A little background.

The article mentions that Seraphim lost his wife recently.

There is this operation here in the area called "brine cherries" and there are a couple of "brine plants" that produce these cherries. These are cherries that go into ice cream and "Maraschino" cherries. Ben and Jerry's is the biggest customer. It is an ugly and dirty business, the guys running them are assholes, but it represents a steady source of income for beleaguered farmers and year 'round work for farm workers. Cherries are bleached and soaked in "brine" - some god awful chemical brew - and then are diced, dyed and flavored so they can be easily used by "natural foods" companies in their industrial food processing for "cherry" this and that. "Cherry Garcia" for example. My brother worked for years in a brine plant to put himself through school, on the night shift. He called the shift "the night of the living dead food."

A couple of years ago, a worker slipped and fell into one of those big "brine pits" - thousands of gallons of chemicals - without anyone else around to see it happen and she died. That was Serpahim's wife and Serena's mom.

Josh is one of the good guys - folk musician, activist, small farmer, immigrant rights advocate.

"This week, federal agents swept up 17 people in northern Michigan. Immigration officials suspect them of being undocumented.

All but one are being held at a facility in Sault St. Marie.

At least two were working on area farms. One man started as a migrant laborer, but he now fills a key post year around in a local orchard. Serafin Mendoza and his cousin were pruning apple trees on Old Mission Peninsula on Wednesday afternoon when officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived.

"They pulled up in an unmarked vehicle and asked for Serafin Mendoza and he replied what can I help you with. And they cuffed him and took him," says Mindy Aguilar, Serafin's girlfriend. She was at home when officials from ICE called and told her they were holding Mendoza.

They was told: "That I needed to come and take custody of his daughter or they were going to put her in custody of CPS," that's Child Protective Services. The daughter, Serena, is ten years old."


They are targeting people by name now? I remember before you talked about the sweeps where they were crawling through looking for possible undocumented workers. This seems like people here were targeted specifically. The secretive and fascist quality of this is terrifying.

There is a pattern since the Obama administration took power of Homeland Security going after those who speak out publicly about this - the pretext being that "they must have known the person was illegal" and therefore were "withholding information and aiding and abetting a felon" which is itself a felony. Also, Homeland Security - under the Obama doctrine of "going after illegal employers" - stages punishment raids on farms, seizing whatever they want and putting the place in lock down while they tear all of the records apart. Employees are separated and isolated and interrogated, and threatened with being charged with felonies and detained if they fail to cooperate. "Cooperate" means divulge anything and everything you may know, or suspect, about co-workers that could possibly be incriminating in any way.

Yes, they are targeting people by name and there is a young woman here who was arrested and detained for weeks now because she happens to have the same name as a suspected "illegal" in California.

it really hits home when it hits so close to home, hey? that poor man, his poor little girl...Evil is right..

Immigrant rights vs. Obama’s talk on reform
By Teresa Gutierrez
Published Jul 9, 2010 11:22 PM

President Barack Obama gave a major address on immigration on July 1, after much anticipation by the immigrant rights movement.

If immigrants and supporters expected anything positive to come out of the speech, they were greatly disappointed. In fact, what President Obama endorsed as proposed policy is everything the movement has been fighting against, not only since 2006, but historically.

Obama continued to frame the immigration question within the context of security issues, as opposed to labor or civil rights. He chastised workers for being in this country “illegally� and said they “make a mockery of all those who are going through the process of immigrating legally.� He also said the “11 million� who are in the U.S. without documents “should be held accountable.�

Obama made a slight attempt to distance himself from the recent passage of SB 1070 in Arizona by calling it “ill conceived.� But he also said it was “understandable� given the “level of frustration� in the country.

The president proclaimed that the southern U.S. border is “more secure today than at any time in the past 20 years.� In fact, there are “more boots on the ground on the Southwest border than at any time in our history.�

He emphasized greater penalties for employers who hire workers without documents, saying this would reduce the “incentive� for people to come here, and stressed putting in place the E-Verify system for all workers applying for jobs. E-Verify is ominous not only for immigrants but for all workers, as it strengthens the Homeland Security system of surveillance.

