Give Me Your Tired and Your Poor

As we wait for the final news on this historic democratic primary, I thought it might pass the time to highlight this great editorial in the New York Times. This Bush era, immigration panic is so counter to what our country should be aspiring to, so counter to our self-image, so painful. And I agree that when the dust settles on this decade of disasterous policy we will have trouble facing this craziness head on and dealing with it.

Someday, the country will recognize the true cost of its war on illegal immigration. We don't mean dollars, though those are being squandered by the billions. The true cost is to the national identity: the sense of who we are and what we value. It will hit us once the enforcement fever breaks, when we look at what has been done and no longer recognize the country that did it...

...Every time this country has singled out a group of newly arrived immigrants for unjust punishment, the shame has echoed through history. Think of the Chinese and Irish, Catholics and Americans of Japanese ancestry. Children someday will study the Great Immigration Panic of the early 2000s, which harmed countless lives, wasted billions of dollars and mocked the nation's most deeply held values.
-NYTIMES

Not that this is the first time, far from it. But here we are again.

For this reason among so many others, I am excited beyond measure at the chance for an Obama presidency as a symbol of our background, our multicultural history reflected in his personal history. President Obama has the potential to be a central coming together point to talk about our history, and our future.

My family is Welsh, German and English. My friends are Japanese-American, Indian-American, Cherokee, African-American, Greek-American, Chinese-American, friends who's families are from Mexico, Peru, Italy, Russia and so many other places...

We are from everywhere. And we are Americans. And hopefully after today we will have a nominee who will represent all of us.

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Who are you? Where are you from?

When economies turn sour, when trouble starts, often anger from the in-group turns against those identified as outsiders. The identifying is done either by the powers that be who benefit by having a scapegoat-- or by the people themselves. This often comes from a desperation to protect the perceived minimal resources that people have during times of crisis and fear.

This week in South Africa angry mobs are beating, stabbing and setting immigrants on fire as they rampage through Johannesburg and other cities.

Mobs of South Africans shout: “Who are you? Where are you from?” as they maraud through the narrow streets they share with immigrants. They order people from their homes, steal their belongings and put padlocks on the houses.

Shops and businesses — many of them owned by Zimbabweans, Somalis and Pakistanis — have been looted. Many victims are legal residents with all the proper immigration documents. Some are being assaulted by neighbors they have known for years. -from the New York Times

Fear of immigrants is as old as immigration, which is to say almost as old as civilization itself. Too often profiteers and politicians help propel and inflame aniti-immigration sentiments.

In our own country we have been battling with fear and racism and unfair immigration policies more in this last 4 years than we have in decades.

The tragedy is to see this hatred promoted by our government and whipped up into a frenzy by the wingnuts and hate-radio-hosts as well as the corporate media. The outcome of this fear mongering has not yet plunged us into the type of chaos now rampant in South Africa, but this fear and panic needs to be dealt with head on. We need to call out the fear mongers and scapegoaters. Stop them in their tracks and refute their phony claims.

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Judge Allows Arizona Anti-Immigant Law To Go Active

Staunch Republican Judge throws out Temporary Injunctions

U.S. District Court Judge Neil Vincent Wake just ruled against both requests for temporary injunctions in the Arizona Contractors Association, Inc., et al. v lawsuits. (US District Court, Arizona. Decision #1. Decision #2.)

The New York Times

A new Arizona law considered among the nation’s toughest against employers who hire illegal immigrants will go into effect on Jan. 1 after federal judges on Friday refused to block it.

Both a United States district judge in Phoenix and a federal appeals court in San Francisco, ruling on separate lawsuits by business and civil rights groups, declined to stand in the way.

The law calls for suspending the license of an employer found to have knowingly hired an illegal worker, and revocation for a second offense.

First, Judge Neil Vincent Wake of Federal District Court in Phoenix issued a sharp defense of the rights of lawful workers and said the law would not burden businesses in the short run.

Then on Friday night, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit deferred a decision on an injunction until after a hearing by Judge Wake on Jan. 16, provided a “decision is reached with reasonable promptness.”

Judge Neil Vincent Wake was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush.

