To understand the irrationality of U.S. immigration policy–and how the immigration laws actually perpetuate injustice–you have to understand how immigration restrictions intersect with other social barriers–and gender is often blatantly ignored. For many immigrant women, the tightening alliance between immigration and local law enforcement means that when they are victims of crime, they must choose between safety and justice.

Though this film, “The Call,” (by one of our partner organizations, Breakthrough) is fiction, similar scenarios play out frequently in immigrant communities, where “mixed status” families struggle to navigate draconian immigration laws while avoiding contact with the authorities. This pattern is fueled by well-founded fears of programs like the Obama administration’s Secure Communities, which threatens the undocumented with arbitrary arrest and deportation following even minor brushes with the law. Once in detention, women are in some ways especially vulnerable to abuse; there have been reports of sexual assault by staff at detention centers, and detainees often have no real legal recourse.

Melanie Cervantes and Favianna Rodriguez

In a political climate that demonizes immigrants as a faceless threat to society, an untold number of women, youth and families are paralyzed by a fear of the system may undermine their own community’s security. According to researchers, Secure Communities has impacted tens of thousands of families with U.S. citizen household members.

The desire to stay off the government’s radar is also colored by a sense that the police don’t really protect poor communities of color, so much as target and oppress them–a phenomenon recently displayed in the ferocious police crackdowns in Anaheim, California. And some of the fears for women specifically are perpetuated on the policy level–such as the campaign in Congress to shut immigrant women out of certain legal protections in the Violence Against Women Act. As Silvia Casabianca wrote last summer in VOXXI, undocumented women in abusive relationships “aren’t likely to report domestic violence incidents out of fear of being deported, of seeing their families split, and of enraging their partners making violence even worse.” And the cycle continues as partners manipulate women’s fear of being reported to keep them silent.

Yet even in situations where the police aren’t directly harming people, the sheer indifference of police forces to the communities they’re supposed to serve erodes public trust and makes community members feel exactly the way our government intends: like non-people, the invisible, the forgotten.  A few years ago in Suffolk County, Long Island, the police’s apparent neglect of racist attacks against Latinos revealed the systematic dehumanization of a growing community; among public servants, that is a level of psychological detachment that must be learned and practiced regularly–kind of like chronic criminal behavior.

The bottom line is that when a crime happens, undocumented immigrants don’t have the choices that many Americans take for granted, nor can they rely on the essential protections to which all human beings are entitled. And so every abuse, violation, and injustice immigrants are forced to suffer in silence is an indictment of the inequity built into our laws. If we want a society with rule of law, we also need a society guided by compassion, and that’s not determined by whether or not you have papers.

Along with the rollout of “The Call,” breakthrough has launched a public campaign for women like the ones depicted in the film. You can add your voice to the “I’m Here” campaign and help make these community struggles visible, real, and undeniable.

National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, via flickr

Earlier this month, two issues highlighted at the Democratic National Convention represented a notable departure from the talk of jobs and economic growth. There was a classic striving immigrant narrative, embodied in the poetic if oversimplified family story of San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro. And there was a passionate defense of reproductive rights delivered by Sandra Fluke, who famously incurred ultra-conservative wrath for speaking out on contraceptive access. Both speeches showed the double-edged power of political storytelling: to inspire while masking the deeper issues that the mainstream political realm deftly obscures every four years.

Pivoting to Latino and women voters, the Democrats were capitalizing on ideological divisions in Washington on reproductive choice and immigration. But while the party repackaged those issues into slickly marketed talking points, the messaging spoke to messier unrest at the grassroots. Responding to years of grassroots pressure (from the sit-ins staged by so-called Dream Activists to the bold protest-on-wheels of the Undocubus, which rolled defiantly outside the convention), Obama has offered temporary reprieve to undocumented youth and promised to ease mass deportations for many immigrants with clean records. Meanwhile, the White House has cautiously pushed back against right-wing assaults on women’s health in the Affordable Care Act. But the response to the war of attrition on women’s rights comes amid rising frustration among pro-choice advocates who’ve witnessed Democrats’ repeated capitulations to anti-choice forces that have monopolized the abortion debate.

The narratives on the convention stage aimed to make those third-rail issues palatable to a prime-time audience, not to advance a progressive political discourse. As is common in portrayals of immigrants, even positive ones, they were framed as economic contributors–as obedient labor rather than real community members with complex needs and aspirations. Similarly, issues surrounding that other oft-overlooked constituency, women, are often viewed through the narrow prism of reproductive “choice” in the abstract but not necessarily the larger issues of class and poverty that undermine women’s control over their bodies and lives.

