Bill Ong Hing2013-05-21T04:04:19-04:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=bill-ong-hingCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Bill Ong HingGood old fashioned elbow grease.Mexico: Too Big to Failtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32036202013-05-06T10:06:58-04:002013-05-06T10:07:09-04:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/has acknowledged, "If the Mexican economy is growing, it forestalls the need for people to migrate to the United States to find work."
The fact that the Congress and the White House are tackling comprehensive immigration reform is good news for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States and their supporters. However, if the package does not include at least the first steps toward helping Mexico improve its economy and infrastructure, undocumented Mexican migration will not be solved permanently.
In 1994, we were told that NAFTA would solve the undocumented problem because jobs would be created in Mexico. But NAFTA contributed to huge job losses in Mexico. For example, Mexican corn farmers could not compete with heavily-subsidized U.S. corn farmers, and now Mexico imports most of its corn from the United States. For years, Mexico provided support to rural areas through systems of price supports for producers and reduced prices of agricultural products for consumers, but after NAFTA, Mexico withdrew this support. The United States, however, continued to produce subsidized corn in huge quantities at low prices, undercutting Mexico's corn prices; this subsidized system displaced Mexican workers because corn was a major source of rural income. The wages for low-wage workers have declined, and the rural poverty rate has increased. The idea of NAFTA-created jobs that would reduce pressure to migrate simply has not become a reality.
The fact that Mexico has faced job creation challenges under the NAFTA manufacturing model is even more troubling when placed in the context of the worldwide framework. Mexico was the first low-wage country that became a free trade partner with the United States and Canada. However, more and more free-trade agreements are being consummated, and WTO membership is growing. China's acceptance to the WTO created more competition for Mexico's manufacturing exports (especially in apparel and electronics). China is now the largest exporter to the United States, followed by Canada and Mexico. The United States and China are entering into more free-trade agreements with other countries, meaning other low-wage countries are gaining access to U.S. markets. U.S. agreements with Central American countries also mean that countries other than Mexico are using low-wage labor to produce goods headed for the United States.
Economic development in Mexico is the key to stopping undocumented migration. An investment fund to invest in roads, telecommunications, and post-secondary education in Mexico must be initiated. A national plan for infrastructure and transportation must be developed. Reducing geographical disparities within Mexico would likely decrease pressures to emigrate, and a first priority should be improving the road system from the U.S. border to the central and southern parts of Mexico. In spite of the growth in trade under NAFTA, significant investment in transportation and infrastructure has not occurred.
Although Mexico and the United States have developed the border area and NAFTA has helped to infuse new investment, the border region is burdened. By building up the central part of the country, border congestion could be relieved, and the whole system could be better managed.
Focusing on the educational system in Mexico also is key. Mexican students fall near the bottom in cross-country comparisons on basic literacy, math, and science. While the adult education level in the United States is twelve years, in Mexico, the level is about seven years. This low education level has severe implications for economic competitiveness and the standard of living for Mexicans whether they remain in Mexico or migrate to the United States.
One thing NAFTA has taught us is that, if we expect employment growth in Mexico to materialize as a result of trade agreements, investments must be targeted. We have to determine how to help Mexico's domestic industries by, for example, using domestic parts and supplies in production exports.
The rural parts of Mexico suffered under NAFTA. Subsistence farmers did not receive assistance or time to adjust to the new trade regime. Nothing was done to help protect their incomes as trade conditions changed. Forced to leave agriculture, these rural workers had little help moving into other sectors.
In order for any significant effect on Mexican migration to take place, significant investment in new technologies in small and medium-sized industries is necessary. Some of this new investment can be achieved through tax incentives to spur economic growth in the country's interior. Fruit and vegetable production development can absorb some of the rural workers previously displaced. Mexico's public infrastructure should be a major priority.
The recent Senate legislation on immigration reform crafted by the bi-partisan Gang of Eight allocates an additional $6.5 billion for border enforcement. The wisdom of huge, additional enforcement dollars targeting individuals who are entering in search of work to feed their families is questionable. Those funds would be spent so much more wisely and effectively on helping Mexico with its economy. The notion of a strong border may sound appealing, but a strong Mexican economy is the real way to reduce economic migration.]]>What Is Comprehensive Immigration Reform?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21203682012-11-15T10:31:58-05:002013-01-15T05:12:01-05:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/comprehensive immigration reform has to be tackled and that key Senate leaders such as Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham already are working on a blueprint is splendid. The challenge will be in determining just what should go into that comprehensive package?
In many quarters, the debate over immigration reform boils down to a tug-of-war between those who want more enforcement and those who want legalization (a path to citizenship) for 11 million undocumented immigrants. But comprehensive reform requires addressing far more than these two issues. Most comprehensive proposals in that past several years would have increased border enforcement, instituted verification requirements for employers to ensure they are not hiring unauthorized workers, increased visas for high-skilled workers, and provided legalization for the undocumented immigrants here now. Over the years, narrower legalization proposals have focused on the DREAM Act for undocumented students, AgJobs for farmworkers, and a massive guest worker program that was promoted by President Bush. While I am opposed to enhanced employment verification requirements for employers because the effectiveness of employer sanctions is questionable, and I question the wisdom of a guest worker program given the exploitative circumstances under which those workers would have to operate, I understand why negotiators would want those issues on the table.
However, for many immigrants, their relatives, and their supporters, comprehensive reform entails much more. Consider the family immigration categories. The waitlist for many relative categories, particularly for those from Mexico and the Philippines, can be 10 to 20 years. Providing extra immigrant visas to clear the backlogs would do much to alleviate the pressure for some individuals to enter in violation of immigration laws. In fact, coming up with a different formula for family immigration categories that would alleviate backlogs altogether would be an important innovation.
The immigrant visa system itself is anachronistic. Those who advocate for more high-tech visas will attest to that fact. The country's outdated immigration policy is incapable of dealing with 21st century immigration patterns and economic realities. No doubt current family immigration and employment categories can be better honed to meet the types of demands of U.S. individuals and employers. However, many families, employers, and individuals need greater flexibility today, given residence and travel needs. That means that flexibility in terms of visa entries and residence requirements should be built into our current system to accommodate those needs. Movement circularity for visa holders is a feature that may accommodate working-class as well as wealthy individuals.
Our immigration enforcement regime is due for legislative reassessment as well. In the past few years, overzealous enforcement programs such as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Secure Communities program that has swept up victims of crimes, minor offenders, and even crime witnesses have received some attention. Similar concern has been raised by the racial profiling of Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians under the U.S. Patriot Act. However, little attention has been paid to the fact that ever since 1996, lawful immigrants and refugees who have committed an "aggravated felony" are deported without a chance to introduce evidence of rehabilitation, remorse, or hardship to citizen relatives. Part of the tragedy of these laws is that the term aggravated felony includes selling $10 worth of marijuana, "smuggling" a kid sister across the border, and even some crimes like theft, burglary, perjury, and obstruction of justice that a state court has classified as a misdemeanor. There's a problem when spouses of citizens and parents of citizen children are deported as "aggravated felons" without giving an immigration judge the opportunity to decide whether the deportee deserves a second chance.
Immigration reform should include innovative thinking as well.
Given the demographic changes that have been brought about by immigrant and refugee resettlement across the country, why not promote civic engagement efforts that serve to welcome newcomers? It makes sense to reach out to immigrants and refugees as soon as they arrive so that they, too, might understand the responsibilities of being an American. Although federal, state, and local governments should lead the way, just think of the amazing things that could be accomplished if other vital institutions were to follow the government's lead and become involved: schools, daycare centers, local businesses, chambers of commerce, churches, recreation clubs, neighborhood groups, senior groups, and youth groups; they would bring rich possibilities to the enterprise.
The out-of-the box thinking on immigration reform may lead us to realize that the real solution to undocumented Mexican migration, for example, might be working more closely with our neighbor and consider making a greater effort to address Mexico's unemployment and economic needs. The point is that the binary analysis of immigration reform that is classically about greater enforcement versus legalization should only be a start. Cooler, more thoughtful heads can come up with more peaceful, meaningful ideas than militarizing the border.
