Patriot Act and the War on Civil Liberties.

A brief history of the Patriot Act, showing the many deceptions brought in by the Bush Administration, including: requesting total secrecy form public input and swapping at the last moment, the original Bill that Congress agreed to sign, with one manipulated by the Administration. The Administration's version of the Bill contained unconstitutional provisions that had been rejected earlier by Congress.

Regardless, Congress rushed to pass an, otherwise, unread Bill which sought to greatly expand all federal law enforcement powers -- far beyond their intended means. Hence, America would later discover that the Patriot Act had little, if anything, to do with fighting the actual "war on terror" and much more to do with bypassing the civil protections, granted under the US Constitution

Republicans Mission Accomplished?. Legacy or Minority Party?

A reflective President Bush acknowledged a number of blunders that have marred his White House years, but he told a small group of Texas reporters that he has "a great sense of accomplishment and I am going home with my head held high."

Bush mused fondly about his future life in Dallas, saying he looked forward to walking down supermarket aisles, sitting in a rocking chair with old friends and staying out of the public spotlight.

"I am looking forward to going back to Texas," the former Texas governor said. "I am going home to a place where I've got a lot of friends - people who will be my friends regardless of what happened in politics."

In a 51-minute interview in the Oval Office, the president discussed his eight years in office and admitted to missteps such as failing to pass comprehensive immigration reform, allowing the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner to be unveiled and using incendiary language in the run-up to war.

But Bush stoutly defended his decision to wage wars in Iraq and Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that shaped his presidency. And he said his move to bail out foundering financial institutions was necessary to avoid an economic collapse worse than the Great Depression.

When Bush leaves office in a couple of days, he plans to divide his time between his Crawford, Texas, ranch and a spacious home in the exclusive Preston Hollow neighborhood in Dallas.

"Laura bought a house," he joked. "I haven't seen it yet. They say it's a beauty."

The president said he planned to write a memoir about his tumultuous presidency that will "put people in my place," as well as "give some speeches" and "spend some time on the (Southern Methodist University) campus," where his presidential library and freedom institute will be built. He said he told President-elect Barack Obama earlier this week that he'd be "more than willing" to listen if the new commander in chief had "some tasks he may want me to take on."

Before leaving office, the president said he is likely to deliver a farewell address to the nation that would include thanks, praise and discussion of lessons he has learned.

In the interview, Bush pointed to accomplishments including a series of tax cuts, two energy bills, the No Child Left Behind education legislation, expansion of Medicare to include a senior citizen prescription drug benefit and free-trade pacts.

He said he is "pleased with the progress we have made in dismantling al Qaeda." But, he acknowledged, "it's been hard to keep the American people convinced there's still a threat."

Among his political setbacks, Bush particularly regrets the failure of immigration legislation, which was killed by the Senate in 2007.

"I'm very disappointed it didn't pass," he said. "I'm very worried about the message that said Republicans are anti-immigrant."

Bush also admitted to several war-related missteps. The infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner on an aircraft carrier after U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was a mistake, he said, because "it conveyed a sense of finality in the Iraqi theater." And his rhetoric, he conceded, "at times has been a little rough and over the top."

Bush says he will miss the creature comforts of the presidency - the luxury of Air Force One, the convenience of having a helicopter outside your back door and the "fantastic" service at the White House.

"I don't know what it's going to be like to wake up on the morning of the 21st of January," he acknowledged.

President Bush called for a ‘compassionate’ Republican Party and warned against the GOP becoming ‘anti-immigrant’ in one of his last interviews as president, defending his vision of the party, which has become unpopular among some Republicans And I wonder How Mr. George Bush wake up every morning thinking and doesn't know how Millions of People lost their houses, their employment, their value of their houses, their dreams, their Hope, their American faith and Values and not realized to do anything about it. Ashamed Mr. Bush and Hypocrisy is not a family value.

Napolitano Intends to continue enforcing Immigration Laws rather than reform and update the current System.

Gov. Janet Napolitano said Thursday the United States needs more than more Border Patrol officers to slow both illegal immigration and smuggling.

"You're never going to have enough boots on the ground if all you rely on is boots on the ground,'' Napolitano said in an interview with KAET-TV, the Phoenix PBS affiliate.

"You've got to augment them with technology,'' said Napolitano, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for secretary of homeland security. "And then, at some point, we need to, I think, revisit the issue of the National Guard and perhaps its role at the border.''
That decision, however, will not be within Napolitano's power. But the governor said she intends to talk to the defense secretary who does get to make that decision.

Building additional fences, however, is another matter.

"There is a role for it,'' she said. But she called it "a hugely expensive effort that by itself will not deal with the immigration issue.''

Napolitano also said she believes in greater use of high-tech security to monitor the border, including radar and ground sensors.

Napolitano's confirmation hearings, set for next week, come as Michael Chertoff, the current homeland security chief, said this week he is crafting plans for a "surge'' of civilian - and possibly military - law enforcement along the Mexican border if the violence from that country spills into the United States.

"You have to understand that there have been 5,300 murders in Mexico this year related to drugs,'' she said.

"We want to have that backup surge capacity to come in should it slop over into the United States,'' Napolitano said. One element of that, she said, is working closely with police agencies on both sides of the border.

The governor said Obama is scheduled to meet soon with Felipe Calderon, his Mexican counterpart, with border violence expected to be a key topic.

On a related front, Napolitano said she will take her arguments about the future of the Real ID to Washington.

The governor had been supportive of the 2005 federal law requiring states to develop driver's licenses that are secure, both from the perspective of ensuring that they are issued to the right person and that they be tamper proof. But Napolitano earlier this year signed legislation refusing to have Arizona participate because the federal government was leaving the financial burden to the states.

Napolitano said she will advocate for money in the new federal budget for states to implement some form of more secure identification.

