First, I hope you have been noticing, as I have, the presence of immigrants and the children of immigrants on the U.S. Olympic Team across a number of sports.

Wrestling gold medalist Henry Cejudo’s parents were undocumented immigrants from Mexico.  Decathlon gold medalist Brian Clay’s mother is an immigrant from Japan, and there are many more.

Thirty-three American athletes are themselves immigrants, including flag bearer Lopez Lamong, beach volleyball player Phil Dalhausser, and gymnasts Nastia Liukin, and Alexander Artemev.

 Some of our American athletes, like gymnast Raj Bhavsar, are also getting attention in the home countries of their parents.

Paul Waldman, a columnist for the American Prospect, wrote about his impressions of the diversity of the American team here, and the Center for American Progress wrote about immigrant American Olympians here.

This post was written by Doug Rivlin

Business is the focus of today’s news and opinion on immigration.  Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post takes a front-page look at enforcement against businesses caught hiring unauthorized workers, concluding that the number of criminal prosecutions against employers and supervisors is up, but that barely a dent has been made in the overall immigration mess:

 

A three-year-old enforcement campaign against employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants is increasingly resulting in arrests and criminal convictions, using evidence gathered by phone taps, undercover agents and prisoners who agree to serve as government witnesses.

 

But the crackdown’s relatively high costs and limited results are also fueling criticism. In an economy with more than 6 million companies and 8 million unauthorized workers, the corporate enforcement effort is still dwarfed by the high-profile raids that have sentenced thousands of illegal immigrants to prison time and deportation…

 

In the first nine months of this fiscal year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made 937 criminal arrests at U.S. workplaces, more than 10 times as many as the 72 it arrested five years ago. Of those arrested this year, 99 were company supervisors, compared with 93 in 2007. – “In Immigration Cases, Employers Feel The Pressure,� Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, July 21, 2008

 

But as Hsu’s story points out, officials from both the Bush Administration and the Clinton Administration that preceded it feel that no significant progress at curtailing illegal hiring will occur until Congress changes the laws:

 

Stewart A. Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the Homeland Security Department, recently told immigration experts the disparity can be traced to ineffective policies that need to be addressed by Congress…

 

“If you want law enforcement, you have to have laws that are enforceable,� said Doris M. Meissner, who headed the former Immigration and Naturalization Service under the Clinton administration. The 1986 law banning the hiring of illegal immigrants, she said, “has just been chronically flawed from the time it was passed.� – “In Immigration Cases, Employers Feel The Pressure,� Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, July 21, 2008

 

Meanwhile, the editorial page at the New York Times follows up on Julia Preston’s front-page report July 6 (“Employers Fight Tough Measures on Immigration�) on the business community getting more engaged in immigration reform efforts in Washington and around the country.  Today’s editorial notes the hodge-podge of state and local measures going after immigrants and businesses that hire immigrants unauthorized to work:

 

States and cities complain about the broken immigration system, but they can’t create the intricate web of policies needed to fix it — that’s up to Congress. All they can do is try to crack down locally on illegal immigrants and the businesses that hire them. The result has been haphazard enforcement without reform, which only makes the problem worse. – “Pushing Back on Immigration,� New York Times editorial, July 21, 2008

 

The Times editorial goes on to note that businesses who want to play by the rules are the main losers in the current equation:

 

Many companies have operated with impunity in hiring and abusing undocumented low-wage workers, people who are all the more compliant because they are illegal. Like immigrants, good employers need a path to get right and stay right with the law. Current immigration law — with far too few visas and no path to legalization for the undocumented — does not provide one, and misguided state and local enforcement efforts simply layer on the confusion. They impose undue hardships on by-the-books businesses and reward the exploiters. – “Pushing Back on Immigration,� New York Times editorial, July 21, 2008

 

The editorial then calls on the business community to step-up to the plate when it comes to fixing our immigration system:

 

If the country is ever going to emerge from the immigration chaos that Congress bequeathed it last year, it will be because business interests — largely seen as AWOL in the bitter debate — finally joined the fight. – “Pushing Back on Immigration,� New York Times editorial, July 21, 2008

 

While we welcome more business voices at the table – and have been working with this wing of the pro-immigrant, pro-reform movement for years – other key actors that have been AWOL for most of the last year (at least in a constructive sense) are the President and Congress.  We would always welcome them back to the table.

