The War On Immigrants

When I hear the word "raid" these days, the first thing I think of us the war in Iraq. Something like, "US Forces Raid Shi'ite Stronghold of Sadr City." I have images of American forces going home by home, banging down the doors, threatening anyone they find and taking away the supposed evil-doers.

But then sometimes I hear the word "raid" mentioned in my own backyard and the frightening thing is, the scenario isn't all that different.

Recently, federal agents backed by our precious tax dollars, banged down the doors of poultry plants in New York, Texas, Florida, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Georgia, threatening anyone they could find, dragging away parents without notifying their families and, all told, arresting more than 300 undocumented immigrants.

Their crime? Leaving their homes and everything they've ever known in search of opportunity for their families and crossing the treacherous desert boarder between the US and Mexico or overstaying their visas in order to work long hours for low pay at a poultry processing plant where, according to an expose from the Charlotte Observer worker protections are lax and severe injuries are common. The Charlotte Observer series is littered with stories and images of workers crippled by their duties, and stories of management cutting corners not only on safety but on appropriate medical treatments when problems do arise.

Remind me who the evil-doers are?

From the SWAT team raids on immigrants to the para-military Minutemen staking out the US-Mexico border, we're turning our nation into a war zone in violation of every decent principle on which our nation was founded. Many Americans are not immigrants -- Natives who were already here, those who were forced here. But many of us, including most of today's anti-immigrant voices I'm afraid, are the descendants of generations who sought America's shores as a refuge from religious intolerance or famine, who saw in our stars and stripes the twinkle of possibility that tomorrow might be better than today. The American dream may be the most powerful promise in the world. It is plainly un-American to hoard it for ourselves and deny it to those who seek it as our ancestors once did.

In the community called America, everyone is included. In the community called America, we treat everyone with dignity and respect. In the community called America, we are all striving to build a better America together. Last time I checked, we were proud to stand together for this vision, rather than breaking down doors and breaking apart families for daring to share the same hopes and dreams. Raids against immigrants are demeaning to the America I know, our moral character and community values. It's time we end these stupid and violent raids for good.

Sally Kohn is the Director of the Movement Vision Lab at the Center for Community Change. You can sign the pledge for fair and just immigration reform at www.BuildingAmericaTogether.org

Comments

[clr2]

Remind you of the "evil doers" - the ILLEGAL ALIENS who cost us BILLIONS. We pay BILLIONS to educate and provide health care for people who don't belong here. These people could come here legally. We need to deport all ILLEGAL ALIENS, heavily fine those who hire ILLEGALS, and return to the original intent of the 14th amendment and do away with anchor babies. We need to use these BILLIONS on our own citizens.

[Ben Dixon]

It's been said a hundred times and will be said a hundred times more, and maybe, just maybe liberals such as your self Ms. Kohn will learn the differance between LEGAL and ILLEGAL immigration. Here's to hoping.

[NABNYC]

The biggest supporters of bringing immigrants into the U.S. (legal and illegal) to replace American workers are the richest corporations in this country. One of the first things Bush did upon taking office was go to his friend Vincent Fox and tell him to start sending all the young Mexicans across the border, illegally, to provide the corporations with cheap labor.

Look at L.A. today: a city overwhelmed with illegal immigrants from Mexico. All over Southern California you can find cities where most people speak Spanish, the only growth industry is gangs and graffiti, the social services are exhausted, housing and schools are overcrowded and run down, and everyone is poor. And now the city has no money, and is cutting everything else to get more money to deal with the overwhelming gangs and crime.

Every decision made by our government should be based on one question only: is this in the best interests of the people of the U.S.? Our politicians do not represent the people of Mexico. Yes, the U.S. should allow immigration because it's good for us, but no, we should not have open borders. I cannot see one benefit to the people of the U.S. in having millions of poor desperate people flood across our borders and, therefore, our politicians should stop the illegal immigration.

[KPinSEA]

HuffPost's Pick

This is where I lose my card as a card-carrying liberal, I guess. I have to show my passport to cross into the U.S., I don't see a problem with requiring everybody else to.

Sally, if these illegal immigrants (and let's quit blurring the distinction between immigrants and these line-jumping lawbreakers) saw opportunity and hope in your kitchen, would you let them raid the fridge and set up a household in your kitchen, or would you ask them to leave and set the dogs on them if it didn't happen promptly?

This isn't a 19th-century America with a mostly empty continent begging for immigrants to supply labor, it's a society that hasn't had wage growth in the working class in 20+ years, with a pool of cheap undocumented labor helping undercut the value of blue collar jobs every day.

I'm in favor of a sensible Guest Worker program, a sensible amnesty for undocumented workers who were ruthlessly exploited by employers for a generation and raised their kids here, and a sensible immigration policy ... but I'm just as much in favor of catching every person who tries to sneak into our yard without permission, grabbing them by the scruff of the neck and sending them to the back of the line.

