Immigration -- Political Fences

March 7, 2008

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Ali Frick, and Benjamin Armbruster

IMMIGRATION

Political Fences

As the presidential election season gets under way, the issue of immigration is once again heating up -- as are right-wing efforts. This past week, conservative senators introduced a package of punitive immigration measures, an effort to "put pressure on the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates to take a tougher stance on immigration." Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has already abandoned his efforts at comprehensive immigration reform in order to appease this constituency. Whoever the next president will be, he or she will also inherit the Bush administration's "fence to nowhere" -- a barrier between the U.S. and Mexico meant to appease the right wing -- and a horribly mismanaged federal immigration agency notorious for politically-motivated raids and an inexcusable backlog in citizenship applications.

RIGHT-WING POSTURING: On Wednesday, a dozen conservative senators introduced 15 hard-right immigration measures, including ones that would require jail time for undocumented immigrants "caught crossing the border, make it harder for them to open bank accounts and compel them to communicate in English when dealing with federal agencies." This package of bills poses a challenge for McCain, who previously led the push for comprehensive immigration reform, but has since switched positions. "I think they're basically handcuffing the Republicans' presidential nominee," said William Frey of the Brookings Institution. "He's either going to have to denounce these people, which he's not likely to do, or it's going to keep him from moving a little bit toward the center." In fact, McCain is likely to choose a third path: skip the votes entirely. Earlier this week, The Hill reported that McCain plans to "steer far away from his day job" in order to avoid "politically sensitive votes." Campaign adviser Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) confirmed that voting in the Senate is not "a high priority" for McCain, who has already missed at least 57 percent of the votes this session.

BORDERING ON A VIRTUAL DISASTER: One of the right wing's favorite "solutions" to undocumented immigration is the border fence between the United States and Mexico. On March 14, 2007, McCain lamented that undocumented immigrants were able to cross into Arizona because his state did not "have the fences and the barriers that they have in California and Texas." But both the actual and "virtual" border fences are a mess. In October 2006, Bush authorized the construction of a 700-mile fence at the U.S.-Mexico border. Now, however, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) construction plans are facing opposition from Texans who object to the fence cutting through their property. U.S. attorneys acting on behalf of the Bush administration have resorted to filing lawsuits against resisting landowners. Conveniently, the border fence in one small town would "abruptly end" at the property owned by Dallas billionaire Ray L. Hunt, who was a Bush-Cheney campaign "Pioneer" in 2000 and "donated $35 million to Southern Methodist University to help build Bush's presidential library." Meanwhile, the virtual fence -- a "sophisticated mix of radar, satellites, sensors and computers" -- is plagued by cost overruns and delays. According to the Arizona Republic, "The $20 million project was such a shambles that the government gave Boeing another $65 million in December to fix the glitches." The first phase was supposed be completed by the end of 2008, but will now take another three years. Last month, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff declared this project a success.

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND INSECURITY: Yesterday, Bush and top DHS officials celebrated the five-year anniversary of the agency. The mismanagement of the border fence, however, is just the tip of the agency's abysmal record on immigration and emblematic of larger problems. (Of course, none of these details were mentioned in yesterday's festivities.) Center for American Progress Senior Fellow P.J. Crowley called the failure of the virtual fence "inevitable," the result of "an unrealistic and heavily politicized policy imperative...and poor management by the federal government's least experienced bureaucracy." In the past five years, the number of undocumented immigrants has risen, as have the number of deportations and arrests at work sites. After Tam Tran, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, was featured in an October 2007 USA Today article and testified before a House committee on immigration, federal officers forcibly arrested her family in the middle of the night. Tran's family was detained on a "years-old deportation order," even though they have been in regular communication with immigration officials for almost 20 years since arriving in the United States. This week at a House hearing, Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) noted that children at immigrant detention facilities have reportedly been "put in cells alone for hours, awakened in the middle of the night with flashlights in their faces and threatened with being permanently separated from their parents." Chertoff, however, defended these raids and detentions. Despite anticipating a significant uptick in applications, DHS officials did nothing to increase staffing to meet the demand. Immigrants are also now suing DHS after being forced to wait for years with little or no information about the status of their citizenship applications.

ECONOMY -- FEBRUARY SEES UNEXPECTED NATIONAL JOB LOSS OF 63,000: This morning the Labor Department announced that the United States had lost 63,000 jobs in February, "the biggest drop since March 2003" and a follow-up to January's 22,000-job loss. Though the jobless rate fell slightly to 4.8 percent, it "reflect[ed] a shrinking labor force as some people gave up looking for work." "We're in a recession. I don't think there is any doubt about it at this point," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight Inc. The news followed reports yesterday that U.S. home foreclosures rose to record highs in the forth quarter, and that homeowner equity reached its lowest point since 1945. Currently, 50 percent of Americans are worried about maintaining their standard of living. Paul Krugman commented that "it's a very good guess that we will eventually be told that the second recession of the Bush administration began in December 2007 or January 2008."

