AntiBVBL

According to Poor Richard and the Wall Street Journal, Lou Dobbs is considering running for the Senate from New Jersey as a third party candidate. Equally amazing, he hasn’t ruled out running for President. it was only last week that Lou Dobbs announced his departure from CNN where he went from finance journalism to advocacy journalism. He spent the last several years hammering away over illegal immigration, even going so far as stating that illegal immigrants were bringing leprosy into the country.

Now Dobbs is announcing a change of heart.

First, though, Mr. Dobbs is working to repair what a spokesman conceded is a glaring flaw: His reputation for antipathy toward Latino immigrants. In a little-noticed interview Friday, Mr. Dobbs told Spanish-language network Telemundo he now supports a plan to legalize millions of undocumented workers, a stance he long lambasted as an unfair “amnesty.”

“Whatever you have thought of me in the past, I can tell you right now that I am one of your greatest friends and I mean for us to work together,” he said in a live interview with Telemundo’s Maria Celeste. “I hope that will begin with Maria and me and Telemundo and other media organizations and others in this national debate that we should turn into a solution rather than a continuing debate and factional contest.”

Mr. Dobbs twice mentioned a possible legalization plan for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., saying at one point that “we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions.”

Telemundo and Lou Dobbs are certainly not two names I would ever expect to hear together. Is Mr. Dobbs becoming the poster child for Mr. Make-Over?

A Southern California Immigrant Rights group has asked Target to remove this costume from their shelves, stating that the ‘illegal alien’ costume is offensive to immigrants. Duh, ya think? Can’t imagine why anyone can’t take a joke. [sarcasm alert]

In the first place, many immigrants, as they learn English, take exception to the term ‘alien’ because of the outer space implication. The orange jump suit and ‘green card’ just add a few more layers to the degree of offensiveness.

According to Forbes Magazine:

Target spokesman Joshua Thomas says the company is removing the costume from the site after receiving several complaints.

He says the store never intended to sell the outfit but included it in its online offerings by mistake.

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, says she wrote an e-mail to the Minneapolis-based retailer Friday calling the costume “distasteful, mean-spirited, and ignorant of social stigmas and current debate on immigration reform.”

 

[UPDATE:  This costume has been pulled from Toys R Us and from Target.  However, it is still for sale at Amazon.com. 

A petition asking the stores to pull the costume maybe be signed here:  http://bit.ly/23IuZT]

 

Last week, Prince William  Regional Jail  joined a federal system called Secure Communities.  Secure Communities, a part of DHS, takes the process of checking the status and criminal background of illegal immigrants a step further than the 287(g) program.   Secure Communities creates an information sharing system that enables jurisdictions across the United States to access more comprehensive federal records. 

According to last Thursday’s Washington Post:

“Secure Communities is a Department of Homeland Security initiative to more broadly manage and modernize the processes used to identify and ultimately remove dangerous criminal aliens from our communities,” said Marc Rapp, acting executive director of Secure Communities. “Our goal with this effort is to use information sharing to prevent criminal aliens from being released back into the community, with little or no additional burden on our local law enforcement partners.”

Under Secure Communities, the Prince William-Manassas Regional Adult Detention Center can access Homeland Security’s biometrics-based immigration records. Previously, the jail accessed only the FBI’s criminal records during booking as part of what is known as the 287(g) program.

Col. Peter A. Meletis, the jail’s superintendent, said that officials launched the program locally last week and that it does not cost the 12 state and local law enforcement agencies that use the jail anything. Booking officials at the jail simply run the fingerprints of an arrestee simultaneously through the FBI and Homeland Security systems; one largely identifies a person’s criminal activity, and the other better identifies immigration status.

Jail Superintendent Pete Meletis says that this new program just gives the jail  additonal tools to work with.  Fairfax and Prince William are the only 2 jurisdictions in Virginia who utilize Secure Communities because of the high concentration of what ICE deems to be criminal illegal immigrants. 

An ICE detainer allows the criminal to be held after the sentence has been served.  ICE makes the final evaluation about what to do with the detainee.  Congress has allocated 1.4 billion dollars to ICE for enforcement efforts against criminal illegal immigrants.

The reasons for the current decline in border crossing arrests cannot be determined. Authorities are unsure if the reasons are because of the downturn in the American economy or because of the new fence. Most think that fewer arrests are because of the recession and lack of jobs in the United States making border crossing less desirable.

Meanwhile, the effort to secure the border has fallen behind 7 years, according to government sources. The cost of the project is also way up, over a billion dollars to complete. Maintainence costs once the project has been completed are also billions higher.

Problems like trembling cameras are plaguing those responsible for completion. Meanwhile, determined immigrants continue to vandalize the existing fence. The 28 miles of high tech border security are rife with problems.

According to the New York Times, various woes facing completion of this project are as follows:

The report, by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s watchdog, said the department had fallen about seven years behind its goal of putting in place the technology the Bush administration had heavily promoted when it announced the Secure Border Initiative in 2005.

