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As immigration rights activists around the nation prepare for marches marking the one year anniversary of the massive protests that took place on May 1 last year, federal agents stormed into a shopping mall yesterday in Little Village, serving a warrant to dismantle a counterfeiting operation that was allegedly producing fake work identifications. As of midnight last night there was no official confirmation of the number arrested, but witnesses have told the local media that as many as 160 people were arrested. Witnesses told CBS2 news that they had let most of the people they detained go, holding between 16 and 18 people in custody. After U.S. immigration authorities locked down the Little Village Plaza strip mall and parking lot, searching customers and businesses, anger and frustration spilled out into the corner of 26th and Albany in a protest of around 300 people.
The protests, planned for next week, come at a time when the immigration debate is starting to flare up again. Late last week U.S. Reps. Luis Gutierrez, (D-4th), and Rahm Emanuel, (D-5th) vowed to make a "final push" on a bill that would create a path to citizenship for people that are here illegally, and make it difficult, if not impossible, to forge new documents. Illegal immigrants would be fingerprinted and checked for a U.S. felony record. A $500 fine for their illegal entry would need to be paid, and they would then be issued a six-year visa to be used as a work permit, basic ID and even for travel outside the country. After taking English and civics classes, they would have to leave the US and re-enter, and pay a $1500 permanent residency application fee. Both Gutierrez and Emanuel admit that getting their bill passed will require a lot of bipartisan support, but hope they can line support up and get their package voted on by the Senate late next month.
We think the plan that Gutierrez is promoting is fair, but we're similarily concerned about the impact that the millions of people that have streamed into our country to take low-wage jobs has had on other parts of the world. As countries like Mexico lose their talented and hardest working people to the US, we wonder what positions those nations are left in. And it breaks our hearts to see our friends that hold advanced degrees and want to come here legally to work and live run into the byzantine maze that is US Immigration law. As our elected leaders try to work out a compromise that is fair to everyone involved, we hope clarity and reason will prevail in what has, thus far, been a heated and emotional issue.
Image via City of Progress
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My only complaint about these protests is that they often hold signs with messages in Spanish, and they were on the news last night at Little Village with signs in Spanish. Why would you make a sign in Spanish? Are you attempting to appeal to a Spanish speaking government?
Note, if you are going to be on the 10 o'clock news, make sure people know what you are protesting.
I think you make a sign in Spanish if a you speak little or no English or b if you have contempt or no respect for the English language
But I think you're assessment is very fair and balanced Kevin. I also think that Chicago would be better served not having one country (Mexico) representing 60 percent of all recent immigrants –including illegal’s. A balanced and enforced immigrant policy I think could lead to more of a rainbow. I’d like to see more Sudanese in Chicago, Ethiopians, and Cambodians that form colorful communities in Chicago, just like in ST. Paul Min. These are the people that also loose out when one County/People thumbs its/their nose at the rules.
And for the life of me, I get less sympathetic when I see that 300 people protesting because law enforcement personal shuts down a counterfeiting operation. Seems obvious that you would need a lot of federal agents on a mission such as this and the fact that they arrested around 160 people indicates the severity of the problem. Is this a massive case of identity theft? Sounds like it! Honestly it seems like “those people-“Rev” Slim Coleman, etc” only care about themselves, not this country
I don't think not speaking English has anything to do with contempt or a lack of respect for the language, and more a case of settling in neighborhoods that give one a sense of familiarity and ease of assimilation into the American melting pot. It makes sense for protest signs in Little Village to be written in Spanish, because it's a neighborhood where Spanish is spoken. For better or worse, it's up to the MSM to enlighten their audience to why there protesting, not the protestors.
spook: These are interesting times. And while the Feds probably needed a host of personnel to raid the operation, I question whether they had to be armed to the teeth in order to do so. You live in Logan Square, spook (according to your blog information). How would you feel about Federal agents coming in, fully armed, and disrupting the neighborhood in order to execute a search warrant? I'm guessing you'd be pretty pissed.
Immigration reform is sorely needed, and the rainbow you pine for does exist, except in clusters; head down to Chatham or up to Rogers Park and Edgewater if you need proof. Sadly, we live in a climate of fear, where electrified fences running the length of the US/Mexico border and armed, xenophobic civilian militias are considered viable options, and the face that is put on all that is wrong with our current immigration policy is that of the undocumented Mexican. They're also one of more active groups fighting for reform.
mexico doesn't want those workers - that's why they're here. There's no jobs for them down south - if anything mexico is getting a huge amount of money and social credits by encouraging their poor to move up here. I don't mind it, then again i have yet to be personally affected by it.
Slow your roll Chuch D.
I’ll toss the "contempt" charge, but the lack of respect stays. If you wanna be a good citizen, learn the language. An example is the “Rosa Parks” of Humboldt Park who at this moment is still hold up in “Rev.” Slime Coleman’s Church. She’s been in the US for 20 years, yet can’t speak English! Not to mention the fact that she stole some ones identify! That’s disrespect. I’m not saying learn the language overnight, but we have whole generations that can’t speak it. It also means fewer coalitions between black and brown, while the limited resources get fought over. This means nothing to white liberals because they are not the ones fighting over the dwindling resources.I just want some accountability. Just like “Rosa Parks” of Humboldt Parks said she wants and I quote "Sen. O’Bama and Durbin to write her, her own personal bill” so she can stay in the US." That’s Like Rosa Parks saying, just let me ride the bus every day and were all good!
