Cross-posted on Immigration Orange
On Friday August 10, JTD sent me this email:
I assume you’re aware of the savage, horrible shooting down in NJ last week, of 4 young college students…Turns out, one of the murder suspects is an illegal immigrant (from Peru) …
If they haven’t started already, get ready for a wave of huffing-and-puffing from Fox Noise, Michelle Malkin, the Right Wing Nuts, Freak Show, et al., on how this is a sign to aggressively clamp down on illegal aliens… Tancredo will probably come back from vacation with more draconian legislation, etc…
Haven’t noticed any of the GOP Presidential candidates jumping on it yet, but, then again, they probably haven’t gotten the smear talking points yet…
I can’t believe how right he was. It’s been less than two weeks since three young students were executed in New Jersey and Michelle Malkin has already used this as an opportunity to start a national campaign against “criminal aliens”. I don’t have a problem with political opportunism, I have a problem with the harmful misinformation she’s spreading.
In Malkin’s piece, “Sanctuary Nation or Sovereign Nation: It’s Your Choice”, she is quick to point out the lead suspect is tied with a transnational criminal youth gang, Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13:
With illegal alien murder suspect Jose Carranza and his alleged MS-13 gang-banging boy helpers who are being sought in the brutal Newark murder case dominating the news on the Eastern seaboard, politicians can’t find a camera fast enough to condemn the very sanctuary policies they promoted and tolerated for decades — sanctuary policies I’ve highlighted for years in this column.
It is important to state that Carranza’s gang connections are uncertain, but it is certain that the suspects in question had an affinity for MS-13. The Truth about gangs like Mara Salvatrucha and Mara 18 is that they used to be relatively small neighborhood gangs in Los Angeles before U.S. immigration policy paved the way for mass criminal deportations. Indira A.R. Lakshmanan from the Boston Globe reports:
Ten years after a change in US immigration law paved the way for mass deportations, key Central American nations say they cannot cope with the criminal mayhem being inflicted by tens of thousands of gang members who have been sent back to their native lands.
Between 1998 and 2004, the United States deported more than 34,000 criminals to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. Thousands more deportees were suspected, but never convicted, of gang activity.
Today, ”maras,” or youth street gangs, boast 100,000 members in Central America by conservative estimates. They are blamed for much of the violent crime that plagues this region — from murder and rape to human trafficking, smuggling, drug dealing, home invasions, extortion, and kidnapping.
The U.S.’s hand in these gangs goes back even further than the deportation policies that have transformed them into the monsters that they are today. Mara Salvatrucha was formed after thousands of Salvadorans fled a civil war 1980s. Here, like in so many other instances, the U.S. supported a brutal government that was dastardly enough to murder four U.S. churchwomen, three of them nuns.
If the U.S. starts deporting these criminals in droves without even attempting to mitigate the consequences, it’s going to make things a lot worse not only for these deportee’s countries of origin, but also for the U.S. citizens that are already suffering for the U.S.’s previous messes in the region.
(See my previous post)
Malkin would have U.S. citizens choose between sovereignty and compassion for U.S. interests. By saying “America first” Malkin likes to pretend that she a champion of U.S citizens. The truth is, though, we no longer live in a world where you can damn the citizens of other countries to hell without damaging your own.
The best thing you can do for U.S. citizens, now, is actually start focusing on the root of the problems associated with migration. If you start giving migrants the opportunity to stay in their own countries all of the problems that so many conservatives are barking about will go away. Contrary to what Malkin would have people believe not all migrants are “rapists, kidnappers, and murderers”, the vast majority have the noblest dreams of getting ahead and providing for their families. Migrants go through injustices that people reading this can’t even hope to understand. If the 12 million migrants in the U.S. were the people Malkin paints them out to be, she’d be in a lot of trouble.
Not to be partisan or anything, but why would you expect a reasonable response to anything from Michelle Malkin? Her record speaks for itself.
I wouldn’t give Malkin any attention either but a lot of people on the right are using this issue in the same way.
…what is the objection to deporting the ones who engage in felonious activity?
I guess my answer would be, it depends where they’re from. Deporting some people might be worse than jail.
I don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to understand that the policy of deporting criminals all across the hemisphere has strengthened them and turned them into monsters . Gangs that used to be relegated to East LA are now so huge that the FBI is having trouble taking them on. Please engage this point.
who came in the gangs wouldn’t have the stronghold now would they? Illegal aliens are by definition criminal aliens as they broke a law by either a)coming here or b)overstaying their visas.
