Talking 'bout our immigration

Still pretty much offline for the last few days so I'm late to the immigration bill. Was mildly surprised to see the Senate pull it off with a 68-32 vote. Obama is urging the House to pass it by the August recess.

Good luck with that. The new dynamic on Capitol Hill is Senate passes bills and they now go to Boehner's House of Dysfunction to die. The crackpot caucus isn't going to agree to do pass anything that doesn't piss off liberals and Boehner vows to uphold the Hastert rule for the bill. Last I heard they're going to try to write a new bill that can get the crackpots on board, but then he'll lose the Democratic votes and possibly even some from his own side. Hearing rumors there are a fair number of Republicans who are interested in passing something.

It's possible Boehner is just working the kabuki to buy time and eventually will bring something reasonable to the floor that can pass on a bipartisan vote, but by no means is that a given. The crackpots have been threatening to oust him if he does and for some reason he appears to want to keep his giant gavel.

Only thing that seems clear at the moment is it's going to be a long, hot, stupid summer on Capitol Hill.

What's in a name

Biggest buzz on my interwebs today was about the super colossal revision of acceptable Big Media syntax. The AP Stylebook banished "illegal immigrant" from its lexicon. Meanwhile, the world breathlessly awaits to see if the NYT will follow suit. No. Seriously. Everybody is talking about it. I expect we'll have days of deep analysis on why it's good, bad or doesn't matter at all.

Haven't read a word beyond the headlines myself. All I have to say is, it's about damn time. Most of civil society stopped using it years ago. It's the contemporary version of wetback, mostly used to depersonalize a vital segment of our population pretty much for the sole purpose of justifying discrimination, if not obscuring criminal abuse. I'm glad AP did it, but can't help but think what took them so long?

Immigration Nation

I'm not willing to get too excited about this sudden bi-partisan comity on immigration reform just yet. Think I'll wait until we see how many crackpot cons want to sabotage this before I get my hopes up too high. Still, it is rather astounding to see the issue embraced at all, much less being supported by actual Republicans.

Missed the delivery of President Obama's immigration speech live, but he made a strong case. I especially liked the point that this about people, not just policy. And the reminder that we're all immigrants here. I'm first generation myself. I wasn't born here. I arrived as a baby. Carried a green card until I was naturalized as a teenager.

Unfortunately, there also seems to be some serious distance between the Republican and Democratic approach and between the President and Capitol Hill. The major ones being first, Obama wants a crystal clear path to citizenship. Which already has the rabid rightwingers howling about amnesty. Second, and this is the even stickier one, Republicans want reform pinned to border security. Who determines how to define that metric is destined to be a major point of contention. Figure it will end up being the determining factor in whether this turns out to be a successful attempt at bi-partisan governance or just another act in the Beltway kabuki. [Photo via]

Obama does the right thing on immigration policy

President Obama announced a new DHS directive ending deportation of young undocumented immigrants. It's a small and temporary fix but it's the best he could accomplish against intractable GOP obstruction of any and all practical solutions to illegal immigration.

It's inarguably the right thing to do. No kid should be punished for being brought in illegally. It's not like they had a choice. They grew up here. They've been fully assimiliated. Those who managed to achieve despite living under the cloud of imminent deportation deserve compassion and respect. They're the living embodiment of the whole "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps" ethic that the cons are always carping about.

As for Tucker Carlson's useful idiot Munro in the Rose Garden today, on reflection, I'm glad he pulled his little attention seeking stunt. It will only play well in the crazy con cesspool of hate. The stink will stick to Team Romney.

Still think WHCA should censure Daily Caller for it, but can't think of a better way to demonstrate the creepiness of the fringe right to the unengaged voters. Hope they pull these asinine stunts every week. It only makes the difference brighter.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Show me your papers!

By Capt. Fogg

" People are trying to use this to make the law look bad"

said the mayor of Leeds, Alabama, responding to the arrests of a Mercedes Benz director and a Honda manager for having only international drivers licenses rather than their German or Japanese cards in their pockets.

Well people won't have to try very hard, because Alabama looks bad enough without any help.
The demand that anyone looking or sounding 'foreign' carry papers at all times looks to me too much like those "racial origin" cards the Third Reich made people carry, but even if you disagree or think I'm being hyperbolic, it still looks paranoid, it looks stupid, it stinks of a very ugly past and it surely isn't going to help the state of Alabama attract the kind of foreign investment and employment opportunities it needs.

