Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Slave Patrol Immigration Policy


Slave Patrol Immigration Policy

by C.A. Matthews  

Images of white lawmen on horses whipping poor black migrants crossing a river have been thrown in  our faces repeatedly. Is it any wonder that the first thing to come to mind is, "The slave patrols never went away in the US, did they?" Welcome to 21st America! Welcome to a nation where racism is enshrined in its immigration laws in spite of a civil war that supposedly outlawed slavery and civil rights regulations that supposedly maintain the fiction of equality for all.

Is it really any surprise that the slave patrol still exists?  The history of the US Border Patrol predicted these lawmen's recent actions toward the Haitian migrants:

Since its creation in 1924, the US Border Patrol has been steeped in institutional racism and has committed violent acts with near impunity. The racial animus of US immigration policy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century formed the foundation for the agency. Federal laws banning Asian immigration were followed by the national origins quota system, which prioritized northern and western Europeans over the rest of the world. While not included in the original quotas, Mexicans, who previously could travel freely across the US-Mexico border, began to experience increasing restrictions in the 1920s.

Congress created the Border Patrol in 1924 to patrol the northern and southern borders between ports of entry. Many officers came from organizations with a history of racial violence and brutality, including the Ku Klux Klan and the Texas Rangers, carrying over the culture of a racist “brotherhood” into the new agency.  In the Border Patrol’s early days, it focused on the unlawful entry of Asian and European immigrants. However, in the 1930s enforcement began to shift to Mexican citizens entering along the southern border.

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/legacy-racism-within-us-border-patrol

Our government actions towards immigrants have become so horrendous that even government officials cannot tolerate them any longer:

“I will not be associated with the United States inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the dangers posed by armed gangs in control of daily life,” wrote former Haiti envoy Daniel Foote in a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday.

“Our policy approach to Haiti remains deeply flawed, and my recommendations have been ignored and dismissed, when not edited to project a narrative different from my own.”

 US Diplomat to Haiti Resigns Citing Inhumane Deportations 

https://truthout.org/articles/us-diplomat-to-haiti-resigns-citing-inhumane-deportations/

Envoy Foote understands that all who present themselves at the border asking for asylum are legally within their rights to receive a credible fear hearing. Even federal judges have called on the Biden administration to stop pursuing the "Trump policy" of Title 42:

All people who are physically present in the United States have the right to apply for asylum, “whether or not” they come through a port of entry or cross the border without authorization. Since Title 42 went into effect at the border in March 2020, the Border Patrol has carried out over 1,100,000 expulsions, regardless of whether the person was seeking asylum or not. Yet even after a federal judge ruled last week that the Title 42 policy was illegal – at least in terms of its use against families with children – the Biden administration chose to immediately appeal that decision.

Del Rio Migrant Camp Shows How Biden Administration Isn't Living Up to Its Promises

 https://immigrationimpact.com/2021/09/21/haitian-migrant-camp-biden-promises/

Will we be seeing changes in immigration practices, policies, or laws anytime soon? One would hope these horrific images would provoke change, but it's doubtful. It's doubtful because the true forces that rule, the billionaire oligarchs, don't see the kind treatment of strangers on our borders as necessary. In fact, it suits their purposes just fine to keep a permanent underclass of workers that can be easily manipulated through the fear of deportation back to a country that is falling apart physically and politically. When that doesn't stop those brave souls that go forward with their plans to come to the US to join friends and family here, we resort to what we've always done. We strike fear into their hearts through the use of 21st century slave patrols.

And some folks wonder why I snigger at this line from the Pledge of Allegiance: With liberty and justice for all. It depends on how you define all. It obviously doesn't include Haitians...or Mexicans...or Hondurans...or Guatemalans....

 


More articles:

Haitian Rights Are Human Rights https://popularresistance.org/haitian-rights-are-migrant-rights/

Haitians Who Fled The US Border Are Now Facing Nights of Raids and Terror in Mexico  https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfoflores/haitians-us-border-night-raids-mexico 

Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Biden Administration's Order to Deport Haitians as Illegal and Racist https://popularresistance.org/black-alliance-for-peace-condemns-biden-administrations-order-to-deport-haitians-as-illegal-and-racist/

How Communities Are Urging Congress to Stop Funding Cruelty Against Migrants https://www.afsc.org/blogs/news-and-commentary/update-how-communities-are-urging-congress-to-stop-funding-cruelty-against

Biden's Border Patrol Whipping Refugees! https://youtu.be/JLRPaoyFOQc

***

You already know that when we say: Black lives matter, we mean ALL Black lives. Including Haitian asylum seekers at the border. 

