Showing posts with label IMMIGRATION. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IMMIGRATION. Show all posts
Monday, July 7, 2014
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
US sued by 22,000 would-be immigrants: lawyers
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| The US State Department in Washington © AFP/File Nicholas Kamm |
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A lawsuit has been filed against the State Department alleging it unfairly denied 22,000 would-be legal immigrants the right to permanent residency in the United States, their lawyers said Monday.
White and Associates said it filed the lawsuit in the District Court for the District of Colombia charging the State Department committed a "blunder" in holding a lottery granting them the permanent resident "green card."
In a statement, the firm alleged that the State Department had informed the lottery "winners" that in fact they had to be disqualified because a "computer glitch" meant they had not been randomly selected, as required by Congress.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Immigrant vets face deportation despite service
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Juliana Barbassa
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO — Up to 8,000 non-citizens enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces every year and serve alongside American troops.
If they die while serving, they are given citizenship and a military funeral. If they live and get in trouble with the law, they can get be ensnared by a 1996 immigration law that greatly expanded the list of crimes for which non-citizens can be deported.
Now advocates of non-citizen servicemen and women are trying to change the rules. Attorneys are taking cases to court, arguing that an immigrant who serves in the Armed Forces should be considered a U.S. national and protected from deportation. And the Armed Forces are considering quicker paths to citizenship for their non-citizen enlistees.
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Thursday, September 30, 2010
Stewart and Colbert Sell Neocon Agenda to Left & Trash 9/11 Truth
I just have to ask, is there anything, anything, that billionare Sumner Redstone’s progressive propaganda tag-team of Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert won’t do to help turn the supposed left 180 degrees from positions they held during the previous administration?
I have written several times about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert turning into blatant propagandists since the Chosen One took office.
For example: there’s the time Jon Stewart played the MEMRI TV video demonizing Palestinians, Stephen Colbert’s recent revolting sucking-up to globalist Joe Biden, there was Stewart’s story about the South Park episode psyop involving Revolution Muslim which turns out to be run by a “converted” jewish ex-settler from the West Bank,Stephen’s sycophantic groveling and rebranding the Afghan occupation just after Obama took office, and then of course Stewart’s ambushing of Rod Blagojevich which I thought was a pretty odd position for a “progressive” to take after he practically gave back rubs and “happy endings” to each and every neocon that has come on his set to pimp their new books or try to rebrand themselves as anything but the war criminals they are. That list includes but is not limited to Bill Kristol, Ari Fleischer, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Thomas Friedman, Tom Ridge, and John Yoo. Each and every one of the previously named neocons and or war criminals, Jon Stewart treated with more respect than he did Rod Blagojevich who’s only crime was to threaten Bank of America if they didn’t live up to the conditions of the banker bailout bill.
Recently these two progressive shills have each taken on a new directive which certainly lives up to their pathetic performances in the past.
Jon Stewart is now involved in what he calls the “Million Moderates March” and the premise of this is that everyone who is anyone in America these days is a “centrist” or a “moderate” and that only the “fringe” are getting any attention.
Centrism is, of course, just another name for the Washington Consensus, which is neoliberal/DLC “New Dem” corporatist fiscal ideology.
I seriously doubt that Stewart is correct in that assumption considering so many people are suffering under this economy, but since he recently had to grovel at the ultimate neoliberal’s feet (Bill Clinton), its not surprising that he would come out with this “move to the center” propaganda. Also interesting to note that he announced this new propaganda effort the same day he had Clinton on his show.
What is surprising is that Stewart chastised the radical left for holding such beliefs as “George Bush is a war criminal” and called to “restore sanity” on Oct. 30th 2010.
He later labeled it a “Million Moderate March.” The purpose, he said, is to counter what he called a minority of 15 percent or 20 percent of the country that has dominated the national political discussion with extreme rhetoric. He tarred both parties with that charge, mentioning both the attacks on the right against President Obama for being everything from a socialist to un-American and on the left against former President Bush for being a war criminal. Glenn Greenwald
Greenwald also noted Stewart’s history of aiding neocons with their image rebranding and book sales, though he doesn’t draw any conclusions about it like I do. Very polite of him if you ask me.