NATIONAL SECURITY -- CANADA REJECTS EVIDENCE CIA OBTAINED THROUGH WATERBOARDING: The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) "quietly withdrew statements by alleged Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah from public papers outlining the case against two alleged terror 'sleeper' operatives in Ottawa and Montreal" because the information gleaned from Zubaydah was a result of him being waterboarded. Newsweek reports that a dossier filed for one of the suspects once referred to information gathered by the CIA from Zubaydah linking the suspect to al Qaeda operations. However, a revised version of the dossier omits the CIA evidence and instead relies on public documents to make the link -- "the latest sign of potential international fallout from the CIA's recent confirmation that it waterboarded a handful of high-profile Al Qaeda suspects in 2002 and 2003." A CSIS spokesman said the spy agency's director "has stated publicly that torture is morally repugnant and not particularly reliable. CSIS does not knowingly use information which has been obtained through torture."

IRAQ -- PERINO: 'DON'T KNOW' IF WHITE HOUSE WILL SEEK CONGRESS' APPROVAL FOR PERMANENT OCCUPATION: Earlier this week, State Dept. Coordinator for Iraq David Satterfield refused to say whether it was "a constitutional requirement" for the administration to "consult with Congress" on a long-term agreement with Iraq. Yesterday morning on Fox News, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino echoed Satterfield, saying that "we don't know" whether Congress has any constitutional role in authorizing such treating. In reality, the administration does know it will bypass Congress. In a follow-up letter to Satterfield's testimony obtained by The Progress Report, Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Bergner said the President does have "constitutional authority" to "continue combat operations" in Iraq without Congress's authorization. As justification, Bergner cited the 2002 authorization of force against Saddam Hussein and the resolution passed after 9/11. In defending the executive agreement, Perino cited "the long-term relationship we have with countries Japan and Germany and South Korea." Of course, these "strategic framework agreements" were approved by Congress first, as Oona Hathway of Yale Law School noted.

A new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is scheduled to be completed this month. But intelligence officials "have not decided whether to make its key judgments public" and "lean toward a return to the traditional practice of keeping such documents secret."

"A House committee will question three Wall Street executives later today over compensation awards reaching hundreds of millions of dollars while shareholders bear the brunt of billions in writedowns from subprime mortgages."

Alleging that the White House "made apparently false and misleading statements in court about the White House e-mail controversy," CREW asked a federal judge yesterday "to demand an explanation" about "testimony at a congressional hearing last week" that is inconsistent with "what the White House told a federal court in January."

In a new book, former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias says that a former protege of President Bush told him that he was fired for political reasons. "Iglesias recalls Texas U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton telling him shortly after he was ousted. 'If I were you, I'd just go quietly.'"

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) recently introduced an earmark moratorium bill, but House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) says Kingston "privately told him he was in favor of earmarks." "You know, David, I am really for earmarks," Obey said Kingston told him. Kingston confirmed the conversation.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) signaled yesterday "that she is ready to fall back on the strategy of 'ping-ponging' alternatives" on the FISA bill between the House and the Senate. The two chambers have been unable to reach consensus on immunity for telecommunications companies.

U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker "plans to leave Baghdad as early as January," and retire from the foreign service, “not long after the top military commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, is expected to rotate out of Iraq."

And finally: On his recent visit to the White House, John McCain ditched an opportunity to enjoy fine gourmet and instead ate a hot dog. "[President Bush] said he was having a hot dog, so I had a hot dog," McCain said. The LA Times explains that a typical day for McCain "includes doughnuts in the morning, followed by an afternoon Coke-and-candy-bar snack."

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to beef up the Consumer Products Safety Commission, which "oversees the safety of consumer products after a spate of recalls involving imported products."

CALIFORNIA: State senator sponsors "package of bills intended to address California's most pressing firefighting and wildfire-protection needs."

ALABAMA: Birmingham approves "a $3.5 million plan to provide schoolchildren with 15,000 computers produced by the non-profit One Laptop Per Child Foundation."

ECONOMY: How much would a state earned income tax credit cost in 2009?

THINK PROGRESS: White House Press Secretary Dana Perino attacks Congress on wiretapping using a factually inaccurate slide.

ON THE PLANE: Reporters are no longer interested in traveling with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

SWAMPLAND: Viktor Bout, the notorious arms trafficker arrested yesterday, had received U.S. taxpayer money for logistics in Iraq.

"We don't know if this is going to result in something that Congress will need to approve or not."
-- White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, 3/6/08, on a long term Iraq agreement

VERSUS

DELAHUNT: It's the position of this Administration that they do not need to come before Congress to receive authorization?
SATTERFIELD: That's correct.
-- Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-MA) to Amb. David Satterfield, 3/4/08

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