Robot Soldiers, or Soldier Robots?

You would THINK this would pacify some of my fears about the robot apocalypse. Instead, it makes me even more scared that the robots will learn to control us. I'm not talking Matrix stuff. I'm talking Cleopatra 2525 stuff. Remember that show? I remember watching it late at night while I was studying. That was back when I lived Los Angeles. The clothing those chicks wore was pretty hot. Are we the man or the machine?

Yes or Yes? Which opportunity is better?

So, I have two job opportunities for my short-term future.

1. A position at the city housing office as a secretary. The job would start Monday, the 21st and go through mid-Febrary 2012 - just in time for even more campaign jobs to kick up.

Positives: Twice as much money as I make now, A chance to interact with local and federal housing policies, practice new skills, not have to think so much, get to stick around for "science cafes"
Negatives: strong commitment (I couldn't leave town), full-time leaves less time to spend working on grad school applications and career-oriented work, kind of monotonous work

2. Changing to part-time work at the position I have now.
Positives: make the same amount of money but work half the time, get to complete some projects I have been working toward, I love the work, can take another temp part-time job to supplement income, at-will employment (low commitment), time to work on grad-school applications and apply for career jobs, don't have to move during the winter (yay!), will be available to make Science Cafe happen!
negatives: doing the same old thing, not learning anything too new, still in Dubuque.

Money is not the most important part. I live on so little as it is. But I wouldn't be getting ahead in the short term. Money is important when I am ready to move to Madison and get my car fixed sooner. If I did have money, I could pay off my car right away - which would get rid of a bill which frees up money to pay toward student loans sooner, and leaves me even more free later to work for less pay - if necessary.

I dunno what I want to do. I think I should sleep on it. I am also soliciting advice from friends. Please chime in if you have an obvious choice you would make.

Gah! Can't anyone think around here?

I just need an audience that won’t judge me for my outright bitchiness. 

So these grad students! They made up this survey for the community. It is 20 questions long and asks really generic questions, to a point where it is not actually useful. I think between being inexperienced, is part of their flaw, but it is also the construction of the research project.

Here is the dumbest part. Their projects are set up to start with the community proposal on what we wanted researched. That’s good. But then they spent the last semester deciding what data to use – that is great except they didn’t do the literature review first to know what kind of data to look at.  So, now, in this survey, because they don’t understand how poverty actually shows itself, they pulled a bunch of stuff that is limited. For example, they look at income and consumption utility shut offs -  which is great at measuring trends, but because they got caught up in the past data when they created their survey, they’ve only identified emergency service providers that treat poverty, and left off service providers that prevent poverty. The goal we gave them is to create a way to measure regularly and predict outcomes based on prevention.

But the way they’ve selected survey participants is opportunistic and because they don’t have a system for deciding who should be a part of a regular survey which means it isn’t replicable. If it isn’t replicable, it isn’t sustainable, and it isn’t useful.

And they need to start next week if they are going to meet their deadlines. Suddenly, I’m the bureaucracy. It feels weird to be on this side of things.

This has me so pissed, off I’m going for a walk.

Maybe once I’ve calmed down I can think of how to logically argue with my boss why we need to slow down and make this a teaching moment for the students.

Fear

I'm feeling kind of down on myself tonight. I went to a fantastic event with amazing people and ideas shared. It was the Women's Giving Circle annual dinner where they talked about their work in the past year raising and granting money to local non-profits who do amazing work. But I'm always a downer so there were two things that annoyed me. While I loved so much of the presentation, the bad stuff is sticking more.

The first thing that was super annoying was when one of the board members of the Multi-cultural Family Center referred to Africa as a country. I know the kid was 17, but that was super lame. Second, I don't believe in art therapy. I understand healing from trauma, I understand coming to terms with emotions, and I understand the value of DOING SOMETHING, but I don't think arts and crafts really is that deep. I have never been shown empirical evidence that it works better than any other therapy. That annoyance stuck with me.

I also got scared. My co-worker did this amazing presentation about inspired giving. I very much related to her ideas. I too am too often obsessed with finding that perfect thing I am good at. But really we each are perfect at being who we are. But sometimes who we are isn't so clear. I know I'm passionate, but I am also impatient with systems change. I'm not good at math (accounting), I'm not good at writing, and I'm not good at influencing people. I have spent the last year of my life doing something I am passionate about, but I can't tell if I'm good at it or just doing it as well as anyone else is.

I'm also a bit jealous. I've not done international work, which I would like to do. My co-workers have. But I don't see any way that this will be fiscally possible for me anytime soon. I could have done it in college, but I was too busy working and being involved locally. I say I want to go get a masters degree, but I don't write well, and the cost is prohibitive. I'm scared I took this job here and now I'm economically stuck - all because I'm too idealist and not practical enough. I have learned how valuable public policy is because I keep bumping up into it when I work on things at my job, however this point brings me back to my option of using electoral politics (something I know and am pretty good at) back as an option as a job. I need to have leaders elected who will be friendly to the policy changes I would like to see. Then I look at the jobs and they are either in places I may not want to live, or if I took one of them, would have to put grad school off. Why can't elections be in August and be over before school starts? That would make the choices easier.

I would feel selfish if I got on a campaign, especially at a regional director position, and then have to leave in August. I would have to withhold this goal from them to even get a position - which is like lying to them or a candidate.

I just don't know what I want to do. I'm also afraid if I do find a job that I do get I learn to hate. I don't want to do something too repetitive, but I'm not a good enough writer to get one of the jobs where I could move around more in the topics I research and want to help work on.

I come back to it is all fear. I fear the unknown. I fear not being good enough. I fear being insolvent. I fear making a bad decision.

One thing I also know I am good at, from stories my parent tell me, is that I make the right decision. But right now I don't know what that decision is, and I"m scared.

Tis' the season, I guess.

The Point of Privilege

I start with "I love my job." I get to think about structural poverty more than probably anyone else in the city. But at the same time, I often get frustrated because I see systems of discrimination and systems that propel income inequality and because I see them and can't stop them, I feel I am sometimes allowing for the system that I don't agree with.
   An example is the idea of an internship academy. I love the idea that younger people are being taught how to make the most of their internship experience and given some leadership skills to help them excel. However, the way in which these students are selected is by referral and good grades. This means the system is set up to reward those who already are succeeding, instead of helping those who need more attention to get to a similar position. I don't like this at all. With something as simple as a change in a selection policy, we could be doing better. But the argument is that it is easier to do it this way, and policy change demands debate which can potentially dissolve a group that could do more good by staying solvent. It is easier to stay the same than increase the impact.

I am assisting with a group who has a substantial amount of money to spend that could go either way. At this time, there is great opportunity if we keep our eye on the goal economic equity. Economic equity is not the same as economic equality, but can work towards the same goals concurrently. To minimize the economic inequality of a region makes the place more solvent and makes it easier for economic development to have the goal of making all people's lives better, not just the few at the top by supplying labor.

I keep thinking back to the idea of fairness. "The doctrine of fairness asks: If there must be some or even considerable inequality in society, why not seek a society where problems such as poverty are distributed randomly, rather than being disproportionately located in specific populations such as African Americans and women?" The doctrine of fairness means that there is equality of opportunity. It does not mean we shouldn't really be working for equality, but it is a first goal that policy should think toward if they are going to make measurable progress.

