The Government Mindgame Over Undocumented Immigrants
One of the fundamental factors causing debate over illegal immigration enforcement is the public perception of undocumented immigrants. Are they real criminals? Some in law enforcement have gone to great lengths to paint them in this light. Yet a new examination of government immigration enforcement strategies uncovers a deliberate attempt to confuse real criminals with those who only lack the proper paperwork.
Arizona's Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is the quintessential marketer when it comes to creating media buzz on his unique style of law enforcement.
It's what garnered him his own show on the Fox Reality Network titled Smile ...You're Under Arrest! Yet, it's his immigration enforcement tactics that have made him the darling of right-wing supporters, scorned by those repulsed by his methods and admired by those constituents who feel he's doing a good job keeping them safe.
From stakeouts in Hispanic-heavy neighborhoods with his "posse" of law enforcement to catch unsuspecting undocumented immigrants to his latest tactic of mass-marching 200 shackled immigrant inmates from a brick-and-mortar jail to the infamous Tent City electric fence complex, Sheriff Arpaio obviously relishes the role as immigration enforcer.
And while the 21,183 undocumented immigrants Sheriff Arpaio is credited with turning over to immigration authorities for deportation is staggering for a county sheriff -- his latest press release boasts 67 arrests in the last 13 days -- the larger reality is that the only crime most of these immigrants have committed is not having their papers in order. An in-depth newspaper series on Sheriff Arpaio found that after reviewing his department's immigration arrest records from 2006 and 2007, the majority of immigrants arrested rarely were guilty of any other crimes.
Yet, it's been Arpaio's mission to paint every undocumented immigrant as a dangerous criminal. After all, it's much easier to scare the public into agreeing with extreme enforcement measures when they think criminals, in the traditional sense of the word, are running loose.
Though Arpaio would probably like to take credit for creating this kind of mindgame, we now know it's a strategy that was implemented at the highest level of immigration enforcement -- the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE.
A recent New York Times article found evidence that ICE, under the banner of apprehending only fugitive criminal aliens, routinely arrested undocumented immigrants who had no criminal records and no deportation orders against them.
It was a strategy that countered ICE's promises to Congress that they would only concentrate on arresting those undocumented immigrants who had committed hard crimes and who were suspected of being terrorists. In that respect, it was much easier to get Congressional funding and public support.
It also justified the department's Gestapo-like behavior of beating the front doors down on the homes of innocent Hispanic families and traumatizing them under the guise of searching for criminal immigrants.
In a report released this week by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute titled "Collateral Damage: An Examination of ICE's Fugitive Operations Program", it was found that of the 97,000 people arrested from the inception of the National Fugitive Operation's Program in 2003 to early 2008, 73 percent were undocumented immigrants without criminal records.
That's a significant finding considering this program received more than $625 million from Congress, more than any other Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement program, for the express purpose of finding and removing only those fugitive aliens with criminal records.
The sad result of the gross misdirection of this program is that ICE officials admit that 557,762 real criminal aliens still remain in the country. Unfortunately, unless Secretary Napolitano intervenes and renews the program's mission, these same abuses will persist given the fact that each of the 104 fugitive operations teams has an annual quota of arresting 1,000 criminal aliens -- that's up from the 2006 quota of 125.
While the rule of law certainly must be enforced, in these times when local, state and national governments are finding themselves cash-strapped to implement even the most basic services for their citizens, it doesn't make sense to spend millions of dollars on manpower rounding up and detaining people whose only crimes are they lack the correct paperwork to be in the country legally.
One of Sheriff Arpaio's reasons for moving his 200 immigrant inmates to Tent City was because it's cheaper to house them there than in a traditional jail.
Yet, wouldn't it save a lot more money if only true criminal aliens were the ones being arrested and jailed?
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An investigation by the Washington Post shows that undocumented workers pay billions of dollars each year in taxes from which they receive no substantial benefit, including Social Security taxes they will never be able to collect. While some may not pay taxes, most do so gladly, feeling that they are benefiting from living and working in the US, even if they are undocumented. The Internal Revenue Service does not report possible undocumented workers to the INS, in part because of privacy rules and in part because the agency wants to collect as much tax revenue as possible.
A study in Oregon revealed that the state would lose $17.7billi
Which myopic politician will forego that sort of money in a xenophobic crusade to oust undocumented
workers from her(his) state? That would be political suicide, and they know it.
The crusade against the weakest members of our society, those who have no voice to fight back but contribute silently and disproportionately, is cowardly and sensationalist, appealing to the weakest minds and the lowest morals of our society.
It needs to stop. We need some sane minds to find a way to adequately embrace these people after rigorous screening and without the miles and miles of red tape and years of waiting that normally occurs. Just like when mass immigration from Europe occured in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Those who hire ILLEGALS should be jailed and heavily fined. All ILLEGAL ALIENS should be deported. End of story.
Not quite...Th
Maybe you should concentrate on speeders, or ganja smokers...
Your stance is one of ignorant recalcitrance. Illegal immigration has long been a feature of American society going back to those who landed on Ellis Island, undocumented and beyond. Most, if not all of them have been accomodated as law abiding citizens.
The politics of fear and loathing uses the undocumented workers like a snot rag. Bringing them in by the thousand to clean toilets and office buildings, man kitchens and abbatoirs via an underground railroad of unscrupulous coyotes, financed by employers seeking compliant people willing to be paid miserly sums for working in dead-end jobs that we just won't do.
It's capitalism, buddy...as long as there's a need, the market will supply, wether you like it or not....
