It's happening all over again

From NBC News:

Japanese-American groups blast the use of former internment camp as ICE detention center

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center at Fort Bliss in El Paso, which opened this past weekend, will be able to hold as many as 5,000 detainees upon its completion in the coming months, making it the largest federal detention center in U.S. history.

Japanese American advocates, however, say that the facility, which once imprisoned people considered “enemy aliens,” is a chilling reminder of a dark past.

“The use of national security rhetoric to justify mass incarceration today echoes the same logic that led to their forced removal and incarceration,” said Ann Burroughs, president and CEO of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles.

I hope you can read this very good Facebook post

Dear Non-Muslim Allies, by Sofia Ali-Khan

No one should have to feel this sort of anxiety in America 2015. Or anywhere, for that matter. We had a local Islamic centre sent a death threat via e-mail recently. In Philadelphia, someone desecrated a mosque with a severed pig's head. In my apartment complex, there are many Southern and Central Asian, Middle Eastern, and African immigrants. I'm sure there are Muslims among them. I embrace the diversity of my area. I make a point to say hello and make conversation. Why should I be threatened by the sight of a foreigner because of the actions of a relative few? I don't fear men of European descent just because statistically they are more likely to be mass shooters in our country. But put in the concept of the other, alien culture, and suddenly we're back to the years of trying to keep the Irish, the Eastern Europeans, the Armenians, and the Jews out of our country. That's wrong. The US was founded on the principle of immigrants seeking a better life in a new world. Unless you are completely of American Indian heritage, if you are American you are the result of immigration. So I just don't get the xenophobia I've been seeing. It's wrong. Completely and utterly.

Jon Stewart explains my disbelief

at the whole Super Bowl Coke ad controversy much better than I could:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

Please let's end the deportations of same-sex spouses

For some gay couples, fight goes on to marry — and stay in the US: For binational gay couples, New York's same-sex marriage law doesn't help

While many gay couples in New York tie the knot on Sunday, when same-sex marriage becomes legal in the state, Ashley Abraham-Hughes and her wife, Corinne, will be watching the festivities from the other side of the Atlantic.

That’s because since U.S. federal law still does not recognize same-sex marriage, and since Corinne is British, the couple was forced to move to Britain, where their union — they wed in Connecticut in 2009 — is legal.

“While I do still love the U.S. and I always will, I am very resentful of the fact that I was effectively forced to become an expat,” said Abraham-Hughes, a 27-year-old who grew up in Pittsford in western New York and now lives in Manchester. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, and I just think the thinking on this whole issue is completely wrong.”

The couple’s plight is one likely facing many of the estimated 36,000 binational gay couples in the U.S., where the foreign partner in the relationship can face deportation and a 10-year ban from returning to America if they don’t already have or find a legal way to stay in the country.

I wish them well on an uphill battle

The newly-weds fighting to stop deportation

Same-sex couples where one partner is not a US citizen say they fear the prospect of being forced to live apart. While gay marriage is permitted in a small number of US states, federal law prevents same-sex partners from sponsoring their spouse's visa and allowing them to stay in America.

"It was amazing. It was what I'd always imagined," says Joshua Vandiver, reflecting on the day he married his boyfriend Henry Velandia.

The couple, who met in Princeton, had been together for four years before they tied the knot in Connecticut this summer. But, unlike most newly-weds, the post-honeymoon glow is tinged with a feeling of fear about their future.

"I'm very scared that Henry could be torn away from me," says Mr Vandiver. "It's a very frightening thing."

Essentially they didn't believe him because his English is poor

but he was born in the United States. He just spent a lot of his childhood in Mexico. But considering he had several forms of legitimate identification, it's a shame that they pressured and deported him.

Wrongfully deported American home after 3 month fight: U.S. birth certificate wasn't enough to persuade border authorities

A Texas-born U.S. citizen who was detained, questioned and deported to Matamoros, Mexico, in the middle of the night has been allowed to re-enter the United States, ending a nearly three-month ordeal.

Luis Alberto Delgado, 19, was carrying his American birth certificate, Social Security card and Texas ID when he was pulled over in a routine traffic stop on June 17, according to Houston immigration lawyer Isaias Torres, who represented him in his legal battle for repatriation.

A South Texas sheriff’s deputy who apparently believed the documents were not authentic handed Delgado over to U.S. border agents. After eight hours of questioning, Torres said, Delgado felt pressured to sign a document agreeing to voluntary removal from the country and waiving his right to a lawyer. The Border Patrol then drove Delgado to Matamoros and left him, he said.

Granted, he did sign a document allowing them to deport him, but I'm not sure how much he understood about what was happening. At nowhere in the article did it mention whether he was given an interpreter. There are plenty of citizens out there who have broken English at best (and not just Spanish-speakers), and although that's a debate in and of itself, it's no reason to throw someone out of a country where he was born and had a completely legal right to be working and living.

