Generous to a fault

Generous to a fault

by digby

Last night Marco Rubio said that the United States is the most generous nation on earth toward immigrants. He’s been saying that for a while but it’s not exactly true:

In per capita [immigration] rates,the United States placed 19th out of 24 countries. That means that the United States received fewer immigrants per capita in 2012-13 compared with several European countries, New Zealand, Australia and Canada.

Here’s a sample of our generosity:

The exchange between two federal immigration agents and an undocumented mother quickly gets ugly. As a grainy, dizzying minute-long video shows, two pairs of hands reach into the front side of a car where a seated female driver pushes against one uniformed federal immigration agent. In the next scene, the woman’s hands are held down against the window as she’s dragged out of her car. The last scene shows her held to the ground, handcuffed by two officials.

The exclusive video, which was provided to the Spanish-language news program Al Punto, depicts an undocumented immigrant being arrested by federal immigration officials in front of her children. Two of the three children, ages 13 and 16, were also handcuffed, then later released to their grandmother. According to Al Punto, immigration agents were looking for the woman’s partner, who may have been involved in trafficking undocumented immigrants, though she insisted that she didn’t have a close relationship with the man.

The interaction caught on video offers insight into why immigrants often fear coming into contact with law enforcement officers, and particularly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents.

In the first weeks of the new year, after the Obama administration authorized deportation raids primarily targeting women and children who fled Central American countries, this fear has been intensified. Immigrants say they’re afraid to leave their homes or answer knocks on their door. Many are terrified of going outside. They don’t want to encounter ICE officials who will send them back to Honduras, Guatemala, or El Salvador.

They have reason to be worried. In those countries, gangs control entire neighborhoods, leading many of the people who get deported back to hide in their homes. Some deportees have ended up dead. In particular, El Salvador has recently become so dangerous that the Peace Corps suspended its program because of the “ongoing security environment.”

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President Obama needs to rein in these federal agents.

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