If you want to do something constructive //instead of writing thousands of words that won’t make a difference in ten years//, be a conscientious objector, a disobedent civil citizen of your native country, a farmer of a community garden, an oceanographer that works to refresh the seven seas, a practioner of an everlasting faith, an everlasting love.

I think you are incorrect sir.
I believe if someone can prove they have a direct ancestor that was born in Greece they can get a Greek passport ... even in Turkey ... at the Greek Embassy, very much up and running in ANKARA.

But everyone seems to be missing something here.

Kevin (who is a Canadian citizen) and his parents were on a Canadian Airline. Has anyone bothered to find out if any other passengers on that airline did not have a U.S. Passport? If so, why weren’t they arrested? Was the person who suffered the heart attack carrying a U.S. Passport? If not, why wasn’t he arrested?

Seems to me the U.S. customs officials illegally removed a foreign family from a foreign Airliner and illegally detained them, compounding their illegal behavior by sending these people to the U.S. mainland and illegally incarcerating them.

Like it or not, this looks like a clear case of racial and ethnic profiling, to justify government officials breaking the law ... and shame on those who have no problem with this!

The other disgusting thing about this situation is the Prison (Holding Pen) where these people are locked up!

Am I the only one alarmed by the fact that U.S. citizens tax dollars are funding private enterprise to run these places? How long do you figure it will be before the inmates (livestock) get put out to labor for the profit of those operating the prisons?

Oh, I forgot ... that’s already happening!

Talk about stealing jobs from Americans!

Lets face it folks, those who scream in outrage and alarm over the “illegal” problem (WHICH THIS CASE CLEARLY IS NOT) are not threatened with the loss of a job.

When it comes to folks who speak a different language, or aren’t “Christian” or the right color ...
they just don’t like to share!

Skruff: You ARE winning the argument…at least that is to say most people feel as you do, it’s just that the politicians don’t respect how most of us feel.
It used to be that the dividing line ran up and down and separated Democratic Polticians and their voters from Republican politicians and THEIR voters.  Now, the line runs horizontially and on the top are the vast majority of politicians and on the bottom are the vast majority of the voters.
People need to realize that in most cases the enemy is not the person who votes differently from themself but the enemy is the politicians who tear the constitution to shreds for their tyrannical and selfish aims.
As the saying goes “Conquer and divide” and we, the masses, must not let the polticians do this.

For the ideologically blinded, like Skruff, comment #56632, it matters not that Ms. Goodman’s story pertained to refugees who are fleeing authoritarian rule, seeking asylum in Canada, fearful that if they are forced to return to Iran they will face torture.  It also doesn’t matter that they were not even seeking to enter these United States.  This family had done the unforgivable.  Seeking to survive, they purchased Greek passports in Turkey.  That makes them “illegals.”  Lock ‘em up.  Throw away the key!

Scruff, I sincerely hope that you are never in a position to have to make the choices that a refugee family has to make in order to survive.  If you are ever in such a situation, I sincerely hope that you never have to deal with anyone whose worldview is as shallow as your own.

I do have two questions, since you seem so fixated on this issue of immigrants who lack “documentation.”  Just what documents did the Pilgrims obtain before they entered this country?  From what tribe did they obtain them?

This is not the America I lived in when I taught history and civics from the viewpoint of a democratic nation with a proud heritage.  If I were to get up in front of a class today and patriotically proclaim America’s altruistic greatness, the words would get stuck in my throat.  When I put my hand over my heart while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance along with my students, I used to get a tear in my eye.  Were I able to recite that pledge today, I would still get a tear, but it would be coming from a different place.

Comment #56444 by 127001 on 3/02 at 8:17 pm Says:

“All the rest of you, go get a text-to-speech reader and start actually LISTENING as well as READING FOR COMPREHENSION.

This is NOT about illegal immigrants”

Got that 127001. Read it fairly carefully, and while the story is sad, it IS about illegal immigrants, to whit:

“They soon fled to Turkey and bought Greek passports.”  For your information, Greek passports are not legally purchased in Turkey (a country which has no relations with Greece since the cyprus war) These documents are by definition forged fake, and not legal.

