** Bus to the border
Part One - Sun, Dec. 16, 2007

** Deportation splits ˜city with a heart'
Part Two coming Monday

** Recycling criminals
Part Three coming Tuesday

http://www.ocregister.com/article/immigrants-ice-immigr...1942524-illegal-year


Orange County Register reporters spent a year examining U.S. efforts to deport undocumented immigrants accused of crimes. We interviewed law enforcement officials on both sides of the border, deportees and experts in immigration and international law.

We found a system overwhelmed by the sheer number of immigrants and hampered by public agencies working at cross-purposes. Although there are some successes, there are also unintended consequences.


Here is a guide to the series:



Bus to the border Part One

A $2 billion effort to deport immigrants has little measurable effect on crime or illegal immigration. Some agencies often work at cross-purposes.

By NORBERTO SANTANA Jr. and TONY SAAVEDRA
The Orange County Register

LAKE FOREST - Juan Gutierrez Bahena peeped through a window at the Aliso Creek Apartments, watching a young boy shower. When the boy called for his mother, Gutierrez Bahena ran off.

Then he pulled his pants down and exposed himself to a woman and her 7-year-old daughter.

When sheriff's deputies arrived, Gutierrez Bahena wanted a fight. Instead he got 50,000 volts from a Taser.

But deputies got a jolt of their own when they checked his fingerprints:

Gutierrez Bahena is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, with a California prison record for burglary and drugs. He has been deported to Mexico six times – most recently on May 26 – exactly one month before his arrest at Aliso Creek.

Undocumented immigrants accused of crime have become a major focus of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Last winter, the Orange County Sheriff's Department and the City of Costa Mesa partnered with ICE to look for undocumented immigrants in local streets and jails. Since then, they have identified and turned over more than 3,000 people for deportation – making them a national leader in this program.

"We're identifying more foreign nationals that are here illegally, that are career criminals, than anybody else in the United States," Sheriff Mike Carona told an anti-illegal immigration group at a Coco's restaurant in June.

In the words of Gutierrez Bahena, interviewed in shackles and an orange jumpsuit at the Orange County Jail, "They just take us to the border and it's over."

Actually, an Orange County Register investigation has found, it isn't.

U.S. efforts to find and deport illegal immigrants are overwhelmed by sheer numbers and hampered by public agencies working at cross-purposes. The $2 billion spent each year has little measurable effect on either crime or immigration.

Most people deported say they intend to return to the U.S. – and many do. Criminals have less trouble returning than most.

Threats of federal prison for illegal returnees are mostly empty. Federal prosecutors have neither the time nor the budget to prosecute illegal immigrants. Although tens of thousands were caught re-entering last year, U.S. attorneys in the Los Angeles basin prosecuted just 317 people for criminal re-entry.

In addition to Gutierrez Bahena, caught in Orange County for the seventh time, there was Oscar Gabriel Gallegos, 33, deported twice before he shot two Long Beach police officers last year; Adrian Guadalupe Arriano, 29, deported twice before his September arrest for raping two women in their Santa Clarita Valley homes; and Roberto Armendariz-Lozana, 41, deported three times before his June arrest in East Texas on drug trafficking charges.

Lozana had been deported just three months earlier.

"Does that happen? Yeah, that's happened. We all know that happens," said James Hayes, director of the ICE Detention and Removal Office in Los Angeles.

Hayes said the government is extending border fences, installing electronic monitoring devices and adding Border Patrol agents. In the meantime, he sees value in busing criminals to the border.

"I'd rather get them immediately and get them out of the country," Hayes said. "I do this because I believe in this."

Stepping up enforcement

Although any number is an estimate, the U.S. Bureau of Labor, the Pew Hispanic Center and the Center for Immigration Studies generally agree there are about 12 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. The Pew Center – a nonpartisan group that studies Hispanic migration – puts the number at 2.7 million in California. The Center for Immigration Studies, an independent think tank that seeks to restrict immigration, estimates there are more than 1 million in L.A. County and 311,000 in Orange County.

In the wake of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, Congress passed new laws that made it easier to deport immigrants with criminal records. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 expanded the list of crimes that could trigger deportation. It also authorized immigration status checks by local police, and authorized federal officers to send immigrants back through "voluntary removal" – a signed consent form that is not reviewed by a judge.

Those new laws weren't used much until a series of criticisms were leveled at the agency two years ago. In an April 2006 report, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general said ICE was deporting less than two-thirds of the undocumented that it found.

Out of the 774,112 illegal immigrants apprehended since 2003, the inspector general estimated that more than a third were released because there weren't enough guards and jail cells to hold them while their cases went through the immigration courts.

