Napolitano and the Three Legged Stool

CLEARLY, the White House is steadfast in believing that you cannot approach righting an inhumane situation for human beings without blowing a lot of smoke and fire and talk of “cracking down” and “shadows” and “increasing forces at the border” and “border fence” and a whole lotta bullshit served up to appease those who feel, no matter what they read or are told, that the PROBLEM going on round here is, at the root of everything, lawbreaking brown people! Hey. It makes sense. That’s sort of the undercurrent to the entire country’s thinking on many issues. Which is why it’s so easy to pass laws that punish minorities or build fences between THEM and US but so hard to roll back laws that unfairly target blacks, Latinos or Asians.

No, I understand. They are being tuff n blustery because it’s what they feel they need to in order to attain something “good.” (A frame that hints toward where they feel the power lies in our government or in a human soul, which is sad.) It’s just one of those really backward motions that makes me feel I’m living on a strange planet far away from reason and enlightenment. I think “One day, this will be seen by intelligent humans as stupid and cowardly half-measures. Sure wish I could live long enough to be in that world.”

The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday. …

Laying out the administration’s bottom line, she said it will argue for a “three-legged stool” that includes enacting tougher enforcement laws against illegal immigrants and the people who hire them, and streamlining the system for legal immigration, but also what she called a “tough and fair pathway to earned legal status.” …

Congress should be ready to move forward on immigration, Ms. Napolitano said, because the administration had made a “fundamental change” in security at the border and in cracking down on employers hiring illegal immigrants. She said that the Border Patrol had increased its forces by more than 20,000 officers, and that more than 600 miles of border fence had been completed, both milestones set by Congress.

“Let me emphasize this,” she said. “We will never have fully effective law enforcement or national security as long as so many millions remain in the shadows.”

Under the administration’s plan, illegal immigrants would have to register, pay fines and all taxes they owe, pass a criminal background check and learn English.

Ms. Napolitano has been leading the administration’s efforts to gather support for the immigration overhaul, meeting in recent weeks with business leaders, faith groups, law-enforcement officials and other groups to gauge their support for the effort.

—White House to Begin Push on Immigration Overhaul in 2010

The Center for American Progress has the video of her speech, and offers this report:

Washington D.C. – Today, in her first speech on immigration reform, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano spoke in great detail about the security and enforcement measures that her agency has taken under her tenure to enforce current immigration laws, but she noted “the more work we do, the more it becomes clear that the laws themselves need to be reformed.”

Speaking at the Center for American Progress, the Secretary laid out her belief that her agency has done its part to secure the border, a major concern for Congress and the public during the last round of immigration debates in 2007, but that enforcement without comprehensive reform was falling short. “While it’s important to emphasize the need for immigration reform from an enforcement perspective, the need for reform stretches far beyond those reasons. We have to make sure the immigration system works to support American families, businesses and workers,” said the Secretary.

DHS is also ready to implement reform according to the Secretary who noted “We’ve ended a year-long backlog for background checks on applicants for green cards and naturalization. We’ve expanded the opportunity for a widow to gain legal status here, despite the untimely death of her U.S. citizen spouse. We’ve launched a new interactive website that allows people to receive information about the status of their immigration cases by email or text message, and we have reduced the time it takes to process those cases.”

The Secretary concluded “at the end of the day, when it comes to immigration, people need to be able to trust the system. Americans need to know that their government is committed to enforcing the law and securing the border – and that it takes this responsibility seriously. Law enforcement needs to have better legal tools and the necessary resources to deal with border-related and immigration-related crime. Businesses must be able find the workers they need here in America, rather than having to move overseas. Immigrants need to be able to plan their lives – they need to know that once we reform the laws, we’re going to have a system that works, and that the contours of our immigration laws will last. And they need to know that they will have as many responsibilities as they do rights…This Administration does not shy away from taking on the big challenges of the 21st century, challenges that have been ignored too long and hurt our families and businesses.”

