Photo: Immigrants rally in D.C. in 2010; Source: Flickr, Vpickering

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano defended her department’s Secure Communities program, which has been the target of criticism by advocates for immigrants.

Napolitano called Secure Communities “a program that helps ICE identify those who have been arrested by state and local law enforcement for non-immigration state or local crimes, who are also in the country unlawfully. It bestows no additional authorities onto local law enforcement and only identifies those who have been booked into jails. Literally, in jails.”

Opponents of Secure Communities have repeatedly called on the Obama administration to end the fingerprint-sharing program because immigrants who have committed no crime are being detained and deported, leaving behind U.S.-born children and families that, in many cases, will struggle to make ends meet.

Jonathan Fried of We Count!, a South Florida worker and immigrant advocacy organization, said during an event in August that in Miami-Dade County, as of May 2011, close to 60 percent of undocumented immigrants who have been detained under Secure Communities have not committed a crime.

Napolitano said Secure Communities “got off to a bad start.”

“We did not explain clearly how it works and who is required to participate,” she said. “It has already helped accomplish a great deal toward ensuring that we use our enforcement resources where they do the most good.”

Over the summer, three state governors — in Illinois, New York and Massachusetts — announced they were suspending their participation in Secure Communities. Members of Congress have called on California Gov. Jerry Brown to suspend the state’s participation in Secure Communities.

U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told the Spanish-language La Opinion — an online news outlet — that deporting undocumented immigrants who have not committed a serious crime, something she accepted is happening with Secure Communities, is a waste of taxpayer money.

According to Napolitano, “Secure Communities hasn’t increased the number of individuals who are removed, but it has helped change the composition – helping ICE to dramatically increase the number of convicted criminals and egregious immigration law violators,” adding that, “despite the misleading commentary about this program, it has proven to be the single best tool at focusing our immigration enforcement resources on criminals and egregious immigration law violators.”

Pablo Alvarado, director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, responded to Secretary Napolitano’s speech today with the following statement:

We are happy to hear Secretary Napolitano mention S-Comm and “termination” in the same sentence. Despite the political spin and marketing campaign to defend a failed program, S-Comm has proven to be a disastrous policy for our nation and for our communities. It should be ended before it leads to the further Arizonification of the country.

Napolitano said termination of Secure Communities “would only weaken public safety, and move the immigration enforcement system back towards the ad hoc approach where non-criminal aliens are more likely to be removed than criminals.”

Napolitano said it is her department’s job “to listen and make adjustments consistent with our best law enforcement judgment. That’s why Secure Communities now has new training for state and local law enforcement, and additional steps are being taken to protect witnesses, domestic violence victims, and victims of other violent crime.”

The National Immigration Forum, ”a vocal and vehement critic of the Secure Communities program,” was invited by the Department of Homeland Security in July to participate in a task force “created in response to growing criticism and concern” about Secure Communities.

The Forum resigned from the advisory committee in September, stating that despite recommendations “that – if implemented – would improve the operation of the Secure Communities program and strengthen civil rights and civil liberties protections,” they “fell short of sound policy recommendations that would cure fundamental flaws in the program.”

An average of 1,200 people are questioned by private security at Bloomington’s Mall of America each year, with security sometimes forwarding names to the FBI for such innocuous activity as taking photos or acting nervous after being approached by guards.

The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) and NPR News Investigations released a report on the private mall’s security program Wednesday, illuminating practices that some said violates civil rights.

The security team is run by a former Israel Defense Forces’ sergeant. The teams focus on people showing “unexplained nervousness, people photographing such things as air-conditioning ducts or signs that a shopper might have something to hide,” according to the report.

In two-thirds of the interrogations the subject was a person of color or Arab descent. That’s led to at least one successful complaint to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, according to CIR/NPR.

While defending the security methods as “part of today’s society,” Commander Jim Ryan of the Bloomington Police Department told CIR/NPR that the security approach may “infringe on some freedoms, unfortunately.”

Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, told CIR/NPR that these methods violate people’s civil liberties and put authority in the hands of unaccountable private power like these security companies and the Mall of America.

“If all they’re getting for amassing suspicious activity reports on innocent people in government databases is the arrest of a few low-level turnstile jumpers and shoplifters, that doesn’t seem very sensible,” Rosen said.

CIR/NPR received 125 suspicious activity reports filed from the mall, including this common example from CIR/NPR’s database of incidents:

Mall security questioned a man with a camera on a tripod. The man “admitted he was taking photographs of the Mall of America structure” for an online photography class. He “appeared to get more nervous as the interview progressed.”

Some who were interrogated by private security had photos confiscated, were reported to police or were even enmeshed in deportation hearings after being turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to the suspicious activity reports.

The Minnesota Independent has previously reported on the Mall of America’s collaboration with Homeland Security and its embrace of the “See Something, Say Something” campaign.

