While I am not a right winger, more center/left, if $20,000 is "just a drop in the bucket" according to Sten, I would like $20,000 from Portland so I don't have to work and can still pay rent. I am a US Citizen though so I probably won't qualify...

I've yet to hear anyone explain why we should punish the kids of illegal immigrants. What did they do wrong, go along with their parents when they entered the country illegally? Did they have a choice?

This was a good use of $20,000, my tax contribution included.

I've yet to hear anyone explain why we should punish the kids of [insert name of any crime or social problem]. What did they do wrong, stay home when their parents [committed a crime or engaged in destructive behavior]? Did they have a choice?

I do not believe that the kids in these cases should be singled out for harsh treatment. But they were singled out for special benefits, and you've got to wonder if the decision-making process (if there was one) was fair.

There is a case that tries to split the hairs of affirmative action. 292 Or 433, Portland Police Association v. Civil Service Board (1982).

Can Sten (or the city) "voluntarily" grant greater benefits to some designated class based on race religion etc. etc. with nothing more than a whim? If the answer is no then there must be more.

"We therefore turn to the second issue, whether the Board has the power to implement, by rule, a city affirmative action program which is believed to be necessary to bring the city into compliance with federal, state and local equal opportunity laws and regulations." [page 444]

Compare children-need-help with children-of-illegal-immigrants-need-help. The second formulation expressly excludes from coverage children of non-illegal folks. This exclusion of funds for non-illegals is the offensive element . . . not the denial of funds to illegals under the threat of legal action that demands as a remedy funding targeted exclusively for illegals.

The pattern of misunderstanding is rampant across many city-paid projects, inclusive of "affordable housing" (disguised "landlord subsidies").

I have obtained and scanned the 6 proposals for a Diversity and Civil Leadership grant offered by the City of Portland. Only one of which conforms to the letter of the law. And one proposer has as its president a city official who's official role would have included reviewing the proposals.

The list of PDFs is here.

The rule does not say one may discriminate so long as one is not in the majority.

As a classic sales pitch, networking name dropping, includes words like the following:

"In 2002, the PCC Skill Center collaborated with the Hacienda Development
Corporation and Hewlett Packard to create community resource centers in both the Los
Jardinas de la Paz and the Ortiz Building housing developments. Hewlett Packard
provided the project team with $180,000 worth of computer equipment to carry out the
project. Various members of the PCC Skill Center provided installation and instruction
for residents."

This project ( Los Jardinas de la Paz) just North of me is a parking-on-the-shoulder safety hazard.
http://www.haciendacdc.org/housing/9/los-jardines

Follow the money . . .

Miles, if you want to argue sanctuary for genuine asylum seekers then I am all ears, now no less so than 20 years ago. The Ninth Circuit has refuse asylum even to a man who's brother had been killed for refusal to join a gang in Mexico. The petitioner had clearly made his case to any reasonable fact finder that he too faced the same threat of death if he refused to join the gang . . . and yet he was denied asylum. An economic refugee is much, much further down the scale of immediacy than that. Redirect the focus on Mexico itself and the ability of folks there to feel a sense of liberty and freedom. I once had a dream that I could travel to the Southern tip of South America with the same ease that I can to Florida. I still have that dream.

Nice! I look forward to the day when $20k is just a drop in the bucket of my personal finances.

I hope Erik Sten's largesse is available the next time Freightliner lays off a couple of hundred employees.

Freightliner has done so a few times in the past 5 years, and I don't remember the City worrying about how the newly unemployed were going to pay their rent/mortgages.

Maybe this was a make-up call for the Chavez renaming debacle.

I dont seem to remember the city giving me cash to help my kids the last time I was laid off, and I didnt even break the law.
Gotta wonder how the people in city hall think sometimes.

So now not being eligible to qualify for the public dole is a "punishment," eh? How far we have fallen.

In 10 years, there won't be a single Freightliner employee in Portland.

My favorite part was "He[Sten] also said that if there is another immigration raid, he would offer city grant money to those workers' families too."

Just what we need, now the illegal immigrants might turn their own employer in so their family can get free city money.

I do not believe that the kids in these cases should be singled out for harsh treatment. But they were singled out for special benefits, and you've got to wonder if the decision-making process (if there was one) was fair.

What's "special" about providing rental assistance to this group? The City already provides rental assistance through the Bureau of Housing and Community Development, and in this case they used some of that money to target a particularly vulnerable low-income group of families. I think everything about this was routine, except that the benefits went to illegal aliens.

To those who dislike this grant, what is the alternative? Do we put the whole family in a shelter while they go through the deportation process? Do we tell them to hit the streets? Do we put them all in jail?

I advocate treating them equally with any other criminals.

Miles

Does the city give housing grants to the families of arrested car thieves? Burglars? Drunk driver?