1. “tougher enforcement laws against illegal immigrants and the people who hire them”

Well, this is nonsense. Firstly, those who are simply here on an expired Visa or who have got caught up in the many cracks in this system? Why do we need “tougher enforcement laws” for them??? And for the stereotypical Latina/o worker trying to get by in life by spending long days in factories, assembly lines, or the like? We’ve seen raid after raid—be they loud and accompanied by handcuffs and shamefaced and crying parents, workers, and children OR the silent raids/probes where ICE leans on companies like ABM or American Apparel and thousands of workers are dropped from the payroll. We’ve also seen that employers do not get punished. So here, this is bluster for the unreasonable and hostile.

2. a “tough and fair pathway to earned legal status.”

Call me naive, but I’ve a simple question. Why does it have to be “tough”? Why does “fair” not suffice? Fair means fair to all. This is the nature of the word fair, after all! Isn’t Fairness (we might also call it Justice) For All, good enough? Again, this is tuffguy bravado for those who desire more than anything else, to see the Brown™ suffer (because let’s be real: the collective image pool we all draw from when we talk about the undocumented is Mexicans and those from Latin America). We can’t be thinking these people who due to bureaucratic sloppiness can be whisked away from their life with no redress; or who live in fear half the time; or who get kicked to death/stabbed/shot in the street sometimes and for simply being perceived as Latino; or who get barged in on and shot by Minutemen sometimes in their own home; or who in some cases give up their family and homeland and risk death in the desert, rape and persecution in a strange country have it EASY, for crying out loud. We NEEED to see them suffer a little. Right? I know I’m closely parsing words, but I’m dead serious. Why isn’t “a fair pathway” enough?

3. the administration had made a “fundamental change” in security at the border and in cracking down on employers hiring illegal immigrants.

Again, bullshit. The only ones I read about getting punished (and I read a fair deal on this topic) are the workers.

4. more than 600 miles of border fence had been completed

You make of us a national laughingstock. Fences? Walls??? Today? In the US???

Fences do nada. People either climb them, put ramps over them, or cross in a new location. You are proud of this? Border fence that drives people into more dangerous areas and stacks up more corpses? This is an accomplishment, a selling point?

You suck.

5. “We will never have fully effective law enforcement or national security as long as so many millions remain in the shadows.”

I agree. Millions of dollars are living in the shadows. Moguls who move them live in the shadows. Companies advertise in Spanish on Mexican radio for workers, and they don’t get punished. NAFTA treaties are broken by the US Government and those violations of trust and treaty abide in the shadows. The TRUE economic problem that causes so many workers to seek a fairer economy en el Norte is hidden from everyone’s sight and we all pretend that we simply need more force, more weaponry, more fences, more troops and finally one day we will level things out.

FOOLS.

You are chasing symptomology and you want applause. You are sponging up blood but leaving the nail in your head, hallucinating that if you just wrap enough gauze around that nail, your health will return and tomorrow you will be happy.

Until we address the imperialist/hegemonic issue at the root of this—that the US feels it has the right to abuse Latin America, extort Latin America, collude with the Latin American ruling class to exploit the PEOPLE—you will NEVER stop migration to the US. Life just does not work that way. Mexicans—just like people who live in New Jersey and know if they can land a job in Manhattan, they can pay their bills without working two jobs or getting an ulcer from overtime—will never un-know that the balance is unfair. And that they can have a decent life if they can just move their body a little North.

My own bisabuela labored in the kitchens and swabbing floors of the rich and couldn’t even keep her kids with her because she didn’t make enough money. People fighting against fair immigration policy probably don’t have to make these kinds of sacrifices. They probably have jobs that pay them pretty well. If so, let me tell you: it’s not because you are more worthy than my bisabuela. It’s because you benefit from an imbalanced system that exploits Latin America (among other peoples). And you wanna keep that stolen pie allll to yourself.

I’m gonna warn you. It looks delish…but it tastes like blood.

6. Under the administration’s plan, illegal immigrants would have to register, pay fines and all taxes they owe, pass a criminal background check and learn English.

English fetish. USAmericans want to go to other nations and expect them to speak English. And then they want everyone to come here and speak English. Have you lived in Califas? Have you lived in Miami? Have you lived in Arizona? Do you know how little English is spoken in huge areas of these states? Do you know how long Spanish has been spoken in these (and many other) places in the US? If a citizen wants to move to Florida, should they be required to learn Spanish? I think so. Spanish has been there longer than English. The Treaty of Hidalgo Guadalupe was meant to insure this type of lingual hegemony would not happen, and there were provisions made that all documents be available in the previously-Mexican territory (much of our current Southwest) in both languages.

