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Philip Kretsedemas, author of “Keeping Out the Other: An Introduction to Immigration Enforcement Today”, has recently published an article exploring how he thinks immigration policy can be effectively shaped.
Kretsedemas approaches the issue by putting current migration patterns in context, using the history of migration to the United States.
He also criticizes the concept of “border security” as the central focus of the debate.
…the debate around undocumented migration still seems to be lodged in a paradigm that is organized around border control. Although this emphasis is not entirely misplaced, it also tends to produce distorted explanations of undocumented migration and ineffective strategies for controlling undocumented migration.
He ends the article with his own proposition of a multi-pronged approach that includes:
* Tracking and decriminalizing legal status violations
Thanks to all of you who commented on last week’s post “The Truth About Postville”. I believe that that Dr. Camayd-Freixas’s report could represent a true turning-point in our country’s immigration debate - it will open people’s eyes to the injustice being carried out in the name of “homeland security”.
However, to those who posted stating things like:
They deserve even more punishment than they received…
What about those immigrants who play by the rules? And the rest of us who do, too?
And…
These people are ILLEGAL - send them back to where they came from. If they go through the proper channels and become legal immigrants BEFORE they cross our borders then they are welcome. Since they did not follow proper procedures - they are ILLEGAL and should be arrested, tried and impisoned!
I feel that I must remind you that many of the so called “illegals” you feel such strong hatred for are people who DID come through the legal channels, and were victims of increasing backlogs who then overstayed their visas.
In addition, ICE’s policy of “enforcement only” seems to not make any clear distinction between those who have proper documents and those who do not. Take for example, this story, of a woman who had all of the proper paperwork entitling her to work in the U.S., but was arrested in her home by ICE agents at 4:30am.
And to those of you who posted stating things like:
we are faced not with “hard working immigrants trying to feed their families” but with an outright invasion. I’ve seen police statistics that show Mexican gangs with over 100,000 members (collectively), the K13 group nationwide, the norteños and sureños in California and, most recently, a pocket of K13’s centered around Virginia. These are not just simple people trying to make a living; they are vicious criminals who take what they want and kill remorselessly. It’s very hard to take the comments of this well-known interpreter seriously when there is much deliberate criminality associated with illegal immigrants.
I ask you if our country is now safer because nearly 400 obviously hard-working people, who put in day after day, working in slave labor conditions, were arrested and shuffled unfairly through our “justice system”? It is a well-known fact that cable-news personalities like Lou Dobbs have extremely overstated the association of immigrants with criminality. I’m all for making public safey a priority, but when you are arresting and targeting the wrong people, how are you increasing the safety of the public?
There is no evidence to indicate that undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than American citizens; indeed, the evidence strongly suggests that immigrants in general are less likely to commit crimes.2 For instance, a 2005 study3 conducted by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Michigan revealed both that immigrants committed fewer crimes than native-born citizens, and that a greater proportion of immigrants in a neighborhood was associated with lower rates of crime.
Make sure to do your research - you will find that your automatic association of immigrants with criminals is not only statistically unsound, it is very thinly veiled prejudice against “the other”.
On Tuesday night, tune into PBS for a documentary detailing the tragic death of Esequiel Hernandez at the hands of US Marines on the Texas-Mexico border.
In 1997, U.S. Marines patrolling the Texas-Mexico border as part of the War on Drugs shot and killed Esequiel Hernández Jr. Mistaken for a drug runner, the 18-year-old was, in fact, a U.S. citizen tending his family’s goats with a .22 rifle. He became the first American killed by U.S. military forces on native soil since the 1970 Kent State shootings. “The Ballad of Esequiel Hernández,” narrated by Tommy Lee Jones, explores Hernández’s tragic death and its torturous aftermath. His parents and friends, the Marines on patrol and investigators discuss the dangers of militarizing the border and the death of one young man. A co-presentation of Latino Public Broadcasting. An official selection of the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.
Broadcast Date:
Tuesday, Jul 8, 2008 at 10PM (90 minutes)
The Detention Watch Network (DWN) today released the next generation of its interactive map of the U.S. Immigration Detention System. http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/dwnmap
Designed to increase awareness about the hidden and rapidly expanding detention system, the map includes in-depth information about the far-flung network of 350-plus detention centers, private prisons, and local jail facilities that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses to detain immigrants.
“It is incredibly difficult to find someone once they have been detained.Family members, lawyers and friends will now be able to use this map to locate their loved ones. It will also be a critical resource for advocates and provide a strong visual tool to educate the U.S. public and policy makers about this hidden system,” said Andrea Black, Network Coordinator.
As recent media reports and congressional hearings on deaths in detention have highlighted, the U.S.immigration detention system is vast, constantly changing, and shrouded in secrecywith isolated and remote facilities scattered across the country.
It is extremely difficult to get even basic information from the government about which facilities are in use, the numbers of people being detained and the locations of individuals swept into the system.
“It is heartbreaking to see families struggle to find a loved one in detention, frantic to learn which detention centers are nearby. And it is challenging to advocate for detention reform and hold the government accountable for its capricious policies without a clear understanding of the vast system in place and its proposed expansion.” said DWN member Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership.
In April 2007, DWN created the first national map of the U.S. immigration detention system. The response was overwhelmingly positive and has proven extremely useful to families searching for detainees as well as reporters and Congressional offices.
