The first deportation

Led by Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidates are embracing the policy of deporting some 11 million Hispanics in the country illegally.

If implemented, it would be a humanitarian calamity and a stain on the nation. But it wouldn't be the first time "American exceptionalism" took such a cruel turn.

During the Great Depression, some 1 million Mexicans were deported from the United States to Mexico. An estimated 60 percent were American citizens. In 1930, the U.S. population was only 123 million.

The overt intention was to free up more jobs for "Americans" (read Anglos) when unemployment was 25 percent or higher. But it was invariably twined with racism, score settling and ethnic cleansing.

The most definitive scholarly account is found in the book Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s, by Francisco Balderrama and the late Raymond Rodriguez. They focus heavily on Los Angeles County, where the deportation was active and records were kept.

The degree to which it was carried out in Arizona and Phoenix is less documented. The late historian Bradford Luckingham writes of the intense anti-Mexican sentiment in Phoenix in the 1930s. In a six-month period during 1933, 130 Mexican families were "repatriated" from Phoenix. They received food and clothing from Friendly House, the city's oldest immigrant-assistance charity.

Arizona also had a precedent with the 1917 Bisbee Deportation. Many of the striking miners forced into freight cars and deposited in the New Mexico wilderness in high summer were Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.

"Repatriation," rather than deportation, was the word used. It clothed the movement in a respectable, even compassionate garb. Mexicans in America could return to their "home," where they "could be with their own kind" and those "who spoke their language."

The deportation was not carried our by the federal government. But the Immigration and Naturalization Service under both Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt stood by as county and state authorities — even companies such as the Southern Pacific Railroad — carried out deportation.

In some cases, deputies would arrive to tell Mexicans they were being sent "back home." They were given two weeks to leave and often shipped to the border on trains. (Many Hispanics that worked for the railroad lost their jobs as an incentive to leave). In other cases, individuals and families were given even less time.

Many families lost almost everything they had spent years or generations building in America. Family members were separated, some being sent to Mexico while others remained in America. Jobs were not abundant in Mexico and only gradually did U.S. authorities help fund transporting deportees to the interior — often to towns or states of which they had little memory.

Balderrama and Rodriguez write of children, American citizens, forced into Mexico, where they didn't even speak Spanish. They were shunned by Mexican children.

In addition to the human tragedy, the policy soon became an economic mistake. By 1937, the Arizona Cotton Growers Association wanted an end to New Deal work programs, so it could find enough pickers to work for its poor wages and in horrid conditions. In other words, the jobs that Mexicans performed before the deportation (and African-Americans continued to do).

As war production ramped up in the late 1930s, the United States began to face worker shortages and encouraged Mexico to send migrants back north again.

So the question isn't whether a Republican president and Congress could carry out a new mass deportation. In the 1930s, America showed itself chillingly capable of doing so.

I wonder if Decade of Betrayal was among the Chicano studies books that the Kooks wanted banned? No wonder.

Learn more about Phoenix past in Rogue's history columns.

 

Comments

[cal lash]

Jon, good post. Note a number of those deported to Mexico were miners and others from Spain. During this time mi Amiga's grandfather, a Spaniard miner and member of the Wobbly's was put in a Federal penitentiary where he contraced an illness that lead to his death at an early age.
And Ask the Yuma farmers about how long those non Hispanic "white" boys last in the Fields. Last time I was in Yuma with a Republican client farming 50 thousand acres. His biggest complaint was the government's immigration policies were killing his ability to get his crops in and out of the fields.
and
I left u all a note on Sinema.

[soleri]

This is the context, or "bubble" if you prefer, of our current immigration debate. If you're the kind of low-information voter who thinks brown-skinned people should all be in Mexico, you'll squawk about "illegal" as if it were the final word. Except when it isn't, as American history shows over and over. There is a reason here, of course, which we might call "cultural panic" in massaging a meaning less incendiary than "racist".

Donald Trump is perfectly at home in his position as the leading Republican contender for his party's nomination. Accident? Ha ha!. The GOP that has spent 47 years scratching a primal itch in the body politic that has finally given birth to the Rosemary's Baby of pretenders to the imperial throne. Eugenics gone awry? Maybe, but history finds the threads that constitute the fabric of inevitability.