Rep. Keith Ellison gave an impassioned speech on the House floor Thursday evening criticizing conservatives for only seeking liberty for some. He talked about his love of coming to the House chamber to say the Pledge of Allegiance and said conservatives often miss the point of “liberty and justice for all.”

He cited GOP efforts to curtail abortion rights, freedom of worship — particularly non-Christian faiths — and the right for same-sex couples to marry.

Crooks and Liars has the transcript of Ellison’s remarks:

Now see, the conservatives in this body, they like to talk about liberty. And then when they’re talking about liberty they’re not talking about a woman’s right to choose, ’cause that’s liberty. They’re not talking about the freedom of worship — to be Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Bahai, no religion at all — they don’t believe in that. They believe in only one way to seek the divine and they get more radical with it every single day. They don’t believe in liberties like that. They don’t believe you should be able to say whatever you want to say, they don’t necessarily believe in the liberties that I’m talking about.

He added that “justice” in the pledge means for all and cited the controversial hearings into radicalized Islam held recently.

Now, this last part in some ways is the best part. For all. For every one. Last week we had some hearings in the Homeland Security Committee where one particular religious group was pointed out for persecution, actually. That was a sad day.

For all, though. America is about for all. For everybody. All Americans. Of whatever faith group, of whatever color, of whatever — rural or urban. Straight, gay, all of us.

Here’s the full video:

Photo: governor.state.mn.us

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman caps off the long version of his new TV ad by quoting hockey great Wayne Gretzky’s advice to skate to where the puck will be. It’s a quote Gov. Pawlenty has been using for years, as Brian Bakst of the Associated Press notes. Indeed, it’s a favorite among consultants, businessmen and politicians, including former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman. But Gretzky wasn’t the first to say it, and in any case it’s of dubious value as advice, according to people who know their way around a rink. 

Here’s how Coleman rephrases Gretzky’s maxim (at the 3:54 mark):

I really feel like the mayor of the City of St. Paul has to be a leader of all the people. We need to look to the future. We need to think about where the puck is going to be.

Pawlenty has been using the quote at least since his first year as governor. He found global meaning from Gretzky’s words in 2003, according to the University of St. Thomas Aquin (pdf):

Pawlenty compared the progress of Minnesota to his favorite hockey player, Wayne Gretzky. Pawlenty said Gretzky attributed his success to the fact that he didn’t care where the puck was; it was where the puck was going that mattered. “It’s a great metaphor for the times we live in,” he said. “We’re living in a world with enormous change, and it’s an exciting time.”

St. Paul’s other mayor named Coleman, Norm, said Gretzky’s wisdom could help the nation defeat terrorism. He cited them in 2006 to open two days of hearings as chairman of the U.S. Senate’s Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on investigations:

In the words of the hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, a good hockey player plays where the puck is; a great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. In other words, we cannot safeguard a post-9/11 America by simply using pre-9/11 methods. If we think that terrorists are not plotting their next move, then we are mistaken.

Given how frequently Gretzky’s words are repeated, it’s surprising a key fact about them is often overlooked: they’re actually his father’s, according to an extensive 2000 investigation by Fast Company magazine’s Consultant Debunking Unit.

Walter Gretzky’s original version: “Go to where the puck is going, not where it has been.”

Fast Company probed further, asking the elder Gretzky whether the adage is actually advice he’d give to pros, or the movers-and-shakers who like to cite it.

“Mama mia, no!” Walter says. “That advice is strictly for little kids. It’s just simple basics, like the ABCs. You have to know the alphabet before you can write. And naturally, going to where the puck is going is something that pros take for granted — or they wouldn’t be playing professionally.

The younger Gretzky wouldn’t give Fast Company the time of day, but his idol Gordie Howe took a swipe at the quote:

It’s not really the greatest piece of advice I’ve ever heard. Besides, sometimes you don’t want to be where the puck is going. One time, I was anticipating a pass from [Ted] ‘Teeder’ Kennedy and was leaning over to get in the way of it, when Kennedy, following through, swung his stick in my eye. I had double vision for two months and had to sit out the rest of the season.

A clear-eyed look at the saying by the late Herb Brooks, who coached Minnesota’s Golden Gophers and North Stars, resulted in a similar conclusion:

You’d have to be a real idiot to skate to where the puck used to be. On the other hand, if everyone skated to where the puck is going, you’d have one big train wreck. Sometimes your job on the ice is to take the pressure off of the guy who’s headed for the puck by drawing players away. And sometimes you want to skate to where the puck is, not to where it’s going. When you shoot the puck into the zone, it’s up for grabs — and you have to chase it.

Utah’s Bob Bennett nabbed the Homeland Security post. Jim Inhofe of land-locked Oklahoma picked up Coleman’s seat on Foreign Relations. Idaho Sen. Jim Risch will take over the vacant seat on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

All were being held for Coleman, should he prevail in court and win re-election over Al Franken.