"We are the Show Me State, not the Show Me Your Papers State," writes the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

"You've got two choices. Either ask your executives to carry their immigration papers at all times, or move to a state that understands gemütlichkeit."

" We’re going to enforce the laws of state of Alabama”

says the mayor of Leeds, like a character from a Victor Hugo novel. Well you go ahead Javert. Crops are already rotting in the fields of Alabama because if you're of a racial or ethnic minority, it just ain't worth it and the construction industry is falling apart too. Other states would be happy to have those billions of dollars and thousands of jobs pack up and move elsewhere in Free America.

Undocumented immigrants among us

A lot of buzz today about Pulitzer prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas' public confession that he is an undocumented immigrant. If like me, you've run of out of free views at the NYT before you ran out of month, you can watch this shorter video version:



It also appears that the NYT article is reprinted here. Vargas is for all practical purposes an American and the DREAM Act was written to cover people like him, who were brought here as children. It can't be denied he has contributed to our society and it would be a great loss if he were to be deported. A distinct possibility.

There are thousands like him who don't have the cover to make this sort of brave admission. Under Obama's watch, the US has deported around 800K undocumented immigrants. Some were no doubt criminals, but for many their only crime was entering our country without papers in order to lift themselves and their families out of crushing poverty in their home countries.

Meanwhile, in thanks to the good ole bigots that run the state, Georgia farmers are watching their crops rot in the fields because the immigrants fled after an draconian anti-immigrant law was passed. Shockingly, no legal Americans are flocking to take over the backbreaking work in the blazing sun for the low wages the farmers are willing to pay. Which won't stop the GOPers xenophobes who passed that hateful legislation from blaming Obama for the rising cost of produce. [hat tip to Chris L Hayes for the video.]

Father's Day

By Capt. Fogg

Things change, everyone gets older. You start to wonder how many more father's days will pass while you still have a father to spend it with. It's good then, to see how some things never change; things like the bitter, miserable, vicious lies that spew from the GOP. Take the current Elmer Fudd of the Party, John McCain, the tortured war hero who didn't have the courage to stand up to the party's support of torture. Take John, who is making this Father's Day so much happier by blaming the Arizona wildfires on illegal immigrants rather than on the drought.

But he has substantial evidence, which he will, no doubt, reveal eventually, or not reveal or simply forget about after the wildfire of hate has got beyond control. Remember when Mexicans were bringing leprosy across the border? Many will long remember Lou Dobbs' accusations but not the lack of evidence and perhaps the wildfire libel will stick long after McCain's slide into dementia becomes all too obvious.

Well thanks John, for all you do and for reminding us of Republican fathers long gone like Joe McCarthy with their vaporous claims of "evidence" and I'm sure your legacy will stink long after you're gone.

Mr. Colbert Goes to Washington - Updated

Stephen Colbert created a media obsession yesterday with his testimony to Congress on migrant labor. Of course, the usual outraged suspects in the GOP and their media arm Fox News is apoplectic over Colbert's perfomance. But let's not look back to 2005 when these same people thought it was just fine for a fiction writer, Michael Crichton, to offer "expert" testimony on climate disruption.

The Village media in general is just about as outraged at Colbert's "stunt." Chuck Todd announced on twitter that he was offended. Of course twitter immediately responded with a big FU Chuckie. You offend us too, you sorry excuse for a journalist. Meanwhile, public consensus seems to be Colbert brought attention to an important issue that the media wasn't covering anyway and so what if Colbert stayed in character and made a mockery of a process that is the very definition of a joke no matter who is is testifying? Jake Tapper appeared to think that this didn't so much bring attention to the issue as it did to Colbert and Congress personally.

Jake may deny he feels that way, since he conveyed the thought via a retweet, but as I asked him, did anybody in the tradmed air a report on the substance of Colbert's remarks instead of the optics of his appearance and the reaction of the perpetually outraged politicos? He ignored me of course, and in a way he is right. Because the media won't do their job and focus on more than the one-liner about gay Iowans, the issue probably won't get the attention it deserves.

But the onus isn't on Colbert. While it's true he did stay in character, he also gave some serious testimony that the media wilfully ignores. But that's the media failure, not Colbert's. And at least the issue is coming up peripherally to the shallow coverage. That's more than it had before.