Let Republicans be Republicans. As Ben Carson would say, political correctness is killing us. It's the final veil that must be shed before we can speak frankly and openly about what our real problems are. It's not just the niggers but the spics, too.

As Faulkner famously observed, "the past is never dead. It's not even past". Our nation is many things, but it's really refreshing to simplify the code so we all know what makes us American. It's mainly white people speaking English and not having to press one on their telephones. Let freedom ring.

[INPHX]

Despite a pressing need over the last twenty years or so, this nation has failed miserably to deliver a comprehensive immigration policy. And the problem just gets worse and worse everyday that there is no answer.

For millions of human beings that were caught in the middle twenty years ago, they're still caught in the middle. They're a busted turn signal away from being ripped away from their families. It's a disgrace.

Even for the people who do it "right", the administrative procedures have created timelines that embarrass Italians. If a person started the legal process today, you'll see 4 new I-phones before they're admitted as US Citizens. Swell.

When the federal government fails time after time to provide a solution, and states try to implement voter approved reform, the federal government sues. So, the feds don't do their job, states try, and the feds sue.

The inmates are running the asylum.

I won't vote for Donald Trump. I hope he isn't the GOP candidate and I hope that he won't run as a third party candidate. And I hope that when the rubber meets the road, there will be no sane conversations about deporting millions of people who have lived here for years and generally followed the rules.

But I understand. I get that Trump's popularity is based on the stunning incompetence in Washington and being an outsider. That he is the inverse of everything that politicians today are. That he's Dirty Harry fighting against the political correctness that, in part, has paralyzed this country.

How could Bernie Sanders even be in the national conversation? I like him, but he's probably the most leftest sitting US Senator. But like Trump, he's popular because it's pretty clear that the existing system with the existing actors just isn't working.

One other thing. IMHO, the ONLY way to override the protection afforded "anchor babies" is to amend the Constitution, and then only on a prospective basis. The Constitution isn't a joke. No type of administrative workaround should even be considered, and I would find it very difficult to support any candidate who had any other view.

In a previous post, there were about 80 posts
about Sinema's statement on the Iran deal. In terms of actual US policy, it was meaningless. Almost all of the comments suggested ulterior motives and I think those comments demonstrate the cynicism that has overwhelmed voters these day.

immigration is not that much different than the other problems that don't get solved. The financial condition of the country (and the states). Crazy federal regulations hampering innovation. Overreach of all of the bloated federal bureaucracies. Looney tax policy.

So.

I get the frustration. Trump isn't the answer.

Maybe Carly is.

[Ruben Perez]

Good post INPHX.
Carly is not the answer. I still contend, the next president has not entered the arena yet. At least that is my hope.

[soleri]

Despite a pressing need over the last twenty years or so, this nation has failed miserably to deliver a comprehensive immigration policy. And the problem just gets worse and worse everyday that there is no answer.

INPHX sanitizes history with a convenient escape clause, namely we all failed miserably. Funny, but 2013 wasn't that long ago and it was fairly clear what happened.

The Republican Party, in the wake of its crushing 2012 defeat, realized that it had to do something to broaden its appeal. Even Sean Hannity said as much, and if you've got that troglodyte screaming for Latino outreach, that should give you a clue how serious they were taking this issue. So, it finally looked like Republicans would deal with Obama instead of blocking anything and everything he proposed. Immigration Reform passed the Senate in June of 2013 (both Arizona senators voting aye along with GOP dreamboat Marco Rubio and 11 other Republicans), whereupon it went to the House and died. Why? Because the House's Tea Partiers were not about to legitimize illegals, blah, blah, blah or give Obama any kind of victory, blah, blah, blah. The perpetually hapless John Boehner announced immigration reform's death in December so they could get back to important issues like repealing Obamacare for the millionth time.

INPHX makes an interesting comment that Trump's appeal comes from battling political correctness that's "paralyzing this country". Okay, apart from not casually using "nigger" in polite company, who exactly is being paralyzed? Maybe George Zimmerman can't sell his Confederate flag paintings? No, he actually can. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/08/18/muslim-free-gun-store-george-zimmerman-confederate-flag-prints-florida/31914299/ Is Ann Coulter shamed into being a decent human being? No, she's the same despicable person she's always been, a top-drawer attraction among "Christian" Republicans. So, what is Donald Trump somehow repairing in our social fabric? We all know. Hatred of minorities has been released from its septic tank and now Real Americans are free to be themselves once again.