In an effort to address these shortages, Congress boosted the funding for the ICE deportation programs, from $1.2 billion in fiscal 2005 to $2.1 billion in 2008. The agency's entire budget now hovers near the $5 billion mark.

The number of deportations to all countries rose in 2007, to just over 261,000. According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 132,802 of those were sent back to Mexico.

Based on Pew's numbers, that's less than 3 percent of the illegal immigrants in the U.S.

And it's no secret to law enforcement that many of the people sneaking into the U.S. were deported just weeks ago. A U.S. Border Patrol check of the 825,505 caught crossing in the year ended Sept. 30 found 133,620 people who already had U.S. records, either for crimes or previous deportations.

One of the key federal strategies for boosting interior enforcement numbers is partnering with local jurisdictions to cull illegal immigrants from their jails. At a press conference in Los Angeles in October, ICE officials touted a two-week operation netting the arrest of 1,300 criminal aliens and fugitives. More than half of those – 797 – were found in local jails.

Last December, after extensive lobbying by Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor, ICE stationed an immigration agent full time at the Costa Mesa jail. One month later, after several years of requests by Carona, ICE trained sheriff's deputies to conduct checks on inmates coming through the county jail.

"We're now actively involved in screening 100 percent of the people that are coming through," Carona said. Federal officials confirm his claim that Orange County is turning over more inmates for deportation than any jail in the country.

In the first six months of the program, Orange County identified more than 2,800 suspected illegal immigrants; Costa Mesa found 289. If that rate holds for the year, Orange County jails will have turned over more immigrants for deportation than ICE found in all its workplace raids in fiscal 2007.

Workplace raids often result in a backlash when businesses are closed and children wait in vain for a working mother to come home. Deportations from the jails incur no such backlash.

"Of all of the things that ICE does, the deportation of people convicted of crimes is the most popular," said Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, who is chairwoman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Citizenship, Immigration, Refugees, Border Security and International Law.

"There's very little support in the country for people who violate the law."

Speeding up removals

While few disagree that the U.S. should deport undocumented immigrants who have committed a crime, there is a growing debate over how that should be accomplished.

Under the 1996 law, officials can interview inmates with no lawyer or advocate present and offer them the option of waiving their right to a court hearing and agreeing to an immediate return to Mexico.

Called "voluntary return," the process shuttles immigrants who have signed such a document out of the country, often within hours. Voluntary returns have been used for years at the border but ICE has dramatically expanded the practice as a tool for interior enforcement.

During the year ended Sept. 30 – the first year voluntary returns from interior enforcement actions were released – there were 39,450 removed from the United States in this fashion. According to ICE statistics, more than a third of immigrants deported each year since 2001 have not received hearings.

ICE officials say the expedited proceedings are appropriate and legal under U.S. law – and supported by Congress.

"They waive their rights. It's a voluntary thing. Nobody is compelled to accept the voluntary return," ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said. "People request a hearing all the time."

But these speedy removals have raised concerns among human rights advocates.

Jorge Bustamante, a United Nations Special Rapporteur, or investigator, appointed to monitor the rights of migrants worldwide, said jailed immigrants interviewed by armed guards without a lawyer present are not agreeing to deportation of their own free will.

"There's nothing voluntary about this," Bustamante said. "This places the United States in a situation where they are violating human rights."

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty ratified by the United States in 1992, requires that non-citizen residents be allowed to have their case reviewed by a judge before they are expelled, except in pressing cases of national security.

"The (voluntary) procedures are very fast, very confusing," said Allison Parker, an attorney with New York's Human Rights Watch. "We want to see the reinstatement of fair hearings in the deportation process."

But the international objections mostly fall on deaf ears in Washington.

"UN officials' criticisms are often based on their support for open borders so I don't think they are valid," said Congressman Ed Royce, R-Fullerton. "The U.N. itself has become synonymous with corruption, mismanagement and a blatant disregard for human rights."

But earlier this year critics of the deportation policy found an incident they say highlights those same flaws in the deportation process: A Los Angeles native serving a jail term for a misdemeanor somehow signed "voluntary" deportation papers and was bused to Mexico.

The 29-year-old man, Pedro Guzman, is a high school dropout who has had several brushes with the law. In April he was finishing up a 120-day jail sentence for trespassing when deputies at the Los Angeles County Jail questioned him about his citizenship.

L.A. Sheriff's officials said Guzman signed a document attesting that he was born in Nayarit, Mexico, and had crossed illegally into the United States on Sept. 9, 1989.

On May 10, Pilar Garcia – an ICE agent working in Santa Ana – interviewed Guzman. Garcia said that she advised Guzman that he could either see an immigration judge or accept a voluntary departure. "Mr. Guzman waived his right to appear before an immigration judge and instead chose to return to what he claimed was his native country of Mexico," Garcia asserted in court documents.

