with that. I just don’t know how to logically respond without screaming “I’M OKAY WITH IMMIGRANTS NO MATTER WHAT WHEREVER PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIVE WHEREVER THEY WANT AND HOW THEY SEE FIT WITHOUT PERSECUTION”. You’re usually so insightful on issues like this so I’m turning to you for help. Thanks!

———-

Um, OK, here’s how I feel about immigration:

1. The whole “white people are indigenous to Switzerland” is sort of a weird argument, because we’re talking about going way back in history here, like pre-history, and if we’re really going to argue that, the fact that all human life originated in Africa, and the roots of civilization are in the Middle East should be brought up. Let’s be real here: Muslim immigrants “taking over” by “stealing jobs” and whatnot is a far cry from European colonist coming over the America, committing genocide, raping women, and physically kicking out indigenous tribes from their ceremonial land, all under the logic of, “WE ARE CIVILIZED PEOPLE: WE MAKE THE RULES, THIS IS A LEGITIMATE WAY TO GAIN OWNERSHIP OF LAND.” Seriously, that was the attitude. Look it up. Landownership by conquest. It’s a thing. 

2.  That being said, I’m also skeptical about the whole “immigrant men’s rape rates being very high.”  I’d like to know what facts were cited.  The problem with crime rates within POC communities is that POC communities tend to be criminally profiled. Which is to say: if society in general vilifies a race, that race will be accused of crime in disproportionately large numbers.  And the sad, ugly truth of European history includes making Muslim men into animals when it comes to European, white women. Shit about Muslim men goes back to the crusades and even became exoticized in the early 20th century (ahem, “The Sheik,” much?????”) so basically, saying, “MUSLIM IMMIGRANTS RAPE WOMEN” is a highly suspect statement, something along the lines of a white person in America saying, “BLACK MEN ARE ALL THUGS.” 

3.  That being said, immigration law needs to exist because regulation on citizenship needs to exist. Without immigration law, there would be no way to quantify who is a citizen of any given country and thus, who could vote, what taxes they would pay (if any), and what type of benefits could the government grant them. To all the people who are all like “PEOPLE SHOULD BE ABLE TO IMMIGRATE NO MATTER WHAT” I’d like to extend a reality check: with free-form immigration, every state could be a sanctuary state for every other country’s criminals. What do I mean? I mean, look at what Roman Polanski was able to do.  That’s ridiculous.  Do I think people should be screened for their criminal and health backgrounds (health in the sense of “do you have a contagious disease)? Yes. Do I think that many western immigration systems are fucked and deliberately stacked due to historic racist ideologies? Hell yes. Just look at the quota system in the US. Just look at the Chinese Immigration Act. We can even go as far back as the Jewish diaspora in Europe. But do I also thing that a free-for-all, “RIGHTS AND OPEN DOORS TO ANYONE WHO WANTS TO COME IN” policy is problematic? HELL yes. 

4. As the child of immigrants, I’m STILL the first to say that US citizens/taxpayers should be the ones to receive governmental benefits. But I’m also one to say that the US immigration system is fucked, and basically all of the gripes that people have about “illegal immigrants” (urgh) could be solved by simply making the immigration process more streamlined and less economically/racially based. Because, again, most immigration regulation is rooted in racism. 

5. So basically: white people bitching about immigrants in Europe and comparing it to indigenous people’s lands being occupied is BULLSHIT. Why? Because white people are still making the laws. White people are still in power. White people still have total control over the situation.  When the day comes that all the Muslim immigrants in Europe rise up and kill all the leaders, commit mass genocide of white people, go on a raping spree, and then kick all the white people to some undesirable, useless, horrible land that white people can’t handle but is inexplicably part of a whole country (like the very tops of the Alps or some shit), and then proceed to rob said white people of their citizenship, governmental benefits, and then relocate the white children to Muslim Immigrant homes in the hopes of being “re-educated,” then we can talk. But if basically, the white people are just bitching about Muslim immigrants “taking jobs” because the system allows for immigrants to be treated like shit, then fuck it. You make no sense and basically your logic is nothing more than the whine of a very annoying, very racist, mosquito.

sinidentidades:

Guillermo Campos-Ojeda says goodbye to his wife Adela and daughter Paloma before boarding a deportation flight chartered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2010.

now please tell me about how deportation is the only way to preserve the american family

really

let me hear that argument again

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) directed state agencies this week to ignore President Barack Obama’s order on “deferred action” for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, saying that the order was “a slap in the face to the rule of law and our Constitutional framework of separated powers.”

Although the law states that the federal government has sole authority over matters concerning immigration, and the Obama administration specifically said the order in no way changes the law, Perry insisted that state agencies still have a mandate to verify who is eligible for state and local public benefits — saying, in effect, that Texas will refuse to issue identification cards to undocumented immigrants who qualify for them under federal law.

