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Prediction: The same serial-monogamist and closet-case conservative moral screechers who accuse gays and divorced parents of ripping apart the American family will have nothing bad to say about the Bush Administration's actions in this case (h/t to Atrios and la bloguera) -- in fact, they will cheer it:
LOS ANGELES (AP) - An illegal immigrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year to avoid being separated from her U.S.-born son has been deported to Mexico, the church's pastor said.
Elvira Arellano became an activist and a national symbol for illegal immigrant parents as she defied her deportation order and spoke out from her religious sanctuary. She held a news conference last week to announce that she would finally leave the church to try to lobby U.S. lawmakers for change.
She had just spoken at rally Los Angeles rally when she was arrested Sunday outside Our Lady Queen of Angels church and deported, said the Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, where Arellano had been living.
"She has been deported. She is free and in Tijuana," said Coleman, who said he spoke to her on the phone. "She is in good spirits. She is ready to continue the struggle against the separation of families from the other side of the border."
Her 8-year-old son, Saul, is now living with Coleman's family. During a news conference in Los Angeles after Arellano's arrest, the boy hid behind the pastor's wife and wiped away tears.
I guess it's OK to rip families apart in some cases.
Cue the storm of right-wingers swarming the comments section with claims along the lines of "But these freeloaders swamp our emergency rooms! They're why health care costs so much!" even though that particular calumny has been quite thoroughly disproved.
Oh, yes: And the wingnuts won't have anything bad to say about this guy, either. What's a little hostage-taking among friends?
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‘allo?
There’s always room for ‘allo.
hola?
“Traditional Family Values” is another opposite-day phrase from the republicans. Along with “clean skies” etc.
TexBetsy @ 4
It was if they went out of their way to do that every time.
This is one of Lou Dobbs favorite outrages.
A bit of a contrast to the Elian Gonzales story?
Hi Phoenix Woman!
White House Acts to Limit Health Plan for Children
Only a little OT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08.....mp;emc=rss
White House Acts to Limit Health Plan for Children
“The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.”
More family values from our good friends at Bushco.
bmaz, i think you and i are reading the same sources.
My attitude is that most of this anti-Mexican thing has it’s roots in racism. And the Republicans, especially under Karl Rove are particularly adept at playing the race card. And in this coming election Rove will play his ethnic hate politics to the hilt.
and this is what lou dobbs has wrought…. repugs are the people bringing them into the country…and they hire them - they cant have it both ways….i’ll keep saying - repugs are rank HYPOCRITES with no conscience oh yeah they love god but not jesus christ
Wait a minute….W is the Presdinent, and Homeland Insecurity is his deal….
What hypocrisy…W was all about “comprehensive” immigration, and giving all the families of immigrants a chance…since they are already here and have children who are American citizens…
No, no, no…it is his henchmen that are arresting, detaining, and deporting the very people he attempted to appeal to.
Believe it. ICE and W, and Rove, and Chertoff…are not “friendly” allies of immigrants. They have established detention centers throughout the country, by giving contracts to Halliburton for example. The “Hutto” Detention Facility is in Texas, where W likes to pretend he is from.
Spit.
Republican family values and religion, GOP style. Lord help us.
Its OK to rip families apart, as long as they’re not White, apparently.
Bob in HI
Oklahoma kiddo @ 12
Well it’s getting to the point where playing whites off against “others” doesn’t get you a majority. That’s why they were playing for the Hispanic vote.
Rove really only knows a couple of tricks, and he’s overused them. Maybe in some states or local races he can still pull them, but not nationally.
Hurricane Dean is now Cat 5
Everybody, but everybody, knows that immigrants don’t really love their American children. How could they? They’re just poor immigrants working at low-wage jobs. Poor people don’t really love their families. Just ask any one of the “family values” crowd. Or Lou Dobbs.
I mean every parent qualifies their love for their children?
Don’t they?
Or is it just Republicans?
I think we all know that everytime a Rethug opens his/her mouth the words that come out are the opposite. “Family Values” means destruction, “Clean Skies” means more pollution, etc, etc, etc.
clio @ 19
Yup. And everybody knows a rich person can’t possibly feel anything for poor people, so that Edwards guy must be a complete phony. I mean, yech, poor people are just sooooo repulsive.
