Hollow Blog

ICE (“La Migra”) has very long lists of people to go after. But you don’t want to STAND OUT on this list. Being aggressive with ICE or getting in trouble with the local police is what will make you stand out.

Non-criminal undocumented immigrants: Heed this video’s advice on dealing with ICE – it is effective, and can buy you time until immigration reform finally (and necessarily) passes:

One exception to the techniques shown in this video regards the scene in which the family tells ICE to go away using reverse-racial slurs. You don’t want to aggravate ICE officers. Remember: You’re dealing with the Federal Government and they can come back with a warrant to enter your house. Officers must have a judge-signed warrant to enter your house. Unless you’re a hard-core criminal or a threat to the U.S., it is unlikely ICE will have the proper warrant.

It’s a fact that most immigrants (even undocumented) are much less likely to be trouble-makes (i.e., criminals) than Citizens. That said, keep yourself extra clean (i.e., stay out of trouble so local law enforcement agencies can’t hold you, and check your status).

ICE is an expensive program, and their very-long list of people to go after will not decrease significantly because new people are added to it every day. It’s a Catch-22 for the taxpayer (but job security for ICE and private prison contractors): aggressive enforcement will uncover more of the 12 to 20 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. This means more deportation hearings, more detention centers (jails), and transportation cost. None of this is cheap.

ICE’s tactics defy all economic logic, including the fact that cost-effective migrant labor drives the U.S.’s still-robust economy. It’s only a matter of time before the government realizes racism is way more expensive than immigration reform.

Remember, hard-working migrant, YOU are the unappreciated, often-scapegoatted economic backbone of the U.S. And this is why immigration reform is coming: the next Administration will likely correct what the Bush Administration lost  control of.

Friedrich Nietzsche said: “What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.” This profound quote is exemplified by Jews, Blacks and Japanese-Americans, now-powerful groups who were violently suppressed and discriminated against less than 70 years ago.

Despite the projections of Operation Endgame, which began in 2003, it is ignorant to believe that a couple of thousand Marlboro men — i.e., the ICE Nazis — will put a dent in the 12-million economic-refugee population. Based on their own cost estimates ICE/DHS must realize this. But they have to do their best to sell their agenda to the taxpayers, because 12 million immigrants to chase is money in the bank for their department – i.e., job security.

ICE’s unscrupulous tactics (night/early-morning house raids, workplace raids, drawn guns, jails, etc.) are their own UNDOING: their actions will simply force undocumented immigrants to go further “underground”, like many Jews did during WWII.

Undocumented immigrants are intelligent, resourceful HUMANS, including many from the same genetic stock as the pre-Columbian engineers and astronomers of Mexico and Mesoamerica. Wiki or Google “Pre-Columbian” and witness how sophisticated their ancestors were.

ICE tries to nab undocumented immigrants based on:

• some “intelligence” (e.g., last known address, neighborhood ethnicity, hotline tips)
• generic “metrics” (most likely time to be home/work)
• local-police turn-ins (e.g., from traffic tickets)
• psychology (deceit; threats and intimidation; sleep disruption)

But you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to beat a corrupt, unethical system. Indeed, knowledge gleaned from news reports (youtube-1, youtube-2 ), blogs and web sites, and word-of-mouth tips penetrate the undocumented community quickly, and effective risk-management is implemented.

Immigrants stay extra clean, drive safe cars safely, move to safe houses and sanctuaries, and work hard (while maintaining superb work ethics) to satisfy their employers. The science and math/stats is on their side, Penn & Teller are on their side,  God is on their side, the force is with them.

Meanwhile, ICE — and those who support their “cause” — will continue to drain the nation’s federal budget at unprecedented levels [NY Times, CNN, americanprogress.org]. Until the dam finally breaks:

A once-robust and vibrant economy will collapse and other nations will mock the now-dystopian country. A person in the EU, Japan, China or India may say: “The 2-trillion-dollar Iraq war, Abu Graib, Gitmo and now ICE … those U.S. fools bankrupted themselves because they couldn’t suppress primitive evolutionary psychologies of bloodlust and xenophobia.”

Contrary to popular myth, immigrants — illegal or legal — impose less costs on the U.S. health-care system than U.S. citizens.