A son died for our country; now his mother is in limbo

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

He was 25 years old when he died in Baghdad, in process of sponsoring his mother, who is from Peru, in becoming a permanent resident of this country. As far as I am concerned, she should be granted such status, and encouraged to be a citizen. Her son is buried here, having paid an awful price. Deporting her would be an insult to his memory. Most likely she will be granted permanent residency under a humanitarian provision. Still, the fact that she is now in limbo is a terrible thing. Our immigration system should allow immigrants whose immediate relatives have sacrificed themselves for our freedom to become legal residents.

On a related note, I checked on a story I'd blogged about before, of a Japanese woman who became pregnant by her Marine boyfriend right before he was deployed to Iraq, married him by proxy (a practice the military recognises as valid), only to lose him within a month as he was conducting a house-to-house search. Her son is an American citizen. She wants to raise him with her husband's family, to surround him with things related to his father. The family has been fighting to allow her to stay in Tennessee. A 1950s immigration law has been impeding their efforts. It does not recognise proxy marriages, and requires all marriages to be consummated. The immigration service is not considering it consummated despite their having a child together because they were not together after the actual marriage date. Now, although I think they continue to try to get her legal status here, she as of the beginning of this year she was returning to Okinawa. It's a very sad state when an American citizen must be sent to another country to be raised because his mother--who married his father in a ceremony recognised by both the US military and Japan--cannot stay. Our immigration system really needs to be reworked. Lots of illegal immigrants circumvent the system every day, but those who try to follow the rules come across roadblocks that are unnecessary and in some cases cruel.

Marine's wife, son will return to Japan despite legal efforts to stay

My best wishes to these two women, who have lost their loved ones, in their aim to reside in the US.

On the other hand, I think the government should throw the book at employers who hire illegal immigrants

Immigration raids Ohio chicken plant

One illegal immigrant on the payroll is an oversight, perhaps. Maybe the documents were convincing forgeries. But 160? That's ridiculous, and Koch Foods should be charged and fined at the very least--and some of their staff should be losing their jobs, too.

As long as such companies make it easy for illegal immigrants to work, they'll continue to come. If we enforced and obeyed the laws as they are written, a lot could be done for illegal immigration. I'm not against illegal immigrants as people. Of course they're trying to make their lives and the lives of their families better. But they don't need to do it illegally, and cutting off the payroll is the best way to prevent it, just like cutting off the supply of drugs makes more impact than arresting a small-time drug user. Obviously, you do both, but I'm just saying the impact is greater higher up the chain. Shutting down or otherwise punishing businesses that hire many illegal immigrants (often for substandard working conditions), makes a greater impact.

I don't think they should be thrown out of the country

Foreign-Born Widows Face Deportation

If a green card application is pending at the time of a US-born spouse's death, then the widow/er who is foreign-born is subject to deportation, even if there are children from the marriage who are US citizens. For that matter, if the application was approved but the spouse died before the marriage was two years old, it is subjected to deportation consideration on a case-by-case basis. The only exception is if the spouse was an active member of the US military.

It seems a shame to kick out a legal immigrant after she or he has already suffered great personal loss. In the cases presented in this story, one man died trying to save drowning children and was posthumously awarded one of the Coast Guard's highest honours, and two died in Iraq as military contractors, supporting the armed forces there. That their spouses are facing deportation because of their deaths is a slap in the face of their heroism.

It seems to me that maybe this crack in the sidewalk should be mended. In the meantime, if you're a couple that has a US citizen and a foreign national together, by all means do the paperwork for permanent residency as soon as it can be done...your future may depend upon it.

For more information about this, including the class action lawsuit that has been filed to try to change things, see Surviving Spouses Against Deportation.

One of my favourite songs...

terribly depressing yet moving. Quite a few of my own ancestors came from Ireland. I think this song captures the experiences of some of those immigrants and the ones left behind. The song was based on actual letters written from Ireland to the songwriter's great-grandfather.

'Kilkelly', sung by Robbie O'Connell with the Clancy Brothers

Another terribly depressing song I'll include here is 'Stretched on Your Grave'. I prefer the Dead Can Dance version rather than the Sinead O'Connor one. Here it is. What can I say--I'm both depressive and romantic. This particular recording has an annoying tendency for the volume to go down between verses early in the song, but it's the best I could find.

I've always thought it would be nice to play this at my memorial service. That or Kansas' 'Dust in the Wind'. What can I say, I'm not a 'Rock of Ages' kind of girl. And as long as I'm on morbid topics, let me just state publicly that 1) I want to be cremated and 2) do not want to be embalmed (I think it's just macabre) and 3) will haunt anyone who has me embalmed and buried. Enough said.

Tomorrow's post will be brighter, okay?