Dave Goodman updates us on Obain Attouoman, the popular Fenway High School math teacher deported to the Ivory Coast this week.

Deval Patrick has joined eleven other governors in lobbying
congress to increase the number of indentured servants, no--wait,
H1B visa holders:

Here's the story:

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9776360-7.html

Anf here's a great video from youtube. An immigration law firm
coachign employers on how to 'legally' replace American workers
with imported, cheaper labor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

And finally, here's another link describing how one H1B mill
was fined for underpaying hundreds of H1B visa holders once
they got them here:

The headline of this story certainly describes an awful situation: A 5-year-old faces deportation back to El Salvador without her parents.

But the more I read the story, the more confused I got: Why isn't the mother, apparently also here illegally, facing a similar hearing with her child? If the kid is deported, will she stay with the same folks that presumably watched over her when the mother left her behind? And back to the mother: What's her status, exactly? And surely she could have described what led her to the decision to try to join her husband up here while leaving a 5-year-old behind - if the reporter had asked.

Michael Feldman writes that his wife takes the oath of citizenship today at Fanueil Hall:

... Norma is going to make a hell of a U.S. citizen, and the country is lucky to have her. She is one more reason that we need to keep the immigration pipeline open, and not just for college-educated economists like her. It's not the immigrants and their values that are endangering the country. Hell, their values are working their asses off, saving their money, and turning their kids into regular American citizens. They are thankful every day for the opportunities that this country offers.

The people WE are worried about have been here for so many generations that they take America's freedoms for granted. ...

I admit it: I was dubious about Eileen McNamara's first New Bedford column, in which she said state officials failed the immigrants, because her assertion those officials knew about the raid ahead of time was based on word from a federal flack, and how could we trust that?

McNamara fills in the gaps today, and proves that not only did state officials know about the raid weeks ahead of time, Harry Spence and the governor who kept him on as DSS commissioner really should just learn to shut up rather than get caught up in a Big Lie:

... Told that, in fact, members of Patrick's Cabinet had briefed him about the operation weeks ago and that Spence had participated in a conference call with ICE the day before the raid -- a fact the commissioner himself acknowledged in yesterday's newspapers -- [a Patrick flack] reconsidered: "I'd like to retract that statement until I talk to someone who actually knows something about this timeline." ...

AmberPaw worked as a volunteer today, doing Spanish interviews with some of the people arrested in New Bedford:

... Not one of the detainees I interviewed had any criminal history. All were working 48 hour weeks for $7.50 an hour. The saddest question was from a Guatemalan father, who had been working side-by-side with his 18 year old son. They were separated by the ICE raid, and he does not know where his son is. ...

Charley on the MTA writes:

... Regardless of your stance on illegal immigration, the stories of the feds' actions are really pretty repulsive -- splitting up families, separating a mom from her 7-month-old baby. Come on. There's got to be a better way to do this. ...

Not something you'd expect to see.