Berry Hill cop testified his dashboard camera wasn't working during arrest of pregnant Mexican woman, but it was

The Tennessean obtained the dashboard cam that taped the stop and arrest of a Mexican woman in Berry Hill July 2008 in a Freedom of Information request. Part of the audio also appears to have been tampered with, according to the report.

This case gained notoriety when the woman went into labor while shackled in jail. I wonder if the missing audio would have included mention of the shackles? Immigration laws are out of control.

Sheriff Daron Hall once again embroiled in charges of cavorting with prejudice

Aunt B has deeply-held concerns about the company the Sheriff's Office is seeking to keep with news of his latest anti-immigration faux pas concerning the controversial Center for Immigration Studies:

This marks the second time that Hall was scheduled to speak to white supremacist groups (the first being his lovely trip to the CCC) ....

But let’s bear in mind that, if he had not been called on it, our sheriff was ready to fly to Washington D.C. and speak about 287(g) on a panel in which he was the only non-CIS participant (Steven Camarota, Director of Research, Center for Immigration Studies, and Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for Immigration Studies, were scheduled to be the other two panelists and Mark Krikorian, Executive Director, Center for Immigration Studies was to moderate). His participation gave that panel legitimacy and a hook that would have brought the media. And he would have been sitting there talking about the wonders of 287(g) while Camarota and Vaughan were prepared to speak about how studies may show that there’s less criminal behavior among immigrants than there is the general population, but really, immigrants (of all stripes) “have relatively high rates of criminality.” (Quote directly from the press release touting Hall’s appearance.) ....

That old stereotype set off NO warning bells in the Sheriff’s office?

This is exactly how CIS is designed to work–to mainstream noxious ideas.

Council approves continuance of anti-family, pro-criminal, racial-profiling Sheriff's Office program

And 34 council members provide vote coverage for 3 others to symbolically oppose the resolution. I say "symbolically," because I'm pretty sure that the opponents would vote "yea" if their votes had actually been the determining ones to accept free money from the federal government to fund the Sheriff's Office.

Immigrants Losing Hope in Obama?

Has change come? Not according to change.org's immigration blog:

With President Obama breaking his promises to immigrant families and reform unlikely to come by till 2010, right now he is scores a big fat zero on the pro-migrant scale.

Due process violations, terrorizing home and workplace raids and malicious immigration enforcement programs continue under the Obama Administration. Janet Napolitano has promised better detention practices, proposing housing immigrant detainees in hotels, but reading between the lines, this is an invitation for further privatization of the detention industry, thereby increasing the archipelago of detention.

Modern-day cowboys like Sheriff Joe Arpaio should have their wings clipped but instead, the Department of Homeland Security is signing new 287(g) agreements to outsource immigration authority to local law enforcement even after detailed abuses of the program by several counties. Additionally, the White House is extending Secure Communities, which would likely ensnare immigrants on minor charges while increasing distrust in local law enforcement.

The Causes of Youth Gang Culture

Sarah Garland maintains that the roots of recent gang violence can be located in the income disparity and ethnic segregation of the last twenty years, not in immigration:

The immigrants were following jobs, which proliferated in the booming economy of the 1990s, and their presence helped to buoy the country's prosperity. They came to work, and the United States needed their labor. Some took jobs in manufacturing and agricultural processing in new growth centers like North Carolina and Tennessee. Others were drawn to construction work as the housing industry exploded. Many had plans to stay, and those who came legally applied to become U.S. citizens in large numbers.

Although the country was enjoying an economic boom, it was reaching levels of income inequality not seen since the first half of the 20th century. Communities and schools across the country, especially suburban ones, were becoming more racially segregated, and the opportunities the immigrants came searching for were increasingly elusive. The first generation of Hispanic immigrants on Long Island, many with battle scars from wars back home, found their presence was not just unwelcome but infuriating to many of their new neighbors -- some of whom aggressively campaigned to send them back home. Others reacted violently. Nationally, hate crimes against Hispanics rose 40 percent between 2003 and 2007. Immigrants on Long Island were victims of regular attacks that included the 2003 firebombing of a Mexican family's house and the 2008 fatal beating of an Ecuadorian man. The immigrants' children attended schools and played in streets as segregated as the Jim Crow South, and the racial achievement gap between the races, particularly for Hispanic students, was widening.

