LatinaLista — Disturbing news was reported out of Tijuana, Mexico recently.
In research conducted by Victor Clark-Alfaro, director of the Binational Center for Human Rights and a guest lecturer at San Diego State University, he and his students identify the fact that Mexico has its own “Minuteman” posse who are preying on the just-arrived migrants deported from the United States.
Mexican children detained by Border Patrol.
(Source: latinamericanstudies.org)
Clark-Alfaro identifies Mexico’s version of the Minuteman as the local police. In a veiled attempt to shake these migrants down for the little cash they have on them and to fill a daily quota imposed as part of their duties, the local police put on a public show of arresting these migrants for “not having identification” — all in the name of showing the public that they’re tough on crime.
Clark-Alfaro notes the irony that these same individuals are deported from one country for not having “their papers” and are arrested in their home country for not having “papers of identification.” It’s a lose-lose situation for these migrants.
When the migrants do produce deportation papers or papers issued by a local organization that helps newly returned migrants, they report that the local police tears them up and say they are not valid, making it much easier to arrest them.
By now, you’re probably wondering why should we care. After all, these are Mexican nationals returning to their native country and their country should be the ones protecting them.
And that’s true but it’s also true that our stepped-up deportations are contributing to an insecure border, that can’t help but spill back over onto the U.S. side and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
In their research, Clark-Alfaro and his students discovered that the number of deportees arriving in Tijuana had risen from 482 in 2007 to 695 when counted in May 2008. This number includes men, women and children.
Clark-Alfaro and his team identified three types of returning migrants. It is these migrants that underscore the serious flaws that exists in our immigration system:
1. The first type of migrants identified are the ones that have more than 40 years of US residency. Compared to Mexican standards, they are socially and culturally U.S. Americans. They speak English. While that should be considered an advantage, Clark-Alfaro points out that this is a big disadvantage to these migrants since they have spent so much of their lives in the U.S., they don’t know anyone in the city, their age makes it hard to find work and because they don’t have any legal forms like a driver’s license, voter’s card issued by Mexico they are basically “undocumented in their own country.”
2. The second type of migrant identified are the ones just released from prison who are hardcore tattoo covered, bald, English-speaking gang members. Yet, it’s their behavior and the code of conduct and language they use that makes them a particular threat to border security because they either rejoin gangs they belonged to in the United States or they start working for organized crime groups in the region.
3. The last group are the ones who were caught crossing over the border and don’t have much time vested in the U.S.
One other type of migrant that is deported and which Clark-Alfaro tells Latina Lista he has long heard rumors of but has no proof of it happening in Tijuana is the situation that children who are labeled “unaccompanied minors” are being returned to Mexico with no safeguards by the U.S. government as to their safety upon their return.
A separate source in Mexico tells Latina Lista that some border officials have confided that they are frustrated with U.S. deportation officials that allow unaccompanied children, all children under the age of 18 to be deported to Mexico in the middle of the night, rather than during the day. The problem with the night arrivals is that there is no staff on hand at the shelters who would be able to receive the children, and in essence the children are left to fend for themselves walking the streets at night by themselves — targets of perverts and anyone who would exploit these children.
Secondly, according to the same source, the U.S. policy in regard to unaccompanied minors doesn’t recognize an aunt or uncle as being a custodial adult and so the children are often separated from their one family member and are deported separately. What this means is that the child can end up in one city and the relative in the other.
Again, the child is alone and defenseless.
Mass deportations may seem like the solution to our illegal immigration dilemma but there is something wrong when we deport people who, for the most part, support and are supported by our economy, and are suddenly returned to areas where they have no support system and which can’t begin to absorb their presence.
In the process, we are destroying that economy with the purposeful dumping of people without regard to the effect on the local economy. Also, by deporting hardened gang members to areas that are ill-equipped to deal with them, we are not only contributing to the destabilization of those regions but it is only a matter of time that that violence will spill back across the border.
And finally, the deportation of children by themselves without assuring their is someone to meet them or they will be taken care of is a low point in how far our morality has fallen as a country.
Whenever critics of illegal immigration read posts such as these, they immediately throw out the retort “Are we supposed to take care of the world’s poor, suffering and orphans?”
The answer is we need look no farther than the symbol this country has built its global reputation on: The Statue of Liberty, where at the base of the statue we use to hold these words sacred and with pride:
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-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
(If anyone would like the full report of Clark-Alfaro’s report (it’s in Spanish), please let me know and I’ll send it to you separately.)
Comment(28)
Thomas
What a shock the mexican police and its government are corrupt. Who would have guess? Where you born yesterday? Everybody who is not an idiot knows the coruption in mexico. The reason why we need a fence and armed gurads with the weapons they need on the border. We are out gun when the cartels use ak-47 while border patrol only have pistols and shotguns. Open your eyes its war down there.
Horace
“Minuteman as the local police. In a veiled attempt to shake these migrants down for the little cash they have on them and to fill a daily quota imposed as part of their duties, the local police put on a public show of arresting these migrants for “not having identification” — all in the name of showing the public that they’re tough on crime.”
This is another cheap attempt at smearing the U.S. Minutemen, as there is absolutely no justification for such a comparison. You don’t like their position, so you demonize them to discredit them. I’ve noted that you do the same thing to the Border Patrol and ICE, honest government officials, working for low pay in service of their country.
It seems that Hispanics routinely defame Minutmen merely because they watch the border for and report illegal aliens the see crossing. You criticize them for carrying weapons on the border, all-the-while ignoring that the border is a dangerous place, where armed drug smugglers and coyotes are often present, and to be unarmed is to risk one’s very life. Only the rare exceptions of the average Minutemen have ever been arrested/convicted of any crime. The majority of the Minutemen on the border are analogious to the neighborhood watch, and nothing else. Although there are exceptions, they’re often far more principled than the ethnocentric radicals and illegal alien thugs that show up a protests, flipping the bird, using obscenities and acting beligerent and threatening concerned citizen counterprotesters.
