Reactions to story from The Washington Post

• 
  http://www.alternet.org/module/email/?storyID=103121&type=bl...
  8 days ago in Immigration | AlterNet · Authority: 6

  Got a tip for a post?: Email us | Anonymous form Get Immigration in your mailbox! The U.S.'s Inhospitable Immigration Policies May End Up Costing Taxpayers Billions Posted by Frank Sharry, AmericasVoiceOnline on October 15, 2008 at 8:41 AM. And we thought the bank bailout was expensive. Remember the immigration raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, back in May? According to today's Des Moines Register, the raid set taxpayers back $5.2 million. According to the newspaper, "That means it has cost taxpayers an average of $13,396 for each of the 389 illegal immigrants taken into custody." Keep in mind that the $5.2 million - disclosed through a Freedom of Information Act request with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ‑ is only what ICE spent. That doesn't include the cost of criminal trials against the workers charged with ID crimes, indigent defense, and prison. According to an accompanying editorial in the Des Moines Register, "Prison costs alone ran $590,000 a month as of mid-summer." So let's do the math, shall we? If it cost $13,396 to arrest each undocumented worker in the United States, and estimates are that there are at least 11.5 million people who fit that definition, then you, I, and the rest of American taxpayers could be looking at forking over $154 billion to ICE alone. Read the rest of the post on the flip side » AlterNet Home » Post Tools:
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  may 12, 2008: postville, iowa by Lauro Vazquez

  http://unitedstatesean.blogspot.com/2008/10/may-12-2008-post...
  43 days ago in Unitedstatesean Notes · Authority: 12

  There are those who believe that poetry happens cuando se quedan quietos. They call this lyrical freedom. Creen, o creen que creen, que ser politico is a choice. n'ombre. Somos los Inquietos, Herederos del Movimiento Desmadroso. Come join el Chompiras Cultural Revolution. ¡Síganme los buenos! Somos Bay Area Students for Total Amnesty or BASTA Bay Area Students for Total Autonomy or BASTA Bay Area Students for Total Amor or BASTA Bay Area Students for Total Alamadre or BASTA Bay Area Students for Total Asi-soy-y-que? or BASTA Hey Lauro, did you hear about this?: Antonio Escobedo ran to get his wife Monday when he saw a helicopter circling overhead and immigration agents approaching the meatpacking plant where they both work. The couple hid for hours inside the plant before obtaining refuge in the pews and hall at St. Bridget's Catholic Church, where hundreds of other Guatemalan and Mexican families gathered, hoping to avoid arrest. Andres, do you hear them, the young poets singing with you? I am interested in the power of poetry to advocate for social change and justice. To think that literature alone can change the world is arrogant and naive. But to ignore the power of literature in this process is to ignore the subersive power of language. Although poetry alone cannot change the world, it can only help. I tend to write poetry that does not distinct the personal from the political. A poetry that is deeply personal but also calls to celebrate the songs of those who suffer the absurd violence of poverty. Poetry is powerful, for word and deed are one. Emerge! Young Poet, Emerge! may 12, 2008 postville, iowa “hundreds arrested in iowa immigration raid: for aggravated identity theft and fraudulent use of social security numbers” read the headline in bright, bold accusing letters that did not reveal the knives doused in sparkle of blood and biting at the slick skin of skinny teenage laborers weaving their fingers through threads of meat with the precision of mayan astrologers; or the marmalade of bones and toil and fingernails illegal at the kosher meat plant; or the liquid measure of the guatemalteco’s winged feet— the pair of quetzales that carried his sad sunken weight from guatemala to iowa; that sailed across the waters, through valley of thorns, through brush of barbed wire, through thicket of iron fence; throught deep volume of gray ash and yellow sky. or the silver smiling mouth of steel manacles clipped to the wings on his ankles. or the cold metal vine that shackled the wrists, the waist and the feet. the trail of stooped heads and hands marched off like cattle to the slaughterhouse of the national cattle congress to be packaged, sealed and returned from sun to sun, from south to south to hot landscapes of despair. meanwhile one more piece of immigrant-stained meat is bruised and discarded; one more thing without a name rolls to the desert ground and evaporates under the sun, one more number is caught with a spanish-sounding surname and thrown to the garbage heap of despair.
• 
  http://www.alternet.org/module/email/?storyID=103121&type=bl...
  48 days ago in PEEK | AlterNet · Authority: 764

