After posting 1,200 National Guard troops at the US-Mexico border to stop crossings of undocumented immigrants, the Department of Homeland Security will draw down those forces by 75% and shift the mission considerably, including expanded use of unmanned aerial surveillance drones.

It’s not often that human rights and business profits line up on the same side of a political debate, but Alabama is a special place. The Cotton State was not only ground zero for some of the worst abuses under Jim Crow; it was also the flashpoint for early struggles that fused economic empowerment with civil rights, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Today, Alabama is once again a focal point for racial and class struggles, ignited by an anti-immigrant law that tests our definitions of economic citizenship in a world of fluid borders.

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz represents Southwest Ranches, Florida, which has been at the epicenter of a debate over a proposed immigration detention facility. Residents of the town have consistently demonstrated their opposition to the facility, which they feel was designed and planned without much public knowledge of the proceedings.

The Obama Administration swears that their deportation program has only captured criminals and sent them back to their home countries. Recently acquired data shows that to be false. Now we’re learning that not only non-criminals have been caught up in the immigration net. So have American citizens.

In the couple months since Alabama passed HB 56, among the harshest immigration laws in the nation, they have: a) seen crops rot in the fields because farmers cannot find workers to pick the fruits and vegetables, which has cost the state potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue; b) threatened the water service of potential undocumented immigrants; c) forced charities to seek citizenship papers from their recipients, even though that provision and others have been blocked by multiple courts; d) witnessed frustrated employers speak out about the loss of legal Hispanic workers, who have left the state in droves; e) led to 15% of Hispanic students being afraid to attend school; f) arrested top executives of two automakers, Mercedes-Benz and Honda, who were in the state overseeing their plants there.

When I saw the headline over at Facing South, I had no idea that the nativist batsh*ttery has run off the rails into complete batsh*ttery.

The brains down in Louisiana have decided to throw a tantrum over the fact that the U.S. census attempts to count all people in the country, regardless of immigration status.

So, last night: 1. The “unholy alliance” of dirty fucking hippies unions and the middle class sent Pundit/Governor John Kasich down to crushing defeat in Ohio…overwhelmingly. “It’s clear the people have spoken,” the humbled Republican leader said from the Statehouse… ” And as a result of that, it requires me to take a deep breath [...]

This deportation review is unlikely to stop the record level of deportations, which hit 400,000 last year. Obama Administration official Cecilia Munoz admitted on a Frontline documentary this week that “As long as Congress gives us the money to deport 400,000 people a year, that’s what the administration is going to do.”

That’s a pretty shocking admission.

Man, just when the Secessionist needed a life preserver — she throws him an anvil.

The news that the Obama Administration deported 400,000 undocumented immigrants in the last fiscal year, setting another record, did not come as welcome news to immigration advocates. The Administration claims there is new focus on just criminals, but what do they define as “criminal”?