heads at his tireless demands for crackdowns on American employers who hire illegals and his idea for a 700-mile-long fence along the Mexican border. But in recent months, some of those same Republicans have come to realize that, while Tancredo may be a crank, he is a crank with a large and passionate following. Anti-immigration sentiment has always simmered, and it flares up about once a decade—the last time it hit this level was 1996, when California Gov. Pete Wilson made it the centerpiece of his failed presidential campaign. Tancredo was one of the first politicians to tap into the latest surge of anger. In states with large numbers of undocumented workers, voters complain that poor illegals are overwhelming public schools, clogging hospital emergency rooms and bankrupting welfare budgets. And they worry that inadequate border security makes it easy for would-be terrorists to sneak into the country. Tancredo's colleagues are listening. When he arrived in Washington, he started the Immigration Reform Caucus. The group attracted just 16 members. Today, there are 91.


http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/Mag/060403_Issue/060325_ImmigIllegals_hsmall.standard.jpg

Omar Torres / AFP-Getty Images
Watchful Eye: Mexican citizens peer through holes in

the wall that separates their country from the United States

Tancredo's anti-immigration campaign is also brazenly, almost gleefully, taking aim at George W. Bush and Karl Rove. The president had once hoped the immigration debate would center on his proposed guest-worker program, which would allow illegals—who fill millions of unskilled, low-wage jobs—to stay in the country for a set period of time. This was Bush the pragmatist, the former border-state governor who wanted to acknowledge the importance of immigrant labor to construction, fruit farming and other chunks of the U.S. economy. "He doesn't think it's morally right that a group that has been critical to the strength of the economy is operating in the shadows," says a senior Bush aide who, following policy, spoke anonymously. Meanwhile, Rove pushed the pure political benefits of the plan: immigrant-friendly policies would help the party reach out to the fast-growing Latino vote.

Instead, the immigration debate has split the GOP, with many Republicans in the House and Senate, worried about alienating voters, openly opposing the president. In December, the House tossed aside the worker program and passed a bill that features tougher security at the Mexican border—including Tancredo's cherished fence—and crackdowns on illegals who are already here. "You can't ignore him," says a GOP leadership aide who wouldn't be named because he wanted to keep his job. "The administration doesn't want to hear this, but a lot of Americans think he's right."

In the Senate, Republicans, led by John McCain and Arlen Specter, have been working to come up with a compromise that would include border security, a guest-worker program and a way for illegal immigrants to "earn" citizenship. But Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a presidential contender with one eye on the anti-immigration vote—and the other one on outflanking McCain—has threatened to put forward his own get-tough plan this week if the senators fail to come through.

It's not just Republicans elbowing for attention. Last week Sen. Hillary Clinton whacked the GOP with the Bible, implying anti-immigration proposals were not only hardhearted, but un-Christian. The bill, she said, "would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself."

Bush, forced to step up his own security rhetoric in response to the feud, is still hoping for a compromise. At an immigration meeting at the White House last week, the president said that "the debate must be done in a way that doesn't pit one group of people against another." But Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, a former Bush cabinet member who sides with the president on the issue, fears that's exactly what is happening.

"Republicans have made significant gains [among Latinos]," he says, "and we're risking all of that by allowing ourselves to be positioned as anti-immigrant ... We are at great peril."


http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Sections/Newsweek/Components/Photos/Mag/060403_Issue/060325_ImmigMinutemen_vl.standard.jpg
Fred Greaves / Reuters
Oct. 8, 2005: A Minuteman Project volunteer looks
for illegal border crossers in Southern California

Tancredo believes there's greater danger in doing nothing. All he wants, he says, is to see the law enforced. "I don't like it when people call me a racist or xenophobe," he says. "In my heart, I know that I'm not." A 60-year-old grandson of an Italian immigrant, he grew up in a working-class family. He ran for Congress on a whim in 1998, and won by pushing immigration reform. He says he became passionate about the issue back in the 1970s, when he was a Denver junior-high-school teacher. At the time, Colorado had just passed a bilingual-education bill. He says students with Latino-sounding names were put into Spanish-language classes, even if they spoke English only. "It was ridiculous, and a total waste of time and money."

He's remained unapologetic about his views. In 2002, The Denver Post ran a human-interest story about a high-school honors student who couldn't get college financial aid because he was in the United States illegally. Tancredo tried to have the boy and his family deported. (He was unsuccessful.)

Back at the immigration ceremony, Tancredo thanked the new citizens for coming to the United States "the right way," and urged them to "cast aside loyalties to your old countries and walk with us." One lucky person walked away with more than a citizenship certificate. When he heard that a young woman from Mexico had waited more than a year for her paperwork to clear, Tancredo approached her. He apologized that he was out of the lapel pins he usually hands out. Instead, he gave her a more personal gift: his American-flag necktie. "Gracias," she said.

With Daren Briscoe and Richard Wolffe
&#169; 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

[lofter1]

Kiss Me, I'm Illegal

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/03/26/weekinreview/26vitello.184.gif
Tamara Shopsin

By PAUL VITELLO (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/v/paul_vitello/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
NY Times
Glossary | The Un-Citizens
March 26, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/weekinreview/26vitello.ART.html

MURKY self-described patriot groups call them "terrorists." On combative talk radio shows the term is "illegal aliens." Advocates for immigrants prefer the Emma Lazarus-evoking "economic refugees."

The most common label attached to the estimated 12 million foreign-born people living in the United States without visas may be "illegal immigrants," even though some grammarians argue that the adjective can modify actions and things (like left turns and hallucinogenic drugs) but not people. President Bush, a proponent of offering citizenship to at least some of them, has used the more optimistic and implicitly promising term "undocumented immigrants."

There is an almost magical power in naming things. To give a person, an act or a group its name is to define it, assert a measure of control over how it is perceived. (See Adam, in Genesis 2:20, who "gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field." Also, see the playbooks of most campaign managers.)

Like the battles over civil rights and abortion, the contest over immigration has been joined as much in the naming of things as in the writing of laws. Consider the labyrinth of language in play as Congress grapples with an overhaul of immigration policy, its effort to fix what is widely considered a broken system of deciding how many and which foreigners are allowed to enter, work in or become citizens of the United States.

Tumbling in the air of the debate like so many juggled balls are enough words and catch phrases — some old, some new — to form a peculiar dialect of the national ambivalence: Guest workers. Willing workers. America's security.

Permanent temporary residents. Immigrant smuggling syndicate. Earned legalization. Virtual fence. Birthright citizenship abuse (coined by lawmakers who would cancel the citizenship rights of children born here to illegal immigrants). Anchor babies (the term coined for such children). Police state (what Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York says would result if illegal immigration were criminalized). Two-time losers (Justice Anotonin Scalia's phrase for illegal immigrants who are deported twice — one such immigrant brought a case heard by the court last week).

George Lakoff, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley and author of "Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate," says the different language used in any public policy debate is ultimately a contest for the public mind. "Metaphors repeated often enough eventually become part of your physical brain," he said. "Use the word 'illegal' often enough, which suggests criminal, which suggests immoral, and you have framed the issue of immigration to a remarkable degree."

Every side, of course, claims that its choice of words is not only correct but a reflection of the literal truth. Those favoring more restrictive laws, for instance, assert that people who violate immigration laws are, de facto, illegal residents.

"Immigration is such an emotional issue at this point that every word is being hotly contested," said Frank Sherry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a group based in Washington that advocates a liberalized policy. "You know where people stand pretty much from the language they use," said Mr. Sherry, who uses the term "undocumented immigrants."

A House bill that would stiffen penalties for unauthorized immigration adds yet another term to the list of synonyms for the illegal immigrant: felon. Under that bill, which led to protests in Washington, Chicago and San Francisco a couple of weeks ago, illegal immigrants would be charged with aggravated felony and face five years in prison.

A Senate bill produced yet more terminology — earned legalization — which would apply to illegal immigrants who pay their back taxes and stiff fines, promise to learn English and wait in line. Earned legalization is not to be confused with amnesty, a word in the immigration debate that is a bugaboo to all sides, on the theory that rewarding illegal behavior would only lead to more of it.

The language can be so arcane that even people who track immigration policy might have been hard pressed to follow the conversation on ABC's "This Week" between the host, George Stephanopoulos, and the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist. In one 10-second exchange, Mr. Frist said he was for enforcement, and Mr. Stephanopoulos asked if Mr. Frist was also for guest worker, to which Mr. Frist replied that he was for guest worker but against amnesty.

Enforcement, in the debate, is code for border security. The enforcement-only bill passed by the House focuses exclusively on tightening border security. It authorizes the building of a 700-mile fence, or the deployment of electronic devices and drone aircraft to create a "virtual fence." It does not establish a guest worker program.

The enforcement-plus bills under review in the Senate (there are three, with a fourth pending) tighten border security and create versions of a guest worker program. (In Washington, to be in favor of "enforcement-only" or "enforcement-plus" is to state one's immigration weltanschauung.)

As for the meaning of "guest worker" in the enforcement-plus universe, it depends. It can signify a long-term foreign worker who might eventually become a citizen. It can also indicate someone who works for two years with no such expectation, and then goes home. It can be a seasonal worker who goes home after every harvest. And in the most restrictive version, it is perhaps a little like the homey status of the political prisoners in Frank O'Connor's short story "Guests of the Nation." The prisoners are treated like friends of the family until one is ordered executed in the national interest.

Ultimately, there may be no neutral language possible in the immigration debate — any more than there is in other emotionally charged human interaction, said Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and the author of the best-selling "You're Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation." Ms. Tannen claims no special expertise about immigration, but she knows communication.

"People cling to words, and use them, as a way of showing whose side they're on, who their people are," she said.

Guillermo G&#243;mez-Pe&#241;a, a performance artist and writer born in Mexico known for his observations about the cultural life of the border, has coined his own term for the movement of people, legally or illegally, temporarily or permanently, willingly or not, from south of the border to the north. In a recent performance, he mordantly referred to it all as "original sin."

Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

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Making sense of immigration

EDITORIAL
LA Times
Mar. 26 2006

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-immigration26mar26,0,6221708.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

THERE ARE TWO SCHOOLS of thought in Washington on immigration reform.
The negative one bemoans the fact that, after George Bush pushed the issue early on in his presidency, populist scare-politics have hijacked the effort, as evidenced by the absurd bill passed in the House of Representatives in December.

The more positive one marvels at the fact that despite this misdirection, there still appears a sliver of a chance for sensible legislation that would address the nation's need for immigrant workers without turning them into criminals.

Reason is still trying to prevail in the Senate, where a compromise bill by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) may be considered this week. The Specter proposal, which is still being fleshed out, incorporates much of the White House's thinking on the issue, as well as features from legislation by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). But it faces long odds, especially in light of the split within the Republican Party on immigration.

The party's own Senate majority leader, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), is fighting the White House, threatening to advance alternative legislation that apes the House's nonsensical bill, which is all about enforcing border security without adopting any type of guest-worker program. The subtext here is that Frist, as he did in the Terri Schiavo tragedy, is pandering to the far right in preparation for his 2008 presidential bid, though conservative Republicans should know better than to try outlawing the supply of labor while ignoring the demand for it.

The Specter compromise is a practical, fair and sensible approach to immigration, making it very different from the reflexive xenophobia we've come to expect from this session of Congress. It focuses both on tightening border security and creating a program that allows the millions of people already in the country illegally to obtain guest-worker permits.

The bill does not give a free pass to illegal immigrants. Employers would have to demonstrate that U.S. workers wouldn't take the position offered to the guest worker. Once the visa has expired, probably after six years, the workers could apply for U.S. citizenship, but their applications would be processed after those of legal immigrants waiting in line, and they would have to pay hefty fines. Thus, contrary to the accusations of opponents, the law would by no means reward people who came to this country illegally, nor is it unfair to those who played by the rules.

Immigration is among the thorniest of issues for Republicans, with their business-oriented base heavily in favor of a guest-worker program and their social conservative base wanting to build a wall across the border and kick the illegals out. The split is complicated by President Bush's weakness, upcoming congressional elections and the 2008 presidential race.

But the Senate as an institution has an opportunity, and an obligation, to rise above Washington's preelection silly season and pass immigration legislation that reflects the country's real needs, not its baser instincts.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

[BrooklynRider]

How many citizens actually showed up at these demonstrations?

I don't think it is xenophobic to want people to follow the law regardig immigration and worker visas. While I can sympathize with the plight of these people's home countries, this demonstration by non-citizens is pretty alarming. The borders should be sealed with appropriate border crossings. The illegals should be repatriated with the paperwork they will need to complete if they want to enter the country and be offered an opportunity to submit that paperwork.

More than anything, the failure of NAFTA is upon us.

[lofter1]

Check out the numbers regarding the undocumented immigrant population below.

Then try to imagine the bureaucracy that will be needed to attend to that -- no matter what "plan" the government comes up with.

CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/26/immigration/index.html):



A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center found that about 7.2 million illegal immigrants held jobs in the United States, making up 4.9 percent of the overall labor force. Undocumented workers made up 24 percent of farmworkers and held 14 percent of construction jobs, the study found.

Pew Hispanic Center Study (http://pewhispanic.org/):


Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S.

Estimates Based on the March 2005 Current Population Survey

Analysis of the March 2005 Current Population Survey shows that there were 11.1 million unauthorized migrants in the United States a year ago. Based on analysis of other data sources that offer indications of the pace of growth in the foreign-born population, the Center developed an estimate of 11.5 to 12 million for the unauthorized population as of March 2006.

[lofter1]

How many citizens actually showed up at these demonstrations?
Hard to say, but the Pew Report ( http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/46.pdf ) states that of the ~ 12M "Unauthorized Migrant Population" in the USA nearly 24% or 2.5M reside in California (as opposed to 11% or 1M in NY / NJ combined).

It will be very interesting to see how organized this population is. A concerted work stoppage (walk-out) would have some effect in NYC. Much greater in other areas.

Interesting that Korean proprietors in LA came out in force against the Sensenbrenner legislation -- there is apparently great anxiety about provisions that would penalize employers for giving work to "illegals".

Imagine what would happen at your local Deli, market, etc. if all of a sudden none of those hard workers you pass each day were able to work.

[lofter1]

Immigration protest erupts in fisticuffs

PROTEST: Slurs, hot tempers highlight countering
demonstrations at Bank Calumet

http://www.thetimesonline.com/content/articles/2006/03/26/news/top_news/06b86321de0829538625713d0001758b.jpg
CHRISTOPHER SMITH | THE TIMES
Members of the Indiana Federation for Immigration Reform and
Enforcement and the Chicago Minuteman Project tangle with
counterprotesters Saturday morning outside Bank Calumet in
Munster. Federation and Minuteman members were protesting the
bank offering home loans to undocumented immigrants.
A fight broke out between several members of each group,
prompting police to separate the two groups of marchers.

BY JERRY DAVICH
Northwest Indiana Times
March 26, 2006

http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2006/03/26/news/top_news/06b86321de0829538625713d0001758b.txt

MUNSTER - Blaring car horns, racist slurs and angry fisticuffs punctuated a volatile encounter of protesters and counter-protesters Saturday morning outside Bank Calumet.

"God bless America! Stay out of our business!" yelled members of the locally based Indiana Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement.

"Go home (expletive) Nazi racists!" yelled members of an opposing group of circling counterprotesters.

The federation, a public interest organization advocating what it calls immigration policies with an impact, demonstrated against bank loans for undocumented aliens, echoing six similar previous local protests.

Several members of the Chicago Minuteman Project joined the federation, hoisting protest signs to passing motorists and exchanging verbal jabs with visibly angry counterprotesters.

"We're not racists, we're LEGAL Americans," Minuteman members yelled under American flags whipping in a fierce wind. "Those people are Communists."

The counterprotesters -- some from the Progressive Labor Party of Chicago, others from Purdue University Calumet or there on their own -- chanted in bilingual defiance: "&#161;Obreros unidos jamas seran vencidos!" or, "Workers united will never be defeated!"

Susana Findley, a Gary native whose parents were born in Mexico, said illegal immigrant workers arrived here for the same reason federation members' ancestors arrived: To find work and a better life.

"But those racist immigrants forget about that," said Findley, nodding toward the federation's camp.

Several counterprotesters arrived earlier than the scheduled 10 a.m. federation protest, setting up shop at the corner of Calumet Avenue and Ridge Road.

When 63-year-old Chicago Minuteman member Rick Biesada arrived and pulled out his protest sign, he claimed that two counterprotesters yanked it from him. When he yanked it back, the men assaulted him, knocking him to the ground, he said.

The Lindenhurst, Ill., resident was treated by paramedics at the scene for a gash over his eye and dizziness, spending a few minutes inside an ambulance before returning to the protest.

"I wished he fell to the ground harder," Findley said.

Munster police Sgt. Nick Hudak, one of several officers showing up to stand between the opposing groups, said no arrests were made and no other injuries occurred.

Protesters on both sides said the escalating debate over U.S. House Bill 4437, the so-called Border Security bill, may have inflamed the controversy of offering bank loans to illegal aliens.

The bill, which would strengthen enforcement of existing immigration laws and enhance border security, has already passed the House and could be voted on by the Senate as early as this week.

Federation co-founder and Valparaiso resident Cheree Calabro, while passing out fliers to motorists, said similar demonstrations at Bank Calumet had no such problems with counterprotesters.

"I think they're feeling more emboldened with all the national protests (supporting illegal immigration)," said Calabro, whose group is the Indiana chapter of the national Minuteman Project.

http://www.thetimesonline.com/content/articles/2006/03/26/news/top_news/06b86321de0829538625713d0001758b1.jpg
CHRISTOPHER SMITH | THE TIMES
Protesters scuffle Saturday morning outside Bank Calumet in Munster.
Police had to get in between members of groups that included the
Indiana Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement and the
Chicago Minuteman Project on one side and the Progressive Labor Party
of Chicago, a group from Purdue University Calumet and individuals on
the other.


Copyright &#169; 1996-2006 nwitimes.com

[BrooklynRider]

Wow! It looks like George W. Bush has allowed the United States to become an insurgent hotbed.

[MrSpice]

Wow! It looks like George W. Bush has allowed the United States to become an insurgent hotbed.

Do you blame GW Bush for everything now? Sounds kind of silly, isn't it?

This LA protest and this immigration legislation has nothing to do with GW Bush. The huge inflow of immigrants from Mexico has been going on for the last 15-20 years and has been growing in importance for the voters steadily over that time. There's increasing pressure on the Congress from the voters to do something to limit the illegal immigration. Many border states enacted tough anti-immigrant legislation. Cable news shows like Lou Dobbs Tonight talk about this issue every single day. When you open the door to millions of poor and often unedicated people that don't have any rights, you open the door to trouble.

[BrooklynRider]

Do you blame GW Bush for everything now? Sounds kind of silly, isn't it?...

This has EVERYTHING to do with George W. Bush and the blame for it lays squarely at his doorstep. As the head oft he executive branch, he has taken an oath to enforce the law. That is what the executive branch does. It enforces the law.

There certainly were illegal immigrants coming to this country before George W. Bush was president but George W. Bush the "anti-terrorist president", who gives us sound bites every other hour on keeping us safe, has failed miserably at (1) funding border patrols (2) enforcing border security and (3) addressing this problem before there were 12 million illegal aliens in this country.

Frankly, yes, Bush gets blamed forthis country being in the toilet. He isthe president for the last five years - not Clinton. He has not vetoed a single bill that has come before him, effectively demonstrating that this President and the Republican Congress - with majority power for the last 8 years are responsible. There is no legitimate argument for this mess being the fault of anyone but the Republicans and George W. Bush. NONE.

[lofter1]

The Wall

The Moose comments on the Republican border dispute.

Monday, March 27, 2006

http://bullmooseblogger.blogspot.com/

As has been observed, immigration is to the Republicans what trade is to the Democrats. Both issues deeply divide their respective parties and highlight the conflicting visions of the future.

The Democratic Party used to be the party of free trade and low tariffs. Indeed, the essence of the Republican Party used to be protectionism. Now, there is a role reversal and the Democratic free-traders are struggling against those faux populists who would put up barriers to exchange. On economic issues, the Democrats are roughly divided into the growth and the declinist wings largely in relation to the trade question.

This week, the Senate will address immigration legislation and the GOP divide on this issue will be front and center. In the past, the President has identified with those in the party who take a comprehensive approach to the issue and offer an opportunity for the 11 million or so illegal immigrants with a path to legalization. As Governor of Texas and Presidential candidate, he was a leader of the "inclusionists" which is also strongly supported by the business community.

Increasingly, the energy in the party is with the "exclusionists" who want to build a wall on the Mexican border and make it a felony to be in the US. The House GOP is firmly in this camp and crass and obvious political opportunists such as Senator Frist see the writing on the wall and are enlisting with the exclusionists.

Herein lies the political rub - giving any succor and support to the "exclusionists" risks out-reach efforts to the Latino and Catholic communities. Yet, the White House must appease the exclusionists or jeopardize Republican control over Congress. Say good-bye to realignment.

The interesting "swing" constituency in the GOP on immigration are the social conservatives. From his experience with the religious right, the Moose senses these folks will be leaning toward the inclusionist camp. The truth is that recent immigrants tend to be religious and traditionalist. Liberals may find themselves with unlikely allies on this issue.

And what about the Democrats? They will not enjoy the luxury of being able to just sit back and watch the show. Democratic border Governors such as Richardson and Napolitono recognize that there is severe public dissatisfaction with the influx of illegal immigrants. They are both tough on enforcement.

Similarly, Congressional Democrats should find a way to position themselves as committed to border enforcement without being xenophobic. It is not sufficient merely to threaten to filibuster draconian legislation.

Parenthetically, the Democratic declinist wing on trade and the Republican exclusionist faction on immigration have something significant in common. They are both deeply pessimistic about America's future. The political future belongs to the optimists in both party who project a positive inclusionist vision. The Moose finds a path to citizenship preferable to a guest worker program with a heavy emphasis on political assimilation.