Obama stated his support for the DREAM Act, legislation that attempts to address legalization for the millions of youth who came here at a very young age and have grown up in this country without documents. The DREAM Act has been a bone of contention in the immigrant rights movement, as it unfortunately tracks youth into the military if they cannot get into higher education or find a job.

Nonetheless, a huge wing of the movement has supported the heroic students who have waged a valiant struggle for the DREAM Act, including hunger strikes endangering their health. The youth leading the struggle are for the most part undocumented and are valiantly coming out, declaring they are “undocumented and unafraid.�

The movement for immigrant rights, especially the students and youth fighting for the DREAM Act, should fight any attempts by the government and the media to divide the movement. The call by Obama to support the DREAM Act while ignoring other demands of the movement could easily become a divisive point if the movement does not unite around all its demands.

Obama admonished the Republicans in Congress for not attempting to compromise on bi-partisan, comprehensive immigration reform. Unfortunately, the Republicans and the far-right in this country who vociferously demonize immigrants and whip up a xenophobic and racist climate against immigrant workers are not the only problem.

Neither the White House nor Congress, no matter which side of the aisle politicians are on, is willing to do right by immigrant workers. Why? Because Washington does the bidding of the corporations, the Pentagon, the bosses and Wall Street.

There is a deep economic crisis in this country. Joblessness and housing foreclosures will only increase. The ruling class needs scapegoats. And one of those scapegoats is immigrant labor.

Immigrants were welcomed in this country when the capitalist economy was strong, but they are now demonized and rounded up when the economy is weak.

If Obama had the political will, he could issue an executive order immediately legalizing everyone in this country. The unions as well as all U.S. workers should push for this, as it would immediately lift the standard of living for all. As has often been said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.�

But if Obama’s work on health care or the financial crisis is any barometer, only the movement can assure that its demands are met.

There is a wing of the immigrant rights movement that refuses to compromise on demands for immediate legalization, an end to the militarization of the border, a repeal of NAFTA-like laws, and jobs, education and housing for all. These demands can become a reality if the movement continues to build on its momentum. On to May Day 2011!

Edited to add cite: http://www.workers.org/2010/us/immigrant_rights_0715/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnaEpTevO88

Nezua is a Latino blogger, he talks a bit about what is happening under Obama. I'll see if I can find some more.

Here's the link to his blog post:

http://theunapologeticmexican.org/elmachete/2010/10/18/news-with-nezua-empire-games/

It just turns your stomach to listen to Obama, doesn't it?

"I am here today to make you this promise. I will be a president who stands with you and fights for you, and walks with you every single step of the way when communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel - when all of that is happening, the system just isn't working, and we need to change it."

Liar. Monster. Worse, vastly worse on both scores than Bush could ever be. This man is a monster and an accomplished and brilliant liar. The moral depravity of this boggles the mind.

How can their possibly be any ambiguity about this? The apologists say "oh he never promised any of that. You weren't paying attention." Liars.

Liars, liars, liars.

Obama knew exactly what he was promising at that rally, exactly whom he was talking to, he knew exactly what people understood him to mean, exactly what it meant to that audience.

Liar. The worst sort of liar. This is pure evil.

http://obrag.org/?p=27198




Next March will mark the 57th anniversary of Anne Frank’s death. Branded an illegal alien of the occupied Netherlands because she was Jewish; she and her young friends had to hide in fear of the black-shirted fiends known as the Protective Squad (Schutzstaffel) or SS as it was commonly called.

Roaming through neighborhoods they were the enforcers of ethnic purification. Their unspeakable atrocities against human beings in the name of the law still lacerate our sense of humanity. And while the ends of their sickening purposes still surface occasionally in places like the Sudan, Rwanda and Bosnia; their means continue to be used as weapons against targeted peoples like today’s Department of Homeland Security thugs.

In Los Angeles, a young girl, 15 years of age (the same as Anne Frank when she died in the camps from typhus), is knocked to the floor, terrorized and forever scarred by fear as Federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents, dressed in black, wearing helmets of steel and thick plastic, their bodies encased in leather and metal, looking like robo cops, bust in the door of her home, brandishing shotguns and automatic weapons.

Bleeding, sobbing hysterically, (like millions of Jewish children in the dark times, when the world ignored the government’s technique of national law enforcement); she watches as her father is beaten to the ground, hand-cuffed and shoved through the front-door. Her mother, screaming, crying, is tackled by big men, drug by her hair as she struggles to get near her horror stricken daughter.

