Steven Cohen: The Importance of Immigration

According to New York Times reporter Julia Preston:

"A bipartisan group of senators has agreed on a set of principles for a sweeping overhaul of the immigration system, including a pathway to American citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants that would hinge on progress in securing the borders and ensuring that foreigners leave the country when their visas expire. The senators were able to reach a deal by incorporating the Democrats' insistence on a single comprehensive bill that would not deny eventual citizenship to illegal immigrants, with Republican demands that strong border and interior enforcement had to be clearly in place before Congress could consider legal status for illegal immigrants."

While it would be nice to think that all of this movement is simply an expression of our elected leaders finally deciding to do the right thing, it is of course a reaction to our growing Hispanic population and President Obama's overwhelming (about 70 percent) share of the Hispanic vote in his bid for reelection. However, if immigration reform finally happens it is long overdue and extraordinarily important.

Although some people like to pretend they came over on the Mayflower, very few of us are far removed from immigrant roots. A half century ago John F. Kennedy could call America "a nation of immigrants," and publish a book with that title: We remain a nation of immigrants today. Even if many of us did not have the courage or vision to uproot and move to America, many of our parents, grandparents and great grandparents made that difficult journey. Our diversity is what makes America unique and is a source of our fundamental strength and long term prospects.

Even before there was a global economy and the technology to support global communication, shipping and rapid travel, America was the world's gathering place. America did not collect the world's wealthy and elite, it attracted those rejected, oppressed, enslaved and even jailed. But those with the courage to come freely or the strength to survive the harsh treatment of slavery (and the equally harsh treatment of Native Americans) are the people who built this nation. The people trying to slam the door closed behind them are nearly all the descendants of relatively recent immigrants.

As the world gets smaller and economic competition is based more and more on creativity and technological innovation, the place that attracts the world's best minds will have a distinct advantage. We are that place. If you walk the streets of Tokyo or Beijing, it is not difficult to distinguish native from tourist. If you walk the streets of New York or the malls of Los Angeles, good luck in trying to figure out who is home and who is not. America may not be a melting pot, since each immigrant group tries to retain an element of their identity, but in its own often imperfect way, it is a place that is built to encourage, accept, tolerate and even absorb diversity. A place with roots everywhere has a tremendous edge in a global economy. We can do business anywhere, and host workers from anyplace. We are also a place that allows individual freedom and creativity. Even if economies are growing faster in other places, freedom and tolerance of diversity will remain a key part of America's appeal.

America has long been a place with a large foreign-born population. In 1900, when our population was about 76 million, about 10 million or 13.6 percent were born abroad. A decade later, our population was about 92 million and 13.5 million or 14.7 percent were foreign born. While in 1970 our foreign-born population slipped to less than 5 percent, that trend was soon reversed. In 1990 as our population approached 250 million, nearly 20 million or almost 8 percent were foreign-born. In our most recent census in 2010, there were 309,350,000 people living here, almost 40 million or 12.9 percent were born abroad. Over 17 million were naturalized citizens and over 22 million were non-citizens. These data do not include an estimated 11 million people living here illegally. The idea that immigration is un-American is a fundamental misread of our history and traditions.

The immigration debate is packed with ideology and misconceptions and the process of achieving citizenship has become cumbersome and bureaucratic. Brianna Lee of the Council on Foreign Relations has written an excellent summary of this debate, and she notes that:

"...after President Obama was reelected for a second presidential term in 2012, government officials and lawmakers have made several indications that they are ready to make a bipartisan push for broad, comprehensive immigration reform."

There is little question that a law violated every day by 11 million people undermines respect for all laws, but there is even less question that deporting 11 million people is an impractical and unjust response to an obviously dysfunctional immigration process. So we find ourselves at one of those political moments in time, when the door to a more reasonable policy has opened up a bit. Opening the door for these 11 million while slamming it shut for everyone else would be the height of folly. We need a reform that is reality-based. We need an immigration policy that recognizes that the very definition of America requires that we continue to welcome people from other places and other cultures. Our distinctive identity and character is built on constant and continuous immigration. If the nativist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant impulse is indulged by immigration reform it will be clear sign that America is in decline.