 

 

 

If our goal is to have an immigration system that almost all rational intending immigrants choose to go through rather than around, then we need to do more than just focus on fencing and boots on the ground at our Southern border.  Today’s lead editorial in the New York Times makes this point superbly.

 

Immigration policy has mostly been directed by opponents of legal immigration for the last two decades.  They have helped bottle up legal immigration channels so that they can then shout bloody murder at the resulting illegalities in the labor market.  They direct all the focus on the fence –”The Great Wall of Chihuahua,” which the Supreme Court says can be built with no consideration for any laws, foreign or domestic — and on the Border Patrol force than cannot recruit, train, and deploy agents at nearly the rate the do-little Congress has authorized.  Add substandard detention conditions, massive and record-setting round-ups, and truncated or non-existent due process for those swept up, and you have our current approach to controlling and regulating immigration.

 

But how effective is it?

 

The National Guard is leaving the border at the end of the month. And even though the border states want them to stay, the Bush administration is declaring victory. That’s how good things are down there.

 

Too bad, though, that the results that restrictionists predict from victory — an end to illegal immigration, the expulsion of illegal immigrants, the restoration of jobs to American workers, the protection of American culture and language from a Hispanic invasion — are not coming anytime soon. That’s because fixing immigration has very little to do with any of the hustle and bustle along the 2,000-mile line from San Diego to Brownsville, Tex.

 

According to research by the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego (summarized here) more than 90% of intending immigrants from Mexico get through the gauntlet at the border somehow.

 

Maybe establishing law and order in our immigration system is more complicated than just focusing on the border, enforcement, and deportation alone.

 

This is not to argue for giving up on enforcement. The real victory will come when a repaired, well-patrolled border coincides with a repaired, well-run immigration system that requires undocumented workers to come forward and be legalized, has expanded avenues for legal workers, including would-be citizens, and cracks down on illegal hiring as staunchly as it protects workers’ rights.

 

There is a long list of things to do to make the immigration system correspond to American values and economic realities, and the country is doing just about none of them. We’re paying a huge price to pay for an ineffective fence and some symbolic victories on the border. — “False Victory at the Border,” New York Times editorial, July 5, 2008

 

Well said, Grey Lady.

Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT3) lost his Republican primary to first-time candidate Jason Cheffetz, a former campaign manager and aide to Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. (R) by a twenty-point margin.  Rep. Cannon has been the target of national anti-immigration advocacy groups because of his moderate views on immigration.  Over the last two election cycles they have been going after him and they will no doubt be crowing about his defeat.

 

Rep. Cannon is Member of Congress who, breaking with most of his Party, seems to get the idea that a legal immigration system that works and allows hard-working immigrants to contribute to the economy above board is a good thing; that policies that put immigration back on the foundations of law and order should be the goal; and that the cheap politics of immigrant bashing is neither effective nor constructive.  It appears even his opponent learned that immigrant bashing is not the most effective tool in the arsenal for getting elected. According to Congressional Quarterly (CQ Politics),

 

 

Chaffetz did not make immigration the centerpiece of his attacks on Cannon, as previous primary challengers in 2006 and 2004 had done.

 

Chaffetz went after Cannon for approving Bush’s “No Child Left Behind� program that expanded the federal government’s oversight of local school systems, something Chaffetz said a “true� conservative would never support. He said he would advocate repealing the law and favors abolishing the U.S. Department of Education, arguing, “The federal government should not be in the public education business.�

 

He also criticized Cannon for supporting the 2003 measure that greatly expanded Medicare by creating a prescription drug benefit program, and associated the incumbent with what he described as fiscal irresponsibility practiced by Congress.

 

And while he did not make immigration the central issue of his campaign, as did challenger Jacob in 2006, Chaffetz did echo the well-aired arguments made by critics of the congressman’s position. – “Utah GOP Rep. Cannon Defeated in Primary,� Michael Teitelbaum, CQ Politics, June 25, 2008

 

There appears to be more going on with this race than just the immigration issue.  Cannon is the latest of three incumbent Members of Congress to be defeated in a primary.  He joins Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) and Rep. Albert Wynn (D-MD) who lost primaries earlier this year.  Rep. Wynn resigned his seat and was replaced by newly minted Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD), the woman who defeated him in the February primary, who won a special election June 17 in the heavily African-American District 4.  Edwards, we should note, is an outspoken supporter of comprehensive immigration reform.

