Stop Raids, Detentions and Deportations

InSecure Communities: Borders at Our Doors How “Secure Communities” Brings the Fear of the Border to Champaign County

2011-12-30T10:24:00.000-08:00

The following report was prepared by the CU Immigration Forum and presented to the community last month.

InSecure Communities: Borders at Our Doors
How “Secure Communities” Brings the Fear of the Border
to Champaign County

I. Introduction
Since the initial release of Immigration Enforcement: The Dangerous Reality Behind “Secure Communities” by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) in early 2011, a growing number of communities and states have sought to withdraw or limit the impact of this controversial deportation program.
In May of 2011, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn announced that Illinois would withdraw from the “Secure Communities” program and stated that “ICE's statistics on the Secure Communities program... reveal that the implementation of the Secure Communities program in Illinois is contrary to the stated purpose of the MOA [Memorandum of Agreement]: … by ICE's own measure, less than 20% of those who have been deported from Illinois under the program have ever been convicted of a serious crime.” After Illinois became the first state to opt-out of the program, New York and Massachusetts followed suit. In addition, local communities, from New York City to Cook County, IL and Santa Clara, CA have sought to limit the harmful impact of this federal program in their communities.
This Champaign County Addendum to the original ICIRR report takes a closer look at the experience in Champaign County, Illinois where local residents have encountered and documented many of the problems seen at the national and state levels. Working in parallel to the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), local volunteers involved with the Immigration Justice Research Group and the C-U Immigration Forum gathered most of the data in this Addendum from various requests through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and confirmed that data with the real-life stories of immigrants and their families in our community who have become victims of the failed “Secure Communities” program.
The intent of this report is to raise local awareness about the problems associated with Secure Communities and to mobilize the community around recommendations for correcting those problems. We also hope that the experience in Champaign County can serve as a guide to other communities that are considering participating in this flawed program or seeking to close their doors to it. Specifically, the report examines:
• The failure of the program to meet its stated purpose of identifying and deporting “dangerous criminals” who threatened the security of our community;
•The negative impact this program has on families in our community and how that causes a lack of trust in authorities;
•The diversion of law enforcement resources from fighting criminal activity in our communities to enforcing flawed federal immigration policies;
• The waste of local taxpayer dollars on a program that fails to meet it goals; and
• The lack of public input into the decision to participate in this controversial federal deportation program.
II. Background
According to a series of emails obtained from the Champaign County Sheriff’s office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials invited sheriffs from eight east central Illinois counties (Champaign, DeWitt, Piatt, Moultrie, Douglas, Edgar, Vermilion and Ford) to a brief meeting to discuss “Secure Communities” . The meeting, which was held on Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at the Champaign Police Department, lasted only 15 minutes according to the deputy who attended as a representative from the Champaign County Sheriff’s office . At the meeting ICE officials stated that the program would not target immigrant communities. Materials provided to meeting attendees, stated that Secure Communities would “help ICE and local law enforcement officers positively identify criminal aliens in prisons and jails.” ICE handouts stated that the program’s intent is to focus on “offenders who pose a threat to public safety, such as aliens with prior convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape, robbery, and kidnapping.”
...the intent is to focus on “offenders who pose a threat to public safety, such as aliens with prior convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape, robbery, and kidnapping.”
Without consulting other local officials, holding any public hearing or providing any public notice, the Champaign County Sheriff’s office submitted a three page application to participate in “Secure Communities” and faxed it to ICE on September 7, 2010. On October 1, 2010 the Champaign County Sheriff’s office was officially notified by ICE that he had successfully enrolled Champaign County in “Secure Communities” and that the system would be on-line at 9:00 AM the next day.
At the same time that Sheriff Walsh was enrolling Champaign County in “Secure Communities”, student leaders of La Colectiva, a student organization that advocates for social justice and immigrant rights began to focus their efforts beyond campus, and expanded their work with the growing Spanish-speaking immigrant community in Champaign County. During the summer and fall of 2010, La Colectiva members met with dozens of community leaders, clergy and members of the local Spanish speaking immigrant community. They asked questions, listened to concerns, took notes and met to discuss what they were learning.
By late 2010, La Colectiva members began hearing stories about local immigrants who were stopped by local police and sent off for deportation. Concerned with what they were learning, a group of student and community volunteers established the Immigration Justice Research Group to further investigate the problem. The Research Group soon learned that Champaign County was listed as participating in “Secure Communities” and began researching the details of this federal deportation program.
Starting in December 2010, the Research Group filed nearly a dozen requests for documents to the Champaign County Sheriff’s office under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In February of 2011, an informal group of individuals and organizational representatives, including members of La Colectiva, began meeting monthly at the University Y as the C-U Immigration Forum. Formed to share information, the C-U Immigration Forum is composed of immigrants, students, local clergy, service providers, labor unions representatives and ordinary citizens concerned about the progress and plight of immigrants in our community and beyond.
This Champaign County Addendum is a product of those efforts. The findings and recommendations of this report were developed by the C-U Immigration Forum to increase the security of communities in our county and to erase the borders imposed at our homes’ doors. Recommendations will be refined as we develop additional information.
III. Findings
Our research confirms what others have found - that the program called “Secure Communities” (S-Comm) is having the opposite impact; that is, communities are now more insecure as a result of the federal program. Although the program is intended to make our communities more secure by removing individuals who are a “threat to public safety,” the reality is this program, in both intentional and unintentional ways, redefines the role of local police by making them agents for federal immigration officials, which in turn brings the border to our own doors in Champaign County. As noted in the ICIRR report:
The closer local law enforcement works with ICE, the more they risk burning their bridges with local immigrant communities. Law enforcement relies on the trust of immigrants and their neighbors to identify and catch criminals who are hurting and exploiting others. If immigrants and their families are afraid of coming under suspicion regarding their status, they will be far less likely to come forward to report crimes or serve as witnesses for prosecutions.
While local officials insist that they do not arrest anyone solely for being an immigrant, the records indicate that many people have been arrested for violations that would not cause an arrest for another local resident. Our findings suggest that current practices in Champaign County exasperate these problems in our community. In this section, we take a closer look at some of the problems we have uncovered with S-Comm in Champaign County.
S-Comm Catches and Deports the Wrong People. In Champaign County, as in other communities, ICE has promoted this program as a way to remove dangerous criminals “who pose a threat to public safety”. However, as documented in the original report, the data tells a much different story:
More than three--‐quarters (77%) of all immigrants arrested by ICE in Illinois under “Secure Communities” through July 2010 have no criminal convictions…By comparison, nationwide only 27% of ICE detainees under “Secure Communities” have no criminal convictions.”
More recent data reveals that those numbers have worsened at the national level where the percent of ICE detainees that are non-criminals jumped from 27% as of July 31, 2010 to 33% through April 30, 2011 (Table A1). Jurisdictions in Illinois, however, continue to do much worse than the national average with 50% of the ICE detainees in Illinois being non-criminals through April 30, 2011. Unfortunately, ICE’s own data for Champaign County shows that 70% of the immigrants detained under S-Comm are non-criminals. When so many of the individuals being detained and deported are non-criminals, word quickly spreads in local immigrant communities, feeding the perception that any interaction with local law enforcement could lead to deportation. Not being able to call the police with confidence and without fear generates insecurity. People don’t want to open their doors to threats.
Table A1
"Secure Communities" Statistics Through April 30, 2011 (cumulative)
Administratively Arrested or Booked into ICE Custody Removals and Returns
County Non-Criminal Total Non Criminal % of Total Non-Criminal Total Non Criminal % of Total
Champaign 7 10 70% 2 5 40%
Clinton 3 4 75% 1 3 33%
DeWitt 0 1 0% 0 0 0%
DuPage 358 765 47% 41 239 17%
Effingham 11 15 73% 3 7 43%
Jackson 3 4 75% 1 1 100%
Kane 333 660 50% 54 220 25%
Lake 161 283 57% 29 108 27%
Madison 23 30 77% 8 12 67%
McHenry 95 160 59% 9 25 36%
St. Clair 7 12 58% 1 5 20%
Stephenson 1 1 100% 0 0%
Will 56 274 20% 5 135 4%
Williamson 0 1 0% 0 0%
Winnebago 53 68 78% 8 13 62%
Illinois Total 1,111 2,288 49% 162 773 21%
National Total 75,104 226,694 33% 31,834 108,994 29%

S-Comm Fractures Families and Communities. In addition to the distrust the program generates between immigrant communities and the police, S-Comm program also fractures and harms the stability of those communities and the families that compose them. The stress and pressure caused by the constant fear that a loved one may be arrested and deported is only the beginning of the nightmare of what happens when a family member is caught up in the S-Comm dragnet. Over the course of the past year, the CU Immigration Forum has learned of a number of families that have suffered through the pain and agony of the S-Comm program. However, the fear that grips many of these individuals and families makes most of them unwilling to talk publicly about their experiences.
The following is the real story of a young woman who was guilty of no crime and is no threat to public safety, but whose life was thrown into turmoil when she was arrested under the auspices of S-Comm. Her name has been changed to protect her identity.
Alejandra is a single mother of two boys, 8 and 18 years old. On a Saturday afternoon in September of 2011, she was on the way to pick up one of her sons from soccer practice when she accidentally rear-ended a car at the four-way stop at Race and Windsor. She pulled over and began exchanging insurance and contact information with the man in the other car. Although upset with herself for bumping into other car, the damage was minimal and the gentleman in the other car seemed to understand that accidents happen.
But what Alejandra didn’t know at the time was that the other driver was an off duty police officer. Although there was no damage to the cars, Urbana police were called. After half an hour of waiting for the other driver to share his information, police arrived and Alejandra found out that she was being arrested. Concerned about her son who was waiting for her, she tried to call him on her cell phone but was told that she was under arrest and could not make any calls until later. She was arrested and booked at the county jail where her fingerprints were sent to ICE. By the time she was able to speak to her son three hours later, he had been told there was a federal hold on her and that she should plan for deportation.
Gripped with fear, Alejandra wondered what was going to happen. Would she see her children again? When would she be deported? Who would take care of her two children and how would she tell them what was happening? Who could she talk to? These thoughts were just the beginning of what would be a long and stressful ordeal due to S-Comm.
At a court hearing the following Sunday morning, the judge set a date for a ticket and agreed to have her released on her own recognizance. On Monday, she was told she was to have court again but the judge did not show. She was transported from the satellite jail to the downtown jail on Tuesday but she knew nothing of the possibility of release. By Wednesday, four days after her arrest, Alejandra was still in jail for a minor fender bender.
Although Alejandra had been held more than the 48 hours allowed for under S- Comm, she was still in jail. When a volunteer with C-U Immigration Forum called the jail four days after Alejandra had been arrested and explained that she could not be held more than 48 hours, the response from the Lieutenant on duty was “This is news to me.” He appeared willing to hold her for ICE indefinitely until he was informed that he might be subjecting Champaign County taxpayers to a potential law suit. Within the hour, Alejandra was transported to the satellite jail where she was suddenly released; relieved and afraid of subjecting her family and friends to further humiliation, she walked home in the rain from the satellite jail on Lierman in East Urbana to her home in Champaign. After four days in jail, she was finally home with her children but was facing future legal expenses and court hearings.
Alejandra’s story is one of many we have heard over the past several months. In each case, people who were not criminals and no threat to the community have seen their lives turned upside down.
Implementation Problems Plague S-Comm in Champaign County. As Alejandra’s case demonstrates, local law enforcement is not always aware of the policies and practices dictated under S-Comm. In fact, on April 13, 2011 two members of the Immigration Justice Research Group met with Sheriff Walsh. The meeting was a friendly attempt to learn about procedures, inform the local police agencies of the national discrepancies, and offer further information as to costs and liabilities. Various problems in the implementation of S-Comm were brought to light at this meeting. First, not only does the Champaign County jail send fingerprints to ICE, but they were also filling out consular forms and forwarding them to ICE. Moreover, there were inaccuracies in understanding and implementing the ICE 48-hour hold rule. When asked about this rule, Sheriff Walsh deferred to the officer in charge who was unfamiliar with the 48-hour hold rule but stated that he believed it was 72 hours.
Based on conversations with the Sheriff and other employees in the Sheriff’s office who are responsible for implementing this program as well as documents obtained through FOIA requests, we have identified the following problems with the local implementation of Secure Communities in Champaign County:
• The limit of 48-Hour holds is not being uniformly enforced. As described in the original report, “While federal law requires that the detainees are held for only 48 hours (8 CFR § 287.7(d).), jails are often unaware of this limit and hold detainees far longer than 48 hours.” This appears to be true in Champaign County as indicated by Alejandra’s experience and the interview with the Sheriff and his officers. Further a review of documents made available through FOIA requests suggests that Alejandra’s experience is not uncommon. Unfortunately, the confusion over this policy and the lack of clear reporting of when the 48-hour rule begins make it difficult to determine how widespread the problem is in Champaign County.
• Individuals arrested under S-Comm are being discouraged from posting bond. After arrest, an individual has a court date when a judge may specify a bond for the release of the individual. We have repeatedly heard stories from immigrants that Champaign County officers discouraged individuals and their families from posting bond because that would trigger ICE picking them up. It is true that the 48-hour voluntary hold for ICE begins once bond is posted, but not paying your bond does not protect you from being picked up by ICE. ICE is notified electronically at the time of the arrest and ICE can pick them up anytime they are in custody. Not paying bond only gives ICE more time to pick up the individual. By not posting bond, the person remains in custody and the 48-hour limit under an ICE ‘hold’ is never triggered. In at least one instance, an immigrant was held for four months because he understood that this would minimize his chances of being picked up by ICE.
• Sending Consulate Forms to ICE is a questionable practice and not required under “Secure Communities”. Champaign County appears to be one of the few jurisdictions, if not the only one, that forwards consulate forms to ICE for individuals who are detained under the S-Comm program. While fingerprints are automatically forwarded to ICE under S-Comm, Champaign County goes one step further by faxing the internally developed consulate form to ICE. According to the Sheriff, the consulate form was developed in response to a lawsuit against County several years ago. However, it may well be the case that using the consular form for any purpose other than notifying a consulate may violate international law.
• Local law enforcement practices distort and undermine the intent of S-Comm. One of the biggest problems with the implementation of the S-Comm program in Champaign County is that some law enforcement officers fail to honor the intent of the program. As described in the ICE materials provided to Champaign County, the focus of the program is to remove “alien criminals who pose a threat to public safety.” The purpose is to identify and deport criminals who are a threat to public safety that happen to be immigrants without documents. Using local law enforcement officers to identify and pick up undocumented residents is NOT part of the program goals. When an off duty police officer calls the police because he suspects that someone in a minor traffic accident is an immigrant, it is obvious that the program is being distorted. Worse, this distortion directly undermines any sense of security by creating distrust within our community.
S-Comm Wastes Valuable Tax Dollars. S-Comm imposes an unnecessary series of costs to the taxpayers of Champaign County. When Alejandra was arrested for a minor traffic violation, two or three officers were called to the scene and at least one officer was involved in taking her to the jail. Upon arrival at the jail, at least one deputy must process the person before the person is allowed to make a phone call. At this point, the costs for detaining an individual start mounting because the person must be housed, fed, and given whatever medical care is in order but most of these are not covered by the federal program even when it places a “hold” on an individual. Even in cases when a person would normally be arrested for their offense, S-Comm extends the time they are held thus increasing costs to local taxpayers. Add the court processing costs, the judge, the district attorney and possibly the public defender and suddenly the costs of detaining someone in the county jail who is otherwise bondable are just a small portion of the overall cost of this program to local taxpayers.
Like Alejandra, many immigrants are being detained for extensive periods of time at significant costs to the taxpayer. For example, in September 2011, a young Korean man was visiting his international student friends at U of I, and during his visit he found himself at the wrong place and the wrong time: he became involved in a fight and was subsequently arrested. According to internal emails obtained through FOIA requests, the young man did not speak English and police were looking for an interpreter. When officers located a friend who agreed to interpret for them, they learned that the young man:
“has been here in the US for two weeks and is staying with (his friend). He has property at his apartment and a return flight ticket to Korea there (unsure of date). Mental Health has been unable to ascertain whether or not he is suicidal so I spoke to my supervisor and he approved that (his friend) could speak to Mr. Hwan and interpret for us. We found out that he is not suicidal, all the injuries he has is from apparently being jumped the other evening.”
After he posted bond, he was placed on a voluntary 48 hour hold and ICE eventually picked him up after a total of six days in jail. Spending tax payer dollars detaining someone to hand them over to federal officials when they are visiting our community and even have a return ticket home seems both unnecessary and costly.
S-Comm encourages racial profiling. As noted in the original ICIRR report, the direct connection to ICE that ‘Secure Communities’ provides to local police, gives officers and departments that want to target “illegals” a tool they can use to flag immigrants. In Champaign County we are equally concerned that some local police may feel empowered to pull over Latino and other immigrant-appearing drivers for minor traffic infractions or other unsubstantiated charges. S-Comm only encourages further targeting of people that “look undocumented” or speak another language. Evidence of possible profiling can be found in the County Jail guidelines to inform ICE about not only those inmates who declare themselves immigrants, but also any new inmate who the Jail officials suspect is an immigrant. How can jail officials guess about the status and citizenship of inmates except for by their complexion, mannerisms, and accent? The mere possibility of such profiling further erodes community trust in anyone with a uniform.
S-Comm utilizes valuable capacity at the County Jail. Because so few of the immigrants who are detained and locked up under S-Comm are criminals and because these individuals would not otherwise be placed in jail, valuable capacity at the jail is being wasted. Individuals have been held “until ICE comes” to pick them up regardless of cost or need for space as a “courtesy” to the federal program. The artificial inflation of the jail census with non-criminals could lead to spending millions of dollars to expand our jail capacity unnecessarily.
S-Comm diverts law enforcement resources from fighting actual criminal activity. Diverting law enforcement resources to enforcing immigration laws and arresting community members who are not criminals is a poor allocation of limited resources especially at a time when many local communities are cutting budgets. For example, the City of Urbana recently had to cut support for other city services and programs in order to create additional police officer positions to address a growing crime rate in the east side of the city. Similarly, the City of Champaign is struggling with budget issues and has looked into ways to trim the police services. Local police resources should focus on creating a safer community for all, not on creating borders at local doors.
S-Comm was implemented in Champaign County without any public notice or input. Despite the far reaching impact of our participation in S-Comm, the Champaign County Sheriff’s Office held no public hearings to explore the local impacts of the program or to solicit feedback from residents and taxpayers. Furthermore, the Sheriff’s Office has not held any community meetings to explain the implementation of this program, and there has been no outreach or communication with agencies that work with immigrants. Finally, our research found no public record of contact between the Sheriff’s Office and other public officials (e.g. County Board members, the Public Defender, or the State Attorney), regarding S-Comm. The lack of public awareness and discussion has created further distrust of police within the community.
IV. Recommendations
Based on the flawed policy behind “Secure Communities” and the failed implementation at both the federal and local levels, we believe that this program should be suspended at the federal level. However, short of that, we make the following recommendations to Champaign County authorities, and specifically to the Sheriff’s Office:
) Suspend all Immigration ‘holds’ especially for non-criminals – On August 18 of this year, the Obama Administration announced that it will establish a joint working group to insure that government “resources are focused on the highest immigration enforcement priorities, namely, national security, public safety, border security and the integrity of our immigration system.” The goal is to administratively close “low-priority” cases and to “issue guidance to prevent, on a case-by-case basis, low priority cases from entering the system.” Considering this, it is absurd that our local government would waste precious resources arresting and holding non-criminal immigrants only to see those cases kicked out of the system at a later date. Because the immigration ‘hold’ is only a request rather than a requirement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Champaign County has no obligation to enforce it.
) Establish a clear line of authority and improve documentation and flow of information. If the Champaign County Sheriff’s office is to continue to hold immigrants under Secure Communities, more transparency in the process is essential. Local residents detained under S-Comm report a lack of adequate and accurate information about what is happening. Detainees and their families should be given a handout stating the procedures, delineating who makes what decisions and indicating information such as when the voluntary 48-hour hold period starts and ends. At present, detainees often don’t know their charges, their status, or the intention of authorities, especially as to the agreement with ICE. Such disclosure and transparency is critical for both detainees and officials because S-Comm operates outside of traditional legal protocol used in normal criminal proceedings.
) Detainees should not be discouraged to post bond by employees at the Sheriff’s Office. As noted in our findings, detainees are often discouraged from posting bond because they are told that ICE will pick them up if their bond is posted. Several detainees stayed in jail far longer than necessary because they were discouraged from posting bond, thus delaying the start of the “courtesy” 48-hour hold and extending the period that ICE could pick them up. Discouraging detainees to post bond is not the role of Sheriff’s employees and can lead to unnecessary taxpayer costs.
) Return bond money if a detainee is never released. Some families were informed that if they paid the bond and then ICE picked up the detainee, the bond would be forfeited and they would lose the money. As a result, some families are hesitant to post bond because they are worried they will lose the money if ICE picks up a detainee before they are released. If a detainee is turned over to ICE during the voluntary 48-hour hold we believe any bond that is posted should be returned since the detainee was never released.
) Stop sending “Consular Forms” to ICE. The S-Comm program authorizes the fingerprints of individuals arrested in a county to be released to ICE. Champaign County’s formal booking procedure requires a Consular Form to be filled out on every individual that even seems foreign born. The county is exceeding its authority and undermining the stated purpose of Consular Forms by sending them to ICE. Even worse, this practice could be a violation of international law. Note: The CU Immigration Forum was recently notified by Sheriff Walsh that his office stopped this practice. If this is so, we would like to thank the Sheriff for this change in local procedure.
) Conduct an audit of the local costs of S-Comm. The County Auditor should conduct an audit of all direct and indirect costs related to Champaign County’s participation in S-Comm. Since Champaign County picks up the costs for participation in the program, it is important that taxpayers have a full understanding of those costs. We recommend that the County Auditor conduct an analysis of the financial costs of S-Comm including but not limited to the direct and indirect costs of imprisoning non-criminals, the personnel time required of police officers making the arrest to those involved in booking detainees, notifying and working with ICE, as well as the court and legal costs associated with participation.
) Conduct an independent evaluation of S-Comm in Champaign County. When non-criminals make up 70% of those detained under a program whose purpose is to remove dangerous criminals that are a “threat to public safety”, it is only reasonable to have an independent review to see if the program is functioning as intended. More importantly, there are a wide range of issues related to the administration and implementations of S-Comm that raise serious questions about the value and effectiveness of this program. Although we have tried to identify some of these problems using the Freedom of Information Act and by meeting with local law enforcement officials, a more thorough and detailed analysis is needed.
) Evaluate whether S-Comm violates local Sanctuary Ordinances. Local Governments with Sanctuary Ordinances, such as the City of Urbana, should evaluate whether or not the participation of the Urbana police force in S-Comm is in violation of its own Sanctuary Ordinance.
) Institute reforms that would ensure greater transparency of S-Comm in Champaign County. With or without a more thorough evaluation of S-Comm program in Champaign County, there are a number of steps the Sheriff’s Office should take to ensure greater transparency and community input, including but not limited to:
• Provide monthly reports with statistics including arrests, holds, and actions taken;
• Submit an annual report on S-Comm to the Champaign County Board; and
• Hold community hearings to allow for greater community input.
) Adopt a countywide Sanctuary Ordinance. Such an ordinance sends a strong message to the many immigrants in our community that we recognize and appreciate their contributions to our community. Various examples across the country have provided the impetus for the questioning of S-Comm and move to a more reasonable national immigration policy.
I. Closing Commentary
Discussions of immigration in our country over the past decade have been dominated by special interest groups who repeatedly link the word 'immigrant' with the word 'illegal'. We hear the two words used together so often these days in fact, that the former almost automatically evokes at least a faint, uneasy echo of the latter. Indeed, because of this the national discourse has deteriorated to the point where even some presidential candidates feel free to openly talk about building electrified fences across our southern borders, or propose the wholesale deportation of millions of people knowing that the only critiques they will hear by way of rebuttal will concern the costs and feasibility of those projects. The fact that there are serious moral and ethical considerations as well seems to have been dropped from the conversation altogether. Long gone is the majestic view of our country as a nation of immigrants as inscribed on the Statue of Liberty:
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
For some time now, politicians looking for votes have embraced this iconic symbol as merely a monument to freedom, ignoring the fact that it was actually dedicated to the welcoming spirit of our nation to immigrants. In light of this, we tend to forget that current immigrants in our community are part of a much longer tradition in east central Illinois, and indeed our nation as a whole, where immigrants came here decades earlier looking for a better life.
Only the indigenous peoples of this continent can make any valid claim to this land as an actual birthright. Everyone else is here because some relative took a leap of faith and left their familiar life behind to strike out for someplace new, hoping it would lead to a better future. We are that future, and almost all of us can trace whatever happiness, security, and prosperity we now possess to the fact that America did indeed open its arms and embrace those 'tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free'. Had it not done so, we would quite simply not be here today, and all that we've built and accomplished together would not exist.
Unfortunately, however, programs like “Secure Communities” undermine the reality that today’s immigrants come to our country seeking the same freedoms and opportunities that our ancestors did. They instead foster a belief that immigrants are here to take something from us, that their presence is damaging to our way of life and that they themselves -- as individuals or even as families with children -- are somehow a threat to 'our' collective security. By separating immigrants out for special attention and extra policing, "Secure Communities" creates an entirely separate class of individuals, with different and diminished rights, subject to more severe punishments than their neighbors. Instead of promoting security, this program brings the conflict over national borders right into our community. For many immigrants who live and work in Champaign County -- those without documents and even those who have them -- the border is now right at their front door, creating fear and doubt every time they leave their homes.
The CU Immigration Forum believes that we should reject this as our future and work together to nullify the harmful effects of this program and of the ideology of separation and exclusion it represents.

Chapin for Life: A Tattooed Guatemalan Deportee

2011-12-29T15:52:00.000-08:00

Geronimo lived in the United States from 1979 until he was deported in 2002. After three months in his home country, he couldn’t take it anymore and embarked on the perilous journey back north. After being gone for so long, he felt as if he no longer fit in in Guatemala. In addition, his body is covered with tattoos, some of them clearly connected to Central American gangs.

Across his back is a huge tattoo that reads “Chapin.” He told me he got it because he identifies with being “Chapin” (Guatemalan).

It is useful to ponder Geronimo’s relationship with his national identity. He strongly identifies with being Guatemalan, to the point of getting “Chapin” tattooed across his back. At the same time, he feels more at home living in the United States. Home has become for him more of an ideal than a reality. He wants to be a Chapin lejano – a faraway Guatemalan. In contrast, he does not want to live in Guatemala.

Having “Chapin” tattooed across his back marks him as a Latino in the United States. This tattoo, along with the three dots on his hand that symbolize “mi vida loca” might identity him as a “cholo” or perhaps a gangbanger in some people’s eyes. His “13” tattoo certainly marks him as a gangbanger. This stigmatized identity is one with which Geronimo is comfortable. He knows how to handle his identity and negotiate interactions with friends and strangers, so long as he is in Los Angeles. In contrast, in Guatemala, his tattoos mark him as a marero – a dangerous gang member. People move away from him and avoid his gaze on the bus. Police officers harass him. Rival gang members shoot at him. Even after being treated like this in Guatemala, Geronimo identifies strongly with his country of birth.

Geronimo embraces his Guatemalan identity, but it is a Guatemalan identity made in America. Perhaps that is why his leg tattoo features “L.A.” for Los Angeles.

More News Coverage of Immigration Nation: KC Hispanic News

2011-12-09T06:44:00.000-08:00

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Coverage of Immigration Nation: KU professor proposes legalizing current immigrants

2011-11-10T05:35:00.000-08:00

KU professor proposes legalizing current immigrants

Coverage of blog author, Tanya Golash-Boza's book: Immigration Nation, which will be out in paperback in January 2012.

Treat them like criminals

2011-11-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

Much of the controversy over Alabama’s HB 56 and Arizona’s SB 1070 is related to those provisions that criminalize undocumented migrants. What is rarely mentioned is that criminal law requires more procedural protections than immigration law. If immigration law treated immigrants like criminals, immigrants would have more rights.

Immigration proceedings in the United States are civil, not criminal, in nature, and do not include all the due process protections afforded to people accused of crimes. Non-citizens can be detained without a bond hearing to assess their flight risk or danger to society. They can be deported without due process.

U.S. Capitol, Photo by Katrina Golash

Robert Bautista, currently being detained without bond at York County Prison, is well aware of his lack of legal rights as an immigrant detainee. In 2002, Mr. Bautista was found guilty of 3rd degree attempted arson for carrying a container of gasoline near his own vehicle and was sentenced to five years of parole. Seven years later, in 2009, as he was returning home from vacation, immigration agents arrested and detained him.

