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Have you read Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham's "bi-partisan" framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform? Here's a taste:

Last week we met with President Obama to discuss our draft framework for action on immigration. We expressed our belief that America's security and economic well-being [1] depend on enacting sensible immigration policies.

The answer is simple: Americans overwhelmingly oppose illegal immigration [2] and support legal immigration. Throughout our history, immigrants have contributed to making this country more vibrant and economically dynamic. Once it is clear that in 20 years our nation will not again confront the specter of another 11 million people coming here illegally [3], Americans will embrace more welcoming immigration policies.

Our plan has four pillars [4]: requiring biometric Social Security cards [5] to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; fulfilling and strengthening our commitments on border security and interior enforcement [6]; creating a process for admitting temporary workers [7]; and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here [8].

Mindboggling is the only word that comes to mind. I have no words for what Frank Sharry, the Executive Director of America's Voice is lauding as a a positive step forward. Really Sharry? Having every single American hand over control of their identity and who they are "data-wise" to the government and some employer in the name of immigration reform is a step forward?

Let me breakdown that paragraph so you'll understand my outrage:

• America's security and economic well-being (1)
  border security and interior enforcement (6)
  The order of those two is absolutely telling. If the United States has failed to get a return in investment on the wars it has waged outside its borders, instead of dismantling the war machine, they're just bringing it back home in the guise of "national security". Expect to see the biggest congressional sullying of the US Constitution, the PATRIOT ACT and FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE SURVEILLANCE ACT pumped up on "homeland security" steroids.




• Americans overwhelmingly oppose illegal immigration (2)
  11 million people coming here illegally (3)
  The fact they are using this language instead of referring to undocumented (im)migrants is absolutely telling. I can expect this of Lindsay Graham but Chuck Schumer is despicable for pushing this narrative. Why? It strips migrants of due process. Do we really know if all undocumented immigrants are illegal? No. Yet there's Schumer pushing a nativist hate-speak that is made even worse by spreading the narrative of "hordes" invading our borders.

  The United States is a huge country: 3,794,101 square miles shared by an estimated 308,898,000 inhabitants. That means there's 81 people per square mile in the United States. If 13,000,000 undocumented migrants live in the United States, it means they constitute but 0.0420850896 of the overall population. To put it into the context of surface area, there's only 3.42637162 undocumented immigrants per square mile. That's hardly a number that would warrant the kind of enforcement hysteria Schumer and Graham want to turn into law.




• four pillars [4]:
  requiring biometric Social Security cards [5]
  border security and interior enforcement [6]
  process for admitting temporary workers [7]
  tough but fair path to legalization for those already here [8]
  This one really want to make me the most ill. "The Four Pillars" is how the Ri4A coalition has been selling itself: Civic Engagement, Policy & Advocacy, Field & Organizing and Communications. How does that imprint itself over the Schumer/Graham 4 pillars then?

  Is "Civic Engagement" translated into "tough but fair" invasion of privacy scrutiny from the part of Homeland Security that would basically destroy any legal concepts of the right to privacy for new and existing US citinzens? Is "Policy and Advocacy" translated into the pro-militaristic dog-whistle of "security and enforcement"? Is "Field Organizing" an euphemism for the indentured servitude 2.0 that's being pushed with the "temporary worker" status of low-skilled workers? Is "Communications" then the acceptance of biometric tracking of all US Americans via Social Security cards that will make the Total Information Awareness Program a reality?




I am going to stop here before I further enrage you for the weekend. Suffice it to say I will be spending most of my time sounding the alarm against anything coming from the unholy trinity of Schumer, Graham and the Reform Immigration For American coalition from now on.

After years of writing about legislation like the Patriot Act, Digital Copyright Millennium Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, Defense of Marriage Act, and every single provision enacted to kill Roe v. Wade this new proposed Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation looks to be be the nail in the coffin civil rights, the right to privacy and due process as we've known them since the Civil Rights Movement.

All of this, by the way, is going down in the guise of "better technology" used in the management of citizenship, security and enforcement. At not one point in my dealings with these pro-migrant organizations has there been anybody willing to talk about how they are going to stop the push for more surveillance of not just migrants but everybody within the US borders. This has been one of my most troubling personal experiences with the RI4A: every single time I ask how are they counteracting the use of immigration reform by the pro-surveillance faction of the government; every single time one or another RI4A executive downplays the potential use of this legislation in the "rendition by ID technology" of constitutional rights for all peoples within the US borders.

On that note, did you know promigrant organizations are getting ready to descend on Washington DC on Sunday for the March for America? The timing of this march with the release of the Schumer/Graham legislation is way more than coincidental: it looks to be cynically timed to look like these organizations are indeed endorsing the legislators' framework for further eroding of constitutional rights in the name of immigration reform.

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About author

Liza Sabater is the founding blogger and publisher of culturekitchen and Daily Gotham. She also a new media producer and social technologist with 10 years experience. You can reach her at blogdiva [at] culturekitchen.com or follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/blogdiva