A Tale of Two Shitties

Here's a couple of non-surprises for you this morning:

While sellers nationwide are suffering, the highest segment of the luxury market, in trophy property corners like Palm Beach, Fla., Beverly Hills, Calif., or the east end of New York's Long Island, has performed well.

[...]

[In] an elite enclave of the Venetian Islands, in Miami Beach, where one will often find sales of $20 million and up, there have been more sales in the first quarter this year than all of last year combined.

  Forbes

and...

NYT Headline: As Border Efforts Grow, Corruption Is on the Rise

...And you're still...just across...the borderline.

As onward we march to third-world status with widespread and deeply embedded political corruption and an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor.

Border Fence

Just caught a snippet of a report on NPR that the border patrol is trying to find a way to clear brush. I know a dedicated brush clearer who's going to be available come January.

Support Our Troops

One frigid March morning last year, federal agents raided a factory in this old whaling town, arresting hundreds of illegal immigrants as they sewed vests and backpacks for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Most were shackled and sent to a detention center in Texas, where they faced rapid deportation unless they could post thousands of dollars in bail -- money they didn't have -- to buy time to mount a defense.

  WSJ

And there was Rumsfeld some years back assuring the soldiers in Iraq that the reason they didn’t have body armor had nothing to do with the desire to provide them body armor – we just didn’t have the means.

Then, a mystery benefactor appeared. The anonymous donor ponied up more than $200,000 to spring 40 people from detention.

The payments came from Bob Hildreth, a Boston financier who made his millions trading Latin American debt. He was "infuriated" at the televised images of workers being shipped to Texas, he says. Helping them make bail is "payback."

[...]

Mr. Hildreth agreed to help individuals post bail if they or their families would also put up a significant chunk of money.

[...]

While none of his recipients have skipped out on bail, it is a real possibility, since the chances of winning the right to remain legally in the U.S. are slim. Bail-skippers would open Mr. Hildreth to criticism that he helped people evade the law.

"He's going to hear that he's helping these people stay here who have no right to stay here," says Harvey Kaplan, a Boston immigration lawyer who represents some of the immigrants. "He'll get hate mail."

No doubt.

The factory raid has been a hot topic around New Bedford, where prominent local talk-radio host Ken Pittman has taken a strong stance against illegal immigration. Upon hearing of Mr. Hildreth's payments, Mr. Pittman said: "I would ask him to show the same compassion for American workers displaced by these illegal aliens."

Yeah, because there were hundreds of American workers lined up to take those jobs but were passed over. Right.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Republican Values

AARP’s Bulletin this month has an article featuring a Choctaw woman with cancer in Oklahoma who just got dumped from medical benefits because she couldn’t prove she is a U.S. citizen. It happened because the Republicans got their panties in a wad about possible illegal immigrants getting medical benefits. Their answer was proof by paperwork. And, apparently, the question was not even a real problem, but something created by the Republicans to stoke the fires of xenophobia they know and love so well.

The rule, which neither CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] nor the Bush administration requested, was adopted by the Republican-dominated Congress in 2005 despite the fact that there was no evidence that undocumented immigrants were falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to get Medicaid.

”This rule was the answer to a problem that really doesn’t exist,” says Donna Cohen Ross, an analyst with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, a nonpartisan research organization.

[...]

”In 2007 we added $1 million to our budget just to handle the cost of this new rule when we had absolutely no indication there was a problem with illegal immigrants getting Medicaid in Kansas,” says Andrew Allison, Kansas Medicaid director and deputy director of the state Health Policy Authority.

[...]

Oklahoma has uncovered no illegal immigrants on its rolls. And Arizona, where immigration is a huge issue, has filed two reports since the rule went into effect, each saying the state uncovered "zero" illegal immigrants among its 1 million Medicaid recipients. Kansas has found one illegal immigrant on its Medicaid rolls.

[...]

A close analysis of six states [...] showed that for every $100 spent to implement the rule, only 14 cents was saved.

In fact, nationwide the rule has added millions of dollars in administrative costs.

In Wisconsin, the legislature and the governor initially authorized $1.8 million "just to deal with this rule," says James Jones, a deputy administrator in the state Department of Health and Family Services. "And we estimate it will continue to cost $800,000 a year."

[...]

In Oklahoma [...] more than 20,000 of its 700,000 Medicaid recipients – almost 13 percent are American Indians – have been dropped from the program, “not because they aren’t citizens, but because they’re having a tough time coming up with the right pieces of paper at the right time,” says Mike Fogarty, chief executive officer of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority.

Lucky for the Republicans, American Indians, the working poor and children aren’t campaign contributors.

