Immigration, Education and Globalization: U.S.-Mx

Mexico: Lack of tax incentives discourages giving

2011-12-07T21:17:00.001-08:00

December 1, 2011 2:30 pm
By Adam Thomson

A few years ago, when Carlos Slim was asked about philanthropy, the Mexican telecoms billionaire said he disagreed with “going around like Santa Claus”. His views seem to have changed little since then.
“Poverty doesn’t go away with charity, social services, paternalism or speeches,” the world’s richest individual told the FT in June this year.
“You can only defeat poverty with jobs and with people who create jobs.”
To judge by some studies, many of his countrymen feel the same way. Mexico may have a $1tn economy, be home to 112m people and at least 12 billionaires. But it also has some of the world’s most frugal givers.
According to a 2003 investigation by the US-based Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, private donations to the country’s not-for-profit sector are equivalent to just 0.04 per cent of gross domestic product – about 40 times lower than in the US, and the lowest in the Johns Hopkins study of 35 developed and developing countries.
Regional peers such as Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, which were also in the study, give considerably more on a proportional basis.
As Michael Layton of the philanthropy unit of Mexico City’s Itam university says: “The sector is really under-developed in Mexico and that makes it hard to get things moving.”
One of the problems is that few people pay taxes. With a large informal sector and plenty of loopholes in the tax code, it is little wonder that Mexico has one of the lowest takes in the region – less than 10 per cent of GDP a year excluding oil revenues.
This is a challenge for philanthropy: legislation that allows Mexicans to deduct donations from their tax bills – an approach that works in the US – is much less effective. As Mr Layton puts it, “the tax incentive is hollowed out”.
Moreover, the not-for-profit sector is small, even by Latin American standards. According to the finance ministry, there are only about 5,000 organisations that are legally registered to receive tax-free donations. Compare that with 50,000 in Ecuador, a country of 15m people.
Lourdes Sanz of the Mexican Center for Philanthropy argues that part of the reason is that national laws impose many rules on organisations that want to register with the finance ministry. For example, they have to renew their registration every year, generating paperwork.
They also have to obtain a letter of approval from one of the government’s ministries but few ministries are legally able to provide this.
Not only that, but registered organisations cannot spend more than 5 per cent of their donations on administrative costs – a level far below what most international not-for-profit organisations consider viable.
Ms Sanz concludes, “the institutional side of giving in Mexico is very weak”.
Francisco Marmolejo at the University of Arizona, an authority on higher education, says that the resulting low levels of philanthropy could spell serious problems for Mexico’s relatively young population, nowhere more so than in education.
“There is a huge demand for educational services, but governments in Latin America cannot provide adequately because of competing needs,” he says.
“Philanthropy could help fill the void, but there is not enough of it in Mexico.”
So acute is the lack of philanthropic funding for education that some universities have had to come up with novel alternatives.
For example, the Tecnológico de Monterrey, one of the country’s best known universities, has gone to the extraordinary measure of funding part of its monthly salary bill through a lottery system.
Like many things in Latin America, there is a certain lack of clarity over Mexico’s philanthropic sector.
Donations to the Catholic Church are not included in many statistics, a fact that probably underplays significantly the amount that Mexicans give away.
And donations to help people affected by natural disasters tend to be generous.
There are also several notable examples of Mexican billionaires working with regional governments on development programmes.
In spite of his public disdain for charity, Mr Slim has two foundations, with an endowment of at least $5bn.
Among other things, they fund health and education programmes throughout Mexico.
Ricardo Salinas Pliego, one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, has joined forces with the state government of Chiapas to build urban communities to provide basic services to people who once lived in rural areas.
But in a recent interview with the FT, Mr Salinas Pliego admitted that philanthropy in Mexico was not easy. “In the rest of the world, rich people will give a donation and businessmen give to charities,” he said.
“But in Mexico, the execution capacity of what we call the social sector is missing. I find it much more effective to set up the actual social organisation and then fund it with my money.”

Powerful Retablo on the impact of immigration on people--compliments of Jay J. Johnson

2011-11-01T21:27:00.001-07:00

Immigration: Obama Changes the Game for Illegal Immigrants

2011-08-20T07:21:00.000-07:00

The incalculable suffering that our policies have caused: "The Obama administration has built the fence and has tried the "send 'em all home" route, to the tune of more than three-quarters of a million deportations in 2009-2010." Unbelievably, 300,000 prosecutions are under review, filling up our for-profit prisons and jails. Glad to see that neither our non-criminals or DREAM Act students will likely get deported. We'll see what the DHS and DOJ develop, but all else equal, this is a step in the right direction.

Angela

Immigration: Obama Changes the Game for Illegal Immigrants
August 19, 2011 07:25 PM EDT

Obama has pushed immigration change to a "no takers" Congress. On May 10th, in his speech at the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, he accused Republicans of demanding unrealistic crackdowns and refusing to consider policy and legal reform.

"They wanted a fence," the president said of Republicans. "Well, that fence is now basically complete. Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they'll want alligators in the moat." His intent was obvious... using ridicule of the Republican insistence on physical barriers and their "...send 'em all home" approach to illegal immigration.

The Obama administration has built the fence and has tried the "send 'em all home" route, to the tune of more than three-quarters of a million deportations in 2009-2010. Hispanics who expected Obama to change America's response to illegals have been appalled. They are threatening to abandon him if he can't get a reform package through Congress. In May, he began suggesting he would make immigration reform a campaign issue, and now he has.

Three hundred thousand prosecutions are under review. An interdepartmental group—Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ)—will develop criteria for selection of cases to be dropped from prosecution. If there is no history of criminal activity, the person has been in the USA since he or she was a small child, and they are in school (DREAM Act students), they will likely not be prosecuted or deported. Immigrants classified as low-priority cases could receive a stay of deportation and the chance to apply for a work permit.

The president has thrown down the gauntlet, saying in effect, "Fences and barriers don't work. Arrests and deportations don't work. Criminal prosecution just fills up our jails. It's time and past time to do something that will work." He is proposing a program that concentrates on dangerous criminals and people who pose a threat to society. A substantial number of the cases now in court are not criminal cases.

Meanwhile, Border States are trying to create their own control system by building a patchwork of laws aimed at illegal aliens and those who employ them. The federal government has so far been successful in court in asserting that illegal alien control is a national problem and that federal law supersedes State law.

There is some indication that the recession has acted to slow illegal immigration, and may even have caused a substantial mini-exodus of illegal immigrants. However, it's likely that such effects are temporary, lasting only until an upturn is well confirmed, and will have little long-term effect on the issue.

Texans will train Mexicans for the drug war

2011-08-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN Associated Press
Aug. 17, 2011

LAREDO — U.S. law enforcement will train local and state police officers from Mexico as part of the next phase of the two countries' joint fight against transnational drug cartels, a U.S. State Department official said Wednesday.

U.S. agencies have been training Mexican federal police on both sides of the border for several years. However, William Brownfield, assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, said it is clear that local forces face the most concentrated violence, especially in northern Mexico, and are in the most need of training.

"If we do not address these problems cooperatively today, we will be addressing them on our own front doorsteps in five years," Brownfield said.

Brownfield was in the Texas border town of Laredo on Wednesday, signing an agreement outlining how deputies from the Webb County Sheriff's Office could spend periods of three months, six months or more training their counterparts in Mexico.

It was the first such agreement the State Department has signed with a local law enforcement agency anywhere on the U.S.-Mexico border. Brownfield said more trainers are needed and the high rate of bilingual deputies with border experience made Webb County an attractive place to start such a program.

Police training has been a significant part of the Merida Initiative, which outlined the U.S. partnership with Mexico and Central America in the drug war and has committed $1.4 billion since 2008. However, the focus now shifts to historically out-gunned and ill-prepared local forces ducking bullets and facing ominous threats on a daily basis.

Mexico received $327 million for police training in fiscal 2009 from the U.S. State Department through Merida, placing it behind only Afghanistan and Iraq in total funds received for police training from the departments of State or Defense, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office in April.

Details of the proposed training programs have not been worked out, but Brownfield envisions three or four training centers in Mexico. He is holding complementary meetings with Mexican officials on this trip to begin working out the program's shape. He said he spoke with officials in Juarez on Monday and will hold similar meetings in Monterrey Thursday.

Chihuahua and Nuevo Leon states, respectively, have been two of Mexico's hardest hit by drug gang violence.

According to official figures, at least 35,000 people have been killed in drug violence in Mexico since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderon launched his crackdown on organized crime. Other sources, including local media, say the number is closer to 40,000. The federal government has not released an update of its numbers since December.

U.S. involvement in Mexico has drawn attention there recently after Mexico's government confirmed that U.S. intelligence agents operate there, analyzing and exchanging information. The New York Times had reported that CIA agents and former U.S. military personnel are working at a Mexican military base in the fight against drug gangs.

Brownfield stressed that involvement of U.S. trainers will come only with Mexican approval and that the training centers would be under Mexican authority. He also said a longer-term vision could include pairing trainers from an agency such as the Webb County Sheriff's Office with a National Guard deployment from Texas. The National Guard has been active in the drug war on the U.S. side of the border in intelligence analysis.

The agreement signed Wednesday "sets guidelines for the Webb County Sherriff's Office to train, advise and mentor international law enforcement agencies and officers." The sheriff's office will pay the upfront costs and receive reimbursement from the State Department. Its trainers, which it will release on a voluntary basis, will not carry weapons in other countries and will have to be approved in advance by the State Department. The State Department will be responsible for screening any trainees and will give pre-deployment training to trainers.

The agreement leaves open the possibility of training on U.S. soil, but Brownfield said from a cost standpoint it made more sense to send a few trainers to Mexico than bring hundreds of trainees to the U.S.

Brownfield said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo was very active in pushing the venture. Cuellar's brother, Martin Cuellar, is Webb County sheriff.

The congressman said the benefits worked both ways. "When the teacher goes down there, the teacher will learn from the students."

Miss Ana is free: El Paso teacher released from Juárez cereso

2011-07-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

by Daniel Borunda \ El Paso Times
Posted: 07/11/2011

An El Paso teacher was freed from a Juárez prison late Sunday after the Mexican attorney general's office announced it had dropped drug charges against her.

Protesters had marched Sunday demanding the immediate release of Ana Isela Martínez, whose freedom had been expected since a Mexican judge decided on Friday to drop all charges.

"She was freed unconditionally with all charges dropped," said Martínez's lawyer, Salvador Urbina. "We are very happy. There were more than 200 people here (outside the Cereso prison), cheering and praying."

The Mexican attorney general's office, or the PGR, on Sunday said it confirmed that Martínez was innocent and a target of a scheme that picked on commuters. The PGR also warned people who cross the international bridges regularly to be on alert.

Urbina said the PGR ratified the judge's order but Martínez's release had been delayed until the signed documents arrived in Juárez.

"Proceedings by Mexican authorities, how can I say this, are bureaucratic sometimes," Urbina said.

Martínez spent Sunday night in Juárez with her family and she planned to attend a Mass to give thanks this morning at her church, Urbina said.

Martínez lives in Juárez but has a U.S. work permit and commutes daily to work at La Fe Preparatory School in El Paso, where she is known as "Miss Ana."

Martínez had been jailed since May 26 when Mexican soldiers found marijuana in two duffel bags in her car¹s trunk on the Juárez side of the Stanton Street bridge express lane.

Soldiers found 88 pounds of marijuana, the Mexican attorney general's office said Sunday.

Martínez and her supporters have said she was innocent and did not know about the marijuana. A Mexican judge ordered her detained until trial.

Yet Martínez received a big break last week with the FBI's arrest of a suspected drug smuggler in a scheme of transporting drugs across the border in the trunks of unsuspecting commuters.

A criminal complaint stated smugglers would get a car's vehicle identification number and copies of car keys. A Juárez crew would use those keys to secretly load marijuana into a vehicle's trunk. The marijuana would then be removed in El Paso by a crew with duplicate keys.

According to the FBI document, Martínez's case was discussed by the alleged drug traffickers in recorded conversations.

Daniel Borunda may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com; 546-6102.

Better Lives for Mexicans Cut Allure of Going North

2011-07-06T16:34:00.000-07:00

I knew this was happening. Just wasn't sure of the extent of it. This will certainly impact the U.S. economy over the long term. -Angela

By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: July 6, 2011

AGUA NEGRA, Mexico — The extraordinary Mexican migration that delivered millions of illegal immigrants to the United States over the past 30 years has sputtered to a trickle, and research points to a surprising cause: unheralded changes in Mexico that have made staying home more attractive.

A growing body of evidence suggests that a mix of developments — expanding economic and educational opportunities, rising border crime and shrinking families — are suppressing illegal traffic as much as economic slowdowns or immigrant crackdowns in the United States.

Here in the red-earth highlands of Jalisco, one of Mexico’s top three states for emigration over the past century, a new dynamic has emerged. For a typical rural family like the Orozcos, heading to El Norte without papers is no longer an inevitable rite of passage. Instead, their homes are filling up with returning relatives; older brothers who once crossed illegally are awaiting visas; and the youngest Orozcos are staying put.

“I’m not going to go to the States because I’m more concerned with my studies,” said Angel Orozco, 18. Indeed, at the new technological institute where he is earning a degree in industrial engineering, all the students in a recent class said they were better educated than their parents — and that they planned to stay in Mexico rather than go to the United States.

Douglas S. Massey, co-director of the Mexican Migration Project at Princeton, an extensive, long-term survey in Mexican emigration hubs, said his research showed that interest in heading to the United States for the first time had fallen to its lowest level since at least the 1950s. “No one wants to hear it, but the flow has already stopped,” Mr. Massey said, referring to illegal traffic. “For the first time in 60 years, the net traffic has gone to zero and is probably a little bit negative.”

The decline in illegal immigration, from a country responsible for roughly 6 of every 10 illegal immigrants in the United States, is stark. The Mexican census recently discovered four million more people in Mexico than had been projected, which officials attributed to a sharp decline in emigration.

American census figures analyzed by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center also show that the illegal Mexican population in the United States has shrunk and that fewer than 100,000 illegal border-crossers and visa-violators from Mexico settled in the United States in 2010, down from about 525,000 annually from 2000 to 2004. Although some advocates for more limited immigration argue that the Pew studies offer estimates that do not include short-term migrants, most experts agree that far fewer illegal immigrants have been arriving in recent years.

The question is why. Experts and American politicians from both parties have generally looked inward, arguing about the success or failure of the buildup of border enforcement and tougher laws limiting illegal immigrants’ rights — like those recently passed in Alabama and Arizona. Deportations have reached record highs as total border apprehensions and apprehensions of Mexicans have fallen by more than 70 percent since 2000.

But Mexican immigration has always been defined by both the push (from Mexico) and the pull (of the United States). The decision to leave home involves a comparison, a wrenching cost-benefit analysis, and just as a Mexican baby boom and economic crises kicked off the emigration waves in the 1980s and ’90s, research now shows that the easing of demographic and economic pressures is helping keep departures in check.

In simple terms, Mexican families are smaller than they had once been. The pool of likely migrants is shrinking. Despite the dominance of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico, birth control efforts have pushed down the fertility rate to about 2 children per woman from 6.8 in 1970, according to government figures. So while Mexico added about one million new potential job seekers annually in the 1990s, since 2007 that figure has fallen to an average of 800,000, according to government birth records. By 2030, it is expected to drop to 300,000.

Even in larger families like the Orozcos’ — Angel is the 9th of 10 children — the migration calculation has changed. Crossing “mojado,” wet or illegally, has become more expensive and more dangerous, particularly with drug cartels dominating the border. At the same time, educational and employment opportunities have greatly expanded in Mexico. Per capita gross domestic product and family income have each jumped more than 45 percent since 2000, according to one prominent economist, Roberto Newell. Despite all the depictions of Mexico as “nearly a failed state,” he argued, “the conventional wisdom is wrong.”

A significant expansion of legal immigration — aided by American consular officials — is also under way. Congress may be debating immigration reform, but in Mexico, visas without a Congressionally mandated cap on how many people can enter have increased from 2006 to 2010, compared with the previous five years.

State Department figures show that Mexicans who have become American citizens have legally brought in 64 percent more immediate relatives, 220,500 from 2006 through 2010, compared with the figures for the previous five years. Tourist visas are also being granted at higher rates of around 89 percent, up from 67 percent, while American farmers have legally hired 75 percent more temporary workers since 2006.

Edward McKeon, the top American official for consular affairs in Mexico, said he had focused on making legal passage to the United States easier in an effort to prevent people from giving up and going illegally. He has even helped those who were previously illegal overcome bans on entering the United States.

“If people are trying to do the right thing,” Mr. McKeon said, “we need to send the signal that we’ll reward them.”
Hard Years in Jalisco

When Angel Orozco’s grandfather considered leaving Mexico in the 1920s, his family said, he wrestled with one elemental question: Will it be worth it?

At that point and for decades to come, yes was the obvious answer. In the 1920s and ’30s — when Paul S. Taylor came to Jalisco from California for his landmark study of Mexican emigration — Mexico’s central highlands promised little more than hard living. Jobs were scarce and paid poorly. Barely one of three adults could read. Families of 10, 12 and even 20 were common, and most children did not attend school.

Comparatively, the United States looked like a dreamland of technology and riches: Mr. Taylor found that the wages paid by the railroads, where most early migrants found legal work, were five times what could be earned on farms in Arandas, the municipality that includes Agua Negra.

Orozco family members still talk about the benefits of that first trip. Part of the land the extended family occupies today was purchased with American earnings from the 1920s. When Angel’s father, Antonio, went north to pick cotton in the 1950s and ’60s with the Bracero temporary worker program, which accepted more than 400,000 laborers a year at its peak, working in the United States made even more sense. The difference in wages had reached 10 to 1. Arandas was still dirt poor.

Antonio, with just a few years of schooling, was one of many who felt that with a back as strong as a wooden church door, he could best serve his family from across the border.

“I sent my father money so he could build his house,” Antonio said.

Legal status then meant little. After the Bracero program ended in 1964, Antonio said, he crossed back and forth several times without documentation. Passage was cheap. Work lasting for a few months or a year was always plentiful. So when his seven sons started to become adults in the 1990s, he encouraged them to go north as well. Around 2001, he and two of his sons were all in the United States working — part of what is now recognized as one of the largest immigration waves in American history.

But even then, illegal immigration was becoming less attractive. In the mid-1990s, the Clinton administration added fences and federal agents to what were then the main crossing corridors beyond Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez. The enforcement push, continued by President George W. Bush and President Obama, helped drive up smuggling prices from around $700 in the late 1980s to nearly $2,000 a decade later, and the costs continued to climb, according to research from the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego. It also shifted traffic to more dangerous desert areas near Arizona.

Antonio said the risks hit home when his nephew Alejandro disappeared in the Sonoran Desert around 2002. A father of one and with a pregnant wife, Alejandro had been promised work by a friend. It took years for the authorities to find his body in the arid brush south of Tucson. Even now, no one knows how he died.

But for the Orozcos, border enforcement was not the major deterrent. Andrés Orozco, 28, a middle son who first crossed illegally in 2000, said that while rising smuggling costs and border crime were worries, there were always ways to avoid American agents. In fact, while the likelihood of apprehension has increased in recent years, 92 to 98 percent of those who try to cross eventually succeed, according to research by Wayne A. Cornelius and his colleagues at the University of California, San Diego.
A Period of Progress

Another important factor is Mexico itself. Over the past 15 years, this country once defined by poverty and beaches has progressed politically and economically in ways rarely acknowledged by Americans debating immigration. Even far from the coasts or the manufacturing sector at the border, democracy is better established, incomes have generally risen and poverty has declined.

Here in Jalisco, a tequila boom that accelerated through the 1990s created new jobs for farmers cutting agave and for engineers at the stills. Other businesses followed. In 2003, when David Fitzgerald, a migration expert at the University of California, San Diego, came to Arandas, he found that the wage disparity with the United States had narrowed: migrants in the north were collecting 3.7 times what they could earn at home.

That gap has recently shrunk again. The recession cut into immigrant earnings in the United States, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, even as wages have risen in Mexico, according to World Bank figures. Jalisco’s quality of life has improved in other ways, too. About a decade ago, the cluster of the Orozco ranches on Agua Negra’s outskirts received electricity and running water. New census data shows a broad expansion of such services: water and trash collection, once unheard of outside cities, are now available to more than 90 percent of Jalisco’s homes. Dirt floors can now be found in only 3 percent of the state’s houses, down from 12 percent in 1990.

Still, education represents the most meaningful change. The census shows that throughout Jalisco, the number of senior high schools or preparatory schools for students aged 15 to 18 increased to 724 in 2009, from 360 in 2000, far outpacing population growth. The Technological Institute of Arandas, where Angel studies engineering, is now one of 13 science campuses created in Jalisco since 2000 — a major reason professionals in the state, with a bachelor’s degree or higher, also more than doubled to 821,983 in 2010, up from 405,415 in 2000.

Similar changes have occurred elsewhere. In the poor southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, for instance, professional degree holders rose to 525,874 from 244,322 in 2000.

And the data from secondary schools like the one the Orozcos attended in Agua Negra suggests that the trend will continue. Thanks to a Mexican government program called “schools of quality” the campus of three buildings painted sunflower yellow has five new computers for its 71 students, along with new books.

Teachers here, in classrooms surrounded by blue agave fields, say that enrollment is down slightly because families are having fewer children, and instead of sending workers north, some families have moved to other Mexican cities — a trend also found in academic field research. Around half the students now move on to higher schooling, up from 30 percent a decade ago.

“They’re identifying more with Mexico,” said Agustín Martínez González, a teacher. “With more education, they’re more likely to accept reality here and try to make it better.”

Some experts agree. Though Mexicans with Ph.D.’s tend to leave for bigger paychecks abroad, “if you have a college degree you’re much more likely to stay in Mexico because that is surely more valuable in Mexico,” said Jeffrey S. Passel, a demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center.

If these trends — particularly Mexican economic growth — continue over the next decade, Mr. Passel said, changes in the migration dynamic may become even clearer. “At the point where the U.S. needs the workers again,” he said, “there will be fewer of them.”
Praying for Papers

The United States, of course, has not lost its magnetic appeal. Illegal traffic from Central America has not dropped as fast as it has from Mexico, and even in Jalisco town plazas are now hangouts for men in their 30s with tattoos, oversize baseball caps and a desire to work again in California or another state. Bars with American names — several have adopted Shrek — signal a back and forth that may never disappear.

But more Mexicans are now traveling legally. Several Orozco cousins have received temporary worker visas in the past few years. In March, peak migration season for Jalisco, there were 15 people from Agua Negra at the border waiting to cross.

“And 10 had visas,” said Ramón Orozco, 30, another son of Antonio who works in the town’s government office after being the first in his family to go to college. “A few years ago there would have been 100, barely any with proper documents.”

This is not unique to Agua Negra. A few towns away at the hillside shrine of St. Toribio, the patron saint of migrants, prayers no longer focus on asking God to help sons, husbands or brothers crossing the desert. “Now people are praying for papers,” said María Guadalupe, 47, a longtime volunteer.

How did this happen?

Partly, emigrants say, illegal life in the United States became harder. Laws restricting illegal immigrants’ rights or making it tougher for employers to hire them have passed in more than a dozen states since 2006. The same word-of-mouth networks that used to draw people north are now advising against the journey. “Without papers all you’re thinking about is, when are the police going to stop you or what other risks are you going to face,” said Andrés Orozco.

Andrés, a horse lover who drives a teal pickup from Texas, is one of many Orozcos now pinning their hopes on a visa. And for the first time in years, the chances have improved.

Mexican government estimates based on survey data show not just a decrease in migration overall, but also an increase in border crossings with documents. In 2009, the most recent year for which data is available, 38 percent of the total attempted crossings, legal and illegal, were made with documents. In 2007, only 20 percent involved such paperwork.

The Mexican data counts attempted crossings, not people, and does not differentiate between categories of visas. Nor does it mention how long people stayed, nor whether all the documents were valid.

Advocates of limited immigration worry that the issuing of more visas creates a loophole that can be abused. Between 40 and 50 percent of the illegal immigrants in the United States entered legally with visas they overstayed, as of 2005, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

More recent American population data, however, shows no overall increase in the illegal Mexican population. That suggests that most of the temporary visas issued to Mexicans — 1.1 million in 2010 — are being used legitimately even as American statistics show clearly that visa opportunities have increased.
Easing a Chaotic Process

One man, Mr. McKeon, the minister counselor who oversees all consular affairs in Mexico, has played a significant role in that expansion.

A lawyer with a white beard and a quick tongue, Mr. McKeon arrived in the summer of 2007. And after more than 30 years working in consular affairs in China, Japan and elsewhere, he quickly decided to make changes in Mexico. Working within administrative rules, State Department officials say, he re-engineered the visa program to de-emphasize the affordability standard that held that visas were to be denied to those who could not prove an income large enough to support travel to the United States.

In a country where a person can cross the border with a 25-cent toll, Mr. McKeon said, the income question was irrelevant. “You have to look at everyone individually,” he said in an interview at his office in Mexico City. “I don’t want people to say, here’s the income floor, over yes, lower no.”

This led to an almost immediate decrease in the rejection rate for tourist visas. Before he arrived, around 32 percent were turned down. Since 2008, the rate has been around 11 percent.

Mr. McKeon — praised by some immigration lawyers for bringing consistency to a chaotic process — was also instrumental in expanding the temporary visa program for agricultural workers. Called H-2A, this is one of the few visa categories without a cap.

Around 2006, as the debate over immigration became more contentious, employers concentrated in the Southeast began applying for more workers through the program. Mr. McKeon began hosting conferences with all the stakeholders and deployed new technology and additional staff members. The waiting time for several visa categories decreased, government reports show. For H-2As, Mexican workers can now receive their documents the same day that they apply.

Mr. McKeon also pushed to make the program more attractive to Mexicans who might otherwise cross the border illegally. Two years ago, he eliminated a $100 visa issuance fee that was supposed to be covered by employers but was usually paid by workers. And he insisted that his staff members change their approach with Mexicans who had previously worked illegally in the United States.

“The message used to be, if you were working illegally, lie about it or don’t even try to go legally because we won’t let you,” said one senior State Department official. “What we’re saying now is, tell us you did it illegally, be honest and we’ll help you.”

Specifically, consulate workers dealing with H-2A applicants who were once illegal — making them subject to 3- or 10-year bans depending on the length of their illegal stay — now regularly file electronic waiver applications to the United States Customs and Border Patrol. About 85 percent of these are now approved, Mr. McKeon said, so that in 2010 most of the 52,317 Mexican workers with H-2A visas had previously been in the United States illegally.

“It’s not easy to go through this process,” Mr. McKeon said, “and I think people who are willing to go through all of that and risk going back to the United States where they have to pay taxes, and withholding, I think we should look favorably on them.”

Speaking as the son of a New Jersey plumber, he added: “My bias is toward people who sweat at work because I really think that’s the backbone of our country. With limited resources, I’d rather devote our efforts to keeping out a drug kingpin than trying to find someone who works a couple of months at Cousin Hector’s body shop.”
A Divisive Topic

In the heated debate over immigration, however, this topic is inevitably divisive. Pro-immigrant groups, when told of the expansion to legal immigration, say it still may not be enough in a country where the baby boomers are retiring in droves.

Farmers still complain that the H-2A visa program is too complicated and addresses only a portion of the total demand. As of 2010, there were 1,381,896 Mexicans still waiting for their green-card applications to be accepted or rejected. And the United States currently makes only 5,000 green cards annually available worldwide for low-wage workers to immigrate permanently; in recent years, only a few of those have gone to Mexicans.

On the other side, Steven A. Camarota, a demographer at the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors reduced immigration, said that increasing the proportion of legal entries did little good.

“If you believe there is significant job competition at the bottom end of the labor market, as I do, you’re not fixing the problem,” Mr. Camarota said. “If you are concerned about the fiscal cost of unskilled immigration and everyone comes in on temporary visas and overstays, or even if they don’t, the same problems are likely to apply.”

By his calculations, unskilled immigrants like the Orozcos have, over the years, helped push down hourly wages, especially for young, unskilled American workers. Immigrants are also more likely to rely on welfare, he said, adding to public costs.

The Orozco clan, however, may point to a different future. Angel Orozco, like many other young Mexicans, now talks about the United States not as a place to earn money, but rather as a destination for fun and spending.

Today he is just a lanky, shy freshman wearing a Daughtry T-shirt and living in a two-room apartment with only a Mexican flag and a rosary for decoration.

But his dreams are big and local. After graduating, he said, he hopes to work for a manufacturing company in Arandas, which seems likely because the director of his school says that nearly 90 percent of graduates find jobs in their field. Then, Angel said, he will be able to buy what he really wants: a shiny, new red Camaro.

Mexican national set for execution in Texas, despite treaty concerns

2011-07-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

Treaties and conventions between countries should be meaningful. This person set for execution wasn't told about his right to have access to Mexican consular officials. -Angela

Posted at 09:55 AM ET, 07/06/2011
Mexican national set for execution in Texas, despite treaty concerns
By Jason Ukman

The Supreme Court has until Thursday to halt the execution of a Mexican national whose case has prompted a call for a stay from the Obama administration, which says the execution could put the United States in breach of international obligations.
(HANDOUT PHOTO VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Humberto Leal Garcia Jr., who was found guilty of raping and killing a 16-year-old girl in 1994, is scheduled to face lethal injection Thursday in Texas. Leal, now 38, was provided with court-appointed lawyers after his arrest but was never informed that he could have access to Mexican consular officials, as is required under the United Nations’ Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

In 2009, the International Court of Justice ruled that the United States had failed to meet its obligations under the Vienna Convention in the cases of 51 Mexicans awaiting execution, including Leal.

The Obama administration urged the Supreme Court on Friday to delay the execution, saying that if it were carried out, it would affect “foreign-policy interests of the highest order.” The Mexican ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhan, has also requested a reprieve for Leal based on concerns about legal representation.

The breach of international obligations would “have serious repercussions for United States foreign relations, law-enforcement and other cooperation with Mexico, and the ability of American citizens traveling abroad to have the benefits of consular assistance in the event of detention,” Solicitor General Donald B.Verrilli, Jr. wrote in an amicus brief filed with the court.

Despite the pleas, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday rejected Leal’s request for a delay.

Three years ago, Texas executed another Mexican national on death row despite international entreaties. Jose Ernesto Medellin, who also had not been informed of his right to access consular officials, was put to death following pleas for a stay by the Bush administration, which also cited U.S. treaty obligations.

In Leal’s case, even if the Supreme Court does not intervene, Texas Gov. Rick Perry could grant a 30-day stay.

By Jason Ukman | 09:55 AM ET, 07/06/2011

Immigration and the Culture of Solidarity – CIP Americas

2011-06-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

Great piece by David Bacon. Scroll to bottom to link to earlier installments.

-Angela

Immigration and the Culture of Solidarity

Posted on: 20/06/2011 by David Bacon

Editor’s Note: This is the final article of a series on border solidarity by journalist and immigration activist David Bacon. All articles in the series were originally published in the Institute for Transnational Social Change’s report Building a Culture of Cross-Border Solidarity. To download a PDF of the entire report, click here.

ONE indispensable part of education and solidarity is greater contact between Mexican union organizers and their U.S. counterparts. The base for that contact already exists in the massive movement of people between the two countries.

Miners fired in Cananea, or electrical workers fired in Mexico City, become workers in Phoenix, Los Angeles and New York. Twelve million Mexican workers in the U.S. are a natural base of support for Mexican unions. They bring with them the experience of the battles waged by their unions. They can raise money and support. Their families are still living in Mexico, and many are active in political and labor campaigns. As workers and union members in the U.S., they can help win support from U.S. unions for the battles taking place in Mexico.

This is not a new idea. It’s what the Flores Magon brothers were doing for the uprising in Cananea. It’s why the Mexican left sent activists and organizers to the Rio Grande Valley in the 1930s, and to Los Angeles in the 1970s. All these efforts had a profound impact on U.S. unions and workers. The sea change in the politics of Los Angeles in the last two decades, while it has many roots, shows the long-term results of immigrants gaining political power, and the role of politically conscious immigrant organizers in that process.

Today some U.S. unions see the potential in organizing in immigrant communities. But most unions in Mexico, in contrast to the past, don’t see this movement of people as a resource they can or should organize.

What would happen if Mexican unions began sending organizers or active workers north into the U.S.? In reality, active members are already making that move, and have been for a long time. Yet there is no organized way of looking at this. Where, for instance, will the people displaced in today’s Mexican labor struggles go? In 1998, almost 900 active blacklisted miners from Cananea had to leave after their strike that year was lost. Many came to Arizona and California. In Mexico City, 26,000 SME members took the indemnizacion and gave up claim to their jobs and unions. Many of them will inevitably be forced to go to the U.S. to look for work.

Cananea miners and Mexico City electrical workers have a wealth of experience and a history of participation in a progressive and democratic union. They can help both workers in the U.S. and those they’ve left back home, building unions in the places they go to work. But to use their experience effectively, unions on both sides of the border need to know who they are and where they’re going, and see them as potential organizers.

SOLIDARITY and the migration of people are linked. The economic crisis in Mexico is getting much worse, with no upturn in sight. With a 40% poverty rate, the government still has no program for employment beyond encouraging investment with lower wages and fewer union rights. And since the maquila sector is tied to the US market, it experiences even worse mass layoffs than other Mexican sectors, with the waves of unemployed then crossing the border just a few miles away from their homes.

Six million Mexicans left for the U.S. in the NAFTA period, a flow of people that now affects almost every family, even in the most remote parts of country. Migration has become an important safety valve for the Mexican economy and also relieves pressure on the Mexican government. It uses the tens of billions of dollars in remittances to make up for social investment cut under pressure from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Teachers’ strikes, like the one in Oaxaca in 2006, mushroom into insurrections because there is no alternative to migration and an economic system increasingly dependent on remittances.