“The [order] does not undermine or change our state laws, or any federal laws that apply within the State of Texas,” he wrote. “I expect our state agencies to continue to comply with and enforce the laws for the protection of our citizens, communities and state treasury and in fulfillment of our constitutional duty as officials within the executive branch.”

Perry has in the past tried to claim that the 10th Amendment to the Constitution empowers him to refuse orders by the federal government on things like clean air regulations, health insurance exchanges, Medicare and Medicaid assistance and women’s health services. In spite of his proclivity for rhetorical insurrection, Perry is often chided by legal experts for ignoring Article IV, Clause 2 of the Constitution, also known as the federal supremacy clause, which establishes laws and treaties adopted by Congress to be the highest law of the land.

[…]

The refusal to comply means Texas, Arizona and Nebraska are rushing headlong into a messy legal battle with the federal government over the Bush administration’s Real ID Act of 2005, which requires a host of new supporting documents be presented to obtain a photo ID, and stipulates that people who qualify for “deferred action” on immigration areeligible for a driver’s license. All states will be required to comply with new standards for photo IDs by January 15, 2013, meaning the federal government will likely have to sue the rogue governors to force their compliance with the law.

During the first two years of President Obama’s administration, undocumented immigrants were deported at a higher rate than ever before, outpacing deportations during even the prior eight years of Republican rule. A study published in April 2012 found that facing the reality of those policies and a continued lack of jobs in a still stagnant economy, legal and illegal immigration from Mexico has hit “net zero”, its lowest level in decades. President Obama has promised to take on immigration reform if he’s elected to a second term.

Um, Dear Rick Perry:

Here’s a list of things you need to re-read from the constitution:

1. The Supremacy Clause (meaning: any time both federal and state government have say over something NOT EXPRESSLY GRANTED TO EITHER in the Constitution, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT STILL WINS).

2.  Also, Article I (Congress has the power to decide EVERYTHING when it comes to immigration. This is why the Texas government was barred from bringing any repercussions to public school children of undocumented immigrants. IT’S TEXAS CASE LAW; Pyler v. Doe. PLEASE LOOK UP YOUR OWN STATE’S CASE LAW). 

3.  ALSO this is about federal grants of money. FEDERAL BENEFITS. If you’re accepting those benefits FOR OTHER PEOPLE, and ONE OF THE CONDITIONS OF ACCEPTING IS “yes, you also have to give it to these people as well,” YOU CAN’T ACCEPT THE FEDERAL BENEFITS. Do whatever you want with state funding; but when it comes to ACCEPTING FEDERAL BENEFITS, there is no way you can selectively accept said benefits.  THAT’S CHANGING THE LAW.  Unless you can prove that 

a) your cause is in no way discriminatory against a suspect class (meaning someone that we really have a history of discriminating against AND the court says it’s NOT OK to discriminate against them [think: it’s ok to discriminate against felons, not ok to discriminate against ethnic minorities])

b) said discrimination is necessary to achieve a legitimate purpose

YOU. ARE. ROYALLY. FUCKED. 

…

God.  Why doesn’t anybody require elected officials to be tested on Constitutional Law? 

illegalities:

legally-awesome:

anarchkitteh:

administrative law, in a nutshell.

AKA IMMIGRATION LAW IN A NUTSHELL

Civil Procedure, in a nutshell.

Hey Law Students! Follow illegalities.tumblr.com!

sageoflogic:

The entire Ron Paul ‘debate’ nice and rebloggable.

The racist link also. 

LOL at the redux of the whole, “It’s about economics, not racism!” argument.

manicmarley:

Bam. 

So if it’s not racist to bar people from entering the country based on racial factors….what is it? 

mohandasgandhi:

stefanifity-n-beyond:

[Yarelis Bonilla, five, of Elizabeth in New Jersey, has lymphocytic leukaemia and her best hope is a bone-marrow transplant from a perfect match donor.

Her seven-year-old sister, Gisselle, would fit the bill but she lives in El Salvador and has twice been denied a visa by the US embassy.

Marian Habib, the lawyer representing the family of Yarelis, who was born in the US, said: “It is truly an emergency. This is a race against time.” She said the US embassy in El Salvador has to be convinced that the girl’s life is at risk and that her sister will return to her home country after the transplant.

The family of the girls insisted that the operation cannot be carried out in El Salvador as the country cannot provide the level of medical care required.

“A report from the paediatrics department at Newark Beth Israel Medical Centre described Yarelis’s condition as “life-threatening”….

“ There is often a fear, in cases like this, that the recipient of the visa will not return home,” said Espinal.]

this is beyond belief. how? like what is wrong with these people? you rather a little girl die than risk ONE more possible illegal immigrant? i give up. i cant.

This is outrageous. We’ll let the Shah of Iran, who had over 20,000 people killed, seek refuge in the United States and get treatment for cancer but not a little girl for the purposes of donating bone marrow to her sister, a U.S. citizen? These immigration laws have to go.