In 2006, the report said, the department estimated it would have a system of cameras, radars and sensors in place to aid a force of border guards by the end of 2009, but the completion date is now projected as 2016.

“Flaws found in testing and concerns about the impact of placing towers and access roads in environmentally sensitive locations caused delays,” said Richard M. Stana, an author of the report. The cameras and radars, a “virtual fence” in a system designed by the contractor, Boeing, have fallen prey to weather and mechanical problems.

The effort to build 661 miles of fences blocking vehicles or pedestrians is nearly complete, but with 28 miles left to go, it has been delayed by lawsuits from landowners in Texas.

The government has spent $2.4 billion on such “physical infrastructure,” but the report said it could cost $6.5 billion over 20 years to maintain it.

For all the money spent, the department has not set up a way to evaluate the fences’ impact, relying mainly on the judgment of senior Border Patrol agents.

There is no way to guage the effectiveness of the fence already completed because of security breaches, change in the actual number of attempted border crossings. Meanwhile, Congress must address these issues rather than sticking their respective heads in the sand.

Articles:

Scathing Report on Border Security Is Issued

Border Fantasies

Sheriff Joe has accused Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon of attempting to neuter his immigration law enforcement.  Now where have we heard that?

It seems that Mayor Gordon has called on Sheriff Joe to denounce neo-Nazis.  Sheriff Joe countered that he has no associations with neo-nazis or far right extremists.  Mayor Gordon has concerns over people allegedly seen giving the Nazi salute to Sheriff Joe. 

Additionally, Sheriff Joe allegedly has been seen  and photographed at Anti-immigration rallies with neo-Nazis, according to KTAR 92.3 FM.  A recent Phoenix New Times story  supposedly showed the sheriff posing with some of  these characters. 

Sheriff Joe’s retort is:

 [that] Gordon wants to neuter his enforcement of immigration laws.

“I do not support any neo-Nazi hate groups. He knows it,” Arpaio told KTAR and other media outlets. “I don’t have to apologize because I never have been connected with any of these associations, and the people know that.”

I suppose I would question the wisdom of an elected offical going to an anti-immigration rally.  I am not sure that the Phoenix New Times  is top-notch journalism either, at first glance.  There are pictures, but each case could be coincidental. I get the distinct impression, at first glance, that Phoenix New Times has no love affair with Sheriff Joe. There is an entire Arpaio Archive in the paper dedicated to him.

Perhaps if Sheriff Joe stuck to law enforcement rather than trying to whip up the masses at anti-immigration rallies, he wouldn’t have to deal with this kind of insinuation. 

Don’t shoot me. I am a mere messenger. I come in peace.   Neither Anti-Bvbl or I have accused Sheriff Joe of anything, much less being a neo-Nazi sympathizer or a far right extremist.   I do not think he is either of those.  I find the scrapping and sparring between him and the mayor ironic as well as the choice of words.  Does anyone get a sense of YING and YANG?

Texas mayor Herb Gears of Irving, Texas, is no Corey Stewart.  He is a man very torn between those who would run every last illegal immigrant out of town and those Hispanic business people and leaders who feel the measures that have been taken split families and are overall bad for the community.  Herb Gears, featured in the New York Times Remade in America series is a moderate.  

Two years ago, Irving decided to conduct immigration checks on everyone booked into the local jail.  First term mayor,  Herbert A. Gears, led the charge.  He felt that jail checks were far better than the more draconian measures encouraged and touted by his opponents and political enemies and he  proposed his plan as a means of compromise.  (Is this all sounding familiar?)

As battles over illegal immigration rage around the country, Irving’s crackdown is not unusual in itself. What makes it striking is that it happened with the blessing of a mayor like Mr. Gears, an immigrant-friendly Democrat with deep political ties to the city’s Hispanic leaders, a man who likes to preach that adapting to immigration – especially in a city like his, now almost half-Hispanic – is not a burden but an opportunity, or as he says, it’s “not a have-to, it’s a get-to.”

But as a wave of sentiment against illegal immigration built around Dallas and the nation, Mr. Gears came to realize that his city would be unable to remain on the sidelines – and that his own political future would depend on how he navigated newly treacherous terrain.

Irving is one of a growing number of cities across America where immigration control, a federal prerogative, is reshaping politics at the other end of the spectrum, the local level, in the absence of a national policy overhaul. To watch its experiment play out over the better part of the past year in City Hall and in its residents’ lives is to see how difficult political moderation has become in the debate over what to do with the country’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

According to Mayor Herb Gears:

“I let my instincts rule the moment in that instance,” he said. “What weighed heavily in my thoughts is that if we didn’t do something, a lot more immigrants were going to be hurt.”

“And now,” Mr. Gears added ruefully, “I’m the hero of every redneck in America.”

He calls his ‘red circles’ ‘crankies:’

We defeated the crankies, and no one thought we could,” Mr. Gears said of his re-election. “We’ve defined what our responsibility is, and that’s only to allow the federal government to do its job. It’s not our responsibility to evaluate it or assess whether it’s good or not.”

