http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/2006/06/6-11-2006-immigrant-rights-agenda.html
Content of Articles & Links:
http://www.newbritainherald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16771998&BRD=1641&PAG=461&dept_id=10110&rfi=6
Don't let your rights disappear, urges Latino leader = 06/11/2006
http://www.workers.org/2006/us/immigrants-0615/
Immigrants fight for union = June 10, 2006
http://www.workers.org/2006/us/trans-day-0615/
Trans Day of Action: Focus on social & economic justice = Jun 10, 2006, Saturday
http://dailynews.com/news/ci_3916499
Latinos to hold congress in L.A. = 06/09/2006 12:00:00 AM PDT
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/national/article/0,1406,KNS_350_4761226,00.html
Texas governor proposes Web cams along border = June 9, 2006, Friday
http://www.alipac.us/article1037.html
U.S. sees increase in border attacks by Mexican gangs! = Friday, February 10, 2006
http://search.csmonitor.com/search_content/0608/p01s01-uspo.html
Could Senate plan for illegal immigrants work? = June 08, 2006 edition
It calls for categorizing immigrants by length of US residency, but logistics would be complex.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1102AP_Mexico_Powell.html
Powell says border walls won't work: Thursday, June 8, 2006
http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-06-08T202457Z_01_N08392073_RTRIDST_0_CANADA-SECURITY-USA-BORDER-COL.XML
Border role not new for discreet US military unit = Thu Jun 8, 2006
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/9271/1/325
Rally fights deportation: ‘Keep families together’ = 06/08/06
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060608040417232
Millions strike, march in massive May Day protests: Thursday, June 08 2006
http://www.csindy.com/csindy/2006-06-08/news.html
'No longer a stranger' = June 8-14, 2006
Local Catholic leaders unite to support immigrants' rights
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2006/06/post_229.php
Immigrants Flee Raid Meant To Help Them
http://solidarityacrossborders.org/en/demands
The four demands of Solidarity Across Borders
Submitted by admin on Tue, 2005-06-07 13:40. Solidarity Across Borders
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06428072.htm
Migrants number 191 million across globe, UN says = 06 Jun 2006
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1946179,00.html
US border troops deployed: 06/06/2006 08:18 - (SA)
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060605/METRO/606050364/1003
Rally pushes for immigrant rights: Monday, June 05, 2006
200 Arabs, Latinos, African-Americans call for the end of hostility at historic Detroit church.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/272722_guard05.html
Border duty optional for state's Guard: Monday, June 5, 2006
http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=05-09-06&storyID=24087
News Analysis: Immigrant Movement Must Reach Out to Blacks
http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon05082006.html
Excerpt: Marx After Marxism: The Global Fight for Immigrant Rights in a Neo-Liberal Economy
May 8, 2006 = By RICARDO ALARCÓN
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http://www.newbritainherald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16771998&BRD=1641&PAG=461&dept_id=10110&rfi=6
Don't let your rights disappear, urges Latino leader = 06/11/2006
By: Francine Maglione, Herald Press Staff
NEW BRITAIN - Immigration, war and human rights were the topics of the night Saturday at the American Friends Service Committee's annual dinner.
The dinner, held at Central Connecticut State University, honored regional activists that have made their mark in social causes, and featured Juan Jose Gutierrez, National Coordinator of Latino Movement USA, as the keynote speaker.
"The documented immigrant is used as a scapegoat to confuse the American public about the pressing issues of the day," said Gutierrez. "As we move forward in our own political revolution, I'm very concerned about what could happen in America."
Gutierrez's speech, titled "The Struggle for the Freedom of Today: Modern Day Slaves," focused on human rights for immigrants, and the idea that if the rights of immigrants are being held down, whose will be next?
"I think that Americans are dreaming if they think that just because they're Americans their rights are going to be respected," said Gutierrez. "These rights are being eroded as we speak.
"No matter what the right-wing America is saying, we will achieve our rights," he added. "We refuse to be modern-day slaves."
At the dinner, the group honored DACORIM (Danbury Coalition for the Rights of Immigrants) as well as activists Jerimarie Liesegang, Eric Stamm, Chris Towne, and Unidad Latino en Accion.
"We look for people who have been most active," said Meg Scata of the American Friends. "It's a way to come together and network."
