This post is a weekly feature by Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger.
While many pundits and political analysts are musing about what Tuesday’s mixed bag election results mean for Obama administration, New America Media reports that “there’s another trend to watch; the surprising prominence of immigration politics.”
Even in states where other concerns “like small farms and forestry management” are far more immediate, “immigration has become a litmus test issue for the conservative movement,” and the expectation is, oddly, a “lockstep” goal toward opposing legalization. One has to wonder how the self-destructive choice to oppose immigration at any cost came about.
ColorLines‘ Leticia Miranda asks “What’s next?” now that the infamous Hutto immigration detention center, notorious for myriad human rights violations such as keeping children in prison-like conditions, is closing. Detainees are simply being moved to another detention center in Pennsylvania. So how will we know that substandard conditions and alleged sexual abuse will not be repeated? The problem is not location. The problem is that a class of people have been isolated and assigned lesser worth. making it easy to exploit them. Still, the closing of Hutto is an accomplishment for the ACLU and other activists that worked so hard to make it happen. It’s also a sign that our nation will not tolerate such conditions.
Another positive sign of progress is the reversal of what the Washington Monthly dubbed “a senseless ban” that prohibited HIV-positive individuals from migrating or traveling to the US. Author Steve Benen notes that progress in overturning the ban, which was imposed by the Reagan administration 22 years ago, began with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and then-Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-OR) in 2008.
In negative news, the anti-immigration group Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) have released a bizarrely antagonistic press release calling Rep. Gutierrez (D-IL) a “traitor,” as The Washington Independent reports. The full press release is here. In it, William Gheen, President of ALIPAC, happily warns that ALIPAC is “ready to organize and channel the backlash wave of anger that is coming into peaceful civic action” and for no apparent reason, employing a Dirty Harry quote beseeching an unnamed person to “Make my day, punk!” People like Gheen and Lou Dobbs are forever talking about a culture war and are obviously not interested in human beings.
What does Sheriff Arpaio do when he’s criticized?
Faiz Shakir and his team at Think Progress have a damning rundown of what many are calling “Arpaio’s Abuse Of Power.” From the Progress Report:
This weekend, news reports revealed that the FBI is investigating whether Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been “using his position to settle political vendettas” against those who have been critical of his controversial tactics, namely his bullish pursuit of undocumented immigrants.
That’s right, the FBI is investigating Arpaio for allegedly using his power as Sheriff to “to settle political vendettas.”
According to KPHO News:
Over the past year, 5 Investigators examined more than two dozen complaints against the sheriff from business owners, government workers, mayors and law-enforcement officials.
They claim they spoke out against Arpaio, and shortly after, deputies paid them unwelcome visits.
According to Zachary Roth of Talking Points Memo, the names on Arpaio’s target list consist of those who have authority over the sheriff or those who have challenged his authority at some point in time. On his black list include a number of high-profile officials and journalists, ranging from a Superior Court Judge to his opponent in Maricopa County’s 2004 and 2008 run for Sheriff.
Blogger “Chris in Paris” reported today on AMERICABlog about a CNBC sports writer’s outrageous coverage of what should have been (and is) a proud moment for America– an American winning the New York marathon for the first time in decades.
The Associated Press reports in “American Meb Keflezighi wins NYC Marathon:
Keflezighi was back Sunday, wiping away tears after the New York City Marathon — for his historic victory for his country, for his recovery from an injury he once feared might end his career.
And for Ryan Shay, his friend who collapsed and died at the U.S. Olympic trials in New York in 2007.
The 34-year-old Keflezighi became the first American man since 1982 to win the NYC Marathon, the latest twist in the story of a family that fled war to thrive in a new home.
“It can’t get any better,” Keflezighi said.
