Immigration’s New Year–NY Times 1/5/10

MoonHowler

The following editorial appeared in the New York Times on yesterday, January 5, 2010.

The Editorial is printed in its entirety.

The quest for overhauling immigration received two very welcome lifts on New Year’s Day.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, at his inauguration, pledged to help the Obama administration pass immigration reform. Mr. Bloomberg is a force to reckon with, as he proved with his national campaign against illegal guns. On the same day, four young people in Miami, current or former students at Miami Dade College, began their own determined march to Washington in an effort to bring pressure from the grass roots.

Three of the four were brought to this country illegally as children. Like thousands of other young people, they bear no blame for their status, and they are frustrated that their hard work and bright promise lead to a brick wall. Their protest for a chance to become Americans is courageous because it exposes them to possible arrest and deportation. “We are risking our future because our present is unbearable,” one of them, Felipe Matos, told The Times.

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Using Jesus, Joseph and Mary to Encourage Census Participation

MoonHowler

It is probably no secret that the National Association of Elected Latino Officials is distributing the following poster to churches nation-wide to encourage Hispanics to participate in the upcoming census. [ There is a Spanish language poster.  12/26/09]

Many people and groups feel this measure is entirely inappropriate and hypocritical. In the first place, there is a constant vigilance kept about keeping church and state separate. The head of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, called the poster  “blasphemous.

According to ABC News:

Latino advocacy groups have launched an aggressive campaign to boost participation in the census, allay fears over confidentiality of the information it gathers, and counteract isolated efforts to boycott the count as a way of forcing immigration reform.

Advocates say the census is the only means for Latinos – a diverse and fast-growing population – to achieve greater political representation and benefit from federal programs that directly affect immigrants and their families.

Federal money and apportionment of congressional seats all hang on an accurate census. Unfortunately, too many Latinos have been led to think that the census takers are violating their privacy or possibly reporting them for any breach in immigration status. Basically, they don’t want the government in their business.

Is the poster in bad taste or is it a good tool to educate those who want to dodge the census? Should the government take heroic measures to include Latinos in the census? Some people have voiced fairly strong opinions on both sides of this issue.

Fun Facts from the Census Bureau

White American Majority to end by 2050

MoonHowler
Faces of America
Faces of America

The estimated time when whites were no longer a majority in the United States has been pushed back by 8 years because of the recession.  Stricter immigration policies have slowed the flow of foreigners being admitted to the United States. The work force isn’t needed.  The 9-11 terrorist attacks also slowed immigration.   Earlier estimations in population shift did not take these 2 factors, terrorism and recession,  into account.

White children will now become a minority in 2031 rather than 2023 and all whites will become a minority in 2050 rather than 2042.  There are approximately 308 million people in the United States now.  Two- thirds of those people are white.  It is predicted that the total populations will grow to 399 million by 2050 and the demographics will shift to whites being 49.9% of the population.  Blacks should make up 12.2%which indicates almost no change, and hispanics will go from 15% to 28% of the US population.  Asians will increase from 4.4$ to 6%.

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O’Reilly takes on Law and Order over Immigration Episode

MoonHowler

The video speaks for itself.

Isn’t art supposed to imitate life? I watched that episode of Law and Order. The rhetoric sounded to me an ordinary day on at least one local blog. On the other hand, as you saw in the video, O’Reilly was named as one of the haters who stir up people on the right about illegal immigration. I am not so sure O’Reilly is all that vitriolic on this subject. He is actually rather tempered from what I have witnessed. However, his outrage and tantrum over Dick Wolf weakened his case.

The plot can be seen at this site. And to set the record straight, Law and Order SVU has only been on the air for 11 years. The show often incorporates current issues into the plot as the detectives try to solve crimes committed against special victims.

