What the Unions have to say

I was looking for a good article that explained this so-called "three-legged stool" immigration reform we are supposed to be expecting next year, and came across this, and thought it was interesting. The article focuses on the issue of foreign workers, and that labor unions are against the US granting more work visas. We've discussed the fact that something definitely needs to change in this area of immigration control, because the current system isn't working. Many immigrants keep coming to the US illegally whether they have a work visa or not, so something's gotta give, right? Well, the labor unions say NO. They don't want their workers to have to compete with foreign workers, especially now when jobs are becoming harder to come by.

But the author of this article seems to me to be suggesting that they better learn to deal with it, and I get his point. Trying to stop economic globalization, including foreign competition for jobs, is a waste of time if you ask me.

Anyway, its just interesting to see the debate from the unions' point of view, and important too, because they do have some substantial political influence, especially with this administration.

Immigration Detention: Give Detainees Fair Hearings

"Immigration detention can be made more humane and fair without compromising national security." After reading this article it reminded me of the Snake head Book with Sister Ping. The points made in the article were the same issues that the illegal immigrants faced once they were in a detention facility. The system "is fatally flawed." It goes to talk about how the detainees are taken as far away from the area they were first picked up at which results in isolation and sometimes no counsel at their deportation hearings resulting in an unfair trail. In their conditions detainees are more likely to just except deportation instead of returning back to detention. Its sad how the article portrays the indecisive panel; they were trying to solve a problem and give light and justice to people that really don't have a chance and on the the other side they feel the way things are set up are fine. In the end its still being debated and people are still being mistreated in the sense where there not given the full right to fight to stay in America.

Joe Arpaio, Illegal Immigration Hard-liner, Heckled by Students

Joe Arpio is one of the more infamous figures in the anti-immigrant movement. A sheriff of an Arizona county, he has been a controversial figure not just for his stance on immigration, in which he instructed his deputies to check the immigration status of people they suspect are in the nation illegally, but also for his brand of muckraking politics and allegations of misusing county property.

In a recent question-and-answer session at the Arizona State University he was heckled to the point of leaving by students. While I understand their objections to Arpio's policies, I feel that the heckling was actually counter-productive during a session where he was asked to explain and justify his actions.

12 arrested after authorities discover tunnel from Mexico into San Diego

While I am generally for immigration reform more accommodating to immigrants, particularly the ones who risk their lives in the journey from the Mexican side of the Mexican-U.S. borders, articles like this one also serve as a reminder that criminal elements take advantage of the state of immigration for their own ends.

Arizona's Immigrant Politics a Hurdle for 2010 Census

The intersection of immigration and the U.S. census is an interesting thing to read about. The census is how the U.S. government determines who the people are who live within the nation's borders. By compiling the raw data of family sizes and other information it allows the government to determine how best to allocate money for social projects. Projects that can provide access to housing, education and other services. But at the same time the census is feared by some as an opportunity to round up undocumented workers, leading to many immigrant communities refusing to fill out the forms. As a result, the census returns incomplete data which means that allocated funds will not go where they are needed most. Meanwhile there are political movements who have a vested interest in seeing an incomplete picture of the nation's population in order to maintain a political status quo.

This article touches on some of the competing interests and fears in Arizona communities as the 2010 census approaches.

‘Chaotic’ immigration system leading to wrongful deportations

This story about immigration detainees illustrates the very human cost of failing to reform the detention system that undocumented immigrants go through. Part of recent studies on the system, it describes people who were wrongfully detained and removed from the country, and a more shocking fact was the 85 people who had died while in custody in the past 5 years.

Report claims illegal immigrants have small impact on country's economy

The conflation between immigration and the economy is an especially touchy subject given the circumstances of the day, and one of the favored canards spoken by anti-immigrant groups is that the presence of immigrants deprives citizens of jobs and drives down the economy.