The American Friends Service Committee was founded in Philadelphia in 1917 as a progressive Quaker group. It started as an anti-war organization that emphasized alternatives to military service. It has since broadened to campaign against the Iraq war and nuclear weapons, and promotes gay/lesbian and immigrant rights.
"The organization has just grown and changed from what was originally mostly a service organization for Quakers who were conscientious objectors to the war," said Keith Harvey, regional director of the New England region of the American Friends.
The group has also expanded its membership to reach all races and religions - not just Quakers.
"When one group of people has been held down the rest of us have to realize it," said Scata. "It's not about nationality, it's about humility."
"We're really living in very crucial times," said Gutierrez. "The citizens of America need to get activated politically so we can save our democracy."
Francine Maglione can be reached at fmaglione@newbritainherald.com
or by calling (860) 225-4601 Ex. 223.
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http://www.workers.org/2006/us/immigrants-0615/
Immigrants fight for union = June 10, 2006
The bosses at Hope Global in Michigan thought they could hide behind Washington’s anti-immigrant offensive to easily get rid of union organizers and pro-union workers. But that hope was dashed in the early hours of June 2 when union and community supporters of 20 fired workers massed on the front lawn of the plant, just west of Detroit’s city limit. The bosses then locked the doors and gates, refusing to speak with anyone except Father John Nowlan from the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. A Latina Auto Workers organizer quipped that the manager “has a lot of sins to confess.”
Why did the workers sign union representation cards with the United Auto Workers? The workers at Hope Global assemble visors, armrests and other upholstered interior parts for Lear Corporation, a unionized just-in-time parts supplier for the big auto corporations. The work, all manual, damages hands and arms, especially given the high hourly production quotas demanded by the company.
Elena Herrada, an organizer with Centro Obrero, described the issues, “It’s the higher production expectation of Mexican workers, over-all discriminatory treatment of workers by managers, in this case who are also Mexican. Many of the workers have carpal tunnel syndrome and are working with injuries. Most are wearing braces on their wrists. Many have been fired for being unable to keep up production levels with injuries.”
Hope Global’s headquarters is in Rhode Island; it has facilities in Mexico, Brazil and France. The UAW is filing unfair labor practice charges, but more street actions are planned, too.
— Story & photo by Cheryl LaBash
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http://www.workers.org/2006/us/trans-day-0615/
Trans Day of Action: Focus on social & economic justice = Jun 10, 2006, Saturday
On June 23, New York’s trans community will hold its second annual Trans Day of Action as part of Pride month. Below are the points of unity for this event, initiated by TransJustice of The Audre Lorde Project, a lesbian, gay, bi, two-spirit and trans people of color center for community organizing.
As trans and gender non-conforming (TGNC) people of color, we see that our struggle today is directly linked to many struggles here in the U.S. and around the world. We view the second annual Trans Day of Action for Social and Economic Justice on June 23 as a day to stand in soli darity with all peoples and movements fighting against oppression and inequality.
We view this action as following the legacy of our trans people of color warriors, such as Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. John son, and others who with extreme determination fought not only for the rights of all trans and gender non-conforming people, but also were on the front lines for the liberation of all oppressed peoples.
Why we are taking action on June 23rd:
* We know that the histories of human beings, our cultures and communities have been rich with multiple gender identities, experiences and expressions. In 2006, the two-gender system is enforced everywhere, targeting trans and gender non-conforming people in health care, immigration, bathrooms, clothing, shelters, prisons, schools, government forms, job applications and identity documents.
* We demand the end of gender policing that isolates TGNC people from the rest of our communities that have been socialized with oppressive definitions of gender. As a result, TGNC people live in fear of facing economic, psychiatric, sexual and physical as well as other forms of violence because of who we are. This transphobic violence has been justified through medical theories and/or religious beliefs. Perpetuated in order to preserve America’s racist and heterosexist values, gender policing and violence not only denies our existence as TGNC people, but maintains control over our broader communities being able to build solidarity with each other’s struggles.
* On June 23, 2006, we as peoples and activists from diverse backgrounds will unite to rally and march, in order to continue:
1. The fight against police brutality,
2. To oppose the racist and xeno phobic (fear of foreigners) immigration policies of the Bush administration,
3. To show our outrage at the lack of access to living wage employment, adequate affordable housing, quality education, basic health care for our communities, and
4. To demand an end to the devastating impacts of U.S. imperialism (so-called U.S. “war on terrorism”) being waged against people at home and abroad.