Evelyn
AK-47vens They dont make or sell guns in Mexico. The public is not allowed to carry them. ????Could it be they come from here???? O my!!
laura
The possibility that children are deported alone over the border is heartbreaking.
The United States government – and we, without whose silent assent the government could not be acting – is committing grave human rights violations.
The sad fact is that the situation in Mexico is, to a large part, the doing of the US. The Mexican president who is permitting this behavior by Mexican police is largely thought to have received massive help from the US government to steal the election from the progressive candidate Obrador. Beyond that, it is NAFTA that destroyed the livelihoods of millions of small Mexican farmers, forcing them to abandon their homes and families to try to survive where they can earn a living – in the US.
The situation in the Central American countries is even more painful, with the US having financed and outfitted death squads that targeted anyone who asked for a decent living and basic civil rights. The wars waged by these death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua have subsided, but people still have no way to make a decent living.
If the rich countries in Europe and North America simply stopped taking poor peoples’ livelihoods with discriminatory trade policies, poor people could build a life where they want to be – at home with their families.
Again, I am heartbroken when I think about the children brought somewhere and left to fend for themselves. This evil committed by us will one day come back to haunt us.
Richard Grabman
What war? I live in Sinaloa and — yeah — the cops and gangsters shoot each other but it ain’t no war.
Local police are terribly underpaid and undertrained in Mexico. And, it’s not exactly a high status job (garbage men get more respect, but are considered more honorable, honest workers). Until police training and salaries are improved (as they have been in a few communities, mostly around Mexico City), you’re going to have problems like this.
Just letting the U.S. buy the federal government more weapons and computer equipment is not going to resolve this problem – which has little or nothing to do with narcotics smuggling (and the U.S. dependence on narcotics).
Evelyn
Horace said
“The majority of the Minutemen on the border are analogious to the neighborhood watch, and nothing else. Although there are exceptions, they’re often far more principled than the ethnocentric radicals and illegal alien thugs that show up a protests, flipping the bird, using obscenities and acting beligerent and threatening concerned citizen counterprotesters.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now the truth!
COCHISE COUNTY, Ariz. — The predominantly Hispanic towns of Douglas and Naco are connected by the aptly named Border Road, a 20-mile stretch of rocky dirt that runs parallel to a ragged barbed wire fence separating the United States from Mexico.
The night of April 3, armed vigilantes camped along Border Road in a series of watch posts set-up for the Minuteman Project, a month-long action in which revolving casts of 150 to 200 anti-immigration militants wearing cheap plastic “Undocumented Border Patrol Agent” badges mobilized in southeastern Arizona. Their stated goal was to “do the job our government refuses to do” and “protect America” from the “tens of millions of invading illegal aliens who are devouring and plundering our nation.”
At Station Two, Minuteman volunteers grilled bratwursts and fantasized about murder.
“It should be legal to kill illegals,” said Carl, a 69-year old retired Special Forces veteran who fought in Vietnam and now lives out West. “Just shoot ’em on sight. That’s my immigration policy recommendation. You break into my country, you die.”
Carl was armed with a revolver chambered to fire shotgun shells. He wore this hand cannon in a holster below a shirt that howled “American bad asses” in red, white and blue. The other vigilantes assigned to Station Two included a pair of self-professed members of the National Alliance, a violent neo-Nazi organization. These men, who gave their names only as Johnny and Michael, were outfitted in full-body camouflage and strapped with semi-automatic pistols.
Earlier that day, Johnny and Michael had scouted sniper positions in the rolling, cactus-studded foothills north of Border Road, taking compass readings and drawing maps for future reference.
“I agree completely,” Michael said. “You get up there with a rifle and start shooting four or five of them a week, the other four or five thousand behind them are going to think twice about crossing that line.”
With a grilled sausage in one hand and a cheap night vision scope in the other, Johnny scanned the brush in Mexico, spitting distance away.
“The thing to do would be to drop the bodies just a few hundred feet into the U.S. and just leave them there, with lights on them at night,” he said. “That sends the message ‘No Trespassing,’ in any language.”
The conversation stopped just short of decapitating Mexicans and putting their heads on pikes, facing south.
“I don’t really like violence, but if we did start doing what you’re talking about, it would show we mean business for a change,” said the group’s only woman, and the only person who didn’t carry a gun. “It would say, ‘This is the USA, don’t fuck with us!”
The woman, who said she was with a Pennsylvania anti-immigration group, had outraged Johnny and Michael that afternoon by reporting for duty with a Star of David pendant dangling below the neckline of her “I Survived the Minuteman Project” t-shirt. She also squabbled with them over the morality of pit bull fighting, and expressed her belief in animal rights and no-kill dog and cat shelters. They started calling her “Jew bitch” behind her back.
She got back on their good side by condoning blood lust.
“Damn, I thought you were one of them,” Michael said.
“One of what?” the woman asked.
“You know, animal rights, pacifism, save the kittens, all that crap.”
“Well, this may sound a little weird, but I just have more respect for the lives of stray cats and dogs than I do illegal aliens.”
“That’s not weird at all,” Michael said. “Not one damn bit.”
Playing Army
Vigilante militias have been capturing, pistol-whipping and very possibly shooting Latin American immigrants in Cochise County since the late ’90s, when shifts in U.S. border control policies transformed the high desert region into the primary point of entry for Mexico’s two most valuable black market exports, drugs and people.
But the Minuteman Project raised the stakes with a highly publicized national recruiting drive followed by a campaign of deceitful media manipulation. These maneuvers generated massive and mostly positive nationwide coverage of what in actuality was little more than a relatively small and ineffectual gathering of bigots and weekend warriors, led by a pair of dueling egos. While they played Army in the desert for a few weeks, this slapdash band was transformed by the hype into the elite vanguard of America’s anti-immigration movement.
