I cannot figure out why Eileen McNamara puts the blame for the New Bedford crisis more on DSS and the Patrick administration than ICE, especially in light of this:
BOSTON (AP) – Federal immigration agents notified state officials months in advance of its plans for a massive illegal immigration raid in New Bedford.
But they prohibited them from alerting the Department of Social Services — the agency charged with caring for the workers’ children — until just days before.
Kurt Schwartz with the state’s Executive Office of Public Safety says D-S-S Commissioner Harry Spence wasn’t told until four days before the raid.
At that time, Schwartz couldn’t tell Spence the exact location, only that it would be in southeast Massachusetts.
And Spence was banned from telling any employees until after the raid began.
What the hell is up with that? What’s the guy supposed to do? ICE required things to be kept so hush-hush that you simply couldn’t expect any kind of decent response from DSS.
And I think it’s just amazing that McNamara takes this quote from the Fed guy at face value:
“I couldn’t have them interviewing people at a crime scene,” [ICE agent Bruce Foucart] said. “I was happy to set up a triage center at the New Bedford DSS office. I assigned one of our agents there to help sort out any problems. It is just not true that we failed to coordinate with DSS.”
Let’s juxtapose that with another quote from the Feds, the day after:
“The system worked the way it was supposed to work,” said Mark Raimondi, of ICE. “We are not aware of, nor have we been told by DSS, and we’ve asked repeatedly, any instances where any children were left unattended.”
I mean, that’s just got to be a lie. You’ve got the Governor on the phone to Chertoff, you’ve got tiny kids going without food, and this clown is saying that DSS never told them? Again, I’m reminded of Chertoff saying he knew of no problem at the Convention Center during Katrina.
There damn well was a problem. There damn well was a failure to coordinate. They were getting phone calls about it from the Governor and the Congressional delegation. It plainly didn’t work the way it was supposed to work. And McNamara blithely takes their word for it?
What’s up with that? Please, someone explain it to me.
The more I learn, McNamara’s raving sounds like blaming a thinly-stretched social service agency for the bullying actions of an out-of-control federal agency.
is ragging on Gov. Patrick, she would have to break from the herd to criticize the Feds.
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The 4 things people complained about (drapes, car, helicopter, phone call) are small things compared to mastering the budget, assigning a review of the Big Dig, and negotiating better prices for healthcare (all 3 of which Patrick is making progress on). But they’ve used trivia to make up their minds and they aren’t in the mood to consider all the evidence–like Chertoff’s famous “me-no-know” about the NOLA convention center.
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She seems to forget that this became a race to the airport so these detainees could fill an empty new detention center in South Texas. Did she ask this Foucart if ICE told the Gov they were going to rush to the planes?
Yuu forgot the proposed “vote my way and I’ll raise your pay” quid pro quo with the legislature and the backflip on prisoners’ fees. And calling a Cheney-esque lobbying of the government on behalf of a former employer a “phone call” is like calling the quagmire in Iraq “inconsistent planning”.
issue a couple of times as an example of … something I suppose. Not quite sure. More importantly you’re accepting the Glob account as gospel without any hint of facts.
The prisoner fee issue, or backflip as you call it, doesn’t appear to be an issue. Are you using it as an example of a flip-flop? Something worse? If the crime fee was a bad idea, which is pretty much the consensus, then why not say that it wasn’t such a good idea and it’s off the table? Admit a possible policy idea was not a good idea and it’s a backflip?
And the “Cheney-esque lobbying of the government”? What’s up with that? I must have missed this so please tell me what agency of government does Bob Rubin work in?
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You’re worse then the Glob. Well, at least no different. They print what is whispered in their ear by state house minions, and you parrot it in every marginally lucid post you pen on BMG. You actually make it sound worse than what the Glob spits out.
Leave the misinformation to the Glob and go back to your cute holiday stories.
The pay proposal went along these lines: if legislators voted the way Patrick wanted on his agenda, he would back a proposal to raise their pay, i.e., money for votes. The only thing missing were unmarked envelopes.
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Bob Rubin doesn’t work in the government anymore than the CEO of Halliburton does. It’s the exercise of using one’s role in government to help out a private company to which one has extensive ties that I find objectionable. While Deval is more cuddly than Cheney, it is a similar exercise and abuse of power.
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I don’t take the Globe as gospel, but nor do I dismiss it anytime it prints something that doesn’t fit in my worldview.
Drek, I understand blind faith is the prime thing keeping Deval’s fan club going, but your arguments should be able to stand on their own without stooping to personal insult.