 

Rep. Cannon doesn’t seem to have done very well turning out his base and using the power of incumbency in a year that is shaping up to be a tough one for incumbents, regardless of party and certainly, regardless of holding mainstream views on immigration.

Â

As we are learning (and have reported here previously), one consequence of being put in ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention is quite literally death.  Because of the way health care for immigrant detainees is restricted, many face consequences and 83 have died in recent years.  Now it appears that at least some think ICE leaders have been less than honest in congressional testimony about the standards of care given detainees.

 

CQ Homeland Security reporter Caitlin Webber reports that experts on detention and advocates for detainees feel that Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security and the head of ICE, failed to disclose that “non-emergency conditions are assessed or treated only if doctors believe their illness would prevent deportation.�  According to the critics interviewed by Webber from the Detention Watch Network, the ACLU National Prison Project, and the New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, the policy is problematic for a number of reasons, but that this is not the first time senior ICE officials have not fully disclosed the standard for care.

 

“What I find most troubling . . . is that it is the second time now that ICE has been called to testify before Congress on the issue of medical care in detention and it’s also the second time that it has misrepresented the standard,� Tom Javits, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project, said in an interview.

 

Javits said Gary E. Mead, assistant director for management of the ICE Office of Detention and Removal Operations� also diluted the non-emergency care standard in testimony Oct. 4, 2007, before the House Judiciary Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law Subcommittee. – CQ Homeland Security, “ICE Officials’ Testimony on Detainee Medical Care Called Into Question,� June 16, 2008

 

Pressed by the CQ reporter, Homeland Security/ICE spokesperson Kelly Nantel came up with this telling response:

 

“We are in the deportation business. . . . Obviously, our goal is to remove individuals ordered to be removed from our country…We address their health care issues to make sure they are medically able to travel and medically able to return to their country.� – CQ Homeland Security, “ICE Officials’ Testimony on Detainee Medical Care Called Into Question,� June 16, 2008

 

What does this statement mean for all of those who are detained but are seeking relief in immigration court – like asylum seekers? Or those who should be given relief to testify against employers or traffickers? It’s the classic idea that immigration enforcement is just about booting people out of the country rather than attempting to ensure that all of our immigration laws are fairly enforced.

This has been a bad month or so for the Department of Homeland Security.  Congressional oversight hearings have been called to examine recent revelations of deaths in detention, lack of health care, and forced drugging of detainees.  Processing of citizenship applications remains hopelessly backlogged to the point that hundreds of thousands – perhaps more than a million – legal immigrants will not be able become citizens in time to vote in November.  This week, the Bush Administration announced that the flawed E-Verify worker verification system would be extended to all companies with federal contracts, thus placing additional pressure on an experimental system that is already underperforming.

 

As the bad news keeps piling up, editorial boards are taking notice.

 

Today the Los Angeles Times addresses E-Verify and other wacky developments in our hysteria to do something about immigration:

 

It’s legitimate to demand that contractors seeking Uncle Sam’s money jump through a few more hoops. And although Chertoff’s claim that E-Verify is “99.5%” accurate seems overstated (a new Government Accountability Office report indicates that the system produces uncertain results 8% of the time, and a 2006 report cited a 4% error rate in Social Security records, which E-Verify relies on), the collateral damage may be less troubling than the damage to the country’s sense of itself.

