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Loading...Immigration: Piecemeal Reform is Dangerous
Weekly Immigration Wire: Piecemeal Reform is Dangerous
Posted: Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:32:29 +0000
We’re coming to the close of the year in which President Obama said that immigration reform would be a priority. But to date, the Obama administration has only extended harsh immigration enforcement provisions put in place by the Clinton or second Bush administrations. These punitive pieces of legislation include E-Verify, a 100% detainment policy, the Secure Communities initiative, and the infamous 287(g) agreement. Cumulatively, they do not reflect a workable philosophy on immigrants, society, or the U.S. economy. Instead, this enforcement agenda destabilizes communities with police persecution and terror.
As Christopher W. Ortiz writes for AlterNet, “Comprehensive immigration reform is large-scale systemic reform encompassing all aspects of social, political and legal life here in the United States.” Ortiz, a police sargeant and criminal justice lecturer, presents an enforcement-heavy view of immigration reform, yet he does not agree with the current system of patchwork, or “band-aid” legislation. It is “a system of haphazard enforcement and piecemeal policies” that are “usurped” in some areas of the country and fully “ignored” in others. Ortiz calls for “a complete overhaul of the immigration system, from entry to citizenship.”
But on all fronts, the White House is rapidly backing away from anything resembling a systematic overhaul. On the same day that the E-Verify mandate went into effect, as Daphne Eviatar reports for The Washington Independent, Dora B. Schriro, the woman appointed to overhaul detention system, left the Obama administration to run New York’s jails. Shiro’s sudden departure is another stall for meaningful reform of the nation’s growing network of detention systems.
In another article, Eviatar highlights some of the issues that make E-Verify controversial. “In the middle of the toughest job market in decades, the administration has chosen to erect another roadblock to gainful employment for U.S. workers,” Eviatar writes. But is it a roadblock to economic growth or simply to justice? The cash still flows, but the stream is diverted to the growing detention industry. Productive members of our society are simply shifted into incarceration. Instead of earning money to spend in their communities, the funds are redirected to the Corrections Corporation of America, and to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The recent mass firings at American Apparel also punishes productive workers in favor of harsh immigration enforcement. M. Junaid Levesque-Alam at Wiretap tries to find the logic, and justice, in these firings. The Los Angeles-based clothing manufacturer let go of 25 per cent of its workforce due to pressure from a federal immigration probe. Levesque-Alam doesn’t find logic or justice in the Obama administration’s approach to immigration—only the hypocrisy of Obama’s use of a Cesar Chavez rallying cry—”Sí Se Puede!”—to gain Latino votes. “When a corporation can offer vulnerable people better prospects than the most respected elected officials, then something is very wrong with liberal policy—or the lack thereof,” Levesque-Alam writes.
New America Media’s Marcelo Ballvé reports on a cosmetic, if not useless, change to the detention industry. On August sixth, ICE announced “the creation of two new government offices, one to oversee ongoing reforms to the detention system, and another to monitor and inspect detention centers.” This comes in response to a flood of complaints from human rights activists who charge the detention centers overall with a substandard level of care. As the Wire reported on March 19th, the quickly growing detention industry has been soundly criticized for a lack of humane standards in reports issued by both the Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. But ICE overseeing itself hardly solves the problem.
Ballvé also points out that in the first five months of Obama’s presidency, ICE raids have spiked, and despite promises given by the President or the Department of Homeland Security, there is no greater focus on employers whatsoever.
“Despite the significant uptick in prosecutions,” Balivé writes in another piece for New America Media that “none of the May 2009 ICE cases targeted employers under the statute that makes it a criminal offense to knowingly hire undocumented immigrants.”
Finally, Sherriff Joe Arpaio, the public face of the 287(g) provision, is in the news again. Arpaio, who has anointed himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” is being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union, which charges that Arpaio used racial profiling in detaining a father and son who are both U.S. citizens, thus “violating the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law and prohibition on unreasonable seizures.” Arpaio is legendary for using humiliation as standard operating procedure. He’s made inmates dress in pink, parade through town in shackles, and this case is rife with it. It is repugnant and sadistic.
This country’s approach to immigration cannot rely on force, prisons, and persecution—no matter how well they self-regulate. We are not so young a race or civilization that we cannot employ a scope that doesn’t rely on prison-oriented profits and xenophobia. The White House needs to rethink its entire approach, and with originality and courage. The alternative is that this issue will become more problematic, manifesting greater chaos down the line.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration and is free to reprint. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets.
Read more: detention, detention policy, human rights, immigration, immigration reform
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By Nezua, Media Consortium
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+ add your ownall,I can tell pokes pls help all the human kind,is not about the primary life or being a citizen what about the people or let say the human being is suffering extremely harder and difficulties of surviving life...I been here almost 10 yrs now,i am still trying my best to help my family for living,just to have a successful future..we need to help the illegal....they are so down and grounded of a lot of opportunities that ,they don't have the capabilities to have actual legal proffession that we all have....they cry for tears to survived and hoping to see there love one's from other country..I hope god will come to earth and bless all the human kind...I support the illegals...they are all not bad....
There is absolutely no reason to do anything short of passing the SAVE Act and forcefully deporting those who refuse to deport themselves.
The nonsense of birthright citizenship need to end, as does the practice of allowing immigrants to petition in their extended families.
We have sent 3 million jobs to Mexico. We have granted amnesty to many millions, yet they keep coming. We have allowed many millions of Mexicans to legally immigrate. Yet we have this invasion going on. (Sorry, but 12-20 million is an invasion!)
The root causes of this problem are:
A) A culture where the elites control everything and he masses starve.
B) A culture where education is not valued.
C) A culture/religion that promoted overpopulation.
