Brownsville, TX takes on the Department of Homeland Security

Residents in the border town of Brownsville, TX are caught up in the Department of Homeland Security’s haste to show that they are “doing something” about immigration to the United States. The proposed Border Wall on the Southwest border of the United States is being hotly debated by residents in the areas where the wall would be built.

On Tuesday, in Brownsville, a hearing was held on the Border Wall proposal and after hours of emotional debate, the City decided to delay an agreement with the DHS.

Border wall opponent John Moore spoke at the Commission’s hearing - calling for residents to stand against the wall - and saying that nearly 98% of residents opposed the plan.

A post from SmartBorders gets straight to the core of the debate in Brownsville:

Commissioner Troiani ended the meeting by trying to get Brownsville residents to focus on their immediate interests. He said, “It comes to this…either you’re going to try to solve the problems of the city or the problems of the world.” Troiani’s comment belies the underlying reason a border wall is being discussed and supported at all. The very idea that the issues of a city are not hopelessly caught up in the problems of the world belies one of life’s basic tenets, that in the words of Dr. King we are all “caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” A wall, removable or otherwise, in Brownsville, Texas, sends a signal not just to Matamoros on the other side of the Rio Grande. No, any wall sends a signal to the entire world, to the hundreds of thousands of immigrants waiting to legally migrate to our nation. Any wall whatsoever sends a signal to the 4 million displaced Iraqis that we do not want their problems to set foot in our nation. A wall or fence broadcasts to the European Union, China, India, Japan, and England our “Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them.” Any wall, fence, or border barrier which neglects to realistically solve the issues of globalization and movement of peoples inherently affects Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania just as much as it does the Rio Grande Valley or Tamaulipas Mexico. If you are reading this, you are affected by the decisions being made right now in this city of 140,000. Please write your senators, legislators, or add your name to the growing list compiled by No Texas Border Wall. If a wall is built in Texas, it will be to the shame of our entire country and, in fact, our globalized world.

Click here to read the full SmartBorders post.

Going toe-to-toe with Lou Dobbs

This week David Sirota, author of the newly released THE UPRISING, debated Lou Dobbs on the anchor’s radio show. Sirota challenges Dobbs on his separation of Fair Trade and the immigration debate here in the United States.

Click here to read Sirota’s comments about the debate on The Huffington Post and listen to the audio of the discussion.

Blackwater joins our border

Remember that mercenary firm under investigation for the brutal death of tens of Iraqi civilians? Well, they are coming to a border near you. See what proinmigrant has to say about it.

Raid McDonald’s

“We feel we Latinos have been bushwhacked, charred and ICE’d by our government,” said Gilbert Cortez, president of Casa Latina Centro de Informacion, one of the groups that organized the meeting. “This land belongs to God and not to the United States.”

54 workers were taken in raids on 11 McDonald’s restaurants late last week. The community will not cower. Organizations in Northern Nevada are organizing a three day boycott of businesses in Northern Nevada and a mobilization Wednesday at noon.

Luis Caceres, general director of the Sociedad De Salvadorenos Unidos De Nevada Cooperando Con Atiquizaya, said the proposed action is to draw attention to the fact that immigrant workers are here to work and raise families.

“If work is a crime, accuse me of committing a crime,” he said. “Because of the reform that didn’t pass, we’re paying for it. Our families are being divided and our people are being prosecuted because they didn’t have any papers.”

Chaparral: Children disappeared in raids

War is being waged on the children at our borders. Tens of families were affected by recent raids in Chaparral, a border town in Texas.

“My concern is that I don’t want any children to be terrorized or separated from their families,” she said.

Officials of the Mexican Consulate in El Paso said they were still trying Friday to figure out what to do with five siblings who stayed in Chaparral after their parents were deported to Mexico on Monday. Some of the children are U.S. citizens because they were born in the United States.

This is another nail in the coffin of our immigration system. When children are left parentless, families are destroyed and kids are terrorized we know our democracy isn’t working, and neither is our immigration system.

If anyone has updates from other border raids, please post them here!

100 billion dollars worth of bubkiss

Is that how you spell bubkiss? Not sure. But what I am sure of, is that the ICE budget for deporting hardworking undocumented individuals that are a cornerstone of vibrant american industries, communities and families is completely and utterly ridiculous.

“There’s got to be a better way” posits the clearheaded citizen- well, there is. Improving our laws, improving our economy and employer standards, improving trade relations with our neighbors to the south- just for starters.

Check out cnn’s latest facts and figures:

ICE: Tab to remove illegal residents would approach $100 billion

WASHINGTON (CNN) — It would cost at least $94 billion to find, detain and remove all 12 million people believed to be staying illegally in the United States, the federal government estimated Wednesday.

Day laborers, who identified themselves as illegal immigrants, talk to a potential employer in Dallas, Texas.

Julie Myers, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, gave the figure during a hearing before a Senate committee Wednesday.

She acknowledged it was based on “very rough calculations.”

An ICE spokesman later said the $94 billion did not include the cost of finding illegal immigrants, nor court costs — dollar amounts that are largely unknowable.

He said the amount was calculated by multiplying the estimated 12 million people by the average cost of detaining people for a day: $97. That was multiplied by the average length of detention: 32 days.

