71 years later, and yet the Woody Guthrie tune remains ever-so relevant

Good bye to my Juan/Good bye Rosalita
Adios mis amigos Jesus y Maria
You won’t have a name/When you ride the big airplane
All they will call you/Will be ‘deportees’
--Plane Wreck at Los Gatos/Woody Guthrie (1948)

  -0-

It’s kind of scary to think that a song composed some 70-plus years ago remains so dead-on accurate this far into the 21^st Century. Yet that seems to be the case with the famed protest tune “Deportee.”

Composed and originally performed by Woody Guthrie, the same man who gave us “This Land is Your Land,” the tune has come to be associated with folk singer Pete Seeger and has been covered by so many differing artists – including some such as Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash whom I’m sure many would think fit the profile of the “real America” the ideologues claim they support.

THE SONG WAS motivated by Guthrie being offended by the New York Times account of the Jan. 28, 1948 plane crash near Los Gatos Canyon – not far from Fresno, Calif. Guthrie was bothered by the fact that the report clearly identified the members of the flight crew , while merely dismissed the 28 migrant farm workers on their way back to Mexico as “deportees.”

Which, I would suspect, is exactly the way that the proponents of the immigration raids that President Donald Trump has been screeching and screaming about for months would like to see happen yet again.

The raids were supposedly (or at least according to the rumor mill that Trump is openly encouraging) set to occur Sunday – possibly in the early hours. Many hundreds, if not thousands, of foreigners whom the ideologues are determined to think of as criminal just for their very existence in this country will be woken up from their sleep, hauled off by authorities, and eventually put onto an airplane taking them to Brownsville, Texas – where a bus will then transport them across the border to Mexico.

The last thing we’re supposed to think about is the fact that these individuals are human beings, with lives and individualities. Who probably are doing work in this country that make a worthwhile contribution to our society.

NOT THAT THE ideologues want to hear any of this kind of talk. It was just a week ago I encountered someone (who actually is a decent-enough human being) who tried to justify his nativist thoughts by saying he’s really only against Somalis – whom he claims are absolutely refusing to assimilate to the ways of life of our nation.

I don’t doubt that any effort to do reporting on the actual deportation process to bring humanity to these people will be regarded as somehow being un-American. Although to me, the actual “un-American” conduct is having the authorities bust down people’s doors and haul them off – possibly before anyone is truly awake and aware of what is happening. Just like in the modern-day Russia or North Korea whom Trump claims aren't really all that bad!

Now it’s always possible that the anticipated deportations won’t be as extensive as some fear – and are merely trash-talk meant to feed the mini-mentalities of those people who want to think Donald Trump is a true patriot – rather than just an egotistical buffoon with a bloated view of his self-importance. Maybe Monday will feel like a relief.

But the way in which the Trump-types keep insisting they’re targeting people with arrest records in this country (and could accidentally pick up others in the process) makes it seem like Guthrie was on to something all those years ago when he wrote: “They chase us like outlaws/Like rustlers, like thieves.”

  -30-

Trump seems determined to use immigration trash-talk to get re-elected

President Donald Trump wants another term in office, and seems determined to create the impression of himself as the guy who kicked all those frickin’ foreigners out of this country.

TRUMP: National equivalent of playground bully?

He’s the guy who wanted a series of national immigration raids to create a sudden boost in the actual number of deportations.

OF COURSE, SO many details got out about where and when these raids would take place that Trump put a hold on the plan – while insisting he did it as a courtesy to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who was working to put together a border aid package in Congress.

Not that anybody believed Trump would do anything out of courtesy to anybody but himself. Which is why the talk is starting up again that raids of a sort will start Sunday.

With activists saying they’re planning a protest rally in Chicago for Saturday, hoping to get several thousand individuals to publicly express their disgust with The Donald and his immigration desires.

This comes as Trump made his announcement Thursday of his latest desire to get information about non-citizens living in this country. He contemplated an executive order that would require a Census Bureau question as in being able to enact his desires without having to get Congress to sign off on them first, which truly is the “American Way” of doing things.

TRUMP, WHO HAS tried to get the 2020 Census population count altered so as to include questions about the citizenship status of those reporting, now says he’s going to require federal government agencies to turn any information over to the Commerce Department so it can be compiled into incriminating information.

He’s not concerned with the several court rulings that have found there to be no legitimate purpose to having such a question as part of the Census. Because the purpose of the Census is to get as accurate a count as possible of the U.S.’s actual population on April 1, 2020.

