Foster mom: "More girls arrive to us because their parents were detained by the ICE...

[Are_grits_groceries]

I am a mother, a foster mother, a host mother, and an emergency shelter mother. I am a mother. You know me as Cassie’s host mom for the last 17 months but I have been a mother for over twenty years to thirty-one girls. And now two young adult women. The girls who come to use are usually veterans of the foster care system and stay in our home from a month to three years. Our girls come in all sizes and all colors. Most were born in the United States but some were not. Some speak only English and some speak Spanish as well.

When my husband and I started in 1989 we expected that we would be caring for orphans and children of abuse. We met in the peace corps in Costa Rica and we both speak Spanish. We met war orphans from El Salvador and Nicaragua.

None of our Texas girls have been true orphans. Many have been abused, some have had parents in jail or in treatment centers, and a few have been the perpetrators of violence.

In the past few years since President Bush started detaining immigrants under homeland security laws we have had more girls arrive to us because their parents were detained by the ICE. Like all children in foster care, these girls want to be reunited with their family-by-blood, and they have a difficulty understanding why they are separated. Often they do not know for months if their parents are in detention or have been sent back to their native country.

Arizona’s new immigration law makes this worse and will cause more strife within families. My husband and I carry our temporary custodianship papers with us at all times but we do not always have citizenship papers for the girls in our family. Some do not have their documents and some do not have citizenship in the United States. Some are of undetermined legal status until their birth parent’s detention hearing is concluded.
<snip>
http://www.relaxedpolitics.com/?p=19204

"Often they do not know for months if their parents are in detention or have been sent back to their native country."

Imagine this horror for a child. "First do no harm" should be a guiding principal in a lot of areas.

We do need workable laws, but the way they are carried out is important. This is unconscionable. What if you were held in detention, and your kids had no idea about your status? I think that could eff them up pretty good for the rest of their lives.

[Taitertots]

1. They shouldn't be putting their children in that position in the first place

What is unconscionable is the parents causing that to happen to their children.

[Are_grits_groceries]

2. Never question the laws.

They are never the problem. Gah! Two wrongs don't make a right.

[Taitertots]

3. They have been questioned and that is not the problem

Where is the first wrong? Deporting people here illegally isn't the problem.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Cruelty is the problem. Inhumanity is the problem.

It often hides behind a convenience-based respect for the "Rule of Law".

--d!

[Taitertots]

11. Do you think Mexico is really that bad?

That being sent back is "Inhumanity".

Do you think Mexico is so bad that being denied unlimited access to the United States is Cruelty?

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. When it means you are separated from your family, yes.

[Taitertots]

16. They shouldn't have done it to themselves

Everyone who goes to jail is separated from their family, and thats much worse than going to Mexico. Should we let all them out too because how inhumane it is to separate them?

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. Your family can visit you in jail

Being deported is like a death because you can't see your family.

And FYI, many who are deported don't get sent back to Mexico, since they are not from Mexico. There are several other countries south of the border, you know. :eyes:

[Unvanguard]

24. Undocumented workers, by virtue of not having papers, are not threats to society

and thus do not need to be forcibly separated from it.

[Taitertots]

39. There are lots of reasons to forcibly separate people from society

Most all of them don't rise to the level of "Threats to society".

They should be separated because they are not following the rules of our society.

[Unvanguard]

42. No, actually pretty much all of them do.

Because--except, apparently, when it comes to "illegal" immigrants--we recognize that liberty should not be deprived of people except for the most compelling reasons.

[Taitertots]

43. No, almost none are "threats to society"

The compelling reason to remove people from society is their refusal to follow the rules that the society agreed on.

[Unvanguard]

44. ..and for rule-breaking that does not actually constitute much of a social threat

we generally refrain from forcibly separating people from society. And when we don't, it's a grave injustice.

Further complicating the application of this principle to undocumented workers is that we are no longer speaking of the rules "society" agreed on: we are talking about the rules some people agreed on that are forcibly imposed upon other people who have had no say, who, indeed, have been legally denied the rights of political participation. This is not law, it is just force, and it has no legitimacy.

