This is from a Facebook post she shared on Monday:
I just thought I would let you know my husband Roberto's Visa was denied and he was told he cant apply for anything until 2017. That's 4 more years I am so suppose to be without my husband and my daughter Victoria without her father. This is a really messed up country to think that you spend 5 years paying thousands and doing papers trying to be good, do what's right and then your ripped away from your family. I havent seen my husband in almost 16 months and my daughter has had to suffer without her dad all this time. Where is the right as a citizen to pursuit of happiness in this whole situation? Had we stayed in the shadows and not tried to be honest and legal then we would stand a better chance to file papers when the new bills are passed. If only my husband had not crossed and turned himself into ICE agents trying to do the right thing then he would not have had a court date and missed it. "If only" but we know it is to late for that. God bless.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Friday, March 1, 2013
Linda Cedillos and the ICE homewrecking deportation machine
It was a few months ago when she called Radio 1310 in Atlanta from Virginia, and I picked up the phone and heard her plea for help. Her name is Linda Cedillos, and she is the wife of Roberto Cedillos, who was then being held for deportation and has now been deported. Even though she is a citizen -native born, white and even blonde-- and just from the citizen part, has a right to have her spouse be granted permanent resident status so he can be with her and the kids. But Roberto was snatched from their home by la migra, and "persuaded" to sign a "voluntary" departure by four jack-booted Nazi gestapo thugs ... I mean immigration officers ... who explained not just with words but with a physical demonstration the relationship between Roberto's health and his signature on the voluntary departure document.
And don't tell me you're shocked, just *shocked,* that such a thing could happen "in America." The Guantanamo concentration camp is as American as Apple Pie. Hollywood even nominates movies glorifying the torture that routinely goes on there for Academy Awards.
This is what worries me about Obama --and the two parties-- in relation to "immigration reform," which to me has nothing to do with high tech visas and everything to do with wiping out the stigma against and persecution of undocumented immigrants.
Google "Linda Cedillos" and you'll see how she has been fighting for --at first-- her husband's release and then for his return. Perhaps Obama didn't notice, but he has advisers, analysts and aides by the score. By conventional American political standards, if Obama's team were genuinely, humanely and sincerely interested in helping unauthorized immigrants, they could not hope for a bigger club with which to beat the Republicans into submission than this case.
And on the Republican side, I can't come up with a better case to show their hearts overflow with the milk of human kindness than by making at least *an exception* in this case of an exemplary family. Yet neither side does the obvious, politically convenient thing, showing they're still in thrall of the xenophobic hysteria that Bush the lesser and his acolytes unleashed in the wake of 9/11.
On change.org, Linda has a petition to the president to just let her family BE a family by allowing it to be reunited. I subscribed to it and then wrote an explanation, which change.org kept choking at even though by my standards it was so mild as to border on anodyne. This is what I wrote:
* * *
People have been moving from one place to another looking for a better life for themselves and their loved ones since our chimpanzee ancestors climbed down from the trees and started living in African Savannas and coastal caves.
True, today we have a more complex society and I can see why some would say that for that ages-old pattern to be continued, it now needs to be done in an orderly way.
But our government instead has adopted discriminatory immigration laws that defy reality. Did you know that people from a huge country like Mexico, with which we are deeply interpenetrated by history, geography and economy, do not have access to a higher number of immigrant visas than Monaco has a right to, even though Monaco is far away, has very little interchange with the United States, covers less than one square mile and has barely 36,000 residents?
The millions of unauthorized immigrants in the United States are here first and foremost because our economy needed them. The REAL effect of our immigration laws is not to keep them OUT but to keep them "illegal" and thus much more easily cheated and exploited by unscrupulous employers. And I am far from convinced that this was an accident.
Congress can do many things, but it cannot overrule the laws of nature nor of a market economy. There are T-shirts out there that say "Gravity: it's the law," and there should also be ones that say, "Supply and demand: it's the law." Immigrants are here first of all because there was a demand for their labor. That's a fact.
But even if you think that's all poppycock and "the law is the law," the basic unit of our society is the family, and breaking up families is much the greater crime even if you think that crossing an imaginary line someone drew on a map should be in the criminal code.
Support Linda and Roberto: it's not just the human, it's the hominid thing to do.
