by TChris

As TalkLeft observed here, it was unfair of undercover officers to base arrests on their use of drug slang while purchasing legal products, like sudafed and charcoal, from Georgia convenience stores staffed by clerks from India who didn't understand that "cook" referred to "manufacturing methamphetamine," not "grilling burgers." The officers' tactics raised questions about the selective targeting of a minority population for a dubious criminal prosecution.

An ACLU investigation produced compelling evidence that the Indian clerks were targeted because they wouldn't understand the officers' drug slang, while white clerks selling the same products were ignored. The ACLU has filed suit on behalf of the clerks.

Documents filed by the A.C.L.U. yesterday include a sworn statement from an informant in the sting, saying that federal investigators sent informants only to Indian-owned stores, "because the Indians' English wasn't good." The informant said investigators ignored the informant's questions about why so many South-Asian-owned stores were visited in the sting.

Immigration reform will be a hot topic today. Late Wednesday, Senate Republicans introduced a compromise immigration bill. Sen. Harry Reid said Democrats will consider it, but it appears to be doomed, since many of the objectionable House provisions from H.R. 4437 are in it. Debate is scheduled to resume today on the Democrat's bill that passed the Judiciary Committee last week.

Sen. Dick Durbin says if a bill does not pass the Senate this week, there is unlikely to be any immigration reform legislation this year.

My view (and that of many pro-immigrants rights groups): Both proposals are unacceptable due to the punitive enforcement provisions. We need both an easier path to legalization, protections and benefits for workers and fewer enforcement provisions.

So, better no bill than a bad bill? Probably, unless the Democrat's version that strips some of the most egregious enforcement provisions prevails. But, for those who are wanting to review the differences between the Senate Judiciary version and what is reported to be in the new Republican version, see below:

A new GAO report (pdf) finds that federal agencies that buy personal data on Americans from data collectors and sellers and resellers like Choice Point and Lexis Nexis are not complying with privacy rules to protect the information.

[The federal]agencies often do not limit the collection and use of information about law-abiding citizens, as required by the Privacy Act of 1974 and other laws. The agencies also don't ensure the accuracy of the information they are buying, according to the GAO report. That's in part because of a lack of clear guidance from the agencies and the Office of Management and Budget on guidelines known as "fair information practices," the report said.

The report was requested after last year's revelation of security breaches at the companies. From the report:

A new Time poll shows 79% support a guest worker program while only 47% support the Republican House bill.

There's also this discouraging news:

A substantial majority, 75%, say they should not be allowed to have government services, such as health care or food stamps, and 69% say they shouldn't be able to get a driver's license. A slight majority, 51%, think public schools ought to be off-limits.

And this encouraging news: Bush's favorable rating has sunk to 37%, it's lowest level yet.

Sen. Ken Salazar gave a speech in the Senate Thursday, backing the immigration reform bill passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, including its guest worker provisions.

The theme of the speech was not the guest worker program. It was "broken borders and lawlessness," a phrase he repeated five times. He lauded the many criminal enforcement components of the bill, including those that:

• Double the number of Border Patrol agents--adding 12,000 new agents over the next five years;
• Double interior enforcement-adding 1,000 investigators per year for the next five years;
• Increase resources to expand the ability of federal agents to retrieve aliens detained by local police;
• Increase resources for additional detention facilities;
• Add new electronic surveillance technologies and resources to create a "virtual fence" at the border;
• Provide for reimbursement to states for costs of prosecuting and imprisoning undocumented criminal aliens; and
• Provide for faster deportation process, and enhanced penalties for gang, tunneling, smuggling, and greater resources targeting ID fraud.

Robert Scheer over at Truthdig says there's no immigration crisis and we should legalize the illegals.

There is no immigration crisis -- other than the one created by a small but vocal stripe of opportunist politicians, media demagogues and freelance xenophobes. So it has always been throughout the history of this country when anti-immigrant hysteria periodically reigns during ebbs in our national sense of security and vision.

As to the undocumented workers, Scheer writes:

by TChris

Democracies depend upon citizens exercising their right to vote. Arbitrary deprivations of that right undermine democracy. Judge Michael Spearman in King County, Washington, stood up for democracy by declaring unconstitutional a state law that denied ex-offenders the right to vote if they failed to pay "any and all legal financial obligations" required by their sentences.