And Trump is determined enough that his way MUST prevail that he’s going to get his question included in some form, so as to gather up as much information as possible as to who exactly is here.

Which has some concerned that all Trump is doing is trying to gather intelligence that could someday be used to single out even more people for deportation. Trump backers try to claim that it’s overly cynical and paranoid to think ill of the presidential intentions on this issue.

BUT IT PROBABLY says much about the lack of trust the majority of our society has in the executive abilities of Trump that we don’t fully trust him. And for good reasons.

Because this is the man who started off his political portion of life by letting it be known he was more than willing to single out for abuse certain types of people – and was more than willing to kowtow to the segment of our society that has a strong xenophobic streak running down its spine.

The kind of people who will wet their pants with glee at the very thought of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents working overtime on Sunday to weed people out, arrest them, then deport them.

And those who are willing to think that the courts’ refusal to go along with Trump’s desires for a Census Bureau question that some in our society would not feel comfortable answering is merely evidence that the courts themselves ARE the problem.

IT WILL BE curious to see if this becomes a winning strategy; letting the ideologues amongst us think they are succeeding in reclaiming our country from those of us who’d prefer to see American ideals prevail in the way things are done.

Which is why I found interesting the results of a Morning Consult poll that shows one-time Vice President Joe Biden holding slight leads over would-be presidential challengers Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.

But that is amongst people who identify themselves as most likely to actually vote. Which means it could well be in the hands of those slightly-more apathetic about casting ballots to decide whether we actually replace Trump come November of 2020.

Which may well be part of the Trump strategy as well – stir up so much trash that the bulk of people will be dismayed enough to not bother voting. Truly a sad strategy that says little about the man’s inherent character.

  -30-

Trump talk more about scaring people silly, not accomplishing anything

I’m not sure how seriously we ought to take the latest round of Trump trash talk that says, beginning Sunday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will step up their efforts to remove from this country those individuals who haven’t dotted all the “I’s” and crossed all the “T’s” involved in getting a valid visa.

TRUMP: Sunday's the day; no more foreigners

Trump says the efforts will focus on certain cities, places that he thinks are so-called hell-holes that have too many foreigners. Yes, our very own Chicago is on the list.

SO ARE WE going to see people getting picked up, hauled away in a van, and wind up being processed for removal from this country?

Is this weekend literally “the end” of their stay in the United States for some 1 million people, as President Donald Trump insists?

I don’t doubt there are individuals who will, by coincidence, come to the attention of federal immigration officials and wind up being processed for removal this weekend.

But let’s be frank (or should we be Francisco?) here and say I doubt there will be much of a coordinated effort taking place across the more urban areas of our nation, all at the whim of Donald J. Trump.

FOR ONE THING, I suspect such an organized effort is beyond the organizational skills of federal immigration officials. If anything, it might be better to study how many people continue to evade the attention of immigration this weekend, or in coming weeks.

I suspect that Trump’s trash talk is more about el Donaldo thinking he can scare the chones off of so many Latinos by making them think the end is near for their search of a better life in the United States.

Because the dreaded la Migra is going to come and get you, similar to how some people like to tell their children tales of the boogeyman coming to take you away.

PRITZKER: The protector?

Trump thinking he can terrify Latinos (and anybody else who isn’t “white American” enough to satisfy his definition of “belonging” in this country) probably gives him a tingle of joy. Although for all we know, that ‘tingle’ is really just the president wetting his pants.

OR MORE IMPORTANT, it could be something he says just to give his silent majority (which is most definitely not silent and really only consists of about one-third of our society’s population) a jolt – to the point where they’ll sing his praises and talk up a storm about how we need “four more years” of a Trump presidency.

It’s political rhetoric, not serious public policy. Because it is delusional to think that Trump could seriously achieve the notion of removing more than a million people from this country without causing a sudden vacuum in our society.

Then again, I have to wonder about the three bills Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed into law on Friday – all related to immigration and preserving the notion that our state government views the federal immigration officials who get worked up over xenophobic fantasy as political nitwits.

Illinois now forbids the private detention centers that immigration officials want to hold all these foreigners until they can get around to deporting them. Also, non-citizens will be able to apply for financial aid if they’re accepted at state colleges.

AND LOCAL LAW enforcement officials across Illinois will be prohibited from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Which theoretically means immigration officials will have to do their own work in terms of enforcing federal law. Local cops will stay out of it.

Which ought to make sense to everybody. Except for nativist ideologues who want to view police of all types as a unified force that harasses people who aren’t exactly like themselves.