As the program has this available privilege of spending money (which really the whole foundation model does) their responsibility should be taken even more seriously. If we are not the ones to model responsible behavior, who is? Who will use their privilege for good if us.

When I see internal policies or behaviors that consent to inequality - whether framed as just bad customer service or racism - I become even more impassioned and frustrated when I have no outlet for changing things. I can't change an individual's behavior, but I have learned from some empirical studies that if you make the right behavior easier than the bad one, people will chose to be good. Usually. So that is our task. To make the right decision easy and the wrong decisions hard through systems. If I have accomplished anything this last year, I hope that a legacy of "right" is what I leave behind.

Writing to right

I've had a bad day. Well, not really. I've been in a bad mood despite having a reasonably good day. I get excited reading through all the jobs I am qualified for and would enjoy doing, but I am too tired at the end of the day to apply for any of them. My resume is in order, but writing the cover letter, and tweeking the resume for each job description to highlight why I would be good at that job is very tiring. I am not scared I won't have a job come November. I know I have rent covered for Nov, and December, but I don't know what I am going to be doing for Christmas because traveling back to Idaho may not be on my agenda since I may be moving across the country, either north, south, east or west. Being in the midwest means there are only more directions I could go. Deciding what jobs I could really be happy to do is also hard. Lots of non-profits have great missions I agree with, but few really speak to me. And which ones have the option for graduate school? It is all mixed up in my head as to my future, but I'm sure I'm going to make the right choice. Being young, with no major bills, having everything that fits in my car, and being free to move wherever opportunity may take me is just as scary as having no options. I wish I could just find the right job in Wisconsin. That would be the easiest choice. Milwaukee or Madison is where I need to go. Minneapolis is up there too, but I doubt I fit the Humphrey Institute as well as I would like. I want to go where I can be an anthropologist, where I can use my thinking, but have clear enough job duties that I can accomplish something tangible. My job now is good work, but it isn't always easy to tell what a good day is. In other jobs, with clearer objectives, it is so much easier.

Eating grapes has made me have a sugar high. Or I may be allergic to them and this is my body going into some sort of shock. Just writing this makes me feel better. Not an insightful blog post, but just something so I don't have to look at the last story about robots anymore.

Robot trading blamed for wild swings in markets | PRI.ORG

Robot trading blamed for wild swings in markets | PRI.ORG

"Markets opened lower this morning after stocks plummeted yesterday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 400 points and S&P closed down sharply. This is just the latest in a series of wild swings in financial markets in recent weeks."

I think it is part of the robots' evil plans. First they tank the economy. That, of course, makes people insecure, which is dangerous. Then those people riot and commit crimes against other people, which is the real warfare the robots have against humans.

It is so much easier to get them to kill each other than to do it yourself.

Good plan, robots... I've got my eyes on you.

The Earned Income Tax Credit and the Lottery

I don't enjoy gambling. I live in a town with several casinos and don't really have any interest in using them for gambling. I've never even bought a lottery ticket before. Maybe a scratch game once or twice, but never a lottery ticket.  Until this week.

It started as a joke. The odds are incredible, but for 48 million dollars, I thought, "why not this once" I've read about how for some people in poverty, playing the lottery is a type of remittance. While it is a small amount to pay out regularly, the sudden infusion of cash ($50-$200) is how they pay for those things they need irregularlly - like new clothes, technology upgrades, and stocking up on personal items or entertainment devices.

Buying the lottery ticket didn't start as a savings plan; it was entertainment. I was surprised by the amount of entertainment that it gave me. It was a tangible thing , this piece of paper, that induced dreams. [The only other piece of paper that inspires such dreams is my voting ballot.] What would I do with 48 million dollars? Daring to dream that big is a place far from the economic reality of my life, and of anybody's life. I spent time dreaming aloud, something that doesn't get to happen often for people trapped in the tyranny of the moment that is poverty.

Then today, I was reading up on current US policies related to asset building and it reminded me about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

"Despite the curtailed policy agenda, the Fiscal Year 2012 budget includes a set of policies and proposals that allocate $519 billion in resources to asset-building activities. An additional $65 billion in funding for the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, while not explicitly asset building programs, presents resources that individuals and families can devote to saving."


There is this continuing question in the EITC funders world [and middle-class sensibilities] of why people don't always use their EITC for its intended purpose of family asset building. There is evidence many many families use it to pay off debts - something which is responsible, but that still isn't asset building for the future. Then it dawned on me.  To people living on under $12,000 a year, their tax return is like winning the lottery.

When you think about what you are going to do with your tax return, you dream. You dream of the things which you know are out of reach on a regular basis. You plan on buying cars, televisions, movies, entertainment, restaurant food, vacations, ect. ect. Five-thousand dollars in one lump sum might as well be a million dollars. People in poverty often get unfairly judged for this behavior and called "irresponsible spenders."

While I could imagination how to split up my $48 million dollars so I could live modestly for a lifetime, I still dreamed of what $$ could do that I can't do now. It was a lot of fun.

Take that fun away by talking about asset building won't persuade people to change their behavior. What we need to do is develop a positive dream of the possibility of a secure life. We as a society, and as social service agencies, don't always give people a goal of what to be, only of what NOT to be.

With a new American Dream, maybe then tax returns won't be treated like we won the lottery.

Methodology that Counts in Poverty Alleviation

I was looking for methods of finding common indicators about poverty, and found this. I LOVE this article’ methodologies. If I was independently wealthy, I would just go around the US and do these for folks. But first I’d need some more statistics training and some GIS skills.

Developing a Regional Poverty Profile 

Poverty is relative to localities. We can tell when people are starving in other countries, but in America, poverty is hidden and part of perception. It is hard to measure something in peoples perceptions.  If we can’t measure this real poverty, how do we know our programs are going to be useful by those who they are intended for?

Here is an example of how to use this regional poverty profile in poverty alleviation. In their example study, they showed that being poor, not-so-poor, and not poor mean slightly different things in the three communities. In one places, not being poor was strongly statistically associated with being involved in a trade. They showed 83% of non-poor households were professionals or traders, whereas in the other comparative areas, only %52-53% of the not-poor were professionals or traders. In the other contrasting area, owning land and property was much more prominent means of acquiring “well-being.”  We would be able to see what the people who live in poverty think would work to make their lives better, not use the top-down method of the school, or IWD telling folks how get a “good job,” what that job is, and how to improve their lives.

“Different ethnic groups may have different value systems that, among other things, could influence their perceptions of well-being and poverty.” By building on their existing perceptions we can be sure to have programs that work for the people they are intended for.

Using their quantified knowledge WITH real measures of  industry/sector or work, hours, wage, property ownership, plus access to affordable food and public transportation we could see if something like having a bank account or a car is really a measurable asset to the relief of poverty. We could also know what types of employment would actually benefit folks – not make assumptions that all jobs are good for all populations. “Jobs” are good on the aggregate, but it isn’t “a rising tide floats all boats” for folks in poverty. This can help find the right river for them to put the boat into.

 I think this is especially great on a neighborhood level, both in the flatlands of DBQ and all the way out to Dyersville/Ashbury. How do they define well-being differently than the flatlands? What would benefit their economic success differently, and how do you quantify it? I just love this paper! I hope the ISU people can use it as a base and build policy ideas around it.

