Blogging the Omer, Day 26: A Game for you to play, and learn something, too
Week Four, Day Five
Hod Of Netzach
ICED, or I Can End Deportation is a game by Breakthrough a group saying of itself that it is an International Human Rights organization that uses education and popular culture to promote values of dignity, equality and justice.
From the Breakthrough website:
Breakthrough’s video game, ICED, puts you in the shoes of an immigrant to illustrate how unfair immigration laws deny due process and violate human rights. These laws affect all immigrants: legal residents, those fleeing persecution, students and undocumented people.
ICED has been featured in overwhelming amounts of press including: MTV News, Game Daily and has been covered on popular blogs including, Gothamist and The Huffington Post…
How do you play?
THE OBJECT OF THE GAME IS TO BECOME A CITIZEN OF THE UNITED STATES
Game Play:
As an immigrant teen you are avoiding ICE officers, choosing right from wrong and answering questions on immigration. But if you answer questions incorrectly, or make poor decisions, you will be detained with no respect for your human rights.
There is also a downloadable curriculum and a discussion guide. There are also flash animations - on additional topics, like AIDS and gay marriage.
hattip to SepiaMutiny
What exactly are the human rights violations they speak of?
Sometimes when I write about subjects I know nothing about I utilize the same vague and ambiguous tone you see in the description of the game above. So I know it’s vague on purpose.
And no, detaining and deporting are not human rights violations.
—formermuslim · May 16th, 2008 at 8:22 am
REALLY?! I would think being detained for something I know nothing about would constitute a human rights violation. (Also unconstitutional, cf habeas corpus.)
Imagine someone fleeing political persecution in China, and ending up in the United States, only to be sent back because something wasn’t quite kosher in the process on the way here. Not a human rights violation?
—B.BarNavi · May 16th, 2008 at 9:25 am
B.BarNavi
99% of illegal immigrants are not political fugitives. They are mexicans illegally crossing the US border to find illegal employment in the unites states, like in the agriprocessor plant.
If you want to help the hypothetical political fugutive from China or from anywhere else don’t pile them on the same heap as all the other illegal immigrants. That way their case doesn’t get snowed under.
If on the other hand the political fugutive is no different to you than the millions of illegal immigrants that live in the US, don’t be surprised if people aren’t willing to listen to their plight.
Oh, one more thing. As the agriprocessor plant illustrates. Illegal immigration, which you all seem to love, has led to a greater deteriation of human rights than anything the government has done with respect to these people.
You could of course legalize all these illegal immigrant workers but that would depreciate wages in america. Further concentrating wealth in the hands of the filthy rich. Which would be followed by calls for further tax increases, no doubt supported by many jewschoolers, on the rich and a higher minimum wage.
There is a dutch saying. “Mopping the floor while the faucet is still running”. Some people love (live) to mop appearently.
—formermuslim · May 16th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Formermuslim - You show your ignorance in your first two sentences. Only 57% of illegal immigrants are Mexican. And there is no way to know how many illegal immigrants are refugees, seeing as we only know the (very few) people who get legal refugee status - Not the many people who didn’t have knowledge of how to apply for that status, or who applied but were rejected (there are some horrific cases of people being rejected and then going back to countries where they’d be killed or would starve to death). So while I’m sure that most people who are illegal immigrants would not meet the legal definition of refugee by today’s American legal standards, it is inaccurate to say that 99% are not political fugitives. When you think about how politics impacts economic policy which impacts employment and access to food and shelter, nearly all illegal immigrants from Central America (and many from elsewhere) would more than qualify as “political” (economic) refugees.
—Ugh · May 16th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Political refugees nearly always have a higher education than economic refugees. That’s why they are political refugees in the first place, educated people are dangerous people to some people. They should find it easier to manouver through the US immigration “labyrinth”.
I’ve noticed that proponents of ILLEGAL immigration on this site always try to confuse the issue by bringing up the side-issue of political refugees. Nice try.
—formermuslim · May 17th, 2008 at 6:44 pm