Operation Endgame

Department of Homeland Security is busy trying to implement a ten year plan, called Operation Endgame, to apprehend and deport all undocumented aliens by 2012. In essence, they have every right to deport undocumented aliens, however not at the cost of denying due process rights (read: human rights) to them and their children. People from immigrant communities (men, women, children, old people) are being rounded up, and this isn't just the South Americans. We're talking all 'foreign looking' people here.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is the agency set up to implement immigration law, is raiding workplaces, homes, even stopping people on streets to check their immigration status. In such a mass movement of arresting and deporting people, human rights are bound to be trampled upon, and they already have been. Does this mean if I have fair skin and light hair I will not be bothered by ICE? Granted the system always had a (very slight) bias against non-whites. But it has not been this blatant since the Civil Rights Movement and Brown v. Board of Education. Discrimination in any form is unacceptable, but when it is flaunted under the banner of law, even the law seems repulsive, and this undermines the whole system of justice.

Discrimination against people of color cannot be tolerated. Programs by ICE such as the 287(g) program which gives local and state police the power to stop people and check their immigration status are a way for people to make (more) judgments based on skin color. It is time everyone, irrespective of nationality, religion and race got together to protest these travesties of justice.

The first step is to gain knowledge about what is going on with the law- whether it is directly 'related' to you or not.At the end of the day, we are all co-existing and interdependent. By distancing ourselves from 'others' we are allowing the justice system to deteriorate, and who knows when that is going to come and bite us.

The second step is to spread knowledge and make our voices heard so anti-immigration groups and so-called nativists know that we are also loud and know our ish.
Only by helping others can we help ourselves.

Visit the FIRM website (http://fairimmigration.org) for more information.