Legal Kidnapping in the 'Land of the Free'

1,157 nabbed in California after statewide raids. Note the ideological window dressing - we're only kidnapping the bad ones.

Here's what los desterrados can expect in custody.

CNN On Why Deportation is Inhumane

This CNN article is quite remarkable. It's an effective illustration of the brutal inhumanity that results from the "enforcement" discourse on immigration. Yes, it ends up being a sop for some Christian philanthropist whose group, Organization to Help Citizen Children, does as much as damage as good by framing the issue around citizenship, but nonetheless it's extraordinary that an article which treats undocumented workers like people should be headlining on CNN.

Amy Goodman: Fuck Lou Dobbs

Published on Wednesday, December 5, 2007 by TruthDig.com
The Dubious Mr. Dobbs
by Amy Goodman

Truth matters. History and context count. “You’re entitled to your own opinions. You’re not entitled to your own facts,” the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously observed. CNN’s Lou Dobbs has migrated to a pre-eminent position in the debate on immigration in the U.S. Since he identifies himself as a journalist, he has a special responsibility to rely on facts and to correct misstatements of fact. CNN, which purports to be a news organization, touting itself as the “Most Trusted Name in News,” has an equally strong obligation to its audience to tell the truth.

Dobbs was best known for anchoring CNN’s “Moneyline,” an early and influential program that helped create the televised financial-news genre. On “Moneyline,” Dobbs featured corporate CEOs and generally lauded them. About five years ago, Dobbs began changing his line, invoking populist rhetoric and championing the cause of the middle class. He thematically titled his coverage “War on the Middle Class” and “Broken Borders.” Dobbs’ signature issue of undocumented immigrants, or, as he calls them, illegal aliens, has tremendous influence on the debate nationally. So it matters if he is wrong.

On March 28, 2006, Dobbs said on his show, “And it’s costing us, no one knows precisely how much, to incarcerate what is about a third of our prison population who are illegal aliens.” As it turns out, the number of noncitizens incarcerated in the U.S. federal and state prisons is closer to 6 percent, not 33 percent. Note that the 6 percent includes legal immigrants as well.

On April 14, 2005, Lou Dobbs opened his show by saying: “The invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans. Highly contagious diseases are now crossing our borders decades after those diseases had been eradicated in this country.” CNN correspondent Christine Romans filed a report, then told Dobbs, “There have been 7,000 [cases of leprosy] in the past three years.” CBS’ “60 Minutes” later challenged the fact, pointing out that there had actually been 7,029 cases reported over 30 years. When Lesley Stahl confronted Dobbs on the statistic, he defended it, saying: “Well, I can tell you this. If we reported it, it’s a fact.”

Dobbs’ reporter, Romans, said her source was “Dr. Madeleine Cosman, a respected medical lawyer and medical historian.” Cosman, who died in March 2006, was a medical lawyer and staunch anti-immigrant activist. She was recorded saying publicly of Mexican men: “Recognize that most of these bastards molest girls under age 12, some as young as age 5, others aged 3, although, of course, some specialize in boys, some specialize in nuns, some are exceedingly versatile and rape little girls aged 11 and women up to age 79.”

After I played the tape of Cosman for Dobbs, he conceded to me that his reporter’s source, Cosman, was a “whack job.”

On May 23, 2006, Dobbs aired a report on a state visit by Mexican President Vicente Fox. His correspondent, Casey Wian, called it a “Mexican military incursion” and displayed a map of the U.S. with the seven Southwest states highlighted as “Aztlan,” which, Wian reported, “some militant Latino activists … claim rightfully belongs to Mexico.” The graphic came from the Council of Conservative Citizens, which the Southern Poverty Law Center, a group that tracks hate groups, points out is the current incarnation of the old White Citizen Councils of the 1950s and 1960s, which Thurgood Marshall referred to as “the uptown Klan.” The SPLC has reported that several of Dobbs’ guests and sources have had links to the CCC, such as Joe McCutchen of Protect Arkansas Now, part of the Minuteman vigilante movement, and Barbara Coe of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform. Another guest, Glenn Spencer, head of the anti-immigrant group American Patrol, speaks on the white-supremacist circuit. When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer had Spencer on, he told his audience that the SPLC had designated American Patrol as a hate group. When Dobbs had him on, he never identified the connection.