Child services takes her into “custody;” her parents are off to be concentrated in camps. For the crime of attempting to secure a decent life for their daughter; they will be branded as criminals against the state, threats to “the fatherland’s (homeland) security,” and deported.

In Grand Island, Nebraska, a single-mother, working at the Swift packing plant, in obvious pain from the plastic cuffs, screams to the crowd as she is pushed toward waiting ICE police buses with whited-out windows, for someone to please pick up her daughter from school. Meanwhile, a school bus driver, later that day, has to drop two toddlers off at a church because their parents were seized and failed to pick them up at the bus stop.

‘Stop the ICE Raids’ Movement Develops in San Diego

As federal troops intensify their attacks on migrant families, including the largest Gestapo type raid on a workplace in San Diego County history with over 50 armed agents participating October 14th, in an industrial section in Otay Mesa, near the border with Mexico, community groups, church organizations and individuals are organizing a bloc of citizens of conscience who are calling for an end to “state sanctioned terrorism.”

Forty-one workers were seized at the S&S Bakery, more than half its employees. Whole families were snatched in subsequent home invasions. At a November 3rd community forum, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, three young Latina students tearfully recounted how their parents were taken and the effect on their families. Some employees had worked at the bakery for 9 years and their children are legal citizens who must now face life without financial support.

Also supporting the forum, where workers and family members testified to their plight was the San Diego Raza Rights Coalition who sponsored the dialogue “to demonstrate our solidarity with the families and to deepen our understanding of the government’s strategy that represses workers right to work.” The theme of the forum was “working is not a crime, it is a right.” Bags and boxes of groceries, diapers and paper goods were collected at the meeting; while the AFSC calls on the community at-large to continue to donate food and money to these beleaguered families.

Meanwhile, over 300 San Diegans joined a rally in support of immigrant families in City Heights November 5th. Two-thirds of those protesting were young people and half of those were teenagers, revealing how these targeted raids are radicalizing a whole generation of Latinos.

Most of the youthful speakers, bellowing through a mega-phone, not only called for the ICE raids to stop but called for amnesty. Maria Ayala, of San Diego Pro People Youth, announced that the rally in City Heights was ironic, “this gentrified community used to be our community.” A member of the Filipina organization, Affirm, announced that “if any one is good enough to work here, they are good enough to stay here.” Enrique de la Cruz, of the San Diego Zapatista Collectivo, spoke of the need to change the entire economic model, “for a few people to be rich, a whole lot of us have to be poor.” Calling the workplace invasions “racist raids,” members of San Diego State’s Students for Solidarity with Palestine, spoke in solidarity those victimized the U.S.’s war on immigrants. Others student groups called for an immediate moratorium on all raids, deportations, incarcerations and the separation of families.

Amnesty Will Help All Workers

Justin Akers, a professor at San Diego City College, a community forum several months ago outlined the history of the United States’ “war on immigrant workers.” He spoke of the growing public movement to expose the terrorism occurring in local communities which has “impacted thousands of lives, broken families and literally shut down entire towns.”

While he mentioned the “deep roots of anti-Mexican racism,” Akers suggested that the police state persecution of immigrants was more about “a means of controlling people.” He pointed out that immigrant workers are the fastest growing segment of union efforts in the country and that most ICE raids have occurred at factories and packing facilities that are in the process of being unionized. Five of the six Swift & Company meat packing plants raided, netting over 1,300 workers, were represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). The sixth was in the process of becoming unionized.

While the use of Federal troops for union busting goes back to the 19th Century in the U.S. it has never occurred on such a scale or as part of an over-all specific strategy against a minority group by powerful interests. Across the board from the militarized nature of law enforcement to the courts; an actual conspiracy against labor exists, not just migrant workers. Injunctions against the raids are routinely turned down, while union lawyers are denied access to arrested workers.

Corporate oligarchs fear a growing Latino union movement, with their cultural strengths of familial and community bonds, its solid sense of solidarity: influencing large, staid, self-interest driven unions. And, as New America Media associate editor, David Bacon, points out, these brutal raids and persecutions in immigrant communities have one fundamental political purpose to create a vast exploitable, cheap labor pool of close to 600,000 “guest workers.”