[randyjet]

I have been a radical and a liberal most of my life. I refuse to give up MY card in the movement because of stupid people who THINK they are liberals. We USED to be called FIGHTING liberals such as Battling Bob LaFollette and all the others who came before us. They were NOT stupid as some of these illegal immigrant pushers are. In the labor movement we had to literally fight for our rights which we have succeeded in getting, and are losing with barely a whimper from the elitist "liberals". The labor movement used to have to have armed pickets here in Texas to defend ourselves from being shot at. I am damned tired of elitist liberals taking over our tradition for their own selfish ends such as having a nanny or cheap gardener. Or more concern for the poor than the poor American worker and such "liberals" who view workers as the enemy rather than the ones who made our success possible.

[Rule Of Law]

Randy, there's radical/liberal and there's knee jerk/politically correct. I am from a long line of Labor-class people and Union Organizers, in times and places where that could get you killed. I've marched, protested, been arrested, written and organized, so I'll match your cred heads up. And I hear your "bitterness." :)

Where are these so called liberals when Armour and Tyson and Swift shut down operations in the midwest just to destroy the meat packers union? Now they operate in places like Colorado and are staffed nearly 100% with illegal labor induced to move there by advertising done in Mexico! Rich get richer, poor lose their jobs--oh well, say the knee jerk neo-libs--and Nobody goes to bat for those guys! You want to destroy a country, destroy the working middle class. And if anybody doesn't think that that is part of the plan, then you aren't paying attention.

You want to polish your fluffy feel good chardonnay liberal credentials, then jump on the PC illegal bandwagon. You want to help restore America to the economic power it was and provide safe, well paying, secure jobs for the people who live here so that we can be strong enough to absorb legal immigrants and offer them the same benefits? Then be prepared to get down and dirty with the blue collar people who made your lives possible, and protect the American worker!

[texpine]

Sally,
Yes the majority of those slipping across the Southern Border want to better
their lives and the lives of their families. Who doesn't?

By doing so, they show complete disregard for the Imigration Laws of our country!
What other laws will they ignore? Our Laws are not a Resturant Menu where you
get to pick & choose!

If you feel so strongly about their situation why don't you invite them all to come live
with you!

Do I feel like the Imigration Laws need to be changed? Yes I do.
That's a subject for a whole different Debate!

In the meantime, get a good grip on both your Ears and pull your Head out.

[Rule Of Law]

This illegal immigration scam run is on us by the politically correct squad that never sees the mess they will create, or leave behind.

Affordable housing is the same PC think, disregarding consequences. Contractors and government siphon off Federal (our) dollars. State and local get matching funds, pump up their budgets, and the contractors get wealthy stuffing ten houses into the space for one where kids wouldn't be forced to play in the streets.

But every time they build one of these instant crime pits, they always put it where middle class people live--never up on the hill with the oligarchs! Then move on to the next city with their feel good snake oil, crying, We're helping people! But the decision makers and the money men don't live There.

And the bleeding hearts who agitate for illegal rights, (is that an oxymoron or what?) will never work for Armour or Tyson, never live in the cardboard ghettos, five families to a box, and never be exposed to the Righteous hatred that those marginalized people will develop for their corporate masters and the people who buy the chicken at the market but cross the parking lot to avoid a dark skinned person. So let's talk REAL bitterness!

You are breeding hatred and separation. You want to fix this problem? Go to Mexico or Guatemala, or Indonesia, or PRC and work your magic there. Because as long as we are complicit, those folks will suffer--either here, or there!

[Trilby]

Why is it that so many self-appointed "spokemen" of the left take this position (Sally's) while the constituancy at large would actually prefer to see our laws followed? Why this disconnect? Are you guys the elite, by any chance? The nanny and gardener defenders maybe? Personally I am happy to care for my own children and lawn, and I don't appreciate the devolution of workplace protections that come north with a population that will endure anything to work for peanuts.

[BilCon]

Sadly Sally, I must disagree.
"Their crime? Leaving their homes and everything they've ever known in search of opportunity for their families and crossing the treacherous desert boarder between the US and Mexico or overstaying their visas in order to work long hours for low pay at a poultry processing plant where, according to an expose from the Charlotte Observer worker protections are lax and severe injuries are common. The Charlotte Observer series is littered with stories and images of workers crippled by their duties, and stories of management cutting corners not only on safety but on appropriate medical treatments when problems do arise."
I believe that their crime, as reported to ICE by their employer, was alleged to be identity theft.

[farlep99]

Excuse me. Their crime? Their crime was illegally entering the country. Specifically violation of Section 212(a)(6)(A)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Granted, this isn't the most serious of crimes a person can commit. But if we are to respect the rule of law then we need to enforce those laws. If we want to debate amending the INA, then that's a different debate, and clearly probably one worth persuing. But let's not pretend laws are not being violated with illegal immigration.

[Serfie]

No, you have it backwards.


Mexicans have declared war on the United States by illegally colonizing our country and flouting our laws with impunity.

Here are the facts:

Mexico has a 1.3 trillion dollar economy, the 13th largest economy in the world, which is even bigger than Canada.

Mexico has a 4% unemployment rate.

Mexico has one of the fastest growing economies in the world.

In 1994, the US had a $1 billion trade surplus with Mexico, After Nafta, Mexico now has a $75 billion trade surplus with the US.

