Scrooge Is Alive and Well in Chertoff's America

Michael Chertoff, the skeletal head of Homeland Security, was recently grandstanding all over the media as he is prone to do periodically. This time he was making rather hysterical claims that hundreds of meatpacking workers recently rounded up in six states and taken to undisclosed locations by Homeland Security were involved in an organized identify theft ring. Surprise -- it turns out that criminal acts, including "stolen" identification accusations, were the basis of only 65 of the 1,282 arrests. The rest were guilty of only "run of the mill immigration violations" or they turned out to be legally documented. Read this.

For example, of the 261 workers rounded up at the Swift plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, only 15 ended up being indicted for using someone else's identity to gain employment. Officials had to admit there was no evidence of their involvement in an ID theft ring or any other organized process. Here's a recent diary on Daily Kos about similar raids in Colorado (with lots of photos).

If only Chertoff were this heavily focused on making things right in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina's tragic wake. Does anyone in the Bush administration EVER tell the truth? Not when political gain is at stake. With this bunch, political hay can be made with ANY issue without setting off any alarm bells in their shrunken consciences. All the world's a political stage, even if people are dying, getting their limbs blown up or having their families destroyed right before Christmas because they had the AUDACITY to accept jobs offered to them by corporate America. You won't see anyone from Swift or the outfit that provided the workers with the fake IDs getting arrested. Just those who took the brutal, low-paying jobs so their families could eat and have a place to live.

In another really Christmasy detail, it's being reported that children of those seized are being left on their own, including at least one nursing baby. Family values in action. The way law enforcement is acting you'd think the immigrants were murderers or worse. These raids were carried out by heavily armed SWAT teams, despite the fact that civil, not criminal, warrants were used to meet legal requirements. Just another case of selective application of the law performed in a way that most harms ordinary people while letting corporate forces behind the scenes remain scot free.

Another ironic twist is that it now appears that most of those seized were bussed across state lines and eventually released without charge. Chertoff doesn't care. He got his headlines, and only the families of the workers will suffer through the holiday season. If only we could get those ghosts that haunted Ebenezer Scrooge to make late night visits to Mr. Chertoff -- and to those among us who support these sorts of un-American round-ups -- we might get somewhere in crafting a just and coherent immigration policy.