Letter From SPLC on Lou Dobbs

MoonHowler

Posted below is the correspondence from Richard Cohen of Southern Poverty Law Center on the departure of  Lou Dobbs from CNN.  Whether you agree or disagree, Dobbs’ removal was sought by many hefty organizations.  Without additional commentary:

Nov. 12, 2009

 

Dear Friend,

Last night, CNN anchor Lou Dobbs announced his departure from the network. As you know, we’ve been highly critical of Dobbs because he has used his platform to spread myths and propaganda — poisoning the debate over immigration reform and inciting fear and hate against Latinos.

The SPLC was one of the first groups to bring public attention to Dobbs’ use of false information provided by racist hate groups.

With your support, we exposed his wildly inaccurate reporting about immigrants — such as his insistence that immigrants had brought thousands of new cases of leprosy to the United States during a recent three-year period.

And we condemned his reliance on the Federation for American Immigration Reform as an authority on immigration issues. This is an organization we have named a hate group with longtime ties to white supremacists.

This past July, we called on CNN executives to fire Dobbs after he relentlessly promoted the racist and utterly baseless idea that President Obama is not a native-born American citizen. Soon thereafter, a number of other organizations joined our call.

Immigration reform is an important and complex issue, one that should be debated honestly. We hope that Dobbs’ resignation sends a message to other commentators that the airwaves shouldn’t be used to vent extremist rhetoric and fan the flames of hate. Doing so has serious and sometimes violent consequences, as illustrated by the rise in hate crimes against Latinos and the unprecedented number of threats against Obama.

We are committed to exposing those who disseminate misinformation that foments hate. Together, we took a stand, and our actions made a difference. Thank you for everything you do to combat bigotry and intolerance.

 

Richard Cohen photo Thank you for your support,
Richard Cohen
J. Richard Cohen
President, Southern Poverty Law Center

Carlos Castro: From Illegal Immigrant to Community Leader

MoonHowler

Today’s edition of the Washington Post features an article on FOA (Friends of Anti-bvbl) Carlos Castro. Carlos is known to many of us and is one of those community leaders we meet in the film 9500 Liberty. Originally from El Salvadore, Carlos left his war-torn country at age 24. He paid a coyote $800 to smuggle him to the USA over 30 years ago. He got caught, detained and deported crossing the border but soon snuck back over.

Now a citizen of the United States, Mr. Castro tells of his journey from illegal immigrant to president of Todos Supermarket, which specializes in foods and services to immigrants from Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa at stores in the eastern end of the county.

Carlos Castro explains what has motivated him:

“We were very poor, and I had this great desire to break the cycle of poverty . . . I love to read, and as a teenager, I purchased a book by Dr. Robert Schuller called ‘You Can Become the Person You Want to Be.’ I got really inspired by that in my early years. I programmed myself to succeed by understanding that success does not come that easy, that you have to go the extra mile with that goal in mind of breaking that poverty cycle.”

He gives further advise to those who aspire to break the cycle of poverty:

To succeed, people “need a strong work ethic . . . Many of our children have no idea how to go about getting things on their own, how much hard work it takes to accomplish the good things in life. I explain to them that inheriting wealth can actually work against you if you don’t know how to handle it. In order for them to succeed, they need to prepare themselves with a good education and work habits.”

Carlos can be found at most community meetings. He continually lends his quiet courteous leaderhip to others. Prince William County is fortunate that there has been a pathway to citizenship for Carlos Castro.

Full story at Washingtonpost.com

 

Geraldo Expresses Disgust with Lou Dobbs

MoonHowler

Geraldo called his boss because of the rumor that Lou Dobbs was leaving CNN and coming on over to Fox.
The boss said NO.

Geraldo defends the presence of immigrants in this country and reviles the defamatory tone used when discussing comprehensive immigration reform.  He blames Lou Dobbs for setting the tone that affects all Latino people.

Geraldo stated the following which was reported in the Huffington Post:

Rivera told the crowd, “One of the aspects of our reality in the United States right now is the defamatory tone of the immigration debate and how that immigration debate has slandered an entire race of people. It has been reckless beyond imagining, it has been reckless beyond precedent.”