Given the desperation of the elephant, some in the the GOP may very well ditch the inclusionist approach, at least for the short-term. Instead, Republicans are likely to demagogue the issue and attempt to portray the Democrats as the party of the illegals. This may be the domestic law and order issue of '06.

Be prepared.

[Azazello]

Does anyone else get this ugh in the pit of their stomach: that this immigration issue is really a cover for the more devastating effects of outsourcing?

#1:

People complain that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from us. The reality is that the jobs are so low-wage that no citizen really wants to do them, except... maybe... jobs in construction, restaurant and the like. I do agree that there are teens and "poor folk" who wouldn't mind these two types of jobs, because at least it gives them work that doesn't require a large skillset (or education).

Aie, but here's the rub: these industries are "benefiting" by having these low-wage workers. They're either paying them below scale or below minimum; or they're just happy to have a workforce that's readily available, thus they can get their businesses running.

If they no longer had this labor (illegal or not), who's to say that citizens would rush to fill them? Who's to say that these industries would increase pays to attract resident workers?

#2:

Whatever the truth about loss jobs due to immigrants, it cannot, in no way, match the increasing rate in which high-wage jobs are being outsourced to other countries. Be the job a manufacturing job that paid $20/hr or more, or a software development salary of $70K and over, these are moving offshore at a rapid rate. Our middle class is shrinking further as a consequence.

We're studying different industries that are increasing their investments in outsourcing, and it is quite fascinating. We're reading The World is Flat by Friedman. One thing I've come away from this book is this: no industry is safe from outsourcing. Some aspects of an industry can be shipped off, and will. One example from the book that really blows me away is the McDonald franchise owner who outsourced the drive-up order window function of several of his locations. Who would have thought of this? How could this possibly be cheaper than have actually people at the windows? Yet apparently it is cheaper, and more efficient. And other McDs are looking into using the same model.

#3:

People are frustrated that ...

- businesses are getting "fatter" at the expense of workers. They see union workers being offered bribes - er, payouts - by companies to just go away and stop draining the corporate profits.

- their elected federal officials are so pro-business and pro-wealthy that actually paying businesses to relocate offshore, and giving tax-breaks to the upper tax brackets, subsidized from money for schools, medical care, and programs for the elderly.

- they are powerless against these two factors. The system is not only not working for them, it seems to be actively working against them.

So they lash out at - illegal immigration.


So my nausea is from this:

Immigration is the easiest and most visible problem related to employment. It is minor, really, but it's easy to be against it. So... politicians are glad to have this scapegoat issue to shake their fist at, as long as no one's chewing them out about the larger problems of a shrinking middle class. They are using this issue to show they are sooo pro-America, when they really are scared shitless that if they don't shake their fists, this same frustrated - and angry - populace will turn on them.

Illegal immigration has NOTHING to do with the middle class crisis. Take away all illegal immigrants and it still will not fix the bigger economic problems that we have.

I feel sadden. We're spending so much effort trying to sneak creationism into our science classes, and using the Constitution to take away a woman's right to decide what to do with her own body, when we should be investing heavily in educating or training everyone to prepare for a world that is changing, rapidly. We're still living in the 20th Century, when we are the ones who made the 21st Century possible.

Why are we doing this?

[lofter1]

Senate committee approves immigration-reform package

By Anne C. Mulkern
(amulkern@denverpost.com)Denver Post
March 28, 2006

http://www.denverpost.com/ci_3645149?source=rss

Washington - The Senate Judiciary Committee approved an immigration-reform package Monday that would allow an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants to stay in the country and seek citizenship.

On a day filled with protests by immigrant-rights activists across the country, senators by a 12-6 vote approved the bill, which also would create a guest-worker program for immigrants.

On the enforcement side, the legislation calls for doubling the Border Patrol in five years and adding surveillance measures at the U.S.-Mexico line.

"No one is served by an immigration system that allows large numbers of people to sneak across the border illegally," President Bush said Monday before the committee's vote. "Nobody benefits when illegal immigrants live in the shadows of society."

The committee debated as protesters took to the streets in Washington, Los Angeles and elsewhere to oppose a get-tough immigration bill, following the weekend's massive rallies in Denver and across the country.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said he expected Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to substitute the committee's bill for one Frist introduced last week.

Frist's bill focuses on increased border security and enforcement and does not include a guest-worker plan. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who has said he would filibuster Frist's measure, praised the Judiciary Committee bill.

Debate on the Senate bill was to have started today in the full Senate. But The Associated Press, citing a Frist aide, said that plan has now changed.

Colorado's Rep. Tom Tancredo, leader of the House's Republican group that opposes any legalization of illegal immigrants, predicted the Senate committee bill would crash full force into the House's bill, which passed late last year.

"If the Senate follows the Judiciary Committee's lead, the prospects of getting a reform bill to the president's desk this year are slim, to say the least," the Littleton Republican said. "No plan with amnesty and a massive increase in foreign workers will pass the House."

Whatever passes the Senate must be merged with the House bill, which had neither a guest-worker provision nor a path to citizenship. The House would then vote on that merged bill.

In an all-day session, the Judiciary Committee hashed out the measure, with a group of Republicans joining Democrats to pass various amendments.

Ultimately only four Republicans on the committee - Specter; Sam Brownback, R-Kan.; Mike DeWine, R-Ohio; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. - joined all eight Democrats in approving the final bill.

The most impassioned speeches came at the end of the day when senators debated how to handle millions of illegal immigrants already living in the U.S.

Many immigrants have established homes and families here, and "they don't know where to go" if they were forced to leave the country, Graham said. "We have allowed that home to be established," he added.

But Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., complained the bill would allow those in the country illegally to jump in line for citizenship in front of those who didn't break the law and applied from their home country, often waiting years to gain entry.

"It's not fair to those who are playing by the rules," Kyl said.

Senators who sought to add more restrictions to the bill found themselves shot down. Kyl's amendment to make people leave the country first before they apply for citizenship failed.

The committee also passed an amendment from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would provide a special category for 1.5 million agricultural workers who are not included under the guest-worker program's 400,000 first-year cap.

Rep. John Salazar, D-Manassa, who grew up on a farm, praised that amendment. "Every time I go out to the Western Slope to places like Olathe, farmers come up to me and tell me their farms are going to go under because they can't get the workers they need," he said.

Two weeks of debate are planned on the bill. It's likely to morph as amendments are added.

Under the measure, guest workers could stay six years, then could renew for six more years but would have to leave the country first - though briefly - to do so.

They could apply for permanent residency if they have an immediate relative who is a resident, are self-employed, for humanitarian reasons, are a student who grew up in the U.S., or have been an immigrant in the U.S. more than 10 years who can show hardship.

"It will never become law," Kyl said of the citizenship-path provision. "That's amnesty."

Immigrant-rights activists in Denver hailed Monday's Judiciary Committee action.

"I truly believe that it's the people on the streets in Denver and across the country that have moved the Senate Judiciary Committee to take this path," said Gabriela Flora of the American Friends Service Committee, who helped organized Saturday's rally in Denver attended by 50,000.

"This is about much more than immigrant rights. This is about what kind of country we want to be."

Staff writer Jim Hughes contributed to this report.

All contents Copyright 2006 The Denver Post or other copyright holders.

[lofter1]

Divide and Conquer

Greg Saunders:
THIS MODERN WORLD
March 28th, 2006

http://thismodernworld.com/2792

Since Mexican immigration is the topic du jour (not in the blogosphere as much as the streets of L.A.), let me share the findings of a 2001 report from the Center for Immigration Studies (http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/mexico/release.html) :

Large-scale immigration from Mexico is a very recent phenomenon. In 1970, the Mexican immigrant population was less than 800,000, compared to nearly 8 million in 2000...

Though most natives are more skilled and thus do not face significant job competition from Mexican immigrants, this study (consistent with previous research) indicates that the more than 10 million natives who lack a high school degree do face significant job competition from Mexican immigrants.

By increasing the supply of unskilled labor, Mexican immigration in the 1990s has reduced the wages of workers without a high school education by an estimated 5 percent. The workers affected are already the lowest-paid, comprising a large share of the working poor and those trying to move from welfare to work.

This reduction in wages for the unskilled has likely reduced prices for consumers by only an estimated .08 to .2 percent in the 1990s. The impact is so small because unskilled labor accounts for only a tiny fraction of total economic output.
So the findings seem to suggest that there’s a nugget of truth in the xenophobic “they’re stealing our jobs” line in that unskilled workers are forced to compete with their immigrant counterparts, but the only “stolen” jobs are taken by greedy employers who want to skirt our labor laws and make a few extra bucks. The total lack of price reductions additionally supports the fact that there is no great economic incentive for this shift in the workforce. Sure, immoral businesses are saving money, but those savings are being put into their pockets, not passed onto consumers.
Because of their much lower education levels, Mexican immigrants earn significantly less than natives on average. This results in lower average tax payments and heavier use of means-tested programs. Based on estimates developed by the National Academy of Sciences for immigrants by age and education at arrival, the lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is a negative $55,200.

Although they comprise 4.2 percent of the nation’s total population, Mexican immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 18) account for 10.2 percent of all persons in poverty and 12.5 percent of those without health insurance. Even among Mexican immigrant families that have lived in United States for more than 20 years, almost all of whom are legal residents, more than half live in or near poverty and one-third are uninsured.

Even after welfare reform, an estimated 34 percent of households headed by legal Mexican immigrants and 25 percent headed by illegal Mexican immigrants used at least one major welfare program, in contrast to 15 percent of native households. Mexican immigrants who have lived in the United States for more than 20 years, almost all of whom are legal residents, still have double the welfare use rate of natives.

Mexican immigration acts as a subsidy to businesses that employ unskilled workers, holding down labor costs while taxpayers pick up the costs of providing services to a much larger poor and low-income population.

…and the vicious cycle begins anew. Immigrants are paid less which makes them more likely to be in poverty which makes them more likely to need social services which they aren’t contributing “enough” towards because they’re paid less … but don’t fall into the trap of reaching the simple conclusion that “if they’re here, they should pay taxes”.

Another part of the report points out that they do pay taxes (http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/mexico/coffers.html), but there’s a rub :

The March 2000 CPS indicates that in 1999, the average federal income tax payment by households headed by Mexican immigrants was $2,156, less than one third of the $7,255 average tax contribution made by native households. By design, the federal income tax system is supposed to tax those with higher income and fewer dependents at higher rates than those with lower income and more dependents. So the much lower income tax contributions of Mexican immigrants simply reflect the tax code and not some systematic attempt by Mexican immigrants to avoid paying taxes.

In 1999, 74 percent of households headed by natives had to pay at least some federal income tax, compared to only 59 percent of Mexican immigrant households. Even if one confines the analysis to legal Mexican immigrants, the gap between their tax contributions and those of natives remains large. Using the same method as before to distinguish legal and illegal Mexican immigrant households, the estimated federal income liability of households headed by legal Mexican immigrants in 1999 was $2,538. Thus, the very low tax contribution of Mexican immigrants is not simply or even mostly a function of legal status, but rather reflects their much lower incomes and larger average family size.

Which is where most Republicans would start talking about tax “reform” as if raising the taxes of the poor is going to help someone who isn’t even lucky enough to live paycheck to paycheck.

If businesses insist on paying immigrants shit, the least they should do is pass along the difference to help offset they problem they’re creating. Better yet, they should stop being allowed to break the law and save a few bucks.

Or to paraphrase something I wrote earlier, breaking the law should always be more expensive than obeying it (http://www.thetalentshow.org/archives/002364.html).

We’ve got a serious immigration problem in this country that’s the fault of businesses who have shifted jobs from American workers to illegal immigrants and the goverment that’s looked the other way for decades. The idea that the President and his allies want to codify this second class of workers (and solidify the division between the two) shows you how out of touch he is with working men and women.

The struggle in the streets of Los Angeles and elsewhere isn’t one between immigrants and Americans, but between the working class and the business/government entities that are looking for new avenues to cheap labor, even if it means exploiting ethnic tensions to turn people against each other.

[Teno]

Seems the liberal party line is to side with illegal immigrant workers.

But I can't go along with that. There does need to be some way of controlling how many people come into this country. There cannot just be an open flow of people spilling in looking for jobs.

The other end of that makes this a bad idea is the fact that many (likely most) illegal immigrants are paid less than a livable wage. That is not fair to them and is not fair to American workers.

The farming situation is a difficult one because our farms produce so much food that prices would be driven down without government intervention and subsidies. Which opens and fosters an environment of a low cost work force.

The other part is Mexico. Mexico needs to take responsibility and care of its own. Mexico needs to build or invite industry that will put more of its people to work and not put the responsibility of its poor on its neighboring countries.

[lofter1]

We've tried NAFTA -- and that doesn't seem to have done much for workers in Mexico.

We need to take care of our own house first.

I grew up in California where Mexican migrant workers have been part of the economic picture for generations. The wages are terrible, the living conditions not so great, the working hours long and hard. This is what Cesar Chavez fought for starting in the 60s -- farmworkers rights.

Now it seems that just about every industry in the US -- factories, textiles, janitorial services, health care, food services, etc. -- have decided this is the way to keep consumer costs down and corporate profits up.

We can't have our cake and eat it, too.

We -- the government and the citizens -- have greatly benefitted in many ways from allowing this low-cost work force. Now that their numbers have grown to the point (1) that they have some influence and (2) that their existence within our borders is coming back to bite us economically means that decisions must be made.

But to drive 12 million individuals back across the borders will not work, for any number of reasons.

An "amnesty" type of plan that is being proposed seems the least disruptive, both to the workers and the industries involved. But for the US to continue to allow these jobs to remain at the current low-wage level is literally criminal.

The brou-ha-ha about closing the borders to keep the terrorists out is a bunch of bunk. Sure, some gonzo guy with a suitcase full of god-knows-what can wade across the Rio Grande and walk his way up to Memphis to blow up his bag of goodies -- but that is really just a ruse as far as the immigration argument goes.

[lofter1]

Mayor Attacks 2 Main Ideas on Immigrants

By SEWELL CHAN (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/sewell_chan/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
NY Times
March 31, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/nyregion/31bloomberg.html

Wading into the national immigration debate, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/michael_r_bloomberg/index.html?inline=nyt-per) said this week that two major proposals under discussion in Washington — criminalization of illegal immigration and a temporary worker program championed by President Bush — were unrealistic, shortsighted and a distraction from more pressing issues, like better border control and verification of job applicants' documents.

The mayor, a Republican, all but endorsed amnesty for illegal immigrants, a position that is anathema to most Republican leaders in Washington.

"We're not going to deport 12 million people, so let's stop this fiction," the mayor said in an interview taped on Monday and telecast last evening on CNN. "Let's give them permanent status."

The mayor expressed a similar view on Monday morning, during a news conference on Staten Island, when he said large-scale deportations were impossible and added: "We've got to figure out what to do, whether we can engage them and get the value of them being here. They're already here. They do a lot of jobs that a lot of other people don't seem to want to take."

At the news conference, the mayor said, "I'm not going to focus on any one plan, whether it's the president's, or the McCain-Kennedy one, or any of the others."

He made similar statements last year during his campaign for re-election.

The House of Representatives has passed a bill that would make it a federal crime to remain in this country illegally — it is now a violation of civil immigration law — while the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved a bill, proposed by Senators Edward M. Kennedy (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/edward_m_kennedy/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Massachusetts and John McCain (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/john_mccain/index.html?inline=nyt-per) of Arizona, that would eventually allow an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants to work toward citizenship.

Mr. Bloomberg has recently spoken up on several issues, like gun control, on which he is at odds with most of his fellow Republicans. While he has repeatedly spurned the notion of running for higher office, some of his aides have persisted in urging him to do so.

In the CNN interview, Mr. Bloomberg said a guest-worker or temporary-worker program would not work.

"Are you going to leave after six years?" he asked. "Come on. That's just postponing the problems for the next generation, the next Congress."

The interview with Mr. Bloomberg was taped while he rode the No. 7 subway line, which goes through neighborhoods in Queens, like Jackson Heights, that are among the most heavily populated by immigrants.

The mayor said of legalizing immigrants: "It may very well be rewarding lawbreaking. But let's get real. I mean, you know, we don't live in a perfect world."

Mr. Bloomberg, according to the CNN report, spoke in favor of tighter controls at the borders with Mexico and Canada; a technological system for employers to verify identification documents; and generous visa policies for doctors, engineers and other skilled professionals.

Mr. Bloomberg has long been seen as supporting immigrants' rights. In September 2003, he signed an executive order that generally prohibited city agencies, including the police, from asking people about their immigration status and from sharing such information with federal agencies. He has also expanded translation services in the city's schools and in Medicaid and welfare offices.

"He's been pretty consistent in his views on undocumented immigrants," said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, an alliance of 150 organizations. "He's very practical. He rightly recognizes that because the federal government hasn't done its job, it creates an additional burden for state and local governments as they try to carry out their job."

Even so, Councilman Kendall B. Stewart, a Brooklyn Democrat who is chairman of the City Council's Committee on Immigration, called for the mayor to support amnesty explicitly.

"I think he should say that so that at least all of us in New York City know that he's on the immigrants' side," said Mr. Stewart, who immigrated to the United States in 1973 from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. "You can't say that you support the immigrants and not stand up for them and say exactly how you want to support them."

Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[lofter1]

House Conservatives Blast Immigration Bill
"... this new ruling class of America, is expanding a servant class in America
at the expense of the middle class of America ..."

"... let the prisoners pick the fruits ..."

By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent
ABC News


http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1788642&page=1

WASHINGTON Mar 30, 2006 (AP) — House conservatives criticized President Bush, accused the Senate of fouling the air, said prisoners rather than illegal farm workers should pick America's crops and denounced the use of Mexican flags by protesters Thursday in a vehement attack on legislation to liberalize U.S. immigration laws.

"I say let the prisoners pick the fruits," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, one of more than a dozen Republicans who took turns condemning a Senate bill that offers an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants an opportunity for citizenship.

"Anybody that votes for an amnesty bill deserves to be branded with a scarlet letter A," said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, referring to a guest worker provision in the Senate measure.

Their news conference took place across the Capitol from the Senate, where supporters and critics of the legislation seemed determined to heed admonitions from both Bush and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to conduct a dignified, civilized debate.

The House has passed legislation to tighten border security, while the Senate approach also includes provisions to regulate the flow of temporary workers into the country and control the legal fate of millions of illegal immigrants already here. Bush has broadly endorsed the Senate approach, saying he wants a comprehensive bill.

It was the second day in a row that congressional Republicans aired their differences on an issue that directly affects the fastest growing segment of the electorate. Under Bush's leadership, the Republicans have made dramatic inroads among Hispanic voters, and party strategists fret that the immigration debate could jeopardize their gains.

On Wednesday, leading GOP senators disagreed whether the legislation amounted to amnesty.

There was no such debate at the news conference in the House, where not a word was spoken in defense of the Senate bill and even Bush was not spared criticism.

"I don't think he's concerned about alienating voters, he's not running for re-election," said Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado. He said Republicans could lose the House and Senate over the immigration issue, and he said of the president: "I wish he'd think about the party and of course I also wish he'd think about the country."

Referring to a wave of demonstrations in recent weeks, Rep. Virgil Goode of Virginia said, "I say if you are here illegally and want to fly the Mexican flag, go to Mexico and wave the American flag."

King analyzed the issue in class terms.

"The elite class in America is becoming a ruling class and they've made enough money by hiring cheap illegal labor that they think they also have some kind of a right to cheap servants to manicure their nails and their lawn, for example.

"So this ruling class, this new ruling class of America, is expanding a servant class in America at the expense of the middle class of America, the blue collar of America that used to be able to punch a time clock, buy a modest house and raise their families. … Those young people are cut out of this process."

Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona and others said Republicans would pay a price in the midterm elections if they vote for anything like the Senate legislation. "Many of those who have stood for the Republican Party for the last decade are not only angry. They will be absent in November," he said.

Rohrabacher said Americans should be able to "smell the foul odor that's coming out of the U.S. Senate."

Asked a few moments later whether the same odor was emanating from the president, he said, "I have no comment."

Rohrabacher, King and others stood at a podium decorated with a bumper sticker reading "Say No to Amnesty," as the Senate slogged through a second suspenseless day of debate.

The only vote of the day came on a proposal by Frist for a study of the number and causes of deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border. It passed 94-0.

The more difficult choices lie ahead next week, when critics of the bill are expected to try to strip out the guest worker provision and roll back the provisions relating to 11 million illegal immigrants already here.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has said repeatedly he hopes to find a compromise that is more broadly acceptable than the legislation that cleared his committee over the objections of six Republicans.

"There's a movement afoot to find consensus," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who voted for the bill that cleared committee.

He said the president's statements "have been hugely helpful."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

[debris]

Can someone explain to me where the economic crisis lies?

Unemployment is the same now as in the 1980s
Job growth is the same
Wage growth is the same

I could understand the outrage if we were France, where the economy has been stagnating for decades. But this is the USA. We've had a good economy the last few years, a great economy from roughtly 1984 onward, and unemployment of 5%. Where is the economic crisis? And how can we possible have the audacity to blame the economic woes (assuming they exist) of the most powerful nation on Earth, a nation of 297 million rich people...on 11 million poor people?

It seems like when it comes to economics, there are always people who are walking around with storm clouds permanently hovering over their heads.

Another thing....All we do on this board is complain about how expensive housing is, in Manhattan and elsewhere on the coasts. Do you have any idea how expensive construction costs would be without illegal immigrant labor? Do you really think we could find Americans to haul lumber all day for $12 an hour?

[debris]

One more thing...the explotation issue. Can't figure that one out. One minute we're marveling over how these immigrants could spend thousands of dollars to cross a border, perhaps dying in the process, and the next minute we're talking about how miserable it is for them here. I'm sure they'll beg to differ. They weren't brought over here in chains. They risk their lives because they want to be here. Bottom line is, we have no business producing most of our agriculture in the first place (our tariffs keep out developing nation agricultural goods and contribute to our poor world image), but if we're going to farm anyway, let's at least be marginally competitive on the world markets. No way someone's going to pay you $12 an hour to pick grapes. Not going to happen in a free country. Why should we try to protect jobs that other nations will do for $12 a DAY when the US offers so many opportunities for its citizens to gain an education and work 21st century, lucrative jobs?