[Taitertots]

45. We agreed on those laws through our representative democracy

People who live in other countries don't get a right to participate.

So which other laws have you unilaterally decided have no legitimacy? Are all laws "the rules some people agreed on that are forcibly imposed upon other people who have had no say" or just the ones you don't like?

[Unvanguard]

46. They don't live in other countries anymore. They live here now.

So that excuse isn't going to do. If "we" is the full set of people who are part of our society, the people who the laws bind and can be enforced against (conditions not met by people elsewhere), then as long as eleven million people in our society are denied rights of political participation, or any legal access to such rights, "we" didn't agree on those laws at all: like I said, some of us did, and our representatives impose them on those that didn't.

To defend deportation is to defend the right of one group of people to classify another group of people in society as "illegal", and to forcibly expel them merely for being. There is no justice in that.

I find it amusing that in the very process of attempting to characterize my attitude as arbitrary, you quote the very standard that makes it non-arbitrary.

[Taitertots]

47. They weren't here when we decided that we didn't want them here

Coming here uninvited doesn't entitle them to retroactively rewrite our laws as they see fit. They don't have the rights to political participation because they don't have a right to be here in the first place. Our society decided to limit immigration long before they came here against our wishes.


They are not being expelled merely for being. They are being expelled for violating our sovereign rights to decide our own laws. They are being expelled for refusing to accept the constraints of the society they are trying to enter.


If I put a tent in your backyard, you are probably going to have the police show up and I would be forcibly removed. Are you forcibly expelling me merely for being? Should I get retroactive rights to your stuff and retroactive rights to decide how you run your household?

[Unvanguard]

48. That's beside the point. "We" is an inherently dynamic entity.

Ownership can be a helpful way to think about these issues, but the analogy does not go all the way, because it does not have this kind of dynamism. Your putting a tent in my backyard has nothing to do with whether or not you have a right to my backyard. But mere participation in society is precisely what gives us political rights and standing. It's not something we earn, it's not something we get as a privilege: it's something we are entitled to just by virtue of being, just by virtue of the fact that we are people with rights who should not be ruled by other people against our will.

We recognize this dynamism already in our law, though only imperfectly. If a baby is born in my backyard, at least if the baby isn't mine I have no obligation to let the baby remain there. But we do assign citizenship by birth, as a matter of constitutional right: we don't let current citizens have total control over who does and does not get to become one. Citizenship, and the political community citizens govern, is not a backyard. It is not something that is owned by present citizens, to be offered at our discretion to the people we generously decide deserve it: it belongs by right to whoever, now or in the future, happens to be part of our society. Otherwise we do not have a democracy or a republic, but instead only a caste society. It is no accident that the Fourteenth Amendment, with its broad guarantee of citizenship, was passed in response to slavery and the legal theories that legitimated it.

Edit: As far as I am concerned, the issue here is not even immigration. We can argue about whether or not more or less immigration is a good thing. But we need to recognize that once people are here, once they have established themselves here, often for years, it is no longer a question of controlling the influx of labor and instead is a question of basic civic equality: do we believe that some people have the right to deny others basic rights, or not? Border control is one thing; raids and deportations, family disruption and social uprooting, is quite another.

[Taitertots]

49. Your position is unreasonable

People who violate our laws to get here have no right to be here. They have no right to retroactively change our laws or decide which ones do and don't apply to them.

We decide who we allow into our society. They are not welcome to join without following our laws. So they are not part of our society. "We" is a dynamic entity. That doesn't mean that "we" becomes anyone who invades our country and stays for a while. Who we are changes as we change who we let into our society. It doesn't change at the whims of outsiders. Especially not outsiders who refuse to follow the laws of our society.

[Are_grits_groceries]

51. Meh!

Deal in reality. You can define terms all you want. That doesn't change really dealing with the situation in a manner that will be effective in controlling illegal immigration.

You now have law enforcement looking for suspicious people based on reasonable doubt. Gah! What a waste. You will waste money on detention and deportation while not stemming the flow much.

