ICED: Illegal Immigrants, thoughts?

[miaandjohnrule]

Furor Raised Over New Illegal Immigrant Video Game
Game Plots 5 Illegal Teenagers Against ICE Agents
Reporting
Marcia Kramer NEW YORK (CBS) ―
The rules are simple: keep a low profile, don't steal, and most importantly, steer clear of immigration officers.

No, it's not the plotline of the latest action thriller, it's the object of a new video game that's stirring up quite a bit of controversy.

"Beware, there are immigration officers out to get you at every turn," players are instructed. The name of the game, "ICED," is a double-entendre acronym, which in this case, stands for "I Can End Deportation." It pits five teenage characters against another "ICE" in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

"The aim of the game is trying to figure out how to keep your freedom, how to navigate a very complicated and unfair set of laws to be able to remain a free person in the United States," says Malika Dutt of Breakthrough, an international human rights organization that's putting out the game.

Creators of the game say it's based on the 1996 immigration laws that increased the list of punishable offenses.

"It shows people who don't know much about immigration how unjust it is to be an immigrant," says Daniel Laverde, one of 100 New York City high school students who helped develop the video game.

Supporters think sending a message through a video game is a great idea, but there are some that think it makes a joke of a very serious issue.

"I think that this game reduces the problems of illegal mass immigration to a joke," says Joanna Marzullo of New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement. "It inculcates our suggestible youth with a sense of sympathy for illegal aliens -- trespassers who should not be in our country to begin with."

But pro-immigration groups disagree, saying the game could create intelligent and appropriate chatter. "I think this game could really be a useful tool to help people think about what the current immigration system is like," says Norman Eng of the New York Immigration Coalition.

While it is of course only a game, federal immigration agents say they're opposed to anything that makes it more difficult for them to do their job.

ICED is set to be released next month.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers in Albany continued their efforts to stop Gov. Eliot Spitzer's administration from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. State Republicans introduced a bill that would require a Social Security number before a New York driving permit is issued.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)


http://wcbstv.com/national/immigrati....2.411070.html

[diskoboy]

Stayin' FAAAAAAAAAAAAAR away from this one....

[skaar]

And if you win, you get a green card!

[Sothy]

Pro tip: Beating your wife is actually illegal in the U.S.! You do not want to draw that kind of attention so if it is absolutely neccessary, Hit her with a bag of frozen waffles. You can always eat the evidence!

[DJ Daishi]

eat your heart out gta4

[FantasiaWHT]

This reminds me, albeit distantly, of the game out last year about trying to make peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Thinly veiled attempt at making a political point, both of them.

[Half Japanese]

Maybe it's just me, but I fucking hate it when people claim to be attempting to "raise awareness." That's such a horseshit, meaningless phrase if there ever was one. It's little more than an excuse for people to feel like they're truly helping when in actuality they're doing jack shit. Case in point: do you think EA is going to pick this up and it's going to storm the sales charts? No. In all likelihood, the publicity for this game just peaked with this article and at best it will probably be released for free online, which the general populace (if they know about it at all) will ignore like most other psuedo-meaningful half-assed attempts at social commentary.

[Pantechnicon]

I'll bet it plays more or less exactly like the NES version of Born In East LA but with better graphics.

[Steve W]

"Aw, it's so unjust to be an illegal alien in the US! We should have the right to drain off your country's economy, piss away it's resources, turn your cities into third-world slums, and generally make a nuisance of ourselves. It's so unfair that you don't let us eat away at your infrastructure until your country withers and dies like the hell-hole we waded across from. Why can't we be treated like US citizens, while refusing to become Americans and retaining our foreign nationalities and identities? Waaaaahhhh!"


Okay, my little rant is a bit racist. But I can't help it, I'm in that kind of mood. On the way home from work, I listened to a report on NPR about a mentally handicapped 30 year old US born citizen in California who was deported to Mexico by mistake (even though he told the INS he was from there and signed a release to ship him back there). NPR interviewed the mother... they had to have a translator speak for her. She's been here over 30 freaking years, and she never bothered learning the language of the country she lives in! For a few hundred years, immigrants have come to the US, learned the language, melded with the country, and have made the country stronger as a result. But in the past couple of decades, Mexicans have been coming over here, wanting the same benefits as Americans, but also wanting to stay Mexican citizens. And that pisses me off.

I know this little diatribe will piss a lot of people off, but trying to explain to me how I'm totally wrong in your personal opinion won't do anything. It's still my opinion, albeit one that I've come to on a particularly bad day. Your arguments won't sway me.

[rbudrick]

Are the power ups burritos and shit?

-Rob

[miaandjohnrule]

Are the power ups burritos and shit?

-Rob

I was thinking that , too. We're going to hell.

[7th lutz]

This no different then a flash game that has people shoot illegal immigrants from crossing the United States boarder.

