PT-LawMom

This article made me sick, but similar scenes are probably playing out all over the country. I think that people are in for a shock when the immigrant laborers leave for more accepting climates and suddenly, GASP, they have to pay a living wage and benefits if they want anyone to work for them. Or, OH NO, they actually have to pay a bit more at the local diner or nail salon because, you guessed it, the cheap labor has left the building. I’m not saying that the exploitation of these workers is fair or just, but I am saying that those who oppose immigrants (legal or illegal) often don’t realize just how positive of an effect they have on the local economy. Even the border states have found that the economic benefits come out ahead of the economic losses when they tally it all up.

Mr. Reza says he can’t understand why America accepts global flows of companies, money and jobs but not workers. Why faith in market forces seems to have been eclipsed by fear of immigrants. Or why the country cannot set up legal channels to let jornaleros come and go and not be hassled. “They actually are people with a work ethic that would make the Puritans proud,” he said.

Didn’t watch it, but after reading this article my only comment is that I’ve always liked John McCain.

Finally some good news for the people who have been targeted, often unfairly, by ICE raids (specifically, legal relatives or household members or children who have been scared out of their mind by these raids and torn away from their family members). A group of Bay Area law firms is forming a task force to challenge the constitutionality of the raids on behalf of these individuals.

My good friend, Christa, recently sent me this article on an undocumented border crosser who gave up all he had gained by successfully making the journey across the border in favor of helping a nine year-old boy who had just been involved in a car accident. As the boy’s mother lay dying in the car, the man stayed with the boy all night long offering comfort and reassurance. When help arrived, the man was taken into custody by border patrol. Of course. I was very touched and honestly believe that this is the norm, not the exception. If you haven’t yet read Sandra Nazario’s book, Enrique’s Journey, and heard about all of the generous people out there, you should really go pick up a copy and learn about the human side of immigration.

The New York Times has an article today focusing on the fine line that candidates in both parties are having to walk between seeming to lenient or too harsh on the immigration issue. I think they just want it to go away, but obviously the public cares about this issue and wants change.

An ABC News poll conducted in September found that 54 percent of Americans believed that illegal immigrants do more to hurt the country than help; 34 percent said they do more to help; 6 percent said they neither help nor hurt; 7 percent were unsure.

“While agreeing with us on policy, people are nevertheless extraordinarily angry,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist. “The tone of the Democrats consistently fails to reflect that anger. In that sense, we’re out of sync with the public.”

Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, compared voter sentiment to the growing desire even among Democrats in the early 1990s for an overhaul of the welfare system, pointing to exasperation about illegal immigration especially among certain groups — those with only a high school education, African-Americans and people in rural areas.

It will be interesting to see what Congress gets done in 2008, if anything, and how this issue ultimately plays out in the campaign.

The New York Times has a piece today on the incentives Ecuador is offering to its citizens to return to their homelands. The problem, as pointed out in the article, is that although many people want to return, they probably won’t because the economy there is very weak.

“I have a wife and three sons in Ecuador,” said Cesar Tella, a 23-year-old waiter who on a recent afternoon was sitting in the waiting room of an American branch of Banco del Austro, an Ecuadorean bank. Mr. Tella has not seen his family in five years. “We talk three times a week,” he said, “and every time, they ask me when I’m coming home.”

If Mr. Tella stays away, it is for an obvious reason: Ecuador’s economy has been a shambles since the late 1990s, when the banking system collapsed and inflation skyrocketed. Ecuador’s poverty rate last year was more than 38 percent, and unemployment is 8.8 percent, nearly double the rate in the United States. Home prices and utility rates in Ecuador can approach American levels, but the average wage is far lower.

“I was a nurse, and I was making $150 a month,” said Erika Iniguez, 27, who came from Ecuador in July and is taking an English class near Roosevelt Avenue. “And the wages don’t go up.”

For this reason, many Ecuadorean New Yorkers say Mr. Correa’s plan will fail.

It seems to me that if the Republicans are so fired up about the influx of undocumented immigrants, they should stop cutting off or stifling programs that help these countries and start returning aid and targeting programs that will help strengthen there economies. People don’t want to leave their countries but they will if there is a better way to provide for their families. It’s for exactly that reason that people will also choose to stay here.

I think I vomited a little in my mouth reading the tale of this baby snatched from its mother’s breast by ICE officers. How can they live with themselves?!?

The NY Times has a fantastic editorial on the use of the word “illegal” as it relates to undocumented immigrants. Really good piece.

An excerpt:

America has a big problem with illegal immigration, but a big part of it stems from the word “illegal.” It pollutes the debate. It blocks solutions. Used dispassionately and technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Used as an irreducible modifier for a large and largely decent group of people, it is badly damaging. And as a code word for racial and ethnic hatred, it is detestable.

“Illegal” is accurate insofar as it describes a person’s immigration status. About 60 percent of the people it applies to entered the country unlawfully. The rest are those who entered legally but did not leave when they were supposed to. The statutory penalties associated with their misdeeds are not insignificant, but neither are they criminal. You get caught, you get sent home.

Since the word modifies not the crime but the whole person, it goes too far. It spreads, like a stain that cannot wash out. It leaves its target diminished as a human, a lifetime member of a presumptive criminal class. People are often surprised to learn that illegal immigrants have rights. Really? Constitutional rights? But aren’t they illegal? Of course they have rights: they have the presumption of innocence and the civil liberties that the Constitution wisely bestows on all people, not just citizens.

The Washington Post has a sad article today about young groups of juveniles attacking Latinos walking near their homes and workplaces at night because many undocumented (and even legal) immigrants do not use traditional banks, but rather carry cash they get from check cashing stores. Many of these people are working two or even three jobs to scrape together money to support their families back home and then they have to take usually unpaid time off work to recover from injuries they suffer in these attacks. This actually happened to one of my family members about two years ago. He was beaten at a Metro station in DC and the attackers took his cell phone. Since he had documents and actually had a bank account, all they got was his debit card (which we promptly cancelled) but he was hospitalized for three days with a brain blead and remains emotionally traumatized by the event.

The Washington Post has a story today about fearful Latinos in Prince William Co., VA who are scared to even leave their homes to go to the doctors for fear of harassment by police.

Radio stations and hotlines are fielding calls from immigrants asking whether it is safe to drive cars or visit public parks. Lawyers are advising parents to make emergency plans for their children and assets in case they are detained on suspicion of being in the country illegally. Volunteers are organizing meetings, and one woman, a U.S. citizen from El Salvador, has decided to launch a write-in candidacy for the Board of County Supervisors.

“I feel as if my own community is slamming the door in my face. Someone has to stand up and do something,” said Araceli Paname¿o, 42, a longtime Woodbridge resident who took a leave of absence from her job in Washington last Thursday to explore the possibility of running in the election next month.

“I could sell my house and say I am fed up, but this county is my home,” she said. “I want to stay and try to change the environment.”

Ten miles away, Mirabel Martinez, 25, sat on her doorstep last Thursday afternoon, phoning a list of volunteers to plan a strategy meeting at a taco restaurant. She, too, is a legal immigrant and homeowner from El Salvador who lives in a quiet county neighborhood. She, too, said she had felt a new sting of hostility, even from a local church, which demanded proof of residency when she went to pick up donated food for a needy friend.

“I showed them my voter registration card, and they said it was not enough,” Martinez said. “I am here legally. But I have a lot of relatives and friends who are still illegal, and I can imagine how scared they are. I want to tell them to not be afraid and try to live normally, but to be careful and not do things like drive with false licenses. We can’t be defeatist. We have to stay and fight.”