So-called immigration reform = real militarization
Over at LatinoPOV.com, Jimmy Franco Sr. did an analysis of
Senate Bill 774, the so-called immigration reform bill. He said, “Characterized
as primarily being an enforcement law as the aspect of actual reform and family
reunification were relegated to a secondary role in this legislation. The 2008
promise of immigration reform is still pending.
“Nine months after the election a military-enforcement bill
is born. The Senate Bill designated 46 billion dollars for enforcement and
militarizing the border. The bill does not pertain to actual immigration
reform, rather it primarily focuses on a
massive increase in police enforcement and militarization of the border.” [LaBloga
emphasis] Go here to read the entire article.
Debating pros and cons about the bill’s value reforming immigration,
when it in fact is “a militarized war on undocumented laborers,” as Franco
calls it, might be as useless as citizens of Nazi Germany debating the architecture
and energy efficiency of gas ovens constructed to liquidate the communists,
socialists, union leaders, gypsies and Jews.
It might be better if the eyes of latinos and all Americans
focused on how this militarization can and will later be turned on any
American. German citizens failed to do this or sufficiently oppose their
government’s militarization. What will happen here?
According to a Todd Miller post, How to Turn the
U.S.-Mexican Border into a War Zone, Homeland will have “a staggering multitude
of ways to monitor, chase, capture, or even kill people, thanks to modernistic
arrays of cameras and sensors, up-armored jeeps, the latest in guns, and even
surveillance balloons at the most militarized border since the fall of the
Berlin Wall.
“The Senate bill provides for the hiring of almost 19,000
new Border Patrol agents, the building of 700 additional miles of walls,
fences, and barriers, and an investment of billions of dollars in the latest
surveillance technologies, including drones.
“Calling this immigration reform is like calling the
National Security Agency’s expanding global surveillance system a domestic
telecommunications upgrade. It’s really all about the country that the
United States is becoming -- one of the police and the policed.
“Approximately 700 miles of walls, fences, and barriers
already cut off
the two countries at its major urban crossings and many rural ones as well.
Emplaced everywhere are cameras
that follow you -- or your body heat -- day or night. Overhead, as in
Afghanistan, a Predator B drone
may hover.
“On the U.S.-Mexican border, there are already more than
18,500 agents (only approximately 2,300 on the Canadian border). In
counterterrorism mode, they are paid to be suspicious of everything and
everybody. Some Homeland Security vehicles sport trailers carrying All Terrain
Vehicles. Some have mounted surveillance cameras, others cages to detain
captured migrants.
“Checkpoints 20-50 miles from the international boundary
serve as a second layer of border enforcement. Stopped at one of them, you
will be interrogated by armed agents in green, most likely with drug-sniffing
dogs. If you are near the international divide, it’s hard to avoid such
checkpoints where you will be asked about your citizenship -- and much more if
anything you say or do, or simply the way you look, raises suspicions.
“Even outside of the checkpoints, agents of Homeland
Security can pull you over
for any reason -- without probable cause or a warrant -- and do what is termed
a “routine search.” As a U.S. Border Patrol agent said, within a hundred miles
of the international divide, ‘there's an asterisk on the Constitution.’
“Although unauthorized border-crossings have slowed down in
recent years, tens of thousands continue to cross into the United States
annually from Mexico and Central America, thanks in part to the continued havoc
of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which left more two million Mexican
farmers unemployed.
“The bill would come close to doubling
the number of Border Patrol agents to 40,000 -- a small army -- stationed every 1,000
feet along the 2,000-mile border. To put that in perspective, the
Border Patrol, created in 1924, took close to 70 years to reach 4,000 agents.
In 2006, at 10,000 agents, it had its first major hiring surge, doubling its
numbers.
“Senator Marco Rubio laid out the following list that
Homeland expected to order if the bill passed: 86 integrated fixed towers, 286
fixed camera systems, 232 mobile surveillance systems, 4,595 unattended ground
sensors, 820 handheld equipment devices, 416 personal radiation detectors, 104
radiation isotope identification devices, 62 mobile automated targeting
systems, 53 fiber-optic tank inspection scopes, 37 portable contraband
detectors, 28 license plate readers, 26 mobile inspection scopes and sensors
for checkpoints, nine land automated targeting systems, and eight non-intrusive
inspection systems.
“Four unmanned aircraft systems, six VADER radar systems, 17
UH-1N helicopters, eight C-206H aircraft upgrades, eight AS-350 light
enforcement helicopters, 10 Blackhawk helicopter 10 A-L conversions, five new
Blackhawk M Model, 30 marine vessels, 93 sensor repeaters, 90 communications
repeaters, two card-reader systems, five camera refresh, three backscatters,
one radiation portal monitor, one littoral detection, one real-time radioscopy,
and improved surveillance capabilities for existing aerostat.
“Homeland plans to have 18 drones in flight by 2016 and 24
in the years to follow patrolling over cities such as San Diego, Tucson, El
Paso, Seattle, Detroit and Buffalo.
“Some drones will be equipped with the VADER “man-hunting”
radar system used to detect
roadside bombers in Afghanistan. Now, even more of this technology will be put
to use. Recently declassified documents also show that CBP has been considering
upgrading
its drones with “non-lethal” weapons to be able to take down “targets of
interest.”
Go here to read Miller’s entire article. I’m not sure where
you go to do something about it, but it doesn’t seem we have a lot of time to
prevent our southern border area from becoming a Constitution-Free Zone that's
unsafe to cross at any speed. Even if you're from here.
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Es todo, hoy,
RudyG
The Republican "budget hawks," who have always painted themselves as conservative spenders and haters of big government spending have all dissipated now--though their false claims of being careful with our taxpayer money continue unabated. Now, what could our country do with all those billions of dollars instead? Feed the hungry, bolster our educational system, hire more teachers to reduce overcrowded classrooms, fix our crumbling infrastructure, create green energy jobs? The human, quality-of-life needs are endlessly there, as are the possibilities for politicians to make America a better country for its people.
ReplyDeleteBut no. All this militarization and overspending is being done to win the GOP support for "immigration reform," which, as you point out, Rudy, is totally ignoring the vital human element of the issue anyway. In my lifetime, I may never again see the Republican Party lift its finger to do one humane, compassionate, helpful thing for the middle class, the working poor, and the other poor people of our nation.
I mostly agree with you and others, Thelma, but must add that in recent decades, the Democrats, Presidents included, have themselves become more and more Republican-like.
ReplyDeleteRudyG