The Misery Strategy

This New York Times editorial, The Misery Strategy nails it.

The country will have a long time to watch this approach as it fails. The politicians who killed the Senate bill for offering “amnesty” have never offered a workable alternative. Their one big idea is that harsh, unrelenting enforcement at the border, in the workplace and in homes and streets would dry up opportunities for illegal immigrants and eventually cause the human tide to flow backward. That would be true only if life for illegal immigrants in America could be made significantly more miserable than life in, say, rural Guatemala or the slums of Mexico City. That will take a lot of time and a lot of misery to pull that off in a country that has tolerated and profited from illegal labor for generations.

The American people cherish lawfulness but resist cruelty, and have supported reform that includes a reasonable path to earned citizenship. Their leaders have given them immigration reform as pest control.

Think how bad America would have to make life for these families to make them want to go back to third world conditions with no prospects. Is that how we want our country to treat people? Like pests?

End the abuse NOW

Timing is a funny thing.

I had been thinking for a while about how I might be able to call some attention to the deplorable conditions of women and men in the Marianas Islands. The forced abortions. The forced prostitution. What can only be called a form of slavery and human trafficking, on U.S. soil no less. I haven't been able to completely understand how it has persisted in America. What segment of the population can tolerate forced abortions? For a nation divided into Pro-Life and Pro-Choice, where is there a constituency willing to sit back and allow women on U.S. soil to be coerced into having abortions in illegal clinics?

I'm not sure what forces of the universe allowed it to happen with such fortuitous timing, but Digby asked me to post on her blog while her traffic was as high as ever, as she was accepting an award on behalf of progressive bloggers. I will always be grateful to Digby for allowing me the opportunity to point readers to the fine work of the blogger Dengre, whose work on the subject is unparalleled.

I looked forward, in that post, to an important Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on S. 1634, a bill introduced by Sen. Akaka to federalize the Islands' immigration policies. With enough pressure, the bill will pass -- with amendments -- and it will put us on the path to ending these atrocities, once and for all.

Here's where the timing is not so great. The hearing is this Thursday and the entire blog-o-sphere is buzzing with the looming battle in the Senate over the Iraq War.

I write tonight to plead with any readers to make sure this chance doesn't get away. We have a very narrow window in which we can literally rescue people in our own country from being treated like meat, locked away with no rights and no hope. Convicted for the crime of accepting a legal offer to work in America.

Thanks to Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and other corrupt and morally bankrupt power-brokers, these victims have had no chance of any help from Washington for a decade. This hearing, this bill, right now is their chance for the kind of human rights we all expect in America. Please help me by telling your senators that this matters to you.

If you are already contacting your senators to encourage them to end the war, you can take the opportunity to ask them to support human rights in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI).

Dengre has an eloquent new post with much more information:

Contact your Senator, especially members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Urge them to support S. 1634 and encourage them to support amendments that would:

1. Create a pathway to Citizenship for Guest Workers who have been on the CNMI for more than five years—and a Green Card for all workers with children who are US Citizens.

2. Outline a clear appeals process for any worker denied Immigration Status and/or other rights by the local CNMI Government through new or existing Federal systems of appeals.

4. Mandate that all CNMI entry visa programs—both work and tourist—are run by the Federal Government. (To allow the local CNMI Government to run a tourist visa program is to allow human trafficking.)

5. Mandate random, spot check interviews of guest workers and tourists as they arrive and leave the CNMI to ensure that they were (and are not) victims of abuse.

There are other changes that should be made as well, but S. 1634 is a start. It is my hope that a stronger Bill can come out of the House and the final legislation will be real reform. We have to use S. 1634 as the legislative vehicle for reform because the Ethnic Weeding of workers is well underway on the CNMI.

Next week, on July 25, the new minimum wage will kick in. The Pirates of Saipan will use it to fire thousands of long-time workers. Then they will have 30 days to find a new job. Then they will be on a 45 day clock to deportation.

That gives us 75 days (until October 8) to pass a final bill and have it signed into law. If it takes longer, more workers will be cleansed for the CNMI and denied justice.

We need to stand with them as they fight for justice.

For a very long time, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff and the Republican Party blocked reform. If we fail now it will be our fault.

The thing I have always loved the most about America is that every single day, just by virtue of waking up, we have an opportunity to do something extraordinary. Sometimes we need more than that, though... An undeniable recognition that we are at a unique juncture, a brief moment in time when action is absolutely necessary and likely to accomplish something tremendous.

