former immigration judge Bruce Einhorn addresses flaws in immigration courts

The September/October volume of Immigration Law Today, a bimonthly publication of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), featured an interview with retired Immigration Judge Bruce Einhorn (not available online). Earlier in Einhorn’s career, he worked in the DOJ’s Office of Special Investigation prosecuting Nazis and other accused war criminals. He served on the immigration bench for 17 years. He talks about some problems he sees with the current immigration system:

It has been reported that DOJ has appointed several individuals to serve as IJs even though they have little or no experience with the U.S. immigration system. Have you witnessed how a lack of experience on the part of IJs has played out in the courtrooms?

There always have been the occasional nepotistic appointments to immigration judgeships. However, in my 28 years with the Justice Department, spanning five different presidential administrations, and my 17 years as an IJ, I have never seen anything like the attempt under George W. Bush to politicize the selection of immigration judges. After all, I am a moderately liberal Democrat who was appointed to the immigration court in the administration of the first President Bush. The more partisanship has become a staple of judicial appointments, the less independence the immigration courts and the [Executive Office for Immigration Review] have enjoyed within DOJ. More and more, my colleagues have started looking over their shoulders to see what kind of political animal the new Bush appointees to the immigration court are. Remember that immigration judges serve at the pleasure of the attorney general. Therefore, the independent judgment and intestinal fortitude of sitting IJs may well be affected by the partisanship that influences the selection of new judges. All this is not a criticism of my colleagues, who, after all, are human beings with families and bills to pay. Rather it is a criticism of a militantly right-wing administration possessed of an imperial presidency and a raging contempt for the independence of the judiciary.

I know of one instance—reported recently in the Los Angeles Daily Journal—of a Bush-Gonzales appointee to the immigration court at the detention center in Lancaster, CA, who was “persuaded” to resign after he regularly walked into his courtroom carrying a revolver. He also was reputed to routinely utter the “F” word in hearing after hearing. Even DHS prosecutors were appalled by his extreme and injudicious behavior. I know of other Bush administration appointees who have required and received additional coaching and hand-holding from the chief judge’s office because of their lack of knowledge in immigration law and their inability to demonstrate proper judicial demeanor in the courtroom.

With case loads at around 1400 per year per IJ (roughly five cases each business day), the overstretched and underfunded immigration courts can’t afford ill-prepared judges who effectively increase the workload for qualified judges. Also, immigrants appearing before judges who hold their lives in their hands deserve judges who treat them and their attorneys with respect.

What qualifications do you think should be required of judges who sit on the immigration court?

. . .

Frankly, it is high time that the immigration court be made an independent, Article I institution, whose appointments are made by the president upon recommendation of a nonpartisan panel of sitting and retired judges, the chief immigration judge, some academics, and distinguished DHS and private counsel. Such changes would ensure the independence of the court, and better guarantee the bona fides of its judges.

Most people probably don’t realize that immigration judges are not actually part of the judiciary. They are employees of the DOJ, and part of the same branch of government as the Immigration Customs and Enforcement prosecuting attorneys. This seriously impedes their ability to act as fair and impartial arbiters of immigration law. Some judges are more aggressive and punitive towards the immigrants whose cases they decide than are the ICE attorneys prosecuting the cases.

You were instrumental in drafting legislation that is the basis of current asylum law. How did your involvement in this come about? What further reforms in this area do you believe are necessary?

Most people, and many immigration lawyers, are unaware that the United States had no general law for asylum until the Refugee Relief Act of 1980 was passed. During its early years, [DOJ’s] Office of Special Investigation (OSI), where I served as an attorney, was its default agency for human rights issues. The evening before a vote was to be taken in Congress on the asylum bill, DOJ and OSI assigned me to work on a revamp of the legislation, and to include in it a bar from relief for those who had participated in the persecution of others. At that time, personal computers and home faxes were nonexistent, so armed with a pen, paper, and the hubris of youth, I spent the whole night dictating a rewrite of the bill over the phone to DOJ and congressional staffers. The bill was then passed, and I was granted the privilege of having a small role in the advancement of human rights law.

I would like the asylum law—or the regulations that further its application—to specifically include “rape,” “attempted rape,” and “sodomy” as cognizable forms of persecution on account of race, religion, political opinion, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion [sic]. I would like to see the same done for “domestic abuse” and “incest” under the social group category—at least where the home government was unwilling or unable to prevent the violence in question. Finally, I also would like to see DHS spend more resources and time on reviewing asylum applications filed. DHS asylum officers should have more than 20 minutes or so to interview asylum applicants. Most of those applicants are simply referred to the immigrant courts for prosecution. Careful analyses of asylum applications by DHS might decrease the number of asylum cases referred to the courts.

The success or failure of many gender-based asylum claims still depends largely on which circuit court has jurisdiction over the proceedings, with the more liberal-leaning Ninth Circuit being the most favorable. Amending the statute to take into account the way in which much persecution is prompted or exacerbated by gender or sexual orientation could save many lives.

A claim of asylum can be filed either defensively in immigration proceedings, or affirmatively with an asylum officer. If an officer decides not to approve an asylum application and the applicant is not in lawful immigration status, the case will be referred to an immigration judge to make the final decision. Like immigration judges, asylum officers are also overstretched. The easiest thing for an overworked asylum officer who may not want to deal with a complicated case is to simply refer it to the judge. This adds stress to the overloaded immigration courts.

There is no filing fee for asylum applications, but before they are referred to an immigration court, asylum claims are adjudicated with funding from other immigration application fees. So some portion of the fee an intending immigrant pays to file an application for a green card, for instance, goes to pay the cost of deciding somebody else's affirmative asylum application. In addition to raising questions of fairness, this leads to unwieldy caseloads, shortchanging asylum applicants of an opportunity to have their claim fully heard by an asylum officer. This is just one of the ways the U.S. undermines its treaty obligation of non-refoulement—the prohibition against sending refugees back to territories where their life or freedom would be threatened.