Economic reforms and displacement create unemployed workers – for border factories, or for U.S. agriculture and meatpacking plants. Displacement creates a reserve army of workers available to corporations as low wage labor. If demand rises, employers don’t have to raise wages. In a time of economic crisis, unemployed people are used to pressure employed workers, making them less demanding, and more fearful of losing their jobs.

Displacement and migration aren’t a byproduct of the global economy. The economic system in both Mexico and the U.S. is dependent on the labor that displacement produces. Mexican President Felipe Calderon said on a recent visit to California, “You have two economies. One economy is intensive in capital, which is the American economy. One economy is intensive in labor, which is the Mexican economy. We are two complementary economies, and that phenomenon is impossible to stop.”

To employers, migration is a labor supply system. U.S. immigration policy is not intended to keep people from crossing the border. It determines the status of people once they’re in the U.S. It is designed to supply labor to employers at a manageable cost, imposed by employers. It makes the laborers themselves vulnerable, especially those who come through guest worker programs where employers can withdraw their ability to stay in the country by firing them.

The economic pressure that produces migration has a big impact on relations between U.S. and Mexican labor. Today, for instance, governments and employers on both sides of the border tell unions that support for labor supply, or guest worker, programs is part of a beneficial relationship. Any movement for solidarity has to address this corporate pressure. A union alliance with employers on immigration policy, based on helping them use migration as a labor supply system, creates a large obstacle to any effort to defend the rights of migrants.

Instead, U.S. and Mexican unions need a common program on trade, displacement and investment, which calls for increasing the security of workers and farmers, and reducing displacement and forced migration.

ANTI-IMMIGRANT policies were part of cold war politics in the U.S. labor movement. As late as 1986, the AFL-CIO supported employer sanctions, the section of U.S. immigration law passed in 1986 that essentially made work a crime for people without papers. They argued that that if undocumented workers couldn’t support their families, they’d deport themselves.

The growth of the cross-border movement coincided with rise of the immigrant rights movement. In the 1990s, as labor activists pushed for support for unions in Mexico, they also organized to repeal sanctions. First the garment unions called for repeal, then SEIU, the California Labor Federation, and others. They argued that employers used the law to threaten and fire undocumented workers to keep them from organizing unions. Unions trying to organize and grow began to see immigrants as potential members — workers who would strike and organize. They therefore opposed the idea of pushing Mexicans back across border, because they wanted them to become active in the U.S. They saw immigrants not just as a force on the job, but in politics. As people gained legal status and then became citizens, they could also vote and elect public officials who would act in workers’ interests.

Today, unions criticize the racial profiling law SB 1070 in Arizona for the same reason — not just that it leads to discrimination, but that it’s wrong to make workers leave.

In 1999 the AFL-CIO reversed itself and called for repealing sanctions, for amnesty for the undocumented, for protecting the organizing rights of all workers, and for family reunification. The federation already had a longstanding position calling for ending guest worker programs.

Gradually, unions have seen the importance of workers with feet planted on both sides of the border. This is an important part of building a culture of solidarity. Some unions, like the UFW, have gone further and tried to develop strategic partnerships with progressive organizations in the immigrant workforce, such as the Frente Indigena de Organizaciones Binacionales (FIOB). It has hired Oaxacan activists, fluent in indigenous languages, as organizers, and supported indigenous Oaxacan communities in protests against police harassment in cities like Greenfield in the Salinas Valley.

OAXACAN immigrants today are an important and growing section of many immigrant communities in the U.S., especially the rural areas where people work in farm labor. The FIOB is one of many organizations among Oaxacans that people have brought with them from their home state, or have organized as migrants on their travels. Many of its founders were strike organizers and social activists in Oaxaca and the fields of north Mexico. Years ago they saw the organizing possibilities among people dispersed as a result of displacement, but whose communities now exist in many places in both Mexico and the U.S.

For over half a century, migration has been the main fact of social life in hundreds of indigenous towns spread through the hills of Oaxaca. That’s made the conditions and rights of migrants central concerns. But the FIOB and its base communities today also talk about another right, the right to stay home. Asserting this right challenges not just inequality and exploitation facing migrants, but the very reasons people migrate.

According to the 2000 census, Hispanic American Indians (the category used to count indigenous Mexican migrants) in California alone numbered 154,000 — undoubtedly a severe undercount. These men and women come from communities whose economies are totally dependent on migration. The ability to send a son or daughter across the border to the north, to work and send back money, makes the difference between eating chicken or eating salt and tortillas. Migration means not having to manhandle a wooden plough behind an ox, cutting furrows in dry soil for a corn crop that can’t be sold for what it cost to plant it. It means that dollars arrive in the mail when kids need shoes to go to school, or when a grandparent needs a doctor.

“There are no jobs here, and NAFTA pushed the price of corn so low that it’s not economically possible to plant a crop anymore,” says Rufino Dominguez, former binational coordinator for the FIOB, and now head of Oaxaca’s Institute for Attention to Migrants. In the 1980s, Dominguez was a strike organizer in Sinaloa and Baja California. “We come to the U.S. to work because we can’t get a price for our product at home. There’s no alternative.”

Without large scale political change most local communities won’t have the resources for productive projects and economic development that could provide a decent living. “We need development that makes migration a choice rather than a necessity — the right to not migrate,” explains FIOB coordinator Gaspar Rivera Salgado, a professor at UCLA. “But the right to stay home, to not migrate, has to mean more than the right to be poor, the right to go hungry and homeless. Choosing whether to stay home or leave only has meaning if each choice can provide a meaningful future.”

At the same time, because of its indigenous membership, FIOB campaigns for the rights of migrants in the U.S. who come from those communities. It calls for immigration amnesty and legalization for undocumented migrants. It campaigned successfully for translation and language rights in U.S. courtrooms, and protested immigration sweeps and deportations. The FIOB also condemns the proposals for guest worker programs. “Migrants need the right to work, but these workers don’t have labor rights or benefits,” Dominguez charges. “It’s like slavery.”

Today there is increasing interest among U.S. farm worker unions in activity in Mexico, much of it concentrating on workers recruited into H-2A guest worker programs. In the past, farm worker unions opposed the programs on principle, arguing that the workers recruited were vulnerable to extreme employer exploitation, and deportation if they struck or protested. Today unions like the UFW and FLOC argue that they can organize these workers to win contracts, better conditions, and protection for their rights. But this comes at a price. Some no longer call for the elimination of guest worker programs, which exploit far more workers than those represented by unions. And if unions recruit guest workers themselves, how can they then strike or use jobsite actions against the employers hiring them?

While farm worker unions and organizations like the FIOB disagree about guest worker programs, they do agree about the rights of workers. “Both peoples’ rights as migrants, and their right to stay home, are part of the same solution,” Rivera Salgado says. “We have to change the debate from one in which immigration is presented as a problem to a debate over rights.”

For many years the FIOB was a crucial part of the political opposition to Oaxaca’s PRI government, until the PRI was defeated in the elections of 2010. Juan Romualdo Gutierrez Cortez, a schoolteacher in Tecomaxtlahuaca, was the FIOB’s Oaxaca coordinator and a leader of Oaxaca’s teachers union, Section 22 of the National Education Workers Union, and of the Popular Association of the People of Oaxaca (APPO).

The June 2006 strike by Section 22 started a months-long uprising, led by the APPO, which sought to remove the state’s then-governor Ulises Ruiz and make a basic change in development and economic policy. The uprising was crushed by Federal armed intervention, and dozens of activists were arrested. To Leoncio Vasquez, a FIOB activist in Fresno, “the lack of human rights is a factor contributing to migration from Oaxaca and Mexico, since it closes off our ability to call for any change.”

During the conflict, teachers traveled to California from Oaxaca, and spoke at the convention of the California Federation of Teachers. Solidarity efforts between U.S. and Mexican teachers have barely started, but with the vast number of Mexican students in California schools, and with many immigrants themselves now working as teachers, the basis is growing for much closer relationships. Mexican teachers, members of Latin America’s largest union, have also organized a leftwing caucus that now controls the union structure in several states, including Oaxaca.

During the 2006 uprising, the state government issued an order for Gutierrez’ arrest, because he’d been a very visible opposition leader already for years. In the late 1990s he was elected to the Oaxaca Chamber of Deputies, in an alliance between the FIOB and Mexico’s leftwing Democratic Revolutionary Party. Following his term in office, he was imprisoned by then-Governor Jose Murat, until a binational campaign won his release. His crime was insisting on a new path of economic development that would raise rural living standards, and make migration just an option, rather than an indispensable means of survival.

Gaspar Rivera-Salgado believes that “in Mexico we’re very close to getting power in our communities on a local and state level.” He points to Gutierrez’ election as state deputy, and later as mayor of his hometown San Miguel Tlacotepec, and finally to the election of Gabino Cue as governor. The FIOB’s alliance with the PRD is controversial, however. “First, we have to organize our own base,” Rivera Salgado cautions. “But then we have to find strategic allies. Migration is part of globalization, an aspect of state policies that expel people. Creating an alternative to that requires political power. There’s no way to avoid that.”

FIOB presents an important example of another kind of binational organizing and solidarity that complements efforts by unions. It has a strong base among communities on both sides of the borders. It has a carefully worked-out program for advocating the rights of migrants and their home communities, discussed extensively among its chapters before it was adopted. And it sees the system as the problem, not just the bad actions of employers or government officials.

In Conclusion

THE interests of workers in the U.S. and Mexico are tied together. Millions of people are a bridge between the two countries, and their labor movements. A blacklisted worker in Cananea one year can become a miner in Arizona the next, or a janitor organizer in Los Angeles. Who knows better the human cost of repression in Mexico than a teacher from Oaxaca in 2006, or an electrical worker who lost his or her job and pension in 2009?

Raquel Medina, a Oaxacan teacher, spoke at the 2007 convention of the California Federation of Teachers. She did more than appeal for support for Section 22. She helped teachers from Fresno and Santa Maria understand why they hear so many children in their classrooms speaking Mixteco. She helped them see that the poverty in her home state, the repression of her union, the growing number of Oaxacan families in California, and the activity of those migrants in California’s union battles, are all related. She connected the dots of solidarity. Educators should go back to their schools and union meetings, she said, and show people the way the global economy functions today – how it affects ordinary people, and what they can do to change it.

The historic slogan of the ILWU (and of many unionists beyond its ranks) is “an injury to one is an injury to all.” Today, an updated version of it might say, “An attack on a union in Mexico is an attack on unions in the U.S.” Or it could say, “An attack on Mexican workers in Arizona is an attack on workers in Mexico.” Or it could say, “Organizing Mexican workers at carwashes in Los Angeles will help unions in Mexico, by increasing the power of those willing to fight for the mineros and SME.”

David Bacon is a California writer and photojournalist. His latest book is Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants.

The Institute for Transnational Social Change (ITSC) is a hub for cross-border collaboration among key worker-led organizations (independent unions, worker centers, NGOs, and academics) in Mexico and the United States. The institute seeks to address the needs of a low-wage workforce that is often hard-to-reach – migrant workers, women in the garment industry, farm workers, miners, and other workers in industries dominated by highly mobile transnational corporations — and to increase opportunities for cross-border collaboration. The present report is part of a series of publications sponsored by ITSC. For more information about the ITSC, contact Gaspar Rivera-Salgado at UCLA, grsalgado@irle.ucla.edu.

To read earlier installments, click on any of the following links:

Growing Ties Between Mexican and U.S. Labor

The Rebirth of Solidarity on the Border

Labor Law Reform – A Key Battle for Mexican Unions Today

The Hidden History of Mexico/U.S. Labor Solidarity
PDF Download

Texas Senate passes 'sanctuary cities' bill

2011-06-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

What they couldn't get passed in regular session, SB 9 got passed in special session--a bill that legitimates discrimination and bigotry in the state of Texas and that will predictably violate constitutional rights of residents and citizens. It will have to ultimately get settled in lawsuits that will be very costly to our state that will take a few years to play out before this gets overturned. This legislation is toxic and hateful.

-Angela

The Miami Herald

Posted on Wed, Jun. 15, 2011

Texas Senate passes 'sanctuary cities' bill

Dave Montgomery
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

AUSTIN — Embracing one of Gov. Rick Perry's top priorities, the Texas Senate voted 19-12 on party lines early Wednesday to pass a so-called sanctuary city bill despite impassioned warnings from the chamber's Hispanics that the bill will breed discrimination and make Texas "an unwelcoming place."

Senate Bill 9 would halt state aid to local governments that prohibit local officers from inquiring about immigration status. Sen. Tommy Williams, R-Woodlands, the bill's sponsor, said the bill would permit -- but not require -- officers to ask about citizenship or immigration status when they arrest or detain someone.

Under pointed questioning from Democrats, Williams defended the bill as a needed deterrent against criminal elements entering the country from Mexico and said it would help establish a coherent statewide policy.

"This is not about political parties, nor is it about race or hate or fear-mongering," he said.

Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, evoked memories of 9-11 in saying that the bill could help "provide some additional protection .. . from those people who are here to harm us."

But the chamber's seven Hispanics assailed the bill in an emotional round of speeches before the final vote, saying the measure would lead to racial profiling and harassment of Latinos.

Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, the dean of the Senate, asked the Hispanic senators to stand.

"Look at these members of the Senate," Whitmire declared. "This legislation to will force them to prove that they are U.S. citizens. Members, we can do better. This is a sad day."

Sen. Jose Rodriguez, D-El Paso, said the bill will result in "unintended consequences," resulting in expensive civil rights lawsuits because of racial profiling. He also predicted that "Texas will be viewed as an unwelcoming place" for immigrants.

Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, a former Marine, recalled being subjected to bigotry while growing up and warned that the bill would lead to discrimination against "anyone who looks like me."

"I shouldn't have to prove my citizenship because my skin is a little darker than yours," he said. "This bill is hurtful, it's ignorant and it's offensive."

To read the complete article, visit www.star-telegram.com.

© 2011 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/15/v-print/2267498/texas-senate-passes-sanctuary.html#ixzz1PLqcCANM

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Chamber outlines 'Steps to a 21st Century U.S.-Mexico Border'

2011-06-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Chamber outlines 'Steps to a 21st Century U.S.-Mexico Border'

Posted Jun 9, 2011, 1:57 pm

Cristina Rayas
Cronkite News Service

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce laid out a coordinated border plan Wednesday that calls for combined improvements in infrastructure, security, immigration policies and trade, instead of the current piecemeal approach.

The public and private investment in such a program is needed to create a 21st century U.S.-Mexico border that will allow both countries to be secure and to compete in the global economy, the report said.

"Our security and our prosperity intersect at the border," said former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, chairman of the U.S. Chamber's National Security Task Force, who unveiled the report.

"I am going to put an exclamation point around immigration reform," added Ridge, who called for cooperation across the partisan aisle in Washington.

The report said the Nogales Port of Entry, the largest gateway for fresh produce from Mexico, is a critical passage for other products and agricultural commodities moving between both countries. Action and investment in places like Nogales will be critical in improving the relationship between the two countries, the report said.

Such investment would be a "down payment" in the effort to create a "world-class border," said Patrick Kilbride, senior director, Americas, at the chamber.

The report said the Nogales West Point of Entry is currently in the middle of a $200 million expansion project. But that expansion will require as many as 200 border patrol officers more than the 300 currently staffing Nogales West, the report said.

"If it was your own business, if it was your own crossing, you would make the capital investment," said U.S. Chamber President Thomas Donahue at Wednesday's event.

The report also noted the need to give special attention to American businesses, American workers and those who wish to work in this country, to improve the current bottleneck conditions at the borders. Suggestions include a streamlined temporary-worker program, to make it less attractive for workers to enter this country illegally.

One industry greatly impacted by border policy is agriculture, a $10.3 billion industry in Arizona.

"Produce is one of the most innovative industries," said Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Nogales-based Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, who was on hand for Wednesday's event in Washington. But time-sensitive produce can be bottled up at the border for as long as 10 hours, the report said.

Since farmers are now trying to serve a world marketplace, Jungmeyer said, there will always be plenty of fruits and vegetables in grocery stores. But whether that produce is mostly imported to or grown in the United States will be decided by the availability of labor.

The report is not meant as a criticism of either the U.S. or the Mexican government. Donahue credited Homeland Security with making a "Herculean effort" in this interdependent problem.

"The will is there, the intention is there... but there is more work to do," he said.

Arizona Chamber of Commerce CEO Glenn Hamer welcomed the U.S. chamber's involvement.

"Given the clout of the U.S. chamber, they are going to have a bigger effect than the Arizona chamber," he said. "But that said, all state chambers have a role to communicate and expand this robust trade relationship.

"It's a win-win for both countries. And for states like Arizona, where Mexico is the largest trading partner, the positives that can come out of the report are even more profound," said Hamer.

Others said this report is repeating what they have been saying for years.

"It's great that the chamber is engaged in this, no question about that," said Nelson Balido, president of the Border Trade Alliance. "But this is nothing new. We've been telling people all along about this need to get moving."

Balido explained that nothing will give the United States a more immediate return than investing in both of its borders.

"We have to integrate security and trade. Not balance, integrate," he said. The chamber report is another tool to highlight and verify what his alliance has spent 25 years lobbying for, Balido said.

Pointing to this country's current economic straits, the chamber's report calls for U.S. and Mexican governments, businesses, and citizens to "think strategically about their common future," suggesting not enough has been done in alliance between all stakeholders.

"How we manage those borders says something about who we are as a nation," Donahue said in the preface to the report.

Hispanic Population, Rising Faster Than Anticipated, A 'Huge Weapon' For Obama

2011-06-02T09:17:00.000-07:00

A 'Huge Weapon' For Obama--or any party or politician, for that matter. One would hope that this would all be construed as an opportunity. Our leadership simply needs to embrace these indomitable, unrelenting shifts and begin working together--all of us--for a better tomorrow.

Angela

05/31/11 02:49 PM ET Updated: 05/31/11 07:40 PM ET

WASHINGTON -- The biggest political story over the past week didn't involve a bus tour, sordid tweets sent from a congressman's account or even the posturing over whether to raise the nation's debt ceiling.

Instead, it was the no-thrills release of a 16-page report by the Census bureau, which underscored a massive paradigm shift in how politics is conducted.

On May 26, the Census released what an official at the bureau described as "the latest, most up to date data on the Hispanic population in the United States." The numbers, culled from its 2010 survey, tell a remarkable -- albeit anticipated -- story: The Hispanic population is growing at a rate much faster than any other demographic.

"The new census data affirms that one of the great stories of the 21st century is the changing majority of America from a majority white country to a majority minority country," said Simon Rosenberg, president and founder of NDN, a Democratic-leaning think tank that has focused heavily on Hispanic issues. "From a national political standpoint it’s a huge development."

Currently, 50.5 million Hispanics live in the United States (roughly 16 percent of its 308.7 million population), a significant increase from the 35.3 million Hispanics in the country in 2000. The 15.2 million difference accounts for more than half of U.S. population growth during that same time period.

And in some areas of the country, that ratio is even more pronounced.

In the South, for instance, the Hispanic population grew by 57 percent between 2000 and 2010, while overall population growth in the region during that same time period was only 14 percent. In the Midwest, the Hispanic population grew by 49 percent, more than 12 times the population growth of all other groups during that period. Hispanics doubled or more in population size in 912 of the United States' 3,143 counties. Only six of those counties showed negative percent change in the Hispanic population.

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Gaming out the political ramifications of such a dramatic demographic shift is not an easy calculus. The Hispanic population is not monolithic; nor does it vote on singular issues, often prioritizing immigration reform below economic matters. What works as an electoral motivator in Florida may fall short in Illinois.

Operatives from both sides of the ledger agree, however, that a both Democrats and Republicans have a generation-defining opportunity at hand. But only one party seems positioned to take advantage. In 2004, 5.1 million Hispanics voted for Democratic candidates, 4.3 million for Republicans. In 2008, the ratio changed, with 7.8 million voting Democratic and 3.6 million voting Republican, according to data compiled by New Policy Institute.

"When you talk about Democratic secret weapon -- it isn't so much a secret because everyone sees it coming -- but this is the year it could come," said Carlos Odio, Deputy Director for the Latino Vote Program during Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. "No one ever expects the flood to happen, but there is so much room for growth. If Democrats and progressives really played this, it could be a huge weapon. The census reinforces that."

Hector Barajas remains acutely aware of the weapon. As a Spanish media spokesman for both George W. Bush's 2004 presidential campaign and John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign as well as communications director for the California Republican Party, he has watched the evolving relationship between the GOP and the Latino population from a front row seat. His post in California has particularly presented challenges, with the bulging Hispanic community forcing statewide candidates into a sharp political pull between demographic realities and conservative political pressures.

Recently, he's been making the rounds to various Republican Party entities, urging them to readjust the rhetoric and appreciate the trends, noting Obama's failure to deliver on key promises to the Hispanic community creates an opening. One part of his pitch includes a slide showing that even if all immigration into the United States came to a halt, the Hispanic population would continue to grow, with births inside the country rising at an even faster rate than net immigration.

"Every 30 seconds a Latino turns the age of 18," he told The Huffington Post. "There are about 11 million Latinos over the age of 18 who are U.S citizens and not yet registered to vote. 2.4 million of them reside in Texas, 2.2 million reside in California. Can you imagine if half of them got registered in Texas, how it would change the politics there?"

White House officials dispute those exact figures (the unregistered in Texas, they say, is about half that) but not Barajas' broader point. Demographic changes have, indeed, altered the electoral map, or at least given the campaign liberty to say that the map is more open than ever before. In recent weeks, a number of stories have referenced the Obama reelection campaign's plans to play in Texas in 2012. His Chicago campaign headquarters has a map of North Carolina, Nevada, Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio, Colorado, Texas, Georgia, Florida and Arizona -- all growing or major Hispanic states -- tacked to the wall.

"Texas is a huge uphill battle," said Odio. "It will take a lot of outside players. I think it is doable. But it might not be a 2012 thing. It might be a 2016 thing … The tide has already shifted, and it's a gradual but accelerating process whose real impact will be seen, as with most things in campaigns, on the margins."

One of those margins is the simple conduct of the campaign itself.

As the Hispanic population grows, it also moves outside city borders. The top five fastest growing counties, in terms of Hispanic population, were Luzerne, Penn. (479 percent change); Henry, Ga. (339 percent change); Kendall, Ill. (338 percent change); Douglas, Ga. (321 percent change); and Shelby, Ala. (297 percent change). States where the Hispanic population doubled in size from 2000 to 2010 include Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and South Dakota, hardly bastions of bi-coastal liberalism.

In practical political terms, such growth indicates that the structure of elections will become fundamentally different. Whereas the suburbs have served as traditional battlegrounds for national or statewide campaigns, over time, the competitiveness of those locales will change. As the minority population grows outside the cities, the pool of physical land over which the two parties will compete may shrink.

Already in Texas, Hispanic population growth has spurred a high-stakes debate over how to restructure redistricting in the state. Republicans, reading the demographic tea leaves, have tried to create a super-majority Hispanic district in the Dallas-Forth Worth area so as to confine the effect of their vote. Hispanic officials, who once salivated at the idea of a firmly held House seat, are now inclined to fight the plan.

"They see the potential to have more of these districts with 30 to 40 Hispanics then to get a supermajority one," said Moses Mercado, a Democratic operative in D.C. who advised John Kerry's presidential campaign. "The growth is unbelievable. Instead of one super district you will have four or five … The [census] numbers were above what everyone was thinking. It is extraordinary, the large growth. And you are already seeing the impact of it."

Recognizing that trend, the Republican Party has begun a broad discussion about how to stem the flooding of Hispanics away from the GOP.

Conservatives in California have used the 2010 gubernatorial defeat as a hook to debate whether the party could win back Hispanic voters by emphasizing cultural issues or if larger, tonal changes were needed as well. In Texas, the redistricting issue has overshadowed the news that local Republican lawmakers are calling for less punitive immigration laws.

Nationally, GOP officials stress that they are re-doubling the effort for Hispanic candidate recruitment. But even then, many voice concerns that if the Republican Party is to ride and not be overwhelmed by the democraphic trends, something more will be needed than superficial overtures.

"Good candidates, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, understand how they have to adapt their strategies and embrace different groups in their areas," said former Republican Congressman Henry Bonilla.

"Smart candidates will still run smart campaigns and embrace all ethnic groups," he added. "Those who don't get it will sing and dance around them, and the ethnic groups will understand they are recipients of just a little pandering."

Take a look at the census data below:

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/80695470/censushispanics

Cinco de Mayo reflects best of U.S-Mexico ties | Recordnet.com

2011-05-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

Cinco de Mayo reflects best of U.S-Mexico ties | Recordnet.com

Feliz 5 de Mayo, everybody!

-Angela

Five ways in which Osama bin Laden changed the immigration landscape

2011-05-03T09:36:00.000-07:00

The direct and indirect repercussions that the late Osama bin Laden’s actions in masterminding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have had on the agencies, policies and attitudes affecting immigrants in the United States are far too many to mention in a short list. The attacks led to the dissolution of the federal immigration infrastructure at the time, to several legislative and policy changes, and to an increasingly enforcement-heavy and divisive immigration climate.

Here are a few of the major changes:

1) The end of INS, the beginning of DHS: Criticism of the decades-old Immigration and Naturalization Service, after it it was discovered that some of the 9/11 hijackers were here on visas that shouldn’t have been granted, led to the end of the INS in early 2003. The agency, which at the time governed all immigration functions from visas to border security, was replaced by the much broader Department of Homeland Security. Three sub-agencies within DHS were given authority over immigration matters: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (overseeing customs and border security, including the U.S. Border Patrol); U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, overseeing functions such as naturalization and the granting of legal residency; and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which is responsible for immigration enforcement in the United States, oversees immigrant detention and deportation, and is responsible for enforcement policies such as Secure Communities and 287(g).

2) The Patriot Act: Less than two months after the 9/11 attacks, Congress passed the “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001,” what’s referred to as the Patriot Act. This controversial piece of legislation expanded the federal government’s ability to conduct surveillance on Americans. Among other things, it allowed law enforcement agents greater ability to conduct wiretaps and to search telephone, e-mail, financial, medical and other records, as well as to conduct property searches without advising the owner. The law made it easier for law enforcement and immigration authorities to detain and deport immigrants suspected of being connected to terrorism and placed greater scrutiny on foreign students. It has long been criticized by civil rights groups, who have alleged misuse and constitutional violations and complain that Middle Eastern immigrants are singled out. Some Patriot Act provisions, including a “roving wiretap” provision, are set to expire later this month unless extended.

3) The REAL ID Act: This 2005 national security legislation that followed the Patriot Act revolved around establishing national standards for driver’s licenses and identification cards, but it also made it more difficult for immigrants to obtain asylum, and broadened the definition of terrorism-related activities that could lead to detention and deportation. There was also a border security component, most notably a provision that allowed the Department of Homeland Security to waive any laws, environmental or otherwise, and litigation standing in the way of border fence construction. A precedent was set in the fall of 2005, when then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff exercized the waiver authority in San Diego, allowing for lawsuits challenging the filling in of a deep canyon with dirt in order to build fencing to be thrown out of court. Other waivers cleared the way for additional U.S.-Mexico border fencing (much more of it, including a failed “virtual fence,” funded under the 2005 Secure Border Initiative); one REAL ID Act waiver authorized a roughly 470 mile stretch of fence. Immigrant advocates have long criticized border fencing as driving human smuggling into rougher terrain, leading to border-crossing deaths.

4) Increased immigrant detention and deportations: Under the Obama administration, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has carried out a record number of deportations. Behind these numbers are a series of ICE policies that kicked in after the agency’s creation in the wake of 9/11, policies that after the attacks focused on weeding out immigrants thought to pose a danger to society. Among these has been a push starting in 2003 to track down “fugitive” immigrants, people who missed an immigration hearing or ignored a deportation order. The embattled Secure Communities program, also intended to weed out people with criminal records (though many detained have lacked these) is another product of the post-9/11 focus on immigrants believed to present a security threat. In the intervening years, the number of ICE detainees has skyrocketed, as have government contracts with private detention contractors. While detention demand began ticking up in the late 1990s following policy changes, just between 2005 and 2008, the ICE detention budget tripled. In fiscal year 2010, which ended last Sept. 30, ICE deported more than 392,000 people, about half of whom had criminal records.

5) A rise in anti-Muslim attitudes: In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the number of anti-Muslim hate crimes jumped to a record 481 in 2001, according to one news report. The number of hate crimes against Muslims hasn’t been as high since. However, Middle Eastern immigrants in the United States, along with other groups, have since felt targeted for numerous reasons. Among the many incidents in recent years have been a rash of protests against the building of new mosques in the United States, from the heated protests that took place in New York City near Ground Zero last year to smaller protests in places like Temecula. Earlier this year, an angry mob shouted “Go back home!,” among other things, to Muslims attending a fundraising dinner in Yorba Linda. Several non-Muslim Sikhs, who wear turbans, have also been targeted by mistake over the years, most recently two elderly men who died after being shot in March by an unknown assailant as they went for a stroll in their Sacramento suburb.

There are other ways in which the attacks of 9/11 changed life for many immigrants and their families, which we’ll explore in forthcoming posts.

A Boom Behind Bars

2011-03-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

Selvin Cardenas's three months in the U.S. immigrant detention system began in the usual way, with a knock at his door. At 5 a.m. on Apr. 21, 2009, three men in suits spotted him through the window of his Houston home. "We're here for you," one of them said. "You're Selvin Cardenas. Open up the door."

Cardenas says he arrived in Miami legally from his native Honduras in 1990, at the age of 32, working aboard a ship. He moved to Houston and for nearly two decades lived there working as a pizza deliveryman, dishwasher, and truck driver. He has four kids born in the U.S., in addition to one born in Honduras, and when the agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) appeared, his instinct was to wake his children and say goodbye.

He didn't open the door, but after stalling and calling a lawyer, he decided to cooperate, in the hope that if they took him away without a fuss, they might not arrest his wife, whose immigration status was also precarious. He says the agents were civil throughout the encounter and didn't cuff him, but they did lead him outside and into an unmarked green Tahoe. They cruised around Houston for three hours looking for other potential deportees. Finding none, they drove him to ICE's Houston Contract Detention Facility.

Then, as quickly as ICE detained him, it released him. His freedom lasted about 10 seconds—the time it takes to walk from the ICE building on Greens Rd. to its neighboring building, the Houston Processing Center, a prison owned and operated by Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America (CXW) (CCA). A publicly traded company, CCA is the largest private prison contractor in the U.S. ICE pays CCA about $90 a day per person to keep immigrants behind bars and to manage every aspect of detainees' lives, running its prison much as the government does. The main difference is that CCA locks people up for profit.

The private prison system runs parallel to the U.S. prisons and currently accounts for nearly 10 percent of U.S. state and federal inmates, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Those numbers rise and fall in response to specific policies, and CCA has been accused of lobbying for policies that would fill its cells—such as the increase in enforcement of regulations like the one that snagged Cardenas. Tougher policies have been good for CCA. Since the company started winning immigrant detention contracts in 2000, its stock has rebounded from about a dollar to $23.33, attracting investors such as William Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management, which is now its largest shareholder.

CCA has current contracts with ICE and other federal clients, as well as 19 state prison systems. Its largest competitor, the Geo Group (GEO), is slightly smaller, and together they account for more than $3 billion in gross revenues annually. The next-largest player, MTC, is privately held and does not disclose numbers, but the industry as a whole grosses just under $5 billion per year.

In Houston, ICE is paying CCA to hold about 1,000 alleged illegal immigrants while they are processed for potential deportation. CCA manages them until the moment they leave U.S. soil. If they are Mexican, it puts them in white CCA buses with tinted windows and drives them on its daily run to the Mexican border. If they're from somewhere else, it drives them across the road to the airport, marches them to an airline counter, and watches them fly away.

CCA declined interview requests but did answer some questions by e-mail and issued a written statement that outlined their strategy—to try to do what government does, but more efficiently. When the federal government or states want to build a new prison, they take as long as six years; CCA says they build theirs in 18 months, at less than half the cost. Despite their speed, they claim to meet and exceed public prison standards and point to the high marks their facilities have won from the American Correctional Assn., the main trade organization in the corrections community.

Read the rest here.

Sen. Klein quotes letter calling Latino students 'gangsters' (UPDATED)

2011-03-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

Sen. Klein quotes letter calling Latino students 'gangsters' (UPDATED)

This is downright offensive.
Angela

Charter school wait lists spark legislation

2011-03-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

Important quotes from within:

"According to the Texas Charter Schools Association, about 120,000, or 2.5 percent, of Texas' 4.8 million public school students are enrolled in charter schools, which are public schools, usually run by nonprofits, that are subject to fewer state regulations.

A TEA report on 35 charters operational from 2006 to 2009 found that, because any nonprofit organization may submit an application to start a charter school, many "encountered substantial challenges resulting from founders' lack of experience in public education."

Fifty-five of the 289 charters granted since 1996 have ceased operation because of revocation or nonrenewal.

And at a time when a multibillion-dollar state budget shortfall has made efficiency in education the mantra, charters typically have higher administrative costs. According to the Texas Association of School Business Officials, from 2004 to 2009, an average of 11 percent of operating costs went to administration at charter schools, compared with about 6.7 percent for public schools with enrollments of less than 1,000."

-Angela

Charter school wait lists spark legislation
With state oversight possibly stretched by layoffs, questions arise about increasing number of charters issued.

By Andrew Kaspar
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 10:23 p.m. Friday, March 18, 2011

An estimated 56,000 Texas students are on waiting lists for charter schools the kind of demand that prompts discussion and legislative proposals.

State lawmakers will soon begin considering bills that would chip away at those lists by authorizing more charter schools. But given the need for stringent oversight of these occasionally failed education enterprises, some question whether expansion is appropriate at a time when the Texas Education Agency — public education's chief regulatory body — has laid off about 10 percent of its staff.

State law caps the number of charters the State Board of Education may grant at 215, and there are currently 210 active charters.