But whatever, okay. Have your English fetish. But I also want to see a provision that all the workers who have had their taxes taken over the years from employers, but who never get to file a tax return to recomp those, also get all taxes they are owed.

Isn’t that fair? Isn’t that just?

7. While it’s important to emphasize the need for immigration reform from an enforcement perspective, the need for reform stretches far beyond those reasons. We have to make sure the immigration system works to support American families, businesses and workers”

Yes, true. It is important to see the need for immigration reform beyond those reasons: We have to make sure we are not using Mexico and other countries south of the border as our kitchen help. Making them take the train back to the projects when they are done busing our “table.” And we have to make sure that we are not using unfair means to put other neighboring “restaurants” out of business so we can be The Grand Glorious Flag waving Mighty Huge Rich Solitary Shining Restaurant on a Hill. Because if we do, their workers shoved out of neighboring “restaurants” will need a job and simply come to us. And putting up a moat and fences around the hill so we can KEEP our income high without seeing the gradually worsening slums and broken bodies stacking at the foot of that hill is not fair. Or just.

8. “at the end of the day … Americans need to know that their government is committed to enforcing the law and securing the border – and that it takes this responsibility seriously.

Who are these Americans? You mean the GOP? You mean the hate groups intermingled with White Nationalist nazis and White Supremacists and Tanton-Tainted orgs calling themselves immigration restrictionists? I don’t run into a ton of people who walk around all day concerned that the nation is not “securing” the border. And of the ones who do, many have grown into this notion due to the permeation in our culture of racist, hateful, separatist messaging espoused by people like Lou Dobbs, William “Loonytunes” Gheen, and Rush Limbaugh types.

Why don’t you try this:

“At the end of the day (hey, why not ‘at the dawn of the day’ actually?), Americans need to know that their government isn’t a bunch of overgrown kids playing cowboys and indians or waving around weapons as if that can cure international economic imbalance or exploitation. At the end of the day, Americans need to know that their government has a broad view on the world, and that we are far too moral and just to take advantage of other peoples’ pain or economic hardship. At the end of the day, Americans don’t think fences and jails are the answers to everything that troubles our society. At the end of the day, Americans live in 2009; not in 1909.”

I won’t charge you for that. Just take it and use it.

9. “Law enforcement needs to have better legal tools and the necessary resources to deal with border-related and immigration-related crime.”

Nooo…. Law enforcement needs to clean up its act. Detention center rape, abuse, and outright racism on the parts of the guards needs to move into the modern day, and all those who abuse power in such manners must be punished. Border guards who exploit Latinos, throw away their papers, or beat them need to be thrown in prison. Americans, at the end of the day, believe that the tyranny of the strong is amoral. Americans, at the end of the day, want to trust their legal systems, and DHS has been a part of eroding that trust and I’m sorry.

10. “Businesses must be able find the workers they need here in America, rather than having to move overseas.”

They won’t do it. You know they won’t do it. The reason they do this is to HIRE CHEAP LABOR. And if you legalize the undocumented, why would they be more attractive? They would not. These companies (whom you promise to punish but never do) don’t want FOREIGNERS to work for them! They want people who are NOT PROTECTED by law!!!! So they can continue their vampiric methods! Again, as long as you pretend that you don’t see what’s really going on—and it’s all about extortion and gangster capitalism—you will continue trying to “fix” this problem.

“Immigrants need to be able to plan their lives – they need to know that once we reform the laws, we’re going to have a system that works, and that the contours of our immigration laws will last.”

Wow. Finally we get to the human beings trying to live their damn lives. Nice mild bone you’ve thrown here at the end.

PS: The contours won’t last. Conservatives think so; they cling to sameness, even as it fades to dust. But progressives and radicals understand that life is not bound by lines in the sand. La cultura cambiando and life is at its heart, change. Seasons spin by, rivers eat away the earth, wind wears down rock, hair grays, shapes change.

And mostly, because Paper might beat Rock, but Gauze will never cure Nail.