Follow the Money

For nearly two years ICE has been my constant anchor and I have been searching for a virtual hacksaw to cut them loose. My life, my accomplishment, my dreams have all been hobbled by a sense of injustice and oppression that comes with having a friend or loved one taken and held by that agency. My close friend, by now my brother, Audrius Kazenas, was taken from his children, family and community the day before Thanksgiving Day, November 26, 2008. As I write this on November 17, 2010 he is still sitting in a prison cell held under ICE detention despite having twice been granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement judge. If he is not released within the next week he will be spending his third Thanksgiving in prison and we will be spending our third Thanksgiving with a place at the table left empty.

Thanks to Audrius' insistence when he witnessed the human rights abuses and atrocities around him in the prison where he was held, I have spent much of the last two years devoted to the cause of civil and human rights for immigrants. If Audrius' case had been handled honestly and fairly in a timely manner he would never have seen the depths to which these abuses have reached and I would be working on my gardens instead of spending days stretched into years recording and investigating civil and human rights violations that have become the essence of immigration enforcement here. But honesty and fairness are not standard when dealing with ICE and so my gardens sit neglected and my dreams are put on hold while I tend to what should be the concern of any and all Americans who have pledged allegiance to a flag that stands for “Liberty and Justice for all.”

So far every thread I have followed of this Gordian knot that is immigration has led to one basic “why” on the problem and I’ve finally decided that the best and most effective way to get to the bottom of what is REALLY going on is to follow the money. There’s a lot of strutting and shouting on both sides of the debate, countless promises are made, later to be broken, and false hopes given, later to be destroyed. In the end the situation continues to worsen while we are left to wonder what would induce our leaders in D.C. as well as the news media on both sides to so thoroughly ignore the numbers, facts and statistics involved? What could cause them to ignore the human rights violations at the hands of a government agency run amok, ignore the Nazis and KKK boldly marching in our streets and even ignore the huge number of innocent lives destroyed? What could possibly do that? MONEY!

I’m now certain this is the true source of our draconian immigration laws - the rest is all smoke and mirrors intended to distract us. Even in the case of Audrius Kazenas, one individual who seems an exception on so many levels, it came down to “follow the money” in the end. His case was so confusing it had me completely baffled as to how it could have happened and how it could be continuing for so long till I followed the money . . . and kept following it till I found something I had never suspected. I could not understand why anyone would be so obsessed with getting Audrius out of this country despite the mounting documents that showed how high the danger of torture and death would be for him if he were deported. I thought I had found the reason many times, but each discovery led nowhere. Then, after two years, completely by accident, I stumbled onto one random piece of information and it all became clear. Remember, Audrius' profession before he came to this country involved, among other things, investigating criminal corruption and he was very good at that job. He has an amazing knack for finding truths that are carefully hidden. At first that threw me off. If something is wrong Audrius will find it. I could not figure out why ICE detain him for so long in a way he could easily discover and bear witness, through me, to what was being done. I began to wonder if perhaps there were some within ICE who secretly wanted to expose the conditions without having to step forward themselves, but that didn’t make sense. A person with that much sense of right and wrong would not keep a man locked up indefinitely. Eventually I learned enough to realize that most of the people who work for ICE are so overwhelmed with cases there was no way for them to know who Audrius is, no way for them to know they were keeping a man who investigates almost compulsively right in the middle of what needed exposure. I began to look elsewhere and discovered a very good reason why someone might not want this man around to do what he does so well - to start watching and asking questions - and yet again it came down to money. I discovered that in this case, ICE was being used. This is certainly not the first time that has happened - the very structure and nature of ICE invites criminal elements to dupe that agency into protecting their activities within this country. Our current immigration laws as they are written are a gift to manipulators and con artists.

Look at the state of immigration affairs in this country and follow the money. You will find a huge underground slave-labor economy that depends on a steady flow of immigrants coming into this country illegally. With our labor laws it is difficult to misuse and abuse legal residents and citizens. To do that one needs leverage, something to hold over people that will make them compliant, render them unwilling to seek help. Most of the millions of undocumented immigrants here are working which makes them vulnerable to such blackmail and they are in demand. From agriculture to child care their lack of legal status means profits or savings for others. Of course there is the prison industrial complex that is making a fortune off of all the detentions in this country as well, but they are small potatoes when compared to that underground economy we are so dependent on. I know I have mentioned this many times as part of what is keeping the immigration problem going, but I have come to the conclusion that it is THE main source of the problem. Have you noticed it is the one aspect of this debate that is seldom mentioned by politicians or the media? It is an economy that is TOO BIG TO FAIL and so our politicians readily compromise on civil liberties and human rights to protect that flow of workers. They offer immigration reform remedies that place more emphasis on border security than on human lives. They intend to keep that economy supplied with undocumented workers now and well into the future.

Money is not the root of all evil - the LOVE of money is. And this is all being done for the love of money. There is nothing evil about money. There is nothing evil about thriving and doing well in this world, but criminals do not seek money, they LOVE money . . . love it far more than they love their fellow man. Then we have the majority of our politicians who love power as well as loving money. Perhaps that is what separates politicians from criminals - a love of power added to the ordinary crook's love of money. Decent people prioritize differently. They know that money is good to have, but health, family, communities, humanity and even the world is more important to them, for that is what ultimately determines the future. These people who are at the helm now . . . they do not care about our future. They love power and money far more than they love mankind and so we have the mess that we are now facing. It is time to actively follow the money . . .