See also this LA Daily Journal profile (pdf) of Einhorn from earlier this year.

the American War

In Chicago recently at the Museum of Contemporary Art (a great museum, by the way), I saw a piece by Chris Burden called The Other Vietnam Memorial.

The piece is intended to help viewers visualize the stark disparity between American and Vietnamese deaths in what is known in Vietnam as the “American War” by comparing the standard mental image most Americans have of Maya Lin’s Vietnam War Memorial with an as-yet unrealized memorial listing the 3,000,000 Vietnamese who died in the war.

James Tatum reviewed Burden’s piece a few years ago:

Knowing that no such official war monument could help but omit as much as it commemorates, the antiwar activist and artist Chris Burden took Maya Lin's design and used it to unheal memory's wounds. A preliminary sketch of his Other Vietnam Memorial foresaw a "list of three million Vietnamese killed during the US involvement in Vietnam"; it would be on "Copper pages, hinged on [a] central pole," and could be turned by viewers. In the catalogue prepared for a 1992 exhibition of The Other Vietnam Memorial at the Museum of Modern Art, Burden is quoted as saying, "I just thought somewhere there should be a memorial to the Vietnamese that were killed in the war. So I wanted to make this book, sort of like Moses' tablet, that would be an official record of all these three million names. I would suspect that we will be lucky if we get twenty-five percent of the names; other ones would be nameless, basically faceless, bodies. . . . I want the size of the sculpture . . . to reflect the enormity of the horror."

The anonymity inherent in a project of killing so many people in an impoverished, autocratic country is reflected in Burden’s work, for which the names were randomly generated by computer. I hope one day a large-scale version of the memorial is erected somewhere so that Americans can realize the terror and pain bound up in this simple ratio:

58,000 < 3,000,000

Or, for every American who died in Vietnam, 52 Vietnamese died.

There’s no need for numerical manipulation based on relative population size here, the numbers are clear, though the latter is more an educated guess since the U.S. government doesn’t like to count with too much precision the people it has killed.

Or, for the contemporary sensibility, there’s this:

3829 < 75,151

Or, more worryingly, this (now a year old):

3,000 < 655,000

(approximate U.S. deaths as of 10/2006 vs. excess Iraqi deaths related to the war estimated by the Second Lancet survey)

We’re in the middle of another “American War” with no terminus in sight. What we can count on with certitude is that we will suffer less than they do—in the end, that is what these wars are all about.

unapologetic

Nezua lays it down.

I wonder if those coming to la lucha these days understand how long anti-Mexican sentiment has been part of US conversation. I think all of us Mexican Americans understand. And other brown™ folk, as a matter of course. I will tell you, in case it is not immediately easy to infer from what I write: Anti-Mexican sentiment has been part of the background of society's conversation—books, movies, jokes, TV shows—ever since I first learned how to speak and listen. All of my life. It is not new. All this Buchanan talk, all this Tancredo talk, all this white supremacist bullshit that tries to dress itself up in a hundred different ways. It doesn't have to do with HR 4437 or even Prop 187 or the War on Terror. That's one reason why it is so infuriating or insulting. These voices simply have a foothold now. An excuse. But they've always been there. I just lived with it after a while. You learn to duck, to defer.

I've gradually come out of my shell, more and more. And each inch I have moved forward is one I can never move back.

. . .

When I met up with my biological father finally, it was a shock to the system in a few ways. Mostly racial, or ethnic. As I've said, I thought I was "white." That means both when Marlene counted me in as "mexican' I was surprised to be included, and when my father and his familia talked about "white people" at the table, I felt insulted. It was a hard time, figuring out who I was. It's been a hard time, between now and then. With people who can either treat me as if I am Xicano, or as if I am white. And you can never tell which will be which. Like Jessica Alba, I feel as if neither world fully accepts me. Although the acceptance I get from the brown world is always nourishing, always empowering. And the acceptance from the white world, when it thinks I am not brown, is always degrading, debasing. If you can understand that, then you understand a lot.

My father asked me a year or two after he met me, "Why are all your girlfriends white?" Which seemed a very strange question to me. (Aside from not completely true, as the second girl I was ever with was black.) It took me a few years to answer. At which point I said "How can you ask me that? You picked my mother, and she was white!" But I hadn't yet realized that my mother was but a brief foray into a world that my father did not really feel part of, nor want to, nor would he again enter in such a way. He was young, less sure of who he was and what he wanted, and he only stayed long enough to make my existence in that world (as well as my brother, five years younger than me) a reality. And then he stepped out.

It's not a secret to me what the taint of whiteness means to my father. Even if he never says it out loud, and even if he refuses to admit it. I am too old to be fooling myself with other peoples' personally-fashioned illusions. I understand that he, as a person who wants to be decent and kind, cannot tell me these things outright. Perhaps he is even ashamed of his own feelings. Perhaps he even thinks he is (or actually is) past that, and now sees everyone equally. It doesn't matter. And I don't want to guess at his reality too much, nor psychoanalyze him. But his actions and words over the years spoke their own truth.

Nor can my my mother fully understand this path. Nor can most of my friends. Not the white ones. And not all the "brown" ones. Not the ones who don't deal with a "mixed" identity.

But this is my path, and this is for me to be at peace with. Or not. Like all the difficult battles in my life, this is for me to come to understand in my own way.

Also, XicanoPwr has a rebuttal to those who believe we live in a post-racial America.

a good deal

Img227356620
Originally uploaded by XAlpha

Prepare for more stories ahead like this one (via Matthew Yglesias) as U.S. “partners” and “allies” abroad edge towards greener pastures.