He then trained his sights on Dobbs: “Lou Dobbs, a man who was an accomplished journalist, and who left to start his own venture in the digital media… and then came back to CNN, and nobody was watching his program. He discovered that one of the ways he could get people to watch was to make of the image of a young Latino trying to get into this country a profoundly negative icon. Lou Dobbs is almost singlehandedly responsible for creating, for being the architect of the young-Latino-as-scapegoat for everything that ails this country.”

US Cannot Track Visitors on Foreign Visas

MoonHowler

Last year 2.9 million foreign visitors checked in on temporary visas but never officially checked out, according to immigration officials.  It is estimated that several hundred thousand of them simply do not leave. according to the New York Times:

Since 2004, homeland security officials have put systems in place to check all foreigners as they arrive, whether by air, sea or land. Customs officers now take fingerprints and digital photographs of visitors from most countries, instantly comparing them against law enforcement watch list databases. (Canadians and Mexicans with special border-crossing cards are exempt from those checks.)

But homeland security officials said that a series of pilot programs since 2004 had failed to yield an exit monitoring system that would work for the whole nation. They have not yet found technology to support speedy exit inspections at land borders. And airlines balked at an effort last year by the Bush administration to make them responsible for taking fingerprints and photographs of departing foreigners.

The current system relies on departing foreigners to turn in a paper stub when they leave.

Last week’s terrorist plot brought this problem to a head, once again.  New concerns over national security were sparked by a 19-year-old Jordanian who had overstayed his tourist visa and who has been accused  of plotting to blow up a Dallas skyscraper. 

Congress has repeatedly mandated verification that visitors have left the country but it still is not being done.  Verification of entry and exit of the United States is a must  for both national security and if the government is serious about curbing illegal immigration.  Currently, estimates indicate that about 40%  of all illegal aliens living in the United States overstayed a visa.

All the ‘Secure our Border’ signs in the world won’t take care of 40% of the problem. 

 Further reading: New York Times

Jail Beefs Up Screening For Illegal Immigrants

MoonHowler

Last week, Prince William  Regional Jail  joined a federal system called Secure Communities.  Secure Communities, a part of DHS, takes the process of checking the status and criminal background of illegal immigrants a step further than the 287(g) program.   Secure Communities creates an information sharing system that enables jurisdictions across the United States to access more comprehensive federal records. 

According to last Thursday’s Washington Post:

“Secure Communities is a Department of Homeland Security initiative to more broadly manage and modernize the processes used to identify and ultimately remove dangerous criminal aliens from our communities,” said Marc Rapp, acting executive director of Secure Communities. “Our goal with this effort is to use information sharing to prevent criminal aliens from being released back into the community, with little or no additional burden on our local law enforcement partners.”

Under Secure Communities, the Prince William-Manassas Regional Adult Detention Center can access Homeland Security’s biometrics-based immigration records. Previously, the jail accessed only the FBI’s criminal records during booking as part of what is known as the 287(g) program.

Col. Peter A. Meletis, the jail’s superintendent, said that officials launched the program locally last week and that it does not cost the 12 state and local law enforcement agencies that use the jail anything. Booking officials at the jail simply run the fingerprints of an arrestee simultaneously through the FBI and Homeland Security systems; one largely identifies a person’s criminal activity, and the other better identifies immigration status.

Jail Superintendent Pete Meletis says that this new program just gives the jail  additonal tools to work with.  Fairfax and Prince William are the only 2 jurisdictions in Virginia who utilize Secure Communities because of the high concentration of what ICE deems to be criminal illegal immigrants. 

An ICE detainer allows the criminal to be held after the sentence has been served.  ICE makes the final evaluation about what to do with the detainee.  Congress has allocated 1.4 billion dollars to ICE for enforcement efforts against criminal illegal immigrants.

