Author: XicanoPwr

With the March 4 primary elections bearing down on Texas and early voting already under way, many would assume I would either make an endorsement, or I would take part in the current discussion of the presidential primary taking place in this state. It seems, no matter where you turn, there are relentless exposure of and attack on Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Other than the three posts I wrote up, I refused to take in the election season demagoguery that has dominated the blogosphere and that has mesmerized liberals and radicals alike, therefore, I will not be making any endorsements.

It is hard to deny that after seven years of the Bush administration, we have become a country of repression, suppression, oppression and persecution; of perpetual fear and perpetual war; of growing militarism; and of an absence of rights, freedoms and liberties. It is inside the bowels of this once great nation one can see the constant pain in the eyes of the people so psychologically damaged by this administration.
The fact is people are in search of something that has been missing in our society for far too long — they are living a life driven by division and manipulation, a life that so poorly reflect the realities of their everyday lives.

In recent months, Senator Barack Obama has taken this country by storm. In a country that is emotionally bewildered, it is not surprising to see why there is such blind euphoria occurring in this fractured nation. This has nothing to do how people really see him – young, charismatic, and even heroic. This has to do with the message that is resonating so strongly with so many people.

Both candidates are calling for “unity.” But, those noble sentiments ring hollow as both candidates engage in a campaign that is based on divisive tactics. Despite our desire to forge a common commitment to important values, manipulative efforts directed by a relative few drive debates to extremes. The danger for the Democrats is that Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama, desperate for victory next week, will savage each other in such ways as to provide an enormous amount of political ammunition for McCain and the Republicans in both the presidential and congressional contests.

With just a week to go until the make-or-break primaries, there is evidence of a covert campaign to undermine the presidential primaries. What is currently taking place is a political divide and conquer in the form of “he said she said” that is driven by the likes of Karl Rove and the same people who attacked John Kerry. And sadly, we are drinking it up like it is nectar.

The latest gaffe that is being reported by a known conservative operative, Matt Drudge of The Drudge Report, is suddenly taken as fact by the Obama supporters. While many of Obama’s supporters blame the Clinton camp, Newsweek’s political blogger Andrew Romano is suggesting there is more to this than meets the eye. Romano speculates is possibly was a ploy by an “anti-Democrat operative … attempting to tarnish both Clinton and Obama, bank-shot-style.”

Yet, we forget that it wasn’t too long there was a hit job by conservatives regarding Obama’s religious beliefs. Since everybody is so focused on whom they are supporting, nobody is seeing things clearly. As the old saying goes, “the last thing a fish notices is the water it swims in.”

It is clear with all high emotions that have engulfed the blogosphere, everybody is ignoring the actual elephant in the room. That would be Karl Rove and the Republican-funded group now called Swift Vets (formally known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth) and POWS for Truth. According to Diversity Inc, the Swift boat people are at it again. They are behind the “Is Obama unpatriotic” meme. I wouldn’t be surprise if Karl Rove or the Swift People are feeding the Obama and Hillary campaign all this bullshit about what one campaign is saying about the other and the diehards have allowed themselves to be bamboozled.

While I should be excited that we have arrived at a historic time for all of us, I am sorry to say that I feel so fatigued and cynical about the whole process. The constant bombardment of political bickering is too much — so much that civil discourse has been thrown out the widow. To the point where folks are no longer open for discussions, comments about one candidate or another are negatively taken the wrong way, and folks needling other people over support of one candidate or another. Even worse, there are incidents of political blackmail from supporters stating that if their candidates don’t get the nomination, they will either not vote for the winner or they will support the candidate who has promised to commit us to a 100 year war.

I understand that it’s an election, and like any competition, we also want our side to win. However, this type of win-at-all-costs approach is uncalled for. And using the immortal words of Jon Stewart, I say, “Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America. Right now, you’re helping the politicians and the corporations.” Make no mistake, both candidates are politicians. Both are resorting to hackneyed political phrases. Both camps run the risk of reaching a person’s threshold that can eventually lead to a person not voting period. All one has to do is look at one of Obama’s biggest supporter – Obama Girl – who actually did not even vote in the primaries.

As we strive for reform, make no mistake — we will be confronted with an uphill battle against those determined to keep the status quo. It is important to watch for the dangerous distraction that will pop up between now and March 4. But we must never forget how we got into this situation. And we must never forget the change we need in society will come only through our direct efforts to move the country in a more progressive direction.

x-posted on Para Justicia y Libertad

What is on your Christmas list? In a recent ABC News poll in which they asked people, “If you could have your choice, what one present would you most like to have for Christmas?” the answers provided gives great insight to the American psyche. Forget peace and happiness because most Americans wanted either a car or computer under the tree this holiday. Although Christmas is supposed to be a celebration of the birth of Jesus, in modern America, the celebration of Jesus’ birth had been replaced by commercialism and materialism. Christmas has far more to do with materialism and consumerism than anything else.
Despite every plea made by religious leaders, such as Pope Benedict XVI, this has nothing to do with religion. The fact is Christmas fuel consumerism because the principle message being told during the holiday season is to buy, spend, and consume.

The commercialism of Christmas is not a recent phenomenon. In 1850, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a lament that reflected a common sentiment: “There are worlds of money wasted, at this time of year, in getting things nobody wants, and nobody cares for after they are got.”

We’ve brainwashed ourselves to “give” into a mechanical generic holiday system instead of giving our hearts and souls to a worthy cause that the real Christmas represents.

This holiday season is a time when we should ponder the message of Charles Dickens’, timeless classic “A Christmas Carol,”. Most of us who grew up with it as children as being a story about the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who cares about nothing but money and is visited in his house on Christmas Eve by three ghosts – the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Future. They make Scrooge see the error of his ways.

It is not surprising that everyone takes joy in Ebenezer Scrooge’s redemption, because it allows us to find the kernel of compassion, of humanity within us. However, many of us miss the true message Dickens was trying to convey. Understanding the conditions under which working-class people lived became based on his experiences, the scene with Christmas Present with the two orphans, Ignorance and Want is the central focus of the story. From Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol:”

‘They are Man’s,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ‘And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it.’ cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. ‘Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.’

‘Have they no refuge or resource.’ cried Scrooge.

‘Are there no prisons.’ said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. ‘Are there no workhouses.’

Championing the causes of the poor and oppressed, Dickens personified ignorance and want as twins because Ignorance and Want are the twin evils of humanity. How we act and behave towards one another in society plays a vital role in lives of the poor and the oppressed. Yes, all of us! The orphan twins symbolized the plight of the poor and the causes of their poverty as well as humanity’s obligation to them. In addition, of the two, Ignorance is the greater evil.

When you look at the bigger picture, it is fear and need and want and anxiety that drives this country. Moreover, it is these fears that have caused our culture of cruelty that currently exists. Today, in his Year-End Press Conference, President Bush continues to push the illusion that Americans are at risk.

BUSH: As you all know, I’ve said this many times from the podium, I do believe in the universality of freedom. I believe if people are given a chance to be free, they will do so. I understand some don’t believe that. It’s kind of like, “We’re the only ones who can be free.” It’s kind of the ultimate isolationism, isn’t it. And the question then is: Is it in our nation’s interest to help others realize the blessings of liberty? And clearly the Bush foreign policy says it is, because I believe it’s going to yield peace. And it’s particularly important given the fact that we’re in an ideological struggle against people who use murder to achieve political objectives. And we faced these kind of people before in our past. And the question is: Does it make sense to confront them? And if we forget the lessons of September the 11th as a nation we will be naive or blind to the realities of the world. And the best way to confront these folks in the long term is to defeat their ideology with one based upon hope, and that’s one based upon liberty, and that’s what you’re watching unfold. It’s necessary work, and it’s hard work. And it requires determination and effort and commitment. And so, part of our efforts is to convince others: one, the nature of the world in which we live; two, that we’re in an ideological struggle; and, three, we will prevail because we’ve got the ultimate weapon against those who can’t see anything but terror and murder as the way forward, and that is freedom.