[Unvanguard]

57. You're just repeating yourself at this point.

People who violate our immigration laws, arguably, have no right to cross the border in the first place. This doesn't inherently have any implications for how we can treat them once they are here, though. The fact that they engage in objectionable behavior does not mean that they are persons without rights.

It isn't a question of "retroactively" changing our laws, it's a question of whether our present laws can be presently enforced against people who are here already, who have been here already for a long time, who in every material sense are as much a part of our society as anyone else. To recognize that we cannot, that people who are already here cannot be made to leave, does not change anything about who is allowed to come: at most, it changes an aspect of our enforcement strategy, and a particularly cruel, unfair, and ineffective aspect of our enforcement strategy at that.

You're right, "we" does not change at the whims of outsiders. But undocumented immigrants are not outsiders. The fact that they do not have a piece of paper does not change this fact. Outsiders and insiders are not matters of political fiat, but of material fact: to practice otherwise is to legitimate institutionalized inequality, to say that someone can decide which people deserve rights and which don't.

Look, we live in a country with eleven million people who have no legal status: they are our neighbors, our friends, sometimes our family. They live beside us, they work beside us, their children--some of whom are citizens, some of whom are undocumented too--grow up in the same American culture that ours do. Depending on where you live, you may know a few, though you may not know that you do. And yet somehow it is supposed to be an open question whether these eleven million people are all to be thrown out, or given some capacity to stay? What does that make of our promise of equality, or even of humaneness, if we are willing to say that eleven million people who live beside us can be thrown out because some other people don't want them here?

You call my position unreasonable. I do not think that is apt. It is only the strong form of a position that has been advanced by all the cities that have become sanctuary cities, by all the people who recognize that real immigration reform, with or without better border enforcement, must provide a path to citizenship, and, indeed, by ICE itself, which knows better than to believe it can or should deport every last undocumented immigrant here, and focuses on particular kinds (like undocumented criminals) in recognition of that fact. We are, practically speaking, not going to deport eleven million people, and even if we could it would be morally horrific to actually do: the stories that inspired this thread would be multiplied by orders of magnitude.

[Taitertots]

59. We are going to have to agree to disagree because we are at an impasse

I don't believe that uninvited invaders become part of our society simply by being here. They only become part of our society when they follow our laws and legally immigrate. Essentially you are saying that our laws don't apply to them. Worse yet that we should reward them for violating our laws.

You believe we shouldn't enforce our laws because it would be inconvenient. To call it morally horrific is hyperbole and meaningless to the topic. They are merely getting the obvious results of their criminal behavior. You are acting as if we should only enforce our laws when it doesn't separate a family or make you unhappy.

[Unvanguard]

61. It is astounding that you think ripping eleven million people from their communities

and forcibly shipping them elsewhere is merely "inconvenient."

You're right: if that's your view, we are at an impasse. I have nothing more to say.

[olegramps]

53. It would seem to me that the biggest threat is those who illegally hire them?

[Are_grits_groceries]

54. A lot are hired by big companies.

That is one reason reform has been so slow. They pressure lawmakers on one hand to slow down. The lawmakers also refuse to put major penalities in place to punish these companies. If they pay fines, they are miniscule.

[treestar]

26. It is not necessary to detain them and separate their minor children from them

during the process.

[Are_grits_groceries]

13. Of course not.

They just pay coyotes a lot of money to travel across the desert with no guarantee of anything. Then if they do get here, they have to hide and constantly watch their backs. They may also end up in ICE's detention centers where they are detained for some unknown amount of time. They do it for shits and giggles.

Of course they will be better prepared if they are chosen for "The Amazing Race." :sarcasm:

[Unvanguard]

14. Being forcibly extracted from your community, imprisoned, and then shipped back to Mexico is, yes

especially if you've been here for a very long time, as many "illegal" immigrants have. There is an important difference between being prevented from entering at the border--more defensible, though in my view probably still wrong--and having the contours of your life--your friends, your family, your job, everything--entirely disrupted by force because you lack a piece of paper.

What if it happened to you?

[MyNameGoesHere]

18. You really want to go to the first wrong?

Ok how about invading a country and annexing it. See there ya go. It was those crazy ass Americans fault that invaded Mexico.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War


So where is the first wrong? Fuck borders, I am not a cow thayt needs a fecnce are you?