And even in terms of Congress's laws, deporting Roberto was wrong. As a citizen, Linda has a right to have her husband here, next to her. He was not deported legally, but because four goons from ICE beat the shit out of him so he would sign a "voluntary" departure.
Since the last days of the Bush administration, Congress has given ICE a quota of 400,000 deportations per year. And the Obama administration has done nothing to stop or ameliorate this, instead staging a cover-up by claiming they la migra was only or mostly deporting "criminals," and so the math would work out, they put into that category people who only had committed traffic offenses and even people who had just been *accused* of minor infractions but not even convicted. They were all counted among the "criminals" as part of the quota cover-up.
This madness needs to stop. And even if you don't agree that it is madness, I hope you will at least see that Linda's righteous, God-fearing family deserves better than what has been done to them, and sign her petition.
It is here: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-president-of-the-united-states-bring-roberto-cedillos-back-to-us-allow-to-apply-for-residency.
Maybe you wouldn't have worded it like Linda does, but this woman's tenacity and combativeness in fighting for her family deserves the unstinting support of everyone who in their chest has a heart instead of a tumor.
And don't tell me you're shocked, just *shocked,* that such a thing could happen "in America." The Guantanamo concentration camp is as American as Apple Pie. Hollywood even nominates movies glorifying the torture that routinely goes on there for Academy Awards.
This is what worries me about Obama --and the two parties-- in relation to "immigration reform," which to me has nothing to do with high tech visas and everything to do with wiping out the stigma against and persecution of undocumented immigrants.
Google "Linda Cedillos" and you'll see how she has been fighting for --at first-- her husband's release and then for his return. Perhaps Obama didn't notice, but he has advisers, analysts and aides by the score. By conventional American political standards, if Obama's team were genuinely, humanely and sincerely interested in helping unauthorized immigrants, they could not hope for a bigger club with which to beat the Republicans into submission than this case.
And on the Republican side, I can't come up with a better case to show their hearts overflow with the milk of human kindness than by making at least *an exception* in this case of an exemplary family. Yet neither side does the obvious, politically convenient thing, showing they're still in thrall of the xenophobic hysteria that Bush the lesser and his acolytes unleashed in the wake of 9/11.
On change.org, Linda has a petition to the president to just let her family BE a family by allowing it to be reunited. I subscribed to it and then wrote an explanation, which change.org kept choking at even though by my standards it was so mild as to border on anodyne. This is what I wrote:
* * *
People have been moving from one place to another looking for a better life for themselves and their loved ones since our chimpanzee ancestors climbed down from the trees and started living in African Savannas and coastal caves.
True, today we have a more complex society and I can see why some would say that for that ages-old pattern to be continued, it now needs to be done in an orderly way.
But our government instead has adopted discriminatory immigration laws that defy reality. Did you know that people from a huge country like Mexico, with which we are deeply interpenetrated by history, geography and economy, do not have access to a higher number of immigrant visas than Monaco has a right to, even though Monaco is far away, has very little interchange with the United States, covers less than one square mile and has barely 36,000 residents?
The millions of unauthorized immigrants in the United States are here first and foremost because our economy needed them. The REAL effect of our immigration laws is not to keep them OUT but to keep them "illegal" and thus much more easily cheated and exploited by unscrupulous employers. And I am far from convinced that this was an accident.
Congress can do many things, but it cannot overrule the laws of nature nor of a market economy. There are T-shirts out there that say "Gravity: it's the law," and there should also be ones that say, "Supply and demand: it's the law." Immigrants are here first of all because there was a demand for their labor. That's a fact.
But even if you think that's all poppycock and "the law is the law," the basic unit of our society is the family, and breaking up families is much the greater crime even if you think that crossing an imaginary line someone drew on a map should be in the criminal code.
Support Linda and Roberto: it's not just the human, it's the hominid thing to do.
And even in terms of Congress's laws, deporting Roberto was wrong. As a citizen, Linda has a right to have her husband here, next to her. He was not deported legally, but because four goons from ICE beat the shit out of him so he would sign a "voluntary" departure.
