July 23, 2014 – Arsenal For Democracy 93

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Topics: Big Ideas in U.S. Reform — Is health care a human right? Central American unaccompanied children. People: Bill, Nate, Greg. Produced: July 20, 2014.

Discussion Points:

– Is health care a fundamental human right? Why or why not?
– What should be done about the wave of unaccompanied children arriving in the United States from Central America without permission?

Part 1 – Health care:
Part 1 – Health care – AFD 92
Part 2 – Unaccompanied children:
Part 2 – Unaccompanied children – AFD 93

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Related links

AFD: Central American toddlers are existential threat to USA, say militias
AFD: Unaccompanied minors forced to defend themselves in court

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Unaccompanied minors forced to defend themselves in court

America is a special place where we make 6-year-olds who can’t speak English and don’t understand the concept of international borders represent themselves in court because the right to a court-appointed attorney does not include immigration court and they were abandoned by smugglers without adult accompaniment in the country.

Juan David Gonzalez was 6 years old. He was in the court, which would decide whether to expel him from the country, without a parent — and also without a lawyer.
[…]
The young people, mostly from Mexico and Central America, ride to the border on the roofs of freight trains or the backs of buses. They cross the Rio Grande on inner tubes, or hike for days through extremes of heat and chill in Arizona deserts. The smallest children, like Juan, are most often brought by smugglers.

The youths pose troubling difficulties for American immigration courts. Unlike in criminal or family courts, in immigration court there is no right to a lawyer paid by the government for people who cannot afford one. And immigration law contains few protections specifically for minors. So even a child as young as Juan has to go before an immigration judge — confronting a prosecutor and trying to fight deportation — without the help of a lawyer, if one is not privately provided.

So far this year, more than 11,000 unaccompanied minors have been placed in deportation proceedings, nearly double last year’s numbers.
[…]
Judge Achtsam postponed Juan’s proceedings, but he warned the boy and other minors in the courtroom.

“If you do not have a lawyer,” the judge said, “you need to be ready to speak for yourselves at your next hearing.”

Juan left holding the social worker’s hand, grinning proudly when she told him he had done well. But his case was just beginning. Most likely it would end with a final order for his deportation.

Central American toddlers are existential threat to USA, say militias

Red areas denote the degree of presence of MS-13 (Credit: Gabagool - Wikimedia)

Red areas denote the degree of presence of MS-13 (Credit: Gabagool – Wikimedia)

In a new fusion of irrational hatreds, American “militia movement” members are now rushing with all their guns to the U.S. border to fend off a flood of unaccompanied young children from Central America, whom they believe to be members of MS-13.

In addition to the orchestrated hate rallies in Murrieta CA capturing national headlines as screaming fanatics force U.S. government buses full of the undocumented children to divert, a militia leader has called for members “To Go Armed” to the border in Texas.

The main purported concern for the Texas operation is the rising tide of Central American immigrants they believe are tied to the group the FBI once called “America’s most dangerous gang”, MS-13:

A spokeswoman for the group, Denice Freeman, told the Brownsville Herald the operation is a call for civilian militia members to guard private property in Laredo and other parts of Texas where owners feel threatened by “drug cartels and from gangs, particularly MS-13 gangs,” referring to a Salvadoran street gang with Los Angeles roots that now has a presence in 46 states.

 
Interesting. What’s the typical profile of the recent wave of undocumented Central American immigrants?

Questioned by the agents, a boy from Honduras said his name was Alejandro and that he was 8 years old.

“Who are you with?” asked Raul L. Ortiz, deputy chief of the Border Patrol for the Rio Grande Valley, speaking in Spanish.

“By myself,” Alejandro said, looking up at the man in the olive uniform and pulling a birth certificate, carefully folded, from his jeans — the only item he carried.

“Where are your parents, Alex?” Chief Ortiz asked, using a nickname to put the boy at ease. “In San Antonio,” he said.

But the child had no address for his family in the Texas city 250 miles to the north, or for an aunt in Maryland, which he thought was just as close. The agents gave him water and the boy smiled gratefully…

 
Look at these manly men playing dress up bringing assault weapons to fend off unaccompanied Central American children because MS-13.
militia-against-unaccompanied-minors

In a bit of mixed messaging, alternate proclamations have advised members to “avoid violence” while protecting local property from the roving gangs of Honduran 8-year-olds … and to use lethal force to stop people crossing the border unlawfully:

“This is not a ‘go-in-guns-blazing’ kind of thing,” Freeman said. “This will be handled with the utmost professionalism and security and safety for everyone involved.”

But in a YouTube video posted June 14, a man who identified himself as commander Chris Davis said militia members “need to go armed” and incited them to “start the next 1776 right there on the border” if they are confronted by local law enforcement and federal agents.

In the 21-minute video, the man also accused “illegal immigrants” of “invading” the country and said, “It is time that we start taking back our national sovereignty.”

“How?” the man asked. “You see an illegal. You point your gun right dead at him, right between the eyes, and say, ‘Get back across the border or you will be shot.’”

 
I believe this loophole of threatening lethal force while avoiding violence is known as the “Some People Aren’t People Doctrine.” Not violence if you believe the people you shot aren’t human. It’s very convenient for white supremacy.

It’s also a demonstration that they have no understanding of why most of the current wave of immigrants has been fleeing to the United States. Hint: they’re not trying to join MS-13 here; they’re trying to escape MS-13, which we exported there.

Many gang members living in the United States have been deported back to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.

To Americans, that may look like a problem solved. In reality though, it only adds to the already serious social problems in those countries.

The returning gang members bring back with them crack cocaine. Predictably, drug-related crimes are soon on a steep increase.

Those gang members deported from the United States enlarge the local groups and find easy recruits among the local disenfranchised youth. Today, most of the members are in their twenties, while their leaders are in the late 30s and 40s.

The gangs’ battles with the police for control of working-class neighborhoods involve in each case heavy-handed tactics by the police.

They also prove unproductive, since they unleash more random violence and terror.

 
Another short-sighted U.S. policy comes home to roost and the militia crowd decides to blame the desperate, foreign, ethnic minorities instead — as usual, but this time the targets are under 10 years old.

Oh and: Good plan about giving one single warning in English to Spanish-speaking children before you shoot them in the head.

“You see an illegal. You point your gun right dead at him, right between the eyes, and say, ‘Get back across the border or you will be shot.’”

Seems really compassionate and logical.

‘MURICA.