[Taitertots]

23. Lets find the people responsible for that and hold them accountable

Oh, they all died before my grandparents were born. I'm not going to adopt borders that predate the oldest person alive.


You don't need a fence. Why don't you try illegally immigrating to Mexico then? See where the fence really is.

[MyNameGoesHere]

30. I could if i wanted to.

Only right wing talking points make it seem impossible. Actually there are quite a few countries I wouldn't mind immigrating to. Better than this 3rd world POS police state.

[Taitertots]

34. You could find the people responsible for the Mexican American war and hold them accountable?

Why don't you illegally immigrate to those countries you want to go to and tell me how well that works out for you?

[MyNameGoesHere]

50. I am sure it would work out fine.

Been to many countries in the world, and they are not evil places as portrayed by right wing talking points. Got my eye on a few south American places. America is as third world as they are, and more of a police state. so I believe it will be just fine.

[tavalon]

4. Our tent isn't big enough for that point of view

Why don't you think a bit on what you just said? Big Clue - it is beyond unconscionable.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Parents who want a better life for their kids are commended in my book

[RayOfHope]

8. +1 nt

[Taitertots]

9. I could make my life a lot better if I started breaking laws too

Why don't they make a better life by legally immigrating? Then they can join us through our legal process from immigrating and all our lives will be better.

Why stop at immigration laws? They could make a better life for their children by not paying taxes or committing insurance fraud.

Should I just move to any country I want and demand that they totally change their immigration policy?

[Are_grits_groceries]

10. Here Illegally, Working Hard and Paying Taxes

<snip>
More than half of the estimated seven million immigrants toiling illegally in the United States get a regular paycheck every week or two, experts say. At the end of the year they receive a W-2 form. Come April 15, many file income tax returns using special ID numbers issued by the Internal Revenue Service so foreigners can pay taxes. Some even get a refund check in the mail.
<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/19/business/19illegals.html

They pay a hell of a lot more than some people and corporations do.

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. Let's see. Poverty and starvation VS supporting my family and being able to feed them

Which would you choose?

[Taitertots]

21. I'd start the immigration papers

I'm broke in America. Should I illegally immigrate to Germany or France?

[Are_grits_groceries]

22. Please. nt

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. I take it you don't understand the current immigration laws

If you are a white person in Europe you can come here legally very easily. You can become a citizen in just a few years. I have a co-worker from the Czech Republic who went through the process in less than 4 years.

If you are a brown person from Central America, it takes 18 months just to get on the list to come here. Then if you do get approved to come, your visa or green card will probably expire before you are given a place in line to become a citizen. I know dozens of Hispanic immigrants who have been waiting for 10 years for a green card.

If my kids were starving I would commit murder if that meant they got to eat. But maybe that's just me.

If you want to emmigrate to Europe, no one is stopping you. Of course if you were broke you would have to figure out a way to pay for the plane ticket. But hey go ahead and let us know how it all works out for you.

[bobbolink]

32. Here is your problem... you have a heart. That has no place in today's U.S. of A.

You see, all they are going to tell you is that YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD KIDS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

THAT is what we have come to.

Heartless.

Cold.

Inhuman.

Believe me, I am on the receiving end of that kind of heartlessness, I know whereof I speak, and I know what they think.

[Taitertots]

35. I have a heart, but I also have a brain

I don't think we should have to make a special exception for people who intentionally put themselves and their children in stupid situations. This isn't something thrust upon them that they couldn't see coming. It is the obvious results of their actions and as adults they should know better.

[bobbolink]

37. Bush claimed to have both, too, and look where that got us.

It must be comforting to be so superior.

[Taitertots]

38. I'm sure if you asked, Obama would say he has both too

[olegramps]

55. You may indeed have a heart:

But I fear that it has very little compassion for desperate people. The major factor responsible for creating this situation is the greed of employers who exploit illegal immigrants. The situation is compounded by our laws, that you seem to enshrine, that make children born in the United States citizens. You can't deport the children, but you can deport their illegal parents. What a disastrous situation that would tear families apart. What about children who have been brought into the country at a very young age and can't even speak the language of their native country? Are you gleefully going to throw them over the border and watch them flounder in a country in which they can't even communicate.