This is not a coincidence. Today Christmas is such a vital part of our economic system that Wall Street monitors the season as an indicator of the nation’s economic viability. Currently, the national mood is absorbed in the illusion that Americans are at risk and that they are in danger from terrorists abroad. While it is true that America has plenty of enemies, people in this country believe in the illusion created by this country that their hatred is toward us and not towards those who continue banging the drum of fear to achieve their political objectives. Rather than making sacrifices during a time when our economy is fragile, people today are being told that the best way to help economy is to go about their business and spend money as if nothing was wrong.

What better time to get out that message than the Christmas holidays. Why? Because not only is Christmas celebrated by gift giving; but we are also compelled to do so, not necessarily out of the kindness of our hearts.

This year, the average individual US consumer is expected to spend $817 on holiday-related shopping, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2007 Holiday Consumer Intentions Survey. Last year, consumer spending on holiday gift spending totaled $450 billion and in the previous year, consumers spent a total of $438.6 billion. Although it is being reported that sales are down this year, yet, the forecast for this year, sales are still expected to see a 1.5 percent increase from a year ago.

As Christmas has become entwined with shopping, American consumers are encouraged to spend, while at the same time, they are being told to save money. In the end, consumer debt continues to grow. Recent statistics show 3 in 5 Americans (59%) incurred credit card debt when shopping for Christmas presents. According to the NRF 2007 survey, 40.1 percent of shoppers, up from 39.1 percent last year, will rely on debit and check cards to make purchases.

In our contemporary framework, the term “giving” equals buying rather than giving meaning providing. And this is the crux of the problem. Pure market capitalism does not respect traditions or religion. The market doesn’t care if you are rich or poor. All that matters is how to make the best profit possible from selling to the public. It is a system that believes that humankind exists only for the money that can be made through exploitation and intimidation.

It is Ignorance that turns a blind eye on a world full of “Little Matchstick Girl,” with an attitude that we aren’t their keepers. It is Ignorance that continues to play self-deluding word games for the sake of an ideal self-image. In truth, if we dare to look it, as Nietzsche said, the abyss stares back.” When this happens it is easier to avert our eyes and bury our heads in the sand and turn a blind eye to our moral cowardice, because it is their poverty makes us feel uncomfortable, their illnesses that disgust us, and the apparent hopelessness of their lives that scares us.

At a time when everyone invokes and acclaims progress, solidarity and peace for all, people continue to die of hunger and thirst, disease and poverty. It is Ignorance that has ignored those who continue to be enslaved, exploited and stripped of their dignity. It creates an environment where victims of racial and religious hatred are hampered by intolerance, by discrimination, and by political interference. It creates an environment that rationalizes the numerous assaults and rape to women like Jamie Leigh Jones and Kathryn Bolkovac by companies like Halliburton, KBR, and DynCorp International through physical and moral coercion. And it is Ignorance that has turned a blind eye to the numerous threats and harassments to thousands of immigrants by the Border Patrol, ICE, and the US.

You could say that the adverse nature within us that causes us to be contrary to what is righteous. However, it is our greed, our selfishness, our self-importance, our materialism and our aversions to Godliness that has taken us down a darker path – a path is sociopathic. We are living in a pluralistic society that has created a climate that protects all variations of irresponsibility and irrationality. It is draining the economy, bankrupting the country, and making a psychotic mess of our political process. The twin evils of humanity have consumed us like a cancer. Make no mistake; this country seeks to control the world for its own political and economic interests and we are its collateral damage as many misguided flag-waving zealots rally to a jingoistic cause. And as we open our gifts this Christmas and singing songs of “peace on earth,” just remember, millions of innocent children will either spend their Christmas in private detention facility or continue to be blown up by our bombs for they shall roam the dark alleys of our indifference.

We have become deaf and blind to the truth: we help create this the economic, political, and legal systems that is stepping on the backs of the poor and the oppressed.

x-posted on ¡Para Justicia y Libertad!

Promoted by Steven D

We had The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Temptation Island, Joe Millionaire, Who Wants to Marry My Dad, and many more. The latest reality show being marketed to the major networks by the entertainment industry will certainly add more fuel to the heated immigration debate.

Reuters recently reported that a Los Angeles company, Morusa Media, is marketing a new reality game show called “Who Wants to Marry a US Citizen.” Like other reality dating game shows, the show is also hoping to create a love match; however, the goal is to create marriages between immigrants who already have their temporary visas (green cards) and US citizens. Unlike other reality dating shows where a contestant eliminates several potential suitors until there is only one suitor left, the show will use the same format as the 1960s The Dating Game where a bachelorette (US citizen) will ask three bachelors – who a legal immigrant – a variety of questions. The twist: at the end of the show, the bachelorette will decide which one she would like to marry. Angelo Gonzales, the show’s host, says the “show [will] NOT marry people nor do [they] guarantee a marriage will result from the show.” However, they are willing to pay for both the wedding and the honeymoon should a marriage result from the show. A statement on the show’s website, hookacitizen.com, also makes this claim.
Show creator Adrian Martinez argues that the program wants to demonstrate that “true love knows no boundaries.” Nevertheless, the show has received its fair share of criticism from both sides of the immigration aisle. The minute word got out, the usual anti-immigration pundits were on top of this story. Not surprisingly, Michelle Malkin manages to mislead her readers by implying that the show is part of an evil plot by Islamic fundamentalists. She writes, “Hezbollah gives the show `two thumbs up!'” By way of explanation, Malkin provides her readers with a couple links. One link leads to an old article she wrote – “Protect America: Stop marrying terrorists!;” the other, links is to a current post, “My God, she’s married to one of our people.” Malkin’s arguments suggest that she is incapable of grasping anything more than she really detest any one who is brown. But then again, this is coming from the same person who authored In Defense of Internment where she explicitly defends racial profiling.

“Make no mistake: I am not advocating rounding up all Arabs or Muslims and tossing them into camps, but when we are under attack, ‘racial profiling’ — or more precisely, threat profiling — is justified.”

On the other side of the immigration debate, Yave on Citizen Orange, contends that Who Wants to Marry a US Citizen would hurt the immigration process.

…any marriage that resulted from a game show with marriage to a U.S. citizen as the prize would lead to a strong presumption that the marriage was entered into for the sole purpose of circumventing the country’s immigration laws–hence, no green card.

Gonzales argues that the purpose of the show is to play matchmaker and that it’s a “win-win situation for all involved” because there are “thousands of US citizens seeking a spouse … just as many immigrants seeking the same.” As much as this is true, Yave points out that even if the couple were able show evidence that the couple entered into a marriage in good faith, “the suspicion of marriage fraud might be too great to overcome” because during the the marriage interview process an immigration officer could enter “any statements made by a winning contestant during the course of the show into consideration in making [their] decision.” If an immigration officer feels the marriage is a “sham,” the removal and deportation proceedings most likely would be begin.

The real question is who is Adrian Martinez and Morusa Media? According to a 2000 Hispanic Business article, Martinez is a producer, songwriter, musician, recording artist and record company owner. In June 2000, Martinez was named “Micro Business of the Year” by Los Angeles-based La Opinion newspaper and Bank of America. Interesting enough, two years ago, Martinez founded DogCatRadio.com, an online radio station geared for pets and their humans.