This method could also be used to include data that it leaves out, like the source of income for people in poverty, how they spend their money, or measuring the economic inequality of an area -which is a little controversial because Americans don’t really want to know this and feel bad about them doing well.

I've Lived an Interesting Life.

I've been to all but 3 states
I lived in a tent for a summer, in TX and in Idaho - doing archeology
I've lived with a gay legislator from MN for 2 weeks
I've lived with environmental activists
I've moved over 1k miles away to a strange place
I have an art degree - and was an assistant designer in los angeles
I was at the inauguration of our first AA president - where I randomly met people I knew from Idaho.
I was a news director for a local NPR affiliate.
I've met the president - in NV
I've gone to Mexico to do environmental work - and lay on a beach
My best friend lives in another continent!
I've organized a protest with over 500 students
I've been married - and divorced.
I went to Muppetfest
I was a crisis counselor and saw horrific violence
I've worked at a women's center and met some amazing survivors.
I was youth organizer of the year for the state of Idaho
I've won the governor's volunteer award in Iowa
I worked against Michelle Bachman
I elected Mark Dayton - and helped a great female candidate along the way
I survived the 2010 election.
I've gone whitewater rafting
I've jumped off a cliff because everybody else did - and broke my foot
My hair has been blue, pink, purple, green, orange, red, yellow, and white
I've had clothing I made worn by celebrities
I've been on the front page of a national blog (Daily Kos)
I've won scholarships
I've been on the honor roll
I graduated at 17 from high school
I've lived in a Peace House with hippies (Love you David and Matt)
I've been vegetarian
I've had a Dominatrix
Been in Love - had my heart broken
And am practicing for a flash mob.



Things I still want to do
Shave my head
Learn to sing
Be in a play
Teach sewing lessons
Go to India and France
Visit those last 3 states!
Go for an extended bike-ride (several days)
Buy car from the dealer
Have my own garden - and know what I am doing

My VISTA Soapbox

Talking to other VISTAs (there are 4 of us in this town) I also find this VAD lack of context to our anti-poverty task to be annoying.

One of the major complaints I have with my state VISTA program (not my site) is that they don't have an organize plan or framework to fight poverty. They have not been able relate my work into a context to shows why my work needs done. I thought we were fighting a war! I would expect there to be a better plan.

I don't just "get" how starting an art project for kids fights poverty, or how building houses fights poverty, or how planting trees fights poverty. In fact, I find too much of the work VISTAs are recruited to do is more like charity. Charity gets on my nerves.

Paulo Freire writes "In order to have the continued opportunity to express their 'generosity,' the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. And unjust social order is the permanent fount of this 'generosity,' which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity."

No offense is meant to my VISTA brothers and sisters who are helping Habitat for Humanity, but that program is a perfect example. One of my best friends got a great deal from building a Habitat House (leadership skills, community connection, stable housing for her family, ect.) but she needed a habitat house because of the inequality in our education, justice, and social systems. I value the work, but to me, treating a symptom isn't VISTAs role, although it is a highly valuable thing. But all these "re-stores" they are trying to open all over the U.S. come from the fact that structurally, the construction industry is not good at making houses. There is so much waste that they want to find a "generous" (and sometimes green-washed) way to dispose of it.

One of my sister VISTAs works for a project that plants trees. I love it! Trees are awesome. But she never could tell me how her work was VISTA worthy. Eight months later we were all reporting our projects to the state commissioners on volunteer service and half-way through her presentation she explained how if you plant a tree on the south side of a home, you can save up to %30 of the energy costs. I get it now. It is just annoying that it took 8 months to learn. Also, while I value the project it doesn't get at the structural problems of why poverty continues to exist in one of the richest nations in the world. It is another way of treating the problem. As we learned from PSO, money is not the primary thing that people in poverty suffer a lack of.

I love this quote from one of the VISTA alumni pages. "VISTA Motivation - They knew something was wrong. They could see where the system broke down for parts of society. One way of getting at that was VISTA. The most successful Volunteers were able to see their role in balance to the situation. They understood bureaucracy and its nonsense and their own limitations. They still got up everyday and went to it."

We exist in a context. Early VISTAs did more direct service because it was the direct service that helped them find the flaws in the system. They are the ones who went on to fight it in other systematic places. Those are my heroes.

But when I came to my state, they couldn't explain to me how I fit into a state strategy to fight poverty. From my observation, they have a milieu approach. Throw enough glitter and some of it is bound to stick. My service site, however, couldn't answer that question,either, when I started. By asking for an answer we've moved the program and the entire non-profit forward. We are now working toward a strategy that puts all of our partners in context and has shared community goals. It helps them understand their personal power in the goal of fighting poverty and injustice.

I think most people, in the hearts, understand their work is valuable as fighting poverty in some way. The problem is that they are never asked to write it down and put in on a chart so everyone can see it. Maybe they are afraid if they have to say it aloud, it isn't working for what they want it to do, but they don't want to stop. And some of it is just dogma. That's what I really can't stand.

I wish the state was taking the same initiative to explain our purpose in context to a strategy of solving poverty.

Robot War Anthropology

From Bad 'Bots, Bad 'Bots, Whatcha Gonna Do?
"Which is why, a week after the war ends, I'm sitting cross-legged in front of a Rob survivor that's spraying the floor with holograms and I'm writing down everything I see and hear.
I just want to make my way home and have a good meal and try to feel human again. But the lives of war heroes are playing out before me like the devil's déjà vu.
I didn't ask for this and I don't want to do it, but I know in my heart that somebody ought to tell their stories. To tell the robot uprising from beginning to end. To explain how and why it started and how it went down. How the robots came at us and how we evolved to fight them. How humanity suffered, and oh god did we suffer. But also how we fought back. And how in the final days, we found a way to face Big Rob himself....

The machines came at us in our everyday lives and they came from our dreams and nightmares, too. But we still figured them out. Quick-thinking human survivors learned and adapted. Too late for most of us, but we did it. Our battles were individual and chaotic and mostly forgotten. Millions of our heroes around the globe died alone and anonymous, with only lifeless automatons to bear witness. We may never know the big picture, but a lucky few were being watched.

Somebody ought to tell their stories."

It will be the anthropologists. Not because anthropologists know the subject, because we are our own audience.

The Poor are the Purest Conservationists

So, for AmeriCorps Week we camped out at the farmers market to tell people about AmeriCorps. As were were sitting there, friends of mine from the Getting Ahead class were coming by and we were chatting. I noticed they all had bags of clothing with them. Lots of bags. Then I remembered that it was St. John's "Open Closet" day.

Twice a month on Saturday from 8-noon, they have a free store. I need a new pair of shoes, and even $10 is outside my budget right now, especially since my bike repairs are going to be like $50, so I thought I'd run over and see if I can find some shoes. What I discovered is the culture of poverty.

For example, when I first arrived I couldn't get into the store because a family of like 8 people, who I would observe as being Latino because of their skin color and that they were speaking Spanish, were coming out the door. Each had a bag or two of the clothing. Inside were several more, mostly women, carefully picking through the clothing. The clothing was only roughly sized so it took a lot of work to pick out goods. There were lots of men's and women's jeans, and modest price-point clothing.