A controversial nuclear deal between the United States and India appears close to collapse after the Indian prime minister told President Bush yesterday that "certain difficulties" will prevent India from moving forward on the pact for the foreseeable future.

The main obstacle does not involve the specific terms of the agreement but rather India's internal politics, including fears from leftist parties that India is moving too close to the United States, according to officials and experts familiar with the deal. Besieged over the past two months by growing opposition to nuclear energy cooperation with the United States, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh indicated over the weekend that he would rather save his coalition government than the nuclear pact.

. . .

State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters yesterday that the administration still believes the deal is "a good one for the United States, for India and for the broader efforts at nonproliferation."

Let’s examine this more closely:

the deal is "a good one for the United States,

It's not good for the U.S. if it means, as it does, the effective dissolution of the NPT, leading to the further spread of nuclear materials. Dismantling the existing international framework for controlling the diffusion of nuclear weapons without preparing any replacement will make America less, not more, secure.

for India

See above—more nukes in the hands of India’s enemies is not good for India, even if this deal in the short term would bind India closer to the still-powerful U.S. and lend its widely-condemned nuclear program some undeserved legitimacy.

and for the broader efforts at nonproliferation."

Not true in this or any other universe.

Opponents of the pact in India include an alliance of communist parties that forms a minority bloc in Singh's coalition government and says the agreement brings India too close to the United States.

Apparently “soft power” means more than just Charmin’s next ad campaign. The U.S. can't ignore international opinion indefinitely without consequence.

Others say the pact could be resurrected if Singh challenges opponents inside his coalition and in parliament. "If Singh went to the polls on this issue, he would win," Green said. "But he would have to run against members of his own coalition to do it. And there's a nervousness about having an election."

If only politicians representing citizens of other countries would decide to pursue the best interests of the U.S. rather than those of their constituents, then this problem could be resolved. This is a familiar theme that only makes sense if the interests of India’s politicians or its citizens are actually best served by pleasing the U.S. (or rather, the interests of the political clique currently running the executive branch of the U.S. government, since this deal does not serve the long-term interests of U.S. citizens). This may have once been true. However, due to America’s status as declining hegemon, this calculus is no longer settled to America’s benefit. This is something Americans should get used to.

overheard in New York

Little boy in the waiting room this morning at the asylum office in Rosedale, NY, explaining to an asylum officer why his little sister is in tears:

“She’s crying because she misses my mom. If my mom steps out of the house, she starts crying.”

At the time, her mom was in another room in an asylum interview asking to be allowed to stay in the U.S. as a refugee. The Rosedale staff were very kind and worked to entertain the children for hours as their mother was interviewed. But if her application is denied and she is put into removal proceedings, she may be deported. Then her children will have a difficult choice: stay in the U.S. or stay with their mother. That’s a tough call for a 6-year-old to make.

There may be many more tears ahead for this little girl.

guilty in Argentina

Like the Nazis tracked down by human rights workers decades after WWII, searchers have located and brought to justice a Catholic priest complicit in the kidnapping and murder of Argentine citizens during el proceso, known in the U.S. as the Dirty War. From the NY Times last week:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct. 9 — An Argentine tribunal sentenced a Roman Catholic priest to life in prison on Tuesday for conspiring with the military in murders and kidnapping during the country’s “dirty war” against leftist opponents, in a case that has become for many a powerful symbol of the church’s complicity with the former regime.

The Rev. Christian von Wernich, who worked as a police chaplain during the military dictatorship, was found guilty of involvement in seven murders, 31 cases of torture and 42 kidnappings. He is the first Catholic priest prosecuted in connection with human rights violations in Argentina, where at least 12,000 people were killed during the military regime from 1976 to 1983.

. . .

Nearly a quarter of a century after the junta was toppled in 1983 and democracy was restored, the trial of Father von Wernich has forced Argentina to confront the church’s dark past during the dirty war. It illustrated how closely some Argentine priests, who had strongly aligned themselves with the power of the military, worked with the regime’s leaders.

Over several months of often chilling testimony during the trial, witnesses spoke about how Father von Wernich was present at torture sessions in clandestine detention centers. They said he extracted confessions to help the military root out perceived enemies, while at the same time offering comforting words and hope to family members searching for loved ones who had been kidnapped by the government.

His lawyer, Juan Martín Cerolini, maintained that Father von Wernich had been made a “Catholic scapegoat” for those who wanted to prosecute the church. Father von Wernich fled Argentina for Chile but was found in 2003 in the seaside town of El Quisco by a group of journalists and human rights advocates. He was working as a priest under the name Christian González.

Argentina’s past stands in stark contrast to the role the church played during the dictatorships in Chile and Brazil, where priests and bishops publicly condemned the governments and worked to save those being persecuted from torture and death.

[photo: Natacha Pisarenko/Associated Press]

scary out there

"Whoa, dude, I don't think I'm ready for this . . . "

(My nephew is TEH CUTE!)

these are farmer's guccis

Via Matt Yglesias.

immigration round-up

• kyledeb has a worthwhile analysis of the New Bedford raid.
  
  
• Nezua posts a Q&A with Earl Ofari Hutchinson.
  
  
• Some thoughts on Columbus Day from xicanopwr.
  
  
• Linda Chavez has a warning for the GOP (via Latinopundit):
  

Hispanic voters are poised to turn several red states blue come 2008, virtually guaranteeing a Democratic presidential victory and a pickup in congressional seats as well, according to a new analysis of Hispanic voting behavior. "Border Wars: The Impact of Immigration on the Latino Vote," released by the conservative Americas Majority Foundation, demonstrates that congressional Republicans' ham-handed approach to immigration will cost them dearly at the polls.