* We see the Trans Day of Action as part of a larger campaign to fight for jobs and educational opportunities for TGNC people, especially [those] of color, who have historically faced systematic discrimination and/or dependency on sub-standard governmental programs for our survival. We strive to change the political climate in this country by organizing the second New York City Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color Job and Education Fair, scheduled for Jan. 20, 2007.
We call upon our allies in corporate and private-sector businesses, non-profit agencies, higher education and the trade union movement to pledge their support for the second New York City Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color Job and Education Fair.
* On this day, we remember and commemorate the life of Amanda Milan and the lives of countless others who were murdered because of their gender/ expression. On June 20, 2000, Amanda Milan, a 25-year-old African-American transgender woman, was brutally murdered in the middle of an intersection near Port Authority Bus Terminal as onlookers cheered. We demand an end to all forms of violence and state repression committed against trans and gender non-conforming people, and it is imperative that the media focus attention on this escalating problem.
* Stop police brutality and all forms of police repression! The police and other government agencies have profiled, harassed, brutalized, arrested and murdered multitudes of people in our communities. Many of those victimized are people of trans experience. As is the case with immigrants, communities of color, women, elders and young people, who also systematically face oppression in society, TGNC people often have no legal recourse because the violence perpetuated against them was, and still is, state-sanctioned.
* We demand that the NYC agency responsible for the administering of public welfare-the Human Resources Admini stration (HRA)-address the existing systemic problems of discrimination and harassment faced by trans and gender non-conforming people when trying to obtain public benefits such as health care, food stamps, welfare, adult protective services, eviction prevention and other essential services from their agency. We believe that all people receiving public assistance entitlements should be treated with respect and dignity. We stand in solidarity with all people living on public assistance and against the cutting of funds for welfare in New York and across the country.
* We demand full legalization and an end to the criminalization of all immigrants. We oppose the Bush administration’s guest worker proposals, the Real ID Act, all enforcement provisions to build more walls and give greater powers to the Department of Homeland Security, increase barriers to asylum seekers, the HIV ban and other anti-immigrant policies that continue to divide our communities. We are them and they are us. Trans and gender non-conforming immigrants and allies stand in solidarity and find inspiration in the growing immigrant rights movement. We raise our voices today and march together demanding amnesty for all immigrants!
In this spirit, we as trans and gender non-conforming people of color call on all social justice activists from communities of color, lesbian, gay, bi, two-spirit and trans movements, immigrant rights organizations, youth and student groups, trade unions and workers’ organizations, religious communities and HIV/AIDS and social service agencies to endorse this call to action and to build contingents to march in solidarity together on June 23. With this march we honor the lives of those who came before us and honor the courage of all of our communities that continue to struggle and fight for liberation and self-determination every day.
In solidarity, TransJustice, a project of The Audre Lorde Project.
To endorse the Second Annual Trans Day of Action, e-mail endorsetdoa@alp.org or call (718) 596-0342, ext. 18.
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http://dailynews.com/news/ci_3916499
Latinos to hold congress in L.A. = 06/09/2006 12:00:00 AM PDT
Nationwide gathering set for September
BY RACHEL URANGA, Staff Writer
Inspired by the millions of immigrants who took to the streets to demand legal residency, Latino advocacy groups and politicians have called for a national Latino congress to keep the issue in the political spotlight. Organizers are inviting leaders from across the political spectrum to Los Angeles - the country's Latino epicenter - to draft an agenda for strengthening immigrant rights, health care and education.
"These mobilizations have shown that the immigrant community and the Latino community have political potential in impacting public policy," said Angela Sanbrano, president of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities. "But we cannot assume that we are unified."
In fact, a number of groups favoring tighter controls on illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America count Latino residents among their members.
Joe Turner, founder of Save Our State, a group that has been picketing against undocumented workers at day-labor sites in Glendale and around the region, said efforts like forming the Latino congress help to strengthen groups like his. "Any call for amnesty this supports is only going to create a backlash," he said.
More than half a dozen immigrant-rights advocacy groups, including the League of United Latin American Cities and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, will sponsor the four-day conference Sept. 6-10 to set a long-term agenda and action plan to improve the lives of immigrants. But observers say organizers need to be careful not to further divide Americans on the red-hot issue of immigration.