"If we're going to have a system of laws that requires people to be able to demonstrate that they're lawfully present in the country, you need to have some way for people to easily demonstrate that,'' she said.

That also includes Arizona's own year-old law that makes it a crime for companies to knowingly hire undocumented workers. Firms found guilty can have their licenses to do business suspended; a second offense within three years puts them out of business.

While Napolitano signed that measure into state law, the governor, speaking to reporters after her TV interview, sidestepped questions of whether there should be a national version of that law.

The governor repeated her stance that she is a supporter of immigration reform. But she expressed skepticism that Obama and Congress will deal with that soon.

"Obviously right now the top priority is the economy and getting that going again,'' Napolitano said. "But there will be room for some of these other issues at the right time.''
In the interim, the governor said she intends to keep enforcing existing immigration laws.
"I think that to enforce the law firmly and fairly people believe that an immigration law really can work,'' she said

The sense of Hopelessness. The phenomenon and effects of the Mortgage crisis.

Many mental-health crisis and suicide hotlines are reporting a surge in calls from Americans feeling despair over financial losses.

It's unknown if the economic meltdown will lead to more suicides, says Lanny Berman, executive director of the Washington-based American Association of Suicidology. "Maybe the fact that so many are calling is a positive sign. They're seeking help."

Although suicides spiked during the Great Depression, they didn't increase in subsequent recessions, which lasted an average of 10 months, according to the suicidology group's website. The current recession is 13 months long and counting.

Concern centers on rising unemployment, Berman says, because the unemployed have two to four times the suicide rate of employed adults.

Also, there's a strong link between humiliating losses and committing suicide. "Losing your job, losing your home — these are such major losses," Berman says. Although the majority can cope, adults who already have mental health problems or lack supportive relationships are most vulnerable, he says.

Calls to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline jumped 36% from 2007 to 2008, totaling 545,000 last year, says director John Draper. But callers were increasing before the economic collapse, and about half of the added calls in 2008 came from taking over a veterans' suicide line, Draper says.

He is worried because a lot of adults phoning a hotline with resources for those facing foreclosure (888-995-HOPE ) say they feel isolated, as if they're the only one facing this problem.

"This sense of aloneness is part of suicidal thinking," Draper says.

Among areas with suicide hotlines reporting increases in callers since the economy slid: Dallas; Pittsburgh; suburban San Francisco; Hyattsville, Md.; Georgia; Delaware; Detroit.

In Boston, more hotline callers with mental health problems mention job losses, evictions or fear that they'll lose their homes, says Roberta Hurtig, executive director at Samaritans Inc.

In Kalamazoo, Mich., and other locales, callers with mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder say loss of insurance and cutbacks in public health programs are preventing them from getting medications.

At the Gary, Ind., Crisis Center, suicidal callers with economic worries are increasing, and their depression is more severe, says Willie Perry, program coordinator for the hotline.

"There's more hopelessness. They don't see a way out," she says. "We try to help pull them up by the bootstraps, but the bootstraps are a lot lower than they used to be. The grim phenomenon is rearing its head: the suicide of homeowners who have lost their homes during the mortgage crisis is getting on the tip of the iceberg and nobody seems to care.


Police in Taunton, Mass., report today that Carlene Balderrama, 53, a wife and mother, shot herself to death Tuesday afternoon -- 90 minutes before her foreclosed home was scheduled to be sold at auction. Balderrama faxed a letter to her mortgage company at 2:30 p.m., saying that "By the time you foreclose on my house I'll be dead."

The mortgage company notified police, who found her body at 3:30 p.m. The auction had been scheduled to start at 5 p.m., when bidders showed up at the house and found it surrounded by police cruisers. But, unbeknownst to buyers and to Balderrama, the auction had been postponed by the time she grabbed her husband's high-powered rifle, [Police Chief]O'Berg said.".

This is a middle-class family, a husband working, the son is working," O'Berg said. But the housing crunch, he said, "is inflicting real pain on middle-class Americans

Dream Act must become True.

The following video will change you. Give it 17 minutes of your attention. May God mold our hearts and minds, and forgive us our debts to humanity. Are we there yet? Are we satisfied Justice? Opportunity? Freeedom? Liberties? Civil Rights? Nooooooo.
Too much indifference, intolerance, and ignorance. I do believe that Mr. King would very proud of how far the nation has come, but he would say that we have far to go. For there will always be those who are judgemental. It is sad but true.

I HAVE A DREAM, I DREAM EVERYDAY, I HAVE HOPE FOR FREEDOM, FOR A DREAM.


FREEDOM OF EDUCATION, DREAM ACT MUST BECOME TRUE.

2:11 But he who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
1 John 2:11 RSV

Vote Dream Act. A must. A survival tool.

Today begins the first day of the final round of voting at change.org to pass the Dream Act and support higher education for ALL students. The last day to cast your vote is January 15 by no later than 5:00pm ET. Change.org will present its top 10 "ideas for change" to the Obama administration on January 16th at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
The fact is many American students graduate from college and high school each year, and face a roadblock to their dreams: they can't drive, can't work legally, can't further their education, and can't pay taxes to contribute to the economy just because they were brought to this country illegally by their parents or lost legal status along the way.
I had attached a video from the speech of Sen. Dick Durbin D Illinios about the Dream Act and Former Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch had this to say about the situation affecting these students:
“In short, although these children have built their lives here, they have no possibility of achieving and living the American dream. What a tremendous loss for them, and what a tremendous loss to our society.”
The DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), is a bipartisan legislation that would permit these students conditional legal status and eventual citizenship granted that they meet ALL the following requirements:
--if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16, are below the age of 30, --have lived here continuously for five years, --graduated from a U.S. high school or obtained a GED --have good moral character with no criminal record and --attend college or enlist in the military.
For more on the DREAM Act and to cast your vote, visit change.org at this link.
Thanks to Lizbeth Mateo for her encourage and Maria M. the Co-Founder of DreamACTivist.org

Another Secret War Underway.!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't agree with anything we've done in response to 9/11. I have cried for all the deal Iraqis that have been killed because of Bush's bloody oil war.Yet, we still can't tell the difference between corrupt American corporate interests and good, ethical, real America people. Ashamed. I am wonder why John McCain said that we will fight for in War for another 100 years.