By looking at the brands of clothing available, and the types that had been selected for the store, the people giving to St. Johns were lower-middle class. The brands, although mostly 10 years old or so, were from places like JC Pennys, Sears, and those kind of retailers. Even in the suit section [I also was looking for work clothes] were unlined and mostly polyester. Quality clothing is made of linen, cotton, wool, or would be a polyester crepe, not a polyester twill. Anyway, this is the story of two classes.

I wrote a paper in college about how thrift stores are like archeological sites. In my research (although this never got into the paper by the end) I read this book about the beginning of thrift stores. Thrift stores are recycling. They are part of a system. At the top, clothing is designed and built. The clothes are produced and it takes energy and planning to get them to the right stores in places all over the world. It takes oil, both in transportation, and oil to even make the polyester. Oil is controlled by those with the most power and money. The power feeds itself oil in these clothes. The middle class consumption of it is immense. It is the primary consumption.

Well meaning people know they consume a lot so when styles have changed, bodies have changed, and they recognize they have excess, they cast away their clothing in a culturally appropriate way - a type of philanthropy - by giving it to Goodwills, Salvation Armies, and non-profits so it can be re-used by someone not on the same consumption level. This is a second generation of the energy of oil.

So, if you think about it, people - not just the trendy hipsters - but the people whose situation dictates they shop or get clothes from these free stores are the ultimate conservationists. It isn't the people with low-incomes who drive out to Asbury to the Goodwill. The poor shop local out of necessity.

The ones I observed there were all complaining because of the rain. They had walked there, children in tow in second-hand strollers.

The sad part is still how oil prices most directly affect people in poverty at the same time as they are saving it. Fluctuations in transportation costs and that unpredictable fluctuation represents a higher percentage of their total income. Of my total income.

So, as I was leaving the store (with the one item that I could find up to my standards, but sadly not a pair of shoes) another woman and her 2 kids was also leaving the store. I think I paid attention to her because last night at Dubuquefest, my friends were talking about the huge number of disfigured and inbred-looking people who were there. I knew several of the people they were pointing out from Getting Ahead and Hillcrest Wellness Center. I stood up for the people I knew, but I think I should call out that negative judgmental behavior from my friends more.

I mentioned in passing that I hope she didn't have to travel far in the rain. She said it wasn't far. Her shopping cart/stroller was filled with bags of clothing. I asked if she needed help carrying the stroller up the stairs, and she accepted. As I was leaning down to help pick up the stroller with the baby in it, her other daughter was holding an obviously second-hand doll. She was really proud of this polyester (oil) and plastic doll she had just got. This doll had been loved by someone else and now it was going to be re-loved by her. That doll is a the ultimate form of oil conservation.

Stories from Poverty

I have been under the impression that the goal of one of my programs is to remove some of the barriers to mainstream financial institutions so families can build assets. It is also to re-engaged those who may have accounts but don't know how to use them to build assets. People who are in poverty (both situational and generational) nearly all fall into these two categories. These are who programs like mine have targeted in other cities and been successful with.

I sent the marketing team some Pew research and 2 other case studies of un-banked and under-banked people in markets that also did programs like ours. The audience is women, often with young children, 20-35 year old, new Americans (some people call them immigrants), minorities, and people who live in densely populated areas. We can point to the neighborhoods on GIS census maps.

My envisioned target population fits squarely in the disengaged people focus of VISTA work. The suburbs doesn't even show up on the maps of where our disengaged populations live.

I knew there was an underlying middle-class ethnocentrism but I chalked it up to the those involved being removed from the realities of poverty. It isn't that they don't care, they do care a whole lot, but they don't have the language to even talk about the situation. The new marketing plan is like something out of The Ugly American.

Here is another true story of what it is like in poverty, one from this evening.

I had a drs appt today. I'm lucky enough to have insurance, but I don't really understand how it works. I'm really fearful that if I go to the doctor for a follow-up it won't be covered because the insurance only covers 1 doctor visit a year. To pay my co-pay, of all $5, I had to break out my parking quarters and change purse. I got strange looks from the receptionist, but I paid it and I don't have to be afraid of being short $5 in my bank account.

Then I had to go to HyVee to fill a prescription and ran into a friend of mine from the Getting Ahead class - a current Circle Leader. While I waited for my prescription, we were looking at treats she could take to an event her daughter was involved in at St. Lukes. She was going to have to use her food assistance credits to pay for it. She is about 3 months pregnant. She was borderline diabetic before the pregnancy [the link between poverty and disease, ESPECIALLY diabetes is very very strong - stronger than race and disease], but because of the pregnancy she is  now full-on diabetic. We were looking at the sugar free options and comparing unit prices. Sugar free treats are far more expensive. We weren't comparing unit prices on half-gallons of ice cream, it was unit prices of the more expensive but single-serving options. She could buy 5 seventy-five cent 3 oz cups-the cheapest minimum amount-instead of the $2 more for a far more economic purchase. But she wasn't going to spend the extra $2. In addition to this joke of unit price "savings", diabetes now puts an extra burden on monthly finances. So does the pregnancy. She can get pre-natal medical care before the baby is born, she can get WIC after the baby is born, but the diabetes and its exponential corresponding costs and pressures on her financial situation are eternally playing out in the grocery store line.

Life in poverty is a melee of negative situations. For Teresa it is  negotiating parenting responsibilities, social concerns [what would people think if she said she couldn't contribute to the community center's event that her daughter has been involved in for several months - she would lose social prestige- one of her few assets] budgeting her minimum nutritional food assistance credits, pregnancy, and a new frightening health concern.

But my friend, Teresa, is left out of the new program's picture of prosperity. I breaks my heart.

In another note, this is the same Black woman who has been used as an example of the success of another program about the mom who started out in a Getting Ahead class with her kids in foster-care. Now  she is trying to go back to school, and has had her kids returned to her. I think her goal of getting a job when she is 3 months pregnant is unlikely because she would have to tell the employer she will need a few weeks off come November.

My co-worker Jodi is also expecting in November. It is amazing how different Teresa and Jodi's pregnancies will be.

When Poverty and Unemployment Are Misdiagnosed

http://takingnote.tcf.org/2011/05/when-poverty-and-unemployment-are-misdiagnosed.html



This is a really good read. My adviser from college is a Medical Anthropologist who does a lot of work in this field (cultural barriers to healthcare and nutrition.) She does it in rural Idaho, and in central and south America. Surprisingly, rural Idaho and Central American poverty have a lot in common.

This article makes me upset. I just got back from the grocery store and I looked through my cart and as I checked out I was thinking "I'm not buying much food" thinking I was getting groceries for 2 weeks. When the bill came up, it was just over $90, which is just over half of the $172 a month I get in food assistance. I only got 4 bags of groceries. I didn't buy any candy, soda, meat, or carbs except one box of pasta. It isn't that I don't have enough food, but living like this creates habits that are undermining of healthy behavior.

Through the "assistance" program we are also unintentionally being taught to live hand-to-mouth. Food assistance is calculated on minimum nutritional standards. The program is set up that way so that a bad few can't abuse it. Even if my great idea comes true of somehow helping people nutritionally plan out the spending of the assistance they get, they will never have an at-home food safety net if they get the minimum nutrition.