[lofter1]

While some of your figures are on the mark, the unemployment figure of ~5% is somewhat deceptive as that number pertains to those who are actually seeking work via figures from government agencies. For example, if you're out of work and start collecting Unemployment Benefits you are in the system, but once those benefits are exhausted the system no longer counts you as one of the"Unemployed". So if you don't find work then you are no longer counted as either employed or unemployed -- in a sense you simply disappear. The Unemployment number also does NOT reflect those who [1] have given up seeking work via the established channels, [2] those who are "partially" employed

Some of the economic problems cited are [1] social services that are overstretched (health services particularly), [2] schools that are overcrowded & underfunded, [3] border patrol / enforcement that is undermanned & underfunded, [4] the "underground" economy where wages are not taxed and therefore those workers are not contributing in the same way as do those working in the mainstream economy.

The low wages are particularly problematic, especially wages paid at a rate below established minimum levels. There is a lot of discussion about "work that Americans won't do", but much of this is could indeed be due to sub-standard wages. If we as Americans want to establish and condone a working class that is paid below minimum levels, with no other benefits to the workers, then we should be open and above-board about it and codify it into law.

The system we have now reveals a great hypocricy: Complaining about the immigrant work situation but bemoaning the chance that prices for construction, food and other items might rise if we do anything about it.

Info on Farm Workers Wages HERE (http://www.therationalradical.com/documents/farm_workers.htm)

[lofter1]

Graph HERE (http://migration.ucdavis.edu/rmn/more.php?id=1100_0_1_0) showing "Average Hourly Earnings of California Farm Workers 2002 - 04 ($/Hr)"


California's Employment Development Department has since 1991 collected monthly data from agricultural employers on employment and earnings of non-supervisory production workers. Average hourly earnings are reported by commodity and region. This figure ranks hourly earnings in 2004, and shows that earnings rose fastest between 2002 and 2003-04 in the highest-wage commodities, such as custom harvesting (postharvest activities), dairy and livestock, and greenhouse and nursery production. Earnings were flat for workers employed by farm labor contractors and in berry crops.

[MrSpice]

We've tried NAFTA -- and that doesn't seem to have done much for workers in Mexico.


This is false. This Business Week article is 3 years old but it talks about NAFTA's effect on Mexican economy: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_51/b3863008.htm

You cannot expect a free-trade treaty to solve all problems. Mexico has a very poor education system. Many areas of the country don't have reliable and sound infrastructure. Too many people are bound by the circle of powerty. There are not enough colleges and/or trade schools that can give the people the skills they need to be successful. All of these problems can only be solved by Mexico, its government and its people. As far as illegal immigration is concerned, this is a much more difficult issue than many would like us to believe.

Logically, the Bush idea makes a lot of sense - why not legalize the process and let those that want to come here to work do it legally. But the problem here is that the main reason farmers want to hire those illegal workers is because they can pay them pennies without any benefits. Then those people live in extreme poverty breeding problems and crime. And then they have kids that go to the local schools and require tax dollars and get emergency medical care that people have to pay for. If you legalize the process, who is going to pay for all this? In effect, the states and municipalities are subsidizing the low-cost workers for the farms and other industries (construction, restaurants, etc.). Maybe it's a good thing. But it's not an easy problem to handle.

[lofter1]

Thanks for the link ... I stand corrected. Clearly some Mexican workers have benefitted from NAFTA. It is also clear that many, many others find it an unsatisfactory solution:


But rightly or wrongly, a large proportion of Mexicans today believe the sacrifices exceeded the benefits. The Mexican mood is infecting other Latin countries, which after 15 years of gradually opening their own economies to trade and investment are showing pronounced fatigue with the "Washington consensus," the free-market formula preached by the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund. In an August poll of 17 Latin countries carried out by Chile-based Corporación Latinobarómetro, just 16% of respondents said they were satisfied with the way market economics were working in their countries. Thus NAFTA's perceived shortfalls are giving fresh ammunition to free trade's opponents. "Now you have a whole network of people organizing against the Free Trade Area of the Americas and globalization because of what has happened in Mexico under NAFTA," says Thea Lee, the AFL-CIO'S chief expert on international trade pacts...

Why have so many Mexicans soured on NAFTA? One problem is that the deal was oversold by its sponsors as a cure-all, a near-magic way to turn Mexico into the next Korea or Taiwan. Ten years later, many think the pact has stopped paying dividends -- and that Mexico has been unfairly neglected by a Washington consumed by the war on terror. Speaking before an audience of Mexican students on Nov. 11, Mexico's envoy to the U.N., Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, characterized NAFTA as "a weekend fling." The U.S., he said, "isn't interested in a relationship of equals with Mexico, but rather in a relationship of convenience and subordination." While Zinser's remarks cost him his job, his words struck a chord with millions of Mexicans. In an October survey by a leading pollster, only 45% of Mexicans said NAFTA had benefited their economy. That's down from the 68% who in November, 1993, saw the pact as a strong plus.

[lofter1]

Workforce that never sleeps

BY NICOLE BODE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
New York Daily News
March 31st, 2006

http://www.nydailynews.com (http://www.nydailynews.com)

They clean your office while you sleep and comfort your kids when you're away at work. They prepare your morning coffee, deliver your lunch and clean your plates when you dine out.

And some people in Congress want to make them all criminals.

A controversial bill that has passed the House of Representatives and a slightly less punitive bill being considered in the Senate would instantly criminalize the estimated half-million illegal immigrants believed to be living and working in this city. Even those who help the illegals could be prosecuted.

The bill has led to massive protests in Los Angeles, Phoenix and other cities - and now has prompted a march tomorrow across the Brooklyn Bridge, and talk of a larger protest in the city on April 10.

But on a typical day in New York, it is near impossible to avoid crossing paths with illegal immigrants - the backbone of an underground economy that relies on low-wage workers performing menial tasks.

You may not notice them or think twice about them, but they are there:

8:15 a.m. Just before leaving for work, Arlene, an undocumented nanny from St. Vincent in the Caribbean, shows up to watch your kids. She'll make breakfast, change diapers, and keep up with afternoon play dates. In between, she might also wash your laundry, clean the apartment and cook dinner for when you get home.

"The parents really depend on it," says Arlene, 34, who came to the city 14 years ago, "We're taking care of their most precious possession. We make their lives better - whether they're doctors or nurses or work on Wall Street. We literally make it possible for them to work."

9 a.m. By the time you get to your office, the trash can is empty and the carpets are clean. That was probably due to someone like Marilyn, a 53-year-old undocumented Costa Rican immigrant, who toils from 6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., seven days a week. The meticulous woman with weathered hands makes around $8-$10 an hour, which she sends home so that her two children can attend college.

"I don't have as much energy as a young person might. But I keep my children in my heart, and I think that the sacrifices are worth it. I would do anything for them. I would even sweep the floor with my eyelashes."

1 p.m. Stomach grumbling, you dial up a kosher deli. A few minutes later, Carlos, a 41-year-old Colombian immigrant, parks his bicycle outside your office. Despite a college degree, Carlos shleps around kosher meals in Manhattan because he has no documentation. Customers usually treat him fairly, but sometimes he feels the sting of discrimination.

"In general, people don't really care about us. I think they don't really see us," said Carlos, who makes $4.60 an hour, plus tips. "Here, it feels like all the doors are closed for you just because you don't have papers."

4 p.m. While typing up a last-minute report, you snag a painful hangnail on the keyboard. Fortunately, there's a Korean-run nail salon around the corner that offers $10 manicures - and a staff likely filled with illegal immigrants toiling upward of 90 hours a week for between $300 to $400.

But workers are often reluctant to complain about their conditions, not only because of their status, but also out of a sense of ethnic loyalty.

"There's a sense that you're almost betraying the community. You're biting the hand that feeds you," said Steven Choi, 29, lawyer for the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, "People say, 'I gave you a job when nobody would, now this is how you repay me?'"

http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/335-immigbaby.JPG
Dry-cleaning delivery man
Candelario Santos and his daughter

6 p.m. On the way home from work, you stop by the neighborhood dry cleaner to pick up tomorrow's suit. Behind the neatly pressed seams is Candelario Santos, 24, a Mexican immigrant who makes $400 a week steam-ironing clothes in a sweltering backroom surrounded by three to four other workers.

"Ironing is hard to do - there's no ventilation. It gets up to 100 degrees," said Santos, who supports a wife and two young kids in Brooklyn, "There are plenty of people who would never be willing to work in there. They'd say, 'It's too hot.'"

9 p.m. Late for a drink with friends, you hail a passing yellow cab. On the other side of your plexiglass divider, some undocumented drivers navigate under constant fear of crackdown by the Taxi and Limousine Commission or immigration.

Fueling the fear are tales like the one of a Bangladeshi cabbie here legally on a work visa who returned home for his daughter's wedding only to be rejected by immigration officials upon his return to Kennedy Airport.

"He had permission to go - he had the legal work permit," said Mamnunul Haq, 43, a documented Bangladeshi driver from Borough Park, Brooklyn, who was friends with the man. "He got back to Kennedy, they sent him home."

http://www.nydailynews.com/ips_rich_content/303-immigvendor.JPG
Alaa, street vendor

2 a.m. Outside your apartment window, tipsy hipsters spill out of the city's hottest nightclubs craving a late-night snack. They might find Alaa, an undocumented 42-year-old Egyptian who works the 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift around Manhattan selling $3 Halal chicken kebabs from a street cart. Alone in the darkness, Alaa often finds himself powerless to defend himself against club owners who shoo him away from their sidewalk despite his legal cart license, as well as foul-mouthed club kids who run away with their order without paying. "I can't call the police, because the first thing the police ask is, 'Let me see your ID.' This is my problem," said Alla, who left his wife and three daughters to come here three years ago. "What can I do?"

[MidtownGuy]

Bravo, Lofter1, for that post.

[Teno]

Articles like that tug at the heart strings but there is no reason why those jobs have to be filled by illegal immigrants.

The primary reason they are filled by illegal immigrants is because they are paid below a livable wage with out benefits.

There has to be some way to create a system that fills those jobs with people who want to work in them. Allow those people to be legal foreign workers and eventually US citizens. While paying them a fair wage that will allow them to contribute to the community without being a drain on social services.

Ultimately Mexico should take responsibility for its own poor not pass them to the United States.

Heck we got our own poverty problems.

[Teno]

Also we have a steady flow of illegal immigrants from South America.

There are a finite number of jobs those people will be able to fill.

At some point we will reach saturation.

[lofter1]

The primary reason they are filled by illegal immigrants is because they are paid below a livable wage with out benefits.

There has to be some way to create a system that fills those jobs with people who want to work in them.
The Republicans in the House say charge and prosecute as felons the employers who hire such workers. That certainly would be one way to get the message across -- and possibly force employers to pay a decent wage to workers.

[BrooklynRider]

I would agree with that. They are coming here because the U.S. has something to offer and we have no border security. It is the employers who have created the problem at the expense of government and American workers. Time to to start inspecting I-9 forms.

[Ninjahedge]

If they just made it easier for these guys to come and go (with proper security checs) you would see much less sneaking across the border.

AAMOF, you might see some towns develop right along the border due to the lower cost of living in Mexico than in the US.

Earn their income in the US, then go home to a HOUSE rather than a flophouse or overcrowded shared apartment.

And then those houses would all be bought out by US real estate speculators, turned into condominium developments and follow the same path as every other suburb in the US......

[MrSpice]

The Republicans in the House say charge and prosecute as felons the employers who hire such workers. That certainly would be one way to get the message across -- and possibly force employers to pay a decent wage to workers.

That would be true if we lived in that ideal world often advocated by unions and policians. The reality is that virtually any deli shop in this city, any restaurant, any fruit market, construction company or other business that relies on manpower employs lots of illegal immigrants. When you eat out next time, take a walk to the kitchen and peek inside. I can guarantee you that you will see the kitchen full of mexican (and certainly illegal) immigrants. I would argue that if the federal law took effect that would fine employers for hiring illegal immigrants, nothing would change at all. After all, it's already illegal to hire those who don't have the legal right to work and it always has been illegal. And I think that if the federal immigration officials were to really enforce this law, our economy would suffer.

Make no mistake about it - all this talk about terrible capitalists employers paying next to nothing to the poor immigrants instead of paying good wages to hard-working Americans is nothing but a sound byte that has little to do with reality. Even in New York, we have close to 5.5% unemployment (which is close to so-called "full employment"). I would guess there are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants that cook dishes, toast bagels, press shirts, clean apartments and do so many others thing Americans will do only if the pay for those jobs increases substantially. To force the employers to stop hiring illegal immigrants, would would have to create the whole new level of enforcement. You're talking about hudreds of immigration agents checking on businesses, arresting people, etc. This will never happen in an immigrant-friendly city like New York.

Certainly, the smart solution would be to create special work visas for those that want to work here, and certainly for those who are already here and working.

[lofter1]

I agree with you Spice --

I was only stating what our legislators are attempting to do -- fools and opportunists that they are.

[Azazello]

Noboby wants to pay $70 dollars for a simple restaurant meal, $30 for a pizza, or $20/hr for housecleaner/careworker, so we all turn a blind-eye to illegal workers doing these jobs as long as prices stay "low".

On NPR's MarketReport last week there was a business owner who gave his story as a 'terrible capitalist employer'. (Ten?) years ago he hired illegal workers. He got raided by the Feds - complete with a SWAT team that surrounded his building - got fined, and most of his workers were deported.

He said that there is no way he can afford to pay $20/hr (I assume that's the market rate for his jobs). Although he pays less, he does offers full benefits. He still has a lot of trouble getting enough workers.

My biased opinion is that most businesses are in his situation: they want to offer more but can't afford "normal" wage rates, they're willing to bump up other benefits to make the jobs attractive to legal workers, but stll can't get enough to fill the positions.

[lofter1]

This is just another version of an "underground' economy -- off the books and mostly out of sight. Such situations or variations thereof exist everywhere.

Controlling it will most likely require more money, heart & diligence than those who run our government possess.

[lofter1]

An Immigration Debate Framed by Family Ties

By RACHEL L. SWARNS (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/rachel_l_swarns/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
NY_Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/washington/04immig.html?hp&ex=1144209600&en=c1c86b062a832cd5&ei=5094&partner=homepage)
April 4, 2006

WASHINGTON, April 3 — During the heated immigration debate on Capitol Hill, some Republicans have portrayed immigrants as invaders, criminals and burdens to society. But for Senator Pete V. Domenici, Republican of New Mexico, the image that comes to mind is that of his mother and the day the authorities took her away.

It was 1943, World War II was raging and federal agents were sweeping through Albuquerque hunting for Italian sympathizers. They found Mr. Domenici's mother, Alda V. Domenici, a curly haired mother of four and a local PTA president who also happened to be an illegal immigrant from Italy. Mr. Domenici, who said he was 9 or 10 years old then, wept when his mother vanished with the agents in their big black car.

Now 73, Mr. Domenici stunned many of his colleagues when he stood up on the Senate floor last week and shared the story, which he has kept mostly to himself for much of his life.

But his powerful account reflects a broader reality that has gone almost unnoticed as Republicans have feuded over whether to legalize the nation's illegal immigrants. Among the most passionate Republican voices in this debate are lawmakers with strong immigrant ties, who have woven the strands of family history into an outlook that has helped shape their legislative positions.

The close connection has convinced some lawmakers of the importance of providing citizenship to illegal immigrants, while others say it should be granted more sparingly.

Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which voted last week to legalize millions of illegal immigrants, said his parents came to the United States from Russia in the early 1900's. Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, who supports a more limited temporary worker program, said he grew up listening to the stories of his grandparents, who arrived from the Netherlands sometime before 1910.

And Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, fled Cuba for Florida in 1962, when he was 15, and lived in orphanages and with foster families until he was reunited with his family four years later.

These men carry the memories of relatives who spoke with the sonorous accents of their homelands, fading black-and-white photographs of the newcomers to the United States and the names of villages in faraway places.
All four support bills that would allow illegal immigrants to work here for a period, though their singular experiences have resulted in different perspectives on the question of whether the immigrants should become citizens.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, when foreign-born senators and those with immigrant parents were much more common, their stories would have been unremarkable, Senate historians say. These days, the lawmakers say, their family histories — particularly those of Mr. Domenici, Mr. Specter and Mr. Martinez — give them something of an unusual vantage point.

"I understand this whole idea of a household with a father who is American and a mother who is not, but they are living, working and getting ahead," said Mr. Domenici, whose mother was married to an American citizen. "I understand that they are just like every other family in America. There is nothing different."

Mr. Domenici's mother was 3 when she arrived in the United States with her family from Italy and about 38 when the authorities came looking for her. She was married to an Italian-born American citizen, who owned a grocery store, and thought her papers were in order.

After she was picked up on that day in 1943, Mrs. Domenici was released on bond to return home to her family. Over the next six months, she completed the necessary paperwork to become a citizen.

Mr. Domenici said his experience persuaded him to introduce legislation that would grant illegal immigrants like his mother, who have deep roots in the community, the chance to become citizens, while more recent arrivals would be allowed to work here only temporarily.

He does not support the bill passed by Mr. Specter's committee, which would not distinguish between recent arrivals and those who have spent several years here. "You ought to try and give people with five years and more the opportunity for some kind of break," Mr. Domenici said.

Of course, supporters of temporary work programs are not the only ones with immigrant relatives.

Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, one of the fiercest critics of efforts to legalize immigrants, said his orphaned father was around 11 when he arrived at Ellis Island from Italy around the turn of the 20th century and made his way to the Rocky Mountains.

Mr. Tancredo pondered a bit when asked whether his immigrant background had played a role in shaping his views. Then he thought back to his mother's parents, also from Italy.

"I certainly think back on the fact that their greatest desire was to be Americanized," Mr. Tancredo said. "This desire to cut with the old and attach to the new, speak English, stuff like that. If there was anything, maybe that was an influence."

James A. Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, said that lawmakers in Congress often reflected, to some extent, the demographics of the nation. Dr. Thurber also said he believed that the current wave of immigration from Latin America would fuel an increase in the number of foreign-born immigrants in Congress.

"First and second generation, we had larger numbers of those in Congress in the 1800's and early 1900's," Dr. Thurber said. "Now, for most people, it's third and fourth generation. They remember the stories, but they don't feel it in their guts the way you would if you were socialized by parents."

Mr. Specter says he still feels it. He keeps the old photographs hanging in his office, on the wall behind his wooden desk. There is his father, slim and solemn in his World War I uniform, standing alongside his young bride draped in lace.

His father fled anti-Semitism in Russia and arrived in this country when he was 18. After the war, he settled in the Midwest, where he sold cantaloupes from the back of a car and ran a scrap yard.

Mr. Specter said that his parents' struggles and successes had profoundly influenced his thinking in shepherding immigration legislation through the Judiciary Committee.

"You talk about America being a nation of immigrants," he said, "well, my two best friends were immigrants, my mother and my father. I saw how they struggled. They struggled with the language. They struggled with anti-Semitism. They struggled to make a living. It was tough. You knew you were different.

"So I have a lot of simpatico for the individuals who are immigrants. I have even more of an understanding of what immigrants have done for the country."

Mr. Martinez, the Florida Republican, echoed those thoughts, saying that his own success in the United States had convinced him that, given the opportunity, illegal immigrants would also succeed. "America has a way of bringing us in," he said, "welcoming us and allowing us to become a part of the whole."

Mr. Specter, 76, and Mr. Martinez, 59, whose parents fled oppression in their home countries, both support a plan that would eventually grant citizenship to illegal immigrants who spend six more years here, pay fines and back taxes, and learn English.

But on Monday, Mr. Specter said that he and other Republicans were also willing to consider a proposal along the lines of Mr. Domenici's. Senator Kyl, the Arizona Republican, backs a much more limited program. He said that his grandparents, who settled in Nebraska, spoke Dutch and heavily accented English and emphasized old-fashioned values, "frugality and the ability to make it on hard work, grit, honesty."

If they were still alive, Mr. Kyl said, they would look at modern-day illegal immigrants and shake their heads. "I suspect they would be very upset about people who didn't do it the right way," said Mr. Kyl, 63.

His legislation, which would provide for a temporary-worker program without a path to permanent residency or citizenship, emphasizes that illegal immigrants should not be rewarded for breaking the law.

Mr. Domenici sees it differently. Both his parents are dead, but his mind sometimes flies back to his childhood, to memories of his mother raising money for the local Catholic school, the smell of his father's cigars and that awful day back in 1943.

Mr. Domenici said he decided to tell his story when the hostile rhetoric about illegal immigrants started to boil. He said he wanted to remind his fellow Republicans that the sons and daughters of this century's illegal immigrants could end up in the Senate one day, too.

"I wasn't trying to impress anybody," he said of his story. "I think it just puts a little heart and a little soul into this."

Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[lofter1]

Some surprising info here -- the GRAPHS (http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/04/02/weekinreview/20060402broder_graph.html) (attached) tell it best ...

Immigrants and the Economics of Hard Work

By JOHN M. BRODER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b/john_m_broder/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
LOS ANGELES
The Nation
NY_Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/weekinreview/02broder.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)
April 2, 2006

It is asserted both as fact and as argument: the United States needs a constant flow of immigrants to perform jobs Americans will not stoop to do.

But what if those jobs paid $50 an hour, with benefits, instead of $7 or $10 or $15?

"Of course there are jobs that few Americans will take because the wages and working conditions have been so degraded by employers," said Jared Bernstein, of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. "But there is nothing about landscaping, food processing, meat cutting or construction that would preclude someone from doing these jobs on the basis of their nativity. Nothing would keep anyone, immigrant or native born, from doing them if they paid better, if they had health care."

