Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Gov’t hides “Endgame” documents after New Bedford controversy

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Last week, the Boston Globe ran an ACLU of Massachusetts op-ed about operation Endgame, the plan to remove all 12 million undocumented immigrants from the United States by 2012.

Since then (and starting the very next day, in fact) something interesting has happened. While publicly taking issue with our assertion that Endgame uses tactics similar to the ethnic cleansing we saw in the Balkans during the 1990s — lightning raids, mass arrests, packed detention centers, and mass deportations — ICE has quietly removed documents about operation Endgame from its website.

Fortunately, we anticipated this and saved copies.  You can see what they’ve taken down and when here.

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  1. Just freaking whoa.

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    What happened to my country?? Are we totally overrun by completely heartless morons?

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    Their solution is to remove 12 million people from the US. Besides the economic and community impact of this, what part of “um, you’re insane if you think it’ll work” do they not get??

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    You want to solve the undocumented worker problem in the US? Stop letting big corporations write your trade laws and write them instead to benefit the vast majority of both American AND foreign workers, instead of screwing both groups and opting to pander to the CEO constituant making $20B.

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    First they write trade policy that makes the problem of disparity between the US and other countries worse, and THEN they drum into us that we should be afraid of the immigrants that in desperation come here because they are “taking our jobs” and they’re to blame for all our problems.

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    Right.

    • That document looks like something out of a dystopian sci-fi movie… I was literally shocked when I saw it, much more than Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo – a plan this heartless with a bland pseudo-corporate slogan about ‘security’ is going down in America?

  3. Surely there are enough of us who care and will work hard to turn the direction of this country back toward human decency and the values that we, the U.S., once stood for.  Glad my professional association (Mass. Nurses) is speaking so forcefully for me on this one:

    MNA’s Public Statement Regarding the Treatment of Immigrant Families in the ICE Raid of the Michael Bianco Inc. Factory

    CANTON, Mass., 4/2/07  – The Massachusetts Nurses Association, the state’s largest union and professional association of registered nurses and health professionals is taking this opportunity to expresses its outrage over the inhumane treatment of 361 immigrant workers and their families as a result of the raid by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency at the Michael Bianco Inc. leather factory.  We decry this action and its aftermath as an unseemly violation of basic human rights that is unacceptable in any society that deems itself enlightened and civilized.

    As an organization of health professionals who work every day to provide compassionate care to all who need it in our state, regardless of their alleged immigration status, we are appalled by the actions of any officials, whether federal, state or local, who would allow families to be so callously ripped apart and for vulnerable children to be subject to emotional turmoil, injury and illness as was the case in this misguided endeavor.

    As a union that fights every day to guarantee fair pay and benefits, along with safe working conditions for all workers, we are sickened that our system – and all those agencies and officials who are responsible for regulating it — would allow the these workers (and the millions of others like them across this state and nation) to be subjected to the conditions and ill treatment they were forced to endure.  They are US workers.  Their immigration status, or the question thereof, does not sanction unjust and unsafe working conditions. 

    We, as a society, cannot continue to turn a blind eye and remain silent while employers continue to erode the rights of workers, particularly those in low wage jobs.

    Regardless of one’s views on the issue of immigration, no person or family deserves to be treated as these families have been treated.  We can and must do better as a society.

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    Check us out at MassNurses.org

    • Really. I must have missed the massed graves somewhere. Little bit theatrical with the analogy.

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      I was also unaware that the illegal aliens were not presenting a myriad of social and criminal issues. I’m not sure which is worse.

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      Heartless? Where are all the compassionate souls that complain about the misguided American policy. Why are THEY not  clamoring for visas to Sudan, Iraq, Afganistan, Gaza, India, Bangladesh to aid the poor, miserable, oppressed and starving in those countries. Why are they not in the Peace Corps serving in Central America. America is full of people who love to complain, but put words into action. What are you kidding me.

      • Apparently Mr. oder Ms. MCRD does not recognize the fact that more than a few people do not wish to leave their Heimat.