In our conversation with Dobbs, “Democracy Now!” co-host Juan Gonzalez raised the issue of history, of how immigrants have been scapegoated: the Irish in the 1860s, the Chinese in the 1880s and, later, Southern Europeans. Dobbs rolled his eyes, saying, “Are you holding me responsible?” No, and Dobbs knows better. But he must be held responsible for not bringing a historical context to this crucial discussion of immigration reform. The immigration issue will not be solved by vilifying a population. The SPLC has just released a report on the upsurge in anti-immigrant, anti-Latino violence in the U.S.

United Stations Radio Networks has just announced that Dobbs will soon be hosting a three-hour daily talk radio show. The Web site claims, “It’s not about what’s right and left … it’s about what’s right and wrong.” Let’s hope that Lou Dobbs follows his own advice.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America.

UW Regent resigns in protest over Doyle's denial of tuition breaks to undocumented students

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Friday:

Jesus Salas, a Bay View resident who was appointed by Gov. Jim Doyle to the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents in 2003, this morning resigned from the board because of a Doyle policy decision on tuition for undocumented students.

Here is the text of Salas' resignation letter to the governor:

"The following is to inform you of my immediate resignation from the UW-System Board of Regents. I find that your retreat from your support in the 2007-09 UW-System budget for tuition remission for qualified students who happen to be children of undocumented workers as intolerable.

"It follows your signing the Real I. D. legislation which prevents the same population from obtaining a driver license. In spite of the fact that Latino leaders proposed alternative options that other states were following in dealing with this federal unfunded mandate, you proposed no legislative alternative.

"Earlier you also capitulated to extremists by signing legislation that denied WI's housing agency from assisting those same hardworking individuals who were gainfully employed and otherwise satisfied all banking requirements. You did this while knowing that during the time that this window of opportunity was available there was never a known default of any of the loans made.

"Finally, in spite of the fact that Latinos share the same fundamental values that brought generations of European immigrants in the same manner to Wisconsin, it is only we who are 'illegal.' Everyday there are those, individuals as well as representatives of communities as a whole, including state entities who are contriving ways to further deprive us of our U.S. Constitutional rights to life and liberty. There is a daily deterioration in the quality of life for the Latino both for the undocumented as well as those of us who were born here.

"Today, I refuse to join you in celebrating the signing of the 2007-09 WI budget. For us, it is day of mourning for the future of our children who through no fault of their own continue to be denied access to the UW-System."

Salas' biography on the regents' Web site says he taught social studies at Milwaukee Area Technical College for 18 years before retiring in December 2005, and that he has also taught Chicano/Latino studies courses at UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee. He is a graduate of UW-Milwaukee's School of Education and received his masters in political science from UW-Madison.

Ship out to Iraq or out of the US

A US naval officer, Eduardo Gonzalez, is about to deploy for his THIRD tour of duty overseas. However, he fears that the US government is going to deport his wife, a Guatemalan immigrant who has been in the US since 1989. This would leave their infant child without a family, a consideration that that the government has proven will not deter it.

The army says that it deals with these issues on a case-by-case basis and that gee, it must be hard for soldiers to risk their lives and concentrate on killing the enemy when their own government is potentially going to deport their families. According to Lt. Col. Margaret Stock, a law professor at West Point who deals with immigration, "On the one hand, the government is supposed to be providing military families with assistance, housing and other forms of benefits while their spouses are overseas. On the other hand, the same government is trying to deport the very same people."

Even though a judge granted her an extension, if she does not change her status she will have 60 days to voluntarily leave following June 8, 2008 or be deported.

Gonzalez, on the other hand, entered the country illegally from Mexico, but obtained a green card by joining the Navy and became a citizen in July 2005.

The Gonzalezes are not alone, as U.S. Army Sgt. Emmanuel Woko, who faces his third tour in Iraq fears constantly that his wife and child could be deported to Nigeria. As well as this particularly nefarious case of another Guatemalan immigrant.

To me, this story brings out a lot of key hypocrisy about immigration and the government’s treatment of veterans.

