walk 1/week 2

The social scene I have chosen is that of the Federal Immigration system. I included this video above as visual research. Isabel Garcia is a friend of mine, in fact I grew up with her daughter across the street from the home in which she lives. For years she would talk to us about human and civil rights and we listened but we were young and society was less abusive toward immigration than it is today. It is amazing that she has become nationally and internationally known as an extremist... I say extreme is what I have witnessed by the American Government within the last four years... extreme is plastering signs downtown Tucson that say 'Boycott Mexico'. Extreme is the racism that these policies has fueled... extreme will be the consequences of all these mandates.

Currently I work as a legal defense secretary for a local attorney who is contracted into the Operation Streamline, a federally funded program which is pretty true to its name. I am unable to photograph within the 'special operations' court room or anywhere in the federal court house but I can describe some of what I saw and see on a daily basis.

Seventy 'illegals' are streamlined per day five days a week. That is not to say that only seventy cross per day, that number is simply the maximum number they can transport and process... the remaining number gets walked down to the border and crossed back. The seventy that begin the processing are taken directly to the federal court house from the pick up point. They are chained around the waist to their hands and ankles and are called up to the judge in groups of four or five creating a very haunting sound of clinking chains. The dehumanization that takes place inside this room is unbelievable. Many have been hiking for days, starved and dehydrated... taken directly to court with no shower or dignity. Old, young, men, women alike they all sit to be processed like animals. It seems in my experience these defense attorneys are there merely as interpreters as there is not much defending that can be done.

As a side note... these are not all the immigrants that get processed in the Federal Court per day this number is only those who go through the streamline process... there are many, hundreds more per day that fill up that building.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys alike are making a tremendous amount of money off of this process. Local conservatives want to complain about millions spent on medical services used by immigrants or the loss in jobs that they 'take' from us Americans, yet no one complains of the billions of dollars in tax monies we pay to house and process these 'criminals', and thats not counting the federal checks these attorneys receive for each client.

I'll be the first to say that many of the clients I deal with do have criminal histories but the majority of them have records of entry or re-entry which in the country is a felony punishable by incarceration. I ask is this working? Is this only hurting our country more, separating the knowledgeable from the easily swayed ignorant? It is shocking to hear what Americans opinions on this situation truly are, it seem they have forgotten how much of this country was built on the back on undocumented workers.