9500 Liberty Wins Charlotte Film Festival for Best Documentary!

MoonHowler


Congratulations to Eric and Anabel for winning the Best Documentary Award at the Charlotte Film Festival last night! The award is the Indy Truth Award for Best Documentary and is a very prestigious award. 

 

The film will show again at 3:30 on Sunday. Eric and Anabel were featured on two Charlotte NPR radio programs. Check them out at the 9500 Liberty website.

Here are the upcoming plans for these talented film makers:

Next stop, we will be premiering in DC on October 1st at the DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival as the opening night film. You can buy tickets here for the screening and reception.

http://www.apafilm.org/festival-2009/9500-liberty/
This is our big hometown premiere screening with the “stars” from the film and a big after party so it is not to be missed if you are in the DC area.

This is the list of scheduled screenings including Prince William County, Honolulu, St. Louis, San Diego, Charlottesville, etc. We are adding more screenings including in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles in the coming weeks. http://9500liberty.com/screenings.html

Thank you for supporting us throughout these months. Some of you have been with us for nearly two years. In fact, the second-year anniversary of the creation of the 9500 Liberty YouTube Channel will be celebrated on October 9th with the residents of Prince William County with a special community screening of the film at St. Paul’s Church in Woodbridge.

 

Please plan on seeing the film. According the the website:

9500 Liberty reveals the startling vulnerability of a local government, targeted by national anti-immigration networks using the Internet to frighten and intimidate lawmakers and citizens. Alarmed by a climate of fear and racial division, residents form a resistance using YouTube videos and virtual townhalls, setting up a real-life showdown in the seat of county government

.

Border Security Woes Magnified

MoonHowler

The reasons for the current decline in border crossing arrests cannot be determined. Authorities are unsure if the reasons are because of the downturn in the American economy or because of the new fence. Most think that fewer arrests are because of the recession and lack of jobs in the United States making border crossing less desirable.

Meanwhile, the effort to secure the border has fallen behind 7 years, according to government sources. The cost of the project is also way up, over a billion dollars to complete. Maintainence costs once the project has been completed are also billions higher.

Problems like trembling cameras are plaguing those responsible for completion. Meanwhile, determined immigrants continue to vandalize the existing fence. The 28 miles of high tech border security are rife with problems.

According to the New York Times, various woes facing completion of this project are as follows:

The report, by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s watchdog, said the department had fallen about seven years behind its goal of putting in place the technology the Bush administration had heavily promoted when it announced the Secure Border Initiative in 2005.

In 2006, the report said, the department estimated it would have a system of cameras, radars and sensors in place to aid a force of border guards by the end of 2009, but the completion date is now projected as 2016.

“Flaws found in testing and concerns about the impact of placing towers and access roads in environmentally sensitive locations caused delays,” said Richard M. Stana, an author of the report. The cameras and radars, a “virtual fence” in a system designed by the contractor, Boeing, have fallen prey to weather and mechanical problems.

The effort to build 661 miles of fences blocking vehicles or pedestrians is nearly complete, but with 28 miles left to go, it has been delayed by lawsuits from landowners in Texas.

The government has spent $2.4 billion on such “physical infrastructure,” but the report said it could cost $6.5 billion over 20 years to maintain it.

For all the money spent, the department has not set up a way to evaluate the fences’ impact, relying mainly on the judgment of senior Border Patrol agents.

There is no way to guage the effectiveness of the fence already completed because of security breaches, change in the actual number of attempted border crossings. Meanwhile, Congress must address these issues rather than sticking their respective heads in the sand.

Articles:

Scathing Report on Border Security Is Issued

Border Fantasies

ACLU files suit over Prince William County loitering law

MoonHowler

From the Manassas News and Messenger:

Published: August 14, 2009

The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday filed a motion to dismiss charges against four Hispanic men arrested for loitering near the Coverstone apartment complex in Manassas earlier this year.