While certainly not every Judge is a right-wing ideologue, in the years immediately after 9/11 the Democratic minority was not positioned -- nor frankly, did it even try -- to prevent the Bush administration with stacking the courts. And we know from experience, the kind of horror judges who rule based on politics instead of law give us. Don't we Judge Bates, you fucking tool?

Judge Wake before he was on the bench, was a right-wing tool of the highest order. The first case of his I pulled up had him representing Paula and Alan Sears against the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community on the grounds that:

Las-Vegas Review Journal

...their children, who go to school in Scottsdale, would be exposed to bad influences if casino gambling is permitted nearby.

Seriously.

He won, too. (At least as of that moment. Don't know how it ultimately turned out.)

The moralistic anti-gambling forces say, I should be able to force my world-view on you such that because my sweet little innocent children go to school within miles of your den of iniquity, Jesus must throw out the money-changes from the temple.

Worse -- it might lead to dancing.

Since Judge Wake has become a judge, he has suggested that gays have no constitutional right to equal protection under the law, even in prison where the State obviously has a legal obligation to make certain homophobia doesn't lead to attacks.

Not our Judge Wake, the right-wing homophobe:

Lesbian Gay Law Notes (Page 9)

Ruling on an apparently routine summary judgment motion in a pro se ex-prisoner case, U.S. District Judge Neil Vincent Wake made the startling assertion that for purposes of an Equal Protection claim, “Homosexuals are not a protected class in the Ninth Circuit.” Sotelo v. Stewart, 2005 WL 2571606 (D. Ariz., Oct. 11, 2005) (unpublished disposition). What he should have said, of course, is that “sexual orientation” has not yet been recognized as a suspect classification, but that would not, of course, deprive the court of jurisdiction under 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983 to consider whether prison officials had a rational basis to treat a gay prisoner less well than a non-gay prisoner, an inquiry supported by Supreme Court precedent in Romer v. Evans.

Wake’s brief dismissal misses the point and is clearly erroneous in light of Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), which held at least that a state violates the 14th Amendment if it discriminates against gay people without a rational justification. In the context of a prison, had Sotelo alleged with sufficient specificity that he suffered discriminatory treatment because he was gay, the prison would have to show a penological reason for treating gay prisoners differently from others. More fundamentally, the Equal Protection Clause protects individuals, not classes.

In Romer, of course, section 1983, a jurisdictional statute, was irrelevant because the case was brought in state court and went to the U.S. Supreme Court directly from the Colorado Supreme Court on the federal constitutional question, but Romer clearly establishes the principle, binding on the 9th Circuit and its district courts, that sexual orientation discrimination is actionable under the 14th Amendment.

That's fancy legal talk for, "God Hates Fags."

Against gambling and fags.

Want to bet he's against teh sex and the abortions, the wine, women and song? And in favor of big corps?

Every case of his I found was moralistically based, or on behalf of a big corporation, white boy style. (Anti-women, anti-poor, anti-labor, anti-Indian, "Fuck you; I've got mine.")

You can see why the Bushies wanted his ass on the bench.

Part of the major damage of the Bush administration is they've corrupted much of our legal system. Even the judges who don't rule overtly politically like this asshole, aren't favorable. And then you have entire government entities attacking and ripping apart or turning over to corporate pirates the very institutions they should be protecting: the FCC, NLRB, FDA, SEC, USDA, and more.

Our legal system assumes good intent. It is not set up to protect itself against an insider attack from people in power. This is something we progressives need to fix once we take over.

Th Arizona law has undocumented workers fleeing the state in fear, and employers checking the documentation status of current workers, even though the black letter law makes clear people only have to use the system when hiring people.

Why is everyone running? Because the sheriff in Phoenix has a history of using immigration laws illegally to come after anyone he wants. A culture of lawlessness and distrust prevails against a background Republican/libertarianism "I've got mine so fuck everyone else" which pervades much of the fundamentalist (and to a lessor extent, the Mormon) portions of the West.

I can't say I blame the Ninth Circuit for failing to override Judge Wake. Had they, I have little doubt the Supreme Court would have overturned, 5-4. And again we're back to the long-term damage done to our country by the stacking of the courts.

There'll be a hearing on the case in January, where I have no doubt Judge Wake will, yet again, rule against undocumented workers and for this horrid cruel law. His current rulings make his January hearing pretty damn clear.

