Tag: Immigration

Buck, Look Out for the Caribbean Crazy Ants!

Trish

I think these are the ones I noticed on the floor of the bathroom this week.

Caribbean Crazy Ants are now welcome in Trish’s bathroom. But no reggae after midnight.

As the saying goes, almost no one living in Florida is from Florida…

The Caribbean Crazy Ant has made its way to Florida.

“There are ants that were imported into Florida through cargo ships and freighters,” said [Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens Senior Veterinarian Nick] Kapustin.

Jacksonville’s thought to be its second stop in this country, making its first appearance in West Palm Beach.

Hear that Buck? West Palm Beach! Just up the turnpike from you!

But actually, they don’t sound so bad.

“They’re not harmful to the animals, they’re not a problem for our guests, they’re just literally, a nuisance,” said Kapustin.

The Caribbean Crazy Ant, called that because they don’t move in any real direction, isn’t just new to this country. It’s new to the world.

And unlike many other species, these ants don’t usually eat food we leave behind…

“They eat other insects. They’ve been known to eat fire ants,” said Kapustin.

Well, O.K. then. Plus, I like the name. The ones in the bathroom were milling around so randomly that I felt kind of bad stepping on them. Next time, maybe I’ll let them live. I think it’s what Bob Marley would do.

As Midterms Near, GOP Chooses Fences Over Real Immigration Reform

Buck Banks

Fence me in: As Congress struggles mightily to appear to be doing the important work of legislating in the remaining weeks before the November midterm elections, the Republican Party has decided to concentrate on something easy — building a 700-mile-long fence — rather than address the challenge of comprehensive immigration reform. The message is simple: Let’s close off our borders first, then deal with the illegals who then would be trapped inside America. Yep, that message will sell very easily to the same people who still think Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.

From the Washington Times:

“It’s time to secure the border with Mexico,” Majority Leader Bill Frist said [Monday] night before filing the parliamentary motions to force the House-passed bill onto the Senate floor in a final effort to get a major immigration bill on the president’s desk before the elections.

‘Mr. Frist was for comprehensive reform before he was against it’
— Jim Manley

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Minority Leader Harry Reid, said the move “smacks of desperation” and was a “clear repudiation of President Bush’s call for comprehensive legislation.”
The Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was easily approved by the House last week, contains none of the “comprehensive” measures that President Bush, Democrats and some Senate Republicans have demanded. Those include provisions to grant citizenship rights to about 10 million illegal aliens living in the country and a guest-worker program that would usher hundreds of thousands more foreign laborers into the U.S.
“Mr. Frist was for comprehensive reform before he was against it,” Mr. Manley said.
On the Senate floor [Monday] night, Mr. Frist said he still supports comprehensive immigration reform legislation. But, he said, because no consensus can now be reached on other issues, Congress should move ahead with border security. It’s not “enforcement only,” he said, but “enforcement first.”

This will be the second time the Senate has debated an enforcement bill. The first died a stalemately death when all but two Democrats and 20 Republicans refused to even debate it. Now, there’s a triumverate of senior GOP senators that looks good for derailing the current effort to swap out a fence for comprehensive reform: John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John W. Warner of Virginia.

Those three senators also are bucking the GOP party line on the president’s call for expanded illegal detention and interrogation without representation for the Guantanamo detainees. Frist’s move to file a cloture motion Monday night to limit debate and prohibit amendments to the bill means the three Repug renegades may have to fight a two-front battle in the Senate this week, as Frist is aiming to get the immigration — excuse me, fence-building permit — passed on the Senate floor by week’s end and then sent on to the guy who likes to build fences, not mend them, to sign before the midterms.

When the House last year approved its border-security legislation, it included almost exactly the same fencing provisions. The fence came to symbolize what many Democrats said was an unforgiving bill. They said the fence proved that Republicans harbored a hostility toward immigrants.
But last week, the stand-alone fence bill was approved 283-138, with support from more than 20 Democrats and a handful of Republicans who dropped opposition to the earlier fence proposal.
Still, most Democrats are adamantly opposed to the fence bill, calling it a new “Berlin Wall” and an election-year “gimmick” intended to portray them as weak on security measures. In addition, internal Republican polling has found that immigration is as powerful a motivator for voters as any issue with which Congress is grappling.
“They’re obviously done with legislating for the year,” Mr. Manley said. “Now, they’re just playing to their base.”