As Sady Doyle has noted, truly considering immigrant women’s reproductive rights forces us to look at both issues in a more complex, wholistic way. The failure in Charlotte to link immigration and reproductive rights reflects a blind spot in a political establishment that focuses on rights in terms of “reform” for immigrants and “choice” for women, rather than justice.

In his convention speech before a rapt audience, President Obama told a little story about a hypothetical immigrant child–a girl who could finally have a chance to live without fear of deportation in the only country she’s ever known.

But what happens to that little girl when her mom loses her off-the-books job because she she falls ill? A typical job for an undocumented woman is a domestic worker–a sector dominated by women, immigrants and people of color, and one historically excluded from federal labor protections such as sick leave. These workers have mobilized successfully for initiatives like the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which establish critical labor standards. Their very existence defies the establishment’s desire to exploit immigrant labor without valuing their communities. Moreover, the rising community-based movements to empower marginalized workers show that this struggle increasingly integral to, and contingent on, building a more inclusive, diverse labor movement.

What happens in a few years with our immigrant youth realizes her school doesn’t offer comprehensive sex education, or that she can’t afford birth control? In the immigration debate, Latinas have been ruthlessly targeted by both racism and misogyny, manifested not just in vile stereotypes of immigrant mothers and “anchor babies,” but in the cruel epidemic of family separation through deportation.

Equally warped is the day-to-day reality of reproductive health care for immigrants. According to the National Coalition for Immigrant Women’s Rights, affordable health coverage is out of reach for most undocumented women. Federal reform could help many immigrants and people of color, but for the most part arbitrarily excludes undocumented members of those communities. Even many documented immigrants have to wait half a decade before qualifying for crucial preventive Medicaid services. Structural barriers to essential services like family planning and screening for cervical cancer or HIV expose how social disenfranchisement weaves throughout the lives of immigrant women and their families.

A typical immigrant woman may never receive care during her pregnancy until she heads to the emergency room in labor. For migrant women farmworkers, there might be a simple clinic near their seasonal work site, but getting there could be dangerous, with the constant threat of getting swept up by immigration authorities. As David Strauss, executive director of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs points out, “Accessing any social services is nearly impossible for migrant workers who are not documented. And, it is risky especially in states that have enacted immigration enforcement policies.”

Undocumented youth activist Angy Rivera recently blogged for the National Latina Institute of Reproductive Health (NLIRH) about the multiple frustrations she endures as a woman, immigrant and advocate for her community:

When it comes to rushing to the emergency room, I hesitate, worrying about the large sum on a bill that will be waiting for me in the mail. While I continue to push for marginalized communities to receive access to education and care, it’s difficult when I can’t obtain this myself.

The war on immigrants and the war on women are both driven by a right-wing ideology that simultaneously dehumanizes and exploits: women as reproductive machines, immigrants as a disposable workforce.

In a post-convention email to In These Times, NLIRH executive director Jessica González-Rojas says with guarded hope:

Too often, the voices of immigrant women have been left out of the debates on immigration and reproductive health, even though it is clear that they are the ones disproportionately impacted by these policies… Women immigrants are the backbones of their communities and their families. They’re powerful, and they’re using that power to demand the ability to make decisions about their bodies, their families and their futures.

Political assaults on communities of color, immigrants and women are mutually reinforcing. But these interlocking injustices reveal that none of the campaigns to overturn them will be advanced unless they’re aligned. Immigrant women don’t get to choose which battle to fight every day as they work to secure a place for themselves and their families in their adopted country. And no single fight should be privileged or waged in isolation, if the real aim is to make all these embattled communities whole.

Originally posted on In These Times

Ernie Mastroianni, Courtesy of the Sikh Coalition

In the aftermath of the Oak Creek shooting, the Sikh community is wrestling with despair and terror. But as the paralysis of grief dissipates, other injustices surface–the underlying struggles that immigrants bundle under the stiff armor of day-to-day survival.

The deaths of the shooting victims symbolize immigrants’ vulnerability to the brutal power of racist ideologies. But their lives attest to the incredible hardships imposed on new Americans as they deal with the immigration system. Some of the people who died at the temple had been waiting for years to secure their status in the U.S. and to reunited with their family members left behind in India. The New York Times reported that, until his life was cut short that Sunday, Ranjit Singh relentlessly held out hope of reunifying with his wife and three children, perhaps sustained by the faith that anchored him to the temple:

Weeks became months became 16 years. His two preschool daughters grew up and each married. His infant son became a teenager. Mr. Singh became a voice on the telephone, calling almost daily, asking about school, scolding or praising, a proud if absent father, promising that the family would be reunited as soon as his green card application was approved.

