Ah yes, that was one of the more disgusting parts of that press conference. As
I said in my message about the press conference, much of it was planned. There
were questions about immigration, specifically, questions that seemed to imply
that it is best of people are kept out of this country and he was very direct
in talking about how he was trying to keep them out. He talked about dealing
with the root causes of their leaving their countries and attributed these to
things like poor electricity. The solution? He would send money for improving
lighting. The real root causes? Those, he never mentioned. The real solutions?
Of course he wouldn't mention them either. Basically, he was focused on keeping
people out!
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2021 2:57 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Biden Follows Trump Immigration Policies…
Biden Follows Trump Immigration Policies…
https://socialistaction.org/2021/03/22/biden-follows-trump-immigration-policies/
March 22, 2021
Activists Demand Immediate End To Deportations! Reunite Families!
By Ann Montague
President Biden has been signing numerous Executive Orders. But a closer look
shows they contain no immediate solutions. Instead they merely refer issues to
a governmental body or create a task force for further study. Meanwhile,
Trump’s reactionary policies remain in force.
A March 15 New York Times article entitled “Migrant Cascade Worsen Near U.S.
Border” was explicit:
“Over the past week, Mexican officials and shelter operators like the
International Organization of Migration said they had been surprised by the
Department of Homeland Security’s new practice of detaining migrants at one
point of the sprawling border only to fly them hundreds of miles away to be
expelled at a different border town.”
The Times continued: “The United States is doing this under a federal order
known as Title 42. The order, introduced by Mr. Trump but embraced by Mr.
Biden, justifies rapid expulsions as a health measure amid the pandemic.”
Times reporter Maria Abi-Habib disagreed stating. “But cramming migrants into
airplanes and overcrowded detention facilities without any coronavirus testing
defeats the purpose of [Trump’s] Title 42, observers say.”
Abi-Habib added, “Stephanie Malin, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border
Protection, said that the American authorities had seen ‘an increase in
encounters’ but that to adhere to [Trump’s] federal guidelines for Covid-19,
border officials were ‘expeditiously’ transferring migrants out of their
custody,” that is far away from the Mexican border.
Similarly, the Biden administration has made little or no progress regarding
the separation of children from their parents with some thousands of near
terrified children remaining in squalid U.S. detention centers. U.S.
immigration rights activists continue to demand immediate government action on
this most critical issues as well as the closure of the private prisons used by
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Biden’s promises for “review and planning” notwithstanding, hundreds are
deported daily, in continuity with the egregious practices of Trump and Obama
before him.
Aura Bogado from the Center For Investigative Reporting, notes that President
Biden has called only for a “Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) Task Force” on family separation. She points out, “This is the same
agency that separated children from their parents in the first place. Now they
are the ones tasked with figuring out where these families are when they never
had a reunification plan in the first place? Biden campaigned on opposing
family separations. The idea that we need a task force, when Biden has the
House and the Senate rings hollow to a lot of people. If you compare Obama and
Trump just on the numbers alone, one President deported far more than the
other, and that was Obama [who deported three million immigrants, Editor]. So
we will see what Biden does.”
Erika Pinheiro the Litigation Director of Al Otro Lado is assisting families on
both sides of the border. She responds to media statements that there are 600
families who are separated. “There are well-over 600 if you count children who
have been put in foster care and parents who were forcibly deported. There
could easily be over a thousand families.
I was disappointed to see that the task force has 120 days until their first
report. That is four months of study! We are in touch with families now! They
have been vetted; they are ready to return. We have no indication that they
will bring back the families who were deported without their children.” There
is great concern among those already working to reunite families that the Task
Force is more than a delay; it is just political posturing.
Bogado also points out that the Executive Order to end all new contracts with
for profit private prison companies applies only to the Department Of Justice
not ICE.
Operation Streamline
Immigration detention should never mean imprisonment because it was technically
never a crime. Immigrants were being held on civil charges.
But in 2005 through a joint initiative of the DHS and Department of Justice a
program called Operation Streamline was formed. This set up fast tracked
immigration offenses by providing for mass proceedings against unlawful border
crossings. As many as 80 persons were tried together, generally pleading guilty
en masse. The first entry was a misdemeanor punished by six months in prison.
Reentry became a felony punished by up to 20 years. Prior to Operation
Streamline they would have been returned to their home country unless they had
committed a felony. Today they are among the ever-increasing racist U.S. mass
incarcerated population of 2.2 million people – the largest number and
percentage of the population in the world!
The Tucson, Arizona-based immigrant rights organization, Derechos Humanos, has
for years encouraged supporters to sit in courtrooms en masse to observe
Operation Streamline’s inhumane processing of immigrants, often among Latin
America’s most poor and oppressed and all essentially victims of U.S.
imperialism’s neo-colonial policies that foster underdevelopment, poverty and
exploitation. These “legal”
courtroom proceedings are indeed shocking to observe. Large groups of men,
80-90 at a time, are shackled to each other to appear before a judge without a
lawyer or due process after having been compelled to sign “plea bargain”
agreements presented to them in English prior to walking into the courtroom.
They are then convicted, officially designated as persons with a U.S. prison
record, sentenced and quickly ushered to private prisons. Operation Streamline
and the criminalization of immigrants has made record profits for corporations
like the GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America. Without doubt no
Biden executive order will end either Operation Streamline, the criminalization
of immigrants or the private prison system.
Call to action
More than 160 immigration and criminal justice groups across the country
are calling for an end to Operation Streamline, mass sentencing and for
a suspension of unauthorized entry and reentry prosecution. They demand
the termination of DHS contracts with private prisons. Ten of thousands
of activists have protested the inhumane treatment of immigrants over
the last four years. They increasingly understand that yet another
government “task force” to study the “problem” is no remedy at all. The
capitalist system requires cheap labor, immigrant labor, prison labor
and non-union labor to survive and prosper. Immigrants and the poor are
tragically among those most likely to be infected with the COVID-19
virus, to be without heath care, to be forced back to work with the
least protection and to be constantly at the mercy of racist police and
the spectrum of border police, ICE and Homeland Security officials who
exist to keep them compliant, passive and subordinate. The vast
anti-racist and democratic rights protests of last summer inform us that
major fightback struggles are on the agenda today.
Join the fight for immigrant rights!
End all deportations! No human being is illegal!
Reunite families!
End Operation Streamline!
Abolish ICE!
Close all private profit prisons!
Open the borders! Empty the prisons filled with capitalism’s victims.
Join us!
Socialist Action News
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As the COVID-19 pandemic rages across the U.S., immigrants continue to
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--
Charles Bukowski “For those who believe in God, most of the big
questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the
God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to
new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a
command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the
teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here
to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds
and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” ―
Charles Bukowski
