Borderlands travesty

All of us who work with migrants here in the borderlands around Tucson know about the latest travesty of federal justice. For decades, migrant workers who were caught crossing the border without papers were just deported. But now, in this year of nuttier-politics-than-usual, they are being prosecuted and jailed. Each day about 40 of the approximately 1,000 migrants caught in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector are hauled to the federal courthouse. Now, thanks to the Tucson Citizen's Billie Stanton (3/5/08), we have more details:

"The cattle call commences at 1 p.m. with the clink of shackles and the awkward shuffle of humiliated humans in handcuffs."

This pathetic circus, which the feds call Operation Streamline, is costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year. Just in Tucson, it costs $2.5 million for defense lawyers.

These dangerous criminals "wear the same tattered jeans and filthy shirts they had on many days ago in our desert. None is fat. All are thin. And some, like the mother with toothpick arms, are emaciated."

Stanton's article deserves national circulation. This daily show is supposed to frighten potential migrants in Mexico into staying home. But it will not. Desperation for survival always trumps bureaucracies. In the meantime, of course, the poor are shackled, and the war criminals in Washington continue to sip their champagne.
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To read Stanton's whole article, paste this URL into your browser:

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/frontpage/78649.php