"While you want to mobilize, you don't want to create a countermobilization, and that is very difficult not to do," said Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.
Still, he said a Latino congress, modeled after similar ethnic and civil-rights conventions held during the 1970s, would be a turning point in Latino politics.
"Latinos have done a tremendous job in electoral politics, but I think you are, in 2006, seeing a watershed moment for nonelectoral political organizing in the United States."
Organizers are inviting Latino leaders - now about 5,000 - from government and chambers of commerce, as well as from the National Council of La Raza. Its success and impact will depend, in part, on who turns up. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been invited but his office did not return calls to say whether he planned to attend. Organizers aim to have the country's largest gathering of Latino power assembled.
"We are inviting the whole family," joked Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a nonprofit Latino voter research group. "(Latinos) control cities, we have people in the Senate and we are going to only get more prominent, but on the other hand (Latinos) are not giving the policy benefits to the community we should."
Latinos have achieved political clout in Los Angeles, but they have less access to health care and are poorer than the general population. Nearly half of Latino students drop out of high school.
rachel.uranga@dailynews.com
(818) 713-3741
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http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/national/article/0,1406,KNS_350_4761226,00.html
Texas governor proposes Web cams along border = June 9, 2006, Friday
EL PASO, Texas - The governor of Texas wants to turn all the world into a virtual posse. Rick Perry has announced a $5 million plan to install hundreds of night-vision cameras on private land along the Mexican border and put the live video on the Internet, so that anyone with a computer who spots illegal immigrants trying to slip across can report it on a toll-free hot line. "I look at this as not different from the neighborhood watches we have had in our communities for years and years," Perry said last week. Some say it is a dangerous idea and a waste of money. "This is just one of those half-baked ideas that people dream up to save money but have no practical applications," said Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project in Austin. "We would be far better off to invest that money in Mexican small towns along the border so people wouldn't have to emigrate."
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http://www.alipac.us/article1037.html
U.S. sees increase in border attacks by Mexican gangs! = Friday, February 10, 2006
Topic: Illegal Immigrant Gangs Terrorists
Mexican criminal syndicates are stepping up their attacks on American agents patrolling the border as homeland security officials here intensify efforts to stem the flow of immigrants and drugs into the United States, American officials said Thursday.
2/9/2006 / Rachel L. Swarns / New York Times News Service
In recent months, scores of border patrol agents have been fired upon or pelted with large rocks as well as with cloth-covered rocks that have been doused with flammable liquid and set ablaze. Since October, agents have been attacked in more than 190 cases, officials said.
Most of the attacks have occurred along the border near San Diego, but shootings have also been reported along the border in Texas near the cities of Laredo and McAllen. In the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, there were 778 attacks on agents, up from 374 in the previous fiscal year, homeland security officials said. One rock struck an agent in the eye; a gunshot hit an agent in the leg. The officials could not say precisely how many officers had been injured.
"This is what we're facing," said Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar, who played a videotape at a news conference on Thursday that featured a patrol car riddled with bullets and agents scrambling for cover as stones rained down on them. "This is a very serious type of situation."
The homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, who led the news conference, said officials planned to continue their efforts to secure the border.
This week President Bush asked Congress to increase the homeland security budget by nearly 6 percent. The Border Patrol would receive an extra $459 million to hire 1,500 new agents, bringing the total force to about 14,000. An additional $410 million would be allocated to add 6,700 beds for detainees so that fewer illegal immigrants would have to be released before being deported. Another $100 million would be spent on cameras, sensors and other detection technology.
Chertoff said the department planned to focus on illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico, who have typically been released after apprehension because of shortages of bed space. Last fall, he expanded the use of summary deportations, a process known as expedited removal, in which illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico are detained and then deported without seeing an immigration judge. But officials have struggled to find space for family groups and remain unable to process illegal immigrants from El Salvador because of a court ruling from the 1980s, when civil war wracked that country, which requires officials to allow Salvadorans to see judges before deportation.
Nationwide, 18,207 illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico, nearly 60 percent of the total apprehended, were released on their own recognizance in the first three months of this fiscal year. Homeland security officials said they were making headway in detaining and deporting these illegal immigrants. They are also working on finding more space for families and battling to change the rule regarding Salvadorans.