Arizona is cutting its own throat, economically, socially, culturally, genetically.

Stupid, stupid Republican legislators.

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Travel Time

New Airport Security "Put the fun back in flying" posted on RyanAir.com

After a long difficult, stressful, overworked fall-- I am finally beginning my Christmas travels.

As an American living overseas I travel often to many countries around the world and visit back in the good ole USA as well. It is a good exercise in contrasts, comparisons and seeing how things change and how George Bush effects the world in a negative way that reaches everywhere.

I am leaving this morning from Japan and headed for Germany, traveling with friends, to see family and enjoy traditional Christmas fun. So what have I noticed so far?

When I go from my home in Japan to my birthplace in the USA I always buy extra traveller’s health insurance since I am at risk for bankruptcy-inducing medical bills for any, even minor, incident that may occur while in the USA. Today I feel safe with my normal health care headed to another sane country that also takes care of sick people without charging them tens of thousands of dollars.

Japan is a strict country with loads of bureaucracy, But even here- where following the rules for the common good is strongly re-enforced every day, I was able to negotiate through customs, immigration, and security with out feeling threatened, yelled at, intimidated and without feeling the eye of big brother intruding on my every move. Of course we still get screened, and go through the normal stuff—but the approach is friendly, professional, and quick. They do what they need to do and try to impact our travel time as little as possible.

The downside of the USA influence becomes apparent though as All USA based carriers are still crazily strict about gels, liquids etc. WHAT A JOKE,

The idea that these people could sit in the plane toilet and simply mix together these normal household fluids to create a high explosive capable
of blowing up the entire aircraft is untenable, said Lt. Col. Wylde, who
was trained as an ammunition technical officer responsible for terrorist
bomb disposal at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Sandhurst.

Like my tube of toothpaste is really the threat they should worry about! Many foreign based carriers have eased the liquids restriction… but most have not, as they are following the lead of the Red White and Blue.

Another negative trend inspired by BUSH and co. is that starting last month, Japan has added fingerprinting and retinal scans are now required for all foreigners entering the country. This is creating a lot of controversy. (Check out the story over on Global Voices )But even in this area, the Japanese are seemingly embarrassed to ask us to do it. And I think they would rather forget the whole thing. -- I went through it the first time just after traveling at Thanksgiving. My Japanese friends traveling to the USA have told me horror stories about how people are treated by the eye scanning Gestapo when they go to the USA. So I guess it is sad that Japan is following in the fingerprint biometric trend… but at least they seem to know it is not a great thing.

I am left feeling sad that there is a part of me that is relieved that I am headed to Europe and not America. Comforted by the fact that I don't have to be too worried about what would happen if I got sick during this trip. Sad that each time I go home I feel that the entrance to our formerly welcoming nation has become increasingly intimidating, and unwelcoming. Sad that so many changes are being motivated by fear, racism and plain political grand-standing.

When my family immigrated to America (one side from Wales and the other from Germany) they had their trials and tribulations for sure. But my ancestors told stories of the great kindness and opportunity they felt, crossing over and entering America. They felt welcomed, they had to work hard, and things were not always fair. But they felt welcomed. And the kindness shown them from their new American friends and neighbors was recorded in our family history.

What kinds of stories will people tell about us in the future—after the way we treat the world now?

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A True Should-Be Ought-to-be American

photo Frank Siteman/Allposters

Christopher Buchleitner, 9, Orphan, Reunited With His Dogs
Border Crosser Who Saved His Life -- Sent Back To Mexico

Thanksgiving night, nine-year old Christopher Buchleitner and his mother were driving home from a camping trip at Peña Blanca Lake near the Mexican border, 60 miles from Tucson.

And then everything went wrong...

Young Chris' father, Jack, had committed suicide several months previously on Labor Day. His mother, Dawn Alice Tomoko, lost control of their car, and went over a cliff. They landed 300 feet from the road. While mom was alive, she was trapped and dying. Christopher wiggled out of the car and started walking away -- in the cold desert night, all alone, down at the base of a cliff. Age nine.