Guzman was put on a bus and deported to Tijuana. His mother and brothers would spend months searching for him before he was found by the Border Patrol attempting to cross back into the U.S. at Calexico.

Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union said Guzman is cognitively impaired, easily confused and susceptible to suggestion.

Rosenbaum argues that the U.S. is now putting speedy deportation ahead of legal rights.

"There has to be due process and fairness, regardless of whether you are a U.S. citizen," Rosenbaum said. "This case emphasizes the utter insufficiency of the procedures used in the jail."

But Kice, the ICE spokeswoman, said the agency did everything correctly and Guzman created his own nightmare by lying about being a Mexican national.

That, Kice said, is "highly unusual."

Federal prosecution: an empty threat

During the public forum at Coco's earlier this year, Sheriff Carona indicated some conflicting feelings about his agency's involvement. Carona was proud to be catching so many illegal immigrants. But he also suggested that a more effective national policy might be a better use of taxpayer funds.

On one point, Carona was clear. Asked what happens to criminals who illegally return to the U.S., Carona said they are turned over to the government for federal prosecution.

The Register found that seldom happens.

U.S. prosecutors charged just 15,551 immigrants with criminal re-entry in 2006, according to federal data compiled by the Syracuse University-based Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

That's up from 4,029 in 1996 but still a fraction of the 1.2 million people apprehended after crossing into the U.S. illegally in 2006.

Federal prosecutors interviewed by the Register say it would be impossible to prosecute every deportee who returns.

Paul K. Charlton, of Arizona, one of seven U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration in 2006, said his office led the country in prosecutions for criminal re-entry – a total of 20,182 over two decades. But he said that number was paltry compared to the number of people caught re-entering the country.

"It's very **** to talk about more Border Patrol or ICE agents on the street," Charlton said. "There's a value to that in that the public can readily understand."

But Charlton said federal prosecutors lack the resources to make criminal prosecution an effective deterrent.

"You will never solve the problem of illegal immigration on the backs of the criminal justice system," he said.

In the Central District of California, which covers Los Angeles, Orange and five other counties, only 317 cases for criminal re-entry were filed in fiscal 2007. While that is an increase from 10 years ago, when only 89 cases were brought, it remains a small percentage.

Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, did not dispute the numbers by the Syracuse-based clearinghouse. He said prosecutors only go after immigrants with multiple deportations and serious felony records.

"It's a resource issue," Mrozek said. "We focus on the worst of the worst. A simple illegal immigrant is probably not going to be prosecuted.

"Deported? Yes. But prosecuted? No."

Contact the writer: 714-796-2221 or nsantana@ocregister.com



More Photos

http://www.ocregister.com/article/immigrants-ice-immigr...1942524-illegal-year

I Can Relate to America's Identity Crisis

By Annabel Park
Sunday, December 16, 2007; Page B04

When I was growing up in Korea, being told that you were going to America was like being told that you were going to heaven. In 1978, my family applied to immigrate to the United States from South Korea. After only a six-month wait, the application was approved, and as if by magic, the five of us were transported to Houston to live with my aunt's family. I was 9 years old.

My parents were not skilled. But within a matter of weeks, they were selling tacos and burgers to mostly Mexican workers living and working in downtown Houston.

Neither my parents nor their customers could speak English. Somehow they found a way of communicating their basic needs: exchanging money, feeding and being fed. The Mexicans loved our tacos, and my parents succeeded in their first U.S. business venture.

I was in awe of America and wanted desperately to fit in, but I was constantly reminded that I was a foreigner, told to go home, ordered to learn English and called racial slurs. I didn't understand the significance at the time, but I remember large billboards along the highways that seemed to read, "You're in KKK Land." When you got closer, you could see a little "i" that looked like a cowboy boot between the first and second K's; the billboard was actually advertising a country-music radio station, KIKK.

My insecurity about being foreign, not fitting in, not really being perceived as American, has been a constant in my search for my identity. But alongside these insecurities sits my childhood romance with America, which my friends who had the privilege of being born here don't quite understand.

Since Eric and I began documenting the fight over immigration in Prince William County, I've been forced to reflect on my own immigration experience and about what America is.

Once, a white man approached us while we were filming a group of Latino people in front of a pro-immigration sign. A chain-link fence separated him from us, but I reached across to shake his hand and introduce myself. His grip was so tight that it frightened me. He squeezed my hand while denouncing "these people" for "raping the land," as opposed to the Vietnamese and Koreans, who had learned to speak English and assimilated.