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        If you are really interested in the graves in the Balkans, I will merely harken back to the reason that Milosevich was brought before the International Criminal Court in den Haag.  If you wish to ignore it, it’s fine with me, but them’s the facts.

        • You zigged when you should have zagged. I am well awareof the mass graves in the Balkans. By equating New Bedford to
          the balkans I was puzzled and surprised, because I have had occasion to frequent ” New Baege” and I never came across any mass graves, or heard of clandestine mass executions. As I stated the analogy was inappropriate.

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          And for you folks who are unacquainted with SE Mass, as I assume most are judging by the postings, New Bedford has always been well populated by illegals from Portugal as long as I can remember. The Portugese folks were sick and tired of illegal hispanics stealing THEIR jobs and they went to their congressional representative and ICE for relief.

          • By equating…

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            you are unable to distinguish between Aehnlichkeit (analogy) and Gleichkeit (equating).  No analogy is exact.

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            Regardless…

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            …as I assume most are judging by the postings, New Bedford has always been well populated by illegals from Portugal as long as I can remember…

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            Actually, I did not know that, but, if I thought about it, I might have presumed that.  It was somewhat analogous to the subject of Kevin Cullen’s recent series in the Globe regarding the Irish, true?

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            The Portugese folks were sick and tired of illegal hispanics stealing THEIR jobs

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            The jobs aren’t their jobs.  The jobs are the jobs given by the employer.  I will tell you, and read this carefully.  If you want to object to employers employing undocumented aliens*, don’t give the employers your custom.  We try to eschew giving our custom (purchasing products) from countries that have essentially engage sklaven labor (slave labor).

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            *I use “undocumented” for a reason: it is neutral.  Undocumented aliens are not “illegal” until they have been declared so.  “Illegal” is an emotive term.  If you can suggest another term that is not emotive, feel free to do so.

      • I am offended by the comparison. Every poorly conceived government policy that harms a group of people is not “ethnic cleansing” such as occurred in the Balkans.

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        I suggest you get a little more familiar with what happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the ’90s before carelessly tossing around analogies like that. “Ethnic cleansing” meant MASS MURDER. It involved lining up groups of men and shooting them. THOUSANDS of them.

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        It involved setting up camps where women were repeatedly raped. It involved forcing men to rape women or young girls that they knew.

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        It involved tortures of the most grotesque kinds imaginable, techniques that I will not repeat here, but suffice it to say it was orders of magnitude more horrific than lightning raids and imprisonment.

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        This is not in any way to excuse inappropriate behavior of other governments, including our own.

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        However, there’s no need to cheapen the suffering of millions of people in order to make your point. There is quite a difference between bad policy and genocide.

        • I have seen mass graves in Bosnia, and I will never forget the endless rows of graves reading 19xx-1994.  I take offense when people use terms like genocide lightly – such actions dilute the meaning of the word.  But it is true that one element of ethnic cleansing is forced resettlement, especially the seeking out of a group to expell them from a territory.  Obviously there isn’t complete definitional consistency, but the analogy holds some truth.

          • this policy is absolutely horrifying and disgusting and we do have a right to know about it and loudly disagree with it.

      • It would be interesting to know how the people who took issue with the analogy in our op-ed would characterize a plan to expel 12 million people.

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        It would also be interesting to know what they think about the claims in ICE’s response, as if the papers haven’t been full for weeks of stories about the problems caused by this raid.

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        And the fact that ICE took steps to hide the Endgame plan (not just the “playbook,” as someone suggested, but references to it as well) as soon as someone shone a light on it.

        • 12 million people. It sounds like something out of WWII movies. You know, when whole minorities were in camps – in Germany AND here. And we should be embarrassed by the fact that we at ALL emulated the Germans’ model, even if theirs ended in death and destruction and ours just ended in…ruining people’s lives and livelihoods.

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          And this “Endgame” thing is MORE than a playbook – it’s a fracking POLICY and we have a right as Americans to review and reject it. The fact that no one knew about this before is a serious breach of democracy.

        • 1) I would call it enforcing the law.