Comprehensive immigration reform is the opportunity to think innovatively and expansively about the real needs of the country as well as the newcomers.]]>Wade Michael Page: A Reflection of De-Americanizationtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.17533532012-08-10T15:20:59-04:002012-10-10T05:12:15-04:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/described as a "frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band." His most recent skinhead "hate rock band" was called "End Apathy." Clearly, part of his hate was directed at Sikhs, Muslims, or both. Somewhere along his life road, he felt licensed to express his hate note just through music, but through violence. This hatred unfortunately is reminiscent of a brand of vigilante racism and de-Americanization that we have seen far too often since 9/11.
Within hours of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Americans of Muslim, Middle Eastern, Arab, and South Asian descent found themselves targeted for acts of hate and racial profiling. In a suburb of Chicago, and like a twisted scene out of the Olympics, three hundred protestors, many waving American flags and chanting "USA! USA!" marched on a mosque. One 19-year-old demonstrator exclaimed, "I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have." In Huntington, New York, a 75-year-old man tried to run over a Pakistani woman in the parking lot of a shopping mall. He then followed the woman into a store and threatened to kill her for "destroying my country." In San Diego, a Sikh woman was attacked by a knife-wielding man shouting, "This is what you get for what you've done to us." A Sikh family was followed out of a restaurant by two white men who screamed at the family, "Go back to your country." By late 2001, hundreds of "suspicious individuals", mostly Arab Americans, were detained, without access to family or counsel. By November, the Department of Justice developed a list of 5,000 Middle Eastern men, between the ages of 18 and 33, who were to be "voluntarily" interviewed.
The fact that hateful acts and words of private citizens are followed up with official regimes of detention and profiling only reaffirms the subordination of the victims through suspicion of loyalty. The governmental imprimatur helps to marginalize the victims in U.S. society. In turn, the government's actions are interpreted by misguided, private individuals as license to vilify and to de-Americanize the same targets.
The de-Americanization message is one of exclusion: "You Muslims, Middle Easterners, and South Asians are not true Americans." Certainly, the process involves racism, but unlike the racism directed at African Americans, with its foundations in the historically held beliefs of inferiority, de-Americanizers base their assault on loyalty and permanent foreignness. In the minds of the private actors, who are nothing more than lawless vigilantes, self-appointed enforcers of their notion of true Americanism, their victims are immigrants or foreigners, even though they may in fact be citizens by birth or through naturalization. Irrespective of the victim community's possible longstanding status in the country, its members are regarded as perpetual foreigners. The victim community is forever regarded as immigrant America by these vigilante racists, as opposed to simply part of America and its diversity.
What has been happening to Muslims, Arabs, Middle Easterners, and South Asians in the United States since 9/11 is a process of ostracism from the American community that we have witnessed before. The process often involves two aspects: (1) the actions of private individuals; and (2) official government-sanctioned actions. On the private side, the process involves identifying the victims as foreigners, sometimes mistakenly, or other times simply treating the person as a foreigner despite knowing otherwise. De-Americanization is a twisted brand of xenophobia that is not simply hatred of foreigners, but also hatred of those who, in fact, may not be foreigners, but whom the vigilantes would prefer being removed from the country anyway.
The Southern Poverty Law Center recently reported the highest number of hate groups ever recorded in U.S. history, with nearly 1,018 active groups. Anti-Muslim hate groups have increased 300 percent in the last year, and the FBI reported a 50 percent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes.
Sadly, the de-Americanization process is capable of reinventing itself generation after generation. We have seen this exclusionary process aimed at those of Jewish, Asian, Mexican, Haitian, and other descent throughout the nation's history. Once we acknowledge that more than a fear of foreigners is at work, we understand that this is a brand of nativism cloaked in a Euro-centric sense of America that combines hate and racial profiling. Whenever we go through a period of de-Americanization, like what we have witnessed since 9/11 directed at South Asians, Arabs, and Muslim Americans, as well as record-setting detention and deportations under the Obama administration, a whole new generation of Americans concludes that exclusion and hate is acceptable; that the definition of who is an American can be narrowed; that they too have license to profile. Their license is issued when others around them engage in hate and the government chimes in with its own profiling. This is part of the sad cycle of unconscious and institutionalized racism that haunts our country.]]>Obama's Hypocrisy on Arizona's SB 1070tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.16347352012-06-29T15:11:06-04:002012-08-29T05:12:05-04:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/expressed concern over the one provision that the high court let stand for the time being:
"I am pleased that the Supreme Court has struck down key provisions of Arizona's immigration law. ... A patchwork of state laws is not a solution to our broken immigration system -- it's part of the problem.
At the same time, I remain concerned about the practical impact of the remaining provision of the Arizona law that requires local law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of anyone they even suspect to be here illegally. I agree with the Court that individuals cannot be detained solely to verify their immigration status. No American should ever live under a cloud of suspicion just because of what they look like."
Hooray for the Justice Department's bold challenge to the Arizona law and copycat attempts in other states. However, there is a basic hypocrisy in the president's "concern" over section 2(B) that the Supreme Court punted on, awaiting word on how state courts would interpret its limits and how Arizona police would implement the law.
First some background. The Supreme Court struck down three of four key provisions of SB 1070. Arizona acted improperly by trying to enact its own immigration laws by making it a crime to be an unregistered immigrant and to solicit work in the state. Arizona also could not authorize its police to arrest immigrants who they believe are deportable; in other words the state cannot help ICE enforce federal immigration laws unless asked to do so by the feds.
However, for now, under section 2(B) of SB 1070, if Arizona police validly stop a person for violation of a state law, in the process they can also ask for immigration papers if there is "reasonable suspicion" that the person is unlawfully present in the United States. The section also requires state and local authorities to determine the immigration status of any person placed under arrest, regardless of whether the person is suspected of being in the country unlawfully.
The president's critique of the Court's inaction on section 2(B) is ironic, because in fact, under the current ICE "Secure Communities" program (S-Comm) which Obama's Department of Homeland Security has expanded, his administration has essentially implemented a section 2(B) process across the nation without the consent of the states. As part of normal enforcement practices, state law enforcement agencies who fingerprint individuals submit those fingerprints to a state identification bureau. The prints are then routed to the FBI to ascertain whether there are any outstanding warrants for the individual. But under S-Comm, the fingerprints are automatically sent by the FBI to ICE's immigration database to initiate an immigration status background check; if there is a "hit" or there is a question as to someone's legal status, FBI sends a message to various departments within ICE, and the law enforcement agency is also informed. ICE then determines whether to order the local police to hold the person for pick up by ICE.
ICE has taken the position that the sharing of fingerprints for immigration enforcement purposes is mandatory whether or not a state consents. States such as Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts have objected to this process, but ICE has ignored the states' requests to opt out of this process.
All too often, victims of crimes, minor offenders, and even crime witnesses have been swept up by S-Comm. Reports that domestic violence victims have been rounded up because of S-Comm are common. More than one-third of individuals arrested under S-Comm have a U.S. citizen spouse or child; Latinos comprise 93 percent of individuals arrested through S-Comm, even though they are only about 75 percent of the undocumented population. There is little wonder why, at oral argument in the SB 1070 case, U.S. attorneys arguing against the law refused to point out that there was a racial profiling problem with section 2(B). That would have been more duplicity.
