Is the US at War with Mexico?

It's a reasonable question.

20,000 Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents roam the border looking for economic migrants, smugglers, and traffickers. Those who are picked up - including children - are often held for hours or days without food, water, or blankets. The border fence disrupts livelihoods for border communities and destroys the environment. Individuals endure racial profiling, wrongful arrest, and other abuses. Immigration prosecutions are at an all-time high and federal courts are overwhelmed. But it's getting worse........

Source: Washington Independent

Most recently, the Department of Homeland Security has wasted more than $700 million dollars to create new surveillance technology (a "virtual fence"). What do they have to show for it? A faulty pilot project along 23 miles of the border near Tuscon. That's it.

An SBInet tower. Source: Boeing

Earlier today, I attended a hearing on border security. Senator Lieberman (CT) raised questions on increased cross-border violence due to "narco-terrorism" while Senator McCain (AZ) insisted that "we must move immediately to fully secure our border." Their witnesses - the head of CBP, a US attorney for Arizona, the sheriff of Cochise County, and the mayor of Nogales - offered their assessments of the situation and made recommendations on how to expand border security initiatives.

While I would not seek to diminish the severity of the cartels' violence (and over 22,000 Mexican residents have been killed in the past three years), I was deeply concerned to hear some of the suggestions being put forward, without critique, at the hearing.

All of the witnesses supported Senator McCain's proposal to deploy 3,000 National Guard troops on the border. One claimed that the presence of the military "creates a whole new level of deterrence." Other suggestions which were lofted include:

• Building double and triple fences in urban areas, or across the entire border
  
• Deploying technologies from SBInet (the virtual border fence) and elsewhere to track incursions on the border
• Expanding the use of unmanned aerial vehicles
• Securing funding for additional CBP agents
  
• Looking to the Minutemen as a model for how to successfully secure the border

Many of these suggestions mirror the 10-point plan for border security that Senators McCain (AZ) and Kyl (AZ) released today.

What's missing: Any serious consideration of the negative impact that border militarization has on border communities. Recognition of the human rights abuses caused by reactive, unfocused security efforts. Indications that the border will not be "secure" until the broken immigration system is fixed so that people can come to the US in a legal, orderly manner.

It is nearly impossible to seal a 2,000-mile border, and most of us wouldn't want to live in a country that did. But until the U.S. government decides that enough is enough, that taxpayer dollars are better spent on workable solutions than impractical displays of force, then the out-of-control militarization of the border is likely to continue.

When will it be enough?

In the hearing today, the mayor of Nogales said, "It is a full-blown war." What will we sacrifice - our country's values, the lives of our people, the trust in our law enforcement agencies - in order to fulfill a dream of ever-expanding military engagement?

Members of the National Guard survey the border during Operation Jumpstart in 2007. Source: LIFE

In Our Community: Immigration News

Here it is, your news on immigration from Monday, April 12 to Monday, April 19.

This week, the Arizona legislature passed a bill that would allow police to check the legal status of anyone they encounter who they "reasonably suspect" to be an undocumented immigrant. It also allows people to sue local police agencies if they feel that the agency is failing to enforce immigration laws. This bill is one of the most anti-immigrant proposals in recent history. Immigration advocacy groups, faith leaders, and civil rights organizations strongly oppose its passage but it is expected that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer will sign it into law when it lands on her desk. Bottom line: This bill would terrorize immigrant communities.

As Arizona State Representative Kyrsten Sinema said, "This legislation would do nothing to solve the problems Arizona faces as a border state, would enshrine racial profiling, would be prohibitively expensive, and will create a permanent culture of fear and panic in innocent communities. The Governor should veto the bill."

Also in Arizona, a massive ICE raid focusing on shuttle companies suspected of transporting migrants across the border has caused widespread panic. More than 800 agents and officers mobilized for the raid, which resulted in 47 arrests. John Morton, the director of ICE, said he intended for the raid to give "such a shock to individuals that they won’t recover as they have in the past." Well, he has certainly done so. Social service organizations reported that the disproportionate show of force - which included helicopters circling overhead - has caused hotlines to ring off the hook and led droves of people to seek refuge in local churches. FCNL strongly opposes raids and encourages the Obama adminstration to align enforcement with humanitarian values.

In brighter news, Senator Robert Menendez (NJ) introduced the Protect Our Workers from Exploitation and Retaliation (POWER) Act. This bill would protect immigrants' labor rights and would also protect immigrant workers from retaliation if they submit complaints about dangerous working conditions. FCNL supports strict enforcement of employment and labor laws, in order to ensure that all workers' rights are protected regardless of their legal status.

In Our Community: Immigration News

As Congress returns from recess, immigration advocates across the country are demanding real, practical solutions to the broken immigration system. Here is the news on immigration from Monday, April 5 to Monday, April 12. Enjoy!

Here at FCNL, we are keeping a close eye on the draft immigration bill in the Senate, co-written by Senators Schumer (NY) and Graham (SC). No legislative text has been released yet, but if Majority Leader Reid's recent statement is any indicator, this comprehensive bill will see the light of day soon. At a rally in Nevada that drew over 6,000 supporters, Senator Reid said, "We're going to come back, we're going to have comprehensive immigration reform now... We need to do this this year. We cannot wait."