Advocates for the shooting victims’ in Delhi now hope the U.S. will finally allow them to enter the U.S., for a reunion under the most unimaginable circumstances.

The Times noted that the fracturing of families takes place not only across national borders but across regions and rural-urban divides within India, as migratory pathways navigate between extremes of wealth and poverty.

For many Sikh families, separation — in extreme cases lasting for years — is an expected sacrifice, as a father will leave to earn money to pay for his children’s schooling or to buy a home. Men like Mr. Singh may live abroad for years, supporting children they barely know, sustained by religion and a sense of duty. Within India, some lower-income Sikh families remain divided for many months of the year, as the wives and children stay in the state of Punjab, the ancestral homeland, while the men work in New Delhi or other big cities, as taxi drivers or in other jobs.

While the U.S. media has fixated on the domestic ramifications of the tragedy, the grief has a global valence. Among the injured were two Sikh priests, Santokh Singh and Punjab Singh, whose migration was part of a spiritual quest, drawing them to work in Canada and the United States, in addition to communities in India. One of the older victims, Subegh Singh Khattra, had come from a life in the wheat fields of Punjab in his 70s to join his son in Wisconsin, where he found comfort in the temple’s circle of elders–before that solace was abruptly shattered by gunfire.

The contours of the migrant narrative are woven throughout the history of both “sending” and “receiving” countries. India is one of the top recipient countries for remittances from workers living outside the country. More than 11 million Indians have emigrated, according to a 2010 survey, second only to Mexico for the number of people who’ve gone abroad seeking opportunity, security, or community.

That last piece, community, is actually the driving force behind all other motives for migration; whether people are moving to support their families or to join them, the impulse is ubiquitous. And since about one in every 33 people are migrants, stand anywhere in a crowded room, bus station, school hallway, or temple, and you’ll be looking across at least a few borders.

Many families that were intact in the U.S. have been split by the law itself, which forces undocumented members to leave the country before coming back to live here legally. PRI’s The World recently reported on an immigrant father who had returned to El Salvador, leaving behind his American wife and child, to sort out his immigration papers and then become a legal U.S. resident. His case dragged on for months until one day his life was extinguished on the streets of his hometown under mysterious circumstances.

The Obama administration recently moved toward reforming the green card application procedures, allowing undocumented immigrants to remain in the country while the process is pending. The rule change could help prevent the devastating separation that many “mixed status” families face when they try to “play by the rules.” But many more families are without relief, as long as the Obama administration continues to punish undocumented immigrants and their families through mass deportations.

The lives of those migrant families may thankfully never be punctuated by the kind of tragedy that befell the worshippers at Oak Creek, but their crisis unfolds more slowly, across the span of a lifetime, as they raise children long distance, wire money home in lieu of an embrace, hang on the hope that they’ll one day complete the passage that countless others attempted before them. With their lives hinging on so much uncertainty, some will make it, and some won’t.

Dianne Ovalle

Was it a DREAM fulfilled, or nothing more than a dream? The morning after Obama announced the halting of deportations of young immigrants, activists are trying to grasp what, if anything, they’ve won.

We have a promise from the White House that it will not deport an estimated several hundred thousand undocumented youth who have completed high school education or the equivalent, have clean records, and fulfill other criteria.  At the very least, DREAMers have less reason to fear being rounded up and deported en masse. But the gingerly worded announcement strikes more skeptical activists as a kind of rhetorical rorschach: is it one step toward full legalization? Is it simply, as Obama himself admitted, a stopgap until Congress acts–and therefore a way to punt the issue to a political black hole?  In the wake of Obama’s previous disappointing initiatives to ease up on deportations, some say the “new” White House position on DREAMers is just restating business as usual.

While the move was clearly a political calculation, many DREAMers are determined to read between Obama’s lines hope for more systemic reforms in the future. It’s a positive and heartening announcement, no doubt. But halting deportations for some does not even begin to answer the demand that DREAMers were pushing all along: an immigration system that redefines citizenship in a way that is humane, equitable, and conscious of the realities of a globalized world.

