In his novel 1984, George Orwell created a nightmare vision of the future in which an all-powerful Party exerts totalitarian control over society by forcing the citizens to master the technique of “doublethink,” which requires them “to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancel out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them.” His novel severed as a warning how political discourse can degenerate into a play of images which can led to a decline of truth and honesty in political debate.

There is a broad-based consensus that the US immigration system is broken. However, since 2005, bills aimed at fixing the immigration system tend to erode as soon as the options to reform the US immigration system are debated. As soon as Obama was elected, many held out hope comprehensive immigration reform would be dealt during his first term.

The Obama Administration has stated that comprehensive immigration reform will be a top priority, along with other competing priorities in the areas of domestic and foreign policy. In February 2009, President Obama said, “we’re going to be convening leadership on this issue so that we can start getting that legislation drawn up over the next several months.” Later that year, President Obama and officials in his Administration met with Members of Congress from both parties at a June 25, 2009, meeting on comprehensive immigration reform at the White House. In his 2010 State of the Union Address, the President pledged to “continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system,” however, there was not set time this would be accomplished.

The inaction of Congress has caused state and local governments to tackle immigration on their own by passing laws and ordinances that target unauthorized workers and their families. In the first quarter of 2010, state legislators in 45 states have introduced 1,180 bills and resolutions relating to immigrants and refugees.

However, none of the laws introduced are as stringent as the law that passed in Arizona. In April, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) signed into law one of the toughest immigration law in the country, “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act” (SB 1070). The law would grant broad authority to state and local law enforcement agents to to stop anyone on “reasonable suspicion” they might be undocumented. Officers are authorized to arrest and detain individuals who cannot provide proof of their legal status in the United States, in order to request verification of detainees’ legal status from the federal government.

Truth is the law will lead to widespread ethnic and racial profiling and will be used to harass legal residents and Latino citizens. No matter how they dress up the bill by using race-neutral language, it doesn’t change the fact the new law goes beyond targeting Latinos, it allows law enforcement carte blanche to go after anyone who “looks foreign,” including Arab, African, Asian and other immigrants.

As the new law has sparked a heated debate, Gov. Brewer does have her defenders. Defending the state’s draconian immigration law, Sarah Palin declared, “We’re all Arizonans now” and Arizona was an example for the rest of the nation to follow:

“It’s time for Americans across this great country to stand up and say, ‘We’re all Arizonans now.’ And in clear unity we say, ‘Mr. President, do your job. Secure our borders.’”

Palin also said Arizona was an example for the rest of the nation to follow. She was in town to speak at the Arizona Sportsmen for Wildlife Conservation’s annual banquet at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in north Phoenix.

The passage of the Arizona law has brought about a ripple effect. State legislators in Ohio, Texas, Missouri, and Utah have announced they plan to introduce similar legislation. In Texas, Republican Reps. Leo Berman of Tyler and Debbie Riddle of Tomball have already made it known they’ll file identical legislation when Texas lawmakers convene in January.

Brewing of the Perfect Storm
Our comprehensive strategy to restore the rule of law to illegal immigration enforcement has done more in three years than was done in thirty years before. —President Bill Clinton, August 2, 1996

The anti-immigrant movement in the United States is as strong as ever. Although SB1070 is the spark that has reignited the immigration debate, in reality, it is a culmination of an entire decade of unprecedented abuse and punishment towards immigrants. To fully understand the the current situation, it is important to put the issue in a historical context.

Having previously lived on the border and returning to the city where I was born to visit relatives, I have seen how our policies have changed our border throughout the years. Students of immigration policy most often cite the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (Amnesty Law) as the single event that created the ripe conditions for the current political storm. Many remember IRCA as the law that gave legal status to 3 million undocumented immigrants permanent residency, however, often forgotten, it also increased enforcement on the border by 50% and cross-designated the Border Patrol as drug enforcement agents. The law also imposed sanctions against employers for knowingly hire or employ unauthorized immigrants.

IRCA had little effect regulating immigration flows or preventing employers from hiring unauthorized immigrants. In fact, a General Accounting Office (GAO) report had found that the enactment of employer sanctions had created a “serious pattern of discrimination.” Overall, the GAO estimated that 19 percent of all employers began a “practice, as a result of IRCA, not to hire job applicants whose foreign appearance or accent led them to suspect that they might be unauthorized aliens.” The GAO report concluded that IRCA’s employer sanctions provisions failed to deter undocumented workers and discrimination against foreign-looking and -sounding workers “were higher in areas having high Hispanic and Asian populations.”