I'm writing to tell you that this moment in time -- right now -- is such an occasion. These people can be saved; we just have to make our senators understand that human rights are important to us.

Here are the members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee:

Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)

Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI)

Byron L. Dorgan (D-ND)

Ron Wyden (D-OR)

Tim Johnson (D-SD)

Mary L. Landrieu (D-LA)

Maria Cantwell (D-WA)

Ken Salazar (D-CO)

Robert Menendez (D-NJ)

Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)

Bernard Sanders (D-VT)

Jon Tester (D-MT)

Pete V. Domenici (R-NM)

Larry E. Craig (R-ID)

Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)

Richard Burr (R-NC)

Jim DeMint (R-SC)

Bob Corker (R-TN)

Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

Jim Bunning (R-KY)

Gordon Smith (R-OR)

Mel Martinez (R-FL)

John Barrasso (R-WY)

If you see your senator above, please tell them to do the right thing. If you can call your favorite radio program, please do it. Isn't it obvious that ending this abuse is the right thing to do? The Senate's attention will move to another topic soon and these people will either be afforded human dignity or doomed to be exploited for years to come.

When this time has passed, won't you be proud to know you spoke for human rights in your own country when it counted?

UPDATE: Dengre has published an even newer post since I started (slowly) writing this.

No excuses

(Cross-posted at Hullabaloo)

Yesterday was Juneteenth, a time to reflect on Civil Rights and progress in America. As I was admonished in comments here for not making clearer, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in America. But sub-human conditions for workers still exist, to the everlasting shame of the Congress that has allowed it to continue on American soil.

It's easy sometimes to feel helpless when confronted by crimes against humanity in distant locations, where seemingly little can be done. It is inexcusable for nothing to be done when the outrages occur within the legal jurisdiction of our own representative government.

I'm writing about the exploitation that is hidden away in the Marianas Islands. I'm referring to the women who are tricked into thinking they are buying a chance to work in America, only to learn that they are essentially imprisoned in a filthy den, forced to work for nothing, forced into prostitution, forced to have abortions, and finally shipped back to their homelands, broken and penniless. I'm writing about a man who couldn't "spotlight" a blog post; he lit himself on fire to call attention to the desperation that has been largely ignored.

I know of nobody on the blog-o-sphere who has devoted more energy to this horrible situation than dengre at Daily Kos. I urge you to read dengre's diary detailing how Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff made sure Congress would do nothing but turn a blind eye to these atrocities. You can read dengre's transcripts of the Senate testimony of abused women, some of which fell on deaf ears a decade ago.

You can also see a (somewhat old) video here that shows the working conditions out there.

Again, this is on U.S. soil. Now that the Democrats control Congress, there is no reason this ugliness should remain in the shadows. There is no excuse for allowing this exploitation to continue.

Last week, Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) introduced "a bill to implement further the Act approving the Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the United States of America, and for other purposes." It remains to be seen what the bill hopes to accomplish, or what it will look like in its final form. Hearings may begin next month.

There is no doubt what the bill ought to do. Slavery is wrong. Rape is wrong. That may be hard for Tom DeLay to comprehend while he smiles to allow people to see Jesus through his mugshot. But it should be obvious to just about everybody else. Please put pressure on Congress to do the right thing.

Shame on you, Lou Dobbs

Even though DB has never felt as badly scooped as I do right now with the blog-o-sphere abuzz with talk about Lou Dobbs' and Laura Flanders, here is the post I began and then set aside last week. (The only thing worse for this blogger than feeling like a particular post has zero effect on the topic is realizing that it may be too late to even have any effect on the conversation in general).

The thing that bothers DB about Lou Dobbs, more than anything, is the way he uses language to dehumanize the millions of hard-working people and families who are in this country without documentation. But beyond that, it is also the way he simultaneously shifts the entire burden of culpability onto the people with the least amount of power in the nation.

I wrote last year about the hypocrisy of the deport-them-all position. In a nation which has all but ignored its own laws, with a representative government and large segment of employers who have synergistically conspired to offer a tacit invitation to workers to enter the country illegally, the idea that the blame lies with people who have accepted those invitations and have done little or nothing other than fulfill their end of the bargain by working hard and raising families in pursuit of the American Dream is ridiculous.