Since the last days of the Bush administration, Congress has given ICE a quota of 400,000 deportations per year. And the Obama administration has done nothing to stop or ameliorate this, instead staging a cover-up by claiming they la migra was only or mostly deporting "criminals," and so the math would work out, they put into that category people who only had committed traffic offenses and even people who had just been *accused* of minor infractions but not even convicted. They were all counted among the "criminals" as part of the quota cover-up.
This madness needs to stop. And even if you don't agree that it is madness, I hope you will at least see that Linda's righteous, God-fearing family deserves better than what has been done to them, and sign her petition.
It is here: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-president-of-the-united-states-bring-roberto-cedillos-back-to-us-allow-to-apply-for-residency.
Maybe you wouldn't have worded it like Linda does, but this woman's tenacity and combativeness in fighting for her family deserves the unstinting support of everyone who in their chest has a heart instead of a tumor.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
ICE documents reveal deportation quotas, administration duplicity
The following was sent out by the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights.
* * *
February 19, 2013 - Atlanta, GA
Following the USA Today story outlining ICE tactics to boost deportation numbers, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, the ACLU Foundation of Georgia, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network released a briefing guide exposing ICE headquarters directives to Georgia and North Carolina field offices to disregard public safety concerns in order to meet self-imposed deportation quota requirements.
Adelina Nicholls, executive director of GLAHR adds, "The documents are damning evidence that the checkpoints that cover our state have nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with a rogue agency and its deportation dragnet. It confirms the claims our community has been making for years about the agency’s practices. Georgia police should be stopped from any more roadside checkpoints until it is clear that they are not being used for ICE's quota."
"These revelations highlighting ICE's actual game plan of aggressively targeting undocumented community members to meet the agency's deportation quotas are deeply disturbing. It is time for the administration to stop such tactics and put an end to unjust deportations," explains Azadeh Shahshahani, National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director with the ACLU of Georgia.
Chris Newman, legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, says, "The Obama Administration's decision to enlist police as deportation 'force multipliers' was motivated by a self-imposed deportation quota. These documents show that ICE tactics are expanding the agency's dragnet instead of narrowing its focus. Until President Obama takes concrete steps to reign in rogue agencies within DHS, his ostensible immigration reform goals will be put in jeopardy by actions that belie his words.
The Briefing Guide is available at: http://ndlon.org/en/
###
* * *
FOIA Docs Released to USA Today Reveal Deportation Quota Driving Immigration PolicyAdvocates Release Briefing Guide Exposing Decision to Enlist Local Police About Meeting Numbers Not About Safety
Following the USA Today story outlining ICE tactics to boost deportation numbers, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, the ACLU Foundation of Georgia, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network released a briefing guide exposing ICE headquarters directives to Georgia and North Carolina field offices to disregard public safety concerns in order to meet self-imposed deportation quota requirements.
Adelina Nicholls, executive director of GLAHR adds, "The documents are damning evidence that the checkpoints that cover our state have nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with a rogue agency and its deportation dragnet. It confirms the claims our community has been making for years about the agency’s practices. Georgia police should be stopped from any more roadside checkpoints until it is clear that they are not being used for ICE's quota."
"These revelations highlighting ICE's actual game plan of aggressively targeting undocumented community members to meet the agency's deportation quotas are deeply disturbing. It is time for the administration to stop such tactics and put an end to unjust deportations," explains Azadeh Shahshahani, National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project Director with the ACLU of Georgia.
Chris Newman, legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, says, "The Obama Administration's decision to enlist police as deportation 'force multipliers' was motivated by a self-imposed deportation quota. These documents show that ICE tactics are expanding the agency's dragnet instead of narrowing its focus. Until President Obama takes concrete steps to reign in rogue agencies within DHS, his ostensible immigration reform goals will be put in jeopardy by actions that belie his words.
The Briefing Guide is available at: http://ndlon.org/en/
###
==============================
Saturday, February 16, 2013
NY Daily News columnist asks: Will Obama keep his promises on Immigration Reform?
New York Daily News columnist Albor Ruiz dedicated his latest piece to the gnawing fear many of us in the Latino community have: will President Obama keep his promises to us this time? And it's a question above all because despite the nice words, mass incarceration, imprisonment and deportation continue unabated.
Here's a taste of Albor's piece, with a link to the entire thing:
* * *
Obama has the power to sign an executive order halting deportations of immigrants with no criminal records, but despite persistent demands from immigrant advocates, he has not done so.