One cannot help but wonder what Martinez’s real intent for a show like this, because when it comes to reality games shows they really are a very mixed bag. The problem with dating shows, when it comes to entertainment and matchmaking, the contestants who participate are pretty much void of all emotions or feelings. When it comes to selecting the game’s contestants, the producers and the television networks primary focus is amusing the audience as opposed to any concern for a person’s happiness or compatibility. Another problem, contestants are supposed to magically fall in love considering they have little or no knowledge of each other.

Like other reality-dating shows, the show will make light of people’s real feelings because in the end, these shows are not about true romance; they are about making good television. People don’t tune in to see true romance, but to see them fail and/or make an ass out of themselves. As Gonzales points out on CBS’ Early Show with Hannah Storm:

“We’re just trying to set an arena for these people to just get to know each other. We’re not trying to get involved with the immigration process. We’re in the business of love, it’s that simple. We’re just trying to have fun.“

Gonzales added that the show will be “a lot edgier,”. What does that exactly mean? Today’s reality dating shows provides us a good grasp in understanding the changing economics of contemporary television. In order capture an audience, to be “edgier,” producers are forced to push the envelope so they are able to maintain time slots and beat competing networks. This is the reason why shows like ElimiDATE tend to place attractive men and women into obviously tantalizing situations. Let’s all face it … as the age-old advertising adage goes, “Sex sells.”

There is nothing wrong with sexually liberated adults, and there probably will be thousands of legal immigrants willing to become a Who Wants to Marry a US Citizen contestant, but the possibility this will lead to matrimony and becoming a full US citizen, is tiny. When a dating reality show is willing to put a contestant’s green cards at stake, while making a game out of love, this is not matchmaking, this exploitation of the worse kind. And the fact that Adrian Martinez and Angelo Gonzales are offering thousands of legal immigrants in the US a dream of a better and fuller life through a game show rather than a political organization is a sad but characteristic reflection of contemporary reality.

Here’s the video promo for Who Wants to Marry a US Citizen.

x-posted on ¡Para Justicia y Libertad! and Scholars and Rogues

The deportation of immigrant rights activist Elvira Arellano by federal authorities on August 20 has been seen either as a blow or as the reigniting of the immigrant rights movement. I know I have seen my fair share of comments of support on this blog, as well a large number of vile comments about her and her plight that are still in the moderation queue. As humans, we have a tendency to demonize a person to justify our dislike. Regardless how a person worded their comment, their message was the same, Arellano is just another attention grabbing, “criminal alien and immigration fugitive,” unfairly using her American-born son as an Elián González for a pro-immigration agenda.

Arellano, the woman at the center of the storm is a 32-year old single mother, a former airport worker and undocumented immigrant. On Aug 15, 2006, Arellano took her son Saúl, born in the US and therefore a citizen, and entered Adalberto United Methodist church. Since then, she has spent a year living in that church to avoid deportation.

During the year she took refuge in the church, her struggle has help put a human face on the heartless deportations of our nation’s undocumented immigrants. She not only has become the spokesperson for the New Sanctuary Movement, but a symbol of resistance for the broader immigrant rights movement.
In response to the arrest, supporters came out for a vigil in front of the ICE building in Chicago. The next morning, 150 supporters showed up at the ICE building to protest the arrest and deportation. In Los Angeles, mayor Antonio Villaraigosa released a statement on the “manner of the arrest and deportation” of Elvira Arellano. Later that night, a vigil was held in front of the Federal Building downtown. Here in Houston, a vigil was held in front of the Mickey Leland Federal Bldg on Monday evening and later in the week, a press conference was called by el Central American Resource Center (CRECEN), to vocalize our support and solidarity with Elvira and Saul.

Over the weekend, several thousand marched through downtown L.A. in a show of unity and support for Elvira. The main demand was full rights for all immigrants. Police closed off streets as hundreds of demonstrators, including many families with young children, marched up Broadway on Saturday carrying large photos of Arellano and her 8-year-old son, Saul. Others raised placards reading “We are all Elvira!”

It is not hard to speculate the reasons behind ICE’s motives in deporting her in record time. What normally would have taken days for those who face removal, this was not the case for Elvira. Oftentimes, those who do not have the resources to keep up with the rapid homeland security legal changes, become unexpectedly entangled in the system without a sense of their legal and human rights. One has to wonder about the brevity of the deportation process ICE took to deport Elvira. One could argue that she was just another victim of Homeland Security’s most recent expanded procedure of expedited removal against non-U.S. citizens, which was established by the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. Expedited removal is a procedure that enables a DHS official to remove a non-citizen without the procedural safeguards of a removal hearing or review by an immigration judge or the Board of Immigration Appeals, and significantly, including the right to counsel.

Because there is no immigration judge or the Board of Immigration Appeals review over expedited removal decisions and only limited judicial review, a low-level immigration officer’s authority to decide that an individual is removable and to order removal is virtually unchecked. The officer’s decision to place the person in expedited rather than regular removal proceedings can result in the person losing substantive rights. Indeed, there are already reports that Elvira was denied her rights. According to Adhemir Olguin, spokesperson for the Mexican Consulate in Houston, said officials are concerned with the manner ICE handled the deportation of Elvira Arellano because she was denied consular access.

The issue of deportation remains invisible too many. There is a dangerous misconception that deportations are uniform in and arbitrary across all immigrant groups; that these acts of detention and deportation are simply routine governmental practices to regulate migration flows. This is not the case. Washington’s failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform has been direct and profound consequences on real families. When laws fail to serve justly the most basic human needs, they are flawed and incomplete. Detention often occurs as part of the removal and deportation process. With limited or no due process, immigrants facing removal become confused, isolated from family members, and can be placed with violent criminals. The “detention process” is often shrouded in secrecy, with detainees being repeatedly denied prompt access to attorneys and relatives.

To learn that Elvira was denied consular access, is not surprising, in light of findings by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in its 2005 Report on Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal, a mandated study of the expedited removal policy to determine how the procedure was affecting asylum-seekers. The study found serious flaws in DHS’s implementation of the Expedited Removal policy that puts immigrants at risk of being returned to countries where they may face persecution, and it also documented that they were “detained inappropriately, under prison-like conditions and in actual jails.” Just recently, USCIRF found that problems it found two-years ago have not been fixed most of its recommendations were not carried out by Homeland Security and the Justice Department.

USCIRF chair Felice D. Gaer noted that “we see no significant difference between the situations of then and now–with the exception that Expedited Removal was expanded in spite of our explicit recommendation to hold off on that.”

As we begin to understand the full implications of “homeland security” on immigration, it is important we begin having a serious multi-national dialogue. Elvira Arellano’s deportation is a wake-up call for America. It’s time to say, ¡Basta! We have had enough exploitation, abuse and exclusion.

While immigrant laws and their enforcement remain a primary venue for racism in general, it has become an expression of imperialism directed inward against its own citizens and residents. As a consequence, all those who are seen as “foreign” are viewed as a legal, cultural, political, and economic threat to the security of US land, culture, and way of life.

What forces will protect us from the evils imposed on and within society under the banner of terrorism on the one hand, or under the banner of protecting us from terrorism on the other? What forces do we need to ensure that our civil liberties are not trampled on? That people are not denied their basic human rights? That our political and other leaders do not trample on the presumption of innocence until proven guilty; the protection of habeas corpus; freedom of the press; freedom of association; and equal rights under the law without fear? These are the dark clouds that currently hang over our heads, and it can only be removed through our active involvement and participation.

In order to resolve the immigration issues, we must begin a dialogue that addresses the humanitarian crisis on our borders, in our barrios, and at our detention centers. The Department of Homeland Security has cast a huge net around the immigrant community in the hopes of finding suspected terrorists to protect the security of America. So why must so many innocent people, who are not terrorists, suffer? Whose safety is being protected here? What does it mean to be an American? Who is an American?