When Mr. Bautista was placed in detention without the possibility of a bond hearing, he had been a legal permanent resident of the United States for 25 years, married for over a decade, had three school-age children, and was the owner of a successful business in Pennsylvania. His mandatory detention caused his family business to be destroyed and his family to lose their home. His wife, a U.S. citizen, visits Mr. Bautista every week at York County Prison, often bringing the children with her. Their U.S. citizen children must bear witness to their father being treated as if he were a criminal, but without the procedural protections normally accorded to people charged with crimes.

Mr. Bautista’s two years in immigration detention are not pursuant to any criminal convictions – he has already completed his parole. He is not being charged with any crime; immigration detention is preventative not punitive. Instead, he is being detained because he faces deportation and is not eligible for a bond hearing.

In 2009, when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) argued that his 2002 conviction of third degree attempted arson was a Crime Involving Moral Turpitude (CIMT), Mr. Bautista was considered to be seeking admission to the United States, as if he were not present in the country, and as if he had not been living and working in this country for over two decades. As person not technically inside the United States, Mr. Bautista was not protected by the Constitution. With a CIMT, Mr. Bautista could seek out cancellation of removal: his deportation order could be rescinded. However, just one hour before his hearing, DHS argued that third degree attempted arson is also an aggravated felony, meaning that Mr. Bautista would be subject to mandatory detention and deportation without judicial review.

Mr. Bautista’s lawyer, Raymond Lahoud, contested this classification, as no previous case of 3rd degree attempted arson has been declared to be an aggravated felony. If Mr. Bautista could win the argument that 3rd degree attempted arson is not an aggravated felony, he would have the chance for an immigration judge to hear the equities in his case. In an aggravated felony case, it does not matter if you have lived in the United States for three decades, if you have three children, if you have no relatives in your country of origin, or if your family depends on you for their survival. People convicted of aggravated felonies are not given a fair and reasonable hearing of the sort that would meet international human rights standards.

On October 10, 2011, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) heard Mr. Bautista’s case and decided that 3rd degree attempted arson is an aggravated felony.

This determination that 3rd degree attempted arson is an aggravated felony means Mr. Bautista cannot challenge his deportation on the basis of his ties to the United States. Instead, Mr. Bautista faces mandatory deportation to the Dominican Republic, where he will be labeled a criminal deportee and faces a bleak future. The Dominican government treats arriving criminal deportees as if they were criminals – they are booked at the city jail, and their deportation is recorded on their criminal record, making it nearly impossible to secure employment.

Were Mr. Bautista to be afforded the due process protections we give to criminals, he would have had a bond hearing and likely would not have been detained for the past two years; he would have the opportunity to have a trial where a judge could weigh the equities in his case; and he may have been eligible for a public defender. Perhaps we should treat immigrants like criminals and thereby provide them with due process protections before depriving them of liberty.

Tanya Golash-Boza is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and American Studies at the University of Kansas and the author of Immigration Nation: Raids, Detentions and Deportations in Post-9/11 America, published by Paradigm Publishers.

Cross-posted at Counterpunch.org

Checking Operation Cross-Check: Is Deporting Criminal Aliens Making Us Safer?

2011-10-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is touting its contribution to public safety and national security due to a week-long national sweep in which it arrested 2,901 immigrants with criminal records. The agency’s director, John Morton, declared: “They are not the kind of people we want walking our streets.”

It is often hard to critique what ICE is doing – or is not doing – as they do not release specific information about their enforcement operations. There are a few things, however, that we do know, and are worth discussing.

A prior felony conviction does not make you an immediate danger to society.

About 1600 of the 2901 people ICE arrested had been convicted of felonies. Nearly all of them had already served their time for these felonies, and thus had paid their debt to society. There are about 5 million people in the United States who have felony convictions. Most of them are walking our streets right now, because they have already served their time. Having paid for their crimes, they are back with their families and trying to piece their lives together – not an easy feat with a felony on their records. The 1600 people ICE arrested last week are no different, except for the fact that they were born in another country and thus, under U.S. laws, merit deportation in addition to a criminal conviction.

Many “criminal aliens” have not been convicted of violent crimes.

In U.S. law, felony convictions include illegally re-entering the United States, possession of illegal drugs, and a host of other victim-less crimes. ICE does not detail the sorts of crimes the people they arrested last week had been convicted of. However, we do know that, in 2010, relatively few people were deported for violent offenses – 7 percent for assault, 2.5 percent for robbery, and 2 percent for sexual assault. In 2010, the remaining criminal deportees had been convicted of non-violent crimes. It would be informative to see a breakdown for operation cross-check. ICE’s report mentions that 386 of the 2901 had been convicted of the immigration-related crime of illegally re-entering the country. Crossing the border twice to reunite with your family does not make anyone a dangerous person.

Nearly half of the criminal deportees arrested in this operation had been convicted of misdemeanors.

Nearly half of the people arrested – about 1300 – had not been convicted of felonies, but of misdemeanors, for crimes such as theft, forgery, and driving while intoxicated. Misdemeanors often do not carry any jail time, and include traffic crimes in addition to other relatively minor offenses. How many of these “criminal deportees” had been convicted of minor offenses?

Many of those arrested were legal permanent residents.

The ICE report indicates that the people arrested were a mix of undocumented migrants and legally present immigrants. How many were legal permanent residents? Legal permanent residents often have been in the United States for decades, and deportation is a drastic measure that takes them away from their families. Joselo, for example, is a U.S. Army veteran, son of a U.S. citizen, father of seven U.S. citizen children, and legal permanent resident who was deported for $10 of crack cocaine. How many of the criminal aliens captured last week were like Joselo and had lived for decades in the United States?

Many of these criminal deportees will leave behind U.S. citizen family members.

In recent years, deportations have led to massive family separation. 1.6 million U.S. citizens have been separated from their spouses and children due to deportation since 1996. While Mr. Morton may argue that these are not people we want walking our streets, the family members of deportees often feel quite differently.

John Morton openly admits that ICE does not have the resources to deport the ten million undocumented immigrants in the United States. The strategy instead has been to focus ICE’s immense resources on finding and deporting immigrants convicted of crimes. This most recent operation involved 1,900 ICE officers, a fairly extraordinary effort. In addition, it was part of the National Fugitive Operations Program, an ICE effort with a history of spending lots of money with little to show for it.

Deporting criminal aliens brings political capital to its proponents, but those of us who work with immigrants convicted of crimes know that this strategy is not necessarily making the United States a safer place, but definitely is separating families and destroying lives.

Cross-posted at Detention Watch Network

The Border Thickens Pt. 3

2011-08-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

Abruptly, she transforms, amid the clatter of young families at this restaurant in Chicago. Gone is the sparkling eye contact of this stocky, modestly dressed in a white, flowered dress, olive skinned woman. The confident gaze, cradled in deep folds of warm flesh, and warm smile of this mother of five gives way as she begins to relate her experience of the thickened border. With her chin reaching for her chest, she begins to describe her arrest in Chicago for driving without a Driver's license. Her head tilts further downward. Her voice approaches a whisper. But, she--the subaltern--who I call Maria most definitely speaks:

I had always done it. I had driven without a driver's license, taking my husband to work, my kids to school, and going to work. And, yes, I'd been stopped before. But I would show them my national id card. The officers usually let me off with a warning and I’m careful driver. But this time the officer was a woman. She was different." She continues to study the floor. "I was arrested. I was arrested. I’m a careful driver. And, they took me to the police station. It was like two in the morning and I had just gotten out of work. I was exhausted."
The officer asked her legal status.

I was quiet. I told them I wouldn’t' answer their questions. The officer said to me people brought to the station are 'illegal' and they are sent to immigration. And, if you're illegal (ICE) would come in early in the morning to pick up the people. And I began to think to myself, is this true? And then they began to take my fingerprints. And I immediately began to think of my family, of my children. The woman police officer said, 'look call your family and with luck they can get you a lawyer and he can get you out of custody before immigration comes.' And then a couple of hours passed and immigration showed up. And the official told me to the sign some paper, and I said I wouldn't sign anything, because I didn't understand what the paper said and he [the ICE officer] got angry. And I still refused and then he got me and put on handcuffs and they took me to the immigration center. And they immigration took my fingerprints, and that other stuff. And they asked me if I had children and I said yes, I have five. And then they asked if I had crossed the border illegally. Well of course, I did. They knew. They knew I had passed illegally. They already knew. They had taken my fingerprints years ago.

She had not crossed the border since. But the neoliberal border had crossed her; it had thickened. She continues to refuse to look at me as she narrates her experience with Secure Communities. She struggles to explain herself, to push back against the vile criminalizing discourses of immigrant illegality, against the dehumanizing experiences of being arrested, against having the force of the state and its multiple proxies, be they vigilantes or bureaucrats that criminalize her, against the new laws in Arizona, in Alabama, in Georgia, the latter two where old prejudices become mapped onto new non-White bodies.

And, motherhood becomes her resource. This neoliberal version of la llorona begins to narrate her experiences of undocumented border crossing as a mother, weaving together them with Secure Communities. The specter of policing, there militarized, here domesticated, both violent, both subjugating, looms:

I had gone to Mexico to get my son. I had left him with my mom. And she was old and she couldn't take care of him well and well he was hanging out on the streets y me and they told me as the mother to go get him. His father had died. And, I didn't know how to go. But I went. And when I was coming back with him we were in the deserts, clothes and bottles were everywhere, and we were so hot and thirsty and we were walking for days, referring to these "neoliberal ovens," these "killing deserts" (Rosas forthcoming).

They caught us and held us, took our fingerprints. They sent us back. So we tried again. So, I came back with my little boy, holding him tight in the sun, in a big group of migrants and the migrant started to chase us in the desert. Everyone went their own way. The coyote went that way, some went the other way. My boy and I hid behind bushes in the desert. But, my little boy ran into the desert. By himself. You see we were a small group and we were running this way and that, and the Border Patrol could not chase all of us. They get the most vulnerable (mas debiles), and since I was with my little boy I couldn't leave him. And I told him if they're going to catch us, deport us, we'd go together. And we know so much happens that I couldn't let him, not even to hide. I was afraid and we were caught again.

The third time she and her child tried to cross the border they successfully navigated therough succeeded without incident. The same coyote from before managed to eventually get her to Tucson.

Now given her arrest, deportation was imminent. ICE could knock on her door at any time and deport her, separating her from her family and home of the past eighteen years. The border now reaches from her home in southern Mexico to the barrios of Chicago.

Teaching about Human Rights in the United States

2011-08-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

Once again, I am teaching about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in my first class of the semester.

The first step in this class is to define human rights. My working definition is:

Human rights belong to all people regardless of their sex, race, color, language, national origin, age, class, religion, or political beliefs. They are universal, inalienable, indivisible, and interdependent.

However, I will work with the students first to see if we can come up with a definition together. From there, we will turn to human rights doctrine.

Through a discussion of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), we discuss what human rights are, the distinction between cultural, economic, social and cultural rights, and who is responsible for upholding human rights.

To engage the students in these question, I will show an 8-minute film, called "Human Rights":

Human Rights from edeos on Vimeo.

This short film explains that the UDHR, along with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESR), make up the International Bill of Human Rights. This brief overview will provide students to an introduction to these documents.

The film also delves into who is responsible for upholding human rights - individual countries, the UN Council on human rights, and non-governmental organizations. As such, we can engage in a discussion about who should be in charge of human rights.

Finally, the film raises the question: Can human rights be universal? That should be fun to discuss as well.

Once we cover what human rights are, I am hoping we will have time to discuss this article that came out today: Human rights irony for the US and Arab world - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

In this article, Shadi Mokhtari argues that there is a growing tension in the United States between national security and human rights.

While in the past, American leaders resorted to presenting interest-driven policies as essentially meant to further rights and freedom in the world - a trend the political scientist John Mearsheimer referred to as "liberal talk, realist thinking" - the opposite dynamic has emerged ten years after 9/11. American politicians who want to pursue human rights agendas are compelled to present them as interest-driven. Thus, the Obama administration is forced to frame its calls for everything from closing Guantanamo, to the Libyan intervention, to its policy on genocide in national security terms. The space for invoking human rights on moral grounds alone has virtually disappeared in the United States.

This increased American ambivalence towards human rights stands in contrast to a rise in the human rights ideas' resonance in the Arab world since September 11th. The denials of human dignity captured in Abu Ghraib photos and Guantanamo accounts had a profound psychological impact in much of the Arab region. As they grasped for a response, many Arabs found the language of human rights gave expression to their immense sense of indignation. At the same time, activists began drawing attention to the Arab world's own "Abu Ghraibs" and "Guantanamos".

This article provides a lot of food for thought for next week's discussion of the role of the United States in the global stage.

Racial Profiling, the War on Drugs, and the Mass Deportation of Jamaicans from the United States

2011-08-16T12:24:00.000-07:00

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One More Reason to Oppose Secure Communities: It is Racist

2011-08-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

Since President Obama took office, we have seen one million deportations. In 2010, the United States deported 400,000 people, more than in the entire decade of the 1980s.

This rise in deportations is due to laws passed in 1996, and a massive infusion of money into immigration law enforcement with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. With an annual budget of $60 billion, DHS has been able to expand its operations far beyond those of its predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

When we look at who is getting deported, however, it is clear that Asian and European immigrants are almost never deported, while blacks and Latinos are deported in massive numbers. And, nearly all deportees are men. Sound familiar? Yes, racial and gender disparities in immigration law enforcement look a lot like those in criminal justice law enforcement.

Police are much more likely to arrest blacks and Latinos. In New York State, 94% of those arrested on drug charges are black or Latino. And, yes, whites and Asians do use and sell drugs. They just rarely are arrested, and, as a consequence, rarely face deportation.

Now that President Obama has forced more cooperation between police and immigration law enforcement through the Secure Communities program, we can expect to see more blacks and Latinos deported.

Repost from: Racism Review

The Benefits of U.S. Citizenship: Staying and Leaving

2011-08-06T09:36:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about citizenship. There are two reasons for this. First, my husband became a naturalized citizen last month. Secondly, in my work on deportations, I have realized that the only thing that prevents you from being deported from the United States is U.S. citizenship.

My husband has been in the United States since 2001. Ten years later, he is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He qualified for naturalization before we actually applied, but, we did not submit the paperwork until January 2011. Because we have traveled outside of the United States on at least ten separate occasions since he moved here and changed addresses within the United States about five times, it was a bit confusing for us to figure out exactly when he qualified for naturalization. In January of last year, however, we were sure he had been in the country for the requisite time and applied. In July of 2011, he had his swearing-in ceremony and came home with a naturalization certificate and a U.S. flag.

My husband’s primary motive for getting a U.S. passport is that it will facilitate traveling to other countries. For example, this past summer we traveled to Spain and France. My husband had to first drive to Houston to renew his Peruvian passport. Then, he had to take the train all the way to Chicago to appear in person at the Spanish consulate to apply for a visa to go to Spain. That process was remarkably cumbersome and costly. Now, with a U.S. passport, he will not have to make those trips to be able to travel to Europe. The irony is not lost on me that my husband’s main reason to get a U.S. passport is that it will make it easier to leave.

In contrast, my main reason for wanting my husband to get a U.S. passport is that I do not want him deported. He has been a legal permanent resident (LPR) of the United States since he arrived in 2001, but LPRs can be deported for fairly minor infractions of the law. It is not inconceivable that my husband would be caught in a car with another person who had illegal drugs, that he could give a ride to a person who subsequently committed a crime, or that he could be found in a house with contraband. Breaking the law in the United States is not that difficult. Now, I can be relieved that deportation is not among the things I have to worry about happening to him.

In June 2011, before my husband became a U.S. citizen, he had many reasons to feel as if he belongs in this country. His wife and three children are U.S. citizens and live in this country. He goes to school in the United States and speaks the language. He owns property in this country. He has many friends here. It was only after his swearing in ceremony, however, that he gained the unequivocal right to remain in this country. What changed on that date?

As a citizen of the United States, he now has the right to hold public office and vote in elections. However, a criminal conviction could take away those rights. He also now qualifies for certain government jobs and scholarships, but we can’t say he has a right to those. The only unequivocal right you gain when you become a U.S. citizen is the right not to be deported.

There is something about this that needs to be questioned. Why does citizenship provide the unequivocal right not to be deported? Why is becoming a citizen the only way you can unequivocally avoid deportation? What does this say about the 20-plus million non-citizens in the United States, many of whom have very strong ties to this country? What is citizenship and what does it mean?

Is Immigration Law Civil or Criminal?

2011-08-01T08:01:00.000-07:00

Immigration law in the United States is civil, not criminal. People found to be in violation of immigration law are not punished; they are deported. And, deportation is not punishment.

In the United States, we often refer to people who are in the United States without permission from the government as “illegal aliens.” Calling people “illegals” gives the false impression that they have committed a crime. However, being in the United States without documentation is not a crime. It is a violation of immigration laws, and there is no punishment for illegal presence.

The reason deportation is not punishment is that an 1893 Court decision, Fong Yue Ting vs. United States, still holds. That court decision reads as follows:

[Deportation] is simply the ascertainment, by appropriate and lawful means, of the fact whether the conditions exist upon which Congress has enacted that an alien of this class may remain within the country. The order of deportation is not a punishment for crime. It is not a banishment, in the sense in which that word is often applied to the expulsion of a citizen from his country by way of punishment. It is but a method of enforcing the return to his own country of an alien who has not complied with the conditions … which the Government of the nation … has determined that his continuing to reside here shall depend. He has not, therefore, been deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, and the provisions of the Constitution securing the right of trial by jury and prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures and cruel and unusual punishments have no application.

According to this decision, which still holds in court today, deportation is an administrative procedure which ensures that people abide by the terms of their visas. When they do not, they face the possibility of being returned to their countries of origin.

The 1893 Fong Yue Ting decision continues to prevail today even though, when that decision was made, deportation looked very different. At that time, the statute of limitations on deportation meant that after a year in the United States people were no longer subject to deportation. In addition, there was no interior enforcement of immigration laws, meaning that deportation nearly always applied to people arriving in the United States, not to long-term residents. Today, however, the situation is quite distinct, with no statute of limitations on deportations, and the frequent removal of long-term residents of the United States.

The rationale behind this decision is that immigration is a matter of national security and sovereignty and thus remains in the domain of the Executive and Legislative Branches.

Immigration is a matter of national security when we think of who the United States allows to enter the country. And, in 1893, the Fong Yue Ting decision applied nearly exclusively at the border, as there was no interior enforcement of immigration laws. Yet, today, increasing numbers of immigrants are removed from their homes in the United States. In addition, deportation has become an extension of the criminal justice system, especially with the merging of criminal and immigration law enforcement we have seen in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.

Thus we have a situation where we are relying on a doctrine based on national security to tear long-term residents of the United States from their homes, families, and communities. In addition, deportation is becoming a collateral consequence of criminal convictions that is meted out only to non-citizens and without the due process protections provided in the criminal justice system.

Immigration law is civil, not criminal, and this fact brings with it severe consequences for immigrants. As immigration proceedings are not criminal proceedings, people facing deportation are not granted the due process protections we see in criminal proceedings.

Racism in Immigration Enforcement

2011-05-26T17:39:00.001-07:00

In spite of ICE’s official stance condemning racial profiling (U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement), emerging ethnographic evidence indicates that there is systemic racism in immigration enforcement. In particular, Afro-Caribbeans and Latinos are especially likely to be targeted by immigration enforcement measures and deported from the United States (Fussell forthcoming; Golash-Boza 2012; Hoyt 2011). For example, ethnographic research by Joe Heyman (2001) demonstrates that INS (now ICE) agents at the U.S.-Mexico border use stereotypes to classify immigrants into categories of offenders. Heyman reports, “An INS investigator (a former Border Patrol officer) spoke of ‘Jose Mexican, I mean Jose alien’ to represent a humble, hard-working, nonviolent, but illegal immigrant. Certain other nationalities are supposed to be more dangerous. The same officer said about criminal aliens, ‘tell me the nationality, I’ll tell you the crime’” (2001:131).

Nationwide, immigrants from Latin America make up about 75 percent of the total unauthorized immigrant population, but they have accounted for over 90 percent of deportees since 2000 (Fussell forthcoming; U.S. Department of Homeland Security 2009). Mexicans make up 59 percent of the undocumented U.S. population, but have constituted between 65 and 80 percent of deportees each year between 2000 and 2009 (Fussell forthcoming; see also Passel and Cohn 2009). Tanya Golash Boza (2012) found that Central Americans are many times more likely to be deported than Asians, who make up just under a quarter of the undocumented population; she reports that undocumented Hondurans have a ten percent chance of being deported and undocumented Guatemalans have a five percent chance; in contrast, unauthorized Vietnamese, Koreans, Filipinos, Indians, and Chinese all have less than a one percent chance of being deported (2012:89). Golash Boza concludes that immigration enforcement especially targets Afro-Caribbean petty drug dealers and undocumented Latinos with “immigration agents us[ing] racial profiling to deport as many people as possible” (2012:83).

Studies of local immigration enforcement practices have also found evidence of racial profiling. One study conducted in Irving, Texas by the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute found that, following the 2006 establishment of a partnership between local law enforcement and ICE, arrests of Latinos for minor offenses, particularly traffic violations, increased markedly. The study also found that local police arrested Latinos for misdemeanor offenses in significantly higher numbers than they arrested whites and African Americans. The authors conclude that there is “strong evidence” to support the charge that local law enforcement officials used racial profiling of Latinos in order to screen them for immigration violations (Gardner II and Kohli 2009).

In McHenry County, Illinois, a 2011 Chicago Tribune investigation found that county police officers were misreporting the race of people they stopped in order to hide widespread racial profiling and detention of Latinos. The Tribune analysis showed that in 2009, one in three Latinos was either mislabeled as white or omitted from department data altogether; if included, the department’s official rate of minority stops would have have been 65 percent higher than in nearby Chicago (Mahr and McCoppin 2009). Since McHenry County is one of several Illinois counties enrolled in ICE’s Secure Communities program, anyone who is arrested by county police is automatically run through the DHS database; if there is a “hit,” that person may be detained and taken into custody by ICE, regardless of whether he or she is ultimately convicted of any crime. Thus, disproportionate arrests of Latinos in McHenry County increases their chance of deportation relative to other immigrant groups.

Perhaps the most well known argument regarding racial profiling in immigration enforcement has occurred in the debates surrounding Arizona’s SB 1070. The original provisions of SB 1070 would have required police throughout Arizona to investigate the immigration status of anyone they have “reasonable suspicion” of being undocumented, but it left open how “reasonable suspicion” of a person’s immigration status would be determined. Supporters of the bill assured the public that skin color would not be a determining factor and that police would be trained to look at other characteristics, such as clothing and non-verbal behaviors, that are putatively indicative of undocumented status. These assurances brought derision from the bill’s critics, who argued that race would become the de facto criterion for questioning by police (see Golash Boza 2012; Heyman 2010). A federal judge ultimately determined that this provision of SB 1070 was unconstitutional, but the proliferation of “copycat” legislation in states across the country ensures the continuation of heated debates about racial profiling in immigration enforcement.

In fact, a “Mexican appearance” has been grounds for detention by immigration authorities in the past (for example, in sweeps during the Great Depression and in 1954’s Operation Wetback; see Gutierrez 1995), and it continues to be a predictor of a person’s likelihood of detention and deportation, as shown above. In wider society, racialization of Latinos in conjunction with widespread anti-immigrant sentiment has led to a rise in discrimination and hate crimes against Latinos (Chavez 2008). Surveys of Latinos in 2006 reported that the majority (54 to 76 percent) perceive an increase in discrimination as a result of immigration policy debates (Campo-Flores 2006; Suro and Escobar 2006). Federal crime statistics indicate that these perceptions are well-founded: attacks on Latinos in the U.S. surged 40 percent from 2003 to 2007 (Urbina 2009). In all, these studies confirm that popular imaginaries of the prototypical “illegal immigrant” map onto a racialized Latino phenotype, converting Latinos throughout the United States into the main targets of immigration enforcement measures.

We are all criminals

2011-05-26T05:04:00.000-07:00

Let he (or she) who has never broken the law hurl the first insult.

One of the most popular refrains we hear these days about undocumented migrants is that they are criminals because they broke the law. Those who defend undocumented migrants point out that crossing the border is the statutory equivalent of driving without a valid license or jaywalking. And, who has never jaywalked? More pointedly, would you blame someone for jaywalking if they ran across the street to prevent a child from being hit by a car?

There are plenty of people who stand up for undocumented migrants and insist that they are not criminals, just hardworking folks who came to this country for a better life. However, there are fewer people who advocate for “criminal aliens” – immigrants who have committed a crime, and face deportation because of their criminal convictions. When I write a post about a legal permanent resident who has lived in the United States for nearly all their life yet who faces deportation for selling drugs, using drugs, or shoplifting, a prevalent response is: “They broke the law and must face the consequences.” Another response I get is: “Why are you standing up for those immigrants who break the law? Their law-breaking activity is an insult to hard-working, law-abiding Americans.”

The fact of the matter is that most Americans, hard-working, or lazy, have broken the law at some point in their lives. More than half of Americans have use or sold illegal drugs. If we take into account prescription drug abuse, the percentage of people who have broken drug laws is even higher. Most Americans have shoplifted. Others have omitted information from tax forms, taken office supplies home from work, urinated in public, defaced public property, consumed alcohol under the age of 21, or used a false ID to get into a club. The United States is a land of laws and nearly every American has broken one. In fact, nearly every person in the United States has committed an offense that would make them deportable, if they are not U.S. citizens.

Law-breaking in the United States is so prevalent that police officers could not possibly arrest, charge, and prosecute each law-breaker. Drug laws represent a particularly poignant case. Law enforcement agents cannot fully enforce drug laws because drug use and selling are too widespread. As Michelle Alexander notes in her book, The New Jim Crow, more than half of the people in the United States have violated drug laws at some point in their lives, yet relatively few have been punished for this. In any given year, about ten percent of American adults violate drug laws. In 2002, for example, there were 19.5 million illegal drug users. In that same year, 1.5 million people were arrested for using drugs, and 175,000 people were admitted to prison for a drug offense. As law enforcement agents have neither the resources nor the mandate to prosecute every law-breaker, they must be strategic with their resources and enforcement tactics. Being strategic often means focusing law-enforcement efforts on open air drug markets in African-American and Latino communities, while leaving primarily white suburban drug dens alone.

Most people in the United States have broken the law, yet only a few are punished. Punishing every single law-breaker is neither possible nor desirable. Just imagine for a minute what would happen if all 19.5 million drug users were arrested, prosecuted, and jailed. Imagine the families that would be broken apart, the jobs that would be lost, the businesses that would be destroyed. As it is, we are already harsher than most countries when it comes to drug laws. When we look at the total number of prisoners in the United States, our prison population dwarfs that of other, much larger, countries. In 2009, the United States had 2,292,133 people behind bars www.prisonstudies.org . The country with the second highest number of prisoners was China, with 1,650,000 prisoners, followed by Russia, with 809,400, Brazil with 496,251, and India came in fifth place, with 384,753. Much of this disparity is due to the War on Drugs. In most other developed countries, a first time drug offense would lead to no more than six months in jail. In the United States, the typical mandatory minimum sentence for a first-time drug offense in federal court is five or ten years.

The truth is we are all criminals. Only some of us are prosecuted. Most of us walk free.

Our criminal records are a reflection of whether or not we have been caught committing a crime. They are not an accurate reflection of our actual criminal activity. If we define criminals as anyone who has broken the law, nearly all of us are criminals.

I hope we can keep this in mind as we move forward towards immigration reform and away from mass incarceration and mass deportation.

When Immigrants Report Crimes: What the alleged rape of a Guinean immigrant by the head of the IMF tells us about Secure Communities

2011-05-19T08:41:00.000-07:00

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, has been accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in her place of employment. In the aftermath of the alleged assault, the maid immediately notified hotel staff. By the time law enforcement agents arrived, Strauss-Kahn had left the hotel.

The maid is a 32-year old woman from Guinea who was granted asylum in the United States. It is not clear at this moment what her immigration status is. When I heard about the case, I thought to myself, “I sure hope she is legally present in the United States.” I have no reason to believe that she is not legally present, but let’s imagine for a moment that she is not.

This incredibly brave woman did not run and hide after being attacked by a powerful white man. Instead, she reported the incident to the hotel staff and to law enforcement officials. Because of this, he was arrested and is currently being detained by law enforcement officials.

She may or may not know this, but women like her who have reported such incidents to the police have been detained and deported. María Bolaños called the police to report a case of domestic violence. When the police showed up at her house, they arrested her on the suspicion that she was selling phone cards. She now faces deportation.

