WHEN CONSIDERING THE MURDER OF BRISENIA FLORES, it does not help us find any valuable truth or approach any larger societal problem to isolate the event and wall it off from the larger context of anti-immigrant and thus anti-Latino hate and hostility in this nation. We have a larger problem on our hands.
TUESDAY, President Obama announced Sonia Sotomayor as his pick to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Sotomayor could be the first Latina appointed to the Supreme Court. Predictably, attacks and slurs from the Right are already flying.
FROM THE “SWINE” FLU’S declining fervor to 2009’s May Day marches for worker rights and immigrant solidarity; from the tragic killing of Luis Ramirez to legislative movement on immigration, these are tumultuous times. But it is precisely such conflict and challenge that provides the best opportunities to make lasting change.
AT PLAY TODAY in our immigration debate are warring philosophies of who a “people” are and what we owe each other for simply belonging to the same human family. On one side, frothing, fearful punditry stoke division and hostility. On the other, fearless activists champion for our better natures.
MEXICO WILL BREAK with much of its long-standing legal traditions, instead to institute a process that emulates US law in many positive ways.
THE NATIVIST LOBBY HAS INSINUATED ITSELF into the media dialogue on immigration to all our detriment. They create a false boogeyman of danger and parasitism, and promote the impression that the only response is a harsh, punitive one doled out in cuffs or a cell. The results of the February Bellingham raids are in, and put the lie to this screech of extremist thought.
THE DIALOGUE ON IMMIGRATION has, historically, been contentious and cyclical. There are times when hysteria peaks, and rational thought struggles to enter the national dialogue. And then, there are moments the truth breaches the surface and shines brightly. This week is one of those moments.
THE WAR ON DRUGS HAS RETURNED even though under increased militarization, drug production actually goes up, as does the body count, while the seizure of drugs decreases. All the facts in hand show, inarguably, that the Drug War model is a failed method of dealing with immigration—even though President Obama seems intent to resurrect it.
In the modern world, borders do not separate families, nor commerce, nor soldiers, nor bank accounts and their owners. And NAFTA has allowed Mexico’s corn crop to be so devalued that Mexico—the land where the plant was born roughly 5,000 years ago—now imports corn, forcing streams of campesinos to migrate north…where we lock them up.
THIS WEEK, two comprehensive reports on the health of immigrant detainees were released by Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. let there be no doubt that in the custody of ICE, immigrants are, literally, “dying for decent care.”
THERE ARE NO VOICES, YET, advising us on why we should be content in 2009 to watch complex issues of society be reduced to issues of force and more and more of our society handed over to military control. While Congress signals change (perhaps) in some areas of our approach to immigration, in other areas we seem poised to repeat old mistakes.
NANCY PELOSI made statements in San Francisco’s mission district on Saturday that seem to signal a new direction on immigration issues. While advocates for reform have been on pins and needles wondering when the Obama administration would make a move to show that his administration will undertake this, this may be the first clear signal that they will.
THOUGH WORKING TO CLOSE Guantánamo, peppering his speech with talk of law and order, and restoring US image to the world abroad, Obama still risks muddying up his accomplishments with a blatant hypocrisy: we cannot lead the way on liberty or justice when investing in detention systems from Arizona to Iraq.
NCLR: ESCALATING IMMIGRATION RAIDS and local police crackdowns over the past eight years have spread indiscriminate terror among millions of people who pose no threat to the United States and who have lived peacefully and productively within our borders for years.
IT MUST BE FRUSTRATING FOR ICE when they are reminded that there are laws that protect the vulnerable. After all, moving about under the radar of mainstream concern, it must be easy for them to feel unbound, unchecked, all-powerful, and unstoppable. But perhaps we see signs now that the honeybucket period is ending.
House of Nezua
the XOLAGRAFIK theater!