While this study doesn't address other social issues that would also become the subject of attack, it addresses the effect immigrant work has on local economies. It finds that there is indeed a slight economic depression where businesses use cheaper immigrant labor, however it is not the catastrophic effect that alarmists claim, and that the benefits in stimulating job growth and the movement of money results in a net benefit.

U.S. gets 22 new citizens in ceremony

I thought it would be nice to have a more positive immigration story, in this case 22 immigrants sworn in through the long and difficult citizenship process. A small number in the face of modern immigration.

One of the new citizens was a child when he was first brought from Mexico into the states by his parents, which reminded me of the discussion about children who were taken across the border by their parents, thus had no way of determining their own fate but were still punished for the actions of their parents.

Mass criminal immigration hearings unlawful

The article here talks about the efforts of an Arizona federal court trying to speed up the hearing process on illegal immigration. Rather than hearing each defendant individually, the court chose to use a mass hearing, putting large groups of defendants in the room and asking them if they understood the rights read to them. However the local court of appeals ruled that this format made it difficult for the defendants to understand what was being asked of them and constituted a violation of court procedure and the mass hearings had to be discontinued.

It's interesting to note that the appeal judges, while ruling against the practice, stated that they understood the underlying reason for it. The Arizona court was overwhelmed with immigration cases and attempted to speed things along. The appeals court recognized the need for it, but found that it violated the rules all the same. This is illustrative of how the immigration system as it is now has become a major burden on the U.S. legal system, and without reform from above, local courts are forced to enact improvised systems that risk circumventing the rights of the defendant.

Shifiting the focus of Immigration Enforcement Policy?

In what appears to be a change in the methodology of immigration enforcement, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement initiative (commonly referred to as ICE) has announced an "audit" of 1,000 different companies, looking at whether or not these enterprises knowingly hire illegal immigrants. At first glance, this seems to be a change in tactics. As pointed out in the article, normal fare for ICE consisted of mounting raids at work places, looking for undocumented workers. These raids seem to have placed priority on immigrants rather than offending businesses. These new tactics seem to be a reversal of this. However, the article points out that the list of businesses being targeted are not being publicly named. Furthermore, while 1,000 different businesses are certainly not a trivial number, I wonder if these audits are only scratching the surface. What types of business are the audits targeting? Do they represent the traditional, large scale employers of illegal immigrants such as the agriculture industry, or service industries (as the article suggests)? Do the 1,000 business as a whole target a certain business, and target a significant quantity of such businesses, or is the selection random, or not target a meaningful number of enterprises? The thrust of my questioning leads to one overarching concern; is this a meaningful gesture or not? If this "audit" does not target the traditional employers of illegal immigrants, or does not target a significant market share (that is, if the audit doesn't do enough "damage" to employers of illegal immigrants in general), then it seems to me that this action is a meaningless gesture. Whether or not this is the case, the audits are having an impact in the behavior in companies. For example, the article states that a clothing manufacture dismissed over 1/4 of its work force (~1,800 employees) after an audit raised concern over its hiring practices regarding illegals. The business community as a whole, the article goes on to state, is reacting as a whole. However, how comprehensive and what the longevity of this reaction has yet to be seen, as this is only the second audit of its kind to be conducted.

Russia vs. Georgia

This is probably the most ridiculous cartoon I found. The US has no control over the borders, who crosses or even how many illegal immigrants are currently living in the states and definitely we should send our troops to defend another country in a matter that we have our hands full with. There is no need for the US to get involved in another international fight that has nothing to do with our safety without first fixing the internal problems that we have been experiencing for the past decades.

Immigration cartoons

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/directory/I/Immigration.asp

I was looking through different websites and came across this one. All of the cartoons displayed on the link are funny. The first one struck me the most. Since I used to live in Miami, marrying somebody for their papers is a common situation there. It is known that a lot of Cubans and Puerto Ricans will marry hispanics that need papers for about 5000 dollars, and the funny thing is that the Immigration Office thinks it is official because it is a marriage between two Hispanics. I do not know how common it is among other nationalities but in Miami there are even "brokers" who will literally "hook you up" with a person and a believable story and receive money after you get your papers... it is an incredible business.