The most comprehensive recent study of immigrant workers comes from the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that, unlike Mr. Bernstein's, advocates stricter controls on immigration. The study, by the center's research director, Steven A. Camarota, found that immigrants are a majority of workers in only 4 of 473 job classifications — stucco masons, tailors, produce sorters and beauty salon workers. But even in those four job categories, native-born workers account for more than 40 percent of the work force.

While it might be a challenge to find an American-born cab driver in New York or parking lot attendant in Phoenix or grape cutter in the San Joaquin Valley of California, according to Mr. Camarota's study of census data from 2000-2005, 59 percent of cab drivers in the United States are native born, as are 66 percent of all valet parkers. Half of all workers in agriculture were born in this country.

"The idea that there are jobs that Americans won't do is economic gibberish," Mr. Camarota said. "All the big occupations that immigrants are in — construction, janitorial, even agriculture — are overwhelmingly done by native Americans."

But where they compete for jobs, he said, the immigrants have driven up the jobless rate for some Americans. According to his study, published in March, unemployment among the native born with less than a high school education was 14.3 percent in 2005; the figure for the immigrant population was 7.4 percent.

While Mr. Bernstein would agree that the least-educated American workers are at a disadvantage, he does not favor curbs on immigration. Even the least-skilled Americans benefit from the presence of a large pool of immigrant workers, Mr. Bernstein said. He said that the 11 million illegal immigrants are consumers, too, creating demand for goods and services and the jobs they produce. He also said their willingness to work at low wages helps keep inflation in check, benefiting the nation as a whole.

"It's quite clear that immigrants lead to lower prices of goods and services, and the lower inflation helps boost the economy, and that helps all Americans," Mr. Bernstein said. "You have a significant increase in the labor supply due to immigrant inflows, yet the wage effects seem isolated among the least educated, and they're not huge."

But George J. Borjas, a professor of economics and social policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/h/harvard_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org), said he believed that the flow of migrants had significantly depressed wages for Americans in virtually all job categories and income levels. His study found that the average annual wage loss for all American male workers from 1980 to 2000 was $1,200, or 4 percent, and nearly twice that, in percentage terms, for those without a high school diploma. The impact was also disproportionately high on African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, Professor Borjas found.

"What this is, is a huge redistribution of wealth away from workers who compete with immigrants to those who employ them," he said.

There is one place and one category of work in which the "jobs Americans will not do" mantra appears to be close to true —the salad bowl of California. Tim Chelling, the communications director for the Western Growers Association, a cooperative of big farm operators, said that last winter growers in California's Imperial Valley needed 300 workers to harvest lettuce and broccoli.

They went to the local unemployment office, he said, and posted a notice seeking workers, who would be paid about $9 an hour and receive bare-bones health insurance. "Apparently one guy showed up, and he didn't last through the first morning," Mr. Chelling said. All the jobs went to Mexican laborers, most of them probably illegal, he said.

Mr. Chelling, whose group supports liberalized immigration laws and guest worker programs, argued that the use of immigrant labor was not a question of money, though growers certainly prefer to pay low wages to keep costs down. Farm labor is back-breaking, he said, requiring endurance, dexterity and patience that few Americans possess.

Last weekend, some 500,000 people took to the streets of Los Angeles to protest a tough immigration bill passed by the House in December and to put pressure on the Senate, which is debating the issue now. In the crowd were very few African-American faces, noted Ronald W. Walters, a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland. Their economic prospects are directly threatened by the huge influx of illegal immigrants, he said. African-Americans are competing for jobs in construction, hotels and restaurants, meat packing and textiles, he said, and they lose out to immigrants willing to accept lower pay and fewer benefits.

"The African-American leadership has a lot of angst about this," he said, adding: "It's not just a black problem, but we are the most acutely affected. The fact is, it's hurting us."

Joel Kotkin, a fellow at the New America Foundation, a public policy institute, said that the American economy is large enough to absorb most of the new immigrants without pushing too many native-born Americans to the margins.

But he said the situation could change dramatically if the economy were to enter a downturn, particularly in the housing sector where thousands of immigrants are laborers. If the housing bubble popped, Mr. Kotkin said, competition for the remaining jobs would be fierce and could stoke anti-immigrant sentiments. He recalled the anti-immigrant proposition approved by Californians in 1994, when the state was mired in recession. "The important factor is the state of the economy," he said. "An economy that is growing rapidly can absorb these people more easily than one that isn't."

Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html)The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)

[lofter1]

Letter on Immigration Deepens Split Among Evangelicals

By Alan Cooperman (http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/alan+cooperman/)
Washington Post Staff Writer
April 5, 2006

More than 50 evangelical Christian leaders and organizations voiced their support yesterday for an immigration bill that would allow illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens without returning to their native countries.

The statement marks a deepening split among evangelicals over immigration. It was signed by a mixture of Hispanic and white church groups. But most of the nation's large, politically influential evangelical organizations either back rival legislation that focuses on border enforcement and the deportation of illegal immigrants, or have been silent on the issue.

Hispanic evangelical leaders said yesterday that they have received support from Roman Catholic, Jewish and Muslim groups, but have been bitterly disappointed by the response of most of their fellow evangelicals, both white and black.

"This is the watershed movement -- it's the moment where either we really forge relationships with the white evangelical church that will last for decades, or there is a possibility of a definitive schism here," said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which serves 10,700 Hispanic evangelical churches with 15 million members.

"There will be church ramifications to this, and there will be political ramifications," he said.

In a letter yesterday to President Bush and members of Congress, Rodriguez's group and its allies cited Bible passages that call for the compassionate treatment of foreigners. Specifically, the letter urged "border protection policies that are consistent with humanitarian values," streamlined procedures for reuniting separated families, and an option for undocumented workers to legalize their status.

The LETTER (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/immigration/wr.immigrationletter.pdf) (pdf file)... Some predominantly white evangelical groups, such as the Christian Coalition and Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, have strongly opposed the Kennedy-McCain bill, labeling it an "amnesty" package. They support a House-passed measure that would concentrate on sealing U.S. borders and enforcing existing immigration laws.

"We think our national boundaries should be respected. That's a biblical principle also," said Christian Coalition lobbyist Jim Backlin.

Many larger groups, such as James C. Dobson's Colorado-based Focus on the Family, have not taken a stand on the issue. Rodriguez, of the Hispanic Christian conference, said his group wants to know why.

"We need to know from white evangelical leaders why did they not support comprehensive immigration reform, why they came down in favor exclusively of enforcement, without any mention of the compassionate side, without any mention of the Christian moral imperatives," he said.

"So down the road, when the white evangelical community calls us and says, 'We want to partner with you on marriage, we want to partner on family issues,' my first question will be: 'Where were you when 12 million of our brothers and sisters were about to be deported and 12 million families disenfranchised?' "


© Copyright (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/interact/longterm/talk/copy.htm?nav=globebot) 1996-document.write(new Date().getFullYear()) 2006 The Washington Post Company

[Ninjahedge]

Response to soundbyte heard this morning.

Can someone tell me how it is fair to fine a MIGRANT WORKER $2000 AND the "back taxes owed" IF they are to be considered legal in the US after being here for more than 5 years?

Also, how do they intend to prove the 5 year residence? Also, how do they intend to do the revolving door for all those in the "transition" group?

I don't know where they are getting all these $$$ numbers from, but until these gringoes can afford more than the barest of living standards, it is not fair to put additional fiscal responsibility on them.

Time for the $20 cheese pizza I guess. Most of us in Midtown are used to it by now (Not me, I just came uf from the West Village... :( )

[debris]

Has anyone stopped to consider for a moment that if illegals were granted amnesty, NYC's population would immediately shoot up to 9 million (yes, we're undercounting illegals that much), and NYC would gain tremendously in power against upstate in the state legislature, something people on this forum are constantly bitching about?

Or pause for one second to reflect that cities and inner suburbs would gain population across the US, shifting federal resources and political power to the cities?

Or ponder the fact that the American Southwest (especially Nevada, New Mexico, and Arizona) will instantly have large population gains and turn Democratic, possibly tipping the red/blue balance towards the Democrats for the next several decades?

Has anyone stopped to consider, even for one millisecond, that this is what Republicans REALLY care about (since when have they ever cared about what ordinary constituents want?), and that people on the anti-illegal side are being used as PAWNS to protect the Republican balance of power in Congress and the White House?

That you're really fighting to keep Arizona white and Republican for another 20 years, and not for a 5% bump-up in pay for high school drop outs, whom Congress doesn't seem to give a damn about the other 99% of the day?

Do you really think that those clowns in Congress sit around all day pondering the relative trade-offs between taxes (more welfare, but also more Social Security funding in the next generation), the labor market (lower for American dropouts, but more jobs overall due to increased productivity), and culture (yes, they speak Spanish, but wouldn't be nice if some Americans knew another language?).

Yeah, well anyone who thinks those are the real issues, I have a bridge to sell them. Not the Willis Avenue bridge, but the other one :)

Remember that the wave of immigration, both legal and illegal, at the turn of the century touched off a demographic transformation which swept FDR and the New Deal into office for 13 years after Republicans McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin C, Harding, Hoover etc etc etc.

If these illegals were given it would change EVERYTHING politically. So if everyone on this board is a Republican, I apologize, bravo to you, keep it up. Otherwise, consider my arguments versus raising someone dropout's wage at the deli from $8.00/hour to $8.40/hour (a 5% raise!)

[debris]

By the way, about the churches. They seem to grasp the numbers issue much better than the general public. Especially for the Catholic church, but increasing the Evangelicals, immigrants are their future. Church attendance declines when immigration tails off (along with church power), just look at Europe. They seem to get it. Politicans certainly get it, its their job. Its only the (very intelligent) members of this board, the blogosphere, and political pundits in general who don't seem to get the political power stuggle angle here. Instead, they seem to think that the nation's politicians have suddenly, out of nowhere, become concerned about the wages of the one American guy left who is cleaning the bathroom. Sure, right, whatever you say, corporate master.

Funny thing is, whenever people discuss historical immigration, everyone talks about the politics. No one talks about the poor native New Yorkers at the turn of the century who lost their jobs building bridges, or in the garment factories, or WHATEVER, when the Irish, Italian, and Jews came. No, what we remember is those immigrants (and their childrens') role in Tammany Hall, the Progressive Movement, the New Deal, etc.

The important stuff, in other words.

[debris]

Not to mention, in retrospect, that its obvious that the influx of immigrants to New York CREATED a lot of jobs in the garment industry, and didn't simply steal the jobs which pre-existed their arrival. But somehow, analyzing history is easier for people than analyzing the present.

[lofter1]

http://img.getactivehub.com/an2/custom_images/cccaction/header.gif (http://www.cccaction.org/cccaction/april10_index.html)

About the April 10 Day of Action

City: New York City
Date: 4/10
Time: 3:00PM-7:00PM
Location: City Hall
Event Details: Rally

FLYER (http://www.fairimmigration.org/press/press_releases/April10_PDF/New%20York%20City/a10marchesflyer.pdf)


The plan for the April 10 Day of Action came from the grassroots. The National Capital Immigrant Coalition – a coalition of immigrant, labor, faith, civil rights and business community groups in the metro, Washington, DC area – and allies around the nation, developed the concept of a National Day of Action. Their good idea caught on like wildfire and today hundreds of local grassroots organizations and coalitions are working together in cities all over America to make our voices heard.

For months, the incredible energy and organizing talent within immigrant communities has been leading the national news. Communities that have lived in the shadows and in fear are now speaking out about how America's broken immigration system regularly rips families apart, creates the conditions for gross workplace and civil rights violations, and fuels a political climate where being “anti-immigrant” is considered by some politicians to be a winning strategy.

Immigrant communities are coming together on April 10 to proudly declare that “We Are America” and that immigration reform must not violate the American values that we cherish. In cities from coast-to-coast, immigrants, families and friends will gather, tell our own personal stories, demand political action and contribute our energy and talents to the growing movement for immigrant justice.

Our goal is to stop anti-immigrant legislation from becoming law and to pass real, comprehensive immigration reform that provides a clear path to citizenship, unites families, and ensures workplace and civil rights protections for all.

You can help support immigrant families on April 10.

Learn about events in your community (http://www.cccaction.org/cccaction/april_10_local_events.html)
Sign our petition for immigrant rights (http://www.cccaction.org/campaign/april10)
Make a donation to help support April10.org and the movement for immigrant justice (https://secure.ga4.org/01/april10_donate)The April 10 Day of Action for Immigrant Justice is being organized by local grassroots organizations all across the nation. The www.April10.org (http://www.april10.org/) website is hosted by the Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) (http://www.fairimmigration.org/home/index.php), a project of the Center for Community Change. (http://www.communitychange.org/)

[BrooklynRider]

It's a very complex issue that needs to addressed incrementally through legislation. Republicans have it wrong in my opinion, but Democrats do not have it right either.

It's another example of a responsibility of this Federal government that is not being fulfilled due to poor leadership, staffing cuts and budget cuts. It also goes directly back to NAFTA, which is a dismal failure. It certainly didn't create jobs, raise wages or living standards in Mexico.

[debris]

Let's not forget that of the six "big legal immigration" states (NY, NJ, CA, TX, FL, IL) which absorb nearly 2/3 of immigrants, four are reliably democratic, and Florida might tip blue if illegals were citizens.

Of the "big illegal immigration" states (let's add AZ, NV, NM), all three are swing states that have voted reliably red in the past, minus immigration.

[BrooklynRider]

Personally, I'm not that desperate to see uneducated foreigners in our system of government. Let them go through the naturalization process. I think the argument that they would turn certain red state blue is weak. The more reputable polls are showing that, with the exception of Wyoming and Utah, all red states are purple and leaning blue at this point. Also, 2000 and especially 2004 proved that elections have less to do with voter turnout and votes cast than with who controls the voting machines. Diebold counties will go Republican regardless of voter intent.

[debris]

I'm not talking about this year's polls or the 2008 election, I'm talking about the next 30 years. Immigration has the potential to pemanently shift politics back to the left. Case in point: the demostration tomorrow will be the largest in US history. I'm surprised we haven't seen counter-demostrations yet. You certainly would in Europe. I think that's a good omen for our country.

[debris]

And by what stretch of the imagination are American voters educated and well-informed? We are talking about the same country, right, the one where high school students can't find Mexico on a map? :)

[debris]

This article about wages and immigration is from the Economist. Various studies have found that immigration has depressed high school dropout wages somewhere between 0-5%

Myths and migration
Apr 6th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Do immigrants really hurt American workers' wages?

EVERY now and again America, a nation largely made up of immigrants and their descendants, is gripped by a furious political row over whether and how it should stem the flood of people wanting to enter the country. It is in the midst of just such a quarrel now. Congress is contemplating the erection of a wall along stretches of the Mexican border and a crackdown on illegal workers, as well as softer policies such as a guest-worker programme for illegal immigrants. Some of the arguments are plain silly. Immigration's defenders claim that foreigners come to do jobs that Americans won't—as if cities with few immigrants had no gardeners. Its opponents say that immigrants steal American jobs—succumbing to the fallacy that there are only a fixed number of jobs to go around.

One common argument, though not silly, is often overstated: that immigration pushes down American workers' wages, especially among high-school dropouts. It isn't hard to see why this might be. Over the past 25 years American incomes have become less equally distributed, typical wages have grown surprisingly slowly for such a healthy economy and the real wages of the least skilled have actually fallen. It is plausible that immigration is at least partly to blame, especially because recent arrivals have disproportionately poor skills. In the 2000 census immigrants made up 13% of America's pool of workers, but 28% of those without a high-school education and over half of those with eight years' schooling or less.


In fact, the relationship between immigration and wages is not clear-cut, even in theory. That is because wages depend on the supply of capital as well as labour. Alone, an influx of immigrants raises the supply of workers and hence reduces wages. But cheaper labour increases the potential return to employers of building new factories or opening new valet-parking companies. In so doing, they create extra demand for workers. Once capital has fully adjusted, the final impact on overall wages should be a wash, as long as the immigrants have not changed the productivity of the workforce as a whole.

However, even if wages do not change on average, immigration can still shift the relative pay of workers of different types. A large inflow of low-skilled people could push down the relative wages of low-skilled natives, assuming that they compete for the same jobs. On the other hand, if the immigrants had complementary skills, natives would be relatively better off. To gauge the full effect of immigration on wages, therefore, you need to know how quickly capital adjusts and how far the newcomers are substitutes for local workers.

City to city
Empirical evidence* is as inconclusive as the theory. One method is to compare wage trends in cities with lots of immigrants, such as Los Angeles, with those in places with only a few, such as Indianapolis. If immigration had a big effect on relative pay, you would expect this to be reflected in differences between cities' wage trends. David Card, of the University of California, Berkeley, is one of the leading advocates of this approach. His research suggests that although there are big differences between cities' proportions of immigrants, this has had no significant effect on unskilled workers' pay. Not everyone is convinced by Mr Card's technique. His critics argue that the geographical distribution of immigrants is not random. Perhaps low-skilled natives leave cities with lots of immigrants rather than compete with them for jobs, so that immigration indirectly pushes up the supply of low-skilled workers elsewhere (and pushes down their wages). Mr Card has tested the idea that immigration displaces low-skilled natives and found scant evidence that it does.

An alternative approach, pioneered by George Borjas, of Harvard University, is to tease out the effect of immigration from national wage statistics. Mr Borjas divides people into categories, according to their education and work experience. He assumes that workers of different types are not easily substitutable for each other, but that immigrants and natives within each category are. By comparing wage trends in categories with lots of immigrants against those in groups with only a few, he derives an estimate of immigration's effect. His headline conclusion is that, between 1980 and 2000, immigration caused average wages to be some 3% lower than they would otherwise have been. Wages for high-school drop-outs were dragged down by around 8%.

Immigration's critics therefore count Mr Borjas as an ally. But hold on. These figures take no account of the offsetting impact of extra investment. If the capital stock is assumed to adjust, Mr Borjas reports, overall wages are unaffected and the loss of wages for high-school drop-outs is cut to below 5%.

Gianmarco Ottaviano, of the University of Bologna, and Giovanni Peri, of the University of California, Davis, argue that Mr Borjas's findings should be adjusted further. They think that, even within the same skill category, immigrants and natives need not be perfect substitutes, pointing out that the two groups tend to end up in different jobs. Mexicans are found in gardening, housework and construction, while low-skilled natives dominate other occupations, such as logging. Taking this into account, the authors claim that between 1980 and 2000 immigration pushed down the wages of American high-school drop-outs by at most 0.4%.

None of these studies is decisive, but taken together they suggest that immigration, in the long run, has had only a small negative effect on the pay of America's least skilled and even that is arguable. If Congress wants to reduce wage inequality, building border walls is a bad way of going about it.

[debris]

Again, the Economist. My favorite line:

Do Americans really want to criminalise or deport 11m people? (George Will, a conservative columnist, points out that they would fill “200,000 buses in a caravan stretching bumper-to-bumper from San Diego to Alaska.”)

By the way, I'm not implying anyone holds opinions on this board that are so extreme. Just thought I should make that clear.


The Tancredo tendency
Apr 6th 2006
From The Economist print edition

Dispiriting news on immigration

THE Republican Party is currently engaged in a fierce internal debate between two of its body parts—its head and its gut. The party's head tells it that it has no choice but to create a guest-worker programme. How else can it satisfy the ravenous demand for labour from business? And how else can it tempt America's 11m illegal aliens out from the shadows? But the party's gut tells it something completely different—just enforce the law. Build a fence. Arrest scofflaws. Send the bums back.

There are no prizes for guessing which organ is winning. Last December the House Republicans passed a gut-pleasing immigration bill that included a 698-mile $2.2 billion fence and stiff penalties for employers who employ illegal immigrants, but pointedly excluded any provision for guest-workers. This week the Senate tried to re-inject a dose of reason into the debate. But a bipartisan proposal by Teddy Kennedy and John McCain to set up a temporary visa programme looked as if it was going to fail.


Nobody is closer to the Republican Party's gut than Tom Tancredo, who represents Colorado's 6th District (roughly, Denver's southern suburbs). Mr Tancredo holds solidly right-wing positions on everything under the sun—though he briefly stopped taking money from the NRA in the aftermath of the Columbine shootings, which took place a few blocks from his house. He started his political career in the Colorado statehouse as a member of a group called “The Crazies” because of their fervent opposition to taxes. He signed a pledge calling for the elimination of public schools, despite the fact that both he and his wife had once taught in them, suggested bombing Mecca in retaliation for terrorism, and regularly voted against George Bush's “big government” legislation. But where Mr Tancredo has really made his mark—where he puts his red-faced fervour on full display—is on the subject of immigration.

Mr Tancredo has been furious about immigration since 1975, when he was a high-school social-studies teacher and the Colorado legislature passed the country's first bilingual education law. This liberal over-reach not only offended his heartfelt belief that immigration must be balanced by assimilation (Mr Tancredo is himself the grandson of Italian immigrants who came to America without being able to speak English). It provided him with a subject that has driven his political career. Mr Tancredo doesn't stop at building fences and opposing guest-workers. He opposes birth-right citizenship (whereby babies born in the United States automatically become American citizens). He wants to deploy American troops along the border with Mexico. And he regularly salutes the Minutemen who unofficially do the job now as “heroes...not vigilantes”.

Mr Tancredo's beliefs and behaviour at first consigned him to the margins of Washington life. His immigration caucus attracted only 16 members. He frequently found himself giving speeches on immigration to an empty chamber (though the ever-present C-Span camera made it worthwhile). Karl Rove, Mr Bush's chief adviser, was so angry about his anti-immigration stance that he told him that he would never “darken the doorstep of the White House” again; and Tom DeLay, the former majority leader and a moderate by Mr Tancredo's standards, told him that “you cannot think of making a career in this place.”

