"All mothers want their children to live a better life than theirs; to give them the opportunity to fulfill their hopes and dreams. Throughout my childhood my mother worked countless double-shifts flipping burgers and scrubbing toilets at the local fast food joint. We never talked about the cockroach-ridden apartments or the yearning to see our family back in Colombia. Instead we smiled through the grit, the tears and the heartache. As the years passed, I realized our story was not unique. Thousands of immigrant mothers, for hundreds of years, endured what we had overcome for exactly the same reason, a better life for their children." -- Paola Mendoza, award-winning documentary filmmaker
Since the founding of our nation, mothers from every continent in the world have come to America to seek a better life for their families. Their hopes and dreams have been inspired by the founding ideals of this nation -- that of freedom and equality.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
These words, enshrined in our Declaration of Independence 234 years ago, conveyed a profound aspiration upon which to build a nation. And as time passes, this aspiration requires constant cultivation so that its intent can be upheld and celebrated.
Yesterday we heard the news that Federal Judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction in the case of United States v. State of Arizona, blocking much of Arizona's SB 1070 from going into effect today. The fact that Judge Bolton knocked out some of the most damaging provisions is a step in the right direction. But we're not out of the woods yet. Human rights abuses in the name of immigration law enforcement were being inflicted upon mothers, children, and others in Arizona (and throughout the country) long before Arizona's SB 1070 was introduced, and without vigilance to uphold our founding values, these abuses are likely to continue into the future despite the recent ruling.
As President Obama noted in a recent speech, the Arizona law has "the potential of violating the rights of innocent American citizens and legal residents, making them subject to possible stops or questioning because of what they look like or how they sound."
Laws that allow the violation of civil and human rights of anyone, anywhere in the United States, are not compatible with our nation's founding principles. They are not compatible with the spirit of our Declaration of Independence. They are not what we, as a nation, aspire to be.
And let's not deny it -- human rights violations are indeed happening in our nation in the name of immigration law enforcement. A United Nations report in March of 2008 states that:
[X]enophobia and racism towards migrants in the United States has worsened since 9/11. The current xenophobic climate adversely affects many sections of the migrant population, and has a particularly discriminatory and devastating impact on many of the most vulnerable groups in the migrant population, including children... [T]he United States lacks a clear, consistent, long-term strategy to improve respect for the human rights of migrants.
For those for whom seeing is believing, here's a video of what happened to two young children in Arizona in January of 2009:
The video starts with the two children crying and looking terrified, alone in a car, reaching out for their mother who had been taken away by deputies wearing ski masks after being stopped for a minor traffic violation.
A local NBC news report described the incident through the eyes of a witness who said the children cried and watched for about an hour while their mother was kept separated from them.
Law enforcement officials in ski masks? A nightmare that will never happen in America, right? Wrong.
The person in charge of these masked men was Sheriff Joe Arpaio. He has been cited repeatedly for gross civil rights violations and racial profiling of both citizens and non-citizens in the name of immigration enforcement. When questioned about his tactics, he said that under his jurisdiction "it was not unusual for law enforcement officers to wear ski masks while on duty."
Among other appalling actions, Arpaio has also marched people in shackles through town to electric fenced "tent cities" in the sweltering desert.
Incidents like this, and when law enforcement officials wear ski masks to pull parents aside in front of children, cross over the line of humane treatment. Way over.
And again, these human rights violations were happening before the new Arizona law was passed. If the federal judge's injunction should be overruled and the law begins to be enforced, imagine what expanded human and civil rights violations could be committed in the light of day. Surely not something that our country's founders envisioned for America.
The children, especially, suffer when we treat each other inhumanely.
"Do you remember the day you dropped off your child at day care or school for the first time? Do you recall the pain that you felt when your child cried out of fear and sadness because you were leaving? This exact feeling is multiplied thousands of times for us on a daily basis when we think about the many mothers who have already been detained while at work, on their way home from grocery shopping, and outside of schools when dropping off their children. We carry this same anxiety knowing that any one of us may be next. This is simply torment for mothers. It is deeply painful for the children too. Every time we leave each others' side, it is possible that we may not see each other again." -- Cecilia Menjivar
Cecilia's story was sent to MomsRising , a national non-partisan organization with more than a million members working to build a family-friendly America. Recently, MomsRising put out a call to people from many walks of life asking for them to share how current immigration law enforcement practices are impacting the human and civil rights of children, mothers, and families across the nation, including in Arizona in response to the passage of SB1070.
