Month: September 2008

This comment was written by Marie, one of our regular posters. For me, this post cut to the heart and common sense analysis of a complicated issue. Thank you Marie!

Someday the true cost of the war on illegal immigration will be realized. I do not mean in dollars and cents. The true cost is to the national identity: the sense of who we are and what we value. It will hit us once the enforcement fever stops.

It is my belief that we are a nation of immigrants and one nation of immigrants is holding another nation of immigrants in bondage, exploiting its labor while ignoring its suffering, condemning its lawlessness while sealing off a path to living lawfully. The evidence is all around that the WELCOMING spirit at the American core is slipping away.

The campaigns to raid homes and workplaces has spread indiscriminate terror among millions of people who pose no threat. After one of the largest raids in Postville, hundreds were swiftly force-fed through the legal system and sent to prison. Their civil-rights violated. Lawyers complained that workers had been steamrolled into giving up their rights, treated more as a presumptive criminal gang than as potentially exploited workers who deserved a fair hearing. Immigrants in detention suffer without lawyers and decent medical care even when they are mortally ill. Counties with spare jail cells are lining up for federal contracts as prosecutions fill the system to bursting. Police all over are checking papers, empowered by politicians who are itching to enlist in a federal campaign.

Legal paths are clogged or do not exist. Some backlogs are so long that they are measured in decades or generations. A bill to fix the system died a year ago and there is a strategy is to force millions into fear.

There are few national figures standing firm against restrictionism. Senator Edward Kennedy has done so, but his Senate colleagues who are running for president seem by comparison to be in hiding. John McCain supported sensible reform, but whenever he mentions it, his party starts braying. It is unknown at this point how Sarah Palin stands on the issue. Hillary Rodham Clinton has lost her voice on this issue more than once. Barack Obama might someday test his vision of a new politics against restrictionist hatred, but he has not yet done so. The American public’s moderation on immigration reform, confirmed in poll after poll, begs the candidates to confront the issue with courage and a plan. But they have been vague and have not risen to the challenge. I write letter after letter to them. I feel fortunate if any reply.

The restrictionist message is simple — illegal immigrants deserve no rights, mercy or hope. It refuses to recognize that illegality is NOT an identity. Unless the nation reduces its pressure to enforcement, illegal immigrants will remain forever THEM and never US, subject to whatever abusive regimes the powers of the moment may devise.

I have said many times before the Federal Gov’t needs to do more to beef up security at our borders and ports but in the interim there are over 12 million undocumented people here and we need to do something. The restrictionist approach is not and will not work. There needs to be a path for all the hard working, tax paying immigrants to become documented. You see for me it has always been about the God given rights of ALL HUMAN BEINGS and for me It is about being treated with dignity and respect.

Every time this country has singled out a group of newly arrived immigrants for unjust punishment, the shame has echoed through history. Think of the Chinese and Irish, the Italians and Jews, Catholics and Americans of Japanese ancestry. Our grand children will study the immigration panic of the 2000s, which harmed countless lives, and mocked the nation’s most deeply held values

Hello asked some good questions about a comment from Mackie. Let’s review.

What Mackie said:

John Stirrup wasn’t duped. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He left arlington to escape working class latino immigrants. Now this buffoon wants to forcibly turn PWC into his own personal demographic experiment. Undocumented are kicked out, and for those people of color who remain, a quasi-police state. It’s all the same to John. It’s not his kids who will be stopped on the street by the police and asked if their parents are illegal. He is a sincere in supporting the resolution no matter what the party says. Sincere enemies are always the most dangerous.

And similar to Adolf Eichman, he likewise implemented an efficient and effective policy to ship the undesirables out of the community.

This was my initial response:

I wouldn’t have gone as far with the comparison to Adolf Eichman, but otherwise Mackie’s statement is dead-on. Stirrup wasn’t duped into dealing with FAIR. The quote about his leaving Arlington because of the demographic shift is accurate. According to IRLI, we have been turned into a lab experiment. He was in favor of a plan that would have been very similar to a police state. His blond haired child won’t be asked if her parents are illegal. And he did implement a policy to rid the county of those he perceives to be undesirable. Where exactly do you think Mackie was incorrect in his analysis?