As much as Trump is trying to gain the support of those ideologue-inclined individuals, Pritzker wants people to know clearly that he (and Illinois) is on the complete opposite side of this political equation.

Think of it this way; Trump wants to scare up the foreigners, while Pritzker wants to frighten the ideologues who can’t comprehend a society that is accepting to all. What does it say about you personally if you side with Trump and his trash talk?

  -30-

The further away from Chicago, the better – that is, if it has to happen at all!

It has become the immigration-related issue that just won’t die, and manages to take on a more intense character of pathos with each evolution it makes in the process.

The old Dwight Correctional Center for women ceased to exist in 2013

No, I’m not talking about President Donald Trump’s fantasies of erecting a wall of sorts along the U.S./Mexico border.

THIS IS ABOUT the notion of building detention facilities with which to lock up people awaiting immigration-related offenses that could result in their eventual deportation from this country.

Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have dreams of using facilities scattered across the nation – including one whose intent would be to hold people found living in the Chicago-area while lacking a valid Visa or legitimate citizenship status.

Currently, people facing immigration violations often get sent off to county jails with which the federal government has contracts with. In our case, many people caught here wind up in the McHenry County Jail to wait while their immigration cases are resolved.

A concept that offends many people because it means that people who haven’t committed a criminal offense (no matter how much the ideologues want to think it ought to be regarded as one) are being locked up with people who HAVE committed crimes and are merely awaiting the day they’re sent off to the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections to serve their time.

THE IDEA IS that having these separate detention facilities means we can take the immigration cases out of jail with criminals. But we can still treat the individuals like criminals – which is what the ideologues are really after!

The problem is that people of rationality hate the idea of any kind of facility that is jail-like from being in or near their communities.

Dwight not far enough from Chgo for project

That is why local officials in places like Joliet, Crete and Hopkins Park in Illinois, along with Hobart, Gary and Elkhart County in Indiana, have all turned down the idea – not giving in to the fact that many of these places (particularly Gary, Ind.) could use the economic boost that could be derived from construction of a new facility and the possibility of jobs for people already living there.

This is just not a popular idea, which is why it seems officials are looking for a site further and further away from the heart of Chicago that will say “yes” and accept their plans.

THE BLOOMINGTON PANTAGRAPH is reporting that officials are looking at Dwight (a Livingston County community not far from the interstate connecting Chicago to St. Louis) as a possible site.

Local planning commission officials are considering annexation of a site near down so they can offer it up to federal officials for the plan.

Perhaps people are figuring Dwight is the right kind of place for detention facilities because, for many years, Dwight was the location of the Illinois Corrections Department facility for women found guilty of criminal offenses.

Maybe they also figure that a community with less than 2 percent Latino ethnic composition of its population won’t share the kind of hang-ups that communities up our way have with regards to such facilities.

ALTHOUGH THIS COULD be one of those instances where people surprise us by overcoming whatever hang-ups they may have and wind up doing the right thing.

As much as I like the idea that this ‘detention’ concept for immigration is now solidly outside of the Chicago metropolitan area (most of us only regard Dwight as a train stop between here and Springfield when they’re forced to use Amtrak), it is a concept that would be better off withering away altogether.

This detention center in Tacoma, Wash., could be replicated in Dwight

Because we ought to be trying to figure out ways to make better sense of our federal immigration laws and clean up the bureaucratic mess that we now have.

Instead of building facilities so we can house people with pending cases so we can let them stretch out even longer – before the ideologues try to have their way of deporting everybody from this country who isn’t exactly like themselves.

  -30-

Serves Trump-types right if gamble on sports bets cost them immigration

I’ve finally found a reason to think the notion of sports betting isn’t a completely ridiculous idea.

If sports betting winds up offering legal protections ...

For it seems some people, possibly even President Donald Trump himself, now think that the Supreme Court ruling this week giving states the right to decide for themselves of sports betting ought to be legal will actually undermine the legal argument federal officials in this Age of Trump have been making against individual states or communities declaring themselves to be “sanctuaries” that will not assist federal immigration officials in their work.

NONE OTHER THAN the deadly-dull and straight-forward Associated Press reported on this concept, finding that many legal advocates are saying there’s a direct link between the two issues and that Trump can’t very well claim to be able to force local law enforcement to cooperate with immigration if the feds can’t force states to outlaw gambling in the form of sports bets.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the court opinion that now gives states the right to decide how to regulate gambling within their boundaries, wrote, “it unequivocally dictates what a state legislature may and may not do. It’s as if federal officers were installed in state legislative chambers and were armed with the authority to stop legislators from voting on any offending proposals.”

