The Constitution Has An Asterisk on It - The New War To Replace Iraq and Afganistan

The U.S. borderlands are today ground zero for the rise, growth, and spread of a domestic surveillance state. On June 27th, the Senate passed the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. Along with the claim that it offers a path to citizenship to millions of the undocumented living in the United States (with many stringent requirements), in its more than 1 ,000 pages it promises to build the largest border-policing and surveillance apparatus ever seen in the United States. The result, Senator John McCain proudly said, will be the “most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

This “border surge,” a phrase coined by Senator Chuck Schumer, is also a surveillance surge. The Senate bill provides for the hiring of almost 19,000 new Border Patrol agents, the building of 7 00 additional miles of walls, fences, and barriers, and an investment of billions of dollars in the latest surveillance technologies, including drones.

In this, the bill only continues in a post-9/11 tradition in which our southern divide has become an on-the ground laboratory for the development of a surveillance state whose mission is already moving well beyond those borderlands. Calling this “immigration reform” is like calling the National Security Agency ’s expanding global surveillance system a domestic telecommunications upgrade. It’s really all about the country that the United States is becoming — one of the police and the policed.

Low-Intensity War Zone

The $46 billion border security price tag in the immigration reform bill will simply expand on what has already been built. After all, $100 billion was spenton border “enforcement” in the first decade after 9/1 1 . To that must be added the annual $18 billion budget for border and immigration enforcement, money that outpaces the combined budgets of all other federal law enforcement agencies. In fact, since Operation Blockade in the 1990s, the U.S.-Mexico border has gone through so many surges that a time when simple chain link fences separated two friendly countries is now unimaginable.

To witness the widespread presence of Department of Homeland Security agents on the southern border, just visit that international boundary 100 miles south of Border Security Expo. Approximately 7 00 miles of walls, fences, and barriers already cut off the two countries at its major urban crossings and many rural ones as well. Emplaced everywhere are cameras that can follow you — or your body heat — day or night. Overhead, as in Afghanistan, a Predator B drone may hover. Y ou can’t hear its incessant buzzing only because it flies so high, nor can you see the crew in charge of flying it and analyzing your movements from possibly hundreds of miles away.

As you walk, perhaps you step on implanted sensors, creating a beeping noise in some distant monitoring room. Meanwhile, green-striped Border Patrol vehicles rush by constantly . On the U.S.-Mexican border, there are already more than 18,500 agents (and approximately 2,300 more on the Canadian border). In counter terrorism mode, they are paid to be suspicious of every thing and everybody . Some Homeland Security vehicles sport trailers carrying All Terrain Vehicles. Some have mounted surveillance cameras, others cages to detain captured migrants. Some borderlanders like Mike Wilson of the Tucson-based Border Action Network, a member of the Tohono O'odham Nation (a Native American people and the original inhabitants of the Arizona borderlands), call the border security operatives an “occupying army .”

Checkpoints — normally located 20-50 miles from the international boundary — serve as a second lay er of border enforcement. Stopped at one of them, you will be interrogated by armed agents in green, most likely with drug-sniffing dogs. If you are near the international divide, it’s hard to avoid such checkpoints where you will be asked about your citizenship — and much more if any thing you say or do, or simply the way you look, raises suspicions. Even outside of the checkpoints, agents of the Department of Homeland Security canpull you over for any reason — without probable cause or a warrant — and do what is termed a “routine search.” As a U.S. Border Patrol agent told journalist Margaret Regan, within a hundred miles of the international divide, “there’s an asterisk on the Constitution.”

Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) And Its Allies Profit From the Human Misery In the American Gulag System