First, Gonzalez's wife Mildred came to the US with her mother fleeing the war in Guatemala and was granted political asylum as a war refugee. Now, a little bit of a historical background on Guatemala is necessary to discuss the factors of WHY someone would come to the US and to take on the arguments of hardline nativist scum like Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, who feels that

"What you're talking about is amnesty for illegal immigrants who have a relative in the armed forces, and that's just outrageous," he said. "What we're talking about here is letting lawbreakers get away with their actions just because they have a relative in the military. ... There's no justification for that kind of policy."

Well Mark, the reason Mildred and her mother were forced to flee their country, which I'm sure that they love more than an adopted land full of racists like yourself and the people who run it, is that the US personally helped to start and fuel the bloody civil war that has raged their since 1954, when the CIA helped engineer the coup against left-wing President Jacobo Arbenz because he supported peasants who challenged the landowners of the United Fruit Company. According to an Inventory of Conflict and Environment case study, “during the last forty years, the military has been levying a campaign of terrorism and genocide against these groups [demanding agrarian reform], most of them Mayas, in order to distribute native peoples' land among plantation owners.”

This flies in the face of the ‘they’ve come to steal our jobs/reconquista of the southwest, traffic drugs/leach off of our economy’ rhetoric tossed around by the Right and universally accepted by media.

Secondly, listen to this head-spinning rationale:

“In September 2000, Mildred's mother applied for legalization and included her daughter in that application. Her mother was granted legal status in July 2004, according to Gonzalez. However, six weeks earlier, Gonzalez and Mildred got married, canceling Mildred's ability to apply for legal status through her mother because she was no longer an unmarried daughter under the age of 21. As a result, her legal status still remains in jeopardy.” So, if you’re not an unmarried, dependent female, the government will toss you to the back of the line and inevitably forcing her to face deportation."

Lastly, since when has the government cared about veterans? From the Bonus Army following WWI , until now, I can’t seem to find any positive examples.

Weekly Dave: Kansas City Krackers

This story is a simple illustration of what the Left has been saying all along: political xenophobia of the kind spewing from Congress regarding immigrants turns all too quickly into xenophobic violence.

What merits the Weekly Dave, however, is the news item at the bottom: This same school district suspended a student for the crime of speaking Spanish.

Heideman: Fuck Lou Dobbs

That's right. I'm talking about this guy. Fuck 'em.

My favorite part of the article is where Lou refers to Mexico as "the Great Imperialist." Interesting description, especially when it is contrasted with the United States. Where did Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico come from again?

There's also the wonderful section where Dobbs argues that the US spends too much already helping Mexico. Given that any number of US stores rely on Mexican sweatshops and maquiladoras for the assembly of their products, it's hardly surprising that we have a trade deficit with Mexico. Furthermore, many of the products we sell down there, like corn, are so heavily subsidized by Washington that their resulting cheap price utterly skews the comparison. Needless to say, neither of these phenomena which generate the trade deficit are in any way beneficial to the Mexican people.

Dobbs also says plenty of racist nonsense, like " Even by Mexico's standards, Calderon's blatant hypocrisy is breathtaking." I was unaware that Mexicans are known for their hypocrisy.

Overall, I think the most notable fact about the article is the air of crisis Dobbs maintains. "Felipe Calderon...demanded the United States surrender its sovereignty, abandon the rule of law and accede to Mexico's inherent supremacy." You can read the full text of Calderon's speech here. I assure you it contains nothing of the sort. Dobb's hysteria is a cover for the empty core of his argument. There is no immigration crisis. As Reason, a right-wing libertarian publication, points out, even if you accept the racist logic of assimilation that the debate is framed in, Latino immigrants learn to speak English quite quickly, have lower crime rates, and don't exhibit any problems that weren't associated with Italians, Jews, or the Irish when they started arriving. My favorite quote is "It's hard to tell U.S.-born kids to assimilate while you're treating their parents like outlaws." In short, the hysterical tone is necessary for Dobbs to sell his case that immigrants are somewhere, somehow, causing this country harm. It's a malicious lie, and it kills.

