Anti-immigrant Lobby's Latest Hate Front Group: Immigration News Daily

by: ragemail

Sat Nov 29, 2008 at 19:50:13 PM EST

Now that Obama's Been Elected, Let our Voices be Heard

by: rachelfirm

Tue Nov 25, 2008 at 14:13:31 PM EST

We turned out the immigrant and Latino vote. We demanded that our voices be heard on November 4th, and the son of IMMIGRANTS will be entering the White House in January.

So - what now? How do we ensure that the change we voted for is seen in a tangible way? How do we make sure that our concerns and our vision for immigrants' rights is heard at the top levels of goverment?

In a recent piece at the Huffington Post, Sally Kohn eloquently wrote:

The single greatest thing we can do to honor the spirit of Obama’s campaign and life work is bring as much enthusiasm to holding Obama accountable as we did to electing him.

Personally, I could not agree more. I’m sure some people will be hesitant to begin pushing Obama, so many of us are still reveling in the glory of this historic election and want nothing more than to keep believing the ballots cast on November 4th will equal the change we need. But our civic engagement cannot end with Election Day.

Obama’s campaign proved that America can truly harness its people power for positive and progressive change. NOW is the time to keep that momentum rolling.

Ok, so, how can you help? For a start, you can tune into the December 4th event “Realizing the Promise: A Forum on Community Faith and Democracy, organized by the Campaign for Community Values and the Gamaliel Foundation (for which Obama once worked) at which thousands of grassroots leaders will demand new jobs for a greener economy, an inclusive health care that includes everyone, re-regulation of industries that have taken advantage of our communities, and a comprehensive reform of our immigration system to make it work for everyone in our communiity!

Check out this great video about the event:

Forget Janet Napolitano; Dismantle the DHS

by: DreamActivist

Sun Nov 23, 2008 at 17:11:45 PM EST

The appointment of Janet Napolitano to the top Homeland Security post has elicited a diverse number of reactions. In a New York Times article, some immigration hardliners are calling it a travesty, NumbersUSA thinks that President-elect Barack Obama could have done worse, while ‘liberals’ think that Napolitano represents a balanced and constructive view, given that she is in favor of a comprehensive immigration reform that legalizes 12 million undocumented migrants. Conservatives in Arizona are happy that finally power might shift towards them with the election of Jan Brewer to Governorship.

Few are questioning the rise of ‘immigration’ as a matter of national security to the point where debates over the chief post of Homeland Security now include major immigration groups. Is this a failure of the imagination, ignorance or just plain historical amnesia? Discourses surrounding the appointment of Napolitano simply serve as polemical devices to achieve political ends while doing nothing to actually address the epistemological and ontological flaws in the actual nature of the Department of Homeland Security.

Writing for the Washington Post, Edward Alden is one of the few mainstream and liberal commentators who comes close to hitting the nail on the head with this statement in ‘Close Minded on the Border:

Instead of continuing to embrace the massive flow of talent, energy and initiative that the rest of the world has long offered the United States, we launched an expensive, futile experiment to see whether we could seal our borders against the ills of the world, from terrorists to drugs to illegal migrants. This effort has betrayed both our ideals and our interests.

Yet, he notes that Janet Napolitano has a rare opportunity to set the nation back on track—to improve security without sacrificing American values and ideals.

On November 25, 2002, President Bush signed into law the Homeland Security Act of 2002 which created the Department of Homeland Security that effectively took over the INS (now CIS). This reorganization blurred the line between immigration policy and terrorism policy to the detriment of many immigrants in the United States – immigration policy became an issue of national security, widening the nexus of security concerns, and hence, granting more policing power to the State.

This incorporation of immigration as national security has far-reaching implications—apart from the fact that immigration is now treated as a security concern rather than an economic and cultural benefit, the dehumanization and scapegoating of undocumented immigrants has proliferated out of control. From local enforcement and state laws to election battles, the unnamed and othered ‘illegal immigrant’ is the big bad bogeyman against whom we need protection.