The US has the 3rd largest populaton in the world, right behind China and India.

We don't need anymore immigrants. They are bad for the environment and they undercut wages for US workers.

Nobody is entitled to settle in the US anymore. The cup is full. The cities are in shambles, our infrastructure is a disgrace, and our public schools have turned into 3rd world cesspools.

[UnbiasView]

Sally, I think we all need to be realistic on the immigration issue.

America cannot afford to support every illegal immigrant in the world, just ask any hospital near the border. They are taking up our resources and we are paying the bill. Every time an immigrant goes to the hospital for a head ache, you pay the bill with the rising costs.

There is a legal way to do it and an illegal way to do it. I am not for deportation but we need to shut the door and make this an organized system where a foot on US soil doesn't mean you get to stay or sneaking across the border doesn't guarentee you health care or anything else on our dime.

[WASanford]

"in order to work long hours for low pay at a poultry processing plant where, according to an expose from the Charlotte Observer worker protections are lax and severe injuries are common. The Charlotte Observer series is littered with stories and images of workers crippled by their duties, and stories of management cutting corners not only on safety but on appropriate medical treatments when problems do arise."

Sally, is this the kind of America you want? One that has a large peonage of dis-empowered people who don't dare to even speak up for themselves? Who sneak across our borders and displace those who have legal status here but end up in that same peonage themselves?

Are you aware of the war going on just south of our border? Mexican drug gangs are murdering each other and innocent bystanders in open combat. They import illegal drugs into our country by the ton.

Until we control our borders, we are complicit in all of this. We have a responsibility to our own citizens, those illegals who die in their attempts at entry, and to those who are being killed in these terrible drug wars, to regain control of our borders!

[Rule Of Law]

Until we control our borders, we are complicit in all of this.
_______________________________________________

The human rights crusaders always ignore that basic precept. The corporate oligarchy that runs this country continues to become even wealthier on the enslavement of a whole new permanent underclass of people who will work for next to nothing, in conditions of unspeakable filth and danger, and who have absolutely no power or legal right to protest. These things are what the muckrakers of the early 20th century fought against, and what the Union movement was intended to prevent.

The businesses that run this country would enjoy nothing more than having a slave class. There would be no track to citizenship, much less accountability for either illegals or the bosses who hire them. There would be, however, generations of ghettoized people kept apart by government policy; demonized when politically expedient, exploited for their bodies the rest of the time. And of course, American dollars flowing back into Mexico to help prop up their corrupt leaders and continue the domination of the ultra-wealthy over the people that NAFTA has made expendable.

[jvarga]

Is there a list of which laws we don't have to obey anymore? I for one would like a new TV. Maybe if I go steal one from best buy I can get a groundswell of support since all I did wrong was try and better my life by getting a plasma tv without paying for it.

[UnbiasView]

Ask Sally, she seems to think people can do anything.

Indiana just had a supreme court case where Democrats wanted people to be able to vote without ID, meaning you could vote multiple times or don't even have to be a citizen. Mexico requires ID for God sakes and we have to battle over that.

[Rule Of Law]

And whatever you do, don't try to sneak into Mexico--They are Very serious about protecting their borders.

[randyjet]

I fail to see how supporting what Tyson did in going into Mexico to illegally bring in workers is progressive. Those workers were specifically brought in to undercut UNION plants and drive down union wages. It is also NOT progressive to support the illegals who have broken our laws, stolen IDs, committed perjury, violated US laws on security, made fraudulent documents, among the other crimes they have committed. Just what makes THEM have special rights that they can violate US laws that would send ME or YOU to prison for a LONG time?

Sally is simply crying to uphold the right of the companies to keep driving down US wages. The illegals are basically SCABS. That is as reactionary as you can get. At least I got one supporter of illegals to say that yes scabs have rights too and should not be condemned. That at least is a consisent position, but it shows just WHOSE side they are on. The employers against the American people! It is a FRAUD for any progressive to support illegal immigration.. It denies the rights of American workers, it denies our rights to enforce our laws, it creates a class of people ABOVE the laws, and consigns the rest of us to the lowest rung. THAT is UNAMERICAN and anti-working class.

[randyjet]

I guess Sally feels we should call drug dealers undocumented pharmacists too. After all they are simply trying to get ahead and feed their families. Why should they be thrown in jail and seperated from their families? Who is the criminal there? It is obviously the COPS and the US government.

According to her lack of logic, we should have NO say in who comes to the US. The borders should be open to all, terrorists, drug smugglers, illegal immigrants, diseased folks, after all they are only seeking a better life for the most part, except for some terrorists perhaps. I have to take extreme issue in that she thinks it is NOT my right or the right of the American people to decide who may come in and who may not. THAT is undemocratic to say the least.

[UnbiasView]

"we should call drug dealers undocumented pharmacists"

Best comment ever, if you don't mind I might need to steal that one from you.

[CornellRedneck]

Rubbish.

America takes pride in being a nation of LAWS.
Illegal Aliens by their very act of trespassing here are breaking our LAWS.
My European ancestors came here the legal way.
How dare you suggest that we not rid our land of lawbreakers.

Again, rubbish.