here's their take on O and immigration
Obama orders troops to Mexican border
By Bill Van Auken
27 May 2010
Bill Van Auken (born 1950) is a politician and activist for the
Socialist Equality Party and was a presidential candidate in the U.S.
election of 2004, announcing his candidacy on January 27, 2004. His
running mate was Jim Lawrence. He came in 15th for the popular vote,
receiving 1,857 votes. [1] In November 2006, Van Auken ran for the
United States Senate seat held by Hillary Clinton[2]. He finished in
fifth place, with 11,071 votes [3]
Van Auken is a full time reporter for the World Socialist Web Site,
and resides in New York City.
In the U.S. presidential election, 2008 he was the vice presidential
nominee of the same party.
President Barack Obama's order deploying 1,200 National Guard troops
to the Mexican border marks another reactionary turn in his
immigration policy and a threat of intensified violence against
immigrant workers.
The order will more than quadruple the National Guard force presently
operating in the four southern border states—California, Arizona, New
Mexico and Texas. Besides the added troops, the administration is
asking Congress to appropriate an additional $500 million to step up
operations by the US Border Patrol.
The action came on Tuesday, the same day that Obama met with the
Senate Republican caucus, and appeared to be a gesture aimed at
deflecting criticism from the Republican right that Washington has not
done enough to "control the border."
The White House did not issue any formal announcement of the military
deployment. Rather, an Arizona Democratic member of Congress,
Gabrielle Giffords, revealed the decision to send more troops. Running
for reelection against a Republican challenger who is campaigning on
the immigration issue, Giffords hailed the move. Administration
officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, later confirmed the
decision.
The source of the announcement suggested that Obama acted largely on
the basis of such short-term political calculations, attempting to
give Democrats a right-wing platform on which to run against
Republican opponents seeking to whip up anti-immigrant sentiments.
The government of Mexico reacted cautiously to the new US military
deployment on its border. It expressed the hope that the troops would
be utilized to "combat organized crime which operates on both sides of
the border," and that they would not "carry out activities directly
linked to the enforcement of immigration laws."
The deployment comes just a week after Mexican President Felipe
Calderón made a state visit to Washington, where he condemned,
including in a speech before Congress, a new Arizona law that calls
upon local police to detain individuals on "reasonable suspicion" that
they are undocumented immigrants. The law also makes it a crime for
anyone to offer shelter or aid to the undocumented.
Calderón's statements on the Arizona law evoked a storm of
condemnation from the anti-immigrant right. Critics denounced him for
daring to condemn a US law in a speech to Congress—as if US officials
do not make a regular practice during visits to other countries of
denouncing and demanding changes in policies that have nothing to do
with the immediate welfare of US citizens.
It is unclear from the statements from the Mexican government whether
it was given any advance notice of the troop deployment. Its
statements would suggest that it was not. Obama's use of the military
may in part be a means of distancing himself from Calderón's
criticisms.
On Wednesday afternoon, a State Department spokesman appeared to
reassure Mexico on the mission of the troops being sent to the border.
The spokesman, Philip Crowley, told reporters that the deployment was
"fully consistent with our efforts to do our part to stem, you know,
violence, to interdict the flow of dangerous people and dangerous goods
—drugs, guns, people." He added, "It's not about immigration."
Such formal claims are belied by the statements of Obama himself, who
linked the further militarization of the border to his efforts to
placate the Republicans and assume a "get tough on immigration"
posture.
Speaking at a Democratic Party fundraiser in California Tuesday night
after ordering the deployment, Obama described his meeting with the
Senate Republicans: "I said to them, look, I disagree with this
Arizona law. I think it's a bad idea. But I also said I understand the
frustration of folks in Arizona. I understand they're feeling that
somehow the federal government can't control the border effectively,
and I'm willing to work with my Republican colleagues to create a
stronger border here in California, New Mexico and in Arizona."
Obama linked this buildup on the border to a broader immigration
"reform," spelling out the punitive measures that such legislation
would include. As for "the millions of folks who are already here," he
said, "we've got to say to them, you've got to take responsibility.
