Is there another reason for border patrol enhancement?

[Forgetting2]

Outside the cosmestic, I have some questions. Maybe someone is willing to speculate.<br><br>Is there possibly another reason for actually sending a bunch of National Guard to the border?<br><br>Who do they wish to keep in and who do they wish to keep out?<br><br>Is there some event this could be preparation for?<br><br>Does the actual movement of resources serve a purpose outside of political stunt? <p></p><i></i>

[PeterofLoneTree]

As I posted elsewhere:<br><br>"If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would probably maintain that this is the beginning maneuver to wage war against the "cabal" of Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia". <p></p><i></i>

[bvonahsen]

It ratchets up the tensions over immigration here and is part of the GOP stratagey, along with gay marriage, for the mid-terms. The more this issue can be pushed into hysteria the more it favors the GOP. <p></p><i></i>

[DireStrike]

Helps block off the land exits from the US. Very hard for draft dodgers to flee anywhere. <p></p><i></i>

[PeterofLoneTree]

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"Very hard for draft dodgers to flee anywhere."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> -- DireStrike<br><br>My first thought when I read of a proposed fence along the entire border was:<br>"To keep <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>them</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> out? Or, to keep <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>us</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> in? <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

I don't know. The promotion of this issue has more of a grass roots feel to me, bottom up rather than top down, as if the Republican party leaders are reluctant to get on this bandwagon (they just love all that cheap labor), yet need to pander to their base, so are caught between a rock and a hard place. <p></p><i></i>

[Forgetting2]

Sorry for the splatter effect of this…<br><br>I was thinking about this in light of Jeff’s Freewheelin’ post. The places they choose to spend money appear to be chosen for political payoff purposes, with the possible side benefit (for them) of punishment meted out in non-supportive areas. The only other thing they actually seem to want to spend money on is military projects (Not so much personnel).<br><br>On the other hand, if Homeland security is intended to secure their own high concept of Homeland, one might think they’d want the highest resources in the areas of highest resistance (Unless they’re planning on getting rid of New York altogether – these days my paranoia knows no bounds). Or maybe I’m not getting the high concept.<br><br>I’m guessing they know better than anyone when and where the next terrorist attack will occur. (They probably have it marked in code on their Blackberries, with no small side effect of sexual gratification.) So they would know where to move resources to, or away from, depending on the purpose. This as it appears to have happened on 9/11.<br><br>Now the military is near to or past the breaking point, according to a number of military sources. This seems to include the National Guard. So why send the National Guard instead of hiring a bunch of new boarder patrol? Possibly to enhance the need for a coveted draft? Perhaps a continued normalization of improper uses of the military for domestic purposes? Visibility?<br><br>It would seem to me they have no intention of actually attempting to secure the Mexican border: this not being in their best corporate interest.<br><br>If it were to keep us in, would they also want to secure the Canadian border? Or are there other means of retrieving draft dodgers from Canada?<br><br>As for the ratcheting up of hysteria, that of course fits their MO, but I wondered if there might be more to it than that. Or maybe that’s my paranoia. They do need to pander to their base, but I feel like they might have found an easier way to do that on this issue.<br> <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

I think it's important to keep in mind that this issue can come around and bite the Dems in the ass, too. This is a JOBS issue, regardless of what the Repuglycans want to call it, like calling it "jobs that Americans don't want". Bullshit. It's about rotten jobs that SHOULD provide a good wage, support a family like it used to do. Especially since the Repuglicans have outsourced all the other jobs, and are working on "in-sourcing" other well-paid tech jobs with foreigners. And all the Dems care about is grabbing Mexican-American votes, not giving a damn about whether the pay would support a family here in America. This is NOT a win-win for the Dems, either. <br><br>And <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>punishing</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> Mexicans for trying to survive is cruel. Their goal is to pit us, one against the other. Look at Mexico, for that is our future.<br><br>And Candadians, if we become the next Mexico, watch out, because you're next. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=chiggerbit@rigorousintuition>chiggerbit</A> at: 6/4/06 9:38 pm<br></i>