And yet, this past week, we were reminded once again just how deeply ingrained anti-Blackness is in the institutions upon which the nation relies. 

We don’t need to show you the images that surfaced from the US-Mexico border of white Border Patrol officers on horses chasing, yelling, and whipping Haitian asylum seekers to tell you how viscerally it conjures this country's not so distant past; visions of violent slave patrols and public lynchings reimagined by modern-day henchmen.

Haitian asylum seekers who have for weeks and months been fleeing toward what they thought was safety, were terrorized, abused, and then deported. Others are being sent to Guantanamo Bay, or back to Mexico where organized crime and collaborators in Mexican security forces routinely prey on migrants - especially Haitians, who are particularly vulnerable because of their skin color. 

It’s time to put an end to anti-Black immigration practices. Seeking asylum is a legal and human right, fundamental to maintaining democracy. It must extend to Black people

sign our petition & demand biden protects black migrants today  

While on the campaign trail, Biden made promises to the Haitian community to have more fair immigration policies. And yet he may soon be responsible for carrying out the largest mass expulsion of would-be asylum-seekers in recent American history. 

Thousands of people, including families and children, will be expelled to Haiti - a country the Administration itself has described as teetering on the brink of collapse as a result of centuries of imperialism and foreign intervention intent on destabilizing the first Black republic. 

In just the past two and a half months alone, Haiti has seen its president assassinated and weathered a devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake, all in the middle of a pandemic. 

It would be unconscionable to send people back to Haiti. 

Biden promised us a more humanitarian approach to immigration AND a commitment to racial justice. We demand the Administration follows through on its promises by:  

  • Stopping deportations to Haiti
  • Granting humanitarian parole to thousands of Black asylum seekers and processing their claims without further delay
  • Conducting a thorough investigation into the acts of Border Patrol agents in Del Rio and anti-Black practices throughout the agency
  • Halting the treatment we witnessed, and instead employing a humanitarian approach to immigration

add your name to our demands & affirm that all black lives matter

Make no mistake, what’s happening at the border right now is an extension of white supremacy in the United States.

Every arm of our country’s incarceration and deportation machine bears down on and disrupts Black people and communities. For decades, Black migrants have faced disproportionate rates of detention and deportation, and abuse like solitary confinement within detention centers.

The message we’re being told once in again is: Black people are unwelcome in the United States, and are subject to policing and abuse.

From police to immigration, we cannot and will not tolerate anti-Blackness. 

Immigration is a Black issue. And we must:

protect black migrants

Until Justice is Real,

Scott, Erika, Rashad, Arisha, Malachi, Megan, Ernie, Palika, Ariel, Madison, Trevor, Erick, Ana, Kristiana, McKayla and the Color Of Change team

Color of Change

 ***

 
Border agents attacked asylum seekers with whip-like cords and horses
 
Sign Now
 

One month ago, Haiti endured a horrible earthquake that roiled the island. Homes, churches, hotels, and more collapsed into rubble, leaving tens of thousands of people displaced. Officials estimate that upwards of 50,000 homes were decimated nearly overnight.

In the wake of this calamity, refugees have turned to the United States as a beacon of hope in a time of sorrow. But recent video footage shows U.S. Border Patrol agents in Texas literally whipping the refugees with cords, as well as corralling the asylum seekers by lunging at them on horseback and physically grabbing at them. Sign the petition to demand justice and an end to this cruelty!

These refugees came here believing the U.S. could be a place filled with benevolence and possibility. Seeking asylum is not a crime in the United States. In fact, it is a nationally and internationally protected human right, one for which the U.S. technically has a process. That process is not supposed to include heaving whips at those in need of help. On top of that, the Biden administration has recently undertaken a mass deportation operation against Haitian refugees, sending back upwards of 6,000 people already. Sign the petition to tell the U.S. government, including President Joe Biden to stop the inhumane treatment of refugees now, and to halt all deportations of asylum seekers!