Until these problems are solved, no amount of amnesty, guestworker programs or other open borders programs will help. Mexico needs a revolution. Allowing them to export their excess population will only delay the real solution and ruin our country.
Illegal means un-lawful plain & simple.My Grandparents came to America in the early 1900's from Ireland.Went to Ellis Island they had their paperwork in order. They were allowed entry & worked & raised their children.They became legalized this is my point.Nothing should be just handed out if you are illegally sneaking in then they need to be sent back end of story.My son served in the Army 8yrs Special Forces I never knew where he was in the World due to his missions.But when he came permanently home & got a good job he travels over seas 2x's a year for his job.He had to go through Hell & high water for his VISA & when he arrives at his destination he's always given a thorough questioning of why he's in that Country.So why not here in U.S. The welcome wagon must stop.
Real reform has to address the 1848 Apartheid foisted on Mexico back in the naked white supremacist days of the U.S., when it took half its territory for its whites-only homeland, leaving the runt country eternally dependent on the U.S. with no lebensraum for future pop. growth. 160 years later and the chickens are coming home to roost, and as long as the apartheid continues all proposed solutions are dishonest and ineffective. It's time Congress invited the people of Mexico to join the U.S. as 10+ new states sans racism so that all 414M of us can work together to solve our problems and share the New World in peace and accept each other's existence. Click http://go.to/megamerge to read my Megamerge Dissolution Solution proposal for the Obama admin., which can be started as early as 2010.
Most of the rhetoric that I have read here, does not bring you to the bottom line. We, as citizens, support illigals, when it comes to our buying habits. Most of the produce that reaches our markets, would escalate in price, drastically, if not for illigals. I am not suggesting that this situation is acceptable; I'm simply saying, that we, as a nation, have not enforced the laws already on the books. Bush exasperated the problem, if you remember. He made a deal with Vincente Fox and even allowed imprisonment of a border security guard, a sentence he refused to commute.
Since, this problem has been condoned, many families have been raised here, educated and pay taxes. All of these conditions must be taken into consideration. We can start, as we speak, to inforce laws and stick to them.
This is a hard one for me only because of the children of these illegals. However if one, as a non-resident, can't abide by the first rule of law they encounter trying to enter a country why should they be allow entry under false pretense? It's very simple really illegal entry into this country is against the law.
If you want what is good about the country you are entering and you want respect from the citizens of that country, you need to respect the country and the citizens by respecting their laws.
It is a situations that our government has let get worse by the years. We have tried amnesty and it made things worse. But how do we hold those illegals accountable, while giving their children a better chance than what their parents have?
It's difficult to find an answer that is fair to all. I live in Arizona and Sheriff Joe is not love by all and is NOT the answer. Let's hope and pray we are wise, mature and loving enough to find a solution for this human tragedy.
"Human Rights," like charity, begins at home. Let's protect the Human Rights of U. S. citizens who have seen their wages cut or jobs taken by illegals. The Human Rights that the illegals deserve are criminal prosecution, where appropriate, and deportation to their own countries, where they can fight for human rights at home, where they belong.
I'm tired of reading pro-illegal immigration articles where the author seems to imply those opposed to illegal immigration are xenophobes or racist or whatever. Polls show a majority of U.S. citizens are opposed to illegal immigration yet favor legal immigration(in reasonable numbers that are not too high). So let us keep in mind, if one favors legal immigration from all over the world, yet opposes illegal immigration from all over the world, the xenophobe or racist label is unfair, innapropriate and wrong.
Remember Reagan's failed plan to let illegal immigrants stay in the country and become citizens? Many more illegal immigrants got in on it than were supposed to, illegal immigration increased afterwards(giving citizenship to illegals entices millions more to sneak in illegally), the increased enforcement of laws against illegal immigration that were supposed to follow were too weak or underenforced.
Since 2006, we've seen the push to repeat the mistakes of Reagan in 86.
What we need Is Heath Shuler and Mark Pryor's SAVE Act. This is the best immigration reform bill that democrats could pass. This bill includes good enforcement measures and no citizenship for illegal aliens. If this bill is passed, it will require illegal aliens to leave the country(like Arizonas tough laws against illegal immigration caused many illegals to leave the country)and get in line to apply legally with millions of others around the world waiting legally to come here, as it should be.
At this time we have enough population to service with health, education and all other services. It is very simple, give everyone that is already here an Amnesty Card and allow them to become citizens and then close the gate very tightly for all but completely sponsored persons to enter our country in the future.
Stand on the obviousness of the questions..while ignoring the filthy political chicanery that makes up your cess pool of Americas inbred family affair of presidential elites who buy the oval orifice and wage war on the people from within their own governments of slave masters for the Corporate Nazi Regime, itself a legacy of Hitler's adoring posse, beginning lately with the Bush family tree.When America learns to do it's homework, and stop killing the messsengers, there may be a chance for you yet. Now you have all but invaded your "friends" whom you distain to recognise even on your autistic maps. Good news..we will all go down together into obscurity and poverty and disease, all that a 3rd world ghetto nation of Bilderbuggering traitors deserve is a quick hanging.
If you think Hitler was a monster wait till the full effects of this arranged marriage of church and state produces in the next few years.The not so repressed sadistic authoritarians havent even started to abuse you yet. Being old and approaching the grave is a merciful blessing.Lets not forget the useless eaters and breathers,the sick and imperfect, the old and dissenting freedom fighters who are being shipped to prisons as i write, the shepards of a broken society are bigger criminals than their charges.The puppet masters are laughing loud and saluting the swastica daily in their ivory towers built on the bloody masses of fodder who made you what you are. Native American Treasures stolen by Christian bigots.Aho
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