House and Senate committees will take up bills related to raising that cap as early as Tuesday. The most ambitious would allow up to 100 new charters per year, with no total limit. A more moderate proposal would allow 10 new charters annually.

The number of campuses would presumably multiply by a number greater than whatever new cap the Legislature might ultimately authorize: Because charter holders may run networks of schools, those 210 open-enrollment charters currently encompass 520 campuses.

House Public Education Committee Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands , said he believes some upward adjustment of the cap will pass this session.

"There's a market for them," Eissler said. "We've got charter schools that have long waiting lists, and it's a very market-driven mode of education, which is promising."

According to the Texas Charter Schools Association, about 120,000, or 2.5 percent, of Texas' 4.8 million public school students are enrolled in charter schools, which are public schools, usually run by nonprofits, that are subject to fewer state regulations. In a kind of trade-off, although charters receive some public funds, they are not eligible to receive money from local property taxes or most state money for facilities.

Advocates promote charter schools as educational innovators for students who find their local public school inadequate. Many charters are tailored to a specific demographic or specialized academic program.

Detractors point to the think-outside-the-box philosophy of charters, which can bring nontraditional players to the education table and occasionally results in a trial-and-error approach that subjects students to the consequences of those errors.

Founders' credentials

The TEA is charged with monitoring and intervention when any public school fails to meet expectations. But spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe has said more agency layoffs could come this summer, raising concerns about the agency's ability to effectively monitor a new generation of charters.

"If a law passes to increase (the cap), then we do what we can to make it happen," said Suzanne Marchman, another TEA representative.

Lindsay Gustafson, public affairs director for the Texas Classroom Teachers Association, said her organization is not unequivocally against lifting the cap but opposes the proposition at this time, given the state's budget woes and TEA staff reductions.

"They're already strapped, in looking at charters — oversight of charters and any time that they take to close charters is pretty significant," Gustafson said. "It's not an easy thing to do."

A TEA report on 35 charters operational from 2006 to 2009 found that, because any nonprofit organization may submit an application to start a charter school, many "encountered substantial challenges resulting from founders' lack of experience in public education."

The Texas Charter Schools Association was founded in 2008 to be an advocate for the Texas charter movement and to serve as a resource for charter operators, from the application process through day-to-day school administration.

"We've launched the first-ever comprehensive set of model policies for charter schools in the state," said David Dunn, the organization's executive director. The goal is to give charter operators the blueprint they need to run schools that are both effective and in compliance with state and federal laws, Dunn said. Raising the cap is one of his association's "top priorities" this session.

Rankings compared

First introduced to Texas in 1995, charter schools have received significant attention in recent years; the 2010 documentary "Waiting for Superman" — highlighting wait-listed children's agonizing experiences with the lottery system by which students are admitted to many charters — featured the highly successful KIPP charter school network, founded in Houston. President Barack Obama's Race to the Top education initiative encourages pro-charter reform.

But compared with regular school districts, a higher proportion of charter schools ranks as "academically unacceptable" — the lowest rating possible — under the state's accountability measures. In 2010, 11.1 percent of charters received the designation, compared with 1.4 percent of regular public school districts. Schools or districts that receive this rating for multiple years are subject to various sanctions, including potential closure.

At the same time, nearly one-quarter of all charters have the state's top rating of exemplary, compared with 18.5 percent of regular districts.

The TEA's latest round of accreditation will result in the revocation of four charters, and 16 of the 22 districts newly designated as warned or on probation are charters. The annual accreditation process is based on a district's academic performance and financial health, among other criteria. All four charters slated for closure are appealing. Fifty-five of the 289 charters granted since 1996 have ceased operation because of revocation or nonrenewal.

And at a time when a multibillion-dollar state budget shortfall has made efficiency in education the mantra, charters typically have higher administrative costs. According to the Texas Association of School Business Officials, from 2004 to 2009, an average of 11 percent of operating costs went to administration at charter schools, compared with about 6.7 percent for public schools with enrollments of less than 1,000.

In Austin, two charters illustrate the promise and pitfalls of such schools.

There is NYOS, a two-campus charter that has operated for 12 years and was ranked the fourth-best public high school in Austin last year by a Houston-based research group. And then there is SAILL, opened in 2007 and shuttered in 2009 as financial mismanagement led to one superintendent's ouster and the resignation of the entire board of directors.

Regardless of the challenges the state's charter movement has faced, students continue to migrate to the schools. Charters have made a net gain of more than 67,000 midyear transfers since 2000, according to TEA data.

As of the fall, 743 students were hoping their number might be called at NYOS, and at least 56,000 Texas children will watch the charter cap debate with a vested interest in the outcome.

akaspar@statesman.com

Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/charter-school-wait-lists-spark-legislation-1331708.html

Arizona's Shock Doctrine? Children Call Out Legislators on Immigration Bills Defeat

2011-03-19T06:24:00.000-07:00

Russell Pearce doesn't always get his way thank God. What a mean-spirited person.

Angela

The Huffington Post
MARCH 19, 2011

Arizona's Shock Doctrine? Children Call Out Legislators on Immigration Bills Defeat
by Jeff Biggers

Call it Arizona's Shock Doctrine.

And the children are the shock troops.

They dressed as firefighters, doctors, lawyers, police officers, pilots and scientists. They carried signs, including a 30-foot banner of colorful hand prints. They marched along the Arizona Capitol grounds, singing "This Little Light of Mine."

On the eve of the Arizona state legislature's historic vote today on a blockbuster array of radical new immigration bills, including a controversial legislative challenge to a US Supreme Court ruling for K-12 education access for undocumented students and 14th amendment birth rights, children from Tucson to Flagstaff held a symbolic sit-in on the Capitol lawn with a reminder that no one would suffer more from the draconian bills than state's youngest.

In a stunning defeat to Senate President Russell Pearce, every immigration bill was voted down by his own senate today, even though Pearce defiantly declared immigration was a state issue, not a federal one.

And for Pearce, he may have lost the battle, but the war over immigration in Arizona will continue to flourish. Despite the fact that Arizona has the lowest crime rates in 40 years, Gov. Jan Brewer has joined Pearce in turning immigration troubles into Arizona's own shock doctrine vehicle for their radical agenda.

"It took me a while on 1070, too," Pearce scolded his fellow senators, referring to last year's controversial immigration bill that is currently in the courts. "I introduced it in 05, 06, 07, 08, 09 and 2010 before we had a governor that would sign it. And we've become the envy of this nation with 25 states writing legislation modeled after 1070."

Pearce learned a lesson today, though.

"Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students," Arizona native and labor leader Cesar Chavez once reminded the nation. "What better books can there be than the book of humanity?"

On the heels of an unforgiving year of outrageous state rebellion, children in Arizona have had to create their own book of humanity -- if only to defend their state's diverse heritage and basic human rights.

As part of the Repeal Coalition campaign in Arizona, a volunteer grassroots organization that is calling for the end to all hateful, anti-immigrant legislation and for the Repeal of SB1070 and other anti-immigrant laws, the children and youth opened a stunning new chapter in the on-going saga of an Arizona state legislature gone wild.

Last year's anti-immigrant bill earned Arizona's right-wing legislature the reputation as the "meth lab of democracy."

Just ask the kids: One banner simply asked, "Russell Pearce: Why do You Hate Arizona's Youth?"

Even some of Arizona's most conservative CEOs and Chamber of Commerce stalwarts wrote the legislature last week that they "strongly believe it is unwise for the Legislature to pass any additional immigration legislation, including any measures leaving the determination of citizenship to the state."

For Arizona Republic columnist E. J. Montini, the upcoming vote amounts to a "legislators wage war on children."

And not just undocumented children. Already ranked at the bottom of funding per pupil nationwide, Arizona's legislators singled out education for the deepest cuts in their budget yesterday, including a 26 percent reduction in university funding and a 7 percent reduction in K-12.

Catch your breath: Here's a brief rundown of the immigration bills from the Arizona Republic that failed in the Senate today:

- Senate Bill 1222 would require public-housing operators to evict anyone who allows an illegal immigrant to live with them, as well as require proof of legal status to receive any public benefits.

- SB 1012 would allow the Arizona Department of Public Safety to conduct fingerprint-background checks on only individuals who can prove that they are U.S. citizens or legally eligible to work in the state. The state-issued fingerprint-clearance cards are required for a variety of jobs and work permits.

- Senate Concurrent Resolution 1035 would ask voters to change the state Constitution to prohibit any state official or agency from using a language other than English for official communications. Individuals could ask that communications be conducted in a second language, but the state doesn't have to adhere to the request.

The full Senate is also expected to vote in the coming days or weeks on broader immigration-related measures, including SB 1611, which makes several changes to immigration law, including preventing children not born in the U.S. from attending school, prohibiting illegal immigrants from driving or buying a car, and denying illegal immigrants the ability to obtain a marriage license in Arizona.

Other pending bills include SB 1405, which would require hospitals to check the legal status of a patient if he or she was unable to show proof of health insurance, and SB 1308 and SB 1309 - the "birthright citizenship" measures.

"These bills will be back again next year," one state senator warned.

The final showdown in Arizona has yet to come.

Immigrant Detentions Draw International Fire

2011-03-19T06:19:00.000-07:00

I hope that this Inter-American Commission on Human Rightswill make a difference on immigrant detention.

Angela

March 17, 2011
Immigrant Detentions Draw International Fire
By KIRK SEMPLE

Immigration enforcement in the United States is plagued by unjust treatment of detainees, including inadequate access to lawyers and insufficient medical care, and by the excessive use of prison-style detention, the human rights arm of the Organization of American States said Thursday.

The group, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, issued those findings in a report that also took aim at a federal program that allows county and state law enforcement officials to enforce federal immigration laws. The report said the government had failed to ensure that local police were not singling out people by race or detaining illegal immigrants on the pretext of investigating crimes.

The commission recommended that the federal government cancel the program, known as 287(g).

While many of the findings reiterated criticisms that have been made before by immigrant advocates and others, the report appeared to be the first comprehensive review of American immigration enforcement in recent years by an international body of the organization’s stature.

The commission, based in Washington, has no enforcement powers, but it has considerable moral authority and a record of cooperation by member countries, including the United States.

The 155-page report was based on hearings and research that began in 2008, including visits in July 2009 by a team of investigators to six American detention centers in Arizona and Texas.

Since much of the research was completed, however, the Obama administration has begun a major overhaul of the detention system. A month after the commission’s visits, immigration officials announced a sweeping plan to establish more centralized authority over the system and to renovate centers designed for penal detention to make them more appropriate for detainees facing deportation, particularly those accused of administrative violations.

The administration said it would also close centers that were rarely used or failed to meet its standards, and would consolidate the nation’s patchwork of detention centers to meet increasing demand in specific areas, especially near big cities. It also said it would explore alternatives to detention.

Felipe González, president of the commission, acknowledged those plans but said the commission would withhold judgment on the efficacy of the reforms. “According to the information that we have so far, it’s not clear that it’s been implemented or will satisfy the international standards” of human rights, he said in an interview.

The commission will continue monitoring immigration enforcement to ensure that its grievances were addressed, Mr. González added.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees enforcement, said Thursday that the department would review the report, and made no further comment.

Earlier, however, the Obama administration was given a draft. In their response, according to the report, administration officials pointed out that they had conducted their own comprehensive review of immigration enforcement and made “important changes.”

Still, the commission said it was “deeply troubled by the continual and widespread use of detention in immigration cases,” the report said.

“The Inter-American Commission is convinced that in many if not the majority of cases, detention is a disproportionate measure and the alternatives to detention programs would be a more balanced means of serving the State’s legitimate interest in ensuring compliance with immigration laws,” the report said.

Mr. González also expressed skepticism that the administration would provide less penal settings for immigrants held on administrative, rather than criminal, charges. “It’s not clear to us whether the new system will really mean that the facility will provide migrants in detention with a system that is fully respectful of human rights,” he said.

Mr. González said his commission was inspired to investigate the system after receiving numerous requests from human rights advocates and civil society organizations. The group, he added, is now planning to investigate other immigration detention systems in the hemisphere.

Agent: I was ordered to let U.S. guns into Mexico

2011-03-04T13:49:00.000-08:00

(CBS News) WASHINGTON - Federal agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was beyond belief.
He was intentionally letting guns go to Mexico?

"Yes ma'am," Dodson told CBS News. "The agency was."

An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson's job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen.

Investigators call the tactic letting guns "walk." In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States.

Dodson's bosses say that never happened. Now, he's risking his job to go public.

"I'm boots on the ground in Phoenix, telling you we've been doing it every day since I've been here," he said. "Here I am. Tell me I didn't do the things that I did. Tell me you didn't order me to do the things I did. Tell me it didn't happen. Now you have a name on it. You have a face to put with it. Here I am. Someone now, tell me it didn't happen."

Agent Dodson and other sources say the gun walking strategy was approved all the way up to the Justice Department. The idea was to see where the guns ended up, build a big case and take down a cartel. And it was all kept secret from Mexico.

ATF named the case "Fast and Furious."

Surveillance video obtained by CBS News shows suspected drug cartel suppliers carrying boxes of weapons to their cars at a Phoenix gun shop. The long boxes shown in the video being loaded in were AK-47-type assault rifles.

So it turns out ATF not only allowed it - they videotaped it.

Documents show the inevitable result: The guns that ATF let go began showing up at crime scenes in Mexico. And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets... the Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence.

One e-mail noted, "958 killed in March 2010 ... most violent month since 2005." The same e-mail notes: "Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone," including "numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles."

Dodson feels that ATF was partly to blame for the escalating violence in Mexico and on the border. "I even asked them if they could see the correlation between the two," he said. "The more our guys buy, the more violence we're having down there."

Senior agents including Dodson told CBS News they confronted their supervisors over and over.

Their answer, according to Dodson, was, "If you're going to make an omelette, you've got to break some eggs."

There was so much opposition to the gun walking, that an ATF supervisor issued an e-mail noting a "schism" among the agents. "Whether you care or not people of rank and authority at HQ are paying close attention to this case...we are doing what they envisioned.... If you don't think this is fun you're in the wrong line of work... Maybe the Maricopa County jail is hiring detention officers and you can get $30,000 ... to serve lunch to inmates..."

"We just knew it wasn't going to end well. There's just no way it could," Dodson said.

On Dec. 14, 2010, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was gunned down. Dodson got the bad news from a colleague.

According to Dodson, "They said, 'Did you hear about the border patrol agent?' And I said, 'Yeah.' And they said 'Well it was one of the Fast and Furious guns.' There's not really much you can say after that."

Two assault rifles ATF had let go nearly a year before were found at Terry's murder.

Dodson said, "I felt guilty. I mean it's crushing. I don't know how to explain it."

Sen. Grassley began investigating after his office spoke to Dodson and a dozen other ATF sources -- all telling the same story.

The response was "practically zilch," Grassley said. "From the standpoint that documents we want - we have not gotten them. I think it's a case of stonewalling."

Dodson said he hopes that speaking out helps Terry's family. They haven't been told much of anything about his murder - or where the bullet came from.

"First of all, I'd tell them that I'm sorry. Second of all, I'd tell them I've done everything that I can for them to get the truth," Dodson said. "After this, I don't know what else I can do. But I hope they get it."

Dodson said they never did take down a drug cartels. However, he said thousands of Fast and Furious weapons are still out there and will be claiming victims on both sides of the border for years to come.

Late tonight, the ATF said it will convene a panel to look into its national firearms trafficking strategy. But it refused to comment specifically on Sharyl's report.

Statement from Kenneth E. Melson, Acting Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives:

"The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) will ask a multi-disciplinary panel of law enforcement professionals to review the bureau's current firearms trafficking strategies employed by field division managers and special agents. This review will enable ATF to maximize its effectiveness when undertaking complex firearms trafficking investigations and prosecutions. It will support the goals of ATF to stem the illegal flow of firearms to Mexico and combat firearms trafficking in the United States."

Arizona Introduces “Omnibus” Immigration Bill

2011-02-22T14:48:00.001-08:00

SB 1070 should watch out. Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce has a new pet that he’s nurturing, a bill numbered SB 1611 that, if passed, would likely take SB 1070’s place as the symbol of harsh anti-immigrant legislation.

The bill, which the state senator called an “omnibus” immigration bill, the Arizona Capitol Times reported, would bar children from K-12 education if they couldn’t produce a U.S.-issued birth certificate or naturalization document. It would forbid undocumented immigrants from driving in the state or accessing public benefits. Folks who are caught driving would face a month of jail time and would have to turn over the car they’re driving.

The bill also seeks to crack down on the immigrant community’s allies by making it a Class 1 misdemeanor if a public employee failed to report violations of national immigration laws—such a violation is currently a Class 2 misdemeanor. Identity theft would result in 180 days of jail time. SB 1611 would also bar undocumented immigrants from enrolling in community colleges, entirely. It also requires Arizona businesses to use E-Verify, a federal immigration database rife with holes and flaws. Lastly, SB 1611 would require that the state attorney general sanction any business that does not make use of the database. Companies would be forced to get with the program or face suspension of their business license.

Pearce introduced the legislation Monday afternoon.

“This is clean-up,” Pearce told Capitol Media Services. SB 1611 was approved by a rules committee yesterday and is set for a hearing today.

SB 1611 joins a host of other anti-immigrant bills that Arizona immigrant rights groups are trying to fight back. Arizona is also considering legislation that would force hospitals to demand a person’s immigration papers before they could be granted non-emergency care, and is considering a separate birthright citizenship bill that would only give a new state birth certificate to those born in Arizona who had at least one green card-holding or citizen parent. The two birthright citizenship bills, SB 1308 and 1309, and SB 1405, which Border Action Network says “attempts to turn hospital workers into immigration officers,” are set to be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee today at 2pm.

A coalition of immigrant rights groups including Puente, Somos America, the Arizona Advocacy Network and Border Action Network is organizing a gathering outside the Arizona State Capitol to respond to these bills.

Texas Republican: 'Intentional ambush' of ICE agent is a 'game changer' - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

2011-02-18T12:54:00.001-08:00

Texas Republican: 'Intentional ambush' of ICE agent is a 'game changer' - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Yes it is a game changer but who or what changed the game? The public needs and deserves more details on the slaying of this agent--his intentions, activities, whereabouts, etc..

Angelaela

Texas Republican: 'Intentional ambush' of ICE agent is a 'game changer' - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

2011-02-18T12:54:00.000-08:00

Texas Republican: 'Intentional ambush' of ICE agent is a 'game changer' - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Yes it is a game changer but who or who changed the game? The public needs and deserves more details on the slaying of this agent--his intentions, activities, whereabouts, etc..

Angelaela

Join Amigos in call to release 3 year old from immigration detention

2011-02-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

Join Amigos in call to release 3 year old from immigration detention

We urge you to join us in the bi-national effort to release the 3 year old, Heidi Frayre and her uncle Juan Manuel Frayre from immigration detention. Addresses follow.

Honorable Secretary Napolitano:

Amigos de las Mujeres de Juarez, a U.S. based organization located in the El Paso, TX, Las Cruces, NM and Juarez, Chihuahua tri-state area, join Chihuahua-based groups working to end gender violence, in denouncing the U.S. immigration detention of three year old, Heidi Frayre and her uncle, Juan Manuel Frayre, who fled Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua for their lives and are seeking political asylum in the U.S. Heidi Frayre is currently held at the St. Michael's Home for Children operated by Catholic Charities in Houston, which holds juvenile immigrants in their custody on behalf of the U.S. Office of Refugee and Resettlement. Juan Manuel is currently detained at the Otero Detention Center in Chaparral, New Mexico. Heidi is the daughter of a feminicide victim in Ciudad Juarez, Rubí Frayre, one of countless women and girls murdered in this City since 1993.
Adding to this tragedy is the brutal murder of Rubi's mother and Heidi's grandmother, Marisela Escobedo killed on December 16, 2010. Marisela was staging a 24/7 protest in front of the Chihuahua Governor's palace asking for the apprehension of Rubi's murderer, Sergio Rafael, Rubi's husband, who was earlier released from State custody. Marisela was shot in the head at point blank range and the tragedy was documented on security cameras from the Governor's palace. Below is a detailed account of these two tragic deaths.

We respectfully request, Secretary Napolitano, that Heidi Frayre and Juan Manuel Frayre be released to relatives in El Paso, Texas, as they await information on their political asylum cases. They are not a flight risk to return to Mexico and they have family in El Paso, TX, where Juan Manuel's brother, who also sought political asylum has been released to family members in El Paso. This family has suffered enough tragedies.

As an organization that has worked with and supported Mexican NGOs since 2001, we also ask the U.S. government to revise its immigration policy that excludes most Mexicans from receiving refugee status. We fear for the lives of the many activist women who have worked long and hard to obtain justice for the families of women like Rubí and Marisela. Several other activist women were recently killed in Ciudad Juarez like Susana Baez and Josefina Reyes who denounced Mexican military abuses and the feminicides.

Due to the failure and disregard of both the Mexican state and federal governments, Marisela was murdered for asking for justice for her daughter Rubí.

"I am not going to move from here until they detain the killer of my daughter" was the declaration of Marisela before putting in place her small campsite in front of the Cross of Nails NOT ONE MORE in Chihuahua City. She was prepared to spend Christmas and New Years in this emblematic place, where, the past November 25th, she participated in
a demonstration with the mothers of Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for our Daughters) to hang on the cross, the names of the more than 300 women who have been killed in the state of Chihuahua in 2010 alone.

Rubí was 16 year old when she was killed by Sergio Rafael in August, 2008. After her corpse was found in a lot together with the bones of pigs, the mother of Rubí, Marisela, a retired nurse, dedicated here life to seeking justice for her daughter, by becoming a human rights defender.

The same day that the Secretary of State, Francisco Blake Mora, asked citizens to "reject fear to fight the criminals", Marisela was killed in front of the doors of the Palace of Government in Chihuahua City, while she was engaged in her peaceful and indefinite protest to demand that the authorities detain the killer of her daughter Rubí.

Marisela not only rejected fear, she walked for days from the office of the prosecutor to the judicial center in Juarez to demand punishment for the killer of her daughter. She always walked with her 3 year old granddaughter Heidi in a carriage and a placard with the picture of her daughter Rubí. An oral trial freed the killer, shaming the system of justice.

Marisela, a tireless fighter, together with the lawyers of the Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (Center for Human Rights of Women) succeeded in obtaining an appeal tribunal (made up of 3 magistrates) who would overturn the decision of the judges. She succeeded in obtaining a sentence against Sergio Rafael, the confessed murderer, condemning him finally to 50 years in prison.

"I am tired of doing their work, now let them do theirs" said Marisela. However, while the authorities never managed to find Sergio Rafael, Marisela, with her own resources, found him in Zacatecas and advised the Attorney General of Chihuahua, who alleged, that because of bureaucratic procedures, they could not detain him.

The Attorney General of the state of Chihuahua informed the mother that, together with the Attorney General of Mexico, "they would keep seeking the killer of her daughter over the whole country." They never found him.

For two years, she traveled the country. She returned to Zacatecas, and went to Mexico City where she asked for an audience with President Calderon and with Attorney General Arturo Chávez Chávez. Both refused to see her. She spoke with authorities in the federal prosecutor's office who promised to search for the killer of her daughter. They never found him.

Days before being murdered, she turned up at an event where she met the Governor of Chihuahua, Cesar Duarte and she took out a placard that said "justice, a privilege of
governments". The request angered the governor, as was noted by various local journalists. The governor scolded her and treated her with contempt. Later, she succeeded n getting an interview with the state attorney of Chihuahua who promised her that he would review her case.

Lucha Castro, coordinator of the Center for the Human Rights of Women declared, "at this time, we cannot ignore any line of investigation including a crime by the state because Marisela was not going to stop until they detained the killer of her daughter."
Marisela died at the doors of the Palace of Government (is this right? The Governor's Palace) and in front of the cross of nails that was placed by the group, Mujeres de Negro (Women in Black) and the mothers of the young women killed in the state of Chihuahua. Marisela was killed for asking for justice.

Respectfully,

Amigos de las Mujeres de Juarez

Secretary Janet Napolitano
Department of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528

President Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500

Senator Jeff Bingaman
703 Hart Senate Office Bldg.
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

States Aim to Curb Collective Bargaining

2011-02-10T17:10:00.000-08:00

States Aim to Curb Collective Bargaining

This aligns to what's going on in Wisconsin right now. Check this out:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/115608664.html

A Mexican City’s Troubles Reshape Its Families

2011-02-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

Telma Pedro Córdoba, with her children, Jesús and Lizette, heads a family in Ciudad Juárez.

By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: February 9, 2011

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — Telma Pedro Córdoba could have left this blood- and bullet-marked city when she lost her husband to a drive-by shooting in 2009, or when an injury kept her mother from factory work, or when gunmen killed a neighbor in front of a friend’s 3-year-old son a few months ago.

Instead, she has stayed. Her tiny one-bedroom home, decorated with carefully done red and silver stenciling, is shared with her mother, grandmother, sister, younger brother and two children. In local slang, unlike their neighbors whose abandoned homes are now stripped of even windows, they have become a “familia anclada,” a family anchored to Ciudad Juárez.

Not long ago, the phrase hardly existed here in this city of overnight truck drivers and baby-faced factory workers from afar. But over the past several years, the forces of drug violence and recession have reshaped both the city’s character — from loose and busy to tight-knit and cautious — and its demographics.

Decades of growth have been replaced by exodus. The city has lost nearly 20 percent of its population in the past three years, or about 230,000 people, according to one academic estimate. And new government figures and interviews suggest that the men who once arrived in waves are departing in larger numbers than women.

The result is a city with more families like the Pedros: multigenerational, led by women and with several children under 14.

Demographers say the shift has accelerated in the past year not just in Chihuahua, the state where Ciudad Juárez is the biggest city. The proportion of women also grew last year in Tamaulipas, a state that is home to some of the most gruesome recent killings. There, and in Baja California, the state that includes Tijuana, the percentage of families with young children has also spiked, even as it has remained stable nationwide.

“It’s a combination of three things,” said Carlos Galindo, a demographer and adviser to Mexico’s National Population Council. “It’s harder to find a job, migration across the desert is traditionally a thing that men do, and then there’s the violence” driving many men to leave.

For Ciudad Juárez, the imbalance is not without precedent. In the 1970s and ’80s, when electronics manufacturers started the factory, or maquiladora, boom, women flooded the labor market here for low-paying jobs requiring precise handiwork, outnumbering men by five to one on some assembly lines.

Men later followed, pulling equal with women in total population and at factories. Now, though, according to government labor surveys and private sector data, women seem to be edging back into the majority and increasing their presence at maquiladoras.

It is largely a measure of perseverance, not prosperity. In interviews across this sprawling city, women described male departures, or deaths, and a life of adaptation for the families that remained.

Brenda Noriega, 31, lives in the city’s northwestern corner, on a dirt road that abuts the fence separating Ciudad Juárez from El Paso, Tex. On a recent morning, she needed both hands to count the men in her family who had returned to Durango, their home state. “Eight,” she said finally, sitting outside her small blue house with her two children, ages 12 and 13. “Eight uncles and grandfathers have gone in the past year.”

Her husband still has a job, a circumstance that explained why they stayed, she said. Indeed, for many families, work or the lack of it has been as much of a motivator for migration as violence.

The global recession has pummeled this place. From 2008 to the middle of last year, the city’s maquiladoras cut 30 percent of their work force, or about 72,000 jobs.

Some of those positions are returning. José L. Armendáriz Bailón, president of the local maquiladora association, said 20 of the largest factories were rehiring. But unemployment in the city, at 7 percent, still remains above the official national rate of about 5 percent, though either figure would be envied in the United States, and some economists contend that the Mexican average is actually higher than reported.

Either way, it remains far above what longtime residents like Ms. Pedro associate with the city. When she came to Ciudad Juárez 14 years ago from Oaxaca State, work was as common as dust. “All you had to do was walk down the street, and there’d be a job,” she said. “Walk a little farther and there’d be another job.”

Ms. Pedro, who is 30, met her husband in 1999, at the factory where they both worked. He was a security guard with light skin and broad shoulders. She was cute, calm and quick to giggle. In pictures, he towers over her, holding her close, with a smile as playful as her own.

They married quickly and had two children: Lizette, 10, and Jesús, 8. When they moved into a growing neighborhood to the south six years ago — with street names like Democracy and Patriotism — they left their doors unlocked, she said, and rarely worried about the children.

Those memories help keep her here when she thinks of her husband, shot dead in a car with fellow employees on his way home from work, or when she hears the gun battles that frequently punctuate the desert nights. Like many women at the head of familias ancladas, she said she believed that the current horrific period was an anomaly that would pass.

Prof. María del Socorro Velázquez Vargas, a sociologist at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez, said some residents were also finding rays of hope in the present. Citing a rise in optimism in the university’s most recent local survey from January, she said people had been encouraged by a newfound unity among neighbors.

“People don’t have faith in government,” Professor Velázquez said, during a week when the federal police shot and killed two unarmed residents in a botched raid. “They have faith in their neighbors.”

Elected officials are investing in the kinds of social hubs long described as a necessary antidote to gangs. A candy-colored children’s museum is about to open in the main park here. Government crime statistics published in the past week show that homicides in the city fell to 98 in January, down from 166 in December and the record highs of more than 300 in October and August.

But in a city known for loose connections, what little faith there is seems to be springing from the residents’ own self-reliance: the five boulders that block an entrance to one neighborhood; the additional guard dogs bought communally by another; the bodega owners in several areas who have stayed open by disguising their stores, hiding them from extortionists by painting them white to look like houses.

Then there is the activism, often led by women, that has become increasingly creative. One group of women can be seen riding pink motorcycles into poor neighborhoods to offer assistance every Sunday.

Still, adaptation also comes in more ominous forms. There is little doubt that residents living through such carnage — with about 7,000 killed here since 2008 — are growing accustomed to blood and gore.

Crime scenes are a regular part of daily life, and so is indifference. In one recent instance, children giggled just yards from a man stabbed and left dead in a dusty alley. A day earlier, in a supermarket parking lot near a shootout that left three people dead, shoppers glanced toward the yellow police tape, then moved on as if it were a fender bender.

“I don’t think it’s strength,” said Celia Faong, 40, as she placed groceries in the back of her dented gold Chevy, near her 3-year-old son. “It’s necessity.”

She, too, is the head of a familia anclada. After her husband was killed seven months ago, she said, she stayed in Ciudad Juárez rather than return to Durango, just to the south of Chihuahua, because the laundry service she ran from home supported her children and her extended family.

It was a common Juárez story, of responsibility and economics trumping danger. Mexican men are expected to keep moving to improve their circumstances, said Mr. Galindo, the demographer, but for women, home life is knottier and harder to transport.

People like Ms. Faong and Ms. Pedro plan to stay. Even though, in Mrs. Pedro’s case, it means guarding her children with a fence of discarded wooden pallets, in a hollowed-out neighborhood where a blue plane filled with federal police officers can often be seen landing in the distance, ready to make war.

Virtual Warfare Escalates on U.S.-Mexico Border

2011-02-07T20:21:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK, Feb 7 (IPS) - In the quiet desert community of Nomirage, located just 20 kilometres east of San Diego, the sounds of impending war creep over the silent landscape.

Armed with a 100-million-dollar budget and over 1,000 acres of desert space, Brandon Webb, ex-Navy Seal and chief executive officer of the San Diego-based firm Wind Zero Inc., is forging ahead with plans for a law-enforcement and military-training facility, which, once completed, will be capable of firing a whopping 57,000 bullets on an average day.

According to Bill Conroy, a correspondent at Narco News specialising in U.S.-Mexico border issues, the Imperial County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 in favour of the proposed garrison in late December, despite strong opposition from community groups.

Featuring mock-up urban environments, live-fire training houses, helicopter landing pads, an airstrip and a 9.8- kilometre racetrack, Wind Zero's new endeavour boasts all the elements of full-scale U.S. military centres in warzones, such as the Kirkush Training base located 112 kilometres east of Baghdad.

The facility bears a striking resemblance to a project launched by the private paramilitary contractor Blackwater in 2006, which was abandoned under torrential opposition two years ago. In an interview with the San Diego reader last week, Webb stated "There is a big conspiracy that we are a shadow for Blackwater but that's just ridiculous," adding that any similarities were purely coincidental.

However, one thing that cannot be denied, according to Conroy, is the shared interest of Blackwater, Wind Zero and one of their most powerful and affluent supporters, RAND Senior Management Systems Analyst John Birkler, in the "emerging arena of drone warfare".

Dehumanising the Immigrant 'Other'

"The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is currently operating about half a dozen Predator B (Reaper) drones primarily along the U.S. southern border with Mexico," Conroy told IPS.

"These drones do have deadly capabilities, but supposedly are now being used only for surveillance. In addition to the DHS, the U.S military also operates drones, though their uses along U.S. borders and coastal areas is less clear," he said.

Conroy added, "On top of all of this, the Mexican government is allegedly operating drones along the U.S./Mexican border. In addition, U.S. military bases all along the southern border are used as staging sites for drone operations."

Any lingering doubts about the unbridled proliferation of virtual surveillance technology are quickly dispelled by the fact that Wind Zero's new facility is fully equipped to provide instruction in operating Unmanned Aerial Systems.

Conroy writes, "The camp will feature a long airstrip and multiple heliports; a control tower and operations center; a 25,000-foot above-ground-level (AGL) air ceiling; and a location only 87 miles from a major border population center (San Diego/Tijuana) that is ground zero on the West Coast for the drug war."

For immigrants fleeing the brutal narco-violence in Mexico, which claimed over 15,000 lives in 2010 alone, the increased policing of the U.S.-Mexico border is nothing short of a nightmare.

Alex Rivera, a filmmaker whose work deals extensively with the crisis on the border, told IPS, "The image of these drones, which cost millions to deploy, flying over a desert where migrant women and children are carrying jugs through the blistering heat is reminiscent of films like 'Terminator'. In reality this image belongs not in science fiction but in the history books because it's been happening for years."

