Author: mopress

As Texans went to the polls last November, they were under the impression that their state was an exception to the job losses happening other places. But a recent notice posted by the Dallas Federal Reserve says that in the 3rd Quarter of 2008 Texas jobs declined by 0.9 percent and did not grow by 1.5 percent as officially estimated at the time.

The Dallas Fed says that its revised numbers are based upon quarterly reviews submitted by the Texas Workforce Commission. Not only did the Q3 review by TWC call for the third consecutive downward revision in employment numbers, but each time the amount of difference between preliminary and revised figures grew larger.

“The magnitude of these consecutive downward revisions escalated from -0.8 to -1.3 to -2.4 percentage points.” Which is to say, the closer the election got the further the official job reports in Texas varied from what was actually taking place on the street.

And while we’re in that downturn mood, check out the stack of global charts posted by the Dallas Fed on Jan. 30. In all the plummeting slopes there are two little hooks for your hopes: (1) in the Baltic Dry Index (which is still inching upward) and (2) in the JP Morgan All-Industry PMI.

The Rag Blog

Two research projects released last week confirm what we already knew about the aggressive arrest and deportation practices of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“ICE is out of touch with well-established norms in law enforcement, and its approach to fugitive aliens is inefficient and costly,” write the authors of Collateral Damage: An Examination of ICE’s Fugitive Operations Program (FOP).

The report by Migration Policy Institute researchers Margot Mendelson, Shayna Strom, and Michael Wishnie released on Feb. 4, 2009, examined the profiles of people rounded up by the federal enforcers. Mostly, the targets were not criminal fugitives.

As total arrests escalated from 1,900 in 2003 to 30,407 in 2007, the percentage of “criminal” and “dangerous” fell from a high of 39 percent in 2004 to only nine percent in 2007.

Meanwhile, the percentage of “ordinary status violators, without removal orders, whose cases had not been heard by an immigration judge” jumped from 18 percent in 2003 to 40 percent in 2007. Fugitive aliens with no criminal convictions made up 41 percent to 51 percent of the targets.

Released on the same day with the research report were a series of memos obtained under Freedom of Information Act by Cardozo Law School scholars under the direction of Professor Peter L. Markowitz.

The memos gradually change the operating objectives of the arrest teams:

• A January 2004 memo calls for 75 percent of the arrests to involve “criminal aliens.”
• A January 2006 memo overrules the 75 percent quota and instead sets a minimum arrest quota of 1,000 “fugitive apprehensions” per arrest team per year.
• A September 2006 memo changes the language to 1,000 “arrests” per year per team.

As a result of the shifting priorities, “the arrest of an unauthorized mother who has no criminal history or outstanding removal order counts as much as the arrest of a fugitive alien who deliberately disregarded his removal order and who poses a serious risk to national security.”

In addition, the report notes that most orders for removal may be issued in absentia.

“While some cases no doubt involve an intentional absence, in many other cases the person has never received the hearing notice or is unaware of a resulting removal order for a number of common reasons” including errors by the federal bureaucracy.

Of course, the program has been vastly successful as a spending ticket. The business of rounding up fairly harmless and in many cases hard-working, law-abiding immigrants has grown from a $12.6 million enterprise in 2003 to $218.9 million in 2007.

While the report recommends more training and stricter oversight, we say cut the budget by 90 percent. If the feds are using the money to round up people who turn out to be nine percent “criminal” and “dangerous”, then clearly they are wasting 90 percent of our money and 100 percent of thousands of peoples’ time.–gm

A nonviolent campaign to end child prisons in America will begin outside the Dallas office of Congressman Pete Sessions next Tuesday, Feb. 13.

The coalition to Free the Children Now held its inaugural meeting today at the office of Dallas real-estate developer Ralph Isenberg. The coalition plans a sustained nonviolent campaign until children prisons in America are closed.

The first protests will be supported by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) , the League of United Latin-American Citizens (LULAC), and Rev. Peter Johnson.
In the second week of the campaign, protesters will add the offices of Congresswoman Eddie Bernice-Johnson while continuing outside Sessions’ office.

“We’ll grow from two offices to four the week after that,” said Isenberg by telephone Thursday night.

Each demonstration will have a similar style. Four people with signs saying “Free the Children Now” will stand silently with heads down while a fifth person answers questions and distributes literature.

“We’re working carefully on the body language so that we will send the exact same message at each demonstration,” explained Isenberg. Eventually the coalition wants to include all Congressional and Senatorial offices in Texas.

Free the Children Now also will plan to target presidential candidates who tour Texas in search of votes.

“We welcome any tips about when candidates are scheduled to come to Texas,” said Isenberg who can be reached via email at Hamtx44@aol.com

Further down the road, the coalition to Free the Children Now anticipates that the issue of child prisons will be added to the agenda for immigrant-rights mega marches being planned for April.

And when longtime civil rights activist Andrew Young recovers from recent health difficulties, the coalition to Free the Children Now expects to have his support in person.

“Andy Young called me to offer his complete support,” said Isenberg, adding that he coalition to Free the Children Now is gathering a committee of former civil rights advisors.–gm

Despite warnings that a bond hearing could result in weeks or months of extended detention for Salaheddin Ibrahim, it appears that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities may release him to family and friends on Friday.

But the optimism of observers Thursday has been mixed with fears of what could change over night.
On Thursday, family and friends raised money for the $30,000 bond “very quickly,” said Ahmad Ibrahim, Salaheddin’s brother. And they expected to have him home Thursday night. But paperwork was not completed in time to meet a deadline at the end of the business day in Dallas–a business day that ended sooner than expected.

Some fear had been expressed by the family lawyer and others that once a bond had been set the government would be able to hold Salaheddin over while they filed appeals. But that fear subsided when Judge James Nugent–as reported in the Dallas Morning News–seemed not impressed by alarmist attempts on the part of ICE prosecutors to portray Salaheddin as a risk.

The decisive question is whether the government’s failure to appeal the bond on Thursday will last through Friday morning, when the family returns to complete the bonding process.

Thursday’s tip about imminent release was apparently based on the fact that ICE was not appealing the bond and the anticipation that the family could complete the bonding process before close of business.

One ominous note that plays to the pessimist side is that ICE apparently closed early for bonding business on Thursday at 3pm.