Safely Insecure

México del Norte
Jorge Mújica Murias
mexicodelnorte@yahoo.com.mx


At this point in life nothing surprises me anymore. La Migra just “corrected” and “adjusted” its policies regarding deportations last week, and left them more or less as they were before, vague and without detail. It was an adjustment to the Secure Communities program, after the fact that Illinois, Massachusetts and counties in California said “no way José” to Barack Obama’s administration, declaring they will not be partners in his backwards idea of “security”.

Secure Communities is the elevation of the Polimigra at a national level, the program that forces every police in the country to collaborate with La Migra in exchange of nothing, which is not a very popular idea. But the adjustment does not acknowledge the States that are pulling out of Secure Communities. So to speak, it is an attitude of “I don’t care and I will work with whoever stays”.

According to the “adjustment”, each Migra has ample power and criteria to deport anyone they want, but also to decide who. That means that not all people detained by La Migra are put on deportation procedures. La Migra can decide who to deport and the can let go on a “deferred deportation”, with a 1-year permit to stay, renewable the following year, and who they can grant freedom on bond and the like.

One curious thing is the announcement by La Migra of the release of a training video for Polimigras, centered on how to avoid racial profiling, which only shows Latinos when giving examples of “illegals”.

Then they talk about certain “special treatment” to “witnesses” and “victims of crime” who help La Migra to persecute and prosecute criminals, but never make clear if Secure Communities will not deport such people if they don’t have papers.


Changing the Targets of Blame


On the contrary. Everything indicates Secure Communities is just a program to deport all and everyone who comes into contact with La Migra, a valuable tool to accomplish the annual numerical goal of half a million deportees.

After all that, I relieve it to be so strange that Janet Napolitano, high chief of Homeland Security and therefore top boss of La Migra, was one of the people scheduled to give testimony at the Senate hearing on the DREAM Act this week.

On one side, Napolitano establishes a goal of half-a-million deportees this year, and on the other one renders testimony in the Senate in favor of not deporting kids who were brought here by their parents before age 15.

The hearing itself sounds like a joke. It happened because Dick Durbin, the Democrats whip, in charge of lining up all Democratic Senators and tell them how to vote, insisted on introducing the DREAM Act again in the Senate.

It would seem that Durbin did not notice that last year the Senate failed twice to pass the DREAM. And even if it got approved in the Senate, it will be dead on arrival at the House, because Democrats lost their majority there also last year.

But like everything in politics, all is the opposite than it seems. The DREAM hearing is the first play in a big game: instead of being the Democrats the guilty party for the lack of immigration reform in the two years they enjoyed the majority in both houses of Congress, they will play with the immigrant community to make they believe it’s the Republicans fault. In other words, let’s introduce the bill again, and since Republicans will oppose it, they will be the guilty party, the bad guys! Latinos will then vote for the Democrats because they are the good guys!

For starters, the chief of the Judicial Committee at the House of Representatives, Republican Lamar Smith, already took the bait and announce that he will introduce legislation so La Migra does not have the Choice of offering deferred deportations, which are “a covered amnesty for illegals”. He will be the bad guy, and the victims are the poor Democrats who control La Migra, the true friends of the Latino and other immigrant communities.

If at the same time La Migra, still under the Democrats control pushes for a faulty secure Communities program, keeps its goal of 500 thousand deportees a year and puts out training videos of “illegal” Latinos… well, who cares, enit?