In August 2007, Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic Party, predicted that immigration would be the next weapon of mass polarization that the Bush White House would arm to distract voters from the rising scandals that today plague all the president’s men.
US Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales appears to be this newest sacrificial lamb. Questions about why he fired eight assistant US attorneys hover over whether the motivation was political. If these attorneys, all of whom had received high marks from supervisors and colleagues, were dismissed for not pursuing cases against Democrats or for pursuing cases against Republicans, the man from Humble, Texas, may have a lot of to be ashamed about.
The Gonzales saga plays out against the backdrop of immigration enforcement. Recently, federal officials arrested more than 350 women, mostly mothers, all undocumented, all working for a leather company in Massachusetts that supplies boots to the US Armed Forces. Hundreds of children were left motherless while the state and federal governments sorted out the disaster.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency says it warned the Massachusetts Department of Social Services that arrests were impending. DSS says it did not know. What is certain is that the mothers did not know that they would be arrested despite working for a company that manufactures goods for the very same federal government that temporarily orphaned children.
There are ways for undocumented working people -- whose children are American citizens by virtue of having been born here – can live in peace without fear of being arrested. All that’s needed are courageous politicians. That’s the hard part. Far easier is finding politicians courting ethnocentric fears.
Maybe now the White House will deflect attention from immigration to the Iraq War. Or Gonzales.