Indeed a Feb. 2008 RAND Corporation study concluded:

Overall, immigrants to the United States use relatively few health services, primarily because they are generally healthier than their American-born counterparts, according to a November edition of the journal Health Affairs –- estimates that in the United States about $1.1 billion in federal, state and local government funds are spent annually on health care for undocumented immigrants aged 18 to 64. That amounts to an average of $11 in taxes for each U.S. household. In contrast, a total of $88 billion in government funds were spent on health care for all non-elderly adults in 2000.

And:

“Our findings show a relatively small amount of tax money is spent on health services provided to undocumented immigrants,” said James P. Smith, the RAND chair in Labor Market and Demographic Studies and an author of the report.

 Other noteworthy items:

“This suggests that the act of immigrating to the United States favors those who are generally healthier and may discourage those who have chronic health problems,” said study co-author Sood.

“But the largest factor [of significantly lower healthcare costs of immigrants -- legal or illegal] appears to be due to their being generally healthier than the native-born population.”

Bottom line:

The foreign-born (especially the undocumented) use disproportionately fewer medical services and contribute less to health care costs in relation to their population share (this means U.S. citizens), likely because of their better relative health and lack of health insurance.

No wonder the demand for illegal (undocumented) immigrants is high! They are healthier than citizens and the employer does not have to pay for health insurance. Even if undocumented workers did have health insurance, their healthier-than-US-citizens diet and lifestyles would still make them a better employment choice.

A timely and poignant article, “The Great Immigration Panic”, appeared in the June 03, 2008The
New York Times editorial section.

Some highlights:

An escalating campaign of raids in homes and workplaces has spread indiscriminate
terror among millions of people who pose no threat.

Immigrants in detention languish without lawyers and decent medical care even
when they are mortally ill. Lawmakers are struggling to impose standards and
oversight on a system deficient in both. Counties and towns with spare jail
cells are lining up for federal contracts as prosecutions fill the system to
bursting. Unbothered by the sight of blameless children in prison scrubs, the
government plans to build up to three new family detention centers. Police
all over are checking papers, empowered by politicians itching to enlist in
the federal crusade.

Perhaps even more noteworthy are the over-400 online Readers’ Comments for
this article. Here are some highlights:

The pious tone of the descendents of these immigrants [all Americans being
immigrants] is hypocritical. I live in Canada but [I] am an American Citizen.
Mostly proud of our nation except when xenophobia sets in.

My wife and I had a nightmare trying to go through the legal route of trying
to get her a [ U.S.] green card. They put us through hell even when she was
pregnant with our first baby, including sending her home, trying to ban her
for three years. We are a young couple, college educated, and with jobs.
The whole process left us with such a bad taste we decided to move to New
Zealand. […] The US has become so fearful that all common sense has been thrown
out the window. Life is just easier here [in New Zealand] and it could be in
the US. It’s not to late to turn things around [in the U.S.] … I almost cried
after going through the immigration system in the U.S. with my “wife”.
I love the US, but please let’s get our common sense back. Become the country
that once had amazing ideals.

Venal politicians use illegal immigration as they’ve used same sex marriage,
‘Willie Horton’s’, abortion, et al to divide and conquer. The whole conversation
with respect to illegal immigrants is phony to the point of nausea. If my family,
my children are starving in Mexico, I’ll gut chickens in the US if it’s the
last thing I do to try and keep them alive. Hypocracy, it’s what’s for dinner.

[Another Reader commented:] “Those who violate the law, who ignore the
rules and who have no grasp of the underlying precepts are NOT a benefit to
the nation.” [And here is another Reader's reply:] I guess that would
include former New York Gov. George Pataki’s mother. As he reports, she came
to this country completely illegally, using her sister’s passport (something
quite common, actually). She didn’t overstay a visa because she fell in love,
or fell ill, or was misadvised by a storefront immigration advice office in
her neighborhood. No. She deliberately violated the law from the get-go. [… Corrupt
governments and even citizens] are merely looking for scapegoats for economic
problems, rather than solutions?

If you want to understand why immigration is a problem, look to why businesses
who hire foreign workers without papers can do so without any risk of prosecution
and why the foreign citizens cannot find work and decent living conditions
in their own countries.

My wife had a Mexican passport, a bank account and a letter affirming that
she had no criminal record. We had her birth certificate, baptismal records
and, even, her school records back to grade school. To say the least we felt
ready and able to tackle the INS. It took us seven and a half years to obtain
her citizenship. We were treated brusquely and often rudely [by INS] ….