National Civil Rights Organizations to hold Nat'l News Briefing on Rise in Hate After the Election

by: kesquivel@nclr.org

Fri Nov 21, 2008 at 09:16:01 AM EST

These race-related crimes are not anomalies in Long Island.  The AP reports that "tensions" over immigration have been acute in Suffolk County for years now.  A brief review of recent history reveals that:

- Eight short years ago, two Mexican men were beaten in Farmingville by people who had offered them work. Farmingville is ten miles from where the stabbing of Lucero occurred.
- On the Fourth of July in 2003, teens set fire to the Farmingville house of a Mexican family who barely escaped with their lives.
- In 2005, four teens attacked two Mexican immigrants fishing in Long Island. Shouting racial slurs, the teens beat and stole both of the victims' money.  

Local leaders believe that comments made by elected officials and the legislative efforts of local governments have fostered this culture.  While some government officials disagree, New York Governor David Paterson has commented that Lucero's death "is a jarring reminder that we must remain vigilant and continue to eradicate prejudice in our words and in our actions."

Janet Murguía, President and CEO of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, condemned the fatal beating of a Long Island man on Saturday night, calling it "an outrageous and horrifying crime"

Murguía was particularly upset over the age of the alleged attackers.  "That hate has trickled down to a new generation is very disturbing," she said.  Murguía blamed the growing climate of hate surrounding the immigration debate as part of the cause.  "Words have consequences," she said, "and hateful words have hateful consequences.  For too long hate groups and hate speech have dominated the national debate on immigrants, mischaracterizing all Latinos and the institutions that serve them in the process.  Lives are literally in the balance."

Postville Iowa: A Humanitarian Crisis?

by: The Sanctuary

Thu Nov 20, 2008 at 09:01:50 AM EST

POSTVILLE IOWA: A HUMANITARIAN CRISIS?

By Barth Anderson from  Fair Food Fight.com

Obama-Biden Immigration Policy Group Leaders Named

by: gregflynn

Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 17:00:49 PM EST

IMMIGRATION

T. Alexander Aleinikoff has been Dean of the Georgetown University Law Center and Executive Vice President of Georgetown University since July 2004. He has been a member of the Georgetown faculty since 1997. Dean Aleinikoff served as General Counsel and Executive Associate Commissioner for Programs at the Immigration and Naturalization Service for several years during the Clinton Administration. From 1997 to 2004 he was a Senior Associate at the Migration Policy Institute, where he now serves on the Board of Trustees. He has written widely on immigration, refugee and citizenship law and constitutional law. Dean Aleinikoff is a graduate of Swarthmore College and Yale Law School.

Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar is Professor and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School. His work focuses on how organizations manage complex regulatory, migration, international security, and criminal justice problems. During the Clinton Administration he served at Treasury as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Enforcement, where he worked on countering domestic and international financial crime, improving border coordination, and enhancing anti-corruption measures. He has served on the boards of numerous organizations, including Asylum Access and the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation. He has testified before Congress on immigration policy and separation of powers, and was appointed to the Silicon Valley Blue Ribbon Task Force on Aviation Security. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute.

Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales, GEO Group Indicted In South Texas

by: Edmundo

Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 15:50:44 PM EST

The indictment names Cheney and Gonzales as "co-actors" engaged in organized criminal activity. It criticizes Cheney's "85 billion" dollar investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the "top three [private prison] companies" running the federal detention centers. The indictment also accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees through his "tremendous amount of influence" on the agency, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that provides contracts to these private prison companies. From the indictment:

Border Alliance Formed to Address Concerns

by: Manuel

Wed Nov 19, 2008 at 14:37:05 PM EST

Never will we see the construction of a massive wall between the U.S. and Canada as we are witnessing rise like an evil phoenix across the desert states; nor will Alaskans have to tolerate the erection of virtual sensor towers along their imaginary line with the Yukon Territory.  Checkpoints with armed guards a hundred miles inland won't be commonplace in Maine, though if they were to materialize, you can bet a sack of euros that agents would still be scanning vehicles for those suspected of crossing la frontera sur.  No need to worry about every guest at a Hawaiian luau being seized by gas mask-covered ICE agents wielding demands that proof of citizenship be provided on the spot.

No, no.  Those types of adventures are usually reserved for us.  A second helping if our skin happens to be brown.  Any yet, over the past several years, the George W. Bush misAdministration has repeatedly told residents of frontera communities that our concerns were null and void in the face of Homeland Security™.  Our human rights have been repeatedly ignored and violated as the region becomes more militarized, environmental protections slashed and burned, tribal burial grounds desecrated, ancestral properties seized, minority populations targeted through profiling, etc etc etc.

