Tucson, AZ: thoughts on policy

If Congress wanted to attract attention to border/immigration issues, then mission accomplished.

There's no way that the Sensenbrenner-King bill will be passed, if not only for the concern that it would cost too much money to construct a potentially ineffective border wall.  The Governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano, said that if "you show me a thirty foot wall, and I'll show you a thirty-one foot ladder." 

Some Mexicans, however, say that the wall would be a great thing—tongue in cheek—because they would be the ones building it.

The Sensenbrenner-King bill comes from what has become the pervasive, perhaps isolationist mindset of “enforcement first”—in other words, pump more money into security measures without regard to the effectiveness of such measures. Enlist more agents, employ more unmanned drones, place more sensors, and invest in other technological measures, like surveillance towers.  Go ahead and do it.  See what happens. 

The Sensenbrenner-King bill, however, does not discuss some of the alternatives currently discussed under the rhetoric of “comprehensive immigration reform:

Guestworker programs. establish a program with pathways toward earned citizenship. Any program without possibility for naturalization creates a permanent working class with little to no opportunity for advancement and opens up other opportunities for human rights abuses. 

In basic terms, employers can treat workers like garbage because they're sticking around only as long as the employers let them. Faced with the choice to suck it up or be deported, what would you do?

For those concerned about cultural integration and assimilation, what is the incentive for undocumented residents to integrate/assimilate if they're going to get the boot from the country in a few months’ or years’ time?

Increase the amount of visas. Make undocumented immigration documented immigration. Releasing 200,000 visas for 11,000,000 undocumented workers poses some obvious difficulties, does it not?

Businesses, take some responsibility: if you hire undocumented workers, either be an advocate for them or cut them off the payroll. Take a stand. Don't just further obscure what many already call a "shadow society".

The Sensenbrenner-King bill is a farce of a law, but a dangerous one.  Even farces tell truths.  Given the current climate around undocumented immigration in the United States, many pro-immigrant advocates have argued that they don’t want to see a bill passed this year.  If it doesn’t happen soon, however, I don’t know when it will.  Immigrants shouldn’t have to stay in the shadows.

Tucson, AZ: things I find crazy

The latest in things that I find absolutely crazy:

Yesterday I hung out at the First Christian Church of Tucson, home to
Rev. Robin Hoover, founder and president of Humane Borders. Along
with policy advocacy, Humane Borders sets up and maintains water
stations throughout the deserts of southern Arizona. Their stated
goal is to provide "humanitarian assistance to those who are risking
their lives and safety crossing the United States border with Mexico.
They offer people water.

They get a lot of flak, too. Michael Chertoff says that their maps
(see preceeding post) and activities effectively encourage more
migrants to cross. Hoover will say that migrants cross for jobs, not
water. Still, the criticism remains.

I have the Border Patrol's stat sheet for Tucson-sector migrant
deaths. In 1998, 11 migrants died. The numbers continue to grow
until 2002, when there's a huge jump to 163. Consider 2002 the first
year when border restriction (many say low-level militarization)
policies, like Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego and Operation Hold
the Line in El Paso, finally kicked in. These policies were
instituted in 2001, called for an increase in BP agents, motion
sensors, etc., and effectively pushed migrants out into rural,
outlying areas. Hence 163 recorded migrant deaths, and these numbers
don't even take into account the number of people who died in
hospitals after rescue.

2005. 282 migrants die, following record deaths of 224 and 199 in the
two years past.

Holy mother. Two things have gone up during period: the number of
water stations and the amount of money funneled into border security.
Both Hoover and the BP claim that their strategies work. Hoover
measues his success in gallons (over 70,000 dispersed since March of
2001), while the BP measures their in arrests (I don't have the exact
numbers available).

Here's what I can't reconcile: either which way, something like 1200
people are crossing on foot through the deserts every day. Arrests
might have gone up, if only slightly, as I remember, but more and more
people are dying.
How this border strategy be effective, as the BP claims, if this is
the case? What does this say for initiatives to higher even more
agents, invest in more more technology and errect a border wall?

Isn't the writing on the wall already? What alternatives are there?

Tucson, AZ: Stanley Feldman

Some quick context:

No More Deaths is a Tucson-based umbrella organization that offers
humanitarian aid, i.e. transportation to medical facilities, to
migrants crossing through Arizona's southern deserts. NMD's policy
dictates that those migrants receiving aid are physically incapable of
continuing their trek.

Shanti Sellz:

You might have read about her: a won't-back-down woman of conviction.
Along with Daniel Strauss, she is the unexpected figurehead of a
movement for migrant (read: human) rights.

Stanley Feldman:

Feldman is the newest development in the NMD/Shanti/Daniel case. The
whole she-bang is centered around the criminality of humanitarian aid.
Sometime in the last two years the reading of immigration law
changed: unlike before, when Border Patrol agents might have pulled
over but arrested en route NMD volunteers, now it's apparently become
a federal, some say newly enforced, offence.