One Is Silver and the Other Is Gold

It appears that the Bush administration has taken to heart a nursery rhyme told incessantly by my Irish/Italian grandparents concerning the nature of multiple best friends. Turns out that Alberto Gonzales was "too much of a distraction" to the Administration, preventing them from successfully running the world.

And how do you get to replace a torturing, habeus corpus-denying, warrantless-spying right wing hack? By being a PATRIOT ACT-writing, black people ignoring, war on terror-architecting right wing hack.

I think the discussion surrounding tapping Chertoff as the U.S.'s lead domestic terrorist ensures that any argument made by U.S. liberals (or conservatives) about the uniqueness of Gonzales' neoconservativity is a nonstarter. This resignation, whether brought about by distraction (read: too much talk about what the U.S. foreign policy must imply domestically, namely, a reduction in civil liberties and what can only be called human rights violations on a good day) or personal choice (read: Gonzales was tired of being the fall guy for these policies), is no different than impeaching Bush and ending up with President Cheney. Not only does this not constitute any real shift in domestic perspective for Bush, by replacing the architect of the terror list with the architect of the PATRIOT ACT and the war on terror, it is in fact exactly the opposite: a consolidation of personnel, ensuring that right-wing policies can continue amidst a flurry of public skepticism.

But at least now if my civil liberties are violated in the coming months, I have the recourse of sitting in a crowded football stadium for weeks while people starve, waiting for Mikey to come listen to my grievances.

Cracks at the Top Bear Bitter Fruit for Immigrants, Corporate America

Lacking a bill from Congress, President Bush tossed a red piece of meat to his rabid nativist base by declaring some new executive initiatives to deal with our apparently ‘hemorrhaging’ borders. The primary measures, brokered between the department of Homeland Security, the Department of Labor and the White House, focus on the enforcement aspect of the immigration compromise divide ( as opposed to the modern slavery of ‘guest worker’ –wing ). This means more Homeland Security and Border Patrol agents increased prosecutions of employers who hire undocumented workers specifically through the use an online Social Security database that checks for false numbers. Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff argued that even with the increase in agents, the government will not be able to punish all employers. But, fret not Tom Tancredo, because Chertoff is confident that he argued that “high-impact, high-visibility enforcement would act as a deterrent.” Hmm, Mike, what could these ‘tactics’ look like? Does the multi-state, Gestapo-style raid of the Swift meatpacking plants of last December strike a chord? In this ‘success’ of immigration enforcement 1,297 people were arrested by ICE while only 274 face charges. It is clear that ‘enforcement’ means the state-led terrorizing of Latinos, be they citizens or not. The story of one resident of Marshalltown, Iowa two months after the raid warrants quoting to show how devastating to families involved:

“When José Mora tucks his 7-year-old niece into bed at night, she often asks, "Where's my mommy?" He doesn't want to say that her mother is in a Des Moines jail awaiting a hearing that could result in her being deported to Mexico. "I say only, 'Your mother might be coming home next month,' " says Mora, who won't discuss the child's legal status. Mora, 41, who has three children, took in his two nieces before Christmas. Their father, Mora's brother-in-law, was deported to Mexico after a Dec. 12 raid at a local meatpacking plant.

The trump card of this plan, the online Social Security database, is believed to have an error rate for citizens estimated as high as 11%. Let’s see, so, if you’re keeping tabs, that means that 11% failure of one initiative on people with documents and slightly more than 20% of the people in raids are actually charged. To me, those seem to be pretty abysmally low odds for ruining people lives.

However, the implications of this action by Bush and Co. cut to the heart of not only the fissures in the Republicans, but between both ruling parties. As far as the Republicans are concerned, Bush has become a pariah. His low approval rating and arrogant actions in Iraq and his inability to pass ‘comprehensive immigration reform’, whatever the fuck that is have gotten him in hot water with his party. But, as the initial responses by the ag-industry, leading Republicans, and Democrats to the announcement of these initiatives show that he hasn’t for some reason Bush is making a last ditch effort of sorts to reconnect with his xenophobic base, from whom he must have been much more estranged than I would have thought.