Richard Nadler, the study's author, analyzed 2006 voting patterns in 145 Hispanic precincts or voting blocs in three congressional districts in the Southwest. In each district, candidates who favored an enforcement-only approach faced opponents who favored comprehensive immigration reform, including a guest-worker program and a path to legalization for illegal aliens. Mr. Nadler found that the enforcement-only approach significantly eroded support for the Republican candidates among Hispanic voters from their 2004 levels; in each case the Republican lost the seat.

jobs Americans *will* do

Daniel Gross reports on a new source of labor for struggling apple growers:

A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran a poignant article (subscription required) about anguished fruit farmers in California. Because of a crackdown on illegal immigrants, they couldn't find workers willing to pick their pears, even at $150 per day. And as a result, perfectly good fruit rotted in the fields.

Perhaps the California farmers, who depend on migrant Mexican labor, have got the wrong business model. Instead of paying workers to pick their fruit, they should try another strategy: making customers pay to pick the fruit themselves. Savvy farmers all over the country have discovered a practice that might not work as a nationwide agricultural policy, but that has allowed some economically inefficient orchards to thrive: Encourage yuppies and their progeny to come pick your fruit—they'll pay handsomely for the privilege, buy more than they'd ordinarily consume, and then shell out for all sorts of other value-added products. It's the best use of child labor since Manchester's early 19^th-century textile mills.

Gross writes tongue-in-cheek, but these orchards are no longer economically inefficient; they are providing a valuable product to yuppies up and down the Eastern seaboard. The product is not just the apples—it is also the experience of picking the apples. These orchards are more efficient than most “productive,” highly-subsidized traditional farms.

Although I wouldn't be surprised if these enterprising apple growers are pulling down their share of subsidies, too.

Via Ezra Klein.

now playing …

Recently purchased from eMusic:

• Thelonius Monk — Alone in Paris
• Black Heart Procession — 2 (thanks, Brett)
• Belle and Sebastian — Dear Catastrophe Waitress
• Hexstatic — When Good Robots Go Bad!
• Manu Chao — La Radiolina
• Blonde Redhead — 23

So much better than iTunes!

the bad boyfriend

IOZ's bags are packed and he's staying the night at his parents' place:

Here, at last, is what our friends, traditional and otherwise, might tell America at the bar. America, you're big, mean, paranoid, self-pitying, violent, unpredictable, fickle, self-satisfied, demanding, clingy, pouty, mercurial, vengeful, arbitrary, and dumb. You are in other words every boyfriend whose strong arms and handsome chin grew less attractive as the first date wore on into a relationship and the true outlines of your character overgrew the nice lines of your chest. You've got a nice ass, America, but you're a bad sport and you've got a shitty sense of humor.

Also, Canadians will be pleased to know that, according to conservative American pundit Anne Applebaum, they have no verifiable Canadian identity, but rather just a “not-American” one.

I knew about the gambit of American backpackers in Europe putting Canadian flag patches on their packs to avoid being stereotyped as jerks. What I didn't know until recently was that, according to one former Canadian backpacker, when Canadians want to act badly, they pretend to be Americans. Maybe this is the source of our image problem abroad!

Lumet on the next wave

Fifty years after making 12 Angry Men, Sidney Lumet talks about New York filmmaking:

You’re a linchpin of New York’s so-called seventies golden age. Did it feel like that then?
You know, I never really was friends with all those guys, and I don’t know why. Woody—well, he’s Woody, so you don’t expect to be hanging out with him. But Scorsese and all those guys? We didn’t hang out. I never felt like there was a school of New York filmmakers. We were all doing our own things. That stuff about a movement came later.

When people talk about that golden age, what they usually mean is that today’s films stink.
I think it’s a great time right now for New York film, actually.

So, who’s inheriting the mantle?
Oh, I can’t say names. Somebody would get bent out of shape.

Then, in the abstract, what do you imagine the next wave will look like?
Well, we were shooting out in Astoria, and one day I was watching all these kids standing outside a school near the studio. It was just marvelous: Indian girls in saris, kids from Pakistan, Korea, kids from all over. So I think you’ll see more directors from these communities, telling their stories. You know, I started out making films about Jews and Italians and Irish because I didn’t know anything else.

Imagine how American cinema would have been shortchanged had the immigration restrictionists of yesteryear had their way. No Pacino, no Brando, no Allen, no Coppola, no De Niro. No American cinema as we know it.

TPM table for one

This week at TPMCafe’s Table for One, LA Times reporter Sam Quinones discusses his new book Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration.

Having spent a decade in Mexico working as a freelance journalist, Quinones uses the book to examine the circumstances, effects, and selected personalities of Mexican migration to the United States, "the largest movement of people from one country to another in our time."

Among the subjects discussed are the depopulation of northern Mexico and the impact of remittances on the Mexican economy.

WWII and America's self-image

Publius speaks words of wisdom in discussing the new Ken Burns documentary on WWII:

WWII (as conceived today) tends to reinforce the image that America is an unambiguously good actor. One of the most dangerous tendencies in American thought is to treat foreign policy as a morality play in which we represent the Platonic ideal of good. To be sure, I love America. I love Big Macs and Elvis Presley. I believe in our underlying institutions, and I’m thankful that I was born here. I love my parents too -- but it doesn’t mean they’re perfect. You can criticize your parents even while you love them. The same is true for America.

No matter what you think of America, it’s done some terrible things in its history -- even in WWII. Putting aside the atomic bomb, there’s the fire-bombing of Tokyo. And Dresden. Beyond the war, there's the fact that we had state-sponsored apartheid for practically all of our history. That’s not to say America doesn’t have its good sides too. Of course it does. The freedom to write this blog is but one example.