Thank you,

 

Kelsey
The Care2 Petitions Team

 

P.S. The U.S. must live up to its moral responsibility as a powerful, resourceful nation to do right by those who are in desperate straits, and at the very least, do no harm to asylum seekers. Sign the petition.


 ***

National Domestic Workers Alliance (Logo)

 It is hard to look at the horrific images from the southern border.

The sight of armed men on horseback — agents of the United States government — attacking Haitian migrants, camped in a small Texas border town, immediately brings to mind the horrors of chattel slavery. And for those of us of the Black Diaspora, it is a horrifying vision that reaches into our past and tells a damning truth about our present.

And even though we’re now being told that the last of the makeshift camps have cleared and the migrants are headed for Customs and Border Protections Centers, what we saw this week was yet another reminder that the humanity of Black people is always, at best, conditional.

As we demand justice for Haitian migrants, we must also reckon with the knowledge that Haiti has borne the brunt of imperialist anti-Blackness for centuries and that this is yet another in a long line of pointed cruelty that has long been leveled at Haitian immigrants.

Anti-Blackness within our country’s long history of white supremacy often excludes the voices and experiences of Black immigrants from mainstream conversations about immigration and immigrant rights.

And the horrifying scenes from the border have been anti-Blackness in action.

At NDWA, we see this anti-Blackness every day: the systematic devaluation of domestic work is so deeply rooted in race and gender discrimination against Black women from across the Diaspora that has survived through laws, attitudes, and culture since slavery.

This is why We Dream in Black (WeDiB), NDWA and our Black Caucus, comprised of Black staffers, stand in solidarity with Haiti and Haitian refugees in every way possible and will continue our work to dismantle the centuries of institutionalized anti-Black racism that led to this most recent horror.

NDWA and our Families Belong Together (FBT) campaign will remain vocal in calling out the Biden administration for exacerbating this crisis with cruel Trump-era immigration policies, and we will continue to do all we can to center Black needs, voices, and leadership in our work.

If you’re looking for ways to assist those working on the ground during this unspeakable crisis, we’ve pulled together ways you can offer support.

In solidarity,

We Dream in Black
The Black Caucus of the National Domestic Workers Alliance

 

Tuesday, September 21, 2021

The Maskless Rich (Are Laughing At You)


Facebook has had a two-tiered system where famous people won't be censored or suspended for posts normal people would be. Politicians and celebrities freely ignore mask rules while their servants are forbidden to. They all think they're better than us, and our systems agree with them.  --Caitlin Johnstone, Propaganda Scrambles Our Minds: Notes from the Edge of the Narrative Matrix

The Maskless Rich (Are Laughing At You) 

by Coast Watcher

She wore that dress and all the rich assholes had a good laugh before returning to stuff their faces with champagne and caviar.

That pretty much sums up the impact Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had on the Met Gala the other night. Since then she’s worked overtime--not to force the vote for Medicare for All through Congress--but in a futile attempt to explain away her actions leading up to and after the gala. That dress is now a token of parody with anything from Tax the Proles to M4A blazoned across the young Congresswoman's curvaceous rump courtesy of Photoshop. (You gotta admit--these memes of AOC with various messages scrawled across her backside are hysterically funny. Surely she's smart enough to know this would happen. --Editor.)

So, for thousands of dollars a ticket (Upwards of $30-35K a ticket--Ed.) and meals costing thousands more the rich get to swank their stuff before a world that’s on the steady slide down to disaster. 

COVID-19 deaths in the US are skyrocketing.  Some  ICUs are jam-packed to the point that they’re seeking out beds in other states thousands of miles away. Oh, and the health insurance companies now say they’ll no longer pay for a COVID hospitalization. Yet a cursory study of the Met Gala event AOC attended in that dress demonstrates how the rich aren’t even worried about wearing masks. Undoubtedly they're laughing at us working stiffs who have to wear one or risk death.

Hmmm...Does their wealth and power somehow protect them from a rapidly mutating virus? 

The staff on the other hand, those hewers of expensive buffet meats and bearers of expensive drinks, are most certainly masked.  Check out any of the videos of the gala to see how the workers are masked. The rich don’t want to catch cooties off the plebs, do they? Besides, it’s a handy-dandy way of identifying said plebs so you don’t have to puzzle out whether they’re someone worth talking to or not. You're free to ignore the masked slaves and laugh behind their backs.

