Typical scene in Presidio, TX--Deportations of immigrants across the International Bridge at Presidio are pretty routine for the U.S. Border Patrol. What's causing controversy, however, are the large numbers being sent back in ports all along the U. S. borders coupled with harsh anti-immigration measures passed by some states. (Texas Tribune photo)
By Dan Bodine
EL PASO--One of the major news coming out this week was a report Tuesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported almost 400,000 people from the country last year, including 216,700 people convicted of felonies and misdemeanors. The Texas Tribune has one of the many stories on it here.
Illegal immigration is a hot political issue and the Obama administration isn’t ducking any responsibilities toward it, to be sure. But up and down the border here most folks, reacting to the news I dare say, said, Entonces. (…And so. Then?) You wanna medal? What!?
Which is to say, the immorality of harsh immigration laws isn’t debated too much here. It’s more like, the laws and the radical-right attitudes that spun them out are all part of those sad, acceptable facts most people know about that are wrong with the country now. Ejoli! And like drought and a bad economy, they’re hoping like the dickens it’ll end soon.
The figure is nothing to sneeze at, don’t get me wrong. Especially since 55 percent of those deported had criminal records. And even if most of that was for multiple deportation violations, which it probably was, it’s past time to get a message across that even free rides can’t go on forever: Start looking at getting a sponsor, whoever you are. Clean up your act, apply for an immigrant visa, and await your turn. Like millions and millions of others. As painful and time-consuming as it is. Or at least make some efforts! But let’s stop chewing on this rag so much!
“The (deportation) figures are in line with the Obama administration’s increased enforcement since 2009, which has resulted in more deportations and prosecutions in three years than President George W. Bush's administration accomplished in two terms,” the Tribune reported.
And amidst all the political clamor nationally against illegal immigration, especially by Republicans and the Tea Party (and 2012 being a presidential election year, too), I’m sure the timing of the news release was politically expedient. So we can pass over that. They’re grumblings on both sides, yes, but not here.
So give me a break, some of you hardwingers. You want to salivate? Foam up around the mouth in anger over it? Even over there not being more deported? Why? If America is a land of immigrants, who are we to suddenly get ugly with them? Which is what we’re doing with some of these states’ harsh immigration laws. Too, you have any idea how much this is hurting us already economically? Huh? Not only is that cruel but a little dumb, too, it seems, Jethro. No?
The high figures are politically driven, yes. Stepped-up enforcement and prosecution, it is. Of the 396,906 deported in 2010, 55 percent had felony or misdemeanor convictions, we‘re told. So? I imagine most folks of moral, upright standards want to ask then. What does that mean? Hee, hee. Not much, according to at least one professor who could easily be described as a political analyst.
Mike Alllison, an associate political science professor at Pennsylvania’s University of Scranton and a member of the university’s Latin American and Women’s Studies Dept., writing Wednesday in the Christian Science Monitor, argued for the most part the figures show non-violent offenders whose crime was merely wanting a job bad enough to risk entry even at the peril of being classified as a multiple offender.
Is that shocking to you, Jethro? Life could be so bad for you somewhere else--seeing everybody either dead or dying it seems and you’re next?--that you’d risk the plague of being declared a multiple deportation offender, if it meant there was even the slightest chance you could find work and thus “a living” somewhere? Huh?
Wanna read something about alleged immigrant treatment in a South Texas prison that’s sickening, Jethro? So bad at Raymondville, immigrants willing to admit anything--Yeah, I did it! Whatever it is! Hell, just go ahead and deport me!--if it means they get another crack at “coming across” somewhere.
Ain’t saying it’s the gospel truth; simply there’s enough in it to make it sound believable; and that it’s sickening to think we would ever even dare think about doing this to other human beings. Because that puts us on the cusp of losing our humanity, it does
Wanna read it? To glimpse at one reason why the bogus deportation figures may be so high? It’s a website Democracy Now: The War and Peace Report’s story entitled Lost in Detention.
Read down halfway or so to comments on maggots in the food by a respectable reporter, Maria Hinojosa; about other reported conditions there; and then tell me you’re not bothered some even though “they’ve got it coming to them!” Huh, Jethro? You want to meet God someday with that attitude? Jeesh!
Alright, alright! I’ll slack off that tack. What about cold economic facts then? Effects of harsh, new anti-immigration laws? Understand that better? Gotta carry this paper; gotta carry that paper. Or git arrested!
About how towns, schools and farms in the South already are shriveling--and crops left to ruin (billions in economic losses)--simply because the Latino farm workers (legal or illegal) don’t want to risk arrest, imprisonment and deportation.
Here’s one first-hand account published by the prestigious The Nation entitled The High Cost of Anti-Immigrant Laws, which describes millions of pounds of watermelons left rotting in fields in Georgia this past summer--along with peaches, blackberries and cucumbers--as usually reliable farm harvesters steered clear for other, more friendlier states.
The El Paso Times today, in an Associated Press front-page story entitled Few Americans willing to work immigrants’ jobs, reported that even though barring immigrants was supposed to open up more jobs for Americans, it’s not working out that way, no, indeed.
“I’ve had people calling me wanting to work (and) I haven’t turned any of them down,” said one Alabama potato farmer, “but they’re not any good. It’s hard work; they just don’t work like the Hispanics with experience.”
An estimated $300 million loss in watermelon crops in Georgia alone, adding to a hit on that state’s total ag sector for the season of possibly $1 billion. Just in one state. With few workers in sight for future crops? Everywhere.
Ooops! Didn’t mean to shoot yourself in the foot with all that harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric you’ve been mouthing off for the past few years or so, did ‘ya, Jethro?! Huh?
Nothing personal; I ain’t picking on your ilk, want ‘ya to understand. Just explaining why along the border here we’re not too impressed with those deportation figures you’ve been crowing about this week.
They’re a lot of bad stories in ‘em. Don’t stir the embers.
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