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McClatchy reports on the long-acknowledged Obama Administration advance of deportations of undocumented immigrants. Though the White House claims that they give precedence to those who pass through the criminal justice system, the statistics show that 250,000 of the nearly 400,000 deportations this fiscal year have not been convicted of a crime, or were picked up on a minor infraction.
Last year, nearly 390,000 illegal immigrants were removed. Critics of the ongoing deportation program say the numbers tell only part of the story. Despite the focus on violent criminals, the majority of the removals handled by ICE still are noncriminals or immigrants accused of lesser infractions such as traffic violations and misdemeanors.
Just 16 percent of immigrants removed this fiscal year are the top-priority, violent criminals known as “Level 1″ immigrants, according to data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
More than 50 percent of those removed this fiscal year are considered noncriminal.
Given the ferocity of the Administration response with deportations, they clearly believe that, if they “solve” the problem of the undocumented, then surely everyone will come together and determine a fix to the immigration system as a whole. Well, the tea party on the border should end any hopes of that.
Hundreds of Tea Party activists converged on the border fence here in what is typically a desolate area popular with traffickers to rally for conservative political candidates and to denounce what they called lax federal enforcement of immigration laws. The rally brought a significant law enforcement presence as well as numerous private patrols by advocates of a more secure border.
But rallies, even daylong ones, are no way to seal the border. The Obama administration insists that its statistics show that significant financing increases in the federal Border Patrol have helped bring down crime at the border and make the smuggling of immigrants and drugs harder than ever.
But the activists who gathered Sunday had a decidedly different take. The border, in their view, is still far too easy to get across and has become so dangerous that some of them brought their sidearms for protection. Organizers urged participants to leave rifles in their cars.
Surely, these xenophobes will be dazzled by statistics and completely change their views, right?
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My theory is simple. The people who are teabaggers and anti-immigrant are using a very convenient pretext to push a very old agenda. RACISM.
It really wouldn’t matter if illegal immigration was stopped 100%. Until the repeal of the 14th amendment, the removal of all non-white persons from “Whites only zones”, and the implementation of some kind tiered citizenshpi structure (like the one that Sovereign Citizens’ movements seek to impose), then there will never be an end to this “debate.”
I think the polling and the statistical sampling are themselves bogus, and that the size of the movement that is pushing for this kind of racist agenda is actual much smaller than corporate media oufits represent. I think the agenda here is to create a controversy bigger than it is. To create the “villain” that forces Obama to find the “Golden Mean of Compromise” that Gregorious wrote about here: http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/65500
This will allow Obama to say with one mouth that he was a friend of the latino community, while with the other mouth he can win the votes of “moderates” (conservatives) and high income low information democrat voters.
ITs also known as “11 Dimensional Chess.” But the only opponent Obama is outwitting is his own campaign contributors and voters. The upper middle class and lower echelons of the socio-economic strata who will believe him to be their savior, while sacrficing their future and economic interests to him with unswerving devotion.
It doesn’t matter what rate of deportation this administration accomplishes. As long as the corporate media continues to fan the flames of this racist driven pretextual argument, OBama will be free to tell his base “The Republicans MADE ME DO IT in the name of BIPARTISANSHIP. But Si Se Puede, Comprende?!”
Yes, your theory is simple…and wrong. Very, very wrong.
I think Obama’s horrible track record more than speaks for itself. I think the teabaggers constant claims that the 14th Amendment is wrong speaks for itself. I think that the calls by the teabaggers to eliminate “birthright citizenship” speaks for itself. I think the fact that teabaggers are willing to support legislation that allows racial profiling speaks for itself. Rush limbaugh and Glenn Beck speak for themselves.
The way that Obama has retracted just about every campaign promise speaks for itself. HE campaigned for single payer, until he killed it in office before it even got a fair debate. He allowed extremists from the right wing to “force” his hand in search of “compromise” and “bipartisanship.” The fact that he has spent the first two years of his presidency doing most of nothing but COMPROMISING with lunatics speaks for itself.