The Minuteman Project was the brainchild of two fathers: Jim Gilchrist, a retired accountant and Vietnam veteran from Orange County, California, and Chris Simcox, a former kindergarten teacher at a private school in Brentwood, Calif., who left his job and his family, moved to Tombstone, Ariz., and refashioned himself into a brash anti-immigration militant following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Before the Minuteman Project began, Gilchrist and Simcox repeatedly claimed they had recruited more than 1,300 volunteers. But when their plan lurched into action on April Fool’s Day in Tombstone, fewer than 150 volunteers actually showed up, and they were clearly outnumbered on the Wild West movie-set streets by a swarm of reporters, photographers, camera crews, anti-Minuteman protesters, American Civil Liberties Union legal observers, and costumed gunfight show actors.
On the whole, the Minuteman Project’s enlistees were nearly all white. This wasn’t surprising, except that Gilchrist and Simcox also claimed prior to April 1 that a full 40% of their volunteers would be minorities, including, according to their Web site, “American-Africans,” “American-Mexicans,” “American-Armenians,” four paraplegics and six amputees.
California and Arizona were the most heavily represented states among the Minuteman enlistees, but the volunteers reported from all regions of the country. Many, if not most, were over 50 years old, counting a relatively high percentage of retired military men, police officers, and prison guards. Women made up nearly a third of the volunteers, including a bevy of white-haired ladies from Orange County, Calif., selling homemade Minuteman Project merchandise like “What Part of ‘Illegal’ Don’t They Understand” T-shirts and the quickly ubiquitous “Undocumented Border Patrol Agent” badges (which, oxymoronically, bore color-copy counterfeits of the official Department of Homeland Security seal).
The keynote speaker at the Minuteman Project’s opening day rally was Tom Tancredo, the Republican Congressman from Colorado who chairs the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.
Tancredo addressed a crowd of about 100 inside Schieffelin Hall, an auditorium not far from the ok Corral. Outside the hall, a phalanx of Arizona Rangers (a state police agency) stood between the hall’s entrance and about 40 anti-Minutemen protesters who banged on pots and pans and drums while the vibrantly outfitted performers of a traditional Aztec dance group leapt and whirled to the cacophonous rhythm.
In late March, President Bush had condemned the Minuteman Project at a joint press conference with Mexican President Vicente Fox. “I’m against vigilantes in the United States of America,” Bush said. “I’m for enforcing the law in a rational way.”
Tancredo said that Bush should be forced to write, “I’m sorry for calling you vigilantes,” on a blackboard one hundred times and then erase the chalk with his tongue.
“You are not vigilantes,” he roared. “You are heroes!”
Tancredo told the Minutemen that each of them stood for 100,000 likeminded Americans who couldn’t afford to make the trip. He applauded Gilchrist and Simcox as “two good men who understand we must never surrender our right as citizens to do our patriotic duty and defend our country … and stop this invasion ourselves.”
more here:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=915
Frank
Amen, Horace!
As far as these underaged kids supposedly being deported alone. I don’t think we are getting the whole story here. I have found that the pro-illegals stretch the truth and are desceptive.
Liquidmicro
“AK-47vens They dont make or sell guns in Mexico. The public is not allowed to carry them. ????Could it be they come from here???? O my!!”
Well, Miss incorrectly informed. AK-47’s are Russian rifles that China uses, so just maybe they are coming in from China and not the USA. Do some research, your ignorance is showing.
Liquidmicro
Mexico’s Massive Illegal weapons coming from China and the U.S.
http://www.rightsidenews.com/200806231247/border-and-sovereignty/mexico-s-massive-illegal-weapons-coming-from-china-and-the-u.s.html
Until recently, the Mexican drug cartels “weapons of choice†had been .38 caliber handguns. However, recent trace data of firearms seized in Mexico and “Stateside†interdictions of firearms bound for Mexico shows that cartel members and gang enforcers have now developed a preference for higher quality, more powerful weapons. The most common of these firearms now includes the Colt AR-15 .223 caliber assault rifle, the AK-47 “type/variant†7.62 caliber assault rifle, FN 5.57 caliber pistols (better known in Mexico as the “Cop Killerâ€â€¦ or “Asesino de la Policiaâ€). In conjunction with the dramatic increase in U.S. source firearms that have either been recovered in Mexico, or interdicted prior to reaching Mexico, ATF also routinely seizes small arms and assault rifle ammunition destined for Mexico. ATF has also seized large quantities of .50 caliber ammunition for use in high-caliber long range sniper weapons and machine gangs.
…
(SEC) “The alarming figures about crimes committed by the underworld in Mexico, which overall since Dec. 1, 2006 to date surpass 4,800 executions, demonstrate that in the country organized crime, the guerilla and narcotraffic have in their hands as many weapons as the national government.
The main clandestine entry of weapons into the country is done through the northern border and the Pacific, originating from the big American firms and from China, where there is no control for the transfer of weapons produced by their five gigantic firearms industries factories. For Georgina Sanchez, a researcher with the Latin American Social Sciences (â€FLACSOâ€) in Mexico, there is an amount estimated at between 12 and 20 million high power firearms, mostly AK-47s from China, and 40 million pistols and rifles, the majority of them in the hands of guerilla fighters, narcotraffickers and organized crime.
“For Georgina Sanchez, a researcher with the Latin American Social Sciences (â€FLACSOâ€) in Mexico, there is an amount estimated at between 12 and 20 million high power firearms, mostly AK-47s from China”
So you see, Miss incorrectly informed, the AK-47’s are coming in from China while other weapons are coming in from the USA. And if you do some more research, you will also learn that some weapons are coming up from south of Mexico’s southern border. But since you are the most informed person all the time, Miss Know-it-all, you should already know all of this making your accusation above a false lead and presumptive fallacy on your behalf.