Update: I guess google alerts must be pretty thorough. Can hardly believe he saw this post. Jake Tapper tweeted me and objected to my implication that he might agree with his retweets. He advises he didn't cover the story. Says he didn't answer my tweet because he was on the road and had no idea what the general coverage was and says he tweeted twice, one that liked Colbert's testimony and one that didn't. Here are the two retweets in question:

RT @DVNJr: Colbert stunt brought more attention to migrant worker issue than 1000 hearings would have. Who else testified today? Exactly.

RT @andylevy No, he didn't. He brought attention to Stephen Colbert and to Congress.

Maybe I'm misreading the retweets, but they both sound like they imply Colbert's testimony was a stunt. But to be fair, Jake very clearly states on his twitter profile that retweets are not to be read as agreement and he says he has no position on the testimony. I shouldn't have implied that he did.

On a separate note, I saw a tweet this morning that someone did a piece about how unemployed workers still won't work on the farm. Of course, I promptly lost the link, but it seems to indicate that Colbert's testimony may well generate some substantive coverage of the problem. So there's that...

Hate mail for Arizona judge

I'm so old I remember when the media was tut-tutting about the uncivil left because they drop the f bomb so often and how really polite the wingnuts were because they didn't. Of course back then, the teapot Republicans were getting everything they wanted from George Bush. They were arrogant winners then and now they're really mean losers

David Gonzales, the U.S. Marshal for Arizona, says U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton has received thousands of phone calls and e-mails since her preliminary injunction Wednesday that put key provisions of the state's immigration law on hold.

Gonzales says some of the messages sent to Bolton are positive, but others are "from people venting and who have expressed their displeasure in a perverted way."

Since she's a woman, it doesn't take much imagination to predict what they're saying. But not to worry. I'm told by the media these are just fringe nutjobs and not representative of the right. Also, any similarities between their speech and Glenn Beck or Limbaugh's rhetoric is strictly coincidental.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Going to their heads

This isn't something I expected to say today. Dana Milbank did good and you should read his column. No, really:

Brewer's mindlessness about headlessness is just one of the immigration falsehoods being spread by Arizona politicians. Border violence on the rise? Phoenix becoming the world's No. 2 kidnapping capital? Illegal immigrants responsible for most police killings? The majority of those crossing the border are drug mules? All wrong.

It gets even better as it goes on. Of course, it will never penetrate the public discourse as long as the star boys like Jake Tapper and Chuck Todd ignore it. But good for Dana for bringing it up. Wish he would write like that every day.

Big protest in Arizona, media MIA

Any time 3 or more tea party people show up in a public place the media swarms in with wall to wall coverage and ponders on the message sent by these "real" Americans. But I'm told thousands showed up in Arizona today to march in protest of the Arizona's "show me your papers" law and as far as I know, not one cable network showed up to tell the story.

Guess this crowd is too "colorful" to cover. [photo]

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The Demonstration You Didn't See on Sunday

While the major tradmed and just about everybody in the new media were busy covering the couple thousand crazy tea party protesters, and their resident thugs, there was a peaceful demonstration that drew between 200,000 - 500,000 people who rallied in support of immigration reform and were virtually ignored.



Democracy Now has extended coverage, but otherwise, although it appears the rally was practically within walking distance from the riotous but sparse tea party tantrum, not one mention in the tradmed and barely noted by the new media. Disgraceful fail all around.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

Lou Dobbs Is Not Extreme Enough

Yes, hard as it may be to believe, among the hard core anti-immigrant base of the new GOP, a PAC that formerly supported Lou Dobbs has dropped their support because he made one slightly moderate comment about undocumented immigrants. The group now fully opposes him.

"Americans for Legal Immigration PAC is withdrawing support for Lou Dobbs after years, including the suspension of websites calling on Dobbs to run for President due to the perceived change in Mr. Dobbs's stances on immigration issues," the organization wrote.

"His recent comments on Telemundo and his national radio show supporting some kind of path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is inconsistent with positions of ALIPAC and the views of most American citizens," William Gheen, a representative of AILPAC also said in the written statement.

In a separate telephone interview with CNN, Gheen said that the group continues to respect Dobbs for helping to highlight the issue of illegal immigration.

But, Gheen added that Dobbs' recent remarks have "just blown everyone's minds" and that the group found itself at an "unexpected impasse" with Dobbs at this point.

"We feel like: Who are you and what have you done with Lou Dobbs?" Gheen explained.