"Obama: Stop all deportations — Humane legalization now.” “Estamos con ustedes, no pierdan la esperanza (We are with you, don’t lose hope).”
Those were the messages painted on two banners spread on a building across from the detention center in Los Angeles last Wednesday. They faced the windows of the cells where hundreds of undocumented immigrants are being held. And they were a powerful denunciation of the sad disconnect between the President’s words and his actions.
That’s why, at the risk of being called a party pooper, I am not joining just yet the conga line dancing to the immigration reform tune.
“I’m here today because the time has come for common sense, comprehensive immigration reform,” Obama said Monday in Las Vegas. “The time is now.”
We couldn’t agree more.
The problem is that immigrants have heard similar words many times before and what they got instead was a record number of deportations that left thousands of families torn apart.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/albor-ruiz-obama-dragging-feet-immigration-reform-article-1.1252733#ixzz2L2QBzZCD
* * *
Full disclosure: I've known Albor since the 1970s, when we were in the same circles of young adults, most of us 20-something, who had been born in Cuba and whose parents had brought us out of the country as children due to the revolution and now were anxious to re-establish a connection with the island.
I left New York in 1984 and I don't think I've seen him since, but in the past few years we've been in touch through the Internet.
Here's a taste of Albor's piece, with a link to the entire thing:
* * *
RUIZ: PRESIDENT HAS PROMISED QUICK ACTION ON IMMIGRATION REFORM, BUT HE HAS NOT DELIVERED.
Obama has the power to sign an executive order halting deportations of immigrants with no criminal records, but despite persistent demands from immigrant advocates, he has not done so.
"Obama: Stop all deportations — Humane legalization now.” “Estamos con ustedes, no pierdan la esperanza (We are with you, don’t lose hope).”
Those were the messages painted on two banners spread on a building across from the detention center in Los Angeles last Wednesday. They faced the windows of the cells where hundreds of undocumented immigrants are being held. And they were a powerful denunciation of the sad disconnect between the President’s words and his actions.
That’s why, at the risk of being called a party pooper, I am not joining just yet the conga line dancing to the immigration reform tune.
“I’m here today because the time has come for common sense, comprehensive immigration reform,” Obama said Monday in Las Vegas. “The time is now.”
We couldn’t agree more.
The problem is that immigrants have heard similar words many times before and what they got instead was a record number of deportations that left thousands of families torn apart.
* * *
Full disclosure: I've known Albor since the 1970s, when we were in the same circles of young adults, most of us 20-something, who had been born in Cuba and whose parents had brought us out of the country as children due to the revolution and now were anxious to re-establish a connection with the island.
I left New York in 1984 and I don't think I've seen him since, but in the past few years we've been in touch through the Internet.
Friday, February 15, 2013
I catch the dreaded DOJ virus!!!
Just spent the last few hours hours dealing with the Department of Justice computer virus. That's the PC infection that blocks your desktop with a message saying that your computer is out of commission because you shared files, or looked at naughty pictures, or were promoting the violent overthrow of the government, or tore the little tag off the mattress. And you've got 48 hours to pay a $300 fine by buying a green dot debit card or similar and giving them the access number, or you'll be facing criminal charges for copyright violation, pornography, and posting to YouTube videos the government doesn't like, with the aggravating factor that you knew full well that the government wouldn't like them, and went ahead anyways.
Well, if you see that on your computer, and even if you're like me and are guilty of all those charges and a couple of more, take the advice on the cover of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
DON'T PANIC.
I didn't, because I knew it was a fake. The Justice Department is way too busy persecuting, I mean prosecuting, undocumented immigrants for outrageous assaults on national security like returning to their families (illegal reentry) or making up a social security number so they can work harder than anyone else for less pay than anyone else so their kids have something to eat. That second charge is identity fraud and carries up to fifteen years in prison as punishment, and is really just a bludgeon prosecutors use to get immigrants to plead guilty to a misdemeanor illegal entry charge (the first time) or the felony reentry charge after that, since identity theft carries a bigger sentence. After all, "identity theft" separates people from what is most sacred or at least most desired in this country, money. And Obama isn't interested in fraud or identity theft convictions, he wants tens of thousands of illegal entry/reentry convictions to show how "tough" he is with "boots on the ground enforcement"-- and not just in Afghanistan.
