In the inevitable analogy to Abraham Lincoln that Barack Obama has deftly exploited, it is largely forgotten that Lincoln was only pushed to an emancipationist position by two years of civil war. Similarly, whether Obama will embrace a more sweeping agenda—re-negotiate NAFTA, nationalize the banks, instate a "Green New Deal"—may depend on how deeply the American system goes into crisis over the next years. Our January Exit Poll was: "Will Barack Obama be radicalized in office by historical circumstance as Lincoln was?" We received the following responses:

A deported Mexican woman who took sanctuary in a Chicago church to highlight immigrants' rights is asking President Barack Obama to call a halt to immigration raids. Elvira Arellano says she is hopeful that Obama will help pass an immigration reform that stops dividing families. She spoke to reporters outside the US Embassy in Mexico City, where she gave officials a letter asking Obama to sign an executive order stopping the raids and deportations. (AP, Jan. 22)

In an opinion released late on Jan. 7, Attorney General Michael Mukasey wrote that "neither the Constitution nor any statutory or regulatory provision entitles an alien to a do-over if his initial removal proceeding is prejudiced by the mistakes of a privately retained lawyer." The ruling came in the case of three people ordered deported who said their cases had been hurt by attorney errors. Mukasey's ruling is binding over the immigration courts, which are part of the Department of Justice rather than the judiciary. Immigrant advocates said they expected the ruling to be challenged in federal appeals courts. Until recently the Board of Immigration Appeals, the highest review panel within the immigration system, had generally found that immigrants whose lawyers had made critical errors could seek to reopen their cases on constitutional grounds. (New York Times, Jan. 8)

From Dec. 14 to Dec. 18, ICE agents from three local fugitive operations teams arrested 84 immigrants from Costa Rica, Mexico, Nepal and Nicaragua in the Dallas metropolitan area. The arrests were made in Argyle, Arlington, Balch Springs, The Colony, Carrollton, Dallas, Denton, Duncanville, Farmers Branch, Fort Worth, Garland, Haltom City, Irving, Kennedale, Mesquite, Plano, Richardson and Rowlett. Of the total 84 people arrested, 64 reportedly had final removal orders; the other 20 were out-of-status immigrants encountered during the course of the raids. Forty of the 84 reportedly had criminal histories. ICE was assisted in the operation by the US Marshals Service, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the police departments of Arlington, Dallas, Fort Worth, Frisco and Grand Prairie. (ICE news release, Dec. 19)

On Dec. 31, immigration detainees jailed in the South Special Housing Unit at Eloy Detention Center in Eloy, Ariz., began throwing furniture at prison staff and causing property damage in the unit, according to a Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) press release cited in a local news report. At the time of the incident, there were approximately 34 detainees assigned to the Special Housing Unit. According to the news report, staff used chemical agents against the detainees to force them back into their cells. Jail officials placed the entire facility on lockdown status, meaning that detainees were restricted to their cells until further notice.

Oakland, Calif., exploded into violent protests Jan. 7 over the police slaying of 22-year-old African American father of one Oscar Grant. Following a memorial service for Grant at Palma Ceia Baptist Church, it was announced that officer Johannes Mehserle had resigned from the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police force so he would not be forced to testify at an internal hearing. Later in the day, a rally was held at the Fruitvale BART station, where Grant was killed, then marched up International Blvd. towards downtown Oakland. Following skirmishes with police, protesters took over and blocked the intersection of 14th and Broadway for over an hour, with chants of "We are Oscar Grant." When riot police tried to clear the intersection, protesters ran down 14th, smashing the windows of cars and a McDonalds, and torching an SUV.

In a victory for constitutional rights, two Transportation Security Authority (TSA) officials and JetBlue Airways have paid Raed Jarrar $240,000 to settle charges that they illegally discriminated against the US resident based on his ethnicity and the Arabic writing on his t-shirt. TSA and JetBlue officials prevented Jarrar from boarding his August 2006 flight at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport until he agreed to cover his shirt, which read "We Will Not Be Silent" in English and Arabic, and then forced him to sit at the back of the plane. The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on Jarrar’s behalf in August 2007.

On Dec. 12, some 1,300 federal prisoners staged an uprising at the privately run Reeves County Detention Center in Pecos, Texas, to demand better medical treatment after a detainee died at the facility, allegedly of natural causes. The Reeves County Detention Center has been run since 2003 by the GEO Group, based in Boca Raton, Florida, under contract with the federal government. The medium security prison holds more than 2,400 people, mainly inmates detained for immigration law violations. The uprising took place after the detainee's body was removed from the prison, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper John Barton told the Pecos Enterprise. The prisoners set a fire in an exercise room at the facility and were evacuated to an outdoor yard, where they took two prison recreation workers hostage. The newspaper reported that firefighters had to extinguish bonfires inmates had set to keep warm overnight.