If President Obama is really concerned about the effects of section 2(B) and that "no American should ever live under a cloud of suspicion just because of what they look like," then he should order an end to the Secure Communities program.]]>Like It or Not, Arizona's SB 1070 Is About Racial Profilingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14574352012-04-27T14:25:33-04:002012-06-27T05:12:02-04:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/Arizona's anti-immigrant SB 1070, Department of Justice lawyers avoided arguing that any of the law's provisions, including the requirement that state police check the documents of suspected undocumented immigrants, invite racial profiling. In fact, at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, Chief Justice John Roberts began the case by greeting the Solicitor General Donald Verrilli (and the rest of the country) with: "No part of your argument has to do with racial or ethnic profiling, does it?" To which the lawyer responded, "We're not making any allegation about racial or ethnic profiling in this case." Later when Verrilli tried to make a point about Arizona Latinos who would be affected by the law, he backed away from the point after Justice Antonin Scalia complained that it sounded like racial profiling.
The technocrat lawyer in me might understand this strategy, reasoning that it's too soon to know if Latinos will be targeted by SB 1070 (although there's plenty of evidence already). The cynic in me believes that the Obama administration stayed away from racial profiling allegations because that claim falls too close to home. The framework for SB 1070 mirrors the federal immigration enforcement laws and guess what, ICE engages in racial profiling every day. The immigration historian in me, however, understands that SB 1070 is in fact all about racial profiling given the institutionalized racism under which the law and its copycat statutes across the country have emerged.
The southwest border essentially became an open border in 1848, when the United States forced Mexico to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The United States gained California and New Mexico (including present-day Nevada, Utah, and Arizona) and recognition of the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of Texas. The treaty gave all Mexicans living in the ceded territory the option of becoming U.S. citizens or relocating within Mexican borders. In the years immediately following the treaty, many Mexicans thought of the territories as part of Mexico. Mexicans and Americans paid little heed to the newly created international border, which was unmarked and wholly unreal to most.
In 1942, the United States negotiated a treaty with Mexico known as the Bracero Program, providing for the use of Mexicans as temporary workers in U.S. agriculture. With the exception of slavery, in terms of servicing U.S. economic interests, the program was a historical first. The Bracero Program was renewed consecutively throughout the administrations of five U.S. presidents. Braceros constituted a quarter of the farm labor force in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, contributing to U.S. dominance in agriculture. In spite of the program, undocumented Mexican migration was significant during this era. In 1954, more than 1 million undocumented Mexicans were deported as part of an initiative dubbed "Operation Wetback."
As organized labor and public sentiment toward undocumented Mexican workers became increasingly negative in the 1970s, resources for border enforcement were enhanced, and the Border Patrol's primary task became patrolling the southern border. By the mid-1990s, 85 percent of the Border Patrol's agents were stationed along the Mexican border.
While the rest of the world enjoyed an expansion of numerical limitations after 1965, Mexico and the Western Hemisphere were suddenly faced with numerical limitations. The Western Hemisphere was allotted a total of 120,000 immigrant visas each year. By 1976, the process resulted in a severe backlog of approximately three years and a waiting list with nearly 300,000 names. As the immigration of Mexicans became the focus of more debate, Congress enacted legislation in 1976 further curtailing Mexican migration. The law imposed a preference system on Mexico and the Western Hemisphere along with a 20,000 visa per country numerical limitation. Thus, Mexico's annual visa usage rate, which had been about 40,000, was virtually cut in half overnight.
As the immigration enforcement budget grew larger and larger during the 1970s and 1980s, the Supreme Court, swayed by arguments that the undocumented alien problem was worsening, gave more flexibility to federal enforcement strategies. In 1975, the Supreme Court opened the door to stops by roving patrols near the border in United States v. Brignoni-Ponce (1975). The next year, the Court carved out a major exception to the Fourth Amendment's protection against search and seizure to further accommodate the Border Patrol. The case, United States v. Martinez-Fuerte (1976), endorsed the legality of fixed checkpoints away from the border even when stops are not based on articulable suspicion. Less than a decade later, the Supreme Court, in INS v. Lopez-Mendoza (1984), made it clear that the Fourth Amendment's protection against illegal search and seizure was not available to aliens fighting deportation even if federal officials acted illegally.
In essence, the immigration visa system does not accommodate the demand for visas from Mexico, and the enforcement regime has been given license to operate quite broadly. Undocumented immigrants have been demonized, and through the demonization, they become a faceless commodity. The immigration admission and enforcement systems -- including the new SB 1070-like laws -- may appear neutral on their face, but (1) they have evolved in a racialized manner and (2) when the immigration framework interacts with other racialized institutions you realize that the structure generates racial group disparities as well. NAFTA and globalization form a big part of why many migrants of color cannot remain in their native countries. The criminal justice system and poverty prey heavily on poor communities of color, leading to deportable offenses if defendants are not U.S. citizens.
The Supreme Court and federal litigators may not want to admit that SB 1070 is about racial profiling, but they are in denial. The seemingly neutral logic that flows from an institutionally racist immigration system need not carry the day. We should not be left to object to anti-immigrant state laws, ICE raids, border enforcement, and even criminal alien enforcement solely in non-racial terms. Understanding these operations from an institutionalized racial perspective provide another basis for arguing that our system of immigration laws and enforcement policies must be overhauled in order to address the menacing vestiges of racism within that system.]]>Honor Trayvon Martin's Death: Declare War on Racism tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13768222012-04-02T07:58:00-04:002012-06-02T05:12:01-04:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/highlights the sad truth that racial profiling of African Americans and the country's racial divide continue. The juxtaposition of this incident and the winding down of our military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan provides us with an opportunity to declare another war -- a war on racism in America. With race on the front pages, the opportunity is ripe for President Obama and the GOP presidential hopefuls to declare war on bigotry and hate.
More than 150 years after the Civil War and nearly 50 years since the Civil Rights Act and the end of the national origins immigration system, racism continues in the United States. From hate speech and hate crimes to employment discrimination and forms of social preference, subtle actions and institutionalized racism continue to challenge our nation. A decade ago when Trent Lott was sharply criticized for racist sentiment at Strom Thurmond's retirement party, we saw Democrats and Republicans alike agree that racism is wholly and completely unacceptable. But after Lott stepped aside, addressing racism was pushed to the back burner again, allowed to eat away at our nation's character.
Four years ago, candidate Barack Obama gave a stirring speech on our nation's racial divide. Then three years ago the president sat down to discuss profiling with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and his arresting Boston police officer. But after that, nothing further gets discussed nor acted upon publicly. Any talk of improving race relations remains hushed and polite when it occurs at all.
The problem with polite talk on these issues is that it lets the vast majority of the nation off the hook. The nation ends up treating overt incidents as the exception, regarding those instances as rare. In fact, the prime target should be the foundation of institutionalized racism that has created an environment that enables subtle and unconscious racism, emboldens perpetrators of racist speech, and licenses acts of hate.
We need more than polite talk. We need a sense of outrage and indignation. We need massive mobilization over the issue. We need a declaration of war. The declaration of war on the evils of hate and racism must be loud and constant. Just as we have poured millions of dollars into campaigns against drugs and smoking, into efforts to address recycling and other environmental concerns, we need attention-grabbing strategies to begin now, in the midst of current recognition that improving race relations matters. We need a clear vision statement on these issues to serve as the basis for this moral declaration. We must be driven, not politely, because we are beyond politeness on the evils of hate and prejudice that our leaders acknowledge are not American values. Let's put our heads together on this national priority. Be creative and imaginative in approaches. Set an example. Call for new laws, enforcement of existing regulations, smart coalition-building, civility, respect and approaches to addressing private attitudes and actions. Make that call loud and clear and remind us over and over. Make it part of the national psyche, not just part of the national agenda.
The public face of American pluralism -- dominated by politicians, professionals and community leaders -- is mostly positive. The problem is with the private off-camera face of America that fails to teach our children and challenge our neighbors to be respectful of others. We all share to varying degrees the blame for a culture that gives rise to hate speech and ethnic animosity. Every time we engage in even subtle racism or the fostering of stereotypes, we perpetuate that culture. As much as each of us shares the blame, each of us can be part of the solution. Every time we reach out to others whom we have been conditioned to distrust, fear, or subordinate because of culture, race or class, we begin to chip away at the wicked culture that gives rise to irrational hatred, animosity, and violence.