In the face of such adversity and oftentimes absurdity, a sliver of light shines through the crack in the doorway to true dialog.  An alliance has been formed between the National Immigration Forum, the Border Network of Human Rights and the Border Action Network to give a voice to border residents.  This week, members of the three groups travel to Washington, D.C. to present their collaborative report:   Effective Border Policy: Security, Responsibility and Human Rights.  You can view the full report and representative listings here.

This report finally addresses border policy and immigration reform with an adult mindset, instead of with a tantrum and band-aid, as we've seen repeatedly during the past eightish years.  Via press release, here is an excerpt of recommendations and the mindset of collaborators:

"Border policy is not a choice between enforcement or no enforcement; it is about smart enforcement that creates national and community security," said El Paso Sheriff-elect and Task Force member, Richard Wiles. "I came to Washington because I believe that border security and community security are not mutually exclusive. Establishing and maintaining trust between local law enforcement and the immigrant community is central to the security of my county. If we trust each other, then as Sheriff I can focus on the real dangers facing our community."

The recommendations in the report are divided into several key areas: accountability and oversight, review of border operations, technology, and infrastructure, ports of entry, border walls and fencing, diluting law enforcement resources, military at the border, detention and deportation, community security and just and comprehensive development.

Specific proposals include:

• Communities are more secure when border enforcement policies focus on the criminal element and engage immigrants in fighting the real dangers facing our country;
• Communities are safer when we implement policies that ensure accountability and provide local oversight of enforcement activities;
• Communities flourish when Ports of Entry are treated as vital gateways to America;
• Communities are stronger and lives are saved when we replace border blockade operations with more sensible enforcement; and
• Communities are safer when local law enforcement is not pressed into immigration-enforcement roles and the military is not used to enforce civilian law.

Politics of Humanity: ICE's and Border Patrol's Child Abuse Policy

by: Edmundo

Sat Nov 15, 2008 at 08:59:55 AM EST

According to the study, A Child Alone and Without Papers, inadequate policies lead to the maltreatment, including children going without water at US Border Patrol stations, being handcuffed, having their requests for medical attention ignored, and getting struck and knocked down by agents.

The report found the following:

In clear violation of international and U.S. child welfare standards, our interviews with the Mexican and Honduran children uncovered troubling claims of child abuse and maltreatment by U.S. Border Patrol officers, including:
• Inattention to repeated requests for medical attention;
• No access to water while in the border patrol station;
• Having to sleep on the floor without a blanket in a heavily air conditioned cell;
• Not being given any or enough food;
• Not being allowed to contact family;
• Being struck and knocked down by agents;
• Being handcuffed; and
• Being transported "like dogs," in kennel like compartments.

Out of the Closet - Queer Undocumented Students Speak About DREAMs

by: DreamActivist

Fri Nov 14, 2008 at 16:35:32 PM EST

Crossposted at OurChart.com and DreamActivist.org - Feel free to disseminate.

In light of the massive uprising against Prop 8 in California and similar attacks on LGBT communities, this segment is dedicated to the queer and 'illegal' lives of our undocumented LGBT youth.

President-elect Barack Obama has stated that undocumented students raised in the United States are “Americans for all intent and purposes.” Yet, these undocumented American are punished for the alleged transgressions of their parents, and face many barriers to their DREAMs upon graduation from high school—often they cannot attend college, drive or work legally, obtains loans, or even legalize their status. While illegal presence is not a crime, anti-immigrant hysteria has effectively given them the tag of ‘criminal.’

The situation gets worse with the heteronormativity of U.S. immigration laws. The fact that even LGBT immigration organizations like ‘Immigration Equality’ and the elitist 'Human Rights' Campaign pay scant attention and continue to ignore the plight of undocumented gay students in the United States makes the situation even more precarious. This is not just a gay issue or Latino issue; it is a human rights issue and undocumented queer students are caught in the middle of two ensuing culture wars: the battle for gay rights and immigrant rights, neither of which is seen as a civil and human rights struggle by the mainstream.

In this entry, you will come across undocumented LGBT youth from diverse backgrounds, states and circumstances that have come together in these waiting rooms of history to share the limbo of their lives. Juan and Felipe depict how love cannot be illegal, Mohammad expresses how going back to Iran is certainly not an option, Prerna represents a life in isolation with a desire to succeed against all odds, Karla wants to serve this country and Moreno is currently in high school with dreams of becoming an artist.