This cooperation between criminal and immigration law enforcement is part of the Secure Communities Program. Since it began in 2008, Secure Communities has led to the deportation of 101,741 immigrants. About a quarter of those deported (26,473) had been convicted of serious crimes. More (29,296), however, had not been convicted of any crimes at all prior to being deported. Instead, they had an encounter with police officers that did not lead to any criminal conviction. This is similar to the encounter that this Guinean immigrant is having with law enforcement agents. Reporting a crime requires contacting law enforcement.

The woman who Strauss-Kahn allegedly attacked will now face public scrutiny. If her immigration status comes into question, she could face deportation.

This case is telling of what could happen when law enforcement officials cooperate with immigration agents. In the United States, cooperation between criminal and immigration law enforcement has become the norm. This does not bode well for the victims of crimes, who may face deportation if and when they report these crimes.

Originally posted on: Counterpunch

The Border Thickens: In-Securing Community in Champaign-Urbana and Beyond

2011-05-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

By Gilberto Rosas

The despotic policing apparatus found at the U.S.-Mexico border now reaches into Champaign County and across much of the United States. Under federal initiatives "Secure Communities" and related police-ICE collaborations, local law enforcement agencies in communities across the United States have been enlisted in the enforcement of immigration laws. Indeed, the apprehension of “the undocumented” through the criminal justice system is now the primary focus for enforcement. In the last 3 years ICE (Immigration and Custom Enforcement of the US Department of Homeland Security) has rounded up over half a million people through such Criminal Alien Programs. Yet, there is no legal definition of what a criminal alien is.

“Secure Communities” is in effect in more than 1,000 jurisdictions in 40 states, including locally. The plan is to take it nationwide by 2013. This prerogative was once exclusively reserved for the federal government and the nation’s largest militarized police force, the Border Patrol. "Secure Communities" is an automated screening system. Fingerprints of presumably everyone booked into participating jails are run through vast immigration databases. ICE agents then are supposed to have 48 hours to pick up those deemed “criminal aliens” to process them for deportation.
In Champaign County, consular forms that are designed to protect foreign nationals by alerting their representatives of their arrests and that are given to foreign nationals once they enter the County Jail have become the modus operandi for in-securing community. The Immigration and Criminal Justice Working Group, comprised of local community members, students, and faculty, has discovered that in Champaign county these forms are being shared with ICE.

Moreover, although “Secure Communities” was ostensibly designed to find and deport illegal immigrants found guilty of serious crimes, concerns have emerged that a significant number of arrestees hold no criminal record through February 2011. Over 50% in Illinois of those deported through “Secure Communities” were of non-criminal status as of September 30, 2010. 71% of those arrested and processed through "Secure Communities" were not criminals. Moreover, 66% of the deported were not criminals. Indeed, the aforementioned working group found that an overwhelming majority of the "Secure Communities" related arrests are for minor offenses, such as having no car insurance or lacking a Driver’s license. Traffic stops and other mundane elements of policing so taken for granted in daily life thus now sow terror among the undocumented community. The undocumented can be ripped from the fabric of their communities and deported to places that they haven't lived in many years.

"Secure Communities," related ICE-police collaborations, and the insecurity it generates on marginalized communities, must be situated in a cauldron of white supremacy, capital flows, and political violence infusing immigration law and its exercise. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, for example, limited the availability of Chinese laborers as southern landowners then sought to replace these workers with black migrants, but they encountered significant popular resistance. Later, business interests experimented with Japanese labor, and Filipino labor. Notably the Border Patrol emerged from the paramilitary police force of the Texas Rangers, an organization that terrorized Black, indigenous, and Mexican people. It was established in the 1920s, days after the passage of the National Origins Act of 1924, which implemented a system of national quotas to protect “American racial stock from further degradation or change through mongrelization” and which outlawed virtually all ‘immigration’ from the western hemisphere. It is further revealing that the US Border Patrol, from 1924 - when it was first created - until 1940, operated under the auspices of the Department of Labor. By the late 1920s, the Border Patrol had very quickly assumed its distinctive role as a special police force for the repression of foreign, all-too-often, Mexican workers in the US. Indeed, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) or ICE’s predecessor once estimated that Mexicans comprise 54 percent of all undocumented migrants in the United States. Yet, modern organized vigilance and enforcement against ‘illegal aliens’ has been primarily directed against Mexicans.

Since at least the late 1970s military strategies and tactics derived from low intensity conflict doctrine have been incorporated into immigration policing in the southwestern United States. On the eve of the implementation of NAFTA, which liberalized the flows of commodities, flora, and fauna, across the borders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, dramatic militarized border policing campaigns occurred in regions surrounding El Paso, and later in south Texas, San Diego and Arizona. A 1990s government document warned that said campaigns would make undocumented crossings perilous, exposing "illegal aliens" to "increased violence," and ostensibly diminishing them. Instead, approximately 5,000 corpses and countless other human remains have been found in the “killing deserts” of Arizona and other regions of the Southwest. And, undocumented migrants in the borderlands now become subject to United States’ own death squads, such as the Minutemen and other nativist vigilante groups. Nevertheless, the vast majority of “undocumented” migrants succeed in crossing, having been violently inaugurated to the subordinate position in the US economic and racial order. “Secure Communities” and related police-ICE collaborations serve to reinforcing their subordination, effectively thickening the border.

Nevertheless, community groups in Champaign Urbana and across the country have mobilized and intervened. Vast networks of activists have held trainings on “Secure Communities” and related programs. Recently, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn bowed to political pressure and sought to end our state’s participation in this program. But the federal government has held that participation in “Secure Communities” is mandatory. Recent efforts have been made to inform law enforcement that of the problems with “Secure Communities” and related ICE-police collaborations. They risk alienating the undocumented community and their allies from local law enforcement. On March 31, a well-attended Foro Comunitario or community forum was held. Local community members explained the stakes and processes of "Secure Communities" to the public. That is to say, just as the mammoth policing practices that characterize the US-Mexico border severs community and its “thickening” can render other communities all too insecure, borders also serve as bridges. They bring people together who can imagine a better, ultimately borderless, world.

Report Calls Attention To Inadequate Access to Legal Counsel in New York

2011-05-04T11:04:00.000-07:00

The rights to due process and judicial review are fundamental to the democratic tradition in the United States. The purpose of the due process clause is to ensure that the government does not act arbitrarily, and that any person facing a denial of life, liberty, or property is given a fair trial and the right to appeal the decision. Few Americans are aware that these Constitutional protections are not universal: in many cases they do not apply to non-citizens. People who are not U.S. citizens can be arrested without a warrant, detained without a bond hearing, and deported without legal representation. The reason for this is that immigration removal proceedings – the process through which individuals are deported – are civil, not criminal, proceedings.

The National Lawyers Guild has recently issued a report, titled: “Fundamental Fairness: A Report on the Due Process Crisis in New York City Immigration Courts” which highlights a variety of ways that people facing deportation are not provided with due process in immigration courts. The report is drawn from 414 summaries of immigration hearings law students observed in New York City. One of the primary findings of this report is that inadequate access to legal counsel is rampant in New York City immigration courts, and that this inadequacy has serious consequences.

The authors note that over half of the people facing deportation had some contact with the criminal justice system prior to their immigration proceedings. Many were arrested for minor offenses and then handed over to the immigration system. They note one case where a legal permanent resident whose parents and child are U.S. citizens was ordered deported after living in the United States for 36 years because of drug possession. Nearly all (90%) of the deportation proceedings they witnessed involved people who had lived in the United States for at least ten years. Nearly a third had lived in the United States for twenty years.

Despite these strong connections to the United States, many of these people had been detained and were ordered deported, in part due to inadequate translation services and legal representation. The report notes severe problems with professionalism among interpreters, many of whom expressed anti-immigrant views in the courtroom. In addition, 71% of the hearings involved people who were detained while awaiting their deportation hearing. The average time the people in the hearings had been in detention was 11 months; some had been in immigration detention for up to five years.

Immigrants facing deportation can be released on bond. However, individuals with criminal convictions may not be eligible for bond. And, people need legal representation to avoid having their bonds set too high. This report documents many cases where the lack of legal representation meant that people were given bonds of $10,000, which they could not afford. Of the 57 bond hearings the observers attended, there were nine where attorneys were not prepared or not present. In one of these cases, the Immigration Judge set the bond at $25,000.

The inadequate representation by attorneys is shocking in this report. I have spoken with many deportees who complained that they spent thousands of dollars on lawyers to no avail. It is hard for me to be sure that the people I spoke with fully understood the agreements they had with their lawyers, and the extent to which their lawyers outright swindled them. This report makes it clear that adequate legal representation is a big problem. Nearly one out of five respondents had no legal representation at all, leaving them to navigate the morass which is immigration law themselves. Even those who had lawyers did not always do well. There were 24 cases where the lawyer did not show up; 44 cases where the defense attorney either did not file documents or filed the wrong documents; and many cases where the attorney was clearly unprepared.

In a telling instance, the report mentions a case where an immigration judge indicated that he “would have been willing to cancel a removal but the respondent’s attorney failed to produce any documentation or witnesses to support such a decision.” In light of the fact that deportation can complete devastate people’s lives and the families they leave behind, this is abhorrent.

This excellent report sheds further light on the importance of restoring due process protections to the immigration courts. Deportation can have serious consequences and it is unconscionable that people face deportation without adequate access to legal representation.

Jamaicans Targeted for Deportation

2011-05-02T08:51:00.000-07:00

Victor emigrated to the U.S. from Jamaica when he was five. He joined his mother and sister, who already lived in Brooklyn, and started school right away. Kids teased him: they called him coconut and said he came over on a banana boat. He had his first fight in elementary school, when another student threw a chicken bone at him during lunch.

By the time Victor got to high school, the taunting stopped, because he was indistinguishable from the other young black men in Brooklyn. When he graduated in the 1990s from an overcrowded, underequipped, and drug-ridden high school, Victor wanted the life his mother wanted for him, a life free from the poverty they knew both in Kingston and in Brooklyn. “I started seeing my mother struggling,” he says “and I just wanted to help.”

Victor earned little money, however, at his record store job. He decided to sell marijuana to make ends meet, and his life quickly turned sour. He was caught, charged with felony possession of marijuana, and put on probation at age 18. With a felony on his record, finding a job became next to impossible, though as a legal permanent resident, Victor could work. Department stores wouldn’t even hire him during the holiday season, “when they were giving out jobs,” he recalls. “I feel that one charge took my life through stigma,” he says. He went back to selling marijuana, and when he was caught again, he got a four-year prison sentence for violating probation. After that, the almost-native Brooklynite faced an even harsher sentence: Victor was deported to Jamaica, taking his place among the 30,000 deportees there who once lived in the U.S.

The story of Jamaican deportation is not a tale one familiar with Jamaican immigrants would expect to hear. Most of our cultural lore about Jamaican immigrants focuses on their economic successes, triumphant stories that are too often held up in contrast to what’s perceived as the lesser achievements of African-Americans. All this attention on West Indian economic success, however, obscures stories like Victor’s, which are in fact all-too-common.

Read the rest at: http://thepublicintellectual.org/2011/05/02/jamaicans-targeted-for-deportation/

Born in the Bahamas, Raised in the United States, Deported to … Haiti?

2011-04-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

As someone who writes about deportation, I hear and write about heartbreaking stories on a regular basis. Trust me, then, when I say that the deportation of people born in the Bahamas from the United States to Haiti is just about as bad as it gets.

Here’s the scenario. When Haitian citizens have children in the Bahamas, and they are in that country illegally, the children are Haitian citizens. If those children subsequently come to the United States and commit a minor or major criminal offense, they face deportation to Haiti.

There is a woman currently in immigration detention in Northern Florida. Seth Freed Wessler interviewed her, and he calls her Natalia, so I will do the same. Natalia was born in the Bahamas to a Haitian woman, which makes her a citizen of Haiti, even though she has never been to Haiti. When Natalia was two days old, her mother brought her to the United States. Fast forward twenty years. Natalia, now the mother of a newborn, is caught shoplifting with the father of her child. Her attorney advises her to plead guilty to get a lesser sentence. She does. However, now she faces deportation to Haiti. The United States is the only country Natalia has ever known. She does not speak Haitian Creole. Yet, she faces deportation to Haiti, a country still recovering from a massive earthquake, with political unrest, and a cholera outbreak.

The Los Angeles Times reports on a similar case. Patrick Escarment was born in the Bahamas to a Haitian woman. When he was four years old, she brought him to the United States. His mother died when Patrick was a young man, and he turned to selling cocaine during those tough times. He was convicted of selling cocaine, and sentenced to 18 months of probation. In January 2011, at the age of 21, he was deported to Haiti. Upon arrival, he was placed in a squalid holding cell covered with feces, urine, blood and vomit. One of the other deportees with whom he arrived, 34-year old Wildrick Guerrier, died of cholera-like symptoms two weeks after arriving in Haiti.

Deporting people born in the Bahamas and raised in the United States to Haiti for minor criminal offenses is a clear example of a punishment that does not fit the crime. Both Patrick and Natalia have children in the United States - children who will grow up without one of their parents. The suggestion that they take their children with them to Haiti is unrealistic, as they can barely survive in the country themselves. Both Patrick and Natalia were convicted of fairly minor crimes, and the punishment of exile from the only country they have ever known is exceedingly harsh. Moreover, they are being deported to Haiti, a country they know nothing about, have no ties to, and whose language they do not speak. That would be bad enough, but, to top things off, Haiti is still recovering from a massive earthquake and has a cholera epidemic.

Cross-posted at Counterpunch.

Stop Deportations to Haiti

2011-04-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

The United States deports, on average, over one thousand people each day. Nearly all of these deportees are Latin American or Caribbean nationals. In many cases, deportees are torn from their families and sent to countries where they have no social or cultural ties, and must rely on their families in the United States for their survival.

One of the most pernicious examples is the deportation of long-time residents of the United States to Haiti. On January 12, 2010, Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake. Because of the devastation, the break-down of government, and the destruction of the prison where deportees were held, the United States suspended deportations to Haiti.

However, just one year after the earthquake, in January 2011, the U.S. government resumed deportations, and twenty-seven men were deported to Haiti, where Haitian officials detained them in cells full of feces, vomit and blood. Wildrick Guerrier, a 34-year old deportee, died of cholera-like symptoms two weeks after arriving in Haiti. Guerrier had been a legal permanent resident of the United States for nearly twenty years, and was ordered deported after serving 18-months in prison for possessing a firearm. Despite the continuing cholera epidemic, the absence of a commitment from Haiti not to detain deportees, and the lack of infrastructure in Haiti, in April 2011, the United States deported 19 more Haitian citizens. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has urged the United States to resume its moratorium on such deportations.

Sign the petition to stop deportations to Haiti:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/383/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6590

All Kansas Workers Deserve Living Wages

2011-04-14T06:22:00.000-07:00

Kris Kobach, in a speech at the Lied Center at the University of Kansas Tuesday night, argued that undocumented migrants are an economic burden because they have low levels of education and earn low wages. As low-wage workers, they are often dependent on government services for their and their family’s well-being.

Photo credit: Oh!Snap! Photography

This is an appealing argument for why Kansans should be concerned about the economic impact of undocumented migrants in our state. However, it ignores two crucial points.

First, government subsidies of low-wage workers are necessary for the well-being of Kansas families primarily because low-wage workers don’t earn enough to survive. Placing the blame on low-wage workers for their low salaries is equivalent to blaming the victim of a mugging for walking outside. Low-wage workers have low salaries because employment laws allow their employers to pay them less than a living wage. The government subsidies they receive – food stamps, Medicaid, subsidized housing and the like – are really subsidies to their employers who earn enormous profits off the backs of low-wage workers yet refuse to pay them a living wage or provide benefits.

Second, the figures that Kobach cites include government benefits for the U.S. citizen family members of undocumented migrants. Kansas spends local, state, and federal money to educate and nourish the U.S. citizen children of undocumented migrants because educating and nourishing Kansans is an excellent investment in our future. For this reason, Kansas children – regardless of their or their parents’ legal status – are welcome in Kansas schools. Refusing to educate Kansas children would be disastrous fiscally, socially, and morally. Kansas also spends money to provide food for Kansas children because nourishing our children is crucial to our future as a healthy society. When undocumented migrants don’t earn enough money to provide food for their families, their children born in the United States may qualify for food stamps, free school lunches and other food subsidies. Kansas spends money feeding our children because it would be unthinkable to do otherwise. In addition, food stamps and other food subsidies directly benefit Kansas farmers.

Kobach argues that we can’t have high numbers of immigrants in a welfare state. However, we don’t have a welfare state; we have a corporate welfare state. The few crumbs that our government throws at the poor are the minimum necessary to maintain their survival; they are essential to keep the working poor alive and working. In contrast, the huge subsidies given to the already wealthy serve to keep our society unequal and unjust.

It is unconscionable that we allow employers to pay Kansans less than they need to provide for their families. It is unacceptable that we fail to treat fellow Kansans as less then fully human simply because the federal government refuses to grant them legal residence. As Kansans, it is incumbent upon us to do all we can to nourish and educate our children.

LAND Protest against Kris Kobach's talk at University of Kansas

2011-04-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

The University of Kansas School of Business has invited Kris Kobach to speak on the economic and security impact of undocumented immigration in Kansas.

Kris Kobach helped draft SB 1070 - a law in Arizona that, if implemented, will lead to racial profiling and civil and human rights violations in the state. Many provisions of SB 1070 continue to be on hold, as the courts have not yet determined if the law is actually constitutional. Meanwhile, Kris Kobach has raked up $6.6 million dollars in legal fees defending this and similar legislation.

Kobach's invitation is cause for concern among many community members in Lawrence, and the Lawrence Action Network for diversity has planned a peaceful protest.

I am quoted in this report from KMBZ about the protest and Kris Kobach's proposals.

Kobach has been an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration and helped draft controversial legislation on the matter in Arizona. His involvement in outlining that law has a group in Lawrence concerned, and they'll voice their opinions in the parking lot of KU's Lied Center before Kobach speaks tonight.

Tonya Golash-Boza with the Lawrence Action Network for Diversity, points out that in many cases the illegal immigrants that would face deportation have children that were born in the U.S.

"Many children of undocumented migrants," said Golash-Boza, "have grown up in the United States and have lived here for 10 to 15 years, and the idea that U.S. citizens should just go back to Mexico, we find that pretty startling, pretty shocking."
Golash-Boza says they want to make sure all the facts about immigrations in Kansas are on the table, not just Kobach's views.

Join LAND at the Lied Center at 6pm to help spread the truth about who profits from undocumented immigrants and immigration law enforcement.

No Dogs or Illegals Allowed: Racial Exclusion in a Colorblind Era

2011-03-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

In the 1950s and 1960s, it was common to see signs in Texas that read: “No dogs, Negros or Mexicans allowed.”

Civil rights legislation put an end to such signs. In the current post-civil rights era, it is no longer legally or morally permissible to express overt discrimination towards Mexicans or any other racial or ethnic group.

In today’s political context, however, it is acceptable to insist that undocumented migrants – and even their U.S. born children – should not be allowed in this country.

In July 2010, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) proposed a bill that would end the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of citizenship for everyone born in the United States. As of today, 130 Senators have indicated they support this bill.

Since the inception of the United States, jus soli – the idea that citizenship is determined by birthplace - has prevailed as the law of the land. The only exceptions to birthright citizenship have been racial. The first piece of U.S. legislation regarding who could be a citizen was passed in 1790, granting citizenship to all whites born in the United States. It was not until the 14th Amendment was passed in 1868 that blacks were granted citizenship. The 14th 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.”

The 14th Amendment granted birthright citizenship to blacks and whites born in the United States. However, the Supreme Court had to clarify in U.S v. Wong Kim Ark in 1898 that all native-born children of aliens - even the Chinese - were indeed citizens of the United States.

Today’s demands to repeal birthright citizenship do not have a clear racial bias like those of the 19th century, when it was acceptable to make outright claims to exclude Native Americans, blacks, and the Chinese from citizenship. Instead, today’s demands are under the guise of “Let’s not give citizenship to illegals.” Or, “Let’s protect our nation by preventing anchor babies.” The language has changed insofar as it is no longer explicitly racial. However, the sentiment is the same.

In 1790, when our founders imagined who would be citizens of the United States, they had propertied white men in mind. Those proponents of ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented migrants share this ideal as to who belongs to the nation.

This vitriol can be seen in the comments of Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican state representative from Pennsylvania, who argued: “We want to bring an end to the illegal alien invasion that is having such a negative impact on our states.”

When Metcalfe and other pundits call for an end to an “illegal alien invasion,” they have a very specific group in mind: Mexicans and other Latin American immigrants. In fact, 95 percent of people who are deported from this country for immigration-related violations are Latinos or Caribbean immigrants.

It is no longer permissible to hang signs that declare “No Mexicans or Dogs Allowed.” Birthright citizenship and naturalization are available to all people in the United States, regardless of race. However, the idea that the United States is fundamentally a white nation has not gone away, and seeps into discourses about who is American and who belongs and who doesn’t. Instead of excluding Mexican and Chinese citizens from citizenship, we now hear claims to exclude “illegals” and their children.

The idea of race itself is based on the notion that moral and cultural characteristics are passed on from one generation to the next. Thus, the idea that we should exclude not only undocumented migrants, but also their children, is clearly a racialized argument. It is true that undocumented migrants do not have permission from the government to be here. But, their undocumented status does not define them. Current laws allow many undocumented migrants to eventually become citizens of this country. Calls to eliminate birthright citizenship work to essentialize illegality by making it a permanent feature of undocumented migrants, and something they pass along to their children. In effect, these calls racialize illegality.

Demonizing undocumented migrants for their transgression of immigration laws allows anti-immigrant activists to make racialized claims about who belongs and who does not belong to the nation. It is incumbent upon anti-racist activists to point out this racism and to promote the idea of a multi-ethnic nation – the sort of nation we actually always have been, despite white supremacist claims to the contrary.

Terrorism and Migration

2011-02-22T10:11:00.000-08:00

Few questions crystallize the overwhelming paradox of concentrated, institutional, violence and intense dramatic insecurity involved in projects of contemporary rule in the post-neoliberal era than those about terrorism and immigration. Contemporary anxieties about immigration hinge upon the assertion of sovereign failures; specifically, the failures to control borders and the unregulated movement of alien bodies, be they non-citizens or those imagined as non-citizens. Undocumented migration invites calls to further the militarization of the border and the heinous Arizona laws such as SB 1070, SB 2281, or the national welfare reforms of the 1990s which underscore the coded conflation of Latinos as irrevocably foreign, irrevocably different, revealing how longstanding discourses of the border and illegality render Latinos an irrevocable racial other. Conversely, whether speaking of Al Qaeda today, the dramatic spectacles of drug-related beheadings in Ciudad Juarez, or Pancho Villa yesterday, the term terrorism often hails deep-seated feelings of the moral rectitude of state rule, the iron fist of the military that protects it, and the imperial right of U.S. nation-state to preserve the statist status quo at all costs. Anxieties about undocumented migration and terrorism rely upon the haunting social antagonisms, those palpable feelings that positivist social science cannot register but that marginalized communities feel, experience, and grapple with in daily life, namely racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of subjugation, which the state marshals to exercise direct and indirect political violence. To be a terrorist is to be deemed officially killable; to be a migrant is to be deemed if not killable then expendable.

The current dramatic unease about immigration and terrorism unveil the white supremacist violence institutionalized in the US state. Crossing the border now entails navigating a militarized Border patrol, exposure to racist vigilantes, and to the "killing deserts" of the southwestern United States and northern Mexico (Rosas 2007). That is to say that when it comes to Latino communities in the United States it proves useful to challenge these widespread nervous states and instead turn to critical attention to state terror, to the state's awesome power to kill or let live those perpetually suspect, perpetually punishable, perpetually criminalized bodies, often cast 'terrorist,' 'illegal,' if not simply 'criminals,’ those embodying the racial lacunae of “living death" (Gomez 2007). A perverse mimesis between terrorist practices and states occur: certain human beings, such as Jose Padilla, a US citizen, a Latino, slips between the categories of terrorist and a "gang member and "lose" their civil rights as he and others become subject to certain legal regimes where they are rendered effectively non-citizens, and suggestive of a parallel with the non-citizen status of "illegal aliens." Such racialized conflations have occurred throughout US history: a U.S. Cabinet-Level Task Force on Terrorism, chaired by then Vice-President George Herbert Walker Bush, profiled “terrorists” in the following manner: “fully 60 percent of the Third World’s population is under 20 years of age; half are 15 or less. These population pressures create a volatile mixture of youthful aspirations that when coupled with economic and political frustrations help form a large pool of potential terrorists (Terrorism 1987:5). The report underscores a deep-seated anxiety or national insecurity about out-of-control youth crossing the international boundary into the United States. Mexicans in 19th century Texas suffered depredations at the hands of the Texas Rangers, as did blacks or native populations. Indeed Mexicans of nineteenth century Texas according to certain revisionist social historians were more likely to suffer racial lynching than blacks. Puerto Ricans and other communities of color were to political violence. And, would not the border bandits, such as Gregorio Cortez as documented in Americo Paredes' With a PIstol in his Hand (1971) not be considered terrorist today?

Why Did We Send Rice, Beans, and Sardines to Haiti When They Needed Cash?

2011-01-12T09:04:00.000-08:00

As I reflect on the fact that it has been a year since I felt my building tremble in Santo Domingo while Haiti experienced its worse tragedy in many decades, two things come to mind: 1) my first meal in Haiti and 2) the water truck in Port au Prince.

When I ventured to Haiti with a team from Fondation Avenir in the aftermath of the earthquake, we carried with us all sorts of provisions. We were concerned about the availability of food in Haiti. We packed dried mangoes, granola bars, canned mackerel, nuts, and a variety of other non-perishables for our personal consumption, along with bags of rice and beans and boxes of medicine for the Haitians who might need them.

Armed with a mini-van full of food, you can imagine my surprise when our first meal at a café in a middle class neighborhood of Port au Prince was a buffet. That’s right. For $15, you could fill your plate with all the rice, goat meat, chicken and vegetables you liked. My introduction to Haitian cuisine was delicious, but it made one thing clear: Haitians did not need planeloads of canned sardines, rice and beans. They needed access to cash. For those with cash, food was abundant in Port-au-Prince.

The second image that comes to mind is that of a water truck. In addition to foodstuffs, we had brought with us many gallons of drinking water. I purchased wet-wipes and alcohol-based hand cleaner, in case access to water became an issue for us. It did not. There was no running water in Port-au-Prince, but a truck filled with water came to fill up the water tank of the building where we were lodged. There were other water trucks on the streets of Port-au-Prince that sold five-gallon buckets of water for US$1 if you brought your own bucket.

When I saw the water truck, I recalled a scene from the Santo Domingo airport a few days prior. I watched a Spanish plane land on the tarmac whose cargo load was filled with 500 ml plastic bottles of water. What a tremendous waste of resources! Haitians did not need these plastic bottles to further pollute their land. They needed access to cash to purchase water from the water truck.

I was fortunate that I carried some cash with me to Haiti, as cash was indeed in short supply. The bank ATMs were out of service. The tellers were unable to make international transactions. No one was accepting credit cards. Without cash, the buffet meal and the water truck would have been out of my reach.

Access to cash was one of the greatest obstacles to survival for many Haitians. Haitians formed long lines at Western Union to receive money transfers. They waited all day to purchase and activate cell phones so they could contact relatives abroad, let them know they were alive, and ask for cash.

Cash, gourdes, dollars, hard currency. This is what Haitians needed so they could survive. Instead, they got tons of rice, beans and sardines – much of which remained stored at the airport due to distribution complications. Moreover, once Haitians got the dried food, they still needed cash to purchase water, oil, and fuel to cook a meal.

Cash would have been much easier to distribute and more effective. The World Bank has found that cash disbursements can be highly effective in the aftermath of a disaster. Despite their known efficacy, cash payouts were not common in Port-au-Prince in January 2010.

There are two principal reasons why in-kind donations are more common than cash, even though cash may be more effective. The first reason is that there may be a benefit to the donor to give in-kind donations. The dumping of surplus US rice on Haiti is a classic example of this. Post-disaster donations might work in a similar way, on a smaller scale. The second reason is that donors might feel better about giving in-kind donations as opposed to cash, as they can control the consequences of their giving, hoping to ensure the gift is used as the donor intended. Many people, for example, prefer to take canned food to a food drive than to give cash to beggars on the street.

Both of these potential reasons are highly problematic. I will not further explore them here. I simply will point out that, as we reflect on the response of the international community to this disaster, it is crucial to ask why so little direct cash assistance was sent to Haiti. Why didn’t we give Haitians cash so they could purchase their own food, water, and fuel?