Stop blaming “big business” [for hiring illegal immigrants]; they
are only trying to keep prices low because YOU don’t want to pay more for
goods and services. YOU are the end user of immigrant labor. YOU are a hypocrite
and a moron. You are benefiting every day from the hard work and sacrifice
of immigrants. If you think that you, me, and our entire economy would not
be hugely affected if we forced them all to leave, you can’t even follow
your own logic to its obvious conclusion. The level of hypocrisy and ignorance
coming from the anti-immigrant movement is disgusting.

Immigration is necessary for the USA as it is for Europe and for any other
country with aging populations and the necessity to continue growing and modernizing.

“Every country has to secure its borders” — oft stated and accepted
without critical examination. Human experience suggests it just aint so.
The rush to secure the borders subsumes the assertion that the borders are
not secure. If true, and I suspect it is, it proves that securing the borders
is unnecessary. It proves that our country has grown from its humble origins
to its present position as economic and military collosus of the known world
with insecure borders. In fact, it may be those insecure borders which have
landed us at the top of the heap. Messing with them risks finding out the
answer.

Looking back through the lens of history, we will be remembered not just
for what we did — treating immigrants more harshly than we treat citizens
– as for what we didn’t do — finding a solution to the immigration problem.
[...] Rome fell because large groups of immigrant populations invaded and
established their own states within Roman territory. The longstanding practice
of assimilating immigrants was not enforced on these groups, and the Roman
state ran out of money and armies to deal with the new arrivals. [Good point
about money. ICE is spending huge amounts of taxpayer dollars on jails and
detention centers as well as transportation … and let’s not
forget the top-dollar Government wages of officers, agents, judges, and administrators.]

Will your local county Sheriff keep real criminals out of jails — just to make room for non-criminal or petty-criminal illegals — because they want the big money from ICE?

With help from U.S. hard-earned tax dollars, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is filling jails across the country with mostly non-criminal immigrants who have been torn away from their families, jobs and homes.

Tens of thousands of arrested immigrants are being held in county jails while they await court dates and eventual deportation.

The county governments are eager to receive immigrants into their jails because ICE (U.S. government) pays well. This is a double whammy for tax-payers who already pay local (city/state) tax as well as Federal income tax.

In conclusion, Americas Policy Program of the Center for International Policy notes…

Clearly the federal government has failed to create a sustainable immigration system. But involving local governments and police in immigration law enforcement and detention is not a solution. It just extends this failure to new levels of government.

The June 2, 2008 Washington Post article “Immigration Prosecutions Hit New High: Increased Use of Criminal Charges Strains System” further strengthens the argument that the U.S. Immigration service is dysfunctional and many of its new “policies” and practices are based on Administration politics, xenophobia, and other other undesirable characteristics.

As we noted earlier, these type of “policies” and practices hurt the U.S. in many different ways, including:

• deterring legal resources away from much-more-needed cases (see below)
• prison/jail overcrowding

Some highlights of the Washington Post article include:

 [Some] federal officials are more critical, warning that the focus on immigration is distorting the functions of law enforcement and the courts. Several Arizona officials noted that U.S. prosecutors there last year were so short on resources, they chose not to prosecute a number of marijuana seizures of less than 500 pounds, although they later revised the guideline to 20 pounds.

And…

“We’re concerned about the misdirection of resources,” said Heather Williams, first assistant to the federal public defender of Arizona. Each day her office’s lawyers spend on misdemeanor border-crossing cases, she said, “they’re not talking about a drug case, a sex crime, a murder, assault or any number of white-collar cases — and the same is obviously true of the prosecutors….This is taking on a life of its own,” she said.

And, finally, on the topic of civil liberties…

Williams also warned that the program tests the U.S. legal system’s promise of fairness to the accused. “If we as a U.S. citizen were placed in any other country on the planet, and had to resolve a case in a day that could result in being deported and having a criminal record, we would be outraged, and so would our government,” she said.

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) continues to pump tens of millions of dollars into:

• new detention (jail) facilities to house mostly non-criminal immigrants
• renting beds and cells from local (county) and state prisons/jails (which are overcrowded to begin with)

This means that in states like California — which have big issues with prison overcrowding (see below) — dangerous U.S. citizen criminals may end up walking free while non-criminal “illegals” take their spot.

Some Americans may say, “How can this be?!” or “This makes no sense!”

Answer:

• Politics
• Lust for power and control by current Bush Administration
• Fear-mongering
• Prejudice/Racism
• Xenophobia

…and all at the expense of public safety and public tax dollars .