It was not until the 1990s that the storm began brewing. Isabel Garcia, co-founder of a Tucson-based Derechos Humanos explained in a recent interview: “That’s why they began to build walls in 1994. They didn’t build the walls, as some people would believe, on September the 12th of 2001. We began building those walls in 1994.”

As the nation suddenly became concern about the government’s ability to control the flow of “illegal” immigration, public officials, Republicans and Democrats alike, began framing the border as being “out of control” and a country under siege by unauthorized immigrants.

In 1993, Clinton administration began militarizing the parts of the southwest when Border Patrol launched Operation Blockade (later renamed Operation Hold the Line) in El Paso, the strategy to seal off popular border-crossing points using a combination of new border fences, an increase in border personnel, and the latest military hardware and training.

Driven primarily by concerns over the large influx of unauthorized migrants across the border, California voters in 1994 overwhelmingly voted for Proposition 187, which sought to deny public education (from elementary to postsecondary levels), public social services, and public health care services (with the exception of emergencies) to unauthorized immigrants.

Public support for a less porous U.S.-Mexico boundary had an influence the “Border National Strategic Plan for 1994 and Beyond,” which incorporated the strategy of “prevention through deterrence,” by expanding Operation Blockade. In 1994, similar operations were launched throughout the US – Operation Gatekeeper in San Diego (1994), Operation Safeguard in Tucson (1994, 1999) and Operation Rio Grande in South Texas (1997).

As a result of the these “operations,” undocumented immigrants no longer crossed near city limits but diverted their crossing to desolate and dangerous deserts and mountains regions. Between 1997 and 2009, more than 5,000 people died from incidents related to crossing the United States–Mexico border.

War on Immigrants Declared
Winston Churchill once said that one of the most unfailing tests of a civilization lies in how a country treats its criminals. The most obvious way in which any country can judge the civilization of another is by the way in which it treats its citizens. In the US today, the past four decades has given rise to a vast prison complex that holds over 2.3 million inmates—making the US the world largest jailor – which only goes to prove how much human rights are valued in this country.

The criminal justice system’s “get tough” on crime, also meant an increase of harsh sentences on both legal and undocumented immigrants. Clinton’s new Crime Bill not only contained the “three strikes” provision, it also set up the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, authorizing federal funds to compensate state and local jurisdictions for prison and jail costs of undocumented inmates.

With the new Republican majority in Congress, then-President Bill Clinton signed a trio of bills that established the policy groundwork for the war on immigrants. Conservative congressional leaders merged anti-immigrant measures with new anti-terrorist, anti-crime, and anti-welfare legislation. These were the Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), and Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (known as the Welfare Reform Act).

IIRIRA stripped immigrants and asylum seekers of many basic legal rights and facilitated and stepped up proceedings for exclusion and deportation by eliminating the right of appeal and judicial review of decisions made by INS agent. In short, the measure’s “court-stripping” provisions overhauled the entire infrastructure of immigration proceedings. It also expanded the definition of “aggravated felony” to include non-violent crimes such as shoplifting and check kiting. Under immigration law, “aggravated felons” are automatically deported without the possibility of relief from deportation.

Initially meant to address the Oklahoma City bombing by right-wing and American militia movement sympathizer, Timothy McVeigh, AEDPA contains provisions that stipulate a mandatory one year detention for any immigrant – legal or undocumented – convicted of a wide range of offenses, including minor drug offenses. The law allows ICE to retroactively detain and deport immigrants for offenses committed 15 to 20 years earlier, even though they have subsequently lived an exemplary life as a legal resident.

It was with the stroke of Clinton’s pen, the new legal framework made it possible to merger criminal and immigration law enforcement. As Joseph Nevins argues in Operation Gatekeeper: The Rise of the “Illegal Alien” and the Making of the U.S.-Mexico Boundary, it was then “immigrants entering the United States without state sanction have become constructed and perceived as lawbreakers and alleged threats to the sociocultural and political fabric of the country.”

Bush’s Reign of Terror
It is hard to deny that in wake of 9/11 there has been a wholesale assault on democratic rights in the United States a in the name of “national security.” Under the guise of “homeland security” and the “war on terror,” families and communities have been torn apart. Other than passing the PATRIOT Act, Congress dismantled the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and transfers its responsibilities to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and it’s two enforcement branches – the Bureau of US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) and the Bureau of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Under Michael Chertoff leadership, DHS policies have created a vicious cycle of immigration law enforcement and
criminalization. As a result, faced severe punishment solely for their immigration status and the fastest growing prison population in the US. Chertoff has launched such new programs as Operation Community Shield, Operation Streamline, and the Secure Border Initiative. To keep up with the increased numbers of arrests, ICE created a network of approximately 400 jails and detention facilities around the country where it now holds over 30,000 persons on any given day, according to US Immigration and Customs and Enforcement.