Why would Carly Fiorina be better than Donald Trump? I think it's fair to say almost anyone not named Donald Trump would be better but why single out this particular person? What has she accomplished in her dazzlingly truncated career that makes her presidential? Aside from not being Donald Trump? Oh, yeah. She's a good attack dog on Hillary. That's her "qualification" in the GOP that is otherwise medieval in its attitudes about women's private parts.

2016 will pit Hillary Clinton vs Jeb Bush. You can vote for the lesser of two evils, although I think it's fair to say that a political party in hock to far-right bigots has transcended ordinary descriptions of evil. Donald Trump didn't arise in a vacuum. And the septic tank he did float to the top in hasn't been cleaned out in 47 years.

[INPHX]

Soleri:

Just in case you missed it, the Senate 2013 immigration bill hardly had broad support:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/07/23/the-house-will-not-pass-the-senate-immigration-bill-heres-why/

53 percent favored a less comprehensive plan; only about 1/3 supported the Senate plan over a more piecemeal approach.

And in 2010, well, Obama just threw in the towel:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-04-28-Obama-immigration_N.htm

Boy, THAT"S leadership.

Look. If you want to blast the GOP, go ahead. But that gets no one anywhere.

Did the ball cross the line? No. Were the leaders in the Senate, White House and House able to come together? No. Was there a viable compromise anywhere on the table? No. Was it ever even close? No. Has immigration reform in this country failed time after time? Yes.

Naturally, you're asking the wrong question. The real question is why did the Senate vote on a bill that never had a chance in the House?

I'm not going to follow you down another Zimmerman rat hole. You cast the entire episode completely, 100% upside down flat out wrong. And when questioned on it, you just dug in. Like, well, a climate change denier. Only in a much easier to understand set of facts.

Swell.

Carly? Outsider, but not crazy like Trump. Self made, climbed the corporate ladder, quite the contrast to Hillary.

Funny. In previous blogs, you've endorsed Hillary in part, because she's a policy wonk.

I think that's the wrong criteria.

If you (or anyone) think that Hillary Clinton, with all that baggage, with all of that history, with a remarkable lack of leadership accomplishments, can bring the parties together, I think you need your head examined.

Pretty good idea, isn't it?

[soleri]

Shorter INPHX, a bipartisan bill to reform immigration is somehow flawed if it doesn't cater to the very people implacably opposed to most of its tenets.

Leadership, in this case, would apparently be capitulation coupled with a resignation. But since Obama was elected by a nation (if not its extreme-right precincts), he hoped that reason would prevail. Maybe he was being disingenuous given that a plurality of Americans wanted this passed? Or that a 2/3 majority of the upper chamber approved it? Or maybe he decided it was time for clarity: a party so divided between pragmatism and zealotry cannot govern. Period.

The GOP will eventually reap the whirlwind. Obama offered them a life raft and they rejected it. The very people most engaged by the right's civil war against a functional government are themselves in government positions. The center cannot hold. INPHX, behold the party you shill for.

BTW, I'm glad George Zimmerman is clearly not a racist who merely happens to sell Confederate flag paintings at a Muslim-free gun store. Obviously, I misread him.

[cal Lash]

Note: Sinema' Web site to day is how she is saving her AZ district from the ISIS.

[INPHX]

Soleri:

Zimmerman's motives when he shot and killed Martin were not racially based. That's what the jury, the FBI, the main investigators, the DOJ, and everyone else close to the investigation decided.

You're the holdout. You're the lone wolf. You're the tin foil hat wearing looney conspiracy theorist. You're the guy howling about Area 51 and the faked moon landing.

And you're PROUD of it.

Let's just leave it at that, eh? I'll stick with the DOJ and you stick with, well, umm,,, err...well, whatever you make up.

On the 2013 bill, you either get the House on board or you settle for the status quo. The President and the Senate don't get to decide. "We tried, but it was there fault" might work in Little League. But not here.

Think it was easy for Reagan to reduce taxes in 1981?

BTW, why do you think Obama, after failing to lead on an immigration solution, delayed his attempts at administrative fixes until after the mid terms?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/09/obamas-long-immigration-betrayal/379839/

Timing is everything...