I am sorry about this problem (worldwide) but the USA cannot continue as the worlds “problem solver” (we’re just ....as you point out… too stupid)

Politically correct folks (who seem to be the conscience police)  care about everyone’s culture except that of the USA.  and the “culture” of my American youth is disappearing.  largely due to our government allowing Millions of immigrants to come here and enrich Walmat.

Frankly I’m tired of it…. BUT I also realize that I’m not winning this argument.  Democrats and Republican politicians both want to legalize the illegals and make cheap employees available to their contributers… So be it…

ovet the last ten years over 60% of our “new citizens” have been “legal” immigrants. how long can a “culture” stand in the face of this?

Don’t incarcerate them, just send the people home. Send them home rapidly, send them home politely, but do send them home. We should have a global foreign aid program worthy of the name that’ll help a lot of people in a lot of countries, with good oversight, a clean set of books, and a limited and well-managed budget.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, where there’s BushCo, there’s bullshit. This is evidence of that, as far as I’m concerned.

re: Comment #56193 by John on 3/01 at 3:03 pm

May I assume that you, John, are a “compassionate conservative”?

I’ve heard this rant before from an old friend of mine, who goes on and on about illegal aliens stealing his hard(ly) earned money, and living the life of Riley as a result. “These people” and their ill gotten gains, living on the public dole in their mansions after going to liberal enclaves like Harvard (oops…Senor Bush went there…nevermind) for free, well how can anyone say it’s not a crime? Happens all the time…former bracero’s stealing US taxpayers money to bankroll their extravagant lifestyles (of the poor and nameless).

How much money do you think they’re taking out of your personal pocket? A nickel? A dime perhaps? Or would it be something more serious like, say, a dollar? And that’s for the entire group you are condemning, not just one individual. Out of your total state tax burden for a year (assuming you’re in California, because most of these sorts of complaints come from there) a very tiny percentage goes to this perceived slight against your financial empire. And as a result of one of your dollars (or ten…whatever!) going to social and medical services for “these people”, you now equate them with bank robbers. Gee, that’s reasonable.

And no one is arguing that illegal entry is not illegal, it is, but there are gray areas in this world that require some subtly to address. It’s not just about bad guys and good guys, and it never was. It’s not, or at least it shouldn’t be, a Les Miserables world where all the non-white Jean Valjean’s get thrown in jail for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread. That was a crime too, but there might be shades of gray there that indicate that 19 years of imprisonment might be a little harsh for someone who stole food because they were starving to death. And illegal immigrants…many of them are facing starvation in Mexico, or Guatemala, or Ecuador, or even Iran…don’t deserve to be compared to bank robbers, and they don’t deserve prison sentences of bank robbers for stealing metaphorical loaves of bread.

Sorry you’re out some pittance of your tax money that you figure is all wasted anyway…but if you want to focus on waste, try looking at the DOD, and consider the roughly 20,000 dollars they spend every second of every day, all year long…all of your federal tax money being consumed in a fraction of a second (assuming you’re not wealthy and pay an average tax rate) and most of it just dropping unhindered and unquestioned, into billionaires pockets with absolutely no services rendered.

Nevermind about DOD though…the real problem here is the illegal activities of the nefarious penny stealing brown people breaching our borders and robbing our banks!!! As you were. Rant on dude!

Regarding 127001 (post #56444)…

This article wasn’t just about Kevin and his family from Iran. Here’s an excerpt, to attempt to clarify…and I quote Amy Goodman here…

“Close to a year after massive pro-immigrant marches occurred in every major U.S. city, immigration policy remains broken, with sensational crackdowns on undocumented workers, a planned multibillion-dollar wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and more than 26,000 immigrants in prison.”

The pro-immigrant marches mentioned in this sentence, were about undocumented, aka illegal aliens. To state the obvious, if they are undocumented, by definition they are illegal. This sentence clearly includes “undocumented” aliens in the topic for discussion. Kevin and his families tribulations were the centerpiece, but it is very possible to infer other meaning from the specific sentence I include above. So, Dick, Jane and Spot notwithstanding, this article is clearly about illegal immigrants, and the plight of all immigrants in this country.