Attempts to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bills failed three times in 2006 and 2007 due to massive public opposition. In 2007, Democrats did try a more piecemeal approach to legalization that combined the AgJOBS bill that protected business and labor alike and the DREAM Act that would have granted legal status to undocumented youth who agreed to go to college or join the US military. Conservatives, meanwhile, tried to pass a new immigration enforcement bill, including an expansion of E-Verify, but without an accompanying legalization program. Any attempt to pass CIR in 2007 failed.

Change We Can Believe In
“The time to fix our broken immigration system is now. We need stronger enforcement on the border and at the workplace.” – Senator Barack Obama, May 23, 2007

Many in the pro-immigrant movement held out hope that an Obama administration would mean new possibilities for a progressive immigration agenda. According to President Barack Obama, “When I ran for President, I did so because I believed that despite the power of the status quo and the influence of special interests, it was possible for us to bring change to Washington.”

While pro-immigration groups have congratulated themselves for the Democratic Party sweep and an Obama victory, however, there is little evidence based on the policies and practices carried out by his administration his views align with them.

The lack of an immigration bill have disappointed many Latino and immigration rights groups who hoped Obama would have pushed for reform this year. Some pro-immigrant groups have expressed anger over Obama administration continuance to step up immigration enforcement.

Since taking office, Obama’s policies on immigration has not differed from those of George W. Bush. Although there is evidence their is a clean break on work-site type raids conducted by Micheal Chertoff, raids are still conducted, but in a more palatable manner.

The first sign that it will be business as usual came last year when Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was interviewed NPR.

We’re going to do a few things. First of all, the rule of law applies on the border, and we want to make sure that that happens, No. 1. That means manpower. That means technology — things like ground sensors. It means interior enforcement against those who intentionally are going into the illegal labor market and creating a demand for illegal laborers, so that’s all going to continue.

The administration’s apparent new willingness to take on immigration reform might seem like a ray of light, however, there are multiple signs popping up that the administration plans to ramp up its deportation of undocumented immigrants.

In a Feb. 22 memo, obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting and The Washington Post, James M. Chaparro, the Obama administration’s chief of detention and removal operations (DRO), congratulated agents for being on pace to achieve the agency’s goal of “150,000 criminal alien removals” for the year ending Sept. 30. While ICE was on pace for total “non-criminal removals,” total deportations were will barely reach 310,000, “well under the Agency’s goal of 400,000.”

After the CIR/Washington Post story, which disclosed the agency memos, Chaparro issued a new memo stating that his earlier e-mail “signals no shift in the important steps we have taken to date to focus our priorities on the smart and effective enforcement of immigration laws, prioritizing dangerous criminal aliens . . . while also adhering to Congressional mandates to maintain an average daily [detention] population and meet annual performance measures.”

Immigrants’ rights advocates were up in arms over ICE’s “quota system” to determine the number of people it would deport. Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum and chair of the Reform Immigration for America campaign, said, “ICE has a serious credibility problem as they continue to say one thing while doing another.”

“ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton cannot effectively lead an agency when he doesn’t know what his field representatives are doing or when his subordinates are delivering messages directly at odds with the purported goals of the organization and the president,” he said.

It is understandable many immigrations groups feel Morton has gone rogue for changing agent performance evaluations to emphasize caseload quotas. The truth is, the quota system has long been in place, which the current administration plans to continue.

Last year, Border Patrol agents mounted an investigation of allegations by agents in the Riverside (CA) region. They complain they were forced to meet arrest quotas and threatened with punishment if they failed to meet them.

The main enforcement quota system, dubbed Operation: Endgame, was developed in stealth by the Bush Administration, was initially intended to create a more aggressive and comprehensive immigration enforcement regimen.

Published in 2003, Operation Endgame set out a 10-year strategy to: “Promote the public safety and national security by ensuring the departure from the United States of all removable aliens through the fair and effective enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.”

With Endgame clearly stating the goal is to deport all removable aliens, it should come as no surprise that both ICE Director Morton and DHS Secretary Napolitano will continue to steamroll ahead with its Operation Endgame enforcement and incarceration strategies.

The raids targeting “criminal aliens” are part of the growing deportation dragnet launched against not only unauthorized immigrants, but also legal residents who have been stripped of their residency status because they were convicted for legal transgressions. US officials typically highlight the link between violent crime and deportees, be they legal residents or not.

The above historical overview and the recent developments in immigration policy served as a necessary remedy to the mass media’s convenient collective amnesia and to reminds us of the broader context of the recent immigrant uprising .

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