  Got a tip for a post?: Email us | Anonymous form Get PEEK in your mailbox! The U.S.'s Inhospitable Immigration Policies May End Up Costing Taxpayers Billions Posted by Frank Sharry, AmericasVoiceOnline on October 15, 2008 at 8:41 AM. And we thought the bank bailout was expensive. Remember the immigration raid at the Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, back in May? According to today's Des Moines Register, the raid set taxpayers back $5.2 million. According to the newspaper, "That means it has cost taxpayers an average of $13,396 for each of the 389 illegal immigrants taken into custody." Keep in mind that the $5.2 million - disclosed through a Freedom of Information Act request with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ‑ is only what ICE spent. That doesn't include the cost of criminal trials against the workers charged with ID crimes, indigent defense, and prison. According to an accompanying editorial in the Des Moines Register, "Prison costs alone ran $590,000 a month as of mid-summer." So let's do the math, shall we? If it cost $13,396 to arrest each undocumented worker in the United States, and estimates are that there are at least 11.5 million people who fit that definition, then you, I, and the rest of American taxpayers could be looking at forking over $154 billion to ICE alone. Read the rest of the post on the flip side » AlterNet Home » Post Tools:
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  Detention and Immigration in the Closing Society

  http://www.neverinournames.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2474
  66 days ago in NION Never In Our Names · Authority: 12