In the papers, filed in Prince William General District Court, the ACLU challenges Prince William County’s loitering ordinance, saying the law is “unconstitutionally vague,” and allows police to target “disfavored groups.”

According to the court documents filed by the ACLU, Alberto Miguel Arias, 35, Juan Canseco-Rodriguez, 51, Jesus Velasquez Lopez, 43, and Isreal Lopez Amador, 36, were arrested for loitering on May 5.

According to the ACLU, the men were part of a larger group of men standing on the sidewalk near a bus stop outside Coverstone Apartments, where they lived, when police officers approached them on May 5.

The police officers asked each of the men for identification. The men who were unable to prove they lived in the apartment complex were charged with trespassing and the men who could prove they were apartment complex residents were charged with loitering, according to the ACLU.

Prince William County police late Friday said they had no information available about the case.

According to online court documents, Arias, Canseco-Rodriguez, Lopez, and Amador were all charged with loitering.

According to the Prince William County code, loitering is a Class1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 12 months in jail and/or a fine of up to $2,500.

Nancy Lyall of Mexicans Without Borders said the four men charged with loitering contacted the group shortly after their arrests.

Nancy Lyall of Mexicans Without Borders said the four men charged with loitering contacted the group shortly after their arrests.

“We don’t understand the reason for the arrests,” she said. “They were standing in a public area.”

Lyall said the group received several complaints of police arresting day laborers in the Coverstone area this spring, but hadn’t heard of any recent arrests under the county’s loitering ordinance.

“We believe these individuals were targeted because of their ethnicity,” stated ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Rebecca Glenberg in a statement.

The four men are due in Prince William General District Court on Sept. 1 for a hearing on the loitering charges.

I decided this one couldn’t be summarized. Was this predictable or what?

Does anyone else wonder who else was involved in this case? I drive in that area frequently. I always see Hispanic men. I never see cops or people being arrested.

Stay tuned. This case should bring out the hounds of Hell and some lively red circles beating the war drums.

Meanwhile, who pays for this? Just askin’. I know who I would like to send the bill to.

Council on Foreign Relations Calls for Sweeping Immigration Reform

Alanna

According to the Council on Foreign Relations website:

The Council on Foreign Relations sponsors Independent Task Forces to assess issues of current and critical importance to U.S. foreign policy and provide policymakers with concrete judgments and recommendations. Diverse in backgrounds and perspectives, Task Force members aim to reach a meaningful consensus on policy through private and nonpartisan deliberations. Once launched, Task Forces are independent of CFR and solely responsible for the content of their reports. Task Force members are asked to join a consensus signifying that they endorse “the general policy thrust and judgments reached by the group, though not necessarily every finding and recommendation.” Each Task Force member also has the option of putting forward an additional or dissenting view. Members’ affiliations are listed for identification purposes only and do not imply institutional endorsement. Task Force observers participate in discussions, but are not asked to join the consensus.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and students, civic and religious leaders, and other interested citizens in order to help them better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries.

Broken Immigration System Risks Serious Damage to U.S. National Interests, Warns CFR Task Force

July 8, 2009
Council on Foreign Relations

“The continued failure to devise and implement a sound and sustainable immigration policy threatens to weaken America’s economy, to jeopardize its diplomacy, and to imperil its national security,” concludes a new Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Independent Task Force co-chaired by former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former White House chief of staff Thomas “Mack” McLarty.

 

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She Was Never About Those Huddled Masses

MoonHowler

Emma Lazarus’s famous poem, The New Collossus, written on  the plaque on the Statue of Liberty is thought to capture the essence of what it means to be an immigrant by many Americans.

Roberto Suro, professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication, in his guest editorial in Sunday’s Washington Post, suggests that this overly romanticized poem has nothing to do with our immigration policies, past or present,  or the founding of this nation and that we need to scrap the poem.

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