Horace
“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-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
This poem was written by Ema Lazarus, over a hundred years ago, when we never had the social support systems that burden the tazpayer today. You may as well recited “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, for all it relates to our immigration policies today. It is insanity to import poverty and ignorance, because the only way they can be bootstrapped is by a transfer of wealth from citizens, that’s you and me. It is for this reason that we exclude such people from entry. Apparently, Latinos have no objections to reducing our literacy rate, imposing new income taxes and reduce our ability to compete in the world.
We should not treat those who enter illegally on our southern border from those in other parts of the world, just becasue we have a ranting special interest group that thinks we should have special privileges to their friends and family.
superscalar
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-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Which was written before there was a federal income tax, before mandated federal education for all, before Medicare, before WIC, before free school lunch programs, before free school breakfast programs — in short — before the US became the modern welfare state it is today.
What you are in effect saying is that the US should both welcome an unending stream of uneducated individuals from third world peasant cultures and be more than happy to pay for it.
And please do not respond with ‘illegal immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits’. Even the most ignorant individual can brainwork that an individual making minimum wage is not paying more in taxes than they are using in government services and resources.
Evelyn
Gee thanks for proving my point Liquid.
Over 90% of those weapons going to Mexico from U.S. is even more then I imagined. Wow!
In analyzing the data collected through ATF’s investigative and regulatory operations that have been focused on the abatement of illegal firearms trafficking to Mexico, there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States. An in-depth, comprehensive analysis of firearms trace data over the past three years shows that Texas, Arizona and California are the three most prolific source states, respectively, for firearms illegally trafficked to Mexico.
Texan123
Why doesn’t Mexico do more to provide for the children who are deported?
I do not believe these kids are returned during the night with no one to care for them. Perhaps the family member being trusted to pick them up fails to show up.
Either way, it is not America’s fault that parents are smuggling children across the border. It is the parents responsibliity to care for their children, not to put them in danger and then blame the US for Mexico’s poor treatment of her own people.
Human trafficing is more dangerous than ever and any parent who puts their child at risk by crossing illegally, should be held personally responsible.
As a mom, I would never allow my young children to travel (or be deported), without me.
Liquidmicro
Prove your point, hell you can’t even get your point correct.
“Over 90% of those weapons going to Mexico from U.S. is even more then I imagined. Wow!”
Big difference than what was actually stated by your paragraph:
there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States.
Something about the firearms that have been “recovered in” or “interdicted in transport” doesn’t mean that more than 90% of the weapons going to Mexico are from the USA. Your first ignorant statement was that of AK-47’s, now you change it to all weapons. And you accuse me of changing the discussion.
Nelson
What would you think of our country if our government didn’t provide for such situations for our people? No, I think this more propaganda from advocacy groups in their concerted effort to obtain amnesty for illegal aliens and at the expense of demonizing our government agencies. Marisa and other advocates are well known for jumping to conclusions and maligning our government agencies as the result of not getting the facts straight. They never mention their mistakes or apologize for them because the believe in the principle of the end justifies the means. People who do that are just propagandists for a cause and not real journalists.
Marisa Treviño
Nelson, you obviously aren’t a regular reader of Latina Lista. In fact, though I don’t like to be melodramatic in believing in conspiracy theories, you strike me as someone with an agenda who visits sites like Latina Lista to merely discredit the author. Otherwise, you would know that I do uphold myself to journalistic ethics and do try to present a fair picture. Granted, these are my opinions and opinions will always be one-sided but I am never so close-minded that I won’t try and see the other side. And when I make a mistake, I admit it and publish it. If there is any propagandist here, it’s you sir.
Evelyn
This paragraph was taken from the evidence you provided(only the convenient part) to prove that weapons didnt come from the U.S. Obviously you dont comprehend what you read.
I suggest you read it over and over and over etc, etc.
If you still cant understand that it indicates that more then 90% of the weapons destined for Mexico or already in Mexico come from the U.S. it would not surprise me.
I’ve always said it is Ignorance that breeds racism. You probably dont understand that either.
Here is your article, read the last paragraph.
Mexico’s Massive Illegal weapons coming from China and the U.S.
June 23, 2008
by Michael Webster: Investigative Reporter
Laguna Journal
William Hoover, Assistant Director for Field Operations of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), recently told the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affaires Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere that the violence fueled by Mexico’s drug cartels poses a serious challenge for both U.S. and Mexican Law Enforcement in that the drug trafficking related violence is threatening the well being and safety of citizens on both sides of the border. Mr. Williams is in charge of operations of all of the Bureau’s field offices, including those along the Southwest Border.
Mr. Hoover pointed out that the ATF has long been committed to investigating and disrupting groups and individuals who utilize firearms trafficking as a means to facilitate the drug trade on both sides of the border through the use of firearms illegally obtained in the U.S. and subsequently smuggled into Mexico. Mexican President Calderon and Attorney General Medina Mora have identified the cartel-related violence as a top priority and have proclaimed the illegal trafficking of U.S.-sourced firearms the “number one†crime problem affecting the security of Mexico today.
Public safety along the U.S.-Mexico border has deteriorated considerably and Mexico has seen nearly five years of intensified bloody turf battles between the major Mexican drug cartels operating within Mexico. The ATF claim that the battles for control over lucrative narco-corridors into the U.S. from Mexico are the result of intense U.S. and Mexican law enforcement and military counter-narcotics operations and extraditions that commenced in late 2003 targeting the leaders of the most prolific Mexican drug cartels. In seeking to gain control of the disputed corridors, namely the Baja/Tijuana, Sonora/Nogales, Juarez/ Chihuahua and Nuevo Laredo corridors, Mexican drug cartels and their ruthless Mexican and American gang enforcers have more aggressively turned to the U.S. as a source of firearms. The weapons are then used against other cartels, the Mexican Military, Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials, as well as innocent civilians on both sides of the border.