We need to find an effective way to raise the political consciousness of our community to understand that ultimately, the dismantling of homeland security apparatuses is necessary to addressing our collective problem. For the last 20 years, the immigrant rights movement has focused itself on immigration reform that places pathways to citizenship, access to public services and family unification at the center of its core values. Because the homeland security apparatus affects all people, it is vital that all culturally diverse and multiracial peoples work in alliance and coalition with each other locally, regionally and nationally – despite ethnicity, nationality or race – towards the single objective of justice for our communities.

This is a crisis we are not facing alone – We are all Elvira!

The report card summary and the full report of USCIRF’s two-year review of its recommendations on expedited removal are posted on its web site, www.uscirf.gov.

Promoted by Steven D.

This past weekend I attended another demonstration against this country’s use of the privatized prison complex to detain undocumented immigrants. The protest was the third protest sponsored by Houston Sin Fronteras, which took place outside the Corrections Corporation of America’s (CCA) Houston Processing Center. During the protest, I could not help but think how George Orwell would be turning over in his grave because the Houston Processing Center illuminates some of the Orwellian aspects of immigration controls.

Sixty years ago, George Orwell, wrote about the dangers of modern societies’ quest for a utopian society in his prophetic novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. His totalitarian world of Oceania drew a striking resemblance to his world of 1948 and ours and the irony of the Houston Processing Center. In one passage, Orwell writes:

“… in the general hardening of outlook that set in … practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years — imprisonment without trial … the deportation of whole populations — not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.”

The Houston Processing Center is a minimum-security facility operated by the CCA, and it is where the private prison complex began. The site is located near Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport. The view behind prison privatization was to ease the strain on taxpayers by offering financial relief to overcrowded state-run prisons. In 1983, Thomas Beasley with assistance from venture capitalist Jack Massey, known for his role in building franchises like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), chartered Corrections Corporation of America. Prior to the facility being constructed, Immigration and Naturalization Service (now known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement) called on CCA to build and then manage a detention center in Houston. CCA co-founders Tom Beasley and T. Don Hutto went to Houston to find a motel that would temporarily house detainees. Beasley and Hutto made an offer to the owner of the local Olympic Motel, a motel widely used for prostitution, which he gladly accepted. After a team of contractors modified the motel, INS approved the newly modified facility that would later house 86 detainees. Within a few months, Houston Processing Center was open for business. All of this took place in 1984 and this was the beginning of the Orwellian Ministry of Freedom.

One characteristic of an authoritarian society is its willingness to distort the truth while simultaneously suppressing opposition. While all governments sometimes resort to misrepresentations and lies, the Bush administration’s newspeak makes such action central to its maintenance of political power through the manipulation of the media and the public. Language is used in this context to mean one thing, but it actually means it’s opposite. We have now reached a point where discourse now goes unquestioned. The binding force of today’s society, largely, is a web of symbols that enables people to control and make sense of their experience in patterned ways, such as labeling immigrants as both “illegals” and “aliens.” The primary use of these terms is to denote the criminalization of a human being, without ever being explicitly charged or convicted.

One can even make the argument that using these terms can be compared to what Orwell called an “unperson” ? people who were erased from existence by the government and put outside the law. By detaining them, in effect, this county has effectively made them “unpersons.” Once detained they are further dehumanized through systematic psychological torture ? reminded with messages how they are not a person, they don’t exist, and they can do anything they like to them. All this only serves as a symbolic reminder to the general public how they – the unpersons – are no longer part of society, they have been “vaporized.” The fact that many people are unwilling to question such thinking is disturbing because it overlooks how our business elites are exploiting them as cheap labor while continuing to perpetuate a world system, which ensures a steady supply of migrants into the US.

My experience at this protest, I must admit, was very different from the one I had at T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, TX. Like Hutto, you can tell this place is a prison; however, wrought iron fencing surrounded the facility instead two layers of fencing. Another distinction is the heightened security taken for this demonstration. The presence of law enforcement at the site was overwhelming; the protest was mostly patrolled by officers from the Houston Police Department. Throughout the event, HPD would patrol the area with squad cars and horses. HPD would drive around the block, but as they would approach us, they would drive very slowly to take a good look at us and take mental notes. I also noticed there were a few unmarked black cars monitoring the front of the Houston Processing Center and the warehouses next to the site. Homeland Security was also present at the demonstration; they had used a van to block the entry gate, which ended being a problem when a couple of ICE vehicles blocked traffic as they were forced to wait before entering the facility. During the event, ICE officer was doing a little videotaping – “domestic spying” – of all the protesters, speakers and the cars parked on the side of the road. This was definitely different from the Hutto protest, where only two CCA vans were blocking access to the facility along with two executives from the Taylor Police Department showing up and then leaving. From what I was told, it was higher than the last two protest.

Even though not many people showed up, that didn’t deflate the energy that was there, after a couple of speakers spoke, we started chanting, this included; “No Justice No Peace, Detainees must be Released” / “CCA -Shut it Down! ICE – Shut it Down! HPD – Shut it down!” / “En Las Luchas Obreras, no hay Fronteras.” I heard Ray Hill host of The Prison Show on Houston Pacifica Radio station KPFT, 90.1FM, Gloria Rubac from the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, Rob Block from Houston Sin Fronteras Defense Committee and Ben Browning, one of the two activist from Houston Sin Fronteras who locked themselves to the entrance gate of the Houston Processing Center with a u-lock.

During the rally, I had the opportunity to say with Ben Browning and Ashley Turner, the other activist who locked themselves to the gate. I wanted to know at what point they felt they needed to do something. I believed it was important to know because we are told what occurred, what was done and why it was done, but what is left out is the underlying reasons that motivated them ? the ganas to go for it. The way we are handling the social problems facing us today, is one of apathy, frustration, cynicism, and retreat into our private worlds? We do a lot of complaining about what is wrong with our lives and in our communities, but we don’t spend nearly enough time and energy empowering ourselves because we act as if we were powerless. So when a story like Ben Browning and Ashley Turner comes around, it good to highlight those who are fighting the conditions facing them and others. Just because we are not informed about who is trying to bring about social change, does not mean it is not happening. I feel as a blogger, I have a responsibility to inform people of the things taking place so that they too can see that what they are experiencing is similar to what other people are feeling, that they are not alone in their problems.

We have bought into the American dream, which is all about securing things, a market mentality that has invaded every sphere of our lives that have traditionally functioned as foci of collective purposes, history, and culture. We are caught up in our private pursuits; we allow the workings of our major institutions – the economy and government – to go on “over our heads.” The only way to break this monotony, it is important that we not only expose the current problems, but we must challenge the status quo. Moreover, as bloggers, we must take every opportunity to highlight the different type of activism that are taking place within our own neighborhood to provide people the information that is often censored, and with a perspective the mainstream media systematically ignores.

We must shatter the illusion that an individual, not groups of people, is the source of power in society. This line of thinking enables us to blame all social problems on the individual: If people are poor, it is their own fault. If they just applied themselves, they could pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. The truth of the matter, all social struggles are not won by one person, but by organizing many people together, by meeting, talking, strategizing and by people risking their lives.

However, to get there we must be willing to express our rage at the system. It is true that many people are trying to survive under increasingly difficult situations. We are so busy juggling our lives just to remain afloat; it often feels we are short on time to become socially and politically active. But in order to bring about change, we have to be more assertive and public about it. After talking to Ashley and Ben individually, they both expressed the same rage and frustration to the point, as Ashley expressed to me, “where they believed that someone had to do something.” Both Ashley and Ben knew the consequences of their actions, they understood they could be arrested, but they still went forward and did it.