Dobbs insists on calling them "illegal aliens," rather than "undocumented workers." He doesn't refer to our nation's employers as "illegal employers." He doesn't refer to our executive, who has deliberately decided not to enforce the laws against those employers as an "illegal president." He doesn't refer to representatives who have deliberately decided not to seriously fund an effort to stop people from crossing the border as an "illegal congress."

It has been decades now that the American government, ultimately accountable to the American people, in tandem with wealthy American employers, have waved their hands in invitation to hard-working people from South of the border. And yet, despite the fact that he knows this and reports on this, though Dobbs' use of language, the blame is shifted entirely to the workers, who hold the least power in the entire equation and who are the most susceptible to victimization and hate crimes (in fact, not just theory) by an intolerant audience whose emotions are manipulated by this language, despite Dobbs' attempts to distance himself from those elements.

In short, if the American employers and the American government (and by extension, the American people) don't care enough about our immigration laws to have enforced them to any sort of standard that indicates we take them seriously, why should people who come here to simply work and raise a family be charged with the high crime of being disrespectful of the rule of law?

In addition to his use of language, Dobbs also uses dubious sources for his statistics and "facts." Dave Neiwert has done a remarkable job of documenting Dobbs' recent transgressions. The silver lining in being completely scooped by a superior blogger is that I don't need to waste time rehashing how horrible his encounters with Mark Potok and Laura Flanders were. But I have a little bit more to add, anyway.

As incredible as the exchange with Flanders was, what took it to a level of absurdity for DB was the fact that it shortly followed this report from Casey Wian:

WIAN: Surveys of practicing Catholics also reveal discord. A recent Pew Research Center poll asked Catholics if they would quote, "support allowing undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for several years to gain legal working status and the possibility of citizenship in the future." Sixty six percent favored the idea, 32 percent were opposed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIAN (on camera): But a year ago, the Pew Center asked a different question of non-Hispanic Catholics, using the word "illegal immigrants" instead of "undocumented immigrants." Only about a quarter of the group favored allowing illegal immigrants already in the United States to stay permanently, Lou.

DOBBS: And I believe that same poll and also and certainly the Zogby poll revealed that just about two thirds of all Catholics believed in strict border security and a very tough immigration law that should, should congress actually begin contemplating it.

WIAN: Absolutely.

Anybody with a brain would understand that language matters and that using the term "illegal aliens" would have a negative impact on the results of the poll, so it's no stretch to imagine that Dobbs would get that, too. But he even reported it and he did so only moments before berating Flanders for suggesting that he stop using language like that. His argument with her was a remarkable example of bullying (particularly in light of the fact that he apparently followed her off the set to say "How dare you!"). That it followed Wian's report made it a masterpiece of cognitive dissonance.

I'd also point out that the impetus for this conversation was the reported abuses by the Los Angeles police at the May 1 immigration rally. Dobbs devoted the absolute minimum of attention he possibly could to that story for a week. Despite having a reporter based in Los Angeles (Wian), Dobbs had no report on the incident. Perhaps it was too late to get into that day's broadcast, but look at the rest of the week: May 2, just five sentences in passing; May 3, seven sentences in passing; May 4, six sentences in passing. Finally, a report from Wian about it on Monday, May 7, which was incorporated into Dobbs' larger, ongoing reporting about the Catholic Church's involvement in the immigration movement, easily done because Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa joined Cardinal Roger Mahony at a "Catholic mass of reconciliation" that Sunday.

There was no relenting in Dobbs' coverage of his perceived damage to America by "illegal aliens," but practically no effort to describe the abuses to these demonstrators that were making headlines everywhere else.

And it is also important to note, as many have, that this was hardly the first time that Dobbs has been challenged on his use of language in describing undocumented workers. The way he treated Flanders, however, was extraordinary.

Consider also this exchange seven months ago in his hour-long special "Broken Borders:"

After repeating the word "illegal" 13 times in the program's introduction alone, he eventually reached this moment in the town hall-formatted special:

DOBBS: We're also here with Sheriff Rick Flores from Webb County, Texas. Sheriff, we've heard discussions about ordinances, local law enforcement, local communities taking up what the federal government won't do. Give us, if you will, your perspective as an important law enforcement officer in this state on the border.

RICK FLORES, SHERIFF, WEBB COUNTY: I can tell you, Lou, that Mexican people have been crossing the border since we've had a border with Mexico.