I tell my kid, every f*ckin’ year - you don’t root for the Patriots, you’re on your own! For some reason the little schmuck doesn’t believe me. Must be a bad parent.
I really don’t see where a family was ‘ripped apart’ here. Elvira could have sent her son to Mexico to live with relatives, perhaps with the unnamed father even, and then joined him when she eventually was deported. Being a convicted felon, she was never eligible for citizenship.
No law requires Saul to stay in the US.
dakine@20
hehehehehe you took the words from my mouth
PW,
None of the Dems are going to run on tearing apart families.
It’s one of those issues that tears at the heart but doesn’t get votes in a dark age.
In a dark age, what gets votes is me first.
That’s what we’re facing.
Lately it’s almost as if the Democrats are the party of intellectuals, women, gays, and minorities and the Republicans are the party of rednecks and terrified diabolical assholes.
Bashing immigrants is just racism, even though they (sometimes) claim that it isn’t. The Right Wingers are all over it because hatred of things they don’t understand is the only thing that riles up their base of morons.
Everythingseemssoneat @ 25
Nice!
GordonM @ 7
Not at all. The Republicans, you’ll recall, wanted to keep Elian from his father.
Ripping apart families is apparently okay in the eyes of the GOP, so long as they’re not white families.
GeorgeSimian @ 26
How do they act towards Canadian and Irish immigrants?
Everythingseemssoneat @ 25
Exactly right! (except for the “almost” part)
Why didn’t she take her son with her?
TexBetsy @ 18
I have lots of family in Houston. And they are thinking about this wind coming their way. Of course Houston is already saturated. Hope ya’ll don’t get hit.
TexBetsy @ 29
They don’t like them either, but as they’re white and speak English, they consider them a lesser evil. Some of them come from Irish backgrounds anyway, but they say that at some point the gate has to close and they got in already.
What are they going to rally around? Iraq?
Please forgive me for this totally off topic post but I get here to the blog so late in the evening I have to play catch up. Can I just say I think it’s a good thing that the repubs are going to use 9/11 and keep wanting to talk about it. I really think this country needs another good look at what exactly happened that day. I for one have been spending the last few weeks asking my repub friends and family if they have given a thought to what happened to wtc building #7 that day. I mean even they have to concur that that was strange if not, oh I don’t know, impossible. I say let’s talk about it and talk about it. Hell, let’s talk about it till the cows come home or the persons responsible go to jail. Sorry for the interruption and thanks for listening.
Califlander @ 28
True. If you stand on your head while reversing your immigration position, it all comes out consistent.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 32
In general this is where people evacuate TO. But my nephew is down in Harlingen with the guard and every single truck and bus in the state.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 32
The current storm track has it going almost due west and passing through central Mexico rather than moving northward into the Gulf of Mexico toward Texas.
Hugh @ 37
According to Alfred, they often hang a right turn when they hit Mexico. He’s worried about evacuating his dad if need be. Concerned about the wind speeds.
Darn it Betsy! You beat me to my question. Where are the stories about the Canadians being deported? Sure, we get the occasional one where he (usually) has dark skin and was originally from Pakistan, but I’ve been told there are an incredible number of Canadians here illegally. All they have to do to blend in is drop that one syllable at the end of each sentence, eh?
Sorry I’m late, everyone! Did everybody get their zeds?
Family values is code for Moral Values. The legislation of Moral Values imposes a brand of morality on all of us. Republican style morality excludes human rights for everyone - especially the rights of brown people.
Churches impose their morality on us too. But you can more readily leave a church. It is more diffficult to leave your country, but it can be done. It is an understatement to say that some churches have had some problems with hypocrisy and morality. The Republican Party is always hypocritical b/c they espouse christianity and claim a false moral high ground in order to pander for votes while they strip away our civil rights.
Gnome de Plume @ 39
Not to mention the huge number of undocumented Irish immigrants in the Boston area.
Colleen @ 34
You could also ask why fighter jets were not deployed when four airplanes made turns away from their destinations.
Phoenix Woman @ 40
Sorry I’m late, everyone! Did everybody get their zeds?
Zed’s dead, baby.