But take a second or two to look at the "identity fraud" charges. It's a most peculiar fraud because usually, it's the victim that has lost money. But not in these cases. People are accused of dutifully arranging to have tons of money sent to the Social Security Administration yet they can't get the benefits that the money pays for. Looking at it as a true, red-white-and-blue patriot, i.e., caring only about the money, it looks to me like the right parties are in court, but somehow the roles got reversed: instead of accusing the government of fraud for taking immigrants' social security taxes when it doesn't offer them any social security benefits, the immigrant is accused of fraud for paying taxes.
Which brings me back to the DOJ virus.
'Twas a mighty struggle, friends, I fancied myself Gandalf in the caves of Moria in combat to the death with the Balrog, and it might have been weeks before I recovered and resurrected as Gandalf the White ... or should that be Gandalf the Anglo?
At any rate I hit the virus with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, with ccleaner, with spybot search and destyroy, I tried Microsoft's undesirable software removal tool but it wouldn't even run, nor would AVG.
I came across a whole series of "solutions" that had worked in November or December but did not any more.
How I got infected is that I clicked on the link to the next page of a story on an ordinary web site. The scammers had somehow managed to substitute a link that downloaded and executed their program for the one to the next page.And I wasn't in Firefox or Chrome or Opera, but in Internet Explorer. Those three would have warned me that I was about to access a malware download, not the next page. But I was in Internet explorer so there was no warning, because what Microsoft practices is security theater, pretend security, not real security.
Well, to make a long story short, as I tried to get rid of this infection and researched it more and more, I learned that the virus is being updated frequently, and what worked a week or two ago no longer does. So by looking at the most recent success stories, I came to this web site. The scan for the virus is a free download, but if you want their program to fix it, it's $20, and you also get their anti-malware software, which normally costs $40. Smart although terribly obvious marketing.
I was a little miffed at having to pay to get rid of this evil, and then the thought occurred to me.
If only the other Justice Department could be banished from our lives so easily.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Vaporlaw immigration reform
There is a term in computer circles for programs that are promised, announced, trumpeted to the high heavens but not released. They're called "vaporware." And I think its about time we coined a term for similar legislation: talked about, debated, and bitterly fought over ... but nobody knows what it actually says because no text has been released.
In fact, sometimes it turns out that no text has even been drafted. Such was the case with Sen. Marco Rubio's alternative to the Dream Act, very much like the regular Dream Act that John McCain helped draft and used to sponsor, but Rubio's version eliminated the Republican nightmare of millions more Latino voters by denying these young people who came her as children and were raised partly or totally here permanent residency, which after five years gives access to citizenship. Once president Obama pulled DACA out of his executive branch hat (basically a sort of temporary legalization for those yhoung people) --and Rubio lucked out by having Romney pass him over for Ryan, keeping the GOP's Latino poster boy fresh for 2016-- Rubio's alternative to the Dream Act vanished without as much as a puff of smoke.
And that's all it ever was ... a "vaporlaw." Everyone debates its provisions, but no one has actually seen it.
And that is right now the status of immigration reform. If President Obama is to be believed (and if you're tempted to do so, remember this), he's got a complete bill sitting in the drawer of his desk in the oval office that he'll roll up into a club to chastise Congress with if these Washingtonian Ciceros keep shucking and jiving and don't put out their own draft.
The congresscritters in the Lower House (and don't ask me why the adjective is comparative [-er] instead of superlative [-est]) have even begun to hold hearings on the exact provisions of the non-existent bill, arguing that unauthorized immigrants should be granted permanent residency but not a path to citizenship. The problem is, if you are a permanent resident of the United States you automatically have the right to apply for citizenship after X number of years (usually 5). To revoke this means going back to the good old days of the Chinese Exclusion Act and Jim Crow apartheid.
But someone I respect and admire tremendously --GLAHR Executive Director Adelina Nicholls-- commented to me the other day that, sure, the citizenship issue is huge, but an even bigger question is how many undocumented people would be covered by the reform, even a vindictive, mean-spirited partial legalization like the Republicans have been raising as a possible alternative to their stance of the last few years of "deport them all."