We've never had problems with Mexicans. Mexicans are not terrorists. It's the other than the Mexicans. The other people that are using Mexico as a jumping board to come into the United States who we are worried about and our Mexican border is very porous.

Now, in terms of -- and I do agree with Rosa that these are undocumented people. I don't like the word Mexican or illegal aliens.

DOBBS: You don't like the word Mexican?

FLORES: I don't like illegal aliens. Mexican is OK. Undocumented Mexicans, but see, there's a lot of people coming in through the Mexican border that are OTMs and those are the people that we're concerned about. And that's the reason why Congressman McCaul decided to investigate the Texas border sheriffs and the work that we were doing because of the violence that was escalating along the border and the potential for terrorist cells to make their way through Mexico to come into the United States. This deal about immigration, it just came post-9/11. Nobody had ever complained about illegal immigrants here.

DOBBS: I think you're exactly right.

FLORES: It was post-9/11.

DOBBS: I think you're right.

Dobbs thinks Flores is exactly right? Could anybody believe that? Perhaps it was because there was an audience, perhaps, as I'm inclined to believe, it's because he was not only hearing it from a man, but a sheriff, but in any event, there was no finger-pointing and Dobbs didn't try to talk over him and call him "obfuscatory."

Whatever his motivation for not just taking the comment in stride, but for actually completely agreeing with it, there was no indication in Dobbs' subsequent behavior that he took any of those comments to heart. That special aired over a weekend. The following week, on Lou Dobbs Tonight, the words "illegal aliens," "illegal immigration" or in the country "illegally" were spoken 96 times.

The word "undocumented" appeared just three times: Twice in viewer mail, mocking the term, and once by a member of a Catholic charity Lou brought on to lambaste for being in favor of impoverished "anchor babies" qualifying to receive food stamps as citizens of the United States.

Here we are, seven months later, and Dobbs still feeds a racist audience false statistics and provides cover for those who would dehumanize millions of hardworking people and advocate the destruction of their families by either deportation or the base tactic of simply starving them out of the country by eliminating their sources of income.

It is simply shameful. Shame on you, Lou Dobbs.

Debates: Immigration

There were no really no surprises in the debate for immigration issues. Duncan Hunter and Tom Tancredo dueled for the Lou Dobbs vote.

Hunter:

REP. HUNTER: You know, it's a way to win, but we need to win the right way. And you know, about a hundred miles south of here is the -- in my town of San Diego we built the border fence. When we built that fence, we had a border out of control, and we built that fence. And it's a double fence, it's not that little straggly fence you see on CNN with everybody getting over it.

He built a fence, Tom. Can you top that?

REP. TANCREDO: I would say pardon [Scooter Libby], but right after or before you pardon Ramos and Compean, two people who are presently serving in -- prison time for actually doing their job on the border.

Zing! Hunter?

REP. HUNTER: You know, we won World War II, World War I and the Cold War with a major industrial base. We're losing our industrial base through bad trade policy right now. China is cheating on trade. I would enforce trade laws. That's something that the president is not doing.

China! Tom?

MR. VANDEHEI: Congressman Tancredo, David Kim from here in California wants to know, beside yourself, who do you think should be the Republican nominee for president of the United States, and why?

REP. TANCREDO: ...I am telling you this; that there are issues that I believe have not been addressed tonight, not in full, and I believe that they do separate us, and I certainly believe the issue of immigration and immigration reform and what's going to happen to this country unless we deal with this forthrightly.

No more platitudes. No more obfuscating with using words like, "Well, I am not for amnesty but I'm for letting them stay." That kind of stuff has got to be taken away from the political debate, as far as I'm concerned, so people can understand exactly who is where on this incredibly important issue.

And when they see that, I think, frankly, I'm --

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, time.

Oh! Sorry, Tancredo. Hunter wins the Lou Dobbs portion of the debate.

Oh, but what about the children?

LOU DOBBS: Seven-year-old Saul Arellano, a pawn in the battle over illegal immigration, appeared before Mexico's Congress today. Arellano's mother, an illegal alien, has taken refuge in a Chicago church in an effort to avoid her deportation from the United States over the past three months. She has been deported before.

The boy is an American citizen. And immigration advocates and the boy's mother apparently see no problem in using her 7-year-old son as an outright political pawn.

A little American boy is trying to keep his mother here, with him, in America by talking about her situation to anyone who will tune in.