Feldman enters the scene as a fresh-faced counsel for Shanti and
Daniel. He is a retired federal magistrate judge--one of the former
head honchos in Tucson-area immigration courts. He's hopped on the
case in ardent denunciation of the charges brought up against Daniel
and Shanti.

Let's consider this guy a man in the know: for years, he's supported
the actions of NMD volunteers as legal. His role as counsel bumps
Shanti and Daniel's current lawyer to the level of witness: he was the
dude who, under NMD protocol, verified gave his stamp of approval on
his clients' actions on the actual day of their arrest.

Front and center in this case are two issues: humanitarian aid and the
shifting perception of legislature. Come the date of the trial, it's
going to be pretty damn interesting to see what wins out. Stayed
tuned to the twenty-fifth.

--
www.border101.org

Tucson, AZ: project update

RE: Where the hell is Ryan?

I've said before that my plans are approximations and usually bad ones
at that. In Tucson, Arizona, this rings true now.

I made my much-awaited (if only by me) departure from Phoenix this
last Monday, hoping to spend a few days in Tucson to speak with Shanti
Sellz, volunteer with No More Deaths, and a few other people. Then
the plan was to go Laredo, Texas to pick up both a bicycle and a trip.

It turns out that my dude in Texas--a border reporter who was nice
enough to stash my bike for a few months--is in Sabinas, Mexico,
covering the rescue attempts for sixty-five workers entombed in a mine
shaft. You've probably heard about it on the news. He'll be in
Coahuila for another week, most likely returning for hazardous
environment training. Word on the street is that local, Nuevo
Laredo-area drug cartels don't like reporters snooping around their
turf. I just read an article on a local police chief who said his job
was to arrest people for burglary, not drug-related violence. Welcome
to Nuevo Laredo. Good luck reporter!

This leaves me bikeless for another couple of weeks--a forgettable
endnote on the list of atrocities.

My plan is to stick around Tucson until mid-week next week and sit
down with Rev. Robin Hoover, one of the more outspoken members of
Human Borders. You might have heard of the man or seen his face in
the news lately. Seems he managed to goose the U.S. State Department
by working with a government-sponsored human rights branch in Mexico
to print and hand out maps to potential desert crossers. The maps had
locations of water stations, the distance one can expect to cover in a
day, etc. You can bet the State Department liked none of that. Never
without their permission. With heavy pressue on the Mexican
government, they put a quick stomp on the maps. Good luck migrants!

Then out to Texas, sometime. Early March?

In related news, I'm learning that approximately 87% of border news
articles and policy discussions are categorically insane. I'm still a
baby in these studies, but I know loony when I see it, and I see a lot
of loony. For the love, if you want to enter into these discussions,
please do two things: one, read articles/opinion for both sides of the
debate (making the faulty assumption that we can oversimplify in this
way) and two, talk with people. Real people. Connect debate with
context.
Failure to do either results in some crazy, close-minded views.

From Diego's, the great fastfood Mexican restaurant south of Fili's,

Ryan,
would-be cyclist for social change

--
www.border101.org

Shanti Sellz in a phone interview with an Associated Press reporter.

Shanti is an activist with Tucson-based No More Deaths. Along with fellow activist Daniel Strauss, she is also facing two felony counts for transporting undocumented immigrants and conspiracy.

This last summer, Shanti and Daniel offered humanitarian aid to three migrants crossing through Arizona's southern deserts and in need of medical attention. A Border Patrol agent stopped the car, arrested Daniel and Shanti and immediately deported two of the three crossers. The third remained in detention as a material witness for Daniel and Shanti's upcoming case and was deported after two months.

Shanti is twenty-three, and her trial begins in late April.

The countext of our encounter: we met for coffee and, later, a trip to a local food Co-op and B.I.C.A.S., a local bicycle restoration cooperative and community arts center. Shanti, you see, is carless. The Border Patrol impounded her vehicle when she was arrested, leaving her without not only a car but also a Brazillain music CD that she loved. She bought a used thirty-dollar bike to get around town, and it needed a tune-up. Sounds familiar.

This clip comes during a talk and walk, on the way to meet a friend who was going to pick me up.

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Chandler, AZ: Littleton, CO

Now here’s a twist:

If you’ve kept up with this blog, you would know that my mom’s side of the family comes from Nogales, Arizona. I haven’t told you about Pop’s side.

They hail from dense suburbia surrounding Denver, Colorado: Littleton, to be precise. In years past, you might have heard of Littleton in national headlines if for no other reason that one word: Columbine. Columbine High School: the site of what some consider the first of many deadly high school shootings. My aunt went there, my uncle went there.

Columbine is also home to another, more recent headline-grabber: United States Representative Tom Tancredo, the former whipping boy in Congress for his “zany” political views on immigration. He is the get-tough grandfather of immigration enforcement—an advocate for stiff (many would say harsh) policy and penalties for both undocumented immigrants and the people who would hire them. For a while, popular opinion held Tom Tancredo as a joke in the House. A loudmouth, a talking head, a cartoon: he wasn’t to be taken too seriously.

The tides have changed. Recent rhetoric adds an array of prefixes to the “tide”: “undocumented”, “illegal”, “alien”, take your pick. The debate on immigration reform is as vast as an ocean right now, and the waves of dissonance are crashing upon the shores of communities throughout the United States.

Consequently Tancredo is being looked upon with new eyes. Not quite the loon he once was. He’s still out there, but supporters claim that he’s an “advocate”, “someone who stands up for our nation” a “true American.”

I don’t know what any of that means. It sounds like malarkey to me.

Personally, Tom Tancredo isn’t ever a guy I would advocate for, however much a “patriot” he is. Tancredo is know for prodding along an unmitigated anti-immigration fervor, and regardless of his current fan base, I find his brand of extremism particularly intolerable.

I will say this for Double T (can I call him that?): he brings a voice to the table. Malcolm X once said that he would rather have a KKK member (and I am in no way equating such and individual with TT) sit down and yell it out with an Elijah-Mohammed Muslim than have a whole panel of religious leaders chitter-chat around a roundtable. The point is, these people get the word out. It’s not pretty, it’s not eloquent, it just is. Speaks for itself.

Progressives need these leaders as well, and at the national level. Presidential candidate Hillary isn’t that leader, nor are big guns Obama and Dean. Ground-level squirts like A.C.L.U. organizer Ray Ybarra and AZ State Rep. Krysten Sinema are the movers and shakers right now.

I digress. I have my leftist leanings, but what I want to leave with you is this: if you’ve got a cause to fight for—people to fight for—put yourself out there and listen to both sides. Create discussion, be an advocate (whatever that means), but be informed. Guys like TT from Littleton, Colorado will fan the fire of debate, but it’s you who will choose whether or not to carry a torch or start a fire of your own.

Littleton has some great weather too. It's a fantastic place to live.

and in Minnesota, of all places

Gov. Tim Pawlenty is crackin' down with a get-tough policy in this article.

I don't mean to slam the guy, but here's a clip from the article.

"In a place like Minnesota, which I think has a generous welfare program, the image can be, `Oh, these people come in and take advantage of this,'" said Rodolfo de la Garza, a political science professor at Columbia University. "You pander to cultural conservative types and to economically frightened types."

The strategy has brought withering criticism from people who work with immigrants.

"He's reacting out of fear and he's also using fear as a tool to encourage people that are undecided to vote for him," said Ernesto Bustos, who organizes migrant farmworkers in Owatonna.

In Pawlenty's first campaign four years ago, he promoted a system of tracking immigrants through their driver's licenses, running a TV ad that said, "Terrorists are here." He was criticized for that, too, but went on to win.

Soon after his immigration report, Pawlenty rolled out a plan to go after illegals. He proposed to deputize state agents to enforce federal immigration laws, criminalize possession of fake IDs and ban local ordinances that keep police from asking about immigration status.

And further:

Although 95 percent of Minnesotans were born in the United States, the number of foreign-born residents is growing faster here than almost anywhere else in the country, said Katherine Fennelly, a professor who studies immigration at the University of Minnesota.

Pawlenty's figure for those living illegally in the state came from estimates by the Urban Institute and Pew Hispanic Institute. If the estimates are correct, Minnesota has less than 1 percent of the estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States.

It stands to reason that the Hispanic population is going to "explode" if there are a disproportionate amount of Hispanics living in MN. These scare tactics: I can't say that they promote cross-cultural understanding. You probably wouldn't want to talk with the immigrants next door or down the street if they were gun-toting, marijuana-selling meth users (see the rest of the article), now would you? Regardless of why they are in the US, or whether or not you think they should be in the US, they deserve dignity.

Now this is interesting.

You can read the entirely of Tim Funk's article in the Charlotte Observer here. Just a few notes:

WASHINGTON - In the fevered debate over illegal immigration, Republicans in Congress -- including all four senators from the Carolinas -- may be forced to choose between key allies.
Do they side with business, which wants a guest-worker program that would include those here illegally?
Or do they stand with grassroots conservatives, who say such plans reward lawbreakers?
Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., says he's feeling heat from both sides.
"The Republican Party," he says, "is split down the middle."

First, Dunn sets up the guest worker/enforcement, progressive/conversative dichotomy that appears so often in border lit. It might be that there's something in the middle, say, "comprehensive immigration reform". Scroll down the article and Rep. Jim DeMint says that he's not in favor of a guest worker reform until "we secure our borders". Jim, might a guest worker program help do that?

[Rep. Lindsey Graham] calls the bill, which also has border security provisions, "a legal mechanism to allow people to stay in our country who don't commit crimes and who work hard and who pay taxes and who add value to our economy."

Second, oft-repeated sentiments like Rep. Graham's portray undocumented immigrants as, much like the bills, mechanisms. Economic engines. Cogs. This says nothing for about their cultural input or, really, roles as already integrated within society. They become the people "in the shadows". The risk is in seeing immigrants solely as shadows, rather than as people in the shadows. Humanity is a stake here in a very literal way.

Third, all this is going on in the Carolinas. Think that migration, documented or otherwise, is just an issue along the border?