If no, why not? What makes the families of illegal aliens so special?

Fairplay,

You're right about Freightliner. But it won't take 10 years. More like five.

Yes, Mike, the entire social safety net is available to the children of car thieves, burglars, and drunk drivers, including housing assistance when the sole breadwinner ends up in jail.

But more importantly, do you really equate illegal immigrants with car thieves and burglars? That's kind of like saying the guy driving 90 mph to get his pregnant wife to the hospital is the same as the guy driving 90 mph while drag-racing. Both are breaking the law, but not for the same reasons.

Mike & Miles,

Suppose that the six northernmost Mexican states make application to become the six newest United States. Frame their desire as little more than a desire by the masses to be free from, just for example, child labor in a US state in the 1930s. It would come packaged with federal enforcement of open borders, both ways, and harmonize a huge batch of laws who's differences (and closed borders) the pro-NAFTA folks have been arbitraging for years against the little folks on both sides of the border.

How should a "criminal" illegal alien that is deported today but lives in one of the six new United States be treated?

Let's not misdiagnose who, or rather what, is the enemy.

If I can contribute just one notion into this whole immigration/NAFTA debate it is the very few points noted above and memorialized at 56states.us. That, and collective protection of individual liberty . . . as an idea and not a place.

Miles

It's funny, I have never seen a story about Erik Sten hanging out at the jail passing out housing grants to thieves and drunk drivers.

But more importantly, do you really equate illegal immigrants with car thieves and burglars?

You're damn right I do. I think this country would be a really scary place to live in if everyone got to pick and choose which laws they follow.

Do you feel it is okay to break a law you don't like?

Our courts (along with most sensible people) are able to distinguish between crimes in a way you seem unable to do. The man speeding to get to the hospital deserves a lighter fine than the man speeding for fun. The woman who shoots her husband after years of physical abuse deserves a lighter sentence than the woman who shoots her husband because she's pissed he watches football every weekend. The kid who gives his friend some pot deserves a lighter sentence than the drug dealer who supplies the whole neighborhood.

Why, Mike, do you think we should treat the children of illegal immigrants as something less than human? What does it say about your morality that you're willing to let them live on the street rather than spend $20,000 to keep them in their homes while they finish the deportation process? How can you have such contempt for someone who just wants the same opportunity that you were born into?

Miles

I am getting really tired of playing this same stupid game with people like you. Once again, you ignore my questions, attack me with things I never said, and worst of all, have the audacity to think you can read my mind.

Miles,

When the state makes any payment on behalf of any kid it is immediately followed up with a demand upon a parent to obtain a return of those public funds just expended.

When the state seeks such repayment the state will even ask a judge to confine someone for contempt for non-payment based on some constructive earning potential rather than actual earnings, even if those earnings are zero.

Does the aid for the "children" result in a lien, in favor of the public, against the adults who are responsible for those children, and regardless of their earnings?

Mike, you equated illegal immigrants with car thieves and burglars. I'm not reading your mind, just what you wrote. If the implications of that make you uncomfortable, perhaps you should examine your assumptions.

It would greatly behoove all of you to do a little research into just why Mexico is dumping dozens of millions of dirt-poor, mostly illiterate peasants into our country.

Mexico is not a poor nation, though there are countless numbers of poor people there. Many fabulously wealthy billionaires, including the richest man in the world, Carlos Slim Helú, call it home. There are vast natural resources, and plenty of both established and developing industries.

What Mexico does not have, is any sort of social safety net, or a large middle class. The wealthy there are not expected to part with large sums of money to take care of the poor, as they are here.

NAFTA has only exacerbated these social problems, and terribly so.

Moreover, Mexico has a huge illegal alien problem of it's own. Vast numbers of people fleeing Central America are herded into gigantic camps by the military, before being shipped North. There are even pamphlets printed by the Mexican government in several languages, instructing these people how to sneak in and obtain welfare, if you don't believe me.

Most of the illegal aliens now pouring over our southern border are not Mexican citizens, and many are not even functionally literate in Spanish.

It really is quite ingenious, when you think about it. Republicans love cheap labor and a tractable working class, and Mexico's billionaires are too stingy to do anything about their own massive social unrest, even though the country has teetered on the brink of full-scale revolution in recent years.

Never, ever, ever forget that Dubya and that scoundrel Vicente Fox were close friends and associates.

Miles

This is the last breath I am going to waste on you, so here goes:

I CONSIDER ILLEGAL ALIENS TO BE CRIMINALS JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER PERSON WHO BREAKS THE LAW.

But Mike, that point is obvious (hence the use of the word "illegal"). The question is: So how do you treat them when they're caught, and how do you treat their kids? You've made it clear that forcing their kids to live on the street is a-okay with you, and I've simply pointed out that makes you a horrible person.

Call CSD?

They will, however, send the parent(s) a bill.