We need, as we have always needed, the kind of people willing to uproot their lives for a chance at the American dream. The surest sign that the dream has ended would be a policy that shut the door to legal immigrants, or a time when people are no longer attracted by the promise of America. President Obama was wise enough to include it in the compelling vision he presented during his second inaugural address when he observed that the American journey is far from over and said:

"Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country...."

The loaded language of the immigration debate includes words like "amnesty" and fear that the American way of life could be threatened by those not born to it. The American way of life was created by those not born to it. It is a history built by outsiders who pushed their way in: By my grandparents and probably by yours. Let's find a way to honor our history and traditions by continuing the practices that built that history and tradition. And let's do it before this brief political moment passes and the door once again slams shut.

Follow Steven Cohen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/earthinstitute

Maryland Death Penalty Debate.. 'My Mindset On This Has Always Been Divided,' Says Republican

State Sen. Allan Kittleman is torn.

When lobbied by the ACLU and the NAACP to repeal Maryland's death penalty, Kittleman asks how he can ensure the most heinous murderers will never kill again.

When approached by fellow senators or state's attorneys who want to keep capital punishment, Kittleman questions whether there can be a foolproof way to ensure the state doesn't kill an innocent person.

"My mindset on this has always been divided," said Kittleman, a Howard County Republican who hopes to skip his own committee to listen to another panel's death penalty hearings before the legislation reaches the Senate floor. "It really is an issue that I'm struggling with, and I want to make sure I do the right thing."

Like a handful of other publicly undecided senators, Kittleman's internal struggle has made him a target in a behind-the-scenes lobbying press conducted in part by elected officials, prosecutors, religious groups, a Catholic bishop, the wrongly accused and advocates who have strong views on one side or the other.

In a divided chamber considered key to overturning the death penalty, Kittleman and a few other senators may cast the deciding votes on whether to uphold Maryland's narrowly written capital punishment law or to erase it from the books for the first time in 35 years.

The death penalty debate, perhaps the most emotional issue of the General Assembly session, does not break cleanly down party lines as lawmakers choose instead to yield to constituent views, emotion or their moral beliefs.

A pro-capital punishment Democrat has vowed to join with Republicans in a filibuster if necessary, while a Republican leader promised to quietly cast his vote for repeal. Of the handful of undecideds, some are in a greater state of consternation than others.

"How do I balance ensuring the safety of our citizens with also protecting civil liberties and civil rights?" Kittleman asked. "I think that's a dilemma that a lot of people are facing."

Before the hearings have begun, death penalty opponents are confident they have the votes for repeal. Their measure, pushed by Gov. Martin O'Malley, has attracted 21 co-sponsors -- three shy of the necessary majority in the Senate, which will take up the matter first. If they win there, they expect an easier path in the House of Delegates.

"We've been doing this long enough, and counting votes long enough, that we have a sense of where folks are at," said Jane Henderson, who has worked for Maryland Citizens Against State Executions since 2001.

"This is an idea whose time has come," Henderson said. "I would argue that this has been happening over the past 20 years. People support the death penalty in theory, but when they look at it, they realize we can't do it right."

The more loosely organized death penalty supporters, who have been slower to mobilize this year, expect a close fight that they still believe they can win. The last time advocates attempted repeal, in 2009, lawmakers ultimately recast the state's death penalty law to require a high standard of proof.

As a result of the change that year, prosecutors can seek the death penalty only when they have DNA evidence, a videotape of the crime or a video-recorded confession by the killer.

"Not only is it targeted to the worst of the worst, there are assurances there that an innocent person won't be affected," said Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott D. Shellenberger, who has been an outspoken proponent of keeping Maryland one of 33 states to allow the death penalty.