 

As we hustle to show resolve in the immigration “crisis,” we’re getting used to the idea that all private endeavor is subject to Washington’s prior approval. What kind of country do we want? A few years ago, a border wall would have seemed a relic from medieval China or Central Europe in the totalitarian era. Now it is official U.S. policy. – Los Angeles Times editorial, “Over the line: The anti-immigration furor is pushing us toward irrational policies, June 11, 2008

 

The New York Times in an editorial supporting a new bill introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) that would create mandatory detention standards across the immigration detention system including basic, minimal medical care, has this to say about deaths in detention:

 

The government should be rushing to improve the oversight and care in its sprawling detention system to protect all detainees. Instead, the official reaction has been slow and defensive, promised improvements are piecemeal, and criticism of the system is making immigration hard-liners indignant…

 

Whether immigrants are legal or illegal has nothing to do with their right to humane care. As Ms. Lofgren bluntly put it: “You are not supposed to kill people who are in custody.� – New York Times editorial, “Dying in Detention, June 11, 2008

 

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will be called before the House Committee on Homeland Security again on Thursday at 10 a.m. for additional questioning, presumably about these and other matters.

 

One of the new trends that we see as more bad news is the expeditious way immigrants swept up in home and workplace raids are being railroaded through the criminal justice system to deportation.  In the aftermath of the massive raid in Postville, Iowa, last month, immigrants were strongly encouraged – some would say coerced – into waiving rights, waiving access to relief from deportation, and pleading guilty to criminal, not just civil, charges during mass drive-by hearings.  The best overview we’ve seen comes from New America Media, a consortium of ethnic media outlets.

 

Wendy Sefsaf, a Washington-based writer for NAM, breaks down this complicated issue of due process denied and legal immigration status denied, using Postville and other recent stories to illustrate (We recommend you read the whole article).

 

In May, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid took place at an Iowa kosher meat-packing plant. It was the largest raid ever. Nearly 400 employees at Agriprocessors were rounded up and interrogated by immigration officials. The search warrant executed by ICE also laid out a range of workplace abuses, including physical abuse. According to the government’s own warrant: “In February, Source #7 told ICE agents he or she observed a Jewish floor supervisor duct-tape the eyes of an undocumented Guatemalan worker shut and hit the Guatemalan with a meat hook.�

 

…

 

If the government warrant itself outlined abuse, the workers should have been eligible for protected status. However, they were treated as criminals, not victims.

 

In another case in Louisiana, Indian workers were trafficked to the United States and housed in substandard conditions while their wages were held back, in order to pay back the $20,000 they were charged to come the United States to work at Signal Construction in New Orleans. After they walked out on their jobs en masse, the Department of Justice opened a trafficking investigation case acknowledging their victimization, yet refusing to protect them.

 

In past cases similar to Signal Construction, “continued presence� was automatically granted, allowing the workers to stay on in the United States while the case went ahead. According to Dan Werner of the Southern Poverty Law Center, “Continued presence is discretionary on the part of the Department of Justice, but people used to get processed on the spot. This delay is a new thing.� The lawyers representing the Indian workers have been told they must submit their clients for deportation hearings.

 

The remedies available to victims of trafficking and crimes are known as “T� and “U� Visas, and 5,000 T visas and 10,000 U visas are available annually.

 

Congress created these visas to protect victims, particularly those who could serve as witnesses to crimes. However, these cases show a possible change in policy to deport instead of protect these victims. – New America Media, News Report by Wendy Sefsaf, “Rush to Prosecute Leaves Immigrant Victims of Crimes Without Protection,� June 11, 2008

 

Advocates who watch the troubling world of immigration detention and due process closely (eg: the Detention Watch Network, Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Service, and the Rights Working Group, among others) have recently been emphasizing “alternatives to detention� like ankle devices and regular check-ins with authorities who can also provide legal services to those who have a path to become legal.  These alternatives are not only more humane, they are cost-effective.  Unfortunately, to the Department of Homeland Security, “alternatives to detention� means getting people deported as quickly as possible, preferably without all that pesky due process or those meddlesome immigration judges, lawyers and translators.

Lots of dead immigrants in the news this week.  From Arizona, we are reminded by the Arizona Republic’s editorial board that the season of migrants dying in the desert is fully upon us.  Since the beginning of the fiscal year six-months ago, 61 immigrants are known to have perished attempting to cross the desert in the Tucson border sector.

 

Years ago, The Republic editorial page began writing about summer death counts in the hope of shaming Congress into reforming immigration policies that contribute to those deaths. Washington wasn’t paying much attention.

 

In recent years, the issue of illegal immigration reached hot-button status. Attention jumped right over those dead bodies. It leaped past the human dimension. Instead of being seen as people who are caught in a broken system, migrants are now portrayed as villains who are unworthy of sympathy.