Not so lucky for the state taxpayers who have to foot the bill to carry out the new rules. Much better Kansas should have to pay a million dollars for that than some wetback’s kid should get a broken arm set or something.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Immigration

Here's an environmentally-friendly way to keep out the aliens, harking back to the days of medieval castles: build a moat.

That's the proposal for a stretch of the border along Yuma, Arizona. It calls for digging a channel up to 10 feet deep and 60 feet wide through wetlands that have become dry lands, just inside the border. The dirt excavated would be used for some nice landscaping, including an elevated patrol road.

  Washington Independent

Well, it sounds just lovely, and I very much prefer that to a fence, but WTF? They can’t cross water? Are they aliens or demonic spirits?

(Every time I read an article talking about aliens, my first reaction is that we’re about to discuss beings from another planet. Which, actually, would probably be us. Where else would we get such hairbrained schemes?)

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Mitt Romney: Tough on Immigration

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, seeking to protect his narrowing lead and fend off challenges from rivals in this early-voting state, assailed Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani over supporting tuition breaks and broader sanctuary for illegal immigrants or their children.

  MSNBC

Romney's father, former Michigan Gov. George Romney, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, where Mormons fled in the 1800s to escape religious persecution and U.S. laws forbidding polygamy. He and his family did not return to the United States until 1912, more than two decades after the church issued "The Manifesto" banning polygamy.

  Fox News

The Twit wouldn't even be in this country if somebody had been tough on immigration in 1912.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's. --Mark Twain

Asymetrical Warfare

[California] Border Patrol agents]complain that smugglers are pelting them with rocks, sticks and other debris from the Mexican side of the fence.

Since October, Border Patrol agents in San Diego and Arizona have been using the FN303 Less Lethal System manufactured by FN Herstal, a Belgian arms manufacturer. The FN303 is a high-powered air rifle that can shoot a pepper spray bullet up to 328 feet.

Andrea Zortman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency in Washington D.C. […] says they’ll expand the use of the FN303s at a later date in Texas.

[...]

The tear gas is still lobbed (the old fashioned way) over the fence rather than shot with any type of projectile device.

[...]

Is it our imagination, or is the U.S.-Mexico border increasingly starting to feel like the West Bank?

  Texas Observer

The Wall

In October, [an Arizona] judge agreed with environmentalists that the government had failed to address environmental concerns involved in building a massive fence through a wildlife refuge. The judge issued an order halting construction. Two weeks later, [Homeland Security Chief Michael] Chertoff invoked Section 102 [of the Real ID Act]. Construction immediately resumed.

[...]

In Section 102 of that act, Congress offered Homeland Security the power to waive laws conflicting with border militarization security.

  Texas Observer

The Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife have a lawsuit against the government saying Section 102 “violates the U.S. Constitution’s fundamental Separation of Powers principles by impermissibly delegating legislative authority to a politically-appointed Executive Branch official.”

Environmentalists are bracing for a similar fight in Texas.

The latest map released by the government shows segments of the wall slicing through critical habitat in Texas. The Sabal Palm Audubon Center in Brownsville will be completely walled off, leaving this rare, species-rich palm grove in a sort-of no-man’s-land. Many Texans probably do not know that the Lower Valley is the most biologically diverse region in the nation. Yet it has a global reputation. I’ve met people from as far away as South Africa who have never set foot in Texas but know about the Valley because of its fame as a birding and wildlife paradise.

Chertoff’s response to all this? “I have to say to myself, ‘Yes, I don’t want to disturb the habitat of a lizard, but am I prepared to pay human lives to do that?’”

You bet he isn't. Because Texans are just a fence away from being attacked by armies of foot soldiers coming from Mexico.

proposed map

'The ICE Age"

Immigration is now the number-one federally prosecuted crime - not drugs, weapons, white collar crime, or even terrorism.

  Texas Observer Blog

Priorites.

Immigration, Levitation, and Homosexuality

Oh, come on. Use your imagination. I'm just trying to clean up all these draft posts.

I have never gotten much further on immigration issues than, why in the world is it legal or illegal to live anywhere? Why are people treated as government property? By birth, I am a Missourian - a somewhat arbitrary boundary thing, as all man-made boundaries tend to be. But, I've moved enough times to also have been a Californian, a Washingtonian, and now, a Texan (although they say here on Galveston Island that we are south of Texas, and further, if you are not born on the island, you are not to claim to be from Galveston - something that doesn't bother me, because I'm pretty sure this isn't even my home planet).

I was never illegal in any of those areas. Why should I be illegal if I move somewhere further away? I just think the whole idea is bizarre. Like having a license to be married. What's with that?