"There is simply no rational relationship between the ability to pay and the exercise of constitutional rights," the judge, Michael S. Spearman of King County Superior Court, wrote.

Denying the right to vote to people who simply can't afford to make prompt payment of (often burdensome) fines, court costs, and restitution payments violates their right to equal protection of the law. Judge Spearman noted that Washington was unable to explain why defendants with enough wealth to make immediate payment should have the right to vote, while poorer defendants who had to rely on payment plans should be deprived of that right.

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) made some great comments yesterday in the Senate on immigration reform and Sensenbrenner's bill. It's at page S2402 of The Congressional record, available on Thomas. Here's some of what he said:

It is an interesting story, as we watch the news reports, of the people who are gathering across the United States. Over 110,000, some say close to 200,000, came out in Chicago a few days ago; 500,000 in the city of Los Angeles. There is hardly a major city in America where people have not stepped forward because of their concern about this immigration bill.

Who are these people? They are people we always see but seldom come to know. They are our neighbors. They sit next to us in church; they send their kids to the same school as our kids. They probably cooked your breakfast this morning. They probably washed your dishes and cleaned your hotel room. They are watching your children at daycare and they are changing your aging mother's soiled bed in the nursing home. They make sure your putting green is perfect, and they stand for hours every day in a damp and cold place, watching a production line of chicken carcasses come by, so you can invite friends for a barbecue this weekend.

by TChris

Is the FBI fighting a war against terror or a war against dissent? The LA Times reports on FBI documents showing that the agency "has spent resources gathering information on antiwar and environmental protesters and on activists who feed vegetarian meals to the homeless" -- not exactly prime targets in a "war" designed to protect the country from terrorist attacks.

The FBI justifies this war against protest by defining "terrorism" to include crimes against property, at least if the crime is politically motivated (a caveat that might save shopliter Claude Allen from being labeled a terrorist). As TalkLeft argued here, that definition distracts federal law enforcement from a meaningful attack on terror. But even accepting that any politically motivated crime constitutes terror, the FBI has shown less interest in true domestic terrorists who are motivated to bomb abortion clinics and gay bars, choosing instead to spy on Americans who are merely exercising their right to protest.

Both the AP and the LA Times are reporting that today's pro-immigrant march in Los Angeles turned out 500.000 people.

Saturday's march was among the largest for any cause in recent U.S. history. Police came up with the crowd estimate using aerial photographs and other techniques, police Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr. said.

...."Enough is enough of the xenophobic movement," said Norman Martinez, 63, who immigrated from Honduras as a child and marched in Los Angeles. "They are picking on the weakest link in society, which has built this country."

Update: Saturday, tens of thousands marched in L.A. Firedoglake has more on the protests.

*******
10,000 in Phoenix along with thousands in Los Angeles and Atlanta rallied today against Congress' proposed anti-immigrant bills:

Congress is considering bills that would make it a felony to be illegally in the United States, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border. The proposals have angered many Hispanics. In Phoenix, police said 10,000 demonstrators marched to the office of Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, co-sponsor of a bill that would give illegal immigrants up to five years to leave the country. The turnout clogged a major thoroughfare.

"They're here for the American Dream," said Malissa Greer, 29, who joined a crowd estimated by police to be at least 10,000 strong. "God created all of us. He's not a God of the United States, he's a God of the world."

From our compassionate Department of Homeland Security, via Duke at Daily Kos: The AP reports:

China is refusing to take back an estimated 39,000 citizens who have been denied immigration to the United States and have clogged detention centers at federal expense, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday.... Currently, 687 Chinese are being held in federal detention facilities, at a daily rate of $95 each, while some 38,000 have been released on bond or under a monitoring program, such as wearing an electronic surveillance bracelet, the Homeland Security Department said later yesterday. Illegal immigrants can be held for 180 days before they are released.

Chertoff also said Homeland Security would open detention facilities in the next few weeks to house entire families of illegal immigrants who hope to bring their children along in order to avoid jail time. "It'll be humane, but we're not going to let people get away with this," he said.