This is an attempt at clarification of intent, not recrimination. This is not a tightly controlled environment either, so if topics wander sometimes, it seems the better part of valor is to be ducklike, and let the frustrations of perceived communications errors, which you clearly think are only self-serving, roll off your back.

I came to check back on the comments for this article after having read it when it was first published and I was shocked by most of the comments (except Comment #55867 by Ernest Canning; thank you Ernest! for restoring my faith that at least SOME people can read and comprehend what they are reading).

All the rest of you, go get a text-to-speech reader and start actually LISTENING as well as READING FOR COMPREHENSION.

This is NOT about illegal immigrants or illegal ANYTHING! Doh!

Read the article again. Then go back to first grade! and review Dick, Jane, and Spot.

This family was on a non-U.S. plane (assumption as it’s not defined), which happened to make an EMERGENCY landing due to another passenger’s medical problem. The plane landed in Puerto Rico, which is considered U.S. soil. The family’s passports indicated they were Iranian.

Thus THEY ARE IMPRISONED because they are Iranian. Period. This child is in prison because he is the child of INNOCENT (not immigrant, not illegal) Iranian parents. And now they are in Texas? by no choice or actions of their own.

This is a reason this country’s twit government gets by with what it does. People can’t even read or comprehend a news story as clear or simple as this.

Makes me sick. I’m called dummy and stupid because I am aphasic, which affects my speech and language comprehension, but at least I bother to try to understand what I’m reading. Apparently too many who posted comments here are just filling in their own blanks ... from blanks.

As for Amy Goodman, thanks for reporting this. And my sympathies to Truthdig for having readers who don’t bother to really read what they work so hard to write and publish.

A century ago, Tsarist Russia was called the prisonhouse of nations; the United States today has become a nation of prison houses.

How many Americans realize that the federal reserve deliberately jacks up interest rates in order to dampen growth so that there is a set pool of unemployed Americans. You can clog up the borders all you want and the result will be the same. How many Americans are aware that we have through the IMF and weapons sales we have deliberately dismantled the Latin American economy so that our corporations can have their primary resources dirt cheap even if it results in massive unemployment in places like Mexico. Minority bashing doesn’t solve either problem. It certainly doesn’t solve anything to lock up a family that wasn’t even trying to enter the States.

How can any American say this is MY country?  Do you have a bill of sale saying you own the entire nation?  I’m sorry, I feel we live on part of God’s green earth.  In America, we just happen to be lucky to have a lot of natural resources.  If we don’t want to share with the maximum number of people from other countries, we should, for one, remove the poem from the Statue of Liberty.  Another thing we could do would be to stop spending billions of dollars on this war; we could feed much of the world’s population instead.  When we go up to the “Pearly Gates” will God say “Did you own an IPOD, a computer, etc., and turn away people looking for food?”  Think about it.

In 2004 the registered Democrats had an alternative to the manaic in the White House but instead they chose John Kerry, who like George Bush supported the war and voted for the Patriot Act.

The Dems certainly could have chosen someone more progressive but they got so caught up in winning the election that they only wanted any anti-Bush that could win.  Will they do the same thing in 2008?  I certainly don’t hear Hillary or Bill, or even Obama speaking about this travesty of justice.

The point is, if people want REAL change they’re just gonna have to vote for it and DEMAND that if those elected don’t do what they say they will do, then, if those polticians don’t follow through, they get recalled a la Gray Davis.

Per the immigration issue:  The ruling classes in Mexico and the U.S. have it worked out so that Mexico avoids a revolution by sticking a sign in the road pointing it’s poor people North and the U.S. big-business sector saves money and gets rid of the middle-class by importing cheap labor and destroying our infrastructure per overpopulation.  Liberals fall right into the game unwhittingly by supporting multiculturalism which guarantees the immigrants won’t become self-sufficient. (by their never-ending support of “Language Rights” thus ensuring the immigrants don’t learn the language of the land)

Add to this the racist diatrabe of nativist Americans on one end “These people are breaking the law by coming in here” and on the other end the racist diatribe of the La Raza contingent “We’re going to outbreed you and there isn’t anything you can do about it” and what we see is the perfect storm.  What better example of the success of the “Divide and Conquer” mentality do we need than what we see in America?