Meanwhile, outside the Met Gala venue, protesters were arrested for exercising their constitutional right to free speech and carted off to jail. Their protest signs were in their hands--not on their cabooses. Their masks were on their faces because there's deadly pandemic happening currently. The working classes don't arrogantly assume their status will protect them magically the way AOC and her posh friends do.

I’d have a lot more respect for AOC if she’d joined the protesters outside and led them into the event to confront the rich assholes who are totally insulated from reality by their vast wealth and arrogance. Maybe, just maybe, she could have tried to prick that bubble the 1% dwells in and forced them to see and experience some of the harsh world that so many of us dwell in. 

But, nope. AOC was having too much fun noshing with her rich buddies and posing for the cameras in that dress and laughing at all who fell for her faux-leftist posturing. Why would we have expected any better of a bought-and-paid-for neoliberal?

BIO: Coast Watcher always wears his mask in public and doesn't believe that wealth and status magically keeps the "COVID cooties" away. He also doesn't believe neolibs who pretend they're for the people while hanging out with the 1%.  Actions speak louder than words, don't they, AOC? What about that vote on Medicare For All?

Related Articles:

The Masking of the Servant Class: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-masking-of-the-servant-class

What You Aren't Hearing About AOC's Dress Scandal: https://youtu.be/SryNJSASHdg  

Big Pharma Secrets Revealed: https://scheerpost.com/2021/09/15/big-pharma-secrets-revealed-as-group-uncovers-portion-of-pfizer-vaccine-recipe/

Nancy Pelosi and her rich supporters obviously don't need masks (short video): https://youtu.be/E4xxPdgGonM


***


Your teeth are part of your body, right?

Not according to Medicare. Medicare doesn't cover basic dental services, such as cleanings, fillings, dentures, and more. That could all change -- unless Joe Manchin gets his way.

The Senate's $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill includes the largest expansion of Medicare in decades, lowering the eligibility age and including dental, vision, and hearing care.1 It's a huge step toward Medicare for All.

But Joe Manchin has been on record this year opposing Medicare expansion.2 Just yesterday he vowed to slash the size of the $3.5 trillion plan, for no good reason, alongside a handful of fellow right-wing Democrats in the House, jeopardizing Medicare expansion and putting seniors' health at risk.

The fight to expand Medicare is one of the most important battles of 2021, and it will be decided in the next few weeks. We need you to send Congress a message right now that you want this to become law!

Sign the petition: Teeth are part of the body! Congress must expand Medicare now.

Every year, millions of Americans file bankruptcy due to medical bills.3 One in four Americans avoids medical care due to cost.4 Recent studies have shown that the cost of care with insurance varies widely--and is sometimes greater than the cash price of certain procedures.5 Things don't have to be this way.

Medicare expansion would change American healthcare. It would help senior citizens get hearing aids, ensure that Medicare patients have fair prices for prescription drugs, and that millions more Americans get quality healthcare.

Right now, the biggest obstacle to expanding Medicare isn't coming from Republicans. It's Joe Manchin and his fellow right-wing Democrats in the House and the Senate who are obstructing the path to better healthcare.

Although President Biden and Speaker Pelosi have agreed that the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the reconciliation plan both need to pass, Manchin and these other right-wing Democrats are trying to undermine the reconciliation bill that includes Medicare expansion, demanding huge cuts and threatening the deals that made these bills possible.

These conservative obstructionists collected over $1.2 million from pharmaceutical companies that stand to lose profit from fair negotiations with Medicare providers.6

We need to make it clear to everyone in Congress: Medicare expansion must happen. If we are not loud enough, Manchin and the conservatives will get their way, and we will lose our best chance to expand Medicare.

Tell Congress: Don't listen to the obstructionists! Expand Medicare now.