The Sleeping Giant is Awake and Bleeding

by: nezua

Wed Nov 12, 2008 at 14:30:25 PM EST

The Clotty Red Stopper should not be yanked from its bottle so casually, as both Sarah Palin and John McCain ought to know by now. Demons claw at the cork all night. They gain legs in the silences left by the Left and are called forth from many foaming mouths on the Right.

Marcello Lucero was killed late Saturday night near the commuter railroad station in Patchogue, N.Y., a middle-class village in central Long Island. He was beaten and stabbed. The friend who crouched beside him in a parking lot as he lay dying, soaked in blood, said Mr. Lucero, who was 37, had come to the United States 16 years ago from Ecuador.

The police arrested seven teenage boys, who they said had driven into the village from out of town looking for Latinos to beat up. The police said the mob cornered Mr. Lucero and another man, who escaped and later identified the suspects to the police. A prosecutor at the arraignment on Monday quoted the young men as having said: "Let's go find some Mexicans."

-A Death in Patchogue

Hate doesn't happen in a vacuum

by: Duke

Mon Nov 10, 2008 at 21:57:55 PM EST

Under the leadership of its County Executive, the county has enacted some of the toughest anti-immigrant laws in the nation, making its chief executive, Steve Levy, a national spokesman for the restrictionist cause. .... and his county a hotbed of anti-immigrant hate.

They told police they wanted to beat up someone who looked Hispanic.

That was the motive, police said, that a mob of seven young men had in mind when they attacked a Patchogue man, who ended up being stabbed to death minutes before midnight Saturday, Suffolk police said.

"These individuals told detectives that they were looking to beat someone of Latino heritage," said Det. Lt Jack Fitzpatrick, commander of the homicide squad, adding that the victim, Marcello Lucero, 37, is of Ecuadorian descent.

Fitzpatrick said the seven suspects drove around Patchogue searching for victims and found Lucero and another Ecuadorian man.

Cops: Fatal stabbing of Patchogue man a hate crime - Newsday

Hope vs Fear

by: Duke

Fri Nov 07, 2008 at 00:14:53 AM EST

Hope trumps Fear ... Unity trumps Divisiveness

something we should remember as we move forward.

What took you so long George?

by: Duke

Thu Nov 06, 2008 at 23:11:29 PM EST

Eight years after first requesting modernization of a system that still relies on pre-computer age technologies to handle 70 million paper-based files, the agency is finally going to enter the 20th century.

I guess all that can be said is .... Better late than never.  

But one can only wonder about all the human suffering that could have been avoided if George had only had the political courage to do this eight years ago instead of waiting until he was just about out the door to "sneak" it past  the rabid right-wing who wanted all DHS resources spent on walls, raids, and detention camps.  

The Bush administration has launched a massive overhaul of the nation's long-troubled immigration services agency, tapping an IBM-led industry consortium to re-invent the way government workers help immigrants obtain visas, seek citizenship and get approval to work in the United States.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service announced that it has asked IBM to be its "solutions architect" to change the technology and processes used by its 16,000 government and 6,000 contract workers at 280 locations nationwide.

The contract, awarded this week and the largest federal homeland security bid on the market, includes a $14.5 million, 90-day assessment period with options over five years worth $491.1 million, and a ceiling value of up to $3.5 billion if Congress approves a broad overhaul of the nation's immigration laws that unleashes a flood of applications for legal status or other actions

...

The USCIS transformation effort is a long-awaited, much delayed undertaking that is years behind initial schedule yet considered a cornerstone of any broader effort to fix an immigration system all sides say is one of the most broken bureaucracies in the federal government.

The agency, which was spun off from the former U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services and merged into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003, receives about 6 million to 8 million applications from immigrants a year, but relies on a pre-computer age, paper-based system of 70 million files identified by immigrants' "A-numbers" or alien registration numbers.

The system costs tens of millions of dollars a year for to archive, store, retrieve and ship files; has led to the loss or misplacement of more than 100,000 files; and contributed to backlogs of hundreds of thousands of cases and delays of months and years, auditors have found.

Immigration officials say modernization efforts have been delayed since 1999 by funding problems, inertia, increased security demands, and the DHS reorganization....but has been delayed by bureaucratic infighting, indecision and caution as other major homeland security contracts have gone off track, such as SBInet, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection effort to build a "virtual" fence using surveillance technology on the border...