In the aftermath of 9/11, President Bush spoke out against hate crimes directed at Americans of South Asian, Pakistani, Arab, and Muslim descent. He urged "Americans not to use this as an opportunity to pick on somebody that doesn't look like you, or doesn't share your religion." But then, he and other leaders did little to demonstrate sophisticated knowledge about the racialized structures of our society that continue to keep down underprivileged blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and many Asian Americans. President Obama has called for an investigation of Trayvon Martin's death. But he has to do more. He should lead the country on the war path against racism. It's time to roll up our sleeves and get serious about racism as a nation and as individuals.]]>Resisting Alabama Through Community Policing for Better Public Safetytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.13358862012-03-12T10:50:04-04:002012-05-12T05:12:01-04:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/might consider withholding deportation of 80-year-old grandmothers or DREAM Act students who join the military. Otherwise, he, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul do not favor any type of legalization program and either are for mass roundups or self-deportation of the estimated 10 to 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country. The message of these candidates is hardly one of embracing change and fails to recognize that we should be addressing immigration reform with a less hostile tone.
As the constitutionality of Arizona's SB 1070 is being heard at the Supreme Court, Alabama's HB 56 has reached the federal court of appeals, which temporarily has blocked some provisions, including one requiring Alabama officials to check the immigration status of children in public schools and others that make state crimes out of failing to carry documents proving legal residency status or harboring an undocumented immigrant. Just last week, the court also blocked two more provisions: one prohibiting courts from enforcing contracts with undocumented immigrants and another making it a felony for an undocumented immigrant to do business with the state. In spite of the contentiousness of these laws, Mississippi legislators are poised to copy the Alabama and Arizona examples.
While the legality of most of the local anti-immigration laws is questionable, the court ruling on the Alabama law left intact a controversial piece of HB56 that directs police officers to check the legal status of a person they stop or arrest if they have "reasonable suspicion" that person is in the country illegally. Although determining whether someone is undocumented by just looking at a person is virtually impossible, the message of the court is clear. When it comes to determining policing priorities, the state has a lot of autonomy. What to enforce, as opposed to what laws can be enacted, is a much stronger state's rights claim.
Lost in the hysterical atmosphere that pervades political conversations over the undocumented immigration challenge today is the fact that many jurisdictions are taking a different tact when it comes to law enforcement. Community policing policies (sometimes referred to as "sanctuary" policies) that instruct officers to refrain from asking crime victims or witnesses about their immigration status are in place in more than seventy cities and states, such as San Francisco and New York, as well as many law enforcement agencies, such as the New Haven and Los Angeles police departments. Thousands of other police agencies are reluctant to be viewed as partners in federal immigration enforcement. The motivation behind these laws and policies is simple: to encourage the entire community -- including immigrant members -- to trust and cooperate with the police to promote public safety for everyone. If this message is delivered successfully, its tone is an important, positive step in encouraging the civic integration of immigrant communities that stands in sharp contrast to the xenophobic undercurrent of measures such as Arizona's SB 1070, Alabama's HB 56, and the billions of dollars spent annually in border and interior enforcement of federal immigration laws.
The evolution of some relatively recent sanctuary policies makes clear that public safety is their main goal. In New Haven, Conn., in 2005, the police chief, government officials, and community leaders adopted two initiatives designed to make New Haven more welcoming and safer for immigrants, and to help police officers during interactions with immigrants. The police issued a general order outlining procedures for police to follow during encounters with immigrants, and the city began issuing identification cards to all city residents regardless of immigration status. Under the police department's general order, no distinction is made between documented and undocumented immigrants because they are all part of our community. In other words, the department would rather solve a homicide than worry about the immigration status of a witness or victim. As a result of the policy and follow-up initiatives, cooperation with police has increased dramatically and important strides have been made in getting the community to overcome its fear of the police.
The philosophy in Mesa, Ariz., is similar. The mayor and police officers were openly critical of Sheriff Arpaio's operations in their city because his actions undermined the police department's relationship with the immigrant community and set back the police department's efforts to build trust. While trust and community confidence is the goal behind the police department's policy of not inquiring about immigration status when it comes to crime victims and witnesses, the battle is difficult because the distinction between federal (ICE), county (Arpaio), and local (police department) law enforcement is confusing for the immigrant community. As one officer put it, "You're not sure if you ever gain the trust. Maybe you just lessen the mistrust." In spite of the tense atmosphere over immigration in Arizona, the Mesa police chief was determined not to adopt a policy that would damage the trust of a significant part of the community who were often victims or witnesses to crime. He held community meetings to encourage residents to discuss priorities and communication and consulted ICE. A new policy finally was adopted after seventeen revisions, followed by several months of officer training. Although the city takes pains not to be labeled a "sanctuary" for undocumented immigrants perhaps for political reasons, the focus of the policy is on criminals, not crime victims or witnesses, and the department engages in continuous outreach to the immigration community.
The adoption of community policing policies at a time when segments of our nation are in a frenzy over immigration is an important, bold statement of support for a nation of immigrants. Choosing sanctuary policies over policies of fear, like those embodied in HB 56, tells immigrants and the rest of us what type of community our leaders and law enforcement officials are choosing. The non-sanctuary choice is closed-minded, resistant to continuing changes that will only breed tension and threaten public safety. The choice of community policing, confidentiality, or "don't ask" is one of smart policing -- one that embraces change and encourages integration in the hopes of building a stronger, safer community. That choice also represents an important step toward avoiding the pitfalls of division, hate, and insular living that anti-immigrant state laws exemplify.]]>Lessons to Remember From Japanese Internmenttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12853032012-02-21T11:33:44-05:002012-04-22T05:12:01-04:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/
Even before World War II, Japanese in America were already being targeted as part of the pattern of anti-Asian immigrant hysteria that had started with the attack on Chinese in the late 1800s. Alien land laws prevented Japanese immigrants from owning or leasing land, and the 1924 Immigration Act permanently closed off new Japanese immigration. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the bigotry and fear that had informed earlier anti-Japanese laws became a panic. Japanese Americans suddenly become suspected of acts of sabotage and treason. Though no such acts were ever proved, the civilian government acceded to unprecedented military orders that subjected all West Coast Japanese first to curfews then to forced evacuation into detention camps. Eventually, 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned in camps scattered across the country.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the internment was how easily most Americans accepted it. Nativists made Japanese Americans feel unwanted and insecure about whether they would be able to stay; many other Americans challenged their loyalty and commitment. That the internment had little to do with the actual threat Japanese Americans supposedly presented seems clear because in Hawaii, the most vulnerable part of the United States and the site of the Pearl Harbor bombing, they were not subject to it. Instead, internment represented the culmination of many decades of harsh treatment of Asians on the West Coast, where they had never been accepted as equals or even as trustworthy.
Even the Supreme Court, which had often justified earlier restrictions on the grounds that those affected were not citizens, uncritically accepted the premises behind internment. Though the Court purported in Korematsu v. United States to apply "strict scrutiny" to the governments order, in reality it accepted at face value the military's fears and accusations that Japanese American citizens were all potential saboteurs -- fears and accusations that were concocted, that were contradicted by official government reports, and that were later proved to be baseless. In the 1980s, many Issei and Nisei survivors of the camps, along with their Sansei children or grandchildren, began a courageous quest to tell the truth, through the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. And by 1988, Congress issued a formal apology to Japanese Americans, reparations of $20,000 to approximately 60,000 survivors, and a moving, on-his-knees apology by then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh to a group of elderly survivors at the Department of Justice headquarters.
Armed with the information that his conviction had been based on this false, misleading and racially-biased information, Fred Korematsu successfully reopened case some 40 years later, and his conviction for failing to heed the evacuation order was set aside. However, his story in relation to the sad saga of U.S. violation of civil liberties did not end there.