The point though is that we need a measured, more realistic view of our selves and our own goodness. We need more humility. The lack of humility -- i.e., our excessive self-confidence in our goodness -- is one reason why Iraq was such an easy sell. For too many people, when our military does it, it can’t be wrong. (This view often stems from conflating emotional attachment to individual soldiers with support of the broader military policy itself. It's important to keep these distinct though).

Q: Could this be the final word . . .

. . . on the validity of charges of anti-Semitism against Waltz and Mearsheimer as they describe the outsize influence of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy?

A. No, but it should be.

more immigration walkback by Giuliani

Will Bunch is not happy that Giuliani is using his town as a campaign prop:

Rudy Giuliani is finally going to talk about something besides 9/11 (actually, that's a guess, and we'll probably be proven wrong), and he's coming to 2008-election-ignored Philadelphia to do it. On a day when social conservatives and the far right are increasingly worried that the former New York mayor is too liberal on their cultural issues, Giuliani will visit Geno's in South Philly, all so he can order a cheesesteak in front of a sign that says: "This is America -- When Ordering, Speak English."

Immediately below the sign, it says "Management Reserves the Right to Refuse Service."

Just a coincidence, owner Joey Vento will tell you.

. . .

Once upon a time, in the mid-1990s, when he was the mayor of one of the most liberal cities in America, Giuliani fought with the federal government on behalf of immigrants, including the undocumented, while seeking public funds to help immigrants win citizenship and defending the right of police and hospital workers not to ask immigration status. Her even said: "I believe the anti-immigration movement in America is one of our most serious public problems."

But that was before 9/11 GOP primary strategy changed everything.

Now, Giuliani's political ads are playing a radically different tune, featuring his words that "if anybody becomes a citizen, we should make certain that they can read English, write English and speak English, because this is an English speaking country." Oddly enough, what Giuliani said already is, in essence, a requirement of citizenship, but the facts aren't as important as the candidate's tone and emphasis, that the anti-immigration movement is no longer "one of our most serious public problems" -- not with so many votes at stake (or in tonight's case..."at steak"?)

Geno's owner Joey Vento should trademark his phrase for use by American tourists around the world:

"This is France -- When Ordering, Speak English."

"This is Mexico -- When Ordering, Speak English."

"This is Italy -- When Ordering, Speak English."

Etc.

more Atlantic Antic

"Popup Sukkah." From the website:

Ever since the wonderful Cloud of Glory Sukkah in the desert, Jewish people have been trying to design the perfect replica: Easy set-up, good lookin', movable, light, bright and comfortable. In 1999, after 3311 years of ambitious attempts and close copies, the PopUp Sukkah was born and - POP! In three easy steps - with basically no assembly required - the PopUp Sukkah practically set itself up for immediate use.

I feel a fight over semantics brewing ...

Bridalwear on display.

A New Orleans jazz band plays while Abita is poured and jambalaya served nearby.

MozzArepas!

Atlantic Antic

I went on Sunday for the first time to Brooklyn's annual Atlantic Antic. Here are some photos I took:

I didn't take a picture of the toddler squatting for a pee between the vintage buses.

I hadn't seen so many strollers since I left Utah. Somebody smart decided to capitalize on the baby boom with some shirts for Park Slope babies. I like these better, though (although they no longer have my favorite, the "I was in the shit" baby shirt).

This dancer had the crowd eating out of her hand.

If "el Ché" can sell shirts, then why not Subcomandante Marcos?

“please support the Dream Act”

Via Migra Matters. More info here.

citizenship exam

Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) released the new civics component of the citizenship test, to take effect in about a year. The new test is said to de-emphasize rote learning, and a pressing question for many in the immigration debate is: Is the new test harder than the old one? If so, hundreds of thousands, even millions of people may be stuck in the legal limbo of permanent residence, where the risk of indefinite detention and deportation never fully disappears. To help answer this question, USCIS published a question-by-question comparison (pdf) between the old and new tests. Not every question in the new test had a direct parallel in the old test. Here are a few examples:

Current Test	New Test
Q11. What country did we fight during the Revolutionary War?	61. Why did the colonists fight the British?
Q72. Name the amendments that guarantee or address voting rights.	48. There are four amendments to the Constitution about who can vote. Describe one of them.
Q87. Where does freedom of speech come from?
Q93.What is the most important right granted to United States citizens?
	12. What is the “rule of law”?
	23. Name your U.S. Representative.
	49. What is one responsibility that is only for United States citizens?

Some of these questions are pretty difficult. I studied law for three years and I would not have been able to answer Question 72 on the current exam: “Name the amendments that guarantee or address voting rights.” Apparently there are four of them—who knew? The comparable question on the new exam is much more sensible.

Or: “Where does freedom of speech come from?” “The First Amendment” or “the Bill of Rights” would be plausible responses. But one could just as easily say something like, “Freedom of speech, in the American context, comes from a long Anglo-Saxon civic tradition culminating in the importation of French and Scottish Enlightenment ideals into U.S. charter documents, followed by two centuries of wrangling between the judicial and legislative branches over the permissible limits of individual expression.” One might discuss the protections given religious expression in Europe as moveable type led to religious fragmentation, bloody conflict, and later secularization. One might even ask the questioner to clarify whether her question was located strictly within the European historical frame or whether she would like a broader cross-cultural exploration of the foundations of free speech. I don’t know whether all that would be on the answer sheet, but it’s a pretty open-ended question.

“What is the rule of law?” Whew, that one is a doozy. Volumes have been written, and remain to be written, about the rule of law.

We see that the writers of the previous exam thought the flag was really, really important. Seven questions have now been whittled down to just one:

Current Test

New Test

Q1. What are the colors of the flag?
Q2. What do the stars on the flag mean?
Q3. How many stars are there on our flag?
Q4. What color are the stars on our flag?
Q5. How many stripes are there on our flag?
Q6. What do the stripes on the flag represent?	96. Why does the flag have 13 stripes?
Q7. What colors are the stripes on the flag?