This is certainly not the first time Obama has pledged to expel only those who “deserve” deportations, focusing supposedly on those with criminal convictions. And the administration’s use of “discretion” in the past have been mired in disturbingly loose definitions of criminality. Earlier this month, immigrants rights advocates criticized the administration for failing to fulfill last year’s promises to exercise “prosecutorial discretion,” pointing to extremely low rates of suspensions initiated in deportation cases. Michele Waslin at Immigration Impact noted, “we’ve seen again and again that many of those categorized as serious criminals have not been convicted of serious or violent crimes, and some have no criminal convictions.”

Ruben Navarette at CNN remarked on the uncanny resemblance between Obama’s new policy and the dubious proposal floated by Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio–both offered temporary relief and not citizenship:

Then there is the inconvenient fact that we’re not supposed to even need this kind of policy change because, according to Obama, his administration isn’t deporting DREAM’ers at all; instead, it’s concentrating its enforcement efforts on criminals. … So now we’re supposed to applaud the administration for not deporting people the president had claimed weren’t being deported in the first place.

Some critics have focused on the ambiguous language on which kinds of “criminals” would be shut out of prosecutorial discretion: “Those who have not been convicted of  a felony offense, a significant misdemeanor offense, multiple misdemeanor offenses, or  otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety.”

Maegan La Mala at Vivir Latino warns, “the memo is just vague enough to allow for many to not have their cases deferred.” What does that mean for those who pushed their cause by defying the law in protest?

A question that appeared over and over in @vivirlatino’s twitter feed following the announcement was how about the many DREAM activists who have been arrested in civil disobedience actions across the country? Would their arrests and charges on their record make them ineligible? Who are the national security risks that could be denied? Alleged “gang” members?

Indeed, the Bay Area is a case study in how muddled immigration enforcement becomes when youth get ensnared by local police and then exposed to federal immigration authorities. San Francisco last year enacted a policy shielding some undocumented youth from being referred to ICE by generally barring the Juvenile Probation Department from reporting youth upon a felony arrest, if they’re living with family or a legal guardian and attending school. But the new policy still allows youth to be reported to federal authorities under more serious conditions like a felony conviction.

So here’s what hasn’t changed: the impact of Obama’s administrative policy shifts depend largely on how federal and local authorities use their “discretion,” and how communities respond to this vague and reversible directive. La Mala notes, “There is no guarantee of work permits,” which means that one key incentive for coming out of the shadows, the chance to work on the books like other Americans, remains elusive, especially in a depressed economic landscape rife with discrimination.

Rosario Quiroz drops some realistic optimism at Huffington Post:

This seems like little more than a political ploy by a president seeking reelection who’s faced increasing pressure from undocumented youth to do something, pressure which ultimately resulted in various of his campaign offices shutting down after they were occupied by undocumented activists who resolved not to leave unless an executive order were to be issued or they were arrested. These pressures in a sense forced Obama to do the right thing. And for that I’m touched…  But I cannot say that the president has regained my trust, or that this announcement has sparked hope. Buckling under pressure is not a sign of strength. What has sparked hope and garnered my unconditional support and confidence is the work of undocumented youth the country over who have dropped the fear and claimed their value, giving a megaphonic voice where before there was an eerie silence gripping the undocumented community.

Fellow DREAMer Orin Abel reflects on the perils of piecemeal reform, noting that the memo covers only a small slice of a massive and complex undocumented population.

I know the feeling of standing in the margins and watching others obtain an opportunity, while you are being denied. To this end, I am conflicted for my relatives, my friends and the millions who are not covered by this policy. And all the while, I kept thinking about the countless others lost in the process. Perhaps it is premature to have such thoughts in response to such a temporary fix. Still, the hope that it provides, forces me to think of those in heavy soles, who have to remain out of the light, quiet, disenfranchised, frustrated, pressured and ever uncertain. For them, this may well be renewed disappointment.

Even if the Obama administration’s order does do all it promises on paper, it remains just that, words on paper–a two-dimensional fix for a multi-dimensional crisis, one that intersects with questions of race, culture, ideology and economic inequality. And it will fail to make immigrant youth whole if it leaves their loved ones still suffering in fear and silence.

That kind of crisis requires more than a presidential order, or even a piece of legislation. It demands a mass movement. And in the communities who know the pain of separation, disenfranchisement and stunted dreams, the grassroots response began long before Obama’s speech. And it will continue tomorrow, when undocumented youth wake up to a slightly changed, but largely stagnant political landscape–and then face a country waiting for a people’s movement to truly shift the ground.

Whatever you think about Obama’s promises, you can show your support for undocumented youth by signing onto our pledge for Julio and other immigrants seeking justice.