… but far more important than tone, in my view, is content. For instance, Bill Kristol, a repeated guest on The Daily Show, is invariably polite on television, yet uses his soft-spoken demeanor to propagate repellent, destructive ideas. The same is true for war criminal John Yoo, who also appeared, with great politeness, on The Daily Show. Moreover, some acts are so destructive and wrong that they merit extreme condemnation (such as Bush’s war crimes). Glenn Greenwald
Personally, I have to agree with Mr. Greenwald in that certain actions merit extreme condemnation (like impeachment and imprisonment) and to that list I would like to toss out 1. lying 935 times to justify an illegal war which has killed over a million Iraqi peopleand dislocated about 4 million others, 2. creating false documents (Niger Yellow Cake) like the neocons at the Office of Special Plans did to justify an illegal war, 3. torture, 4. rendition, 5. secret prisons, 6. CIA backed mercenary death squads 7. depleted uranium spread across Iraq … I mean, if these actions don’t merit calling George W. Bush (and several of Jon Stewart’s recent guests) a war criminal, what does?
Is turning a blind eye to such atrocities and war crimes really “sanity” or is it something else?
“After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes,”Taguba wrote. “The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.” Glenn Greenwald
It’s clear that Stewart is doing his part to help the globalist regime in charge whitewash the past 10 years. He’s actually helping to rewrite our collective history on these matters and turn “moderate” progressives, those with their heads buried in the sand, against those “fringe” elements who tried to demand justice and accountability from the previous administration. If anything proves Jon Stewart’s complicity in the globalist criminal actions, this is certainly it.
Colbert is certainly not being left out in the cold either. He just recently “testified” before a congressional sub-committee in congress speaking out in favor of the precursor to the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill being pushed by the Obama/Clinton regime but it was actually a holdover from the George Bush administration, that little tidbit they don’t like to mention too much these days. They also don’t like to hear the word “amnesty” tossed out in these congressional hearings, judging from a Democrat’s behavior.
Colbert’s presence at the hearing was insulting to say the least.
His presence was insulting to the congress members who were there and insulting to any intellectually honest American who would be offended that a paid comedian who has been shilling for his globalist boss would actually be asked to join in on any part of a serious discussion of the matter.
John Conyers, to his credit, asked Colbert to submit his “testimony” for the record and excuse himself before the hearing took place. He politely reminded Stephen he had nothing of value to add to the discussion, but Colbert couldn’t resist the spotlight and all the play he could get out of the stunt, so he remained but he was clearly shaken that someone there reminded him in public that his presence was nothing more than a PR stunt. He felt foolish and it showed. It was an embarrassing thing to watch, and if you absolutely have to, here it is.
Colbert’s qualifications for being at the hearing was apparently centered around the fact that his film crew and he went out to an upstate New York farm where they filmed him acting like a completely spoiled, lazy American who couldn’t do the work a 65-year-old man sitting on his ass and picking beans in the field could do. Of course, the 65 year old man is here illegally so somehow that makes him capable of doing something a 30-year-old unemployed American can’t do. That’s pretty much the sum total of Stephen Colbert contribution to the discussion.
The Ag Jobs Bill this committee is discussing is an effort supported by big US agriculture and other major corporations and in essence it would create an official 2nd class citizen status in America for these seasonal migrant workers and give them credit for the years they have worked in the agricultural industry toward a “path toward citizenship” (in short - coming to America illegally to work for slave-wages for 3 years would put them ahead of Mexicans who apply for citizenship legally and have to wait for 6 to 8 years for a green card) . It would also help create an increase in surplus labor which would certainly only serve to drive wages in the agricultural sector to near record lows. But it’s not only the agriculture industry that would be effected as Dr. Carol Swain pointed out during the committee hearing since many of the illegals once here, migrate out of the fields and into other, low skilled jobs, which only serves again to create a labor surplus in those fields and thus even more reductions in pay. The bill will give these slave-citizens the right to organize, a right they actually already have, but since the head of the UFW is clearly in bed with big agriculture here in America, that is like giving autoworkers the “right” to be represented by the UAW… and we all know what that has been good for recently.
Colbert’s testimony has been widely panned and with good reason.
Colbert’s “testimony” was painful to watch and adding insult to injury were his two staff members sitting behind him who clearly understood their little stunt wasn’t going as well as they had imagined it would. Life’s a little harder when you don’t have a studio audience being prompted by electric signs to laugh and applaud when they are told to. It’s also harder when your boss is sitting in front of you pretending like he had something to add to the hearing when he didn’t.