Now I’m not about to claim this is a sure-fire victory for people with an interest in our national immigration policies who’d like to see something other than the bureaucratic mess that currently exists.

But it does sound like somewhere in the legal mindset is the concept that there are limits to law enforcement-types and that we ought not to be thinking of the various jurisdictions as one massive group that is required to think alike.

... to these activists, ...

FOR THE BASIC concept of the “sanctuary city” or the “welcoming city” or many other concepts meant to reassure all people that they’re not going to be harassed by police regardless of their immigration status is this.

It is NOT (even though many conservative ideologues try to falsely claim otherwise) that people within such communities are protected from immigration officials and can hide there.

It merely means that Immigration and Customs Enforcement ought to be required to do their own work. Send their own agents into those communities to do whatever investigation they wish and handle whatever prosecution they deem necessary.

The idea of someone being caught by a local cop in a traffic stop and having to worry that this bit of official attention will draw the attention of ICE is what is improper – if not downright absurd.

SO JUST AS the court now says states have a right to determine whether they want to permit gambling to take place out in the open within their boundaries, some are going to argue that it is now up to local officials to determine how much cooperation they ought to give with relation to immigration – which, if you think about it, is an issue so far beyond most of their comprehensions.

It only makes sense to leave immigration law enforcement to the experts and not think the local beat cop is there to “find foreigners” and have them deported from this country. Because I know full well that the local officials often complain whenever they think some higher-ranking authority is violating their concept of proper jurisdiction and overstep their bounds on some local issue. Only the ideologues can't see this, and it amounts to nothing more than selective vision when it comes to the law and its enforcement.

... will the president be the ultimate loser?

Some people may want to think this line of logic between the two issues is a stretch. There can’t possibly be a connection between placing a football bet and having a non-citizen removed from the United States.

Although considering that the appeals courts have thus far upheld the rulings of federal judges that have held back the Trump administration from withholding federal funds to communities that express sympathy for the immigrant lot in life, I’d have to wonder if placing a bet on this legal connection would be a safer one than betting on a Chicago Bears game – since you just know the moment you put money on it, the Bears will find a way to blow it for you.

  -30-

Feds still tipped off to DACA beneficiary, despite sanctuary policy

Christian Gomez Garcia spent a couple of days in jail this week, awaiting the possibility of deportation from the United States even though he’s one of the individuals under federal policy who supposedly is protected from such a fate.

Gomez is one of the people who registered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program so that he could live openly in this country even though his mother brought him here at age 6 without getting valid visas for herself or her son.

TECHNICALLY, HE’S AMONG the ranks of the undocumented in this country – an illegal alien in federal bureaucratic-speak that the ideologues like to use because it dehumanizes the individuals they wish to deport.

Technically, his fate is one that isn’t supposed to happen. It was a screw-up by law enforcement, although the Chicago Tribune reported that his DACA protections may have lapsed. Which is why Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials reviewed his case before releasing him from the county jail in Kenosha, Wis., where they house some immigration cases while they’re pending prior to deportation.

But I’m sure Gomez isn’t going to feel all that relieved. He’s going to know that the slightest little slip-up will cause the bureaucrats to throw his life out of whack – and that the ideologue-inclined of our society won’t feel the least bit of sympathy.

Gomez is 29, and he’s supporting his mother, Luz Maria Garcia, who left their native Mexico to get away from instances of domestic abuse. He came to the attention of law enforcement for an incident in December. He drove his car through a stop sign, and was issued a ticket.

HE HAD HIS day in court on Monday, making his appearance at the courthouse in suburban Skokie. All routine; something I’m sure all of us have gone through at some point in life.

But when Gomez tried leaving the Skokie courthouse, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that he found ICE agents waiting for him in the lobby. It seems someone notified federal officials that a person with uncertain immigration status was in court that day, and they should come to pick him up.

Even though the whole point of the DACA program is that those young people with no serious criminal records aren’t supposed to have to fear such hassle from law enforcement. DACA registration gives them the work permits provided they continue progress through the naturalization process toward eventual U.S. citizenship.

What has Latino activist-types all worked up is that this happened in a Cook County government facility. If it turns out to have been a sheriff’s deputy or some other county official who picked up the phone to call the feds, then someone is in violation of Coo County’s own sanctuary policy.

THAT’S THE POLICY that says county officials don’t assist federal immigration officials by providing such information about their jail inmates. It means that appearing in court for a traffic ticket should have been a circumstance in which Gomez felt secure.