Well, Meb didn’t make the cut of true-blooded American for CNBC sports writer Darren Rovell. Chris in Paris classified Rovell’s commentary about Keflezighi’s nationality this morning as “amazingly ignorant:”
What an amazingly ignorant thing to say. The CNBC editor rips Meb Keflezighi for not being American-enough and as a ringer for winning marathons. Forget that his family left Eritrea as refugees, and he attended high school here and then became a naturalized US citizen over ten years ago. Yes, that is the clear sign of a ringer. Who out there doesn’t flee war just to win a race?
It wouldn’t surprise me if Meb knew a lot more about being an American than this clown from CNBC. I guess if we now only count “real Americans” as those who have always lived there, we might have a very different looking Olympic team.
John Aravosis, in “CNBC writer issues convoluted sort-of apology for racist column,” notes that the CNBC author, even in his apology, still doesn’t get how offensive it is to argue that someone who came to the US as a political refugee, went to high school in the US, became an American citizen ten years ago, and went on to win a marathon with overflowing pride for his country, shouldn’t be considered a “real American.”
We’ve all seen immigration play out as the hot-button issue that talk radio hosts love to flog, but today Joseph Boven has a thorough rundown of how immigration is actually playing out in elections — politicians beware.
According to his piece in today’s Colorado Independent:
While serious discussion of immigration policy reform has been generally avoided for the past year, the politics of immigration have weaved their way through the health care debate as a pet topic on the right, spurring some of the most heated exchanges in blog comment threads, at town hall meetings and, of course, in a joint session of Congress in September, when South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson broke U.S. House decorum by shouting out “you lie” and waving a finger at President Obama for denying that national health care legislation would provide free coverage for illegal immigrants.
According to nonpartisan pollster Floyd Ciruli, however, illegal immigration merely rallies the base. He told The Colorado Independent that relative to other issues, immigration is a fairly stable policy topic. Politicians and voters know where they stand.
“Immigration holds a talk show audience, but it doesn’t move voters by any extent.” In the 2010 elections, immigration is not likely to be a big deal.
This analysis is consistent with what we tracked in the 2008 elections, and the piece is worth reading in its entirety.
A front-page article in today’s New York Times takes a peek into an immigration detention center in the heart of Manhattan and finds that the detention system continues to have serious problems. Here’s how former detainees describe conditions at the Varick Street Detention Facility:
…cramped, filthy quarters where dire medical needs were ignored and hungry prisoners were put to work for $1 a day.
In the article, a government spokesperson says the Obama administration “inherited an inadequate detention system” from the Bush administration, and promises what the Times calls a “complete overhaul.” In the meantime, 400,000 immigrants and asylum seekers a year find themselves in immigration detention, many in conditions like those on Varick Street.
Fixing the mangled detention system can’t happen soon enough.
America’s top religious and law enforcement leaders are taking a strong stance in favor of sensible immigration reform and it’s made the anti-immigrant crowd very nervous.
In response, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the anti-immigrant lobby’s “think tank,” released two reports, written by the same author, claiming that Los Angeles police chief William Bratton and Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, don’t know what they’re talking about.
An offshoot of the Federation for American Immigration Reform – designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center – CIS’ role is to halt the anti-immigrant movement’s dwindling credibility. They do this by releasing reports written by their “experts” to counter the views of actual authorities in their fields.
CIS’ credibility took a hit earlier this year with a report blaming immigrants for global warming and another when CIS director Mark Krikorian called on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to pronounce her name in a less ethnic-sounding way. But the widening chasm between actual experts and the CIS peanut gallery has become almost laughable.
Let’s meet one of the Center’s “experts”: James R. Edwards, a principal of the MITA (“Man in the Action”) Group. Despite not having a badge or a collar, Edwards is a CIS “expert” on law enforcement, the Bible and a number of other issues.
Here’s how the Center for Immigration Studies and Edwards defend America’s broken immigration policies:
Step One: Law enforcement experts discuss changes to our ineffective immigration enforcement policies – July 22, 2009.
Step Two: CIS releases a report claiming to be the real law enforcement experts – October 27, 2009.