The purity test for the crazy base just keeps getting more strict. I would find it amusing that the same people who cry fascism at every opportunity are so intolerant that even one unacceptable remark leads to banishment, except these people are really starting to scare me. I mean, they have guns. Lots of guns. And apparently hair-trigger tempers and no grasp of mercy. Not a comforting combo.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

The Sins of the Fathers

This is a subject I tend to avoid because it's so volatile, but Jeff Jacoby's op-ed on the children of illegal immigrants is worth passing on at the risk of being swarmed by anti-immigrant trolls. The last graph is quote of the day:

Of course illegal immigration is a problem. But it can only be solved by overhauling our dysfunctional immigration laws, not by demonizing or scapegoating illegal immigrants. Those immigrants didn’t come here in order to be lawbreakers; they broke a law in order to come here. That’s a distinction with a crucial difference - one that sensible and principled conservatives should be able to understand.

A distinction too few make. Conservatives seem to forget that unless you're a Native American, we're all descended from immigrants and most illegal immigrants are otherwise honest and hardworking people.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]

American family values -- no foreigners need apply

By Capt. Fogg

These days, it's not just justice wearing the blindfold: it's the law, the people who enforce it and the great majority of the people who don't give a damn.

The country of refugees and pilgrims is more dedicated to the letter of the law than anything else, at least as far as immigration is concerned. True, industry may look the other way because we couldn't afford to eat without illegal immigrants, but when it comes to the educated, the motivated and the talented, we're not willing to make any accommodation: we're not willing to offer any alternate route to citizenship no matter how someones skills might benefit the country.

Take Arthur Mkoyan, a 4.0 high school valedictorian from Fresno, CA. He speaks only English and since he was a baby, knows only the United States. We just can't wait to send him and his parents back to what used to be the Soviet Union, whence his parents fled for their lives. They were never granted that asylum, although any Cuban looking for better opportunities would be if he can get here illegally. All appeals having run out after all these years and the American kid has to be deported to a country he doesn't know and where he's an illiterate alien doomed to a life of misery. Freedom wins again.

Because they wish to appear merciful, ICE has allowed him out of jail to attend his graduation and make his valedictory speech before he's discarded like a bag of garbage. Of course his younger brother is a legal citizen, having been born here, so the family may have to be broken up, but who cares? It's all in a day's work for the ICE men and God, I love freedom and family values!

So move over Michelle Obama, I'm ashamed of this country to the point where I don't know whether to reach for my passport or my gun. It's the country of "I've got mine and screw you, it's not enough." It's the country of fear and intimidation and self righteous contempt for decency. If I'm ever really proud of this country, it will be when it starts acting as though the law was made for people, not people for the law. It will be when the much bragged about Christian Values aren't just a euphemism for "fuck you." It will be when the anger of the stupid, the willfully ignorant, the selfish, the war lovers and the cowards no longer lifts its light beside the golden door to hell.

And that's not going to happen.

Cross posted from Human Voices

The strange case of Mister Bah

By Capt. Fogg

We've come a long way from the founding principle that all people have certain inalienable rights, even if they're aliens. Of course that enlightened idea has so often been honored in the breach that it may be hard to make the case that the US is in decline, but it's still disturbing to hear about imprisonment so devoid of oversight and so absolute that dying people can be thrown into solitary confinement, incommunicado and with no effort to inform anyone in their families or their respective embassies simply because they missed a plane or their status was changed without notification.

There have been too many examples of late where tourists from such terrorist hotbeds as Iceland, for instance, have been abused physically and mentally for overstaying a tourist visa by a few hours. 66 people have died while in custody, some in privately owned and operated prisons. Nobody seems to give a damn about what happens to foreigners; after all we were attacked by foreigners, weren't we?

Take Mr. Bah, one of 66 prisoners to die in custody since January 2004 to November 2007. A tailor from Guinea, he fell and hit his head (or so they say) while in custody. He was in custody because they revoked his green card without telling him. Because he sustained brain injuries and was incoherent, he was shackled and left in solitary, vomiting and foaming at the mouth. No one outside was informed and it took five days for his family to locate him. It took another 4 months for him to die without ever regaining consciousness. Such things seem to be typical and considering that privately owned prisons for profit are the fastest growing form of incarceration, giving our swashbuckling government agencies like ICE an opportunity to make people disappear without a trace. The more people we toss in the clink, the more money the private jailers make and can contribute to Republican campaigns.