“Maybe this Ag Jobs bill would help. I don’t know. Like most members of congress, I haven’t read it. But maybe we could offer more visas to the immigrants, who, let’s face it, will probably be doing these jobs anyway. And this improved legal status might allow immigrants recourse if they’re abused. And it just stands to reason to me that if your co-worker can’t be exploited then you are less likely to be exploited and that itself might improve pay and working conditions on these farms and eventually Americans may consider taking these jobs again.” Stephen Colbert
In the history of convoluted logic, this stands in a seminal position in our recent congressional record, right up there with the healthcare bill being called the best thing for Americans since the New Deal, I suppose.
The Ag Jobs bill is easy to find so there is no excuse for Stephen Colbert not to have read it, since it is the subject of his “testimony” before congress. The man had zero qualifications for being there and the least he could have done is read the bill. But he didn’t.
Basically, the bill itself is a holdover from the Bush administration that was tweaked and then submitted in May of 2009 just after the new neoliberal regime took office. It establishes a legal 2nd class citizen role by handing out what they call “blue cards” to certain migrant agricultural workers which locks them into a subservient role similar to the old feudal state. They basically have to take what they are given and STFU because if they get tossed out of the program, fired from the job, they get deported back to Mexico with nothing.
And it’s not just them. The bill creates a “derivative” legal status for the “blue card” worker’s wife and children which essentially means they can’t be deported even if they are here illegally, just so long as the worker behaves himself. Imagine the threat of having yourself and your entire family deported simply because you speak up for better working conditions or more pay. Quite a threat to be leveled at the worker, quite an incentive to take what he is given and shut up… and this is what the “progressive” left and Stephen Colbert are fighting for?
That’s neoliberalism folks.
This country has struggled for 200 years to earn the rights of each and every human being; to end the idea that there is a second class citizen status in America. People have marched, protested, fought and died for that prinicple. And here we have the “progressive” champion Stephen Colbert arguing for the creation of a second class citizenship of slave workers in America.
If you really want to understand what this is all about, you should have a listen to the testimony of Dr. Carol Swain from Vanderbilt University, a labor rights expert and activist of over 20 years. She used to be considered a hero on the left when she was railing against the injustices of the Bush administration but now that the Obama/Clinton neoliberal regime has taken office, she is vilified on the right AND left for fighting the same good fight.
Unlike Colbert, Dr. Swain has earned her right to testify before congress on this subject and her words prove it.
“I contend that America does not have a shortage of agricultural workers, instead we have a manufactured crisis by some who would like to ensure a steady supply of cheap labor and in some cases labor that bi-passes the H2A and H2B visa programs. … these unemployment numbers indicate there are native agricultural workers actively seeking employment in the sector… America cannot continue to bring in low skilled workers to compete with the most disadvantaged Americans…. nor can it continue to turn a blind eye to illegal immigration. Often surplus labor that starts in the fields migrates into other industries. Without surplus labor, employers would be forced to pay higher wages and many would be forced to improve substandard working conditions… the UFW ‘Take Our Jobs” initiative has not, in my opinion, made a serious effort to recruit American workers, this is a publicity stunt…. the rapid influx of cheap labor from foreign countries creates an over-supply of labor that works against the interests of native workers, it depresses their wages, it reduces their opportunities, and it deters employers from investing in native human capital…. this is a disgrace. Congress needs to reform immigration and they need to protect the most disadvantaged Americans.” Dr. Carol Swain
Once this bill is passed, and it will be, it’s impact on the already suffering disadvantaged in America will be staggering. There is also nothing that states that other industries won’t push for a similar bill regarding the H2B workers. The bill calls for the agricultural workers to put in 150 days per year and that of course frees them up to work in other industries the remaining 200+. The spouses of these workers will also be free to work in the country under their “derivative” status, which of course will only help to further undermine native workers wage structure even more.
There is nothing humanitarian or “progressive” about this bill, yet that won’t stop the “moderates” on the left from getting behind it simply because Stephen Colbert showed up at congress and made a fool out of himself. And that of course was the whole point.
As the neocon/neoliberal agenda moves on, shills like Stewart and Colbert are doing their part to rebrand the cruelty and inhumanity of their corporatist agenda to make it palatable to their audience; the left. These two recent propaganda efforts only prove how tightly the threads of “centrism” are woven in our dominating culture.