Now I’m sure some people are going to argue that the inconvenience to Gomez wasn’t that big a deal. After all, the federal government wound up admitting their error and releasing him on Thursday.

Although it also means that he came to the attention of immigration officials, and this is exactly the kind of bureaucratic screwup that has the ability to come back and bite one on their nalgas. Or their derriere, if you prefer more effete language!

Who’s to say that having drawn this kind of attention will cause federal officials to tune their antennae more intensely to Gomez’ presence, looking for anything they could construe as a screw-up so they can justify their actions of this week?

BESIDES, I ALSO wonder how many of the rest of us would appreciate a screw-up that resulted in having to spend even a single day in a county jail. Particularly since the offense that initiated this whole incident was a blown “stop” sign.

The DACA policy, the one-and-the-same that President Donald Trump would like to see done away with, or at least extort other ideologue benefits in exchange for keeping it, was supposed to eliminate the chance of deportation being the end result for such petty offenses by people who are far from criminals.

Except in the mindset of those ideologues who want to believe that existing in this society without being exactly like their narrow-minded selves is a crime in-and-of itself.

For so long as we allow the immigration debate to be dictated by the idiotic thoughts of the most bigoted of our society, we’re going to continue to have more silly incidents like these clogging up our justice system.

  -30-

The ‘Trump Way’ of immigration crackdowns? Harassing 7-Eleven stores

Perhaps we shouldn’t be the least bit surprised that federal Immigration officials conducted on Wednesday what they’re billing as a major initiative in their effort to find non-U.S. citizens working in this country who don’t have the legitimate permits to do so.

ICE raids on dozens of 7-Elevens natiionwide

They’re raiding 7-Eleven convenience stores.

WHICH SOUNDS LIKE a notion that ought to be a joke; a bad punchline; something along the lines of a third-rate “The Simpsons” episode in which long-time Kwik-E-Mart operator Apu Nahasapeemapetilon gets deported.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials actually did raid some 100 7-Eleven convenience stores on Wednesday – of which 5 were in Chicago. The point was that immigration officials went into each joint, disrupted the sale of Slurpees and other junk food, and went out of their way to verify that every single person working in that particular store actually had the proper work permits required of non-U.S. citizens.

Officials made a point of saying they weren’t looking to do large-scale arrests on Wednesday, but that fines or criminal charges could arise against people who couldn’t show the proper papers.

The Associated Press reported that ICE officials described Wednesday’s activity as “the first of many” and “a harbinger of what’s to come” as ideologue-minded people seek some sort of act implying that we’re kicking foreigners out of jobs and trying to make their lives here so uncomfortable that they’ll want to leave this country.

PERSONALLY, I FIND the whole concept more laughable than anything else. It borders on harassment. It is something that if we think about it too much, it ought to make us ashamed of ourselves.

So, of course, the ideologues prefer not to think about it too much!

A part of me wonders if Wednesday’s actions were an off-the-cuff reaction to the immigration policy rhetoric of Tuesday.

President Donald Trump engaged in his cheap-talk of a “bill of love” to create a wall along the U.S./Mexico border, which I’m sure he intended to be tough talk to appease the more narrow-minded of our society who can’t handle the presence of anyone who isn’t exactly like themselves.

Is our society safer as a result?

BUT TUESDAY ENDED with a federal judge in San Francisco striking down the effort last year by Trump to erase the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals people. The ones that Trump, out of the kindness of his heart (heavy sarcasm most definitely intended) would not move forward with deporting until March.

So after being told his initiative to get rid of DACA is full of caca, federal officials respond by doing third-rate crackdowns meant to make it seem they’re protecting our nation from Indian nationals who are working the convenience stores of our society.

The ones providing the over-priced and over-taxed cigarettes that some of us seem to demand in our lives. Seriously, whenever I stop in a convenience store to pick up a newspaper or an occasional can of Coca-Cola, it seems all the people ahead of me in line are getting their “smokes” – and invariably complaining about the ridiculous prices charged these days.

Are these jobs ringing up a convenience store cash register the ones that “foreigners” are stealing from “real Americans?”

OR WAS THIS all about giving Trump types a sense of “victory” on the issue of immigration, rather than have them focus on how Trump’s efforts to eradicate the Barack Obama-era DACA policy (meant to allow young people making a contribution to society to remain in this country) have been thwarted, and it most likely that the inability of Congress to figure out how to resolve the issue long-term means nothing will change for the foreseeable future.

How many bad Apu imitations were done Wednesday?

Which makes much of the immigration-related rhetoric cheap and like something out of a “The Simpsons” episode.

