ACLU update on the border fence

Something in the Water at the Heritage Foundation?

James Carafano has been blogging on the Heritage Foundation’s “The Foundry” this week on his trip to our southern border. Carafano has been mighty impressed with all the potential benefits of increased border security. Specifically, Carafano believes it will protect the environment, even though Defenders of Wildlife has warned that the erection of a border fence will have “serious and lasting” effects on wildlife, clean water and clean air in the region. He’s also convinced it will reduce human fatalities, even though over 200 people die on the border each year, mostly from exposure, while the rate of illegal immigration remains steady.

But today’s post is a real humdinger. Titled “Virtual Fences Can Help Make Real Good Neighbors,” it praises the rollout of “Project 28,” part of the Department of Homeland Security’s initiative to create a “virtual fence” of video surveillance, motion sensors and other nifty gadgets along 28 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border. But as the Government Accountability Office and The Washington Post reported in February, Project 28 has been an utter fiasco. None of the technology has worked, and DHS decided to scrap the pilot project (they are now trying again with newer, fancier equipment).

However, even if the technology had worked, it’s not clear the program would have. Residents of Arivaca, Ariz., an unincorporated town nearby on of Project 28’s video surveillance towers, complained that while DHS reported the tower’s field of vision was only about 10 miles, the agency had placed it right next to the town, which happens to be 12 miles from the border. The potential for the federal government to spy on American citizens was real; the impact on border security, not so much.

But forget the fact that Project 28 is a complete boondoggle for a moment (Carafano admits that in addition to suffering from “bad publicity,” nobody at DHS bothered to ask the Border Patrol what they actually needed). The virtual fence is also one of the largest government gravy trains out there, and the main beneficiary has been Boeing Corp. Boeing got the original contract to install Project 28, and despite its failure to build something that works for more that $860 million in taxpayer dollars, DHS keeps offering the company new contracts. Just last month, it was announced that Boeing would be asked to build on its “experience” with Project 28 to construct two new sections of virtual fence in Arizona and Michigan.

Now to return to our friends at Heritage: Why would a think tank that advocates for limited government, free enterprise and strong national defense support a program that is massively expensive to taxpayers, invades the privacy of local residents, and amounts to a handout to a company that has repeatedly failed to secure our borders? A massive buildup of surveillance technology at the border is the kind of cash cow that fiscal conservatives and civil libertarians should be united in opposing. We’re eagerly waiting to welcome our friends at Heritage to the right side of the (virtual) fence.

Comments:

1. esb Says:
   June 4th, 2008 at 6:45 pm

   Why would an American “civil liberties” group discuss an issue that doesn’t seem to have much to do with civil liberties? Would you consider, perhaps, instead of arguing for the “civil liberties” (I’m sure you would somehow explain that they do, indeed, exist) of people trying to illegally enter our country you could defend the 2nd Amendment from extinction?

2. lokywoky Says:
   June 4th, 2008 at 8:53 pm

   All this fence stuff is a bunch of crap. What is needed instead is good diplomacy, repeal and/or modifications in NAFTA to prohibit our subsidized agricultural megacorporations (Monsanto, etal) from dumping corn (especially GMO corn) on community markets. We need to help Mexico address its development issues, help them turn their economy around (using sustainable farming and recognizing that subsistence farming is not a dirty word), and make things better for the people there. If they could make a decent living - they would not come here for the most part. They are actually economic refugees.
   My son-in-law runs a day-labor firm in the south, he says 90% of his workers come here, stay for about 3-4 years - or long enough to save up about $25,000 (in addition to sending money home) and then return to their country of origin. That sum of money is enough to build a nice house (their standards) and provide enough income for their family to live satisfactorily for the rest of their lives.

   Man - we would be better off to just stand at the border and hand them the money - it would be cheaper and much more efficient than these stupid fences, the cost of the border patrol, the cost of the ICE and its raids and detention centers, etc etc etc.

   What a concept! Stop the problem at its source instead of trying to criminalize it on the back end.

More on use of illegal seasonal workers!!