As the country embarked upon its post-9/11 War on Terror, the Bush administration soon detained between 1,500 and 2,000 individuals as part of its investigation on U.S. soil under unprecedented secrecy. Attorney General John Ashcroft justified their detention by calling them "suspected terrorists," but none were charged with involvement in the 9/11 attacks. With the exception of four individuals indicted on support-for-terrorism charges in late August 2002, no one was charged with any terrorist act. Those arrested on immigration charges -- the vast majority -- had effectively disappeared. Their cases were not listed on any public docket, their hearings were closed to the public, and the immigration judges were instructed to neither confirm nor deny that their cases existed, when or if asked.
Then there were those being held at Guantanamo Bay or, in the case of Yasir Hamdi, in a military brig in Virginia. Enter Fred Korematsu. Seeing the similarities, he filed a friend-of-the-court brief before the Supreme Court in the detainees' challenge to their detention, who argued that they were being held without any meaningful judicial review. In Korematsu's amicus brief, he argued that
in order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, the Supreme Court should make clear in these cases that the United States respects fundamental constitutional and human rights-even in times of war. These cases present the Supreme Court with a direct test of whether it will meet its deepest constitutional responsibilities to uphold the law in a clear-eyed and courageous manner.
The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the U.S. government's attempts to detain Hamdi indefinitely without trial, and Hamdi was released to travel to Saudi Arabia.
The nation's public relations position is that we are a proud nation of human rights and civil liberties. Yes, we take steps in the direction. But we take steps backwards in that regards as well. We learn and unlearn, and in the process, the bad behavior of racial profiling and civil rights abuse is reinforced. Let the dark lesson of Executive Order 9066 remind us to remain vigilant against such abuse.]]>Prop 8 Case and the Message for Immigration Reformtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12669862012-02-10T10:37:16-05:002012-04-11T05:12:01-04:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/
The history of the treatment of gays and lesbians under U.S. immigration laws is sordid. Beginning in 1917 with language directed at persons who were of "psychopathic inferiority" or "afflicted with psychopathic personality," Congress targeted gays and lesbians for immigration exclusion. Legislators reaffirmed their malevolence in 1965 with language excluding those with "sexual deviation." The constitutionality of the exclusion of homosexuals was upheld in Boutilier v. INS (1967), a deportation case. Even though Clive Boutilier had become a lawful immigrant, the Supreme Court determined that the legislative history of the exclusion laws indicated "beyond a shadow of a doubt" that Congress intended to exclude immigrants who were homosexuals via the "psychopathic personality" provision. As a result, the Court order Mr. Boutilier deported, because prior to his entry in the United States when he was twenty-one years old, he had engaged in homosexual activity. Since he was excludable at the time of his immigration, he could now be deported. After lengthy administrative battles within the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Public Health Service as well as judicial challenges, the exclusion ground finally was removed in 1990.
However, immigrant visas (green cards) for spouses U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents continue to be limited to spouses of the opposite sex. Ironically, in another Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision back in 1981 (Adams v. Howerton), the court ruled that the term "spouse" as used in the Immigration and Nationality Act was limited to marriages involving heterosexual relations. The court found that Congress had a rational basis for that limitation because "homosexual marriages never produce offspring, because they are not recognized in most, if in any, states, or because they violate traditional and often prevailing social mores." Even though times have changed since 1981, the Adams v. Howerton interpretation of the immigration laws prevails. As a result, the threat to deport the foreign national partner in such marriages continue. For example, Anthony Makk, an Australian citizen married to U.S. citizen Bradford Wells, only recently received a deportation reprieve. Makk, who is the primary caregiver to his AIDS-afflicted spouse, was ordered deported last summer, but has been permitted to remain another two years. Wells previously told the San Francisco Chronicle:
I'm married just like any other married person in this country.... At this point, the government can come in and take my husband and deport him. It's infuriating. It's upsetting. I have no power, no right to keep my husband in this country. I love this country, I live here, I pay taxes and I have no right to share my home with the person I married.
The Obama administration announced last summer that "prosecutorial discretion" could be exercised to halt the deportation of prospective immigrants in same-sex relations (along with DREAM Act students and others). However, the results have been inconsistent, and some ICE officers have been outspoken in their criticism of these internal orders. As a result, U.S. citizens and lawful residents with same-sex partners who have overstayed nonimmigrant visas or who are otherwise undocumented immigrants live in constant fear that their partner may be deported. True, the Obama folks have spoken out against the Defense of Marriage Act, which is a relevant statement. But we need specific legislation to resolve the issue once and for all.
The way out of this inequity is the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA). UAFA would allow U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to sponsor their same-sex partners for immigration to the United States. The bill (and its predecessor) has been introduced into every subsequent Congress since the year 2000. Every year support has increased, and in the last Congress, more co-sponsors than ever before were garnered. In the 111th Congress (2009-2010), there was a record-breaking 135 co-sponsors in the House. And today there are more than 20 co-sponsors in the Senate. UAFA would amend the immigration laws by simply adding the term "permanent partner" in sections where "spouse" appears, thus ensuring that a non-citizen permanent partner may receive the same immigration benefits that a non-citizen spouse now receives.
Can the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision lead the way to this much-need social justice reform? Certainly not alone. As much as anyone, I am skeptical that a single court decision or lawsuit can bring about lasting social change. But the decision is an important sign of the times that invites all of us as well as our Congressional leaders to push for reform sooner rather than later. There is no turning back on the eventuality that UAFA will be enacted.
]]>"Ching Chong, Chinaman": The De-Americanization of Asian Americanstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11765642012-01-02T09:48:30-05:002012-03-03T05:12:01-05:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/have been arrested in connection with the apparent suicide of Pvt. Danny Chen, a 19-year-old infantryman who was Chinese American. The arrests came after family members pressured the Pentagon to investigate allegations that Chen had been repeatedly taunted with racial slurs. The alleged anti-Asian bullying and taunting started during basic training when fellow soldiers used a mocking accent while calling him Jackie Chen; others allegedly told him to "go back to China." The eight soldiers have been charged with dereliction of duty and manslaughter.
Asian American history is replete with examples of the de-Americanization of its members by vigilante racism. For some, the ostracism started immediately. Consider the poignant autobiography of Mary Paik Lee, a Korean immigrant who described her family's arrival in San Francisco harbor in 1906:
As we walked down the gangplank ... young White men were standing around, waiting to see what kind of creatures were disembarking. We must have been a very queer-looking group. They laughed at us and spit in our faces; one man kicked up Mother's skirt and called us names we couldn't understand. Of course, their actions and attitudes left no doubt about their feelings toward us.
Throughout their early life in the United States, Lee and her family were greeted with "For Whites Only" signs everywhere. Public restrooms, theaters, swimming pools, and barber shops were off limits. On Lee's first day of school, girls circled and hit her, chanting: "Ching Chong, Chinaman, Sitting on a wall. Along came a White man, And chopped his head off."
One of the more notorious, de-Americanizing, vigilante hate crimes of our time involved the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin, a young Chinese American man who lived near Detroit, Mich. Chin, who was out with friends celebrating his upcoming wedding, was confronted by Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, two unemployed auto workers. Ebens made racial and obscene remarks toward Chin, calling him a "Chink" and a "Nip" and making comments about foreign car imports: "it's because of you little m - f - that we're out of work." The Court of Appeals noted that Ebens "seemed to believe that Chin was Japanese" and may not have distinguished Asians of "Japanese and Chinese decent since there is testimony to show he made references to both." A fight ensued and in the end, Chin was beaten to death by a baseball bat-wielding Ebens, while Nitz restrained Chin. Chin, who was a native of China, was adopted at the age of six by a Chinese American couple and became a U.S. citizen in 1965. Yet he was targeted because he represented Japan and its automobile manufacturers in the eyes of the culprits.