Coming from, what I think was pretty middle class, I grew up with parents who were children of farmers. We always had a 2-yr supply of food at the house. My parents were Mormon, so some of it was apocalyptic preparation, but even as a faith tradition it comes from the history of farmers having a food storage as an asset in case agriculture failed. When I was a kid [and even in college when I'd go eat at the Restaurant of Dad], it insulated our family from food insecurity.

Sure, I can buy the 20 pound bag of rice or potatoes, but the percentage of my food assistance money that it cost means I have to trade it for broccoli or apples. This echos my complaint that unit price means nothing to someone living in poverty.

This also makes people receiving assistance most at-risk for food price changes due to the fluctuating price of gasoline. Transportation costs effect the price of the fresh and most nutritional food first and most dramatically. Maybe I deserve to only eat rice and beans [I chose to be poor, right?], but honestly, I take pride that I live in one of the richest countries on the planet. I think I deserve to eat the apple. Removing my choice to pick to eat an apple is an insult to my very cultural identity as an American, and robs me of my dignity.

I've thought about using the food pantries in town to begin building a food asset in my home. The pantries give away the types of supplies that end up in the back of the cabinet anyway. They are a valuable community asset. The liquidity of that asset is still a barrier. They are only open during the middle of the day 3 days a week. Have a job and you lose access quickly.

Geeze, I hope most people don't over-think this stuff like I do, or I'm going to have to start a support group. Oh, wait, that is why we have Getting Ahead - a poverty recovery support group.

How to talk to your kids about the Zombie Apocalypse.

It is ever parents' responsiblity to prepare their children for the zombie apocalypse, unless of course the kids are just being bred for food for the parents. For those who don't see their fat children as food, this book can help.

"We’re sure you already know this, but May is zombie awareness month,  which means there’s no better time to start preparing your kids for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. It can be hard to start a dialog with your kids about what to do once the infection spreads, because you can’t talk about it without exploring the possibility that you will become infected. Author Matt Mogk wrote That’s Not Your Mommy Anymore: A Zombie Tal, to help you teach your children how to figure out whether or not you’ve become a part of the zombie horde. And, more importantly, what to do if that happens. So what are you waiting for? Order a copy and teach them all about zombies – it’s the right thing to do. $8"

Zombie Ants!

Yes, dead ants reanimated by a fungus in their brain. Luckily, it is not transferable to humans, as far as we know. But stay alert.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/tropical-fungus-in-thailand-rainforest-taking-transforming-carpenter-ants-into-walking-zombies/story-fn5fsgyc-1226052753828

Zombie House WIN!

But is this portable?

1 in 50 US troops in Afghanistan is a robot.

Robot Apocalypse Sign.

"Afghanistan is a country where you might be hard pressed to find a working elevator, but if the latest numbers are right, you could have a good chance of running into a robot - that is, if you're on the front lines."

1 in 50 US troops in Afghanistan is a robot. Terrifying.

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/04/last-look-war-of-the-machines/

The oil we eat: Middle East- food & politics

The oil we eat: Following the food chain back to Iraq—By Richard Manning (Harper's Magazine)
I adore this article. I really do. I read it back in 2006 in an Anthropology of Globalization class and don't regret a second of it.

Here is what I take from the article from my 4th reading of it, from this morning.
It is strangely ironic that I am fighting the war on poverty in the place the war on the poor has been developing and creating the machinery . Every calorie from corn, wheat, and sugar comes from a calorie of oil. America is actively engaged in this very second in killing to keep access to this resource. Killing for food. Iowa corn by extension kills people in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Nigeria. It is here in Dubuque, Iowa where the weapons of war - in the form of the John Deere plant - are produced and then sent oversees where people choose to continue destroying the land.

Here in Dubuque, this war is profitable and even claims to be the solution to poverty - if the people from Dubuque who are living as victims of green revolution just join the war, by getting the $20-per-hour jobs available to them at the plant that solves poverty, right? That is the working assumption. Somehow being the victim of structural violence's solution is trapped in the plan to just become the oppressor.

I guess somewhere between my research into creating a position to help people from poverty to self-sufficiency, and my moral convictions that we are structurally failing to solve problems, I have this one question to deal with,

"If there isn't food the one think worth killing for?"

Here are the highlights of the article.

"Energy cannot be created or canceled, but it can be concentrated... If you follow the energy, eventually you will end up in a field somewhere. Humans engage in a dizzying array of artifice and industry [agriculture]....However, the maintenance of such a concentration of wealth often requires violent action...In the natural scheme of things, a catastrophe would create a blank slate, bare soil, that was good for them. Then, under normal circumstances, succession would quickly close that niche. The annuals would colonize. Their roots would stabilize the soil, accumulate organic matter, provide cover. Eventually the catastrophic niche would close. Farming is the process of ripping that niche open again and again. It is an annual artificial catastrophe, and it requires the equivalent of three or four tons of TNT per acre for a modern American farm. Iowa's fields require the energy of 4,000 Nagasaki bombs every year...On average, it takes 5.5 gallons of fossil energy to restore a year's worth of lost fertility to an acre of eroded land—in 1997 we burned through more than 400 years' worth of ancient fossilized productivity, most of it from someplace else. Even as the earth beneath Iowa shrinks, it is being globalized...

What would happen when the planet's supply of arable land ran out? We have a clear answer. In about 1960 expansion hit its limits and the supply of unfarmed, arable lands came to an end. There was nothing left to plow. What happened was grain yields tripled.

The accepted term for this strange turn of events is the green revolution, though it would be more properly labeled the amber revolution, because it applied exclusively to grain—wheat, rice, and corn. Plant breeders tinkered with the architecture of these three grains so that they could be hypercharged with irrigation water and chemical fertilizers, especially nitrogen. This innovation meshed nicely with the increased “efficiency” of the industrialized factory-farm system. With the possible exception of the domestication of wheat, the green revolution is the worst thing that has ever happened to the planet.

For openers, it disrupted long-standing patterns of rural life worldwide, moving a lot of no-longer-needed people off the land and into the world's most severe poverty. The experience in population control in the developing world is by now clear: It is not that people make more people so much as it is that they make more poor people. In the forty-year period beginning about 1960, the world's population doubled, adding virtually the entire increase of 3 billion to the world's poorest classes, the most fecund classes. The way in which the green revolution raised that grain contributed hugely to the population boom, and it is the weight of the population that leaves humanity in its present untenable position.

Discussion of these, the most poor, however, is largely irrelevant to the American situation....

Ever since we ran out of arable land, food is oil. Every single calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten... That number does not include the fuel used in transporting the food from the factory to a store near you, or the fuel used by millions of people driving to thousands of super discount stores on the edge of town, where the land is cheap. It appears, however, that the corn cycle is about to come full circle. If a bipartisan coalition of farm-state lawmakers has their way—and it appears they will—we will soon buy gasoline containing twice as much fuel alcohol as it does now. Fuel alcohol already ranks second as a use for processed corn in the United States, just behind corn sweeteners. According to one set of calculations, we spend more calories of fossil-fuel energy making ethanol than we gain from it. The Department of Agriculture says the ratio is closer to a gallon and a quart of ethanol for every gallon of fossil fuel we invest. The USDA calls this a bargain, because gasohol is a “clean fuel.” This claim to cleanness is in dispute at the tailpipe level, and it certainly ignores the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, pesticide pollution, and the haze of global gases gathering over every farm field. Nor does this claim cover clean conscience; some still might be unsettled knowing that our SUVs' demands for fuel compete with the poor's demand for grain."