We can no long keep the anger we have about all the deprivation and injustices inside, they are countless and it will eat us up inside like a cancer. However at the same time we must remain hopeful that there is a possibility to build a different kind of society where human needs can be met. Personally, what Ben and Ashley did took a lot of courage, and it is this type of courage people are craving to see, to know somewhere out there people still care for their fellow human being. As I mentioned before social struggles are never won by one person, however, as history shows, it only takes a few to create a spark that causes people to wake up, to dream again and have the courage to stand up, and to speak out and demand social justice.

We live in a critical time. It is time to put a halt to the increasing incarceration rate, the so-called anti-terrorist bills, and the attacks on affirmative action, welfare and immigrants created by the repressive apparatus of the state.

We are able to identify changes in one’s own personal life by associating them to certain events that we either experienced or witnessed personally. We do this as a way to expand our sense of purpose and transcend our ordinary lives, consequently questioning and integrating beliefs and values with actions. This past weekend is one of those events. I’m speaking most directly to my recent visit to the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, TX.

Williamson County’s Hutto Residential Center is a former high-security state prison that was converted into a detention center that is authorized to hold non-Mexican immigrant families and children on noncriminal charges. Its purpose is to hold immigrant families while their applications for asylum are being considered. It began operating in the summer of 2006 and currently holds 375 detainees, approximately 200 of which are children. Detainees are a diverse group, including single men with children, pregnant women, infants, and 17-year-old boys that house immigrant families.
It is widely reported that there are two facilities in the country that hold immigrant families and children on non-criminal charges in detention facilities. The other facility is the Berks Family Shelter Care Facility in Leesport, PA. Unlike Hutto, before Berks started detaining immigrants, the facility was a former nursing home. The site is supposed to be much more hospitable than the larger Texas facility, due to its sprawling dorm-like layout. Even though the facility may feel hospitable, this doesn’t suggest the conditions are better.

There is actually a third facility that also houses children; this unreported facility is located Aurora, CO. The Aurora ICE Processing Center is run and operated by the Geo Group (formerly the Wackenhut Corrections Corporation). According to Geo, the facility can currently hold up to “400 males, females, children (unsentenced).” The detainees being held in the Aurora Processing Center are the immigrants that have been picked up from Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Utah.

When Hutto opened last year, CCA told the public they were fixing up the place so it didn’t look like a prison and when I got there you can still tell this place looked like a former prison. From what I could see, the facility is surrounded on three sides by double-layered fencing. I wasn’t able to see the back, so I am assuming that is where the playground set is located. From what I read, there used to be several layers of razor wire between the two fences. You can tell what part of the building the prison cells are located, by the thin rectangular window frames; it is the same window design when Houston opened the new courthouse. If you were facing the building from the outside, their cells would be on your left. After a while, you would also notice that someone from CCA is regularly circling the building.

As the protest began, two CCA vans rushed to block the main entrance of the facility. It was a bit weird, since this is the 11th vigil; I would have to assume there might be some history as to when this practice began. Another thing you notice, behind us, there is roughly about a half-dozen freight trains blocking the detention center from public view. When I actually arrived to Taylor, I had a hard time trying to find the street where I was supposed to turn on to; I may have imagined this and overlooked this, but after driving a couple blocks, I suddenly noticed there were no street sign indicating the name of street. The first time around, I ended up going to the next town over, so I had to turn around and even then, I still could not find it. I literally stopped and asked for directions. One of the places I used to live was outside Chicago in the town of Crystal Lake, Taylor reminded me of Crystal Lake. At that time, it was considered rural area of IL, I here things are much different now; the city has doubled in size. The first thing I noticed as I drove around Taylor looking for Hutto, the town is also going through similar changes as Crystal Lake as the City of Austin continues to grow.

I had heard freight trains blocking were being used to block the view, they are not joking. The parked fright trains are used for a couple of reasons; blocking the public view is one of them. The other reason, it serves as a good sound barrier. The first thing I noticed going to Hutto, I had crossed four sets of tracks. As I a got closer to Hutto, the freight trains were parked next to each other on tracks closer to the site. The other set of tracks are still being used by both AMTRAK and regular freight. There is an AMTRAK station in Taylor and it is very close to Hutto. From the aerial picture taken from Google map, you are able to see the how the freight cars are lined up.

I really don’t know how many people showed up, and in all honesty, I really don’t think it really matters, the vibe was still great. I met a lot of great people over there. I even had the pleasure of meeting a fellow blogger. I even had an opportunity to meet Jay Johnson-Castro of Del Rio, who gained attention in October for his 200-mile walk from Laredo to Brownsville to protest building a US-Mexico border fence. I also had a chance to talk to him one on one. We discussed about the border wall that the Department of Homeland Security is planning to put up in Laredo. I had a chance to be interviewed by Nick Calzoncit from the Public Access television show the Mexican-American Advancement Project, which airs on Fridays in San Antonio. As I introduced myself, there were people there who actually heard of me through my blog. I discussed grassroots organizing with members from the San Antonio Brown Berets. Other people I met that I can remember off the top of my head were from the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Cesar Chavez Legacy and Education Foundation, and Code Pink. There were so many people I met, talked, and shared a laugh or two, and I am sure I left some people out.

A stage was set up across from the facility for live entertainment and event speakers. Every one who spoke was fantastic and very energetic; however, there was something special about particular speaker. After listening to this person, I was reminded what I’m here fighting for and what it was that motivated me to blog. There was something about this speaker that touched me in a much more positive way than the other speakers, this speaker reaffirmed the principles and values I hold dearly. Such a reaffirmation is important and timely for me personally, it reminded me how important it is to continue to be true to myself. It reaffirm one of my treasured moral value – not to sell myself out or pretend to be something I’m not just to gain popularity or to get on some mystical A-list blog spot. So what if my blog is read by throngs of devoted, admiring readers, or be considered as a possible invite to blog in some presidential debate or invite to be part some of a yearly blogger conference. The people who matter are the people who are out there in the street everyday fighting the good fight, people like Rebecca Ruiz-Lichter, Nick Calzoncit, Jay Johnson-Castro, Jose Orta, and all those put on those Hutto Vigils, month after month.

I do have to admit, yours truly and a fellow blogger raised a little hell towards the end of the protest. As the protest was dying down and the San Antonio group was getting ready to leave, I figured I would go talk to the people in the vehicle. As this person and I were getting closer, one of CCA’s stormtroopers did not appreciate us walking towards them. It was strange because during the protest, a couple of other people where right next to the van, however, were not allowed. The closer we walked towards them, one of CCA’s stormtrooper jumped out of the van to confront us, demanding we get off the property. We continued walking, while I kept asking if I could ask a couple of questions. The corporate stormtrooper would have none of that; then out of nowhere, the crowd was re-energized and they started chanting again.

Thinking backing, the whole day felt like one of those magical moments we have in our lives; the ones where everything flows easily and effortlessly, as if the world was in some sort of perfect harmony. It was one those times when we are full of life, at peace with our actions, and know all is good. To be honest, I don’t know why I did it, but what I do know, it was something in my heart that said it was the right thing to do. Could I have been arrested, probably, but that wasn’t a concern. My concerns were for the human beings who are treated worse than dogs behind those walls, for the voiceless who are locked up in one America’s concentration camps. The men, women, and children who are psychologically traumatized everyday; the families who are forced to split up, the ones who are sexually assaulted.

Going to the rally was the best thing I ever did. I have to thank a close friend who making my day a memorable one. If this confrontation did get out of hand, it would have been an honor being arrested them. There was something special about that day, maybe it was the people I met there or the energetic atmosphere, whatever it was, it brought back the spark that I thought I lost in my life. I have come to realize it was never lost; it was just buried underneath the negative emotions seeping into our lives in the form of sadness, disgust, anger and fear.