Beginning in 1942, a similar program recruited temporary immigrants who were exploited, cheated and deported if they tried to organize a union, go on strike or advocate for decent wages or living conditions. Like China’s rural slave labor, transported to the city to live in squalid conditions and work in dangerous environments, the “Bracero” program allowed employers to drive down wages against U.S. workers, and was finally ended in 1964 after Ceasar Chavez and other Latino organizers fought it.

As researchers for Project Censored announced in a 2008 study, “the demand for undocumentated labor in the US economy is structural.” With the de-unionization of the workplace and heavy emphasis on subcontracting, which shields large employers against worker protections and responsibilities, immigrant workers have become a necessary component of US competitiveness in a world market.

Carlos Pelayo, a local organizer for the United Domestic Workers of America, spoke of the efforts of corporate employers to create a two-tier caste system, where millions of people are denied decent wages, social benefits and fundamental rights. He urged community residents to begin thinking beyond “ethnicity” to a general worker consciousness.

Another community meeting is scheduled November 16th to support the rights of immigrants. Under the banner of “stop the raids and repression in our communities” the City Heights gathering will be at the Activist Center, 4246 Wightman St. The human rights get together will focus on three areas. (1) Education and information – organizing “know your rights” events in City heights and other places ICE regularly harass immigrants. (2) Community defense – the formation of a local defense committee to be called the Comites de Defensa del Barrio in City Heights and (3) to discuss the organizational structure of Puente Arizona and their people’s assemblies and defense committees.

Now that the “war on terror” has become a “war on immigrants” all people of conscience need to step forward and support amnesty. Herding people into concentration camps, separating and destroying families, shipping people off to countries they have never known or speak the language, making the workplace a place of fear and intrigue, these are issues the family and friends of Anne Frank faced during the nightmare of fascism, lets not let it happen in the United States or our children will be stained by our lack of moral authority and compassion.

I can't even watch him in interviews and speeches anymore. He got all those hopes up with people who were desperate for a crumb. It was just flat out lies to the most vulnerable communities. There's no way he would have won over 66 million votes on the vague promises of "maybe", as his handlers are now trying to massage and nuance the results of their time in office. He knowingly made huge promises in unambiguous and specific language. The apologists are disgusting. Bush and his people were crass and obvious. This heartless manipulation is sociopathic.


Here's some more on what's going on here in CA:

http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=14755&news_iv_ctrl=1261

ICE raid in San Diego targets 41 bakery workers

Family members of workers meet with PSL to develop strategy to fight back

A bakery in Otay Mesa, a south part of San Diego, was the target of an Immigration and Customes Enforcement raid on the morning of Oct.13. The bakery owner along with three other supervisors are facing severe criminal charges.

Out of the 41 people detained, most have already been deported, and 19 are being held as material witnesses in an elaborate scheme to further push criminal charges on the workers. The article published on SignOnSanDiego.com only scratches the surface of the terrorizing experience and extreme hardships that the affected families are being subjected to, even to this day.

ICE was established in 2003 as a federal task force with the sole purpose of subjecting the poorest working communities and families to fear, displacement, and acts of police brutality. ICE raids occur after an investigation, and are highly publicized to strike fear and terror into working class immigrant communities.

The morning of Oct. 13 proved to be no different for a particular family, whose members have established themselves as hard working and dignified residents of their community. Accounts of the raid were presented at a San Diego PSL Class the Saturday following the raid, where two family members of the workers detained in the raid were present.

The raid took place at the bakery and at two different houses in which employees and family members of the targeted workers live. At the PSL meeting, family members who witnessed the house raid described how the police and federal agents forced their way in, pointing guns at everyone in the house, women and children alike. The ICE agents, showing no remorse, dragged away parents from their young children, subjecting the children to what is potentially the most traumatic experience a child can endure.

The daughter of one of the workers facing federal prison time came forward and met with PSL members to raise awareness of the case, and to help build a fight back movement denouncing the raids. She told PSL how this has greatly affected her family, creating great displacement and turmoil.

"My family, American citizens and undocumented, will never be the same. We have been humiliated in such a way that we will never be able to forget what they've done to us", she said when asked how the raids will affect her family.