 

That’s where Arizona is today. Anger has the upper hand. Rage is louder than reason.

 

But Arizona risks its humanity if it can’t refocus on what immigration policies are doing to real people.

 

Husbands.

 

Wives.

 

Sons and daughters.

 

– “Our Lethal Policies,â€� Arizona Republic editorial, June 2, 2008

 

In recent months, news of another migrant dying to get in here has been met with ho-hum indifference, or worse, out right glee from some in Arizona.  Responding to a Tucson Citizen story on a body discovered in the desert last summer, commenter “Chip B.� offered this cheerful response:

 

Better dead in the desert than here in our cities spreading their vermin, raping our women and consuming health care. – A comment on the story, “Remains found in desert may be illegal migrant,â€� Tucson Citizen, July 13, 2007.

 

Chip’s likeminded brother “roy w.� had a similar response to a story last summer on a proposed increase in border patrol and National Guard resources in the Tucson border sector:

 

Spend the money on 100 ex-Marine snipers with long rifles and scopes, turn 10 cabezas into red mush; the word goes out and people stop coming.

 

Savvy? Get these people out of this country before the American people start shooting them! — A comment on the story, “New bill calls for adding 14,000 border agents,â€� Tucson Citizen, August 3, 2007

 

And later the same month, “roy w.�’s death threats became a bit more specific:

 

God help the Pima County politicians, and businessmen, who brought this plague upon us, in the name of greed, profit and “humanitarianism”. We will hang them from lamp posts, and stick their severed heads on the Tucson City Walls. — A comment on “Border Patrol rescues 5, including 4-year-old girl,â€� Associated Press, August 29, 2007.

 

Lou Dobbs and Rep. Tom Tancredo must be proud of the rhetorical space they have opened in the public square for such thinking…if you can call it that.

 

But immigrants are not merely dying to get here because of our out-of-date and overly restrictive legal immigration system; they are dying in federal custody as well.  The stories about immigrants dying in detention first uncovered by the Washington Post, New York Times, and CBS News, (and ImmPolitic) are now being echoed across the nation.  Veteran immigration reporter Sandra Hernandez of L.A.’s legal-focused newspaper The Daily Journal, wrote a good summation of the health care for immigrants in detention issue for this Sunday’s Los Angeles Times.

 

More than 70 immigrant detainees have died in custody since 2004, at least 13 of them in California, more than in any other state, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

 

The reason may shock you. Unlike federal and state prisons, immigrant detention centers, many of which are run by private contractors, are not legally mandated to abide by any healthcare standards when it comes to treating sick immigrants. Civil and immigrant rights groups have filed suit in New York to force federal officials to issue such rules, but the Department of Homeland Security, which has jurisdiction in the matter, has yet to produce them. In the absence of legally binding standards, detained immigrants…have no legal way to complain about the lax healthcare they receive at the facilities where they are held. They cannot appeal the denial of care or sue in federal court to obtain it. – “A lethal limbo for migrants,� Los Angeles Times, June 1, 2008.

 

Michael Martinez, national correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, also wrote Sunday about immigrants dying in detention.

 

Francisco Castaneda had been in a federal immigrant detention center because he was an illegal immigrant with a drug conviction. During his 10-month stay, his signs of cancer went untreated until the facility made him a free, but sick, man. He died a year later.

 

“If they do a crime, they should do their time, but take care of them,” said a tearful Yanira Castaneda, 35, whose family in the Los Angeles area is continuing her brother’s lawsuit against the government. “I think my brother could have been saved.” – “More immigrant detentions, more deaths,â€� Chicago Tribune, June 1, 2008.

 

So far, the response from the Department of Homeland Security has been unapologetic.  On Wednesday, June 4 at 2:00 p.m., Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Chair of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, will hold a hearing on “Problems with Immigration Detainee Medical Care.�  We may learn more, and we may be further sickened by what we hear.  What we are not likely to hear from the Department or its leaders is an apology or a clear sense of accountability.

Media Matters Action Network released their highly anticipated report on Lou Dobbs, Glen Beck, and Bill O’Reilly.  Fear and Loathing in Prime Time, written by MMAN Senior Researcher Paul Waldman is a must read for immigrant advocates.