Gnome de Plume @ 39
A tad of a lilt that needs to change and the pronunciation of the word “dollar”. Then they’re good to go!
bmaz @ 10
Bmaz and TexBetsy:
There is much more to this than a single slap: Medicare just announced (also on Friday) that it plans to no longer pay for healthcare as a result of some types of medical errors. The insurance industry - APIC in particular - is licking its chops in anticipation of being able to get away with this, as well. What that means is not that care will become any safer. It means that hospitals, insurers and physicians will now have powerful incentives to blame the patient as the cause of complications. It means that the insurance industry will surely deny more claims and shift more financial burden onto patients. It means that hospitals may deny services to patients at higher risk for some types of accidents and complications - morbid obesity, diabetes, high risks to fall, confusion, and mental illness as a co-morbid diagnosis in a medical or surgical admission - those types of patients may be “fired” by their physicians and hospitals as too risky and liable to incur a non-reimbursable event.
Lastly, just before the Senate recessed, Jim DeMint put a hold on the SB 558, the Mental Health Parity bill, which had been worked through and agreed upon as a strong bipartisan measure.
So what do we have? A huge burden on states to meet unrealistic Medicaid coverage demands for low income children (95%) by the Bush administration, a denial of health care benefits for mental illness on a par with physical illness, and many more patients - the most vulnerable of all - to be placed in an untenable position should they suffer a medical error or complication that may be blamed on them by their healthcare providers and insurers, and so inflict yet more suffering on them.
This is deliberate programmatic abuse of the populace. I think y’all better start reading the healthcare blogs because you are all going to be gobsmacked at what’s happening and getting no sunshine or progressive netroots attention. Just sayin’.
TexBetsy @ 18
Where in Texas are you Betsy? Are you and your’s somewhere safe?
On Hurricane Dean, the projected path now has it going square into Mexico. Not even Brownsville is in its fringe target. I believe the jet stream and other weird weather events that have conspired to keep us wet are what are keeping Dean going pretty due west. He will turn north once he hits land. The Yucatan will slow him down, but it is the interior of Mexico that will be in real trouble with the torrential rains. Look at what Erin brought to Texas and Oklahoma, and she was only a tropical storm!
illegal russians in brighton beach brooklyn…. albanians in the bronx we could go on and on…..
marymccurnin @ 43
Or why, for example, the American and British intercepts in the 10 days leading up to December 7, 1941 did not cause FDR to ramp up defenses at Pearl Harbor.
realworld @ 47
The two teens and I are in central Texas and should be very safe. My 23 yr old nephew is in the nat’l guard and has been mobilized since last Friday. He’s down at the coast, coordinating transportation of supplies & equipment. He did this for Hurricane Rita and for some ice storms this past January.
GeorgeSimian @ 33
Ahem. Canada is an extremely multicultural country with immigrants from all over the world - we are not all white. And we have two national languages - not everyone speaks English.
PW - when I was in Boston last month, I flirted with a cute Irish maintenance man in the elevator. He could have been illegal, but in Boston everybody still has family back in the old country and legal immigration continues, although we rarely hear about it.
Fern - I used to live in Edmonton. Where are you?
I used to live in Calgary. My daughter was born there. She could have dual citizenship if she wanted to fill out all the forms.
So this is way way EPU’d but a few threads back there was a discussion of blue vs. yellow dog democrats and most of it was saying that yellow dog dems are old style, and therefore, good, dems. I couldn’t let this pass, this is far from right.
Yellow dog (actually yeller dog) democrats were the post-reconstructionist southern white democrats who, it is said, would rather vote for a yeller dog, than a Republicans. Recall that then the republicans were the anti-slavery, anti-secessionist party.
I thin kthe takeaway is that dogs are good as long as they are not democrats, but stay away from any democrat that wags it’s tail regardless of color.
n=1
the one that worried me is, no bed sores……how in the heck do you have elderly bed-ridden people and have no bedsores??????????
huh?
yet that is a part of the new medicare…………
hackworth @ 54
I’m in Winnipeg.