Life can get so hectic and tiring. So many people giving up on being good. Social influences through the media are constantly pushing us to live someone else’s idea of being, leading us to sell ourselves out to the highest bidder, while leaving humanity to defend for itself. It’s hard to watch all of this unfold before us. I guess the one comfort is that there is always the spark of hope. Hope for a better tomorrow. Hope that this chaos will end soon.

This past weekend I went over to Taylor, TX where the infamous T. Don Hutto Residential Center (immigrant concentration camp) – owned and operated by Corrections Corp of America – is located.

I am currently writing up my experience from my visit over there, however, in the mean time here are some of the pictures I took, I have plenty more and along with some video footage. I will be posting those shortly.

If you recall, David Ritcheson was the Latino teen, who was brutally beat, tortured, and sodomized with a plastic pole by two white racist teenagers, David Henry Tuck and Keith Robert Turner. This all occurred one year ago and sadly, David could no longer conceal his pain because on the morning of July 1, he leaped to his death by jumping off from an upper deck of a Carnival Cruise ship.

We really were not told much about him by the media except that he was a Mexican-American, who was running back on the Klein Collins High School football team and was the homecoming prince as a freshman. Most notably people remember him as the victim of a hate crime that took place on April 22, 2006 at the home of Gus Sons that was triggered by an accusation that David tried to kiss Danielle Sons, Gus’ the underage sister. What we have been told through various media outlets is that David was stomped and burned with cigarettes, and his attackers poured bleach on him before leaving him for dead. After his brutal assault, he was hospitalized for more than three months and underwent through 30 operations. What seems very odd is why Gus, and friend he met at Highpoint North, an alternative school where David was sent for fighting, didn’t call the police until the next day. According to Mike Trent, Assistant District Attorney for Harris County, there was more to the story than what actually was being reported by the media.
In the 2007 Jan/Feb edition of Journal of the Texas District & County Attorneys Association, Trent wrote that Gus, a small-time drug dealer, were already friends with Tuck and Turner and “Gus’ nickname for Tuck was “Skinhead David” because of Tuck’s shaved head, bigoted views, and neo-Nazi tattoos.” The fight started when Tuck spewed his racial venom against Latina/os when he referred to them as “wetbacks.” An intense argument broke out between Tuck and David. According to Trent  (note – You will notice Trent changed David’s name to Billy Reyes. This was written while David was still a minor, therefore, the name change was done in order to protect his identity. Warning: the text contains graphic detail of the heinous crime):

Not long thereafter Gus discovered that his bag of narcotics, some of which he had picked up at the Crawfish Festival, was missing. Upset at the prospect of losing more than $300 worth of drugs, Gus asked Billy about them, and Billy denied stealing the drugs. A short time later, as Gus, Tuck, and Turner were smoking on the front porch, the highly inebriated Billy attempted to kiss Danielle. Danielle reported it to Gus, who then confronted Billy. Tuck accused Billy of stealing the drugs and trying to rape Danielle, both of which Billy denied. Without any further warning, Tuck slugged Billy in the face hard enough to knock him into a dog kennel. Billy just lay there, too drunk and stoned to get up. Sensing easy prey, Tuck and Turner dragged Billy into the backyard. Gus again accused Billy of kissing Danielle, hit him once in the chest, and backed off. That ended Gus’ participation but not the assault.

Tuck and Turner began kicking, beating, and stomping Billy Reyes, Tuck wearing black, steel-toe boots, one of which was emblazoned with a swastika. Yelling “Beaner!” and other racial epithets, Tuck inflicted most of the damage. After one especially vicious kick, Tuck shouted “White power!” and gave a Nazi salute. Unable to fight back or defend himself in any way, Billy just lay there and took it, mumbling and groaning occasionally. Undeterred, or more accurately encouraged by the lack of resistance, Tuck and Turner began stripping off Billy’s clothing.

“If you had any white in you, you would be helping me,” Tuck told Gus. He then pulled out a silver pocketknife. When Gus started to protest, Tuck only glared at him. “Don’t bitch out on me now,” he told the frightened Gus, and began slashing at Billy’s bare chest. He was making superficial wounds, almost as if he was trying to draw something. Detectives would later come to believe Tuck was attempting to carve a swastika.

Taking the cigarette, [Tuck] began touching the tip of it to Billy’s bare skin, burning him on the arms, legs, back, and buttocks. Turner lit up another cigarette and joined in. Finally, Turner put the cigarette out right between Billy’s eyes. Tuck chuckled, “Now he looks like a f***ing Hindu!”

Billy could no longer speak because Tuck had stomped on his throat hard enough to break one of his tracheal rings. All he could manage was a weak, agonized moan. He lay there a few feet from the patio, naked and helpless. And now it was Turner who had an idea.

[Because the article contains graphic detail, you can read the entire post on my blog, ¡Para Justicia y Libertad!]

There is more, Trent mentioned that Gus and Danielle “had not been honest with detectives initially and had minimized their own involvement in the offense.” He also mentions that during the investigation Tuck stated that Danielle Sons sexually assaulted the victim with the pipe, but due to “legal warnings” that statement was suppressed. However, there could be some amount of reality to what Tuck had said; according to Trent, Danielle was “cold and sullen” and “showed no emotion” when she was on the stand. In fact, when she was questioned on how she injuryed her big toe, which was noticeably bruised the next day according to witnesses, she claimed she had stubbed it on a curb.

The obvious question is what drives people like Tuck and Tuner to muster up such a strong feeling of hatred towards another human being. Hatred so strong that lead to an assault that was intended to strip David Ritcheson of his personal identity and degrade him to an object that could be insulted and sodomized.

Earlier this year, President Bush vowed to veto the expansion of the hate crimes bill that would have would have broaden the federal authority to aid state and local law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes motivated by race, religion, national origin and color, as well as sexual orientation, gender and disability. Bush’s reason was that his “senior advisor’s” AKA James Dodson, of socially conservative lobbying group Focus on the Family, felt that it would “muzzle people of faith who dare to express their moral and biblical concerns about homosexuality.” What Dodson refuses to see is that the hate crimes bill is not intended to go after people like him and is ilk who enjoy spewing venom diatribes at a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity, the law is intended to go after the criminal actions motivated by this bias.

The sad truth, hate crimes are motivated by a deep hatred toward particular groups and their intent is not only to hurt their victims but also to send a powerful message of intolerance and discrimination to all members of the group to which the victim belongs. For example, Gus withheld his ethnicity from Tuck knowing how he felt towards minorities. Without hate-crimes legislation that makes such a connection between bias and intention explicit, many jurors will continue not to equate a generalized racial/sexual/religious/disability intention to a specific hatred of an individual enemy.

Although David Ritcheson remembers nothing of his attack, he did testify about it during a congressional hearing back in April on the pending hate-crimes bill, H.R. 1592, the “Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007.”

Weeks later I recall waking up in the hospital with a myriad of emotions, including fear and uncertainty. Most of all, I felt inexplicable humiliation. Not only did I have to face my peers and my family, I had to face the fact that I had been targeted for violence in a brutal crime because of my ethnicity. This crime took place in middle-class America in the year 2006. The reality that hate is alive, strong, and thriving in the cities, towns, and cul-de-sacs of Suburbia, America was a surprise to me. America is the country I love and call home. However, the hate crime committed against me illustrates that we are still, in some aspects, a house divided. I know now that there are young people in this country who are suffering and confused, thirsting for guidance and in need of a moral compass. These are some of the many reasons I am here before you today asking that our government take the lead in deterring individuals like those who attacked me from committing unthinkable and violent crimes against others because of where they are from, the color of their skin, the God they worship, the person they love, or the way they look, talk or act.