One year ago Dane Solomon walked through the doors of Immigration Equality asking for protection from abuse and mistreatment.



Your support will ensure that more and more stories like Dane's can become a reality.

Link here:

Sisters of Mercy reacting to the Impact of Immigration raids in Iowa.




On Tuesday, May 20, Sister of Mercy Kathy Thill spoke at a press conference about what happened in Postville, Iowa when 390 of approximately 2,300 residents were arrested and detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Below are her remarks.

My name is Sister Kathy Thill and I am a Sister of Mercy who works with the Latino community of Iowa. I am also a United States citizen who grew up believing that this is a democratic country in which the dignity of all people is respected and their rights protected. That is not the country I experienced this past week.

I share my experience with the hope that it will help lawmakers and my fellow citizens see that our nation's immigration policies and practices are broken and inhumane. We need comprehensive immigration reform which includes a pathway to lawful permanent residence and citizenship, meets immigrants' basic needs, encourages family unity and reunification and addresses the root causes of migration.

When ICE took over the National Cattle Congress grounds for "training purposes" a week before the raids, we knew something was going to happen. Not one of us was prepared for what did happen on Monday, May 12 in Postville, Iowa.

Sister Mary McCauley at St. Bridget's Catholic Church called me that morning, shortly after the raids began. I was one of three from El Centro Latinoamericano, a Hispanic resource center in Waterloo, who went to help in Postville. At St. Bridget's we found hundreds of people in shock and distress - frightened to leave the church for fear of being arrested and desperate to find out what was happening to their loved ones who had been arrested.

Working with the staff of St. Bridget's we did our best to meet the needs of the families and, at 4:00 p.m., we went to Agriprocessers, the site of the raid, and tried to get information on those detained. We were especially concerned about the 17 minors who had been taken during the raid. We brought a list of names and ages of the minors and requested information about them. We were told to come back later and that parents with ID could come to pick up some youth who would be released. ICE officials did not provide any information. Later, we brought two parents, each hoping for word on their sons. Again ICE officials did not give us any information. So we waited.

Eventually, some women and youth were released wearing GPS tracking devices on their ankles to track them until their court appearances. We were told there would be no more releases and that detainees were going to be transferred to Waterloo and held at the Cattle Congress. The parents we brought earlier still had no word on their sons. Their tension, grief and distress increased as buses began to take detainees from the site.

Of the 17 minors arrested, five or six are still in custody. A 16-year-old who was released told me that he kept trying to tell officials his age, but they refused to believe him, cursed at him and made fun of him for being Hispanic. A 17-year-old who was arrested asked me, "I didn't come here to rob people or do bad things. I just came to work, to earn money for my family. Why do people hate us so much?" I had no answer.
The only bright spot in the day was in the generosity of those in the Postville community and throughout Iowa who have made donations and volunteered to help their immigrant sisters and brothers. We spent several hours on Monday evening having family members sign the forms necessary to enable immigration attorneys to see the detainees the next day.

Meanwhile hundreds of men, women, children and babies remained at the church sleeping on the floor and church pews, too frightened to go home. This arrangement continued throughout the week despite our efforts to convince them it was safe to go home.

During the early morning hours on Tuesday a few women were released at varying times for humanitarian reasons and taken back to Postville. One woman who was released me told me it had been her first day at Agriprocessors and she had been only working 15 minutes when the raid began. While in custody she asked to call her family but was told by officials she did not have a right to make a phone call. Seeing this mother reunited with her child brought tears to everyone's eyes. It lifted my spirits, but not for long.

Throughout the week we met with one obstacle after another. For example, on Tuesday, after waiting and negotiating most of the day to see the detainees, the attorneys learned that criminal charges, not immigration charges, would be filed so the immigration lawyers could not see or talk to the detainees. I learned later that Mexican Consulate officials were also there first thing on Tuesday and were denied access for quite a while.

Much time and effort was spent during the week trying to obtain information about the detainees, confirming the immigrants who were detained, the charges filed against them and where they were taken. ICE had set up an 800 number to provide this information but this was very ineffective.

Hundreds of families are torn apart by this raid. In several families, both parents were arrested leaving no one to care for children. In one example, a neighbor took the children in until the mother was released on Wednesday. Even upon her release, ICE officials would not allow her to go to the church where her children were staying. Instead, they took her to her apartment, looked around and, as they were leaving, threatened her not to take a step out of the apartment. If she did, she would never see her children again.

The mother of another family was released while her husband is still detained. Her children, one of which is a U.S. citizen, are upset and frightened. The six year old cries asking to see her daddy. The mother cannot work. There is no income, no way to provide for her children.

The humanitarian impact of this raid is obvious to anyone in Postville. The economic impact will soon be evident. Hundreds of families are now left without income - struggling to figure out how to pay the rent and provide food for their children. Some have thought about canceling their phone service to save money but ICE officials told those with GPS devices they must maintain service to have contact with officials. Other families have decided to move several families into one apartment to save on rent.

Those released need to appear in court - some in Waterloo and in other places around Iowa - but they have no money for transportation, much less for a night's stay somewhere if that is required.

Postville's population before the raids was only 2,300, so the impact on this community will be devastating. It is estimated that the population will decrease by one-third to one-half. And the impact goes beyond Postville. In Waterloo, we are receiving calls from people too scared to go to work. People are losing their jobs and have received their last paycheck. Others are in hiding.