[cal Lash]

Zimmerman: Racist or not he is a danger to society.
Reagan: Cut taxes? He bloated the Neo Con industrial military complex to the point of near bankruptcy. He may have been a hunky lifeguard but he was a second rate actor that was good at delivering carefully simple scripted lines. Which Obama does even better.

[soleri]

Let's be clear: someone who racially targets someone, accosts the person, and then ends up shooting to death that person AND that same person paints Confederate flags to be sold in a Muslim-free gun store IS A GODDAMN FUCKING RACIST. INPHX, you are utterly delusional to the point that you yourself have to be a racist to overlook something so obvious. I don't care what a grand jury decided. The facts on their face are absolutely damning. An unarmed kid is killed and you defend his homicide at the hands of serial thug for one and one reason alone: the color of the victim's skin.

I have known Republicans who are not racist. On the other hand, I have never known a Republican who wasn't serenely comfortable with racists. It's why I think Republicans are moral cretins. Really, I feel like I need a shower just having this conversation with you.

Of course, if you think people should die for want of health care if they have no insurance, you've already shown yourself to be a moral cretin. If you think a president should be subjected to spurious questions about his birthplace despite the complete lack of any evidence for those questions, and you deny the essential racism in that endeavor, you are not only comfortable with racists, you ARE a racist yourself. I'm sorry if I seem a bit tetchy about this subject but fer crissakes, it's 2015. How long do we give you assholes a pass on shit like this? How long?

[OZ]

INPHX, defends his bedfellow Zimmerman and repeatedly claims:

" Zimmerman's motives when he shot and killed Martin were not racially based. That's what the jury, the FBI, the main investigators, the DOJ, and everyone else close to the investigation decided."

Sorry INPHX, what the law enforcement agencies decided was that from a legal standard there was not sufficient proof, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Zimmermann's actions where racially motivated and violated the victim's civil rights.

What that means is that a defense lawyer in closing argument could accurately say to a jury is that Zimmerman's killing of the unarmed black teenager was probably racially motivated but under the burden of proof the jury must still find Zimmermann not guilty.

INPHX, you are the only person who has DECIDED that Zimmermann's acts were not racially motivated. Stop citing wimpy prosecutors and law enforcement agencies too gutless to take anything but a slam dunk case to trial.

[OZ]

sorry about the typos

[cal Lash]

Possibly to talk about immigration, a recent societal development one must first understand migration, a movement as old as mankind.
Hungary slams the door on the starving and poor.
Malthus knew the score and we heeded not his prophecies.

[Concern Troll]

I see the topic I was discussing has finally got Jon to do a post.

The reality is America is going to be fully in the grip of boomer paranoia and reactionary politics for another two decades as the boomers retire and find they built a system that screwed them in old age. Further, the economic damage caused by continuing large scale immigration is no longer tolerable to most of America.

That fact, rather than all of the racist arguments is going to win the day.

Wages are stuck until you have a real shortage of labor, period. With the end of large scale illegal immigration, those hard nasty dirty jobs will once again get paychecks that compensate for the misery they inflict. Mining was a great example, the labor movement of the early 19th through the 20th century was targeted by massive importing of the poor to undercut the natives. So we start with the Irish, the Germans, then the Poles, the Slovaks, the Eastern European Jews, then the Italians, the Spainards, the Greeks, the Sardians, the Silicians, the Lebanese, The Chinese, the Mexicans etc...

Revulsion against large scale immigration is a natural response in a polity, and painting it as racist in entirety is a mistake. Were there racist overtones to every single one of these backlashes? Yes.

But the real story is that wages will not rise until wages for the bottom 75% of American workers rise. And that has been stagnant for decades. Only college educated have done ok, and graduate school educated better than average.

The statistics are out there, and it is plain to see that the establishment polity on both sides of the aisle has been pro-immigrant (illegal for the R's, and legal for the D's- exceptions apply to this generalization), because they both stood to benefit from the business leader largess to ensure the repression of labor.

The times are changing, and as more and more of the polity decide on lifeboat economics and get more desperate, easy targets are the first to be struck. And illegal immigrants don't vote, and first generation citizens don't vote as much.

So bang, here we are, ready for our populist to lead us to the promised land.