I would wish that you save your indignation for those who are truly responsible for the creation of this despicable situation. You really sound as if that you would be more comfortable associating with Tea Baggers. What is demanded is an effective method of preventing employers from exploiting the situation coupled with a means of legalizing those who have been exploited rather than enforcing only those laws that don't jeopardize our own "law abiding" criminals.

[bobbolink]

58. Thank you. You have summed it up quite well.

:yourock:

[Taitertots]

60. I don't believe desperation is an excuse for criminal behavior

There are hundreds of millions of desperate people around the world. How many of them get to violate our laws too?

Any family that gets torn apart is totally their own fault. A disastrous situation of their own making.

Why don't we go after BOTH employers and illegal immigrants? The greed of employers pushes them to break the law for money. The greed of illegal immigrants pushes them to break the law for money.

[proud2BlibKansan]

41. Thank you bobbolink

Your understanding means a lot.

[Taitertots]

36. So, they don't get instant gratification

No one is stopping me from emigrating to Europe except the Europeans. Are they going to give me the instant gratification you demand for Mexican immigrants to America? No, I'd have to follow their immigration policy and if i didn't I'd be denied entry. I'm in the same situation as potential immigrants to America.

You know you would still be guilty of murder if you killed someone to feed your children. We would lock you in prison, and rightfully so. If that is the America you want, don't be surprised when someone a little hungrier than you kills you and your children.

[treestar]

28. There is no migration from the US to Germany or France

That is not part of the world's migration patterns.

You would do it if you were desperate enough. You just aren't.

The poor Mexicans CANNOT come legally. That is the whole point of having the law make that impossible. To exploit their labor without legal protections, and then to spit in their faces that they are illegally here were they to protest. As if to cross a dangerous crossing to get into a foreign country to take the lowest level jobs without the legal protections the native citizens enjoy were some sort of great thing you'd want to "steal." Some wonderful opportunity you are "cheating" to take advantage of.

[treestar]

27. Blah, you don't want to move to another country

There is no option to come legally - that is reserved to the few.

If you are as poor as they are you would do it.

And you're overlooking the corn subsidies that contribute to it.

Hiding behind legality is just cooperating with using that to further oppress the latest immigrant class. You can be the Know Nothings would have done it too, had they thought of it.

[Flaneur]

31. Yes, you should move to some other country.

[Unvanguard]

15. Arguably, you're right. But that isn't the point.

Lots and lots of undocumented parents have children here who are citizens. That's the reality. Your moral exhortations won't change it.

Our immigration policy can either recognize that fact and try to deal with it humanely, which means at the minimum narrowing the scope of deportations, or it can ignore it and continue a policy that cruelly breaks apart families and causes much harm.

[EFerrari]

33. Have you ever been hungry for more than a few hours, Tater?

[Taitertots]

40. Yeah, and I somehow managed to do it without swimming across the Detroit River into Canada

Should I illegally emigrate to Canada because the Detroit Metro Area is in economic ruins?

[olegramps]

56. Your sanctimonious attitude compels me to say it would be, Their loss, our gain.

[Bluenorthwest]

52. My grandpa and his brother were put on the boat alone

Pa was 12. Uncle was 14. No adult could come with them, as it took all the money to get them here. They were kids. Between them, they had 12$ which was far below the amount immigrants were 'supposed to have' upon arrival.
This unconscionable action on the part of their parents saved their lives, and they built a whole new world over here. How awful.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. One of the parents at my school was deported when he witnessed a crime

He wasn't involved, he was just a witness. He was subpoened and when he showed up to testify he was deported. He left a wife and 5 kids.

[lonestarnot]

20. It is for them that I will be participating today!

Thank you for being there Mom! :hug:

[Generic Other]

29. What a terrible situation for these kids to find themselves in

They are lucky to have someone who cares about what happens to them. They are truly the innocent ones in all of this.