 

In addition to taking on the common myths repeated endlessly by these and other TV and radio talkers, they also have a petition, in English and Spanish, which reads:

 

I call on the following hosts to stop feeding anti-immigrant hysteria by repeating myths and misleading claims about undocumented immigrants…Further, I call on the following cable news channels to step up and provide the American public with a fair and accurate portrayal of immigration issues.

 

It also gives you the opportunity to send the petition with a comment.

 

As you might expect from one of the thinnest skins in broadcasting, Mr. Dobbs is not taking the report well.  The next day, Lou called Paul Waldman onto the proverbial carpet as a guest on his show.  The Center for American Progress’ Think Progress blogs about that here, and TIME’s Joe Klein (aka “Anonymous�) blogs about it here.

 

When the National Immigration Forum mentioned Mr. Dobbs in a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Dobbs’s producer was inviting the author on for a dressing down by Dobbs by 4:00 p.m. that day.  The segment was scheduled, but Dobbs apparently backed down because CNN failed to follow up.  Perhaps he had someone better to yell at that day.

 

Don’t miss this item from Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts on the wife of a local policeman, shot to death by an immigrant in the country illegally, who is calling for compromise and comprehensive immigration reform:

 

The woman stepped to the podium and faced a phalanx of television cameras in a room packed with reporters. She had no notes and needed none.

 

“This country,� she said, “is in need of comprehensive immigration reform.�

 

In certain circles, she would be immediately branded a member of the open borders crowd, a traitor who sides with those who seek to turn our country into Mexico.

 

That’s how it is with the illegal immigration debate, where there is black and there is white and there is absolutely nothing in between.

 

You’re either for us or against us; red, white and true blue or a lover of the lawless.

 

And yet there is Julie Erfle, a woman who has more of a right to outrage than any of us. — Laurie Robert’s Arizona Republic Blog, “A murdered officer’s widow speaks out, “ May 24, 2008

 

It is a very powerful story about a powerful messenger.

 

Last but not least, as part of their fantastic series on immigration at AlterNet.Org, today’s postings include an article by Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice, and former Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum.  The article dissects and analyzes what went wrong with comprehensive immigration reform in 2007 and what needs to happen to get it back on the table early in the new President’s term.

A few items of interest today that we wanted to flag.  First, Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, a coalition managed by Sojourners, has posted a 5:30 minute video on YouTube about the Postville, Iowa raids, the impact on the community, the role churches are playing, what the workers experienced, and how horrible the working conditions really are.

 

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=action.ccir&item=CCIR_main

 

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) has a story today that goes deeper into the hiring practices and working conditions of Agriprocessors, the business that was raided, with interviews with several former workers.

 

“They were constantly pushing us and forcing us to work faster,” Yolanda said through a translator. “They were very abusive, screaming a lot.”

 

Yolanda’s sister Maria, 32, said she resisted the sexual advances of a Guatemalan supervisor who tried to force himself on her in a car. In the days that followed, Maria, who describes herself as a diligent worker, was accused of coming late to work and was denied overtime pay.  […]

 

Maria eventually complained and the supervisor was fired. But other workers appeared to keep quiet about alleged mistreatment out of fear they would be turned over to the authorities.

 

“There was such fear in that community that they were afraid to go talk to anybody,” said Kevin Williamson, the international vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union. – “As Agriprocessors scrambles to keep  plant open, former workers speak out,â€� by Ben Harris, JTA, May 21, 2008

 

Yesterday, a press conference in Washington with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus featured Sister Kathy Thill of Waterloo who offered her moving perspective on the Postville raid.  Here is a snippet of the Des Moines Register’s story:

 

The Catholic nun has assisted immigrant families there following the detainment of 389 workers at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant.

 

She is a member of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas who works with Latino families in Iowa.

 

“I am also a United States citizen who grew up believing that this is a democratic country in which the dignity of all people is respected and their rights protected,” she said Tuesday at a news conference here, surrounded by members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

 

“This is not the country I experienced this past week.”

 

Thill, several times choking up with emotion, told of the shock and distress of immigrants who gathered at St. Bridget’s Catholic Church the day of the raid.