Even more recently, de-Americanizing antics have been directed at Chinese Americans. In the midst of an international crisis in April 2001, when a U.S. spy plane had to land on Chinese soil and China would not immediately release the plane, many Americans took their frustration out on Chinese Americans. A radio station disc jockey in Springfield, Ill. suggested boycotting Chinese restaurants. Another commentator called people with Chinese last names from his local telephone book to harass them. Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Pat Oliphant ran a cartoon portraying a buck-toothed Chinese waiter yelling at a customer (depicted as Uncle Sam), "Apologize Lotten Amellican!" The American Society of Newspaper Editors was entertained by the renowned satirical group Capitol Steps, featuring a white man dressed in a black wig and thick glasses impersonating a Chinese official who gestured wildly as he said (in a manner reminiscent of the chant that greeted Mary Paik Lee on her first day in school): "ching, ching, chong, chong."
The profiling examples of Asian Americans are unending: Wen Ho Lee, Japanese internment, hate crimes directed at Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians.
A few years ago when U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta was still in Congress (where he served for over 20 years), he was invited to attend a celebration of the reopening of a General Motors plant in his home district Santa Clara County, Calif. As an honored guest, he was greeted by a senior GM executive who thanked the Congressman for attending, and then complimented Mineta on his English. The executive then asked Mineta, "And how long have you lived in our country?" Mineta knew that when the GM executive looked at Mineta's Japanese American features, the executive saw a "foreign face." Yet Mineta was born in San Jose, Calif., in 1931 and attended the University of California, Berkeley. Unfortunately this certainly was not the first time he had been de-Americanized. During World War II, he was interned along with the rest of the Mineta family in Heart Mountain, Wyo.
Somehow the soldiers who allegedly harassed Pvt. Danny Chen felt licensed to engage in taunting and bullying of a young Chinese American who was trying to serve his country. Perhaps that's the problem; those soldiers didn't think that the United States was Chen's country to serve. Somewhere the soldiers got the message that their private vigilante actions were condoned. That message has done much to solidify the image of people of color with immigrant roots as perpetual foreigners. This encourages private individuals to engage in discriminatory acts and reinforces their hostility. As such, Asian Americans become prime targets for de-Americanization by vigilante racists. And that can lead to death.]]>Free Trade Agreements Mean Job Losses in the Other Country as Welltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10115932011-10-17T16:06:07-04:002011-12-17T05:12:01-05:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/
Take Mexico as an example. Within a year of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) finalized in 1994, Mexico lost a million jobs. The U.S. continued to subsidize U.S. farmers, and Mexican corn farmers, for instance, could not compete with the price of U.S. corn in their own backyard. Now the vast majority of corn purchased in Mexico is U.S. corn, and more than a million Mexican farmers lost their work. Mexican workers who were helping to produce pork products and auto parts lost their livelihood as well. Is there little wonder that many of those displaced by NAFTA look to the United States as a place to find work?
Why this result? An FTA is a pact between two countries that agree to lift most or all tariffs, quotas, special fees and taxes, and other barriers to trade. The purpose of FTAs is to allow faster and more business between the two countries which would benefit both. The economic theory underlying FTAs is the concept of comparative advantage, which asserts that in a free marketplace, each country will specialize in the activity in which it has a comparative advantage (that is, natural resources, skilled artisans, agriculture-friendly weather, and the like). Since each country is specializing in a particular area or product, each country should mutually benefit from the agreement and generate more overall income. The problem is that FTAs increase globalization and outsourcing, but countries that benefit from the outsourcing are generally the low-bidder, which may not be one of the partner nations to the FTA.
So in spite of Mexico's comparative advantage (cheaper labor than in the United States) and being next to the world's largest economy, Mexico got blindsided by China because Mexico was also persuaded to enter the World Trade Organization. Mexico lost hundreds of thousands of jobs to China, and in the process was replaced by China as the largest trading partner with the United States.
Maquiladoras also have not been the savior of the Mexican economy. These are assembly plants located across the border from the United States that are authorized to export products duty-free to the United States or Canada as a NAFTA product. Most of the electronics components come into Mexico duty-free from Asia. But maquiladora job growth reveals a real problem with a strategy that relies on the use of cheap labor for exports. For economic development to be sustained over time, the best paradigm would involve linking manufacturing companies with local businesses that supply materials, parts, or services. But maquiladoras are simply about low-wage workers, and the companies bring in components from outside Mexico with little connection to local businesses and the rest of the economy. Little transfer in technology takes place. The phenomenon occurs elsewhere around the globe, and the problem is that multinationals that set up shop this way can abandon a particular country when cheaper labor is found in a different country.
Much is often made of the fact that Mexico now has a trade surplus with the United States, but while many U.S. jobs did go south, Mexico lost far more jobs because of the treaty than those relocated from the United States. If the workers in bi-lateral countries involved in FTA agreements stand to lose, who gains? The multinational corporations. In an era of globalization, there is greater competition, improved technology, communication, and travel. This allows corporate America to exploit cheap labor and increase profits.
Low-wage competition on a world stage is a trap. Panama, Colombia, and South Korea, with FTA provisions reminiscent to those in NAFTA, better look out. The profit-makers are there to use them.
]]>Give Criminal Aliens a Second Chancetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9904602011-10-03T19:04:10-04:002011-12-03T05:12:02-05:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/announced the arrest of some 3,000 convicted "criminal aliens" during a its seven-day national "Operation Cross-Check" enforcement operations. The attention-grabbing announcement emphasized that more than 1,600 had felony and highlighted seven of the arrestees who had been convictions for kidnapping, attempted murder, armed assault, or child molestation. That's juicy information for law-and-order enthusiasts and the anti-immigration establishment.
The problem with these types of ICE actions and announcements is that they blur the picture of who makes up the so-called "criminal aliens." Immigrants who commit crimes and are subject to deportation come from all over the world: Mexico, Asia, Canada, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The U.S. Supreme Court has even endorsed the deportation of a Somalian refugee, convicted of assault, back to Somalia, where no formal government exists. In 2002, the United States began deporting Cambodian refugees convicted of crimes back to communist-dominated Cambodia. So while ICE may indeed be rounding up and removing hundreds of so-called "illegal immigrants" who have committed crimes, the agency is also engaged in deporting lawful permanent resident aliens (those with "green cards") and refugees convicted of crimes. And these deportees have served their sentences in the criminal justice system before being deported.
As a legal services attorney in San Francisco in the 1970s, I represented a number of clients who were being deported because of crimes they had committed. "John," who immigrated as a kid from Hong Kong, had become a gang member. "Linda" was a woman from Canada who came with her parents as a toddler and later became a prostitute. After both were released from prison, I was able to help them convince an immigration judge that they were rehabilitated and on the road to a crime-free life. They were given a second chance, and to this day, both have led stable, productive lives.
Things have changed. After reforms in 1996, the law does not afford those in John's and Linda's shoes a second chance. In the process, many non-citizens of countless other nationalities are removed from the United States where they have spent their formative years. Most of the convicted lawful residents and refugees have one thing in common under U.S. immigration laws: they are regarded as aggravated felons. Virtually no relief from deportation is available to aggravated felons. Issues of rehabilitation, remorse, family support in the United States, and employment opportunities are irrelevant to an immigration judge's determination of their deportability.
Ridding the country of criminal elements attributable to foreign sources sounds like an admirable goal, but there are several arguments against using deportation as the means to achieving this goal. The first is the impact that deportation has on family members who remain and employers. Second, many deportable foreign nationals have resided in the United States since infancy. Third, deportation implies a failure on the part of the criminal justice system to rehabilitate incarcerated persons, forcing them to serve sentences imposed by U.S. courts and leave the country immediately afterwards in order to protect the public. Rethinking removal and developing reasonable alternatives is a challenge that requires our immediate attention. Our current deportation policy destroys the lives of those who fall prey to it, and it destroys U.S. families and communities in the process. Nothing is gained, and ultimately, we all lose. We need to be restoring pre-1996 discretion to immigration judges to enable them to make a fair assessment of whether an immigrant deserves a second chance. Short of that, ICE needs to exercise its discretion to grant a probation-type period to individuals to observe their behavior.