It is a measure of how far the immigration debate has moved from head to gut that Mr Tancredo is now in many ways mainstream (and his immigration caucus has 92 members). The House immigration bill didn't include everything that he hoped for: a fence along the Canadian border, for example. But Mr Tancredo undoubtedly succeeded in defeating House Republicans who wanted to include at least a mention of guest-workers. And his fierce support for “enforcement only” policies is now pushing the Senate bill (and any possible compromise bill) much further in his direction.

A reprise of the pitchfork
There is no doubt that Mr Tancredo's triumph is a disaster in terms of both policymaking and Republican politics. First, it threatens to perpetuate the current policy paralysis. Do Americans really want to criminalise or deport 11m people? (George Will, a conservative columnist, points out that they would fill “200,000 buses in a caravan stretching bumper-to-bumper from San Diego to Alaska.”) Do they really believe that a giant Berlin wall will stop people? (Securing the border has been the main focus of immigration policy for the past two decades, yet the number of illegal immigrants has still swollen from 3m to 11m.) And do they really want their immigration policy to be made by the likes of Mr Tancredo's fellow cave-dweller, Dana Rohrabacher, who argues that prisoners can do the jobs vacated by deported immigrants (“I say, let the prisoners pick the fruits”)?

Mr Tancredo's rise is a disaster for Republican politics because it threatens to expose Republican divisions while alienating Latinos, who are America's largest and fastest-growing minority. The lesson of race-charged politics in the past is that trust between Republicans and ethnic minorities is far easier to destroy than to build: witness the collapse in Latino support for California Republicans after the race-baiting in the 1990s, or the collapse of black support for Republicans after the Katrina fiasco.

But it is a disaster that could get bigger. Mr Tancredo reflects the fears of millions of Americans: that immigrants steal jobs, over-burden public services and increasingly refuse to assimilate. He has a dedicated army of supporters, from Minutemen to America First activists. And he is threatening to run for the presidency in 2008. “Pitchfork” Pat Buchanan demonstrated the strength of the nativist streak in the Republican Party back in 1992, when he won 37% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary against “King George” Bush. Mr Tancredo is showing every sign of becoming the Pitchfork Pat of the current decade.

[Ninjahedge]

They have to make registration simpler, with less penalties to the people who would be asked to register.

The "amnesty" programs are not amnesty at all.

Also, until Mexicos conditions improve RADICALLY, NO ammount of enforcement we could do on this end would do much to stem the flow without CONSIDERABLE cost to the taxpayer.

And assuming all hispanics will vote Democratic is rather blind as well, considering the fact that most Mexicans are even more conservative than we are. Combine that with the religious association and you do not have a decisive Democrat gain if they were suddenly legal.


We need to make it as simple as having an ID badge to be able to come into the states and work here. We need to make it unlimited renewal time with special requirements for consideration of citizenship (such as speaking english, and maybe a rudamentary education level).

Failure on these items would not prompt deportation, but would forego any chance at citizenship.

The easier you make it for people to come and go (provided adequate security checks) the less people will go to the extra effort to jump the fence. We have to encourage productive immigration and not foster an entire generation of people in hiding.

[kliq6]

the real issue is the open border we have. We have all these security lists so people cant fly into this country, but what is stopping the next Atta from flying to central america and walking into the USA like everyone else, or for that matter maybe the next atta has already come in. The issue is that we should have immigration, its what made this country, but there has to be some type of process in place like when Ellis Island was open, so we can make sure those that are here to contribute and work can still enter and the terrorists, drug pushers and criminals cant.

As for the illegals, out of the 12 million over 1 million are actually in prison right now, those should be deported and the rest should be put on a path to citizenship.

The Democrats have one thing they have to worry about like the Republicans that have to worry about what hispanics can do in the future to certian, RED StAtes. Big Labor Unions, Democrats largest ethnic white groups have the most to loose from Illegals and the lower wages they will work for. Unions may in the future wwing away from the Dems over this issue as could Black Americans, this topic is a hot one

[Citytect]

the real issue is the open border we have.

Bingo.

We have to secure our borders. Legislation won't solve the immigration problem.

[Ninjahedge]

Bingo.

We have to secure our borders. Legislation won't solve the immigration problem.

Not bingo.

You can't "secure" a border that large. Unless you want your taxes to double that is.

It is a LARGE border!

Now, if you made it so that it was easier to get in, less people would try to get in illegally. There would be less people on the support routes for these people, and it would generally be harder to do it.

It would also be easier to track, police, and hold anyone that is caught trying to cross the border.

Sometimes the best way to control a raging river is not to build a mile high dam, but to make sure you have enough aqueducts to handle the flow. Then the places where the water is leaking where it shouldn't be are easier to fix.

[MrSpice]

Not bingo.

You can't "secure" a border that large. Unles you want your taxes to double that is.

It is a LARGE border!

Now, if you made it so that it was easier to get in, less people would try to get in illegally. There would be less people on the support routes for these people, and it would generally be harder to do it.

It woudl also be easier to track, police, and hold anyone that is caught trying to cross the border.

Sometimes the best way to control a raging river is not to build a mile high dam, but to make sure yuo have enough aqueducts to handle the flow. Then the places where the water is leaking where it shouldn't be are easier to fix.

Actually, I don't think this is the case. To extend the wall that they already built in some parts of California and Arizona to the whole border will not require doubling our taxes. It will probably cost a few billion dollars which is a very small portion of the overall federal budget (if we can afford an Iraq war, we can certainly build the wall). I just don't think it's necessary and advisable. We want people to come here for work and opportunity. But to facilitate that, the new system should make it very easy for employers to get work visas for their perspective employees and the background checks should be quick and inexpensive. Otherwise, the illegal immigration will continue and will only increase. You need to combine giving out the work visas with serious enforecement of the immigration laws so that if employers are severely punished if they hire someone illgally.

[Ninjahedge]

Actually, I don't think this is the case. To extend the wall that they already built in some parts of California and Arizona to the whole border will not require doubling our taxes. It will probably cost a few billion dollars which is a very small portion of the overall federal budget (if we can afford an Iraq war, we can certainly build the wall). I just don't think it's necessary and advisable. We want people to come here for work and opportunity. But to facilitate that, the new system should make it very easy for employers to get work visas for their perspective employees and the background checks should be quick and inexpensive. Otherwise, the illegal immigration will continue and will only increase. You need to combine giving out the work visas with serious enforecement of the immigration laws so that if employers are severely punished if they hire someone illgally.

OK, who would man the tower? And you think that a wall will stop people from getting in in other manners? (Over, under, or around the wall).

When you have a small border it is easy enough to build a wall, but even in areas like Berlin, the wall was not impenetrable.

The cost to build, and man it would not be feasable.

I agree that we need to make work Visa's easier, but that is part of teh aqueduct. The gate is only a small part of how the water is gotten to where it is needed.

[NewYorkYankee]

Took a walk today near City Hall to see how many people would come out. Here are two pictures looking downtown (This is as close as I could get to the park!), taken at Worth Street and Broadway.

http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/268/immigrationrally010small1xh.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/7753/immigrationrally008small26rs.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[kliq6]

exactly, if we can waste money being an occupying force in a foreign land for no reason, we can find money to secure the border, either by a physical wall or by other means, then make a more fair system for those people to enter the country the right legal way

[Citytect]

There's no way around it. We have to secure the borders one way or another. And the size of our borders isn't an excuse not to secure them. We're a wealthy nation, we can find the money to pay for it. Once we've made steps towards securing the border, then we can start legislating to fascilitate inexpensive and legal border crossings and start taxing the guest workers who were once unaccounted for. Who knows how much money we're losing there right now.

[lofter1]

This Congress can't secure our borders --

Even if they passed legislation with money attached, do you seriously think that it would be accomplished? With the Homeland Security / FEMA / Army Corps of Engineers gangs in charge?

And don't fool yourselves about an Atta-type sneaking across the borders on foot.

You know how easy it is to dock a boat at any number of small harbors in the country undetected?

[BrooklynRider]

You can't "secure" a border that large. Unless you want your taxes to double that is.


We can plant poison ivy at the border (it kept Canadians off my property in upstate New York).

(Nice pics NYYankee!)

[Citytect]

This Congress can't secure our borders --

Even if they passed legislation with money attached, do you seriously think that it would be accomplished? With the Homeland Security / FEMA / Army Corps of Engineers gangs in charge?

And don't fool yourselves about an Atta-type sneaking across the borders on foot.

You know how easy it is to dock a boat at any number of small harbors in the country undetected?

I don't disagree with what you're saying. I know our government isn't capable of securing our borders right now, and I find that deeply unsatisfactory. But I do believe that sooner or later it has to be done - and for more reasons that just illegal immigration. And I know it can be done with the right leadership.

I really have no hopes for a solution to the immigration problem in the near future. I just hope that Congress doesn't make the problem more complex and burdensome for us in the next decade or two.

[Ninjahedge]

Greenie, bottom line is, you cannot seal a border that large.

Russia couldn't, Nazi Germany couldn't, and a free democratic state couldnt and certainly shouldn't.

Who said that if security would come at the cost of freedom, security would just not be worth it?

As for the immigrants. We have to find a workable solution, not just one that will satisfy the voters... :P

[Citytect]

The border can be secured. We'll have to agree to disagree about that. I don't buy the "it's too big to secure" argument.

I don't see how securing the border is security at the cost of freedom. What freedom is being lost? The right to illegally immigrate into the US? I want foreigners to be allowed to come into our country and for US citizens to be able to travel outside our borders. Securing the border isn't meant to stop border crossing. I want immigration to continue. I have no problems with people seeking a better life in the US. Heck, I don't have a problem with people coming into the US to work and then leaving (to a certain degree). But, we, as a nation do need to monitor who is coming across our borders and provide a means to cross the border legally. To do this effectively we have to limit border crossing to specific portals and streamline the process.

If anything I think securing the borders and changing the system will grant more people freedoms they don't have now. If we make it possible (economically and otherwise) for foreigners to migrate into the US legally, we can greatly reduce the number of illegal immigrants living in fear of deportation. People who want to contribute to our society but can't because they are criminals in our current system.

The way I see it is, legistlation alone won't solve the problem and secured borders alone won't solve it either. We have to do both. We have to completely rethink the current system.

[lofter1]

It is all about supply and demand.

There is a demand in the US, created by employers.

The workers fill that demand.

Deal with the demand and a big part of the problem will be solved.

[Ninjahedge]

Greenie, you seal the borders, you need to spend lots of money on it. Nevermind that we spent a lot on Iraq, that money is not going to come back. How are we going to get MORE money to seal up the border? And you think it is all flat land? Try bulding a wall along the canadian rockies.

Oh, and who will man all of this? We do not have enough people working it, so maybe the Army wll do that, but that is uding the army on native soil, a serious no-no.

And as for getting in and out of the country, it will effect all of us that do not spend 100% of our time in the continental US. Airport security is already a zoo, you want the same on everything? How will trade costs be effected?

It is not as simple as building a wall, and it will forego some of our liberties.

And what you have to remember is that once a wall is built, it can be used to keep people IN as well as OUT.

[Citytect]

I didn't say anything about building a wall on the entire border. I haven't even mentioned walls. Does building a wall in the Canadian Rockies make sense? No.

Build effective walls where necessary, make the border crossing procedures simpler. Make it possible for people to cross legally and they will. None of this is going to happen though, because...

It's not a problem that can be solved cheaply; there's no question about it. So where does that leave us? All this talk about illegal immigration and border security will likely result in no substantive changes. Politics.

PS, If their is legimate concerns that our government would try to keep citizens inside the borders, we have a lot bigger issues to deal with than border security.

[Ninjahedge]

Greenie, the thing is, there are illegals that are wading through rivers that are known to be dumps for raw sewerage.

If you can think of a better barrier than a moat of sh*t, please enlighten us! ;)

The point being, the desire to get across, the disparity and possibility for advancement is so great, you need a very strong deterrant to see any noticable change in the numbers. So saying that we need better barriers is not the most effective way of controlling the flow.

One of the most effective is to make it easier for these guys to go back and forth AND to make it better to live in Mexico. The former we can do, the latter requires some cooperation from their government.

[Citytect]

Greenie, the thing is, there are illegals that are wading through rivers that are known to be dumps for raw sewerage.

A filthy moat, while unpleasant to cross, is still cross-able. Obviously.


The point being, the desire to get across, the disparity and possibility for advancement is so great, you need a very strong deterrant to see any noticable change in the numbers. So saying that we need better barriers is not the most effective way of controlling the flow.

Well, like I said, secure borders is only half of the solution. I've said that several times, but it seems that the point is getting lost somewhere. My opinion is (1) we need to make it harder to cross the border illegally - this is the border security part of it that you think is too expensive - and (2) we need to make it easier to cross legally - cheap and simple border crossing at select points.

[Ninjahedge]

A filthy moat, while unpleasant to cross, is still cross-able. Obviously.

It can also kill you. Especially if you cannot afford, or desire to see a doctor.




Well, like I said, secure borders is only half of the solution. I've said that several times, but it seems that the point is getting lost somewhere. My opinion is (1) we need to make it harder to cross the border illegally - this is the border security part of it that you think is too expensive - and (2) we need to make it easier to cross legally - cheap and simple border crossing at select points.

Point one is the one I say is least efficient. I am agreeing with you on point two.

[Citytect]

It can also kill you. Especially if you cannot afford, or desire to see a doctor.

All the more reason to build something more effective.


Point one is the one I say is least efficient. I am agreeing with you on point two.

That's the thing, in my opinion, as I've stated before, both are needed together. Which is what I think you're missing in this discussion. We actually agree more on "point one" than on "point two" - when you separate the issues. We both think better borders alone won't work - we agree on point one. However, from what I can tell, you think that making it easier to cross legally alone would solve the problem - we disagree here.


The way I see it is, legistlation alone won't solve the problem and secured borders alone won't solve it either. We have to do both. We have to completely rethink the current system.

But anyway, we're going in circles... beating a dead horse. I think the issue has already started to blow over. Do you expect anything to come of it?

[lofter1]

... I think the issue has already started to blow over. Do you expect anything to come of it?
Hundreds Nabbed in Immigration Raid

Executives, workers arrested in nationwide move against pallet maker

Associated Press
April 19, 2006

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12393925/

WASHINGTON - Immigration agents arrested seven executives and hundreds of employees of a manufacturer of crates and pallets Wednesday as part of a crackdown on employers of illegal workers.

Authorities raided offices and plants of IFCO Systems in at least eight states, the culmination of a yearlong criminal investigation, law enforcement officials said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested seven current and former IFCO Systems managers on charges they conspired to transport, harbor and encourage illegal workers to reside in the United States for commercial advantage and private financial gain, said Glenn T. Suddaby, the chief federal prosecutor in Albany, N.Y. , where some arrests were made.

ICE spokeswoman Jamie Zuieback confirmed an unspecified number of raids and arrests but declined to provide additional details because the investigation was continuing. One official, speaking on condition of anonymity because numbers were still being tallied, said the arrests were in the hundreds.

Raids across the U.S.

Raids took place at several locations in upstate New York and in Biglerville, Pa.; Charlotte, N.C.; Cincinnati, Houston, Phoenix, Richmond, Va., and Westborough, Mass.

"ICE has no tolerance for corporate officers who harbor illegal aliens for their work force. Today's nationwide enforcement actions show how we will use all our investigative tools to bring these individuals to justice, no matter how large or small their company," said ICE chief Julie Myers.

She and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff are expected on Thursday to lay out an immigration enforcement strategy that targets employers' disregard for immigration law.

Last week, operators of three restaurants in Baltimore pleaded guilty to similar immigration charges, while nine people affiliated with two temporary employment agencies that do business in New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania were charged in a $5.3 million scheme involving the employment and harboring of illegal aliens.

Several immigration proposals pending in Congress would stiffen penalties against employers who hire illegal immigrants.

Company based in Germany

German-based IFCO Systems describes itself as the leading pallet services company in the United States, focusing on recycling millions of the wooden platforms used to stack and move all manner of goods. It operates about five dozen facilities nationwide and has been expanding steadily, according to the company's Web site.

IFCO Systems did not immediately return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

The current and former IFCO Systems managers arrested were identified by Suddaby as: Michael Ames, 44, Shrewsbury, Mass.; Robert Belvin, 43, Clifton Park, N.Y.; Abelino Chicas, 40, Houston; Scott Dodge, 43, Albany; William Hoskins, 29, Cincinnati; James Rice, 36, Houston, and Dario Salzano, 36, Amsterdam, N.Y.

Last year, Wal-Mart stores agreed to pay $11 million to settle allegations concerning the employment and mistreatment of illegal immigrants.

Wal-Mart has maintained that top executives did not know that cleaning contractors were hiring illegal immigrants, who sometimes slept in the backs of stores. An ICE affidavit unsealed as part of that case, however, asserted that two executives were aware of the practice.

© 2006 The Associated Press.

[Citytect]

Hmmm... I wonder how cheap a "crackdown" on illegal immigration is going to be? There's a lot of expense in enforcing these laws, no?

[lofter1]

Majority Says Nationality Shouldn't Be a Factor In Immigration Policy

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
April 26, 2006

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114598813663935495-m1ARjotNbJf0N8E023XS39udI2M_20070425.html?mod=blog s

With immigration reform a hot-button issue in Washington, a strong majority of Americans say nationality shouldn't be a factor in U.S. immigration policy, according to a new Harris Interactive poll.

Many Americans support favorable treatment of immigrants under certain conditions. For example, nearly three-quarters of those polled said children of U.S. citizens should receive favorable treatment in order to immigrate into the U.S. and 67% said spouses should receive favorable treatment.

Likewise, half of the 2,377 U.S. adults surveyed said they support favorable treatment of immigrants who "might be punished, imprisoned or tortured if they are sent home."

But about two-thirds of those polled said U.S. immigration policy shouldn't give preference to people from some countries over people from other countries, compared with 21% who said the U.S. policy should give preference.

Among the factors to be considered when admitting immigrants to the U.S., 56% said fluency in English should be considered, and 51% said job skills should be taken into account. About a third of those polled said level of education and country of origin should be factors, and only 6% said religion should be considered.

However, respondents were divided when asked if they think immigrants from some countries make "a bigger contribution" than others. A third of those polled said some make a bigger contribution, 34% said they "all equally contribute" and 33% said "not sure."

Here are full results of the poll:

"When admitting immigrants into the U.S., which of the following factors should be considered?"

Base: All Adults

Fluency in English: 56%
Job skills: 51%
Level of education: 35%
Country of origin: 33%
Religion: 6%
None of these: 27%

* * *

"Which of the following types of people do you think should be given favorable treatment so that it is easier for them to immigrate into the U.S.?"

Base: All Adults
Children of American citizens: 73%
Spouses of American citizens: 67%
Asylum seekers who might be punished, imprisoned or tortured if they are sent home: 50%
People with specialized technical skills where there are shortages: 46%
Professional people like doctors, nurses or teachers: 35%
Business people who are willing to invest in starting new businesses here: 31%
People with graduate degrees: 23%
Agricultural workers: 22%
People willing to do unpleasant, low paying jobs Americans don't want to do: 20%
Factory workers: 12%
Sports stars: 9%
None of these: 16%

* * *

"Do you think that immigrants from some countries make a bigger contribution here than others, or do they all equally contribute?"

Base: All Adults
Immigrants from some countries make a bigger contribution: 33%
It makes no difference where they come from, they will all equally contribute: 34%
Not sure: 33%

* * *

"Do you think that the U.S. immigration policy should give preference to people from some countries over people from other countries?"

Base: All Adults
Yes, should give preference: 21%
No, should not give preference: 62%
Not sure: 17%

Methodology:

Harris Interactive conducted this online survey in the U.S., April 11-17, 2006, among a nationwide cross section of 2,377 adults.

Figures for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, income and region were weighted where necessary to align with population proportions. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents' propensity to be online. In theory, with probability samples of this size, one can say with 95% certainty that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire U.S. adult population had been polled with complete accuracy. This online sample is not a probability sample.


Copyright © 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114598813663935495-m1ARjotNbJf0N8E023XS39udI2M_20070425.html?mod=blog s#)

[MrSpice]

http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/nws/p/reuters120.gif
Immigrant protest may leave New Yorkers hungry

By Claudia Parsons

Anybody who's eaten at one of New York's many big-name restaurants may like to think the food was lovingly prepared by a celebrity chef. The reality is it was more likely made by a poorly-paid Mexican immigrant. If all the city's immigrants walk off the job in a nationwide protest called for Monday against proposals to crack down on illegal immigration, many New Yorkers will go hungry, or at least be forced to eat at home for a change.

Anthony Bourdain, author of "Kitchen Confidential" and executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles, said immigrant workers are an often invisible presence in New York restaurants."I really think there's a resistance to having a mestizo-looking guy walking around the dining room in a French restaurant," said Bourdain, whose own chef de cuisine, is a naturalized Mexican. "Every time you read a restaurant review they always say 'The chef has a sure hand with the spices.' If the chef's name is widely known, the chances are it's really some Mexican guy who has a sure hand with the spices," Bourdain said.

Sean Meade, assistant manager of Colors, an upscale Manhattan restaurant cooperatively-owned by a group of immigrant workers whose colleagues were killed in a top floor restaurant in the attack on the World Trade Center, said immigrants frequently climb the ladder from dishwasher to busboy to cook.
"They do a lot of the work that many American citizens do not want to do because they think it's beneath them, they fill that void," said Meade.

DOING THE DIRTY WORK
It was unclear how many people would respond to the protest call. It was prompted by a bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in December making it a felony to be in the country illegally and proposing a fence along parts of the Mexican border.

While many immigrants are working legally, a significant number are not, according to managers interviewed by Reuters at several eateries. Most asked not to be identified to avoid unwanted attention from immigration authorities.