And guess what, I think Trump is just the first, and most likely will not succeed, but the playbook is now open.

The tea party was a really bad idea, because once you let that nationalism shading to fascism out of the box, all kinds of unhappy events can become possible.

So, the old folks are beginning to shudder, because they grew up reading about the worldwide wreckage of the last run of fascism. But everyone under the age 70 has little direct experience of it.

[Concern Troll]

Ahhh, and right on schedule:

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2015/09/august-update-early-look-at-cost-of.html

Social Security will deliver a big fat zero increase for the old folks.

Let the screaming begin.

The really funny part in being Cassandra is that it doesn't get you a big cushy job in some think tank, just the secret satisfaction that all of this is now going into a giant archive of humanity.

That, more than anything else is what motivates me to post. Posterity will enjoy some of this in the distant future, when they make the same mistakes again.

[INPHX]

Soleri writes:

Let's be clear: someone who racially targets someone, accosts the person, and then ends up shooting to death that person AND that same person paints Confederate flags to be sold in a Muslim-free gun store IS A GODDAMN FUCKING RACIST.

You're right.

Who are you talking about?

Soleri writes:

I don't care what a grand jury decided.

They got any 4th grade Civics classes that maybe you could sit in on? The grand jury indicated Zimmerman because a crime might have occurred. It was the real jury, the DOJ, the FBI, and the investigators who concluded both that race was not a factor and that Zimmerman committed no crime.

If you can get some time off from the Circle K, spend a little time and actually read about the case. Zimmerman called the cops (now- that't the act of a real racist, isn't it??) and after that call, it's at least even money that Martin (after referring to Zimmerman as a "cracker" in a phone call) accosted Zimmerman.

I guess if a guy was on top of you, pounding your head into the ground, and suddenly reached for a legal firearm you were carrying, you'd stop and think about that accoster's race.

Zimmerman didn't.

Look, You embolden the real racists by getting this one completely wrong. It's just more race baiting. Oh, and health insurance.

Oz:

Gee. Whimpy prosecutors and centuries old criteria for determining guilt in this country shield Zimmerman from being the racist that somehow you and Soleri know he is.

The horrors!!

Was there anything in his history that showed racism? No. Did he call the cops? Yes. Was he permitted to patrol the community? Yes. Did he have a history of law enforcement problems? No. Was he ever photographed wearing a white hood? No.

For both you and Soleri, here's something kind of interesting. Noted Klan member, racist, xenophobic, narrow minded legal expert Alan Dershowitz thought that no charges should have even been filed:

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/drop-george-zimmerman-murder-charge-article-1.1080161

In terms of the Zimmerman selling flags, boy, if I'd been through the malicious prosecution and the grossly incorrect accusations that he's been through, I'd sell t-shits with "Soleri is a genius" on them to try to make a few bucks.

if anyone would buy them......

[INPHX]

couple of typos

indicated should be indicted.

maybe some others

[Ruben Perez]

My goodness. The only way I can possibly explain this ongoing circle jerk on Zimmerman is that soleri and INPHX actually are playing with themselves while they read each other's posts. Any chance of you guys taking it offline and maybe having phone sex without involving us?

[soleri]

INPHX, since you're a Republican and defend outright racist thugs like Zimmerman, I take pretty much everything you say as an example of your party's moral squalor. If an unarmed white kid had been stopped by a black thug and killed by him, that thug would be in prison, and possibly on Death Row. But your party is predicated on cultivating racial animus at the expense of black people. That's its only path to get within spitting distance of a majority. Donald Trump's polling success clearly points out this phenomenon. No one cares that he advocates higher taxes on the rich, or that he's praised Planned Parenthood, or even advocated universal health care. They care that he's a stone-cold racist and they love him for it. That's your party and its Faustian Bargain. Like the amoral partisan that you are, you scurry about making excuses for the blatant racism that is the bedrock of your party's appeal. You are a Republican for many reasons but they're all unsavory.

I want to make this point, and then I'll bow out of the sewer that you've turned this comment section into. Any Republican, be it Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson, Scott Walker or even George Pataki, who would lead your toxic cult would also cater to its worst traits. There is no longer a decent Republican leader left because the fundamental indecency of people like you prevent that. Anyone with a functional conscience has left your party. There's no dialogue possible with damaged people like you. Trayvon Martin is the flashlight into the cesspoool of your party's soul.