Fear is rampant. I spoke with a Waterloo school official who was concerned about a particular student who had not been in school this week. Her family was too afraid to leave the house after ICE had come knocking at their door.

In Postville, half of the children were absent from school this week. Counselors were brought in to assist the children devastated by the loss of a parent or family member. Later in the week counselors were called back to assist non-immigrant children who were having nightmares worrying that their parents would be taken.

This past week a mother and daughter - both U.S. citizens - were stopped while shopping at Wal-Mart and questioned by ICE officials for an hour and a half.

The tension and fear is not limited to the Hispanic and Latino communities. When driving to Postville this Friday with a car full of donations I received a call about possible checkpoints between Waterloo and Postville. I wondered what might happen to me for delivering the supplies. I suddenly felt like I was in a strange country. I didn't feel free.

The immigration policies and practices of our government are disastrous. The inhumane way these raids are conducted and the negative impact on families and our communities is intolerable. The trauma created is a tremendous injustice.

Perhaps an even greater injustice is the exploitation, physical and sexual abuse by Agriprocessors. Those who are willing to risk so much to put food on their table and try to provide a better life for their children are put in jail and labeled criminals. Yet those who commit crimes of violence are free.

It is with urgency that I call on the government to pass comprehensive immigration reform which includes a pathway to lawful permanent residence and citizenship, meets immigrants' basic needs, encourages family unity and reunification, and addresses the root causes of migration.

It is time to change our immigration policies and practices so that once again we become the nation in which the dignity of all people is paramount and their rights protected

Do we should embrace our role as a Land of Opportunity and Liberty Or We should start turning people away. Where are those fundamental and Humane Values?

The FEAR of Nativists, Restrictionsts and some Republicans are HIS PANICS.


Someday, the country will recognize the true cost of its war on illegal immigration. We don’t mean dollars, though those are being squandered by the billions. The true cost is to the national identity: the sense of who we are and what we value. It will hit us once the enforcement fever breaks, when we look at what has been done and no longer recognize the country that did it.

A nation of immigrants is holding another nation of immigrants in bondage, exploiting its labor while ignoring its suffering, condemning its lawlessness while sealing off a path to living lawfully. The evidence is all around that something pragmatic and welcoming at the American core has been eclipsed, or is slipping away.

An escalating campaign of raids in homes and workplaces has spread indiscriminate terror among millions of people who pose no threat. After the largest raid ever last month — at a meatpacking plant in Iowa — hundreds were swiftly force-fed through the legal system and sent to prison. Civil-rights lawyers complained, futilely, that workers had been steamrolled into giving up their rights, treated more as a presumptive criminal gang than as potentially exploited workers who deserved a fair hearing. The company that harnessed their desperation, like so many others, has faced no charges.

Immigrants in detention languish without lawyers and decent medical care even when they are mortally ill. Lawmakers are struggling to impose standards and oversight on a system deficient in both. Counties and towns with spare jail cells are lining up for federal contracts as prosecutions fill the system to bursting. Unbothered by the sight of blameless children in prison scrubs, the government plans to build up to three new family detention centers. Police all over are checking papers, empowered by politicians itching to enlist in the federal crusade.

This is not about forcing people to go home and come back the right way. Ellis Island is closed. Legal paths are clogged or do not exist. Some backlogs are so long that they are measured in decades or generations. A bill to fix the system died a year ago this month. The current strategy, dreamed up by restrictionists and embraced by Republicans and some Democrats, is to force millions into fear and poverty.

There are few national figures standing firm against restrictionism. Senator Edward Kennedy has bravely done so for four decades, but his Senate colleagues who are running for president seem by comparison to be in hiding. John McCain supported sensible reform, but whenever he mentions it, his party starts braying and he leaves the room. Hillary Rodham Clinton has lost her voice on this issue more than once. Barack Obama, gliding above the ugliness, might someday test his vision of a new politics against restrictionist hatred, but he has not yet done so. The American public’s moderation on immigration reform, confirmed in poll after poll, begs the candidates to confront the issue with courage and a plan. But they have been vague and discreet when they should be forceful and unflinching.

The restrictionist message is brutally simple — that illegal immigrants deserve no rights, mercy or hope. It refuses to recognize that illegality is not an identity; it is a status that can be mended by making reparations and resuming a lawful life. Unless the nation contains its enforcement compulsion, illegal immigrants will remain forever Them and never Us, subject to whatever abusive regimes the powers of the moment may devise.

Every time this country has singled out a group of newly arrived immigrants for unjust punishment, the shame has echoed through history. Think of the Chinese and Irish, Catholics and Americans of Japanese ancestry. Children someday will study the Great Immigration Panic of the early 2000s, which harmed countless lives, wasted billions of dollars and mocked the nation’s most deeply held values.

Crisis in Haiti make people risk their lifes to search for a better life.
20 migrants found dead off the Bahamas.




NASSAU, Bahamas - The bodies of 20 migrants have been recovered from the sea near the Bahamas after their boat apparently capsized, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday as it searched for survivors.

The bodies of 19 Haitians and one Honduran were recovered and three survivors — two Haitians and one Honduran — have been found, said Barry Bena, a Coast Guard spokesman in Miami. Authorities are interviewing the survivors to determine what happened.

The search-and-rescue mission began Sunday after fishermen heard people screaming in the water.

The accident happened about 15 miles northwest of Nassau, Bahamas, according to the Coast Guard. A cutter, helicopter and a jet from the Coast Guard and two Bahamas military vessels continued searching the area Monday, Bena said.

Crisis in Haiti

Every year, thousands of Haitians try to leave the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country aboard rickety, overloaded boats for other islands or the United States.