Then again, even The Simpsons managed to find a little bit of sense when addressing the issue. For let’s not forget that when Apu finally broke down and took the citizenship test, his knowledge of our nation wound up being better than that of the long-time natives of the cartoon-land of Springfield.

  -30-

Federal immigration sweeps more about intimidation than enforcement?

Sometimes, the schoolyard bully beats up on someone merely to show everybody else that they can.
 

Are we really safer because 30 picked up by ICE sweeps?

That´s about how I perceive the latest round of sweeps done by federal immigration officials this week – the ones that they´re boasting resulted in some 498 arrests of individuals from 42 countries now living in the United States without a valid visa.

NOBODY OUGHT TO think our society is any more safe, or that our federal immigration policy is any less of a bureaucratic mess, just because Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials felt the need to do the mass sweeps during a four day time period this week.

I’m not even swayed by the fact that immigration officials claim that 317 of the people they arrested this week have criminal records – which they’d like for us to believe means those particular individuals should never have been in the country to begin with.

The fact is that if we consider these sweeps that took place in cities across the country that have designated themselves as sanctuary cities as somehow representative of the immigration ¨problem,” I’d say what they proved is that the problem isn’t anywhere near as significant as the nativist ideologues amongst us would have us all believe.

Federal officials said that 30 of the people who were picked up in the sweeps were busted in Cook County. That’s really not a significant number – particularly when you contemplate the number of people who actually live here, the large percentage who have ethnic origins in other countries and the significance of those who could have been picked up.

EMANUEL: Lawsuit got fed ct to back sanctuary cities

IN A STATEMENT to the Associated Press, acting immigration Director Tom Homan said that sanctuary city policies – such as what exist for both Chicago city and Cook County goverments – create “magnets for illegal immigration.”

And since the policies of the Chicago Police and the Cook County Sheriff’s departments are that they don’t turn over data on every single person they encounter who may (or may not) have uncertain immigration status, it means the federal officials want us to see they’re not going to be thwarted.

Immigration, Homan says, is “forced to conduct at-large arrests in those communities.”

DART: Won't hand over jail inmates to ICE

Which means that immigration officials were out-in-force in recent days, actively looking for people they could come up with busts for – similar to the days of old when local police would decide they needed to do something to appear busy, so they’d raid a few “dens of inequity” and make some cheap criminal busts.

THE “FEDS” WANT us to know that they’re going to make arrests amongst the significant ethnic populations of Chicago, even if they’re not getting the cooperation of the local police and sheriff, whom they wish would notify them every time they’re about to release somebody whose immigration status is suspect.

Then, the immigration officials could be waiting for them at the county jail – perhaps making their “bust” just as the inmate was hoping to catch a bus on California Avenue to get out of the area and try to get back to their local “homes.”

To me, the sad part of all this is that it means we have people devoting their time and effort to trying to pick up as many people as they can, and complain about all the hindrances they face.

We’d all be better off if we had such effort and devotion being paid to the idea of trying to make sense of our federal immigration boondoggle – a collection of policies that are in serious need of reform so as to clarify who exactly is worthy of being able to live in this country and whom amongst the ranks of the undocumented do we have legitimate reasons to fear.

 

TRUMP: Are ICE sweeps his response?

THE PROBLEM IS that, to the nativist element, they want to fear all. Their idea of immigration “reform” is deportations in as mass a group as they can put together. Which really is a waste of our time to try to achieve, and most likely impossible to think we can get rid of the tens of millions of people living here without that visa.

Particularly how in most cases, there was no legitimate reason to deny those individuals a visa – except that the bureaucracy made it difficult to impossible for said visa to be obtained.

Which is the ironic part of the immigration reform debate, as far as I’m concerned. The conservative ideologues who all too often rant that government is too big and burdensome and interferes with things getting done (Ronald Reagan famously quipping, “Government IS the problem”)?

When it comes to immigration policy, they may be right. It’s just a shame they can’t listen to their own rhetoric and try to do something about it for the betterment of us all.

  -30-

Feds need a warrant to get into public schools; what’s wrong with that idea?

When you think about it, it makes all the sense in the world. Although I can already envision the nativist element of our society ranting and raging about the unjustness of the Chicago Public Schools’ new policy.

I’m referring to the memorandum sent out this week to principals throughout the city school system, informing them that any agents of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency had better have proper arrest warrants on them if they decide to set foot on any school property.

IF THEY HAVE such warrants indicating they’re looking for a specific individual and also details exactly what it is they suspect that individual of, then no one is going to even remotely think of telling those agents to stop.