"Surveillance drones are only one dot in a constellation of technology being deployed on the border that includes heat- seeking cameras, sensors embedded in the deserts and thousands of border patrol agents," Rivera told IPS.

In fact, figures released by the DHS last year showed that the number of border personnel has increased from 10,000 in 2004 to over 21,000 in 2010.

"Border patrol has always used a kind of twin-logic that conflates the flow of drugs with the flow of people," Rivera added.

American Science and Engineering (AES) Inc., responsible for the notorious 'Z-backscatter' technology that is being widely deployed in international airports, coined the term 'organic contraband' to refer to both narcotics and human beings crossing the border.

"AES's old X-rays could only detect metal," Rivera told IPS, "but they've now been stepped up to be able to detect a bundle of marijuana, a bag of cocaine, and even human flesh."

"So if a person is being smuggled across the border in the trunk of a car – that would be considered 'organic contraband'," he added.

Organisations such as No More Deaths (No Mas Muertes) have waged an arduous battle against such dehumanising language that has given rise what they believe are inhuman laws.

"Increased surveillance technology over the last 10 years has been accompanied by a huge increase in the number of deaths at the border," Geoffrey Boyce, the media spokesperson for No More Deaths in Tucson, Arizona, told IPS.

"People are being pushed into more remote and difficult terrain," he said. "The length of a crossing has shot up from a day or two to an average six-day long crossing – and in the summertime we are talking temperatures from 100-120 degrees almost every single day."

Boyce added, "Although the government's law enforcement strategy is premised on the fact that increased difficulty at the border will reduce the number of people attempting to cross, we have seen the opposite scenario unfolding over the last decade."

Far from reducing the flow of immigration, Boyce said, surveillance has simply made the already grueling trek through the desert ever more deadly. In southern Arizona alone, No More Deaths monitors over 200 deaths every year at the border.

"This situation has been absolutely tragic and there appears to be no end in sight," Boyce told IPS.

(END/2011)

Mexico, Cradle of Corn, Finds Its Noble Grain Under Assault

2011-02-05T10:20:00.000-08:00

GUELATAO, Mexico — Yank the husks off ears of corn grown in the mountains of southern Mexico, and you may find kernels that are red, yellow, white, blue, black or even variegated.

A detail of a native corn plant or mazorca is shown by Aldo Gonzalez. From climate change to the assault by agricultural corporations like Monsanto, native corn species are under threat. (Heriberto Rodriguez/MCT)

It's only one measure of the diversity of the 60 or so native varieties of corn in Mexico. Another is the unusual adaptation of some varieties to drought, high heat, altitude or strong winds.

Plant specialists describe the native varieties of corn in Mexico as a genetic trove that might prove valuable should extreme weather associated with global warming get out of hand. Corn, one of the most widely grown grains in the world, is a key component of the global food supply.

But experts say Mexico's native varieties are themselves under peril — from economics and genetic contamination — potentially depriving humans of a crucial resource.

Farmers are punished at the marketplace for selling native corn, and some types are dwindling from use. Perhaps more significantly, genetically modified corn is drifting southward and mingling with native varieties, potentially bringing unexpected aberrations and even possible extinction.

At stake may be more than just curious and exotic types of corn, grown in small fields alongside beans and then ground into tortillas after harvest.

"With climate change," said Aldo Gonzalez, an indigenous Zapotec engineer with long, flowing black hair who's at the forefront of protecting native varieties, "new diseases could occur, and the only place in the world where we can look for existing varieties that might be resistant is in Mexico.

"These varieties of corn might at some point save humanity."

Corn is not only a crucial crop in Mexico but also a symbol in a nation that's the birthplace of the grain. Maize likely originated from a grass-like, tasseled plant, teosinte, in southern Mexico. Scientists say humans domesticated corn 7,000 to 10,000 years ago.

In the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Mayans, gods create humans out of cornmeal, allowing the "people of corn" to flourish.

Through the centuries, varieties of corn adapted to different soils, altitudes, temperature conditions and water availability, and Gonzalez said the seed stock handed down in his village in this corner of the Sierra Juarez range in central Oaxaca state probably wouldn't grow well just a few miles distant.

"In the sierra here, there are varieties of corn that grow as high as 3,000 meters," Gonzalez said, or nearly 10,000 feet. "There are varieties that can be planted in swampy land or that you can plant in semidesert areas. They may not be very productive but they have allowed people to survive."

Native varieties of corn have fed humans for millennia in Mesoamerica.

"The elders understand the importance of various types of corn because they had their fields in different places under different conditions," said Lilia Perez Santiago, an agricultural engineer who works for a state forestry bureau.

Perez was among the activists behind a petition in 2000 to the Montreal-based Commission for Environmental Cooperation, a panel created under the North American Free Trade Agreement. The petition claimed that genetically modified corn, altered to be pest resistant or herbicide tolerant, had drifted to southern Mexico and begun contaminating native varieties.

Four years later, the panel recommended to Mexico that it suspend modified corn imports and adopt strict labeling rules to allow the public to identify food products that contained such corn. Mexico ignored the recommendations, arguing that the ruling came into conflict with its obligations to open markets under trade pacts.

In late 2009, the government permitted a subsidiary of a U.S. conglomerate, Monsanto, to test genetically modified corn on isolated plots of about 240 acres in Sinaloa and Tamaulipas states in the north.

The head of Monsanto Mexico, Jose Manuel Madero, said at a news conference two weeks ago that the federal government demands further tests before allowing commercial farming of the genetically altered corn.

Madero said modified corn was in use in 20 countries around the world and would help Mexico raise agricultural productivity, cut its reliance on food imports and slash the use of herbicides, thereby protecting the environment.

Several scientists have joined a Mexican grass-roots campaign, known as Sin Maiz No Hay Pais, or There Is No Country Without Corn, to oppose the import or harvest of genetically changed corn.

"We have a nationwide survey that shows genetic contamination in Guanajuato, Yucatan, Veracruz and Oaxaca (states). We also know of some large-scale plantings in Chihuahua," said Elena Alvarez-Buylla Roces, a molecular geneticist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

She said lab analysis showed that some native varieties already carried altered genes.

"There is no possibility of coexistence without contamination," Alvarez-Buylla said. "One gene can make a large difference. Do we want to run the risk?"

Black-market brokers already sell genetically modified seed corn to farmers in the north of Mexico, opponents say, and bags of unmarked genetically altered corn have been found in the far south.

"The bags of corn are not secure. During transport, some bags break open and fall out. So there are many possible ways of contamination," Perez said.

The vast majority of farmers of native varieties select seeds each year to save for the next harvest, thus making what Alvarez-Buylla described as "active, dynamic genetic elements" prone to aberrations from genetic drift of altered corn.

Scientists don't know which varieties could prove useful for climate change.

"We don't really know if there is a variety with the most promise. Promise for what?" Alvarez-Buylla said, adding that future climate conditions are unknowable.

While the government maintains seed banks for native corn, Alvarez-Buylla said, "This is not a diversity that can be preserved in a laboratory."

Some farmers already are abandoning certain native varieties, unable to make a living harvesting their small plots.

"They get a price penalty for not growing uniform, large volumes of corn that the tortilla manufacturers want," said Timothy A. Wise, a rural policy expert at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

Economic realities that make it increasingly unviable for farmers to grow native varieties may be as big a peril as genetic contamination, Wise said.

"If that traditional knowledge isn't passed from generation to generation and those farmers stop farming, then that seed variety is lost for economic reasons," he said.

In Mexico's cities, consumers have little taste for the native varieties of corn in their own country, offering no price advantage for the small farmers who are nurturing the nation's corn diversity.

"In urban areas," Gonzalez said, "they don't know about the varieties. All they know is that the dining room table must have tortillas on it."

Pew Hispanic Center: Unauthorized Immigrant Population: National and State Trends

2011-02-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON, D.C. - As of March 2010, 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States, vir- tually unchanged from a year earlier, according to new estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Re- search Center. This stability in 2010 follows a two-year decline from the peak of 12 million in 2007 to 11.1 million in 2009 that was the first significant reversal in a two-decade pattern of growth. Unauthorized immigrants were 3.7 percent of the nation's population in 2010.

The number of unauthorized immigrants in the nation's work force, eight million in March 2010, also did not differ from the Pew Hispanic Center estimate for 2009. As with the population total, the number of unauthorized immigrants in the labor force had decreased in 2009 from its peak of 8.4 million in 2007. They made up 5.2 percent of the labor force.

The number of children born to at least one unauthorized-immigrant parent in 2009 was 350,000, and they made up 8 per- cent of all U.S. births, essentially the same as a year earlier. An analysis of the year of entry of unauthorized immigrants who became parents in 2009 indicates that 61 percent arrived in the U.S. before 2004, 30 percent arrived from 2004 to 2007, and 9 percent arrived from 2008 to 2010.

Other key points from the new report include:

* The decline in the population of unauthorized immigrants from its peak in 2007 appears due mainly to a decrease in the number from Mexico, which went down to 6.5 million in 2010 from seven million in 2007. Mexicans remain the largest group of unauthorized immigrants, accounting for 58 percent of the total.
* The number of unauthorized immigrants decreased from 2007 to 2010 in Colorado, Florida, New York and Virginia. The combined population in three contiguous Mountain West states - Arizona, Nevada and Utah - also declined.
* In contrast to the national trend, the combined unauthorized immigrant population in three contiguous West South Central states - Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas - grew from 2007 to 2010.
* Although the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. is below 2007 levels, it has tripled since 1990, when it was 3.5 million and grown by a third since 2000, when it was 8.4 million.
The estimates are based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, augmented with the Pew His- panic Center's analysis of the demographic characteristics of the unauthorized immigrant population using a "residual esti- mation methodology."

Although the estimates indicate trends in the size and composition of the unauthorized-immigrant population, they are not designed to answer the question of why these changes occurred. There are many possible factors. The deep recession that began in the U.S. economy officially ended in 2009, but recovery has been slow to take hold, and unemployment re- mains high. Immigration flows have tended to decrease in previous periods of economic distress.

The period covered by this analysis also has been accompanied by changes in the level of immigration enforcement and in enforcement strategies, not only by the federal government but also at state and local levels. Immigration also is subject to pressure by demographic and economic conditions in sending countries. This analysis does not attempt to quantify the relative impact of these forces on levels of unauthorized immigration.

The report, Unauthorized Immigrant Population: National and State Trends, 2010, written by Jeffrey S. Passel and D'Vera Cohn, is available at the Pew Hispanic Center's website: www.pewhispanic.org .

10 New Anti-migrant Laws in Arizona

2011-02-04T15:40:00.000-08:00

Subject: AZ: 10 New Anti-migrant Laws Nurtured by Russell Pearce.

Despite a concession on the part of the Republican Party to the rabid anti-immigrant Senator Russell Pearce (Mesa, AZ), under which he was named President of the AZ State Senate under the condition that he would not write new anti-migrant laws like SB 1070, ten new anti-immigrants (see below and attached) have been sponsored in this year´s AZ legislative session, being the primary ones two pairs: HB 2561 and SB 1309 and HB 2562 and SB 1308. Below see five secondary ones. As President of the AZ Senate, Russell Pearce has been encouraging such laws as many of the sponsors are his Republican mentees.

From the sane side, Senator Steve Gallardo (D-Phoenix) has sponsored a bill that reaffirms the federal government´s role in enforcing immigration laws.

At the same time, the organization Arizonans for Better Government (ABG), with the support of the group Somos Republicans, are seeking to recall Senator Russell Pearce. ABG will need 7,756 signatures from residents in Pearce´s Mesa district by May 27. If the signatures are valid, the recall could go before voters this fall 2011.

In struggle,

Manuel de Jesús Hernández-G.
Member, Somos America-Phoenix, AZ
Chair, Rocky Rountain FOCO, NACCS

TEN NEW ANTI-IMMIGRANT BILLS IN ARIZONA

Abbreviations: HB = House Bill. SB = Senate Bill.

A. MAIN ANTI-MIGRANT BILLS:
HB 2561 and SB 1309: Would define children as citizens of Arizona and the US if at least one of their parents was either a U.S. citizen or a legal permanent US resident and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. PRIMARY SPONSORS: Senator Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, and Representative John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills; 27 other Republican lawmakers have signed on in support.

HB 2562 and SB 1308: Would seek permission from Congress to set up a system so states can create separate birth certificates for children who meet the new definition of a citizen and those who do not. PRIMARY SPONSORS: Senator Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, and Representative John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills; 27 other Republican lawmakers have signed on in support.

B. SECONDARY ANTI-MIGRANT BILLS:
HB 2070: Would create a Homeland Security Force under the control of the governor, who could call up volunteers during emergencies or to protect ¨lives, property in this state or constitutional liberties.¨ Sponsor: Representative Judy Burger, R-Skull Valley. Status: Assigned to House Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee; House Appropriations Committee.
HB 2102: Would require government-issued photo ID to obtain a fingerprint clearance card and proof of legal status and a photo ID to work in the service industry. Sponsor: Representative John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills. Status: Passed by House Commerce Committee; goes to full House.

HB 2181: Would allow the governor to mobilize the National Guard to protect residents and their property from ¨unauthorized international border crossings and the related increase in deaths, crime and property damage.¨ Sponsor: Representative Carl Seel, R-Phoenix. Status: Not assigned committee.

HB 2505: Would eliminate children who cannot prove their legal status from student counts that schools use to determine state funding. Sponsor: Representative Carl Seel, R-Phoenix. Status: Assigned to House Education and Appropriations committees.

SB 1222: Would require proof of legal status to receive any public benefits, including public housing, from the state or local governments. Sponsor: Senator Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert. Status: Referred to Senate Government Reform Committee.

C. SANE MIGRANT BILL:

SB 1078: Would require the state, counties and cities to enter into a written agreement with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for reimbursement of all costs before using law-enforcement resources to enforce federal immigration laws. Sponsor: Senator Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix. Status: Referred to Senate Judiciary and Senate Border Security, Federalism and States´ Sovereignty committees.

D. DEMOCRATIC RESISTANCE AGAINST MAIN ANTI-MIGRANT LEGISLATOR
RECALL OF STATE SENATOR RUSSELL PEARCE: Arizonans for Better Government, working with Somos Republicans: Group will need 7,756 signatures from residents in Pearce´s Mesa district by May 27. If the signatures are valid, the recall could go before voters this fall 2011.

Immigration reform makes cents

2011-02-04T15:29:00.001-08:00

Immigration reform makes cents
By: Rep. Mike Honda
February 3, 2011 04:40 AM EST

House Speaker John Boehner’s recent selection of Rep. Elton Gallegly of California over Rep. Steve King of Iowa to head the Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee is one step closer to the kind of reform for which past administrations, including those of former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, had long called.

Both Republican congressmen may be opposed to the kind of reform that House Democrats call for. But Gallegly seems inclined to take a more reasoned approach. Especially if Democrats can explain the economic advantages to reform. And there are many.

Immigration brings formidable fiscal implications. Keeping immigrants here or sending them home can save or cost taxpayers dearly. Just count the ways that reform, which puts undocumented immigrants on the path to legalization, could foot our country’s finances.

First, any deportation plan for undocumented immigrants would cost our country’s gross domestic product a whopping $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years, according to a study by Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Conversely, if we embrace comprehensive immigration reform, we could add $1.5 trillion to the U.S. GDP over the next 10 years. The economy could also benefit from a temporary worker program, Hinojosa-Ojeda projected,by raising GDP by $792 billion.

Second, immigrants who become U.S. citizens consistently pursue higher-paying jobs and higher education, spend more and provide higher tax revenue. Just imagine what 12 million newly documented Americans could do for the economy.

The legalization process also brings economic benefits — like the retention of remittances. Workers send substantial portions of their salary to family members abroad, but reform could reunite families separated by our immigration system and keep monies in the U.S.

For example, total U.S. remittances to Latin America was almost $46 billion in 2008. Of that, Mexico received almost $24 billion. Reducing remittances offers obvious cash infusion for our economy, since billions of dollars now sent overseas would be spent instead on U.S. businesses — creating jobs and helping to revive our economy.

Third, by giving 2.1 million American students the opportunity to pursue higher education or military service, our government could collect $3.6 trillion over the next 40 years. The DREAM Act, which failed in the Senate in December but remains a bipartisan effort, offers a conditional six-year path to permanent, legal U.S. residence for immigrant youth who demonstrate good moral character and complete at least two years of higher education or U.S. military service.

Without the DREAM Act, about 65,000 students a year — honor-roll scholars, star athletes, talented artists and aspiring teachers — will graduate high school and then hit a roadblock. Instead of upward mobility and higher education, they will be forced to live in the shadows and work low-paying jobs.

Fourth, the Reuniting Families Act, which I plan to reintroduce this Congress, would allow all Americans to be reunited with their families — including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender “permanent partners.”

The economic benefits of this policy cannot be overstated. American workers, with their families by their side, are happier, healthier and more able to succeed than those living apart from loved ones for years on end. By pooling resources, families can do together what they can’t do alone — start small businesses, provide care for the young and old, create U.S. jobs and contribute more to this country’s welfare.

Healthier communities have more expendable income and place a lower burden on government social services. This correlation is well substantiated — but it is up to us to make it a reality.

We understand that during tough economic times, the natural reaction is to close borders and look inward. Yet the irony of an anti-immigration sentiment, which fears job losses for Americans if more workers enter the U.S., is that it is fiscally prudent to legalize, insure, employ, reunite and educate our immigrants than to keep families apart.

This is a time when we must use every available resource to stimulate our economy and control government spending. To my fiscally conservative Republican colleagues, the onus is on you. Left to future Congresses, the number of undocumented immigrants will only increase and the visa waits will only get longer. Meanwhile, we will lose an opportunity to do what’s economically right.

The fiscal case is clear: reform now.

California Rep. Mike Honda serves on the Appropriations and the Budget Committees and is the Democratic senior whip.

Poll: Immigration enforcement divide

2011-02-04T15:25:00.000-08:00

Interesting correlation. I quote from within: "There was a correlation between those who said their personal economic situation worsened in 2010 and those who expressed a fear of immigration." But there aren't any takers for the lion's share of so many of the jobs that Mexicans and other workers will take. Once can't help but deduce that while a small part of this correlation is based on reality, a very large part of this sentiment is based on the present anti-immigrant campaign that scapegoats them. This is a pattern historically that many scholars have written about.

Angela

Poll: Immigration enforcement divide
By: James Hohmann
February 3, 2011 08:26 AM EST

A poll out Thursday finds a strong partisan divide over how law enforcement should handle immigration. Democrats and Republicans disagree over whether federal authorities or local officials should take the lead on such issues, but the poll’s respondents seemed to all agree that the government currently does a poor job of handling immigration issues.

An already polarizing subject has become even hotter in the wake of an Arizona law signed in 2010 that cracks down on illegal immigration, the most controversial parts of which have been put on hold pending a court challenge from the Justice Department.

Transatlantic Trends, a project to study public opinion in Europe and North America, polled eight countries for the third year in a row about national attitudes toward immigration. The United States had the highest percentage of respondents — 67 percent — who said they would base their vote at least in part on a political party’s immigration stance, up 11 percent from last year.

Among Democrats, 66 percent think enforcement should be handled primarily by the federal government. A majority of Republicans — 53 percent — meanwhile, believe state and local authorities should take the lead.

Of the eight countries surveyed, the U.S. and Spain tied at 67 percent for the highest number of citizens who believe immigrants gain more benefits from the government than they pay in taxes.

The weak economy has swelled anti-immigrant sentiment. A narrow majority now says immigrants drive down wages for American citizens, and 56 percent think immigrants take jobs from natives. One-third of those polled said immigrants drive up crime in the U.S., up 10 percent from 2009. Half of Americans think only citizens and legal immigrants should have access to public schooling.

There was a correlation between those who said their personal economic situation worsened in 2010 and those who expressed a fear of immigration.

The study was sponsored by the influential German Marshall Fund of the United States, along with three other foundations. The German Marshall Fund is a nonpartisan public policy institution that focuses on promoting cooperation between North America and Europe.

Craig Kennedy, the fund’s president, called the findings “a wake-up call” for the governments.

“The survey shows that North Americans and Europeans have strong opinions about immigration policy, what works and what doesn’t,” he said in a statement. “But the survey also shows that the more one is exposed to immigrants, the more one feels positively towards them.”

There’s a positive long-term outlook, with 59 percent of American respondents saying immigrants are integrating well. But a racial divide exists: While 78 percent said second-generation Hispanics are integrating well, only 62 percent said the same about Muslim immigrants.

That’s still better than responses from Europe — in Germany, only 25 percent said Muslim immigrants are integrating well.

Europe faces many of its own immigration challenges, with a massive influx of immigrants of Muslims and others from the developing world. There’s additional tension about how much immigration policy leeway should be given to the European Union vis-à-vis the individual member states.

The survey was conducted by TNS Opinion, which used computer-assisted telephone interviews. About 1,000 Americans were interviewed from Nov. 10 to Nov. 21. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percent.

© 2011 Capitol News Company, LLC

Migrants – Victims of Crime, Not Criminals

2011-02-04T14:45:00.000-08:00

MEXICO
Migrants – Victims of Crime, Not Criminals
By Emilio Godoy

MEXICO CITY, Feb 1, 2011 (IPS) - Although Central American migrants continue to face all kinds of abuses and even death on their way north through Mexico to the U.S. border, experts and activists have begun to see a slight change in approach to the issue.

"The changes consist of a new attitude towards Mexico in Central America, which has prompted the Mexican government to react," Leticia Calderón, a professor at the public 'Doctor José María Luís Mora' Research Institute, told IPS. "In addition, local authorities are reacting to the new demands."

Increasing numbers of kidnappings and murders of migrants, mainly from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, as they make their way across Mexico have spurred human rights defenders and academics to step up pressure on the authorities to take measures to guarantee respect for the rights of undocumented migrants and to clamp down on the organised crime groups involved in such activities.

An estimated 500,000 undocumented migrants from Central and South America cross Mexico every year in their attempt to reach the United States, according to estimates based on official statistics and figures from NGOs.

Along the way, they face the risk of arbitrary arrest, extortion, theft, assault, rape, kidnapping and murder, at the hands of youth gangs and organised crime, as well as corrupt police and other agents of the state.

"The issue has now been exposed; it can no longer be denied, at least," Fabienne Venet, director of the Institute of Dissemination of Studies on Migration (INEDIM), told IPS. "We want to see them adopt programmes to protect migrants. We want a response: investigation of crimes, access to justice, and protection."

Although the dangers faced in Mexico by undocumented migrants attempting to make it to the United States are not new, two high-profile incidents last year prompted an increase in efforts by activists to get the issue addressed.

The mass killing of 72 undocumented migrants, mostly Central Americans, on a remote ranch in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas in August made headlines around the world. The authorities blamed the massacre on Los Zetas, a criminal organisation that dominates the migrant kidnapping racket

And in December, some 50 migrants were kidnapped in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, and have been missing since.

The route followed by the migrants runs south to north through the states of Tabasco, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz and Tamaulipas. The Mexican government has identified 25 municipalities that are particularly dangerous for migrants along the way.

These incidents and complaints and demands voiced by the governments of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras led the administration of conservative President Felipe Calderón to make diplomatic moves to calm the growing tension.

After the massacre in Tamaulipas, the government launched a strategy to fight the kidnapping of migrants, which has included the drawing up of a map of crime levels along the route northward, expediting investigations of kidnappings, tracing ransom payments, and providing assistance to victims.

Mexican and Honduran authorities also set up a high level security group to address issues related to immigration.

And since December, the Mexican Congress has been debating a migration bill that recognises the right of undocumented migrants to education, health care and justice.

But experts say no actual results have yet been seen. "The prevailing view of immigration as a national security issue is worrying," said Manuel Castillo, an academic at El Colegio de México, a college that specialises in the social sciences and the humanities.

"The mindset that sees migrants as criminals, rather than victims of crime, must be changed," he said.

According to the National Human Rights Commission, a government agency, some 20,000 migrants were kidnapped in 2010.

The U.S. government has shared information with authorities in Mexico, providing names, dates and ransom payments made by family members to save their relatives.

A U.S. government cable leaked by the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks indicated that FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) agents freely interrogate undocumented migrants detained in Mexico, purportedly for counter-terrorism purposes.

"The changes are going to have an impact," Leticia Calderón said. "The law, which is the product of work by academics and officials, will make the government react."

Despite the magnitude of the immigration question in Mexico, no delegate from this nation is taking part in the three-day World Assembly of Migrants that opens Wednesday on the Senegalese island of Gorée.

The meeting is to adopt a World Charter on Migrants, which will proclaim freedom of movement, citizenship based on residence and not nationality, and equal rights between foreign nationals and citizens.

The Charter was first discussed at the Second World Social Forum on Migration held in Madrid in 2006 and at the First World Summit on Latin American Migrants in Morelia, Mexico in 2007.

"We need policies, more professional agents and officials, and shelters for kidnap victims," Venet said. "Strategies can be proposed at different levels of the public administration, including the regional level."

Some 400 migrants die every year trying to cross the U.S. border from Mexico, according to human rights groups. But there are no reliable estimates as to how many undocumented Latin American migrants die in Mexico on their way north. (END)

U.S.-Mexico Border Violence Is Diminishing, Napolitano Says

2011-02-04T13:45:00.000-08:00

See post by Laura Carlsen that is critical of Napolitano.

Angela

U.S.-Mexico Border Violence Is Diminishing, Napolitano Says
By Jeff Bliss - Jan 31, 2011 11:10 AM CT

The U.S.-Mexico border is more secure than it has been in years, resulting in less violence and illegal immigration, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

U.S. border communities are not “out of control or overrun with violence,” she said today in a speech at the University of Texas at El Paso. “Illegal immigration is decreasing. Deportations are increasing. Crime rates are dropping.”

The Obama administration has been stymied by congressional Republicans and some Democrats in its efforts to propose immigration legislation to allow temporary foreign workers. Opponents say the administration should do more to stop illegal immigration before Congress considers letting more people into the country to work.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 779,000 illegal immigrants from the U.S. in the past two years, more “than ever before,” Napolitano said. More than half of the 195,000 people deported last year were convicted criminals, a 70 percent increase from the Bush administration, she said.

Napolitano also defended a decision by the Department of Homeland Security on Jan. 14 to kill a Boeing Co. border security system using cameras, radar and other sensors. The program, which was known as Secure Border Initiative Net, “was consistently over budget, behind schedule and simply not delivering the return on investment,” she said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeff Bliss in Washington at jbliss@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva in Washington at msilva34@bloomberg.net

MexicoBlog Editorial: Napolitano in Texas: Tough Talk, Little Coherence

2011-02-04T13:40:00.000-08:00

On Monday, Jan. 31, I crossed the border to hear Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano speak at the University of Texas/El Paso. I wanted to see what she had to say after spending the weekend in a two-day fast commemorating a year since the massacre of 18 mostly young people in Villas de Salvarcar, Ciudad Juárez.

I expected a clash of realities. The Obama administration has unconditionally adopted the Calderon government position that together they are winning the drug war and all that´s needed is to stay the course. Both governments avidly support militarization, of the border and of Mexico, as the means to confront organized crime. Both governments write off human rights concerns and the bloodshed that the war on drugs has caused as a necessary cost.

Even so, I wasn't prepared for Napolitano's outright contradictions and utter lack of compassion for the tragedies being played out on both sides of the border. Not once did she mention human rights, the rise in hate crimes and discriminatory laws and practices against latinos, violations taking place in detention centers, families pulled apart, or the deaths in Mexico as a result of the U.S.-supported drug war--despite the fact that hundreds of people demonstrated that same weekend on the Ciudad Juarez-El Paso border calling for an end the violence.

Instead, she dished out praise for the Southwest Border Initiative and some tough talk to Mexico. "I say to the cartels: Do not even think about bringing your violence and tactics across the border. You will be met by an overwhelming response. And we are going to continue to work with our partners in Mexico to dismantle and defeat you, and that message extends to anyone considering coming across that border illegally whether a smuggler, a human trafficker or an unlawful immigrant seeking work."

Again, immigrants--many of whom leave Mexico because of the disastrous economic and employment situation created by policies like NAFTA--were lumped in with drug and human traffickers. Although Napolitano stated support for comprehensive immigration reform, she praised record deportations and announced that detention facilities would be greatly expanded as the Secure Communities program swept more immigrants into its net and into the lucrative private centers.

The Secretary interpreted the surge in organized crime violence in Mexico as "seeking to undermine the rule of law, especially in Northern Mexico" with no recognition that the surge correlates directly to the launch of the disastrous drug war model by the Calderon administration. There was no indication whatsoever of the responsibility that the United States has in causing and perpetuating this violence against Mexican citizens through the Merida Initiative, of the pain of El Paso residents whose families live the horrors of the drug war's laboratory, nor of the deep-rooted problems of impunity and corruption on both sides of the border that have created the crisis for cities like Ciudad Juarez.

Nor did she address the U.S. role in consumption, corruption and domestic drug trafficking. She mentioned efforts at controlling the flow of guns, but noted that laws leave little room for successful prosecution even when it's known where cartel guns come from. At the same time as her talk, the ATF announced a cutback in funds for the gun-runner program.

Napolitano created a huge contradiction when she at once emphasized that the border communities are among the safest in the country--a fact backed up by statistics and that goes back decades-- and in the same breath stated that "We must guard against spillover effects." The rundown of security build-up on the border made no sense in the context of the low levels of violence and yet she promised to dedicate even more resources to beefing up border security. Absent was any suggestion that instead of spending the $600 million on SWBI and additional $150 million on Operation Stonegarden, perhaps the nation could better attend to the high levels of poverty: in El Paso one out of every four residents lives in poverty and the mayor recently stated that three of every ten children go to bed hungry.

What kind of security is that?

Leading the Nation: A Texas Retrospective on Education Reform

2011-02-04T13:21:00.000-08:00

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/REMINDER----Leading-the-Nation--A-Texas-Retrospective-on-Education-Reform.html?soid=1104155439128&aid=G6CogeQYzGU

How Immigrants Actually Reduce Crime - Newsweek

2011-02-04T11:05:00.000-08:00

How Immigrants Actually Reduce Crime - Newsweek

Reading, Ranting, And Arithmetic
Good cops know the difference between dangerous criminals and illegal aliens, which is one reason violent crime is going down, even in Arizona.

by Christopher DickeyMay 27, 2010
Last Friday, supporters of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer posted an amusing little video on YouTube showing a Kermit-ish frog singing about the need to read and then going into a funk after screening clips of Obama administration officials admitting they opined on the recent Arizona immigration bill without having, well, read it.

Fair enough. You have to take a good look at the law to appreciate how truly sinister it really is. But Brewer and her supporters need to do their homework, too. A little basic research would have shown them that big cities with large immigrant populations are safer places to live.

The Walled-Off World - Israel to Mexico

This is not just a matter of random correlation being mistaken for causation. A new study by sociologist Tim Wadsworth of the University of Colorado at Boulder carefully evaluates the various factors behind the statistics that show a massive drop in crime during the 1990s at a time when immigration rose dramatically. In a peer-reviewed paper appearing in the June 2010 issue of Social Science Quarterly, Wadsworth argues not only that “cities with the largest increases in immigration between 1990 and 2000 experienced the largest decreases in homicide and robbery,” which we knew, but that after considering all the other explanations, rising immigration “was partially responsible.”

To deny that reality and ignore its implications is likely to make life more dangerous all over America, diverting resources away from the fight against violent crime and breaking down the hard-won trust between cops and the communities where they work. Several police chiefs tried to make exactly this point Wednesday on a visit to Washington to talk about the Arizona law, due to take effect in July, and the bad precedent it sets. “This is not a law that increases public safety. This is a bill that makes it much harder for us to do our jobs,” said Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck. “Crime will go up if this becomes law in Arizona or in any other state.”

This is not an ideological question, although some of the law’s supporters, including some cops, would like to turn it into one. Experience has shown that when immigrants think they’ll be nailed for immigration offenses, they stop cooperating with law enforcement. The intelligence needed to find and fight hard-core criminals, whatever their immigration status, will be harder to get. People who feel themselves singled out for discrimination will withdraw more and more into ghettos, increasingly marginalized from American life instead of integrated into it. Smart cops understand all this perfectly well.

But of course if you’re using frog puppets as part of a know-nothing campaign to convince people that immigrants bring crime to the United States like rats carrying the plague, you’re not going to want to listen to reason, and you’ll ignore facts like the just-released preliminary statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report, which appear to line up with Wadsworth’s research. What’s so striking about them, he told me in an e-mail, is not just that the FBI numbers provide anecdotal support for his analysis, but that they are “entirely inconsistent with the claims of politicians and the general public sentiment.”

Let’s start with Arizona.

Something scary is going on there, and it’s not just politics. It’s gangs that smuggle people and drugs and that sometimes settle scores among themselves by murdering and kidnapping. Most of those involved are of Mexican origin, which is why the Obama administration is sending 1,200 National Guard troops to the Southwest to get more “boots on the ground” near the border. But nobody’s going to be manning a Great Wall of Arizona. The troop deployment, along with a request for a half billion dollars in new funding, aims at building what the office of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords describes as “a multi-layered effort to target illicit networks trafficking in people, drugs, illegal weapons, and money.” Notice the focus is not on the illegal immigrants, who are more likely to be victims than perpetrators.

That’s a distinction that raving pundits on the right have always had trouble making when they talk about an “illegal-alien crime wave.” And even some politicians who know better have been happy to stoke the fire. Thus Governor Brewer told Fox News and anyone else who’d listen, “We’ve been inundated with criminal activity. It’s just—it’s been outrageous.” Arizona’s Sen. John McCain said last month that the failure to secure the border with Mexico “has led to violence—the worst I have ever seen.” The president of the Arizona Association of Sheriffs, Paul Babeu of Pinal County, claims, “Crime is off the chart in this state.”