With Coleman gone, Minnesota won’t have representation on Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs or Small Business, since Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken aren’t members.

Klobuchar does sit on Agriculture, and Franken was assigned to the Special Committee on Aging, where Coleman’s seat fell to Georgia’s Saxby Chambliss, who unlike Coleman triumphed in a post-election showdown.

But even Klobuchar, sporting approval ratings among the highest in Minnesota, tip-toes by Bachmann when speaking to Minnesotans about filling out their Census forms.

After the murder of Dr. George Tiller nearly two weeks ago and yesterday’s shootings at the Holocaust Museum by a man with white supremacist ties, some civil rights organizations — including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League — say that a Homeland Security report on rightwing extremism was correct in its focus.

But have Minnesota lawmakers changed their stance on the then-controversial report?

Here are reactions from key legislators at the time of the report’s release. They have not come out with any statements on the topic since yesterday’s shootings.

Rep. Michele Bachmann:

“The Homeland Security secretary has redefined pro-life, gun-owning veterans, who like smaller government, and who believe America should secure our borders against invasion from illegal aliens, are labeled the domestic right-wing extremists.”

Rep. John Kline:

“Our country is indeed at risk from those who reject the American way of life and our ideals. Sadly, a report recently released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suggests we are in danger from those that believe in issues such as pro-life legislation and limited government and should focus preventative efforts accordingly.”

Gov. Tim Pawlenty:

There is a — kind of a media perspective that, if you’re conservative, you’re somehow, you know, deranged, or you’re somehow deficient, that, if you were a rational, well-thought-of, intelligent person, that you — you couldn’t be a conservative.

So, that’s embedded, I think, as a bias in our media culture more broadly. And it’s insidious, and it’s unfair, and I think they should be called on it.

And I — I heard your report earlier that Secretary Napolitano at least partially apologized. They should fully apologize.”

The Minnesota Independent has sought comment from all three legislators; we’ll print whatever replies we get.

The Minnesota Family Council asked on its blog last week, “Are you pro-life, veteran, gun owner, anti-tax, pro-marriage? If so, you are fertile ground for becoming a right wing extremist and even terrorist.”

Televangelist Pat Robertson speculated that gays and lesbians were behind the report. On the 700 Club, he said, “It shows somebody down in the bowels of that organization is either a convinced left winger or somebody whose sexual orientation is somewhat in question. But it’s that kind of thing, somebody who doesn’t think that we should have abortion on demand, is labeled a terrorist! It’s outrageous!”

The American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal think tank, sent this message to supporters: “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has labeled you, a member of the pro-life community, THE MOST DANGEROUS DOMESTIC TERRORIST.”

Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America, said that the report was a direct attack on what Jesus stood for. “[It's] a direct assault on the basic principles of religious beliefs that have been here since the time of Christ,” she told OneNewsNow, a Christian news service. “These are the things that Christ died on the cross for.”

Jan Markell, of Maple Grove, Minnesota-based Olive Tree Ministries, said that conservative Christians are now terrorists:

Are you a student of Bible prophecy who has discovered that the Bible teaches the planet will soon be under the control of the one-world government of the Antichrist before Jesus comes and institutes His one-world government? Do you believe the Bible teaches murdering our children is wrong and homosexuality destroys lives and that we should speak out against them? Do you feel the increasing immorality is fueling increasing crime, and wish to defend your children with a firearm? Do you love America and want to see it obey its own Constitution limiting federal power and enforcing its own immigration laws? Are you a military veteran who has bled for the freedom of your country?

If you can answer “yes” to just one of these, then you are now considered by America’s own Department of Homeland Security, to be a “domestic rightwing terrorist.”

As for Christians who believe in God’s moral law and students of Bible prophecy, being seen as terrorists is a chilling thought. Christians only have to look at other large democracies like India to see that democracy doesn’t protect its Christian citizens when the government would rather not have them around.

When did such a transition take place in the United States, that our “apple pie” Americans who love God and country such as myself would be seen as the enemy? The answer coincides when the values of the Bible were ejected from our society. A free and truly democratic society that values life and liberty cannot survive without those who hold to God’s moral law. True freedom requires Jesus Christ, the Bible, and a foundation that rests firmly on what God calls right and wrong.

OR:

If you can’t find any terrorists, go after the citizens

To their credit, both Rep. Gil Gutknecht and Gov. Tim Pawlenty have championed legalized drug importation from Canada. Apparently, the feds haven’t gotten the message, as a Madison Lake man recently received “an ominous letter from Homeland Security and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.”

His crime?

“Hardie, the feds said, was involved in illegal prescription drug transactions.”

For the entire article in the Mankato Free Press, go here.