So, in effect, because I want to have a better life for myself and my family, breaking the law is acceptable.  Therefore, I should be allowed to rob a bank, thereby depriving “Corporate America” of its ill gotten gains and redistributing said wealth to my in need family.  I will be assuring myself a stable financial future, medical care for my wife and kids, and said kids will now have the opportunity to go to college.  All this seems great and grand to me, but I don’t hear too many liberal voices clamoring to declare bank robbing simply the pursuit of happiness and the American dream instead of a crime.  Because that is what I see illegal immigration as, a crime.  Never mind the federal laws against it, and frankly, I could care less about the jobs those people take.  I see it as the outright theft of my hard earned (and generally misspent) tax dollars in all forms of social and medical care for people who have no right to them in the first place.  Period.  End of story.  Full stop.  They are here ILLEGALLY!!! 

People (liberals, for the most part) jump on corporate America for taking advantage of illegal labor.  Has anyone ever wondered about the labor laws as applied to illegal immigrants in “Sanctuary Cities?”  Now, who better to take advantage of illegal immigrants than a town that says “OK, we will let you stay here, and we will trump federal law and thumb our noses at the government, but here is what we want you to do for us…..”  Anybody ever consider this?  Even a passing thought?

In 1960, for the Thanksgiving weekend, Edward R. Murrow produced his final special documentary for CBS, titled “Harvest of Shame”. This amazing documentary was an expose of the incredibly shameful abuse of migrant workers in the US at that time. Little has changed in the ensuing years. This country has a long history of taking advantage of the weak under-classes, who cannot defend themselves, i.e. the people who do the real work in this country, while the wealthy continue to accrue wealth just because they can.

And as per SOP, this president is defending the pro-business greedfest in all things. Regarding our (illegal) huddled masses, the following is an indictment of the myopically pro-business immigration policies of the current president, as written by Lou Dobbs…

”  The Bush administration in its first four years was responsible for 318 fines against employers who hired illegal workers, an average of fewer than 80 each year. That’s down from 5,587 fines against illegal employers during the eight years of the Clinton administration, according to the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus, an average of 698 each year. And the problem is getting worse; in 2004 only three employers received fines for illegal hiring.

  Work site arrests have fallen even more drastically under this president. From 1995 to 1998, there were between 10,000 and 18,000 work site arrests of illegal aliens each year. But during the Bush administration, work site arrests fell to just 159 in 2004.

  Apprehensions along the border averaged 1.05 million from fiscal year 2001 to 2004, according to the independent, progressive group Third Way, down from 1.52 million from 1996 to 2000. Border apprehensions have plummeted more than 30 percent, despite a doubling in the number of Border Patrol agents over the past decade and the rising number of attempted crossings.”

As usual, this president gives business a blank check to do as they please, while punishing the poor aliens who come to this country illegally, who are guilty only of responding to opportunities that are clearly provided in the most part by businesses and wealthy individuals, who are the cause of the “problem”. The illegal aliens are an effect, not a cause. The primary law breakers here are the people who hire illegal immigrants, so that they can get good work from honest, hard working people whom they commonly victimize with low pay and long hours. And these primary law breakers get a free pass from the current president.

The bottom line is this, the economies of the southwest in the USA would collapse without the illegal work force. It’s all about greed, nothing more, and the illegal aliens who come into this country looking for a better life are easy prey for the greedy. And now they’ve figured out how to squeeze even more out of them, by imprisoning them and their families, indefinitely, and for very hefty profits! Waddacountry!

Looks to me like this is just another case of win-win for the United States of Corporate America.  Well, either they get them as dirt cheap labor OR they get to charge all Americans for their superfulous internment.  It’s the scuzzy, scum sucking, money-grubbing corporations who revel in their propensity of absolute debauchery that endorses this type of action. 