The manager of a diner in Inwood at the northern tip of Manhattan said the industry would fall apart without illegal immigrants. "It would be a disaster," he said. "These people work hard, they will do whatever, they sweep the floors, wash the dishes. If they go away you would have to pay Americans top dollar, and the next thing you know, a hamburger would cost $5."
The Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York which promotes workers' rights says 70 percent of the New York food workforce of 165,000 is foreign-born, and up to 40 percent of are undocumented. Workers of Chinese background are the largest group, with many Latin Americans, Arabs, Africans and Afro-Carribeans, said the center's director Saru Jayaraman.

The U.S. food services industry employs 1.6 million foreign-born workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Julee Resendez, the beverage director of Colors, likened today's immigrant experience to that of her great-grandparents who came from Mexico to work in America's cotton fields.
"Immigrants are the backbone of this country. They do the dirty work that others don't necessarily want to do."

Bourdain said immigrants were often more committed to a job than their American-born counterparts. "If you're a white kid from a culinary school who's thrown into a busy New York in a kitchen, chances are your chef hands you over to Hector who's been there five, six, seven years, and that's who takes you under his wing," he said.

While celebrity chefs have made the industry glamorous, the bulk of the workforce has always been immigrants, he said, just like in Paris in the 1920s when eastern Europeans and other refugees staffed the most prestigious restaurants. "Now with this added prestige, parents cheerfully send their kids off to cooking schools and then the kids get out of school and are looking to do six-month apprenticeships at one restaurant after another," Bourdain said. "It was always a moving workforce who change jobs quickly, except for the Latinos who tend to come in and stay put."

[Ninjahedge]

and the next thing you know, a hamburger would cost $5."

They have hamburgers for less than $5?????!?

WHERE??????

[Azazello]

I think he was, like, joking. A plain burger up here is $4.95 - no chips, no lett/tom (that's a burger deluxe). God help you if you ask for a pickle - dirty looks you will get, yes - and let's not even talk about onions, cheese and/or fries.

[Ninjahedge]

Pickles are a valued commodity!

They don't grow on trees you know!!!

[lofter1]

Bush Says Anthem Should Be in English


By JEANNINE AVERSA
AP Economics Writer

LINK (http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/28/D8H94LTG0.html)

WASHINGTON

The national anthem should be sung in English - not Spanish - President Bush (http://216.133.241.229/q?s=%22President+Bush%22&sid=breitbart.com) declared Friday, amid growing restlessness over the millions of immigrants here illegally.

"One of the things that's very important is, when we debate this issue, that we not lose our national soul," the president exclaimed. "One of the great things about America is that we've been able to take people from all walks of life bound as one nation under God. And that's the challenge ahead of us."

A Spanish language version of the national anthem was released Friday by a British music producer, Adam Kidron, who said he wanted to honor America's immigrants.

When the president was asked at a Rose Garden question-and-answer session whether the anthem should be sung in Spanish, he replied: "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."

He made his remarks on the matters during a wide-ranging briefing with reporters.

"I think people who want to be citizens of this country ought to learn English," Bush said.

The president's comments came amid a burgeoning national debate - and congressional fight - over legislation pending in Congress, and pushed by Bush, to overhaul U.S. immigration law.

Bush called on lawmakers to move forward on legislation - now stalled - that would revamp immigration laws.

"I want a comprehensive bill (http://216.133.241.229/q?s=%22comprehensive+bill%22&sid=breitbart.com)," Bush said that includes enforcement as well as giving temporary worker status (http://216.133.241.229/q?s=%22temporary+worker+status%22&sid=breitbart.com) to some illegal immigrants.

Large numbers of immigrant groups have planned an economic boycott next week to dramatize their call for legislation providing legal status for millions of people in the United States illegally.

"You know, I'm not a supporter of boycotts," Bush said. " I am a supporter of comprehensive immigration ... I think most Americans agree that we've got to enforce our border. I don't think there's any question about that."

His remarks followed release of the Spanish language version of the song, called "Nuestro Himno" or "Our Anthem."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.

[lofter1]

The important thing behind the anthem is the story and the feeling it evokes -- for those who speak English it conveys better in English. But I see no problem what-so-ever in someone singing it in any language that one might choose.

News to me: In 1931 the Anthem was made offical by Congressional legislation (http://www.usflag.org/uscode36.html#171).

While the Code empowers the President of the United States to alter, modify, repeal or prescribe additional rules regarding the Flag, no federal agency has the authority to issue 'official' rulings legally binding on civilians or civilian groups. Consequently, different interpretations of various provisions of the Code may continue to be made.

The Flag Code may be fairly tested: 'No disrespect should be shown to the Flag of the United States of America.' Therefore, actions not specifically included in the Code may be deemed acceptable as long as proper respect is shown.

The legislation itself is somewhat broad and vague in that it makes note of the "words and music known as The Star Spangled Banner" but does NOT include the "words" (which could therefore leave it open to some interpretation):

UNITED STATES CODE

TITLE 36

CHAPTER 10

PATRIOTIC CUSTOMS

§170. National anthem; Star-Spangled Banner

The composition consisting of the words and music known as The Star-Spangled Banner is designated the national anthem of the United States of America.

§171. Conduct during playing

During rendition of the national anthem when the flag is displayed, all present except those in uniform should stand at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. Men not in uniform should remove their headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Persons in uniform should render the military salute at the first note of the anthem and retain this position until the last note. When the flag is not displayed, those present should face toward the music and act in the same manner they would if the flag were displayed there.

[lofter1]

On the subject of the National Anthem:

http://www.nationalanthemproject.org/


A recent Harris poll (http://www.tnap.org/factsheet.html) found that two out of three American adults don’t know all of the words (http://www.tnap.org/lyrics.html) to "The Star-Spangled Banner" – and many don’t even know which song is our National Anthem or why it was written (http://www.tnap.org/aboutthesong.html).


http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=305


The Harris Poll® #27, June 12, 2002

Pride in America

Stars and stripes, Statue of Liberty and national anthem: Three top symbols of U.S.A.

TABLE 3

TOP 3 SYMBOLS OF U.S. – THAT REPRESENT AMERICA

"Which of the following do you think of as the top three symbols of the United States – that stand for or represent America to you and the world?"

Base: All U.S. adults


Total %

The American flag (stars and stripes)

81
The Statue of Liberty

63
"Star Spangled Banner" (the national anthem)

42
The bald eagle

25
The White House

19
"God Bless America" (the song)

18
The President/President Bush

13
"America the Beautiful" (the song)

7
Washington, D.C.

7
The English language

7
The Capitol Building

4
McDonald’s

3
The Empire State Building

3
The Grand Canyon

1
Cowboys

1
Another symbol

2
Don’t know

*

[BrooklynRider]

Disgust in America

Symbols of that do NOT represent the U.S.A.

TABLE 3

TOP 3 SYMBOLS THAT DO NOT ACCURATELY REPRESENT AMERICA

"Which of the following do you think of as the top three symbols of the corruption, greed, arrogance and hate that now embody the United States government – that stand for or represent America to you and the world?"

Base: All U.S. adults


Total %

Incompetent George W. "cocaine addicted, alcoholic, idiot-grade" Bush - International War Criminal

81
Greedy, mean-spirited, self-serving and cold-hearted Dick Cheney - International War Criminal - and his scumbucket bitch of a wife "Lynch"

63
The intolerant hate of Christian Fundamentalists

42
Donald "Killed Another Troop Today" Rumsfeld - International War Criminal

25
The White House

19
Condoleeza "I bought Ferragamo shoes and enjoyed a musical as New Orleans drowned" Rice - International War Criminal

18
Karl Rove - U.S. Traitor deserving the death penalty for exposing the identities of undercover U.S. intelligence agents.

13
Barbara Bush - the meanest bitch in this country - no heart, no brain, cold-blooded evil personified - reptile - nasty - C. U. Next Tuesday....

7
Barbara and Jenna - the Bush whores - whose ability to procreate places the future of this country in peril.

7
Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist - Betrayers of U.S. trust, enemies of the U.S. Constitution, corporate shills and ethically challenged bastards.

7
Antonin Scalia - buffoon, threat to liberty, ethically corrupt and a big fat stinking pig to boot.

4
McDonald’s, Hallliburton, ExxonMobil, Enron, Unocal, GE, Pfizer, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Wal-Mart, Bechtel, Ford, GM, Blackwater - (see NYSE listings)

3
Pandering Democrats: Joe Lieberman and Hillary "I love war, let's ban flag-burning" Clinton, all DLC Democrats, and John Kerry for pure incompetence in campaigning

3
Clean Sky Initiative (lowering pollution standards nationwide), Healthy Forest Initiative (clear cutting and paving roads through old-growth national forests), Help America Vote Act (bringing hackable Diebold voting machines to a polling place near you), New Medicare Prescription Plan (sick old granny will die before she figures it out how to get her pills), FEMA (the administrations minority manslaughter program)

1
Hate Crime Victims

1
Another symbol

2
Don’t know

*

[Ninjahedge]

I don't know, but I think I detected a bit of bias in that poll.....


I may be off....

[BrooklynRider]

Nope - It was an honest to dog real poll.

So, has today's boycott affected anyone. Huge difference on the subways. I actually got a seat! The place I get breakfast was D-E-A-D. They definitely are feeling it. Anyone seeing any disastrous effects?

[lofter1]

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/02/spanish-anthem/

FACT CHECK:
U.S. Government Commissioned Spanish-Language ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ in 1919


http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/spanishbook.jpg (http://memory.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.100000007/pageturner.html?page=1&section=)


The right wing is up in arms over a new version of the Star-Spangled Banner written in Spanish (http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2006-04-27-spanish-spangled-banner_x.htm). Last week President Bush stated that “the national anthem ought to be sung in English (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193582,00.html).” Yesterday Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) introduced a resolution requiring the Star-Spangled banner to be sung only in English (http://alexander.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_Id=997):
That flag and that song are a part of our history and our national identity. … That’s why in 1931 Congress declared the Star-Spangled Banner our national anthem. That’s why we should always sing it in our common language, English.


In his press release, Alexander said the Star-Spangled Banner has “never before…been rendered in another language.”

But in 1919 (http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1911431&page=1), the U.S. Bureau of Education commissioned a Spanish-language version (http://memory.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.100000007/pageturner.html?page=1&section=) of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

The State Department’s website also features four-separate versions (http://usinfo.state.gov/esp/home/topics/us_society_values/national_symbols/anthem_spanish.html) of the anthem in Spanish.

It appears xenophobia isn’t part of the American tradition.

[Teno]

It is all about supply and demand.

There is a demand in the US, created by employers.

The workers fill that demand.

Deal with the demand and a big part of the problem will be solved.

Its fine that these workers are willing to do those jobs. The problem is the unabated influx of poor illegals.

Mexico and other countries with stable governments and stable economies are creating the supply.

In several ways this situation is a disservice to the poor people of Mexico. One disservice are the companies exploiting cheap labour. The other disservice is the fact that we are releasing pressure that should be placed on the Mexican government to improve conditions in their country. To improve social service and job creation. The same pressure we place on our elected officials here.

Immigrants from South America should not be here protesting our government and fighting for rights they have no legal right to. They should be in their native country protesting their government and fighting for their rights there.

We do have to stop the flow through the borders. If for no other reason as the fact that the flow keeps getting larger every year. There are more poor people in Mexico than there are jobs for them here.

We will not be able to completely stop it but there is more we can do to minimize it.

We must do that first before there is any real move to create a guest worker program or amnesty.

[pscoln1]

Well if someone wants to sing the national anthem in another language I have no problem with that IF your singing it by yourself or with a group of people that speak the language as well. But when it comes to sports venues and the like, I think the anthem should be in English and only in Enlgish. If people wanna come to this country to work, I have no problem with that but learn to speak English. When I went to school in Europe I was forced to learn Romanian in order to get through degree.

[lofter1]

Bush sang Star Spangled Banner en español during 2000 campaign

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash7.htm
Wed May 03 2006 09:35:20 ET

"When visiting cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, or Philadelphia, in pivotal states, George W. Bush would drop in at Hispanic festivals and parties, sometimes joining in singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in Spanish, sometimes partying with a “Viva Bush” mariachi band flown in from Texas."

So writes author Kevin Phillips in his book AMERICAN DYNASTY.

Last week, at the height of the illegal immigrant's boycott build up, Bush told reporters: "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English." (http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/28/D8H94LTG0.html)

[lofter1]

A Fence With More Beauty, Fewer Barbs

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/06/18/weekinreview/18hamilton1.600.jpg
Eric Owen Moss Architects
THE GLASS FOREST In Eric Owen Moss's design, transparent columns rise to light the night sky.
Below ground, the columns light tunnels lined with cultural exhibits and art suggestive of
the Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros. A meeting of two cultures creates a third, Mr. Moss says.


By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/william_l_hamilton/index.html?inline=nyt-per)
June 18, 2006
NY TIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/18/weekinreview/18hamilton.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)

HAVING trouble with the neighbors? Put up a fence. If things go well, you hang out at the fence and talk.

That's not generally the thinking for fences between nations; such barriers can't easily mask their harsh purpose. Now a fence is proposed for the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/mexico/index.html?inline=nyt-geo) in an effort to improve national security and stem illegal immigration (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/immigration_and_refugees/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier). The Senate wants 370 miles of it; the House, 698. And President Bush has invited military contractors to devise a "virtual" fence that would seal the existing stopgap fencing with high-technology tools like motion sensors, drones and satellites.

But maybe some form of backyard diplomacy is in order — Mexico is no enemy — and there are obvious suspects for the job: professional designers, whose duty it is to come up with welcome solutions that defy ugly problems; to create appeal where there might be none.

As a classic design challenge, The New York Times asked 13 architects and urban planners to devise the "fence." Several declined because they felt it was purely a political issue. "It's a silly thing to design, a conundrum," said Ricardo Scofidio of Diller Scofidio & Renfro in New York. "You might as well leave it to security and engineers."

Four of the five who submitted designs proposed making the boundary a point of innovative integration, not traditional division — something that could be seen, from both sides, as a horizon of opportunity, not as a barrier.

James Corner of Field Operations, a New York urban planning and landscape architecture firm, suggested that any monumental fortifications have a second purpose, like a solar energy-collecting strip that would produce what he described as a "productive, sustainable enterprise zone" that attracted industry from the north and created employment for the south — in the same no-man's median that people now cross in search of work. Mr. Corner called his partnership of 20th-century territorial power and 21st-century green, global interconnectedness "a kind of Bush meets Gore hybrid."

Calvin Tsao, director of the Architectural League of New York and a partner in Tsao & McKown, also proposed an enterprise zone that, in re-creating the border as a series of small, developing cities, would become a border of light that could be seen from space at night. Eric Owen Moss, an architect in Los Angeles, was more specific with his border as beacon of light. In his design, a strolling, landscaped arcade of lighted glass columns would invite a social exchange in the evening, much like the "paseo," popular in Hispanic culture.

"Make something between cultures, which leads to a third," Mr. Moss said. "Celebrate the amalgamation of the two."

Enrique Norten, an architect born in Mexico who has offices now in Mexico City and New York with his firm TEN Arquitectos, proposed using the fence budget to build infrastructures like highways instead.

"The future is about embracing the economy of Mexico," he said, of a long-term plan for the area, not a literal stopgap measure like a fence. Mr. Norten was speaking from Germany, where he was attending the World Cup. "Look at Europe, where this is happening. Spain was a border country 10 years ago. Now it's part of a greater community."

Antoine Predock, based in Albuquerque, "dematerialized" the fence, he explained, with a physical wall designed as a mirage. An earthwork of rammed, tilted dirt would be pushed into place by Mexican day laborers. Crushed rock scattered before it, and heated from below, would appear to lift it off the ground, in the way that heat in the desert appears to make objects hover, like mirages.

"There would be confusion about the materiality of the wall," Mr. Predock explained. "It would discourage you from crossing, but the message from both sides would be one of good will."

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/06/18/weekinreview/18hamilton_graph.gif


Copyright 2006 (http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/copyright.html) The New York Times Company (http://www.nytco.com/)
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http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif

[lofter1]

Immigration — and the Curse of the Black Legend


There's another, less-known legacy of this early period that explains why we've written the Spanish out of our national narrative. As late as 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War, Spain held claim to roughly half of today's continental United States (in 1775, Spanish ships even reached Alaska). As American settlers pushed out from the 13 colonies, the new nation craved Spanish land.

And to justify seizing it, Americans found a handy weapon in a set of centuries-old beliefs known as the "black legend".


NY TIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/opinion/09horwitz.html?ex=1152590400&en=14c04c447fd565bf&ei=5087%0A)
Op-Ed Contributor
By TONY HORWITZ
July 9, 2006

Vineyard Haven, Mass.

COURSING through the immigration debate is the unexamined faith that American history rests on English bedrock, or Plymouth Rock to be specific. Jamestown also gets a nod, particularly in the run-up to its 400th birthday, but John Smith was English, too (he even coined the name New England).

So amid the din over border control, the Senate affirms the self-evident truth that English is our national language; "It is part of our blood," Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, says. Border vigilantes call themselves Minutemen, summoning colonial Massachusetts as they apprehend Hispanics in the desert Southwest. Even undocumented immigrants invoke our Anglo founders, waving placards that read, "The Pilgrims didn't have papers."

These newcomers are well indoctrinated; four of the sample questions on our naturalization test ask about Pilgrims. Nothing in the sample exam suggests that prospective citizens need know anything that occurred on this continent before the Mayflower landed in 1620. Few Americans do, after all.

This national amnesia isn't new, but it's glaring and supremely paradoxical at a moment when politicians warn of the threat posed to our culture and identity by an invasion of immigrants from across the Mexican border. If Americans hit the books, they'd find what Al Gore would call an inconvenient truth. The early history of what is now the United States was Spanish, not English, and our denial of this heritage is rooted in age-old stereotypes that still entangle today's immigration debate.

Forget for a moment the millions of Indians who occupied this continent for 13,000 or more years before anyone else arrived, and start the clock with Europeans' presence on present-day United States soil. The first confirmed landing wasn't by Vikings, who reached Canada in about 1000, or by Columbus, who reached the Bahamas in 1492. It was by a Spaniard, Juan Ponce de León, who landed in 1513 at a lush shore he christened La Florida.

Most Americans associate the early Spanish in this hemisphere with Cortés in Mexico and Pizarro in Peru. But Spaniards pioneered the present-day United States, too. Within three decades of Ponce de León's landing, the Spanish became the first Europeans to reach the Appalachians, the Mississippi, the Grand Canyon and the Great Plains. Spanish ships sailed along the East Coast, penetrating to present-day Bangor, Me., and up the Pacific Coast as far as Oregon.

From 1528 to 1536, four castaways from a Spanish expedition, including a "black" Moor, journeyed all the way from Florida to the Gulf of California — 267 years before Lewis and Clark embarked on their much more renowned and far less arduous trek. In 1540, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led 2,000 Spaniards and Mexican Indians across today's Arizona-Mexico border — right by the Minutemen's inaugural post — and traveled as far as central Kansas, close to the exact geographic center of what is now the continental United States. In all, Spaniards probed half of today's lower 48 states before the first English tried to colonize, at Roanoke Island, N.C.

The Spanish didn't just explore, they settled, creating the first permanent European settlement in the continental United States at St. Augustine, Fla., in 1565. Santa Fe, N.M., also predates Plymouth: later came Spanish settlements in San Antonio, Tucson, San Diego and San Francisco. The Spanish even established a Jesuit mission in Virginia's Chesapeake Bay 37 years before the founding of Jamestown in 1607.

Two iconic American stories have Spanish antecedents, too. Almost 80 years before John Smith's alleged rescue by Pocahontas, a man by the name of Juan Ortiz told of his remarkably similar rescue from execution by an Indian girl. Spaniards also held a thanksgiving, 56 years before the Pilgrims, when they feasted near St. Augustine with Florida Indians, probably on stewed pork and garbanzo beans.

The early history of Spanish North America is well documented, as is the extensive exploration by the 16th-century French and Portuguese. So why do Americans cling to a creation myth centered on one band of late-arriving English — Pilgrims who weren't even the first English to settle New England or the first Europeans to reach Plymouth Harbor? (There was a short-lived colony in Maine and the French reached Plymouth earlier.)

The easy answer is that winners write the history and the Spanish, like the French, were ultimately losers in the contest for this continent. Also, many leading American writers and historians of the early 19th century were New Englanders who elevated the Pilgrims to mythic status (the North's victory in the Civil War provided an added excuse to diminish the Virginia story). Well into the 20th century, standard histories and school texts barely mentioned the early Spanish in North America.

While it's true that our language and laws reflect English heritage, it's also true that the Spanish role was crucial. Spanish discoveries spurred the English to try settling America and paved the way for the latecomers' eventual success. Many key aspects of American history, like African slavery and the cultivation of tobacco, are rooted in the forgotten Spanish century that preceded English arrival.

There's another, less-known legacy of this early period that explains why we've written the Spanish out of our national narrative. As late as 1783, at the end of the Revolutionary War, Spain held claim to roughly half of today's continental United States (in 1775, Spanish ships even reached Alaska). As American settlers pushed out from the 13 colonies, the new nation craved Spanish land.

And to justify seizing it, Americans found a handy weapon in a set of centuries-old beliefs known as the "black legend."

The legend first arose amid the religious strife and imperial rivalries of 16th-century Europe. Northern Europeans, who loathed Catholic Spain and envied its American empire, published books and gory engravings that depicted Spanish colonization as uniquely barbarous: an orgy of greed, slaughter and papist depravity, the Inquisition writ large.

Though simplistic and embellished, the legend contained elements of truth. Juan de Oñate, the conquistador who colonized New Mexico, punished Pueblo Indians by cutting off their hands and feet and then enslaving them.
Hernando de Soto bound Indians in chains and neck collars and forced them to haul his army's gear across the South. Natives were thrown to attack dogs and burned alive.

But there were Spaniards of conscience in the New World, too: most notably the Dominican priest Bartolomé de Las Casas, whose defense of Indians impelled the Spanish crown to pass laws protecting natives. Also, Spanish brutality wasn't unique; English colonists committed similar atrocities. The Puritans were arguably more intolerant of natives than the Spanish and the Virginia colonists as greedy for gold as any conquistador. But none of this erased the black legend's enduring stain, not only in Europe but also in the newly formed United States.