The ATF says that the intelligence gathered by them and other domestic Federal law enforcement entities indicates that the cartels or as they like to call them DTOs have tasked their money laundering, distribution and transportation apparatuses, all of which reach across the border into the United States, to acquire firearms for illegal transfer back to Mexico for use in facilitating narco-trafficking and other criminal activities.
~
In analyzing the data collected through ATF’s investigative and regulatory operations that have been focused on the abatement of illegal firearms trafficking to Mexico, there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States. An in-depth, comprehensive analysis of firearms trace data over the past three years shows that Texas, Arizona and California are the three most prolific source states, respectively, for firearms illegally trafficked to Mexico.
~
Like I said before. Thanks for proving my point. I’m sure you dont understand, and that’s OK, because this is not for your benefit. I care that the General public understand.
Evelyn
Nelson said,”I think this more propaganda from advocacy groups in their concerted effort to obtain amnesty for illegal aliens and at the expense of demonizing our government agencies.”
I say I think our gov. demonizes itself. It doesent seem to need help from anyone.
By Richerd Mayham
Born on a continent that is separated from the rest of the world by two oceans, US politicians have always been exceedingly ignorant and naive about the feelings of foreigners.
Almost from the day it was created, Washington has had a policy of backing any tyrant who claimed to be pro-US. These “pro-US” cutthroats have received money, weapons, ammunition, almost anything they needed to suppress their own populations and attack other countries.
For decades, victims of these “pro-US” thugs tried to change the behavior of the US government. Mass protests at the gates of US embassies became routine.
The demonstrations had little effect, so the increasingly frustrated victims of the US leviathan state began to hit back against the individuals represented by that state. These acts of revenge were dubbed…
…Terrorism
The official US explanation for the “terrorism,” has been, they hate us because we are good and they are bad.
Actually, I’m convinced that in most cases the attackers do not hate the people they are killing, any more than US bomber crews hated the civilian men, women and children they were killing in World War II.
If a foreign government is a threat to your family, you hurt it in whatever ways you can, including killing the people who work for it and pay taxes to support it.
The “terrorists” would love to be using aircraft carriers, cruise missiles and B-1 bombers on Washington, but they don’t have them, so they use what they have.
Also, most US government facilities have been “hardened,” leaving only “soft” civilian targets to hit.
In other words, like armies all through history, the “terrorists” use what they have and hit what they can.
If you happen to own a few spare Ohio-class Trident missile submarines you’d like to donate to Washington’s enemies, I’m sure these people would launch a full-blown textbook war against us and lose all interest in so-called terrorism.
Part of the Solution
The ancient US policy of supporting any tyrant who claims to be pro-US has ignored the fact that each victim of these tyrants has had family and friends, and these people retaliate.
Part of the solution, therefore, is ethics. The US government must stop supporting governments that harm the innocent.
Notice that the ethical approach is also the pragmatic approach. An ethical foreign policy helps minimize the number of people who hate us and try to kill us.
Here is an updated article that appeared in my March 2002 U.S. & World Early Warning Report.
Blowback
In my opinion, the most important war in US history was the Spanish-American War in 1898. After defeating Spain, Washington set up a puppet government in the Philippines.
To install this puppet, the US Army massacred 220,000 Filipino men, women and children.1 This was the precedent for Washington’s massive and routine interventions in foreign countries. Interventions prior to that had been less frequent and smaller in scale.
During the 20th century, US forces were sent into foreign conflicts no less than 188 times.2
Since 1898, every president, both democrat and republican, has ordered American troops into far corners of the globe, usually not to defend liberty, but to train, equip or provide other kinds of help to the armed forces of crooks and tyrants. These Washington-backed terrorists have included Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Manuel Noriega in Panama, President Diem of Vietnam, the Shah of Iran, Marcos in the Philippines, Batista in Cuba, Mobutu in the Congo, Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan, General Park in Korea, Suharto and Habibie in Indonesia, and many others.
China’s Chiang Kai-shek in World War II murdered twice as many innocent civilians as the Japanese,3 yet President Franklin Roosevelt backed Chiang – he sent the Flying Tigers to help him.
The Japanese retaliated by hitting Pearl Harbor.
The CIA calls that blowback.
Blowback is the root cause of the “terrorism.”
President Roosevelt had also frozen Japanese assets,4 sent cruisers and destroyers to invade Japanese home waters,5 and cut off Japan’s supplies of oil, iron and other raw materials.6 Yet, I have never heard of anyone asking after the Pearl Harbor attack, why do they hate us?
Roosevelt boiled Washington’s foreign policy down into 15 words when he famously said of the Nicaraguan cutthroat Somoza, “he may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.”
Ours. Part of our empire. One of our enforcers.
Bush Admitted It
For 20 years prior to 9-11, my readers were warning their friends that Washington was provoking a world war with Muslims. On August 7, 2006, George Bush admitted 9-11 was caused by Washington.
Boasting to reporters about his plan to democratize the entire world, Bush said it “flies in the face of previous policy.” Then, defending this strategy, Bush (accidentally?) admitted that “as a result” of the previous US policy, “anger and resentment bubbled forth with an attack, with a series of attacks, the most dramatic of which was on September the 11th.”7
He repeated this admission, although less bluntly, on August 31st, then on September 5th, said it again, crystal clear: “For decades, American policy sought to achieve peace in the Middle East by pursuing stability at the expense of liberty. The lack of freedom in that region helped create conditions where anger and resentment grew, and radicalism thrived, and terrorists found willing recruits. And we saw the consequences on September 11th, when the terrorists brought death and destruction to our country.”
