Obama immigration “boost” not enough for ideologues

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials boasted this week before a Congressional committee about how they have increased their efforts to root out non-citizens who are working in this country without the proper work permits.

Not that it is pleasing to the conservative ideologues who now control the House of Representatives. For they made it clear that they want a more abrupt approach to trying to catch people in the act of being employed without a visa and work permits.

THOSE REPUBLICAN OFFICIALS made it clear they want a return to the old days, “old” in this case being the days of George W. Bush – when Immigration officials would suddenly burst into a factory or other company, announce themselves in a token gesture to legal procedure, then take everybody into custody so it could be determined just how many of the workers were not U.S. citizens.

Those loud, obnoxious raids became a thing of the past when Barack Obama became president. He has wanted to focus attention more on the people living in this country without a valid visa who are building up criminal records, while also realizing that the real “crime” when it comes to the hiring of non-visa’ed foreigners is being committed by the companies themselves.

As Kumar Kibble – a deputy director for Immigration – told Congress, the agency wants to find, “criminal illegal aliens who pose a threat to the public.”

The people whom the ideologues want to pick up are the ones whose sole interest is merely working for a living, while also staying far in the shadows of our society. They’re not looking to cause trouble.

IN FACT, THAT is the very reason why the employers who violate federal law by hiring non-citizens without work permits do so. They want a quiet, compliant workforce that will pipe down in cases where the employers choose to ignore certain labor regulations.

So in recent years, we have had Immigration officials doing workplace inspections where federal officials will go through the ranks of a company’s staff and figure out who should not be employable in this country.

In 2010, there were 2,746 worksite enforcement investigations. Two hundred and thirty-seven violations were found, and the fines charged to the companies were in excess of $7 million.

Those people found to be working without papers do get reported, and many do eventually get caught up in the deportation process. The fact is that deportations overall have been on the rise during the Obama presidential administration.

IT IS THE major factor behind the perception among some Latinos that Obama himself isn’t willing to stick up for the concerns of our growing segment of the population.

Yet to the ideologues, that increase and the displeasure of the people they’re most willing to tick off isn’t good enough.

They want the raids! They want the sight of people suddenly fleeing in a vain attempt to elude “la Migra.” They like the thought of the moment when an individual feels hopeless when they realize they’re not going to get away, and that they’re now stuck in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureaucracy.

Personally, I wonder how much more realistic it is to think of Cheech and Chong films that invariably included immigration raid scenes, particularly the 1987 Cheech Marin film “Born in East L.A.,” where his character gets caught in a raid and deported to Tijuana while his Mexican-born cousin manages to walk away unscathed because federal authorities are more obsessed with detaining the bushy-mustached creature in front of them, along with some elderly women.

THINK OF THE Keystone Cops, updated for the late 20^th Century.

But that is what the ideologues would like, if their rhetoric is to be taken literally. Actually, it shouldn’t be.

Even the most hard-core nativist realizes that, at best, they will only get support in the House of Representatives. The Senate remains a Democrat-controlled legislative body, and Obama still has his “veto” power.

Which means all this rhetoric about wanting raids and tougher measures is really nothing more than pompous political posturing. They want to be able to feed their backers on the thought that an Obama administration isn’t doing enough – even though overall deportations are on the rise.

BUT WITH OBAMA, we get some consideration that some of the people without visas probably should be allowed to stay, and that we ought to figure out a way to get them the visa that will make all of this rhetoric a moot point. Although activists would argue that “consideration” hasn’t translated into action.

It is the ideologues who stand in the way of that happening, and now want to stir up resentment even further in this country.

That may well be their right. We do have freedom of expression in this country. They can say whatever nitwit thoughts pop into their head.

There’s just no reason why we, the people, need to take any of it seriously.

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