The Supreme Court just made a landmark ruling on immigration. Lawyers are now required to tell their immigrant clients whether a guilty plea could lead to possible deportation. This should seem fairly obvious, but - under overly harsh immigration laws - pleading guilty to even a minor crime can trigger mandatory detention and deportation. We congratulate the Supreme Court's decision to uphold real justice and protect immigrants' rights.

The nation's broadest coalition of immigration advocates, the Reform Immigration for America campaign, finally took a public position opposing the fundamentally flawed 287(g) program. This program, which was condemned in a recent Homeland Security investigative report, allows local police to arrest anyone suspected of being an undocumented immigrant. The New York Times calls the 287(g) program "too broken to fix" and America's Voice has created this excellent video on how immigration enforcement is tearing families apart:

383,524 and Counting

Last year, 383,524 immigrants were detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for enforcing immigration laws. That's over a third of a million people.

For the sake of comparison, the number of Quakers worldwide is about 360,000.

Immigration detention has drastically expanded in the past fifteen years. The number of immigrants held annually in jail-like detention facilities has tripled since 1996. Even under the Obama administration, these numbers keep on rising.

To justify this dramatic increase, ICE officials have repeatedly stated that the agency focuses on arresting, detaining, and deporting "dangerous criminal aliens" who pose a threat to public safety or national security.

Now, a recent ICE memo leaked to the press indicates that ICE is trying to arrest and detain as many people as possible - not just dangerous criminals - in order to meet quotas. According to the memo, ICE has set a goal of detaining at least 400,000 immigrants in 2010. To meet this goal, the memo continues, ICE plans to ramp up efforts to catch undocumented immigrants who had never committed a violent crime - because they can be deported more quickly than those with criminal backgrounds. (ICE later withdrew the memo but declined to offer a public explanation for why it had originally been issued.)

To catch more non-criminal immigrants, ICE relies on controversial local enforcement programs. These programs authorize police officers to enforce immigration laws. As a recent governmental report indicates, local enforcement programs lack oversight and have resulted in the widespread use of racial profiling.

As a result, more people get trapped in the broken immigration system every year. Immigration prosecutions have skyrocketed in recent years, overwhelming the courts. Immigration judges lack the resources to process immigration cases in a timely manner. Tens of thousands of immigrants languish in detention facilities as they wait for their cases to be heard, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.


Yet ICE continues to insist that its methods are justified.

This is backwards reasoning. Taxpayers' money should not be wasted on expensive and ineffective enforcement programs. You can't deport your way into a workable immigration system.

We've tried the enforcement-only approach, and it doesn't work. We urgently need immigration reform in order to create a legal immigration system that works for everyone.

Urge your members of Congress to support immigration reform. FCNL has created a new set of talking points for you to use when you contact your senators and representatives. Write a letter to your representative or schedule a lobby visit with your senator today!

To learn more about immigration reform, read FCNL's Statement of Principles on Immigration Reform. Stay up to date by signing up for our Immigration Network list serve, which distributes monthly updates about FCNL's work on immigration.

In Our Community: Immigration News

Welcome back to your local source of up-to-date immigration news. Here is the news on immigration from Monday, March 29 to Monday, April 5. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Did you know that 383,000 people were detained in immigration jails in 2009? And that ICE plans to detain more than 400,000 people in 2010? The Washington Post leaked a memo from high-ranking officials within ICE, indicating that ICE is trying to arrest and detain as many people as possible - not just dangerous criminals - in order to meet quotas. This memo caused an uproar in the civil rights advocacy community. ICE has a serious and urgent question to answer: Who does the agency focus on - "dangerous criminals" or simply people who look "foreign"?

ICE's enforcement programs cast an extremely wide net, dragging in not only undocumented immigrants who have not committed any crimes but also green card holders and even US citizens. These programs, often implemented by police officers, lack critical oversight measures and often lead to discrimination. The DHS Inspector General just released a report revealing the fundamental flaws of the 287(g) program, which deputizes state and local law enforcement agencies to enforce immigration laws. Federal immigration law should only be enforced by federal agents, so that the police can focus on protecting their communities. FCNL maintains that the 287(g) program should be immediately terminated.

Immigration detention facilities are terrifying places to be detained, and all the more so if you are coping with a disability or a history of trauma. A recent report from the New York Times reveals that immigrants with disabilities are routinely mistreated - denied medication, transferred to detention facilities far away from their families, and deported without proper arrangements for care. In other news, we recently learned that 30 Haitian survivors of the earthquake were shuffled onto planes, taken to the US, then detained in Florida even though deportations to Haiti have been suspended indefinitely. Advocates rushed to the cause and half of this group has been released; the fate of the others remains to be seen.

But enough about detention - what's happening on the border? Even though DHS Secretary Napolitano recently halted any further construction of a virtual fence on the border, some politicians still think that militarizing the border is the right answer. On March 29, Senator McCain (AZ) called for the National Guard to be sent to the border to protect US citizens. Such a deployment would set a dangerous precedent. The US is not at war with Mexico and militarizing the border is no substitute for the creation of a workable immigration policy that allows people to migrate in a legal, orderly manner. Senator McCain should push for immigration reform, not troops.

The search continues for a second Republican to introduce an immigration reform bill in the Senate, with Senators Schumer (NY) and Graham (SC). Meanwhile, FCNL has created new talking points and a revised statement of principles on immigration reform. You can share these with your members of Congress and urge them to support just, humane immigration reform.