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          2) I would say they called you out for the hucksters the ACLU have become.  You don’t believe in civil liberties, you believe in Liberal Doctrine.  There are 10 parts to the bill of rights and you don’t support them all.

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          3) I would say it was stupid of them to show their hand in the first place. 

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          PS.  The got 60 so or more of the illegals today! 🙂

        • not feasible, not likely to happen, and an inappropriate response to frustration over the fact that this country is unable to control its borders.

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          As it turns out, attempts to enforce immigration laws often become much more dicey when you put human faces on the undocumented, many of whom are otherwise law-abiding and have come to this country to escape very difficult conditions in their home countries.

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          I don’t pretend to have an answer to this dilemma.

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          I do know that the way that specific raid was conducted was unacceptable.

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          However, if you cannot grasp the difference between a) poorly executed attempts to enforce immigration laws and b) slaughtering thousands of people because of their ethnic group or religion, I’d say you have a serious inability to grasp basic issues of ethics and law.

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          If the plan was to deport ALL the people of a certain ethnic group or national origin, whether or not they were in this country legally, that would be ethnic cleansing. If the plan was to rape and murder many of the illegal immigrants in hopes that the others would flee, that would be a reasonable comparison to ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.

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          It appears that you either never knew or have forgotten what happened in Bosnia in the 1990s. I have not. From several newsletters I put together for the Bosnia Action Coalition in 1995:

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          “Serbs gave us water and bread as long as the camera was recording,” Sabra Husenovic told the Washington Post. “Then I saw them shoot a 13-year-old boy in the mouth. He died.”

          Several women told the N.Y. Times that they saw young boys taken away, and heard terrible screaming; the next day, they saw a pile of bodies near a fountain, and two boys hanging from a tree. Two refugees witnessed the murders of a man and 5-year-old boy, shot together by Serb soldiers. Others saw bodies lying in a creek. . . .

          Sevda Porobic, 32, related how Serb fighters took away three female prisoners, the youngest of them 12; the three returned several hours later — naked, bruised, and bleeding. The 14-year-old later hung herself with a scarf, the refugee said. . . .

          One woman who said she had been raped later hung herself from a tree with a piece of torn blanket after reaching a makeshift refugee camp in Tuzla. Refugees also reported seeing piles of bodies along the road from Srebrenica to
          Tuzla. . . .

          “I saw scores and scores of bodies as I walked,” said Ahmed Ustic, 19, who survived a harrowing 6-day journey from Srebrenica through Serb-occupied territory to reach government-held Tuzla. Bahrem Ektic, 16, told of a wounded
          man whose nose, ears, and most fingers had been cut off, begging for someone to kill him.

          “We could not shoot him, for fear Serbs would hear us,” said Ustic, once the lead guitarist for the Srebrenica rock group Absurd. “And nobody mustered strength to put him out of his misery with a knife. So we left him there whimpering. … The sound will always be in my head.”

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          Are you really still ready to argue that something like this happened in New Bedford?

  4. Did the ACLU really compare the deportation of illegal aliens to the Balkans?  I am agog.

    • I have a friend in that corner of the world on a peacekeeping mission.  Say what you will about ENDGAME, but I don’t think US Marshals are raping anyone or killing entire villages at a time.

  5. Due process should be for everyone…and that includes those who volunteer themselves to come here and work.

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    For me “lightening” raids and “mass arrests” and treating economic refugees like criminals because the real criminals are too hard to corral, is not what I want MY tax dollars used for.

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    It is too much like sadists shooting fish in a barrel.

  6. Endloesung.  The final solution.

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    *”Obviously, you don’t know what “endgame” harkens back to.”

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    This is seriously frightening.  And one must wonder, why now?  Why after the 2006 election.  What are the Republikaner trying to prove, after the election?  If they were seriously interested in immigration issues, one would believe that they would have made a move before the 2006 election.  But they didn’t.  Who are they trying to kid?

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    Apparently the Republikaner are trying to destroy the economies of northern Vermont and northern New Hampshire, by making it virtually impossible for Canadians to go there to shop.  Hey, whatever.  The Bushies have sold out to the Chinese, so who cares?