To which Hello asked some good questions which I have attempted to answer here.

1.) He left Arlington to escape working class Latino immigrants?

My answer:

In an interview, Stirrup said he moved to his home near Haymarket nine years ago in part to escape a wave of immigrants that he believed was fueling crime and driving down property values in his old Arlington neighborhood.

source: http://hamptonroads.com/node/423771

2.) He wants to forcibly turn PWC into his own personal demographic experiment?

My Answer:
Again, he worked with IRLI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBbjrk0QWqw

3.) Undocumented are kicked out, and for those people of color who remain, a quasi-police state?

My Answer: The quasi-police state was the original suggestion of the resolution that discussed restriction of a wide-range of services and included I.D.’ing everybody. Actually the quote from the County executive interview addressed this initial policy.

I believe it’s in this video that the County Executive talks about what the initial proposed resolution would have meant and it sounds to me like a quasi-police state.

source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRVWb_aiQ4

4.) It’s not his kids who will be stopped on the street by the police and asked if their parents are illegal. (looking for evidence of kids currently being stopped on the street by police and asked if their parents are illegal)?

My Answer: Hispanic kids are carrying around their birth certificates in their glove boxes. Do you think Stirrup’s blond haired child is doing the same?

Source: Washington Post

5.) He likewise implemented an efficient and effective policy to ship the undesirables out of the community. – this one if more of a question I suppose, are the undesirables illegal immigrants?

My Answer:
1.

“How are we supposed to survive here?” asked Gregorio Calderón, a legal U.S. resident from El Salvador who said he worries that police will harass him because of his ethnicity. “They’re going to pull me over just for being Hispanic.”

source: Washington Post

2. And, another article entitled- A Hispanic Population in Decline

Sitting on the floor in my room, folding clothes while I watch John McCain give his speech, the CNN camera pans the audience, lo and behold, I see John Stirrup cheering and waving his sign around. Within several mintues I see him again, only this a much closer shot! Now, what I am wondering, does he react with such demonstrative support when John McCain addresses the plight of immigrants or the story of hispanic migrant workers and their families, and ultimately the bond that ties us all together, our common bond of humanity.

I found this most recent article from Fox news on John McCains immigration plan, his new focus on securing the border and the tight rope he walks in appealing to Hispanics while not alienating his base.

ST. PAUL — For most voters, immigration reform has taken a backseat to the economy and the war in Iraq.

But the controversial issue could re-emerge in the fall as John McCain and Barack Obama court Hispanic voters, who could make the difference in battleground states such as Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and Colorado, where many of Latino voters are concentrated.

McCain vowed this summer that if elected he would prioritize reforming immigration laws to include a pathway to citizenship for illegal residents.

As senator, his immigration reform efforts failed last year when Congress shot down a comprehensive bill he co-sponsored that included a guest worker program. After that, McCain narrowed his position, saying the U.S. must secure its borders before changing the system.

Immigration reform represents a political landmine for Republicans who want to appeal to Hispanics, an increasingly powerful electorate, and hold on to its base supporters, many whose position against illegal immigration is viewed by Hispanics as discriminatory.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/04/mccains-stance-on-immigration-could-help-win-hispanics/

I did watch Palin speak last night and had to laugh out loud when her youngest daughter licked her hand and then proceeded to slick down her baby brother’s hair. I also cringed when the father handed the infant to her to hold because she appears to be maybe 6 years old.

Oh, and on bvbl.net today we find this little gem.–

anon143 said on 4 Sep 2008 at 1:42 pm:
“My reference was to the rumor, widely believed in Alaska, that Sarah Palin’s baby with Down’s Syndrome was actually born of her daughter”

As far as the rumor, it is Sarah’s baby. She started leaking ambionic (sp) fluid, which caused the downs syndrom. She has even gone as far as to say that she would take a DNA test, or whatever kind of test, to prove it is her child. Come down off that limb, Rick!