Something we've talked very little about is the English-language requirement. Some of the "outlines" and "principles" of immigration reform laid out by Washingtonians as well as speeches by Obama and others, say learning English should be a requirement for passing from some sort of "provisional" legal status to permanent residency, or even for qualifying for legalization at all.
Not just for citizenship, mind you, as is required now, but simply to gain legal status -- something that has never been required and is not required today of any other immigrant who comes to live permanently in the United States today. It is an especially ridiculous requirement when you consider that the United States is home to the second-largest number of Spanish speakers in the entire world (after Mexico), and that Spanish is, after English, the second most widely spoken language in the world.
So the absurdly idiotic English requirement is one thing to be on guard against. And it would be really great if the reform, instead of requiring English, had programs to help immigrants learn English.
Another set of barriers is established through the cost of legalization. At the very absolute minimum, almost certainly it is going to be at least $500/person, what getting Obama's quasi-legalization cost young people. For a migrant farm worker couple with three kids, a couple that has no bank accounts, no credit cards nor savings, even that amount may be beyond their reach, especially if the fee is assessed for the kids as well as the adults.
But the various ideas being floated talk about immigrants paying a "fine," with figures as high as $5,000/person having come to my attention.
This is an absolute, shameless outrage.
First, it is something called a "Bill of Attainder." That's where a legislature declares someone or a group of people guilty without charges and without a trial. Not very common now, but so common "back in the day" that the Constitution explicitly forbids it --and not in the bleeding heart liberal Bill of Rights, but in the original text itself, Article 1, Section 9.
Second, what is the "fine" a punishment for? Breathing without a permit? Walking without a license? At least so far, BEING is not a crime in the United States. Entering the country without going through an official immigration point is a misdemeanor, returning after deportation a felony, but simply being here is not a crime. You might say, well, their simple presence here shows they came illegally. But in a court of law, the government (supposedly) has to prove that. A defendant supposedly never has to prove anything. The government must show --beyond a reasonable doubt-- that the defendant(s) entered illegally, an action that took place somewhere and at some point in time. There are statutes of limitations --time periods-- after which the government may not bring a charge; there are jurisdictional requirements in terms of where (and not just when) the alleged infraction took place to bring the case in a given court. Immigrant-bashers are always insisting, "the law is the law." Well, the requirements for criminal charges, prosecution, a trial where you have the right to legal representation, and a finding of guilty before you can punish someone are also "the law."
Such a fine would also be a classic case of an ex-post-facto law, one that criminalizes past actions even though the action wasn't against the law at the time. Which, curiously enough, is the second thing that Section 9 of Article 1 of the Constitution prohibits. For the obvious reason that this would be another way for Congress to target people for punishment.
Another obstacle is requiring a clean "criminal" record. I'm not going to prioritize arguing that murderers, rapists, kidnappers and so on should be included along with everyone else and subject to the exact same criminal penalties as anyone else, although that's what I believe.
But the truth is unauthorized immigrants are ipso facto considered guilty, even after being proved innocent.
This idea is pushed by the politicians and the media (even the august New York Times). We are dealing with "illegal immigrants," "illegal aliens," or just "illegals," creating a climate, an anti-Latino hysteria that has even led to murder.
Now, I've been getting paid as a hack -- a journalist -- for 40 years, including more than two decades at CNN and before that a stint at TIME. And I learned that, say, if you take an ax and smash a precious little baby's skull at the 50-yard line before 100,000 fans and 70 million TV viewers during the halftime at the Superbowl then you're an "alleged" ax murderer, an "accused" baby killer.
[In Britain they go further. Once the event becomes the subject of a police inquiry, you're not allowed to characterize the perp's actions, even with weasel words like alleged, supposed, or accused. All you are allowed to say is that the person that everyone saw smashing the baby's skull and then being handcuffed and put in leg irons ïs "helping the police with their enquiries."]
But if you're a spic in the US of A, forget it. Not just your actions, but your very being is "illegal," no alleged about it. And the browner you are, the clearer your indigenous roots are, showing your ancestors have been here for thousands of years before Columbus lost his way to India, the more "illegal" you get.