DreamActivist via flickr

The news is out–and so are undocumented youth around the country who hope that this time, there may be real change ahead. The Obama administration today announced that he will grant undocumented young people temporary immigration relief via an administrative directive by the Department of Homeland Security. The policy would apparently partially fulfill the goals of the DREAM Act campaign by allowing many undocumented immigrants to avoid deportation if they were “brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30,” according to the Associated Press, and have obtained a high school education or served in the military, and have no criminal record. Though it is not a comprehensive path toward full citizenship, the policy would reportedly help several hundred thousand youth avoid deportation and allow them to “apply for a work permit that will be good for two years with no limits on how many times it can be renewed.”

It appears that this is the administration’s effort to respond to this week’s nationwide mobilization for undocumented youth, coupled with the heightened media attention surrounding Jose Antonio Vargas’s TIME Magazine cover story (featuring CultureStrike’s own Julio Salgado).

Jose Antonio Vargas and his project Define American hailed the new policy as a validation of the struggles of DREAMers and their allies–and acknowledged that many others are still seeking a just and humane immigration solution:

The journey is far from over for the remaining millions of undocumented Americans like me–at 31, I am past the age limit–but this is a big, bold and necessary step in the road to citizenship.

 Julio Salgado tells CultureStrike that the policy is encouraging but only covers a piece of the crisis:

It’s a bittersweet feeling. On the one hand I am extremely happy that the work that we have done is paying off. But I also think about the many DREAMers and parents who are past the age of 30 and have been working on this for the past ten years and will not benefit from it. I think about people like Jose Antonio Vargas who just wrote an amazing piece for the cover of TIME Magazine and will not qualify for this. Nonetheless, those folks will be the reason for us to keep fighting.

Now for a reality check: the struggle isn’t over, the DREAM Act is still all but moribund, administrative action has previously proven ineffective in providing real relief to immigrants facing deportation, and uncertainty will continue to dampen the aspirations of millions of immigrants seeking dignity and justice. The Obama administration is still set to deport around 400,000 people this year, and as anti-immigrant hostility boils over in state houses, Washington seems to have little appetite for addressing the immigration question in a comprehensive way during this election season. Nonetheless, the election season has also raised the stakes for the White House on immigration issues as it pivots for Latino voters.

Additionally, the pragmatic ramifications of temporary immigration relief for undocumented youth are hard to ignore. Think Progress notes that the 2010 DREAM Act (legislation that was consistently blocked in Congress–and would have been a broader measure than today’s administrative policy change) was estimated to “increase federal revenues by $1.7 billion.” It would have also generated massive income by allowing undocumented students to remain in the U.S. and work, particularly in high-skilled fields like engineering.

But let’s pull back a bit from the policy debate and recognize that this is about the human rights of individuals and communities who want nothing more than the respect and recognition they deserve as students, neighbors, family members and workers. To that end, Obama’s action can be read as a sign that when it’s deployed with creativity and uncompromising determination, people power can actually shake up the political status quo.

Overall, this is a modest but meaningful triumph in the face of very tough odds, and it’s a testament to the indefatigable activism of groups like the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, Dreamers Adrift, and other grassroots advocates who have helped shift the political ground through creative messaging and direct actions.

So for millions of DREAMers and allies, today’s announcement offers a bit of a respite from a very long nightmare in the government’s immigration gauntlet. But tomorrow morning, it’s back to work.

For updates, follow CultureStrike coordinator Favianna Rodriguez live tweeting from DC @favianna

Image courtesy undocumemes.tumblr.com

Colorlines’ Monica Novoa introduces a new social media phenomenon to raise awareness of the struggles of undocumented youth. Help make it go viral.

UndocuMemes, created by members of DreamActivist.org, is a new forum from the perspective of young people engaged in the immigrant rights movement. The growing contributions voice complexity, humor, frustration, and diverse political commentary. In less than two days, it had more than 600 likes on Facebook and inspired a companion Tumblr page.

I spoke with a couple DREAM Act leaders to talk about the power of humor in such a politically precarious situation.

First, here’s Luis Serrano, who contributed one of the first memes to catch on, depicting President Obama laughing with his staff about family separation.

Tell me about the President Obama UndocuMeme (pictured above), and why there’s so much buzz about the forum.

When I saw the picture of President Obama laughing, that’s just what I thought about. Humor helps you escape all of the seriousness. That’s what humor is for, to express this crazy reality. It’s funny how you find humor about your own situation. We are politically aware about our reality and we make fun of it.