Indeed. The question is, how will the Democratic base respond to watching Dem leaders doing their typical hand-wringing and crying foul over such an obvious late-season political ploy.

Whose Anniversary?

Trish

Ever since Jamestown, Virginia announced its intention to celebrate its quadricentennial next year as “America’s 400th Anniversary,” residents of my own St. Augustine, Florida have been in a snit. It’s not just the fact that St. Augustine celebrated its 400th anniversary back in 1965, or that the city was the thriving capital of the Spanish colony before Jamestown had a name.

American students often get the impression from history classes that the British got here first, settling in Jamestown, Va., in 1607…The lessons have left out a lot.

We sniff the barest hint of (dare I say it) racism in Jamestown’s pronouncement. The Spanish, after all, were part Moorish by the time they came ashore in Florida, in stark contrast to the lily white English. They were also Catholic, which was just slightly more exotic than what the Pilgrims had in mind.

Juan Ponce de Leon declared Florida to be Florida in 1513. Its mission system had been in place nearly 200 years before the first mission in upper California was built. Florida had flown three flags (Spanish, French, British — and Spanish again) by the time it joined the Union 15 years before the Civil War, and had ended the Third Seminole War just two years earlier, in 1858.

The Spaniards had very different relations than the English did with the people who were already here — and the runaway slaves who had escaped to Florida from the United States to live among the Creek and Miccosukee. It might be a little rosy to say we all lived together in peace and harmony, but it was better than after Spain lost us to the British or when Andrew Jackson launched the first War of Indian Removal, aka the First Seminole War, in 1817 — in which he banned “Negroes” from Pensacola to the Suwannee River.

Now others are starting to notice the same thing St. Augustinians did in Jamestown’s slogan: the implication that British settlement in this country is somehow more noteworthy than any other. The Boston Globe:

American students often get the impression from history classes that the British got here first, settling in Jamestown, Va., in 1607. They hear about how white Northerners freed the black slaves, how Asians came in the mid-1800s to build Western railroads. The lessons have left out a lot.

Forty-two years before Jamestown, Spaniards and American Indians lived in St. Augustine, Fla. At least several thousand Latinos and nearly 200,000 black soldiers fought in the Civil War. And Asian-Americans had been living in California and Louisiana since the 1700s.

Now, more of these and other lesser-known facts about American minorities are getting more attention. The main reason is the nation’s growing diversity.

The Globe story goes on to note there are “hundreds of efforts underway to tell the untold stories” of America’s history. Jamestown telling the truth — and changing its slogan — would be a good start.

Fruit Rotting in Florida Thanks to Immigration Threats

Trish

Tough talk about immigration reform is hurting the Florida citrus industry. Fruit is going left unpicked, thanks to rumors about INS crack-downs.

Word had spread through the Hispanic community to return home if they want U.S. jobs in the future

As many as 6-million boxes of oranges may go unharvested in Florida this year because of a shortage of fruit pickers made worse by fears about what changes may come in immigration law.

The citrus season usually ends in late June, but will extend to at least late July this year with juice processors hoping to get as many oranges as possible off trees…

Orange production in the state could become the lowest since 1992…

Growers have reported difficulty finding enough workers. Industry officials say labor supply was tight from the beginning of the season in October, but grew worse by the middle of May when a large segment of the Hispanic labor force seemed to leave the state…

Lake Wales citrus grower Marty McKenna said word had spread through the Hispanic community to return home if they wanted U.S. jobs in the future.

But inflaming us-against-them emotions seemed like such a good idea at the time. Bush’s polls were down and gay marriage was starting to wane as a sure-fire firing-up mechanism. Who would have thought Big Agriculture would suffer in the end? We’ll just add a failed Florida citrus season to the list of unintended consequences the Bush administration couldn’t possibly see coming.