Shellenberger has targeted 25 senators, and said he is building a coalition that he hopes will include correctional officers and the Fraternal Order of Police to help sway the vote.

"It was close then, it's close now," Shellenberger said of the 2009 debate. "It's certainly an issue about which reasonable minds can have a difference of opinion. As long as that's the case, it will always be close."

A recent poll by OpinionWorks of Annapolis found Maryland voters divided on the issue, with 48 percent opposed to repeal and 42 percent in favor.

While five people currently sit on death row -- three for crimes from 1983 -- Maryland has had a de facto moratorium on the death penalty. A judge in 2006 overturned the rules for carrying it out. Maryland law calls for the use of three drugs in lethal injection, but one of them is no longer available.

O'Malley, who first attempted to repeal the law in 2007, argues that it is costly and an ineffective deterrent to crime. Keeping it, he said puts Maryland in the company of some of the world's most repressive regimes.

Capital punishment supporters argue that retaining the theoretical threat of the death penalty both satisfies a sense of justice and gives prosecutors a bargaining chip to get a sentence of life without possibility of parole. The death penalty is necessary, they argue, for a convict with a life sentence who kills a correctional officer while in prison.

Thirty years ago, Sen. John Astle came to the General Assembly as a supporter of the death penalty. This year, repeal advocates see him as an ally, though he says he has reservations.

The Anne Arundel Democrat has been visited by Auxiliary Bishop Denis J. Madden of Baltimore and Kirk Bloodsworth, who spent years on death row before he was exonerated by DNA evidence. But Astle says he's still not ready to vote for repeal without deciding how to punish inmates with life sentences who commit another crime.

"Even when I was a proponent, you still have this feeling inside that it's a horrible thing to deliberately take someone's life," he said.

Sen. Ron Young, a Democrat from Frederick, said he has grappled with the death penalty for decades, since he prepped for a college debate. He knows repeal advocates count him in their corner, but he says he's approaching the vote "with hesitation."

"There's that emotion and passion. 'Damn it, [the murderers] didn't care, so why should I?' But I'd like to think I'm better than that," Young said.

The lobbying efforts have not touched the resolute, whose convictions are swayed neither by party nor argument.

"I think to myself, 'What if my daughter was a victim of one of these crimes, or a family member?' " said Sen. Robert J. Garagiola, a Montgomery County Democrat who supports capital punishment.

"It's more from the gut," Garagiola said. "It would be different if Maryland had a hundred-some people on death row and we were executing people every other week. In this state, it's used sparingly to begin with."

Sen. Ed Reilly, an Anne Arundel Republican and minority whip, created a page of talking points against capital punishment. They include that fiscal conservatives should support repeal because it is less costly than the death penalty, though he relies on his moral conviction as a Catholic.

"As a leader of the caucus, it would be inappropriate for me to stand on the floor and twist arms and try to convince people. It is a very, very personal decision to all 47 members of the chamber," Reilly said. "Even if I wasn't in leadership in the Republican caucus, I probably wouldn't be an active participant. There's plenty of people out there motivating others."

ecox@baltsun.com ___

(c)2013 The Baltimore Sun

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Raid Of The Day: Drug Cops Take Over Jerome, Arizona

On October 15, 1985, more than 100 law enforcement officers swarmed the entire town of Jerome, Arizona. The historic hilltop hamlet was a boomtown in the 19th and early 20th century after copper deposits were discovered nearby.

Once the copper was gone, Jerome atrophied into a ghost town by the early 1950s. But some counterculture hippies rediscovered the town in the mid-60s, and for 20 years it served as an artsy, bohemian enclave.

Jerome also loved its pot. Residents grew the drug in the nearby hills, and legalization sympathizers had taken over the local government. Jerome officials took a live and let live approach to marijuana. That is, until an informant moved in and began recording his conversations around town for state and federal anti-drug agencies.

The team of state cops and federal agents moved in early that autumn morning. One resident told The New York Times, 'To bring 100 policemen into a small town at 5 o'clock in the morning, dragging women and children out of bed, scaring them half to death, to get 9 or 10 pounds of marijuana is asinine.'