07-Aug-06, President Bush and Secretary of State Rice Discuss the Middle East Crisis
31-Aug-06, President Bush Addresses American Legion National Convention
05-Sep-06, President Discusses Global War on Terror
How much did you hear about his confessions in the mainstream press?
Humanitarian Aid
Few Americans know much about any of this. When someone speaks of foreign aid, they think the money goes for causes that are humanitarian. They assume the recipients are the general populations of those countries.
In some cases, foreign aid money does go to the poor and starving, but many billions of dollars have also gone not to the people but to the governments who terrorize them.
Washington’s attitude has been, yes, we gave weapons to the local dictator, who killed your wife and children, but that was a long time ago. Be reasonable, let bygones be bygones. We’re giving you a new house and free medical care. Why do you hate us?
We Don’t Know What’s Good For Them
The gangsters backed by Washington have hurt millions of innocent civilians, so today Washington has a lot of enemies, and these enemies have begun to retaliate. We cannot possibly kill “terrorists” as fast as the White House and Congress can create them.
How do we end this?
Certainly not by spreading democracy, which is George Bush’s plan. We don’t know what is good for others, and we have no right to cram majority rule down their throats.
When an American talks about freedom, he means, among other things, free speech, a free press, and freedom of religion. We can speak, publish, and worship as we please.
In many parts of the world, freedom means, we are free to wipe out the neighboring village before they do it to us.
Feuds and vendettas that go back centuries are one of the reasons millions of foreigners are perfectly happy to be ruled by people such as Saddam Hussein. They want a strong, ruthless leader who will instantly kill the people down the road if these people threaten them.
Their neighbors are equally afraid, and want the same thing, security.
Again, we don’t know what’s best for others. We haven’t, as the saying goes, walked in their moccasins.
If Democracy Isn’t The Solution, What Is?
Washington must swallow its pride and give up its global empire.
The president must go on TV for a historic speech, something that could put him on Mount Rushmore.
He would begin by giving ten gruesome examples of Washington’s foreign policy – perhaps some of the cases in Part Two of this report. This confession will shock Americans into realizing they have been lied to about the games the federal leviathan plays abroad.
Then the president should apologize, and announce a 180-degree change in course. Washington will make a total break with its past. From now on, its foreign policy will be based on the ethical principles that underlay the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.8
This will mean, among other things, that Washington will become neutral and stop meddling in other nations. The armed forces, which are now in more than 100 countries, will be withdrawn and brought home to defend the American homeland.
Again, we will no longer try to cram democracy down other people’s throats.
We don’t know what’s good for others.
We need a total break with the past, a fresh start.
Liquidmicro
Still you can’t comprehend the wording. Let’s educate your ignorance, shall we.
there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States.
Something about the firearms that have been “recovered in” or “interdicted in transport” doesn’t mean that more than 90% of the weapons going to Mexico are from the USA. Your first ignorant statement was that of AK-47’s, now you change it to all weapons. And you accuse me of changing the discussion.
It still doesn’t mean that 90% of the weapons in Mexico came from the USA. It only means exactly what is says, that 90% of the weapons that have been recovered in transit or interdicted in transit are from the USA. How many more that haven’t been recovered in transit or interdicted in transit are there?
I’ll make it simple for your simple mind.
1,000 weapons are in Mexico. 100 weapons have been recovered or interdicted in transit to Mexico. 90% of those have been shown to come from the USA. That means only 90 weapons out of the so called 1000 weapons in Mexico that have been recovered or interdicted in transit are form the USA.
With your feeble mind you are attempting to state that out of the 1000 weapons in Mexico, 900 of them come from the USA. You need to go back and learn basic math. Try English Comprehension as well.
Liquidmicro
“This paragraph was taken from the evidence you provided(only the convenient part) to prove that weapons didnt come from the U.S. Obviously you dont comprehend what you read.”
Obviously you don’t comprehend what it was that I said. I simply stated that maybe the AK-47’s were coming in from China and not all the weapons in Mexico are coming from the USA. I provided a link to show that indeed weapons are coming in from China. The percentage, the majority probably do come from the USA, there is no argument there.
Still, 90% of the weapons “RECOVERED IN” and “INTERDICTED IN TRANSPORT TO” Mexico are what are being discussed in the article. It does not imply that 90% of the weapons in Mexico (your statement:already in Mexico) are from the USA. This is where you are in-correct, I can’t make it any clearer to you than this.
Evelyn
???I DON’T KNOW WHY I TAKE THE TIME??? God give me patience.
Liquid said
Something about the firearms that have been “recovered in” or “interdicted in transport” doesn’t mean that more than 90% of the weapons going to Mexico are from the USA. Your first ignorant statement was that of AK-47’s, now you change it to all weapons. And you accuse me of changing the discussion.
you say
Something about the firearms that have been “recovered in” or “interdicted in transport” doesn’t mean that more than 90% of the weapons going to Mexico are from the USA.
you are correct when you leave out (to Mexico) it doesent
When you add to Mexico like they did then it means exactly what it says.
there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States.
You need to have someone else help you with this because you are obviously lacking brain power to understand.
Evelyn
Liquid said:
t still doesn’t mean that 90% of the weapons in Mexico came from the USA. It only means exactly what is says, that 90% of the weapons that have been recovered in transit or interdicted in transit are from the USA. How many more that haven’t been recovered in transit or interdicted in transit are there?
The paragraph in question states:
In analyzing the data collected through ATF’s investigative and regulatory operations that have been focused on the abatement of illegal firearms trafficking to Mexico, there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States.
HA! HA! HA! ROTFLMAO! HA! ha! ha! LOL! lol!
LMAO!
Liquid I gotta hand it to ya, you are one of a kind. ???I havent figured one of a kind what???