You broke the law, you've got to pay a fine. You've got to pay your
back taxes. You've got to learn English. You've got to go to the back
of the line …"
These conditions—pleading guilty to committing a crime, paying onerous
fines and taxes, and getting "to the back of the line," which in many
cases means waiting up to a decade to get papers—assures that only a
fraction of the 12 million or more undocumented immigrants in the US
would be able to obtain legal status.
Obama's military action met with sharp criticism from immigrant rights
organizations. "As we have seen time and time again, efforts to
overhaul our broken immigration system have taken a back seat to
dramatic escalations of border enforcement, including placing troops
on the US border to serve in a function for which they have not been
trained," said Rosa Rosales, the national president of the League of
United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).
"We are on a collision course of enforcement-only policies and, as
experience shows, this will not solve the problem," added Janet
Murguía, the president of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR).
Obama won faint praise from the Republicans. "I am pleased that
President Obama has now, apparently, agreed that our nation must
secure the border to address rampant border violence and illegal
immigration without other preconditions, such as passage of
'comprehensive immigration reform,'" said Arizona Governor Jan Brewer,
one of the main supporters of the reactionary legislation ordering
Arizona police to pursue anyone suspected of being an undocumented
immigrant.
Other Republicans, led by Senator John McCain of Arizona, have
demanded that 6,000 troops be deployed on the border and that border
enforcement funding be increased by $2 billion. They have proposed
this escalation in the form of an amendment to a $59 billion
supplemental funding bill, the majority of which is directed to
supporting the US war in Afghanistan.
Top White House aides have opposed the Republican amendment on the
grounds that it infringes on Obama's prerogatives as commander-in-
chief.
Other Republicans have demanded that the government announce specific
"rules of engagement" that would ensure that National Guard troops
have the authority to shoot down immigrants trying to cross the
border.
Typical was a statement from California Republican Congressman Duncan
Hunter, who distinguished himself recently by calling for the
deportation of US-born children of undocumented immigrants. Such
children, under the US Constitution, are American citizens.
"While the National Guard troops involved in this deployment appear to
be taking more of a support role, it is still important that they are
provided with clear rules of engagement to appropriately defend
themselves under any circumstance," Hunter said.
Obama's action largely parallels that taken by his predecessor, George
W. Bush, in 2006, when 6,000 troops were sent to the border. Like
Obama, Bush ordered the deployment to appease the Republican right,
while tying his escalation of the US military presence to an
immigration "reform" proposal that includes many of the draconian
conditions included in the present Democratic proposal.
In answering his Republican critics, Obama has pointed to the
increased funding for border enforcement and a more aggressive
persecution of immigrant workers launched under his administration.
Given present trends, the Obama administration is expected to deport a
record 400,000 people in 2010—70 percent of them immigrants who have
broken no law outside of entering the US in search of work. This
represents a substantial increase over the 358,000 deported during
2008, the last year of the Bush administration. It reflects the
Democratic administration's increased use of police-state style raids
of immigrant workers' neighborhoods, workplaces and homes.
Obama's latest actions are based on the most cynical political
calculations. They represent an attempt to balance between conflicting
constituencies within the Democratic Party and appease the most
virulent anti-immigrant forces within the Republican right.
However, more fundamental interests are reflected in this political
maneuvering. Under conditions of sustained mass unemployment,
deepening poverty and drastic cuts to basic social services, the scape-
goating of immigrants is a tried and tested means of diverting popular
anger from the source of these conditions—the capitalist profit
system.
At the same time, the measures being prepared against immigrants—
including the proposal for a national biometric identification card as
a condition for gaining employment in the US—can be utilized as means
of repression against the working class as a whole.
The further militarization of the border, moreover, has the potential
of unleashing a new round of killings and a major international
crisis. Armed National Guard troops will be standing across the border
from Mexico, which has itself become militarized in the US-backed drug
war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives over the past four
years. There is a danger not only of immigrant workers being shot by
American soldiers, but of US and Mexican military forces coming into
armed conflict.
On Jun 13, 3:26 pm, Travis <baconl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ** **
>
> I don't know how many of you even thought such a thing existed, but yes,
> unbelievably this IS a real organization*...."**Published by the
> International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)**"*****
>
> ****
>
> http://wsws.org/****
>
> ****
>
> ****
>
> Fight the good fight. Keep the faith.****
>
> ****
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