San Francisco Joins New Haven's Lead

San Francisco's Board of Supervisors approved a plan for municipal ID's, regardless of immigration status. Like New Haven's municipal ID, which was approved in June, it will encourage marginalized people to collaborate with city police against crime, whether as victims or witnesses. The ID will also make it possible to open bank accounts and therefore make the undocumented less tempting of a target for robbery and assault. The ID can only be used for within the city for city purposes.

I found this video on the New Haven Independent Blog. The short clip shows the outburst of applause right after approval of the plan. The following text explains better than I ever could how important Municipal ID's are.

"It brings tears to my eyes," said Marieah Viviel, who at this hearing told a harrowing tale of how her El Salvadoran housekeeper, Elena, and her son were robbed in their Fair Haven apartment by people who knew they were undocumented and stored large amounts of cash. Viviel found them lying on the kitchen floor, bound by electric cords, their home plundered.

"This will be not just a decloaker for those who are invisible, but a deterrent to those who do what they did to Elena," said Viviel after the vote, wiping her tears. "I'm so glad!"

Liberty, Equality and Justice

The following is taken directly from the Minuteman Border Fence website. Bolds are mine.

We are organizing as citizen volunteers, to safeguard our beloved nation from violence, from sedition, from wholesale attack by those who do not love America and wish to see her destroyed or irremediably altered from a nation of liberty, equality, and justice, and a bastion of western civilization. We are recruiting, training, volunteer citizens who will stand as patriots for the promise that is, and ever has been, America to build a border fence.

Today's citizens of the Minuteman Movement, like the original Minutemen of our colonial Revolution, live by the philosophy of America's Founding--including respect for the God-given natural rights to life, liberty, and property.

It seems to me that what the Minutemen claim to defend (liberty, equality, justice) are the same concepts that they are destroying. I also find it ironic that they stand by the philosophy of "natural rights to life, liberty, and property." I suppose they should add a line saying, "Unless you are Mexican."

ICE shows it has a calculator, if not a heart

I highly recommend this article from TwinCities.com. The heartbreaking story of an undocumented mother's deportation and its effect on her husband and child are all too familiar. The author breaks it down for us in terms of financial, emotional and physical devastation. And I urge you to comment at the end of the article to balance, even if only a little, the hateful speech there.

Workshop: Working with Undocumented Immigrants

Maria Cuerda, of Western Mass Legal Services, will be presenting a workshop at the 7th Regional Conference on Economic Inequality and Social Change, on Thursday, November 8th. The workshop, What You Need to Know: Working with Undocumented Immigrants, is for anyone who works or comes into contact with undocumented immigrants.

We’ll provide you with information about their legal and civil rights, some background on who they are, why they’re here, and what they’re doing. We’ll answer the following questions: Can they legalize? What should they do if they’re stopped by the police or if their workplace or home is raided by ICE? Where can they go for help? What are the issues faced by this community? What benefits are they and their children entitled to? Should they file their taxes? What are their workplace rights? What you should never do if you are working with this community?

For more information and registration, please visit www.communityaction.us

Criminalization of Immigrants

More than 1,300 people have been arrested in southern California in the last two weeks. According to ICE, 90% of those had criminal records or had deportation orders. I know that most people reading the above stop at "criminal records" and don't really register "deportation orders." Consequently, they then equate immigrant and criminal.

If you read the article carefully, you'll see that 800 were already in jail. Immigrant men are less likely to be incarcerated than native born men. I wouldn't be surprised if the 800 taken from prisons were most of the undocumented in those prisons to begin with. Also, the fact that they were already incarcerated means that they didn't present a threat to the larger community. The article doesn't state why they were in jail, it could be any criminal offense.

So, if you subtract the 800 from the total of 1,300 there are 500 immigrants left. According to ICE, 146 were "collateral arrests". In other words, unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and unable to prove their legal status.

So now we are down to approximately 350 immigrants who had outstanding deportation orders. ICE and the media make is sound as if those who don't cooperate with deportation orders are just mocking the laws of the United States. What many people don't realize is that the 350 probably crossed into the U.S. by land and were soon apprehended by border patrol and let go with the promise of their presence at a hearing. Many immigrants are on their way somewhere else, don't have an address, move many times and probably don't know English. When DHS sends them a notice, they either don't receive it or can't read it. The result being that they fail to appear in court, which sets off a default warrant for deportation.

If the criminalization weren't enough, they have to throw in the "terrorist" card.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, pressure has been growing on the federal government to crack down on illegal immigrants, especially those who have committed crimes. And ICE has been waging a public relations battle to show that it is addressing the problem.

Addressing the problem of terrorism? How? By going after the single mother of two children who works in a meat packing plant? Or the couple who work side by side in a field all day so that we can keep eating strawberries at such low prices? Oh, wait, no, no, ICE must be talking about the 19 year old kid prepping in a restaurant basement, sending back half of what he earns so that his younger siblings might have a chance at an education that he can't have because NAFTA destroyed his country's economy.

Please people, we are smarter than this. Speak up!