How’s this for irony: the extremist group behind the drive to recruit Lou Dobbs into a presidential run has yanked support for their one-time champion.

While bloggers debated whether Dobbs was too mean to be President, it came out that he was no longer mean enough for the extreme base he’s cultivated all these years. The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent writes:

Wow. Lou Dobbs, putative presidential candidate, just can’t catch a break.

Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), one of the most extreme anti-immigrant groups out there, isn’t happy with Dobbs’ recent statement that creating a way for hard-working, undocumented people to regularize their status and become legal citizens might not be such a bad idea. Not only that, but Dobbs made those comments on Telemundo, a network that broadcasts in Español (gasp!).

Understandably, the reaction from Dobbs’ extremist base was essentially, “OMG!! WTF!?! Why Lou Why!”

Or, to be precise:

Who are you and what have you done with Lou Dobbs?

The blogosphere has been abuzz this week with news that the Salvation Army of Houston was forcing families to present Social Security cards to receive free Christmas toys.

BoingBoing.net noted sarcastically:

“Evidently, I missed the part of the New Testament where Jesus instructs his followers to check people’s immigration status before rendering charity to them.”

Now we’ve learned that the outcry has forced the organization to reverse its policy and allow all families to participate.

Major Chris Flanagan, head of the Houston Salvation Army, told the Houston Chronicle:

“It was never our intention to offend anyone with our registration requirement to provide a Social Security number, or to give the impression that we were discriminating against those individuals and families who do not have a Social Security number.”

This post is a weekly feature by Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is shifting its focus to silent or “quiet” raids, as Erin Rosa reports for Campus Progress. In quiet raids, ICE conducts “audits” of staff at pre-selected organizations and gives employers a chance to fire all workers who cannot produce documents of citizenship.

The Bush administration favored dramatic, SWAT-like raids, but the Obama administration is taking a non-confrontational route. As Rosa reports, ICE has announced the latest wave of audits ahead of time, though specific business are not being named “due to the ongoing, law enforcement sensitive nature” of the audits. During a phone briefing, ICE chief John Morton explained that the “over 1,000″ new audits are designed to “create a ‘culture of consequences.’” Undoubtedly, the economic consequence of tens of thousands more people losing their income will be as dramatic as a door kicked open in the middle of the night, and it will affect all of us.

While job loss is undesirable, at least the audits are not aggressive or violent like some raids. Also, undocumented workers could find another job post-audit. The Obama administration’s claims that audits take the burden of raids from workers is defensible in that case, though reports of employers that are fined for having undocumented staff members are hard to find.

However, the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of jailing “unadjusted” refugees after a year is indefensible. As Emily Creighton reports for AlterNet, the U.S. has a long-running and proud history of providing a safe haven for those seeking refuge from persecution “on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group, or political opinion.” And yet ICE is incarcerating refugees who have not adjusted to permanent resident status after one year of residency in the U.S. The problem is, permanent resident status is only obtained after a lot of paperwork, vaccinations, and other hurdles have been completed. The process “can take over a year” in and of itself.

A depressed economy and perceived cultural shifts in the U.S. demographic are bringing out the very best and worst of our society. In RaceWire, Michelle Chen writes that the immigration debate today “looks more like a balance sheet” and reflects “the economic anxieties besieging politicians and voters.” Chen does an excellent job underlining a recurring problem: As long as immigration reform is treated like a “number-crunching” exercise, nothing gets fixed. “Without a human rights-based counterpoint to the demand-supply rhetoric,” Chen writes, “lawmakers would be all too willing to cede immigration policy to the corporate gatekeepers of the private sector, while faithfully preserving the structure of inequity.” We can do better than this. “These are numbers, not people.”

The New York Times writes today that new reports from Human Rights Watch and the bipartisan Constitution Project say the immigration detention system “lacks basic fairness.” From the article:

The bipartisan group, the Constitution Project, whose members include Asa Hutchinson, a former undersecretary of Homeland Security, called for sweeping changes in agency policies and amendments to immigration law, including new access to government-appointed counsel for many of those facing deportation.

In its report, the human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, revealed government data showing 1.4 million detainee transfers from 1999 to 2008. The transfers are accelerating, the report found, sending tens of thousands of longtime residents of cities like Philadelphia and Los Angeles to remote immigration jails in Texas and Louisiana, far from legal counsel and the evidence that might help them win release.

“I.C.E. is increasingly subjecting detainees to a chaotic game of musical chairs, and it’s a game with dire consequences,” said Alison Parker, deputy director in the United States for the human rights group, and author of its report.

These are only the most recent in a long line of reports documenting the abuses of the detention system. Good to see these issues being brought to the public’s attention, but it is time for real, lasting change in immigrant detention policy– not more of the same.

Check out Part 6 in my series, “Immigration Reform: Know the Players.”

Here’s a taste:

The debate over legalizing farm workers has always been marked by the controversial question of labor conditions and migrants’ lives, health and housing.

But this time, labor organization and farmers are in agreement that passing an AgJOBS bill is a shared necessity.

Read the full article at MaribelHastings.com.

Yesterday the New York Times reported that Dobbs was in conversation with CNBC, and many of us asked the question, “Is CNBC ready for Dobbs?” Looks like the answer is a resounding, “No, gracias!”

Network executives didn’t give us much time to put pressure on them, announcing by the end of the day yesterday that talks were over:

Lou Dobbs won’t be talking to CNBC again anytime soon.

The business news network said Tuesday evening that it was no longer talking to Mr. Dobbs, the former CNN anchor, about a potential job.

The statement came after The New York Times reported on Tuesday morning that Mr. Dobbs had “held talks with the business news network CNBC in recent weeks.” A network spokesman did not deny the report about the talks, but said: “We are not in talks or negotiating with Lou Dobbs. He is not going to work for CNBC.”

Mr. Dobbs abruptly exited CNN in mid-November.

While Mr. Dobbs contemplates a run for public office, he is also said to be keen on having a new television platform. (He also is host of a syndicated radio show on weekday afternoons.) He could conceivably join a cable outfit like the Fox Business Network or become an commentator for another news division.

On the running for office front, New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez’ spokesperson has essentially shrugged off the news that Dobbs may seek a NJ Senate seat in 2012, arguing:

“Senator Menendez has his nose to the grindstone to help create an economic recovery for New Jersey families and will not be distracted by an election three years away,” said the spokesman, Afshin Mohamadi. “I’m sure that he would relish eventually having an opponent from so far out of the mainstream and who has never done a thing for the hard-working people of New Jersey, but the senator’s focus is on jobs, not Dobbs. The senator has developed a record of delivering job-creating programs and tax relief, and as he builds upon it, 2012 will in large part take care of itself.”