Jobs like working construction?
working on military bases?
working in motels?
working in restaurants/fast food?
working in factories?
How about just PLAIN WORKING? Do you have any idea how many American workers NEED jobs at this moment?
The US Chamber of Commerce wants to flood the country with NON VOTING workers. They want to do to US citizenship what the did to union membership, make it meaningless. Solution, enforce the labor laws, make it easy to join unions, and fight voter suppression. Then become an active citizen!
So-called 'illegal' immigrants and workers need to be fed, clothed and sheltered. They need to travel and purchase; and guess what happens every time they fulfill any one of the above functions? THEY PAY TAXES! Only,they have no representation.
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If truth be known, these people also pay income taxes to the extent that there is a government fund, currently running inot the billions which consist of tax contributions from workers with illegitimate SS numbers.
Just like the illicit drugs trade, illegal immigration is a breeding ground for gangsters and mobsters to make money 'under the table' at the cost of the livelihood of people whose only wish is to feed their families, in the vast majority of cases.
These people man our abbatoirs, clean our houses, change our babies diapers and clean the home of many an elected representative - tasks which the majority of Americans are loath to doing.
Draconian and misleading immigration initiatives are missing the mark. In a capitalist society, the supply always meets the demand....
We pay BILLIONS to educate and provide health care to people who don't belong here. They all need to go back to their own countries and make them better places to live. Or they could come here LEGALLY.
The rampant know-nothing-ism in America today bothers me. It appears to be nearly as rampant among many so-called liberals as among conservatives, and that bothers me too. Frankly, I believe that anyone who wishes to come to the US and wishes to do a day's work for a day's pay and abide by the law of the land should be welcome. Much of the American West was built by Chinese labor, none of which was 'legal' at the time: the US had a strict policy banning Chinese immigrants as 'undesirab
Now it is Mexicans who are 'undesirable', but the basic problem is the same: capitalist interests wish to limit legal immigration to create a pool of illegal immigrants who can be drawn upon as a cheap source of labor not subject to American labor laws.
Know-nothings have always said the same things: immigrants are criminals, immigrants bring drugs and vice with them, immigrants are welfare bums whom taxpayers support. None of these things have ever been true. If there is a 'real impact' that illegal immigration has on the United States it is the moral impact of our immigration policies and business practices not reflecting our values as a nation.
All they need to do is come here LEGALLY. Thousands of people do it daily. The "undersirables" are the ones that come here ILLEGALLY and sponge off the government.
"and abide by the law of the land should be welcome."
Getting here illegally is not abiding by the law.
"Some of the illegal immigrants WANT to be legal American citizens"
Then let them do it the way that is spelled out in U.S. law and not just willy nilly invading our country. You know Mexico deports Guatemalan illegals, right? So why should we take their citizens in?
Look, illegal immigration has a real impact on this country. It's fine to feel sympathy that those folks are fleeing a piece of crap third world country, but it also is NOT our responsibility to act as an ad hoc welfare agency for a foreign nation. Mexicans should stand up for themselves in effecting change in their native land. and not take the coward's way out by heading to El Norte.
The problem with Arpaio isn't that he's enforcing U.S. immigration law. The issue with him is that he is doing it seemingly at the exclusion of everything else and the crime rate in Maricopa County is out of control now thanks to his grandstanding.
First and foremost, illegal immigrants do not 'invade' our country. They are brought here. More specifically, they are brought here by mercenaries called 'coyotes.' American agribusiness companies, meat-packing companies, hotel companies, and restaurants (among other businesses) pay coyotes to provide them with a fixed number of workers for a year. The coyotes both actively recruit and accept volunteers, in the latter case requiring extra payment from the immigrants despite already having been paid by their corporate employers. Once in the country, the immigrants are used as a cheap labor force unable to appeal to the protection of state and federal labor laws because of their illegal status.
So we have three things: an exploited class of non-citizens being victimized by American capitalism, a professional criminal class that exists in order to facilitate their exploitation, and a motley crew of American capitalists exploiting them. Our response to this circumstance? Treat the exploited class like the criminals.
The only solution to the problem of illegal immigration is a completely new immigration policy with Mexico, allowing easy, legal immigration into the United States and allowing those who wish to become US citizens and those who do not wish such to contribute to the American economy without being unduly exploited. Target the coyotes and their corporate employers instead of the immigrants, while encouraging legal immigration rather than discouraging it, and you punish the real criminals. Combine both of these approaches, and you actually solve the problem.
You are mostly right. The real guilty parties are the employers of undocumented workers.
To end the practice it will be necessary to levy very heavy fines on those employers. Those fines should be dedicated to a system to humanely return all undocumented persons to their country of origin.
Any undocumented person with an outstanding warrant should be detained and given a trail and punished if guilty. Millions of jobs in the US can be retained by removing those undocumented workers from the workforce.
Listen and learn: "Undocumented immigrants are, in fact, Illegal Aliens." Now, what part of illegal do you not understand? Until you and others understand what the term means, no discussion is valid.
Some of the illegal immigrants WANT to be legal American citizens. Some of them are criminals. It's kind of an important distinction. Moral and ethical considerations are, in fact, the BASIS of the law.
By the same token, speeding is ILLEGAL...
This is understood.
What is being discussed is the merits of it's illegality.
In your black and white world of absolutism, it's the shades of grey which dictate...
I simply object to the politically correct term "Undocumented immigrants
By the way, you have not enough information to decide whether or not I live in a "black and white world of absolutism". On the other hand, your comment does reveal a tendency to live in a world of moral relativism. Which of us is correct? Both? Neither?
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