What the FBI chart actually shows is that the incidence of violent crime in Arizona declined dramatically in the last two years. After a spike in 2006 and 2007, the number in Phoenix dropped to 10,465 in 2008 and to 8,730 in 2009, which is lower than it was six years ago. Murders, which hit a high of 234 in 2006, dropped to 167 in 2008 and 122 in 2009. (Some lesser crimes may go unreported, especially if people are scared to talk to the cops, but police statistics only rarely miss a murder.)

The Phoenix authorities should be congratulated. But as Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris said last month, Brewer’s immigration law is just going to make his job more difficult. “It takes officers away from doing what our main core mission is, and that is to make our community safe, and instead tells us to become immigration officers and enforce routine immigration laws that I do not think we have the authority to even enforce,” Harris told the local Fox station, KSAZ. If you want to keep preventing violent crime, you do not waste your limited manpower on job-seeking “illegals.”

Did I already make that point? It bears repeating. The FBI numbers show that in the midst of the supposed crime wave, many other cities in the Southwest have had declines in crime similar to Phoenix. El Paso, Texas, just across the Rio Grande from a ferocious drug war in Juarez, where some 5,000 people have been murdered in recent years, saw almost no change in its own crime rate and remains one of the safest cities in the country, with only 12 murders last year. San Antonio saw violent crime drop from 9,699 incidents to 7,844; murders from 116 to 99. Compare that with a city like Detroit, which is a little bigger than El Paso and much smaller than San Antonio—and not exactly a magnet for job-seeking immigrants. Its murder rate went up from 323 in 2008 to 361 in 2009.

Indeed, some law-enforcement officers in Arizona’s own border towns scoff at the new law. The murder of Cochise County rancher Robert Krentz by a suspected illegal in March, which added fuel to the furor behind the Arizona law, was the exception rather than the rule. According to The Arizona Republic, which cited the Border Patrol, “Krentz is the only American murdered by a suspected illegal immigrant in at least a decade within the agency’s Tucson sector, the busiest smuggling route among the Border Patrol’s nine coverage regions along the U.S.-Mexican border.”
Most of the immigrants are headed deeper into the country, of course, including New York City, which has seen its Mexican population rise by an astounding rate of almost 58 percent since 2000, for a total of almost 300,000 by 2007. And crime rates? New York City, with a population of 8.5 million, some 40 percent of whom were born outside the United States, is one of those jurisdictions that prohibit police officers from questioning people about their immigration status. Its murder rate plunged from 2,245 in 1990 to 471 in 2009.

So, yes, there are pretty compelling data to support the argument that immigrants as such—even presumably “illegal” immigrants—do not make cities more dangerous to live in. But what mechanism about such immigration makes cities safer? Robert J. Sampson, head of the sociology department at Harvard, has suggested that, among other things, immigrants move into neighborhoods abandoned by locals and help prevent them from turning into urban wastelands. They often have tighter family structures and mutual support networks, all of which actually serve to stabilize urban environments. As Sampson told me back in 2007, “If you want to be safe, move to an immigrant city.”

What other variables may be at work driving crime down? The ones most often cited are rising levels of incarceration, changes in drug markets, and the aging of the overall population. The authors of Freakonomics argue that the big drop in violent crime during the 1990s was a direct result of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in 1973 and reduced by millions the pool of unwanted children who might have grown up to be criminals a generation later. Still, Wadsworth’s research and the recent FBI data reinforce the judgment that the vast majority of immigrants make our cities safer, especially when police know how to work with them, not against them. To blame all immigrants for the crimes committed by a few, and give the cops the job of chasing them for immigration offenses instead of focusing resources on catching the real bad guys, is simply nuts.

But that message just isn’t getting through. Polls continue to show that the vast majority of Americans think immigrants cause crime. Maybe what’s needed is a YouTube video of a winsome frog puppet getting us to repeat after him: “Immigrants don’t kill people, criminals do.”

Christopher Dickey is the author of six books, most recently Securing the City: Inside America’s Best Counterterror Force—the NYPD.

MALDEF WINS NINTH CIRCUIT DECISION UPHOLDING VERDICT AGAINST ARIZONA VIGILANTE FOR ATTACK ON IMMIGRANTS

2011-02-04T10:19:00.000-08:00

Good news from MALDEF. -Angela

MALDEF WINS NINTH CIRCUIT DECISION UPHOLDING VERDICT AGAINST ARIZONA VIGILANTE FOR ATTACK ON IMMIGRANTS

SAN ANTONIO, TX – Today, MALDEF welcomed the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in Vicente v. Barnett, upholding an Arizona jury verdict against a vigilante rancher operating along the Arizona-Mexico border. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the jury’s decision that the vigilante was liable for assaulting a group of immigrants he found on public land. As a result of today’s ruling, the rancher will be forced to pay approximately $87,000 in damages.

The Ninth Circuit ruled that the rancher, Roger Barnett, was not entitled to claim self defense, because he admitted that none of the migrants he assaulted had threatened or attacked him. The Ninth Circuit also upheld the jury’s award of punitive damages against Barnett.

"We are very pleased with the Ninth Circuit's verdict. Today's ruling sends the strong message that vigilantes will not be tolerated in Arizona" stated David Hinojosa, MALDEF's Southwest Regional Counsel and attorney in the case.

"This case was tried in Tucson in front of Chief Judge John Roll, who was tragically killed in the recent attack on U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords," stated Nina Perales, MALDEF Director of Litigation. "We are pleased to have secured some justice for our clients, and to have preserved the ruling in a case in which Chief Judge Roll served so ably and fairly," continued Perales.

Prior to Barnett's attack, the plaintiffs had been resting on the ground near Douglas, Arizona. Barnett was armed with a gun – a semi-automatic .45 – and was accompanied by a large dog. He held the group captive, threatening that his dog would attack and that he would shoot anyone who tried to leave. During the encounter, Barnett kicked a woman as she was lying, unarmed, on the ground.

Today's ruling marks the second successful case challenging Roger Barnett's vigilante attacks along the border. In September 2008, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld a jury award of close to $100,000 in damages for a family of Latino U.S. citizens who were assaulted by Barnett on state-owned land. In that case, Barnett held the group at gunpoint with a semi-automatic military-style assault rifle, cursed and screamed racial slurs at them and threatened to kill them all, including two girls aged 9 and 11.

Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF President and General Counsel stated "This decision vindicates constitutional guarantees for all. Even in Arizona, vigilantes do not have the right to harass and victimize peaceful migrants."

The law firms of Freedman Boyd Hollander Goldberg & Ives P.A. and Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP participated as pro bono counsel on behalf of the plaintiffs.

The Ninth Circuit decision can be found at:

http://maldef.org/assets/pdf/ninth_circuit_vicente_barnett.pdf

Founded in 1968, MALDEF is the nation’s leading Latino legal civil rights organization. Often described as the “law firm of the Latino community,” MALDEF promotes social change through advocacy, communications, community education, and litigation in the areas of education, employment, immigrant rights, and political access. For more information on MALDEF, please visit: www.maldef.org.

© 2010 MALDEF
MALDEF NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS
Los Angeles Regional Office
634 S. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90014

Tel: 213.629.2512

Free trade: As U.S. corn flows south, Mexicans stop farming

2011-02-04T09:27:00.000-08:00

A flood of U.S. corn imports, combined with subsidies that favor agribusiness, are blamed for the loss of two million farm jobs in Mexico. | Heriberto Rodriguez/MCT

By Tim Johnson | McClatchy Newspapers

SAN JERONIMO SOLOLA, Mexico — Look around the rain-fed corn farms in Oaxaca state, and in vast areas of Mexico, and one sees few young men, just elderly people and single mothers.

"The men have gone to the United States," explained Abel Santiago Duran, a 56-year-old municipal agent, as he surveyed this empty village in Oaxaca state.

The countryside wasn't supposed to hollow out in this way when the North American Free Trade Agreement linked Mexico, Canada and the U.S. in 1994. Mexico, hoping its factories would absorb displaced farmers, said it would "export goods, not people."

But in hindsight, the agricultural elements of the pact were brutal on Mexico's corn farmers. A flood of U.S. corn imports, combined with subsidies that favor agribusiness, are blamed for the loss of 2 million farm jobs in Mexico. The trade pact worsened illegal migration, some experts say, particularly in areas where small farmers barely eke out a living.

That is the case in the rolling hills of western Oaxaca state, ancestral lands of indigenous Mixtecs who till small plots of corn, beans and squash between stands of jacarandas, junipers and eucalyptus. Eagles soar in the brilliant blue skies. Clumps of prickly pear and organ cactus attest to the sporadic nature of rainfall.

When a visitor arrives, the gray-haired men on the veranda of the village hall talk about the exodus of young men.

"When they hit 18 and finish secondary school, they leave for the United States or other states of Mexico," Duran said.

His cousin, Jesus Duran, said young men see little future as corn farmers and observe with dismay how the government aims subsidies at medium and big farms, leaving only a trickle for small family farms.

"If you go to the offices over there and ask for help," Duran said, nodding to the local agriculture agency, "they say there isn't any to give."

Mexican negotiators who signed the NAFTA agreement hoped that small corn farmers thrown out of work by rising imports of cheap U.S. corn would be absorbed into jobs in the fruit and vegetable export industry or in manufacturing.

"That turned out to be incorrect. The numbers of people displaced from family farming were much, much higher than the number of new wage jobs," said Jonathan Fox, an expert on rural Mexico at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Then U.S. corn imports crested like a rain-swollen river, increasing from 7 percent of Mexican consumption to around 34 percent, mostly for animal feed and for industrial uses as cornstarch.

"It's been roughly a tripling, quadrupling, quintupling of U.S. corn exports to Mexico, depending on the year," said Timothy A. Wise, the director of research and policy at the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University in Medford, Mass. "Is that a river? Yeah, that's a lot of corn."

Fox and Wise are among the collaborators on a study, "Subsidizing Inequality: Mexican corn policy since NAFTA," released last autumn.

Representatives of small farmers say Mexico's policymakers tossed the dice that trade-spurred growth would take care of rural disruptions — and lost.

"The great failure of this supposition is that there wasn't economic growth that would absorb these people," said Victor Suarez, the executive director of the National Association of Rural Producers, which represents 60,000 small farmers. "The result has left rural areas increasingly populated by the elderly and women."

Faced with deepening poverty, rural migrants have tried to escape regions of Mexico that never used to be sources of emigration.

"In Chiapas, there was hardly any migration before NAFTA," Suarez said, referring to Mexico's southernmost state. "Farm laborers were even brought in from Guatemala. Now, more than 50,000 rural people from Chiapas go each year to the United States."

Corn imports from the U.S. are only one component of what scholars say is a complex picture. In fact, Mexican corn production has risen since the trade pact, driven by domestic agribusiness and supported by subsidies biased to favor large producers that by one estimate surpassed $20 billion in the past two decades.

The Mexican government also has cash-transfer subsidies, known as ProCampo, for small farmers who are considered the free-trade pact's losers. But they reach only a portion of small corn growers, a quarter of whom are indigenous.

Some rural farmers no longer have enough corn to sell, sinking into subsistence living for themselves and their families.

"Of my generation," said 33-year-old Baldemar Mendoza, a Zapotec small corn farmer in the Sierra Juarez area of Oaxaca, "many people want nothing to do with farming because it doesn't pay. With all the changes in the weather, there is no certainty that your harvest will be good."

Unless the central government tweaks subsidies to make more small family farms economically viable, the result may be sustained migrant flows, experts said.

"The government didn't so much pull the plug on corn. The government pulled the plug on family farmers who grow corn because the big guys who grew corn got massive subsidies and protection from imports," Fox said.

Under the free-trade umbrella, several Mexican agro-industrial companies have become muscular global conglomerates.

"Before NAFTA, Grupo Bimbo was a big company. Now it is the largest industrial user of wheat in the world," Suarez said, referring to the world's No. 1 bread maker. "Maseca was a big company. Now it is a global company with a strong position in cornmeal worldwide."

Their powerful position in the market has kept prices high for consumers, while in the countryside, the social fabric frays as families disperse to find jobs.

The impact, Fox said, "unravels rural communities, separates families and makes it difficult for young people to see a future in their communities of origin."

Josefa Soriano, 74, doesn't need an explanation of what's happening. She sees it with her own eyes. As a rural exodus unfolds, families keep fewer of the animals such as goats, cattle and burros that provided manure for fields. Such livestock must have caretakers.

"You have no choice but to buy fertilizer now," she said. "If you don't fertilize, nothing grows, not even fodder."

As she ambled through the settlement, Soriano offered a running commentary on those who have migrated.

"The village is almost without people," Soriano said. "Many houses are empty. The fathers and the sons have gone."

She turned to a visitor and said, "If the young people always leave, what do you think will happen to us?"

At Trial of Cuban Exile, a Rebuffed Venezuela Sits Quietly on the Sidelines

2011-02-04T09:24:00.000-08:00

This is a surreal accounting of an attempt by the Venezuelan government to extradite Luis Posada Carriles who masterminded the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner while a U.S. court is attending to his telling lies about his immigration status. Amazing.

Angela

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

Published: January 30, 2011

EL PASO - Perhaps the most frustrated person in the courtroom the last two weeks at the perjury trial of Luis Posada Carriles, the Cuban militant and former C.I.A. operative, was the sad-eyed lawyer who represents Venezuela.

For five years, the lawyer, José Pertierra, has been seeking the extradition of Mr. Posada to stand trial in Venezuela in the bombing of a Cuban passenger jet in 1976, which killed everyone on board.

But the State Department and the Justice Department have never presented the request to a federal judge.

Instead, the Justice Department is prosecuting Mr. Posada for having lied during two immigration hearings more than five years ago.

"It's odd to be sitting in a federal court building and listening to testimony not about the extradition of Posada to face murder charges, but instead to listen to testimony about him lying on immigration forms," Mr. Pertierra said.

To prove that Mr. Posada committed perjury, prosecutors plan to bring up evidence about bombings at Havana tourist spots in 1997.

They say Mr. Posada took credit for those attacks in 1998, then later, under oath, denied that he had organized them.

But the trial is unlikely to shed light on his alleged role in the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 on Oct. 6, 1976.

The midair explosion killed 73 people, including teenagers from Cuba's national fencing team.

A government informer, Carlos Abascal, testifying over five days last week, said he had traveled with Mr. Posada on a shrimp boat from the Yucatán Peninsula to Miami in 2005, where it landed at a waterfront restaurant, letting the old Cuban exile sneak into the United States.

One part of the indictment charges Mr. Posada with lying under oath when he said he crossed through Mexico and entered the country in Brownsville, Tex.

A defense lawyer, Arturo V. Hernandez, attacked Mr. Abascal's credibility, interrogating him about his history of mental problems and showing records that documented schizophrenic episodes and hallucinations.

Venezuela has been demanding the extradition of Mr. Posada since he popped up in Miami, but the United States has so far rebuffed the request.

Last June, the United States said in a diplomatic note that Venezuela had not presented enough evidence to show that the police had "probable cause" to arrest Mr. Posada for the bombing, Mr. Pertierra said.
Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department, declined to comment on why the United States had not acted on the extradition request.

A spokesman for the State Department, Charles Luoma-Overstreet, declined to comment on the diplomatic note.

The United States' position on Mr. Posada's extradition was complicated in 2006, when an immigration judge in El Paso ruled that Mr. Posada should be deported but could not be sent back to Venezuela because he would probably face torture there.

American officials say that the immigration judge's ruling and the perjury trial have tied their hands, but Venezuela has argued that neither should keep a federal judge from hearing the extradition case.

No other country has offered to take Mr. Posada, who is 82, and he has lived in legal limbo in Miami for years.

His movements are tracked by federal immigration agents; he wears an ankle monitor. Mr. Posada was never convicted in the airplane bombing.

He escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 just a few months before a judge reached a verdict for the other three men accused in the plot.

He has long insisted that he had nothing to do with it.

But the police in Trinidad and Venezuela said they found evidence tying Mr. Posada to the plot. That evidence is buttressed by declassified documents from the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. showing that American agents received information that Mr. Posada was involved in the bombing, along with a known anti-Castro terrorist, Orlando Bosch Ávila. "U.S. intelligence consistently pointed to Bosch and Posada as the masterminds," said Peter Kornbluh, an analyst with the National Security Archive who has assembled most of the declassified documents regarding Mr. Posada's career. Both Mr. Bosch and Mr. Posada were arrested in Venezuela after the airplane went down. Mr. Posada escaped disguised as a priest. Mr. Bosch was acquitted in 1987 and, though he had no visa, migrated to the United States. Like Mr. Posada, he was held by immigration authorities until President George Bush gave him an administrative pardon in 1990.

The case against Mr. Posada in Venezuela rests largely on the statements of the two men arrested in Trinidad a day after the bombing, Hernán Ricardo Lozano and Freddy Lugo. Both were employed by Mr. Posada at his private security company in Caracas, an office through which many anti-Castro Cubans passed, according to F.B.I. records. After nearly two weeks of questioning, Mr. Ricardo confessed to the police in Trinidad that he and Mr. Lugo had planted the bomb, disguising it as a tube of toothpaste. The two men had boarded the plane in Port of Spain, checked their luggage and then got off on a stop in Barbados. After the plane went down, 16 minutes after takeoff, they took another flight back to Trinidad, where they were arrested the next day on a tip from the Venezuelan police. Both implicated Mr. Posada in the plot in their statements to the police, though they did not plainly say he had planned it. Mr. Ricardo admitted that he worked for Mr. Posada. Mr. Lugo said that after the bombing, Mr. Ricardo tried to call Mr. Posada at his office and left a message with a secretary, giving the number of the hotel where they were staying. In his confession, Mr. Ricardo said he had actually spoken to Orlando Bosch. He said Mr. Bosch was upset and told him: "Friend, we have problems here in Caracas. You never blow up a plane while it is in the air."

The Venezuelan police also raided Mr. Posada's offices and discovered, among other things, a scouting list of sites for terrorist attacks in his desk. The list was in Mr. Ricardo's handwriting and included targets that had been hit by anti-Castro terrorists that summer. None of this surprised American intelligence agents, according to declassified C.I.A. and F.B.I. documents. Mr. Posada was well known to both agencies. In the 1960s, he had been trained in explosives by the C.I.A. and had worked for the agency from 1965 until 1974, with a single year's hiatus, the documents show. He continued to peddle unsolicited information to American agents in return for help with visas until his arrest in Venezuela two years later. The most damning report the American intelligence services had about Mr. Posada came from a Miami-Dade County police officer, Raul Diaz, who had traveled to Venezuela in late October, according to a declassified November 1976 F.B.I. report. Seeking information about bombings in Miami, Mr. Diaz had met with a Venezuelan counterintelligence agent, Ricardo Morales Navarrete, and asked him to testify. Mr. Morales said no, but he told Mr. Diaz that he had information about the bombing of the Cuban airliner. He said he had been present at two meetings in Caracas during which the bombing had been planned, one in the Hotel Anauco and another in his own apartment. Mr. Posada had attended both meetings. There were other less concrete but still tantalizing connections drawn between Mr. Posada and the airplane bombing in American intelligence cables. In mid-September, when Mr. Bosch arrived in Caracas, Mr. Posada met him at the airport, according to a declassified C.I.A. report from October 1976. Shortly after Mr. Bosch's arrival, a $1,100-a-plate fund-raiser for him was held in the home of an exiled Cuban physician. Mr. Posada attended. The C.I.A. source said Mr. Bosch had mentioned boastfully that his organization was planning a new attack. The report continued: "A few days following the fund-raising dinner, Posada was overheard to say that, 'We are going to hit a Cuban airplane' and that 'Orlando has the details.' "

Birthright Citizenship Looms as Next Immigration Battle

2011-02-04T09:19:00.000-08:00

January 4, 2011
Birthright Citizenship Looms as Next Immigration Battle
By MARC LACEY

NOGALES, Ariz. — Of the 50 or so women bused to this border town on a recent morning to be deported back to Mexico, Inez Vasquez stood out. Eight months pregnant, she had tried to trudge north in her fragile state, even carrying scissors with her in case she gave birth in the desert and had to cut the umbilical cord.

“All I want is a better life,” she said after the Border Patrol found her hiding in bushes on the Arizona side of the border with her husband, her young son and her very pronounced abdomen.

The next big immigration battle centers on illegal immigrants’ offspring, who are granted automatic citizenship like all other babies born on American soil. Arguing for an end to the policy, which is rooted in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, immigration hard-liners describe a wave of migrants like Ms. Vasquez stepping across the border in the advanced stages of pregnancy to have what are dismissively called “anchor babies.”

The reality at this stretch of the border is more complex, with hospitals reporting some immigrants arriving to give birth in the United States but many of them frequent border crossers with valid visas who have crossed the border legally to take advantage of better medical care. Some are even attracted by an electronic billboard on the Mexican side that advertises the services of an American doctor and says bluntly, “Do you want to have your baby in the U.S.?”

Women like Ms. Vasquez, who was preparing for a desert delivery, are rare.

Still, Arizona — whose tough law granting the police the power to detain illegal immigrants is tied up in the courts — may again take the lead in what is essentially an effort to redefine what it means to be an American. This time, though, Arizona lawmakers intend to join with legislators from other states to force the issue before the Supreme Court.

This coalition of lawmakers will unveil its exact plans on Wednesday in Washington, but people involved in drafting the legislation say they have decided against the painstaking process of amending the Constitution. Since the federal government decides who is to be deemed a citizen, the lawmakers are considering instead a move to create two kinds of birth certificates in their states, one for the children of citizens and another for the children of illegal immigrants.

The theory is that this could spark a flurry of lawsuits that might resolve the legal conflict in their favor.

“This is not a far-out, extremist position,” said John Kavanagh, one of the Arizona legislators who is leading an effort that has been called just that. “Only a handful of countries in the world grant citizenship based on the GPS location of the birth.”

Most scholars of the Constitution consider the states’ effort to restrict birth certificates patently unconstitutional. “This is political theater, not a serious effort to create a legal test,” said Gabriel J. Chin, a law professor at the University of Arizona whose grandfather immigrated to the United States from China at a time when ethnic Chinese were excluded from the country. “It strikes me as unwise, un-American and unconstitutional.”

The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, was a repudiation of the Supreme Court’s 1857 ruling, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, that people of African descent could never be American citizens. The amendment said citizenship applied to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

In 1898, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, interpreted the citizenship provision as applying to a child born in the United States to a Chinese immigrant couple.

Still, some conservatives contend that the issue is unsettled. Kris Kobach, the incoming secretary of state in Kansas and a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who has helped draft many of the tough immigration regulations across the country, argued that the approach the states were planning would hold up to scrutiny.

“I can’t really say much more without showing my hand,” Mr. Kobach said in an e-mail. “But, yes, I am confident that the law will stand up in court.”

The legal theories are lost on Laura Gomez, 24, who crossed into Arizona from Mexico five years ago while expecting and is now pregnant with her second child. But like many other pregnant women in Arizona who are without papers, she has been following the issue with anxiety.

“It doesn’t seem fair to just change the rules like that,” Ms. Gomez said.

Despite being called “anchor babies,” the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States cannot actually prevent deportation of their parents. It is not until they reach the age of 21 that the children are able to file paperwork to sponsor their parents for legal immigration status. The parents remain vulnerable until that point.

Maria Ledezma knows as much. Just off a bus that deported her from Phoenix to the Mexico border town of Nogales, she was sobbing as she explained the series of events that led her to be separated from her three daughters, ages 4, 7 and 9, all American citizens.

“I never imagined being here,” said Ms. Ledezma, 25, who was brought to Phoenix from Mexico as a toddler. “I’ll bet right now that my girls are asking, ‘Where’s Mom?’ ”

Blended families like hers are a reality across the United States. A studyreleased in August by the Pew Hispanic Center found that about 340,000 children were born to illegal immigrants in the United States in 2008 and became instant citizens.

In April, Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California, one of those pushing for Congressional action on the issue, stirred controversy when he suggested that children born in the United States to illegal immigrants should be deported with their parents until the birthright citizenship policy was changed.

“And we’re not being mean,” Mr. Hunter told a Tea Party rally in Southern California. “We’re just saying it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen. It’s what’s in our souls.”

Immigrant advocates say intolerance is driving the measure. “They call themselves patriots, but they pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they support,” said Lydia Guzman, a Latino activist in Phoenix. “They’re fear-mongerers. They’re clowns.”

Like many states, Arizona is suffering a severe budget crisis, prompting even some lawmakers who have supported immigration restrictions in the past to question whether it is the right time for another divisive immigration bill. They say the state’s fiscal issues need to be resolved before Arizona jumps back into a controversial immigration debate.

“I was born and raised in New York,” responded Mr. Kavanagh, who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the Arizona House. “I can ride a subway, drink coffee, read the newspaper and make sure my pockets are not picked all at the same time.”

Scholars who have studied migration say it is the desire for better-paying jobs, not a passport for their children, that is the main motivator for people to leave their homes for the United States.

Even Ms. Vasquez, who was preparing for a desert delivery, agrees with that. While she preferred to have her child be born in the United States, she said, it was the prospect of a better economic future, with or without papers, that had prompted her and her family to cross when they did. “I’ll try again — but once the baby’s born,” she said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 4, 2011

An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the year that the Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, applied the citizenship provision to a child born in the United States to Chinese immigrants; it was 1898.

Arizona vigilante killings: Mother of Brisenia Flores describes border vigilante killings - latimes.com

2011-02-04T09:15:00.000-08:00

Arizona vigilante killings: Mother of Brisenia Flores describes border vigilante killings - latimes.com

This is an absolutely horrific story of a killing of a 9-year old girl in Arizona by a vigilante, anti-immigrant group.

We need to have a national conversation, folks, about the deaths of 9-year-olds that is the progeny of race-based bigotry and hatred. Our prayers are with Brisenia's mother and family.

-Angela

Dispatches From The Edge Latin America: The Empire Strikes Back

2011-02-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

This is a very thoughtful analysis of the growing independence of Latin American countries—albeit, a fragile independence associated with the vicissitudes of fragile economies. Good read.

-Angela

Dispatches From The Edge
Latin America: The Empire Strikes Back

By Conn Hallinan

For the past decade, American policy vis-Ã -vis Latin
America has been relatively low-key, partly because of
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and partly because
the region has seen an unprecedented growth in economic
power and political independence. But, with Republicans
taking over the House of Representatives, that is about
to change, and, while the Southern Cone no longer
stands to attention when Washington snaps its fingers,
an aggressive and right wing Congress is capable of
causing considerable mischief.

Rep. Lleana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl), a long-time hawk on
Cuba and leftist regimes in Venezuela and Bolivia, is
the new chair of the powerful House Committee on
Foreign Affairs, and the rightist Rep. Connie Mack (D-
Fl) heads up the House subcommittee on Western
Hemisphere affairs. Ros-Lethinen is already preparing
hearings aimed at Venezuela and Bolivia, and Mack will
try to put the former on the State Department's list of
countries sponsoring terrorism.

Ros-Lehtinen plans to target Venezuela's supposed ties
to Middle East terrorist groups and Iran's nuclear
weapons program, and to push for economic sanctions
against Venezuela's state-owned oil company and banks.
"It will be good for congressional subcommittees to
start talking about [President of Venezuela Hugo]
Chavez, about [President of Bolivia Evo] Morales, about
issues that have not been talked about," she told the
Miami Herald.

The new chairs of the House Intelligence Committee and
Judiciary Committee have also signaled they intend to
weigh in on establishing a more hawkish line on Latin
America.

Unfortunately, it is the Obama administration that
created an opening for the Republicans. While the White
House came in pledging to improve relations with Latin
America, Washington has ended up supporting a coup in
Honduras, strengthening the U.S. military's presence in
the region, and ignoring growing criticism of its
failed war on drugs.

Recent disclosures by Wikileaks reveal the Obama
administration was well aware that the June 2009
Honduran coup against President Manuel Zelaya was
illegal; nonetheless, it intervened to help keep the
coup forces in power. Other cables demonstrate an on-
going American hostility to the Morales regime in
Bolivia and Washington's sympathy with secessionist
forces in that country's rich eastern provinces.

Many Latin Americans initially had high hopes the Obama
administration would bring a new approach to its
relations with the region, but some say they have seen
little difference from the Bush Administration. "The
truth is that nothing has changed and I view that with
sadness," says former Brazilian president Luiz Lula da
Silva. But things may go from bad to worse if the White
House is passive in the face of a sharp rightward turn
by Congress.

The Latin America of 2011 is not the same place it was
a generation ago. Economic growth has outstripped the
U.S. and Europe, progressive and left governments have
lifted 38 million people out of poverty, cut extreme
poverty by 70 percent, and increased literacy. The
region has also increased its south-south relations
with countries like China, South Africa and India.
China is now Brazil's number one trading partner. An
economic alliance-Mercosur-has knitted the region
together economically, and the U.S.-dominated
Organization of American States (OAS) finds itself
eclipsed by the newly formed Union of South American
Nations.

But many countries in Latin America are still riven by
wealth disparities, ethnic divides, and powerful ties
between local oligarchies and the region's curse:
powerful and undemocratic police and militaries. One
such military pulled off the Honduran coup, and police
came within a whisker of overthrowing Ecuador's
progressive president, Rafael Correa, in 2010.

One 2007 Wikileaks cable titled "A Southern Cone
perspective on countering Chavez and reasserting U.S.
leadership," pointed out "Southern Cone militaries
remain key institutions in their respective countries
and important allies for the U.S." The author of the
cable, then ambassador to Chile, Craig Kelly, is
currently principle Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State. Kelly strongly recommended increasing aid to
Latin American militaries to help them "modernize."

In many cases, rightists in Latin America share an
agenda with right-wing forces in the U.S. For instance,
Republicans played a key role in supporting the
Honduran coup and continue to strengthen those ties. In
a recent trip to Honduras, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Ca)
-a senior member of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee-brought together U.S. business leaders and
Honduran officials to discuss American investment.
Honduras was suspended from the OAS, and only a handful
of Latin American governments recognize the new
president, Porfirio Lobo.

It was the Obama Administration, however, who
recognized the government established by the coup, and
remains silent in the face of what Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch calls widespread
human rights violations by the Lobos regime, including
the unsolved murder of at least 18 opponents. U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is lobbying hard to
have Honduras re-admitted to the OAS.

A quick survey of Republican targets suggests troubled
waters ahead.

Chavez has won two elections and is enormously popular.
He has cut poverty, tripled social spending, doubled
university enrollment, and extended health care to most
of the poor. A U.S. engineered coup seems unlikely. But
a "supporter of terrorism" designation would cause
considerable difficulties with international financing
and foreign investment. Sanctions on oil and banking
would also disrupt the Venezuelan economy, in the long
run creating conditions favorable to a possible coup.

While it is hard to imagine what else the U.S. could do
to Cuba, Congress may try to choke off investment in
Cuba's growing oil and gas industries. Companies are
already jumping through hoops to avoid getting around
the current embargo. The Spanish oil company Repsol
and Italy's Eni SpA recently built an offshore oil rig
in China to dodge the blockade.

"It is ridiculous that Repsol, a Spanish oil company,
is paying an Italian firm to build an oil rig in China
that will be used next year to explore for oil 50 miles
from Florida," Sarah Stephens, director of the Center
for Democracy in the Americas told the Financial Times.
If the Republicans have their way, sanctions will be
applied to those oil companies.

Ecuador's Correa beat back a recent right-wing coup,
largely because of his 67 percent approval rating. He
has doubled spending on health care, increased social
spending, and stiffed an illegitimate $3.2 billion
foreign debt. But he has a tense relationship with
indigenous movements, which accuse him of trying to
marginalize them. While those groups did not support
the coup, neither did they rally to the government's
support. Those divisions could be easily exploited to
destabilize the government.

In the case of Bolivia, the Wikileak released cables,
according to Latin American journalist and author
Benjamin Dangl, "lays bare an embassy that is biased
against Evo Morales' government, underestimates the
sophistication of the governing party's grassroots
base, and is out of touch with the political reality of
the country."

The cables indicate the U.S. is relying on information
from extreme right wing and violent secessionist groups
in Eastern Bolivia, groups that receive financing and
training from the National Endowment for Democracy and
USAID. Both groups have close ties to American
intelligence organizations. Given Brazil's strong
opposition to any attempt to break up Bolivia, it is
not clear a succession movement would succeed. But
would Brazil-or Argentina, Uruguay or Paraguay-actually
intervene?

Paraguay is also a country deeply divided between left
and right, with a progressive president who warned last
year that a coup by the country's powerful military was
a possibility.

The Obama administration's acceptance of the Honduran
coup sent a chill throughout Latin America, and
certainly emboldened those who see tanks and caudillos
as an answer to the region's surge of progressive
politics and independent foreign policy. The recent
effort by Turkey and Brazil to broker a compromise with
Iran over its nuclear program did not go down well in
Washington. Neither have efforts to chart an
independent course on the Middle East by nations in the
region. Several countries have formally recognized a
Palestinian state, and Peru will host an Arab-Latin
America summit Feb. 16.

Latin America is no longer an appendage to the colossus
of the north, but its growing independence is fragile,
as the coups in Honduras and Ecuador suggest. The chasm
between rich and poor is being closed, but it is still
substantial. The economies in the region are growing at
a respectable 6 percent, but, because they are
relatively small, they can be more easily derailed by
internal and external crises. Even as its power wanes,
the U.S. is still the world's largest economy with the
world's largest military. This, plus anti-democratic
forces in Latin America, is fertile ground for
mischief, particularly if there is not strong
resistance on the U.S. home front.

Read Conn Hallinan's writings at
dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com

Opinion: Immigration Reform Makes Cents

2011-02-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

By: Rep. Mike Honda
February 3, 2011 04:40 AM EST

House Speaker John Boehner’s recent selection of Rep. Elton Gallegly of California over Rep. Steve King of Iowa to head the Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee is one step closer to the kind of reform for which past administrations, including those of former Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, had long called.