Thank you for speaking out,

Tal and the team at Watchdog -- a project of Demand Progress

Sources:
1. CNBC, "Senate approves framework of $3.5 trillion budget plan that would expand Medicare, tax credits and climate initiatives," August 11, 2021.
2. Washington Post, "Democrats seek to push Medicare expansion as part of Biden’s $1.8 trillion families plan, defying White House," April 29, 2021.
3. CNBC, "This is the real reason most Americans file for bankruptcy," August 11, 2021.
4. CNBC, "Nearly 1-in-4 Americans Are Skipping Medical Care Because of the Cost," March 11, 2020.
5. New York Times, "Hospitals and Insurers Didn't Want You to See These Prices. Here's Why." August 22, 2021.
6. Daily Poster, "Dem Obstructionists Are Bankrolled By Pharma And Oil," August 23, 2021.

 ***

Common Defense

In the months following George Floyd's murder in May 2020, Americans watched as local and state law enforcement officials deployed military vehicles and weapons in the streets of America.

As service members and veterans, we know better than anyone that these weapons and vehicles should only ever be used in the theater of war. Most certainly, these weapons should never be used against unarmed civilian protesters.

Yet, in the summer months of 2020, we saw the police militarize and arm themselves against peaceful, unarmed protesters fighting for their right to live and thrive free from police abuse and trauma. The police then used grenade launchers against the press and unarmed civilians, leaving countless protestors injured and some blinded for life.

Is this the America we fought for as service members and veterans?

Today police departments currently receive surplus military equipment from an obscure Pentagon program called the "1033 Program." This program has enabled the transfer of $7.4 billion worth of surplus military equipment to over 8,000 local law enforcement agencies around the country.

This is not the equipment that belongs on the streets of America.

Will you join Common Defense and a coalition of allies demanding that Congress and President Biden act now to end the militarization of police departments?

Common Defense is proud to support the work Reps. Nydia Valazquez, Ayanna Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have put in to amend the National Defense Authorization Act so as to demilitarize the police and make our communities safer.

The solution is simple and right in front of our eyes:

  • First, we must place a moratorium on the transfer of military equipment and weapons to law enforcement agencies.
  • Second, we need to prohibit the transfers of firearms, ammunition, destructive devices, and MRAPs, and grenade launchers to law enforcement agencies.
  • Finally, we need to repeal the 1033 Program, which enabled these abuses to take place.

It's time to stop this. It's time we apply pressure on President Biden and Congress to act and demilitarize our communities NOW.

President Biden has done a lot in keeping his campaign promises, but this issue is one that we can't afford to let slip by.

Will you join us at Common Defense and sign the petition to demand Biden and Congress to act now to demilitarize the police?

SIGN THE PETITION

Common Defense

  ***

Families Belong Together (Logo)

Over 10,000 Haitian migrants seeking safety from political turmoil and the aftermath of a devastating earthquake are trapped in makeshift encampments in Del Rio, Texas as they wait to claim asylum. At the same time, the Biden administration completed its 37th deportation flight back to Haiti and plans to up the ante to deter others from entering the country.

Deporting people back to danger when they have the right to asylum is irresponsible and flat-out wrong. We cannot continue playing political football with human lives and pretend like the only choice for children and families is between further suffering or deportation. 

We have every means to prevent such egregious acts and inhumane conditions. Join us to demand the Biden Administration HALT all deportations to Haiti. 

TAKE ACTION

Since Biden took office, Haitian families have been torn apart and left vulnerable at alarming rates: By March of this year, the Biden Administration had removed more Haitians since taking office than during all of 2020.

In the wake of the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the U.S. did the right thing and granted thousands of Haitians Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and earlier this year, they extended TPS to protect Haitians from danger after pressure from advocates to uphold his promise to Haitians.

If we don’t do something now, our immigration system will continue to fail, children and families will continue being detained and getting separated, and people will inevitably die on our watch. Haitians shouldn’t have to decide between suffering and being sent back to the danger they’re trying to escape--we can do better and we must.  

From Haiti to Mexico to Afghanistan, it is unconscionable to send families and children back to such unsafe conditions, and place them at further risk of poverty, instability, and death.

We are capable of doing more. Call on Biden to issue a moratorium on ALL deportation flights headed to Haiti now.

TAKE ACTION

The lives of Haitian people are at risk if we don’t do something now. We need comprehensive solutions now. Biden must do the right thing and welcome people in urgent need of safety with dignity and compassion. 

Thanks for all you do,

Paola Luisi, Director

Families Belong Together