Soaring food prices have pushed many into abject poverty and triggered riots earlier this month in Haiti, but this has not translated so far into a spike in the number of migrants.

Last year a migrant boat capsized near the Turks and Caicos islands, pitching Haitians into shark-infested waters. At least 61 people died.

Why Federal Goverment let part of our society being guardians of national immigration laws which has led to harmful racial and ethnic profiling?.

"There is more work to be done," said University of Missouri System President Gary Forsee after greeting the crowd with "buenas tardes," the Spanish phrase for "good afternoon."
Forsee also for the first time publicly announced the university’s opposition to a proposed Missouri constitutional amendment to make illegal any form of affirmative action. Concurrent with the Council on Public Higher Education, a group of presidents and chancellors of public institutions of higher education in the state, Forsee said claims that affirmative action resulted in reverse discrimination were "false, absolutely false."
In a session after the introductory remarks, Kansas City immigration lawyer Roger McCrummen addressed the implications of local enforcement of national immigration laws.
"Many people are saying, ‘Let’s make their lives so miserable here that they’ll go back, they’ll self-deport,’ " McCrummen said at the Stoney Creek Inn’s conference room, where the MU-sponsored conference is being held through tomorrow. "That’s not going to happen because they have families here and jobs here. It only makes a less secure society."
McCrummen described the formation of a "checkpoint society" by the litany of immigration laws being considered in Missouri that seek to empower local law enforcement officials, employers and private landlords to check the immigration status of people.
"If it’s not helping families or the economy … then why are you insisting on such laws?" McCrummen asked.
Hyuen Pham, an immigration law expert from Texas Wesleyan University School of Law in Fort Worth, said charging local law enforcement and private citizens who are untrained in immigration law to be guardians of national immigration laws has led to harmful racial and ethnic profiling.
"The trend of local enforcement of immigration law might be one of the most important today," she said.
During the question-and-answer period, attendee Andy Laughlin of Stark City asked why no distinction was being made between people who are "anti-immigrant" and those who are "anti-illegal immigrant."
"Those are two completely different people in my view," said Laughlin, who works in early childhood development with both legal and illegal immigrant families. Laughlin also took offense to comments by the speakers that claimed enforcing certain immigration laws would split "mixed-status" families, where a mother and child might be legal residents and a father not.
"If you capitulate to somebody that’s illegal in the name of community relations, then that’s a big error or a big mistake," he said. Laughlin later called the Tribune to clarify: "It’s all very complex, and there’s no easy answer, and to give a knee-jerk reaction is wrong.
"This is not the same thing as a bank robber, rapist, murderer because of the complexity," he said, describing a hypothetical situation. "This is a man. The only illegal activity he’s doing is being here illegally, but being understanding and sympathetic is a necessity."

Why a nation so keen on seeing itself as a light for the world, and both admired and hated for its bluster and swagger.




I outlined the ongoing strains of xenophobia and racism in U.S. society. By Gregory Rodriguez.


Last February, I found myself in the difficult position of explaining American insecurity to a group of Mexican undergraduates at a college in Matamoros, Mexico, just south of the border at Brownsville, Texas. I was taking questions after delivering a lecture on the long-term prospects of Mexican immigrants being accepted into U.S. society. A neatly dressed young man in the back stood up to ask a pointed question. "How," he said politely in Spanish, "could such a rich and powerful country be so self-centered as to build a wall on its border to keep people out?"

For a moment, I figured I could give him a simple answer: A vocal constituency wants to keep border crossers out at all costs; they operate under the easy rubric of law enforcement and homeland security. But he was asking a deeper question than that

First, I discussed the historical cycle of the U.S. embracing and then rejecting the outside world, how we can sometimes be both generous and selfish to newcomers. I outlined the ongoing strains of xenophobia and racism in U.S. society. I mentioned the profound ethnic demographic shift in the U.S. and asked him whether he thought Mexicans would be any less "self-centered" if faced with a similar situation. And then I got to the hard part: having to explain why citizens of arguably the richest and most powerful nation on Earth could feel so put upon by the world.

Last week, the Bush administration's Department of Homeland Security announced that it would use its waiver authority to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations to finish building 670 miles of fence along our southern border by the end of the year. And if all that goes according to plan, I won't be the only American having to explain what this new border wall says about us as a people and a country. For the last 120 years, Americans have been able to point to the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of our collective pride in our immigrant origins. But future generations are more likely to point to the wall on our southern border as an altogether different symbol.

The most vocal supporters of the border wall like to portray the United States as a hapless victim of illegal immigrants. They act as if these people show up out of nowhere, as if they are not part of a long-established pattern. There's little recognition that the U.S. is just as responsible for creating the flows northward as is our eternally mismanaged southern neighbor.

We forget that as early as the late 19th century, we looked to Mexicans to build the railroads throughout the Southwest; that, in 1917, when Congress closed the door to European migration, it quietly made plans for Mexicans to fill our labor needs; that, beginning in World War II, we imported hundreds of thousands of Mexican guest workers who familiarized themselves with life in the U.S. and shared their experiences and networks with their families and friends back home.

Yes, there is a difference between legal and illegal immigration, but sometimes one begets the other. When Congress began to reduce the number of legal visas available to Mexicans from an unlimited supply in the mid-1960s to 20,000 per year in 1976 (not including family reunification), it not only didn't stop the northward flow it had helped foster, it literally created illegal immigration.

My inquisitor in Matamoros, and others in the audience, seemed to acknowledge that the U.S. had no moral obligation to offer economic opportunity to the people of Mexico. But he did seem genuinely confused about why a nation so keen on seeing itself as a light for the world, and both admired and hated for its bluster and swagger, could cower behind a wall from a migration that it helped create. Mexicans -- and Canadians for that matter -- who live in our shadow and define themselves against casual displays of U.S. power can't fathom our anxieties.