As for the violence on the border, the officials said Mexico had deployed 300 federal police along its side of the border to help out. But many of the Mexican gangs remain deeply entrenched. Last week, immigration officials announced that they had seized a cache of weapons in Laredo, including materials for 33 explosive devices, assault weapons and machine gun assembly kits. Officials believe the weapons were intended for criminals in Mexico.
"These are very sophisticated, hardened criminals who will use violence to protect their criminal businesses," Chertoff said. "We've got to be prepared to deal very decisively with any violence directed at our border patrol agents."
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http://search.csmonitor.com/search_content/0608/p01s01-uspo.html
Could Senate plan for illegal immigrants work? = June 08, 2006 edition
It calls for categorizing immigrants by length of US residency, but logistics would be complex.
By Amanda Paulson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
CHICAGO – The Senate's reasoning is that illegal immigrants who have been in the US less than two years haven't yet developed deep roots here - certainly not deep enough to be on the path to American citizenship. So they're the ones who must pack up and leave, under the recently approved Senate version of immigration reform. All 2 million of them. But the particulars of how that exodus would happen - including who would be responsible for enforcing it - remain hazy.
Moreover, the bill requires a second category of immigrants - almost 3 million people who've been in the US two to five years - to return to a border to apply for a work visa, a process that critics say threatens to bog down an already overtaxed system.
Of course, it's uncertain if the Senate's version of reform will be the legislation that prevails, especially with House leaders firmly opposed to a path to citizenship for any of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Either way, the challenge of enforcing a mass deportation of some 2 million people, and of sorting the remaining 10 million-plus into two distinct categories, is at the very least daunting and, at most, unfeasible, say those tracking Congress's efforts.
"Provisions that unnecessarily complicate what's already going to be a difficult and overwhelming process, to the extent that they can't be implemented, will undermine the success of the entire bill," says Deborah Meyers, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, who supports the sort of comprehensive approach the Senate bill has tried to take. "To be effective, certain changes need to be made [in the reform legislation], and they need to keep in mind the workability - not just what can get passed politically, but what can work when you implement it."
Under the Senate plan, immigrants who have been in the US longer than five years could register and stay and eventually apply for permanent legal status, so long as they fulfill certain requirements, including paying owed taxes and fines and learning English and US civics. Those in the middle category would be allowed to reenter the country on a work visa, and could eventually work toward a green card. House leaders, however, are reportedly hardening their opposition to the Senate bill, raising the possibility of an impasse.
For now, Ms. Meyers and others question how burdensome the proposal might be on immigration agents, who would need to check and verify proofs of residency, and on border agents, who would have to process in a short time the nearly 3 million immigrants who fall into the two- to five-year category. The potential for fraud is a worry, and many doubt that immigrants who've been here fewer than two years would leave voluntarily.
But given a bill that survived the Senate largely intact against long odds, many supporters say such criticisms are quibbles about what is, in the end, the comprehensive approach they were seeking. And, they say, the system could work better than some anticipate.
"It's going to take a greater level of incentive to get people to come out of the shadows who have been here a long time, and less amount of incentive for people who have been here less time," says a Senate aide familiar with the bill, who required anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about it. "It makes sense to treat people differently."
The aide dismisses the notion that returning to the border is merely a symbolic gesture. That's because the two- to five-year group would ultimately be considered temporary workers - even if they can eventually get on the path to green cards.
The Senate bill was passed with the expectation that the fees paid by immigrants who have been here more than two years would cover the costs of registering and and processing them. And it tries to head off the possibility of fraud by increasing penalties - including criminal prosecution, which would bar those guilty of using fraudulent documents from ever being considered for legal residency.
The bill also significantly beefs up border security - an aspect President Bush focused on during his visit to New Mexico Tuesday - by authorizing 370 miles of new fencing along the US-Mexico border and adding 14,000 more Border Patrol agents by 2011, more than doubling the current force.
Many who favor the general approach of the Senate bill - with its central provisions to boost enforcement, create a path to legal status for a majority of current illegal immigrants, and implement an expandable guest-worker program - say that so long as that architecture is in place, they can live with an unwieldy three-tiered system.
"If I were the [Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency,] I would be very strongly pushing to streamline the system," says Cecilia Muñoz, vice president of the office of research, advocacy, and legislation for the National Council of La Raza. Still, she's happy overall with the bill. Unlike some critics, she believes most of the 3 million people in the middle group would voluntarily return to the border to be processed - provided they are fully informed about the new system and can apply for legalization anonymously at first so that deportation is less of a worry.
