Mid-Summer Immigration Notes … part one

We never envisioned a time when immigration would be in the news on a 24/7 basis. In one form or the other, it’s immigration this, immigration that, immigration now, immigration next week, immigration next month, next year, next election, every moment of every day.
Sometimes, it’s just about impossible to keep up …. sometimes the tone, tenor, subject matter, and vociferousness are such that no one would really want to slog through it all day after day.  But we must, at this point it would be almost negligent for us to stop monitoring the media – social and traditional – and passing it on.

Here’s a few things that have popped up over the last few weeks that we haven’t had time to post on Facebook or LinkedIn:

Even Turner Classic Movies seems to have jumped into the immigration fray – it can’t be a coincidence that they are airing Border Incident this month.  Border Incident is a film noir from 1949, directed by Nicholas Ray, the acclaimed director of They Live by Night, a film noir classic. Border Incident is on TCM all month, that includes on-demand, so if you get a chance it’s worth a view.
The film claims it is based on a true story, though I get the feeling that that meant as much in 1949 as it does today. That aside, the first thing that strikes the viewer is the first scene – a conference room filled with federal law enforcement officers from Mexico and the United States. Everybody, by the way, speak English almost perfectly, there are no caricatures among  the Mexicans, they are smart and professional – as are the Americans.

They are meeting to discuss the serious problem of illegal immigrants. But here’s the thing, it’s not to stop them from entering the U.S., but to help them -they are being preyed on by ‘brokers’ who, in effect, sell them to farms as cheap labor. The farmers think they’re legal, the brokers take most of their earnings, then rob them when they are told to go home or be deported.

Ricardo Montalban stars, (depending on one’s viewpoint he is either famous as Kahn or the owner of Fantasy Island) himself an immigrant to the U.S., born in Mexico City. It’s a good movie, but the shots, especially at night, are spectacular.

Two things that really stand out: the border is defined by signs on the road and a thin barbed-wire fence through the desert. That’s it. And, the only bad guys are the people exploiting the Mexicans.

All in all it’s refreshing.

News over the weekend from our Facebook page friend Maria Sacchetti that deportations are up over Trump’s first six months and :

Federal immigration courts ordered 57,069 people to leave the United States in the first six months of the Trump administration, up nearly 31 percent over the same period last year, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Additionally, 16,058 people prevailed in their immigration cases, or had them closed, allowing them to stay in the United States, according to the data, which tallied orders issued from Feb. 1 to July 31. That total marked a 20.7 percent drop from the 20,255 immigrants who prevailed at the same time last year.

 What do we take from this? Simply, the rule of law is still the rule of law. It works. One can still win a court case. What does it take to win? Talk to us and, no matter what you do follow every law right down to not jaywalking.