So for a real immigration reform, the slate needs to be wiped clean of all these "crimes" that simply come down to what people have been doing since the hominid branch of the chimps abandoned the trees for African savannas and coastal caves, going from place to place looking for a better life for themselves and those they care about and feel responsible for.
Yet, especially starting under the reign of Bush the Lesser, and continuing under "yes we can" Obama, untold numbers of immigrants have been declared criminals under U.S. laws: for "illegal" entry or reentry; for driving without a license and its twin brother, failure to have insurance; for "fraud" or "identity theft" for using someone else's social security number or a made up one to get a job and feed their children; even for having a .22 caliber rifle to keep the coyotes (the animal ones) at bay because you live in the countryside. (And, yes, there are such cases. I was at the sentencing of a man for the simple and only crime of exercising what the politicians all say is his right under the second amendment, to keep and bear arms. Most heartbreaking was hearing his 10-year-old-son and 7-year-old daughter plead --fruitlessly-- not to have their Dad taken from them. The judge pretty much said he could not do what the kids and dozens of community members (who came to the sentencing to speak for the man) wanted done, which is simply to let him go. Congress has stripped the federal courts of all authority over la migra. He sentenced him to time served, which meant he would be turned over to la migra.
I say that man was exercising his rights although the second amendment doesn't talk about the right of citizens to bear arms, but says instead: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Got that? "Of the people." If you want to argue that the second amendment right is an individual right (as the Supreme Court ruled a few years ago, overturning precedents that had been set for more than two centuries), then the "crime" the man was accused of --having a rifle to protect his little homestead from predatory animals-- was preempted by the constitution..
Further, the 14th amendment --adopted in the wake of the civil war, and promising equality for all-- doesn't guarantee equal treatment in these sorts of things just to all citizens but to all persons: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
And the folks that wrote that amendment very clearly distinguished between being a citizen and being a person. The first section of the amendment reads: " All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Yet today, we have an apartheid legal system: one rule for the citizen, another for the immigrant. In Padilla v. Kentucky, the Supreme Court recognized that "deportation is an integral part—indeed, sometimes the most important part—of the penalty that may be imposed on noncitizen defendants who plead guilty to specified crimes."
Referring to "the unique nature of deportation," Justice Stevens wrote for the majority that "Our law has enmeshed criminal convictions and the penalty of deportation for nearly a century, [citation omitted] And, importantly, recent changes in our immigration law have made removal nearly an automatic result for a broad class of noncitizen offenders. Thus, we find it 'most difficult' to divorce the penalty from the conviction in the deportation context."
But what happens to "the equal protection of the laws" promised to "any person" by the 14th amendment? By the subterfuge of calling deportation a "penalty" that is a consequence of conviction rather than a "punishment" for the alleged crime, the Supreme Court turns a blind eye to the reality that in this country, there are two different criminal codes: one for "Americans," another one for "aliens." And this iks true not just for an unauthorized immigrant, but for anyone who is not a citizen.
As in the South of old and in Apartheid South Africa, there is one punishment for the white man, a different one for those the government brands "illegal" or "alien" or "negro," depending on the case.
* * *
Hence Adelina's worry ... and now mine. That the congresscritters are diverting us by talking about the path to citizenship to keep us from the most important question of all: will our community finally be protected from the nativist jihad of the last decade?
For that we don't need hearings nor press conferences by Republicans about how much they love us spics ... provided we don't vote.
We need --we must demand-- the actual text of the proposals to make sure immigration reform isn't going to turn into one more swindle that covers only a small percentage of the undocumented.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Gang of 8 immigration compromise: the good, the bad and the ugly
A lot of Latinos and other supporters of immigrant rights are celebrating tonight the announcement of an outline for an immigration reform hatched by eight senators.
And there is reason to celebrate The gang of 8 came up with a compromise,supported by all four Republicans, including John McCain, their 2008 presidential candidate, and Marco Rubio, a tea-party darling who is much talked about as the GOP standard bearer in 2016. So the Republican united front against any reform has collapsed, and they have accepted --in principle-- that it be a single bill and that legalization will lead to permanent residence and then citizenship for those who want it. Thus far the good.
The bad is in the details. First, no move towards permanent residency can begin until some new commission of border state politicos proclaims that the border is secure. Unless the government changes its catastrophic "War on Drugs," there will be incidents along the border related to drug trafficking that can be used as a pretext to freeze everything for decades.