ICE officials also considered transportation costs, which average $1,000 per person.

But that amount can vary widely, the spokesman said. Some deportees are simply driven by bus across the border, while others must take charter planes to distant countries, he said.

Finally, the department looked at personnel costs, bringing the total to roughly $94 billion.

The statistic is likely to become one more piece of fodder in the heated debate between the Bush administration — which has fought for a “path to citizenship” for people who have lived peaceably in the United States — and those who want to see more aggressive enforcement of immigration laws, up to, and including, the deportation of all illegal immigrants.

By way of comparison, the Department of Homeland Security’s annual budget is about $35 billion.

They Die in Brooks County

Thanks to Veronica at Hola for sharing this poignant and thoroughly researched post from the Texas Observer. In the view of the author- as Border Security budgets burst and new enforcement methods are ratcheted up, south texas becomes a graveyard for the unlucky and the weak. We must shine the light on the human consequences of our border enforcement.

At the Side Door Café in Falfurrias, Texas, body counts enter conversations as naturally as the price of feed, or the cost of repairing torn fences. “I removed 11 bodies last year from my ranch, 12 the year before,” said prominent local landowner Presnall Cage. “I found four so far this year.” Sometimes, Cage said, he has taken survivors to a hospital; mostly, however, time and the sun have done their jobs, and it is too late.

As increased U.S. border security closes certain routes, undocumented migrants continue to come but squeeze onto fewer, more dangerous and isolated pathways to America’s interior. One of these is the network of trails that bypasses the last Border Patrol checkpoint traveling north on Hwy. 281, in Brooks County. That change is having a dramatic ripple effect on the county (total pop: 7,685), and on people who have lived here for generations.

For one thing, the dead are breaking the budget. County officials earmarked $16,000 in fiscal 2007 for handling deceased indigents. That category includes the remains of undocumented Mexicans and other would-be migrants found within county lines. But by May, Brooks County had already spent $34,195 on autopsies and burials, “and we’re just heading into the hot months now,” said County Judge Raul Ramirez. It’s also rattlesnake mating season, noted the judge, who grew up on the King Ranch. It’s the time when the serpents move around most, biting the unwary and those who walk in grass and sand without high boots.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad to do this. I’d spend $120,000 if I had to because it’s the right thing to do,” Ramirez said in his modest office on Allen Street in Falfurrias (population 5,020), the county seat. “But we could be helping more of our own.” About a third of Brooks residents live below the poverty line; average household income is $21,000; jobs are just plain scarce. Read the rest at:  http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2509  

Dying to Get-In: A Public Forum on Undocumented Immigration

Another great Chicago area event in honor solidarity with Elvira Arellano:

Join the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Latin American and Latino Studies at UIC to screen a short award-winning documentary about undocumented immigration, followed by a moderated conversation about the case of Elvira Arellano. As the movement for comprehensive immigration reform and legalization of undocumented immigrants grows in breadth and depth, we feel it is of vital importance to foster public dialogue on the issues surrounding Elvira’s case.

Dying to Get In: A Film by Brett Tolley is an unflinching, intimate perspective of border crossing and the people who cross. The U.S./Mexican border, dubbed a “gauntlet of death” by documentarian Brett Tolley, is infiltrated first-hand in this gritty examination. Since 1994, the number of deaths in the Southern Arizona desert has continued to increase until the summer of 2005 when it reached a record high. Insight into America’s undocumented population shows that trade policies and economic sanctions have effectively forced people off of their own land.

Following the film, there will be a moderated conversation and remarks by Amalia Pallares, Associate Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies (LALS) and Political Science at UIC, and Nilda Flores-González, Associate Professor of LALS and Sociology at UIC.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007
5:30 p.m.
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Residents’ Dining Hall
800 S. Halsted St.
Chicago, IL 60607

This event is FREE. Light refreshments will be served. Reservations are recommended. Call (312) 413-5353.

Breaking News: Senate Kills Compromise; Now Graham Pushes Legislation to Hurt Our Communities - Say NO to the Border Security First Act

We saw this coming from a mile away.

It is certainly no surprise that Senate Republicans who failed to deliver on fair and humane immigration reform have organized themselves to push for an enforcement bill that flies in the face of what we know is healthy and just for our communities.

Senators, many of whom are in support of this bill, have spat in the face of compromise and are now trying to move legislation based on fear-mongering and scapegoating of immigrant communities without looking out for the rights of immigrants and the vitality of our communities. (see overview of legislation below).

This bill is bad for the public safety of all of our communities, it is bad for our border families and communities, and it is bad for the well-being of immigrants.

The Border Security First Act of 2007  

July 25, 2007

Washington D.C. – This morning, Senate Republicans, led by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), introduced the “Border Security First Act of 2007” as an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill. In response to the continued effort to secure America’s borders, the Act provides $3 billion in emergency funding for the following:

· Operational control over 100% of the U.S.-Mexico land border

Guard halved at the Border

The National Guard has been along our borders since 2006 and has begun the scaling back process that will terminate with full removal in September of 2008. The numbers are being cut from 6,000 troops to 3,000 troops and they will be incrementally reduced over the next few months.

The National Guard originally entered to free up agents to do other border enforcement activities. Get the scoop from a local newspaper - and please post your thoughts and actions around the border here.