World Social Forum slashes US anti-immigration plan

xinhuanet.com ^ | 2006-01-26 | xinhuanet.com

[VU4G10]

CARACAS, Jan. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Participants to the sixth World Social Forum (WSF) condemned Wednesday a U.S. proposal against undocumented immigrants, saying the plan will bring about more human rights violation.

The United States wanted to hide the fact about reduced wages of illegal immigrants by tightening border security, the participants said on the second day of the anti-globalization forum.

The anti-immigration plan will undermine human, labor and social rights, the participants added.

"It is an outrage that the United States seeks its development by stepping on the poor and less-developed nations," said Jose Nunez, Dominican representative for the Jesuit Service for Migrants and Refugees in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The U.S. House of Representatives approved the plan on Dec. 16 which would extend a frontier wall with Mexico by 1,200 km, increase the number of agents on the border, and send undocumented workers to prison instead of merely deporting them.

The plan, which is yet to be ratified by the U.S. Senate, was rejected by Latin America's governments and civil groups, which said it would increase the violent treatment of their citizens seeking to emigrate to the United States.

The annual WSF was first held in Brazil in 2001. This year's WSF is taking place in three venues -- Caracas, Karachi of Pakistan and Bamako, capital of Mali.

More than 67,000 participants registered for the six-day meeting in Caracas this year. Topics on the agenda included terrorism, media, drug trafficking, U.S. military presence in the Americas and the situation of Indians and peasants.

The African round of the event concluded Monday in Bamako, with more than 600 activities held and over 20,000 anti-globalization activists having participated. Enditem

[moehoward]

I thought so. Thanks for the heads up.

[muawiyah]

Let's say we do it all the right way ~ the old fashioned way ~ we find a country where the people are miserable and we take over the country and fix it.

Bet they'd love that eh.

[trebb]

I think it's great that they think illegal immigrants are fine and dandy - we should start sending planeloads of Mexicans over to all their countries with no passports or other forms of documentation and then film a documentary on how they handle it.

[gubamyster]

ping

[DoughtyOne]

The plan calls for no stars, only submission to an EU type eventuality in our hemisphere.

CAFTA-DR is merely another step in this direction.

Trade can be practiced by any two willing nations. It doesn't require what our elected officials are saying it does IMO.

[DoughtyOne]

Same here.

[raybbr]

Presidente Jorge Arbusto, are you paying attention?

Do you remember your oath?

Which oath are you referring to? The oath of office or the oath to the "new Americans"?

We are now one of the largest Spanish-speaking nations in the world. We're a major source of Latin music, journalism and culture.

Just go to Miami, or San Antonio, Los Angeles, Chicago or West New York, New Jersey ... and close your eyes and listen. You could just as easily be in Santo Domingo or Santiago, or San Miguel de Allende.

For years our nation has debated this change -- some have praised it and others have resented it. By nominating me, my party has made a choice to welcome the new America.

George Bush from a campaign speech in Miami, August 2000.

[raybbr]

ping

[tcostell]

The people who contribute nothing always want to share with the people who contribute more but this sounds like the criminal getting angry that the homeowner has locked his doors.

What silliness.

[blackie]

Protect our borders and coastlines from all foreign invaders!

Support our Minutemen Patriots!

Be Ever Vigilant ~ Bump!

[c-b 1]

Who cares what these people think? Let them rot in their socialist cesspools of their own making, eventually the people will be tired of it and revolt.

I don't think the people in those countrys will revolt, the tyrants running those countrys understand that keeping the masses ignorant, hungry, and unarmed, prevents revolt.

That's what is ahead for this country if we don't stand up, and say NO!!

[NoClones]

World Social Forum (WSF)

...these bozos should keep their yaps shut and mind their own business!

[Serenissima Venezia]

This would be like taking financial advice from a homeless guy.

Good analogy. I was wondering why this article sounded so ridiculous, and I think you hit the nail on the head.

[Doogle]

globalism..Translation get $$$$ from US tax payers

[operation clinton cleanup]

The United States wanted to hide the fact about reduced wages of illegal immigrants by tightening border security, the participants said on the second day of the anti-globalization forum.

Yes, that logic makes complete sense... NOT!

[DoughtyOne]

...and transfer as much control away from the people as possible.

In a globalist situation, the citizen is essentially worthless except as cash cows to execute purchasing.

[joanie-f]

I read an article recently (I've torn the house apart trying to find it, with no success, so must have read it in a doctor's waiting room, or some other outside-the-house location :) that really cut through the chaff on this issue. The basic premise of it was that those who lament the fact that our immigration laws and border patrol efforts have not worked, and who are calling for amnesty programs of varying sorts, haven't taken a serious look at the problem and its attempted solutions. As a result, their basic premise is all wet.

There have been major successes in stemming illegal immigration -- among them, in El Paso and San Diego -- both efforts having occurred within the past decade. As a result of both clamp-downs, illegal immigration decreased dramatically, as did crime rates and court backlogs. But, because other neighboring areas did not follow suit and institute similar common-sense programs, the illegals simply chose other areas in which to enter the country.

After President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in the mid 80s, the INS found itself battling against pro-immigration/pro-'human rights' politicians in their efforts to enforce it.