Reposted from Counterpunch

Whither the DREAM: Reflections on the Senate Vote

2010-12-27T19:40:00.000-08:00

by Amalia Pallares

The dust has by no means settled and many of us who advocated for the DREAM act continue to struggle through periods of sadness and anger. Despite this, we also need to clear our heads long enough to try to reflect and analyze this outcome. One former student asked me the night after the vote to help her understand what happened. While I don’t even come close to having all the answers, I can offer a few initial observations:

1) The new South has remnants of the old south. The new south is often used to refer to a population that has shifted from primarily white and African American to add a substantial population of Latinos, most, but not all of them, recent immigrants who cannot yet vote. A new generation of academics studying immigrants in this context tell a mixed story of benevolent personal relations and institutional openness with moments of intense rejection and nativism. The term new south also connotes a post civil-rights movement south that is desegregated, where African Americans have more opportunity for mobility--although Katrina and its aftermath certainly raised some serious questions about the disempowerment of low income African Americans. A review of the map of Senators who voted for DREAM, however, tells a story of consistent rejection of DREAM in the region, to the point that some of the Dreamers are now referring to the Sessions-Hagan line as a clear demarcator of states’ positions on DREAM. No Republican from this region crossed over and Senator Kay Hagan, a Democrat from North Carolina, did. Clearly, these are also red states, so there is an overlap with partisanship, but I would sustain, based on the rhetoric coming out of some of the Southern congressmen, that their vote is also based on deeply held notions of citizenship that have been historically based on the exclusion of racialized others who should “learn their place.” I am not reclaiming a Southern exceptionalism that places most exclusionary racism in the South. It is not that the north does not engage in its own vitriolic practices of exclusion. Hazelton, Pennsylvania, Prince William County, Virginia are only two of several communities that have implemented laws designed to ostracize the undocumented. But it is in the south that the majority of senators representing the entire state can vote to exclude almost a million youth, thousands of them living in their states.

2) The border factor and the issue of flow. The border states of Arizona and Texas tend to be fixated on the border as the central issue that conditions all debate on immigration. Enforcement for them means stopping the flow, starting with the border and including family-sponsored migration. This is exemplified in Kay Bailey Hutchison’s main argument about why she opposed DREAM. She complained about the “chain migration” factor, claiming that the possibility that Dreamers could eventually claim relatives (even if it would take almost 20 years) was unacceptable. The idea that this family reunification would mean a dramatic increase in flow is a fallacy, as most of those requests would be made to regularize a small portion of the people who are already here without status. For these politicians, however, any possibility of further migration, and continuing flow runs contrary to their impossible imaginary of a closed border, which has at this point become a metaphor for shutting the flow (despite the fact that a significant number of undocumented immigrants did not cross the border).

There is no amount of border enforcement that seems to be enough for them, as Senator McCain stated after the HR 6080, the 600 million dollar border security bill, was passed this summer. Furthermore, border fortification is so central that they often fail to recognize other increases in enforcement as major gains. Nor do they readily acknowledge the decline in border crossing and migration rates and the significant increase in deportations. Because it is so large and porous, the border will never be addressed to their satisfaction. The increase in cartel-related violence, which targets immigrants more than any others, has been rhetorically intertwined with migration to make the migration threat loom larger. The irresponsible and unchecked reproduction by mainstream media of Jan Brewer’s claims about beheadings in Arizona is one of the most egregious examples. Furthermore, the reigniting of this border imaginary with Arizona’s HB 1070 has led national politicians to hold even more entrenched positions, as evidenced by both Senator Jon Kyl and Senator Hutchison’s rejection of DREAM despite having supported a previous version of it in the past. Most importantly, while the border factor may be dominant in these two states, it is not limited to them, as Alabama Senator Jeff Session’s and several other politicians’ statements about "border first" confirm.

3) Republican expansion and entrenchment. While the Republican gains in the recent midterm elections have been amply covered, the deepening and consolidation of power in Republican territory, has been less so. Matt Barreto’s column on the Dream votehttp://blog.latinovations.com/2010/12/20/guest-blogger-series-matt-barreto-senators-who-opposed-dream-act-may-face-latino-roadblocks-in-2012/ sheds some insight on this in the case of Texas, pointing out that after the election the State House is now two thirds Republican, needing only a simple majority to pass legislation. In fact two state representatives recently elected as Democrats switched to the Republican party this month, one of them Latino Aaron Peña who explained his decision by claiming that the Democratic decision had lost its conservative wing. The “common sense” explanation is that it has become impossible for Democrats in Texas to pursue their policy agendas is a Republican dominated state. This helps explain why, despite having a 37% Latino population, Texas Senators John Cornyn and Kay Hutchison did not feel compelled to cross over and vote for DREAM even as Texas Dreamers continued their hunger strike for weeks. It also may help explain why Republicans may not feel threatened by the possibility of losing to a Democrat if they vote for DREAM. Barreto states that to get reelected in 2012 Hutchison will need 20% of the Latino vote. This leads to several questions. Will Republican-leaning Latinos consider DREAM enough of a wedge issue to vote for a Democrat? Can any Democrat challenge Hutchison in such an entrenched Republican environment? Perhaps most importantly, is it possible that a pro-DREAM Republican could challenge her and win? Texas is not unique. Given the number of state houses that now have Republican majority and the key role Republican politicians will play in redistricting, perhaps it is time to think of figuring out how to wrest DREAM away from partisan lines and begin to identify and support potential pro-DREAM Republicans.

4) Democrats who have nothing to lose or fear if they break ranks--Barreto has also pointed out that in states with lower percentage of Latinos, there was a lower probability of support for DREAM. Moreover, most of the Democrats that did not support DREAM were primarily from states that have a Latino population of 3% or less, including Montana and West Virginia, while Nevada (Sen. John Ensign) and North Carolina ( Sen. Hagan) have a 9 and 8 % population, respectively. In these instances, the possibility of a Latino vote that could punish them is minor compared to the fear of alienating conservative white voters and losing their seat. Not even partisan pressure seems to have moved them to support DREAM. Each of these cases needs to be analyzed in greater detail, but these are instances in which the building of alliances and coalitions with non-Latino groups that have a strong foothold in these states is imperative.

5) A failed and lagged enforcement for legalization strategy- Much has been written in the past few days on the failure of Obama’s enforcement strategy, which has involved increasing enforcement in order to demonstrate that the administration is tough on enforcement. Additionally, the Democrats’ overwhelming approval of the border bill this summer in exchange for no immediate gains in legalization was predicated on an enforcement-first legalization later strategy that has failed miserably. It is also a significant step below the enforcement for legalization simultaneous exchange that the failed 2007 Senate Bill was based on. We had moved from a “tit for tat” position to a weaker “tit now in hopes that tat will come later” strategy, despite gains in the House and Senate and the election of a Democratic president.

However, while it is tempting to simply blame Democrats for a lack of commitment and movement early enough in the Obama administration (all true) it is also important to realize that this strategy was created, and appeared to make sense, in a different historical moment, when there was a significant group of Republicans supporting a comprehensive reform that included a temporary worker program that would have benefited their business-owning constituents. Back in those days, we used to divide Republican representatives into the pro-reform and anti-reform camps. The former, which included then President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, supported immigration reform as part of a larger pro-business agenda first, albeit wrapped in the cloak of “compassionate conservatism”. Reading old transcripts of John McCain begging his fellow senators to have some compassion is a jolting reminder of how dramatically and quickly circumstances have changed. Nowadays, we are in a different world and there is no Republican group that we can speak of that can play that mediating and negotiating role on which the enforcement/legalization strategy depended. And although it stopped making political sense three years ago, both politicians and, until fairly recently, many movement activists maintained the hope that this strategy would work.

Additionally, stepped-up enforcement has led to the increased criminalization of undocumented immigrants, rendering the battle of demonstrating their basic humanity even more difficult. And criminalizing the issue is self-perpetuating in itself. It only leads to a further reluctance to negotiate or exchange enforcement for anything. When was the last time you heard of an exchange between fighting crime and anything else? When was the last time you heard of a national or local voting to cut funds to battle crime because enough gains had been made? Criminalizing undocumented migration turns it into a non-negotiable issue for Republicans, who always campaign as being tough on crime. Because immigration had been criminalized, conservatives do not acknowledge the Obama administration's increased enforcement (as it would steal their thunder and constant promise to increase enforcement) nor feel any sense of obligation to support any form of legalization in exchange. The fact that they state that they will support some form of reform once enforcement is implemented to their satisfaction and/or the border is secure does not make it so. So let's recognize the enforcement for legalization strategy for the myth that it is and bury it once and for all.

As the immigrant rights movement looks ahead, it will probably have to develop a multilayered strategy that will include undoing some of the most pernicious outcomes of the enforcement strategy. As Maria de los Angeles Torres argued in a recent article, this should include pressuring President Obama to follow through on his stated commitment with changes that are possible by executive order. http://myemail.constantcontact.com/NiLP-Guest-Commentary--Obama--Immigration-and-HisLegacy.html?soid=1101040629095&aid=GmxLoEJJ-rw. This would include decreasing enforcement against immigrants with no criminal record and rethinking programs such as Secure Communities and 287G. Another strategy to halt excessive enforcement is the targetting of recent efforts by multiple states to emulate Arizona's SB 1070. The Dreamers are already planning state-level campaigns to challenge some of these initiatives.

In terms of DREAM the strategy needs to involve growing some level of Republican support for DREAM as well as finding a way of holding Democrats in states with lower Latino numbers accountable by pressing progressive white activists to commit to prioritizing DREAM (for more on this see Kyle de Beausset: http://www.citizenorange.com/orange/2010/12/obama-deporting-immigrants-so.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook). All the official endorsements, no matter how late in coming, need to be maintained and utilized, and new endorsements and commitments secured and mobilized. For example, in addition to getting more university presidents to sign on to petitions and statements, advocates should press for DREAM to be placed on the permanent legislative agenda of universities at all levels of government.

And let's be prepared for the unexpected. The common wisdom right now is that nothing will happen with DREAM for another two years, assuming it will come from Democrats as Obama prepares to run again. But remember that Republicans can only gerrymander so far. It is not entirely unlikely that the Republicans will at some point before the 2012 elections produce their own version of DREAM, much modified, perhaps barely recognizable.

And here I think, we may have to face the new terms of exchange, centered on the issue of flow. Flow is central for both those opponents fixated on the border and those who emphasize enforcement more broadly, and it became the salient issue in the debate of a bill that had already been adjusted by Democrats to minimize the cost of the bill. As Robert Suro has already suggested, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/23/AR2010122302215.html some Republicans may be persuaded to support some reform if undocumented immigrants are regularized to work, but do not have eventual access to citizenship. While it will raise issues of second-class citizenship, Suro suggests that it is worth a conversation and I have to agree. While it would be far from perfect, it would be better than a life with no status and no possibility of work for hundreds of thousands of youth. Change does come gradually in this country, as shown by the recently terminated Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, which was a negotiated outcome after Republican resistance to Bill Clinton's attempts to allow gays to serve openly in the military in the early 90s. Perhaps a more enlightened Congress would eventually adjust their status, just as Cuban refugees had theirs adjusted decades ago. Or perhaps the Supreme Court, the only branch of government that seems to be taking the human and civil rights of immigrants seriously, may one day rule it unconstitutional. These possibilities, however, would depend on Latinos continuing to grow and exercise their power, which is in the end, the most basic and important strategy of all.

An In-Class Project on Immigration Reform

2010-12-02T16:24:00.000-08:00

Today, I asked my students to use our class period to design and present a viable immigration reform proposal to the class. I think it went well, as the students were engaged in lively discussions amongst themselves and came up with a wide range of proposals. The one thing I would change next time is that I would make it less structured and ask more open-ended questions. I wanted to make sure that they understood what current immigration policy looks like, so I gave them a brief overview. They used those overviews to design their policy proposals. I think this limited them from developing more innovative policy changes. Anyway, here is the handout I gave in class:

Thursday, December 02, 2010 SOC 332 In-class assignment:

Group Presentations on Immigration Policy Reform:

Each group of 6 to 8 students will work together in class to come up with a viable immigration policy proposal that you present to the class in ten minutes.

Instructions:

Use your handout “Immigration Policy Overview” to guide your proposed changes to law.
Take each point, and decide if it will change or stay the same. If it will change, explain how it will change. Provide a justification either for changing it or keeping it the same.
Choose the person or people who will be the presenters for your group. You can have one person do the whole thing, each person take one point, however you think it will go best.
If you have a computer with you, you can make a power point presentation. You also can use any of the available media at the front of the classroom.
Write down the names of each of your group members and hand that in to Prof. Golash-Boza before you leave the classroom.

Evaluation:

- Your group will be assigned an overall group grade: between five and ten points, and this will count for today’s “weekly question.”

- You will be graded on:

o Completeness of your presentation: Did you cover all the points?

o How convincing are your justifications?

o Is the information provided accurate?

o Clarity and style of the presentation.

ADDRESS ALL OF THE FOLLOWING ISSUES:

ENTRY POLICIES: WHO CAN COME IN?

You are not allowed to enter the country on a permanent or temporary basis if:

How many immigrants?

You can become a permanent resident if you are…

You can become a permanent resident, based on quotas, in order of preference, if you are…

What should the preference order be? Family? Who? Same sex marriages? Employment?

EXIT POLICIES: WHO SHOULD LEAVE?

Everyone? People who have not been here x number of years? People who have committed crimes? Elderly? Young people? Students?

OTHER PROPOSALS?

More border enforcement? Less? More temporary visas? Fewer? More deportations? Fewer? DREAM Act? Amnesty?

Immigration Policy Overview (Page 2 of handout for reference)

There are two distinct paths into the country:

Permanent (immigrant): A lawful permanent resident who is eligible to work, to apply for US citizenship.

Temporary: diplomats, tourists, temporary agricultural workers, students, business personnel. Not eligible for citizenship, may not work or work only for a particular place, must leave when visas expire.

You are not allowed to enter the country on a permanent or temporary basis if:

You are convicted of a felony.

You have a history of drug abuse.

You have an infectious disease (syphilis, HIV, tuberculosis).

You may become a public charge.

These characteristics are also grounds for deportation once you have entered.

How many immigrants?

The US admits approximately 900,000 legal permanent residents every year (0.3% of US population).

The State Department issues 5 million visas authorizing temporary admission to the US.

You can become a permanent resident if you are…

A spouses or unmarried children (under 21 years) of a US citizen

You are the Parent of a US citizens aged 21 and older

These account for 43% of total legal permanent residents.

You can become a permanent resident, based on quotas, in order of preference, if you are…

1) the unmarried sons and daughters (aged 21 and older) of US citizens

2) a spouses or unmarried children of lawful permanent residents

3) a married son or daughter of US citizens

4) a brother or sister of US citizens aged 21 and over

These account for 23% of total legal permanent residents.

155,000 people become legal permanent residents each year who belong in 1 of 5 preference categories:

1) “Priority workers” with extraordinary ability in the arts, athletics, business, education or science;

2) Professionals with advanced degrees;

3) Skilled and unskilled workers in occupations deemed to be experiencing shortages;

4) “Special immigrants” such as ministers of religion;

5) People willing to invest at least $1 million in a business that create at least 10 new jobs in the US.

These account for 16% of all legal permanent residents.

You also can become a legal permanent resident if you

- Are declared a refugee (70,000 visas)

- Win the visa lottery (50,000 visas)

There are about 10 million undocumented migrants in the United States

Hundreds of thousands of migrants enter illegally each year

Hundreds of thousands of temporary visa holders overstay their visas each year.

Current proposed legislation:

1) Increase surveillance at the border (current spending: US$10 billion a year)

2) Increase deportations inside the United States (400,000 people a year. Cost: $5 billion a year.

3) Increase number of temporary, low-skill visas.

4) Allow undocumented migrants who qualify to legalize their status.

5) DREAM Act: Allow tens of thousands of undocumented youth who graduated from U.S. high schools to apply for legalization.

6) Other proposals?

China ranks second, after Mexico, in number of immigrants that come to the United States

2010-11-22T12:19:00.000-08:00

In 2009, about 165,000 Mexican citizens became legal permanent residents of the United States. That same year, about 64,000 Chinese citizens became legal permanent residents. In 2007, half as many Chinese citizens became legal permanent residents as did Mexicans. Although many people are not aware of this, China stands behind Mexico as the country that has sends the United States the most legal permanent residents. China also ranked tenth among countries that send the United States undocumented migrants, with an estimated 120,000 undocumented Chinese in the United States in 2009.

Chinese immigrants in the US predate many other immigrant groups: the large-scale migration of Chinese to the United States began when US contractors recruited laborers to build railroads in the mid-nineteenth century. Around the same time, recruiters in Hawaii brought tens of thousands of Chinese to work in agriculture and other industries.

Despite this early start, migration from China was slowed substantially for over a century, beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Between 1882 and 1943, when the Act was repealed, people from China who wished to migrate to the US had no legal way to do so. A few years after the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed, the Chinese Communist Party gained power and prohibited emigration from China until 1979. Seven years after China and the US resumed diplomatic relations, in 1986, the Chinese government lifted nearly all restrictions on immigration. Opening the border had immediate effects. For example, whereas in 1983 only 100 Chinese students studied abroad, by 1986, China had 100,000 students studying abroad.

Although China is a vast country, the majority of Chinese immigrants in the US come from just five of its thirty provinces. Prior to the 1940s, 90 percent of Chinese immigrants to the US came from Guangdong Province, which is somewhat isolated from the rest of China, yet close to large seaports, including Hong Kong. In fact, the majority of immigrants from China came from just one district within the province of Guangdong – Toishan. With time, these flows changed and by 1982, only 5 percent of emigrants came from Guangdong. This figure had gone down to 3 percent in 1995. By comparison, in 1982, less than two percent of Chinese immigrants came from Fuijan province, yet by 1995, this figure had gone up to 28 percent.

Most undocumented Chinese come from Fuijan province, and nearly all Fuijanese come from just three counties – Changle, Lianjiang, and Minhou – all of which are just opposite Taiwan. Many undocumented Chinese immigrants come over on Taiwanese fishing boats at great personal risk. They often come to work in Chinatowns in major cities, both in the garment industry and the tourist sector. Their Chinese-language skills and familiarity with Chinese culture make them ideal employees. For unscrupulous employers, their illegal status enhances their ability to abuse these employees, many of whom pay upwards of $30,000 for their trip to the US. The increase in emigration from Fuijan appears to be related to two factors. The first is its close relationship with Taiwan. The second is the increase in foreign capital investment in this province, up from $379 million in 1990 to $4.1 billion in 1995. The increase in capital investment by US firms strengthens ties between these provinces and the United States, and paves the way for emigration. These ties increase the likelihood of emigration because people are unlikely to migrate without strong linkages to their destination.

Large numbers of Chinese immigrants also come from Beijing and Shanghai, which have many universities. The fact that emigrants from Fuijan and Beijing represent different flows is evident in the fact that nearly all emigrants from Beijing are from the city, and 76.5 percent of them have some college education, as compared to emigrants from Fuijan, 65 percent of whom are rural, and less than 5 percent of whom have any college education. Immigrants from Fuijan are also much more likely to be undocumented.

All of the major emigrant sending areas in China are close to port cities, and many of these provinces have Special Economic zones. Of the four created in 1979, three were in Guangdong province, which is adjacent to Hong Kong, and the other zone was in Fuijan, and close to Taiwan.

A centuries-long history of migration in combination with strong economic and social ties and trade relations has translated into tens of thousands of Chinese nationals coming to the US each year through whatever legal or illegal means available to them.

Koreans Rank Seventh among Undocumented Migrants in the United States

2010-11-18T11:58:00.000-08:00

When most people in the United States think of undocumented migrants, few think of Koreans. However, in 2009, there were 200,000 undocumented Koreans in the United States, making Koreans the 7th most prominent nationality among undocumented migrants in the United States.

Koreans, like Mexicans, have a very long history of migration to the United States. Korean migration to the United States began in the early twentieth century. Over 7,000 Koreans migrated to Hawaii to work in sugar plantations between 1903 and 1905. In 1906, the Japanese imperial power prohibited emigration from Korea. Despite this prohibition, about 2,000 Koreans came to the United States between 1906 and 1923, mostly as picture brides for Korean laborers. Between 1924 and 1950, practically no Koreans came to the US, in light of the 1924 restriction on Asian immigrants. These restrictions were lifted during the aftermath of the Korean War (1950-1953), and more than 3,000 Koreans were admitted between 1950 and 1965, the vast majority of whom were wives of US servicemen stationed in Korea.

With the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, Koreans quickly became one of the largest immigrant groups in the US. In 1965, 2,165 Koreans entered the US. In 1970, 9,314 more came. In 1977, yet another 30,917 entered. Between 1975 and 1990, Korea sent more immigrants to the US than any other country with the exception of Mexico and the Philippines. Korean immigrants were relatively highly educated. Of those who came legally in the 1970s, nearly all were from large urban centers in Korea, and about thirty percent came on skills-based visas. The remaining seventy percent came on family reunification visas.

Korean migration was also motivated by continued participation of US corporations in Korea’s economy. Between 1962 and 1990, US Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) accounted for about a quarter of all FDI in the Republic of Korea. In 2002, US investment reached a peak, making up half of FDI flows in the Republic of Korea. The percentage of US corporations in the Republic of Korea ebbs and flows, giving way at times to Japan and the European Union, but has been a constant presence since the 1960s.

The long relationship between the United States and Korea, including labor recruitment in the early twentieth century, the Korean War, and strong business relationships, has created strong linkages between the two countries. Many Koreans looking to leave Korea see the United States as an ideal destination, and travel legally or illegally to the United States because of these linkages.

Most Koreans who are undocumented migrants in the United States did not cross the U.S. border surreptitiously, but came on temporary visas that they have overstayed. Undocumented Koreans often work in restaurants or sweatshops in undesirable conditions. Some are able to legalize their status on the basis of family ties in the United States, whereas others continue to live without legal documentation.

A Brief History of Mexican Migration to the United States

2010-11-17T12:25:00.000-08:00

A question many people in the United States might wonder is: Why do we have so many Mexicans in the United States? Any serious discussion of this question must start with the long history of Mexican migration to the United States.

Mexico is the largest single source country of immigrants in the United States, by far outweighing all other countries in terms of the sheer number of migrants and the long, sustained history of migration. Today, Mexicans account for over a quarter of the 12 million legal permanent residents in the United States, and over half of the 10 million undocumented migrants.

Mexico has a long tradition of exporting migrants to meet U.S. labor needs and to ease economic and political tensions at home. The United States has an equally long history of accepting Mexicans when their labor is needed, and sending them home when it is not.

The first Mexicans that came to be part of the United States never crossed any border. In 1848, the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which resulted in Mexico losing almost half of its territory. With this treaty, California, Nevada, Utah, Texas, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming became part of the United States.
During the Mexican revolution (1910-1920), many Mexicans came to the United States fleeing instability. This translated into a tripling of the Mexican immigrant population between 1910 and 1930, from 200,000 to 600,000. Immigration inspectors generally turned a blind eye to these flows, in recognition of the fact that Mexicans were providing much-needed labor. It was not until 1919 that Mexicans first had to apply for admission to the United States.

Mexicans continued to work in the United States until the Great Depression struck in late 1929, and the U.S. government mounted a repatriation campaign. This led to as many as a half a million Mexicans and U.S. citizens of Mexican descent being deported.
Just over a decade after this mass repatriation, the demands of World War II produced labor shortages in the United States. Mexicans were recruited to meet that labor need. A seasonal worker program, the “Bracero Program,” brought in 4.6 million temporary Mexican braceros to work in agriculture from 1942 to 1964. The Bracero Program was terminated in 1964, partly in response to widespread publicity about the abuses engendered by the program.

The millions of braceros were not always enough to meet U.S. labor demands, and increases in braceros were accompanied by increases in undocumented migrants – colloquially referred to as wetbacks. The INS began “Operation Wetback” in June 1954, and deported 170,000 Mexicans in the first three months. This operation led to a temporary decrease in undocumented migration, yet did not end the flow.

The third great surge in Mexican immigration came after the passage of the US Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965, and brought a new sort of Mexican migration to the US – more permanent than temporary. Until the 1970s, over 80 percent of Mexican immigrants were temporary workers who came to the US to work in the agricultural sector for a few months, and returned to Mexico with their savings. By 1997, only 40 percent of Mexican migration was for temporary work in the agricultural sector. The 1965 Act encouraged the permanent settlement of Mexicans by granting preferences to family members of people already living in the United States.
The permanent settlement of Mexican migrants was further encouraged by the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. This law gave amnesty to undocumented migrants. This encouraged temporary migrants to remain permanently. Once migrants obtained legal residence or citizenship, they were able to bring over family members, under family reunification provisions. Family reunification visas created a larger, permanent Mexican-origin population in the United States.

Legal and illegal immigration were further accelerated by the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. Although NAFTA purportedly was designed to reduce immigration, it has caused large increases in the numbers of Mexican immigrants in the US for a variety of reasons. First of all, NAFTA has had a devastating effect on the profitability of grain agriculture in Mexico. The entry of heavily-subsidized and capital-intensive US corn and other grains into the Mexican market has made it unprofitable to grow these grains in Mexico. Around 2 million Mexican peasants have been forced out of agriculture to find work in the cities and the US. Secondly, NAFTA created favorable conditions in Mexico for large transnational retail corporations such as Wal-Mart, which pushed smaller businesses to bankruptcy and their employees and owners to migrate. Finally, NAFTA has resulted in the reduction of wages along the Mexican border. When workers are earning lower than the subsistence level, they are also more likely to send a family member abroad to work or to migrate themselves in order to survive.

Prior to the passage of NAFTA, Mexican immigrants came almost exclusively from Mexican states in what are known as the “traditional region” of migration and the northern states close to the border. The states in the traditional region include Aguascalientes, Colima, Durango, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Naryarit, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas. The northern border states include Baja California, Baja California Sur, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Tamaulipas. In 1993, 80 percent of Mexican migrants to the US came from these states, meaning only 20 percent came from other Mexican states; by 1997, 25 percent came from other states; and by 2002, 31 percent came from other states of Mexico. In three of these states, Veracruz-Llave, Hidalgo, and Tlaxcala, the number of emigrants tripled between 1990 and 2003.

Just as emigration has spread across Mexico, immigration has spread across the United States. Mexican immigrants were previously concentrated in a few states. Today Mexican immigrants can be found in every state of the United States. In 1970, 85 percent of Mexican immigrants lived in the traditional receiving region, which includes Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. By the year 2000, only 69 percent of Mexican immigrants lived in those states, and Mexicans were the most predominant immigrant group in over half of the states in the US.

Mexican immigrants have played a vital role in the economy of the United States since the mid-nineteenth century. They also have been deported when their presence is no longer perceived to bolster the economy. Mexican immigrants continue to come to the US because of extensive family ties built up over generations, and the lack of adequate wage-earning opportunities in Mexico.

The policies of the US government both have contributed to the poor state of the Mexican economy and have encouraged the permanent settlement of Mexicans. It is not possible to understand the roots of Mexican migration to the US without a consideration of the role of US government policies and actions.

Jamaicans Targeted for Deportation More Than Other Immigrants

2010-11-11T16:00:00.000-08:00

Since 1996, one in 24 Jamaican legal permanent residents have been deported. Why are so many Jamaicans being deported?

Jamaicans are much more likely than other immigrants to be deported. Since 1996, about 100,000 of the 12 million legal permanent residents in the United States have been deported. About ten percent of them have been Jamaican, yet Jamaicans make up less than two percent of all legal permanent residents.

Jamaican legal permanent residents are people who travel to the United States with the intention of staying. Deportation cuts their plans short, and puts them in a precarious position. A migrant who is temporarily in the United States and intends to return to his or her country of origin is likely to maintain ties with his home country and send home money to ease his reintegration into his home society. In contrast, a person who comes to the United States and does not plan to return to their home country makes no plans to return. For this person, deportation can be devastating.

This is the situation that tens of thousands of Jamaicans find themselves in: they never planned to return, and have to struggle to figure out how to survive when they are forcibly returned.

The grave consequences of deportation for legal permanent residents mean that this is not a matter to be taken lightly. And, when one ethnic group such as Jamaicans is targeted more than others for deportation, this issue deserves scrutiny.

In my conversations with 37 Jamaican deportees, I have found that Jamaican legal permanent residents are often deported after being racially profiled by a police officer. For example, they are pulled over by a police officer in a routine stop and their car is searched. Alternatively, they are stopped and frisked on a street corner and drugs are found on their possession. Of course, they would not be charged with a crime and then deported if they did not have drugs on their person or in their vehicle.

However, studies consistently have shown that, although whites are more likely to use and sell drugs, blacks are more likely to be punished for drug crimes. Thus, although many legal permanent residents use drugs, only a few are deported. Since 1996, about 100,000 of the 12 million legal permanent residents in the United States have been deported. Many, many more of them have used or sold drugs.

It will come as no surprise to those familiar with racial inequities of drug law enforcement in the United States that black immigrants such as Jamaicans are more susceptible to being arrested and punished for drug crimes than other, non-black immigrants.