Already, she says, immigrants misunderstand some aspects of the plan. Some believe, wrongly, that a parking ticket can keep them from being eligible for legal residency, or they don't know that they can apply for legal status for a spouse and minor children who haven't been here five years.
And the roughly 2 million who have been here less than two years?
"At a minimum, they would have access to the new temporary-worker program," says Ms. Muñoz. "I don't think anybody expects that the size of the undocumented population when this is done will be zero. But there's a big difference between 2 million and 12 million."
Muñoz is more optimistic than some other immigrant-rights advocates, who consider the three-tiered system so problematic as to ruin the whole bill.
"The truth of the matter is that the immigration system is broken, and the way this is presented right now is not fixing the problem," says Juan Carlos Ruiz, general coordinator for the National Capital Immigration Coalition, which represents immigrants in the Washington area.
Mr. Ruiz says he's spoken with many undocumented immigrants who are afraid to return to the border now that Mr. Bush is sending National Guard troops there. "We're asking them to leave their jobs, do a trip down there, and apply for a permit that they might not even get.... How can we be trusting this?"
The categories:
The Senate's Immigration bill divides the nation's 11.5 to 12 million illegal immigrant population into three distinct groups. Here's what each is eligible for:
Arrived after Jan. 7, 2004
• Must leave the country, but could later apply for a temporary-worker visa from their home country (and might be able to waive some three- or 10-year bars on entry).
• Numbers: Nearly 2 million people.
In the US between two and five years:
• Eligible for "deferred mandatory departure" program if they were continuously employed for that time, pass all background checks, and pay a $1,000 fine and application fees. Would need to leave the US and apply to reenter through a port of entry, where he or she would receive a work visa for up to three years. Would be eligible for permanent residency after existing backlogs are cleared.
• Numbers: Roughly 2.8 million
In the US more than five years:
• Eligible for the earned legalization program, provided they worked a minimum of three years out of that five-year period, pass background checks, pay all owed federal and state income taxes, meet requirements for English and US civics, register for military selective service, and pay $3,250 in fines and fees. Could be awarded a green card once existing visa backlogs are cleared. Can also apply for legalization for immediate family members who don't fall into this category.
• Numbers: Roughly 6.7 million
Note: Exceptions and waivers are possible for some of the requirements.
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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1102AP_Mexico_Powell.html
Powell says border walls won't work: Thursday, June 8, 2006
MEXICO CITY -- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that extending walls along the U.S.-Mexico border will not solve the problem of illegal immigration. "The Berlin Wall did not work perfectly and the wall that the Israelis are putting up is not going to work perfectly," Powell said. "So, a wall alone is not the answer."
An immigration measure approved by the U.S. Senate offers illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship while extending fences along the border. The House passed a measure making all illegal immigrants subject to felony charges. Negotiations to reconcile the proposals have yet to begin.
Powell, speaking at a business conference in Mexico City, said any new barriers should include gates and other entrances to provide easy-access between both countries. He said U.S. authorities should let many of the estimated 12 million undocumented migrants already in America earn some form of legal status through expanded temporary-worker programs. "We have to find a way for them to live in dignity and not in fear," he said.
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http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-06-08T202457Z_01_N08392073_RTRIDST_0_CANADA-SECURITY-USA-BORDER-COL.XML
Border role not new for discreet US military unit = Thu Jun 8, 2006
By Tim Gaynor
EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) - While the first U.S. National Guard troops are finding their feet in a new role on the Mexico border this week, one discreet military unit has aided police there and on the Canadian frontier for years. Last month President George W. Bush ordered 6,000 troops to help Border Patrol agents secure the porous frontier, and the first few soldiers arrived in Arizona earlier this week.
The deployment has upset many in Mexico who say they are unhappy at the increasing militarization of the border, while some residents in U.S. border states remained skeptical about the role troops will play there. But a cadre of Marines, soldiers, sailors, airmen and defense department civilian specialists have used cutting-edge military technologies and know-how to help federal law enforcement there since the 1980s.