It wa uncalled for. I was ripped because of the faith you appear to lay at the feet of conventional wisdom as promoted by the Glob. My gripe is that your statements don’t have anything behind them. The Glob reported, based on anonymous sources inside the State House, that Patrick came to them with this quid pro quo. There has been absolutely no substantiation of this assertion and it has somehow become fact. What is far more likely a scenario is that the leadership of both chambers, who have been talking with Patrick since Nov. 8th, had indicated that the body wants a raise, among other things. They think they deserve it and don’t want to be hung out to dry, as Romney did to them, if they pursue a raise. Patrick, after many other exchanges occur, comes back and says “we all want things. I don’t want to be hung out to dry when I try to consolidate the courts or try to take control of the quasi-public agencies that I’m accountable for yet have little control over because you guys won’t allow it. It seems we both need to work together. I can see supporting a pay raise (and other measures sought by the lege) so long as you make a good case, but I want you guys to consider supporting my reforms and allow me to make my case to the public.”
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Lo and behold, a hack decides he or she is going to lose something they value and decides to drop the dime on Patrick. What better way to frame this with the bored, lazy, uncreative Boston media then to say that Patrick is extorting us?
Sabutai, do you really believe that Patrick’s first communication with the lege amounted to an offer of a pay raise if they supported his agenda? I don’t think you’re that naive nor do I think you believe Patrick is.
My anger at your blind parrotting of the Glob’s reportage is that it feeds the notion that the media prints facts. They print what they’re told. These guys are more threatened by Patrick than any Republican out there. They haven’t had to practice journalism in years because State House reporters have been able to make a living reporting press releases. (The State House News Service actually seems to dig deeper than what some legislator whipsers in their ear.) Philips and Keller traffic in this crap and it somehow takes on its own reality. Look back at both of their reporting in the campaign. Keller especially, couldn’t have been more wrong.
What we are facing is a legislature threatened with losing power. Patrick isn’t going to feed them and they are going to have to work on stories. Despite their inability to actually move the state forward, the legislature does a few things very well. They can crush a person or an idea because of their relationship with the media. The media need to be fed the third-party stories that make the next day’s headline so they have a vested interest in keeping the status quo as well.
Ask Marion Walsh, or anyone around her (since she’s not going to tell you) who dropped the dime on her husband’s relationship with Patrick and the pension bill. Where did that story come from? Who will Walsh face for Senate Prez when Trav looks for a bigger check? This stuff goes on every day with the media and we somehow think it’s reality.
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The point is that repeating this crap as fact, and worse embelishing it to make your point more … pointed, does no one any good.
…if he’s the same person you’re asking about, was a fairly long time Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration. Former Grand Poobah at Goldman Sachs.
…the DP administration should just shut the f___ up, go about their business, and not feed the fish-wrap and birdcage liner industry.
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In that, I agree.
column too. I usually appreciate McNamara’s slightly off-center take on events but this seems like a stretch.
but the lack of a named federal source on the issue is troubling. I’d like to see an article, rather than a column, on the issue. McNamara is neither fair nor balanced. See the last line in her column. After the planned leak to Bob “Who’s Who?” Novak, I trust columnists even less than reporters. Someone put a bug in her ear. The question is who.
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She also seems not to like Harry Spence the DSS guy. She criticized him for the girl who was poisoned/overdosed by her parents.
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The Globe columnists really suck. The Times has Krugman and Brooks and plodding, occasionally interesting Friedman. I could do without Maureen Dowd or that wanker John Tierney (or is he gone now).
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It’s time to start naming the Globe columinists. How about Hacknamara? Mac the Knife?
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Mark
The teachers of poor Rebecca’s siblings repeatedly warned DSS of problems in that family. DSS ignored them. DSS should have taken Rebecca out of that house. If they did their job Rebecca would have been alive.
to read this from her, since I had always pegged her as a lib. And maybe she is. Again, it’s not just the sources, it’s that they’re not saying enough substantively to actually contradict Spence’s and Patrick’s versions, except “yeah, we planned.”
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Now, as regards Fernandez Mills … there’s a serious problem there that needs to be fixed.
I’ve been out of town for about four years and have not read McNamara’s column regularly. So I don’t know her politics. But I do know that she’s a columnist, and that fervor is the currency columnists deal in. What does being a “lib” or not have to do with it?
…for once, Robert had his facts regarding Valerie Plame correct. He just shouldn’t have printed them.