But this is not entirely the U.S. Government’s doing. Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg said that Government is “of the people, by the people, for the people.” This means U.S. citizens are also largely responsible. They are either those citizens who support illogical government actions, or citizens who do not speak out against them (or vote accordingly).

So, citizens of California and other prison-overcrowded states… It’s up to you to.

Weigh this in the privacy of your thoughts:

Are my streets safer with prematurely-released criminals, or illegal-alien non-criminals?

Some Facts:

• Violating immigration laws is not a Federal or State crime. It is a civil violation for which immigrants go through a process to determine whether they have a right to stay in the United States. Immigrants detained during this process are in non-criminal custody. The average cost of detaining an immigrant in a jail cell is $95/day for each individual.

• Most illegal immigrants in detention (jails) are non-criminal.

• Illegal aliens with criminal records are pretty much a non-issue. Reason: they’re on top of ICE’s “most-wanted” list: they are agressively pursued and much-more-quickly captured than U.S. citizen criminals with similar offenses. This is due to the fact that ICE is much better funded than local (county) or state law-enforcement agencies.

• Dept of Homeland Security “buys” bed space from over 312 county and city prisons nationwide to hold the majority of those who are detained (over 57%). Immigrants detained in these local jails are mixed in with the local prison population who is serving time for real crimes. [Source: detentionwatchnetwork.org/aboutdetention]

California Prison Overcrowding references:

• Officials Seek More Time to Address Prison Overcrowding
• Level of Overcrowding in California State Prisons
• California to Address Prison Overcrowding With Giant Building Program
• Schwarzenegger Uses Executive Authority to Relieve Prison Overcrowding, Proclaims Emergency
  to Allow Inmate Transfer
• California’s Prisons in Crisis - High price of broken prisons - Tough sentencing creates
  overcrowding that endangers inmates, haunts taxpayers

ICE’s Huge Budget and New Detention/Jail Facilities:

• New, multi-million-dollar 1,000-bed Immigrant Detention Center in Virginia
• Some of ICE’s Budget FY 2007 is…
  • Custody Management (detention, jails, beds): $241 million
  • Fugitive Operations: $76 million
  • Transportation and Removal (transporting immigrants to/from jails and air-fare for deportation): $94.1 million
  • Total ICE in FY 2007: $4.73 billion

Dear U.S. Citizen:

You’ve been warned about where your tax dollars are going. Have you been listening?

Yup! America’s best news sources, like The Washington Post, have been reporting these unscrupulous practices for years…

Border Policy’s “Success” Strains Resources: “With roughly 1.6 million illegal immigrants in some stage of immigration proceedings [as of 2006], ICE holds more inmates a night than Clarion hotels have guests, operates nearly as many vehicles as Greyhound has buses and flies more people
each day than do many small U.S. airlines.” [source: washingtonpost.com]

Locking Up the Huddled Masses: “Immigration detention is big business. Many detention centers are operated by for-profit companies. The federal government pays the companies, which in turn often pay the counties. Since Texas has plenty of poor rural counties with cheap real estate, it’s not surprising that thousands of immigrants are detained here. But Texas isn’t alone. There are immigrant detention facilities nationwide, including county jails, holding thousands.” [source: newamericamedia.org]

By the way…

We at Hollow-Man.net do not believe prisons are the answer to most of the offenses for which our society currently incarcerates individuals. A combination of psycho-therapy, psychiatric counseling, pharmaceutical medication, and electronic tracking are much more effective … and much cheaper for the taxpayer.

Ultimately, a less-criminal society may be achieved by…

Making life less stressful and rewards more equitable for people. Doing so naturally reduces
cravings for things such as drugs/alcohol (a means of escaping stress) and associated crimes and violence.

Means to an end … That’s what immigrants are to certain politicians, the current Bush Administration and certain U.S. government agencies, and even certain U.S. citizens.

Question: What is the “end”?

Answer: The same as it has been for centuries: political power, wealth and “job security”.

The ICE-police officers who employ Constitution-violating methods — or violate basic human rights via deception, harassment or coercion — are simply henchmen doing the Government’s dirty-work. The Govt. boys/girls-at-the-top — i.e., the actual decision-makers — would never:

• admit  to defending policies or practices that “violate the Constitution”
• openly defend/back the actions of law-breaking “ICE-police Stormtroopers”
• issue search-and-seizure warrants, unless the alien was dangerous, felonious, a terrorist, etc.*

Immigration courts have turned a blind eye to illegal searches by frequently ruling that ICE can use illegally obtained evidence to deport non-criminal people.