Police later said the haul was closer to 50 pounds. They arrested over 20 people, including the police chief, two city council members, and the former mayor.

A spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, which organized the raid, explained to the Times why the aggressive tactics were necessary. 'It's a town that would like to secede and carry on its own life style. The people there strongly believe in an individual's freedom, above all else.'

And we certainly can't have that.

(The "Raid of the Day" features accounts of police raids I've found, researched, and reported while writing my forthcoming book Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces. It's due out in July, but you can pre-order it here.)

Israeli Official Hints Pentagon Plans May Make Lone Strike On Iran Unnecessary

JERUSALEM ' Israel's departing defense minister, Ehud Barak, said that the Pentagon had prepared sophisticated blueprints for a surgical operation to set back Iran's nuclear program should the United States decide to attack ' a statement that was a possible indication that Israel might have shelved any plans for a unilateral strike, at least for now.

Read the whole story at New York Times

Ryan J. Reilly: Obama's Gitmo, Four Years Later

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE -- At around 8 a.m., a civilian airplane chartered by the military and full of lawyers, human rights representatives and journalists will depart Andrews Air Force Base in route to the Guantanamo Bay Navy Base in Cuba. Family members of victims of the September 11th attacks arrived yesterday.

This wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

Four years ago last week, a newly elected President Barack Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay's prison facility by January 22, 2010. "We are going to win this fight, we are going to win it on our terms," Obama said at the time.

Three years past his self-imposed cut-off date, the military trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four fellow prisoners accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks continues at the facility Obama pledged the shut down.

I'll be reporting from Gitmo's Camp Justice all this week. There are a few interesting issues to be resolved in court, but I'll also be reporting more broadly on how Guantanamo has changed -- and hasn't -- since Obama took office.

Anything you'd like to learn about how Guantanamo operates? Email me at ryan.reilly@huffingtonpost.com. Meanwhile, here's a list of what I'm reading to prepare for the trip:

Who Decides The Laws of War? -- Charlie Savage

Gitmo prosecutor's rejected memo released -- Josh Gerstein

Top 5 Reasons To Preserve the CIA Black Sites -- Daphne Eviatar

9/11 Defendants Seek to Preserve CIA Sites Where They Were Tortured -- Spencer Ackerman

Anything Carol Rosenberg writes

Follow Ryan J. Reilly on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ryanjreillly

Senators Close In On Immigration Agreement

A working group of senators from both parties is nearing agreement on broad principles for overhauling the nation's immigration laws, representing the most substantive bipartisan effort toward major legislation in years.

Read the whole story at The Washington Post

Glen Browder: Critical Juncture for Tired America

As I continue my series on the future of American democracy, it seem important to ask whether our democratic distemper has serious, near-term consequence for the survival of the Great Experiment. Are these developments passing digressions, or permanent despair? In short, are we at the tipping point between democratic distemper and dying America?

America historically has demonstrated a mixed and tepid mindset about our collective endeavor; but American society has conducted itself in general accord with the progressive norms of our national democratic experiment. Just as clearly, however, contemporary Americans evidence surprising levels of civic disengagement and dissensus in their attitudes toward American government; and we now seem inclined toward some alternative arrangements for our historic experiment.

Thus this seems to be prime time -- as President Barack Obama enters his legacy years as a self-conscious transformational leader -- for us to consider the future of American democracy.

A Matter of Timing

What makes all of this timely and critical is that our current distemper is taking place simultaneously, cumulatively, and interactively with other important developments. As posited in the preceding propositional observations, (a) the American systemic environment is not as favorably aligned as it has been for most of our history; (b) we have engaged ourselves in an intense philosophical debate about American culture and governance; (c) American democracy no longer works as well as it used to work; and (d) Americans seem to be tiring of the Great Experiment.