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While deporting criminals may have strengthened criminal elements in their home country I could care less. If we had released them to the United States they just would have strengthened gangs here, no? Your statements while they may be true should not dictate american sovereignty.
You’re not seriously advocating the building of some 5000 miles worth of wall, are you?
I am advocating building a southern wall. Migration of Canadians illegally doesn’t seem to be a tremendous problem.
“Migration of Canadians illegally doesn’t seem to be a tremendous problem.”
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I haven’t heard about any would-be terrorists being arrested on the way in from Mexico…
are sheparded across our southern border by gangs such as MS-13.
Your source for these claims is the Boston Herald by way of crazyrightwingblog.com? While I admit these claims are a convenient way for conservatives to justify their fear for all brown people, I was talking about real live terrorists, not imaginary ones that make the Minutemen wet their pants at night.
While I was at a speech where Gov./Amb. Cellucci spoke about how the RCMP had QUADRUPLED enforcement (who knew?) there was still a problem with people from ALL OVER THE WORLD entering through the northern border. As a New Englander – I don’t give a damn about a southern wall; really, isn’t there a RIVER there already?
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But our northern border – across which EVERY terrorist both succesful and thwarted has crossed – bothers the hell out of me. Really – does anybody ELSE find it a ‘coincidence’ that the homegrown terrorists identified in the NYPD report are all in the NORTHEAST? HELL-o?
We can’t build a wall on the Canadian Frontier due to treaty obligations.
According to globalsecurity.org
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Most migrants don’t even come over the fence they just overstay their visas once they get in. It’s time to stop debating side issues like this and focus on the root of the problem, why these migrants are leaving in the first place.
In fact, OVERstaying.
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Kyledeb – most progressives are contemptuous of the ‘we’re the cops of the world’ attitude and advocate a more isolationist foreign policy. Are you saying that it’s up to US to solve the problems of other soverign nations? How is that different from Iraq?
What is the alternative to deportation? And how exactly does deportation strenthen the gangs?
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I feel like we’re on the same page here; I am merely trying to understand what you’re getting at.
Basically the U.S. is deporting these criminals without considering the consequences of that deportation. Guatemala is going to have to absorb 24,000 deportees this year which would be the equivalent of the U.S. taking in half a million unemployed people and criminals every year. I’m not advocating that the U.S. stop deporting criminals I’m just advocating that the U.S. help these countries cope with absorbing all of these people.
that they exported said criminals and that said criminals are nationals of Guatemala. Are you seriously suggesting we should become the Australia of Latin America. Central America’s penal colony? I am having real trouble following your logic. You seem to blame the United States for deporting criminals to their country of origin. I see no problem with this.
The issue is not who to blame the issue is how to fix it. More has to be done to mitigate the problems with U.S. deportation policies or it’s going to force more people to leave, and there will be more migrants on our hands.
Clearly U.S. policy in Central America needs work; one need only witness the popularity of Hugo Chavez, when he sticks it to Bush. The man is at best no prize, and he has shown some despotic tendencies, but we drive people to him.
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However, I do think a sound immigration policy needs to consider criminal behavior. If I moved to France and committed crimes, I’m pretty sure they would ship me back here. Maybe that’s unsound if my native country is Guatemala (or China), but I’m not sure where the middle ground is.
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And to state the obvious for the sake of leaving no doubt, the vast majority of immigrants are law-abiding people looking for work. The political trouble starts with the label “illegal immigrants,” but that’s a whole other discussion.
If you read the previous post that I link to above I speak about some of the things that Guatemala is trying to to do mitigate the impact of all of these deportees. If the U.S. were to help out with these programs it might be a start, and a way to make it less likely that people will leave to the U.S. in the first place.
…if anyone wants a bit of background on Malkin, he or she should got to David Neiwert’s site at dneiwert.blogspot.com and do a search. Malkin is a rightwing freak, as well as a total racist.
I’m going to make this a priority for tomorrow.
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My first exposure to Malkin was through Phyllis Schlafly’s “Eagle Forum,” which gave her an award. When I read some of Malkin’s stuff I was horrified. Recently Glenn Greenwald, responding on Salon.com to O’Reilly’s attack on YearlyKos, highlighted some comments on Malkin’s site. Obviously she can’t be held entirely accountable for those, but they were telling of what her following is like.
…need I really mention her recent defense of the WWII era “relocation” of Americans of Japanese descent into concentration camps?