Arizona State Bill 1070, otherwise known as “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” signed by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer earlier this week may not have a long enough shelf life to determine its effect.
The verbiage that is causing the controversy and that must be reviewed would be “reasonable suspicion” and what exactly does it constitute.
The bill text states:
The Associated Press has an interesting article by Elliot Spagat on illegal immigrants and public housing. The premise at hand as the title suggests is that thousands of illegal immigrants live in public housing.
Now one has to stop for a second to the let the headline sink in. After browsing the comments section of the Houston Chronicle and reactions on the blogosphere … it was pretty clear, this was a rallying call for anti-immigrant coalitions.
If all you were to listen to were talk-radio then you would think getting healthcare in the United States as an immigrant is as easy as 1, 2, 3. They forget to tell you that the same bureaucratic system that fails to insure millions of American citizens does a good job at preventing those that are not documented to be in the United States.
Take for example Antonio Torres, a 19-year old from Arizona that is a legal immigrant from Mexico who was in coma after a car accident last June. Let me repeat, the gentleman was legally allowed to be in the United States, there was nothing illegal about his status.
Well, after learning that the individual was uninsured, the hospital deported him back to Mexico. Get that? The hospital not the U.S. government took it upon themselves to decide the fate of this individual and sent him back to his home country while in a coma and on the brink of death.
Now that is official and Barack Obama has asked Joe Biden to join on him on the Democratic ticket, what is Biden’s position when it comes to the Hispanic issues? Biden has been in office since 1970 and has been the Senator for Delaware since 1972. Other than being a Roman Catholic, what else does Biden share in common with the Hispanic vote?
When it comes to the controversial topic of Abortion, Biden believes that the government’s role is to remain neutral. He does not believe that the U.S. should repeal Roe v. Wade. Negating women the option of undergoing the procedure is a position. He does not believe in using public funds for abortions. He accepts the Catholic Church view that life begins at conception. The majority of Hispanics with roots in the Catholic Church do not find abortions permissible. His position of allowing them to be performed but publicly against the surgery may not hurt his political view with this constituency.
It is always easier to scapegoat a minority group that can not defend itself. When it comes to illegal immigrants, they are all labeled as criminals or people that come to the U.S. in order to drain our society of its resources. The media plays along and highlights sensational stories that feed the fire and the cycle resumes. It is always comforting to know that there are stories out there that if shown to the masses, would change the way they thought about the issue.
Enter the Reader’s Digest story about an illegal migrant worker turn brain surgeon for a prestigious institute:
"Shortly after, he decided to leave Mexico in search of better options. So on his arrival, Quiñones headed with his cousin for the San Joaquin Valley to work in the fields. "I picked tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, corn, grapes."
After a year, he had saved $8,000 — almost all of his pay. "I ate what I was picking," he says. "I wore the same pair of jeans the whole year."
When Quiñones looked up from the dirt, the best job he could see was driving the big tractors. The drivers were skilled, and they supervised crews. He was told it took ten years of fieldwork to land such a promotion, but Quiñones was soon behind the wheel of sophisticated plows and ditchdiggers. He learned how to service the engines and qualified for a temporary work permit. "I had that hunger in my gut," he says.
He moved to Stockton and took a job in a rail yard so he could attend night school at San Joaquin Delta College, learning English. With his English improving, Quiñones switched to the night shift and began full-time studies in science and math. To make ends meet, he also tutored other students.
After graduating with an associate’s degree in 1991, Quiñones was accepted to the University of California, Berkeley. He moved to a low-rent district in Oakland, getting by on a combination of scholarships, loans, a small grant and, as always, work. He became a teacher’s assistant in three departments and also took a job at a men’s clothing store.
Quiñones excelled in the competitive environment of Berkeley, getting straight A’s in advanced classes, writing his honors thesis on the role of drug receptors in the brain and teaching calculus on the side — not that he paid much attention to his standing. In the spring of 1993, his mentor, Hugo Mora, looked over his transcripts and told him he stood a good chance of getting into Harvard Medical School.
Harvard accepted him, and Quiñones moved East in the fall of 1994. "I’m sitting there, ten years after hopping the fence, and it hits me how fast I came up."
Quiñones says he understands why people might resent him for entering the country illegally. His only excuse is that he was a brash and desperate teenager. "The last thing I was thinking was that I was going to break the law," he says. Once he arrived, Quiñones says, the United States "opened its doors to me" — a welcome, he adds, that would be unlikely today given the heated immigration debate. He offers no solution but suggests it will not come from higher walls. "As long as there is poverty in our neighboring countries, there will continue to be this influx."
This is a heartwarming story that reminds us that anything is possible here in the United States. Barack Obama touched on this point in a speech once and I agree with him. Dr. Quiñones adds his personal insight on his approach of entering this country. What most folks do not understand is that a lot of these individuals do not have the luxury of waiting to be accepted legally in order to enter this country. As long as the U.S. continues to promote despotic government in Latin America, the issue of poverty and illegal imiggration will continue to plague the Americans.
Note: Watch a video of Dr. Quiñones on Big Think.
Did you know there was a high possibility that bananas may become extinct within your lifetime? Don’t believe me? I am serious . . . that is if the Cavendish version of banana is invaded by a fungus called the Panama disease, according to Dan Koeppel author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World.
You see, the banana we eat now is just "the fruit equivalent of a fast-food hamburger: efficient to produce, uniform in quality and universally affordable." Americans would eat a healthier and tastier version of the banana called Gros Michel before it was replaced by the Cavendish banana. Unfortunately, the Panama disease ravaged banana plantations and the Cavendish became the standard by 1960. It is of Chinese origins and is ‘inferior in taste, easy to bruise (and therefore hard to ship) and too small to appeal to consumers." The only thing it had going for it was that it was able to survive the Panama disease.