We need to call her out on this stuff, say you’re wrong on this issue. Like the first march when they used the Mexican flags. And yesterday’s protest was wrong. But please hold on while I take my N.W.A. “Fu*k The Police” tape out my head set. I am in no way a police junkie; the name John Burge still burns bright in my mind. But I believe in being fair. Pilsen is a hood where cops have gotten killed as in the last three years. Gang bangers kill over name not just drug sales and they consider the police a gang. I’d suggest on any major raid agents be armed to the teeth and make sure the scene is sealed off. Last summer a major drug house got “closed down” on the next block from me. Only ten people were arrested, but it felt like the Berlin Wall had gone up. Three blocks cordened off It’s doesn’t happen every day and I was thankful for the police operation. Because I was not getting drugs from that house but I bet there is a connection between some of the protesters and those making the illegal ID’s.
And the rainbow doesn’t exist. In Rogers Park and Edgewater its not whole areas and communities, like Pilsen, South Chicago, etc or again St. Paul with the Haung communities. Its individuals people from other countries who live next to people from other countries. It’s not like a whole Haitian Community in New York or in Miami. And the only pocket in Chatham are members of the 8th ward. Yea too bad about the xenophobic nuts, but also shame on liberals like Slim Coleman( formerly of uptown) who use to stand for progressive politics, but is just about building his base in Humboldt Park. And the reality is that the majority of those coming into this country come in illegally from Mexico which also means that people from other countries can’t get here But as I stated I agree with the Gutierrez bill because its fair
opps sorry I meant Chuck
wow. spook is brilliant. or just a reasonable person. i can't really add anything unique after that, other than i am surprised to find myself agreeing, just a little bit, with the people who have been anti-illegal immigration all along. but you know, the cops weren't there to kick out immigrants-they were there to shut down an illegal operation.
it is helpful to remember that if you look at english language adoption by new non-english speaking immigrants, Latino immigrants (as a group) are adopting english faster than any previous influx of immigrants in American history (i.e. Germans, Chinese, Italians, etc.).
Cool Justin, feel free to include your source so we can look.
Of course I know you are honest enough to be able to say that its proportionate to the amount of Latinos who are arriving compared to those who have arrived from the groups that you mentioned
spook: You're analysis has been pretty good thus far, and your piece on your blog last summer about Elvira Arreloa was pretty much right on. I would think, however, for all your huffing and puffing about brown unity and the white establishment holding (black) people down, you'd recognize that breaking up a counterfeiting operation is pretty different from breaking up gang activity. People that are producing falsified green cards and other credentials in a strip mall in Little Village probably aren't going to open up on some cops and take out a bunch of people with heavy-duty assault weapons.
While it's true that identity theft is a real problem, and we need to make sure there aren't false Social Security numbers and other papers out there (and I say this as someone who's had his identity stolen), I would also argue that this raid, just like the drug bust in your neighborhood, focuses more on the symptoms of a problem, and less on the cause. You know as well as I do (or should know, at least) that breaking up drug distribution in a neighborhood, while good for the local community in the short run, really just imprisons more black youth, forcing them into the so-called criminal justice system, and robbing whatever (slim) chances they may have had at a bright future. Wouldn't the real solution be to eliminate the economic forces and incentives that create a market for counterfeit documents? Wouldn't the wiser solution be the removing the underground blackmarket for drugs that created that house in your neighborhood?
For someone who talks such a good game about calling out the liberals, you're pretty long on rhetoric and short on solutions when it comes to the capitalist class and their blatant exploitation of both the poor, and the brown, not to mention how deftly they have played blacks against Mexicans in competition for low-wage jobs.
Slow your roll Kev, I ain no woof so I don’t huff or puff and the only people keeping Black and Brown down is Black and Brown. I agree with every thing you said in the Maco. but 160 people arrested sounds like a big operation to me and cops operate by using large amounts of force to make arrests like this. Even though its not going to fix any thing.
But to get all wild out, get all paranoid over this is too take your focus off the bigger issues,unless you’re Slim Coleman, then you say thank gawd for the raid. I can get liberals writing that it’s connected to my lame A*S March. Do you really think some one held a meeting in D.C and said “oh my gawd, we have to do some thing about those hispanics marching, we’ve got to intimidate them! The reality is the government doesn’t care about marches any more. The raid just shows you how much they don't care. Just like politicians don’t care, unless they are trolling for local votes. Every one just forgets about marches in a few weeks
The only people that care are silly cowardly liberal organizers and self promoters like Slim Coleman and the marchers who feel good about themselves just because they marched down a already blocked off street with police protection. Honestly if King and Gandhi saw what Go Go Liberals and Pimps Politicians like Jesse Jackson did to “civil disobedience?”
They’d be spitting down on us
Now as far as calling me short on solutions, maybe maybe not, I am after all a spook.