MA-Sen: Marisa DeFranco on Today's LeftAhead

Democratic candidate for US Senate, Marisa DeFranco, joined us on today's LeftAhead podcast, talking about jobs, immigration, her background and why she has the chops to beat Scott Brown.

She's an immigration attorney and has been so for well more than a decade. She's also been very involved in women's rights issues, like equal pay for equal work. She unabashedly wears a progressive hat and seeks to build a grassroots campaign.

Listen to the show or download it at LeftAhead, the BlogTalkRadio player on the right, iTunes or any number of other podcast aggregators, like PocketCast for Android.

Happy 1984, Bay State

Scary stuff,

The amendment would also clear the way for courts, the state attorney general, and even average citizens to get new tools, including an anonymous hot line, to report illegal immigrants or companies that employ them to the government.

Hold the Presses!!

Another unsavory, former Mass employee has a state pension. Rewrite the page-one headline!

Is it just me, or has state pensions joined anti-immigration hate speech as the third rail of Massachusetts politics? Former state employees of 20 years or more who have a pension shouldn't be a front-page story in the Boston Globe. There are soldiers dying in Iraq for a war the President lied about. Let's get a grip.

We Live in a Beautiful World

While I know most Americans just don't have the time to become experts in particular policy areas, can't we at least educate ourselves on issues before we go off on tirades about them? Can't we at least resist bigotry when practicing apathy?

I'm speaking specifically about Patrick's decision to allow undocumented immigrants into Mass public colleges with in-state tuition, if they're seeking to become citizens.

It's been statistically shown that there would be such a small number of students - 20 per state school - that it would have no impact on student placement or educational quality. Furthermore, because schools wouldn't have to hire additional staff to account for a measly 20 students among thousands and thousands, it would actually be a net-positive revenue situation. That's why our state schools support the plan.

Yet, regular folks don't know any of that, because they can't read past the "Patrick to Give Undocumented Immigrants In-State Tuition" headline. Of course, the MSM does little to actually make the populace aware, all the while America continues it's history of bigotry and spite toward immigrants.

Did I ever mention that one of my favorite songs is Coldplay's "Beautiful World?" Somehow this belongs here.

Bones are sinking like stones
All that we fall for
Homes places we've grown
All of us are done for

And we live in a beautiful world (yeah we do yeah we do)
We live in a beautiful world

Oh all that I know is nothing to run from
Cause yeah everybody here got's somebody to lean on

Immigration Reform the Globe Didn't Mention

The Globe wrote one of its prototypical posts on immigration reform that I strongly support. However, whenever anyone jumps in the ref0rm-immigration debate, it's time to include another aspect: gay people can't sponsor a spouse's immigration to this country, even if they're married or in a civil union. It's wrong, it's impacted thousands of people and it's time to be changed. There's a law proposed to do that, but unless people start including its discussion in their overall pleas for immigration reform, it's not going to get done. Simply put, I just don't think enough people know gay couples are barred from having a life together if one of them is from a different country, unlike their heterosexual counterparts.

What Undocumented Americans Face (in New Bedford)

I get most arguments on illegal immigration, but there's one reason why I could never support the most intolerant of them. Why? Clearly, the majority of the people (including leaders in the movement) support mass deportation for one reason alone - they don't like the people coming into this country. The levels of their hatred is pretty sick. Here's a taste of what Undocumented Americans face in New Bedford on a daily basis.

Kanvas, a citizen of the South Coast, had this to say:

I am not tolerant of illegal immigrants. Nope. Not at all. Not one ounce of guilt either. If they come here and are separated from their families...oh well. That's what can happen and they opt to take those chances. Those who break into a warehouse are taking their chances that they will go to jail and be separated from their families. Drop off the mexican illegals to Acapulco, Cancun and Cozumel. Yep. These ideal locations are very far from the border. This will also put a hurt on their tourism too. Cut all aid to cheesy mexico and watch what happens. That stoopid government might just build their own wall to keep their population in!

Oh, those "stoopid" Mexicans! I mean, it's not as if there were ever brilliant minds to come out of Mexico. Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Laura Esquivel must have been wasting their time in all their grand efforts. Surely, we don't want any of that talent, cultural knowledge or hard work coming into this country. And if we cut off funds, they'll even build their own wall for us! What a great idea! (/sarcasm off)

In the same thread, New Bedford's Just John agreed.