Both Republican congressmen may be opposed to the kind of reform that House Democrats call for. But Gallegly seems inclined to take a more reasoned approach. Especially if Democrats can explain the economic advantages to reform. And there are many.

Immigration brings formidable fiscal implications. Keeping immigrants here or sending them home can save or cost taxpayers dearly. Just count the ways that reform, which puts undocumented immigrants on the path to legalization, could foot our country’s finances.

First, any deportation plan for undocumented immigrants would cost our country’s gross domestic product a whopping $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years, according to a study by Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Conversely, if we embrace comprehensive immigration reform, we could add $1.5 trillion to the U.S. GDP over the next 10 years. The economy could also benefit from a temporary worker program, Hinojosa-Ojeda projected,by raising GDP by $792 billion.

Second, immigrants who become U.S. citizens consistently pursue higher-paying jobs and higher education, spend more and provide higher tax revenue. Just imagine what 12 million newly documented Americans could do for the economy.

The legalization process also brings economic benefits — like the retention of remittances. Workers send substantial portions of their salary to family members abroad, but reform could reunite families separated by our immigration system and keep monies in the U.S.

For example, total U.S. remittances to Latin America was almost $46 billion in 2008. Of that, Mexico received almost $24 billion. Reducing remittances offers obvious cash infusion for our economy, since billions of dollars now sent overseas would be spent instead on U.S. businesses — creating jobs and helping to revive our economy.

Third, by giving 2.1 million American students the opportunity to pursue higher education or military service, our government could collect $3.6 trillion over the next 40 years. The DREAM Act, which failed in the Senate in December but remains a bipartisan effort, offers a conditional six-year path to permanent, legal U.S. residence for immigrant youth who demonstrate good moral character and complete at least two years of higher education or U.S. military service.

Without the DREAM Act, about 65,000 students a year — honor-roll scholars, star athletes, talented artists and aspiring teachers — will graduate high school and then hit a roadblock. Instead of upward mobility and higher education, they will be forced to live in the shadows and work low-paying jobs.

Fourth, the Reuniting Families Act, which I plan to reintroduce this Congress, would allow all Americans to be reunited with their families — including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender “permanent partners.”

The economic benefits of this policy cannot be overstated. American workers, with their families by their side, are happier, healthier and more able to succeed than those living apart from loved ones for years on end. By pooling resources, families can do together what they can’t do alone — start small businesses, provide care for the young and old, create U.S. jobs and contribute more to this country’s welfare.

Healthier communities have more expendable income and place a lower burden on government social services. This correlation is well substantiated — but it is up to us to make it a reality.

We understand that during tough economic times, the natural reaction is to close borders and look inward. Yet the irony of an anti-immigration sentiment, which fears job losses for Americans if more workers enter the U.S., is that it is fiscally prudent to legalize, insure, employ, reunite and educate our immigrants than to keep families apart.

This is a time when we must use every available resource to stimulate our economy and control government spending. To my fiscally conservative Republican colleagues, the onus is on you. Left to future Congresses, the number of undocumented immigrants will only increase and the visa waits will only get longer. Meanwhile, we will lose an opportunity to do what’s economically right.

The fiscal case is clear: reform now.

California Rep. Mike Honda serves on the Appropriations and the Budget Committees and is the Democratic senior whip.

© 2011 Capitol News Company, LLC

Aquí nada está tranquilo: Susana Chávez y nuestras fronteras imaginarias

2011-01-31T08:47:00.000-08:00

This article speaks to the imagined/imaginary tranquility that Mexico often represent but beneath which is a tacit acceptance of misogyny against women.

Angela

Aquí nada está tranquilo: Susana Chávez y nuestras fronteras imaginarias
Domingo, 30 de Enero de 2011
Por: Abril Saldaña

Susana Chávez tenía solo dos años cuando el término feminicidio se uso por primera vez en 1976, pero el asesinato de mujeres por hombres tiene lamentablemente una larga historia la cual es directamente proporcional a las estructuras patriarcales de una sociedad y al nivel de tolerancia colectiva ante la violencia misógina.

En el 2010, se calculó que cada 20 horas una mujer fue asesinada en el estado de Chihuahua, cada 20 horas se escucharon discursos políticos de desaprobación seguidos por tremendas omisiones.

Este círculo, esta normalización de la violencia es lo que ha convertido a Juárez en una necrópolis según activistas como Monárrez Fagoso. Las muertas de Juárez y las de todo el país no se pueden explicar solamente a través de la incapacidad judicial o política.

publicidad
En este barco estamos todos, éste es un asunto de voluntad colectiva; en el lenguaje católico, tan usado en nuestro país, éste es un pecado de omisión, una consecuencia directa de una sociedad patriarcal que nos oprime pero además de un tejido social descompuesto por la desigualdad social.

En México nos seguimos negando a hablar de cómo la intersección entre raza, género y clase enmarcan nuestras experiencias, definen nuestras membrecías, nuestras exclusiones y anulan cualquier posibilidad de solidaridad colectiva.

La próxima vez que usted escuche a alguien decir "lo bueno es que aquí todo está tranquilo" piense en ese tejido descompuesto del que ahora le hablo ¿Qué mecanismo perverso alimenta nuestras fronteras imaginarias? ¿Qué nos hace dividir el aquí y el allá? No hablo solamente de una división geográfica, hablo de una división social y humana ¿Qué nos hace pensar que la muerte de Susana Chávez está lejos y no nos concierne? En pocas palabras, aquí y allá son la misma cosa intranquila y violenta.

Aquí y allá la muerte de Susana Chávez pesa tanto como para sacudir conciencias, generar indignación y colectividad. .

Cuando el EZlN hizo temblar al país aquel enero de 1994 recuerdo haber escuchado, en varias ocasiones, a gente en Monterrey asegurar que aquél era el sur del país, un mundo distinto con gente distinta.

A la gran sultana del norte jamás le llegaría la violencia, eran demasiado "civilizados" para dejar que la "barbarie" traspasara sus fronteras. Hoy, el resentimiento social y la desigualdad están cobrando su saldo, los regiomontanos viven atemorizados en uno de los estados más violentos del país.

Todas las mujeres en este país somos Juarenses. Independientemente de nuestra distancia geográfica, social, económica el feminicidio en Juárez y en cualquier otro estado nos concierne y afecta a todas.

Como bien argumenta Monárrez, con los asesinatos de algunas mujeres (en donde quiera que éstos sean cometidos) se logra controlar a todas las mujeres, quienes internalizarán la amenaza y viven aterrorizadas, sometidas por el miedo de ‘’traspasar’’ los límites establecidos por la estructura patriarcal.

Entender el alance del terrorismo sexual y solidarizarse con las víctimas es necesario para desarrollar estrategias de supervivencia personal y colectiva, como mujeres, la solidaridad con las mujeres Juarenses es nuestra única posibilidad de no ser una más, de no ser la que le sigue.

La próxima vez que usted escuche decir que ‘aquí todo está tranquilo’ piense en que hoy en día, de punta a punta en el país, tenemos casos en los que una vez más el gobierno y las autoridades buscan responsabilizar a las mujeres de la agresión.

En Ciudad Juárez a Susana Chávez se le acusa de haberse ido a ‘divertir’ con sus asesinos; en Quintana Roo, el Juez Daniel Farah Godoy deja en libertad a un presunto violador/celebridad por no haber encontrado pruebas de violencia en la, perdóneme la absurda pero inevitable redundancia, violación de una menor.

Según el sitio feminicidios.net México es uno de los países en los que no se cuenta con un registro nacional de feminicidios; es decir, oficialmente en este país las muertas no se cuentan, por lo menos no de una forma rigurosa y sistemática.

La muerte de Susana Chávez no forma parte del registro nacional pero lo invito a que esta gran pérdida sí forme parte de nuestro propio registro colectivo, de esa memoria histórica que nos permitirá por lo menos continuar con el sueño de esta poetisa y activista: Ni una muerta más. Susana Chávez (1974-2011).

My personal comment on the Shooting and Killing in Arizona

2011-01-09T22:46:00.000-08:00

In light of Saturday's mass shooting in Arizona, we have much as a nation to reflect on—and most especially the incendiary and violent rhetoric that uses militaristic or violent symbolism in politics. With Texas facing an Arizona-like, anti-immigrant, pro-gun legislative session, my hopes are that yesterday's events will give us much pause and will discredit such voices and rhetoric in our own state.

Unión del Barrio expresses our condemnation of today’s shooting in Tucson Arizona,

2011-01-09T22:42:00.000-08:00

This is the most powerful condemnation of the Arizona shooting that I've seen. Written by la Union del Barrio.
-Angela

January 8, 2011
UNIÓN DEL BARRIO Concientización • Organización • Acción • Liberación

Unión del Barrio expresses our condemnation of today’s shooting in Tucson Arizona, where Jared Loughner shot U.S. Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords and at least a dozen other people, including one 9-year-old girl and a U.S. Federal Judge. We lament this terrible incident, and extend our condolences to the families of all the victims.

Yet, a terrible incident like this must not only be lamented, but also exposed at its source. Sadly, we are not surprised that this had happened, since this event must be considered as part of the inevitable extension of the very same climate of violence and hatred that has been legislated upon within the U.S. Congress, in many State legislatures (particularly in Arizona), and saturates most main stream media outlets. The circulation of so much poison inevitably returns to those that produce it.

It is within this same context that we condemned the shooting death of 17-year-old Ramsés Barrón at the hands of the U.S. Border Patrol one day prior in Nogales, near the Arizona-Sonora border area. While the violence that took the life of Ramsés has become the norm of what is traditionally reserved for Mexicans and other non-white people (and therefore not newsworthy for most of the U.S. population), the terrible aggression to which our communities have been subjected is now being expanded through this attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords.

The violence that today manifested itself in the deaths of a federal judge, a congressional aide, and a 9 year old child, among others, is nothing less than the direct domestic manifestation of what the U.S. government has been doing for decades: advancing imperialist aggression around the world through wars of occupation; financing and providing logistical support for a genocidal “war against drugs” in México; promoting an escalation of a culture of violence sown by U.S. legislators over many years; and a material expression of the reactionary/ right-wing fanaticism that promotes the militarization of society through the establishment of a police state and the increased militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border region.

Unión del Barrio will continue to raise the banner of self-determination, social justice, and participatory democracy for all, so that reactionary violence in all its forms does not contribute further to the social decomposition and dehumanization of communities here and around the world. We know all too well that the madness we are witnessing rests on a foundation of unbridled imperialism and capitalism.

To their madness we must respond – Otro Mundo Es Posible (Another World Is Possible). Against their violence we must struggle; United we will win!

Comité Central Unión del Barrio
P.O. Box 620095 • San Diego, CA 92162 •
(619) 398-6648 • comitecentral@uniondelbarrio.org •
www.uniondelbarrio.org

8 de enero de 2011

UNIÓN DEL BARRIO Concientización • Organización • Acción • Liberación

Unión del Barrio condena el tiroteo del día de hoy en Tucson, Arizona, donde Jared Loughner abrió fuego en contra de la congresista Gabrielle Giffords y al menos una docena de otras personas, incluyendo a una niña de 9 años y a un juez federal. Lamentamos este terrible incidente, y extendemos nuestras condolencias a las familias de todas las victimas.

Sin embargo, un terrible incidente como este no sólo se tiene que lamentar, pero se tienen que exponer sus causales. Tristemente, no estamos sorprendidos que esto haya pasado, ya que este evento debe ser considerado como una inevitable extensión del clima de violencia y odio que ha sido legislado desde el Congreso de los EEUU y muchas legislaturas estatales (particularmente en Arizona) saturando los medios de comunicación. La circulación de tanto veneno inevitablemente regresa a los que la producen.

Dentro de este mismo contexto condenamos la muerte a balazos de Ramsés Barrón de 17 años a manos de la Patrulla Fronteriza el día de ayer en Nogales, en el área fronteriza de Arizona-Sonora. Mientras que la violencia que tomó la vida de Ramsés se a transformado en la norma de lo que es tradicionalmente reservado para los mexicanos y otros pueblos de color (y por lo tanto no es de interés noticioso para la mayoría de la población estadounidense), la terrible agresión a la que nuestras comunidades han estado expuestas ahora se expande a través de este intento de asesinato de Gabrielle Giffords.

La violencia que hoy se ha manifestado en la muerte de un juez federal, un asistente de la congresista, y una niña de 9 años, entre otros, es nada más y nada menos que la directa manifestación domestica de lo que el Congreso de los EEUU a estado haciendo por décadas: incrementar las agresiones imperialistas alrededor del mundo a través de guerras de ocupación, financiando y proveyendo apoyo logístico para una genocida “guerra en contra de las drogas” en México; promoviendo una escalada de la cultura de la violencia sembrada por los legisladores estadounidenses en los últimos años; y la expresión material del fanatismo reaccionario/ derechista que promueve la militarización de la sociedad con el establecimiento de un estado policial y con el incremento de la militarización en la región fronteriza EEUU-México.
Unión del Barrio continuará levantando las banderas de la auto-determinación, la justicia social y una democracia participativa para todos, para que así la violencia reaccionaria en todas sus formas no siga contribuyendo a la descomposición social y a la deshumanización de las comunidades aquí y en todo el mundo. Sabemos perfectamente bien que la locura que estamos presenciando se apoya en base de un imperialismo y capitalismo desenfrenado.
A esta locura tenemos que responder – ¡Otro mundo es posible! ¡Contra esta violencia debemos luchar; contra esta violencia tenemos que triunfar! ¡Unidos Venceremos!
Comité Central Unión del Barrio
P.O. Box 620095 • San Diego, CA 92162 • (619) 398-6648 • comitecentral@uniondelbarrio.org • www.uniondelbarrio.org

Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas: LSU Sociologists Find Latinos Lacking in English S...

2011-01-09T12:54:00.000-08:00

Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas: LSU Sociologists Find Latinos Lacking in English S...: "Together with being an immigrant Latino,lack of fluency in English is a marker that places them at risk of violence. -Angela LSU Sociologis..."

ANNOUNCEMENT: Texas Leading the Nation: A Texas Retrospective on Educational Reform, February 9, 2011, Austin Hilton Downtown

2011-01-04T14:13:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

Happy New Year! I invite you to attend a Wednesday, February 9, 2011 statewide educational conference and legislative awards ceremony that honors the legacy of revered populist giants, Oscar and Anne Mauzy. As we all know, Texas has led the nation in education reform and this conference provides us an opportunity to reflect on our accomplishments as a state, together with emergent, trends, challenges and directions.

We will charge a nominal conference fee. Seating is limited so call or e-mail now to reserve a seat. My assistant, Teresa Espino, will be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Our telephone number is(512) 471-7055. Thank you for your consideration and see you soon!

Angela
--
Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.
Associate Vice President for School Partnerships
Division of Diversity and Community Engagement
Director of the Texas Center for Education Policy
SZB 528L 1 University Station, D8000
Austin, Texas 78712-0379

Obama is to Blame for the Failure of Immigration Reform

2010-12-29T13:49:00.000-08:00

Interesting analysis by Charles Kuck passed out by Anotonio Gonzalez of the Latino Voter League.

There has been a lot of casting of blame for this last weekend's vote against a sensible and compassionate immigration bill that would have given hope and a future to hundreds of thousands of immigrant children. Most of the pointing fingers direct blame at the Republicans for their "filibuster" of the DREAM Act. Without dispute the Republicans have, in fact, adopted a virulent anti-immigration position that will ultimately lead to minority status for the party. But Republicans are not the reason the DREAM Act failed. Everyone knew that Republicans would not vote for the DREAM Act. The only three Republicans who did vote for the DREAM Act either are leaving Congress or do not have a concern about the right wing of the party. So, if the Republicans are not to blame, who is? President Obama and the Democrats. Really.

Here are 5 reasons why President Obama is to blame for the failure of immigration reform.

1. Five Democratic Senators abandoned the party and voted against the DREAM Act. One other Democratic Senator was attending a Christmas Party. There is no evidence whatsoever that the White House made a single call to these Senators to secure their votes. The DREAM Act was 5 votes short of breaking the "filibuster" and passing cloture. That math is simple enough, no? If these Senators did what their party wanted and needed them to do, the DREAM Act passes. It appears someone dropped the ball.

2. If Democrats were serious about the DREAM Act, why not MAKE the Republicans actually conduct a filibuster? Make than talk ad nausea until the end of the session or until the American public grows tired of the obstructionism?

3. How many speeches did President Obama give endorsing the DREAM Act? None as near as I can find. Yes, he mentioned the DREAM Act on a couple of occasions in other contexts and his Spokesman Robert Gibbs referred to it in press briefings. But, we all saw that when President Obama wants something passed he ADVOCATES for it. Take the Health Care bill for example. How many times did President Obama give speeches urging, demanding, cajoling for passage of the Health Care bill? Oh, about a jillion. Every day in the months leading up to the vote in the Congress there was President Obama on CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, giving a speech surrounded by uninsured people in urgent need of health care. He was constantly meeting with wavering Senators. Don't you think that had something to do with the passage of the bill? Where was he on Immigration Reform in the fall? One speech! Where has he been for the last two months on the DREAM Act? Missing in action.

4. Enforcement priorities--President Obama has deported more people than President Bush. Period. The theory for the Obama Administration is that if we just enforce the law enough the Republicans will support comprehensive immigration reform. And, advocacy groups allowed President Obama to get away with this strange, irrational theory of enforcement. President Obama is bringing Secure Communities to a police station near you. President Obama is putting employers out of business for not properly dotting all their "i's" and crossing all their "t's " on the worlds most complicated form, the Form I-9. President Obama is opening more private prisons and putting non-criminal foreign nationals in detention centers far removed from their families, lawyers and the real world in an effort to get these folks to give up and not fight their removal. President Obama is unwilling to put forward a working plan for immigration reform, leaving it up to the anti-immigrant crowd to provide Congress draft legislation for doing so.

Had enough? Not yet? Okay

5. Adjudicatory Processes--President Obama is allowing USCIS to adopt crazy, unrealistic, anti-business, extra-regulatory requirements for visas which have long served America well, such as the H-1B, the L-1B, the E-2, and even the EB-5 Investor Visas! USCIS is ramping up the "FDNS" or the "fraud unit," in an attempt to FIND fraud where none exists. These fraud units, which operate without the ability to prosecute actual perpetrators of fraud, appear to trying to find work to do, rather than actually addressing a real need. Meanwhile, USCIS delays adjudication of cases such as the H-1B to force employers to pay the "premium processing" fee of $1,225, which is nothing short of extortion. USCIS raises fees without raising the quality of services, or shortening the adjudicatory process. USCIS continues to delay the processing of FOIA requests and continues to withhold relevant information in direct contradiction to President Obama's first executive order on government openness.

I could go on, but why? President Obama and his administration has shown no desire to actually fix the immigration system America suffers under at this time. He has shown no leadership on the immigration issue. President Obama has not lived up to his campaign promises to immigrants, and Latinos specifically. And yet, President Obama and the Democrats keep coming back to the immigrant well asking for their support in the next election with the promise that if they get reelected they will finally "fix" the broken immigration system.

The reality is it is time for voters who want the immigration system fixed to better serve America, make legality the norm, create greater national security, and reduce illegal immigration to either hold the Democrats and President Obama directly responsible for their failures to date, or somehow get the Republicans to withdraw from their current anti-immigration position. Otherwise, Hispanic, Asian, African and other new immigrant voters may have no one to carry their views on immigration to successful legislation for many years to come.

Fields of tears

2010-12-26T10:50:00.000-08:00

TERESA VEGA’S first son was two when a flood carried rubbish, dead animals and disease through the canals of Oaxaca, her desperately poor home state in southern Mexico. The boy started vomiting, got diarrhoea and ran a fever. There was a doctor a few hours’ walk away, but Ms Vega and her husband, Marco Lopez, had no money to pay him. They could do nothing, she says. They watched their son die.

Ms Vega now says this event is the reason for everything she and her husband have done since. When they had another son, Erminio, they decided that they had to make money in case he also fell ill. But Oaxaca offered them no jobs, save for a bit of maize-harvesting every July. Teresa’s younger brother Felix had already left for America to find work in California’s fruit and vegetable fields. In 2005, seeing no alternative, Ms Vega and her husband set out to follow.

Little Erminio would not have survived the journey, so Ms Vega and her husband had to leave him behind, in the care of Mr Lopez’s father. Erminio was one at the time. That was the last time Ms Vega saw him. Now 26, though she looks a decade older, she knew she was running another risk, because she was seven months pregnant again. But she and her husband made their way north nonetheless. Then came the crossings.

The crossings—invariably plural, because most attempts fail, leading to deportations and renewed attempts—are a seminal event in virtually all the stories of the undocumented farmworkers who labour in America’s fields. The border is their threshold and their first glimpse of El Norte, the promised land in the north.

But for la migra, as they call America’s immigration and border officials, it’s “like catching deer,” says Felix. He and his wife and cousins, six in total, were deported three times before succeeding at the fourth attempt, and the humiliations at the hand of la migra still sting.

Everyone’s quarry

Once they walked all night through the desert of Arizona, slashing themselves on fences of barbed wire and running out of water, before border-patrol agents ambushed them. The agents tied them up, shouted at them, threw them into a van and then into a freezing jail, where they slept on a bare floor for several nights until enough migrants had been rounded up to fill a bus that took them back to the Mexican side.

On another crossing Mexican bandits waylaid them. They pointed guns, stole their food and stripped them naked. Because the Vegas speak an indigenous language called Mixtec and understand little Spanish (and no English), Mr Vega’s wife and the other women did not understand the bandits and feared they would be raped. They were not, but then had to cross the frigid night desert without clothes, food or water, until la migra caught them again.

Gonzalo Vega, yet another cousin, made the trip with his wife, five months pregnant, and his two younger brothers, who were seven and ten at the time. He carried all their water and food, but the children struggled. After a day and two nights of walking they were desperate for sleep, but Gonzalo didn’t let them rest in the freezing cold lest they not wake up again. He could not light a fire, because la migra would have seen it.

They threw themselves into ditches whenever the border patrol’s SUVs approached. Once Mr Vega’s wife fell hard onto her bulging belly. The worst moment came when la migra caught them again, beat Gonzalo and threatened to take his brothers away from him. When the family was allowed to remain together, even the cold jail floor felt good, he recalls. Gonzalo’s group succeeded on the fifth try.

If and when the border is crossed, the paved but hostile vastness of America is the next challenge. Usually a family member already on the other side will pick the migrants up in a car. Many then make their way to the farm towns of California.

Often they take the same roads on which the “Okies” travelled en masse in the 1930s as they fled the depressed dust bowl of Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas to seek a living in California. These Okies are for ever etched into America’s psyche as the Joad family in “The Grapes of Wrath”. Comparing the Mexicans who toil California’s fields to the Okies in John Steinbeck’s classic novel is a staple of the Latino left. That does not make it any less accurate. Joads then and Vegas now are pushed by the same need, pulled by the same promise. Now as then, there is no clearing house for jobs in the fields, so the migrants follow tips and rumours. Often, like the Joads, they end up in the right places at the wrong times. Felix Vega and three of his group, including his wife, were dropped off in Oxnard, famous for its strawberries. But they arrived out of season, so they slept on the streets, then in a doghouse, then in somebody’s car. For two months they did not bathe and barely ate. Finally, they found jobs picking strawberries and made their first money in America.

And thus they joined the vast undocumented workforce that undergirds America’s food supply. The government estimates that more than 80% of America’s crop workers are Hispanic (mostly Mexican), and more than half are illegal aliens. But Rob Williams, the director of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project (which represents farmworkers in court), considers those numbers grossly misleading because they rely on self-reporting. He estimates that more than 90% of farmworkers are sin papeles (without papers), just as the Vegas are.

The price of strawberries

The devil’s work

Farm work has, for most crops, become no easier since Steinbeck’s day. Strawberries, the crop the Vegas started out with, are nicknamed la fruta del diablo (the devil’s fruit) because pickers have to bend over all day. “Hot weather is bad,” says Felix Vega, but “cold is worse” because it makes the back pain unbearable. Even worse is sleet or rain, which turns the field into a lake of mud. The worst is picking while having the flu.

Every crop exacts its own particular discomfort, as this correspondent discovered on an August day picking grapes in the very part of the San Joaquin Valley where Steinbeck’s Joad family looked for work. Working with two Mexican brothers and a young Mexican couple, he cut the grapes, collected them in tubs and periodically dumped them into a wagon pulled by a tractor.

The lanes between vines are exactly as wide as the tractor, so the little group had to duck into and underneath the vines all day long. They crawled alongside the tractor, trying to avoid having their feet run over. Within hours this correspondent’s shins were bleeding as the wagon’s metal protrusions slammed into them, which seemed unavoidable. With an encouraging smile, a co-worker pulled up a trouser leg to reveal his own scarred shin.

Because the pickers were squatting or kneeling under the vines and twisting to reach up for the grapes (the low-hanging fruit proving the trickiest), their necks and shoulders were soon in agony. Standing up to relieve their backs thrust their heads into the vines, which are covered in pesticides. There are many cases of birth defects and cancer in the families of farmworkers. But as the heat climbed above 100°F (about 40°C), the vines, soaked in toxins or not, became allies. The air underneath them is stagnant, as in a sauna, but their foliage is the only available shade.

Just as the heat threatened to overwhelm this correspondent, the woman in the group broke into a slow Mexican song, which somehow helped. But heatstroke is common in the fields. In 2008 Maria Isavel Vasquez Jiminez, a 17-year-old Mexican girl who was pregnant, collapsed while picking grapes and died two days later.

Hungry amid food

As Tom Joad in Steinbeck’s novel discovered, many farmworkers, even as they spend their waking hours picking food for others, can barely afford to eat. Between harvests they have no work. When they do work, their wages are meagre. The workers picking grapes with this correspondent got $8 an hour. That is vastly superior to the $9 a day—not hour—which the tractor driver says he used to get at home in Mexico. But costs in the United States are higher too.

Teresa Vega makes about $65 a day during the strawberry season, as does her husband. But they now have two daughters living with them, Luisa, four, and Maritza, two. So Ms Vega must, perversely, hire a babysitter while she is working. That costs $50 a day.

Most of what remains pays their rent for a trailer in Watsonville, just outside Steinbeck’s home town of Salinas. The trailer is dilapidated, but Ms Vega tends to it lovingly. By the door hangs a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint. There is even a small television set.

But the trailer has no air conditioning or heating. On this day, after a downpour, it smells musty. Teresa explains, in Mixtec through her brother’s translation into Spanish, that in the winter Luisa and Maritza are always ill. On the counter that serves as the kitchen there is no fresh food, only a jar of protein powder.

After their expenses, very little is left over for her husband’s blind grandparents in Mexico, for Teresa’s diabetic father and above all for their son Erminio, who was the original reason they came. Western Union, a service that remits cash, takes another painful cut whenever they send money home.

Aside from poverty, the other consequence of being sin papeles is having to live “in the shadows”. This is the difference between today’s Mexicans and yesterday’s Okies, between the Joads and the Vegas (although Tom Joad was also on the run from the law). The Okies were poor, disdained and hungry. But they were American and white, often Scottish-Irish. They could not be deported.

“The hardest part is not being free, not being able to go out,” says Felix Vega. “It’s like being in a jail.” Any contact with official or bureaucratic America might lead to deportation and thus separation from his wife and sons—Victor, seven, and Jesus, four— who were born in America and are thus citizens.

This anxiety extends to every aspect of work and life. In the fields, undocumented workers hardly ever protest when contractors or growers abuse them. Merely getting to the fields and back is risky. Undocumented farmworkers have to drive long distances, but they don’t have driving licences. Any brush with the police is dangerous. Felix Vega stays below the speed limit and comes to a complete halt at stop signs.

His cousin Gonzalo has been pulled over three times—because of “the colour of my skin”, he thinks. Like many indigenous Mexicans from Oaxaca, the Vegas are short, squat and dark. Last time the cop claimed that Gonzalo’s tyre had touched the centre line as he was driving. Local police are not supposed to enforce immigration law, which is a federal matter, but they can impound the cars of drivers without licences, so they took Gonzalo’s. He had to pay a $1,580 fine, then to buy a new car for $1,500. The expense set his finances back by years.

In Steinbeck’s novel, “the migrant people, scuttling for work, scrabbling to live, looked always for pleasure, dug for pleasure, manufactured pleasure,” often of a boisterous sort. For undocumented migrants, however, those pleasures are not available, for they might attract attention.

On those Sundays when he is not working, Felix Vega goes to church, then walks with his sons to a public park. Beyond that, he stays off the streets. He has never been to a cinema. Nor to a hospital: when family members get sick, they use folk remedies. His sister Teresa, who lives quite a distance away, hardly ever lets her girls play outside. Luisa and Maritza spend almost all of their time in the trailer, on the mattress that completely fills the far end of it and serves as a family bed and playpen.

Gonzalo Vega and his wife and daughters—Diana, two, and Esbeide, ten months—live in a single room with one mattress and one chair. He used to let Diana (with whom his wife was pregnant during their crossing) play outside. But then the American neighbours, who seem generally hostile, complained about noise and threatened to call the cops. “It’s always the same: they have papers and we don’t,” he sighs. So now Diana stays inside and is told to keep quiet.

Gonzalo’s younger brothers—the two he brought over the border—live in another town. They spend almost all their time studying, Gonzalo says, because he has told them that the best students might get papers and become legal. He knows that might not be true, he says, but it keeps them out of trouble.

Yet a life without pleasures is not a life without joys. For the Vegas, the children are the joys. Felix’s older son, Victor, is trilingual in Mixtec, Spanish and English and has the naughty cheek of a boy who is legal. He goes to a nearby state school. Felix, beaming with pride, worries that its classes are too crowded and its teachers bad, sounding like any middle-class American parent.

“I don’t hate Americans,” says Felix. “Some are racist, but there are racists in Mexico, too.” Here in America, he says, those Latinos who have papers sometimes discriminate against them more than the gavachos (non-Hispanic whites) do.

But all the Vegas feel hated much of the time. Some people hurl racial slurs at them, give them dirty looks or call them “wetbacks”, a term of abuse recalling someone who has just swum the Rio Grande. Felix Vega says that the mood has become noticeably more hostile this year, perhaps because a controversial state law in Arizona has legitimised such animosity. That law, parts of which have been suspended by a federal judge, would make illegal immigration a state crime and oblige local police to enforce it.

Its fans correctly call the Vegas and their ilk “illegals”. This is often taken to mean “criminal”, yet being in the United States illegally is actually a civil offence; it is the illegal crossing that is a criminal offence. The migrants and their sympathisers therefore prefer “without papers” or “undocumented”. “They think we’re criminals, but we came here to do good and we’re all children of God,” says Felix Vega, touching the cross around his neck.

The stolen jobs no one wants

At a time of high unemployment, many Americans are convinced that these aliens take American jobs. As a test, this summer the United Farm Workers (UFW), the main agricultural union, launched a campaign called “Take Our Jobs”, inviting willing Americans to work in the fields. In the following three months 3m people visited takeourjobs.com, but 40% of the responses were hate mail, says Maria Machuca, UFW’s spokesman. This included e-mails such as one reading: “We’re becoming more aggressive in our methods. Soon it may come to hands on, taping bitches to light posts.”

Only 8,600 people expressed an interest in working in the fields, says Ms Machuca. But they made demands that seem bizarre to farmworkers, such as high pay, health and pension benefits, relocation allowances and other things associated with normal American jobs. In late September only seven American applicants in the “Take our jobs” campaign were actually picking crops.

That was the point, says Arturo Rodriguez, the UFW’s president. America’s farm jobs, which are excluded from almost all federal and state labour regulations, are not normal jobs. Americans refuse to do them. The argument about stolen jobs is “just a façade” for a coarser scapegoating, says Mr Rodriguez, and “we demonstrate the hypocrisy.”

Teresa, Felix and Gonzalo Vega only nod sadly when asked about the rancour, the Arizona law, the politics. They feel they had no choice in coming illegally. Would they do it again? “No, not if I had known what lay ahead,” says Felix. But after a silence, he corrects himself. Yes, he would, because even though he doesn’t think he’ll ever get papers, he has two sons who are American and could be lawyers or writers one day, living openly.

Teresa Vega is the most reticent. She admits that her “plan didn’t work”. She hears that Erminio, at home in Oaxaca, is not doing well. He is often ill. “He needs love” and doesn’t get enough, she says. But then she, too, reverses herself. She always thinks of her first son, the one who died because she had no money to save him. Yes, she would come again.

People like the Vegas will always keep coming, no matter the fences that go up on the border and the helicopters that circle above. For they are like the Joads. As Steinbeck wrote: “How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can’t scare him—he has known a fear beyond every other.”

Nation & World | Texas historians preserving WW II internment camp | Seattle Times Newspaper

2010-12-24T17:30:00.001-08:00

Nation & World | Texas historians preserving WW II internment camp | Seattle Times Newspaper

2010-12-24T17:30:00.000-08:00

Nation & World | Texas historians preserving WW II internment camp | Seattle Times Newspaper

The Utah Compact

2010-12-05T19:59:00.000-08:00

Not all the political news this year involves the rise of partisan extremism and government by rage. There has been lots of that. But maybe there is a limit, a point when people of good sense and good will band together to say no. As they have just done in Utah.

Political, business, law-enforcement and religious leaders there have endorsed what they call the Utah Compact. It is a statement of principles meant to address, with moderation and civility, “the complex challenges associated with a broken national immigration system.” What a welcome contrast it draws with the xenophobic radicalism of places like Arizona.

The signers, who hope to influence the shape of state immigration policy, include the mayors of Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County, the state attorney general, two Republican former governors, a former United States senator, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, the Chamber of Commerce and a host of other civic groups and citizens. The prominent and powerful Mormon Church did not sign on but issued a “statement of support” calling the compact “a responsible approach to the urgent challenge of immigration reform.”