Contact your Senators. They can put pressure on the State Department to issue humanitarian parole.

midwestgenderqueer:

Why immigrant rights are an LGBTQ Issue

7 simple reasons why the LGBTQ community needs to care about immigrant rights: 

#1. We are immigrants too: Of the 10.8 million people who live in the United States undocumented, many are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ). Some of these are LGBTQ youth who came with their families as minors and consider the U.S. their home, while others came to escape persecution in their own countries. They have built their lives here, fallen in love, and started families, but under current U.S. immigration law there is no legal process for them to become citizens. Today they remain in the country in limbo, vulnerable to abuse, and under constant threat of being deported.

#2. Our families have limited options: LGBTQ immigrants, both documented and undocumented, face hurdles when attempting to regularize their status or become citizens. If an immigrant with a visa happens to fall in love with a U.S. citizen of the same sex, their partner cannot help them change their immigration status to that of a permanent residentv. Because same-sex relationships are not recognized under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), for an immigrant who is in a same-sex marriage, there are an extra 2 years of residency before citizenship if the application is accepted compared to one who is in a heterosexual marriage. But if the application is denied, the immigrant partner will be put in deportation proceedings. There are at least 35,000 same-sex couples in the U.S. that are affected by the immigration system.

#3. We can’t help our immigrant partners: If a person is in deportation proceedings, whether it is because they traveled undocumented or were denied adjustment of status, there are very few options for them to remain in the country – heterosexual or LGBTQ. Some get a “cancelation of removal” from immigration when they have family members- children, husbands or wives, except that for same-sex couples, their citizen spouses do not count. As of May 2011 the policy of the Obama administration has explicitly been to deport immigrant same-sex partners of U.S. citizens, regardless of marital status. This year the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has estimated that they will deport over 400,000 people, the most annual deportations in the country’s history. According to statistics by DHS a third of immigrants detained have no criminal record, many of them include LGBTQ people, and permanent partners of U.S. citizens. [NOTE: This may change under the recent change in enforcement priorities announced by the Obama administration, and the guidelines for prosecutorial discretion announced by DHS. These procedures include LGBT people and same-sex couples, according to the White House, however there are still many questions about the implementation and efficacy of the policy].

#4. We are here escaping persecution: Many LGBTQ and HIV positive immigrants leave their country of birth escaping homophobic and transphobic violence, including threats to their lives. Since 1994 the U.S. considers this ground to request asylum and eventually permanent residency. However, the process for asylum can be a long and harsh process, where in the end, there is no guarantee that it will be granted. There are several cases of gay and transgender immigrants, who could not meet the burden of proof for their asylum claim. Some of them have accused immigration judges and officials of holding biased standards based on stereotypes of safety and behavior, and are still in limbo, or detained.

#5. We face harassment & death in detention: A civil complaint by the National Immigrant Justice Center against DHS details “sexual assault, denials of medical care, arbitrary confinement, and sever harassment and discrimination” against LGBTQ immigrants. The complaint is on behalf of 13 transgender and gay people who came to the U.S. to escape persecution in their won countries. In addition, there have been several documented cases where transgender immigrants have been denied access to hormones, and HIV+ detainees denied access to medication, resulting in a number of deaths and investigations into human rights abuses. These abuses reflect the wrongful treatment that thousands of immigrants face in detention facilities throughout the country, under a system that disproportionately affects LGBTQ immigrants.

#6. Queer undocumented youth are fierce: LGBTQ undocumented organizers have taken leadership roles in the national campaign for immigrant rights. This has been most visible in the campaign for the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM), which would provide a conditional path to citizenship for immigrant youth who arrived to the country before the age of 16. LGBTQ youth have “come out” to speak about being LGBTQ and undocumented, using their stories to advocate for change.xiv Additionally some of these youth make specific references to the gay liberation movement as inspiration, citing Harvey Milk’s activism in the 1980s. If these youth were to be deported, some would be going back go countries that they have never known, and that may not be accepting of their sexuality and gender. For many of these LGBTQ undocumented youth the only country they have known is the U.S. and they are fighting for their lives.

#7. Our struggles are intertwined: The same politicians and organizations that oppose the rights of undocumented immigrants oppose the rights of LGBTQ people. Data shows that we are more likely to encounter a person who favors both immigrant and LGBT rights, than someone who supports immigration, but opposes same-sex marriage. Homophobic politicians are likely to attempt to block immigration reform to prevent LGBTQ immigrants from gaining legal status through same-sex permanent partnerships. LGBTQ movements need to build strategic alliances with immigration movements to ensure equal rights for all.

- List put together by the Association of Latino Men for Action’s LGBT Immigrant Rights Project coordinator and IYJL organizer Tania Unzueta. On September 27th, 2011 the Chicago LGBTQ Immigrant Rights Coalition to presented a community forum on the intersection between immigrant rights and the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities. (Watch the live broadcast.) 

(via iyjl)

^This. Enough with the whole “oppressed groups need to compete to see who is the most oppressed and therefore deserves the most attention.” Everybody should band together to make the world a better place.