KEEPING CHILDREN “DETAINED” FOR SOMETHING THEIR PARENTS HAVEN’T EVEN DONE IS PREPOSTEROUS!

How dare “Find out who you’re helping” (#55837) impune the integrity of Amy Goodman. There are few news people in the world with her integrity, intelligence, compassion and might I add, tenacity. She is a one of a kind!

I heard her burn Bill Clinton on her radio show, when he called in and attempted to use the show as a PR springboard for Al Gore’s presidential bid in 2000. She never once pulled her punches, and she went for the jugular on Clinton’s record. When she was done, Clinton angrily admonished her, but she never EVER backed down. When it was done, I believe that Clinton warned her that based on her treatment, and lack of respect for him, she’d never get another interview…thinking of course, that she cared, which she didn’t! She commented afterwards that she never had pursued an interview, and that it was only Clinton’s people who had insisted that she have him on. She said there’d be no rules, and she meant it. I’ve never been more proud of an American journalist than I was when I heard that interview!

She is a reporter who has placed her life on the line more than once, but most notably in 1991 in East Timor, when American backed and armed Indonesian troops opened fire on unarmed men, women and children who were peacefully protesting. When it became obvious that the soldiers approaching weren’t going to stop, and would open fire (or had begun to fire), Amy and her associate put themselves in-between the soldiers and the protesters! She was knocked to the ground by a soldier, and her associate, Alan Nairn threw himself on top of her trying to protect her. He was severely beaten in the process, suffering a skull fracture (among other injuries) after the Indonesian soldiers beat him with their American made rifles, baseball bat style!

So, “Find out who you’re helping”, find out who you’re helping by attacking Amy Goodman, while she’s attempting to defend the human rights of children and adults who are being imprisoned because they have tried to immigrate to this, the Land of the Home, Free of the Brave! My god, to defend the incarceration of children, talk about drinking the kool-aid! That facility in Texas is a for-profit prison facility, and their treatment of children is beyond scandalous, it’s downright criminal. In Texas it’s a common saying that this or that person should be horsewhipped when they do wrong. That saying applies to the miscreants running that lovely facility.

And finally, and slightly off-topic…Oh My God, it’s a War on Abstract Nouns! Terror’s the worst of em all! Americans don’t realize how dangerous nouns are! As our illustrious Vice Penguin Dicky Chainsaw says, they must be DESTROYED! Nouns hate us for our freedom! And abstract nouns, they’re the worst of em all!!!! Gotta torture them abstracts, to figure out what all them other nouns are doing to try to kill us all! If we have to send them abstracts to other countries to get gooder intel, at least we’ve got proper-like assurances that they’ll only torture them a little (wink wink, nudge nudge). A little waterboarding and electrocution via their genitalia never hurt no damn words before! There sure are a lot of words out there…nouns only being one type…and they’re all dangerous!

Ambrose Bierce once said, “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography”. Pithy. Some Americans actually know where Iraq is now. Pretty soon they might even figure out where Iran is!

We citizens over 50 have lost the United States of America. The values we learned in school about citizenship, fair and humane treatment of the poorest & needy among us and the rule of Law over the rule of man is destroyed. Hubris, contempt, greed and main stream media lies have become the norm for our society. Politicians do not listen to the people they try to subjugate us now.

It is truly with great sadness witnessing the lost and deliberate manipulative destruction of a once great nation.

Once we cared for the needy now we lock them away. Once we help the infirm and now they are left to die in hurricanes without help or chance of rescue. . . and all this can be directed towards the Bush Regime and its neo-con fascist ideologies.

I commented on this before, but I’m not finished yet. Bush and his open borders/NAFTA carryover/North American Union crap etc. have made a wreck of the US immigration system, for all intents and purposes he may as well be standing on the border itself selling fake ID for 3 bucks a pop.

