THE WHITE HOUSE understands the value of the press conference and the press release and the public statement. Many positive things have been said about what will be done on immigration legislation. What is getting less notice are some of the actual moves being made in realtime—like the expansion of the disastrous 287(g) program.
THE INSIDIOUS AND DEPRAVED AND VAMPIRIC NATURE of the detention industry is a topic I cover here regularly. Latino convicts are now the largest ethnic population in the federal prison system, and all due to the criminalization of immigration that Bush brought upon us and that Obama, so far, has yet to dismantle or substantially reshape.
ONCE UPON A TIME, Barack Obama told the nation that we could not afford to approach immigration piecemeal and that his administration would tackle the issue in 2009. The surety of this sentiment has since trickled down into distillations fraught with equivocation. This week’s Wire looks at the growing polarization between advocates and foes of immigration reform.
A DEPARTMENT LIKE ICE has no conscience, of course. Just directives (like “make 400,000 arrests this year”) and a great concern for its public image. If that’s the case, however, I can’t imagine why they’d think chilling out on train platforms and plucking young Latinas out of the crowd would go over well.
WELCOME TO ANOTHER SORDID CHAPTER in the Sherrif Joe Arpaio Freak Show. I know my regulars are all too aware of this sad, aging, dinocreptastic remnant of an era screeching into our past and not gracefully and with guns—but if you are not, here is a treat for you, a YouTube vid dealing with his latest daring act of wackery.
WHEN A GOVERNMENT build walls to stave off fears, it is, ironically, reinforcing that same emotion of fear. When hostile and punitive legislation is enacted, fear of the Other is mixed with aggression. When a fearful and aggressively rigid mindset is applied to social fluctuations that require flexibility and change, the result is a drastic increase of that negative energy.
IT’S TRUE THAT IMMIGRATION ACTIVISTS have been feeling that changes in immigration law were imminent; certainly it’s been a hope. I’ve gotta say, though…I don’t think this is the change people have been anticipating!
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.
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.
House of Nezua
the XOLAGRAFIK theater!