To me, the most revealing aspect is the outcry from Corporate America. Chertoff himself admits that "there will be some unhappy consequences for the economy out of doing this." How unhappy, you might be asking yourself. As unhappy as if someone stole your birthday? As unhappy as if you got dumped and your dog died? Well, to humor you all we should ask Laura Foote Reiff, co-chairwoman of the Business Immigration Group: "It's going to be awful; the harvest is going to be awful... People will feel it when they go grocery shopping, when they read in the newspaper that we're importing our meat from China." Ooh, a little anti-China sentiment to boot.

As much as I enjoy to such a bourgie bastard squirm, an admission by Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez cuts to the core of the issue: "We do not have the workers our economy needs to keep growing each year. The demographics simply are not on our side. Ultimately, Congress will have to pass comprehensive immigration reform." Clearly the persecution, flight, and general absence of the nearly 2.5 million estimated agricultural workers without documents will have a devastating impact on the ability of agribusiness to pick this years’ harvest. When all seemed lost to the poor growers, in steps the reliable B-Team of US capitalism to save the day. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein decried this move as a “catastrophe… The crisis is that crops will not be harvested.” Not, we need to protect families from being divided and people from being wrongfully detained and deported. That would be too much.

While it is too early to see what the Democrats will propose, their initial reactions not only reveal their loyalties (Big Business) but some of the important inter-workings of US capitalism. One reason that the US has one of the longest undisturbed constitutional governments in history is largely due to the fact that there are two parties, which clearly have their differences, but ultimately when there is a crisis with one party, the other is ready and willing to step up to the plate. For instance, the abrupt end of the ‘Republican Revolution’ at the mid term elections last November where the Republican’s disgusting handling of Iraq led millions of voters to see the election as a referendum on the war and the party that most visibly conducted it. Though the Democrats have done NOTHING to bring the war to an end, this blow to their corporate backers has to have severe repercussions. The question is how far are the Dems willing to alienate their liberal and progressive base in order to please the bosses?

Despite Lou's absense, Crackers still rabid.

"It's not about ethnicity; it's not about race. It's about lawful behavior versus unlawful behavior," Letiecq said ..."It's the folks who come in and try to maintain the culture of the country they came from," Letiecq said. "They don't seem to embrace the American culture, the English language, the social norms of American culture."

And I don't just mean this guy. We know that people of this ilk (the Minutemen, local legislators who are passing laws referred to in this article, Tom Tancredo, etc etc) are not uncommon and that the media tends to give them a highly disproportionate platform. However, the part that really bothers me is the tone of the author: "diversity is now spreading to the suburbs and beyond." It seems like that author is trying to politely describe a plague and to muffle his/her growing panic that 'white' America is becoming a minority. Well, AP fails. It's just as racist if it's the blatant vitriol of anti-immigrant groups or the subtle, often more sinister uses by the media that seem to acheive much more widespread acceptance.

Don't Ever Forget Where You Live

...even for a moment, or you might be deported, even if you're a U.S. citizen. I don't think I even need to comment on this. We're just getting more proof (as if we needed it), that the U.S. government is not concerned with protecting anyone with mental illnesses in the country.

Also, it's interesting that the NYT disagrees about whether or not Mr. Guzman noted that he was a U.S. citizen before being deported.

More 'Immigration Reform' rumblings from Capitol Hill

After the defeat of the draconian, pro-business and racist anti-immigrant legistlation in Congress in June, Congress is trying to ratchet up the pressure on undocumented immigrants in a piecemeal fashion. Currently education and agricultural exceptions are being considered. Nearly 1 million high school students are in the US because of, in the words of IL Senator Dick Durbin, "The sins of their parents" for which they shouldn't be blamed. In other words, promising students that they can stay if they attend college or join the military, but that their parents are criminals who will continue to be targets for ICE raids, departation, and separation from their children.

On the other hand, after approving $3 billion more for border security, by far the largest federal law enforcement agency, due to labor shortages in the agricultural centers like California, North Carolina and Michigan, the United Farm Workers, conservative Republicans like Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho, and Senator Dianne Feinstein are spearheading the bipartison thrust to expand the guest worker program.


This remake of the bracero program, described as a system of "legalized slavery" by Lee G. Williams, the US Department of Labor official in charge of the programT, has widespread bipartisan support and as you might have noticed in the Youtube Democratic debates, was never mentioned by any candidate.