Washington Post

ICE and the Stargazers

by: marsguero

Thu Nov 06, 2008 at 00:08:12 AM EST

http://lawprofessors.typepad.c...

While I don't know Julie Myers personally, nor could I say that I am familiar with the inner workings of her bureaucratic lever pulling at the department, I can't help but comment that it puzzles me how anyone could view ICE as emblematic of a "21st Century" law enforcement operation.  Of course it's axiomatic that the 21st Century serves as an adjective to the subject because after all this is the year 2008, and the department under which ICE is organized was not formed until the beginning of our present century.  I will infer that what Mr. Chertoff means to say when he uses the term 21st century is that ICE is a state of the art, or cutting edge, or forward thinking kind of bureaucracy.  It is none of these.  It is a bloated gestapo.  

Not only are its tactics brutal and inhuman strikes that result in the separation of innocent families, and the dehumanization of our immigrant neighbors, it is also an enormously expensive, wasteful welfare program for the military and security lobby.  It combines the worst elements of cruelty and indifference of despotic tyrants together with the wasteful stupidity-cronyism of the most corrupted oligarchies.  

Its statistics are meaningless.  It is pointless to count the number of fugitive arrests and felony prosecutions.  Everybody knows that they are arresting and locking up Guatemalan peasants on trumped up federal charges solely for the purpose of making the figures of criminal "alien" captures appear significant.  Those are not aliens.  Only fools think that aliens walk among us.  There is not one shred of evidence that aliens have ever touched our soil, and the government that perpetuates the funding and expansion of quasi-military operations in our towns and cities to deal with imaginary beings is a danger to the liberty of every man, woman and child among us.  

Many will argue that the aliens do exist, that it is legal term of art, of course, and that "we have to do something about them otherwise..." and then on, and on, and on into an infinite regression of mindless imperatives and stupid policies.  There are a very large number of people who live here currently who did not have the U.S. Government's permission before they decided to join us.  All of them are here for a reason.  All of them have reason - that human ability to make calculated choices with the assistance of abstract conceptions.  We are not objects.  

Election Results Open Thread

by: Duke

Tue Nov 04, 2008 at 19:00:00 PM EST

Richardson lays it all out

by: Duke

Tue Nov 04, 2008 at 15:18:23 PM EST

This IS the big story the pundits and chattering classes will be talking about once the results are in.

The Palin' Identity

by: Kai

Mon Nov 03, 2008 at 14:26:34 PM EST

What's extraordinary is that this time around — at this particular crossroads, against this particular candidate — it's not working.

The beauty of US history is that years, decades, centuries of persistent popular struggle have resulted in dramatic social, political, and cultural changes in the continuing quest for greater common good. The ugliness of US history is that at every step, reactionaries have undertaken — and many others have tolerated — all manner of inner and outer violence in a greed- and fear-based desire to impose and maintain exclusionary power schemes. I view the 2008 presidential election as some sort of forward step along this trajectory. I hesitate to either overstate or understate the historical significance of what we're witnessing. We're way too close to the moment's clamor to know just what it means in a larger scope.

Not that this is about to stop me from sounding off now.

Dispatches from the Lunatic Fringe

by: Duke

Mon Nov 03, 2008 at 13:10:32 PM EST

Warning that "police departments across the nation are going on high level tactical alerts for election day and the day after,"  Gheen assures his followers that his internet "command post" will "remain functional .. in the event of any major national man made or natural disaster"

One can imagine Gheen spending Nov 5th scanning the skies for the black helicopters he's sure will be circling his home any minute.

I have just one word of warning for Gheen's army of the aged:

When he starts talking about selling all your worldly possessions and moving to the "new compound" in the hills of Montana, don't accept the new white Nike's and black sweat suits

.... And whatever you do, stay away from the purple kool aid

Rove's Immigration Ploy

by: Edmundo

Mon Nov 03, 2008 at 11:38:25 AM EST

Recently, a story broke out about Barack Obama's Kenyan aunt, Zeituni Onyango, she was living in public housing in Boston. However, now with less than 72 hours till the election, there is a twist to this story. According to the Associated Press, reported that Onyango is an "illegal."

But it doesn't stop there. It was later found out that somebody within the Immigration and Customs Enforcement leaked the story to AP. The AP wrote:

Onyango was instructed to leave the country by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter told the AP. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss Onyango's case.