Eric captured this scene and put it up for the world to see on YouTube. Many people watching the video see a white racist; I see a man suffering from an identity crisis, feeling displaced in his neighborhood. He is nervous, anxious, the flip side of my own insecurity as an immigrant, and I feel a lot of compassion for him.

I want to say to the man at the fence, and to the immigrants gathered at Liberty Wall: We're in this together. Much as my parents found a way to communicate with their customers at their Houston carryout, so too can we overcome any differences in language and values -- and find a way to live and work together.

But people did not come together in Prince William County. The county supervisors passed the illegal-immigration resolution. I believe the process was not democratic. One organized interest group dominated it by bullying, spreading misinformation and inciting intolerance.

America is not just a country, not just a particular place in space and time, but a promise to live according to our highest ideals. If we succumb to intolerance and fear now, at this critical time in America's story, we will all have failed.

annabel@9500liberty.com

My Heart is Where the Bottles Shatter

By Eric Byler
Sunday, December 16, 2007; Page B04

The most powerful elected official in Prince William County is introduced to a standing ovation. The first time I see him is through a camera lens, entering like the hero of a movie I am watching rather than making.

My team and I are the only people of color in a large auditorium at Stonewall Middle School in Manassas. "People who come to this country illegally are illegal!" Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey A. Stewart thunders, jabbing his finger in the air.

The lens is a glass wall. I am focused but detached. I hear a woman cackling with joy as an officer from a group called Help Save Manassas takes credit for Latino parents' being afraid to send their children to school, for Latino families' abandoning their mortgages and fleeing the county. "This is our territory," he boasts. "And we're gonna take it back."

More clapping, more cheers. I process these moments like a child observing a bully from a distance. The victim is over there, not here, and I am just a witness. Zoom in. Zoom out.

Weeks later, it is a beautiful September afternoon. A canvas sign is tethered to the last remaining wall of the house at 9500 Liberty St. "When our brothers & sons are fighting & dying in Iraq, you are separating our families," part of the giant sign says. These and other words have enraged many of the town's Caucasian residents, but these Latino families are proud to stand in its shadow. They feel they are standing up to bullies.

Known as Liberty Wall, this sign has become the expression of protest for many in Prince William County. Even non-ethnic citizens are concerned about a new law that could lead to the racial profiling of people who "look illegal." The families around the wall look American to me, but maybe I'm not a proper judge. My mother is Chinese American and my father is white. I grew up in Virginia, in a time when Asians and Latinos were less common than Cowboys fans, but since then I've frequented more cosmopolitan places such as Los Angeles, Honolulu and New York, places like Virginia is becoming.

My headphones pick up a stray voice. I turn and see a man standing at the fence enclosing Liberty Wall. He screams at everyone he sees, accusing them of being "illegal," even though they are documented Americans. He points at a 12-year-old boy, suggesting that he is destined for "one of those gangs," and looms over the boy's younger sister, who defiantly says, "I speak English fine." Both children hold their ground, hardened perhaps by epithets, eggs and bottles that have been thrown at them, or by "messages" left on their property, riddled with profanity, obscene drawings and racial slurs, telling their community to "go home" and reminding them that America's founders were white.

The next night, a vandal tries to burn down Liberty Wall. Soon after, another will succeed in destroying the sign, ripping it to shreds.

These are the questions facing our society. Who is American? And who gets to speak? I am reintroduced to the Chinese American boy I was in 1981 at Kings Park Elementary. I hear the word "chink." I see my classmates tugging at their eyes.

The bullies are not as distant as I remembered them. I may see the world through a lens, but my eyes are open, and my heart is where the bottles shatter, on the Liberty side of the fence.

eric@9500liberty.com

Punishing children

Federal law misses its target

By World's Editorial Writers
12/15/2007

The fallout from the near hysteria over illegal immigration continues.

Almost 6,000 Oklahomans, most of them children, have been dropped from SoonerCare, the state's Medicaid program, because they could not meet new federal documentation requirements.

Before anti-immigration hawks and supporters of Oklahoma's House Bill 1804 begin to cheer too loudly, they ought to know that 62 percent of those 5,841 dropped were children. Of the total, 58 percent were white, 18 percent black, 13 percent American Indian, 10 percent Hispanic and 1 percent Asian.

The Oklahoma Health Care Authority, which announced the figures, said that another 5,000 to 6,000 are likely to be dropped from Soonercare as of Jan. 1.

Federal and state politicians have been wrapping themselves in nativist flags to drum up support for their campaigns. Although the majority of Americans probably support some sort of fair and reasonable illegal immigration reform, the loudest voices come from those who want laws that will deny all social services to illegal immigrants and their children (some of whom are Amer ican citizens having been born here). And they are sure to vote in the primaries and caucuses that politicians need to win to gain the presidential nominations.