DHS Under Scrutiny for Proposal to House Illegal Immigrants on Cruise Ships

Buck Banks

Floating the floating prison idea: We reported on this lame-brained idea when it was first mentioned in June. The suggestion to house detainees on cruise ships came in response to Customs and Border Patrol managers asking their departments for suggestions on how to handle the predictable surge in detainees once illegal immigration is deemed, well, really double-illegal.

Now, what was only a brainstorming idea last month has come back to haunt Michael Chertoff — and no doubt make him wish for a hurricane just to deflect attention — in the form of a letter from two high-ranking House Democrats asking him to, in effect, explain the half-baked notion.

Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., are requesting, in addition to an explanation of why the idea of using cruise ships is even being countenanced as well as why a questionable contract was awarded to a Halliburton subsidiary to build border detention facilities. Here are some excerpts from the letter:

According to a recent account on GovExec.com, Customs and Border Protection “is considering a variety of methods to accommodate what is expected to be a surge in illegal immigrants detained, including holding those arrested on ships to await trial.” One option under active consideration, according to this account, is “buying out-of-service cruise ships or leasing them to create ‘detention barges’ at sea.” These ships “would act as jails, housing alleged violators of U.S. immigration law.”

If accurate, this report raises several red flags.

Recent experience shows that using cruise ships for temporary housing is enormously expensive. In September 2005, the Military Sealift Command, acting on behalf of FEMA, awarded Carnival Cruise Lines three contracts worth a combined $236 million to provide temporary housing to Hurricane Katrina evacuees and emergency personnel. Under these contracts, the federal government paid more than $50,000 to house a single person for six months, almost $300 per person for each night’s lodging (nearly $600 per night double occupancy). As Congressman Lynch pointed out at a recent Committee hearing, it would have been cheaper to rent a suite at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, a two-bedroom apartment at Trump World Tower in New York City, or Fanningstown Castle in Ireland than to house evacuees on cruise ships under the contract with Carnival.

Waxman and Lynch ignore the fact that the Carnival ships were used for housing first responders in New Orleans — on-site where they were needed — not in Las Vegas. But why confuse them with the facts when they are having so much fun picking on Chertoff.

To assist Congress in its oversight of federal spending, we request that you confirm whether the Department is again considering the use of cruise ships to provide temporary housing. If the report is accurate, we further request that you explain what lessons the Department has learned from the experience after Hurricane Katrina and what steps the Department will take to prevent a repeat of the wasteful spending on cruise ships that occurred then. We also request copies of any documents relating to the possible use of cruise ships to house illegal immigrants.

Ouch! We know what documents can do to one’s credibility, eh, Brownie? But wait, there’s more:

In January, the Army Corps of Engineers, on behalf of the Department, awarded Halliburton subsidiary KBR a $385 million contract for “establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing … facilities” and to “provide migrant detention support.” This contract “provides for planning and, if required, initiation of specific engineering, construction and logistics support to establish, operate and maintain one or more expansion facilities.”

As the recent report Dollars, Not Sense: Government Contracting Under the Bush Administration released by Congressman Waxman documents, Halliburton’s recent track record as a government contractor in Iraq has been marred by “egregious overcharges” and questioned and unsupported costs in excess of $1 billion. It is unclear how this performance record was taken into consideration in the award of the January contract for detention facilities and what steps the Department and the Corps of Engineers plan to take prevent a recurrence of the waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement that have characterized the Halliburton contracts in Iraq.

For these reasons, we also request (1) the documents relating to Halliburton’s bid and selection for the detention center contract and (2) an explanation of what audit and other oversight mechanisms will be applied to the Halliburton contract to protect taxpayer interests.

Dang, that almost makes us feel sympathy for Chertoff — not! This is clearly just another instance of more cronyism, waste and incompetence inside one of the biggest departments in the gubmint.

Stay tuned for Chertoff’s response, which he’s supposed to supply by July 19.