The fact that Jamaicans are deported in addition to being arrested and jailed adds a new dimension to the study of racism in the criminal justice system. A felony conviction makes life in the United States difficult. However, for many Jamaican legal permanent residents, deportation from the United States makes living in the country where all of your family and friends live nearly impossible.

Crossposted at counterpunch.org

Using Testimony to Teach Immigration

2010-11-04T10:22:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite classes in my course on immigration and globalization is a session where we use border-crossing narratives to discuss undocumented migration. In this blog posting, I will explain how I do this. I look forward to your feedback, and to learning how others teach immigration.

To begin the conversation, I use a YouTube clip, shown below. In this video, Professor Wayne Cornelius explains that undocumented migrants will continue to come to the United States, so long as there is a demand for their labor. More enforcement on the border will just lead to migrants and human smugglers developing more creative tactics to get across.

I use this video in my class, along with testimonies from The Border Patrol Ate My Dust.

I ask students to read five of the stories from The Border Patrol Ate My Dust before class. In class, we first talk about the history of undocumented migration in the United States and the series of failed policy efforts to halt undocumented migration. At this point in the semester, the students are well-versed in the structural factors at home and abroad that lead to migrant flows. I remind them of how structural adjustment policies in Latin America, accompanied by economic restructuring in the United States, have played a role in generating migrant flows. From there, I delve into a legislative history of immigration policies in the United States.

We begin with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which began the current era of undocumented migration. From there, we discuss the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which gave amnesty to undocumented migrants, yet purposefully did not apply to the massive number of Mexicans who came over after the 1982 peso crisis. We also discuss how IRCA led to a cottage industry in false documentation. From there, we revisit NAFTA and its consequences. Then, we talk about IIRAIRA - the 1996 law that led to more Border Patrol agents, more enforcement, and more deportations. I point out that, despite all of these measures, we still have over ten million undocumented migrants in the United States.

After having this discussion, I ask the students to take what we know about the history of migration and of U.S. immigration and foreign policies and put the stories in The Border Patrol Ate My Dust
into context. This always leads to an interesting conversation where students use their knowledge about larger structural factors to contextualize individual migrant stories.

Against Mexico and for el derecho de no migrar

2010-11-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

I write against “Mexico” from the standpoint of what Armando Bartra has characterized as "el derecho de no migrar" or the freedom to not migrate. I write against “Mexico” because political power represents the diffusion of war-like relations, permeating institutions, economic hierarchies, language, and bodies. I write against Mexico because political power is etched in the corpses of Tlateloco, in the violence against the APPO in Oaxaca, in the raped and disappeared of Ciudad Juarez and the narco-wars raging across Mexico, in those abandoned in the neoliberal ovens of the scorching deserts of Arizona and Sonora, in those exiled to the United States.

I write against Mexico because nation-states in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have increasingly incorporated post-territorial technologies of domination and rule inextricably linked to a racialized calculus of subjugated lives situated in greater proximity to death.

I write against “Mexico” because too much of an emphasis on the liberal empire of the United States risks mischaracterizing the specific exercises of power and technologies of domination that configure the northward flow of undocumented bodies from Mexico and other parts of the Americas across international boundaries.

I write against Mexico, to disrupt, to challenge, and to complicate those often top-down academic formulations that foreground the U.S. “state,” its imperial legacy and “the Law” as foundational to the social relation of immigrant “illegality,” at the expense of a critical grappling with the instrumentalities and historical specifics of Mexican state power. I write against Mexico because those becoming undocumented migrants, well before border crossing, encounter a constellation of dehumanizing practices, sentiments, and discourses that situate them as imminently exploitable in the United States.

I write against Mexico because there needs to be a right to not immigrate.

The Best Option for Immigration: Legalize Them All!

2010-10-01T07:22:00.000-07:00

The United States currently faces a tremendous challenge with the presence of eleven million people who do not have the legal right to be here. Some of these eleven million undocumented migrants have been in this country for decades; many have U.S. citizen children, spouses, and parents. Many remember no home other than the United States. There are three general policy responses to this challenge: 1) Deport them all; 2) Attrition through enforcement; and 3) Legalization for all. Let’s briefly consider each of these.

Deport Them All

The first policy option of deporting all undocumented migrants carries an astronomical human and economic cost. The Center for American Progress estimated the cost $200 billion. This figure, which does not take into account the economic impact on U.S. businesses and the U.S. Treasury associated with the loss of productive labor and taxes, amounts to more than three times the annual budget of the Department of Homeland Security of $60 billion and eight times the annual budget of the Department of Justice of $24 billion. More shocking than the economic cost are the social costs. Mass deportation would require raiding schools, homes and worksites, would tear apart families, and would be yet another stain on the history of the United States.

Attrition Through Enforcement

The second policy option of attrition through enforcement describes the current practice of deporting 400,000 immigrants a year and facilitating cooperation between law enforcement officials and immigration enforcement agents. The goal of this strategy is to make life difficult enough for undocumented migrants that they will opt to return home. Proponents argue that once undocumented migrants are unable to obtain employment, driver’s licenses, or housing, they will return to their countries of origin.

This approach is not working. Instead of preventing undocumented migrants from working, more stringent systems lead to more criminal organizations becoming involved in the production of fake documents that migrants can use to work. Attrition through enforcement does not work in large part because there are too many people in the United States that do not want it to work. These people include employers who depend on undocumented migrants for their labor power, the family members of undocumented migrants, and advocates for immigrants that recognize the valuable contributions of immigrants to our society. Instead of leading to massive self-deportation, attrition through enforcement exacerbates human rights violations in the United States.

S.B. 1070, the much-disputed bill in Arizona, has as its central goal attrition through enforcement. Arizona does not have the law enforcement capacity to deport the half a million undocumented migrants in the state. Proponents of S.B. 1070 hope that the tactic of using police officers to enforce immigration law will create enough fear in undocumented communities that those who are not deported will leave on their own. Using police officers to enforce immigration law has its own problems: 1) It breaks down the trust between communities and police, making this a strategy unpopular among police officers and 2) It leads to civil rights violations insofar as police officers cannot distinguish between legal permanent residents and undocumented migrants.

Legalization for All

Legalization for all is the approach advocated by immigrant rights groups throughout the United States. It is the most cost-effective approach: the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the legalization program proposed in 2006 would have cost $54 billion, yet would have generated $66 billion in revenue. More importantly, a path to legalization for all undocumented migrants would greatly reduce the human rights violations generated through the current policy of attrition through enforcement.

Legalization for all would improve wages and working conditions for everyone, as unscrupulous employers would not be able to take advantage of the undocumented status of migrants. Legalization for all would make the United States safer by allowing all undocumented migrants to come out of the shadows and obtain proper documentation to work, to drive vehicles, and to participate in U.S. society. Legalization for all would allow U.S. citizens to remain with their families and not to feel threatened by the possibility of deportation. Legalization for all would take us a long way towards fulfilling the human rights of migrants in the United States. Legalization for all is our best policy option.

Re-posted from: Counterpunch

The United States and the Human Rights Tradition

2010-08-26T12:03:00.001-07:00

Many people in the United States think of this country as a global defender of democracy and human rights. In a recent issue of Time Magazine, the cover featured a young Afghan woman whose nose has been cut off.

The headline below the title reads: "What happens if we leave Afghanistan?" The Time cover is indicative of how many people in the United States think of the role of the United States in the world – as a protector of freedom and human rights.

This view contrasts with Judith Blau and Alberto Moncada's depiction of the United States as a country with little regard for human rights. Blau and Moncada, in Human Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision
, contend that the United States is not part of the global conversation on human rights. Blau and Moncada point out that, in the United States, the human rights conversation is largely restricted to a discussion of civil and political rights. This conversation ignores the social, economic, and cultural rights that are also fundamental to human dignity.

Civil and political rights such as freedom from torture, freedom from discrimination, the right to vote, and freedom from arbitrary detention are part of the human rights tradition. The human rights tradition, however, goes farther, and includes social and economic rights such as the right to food security, the right to clean water, and the right to adequate housing. It also includes cultural rights such as the right to learn one's native language and the right for one's history to be included in public education. These sorts of human rights are not part of the U.S. legal or social tradition.

At a conference I attended recently, the question of whether immigrant rights activists should use a human rights discourse or a civil rights discourse when fighting for immigration reform came up on multiple occasions. The idea behind this question is that, in the United States, immigrants face both civil rights violations – racial profiling and arbitrary detention, for example – and human rights violations – such as the right to be with one's family and the right to medical care. In the United States, arguments about the right to family unity do not hold up in U.S. courts. In contrast, as seen in Judge Bolton's recent decision with regard to Arizona law S.B. 1070, civil rights protections can be defended in U.S. courts.

Claims of racial discrimination and racial profiling provide one route to fighting for immigration reform through the court system. It also would be possible to initiate a campaign that fought against warrantless search and seizure and arbitrary detention that non-citizens experience on a regular basis. These sorts of legal challenge have some potential in the U.S. legal system.

However, I find this discourse limiting. It is certainly true that civil and political rights are important. However, civil and political rights are only part of the human rights tradition. The idea behind the human rights tradition is that all humans possess a fundamental dignity and require certain rights to achieve their full potential. These rights include: the right to cross borders, the right to be with one's family, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to health care, and the right to an education.

The civil rights discourse in the United States can only take us so far. Such a discourse can help immigrant rights activists fight against some of the most extreme abuses. However, it would be much more radical of a change in discourse and practice if we were able to convince people in the United States that all human beings, regardless of citizenship status, deserve basic rights and protections, simply because of their status as human beings. It is this challenge that those of us who write and speak against the cruelties of the current immigration policy regime must take on.

The 'A' Word: A Rant

2010-08-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

Now is the time to stop it---the ‘a’ word. Now is the time to stop deploying it, uttering it, letting it roll of the tongue. No human being is an ‘alien.’ I repeat: no human being is the ‘a' word.

In a word where global forces intrude, uproot, displace, twist, and propel bodies across space and time . . .In a world where global capital criminalizes, illegalizes, and pathologizes, it---the ‘a’ word--- signifies the retrograde. ‘It’ all too easily assumes the form of a pre-given, stable, and enduring truth. It is close to an unexamined, naturalized, and normative presupposition. Rather than presume the fixity and integrity of it---the ‘a’ word, --I would like to emphasize its constitutive restlessnesss; ‘it’ captures how transnational migrants and their communities imagine communities and disrupt ‘it.’ They are not the ‘a’ word; they are the coming political community.

I repeat: no human being is an 'alien.'

"Illegals" and "Criminals": Race in a Post-Racial Era?

2010-08-19T15:15:00.000-07:00

Some anti-racist scholars have argued that low-wage job competition, exacerbated by persistent large-scale immigration, is particularly harmful for African-American workers who have historically faced exclusion in the U.S. job market. Stephen Steinberg (1995, 2006), for example, shows that economic expansion, first in industry and currently in service sectors, has not resulted in the full integration of black workers in the labor market because immigration has supplied an abundant reserve of labor that allows employers to avoid hiring African-American workers. In fact, the exclusion of black workers from the labor market is frequently justified by racist stereotypes that compare black workers unfavorably to immigrant workers. Steinberg and others argue that justice for African-Americans, in the form of full economic integration in the labor force, will only be realized by restricting immigration and tightening the labor supply – in effect forcing employers to hire African-American workers.

As the scale of immigration raids has increased in the first decade of the 21^st century, African-Americans are finding themselves working more as a result – but as prison labor. In fact, employers facing a tight labor supply are not turning to empowered African-Americans to replace their undocumented labor force, but to prisoners, refugees, and homeless people. Labor shortages in the agricultural sector brought on by a reduction of the undocumented labor force have led growers to seek prison labor in both Colorado and Idaho. In one telling example, a poultry-processing plant in Georgia lost two-thirds of its work force in the aftermath of a 2006 immigration raid. In response, the plant raised wages and recruited local black workers to fill newly available jobs – a move that was initially touted as proof that labor shortages brought about by immigration enforcement would be a boon to black workers. But the honeymoon was short-lived; the new, predominantly African-American work force expressed concerns about dangerous work conditions and questionable labor practices at the plant, leading one manager to conclude that they simply “do not want to work.”

Rather than improve conditions and raise wages further, plant managers found new sources of pliant labor. They replaced their work force once again – this time with prison workers, Hmong refugees, and homeless people. It seems that, for plant managers, “wanting to work” means either tolerating poor working conditions or being powerless to do anything about them. An increasing concentration of undocumented workers in low-wage, low-status jobs after 1970, and the continued exclusion of low-skilled black workers from the job market, is as much a function of powerlessness and its appeal to employers as it is a function of racism alone. In fact, political economic theories of international labor migration suggest that the most important function of undocumented immigrant labor may not be its cheapness per se, but rather its inherent powerlessness.

Reserves of vulnerable low-wage labor in the United States have expanded, even in light of civil rights legislation and restrictionist immigration policy. This suggests that restrictionist immigration policies do not necessarily entail economic empowerment of African-Americans. Rather, white, African-American, Latino and other immigrant workers are marginalized at the same time by similar legislative trends.

The proportion of immigrant workers characterized by illegal status has more than doubled since the 1970s, as has the proportion of U.S. workers in the criminal justice system. Together, the undermining of workers’ protections, the criminalization of immigrants and racial minorities, and the expansion of workfare programs, produce a steady supply of tractable and powerless labor in U.S. cities. Seen in this light, the criminalization of urban minorities and the illegalization of Latino immigrants increasingly serve much of the same function that race has historically served in the US – rendering certain workers at once more vulnerable to oppressive labor practices and justifying such oppression with an idea of embodied inferiority. And while race and racism continue to function to preserve inequality, race is rarely invoked to justify inequality in formal political rhetoric. In an “Obama era,” in which the United States is promoting itself as a nation of racial inclusion, the overtly racist tones of political discourse on labor are veiled, and illegality and criminality have become new legitimate bases for persistent exclusion and oppression.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

2010-08-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a document that lays out the human rights of all persons. According to this document, recognition of the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. Upholding these principles is fundamental to every undertaking of the United Nations.

The UDHR was written in 1948, in the aftermath of the atrocities brought about by the Holocaust and WWII. It was written with the hope that setting out a vision which placed value on all human life would lead humanity in a more humane direction. As a declaration and not a treaty, the UDHR is not enforceable. Instead, it is a set of principles to which United Nations member states commit themselves in an effort to provide all people a life of human dignity.

The UDHR is the first document that was designed to apply to all human beings, and not only to certain groups of people. Documents asserting individual rights, such the Magna Carta (1215), the English Bill of Rights (1689), the French Declaration on the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789), and the US Constitution and Bill of Rights (1791) are the written precursors of the UDHR. Yet many of these documents, when originally translated into policy, excluded women, people of color, and members of certain social, religious, economic, and political groups. They also only applied to people within certain nation-states.

The UDHR differs from the United States Constitution, for example, insofar as the Constitution only applies to people within U.S. borders. In some cases, the United States Constitution only applies to U.S. citizens. Whereas the United States Constitution is a national document and is inapplicable outside U.S. borders, the UDHR is an international document and is applicable in every country in the world.

The idea behind the UDHR is that every human being, regardless of citizenship status, has a fundamental human dignity and is worthy of a set of human rights. In a globalizing world in which people are increasingly interconnected, the human rights discourse and human rights doctrines are becoming increasingly relevant and important.

I use the UDHR in my course on immigration and globalization as it provides the class with a moral compass they can use to measure the practices and policies of nation states and international organizations and corporations. I will post blog entries throughout this semester on the connection between human rights and immigration policies.

I also will include useful Teaching Resource Links such as these:
Human Rights Resource Center: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/edumat/activities.shtm
Amnesty International Video on the UDHR:

The American Nightmare

2010-07-19T07:18:00.000-07:00

Jamaican migrants in the United States are often hailed as a “model minority” – black immigrants who are able to succeed against the odds. It is remarkable that blacks can succeed in a society where being black is criminalized. Yet, the truth is that many Jamaicans do not succeed. Many Jamaican men, it turns out, fall prey to the lure of the streets and end up deported.

Many Jamaican deportees I have met through my research were left with relatives in Jamaica while their parents traveled abroad to earn money and establish themselves. Their parents sent for them when they were teenagers. Arriving in New York City in the 1970s, these Jamaican boys, raised by their grandmothers, did not fit in. They spoke the wrong way, wore the wrong clothes, and didn’t know the code of the streets. They often had misunderstandings with their parents, as their years of separation had created distance between them. Their parents worked long hours and often did not provide the emotional support they needed and expected. Many of them dropped out of high school.

After dropping out of high school, some were able to find menial jobs. But, like their parents’ jobs, these jobs paid little, and didn’t allow them to attain the glitz and glamour they saw all around them. They found solace hanging out with other young Caribbean men, on the streets of New York.

As teenagers, living the street life of New York in the 1970s, they weren’t angels. But, a couple of years in the United States had not turned them into hard-core criminals either. Many Jamaican deportees I met found themselves in a situation where they were in a car or a house and the police came and found drugs and/or guns. Each of them did hard time for this.

One man, Samuel, explained to me that he had been raised by his grandmother in Jamaica. At age 14, he went to the US to live with his parents, who had obtained legal permanent residency. Samuel went to high school in Brooklyn for a couple of years. Eventually, he couldn’t take the teasing and taunting about his accent and his clothes anymore. When he dropped out, his tenuous relationship with his parents soured and they kicked him out of the house. He went to live with some friends, and slowly got pulled more and more into the street life. One afternoon, he was riding down the street with some buddies, and the cops pulled them over.

Samuel told me he had no idea the car was stolen. When he realized what was going on, he ran. The cops cornered him in a back yard and arrested him. When it was time for him to stand trial, the police officer said that, in the back yard, Samuel had pointed a gun at him, and Samuel was charged with attempted murder of a police officer. At age 19, his first conviction turned into a fifteen year sentence in prison. Turns out he served twenty-six years, as the parole board did not release him. He said that was in part because he would never admit guilt and in part because the board was particularly harsh on violent crimes when his turn came up.

The story of the devastation of black communities because of the loss of black men to the prison system is well-known. The incarceration of Jamaicans in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s adds another dimension to this. Upon release, these men are deported to Jamaica, a land many of them left as teenagers. Many of them have nearly all of their family members in the United States, and few or none in Jamaica.

Samuel spent five years on the streets of New York, and then spent twenty-six years in the penitentiary. In 2005, he was deported to Jamaica. He was 45 years old, and had not been in Jamaica since he was 14 years old. No prison release program, no orientation to Jamaica, and all of his family in the United States. Moreover, his father was too embarrassed of him to help him find family members in Jamaica. Eventually, he found a cousin who lets him stay with her for a couple of months.

When Samuel applies for jobs, they ask him about his work history. If it becomes evident that he spent over two decades in prison, no one wants to hire him. Samuel fights back tears as he tells me his story. He never lets one drop. “Everyone in prison says they are innocent,” he says. I look into his eyes and see a life wasted.

Samuel is calm, intelligent, articulate, poised. He has to sacrifice his dignity every day to get a plate of food and a warm bed to sleep on. He is currently staying with a childhood friend who is willing to hide Samuel’s past from others.

For these men, the American dream turned into a nightmare, and no one believes them. Jamaicans look at them and see that they had the opportunity to go to where the streets are paved with gold. They went to America, and came back with nothing.

Cross-posted at Racism Review

Do the crime, pay the time, … and, then you get deported?

2010-07-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

On the beach the other day in Negril, I met a young man, Horatio. My husband, who was chatting with him, introduced us and told me that Horatio had been deported from the United States. Horatio, a tall man in his early twenties with a deep scar on his forehead, explained to me that he moved to the United States when he was eleven years old. When he was 18, he was caught with drugs and deported.

Deported for an aggravated felony – possession of crack cocaine – Horatio will never be able to return to the United States. Horatio has no immediate family in Jamaica. His grandparents, his parents, his brothers and sisters and his three children all live in the United States. I know there are many people who have no sympathy for Horatio. As an immigrant, he is a guest of the United States. He broke the law, and there are plenty of other, law-abiding people who would like the opportunity to live in the United States.

As I listened to his story, however, I became increasingly convinced that Horatio’s deportation was unjust. Many of the circumstances that led to his deportation were beyond his control. His decision to sell drugs was only one of many other factors that got him deported.

Horatio was born in Jamaica. When he was born, his grandparents lived in the United States. When he was one year old, his mother traveled to the United States as a legal permanent resident to join her parents, leaving him behind. Had Horatio’s mother gotten her green card one year earlier, Horatio likely would have been born in the United States, and would have been a U.S. citizen like his younger brothers and sisters.

When she arrived in the United States, Horatio’s mother intended to bring her Horatio and his brother to the United States as soon as possible. However, she began to have trouble with her husband. He verbally and physically abused her and made it difficult for her to file the paperwork for Horatio and his brother to travel to the United States. For these reasons, Horatio was not able to travel until he was eleven years old.

Horatio’s mother qualified for citizenship in the United States when Horatio was five years old. She did not, however, ever go and apply for citizenship. Had she done so, Horatio and his siblings would have become citizens automatically and Horatio would not have been deported.

Horatio qualified for citizenship on his own account when he was 16 years old. He never went to apply. Horatio had no idea that he could be deported for a drug conviction. He thought he was a legal permanent resident, and did not know that deportation was possible.

Horatio was caught with crack cocaine when he was 18 years old – his first criminal charge. Had this happened a few months before, when he was 17, he may have been able to avoid deportation because of his juvenile status.

When faced with drug charges, Horatio’s lawyer advised him that he plead guilty. The judge offered him less than a year in jail, and it seemed like a good deal. No one told Horatio that a guilty plea would not only get him a few months in jail, but also deportation. He was not fully aware of the consequences of this plea. His lawyer, a public defender, did not inform him of the immigration consequences of his plea.

When Horatio was arrested, he was 18 years old. He grew up in public housing on the South Side of Chicago. In these circumstances, the likelihood of Horatio not ever getting a criminal conviction was very low. Had his mother known how likely it was that he would end up in trouble and that any conviction could lead to his deportation, perhaps she would have applied for citizenship.

For me, Horatio’s deportation is an undeserved punishment for making bad decisions as a teenager. I will be the first to admit that I succumbed to peer pressure and did stupid things as a teenager. Lucky for me, I am no longer paying for those youthful indiscretions. In addition, I know personally many people who sold drugs as teenagers, yet who have moved on and are now valuable members of their communities. You see, I don’t think you should have to pay for the rest of your life for a crime you committed when you were 18. I also don’t think that children should have to suffer because of the decisions of their parents. For whatever reason, Horatio’s mother decided not to become a citizen. Now, Horatio has to pay for that decision.

Not only does Horatio have to pay, but, so does his family. His mother lost a son who could have helped her to move out of poverty. His three children will grow up without a father present. His younger siblings will lose the benefit of his guidance as they struggle to grow up in the inner city of Chicago. The losers are clear. The winners, much less so.

Structural Racism and Mass Deportation

2010-06-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a goal of deporting 400,000 people from the United States every year. The policy of DHS to deport as many people as possible is advertised as a measure that enhances national security. The way that mass deportation is implemented, however, leads to the disproportionate deportation of black Caribbeans and Latin Americans. Because of the disproportionate impact of deportation on black and Latino immigrants, the policy of mass deportation is another manifestation of racial inequality in the United States.

(image from here.)

The overwhelming majority of the 12 million undocumented people in the United States are not in deportation proceedings. Some undocumented migrants, particularly East Asians, are very unlikely to ever be apprehended and deported. In 2007, there were about 230,000 undocumented South Koreans in the United States. Only 417 Koreans were deported from the United States in 2007. In that same year, there were about 280,000 undocumented Hondurans in the United States. Yet, 29,737 Hondurans were deported. In 2007, there were slightly more undocumented Chinese and Filipinos in the United States than Hondurans. However, only 408 Filipinos and 766 Chinese were deported. This is indicative of a trend – Latin Americans are much more likely than Asians to be deported.

Given that DHS claims to be making the nation safer through deportation, it is remarkable that they almost never deport people to countries which the U.S. Department of State identifies as sponsoring terrorism – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Sudan. In 2007, for example, 319,382 people were deported. Among these were 49 Iranians, 27 Iraqis, 40 Syrians, 76 Cubans, and 13 Sudanese. (Data were not available for Libya and North Korea.) Instead, deportees are most often sent to countries with which the United States has amicable relations – our allies in the Western Hemisphere. Human Rights Watch reports that 897,099 people were deported on criminal grounds between April 1, 1997, and August 1, 2007, and that 94 percent of these people were from just ten countries, all in the Western Hemisphere – Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Colombia, Jamaica, Canada, Brazil, and Haiti,

The laws that have led to mass deportation were created in the context of fears of a racialized other. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which lay the groundwork for much of present-day undocumented migration and employment, was the result of nativist concerns over rising numbers of undocumented immigrants in the United States. The 1996 laws, which expanded the grounds for deportation, were an outgrowth of Proposition 187, a California initiative with many racial overtones. The Homeland Security Act, which allowed for the funding of mass deportation, came about in the context of fear of terrorists, often racialized as Middle Eastern. Although these laws are color-blind on the books, both their enactment and implementation are tainted by implicit and explicit acts of racism.

As Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro explain in Black Wealth / White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality, it is not necessary for laws to use explicitly racial language to reproduce racial inequalities. Insofar as laws, policies, and institutions create inequitable outcomes in their implementation, they can be considered part of the structural racism that has pervaded U.S. society since its inception.

Cross posted at Racism Review

Supreme Court Decision Points to the Need for Immigration Reform

2010-06-16T11:13:00.000-07:00

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision that immigrants who are legally in the United States do not face automatic deportation for a minor drug offense. They still can be deported, but also can apply for cancellation of removal which would allow them to plead their case and argue that they merit staying in the United States.

This decision is an improvement over a punitive system where long-term residents of the United States have been deported for possession of small amounts of marijuana and prescription drugs. Nevertheless, the fact that Supreme Court justices have to determine that someone like Jose Angel Carachuri-Rosendo deserves a fair trial points to the need for a serious overhaul of the deportation regime.

Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo was brought to the United States from Mexico by his parents as a legal permanent resident when he was five years old. In 2004, he was sentenced to 20 days in jail for possession of less than two ounces of marijuana. The next year, he was sentenced to ten days in jail for having a single tablet of Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, without a prescription. Because this amounts to two drug offenses, Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo was deemed an aggravated felon and faced mandatory detention and deportation. This means that he would not be allowed to argue that his crimes were fairly minor, that he has lived in the United States since he was five, that his mother, his common-law wife and four children are US citizens, and that he has few ties to Mexico. It still is not clear whether or not he will be deported, but at least now he has the chance to apply for cancellation of removal.

If Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo is granted relief from deportation, he will be allowed to remain in the United States with his family. If his request is denied, he will be one of the over 1,000 people that are deported each day. About one-third of deportees are deported for criminal offenses. Many are deported for relatively minor crimes, especially for drug violations.

According to ICE’s 2009 Immigration Enforcement Actions Report, 35.9 percent of people deported on criminal grounds in FY 2008 were deported for drug offenses. This amounts for 34,882 people deported for possession, selling, or smuggling drugs. A 2009 Human Rights Watch Report provides more detail and indicates that between 1997 and 2007, over 50,000 people were deported for simple drug or paraphernalia possession - 28,885 people were deported for the possession of cocaine, 11,063 for possession of marijuana, 6,492 for possessing amphetamines, 3,476 for possessing heroin, and 1,889 for possessing narcotic equipment.

Hopefully Mr. Carachuri-Rosendo’s case will set a precedent and families will not be torn apart because of minor drug convictions. More importantly, however, this case points to the need to overhaul current deportation policy to allow all deportees to have a fair trial.

Forced to choose between family and country

2010-06-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

In the United States of America, the spouses of US citizens can be deported, no matter how long they have lived in the United States, no matter how many US citizen children they have, and no matter how much they love their family.

In Chicago in 2008, I interviewed nine couples that consisted of a US citizen married to an undocumented migrant. Each couple discussed the implications of US immigration law to their families. I discuss this project in this video:

This is one of the stories from this project:

Fatima is 30 years old, graduated from Loyola University, and works as a family therapist, counseling families whose children are in juvenile detention. She likes being able to help people, to give them hope, and to figure out ways to make their life better. Her husband, Antonio, paints houses for a living. He would like to go back to school, to learn a trade such as an electrician, or maybe open a business. But, life hasn’t presented him with that opportunity yet.

Fatima, along with her two sisters, was born in Mexico City. When she was four years old, her father passed away, and her mother decided that it would be easier for her to raise her three children in the U.S. She was able to obtain visas, and they came to the US on an airplane. Eventually, the whole family obtained U.S. citizenship.