Detainees Start Hunger Strike to Draw Attention to ICE Mistreatment

50-100 detainees held for months and years by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) start a hunger strike at the ICE center near Brownsville, Texas. They intend to leverage a meeting with Homeland Security officials to discuss charges of lengthy detentions without any judicial review.

I wonder how many immigrants Nashville Sheriff Daron Hall processed for removal to ICE detention centers vs. to deportation to their country of origin? As best I can tell, the Sheriff keeps tabs on how many leave and come back, but the reports I've read do not indicate where processed immigrants land after they leave Nashville. If they are being held at detention centers, then the self-congratulation the Sheriff is giving his program is premature. Detained immigrants are in limbo without the freedom to stay or return.

English Embedded is Better Solution than English Only

New Mexico educators are killing two birds with one stone by effectively pairing English education with workforce training.

Nashville's Ethnic Media Leading and Limping

New American Media reports that Nashville's ethnic media is on the frontlines of the immigration battle and that the economic downturn has wounded them.

Without 287(g), What Does the Sheriff Have?

The Tennessean has Daron Hall's response to a GAO report on ICE failures at stopping violent criminals in the immigrant community.

Here's part of what the GAO concludes:

Taken together, the lack of internal controls makes it difficult for ICE to ensure that the program is operating as intended. ICE and participating agencies used program resources mainly for personnel, training, and equipment, and participating agencies reported activities and benefits, such as a reduction in crime and the removal of repeat offenders. However, officials from more than half of the 29 state and local law enforcement agencies we reviewed reported concerns members of their communities expressed about the use of 287(g) authority for minor violations [like speeding] and/or about racial profiling.

Nice, ICE. Nice.

From 2003 to 2008 the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in exchange for congressional funding claimed to be raiding and rounding up aliens who posed the greatest crime risk to local communities. However, 73% of those arrested, held in gulags, and deported were of no criminal threat whatsoever. Your tax dollars at work insuring that the real criminals still stalk the streets.

Daron Hall Visits CCC in November & the Media Finds It Out Two Months Later

Metro Sheriff and self-proclaimed Democrat Daron Hall met with the Middle Tennessee chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens at a Nashville cafeteria just before Thanksgiving, he says because he thought they were a Republican group. Never mind what that says about the character of Republicans or the intelligence of Democrats. The fact that Sheriff Hall has charge over incarcerated immigrants and would egregiously fail to be circumspect about his appearances, to know his audiences (or have people around him who do), but then make excuses for his poor judgment is unacceptable.

If this guy is a Democrat, he is not the kind of Democrat progressives should support. Sheriff Hall reportedly surrounds himself with yes-men and lackeys. His support group, "Friends of Daron Hall" once made a rather curious donation of $500 to "Friends of Charlie Tygard," a mere 3 months after CM Tygard sponsored a motion to move $250,000 tabbed by former Mayor Bill Purcell for the Arts Commission into the Sheriff's budget, even though the Sheriff claimed afterwards that he had not asked the Council for any extra money. I could not identify any other prominent Democrats who donated to Tygard during the last election cycle. However, I would like to note that Daron Hall did join a list that included ultra-conservative English Only donor Lee Beaman and his wife Kelley, each of whom gave Tygard $1000 in 2007. In 2006, Sheriff Hall had some problems with his Christmas cards. And on his watch a pregnant woman was shackled while she was delivering.