Anyway, The KC Blue Blog is calling for Missouri's governor to fire his chief of staff, Ed Martin, for this comment:

"I'll tell you what's available to every developer in order to figure out who's illegal. When there's a bunch of Mexicans out there, there's probably some of them who are not legal."

Racial profiling taken to its logical conclusion, I suppose.

And my choice for inane positions today comes from Rudy Giuliani.

Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani said illegal immigration is not a crime.

[...]

"It's not a crime," Giuliani said Friday. "I know that's very hard for people to understand, but it's not a federal crime."

[...]

"I was U.S. attorney in the Southern district of New York," he said. "So believe me, I know this. In fact, when you throw an immigrant out of the country, it's not a criminal proceeding. It's a civil proceeding."

[...]

Illegal immigration shouldn't be a crime, either, Giuliani said: "No, it shouldn't be because the government wouldn't be able to prosecute it. We couldn't prosecute 12 million people.

[...]

He added: "My solution is close the border to illegal immigration."

  AP News

Close the border to illegal immigration? How do we do that, Rudy? Let me guess. Rudy has stock in fencing material.

And if it's not a crime, why is it called "illegal"? If it's true that it's not a crime, then maybe we need to start talking about this issue in different terms. Telling everybody that Mexican immigrants are illegal when it's not a crime for them to be here is hazing up the issue.

Oh, wait. Let's let Glenn Beck clear up that point.

[It's] not a crime. I know that's very hard for people to understand, but it's not a federal crime.

GLENN: It's a misdemeanor but if you've been nailed, it is a crime. If you've been nailed, ship back and come back, it is a crime.

  

"It's a misdemeanor, but if you've been nailed, it is a crime." Ahem. I think a misdemeanor is a crime to begin with.

Anyway, levitation and invisibility aren't just for Harry Potter.

Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, have worked out a way of reversing [the] pheneomenon known as the Casimir force so that it repels instead of attracts.

Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.

[...]

Prof Leonhardt leads one of four teams - three of them in Britain - to have put forward a theory in a peer-reviewed journal to achieve invisibility by making light waves flow around an object - just as a river flows undisturbed around a smooth rock.

  UK Telegraph

And speaking of marriage...

With liberty and justice....

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

2008

Again from the Twit.

"I ... don't think it makes sense to have an immigration policy that says that if an illegal couple -- a couple that comes across the border illegally -- has a child here, that child becomes a U.S. citizen, that then the whole family gets to come in, if you will, through 'chain migration,'" he said.

  Boston.com

I'm not sure Twit Romney knows what he's talking about. I would like to introduce him to my friend Victor in Peribán, Michoacán, Mexico, whose family is living in California, and whose father legally obtained American citizenship some years ago. Victor was attending university in Mexico City on 9/11 and has not been granted a visa to return to his family in California since, being in the 'high-risk' category of males of a certain age.

To emphasize the three principles of his campaign, he grabbed a three-legged wooden stool and said it signified -- a stronger military, a strong economy and strong families

Unless they're Mexican.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Iraq War Fallout

Refugees.

My guess is those war hounds who were howling for blood and cheering the fall of Baghdad from their lazyboy loungers weren't expecting refugees to come here.

The area in southeast Michigan where 2,000 Iraqi refugees are expected to resettle already has 169,000 people out of work.

[...]

The mayor of Warren, which has a large Arab-American population, recently said the refugees will strain services and drag down an already struggling state economy.

But others, such as University of Michigan economist Donald Grimes, say the entrepreneurial attitude and advanced degrees of many Iraqis might help turn the ship of state around.

  Yahoo

Now there's a real Bush supporter. How many of the two thousand Iraqi refugees have advanced degrees? Well, maybe a lot. Maybe the Iraqis with advanced degrees are best able to get out of Iraq. I don't know.

What I do know is that we've seen and heard numerous examples of Americans claiming that all Iraqis are the enemy. I have a feeling that many of the 169,000 unemployed in Michigan might just be amongst that group.

"People who have lived here their whole lives are having trouble finding jobs," said [mayoral spokesman Joe] Munem, a first-generation Arab-American. "If you're going to have refugees coming here and you want them to be self-sustaining, why aren't we talking about sending them to Texas and Florida, which have a comparatively booming economy?"

Now we're trying to pass off our refugees, are we? Like our toxic waste. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling Texans might not be real happy about that. A lot of them are still complaining about Katrina refugees, and those people are Americans, even if they are dark skinned. And they speak English. But isn't that just human nature? Here the guy is the son of immigrants and he wants to limit immigration. I got mine.