[cal Lash]

Ah cumon Ruben, grab a hand full and get a grip.
I'm really enjoying this.
and
PS r u getting my emails?

[INPHX]

Soleri:

Until you get the facts straight, you're just howling at the moon. Your racist accusations in the Zimmerman case are based on a willful ignorance of the facts, poor logic, a lack of curiosity, an entrenched position, and a lack of reasoning skills. So, I guess I'll assume that's a problem with any race discussion with you.

You start with a conclusion and then invent (or ignore) facts to support (or challenge) it.

You LOVE the emperor's new clothes, and well, anyone who doesn't, well, I guess, wants poor people (especially minorities) to not have health insurance.

And that's the STRONG part of your "position"

[INPHX]

Great point by the Concern Troll focusing on the history of immigrant cheap labor being exploited in this Country and the residual messes it has created.

Chinese "coolies" are a great example.

It has to stop.

[Concern Troll]

Yeah, but INPHX, the Chamber Glen Handy Bags folks will never let the R party actually do that without a huge fight.

Hence the Trump bump from the tea folks is utterly terrifying.

WSJ/Club for Growth/Big business is all for cheaper labor, so capital can make more.

But now we have oceans of capital, and wages are so low that there is very little money to be made in reliably servicing the bottom half of the economy, unless you go for Wal-Mart levels of margin killing.

Lol. Capitalism only works when sufficiently restrained, and telling me that Susan Bitter Smith is doing any restraint is just ridiculous.

In other words, have to stir the pot, because that sure ain't cream on top.

[INPHX]

Troll:

I'm hardly going to question that parts of business want to encourage cheap, easy to exploit labor. But I think your economic analysis is spot on.

It helps the race to the bottom. It's simple economics.

Just another in a litany of reasons that we have to close the borders.

[Cal Lash]

Lets assume for a historical moment that George Zimmerman is or is not a racist.
Can we agree he may not be the brightest bubble? Well maybe , maybe not? But he is a thinking humanoid?
Would a HOA neighborhood hire him as an Unarmed Security guard. Probably.
But would they or should they hire him as an Armed Security guard? Maybe not. And did they know he was packing?
Had he not been armed with anything but a cell phone would Travon Martin be alive today. Well maybe, depends on how the police responded. Would Zimmerman be alive, well maybe not? Depends on if he decided to get close enough to Travon and end up getting his head pounded into the sidewalk. But probably had he maintained a distance and kept talking to the police?
I think this case is bad case to talk about racism (although maybe not given Zimmerman’s history since the shooting)
as there are a ton of incidents out there that initially have at least have more appearance of racism involved. Many incidents including folks sworn to uphold the law and protect the common good. People that had to go through training and psychological evaluation but still seem to fall off into stereotyping or racism. I have seen in my 75 years profiling by all the races I have encountered. Fear of the different or the unknown.
So maybe Ruben is right, we should put this one behind us and move on into much more fertile “Manunkind” territory.

[Cal Lash]

"Just another in a litany of reasons that we have to close the borders."
Excuse me INPHX but this is right up there with my stupid "open Borders" comments.
It anint all that simple. Good book "Moving Millions" by Jeffery Kaye.
and
" Your racist accusations in the Zimmerman case are based on a willful ignorance of the facts, poor logic, a lack of curiosity, an entrenched position, and a lack of reasoning skills. So, I guess I'll assume that's a problem with any race discussion with you. "ASSUME thats a problem?" now thats a word I might use but I was told smart folks never ASS/U/ME

[Cal Lash]

Should James Frascatore be deported?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/15/1421471/-NY-Times-Editorial-Board-writes-scathing-critique-of-NYPD-calling-for-the-firing-systemic-changes?detail=email

and Obama Lincoln speaks,
“This whole anti-immigrant sentiment that’s out there in our politics right now is contrary to who we are. Because unless you are a Native American, your family came from someplace else,” Mr. Obama said. “Don’t pretend that somehow 100 years ago the immigration process was all smooth and strict. That’s not how it worked.” The grandparents and great-grandparents of politicians taking a hard line on immigration, he said, were also “somehow considered unworthy or uneducated or unwashed.”
“When I hear folks talking as if somehow these kids are different from my kids or less worthy in the eyes of God, that somehow they are less worthy of our respect and consideration and care, I think that’s un-American,” Mr. Obama said.