New Phone Apps

The Readers Digest version of this story is that students from University of California have developed an application for Nextel phones. The application will show immigrants illegally crossing the border where to go for water, major roads, and border patrol officials should they be too weak to continue their journey. They are doing this as a project for a humanitarian class. The application will be preloaded into an unspecified number of phones that will be delivered to Mexico as part of their humanitarian project.
I am torn on how I feel about this. Because the application does not directly give immigrants entry points, there is nothing technically wrong with the project. However, it is still giving aid to people coming in illegally.
On the other hand, it is terrible that these imigrants are "forced" to come across the border illegally because our policies take too long. It is also terrible that many of these immigrants are seriously injured or even killed as a result of their journey.
The application seems on the surface to he more help than it is harm. The government could even use the GPS in the devices to crack down on illegal immigration. Therefore, right off I believe I am in favor of the application. Because illegal immigration is not going to stop any time in the near future, I believe that we should do what we can to help others in need.

Language preservation among Cambodian-Americans

This is a short article about attempts at Khmer (Cambodian)-language preservation in the San Francisco Bay area. The Bay area has a relatively large Cambodian community, which really began during the 1980's after the Cambodian genocide ended. I thought this acticle would be interesting, because it is about a relatively small immigrant group in the US, and how they are trying to hold onto their ethnic identity. Cambodia itself is small. A huge majority of Cambodians are ethnically Khmer and Khmer is a distinct language. We've talked a little bit in class about the role of Spanish in preserving Latino culture, and its something I'm discussing in my final project also. But imagine how difficult it is to preserve Khmer language among American-born Khmers. Outside of a few urban communities, Khmer has no presence in the US and worldwide, the way some other languages like Spanish, French and Chinese do. Aside from ethnic pride, and wanting to be able to communicate with family back in Cambodia, there is no benefit to knowing Khmer.

In my opinion, Khmer culture is typical of most Southeast Asian cultures. It is Bhuddist, its traditional food, music, dance and martial arts are very similar to those if Thialand and Vietnam. BUT, most Khmers would insist on the their distinction. Language seems like the most obvious way for Khmers in America to not only maintain their Southeast Asian culture, but their more distinct Khmer culture. But because Khmer-Americans are such a small, marginalized group, maintaining their language, and in effect their distinct ethnicity, is difficult.

So I guess I'm just trying to point out this difficult situation that not only Khmer-Americans, but I'm sure many other immigrant groups, face in preserving their ethnic identity in the America.

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This cartoon made me mad. Sending the troops to Iraq was wrong in many levels but the most important want is that there were no weapons of mass destruction and than sending the troops to fight a political problem that can be resolved with rational thinking from our government is even worse. Having the troops in the borders will only make the illegal immigrants cross the border at another location. We need to fight the problem (the lack of good immigration reform) not delay the entrance of illegal immigrants into the country, and making it more risky for them to cross the border and come into the country via an unsafe place.


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Lou Dobbs & Opinion

There is a lot of commentary, mostly celebration about Lou Dobbs' departure from CNN.

What I like about this Op-Ed is that is points out how corrosive anti-immigrant rhetoric can be. It's not that I have any problem with a person having a differing opinion from my own-quite the contrary. But Dobbs and others like him have made a reasoned discussion of immigration nearly impossible, so riddled are these conversations today with fear-mongering and conspiracy theories.