"Anglo Americans," writes David J. Weber, the pre-eminent historian of Spanish North America, "inherited the view that Spaniards were unusually cruel, avaricious, treacherous, fanatical, superstitious, cowardly, corrupt, decadent, indolent and authoritarian."

When 19th-century jingoists revived this caricature to justify invading Spanish (and later, Mexican) territory, they added a new slur: the mixing of Spanish, African and Indian blood had created a degenerate race. To Stephen Austin, Texas's fight with Mexico was "a war of barbarism and of despotic principles, waged by the mongrel Spanish-Indian and Negro race, against civilization and the Anglo-American race." It was the manifest destiny of white Americans to seize and civilize these benighted lands, just as it was to take the territory of Indian savages.

From 1819 to 1848, the United States and its army increased the nation's area by roughly a third at Spanish and Mexican expense, including three of today's four most populous states: California, Texas and Florida. Hispanics became the first American citizens in the newly acquired Southwest territory and remained a majority in several states until the 20th century.

By then, the black legend had begun to fade. But it seems to have found new life among immigration's staunchest foes, whose rhetoric carries traces of both ancient Hispanophobia and the chauvinism of 19th-century expansionists.

Representative J. D. Hayworth of Arizona, who calls for deporting illegal immigrants and changing the Constitution so that children born to them in the United States can't claim citizenship, denounces "defeatist wimps unwilling to stand up for our culture" against alien "invasion." Those who oppose making English the official language, he adds, "reject the very notion that there is a uniquely American identity, or that, if there is one, that it is superior to any other."

Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado, chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, depicts illegal immigration as "a scourge" abetted by "a cult of multiculturalism" that has "a death grip" on this nation. "We are committing cultural suicide," Mr. Tancredo claims. "The barbarians at the gate will only need to give us a slight push, and the emaciated body of Western civilization will collapse in a heap."

ON talk radio and the Internet, foes of immigration echo the black legend more explicitly, typecasting Hispanics as indolent, a burden on the American taxpayer, greedy for benefits and jobs, prone to criminality and alien to our values — much like those degenerate Spaniards of the old Southwest and those gold-mad conquistadors who sought easy riches rather than honest toil. At the fringes, the vilification is baldly racist. In fact, cruelty to Indians seems to be the only transgression absent from the familiar package of Latin sins.

Also missing, of course, is a full awareness of the history of the 500-year Spanish presence in the Americas and its seesawing fortunes in the face of Anglo encroachment. "The Hispanic world did not come to the United States," Carlos Fuentes observes. "The United States came to the Hispanic world. It is perhaps an act of poetic justice that now the Hispanic world should return."

America has always been a diverse and fast-changing land, home to overlapping cultures and languages. It's an homage to our history, not a betrayal of it, to welcome the latest arrivals, just as the Indians did those tardy and uninvited Pilgrims who arrived in Plymouth not so long ago.

Tony Horwitz, the author of "Confederates in the Attic" and "Blue Latitudes," is writing a book on the early exploration of North America.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[lofter1]

Labour shortage leaves Florida's oranges to rot

GUARDIAN (http://www.guardian.co.uk./usa/story/0,,1816667,00.html)
Associated Press in Lakeland
Monday July 10, 2006

Millions of oranges will rot on the trees of Florida this year because a shortage of fruitpickers has been aggravated by fears about more stringent US immigration laws, local media reported yesterday.

"There's very little doubt we'll leave a significant amount of fruit on the tree," Mike Carlton, the director of production and labour affairs at Florida Citrus Mutual, told the newspaper The Ledger. "Whether that's 3m boxes or 6m boxes, nobody can say."

Growers have reported difficulty finding enough workers. Industry officials say labour problems got worse in the middle of May, when a large segment of the Hispanic labour force seemed to leave the state.

They said reports of an immigration crackdown made it difficult to find Hispanic workers, who make up much of Florida's farm workforce.

"Really, the labour shortage is what held us up this year," said Dave Crumbly, the vice-president of fruit control at Florida's Natural Growers in Lake Wales, the nation's third-largest citrus processor. He said word had spread through the Hispanic community that they should return home if they wanted jobs in the US in future. The workers were told they could get deported if they remained in the country, he said. But if they returned home, they would become eligible for a guest-worker programme that is part of the immigration reform bill.

"In reality, the current guest-worker programme bars anybody who has been in this country illegally," Mr Carlton said. There are still tens of millions of oranges on Florida's trees, according to the US department of agriculture, one of the highest totals on record, he added.



Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

[Ninjahedge]

But if they returned home, they would become eligible for a guest-worker programme that is part of the immigration reform bill.

"In reality, the current guest-worker programme bars anybody who has been in this country illegally,"

But what if they were not known to be in the country illegally?

"Oh yes senior! I was in the country illegally before, but I left so I could come back legally! Will you let me in?"

Lets give them some credit, it is only after they attend our public schools that anyone gets THAT stupid! ;)

[lofter1]

The Do-Nothing Congress and the failure to make necessary changes to Immigration Laws are wreaking havoc on peoples' lives ...

Pickers Are Few, and Growers Blame Congress

NY TIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/washington/22growers.html?ref=us)
By JULIA PRESTON
September 22, 2006

LAKEPORT, Calif. — The pear growers here in Lake County waited decades for a crop of shapely fruit like the one that adorned their orchards last month.
“I felt like I went to heaven,” said Nick Ivicevich, recalling the perfection of his most abundant crop in 45 years of tending trees.

Now harvest time has passed and tons of pears have ripened to mush on their branches, while the ground of Mr. Ivicevich’s orchard reeks with rotting fruit. He and other growers in Lake County, about 90 miles north of San Francisco, could not find enough pickers.

Stepped-up border enforcement kept many illegal Mexican migrant workers out of California this year, farmers and labor contractors said, putting new strains on the state’s shrinking seasonal farm labor force.

Labor shortages have also been reported by apple growers in Washington and upstate New York. Growers have gone from frustrated to furious with Congress, which has all but given up on passing legislation this year to create an agricultural guest-worker program.

Last week, 300 growers representing every major agricultural state rallied on the front lawn of the Capitol carrying baskets of fruit to express their ire.

This year’s shortages are compounding a flight from the fields by Mexican workers already in the United States. As it has become harder to get into this country, many illegal immigrants have been reluctant to return to Mexico in the off-season. Remaining here year-round, they have gravitated toward more stable jobs.

“When you’re having to pay housing costs, it’s very difficult to survive and wait for the next agricultural season to come around,” said Jack King, head of national affairs for the California Farm Bureau Federation.

California farms employ at least 450,000 people at the peak of the harvest, with farm workers progressing from one crop to the next, stringing together as much as seven months of work. Growers estimate the state fell short this harvest season by 70,000 workers. Joe Bautista, a labor contractor from Stockton who brings crews to Lake County, said about one-third of his regular workers stayed home in Mexico this year, while others were caught by the Border Patrol trying to enter the United States.

With fewer workers, Mr. Bautista fell behind in harvests near Sacramento and arrived weeks late in Lake County. “There was a lot of pressure on the contractors,” he said. “But there is only so much we can do. There wasn’t enough labor.”

For years, economists say, California farmers have been losing their pickers to less strenuous, more stable and sometimes higher-paying jobs in construction, landscaping and tourism.

“If you want another low-wage job, you can work in a hotel and not die in the heat,” said Marc Grossman, the spokesman for the United Farm Workers of America. The union calculates that up to 15 percent of California’s farm labor force leaves agriculture each year.

As they sum up this season’s losses, estimated to be at least $10 million for California pear farmers alone, growers in the state mainly blame Republican lawmakers in Washington for stalling immigration legislation that would have addressed the shortage by authorizing a guest-worker program for agriculture. Many growers, a dependably Republican group, said they felt betrayed.

“After a while, you get done being sad and start being really angry,” said Toni Scully, a lifelong Republican whose family owns a pear-packing operation in Lake County. “The Republicans have given us a lot of lip service, and our crops are hanging on the trees rotting.”

Tons more pears that were harvested were rejected by Mrs. Scully’s packing plant because they were picked too late. The rejects were dumped in a farm lot, mounds of pungent fruit swarming with bees, left to be eaten by deer. “The anthem about the fruited plain,” Mrs. Scully said sadly, “I don’t think this is what they had in mind.”

Some economists and advocates for farm workers say the labor shortages would ease if farmers would pay more. Lake County growers said that pickers’ pay was not low — up to $150 a day — and that they had been ready to pay even more to save their crops. “I would have raised my wages,” said Steve Winant, a pear grower whose 14-acre orchard is still laden with overripe fruit. “But there weren’t any people to pay.”

http://graphics10.nytimes.com/images/2006/09/22/us/22growers.gif
Lake County lacked fruit pickers for this year’s harvest.

The tightening of the border with Mexico, begun more than a decade ago but reinforced since May with the deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops, has forced California growers to acknowledge that most of their workers are illegal Mexican migrants. The U.F.W. estimates that more than 90 percent of the state’s farm workers are illegal.

Most California growers gave up years ago on recruiting workers through the seasonal guest-worker program currently in place. Known as H-2A, the program requires employers to prove they tried to find American workers and to apply well in advance for relatively small contingents of foreign workers for fixed time periods.

“Our experience with the current H-2A program has been a nightmare,” said Luawanna Hallstrom, general manager of Harry Singh & Sons, a vine-ripe tomato grower based in Oceanside, near San Diego.

Ms. Hallstrom said her company tried to use the program in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, when security checks forced it to fire illegal migrant employees who were working in tomato fields on a military base. Her company lost $2.5 million on that 2001 crop, she said.

Over the years, occasional programs to draw American workers to the harvests have failed. “Americans do not raise their children to be farm workers,” Ms. Hallstrom said.

The failure of Congress to approve a new guest-worker program surprised California growers because a proposal that the Senate passed stemmed from a rare agreement between growers’ organizations, the U.F.W. and other advocates for farm workers, and legislators ranging from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats.

Known as AgJobs, the proposal would create a new temporary-resident status for seasonal farm workers and give them the chance to become permanent residents if they work intensively in agriculture for at least three years. It was included in a bill that passed the Senate in May. The House has passed several bills focused on border security, and has avoided negotiations with the Senate on a broader immigration overhaul. [Three of the House bills were passed Thursday.]

Mr. Ivicevich, a 69-year-old family farmer, is not given to displays of emotion. But he paused for a moment, overwhelmed, as he stood among trees sagging with pears that oozed when he squeezed them. His nighttime sleep, in his cottage among his 122 acres of orchards, is disrupted by the thud of dropping fruit and the cracking of branches.

For decades, Mr. Ivicevich said, migrant pickers would knock on his door asking for work climbing his picking ladders. Then about five years ago they stopped knocking, and he turned to a labor contractor to muster harvest crews. This year, elated, he called the contractor in early August. Pears must be picked green and quickly packed and chilled, or they go soft in shipping.

“Then I called and I called and I called,” Mr. Ivicevich said.

The picking crew, which he needed on Aug. 12, arrived two weeks late and 15 workers short. He lost about 1.8 million pounds of pears.

His neighbor, Mr. Winant, standing in his drooping orchard with his hands sunk in his jeans pockets, said he would rather bulldoze the pear trees than start preparing them for a new season.

“It’s like a death, like a son died,” said Mr. Winant, 45, who cares for the small orchard himself during the winter. “You work all year and then see your work go to ground. I want to pull them out because of the agony. It’s just too hard to take.”

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[lofter1]

Minutemen 'expose' Bush's 'shadow government'

http://www.minutemanproject.com/img/mmp-banner-airwing-150.jpg

rawstory.com (http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Minutemen_expose_Bushs_shadow_government_1025.html )
Ron Brynaert
October 25, 2006

A major anti-immigration group is accusing the Bush Administration of creating a "shadow government," by "engaging in collaborative relations with Mexico and Canada outside the U.S. Constitution," RAW STORY (http://rawstory.com/) has learned.

The Minuteman Project sent out a press release late Tuesday evening hyping their Web site, which is showcasing 1,000 documents allegedly obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) by World Net Daily columnist Jerome Corsi. Most widely known for his longtime attacks on Democratic Senator John Kerry's military record, Corsi also co-authored a book about the Minuteman "battle" to secure America's borders.

SPP (http://www.spp.gov/) was launched in March of 2005 as a trilateral effort by the United States, Canada and Mexico to increase the security and improve the quality of life of North Americans through greater cooperation and information sharing. Many conservative critics view the trilateral initiative as a threat to U.S. sovereignty.

"The documents give clear evidence that the Bush administration has created a 'shadow government,'" Corsi said in the press release.

Corsi claims to have "hundreds of pages of e-mails from U.S. executive branch administrators who are copying the e-mail to somewhere between 25 to 100 people, a third of whom are in the U.S. bureaucracy, a third of whom are in the Mexican bureaucracy and a third of whom are in the Canadian bureaucracy."

"They are sharing their laws and regulations so we can 'harmonize' and 'integrate' our laws into a North American structure, not a USA structure," Corsi said.

The documents can be viewed on the Minuteman Project's Stop the Security and Prosperity Project (http://stopspp.com/stopspp/?page_id=11) page, but there's no mention of any particular "smoking gun" which could proves the contention that the White House has created a shadow government. The anti-immigration group appears to consider the mere existence of communications among bureaucrats from the three countries as proof of their assertions.

One series of letters show U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez writing to North American Steel Association leaders in all three countries thanking them for their "suggestions on enhancing the competitiveness of the steel industry" in North America (pdf file (http://www.stopspp.com/stopspp/docs/SecMemo_Hauser_gutier_06_05.pdf)).

"The North American industries' recommendations for launching a North American steel strategy were well received and formed the basis for the Committee's discussions on a program of work going forward," Gutierrez wrote to assorted Steel Association chairmen and presidents.

A RAW STORY (http://rawstory.com/) examination of documents related to the "steel strategy" as presented at the Minuteman Web site did not turn up anything untoward.

But Corsi maintains that the "documentation he received is missing key pieces."

"We received very few actual agreements, though many are referenced," Corsi said. "Many of the work plans described lack the work products which the groups say they produced."

[lofter1]

Our tax money at work ...

How many more immoral and criminal acts can Bush et al perpetrate
in the name of the American people before they are held to account?

The House of Death

When 12 bodies were found buried in the garden of a Mexican house,
it seemed like a case of drug-linked killings.
But the trail led to Washington and a cover-up that went right to the top.

rawstory.com / guardian.co.uk (http://rawstory.com/showoutarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fobserver.guard ian.co.uk%2Fworld%2Fstory%2F0%2C%2C1962643%2C00.ht ml)
David Rose reports from El Paso
Sunday December 3, 2006
The Observer (http://www.observer.co.uk/)

Janet Padilla's first inkling that something might be wrong came when she phoned her husband at lunchtime. His mobile phone was switched off. On 14 January, 2004, Luis had, as usual, left for work at 6am, and when he did not answer the first call Janet made, after taking the children to school, she assumed he was busy. Two weeks later she would learn the truth.

'It was love at first sight for Luis and me, and that's how it stayed, after two years dating at school and eight years of marriage,' says Janet. 'We always spoke a couple of times during the day and he always kept his phone on. So I called my dad, who owns the truckyard where he worked and he told me, "he hasn't been here". I called my in-laws and they hadn't seen him either, and they were already worried because his car was outside their house with the windows open and the keys in the ignition. He would never normally leave it like that.'

Luis Padilla, 29, father of three, had been kidnapped, driven across the Mexican border from El Paso, Texas, to a house in Ciudad Juarez, the lawless city ruled by drug lords that lies across the Rio Grande. As his wife tried frantically to locate him, he was being stripped, tortured and buried in a mass grave in the garden - what the people of Juarez call a narco-fossa, a narco-smugglers' tomb.

Just another casualty of Mexico's drug wars? Perhaps. But Padilla had no connection with the drugs trade; he seems to have been the victim of a case of mistaken identity. Now, as a result of documents disclosed in three separate court cases, it is becoming clear that his murder, along with at least 11 further brutal killings, at the Juarez 'House of Death', is part of a gruesome scandal, a web of connivance and cover-up stretching from the wild Texas borderland to top Washington officials close to President Bush.

These documents, which form a dossier several inches thick, are the main source for the facts in this article. They suggest that while the eyes of the world have been largely averted, America's 'war on drugs' has moved to a new phase of cynicism and amorality, in which the loss of human life has lost all importance - especially if the victims are Hispanic. The US agencies and officials in this saga - all of which refused to comment, citing pending lawsuits - appear to have thought it more important to get information about drugs trafficking than to stop its perpetrators killing people.

The US media have virtually ignored this story. The Observer is the first newspaper to have spoken to Janet Padilla, and this is the first narrative account to appear in print. The story turns on one extraordinary fact: playing a central role in the House of Death was a US government informant, Guillermo Ramirez Peyro, known as Lalo, who was paid more than $220,000 (£110,000) by US law enforcement bodies to work as a spy inside the Juarez cartel. In August 2003 Lalo bought the quicklime used to dissolve the flesh of the first victim, Mexican lawyer Fernando Reyes, and then helped to kill him; he recorded the murder secretly with a bug supplied by his handlers - agents from the Immigration and Customs Executive (Ice), part of the Department of Homeland Security. That first killing threw the Ice staff in El Paso into a panic. Their informant had helped to commit first-degree murder, and they feared they would have to end his contract and abort the operations for which he was being used. But the Department of Justice told them to proceed.

Lalo's cartel bosses told him whenever they were planning another killing, using a grisly codeword - carne asada, 'barbecue'. In the six months after Reyes's death, they used it on many occasions. Each time, says Lalo, he informed his handlers in Ice. They did not intervene.

El Paso, population 700,000, lies in Texas's far west. It is a V-shaped city almost bisected by the Franklin mountains, lashed by desert winds. Houston and Dallas are more than 600 miles away. Much closer, across a guarded fence and the river, here little wider than a stream, is Juarez. On the western side of the Mexican city are the barrios - dirt streets of ramshackle huts without sanitation, built from discarded wood and tyres, whose inhabitants live in sight of the gleaming offices of downtown El Paso.

Eastern Juarez is very different. There, in the campestre, the country club district, lie gated developments patrolled by security guards, armoured palaces of marble, with columns, fountains and huge golden domes. Most of the money comes from drugs. Los narcos control not only Juarez but the wider state of Chihuahua, ruling through corruption and fear. One organisation is paramount - the Juarez cartel led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes. The US State Department claims he is responsible for shipping cocaine and marijuana worth billions of dollars a year and protects his business by killing. America is offering a $5m reward for his arrest.

His cartel has penetrated Mexican law enforcement at all levels. Like many of its operatives, Lalo began as a policeman - in his case in the Mexican highway police. Having resigned from the force in 1995, he began transporting cocaine by the ton for a gang based in Guadalajara. Professing disgust at his criminal associates, he started working for the US government in February 2000, supplying information not only to Ice (then known as US Customs) but also the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco, and the FBI. A few months later, with his handlers' encouragement, he was recruited into the Juarez cartel by Il Ingeniero, the Engineer, one of Fuentes's key lieutenants and a man notorious for acts of savage violence. His real name was Heriberto Santillan-Tabares.

'The money I got from the Americans I invested in business,' says Lalo, 36. 'I had a used-car lot, a furniture store and a cellphone accessory place.' He settled with his wife and three children on the US side of the border. 'I spoke to my handlers three or four times a day. But when I went across the bridge to Juarez, I had no back-up. I was on my own.'

Lalo claims to have facilitated numerous drug seizures and arrests. But on 28 June, 2003, his loyalty came under suspicion when he was arrested by the DEA in New Mexico, driving a truck he had brought across the border containing 102lb of marijuana. He had not told his handlers about this shipment and, in accordance with its normal procedures, the DEA 'deactivated' him as a source.

Ice took a different view. Agents in its El Paso office were trying to use Lalo to build a case against Santillan, and to nail a separate cigarette-smuggling investigation. At a meeting with federal prosecutors the week after Lalo's arrest, Ice tried to persuade assistant US attorney Juanita Fielden that, if Lalo were closely monitored, he would continue to be effective. Fielden agreed. She says in an affidavit that she called the New Mexico prosecutor and got him to drop the charges. Lalo was released.

A month later, on 5 August, Santillan asked Lalo to meet him at a cartel safe house at 3633 Calle Parsonieros, in an affluent neighbourhood of Juarez. The Mexican lawyer Reyes would be there too, Santillan said, and with the help of some members of the Juarez judicial police - the local detective force - they were going to kill him.

When Lalo arrived, two cops were already there. He went out to buy the quicklime and duct tape, and when he returned Santillan turned up with Reyes. The policemen jumped on the lawyer, beating him and trying to put duct tape over his mouth. Lalo, wearing his hidden wire supplied by Ice, recorded Reyes's desperate pleas for mercy. 'They [the police] asked me to help them get him to the floor,' reads a statement he made later. 'They tried to choke him with an extension cord, but this broke and I gave them a plastic bag and they put it on his head and suffocated him.' Even then, they were not sure Reyes was dead. One of the officers took a shovel 'and hit him many times on the head'.

When Lalo returned to El Paso on the day of Reyes's murder and told his Ice employers what had happened they were understandably worried. They knew that, if they were to continue using Lalo as an informant, they would need high-level authorisation. That afternoon and evening he was debriefed at length by his main handler, Special Agent Raul Bencomo, and his supervisor. Then he was allowed to go back to Juarez - Santillan had given him $2,000 to pay two cartel members to dig Reyes's grave, cover his body with quicklime and bury it.

Meanwhile the El Paso Ice office reported the matter to headquarters in Washington. The information went up the chain of command, eventually reaching America's Deputy Assistant Attorney General, John G. Malcolm. It passed through the office of Johnny Sutton, the US Attorney for Western Texas - a close associate of George W. Bush. When Bush was Texas governor, Sutton spent five years as his director of criminal justice policy. After Bush became President, Sutton became legal policy co-ordinator in the White House transition team, working with another Bush Texas colleague, Alberto Gonzalez, the present US Attorney General.