Yup! Illegal Aliens are up to something... It can't be good...

Because trying to make a decent living isn't a good enough reason to be living here, clearly these "illegal aliens" are "up to something." Pray, tell, what could that possibly be? Only someone warped in the head, and clearly prejudiced against certain populations, could think there was some mass conspiracy.

RedSoxGirl clearly must not be a big believer in basic tolerance or backing up her opinions. She just calls all undocumented immigrants "pigs." Nice.

I was going to stop there, before I made any unnecessary Nazi or KKK comparisons, but then I read CinCity's idea - which is to just kill them all; after all, that's "the only way to get them the hell out of our city." I don't know about that, but perhaps Cincity's statements is exactly where a holocaust starts? A few angry Rwandans or Germans making crazy comments in some private location, till it all boils over.

People would do well to remember that who you're fighting with may just be a clear-cut reminder to reexamine your position on the matter and why you came to that position. Did you reach that conclusion based on facts, or was there some other reason? No one is immune to bigotry; it can affect anyone. The trick is to be smart enough to sense if something you say or think is prejudiced, then work to correct it. That's what being open-minded and accepting is all about - people aren't just born that way, it takes time to get there.

Clearly, there is plenty of room for immigration reform, but no one should side with people like RedSoxGirl, Just John or Kanvas. It's amazing what some people will say in the anonymity of an alias and internet forum. They're the kinds of people who led to the debacle at the New Bedford factory: people who have pushed politicians to create agencies that create human-rights nightmares in their quests to round up immigrants. A far more sensible solution to immigration is trying to create a policy that works; a bipartisan solution was created in the McCain-Kennedy bill, but a few angry Republicans thwarted a policy that even President Bush would have signed.

For the people in New Bedford, I hope they realize the righteous hatred being directed toward immigrant populations in the name of wanting to send "illegal immigrants" home. To put it simply, there was no such hatred directed at European Au-Pairs when they were coming here in boat loads. New Bedford is one of the largest immigrant communities in all of Massachusetts, legal or otherwise. It makes the city more vibrant, interesting - and all around better. These voices of hatred should neither be ignored nor forgotten. They must be confronted; people should know that the New Bedford community overwhelmingly supports its immigrant population and they will never, ever be forgotten or go unappreciated.

More on McNamara

Charley destroys McNamara's arguments over at BMG. McNamara's column had a lot of holes in it, but good 'ol Mr. Blandy made them seem like the Grand Canyon.

Turns out, according the the AP, Deval Patrick was right: DSS really was given last minute notice.

BOSTON (AP) - Federal immigration agents notified state officials months in advance of its plans for a massive illegal immigration raid in New Bedford. But they prohibited them from alerting the Department of Social Services -- the agency charged with caring for the workers' children -- until just days before.

Kurt Schwartz with the state's Executive Office of Public Safety says D-S-S Commissioner Harry Spence wasn't told until four days before the raid.

At that time, Schwartz couldn't tell Spence the exact location, only that it would be in southeast Massachusetts.

And Spence was banned from telling any employees until after the raid began.

Charles lands the obvious critique:

There damn well was a problem. There damn well was a failure to coordinate. They were getting phone calls about it from the Governor and the Congressional delegation. It plainly didn't work the way it was supposed to work. And McNamara blithely takes their word for it?

McNamara would do well to learn not to be so trusting of people who tell you what you want to hear. I wonder if we'll see any mea culpa in the next McNamara column? Otherwise, if she can't admit when she makes mistakes, she's right: it's going to be a long four years.

McNamara's Column on the N. Bedford Raid

McNamara came out with another column today and we have another blame-everything-on-Deval piece. Charley has a post with lots of discussion going on, along with various blogs out there on the mass left. However, I do have one point to make: whether or not Patrick knew about the raid beforehand doesn't matter. In fact, he did know; we knew that since the news broke out - fact that changes nothing.

