Imagine you're in a room with a barking dog, a stomping elephant, and a dishonest politician. The politician keeps harping on how he's going to do something about the barking dog, but completely ignores the stomping elephant in the room. Shortly before the elephant has crushed all the furniture, you might wonder why the politician keeps ignoring the elephant. You might even wonder if the politician is in the pay of the elephant.

How some leftwing leaders (such as those associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement) deal with immigration is a lot like that.

The barking dog is the issue of corporations trying to profit from private immigration detention facilities and immigration detention in general [1].

The elephant in the room - the one that Occupy leaders keep ignoring - is the fact that major banks and corporations seek profits from massive and illegal immigration. Not only do Occupy leaders ignore that side of things, but they'd help those major banks and corporations increase their profits (such as through guest workers or comprehensive immigration reform).

For instance, some Occupy leaders complain about Wells Fargo investing in private immigration detention prisons. Yet, they'll completely ignore the role Wells Fargo has played in enabling and profiting from illegal immigration (see the last link).

What Wells Fargo is doing is not by any stretch the first time a company has sought to profit from both sides of the ledger. Wells Fargo's investment in detention companies like CCA and GEO might bring in one set of profits, and Wells Fargo giving home loans to and moving money for illegal aliens will bring in another set of profits. Wells Fargo stands to profit both when illegal aliens stay in the U.S. and when they're deported from the U.S.

Yet, Occupy leaders concentrate on the immigration detention part of the equation, and almost completely ignore the much larger profits banks and corporations make from enabling illegal immigration.

If you see OWS or general leftwing leaders who ignore the elephant in the room, call them on it.

For additional background on the elephant in the room that Occupy leaders tend to ignore, see Immigrants Occupy December 18, 2011: OWS are useful idiots for big banks, big business, Federal Reserve, Koch, Bloomberg...

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[1] This site (obviously) doesn't oppose immigration detention in general, just possible cases of unjust enrichment, corruption, and actual instances of abuse associated with it. Some people who claim to just oppose those same things are actually opposed to detention for the most part or completely. In that case, they're supporting what would amount to open borders, and they're also being misleading about it: pretending to support the increased enforcement mandated by comprehensive immigration reform but intending to oppose that enforcement if "reform" passes.