Here are highlights from some of the responses and you can read all of the blog posts here.
Linda Meric: "And SB 1070 actually increases the threat to women facing domestic violence or sexual assault. Why would a woman call the police to report a crime, why would she ask the police to come to her home, when the first thing they're going to do is demand her citizenship documentation or that of her family members? This law is a boon for those who would threaten and abuse wives, girlfriends, partners and other women."
Amalia Guzman Molina: "I know firsthand the struggle and heartbreak immigrant families experience when loved ones are incarcerated. My experience in a U.S. immigration jail led me to dedicate my life to advocating on behalf of this often marginalized community. And while it's no secret that the U.S. has both the highest number of people in prison and the highest rate of arrests in the world, very little attention is paid to the high number of children who end up alone as a result--and even less to the children of incarcerated immigrants."EunSook Lee: "Until something is done soon, SB 1070 will be implemented starting July 29. In truth, however, we have heard reports that intimidation and profiling has already begun with police cordoning off neighborhoods and conducting sweeps to check for citizenship. The fear is now pervasive. From our first trip, a young woman shared that that she worries about her mother and calls her several times a day to make sure she is safe. Does any of this sound like the America we want to live in?"
Ellen Bravo: "As the sheriff's truck followed our van several blocks through Phoenix, I kept thinking what the sight of that vehicle would mean for Silvia or Esperanza or Alejandra or the other women we'd met: Visions of being yanked out of the van and ordered to produce papers. Picturing kids arriving to an empty house. Wondering whether the sheriff would drag you by the hair or slam you against a wall. Having no idea how long you'd be detained, or whether you'd be expelled from the place your ancestors called home. Agonizing whether an older child might have to drop out of school to get a job or care for younger siblings."
Jim Wallis: "There are Democrats and Republicans who in the past have said they supported comprehensive immigration reform, and so there ought now to be bipartisan support for such a bill. But in the ultra-partisan and poisoned atmosphere of the U.S. Congress now, bipartisan spirit has fled the halls of power. In Washington, politics is now just a game of win and lose, and it's only about the next election; it's no longer about solving problems. But the problem is that there are children and families in the balance, and the politicians are now playing politics with the lives of vulnerable people. Those people are our brothers and sisters, they are our parishioners, and they are children of God. And the faith community has come together to say the time for politics over compassion is over."
At the heart of the blogs collected by MomsRising is the call for rational and reasonable national conversations on the human and civil rights impacts of current immigration law enforcement practices. The desire for this wells up from knowing what is already happening to mothers, children, and families.
As the national debate on immigration continues to heat up, and as summer temperatures and temperaments rise, we urge all Americans and especially our elected leaders to take a moment in a cool location to relax and read the collection of blogs MomsRising has compiled and reflect on the founding principles of our nation. The blogs can be read here.
Together let's work to advance cool-headed, not cold-hearted, solutions to our country's immigration issues.
While not all of us are going to see eye-to-eye on how our immigration policies should be revised, surely most of us can agree to uphold a vision that all children and mothers -- in fact everyone standing within our nation's boarders -- should not be abused nor have their human and civil rights violated.
With this humanity as our guiding vision, in future years we will be able to look back and say: My generation upheld and even advanced the aspirations of our country's founders.
Follow Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rowefinkbeiner
Rev. Jennifer Kottler: The Immigration Fight Isn't Over
Philip Reynolds: The Biblical Definitions Of The Pursuit Of Happiness
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie: Religion Can Save America. Case In Point -- Immigration Reform
The 21 million Americans who cannot find work while 7.5 million Illegal Immigrants work in jobs they used to do.
Teenagers who cannot find summer jobs and teens not going to college who have a 26% unemployment rate because the jobs are filled by Illegal Immigrants.
Citizen Construction Workers who saw their wages fall 14% before the current recession and are suffering an 18% unemployment rate now thanks to Illegal Immigration.
Citizen meatpacking workers who saw their wages fall from $19/hr. to $13/hr. all the while loosing their jobs to Illegal Immigrants.
Citizens suffering from identity theft perpetrated on them by people trying to illegally work in the USA.
Potential Legal Immigrants who wait up to 14 years to come legally because Illegal Immigrants have taken too many jobs.
The working poor who, before the current recession, experienced a growing percent of their number earning below poverty level wages thanks to Illegal Immigration driving down wages an average of 8% as documented by various Economists.
People who must wait for emergency service in hospital Emergency Rooms thanks to Illegal Immigrants going there for non-emergency treatment.
