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President Obama is no Dobbs or Arpaio....

By: Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

[ Posted On: 2009-08-19 ]

Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez

On the issue of immigration, President Obama is no Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio - the face of racial profiling. Neither is he CNN's resident xenophobe, Lou Dobbs, whose mission in life seems to be to lead the nation into an ethnic cleansing frenzy.

Yet up to this point, President Obama's immigration policies simply appear to be enhanced versions of President Bush's anti-immigrant policies.

Ironically, despite the hype regarding Sen. John McCain being a friend to migrants and to Mexicans/Latinos - most peoples from these communities overwhelmingly supported President Obama - precisely because of the president's humane stance on immigration.

Most everyone understands that the president is not a magician, nor is he a dictator, but he has been more than disappointing in his failure to provide decisive leadership on this issue. Only the mass dragnet immigration raids have stopped.... if one doesn't count Arpaio.

Arpaio is to Mexicans/Latinos what Sheriff Bull Conner was to the 1960s civil rights movement. Arpaio has taken it upon himself - first with the blessing of Bush, and now Obama, to conduct massive raids that indiscriminately target Mexicans/Latinos. He is able to do this via the government's 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement agencies that enable local police officers to carry out immigration duties. Obama has taken a very bad idea and has greatly expanded it nationwide. This is sheer politics. He and his advisers figure that to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill, he needs to "act tough" and cozy up to those who think of migrants as little better than criminals and vermin.

The president could cancel this program outright, but chances are less than slight that anything on this front will happen until he and Congress get around to passing the much promised reform bill in 2010 - after he has fixed both health care and the economy. This means that migrants will continue to be criminalized and families forcibly separated. It also means they will continue to die in the desert as a result of policies designed by immigration officials, precisely with the intent of steering migrants into the most remote and inhospitable mountains and deserts (Tucson's Derechos Humanos' Arizona Recovered Bodies Project actually reports that of the more than 5,000 bodies found dead in the desert this past decade, many of these migrants have suffered blunt trauma to the head, i.e, killed).

Yet even if this reform bill passes, judging by the way he has acted during the health care debate, the human rights community is not reassured that it will be fair and humane. His inability to stand up to conservatives and extremists on any issue does not give anyone hope that he will go to bat for one of the communities that believed in his message of hope and change. He might as well let Dobbs write the bill - who would simply call for a 2,000-mile militarized wall all along the Southern border, plus the draconian apparatus to search and conduct massive searches, arrests and deportations of some 12 million undocumented migrants (20 million, according to extremists). At best, there might include a provision that would remand some of these migrants to a state of permanent subservience, with little or no human rights (read Bracero program).

Perhaps the president needs a reminder regarding who voted for him in the previous election; it was certainly not the conservatives and extremists who hate everything about him. Those are the people - along with their views and their values - that were overwhelmingly repudiated in that election. And yet, it is they, similar to the health care debate, who drive and dictate the terms of the immigration debate.

A real solution will not be forthcoming if it is based on fear, hate and propaganda. Creating a workable solution - as opposed to a band-aid - necessitates viewing the issue not as a criminal matter, but rather, as a labor and human rights issue. Part of this includes understanding the destructive effect of NAFTA - the 1994 free trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico that has devastated the Mexican countryside. It is this agreement that has flooded cheap corn into Mexico, making it impossible for Mexican small farmers to compete fairly against this U.S. subsidized product.

This agreement has had the exact opposite effect of the promises of NAFTA. Millions continue to migrate northbound. Until this issue is addressed - and it is highly unlikely that President Obama understands this - the U.S. will continue to fill its privatized prisons and detention centers with people guilty of simply trying to survive.

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•    Rodriguez can be reached at: XColumn@gmail.com or PO BOX 85476 - Tucson, AZ 85754

•    NEW AMERICA MEDIA COLUMNS -- http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/

•    ARCHIVED COLUMN OF THE AMERICAS -- http://web.mac.com/columnoftheamericas/iWeb/Site/Welcome.html
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Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

Roberto Dr. Cintli Rodriguez is an assistant professor at the University of Arizona. He has been writing the Column of the Americas since 1994, on topics of general interest as well as highlighting issues that specifically affect the peoples of the continent. Roberto is a member of the YES! Speakers' Bureau. Link: web.mac.com/columnoftheamericas/Site/Speaking.html .

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