Runaway growth is what’s made a mess of a lot of other countries, I think they should put a temporary moratorium on ALL immigration until the situation can be better analyzed and a workable
and a sustainable 21st century methodology developed. Simply caving in to the demands of business for neverending visas and so forth is
quite likely a foolhardy practice that promises
to undermine local economies by introducing too many people too rapidly in job markets that are already tightening. Balance is key, other ‘developing nations’ need to step up and develop a damn sight faster than they’ve previously shown inclination to do, and if that means threatening to cut them off completely from our economy in order to achieve it, then that’s the step that needs to be taken.

There’s 6.7 billion people in the world, throwing the gates open wide as some would do will see our country rapidly join the other two trillion-plus citizen countries, India and China, so we will then enjoy similar ‘benefits’ like national food INsecurity and worsening lack of healthcare and farmers offing themselves out of hopeless frustration. Water tables already have problems in many states, so maybe it’s time to say ‘take a break, everybody, let’s think on this really really really hard before we F999 it up’.

When the Irish were coming to America, there was no social security, you did not automatacly go to a hospital when you were sick.

Even in Postwar America there was no free dental, and if you lived in the country not even a way to get to a low cost dentist.

Of course in the 19th and early 20th century, labor was wanted, the Irish help build the Erie cannel.

When the Johnstown Flood happened no one paid for the death of the people, the rich just got another country club elswhere.

Getting back to jailing children in jails is going to be like a snake lying on the ground and the practice just might up and bite you.

Georgie Boy is from Texas, and I wonder if he has stock in the states private jail system.

Margaret from Vancouver, Washington

#55856 suggests an unthinking brand of “compassion” which would allow countries like Mexico to literally walk all over us. She’s also invented her own, un-Constitutional definition of citizenship. And, she falsely claims that I claimed I wanted to “close the borders”, pulling a false choice out of thin air.

#55863 is helping the forces he rails against.

I’m quite familiar with those who promote open borders, and I can assure you they’ll do anything. See, for instance, ElviraArellano where her son is used as a prop, even by Mexican politicians. And, one NoCal group is even claiming that immigration raids lead to domestic abuse. Perhaps if the Amy Goodmans of this world didn’t support ludicrous and/or despicable attempts like that they might find more traction for their complaints about these detention centers. If you don’t understand that, write it on a notepad and go stare at it until you do.

During the Vietnam War, protestors were locked up in institutions and treated cruelly. What is happening now is nothing new. Families have been torn apart since the beginning of this country..some of my ancestors were put in detention camps when trying to enter the US and released in the dead of winter. Native Americans have been suffering from genocide since the first Europeans came here. It is good that Amy is bringing current situations to light. We should all be screaming. The injustices should not be happening and we should focus on ways to stop the inhumanities in our own country instead of trying to police the world.

“This shameful practice of locking up children is bad enough. What’s worse is that it is being done for profit, by the Corrections Corporation of America. CCA is the largest publicly traded private prison operator in the U.S. CCA has close to 70 facilities scattered across the country, recent earnings of $1.33 billion and a gain in its stock-share price of 85 percent in the past year. Industry analysts gush at the profit potential promised by private prisons. Their commodity: human beings.”

We could go on for a month or more documenting all the bad things visited on our society by “PRIVATIZATION,” and we could also offer ample documentation to back up the bad results of those bad things.

We could, and probably should, but no matter what we do there will always be the blind and prejudiced and self-serving who see bad only when it touches them.

I guess we could say this personality defect is to be expected when you live in a nation being governed by an administration that thumps itself on the chest spouting “compassionate conservatism.”

“Compassion is a sense of shared suffering, most often combined with a desire to alleviate or reduce such suffering; to show special kindness to those who suffer. Thus compassion is essentially empathy, though with a more active slant in that the compassionate person will seek to actually aid those they feel compassionate for.”

So the question has to be asked, does compassion suffer from it’s association with conservatism? Is today’s version of conservatism actually cruelty and indifference, with a profit motive?

Kevin and his parents are not emigrants to the United States. Believe it or not, not everyone wants to be here! Kevin and his parents are victims of a stupid government official, stupid custom agents, a stupid government policy and now stupid citizens,  who are completely incapable of grasping the difference between getting trapped by accident on U.S. soil and the desperate who illegally cross over.