"The average American," I said, "doesn't feel as powerful and entitled as the national image would suggest. In fact, in many ways both our economic system and our diverse origins encourage a strong sense of social insecurity. As individuals and members of groups, Americans are constantly jockeying for position and legitimacy. On an everyday level, they're not likely to feel as secure as you'd imagine."

But nearly two months later, I realize that I didn't fully answer the man's question.

So here it is: Although there has always been a flip side to American confidence and bravado, by building the wall --

all three leading presidential candidates voted for it

-- we Americans have chosen to enshrine and showcase our insecurity. And whether you agree with the decision to build it or not, you have to admit that such a defensive act is an odd thing to do for a nation so proud of its global power and largesse


http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-rodriguez7apr07,1,7050658.column

Exposing the danger and reality of crossing the border hoping to an end with a different perspective. The American Dream.

See who's turning their back on you as Hispanic American. Before you vote take this list with you. Said not to Save Act.




Signers of Discharge Petition to Bring SAVE Act to House Floor - 185

House Democrats (10)

(Ga.) – Rep. Barrow
(Ind.) - Rep. Ellsworth
(Ind.) - Rep. Donnelly
(Kan.) – Rep. Boyda
(Miss.) - Rep. Taylor
(N.C.) – Rep. McIntyre
(N.C.) - Rep. Shuler
(Pa.) - Rep. Carney
(Pa.) - Rep. Kanjorski
(Texas) – Rep. Lampson

House Republicans (175)

(Ala.) - Rep. Aderholt
(Ala.) - Rep. Bachus
(Ala.) - Rep. Bonner
(Ala.) - Rep. Everett
(Alaska) - Rep. Young
(Ariz.) - Rep. Flake
(Ariz.) – Rep. Franks
(Ariz.) – Rep. Renzi
(Ariz.) – Rep. Shadegg
(Ark.) – Rep. Boozman
(Calif.) - Rep. Bilbray
(Calif.) – Rep. Bono-Mack
(Calif.) – Rep. Calvert
(Calif.) - Rep. Campbell
(Calif.) - Rep. Doolittle
(Calif.) – Rep. Dreier
(Calif.) - Rep. Gallegly
(Calif.) - Rep. Herger
(Calif.) – Rep. Hunter
(Calif.) - Rep. Issa
(Calif.) – Rep. Lewis
(Calif.) – Rep. Lungren
(Calif.) - Rep. McCarthy
(Calif.) - Rep. McKeon
(Calif.) - Rep. Miller
(Calif.) – Rep. Rohrabacher
(Calif.) - Rep. Royce
(Colo.) – Rep. Lamborn
(Colo.) - Rep. Musgrave
(Colo.) - Rep. Tancredo
(Conn.) – Rep. Shays
(Del.) – Rep. Castle
(Fla.) - Rep. Bilirakis
(Fla.) - Rep. Buchanan
(Fla.) – Rep. Brown-Waite
(Fla.) – Rep. Crenshaw
(Fla.) – Rep. Feeney
(Fla.) – Rep. Keller
(Fla.) - Rep. Mack
(Fla.) - Rep. Mica
(Fla.) - Rep. Miller
(Fla.) - Rep. Putnam
(Fla.) – Rep. Stearns
(Fla.) – Rep. Weldon
(Fla.) - Rep. Young
(Ga.) - Rep. Broun
(Ga.) – Rep. Deal
(Ga.) – Rep. Gingrey
(Ga.) – Rep. Kingston
(Ga.) – Rep. Linder
(Ga.) – Rep. Price
(Ga.) - Rep. Westmoreland
(Idaho) - Rep. Simpson
(Ill.) – Rep. Biggert
(Ill.) – Rep. Kirk
(Ill.) – Rep. LaHood
(Ill.) – Rep. Manzullo
(Ill.) - Rep. Roskam
(Ill.) - Rep. Shimkus
(Ill.) – Rep. Weller
(Ind.) – Rep. Burton
(Ind.) - Rep. Buyer
(Ind.) - Rep. Pence
(Iowa) - Rep. Latham
(Kan.) – Rep. Tiahrt
(Kan.) - Rep. Moran
(Ky.) – Rep. Davis
(Ky.) – Rep. Lewis
(Ky.) – Rep. Rogers
(Ky.) - Rep. Whitfield
(La.) - Rep. Alexander
(La.) - Rep. Boustany
(La.) – Rep. McCrery
(Md.) - Rep. Bartlett
(Md.) - Rep. Gilchrist
(Mich.) - Rep. Camp
(Mich.) - Rep. Hoekstra
(Mich.) - Rep. Knollenberg
(Mich.) - Rep. McCotter
(Mich.) - Rep. Miller
(Mich.) - Rep. Rogers
(Mich.) - Rep. Walberg
(Minn.) – Rep. Bachmann
(Minn.) - Rep. Kline
(Minn.) - Rep. Ramstad
(Mo.) – Rep. Akin
(Mo.) - Rep. Blunt
(Mo.) – Rep. Emerson
(Mo.) – Rep. Graves
(Mt.) - Rep. Rehberg
(Mo.) – Rep. Hulshof
(Neb.) – Rep. Fortenberry
(Neb.) – Rep. Smith
(Neb.) – Rep. Terry
(Nev.) - Rep. Heller
(Nev.) - Rep. Porter
(N.J.) - Rep. Ferguson
(N.J.) – Rep. Frelinghuysen
(N.J.) – Rep. Garrett
(N.J.) - Rep. Saxton
(N.J.) – Rep. Smith
(N.M.) - Rep. Pearce
(N.M.) – Rep. Wilson
(N.Y.) - Rep. King
(N.Y.) - Rep. Walsh
(N.C.) - Rep. Coble
(N.C.) - Rep. Foxx
(N.C.) – Rep. Hayes
(N.C.) – Rep. Jones
(N.C.) – Rep. McHenry
(N.C.) – Rep. Myrick
(Ohio) - Rep. Jordan
(Ohio) - Rep. Boehner
(Ohio) - Rep. Chabot
(Ohio) – Rep. LaTourette
(Ohio) – Rep. Latta
(Ohio) - Rep. Regula
(Ohio) - Rep. Schmidt
(Ohio) - Rep. Tiberi
(Ohio) - Rep. Turner
(Okla.) - Rep. Cole
(Okla.) - Rep. Fallin
(Okla.) - Rep. Lucas
(Okla.) – Rep. Sullivan
(Ore.) – Rep. Walden
(Pa.) - Rep. Dent
(Pa.) - Rep. English
(Pa.) - Rep. Gerlach
(Pa.) – Rep. Murphy
(Pa.) - Rep. Peterson
(Pa.) – Rep. Pitts
(Pa.) - Rep. Platts
(Pa.) - Rep. Shuster
(S.C.) – Rep. Barrett
(S.C.) – Rep. Brown, Jr.
(S.C.) - Rep. Ingliss
(S.C.) - Rep. Wilson
(Tenn.) – Rep. Blackburn
(Tenn.) - Rep. Davis
(Tenn.) – Rep. Duncan, Jr.
(Tenn.) – Rep. Wamp
(Texas) - Rep. Barton
(Texas) - Rep. Brady
(Texas) - Rep. Burgess
(Texas) – Rep. Carter
(Texas) – Rep. Conaway
(Texas) - Rep. Culberson
(Texas) - Rep. Gohmert
(Texas) – Rep. Granger
(Texas) - Rep. Hall
(Texas) - Rep. Hensarling
(Texas) - Rep. Johnson
(Texas) – Rep. Marchant
(Texas) – Rep. McCaul
(Texas) - Rep. Neugebauer
(Texas) - Rep. Poe
(Texas) – Rep. Sessions
(Texas) – Rep. Smith
(Texas) - Rep. Thornberry
(Utah) - Rep. Bishop
(Utah) - Rep. Cannon
(Va.) - Rep. Cantor
(Va.) – Rep. Davis
(Va.) - Rep. Drake
(Va.) - Rep. Forbes
(Va.) – Rep. Goode, Jr.
(Va.) – Rep. Goodlatte
(Va.) – Rep. Wittman
(Va.) - Rep. Wolf
(Wash.) – Rep. Reichert
(Wis.) - Rep. Petri
(Wis.) – Rep. Ryan
(Wis.) - Rep. Sensenbrenner
(Wyo.) – Rep. Cubin

