That's the front page, top of the fold headline [1] in today's Maryville Daily Times. Which is unfortunate, because there are a lot more important things going on than this manufactured wedge issue made up by GOP strategists to further divide our nation and further confuse an already misinformed electorate.

This story doesn't appear anywhere else that I can find. It's curious that the Maryville Daily Times is the only newspaper that seems to be running with this, because you'd think it would be of great concern to residents of Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas where teams of ICE Detention and Removal officers responsible for "tracking down criminal aliens and immigration fugitives" made a "record number of arrests last year."

But how many arrests were there exactly? 448* according to the article. With twelve to twenty million "illegals" here, depending on which GOP propaganda sheet you rely on for information, that's not very impressive. The article says they only have 75 "fugitive operations teams" working 595,000 cases.

It doesn't sound like the Bush Administration and the Department of Homeland Security are all that serious about "rounding up" all these "illegals" and deporting them. I guess they're more worried about providing cheap labor for their corporate pals to exploit. But it's a red meat issue for "law and order" conservative Republicans to talk about in the newspapers. Be afraid of people not like you! They're probably Catholics!

Some of the article is printed verbatim from a Dec. 4th ICE press release [2]. Were regional press releases sent out, which were printed verbatim as "news"? At any rate, the timing is curious, especially the timing of why this is such big news for Blount County today.

For a better perspective on the issue, see this letter to the editor [3] brought to our attention in comments below.

(*In comparison, according to FBI crime statistics there were 336 violent crimes and 1586 property crimes reported in Blount County alone in 2006.)