Citizens suffering unemployment, watching the latest company in their town caught employing Illegal Immigrants, knowing that the government is not going to lift a finger to remove the illegal workers from the workforce. And knowing that often these illegal workers are protected by their own local government with sanctuary city laws.
What about their human rights?
1. The government. The government should have been enforcing immigration laws and employment laws.
2. The illegal immigrants themselves, who should be using legal means to emigrate here. There are also far more people who want to come here than we can handle, and the U.S. takes in far more people than any other country.
3. The employers.
Gutting SB1070 was certainly NOT a "step in the right direction." Let these people stay in their own homelands and have the guts to fix their problems at HOME instead of sneaking over here and committing crime.
In short I find this article to be lame, insulting and a disgrace to Americans and especially Arizonans.
It used to be that to become a United States citizen, one had to enter this country legally as an immigrant, or resident alien who had to report annually to the federal governemnt. After five years, one could become a citizen by showing proficiency in English, passing a test on the U.S. Constitution and swearing allegiance to the United States. These requirements were so that foreigners would assimilate into American culture and uphold America political values. The illegal immigrants flooding the coutrnty are a slap in the face to the millions of legal immigrants.
Those who cross the Rio Grande to get here know they are breaking the law. They choose to pay a coyote to sneak them across the border instead of paying for legal immigration costs. Why be surprised when American cops treat them like criminals?
Look, police brutality and abuses of power are common. The police do not even treat American citizens right. A whining article is not going to influence cops to behave. A better bet is suing abusive police for violation of civil rights.
So its okay to abuse them? Even they deserve to be treated fairly if they are caught.
But besides this, the article not only talks about illegal immigrants, it mentions, legal and US citizens.
So I take it you don't care if your fellow US Citizens rights get walked all over.
You can't have your cake and eat it. Neither can they.
Americans need to get control of their out-of-control brutal and violent police and no one should be victimized by police abuses of power. In America, the police get away with murder --- when police kill people, it is always exonerated as justifiable force.
Police are never held accountable for their crimes except occasionally through lawsuits. Once a political entity has had to pay out enough judgments as a result of civil rights suits, the insurance company risk management people threaten to pull the city or state insurance unless a city fires its brutal cops.
People who are in this country illegally know they are here illegally. They should not be surprised if law enforcement catches up with them one day. When law enforcement catches up with them, however, they should be treated without violence, brutality or vindictiveness.
What these writers seem to be saying is that immigration laws should not be enforced. And that illegal immigrants should be nicely treated by law enforcement. It appears that the authors only care about police brutality and abuses when they are aimed at illegal immigrants and appear not to care a twit about police brutality aimed at black and poor Americans.
The writers seem to prefer that Immigratin and Naturalization not do their job, forgetting that 9/11 was one result of Immigration not doing its job.
"What is an internet? There's a black president? My lord!" That is what they would probably say before getting to the issue at hand. After saying that they might just disappoint you with their opinions. It has been 234 years. Quit invoking the founders like they are sitting on Mount Olympus and contemplating the issues of the present.
Those of us in high skill technical jobs understand this all too well as many of us have had extreme difficulty with our careers due to floods of foreign H-1B and L-1 guest workers. I urge you to please take a look at Donna Conroy's Bright Future Jobs website (www.brightfuturejobs.com) and maybe even try to contact her. I'm sure she will be able to explain to you how floods of cheap, highly exploitable foreign guest workers have caused severe career stability problems for U.S. citizens of ALL RACES, especially women, minorities and older workers (and by older workers, I mean the relatively young age of 35 is when the age discrimination starts to kick in).
As an example, if a woman takes more than a short period of time off from an Information Technology job to have kids, she might end up kissing that Information Technology job good-bye.
Contrary to what you keep hearing in the media there is NO SHORTAGE OF TECHNOLOGY WORKERS, in fact, the field is so highly competitive many people start to experience extreme difficulty after merely 15 years on the job.
Tech jobs discriminate heavily against anyone who is not young, and anyone seen as having the possibility where kids may interfere with their job is highly discriminated against.
Public Citizen has a lot of information on these trade agreements that have caused career instability in the US and that none of our politicians speak about when speaking about reform. The fact is that while these agreements are in place there can't be meaningful reform.
http://www.citizen.org/ search WTO on that site.
Obama claims, as did Clinton and Bush before him, that exports will increase jobs in the US. What no politician acknowledges publically is that the jobs lost by offshoring far outnumbers the jobs created.
Also, when selling NAFTA, Clinton argued that this agreement would reduce the number of Mexicans entering this country because well paying jobs would be created in their country. We know now that hasn't happened.
I noticed when looking at the "MomsRising" website referenced in your article that one of the issues they are trying to get support for is "fair and realistic wages" for women. What you need to realize is that you are never going to get to that goal if you keep supporting non-enforcement of immigration laws.
Our economy is based on supply and demand, and that goes for wages too. If the job market is flooded with illegal aliens and unnecessary guest workers, many U.S. citizen moms may not even be able to get a job, much less one that pays "fair and realistic wages". Jobs don't materialize out of thin air, and as globalization allows more jobs to be lost off shore, especially good paying technology jobs, our economy will be less able to support floods of illegal aliens taking low wage jobs since we have lost a large part of our manufacturing base.
If we grant an amnesty, kiss any hopes of higher wages for those who are low on the economic scale good-bye. In fact, kiss many of their jobs good-bye.
Consider a recent poll in Utah about women in the workforce. "Earlier this year women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in history. The Atlantic magazine declared the end of men in this month's issue because women appear to be taking control of everything from home finances to the board room. Utah has the fourth largest wage gap in the nation. Women here make only 69 percent of what men earn. The national average is 78 percent. In Utah 74% of women with school age children work." http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=11789041
It makes sense that those without education and lesser skills take less skilled jobs for lower wages. As we continue to educate our workforce in the U.S., no one can afford to take a low wage non skilled job. There is disparity all over the U.S. But can you correlate this to immigration laws or guest worker programs?
Both of you have very good points. I think your statement reprinted above is an idealized view in the real world, but is not sustained by downward pressures caused by a shifting economic base with no manufacturing jobs. The changing face of the US economy exiting higher paying jobs to lower-poorer paying countries has caused the middle class to compete with lower middle and lower paying jobs traditionally reserved for the non-skilled and non-educated. You've heard the story, a Baccalaureate degree working at McDonalds for minimum wage but in a new economy having to compete not just with marginal high school graduates but with illegal immigrants. This is not a good situation for any of the parties and this economy.
For the high skill technology jobs the issue is not illegal workers but H-1B and L-1 guest workers.
The U.S. has more than enough workers educated for these skilled technology jobs, but U.S. corporations prefer foreign workers from third world countries like India because the working arrangement is very similar to that of an indentured servant.
Because many H-1B workers are trying to get a Green Card, they are willing to take Information Technology jobs at wages that are 20% to 30% lower than a similarly qualified U.S. citizen worker. For workers from third world countries like India, it is all about getting the Green Card and the employer is in control of the Green Card process.
Third world job seekers look for a company to sponsor them for a Green Card and take a low salary to get one that will. Once the process is started, however, if the employee wants to change companies, the Green Card process must start all over.
Companies are relying in the fact that due to Green Card backlogs, it often takes six years to get a Green Card. So by hiring a foreign worker on H-1B you get a cheap, highly exploitable worker that won't change jobs because he wants a Green Card. Thus the H-1B visa system combined with the Green Card backlogs makes an indentured servant-like situation.
continued from my previous posting, item 5:
Check out this Atlanta Journal-Constitution article which explains how tech companies and their lobbyists have promoted stories of “shortages” of qualified tech workers in order to increase the cap on H-1B visas so they can import more cheap, highly exploitable foreign labor to replace American citizens with (including women, minorities, and older workers)
“Tech firms invent shortage panic” at: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/tech-firms-invent-shortage-190632.html
Here are a few more links to check out about the subject:
The American Engineering Association
www.aea.org
Most See Visa Program as Severely Flawed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/30/AR2006033001968.html?nav=rss_technology
Gaming the System (AFL-CIO)
http://www.dpeaflcio.org/pdf/Gaming_the_System_Report_.pdf
http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Management/Tech-Worker-Shortage-H1B-System-Challenged-Report-Says-812595/
Stop creating ridiculous schemes like the one in this article to further your agenda by calling everyone a xenophobe and a racist and start working with U.S. citizens to make hiring practices fair again. If we restore fair hiring practices instead of giving a free pass to hiring illegal aliens and guest workers for their exploitability, then we will reduce the racial tensions that lead to political radicalization.
NOTE: I have no affiliation with any of the groups listed in this string of postings.