The world of corporate fraud prosecutions also suggests an interesting tool that could be useful in developing alternatives to deportation for criminal aliens. In response to the extent of corporate scandals, federal prosecutors have adopted strategies to manage the complexity of prosecutions and to foster better behavior on the part of corporations. For example, by using prosecution guidelines, prosecutors can elect to defer prosecution in cases where the corporation cooperates with investigatory agents and takes remedial actions to remedy its illegal behaviors. This culminates in a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) between the government and the corporation, which is essentially a form of probation, or "pretrial diversion," where the government suspends charges against the company if all the details of the agreement are fulfilled.
Prosecutors agree not to pursue the charges and to dismiss them with prejudice after a period of time (generally between one and two years) if the corporation honors all of the terms of the agreement. In return, corporations undertake reforms, pledge active and complete cooperation with the ongoing investigation, and pay substantial civil penalties and victim restitution. Companies will often be required to engage the services of a monitor or examiner during the diversion period to review and report on compliance efforts.
DPAs provide tremendous rehabilitative incentives to the corporations that are party to them. This innovation in the world of corporate scandal where billions of dollars may be involved and the lives of officers, board members, employees, and shareholders are at stake is adaptable to the criminal immigrant deportation setting. Why not monitor and impose conditions on such individuals for a reasonable period of time to see if rehabilitation is possible? Why not provide government attorneys or immigration judges with the authority to implement such conditions?
The experiment that we call America is a test of our character and our willingness to believe that we can have a strong country that is caring and diverse. Showing compassion and fairness in our immigration policies is not a sign of weakness. Rather, those traits demonstrate a confidence in a rule of law and system of government that metes out punishment when necessary, but understands that regulating the lives of those who seek to live within our borders must be done with the utmost compassion, dignity, and understanding. As in previous generations, there is much to admire about individuals who come to our shores seeking freedom and a better life. Whether they are fleeing persecution or entering to seek work in order to better their lives, the newcomers of today are not much different from those of the past. Once here, welcoming newcomers and understanding the challenges that they will be facing are imperative. As they become part of our neighborhoods and communities, some may make mistakes, but we do well to remember that supporting rehabilitation, giving a second chance, and providing ways for individuals to mature are essential elements of a civil society. While these traits of a civil society benefit individuals, they benefit us all as a common community. Although traits of forgiveness may immediately benefit the individual, in the end, we all benefit. When an individual finally turns the corner and becomes a contributing member, the entire community benefits -- socially, emotionally, and economically.
]]>Vigilante Racism and the De-Americanization of Muslim Americanstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9459192011-09-06T13:49:46-04:002011-11-06T05:12:02-05:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/
Consider the experience of the Muslim American Society in Westchester County, New York, this past Tuesday. In celebration of Eid-ul-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, the group organized a daylong event at Rye Playland amusement park. The celebration ended with baton-wielding police officers pounding Muslim women to the ground.
The mess began when Haifa Ali, wearing her traditionally hijab headscarf attempted to board a rollercoaster. A park employee asked her to remove the hijab, citing a park rule that loose items had to be removed for safety reasons. Ali explained that it was against her religion to remove the scarf and that she had been permitted to wear the scarf on other similar rides. When the attendant stood firm, Ali and other women in the group decided to go ask for a refund. But someone grabbed her hijab from behind to pull it off then a park ranger wrestled another one of the women in the group to the ground. From there, other law enforcement officers began to converge on the group, hitting them with batons and pinning some of the women to the ground. An independent eyewitness heard one female police officer yell, "I don't give a f*ck about your culture." And one blogger commented the next day, "This is Playland, not Prayland. Thanks to some trusty batons and nine different police agencies, the rides (and the funnel cakes, God bless 'em) stayed 100% American yesterday."
Unfortunately, the incident, occurring shortly before the 10-year anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11, is a stark reminder of the expanded profiling of Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians by officials and misguided civilians in the past decade.
Within hours of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Americans of Muslim, Middle Eastern, and South Asian descent found themselves targeted for acts of hate and racial profiling. In a suburb of Chicago three hundred protestors, many waving American flags and chanting "USA! USA!" marched on a mosque. One 19-year-old demonstrator exclaimed, "I'm proud to be an American and I hate Arabs and I always have." In Huntington, New York, a 75-year-old man tried to run over a Pakistani woman in the parking lot of a shopping mall. He then followed the woman into a store and threatened to kill her for "destroying my country." In San Diego, a Sikh woman was attacked by a knife-wielding man, shouting "This is what you get for what you've done to us." A Sikh family was followed out of a restaurant by two white men who screamed to the family, "Go back to your country." Soon, arrests were made of individuals who were racially profiled, and by October, over 1,100 suspicious individuals, mostly Arab Americans, were detained, without access to family or counsel. By November, the Department of Justice developed a list of five thousand Middle Eastern men, between the ages of 18 and 33, who were to be "voluntarily" interviewed.
The fact that hateful acts and words of private citizens are followed up with official regimes of detention and profiling only reaffirms the subordination of the victims through suspicion of loyalty. The governmental imprimatur helps to marginalize the victims in U.S. society.
The message is one of exclusion: "You Muslims, Middle Easterners, and South Asians are not true Americans." Certainly, de-Americanization is a process that involves racism, but unlike the racism directed at African Americans, with its foundations in the historically held beliefs of inferiority, de-Americanizers base their assault on loyalty and foreignness. In the minds of the private actors, who are nothing more than lawless vigilantes, self-appointed enforcers of true Americanism, their victims are immigrants or foreigners even though they may in fact be citizens by birth or through naturalization. Irrespective of the victim community's possible longstanding status in the country, its members are regarded as perpetual foreigners. The victim community is forever regarded as immigrant America, as opposed to simply part of America and its diversity.
What has been happening to Muslims, Middle Easterners, and South Asians in the United States in the wake of 9/11 is a process of ostracism from the American community -- a de-Americanization process -- that we have witnessed before. The process often involves two aspects -- (1) the actions of private individuals and (2) official government-sanctioned actions. On the private side, the process involves identifying the victims as foreigners, sometimes mistakenly, other times simply treating the person as a foreigner knowing otherwise. De-Americanization is a twisted brand of xenophobia that is not simply hatred of foreigners, but also hatred of those who in fact may not be foreigners but whom the vigilantes would prefer being removed from the country anyway.
Sadly, the de-Americanization process is capable of reinventing itself generation after generation. We have seen this exclusionary process aimed at those of Jewish, Asian, Mexican, Haitian, and other descent throughout the nation's history. De-Americanization is not simply xenophobia, because more than fear of foreigners is at work. This is a brand of nativism cloaked in a Euro-centric sense of America that combines hate and racial profiling. Whenever we go through a period of de-Americanization like what is currently happening to South Asians, Arabs, and Muslim Americans, a whole new generation of Americans surmises that exclusion and hate is acceptable; that the definition of who is an American can be narrow; that they too have license to profile. Their license is issued when others around them engage in hate and the government chimes in with its own profiling. This is part of the sad process of unconscious and institutionalized racism that haunts our country.
There are two Americas when it comes to race, ethnic background, and who is an American. One is an all-embracing America on the matter of who is an American. This vision recognizes that the United States is a land of immigrants, and that in spite of exclusionary policies aimed at different groups throughout its history, the country is comprised of members of all different shades and ethnic backgrounds. The other America is narrow in its view of who is an American. This second vision is Euro-centric, excluding those of Latin and Asian descent, and as we have witnessed since 9/11, excluding those of Muslim, Arab, or South Asian background.
The nation's public relations position is that we are a proud nation of immigrants inclusive of all. Yes, we take steps in the direction of inclusiveness. But we take steps backwards in that regards as well. We learn and unlearn, and in the process, the bad behavior of vigilante racism is reinforced. In the process, we de-Americanize many communities of color, perpetuating their image as immigrant Americans rather than full Americans.
