PHOENIX
(By
Douglas Rivlin,
Alternet)
March 13, 2010 —
On the same day President Obama
was holding a series of meetings with
lawmakers and community leaders about
moving immigration reform legislation
forward, his administration was sending
a very different signal.
Just up the road in Anne Arundel and
Baltimore Counties in Maryland, Janet
Napolitano's Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) officers were
conducting immigration raids on two
restaurants and rounding up immigrants
at their homes.
The Baltimore Sun reported Friday:
Twenty-nine people were taken into
custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officials in simultaneous
raids Thursday morning in Anne Arundel
and Baltimore counties at two
restaurants, several residences and an
office.
One of the raids focused on the Timbuktu
Restaurant…and several nearby homes
where restaurant workers were housed,
according to Anne Arundel County
Executive John R. Leopold. Eighteen Anne
Arundel County police officers assisted
federal agents.
Was it just bad timing for an
administration trying to show a
different face on immigration?
This wouldn’t be the first time the left
hand didn’t know what the right hand was
doing on immigration since Obama took
office. Some think it might be worse and
that cowboys in ICE are undermining the
President’s overture on immigration or
are sending a signal before the big
March For America on the National Mall
on March 21.
In response to a scathing press
conference this week outlining how
enforcement of immigration laws has
escalated under the Obama
administration, community-based
advocates were meeting with the
President to explain the impact these
policies are having on local
communities.
Almost 400,000 people have been deported
since the President took office, they
said, sewing fear in immigrant families
and neighborhoods.
The Obama administration argues they are
targeting serious criminals and security
threats with their enforcement
resources.
But as County Executive Leopold
indicates above, this raid – like so
many other enforcement actions – seems
to have targeted plain old hourly wage
workers to send a signal that anyone at
anytime can be deported. It is not the
kind of targeted enforcement against
criminals the President claims to
support or which could actually make
American communities safer.
Then, late Thursday, El Universal and
other news outlets in Mexico City
reported the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico,
Carlos Pascual, told Mexican senators he
was ruling out chances of immigration
reform in the United States in the short
term because of the climate of political
confrontation in the U.S. in advance of
the November elections.
He may be right. He may even be speaking
more honestly and bluntly than the
President, but he is decidedly “off
message.”
On Thursday, the President told the
press in a statement:
I told both the senators and the
community leaders that my commitment to
comprehensive immigration reform is
unwavering, and that I will continue to
be their partner in this important
effort.
The President was clearly trying to
indicate his intention to do more on
immigration and the support of lawmakers
in both parties was on display this
week, which is encouraging. But if armed
federal officers and local police are
going into people’s homes to arrest
restaurant workers for being here
illegally and your Ambassador to the
country that is the largest source of
immigrants to the U.S. is saying it
ain’t gonna happen, then maybe we need
more than “unwavering support” from the
President to get this done.