News Flash: Leaking amniotic fluid does not cause Down’s Syndrome, it’s a chromosomal abnormality which actually can be detected fairly early in pregnancy.

Now this should frighten everyone, it sure did me! A new memo surfaces from John Tanton expressing his thoughts on Hilters failure of promoting the true case for eugenics.

http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/
 

In 1989, the founder of the modern day anti-immigrant movement, John Tanton, told Otis L. Graham Jr. that “I have all along seen the immigration battle as really a skirmish in a wider war . . .” Since that time critics of Tanton have worried that his “wider war” would be one steeped in racism and white nationalism. Critics had reason to worry, particularly because of Tanton’s strong commitment to the false study of eugenics. When one cuts straight to the chase eugenics can be defined as the forced sterilization of poor and brown skinned people.

Critics should worry even more. In a recently surfaced memo, The Case for Passive Eugenics, Tanton argues for a softer, gentler eugenics movement because simply “Hitler’s reign in Nazi Germany did little to advance the discussion of eugenics among sensitive persons.” Tanton still serves on the board of his most influential organization – the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Other items to surface in these newly uncovered Tanton memos include:

“I’m sure it will give you a new understanding of the Jewish outlook on life, which explains a large part of the Jewish opposition to immigration reform.” – John Tanton promoting an article written by anti-Semite Kevin McDonald of Occidental Quarterly a vicious anti-Semitic journal [Source: Letter to Mrs. C.S. May, December 10, 1998].

“You are saying a lot of things that need to be said, but I anticipate it will be very tough sledding” – John Tanton writing to Jared Taylor of the white supremacist group Council of Conservative Citizens concerning Taylor’s draft newsletter [Source: Letter to Jared Taylor, October 10, 1990].

“I’ve been a reader of your materials for some time, and hope that we can meet some day. Is there any chance that you could come up and join us?” – John Tanton inviting Wayne Lutton of the white supremacist group Council of Conservative Citizens to a FAIR event [Source: Letter to Wayne Lutton, June 10, 1991].

The Washington Post reports another dynamic to the most recent raid in Mississippi. It appears as though the fiasco of herding people into a “cattle-call arena” after the raid in Potsville Iowa, and setting up shop to prosecute, may not have been reprensetative of a Nation who espouses the consitutution as its “rule of law” primary legal document.

“I think Postville left a bitter taste for a lot of people,” said Robert R. Rigg, director of the criminal defense program at Drake University Law School in Des Moines, who has criticized the case. “It paints a pretty bleak picture of American criminal justice, and I don’t think it’s the type of thing the judiciary or main Justice wants to replicate.”

Charles H. Kuck, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, agreed, saying he thinks the Justice Department is changing course.

“They clearly did not enjoy the press they got after Postville. . . . It may be a shift in strategy from how bad Postville made them look as they eviscerated the Constitution, doing everything in one fell swoop with the involvement of the federal court.”

Almost 600 people were arrested in Howard Industries in Mississippi, but unlike Potsville, where an overwhelming majority were charged with felony crimes, all but eight at Howard Industries were charged criminally. The remaining several hundred were turned over for civil deporation hearings, a far cry from being charged criminally.

The federal government’s handling of a massive immigration raid at a Mississippi manufacturing plant last week has led critics to suggest that the Bush administration is backpedaling from its aggressive use of criminal charges and fast-tracked trials against illegal immigrants caught at workplaces.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency “continues to target egregious employers . . . to identify individuals engaging in identity theft, and we seek criminal charges where appropriate,” spokeswoman Kelly A. Nantel said.

Nonetheless, it was a stark departure from the way authorities conducted the previous record-setting sweep 15 weeks earlier.

“I don’t think it’s a shift away from what they ultimately want to do, which is to punish and deter people from using fraudulent identities to obtain work. It’s a different path to the same goal,” Kuck said.

But he added: “They could do one of these raids a day for the next six years and still not deter people from doing it.”

So, the question remains, WHY are we continuing a strategy that we KNOW will NOT create any long term solutions to immigration?