N=1 @46:
This is going to lead to a greater death rate. Hospitals and medical providers do not admit mistakes until they are absolutely forced to, and they don’t easily do work they can’t bill for. My law partner did a whole lot of med mal work, I have seen the ugly underbelly of this system, and I guarantee that this is how this will play out. There will be no impetus now for the slimy corporations and groups that run hospitals to look for errors, admit to errors or correct errors. There will be every reason to deny everything, string things out, and worse
Some good Canadians:
Gordon Lightfoot
Anne Murray
The Guess Who
many more
Jonathan @ 60
And Petrocelli !
bmaz @ 59
A while ago there was a trend to pay for health rather than cures. This got perverted by practices starting to deny that some one was sick but in principle it seems to me it makes a lot of sense. I think the problem with the original attempt was that the same people responsible for providing cures were also responsible for assessing health. I think with an appropriate separation of powers, (or auditing) such a system might work.
dmac @ 57
Actually, that’s a fairly easy answer - you provide them with enough professional nursing care (that is, care provided by baccalaureate educated registered nurses), and the incidence goes down pretty much to ZERO. The sole exceptions are for a few folks at active end of life who are no longer eating or drinking. Even using special mattresses, they may begin to suffer soft tissue breakdown. But the time between no longer eating, drinking and death is a matter of days.
My dear Grandma was from Collingwood Canada. Anyone know where that is?
Local Los Angeles area NPR affil KPCC did a long piece on this today; one fact I hadn’t heard metioned elsewhere is that before seeking sanctuary with the church, Arellana had been using someone else’s Social Security number for employment purposes and it was this crime that first caught the attention of ICE. It wasn’t made clear whether this was with the person’s consent or not, or as part of one of those big ICE crackdowns. Does anyone know the specifics? Because it’s awful that she and her son have been separated, and clearly she only wanted to work and give him a better life, but identity theft is a crime.
Oklahoma kiddo @ 64
Southern Ontario
Gnome de Plume @ 48
In Cancun, I discovered that the penninsula is packed with huge hotels. Tourists are cattle herded in and out of them at discount rates. The Mexicans that work there earn $150 per week with tips - 6 days on, 1 day off. Building codes must be quite relaxed, construction costs must be rather low. My hotel was flooded as there was heavy rain. The workers were using squeegees with long handles to get the water out. The roof was leaking badly in a modern newly built hotel.
What a place for a fat cat to build a hotel!
Its a shame they get hit so often by hurricanes. They probably don’t have any insurance. ;)
bmaz @ 59
I think it will play out perversely, too. I can see hospitals with high error rates and thus high rates of claim denials, lay off registered nurses and direct care patient staff as “cost-saving” measures, and the cycle will repeat itself.
There are many other models which result in optimal patient outcomes which don’t rely on punishment and reimbursement withholding. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement is one such organization that is a best in class resource for this type of initiative to reduce medical error.
Looks like Cardinal Mahoney has lost some of his political influence in Los Angeles trying to protect undocumented immigrants. Having to make that big payoff for his pedophile priests has hampered his ability to lobby for immigration reform. The mayor, Viaragosa, can’t help much while embroiled in his own sex scandal. If I were Arellano, I might have picked another place to make my last stand appeal than Our Lady Queen of Angels.
Garbo, I work with immigrants. Several of my students have mentioned the possibility of “buying” a social security card for $50. No idea if those are active numbers or not, but I’ve had more than one teen tell me “If you see me at McDonald’s call me Jorge. That’s my name at work.”
Hi everybody…Any list of awesome Canadians must include:
David Cronenberg.
James Doohan.
Neil Young.
Rush.
Too hot here. Just checking in a bit.
ICE What an acronym! Who sits around and thinks this stuff up? Couldn’t they say Immigration Enforcement another way. ICE gives me the chills. I suppose Police ICE is intended to strike fear. You know, terrorize.
marshen @ 69
Villaraigosa in a sex scandal? How bad is it?
RonD @ 71
Loverboy
Brian Adams
Michael J Fox
Red Green Show
Zed’s gone. PW upstairs.
Fern @ 58
I’m thinking about moving to Winnipeg. What is the median home price?
I wish the Catholic Church had a more noble reason for supporting immigrants other than to fill their own coffers and increase membership. If it weren’t for the Latinos their churches would be empty.
I just don’t think they do anything that isn’t in their own self interest. Hope they don’t hurt these poor people in some way. They are already vulnerable. Sorry to feel this way about The Church but they have a really bad history. I don’t mean to offend anyone.
hackworth @ 73
Villaraigosa in a sex scandal? How bad is it?