The relevant question is what was Deval supposed to do? He couldn't stop the feds from raiding New Bedford, he just simply doesn't have that kind of power. Furthermore, it's not like he could have gone on the 11 o'clock news and told everyone the state was going to be raided weeks in advance - if he did, it may have been illegal and probably would have created a kind of mass panic that would have been worse than what actually happened (consider the fact that the raid - while a human rights nightmare - only affected the families of 300, instead of the 10,000s of undocumented Americans living in this state).

McNamara's column suggests that the ICE and DSS were planning this raid for months. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. She says there were conference calls and discussions over those months - but that doesn't really mean it was well planned - by either org. A phone call here and a phone call there doth not equal well planned - and it's pretty hard to know what went on during the planning process. Personally, I don't trust a word either organization says.

However, let's give McNamara the benefit of the doubt. After the failure that occurred in New Bedford, one wonders how that reflects on the Patrick administration? McNamara has an answer in the form of a question.

Patrick did not hesitate to appeal directly to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to allow DSS social workers access to the detainees after the raid. Why, then, did he not call Chertoff before the raid to insist that the necessary precautions to protect children be in place?

Yet, her question fails again. Simply put, even if Patrick knew about what was going on as far in advance as he did, it still wasn't his job to organize this raid. It was the federal government's job, a job they were quite happy to drop onto DSS's hands - it was an unfunded mandate of the worst kind (playing with the lives of children). Furthermore, it wasn't Patrick's job to organize the raid. DSS was the organization that should have been in contact with Chertoff. The media has recently criticized Patrick for micromanaging everything, they're their criticizing him for not micromanaging a federal raid. The media needs to pick one or the other, they can't keep having it both ways.

Even if this state government failed in any capacity, the fault lays with DSS, not the Patrick administration. Deval Patrick has had neither the time nor the resources to fix that organization, but it's becoming quite apparent it should become a new priority for him. The fact that Patrick was able to fully step in and use his role as Governor to fix things after the fact speaks well on his part: even though DSS apparently failed at first, at least someone was at the helm to fix the ship's course afterwards.

Ultimately, McNamara's column ignores a key fact: a raid targeting 300 families is a very tall task for any organization, never mind one as discombobulated and underpowered as DSS. It was the ICE that decided to ship families across the country, within a very short period of time and without due process before being removed from the state. They could have just as easily slapped bracelets on the immigrants, giving them some time to figure out what was going to happen to their children while waiting for due process. Furthermore, it's doubtful that the ICE had names and addresses for every undocumented worker in that factory - DSS isn't the FBI, they don't have the capability to find out that kind of information, especially when there are so many people involved and they're all undocumented Americans. There was no way an organization like DSS could cope with that kind of pressure and deal with it in a way we could all be proud of, even if we had a perfect Department of Social Services. Clearly, DSS is far from perfect - we knew that before this raid. McNamara would do well to continue to criticize it. However, she went too far in blaming that organization - and especially the Patrick administration - for the federal government's mistakes in New Bedford.

Mass Deportation and Mass Human Rights Nightmare

That's something I've always maintained. Undocumented immigration is the type of issue that sounds really easy to determine: people are here "illegally," they should be sent home. Easy as pie, right? Well, obviously there are some kinks in the system. When parents are flown to all sorts of detention centers around the country in the matter of a day or two - and families are left in the dust, including young children, something is wrong. Very, very wrong.

Simply put, for all those in favor of heavy regulation of immigration, more of what we saw in New Bedford will happen. States, at least states with Governors who give a damn (and luckily, we have one of those) will try desperately hard to keep up - and what does that mean? Suddenly, we're flying in a DSS team to Texas, just even trying to keep up with the basic human right of not being separated from one's family. This is the same DSS that's on scrambles as is, now having to find emergency homes for the children of 300 families. The same state with a billion dollar deficit has to find the funds to solve this crisis, which surely will cost us tens of thousands of dollars - maybe hundreds.

Immigration is an issue that demands compromise. We can't allow these kinds of raids; they're a disaster. Sadly, immigration is one of the few areas where President Bush is actually willing to compromise. The McCain-Kennedy Bill, in its original form, was an eminently fair bill - one that all sorts of people from all kinds of political perspectives got behind. Citizens from Massachusetts should ask our Senior Senator to resubmit that bill, especially given what happened in New Bedford and the change in direction of the Senate.