But of course we don't care. We were attacked by foreigners and although Bah, a 52 year old tailor whose family has been here since 1943, who lived and worked legally in New York for ten years, his elaborate gowns displayed in Manhattan boutiques, must therefore be a threat to our ethnic purity and our safety because his green card was suddenly revoked while he was abroad and he was automatically jailed upon his return for 9 months -- until he died. Did I mention that we were attacked by foreigners?

So why bother about them; why investigate when there is really no law requiring ICE to do so? ICE can, like so many agencies public and private under the Bush autocracy and is all but immune from oversight. Bah had family in the US who were able to get a few details, albeit too late; many detainees don't and some have been held for decades without anyone outside knowing what happened and doubtless many have died and been disposed of as quietly as were the countless victims of Stalin's godless system. We trust in God and we're Christians and foreigners can stay the hell out of our country -- and what's this about Samaritans -- they're foreigners, aren't they? We were attacked by foreigners, weren't we?

Cross posted from Human Voices

FAIR and friends

By Capt. Fogg

Lou Dobbs is quick to argue that his obsession with illegal immigration centers on the illegality and not the fact of immigration or the ethnicity of the immigrants, although I haven't heard a peep out of him about Canadian immigrants or the need to close the northern border. Indeed, many of the illegal immigration opinion shouters take great pains to tell us that they are only concerned that laws are being broken even though the near hysterical reaction to the very thought of Spanish being spoken within our borders is visible everywhere and calls their dispassionate pose into question. Are we looking at racism carefully cleaned up, shaved and passed off as reason?

Dan Stein, president of FAIR or the Federation For American Immigration Reform has appeared on Lou Dobbs' television show more than a dozen times, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center and many times on other news programs. His organization, the largest anti-immigration group in the US, has been called on by Congress to testify about immigration more than 30 times and has been instrumental in shooting down immigration reforms. Are these people voicing reasonable concerns about immigration policies and the effects on the US of immigrant labor or are they something else? Is it fair to look at FAIR and friends a little closer?

Stein has been communicating about immigration policies with a Belgian political party that has been banned from that country by their Supreme Court for their racist views.FAIR's Western Field representative, Joeseph Turner has created and been the head of an anti immigrant group whose rallies were frequented by neo-Nazis; people Turner refused to disassociate with his group.

The founder of FAIR, John Taunton, was an outspoken critic of Latinos and Catholics and a proponent of eugenics, a selective breeding program developed by Adolph Hitler. Stein calls him" a remarkable figure in American politics." FAIR has accepted $1,200,000 from the Pioneer Fund to promote the racial stock of the original colonists (presumably not those from Spain or Africa.) It's for such reasons as this that SPLC has added FAIR to it's list of hate groups.

It's not surprising that people with notions about an ethnically pure United States should try to dignify the enterprises of such people or cover up their slimier aspects. The facade of avuncular sincerity of people like Dobbs is quite convincing, but then it's part of a long American tradition of pretending that slavery and then segregation and religious discrimination were really reasonable policies well thought out by reasonable men. That's not to say that we don't have a problem; it is to say that when you listen to someone's statement of a problem and to the solution he offers, it's a good idea to know who stands behind him and what their real agenda is.

Cross posted from Human Voices

Out in the cold

By Capt. Fogg

One normally doesn't associate the need for cold weather survival techniques with South Florida, but normally at this time of year we do get some cold weather and many Floridians have trouble coping with it. About once in a hundred years we get frost. In the late 17th century, a fellow named Jonathan Dickinson was washed up in a storm not far from my house and the survivors of the wreck were captured by the local Jove (pronounced Hobay) Indians. Stripped of possessions and clothing, they made their way, naked and with nothng, 230 miles up the coast to the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine where those who had not died of the cold and starvation got passage to Philadelphia. It gets cold in Florida.

It was 35 degrees this morning in Hobe Sound, an area named for those long gone natives. The wind off the Atlantic is very brisk, making it feel like 20 degrees if you're wearing the light clothing that makes up the Florida wardrobe. For those around the county in unheated trailers or unheated shacks it was very uncomfortable, and for those without housing, sleeping on the beach or in the woods last night was a dangerous choice. Some try to loiter in all night stores, some build camps in the woods, some just keep walking all night. Fortunately for those who can make their way to Stuart, the local Red Cross chapter opened a shelter last night, furnishing a cot, some food and heat for about 8 people.