 

“Hundreds of families were torn apart by this raid,” she said….”The humanitarian impact of this raid is obvious to anyone in Postville,” Thill said. “The economic impact will soon be evident.” – “Immigrants feel distress, shock, nun says,â€� by Jane Norman, Des Moines Register, May 21, 2008

 

The press conference followed a hearing on immigration and workplace raids in the House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Workforce Protections chaired by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA).  The Des Moines Register and Workforce Management magazine each wrote stories worth a read.

 

Also yesterday, the Senate acted late in the evening to strip out the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act (EARA), which would give U.S. growers greater access to legal migrant workers.  The measure, sponsored by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Larry Craig (R-ID), is essentially a scaled down version of the bipartisan AgJOBS bill crafted through lengthy negotiations between labor and business.  The amendment to the Senate War Supplemental Appropriations Bill was endorsed by the Senate Appropriations Committee last week on a 17-12 bipartisan vote, but was removed procedurally last night.

 

But not before an excellent Wall Street Journal editorial was published explaining EARA and supporting its inclusion in the spending bill.

 

The hotter this issue became in recent years, the more Congress dithered. That has had real consequences, as the agriculture labor shortage manifested itself repeatedly across the industry. Back in 2006, we saw pear crops in Northern California rot because migrant laborers couldn’t be found in sufficient numbers. Last year, a single county in western Michigan lost a million pounds of asparagus. But the more insidious problem is that the labor shortage is impacting what is planted in the first place. Or not planted.

 

Some growers scale back on their harvesting; a crew moves through an orchard just once to pick the best fruit, instead of moving through the land multiple times to pick nearly everything. Other growers decide to switch from producing high-value, nonsubsidized fruits and vegetables to producing low-value, highly subsidized row crops merely because the latter is less labor intensive. Still other growers are moving production offshore, reasoning that if they can’t find the labor stateside, they’ll go where labor is more plentiful. – “Farm Help Wanted,â€� Wall Street Journal editorial, May 21, 2008 (pay site)

 

Finally, the New York Times editorial blog (“The Board�) has a bit more on the outrageous story out of Texas that the Border Patrol intends to maintain immigration checkpoints even during an evacuation due to a natural disaster.

 

The word was out that the Border Patrol would be checking citizenship at evacuation centers, screening out illegal immigrants before evacuees boarded buses. Who cares if it’s a hurricane — it would still be “business as usual� for the Border Patrol, the agency’s local spokesman said.

 

Wow. That’s hard-core. Even in a country that is becoming inured to the relentless pursuit and harassment of undocumented immigrants, it is mind-boggling to consider what the spokesman, Dan Doty, was suggesting:

 

Winds may be howling, floodwaters rising and rescuers in McAllen and Brownsville scrambling to get 100,000 to 150,000 sick, elderly, poor and disabled people to safety as quickly as possible — but if Grandma doesn’t have her papers, she isn’t getting on the bus.  – “Hurricanes, Citizenship, and the Makings of an Unnatural Disaster, May 20, 2008

 

 As Lou Dobbs would say, “Incredible!,� but since this is a story about the folly of the deportation-only approach to immigration, Lou probably won’t be saying anything of the kind anytime soon.

 

Our hearts and minds remain fixated on the health of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA).  With shenanigans like this going on, we need you back, Ted, ASAP.

Looking at today’s clips, we came across a few stories that everyone should check out.  First up is the Los Angeles Times editorial on the recent revelations about immigrants in detention (see recent ImmPolitic posts here, here, and here).  The Times editorial said, in part:

 

ICE maintains that few people actually die in detention centers, and that may be true, but it doesn’t account for people such as Castaneda, who die after leaving custody. And then, ICE isn’t exactly forthcoming on the subject. When Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) asked the agency for a list of the dead, it told her no. She obtained one from the New York Times. Lofgren has introduced HR 5950, the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act, a bill that would require Homeland Security to establish mandatory standards for basic healthcare in all detention centers. It also would require the department to report deaths to the inspectors general of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice within 48 hours….Mandating humanity shouldn’t be necessary, and Homeland Security could do this on its own, but it won’t, so this bill is needed. Our treatment of immigrants, illegal or otherwise, shouldn’t include watching them die. – “Immigrants detained to death,â€� Los Angeles Times editorial, May 20, 2008.

