Recently in Media Category
Late last week, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released a draft internal immigration policy memo (pdf) that one or more anonymous anti-immigrant Department of Homeland Security employees had leaked to his office. Shortly before the leak of the draft memo from USCIS, the federal immigration agency which is part of DHS, Senator Grassley, along with seven other Republican Senators, had sent a letter to President Obama warning him against taking the kinds of actions outlined in the draft memo that would ameliorate some of the current unreasonably harsh immigration policies that separate families and punish children.
The policy changes would have:
- Given DHS greater latitude to defer the deportation of undocumented youth brought here as children by their parents.
- Protected spouses and children of members of the military from being deported.
- Eased interpretation of the current strict standard for showing that deportation of a parent, child, or spouse has caused "extreme hardship" to the remaining U.S. citizen family member. Currently, forced long-term (10 years or more) separation from one's spouse or child cannot be used as a factor in deciding whether "extreme hardship" exists.
- Finalized the rules dealing with children who come to the U.S. alone, and for victims of human trafficking, domestic violence, and other criminal activities.
- Permitted USCIS to exercise discretion to target criminals for deportation proceedings in line with ICE's stated enforcement priorities.
To me and others, these seem like common sense measures that should have been adopted long ago. To the anti-immigrant groups behind this manufactured scandal, the draft policy memo is the greatest outrage the world has ever known.
Senator Grassley is working closely with the nativist group NumbersUSA, a member of eugenicist John Tanton's network of anti-immigrant organizations, in an effort to use the leak of this draft policy memo to destroy any chance of immigration reform that remains this legislative session. The leak came just as Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) proposed a constitutional amendment to revoke birthright citizenship, which could lead to the deportation of citizen children of undocumented parents.
The leak of the draft memo, which was written in April, followed a letter in June from the same group of GOP Senators warning President Obama not to enact administrative reforms in lieu of comprehensive immigration reform. The release of the June letter shows that Grassley and NumbersUSA had the draft memo then and were holding on to it until its release would have maximum political impact.
The timing of the release, coming in the same week that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) met to discuss moving the DREAM Act forward separate from comprehensive immigration reform [Update: Reid's office is now denying that he discussed the DREAM Act with Pelosi at their meeting last week], the same week that communities around the country mobilized in opposition to SB1070, was no coincidence in my view. The leak was timed to derail the momentum the DREAM Act had gotten over months and years of organizing efforts by DREAMers, including a civil disobedience action in D.C. on July 20 where 21 undocumented youth risked deportation by being arrested in the Senate office buildings and an ongoing hunger strike now in its 12th day in California. The leak was designed to increase pressure on Obama to maintain existing federal SB1070-style programs like 287g that promote collaboration between local law enforcement and ICE and lead to racial profiling of brown-skinned people.
If this is the best attack the nativists can muster, if this is their "secret weapon" against the DREAM Act or any other legislative action on immigration, then I think the pro-migrant community is in good shape.
"Friends Keep Promises"
"Obama, Don't Deport My Mama"
"U Got Our Vote, Now Keep Your Word"
These were some the messages at the May 1 Immigrant Rights rally in Washington D.C. I attended yesterday with other members of DreamActivist PA. Fueled by outrage at Arizona's latest racial profiling law, SB1070, participants directed most of their protest message at President Obama and Democrats in Congress who not only have failed to pass sensible immigration reform but continue to support the deportation-only status quo perpetuated by Obama's ICE.
The press was there in force, in contrast to the March 21 rally. Members of our Pennsylvania group made their way into lots of photos, including this shot in the New York Times.
I'll have more shortly about how and why the immigrant rights community is focusing their anger not on nativist conservatives but on false allies in the Senate and the White House. But for now, here are some of the photos I took yesterday afternoon:
DreamActivist PA at Lafayette Park before arriving at the rally.
Dreamers Unite!
If you haven't read this article in the Harvard Crimson, yet, you should. When Elizabeth Pezza approached Harvard College Act on a Dream about writing a feature story on undocumented youth for the weekly Harvard Crimson magazine, Fifteen Minutes, my first reaction was that I hope it's better than the FM piece that was written about me:
"Altar, Mexico. That town is crazy," says Kyle De Beausset '08.For those that didn't catch it, Guatemala is not in South America. I've actually never been to South America, I'm sorry to say, even though I was just a few months shy of being born in Ecuador.
But De Beausset is not talking about the kind of Mexican crazy that happens when you mix margaritas in your mouth on the beach at 10 a.m.
Instead, he's referring to the last stop on his journey documenting the experience of South American migrant workers trying to make it to the United States.Shifra Mincer - Harvard Crimson (3 May 2006)
It's not just inaccuracies I was worried about, though. FM often tries to put a sort of "fun" tone into articles that I just didn't see working well with undocumented students at Harvard. After multiple assurances from Pezza that she wouldn't use that tone, as well as the assurances of trusted pro-migrant students who knew her, I had faith that she would do a good job.
Today's New York Times story titled "Pakistan Reported to Be Harassing U.S. Diplomats" highlights the hypocrisy of the Pakistani government in accepting U.S. aid and military support while refusing to renew visas of U.S. personnel and subjecting American diplomats to routine vehicle checks. Certainly Pakistan's government doesn't have to accept the billions of dollars the U.S. government is giving it. But there is more to this story.