CCA directly profits from the human misery involved in the crackdown on "illegal immigrants." CCA is the largest prison corporation and a member of ALEC,American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC), and has negotiated contracts with states that guarantee 90 percent occupancy rates for the length of the contract, some of which are 20 to 30 years. ALEC has been behind laws that allow prison labor at private prisons, paying inmates as little as 17 cents per hour. The demand for prison labor by corporations such as IBM, AT&T and 3M creates a greater incentive to incarcerate. CCA is also known for human rights violations, cutting services to save money and increase profits. On March 27, hundreds of inmates at the Cibola County Correctional Center in New Mexico staged a 12-hour protest over prison conditions. Last year, prisoners in Mississippi violently rioted over lack of health care and abusive conditions, as did inmates at another CCA prison in Texas in 2010. A September 2012 report found private prisons to be unsafe, unnecessary and expensive. This week immigrant activists held protests outside of Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D – New York) office to draw attention to the support he has received over the years from the private prison industry. Schumer is a member of the gang of eight in the Senate, the group that is tasked with crafting an immigration reform bill. He also is the recipient of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). Note that one of Schumer’s biggest donors is Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, which lobbies for CCA. Activists are highlighting the Senator’s efforts to prioritize enforcement and punitive measures over policies to unite families. Some of the things that Schumer has done that activists are take issue with include: advocating for more border security at a time when the border is supposed to be the most secure, supporting the implementation of a national I.D. card, and calling the undocumented “illegals.“ The CEO of CCA has even admitted recently to investors that the impact of any immigration reform would be positive because “There’s always going to be a demand for beds.” Just this past Sunday on Meet the Press, Senator Schumer expressed optimism that an immigration bill would be introduced soon, saying, “With the agreement between business and labor, every major policy issue has been resolved on the gang of eight. Now everyone, we’ve all agreed that we’re not going to come to a final agreement until we see draft legislative language and we all agree on that. We’ve drafted some of it already, the rest will be drafted this week. So I’m very optimistic that we will have an agreement among the eight of us next week.” Aside from the protests in New York, there were protests in other cities including Los Angeles outside of a downtown federal building, where protesters held signs that said, “Senator Schumer: you have a Latino problem.”

Los Angeles City Council OK's Service ID Cards for Undocumented Aliens

According to a LA Times Report, a plan to provide official photo identification cards for illegal immigrants in Los Angeles appears to be winning wide support. This plan would help the many residents of the city in obtaining services and access to governmental agencies, such as the school district or in opening a bank account.

A Los Angeles City Council committee Tuesday approved the concept after hearing from a wide array of supporters who said it was a practical way to incorporate into civic life the area's large undocumented population.

Opposition to the so-called City Services Card is inevitable because it touches on the hot-button issue of illegal immigration, Councilman Ed Reyes said. But in the end "cooler heads will prevail and understand the humanity of the suggestion," he said.

The committee voted unanimously to begin soliciting proposals from potential vendors who would implement the program, backed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Councilman Richard Alarcon. That won't happen, however, until a draft proposal is brought before the full council in about three weeks, officials said.

Although no one opposed to the ID cards spoke at Tuesday's committee hearing, the Granada Hills North Neighborhood Council sent a letter stating that it had voted against the proposal.

Reyes, a member of the Arts, Parks, Health and Aging Committee, said it's "about time" that Los Angeles residents, regardless of immigration status, have the ability to easily open bank accounts and access city services.

Los Angeles is a cosmopolitan city with an international economy, Reyes said, and "this card allows people who have been living in the shadows to be out in the light of day." The photo ID would include the user's name, address, date of birth and possibly other identifying information. It could be used by any resident who lacks acceptable documentation to open a bank account or access city services, such as libraries or work-training programs, officials said.

Besides undocumented immigrants, seniors who no longer drive, the homeless and transgender people would also benefit, officials said, because they often lack official ID as well. City staff said the program won't cost taxpayers anything because the third-party vendor would charge from $10 to $20 per card, and would also charge a few dollars a month if an applicant chooses to activate a debit card feature.

Holders would be able to load the card with money, pay bills, make reservations and make purchases via debit transaction at ATM locations, city staff said. San Francisco, Oakland and Richmond are among 10 cities nationwide that already offer such a card or are getting ready to roll one out, said Larry Frank, the mayor's deputy chief of staff.

It would be up to Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck to decide whether patrol officers would accept it as an acceptable form of ID.

Representatives of labor, banks, business groups and librarians uniformly expressed support for the ID cards at Tuesday's council committee hearing.

Jesse Torres, chief executive of Pan American Bank in East Los Angeles, said the card would bring security and "peace of mind" to undocumented residents who are forced to carry large amounts of cash on them because they don't have an account.

He said some workers have no choice but to pay up to $1,000 a year in fees to check cashers and payday lenders. Antonio Bernabe, who organizes day laborers, said his workers deal with those issues on a daily basis.

"They are afraid to go into a bank to deposit money," he said. "They are afraid to go into a city building."

Betty Hung, of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, said an ID would bring psychological as well as practical benefits to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who live in the shadows because they're fearful of deportation.

"It sends the message that we are one city," she said. "We are all Angelenos."