What I am curious about is how many lifelong U.S. citizens would pass this test. This would be a ripe area for an enterprising immigration advocacy group that could get funding for some simple survey research.

My wife proposed a question be added to the exam, as USCIS seems to have overlooked a critical aspect of U.S. history:

“What is a badonkadonk?”

“Is pimpin’ easy?”

New citizens will have a tough time navigating American life without knowing the answers to these basic questions.

immigrant-loving capitalist pigs

Lenin
Originally uploaded by -Antoine-

As anyone familiar with Lou Dobbs will realize, nativism makes for strange bedfellows. Here is Brenda Walker, a blogger at VDARE, a prominent restrictionist website:

Lenin famously remarked that capitalists would sell their enemies the rope by which to hang them. These days, the capitalists are Spanish-friendly and are happy to destroy America for money by making it “bilingual.”

Those greedy capitalists, always trying to destroy America for money. Someone should tell Pat Buchanan about the Marxist undercurrent running through the restrictionist movement.

Walker continues:

The New York Times Magazine observes how a Hispanic-focused ad agency creates marketing messages that are more culturally appropriate to that audience. Business prefers a direct route to Juan’s wallet, unencumbered by waiting for him to learn English or assimilate to mainstream America.

She then goes on to speculate that, due to high brand loyalty among Hispanics, companies have a vested interest in keeping them from learning English (cue ominous music). No, really! I couldn’t make this stuff up.

pet peeve

Hilzoy posts an excerpt from a recent Roger Cohen article in the NY Times:

Between January and August this year, Sweden took in 12,259 Iraqis fleeing their decomposing country. It expects 20,000 for all of 2007. By contrast, in the same January-August period, the United States admitted 685 refugees, according to State Department figures.

The numbers bear closer scrutiny. In January, Sweden admitted 1,500 Iraqis, compared to 15 that entered the United States. In April, the respective numbers were 1,421 and 1; in May, 1,367 and 1; and in August 1,469 and 529. (...)

When Tobias Billstrom, the migration minister, says, “Yes, of course the United States should do more,” you can feel his indignation about to erupt like milk boiling over. He notes that given the huge population difference, Sweden’s intake of Iraqis “is the equivalent of the U.S. taking in about 500,000 refugees.”

While I'm sympathetic to the underlying issues here, can I just say that it is not helpful when people extrapolate “equivalent” populations in order to inflate numbers for dramatic effect? We’re talking about 12,259 Iraqis, and there’s no way that I’m aware of to physically turn 1 Iraqi into 41 Americans. 1 person = 1 person, no matter where that person happens to be or what nationality she happens to possess. We don’t need numbers of foreigners “translated into American” so that we can understand them—numbers shouldn’t change value in translation. It’s another way that Americans demonstrate their persistent need to filter any and all data through an America-centric frame of reference.

Only slightly less bothersome is the tendency to measure large numbers of deaths, such as civilian deaths in Iraq, by the 3,000 or so people who died on 9/11. Again, a life is a life; there's no need to forever reference deaths elsewhere by the national trauma of 9/11. It only underscores how infrequently Americans face tragic loss of life compared to much of the rest of the planet. This post from Arthur Silber manages to combine both the above-listed gripes:

For ease of computation, we'll use approximate figures. Assume the U.S.'s war crimes have resulted in one million deaths. That is roughly 1/26 of the total Iraqi population. An equivalent number of American deaths would be 11.5 million people. 3,000 Americans were murdered on 9/11. In terms of casualties, 11.5 million deaths represent 3,800 9/11s -- or a 9/11 every day for ten and a half years.

Taken to its logical conclusion, this analytic tool tells us that if one of the 50 residents of the Pitcairn Islands killed one of his countrymen/relatives in a barfight, that would be the “equivalent” of 6 million American deaths, or one 9/11 every day for 5 ½ years!

The horror!!!!!!

(Noting, as above, that I agree with Silber on the underlying issues, just not on the use of this particular technique. Ironically, Silber’s principal complaint in this post is the narcissistic inward-looking tendency of American political discourse. Perhaps he is trying here to reach people in ways they have been conditioned to understand.)

excessive force used by police at SRLP fundraising event

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a legal services organization in New York City, issued a press release earlier today regarding an incident that happened last night at an SRLP fundraising event in Manhattan's East Village. The SRLP website notes that the two people who were arrested have been released and all charges dropped. Here is the release:

Police Brutality Strikes Fifth Anniversary of Sylvia Rivera Law Project

9/27/07 NEW YORK - On the night of Wednesday, September 26, officers from the 9th Precinct of the New York Police Department attacked without provocation members of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and of its community. Two of our community members were violently arrested, and others were pepper sprayed in the face without warning or cause.

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project is an organization that works on behalf of low-income people of color who are transgender, gender non-conforming, or intersex, providing free legal services and advocacy among many other initiatives. On Wednesday night, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project was celebrating its fifth anniversary with a celebration and fundraising event at a bar in the East Village.

A group of our community members, consisting largely of queer and transgender people of color, witnessed two officers attempting to detain a young Black man outside of the bar. Several of our community members asked the officers why they were making the arrest and using excessive force. Despite the fact that our community was on the sidewalk, gathered peacefully and not obstructing foot traffic, the NYPD chose to forcefully grab two people and arrested them. Without warning, an officer then sprayed pepper spray across the group in a wide arc, temporarily blinding many and causing vomiting and intense pain.

"This is the sort of all-too-common police violence and overreaction towards people of color that happens all the time," said Dean Spade, founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. "It's ironic that we were celebrating the work of an organization that specifically opposes state violence against marginalized communities, and we experienced a police attack at our celebration."