UW student facing deportation able to return for school.



Following her release from federal custody Tuesday, third-year UW-Madison pharmacy student Tope Awe will be able to return to campus within the next few days.

According to the statement released Tuesday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, both Awe and her brother Oluwabenga are required to wear ankle monitoring bracelets and check in with ICE periodically while deportation documents are assembled.

“I think the fact that the campus was behind her and that we showed our support may have helped with the decision to release her from Dodge County Jail, so she can come back and finish school while she’s still continuing to fight the legal proceedings,” said Salemawit Zewdie, a close friend of Awe’s.

“Our next goal is for Tope to be able to complete her one-year internship following her graduation from pharmacy school this May,” she said.

Zewdie and Awe served as co-chairs for the African Students Association during the 2006-’07 school year. Zewdie was one of the first students who began assembling petitions and organizing events to rally for Awe’s return to campus.

Zewdie attributed the immense amount of support to Awe’s character as a person and also as a student.

“When we initially started, when we first heard her case, we had 20 petitions and overnight it grew to 1,000,” Zewdie said.

There are now over 3,000 documents of support for the Awe family, not only from UW-Madison students, but also from students across the United States who heard about her case.

“I spoke to Tope when she got back to Milwaukee [after being released from federal custody], and she’s doing well. She’s high-spirited and hoping for the best outcome,” Zewdie said.

As a Brothers and Sisters we have differences but always remained together.. Let's embrace humane Values, tolerance to others. We all are Immigrants.

Solution to HIS PANIC on Immigration. We have a dream two; We deserve to be treated equal to others.



Fueling the Anti Immigrant sentiment, anger and hate crime on the rise. Do you believe congress are part of this conspiracy? Fueling the Anti Immigrant sentiment towards Hispanic Community with 350 bills against Undocumented Immigrants!!!!

With anti-immigrant sentiment at a steady boil across the nation, it’s not surprising that hate crimes targeting Latinos are on the rise. New FBI statistics suggest a 35 percent increase in hate crimes against Latinos between 2003 and 2006.

Nor is it surprising that hate groups are once again on the march. A new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center estimates that 888 hate groups are operating in this country, including 11 in Oregon. That is 44 more than the center counted in 2006 and 286 more than in 2000.

Anger over immigration has been a feature of American life for years. That anger has intensified since last year’s congressional meltdown over immigration reform.

Thoughtful people can disagree about, and respectfully debate, immigration policy: What’s the best way to secure this country’s borders? How many foreigners should be admitted and for what purpose? What should be done with the 13 million illegal immigrants already in this country?

But extreme sentiments, once the exclusive province of white supremacists, have begun to seep into the mainstream. They’ve become the common verbal currency of nativist immigration-reform activists, talk radio hosts, cable TV commentators and even elected officials who smear immigrants as criminal aliens, invaders, terrorists and cockroaches — human detritus whose dangerous, lawless presence must be swept from this country.

Few go so far as to actually endorse violence against immigrants. But no one should be deceived — that’s the inevitable result of dehumanizing rhetoric, as white nationalist, racist skinhead and an array of other groups are agitated by the anti-immigrant rhetoric.