Antonio was born in Michoacan, Mexico, in a small town. His father was attacked by a bull when Antonio was thirteen. This accident left him invalid, and Antonio and his brother left school to go to Mexico City to work. They found work in a car wash, and stayed there for six years, until a woman from their hometown asked Antonio to accompany her to cross over to the U.S. Antonio arrived in Dallas, and eight months later, decided to come to Chicago. In Chicago, he spent several months working as a day laborer, until he finally found a more stable job as a painter. He has been in that job now for four years, and works seven days a week most weeks.

Not too long after Antonio found his current job, he met Fatima. When I spoke with them, in May 2008, they had a two and a half years old son and had been married for three years.

Fatima and Antonio came to the community-based organization, Latinos Progresando, to see if there was anything they could do to legalize Antonio’s status. Antonio had been living here illegally since he crossed the border in 2003. Fatima said she is constantly stressed out. When he goes to work, she has to worry about whether or not there will be a raid, or if he will be stopped by the police. This stress is clearly wearing on her, as her voice broke and her eyes welled up with tears as she talked to me.

Tears began to fall profusely as Fatima told me that it hurts her deeply that Antonio wants to see his parents, and his parents want to see him, and he can’t go back to Mexico. Fatima even feels as if it is partly her fault that Antonio can’t see his parents. “A veces, yo siento que es un poco de mi culpa. Maybe, si no me hubieses conocido, no te detuviera nada aquí.” Sometimes, I feel like it is my fault. Maybe, if you never met me, nothing would keep you here.

When their son was born, Fatima became ill. She continues to suffer from an immune disorder, and admits that she worries that she may not survive her next hospitalization. Her voice breaks as she tells me that she wishes she could be sure that her son would be okay were the unthinkable to happen, were she to pass away. This is one of their most pressing reasons to obtain legalization for Antonio.

Fatima says that knowing that her husband can be arrested, detained, and deported any time is very hard to deal with. In some ways, Fatima wouldn’t mind moving to Mexico, but she feels like she has given so much to the United States. She also has her student loans to pay off. And, they have to think about their son’s future. Even more poignant, she is worried that she would not be able to find or afford appropriate medical care in Mexico.

I ask Fatima what would happen if Antionio were to be deported. She says that, apart from breaking apart her family, she would suffer financially. They recently purchased a home, and, without Antonio’s income, she would have to sell the house. Also, Fatima has plans to return to school to get her Master’s in counseling, and she would not be able to do that. But, most of all, she would be emotionally devastated. Having a loving partner has enabled her to withstand life’s challenges – her own illness, her aging mother’s ailments, and her son’s all-too frequent visits to the doctor.

Fatima points out that the laws do not just affect Antonio, who is here illegally, but they also deeply affect her and her son, both of whom are U.S. citizens. As a family therapist, Fatima is well aware of the pernicious effects of family separation on children. She asks why the government would want to separate families. Fatima works with children who have turned to juvenile delinquency, in part because their parents are divorced. She does not want her child to grow up in a single parent family.

Tears well up again in Fatima’s eyes when she asks if they, too, are not humans. The importance of this family remaining together brings tears to my eyes as well. It is clear that the stress of Antonio potentially being deported is taking its toll on Fatima. It is hard for her to come to terms with why her own government would not want for a loving family such as theirs to stay together.

Fatima faces a situation where the laws of the United States do not permit herto live in this country with her family intact. Is it fair to say that she should not have chosen an undocumented immigrants for her life partner? Should she have researched immigration laws before falling in love? Was she simply foolish to imagine that her country would allow her to live in peace with her husband? Can you imagine yourself going to an immigration lawyer to find out if your chosen life partner is eligible for legalization? And, if you are told they are not, what are you supposed to do? These are hard questions, and the agony that this family faces is a clear indication that there is something fundamentally wrong with having to choose between your country and your family.

Read other stories from this project on my website.

These stories will also be featured in my forthcoming book - Immigration Nation: Raids, Detentions, and Deportations in Post-9/11 America.

Pedro Guzman, husband and father of US citizens, is currently in detention - awaiting deportation. You can read his story here.

Tanya Golash-Boza is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and American Studies at the University of Kansas. She blogs at: http://stopdeportationsnow.blogspot.com/

Ethnopoetics – A Jamaican deportee tells his story.

2010-06-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

Samuel arrived in the United States when he was 15 years old. When he was 19, he was arrested and charged with attempted murder of a police officer. He believes he was wrongfully convicted. He spent 26 years in prison and was deported to Jamaica.

I was charged for attempted murder.
This is some of the things I hate to talk about. …
It’s just an unfortunate situation, you nuh.
I’m to be blamed of some of it because
the company or whatever. …
I might have caused certain things. …
I spent 26 years …
half of my life was gone. …

When everyone is locked up they always say “oh I didn’t do it”.
You nuh, it’s a common joke.
But … for a person who actually is there
and haven’t done anything
it’s not no joking matter. ….
Probably I don’t explain myself properly
just to let someone really understand. …
it’s just painful for me. …

Well I’ll talk about it.
But you nuh ….
I just say it’s like, here we go again. ….
I was charged with attempted murder. ….
The people that I was hanging out with is friends, you nuh....
the night when I got arrested
I was in a stolen car
which I didn’t know. …

And we got we got stopped.
And that’s where when I got arrested.
And after, then, that’s how I know I was charged with attempted murder. …

They found a weapon. …
No prints were found.
They say that we don’t take fingerprints from a weapon.

Samuel, Kingston, Jamaica

Three types of Jamaican Deportees

2010-06-03T10:36:00.000-07:00

Since the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), over a million non-citizens have been deported from the United States after being convicted of criminal charges.

Jamaica is a top receiving country for criminal deportees. In my research with Jamaican deportees, I found that nearly all Jamaicans who are deported are deported because of encounters with the criminal justice system. Unlike, for example, Guatemalans, who are usually deported after an encounter with immigration agents, Jamaicans seem to nearly always be first picked up by police officers, and then passed over to immigration agents. This alone is indicative of the criminalization of Jamaicans in the United States.

My research with deportees in Jamaica indicates that there are three primary ways that Jamaicans get involved in the criminal justice system. One of the most common ways involves Jamaican boys who grow up in Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, or Harlem and find themselves lured to the streets as youngsters. Many are raised by single mothers who keep long working hours and have little time to supervise their sons. Jamaicans who get into trouble as youth are nearly always males and seem to live almost exclusively in New York City.

Another common way for Jamaicans to get into trouble in the United States is as adults. These Jamaican men live for decades in the United States without ever getting into trouble. However, one mistake or one case of bad judgment leads to their arrest, conviction, sentencing, and deportation. Unlike the youth, these men rarely lead a life of crime in general. Instead, they are law-abiding people whose lives suddenly change after an encounter with the criminal justice system.

The third way that Jamaicans end up getting into trouble is one that includes both men and women. These men and women tend to be law-abiding citizens in Jamaica. However, they decide, usually for financial reasons, to get involved in the drug trade in the United States. For the women, this usually involves carrying drugs. For men, this often involves street-level selling. Once caught and convicted, they are deported.

These three kinds of deportees are very different. The first set has a lot in common with African-American youth who grow up in the inner city. The second set often face harsh sentences because of an unforgiving justice system combined with stereotypes about black men in the United States. The third set involves opportunists who see a way to make money off of the illegal drug trade, yet whose plans are foiled once they are caught.

The legal system in the United States, however, makes few distinctions between these three sorts of cases. Once convicted of certain charges, a non-citizen is deported. If the charges are classified as an “aggravated felony,” non-citizens have no opportunity to explain that they have been law-abiding citizens for the past thirty years, or that they came to the United States as infants, or that they have few or no ties to their country of birth. It makes little sense for the law to fail to distinguish between non-citizens who come to the United States to participate in criminal activities, non-citizens who come to the US as infants, and non-citizens who lead law-abiding lives for decades and have one unfortunate encounter with the law.

Unfortunately, the deterministic nature of IIRAIRA often prevents judges from taking individual factors into accounts and Jamaicans are often summarily deported from the United States after living there for decades.

Deportation is Punishment

2010-05-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

Undocumented migrants are not criminals. Detention is not prison. Deportation is not punishment. These are truths in the legal system of the United States. However, undocumented migrants are treated like criminals; detainees feel as if they are in prison; and deportees experience their exclusion as punishment.

Undocumented migrants are not criminals
A person is undocumented if they have violated provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by overstaying their visa, entering the United States without inspection, ignoring a deportation order, or something similar. None of these are crimes – and there is no punishment for them. Instead, if a person is found to be in violation of the INA, they face detention and then deportation.

An undocumented migrant who has lived in the United States for thirty years, who has U.S. citizen children and grandchildren can be ordered deported without due process. He has fewer rights at his trial than does a murder suspect. Unlike murder suspects, he can be arrested without a warrant. He can appeal his case by applying for cancellation of removal, but may be detained while doing so, has no right to appointed counsel, and may have no right to judicial review. Most of the evidence he may wish to present – such as his ties to the US and his lack of ties to his home country – will be inadmissible. As deportation is not punishment, immigration trials are not under the purview of the judicial system and people facing deportation have few procedural protections.

Deportation is not punishment
Deportation is not punishment – it is the civil penalty for violating the INA. People who face deportation are not given the same constitutional protections given to suspected criminals. They have no right to appointed counsel, no right to a jury trial, and, often, no right to judicial review. Deportation is an administrative procedure applied to people who do not have the legal right to remain in the United States. For example, a non-citizen who commits a crime in the United States first completes any jail or prison time that is mandated as punishment for their crime. If that criminal conviction renders them deportable, they are ordered deported upon completing their sentence. As deportation is not punishment, the United States government is not violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that both indicates that a person should not be punished twice for the same crime and that people should not be discriminated against because of their national origin.

Article 14 of the ICCPR (which the U.S. has ratified) reads “No one shall be liable to be tried or punished for an offence for which he has already been finally convicted.” Legal permanent residents who are convicted of certain crimes in the U.S. face deportation after serving their sentences. The decision as to whether or not they are to be deported is made by an immigration judge. However, it is not technically correct to say that they are punished twice for a crime – as deportation is not punishment. For example, if a citizen and a non-citizen both shoplift $900 worth of clothes and both are sentenced to 18 months in prison, the citizen goes free after serving her time, yet the non-citizen is detained and faces deportation after serving her time. Although the non-citizen is treated differently for the same crime, this is not in violation of Article 26 of the ICCPR which states that “All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law shall prohibit any discrimination … on any ground such as … national or social origin, … birth or other status” because detention and deportation are not punishment.

Deportation feels like punishment
Nearly all of the 156 deportees that I have interviewed over the last year in four countries felt as though their deportation was punishment, either for being in the US illegally or for committing a crime.

O’Ryan, a Jamaican citizen, moved to the United States as a legal permanent resident when he was six years old. When he was 25 years old, O’Ryan was deported to Jamaica because of a drug-related conviction. When I spoke to O’Ryan, he had been in Jamaica for seven years and continued to have trouble getting adjusted to life in his birth country. He told me he understands he made mistakes, but did not see it as fair that he should pay the rest of his life for those mistakes. He doesn’t see a future for himself in Jamaica, where he feels like a foreigner. He told me “I shouldn’t be deported because I’m really not a bad person.” For O’Ryan, deportation feels like a cruel punishment that he never had the chance to contest. His deportation was an automatic consequence of his drug conviction. He had no opportunity to explain to a judge that he grew up in the United States, that he was a college student, and that he had no ties to Jamaica.

Nearly all of the deportees with whom I have spoken have told me that they experience their deportation as punishment. However, since deportation is technically a regulatory procedure and not a punitive procedure, non-citizens do not have the right to contest their deportation in the same way they would had they been accused of a crime.

My research makes it clear that non-citizens in the United States often feel as if they are treated like criminals – even if the laws indicate that they are not criminals but immigration violators. In terms of human rights treaties, which matters more? Should we believe the legal documents that allow one to argue that no human rights treaties are being violated or should we listen to the experiences of people who feel that they are treated as criminals?

As a sociologist, the answer to this rhetorical question is clear. If deportees experience their deportation as punishment, then it is. Insofar as deportation is often experienced as a severe punishment, often worse than the punishment for any criminal conviction, it should be treated more carefully in U.S. courts. There is a tremendous difference between an undocumented migrant who comes to the U.S. with the goal of working for two years and returning to his home country and a legal permanent resident who was brought to the U.S. as an infant. Deportation has vastly different meanings for those two individuals. For the former, it might be experienced as an administrative procedure – especially if he has already met his savings goal in the U.S. and was preparing to leave anyway. For the latter, deportation after serving a year in prison for a drug charge could be the most cruel punishment conceivable. This is especially the case if, for example, this latter young man is deported to Haiti and does not speak Creole or to El Salvador and has gang-related tattoos. Insofar as deportation is often experienced as punishment, courts must take the matter more seriously and allow non-citizens to present more evidence against their deportation than has been the case, especially since the implementation of the 1996 laws.

Originally posted at: Counterpunch

An American History of Foreign Labor

2010-05-25T07:02:00.001-07:00

Since before its inception as a nation, the United States has heavily relied on the importation of foreign labor to build its wealth. The earliest and longest lasting of foreign labor importation systems, the slave trade, brought more than half a million Africans to the United States. Slaves took up residence with the earliest European settlers at Jamestown and, with their descendants, built the foundations of U.S. agriculture for more than two centuries. By the early nineteenth century, as the invention of the cotton gin sparked U.S. industry, unregulated immigration from Europe helped form the industrial labor force in growing cities throughout the north.

Just as the Civil War was looming over the horizon in the mid nineteenth century, the U.S. launched a campaign of westward expansion, driving tens of thousands of indigenous Americans from the plain states and waging a war of conquest on Mexico’s vast northwestern territory. Ultimately successful, the United States took possession of Texas, Nevada, Utah, and California, as well as parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming, expanding its territory by more than a third in just a few decades. Bent on connecting the east and west coasts with railroads, U.S. policy makers then imported tens of thousands of Chinese workers to fill labor shortages throughout the new territory. Mexican landowning families who had long lived in the region were forced off their property, often violently, by pioneers and gold prospectors. Ironically, entrepreneurs throughout the U.S. Southwest would soon turn to the large-scale importation of Mexican workers when Chinese immigration was cut off in 1882.

Due to the large demand for immigrant workers and the expansionist policy of the early United States, immigration was largely unrestricted throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. When restrictive policies were first implemented in 1882 and 1917, they were explicitly aimed at protecting the “racial constitution” of the young United States. The presence of indigenous Americans, African Americans, Mexicans, and Asians was conveniently ignored (though together they outnumbered European Americans), and the racial constitution of the U.S. was declared to be “white.” The first comprehensive immigration quota system, the Immigration Act of 1924, allocated visas to nations based on the 1890 U.S. census, which effectively granted 85 percent of legal entries to immigrants from Northern and Western Europe. The year 1890 was purposefully selected to promote a model of the future United States as one predominated by the more desirable European stocks, while Asians were deemed “racially ineligible” for U.S. citizenship.

Meanwhile, growers in the conquered (and formerly Mexican) southern and western territories found themselves experiencing a labor shortage brought on by restrictive immigration policies that cut off labor supplies from China in 1882, then from the rest of Asia in 1917. The Immigration Act of 1917 also curbed immigration of Eastern and Southern Europeans, a main source of labor in the industrial north. To ease the demand for labor, Mexican nationals were exempted from numerical restriction, and an unlimited number of visas could be granted to Mexican workers. To tap this labor reserve, U.S. businesses sent recruiters deep into the heart of Mexico’s populated north-central valleys, where they recruited Mexicans to come north to work in agriculture, construction, and manufacturing in the United States. This system came to be known as “el enganche” (“the hook”) in Mexico, as workers were promised great rewards for their labor but were “hooked” into labor conditions that better resembled indentured servitude. Ostensibly “free,” African American workers throughout the U.S. Southeast fared little better as they continued to build the agricultural foundations of U.S. wealth through their exploited labor as sharecroppers and forced prison workers.

As immigration from Asia continued to be restricted throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the U.S. came to rely ever more heavily on labor importation from Latin America, and from Mexico in particular. This reliance was accelerated by World War II, when the working male population of the United States was drastically reduced at the same time that productive output of war materials needed to increase. To help fill labor shortages, women and African American workers were recruited to work in industry throughout the north, while Mexican workers were imported en masse to the U.S. Southwest where they harvested the food that would sustain industrial workers and the families of soldiers abroad. To ensure an unhindered labor supply, the United States and Mexico signed a binational treaty in 1942 that came to be known as The Bracero Program. The Bracero Program was a contract worker program that brought an estimated 5 million workers from Mexico to labor in the agricultural fields, construction sites, and factories across the southwest United States and in cities such as Chicago.

The Bracero Program ended in 1964, and in 1965 immigration from Mexico and other Latin American countries became subject to numerical restriction for the first time ever. Over the next fifteen years, the number of visas available to Latin American workers was reduced from an unlimited number to just 20,000 per year by 1980. In spite of these new restrictions, the demand for immigrant labor from Latin America has persisted, and Latin American workers continue to shore up the U.S. economy with their low-paid labor. In fact, restrictions imposed by the 1965 Act did not stop, or even slow, the movement of workers from Latin America to the United States. Rather, from the 1970s to the present, increasingly restrictive immigration legislation––combined with a persistent demand for immigrant labor––has converted a century old labor migration into a “flood” of “illegal” immigrants.

The Borderlands Thicken (Part I)

2010-05-21T06:43:00.000-07:00

“The U.S.-Mexican border es una herida abierta (is an open wound) where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds.” Gloria Anzaldúa (1987)

It proves crucial to see the draconian SB 1070 as the outgrowth of contradictory processes: the tensions among institutionalized white supremacy of The Law, its enforcement, and capital flows. As many readers surely know, SB 1070 requires local police officers in Arizona to effectively enforce federal immigration law. Scholars and other experts, including myself, have argued that this law enables racial profiling. One of its key provisions calls for "reasonable cause" as grounds for a police officer to ask someone for proof of his or her citizenship. Looking Latino isn't a “reasonable cause” for the police to do anything--to argue that it is to attempt to legitimate a form of racism. Here’s the Washington Post summarizing the new law : “The law gives local police broad authority to stop and request documents from anyone they reasonably suspect is an illegal immigrant. It calls for aggressive prosecution of illegal immigrants, and officers can be sued if they do not enforce the law.”

Moreover, the Arizona government has recently enacted related provisions holding that public schools will lose state funding if they offer any courses that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, promote resentment of a particular race or class of people, are designed primarily for students of a particular ethnic group or advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." Moreover, the Department of Education has told Arizona public schools that teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents are no longer allowed to teach English classes.

These assaults on immigrant communities follow a series of dramatic raids across the country, and the Obama’s administration’s intensifying exercise of 287G, a federal provision in the 1995 Illegal Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which effectively allows state and local law enforcement officers to participate in immigration law enforcement. Indeed, the apprehension of “non-citizens” through the criminal justice system is now Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE of the US Department of Homeland Security) primary focus for enforcement. In the last 3 years ICE has rounded up over half a million people through the Criminal Alien Programs, although there is no legal definition of what a criminal alien is.

These developments must be situated in the peculiar cauldron of white supremacy and capital flows that immigration law represents. It originates in the Chinese Exclusion Act and cuts through to Proposition 187, and other attempts to terrorize immigrant groups. The establishment of the Border Patrol---the nation’s largest police force--- in the 1920s institutionalized an already pervasive racial logic: the collapsing of impoverishment and nationality as racial difference. Congress established this police force three days after the passage of the National Origins Act of 1924, which implemented a system of national quotas to protect ‘American racial stock from further degradation or change through mongrelization’ and outlawed virtually all ‘immigration’ from the western hemisphere. Indeed, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) or ICE’s predecessor once estimated that Mexicans comprise 54 percent of all undocumented migrants in the United States. Yet, modern organized vigilance and enforcement, particularly by the Border Patrol, against so-called ‘illegal aliens’ has been primarily directed against Mexicans. Consider that on 11 September 2001, the number of Border Patrol agents in Brownsville, Texas, equaled the number of agents on the entire US – Canada border. Moreover, following the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which liberalized the flows of commodities, flora, and fauna, across the borders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, militarized border policing campaigns intensified. Operations Gatekeeper, Hold-the-Line, and Arizona’s own Operation Safeguard, have channeled undocumented border crossers in what I have elsewhere termed the “killing deserts,” where over 4,000 corpses and countless other remains---many bleached by the sun---have been found since the late 1990s.

Their blood suffuses through SB 1070 and its despots.

Gilberto Rosas
University of Illinois

The Consortium of Professional and Academic Associations Sends a Strong Letter to the Governor of Arizona

2010-05-19T11:55:00.000-07:00

On Monday, May 17, 2010, a group of about a dozen leading academic organizations, under the auspices of a Consortium of Professional and Academic Associations, sent a strong letter of condemnation and demand for change to Governer Brewer, the Arizona State Legislature, and the people of the state of Arizona.

For those who oppose such discriminatory, racist, and anti-human rights legislative efforts, this letter represents a good starting point for articulating progressive views against these laws. Since there are sure to be other copycat versions of these legislative moves in other states (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/05/03-5), this letter represents a good place to begin fighting such regressive and racist legislative actions in all corners.

The entire letter follows:

May 17, 2010

To Governor Brewer, the State Legislature, and the People of Arizona:

We wish to express our deep concern with and unequivocal condemnation of Senate Bill 1070, which you signed into law on April 23, 2010. By making it a state crime to be in Arizona without federal authorization, and also making it a punishable offense to support someone without the appropriate documents, SB 1070 criminalizes countless decent human beings who live, work, pay taxes, and raise their families in Arizona. In addition, the enforcement of such a constitutionally problematic law threatens everyone’s civil rights in the process, and undermines the potential for fostering an environment based on peace and social justice. We unanimously denounce this law and strenuously urge that you rescind it in the name of compassion and human dignity.

We are all non-partisan professional organizations of scholars, educators, and practitioners, with thousands of members from across the country and abroad, committed to and knowledgeable about a wide range of social justice and environmental issues. We count among our members numerous scholars and other professionals who are among the most knowledgeable in the country on the subjects of immigration, including undocumented immigration, and our legal and political systems. While immigration reform in the United States may be overdue, we also know that using this to justify state laws that usurp federal authority over immigration will create many more legal and social problems than it resolves.

Moreover, we note that the combined effect of SB 1070 with the prohibition on Ethnic Studies contained in HB 2281 creates an atmosphere of legislated intolerance and racialized politicking that is simply untenable, unwise, and unjust. Indeed, the simple fact that SB 1070 had to be amended, under pressure following its passage, by HB 2162 (which sought to qualify the conditions for officer contact) demonstrates quite clearly the inherently flawed and potentially racist implications of this piece of legislation. We note here as well that the purported “remedy” of requiring a “stop” before officers can inquire further about legal status based a “reasonable suspicion” is equally expansive in its application, and thus equally problematic. These alterations, again adopted in haste following public pressure, will not provide sufficient protection against racial profiling.

Police officers are not immigration officers. Putting them in the position of enforcing federal immigration law will destroy the trust between police officers and communities so essential for effective law enforcement. It will also lead to unwarranted and prolonged detention of citizens and legal residents, increasing the likelihood of civil rights litigation against police departments, cities, and towns, and potentially damaging family units across the state. Despite language ostensibly prohibiting racial profiling, this will be the de facto reality of the law’s implementation. Physical appearance, particularly being of Hispanic background, will unavoidably remain the primary factor determining whether someone is or is not asked to prove her or his citizenship or residency status. For all these reasons, many law enforcement leaders across the country, as well as in Arizona, oppose this law. It would be wise to heed the objections of the law enforcement officers who are now faced with enforcing this unjust law.

For some, the stated intent of SB 1070 unequivocally is to cleanse Arizona of its undocumented immigrants and their families, among them children and other relatives born in the United States, as evidenced by the fact that legislative supporters of this law have repeatedly and proudly described this as part of a strategy to make life so unbearable for undocumented residents and their families that they will leave the state. Any law whose goal and effect is to drive an ethnic population to leave its place of residence is a crime against humanity under current international law. The law will also have the effect of separating cohesive family units, leading to increased marginalization and immiseration among communities already facing grave challenges. In this manner, SB 1070 risks making Arizona a pariah state on the national and international stages.

Furthermore, whatever the intent, at minimum this law will create a climate of fear so intense as to make low-wage workers even more vulnerable and therefore much easier to exploit by unscrupulous employers. Denying immigrant workers protections or otherwise making them more vulnerable does not stop them from coming. Rather, it simply drives them further underground and makes them more exploitable. Finally, the climate of fear and hostility that this law will create is antithetical to the aims of promoting a more just and peaceful world. By institutionalizing chauvinism and magnifying differences of race and ethnicity, SB 1070 promises to enlarge the gulf between diverse communities and pit groups against one another, rather than encouraging people to work together to find mutually-beneficial solutions to challenging issues. Ironically, and sadly, the net effect of SB 1070 will be precisely what is sought to be prohibited under HB 2281, namely that it will in practice and principle serve to “promote resentment toward a certain ethnic group.”

Opposition to this law has been rapid and strong, and is likely to become even stronger, as more and more groups and individuals boycott the state of Arizona and businesses based in Arizona. We are aware as well of the ostensible support in the state for the law, and therefore recognize the political pressures that have led you to pass this law. But widespread support for a law does not make it just; not long ago the majority of southerners supported segregation laws. As Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his landmark essay Letter from a Birmingham Jail, following the teachings of St. Augustine: “‘An unjust law is no law at all.’… Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” It is especially in instances such as these that strong moral leadership is needed, and we are appealing to the governor, state legislators, and all concerned Arizonans to provide it. Please choose to be on the right side of history and work to overturn this patently unjust law. We thank you for your time and attention in this important matter.

Sincerely,

The Consortium of Professional and Academic Associations, including the following:
American Studies Association (ASA)
Chicano/Latino Faculty and Staff Association, ASU (CLFSA)
Justice Studies Association (JSA)
Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social (MALCS)
National Association for Chicano and Chicana Studies (NACCS)
Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA)
Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA)
Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR)
Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP)
Sociologists Without Borders (Sociologos Sin Fronteras) (SSF)

In addition, more and more organizations could and should be encouraged to become a signatory to this letter of condemnation, including international organizations, for the United States has a horrendous record of human rights abuses in immigration.

Peace and Solidarity

The DREAM Act is commendable. Advocating only for “good” immigrants is not.

2010-05-18T05:41:00.000-07:00

The DREAM Act needs to be passed – now. The DREAM Act is one that allows undocumented youth who finish high school in the United States to apply for legalization. Students who qualify for the DREAM act are often the poster children for immigration campaigns – students with 4.0 GPAs and high aspirations. It is clear that it is in the best interest of the United States to grant these youth a path to legalization.

That said, there is one issue with the DREAM Act – it is one of many legislative proposals that pits “good” immigrants against “bad” immigrants. Good immigrants are ones that never violate any laws, that go to school, that work hard, that learn English, that behave, and that become “American.” Bad immigrants are ones that have a criminal record, that drop out of school, that protest their working conditions, that don’t learn English, and that aren’t American enough.

Politicians and advocates often offer legalization as a prize for good immigrants. But, should legalization be a prize? Perhaps it should be, if you think that the United States is a fair country where good behavior is always rewarded and bad behavior is always punished.

However, the reality is that nearly ALL people in the United States have committed an infraction that would render them ineligible for legalization. Anyone who has shoplifted, smoked marijuana, driven while under the influence, used a false ID to get into a club, had a switchblade, been in a vehicle with illegal drugs, used prescription drugs without a prescription, or gotten into a fight would be ineligible for legalization …. if they were caught and convicted of these crimes. Most people in the US have done one or more of these illegal actions over the course of their lives. Most people, however, are not caught, convicted, or sentenced for these relatively minor crimes.

And, it turns out that blacks and Latinos who engage in these illegal activities are much more likely to be caught. Two white people driving across the country with a stash of marijuana under the back seat are much less likely to be caught than two black or Latino people. If caught, the whites are less likely to be convicted. If convicted, the whites are much less likely to get a harsh sentence.

To advocate only for the “good” immigrants is to condone racial inequality in America. My criminal record is sparkling clean. My conscience, however, is not, as I have committed illegal actions in my life. Who hasn’t?

Immigration reform needs to happen soon. And, when it does, politicians need to have the courage to stand up for all immigrants – not just the good ones.

The time for comprehensive immigration reform is now

2010-05-11T03:26:00.000-07:00

The time for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) is now. Each day Congress delays a much-needed comprehensive immigration reform, 1,000 people are deported, 33,000 are held in detention, one dies in the desert, and millions live in fear. This is not the kind of society in which I want to live.

I want to live in a country where fathers are not torn from their families without a trial. Under current laws, legal permanent residents with two minor drug convictions can be deported to countries they left decades ago as infants. This law needs to be changed. Now.