Katherine Harris Aims for Democrat Nelson, Hits Republican Martinez

Trish

The best campaign strategy for Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson to use against Katherine Harris might be to just give her the floor. She makes an effective case all by herself that she’s too mentally impaired to hold office. Her hometown paper, the Lakeland Ledger:

“She’s trashing the senator of her own party,” Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin told The Tampa Tribune.

It turns out that when it comes to political potshots, Harris is no more cautious than Dick Cheney on a hunting trip…

Nelson, said Harris, is “weak on immigration” because he favors a bill that would provide “amnesty to illegal immigrants.”

That’s because Nelson supports a bill drafted and sponsored by — oops — his Republican counterpart from Florida, U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez.

“She’s trashing the senator of her own party,” Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin told The Tampa Tribune.

Hello? Katherine? Katherine’s handlers? Anybody? Somebody get research on the phone!

Nelson said last month that he favors [the Martinez] approach, “To get these people out of the shadows, working and paying taxes — which they are not — is what we need to do.”

Nelson has also proposed two amendments to the bill. One would add more beds in detention centers for illegal immigrants who will be deported. Another would increase the use of technology along the border for better patrolling.

Martinez told the Tribune that he thought the bill was “tough enough” before Nelson’s amendments, and that Nelson’s position on immigration may be tougher than his…

Harris has made it clear that Nelson is her main target. But with him standing so close to Martinez — one of the few Republicans who haven’t openly questioned her ability to win the election — Harris might want to use something other than a shotgun on the next attempt.

Become a Minuteman Without Leaving Home

Trish

Rick Perry’s next job will likely be head of mall security.

The Republican Texas governor has announced a plan that will solve the problem of illegal immigration: install web cameras at the border.

The live video would be made available to anyone with an Internet connection.

Under the plan, announced on the eve of the state GOP convention, cameras and other equipment would be supplied to willing landowners and placed along some of the most remote reaches of the border. The live video would be made available to law enforcement and anyone else with an Internet connection.

Viewers would be able to call day or night to report anything that looks like trespassing, drug smuggling or something else suspicious.

Plus, it will only cost $5 million.

The Border Patrol already has lots of its own surveillance cameras along the border, but the images are not made available to the public.

For good reason, many say.

”This leaves the door open to anyone who has a vindictive state of mind or a racial motive,” [Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund attorney Luis] Figueroa said. ”Anyone down there could easily be mistaken and falsely accused of something they didn’t do.”

Other possible glitches include people figuring out where the cameras are and adjusting travel accordingly, law enforcement agencies being overwhelmed with bogus information, and the possible illegality of inviting the public to view searches of innocent-until-proven-guilty people.

But Perry’s not concerned with such details.

”This isn’t our first rodeo,” he said.

CBP Plan: Let’s Put Illegals On Cruise Ships

Buck Banks

Tough-love boat: You gotta give the Customs and Border Protection agency points for creativity. Or not.

Faced with a potential flood of illegal aliens apprehended in the impending immigration crack-down as the agency moves from its “catch-and-release” methodology (arrest them, give them a court date and hope they show — un-huh) to a “catch-and-don’t-release” one, CBP leaders asked managers to come up with ideas on how to deal with arrested illegals until they are tried or deported. Their creative answer? Charter cruise ships.

The bureau is considering either buying out-of-service cruise ships or leasing them to create “detention barges” at sea, the source said. The barges would act as jails, housing alleged violators of U.S. immigration law.

Because the cruise industry is not as profitable as it once was, CBP may get a bargain on ship space that has passed its prime, the source said. And, as the need for additional beds for detainees could only exist on a short-term basis, having a contract that creates more jail space for illegal immigrants will prove less costly than having to build new jails, the source said.

The bureau is considering either buying out-of-service cruise ships or leasing them to create ‘detention barges’ at sea.

When the Federal Emergency Management Agency was pressed for housing space to accommodate Hurricane Katrina evacuees last year, it chartered three Carnival Cruise ships for months to provide shelter for up to 7,000 people.

That worked out really well for Carnival, which was paid $236 million for the six-month charters. They caught tons of flak and bad press for supposedly bilking the gubmint on the deal. (Disclosure: I do consulting work for Carnival.) In the end, a congressional panel decided the deal wasn’t so great for Carnival after all, and having the ships available as quarters for first-responders did aid in recovery efforts.