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I didn’t read the McNamara column–I rarely do. The Glob has a couple of decent columnists–HDS Greenway, for example. Derrick Jackson seems to be decent.
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Jeff Jacoby, on the other hand, is off the wall. Why they don’t fire him and use his salary to hire a reporter is beyond me.
1) When the highest levels of the Patrick Administration knew about the raid they could have booked a command center in a hotel in New Bedford. The Public Safety officials that knew could have done this. This could have served as the triage center for interviews. Which ICE was willing to do.
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2) When told about the raid, DSS could have put together a strike team. This strike team could have been loaded on a bus the morning of the raid, without being told where they were going. On the bus trip they could have been given a briefing of what was going down. Materials could have been provided.
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3) When notified 4 days before the raid the DSS hierachy could have started putting together manuals to distribute on the bus trip. 4 days in todays day and age is a lifetime to plan. These people are professionals a contingency plan for this sort of stuff should have been in place.
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So don’t go blaming ICE for doing their jobs. The blame falls squarely on the B-team we have in government. Hope is not a governing strategy. Together we can isn’t either. Having responsible adults in charge is.
What a shocking statement: “Don’t blame the ICE for doing their job!”
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If their job entails all the horrors that we have witnessed in New Bedford, then there is something very wrong.
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Eileen McNamara never claims that anyone in the Patrick Administration was told about the “race to the airport” which made all the difference in the availability of these workers for questioning to determine if they were leaving children behind.
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WBUR’s “On Point” had an excellent program this morning on the conditions that “guest workers” face – “not much better than slavery.” These sweat shop workers are the Republicans’ ideal employees, subjected to intolerable conditions and unable to fight back. No wonder the Republicans are split between appealing to bigotry about illegals and wanting more undocumented immigrants to exploit.
60 or so parents were realeased because they told the truth about having children.
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I’m sorry but if a mother ended up in Texas at a processing facility it’s because she didn’t speak up.
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First she’s in this country illegally and then she lies. Sorry no sympathy here. NONE at all. Never will be.
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There was no “race to the airport” while that sounds good, it’s what they should have done. If there is a core competency in Texas because of the apprehension of illegals along the border, then the illegal immigrants detained in this raid should have been brought to that facility as quickly as possible.
From todays Globe
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“Proof” to you = “Because the fed guy said so.” Nice critical thinking there.
…see my comment downstream
your ratings are for using such a derogatory words. “illegal immigrants” is bad enough, but at least its not dehumanizing.
Illegal is in the English language it has a meaning. It means according to dictionary.com.
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I don’t use newspeak. I use commonly accepted English. Just because you “feel” a word is derogatory doesn’t make it so.
…how do you know that they are in the USofA illegally, before an immigration hearing has actually been conducted to determine whether or not they are in the USofA illegally?
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That prejudgement is about as dumb as presuming that someone is a terrorist before he–or she–has shown to be such. In a hearing. Before a hearing officer.
So a Terrorist is not a Terrorist until a judge calls him one? I don’t follow your logic at all.
Even with months of planning, an organization like the DSS would have had a tough time handling this human rights disaster. Instead, they got 4 days.
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The ICE belongs to a huge federal beaurocracy, one that makes DSS seem tiny in comparison. The ICE was the organization that decided to ship families across the country, instead of employing technology like bracelets that keep track of locations – so the undocumented Americans could have figured out their family situations. Of course, the ICE did none of those things.
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Furthermore, to ask organizations like DSS to take care of the problems ICE leaves behind is an unfunded mandate of the worst kind. The expenses – which are probably in the hundreds of thousands for an operation like this – would be high and people would have to be diverted. WHen those people are diverted, the whole organization (and the thousands of children they are responsible for) are the ones who suffer.
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Please, explain to me how ICE was in the right here?
Now they aren’t even immigrants, they’re Americans.
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When you can call them Illegal Immigrants, than I’ll explain why ICE was in the right. Until then you just won’t be able to understand an explanation. You just won’t.
How did ICE know? How do you know what ICE knew or didn’t know? How do you know that 60 were released because they spoke up? You and your hysterical immigrant-bashing ilk leap to conclusions about what the federal government did and what they knew based on nothing but your own steaming pile of animosity toward immigrants.
This is the agency that brought you New Orleans. Oh, sorry, if those silly black folk ended up in the Astrodome, it’s their own fault. They should have hopped in their Hummer when the damn burst and got the hell out of there.
How did I know 60 or so, actually 59, women were released. Because I read the news:
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How did I know they were illegal. See answer above.
