Philadelphia [January 3] — Calling the workplace raids excessive and inhumane, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), an international social justice organization and co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Quakers worldwide, and more than 60 organizations and individuals urge the Bush administration to work with Congress to develop fair and rational immigration policies instead.
Citing human rights violations and humanitarian concerns, the organizations call for an immediate end to community and work site raids that target immigrants.
Organized labor, legal, faith-based and civil and immigrants’ rights organizations and individuals across the country are condemning the strong-arm tactics and excessive use of force employed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during recent raids at Swift meatpacking facilities in six states in mid-December. During the Swift raids, more than 1,200 workers were detained at gunpoint, yet less than 5 percent of these workers actually face criminal charges.
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2 comments:
Dave it isn’t pretty, it will be fraught with questionable practices but it is the present workable process available and as an old boss of my once said about the process of cleaning up a mess (in this case a mess created by decades of bi-partisan lethargicness) “it is what it is”. The majority of people have demanded a solution not later, but now. I am not a fan of the current process and wish for a better way. But there is never going to be a practical effective NICE way of doing what the public wants done about illegal immigration. No matter what the final method of operation decided on, someone is going to be unhappy or find fault. And the public is probably right in this case. If we wait for a better solution than what we already have, the bi-partisan lethargy will only let the problem’s big picture worsen. There is an old axiom that says the squeaky wheel always gets the grease, well anytime you are forced to clean up a mess like illegal immigration someone from one or all sides are going to be unhappy enough to start screeching and solving this type of problem always affects votes in a negative way once the screeching begins. That is probably why politicians have always preferred to talk and debate problems rather than take action and solve them.
nobody,
If you see the "public" as having a unified position on illegal immigration then you are seeing things that are not there. I don't think most people in this country have a considered and informed position on immigration, although, of course, people without a strong position will respond to emotional hot-button phrases used by demagogues.
I think there are economic, social and political reasons to oppose persecuting and making second-class citizens out of our immigrants, legal and illegal. But I agree with the Quakers and the Roman Catholic Church that it is primarily a moral issue. And in a moral debate if one side has the support of the liberal and the conservative wings of both the Quakers and Catholics it would be a really bad idea to be on the other side.
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