Still, he is not totally comfortable with the position he feels he must take.  He sounds like quite a character-a tough man with a good heart.  Check out the story of Irving, Texas and its mayor, Herb Gears.  Most of us will be able to identify with this town and its people.  Is Irving our sister city? 

We rarely include stories on crimes committed by illegal immigrants. Most of the crimes are more than adequately covered by other blogs. However, this crime rocked the nation during the late spring and summer before 9/11. I chose to make an exception. At the heart of this story is the tale of diligent parents, incompetent police, a philandering congressman and ironically, a murdered intern with the Federal Bureau of Prisons in DC.
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The DC Examiner reports that the two opposing sides of the immigration ordinance enforcement issue in Maryland are squaring off. The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking information about immigration related ordinances in 23 different counties in Maryland. They want information about every publicly enacted ordinance or internal policy that directs police, social services agencies, real estate agents, landlords and local employers to classify or treat people differently due to immigration status. So far, ears are perking up over ordinances in Anne Arundel County, Frederick County and Gaithersburg.

Meanwhile, Help Save Maryland founder and president, Brad Botwin tracks every move the ACLU makes and has filed a “piggyback” request to be copied on all information given to the ACLU. The ACLU suggests that many of the ordinances are racial profiling. Botwin doesn’t see it that way.

Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold forbids contractors to hire illegal immigrants to work on county projects, and police in Frederick County have been trained to enforce federal immigration laws. In Gaithersburg, City Council members passed an anti-solicitation ordinance two years ago that made looking for work or workers along city streets a misdemeanor, a move some complained targeted immigrant day laborers. Last spring, Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler said the rule ran afoul of the First Amendment and Maryland’s vehicle laws and city leaders began exploring other options.

ACLU attorney Ajmel Quereshi has stopped short of saying the ACLU will sue the various counties over their immigration ordinances. However, the possibility does loom over any ordinances or resolutions that exist in Maryland. It sounds like the ground work is being laid for potential costly lawsuits.

Is Prince William out of the woods on potential lawsuits? Is our Immigration Resolution too toothless to appear on the ACLU radar screen? Has it all ended for Prince William County because of the exceedingly awful economy and real estate market? Has the huge story of 2007 about the nation’s leader, Prince William County ended, not with a bang but a whimper? Any bang heard seems to be another foreclosure door closing and our tax base dropping even more.

Today’s Washington Post revealed quite an embarrassment for the Department of Homeland Security. For 4 years James Reid, who owns a cleaning company, has been sending workers weekly to the home of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. The secret service has been screening the workers before they enter Chertoff’s home. They have flown through the checks with flying colors. Now James Reid is furious. He now has in excess of $22,000 in fines. Why?

Now, owner James D. Reid finds himself in a predicament that he considers especially confounding. In October, he was fined $22,880 after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators said he failed to check identification and work documents and fill out required I-9 verification forms for employees, five of whom he said were part of crews sent to Chertoff’s home and whom ICE told him to fire because they were undocumented.

Reid has found the fine so excessive that he might just have to go out of business. He feels it is extremely difficult for a businessman to distinguish between fake and real driver’s licenses and social security cards. What really frosts him is that he is being fined after being given the green light by the secret service. The secret service actually does not do immigration checks.

Immigration laws are unevenly enforced, he [Reid] added, allowing big companies to stay in business while crushing small-business owners and workers. He said the rules punish “scapegoats” such as him while inviting people at every level — customers, subcontractors and contractors — to look the other way while benefiting economically from cheaper labor.
“No one wants to put the blame on the head; they’d rather put the blame on the business owner,” said Reid, who owns Consistent Cleaning Services. “Damned if I should be fined for employees that I took over to their house.”
Chertoff declined to comment. “We’re very constrained in what we can say about anybody who has any kind of issue with the department,” he said.

It is easy to see why Secretary Chertoff is keeping his mouth shut. How embarrassing. I guess the expression not being able to police your own has come home to roost.

I just couldn’t be the only person to not have a Thanksgiving themed message today. Ok, el Diablo made me do it. I couldn’t resist. Let’s just say there’s a little something for everyone here. So in keeping with that issue which has brought many of us together……here we go.

I think the eagles have to lay off the bud lights though. That’s what started the entire problem. My apologies to England.

Have a great Thanksgiving, everyone.

M-H

Is it just my perception or do areas like Sudley, Westgate, Irongate and Georgetown have more foreclosures than areas in the City of Manassas?  It’s especially noticeable when comparing Bristoe Station to these other neighborhoods that are located within Prince William County’s limits.  Of course there is the perception that the City of Manassas is more hospitable so it is entirely believable that they are reaping the benefits in terms of their housing market.  But presumably that could all change.  Of course, the City of Manassas are well within their rights to do so, just be forewarned of the impending consequences in their real estate market and budget.

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