"I personally always felt that I couldn't count on our local police...I felt as if I were to call for help they would take my parents instead of helping us. And as for ICE, well I've always had encounters with them ever since I can remember, but this encounter tops it off...", she stated when asked how she felt about ICE and the local police.

During the Bush administration, ICE raids occurred often, and received substantial attention from the media, a calculated effort to humiliate working families and use their targets as examples of what can happen to other undocumented working families. Obama's current administration openly continues these racist policies and practices of police repression, now more than ever targeting businesses and employers who are suspected of hiring undocumented workers.

http://www.citizenorange.com/orange/2010/10/abusive-ice-raid-in-tennessee.html


From my inbox yesterday comes news of a recent raid of undocumented tenants living in substandard housing in Tennessee. Instead of prosecuting the landlords for violations of housing code, ICE arrested and detained the tenants. In the process, they broke doors and windows and yelled racial epithets at the families inside.

President Obama has made persecution and prosecution of immigrants one of his signature domestic priorities during his first two years of office. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of his commitment to immigration reform.

Local ICE Raid Raises Humanitarian and Civil Rights Violation Concerns

TIRRC and ACLU-TN Denounce Government Action and Management Response to Tenants

For Immediate Release
October 28, 2010

CONTACT
David Morales, TIRRC, 615-833-0384 x 201, 615-775-1069 cell, david@tnimmigrant.org
Hedy Weinberg, ACLU-TN Executive Director, 615-320-7142, hedy@aclu-tn.org

NASHVILLE--The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN) today held a joint press conference condemning the recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid at the Clairmont Apartments off of Murfreesboro Pike. At the time of the raid, the apartment complex was already under investigation for deplorable living conditions and the raid raised numerous additional humanitarian and civil rights violation concerns.

Residents reported that ICE conducted the October 20 raid in the manner of a SWAT team, breaking doors and windows to force their way into apartments. They shouted racial epithets at women and children, interrogated a 13-year-old child, and detained an elder diabetic. No warrants were ever presented, and to advocates' knowledge no criminal charges have been filed against any of the detainees.

"Our nation has the authority to control its borders and to regulate immigration, but the power to deport people must be exercised fairly and humanely. The constitutional guarantees of due process and equal protection apply to all persons in this country - citizens and non-citizens alike," said Hedy Weinberg, ACLU-TN Executive Director. "The Fourth Amendment prohibits warrantless intrusions into private homes, even the homes of undocumented immigrants. In the absence of a judicially-authorized warrant, there must be voluntary and knowing consent. ICE officers forcing themselves inside homes does not constitute consent."

The ICE raid followed a long period of neglect and deterioration in the living conditions at the complex, which have worsened markedly since Tritex Realty Advisors purchased the property in July, Greystar Real Estate Partners assumed management responsibilities, and Crime Suppression Services took charge of armed surveillance.

Management has routinely ignored tenants' complaints about chronic maintenance problems, water leaks, lack of essential services, mold problems and widespread pest infestation. Several buildings have had limited or no water supply and no heat for months. Three weeks ago, Greystar abandoned the onsite management office, posting a sign to call a number that, when dialed, rang inside the empty office. Calls placed weeks ago remain unreturned.

"Government actions such as raids that make life miserable for immigrants will not fix the problems with our broken immigration system. They only create more problems for society such as the public health concerns at Clairmont Apartments, where people are afraid to report appalling living conditions for fear of retaliation," said Stephen Fotopulos, TIRRC Executive Director. "We need to decide which America we want to live in--one that makes life intolerable for millions of people who live here, or one that brings immigrants out of the shadows and enables them to be taxpaying, contributing citizens."

ACLU-TN has developed an Immigrant Resource Center in English and Spanish that provides information to help people better understand the justice system and the safeguards it offers to ensure fair treatment. Resources cover obtaining visas in cases of abuse or human trafficking, encounters with law enforcement, the detention system, safety planning and raids. The Resource Center can be found at http://www.aclu-tn.org/immigrantresourcecenter.htm

TIRRC's Know Your Rights and Raid Toolkits can be found at http://www.tnimmigrant.org/community-resources/2009/6/26/toolkits.html

http://www.citizenorange.com/orange/2010/05/accountability-moment-obama-an.html


A striking difference between yesterday's May 1 immigrant rights rally in Washington, D.C., and the rally on the National Mall on March 21 was the message. Another was the mood.