5. Work toward passing legislation to end the abuse of guest worker programs, both skilled and unskilled. Rampant abuse of these programs is pushing U.S. citizen workers out of their jobs and causing more backlash against immigrants, both legal and illegal. U.S. citizen women and minorities are actually disadvantaging themselves by automatically reading racism into the motives of groups trying to reform these programs (The American Engineering Association, Bright Future Jobs, The Programmer's Guild, IEEE-USA, and The AFL-CIO to name a few), because the loopholes that were designed into guest worker programs (by corporate lobbyists) like H-1B and L-1 cause discrimination against ALL U.S. citizens of ALL races, sex, age, or religion (but especially older workers and citizen minorities) since, as I said above, the most exploitable worker is often the most desired worker.
If you don't believe me about the discrimination and detrimental effect these programs are having on women, minorities, and older U.S. citizen workers (all races), please read Donna Conroy's article on Huffington Post about H-1B and L-1 reform:
Going Political - Not Postal, By Donna Conroy of Bright Future Jobs – www.brightfuturejobs.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donna-conroy/going-political---not-pos_b_511585.html
Don't miss the video on the main page which shows immigration lawyers giving a presentation about how employers can make sure the U.S. CITIZEN DOES NOT GET THE JOB.
Direct link to video:
http://www.brightfuturejobs.com/contact/index.cfm?Fuseaction=contact
Stop being shills for these guys. You rail against them everyday here on HP but on this one issue of immigration you do their bidding and work against your own best interest. And the best interests of other workers here. They would love nothing more than for you to keep on blindly marching for more immigration (while they laugh behind your back) to flood the labor pool with more people in order to drive down wages so they make more money and you make less. We already accept more legal immigrants into our country right now than the rest of the world combined!
It's almost like low income people who vote Republican and vote against their own best interests. Ridiculous.
4. More illegal immigration just means more U.S. citizens put out of jobs, lower wages, and more backlash against illegal aliens. The preferred employee is often the most exploitable employee, and illegal aliens often get the job over a U.S. citizen not because they are better at what they are doing, but because they are more exploitable. This is true for both skilled and unskilled jobs. Stop pushing the propaganda line that illegal aliens don't take U.S. citizen jobs - they do. In fact, if you check statistics by the Pew Hispanic Center, you will find that U.S. citizens hold an overwhelming majority of the supposed "jobs Americans won't do" including farm work (75% U.S. citizen), construction, hospitality, food service, and landscaping and grounds maintenance.
2. Stop being enablers for illegal immigration. The U.S. is not a life raft and we will never be able to take in all of the world's poor and suffering. In fact, we cannot realistically even scratch the surface of eliminating the world's problems since the population of people who live in extreme poverty is a number that is many times the size of the entire population of the United Sates. Talks of amnesty only encourage more illegal immigrants to come here in hopes that they can get in on the next amnesty. Amnesties don't work either as we saw from the last amnesty. There will always be a "shadow economy" because we will never be able to eliminate the motivation to come here illegally (at least until conditions improve in the illegal alien's home countries). We can, however reduce this motivation by implementing and enforcing REAL employer verification. There are many effective ways of detecting stolen or fake social security numbers.
3. Actually enforce immigration instead of playing non-enforcement games. This will reduce the incentive for more illegals to come.
This article trivializes the REAL HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS that are going on in the world right now where people are being beaten and killed in order to further the anti-enforcement, amnesty, and open borders agendas.
If people want to make a real difference, work on the real issues, not legitimate deportations and exaggerating minor traffic stops into "human rights violations".
Here are a few things that would go a lot further than exaggerating legitimate deportations:
1. Legalize Marijuana. This would instantly remove 60% of the drug cartel's profits and take literally billions out of their pockets, thus making Mexico a safer place by reducing drug trafficking. Not only that, but Marijuana could then be taxed and used to fund programs to help people escape their addictions to harder drugs, thus removing more profits from the cartels.
Huffington Post is as good a place as any to develop your skills. You need to really keep it more cogent and simple. When defending criminals & the rights of Mexicans over US citizens, you have to remember some of your left-leaning readers will be thinking things like "What about the US homeless?" "What about American families living in poverty because some $2 an hour illegal took the mother's job?" "What about our schools and neighborhoods?" "We chose not to live in Mexico for a good reason, but now Mexico has moved here?" "How is this justice to ALL immigrants?"
Most reasonable people will read this peace as a glowing endorsement to a foreign invasion and the piece contains no real answers to quell the readers doubts, that you are selling them a bill of goods.
It would also help if you actually lived in Arizona to be qualified to talk about what's going on there. Second guessing the hard-working people in law enforcement, state government and the rest doesn't quite seem to sit well with the readers.