Visa limits Lift restrictions on seasonal workers

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20080316/OPINION01/402015025

SUNDAY, MARCH 16, 2008

The standoff on immigration reform in Congress has small businesses scrambling to find workers to fill seasonal jobs. The end of a visa exemption program has made it impossible for many employers to legally bring in the foreign workers on whom they have depended.

As a result, some understaffed businesses may have to cut back their operations this summer since they can no longer obtain the necessary visas. The program of H-2B visas is limited to 66,000 seasonal workers a year, but an exemption passed by Congress had allowed almost double that by not counting returning nonagricultural workers against the cap.

The Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act expired Sept. 30, and so slashed the number of visas available to the original level. Its renewal is being blocked by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the New York Times reported, to pressure Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. It has not done so, and workers and businesses are being penalized.

On Cape Cod, the Times reported, employers had applied for 5,000 visas but will receive just 15 to bring in workers for restaurants, inns, landscaping, resorts and other seasonal work. Employers say there aren't enough workers available to meet the demand.

In Ohio, the landscaping industry depended on about 3,000 H-2B workers but did not know how many would be available this year.

Rep. Bill Delahunt, D-Mass., who represents Cape Cod, told the Times,

"We're talking about a stimulus package, and yet we're putting at risk regional economies from the East Coast to the West Coast and many sections of the country in between."

Employers seeking legal entry argue they are being punished for following the law while other companies rely on illegal immigrants. Besides the direct impact on employers, there is the lost income to businesses that serve the immigrant work force.

A bill has been introduced to once again permit returning workers. The measure would be in keeping with the intent of broader immigration reform in clearing a way for foreign laborers to enter and work legally in the United States.

Activism: ILWU to speak on May Day 2008!!

ILWU to stop work May 1 for Immigrant rights

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following resolution passed by Locals 10 and 19 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. It calls on port workers to stop work on May 1, International Workers Day, and participate in the Great American Boycott II for immigrants rights. Work stoppages will take place in the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Richmond, Benicia and Redwood City.

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Resolution of International Longshore & Warehouse Union Local 10 - Adopted Feb. 15, 2007, San Francisco, California. [This resolution was later adopted by ILWU Local 19, the Longshore local in Seattle, Washington.]

WHEREAS, Local 10 adopted a resolution for our April 2005 Longshore Caucus reclaiming May Day (May 1st) which commemorates the struggle for the 8 (eight) hour work day in the United States;

WHEREAS, Local 10 endorsed May 1st, 2006 and participated in the Great American Boycott to protest the criminalization of immigrant workers by legislation such as HR4437 and the Marine Transportation Security Acts criminal background checks on dock workers;

WHEREAS, On May 1st, 2006, 90% of the container cargo at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach was halted as the result of immigrant truckers not going to work;

WHEREAS, Agribusinesses such as Tyson Foods and Cargill closed down several of their plants in anticipation of immigrant workers not going to work on May 1, 2006 in support of immigrant rights;

WHEREAS, Our own Harry Bridges, an Australian immigrant worker, faced four prosecutions by the U.S. government, was wrongfully convicted, illegally imprisoned, fraudulently stripped of his citizenship, and his attorneys sent to jail for defending him;

WHEREAS, ILWU in 2008, will start very difficult contract negotiations with the employer which requires we start to mobilize our members and build coalitions; and

WHEREAS, Hornblower Cruises has yet to hire skilled and experienced ILWU and other union ferry workers as well as to negotiate a fair contract;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the membership instruct Local 10 s president to convey our intentions of having our stop work meeting on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 9 a.m. to Pacific Maritime Association;

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that Local 10 participates in the Great American Boycott II, in support of workers and immigrant rights, including the workers of Hornblower Cruises, on May Day, 2007 and that the ILWU Local 10 Drill Team perform; and

THEREFORE BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that a copy of this Resolution be sent to all ILWU locals, the International, and affiliated central labor councils.

Adopted by International Longshore & Warehouse Union Local 10, February 15, 2007

ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan

by Internationalist Group | 03.01.2008

In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down!