Presently though, a new stronger version of the Panama disease has been causing trouble in the last ten years. This time, the Cavendish is not immune. It is expected that the fungus will "reach Latin America in 5 to 10 years, maybe 20," followed with a slow response by the banana companies to find a cure, the future of Cavendish and bananas altogether . . . looks rather blight.
What will the impact be on Americans though? That’s hard to speculate because although banana consumption outnumbers apple and orange consumption put together, that trend is slowly changing as Americans become health conscious. The banana’s deceptive role in the fruit family has turned of some folks from it. If it does become unavailable, it will not be greatly missed one never developed the sweet tooth that grapes or other fruits invoke. The greatest impact I believe it will have will be on the local economies that rely on the banana as an export in Central America. Those economies may be devastated if not properly prepared. In particular in the labor sector, as hundreds and thousands of workers become unemployed and with no other option but to migrate to the United States.
Which begs the question? How shall we solve this before it does become an issue? Every American problem does not need an American solution. Case in point . . . Spain. Jason DeParle of The New York Times wrote an intresting piece describing how Spain and Southern Europe have handed their illegal immigration issue.
The first step to solving the issue is to understand that you are not the only one with the issue. There are others in the world that have encountered the same or similar issues and applied their own solutions. DeParle claims, "With little domestic opposition, Spain legalized nearly 600,000 of the African, Latin American and eastern European workers who helped power its economy and brought this once insular land the strengths and strains of diversity."
It seems that legalization does not necessarily bring the negative assumptions that most assume it would, or at least in this case. It is intresting to see how other nations around the world are managing their domestic issues. It takes a proactive positive approach to achieve success in such sensitive matters. It will take Americans time to comprehend the true intentions of most immigrants that enter this country without the proper permission. Immigrants that enter the nation through a valid visa make up about 50% of the illegal immigration population. The other half did so by bypassing border security through Mexico and Canada. That is why we are building a wall to prevent half of the people from coming. It doesn’t make sense when the other half are still entering and will continue to enter lawfully.
Congress should take time to truly understand the issue at hand before applying haphazardly the first solution that placates the small minority of vocal constituents that are against immigration.
Army Worried by Rising Stress of Return Tours to Iraq – Army leaders are expressing increased alarm about the mental health of soldiers who would be sent back to the front again and again under plans that call for troop numbers to be sustained at high levels in Iraq for this year and beyond. Among combat troops sent to Iraq for the third or fourth time, more than one in four show signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress, according to an official Army survey of soldiers’ mental health.
Administrative problems fuel drop in U.S. legal immigration – The number of people who legally immigrated to the U.S. dropped 17 percent last year, largely because of administrative problems, according to a Homeland Security Department report. Citizenship and Immigration Services has been under fire after processing times grew because immigrants flooded the agency with applications filed last year in advance of dramatic increases in filing fees. The delays will keep some people from becoming citizens in time to vote in November.
Skybus becomes third airline this week to close – Skybus Airlines announced Friday it is shutting down its passenger flights — becoming the third airline this week to cease operations. The low-cost carrier couldn’t overcome "the combination of rising jet fuel costs and a slowing economic environment," the company said Friday.
Mugabe ‘preparing for poll war’ – Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has accused President Robert Mugabe of preparing to go to war against the country’s people. He said Mr Mugabe was deploying troops and armed militias to intimidate voters ahead of a possible run-off poll. Mr Tsvangirai insisted he had won last weekend’s presidential vote, the result of which has yet to be announced.
More experts now warn U.S. already in grip of recession – It’s no longer a question of recession or not. Now it’s how deep and how long. Workers’ pink slips stacked ever higher in March as jittery employers slashed 80,000 jobs, the most in five years, and the national unemployment rate climbed to 5.1 percent. Job losses are nearing the staggering level of a quarter-million this year in just three months. For the third month in a row, total U.S. employment rolls shrank — often a telltale sign that the economy has jolted dangerously into reverse.
Lawsuit Challenges Immigration Raids in New Jersey – Immigration agents systematically entered homes and made arrests without proper warrants during raids to round up immigration fugitives in New Jersey, according to a federal lawsuit filed Thursday. The lawsuit, brought by lawyers at the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall Law School in Newark, will provide a constitutional test of law enforcement methods often used by immigration agents since May 2006 when they began operations across the country to track down and deport immigrants who had been ordered to leave by the courts.
Olympics ‘worsening China rights’ – China’s human rights record is getting worse, not better, because of the Beijing Olympics, a rights group says. According to Amnesty International, China is clamping down on dissent in a bid to portray a stable and harmonious image ahead of the Games in August.
80,000 Jobs Cut in March; Unemployment Rate Rises – The economy shed 80,000 jobs in March, the third consecutive month of rising unemployment, presenting a stark sign that the country may already be in a recession. Sharp downturns in the manufacturing and construction sectors led the decline, the biggest in five years. The Labor Department also said employers cut far more jobs in January and February than originally estimated.
Back to pencil and paper for 2010 census – Technology problems will force the government to count all of the nation’s 300 million residents the old-fashioned way in the 2010 census — with paper and pencil.
Gene links smokers and lung cancer – Three new studies analyzing the genetics of lung cancer have identified two inherited gene variations that raise white smokers’ chances of getting the disease by as much as 80 percent compared to tobacco users without the genes. All smokers have a tenfold greater risk for lung cancer than nonsmokers, but less than 20 percent of smokers eventually develop the disease. Scientists believe heredity is why some smokers are more likely to develop lung cancer.