    • The US Border with Canda in Pittsburg (no H in NH) is not: (a) very well marked, or (b) very well patrolled. 

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      It is a possible access point for Terrorists being about 35 miles from a decent sized population center in Sherbrooke, QC.  I think that is what the Minutemen will be doing.

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      I go to Canada at least 4 times a year to visit family and Vacation in PEI.  The border security at border crossings is very secure now.  As an aside, don’t cross at one of the major crossing points on I 89, I 91, or I 93 if you are coming back from Montreal on a Sunday. It will take you two hours minimum to get through.  Use a smaller crossing. 

      • …as has been reported, ICE has set up checkpoints up to 100 miles into VT and NH whereby they stop and search people who they believe are coming there from Canada.

        • Do you have any idea how far into VT, NH, ME that is ?

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          I don’t think it is a hundred miles from the North East Kingdom to MA.

          • as the crow flies from the Northeast Kingdom to the Mass border. Of course, quite a lot farther by road. The US border patrol is known to stop people around Burlington, as well as on the ferry crossing Lake Champlain to NY.

          • Do you have any idea how far into VT, NH, ME that is ?

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            Yes, I do.  That’s why I remembered the fact.  A mile or two, I wouldn’t have bothered.  A hundred miles or so, that led me to remember it.

        • I did not know about the internal border stops. I’ve travelled the stretch of I89 talked about in the following article at least 40 times in my life, including 6 in the past year and have never seen the stops.  The border with Canada is very pourous and wooded. It is easy for the Quebec biker gangs to send people over the border.  I in fact had a relative get caught when the person was younger coming across in Maine, though not on a drug run.  He served some time for it, as he should have.

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          A link to an article talking about the border agents, setting up at White River Junction can be found here.

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          They may not be catching any would-be terrorists, but increased stops of cars by Border Patrol agents in rural New England has yielded an increase in marijuana seizures, the Boston Globe reported Dec. 19.

          The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported that marijuana seizures by Vermont patrols have jumped from 419 pounds in 2000 to more than 3,000 pounds in 2005. Not a single suspected terrorist has been detained, however, and the aggressive Border Patrol tactics have angered some state residents and civil libertarians who say that the stops and searches are overkill for routine law enforcement.

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          Wouldn’t this be easier if we stopped the modern day prohibition that are our marijuana laws?  No smuggling would be happening( surprised a few of you with that one, didn’t I).

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          White River Junction is 135 miles from the I-89 border crossing and 110 miles from Derby Line in the North East Kingdom.  It really is a smart place to set up because it is a major transporatation hub.  But I don’t know if a little over a ton is reason enough to set these up.

      • …Vielleicht nicht zu Vernichterlagen, aber Irgendwo.

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        *They (the feds) wisked those that they had taken into custody somewhere.  Maybe not to death camps, but somewhere.

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        Actually, the more that I think about these actions by the Bush II malAdmninistration, the more veraergert I become. 

  7. Yes, psychological, staged for political gain operation.
    http://www.americanc…
    And this
    http://www.whitehous…
    http://www.yorku.ca/…
    http://www.theameric…

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    I have seen the quotes of four US dollars in exchange for one Amero.  Amero is common enough knowledge even to be seen here.
    http://en.wikipedia….

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    That would make government just about as credible as a level three sex offender.
    Ah, but it gets even better.
    http://www.democrats…
    Halliburton to build detention camps in the US.
    Ah, but didn’t Deval say they went to Ft. Devens?
    Ft. Devens!!!!!!?????  Screeecch……..Oh I distinctly recall an article six months ago on the “moonbat”, “tinfoil hatter”, “”conspiracy”” site about Ft. Devens being on the list of “relocation centers” in case of domestic “unrest”.

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    I guess one could call Gitmo a “relocation center” also.
    So I hope we all enjoy learning Spanish, paying in worthless Ameros and living the lifestyle of Mexican peasants, for that is what the real plan calls for.

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