The speakers on March 21 included advocates, immigrants, and a fair number of politicians. President Obama even spoke in a recorded message about his sorrow for the families that are torn apart by the broken immigration system. The crowd was silent during his message and gave him a massive cheer when it was done. The mood that day was exuberant and hopeful.

The mood at yesterday's May 1 rally in D.C. was one of anger and betrayal. Speakers talked about President Obama's broken promises, his failure to promote immigration reform, and his continued support for programs like 287(g) and InSecure Communities that lead to racial profiling by local law enforcement. They talked about the 400,000 people deported in Obama's first year of office, more than any single year of the Bush administration. Children spoke of their parents currently in the process of being deported by President Obama, and they asked him not to break up their families.

The immigrant community is starting to realize that, when it comes to immigration policy, President Obama and the Senate Democrats have been saying one thing and doing another. They express regret for family separation, for the workers who have paid into the tax base for decades but still face deportation, and for the DREAM Act students brought here as infants who live under the shadow of exile. But through their actions, they wholly support the status quo enforcement-only immigration system.

President Obama's DHS continues to defend the fatally flawed 287(g) program which permits and encourages local police like Sheriff Joe Arpaio to engage in rampant racial profiling. Obama's point person on immigration reform, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, is too busy trying to meet ramped-up deportation quotas and dealing with ICE scandals to focus on mobilizing political support for immigration reform. Most importantly, Obama's ICE continues to deport immigrants--family members of citizens, Dream-eligible students, workers, homeowners, taxpayers--at a rate of 1,000 a day.

Senate Democrats continue to appropriate more and more money for ICE's enforcement operations. Senate Democrats have still not introduced an immigration bill, though they keep pretending to. In March, they announced a blueprint. Last week, they announced a plan. In the hope of appeasing Senate Republicans and their nativist constituents, Senate Democrats keep moving the legislative goalposts to the right in a pathetic display of self-bamboozlement. But there is still no bill! Moreover, key Senate Democrats like Senator Schumer and Senator Menendez refuse to allow a vote on the DREAM Act based on the pretense that they are busy fighting for comprehensive reform. Liars!

Much of the focus yesterday was on Arizona's new racial profiling law. The renewed national focus on immigration due to the Arizona law accounted for the cameras and reporters at yesterday's rally that were mostly missing on March 21. But those at yesterday's rally understood that Arizona's law only has bite in the context of the failed national enforcement-only immigration system. And that President Obama could kneecap the bill easily enough by instructing ICE to withhold cooperation from Arizona law enforcement. (Click here to ask him to exactly that.)

But President Obama and Senate Democrats are more afraid of nativist conservatives who will never vote for a Democrat than they are of Latin@ voters who helped give them their current majority and helped put Obama in the White House. Their plan to say one thing and do another worked as long as their pro-migrant constituents were kept in the dark. The Reform Immigration for America campaign (RIFA) and other immigrant advocacy organizations have facilitated this program of deception by giving President Obama an uncontested platform to deceive the marchers on March 21, by urging the grassroots to rally without telling them who is on their side and who isn't, and by failing to communicate to the grassroots the dismal political conditions for immigration reform. By doing this, RIFA risks burning out the grassroots again, who came out in force in 2006 only to find stepped-up deportation quotas and a lack of political support. This strategy of deception also represents a missed opportunity: to mobilize the grassroots with urgency and anger against the fake allies in the Senate who rely on their political support.

If President Obama and Senate Democrats want to avoid the wrath of the immigrant community and its allies, they must push for rational immigration reform rather than a retread of enforcement-only laws that fail harder the more restrictive they become. They must understand that they cannot lie to their constituents without facing consequences. They should believe that Congressman Gutierrez's civil disobedience yesterday is only the beginning of actions that target Democrats, not Republicans, as the current obstacle to immigration reform.

Senate Democrats should stop the charade and introduce their own immigration bill without GOP support. They should push it forward to force each Senator to show whether he or she is for the immigrant community or against it. They will learn, as Senator Reid is learning, that when you rely on votes from the immigrant community to stay in office, immigration is only a political liability when you fail to act.

