What part of “illegal” don’t you understand? Those who ask this question profess a deep devotion to law and order. But “solutions” to illegal immigration that rely on self-deportation (Mitt Romney) and attrition through enforcement (Russell Pearce) represent a very real threat to public safety. That’s the message from former Arizona Attorneys
DetailsThe Obama administration has criticized the GOP’s “attrition through enforcement” immigration policy framework while adopting it in practice. Undocumented activists have reduced their reliance on politicians and the advocacy community by strategically creating a quasi-legal status for people who publicly identify themselves as undocumented. Immigration restrictionists have promoted an “attrition through enforcement” policy as a purportedly more humane alternative to mass incarceration and deportation. Instead of identifying, arresting, imprisoning, and deporting every undocumented immigrant in the U.S., the objective of attrition through enforcement is to make life in the U.S. so miserable for undocumented immigrants that they leave on their own. An aggressive campaign to deport all 11 million undocumented immigrants estimated to live in the U.S. would be logistically and fiscally unworkable and would necessitate massive human rights violations.
DetailsThe Orwellian-named “Se” Communities deportation program was rolled out under a cloud of deception so thick that last year, Rep. Zoe Lofgren of San Jose declared that immigration officialslied to her and local governments about the program. Lofgren rightfully asked the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog, Office of Inspector General (OIG), to investigate. But last Friday, it became painfully clear that this “watchdog” no longer has any teeth, and that solutions like California’s TRUST Act are more urgent than ever. Hours after OIG issued two tepid reports this morning whose recommendations paper over the program’s serious safety and civil rights violations, news broke that the so-called watchdog itself isunder investigation by the FBI and US Dept. of Justice.
DetailsPerla Rodriguez had already become a U.S. citizen when she was pulled over for a traffic violation in Sacramento County. One of the first questions the officer asked her was, “Where were you born?” She was later arrested and – to her shock and distress – held for four days in Sacramento County jail on an immigration “hold” request. Her sister brought her U.S. passport to show the sheriff deputies, but she had to wait to speak to the federal immigration agent who authorized her release from custody. Why was a U.S. citizen held in the county jail on immigration-based detention for four days? Because of the inaccurate database relied on by the federal Se Communities program, called S-Comm. Soon, the Department of Homeland Security is expected to announce reforms to the deeply flawed S-Comm federal enforcement program. But even if it adopted all the recommendations its troubled task force made in September, reforms cannot address the program’s harm to public safety and civil libertie
DetailsHear that? That’s the sound of holes being poked in one of the most common arguments for pushing undocumented workers out of America. Undocumented workers have a “negligible impact” on the wages of documented workers that work at the same firm, according to a paper released in March by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Documented workers at
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