[StarmanSkye]

Chiggerbit -- Astute observations, indeed, re: the bottom-up feel, the Repugs are REACTING to this neoliberal-blowback 'crisis' caused by US/IMF/World Bank -imposed Structural Adjustment bankruptcy-bailout conditions, that have reduced corporate currency-control regulations and increased foreign corporation-ownership percentages, essentially squeezing the working-poor and the cheap-labour market -- as US agricultural subsidies flood Mexican markets and force farmers who can't compete off the land and into the cities where they vye for limited manufacturing and service jobs ... allowing foreign corporations to buy distressed farms for a pittance; Talk about a rigged goddamned game ...<br><br>The 'new' 21st century version of Robber Baron feudalism.<br><br>A Mexican border 'fence' is contrary to what the Plutocracy had been angling for, a greater North American co-propserity zone with shared continent-wide immigration control to facilitate commerce and culture with NO borders between Canada and Mexico.<br><br>The neocons with their unrestricted jobs-outsourcing and major economic/tax policy/foreign debt screwup 'management' and deliberate failure to properly manage the border allowing self-styled Minutemen to seize the popular-press Uber-Patriot spotlight, have royally screwed the single-continent shared-borders idea, at least for the foreseeable future. Its gonna take a major psyop disinfo/propaganda program to alter the public opinion into something less hostile to that idea -- which already had beaucoup problems what with the enormous income-disparity and Canada's embarrasing great-example of a health-care system that is some 10X better at 1/3 the cost (well, perhaps a SLIGHT exaggeration there, but you get the idea). Not to mention Canada's liberal pot laws and Mexico's recent interest to legalize personal amounts of recreational drugs (which president Fox vetoed at the last minute, agains the popular will, and ONLY thru strong BushCamp pressure -- to keep illicit drug-smuggling wildly lucrative for the elite's racketeering and victim-incarceration rates high to feed the greedy prison-industry?).<br><br>ALSO: Right-ON & Damn Straight, it's a job's issue, the loss of purchaing power and decline of a living wage, while Congress ignores the issue, Dems scrambling to capture the Mex-American votes and Repugs try to salve the anxiety of their red-state WASP congregation while hand-holding their affluent-elite base.<br><br>Middle Class Mexicans have been hard-hit, and the working poor raked over the coals -- As you say, punishing the Mexicans for trying to improve their lot, sacrificing a desperate and dangerous cross-border journey (joined by Central Americans who have also suffered terribly from neoliberal debt-indenture and SAP policies) is cruel and downright irresponsible (since Americans have been so deficient in holding their 'leaders' to account for pushing the anti-democratic trade agreements, etc.). The ruling elite corporate-globalists are champs at pitting people against each other -- American working poor, minorities, students, retirees, squeezed Middle Class struggling to meet upward-variable-rate mortage or student-loan payments in a declining jobs market and with crippling energy costs, foreign immigrants 'targetted' for persecution, women treated as 2nd class citizens working for lower wages and subject to domestic abuse, the chronically under-and-unemployed -- they all have FAR more in common and share basic interests with hispanic workers and displaced Mexicans than with their Washington politicos or corporate-executive elites. We should be JOINING the struggle instead of building multi-billion-dollar walls and profiling 'tresspassers' with an array of hightech gizmos and 2nd generation Stormtrooper cops...<br><br>I fully expect Fox will be squeezing the Peasants and Bolivarian Revolutionaries and dispossessed workers and protesting students HARD in the coming months, to squash any potential solidarity with the example of Venezuala, Cuba and Bolivia social justice movements of progressive reform and grassroots anti-imperialist democracy -- a thorn in the side of the ruling class PTB Plutocrats ... In which case the WALL will become an anvil for the Mexican paramilitary thugs to crush the resistance movement against.<br><br>A lesson straight out of America's El Salvador and Guatamalan playbook: How to Intimidate Dissent, Crush Resistance and Reassure Global Investors.<br><br>And too, true: As goes Mexico, so will the US, and Canada -- as the blight of neoliberalism finally returns fullcircle to infect the sourcepoint parent organisms where it was created and perfected, ie. the Developed West, northern states including EU and Japan.<br>Starman<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[chiggerbit]