Why might some people be surprised to see memes that spark controversy and point to humor in the hardships of undocumented life?

Some people may expect us to be these polished perfect people that don’t commit any errors. We’re only human and we’re regular people. I kind of want to make people feel at ease and that it’s cool to be who you are and embrace it. I’m happy people are enjoying it and finding a humorous outlet. Also it’s a forum, we take submissions and there’s really different reaction from everyone on the different topics.

Now, Tania Unzueta, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Latin American And Latino Studies Program, and a co-founder of the Immigrant Youth Justice League. She’s currently writing a paper on undocumented humor.

The UndocuMemes humor is really varied, from criticism of allies, to people making light of their own undocumented experience. I was surprised the forum was so public.

Some of this undocumented humor is becoming more public, particularly after the failed Dream Act of 2010. There has been more space to voice our frustrations and anger. Many of the memes also illustrate that we are unapologetic about nourishing our own undocumented community.

What are your favorite memes?

I like the Secure Communities one with Napolitano, and the one with President Obama laughing. Another one that’s interesting is the dinosaur meme about whether or not to support Dream Act legislation regardless of which party is proposing it. It points to an intense conversation that the immigrant rights movement is about to have.

What else do you want to share about undocumented humor? TU: There has been a lot of creativity expressed with undocumented humor. I like the Dreamers Adrift videos. My sister and I wrote immigration policy recommendations for the end of the world.

This all speaks to how we’re human. We’re just people. We laugh about our status, but just because it’s funny, that doesn’t mean we’re not angry and frustrated. These memes stimulate conversation and expresses very clear ideas about what we’re feeling and our politics, but also that there is internal satisfaction being able to say what we think.

Check out UndocuMemes on Facebook and Tumblr.

Does anybody remember “Anybody but Bush” (or “Anyone-but-Bush)? As we ramp up into the next election cycle, many are beginning to rally around the “Anybody-but-a Republican” flag, and as we do so amidst an epic mix of multiple and intertwined and uncharted crises, some of us are asking ‘What did Anybody-but-Bushism get us?’

A quick review reveals that it got us such “progressive victories” as 3 wars, the deportation of 1 million migrants, the secret transfer of $7.7 TRILLION in loans to failed banks, the shredding of the US Constitution, a sharp acceleration of the police state-militarization within the US borders,not to mention a continuation of many of the worst policies of the Bush era.

War, militarism, anti-immigrant policies, enabling corporate greed and corporate domination of our lives, destroying basic rights,building a police state-this is the essence of Bushism, Republicanism and other isms that constitute the worst of our time. Obama did not just “inherit” these failed Bush policies; He’s expanding and perfecting them to protect the citizens that selected Bush and “elected” Obama, corporate citizens.

There’s no better foreshadowing of the perceived need of the 1% minority to close ranks and “protect” their interests from the 99% majority than Obama’s shocking reversal of his stated intention to veto the  defense bill authorizing for the first time in US history, the possibility and likelihood of the secret and indefinite detention of US citizens on US soil.

Already, recent developments in England may preview the ways in which the same federal and local authorities trying to destroy Occupy Wall Street will start the process of morphing an Occupy rally or action into a “belligerent act” of “terrorism” resulting in the swift arrest and disappearance of US citizens by the Pentagon.

In the face of the “disaster” and drastic crisis of civil liberties we face, it’s important to consider how, in our desperation to defeat Bush, we may have created the very conditions for the distortion or even the destruction of the enterprise of “Hope.” Beware: the election year siren’s song of “Anybody-but-a Republican”ism is beginning anew, and ringing louder than the sound cannons at an Occupy rally.

Before the breathtakingly “dangerous” announcement of measures that will, in the words of Human Rights Watch (HRW) President Ken Roth, turn Obama into “the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law,” (Roth and HRW also called Obama’s decision a “A Historic Tragedy for Rights“), we should interrogate and undertand the imminent danger posed by Anybody-but-a-Republican(ism); Doing so is urgent, especially when consider that constitutional law professor Obama’s savaging of the Constitution reflects how national and global elites are feverishly preparing for the serious possibility of the Great Depression signalled by International Monetary Fund President Christine Lagarde’s rather stunning statement that our current global economic situation resembles “exactly the description of what happened in the 1930s, and what followed is not something we are looking forward to.”