As much as he truly wished the trauma would just go away “by not thinking about it,” the sad reality it was too much for him to bear. It might be that David was beginning to recall his horrific ordeal, Carlos Leon, the family’s attorney, told reporters that things were beginning to change over the last month or two, but declined to discuss specifics, just that David Ritcheson was starting “to externalize his pain” to his parents and other relatives.

David Ritcheson, may your soul be free of the demons that haunted you, your memory be remembered, and may you finally have found peace.

We have always been told that US is land of opportunity where newcomers can achieve better lives for themselves and their families only if they persevere and work hard. One fear for those who are ardently pro-immigration have is that Congress may pass a policy that is intended to hurt the interests of an immigrant – legal and undocumented – who are trying to navigate through this country. Members of Congress have proposed heightened border security, increased enforcement of immigration laws, and even the criminalization of undocumented immigrants and those who help them.

Today, many Congressional leaders want to allow corporations and contractors to recruit hundreds of thousands of workers a year outside of the US and put them to work here on temporary visas. In fact, it is not only multinational corporations who would be benefiting from this bill; it would also be the military. A couple of days ago, Kyle from Immigration Orange informed of an of an article that was written in the Boston Globe. Bryan Bender writes about a provision buried in the immigration bill under consideration in Congress that was really intended to “certify the ability of states to offer in-state tuition to immigrants residing there” and “provide a pathway to obtain permanent residency” for the adult children who were brought to the United States illegally by their parents as children. This provision is called the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act or DREAM Act.
While the DREAM Act may facilitate access to college for a small percentage of these undocumented students, in many cases other factors will militate against the college option. This is where the military comes in, tucked away in the current immigration bill is a provision to help boost military recruiting.

A little-noticed provision in the proposed immigration bill would grant instant legal status and ultimately full citizenship to illegal immigrants if they enlist in the US military, an idea the Pentagon and military analysts say would boost the Pentagon’s flagging efforts to find and recruit qualified soldiers.

The reality is that military recruitment is down significantly and the provision is expected to improve the sagging recruitment numbers by allowing undocumented immigrants to enlist as a means to obtain citizenship. Recently the Department of Defense announced that the drafting goals fell short in May. The Army fell short in May by 7 percent, short of its goal of 5,500, while the Army National Guard fell 12% short of their goal and the Air National Guard was well below their target by 23 percent.

It is not a secret that the military was hoping that the immigration bill would have passed the first time around. Bill Carr, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, recently told a veterans’ group since the immigration bill did not pass through Congress, he was hoping they would be able to fast track the DREAM Act so the military could start recruiting undocumented immigrants right away.

“In other words, if you had come across (the border) with your parents, yet you were a minor child and have been in the U.S. school system for a number of years, then you could be eligible to enlist,” he said. “And at the end of that enlistment, then you would be eligible to become a citizen.”

Currently, between 40,000 and 47,000 non-citizens are serving in the military. According to Emilio Gonzalez, director of the Bureau of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, about 40,000 non-citizens are already serving in the military. Another source, Defense Manpower Data Center, reports there are 35,000 non-citizens are currently serving on active duty in the US Armed Forces, with another 12,000 serving in the Guard and reserves.

Only legal residents and green card holders were qualified to serve because the executive order President Bush signed 2002 only applied to them. If the current bill were to pass, the Defense Department is hoping to see a major boost because the expansion of the recruiting pool would now include at least 750,000 youths of military age that could immediately enter the path to citizenship in exchange for at least two years of service in the armed forces.

However, not everybody can qualify. According to the Globe, only high school graduates who are “honor roll students, star athletes, talented artists, aspiring teachers, and doctors” would qualify for military service. The Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, told the Globe only some of them – roughly 280,000 illegal immigrants between 18 and 24 – would qualify for the program. However, this is not true. The Globe most likely cited a summary of a previous bill because neither of the current bills that have been introduced in the Senate Bill 774 (as the “DREAM Act”), H.R.1275 (as the “American Dream Act”), the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (S. 1348) or S. 1639 say anything about making such exclusions.

Why would the Globe and Deputy Undersecretary Carr state a provision that is not there or cannot be found in any of those three bills? One does have to wonder why they would make such a statement, could it be so that the nativists will not be claiming this to be another example of another amnesty program.

I previously wrote that Council on Foreign Relations neoconservative senior fellow Max Boot had proposed that the military enlist and actively recruit foreigners from other countries.

The military would do well today to open its ranks not only to legal immigrants but also to illegal ones and, as important, to untold numbers of young men and women who are not here now but would like to come. No doubt many would be willing to serve for some set period in return for one of the world’s most precious commodities – U.S. citizenship. Open up recruiting stations from Budapest to Bangkok, Cape Town to Cairo, Montreal to Mexico City. Some might deride those who sign up as mercenaries, but these troops would have significantly different motives than the usual soldier of fortune. (Emphases mine)

The truth is the US is running out of troops because the war in Iraq has tied down roughly 150,000 US troops continuously for almost four years. Now that the Bush is sending another 30,000 troops to Iraq this only makes the troop shortage worse. Recruitment is so bad, it was reported that the Army sent its recruiters to Panama City, FL during Spring Break hoping to entice some young drunk white co-ed into signing their life away to the Army.

Given the difficulty, undocumented youth have in affording college tuition, the pressure on them to make financial contributions to extended families, and the tendency to adopt uncritical forms of patriotism based on “gratitude,” military recruiters will be the ones who benefit the most. As I stated before, the US Military has a long history of targeting people who happen to come from working class families and areas with a large number of minorities, both urban and rural – otherwise known as a “poverty draft.” Many people assume that joining the military is a way out of poverty. Some veterans do say that their experience in the military or the college benefits that they were able to get, was helpful to them. However, the reality for most veterans is far different. According to the Army Times, reports that over 50,000 unemployed veterans are on the waiting list for the military’s “retraining” program. The Veterans’ Administration estimates that 1/3 of homeless people are vets. It was just recently reported that about one-third of the 9.1 million people covered under the military health care system seek counseling in their first year after returning from war. Yet, the soldiers who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan “are finding it more difficult” to receive counseling because military insurance is cutting payments to therapists.

Wait lists now extend for months to see a military doctor and it can takes weeks to find a private therapist willing to take on members of the military. The challenge appears great in rural areas, where many National Guard and Reserve troops and their families live.

Or that fact that loved ones are still in harms way because many are still without proper armor and are in danger of returning home with a debilitating brain injury, missing legs and/or arms, and/or coming back terribly burned all because of the roadside bombings that are taking place.

However to the military, this is excused with a “war is hell” attitude and the fact some are injured, well, that is just the consequences of war. The Pentagon has already spent millions to gather information on how to target recruit Latinos into the military. Each year, employees from JAMRS – the “official Department of Defense program for joint marketing communications and market research and studies” – gathered for their annual direct-marketing conference. JAMRS claims the role of the marketing communications programs is to “help broaden people’s understanding of Military Service as a career option.” However, it also engages in all sorts of not-for-public-consumption studies that are meant to “help bolster the effectiveness of all the Services’ recruiting and retention efforts.” In 2005, in their annual conference, paid New York marketing consultant Michael Saray made a presentation – “Marketing to Hispanics” – to JAMRS on how the Latino community is “wired” differently and how Hispanics tend to be “emotional” and “right-brained.”

According to Jorge Mariscal, Saray’s presentation indicated that Hispanics are supposedly “emotional, intuitive, creative, Big Picture, and visionary.”