Then if, as everyone in the Senate expects, immigration reform fails to pass this year, the Senate should call the DREAM Act for a vote and push it through so their Latin@ constituents don't stay home from the polls en masse in November.

Senate Democrats have failed to support immigration reform as a human rights and civil rights issue--most of them simply don't see it in those terms. So it is up to the immigrant rights community to ensure they see it in terms they can understand: as one protester put it, "Democrats, don't count on us again if we can't count on you now."

We have the broad scope of this - it has been hard for me to believe that something so massive could be going on right under people's noses all this time with so little notice.

But then we realize that each of those people represented by the numbers are a unique tragedy.

I'm not convinced the republicans will be any worse than Obama (considering the atrocities we're already seeing with dems in the majority) but here is a story from this morning's Chron:

Come January, there most likely will be a seismic shift in leadership in two key Congressional subcommittees that deal with immigration issues. There's quite a bit of speculation (and some fear among immigration advocates) about what exactly this will mean. Here's an excerpt from a Mother Jones article headlined "Run for the Border, Steve King's Coming!"

Rep. Steve King has compared border-crossers to livestock, asserted that President Obama "favors the black person," and described illegal immigration as a "slow-motion terrorist attack." Last summer, the Iowa Republican proclaimed that he would support amnesty for illegal immigrants under just one condition--that "every time we give amnesty for an illegal alien, we deport a liberal." Since Tom Tancredo left office in 2008, King has risen to take his place as the right's biggest anti-immigration flamethrower. Now he's preparing to wage an even bigger assault under Republican-controlled House. King is very likely to become the next chair of the House Judiciary's subcommittee on immigration, working together with Judiciary's incoming chairman, Lamar Smith--another immigration hawk who's vowed to put a crackdown at the top of his agenda.

King has already begun laying out his plan to get tough on immigrants in the next Congress, vowing to push legislation that would ban birthright citizenship. "[W]e will have the votes in the House to put an end to the anchor babies in this country," King told conservative site Newsmax last week after the election, referring to the US-born children of illegal immigrants. He continued: "We need to put the marker down and push this thing forward. If we can't get it past the president, then at least we will have made the case for the president, and have set the stage." He's also pledged to push bills that punish employers for hiring illegal immigrants and outlaw so-called" sanctuary cities" that have refused to target illegal immigrants.

Not surprisingly, the changes are popular with those who want tighter border controls. More from Mother Jones:

Advocates for more restrictive and punitive immigration policies are thrilled by the prospect of both King and Smith taking the helm. Conservative immigration advocates were disappointed when the House GOP only made a "scant mention of border enforcement" and failed to "mention any and all forms of amnesty" in its "Pledge to America," which laid out the party's goals in the lead up to the election, says Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Now FAIR is confident that their concerns will gain a broader hearing under the new leadership. "Neither of these guys are newcomers to the immigration issue, and the first order of business will be a thoroughgoing examination into why the Obama administration has systematically dismantled immigration reform," says Dane, accusing the administration of "detaining and deporting criminal aliens while pretty much giving all others a free pass."

http://blogs.chron.com/immigration/archives/2010/11/gop_to_take_con.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+houstonchronicle%2Fimmigration+%28NewsWatch%3A+Immigration%29

"every time we give amnesty for an illegal alien, we deport a liberal."

Hahahahhahahahah

think of the suffering people we inflict these people upon. It ain't right.

Do me a favor and listen to this report. It has been very frustrating over the last few years to talk about this subject and not be able to get through to people.

This is but one of hundreds of such cases here over the last couple of years. The people in this story including the folks being interviewed happen to be friends and neighbors.

http://ipr.interlochen.org/ipr-news-features/episode/10927

No warrant, no Miranda rights, no habeas corpus, no phone call, no access to counsel, no right to a trial - gone. For months? For years? We have no way to know, but it is often months or years before we know what happened to the person. Some have never been heard from again. Some have died in custody.

This man has been here since he was 5 years old. He followed all procedures and at all times cooperated with ICE. He recently lost his wife (an American citizen.) He has a 10 year old daughter.

Just one of hundreds and hundreds of similar cases.

Did you self-delete, TA?

if not, who and why?

Edit: There was a post(#15) by TA entitled 'update', time stamp 11/19/10 1:15am. When I clicked on it I found a deleted post.