But if they think they can come onto school properties on a fishing expedition, of sorts, in hopes of finding evidence of people in violation of federal immigration laws, then it is only proper that such actions ought to be halted. Although it should be noted that officials say that immigration officials haven't actually tried showing up at schools. Not yet!

While I realize some people with a “law and order” mentality think police ought to be given great authority to scour amongst our society, the fact is that we expect law enforcement personnel to show some sort of cause before we allow them to legitimately restrict someone’s freedom.

That is the American Way, even though we now have the Trump mentality developing that thinks a more authoritarian way of doing things is somehow more appropriate.

TO BE SPECIFIC about this new policy, Chicago Public Schools chief education officer Janice Jackson wrote to principals to tell them they should forbid federal immigration officials from setting foot on school property unless they have that warrant.

Which would mean that a federal judge somewhere has given at least a cursory review to the circumstances and decided that there is a legitimate reason to be suspicious.

School officials also are making an effort to gather up more information about their students that would be needed in the event that a parent gets caught up in an immigration situation. The schools want to be informed about who is next in line to be responsible for a child if the parents suddenly “disappear.”

All of this is coming about because of fears that immigration, in this era of Trump, is going to step up its efforts and will be overbearing in its desire to remove people from our society whom some amongst us are determined to believe should never have been here to begin with.

I’VE NOTICED AMONGST my own Facebook friends those who live in neighborhoods with higher-than-average populations of non-Anglo residents warnings that “ICE agents” are out and about, on the lookout for people whom they want to believe are candidates for deportation.

People are feeling the need to be wary. The Obama era of wanting to think that such people have a place in our society and do make worthy contributions is most definitely over.

In fact, I wonder if amongst the Trump-ites, which Obama-era sentiment is a bigger priority to erase – serious immigration reform or health care reform.

It may be amongst the nativist element that foreigners, particularly if they habla en Español, are a bigger threat than having one’s tax dollars help to cover the cost of providing health insurance to all (or as many as possible).

IN LIGHT OF such attitudes spreading through our neighborhoods, it is reassuring that schools officials are showing a little bit of sense. And because they’re asking to see a warrant, it means legitimate law enforcement efforts won’t be thwarted.

Do ideologues hate health care or immigration more?

Just like the concept of “sanctuary cities” does NOT mean that people without valid Visas are capable of hiding out in Chicago, or any other place with that distinction.

It’s about requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to do their own work, which makes sense because they’re the ones trained in the nuances of immigration policy. Local cops have enough to do without being required to add immigration tasks to their work load – even though the new Trump policies seem to want to make just such an addition.

Just as schools officials have enough responsibilities to deal with, without having to monitor their student bodies and try to figure out which ones have parents whose immigration status is questionable!

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Different location; same objections

How much griping and grousing will it take before the powers-that-be who want to build special detention facilities to hold people facing immigration-related violations realize that the idea stinks?

Apparently, some people aren’t listening.

BECAUSE IN READING a Chicago Tribune report about the objections to a proposal to build such a facility near Joliet, I couldn’t help but notice there was nothing new in the debate.

The exact same arguments were made last year when officials were focusing their attention on building a facility near suburban Crete.

No matter where one wants to put this facility, the people are going to object. There’s no way to make this look pretty.

At stake is a series of facilities that Corrections Corp. of America want to build across the country. They envision five facilities – one each in various parts of the United States.

THE FACILITY BEING proposed for near Joliet would be the Chicago-area facility in their plan, and likely would be used to detain people suspected of immigration law violations in the Midwestern U.S.

Last year, the attention focused on a site near Crete – which is a Will County town that is about as far south as one can go and still claim to be in the Chicago-area. The actual site of farmland that would have been turned into the facility is pretty much the edge between urban and rural development in Illinois.

But the locals hated the idea of having any facility that even remotely resembled a jail near their community. When combined with the immigration rights activists who despise the idea of these privately-owned facilities being used to detain people, it was enough to get local officials to back away from the project.

Now, the supporters still want their Chicago-area facility for alleged immigration violators caught in the Midwest. So they’ve merely moved to the other end of Will County.

INSTEAD OF FAR south, it will be far southwest. Although that would put it near some brand-new residential development that is the very reason why Will County is the fastest-growing county in Illinois.

Which means even more people will be disgusted at the thought of a jail-like facility near their brand-new homes!

Personally, I hate the idea of outsourcing this, so to speak, to private entities. If Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials really want to detain these facilities, they ought to operate the facilities themselves.