But as bad as Sheriff Hall may be, media coverage of Hall's attendance at the CofCC event was worse. How did it take 2 months and the initial discovery by a watchdog group for the local media to catch this one? What were they doing back in November?  Oh yeah, I forgot.  They were fighting the battle over closure of after hours bars and giving Eric Crafton as much free, uncritical publicity as he wanted.  

Even as reporters write that all Hall had to do was Google CofCC, they fail to acknowledge that they were remiss themselves--with all of their paid professional time to research and probe--in unearthing information about Hall's visit sooner. The press should also be more circumspect before giving politicians directions on web searches. They also missed a story that Enclave broke last September about the Williamson County GOP blaming all Nashville's Kurdish citizens for local crime. You know how I found that one? Clicking on the Williamson County GOP website. That took quite a few well-placed sources. The pattern emerging here is that the media is late on reports where political leaders are involved with derogatory attitudes towards immigrants.

UPDATE:  Post Politics blog says Hall should have known.

UPDATE:  The anonymous "news team" at CofCC.org accuses the Tennessean of "attacking" CoCC with "leftist propaganda."

UPDATE:  ACK frames the scope of the problem that was missed by the media: "one of the chief law enforcement officers in the County spoke before the modern incarnation of the Citizens Councils of the 50s and 60s." The White Citizens Councils of that era were the iced tea and finger foods partners of the KKK and other lynching groups.  How could the media have missed this story for so long?

Senate Republicans Aim to Deny Certain Children Health Insurance

If you've ever seen a child bullied on a playground because of the actions of her parents, you know that the taunts are malicious for no other reason than the kid had nothing to do her parents' choices. The stigma was misplaced on an innocent person.

By that same logic, Senate Republicans in DC are bullies playing on current right-wing anti-immigrant anger to bar the children of immigrants from SCHIP and thus deny them health insurance that other kids get.  These children didn't choose to be born to illegal immigrants and they probably had little to do with their parents immigration choices. Why should the kids be punished? Why do Republicans hold a certain class of innocent children in such low regard?

Ease of Immigration a Matter of Wealth?

The number of Mexicans coming to the U.S. has nearly doubled in the last 10 years. But don't let those old tapes play: nearly half are specialists or professionals, and many come legally through special work visas. Mexico is experiencing a brain drain to the U.S.

CNN: Mexican-America Legal Defense Fund Monitoring English Only Referendum Results

If English Only wins today, you better get your wallets out and prepare to fork over local tax dollars to deal with the legal fallout:

Elise Shore, southeast director of the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said her regional office in Atlanta, Georgia, was monitoring the Nashville balloting.

"We just elected our first black president. There are the forces of globalization and conducting business around the world ... in the face of this, we see these measures?" Shore asked.

The proposal "sends a strong message ... this is a negative message. In fact, it invites discrimination," she said.

How Mainstream Media Memes Become Fact

One week ago, City Paper reporter Nate Rau effectively shielded Eric Crafton from criticism by referring to him as "accessible" to an acquiescing local media. This morning Rau once again seems to be trying to keep Crafton away from any criticism of the local movement he has created:

Crafton has consistently said that English Only is simply about whether Metro business should be conducted in one language. But only last month The City Paper interviewed some of the Davidson County residents who signed his petition drive and streamlining Metro business was not the reason they supported the charter amendment proposal — instead their comments touched on the issue of illegal immigration.

Crafton has not been consistent on this issue. Since he birthed English Only in 2006, he has both tried to tie English Only to and tried to separate English Only from immigration issues. His co-leader in this effort, Jon Crisp, has consistently tied English Only to immigration in the public comments from him that I've read. If there is an anti-immigrant rabble around English Only, Eric Crafton has been at least as much a part of it as he has of any nobler purpose that Nate Rau attributes to him. Why does the City Paper continue to be so phobic and protective in writing on Eric Crafton?

AP Interviews Metro Health, Kurdish Immigrant on English Only

In an Associated Press report just out, a Metro Health Department official wonders whether their inspectors will be forced to tell non-English-speaking property owners that their grass is too high in English only.