As should be obvious to all but the “party faithful”, Obama, the”leader of the free world” and the 1%er interests that define him are doing in the US what more nakedly repressive “leaders” and 1%ers across the planet are doing:  preparing,arming themselves legally, politically (i.e. the Obama deception) and militarily (as in arming against your own citizenry ala Egypt, Greece, Chile, India, China, Mexico, Russia, ad infinitum) for the crisis that looms, the crisis that Obama and other global corporate and military elite know is coming much better and far deeper than the rest of us do.

Given this situation, we must look soberly at whatever value is left in our degraded vote, our increasingly hollowed-out citizenship after the  unholy alliance of corporations, the Supreme Court, the corporate media and other powers ate them. For what little it’s worth (i.e. the vote of corporate citizens matters billion$ more than yours) your vote should be backed up by a moral force greater, a justification smarter than the new Anybody-but-Bushism: “voting for the lesser of two evils.”

If that’s all you’re basing your vote on, then maybe you need a break from living in that 1%er-ruled electoral sewer  and should instead try climbing up and marching onto the dignity of the streets, meeting people, organizing people, Occupying, and, most importantly, looking for less polluted political horizons as if your , our future depends on it-because it does.

Those horizons are there if you allow yourself to end the  indignity of forcing your wild mind and big heart into the solitary political confinement controlled by corporate overseers; the indignity of a mental dungeon that tortures you by making you lie to yourself, forcing you to repeat mantra-like the words “the second term will be better,”; the indignity that reduces you to creating fantastic, mythological excuses for why Obama is not heralding a newer, friendlier-faced equivalent-or worsening- of the very policy evils you fear and loath in Republicans.

Hope is still there-if you put your mind and heart to work without ceasing to find them beyond your current political horizons. Seek and ye shall find…

Go to original article.

Shepard Fairey and Ernesto Yerena

The clock struck at 1,095 days and 11 hours today for Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, Ariz. — or, at least according to the ticking icon on the Phoenix New Times home page that had asked readers for years: “How long has Sheriff Joe been under investigation by the feds?”

That investigation culminated Thursday when the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice released its long-awaited report, which found a “chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations” in Arpaio’s office. Drawing from tens of thousands of documents and over 400 interviews with sheriff’s department personnel, inmates and experts, the report documented “a widespread pattern or practice of law enforcement and jail activities that discriminate against Latinos,”  resulting in gross violations of  constitutional rights.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez threw down the gauntlet for Arpaio at Thursday’s press conference, giving him until Jan. 4, 2012,  to accept DOJ’s measures to take “clear steps toward reaching an agreement with the Division to correct these violations in the next 60 days,” or face a lawsuit.  Perez expressed DOJ’s willingness ”to roll up our sleeves and build a comprehensive blueprint for reform of MCSO,” adding, “if the will exists” on Arpaio’s end.

(Creative Commons/anitasarkeesian)

Saul Razcon was driving on Tuscon’s I-10 when he was stopped by the Arizona Highway patrol in August 2010, ostensibly for a broken window. He was asked for his driver’s license. However, the officer proceeded to ask for the license of the passenger driving with him in his car. Then, he asked the three young girls who were present with them in the backseat – aged 11, 13 and 17 – if they had “papers.”

Jamie Juarez’s stepdaughter’s friend was scared and simply did what a good girl should do: she told a highway patrol officer the truth when she was asked questions. As a result, she was deported back to Mexico along with her friend.

ICE officials were called to the scene and proceeded to detain the three young girls. If Jamie Juarez had not rushed in a panic to the scene and presented his stepdaughter’s papers, she might have been deported. After being detained in an ICE facility, his stepdaughter’s friends, who were sisters, were both sent to Sonora, Mexico.

Juarez, shaken and angry, told AlterNet that “Saul was stopped for next to nothing. The officer told me that he didn’t know if they were ‘terrorists or criminals.’ This greatly offended me and made me think that this man was racist and shouldn’t be working as a police officer. I assume he won’t be reprimanded, because Arizona is plagued with problems like these.”

In a similar gripping account that also took place alongside “show me your papers” legislation being passed, on May 24, a citizen was driving Maximo Jarquin, an undocumented construction worker, to the store in Crossvile, Alabama. A police officer pulled the car over for a broken tail light, but demanded that Jarquin show his “papers,” even though he was not driving. Jarquin was arrested, denied access to a phone call for four days, shipped to a detention facility in Pennsylvania for six weeks (which was quite possibly a for-profit facility; see the “business of detention”), and finally deported to Mexico.

“Maximo was our sole provider and the father of our two children, as well as one I have on the way,” a teary-eyed three-months pregnant Tiffany Sadler told AlterNet. “We were forced to lose our home and move in with my mother.”