In May, President Bush predicted that 4,000 additional beds will be needed by the end of fiscal 2006, and thousands more will be needed in the coming years. That seems like an understatement, considering there are about 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. In any event, nobody wants to build immigrant jails, apparently, and the ones we already have are, well, overcrowded.

Look, we’re going to need them, so we might just as well allot some vast areas of federal land to creating impregnable detention camps for hundreds of thousands of farm workers, day laborers, housekeepers, construction workers, cab drivers, cooks, waiters, custodians and hotel workers. Heck, that’d have to be easier than building a 400-mile-long fence, wouldn’t it?

Poll: Most People Liked Bush’s Immigration Ideas

Buck Banks

Migrating opinion: According to National Journal’s PollTrack, President Bush’s immigration proposals were relatively well-recieved Monday night, based on an overnight poll from CNN. Pollsters interviewed 461 adults who watched the primetime TV address that had been identified and pre-screened as part of a larger poll over the weekend. The sample was 41 percent Republican, 23 percent Democrat and 36 percent independent.

Nearly 80 percent said they had a positive reaction to the speech; 67 percent said they had a “generally positive” view of the policies Bush set forth, and 27 percent said they had a “generally negative” view.

About 75 percent said they favored Bush’s proposal to allow illegal immigrants to earn citizenship, and about 70 percent said they supported Bush’s proposal to allow foreign citizens to work in the U.S. temporarily.

A new Gallup survey detected a slight bounce for Bush: His approval split came in at 33/61, compared with a 31/65 split from a few days ago. However, just a quarter of respondents said they were satisfied with the direction of the country, down 2 points since Gallup’s April survey.

Texas Repugs Celebrate Patriotism by Pretending to Shoot Immigrants

Trish

Some Texas Republicans are confused about the meaning of patriotism, supporting our troops, and who our actual enemies are. Their recent “support our troops” rally morphed into a “shoot up immigrants” fest. The meeting was held — as you might expect — in a church. Dallas Morning News:

Critics of church-based, GOP pretend immigrant slaughter need to “lighten up.”

Some Greater Irving Republican Club members who attended the meeting at First Church of the Nazarene were dressed in military garb or carried toy guns. Silhouettes – one riddled with pellet-like holes – were on display…

Club leaders said that the meeting about homeland security and other matters was benign. Attendees dressed up because the club has a different theme each month, club president Sue Richardson said. April’s theme was designed to support the troops, she said.

And yet the speaker for the yellow-ribbon-magnet-on-the-back-of-
your-SUV meeting was an immigration official. Huh?

Ms. Richardson said the meeting included a presentation by a representative from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on the topic of sealing off ways for terrorists to enter the U.S. undetected…

“[We’re] being patriotic and standing with our troops and trying to fight the war on terrorism,” she said. “We’re at war, and it’s not business as usual.”

Amazing how that “war excuses everything” line crops up among Repugs, even at the local level. It’s not really working for me. Reactions to the odd pairing of human targets and a talk on immigration were…well, see for yourself.

Lico Reyes…said the meeting – particularly the use of the silhouettes – was insensitive and not well thought out. Mr. Reyes said he looked into the meeting after concerned residents contacted him. He and other critics linked the silhouettes to immigration concerns…

Church pastor Rick Thomason said he looked into the matter and was satisfied with an explanation of what happened. The group will continue to be allowed to meet at the church, he said.

Irving City Council member Lewis Patrick said he visited the gathering but left early to attend other meetings…

“I’m not going to get in the middle of it,” he said. “It could get political.” [Editor’s note: Gee Lewis, ya think?]

Ms. Richardson attributed criticism of the meeting to people who are “spreaders of misery.”

“They don’t like a lot of people in the club, and they’re always complaining,” she said. “They need to lighten up.”

Yes, just lighten up for pete’s sake. I mean, it’s not like they’re not real guns. Those are still out in our glove boxes and trunks.