The presidential primaries have done distressingly little to address this problem, and, in some instances, have fanned the flames.

With the exception of Sen. John McCain, now the presumptive nominee, Republican presidential candidates seemed determined to out-tough each other on immigration. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who once supported financial aid for illegal immigrant students, offered up a “Secure America Plan” that required the expulsion of all illegal immigrants within 120 days. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who once supported a Senate bill that provided undocumented immigrants with a path to citizenship, declared during the primaries that he despised amnesty.

Even McCain, who took heavy fire for his co-sponsorship of a bipartisan immigration bill that would have provided a means to grant legal status to illegal immigrants, distanced himself from talk of legalization, focusing instead on get-tough border enforcement.

Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have done better than the Republicans, with both committing to support a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. But they have tiptoed around many of the difficult, complex issues that must be addressed by serious immigration reform.

Ultimately, the blame for the recent surge in anti-immigrant sentiment reflects back on Congress, which failed to pass a comprehensive reform bill that despite its flaws contained workable fixes for the border and workplace, and a coherent strategy for dealing with the illegal immigrants who are already here through a demanding path to earned citizenship.

When Congress failed to pass an immigration reform supported by President Bush last year, lawmakers understood it was their last chance to act — that the presidential race would make it impossible to address the issue until 2009 at the earliest, and perhaps later. They knew state and local governments would fill the void in federal leadership by approving their own mishmash of laws, most of them punitive and none capable of fixing a broken immigration system that’s becoming more dysfunctional by the day.

Because of Congress’ failure, this nation is increasingly divided over immigration, hate groups are proliferating, and bias crimes against Latinos are on the rise. In this year’s elections, Americans should choose candidates for both Congress and the White House who will help make true reform a reality and begin healing a nation that has been too long and too deeply torn over immigration

My punishment won't fit my crime? I found hard to believe that crossing the border the punishment will fit their crime.



let me remind you that the rule of law generally means that the "punishment" fits the crime. I suppose many of you also advocate the Islamic laws which include stoning women for adultery and cutting off the hands of someone who steals a loaf of bread to keep from starving. I imagine you were behind those militarized police who were shooting Katrina victims who were taking food from flooded stores... food that would be spoiled and trashed anyway...

I assume you've never committed a technical breach of the law: You never exceeded the speed limit, you never jaywalked, you never filed your taxes a day or two late, you never found a $5 bill on the sidewalk and stuffed it in your pocket instead of turning it in to the police, you never drove through a yellow light, you never drove under the influence of alcohol over the State limits, you never spit on a bus.


Even using undocumented Immigrants those so called populist anchor news to ranting their shows denigrating, diminishing, scapegoating, labeled them as terrorist, some demonized them and the list goes on and on.

Know Lawmakers in at least eight states are now sponsoring 350 bills to crackdown undocumented Immigrants but their problem on undocumented Immigration is just focused on His Panics, Latinos.

State lawmakers around the country are proposing hundreds of bills this year aimed at curbing Undocumented immigration, but experts say the cost and public opposition will keep many from becoming law.

Lawmakers in at least eight states are now sponsoring legislation similar to Oklahoma, which last May passed the nation's most comprehensive anti-immigration law.

It restricts undocumented immigrants' access to driver's licenses and other IDs, limits public benefits, penalizes employers who hire them and boosts ties between local police and federal immigration authorities.

The bills are among more than 350 immigration-related proposals unveiled in state legislatures in the first two months of this year, according to a count by The Associated Press.

Sharma Hammond, staff attorney for the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, believes states have been galvanized by the collapse two years running of a congressional solution.

"They feel like they have to take it into their own hands because the federal government is doing nothing," said Hammond, whose group helps states write the comprehensive bills and favors a freeze on nearly all immigration.

But it's questionable how many of the bills will become law. Many quickly lose momentum after they're introduced.

Out of more than 100 bills dealing with illegal immigration in the Virginia statehouse, only a few minor ones were likely to pass as the session was scheduled to end Saturday.

In Florida, lawmakers have proposed nearly a dozen bills targeting illegal immigration since January. But at a recent press conference at the state capitol, only two of the bills' backers showed. None of the state House leadership has offered support.

"People are still trying to keep this alive and get the federal government to pass something," said Ann Morse of the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks the bills. "But now that the legislation is introduced, states are wondering is this something we need to do right now, or do we need to study it more."

Morse thinks the new comprehensive bills are partly a tool to draw public attention to the issue, especially in an election year. She noted they tend to come with official titles such as "Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act."

Last year, more than 1,500 anti-illegal immigrant laws were proposed nationwide, with nearly 250 passing, according to a count by the National Conference of State Legislatures. And some of that legislation is now creating legal and financial trouble for state governments.

The Oklahoma law still faces a legal challenge by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In Colorado, a proposal to boost the state's immigration enforcement unit may be doomed by its $3.9 million price tag.

Although the University of Arizona saved roughly $70,000 last year by identifying illegal immigrants who are ineligible for in-state tuition under a new law, it estimates the annual cost of identifying such students will be equal if not greater than the savings.

John Trasvina, president and general counsel of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund, said despite the flurry of new bills, he believes anti-immigrant sentiment is starting to cool somewhat.

In part, states may be responding to a national shift, with immigration taking a back seat to the economy and the war in Iraq. All three of the major presidential candidates support a comprehensive immigration law that would eventually legalize many of the country's 12 million illegal immigrants.

"States are finding it's costing them a lot of money," Trasvina said. "It's no longer a free ride, a quick press release."

Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller summed up the perspective of a number of state legislatures.

"I don't think that the votes are there to pass a bill in terms of changing the status of immigrants in the state," Miller said. "That means not punitively and not to give them any form of tax advantages either."

The one bill likely to pass in Maryland this year: a study of the effects of immigration