Evelyn
superscalar :
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-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Which was written before there was a federal income tax, before mandated federal education for all, before Medicare, before WIC, before free school lunch programs, before free school breakfast programs — in short — before the US became the modern welfare state it is today.
What you are in effect saying is that the US should both welcome an unending stream of uneducated individuals from third world peasant cultures and be more than happy to pay for it.
EvelynResponds:
Thats exactly what I’m saying! If they accepted your and my uneducated, disease ridden, sticky fingered, murdering, third world peasant ancestors from Europe they should, (according to the constution) accept the migrants crossing their own land now. These migrants must be treated the same as those that came before them!
~
And please do not respond with ‘illegal immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in benefits’. Even the most ignorant individual can brainwork that an individual making minimum wage is not paying more in taxes than they are using in government services and resources.
Evelyn Responds:
At the following website you can find out how they pay more in taxes then they use in services. If you have a non-racist study that provides credible proof to the contrary, please share.
http://www.aollatinoblog.com/2008/04/14/do-immigrants-pay-their-fair-share-of-taxes-you-bet-they-do/
Among the report’s findings:
Immigrant Households and Businesses Generate Billions: In 2005, immigrant households and businesses paid approximately $300 billion in federal, state, and local taxes: $165 billion in federal income taxes, $85 billion in state and local income taxes, and $50 billion in business taxes.
Immigrants Pay More in Taxes Than They Use in Services Over Their Lifetimes: Depending on skills and level of education, each immigrant pays, on average, between $20,000 and $80,000 more in taxes than he or she consumes in public benefits.
Immigrants’ Relative Youth Contributes To Social Security’s Health: Current levels of immigration will provide a net benefit to the Social Security system of nearly $450 billion in taxes paid over benefits received during the 2006-2030 period–and almost $4.4 trillion during the 2006-2080 period. This is because 75 percent of immigrants arrive in the US when they are in their prime working years (age 18 to 65). But the share of native-born citizens in their prime working years now stands at only 60 percent, and will decline rapidly over the coming decades as the Baby Boomers retire.
Immigrants Educated on Home Country’s Tab: The roughly 26 million immigrants now in the United States who arrived when they were over the age of 18–after their upbringing and basic education were paid for in their home countries–represent a windfall to American taxpayers of roughly $2.8 trillion. The US receives all of the tax payments made by these immigrants, while bearing almost none of the costs of raising and educating them.
Several recent studies of the economic impact that immigration has at the state level have yielded similar findings:
ARIZONA : A 2007 study by the University of Arizona ‘s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy concluded that “the total state tax revenue attributable to immigrant workers was an estimated $2.4 billion (about $860 million for naturalized citizens plus about $1.5 billion for non-citizens). Balanced against estimated fiscal costs of $1.4 billion (for education, health care, and law enforcement), the net 2004 fiscal impact of immigrants in Arizona was positive by about $940 million.” Moreover, the “2004 total economic output attributable to immigrant workers was about $44 billion ($15 billion for naturalized citizens and $29 billion for non-citizens). This output included $20 billion in labor and other income and resulted in approximately 400,000 full-time-equivalent jobs.”[1]
ARKANSAS : A 2007 study by the Urban Institute found that ” Arkansas immigrants had an estimated total after-tax income of $2.7 billion in 2004. Approximately 20 percent of this was sent home to families abroad, saved, or used for interest payments. The remaining spending had a total impact on the state of $2.9 billion…” In addition, “without immigrant labor, the output of the state’s manufacturing industry would likely be lowered by about $1.4 billion-or about 8 percent of the industry’s $16.2 billion total contribution to the gross state product in 2004.”[2]
FLORIDA : A 2007 study released by Florida International University found that the state’s “immigrant workers paid an estimated annual average of $10.49 billion in federal taxes and $4.5 billion in state and local taxes from 2002 to 2004.” The study concluded that “comparing taxes paid to assistance received shows that immigrants in Florida contribute nearly $1,500 per year more than they receive” in Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, disability income, veterans’ benefits, unemployment compensation, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, food stamps, housing subsidies, energy assistance, Medicare, and Medicaid.[3]
NEVADA : A 2007 report from the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada found that Hispanic immigrants in Nevada paid roughly $2.6 billion in federal taxes and $1.6 billion in state and local taxes (including $500 million in sales taxes) in 2005. According to the report, “the money that immigrants earn and spend in Nevada accounts for about 25% of the State’s Gross State Product” and “Hispanic immigrant employment, income and spending results in the creation of 108,380 jobs in Nevada .”[4]
NEW YORK : A 2007 study by the Fiscal Policy Institute concludes that ” New York ‘s immigrants are responsible for $229 billion in economic output in New York State. That’s 22.4 percent of the total New York State GDP, a share slightly larger than immigrants’ share of population, and slightly smaller than their share of the workforce. Moreover, “immigrants in New York State are entrepreneurs, managers, and workers in jobs at all levels of the economy, from the lowest-paid day laborers to the highest-paid investment bankers.”[5]
WASHINGTON, DC : A 2006 study by the Urban Institute found that immigrant households in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area “paid $9.8 billion or 17.7 percent of total taxes paid by metropolitan-area residents in 1999–2000 ($55.2 billion)…virtually the same as their share of the total population (17.4 percent)…” Approximately 72 percent of these tax payments went to the federal government.[6]
The Immigration Policy Center also has published a survey of local- and state-level studies that examine the costs and contributions of immigrants in communities throughout the US.