Earlier this year Sutton was appointed chairman of the Attorney General's advisory committee which, says the official website, 'plays a significant role in determining policies and programmes of the department and in carrying out the national goals set by the President and the Attorney General'. Sutton's position as US Attorney for Western Texas is further evidence of his long friendship with the President - falling into his jurisdiction is Midland, the town where Bush grew up, and Crawford, the site of Bush's beloved ranch.

'Sutton could and should have shut down the case, there and then,' says Bill Weaver, a law professor at the University of Texas at El Paso who has made a detailed study of the affair. 'He could have told Ice and the lawyers "go with what you have, and let's try to bring Santillan to justice". That neither he nor anyone else decided to take that action invites an obvious inference: that because the only people likely to get killed were Mexicans, they thought it didn't much matter.'

In the days after Reyes's death, officials in Texas and Washington held a series of meetings. Finally word came back from headquarters - despite the risk that Lalo might become involved with further murders, Ice could continue to use and pay him as an informant. And although Santillan had already been caught on tape directing a merciless killing and might well kill again, no attempt would be made to arrest him.

Lalo's statement, made in Dallas in February 2004, is a record of cruelty and violence, the words of a man who thought himself untouchable because of his relationship with Ice. In the months after Washington decided not to move on Santillan, the garden of the house at 3633 Calle Parsonieros began to fill with bodies. One day in September 2003, 'Santillan called to ask me to bury a guy who had apparently died of a heart attack at the moment he was kidnapped', Lalo's statement says. 'Another execution I remember was on 23 November... Santillan ordered me to have these drug mules meet him in the little Parsonieros house ... Loya [a corrupt police commander] put tape around their heads, but they could still breathe and one of them began to moan loudly, so Loya shot him in the head... but he didn't die immediately.' They were killed because they were careless in their smuggling work.

Then, and on other occasions, Santillan told Lalo in advance he was going to hold a carne asada. The deposition gives details of 13 murders, all but one of whose victims were later found buried at Number 3633. Each time Lalo crossed into Mexico his Ice handlers sought and obtained formal clearance from headquarters to allow their source to travel to a foreign country while working for a US agency. Throughout the period, Lalo says, he continued to talk to his handler Bencomo up to four times a day - usually in person, at the Ice El Paso office. He says his meetings with Santillan were all covertly recorded, while documents show that Ice had arranged for Lalo's phone to be bugged.

Curtis Compton, Bencomo's Ice supervisor, insisted in an affidavit that it did not know of any murders before they occurred: 'We only learned about the murders through interviews of Lalo after the fact. I acted in good faith that all my actions were legal and proper.'

Lalo's last country clearance was issued on 13 January, 2004. Once again Santillan had called him, asking him to come to Juarez to unlock the Parsonieros house for a carne asada. Next morning Luis Padilla disappeared.

Although the Padillas had attended Socorro high school in El Paso and lived in the US from childhood, both remained Mexican citizens, resident aliens with green-card work permits. Their children, Luis jnr, Jacqueline and Jasmine, were born in the US. Luis snr was two years ahead of Janet at school and they did not speak to each other until they attended a mutual friend's quinceria, a 15th birthday party.

Janet smiles at the memory: 'I liked everything about Luis straight away. He was silly, funny, a popular guy; he played a lot of sports. He was very religious and I started going to the same church, where he was president of the youth section.' For their first date he took her to a Mexican restaurant, and then a children's park: 'We just sat there on the swings, talking as if we'd known each other for years.' In 1996, when Janet was 16, they got married. They spent their wedding night in Juarez.

By 4pm on 14 January, Janet was on the point of phoning El Paso police when she received a call from a friend in Juarez. 'She told me, "I've just seen Luis over here. He was with some cops - they were putting him in a truck". I couldn't figure it out. He shouldn't have been in Mexico at all. At 8 o'clock I couldn't stand it any longer and I went over there myself. I went to all the different police stations. Nobody had him. Nobody knew where he was.'

Since they married Janet and Luis had only ever spent a night apart - when Luis junior was born; they had been living in Dallas, but she wanted to give birth in El Paso, in order to be near her family. In the fortnight after his disappearance, Janet and the children stayed with relatives. 'I couldn't go home. I couldn't be on my own. When he was lost, not knowing what had happened drove me crazy. When at last I heard something, at first I felt relief. A lot of people disappear in Juarez and you never know what happened to them.'

On 26 January, Janet got a call. Juarez police told her they had found some bodies. She was to meet them at the city mortuary. First, she was shown some photographs, but none was of Luis, 'I had to do it in person. I went in there and they had four bodies at that time. There were still ropes around their heads and their eyes were sticking out because they had been suffocated. It was horrible, horrible. One of them had a tattoo, one had silver teeth, another was too fat.'

Janet still did not believe this could have anything to do with Luis. 'He never took drugs and he never drank, beyond the odd beer. He never got into fights. He was still really into the church and he'd just been asked to coach middle-school sports. How could he be narco-fossa?' The police phoned again. This time they asked her to meet them at 3633 Calle Parsonieros. The place looked familiar. 'The hotel where we spent our honeymoon night backed on to the garden.

'I saw his shoes and his jacket. I went into the garden and they were probing the ground with a pole. That's when they found his body.' The police exhumed him, 'but it was hard to ID him because he was so decomposed. I looked at his hands and touched them. The flesh fell off.'

Two other men had been murdered on 14 January, both of them from Juarez. The next day Santillan told Lalo he had been asked to kill them as a favour for some associates of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes - Santillan had nothing against them personally. In such circumstances, murderers can make mistakes.

While Santillan and Lalo went on killing, Bencomo, his Ice colleagues and Assistant US Attorney Fielden were assembling their case. In December 2003 Fielden drew up a sealed indictment against Santillan. But although there was already some evidence of his involvement in killings, the indictment was only for trafficking, not murder. Before they could lure him to America and arrest him, they needed permission from the DoJ. They got it on 15 January, a day after Luis Padilla died.

But this did not bring the House of Death killings to an end. Under torture, one of Santillan's victims had revealed the address of Homer Glen McBrayer - a DEA special agent resident in Juarez who operated under diplomatic cover. At 6pm on 14 January, two men rang his doorbell continuously for 10 minutes. Afraid, his wife phoned him at work. McBrayer rushed home and ushered his wife and daughters into their car. As soon as they left the estate where they lived, they were stopped by a Mexican police car. Two civilian vehicles hemmed McBrayer's car in. Their occupants got out and waited while McBrayer talked to the cops. They were Santillan's men.

Having showed his diplomatic passport, McBrayer phoned a DEA colleague, who arrived within minutes. Unwilling, perhaps, to abduct two US agents, a woman and two children on a busy street, the cartel men backed off. As the standoff unfolded, Santillan twice called Lalo. He asked him to find out what he could about an American called Homer Glen - the corrupt police had not given McBrayer's surname. Santillan, claimed Lalo, said he thought he worked for the tres letras - code for the DEA - and intended to blow up his house.

The McBrayers were lucky to be alive, and the DEA, kept in the dark about the continued use of Lalo after the first murder six months earlier, reacted with fury. Even as Ice debriefed Lalo, it refused the DEA access to him and to recordings of the events of 14 January. Every principle governing informant handling and inter-agency co-operation appeared to have been flouted, and the Mexican government was not told of the carnage taking place on - and under - its soil.

Ice got Lalo to arrange a meeting with Santillan in El Paso and on 15 January Il Ingeniero was arrested. Two days later, Ice finally told the Mexicans that the garden at 3633 Calle Parsonieros was a mass grave. After bureaucratic delays, digging began on 23 January. On 18 February, Johnny Sutton filed a new indictment against Santillan, charging him with trafficking and five murders - including those of Reyes and Padilla.

The House Of Death suddenly seemed set to become a major national scandal. Bill Conroy, a reporter who works for an investigative website, Narconews.com, was about to publish an article about it. On 24 February, Sandy Gonzalez, the Special Agent in Charge of the DEA office in El Paso, one of the most senior and highly decorated Hispanic law enforcement officers in America, wrote to his Ice counterpart, John Gaudioso.

'I am writing to express to you my frustration and outrage at the mishandling of investigation that has resulted in unnecessary loss of human life,' he began, 'and endangered the lives of special agents of the DEA and their immediate families. There is no excuse for the events that culminated during the evening of 14 January... and I have no choice but to hold you responsible.' Ice, Gonzalez wrote, had gone to 'extreme lengths' to protect an informant who was, in reality, a 'homicidal maniac... this situation is so bizarre that, even as I'm writing to you, it is difficult for me to believe it'.

But Ice and its allies in the DoJ were covering up their actions, helped by the US media - aside from the Dallas Morning News, not one major newspaper or TV network has covered the story. The first signs came in the response to Gonzalez's letter to Gaudioso - not from Ice, but from Johnny Sutton.

He reacted not to the discovery of corpses at Calle Parsonieros, but with concern Gonzalez might talk to the media. He communicated his fears to a senior official in Washington - Catherine O'Neil, director of the DoJ's Organised Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Describing Gonzalez's letter as 'inflammatory,' she passed on Sutton's fears to the then Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and to Karen Tandy, the head of the DEA, another Texan lawyer.

Tandy was horrified by Gonzalez's letter. 'I apologised to Johnny Sutton last night and he and I agreed on a "no comment" to the press,' she replied on 5 March. Gonzalez would have no further involvement with the House of Death case and was ordered to report to Washington for 'performance discussions to further address this officially'.

Gonzalez was told that Sutton was 'extremely upset'. Gonzalez, who had enjoyed glittering appraisals throughout his 30-year career, was told he would be downgraded. On 4 May, DEA managers in Washington sent him a letter. It said that, if he quietly retired before 30 June, he would be given a 'positive' reference for future employers. If he refused, a reference would dwell on his 'lapse'. Gonzalez resigned, and launched a lawsuit - part of which is due to come to court tomorrow.

'I've been written off,' he says. 'They dismiss my complaints, saying I'm just a disgruntled employee. But once they knew about the carne asadas, they were legally and morally obligated to do something. They already had a solid case against Santillan for drugs and murder. What the **** else did they need? As for the DEA, they held my feet to the fire and joined the cover-up.' He had been neutralised, but there remained the danger that details of Ice's relationship with Lalo would surface at Santillan's trial.

Janet Padilla had also been dealt with. Ice has no legal responsibility for investigating murder, but after her husband's funeral Lalo's former handler, Bencomo, came calling. 'He told me that he was going to help me find my husband's killers and bring them to justice,' Janet says. 'He said to tell him anything I knew, because he would be in charge of the case. I saw him three or four times, and later I also met Juanita Fielden.' It did not occur to Janet that she ought to contact the police or other agencies.

For Janet, Santillan's indictment for murder was a moment of hope: 'I thought I was going to get justice for Luis.' But on 19 April Sutton announced a deal with Santillan - in return for his pleading guilty to trafficking and acceptance of a 25-year sentence the murder charges were dropped. 'All of the murders were committed in Juarez, by Mexican citizens, and all of the victims were citizens of Mexico,' Sutton said.

No one had any further use for Lalo. In August 2004 someone tried to shoot him at an El Paso restaurant - instead killing an innocent bystander. After that, he was taken into protective custody. And then, on 9 May 2005, Ice, the agency that had cherished him, decided that his US visa was irregular and began legal proceedings to deport him to Mexico - without doubt a death sentence. He is now in a maximum-security jail in the Midwest, fighting his former employers through the courts. In October The Observer won clearance to visit him with his lawyer, Jodi Goodwin. On the eve of the interview he was abruptly moved to a different facility where officials said a visit was impossible. Goodwin passed on a message: 'I'm not mad, I'm sad and disillusioned. Every time I did a job and brought them information, I was congratulated. Now they want to deliver me to my death.'

'If Congress and the media start to look at this properly, they will be horrified,' Sandy Gonzalez says. 'It needs a special prosecutor, as with the case of Valerie Plame [the CIA agent whose name was leaked to the media when her diplomat husband criticised Bush over Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction]. But Valerie is a nice-looking white person and the victims here are brown. Nobody gives a shit.'

For the three children who lost their father, and their mother, now struggling to make ends meet, it is difficult to cope. 'It's worst at night, when I put them to bed,' Janet Padilla says. 'I guess that's when it hits them. I tell them, "come on you guys, we got to make a prayer. Don't worry. Your daddy's watching you." But you know, it's very hard to make it as a dad as well as a mom.'

Who's who

· Sandy Gonzalez Special Agent in charge of the DEA in El Paso who was forced to resign after complaining about the official handling of the House of Death case

· Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Believed to lead the Juarez drug cartel. The US has a $5m bounty on his head.

· Heriberto Santillan-Tabares Known as 'the Engineer', he is a key henchman of the Juarez gang and the man who arranged the killings at the House of Death.

· Guillermo Ramirez Peyro Known as Lalo, he is a US government informant who worked as a henchman inside the Juarez drug cartel. Now in a maximum-security US jail.

· Fernando Reyes A Mexican lawyer, murdered at the House of Death. His killing was tape-recorded by Lalo

· Johnny Sutton US Attorney for Western Texas and ex-adviser to Bush. Approved indictments against Santillan.

· Raul Bencomo The Ice Special Agent who was Lalo's main handler.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006

[Punzie]

Newsday: Op-Ed
James P. Pinkerton, Columnist
March 15, 2007

Bush: Indentured servants welcome

So George W. Bush has come back from his trip to Latin America with a newfound determination to open up the U.S.-Mexican border. Oops, I mean, he wants "comprehensive immigration reform."

One big hint about his intentions came clear Tuesday afternoon in M–rida, Mexico, when the American president began his joint remarks alongside Mexican President Felipe Calder–n by telling his counterpart, "Perhaps the biggest single issue concerning your country is the issue of migration."

Note that last word. The more precise term to describe Mexicans leaving Mexico is "emigration," but instead Bush chose the politically correct "migration."

The whole goal of the open-borders crowd - that powerful combination of Republican-leaning businesses, hungry for cheap labor, and Democratic-leaning politicos, hungry for new voters among the multicultural millions - is to soothe away Americans' natural concern about their country ballooning to, say, 500 million people, with maybe a third of them not speaking English.

So while an "immigrant" is someone from a distant place who might not have sympathy for local traditions, a "migrant" is someone who is just moving around a little.

Indeed, Bush has mastered soothing code words. As he also said to Calder–n on Tuesday, "My pledge to you and the people of Mexico is they'll be treated with respect and dignity." And then, in the very next breath, he used the "m" word again: "The best way to do that is to pass a migration law."

It was a remarkable moment: a U.S. president pledging, on foreign soil, to adjust American law in a way favorable to foreigners. In the words of NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell, speaking to viewers Tuesday night: "We saw something you don't see very often. And that is President Bush made a promise, directly, to the people of another country, pledging to the Mexican public that he'll do everything possible to work for the passage of what he calls 'comprehensive immigration reform.'"

And what's that, exactly? O'Donnell explained, "For him that means a temporary worker program and also a way for illegals already in the U.S. to get citizenship."

There you have it: A "temporary worker" program, also known as a "guest worker" program, followed, of course, by amnesty - although in the years to come, the right-left open-borders alliance will, no doubt, come up with yet another euphemism, such as, maybe, "migratory permanentization."

But "guest workers" and "amnesty" would be disastrous for America. A guest-worker program would create a second class of citizenship, which is little different from indentured servitude, a practice that was long ago prohibited in the United States.

In fact, revealingly, servitude was abolished by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1865, which also abolished slavery. President Abraham Lincoln put it best when he described free labor as "the just, and generous, and prosperous system, which opens the way for all, gives hope to all, and energy, and progress, and improvement of condition to all."

The Civil War, of course, was a victory for free labor - and a defeat for the idea of a permanent, no-prospects slave class. But the owners of labor-intensive farms and factories didn't abandon their docile-worker dream; they have been looking for clever new ways to guarantee a semi-slave workforce ever since. Hence the U.S.-Mexican "bracero" (unskilled workers) program in the Southwest, which lasted from 1942 to 1964.

Now, in our time, the "solution" has been lax border and labor-law enforcement. But what's the alternative to the United States becoming more like a Third World country? Well, if the border were closed, employers would have to pay more, or else mechanize those jobs.

But it looks as if employers won't have to worry about raising wages or productivity, because more non-free labor is coming their way. The low-wage bosses have Bush in their pocket - though they have to share him with the Democrats and, of course, the Mexicans.

James P. Pinkerton's e-mail address is pinkerto@ix.netcom.com

Copyright 2007 Newsday Inc.

http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-oppink5130770mar15,0,3428557.column


Rapunzel's note about the columnist, James P. Pinkerton: In the past, he has taken a pro-Bush, Conservative Republican "side" on most issues. It appears, however, that on some issues -- immigration and the Iraq War come to mind -- Pinkerton has moved away from Bush's camp.

[lofter1]

This thread has been surprisingly quiet for some time.

But with armies of Terror Babies in our midst (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/ex-fbi-official-debunks-terror-babies-conspiracy-theory-on-cnn-video.php?ref=fpb), seems it's time to bump it up.

What do those folks in Texas know that rest of us don't?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dorCLFVpzyo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A5Z1QnXhx8

[Ninjahedge]

They are so cute when they have their first Jihad!!!!


:rolleyes:

[lofter1]

Tex. Congressman Louie Gohmert froths at the mouth over "The Gaping Hole in the Security of Our Country" ...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJabsFNh44s

[Ninjahedge]

I wonder who takes care of his property.

I would bet money that 3/4 of the ones against these illegal "threats" use, or have used, their services for their own personal gain or convenience.

"Well, I'm done renovating the ranch, Jose can get the hell out now!!!" :mad:

[Fabrizio]

I love hearing the Congressman say "gaping hole" with that Texas accent.

[MidtownGuy]

I wonder who takes care of his property.

I would bet money that 3/4 of the ones against these illegal "threats" use, or have used, their services for their own personal gain or convenience.

"Well, I'm done renovating the ranch, Jose can get the hell out now!!!" :mad:

LMAO! This is the typical attitude.
I don't even think the restaurant industry in this country would be the same without Mexicans working the kitchens.

[lofter1]

That, and effect it would have on the NYC hotel industry, is one of the main reasons why Mayor Bloomberg takes the stance he does on immigration.

[Fabrizio]

Sounds good:

Obama Signs $600M Border Security Bill Into Law
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 13, 2010

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Friday signed into law a $600 million border security that will put more agents and equipment along the Mexican border.

Obama signed the bill in the Oval Office alongside Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The measure will fund the hiring of 1,000 new Border Patrol agents to be deployed at critical areas along the border, as well as more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It also provides for new communications equipment and greater use of unmanned surveillance drones.

Some Republicans, including Arizona Sen. John McCain, say that while the legislation is a start, it falls short by not dramatically increasing the number of cutoms inspectors along the border and not funding a program that charges illegal immigrants with a low-level crime.

Arizona has been at the epicenter of the border security debate since it passed a law directing law enforcement officers to be more aggressive in seeking out illegal immigrants. Although a federal judge has since struck down some of the law's major provisions, it remains a rallying cry for those who say Washington has lost control of the border.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/08/13/us/politics/AP-US-Obama-Border-Security.html?ref=global-home

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I am wondering if Border Patrol agents are armed and if their authority is similair to a policeman or what?

[MidtownGuy]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=border+patrol+agents+armed

[lofter1]

A very handy tool.

[Ninjahedge]

I love the "Let Me" site, key for snubbage!

And I just saw the Gohmert (isn't that a GERMAN NAME??!?!?) vid. I would have had no patience.

"More stupid". Classic.

[Merry]

Boy, 9, has Disney World trip ruined after US immigration rules him a threat

A nine-year-old boy's dream trip to Disney World was ruined when US immigration officials ruled he was a threat.

Civil servants Kathy and Edward Francis planned to surprise their grandson Micah Strachan with the holiday of a lifetime to Florida in February.

They were only going to tell Micah about it when they took him to the airport on February 19 for the flight to the US.

They had already spent more than £1,500 on plane tickets and had been organising the trip for months.

But this week US Embassy officials denied the schoolboy a visa to enter the US.

They said there was a risk he would not leave the US at the end of his holiday and refused his application under Section 214 (b) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Micah was born in Britain and has lived in Middlesex all his life with his mum Claudia Lewis.

He holds a South African passport because his grandparents Kathy and Edward, who have lived and worked in Britain since 1990, only got him a South African passport.

They are originally from South Africa.

A letter from Micah's primary school was included in his visa application confirming he attended the school.

But the US Embassy's rejection letter to Micah said: "Because you either did not demonstrate strong ties outside the United States or were not able to demonstrate that your intended activities in the US would be consistent with the visa status, you are ineligible."

His grandmother Kathy, from Brixton, South London, said: "It was going to be a total surprise. He would have loved it.

"We feel so deflated by the whole experience.

"I want to know why he would be deprived of the holiday of a lifetime.

"It's crazy to think that he wouldn't leave the country. This is causing severe stress on the family. I am going to fight this."

Tessa Jowell, Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, said: "I was very concerned to learn about the situation facing my constituents and of course understand the distress the decision has caused.

"I have asked the American authorities to look again at this and very much hope they will feel able to reconsider their decision."

Meanwhile, the family have written to US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to ask for an explanation of the decision.

A US Embassy spokesman said it was "not policy" to comment on individual immigration cases.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/8259484/Boy-9-has-Disney-World-trip-ruined-after-US-immigration-rules-him-a-threat.html

[Ninjahedge]

This is what happens when computers and bureaucrats make the decisions.

You get one kid out of thousands that does not get to go to Disney World......


I think this is just stupid on both sides. I do not think something like this was intended, but how often does this really happen. Also, how much time and effort is really needed to correct a mistake like this? Is it really worth all this attention?


(ps, OMG! I spelled bureaucrat right on the first try!!!! ;) )