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This is not the agency that brought you New Orleans, that agency was FEMA.
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It was not their fault that they ended up in the Astrodome. It was Ray Nagin’s fault however. He did not have a plan to respond to a calamity that was the subject of many documentaries prior to Katrina. Remember the busses that he didn’t use to evacuate people? I do.
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Any other questions I can help you with?
so I have no animosity towards immigrants. I do have animosity to those that don’t obey our laws. There is a difference.
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In addition to my mother, 6 of my 9 aunts and uncles on her side are immigrants. As was my Grandmother. As are countless cousins. So don’t go jumping to conclusions.
I listened to Harry Spence on Paul Sullivan last night. What struck me about his assertions was that ICE was wrong to raid in Massachusetts, period! No, they should stick to the south, like Texas and Arizona, and maybe the midwest – THAT’s where the problems are!
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At the time, I thought – how odd. If this is a southwestern problem, then why are these people from Guatemala? Frankly, in New Bedford, I would have expected Portuguese or Brazilians – but no, Guatemala and Honduras were the countries of origin.
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I also wanted to call and ask Mr. Spence why he’s so sure they are coming across the Rio Grande – why not just stroll across the vast unprotected and unpoliced Canadian border? Lots easier now with snowmobiles than it used to be (it’s how my grandmother came here).
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Frankly, I think Mr. Spence thoguht that the raid would never happen, and didn’t prepare for it properly. I wonder if that’s the source of a lot of his indignation.
The point is taken, but then undocumented American does not mean anything in the context Ryan used it. I’m sure they can document themselves as “Americans” in a hemispherical context.
Even with months of planning, an organization like the DSS would have had a tough time handling this human rights disaster. Instead, they got 4 days.
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The ICE belongs to a huge federal beaurocracy, one that makes DSS seem tiny in comparison. The ICE was the organization that decided to ship families across the country, instead of employing technology like bracelets that keep track of locations – so the undocumented Americans could have figured out their family situations. Of course, the ICE did none of those things.
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Furthermore, to ask organizations like DSS to take care of the problems ICE leaves behind is an unfunded mandate of the worst kind. The expenses – which are probably in the hundreds of thousands for an operation like this – would be high and people would have to be diverted. WHen those people are diverted, the whole organization (and the thousands of children they are responsible for) are the ones who suffer.
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Please, explain to me how ICE was in the right here?
🙂
…Just what is your proposed “strike team” supposed to do? And what are your proposed “manuals” supposed to say? The Patrick administration might have been informed of the ICE raid, but were they informed of the names and home addresses of the people that were expected to be detained in the raid?
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I’ve written it before, and I’ll write it here again. Physical detention is not required to ensure that people will show up for their immigration hearing. Modern technology can be used.
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BTW, for those inquiring, immigrants are not “illegal” until they have been determined to be such by at least an ICE hearing officer. That is why “illegal alien” is improper. If you object to the term undocumented alien, perhaps you can suggest another that is more to your liking..
The “strike team” would have been at the ready to give physical assistance as it was shown to be needed. Quickly and without delay. If you know there is going to be a potential problem you should be there to handle it.
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The “manual” should have had phone numbers, email, all necessary forms needed to handle cases.
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OK so a pure technical legal definition for illegal waits for a detention hearing. But tell me this, If one murdered someone and never got caugh are they not still a murderer? Or do they have to wait for a conviction?
One, you presume that the state government was informed of the names and addresses of the specific individuals who the ICE was going to take into detention. I have seen nothing to suggest that. All that I’ve seen is that the state was notified that a raid was to occur. What is the state supposed to infer from that? What I would infer from such a notification is that the feds were going to conduct a raid, and that state and local police should back off during the raid. If I had been informed of the names and addresses of the people who had been taken into custody, I would have tried to notify the individuals and suggest that they avoid going to their place of work that day.
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Two, regarding your “murder” example, let me ‘splain it all to you. Someone who kills someone else is not necessarily a murderer. There are usually at least four degrees of culpability regarding an unlawful killing, including at least two degrees of manslaughter, and two degrees of murder, based on the perceived “moral culpability” of the perpetrator in having committed the killing. I’ve gone around this more times on the Internet than I care to repeat. I should have saved them all. Let’s cut to the chase: until someone is convicted of murder, he is not a murderer. Until someone is determined to be in the USofA illegally, he is not an illegal alien. Understand?
1) I never presumed that they had names and addresses. never.
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2) You are the poster boy for why “normal americans” come up with so many lawyer jokes.