However, it only scratched the surface of needed information. The new mapcreates a multi-faceted visual representation of the immigration detention world. In addition to a navigable national map, each detention center has its own page with contact and visitation information as well as links to resources and related media.
The New Bedford Standard Times is running a great series titled “The New Immigrants”. New Bedford, Massachusetts was the location of mass ICE raids last year and has been heavily involved in the immigration debate since then.
The new series is focused on the lives of immigrants, their stories, their struggles and their humanity.
Today’s story, “A Guatemalan Immigrant’s Oddysey to the Middle Class” tells the story of a family’s pursuit and achievement of the American Dream. Read it here.
Be sure to check it out the entire serires here. There are lots of great resources - articles, videos, op-eds etc.
I know this is late notice, but….. today at 10am there will be a discussion of the “War on Immigrants” underway in our nation.
WAR ON IMMIGRANTS REPORT (with call-in segment, Dial: 212-209-2900):
A monthly segment of ‘Global Movements, Urban Struggles’ on Pacifica Radio
WHEN
Tuesday, July 1, 2008 at 10am (EST)
WHERE 99.5 WBAI (tune in live throughout NYC or online at: www.wbai.org)
WHO
Co-Hosted by Donald Anthonyson and Maria Muentes of Families for Freedom and Adem Carroll of the Muslim Consultative Network
WHAT Join the War On Immigrants Report for a special show on the politics of immigration and the 2008 elections. Where do our candidates really stand on the issues that impact our communities such as raids, detention and the tearing apart of our families? How can we build grassroots energy to hold elected officials accountable and build community engagement?
We will be joined by scholars, journalists, community organizers and activists to discuss what is at stake for immigrants and the immigrant rights movement in this election season both nationally and locally. We will close with a lively discussion on the 2008 election and immigration where we want to hear from YOU in a CALL IN SEGMENT! To call-in dial: 212-209-2900.
Major press outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post have recently reported on the “System of Neglect” or rather, the state of immigration detention center conditions. As told by her sister June Everett, watch the story of Sandra Kenley, a 52-year-old grandmother, who after living in the U.S. legally for 33 years, was subjected to these very conditions and died in immigration detention.
Today, Duke at The Sanctuary bring us a powerful post on migration causes and costs (both in dollars and in lives). The effectiveness of “prevention through deterrence” and the concept of a border wall is also explored.
It is an ABSOLUTE must-read.
In the mid-nineties US policy towards Mexico changed in two significant ways that eventually set the stage for the current “immigration crisis.” In January 1994, NAFTA went into effect and a new era of prosperity and progress was to begin in Mexico. At the same time, a new strategy was enacted along the southern border intended to stem the flow of unauthorized migrants. The policy of “prevention through deterrence” involved quintupling border-enforcement expenditures, building new fortified checkpoints, high-tech surveillance, and deploying thousands of additional Border Patrol Agents. Additionally, border barriers were built along portions of the California and Texas border to prevent migrants from entering through the most highly trafficked urban areas.
More than a decade later it’s become evident that the promises of these two policies, rather than bringing economic change to Mexico and decreasing unauthorized migration to the US, have led to conditions that more than doubled the flow of migration….and brought added death to the border.
NAFTA, while bringing trade and investment to Mexico, has had unintended negative consequences on both sides of the border for working people and the poor. Whole segments of the US manufacturing sector have been relocated to Mexico resulting in job loss for US workers. At the same time, the lifting for trade restrictions in Mexico have allowed cheaper US commodities to enter the country, decimating Mexican agricultural markets and throwing millions of small farmers out of business. Additionally, the availability of even cheaper labor sources in places like China has forced manufacturing wages to go down.
As for the policy of “prevention through deterrence”, all it has really accomplished in the past fourteen years is a movement of the routes of migration from relatively safe urban areas like San Diego and El Paso to the hostile desert and mountainous regions where enforcement is difficult. This “funneling effect” of forcing migrants into least hospitable areas has had devastating effects for those on both sides of the border. A study released by the University Of Arizona examined the consequences of shifting migration patterns from California and Texas to Arizona and found it had increased migrants deaths by 20-fold.
The failures of NAFTA to bring prosperity to Mexico are well documented. It’s moved 19 million more Mexicans into poverty, forced more than a million small farmers off the land due to the lifting of restrictions on cheaper US subsidized agricultural products, lowered real wages, and in the end forced “millions …to abandon their native homelands. Entire indigenous nations — the Zapotecs, the Mixtecs, the Tzotzil Maya — have moved by the tens of thousands, creating the largest migration of Native American peoples in North America since the Trail of Tears in the late 19th century.”
While trade policies have brought suffering to the poor of Mexico, border policies have brought death.
In a new poll by Rasmussen Reports, 32% of likely voters polled expressed anger over “illegal immigration” whereas 39% said it was just another one of the issues.
However, only 12% of people blamed immigrants for coming here–an overwhelming 83% held the federal government responsible for inaction and being lobbied by ’special interest groups.’ It is indeed true that the federal government is unlikely to make any new immigration laws until after elections–increasing border control, passing Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Agjobs and the DREAM Act–are issues that the government would much rather ignore than tackle effectively.
Done About It?” was published yesterday on the History News Network.