But they also show something else. That it only takes a few minutes, a little research and effort, to expose the fraudulent nature of their work. The emptiness that fills their words. While Stewart argues for the whitewashing of the Bush regime’s history and Colbert clowns for the creation of an indentured servant class of slave labor, each and every remaining liberal gets a little closer to seeing them for what they are; a clearer picture of the puppets and their masters.
We won’t be fooled again.
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Tuesday, September 21, 2010
“Moderate” RINO Colin Powell Calls for Tidal Wave of Illegal Students
Kurt NimmoInfowar.com
September 20, 2010
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said over the weekend that he has illegal immigrants working on his house.
“;They’re all over my house, doing things whenever I call for repairs, and I’m sure you’ve seen them at your house. We’ve got to find a way to bring these people out of the darkness and give them some kind of status,”; he said on NBC’s Meet the Press.
The DREAM effort to legalize criminal behavior is “;bi-partisan.”; It was cooked up by Sen. Orin Hatch, a Utah Republican, and Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat.
The DREAM Act web portal teaches “;undocumented students”; how to break the law, including how they can receive in-state tuition and fleece legal U.S. citizens. The site also urges illegal aliens to contact Congress and tell them to pass the DREAM Act.
Last week Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he will add the amnesty legislation as an amendment to the defense authorization bill. Reid had previously expressed doubt that he could find the votes to pass the act.
Polls reveal Americans are opposed to allowing illegal aliens from attending public colleges. AQuinnipiac University national poll conducted earlier this month indicated 68% of Americans oppose granting “;amnesty”; to illegal immigrants and favor stricter enforcement of immigration laws. By a 60%-to-28% margin, respondents disapproved of the way Obama is handling illegal immigration, the poll found.
A McClatchy-Ipsos poll conducted in May showed that 64 percent of registered voters support Arizona’s immigration law and would back similar laws in their own states.
Moreover, a Rasmussen poll determined in 2007 that voters oppose the Dream Act Amnesty by 59% vs. 22%. “;Parallel polling also indicated that support for versions of Amnesty was much softer than the intense opposition to Amnesty. Many Americans fervently oppose illegal immigration and any form of Amnesty for illegal immigrants because they are aware of the detrimental impact both have on American citizens and the health of America as a nation,”; notes ALIPAC, the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC.
On Sunday, Powell chastised Americans for opposing illegal immigration. “We can’t be anti-immigration,” Powell told NBC, blurring the line between illegal and legal immigration. “Immigrants are fueling this country. Without immigrants, America would be like Europe or Japan with an aging population and no young people coming in to take care of it. We have to educate our immigrants. The DREAM Act is one way to do that.”
Powell did not address the fact that allowing illegal immigrant students will encourage even more illegals to enter the country.
“;Congress needs to look toward an immigration system that enforces rule of law, maintains security, and promotes the economy. Such a system can be achieved by robustly enforcing immigration laws, securing the border, reforming the visa system, and working with Mexico and other appropriate countries on law enforcement/public safety issues as well as free market initiatives,”; the Heritage Foundation explains on its website.
Following negative reaction to his comments, Powell’s office said that he “;misspoke.”;
“;I don’t hire illegal immigrants,”; Powell said in a statement today. “;On Meet the Press yesterday, I referred to illegal immigrants working around my house. I was referring to the many service contractors who work in my neighborhood, using mostly immigrant workers, who do good work. Some may well be ‘illegal.’ There are 11 million illegal immigrants in this country and most are working somewhere in our economy,”; reports USA Today.
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Monday, September 6, 2010
‘Machete race war’ tops Google Trends; Drudge covers ‘lies on racist bloodbath’
Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com
September 5, 2010
Infowars.com
September 5, 2010
The activist listeners who support the Alex Jones Show have once again boosted a term into thetop of Google’s Trends. “Machete race war” was the number one ‘hot trend’ search for September 5, raising awareness of the criticism against the racist film that opened this past weekend. Critique of the film was further boosted by a synergistic link covering the ‘lies about the racist bloodbath’ contained within on the Drudge Report, the most widely read Internet-based news resource. Drudge also linked to Kurt Nimmo’s article, “Globalist Soros Launches Frontal Assault Against Tea Party.”
Please help spread these stories to everyone you know.
Frequent readers know Infowars’ mission is to expose the truth to as many people as possible to stop what is being done to our country before the damage is done. We thank Matt Drudge for recognizing the importance of online alternative news, in an era where large daily Newspapers compete with bloggers for relevance.