 

A response to the Washington Post and New York Times stories on immigrant and asylee deaths in detention by Julie Myers, assistant secretary of DHS for ICE, appeared in today’s Washington Post.

 

Must read number 2 (and 3) comes from the Houston Chronicle.  Local columnist Lisa Falkenberg calls our attention to a recent announcement from the Department of Homeland Security that in the case of an emergency evacuation for a natural disaster in Texas, the Border Patrol will use checkpoints to check the immigration status of every evacuee. 

 

Take a moment to recall the chaos.

 

The claustrophobic caravan of cars, trucks and SUVs creeping along a highway evacuation route-turned-prison with hundreds of thousands — by some estimates, millions — of men, women and children trapped in the steamy confines.

 

Recall the overheating engines, gas tanks bled dry, pumps tapped out. I’m still haunted by the image of one woman who carried the limp body of a toddler in her arms as she ran from car to car in search of water.

 

Now take those memories of the 2005 evacuation before Hurricane Rita and add another obstacle: a Border Patrol checkpoint at which each and every car would be stopped, drivers questioned, suspicious vehicles searched while those behind languish in the logjam.

 

That’s the plan, announced last week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in the event of a hurricane evacuation of the Rio Grande Valley. – “Evacuation hurdles are a threat to all,â€� Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg, May 20, 2008.

 

Sometimes America’s enforcement zeal to deal with the reality that we do not have adequate legal immigration channels is silly, as when House Republicans attached an anti-illegal immigration rider to a Native American Housing Bill.  Sometimes it is just a huge overreach, as with the “No work list� addressed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial below.  This one sounds down right deadly.  Qué negocio!!  What craziness!!

 

Must read number 3 also comes from the Houston Chronicle, which ran a story today about a new Texas study that asks the question: “If we got rid of all immigrants in the country that are here illegally, what would be the damage to our economy?�  The answer, according to the Perryman Group, is that the economy would lose $1.8 trillion in annual spending.

 

These are just some of the findings from a study done by the Perryman Group, a Waco-based economic analysis firm, whose work was commissioned by Americans for Immigration Reform, a group spearheaded by the Greater Houston Partnership.

 

Houston’s business community is trying to revive the politically charged immigration reform debate that has stalled in Congress. It plans to raise $12 million by December to fund a campaign for reform and thus far it says it has raised about 10 percent of that goal in pledges.

 

The government has recently increased enforcement, with raids at work sites and plans to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. But getting rid of all undocumented immigrants would hurt, not help the economy, Charles Foster, an immigration attorney and chairman of Americans for Immigration Reform, said Monday.

 

“If you do that, you would have serious economic upset,” Foster said.

 

He said immigration reform needs to give employers a method of hiring immigrants legally.

 

“We need comprehensive reform that looks at our needs and addresses those needs,” said Ray Perryman, president of the Perryman Group, which examined data for 500 sectors of the economy, Census Bureau surveys and other data to arrive at its conclusions. – “Price put at $1.8 trillion,â€� by Jenalia Moreno, Houston Chronicle, May 20, 2008.

 

Finally, we missed a gem of an editorial last week in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which joined the chorus of those looking at various proposals to mandate national use of the experimental government database known as E-Verify and saying, like many Members of Congress, “Wait a second; It does what??!!??�

 

One House bill would expand nationwide a pilot program, E-Verify, having employers use the Social Security database to verify legal status. It supposes bringing more than 7 million employers online over four years, requiring a one-time verification of an estimated 160 million existing workers and all new hires at a rate of 50 million to 55 million a year.

 

Unfortunately, this bill also supposes that an agency currently underfunded, understaffed and trying to deal with a crushing backlog in claims is suddenly going to become an effective arm of immigration enforcement.

 

Three words: Not gonna happen. Not without exorbitant costs to the federal budget and not without undermining a Social Security Administration that is facing the retirement of 77 million Baby Boomers.

 

Oh yes, the database also has a reported error rate of 4.1% that will ensnare workers who are here legally. In all likelihood, businesses will cut these employees loose rather than patiently wait for resolution. – “Permission to work, sir,� Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial, May 16, 2008.