[INPHX]

Cal:

1. Once you realize that Zimmerman's motives were not racist, it at least becomes plausible to suggest that he might have been some kind of Dirty Harry vigilante. But even that fails based on the following:

a. Zimmerman had called police about 50 times in a community where police had been called almost once a day for the 12 months leading up to the day Martin was killed. The community ain't exactly Paradise Valley.

b. In exactly NONE of those previous 50 calls, was there any physical altercation between Zimmerman and any other people. Based on this FACT, it's really hard to think that Zimmerman was looking for a fight.

c. On the night in question, he called the cops- just like he always did.

d. Martin was talking on a cellphone with his girlfriend and he said something like "there is some creepy cracker following me".

e. Martin winds up on top of Zimmerman and Zimmerman cries for help.

f. No one knows for sure, but based on the above and Zimmerman's testimony (which must be taken with a grain of salt), it's even money that Martin started the physical altercation.

[Cal Lash]

I repeat, based on what is available about the actual confrontation (not later acts by Zimmerman) i believe this case does not appear to be of the same obvious and overt racial encounters (and deaths) as many others.

I owned a security guard company and am very familiar with the concepts. Even in Arizona you will find almost no ARMED Security Guards. And one can lose their DPS issued license for being a licensed unarmed security guard found on duty with a weapon.
When I owned my security guard company I hired all retired or off duty cops. When my partner a retired Fed wanted to go to unarmed security guards I told him I didnt want the liability of hiring low paid barley qualified people, I sold him the biz. Since it has barley survived.
Most unarmed security guard companies highly stress no physical contacts, call the cops!

so how's about we move on?

[Cal Lash]

IN Jon's town.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/officer-fired-racial-bias-golf-club-cane_55f9a334e4b0e333e54c2d56

[Cal Lash]

Sinema's way blog: and here comes Fiorina.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carly-fiorina-social-security_55f9adade4b0d6492d63edf8

[Cal Lash]

Sealed Borders, deportation and immigration,
I am sure the neo con military industrial surveillance complex folks and OTHERS will be happy to hear.

[Cal Lash]

OOPs here is the paste.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/new-border-tower-system-passes-initial-tests/article_9a4b7dc2-59a3-11e5-bf43-934b849216e4.html#.VfYEO1XBnCU.email

[cal Lash]

Note: Arizona imigration and deportation will have no solution until the LDS community is led by people like former Mesa city mayor Scott Smith and less Mesa LDS folks like Russell Pearce. And when the business community quits supporting folks like Pearce.
Frontline has a good documentary on the Arizona problem.

[cal Lash]

AND if you want to see legal immigration abuse by American employers, Google slave labor of Peru sheep herders in America.

[[email protected]]

"Failure to provide an education" is form of racial discrimination practiced openly in Arizona.

[cal Lash]

The Immigrant:
"Freedom is not a reward, it's a chore on the contrary, and a long distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting. "
Camus

[Skip]

#1... Congress is the only government agency that can make laws..including immigration laws/Change to immigration laws.
#2... Then, President Obama, even when Democrats controlled the House AND Senate, could get NOTHING done about immigration. (but they blame the GOP)
#3... Then President Obama does DACA via executive order, knowing that it is NOT legal, not within his power as President.
#4... President Obama even admitted that he know his Executive Order was Illegal.
#5... A Federal Circuit court ruled President Obama's Executive Order, DACA, was unconstitutional.
#6... An appeal to the US Supreme Court returned a 4 to 4 decision, which means the Circuit Court ruling stands.
#7... President Trump just did the correct action. He did away with Obama's Unconstitutional Executive Order, ruled DACA is no longer valid, BUT stayed that for six months to allow Congress to act.
#8... The ball is where it belongs... Our Constitution give Congress, and ONLY CONGRESS, the authority to make laws. A President can veto any law made by Congress, but Congress can override a veto.
I believe President Trump did the right thing.
Unfortunately, I do not think our Congressmen/women are doing anything for the American people. They seem to be more concerned with protecting themselves to make themselves richer. It is overdue, long overdue, for term limits and rules that place Congress under the same laws they pass for us.
Just my thoughts..