From such weak-kneed politics and from mean-spirited state laws such as HB 1804, we wind up with legislation that harms those who are innocent of anything other than not having a birth certificate.

Yes, legal citizens can obtain birth certificates, and anyone who has had to get a copy of one knows that it is not that difficult or expensive. That's unless you are a single mother on a limited income with two kids and no reliable transportation.

The immigration issue in this country needs to be solved. It remains a federal problem, not a state one. There is no doubt that illegal immigration has put a strain on services.

Punishing immigrants, illegal and legal, unnecessarily, however, is not good public or political policy.

No good can come of laws, federal or state, that deny health care and basic services to children, whether they be citizens or not.

PHILADELPHIA

'Speak English' Cheesesteak Sign Hearing Held

Last Edited: Friday, 14 Dec 2007, 6:51 PM EST
Created: Friday, 14 Dec 2007, 5:54 PM EST

It's one small sign with eight little words. But it's enough to land a South Philadelphia cheese steak seller in hot water with the city's Human Relations Commission.

Geno's steaks claims to serve more than three-quarters of a million cheese steaks each year.

But it's the threat that a tasty sandwich might be withheld, that has this South Philly institution feeling the heat. It's all because of a pair of little- 4-inch-by-9 inch- signs that read: This is America- when ordering, please speak English."

So what?


Video: Click Here To Watch The Confrontation: Do You Agree?
Well, says Nick Taliaferro, the executive director of Philadelphia's Commission on Human Relations: "Free speech is not the unfiltered license to say whatever you want to say. You can't run into a theater and yell, 'fire.' You cannot stand in the public square and say, 'I'm going to shoot the president.'"

The signs have made Geno's owner Joey Vento a hero to some, who believe the U.S. is being torn apart by immigrants who refuse to assimilate.

But at the Quaker Meeting House, packed with Vento's supporters and detractors, the city's Human Relations commission charged that Vento's "ordering orders" are illegal.

Says commission attorney Paul Hummer: "It is the commission's belief, that the sign constitutes discrimination, on the basis of national origin, in violation of the Fair Housing Practices Act."

Not so, argued Vento's attorney, Shannon Goessling, who claimed the sign has no negative impact on non-English speakers.

"He would never deny anyone service. He has never done so," said Goessling. "This is an advocacy position that should be applauded, that he doesn't want people to be disadvantaged by their lack of ability to speak English."

The case against Geno's has its cracks. Many of Vento's accusers incorrectly describe the sign as an order: "speak English."

In fact, the sign includes the word "please" though it's very easy to miss.


So easy, that the complainant in this case, The Reverend James Allen, apparently signed a document that misquotes the sign, leaving out the word "please."

But Allen insisted adding the word 'please' does not soften the message that certain people are not welcome at Geno's.

"It could serve as a detour or deterrent to one even approaching the window to order," Allen testified. "It becomes a factor of intimidation."

A ruling from the commission is not expected for a month or so. And even if Vento is ordered to remove his sign, he can appeal that order to Common Pleas Court.

In the sizzling hot debate over free speech, immigration and discrimination, call this a "sign of the times."

By Bruce Gordon



It's a 4"x9" sign with eight little words. But it's caused big controversy.

SideBar/Related Stories/Videos

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?cont...de=TSTY&pageId=3.2.1

OKLAHOMA CITY

Red Cross helping immigrants needing shelter from storm

Last Update: 12/14 7:59 pm


OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The head of central Oklahoma's American Red Cross chapter is reaching out to illegal immigrant seeking shelter from an ice storm that's left 23 people dead.

Vince Hernandez says the organization's shelters don't run background checks on those needing help and no one should be afraid.

He says it's typical for illegal immigrants to be hesitant to come forward in times of crisis, but Oklahoma's controversial, new immigration law hasn't helped.

Once they arrive at a shelter, Hernandez says people need only write down their name and address before gaining admittance. No driver's license or paperwork is necessary.

IMMIGRATION SPLITS CITY 'WITH A HEART'

Two Orange County police agencies have become national leaders in deporting illegal immigrants accused of crimes. But the results are not exactly as advertised.

2nd in series of 3

http://www.ocregister.com/news/costa-mesa-crime-1942532-immigration-police

Information on America

Most information you find regarding America will show it is a beautiful country with a wealth of opportunity.

America has a total area of more than 9 and a half million square kilometres, which is more than 2 times the size of the European Union, and has a population of nearly 300 million people.