What are these folks really worried about, there stock in CCA dropping?

Kevin just wants to be free ... in Canada.

It’s not Amy’s policy to weaken immigration, it’s big business’ under lil Georgie.

Do I feel empathy for the illegal immigrants, Yes. But I also see that by being blind to the over-abuse of illegals coming to My country threatens My existence. They are call Illegal immigrants. Illegal means outlaw. Why do bleeding hearts not see the problem is with the country of Mexico, not the United States. We are not the one’s responsible for the horrid conditions of the corrupt government of Mexico.Jail time for employers hiring Illegal immigrants is part of the big fix. Throwing American workers out because Illegals will work cheaper is a crime, also. Americans should boycott everything from Mexico and demand congress address the problem of Illegal immigration.

“Find out who you’re helping” comment #55837 typifies individuals so blinded by racist, anti-immigrant ideology that they cannot see the forest for the trees. 

The family described in Ms. Goodman’s article are not immigrants to the U.S.—legal or illegal.  They were passengers on a plane bound for Canada—refugees seeking asylum from a nation (Iran) where they would likely face torture if they return.  They, like so many others, have been swept up by a government of hypocrites that wants to appear tough on illegal immigration at the same time that it intentionally pursues neoliberal policies which have allowed heavily subsidized agricultural conglomerates (Big Ag) to dump agricultural products into Mexico at prices that are well below the cost of production for the small Mexican farmer.  The result has been a massive migration from the farms to Mexican cities where an over-abundance of labor enhances the ability of multi-national corporations to keep wages at below poverty levels.  It has also produced a massive northward migration where Big Ag utilizes illegal status as a means to employ these economic refugees for a pittance, while others are rounded up and placed in private prisons, swelling the profits of corporate CEOs at the expense of the same middle and working class American taxpayers who have been subsidizing Big Ag so as to enable this entire neoliberal scheme.

By playing to racism, America’s wealthy right-wing elites have successful diverted the anguish of Americans who have lost jobs to outsourcing.  “Find out who you’re helping” would do well to read Jeff Faux’s ““The Global Class War.”  Perhaps then, he or she would begin to understand that the people he bashes as “illegal immigrants” are not the enemy.  They are fellow victims of neoliberal policies embodied in NAFTA and the WTO which are designed to enrich a select few at the expense of the many.

Find out who you’re helping:

That the “open borders” are for the use of our government to reduce the labor force, eleminate the middle class and to serve employers who profit from this slave labor without ever going into “detention” seems to be ignored by “Find out who you’re helping.”

Amy Goodman is one of the best American journalists, her probity and honesty are an example for those who are less dedicated to their profession and there are many.

Those who are confortable with imprisioning children would do well to be careful…Who will be next?

I think that’s about flat stupid. They’ve been (deliberately?) mishandling immigration for about the last 20 years or so, and anymore I wouldn’t
put it past em to rig a high-profile screwup like this to garner public support. The sooner this administration and their lackeys and hangers-on are out the door, the better. Good riddance.

This is of course a sad story and considering the number of illegal entries into this country and the fact that they are overwhelming the nations own culture, the answer is not easy. A holding camp that is more civilian, instead of putting people in buildings built to handle criminals would take some of the sting out of containment while the legal process decides what to do in each case.

We can not hold all the excess population of the world. The country is being overwhelmed and that from south of the border is getting hostile, as the illegals are encouraged to believe that they have unchallenged claim to move into the country.

Many Americans, perhaps most Americans want to be fair, but we do not have to let immigration destroy the country and overwhelm the resources. We no longer have unlimited room. It is time for the leadership of other countries to deal with their own problems.

The Comment by #55837 is an example of what is so wrong with the U.S. today. Hate, fear, ignorance and hubris have replaced compassion, understanding, wisdom and humility among our masses and in our government. #55837 ignores the issue of mistreated, innocent children and tries to make the story about the author. It’s easier to criticize a person rather than a philosophy, especially if you have no real facts or knowledge to back up your silly claims.