]]>One Hand Clapping for Latest Obama Deportation Reformstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9326462011-08-23T17:28:13-04:002011-10-24T05:12:01-04:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/announced that the deportation of thousands of undocumented immigrants could be halted if they are not criminals and pose no national security threat. Once terminated, the individuals can apply for permission to work. A special government working group will be reviewing the current deportation caseload to clear out low-priority cases on a case-by-case basis. The idea is to make more room to deport people who have been convicted of crimes or pose a security risk. The likely beneficiaries of the termination of deportation action include undocumented students whose parents brought them to the U.S. as youngsters (commonly called DREAM Act students), spouses of U.S. military members, and same-sex partners of U.S. citizens. In large part, the announcement was simply a statement of clarity and a vow of consistency for orders by ICE director John Morton issued in June, announcing that prosecutorial discretion could be exercised to terminate certain deportation proceedings.
Some immigrant rights advocates were quick to hail the White House announcement as a sound policy decision, while progressive members of Congress like Senator Dick Durbin and Congressman Luis Gutierrez applauded the measure.
There is no denying that the new procedure is good for anyone currently facing deportation and gets their proceedings terminated. In fact, just a few days before the White House announcement, deportation was terminated for one of my own clients -- the case of a 16-year-old boy, Roberto, involving minor charges over bringing a toy pellet gun to school. Roberto benefited from the new process that likely was already underway before the White House announcement. Roberto and his family were overjoyed, and the legal services attorney I assisted was extremely happy as well.
Yet the new case-by-case determination that can lead to work authorization for individuals facing deportation is a far cry from what Durbin, Harry Reid, and advocates were actually hoping for -- an across the board, blanket halt to any action against all DREAM Act-eligible students including those not facing deportation. The timing of the White House announcement was also curious, coming on the heels of high profile protests by immigrants and their advocates against the DHS Secure Communities initiative (S-Comm) that has resulted in the removal of thousands of immigrants who are not dangerous criminals or national security problems. The announcement appeared to serve as cover for the growing criticism against the White House for its harsh immigration enforcement policies. Whatever its justification, Obama's DHS has been shattering Bush era deportation and detention records.
The Obama administration also trumpets its "silent raids" or audits of employers who are suspected of hiring undocumented workers. While the raids generally have not featured the gun-toting, military-like craziness of Bush era job raids, thousands and thousands of immigrant workers continue to lose their jobs as employers are threatened with fines. Workers are driven further underground and are exploited by unscrupulous employers.
How we got to this point -- where the Obama administration has become brutally committed to immigration enforcement that preys on innocent workers and breaks up families -- may be a matter of debate. Some suspect that Obama was enforcement minded all along or that his DHS is simply doing its job. However, others feel that the harsh enforcement is a manifestation of bad negotiation strategies by Obama in his effort to achieve comprehensive immigration reform or the passage of the DREAM Act. The president's own words suggest that he tried to convince Republicans that he could be tough on immigration enforcement if they would agree to a legalization program for at least some segment of the undocumented population.
"In recent years, among the greatest impediments to reform were questions about border security. . . Well, over the past two years we have answered those concerns. . .They wanted more agents on the border. Well, we now have more boots on the ground on the southwest border than at any time in our history...They wanted a fence. Well, that fence is now basically complete...We tripled the number of intelligence analysts working the border. ..[E]ven though we've answered these concerns, I suspect there will be those who will try to move the goal posts one more time. They'll say we need to triple the border patrol. Or quadruple the border patrol. They'll say we need a higher fence to support reform. Maybe they'll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat. They'll never be satisfied. I understand. That's politics."
Bad negotiator indeed. While the Republicans continue "to move the goal posts," the White House has dutifully played along, getting tougher and tougher on immigrant communities. Yes, the Republicans likely deserve most of the blame for the nation's failure to do the right thing for millions of immigrants who are simply here to work for an honest day's wage to put food on the family table -- immigrants who would rather be back home, but NAFTA and globalization have seen to it that steady work isn't possible back home. Yet, if Republicans are not being honest or are not negotiating fairly, then the White House does not have to be manipulated into doing the wrong thing.
While I applaud the recent partial step that has been taken on behalf many immigrants who should not be in deportation proceedings, the Obama administration needs to do more: terminate its enforcement regime of S-Comm, that continues to harass victims of crimes and low-level offenders; stop its "silent raid" audits of employers that simply results in job loss for hard working immigrants contributing to the economy; stop the removal of those who are on the severely backlogged family visa system and well as those who have committed crimes but deserve a second chance. It's time for President Obama to give us hope that he understands that we are a nation of immigrants that includes those who simply want to live, work, and contribute to our society in peace.
]]>Control the Border: Invest in Mexicotag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8964732011-07-12T18:00:11-04:002011-09-11T05:12:02-04:00Bill Ong Hinghttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-ong-hing/countless jobs since NAFTA went into effect in 1994.
The effect that bailing out the Mexican economy would have was illustrated in a long-term survey of emigration patterns done by Douglas Massey of Princeton showing that interest in heading to the United States had fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s. "No one wants to hear it, but the flow has already stopped," Massey told the New York Times. "For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative." The primary reasons: The Mexican birth rate has fallen to about two children per woman from nearly seven in 1970; Mexico's education system and economy have improved to a point more young people choose to stay (per family income is up 45 percent this decade); and drug violence along Mexico's border is likely deterring those who do think of crossing. It seems that stepped-up border enforcement and Arizona SB1070-type laws have little to do with the decline.
Whether or not you believe that "net traffic has gone to zero," for those who advocate control of the borders there is everything to gain by pushing for greater investment in Mexico. On a recent visit to Vietnam, I was struck by the serious efforts that the United States has engaged in over the past decade to help Vietnam with its economy, by entering into a bilateral trade agreement, pushing for its entry into the WTO, and encouraging investment in Vietnam. Likewise, the United States needs to consider an investment model -- with close monitoring of that investment -- in Mexico as part of comprehensive immigration reform. Reducing undocumented migration is in Mexico's interest as well; the persistent loss of able-bodied workers needed to build its infrastructure and economy cannot be good for Mexico.
Before the international financial crisis, the European Union -- through its European Social Fund -- invested huge sums in roads and education in roads and education in new, poorer member states and narrowed their income gap with the rest of Europe, and workers stayed home because jobs were created. Similarly, the three NAFTA countries should establish a fund to invest in roads, telecommunications, and postsecondary education in Mexico. Mexico lacks the capital to build the infrastructure that is necessary to narrow the gap with Canada and the United States. If its northern neighbors contributed 10 percent of what the EU spends on aid, with wise investments in infrastructure and education, Mexico could experience growth at a rate twice that of Canada and the United States. Building up the central part of the country could relieve congestion at the border, and the whole system could be better managed. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox has urged the United States to invest 2 percent of its GDP in Mexico to narrow the wage gap while helping the economies of both countries to compete with China.
Focusing on the educational system in Mexico is also key. Mexican students fall near the bottom in cross-country comparisons on basic literacy, math, and science. While the education level of adults in the U.S. is almost thirteen years, in Mexico, the level is about seven. This low level has severe implications for competitiveness and the standard of living of Mexicans.
Investments in Mexico also have to be targeted. Mexico's domestic industries need help, for example, by using domestic parts and supplies in production imports. Businesses need financing; many are facing international competition from places like China. The rural areas of Mexico really suffered under NAFTA. Subsistence farmers in Mexico were not given assistance or time to make adjustments under NAFTA. Nothing was done to help protect their income as trade conditions changed. The development of fruit and vegetable production can absorb some of the rural workers who have been displaced. Serious investment in new technologies in small and medium-size industries also is necessary. Some of this can be achieved through tax incentives to spur economic growth in the country's interior.
If we are to solve the challenge of undocumented Mexican immigration, heavy investment in Mexico's infrastructure and economy must be made. The EU did this successfully in bringing in poor nations, avoiding huge migration from poor to wealthy member nations and creating more jobs at home. All three NAFTA countries have much to gain from this approach.]]>