Contracting out to private companies is more about try to undermine any unions that would be involved in representing employees at a federal facility.

ALTHOUGH I WILL agree the current situation is unacceptable. Federal officials have been turning over the people awaiting deportation hearings to the McHenry County Sheriff’s department – which has been putting them in its county jail.

 

All mixed in with that far northwestern suburb's criminal element. That's abhorrent -- no matter how far to the "right" one is!

As some will say, we’re talking about some people being put in jail indefinitely (the feds have a backlog when it comes to deportation hearings) because they might have been caught running a red light and couldn’t immediately satisfy a local cop about what their immigration status was.

The immigration violations themselves aren’t “criminal” offenses (no matter how much the conservative ideologues want to believe they are!). Jail is a miserable fate for them.

THE REAL SOLUTION to the problem is to get the feds to start moving along at a quicker pace when it comes to addressing immigration cases. Maybe the money that would be paid to Corrections Corp. ought to be put into hiring more hearing officers to reduce the backlog.

Although there also are the occasional incidents where someone gets picked up by immigration, then finds themselves back in a foreign country within days. Our system can move along properly, when it feels properly motivated.

But more often than not, it doesn’t.

Which is why some people think it a smart thing to pay millions to a Nashville, Tenn.-based company to operate jail-like facilities for “foreigners.”

I THINK THOSE ideologues just like the concept so much they’re willing to waste federal dollars on construction, piled on to the millions that has been wasted in recent years to build up a wall along the U.S./Mexico border.

And there’s no place within metro Chicago that’s going to want to be associated with this stinker of an idea!

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If not Crete, will Immigration search for willing town to host detention center?

Activists with concerns about immigration  policy and the way in which our government handles such cases are pleased that officials in a suburb at the edge of the Chicago area has said it doesn’t want to be the site of a detention center.

Yet that really doesn’t matter much.

BECAUSE I HAVE no doubt that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, along with the Nashville-based Corrections Corp. of America, will merely find another municipality – one whose officials will be so eager to have a significant construction project that they’ll overlook the ethical qualms inherent in the project.

The plan, insofar as federal Immigration officials are concerned, was always about having one of five detention centers located somewhere, anywhere, within the Chicago area.

I doubt that Corrections Corp. really cares which suburban community winds up getting their name put on the facility as part of its home address.

The concept of Crete, a Will County town that has a racetrack for horses, was really about the fact that there was lots of open land surrounding the community.

LAND COULD HAVE been purchased for a detention center site without having to worry about tearing something down. They would have encountered some farmers who would have decried the loss of rural life and potential to grow crops.

But I’m sure they would have been willing to put up with that rhetoric in order to get a large plot of land on the cheap in order to build the facility, which had been designed to hold 750 beds for people who have immigration violation cases pending in the system.

Now, they’ll be looking at other municipalities – many of which are feeling a sense of desperation in coping with today’s economic struggles.

Which means I’m sure that somewhere, out there, is another suburban community that will be willing to say “yes” where Crete municipal officials this week officially said “no.”

SO ANYBODY WHO thinks this issue is resolved is really missing the point!

All of the factors that were in play before are still in play now. Just the name of the community will change. The names of the people who will argue they don’t want a detention center built near their homes will change.

The immigration activists who view such privately-run detention centers as an abhorrent concept will continue to be appalled at the idea. They will just no longer be slandering the reputation of Crete when they argue against the issue.

Because the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency still views there to be a need to have one of these facilities in the Chicago area, which does have a large number of cases pending and a demand for a place to put people until the cases are resolved.

PERSONALLY, I HAVE my own objection to these facilities, and it has nothing to do with location (locals will always object).

Just as I wouldn’t trust private companies to be involved in the operation of correctional centers (a.k.a., prisons) for people convicted of state or federal crimes, I don’t get into the idea of private companies being involved in the immigration business.

Although I do find it encouraging that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials realize that their current way of coping with pending cases (paying local sheriffs to house them in their county jails) is ridiculously flawed, there has to be a better solution.

Even if that means having Immigration officials getting into the incarceration business. Although a better alternative would involve having Immigration find ways to more efficiently handle their cases so that people wouldn’t be stuck in the system for so long that they would need to be detained at all.

THEN, THERE’S THE real solution – although it seems to be the one that Republican ideologues are determined to fight to the death, and one that President Barack Obama hasn’t been willing to push for.

That is real reform of the immigration system, which would eliminate the bureaucratic idiosyncrasies that create immigration violators out of people who, by and large, are trying to live their lives in peace and quiet and who truly aren’t criminals to begin with.

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