The Issue of Immigration July 24, 2008
Posted by Reginald Johnson in Uncategorized.add a comment
The federal government is filling criminal immigration violation charges at an alarming and unprecedented rate this year. To chart this information Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) revealed this in a special report.
In June the study was released and it affirms there were 9,350 immigration prosecutions in March. That represents a 50 percent surge from the month before. All of this information is based on official records obtained by TRAC.
A year ago the increase was 73 percent. The independent, nonpartisan group attributes the rise to intensified federal policies under the so-called “Operation Streamline” initiative which launched as a pilot project in Del Rio, Texas, in December 2005.
There were 8,104 immigration convictions in March, representing a 24.4 percent increase from February. The vast majority of cases referred for prosecution, 99 percent, were charged by U.S. attorneys. The median sentence was about a month, the report indicates.
The Labor Council for Latin American Advancement notes that immigration violations are normally civil offenses prosecuted by immigration judges,adding that under Operation Streamline, the federal government has criminalized these offenses, barring immigrants from future legalization.
“Undocumented workers are a voiceless group of people who live in fear and today they are much more exploitable,” stated LCLAA president Milton Rosado. “The administration’s current policies and the criminalization of this group of people only exacerbate this situation. Immigrants are not criminals.” The report states the vast majority of the cases were prosecuted in southwest border districts.
In the Western District of Texas, for instance, prosecutions increased from 626 in January to 3,555 in March. All but 142 were in U.S.-Mexico border districts. The main charges brought against immigrants in March were for illegal re-entry, bringing in or harboring certain immigrants, entry at improper time or place, visa and document fraud, and misuse and conspiracy to commit offense or defraud the United States.
Other charges included fraudulent statements or entries, false personification as a U.S. citizen, false statement in application and use of passport, and forgery. The largest increase in prosecution from a year ago (96.2 percent) was for conspiracy to commit offense or defraud the United States.
Document falsification and related activities has seen the largest surge over the past five years (74.4 percent). The LCLAA said it is “extremely concerned about the implications that higher incarceration rates of immigrants will have on the overall Latino community and its image in the eyes of the American public.”
The organization maintained that criminalizing immigrants will strengthen the myth that ties immigrants to crime even if research has claimed that they tend to commit less crime than other groups.
Rosado attributed the large flow of immigrants to harmful economic policies that have affected workers throughout the hemisphere “causing dislocation and displacement.“
“We need to address the root causes of migration and understand that this is a regional problem that requires a combination of domestic policy as well as comprehensive, humane and commonsense international solutions,” he added.
Fannie & Freddie’s Expensive Habit July 24, 2008
Posted by Reginald Johnson in Africa, African-American, Business, Culture, Government, Housing-Market, Minority Issues, News, Reform.add a comment
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been able to survive the fires of the sluggish economy. Many people have ased the question: “How has these two organisations managed to steer clear of the fate of other mortage organisations?” Theey accomplished this by spending almost $200 million on lobbying.
These government-chartered companies have connections and can do some pretty sophisticated ‘aligning of words’ with their highly sophisticated lobbying operations. Also, you have to look at the image the American public [and the financial global community] would have if these organisations failed.
Fannie- and Freddie- have and deep pockets, and their friends do too.
They aren’t interested in political lines because they have Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign manager, Rick Davis and Democrat Barack Obama’s original vice presidential vetter, Jim Johnson helping their cause. They also have a load of other people helping these two guys. So either way the political pendulum swings, they will be in a good spot.
Fannie and Freddie have been doing some aggressive political maneuvering. This maneuvering has helped stave off increased regulation and preserve special benefits such as exemption from state and local income taxes and the ability to borrow at low rates.
A couple of weeks ago, their stock prices took a dive. Supporters of these government sanctioned entities extended their help and went to the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and, Congress.
This housing situation is not going to go away – the next president and administration will take on this headache.
Sen. McCain fundraisers have thrown at least 20 fundraising events on behalf of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. To date, at least $12.3 million in fees has been paid over the past nine years.
Political insiders Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., picked by McCain to vet his vice presidential nominees, and Jim Johnson, picked by Obama to perform the same function, once worked for the mortgage giants.
And for years, Rick Davis served as president of an advocacy group led by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that defended the two companies against increased regulation.
So far this election cycle, Freddie Mac’s political action committee and employees have contributed $555,567 to Senate and House candidates, and Fannie Mae’s PAC and employees have given more than $1.1 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
In total, the two companies have spent $170 million on lobbying over the past decade, according to the Center, although they have scaled back in recent years. Last year, they paid $14.1 million in lobbying fees, a significant decrease from a high of more than $26 million in 2004. The connections of both campaigns to the well-entrenched mortgage companies highlight the difficulties the candidates face in selling voters on an outsider message.
Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee almost half of the country’s $12 trillion in mortgage debt. Over the past few months, their shares of the housing market have grown as private companies curtailed their mortgage lending in the wake of massive subprime-related losses.
Critics have long argued that both Fannie and Freddie operated with too small a capital cushion to adequately offset financial risk. But the mortgage giants have consistently beaten back congressional efforts to increase oversight, even after a major accounting scandal in 2003 resulted in a $400 million fine for Fannie.
Fannie’s government relations operations dramatically expanded in the mid-1990s, when then-CEO Johnson recruited Washington A-listers Robert Zoellick, who served in the Reagan and Bush administrations; Lawrence M. Small, former secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; and William M. Daley, commerce secretary in the Clinton administration.