A rich American man is boosting his ratings and helping his network sell advertising by talking about this same woman to anyone who will tune in.

Regardless of how you feel about illegal immigration, that's basically the story here. Dobbs helped make this boy's mom a piece of national news. He's advocated for this boy's mother to be deported.

Now he's concerned about the boy?

Fair is fair

This may be hard for some to swallow, but there's no denying that it's true: The American government and American employers have tacitly encouraged illegal immigration.

Employers have hired illegals and taken advantage of their status, while the government has sporadically and arbitrarily enforced the law. How could anyone deny that the people coming here did so without the federal government looking the other way?

Why is it important to face this fact? Because although it is entirely appropriate for the United States to decide that, as of this minute, the laws and borders will be enforced fervently, it is absurd and immoral to pretend that this seriousness of purpose began in the distant past and that people who came here to establish families and to work for the American Dream did so without any complicity from those who would punish them today.

If we recognize the contributions of the undocumented workers who have been here for some time, does that tell the world that it's OK to break the law? Lou Dobbs and others will say it does, but the truth is that this country already told them that. It is absolutely delusional to think that we can focus all the burden of this policy transformation on to a hard-working minority and somehow communicate to the world that we are the shining emblem of justice.

This government isn't suddenly telling people they can no longer jaywalk. These immigrants have established lives here. Anybody claiming to have respect for life, for families, for work... for the American Dream should have enough room in his or her heart to accept the people who are already here.

If we don't want to tell the world that it's OK to break the law, we should ask our Senators and Congressmen to stop figuring out how to change the laws so that the president isn't breaking them anymore.

UPDATE: Following up, DB would like to add that it is not hard to understand why people in Bay Buchanan's "deport them all" camp would feel no hypocrisy in taking a position that people in the U.S. illegally deserve no "reward" for being here. People like her and Dobbs aren't individually culpable for the lax enforcement of the immigration laws. To the contrary, they've been demanding tougher enforcement for years.

But they, more than anyone, should recognize that collectively, our nation has not respected its own laws. Dobbs' show would not even have its primary focus had the federal government been enforcing the laws and had American employers been hiring legal workers exclusively. It should be more clear to the people who don't feel personally responsible for the problem and who have been critical of the federal government that it is in no position to act with any legitimacy as though it believes its laws are sacrosanct.

The point is that the message, "You get rewarded for breaking the law," isn't going to be sent out by anything the government does at this point. That message has been sent for decades and the people who came here to work are here because they received it.

The only message we should be worried about sending to the rest of the world at this point is "The people with power and money in our democracy will sell out their own citizens by hiring cheap foreign labor until it becomes politically untenable, at which point they will tell the minorities working for peanuts to get the hell out."

Tougher border security and consistent enforcement of the laws is not only appropriate, but DB demands it. Treating working people with families, already in our communities, like garbage to be dragged to the curb, however...

Oh, Lou

Are you astounded that illegal immigrants would demonstrate to protest the enforcement of the borders they crossed illegally to enter the United States?

Lou Dobbs is nothing if not consistent and willing to fight for what he believes. For that, DB applauds him.

However, this question assumes that there were "illegal immigrants" among the protesters. DB will stipulate that's probably true, but how does Lou know how many there were? It's as if everybody out there protesting "crossed" the borders.

What about neighbors and first-generation citizens? Maybe Lou's right and everybody in the Los Angeles streets this weekend snuck into this country... but this blogger thinks that Lou should be sure about that before throwing that question out there.

Furthermore, 77% of his respondents were "astounded" by that. Why would anybody be shocked that people assumed to have not respected a border would protest its enforcement?

Maybe Lou's next question should be:

Are you astounded that a television show would wonder why people don't respect a border when American business owners are offering gainful employment to undocumented workers and the governments on either side tacitly encourage people to cross it by inconsistently, infrequently and arbitrarily enforcing the laws?

UPDATE: Just to be clear. DB has little doubt that some percentage of those protesters are in this country illegally. Obviously, it is unreasonable to assume that none are, and it is both statistically and logically likely, based on the point of the protests, that a substantial number are. But DB gets the impression that Dobbs, and those who share his ideas about immigration, looked at those crowds and saw 500,000 Mexicans, when it is just as likely for a reasonable person to assume that some substantial percentage of the protesters are citizens. Without any evidence either way, this poll question seems irresponsible.