Once the border is supposedly "secure" there would be a requirement that everyone who was "standing in line" to get their immigrant visa to become permanent residents --all of them, every last one-- get their green cards first before the currently undocumented can get theirs.
One problem is ... there is no line. Each year Congress decides on a quota of people to be admitted through a preference system. That system has two pools --visas for employment and visas for family members. These are further subdivided by category. Family has five categories and four levels of preference. Employment has eleven categories with five levels of preference. (There are special quotas for religious ministers, and another one for Iraqi or Afghan translators. In 2012, more than 4000 were admitted in that category).
In 2013 there will be up to 380,000 "quota" visas. So how many are on the waiting list world wide? 4,412,693,,meaning it would take over 11 years before the first green card under this proposal were granted. But it gets worse
No country is allowed to have more than 7% of the world quota. So in the case of Mexico, they will get up to 26,600 visas. And how big is the waiting list in Mexico? 1,316,118. Divide by 26,600 immigrant visas a year and you get 49.47 years: as close to half a century as makes no difference, before the first green card would be offered under this proposal.
And it gets even worse: not just each country but each priority level there is also a quota. In the lowest family preference category there are 746,137 applicants waiting in Mexico. Fourth preference category visas are limited to a world maximum of 65,000, and 7 percent of that is 4,550 visas/year. So how long would it take to drain that pool of applicants? 163.986 years, which means that counting from the beginning of this year, by December 26 of the year 2175 the government would start processing permanent residence applications for people receiving legal status under this proposal.
Now the senators all know this ... or at least people on their staffs do, because they are often called upon to lean on la migra on behalf of some well connected immigrant who is "out of status." So this is all sort of a sick charade. Marco Rubio needed cover and they gave it to him, everything that he asked for. It's political theater.
It's great that the Republicans have been forced to abandon one position after another. First it was, no immigration reform until hell freezes over. Then it was, let them stay but they can't be citizens and, oh yeah, let's do it piecemeal so maybe we can pass a dream act and something supposedly for the agricultural workers and leave the rest twisting in the wind. You can see now why the Republicans wanted several bills ... to pit one segment of the community against another. And they've incorporated that strategy into this document with promises of special treatment for childhood arrivals and farm workers.
Now the Republicans have agreed to having just one bill, and also to a path to citizenship, at least in theory. But they've incorporated the divide and rule strategy into this document with promises of special treatment for childhood arrivals and farm workers.
For example: ¿why are we still spending millions deporting people that we would otherwise be legalizing in a few months? But the senators "forgot" to have a moratorium on deportation of people who don't have convictions for serious crimes, not even parents of children.
Another necessary point is an end to polimigra --the use of local police as extensions of the immigration service-- and a return to what has been the U.S. tradition, that local and state law enforcement play no role in enforcing federal law. .
Which brings me to another missing point: amnesty.
No, not for the undocumented, because they've done no wrong. Hominids have been meandering all over the globe since we climbed down from the trees in Africa and doing what humans have always done is not a crime in my eyes. The amnesty would be for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have been unjustly prosecuted for illegal entry (even though it's only a misdemeanor) or illegal reentry after deportation, a felony with a maximum penalty of 10 years.
In Texas and Arizona Obama continued and expanded a program Bush started called "Operation Streamline." Federal prosecutors are required to charge every last border crosser caught in their sector -- no discretion allowed.
Under Obama, prosecutions of people caught at the border have skyrocketed to become the most frequent cases filed in Federal Courts. Yet what's going on is simply that people who got caught and deported are trying to return to their families and friends. An amnesty that frees them from prison or banishment and erases these convictions from their record is needed. With local cops acting as extensions of la migra, the result has been a catastrophic dismemberment of hundreds of thousands of families.
That -- the reunification of families and healing of communities that have been devastated by this deportation madness -- needs to be at the center of any reform.
Well, I could go on and on and on. but you get the picture. It's great that the Republicans have now been forced to agree to a compromise immigration reform package but this one sucks. So it's not yet time to celebrate but to organize and prepare for the next battle, which is over the content of the reform.
One tool is this website and the fifteen point "Basic Requirements for a Just Reform." We need to be clear on what we're fighting for.
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