  What do these terms mean, a "closed society" or "closing society?" The most obvious example of a present day closed society I can think of is Burma. The violent crackdown in September 2007 was first reported with images from cell phone cameras. Bloggers posted photographs while their internet connections were alive. Once those connections were lost, the people of Burma had to rely on other forms of expression to spread their message. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. Henri-Louis Bergson defined an open society as one in which: "government is responsive and tolerant, and political mechanisms are transparent and flexible. The state keeps no secrets from itself in the public sense; it is a non-authoritarian society in which all are trusted with the knowledge of all. Political freedoms and human rights are the foundation of an open society." Right here, right now, all the doors are closing. In The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Naomi Wolf wrote: Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have. Although I'm a bit ambivalent on some of Wolf's theory, and think her constant use of the word "fascicm" is inaccurate -- not unwarranted, just inaccurate (she identifies the hybrid and malevolent state of the nation, correctly, but I'm not convinced that "fascism" is accurate; more like, "fascism without the Stasi" or "fascicm with Christian nationalism mixed in." In short, we haven't seen anything truly comparable to the events of today and trying to "brand" it, though the tendency is understandable, actually diminishes the O.G. fascism of Mussolini and Stalin. I prefer not to label, for lack of a proper term.) With this small disclaimer, let's examine one of the tenets of every closed society: Invocation of an internal and external enemy. This is to no small degree fanciful phrasing for "closed borders." Not only our borders with Mexico and Central America, but the borders within our society as well, for it's within these borders that people of Arabic and Latino descent have been targeted in the mad post 9/11 rush to Islamophobia. The subtext here isn't even subtle. Brown people are suspicious persons. Whether trying to get into this country or trying to exist in the nation they were born, we are all suspects now. We are a nation obsessed with racial profiling. Don't believe me? Look at Postville. Look at the ICE raids in 2008 alone as detailed by our companeros at Citizen Orange. This is, among other things, unlawful racial profiling but as Manuel at Latino Politico describes a symptom of a much more systemic and pervasive malady. After we were hit on September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. We were told we were now on a "war footing"; we were in a "global war" against a "global caliphate" intending to "wipe out civilisation". There have been other times of crisis in which the US accepted limits on civil liberties, such as during the civil war, when Lincoln declared martial law, and the second world war, when thousands of Japanese-American citizens were interned. But this situation, as Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda has noted, is unprecedented: all our other wars had an endpoint, so the pendulum was able to swing back toward freedom; this war is defined as open-ended in time and without national boundaries in space - the globe itself is the battlefield. "This time," Fein says, "there will be no defined end." Meanwhile, research from the Arab American Institute related to anti-Arabism in the United States is startling. According to an AAI 2001 poll of Arab-Americans: "32% of Arab Americans reported having been subjected to some form of ethnic-based discrimination during their lifetimes, 20% reported having experienced an instance of ethnic-based discrimination since September 11. Of special concern, for example, is the fact that 45% of students and 37% of Arab Americans of the Muslim faith report being targeted by discrimination since September 11." In the last month, Haiti has been ravaged by not one, but four natural disasters. Hundreds have died and thousands have been left homeless. Many cities are still entirely isolated and only accessible by air, and the country's fledgling agriculture industry has been obliterated by floods and mudslides. Haiti is certainly no stranger to crisis and despair. But at the present time, many deported Haitians simply have no communities in which to return. In light of all this, it would be particularly cruel for the Administration to continue deporting Haitians. "TPS [Temporary Protected Status] is the least expensive, most immediate form of humanitarian assistance we can provide Haiti," Hastings said during a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C. The Bush administration has temporarily halted deportations to Haiti, after mounting pressure from community leaders and activists. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE spokesman spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said the agency would continue to review the situation in Haiti to determine how long the hiatus in deportations should last. (Orlando Sun Sentinel) And yet, the question must be asked. Has a single Haitian caught up in the ICE dragnet before the hurricane TPS been released? No. Creating a threat, a multi-headed hydra which can never really be defeated, but requires constant struggle to contain and subdue (with shackles and batons and deaths in detention centers) is an obvious political ploy. You must have internal division, an Us and Them, to set citizens against one another and to subdue a nation into sacrificing freedoms and liberties "for safety." When ordinary citizens understand that their government is wiretapping their communiques, what's the natural first reaction? Of course, you want to know why. And the pat answer is and has been "to keep you safe . . . . [from scary, non-American looking types.]" This enables rationalization. There's a reason for spying and if it prevents another attack . . . . " and so on and so forth until we realize, too late, we've been drinking the Kool-Ade for years and take a merciless inventory of what we've sacrificed, without much protest, for "liberty." What do you think the racially profiled have sacrificed? The door closes, just as it closed on Postville, and just as it closed on accountability and oversight. The doors are closing quickly now.
• 

  Detention and Immigration in the Closing Society

  http://www.neverinournames.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2474
  66 days ago in NION Never In Our Names · Authority: 72