To put it another way, public commitment to the essential concepts of our original national democratic endeavor appears increasingly unsteady during fundamentally turbulent times. We seem unsure about American nationalism, democratic ideals, and Republican governance at the same time that our political system is reshaping itself in unpredictable ways. Most importantly, the American people may be tiring of their historic experiment while demanding and assuming immense popular control over the workings of American democracy. This setting of distempered democracy and systemic volatility invites uncomfortable discussion about the aforementioned "ultimate, unhealthy authority" inherent in our Great Experiment.

Undoubtedly, America has functioned successfully in the past without full, popular, national consensus, engagement, and commitment to the Great Experiment; but just as undoubtedly, our historic functional success is no guarantee that we can and will perform as well in the future. Sooner or later, systemic constraints, philosophical debates, and political realities will prove disruptive and challenging to the historical order of American democracy.

Disturbing Inclinations

In my opinion, and drawing from the propositions and observations presented in this series, "tired" America is trending in patterned fashion and disturbing directions. Increasingly we seem to be revisiting and revising -- sometimes consciously but often unthinkingly -- the original, essential, conceptual elements of our Great Experiment:

(1) First, the American people are experiencing and evidencing a declined sense of themselves as a nation. Societal divergence, centrifugal democracy, and economic globalism are reorienting and diminishing traditional national community.

(2) Secondly, while popularly-expressed support for democratic ideals in general remains strong, in-depth study and public referenda reveal that Americans are developing reservations about the specific application and advancement of these ideals through national government; additionally, some want to elevate cultural values (such as the family, religion, community, and diversity) as central elements -- alongside or above traditional democratic ideals--of our national experiment.

(3) Thirdly, we seem increasingly impatient with our national experiment's difficult, contentious balancing of inconsistent, contradictory, confusing democratic ideals. "Culture-warriors" and "demo-fanatics" drive public debate in troubling philosophical and political directions; and too often we talk about re-arranging the historic framework of limited, representative governance to accommodate contemporary inclinations.

(4) Finally, we seem insufficiently concerned as a nation about the danger of these unsettling tendencies for our democratic endeavor. A sense of civic irrelevancy -- combined with the above-mentioned ailments -- appears to have weakened our commitment to the national experiment in democratic ideals; and there is a disturbing propensity -- both "inside the Beltway" and "out here" -- for individuals, institutions, and communities to simply walk away from our historic democratic experiment in favor of less inspired alternatives.

Radical Possibilities

The danger of these critical times is that eventually, without corrective action, an impatient populace may -- democratically and incrementally -- exercise its ultimate authority and alter our historic version of America in radical ways.

I would like to think that today's developments constitute a case of temporary distemper, or a simple pause, or a few targeted adjustments, or a re-balancing of some of the burden of democratic progress between the federal government and a broader, supportive society. In the long run, some of these developments may be inconsequential or even therapeutic for America.

However, there is a reasonable chance that, early in this new century, we will have to deal with daunting new public problems; and we may have to ask ourselves the final, uncomfortable question posed in my definitional discussion about "America," "American democracy," and "dying": "How far can we pursue democratic ideals through limited, representative governance without succumbing to the inherent, destructive tendencies of democracy?"

Where Are We Going?

My "dying" speculation is an unlikely outcome, but it serves as useful, sobering background for assessing our present predicament. It is worthwhile analysis, not idle speculation, to conclude that these are unhealthy times for America.

Tired America, at a critical juncture, seems to be questioning its Great Experiment, moving -- quite often consonant with democratic principles and processes -- in ways and directions that are contradictory to the historic spirit and course of American democracy.

Fortuitously, California provides an example of where America may be heading; and that is the topic of my next post.

(For previous posts in this series, click here.)

Author's Note: This is the eleventh in a sixteen-part series of discussions about Election 2012, Barack Obama, and the future of American democracy. This series includes edited, updated material from my book, The Future of American Democracy: A Former Congressman's Unconventional Analysis (2002). I'm grateful to University Press of America for allowing me to borrow from that publication for my discussions on Huffington Post.