When you think of homeless people, it's not always accurate to envision some scruffy, bearded, addicted or alcoholic misfit. It's not accurate to describe 30 year old Jean Cournoyer that way; reasonably dressed and groomed, he carries a shopping bag full of the basic toiletries needed to stay that way and he is here intending to get a job as a cook as soon as possible. What he lacks is money and he lacks it not because he's a bum or unemployable or lazy or drunk; it's because the United States Government in it's most xenophobic fear and fascist arrogance forced him to spend every dime he has to reunite his family. You see his wife is a British citizen and once upon a time she overstayed her visa by 24 hours.

That's enough to alert the iron curtain mentality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deny her entrance; to tag her as The Enemy. Cournoyer hasn't seen his wife and small children in a year and all his efforts to reunite his family have been to no avail.

Think of him before you start screeching "illegal, illegal" at every sad immigration story. Think of him when you start blowing hard about our "freedom;" about our "Christian principles" and "family values." Think about it when you smugly tell us that it can't happen here, because it already has, and when I think about it, what comes to mind is a country where ordinary, decent people disappear into secret jails and are abused, where official fear of people getting in and information getting out smells like the Soviets, the Maoists, the Nazis and every other corrupt, paranoid and tyrannical government where the law speaks for the few and crushes the rest.

If our Republic survives as a free, democratic and open society and we are able and allowed to remember the Bush years, I think our descendants will remember George Bush as the man who tried to conquer America but failed. If not, perhaps I will take this opportunity, while I still can, to say God Damn the Bush family. Damn everyone who has supported them; the greedy, the stupid and the malicious. Damn the bastards who have made me ashamed to be an American. Damn them all.

Cross posted from Human Voices

The sad song of Narinder Singh

By Capt. Fogg

Of course it isn't only Icelanders that are treated like subhumans by the United States, the stories of offenses against decency in this cowardly and subjugated country are endless. Thanks again to Crankyboy for pointing out the Village Voice article about Narinder Singh, whose life was ruined by ICE because they suspected that his marriage lacked passion.

Singh was held without charges for five and a half years during which he suffered in solitary, was deprived of everything basic to life but food and water and was beaten and shuttled around from one jail to another like lost luggage. Dare I even mention due process?

Returning from his mother's funeral in India shortly after 9/11/01 he fell into the hands of immigration officials who seem to have the right to do do anything to anybody without accountability, oversight or explanation. Singh never got one. Some uniformed functionary decided to find out whether the marriage was arranged in order for him to get a green card. When he was released without explanation, his wife had had to sell everything, he had lost his drivers license, his business and everything else but his wife.

We all lost something too: the right to be differentiated from other paranoid tyrannies.

Cross posted from Human voices

What if Jesus is an illegal immigrant?

By Libby

This is a sort of a serious question. I think most of the fundies who believe in the second coming of Christ are pretty much in the 'blame the illegals for everything' camp. I suppose they assume the son of God will arrive with angels and trumpets but what if he shows up unannounced? Thinking back on my Bible reading days, it seems plausible that he would come back as a hated minority and chances are the God-fearing 'Christians' would treat him badly, just as in this story about Jesus Manuel Cordova.

PHOENIX - A 9-year-old boy looking for help after his mother crashed their van in the southern Arizona desert was rescued by a man entering the U.S. illegally, who stayed with him until help arrived the next day, an official said.

This happened in the wilderness where the boy and his mom were camping.

The van vaulted into a canyon and landed 300 feet from the road, he said. The woman, from Rimrock, north of Phoenix, survived the impact but was pinned inside, Estrada said.

Her son, unhurt but disoriented, crawled out to get help and was found about two hours later by Jesus Manuel Cordova, 26, of Magdalena de Kino in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Unable to pull the mother out, he comforted the boy while they waited for help.

The woman died a short time later.

"He stayed with him, told him that everything was going to be all right," Estrada said.

As temperatures dropped, he gave him a jacket, built a bonfire and stayed with him until about 8 a.m. Friday, when hunters passed by and called authorities, Estrada said. The boy was flown to University Medical Center in Tucson as a precaution but appeared unhurt.

Think about that. Jesus was entering the US illegally and had to know he would be arrested. He could have just kept walking. Or he could have built a fire and walked away. He could have fled at any time to avoid facing the authorities but he stayed to comfort and protect a child until help came. Which is more than we can say for the hunters who were presumably legal residents.

For his humanitarian efforts, he's now in jail awaiting deportation. What a sad commentary on the politics of hate that has so poisoned America, that we would penalize another human being for such a selfless act of kindness. Surely in this case, an exception to the rules could and should be made.