Recently in Deportation Category

NOTE: This is a draft with typos and without links. I might refine it and cross-post it elsewhere, but since it's been so long since I blogged, I thought I'd just put it up as is, now, rather than let it sit into irrelevance as so many of my other drafts have.

Yesterday, Cecilia Muñoz got promoted, and another 1000 people got deported. The Obama administration deports over a thousand people, every day, more than any administration before by many counts. The Obama administration tells us most deportees are criminals, nativists say it's not enough, but the truth is the vast majority of those being deported are noble people, heroes even, who are seeking a better life for themselves and for their families, and who make those they live among better off.

If the idea of over a thousand deportations a day doesn't strike you as cruel, make no mistake, only a violent system can forcibly remove that many people a day. Economic, psychological, spiritual, and physical violence are all involved, from the terror migrant communities live in, to the moment ICE agents bust down the doors to peoples homes, to the horrific conditions in which people are imprisoned, to the shackles and drugs used to force people onto planes. If you've gotten to know just one person caught in our broken immigration system you'll know the violence that these laws are doing to the strangers among us. It's the law, nativists will say, but as the wise have said for as long as imperfect human laws have existed, an unjust law is no law at all.

Increasingly, the Obama administration has made Cecilia Muñoz the face of this violent and unjust system and I say that without condemnation.

UPDATE 2: Chris Newman, the Legal Director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, sends out this statement which I couldn't agree more with:

We are pleased the Department of Justice report compelled the Department of Homeland Security to take steps today that should have been taken years ago. As the DOJ report implies, DHS was an accomplice in the rights violations caused by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. DHS enabled Sheriff Arpaio to conduct his reign of terror, and expansion of the Maricopa Sheriff's approach led to SB 1070 and to the potential Arizonification of the country.

Today, the Department of Justice again acted to clean up the mess caused by failed DHS policies that enlist local police into the business of enforcing unjust immigration laws. It is time for DHS to stop contributing to the civil rights crisis described in the DOJ report and end the programs that made Arpaio's crimes possible.

Chris Newman - National Day Laborer Organizing Network (15 December 2011)

UPDATE: DHS has cut off Arpaio's access to the 287(g) program and to the Secure Communities program, according to Talking Points Memo.

This is huge. It's the first acknowledgement on behalf of the Obama administration that these programs are harmful. Why the Obama administration would role out harmful programs like S-COMM nationwide, that the administration now acknowledges can be abused by nativists like Arpaio, still makes absolutely no sense.

ORIGINAL POST: Almost three full years into the Obama administration's reign, the U.S. Department of Justice has finally issued a report on the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) which is head by one of the worst nativists in the country, Joe Arpaio. The quote that jumped out at me from all the reports coming in was this, buried in Marc Lacey's New York Times article:

The report said that Latino drivers were four to nine times more likely to be stopped in the sprawling county, which includes Phoenix and its environs, than non-Latino drivers. The expert who conducted the study called it the most egregious racial profiling he has ever seen in this country, said Mr. Perez, the prosecutor.

Marc Lacey - New York Times (15 December 2011)

It looks like the report has some teeth, too. As I understand it, Arpaio has until Jan. 4 to respond, and if he refuses to cooperate fully with federal officials to stop this racism then the DOJ will file a civil lawsuit to force compliance, and Arpaio could lose millions in federal funding.

I just came across a radio segment by the talented María Hinojosa at NPR's Latino USA where she interviewed Luis Miranda, Director of Hispanic Media at the White House. Mr. Miranda confirmed my worst fears about the Obama administration announcement that it would review the deportations of the 300,000 people who are currently in proceedings. He said the following to Ms. Hinojosa:

I got this press release from Gutierrez's office last week:

Gutierrez Calls Changes to "Secure Communities" Program Unacceptable

Recent ICE Changes Erode "Any Semblance of Legitimacy the Program Ever Had," Congressman Writes

(Washington) - Today, Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) sent a letter (pdf) to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton renewing his call to end the "Secure Communities" state and local immigration program and objecting in particular to changes in the program that now make it mandatory for all states and localities, even those who have chosen to opt out. The State of Illinois is one of three states, all with Democratic Governors, that are seeking withdrawal from the program that enlists state and local law enforcement in identifying individuals for deportation. The text of the Congressman's letter is below. URL for this release:
http://www.gutierrez.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=698:gutierrez-calls-changes-to-qsecure-communitiesq-program-unacceptable&catid=50:2011-press-releases

Dear Director Morton:

I have made no secret of the fact that I oppose the Secure Communities state and local immigration program and its rapid expansion because it undermines public safety and has not lived up to its stated goals of identifying and deporting serious criminals rather than non-criminal immigrants. However, the announcement you made last week that the program is now mandatory for all states and localities and that all existing agreements between the federal government and state and local governments are revoked, is simply unacceptable and amounts to little more than reneging on previous commitments for the sake of political expediency.

When Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL-4) got arrested last week to protest Barack Obama's one millionth deportation, little attention was paid to the letter Obama wrote to Gutierrez in defense of the increasing hardship Obama has forced on migrant communities. I was able to get a copy of the original letters from Gutierrez's office after the White House leaked it to media outlets seemingly in retaliation for Gutierrez's act of defiance.

I will embed the letter Gutierrez originally sent along with Obama's response, below, but they are linked to in this sentence in case people want to read them before I continue. I will provide a little background, first, but I think Obama's defense shows just how extraordinarily out of touch this administration with the immigrant community.

The Boston Globe is really bringing the fire against the federal [In]Secure Communities program (S-Comm). Following Maria Sacchetti's article highlighting the abuses of S-Comm, Adrian Walker came out with a column condemning the program, the editorial board wrote against the program, and now Lawrence Harmon has a piece against the program.

Most surprising to me was the harsh public comments Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis had for John Morton. Davis is really changing his tune on S-Comm and deserves credit for doing so. Harmon quotes Davis saying Morton was "cavalier," and "dismissive." From what I've heard from folks who've interacted with Morton, that seems pretty accurate.

Part of the reason I'm not as good at blogging as I used to be is not only because I'm spending more of my time off the computer and on the streets, it's also because the amount of pro-migrant information I'm taking in has exponentially increased and it's easy to become overwhelmed. With very little movement happening nationally, though, and the fights returning to the local level where there's really shoddy media coverage, it's important that I we all do our part to produce media that changes the conversation about migration in the U.S. and around the world.

I don't think it's possible to understand the amount of violence that is being done to our communities through the mass detention and deportation machine that the Obama administration has constructed. A single mind just cannot comprehend the amount of damage that 400,000 deportations a year does to families and communities. I'm hoping that by communicating the stories of a tiny fraction of people that are getting deported through the public deportations that people are trying to stop that together we can try and move towards understanding.

Good news for the pro-migrant movement in the Boston Globe this morning: Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino has taken a firm stand against the excesses of the [In]Secure Communities program (S-Comm):

"As operated now, Secure Communities is diminishing trust, an essential part of the neighborhood fabric and a vital public safety tool,'' Menino wrote.

"Secure Communities must change substantially or be scrapped,'' he wrote.

[...]

"Boston took part in Secure Communities as a pilot project, with the understanding that only the most serious criminals would be affected and the belief that our feedback would lead to improvements in the program,'' Menino wrote in the letter. "It would be a further violation of the public trust if instead Secure Communities proves to be a knot that the federal government will not untie.''

Martine Powers and Stewart Bishop - Boston Globe (11 July 2011)

The fight is certainly not over.

ACTION: Sign the twitter petition I just created.

Today at 2 p.m. ET, Barack Obama is holding a twitter townhall to "answer twitter users' questions about the American economy." There's a part of me that doubts migrant communities will ever be addressed no matter how many tweets with the hashtag #askobama we produce, but I'll give it a shot anyway.

Contrary to the false zero-sum logic of nativists, objective economist after objective economist has shown migration to the U.S., authorized and unauthorized, to benefit the U.S. economy. A job earned by a migrant isn't a job taken away from a native born worker, because jobs given have the tendency to support other jobs and businesses. I will be fair and acknowledge that there might be some instances where migration can have a negative impact on marginalized native born workers, but I think strengthening workers' rights and unionizing them would do those folks a lot more good than turning local police officers into border patrol agents.

Understanding this economic truth isn't difficult for people from migrant sending nations like myself. I wish many of the best and most enterprising Guatemalan people who make lives for themselves in migrant receiving nations didn't have to leave, but the fact of the matter is that people generally know what's best for themselves and I know Guatemala's prosperity, as well as the U.S.'s prosperity, for that matter, is interwoven with the empowerment of migrants.

I don't want Obama to speculate on what I know to be economic truths, though, I want to #askobama why he continues to ask for more and more money for immigration enforcement, and why he continues to waste precious federal resources on deporting migrant youth and ripping apart migrant families with strong ties to the U.S. If the question does get asked, I'm assuming he'll dance around it as he has done every other time. Hopefully one of these days, before the election, we're able to find someone with enough knowledge and courage to be able to press him with targetted follow-up questions.

When will this madness end? Krista Jensen of the Washington DREAM Act Coalition ask me to get a petition to stop Yañez deportation out there. Sign it, please. If Obama continues to force us to stop these one-by-one it will only make us stronger.