A clearer expression of good sense and sanity than Utah’s would be hard to find. It says immigration is an issue between the federal government and other countries — “not Utah and other countries.” It says local police agencies should focus on fighting crime, “not civil violations of federal code.” Because “strong families are the foundation of successful communities,” it opposes policies that unnecessarily separate them. It recognizes immigrants’ value as workers and taxpayers.

It ends by urging a humane approach to the reality of immigration: “Utah should always be a place that welcomes people of good will.”

South of Utah in Arizona, the political establishment, top law-enforcement officers and voters have lined up behind a radical go-it-alone strategy to uproot and terrorize unwanted immigrants. That hard-line fever is spreading, with lawmakers in other states scrambling to pass their versions of the infamous Arizona law that empowers the police to demand people’s papers.

Immigration hard-liners are used to using the harshest words possible for newcomers, and condemning calls for restraint and humane behavior — as the Utah Minutemen already have — as the same old liberal, pro-amnesty mush. But red-state Utah is nobody’s idea of an open-borders fantasyland. The architects of the compact are conservative Republicans who have simply decided not to toe the simplistic party line.

This page has always insisted that reform can be — must be — pro-immigrant, pro-business, pro-family, pro-law-enforcement, all at the same time. These values are complementary. Law enforcement is strengthened by bolstering immigrants’ rights. Assimilation is more American than mass expulsion. It is also cheaper: a new study by the liberal Center for American Progress calculated that Arizona had lost hundreds of millions of dollars in convention and other business, thanks to the notoriety from its immigration crackdown.

Mexico: “Failed States,” New Wars, Resistance

2010-12-02T13:56:00.000-08:00

Death and pain for so many victims in the length and breadth of the country. Meaningless deaths for no reason. Unpunished deaths. Deaths and also—again—the whip of forced disappearances.

—Rosario Ibarra, March 28, 2010

So that drugs will not get to your children…WE ARE KILLING THEM.

—(New Slogan of the Federal Government)
Censored cartoon after Mexican soldiers killed two children, April 2010

A social volcano is bubbling in Mexico. Nearly half the country’s eligible voters showed their disgust with the country’s political parties by staying away from the polls in the off-year elections of July 2010. All the major political parties have become neoliberal and corrupt. Broad-based social movements are resisting a right-wing offensive, which, building on twenty-eight years of neoliberal economic policies, has led to the country’s increasing militarization. Following the 2006 fraudulent election of Felipe Calderón,1 a reign of terror was unleashed by means of his unconstitutional, self-declared “war” ostensibly against drug cartels involved in bloody internecine strife.2

Neoliberalism’s gradual economic genocide has caused countless premature deaths and generated humiliating poverty for three-fourths of the population. Many in the intermediate classes have been pushed down into the ranks of the poor; hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs, as “flex labor” and union-busting become the norm; and millions have been emigrating.3 State enterprises have been privatized, and almost everything, including humanity itself, has been converted into marketable commodities for the profits of big business. The economic agony of the masses has generated a growing resistance: guerrilla wars and local nonviolent uprisings.

Washington looks on these events with baleful eyes and oils its guns. After all, Mexico is the second trading partner of the United States and the third largest provider of the black gold to the northern giant.

U.S. Intervention

For decades, Washington has been pouring military aid into Mexico. In 2008 there were six thousand U.S. troops on the Mexican border, and in 2010 President Barack Obama decided to send more. The U.S. side of the border is militarized, as it was back before and during the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1917 and periodically since then. Drones fly routine flights over Mexican soil. In the United States, video games show American troops invading Mexico.

Keep reading here.

Ariz. immigration law strains U.S.-Latin America relations

2010-11-21T19:26:00.000-08:00

By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY

When Arizona passed a law in April allowing police to conduct roadside immigration checks, Mexican officials blasted the law as a prejudiced attack against its citizens in the state. That condemnation has spread throughout Latin America.

Ambassador Luis Gallegos of Ecuador presented the law Nov. 5 to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, which sends recommendations to nations to improve rights. Gallegos said they were extremely concerned that the Arizona law would lead to widespread stereotyping of both legal and illegal immigrants. The council included it in the recommendations it sent to the U.S. State Department. Ecuador is one of 10 Latin American countries that signed on to a brief opposing the law in a federal lawsuit challenging Arizona's rule.

State Department spokesman Charles Luoma-Overstreet said the law has impacted relations between the United States and Latin American countries, becoming a topic of discussion "in all our interactions" with those nations.

"The countries in Latin America are already perceiving some distance and disengagement from the U.S.," said Mauricio Cardenas, director of the Latin American Initiative at the Brookings Institution. "(The Arizona law) makes Latin America more and more interested in developing stronger relations with other parts of the world."

The law, known as S.B. 1070, requires Arizona's 15,000 police officers to determine the immigration status of suspects they've pulled over, detained or arrested if there is a "reasonable suspicion" the person is in the country illegally.

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit challenging the law, arguing that immigration enforcement is strictly a federal responsibility. A federal judge halted the core aspects of it, and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, is appealing. Lawyers made oral arguments in the case before the 9th District Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Nov. 1.

The judges allowed Mexico to file a "friend of the court" brief arguing against the law, and nine other countries signed on. The countries argue that the law harms their citizens living and working in Arizona and could hurt "bilateral economic, immigration and security policies" between the United States and those countries.

Brewer has said the state law was necessary to combat the constant flow of illegal immigrants that has been ignored by the federal government. After the appeals court allowed the Latin American countries to weigh in on the lawsuit, she objected, saying the dispute should be resolved internally.

"I fervently believe that arguments by a foreign government have no place in a U.S. legal proceeding," she said in a statement. "Arizonans strongly believe, in a bipartisan fashion, that foreign nations should not be meddling in an internal legal dispute between the United States and one of its states."

The outcome of that lawsuit could go a long way toward determining how much of an impact the Arizona law, and similar bills that will be considered in more than a dozen state legislatures around the country, would have on U.S. relations with Latin America.

Gallegos said more laws similar to Arizona's will cause significant concern.

"My basic question is, are we going to have a more protectionist United States that is more inclined to discriminating and persecuting groups like the migrants?" Gallegos said in an interview from Geneva. "We would hope that the federal government would be wise enough to enact a law which encompasses these issues."

A senior official with the Brazilian Embassy who was not authorized to be quoted by name said that country's relationship with the United States has not been harmed because the Obama administration has not only spoken out against the law but initiated the lawsuit that halted its implementation.

Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, worries that Obama's stance on the law may not be enough to soothe other countries.

"I'm sure that Mexico is happy that the Obama administration is challenging these laws. But I'm not sure they're persuaded that the Obama administration is in control," Alden said. "The worry is that the states are going to start driving the bus, too."

Alden said it's the latest in a long line of slights to the region that started with the Bush administration and has continued under Obama.

He pointed to the collapse of a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, which would have lowered trade barriers among Western Hemisphere countries similar to the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico. Individual trade agreements between the United States and Colombia and Panama have been unable to clear Congress.

Alden said Bush and Obama have added to the "militarization" of the southwest border. The number of Customs and Border Patrol agents has increased from 9,000 to 20,000 since 2000, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The Obama administration recently boasted of setting a record for the number of people deported — more than 392,000 in fiscal year 2010, according to Homeland Security.

"If you put (the Arizona law) on top of all that, it's the latest in a pretty long series," Alden said.

'Birthright Citizenship' Will Be Target of House GOP Majority

2010-11-19T21:55:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON — As one of its first acts, the new Congress will consider denying citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants who are born in the United States.

Those children, who are now automatically granted citizenship at birth, will be one of the first targets of the Republican-led House when it convenes in January.

GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa, the incoming chairman of the subcommittee that oversees immigration, is expected to push a bill that would deny "birthright citizenship" to such children.

The measure, assailed by critics as unconstitutional, is an indication of how the new majority intends to flex its muscles on the volatile issue of illegal immigration.

The idea has a growing list of supporters, including Republican Reps. Tom McClintock of Elk Grove and Dan Lungren of Gold River, but it has aroused intense opposition, as well.

"I don't like it," said Chad Silva, statewide policy analyst for the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California. "It's been something that's been a part of America for a very long time. … For us, it sort of flies in the face of what America is about."

Republicans, Silva said, are "going in there and starting to monkey with the Constitution."

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868, guarantees citizenship to anyone born or naturalized in the United States. It was intended to make sure that children of freed slaves were granted U.S. citizenship.

While opponents say King's bill would clearly be unconstitutional, backers say the 14th Amendment would not apply. The amendment states that anyone born in the United States and "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is a citizen.

King said the amendment would not apply to the children of illegal immigrants because their parents should not be in the country anyway. He said immigration law should not create incentives for people to enter the country illegally and that it's creating an "anchor baby industry."

"Many of these illegal aliens are giving birth to children in the United States so that they can have uninhibited access to taxpayer-funded benefits and to citizenship for as many family members as possible," King said.

An estimated 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in the United States in 2008 were the children of undocumented immigrants, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Pew Hispanic Center done last year.

The issue is dividing Republicans, too.

"We find both this rhetoric and this unconstitutional conduct reprehensible, insulting and a poor reflection upon Republicans," DeeDee Blasé, the founder of Somos Republicans, a Latino GOP organization based in the Southwestern states, said in a letter to House Republican leaders.

Silva said the Republican plan is "not the fix," adding that the citizenship of children born to immigrants was never an issue during the immigration tide at the turn of the 20th century and that it shouldn't be now.

"That's our strength," he said. "And to start splitting hairs like that will only make the immigration issue worse."

Democratic Rep. Doris Matsui of Sacramento called King's plan "both unconstitutional and shortsighted."

"The 14th Amendment to the Constitution grants American citizenship to anyone born on American soil," she said. "I firmly believe we must reform the current immigration system, but we need to do so comprehensively with policies that respect our nation's history, strengthen our borders, and help our economy."

McClintock outlined his position last summer in a rebuttal to a newspaper editorial: "If illegal immigration is to be rewarded with birthright citizenship, public benefits and amnesty, it becomes impossible to maintain our immigration laws and the process of assimilation that they assure," he wrote.

McClintock noted that the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, France and India have all changed their laws in recent years to require that at least one parent be a legal resident for the child to become a legal citizen.

Lungren, who served as California's attorney general from 1990 to 1998 introduced a similar bill in 2007, but it did not pass the House, which was controlled by Democrats at the time.

His bill called for defining what "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means. Lungren proposed that the clause would apply to any person born to a parent who is a citizen, a legal alien or an alien serving in the military.

Texas Legislature Immigration curbs appear a sure thing, observers say

2010-11-14T20:07:00.000-08:00

SOME OF IMMIGRATION BILLS FILED
More than a dozen immigration-related bills have been filed for the legislative session starting Jan. 11. More are expected.

HB 17 - Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball: Creates a Class B misdemeanor offense of criminal trespass against an immigrant who enters or remains in the state of Texas illegally. A law enforcement officer may arrest a person if the officer believes the person is not in the county legally and the officer is acting on a reasonable suspicion that the person is committing or has committed another offense.

HB 21 - Rep. Riddle: Requires state agencies to report how much they spent directly or indirectly for services to persons who were not legally in the state of Texas.

HB 22 - Rep. Riddle: Requires public schools to determine the citizenship and immigration status of each student when that child first enrolls in the school.

HB 177 - Rep. Jim Jackson, R-Carrollton: Requires applicants for a driver's license, commercial driver's license or a personal identification certificate to provide proof of U.S. citizenship or document authorizing that person to be in the United States.

HB 178 - Rep. Jackson: Requires state, county and city governments to use E-verify, an Internet-based system, to determine the eligibility of new employees. (Similar to SB 84/Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Lewisville.)

HB 183 - Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton: Requires law enforcement agencies to verify with 48 hours the immigration status of someone arrested.

HB 202 - Rep. Solomons: Requires state contractors to participate in E-verify. A state agency may not award a contract for goods or services to a contractor unless the contractor and subcontractor uses the program. (Similar to HB140/Rep. Jodie Laubenberg, R-Parker)

SB 126 - Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston: Requires law enforcement officers to ask about the lawful presence of any person who is lawfully stopped, detained or arrested on other grounds if the officer has a reasonable suspicion to believe the person is not here legally. The officer may arrest the person if he or she has probable cause to believe the person is not here legally. The officer must identify and report the person to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement after any arrest.

SB 124 - Sen. Patrick: Prohibits cities from adopting sanctuary policies and enabling illegal immigration. (Similar to HB 18/Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball and HB 113/Rep. Patricia Harless, R-Spring)

A crackdown on illegal immigration seems certain to emerge from next year's legislative session, both politicians and observers say, but what any law would entail will depend on how fatigued and acrimonious lawmakers are when the bill comes to the forefront.

"There's a high probability that something will pass," Austin political consultant Bill Miller said, "but what that something is and what it does is a whole different ball game."

Conservative grass-roots activists have clamored for reform, and Republicans dramatically widened their majority in the Texas House and maintained their dominance in the Senate in last week's elections.

Lawmakers have already filed a handful of bills targeting illegal immigration. They range from requiring government agencies to verify employees' work status to bills that are similar to a controversial provision of Arizona's immigration law — which a federal judge has temporarily blocked — allowing police to arrest someone they suspect is here illegally.

Almost all bills change significantly as they wend through the legislative process, but immigration will have more forces pushing and pulling it than others. It faces opposition from the business community and with legal challenges to Arizona's law still pending, it's unclear what states can do about illegal immigration.

It also will share the stage with other contentious issues — such as the budget deficit, redistricting and voter ID.

Many controversial bills have been killed by maneuvering on the House floor and a rule in the Senate that requires approval from two-thirds of senators to bring a bill up for debate. Republican senators, however, brushed that rule aside in 2009 in an effort to push a voter ID bill through the chamber.

Costs to businesses
The Texas GOP also expanded its House majority, limiting Democrats' options.

The business community will likely fight legislation, said Rice University political science Professor Bob Stein, especially if the economy begins to improve.

"To the guy who's running that small business, the roofer, the cementer, that's a cheap labor force that he can hire up that's non-union and he can use to make a recovery," Stein said.

Texas businesses — particularly in the hospitality, agriculture and construction industries — rely on immigrant labor, said Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business. Legislation seen as discriminatory could hurt Texas' tourism and convention business, he said.

The illegal immigration issue should be handled at the national level, he said.

Looming over any immigration legislation is the pending legal challenge of Arizona's law. A federal judge temporarily has blocked provisions of that law on the grounds that immigration enforcement is the federal government's jurisdiction. Even if the law survives that challenge, it is certain to face later challenges on the grounds that it is discriminatory, said Scot Powe, a law professor at at UT-Austin.

"You need an example of an American citizen or somebody with a green card being improperly hassled under the law to bring that challenge, and I think that challenge is an ironclad winner," Powe said.

Law enforcement burden
Gov. Rick Perry said he will not comment on the merits of legislation that has not reached his desk. Speaking in San Antonio Tuesday, Perry said he has concerns about Arizona's law because it puts new burdens on law enforcement, but said he thinks the state was well within its rights when it passed the bill.

Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said a bill he filed avoids putting an unnecessary burden on police.

Patrick's bill would require police to ask anyone stopped for another offense whether they are in Texas legally if they have a reasonable suspicion to believe the person is here illegally. Patrick said law enforcement agencies wanted that question to be required, instead of being optional, to avoid complaints of profiling.

His bill would give law enforcement the discretion to arrest a person - with reasonable suspicion, Patrick said.

"The focus of my bill is to identify the bad guys and to get the bad guys off the street and turned over to (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)," Patrick said.

A large flow of conservative legislation, including immigration bills, will come from House Republicans and Senate Democrats should not have "a de facto veto over conservative legislation," Patrick said. The 31-seat Senate has 19 Republicans, just shy of the two-thirds required to bring a bill up for debate.

"What's the point of being in the majority as Republicans if we are going to allow a handful of Democrats to stop the will of the majority of the people?" Patrick asked.

Immigration will be "the emotional, divisive issue of the session," said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, leader of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Van de Putte said she does not sense any strong movement to suspend the two-thirds rule, which she noted protected Republicans in the past during big Democratic majorities.

Rep. Joaquín Castro, D-San Antonio, is not so sure. While he thinks a law like Arizona's would be unconstitutional and divisive, Castro said Democrats will have a hard time blocking it.

"I think Republicans are dead set on passing Arizona-style legislation," Castro said, "and I think they have the numbers to pass it."

gscharrer@express-news.net

jbuch@express-news.net

Results Show Latino Republicans Don't Have a Latino Constituency

2010-11-11T12:28:00.001-08:00

9 November 2010
Results Show Latino Republicans Don't Have a Latino Constituency
By Rodolfo de la Garza

It's A Free Country
Monday, November 08, 2010 - 12:00 PM

The Tea Party Republican electoral triumph resulted in changing the Latino political map. With the exception of Henry Bonilla, a Republican elected to Congress from San Antonio in 1999, it had been almost a century since Latino Republicans had won major contests in states other than Florida. In 2010, they elected two Congressmen in Texas, one in Washington and Idaho and governors in New Mexico and Nevada.
Additionally, they continued to win major contests in Florida. They elected Mel Martinez to the U.S. Senator in 2004. He resigned in 2009, and in 2010 Marcos Rubio was elected to fill Martinez's seat. Latino TPRs also retained control of three Congressional seats, which Cuban Republicans consider their fief. In total, there will be 7 Latino TPRs in Congress and one in the Senate in the 112th Congress.
Republicans have long asserted that Latinos are Republicans, they just don’t know it. Their claim is based on the assumption that Latino cultural values such as strong Christian beliefs and family ties translate into support for the Republican political agenda. Beginning with the Bush campaign of 2000, the Republican Party has pursued the Latino vote. Their efforts yielded little more than a substantial increase in the support Texas Latinos gave President Bush in 2004. Even there, however, he received only 40 percent of the Latino vote.
Do the 2010 results indicate that Republicans have finally broken the Democratic hold on Latino voters? How will they affect Latino-Republican relations? Will they enhance Latino political clout?
Despite the numbers, these results provide little evidence that Republican outreach to Latinos had a substantial impact. Overall, Latinos preferred Democratic candidates by a 2 to 1 margin over Republicans. More noteworthy is the pattern evident in Washington, Idaho and Nevada where Latino TPRs produced victories without winning the Latino vote. In Nevada, Brian Sandoval won the governorship despite getting only 33 percent of the Latino vote. (By comparison, 68 percent of Latinos voted for Harry Reid and helped carried him to victory.) In Washington, Jaime Herrera was elected the state's first Latina Congresswoman in a district that is 7 percent Latino where there was no incumbent.
Texas outcomes resemble this pattern. Bill Flores won in a highly conservative district that is only 20 percent Latino. Clearly, he was not elected by Latino voters. Francisco Canseco was elected from a majority Latino district where Democrats outnumbered Republicans, but had still elected a Latino Republican to Congress from 1999 to 2006. Canseco, thus, may be the only 2010 Latino TPR to have needed some Latino support to win.
Contextualizing the results of the election strongly suggest that Latino TPRs are not proof of Latinos abandoning the Democratic Party for the Republicans. These victors fully embrace the TPR agenda including its law-and-order approach to immigration reform and its opposition to using public funds to generate jobs. Research shows the Latino public strongly disagrees with these key TPR positions.
Nonetheless, these victories may be read to suggest that the TPR is not anti-Latino, even though it is hostile to an immigrant-friendly reform of immigration policy. To the contrary, the TRP tent seems open to admitting Latinos as equals so long as they are ideological soulmates. Few Latinos are likely to seek such cover, but its availability is likely to force Democrats to more fully engage issues like immigration reform that disproportionately affect Latinos.
Failing to do so will cause them to lose credibility among Latinos. Losing votes will not be far behind.

Rodolfo de la Garza, a Columbia University professor of Political Science, has studied immigration, political attitudes and voting for over 30 years. He directed the first national political survey of Latinos and has authored, co-authored and edited 18 books and more than 100 scholarly articles and reports on foreign policy, immigration and political attitudes and behavior.

Predator Drones Shift from Battlefield to Border

2010-11-11T10:32:00.000-08:00

Predator Drones Shift from Battlefield to Border
Homeland Security Patrols Mexican, Canadian Borders and Caribbean with High-Tech Aircraft Known for Hunting Terrorists
by
Bob Orr
CBS Evening News
November 9, 2010
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/09/eveningnews/main7038641.shtml

El Paso crime rate down; Homicides noticeably drop

2010-11-07T09:16:00.000-08:00

By Daniel Borunda \ EL PASO TIMES
Posted: 11/07/2010 12:00:00 AM MDT

El Paso is on pace this year to have its lowest number of homicides in recent history, even as murders continue uncontrolled across the border in Juárez.

With less than two months to go in 2010, crime is down 1 percent overall, officials said. The most startling drop is in homicides.

This year, there have been three homicides in El Paso, including one Saturday. That compares with 10 at this time last year, which ended with a total of 12.

"It is low," Assistant Police Chief Eric Shelton said. "Once again, it is how safe the streets are in El Paso. In general, homicides will occur in areas that are unsafe and I don't believe El Paso has an area that is dangerous."

El Paso has had a low rate of violent crime for more than a decade, but three homicides is low even for the second-safest large city in the nation. The city of El Paso has more than 620,000 residents, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated last year in its most recent population update.

One homicide has occurred in El Paso County outside the city limits, a possible drug-related shooting by masked gunmen at a home in Fabens. The case remains unsolved.

El Paso averaged 16 homicides a year in the past decade. And it has averaged four killings during November-December in the past four years.

Police and civic leaders credit community involvement, help from federal law enforcement and residents' willingness to report suspicious activity for helping fight crime.

The drop in homicides in El Paso occurred while murders are on pace to set another unwanted record in Juárez, where more than 2,500 people have died violently this year.

"The big difference between El Paso and Juárez -- and I have to present this argument all the time -- in El Paso we trust the police," El Paso Mayor John Cook said.

"If we call to report a drug dealer down the street, we don't worry that the police officer will turn around and tell the drug dealer 'Hey, the guy down the street is saying you are a drug dealer.'

"That is the reality in Mexico. You can't trust if law enforcement is on your side."

El Paso County has a population of about 751,000. Juárez's population is estimated at 1.3 million.

Besides the drop in homicides, El Paso police report declines in auto thefts, 14 percent; vehicle burglaries, 23 percent; burglaries, 5 percent; and thefts, 4 percent.

Robberies and assaults are up, 7 and 5 percent, respectively, according to data as of Oct. 16.

To curb assaults, police are keeping a closer watch on bars, including making "bar checks." Several officers will enter an establishment to check for problems, Shelton said. The practice has been criticized as heavy-handed by some bar owners and customers.

Police said they were optimistic the city will end the year with a reduction in crime, but they are cautious because home and vehicle burglaries tend to jump during the holiday season.

They will focus on trying to prevent vehicle burglaries during the holidays.

"People go from store to store shopping," Shelton said. "Unfortunately, they leave packages in plain view. It is a perfect target for a criminal. You would be surprised how many (drivers) forget to lock their vehicles."

Crime may be down, but El Paso is often having to fight out-of-town misconceptions that it is a violent city because it is next to Juárez, Cook said. "It's a continuous battle having to fight that PR issue," he said.

Daniel Borunda may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com; 546-6102.

The numbers:
- El Paso has more than 620,000 residents. Juárez about 1.3 million.
- El Paso averaged 16 homicides a year in the past decade.
- Three homicides haveoccurred in El Paso this year.
- El Paso has averaged four killings during November-December in the past four years.
- In Juárez, more than 2,500 people have died violently this year.

Ciudad Juarez Students Rise Up

2010-11-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

For months Ciudad Juarez´s Plural Citizens Front and other opponents of Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s so-called drug war planned an international forum on violence and militarization in their battle-weary city.

Ironically, on the first day of the October 29-31 event, a bloody incident of the kind activists were protesting marred the meeting site at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez (ICB. Eyewitnesses told Frontera NorteSur that members of Mexico’s Federal Police opened fire on young people who had just participated in the 11th Walk against Death and were arriving to the campus to initiate the left-oriented forum.

The apparent targets were a small group of unarmed, masked youth affiliated with the pro-Zapatista Other Campaign which had trailed the demonstration to spray paint walls with political slogans. As the group was running from police and towards an entrance to the ICB, shots rang out. A bullet struck 19-year-old protestor and university student Jose Dario Alvarez Orrantia in the back, spilling the young man’s guts on the pavement.

“He survived by a miracle, said Dr. Arturo Valenzuela, who performed emergency surgery on Alvarez. “Until now, we are very pleased to have saved Dario.”

Outraged by the shooting, students temporarily occupied the ICB administration building. “An injury to one is an injury to all,” read one banner hanging from the building.

With Dario Alvarez’s blood staining one of the ICB´S entrances, marked off by a crude crime scene blocked off with a circle of rocks and a hand-written sign, the three-day forum proceeded in a tense atmosphere. The steady wail of ambulances passing near the ICB and the thud of gunshots in the distance were an audible reminder of the violence carving the rhythm of life in the border city.

The Federal Police shooting scared away many people who had planned attending the forum, said co-organizer Gabriela Beltran, who charged the Mexican government with staging the attack to undermine the meeting.

”The forum was meant to talk precisely about these types of situations in which the state has us submerged,” Beltran said.
Corroborated by Dr. Valenzuela, local news outlets quickly reported that a handful of Federal Police officers were detained by their superiors for the Alvarez shooting, but Beltran complained that nobody knew the identities of the supposedly arrested policemen and that a serious investigation was not underway.

For Rita del Castillo, the trip to the forum was a painful stop on a long journey that’s followed the drug war from the jungles of South America to the desert mesas of the borderland.

The mother of Juan Gonzalez del Castillo, a Mexico City student killed along with three other Mexican students in an unauthorized Ecuadoran encampment of Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) in March 2008, del Castillo came to the forum accompanied by the mother of another slain student to build support for their relatives’ movement aimed at bringing former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to justice.

A fifth Mexican student who was part of the group, Lucia Morett, survived the US-backed military assault but is now wanted by Interpol on terrorism-related charges filed by the Colombian government. The attack by the Colombian government also resulted in the killing of FARC negotiator Raul Reyes and nearly resulted in a war involving Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela.
Del Castillo insisted that her son and his friends were not terrorists but students on an academic research trip.
In her first visit to Ciudad Juarez, del Castillo arrived to the ICB just in time to hear shots puncturing the early evening and then see Dario Alvarez writhing on the ground.

“As parents this also fills us with indignation, and we extend our solidarity to the young people of the university, the university community and the family members of the young man wounded here yesterday on the university campus,” del Castillo said.

The October 29 shooting took place in the context of escalating violence in Ciudad Juarez and other parts of Mexico, including the slayings of four factory employees of a foreign manufacturing company in the Juarez Valley only days before the forum.

Contrary to rosy assessments of the drug war’s progress, such events demonstrate an overall deterioration of the public safety situation, said Victor Quintana, former Mexican lawmaker and adviser to the Democratic Campesino Front of Chihuahua. Condemning Alvarez´s shooting, Quintana said similar incidents cannot be allowed to happen.

Occupying the ICB campus during the weekend which immediately preceded Mexico’s Days of the Dead holidays, Dario Alvarez’s fellow students strategized their response to the police shooting of their friend.

In an exercise of direct democracy rarely seen in Mexico or the US, the students met in popular assemblies to carefully analyze, debate and decide possible courses of action.

A solemn mood characterized the meetings, shaped by the historical knowledge of the impact students as have had at other times in Mexican history, such as the 1968 student mobilization that culminated in the October 2 government slaughter of protesters in Mexico City.

“We are for the transformation of the world,” one student told his assembled classmates. “Another world is possible, and we are beginning it here in Ciudad Juarez.

Within hours of Alvarez’s shooting, messages of outside support were coming to Ciudad Juarez students. In short order, the event was acquiring national political ramifications. Speeches at the forum urging the cut off of US security assistance to Mexico and a sweeping redirection in the drug war gained resonance.

Locally, much of the political class and media downplayed, ignored and even distorted the October 29 incident. However, a group of prominent Ciudad Juarez academics and citizen activists authored an opinion piece for the October 31 edition of the city´s daily Norte newspaper.

Slamming human rights violations and the killing of young people in different parts of Mexico, the column posed a question:
“How much blood of innocent civilians, of the children and of the young, will have to run until the government comprehends that its public safety strategy and little war against organized crime is a noisy disaster?”

The statement was signed by Alfredo Nateras, Carlos Cruz, Julia Monarrez, Irma Saucedo, Luciana Ramos, and Lucia Melgar.
On November 2 and 3, Ciudad Juarez students and their allies once again took to the streets. According to local media reports, the first march drew at least 1,500 people.

The demonstrators demanded justice for Dario Alvarez and other youthful victims of violence, the demilitarization of Ciudad Juarez and the withdrawal of the Federal Police from the city.

Reportedly greeted by generous honks of support from passing motorists, the mass protest represented “a university movement that hasn’t occurred in Ciudad Juarez since the beginning or middle of the 1980s,” declared the web site of the Arrobajuarez.com news service.

Meanwhile, on many fronts, struggling civil society organizations wage a fight for peace and reconstruction in Ciudad Juarez. Once the poster child for the booming global economy of the late 20th century, Ciudad Juarez now hosts a “broken society,” said university student and health promoter Perla Davila. “Everyone” has been affected one way or another by the carnage that’s left about 7,000 people murdered since the beginning of 2008, Davila contended.

A psychology major, Davila works for a new non-profit organization, SABIC, which employs traditional herbal healing, alternative medicine and therapy to assist victims of violence. In its first year of operation, SABIC has attended about 5,000 people in ten community centers scattered across Ciudad Juarez, Davila told Frontera NorteSur.

Juarenses, she said, are sunk in a “tremendous stress” that shows no signs of letting up. The shooting of Jose Dario Alvarez Orrantia, Davila maintained, only adds to the official disdain of her troubled city and its embattled residents.

Said Davila: “We are trying to find an exit…nobody has a manual on how to survive a social war, on how to survive the war of a government that doesn’t want to listen, that doesn’t want to see what it is causing-especially in the young part of society.”
Additional sources: Diario de Juarez November 3, 2010. Arrobajuarez.com, November 3, 2010. Norte, October 31, 2010.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S. -Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu

Deporting Elena’s Father

2010-11-02T12:23:00.000-07:00

Illustration: Roxanna Bikadoroff

By Melissa Bollow Tempel

All over the United States, formal collaboration between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and local law enforcement under ICE ACCESS programs has deputized local law enforcement agents to enforce federal immigration law. Although no such agreements currently exist in the state of Wisconsin, the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office has been collaborating with ICE. The result has been a significant increase (46 percent from 2007 to 2008) in the number of detained and then deported immigrants picked up on minor traffic violations in the county. The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors heard testimony on this issue at their July 2010 meeting. Unfortunately, they sided with the sheriff’s department and decided not to pursue an intensive investigation. Local community organizations continue to advocate for an end to this collaboration.

Rethinking Schools Editorial Associate Melissa Bollow Tempel gave the following testimony at the meeting:

I am a bilingual teacher in Milwaukee Public Schools. Over the years, I have seen many students deal with deportation. People ask me, “How does deportation affect children?” The question I’d like to pose today is “How doesn’t deportation affect children?”

This year I had a student in my 1st-grade class. I’ll call her Elena. She was a natural leader in the classroom and spoke both English and Spanish fluently. She was well liked by her classmates and a natural leader, always organizing games on the playground during recess. Elena’s father was a model dad, the kind who worked hard and spent his free time with his family and his church. Every day he’d pick up his children from school. When Elena saw him approaching the school she’d yell, “Papi!” and run to him. They’d share a big hug and then he’d take her hand and the hand of her little sister and they’d walk home together. He helped Elena complete her homework—she is a very bright little girl—and read to her.

Elena’s mother came to my classroom one morning and asked me if I could write a letter of support to the judge who would try her husband’s deportation case. She told me that Elena’s father, the father of her four children, had gone to work and never returned. She learned later that ICE had taken him into custody. Although she is a U.S. citizen, he was not allowed to return home while awaiting his trial. Of course, I wrote the letter for her, as did the teachers of Elena’s siblings, but it did no good. Elena didn’t see her father again and eventually he was deported. My own daughter was in 1st grade this year and I couldn’t even allow myself to think about the severe impact that losing her father would have had on her.

This brings me to how deportation affects my students. Elena’s mother was forced to send her children to her sister’s house on the other side of town to sleep every night because her husband had cared for the girls while she worked third shift in a factory. Elena’s bright smile and eagerness to learn faded and she became somber, tired, and withdrawn. She stopped participating in class and often asked to stay inside instead of playing with her friends during recess. Elena stopped doing her homework because her father was not there to help her, and her mother had no time between household chores, cooking, and getting the children ready to drop off at their aunt’s house every night. Her mother told me that she slept only three hours during the day while her baby was sleeping. She’d be so tired that she would oversleep and miss the pickup time at the end of the school day. We’d have to call to wake her up.

Mondays were the worst. Elena would come to school after spending some quality time with her mother and family; I’d take one look at her face and know it was going to be a hard morning. On those days I’d let her eat breakfast in the hallway with me while my teaching partner stayed with the rest of the class. Elena would sit on my lap and cry—sob, really—and tell me that she missed her father, that she wanted to talk to him, to see him. Sometimes it would make her feel better to write him letters. She would end them with “Are you coming home?” and draw two little boxes—one for him to check “yes” and one for him to check “no.” Even more heartbreaking were the letters that ended the same way but with a different question: “Do you still love me?”

This summer I have spent some time with Elena and her siblings, trying to give her mother a break. Mostly I’m there because I know that Elena’s having a difficult time with yet another change in her life, the transition from the school to the summer, and she’s lost the regular support of her teachers for the summer.

Elena’s mom told me that they will probably move in with her sister, which means that Elena will have to change schools. Her new school doesn’t have bilingual classes. She’ll have to make new friends and her mother will have to start over, building a support network in the community for her children and herself.