Simply put, JAMRS trainees were taught “the Spanish language has not favored intellect over emotion. It’s [sic] bias or thought process has not favored the left brain over the right brain. This is a real cultural difference.” Therefore, the Saray group’s advice to Pentagon ad men devising Hispanic campaigns for military recruitment is to “avoid blatant overuse of numbers. You want to reach the heart, not the left brain.” To sum up, “the traditions of Hispanic culture are not necessarily in-synch with the concept of ‘mainstream society’ or the ‘American Dream.’ In general, Hispanics are right brain thinkers. The marketer must ‘acculturate’ or risk losing relevancy by continued reliance on left brain thinking.” (Emphases mine)

We live in a world of too much marketing and too much branding. The role of a social marketer is to change a specified behavior in a target audience because their goal personal goal is to promote or exchange goods or services for money. They are the negotiator between us and who ever hired them. They utilize distinctive techniques that will trigger a person’s emotions that also meet their wants and/or needs because they are consciously seeking ways to persuade people to change their values so they will continue to buy the same products over and over again, this is what is called brand loyalty. In this case, the military will use messages and images carefully developed to trigger those emotional responses like those used in commercial advertising. Knowing that there are external forces who will do the opposite – anti-war movement – and their job is to decide how to conceive far better strategies, tactics, and business models that make it hard if not impossible for a person to change their mind. But the question is at what cost and who will really benefit – the military or the immigrant who decided to join with the idea of getting a better job or the possibility of getting a high education?

With few prospects of gaining US citizenship through the usual channels, and with little hope of employment, decent housing and education, risking ones life for a glimmer of a chance for a better future clearly holds some attraction. But it does comes with a price. The sad reality, the promises made by the Government frequently fail to materialize. Just ask Yaderlin Jiminez, wife of missing servicemen Alex Jimenez, who is now facing deportation. One of the greatest challenges for many immigrants is the experience of immigration itself, but to the Bush War Machine, this is not a concern to them. For them, all they see is cannon fodder for their war effort, while at the same time they arrogantly tell military families they should “learn how to laugh” if they fell stressed out from hear news about the war. To the military people expendable while families are morning over the fresh graves that are being dug daily! Maybe the Bush cabal can see the humor in sending thousands of people in harms way, however, I doubt the children do as they see their moms or dads being shipping off to a war that is illegal, immoral and unjust. Or the the parents who are losing their sons and daughters. Or the spouses who are losing their husbands and wifes.

Ironically, nativist and xenophobic groups are demanding the deportation of the Brown, yet, you we never hear them complain when we hear a Spanish surname on the roll call of the dead or missing. The first US solider to have their taken away for this country at the beginning of the Iraq War was Jose Antonio Gutierrez from Guatemala.

For some immigrants, the DREAM Act will help them access to college in the US; for others, the barriers will continue to be insurmountable. One thing is certain – if the immigration bill passes, the quest to access higher education and achieve the American Dream will be nothing but a pipe dream as these new residents will be at the frontlines of next imperial misadventures.

x-posted on Para Justicia y Libertad

In the midst of a polarized debate on immigration, politicians and the media continue to paint conflicting pictures of the influence of immigrants on our communities and the economy. In an effort to address these problems, the Senate previously hit a roadblock on June 7, when the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill that was being considered in the Senate was defeated. Senators failed to close off the debate and move toward a final vote. Just when you thought that immigration was over for the year, President George Bush would have none of that. However, George Bush and the Senate backers of the bill are pushing really hard to resurrect it.

A new immigration bill Senate Bill 1639 was introduced by Senators Ted Kennedy and Arlen Specter earlier this week. The new bill is the same as the failed Senate bill Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill that was put together by a small group of bipartisan senators working with Bush. This time around, oddly enough, the same Senators who were instrumental in defeating the bill are giving life back to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill by attaching a series of amendments. It seems there was a change of heart soon after Bush met with the Republican senators who voted against the bill. The text for Senate Bill 1639 was made available to the public today, which can be viewed on GovTrack, the information clearinghouse that indexes all bills and roll call votes in the Congress. A copy of the proposed bill can be found at the end of this post.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the plan is to submit a series of amendments to the bill to appease their angry critics. The bipartisan group is secretly meeting again and once again are withholding information of the proposed changes from the American public in order to fast track this bill before the Fourth of July recess. How ironic, isn’t it? More alarming, is how the Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid bamboozled the Latino and the immigrant community by devising an “elaborate series of procedural maneuvers to allow a test-vote” today, June 21, Democrats.

Once again, the Democrats proved themselves to be hypocritical, they are no better than the Republicans they just ousted. Reid’s procedural maneuvering will give lawmakers even less time for consideration and deliberation than they had before, which means they literally will forgo various procedures that are associated in the lawmaking process – hearings, testimony, committee debate and amendments, floor debate, and the possibility of further amendments. Instead, this bill will be fast tracked through the Senate without a true debate and without providing us a chance to voice our opinions.

This bill is not a clash pitting nativist forces against big business “pro-immigrant’ forces. At the heart of this Senate proposal are: (1) further militarization of the border and the expansion of immigrant detention camps; (2) a “guest worker” program that will keep immigrants in slave-like conditions; (3) a “legalization” scheme to force undocumented immigrants to jump through many hoops to attain permanent residency; and (4) major restrictions on US Citizens and permanent residents to bring family members legally into the US, which would result in splitting families apart.

The proposal calls for new levels in the deployment of border patrol, hi-tech surveillance equipment, and detention of immigrants at the border. One of the key changes is to create  of $4.4 billion to a newly created general fund, “Immigration Security Account,” (Section 2 IMMIGRATION SECURITY ACCOUNTS) that would the authorize Homeland Security to increase the militarization of the border. The $4.4 billion would come out of the fines and back taxes these undocumented immigrants are required to pay in order to apply for a temporary visa (Title VI, Section 611 AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS). The funds would be used to construct more walls, build more Concentration Camps, provide more surveillance equipment, develop an employment eligibility verification system, increase the number of armed agents on the border and the recruitment of former military troops from “the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard who have elected to separate from active duty” (Title I, Section 101 ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL).

(a) The first $4,400,000,000 of such penalties shall be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury as repayment of funds transferred into the Immigration Security Account under section 286(z)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The proposed bill would construct 20 new concentration camps that will have the capacity to detain a total of 20,000 individuals at any time. Currently, there 22,000 immigrants being detained by the Homeland Security. This would increase the number of beds to 6,700 beds, which would make the gain since 1994 virtually fourfold. These detention centers are meant to cage people up in an immigration human zoo and categorize them as criminals without trials, “aliens” not deserving of basic human rights.

It is ironic every immigrant (legal and undocumented) migrating into the US will be forced to foot the bill to increase the militarization at our border that is meant to keep them out. Today, thousands of immigrants who have the desired to have better life but do not have means to go through the process are forced to cross through dangerous desert and mountain areas that have already lead to hundreds of deaths each year.

Undocumented immigrants have been made into scapegoats for the insecurities and problems arising out of the workings of the capitalist system itself that are hitting most people. Through the reactionary media, the working class and those in the middle-class are constantly bombarded with the message that “illegal” immigrants are blamed for everything that has gone wrong in this country – from low wages to cuts in social services. This is an ugly game that is being played, it is intended to keep people from coming together to stand against the capitalist elites. This bill was seen for what it is once and it was opposed, yet, it is being defied and it is once again being pushed with very little notice.

All this underscores the urgency for immigrants and those who stand with them to resist this capitalist offensive. Those who are behind the bill apparently hoped to push it through “under the radar” and pass it without anybody noticing, need to be held accountable. There is a real need to build a strong united front that goes beyond the immigrant communities if we are ever to take on and defeat the anti-immigrant attacks.

x-posted on Para Justicia y Libertad

Download S.1639: The Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (PDF, 20 MB)