Unless #55837 is a native American, his only claim to being a “valid” American citizen, and his only justification for wanting to “close our borders,” is the fact that his ancestors won the prize for stealing land and claiming rights early on, and he doesn’t want to share that opportunity with anyone else. Hang the children, I’m an American, right #55837?

The “hucksters” are you xenophobic a$$holes who think “white and right make might.”  Take a look at your lily-white a$$ in the mirror every morning because it will be the last one you’ll see in your family tree.  Your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will get browner and browner in skin tone.  And with the passage of enough years, they may even admit that they once had a racist ancestor and laugh about your ignorance.  The best thing about evolution is that it culls the destructive genes from the human race.

The two, broad issues raised in Ms. Goodman’s column are valid. Indeed, as someone else wrote on another site this morning, if the Statue of Liberty weren’t bolted to her base, she would be walking away.

First, the process by which the United States deals with immigrants is broken and a disgrace. For “the land of the free” to be locking up families and children who, the vast majority of whom only want to find a better life, is curel and inhuman punishment. Moreover, under what possible basis can the US justify detaining people who stepped onto its shores by accident with no intention or desire of staying (as was the case in the example Ms. Goodman used)? Oh, wait. This is the same government that illegally kidnapped Mahar Arar while he was changing planes in New York en route to his home in Canada and sent him off to Syria to be tortured. When he was freed, finally, an independent commission exhonorated him of any connection to terrorism and the Canadian government ended up paying him a paltry $9-million for his torment.

Second, for the United States—America, for Pete’s sake!—to incarcerate children and let them languish in a prison, receiving one hour of school and one hour of recreation, is criminal. If an American citizen were found doing that to their child, social services would whisk the youngster away for its own protection and the parents would be led away in handcuffs. And some folks wonder why the US has become hated around the world and how terrorists are created.

Finally, the wealth of a society must be judged by how it treats the poorest of its people. This is just one more sad example of how morally and spiritually poor America has become.

Every day and in every way my native land embarasses and shames me more and more.

Yet another example of broken borders and broken governments.

Why don’t countries willing to offer asylum to those who have been tortured and oppressed pool their resources? That way these folks could have simply made their way to the nearest friendly government and they could have received help on the spot. That would require cooperation, you say? Well, yeah, there is that.

Regarding who’s running these prisons, I’d want to take a seriously close look at this whole privatization of government services issue. Personally, I don’t want Prisons ‘R’ Us running our prisons, Haliburton servicing our troops, or the lowest bidder handling our nation’s air traffic control. Our government should provide services to our citizens with federal employees and we citizens should hold their feet to the fire until they figure out how to do that.

If we do not fix our highly porous borders, the massive influx of illegal aliens will eventually fix it for us. The United States will become a third world country with a huge percentage of its population living in poverty and no one will want to come here then.

I’m an ultra liberal conservative. I have no problem at all with government building roads and bridges, patrolling our borders, or providing care for our less fortunate. Heck, I wouldn’t even have a problem if our government privatized property insurance and offered it directly to all citizens…think about that, New Orleans. Think about that, State Farm. I’m even willing to pay higher taxes. Much higher taxes. However, I demand government and government services be done right and I insist you don’t trash the Bill of Rights in the process.

I have as much a problem with open borders and our willingness to “leave the light on for you” as I do our almost fascist heavy handed approach to botched immigration policy.

america killing the world. so lets kill america

What a wonderful world it would be if Amy Goodman ran everything. She could open all the detention centers, letting everyone go free. And, she could open the borders and let just anyone who has a fancy traipse across the border.

Of course, in the real world the quoted official is probably close to the truth. This is probably just another in a long line of attempts to weaken our immigration laws and achieve something close to open borders. Based on past actions and statements, I trust Goodman’s sources even less than I trust the DHS.

If you really want to prevent what you say is happening and you want people to care about this issue, I’d suggest you stop supporting illegal immigration. Perhaps then there’d be more resources for refugees and those on Goodman’s side would look less like hucksters.