Enter, stage left, a border crosser, Jesus Manual Cordova, 26. He was wandering through the desert. He came upon the boy. Together they returned to the car, comforted the dying mother whom they could not free, built a fire for warmth, and in the morning when hunters came upon them, the young boy and the young border crosser were both alive, as were the boy's dogs -- a golden retriever and a Queensland heeler.

The boy was dusted off to University Hospital in Tucson. The young man was taken by the Border Patrol to Nogales and let go -- on the Mexican side of the border.

If being a citizen is fundamentally the willingness to sacrifice yourself for the good of your community, Jesus Manual Cordova has met the test. Instead of continuing through the desert to freedom, he stopped and rendered aid, knowing the cost.

Any sane society would welcome this young man with open arms, the keys to the city, a full-ride to the University of Arizona, and a passport. The Republican-run Border Patrol shoved his brown-skinned ass right back over the border without even getting an address for the boy's family to write a thank-you card.

The boy is out of the hospital and has his beloved dogs back. He is currently with his uncle's family; whatever happens, he'll be with family we're told, and his dogs will stay with him.

Of Jesus Manual Cordova, there is no sign.

He has vanished into Mexico.

Or hopefully, walked back through the desert again, to a better life.

One final note... the young boy and the young man: they have the same birthday. Make of it what you will. Certainly, the border crosser made it possible that night for the boy to someday, many birthdays from now, become a man.

A man hopefully, as much a man as Jesus Manual Cordova.

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“A Dream of What It Meant To Come To America”

Congressman Dennis Kucinich on Immigration



Extraordinary. Humane. Precisely what he should be saying.

I grew up in Tucson. One of my friends has spent most of his life helping people who are here in this country without documentation. Our current immigration policy is an abomination.

Dennis Kucinich hits a home run. And while I am not a single-issue voter (you can't WIN my vote with a single issue) it is quite possible to LOSE my vote over a single issue -- abortion, the war, bankruptcy, immigration -- when your opponent keeps slamming home runs and you're hitting singles and doubles. (Or arguing with the ump, running off the baselines, interfering with the play, or any of the many ways you can get sent to the showers.)

Dennis Kucinich hits home runs. From impeachment to the war to immigration, Dennis is playing stronger early season ball than anyone in the game. If only he had the name recognition and big-league ball club budget of a Hillary, an Edwards or an Obama, I'd pick him for the Show and playoffs.

(Note to all you writers out there: Yes, I know you can only push a metaphor so far. Tough. I'm going to take this one about Dennis and baseball all the way out to the ballpark, buy it a dog and a beer. If you're really bothered, go copy edit something for charity. You'll feel better and I won't have to throw a knuckle ball at your head. No, I can't actually throw a knuckle ball. But I can pour a beer all over your nice leather jacket "accidentally", the next time we go to a ball game. Ask Scott Boras, A-Rods' $20 million dollar agent, who made the mistake of sitting directly in front of me on Alex's first trip back to Safe-Co Field after Alex moved to Texas. Heh.)

Returning... We're talking Dennis Kucinich on immigration, using the metaphor of him playing base ball. I was saying what a great home run hitter he is. Shortly I'll be saying what a great pitcher he is. I know we don't get people who both hit home runs and are great pitchers anymore. Tough. I liked Babe Ruth. Just go with it... Dennis Kucinich is too damn good to be true also. Kinda the point.

As it is, without a solid ball club strategy and major budget behind him, I think he'll be lucky to get through Super Tuesday and never get out of Double A ball. I don't think he's even got serious coverage from the big sporting papers. Who no doubt are afraid of showing the sporting world what a REAL player looks like; it would upset this year's storyline, and all those media outlets are owned by corporations to whom Mr. Kucinich wouldn't be especially friendly, and to whom Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards will be. So let's keep Dennis down in Double A ball, and keep Hillary and John Edwards up in the big leagues, and let Obama have a few swings now and then but really he doesn't have much of a chance.

Damn shame about Dennis Kucinich. He's got better stuff than any other player out there, as far as I'm concerned. Great fastball, terrific change-up, but I especially love his control. He can put his heat anywhere on the plate he wants.

Last week, he threw that sucker right at the head of the Vice President. Almost took him down, too, if he hadn't been sent to the showers.

Got to love a pitcher who takes no shit from no one and stands up for his Country.

h/t DownWithTyranny!