First of all, the U.S. wrote the book on denying visas for opaque, often senseless reasons.
The State Department has a history of denying visas for political reasons, and should not be surprised when other countries do the same from time to time. (I believe denial of the right to travel is rarely justified, but this is an oft-used tool of U.S. foreign policy.)
Second, the U.S. is unpopular in Pakistan because it bombs Pakistanis using unmanned drones and has this year pressured the Pakistani military to take action that led to societal upheaval and mass suffering. This has had the not unforeseeable consequence of making the current Pakistani government's relationship with the Americans somewhat toxic.
But this is mostly missing from the Times story. Only near the bottom of the article do we get any indication of why Pakistanis might not be grateful for the presence of the Americans in their country:
The movement to ban Gilchrist from the conference was largely initiated by Kyle A. de Beausset '11, who in early October began using different university mailing lists to build support for uninviting Gilchrist due to his involvement in the Minuteman Project, which organizes civilians to patrol the border for illegal immigrants and to report crossings to the Border Patrol.
"It might be an interesting intellectual exercise for Harvard students to hear extremist views," de Beausset wrote in one of these e-mails, but he added that the "broader implications of legitimizing these extremist views with the Harvard name" were more important.
I hope you are a victim of the next 911 you piece of shitThese were the reactions who found me through facebook by googling my name after the O'Reilly Factor. The only way I know how to interpet Keith Glassman's facebook message, is that he wishes me to have the same fate as 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father. Thankfully, I don't allow non-friends to have access to my profile. Admittedly, not all of the reactions were as hostile. Some conservatives even said they were impressed and asked to be friends. One of my favorite negative reactions was that of someone who spoke like she was my mother:Keith Glassman - Facebook Message (16 October 2009)
Again, not the best performance. I wasn't able to make the most important point. I learned my lesson. Lead off with your most important talking point. Still my face when they cut me off is priceless. It cracks me up every time.
The award winning filmmaker Arturo Perez, Jr., just released the this powerful video in tandem with Presente.org's announcement that their Basta Dobbs campaign has signed up 50,000 people in support of their demand that CNN get rid of anti-migrant commentator Lou Dobbs. I'm happy to use this opportunity to announce that Citizen Orange has officially endorsed the Basta Dobbs campaign as evidenced by the "Who We Are" page.
Part of the reason I have been dutifully quantifying the number of pro-migrant blogs in the sanctuarysphere is so that I can encourage the sanctuarysphere to throw its full weight behind bastadobbs.com.
The blogosphere and cable news have been talking for the last week or so about James O'Keefe and his hidden camera video of ACORN employees in Baltimore. O'Keefe posed as a pimp and brought along college student Hannah Giles to pose as a prostitute who worked for him. He led two ACORN employees through an elaborate scenario in which he solicited advice on how to circumvent U.S. tax laws to run a brothel using underage undocumented Salvadoran prostitutes. Two ACORN employees proceeded to give him the advice he asked for.
I watched the video recently. Those employees were fired and rightly so. ACORN needs to do a better job of screening its employees and instituting procedures to ensure its employees are obeying the law. ACORN has a lot of housecleaning to do, and hopefully will become a more effective organization in the process.
But O'Keefe did not make this video out of a desire to improve provision of services to low-income communities. Glenn Beck didn't devote an entire FOX show to the piece out of concern for Latin American victims of sex trafficking.
Beck pushed this video to derail discussion of the health care bill and take down a longtime political opponent of the GOP: ACORN, a national organization that works to register low-income voters of the kind O'Keefe wants to see excluded from the polls, an organization that helps low-income homeowners avoid ending up on the street.
I watched O'Keefe's video at the Baltimore ACORN office and Beck's show promoting the clip. On my reading, James O'Keefe and Glenn Beck have not demonstrated that they care about improving the situation of low-income communities or that they want to improve the situation of actual undocumented Salvadoran children in this country, or mitigate the suffering of real victims of trafficking.
If I am wrong, where is the evidence? Where is O'Keefe's story on unaccompanied minors in the U.S. who are smuggled by coyotes to rejoin their parents or trafficked into prostitution, then arrested and targeted by DHS? Where is Beck's expose on the failure of the U.S. government to prevent human trafficking or protect trafficking victims? Has O'Keefe ever met any undocumented Salvadoran children? Does he know what their concerns are? Does he know anything about their struggles in El Salvador or in the U.S.? I've seen no indication that he does.
Instead, I've seen him and his accomplice use underage Central American prostitutes--who do exist in this country--to execute a dirty takedown of a political opponent.
I picked this video up from Atrios, but it's a good intro for a pitch to sign this petition asking your Congressional reps to support ACORN and the low-income communities ACORN serves instead of cowering before Glenn Beck.
Someone please tell Congressional Democrats that it is unbecoming to prostrate oneself before a supreme weenie like Beck.
Clearly, ACORN needs to do some internal housekeeping, including training and screening its employees better. Workers at community-based organizations should give clients advice on how to comply with the law, not circumvent it. But Beck's promotion of O'Keefe's video is a transparent political hit piece. If the GOP gets any nonwhite votes at all in the next twenty years, it will be despite the best efforts of Beck, Hannity, and Limbaugh.