Some interesting facts about America:

The capital city is Washington, D.C. which is located just below New York on the East coast of America;

The largest cities are New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, San Diego, Detroit, Dallas, Phoenix and San Antonio;

Mt. McKinley in Alaska is the highest point in the country at 6194 m above sea level, and the Death Valley in California is the lowest at 86 m below sea level;

The national bird is the bald eagle, the national flower is the rose and the national anthem is The Star Spangled Banner; and

Some famous holidays celebrated by Americans include Independence Day on 4 July, and Thanksgiving which is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November each year.

More information on America found in this section includes the banking system in America, advice on what to do with your investments and pensions and where the best foreign currency exchange rates can be accessed.

©Visa Bureau 2003-2007

The American Visa Bureau is a division of Visa Bureau Ltd, an independent UK company specialising in visa and immigration services to America.

AILA member

http://www.visabureau.com/america/information-on.aspx

The Right Road to America?

By Amy Chua
Sunday, December 16, 2007; Page B01

If you don't speak Spanish, Miami really can feel like a foreign country. In any restaurant, the conversation at the next table is more likely to be Spanish than English. And Miami's population is only 65 percent Hispanic. El Paso is 76 percent Latino. Flushing, N.Y., is 60 percent immigrant, mainly Chinese.

Chinatowns and Little Italys have long been part of America's urban landscape, but would it be all right to have entire U.S. cities where most people spoke and did business in Chinese, Spanish or even Arabic? Are too many Third World, non-English-speaking immigrants destroying our national identity?


For some Americans, even asking such questions is racist. At the other end of the spectrum, the conservative talk show host Bill O'Reilly fulminates against floods of immigrants who threaten to change America's "complexion" and replace what he calls the "white Christian male power structure."

But for the large majority in between, Democrats and Republicans alike, these questions are painful, with no easy answers. At some level, most of us cherish our legacy as a nation of immigrants. But are all immigrants really equally likely to make good Americans? Are we, as the Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington warns, in danger of losing our core values and devolving "into a loose confederation of ethnic, racial, cultural, and political groups, with little or nothing in common apart from their location in the territory of what had been the United States of America"?

My parents arrived in the United States in 1961, so poor that they couldn't afford heat their first winter. I grew up speaking only Chinese at home (for every English word accidentally uttered, my sister and I got one whack of the chopsticks). Today, my father is a professor at Berkeley, and I'm a professor at Yale Law School. As the daughter of immigrants, a grateful beneficiary of America's tolerance and opportunity, I could not be more pro-immigrant.

Nevertheless, I think Huntington has a point.

Around the world today, nations face violence and instability as a result of their increasing pluralism and diversity. Across Europe, immigration has resulted in unassimilated, largely Muslim enclaves that are hotbeds of unrest and even terrorism. The riots in France last month were just the latest manifestation. With Muslims poised to become a majority in Amsterdam and elsewhere within a decade, major West European cities could undergo a profound transformation. Not surprisingly, virulent anti-immigration parties are on the rise.

Not long ago, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union disintegrated when their national identities proved too weak to bind together diverse peoples. Iraq is the latest example of how crucial national identity is. So far, it has found no overarching identity strong enough to unite its Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis.

The United States is in no danger of imminent disintegration. But this is because it has been so successful, at least since the Civil War, in forging a national identity strong enough to hold together its widely divergent communities. We should not take this unifying identity for granted.


The greatest empire in history, ancient Rome, collapsed when its cultural and political glue dissolved, and peoples who had long thought of themselves as Romans turned against the empire. In part, this fragmentation occurred because of a massive influx of immigrants from a very different culture. The "barbarians" who sacked Rome were Germanic immigrants who never fully assimilated.

Does this mean that it's time for the United States to shut its borders and reassert its "white, Christian" identity and what Huntington calls its Anglo-Saxon, Protestant "core values"?

No. The anti-immigration camp makes at least two critical mistakes.

First, it neglects the indispensable role that immigrants have played in building American wealth and power. In the 19th century, the United States would never have become an industrial and agricultural powerhouse without the millions of poor Irish, Polish, Italian and other newcomers who mined coal, laid rail and milled steel. European immigrants led to the United States' winning the race for the atomic bomb. Today, American leadership in the Digital Revolution -- so central to our military and economic preeminence -- owes an enormous debt to immigrant contributions. Andrew Grove (cofounder of Intel), Vinod Khosla (Sun Microsystems) and Sergey Brin (Google) are immigrants. Between 1995 and 2005, 52 percent of Silicon Valley start-ups had one key immigrant founder. And Vikram S. Pundit's appointment to the helm of CitiGroup last Tuesday means that 14 chief executives of Fortune 100 companies are foreign-born.

The United States is in a fierce global competition to attract the world's best high-tech scientists and engineers -- most of whom are not white Christians. Just this past summer, Microsoft opened a large new software development center in Canada, in part because of the difficulty of obtaining U.S. visas for foreign engineers.