In the current system, the sole breadwinner in a family of U.S. citizens can be picked up on the street, thrown into detention, and deported without ever speaking to a lawyer. This needs to change. Now.

Every day that Congress fails to take on immigration reform, we, as a society, are failing to do what we can to ensure that children are not separated from their parents, that families are not terrorized in their sleep when ICE agents pound on their door, and that all members of our society are treated with dignity.

So, before copycat Arizona legislation spreads like wildfire, before ICE goes on a deporting spree to meet its quotas, before another innocent person dies in ICE detention, CIR must be enacted.

Pick up your phone, call your representative and tell them that the time is now.

Immigration Policy and Low-Wage Labor in a "Post-Racial" United States

2010-05-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

Immigrant labor in the United States is not just any type of labor. Like slavery, the importation of foreign workers to fill the lowest sectors of the U.S. labor market allows many citizen workers to move into the middle-class, where they enjoy cheap and abundant goods (especially food) made possible by the underpaid labor of others. This system of exploitation is legitimized by the systematic differentiation of immigrant and non-white workers that diminishes their claims to rights and resources in the United States. In the U.S., the most persistent mechanism of this differentiation is racism. Racism, which denies the equal humanity of people of color, has been used to justify and maintain the subordination of non-white workers in the U.S., most starkly via slavery and selective immigration policies that discriminate against workers from certain nations.

For most of its history, U.S. immigration policy has been overtly racist. There is nothing subtle or covert about declaring Asians to be “racially ineligible” for citizenship (in 1917) or waging a campaign against Mexican workers called “Operation Wetback” (in 1954). However, in a post civil rights era, as a putatively enlightened United States declares itself “post racial,” the inferiority––and hence subordination––of low-wage workers is increasingly invoked by other means. It is no coincidence that, as undocumented immigrant labor and forced prison labor have become central to the cheap mass production of foodstuffs, the supposed criminality of African American and Latino workers has become a centerpiece of political policy and popular discourse.

Since the close of the civil rights era, the United States has put more people in prison than any other nation on earth––both in terms of the proportion of its population and in terms of absolute numbers. Capitalizing on fear created by the agitations of the 1960s, legislators vowed to get “tough on crime” and introduced mandatory prison terms, long sentences, and increased penalties for narcotics violations. This campaign created a surge in the prison population in which African Americans were eight times more likely to be jailed than whites. Between 1970 and 2003, there was a seven-fold increase in the prison population in the United States, and by 2004, over 12 percent of African American men between the ages of 25 and 29 were behind bars. At this very same moment in history, immigrant workers from Mexico have been recast as “illegal” and increasingly subject to detention, deportation, and hate crimes.

Images and discourses that reduce African Americans to “criminals” and Latino/a workers to “illegals” are pervasive in U.S. society, and they maintain persistent racial inequalities when good old-fashioned bigotry is no longer considered polite. Yet these ideas are but the newest incarnation of an idea as old as America itself––that the American descendants of Europeans are, by their very nature, somehow more deserving of rights and resources than others.

Though the idea that the United States is a “white nation” is a mythical heritage that has never existed, it continues to be invoked in the popular imagination by histories and policies that negate the central role of non-Europeans in the construction of the United States. Today, undocumented immigrants work at higher rates than U.S. citizens, bolstering the economy not only with their labor but through billions of dollars that flow into federal, state, and local tax coffers to support services that they are largely ineligible to receive. While their labor is eagerly consumed, undocumented immigrants are denied their share of the prosperity that they have helped build. Their marginalization is popularly legitimized by a rhetoric of “illegality” that, like racism, at once contributes to the subordination of certain workers and undermines their very humanity.

Governor Paterson’s Pardon Panel Sets a Better Example than Arizona

2010-05-10T09:57:00.000-07:00

In the absence of a national comprehensive immigration reform, individual states are coming up with their own immigration laws and policies. Two of the most notable state actions include the signing of SB 1070 in Arizona by Governor Jan Brewer and a decision by Governor Paterson of New York to offer more pardons to legal permanent residents facing deportation.

Being Undocumented is not a crime
The bill recently signed into law in Arizona criminalizes undocumented migrants by making undocumented migration a crime of trespassing – the punishment for which will involve a fine and jail time. In United States law, there is no punishment for being undocumented, as being undocumented is not a crime. Deportation is not considered punishment; it is a civil sanction. Deportation is outside the purview of most Constitutional protections. For this reason, immigration agents can detain people without establishing reasonable suspicion and non-citizens are not afforded counsel in deportation proceedings. In Arizona, police officers will be trained to enforce immigration laws and will turn suspected undocumented migrants over to federal immigration agents to be deported. Arizona officials cannot deport anyone.

As Joe Feagin pointed out in a recent post on Racism Review, the Arizona law is tied to white supremacist organizations. In stark contrast to the Arizona law which makes undocumented immigration a crime, New York Governor Paterson announced on Monday that he will establish a special five-member state panel to review the cases of legal permanent residents convicted of crimes to determine whether or not they merit a governor’s pardon.

Paterson's panel does not change any laws
Governor Paterson’s panel, unlike the immigration court system, can take into account the severity of the crime, the ties to the US, and lack of ties to the home country of legal permanent residents convicted of aggravated felonies to decide whether or not a non-citizen should be deported. Under current law, non-citizens convicted of aggravated felonies face automatic deportation. Immigration judges cannot take into account any personal circumstances. Aggravated felonies include a wide array of crimes – some of which are actually misdemeanors. For example, a shoplifting conviction with a suspended sentence of one year counts as an aggravated felony. People who have been legal residents of the United States for nearly all of their lives have been deported for shoplifting Tylenol, for smoking marijuana and for forging checks.

Once the judge determines that a crime meets the definition of an aggravated felony, the non-citizen faces deportation. It does not matter if the person was adopted by a US citizen as an infant or came to the US as an adult – a conviction of an aggravated felony automatically leads to a deportation. There are only two ways for a person convicted of an aggravated felony can avoid deportation – a governor’s pardon or a presidential pardon. Until now, very few pardons have been granted.

Governor Paterson’s decision to implement a panel to review pardon cases is very different from what is going on in Arizona. Arizona is attempting to change the nature of immigration law by criminalizing civil offenses. Governor Paterson is not changing any laws. He is simply taking on more actively a power he already has – the power to grant pardons.

States should follow Paterson's lead, not Brewer's
State senators across the United States are proposing to take immigration laws into their own hands. Unfortunately, most states are looking to follow the path of Arizona and criminalize immigrants. Few states are proposing to provide relief for legal permanent residents convicted of crimes. This is an aspect of immigration law that needs to be changed at the federal level. For now, however, state governors could show the need for this by implementing panels similar to that of Governor Paterson.

Since 1996, over 100,000 legal permanent residents have been deported from the United States due to criminal convictions – many of them for minor crimes. (See this site for more information about aggravated felonies.) Our immigration laws are desperately in need of reform. Most of the legislative proposals in Congress, however, do not propose to change the overly punitive laws regarding the deportation of legal permanent residents convicted of crimes. Few lawmakers wish to be perceived as not being tough on crime. Who wants to stand up for “criminal aliens”?

I commend Governor Paterson for standing up for what is right and encourage other Governors to take similar action. It is right and it is in line with our values as a nation to allow people facing deportation to have their cases heard. It is wrong to deport people without taking into consideration their ties to the United States and the effects of their deportation on their lives and on the lives of their families.

Paterson's Review Panel: A Step in the Right Direction

2010-05-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

Governor Paterson announced on Monday that he will establish a special five-member state panel to review the cases of people facing deportation to determine whether or not they deserve a governor’s pardon.

This is very different from what is going on in Arizona. Arizona is attempting to change the nature of immigration law by criminalizing civil offenses. Governor Paterson is not changing any laws. He is simply taking on more actively a power he already has – the power to grant pardons. Since 1996, over 100,000 legal permanent residents have been deported from the United States due to criminal convictions – many of them for minor crimes. There are only two ways for a person convicted of an aggravated felony to avoid deportation –a governor’s pardon or a presidential pardon.

Governor Paterson’s panel will review the cases of legal permanent residents facing deportation on the basis of criminal convictions. Under current law, non-citizens convicted of aggravated felonies face automatic deportation. The deportation is automatic insofar as immigration judges cannot take into account either their ties to the Untied States or their lack of ties to their home country. Once the judge determines that a crime meets the definition of an aggravated felony, the non-citizen faces deportation.

Aggravated felonies include a wide array of crimes – including misdemeanors. For example, a shoplifting conviction with a suspended sentence of one year counts as an aggravated felony. People who have been legal residents of the United States for their entire lives have been deported for shoplifting baby clothes and Tylenol. This panel will do what immigration judges cannot – they will take into account family ties, the nature of the crime, and the potential effects of the deportation on the non-citizen’s family in the United States.

I have spent the past year interviewing deportees in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and Brazil. I have met many people whose cases potentially would have been viewed favorably by such a panel. O’Ryan, for example, moved to the US from Jamaica when he was 6 years old. In his early twenties, O’Ryan was a passenger in a car where drugs were found. He was sentenced to three to nine years for drug trafficking. He chose to do boot camp, so he only spent 18 months in jail. After serving his time, he was deported to Jamaica.

All of O’Ryan’s family members are US citizens. He also had applied for citizenship, but the application was still pending when he was arrested. O’Ryan has only distant relatives in Jamaica. When I met him, he had been in Jamaica for seven years and saw his deportation as a cruel punishment for a mistake for which he had already paid.

O’Ryan deserved to have his case heard by such a panel. The immigration judge could only take into account the fact that O’Ryan had been convicted of drug trafficking – a crime which automatically leads to deportation. A panel, however, could have taken into account the fact that O’Ryan had been in the US since he was six, has a US citizen daughter, and has no ties to Jamaica.

Our immigration laws are desperately in need of reform. Most of the legislative proposals in Congress, however, do not propose to change the overly punitive laws regarding the deportation of legal permanent residents convicted of crimes. Few lawmakers wish to be seen as not being tough on crime. I commend Governor Paterson for standing up for what is right. It is right and it is in line with our values as a nation to allow people facing deportation to have their cases heard. It is wrong to deport people without taking into consideration their ties to the United States and the effects of their deportation on their lives and on the lives of their families.

Originally posted on Counterpunch.org ... http://www.counterpunch.org/golash05042010.html

Culture of Migration in Goiás

2010-04-29T07:21:00.000-07:00

Brazil has the tenth largest economy in the world. The state of Goiás is full of businesses – garments manufacturing, meatpacking, agricultural industry, and some tourism. Why, then, do so many Goianos migrate to the United States and Europe?

One in nine Goiás natives lives abroad. About half of Goiás natives who live abroad reside in the US, and most of the remaining live in Europe.

One of the many reasons, I think, for these migration trends, has to do with a culture of migration in Goiás. Most people in Goiás are the children or grandchildren of internal migrants – mostly from Minas Gerais, but also from Bahia and other nearby states. These internal migrants have passed on to their progeny the values of hard work and the quest for financial betterment.

I have spent the last two weekends in Jaraguá and a story of migration in search of economic success has emerged in most of the migrants’ life stories.

In the early 1990s, two Jaraguenses traveled to Danbury, Connecticut. There, they found a community of Brazilians – mostly from Minas Gerais and Parana. These two pioneers established themselves in Danbury. One became the regional manager of Dunkin Donuts.

Other Jaraguenses soon followed. Many found work in Dunkin Donuts – where the manager from Jaraguá gave preference to people from his hometown. Others worked in landscaping or laying foundation. Most of the women worked in housecleaning.

These early migrants returned to Jaraguá with their houses finished, with new cars, and bought farms and livestock around Jaraguá. With the Brazilian Real at R$4 for US$1, their savings went far in Jaraguá. They were able to save thousands of dollars by working 60, 70, 80 hours a week – or more.

People in Jaraguá watched those migrants return and began to build their own dreams and their own plans. Instead of working for ten or twenty years to save up for a house in Jaraguá, they could go to the US and have the money in two to four years.

That is why “Miguel” went to the United States. Miguel had a good job at a telecom company in Jaraguá. He had a small house and a car, but wanted more. So, he went to the US through Mexico to finish and enlarge his house, to buy a better car, and to have money to start a business. Only, it did not work out that way.

Miguel stayed in the US for four years. He had only planned to stay for two, but was not earning as much as he had anticipated. When he was deported back to Brazil, he had finished his house, but did not have much else to show for his four years of work. He reflected that he could have saved up as much money in Brazil had he been judicious with his salary. And, he would not have had to spend four years away from his wife and children – a long separation that led to his divorce.

Miguel was not part of the poor, huddled masses that many people imagine want to travel to the US. He was just looking for a way to improve his fairly decent standard of living in Jaraguá, and saw that many people had been able to do that through labor migration.

This culture of migration is highly localized in Goiás – some towns have it and others do not. In Jaraguá, Matrinchã, Itapuranga, and Itaberaí, most people know someone who has traveled abroad. In contrast, this is not the case in Cidade Goiás – where the culture of migration has not taken hold, yet.

Criminalizing the Undocumented: The Consequences of Arizona's SB 1070

2010-04-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

There are many ways to become undocumented in the United States. Two of the most common ways are crossing the border undetected and overstaying a temporary visa. These are not criminal actions. The penalty for either of these is deportation – a civil procedure. The bill recently signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer – SB 1070 - criminalizes this civil offense.

In United States law, deportation is not considered punishment. It is a civil sanction. Were deportation to be considered punishment, all sorts of legal procedures would have to be in place in order for the punishment to be carried out. For example, in order for a police officer to arrest someone, they must have a reasonable suspicion that a person has committed a crime. When a person is arrested as a crime suspect, they must be read their Miranda rights, which tell them that they have the right to remain silent and the right to counsel. After being arrested, suspects must be charged, convicted and sentenced in order to be punished.

In contrast, the civil penalty of deportation is a whole different ball game. Deportation is imposed with few procedural protections and is outside the purview of most Constitutional protections. For this reason, immigration agents can detain people without establishing reasonable suspicion and non-citizens are not afforded counsel in deportation proceedings. Deportation is not punishment for being illegally present in the US; it is a remedial action to correct the fact that a person is illegally present. If a person does not have the right to remain in the US, they can be removed.

The bill recently signed into law in Arizona criminalizes undocumented migrants by making undocumented migration a crime of trespassing. People suspected of trespassing will be arrested by police officers. Then, they will have to be charged and convicted in Arizona state courts. Trespassing is defined in this bill as a Class 1 misdemeanor – a person convicted faces up to a $2500 fine and up to six months in jail. Within Arizona, this process remains in the criminal justice system.

The State of Arizona does not have to power to deport anyone – only the Department of Homeland Security can do that. Once the person is charged and convicted in Arizona, they can be turned over to immigration authorities to be deported – as criminal aliens – people convicted of crimes prior to being deported.

What I find particularly contradictory in SB 1070 is that it criminalizes what is defined by the US government as a civil violation. Of course, once undocumented migration is criminalized, suspects will have to be afforded all of the rights that criminal suspects have. Since a Class 1 misdemeanor carries the possibility of jail time, defendants have the right to court-appointed counsel. In addition, when arrested, the grounds for reasonable suspicion must be met. How are police officers going to establish “reasonable suspicion” that a person is undocumented? Federal laws prohibit discrimination based on a person's national origin, race, color, and religion. This means that reasonable suspicion may not be based on any of these factors. What, then, will police officers use to establish reasonable suspicion?

Another issue is the case overload – both in Arizona and in the DHS. There are about a half a million undocumented migrants in Arizona and many, many others who could be suspected to be so. How is Arizona going to be able to handle this criminal case overload? The Department of Homeland Security only has 33,000 beds available for immigrant detainees. Where will they put all of these new arrivals?

These are questions that will have to be considered before this law takes effect in August. Hopefully, by that time, the Supreme Court will have ruled this law unconstitutional.

reposted from: http://www.counterpunch.org/golash04282010.html

The Contradictions of Deportations: Jaraguenses and Expedited Removals from the US

2010-04-19T04:57:00.000-07:00

There are many ways for Brazilians to be deported from the United States. One of the most common ways is through “expedited removals.” All of the people I interviewed in Jaraguá, Brazil this past weekend were deported from the United States using the “expedited removal” provisions of the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) – Section 235 (b) (1). Expedited removal allows Border Patrol agents to make a decision that a person is inadmissible if they are found within 100 miles of the border and have been in the US for less than twelve days.

Expedited removals can happen at airports or at land borders. For example, “Marly” traveled to the United States on a tourist visa. She overstayed her visa and remained in the US for over three years. She returned to Brazil to see if she could get visas for her children to join her in the US. She was unsuccessful and returned to the US on her own. When she arrived in JFK, it became apparent that she had overstayed her previous visa. She was held at the airport all day, and returned to Brazil the same evening. This is recorded as an “expedited removal” and shows up in DHS records as a formal removal – commonly called a deportation.

Expedited removals also can happen at the border. There often is not enough bed space at detention centers along the borders. As such, when Border Patrol agents catch undocumented migrants attempting to enter the US, they often have to release them with an immigration court date – called a “Notice to Appear.” Most people never return for their court dates and remained in the US illegally. In response, certain Border Patrol sectors began to implement expedited removals of some individuals in order to be able to deport more people and allow fewer to remain in the United States.

In 2005, for example, the Rio Grande Valley Sector of the Border Patrol began to selectively place only Brazilians in expedited removal programs (http://www.mre.gov.br/portugues/noticiario/nacional/selecao_detalhe3.asp?ID_RESENHA=160606 ). Whereas Hondurans and Salvadorans were released into the US with a Notice to Appear, Brazilians caught in the Rio Grande Valley Sector were placed in expedited removal proceedings where they waived their right to an immigration hearing and were deported to Brazil. This happened to “Sueli” in 2004 in the San Diego Sector. She was found attempting to cross into the US in the trunk of a car and agreed to be deported. She was sent back to Brazil within eight days.

The expedited removal policies were implemented selectively along the Mexican border. Coyotes in Mexico and Brazil learned which sectors were implementing expedited removal, which were detaining Brazilians on bond and which were releasing Brazilians into the US with a Notice to Appear. In response to this, coyotes chose new routes for Brazilians to enter the United States.

“Geraldo” was found in the desert near Nuevo Laredo in 2002. He had been abandoned by a coyote and he and his two companions walked for five days in the desert without food or water. When they arrived in Nuevo Laredo, Texas they were arrested by Border Patrol agents and placed in detention. Geraldo spent 82 days in detention before being deported to Brazil. Geraldo had such an awful experience he never wants to see the US again. In contrast, his two companions went back the next week and made it into the US – this time traveling through a different Border Patrol sector.

A friend of Geraldo’s went to the US a week later. He entered into a different Border Patrol sector, was arrested, and released within three days with a Notice to Appear. He continues to live in the US until this day.

Many Brazilians who hoped to enter the United States heard about these contradictory policies. They knew that it was illegal to enter the US via the Mexican border. But, they also heard that, once you are in the US, you are given “permission” to stay for six months. Of course, the coyotes they contracted embellished these stories saying that there is nothing illegal about crossing into the US. And, once you get in you are given permission to work and to stay for six months. Many Brazilians willingly sold all of their belongings to try their luck in the land of plenty.

Many Brazilians were lucky and made it into the US and worked to pay off their debts. Some avoided detection by Border Patrol agents. Others were caught and released by Border Patrol agents with Notices to Appear. Still others entered on tourist visas and remained past their time.

Many Brazilians also were unlucky and fell victim to their coyotes’ lack of knowledge or trickery. Some sell everything, don’t make it to the US and return deeply in debt. Others are abandoned by coyotes in Mexico or in the desert. Some meet a worse fate – they die of hunger or thirst in the desert.

Finding deportees in Goiás, Brazil

2010-04-05T06:13:00.000-07:00

I recently completed my tenth interview with a Brazilian deportee. I plan to complete 30 during my three month stay in Brazil and I have been here for one month and one week. So, I am a little behind schedule, but doing reasonably well.

Finding deportees in Brazil has not been easy. My project focuses on the state of Goiás, and there are likely at least 10,000 deportees in Goiás. The trouble is that they are spread out between many small towns and cities. This means that I have to consistently find new contacts or key informants.

About two weeks ago, I met a woman who knew a deportee in Matrinchã – a small town in Goiás. That deportee agreed to do the interview, and then introduced me to two more deportees in his town. Unfortunately, the string of deportees ended there. There were only three in that town.

From Matrinchã, I went to Cidade Goiás. I interviewed one person there, and he said he did not know of any more deportees.

From Cidade Goiás, I interviewed a deportee in Goiânia. He knew another deportee and referred me to him. Unfortunately, I was never able to get a hold of the second deportee. Now, I need to return to Goiânia and follow up with that potential lead as well as forge others.

The next city I came upon was Guaraita – a small town near Itapuranga. In Guaraita, one contact led to another and I met four deportees. Again, the network ended and I now need to move on to a new town. Fortunately, I have established some contacts in Itapuranga – a larger town - and should be able to conduct a few interviews there.

Goiânia and Itapuranga are both fairly large cities and have more than a handful of deportees. Hopefully once I get those networks up and running I will be able to find the remaining deportees that I need for my research.

If not, Anapolis and Aparecida de Goiania are two other cities where I could try and find contacts. Again, there are many deportees in both of those cities. Once I make one contact there, it should be easy to find others.

Finding interviews is not always easy, but, fortunately, people are usually willing to be interviewed if someone they know introduces you to them. As for this study, I have to make sure to keep track of how many I have completed and how much more time I have left in the country to ensure that I do not fall behind schedule.

From Goias to Georgia: $30,000 and a lot of hard work, but still worth it

2010-03-21T10:42:00.000-07:00

Tom grew up watching his single mother work hard, yet never having much to show for it. As he got older, he saw any people leave his small town in Goias, Brazil to work in the United States. They returned with their houses completed, new consumer goods and money to start a business. Tom resolved that he too would travel to the US.

When Tom was 25 years old, in 2005, he got his chance. A Brazilian coyote came to his town looking for people interested in traveling to the US. The trip cost $10,000. Tom did not have the money, yet was able to borrow it, albeit with high interest rates. At the time, Brazilians could obtain a visa at the port of entry in Mexico, and Tom was able to do so, with the help of a bribe.

From Mexico, Tom and his group traveled to the US border. They found a Mexican coyote to take them across the Rio Grande. At that time, the Border Patrol engaged in "catch and release" with OTMs - Other than Mexicans. Tom was arrested, detained, given a court date, and released. He then made his way to Marietta, Georgia.

In Marietta, Tom met up with friends from his hometown. The next day he was working. Tom's friends showed him how to install hardwood flooring, and, soon, he was earning $20 an hour. Tom's debt grew from $10,000 to $30,000 because of the high interest. However, he was able to pay it off in two years.

With his debt paid, Tom was able to save money to purchase a van. With a vehicle, Tom could take on his own contracts and earned four times as much money. However, driving without a valid license eventually got him into trouble.

On his way home from the Evangelical church he attended, a county sherrif pulled Tom over. The sheriff had run his plates and knew his license was not valid. When Tom was booked at the county sheriff's office, they ran his information on the immigration database. Tom had an immigration warrant as he had never shown up for his court date in Texas.

Tom was sent to an immigration prison where he spent fifty days before being deported back to Brazil. Back in Brazil, Tom found out his knee was bad because of all of the kneeling he did in the flooring business. He had knee surgery - paid for by the Brazilian public health system - and was on bed rest for a few months.

Once Tom recuperated, he found a job as a motorcycle salesman. He supplements his income by buying and selling cattle. Back in Brazil, Tom is able to earn enough money to gt by, and even to start a family when he is ready.

Tom misses the United States - his friends, his church, and the good money he made there. However, he is happy to be reunited with his mother and siblings in Brazil.

Given the chance to return to the US, Tom would go in a heartbeat. In the US, Tom told me, you can work for two days and have an iPhone. In Brazil, you can work all year and still won't have enough extra cash. However, Tom does not want to be undocumented again, so is staying in Brazil for now.

Agriculture, Evangelism, Ice Cream and Emigration – Itapuranga, Goiás, Brazil

2010-03-09T01:57:00.000-08:00

My research on deportees in Goiás, Brazil will focus primarily on the small city of Itapuranga – a city with a relatively high number of emigrants and deportees. Many people in Itapuranga emigrate to the United States, Ireland, and Portugal. Most are undocumented abroad.

Itapuranga is in a part of Brazil where agriculture predominates. The biggest industries in this part of Goiás are agriculture and meatpacking. The capital of Goiás – Goiania – has one of the largest meat packing companies in the world. This company –JBS SA - recently purchased the US company, Swift.

At the market in Itapuranga, agricultural products abound. You can find fresh milk, fresh eggs, and many live chickens. Most products, however, are sold to larger agri-processors. There are several milk depositories and meat and chicken factories in the area. There is also an ethanol factory just outside Itapuranga. With all of the agriculture and associated industries, there is work to be had in Itapuranga. The economy seems, at first glance, to be quite active. The stores and markets are full of people spending money. In the plaza in the evening, the surrounding bars, restaurants, and ice cream shops are full.

There are quite a few ice cream shops in Itapuranga. One reason for this is the fact that it is very hot. Another is that there are a lot of Evangelicals – as they don’t consume alcohol, ice cream shops are a good alternative to a bar for passing the time. I have yet to come across official statistics for religious denominations for Itapuranga, but there are many Evangelical churches in the city. There is even one in the main plaza where the mayor’s office is located.

Walking around Itapuranga this weekend, many people noticed my accent and asked where I am from. When I say I am from the US, the reaction has been universally positive. People either say they have a family member there or mention that they’d like to learn English. Most people I met over the weekend knew someone who had emigrated – either to Europe or to the US. People told me they knew of people from Itapuranga in Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston and Austin, Texas.

One of the reasons for emigration from Goiás seems to be the connection with Minas Gerais. The city of Itapuranga was established about fifty years ago – mostly by migrants from Minas Gerais. The two people I asked about their family origins told me that their family came from Minas Gerais. An older woman with a large extended family who sells food from a small stand, for example, told me that she is from Minas, but has settled here. This woman’s grandson is in San Francisco.

I also met three people who had lived in the US, but have returned to Itapuranga. One young man went with his father to Austin, Texas when he was nineteen. He went on a tourist visa, but overstayed. After four years, he decided to return, as he missed his family in Itapuranga. In Austin, he worked in a pizzeria, and then drove a taxi. He went to Austin because he had friends and family there. He estimated that there are about 7,000 Brazilians in Austin.

I also met a couple who are US citizens, and have returned to Itapuranga. The husband lived in the US for 18 years, and his wife for eight. They had two children in the US. They lived in San Mateo, near San Francisco, and he worked in a pizzeria. She worked as a nanny for two years before their first child was born. They came back to Brazil because of family problems in Brazil and financial problems in the US. They are not sure how long they will be staying. The husband will travel back to the US to work, and the wife will stay with their two children. This may be a permanent return, or it may not.

Either way, the connections between Itapuranga and the US will remain strong.

Goiás, Brazil - The current focus of my research on deportees

2010-03-04T11:24:00.000-08:00

Goiás is one of the largest producers of soybeans, and has the second largest bovine herd in Brazil. Goiás is less Catholic than most Brazilian states. Fifteen percent of all Brazilians identify as Evangelical Protestants. In Goias, 20 percent of the population identified as Evangelicals in the 2000 Census. Goiás has the largest number of residents living outside of Brazil.

2,000 Deportees a Year in Goias – 1,000 from Europe and 1,000 from the US

2010-03-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

After meeting with Elie Chidiac, the head of the state department of the State of Goiás, on Wednesday, I feel as though my research is actually getting underway. Our meeting was very informative.

I arrived just before 4pm for our scheduled meeting, and one of Mr. Chidiac’s receptionists asked me to wait just a few minutes, as he was in a meeting and would be out shortly. As I waited, I took note of the office – four tables, two computers, and two receptionists. Soon enough, three people came out of Mr. Chidiac’s office, and it was my turn.

Elie Chidiac was very welcoming as I explained to him the purpose of my project – to understand how people deported from the United States to Goiás re-integrate into Brazilian society. He explained to me that there are various social programs in Brazil in terms of education, health, and housing, and that deportees are able to gain priority access to those programs. He pointed out that deportees often arrive disillusioned and unable to help their families. These programs, however, may help them get back on their feet.

I asked Mr. Chidiac whether or not there is any data on the demographics of deportees. He explained to me that the Brazilian government does not keep records of deportees who arrive. He called Dr. Luciano of the Federal Police to verify this information and Dr. Luciano confirmed that Brazil does not keep these sorts of records. Mr. Chidiac explained to me that Brazil does not keep records on deportees because, for them, deportees are not criminals. Deportees are people who have committed a civil infraction in the US – either entering without inspection or overstaying a visa. For this reason, the Brazilian government does not feel compelled to keep track of them. Deportees arrive on regular commercial flights and are allowed to enter Brazil with no problem or processing.