Too Many Spocks, Not Enough Scotties (In Economic Development)

I was asking myself why people incorporate. Many non-profits seems to think if they are a corporation (although there are many types of corporations) that they get something out of it. This makes me wonder, why would you want to constitute yourself like a monster, assuming that is purely logical. Perfectly logical would be Spock.

Iowa is currently looking at reconstituting its economic development department into a more corporate model. I sympathize with this idea, at the same time as really abhorring it. I don't think the problem is that the department is missing the Spock piece, but rather missing more of the dynamics of the Star Trek team. You do need a charismatic leader who is willing to take risks. We learned this from Captain Kirk. We need an influential "logical" being like Spock to be represented, but we all know, we like Spock best when he leaned toward the side of emotion. It is especially why everyone loved Data in TNG. We also need a Dr. McCoy to often remind people of their high moral obligations. Once in awhile, it is also their job to declare "I'm a doctor! Not a _______" to remind people that they are limited to their role.  There is a need for the engineer, the helmsman, the tactical engineer, and a navigator. The team also needs red-shirts. I know that sounds sad, but on a good team the red shirts are the constantly rotating individuals with particular pieces to play, but not part of the core team for the long haul.

I think if more business partnerships were organized around this model, we wouldn't have monsters running the economy and we would all be a little better off. What we don't need is more Spocks.

Destory the Enemy using Water!

I didn't know we could get robots to scream "I'm MELTING" until I saw this.

I find truth best told in chart form.

What Good is a Right if You Can't Enforce It?

This is a post I wrote in 2009 but never got around to publishing.

I learned some very cool stuff about "What good is a right if you can't enforce it" at CSTI in Portland at the beginning of this month, on the Sunday class. CSTI is the Community Strategies Training Initiative, an annual training and leadership conference for non-profits in the West. It is put on by the Western States Center, a wonderful group that helps non-profits remain successful.

In the workshop we began by trying to define a right. We each wrote down about what we thought was a right we had. We came to the conclusion that there are two kinds of rights, inherent-the kind we are born with, and those ways of treating people we have made social contracts with-legal rights. We focus mostly on legal rights that we have agreed upon and are written into the U.S. Constitution, especially the bill of rights.

Rights can be framed as actions that compel the government to act, but also may protect us from the government. For example, the idea of equal marriage. LGBT equality is both working to protect people from the government from being intrusive into who they love, but also wants the government to move in action allow personal civil contracts with the people of our choosing. With that contract other privileges will be granted, hence making LGBTQI people more equal with their peers.

We used immigration as the model, but many of the things could also apply to other rights and times when we are unfairly treated by law. Immigrants are a specially vulnerable population because they are not granted the same rights as citizens, but they do have some rights under federal law just for being humans who deserve dignity.

First we have to recognize that immigration law's history was in state law. for the 1st 100 years of this country, states decided upon immigration and had to enforce immigration. Once it was decided that it was a matter of international treaty and covenants that made immigration legal, the federal government began enforcing the policies that congress decided. It is not written into the constitution that the federal government and it's agencies is responsible for immigration law enforcement, but it is defacto the way it is.

There is this wall that is a violation. Before the violation we have our rights intact, after the violation the rights have been tattered, and recourse is necessary for the scale of justice. Even when a reparation has been made, still there is no way to ever go back to before a violation. Community organizers and community education is necessary before and after a violation to prevent more violations, but also as part of repatriations.

For example, before a violation occurs, there is a necessary action of education about what to do if your rights are violated, and even what those constitutional rights are. There is also a need for people to have resources, safety plans, and prepare in case a violation is possible and they are at high risk. Risks can be minimized without compromising life, but there should be a plan. In the case of undocumented immigrants, they should know that they are much more likely to be picked up and disappear (detained) if they ride in a car or drive. For some people this may mean it is a good idea to ride the bus more than have their own car. They should also know that other risks of their rights being violated rise if they live or associate with other undocumented workers. If they engage in illegal activities they are also at higher risk.

It is possible they will for some reason become a target of ICE. If they do know their rights they may not be able to stop what happen, however the important thing is they can prepare. But even if they minimize their risk, they should prepare with other actions like having a plan. For example, it may be a good idea to save money for a bond if detained. They should also make arrangements for their children and families with a place to go in an emergency. The immigration lawyers suggested that they have set up a power of attorney for someone to care for their family in the case they disappear. They should talk to a couple of lawyers about their situation prior so that they have someone who is their representation which becomes very important if they are detained. And if they are partnered or live with another undocumented person, they should have a safe place to go to if their partner is detained so that their family isn't further dismantled by and ICE arrest or raid.

This lead to the rise of the Immigration Code Enforcement (ICE). All immigration laws are civil laws, not criminal law. Immigrants, although not granted the rights of citizens, are protected under the constitution as being "people", yay for that. And since ICE is a federal agency, it must obey the constitution in it's actions. Under the 4th amendment we have the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The search is of especial important in the way that ICE has gone to arresting people in their homes. Right now, ICE agents will bang on the door and ask if they can "come in". If the person at the door is an adult, and there is reason to believe they live in the home being visited, then they can grant a search of the premises. If the person knows their right, really, there must be a search warrant issued by a judge. It must be a judge because a judge is a third party. They are not law enforcement or a citizen in this case. Education is of special importance here because if the person's whose home is being invaded knows their rights, they would know to ask for a warrent. Even if they know this much about the 4th amendment, then there is the barrier of knowing that ICE warrants are issued by administrative order NOT from a judge. This means a person may give consent under incorrect circumstances. Also it is documented that innocent people who happen to be at home during an ICE home invasion will be physically detained and treated as a criminal threat. children may watch their mothers and fathers treated like violent offenders, and even pregnant women will be handcuffed to chairs as ICE asserts its authority. This invitation into the home to arrest a person, or to rifle through their drawers looking for their documents, or even into closets and around the home, is an unlawful search. The handcuffing of others in the home may be unreasonable seizure, but if a person gives consent they have less legal recourse.

I think a little more of the description of how the ICE program works would be useful here. ICE will decide to do a raid in various ways. Right now, this group of immigrant lawyers in Portland are trying to understand it better. Their are using tools like the Freedom of Information Act, & state laws that give access to better find patterns of what is going on. If you visit the CSTI website, there should be a link to some google docs that people are asked to fill out about where raids are happening. The hope to google map in time and space where raids and arrests are happening so they can better predict them or better protect rights by knowing who is being targeted. People can currently request from the states and IcE past arrest information for people. Check the website examples of the information they are interested in.