  What do these terms mean, a "closed society" or "closing society?" The most obvious example of a present day closed society I can think of is Burma. The violent crackdown in September 2007 was first reported with images from cell phone cameras. Bloggers posted photographs while their internet connections were alive. Once those connections were lost, the people of Burma had to rely on other forms of expression to spread their message. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. Henri-Louis Bergson defined an open society as one in which: "government is responsive and tolerant, and political mechanisms are transparent and flexible. The state keeps no secrets from itself in the public sense; it is a non-authoritarian society in which all are trusted with the knowledge of all. Political freedoms and human rights are the foundation of an open society." Right here, right now, all the doors are closing. In The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Naomi Wolf wrote: Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have. Although I'm a bit ambivalent on some of Wolf's theory, and think her constant use of the word "fascicm" is inaccurate -- not unwarranted, just inaccurate (she identifies the hybrid and malevolent state of the nation, correctly, but I'm not convinced that "fascism" is accurate; more like, "fascism without the Stasi" or "fascicm with Christian nationalism mixed in." In short, we haven't seen anything truly comparable to the events of today and trying to "brand" it, though the tendency is understandable, actually diminishes the O.G. fascism of Mussolini and Stalin. I prefer not to label, for lack of a proper term.) With this small disclaimer, let's examine one of the tenets of every closed society: Invocation of an internal and external enemy. This is to no small degree fanciful phrasing for "closed borders." Not only our borders with Mexico and Central America, but the borders within our society as well, for it's within these borders that people of Arabic and Latino descent have been targeted in the mad post 9/11 rush to Islamophobia. The subtext here isn't even subtle. Brown people are suspicious persons. Whether trying to get into this country or trying to exist in the nation they were born, we are all suspects now. We are a nation obsessed with racial profiling. Don't believe me? Look at Postville. Look at the ICE raids in 2008 alone as detailed by our companeros at Citizen Orange. This is, among other things, unlawful racial profiling but as Manuel at Latino Politico describes a symptom of a much more systemic and pervasive malady. After we were hit on September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. We were told we were now on a "war footing"; we were in a "global war" against a "global caliphate" intending to "wipe out civilisation". There have been other times of crisis in which the US accepted limits on civil liberties, such as during the civil war, when Lincoln declared martial law, and the second world war, when thousands of Japanese-American citizens were interned. But this situation, as Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda has noted, is unprecedented: all our other wars had an endpoint, so the pendulum was able to swing back toward freedom; this war is defined as open-ended in time and without national boundaries in space - the globe itself is the battlefield. "This time," Fein says, "there will be no defined end." Meanwhile, research from the Arab American Institute related to anti-Arabism in the United States is startling. According to an AAI 2001 poll of Arab-Americans: "32% of Arab Americans reported having been subjected to some form of ethnic-based discrimination during their lifetimes, 20% reported having experienced an instance of ethnic-based discrimination since September 11. Of special concern, for example, is the fact that 45% of students and 37% of Arab Americans of the Muslim faith report being targeted by discrimination since September 11." In the last month, Haiti has been ravaged by not one, but four natural disasters. Hundreds have died and thousands have been left homeless. Many cities are still entirely isolated and only accessible by air, and the country's fledgling agriculture industry has been obliterated by floods and mudslides. Haiti is certainly no stranger to crisis and despair. But at the present time, many deported Haitians simply have no communities in which to return. In light of all this, it would be particularly cruel for the Administration to continue deporting Haitians. "TPS [Temporary Protected Status] is the least expensive, most immediate form of humanitarian assistance we can provide Haiti," Hastings said during a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C. The Bush administration has temporarily halted deportations to Haiti, after mounting pressure from community leaders and activists. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE spokesman spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said the agency would continue to review the situation in Haiti to determine how long the hiatus in deportations should last. (Orlando Sun Sentinel) And yet, the question must be asked. Has a single Haitian caught up in the ICE dragnet before the hurricane TPS been released? No. Creating a threat, a multi-headed hydra which can never really be defeated, but requires constant struggle to contain and subdue (with shackles and batons and deaths in detention centers) is an obvious political ploy. You must have internal division, an Us and Them, to set citizens against one another and to subdue a nation into sacrificing freedoms and liberties "for safety." When ordinary citizens understand that their government is wiretapping their communiques, what's the natural first reaction? Of course, you want to know why. And the pat answer is and has been "to keep you safe . . . . [from scary, non-American looking types.]" This enables rationalization. There's a reason for spying and if it prevents another attack . . . . " and so on and so forth until we realize, too late, we've been drinking the Kool-Ade for years and take a merciless inventory of what we've sacrificed, without much protest, for "liberty." What do you think the racially profiled have sacrificed? The door closes, just as it closed on Postville, and just as it closed on accountability and oversight. The doors are closing quickly now.
• 