Second, anti-immigration talking heads forget that their own scapegoating vitriol will, if anything, drive immigrants ****her from the U.S. mainstream. One reason we don't have Europe's enclaves is our unique success in forging an ethnically and religiously neutral national identity, uniting individuals of all backgrounds. This is America's glue, and people like Huntington and O'Reilly unwittingly imperil it.

Nevertheless, immigration naysayers also have a point.

America's glue can be subverted by too much tolerance. Immigration advocates are too often guilty of an uncritical political correctness that avoids hard questions about national identity and imposes no obligations on immigrants. For these well-meaning idealists, there is no such thing as too much diversity.

The right thing for the United States to do -- and the best way to keep Americans in favor of immigration -- is to take national identity seriously while maintaining our heritage as a land of opportunity. U.S. immigration policy should be tolerant but also tough. Here are five suggestions:


¿ Overhaul admission priorities. Since 1965, the chief admission criterion has been family reunification. This was a welcome replacement for the ethnically discriminatory quota system that preceded it. But once the brothers and sisters of a current U.S. resident get in, they can sponsor their own extended families. In 2006, more than 800,000 immigrants were admitted on this basis. By contrast, only about 70,000 immigrants were admitted on the basis of employment skills, with an additional 65,000 temporary visas granted to highly skilled workers.

This is backwards. Apart from nuclear families (spouse, minor children, possibly parents), the special preference for family members should be drastically reduced. As soon as my father got citizenship, his relatives in the Philippines asked him to sponsor them. Soon, his mother, brother, sister and sister-in-law were also U.S. citizens or permanent residents. This was nice for my family, but frankly there was nothing especially fair about it. Instead, the immigration system should reward ability and be keyed to the country's labor needs -- skilled or unskilled, technological or agricultural. In particular, we should significantly increase the number of visas for highly skilled workers, putting them on a fast track for citizenship.


¿ Make English the official national language. A common language is critical to cohesion and national identity in an ethnically diverse society. Americans of all backgrounds should be encouraged to speak more languages -- I've forced my own daughters to learn Mandarin (minus the threat of chopsticks) -- but offering Spanish-language public education to Spanish-speaking children is the wrong kind of indulgence. "Native language education" should be overhauled, and more stringent English proficiency requirements for citizenship should be set up.


¿ Immigrants must embrace the nation's civic virtues. It took my parents years to see the importance of participating in the larger community. When I was in third grade, my mother signed me up for Girl Scouts. I think she liked the uniforms and merit badges, but when I told her that I was picking up trash and visiting soup kitchens, she was horrified.

For many immigrants, only family matters. Even when immigrants get involved in politics, they tend to focus on protecting their own and protesting discrimination. That they can do so is one of the great virtues of U.S. democracy. But a mindset based solely on taking care of your own factionalizes our society.

Like all Americans, immigrants have a responsibility to contribute to the social fabric. It's up to each immigrant community to fight off an enclave mentality and give back to their new country. It's not healthy for Chinese to hire only Chinese, or Koreans only Koreans. By contrast, the free health clinic set up by Muslim Americans in Los Angeles -- serving the entire poor community -- is a model to emulate. Immigrants are integrated at the moment when they realize that their success is inextricably intertwined with everyone else's.

¿ Enforce the law. Illegal immigration, along with terrorism, is the chief cause of today's anti-immigration backlash. It is also inconsistent with the rule of law, which, as any immigrant from a developing country will tell you, is a critical aspect of U.S. national identity. But if we're serious about this problem, we need to enforce the law against not only illegal aliens, but also those who hire them. It's the worst of all worlds to allow U.S. employers who hire illegal aliens -- thus keeping the flow of illegal workers coming -- to break the law while demonizing the aliens as lawbreakers. An Arizona law set to take effect on Jan. 1 will tighten the screws on employers who hire undocumented workers, but this issue can't be left up to a single state.

¿ Make the United States an equal-opportunity immigration magnet. That the 11 million to 20 million illegal immigrants are 80 percent Mexican and Central American is itself a problem. This is emphatically not for the reason Huntington gives -- that Hispanics supposedly don't share America's core values. But if the U.S. immigration system is to reflect and further our ethnically neutral identity, it must itself be ethnically neutral, offering equal opportunity to Sudanese, Estonians, Burmese and so on. The starkly disproportionate ratio of Latinos -- reflecting geographical fortuity and a large measure of law-breaking -- is inconsistent with this principle.