“A nation that enslaves another forges its own chains.” <br> Michael Parenti <p></p><i></i>

[stickdog99]

In reality, immigration reform is a non-issue. If TPTB wanted to control illegal immigration, they would simply beef up and enforce the laws that are already on the books at any time.<br><br>TPTB are going to their tried and true playbook of xenophobia. Their only hope is to hype up a some issue that divides one group of have nots against another group of have nots, so as to distract 99% of Americans from the top 1% who are currently stealing us blind with their energy and war profiteering, continual tax cuts for the rich and gutting of the dollar with record deficit spending.<br><br>Corporate and other big money political contributors love cheap labor in all of its forms. But outsourcing is more important to them than insourcing, and they desperately need to trump up some non-issue to keep us distracted in 2006 and 2008. So Bush proposes a program that appears to be tough on illegal immigrants while preserving a large pool of cheap laborers for continued exploitation. It basically changes the law to codify the cheap labor lovers' approved level of illegal immigration exploitation while trying to appeal to the law and order anti-immigration crowd by "beefing up border security."<br><br>The new War on Illegal Border Crossings will then proceed with the "successful aplomb" of the Wars on Poverty, Drugs and Terrorism before it. Instead of simply removing the demand side of the equation by criminalizing people who employ illegals without first clearing them with social security, this half-hearted effort will rely on haphazard before and after interdiction of illegal immigrants with as much public camera posing as possible.<br><br>The tamper proof ID card is the one thing Bush suggested that might help solve the problem, but it would have to be used in conjunction with PENALTY ENFORCEMENT against employers who flout this requirement. Note that Bush didn't say a word about employer penalty enforcement in his entire 20 minute speech outlining his so-called "comprehensive" immigration plan. <br><br>In addition, hyping immigration as a hot button issue helps to explain why we need all of those otherwise scary domestic internment camps. <p></p><i></i>

[NewKid]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>In addition, hyping immigration as a hot button issue helps to explain why we need all of those otherwise scary domestic internment camps.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br> . . . just in case we have an enormous influx of immigrants that overwhelms the system. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=newkid@rigorousintuition>NewKid</A> at: 6/7/06 12:38 am<br></i>

[chiggerbit]