In the late 90s, during the Vidalia onion harvest in the southeast, the INS conducted raids in Georgia and rounded up hundreds of illegals who had been hired by Georgia onion farmers. As a result of their successful efforts (we can't, after all, allow visible successes in enforcing immigration control laws, don'tcha know), both of Georgia's senators and several of its congressmen expressed outrage that the INS, and the American public in general, were oblivious to the needs of Georgia farmers (translation: If immigration control laws interfere with the obtaining of cheap labor, cheap labor holds the trump card).

So the INS abandoned raids on farms and used a more 'undercover', paper-trail approach. They began auditing the records of slaughterhouses in Nebraska in order to attempt to determine which of their employees were illegals. They discovered and deported many more illegals than were anticipated. In fact, the operation was such a resounding success that it was resolved that such audits would be repeated on a quarterly basis.

But, just as occurred after the success in Georgia, the owners of the slaughterhouses, and local and state politicians, vociferously opposed continuing the successful enforcement of the immigration control law. The governor and one of the state's two senators, hand-in-hand with slaughterhouse owners and ranchers, successfully lobbied the Justice Department to put an end to the INS’s (*cough*) 'human rights violations.'

Running true to form, the Justice Department stepped in and ended the operation. Not only was the INS called on the carpet for doing precisely what it was entrusted to do, but the veteran INS officer who authored the operation was forced into early retirement.

As a result of American businesses and American politicians lobbying against enforcement of American immigration control policies, during the 90s, the number of American businesses fined for knowingly hiring illegals dropped from well over a thousand annually to single digits. In other words, successes simply were not allowed.

Even 'conservative' lawmakers working under the homeland security banner are afraid to allow immigration control measures to have any teeth to them. Asa Hutchinson (whom I used to include on my ever-shortening list of 'politicians with character' cautioned, fewer than two years ago, that we must be certain to 'consider the sensitivities' associated with human rights when we attempt to enforce our immigration laws’ (so much for conservatives placing national sovereignty and security above the vagaries of political correctness).

The sad truth is that we may never know whether effective immigration control is possible, simply because our own so-called 'leaders', in bed with businesses that thrive on a cheap illegal labor force, have done their best to turn major interdiction successes into failures. And then, with a kind of convoluted glee, they point to those contrived failures as evidence that immigration control does not work. They know full well that effective immigration control (with effective follow-up) has never consistently been tried, and they are determined to see that it remains that way.

Until last month, when the House passed H.R. 4437, Congress had made no attempts to address the issue of illegal immigration since the Reagan administration – twenty years ago. And, even now, H.R. 4437's future is dubious at best, because the self-destructive desire to maintain a vast pool of cheap labor, combined with the scourge of political correctness disguised as a reverence for 'human rights,' increasingly find themselves taking precedence over our sovereignty, our security, and our definition of justice (a definition in which the ‘rights’ of aliens/criminals have somehow found themselves elevated so as to be equal to, or supersede, those of law-abiding citizens). And without that three-pronged sovereignty/security/justice foundation, this republic's days are numbered.

I believe there are two, and only two, camps on this issue: those who are determined to uncompromisingly defend our sovereignty, secure our borders, and the preserve our culture, and those who are not. There is no middle ground. And the fact that most of our so-called 'leadership' falls into the latter category does not instill confidence and optimism in the hearts of those of us who are resolute members of the former.

A must read, that (1) masterfully illustrates the Bush administration's impotent, half-hearted, for-public-consumption-only efforts to end the ocean of aliens streaming unhindered across our southern border, and (2) courageously predicts the nightmarish future that awaits us as a result:

Fighting Immigration Anarchy: American Patriots Battle to Save the Nation by Daniel Sheehy

~ joanie …

[Travis McGee]

These greedy Quislings would sell their daughters to a Tijuana whorehouse for a buck, and claim they thought it was a "modeling academy."

[SiliconValleyGuy]

Until last month, when the House passed H.R. 4437, Congress had made no attempts to address the issue of illegal immigration since the Reagan administration – twenty years ago. And, even now, H.R. 4437's future is dubious at best, because the self-destructive desire to maintain a vast pool of cheap labor, combined with the scourge of political correctness disguised as a reverence for 'human rights,' increasingly find themselves taking precedence over our sovereignty, our security, and our definition of justice (a definition in which the ‘rights’ of aliens/criminals have somehow found themselves elevated so as to be equal to, or supersede, those of law-abiding citizens). And without that three-pronged sovereignty/security/justice foundation, this republic's days are numbered.

You nailed it, Joanie.

I didn't know much about the San Diego success, or anything about the Georgia and Nebraska ones. It looks like our leaders are as much of our enemy as "the enemy" is. I'll look for the book, even though daily life is depressing enough that I don't need to spend my leisure time getting more angry. ;)

[Czar]

"I believe there are two, and only two, camps on this issue: those who are determined to uncompromisingly defend our sovereignty, secure our borders, and the preserve our culture, and those who are not."

You know in which camp I reside--the first, with you and the rest of FR's loyal American conservatives. The second camp is reserved for the few quislings among us on FR, as well as the White House, Department of Homeland (In)Security, and most of Congress.

Thanks for mentioning the Sheehy book. I've just ordered a hardcover copy.