Jose Contreras has owned El Sol, a Mexican grocery store in Albertville, Alabama, which provides a variety of services to the immigrant community, for the last 14 years. Contreras says business has significantly decreased as of late, but he doesn’t attribute this to the economy. Instead, he says that a climate of fear has been constructed in Albertville leading to as much as a fifth of the immigrant community fleeing the area.

Contreras told AlterNet that Albertville has been “pilfered” by the police, particularly through a police checkpoint which has resulted in scores of deportations. “The checkpoint has been a nuisance to our community for the last two years, but since HB 56, I’ve heard of many more incidents of police detaining and sometimes deporting immigrants, about three to four accounts a week.”

In Georgia, police are detaining vehicles and demanding papers be presented as well. A group of Mexican refugee applicants were driving home from work on June 21 when a Polk county police officer detained a van with 15 people in it, in spite of no traffic infraction being indicated. The officer demanded to see their “green cards” and decided to let them off on a “warning,” threatening them by saying, “I am letting you go now. But, if I ever catch you on this road again, I am taking you in.”

What do all of these incidents have in common? They all occurred in states that have passed “Show me your papers” legislation. However, none of these states have legally enforceable mechanisms for implementing the legislation, as their enforcement dates are being held up in the courts. As a result, legal experts argue that the police actions noted above are illegal and a reflection of racial profiling.

Annie Lai, a teaching fellow at Yale University who was a legal consultant for Arizona’s American Civil Liberties Union when she took down the report of the two girls in Arizona being deported, told AlterNet, “We have seen many examples of police referring to new immigration laws as a reason to threaten people and ask them improper questions on traffic stops. Even though they couldn’t do this legally, we have heard more accounts of them doing so.”

Azadeh Shahshahani, the director of the ACLU National Immigrants’ Rights Project of Georgia, told AlterNet: “This is all of course very troubling in light of the fact that Georgia does not have an anti-racial profiling law on the books; as such,

Before the proliferation of “Show me your papers” laws, a Pew Center survey conducted in 2008 found that 10 percent of Latinos, or about 5 million people nationwide, had been asked by policies or other immigration authorities about their immigration status in the past year. Well over a third of documented citizens and residents reported fearing for themselves or their loved ones, in spite of their documented status.

“Latinos across the nation are feeling increasingly threatened to be questioned by polices authorities simply because of the way they look,” said Elena Acayo of La Raza, the leading Latino civil rights organization.

Arizona was the first of seven states to pass such a law, the now infamous HB 1070. Since HB 1070 was first signed into law on April 23, 2010, “show me your papers” legislative proposals proliferated throughout the nation, going far beyond Arizona. No less than two dozen states introduced pieces of legislation with “Show me your papers” aspects embedded in them at the outset of the year.

However, the majority of these states did not pass the proposals, partly because of stiff opposition and threatened or actual boycotts, and partly because of a number of reports documenting the runaway economic costs of implementing such legislation. Only seven actually passed and signed the proposed laws.

Of those seven states, all have been embroiled in protracted legal fights mounted by civil rights organizations, immigration advocates and even the federal government.

In Alabama, the most far-reaching of the laws was stayed recently for further consideration by a judge. In Georgia, two key provisions were enjoined by a district court in Atlanta on June 28. In Indiana, a judge enjoined several provisions of a similar law and the state, for the moment, has decided not to appeal it. In Utah, a judge issued an emergency preliminary injunction against its version and arguments are set for September 16th. And in South Carolina, plans are underway to challenge the law as its implementation date of January 2012 approaches.

The ACLU has been the leader among such groups behind the efforts, joined by a plethora of religious groups, community and civil rights organizations. “It’s been a busy summer,” said Segura, who has been tracking fast-developing legal developments across the country.

Resistance Grows, Obama Administration Partially Responds

In light of continued efforts to obtain a path toward residency and/or citizenship for undocumented college students, a flurry of activism led by undocumented students and workers has ensued in recent months, adding to a trend seen throughout the Obama administration. It appears to have made some difference, as Obama administration officials were found to be backpedaling just a few weeks ago. An announcement was made, not too long after nationwide protest efforts, that 300,000 cases related to the controversial Secure Communities program would be evaluated on an individual basis, with the aim being to reduce the amount of deportations of undocumented minors.

In the meantime, whether or not immigrants’ rights coalitions are successful in staving off attempts to pass “show me your papers” laws through actions in the courts, the dubious specter of local and state-level police officials taking matters into their own hands appears to remain intact for the time being.

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