Thirteen thousand in your name.
If you’re an American citizen, you should know this: in your name, in our name, 13,000 Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern men will be deported from this country. That’s roughly 16% of the 82,000 total who came forward voluntarily during the waves of Special Registration late last year and early this—only to be arrested without warning and detained for for a time without charges.
These 13,000 deportations ostensibly have to do with terrorism—but only 11 of those 82,000 have been linked with terrorism.
These 13,000 deportations are ethnically biased—“What the government is doing is very aggressively targeting particular nationalities for enforcement of immigration law,” said Lucas Guttentag, director of the immigrants’ rights project at the American Civil Liberties Union. “The identical violation committed by, say, a Mexican immigrant is not enforced in the same way.”
These 13,000 deportations are subject to political manipulation—Armenians, for instance, were originally targetted for Special Registration, but were removed after intense lobbying.
These 13,000 deportations are intended to close loopholes—“We need to focus our enforcement efforts on the biggest threats,” said Jim Chaparro, acting director for interior enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security. “People may not like that strategy, but that is what we need to do. If a loophole can be exploited by an immigrant, it can also be exploited by a terrorist”—but many of these loopholes result from negligence, overextension, and incompetence at the Department and its predecessor, the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
These 13,000 deportations are being overseen by the remnants of an agency known for its criminal disregard for the rights of aliens.
These 13,000 deportations will tear families and communities apart. They will affect far more than 13,000—only men were targetted by the Special Registration. Their wives, sisters, mothers, and children will need to choose between staying behind or leaving with them. These 13,000 deportations will foster resentment and hatred in the very people who had our best interests at heart, sending people back to the very countries they fled to escape persecution, oppression, economic hardship, whose governments they came here to speak out against, to countries that some haven’t seen since infancy. The threat alone has already sent thousands of immigrants over borders and deeper into hiding. These 13,000 deportations will not fight terrorism. They will not make us any safer. They are cruel and mean-spirited. They are unnecessary. They are short-sighted. They will, in fact, make the world more dangerous. They are wrong.
It’s not even as if we’re closing the barn door after the horses broke loose. It’s as if we decided not to bother closing the door at all and instead went around shooting the horses that stayed behind.
These 13,000 deportations are being done in your name.
Tell your congressional delegation what you think about that.
(Thanks to TalkLeft. Earlier Long stories: Niemöller time, Tomorrow belongs to—, Anecdotal.)
Commenting is closed for this article.
From the son of the man who finally apologized for the Japanese Internment... I want to make a joke, but I'm too dispirited.
I'm tired of telling my congressional representatives this. I want to grab them all by the lapels and shake until common sense falls back into place.
When will the populace wake up from the wave of feel-good xenophobic rage that 9/11 switched on? I studied history, I at least shouldn't be doomed to repeat it. Maybe this is my punishment for doing poorly that one semester.
Slow blogging is probably ahead
While Jenn Lee takes a well-earned break, I'll be filling in on her Dicebox comic with a (very) short story featuring Jenn's characters Molly and Griffin. Producing said short piece is keeping me busy; hence less bloggage. Meanwhile, go read this post ...
Illegal Immigrants and Special Registration
Special Registration is having the effects I thought it would (see here, here, here, and here). According to the New York Times: More than 13,000 of the Arab and Muslim men who came forward earlier this year to register with...
What I find most appaling is the fact that it hits people who are cooperating in good faith with the authorities.
This will have a powerful effect as a negative incentive for the next time where the government might need cooperation. Who will be so stupid as to register in the future, after these experiences? Why should people come forward voluntarily, when there is nothing for them to gain, and they can only loose?
Even if one looks at this purely from a law-enforcement perspective, without any humanitarian consideration, it makes no sense and can only be counterproductive in the long run.
Things That Make Me Want To Blarg
Here's one: If you’re an American citizen, you should know this: in your name, in our name, 13,000 Arab, Muslim,
I am an american citizen ,and also a wive of some one how were deported after he want to do the special registration i don't know what I need to do, I need help plese help me please