And a poignant interview with a Kurdish Nashvillian demonstrates just how unhelpful English Only would be for non-English speakers:

Remziya Suleyman, 24, a Kurdish refugee from Zaxo, Iraq, moved to Nashville in 1992 with her family. It took her three years to learn English in Nashville public schools.

Her 43-year-old mother, however, still struggles.

"She doesn't know how to read and write English even after being here for 17 years because, like many other refugees, she had to work three jobs at one point for the family to survive," Suleyman said.

Eric Crafton has never shown that immigrants are not learning English fast enough to warrant a law that would outlaw any Metro attempt to help them out from time to time. The comments of Ms. Suleyman indicates that the net effect of a New English Only law would be indifferent and inhumane.

World Court Unanimously Rules Texas Execution Violation of International Law

ICJ rules that by not allowing diplomatic review of a Mexican national's pending execution by Mexican officials, the U.S. violated international law. The ICJ's rulings are not binding on the U.S. unless and until Congress passes pending legislation to make them so. The ICJ includes one U.S. judge.

English Only Opponents Start Website

The group's new website coordinates volunteers and takes contributions to fight against the English Only referendum (early voting starts Jan. 2). It also links to local faith leaders who are preaching and exhorting against English Only.

Their facebook page includes a link to register your commitment to go to the polls and vote against English Only.

UPDATE:  John Lamb maintains in the comments that the registration is not associated with Nashville for All of Us.  However, I did find the page linked to a facebook page called "Nashville For All of Us" run by someone named "Cynthia."

Kay Brooks Primes the Pump of Hatred

She's done it.  She's discovered the missing link between Communists and Unitarian-Universalists: the Nashville Peace and Justice Center. Would the world be a better place with even fewer Unitarians around to "stand on the side of love" against hatred? If enough conservatives prime that pump, there probably will be fewer around.

But putting mainline liberal churches aside (especially since there was no need for Kay Brooks to drag them into her harangue against NPJC's intention to defeat English Only), let's assume that NPJC associates with Communists for the sake of argument.  Is associating with a party that fought for equal rights for women and ethnic minorities during times in the early 20th Century when it was unpopular to do so worse than Eric Crafton's association with the national organization of John Tanton, who has flirted with segregationism, anti-semitism, and white nationalism? It's a false choice, given that lots of different people along the political spectrum constitute the local opposition to English Only, but I would rather associate with people who fight for equal rights than I would with those who fight exclusively for the rights of WASPs.

UPDATE: Christian Grantham is keeping tabs on responses to the Brooksian coldness toward UUs (and the absence of "Friendliness" toward Quakers? Heh.) And he has the quote of the day so far on Twitter:

Frankly, I don't know why Eric Crafton didn't try to make the King James version of English Nashville's official language.

Indeed, what he is pushing is just as arbitrary and capricious.

Success in Stopping Immigrant Trafficking includes Multilingualism

The plan for stopping human trafficking of immigrants is not working in Las Vegas, even as the Bush Administration has given a million dollars in two years to the police and a faith-based non-profit to understand trafficking and to locate immigrant slaves. Despite the positive incentive of "T" visas to live in the US, only 1,300 such visas have been issued to immigrants nationwide.

Those close to the Vegas project maintain that federal money is poorly spent on a task force model instead of on the skills of people who speak the immigrants' languages and understand immigrant communities.

That laws are pursued to prohibit the speaking of any language other than English in government services in a time when victims of human trafficking are not being protected because of failure of local governments to mobilize federal resources toward immigrant languages is disturbing. In such a context, English Only laws are not only counterintuitive, but they have the potential for great harm and neglect.

The Bush Administration's hands-off approach (and perhaps its uncritical faith in faith-based organizations) hasn't helped insure the money was spent wisely.  And finally, I wonder how much recent ICE raids (including one that may have discouraged hurricane evacuation) might dampen immigrant slaves' willingness to risk applying for a protective visa lest it lead to an ICE sting.