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Let's Talk Mexico

Jon Stewart interviews Vicente Fox, former President of Mexico.
October 8, 2007

Your thoughts...

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Rat-Fucking in Arizona

photos by CNN

Naive Immigrants' Dreams of U.S. Citizenship Raped

I am extraordinarily careful how I use the word rape.

Assholes in Arizona are raping the hopes and dreams of naive immigrants to this country, in the lingo, "rat-fucking" them.

When it is over, even though the immigrants don't know it yet, they are never going to be U.S. citizens.

"Take that, wetback, and shove it up your greasy ass."

Here's how the scam works.

STEP #1

Blog For Arizona

Maricopa County Recorder Elections Office has learned that an insidious fraud is being perpetrated upon legal immigrants living in Arizona. Apparently, unscrupulous people are going through the telephone book and finding people with Hispanic surnames and are calling them up or visiting their homes and asking them if they are interested in becoming U.S. citizens. If they answer yes, or say that they have started the process, these victims are told that the first step to becoming a citizen is to register to vote.

Plainly, this is untrue. You cannot legally register to vote until you have become a U.S. citizen.

A large number of innocent people are believing this story and are providing all of the information needed to complete a registration form. There are also cases where the victim is never spoken to but the information entered into the registration form is taken just from the telephone book. Even with this incomplete information, the forms are completed anyway, often using false signatures, invented birth dates and drivers license numbers.

These faked forms are then turned to the Maricopa County Elections office. At this point, the names and addresses of these victims are put into the County's system and then checked for validity, at which point the forms are rejected.

Bad enough in its own right.

The immigrant has unwittingly committed a felony. Attempted voter fraud.

All the bullshit about needing ID to visit the polls, which of course, many older people and homeless people don't have, which disenfranchises them while suppressing Democratic Party votes, this is tailor-made to support the Republican attempts to keep low-income and minorities away from the ballot box. Not that there is any indication people registering to vote falsely is any type of genuine problem.

Unless you're Ann Colter.

But that's just ordinary voter fraud. And with a good lawyer -- as if an immigrant trying to become a citizen wants to deal with the law and felony charges, and wouldn't be inclined perhaps to just give up their dreams rather than face down the Prosecutor's office -- could probably make a case they were duped. Especially given a string of these are turning up.

Probably. Maybe. Perhaps.

But then, the truly ugly part kicks in. The rat-fucking.

Step #2

Any person who begins the process of becoming a legal U.S. citizen must obtain from their County Recorder a letter that they have never attempted to register to vote and provide it ICE. If the recorder finds them in the system, they cannot provide that letter, which means that person will likely never become a U.S. citizen, and could be charged with a felony.

So even though these victims may be here with legal documents, because some unscrupulous person is trying to earn $4 or $6 for each registration they turn in, or is trying to create voter fraud where none exists, they are destroying someone's dream of becoming a U.S. citizen.

Five years later.

Eight years later.

Whenever the paperwork is due to ICE, the knife falls. Along with a possible felony charge, depending on how generous Maricopa County feels that month.

A family who has taken care to take every single step right. Their visa, their green card, their attorney, all of the paperwork just so... blown out of the water and possibly across the border by some Arizona asshole destroying lives.

Racist fucks.

A friend of mine is a Priest who has lived outside Tucson for over 30 years. He leaves water for people crossing the desert. I've been on the peripheries of the Sanctuary movement (which started in Tucson) since I was a young medic in South Tucson.

Over 1,000 people a day are turned back in the Tucson sector attempting to make the crossing. Since October 1 a year ago, 204 people have died in the Tucson sector attempting the crossing. And obviously -- and typically ignored by the racist Republicans for whom all Hispanics faces are the same -- many, many Hispanics are in the United States completely legally, on valid visas from the very start of their stay. Not to mention the tens of millions of U.S. citizens of Hispanic decent, or people from South and Central America, or from Europe.

To come so far, to work honestly to do everything legally, to become an American citizen, only to be told "No" by an actively anti-immigrant governmental bureaucracy which assumes the validity of all charges against the immigrant, which looks for reasons to reject citizenship applications.

All because some Arizona asshole raped -- rat-fucked -- an immigrant family years ago in their naivety.

This is beyond ugly.

This is evil.

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