ICE is detaining people through raids at workplaces. When a person gets taken by ICE for being undocumented there are different barriers to them getting justices, in this case the 5Th am=amendment, due process. ICE in some ways is very efficient. usually 24-48 hours after an arrest they begin moving the arrested folks to several nation-wide detention centers. For most people in the west, when this happens, the family is sent into crisis, there is no plan, and suddenly the family member is being sent hundreds, or thousands of miles away from where they were taken. This only further traumatizes them and the fear hurts them and keeps them silent and in inaction to regain their rights or assert their rights. Because of the number of people who are taken by ICE recently, sometimes detained people will also be moved into a different legal district then they were detained in. This becomes a special problem with legal representation. Because of the quick move, they may their legal council is out of touch with them, and legal council where they are moved to may not be as available or responsive to their needs in the immediate. This disrupts their right of due process. Also, language barriers plus the pressure by ICE agents, and the lack of council combined create a place where ICE detainees will have their right to due process infringed upon and can end up harming themselves.

This is in the case of an ICE raid. There is also the case of when an individual is detained after a civil infraction. The way that the program works now is that in some places, ICE will deputize some sheriffs and some city police officers. This means they can arrest people for not being documented. In Idaho, this is not the case. In Idaho, what happens is that an officer of the law, no matter a sheriff, State police, or city officer, may pull someone over for an traffic infraction. Because the person can not show documents to who they are, they will be cited for the infraction and the officer has the authority to release them (which normally happens to documented people) or detain them. If the officer decides to detain them, they are transported to a local prison, usually a county prison since few cities have their own jails. At this time, they contact ICE and tell them to "come and get'em". The individual can be held for how ever long the infraction allows, legally. The problem is this thing called an ICE hold. An ICE hold is 48 hours that law enforcement is allowed to hold a person before ICE is required to come and get them. How it works is that people are taken into custody, and in the process of booking for the infraction is when the documentation problem is solidified and ICE is contacted. The other issue with this is that many people are detained on a Thursday or Friday. The 48 hour hold doesn't count weekends, therefore if a person is taken on Thursday, held for the traffic violation, then add 48 hours, this means they may have disappeared from their family for 4 days before even being taken by ICE. During this 48 hour hold, they are being held without charge, also a violation of the 5th amendment rights.

So, what can people do? Well, the Portland group has created a task force that is working on helping. The group does many things. There are 3 barriers to having more legal power to help these people. 1 is the lack of evidence. In cases where Ice shows up and they get into a house and detain innocent people, it becomes a person v. person argument about consent. By people being aware that they do not have to open the door to ICE, they can help by keeping the door shut and ICE will be made to force the door, causing damage, and becoming evidence that a right to search has been violated. The second barrier is that there is no one to complain. Because people are moved so quickly, or because of fear, people are afraid to speak about the experience. A person who is detained and held can help by remembering details about their experience. They will be conscious of the time of their detention by police or ICE, the way they were treated and even the size of the room. and how many people were there. This experience can help better the evidence and help lawyers and families understand what is happening to their family members. With letting people know their rights, and gathering evidence, and with a little legal help to be allowed contact with detainees, we can protect the rights of others, and set standards of treatment of people. Another barrier is the "spin defenses". When we have a group of people whose rights are being infringed upon regularly, there is an enforce by ICE and the proponents of the actions to defend them. One way this has been done is by defining immigrants in the categories of criminals and terrorists. This is an unfair classification. Most immigrants are workers who are in no way terrorists. They may be undocumented, but they are not violent people out to harm other human beings. By explaining to others, and rejecting the language that associates immigrants with criminals and terrorists, immigrants can re-gain their dignity.

There are also other ways to help for citizens like us. The first thing they recommend is teaching immigrant communities what their rights are. Then add the addition of a safety plan, and risk reduction. They have been working with people in the faith community who work with immigrant families to offer some knowledge. This is called self-enforced protection.

The second action the Portland group is working on is a triage for people who are taken. This means that after a raid they try to find out who was taken and make sure the people have some representation. Because of the movement of prisoners, they try and work very fast. They try to file any sort of legal thing they can so that the process can start and they have to file something so that they are recognized as the legal council of a person and have access to help gather the evidence the person has collected. The Portland group, after a raid of a Del Monte fruit canning plant in 2007 put together a coalition. They have watch dogs who keep an eye and ear on ICE to see when they are ramping up for a raid. This group also will document raids when they happen with cameras so that later there is evidence of what happened. They also have a media team who, when a raid happens, can let the television and other news people know that something is happening and people's rights are likely being violated. There is also a legal team files those actions to protect due process. The political action team helps by contacting other allies. They have worked to have help from the consulates of other countries so they can get a list of people who were taken in a raid so that families can be contacted by the direct service team. The direct service team has set up in various churches for family member to get help. They may need food, a safe place to stay, or some money to help with a bond or and emergency. This group is a coalition of the Oregon food bank, emergency housing services of the state, and other charities and members of faith groups. The trauma of a person being detained can be lowered with their support.

New legal defenses will also become stronger as evidence is gathered and there is more information about how things are happening now. Like right now the immigrant defenders are curious what financial incentives are driving the local police working with ICE. What is driving law enforcement to do this. Is it a personal decision, or policy that is driving the actions. They also want to know what the cost is of all these detentions to counties. Some of the ICE time is being reimbursed by counties, but how much? And isn't all of that money a huge waste when it just destroys families and violates the constitutional rights of individuals? They are also working with police to do trainings and having cities pass bills that they will not let their local police detain people for ICE. By partnering with law enforcement, they can teach officers how some of ICE's detention is a constitutional violation, therefore opening up the county or city for legal actions, and most agencies try to minimize the risk of an expensive legal battle if they can help it.

It will take major U.S. immigration policy change to really protect people's rights. Luckily the new immigrant Services person has said they are not likely going to be using raids. But there is still work to be done let undocumented people know their rights and give them the personal security that treats with respect and dignity. All people should be treated with respect and dignity. Theodor Roosevelt said you can judge a society by how it treats it's most vulnerable people. example, it may be a good idea to save money for a bond if detained. They should also make arrangments for their children and families with a place to go in an emergency.  The immigration lawyers suggsted that they have set up a power of attorney for someone to care for their family in the case they disappear. They should talk to a couple of lawyers about their situatuion prior so that they have someone who is their representation which becomes very important if they are detained.  And if they are partnered or live with  another undocumented person, they should have a safe place to go to if their partner is detained so that their family isn't further dismantled by and ICE arrest or raid.

This lead to the rise of the Immigration Code Enforcement (ICE).  All immmigration laws are civil laws, not criminal law. Immigrants, although not granted the rights of citizens, are protected under the constitution as being "people", yay for that.  And since ICE is a federal agency, it must obey the constitutuion in it's acitons. Under the 4th ammendment we have the right to be free from unreasonalbe searches and seizures.  The search is of especial importants in the way that ICE has gone to arresting people in their homes.  Right now, IcE agents will bang on the door and ask if they can "come in".  If the person at the door is an adult, and there is reason to believe they live in the home being visited, then they can grant a search of the premises.  If the person knows their right, really, there must be a search warrent issued by a judge.  It must be a judge because a judge is a third party. They are not law inforcement or a citizen in this case.  Education is of special importance here because if the person's whose home is being invaded knows their rights, they would know to ask for a warrent.  Even if they know this much about the 4th ammendment, then there is the barrier of knowing that ICE warrents are issued by adminstrative order NOT from a judge.  This means a person may give consent under incorrect circumstances. Also it is documented that innocent people who happen to be at home during an IcE home invasion will be physically detained and treated as a criminal threat.  children may watch their mothers and fathers treated like violent offenders, and even pregnate women will be handcuffed to chairs as ICE asserts its authority. This invation into the home to arrest a person, or to rifle through their drawers looking for their documents, or even into closets and around the home, is an aunlawful search. The handcuffing of others in the home may be unreasonalbe seizure, but if a person gives consent they have less legal recourse.