Well, he was sleeping with a sexy news reporter for Univision (who has a history of dating married Latino politicians, apparently), and the relationship was made public; the lady in question was fired from her job for failing to recuse herself from reporting on Villaraigosa while she was sleeping with him. Wagers are being placed on what happens to Antonio’s last name. (It was a combination of his last name plus his wife’s: Villar Raigosa.) The wife and kids are flying under the radar, but everywhere Mayor Tony goes he has to duck questions.
QuakerGirl @ 77
You hit the nail right on the head. Evangelicals are gaining ground in Latin America. That may be worse.
snowbird42 @ 6
Lou Dobbs is an outrage. No pun intended.
Speaking about the border, CNN just reported that Bob Filner (D-CA-52) was just arrested for assault and battery at Dulles, for assaulting TSA personnel. Anyone hear anything about that?
hackworth @ 76
Way lower than in Alberta, that’s for sure - but I don’t know the exact amount.
I think this is a nice place to live.
TexBetsy @ 70
Wow. I’m all for humane and rational immigration policies, and clearly this woman was between a rock and a hard place needing a job to support her child, but if someone starting using my SS# and wreaking havoc with my credit, taxes, etc., I’m pretty sure I’d want them to go to be punished for it. Not separated from their children, mind you, but punished.
Blub @ 81
http://news.google.com/news/ur.....qQObmqDCAw
TexBetsy @ 84
Do you suppose this is a set up? When is he up for re-election?
QuakerGirl @ 85
If he is a rep, then it is every two years.
Garbo @ 83
I have strong feelings about identity thief also. Just not acceptable. Ever. I am even more upset with Homeland Security and INS for ever treating it in a cavalier manner thus encouraging an entire industry in ID theft.
QuakerGirl @ 85
Safe seat. I don’t even know if the rethugs even bother fielding candidates down there. He’s an eighth term dem.
Interestingly, CA-53’s rethug (Bilbray) lives in FIlner’s district.. he just lies about his residenc, but he knows there is virtually zero chance of a rethug winning in Filner’s district
Sorrry.. I meant CA-50’s rethug, Bilbray. CA-53 is Davis’ blue district
Families don’t count if they’re brown…
wigwam @ 31
I was wondering that too.
But that’s the One common theme amongst Wingnuts of all persausions…. HYPOCRISY !
Oh, and of course, lying, delusional thinking and bullying those weaker than themselves.
anne @ 91
It’s now 8:30, and nobody has addressed this very simple and central question.
If she took her son with her, that would destroy the whole “deportation tears families apart” argument.
Another question - who is this boy’s father and where is he?
Well I guess that’s two questions!
“But these freeloaders swamp our emergency rooms!”
I seem to recall President Dumbshit telling us not too long ago that the poor don’t need health care benefits because they’ve always got the emergency room. Sounds like a bit of a disconnect among the faithful, no?
Hard To Explain This Away:
martygrn Says:
August 11th, 2007 at 9:28 am
I am very sorry to have to completely and totally disagree with this report as being totally false and misleading. I am an RN who works in a Pediatric ICU. I know for an absolute fact that these numbers are outright false. I know from experience that illegals whose children are admitted to an ICU, my experience, they almost are immediatly given Medicaid. They are then covered for all of their expenses for their entire hospital stay. I assume you may be from Phoenix, so I will also tell you that I worked an assignment at Maricopa Med Center and it is absolutly true there. I am not familiar with how it works at Banner, et al. This report may be true for illegals reciept of outpatient, preventative care. However, for acute, ICU level care, it is way, way off the mark.
Marty G., RN
It’s a difficult subject . . . and the war is NOT with the children, or their parents, it’s with private for profit health care NOT delivering for everyone on the planet, versus, universal CARE, not universal COVERAGE.
I’d like to see FDL focus more on the fight for universal CARE as opposed to the polarized wars about universal COVERAGE.
Until the system is completely changed, the war about illegals and citizens will continue forever.
The fight should be for CARE. Coverage should be IMMEDIATELY dismissed as a talking point for the Powers That Be.
Harumph.
wigwam @ 93
According to this report, her son was reunited with her in Tijuana, but she is sending him back to Chicago to live. That poor kid.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/m.....21.article
The kid’s an American citizen.