Mr. Chidiac serves as an advisor to Goianos abroad. This office exists because of the large numbers of people from Goias living abroad – Goias is the Brazilian state with the most residents abroad. Mr. Chidiac was able to offer some statistics with regard to Goianos abroad. He ventured that there are 200,000 Goianos abroad – about 100,000 in the US and 100,000 in Europe. He also estimated that 80% are there illegally, and that about 2,000 are deported each year to Goias. Of the deportees, he estimated that half come from the US and half from Europe.

I asked Mr. Chidiac why he thought Goias has so many emigrants. He told me that, because there are so many Goianos abroad, migrant networks lead to more migration. Mr. Chidiac pointed out that Goianos are not likely to travel to the US unless they have a specific job offer. What he thinks happens is that a person from Goias is in the US or Europe working, and their boss asks them if they have any friends who need work. The worker, in turn, calls his brother, cousin, or friend and asks them to travel to where they are because they have employment waiting for them.

Mr. Chidiac explained to me that he thinks few Brazilians travel to the US illegally today for two reasons. The first is the falling value of the US dollar. The second is the difficulty in attaining a visa to travel to Mexico. Prior to 2005, Brazilians were able to travel to Mexico without a visa. Thus, many Brazilians who desired to travel to the US took a plane to Mexico and then made their way across the southern border of the US. Now that it is not easy to get to Mexico, few Brazilians venture to the US illegally. Instead, they are more likely to travel to Europe, where they do not need a visa to enter.

I asked Mr. Chidiac how migration from Goias started. He answered that it has to do with the close connections between Goias and Minas Gerais. Many people in Goias are from families that are originally from Minas Gerais. The same networks that take Mineiros to the US take Goianos there as well. He pointed out that many people he knows and works with in Goias are originally from Minas, or have family from Minas Gerais. Thus, although Minas Gerais has been the quintessential emigration state for Brazil, Goias is now taking its place, with fewer Mineiros leaving, and Goianan flows increasing.

Although Elie Chidiac was not able to give me statistics on deportees in Goias, he ventured a guess that about 80% of deportees are men and that most have lived in the US for over seven years. Overall in Brazil, 3 of every ten deportees are from Goias.

Looking for Deportees in Goias, Brazil

2010-03-03T01:46:00.000-08:00

In Jamaica, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic, I focused my research exclusively on the capital cities. In Brazil, however, it seems like that might not be the best option. The capital of Brazil – Brasilia – is not a major destination for deportees.

For this reason, I chose to do research in Goias - the Brazilian state with the highest number of deportees. However, I don’t yet know from which part of Goias deportees come. It seems as if they do not necessarily come from Goiania, the state capital. To find out from where in Goias deportees hail, I plan to speak with a few government officials who might have access to that information.

There are three government officials I need to locate and speak with. The first is a state-level official in Goias who is responsible for Goianos abroad. I am meeting with him this afternoon. The next is the ICE attaché for the US embassy in Brazil. The final person is either in Foreign Relations or in Immigration – in the Brazilian federal government. These people should be able to provide me with an idea of where deportees come from.

There has been relatively little research on migration from Goias to the US. However, I have been able to locate a couple of academic studies and have made contact with the authors of those. Speaking with academics is also useful for setting up my site selection.

One big question I have had is why there is so much emigration from Goias. When people think of emigration from Brazil, most think of Minas Gerais. Minas Gerais is the state that sends the most emigrants abroad. The connections between Minas Gerais and the US go back very far, and stem from the mining of mica in Minas Gerais by Americans in the early twentieth century. With Goias, however, there has been much less research and therefore we don’t have a well-developed understanding of emigration from Goias.

I recently read an article by Alan Marcus, a geographer at Towson State University. He argues that there was also mica mining in Goias, and that that led to emigration from Goias. Marcus also mentions Protestantism. Apparently, Goias is the state in Brazil with the highest amount of Protestantism. My colleague Izabel suggested that the high prevalence of the “Protestant Ethic” in Goias may be part of the explanation for emigration from Goias.

Another study, by Brazilian anthropologist, Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, points to the initial migration of a few Goianos to San Francisco as the root of Goianan emigration to the US. He found that a few people from Goiania went to the US and found work in pizzerias. Those initial migrants eventually set up their own pizzerias in San Francisco and used their networks in Brazil to bring Brazilian workers to San Francisco. From those few initial pioneers, San Francisco now has a relatively high number of Goianan immigrants.

Thus, pizza, mica, and Protestantism seem to be behind the emigration of Goianos to the US. The question remains, however, from which part of Goias these migrants come, and to which part of Goias most deportees go.

Brazil is among the top five countries that receive deportees from the US. However, I am not yet sure whether or not those deportees are primarily people found at the Mexican border, or if they are people who have lived for years in the US. It appears there have been a couple of governmental studies of deportees, and I plan to gain access to those to see if they can shed light on the characteristics of deportees.

Once I have a better idea of the demographic profile of deportees in Goias, it will be easier to select a site and to select potential participants for my study.

Retroactive Deportation Laws Lead to De Facto Deportation of US Citizen

2010-02-23T05:02:00.000-08:00

Karina is a seventeen year old girl who was born in the United States to a Dominican father and a US citizen mother. When she was seven years old, she experienced a de facto deportation to the Dominican Republic. As a US citizen, Karina has the right to live in the United States. She and her father wanted her to grow up in the US. However, her father’s deportation prevented that from happening. When Karina’s father was deported to the DR in 1999, Karina was in his custody.

Karina and her father, Roberto, thought they were going on vacation when they boarded a plane to the DR in 1999, but that vacation turned permanent when a retroactive deportation law rendered Roberto a deportable alien. This is their story.

Roberto grew up in a small town in Santo Domingo where his father farmed the land. Roberto decided to join the Dominican Navy after seeing a young man dressed in a naval uniform near his hometown. Once in the Navy, Roberto traveled aboard ships to other countries including the United States. After his first trip to Norfolk, Virginia, Roberto decided he’d like to live in the United States.

Roberto was impressed with the cleanliness and large modern buildings in Norfolk and vowed to return once he finished his military service. In 1985, Roberto was able to secure a visa and travel to the United States. Between 1985 and 1990, Roberto traveled back and forth from the DR to the US. Each time he went, he worked at a gas station owned by a Dominican man he knew from his work in the military.

In 1990, Roberto decided to stay in the US and not return to the DR. The reason was that he planned to marry an American woman he had met on the coast in Massachusetts. Not too long before they were married, Roberto found himself in trouble with the law. Roberto told me that as a military man from a small town in the DR, he was completely unfamiliar with illegal drugs and had never laid a hand on them. Despite this, he was arrested on drug charges in New Hampshire.

This is how he explained the situation. He and his fiancé were planning to spend the weekend together. Before going to the coast, she wanted to stop at her place and pick up some clothes. However, she didn’t want her father to see Roberto, as her father was racist and didn’t like people of color. So, she left Roberto in the parking lot of a nearby apartment building while she went home.

At the time, Roberto was living in Massachusetts, and this apartment building was in New Hampshire. While Roberto was waiting outside the apartment building, a police vehicle pulled up and arrested Roberto. It turned out that one of the apartments was a drug house, and Roberto was standing near the door. At first they charged him with possession of the drugs and weapons that were inside the house as well as with a drug sale. Roberto denied all of the charges. The first two charges were dropped, but he remained a suspect in a drug sale that had happened at another location.

Roberto insisted on his innocence. The judge suggested he plead guilty, and told him there would be no time or parole were he to plead guilty. Roberto insisted he could not plead guilty, as a matter of principle. He had never had anything to do with drugs, and refused to sign. Roberto went back and forth to court for two years. Finally, one day, as he was chatting with his interpreter, his lawyer got him to sign. Roberto insists he was tricked. He said his lawyer walked by with a big stack of files, and asked Roberto to sign a paper so that she could keep going. Feeling bad because she was physically burdened with so many files, Roberto signed the paper.

In the courtroom a few minutes later, the judge told him that he was glad he finally agreed to sign. Roberto had signed a guilty plea, and that was the end of the case. Roberto felt tricked, but was glad the case was behind him, and went on with his life.

That was in 1991, and there were no immigration consequences to his plea at the time. Roberto was not yet a legal permanent resident, however, as his paperwork had not gone through yet. When it came time for Roberto to become a legal permanent resident, his application was denied. Roberto said it was denied because his wife was receiving government aid, and had a history of drug abuse. Roberto was not sure of the details, but it seems likely that their application was denied because of her financial instability.

Meanwhile, Roberto and his wife had a baby girl, Karina. Before Karina was a year old, they separated and Roberto got sole custody of his baby daughter. In January 1999, Roberto received a letter asking him to come to the immigration office. When he went to the immigration office he was told he was eligible for legalization on the basis of his US-born daughter. Roberto got his green card and almost immediately purchased a ticket back to the Dominican Republic. He was anxious to return home and wanted his family to meet his daughter. Roberto stayed in the DR for one month. When it was time for Roberto to go back and work, his sister suggested he leave Karina behind for another week.

When Roberto arrived in the US, border agents stopped him and told him he was ineligible for entry on the basis of his 1991 guilty plea for the sale of $20 of cocaine.

When Roberto pled guilt to the drug charge, there were no immigration consequences to his plea. The judge, his lawyer and his interpreter assured him that all he needed to do was to sign and the case would be behind him. He would serve no time, and would be able to get on with his life. They were right. However, in 1996, the laws changed, and this became a deportable offense.

Roberto was put into an immigration prison and deported back to the Dominican Republic. Karina has stayed in the DR with him, and has grown up in the Dominican Republic. With no family in the US, she may never return.

Immigrants and Citizens alike will be affected by an immigration reform

2010-02-19T05:10:00.000-08:00

The immigration policy debate is not solely about the fate of immigrants, or of non-citizens. The outcome of these debates and any measures enacted under the guise of immigration reform will affect United States citizens. In the contemporary United States, any policy that has negative implications for immigrants inevitably also will have negative consequences for citizens. This is because, in many ways, there is not a clear boundary between non-citizens and citizens nor between immigrants and citizens.

Some US citizens are immigrants, and some non-citizens will become citizens. In addition, most non-citizens have citizen family members. As Fix and Zimmerman (http://www.jstor.org/pss/2675874 ) point out,

fully “85 percent of immigrant families (i.e. those with at least one non-citizen parent) are mixed status families. The meaning of this is clear: most policies that advantage or disadvantage non-citizens are likely to have broad spillover effects on the citizen children who live in the great majority of immigrant families” (emphasis in original).

In the United States, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is charged with handling the transition of the foreign-born either into citizenship or into leaving this country. As indicated on the DHS official website (http://www.dhs.gov/index.shtm ), the mission of the DHS is as follows:

We will lead the unified national effort to secure America. We will prevent and deter terrorist attacks and protect against and respond to threats and hazards to the nation. We will ensure safe and secure borders, welcome lawful immigrants and visitors, and promote the free-flow of commerce.

The primary mission of the DHS is to protect citizens from terrorist attacks. This project involves protecting the borders, and enforcing laws in the interior, but at the same time, welcoming lawful immigrants and visitors and international commerce. For the DHS, lawful immigrants are potential citizens, whereas unlawful immigrants are unwelcome. The DHS is charged both with enabling immigrants to become citizens and ensuring that those who are not eligible for citizenship are appropriately regulated.

Although the DHS is clear on its intent to regulate non-citizens and to protect citizens, it is not possible to divide the US into two discrete parts – citizens versus non-citizens. It is perhaps more useful to draw a divide between the foreign-born who are eligible for citizenship and those who are not. The foreign-born who are eligible for citizenship include legal permanent residents who have been in the US for several years, and have not violated US laws. Those who are not eligible for citizenship include most undocumented migrants, tourists, students, refugees, and non-citizen who have violated certain US laws.

Non-citizens who are convicted of a wide range of legal violations not only are ineligible for citizenship, but also face deportation. The legal violations that render non-citizens deportable include violent crimes such as murder, rape, and robbery. However, they also include minor crimes such as crossing the border without inspection, shoplifting, resisting arrest, and tax evasion. A US citizen who commits similar crimes faces the appropriate charges, serves any time sentenced, and goes about his or her life. A non-US citizen who commits these crimes faces deportation to his or her country of birth. In this sense, the law is clear as to the different nature of punishment for citizens versus non-citizens. The impact, however, is often felt by citizens. When a non-citizen is deported, his or her family often suffers greatly.

People who are not US citizens and are thus subject to deportation often have US citizen family members. They also often live in communities with US citizens. Some may have been in the country for a few days, but others have settled here and have been here for decades. Their deportation can be a tragedy for those left behind. For this reason, the immigration policy debate cannot take a narrow look simply at migrants, but must also take into consideration the significant impact on citizens, as well as recognize that immigrants and citizens are not mutually exclusive categories, but often stages in a person’s migrant career.

This is a repost from here: http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2010/02/18/immigrants-and-citizens-alike-affected-by-immigration-reform/

Don Franco Mendoza: Still undocumented, after twenty-five years in the US

2010-02-17T04:54:00.000-08:00

Don Franco came to the United States in 1985, with his wife, doña Lucrecia and their two youngest boys. They left their other two children behind in Morelos, Mexico, in the care of doña Lucrecia’s mother. They hoped to reunite with them once they were settled. They arrived at doña Lucrecia’s brother’s house on the near West Side of Chicago, where they stayed until don Franco could save up enough money to move out and get their own place. Upon arrival, don Franco’s brother had already arranged employment for him.

It did not take very long for don Franco to save up the necessary funds to move into their own apartment. Don Franco and doña Lucrecia were able to establish themselves and their family in Chicago. Don Franco obtained a driver’s license and social security number. However, they never qualified for legalization. This means that they live tenuously in the US, even after nearly three decades in this country. They also cannot return to Mexico, for fear of not being able to re-enter the US. They have extensive family and community ties on both sides of the border. Unable to obtain legalization, they have not been able to reunite with their children they left behind in Mexico.

Don Franco is one of about twelve million undocumented workers in the US who lives tenuously because of his migration status. The undocumented labor force constitutes nearly five percent of the civilian labor force in the US. This includes 29 percent of all agricultural workers, 29 percent of all roofers, 22 percent of all maids and housekeepers, and 27 percent of all people working in food processing (Passel 2006). Without this undocumented labor force, it is likely that food grown in the US would be grown elsewhere, thereby raising prices for consumers. It is also probable that processed meats would be more expensive and less available, meaning most Americans would have to cut their own chickens into chicken tenders. Fewer people would have access to maids, housecleaners, and nannies. In addition, many of the companies that provide those services would close. The loss of undocumented workers would lead to the loss of jobs for the administrators, and, in turn, for their local service providers.

Employers recruit workers to meet labor needs. If employers could recruit workers for pre-determined periods and ship them out at will, we would have a society with a sector of second-class citizens whose only purpose was to provide labor. None of their other rights would be recognized and they could be deported at our whims. This is not unfathomable, as it is common practice in many Gulf States, and the bracero programs which brought Mexican temporary laborers to the US during and after World War II could be described as such. However, such practices are anathema to our self-conception as a nation of immigrants and of family values and as a people dedicated to the equality of all. As President George W. Bush once pointed out, “family values do not stop at the Rio Grande River” (Office of the Press Secretary 2007).

Undocumented workers contribute greatly to our economy and provide a necessary labor force, yet must live in fear of deportation. Moreover, they come here because they are recruited by employers in the US, based on extensive ties between the US and their countries of origin. Nevertheless, migrants often are unable to acquire permission to live in the United States. Don Franco’s story puts a human face on this dilemma.
One evening, I was talking to don Franco, and he asked me if I enjoyed traveling to Peru, as he knew I had been there relatively recently. I began to tell him about Peru, but he interjected to say that, although he did not have much money when he lived and worked in Mexico, it seems he enjoyed life more then. Even though he worked, he still had time to hang out with his friends. Here, he said, he only works, and has little time to enjoy life. I asked him what he does on Sundays, his only full day off. He said that, since his license has expired, and he can’t get a new one, he stays close to home. He fears getting on the Interstate, so he no longer goes fishing in Indiana as he once did. He also does not visit his brother in Waukegan, just 40 miles away. Neither have valid driver’s licenses, and both feel as though it is too risky to make the trip. They make do with phone conversations.

Don Franco and doña Lucrecia have four grandchildren in Chicago. Their grandchildren come over most weekends and play in and around the house. Even though don Franco has Sundays off, he never takes the kids anywhere outside of their neighborhood. He would like to take them to the beach when the weather is warm or take them to Waukegan to play with his brother’s grandchildren, but it is not worth the risk that he would be stopped by the police, fined for not having a driver’s license, and potentially deported to Mexico.

Don Franco says his life has gotten worse since 9/11. He asked me why the events of September 11th have had such a dramatic impact on his life, when he had nothing to do with what happened on that day. I too ask this question. Why is immigration being linked to security issues? Why do we, as a society, choose to make life less enjoyable for people like don Franco? Wouldn’t financially stricken Northwest Indiana like for don Franco and his family to come to the beaches there on Sundays, thereby contributing to the economy through park fees, tolls, and likely a meal at one of the many taquerías in de-industrialized Northwest Indiana?

Salvadoran citizen wins Convention against Torture appeal because of tattoos

2010-02-10T06:36:00.000-08:00

Gregory Stuart Aguilar-Ramos is a thirty-eight year old citizen of El Salvador. He has been a permanent legal resident of the United States since he was seven years old. He was ordered deported in 2005 because of two criminal convictions.

Aguilar-Ramos has spent the past four years in ICE detention fighting his case. Aguilar-Ramos is contesting his deportation order on the grounds that he faces persecution in El Salvador because of his tattoos. Initially, the Bureau of Immigration Affairs denied both his application for asylum and his request for relief under the Convention against Torture (CAT). Aguilar-Ramos appealed this decision, and won his most recent appeal.

On February 4, 2010, the 9th Circuit Court granted his appeal and sent his case back to the Bureau of Immigration Affairs to reconsider his application for relief from deportation under provisions set forth in the Convention against Torture. Specifically, the 9th Circuit Court decision requires the BIA to consider the persecution Aguilar-Ramos would face in El Salvador because of his tattoos. It is unclear at this point what the outcome will be for Aguilar-Ramos. However, it is heartening to see that US courts are taking into account some of the potentially onerous consequences of deportation.

In 1990, when Aguilar-Ramos was nineteen years old, he pled guilty to second degree robbery. He was not deported in 1990, likely because his crime did not qualify him for deportation in 1990. In 2003, Aguilar-Ramos pled guilty to petty theft. In 2005, the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) ordered Aguilar-Ramos deported on two grounds: (1) conviction of an aggravated felony based on the 1990 robbery conviction, and (2) conviction of two crimes of moral turpitude, based on his 1990 robbery conviction and 2003 petty theft conviction.

Aguilar-Ramos contested his deportation, in light of his fear of being killed, persecuted, and harassed in El Salvador because of his multiple tattoos and status as a deportee. In El Salvador, police and gang members would presume he is a gang member, even though he is not. El Salvador’s punitive anti-gang laws mean that, upon deportation, Aguilar-Ramos could face: “(1) imprisonment for two to six years under El Salvador’s broad anti-gang legislation; (2) death or serious bodily harm in prison; (3) harassment by police and military patrols who routinely force young men to remove their shirts for tattoo inspections; and (4) death at the hands of death squads, which are comprised of off-duty police and military personnel.” (US Court of Appeals)

Aguilar-Ramos filed appeal after appeal, and has been detained by immigration authorities for four years without a bond hearing while filing his appeals. In a February 2010 ruling, the ninth circuit court of appeals granted Aguilar’s petition for review for his application for relief under the Convention against Torture. His case will now be heard again by an immigration judge.

Aguilar-Ramos’ case is exemplary of the faults with the system of deportations. Aguilar-Ramos qualified for citizenship when he was twelve years old, after having been a legal permanent resident for five years. From the legal reports, it is unclear why he did not apply. However, it is hard for me to find fault with a twelve year old for not filing his citizenship application.

When he was nineteen, Aguilar-Ramos pled guilty to second degree robbery. However, he managed to stay out of trouble with the law for thirteen years, when he was convicted of petty theft in 2003. In 2005, he had his day in immigration court, and was ordered deported. He was placed in ICE detention, where he spent four years appealing his order of deportation. That is a long time for someone to be locked up, after having completed both of his sentences.

Aguilar-Ramos was rightfully fearful of what could happen to him upon arrival in El Salvador with his visible tattoos. For many deportees, deportation is a life sentence. They often are forced to return to a country where they have no ties, and, often, where their status as a deportee will stigmatize them.

For these reasons, deportation only should be ordered in the most serious of cases. And, before ordering a person deported, it is essential to take into account their ties to their country of birth, their ties to the United States, and the possibility that they will be persecuted upon arrival in their home country. Hopefully Aguilar-Ramos’ case will set a precedent, as tattooed deportees are sent daily to Central America where they face persecution and stigmatization.

Waiting for deportees in Santo Domingo

2010-01-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

I arrived at the Departamento de Deportados at noon on Wednesday, January 20, 2010. I had received permission from the Director of Migration to observe the arrival of deportees from the United States to the Dominican Republic. I accompanied the staff of the Department of Migration (DGM) to the airport to greet the deportees and observed their processing in Santo Domingo.

Every two weeks, a planeload of deportees arrives in the Dominican Republic from the US. The deportees are people who have been detained in the United States immigrant detention system because of some violation of provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act of (INA). This includes violation of the civil provisions of the INA such as crossing the border without inspection or overstaying a visa and criminal provisions of the INA such as immigration fraud or smuggling.

When I arrived at the Deportee Department, the receptionist told me that the flight, which was scheduled to arrive at 1:15pm, had been delayed. She still did not know when it would arrive, but had a list of the 137 deportees who were scheduled to arrive that day.

I took a seat in the small waiting room, and waited to find out when the flight would arrive. Soon after I took my seat, a man with a lavender cotton shirt came in and asked the receptionist if a deportee will arrive that evening. He gave her the name. She looked it up and said, yes, the deportee is scheduled to arrive, and has been convicted of robbery. The man asked if the deportation will be recorded as criminal in the Dominican Republic. The receptionist told him that it will. He asked if there is any way to avoid that, and she told him there is not.

In the Dominican Republic, officials distinguish between people who are deported on criminal grounds and those who are deported on immigration grounds. Dominicans who are caught crossing the border illegally in the United States or who have overstayed their visas in the U.S. and are deported on those ground are considered non-criminal deportees in the Dominican Republic. In contrast, Dominicans who are deported after being convicted of a crime in the United States are considered criminal deportees and are subject to further surveillance in the Dominican Republic. The reason for their deportation is recorded, and their deportation shows up on their criminal and credit reports in the Dominican Republic.

As I sat in the waiting room, people filed in and out, inquiring about deportees who were scheduled to arrive. Each person arrived with a name, and the receptionist looked it up. She told them if the person was being deported on criminal or non-criminal grounds, as those who are deported on criminal grounds are taken to the booking office in Villa Juana, whereas those deported on non-criminal grounds are released from the immigration office.

The phone rings several times. Each time it is a person wanting to know if and when a relative or friend will be arriving on the flight. The receptionist has to repeat over and over again that she does not know for sure when the flight will arrive.

The man in the lavender shirt came back in two more times to check on when the flight will come, and each time he asked if there was any way to avoid the criminal deportation remaining on the record. Each time he got the same answer. On one of the visits, he said he was the deportee’s lawyer.

At 1:30, the receptionist began to call the US embassy to get information about the flight. People kept calling and coming in, and she still didn’t have a confirmed time. She also was not looking forward to working late. The following day was a holiday, and everyone was anxious to get home. She kept calling, and finally, at 2pm, she got an answer, the flight will arrive at 3:45 – two and a half hours late.

At 2:20pm, the receptionist got another call. They have just learned that the plane will not carry 137 people, but 30 people. They got a new list of arrivals. Apparently, the bad weather conditions prevented the flights from the northern United States from arriving in Texas, and the plane from Texas had to leave without them.

The new information seemed to get around quickly, as some of the same people came back in to ask again. The man in the lavender shirt is among them, and his client still will be coming. Others found out that their relative is no longer on the list and that they will have to call to find out if they will come the following week.

Finally, it is 3pm, and Santiago – a military officer – let me know it is time to leave to go to the airport. Soldiers, at the service of the DGM, are responsible for security. Santiago seems to be in charge of most things during the process.

I get in a car driven by a solider with Santiago and two officials from the DGM. When we arrive at the airport, it was 4pm, and the plane had arrived. The deportee plane arrives in the cargo area of the airport. Their plane landed next to a UPS plane and a DHL plane.

The deportee’s plane was a large white, unmarked plane. There were two ICE officials on the plane who spoke Spanish and communicated with the Dominican officials.

Santiago boarded the plane and explained to the deportees the process which they were about to go through. He called them each by name and they got off the plane one by one onto a DGM bus that was waiting for them. The bus had the protection of several soldiers, in addition to bars on the windows and bars protecting the driver from the passengers.

The passengers included two women and 28 men. Eleven of the passengers had been deported for immigration reasons and the rest on criminal grounds. We drove back to DGM, arriving at 5pm. Once there, the deportees were escorted upstairs, and they were given their possessions – a change of clothes for some, books, photos, make-up, deodorant, and shoelaces, among other things.

Santiago asked all of the deportees to sit down, and separated them into two groups – those deported for being undocumented and those deported on criminal grounds. The non-criminal deportees were processed first. They went, one by one, to be fingerprinted and have their names and information recorded both by the DGM and the Departamento Nacional de Investigaciones (DNI). As there were only eleven, that took about 40 minutes. Then, it was time to process those who were deported on criminal grounds. They went through the same process, but had to be taken from there to Villa Juana, to be booked again by the police and the drug control division.

At 6:15, those deported on criminal grounds were sent to Villa Juana. And, the family members of the others came for them to sign them out. At 6:35pm, the last deportees were being signed out and I left.

It was a very long day for the deportees. They began to board the aircraft at 10:00am, and arrived in Santo Domingo at 4pm. The undocumented deportees were released at 6:30pm. But, those deported on criminal grounds had to go through yet another process, and some would not be released for another few more hours. They were fortunate, however, that there were only 30 deportees, as more would have taken longer.

Legalization for All? Not with HR 4321

2010-01-08T18:31:00.000-08:00

It looks like it is about time for immigration reform to be debated in Congress again. For the twelve million undocumented people in the United States, immigration reform could not come too soon.
H.R.4321 – Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009, the latest proposed legislation, would allow undocumented immigrants to apply for legal status. This provision has caused anti-immigration activists such as Mark Krikorian and others to voice concern about the proposed legislation. Among immigrant-rights activists, the provision is generally celebrated. However, many activists also recognize that HR 4321 likely will not provide for the legalization of all 12 million undocumented people in the US.

HR 4321 provides legalization only to those undocumented immigrants who qualify. Any undocumented immigrant who has been convicted of more than three misdemeanors or one felony will not be eligible for legalization.

This may, at first glance, seem like a fair provision. Who wants criminal elements in our midst? However, if we consider the potential human costs to deportation, the story changes. Felonies are generally crimes for which the sentence is more than one year. Felony convictions vary by state but could include, for example, property damage over $250 (Arizona) or possession of one gram of cocaine (Indiana) possession of four ounces of marijuana (Texas) or possession of a BB gun (New Jersey). These are crimes, but many would argue that the punishment should not be permanent separation from one’s loved ones. For many, deportation amounts to exile from the only country they have known.

Due to racist police tactics and a discriminatory justice system, felony convictions are all too common for people of color. For example, Bureau of Justice statistics estimate that 17% of Hispanic males in the United States will go to State or Federal prison at least once in their lifetimes (pdf). Notably, only about 75% of people convicted of felonies actually serve time, making the rate of felony convictions for Latinos even higher. Rates of incarceration for immigrants are lower than for the native born. However, it is reasonably safe to say that as many as one million of the current twelve million undocumented migrants currently in the United States will not be eligible for legalization because of prior criminal convictions.

Many of these one million people will be long-term residents of the United States, and will have families in the United States. Knowing they have a criminal conviction, they will be faced with the choice of remaining in the shadows and continuing to live with their families and leaving their families behind to fend for themselves.

In short, anything less than legalization for all will mean that the problems associated with undocumented migration will not go away with immigration reform. We will continue to have people in the United States who are deprived of the basic rights that go along with legal status, and, of course, citizenship.

It is crucial to point out that those undocumented migrants that can take advantage of legalization will benefit from the passage of a bill such as HR 4321. For that reason, this bill deserves the support of the progressive community. At the same time, we should continue to push for the long-held goal of the immigrant rights movement – legalization for all! Anything less will be a compromise that will harm millions of immigrants and their families.

Note: this is a repost from here.