  The War at Home Against Immigrants in the Workplace

  http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/7/14/0177/60564
  142 days ago in Voter Suppression and Disenfranchisement, Not Fraud, Are the Real Issues - TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime · Authority: 1,153

  A New York Times editorial today takes on the meatpacking plant raids in Postville Iowa. It quotes from the essay of a professor and court interpreter at the subsequent criminal proceedings: Dr. Camayd-Freixas’s essay describes “the saddest procession I have ever witnessed, which the public would never see” — because cameras were forbidden. “Driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of 10.” [More...] Worse than the intentional overcharging of serious offenses, was this: What is worse, Dr. Camayd-Freixas wrote, is that the system was clearly rigged for the wholesale imposition of mass guilt. He said the court-appointed lawyers had little time in the raids’ hectic aftermath to meet with the workers, many of whom ended up waiving their rights and seemed not to understand the complicated charges against them. What happened: He wrote that they had waived their rights in hopes of being quickly deported, “since they had families to support back home.” He said that they did not understand the charges they faced, adding, “and, frankly, neither could I.” As the Times points out: No one is denying that the workers were on the wrong side of the law. But there is a profound difference between stealing people’s identities to rob them of money and property, and using false papers to merely get a job. It is a distinction that the Bush administration, goaded by immigration extremists, has willfully ignored. Deporting unauthorized workers is one thing; sending desperate breadwinners to prison, and their families deeper into poverty, is another. This has been happening all over the country. There are 3 million children in this country with at least one parent who is present in the U.S. without proper documentation. It's time to legalize our undocumented workers and end these shameful raids. As I wrote in this 2006 op-ed after similar raids: We do need immigration reform. But what we need is a non-punitive immigration reform bill, one that is humane and provides equality, dignity and a clear path to citizenship.
• 

  Recent Headlines

  http://www.newsfromreality.com/2008/06/recent-headlines.html
  159 days ago in News From Reality ~ Keyword Headline Feeds and News Archive · Authority: 5

  FBI Flagged Mistreatment of Detainees Bush Introduces a New Way to Classify Information Defense Seeks Delay in 9-11 Suspects' Trials Rights Group Claims U. S. Attack on Baghdad Media Hotel Not an Accident Immigration Raid Targets Workers, Not Employers Four Philly Police Officers Fired over Videotaped Beating Food Rationing Confronts American Consumers Economist: Housing Slump May Exceed Depression Bush Has Highest Disapproval Rating in Gallup History 66% of Republicans Approve of the Job Bush is Doing US Defense Analyst Admits to Spying for China HUD Chief Quits; Under Investigation 80 Year Old Man Arrested for Anti-War T-Shirt Judge: Learn English or Go To Jail Bush Weakens Espionage Oversight Bush Intervened to Weaken Smog Rule House Passes Democratic Surveillance Bill Government Peeks at Financial Transactions of Millions Without Their Knowledge Obama Vows to Review All Bush Executive Orders McCain Warns Al Qaeda May Try to Tip Election Against Him Bailiff Who Tasered Restrained Inmate in Court May Face Charges Guantanamo Detainee Gets Reprieve from Appeals Court Republican Campaign Treasurer Diverted $1 Million Abramoff''s Lobbying Firm Indicted for Theft & Conspiracy Also see the Jack Abramoff Picture Show Appeals Court Ruling Limits Employee Drug Testing Father Accused of Forcing 7-year-old Daughter to Kill Family Pet Bush Looks into Listing Venezuela as a Terrorist State Pentagon Review Finds No Link Between Saddam and Al Qaeda US Study Finds Chemical Link to Gulf War Syndrome AP Investigation: Drugs Found in Drinking Water Nationwide "Citizens Arrest" Attempted on Karl Rove Al Franken's Democratic Rival Drops Out of the Race Washington Seeks Power to Ban Travelers over US Airspace US Vows to Modernize Polish Air Defenses

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