Immigrants who turn their backs on American values don't deserve to be here. But those of us who turn our backs on immigrants misunderstand the secret of America's success and what it means to be American.

amy.chua@yale.edu

Socialists want Stronger Ties with Mexico

Stewart A. Alexander
December 17, 2007

Mr. Stewart A. Alexander was a candidate for Lieutenant Governor for the State of California during the 2006 California election. He is registered with the Peace and Freedom Party with over 80,000 registrants statewide and received his party's endorsement.

As the 2008 Election year moves into high gear, most of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have adopted an anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican strategy for their campaigns. The message of the candidates is outlining an agenda that will increase border enforcement and supporting legislation that will restrict the rights of millions of immigrants.

This anti-immigrant rhetoric, coming from the two corporate parties, is helping to drive an anti-immigrant public phobia across America and is straining our political ties with Mexico. Just last week President Felipe Calderon of Mexico accused these candidates of being "swaggering, macho and anti-Mexican," according to the Associated Press.

President Calderon also sharply criticized the U.S. Congress and government for taking measures to persecute, mistreat and restrict the rights of immigrant workers. Calderon has strongly denounced the U.S. immigration policy. The president has charged, "The insensitivity toward those who support the U.S. economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle...for their rights," according to the Washington Post.

Within the past decade, the general attitude of millions of Americans have become worst toward Mexico and Mexicans in the U.S., in large part due to a weakening U.S. economy and the failure of U.S. trade agreements, such as NAFTA.

U.S. trade agreements in general do not benefited working-class people on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border; these trade agreements only benefit the billionaires and capitalists in both countries. What has been evident is the basic standard of living has been lowered in Mexico due to these flawed trade agreements and poverty is ravishing that entire nation.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of Mexicans are seeking work in the U.S. only as a means of survival and to feed their families. Many Mexicans are braving treacherous borders and are risking rape, starvation, threats and death only to improve the well-being for their families.

The Bush administration and Congress are now constructing a 700-mile U.S.-Mexico border fence that is only exacerbating the immigration issues between the two neighboring countries and straining relations; the border fence is also a senseless approach to deal with a complexity of issues that are rooted in solving the needs of working people.

The Peace and Freedom Party and Socialist Party USA are opposed to the direction that the Democrats and Republicans are leading millions of American; the presidential candidates, along with their parties are fueling a national attitude of ill-will and resentment toward Mexicans and Mexicans-Americans.

Socialist leaders understand that the two corporate parties are only using the issues of immigration as a means of diverting public attention from the Iraq War; a war that has caused over one million deaths. The two corporate parties want to divert public attention from an expanding national debt that is now approaching $10 trillion and a massive trade deficit that has become a burden on every working class family. The failing policies, of the two parties, has produced out of control inflation, a national recession, soaring gasoline prices, a crumbling housing market, unaffordable health care, failing senior care, smaller paychecks, and a fail foreign policy that has revealed that the Democrats and Republicans have failed in their responsibilities to the American people.

In the grand scheme of American politics, the immigration issue will exist until the needs of working-class people are met. Until the needs of working people are addressed, building political walls and border walls will ultimately prove futile and will cause more human suffering and deaths.

Peace and Freedom Party and Socialist Party USA fully support protecting the rights of working class people on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and both socialist parties oppose building border walls. All the 2008 candidates, from the two socialist parties, favor strengthening ties with Mexico and developing policy that will benefit working people in both countries and worldwide.

For more information search the Web for: Stewart A. Alexander; Immigrants are Lost in American Politics; Border Fence- the Cost is Far too High; Iraq War, Many Diversions; Independent Voters Rejecting Democrats and Republicans.

Wow: Oregon Anti-immigrant Activist arrested for Child S-ex Abuse

17 December 2007

Wow. Not such a good day for the Anti-Immigrant crowd now is it? It's one thing to be so adamant about fighting people moving and coming to this country, and now toss on top of that one of your most vocal members gets arrested for Child *** Abuse. Wow.

Yeah, according to, who I hope will be our new friends at CAUSA, "An Oregon anti-immigrant activist and blogger is being held on five counts of using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct, two counts of *** abuse and two counts of hindering prosecution." The man in question is Bruce Elliot Benkle and also according to the article over at CAUSA, he is:

"a well known anti-immigrant activist frequently seen holding signs and taking photos for Oregonians for Immigration Reform at thier events, is a blogger well known among Oregon's top anti-immigrant weblogs. Benkle, who goes by "Bruce the Barber" among other pseudonyms, is often seen commenting on Daniel's Political Musings, one of Oregon's most active anti-immigrant blogs. He is also seen regularly posting comments on message boards of news sites in the Marion County area and elsewhere."

Apparently it's ok to be threatening, intimidating and just plain scary towards immigrants and now, well, kids, but it's not ok to want a better life in America. Makes sense right? Wrong.