I was given an e-mail link to the game.

Both games are political related. The only difference is they have different views on illegal immigration.

[FantasiaWHT]

Both games are political related. The only difference is they have different views on illegal immigration.

No, the difference is that in one, the makers are just being stupid and immature and trying to shock people into noticing them, and in the other, the makers are getting hard-ons because they think they've actually accomplished something in improving the lot of these innocent blighters.

I live in a country that treats its immigrants, legal and illegal alike, better than every single other country in the world; I shouldn't have to put up listening to this crap.

[j_factor]

If this were a "real game", and not just trying to make a political point, it might actually be good.

[Xizer]

If this was maybe a 3D game like Counter-Strike or maybe a stealth game like Splinter Cell I'd check it out. It's too bad it's a flash game.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I was thinking that , too. We're going to hell.

... even I was thinking that!

[Kitsune Sniper]

Okay, my little rant is a bit racist. But I can't help it, I'm in that kind of mood. On the way home from work, I listened to a report on NPR about a mentally handicapped 30 year old US born citizen in California who was deported to Mexico by mistake (even though he told the INS he was from there and signed a release to ship him back there). NPR interviewed the mother... they had to have a translator speak for her. She's been here over 30 freaking years, and she never bothered learning the language of the country she lives in! For a few hundred years, immigrants have come to the US, learned the language, melded with the country, and have made the country stronger as a result. But in the past couple of decades, Mexicans have been coming over here, wanting the same benefits as Americans, but also wanting to stay Mexican citizens. And that pisses me off.

I know this little diatribe will piss a lot of people off, but trying to explain to me how I'm totally wrong in your personal opinion won't do anything. It's still my opinion, albeit one that I've come to on a particularly bad day. Your arguments won't sway me.

Apologies for the double post - and no, I don't think your point of view is racist. Coming from me, that's saying something.

*sighs* Okay. A lot of the people who, according to you, can't be bothered to learn the language... well, never really went to school at all. Or there's cases where their daily routines just don't give them time to do anything. Imagine having a thirty year old mentally handicapped son, and having to take care of him, as well as work to raise him. It's very difficult to have time to improve oneself in that scenario.

There's other similar cases where immigrants work their asses off to be able to send money to their family. They work so much they just don't have time to do anything else, and if you worked 10-12 hour workdays, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't spend what little free time you have studying. You'd probably spend it sleeping, or relaxing.

Of course, there ARE lazy bastards who milk the system. I'm not denying that. But not everyone does that, and the impression that comes off from posts such as yours is that everyone thinks immigrants try to scam the system in any way they can.

And in regards to the whole cultural thing. I live in a city filled with Chinese immigrants - they were the ones that basically built the town as construction workers in the 1900s - and you know what they do? They don't become Mexican, they don't meld with the culture, they're still Chinese. They're PROUD of their heritage, and don't deny it. Something similar happens with first-generation Mexican immigrants in the USA. Second and third generation immigrants tend to meld into the country's culture more and more, but most people don't notice that because there's more first generation Mexican immigrants coming in every day.

... I don't know why I ranted, but the point is, I'm not angry at you and I don't find you racist.

[gonzo90017]

Couldn't of said it better myself.

[Berserker]

There are people who die trying to make it over here. They sell off most every worldly possession they have, along with having worked possibly for years just to get together the money to have someone bring them over here illegally, because if they try to do it on their own they're probably going to die.

It seems like a lot of people make the mistake of believing these immigrants somehow represent Mexicans as a whole, but that's not true. We're only seeing the people who want out, the poorest of the poor.

There's a huge cultural gap between rich and poor there, and it's largely a class-based society, in the sense that if you're born dirt poor, good chances are that you're going to die dirt poor. And the cultural elite are as oblivious to these people as we are; they probably know as much about them as any American living in a border state, maybe less.

They risk death to come over here and try to make a better life for themselves, and possibly their families. The few I've known are some of the hardest working people I know. I can't in good conscience call any of them lazy. If it pisses you off that they don't speak English, join or start an outreach program to teach them the language, if it pisses you off enough to actually do something about it.

[Sothy]

If it pisses you off that they don't speak English, join or start an outreach program to teach them the language, if it pisses you off enough to actually do something about it.

Yes because criminals deserve "outreach programs" I also want to start a program where drug dealers and prostitutes can learn sanscrit.

They are "Illegal" immigrants. Yeah my family were immigrants as well a long time ago from Germany. They did the paperwork, waited forever, studied English and finally got here. I am sure they worked their asses off too. "Working hard" does not negate criminal activity. "Working hard" does not negate your obligation to speak the language of the country you choose to inhabit. In what fucking dimension does putting in a long shift allow you the excuse for criminal, moral and social free parking ticket to a consequence free existence? Oh thats right the fucking Hippy dimension.