"We are outraged, and demand that our community members be released and the police be held accountable for unnecessary use of excessive force and falsely arresting people," Spade continued.

Damaris Reyes is executive director of GOLES, an organization working to preserve the Lower East Side. She commented, "I'm extremely concerned and disappointed by the 9th Precinct's response to the situation and how it escalated into violence. This kind of aggressive behavior doesn't do them any good in community-police relations."

Supporters will be gathering at 100 Centre Street tomorrow [Thursday], where the two community members will be arraigned. The community calls for charges to be dropped and to demand the immediate release of those arrested.

Sylvia Rivera Law Project

ImmigrationProf Blog interview with Obama

ImmigrationProf Blog has posted (pdf) Obama’s answers to questions on immigration. The three co-bloggers issued a disclaimer that they have all served as members of an Immigration Policy Group for the Obama campaign, but played no role in formulating the responses.

If these immigration experts have decided to throw their lot in with Obama—which I don’t know for certain—I can’t blame them. I think he is the frontrunner with the greatest likelihood of advancing immigration policy in a productive direction.

Clinton lost me in 2002 when she voted for war. She’s not shown much interest in substantively improving her foreign policy positions since then. I can’t remember any big pronouncements she’s made on immigration—I think she is trying to avoid the issue as much as possible. Edwards so far has not impressed me with his immigration or foreign policy acumen.

Obama’s weakest point is his vote for the border wall last year. I’ve not seen him advance a good explanation for that decision. In response to a question on this topic, Obama dodges and weaves:

Deaths on the Border

In recent years, thousands of migrants have died seeking to enter the United States. Many knowledgeable observers blame the increased enforcement measures along the U.S./Mexico border over the last 15+ years for making the crossing a life-or-death proposition. Such measures have diverted immigrants away from large border cities and into remote and desolate deserts where migrants are more likely to die. What would you do to reduce the deaths along the U.S./Mexico border? Why did you vote for the Secure Fence Act in 2006, which allowed for the extension of the border fence along the U.S./Mexico border that, according to many commentators, will do little to deter undocumented immigrants while, at the same time, increase the chances that they will die during their journey?

My father came to this country from a small village in Africa because he was looking for opportunity. So when I see people who are coming across these borders, whether legally or illegally, I know that the motivation is trying to create a better life for their children and their grandchildren. That's why in the state legislature and in the U.S. Senate, I championed efforts to make sure that we could incorporate and bring people into the political process and to have access to the resources that would give them a better life. I was one of the leaders, along with several other senators, in passing comprehensive immigration reform the year before last out of the Senate and was extremely disappointed to see the House fail to act.

I agree that more fencing alone is not the answer to our immigration challenge. The Secure Fence Act sent the message that Mexico is not our friend and that immigration can be solved through enforcement alone – both points with which I strongly disagree. But I believe restoring order in the border region is necessary to winning the American people’s support for full reform. It must be done as one package, but getting the border under control will have to be part of a comprehensive solution for both practical and political reasons. I can commit to you that I will support additional fencing only where it can help discourage illegal entry and dangerous crossings over desert terrain. And I will only support additional fencing in coordination and cooperation with local communities.

I would prefer to use more manned patrols and better technology to deter illegal entry, but a large majority of Congress has agreed that some new fencing should be part of a solution. Additional fencing on the border is not a comprehensive solution, but it sometimes helps deter people from taking the risk of entering illegally. Protecting our borders is important, but it is just one step in the overall process of reforming our nation’s immigration laws.

I like the fact that Obama emphasizes his immigrant roots, if he were elected president, I think his father’s experience would shape his immigration policies in positive ways. But otherwise, this response is inadequate.

He says, “I can commit to you that I will support additional fencing only where it can help discourage illegal entry and dangerous crossings over desert terrain.” But the problem is that fences are being constructed at the safest crossing points, so immigrants are pushed out into remote and dangerous areas. Unless Obama is proposing to turn the entire border fence policy on its head by building fences where nobody crosses and leaving the border towns open, I suspect he knows these words are empty.

Alternatively, Obama knows that what he is describing is impossible and this is his way of saying he will not support additional fencing. Under that interpretation, his next statement makes more sense: I will only support additional fencing in coordination and cooperation with local communities.” Since border communities generally oppose fencing, this could mean Obama won’t support more walls.

But it’s a little late in the day to talk about “additional fencing” when you’ve already voted to authorize 700 miles of fence. Apparently, the CW is that politically, supporting the border wall is a no-brainer. This perception must change, and the change can start with Obama’s Latino constituents in Illinois. While he’s on the national stage now, Illinoisans can speak to his strengths and weaknesses in a way others can’t, and they should take advantage of this to push him to repudiate his vote. In the same way that Clinton has been bleeding credibility with progressives by refusing to revisit her support for the Iraq War in any significant way, Obama should be pushed to revisit his vote for the wall.

Obama says, “a large majority of Congress has agreed that some new fencing should be part of a solution.” It would have been a smaller majority if the junior Senator from Illinois had not joined it, especially as a candidate for president who can act as an opinion leader in a way others can’t. He knows this well from his experience opposing the “large majority of Congress” that supported the Iraq blunder, and he knows the political benefits that being an early opinion leader can bring.

How would the Obama administration have dealt with the case of Elvira Arrellano, the undocumented immigrant with a U.S. citizen son who sought refuge in a church for a year to avoid deportation and, upon leaving her sanctuary, was arrested and deported to Mexico? Arellano’s U.S. citizen son remains in the United States.

I’ve met with Elvira Arellano and her son, and I understand the challenges that they and millions of other undocumented immigrants face. Although I do not condone Ms. Arellano’s defiance of the law, her plight is representative of a broken immigration system. We need comprehensive immigration reform that creates a system that is fair, consistent, compassionate, and emphasizes both maintaining the rule of law and the security of our borders while working to keep families together. I will not stop pushing Congress to pass comprehensive reform this year.