I’m using Elena as an example because this is not a unique story. It has many similarities to the experiences of all my students who have dealt with the deportation of a parent. There is absolutely no way that Elena and the three other children in my class who lost a loved one to deportation were not deeply affected, emotionally and academically. Our students are hurting. Some of them were born here, making them “legal,” and they hope to carry out their family’s dream of a better life. That dream starts with education.

These children face so many obstacles: living in poverty, lacking medical and dental care, and living in homes that landlords don’t bother to repair because they know their tenants won’t report them. Deporting children’s parents creates just another obstacle for them, but this is the one that is the most difficult to overcome.

Melissa Bollow Tempel (melissa@rethinkingschools.org) teaches in the Milwaukee Public Schools

Con 340 muertos, rompe octubre récord violento

2010-10-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

From: On Behalf Of molly
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 8:53 AM
Subject: [frontera-list] 10 killed October 30 in Juarez, 340 breaks record for most violent month - 10.31.10

I had counted about 9 killings last night by about 8:00 pm. Diario
says that in all yesterday, there were 10. Added to my tally as of
yesterday, this would have made 328. But, this morning, Diario reports
that the actual number of dead so far in October is 340---a new
record--with one day left in the month. The previous high was 338 in
August this year. The total number of dead now this year is 2,666.
Added to the previous annual numbers as reported in El Diario
1,623 in 2008
2,754 in 2009
2,666 so far in 2010
This adds up to 7,043 people murdered in Juarez since the beginning of
2008.

These are the monthly tallies so far in 2010 from El Diario newspaper
archives, based on official reports:

227 January
163 February
240 March
203 April
262 May
313 June
291 July
338 August
289 September
340 as of October 30
--[Molly Molloy]

Al registrarse ayer 10 homicidios dolosos, octubre –aún sin concluir– se estableció ya como el mes más violento del año con 340 asesinatos; en la gran mayoría de los casos, los responsables no fueron detenidos.

Los crímenes perpetrados en lo que va del año han dejado ya a 2 mil 666 familias enlutadas, mientras que a lo largo de todo el 2009 se contabilizaron 2 mil 754 víctimas mortales.

Ayer, se cometieron otros 10 asesinatos, seis de ellos durante la tarde. El primer caso vespertino se registró aproximadamente a las 15:00 horas en el poblado de Loma Blanca, donde dos hombres fueron asesinados.

Los cadáveres de las víctimas se hallaron en un patio de una vivienda ubicada en la calle Montenegro.

De las víctimas se conoció únicamente que uno tenía entre 20 y 25 años de edad y el otro de entre 40 y 42 años.

Una hora más tarde, otro individuo fue atacado a balazos luego de ser tirado de un vehículo en movimiento, sobre la calle Justo Sierra de la colonia El Barreal. La víctima estaba esposada y vestía una playera color azul y pantalón de mezclilla.

Al filo de las 19:30 horas en la vía Montes Urales casi cruce con la Avenida Tecnológico, a unos 50 metros del puente de la Jilotepec, un joven de unos 27 años también fue asesinado.

Cerca de las 20:10 horas de ayer en Berilio y Begonias, un individuo fue ultimado junto a la banca de un parque.

Después de las 22:00 horas, ocurrió el sexto crimen de la tarde. Esto en la intersección de Valle de la Coliona y Valle del Sol, en una zona habitacional que lleva el mismo nombre.

Archivos periodísticos, con base en reportes oficiales, señala que en enero ocurrieron 227 asesinatos, 163 en febrero, 240 en marzo, 203 en abril, 262 en mayo, 313 en junio, 291 en julio, 338 en agosto, 289 en septiembre y 340 al 30 de octubre.

Por lo que a la fecha, han ocurrido 2 mil 666 homicidios.

Mientras que durante el 2009 la violencia cobró la vida de 2 mil 754 personas.

Student, 20, named Mexico police chief

2010-10-20T20:19:00.000-07:00

A 20-YEAR-OLD female criminology student has been named police chief of a northern Mexican border town plagued by drug violence because no one else wanted the job.

Marisol Valles became director of municipal public security of Guadalupe "since she was the only person to accept the position", the mayor's office of the town of some 10,000 people near the US border told local media yesterday.

Ms Valles is studying criminology in Mexico's most violent city of Ciudad Juarez, some 60km west of Guadalupe.

Raging turf battles between rival drug gangs have left some 6500 people dead in Ciudad Juarez alone in the past three years.

Much of Chihuahua state has suffered from the spiral of drug violence, including in Guadalupe, where the mayor was murdered in June and police officers and security agents have been killed, some of them beheaded.

Last week alone there were at least eight murders in Guadalupe, in an area deemed a high-traffic transit point for illegal drugs across the border into the US state of Texas.

More than 28,000 people have died nationwide in suspected drug violence since December 2006, when the Mexican government launched an offensive against its criminal gangs with the deployment of some 50,000 troops.

The Guadalupe mayor's office has only one police patrol car and receives security assistance from the army.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world/student-20-named-mexico-police-chief/story-e6frfkyi-1225941254960#ixzz12xZiMgLp

"Detaining" Profits

2010-10-17T13:38:00.000-07:00

Are private prison corporations enslaving, raping, and killing immigrant detainees while making a nice fat profit?

Seattle, WA. On August 26, 2007, a settlement agreement between the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Bush Administration (Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE) was recorded in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division.

The settlement agreement was largely overlooked by mainstream media but it was both historic and highly significant. The agreement pertained to the case of In re Hutto Family Detention Centers and involved allegations of systemic and pervasive violations of civil and human rights that endangered the lives of detainees. Most of these are persons that are not being detained because they are guilty of a "crime" but due to alleged infractions against the U.S. civil code governing immigration and naturalization.

The Hutto facility had witnessed a variety of criminal incidents and patterns of exploitative treatment including the sexual abuse and rape of women and children, medical neglect, forcible separation from relatives, and other travesties too numerous to list here. None of the perpetrators were ever brought to trial for their crimes, and some of the prison guards were not even terminated. Human Rights Watch issued a report on the mistreatment and abuse of women in detention centers (March 2009) to little public outcry or media focus.

I have to wonder: Where is the moral outrage and outcry in the United States that we saw over the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq?

In another related report, released this past August, Human Rights Watch provides relevant commentary and analysis of the allegations surrounding this case:

In May 2007, when Hutto still functioned as a family detention center, a young boy was sleeping in a crib inside his mother’s cell when a guard entered and had sexual contact with her. Video surveillance captured the guard, employed by private contractor Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), crawling out of the cell in the middle of the night in an apparent failed attempt to evade security cameras. CCA fired the guard, but he never faced criminal prosecution by either state or federal authorities. According to an ICE spokesperson, the police investigation concluded that the sexual contact had been consensual. In any Bureau of Prisons facility in the US, the same incident would have constituted a crime because federal law criminalizes sexual contact between guards and those in their custody. However, at the time, that particular provision of the federal criminal code applied only to facilities under the authority of the Department of Justice. Immigration facilities had been under the authority of the DOJ until 2003, but then authority passed to the newly created Department of Homeland Security. Consequently, the statutory provision did not cover sexual misconduct in ICE facilities at the time of the incident at Hutto. Later in 2007, a legislative amendment was passed to make the provision cover all federal facilities.

In other words, a bit of bureaucratic buffoonery allowed the perpetrators at Hutto to get away with their crimes due, ultimately, to jurisdictional oversights in the original statutes regulating treatment of persons in prisons versus detention centers.

The biggest travesty of all at Hutto, like numerous other privately-run, for-profit detention centers in unmarked and secretive locations across the country, is that the system of detention itself, and its dehumanizing imprisonment of entire families awaiting deportation, subjects people to a series of violent acts that threaten the health and safety of entire families and their extended kin and communities. Some of these cases involve U.S.-born citizen children in mixed status families where one or both parents are undocumented. Other relatives may be stranded by the detention of parents and other kin; this has included abandoned toddlers and teenagers who are U.S.-born citizens.

Often overlooked in such cases is that the underlying savage treatment of detainee families is routine for a for-profit industry that is supported by Wall Street power mandarins and embraced by the neoliberal minimalist state that has politicians of all stripes, including Democratic Party leadership, privatizing everything including war and the regime of discipline and punishment that has turned our detention policy into a de facto pogrom, or purge, of the "unwanted Other."

Hence, the Obama Administration's recent glowing report and celebration of the record-breaking number of apprehensions and deportations last week. One wonders if Obama's advisers think this will miraculously get them some Tea Party votes; one suspects it won't, but it will likely lead to a loss of a good portion of the Latina/o voters who will sit out the midterm elections as a result of this type of political maneuvering that cheapens the value of a life for the sake of more favorable electoral outcomes.

I have to wonder: Where is the moral outrage in the United States that we saw over the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq? This is the same horror, sans photos or videos.

Jails 'R Us: Privatizing Detention & Demonizing Mexicans

The Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) is one of the leading corporate powers that dominates the private prison-detention center industrial complex, an unaccountable and secretive sector that exploits the lives and struggles of displaced persons who are criminalized for the convenience of the returns to shareholders and CEOs.

This is a well-connected corporation. CCA - which trades on the NYSE as "CXW" - is based in Nashville, TN and its connections to political elites in that state were most recently put on display when a former chief counsel was nearly appointed to a federal district judgeship, except for the organizing work of the incomparable Private Corrections Institute. The corporation seems immune to the budget cuts everyone else has been facing since the start of the Derivatives Depression in September 2008. CCA recently received an increase in the per Diem it receives from the State of Tennessee for each prisoner it "keeps" in its complexes.

Ironically, there is a surveillance tape that caught one of the rapist guards leaving the cell of the victim. He was fired but did not get prosecuted for the rape due to the previously mentioned jurisdictional buffoonery. Despite this domestic Abu Ghraib-like scandal, the company's stock seems impervious to the decline that most company stocks have faced since September 2008.

I tracked CXW stock and found that it has proven resilient: The stock was at 32.99 in July 2007 (its highest level through October 2010). It closed 2007 in the 30.00-32.00 range. In August 2008, before the onset of the credit market collapse, it was still trading fairly high at 28.42. However, by the end of October it was down nearly fifty percent to 17.05. CXW stock hit bottom in March 2009 when it closed as low as 9.82. However, since that trough, the ride has mainly been up: In late November 2009 it was trading at 25.81 and it held that range through the present: The stock closed today (October 11, 2010) at 25.83.

Why is a corporation that manages and runs private prisons and detention centers so profitable in a time of sustained recession, at least as measured by their earnings reports and stock price?

There is an old formula, readily familiar to most scholars in the social science immigration studies community. The formula was probably first applied by the pioneering Chicano researcher Ernesto Galarza who used it to illustrate his theory of "administered labor migration." The formula is simple and yet compelling: In times of economic growth and expansion, the U.S. opens the border to Mexican labor. In times of economic contraction and recession, the U.S. closes the border to Mexican labor. It is also not a coincidence that concern for immigration as a "social" problem increases whenever the economy goes into a depression or recession. This has always been the case and is not a recent phenomenon.

One can track the rise in the fortunes of CCA and correlate it precisely to the recession and subsequent heightened attacks on Mexican labor. Since apprehensions and deportations are at an all time high, it is reasonable to assume the government has to increase the number of beds for people held in detention centers. Herein lies the secret to the success enjoyed by CCA in the wake of the 2008 stock market collapse.

The for-profit prison and detention center industry relies on misery as its modus vivendi. It relies on the misery unleashed by unemployment and a climate of hatred fed by fear-mongering and immigrant-bashing; it thrives from the criminalization of labor; it makes its vampire living from the apprehension of people whose only "crime" is that they seek to escape the structural violence of hunger and malnutrition by entering the U.S. at great risk to themselves and their families to pursue undocumented labor in the U.S.

A democratic society should not allow prisons to become Arpaio gulags and warehouses of abuse and death, while rewarding it with unfathomable CEO bonuses and profits. This is necro-capitalism at its worst.

Under the volcano

2010-10-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

The drugs trade has spread corruption and violence across Mexico. Can the police ever catch up with them?
Oct 14th 2010 | MONTERREY

THE drugs business, as Miguel tells it, used to offer a promising career for a young man. At 4am he would set out into the sierra of Sinaloa to pick up cannabis. Back in the city of Culiacán he would pack it for export, compressing it with a hydraulic pump, wrapping it in polythene and dunking it in wax to trick the sniffer dogs. The packets would go in trucks, cars, even on push-bikes. Once, in a friend’s Cessna, he skimmed the treetops south to Colombia, dropping packets of cocaine over the Mexican desert on the way back.

Miguel’s trafficking career ended in 1988, when he was caught. Five years in prison followed. “There was always the danger of being captured by the police or the army,” he says now. “But in Sinaloa we had no problems with the other cartels. It was easier to work with them than to kill them. Today they don’t understand that.”

Indeed they don’t. Since Felipe Calderón began his presidency in 2006 with a renewed effort against the drugs cartels, more than 28,000 people have been killed. Mr Calderón has deployed 50,000 soldiers to fight the gangsters, whose inventories now include rocket-propelled grenades, helicopters and semi-submersible vessels. Pitched battles between the army and the traffickers have caused some of these casualties; more still have been caused by fighting among Mexico’s half-dozen main trafficking organisations, engaged in a bloody struggle for the trade.

Last year Mexican officials angrily rebuffed a Pentagon study arguing that the country was in danger of becoming a failed state. That description still seems absurd in most of the country, the world’s 11th-largest by population and 14th-biggest by size of economy. Most of the violence remains confined to a handful of states, mainly close to the United States border. But since the Pentagon’s report the frequency of gang-related homicides has more than doubled. The second quarter of this year saw more than 4,000 such murders: twice as many as at the beginning of last year, and some eight times more than at the beginning of 2007 (see chart 1). The gangs’ tactics now include detonating car-bombs in public places.

The conflict has become a test of endurance for both the government and the narcos. Mr Calderón has staked his presidency on the outcome. In 2007 a third of Mexicans thought the death toll was an acceptable price to pay for beating the cartels, whereas now only a quarter do. “Unless there is a big change in the level of violence, the current strategy cannot survive more than another six months,” says Jorge Castañeda, a former foreign minister.

With a presidential election less than two years away, groups are positioning themselves to influence the next regime. The criminals are, too: heads tossed onto dance floors, corpses strung from bridges and, most recently, a victim’s face that was flayed off to be sewn onto a football, are all messages to government and citizens to back down. The law-abiding must decide whether it is better to give in, or battle on.

The official murder rate in Mexico remains lower than in much of Latin America. In 2009 it was 14 per 100,000 people, compared with 25 in Brazil and around 70 in parts of Central America. The violence is localised: 80% of the gang-related murders since 2006 have been committed in just 7% of Mexico’s towns, according to the government. A third of Mexico’s 31 states have murder rates hovering around five per 100,000, about the same as the United States. Yucatán, where tourists snorkel with whale sharks, sees fewer killings per person than Canada.

Many believe that the official statistics do not capture the whole picture. Cartels are good at public executions, but they are also skilled at hiding bodies when necessary. El pozolero (“the soup-maker”), dissolved some 300 corpses in a broth of acid before his capture last year. In June some 55 bodies were discovered in a silver mine close to Taxco, a tourist-friendly town in Guerrero. A study commissioned by FLACSO, a Latin American social-science university, estimated that, based on victimisation surveys, Mexico’s murder rate could be closer to 26 per 100,000.

What makes Mexico worrying is not just the raw numbers but the power of the cartels over society. Around five years ago Mexico’s drug-smuggling gangs overtook Colombia’s in resources and manpower, reckons Scott Stewart of Stratfor, a Texas-based security consultancy. As well as expanding down the supply chain, running distribution networks in the United States, they have moved up it, buying cocaine directly in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. They have become a bigger influence in politics at home: woe betide public figures who do not march to their tune.

In Tamaulipas, a state in the north-east bordering Texas, the candidate widely expected to be elected governor in July was murdered four days before the poll. After the discovery of 72 murdered Central and South American migrants in the same state in August, two policemen running the investigation were killed. Journalists in towns such as Reynosa, on the Texan border, have stopped reporting on the drugs wars after being intimidated. Across Mexico, at least 11 mayors have been murdered so far this year.

Violence reaches the rich

But this year has also seen a significant change. Since a bust-up between the Gulf cartel and their former allies, a group known as the Zetas—former Mexican special forces who defected to the narcos a decade ago—violence has spread to the doorsteps of some of Mexico’s richest people. Monterrey, a city of 4m in the state of Nuevo León, daytripping distance from Texas, is Mexico’s industrial powerhouse, with an average income three times the national average, thanks to factories turning out everything from fridges to fuselages for the United States. Smartly-dressed young executives devouring business manuals land at its airport on the hour, every hour.

Yet fighting between the Zetas and the Gulf has destroyed Monterrey’s reputation as a safe city. Though business has more or less held up so far, a series of drug-related spectaculars sparked an exodus of the city’s upper class this summer. In April several people were kidnapped from the Holiday Inn, in the city centre. In August a shoot-out outside the American School left two dead. Many wealthy Mexicans have moved their families to the United States or safer parts of Mexico. In the smart suburbs, Monterrey’s rich are now keeping their SUVs garaged out of sight.

The threat against Mexico’s industrial capital has raised the stakes. “Monterrey will be a decisive battle,” says Luis Rubio, head of CIDAC, a Mexico City think-tank. The country’s movers and shakers have been galvanised now. In August Lorenzo Zambrano, the chairman and CEO of Cemex, the world’s biggest building-materials supplier, which built its empire out of the limestone cliffs of Monterrey, vented his anger on Twitter. “He who leaves Monterrey is a coward,” he wrote. In the same month Monterrey business leaders took out full-page ads in the national press, criticising the government’s apparent impotence. The pressure has had some effect. Last October Nuevo León had 60 federal police officers; it now has 550. “I feel that the sense of urgency has now reached our government,” says Mr Zambrano.

The war has certainly exposed the weakness of Mexico’s criminal-justice institutions. Numbers are not the problem: with 366 officers per 100,000 people, Mexico is better supplied with police than the United States, Britain, Italy and France, among others. But it is badly organised and corrupt. Policemen earn an average of $350 a month, about the same as a builder’s labourer, meaning that wages are supplemented with bribes. Carlos Jáuregui, who was Nuevo León’s chief security official until March, reckons that more than half the officers in the state were being paid by organised crime. A policeman in Monterrey can be bought for about 5,000 pesos ($400) a fortnight, Mr Jáuregui reckons.

“Police are treated as second-class citizens,” says Ernesto López Portillo, head of Insyde, a Mexico City think-tank. They are kept that way by the constitution, which separates police officers from other public servants, meaning they do not qualify for the standard minimum wage and the 40-hour weekly work limit. Police forces are in theory overseen by internal investigation units, but their findings are secret and, in any case, Mr López Portillo estimates that fewer than 5% of forces have such a body.

The government has focused on reforming the federal police, with some success. The force has gone through a deep purge, with a tenth of its officers sacked in the first eight months of this year for corruption or incompetence. Pay has gone up, and so has recruitment. At the beginning of Mr Calderón’s term there were 6,000 officers in the federal force; now there are more than 30,000 (some seconded from the army). The government is developing an external body to review the police.

Progress has also been made on Mexico’s federal prisons, with the construction of a new academy to train prison guards. The Mérida initiative, under which the United States provides help to Mexico to combat organised crime, is being tweaked to back such reforms. Whereas in 2008 most of the budget went on hardware—both military and civilian—the priority now is stronger institutions, says an American embassy official. Change is coming to the judicial system too, after a constitutional reform in 2008 that will set up a British or American-style accusatorial, oral system in place of written investigations, which are open to abuse.

Trials and hold-ups

Yet many reforms take agonisingly long to appear. An exam introduced two years ago to weed out dim or corrupt policemen has been taken by fewer than a quarter of officers, and by fewer than a tenth of state police. Progress on judicial reform has been glacial, meeting enormous resistance. The change is supposed to be completed by 2016; Alejandro Poiré, the government’s security spokesman, says this timetable may have to be speeded up.

In many cases Mexico’s federal system of government has prevented reforms from filtering through to ground level. Mexico is a federation of 31 states and 2,456 municipalities, whose governors and mayors guard their limited powers jealously. Policing is one of them, and the quality varies wildly: there are fewer than half as many local police per head in Tamaulipas as in Tabasco. Some 400 towns have no police, and 90% of municipal forces employ fewer than 100 officers.

Some mayors are under enormous pressure from criminals to keep things that way. Municipal police “are the most vulnerable…the most subjected to intimidation and, of course, the vengeance of the criminals,” Mr Calderón said recently. They are also among the least effective: the patchwork of command muddles operations. In Monterrey the metropolitan area alone has 11 different forces, using different training, tactics and even brands of radio. “If a criminal crosses the street he has reached a safe haven,” admits one official. On October 6th Mr Calderón presented plans to unify the police in each state, bringing the municipal forces under the control of governors. The measure now has broad support in Mexico City but requires changes to the constitution, which more than half the states must approve.

It is a similar story with the prisons. The American official estimates that whereas federal prisons are about a quarter of the way towards being fit for purpose, the state prisons are only a tenth of the way there. Recent mass-jailbreaks in Tamaulipas and an extraordinary episode in Durango, in which prisoners were let out to commit contract killings using guards’ weapons, underline how far state prisons have to go.

In the case of money laundering, the federal government’s recent legislation will be stymied by the fact that property, a favourite way to hide dirty money, is registered at state level. Only the federal district of Mexico City has its own financial-investigations unit.

Yet the government’s reforms, coupled with pressure from the army, may be starting to have an effect. The most visible successes of recent months have been the capture or killing of a string of cartel leaders. Long lines of deputies wait to inherit their positions. But the arrests are a sign of improved intelligence capability in the security forces, says Mr Poiré. Between June and August the murder rate stabilised, at a rate of about 49 gang-killings a day, and it fell somewhat in September, to 36 a day (figures were available only up to September 24th). There have been false dawns before. But it may be that a combination of institutional reform and firepower is slowly beginning to weaken the cartels, or at least alter their behaviour.

In Monterrey the state government is experimenting with an ad-hoc unified force that gives municipalities the right to opt out. Officials reckon that seven of the 11 municipalities will take part. In another experiment, police are patrolling with soldiers and prosecutors to provide a mixture of firepower and basic policing know-how (such as blocking the backs of houses before going in at the front). Since August the city has seen no roadblocks set up by the gangsters, and the level of violence diminished in September. Many locals fear that the respite is temporary, but Javier Treviño, the deputy governor of Nuevo León, believes Monterrey is now over the worst.

The battlefield provides some evidence that certain cartels are being weakened. The Zetas, for instance, seem less and less professional. Some are teenagers who have little idea how to use their powerful weapons. Arrested gunmen are sometimes so drunk or stoned that they have to be left for 24 hours to sober up, one official says. The cartel appears to be relying more on part-time help: one Monterrey businessman found that his office cleaner was working nights for the mob. Many bodies go unclaimed, suggesting that footsoldiers are being recruited, or pressganged, from farther afield. The migrants murdered in Tamaulipas are believed to have been murdered after refusing to work for the narcos.

The weakening of some criminal gangs has had unforeseen consequences. Cartel recruitment has been ramped up in poor neighbourhoods such as Colonia Independencia, a hillside settlement that confronts Monterrey’s government offices from across the Santa Catarina river. Teenagers there run murderous errands for around 4,000 pesos a week, community workers say. And the loss of influence by the Zetas has led to scrappy turf wars. Over the summer Monterrey’s middle class was shocked by the apparently random kidnapping of young, affluent residents. It later emerged that the Zetas were nabbing people who looked like cocaine users to find out where they got their drugs, so that they could kill their rival dealers.

The big green hole

As pressure is put on the drugs business, the gangs are diversifying into other rackets: extortion and kidnap, particularly of migrants from Central America. Gangs increasingly aim to dominate all criminal enterprises in a given territory, rather than simply the supply of drugs, says Antonio Mazzitelli, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Mexico City. The increase in kidnapping has heightened the feeling of insecurity, even among those with protection. Diego Fernández, a former presidential candidate who remains influential within the ruling National Action Party, was kidnapped in May and is now seen only in periodic ransom demands, thinner in each photograph.

Even when the cartels are driven out of one place, they tend to pick up their operations elsewhere. Commanders in Monterrey say that their successes have exacerbated problems in the nearby states of Coahuila and Durango. Mexico’s own drugs problems took off in the 1990s, after the old cocaine-trafficking route to Florida through the Caribbean was shut down by the Americans. Now, as Mexico piles pressure on its home-grown cartels, some are moving their operations south. Already, more cocaine is seized in Central America than in Mexico (see chart 2). Some Mexican groups have set up training camps and storage facilities in the jungles of Petén, a “big green hole of nothing” in northern Guatemala, according to Mr Stewart.

The Zetas, in particular, are visible in Central America. Zeta recruitment banners have been spotted, tempting soldiers away from the army with better wages and food; the gang is believed to linked up with former Guatemalan special forces, enthusiastic abusers of human rights during the country’s civil war. In September a Guatemalan court convicted six Mexican nationals, believed to be Zetas, of the murder of 11 people in 2008. In the first six months of this year Guatemalan authorities seized cash, drugs and arms worth more than everything they had seized the previous year, according to the police.

Guatemala’s deepening nightmare could eventually mean grim relief for Mexico. So too could developments in the United States and Europe. On November 2nd California will vote on a ballot initiative to legalise the sale of cannabis which, if it became law, would remove one small line of business from Mexico’s cartels (see article). Legally or not, more cannabis is being grown north of the border anyway.

Help may also come from Europe’s cocaine market. This is now almost as valuable as that of the United States, which is shrinking, according to the UNODC. Andean cocaine bound for Europe need not go through Mexico, and the Mexican gangs are still weaker than the Colombians in Spain (partly because the Mexican diaspora does not extend much beyond the United States). Mr Mazzitelli says Mexicans are now collaborating with the Italian ’Ndrangheta mafia to explore new opportunities in Australia, where the retail price of cocaine is twice what it is in the United States.

Whether its bases are in Mexico or elsewhere, the illegal drugs business will continue to bring violence and corruption to the Americas, where it sucks in an ever greater number of young men. Miguel, the former Sinaloa trafficker, promised his family he would go clean when he got out of jail; he works as a gardener now, but the money is poor, and he would still go into the drugs business if he had his time again. Trying to stop the gangsters “is like mowing the grass,” he says. “You can cut it down. But it always grows back.”

Deportation fears erode trust

2010-10-15T11:02:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, I and three other immigrant students left Miami on a 1,500-mile walk to our nation’s capital. We wanted Americans to understand what life is like for the hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants like me who are unable to fully participate in American society.

I won’t forget the day that we walked through Atlanta. There was a marching band and hundreds of people waiting. The mayor sent a representative, elected officials spoke and we were pursued by news outlets.

But what I remember most was a Brazilian couple who came from Cobb County to give me Brazilian food; they had heard that I was born in Rio. I was deeply touched.

They told me about their lives in Cobb as undocumented immigrants. I was familiar with Cobb, because it’s widely known as one of the worst places for immigrants to live in Georgia

Last October, the ACLU of Georgia documented the experience of the Cobb Latino community: one of fear, isolation and racial profiling.

The Brazilian couple were expecting a baby and told me that they were afraid every time they got inside the car to go to the hospital for prenatal care. Their eyes got a little watery when they talked about the possibility of having their baby inside a detention center.

I looked at them, gave them a hug and promised that I would tell their story. The 287(g) program is separating our families and causing so much pain in our communities.

Cobb is one of the four Georgia localities that are part of 287(g), which gives authority to local law enforcement to act as immigration agents, much like Arizona’s SB 1070. The program is widely criticized by human and civil rights groups because it promotes racial profiling and erodes trust between community members and the police.

I also recall the unfortunate case of the young undocumented student, Jessica Colotl, who was detained for driving without a license. She almost got deported, even though she lived most of her life in the U.S.

I am no different from Jessica. I was born in Brazil and sent to Miami at the age of 14 to live with my relatives because my mother was ill and could no longer care for me.

When I arrived here, my family told me that in this nation, if I worked hard all of my dreams would come true.

I took their words to heart and graduated from high school with honors, only to find barriers because I could not adjust my immigration status. I could not afford the out-of-state fees for college.

But a year later, I was given a chance. Miami Dade College accepted me into their honors program. I became the student government president, helped to found a club to build schools in Uganda and became one of the best students in Florida.

In 2008, I made USA Today’s All-USA Community College Academic Team. I also contributed to my community with more than 1,000 hours of service and I made Florida proud of me.

Imagine if this opportunity was not presented to me?

I believe education is the only way out of poverty; for that reason, I am working hard to finish my bachelor’s degree and become a teacher.

I am undocumented just like Jessica and the Cobb couple who were afraid of going to the hospital. We have hopes and dreams to make our families and this country better. We cannot allow our communities to live in fear from programs that promote racial profiling.

That’s why I am back in Georgia to join forces with local and national civil and human rights advocates as well as undocumented students from Georgia demanding an end to the 287(g) program in Cobb.

Felipe Matos is an undocumented student from Trail of DREAMs and an organizer for the national campaign against 287(g).

Regents ban illegal immigrants from some Ga. colleges

2010-10-13T19:34:00.000-07:00

The State Board of Regents voted Wednesday to ban illegal immigrants from attending Georgia's top public colleges starting next fall, but that will not be the final action on the polarizing issue.

Lawmakers plan to introduce a bill to bar these students from all public colleges -- the 35 institutions in the University System of Georgia and the 26 in the Technical College System of Georgia. Both Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates have said they support such a measure.

"The regents were heading in the right direction, but I just wish they had taken it one step further," Sen. Don Balfour, R-Snellville, said. "A bill will be introduced this session that says no illegals in any public college. I have a hard time believing it won't pass."

The regents approved prohibiting illegal immigrants from attending any college that has rejected academically qualified applicants for the past two academic years because of space or other issues. The affected campuses are: University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, Medical College of Georgia and Georgia College & State University. Officials could not say immediately how many qualified applicants had been turned away at those schools.

The ban means Georgia is following South Carolina, which prohibits illegal immigrants from all public colleges.

Debate over illegal immigration and higher education resurfaced last spring after Jessica Colotl, an illegal immigrant attending Kennesaw State University, was arrested on campus for a traffic violation. College officials disclosed they had charged her in-state tuition. State rules require illegal immigrants pay the more expensive out-of-state rates.

Charles Kuck, Colotl's immigration attorney, said his client may have brought the issue to the forefront, but she didn't cause the new rules.

"This was bound to come up again," Kuck said. "The sad thing is they don't know this won't make a difference. They're robbing children of hope and an education, that's what they did. They won't make people leave this country because it's still better for them here than it is back at home."

Regent Jim Jolly, who chaired the committee that recommended the new policies, said they are not "equipped to serve as immigration authorities" but the new rules will make sure students are classified properly for tuition purposes.

Of the 310,361 students enrolled, 501 are classified as "undocumented" and are paying out-of-state tuition, Jolly said. These students did not provide documentation to determine their tuition status. They may be in this country illegally.

"Clearly our institutions are not being inundated but undocumented students and Georgia taxpayers are not subsidizing the small number enrolled," Jolly said.

Still, he said, the ban should alleviate concerns that these students take seats away from U.S. citizens. The five campuses enroll 29 undocumented students.

Regent Richard Tucker voted against the ban and a new verification rule, saying it would burden colleges.

The new rules require campuses to verify the "lawful presence" of students seeking in-state tuition. Colleges can use several methods, such as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlement (SAVE) program, a federal database that typically charges 50 cents for each background check.

College officials said they need to figure out how to implement the new policy and make applicants aware of the changes.

"Georgia State admitted over 13,000 students this past fall, so it will be a large undertaking," said Tim Renick, the college's chief enrollment officer. "We plan to work with the other impacted universities to see if we can develop some common practices. This should help to reduce applicant confusion about the new rules."

Eric Cuevas, a recruiter at Georgia Perimeter College, said some students already are confused about which campuses they can attend and wary that completing an applications could lead to deportation.

"We're not purposely recruiting these students, it just happens," Cuevas said. "Do you know how hard it is to get a Hispanic student to even consider college? This just made it a lot harder."

Before the meeting, about 20 people protested the ban. They carried signs that read: "Education not deportation!" and "Board of Regents, do the right thing, please don’t ban me!"

"They are not taking seats away from American students," said Eva Cardenas, a sophomore at Clayton State University. "They earned their seats."

Other students said illegal immigrants are breaking the law and should not be rewarded with college.

"For every illegal person who is attending a public university, that's another U.S. citizen turned away," said David Bachman, a student at Middle Georgia College. "What is most astonishing is that our elected officials in Washington should be enforcing these laws instead of the State Board of Regents."

Regents Vice Chairman Felton Jenkins voted against the ban, saying it was against the board's mission, which is to promote education.

"I just think people who are qualified ought to get in," Jenkins said. "They worked hard and earned their spot. They could help make the state a better place."

Regents voting for the ban were: Jolly, Kenneth R. Bernard Jr., James Bishop, Frederick Cooper, C. Thomas Hopkins Jr., W. Mansfield Jennings Jr., Donald M. Leebern Jr., William "Dink" H. NeSmith Jr., Doreen Stiles Poitevint, Willis J. Potts Jr., Wanda Yancey Rodwell, Kessel Stelling Jr., Benjamin Tarbutton III and Larry Walker. Larry Ellis and Bob Hatcher were not present.

New rules

The State Board of Regents Wednesday approved four actions to help ensure that no illegal immigrants are charged taxpayer supported in-state tuition rates. The rules also seek to calm public concerns that illegal immigrants are taking seats away from U.S. citizens. Here are the rules:

- Add a section to all applications explaining the legal ramifications for knowingly providing false information.

- Require applicants to state on the applications whether they are eligible and seeking in-state tuition.

- Order all 35 campuses to verify the "lawful presence" of any admitted student seeking in-state tuition.

-Deny illegal immigrants admission to any college that has turned away academically qualified applicants because of a lack of space or other issues. Next fall this will apply to: University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, Medical College of Georgia and Georgia College & State University.
Source: University System of Georgia