Endnotes[1] Judith Gans, Immigrants in Arizona : Fiscal and Economic Impacts ( Tucson, AZ : Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, University of Arizona , 2007), p. 3.[2] Randy Capps, et al., A Profile of Immigrants in Arkansas : Executive Summary ( Washington, DC : Urban Institute, April 2007), pp. 4-6.[3] Emily Eisenhauer, et al., Immigrants In Florida : Characteristics and Contributions ( Miami, FL : Research Institute for Social and Economic Policy, Florida International University , May 2007), pp. 7, 34.[4] Robert Ginsburg, Vital Beyond Belief: The Demographic and Economic Facts about Hispanic Immigrants in Nevada ( Las Vegas, NV : Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada , 2007), pp. 6-10.[5] Fiscal Policy Institute, Working for a Better Life: A Profile of Immigrants in the New York State Economy ( New York, NY : November 2007), p. 1.[6] Randy Capps, et al., Civic Contributions: Taxes Paid by Immigrants in the Washington, DC , Metropolitan Area ( Washington, DC : Urban Institute, May 2006), p. 5.
Horace
Actually, Evelyn, the articles are referring to are “immigrants”, those who are actually in this country legally, most of whom are skilled and well educated. They would be expected to pay their way, while illegal immigrants, a subclass of the the the entire U.S. poor population, do not. If illegal immigrants were granted all the welfare rights of the nation’s citizen poor, they too would be a burden on the people. The fact is that it is illogical to believe that the poor would ever pay their way, as they are the recipients of free health care, food stamps, Earned Income Tax Credits, etc. Your advocacy groups like La Raza would gladly show them everything they need to do to take advantage of The System.
Evelyn
Horace
Your spin on the word immigrant has already been debunked.
“IT’S NOT ‘IMMIGRATION’ AND THEY’RE NOT ‘IMMIGRANTS.'” (This claim is often articulated in that ALL CAPS style so popular with small children and lunatics who are off their meds.)
The word “immigrant” has nothing at all to do with legal status. It means, simply, to move from one place to another for the purpose of settling down. Papers, no papers — it’s all irrelevant to the act of migrating.
The claim can be dispatched easily enough with a little elementary etymology. The word “migration” first appears in the English language in reference to humans in 1611, some 37 years before the modern nation state, with its discrete borders, came into existence. The Latin root of the verb “to immigrate,” immigrare, predates that by more than a thousand years. Human migration is a phenomenon that dates back to before homo sapiens even existed — pre-modern humans migrated wily-nilly. So, clearly, the word “immigrant” has nothing whatsoever to do with one’s paperwork being in order; its roots predate the existence of contemporary legal systems
~
Here is a copy of the same study using the words ‘undocumented immigrant’
http://immigration.server263.com/images/File/factcheck/Undocumented%20as%20Taxpayer%2011-29-07.pdf
Liquidmicro
“The word “immigrant” has nothing at all to do with legal status. It means, simply, to move from one place to another for the purpose of settling down. Papers, no papers — it’s all irrelevant to the act of migrating.”
From Websters Dictionary:
Immigrant: a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence.
Now you can’t take up permanent residence without a visa, which will give you the status of LPR.
Emigrant: to leave one’s place of residence or country to live elsewhere.
This is more to the word you should be using from your confounded opinion argument.
Its not at all irrelevant to the act of migrating. One, Immigrant, does it through the proper channels coming into a country while, Emigrant, does it without by leaving another country.
No, not the IPC. More Left Wing opinion. You can’t refute our laws or our definitions with opinion. Especially when the laws are put in place by those from the left and the right. Because the IPC’s web site says they… “provide factual information about immigration in America”, you hang on their very words. Your a propaganda piece, nothing more.
Horace
“The word “immigrant” has nothing at all to do with legal status. It means, simply, to move from one place to another for the purpose of settling down. Papers, no papers — it’s all irrelevant to the act of migrating.”
When we talk of illegal immigration, we are talking in a legal sense of the word. And there are legal and qualitative diferences between illegal and legal immigrants. The former tend to be far less educated and unskilled. The former contain a subset of criminal element who would be excluded from ever being allowed to immigrate because of criminal records in their homelands. The latter are generally very well educated, have been vetted for contagious diseases and vetted for criminal records in their homelands and many even speak English and have far more to contribute to this nations goal of becoming a literate and competitive nation. Your objective, Evelyn, is to obfuscate the difference by putting both in the same category by using the general definition of the term immigrant, when we’re actually talking in the legal sense used in our immigration laws.
“The claim can be dispatched easily enough with a little elementary etymology. The word “migration” first appears in the English language in reference to humans in 1611, some 37 years before the modern nation state, with its discrete borders, came into existence. The Latin root of the verb “to immigrate,” immigrare, predates that by more than a thousand years. Human migration is a phenomenon that dates back to before homo sapiens even existed — pre-modern humans migrated wily-nilly. So, clearly, the word “immigrant” has nothing whatsoever to do with one’s paperwork being in order; its roots predate the existence of contemporary legal systems.”
I’m sorry Evelyn, but if you haven’t noticed it (and maybe you should be forgiven for this) but this is a fully developed nation, one of laws and sophisticated government, not the stone age North America you allude to. We don’t stand on the traditions of hunting mammoths or gathering berries. Justifying current illegal immigration as carrying on what mankind has done for years ignores that mankind has changed drastically since then. Few but desperate illegal alien supporters would resort to such ridiculous allusions to justify this invasion of illegal aliens. Moreover, Mexico itself disagrees with such a world view, as it and just about every nation on earth demands control over its sovereign boundaries. In short, virtually no one except the pathetic apologists for illegal aliens would ever advocate that such migrations are acceptable today. Not one nation on this planet is averse to deporting whom they consider illegal aliens.
Lastly, this has nothing to do with a lack of paperwork. Nations invite immigrants to settle in their countries, and illegal immigrants are uninvited and uwelcome in every country on this planet. Paperwork is evidence of this invitation, not just a mere formality.
Evelyn Chavez
Spin it Horace! Look at Horace’s spin!
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