If we look at Dobbs as an example, we don't have to worry about his so-called foreign "invasion." We are our own worst enemy.

in reference to:

"“Unfortunately,” he said, “these issues are now defined in the public arena by partisanship and ideology rather than by rigorous, empirical thought and forthright analysis and discussion.”Mr. Dobbs couldn’t have phrased a more apt criticism of himself. He calls himself Mr. Independent, but he is far closer in style and method to the right-wing ranters who mold the facts to shape the argument on television and on AM radio, where Mr. Dobbs still has a show. Mr. Dobbs’s CNN program has long been a nesting ground for untruths and conspiracy theories: fretting over a nonexistent, immigrant-borne leprosy epidemic; questioning President Obama’s citizenship; issuing dark warnings about the “North American Union,” a supposed plot to strangle United States sovereignty. It’s hard to pinpoint how much damage these kinds of ideas have done to the national discussion of illegal immigration, but they have been corrosive. Solutions have withered as many politicians parrot the central myth that people desperate to seek new lives in the United States are an affliction to be feared, not an opportunity to be engaged, future Americans who could enrich the country as immigrants always have and will."
- Editorial - A Farewell to Lou - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

Another Undocumented Student

This article was basically another example to the topics our speaker brought up today during his speech. Congress needs to do something about the DREAM act so that all the illegal immigrants that had no other choice but to come to the US with their parents can receive an education and live the lives they were looking for when they came to America. I comment from the speaker we had today that really shocked me was that 30 percent of the tuition we pay in public colleges goes to financial aid that undocumented students cannot obtain due to their lack of documents. In the particular case of this article, the UW student was able to get an extension on his deportation to see if he could obtain a permanent resident status or any other way to receive legal residency in the US.

DREAM

This article is one of many in our recent history that tackles the issues facing immigrants striving for higher education. There are increasingly more immigrants going to college and not being able to graduate due to their legal standing. My largest issues with this is WHY are the colleges/universities allowing them to come in and pay for an education they will never be able to complete. This is SO wrong! Although why would an immigrant go to school knowing that they will never get to graduate... (although they may not know this going into the process) I digress... This article brought to my attention the DREAM act. I'd never heard of it previously. Basically it is an act going through congress to naturalize immigrant students so that they can receive their degrees and ideally help their community. I think this is an excellent plan on paper, but I don't know how well it will work, at least now when government is already having enough paperwork issues.

Immigrant Farm Laborers

"High Risk Cheap Labor"

This story from CNN discusses undocumented agriculture workers in farms across Washington State. The story includes several interesting pieces of information from various groups and individuals, much of which I found interesting. For example, a farm owner interview said as much as 70% of his workers are undocumented.

What was most intriguing, however, was a claim made by immigration attorney Tom Roach, who stated that the use of the online "E-Verify" tool (which allows employers to verify the social security number of their employees) is not mandatory because federal authorities know that doing so would cripple, at least in part, the agriculture industry. Other statements made in the video also allude to bureaucratic complicity in the hiring of undocumented workers. Specifically, in an interview clip with Assistant Homeland Security Secretary John Morton, the secretary states that despite presidential directives to increase scrutiny on employers as well as undocumented workers, organizations like Immigrations and Customs Enforcement still work closely with employers. To me, this suggests that certain government bureaucracies are not sincerely interested in curbing the employment of undocumented workers. Rather, they pursue individual workers and resort to minor measures such as fines to create the appearance they are taking action, when in fact they wish to preserve the current agricultural system for financial reasons.

Doctor fakes exams on immigrants

So basically this article is about a doctor from LA who charged immigrants $150 for papers saying that they are healthy when he didn't perform the exam. He is now in jail for lying to the government. For some reason I'm really not surprised to hear about this. Veterinarians 'lie' on health certificates for animals to travel. I'm sure doctors lie on forms for insurance companies etc. The purpose of these exams is to ensure that these immigrants aren't bringing in viruses... um ok? There are so many viruses spreading around the world that I feel like doing health exams of immigrants is just another way for US government to squeeze more money out of these people and hinder them being able to come over financially. I think that general checkups are ideal for any person and are a good thing, but I feel like the government is treating them more like livestock than actual people, to a certain extent. As for the doctor, anyone can be persuaded to do something if there is enough money in it, and obviously there was a large demand for his service.