And while we're talking about immigrants, which is more destructive to the local wildlife, a border fence or the illegal traffic?

(Booming? Texas?)

This Will Shock You

Two newly appointed immigration judges were failed candidates for the U.S. Tax Court nominated by President Bush; one fudged his taxes and the other was deemed unqualified to be a tax judge by the nation's largest association of lawyers. Both were Republican loyalists.

[...]

At least one-third of the immigration judges appointed by the Justice Department since 2004 have had Republican connections or have been administration insiders, and half lacked experience in immigration law.

[...]

Department officials say they changed their hiring practices in April but defend their selections.

  WaPo

More details.

Insane McCain Campaign

At yesterday's debate:

"America is still the land of opportunity, and it is a beacon of hope and liberty and, as Ronald Reagan said, a shining city on the hill," McCain said. "And we're not going to erect barriers and fences."

  CNN

INS border fence, California/Mexico

INS border fence, Arizona/Mexico

So easy to forget about those, isn't it?

Refusing to Admit Investigators

No, not Iran this time.

Jorge Bustamante, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, said he was informed over the weekend that his visit to detained immigrants in the Monmouth County Correctional Institution in Freehold [New Jersey], scheduled for yesterday, had been canceled. Mr. Bustamante said he had received no explanation.

Mr. Bustamante was barred from a May 7 visit to the T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center in Taylor, Tex., where illegal immigrant families, including children, are held. Officials of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency in charge of that center, said they canceled the visit because of a pending lawsuit over conditions there by the American Civil Liberties Union.

In a letter of protest yesterday to Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Mr. Bustamante said the State Department had approved his itinerary.

“My interpretation is that someone in the United States government is not proud of what is happening in those centers,” Mr. Bustamante said in an interview.

  NY Times

You suppose?

He Calls This a Plan?

The White House's draft plan, leaked last week, calls for a new "Z" visa that would allow illegal immigrant workers to apply for three-year work permits. They would be renewable indefinitely, but would cost $3,500 each time.

Then to become legal permanent residents, illegal immigrants would have to return to their home country, apply at a U.S. embassy or consulate to re-enter legally and pay a $10,000 fine.

  Yahoo article

And let's not forget that going back across the border and applying is not the same as applying and receiving permission to immigrate. Last year, when I was in Michoacan and Morelos, central Mexican states, numerous people told me about efforts to simply get tourist visas. They said they couldn't convince the authorities that they weren't trying to go to the U.S. to work and would therefore be denied papers. But not refunded the $150 USD it cost them to apply.

[T]he cost of work permits and the green card application — which could total more than $20,000 — are prohibitive for low-wage earners.

[...]

"Charging that much, Bush is going to be even more expensive than the coyotes," said protester Armando Garcia, 50, referring to smugglers who transport people across the Mexican border.

Back to the drawing board, George.

Welcome the fuck to Amerika

A senior lawyer for the U.S. government has told a judge hearing a lawsuit over Maher Arar's deportation that foreign citizens passing through American airports have almost no rights.

Mary Mason told a hearing in Brooklyn, N.Y., that the government is interpreting its powers in such a way that passengers never intending to enter the U.S. connecting to international flights at U.S. airports must prove they are no threat and could be allowed to enter the country.

If passengers are deemed to be inadmissible, they have no constitutional rights even if later taken to an American prison. Mason says that's because they are deemed to be still outside the U.S., from a legal point of view.

"Someone who's inadmissible is in the same category as the people that the CIA snatches and grabs from other countries," said Barbara Olshansky, a lawyer for the U.S.-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which is suing a number of U.S. officials on Arar's behalf.

"You are fair game for however executive branch wants to treat you."

  CBC article

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

You've come a long way, baby.

Leave every child behind

ARKADELPHIA, Ark. - About 30 children, some as young as 3 months old, were left without their parents after immigration agents raided a poultry plant and took the parents away to face possible deportation.

[...]

The mayor said what happened to the children was a shame.

  Yahoo News article

Yeah, well, fuck 'em. The Feds are here now.

Federal agents arrested 119 people Tuesday in a raid that was triggered after a former worker at Petit Jean Poultry said she supplied others with fake identification cards.

[...]

Temple Black, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in New Orleans, said Friday that each person arrested was asked whether they had children and they all said they did not.

"We interviewed every person and asked that specific question, and we were told that there were none," he said.

Riiiight.

Clark County Sheriff Troy Tucker said agents failed to tell his agency about the raid. If they had, deputies would have made sure the immigration officials knew about the children, some of whom had been in the local public schools for years, he said.