I think a little more of the description of how the ICE program works would be useful here. ICE will decide to do a raid in various ways.  Right now, this group of immigrant lawyers in Portland are trying to understand it better.  Their are using tools like the Freedom of Information Act, & state laws that give access to better find patterns of what is going on.  If you visit the CSTI website, there should be a link to some google docs that people are asked to fill out about where raids are happening.  The hope to google map in time and space where raids and arrests are happenining so they can better predict them or beter protect rights by knowing who is being targeted. People can currently request from the states and IcE past arrest information for people.  Check the website examples of the information they are interested in.

IcE is detaining people through raids at workplaces.  When a person gets taken by ICE for being undocumented there are different barriers to them getting justices, in this case the 5th ammendment, due process.  IcE in some ways is very efficient.  usually 24-48 hours after an arrest they begin moving the arrested folks to several nation-wide detention centers. For most people in the west, when this happens, the family is sent into crisis, there is no plan, and suddently the family member is being sent hundreds, or thousands of miles away from where they were taken.  This only further tramatizes them and the fear hurts them and keeps them silent and in inaction to regain their rights or assert their rights. Because of the number of people who are taken by ICE recently, sometimes detained people will also be moved into a different legal district then they were detained in.  This becomes a special probelm with legal representation. Because of the quick move, they may their legal council is out of touch with them, and legal council where they are moved to may not be as avaiable or responsive to their needs in the immediate. This disrupts their right of due process. Also, language barriers plus the pressure by ICE agents, and the lack of council combined create a place where ICe detainees will have their right to due process infringed upon and can end up harming themselves. 

This is in the case of an ICE raid.  There is also the case of when an individual is detained after a civil infraction. The way that the program works now is that in some places, ICE will deputize some sheriffs and some city police officers.  This means they can arrest people for not being documented.  In Idaho, this is not the case.  In Idaho, what happens is that an officer of the law, no matter a sherrif, State police, or city officer, may pull someone over for an  traffic infraction.  Because the person can not show documents to who they are, they will be cited for the infraction and the officer has the authority to release them (which normally happens to documented people) or detain them.  If the officer decides to detain them, they are transported to a local prison, usually a county prison since few cities have their own jails.  At this time, they contact ICE and tell them to "come and get'em".  The individual can be held for how ever long the infraction allows, legally. The problem is this thing called an ICE hold.  An ICE hold is 48 hours that law enforcement is allowed to hold a person before ICE is required to come and get them.  How it works is that people are taken into custody, and in the process of booking for the infraction is when the documentation probelm is solidified and ICe is contacted. The other issue with this is that many people are detained on a Thursday or Friday.  The 48 hour hold doesn't count weekends, therefore if a person is taken on thursday, held for the traffic vilolation, then add 48 hours, this means they may have disappeared from their family for 4 days before even being taken by ICE. During this 48 hour hold, they are being held without charge, also a violation of the 5th ammendment rights.  

So, what can people do?  Well, the Portland group has created a taskforce that is working on helping. The group does many things.  There are 3 barriers to having more legal power to help these people.  1 is the lack of evidence.  In cases where Ice shows up and they get into ahouse and detain innocent people, it becomes a person v. person argument about consent.  By people being aware that they do not have to open the door to ICE, they can help by keeping the door shut and ICE will be made to force the door, causing damage, and becoming evidence that a right to search has been violated. The second barrier is that there is no one to complain.  Because people are moved so quickly, or because of fear, people are afraid to speak about the xperience.  A person who is detained and held can help by remembering details about their experience.  They will be conscious of the time of their detention by police or ICE, the way they were treated and even the size of the room. and how many people were there.  This experience can help better the evidence and help lawyers and families understand what is happening to their family members. With letting people know their rights, and gathering evidence, and with a little legal help to be allowed contact with detainees, we can protect the rights of others, and set standards of treatment of people. Another barrier is the "spin defenses".  When we have a group of people whose rights are being infringed upon regularly, there is an efforce by ICE and the proponents of the actions to defend them.  One way this has been done is by defining immigrants in the categories of criminals and terrorists. This is an unfair classification.  Most immigrants are workers who are in no way terrorists.  They may be undocumented, but they are not violent people out to harm other human beings. By explainging to others, and rejecting the language that associates immigrants with criminals and terrorists, immigrants can re-gain their dignity.

There are also other ways to help for citizens like us. The first thing they reccomend is teaching immigrant communities what their rights are.  Then add the addition of a safety plan, and risk reduction. They have been working with people in the faith community who work with immigrant families to offer some knowledge. This is called self-enforced protection.

The second action the Portland group is working on is a triage for people who are taken. This means that after a raid they try to find out who was taken and make sure the people have some represenation.  BEcause of the movement of prisoiners, they try and work very fast.  They try to file any sort of legal thing they can so that the process can start and they have to file something so that they are recognized as the legal council of a person and have access to help gather the evidence the person has collected. The Portland group, after a raid of a Del Monte fruit canning plant in 2007 put together a coalliton.  They have watch dogs who keep an eye and ear on ICe to see when they are ramping up for a raid.  This group also will document raids when they happen with cameras so that later there is evidence of what happened.  They also have a media team who, when a raid happens, can let the television and other news people know that something is happening and people's rights are likely being violated.  There is also a legal team files those actions to protect due process.  The political action team helps by contacting other allies.  They have worked to have help from the counsulate of other countries so they can get a list of people who were taken in a raid so that families can be contacted by the direct service team. The direct service team has set up in various churches for family member to get help.  They may need food, a safe place to stay, or some money to help with a bond or and emergency.  This group is a coalition of the Oregon food bank, emergency housing services of the state, and other charities and members of faith groups.  The trauma of a person being detained can be lowered with their support. 

New legal defenses will also become stronger as evidence is gathered and there is more information about how things are happening now.  Like right now the immigrant defenders are curious what financial incentives are driving the local police working with ICE.  What is driving law enforcement to do this.  Is it a personal decision, or policy that is driving the actions.  They also want to know what the cost is of all these detentions to counties.  Some of the ICE time is being reimbursed by counties, but how much?  And isn't all of that money a huge waste when it just destroys families and violates the constitutuional rights of individuals?  They are also working with police to do trainings and haveing cities pass bills that they will not let their local police detain people for IcE. By partnering with law enforcement, they can teach officers how some of IcE's detention is a constiutuional violation, therefore opening up the county or city for legal actions, and most agencies try to minimize the risk of an expensive legal battle if they can help it.

It will take major U.S. immigration policy change to really protect people's rights. Luckily the new immigrant Services person has said they are not likely going to be using raids. But there is still work to be done, like  let undocumented people know their rights and give them the personal security that treats with respect and dignity.  All people should be treated with respect and dignity.  Theador Roosevelt said you can judge a society by how it treats it's most vulnerable people.