<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060607/NEWS08/606070396/1001">www.desmoinesregister.com...70396/1001</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Immigrant teen leaves jail, still faces deportation threat<br>Iowa's Tom Vilsack and Tom Harkin appeal to federal officials on Estephanie Izaquirre's behalf.<br><br><br>REGISTER STAFF WRITER<br><br><br>June 7, 2006<br><br><br><br>Estephanie Izaquirre, an 18-year-old girl who has lived in Des Moines since she illegally sneaked over the U.S. border five years ago, was released Tuesday night from the Polk County Jail, but she still faces the threat of deportation to her native Honduras.<br><br>"She's out," lawyer Jim Benzoni said shortly after his client was released about 7 p.m. "Somebody put enough pressure on Washington that they let her out."<br><br>Two Democratic politicians, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin and Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, appealed to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Izaquirre's behalf.<br><br>An orphan living in dismal conditions in Honduras, Izaquirre was 12 years old when she made the long trek to the United States to be with her sister, an undocumented immigrant who married a Des Moines man and became a U.S. citizen.<br><br>Izaquirre's lawyer had thought he was close to getting her legal status; he had used a provision in the law that allows young immigrants who qualify as "children in need of assistance" to get green cards even if they're in the country illegally.<br><br>But immigration officials arrested her Thursday, two days after her 18th birthday and five days after she graduated from East High School in Des Moines, when they invited her to their office with an e-mail that implied they would complete paperwork for a green card.<br><br>Gov. Tom Vilsack and others have called immigration officials' tactics "trickery."<br><br>Vilsack spoke more than once with Ruben Barrales, a deputy assistant to President Bush and director of the U.S. Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, to express his outrage and disappointment over the treatment of Izaquirre, according to the governor's spokesman, Rodell Mollineau.<br><br>Then, on Sunday, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Emilio Gonzalez, telephoned Vilsack from Spain to discuss Izaquirre's case.<br><br>Immigration officials said that Izaquirre was a fugitive - she sneaked across the U.S. border just before her 13th birthday - <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>and that there was an outstanding order for her deportation</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->.<br><br>In his letter to Chertoff, Harkin pointed out that Izaquirre is being deported to a country where she has no family. Her mother died of cancer, her father abandoned the family before she was born, <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>and her guardian pressed her into prostitution.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>"I am very troubled by this action, which seems to directly contradict the administration's statements that they are committed to doing everything possible to combat the sexual exploitation of young children," Harkin wrote.<br><br>In fact, as of April, Harkin said, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has apprehended more than 7,500 people as part of Operation Predator, which is an initiative designed to protect young children from alien smugglers, human traffickers, child pornographers and others seeking to harm children.<br><br>Iowa's other U.S. senator, Charles Grassley, did not have anything to do with the teenager's release, but his staff had heard of her case, a spokeswoman said.<br><br>Izaquirre's lawyer, Benzoni, said she must report to immigration officials regularly until an immigration judge decides her fate.<br><br>So many Iowans contacted him asking how they could help that Benzoni created a trust account for Izaquirre, and her sister, Reyna Jasso, opened an account at Iowa State Bank. Checks can be addressed to Benzoni Law Office or Jasso, the lawyer said.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Gouda]

The DM Register article posted by chiggerbit mentions the prostitution aspect, which brings to mind sexual trafficking in general (what a dirty story - there's Chertoff, hello! And here's hoping the best for Estephanie.) The border issue works for the scum, high and low, in so many ways. As posters above say, keeping the border ostensibly "locked" is politically expedient, while also keeping the underclasses nationally and ethnically divided, rolling to a boil over jobs, wages, land, services, etc. Meanwhile, the real money must be allowed to keep flowing - we know that any deployment of "troops" or security forces to an area means that certain special units of said force will be tasked with keeping the border permeable to black currency such as drugs, arms and sex. Though I have to wonder how much the stuff moved via old fashioned cross-border smuggling really matters to the corporate uber-mafia when private jets and cutout companies have been working so well transporting the really radioactive dark matter with impunity. I assume they keep their hot / cold options open and go either way as necessary. <br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>On edit: </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->I am not sure that covering their bases in this way means they have got us increasingly under control - I think this further indicates chaos, that the wheels are coming off their machine. Desperate shit like wall-building and xenophobia-stoking is reactionary and doomed to fail. They have been spooked by the mass migrant worker marches and also the regrouping anti-neoliberal, contra-WTO, global social movement(s). Regular Latin American people are reasserting themselves again, despite the past. Wise for us ALL to catch this wave now, while we still have a chance. <br><br>(On another level, I wonder how this all works at the inter-dimensional borders of occult high weirdness; is it related as above, so below; who are the boundary "patrols"; what is smuggled back and forth?) <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=gouda@rigorousintuition>Gouda</A> at: 6/7/06 7:50 am<br></i>

[chiggerbit]

I have to wonder, if the girl had slipped across the border at age twelve, when and under what circumstances the outstanding order for her deportation came to be. I think it's likely that she got it for prostituting. I say, deport the perv-John, not the little girl. <p></p><i></i>