Elvira Arellano represents a vulnerability for restrictionists as Cindy Sheehan did for war supporters. Given the relative paucity in the media of antiwar voices among soldiers and their families before the summer of 2005, Cindy Sheehan’s position as the mother of a fallen soldier seemed at first unassailable to antiwar progressives. That is why she was the focus of such strenuous attacks by the right—she had to be discredited before she drained any more public support for a failing war. Similarly, Arellano represents the consequences to children and families of the damage caused by U.S. immigration policies. Arellano’s status as a single mother who took refuge in a church was enough to keep ICE at bay for an entire year—she was only captured and deported once she left the sanctuary. Her plight could especially have an impact on women’s opinions on immigration if her public image is not speedily tarnished—hence, the negative press from Fox and the restrictionist websites.

I like Obama’s statement on Arellano, and I’m glad he’s not ashamed to have met with her. I disagree with Dan Kowalski; I think Arellano does deserve support. I don’t want to see her in the same position as Cindy Sheehan found herself, where liberals bought into the conservative narrative and began discounting Sheehan’s experience and undermining from the left her effectiveness in the national discussion.

Obama’s response to a question about how he would reform the broken immigration courts was less than satisfactory, mostly because it was less than 25 words:

Improving the quality of the decisions of the immigration courts and the BIA is part of comprehensive reform and I will fight for it.

The most generous interpretation is that he is not informed about this issue enough to have an opinion at this point.

Obama expresses support for the DREAM Act and points out that he introduced the Citizenship Promotion Act to reduce application fees for citizenship and promote efforts to integrate immigrants into American life. This is a good way to address persistent (though unfounded) complaints that today’s immigrants just ain’t like they used to be in terms of learning English and integrating into American society.

Overall, I agree with Kowalski that Obama’s positions need a lot of refining, and at some point, the details should be fleshed out. But as a general matter, the candidates are reluctant on many issues to commit to details which may come back to bite them in the general election. Obama at least is reaching out to the immigrant community by participating in this interview, his border wall vote notwithstanding.

If he is successful in the primaries, pressure will be on him to repudiate some of the more immigrant-friendly positions he is taking now. The real test will be how he responds to that.

protests in Burma

Things are starting to happen in Burma:

The government of Myanmar began a violent crackdown on Wednesday after tolerating more than a month of ever larger protests in cities around the country. Security forces clubbed and tear-gassed protesters, fired shots into the air and arrested hundreds of the monks who are at the heart of the demonstrations.

A government announcement said security forces in Yangon, the country’s main city, fired at demonstrators who failed to disperse, killing one man. Foreign news agencies and exile groups reported death tolls ranging from two to eight people.

Despite threats and warnings by the authorities, and despite the beginnings of a violent response, tens of thousands of chanting, cheering protesters flooded the streets, witnesses reported. Monks were in the lead, like religious storm troopers, as one foreign diplomat described the scene.

I hope this doesn’t end up like Tiananmen or Andijan. The situation is both exciting and terrifying. Andrew Sullivan has a round up here.

bring me a sugar cookie from Queens!

Once again, an ad in the print version of the Economist caught my eye.

The text reads:

No task is too big (or too small) for a Peninsula Page – like this request for songbirds from the street markets of Hong Kong. To view more Portraits of Peninsula and learn about the world’s most celebrated hotels, please visit us at peninsula.com.

I couldn’t help but think of this:

Y’all gotta walk uptown to the Bronx, and get breast milk from a Cambodian immigrant.

A bit of piddling about on the internets reveals that this photo was taken by Annie Leibovitz as part of an ad campaign for the chain a couple years ago. In a BusinessWeek article that reads like a press release (maybe they all do, I don’t know), we find that:

As Paul Quinn, the Peninsula Hong Kong's Chief Concierge puts it, "We try to make the impossible possible. The golden rule is we try never to say no." During his career, Quinn has dealt with some unusual requests, from arranging a visit to Buckingham Palace to organizing a party in Regents Park with elephants (rain put a damper on the plans but Quinn arranged an alternative indoor treat). Quinn adds, "Sometimes it is more about understanding the guest as they may ask for something when it's not really what they want."

Bring me a sugar cookie from Queens! Wait, no, make it chocolate chip …

What's in it for the staff? One image in the "Portraits" campaign features three chambermaids who have been with the company for a combined total of 49 years. That's an average of more than 15 years of service each. The Peninsula Hotels believes staff stays because it truly looks after them in both good times and bad. As Zuleka Mok, the group's general manager of human resources puts it, "They are part of the Peninsula family. All of our staff members are treated with the same level of respect, dignity and consideration regardless of their position. We help them to build their career with us, instead of just providing jobs."

. . .

By its own definition, the Peninsula Hotels operates at the luxury end of the industry. Offerings such as the HK$ 110,000 (US$ 14,100) "Pen-Ultimate Experience" at the group's flagship Hong Kong property, which includes two nights' stay in a suite, transfers by chauffeured Rolls-Royce, in-suite candlelight dining while serenaded by the hotel's jazz trio, and a 30-minute sightseeing tour by helicopter among other treats, are out of reach for most.

What young Chinese boy wouldn’t love to scamper and fetch songbirds from the street markets of Hong Kong to satisfy the whim of a wealthy Westerner? He’s pulling his compatriots out of poverty, one parakeet at a time.

And we mustn’t forget this side of the tourist industry.

I found more photos from the Peninsula campaign here (pdf).

The one on the first page deserves a caption contest. Since my army of commenters may feel timid, I’ll take the first shot:

Brown-skinned children of the world: America needs you!