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‘Machete’ producers lied about racist bloodbath
‘Machete’ reached the #3 spot at the box office opening weekend. But after viewing the film, it is clear that its producers lied about the extent of the film’s racial message, which includes vulgar atrocities, including the killing of a pregnant woman attempting to cross the border during one of the opening scenes. This deception about the film’s message could bring its tax incentives, worth millions in production costs, into question.When Alex Jones expressed concern in May that a leaked script portrayed white characters as vehemently racist and wantonly murderous, or that a Latino mob is roused to take on border vigilantes in racial conflict, director Rodriguez assured Ain’t It Cool News, that he’d ‘had too much tequila,’ and that those types of scenes wouldn’t make it to the final edited version. Producer Elizabeth Avellan went on the attack just before the release, defending the tax incentives ‘Machete’ had practically already been assured. Avellan denounced the ‘uproar over the film’ as “unfounded and unnecessary,” stating there was ‘no reason for a denial of incentives’:
“A lot of people made up a lot of stuff in terms of what the movie is about and who the bad guy is,” she said. “There were a lot of things that people misconstrued … without even knowing the script and pretending they have a script.”
Now there is no doubt. Everything Jones quoted from the script was on screen in one form or another– and its tone was clear: opposition to illegal immigration is tantamount to murder, white racism and vile Machiavellian scheming. One scene that was excised from the script repeated the one-sided demonization of the Freedom Force vigilantes, who were to murder a young child on the border at the end. However, that ending was left behind for a different sequence altogether.
Reviewers like ‘Big Hollywood’ panned the film as ‘Dull, Convoluted, Racist and Anti-American,’criticizing that: “’Machete’ offers no middle ground, no reasonable, non-racist position against wide open borders for those fleeing from what one character describes as the “personal hell” that is Mexico.”
Who the illegals fight against on screen is one thing. What their words mean is altogether something else. That’s the shell game Rodriguez plays and his racially divisive messaging goes way beyond the normal cinematic political posturing and button-pushing. And you will never see a more stereotypically racist portrayal of Southerners, who, in an obvious reference to the border Minute Men, are not only played for cheap laughs but portrayed as sub-human animals who hunt and murder illegals – kill a helpless pregnant woman and say “Welcome to America.”
Rodriguez & crew played everyone as fools, knowing full well what the film would contain. Does Texas want to subsidize the films of Robert Rodriguez and continue to give him a platform to spew divisive racially-tinted trash oriented at Hispanics and attempting to radicalize their views? Rodriguez is the face of the Texas Film Commission’s tax incentives program, and has been virtually guaranteed up to $60 million in rebate funding for a package of films.
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Saturday, September 4, 2010
Major human trafficker is huge GOP donor who fought illegal immigration
Sahil HapurRaw Story
A business owner indicted for the human trafficking of 400 laborers from Thailand is a frequent donor to the Republican Party and recently waged war against other companies involved with hiring illegal immigrants.
The Associated Press reports that according to the allegations, "the recruiters lured the workers with false promises of lucrative jobs, then confiscated their passports, failed to honor their employment contracts and threatened to deport them."
The FBI considers this the largest human-trafficking case in US history, and those indicted face maximum sentences of five to 70 years in prison, the Justice Department confirmed to AP.
The man at the helm is Mordechai Orian, 45, President and CEO of the Los Angeles-based Global Horizons Manpower Inc., a labor contracting group. Five of his affiliates and contractors were also charged in the scheme.
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Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of child porn cases
John CookYahoo News
A 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation into the purchase of child pornography online turned up more than 250 civilian and military employees of the Defense Department -- including some with the highest available security clearance -- who used credit cards or PayPal to purchase images of children in sexual situations. But the Pentagon investigated only a handful of the cases, Defense Department records show.
The cases turned up during a 2006 ICE inquiry, called Project Flicker, which targeted overseas processing of child-porn payments. As part of the probe, ICE investigators gained access to the names and credit card information of more than 5,000 Americans who had subscribed to websites offering images of child pornography. Many of those individuals provided military email addresses or physical addresses with Army or fleet ZIP codes when they purchased the subscriptions.
In a related inquiry, the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) cross-checked the ICE list against military databases to come up with a list of Defense employees and contractors who appeared to be guilty of purchasing child pornography. The names included staffers for the secretary of defense, contractors for the ultra-secretive National Security Agency, and a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But the DCIS opened investigations into only 20 percent of the individuals identified, and succeeded in prosecuting just a handful.
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