Question: If we continue to allow the government to practice this way, how long before the government harasses U.S. citizens?

Answer: It has already begun. Here are just a few of many examples:

• Immigration Attorney Harassed by ICE at Home
• Lawsuit in NJ Against Illegal ICE Immigration Raids Across NJ

Do not let the government set-up creeping, totalitarian, Constitution-violating “regulations”. Contact Senators, Congress reps, and the White House directly and express your opinion.

*Immigrant search-and-seizure warrants should be issued on the same precedents as standard criminal warrants. Otherwise, such warrants are a waste of government resources and, hence, taxpayer dollars. There are over 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., and the vast majority are non-criminal. So…

Question: How can the U.S. Government justify spending billions of taxpayer dollars on expensive, FBI-like operations like ICE’s current National Fugitive Operations Program?

Answer: Because U.S. Citizens, through inaction, allowed this to happen. But it’s not too late!

We at Hollow-Man.net are a group of U.S. citizens and immigrant residents that are extremely concerned with ICE’s increasing reports of Constitution-violating actions. ICE is a  branch of the U.S. Government’s DHS.

Specifically, we are referring to countless reports, such as this and this, in which ICE officers use deceptive “techniques” to gain entrance into secure private residences — even those of U.S. Citizens. An example of this is intercom/buzzer-based outer security doors of apartment or group-residence complexes. Here, ICE officers may use outright deception — for example, claiming to be UPS or FedEx delivery — to gain access to the inside of a complex. W/o reasonable cause — such as gaining access to apprehend to a dangerous or felonious criminal — actions such as this are in total and complete violation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Setting Priorities…

Many of the “Fugitives” that ICE agressively pursues in its “National Fugitive Operations Program” are  non-criminal aliens who have overstayed their Visa, are asylum seekers, and other “illegal”  immigrants with no criminal records or soft criminal records. These individuals pose no credible threat to the United States. Going after them with the heavily-funded Fugitive Operations program is a shameful waste of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

The Government’s main objective should be to make the U.S. a safer nation for everyone. Therefore, why not use these same Government-police resources to combat and thwart crime in general — whether they are committed by illegal immigrants or U.S. citizens?

If USCIS/ICE feel their current tactics of pursuing all “illegals” or “fugitives” is justified (regardless of criminal record), then ICE leaders should either:

(a) propose and, then, get Congress/President to pass a law/Act that allows this type of action; or

(b) get a Federal-judge-issued warrant for every secure building or private-property-area ICE agents enter.

Bottom line: USCIS / ICE must have a Federal-judge issued warrant to enter a secure building.

Note: That the warrant-less entry, in linked example noted above, was to gain access to the home of a U.S. Citizen (an immigration lawyer). The ICE officer even stated, “I’m going to kick your door down.”

If U.S. Citizens  don’t act now, the Govt. will continue to creep-up Constitution-violating actions like this  — and we will come to ”accept” more and more removal of our civil liberties! 

Act now — and let the Govt. know you want your civil liberties protected … and your tax dollars better spent!

It is unsettling to learn that the U.S. Immigration service, including one of its leaders, Julie L. Myers, supports or takes part in actions like this…

From the NY Times [April 9, 2008]

The nation’s top immigration enforcement official [Julie L. Myers] ordered the destruction of photographs of an office Halloween party that showed a white agency employee dressed as a black detainee, according to a Congressional investigation whose report was released in April, 2008.

Julie L. Myers, the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ordered that the photos be removed from a digital camera in a “coordinated effort to conceal” her role in awarding one of the top costume prizes to the employee.

Ms. Myers, who was acting assistant secretary at the time, might have moved to cover up the events to avoid derailing her Senate confirmation.

Ms. Myers had been a judge at the Halloween contest. The staff member who won the “most original costume” prize wore a dreadlock wig, what looked like a prison jumpsuit and black face paint.

“I’m a Jamaican detainee from Krome — obviously, I’ve escaped,” the employee, referring to a detention center in Miami, announced to the judges, provoking laughter, according to the Congressional report.

Ms. Myers then posed for photographs with the employee — whose name was not released — smiling for the camera.

 Resources:

The Julie Myers fiasco: It’s not the racism. It’s the stupidity. [michellemalkin.com]

DHS Official Accused of Misleading [washingtonpost.com]