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Illegal Versus Inhumane: Unauthorized Immigrant Shackled While in Labor; Can't Feed Newborn

By Editorial Staff, Boston Globe. Posted August 1, 2008.


An undocumented pregnant woman faces the horror and neglect of the U.S. justice system ... giving birth only to have her child stripped from her.
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JUANA VILLEGAS is a Mexican immigrant who broke federal law. As The New York Times recently reported, she was deported in 1996, but she returned illegally to the United States. What is more troubling, however, is what happened to her in custody of law enforcement this month. Overzealous use of the law trampled decency.

On July 3, Villegas, nine months pregnant, was pulled over in a Nashville suburb and arrested after admitting that she did not have a license. At the county jail, Villegas's illegal status was discovered by a federal official. That official was there as part of the federal 287(g) program, which trains local police to enforce federal immigration laws.

Two days later, Villegas went into labor. At the hospital her foot was cuffed to the bed, and the cuffs were reportedly removed only for two hours before she gave birth and for six hours after. An officer stood guard in her hospital room.

After she left the hospital, Villegas was held in jail. She could not breastfeed her baby and was not allowed to use a breast pump. She says she developed a breast infection and her baby became jaundiced.

Needless to say, the 287(g) program wasn't intended to snare pregnant women. Rather, it is supposed to help officers "pursue investigations relating to violent crimes, human smuggling, gang/organized crime activity, sexual-related offenses, narcotics smuggling, and money laundering," according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yet the perceived need for even local officials to crack down on illegal immigrants has become an obstacle to treating people humanely.

Villegas has been released to the custody of her family and faces deportation. Her case shows how much the country needs comprehensive immigration reform that deploys legal resources where they are most needed.

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Terrorists in our midst
Posted by: Pisces2008 on Aug 1, 2008 7:00 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Poor American racist pysche. Unable to get bin laden they are using their displaced anger to subject another human being to torture and inhumane treatment.

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Headline hyperbole
Posted by: countingdaisies on Aug 2, 2008 10:34 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The story doesn't back up the headline.

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» Let me guess Posted by: Joshua Holland
Illegal Immigration & the taxpayer
Posted by: Brittanicus on Aug 3, 2008 11:34 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You might want to ask your State representative energy conservation? How much gas, oil and electricity we could save, if we sent illegal aliens packing.
We cannot keep up the demand for it right now!

Oil! Diversity Alliance for Sustainable America.(earthtimes) stated in it's article that if the U.S. grants amnesty and gives citizenship to 12 to 30 million illegal migrants already here, as McCain, Obama and the majority of Democrats propose. That all those naturalized citizens could possibly add 120 million U.S. and foreign-born relatives to the U.S., in the next 20 years whom all will CONSUME MAJOR ENERGY.

Does the American people need to escalate the 315 million plus population, the census estimates we have now? To a new total of 435 million?

The executive director of (DASA) admitted "Proposal to reduce energy costs in the U.S. will not work unless we also simultaneously curb U.S. population growth by reducing immigration and curbing teen pregnancies." Severing the illegal immigration occupation and deporting those already here is a good start, but not the complete solution to this serious energy problem that cannot be reversed.

Unless another Nikola Tesla, an underrated genius of the 19th century invents a some new form of energy, we will be reliant on fossil fuels for years to come? Clean coal, geothermal, eco-fuel and of course wind power and solar. The latter is energy that is a perpetual source of unimaginable power that knows no bounds.

Americans cannot afford to subsidize illegal aliens here with billions in our tax dollars, or the millions who will jump the fence in the future.

Only THE FEDERAL SAVE ACT (H.R.4088) offers any chance of halting this overpopulation quicksand It's enactment will give ICE and the police more enforcement powers. Join NUMBERSUSA for free and become part of a solution and not lies.

Footnote:

As an American patriot and a Independent (populist) I have just donated $50.00 to judicial watch. Even $10.00 will help. They are a non-profit law group Promoting Integrity, Transparency and Accountability in Government, Politics and the Law. The 9th District Court is a liberal-socialist, anti-sovereignty, pro-illegal immigration group of judges, who interprets the law from the bench. They undermined Californians Proposition 187, that would have terminated $billions of dollars in welfare benefits to illegal immigrants. Donate to Judicial Watch cause to effectively get the FEDERAL 'RICO LAW' interpreted by the US Supreme court and stop the travesty of our immigration laws and, fine, confiscate assets and imprison predatory employers.

GOOGLE--Judicial Watch website for all details on government corruption. Join also NUMBERSUSA for free and read the truth, not lies released by our liberal, biased press.

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I am not sure what to say...
Posted by: djnoll on Aug 5, 2008 10:49 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As I read this article, like so many others here on Alternet, I found myself torn. The treatment this woman and her child received were inhumane. However, I am not an advocate for illegal immigrants, especially those who have children that they will use as anchors to stay here in violation of our immigration laws. But, as I read this article, I found myself wondering something:

The Bush Administration has been conspicuously absent in stopping the flow of illegal immigrants into this country, despite their half-hearted public shows in Congress, so I was wondering if BushCo allows illegal immigrants to enter so that he can do to them what Hitler did to the Jews.

Illegal immigration has divided this nation in ways we never could have conceived twenty years ago. Bush is the child of a Nazi supporter family who grew up understanding that a political power needs a scapegoat. As president he could not target Jews like Hitler; he could not target African Americans because of the power base they represent in our current political structure; he could not target legal immigrants because of civil rights; so why not allow a group of uneducated illegal immigrants infiltrate the country by the millions, create lives for themselves, wreak havoc on jobs and the economy, and then turn on them, arrest them, treat them inhumanely, and then deport them until war stops it so you have a forced labor supply during war and scapegoats that no one will look twice at when they die. The pattern is clearly there if you look at it. The historic playbook is found in the 1930's and 1940's in Germany. His NeoCon supporters backed his play because they needed cheap labor and scapegoats when everything goes South.

This woman and her child are examples of this behavior. The rage against illegal immigrants is justified in many ways, but not to the point of this kind of treatment. Legal immigrants already resent illegal immigrants for "cutting to the head of the line" by violating the laws they followed. BushCo counts on them to help identify with the native rage so that they will not support illegal immigrants. What they do not understand is that he hates them as much as the illegals and will turn on them as quickly as he has the illegal immigrants, just as Hitler turned on the Jewish financiers in Germany. People who have lost jobs to illegal immigrants, seen their wages reduced by the tremendous influx of cheap labor, and seen our social safety net being depleted by those who should not even have access, are furious and raging, so when raids like this occur they do not stand up and say enough. It is Nazi Germany all over again, the only difference is that instead of going after minority Americans, this administration imported their scapegoats and counted on American compassion and blind ignorance to what was going on until it was too late to cover for them.

It is time to hold corporations, NeoCon strategists, and the Nazis in the White House and Congress accountable. Or else, sit back and watch the American version of the Holocaust!

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