This Week/end in Immigration: NPR on Mimes, Flanders on March, Action Wanted, & ICE Quotas

America's Voice Blog

Posted 03/29/10 at 06:56pm

Lots happened over the weekend, so here's a quick roundup of immigration news from around the interwebs.

More March For America highlights:

First and foremost: you just have to laugh (potentially out loud) at NPR's take on the Roy Beck/Numbers USA mime incident:

"SAGAL: It was an immigration throw down. When anti-immigration activist Roy Beck left his home on Sunday he knew he'd encounter thousands of immigrants and pro-immigrant protestors marching around the mall. But he never expected a hostile troop of female mimes...(laughter)... Beck says that they harassed and insulted him and his bodyguards with, quote, "crushing physical intimidation," end quote... (laughter) First, we suspect by placing them in invisible boxes...(laughter) ...then blowing them backwards with imaginary winds. |(laughter) ...This is true. One of the bodyguards got fed up with the mimes, took out a knife and started popping their balloons, leading to his arrest on assault charges. The crafty mimes, however, eluded the cops by climbing an invisible ladder they'd brought with them to freedom.

Next, watch Laura Flanders' latest GritTV segment, "Courage for Immigration Reform:"

While House members were grandstanding on the floor over health care reform Sunday, and the news networks largely focused on tea party anti-healthcare protests, tens of thousands of immigrants and allies flooded the Washington Mall...

To really fix our broken immigration system, we're going to need more than vague declarations from the White House. We'll need real leadership, and the stomach to take on viciousness from protesters the likes of which we haven't seen before.

Less Talk, More Action

Marisa Trevino of Latina Lista argues that the "GOP's inaction on immigration enables OK lawmakers to make felons out of undocumented children," while Matthew Yglesias questions Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who's been leading the charge on immigration reform for the GOP, on recent statements about immigration reform in a post-healthcare world. Recently, Graham has been charging the White House with "doing almost nothing on immigration."

Gebe Martinez and Angela Kelley, however, argue that "Immigration Reform Can Break the Political Deadlock:"

Broad immigration reforms will add a cumulative $1.5 trillion to the U.S. gross domestic product over 10 years, according to a study by the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center. In the program’s first three years, tax revenues would increase from $4.5 billion to $5.4 billion and generate enough new consumer spending to support 750,000 to 900,000 jobs in the United States. The real wages of workers—U.S. born and immigrants—will also rise under comprehensive immigration reform.

Meanwhile, over at the Huffington Post, Pastor Byron Williams calls for fewer words from Washington and more (grassroots) action to inspire change:

The third aspect to change requires that it not begin on Capitol Hill but it flows through arduous, frustrating, and unpredictable path forged by local communities.

There is a momentum, as indicated by last week's protest in Washington, for humane immigration policy methodically making its way to Congress that is not dominated by the hatred of Minute Men or Tea Baggers. It is a coalition that is as diverse as the nation, including what one might think to be a surprising group: African American pastors.

On that note, via ManEegee of Latino Politico, the anti-immigration vigilante group known as the Minutemen appear to have disbanded, citing concerns of extreme violence within their ranks (remember 9-year-old Brisenia Flores?). Now, I have to wonder, will the Tea Party movement welcome these disgruntled folks? Yikes.

Federal Immigration Agency, ICE, and Quota System

News broke Saturday that ICE may be employing a "quota system" that would eschew rounding up and deporting serious criminals who pose a threat to our communities and our nation in favor of catching easier-to-nab everyday undocumented immigrant workers and family members.

Over at the Immigration Policy Center, Michele Waslin argues:

Currently there are 10-11 million unauthorized immigrants, countless legal immigrants who are deportable because of our harsh laws and who knows how many employers breaking the law by employing unauthorized workers. In addition, there are smugglers, traffickers, people who manufacture and sell fake documents, and the many others who profit from a broken system. Until we have comprehensive immigration reform, ICE is going to be saddled with an enormous list of targets, and many people watching to see how they’re going to tackle it. If they want big numbers, they can achieve big numbers. But that won’t make us any safer or make the system any better. In any case the Administration and ICE have to figure out what their enforcement strategy is, articulate it clearly and consistently, and resist the urge to change it on a dime to please “enforcement-only” types who will never support comprehensive reform.

To say the least.

On that note, mass-deportation programs should not please anyone feeling Taxed Enough Already. Conservative estimates, including a recent CAP study, peg the cost of rounding up and deporting all undocumented immigrants here in our country at a staggering $285 billion, not to mention a whack to our GDP of -$2.6 trillion over the next decade.

Final odds and ends: