Cruel as I.C.E.

   So there you are, minding your business, working the evening shift at some manual labor job that pays less per hour than a lb. of the food you process or one of the car-parts you manufacture. Suddenly, heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials bust in and start arresting everyone–US citizens included.

This is common practice and  is excused as a way to weed out people “posing as American citizens,” or so says I.C.E. spokeswoman Pat Reilly who used to have a slightly more decorous career in the non-profit marketing sector. This cool crew not only busts in with warrants issued for very specific people, but they make full sweeps using intimidation to gain consent.  They arrest anyone with a pulse and will gladly detain you for as long as they see fit. And being as kitchen and factory workers often carry sub-machine guns, they come armed to the teeth. Just you try and resist.    

It seems they’ve actually broken enough rights these days that they got the attention of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union International, who decided to file a class-action suit against them. There is a brief article in the Washington Post about it. The UFCWU also has a series of similar articles following the case.

They bust in looking for Pablito Perez and detain 300 employees of which any number could be American.  The bottom line is that if immigrants with no documents have rights, American citizens shouldn’t have to deal with or put up with such trespasses on their rights. There is a sheet on immigrant rights posted by the National Immigration Law Center.   

 How often does this happen? Well, I.C.E’s annual report states that they arrested 863 criminals (kudos), and made 4,077 administrative arrests (whatever that means), during raids in workplaces last year. They also collected $30 million in fines–mostly from small and medium-sized companies who need the low-cost labor to compete against the corporate giants making a killing through government-backed trade agreements.  

   I should mention that it is amazing to anyone who has followed NAFTA since it’s birth in 1994, to see the two democratic candidates declaring their repugnance for the trade treaty. One of them is married to the man who drafted it–but that’s another story.  I’m linking to an AP data sheet on Obama and Clinton’s history on NAFTA, just as an FYI. 

Now, NAFTA matters because it has been the platform for the greatest Mexican emigration in history.     

Meanwhile, make sure you know your rights both as an American and as an immigrant (documented or not). 

 

Semantics and discourse

It seems that I have received the first true chastisement for what a reader deemed wrongful or uninformed writing–though I might argue that it is undeserved. The comment by Anthony on the last entry demands that I get a dictionary because: “Guest Worker means that you should go back, which is the right thing to do.”

See Tony…if I may call you that, the thing is that I never spoke about Guest Workers. Believe it or not, that term is not a reality–at least not yet. The term refers to the status that an unskilled worker would have received if the president’s plan had been approved.  But, it wasn’t approved, so it doesn’t exist.

What I did speak of was a skilled worker who has applied for an H1-B visa. These are three-year visas that can easily be renewed for an additional three years. Once you have held one for five, you are eligible for permanent residency (a green card). Once you are being processed you can get extensions for another couple of years, but by then you are likely already approved or denied residency and know what your status is. These people tend to stay long-term and are invitees of the US. So in that sense, I suppose they are guests, but they have every right and opportunity to become residents.

 Semantics aside, am not sure that I agree with the statement that “going back is the right thing to do.” If an American choses to settle abroad, nobody thinks twice about it. If some non-westerner decides to settle down in the good-ole’ USA, then they lose dignity and become burdens to society (despite the fact that most immigrants pay taxes and do not qualify for welfare or medicaid type services).

 Moreover, the point of the last argument was that denying LEGAL immigrants such as H1-b recipients or college students the right to apply for a driver’s license is a discriminatory and oppressive practice. Think of it this way: If you are a brilliant engineer hired by a firm; or a medical specialist brought into a hospital; or simply a student with a full ride to UM; why shouldn’t you have a driver’s license? Is the idea that because you have to go back in half a decade or longer you shouldn’t drive? It is almost impossible to get insurance with an international license. You can’t drive a car off the lot without insurance. You need a car to go to work. A company just hired you because they need you to do that work. Catch my drift here.

This is a law that makes more sense politically than in any realm of practicality or ethics. I have a dictionary and I also study immigration law as closely as I can.  I invite comments, but let’s keep to facts and discourse, not rhetoric and accusations. That said, thanks to everyone for reading and taking the time to post your comments. Keep them coming, I’ll post comments that disagree with my views unless they are vulgar, irrational, or simply hateful. Thanks again for reading.