Originally called Joint Task Force Six, the group includes engineers, map makers, radar and intelligence specialists and was founded in 1989 to help federal police curb drug smuggling over the 2,000-mile (3,200-km) Mexico border. Renamed Joint Task Force North two years ago, it was given a broader role to support law enforcement agencies in efforts to secure the U.S. mainland from threats including "international terrorism" and drug trafficking.
"Working on the border is nothing new for the military, we've been supporting law enforcement there for years," said Col. Barry Cronin, JTFN's deputy commander, adding that they would be there "after the National Guard has gone."
In 2005, the El Paso, Texas-based unit carried out 63 operations nationwide, including 55 on the Canadian and Mexican borders. Its kit includes unmanned aerial drones, combat radar systems, long-range infrared optics, and seismic detectors. "Typically we'll go in with our planning and organizational abilities, offering federal law enforcement agencies a kind of one-stop shopping for all their needs," said Lt. Col. Dan Drew, JTFN's chief of future operations.
Utah National Guard troops arrived in Yuma, Arizona, this week, where they will patch border fencing and add security lighting, and New Mexico National Guard troops are due to deploy to Las Cruces over the weekend. They are the first of several units that will help the Border Patrol secure the border for up to a year. They are set to play a support role and will stop short of making arrests.
SUPPORTING THE BORDER PATROL
Joint Task Force North is not involved in the National Guard deployment. But the scope and nature of the unit's prior support to federal law enforcement is evident in a Mexico border operation last year.
Dubbed Operation Western Vigilance, the deployment of 400 military personnel to deserts west of El Paso enabled Border Patrol agents to arrest 2,020 intruders from Mexico and impound more than 1,000 pounds of smuggled drugs. In it, soldiers used high-powered Forward Looking Infra-Red thermal imaging sensors to provide the Border Patrol with advanced intelligence on traffickers and undocumented immigrants as they trekked north from staging areas in Mexico.
The operation also used Hunter aerial drones from a military intelligence battalion to monitor movements along the Arizona-Mexico border, and sent Marine Corps engineers to put up lighting along a steel border fence in Arizona. Another operation, on the Canadian border, threw a battlefield radar net across a stretch of coast between British Columbia and Washington State to help agencies like the Border Patrol and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police track smugglers in a cross-border marijuana trade valued at $6 billion a year.
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http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/9271/1/325
Rally fights deportation: ‘Keep families together’ = 06/08/06
Author: Pepe Lozano
Elvira Arellano and Flor Crisostomo. Photo www.somosunpueblo.com
CHICAGO — Over 100 community supporters, including religious leaders and elected officials, rallied here in front of the immigration court building June 1 as about two-dozen former employees of IFCO Systems, who were arrested as part of a nationwide raid by federal agents in April, went to their first deportation hearing.
Last month 1,187 employees of IFCO Systems in some 40 towns and cities in 26 states were arrested, including 26 in Chicago. Many immigrant rights activists believe that the recent raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents of the Department of Homeland Security were an attempt by the Bush administration to intimidate the growing movement for progressive immigration reform.
Immigrant rights leaders at the rally demanded that these workers have their deportations set aside and get their jobs back. Participants also publicly signed an open letter to President Bush calling for a moratorium on all raids, arrests and deportations until the national legislative process can arrive at a new immigration law. The Chicago City Council recently passed a resolution along the same lines. The morning of the rally, one group of workers was granted a four-month extension on a final decision on deportation. A different judge gave the afternoon group only two months.
Elvira Arellano, president of La Familia Latina Unida, who is facing deportation and possible separation from her son in August, went on a 22-day hunger strike that ended the day of the hearing and rally. She told the World that she was fasting “principally to tell Bush to reform the current immigration policies and to keep families together, for workers rights and an end to deportations. If there is no legalization process, our people are going to continue dying crossing the border,” she said. “We are going to continue fighting for and supporting the workers.”
Arellano thinks that the recently passed Senate bill on immigration reform is tackling difficult issues, but does not do real justice to the immigrant community. “We need a bill for everyone,” she said. “In general, we are not criminals. What we are essentially talking about is the reunification of families, of workers.”
Flor Crisostomo, another hunger striker at the rally, was also one of the workers arrested in April. She was given an extension on her deportation order. “It’s a sacrifice what we are doing,” she told reporters. “We are doing this for the millions of undocumented workers everywhere. If one of my co-workers has to be deported today, I will continue the hunger strike,” she told the World at the rally.
Young children missed school to be at the rally and picketed alongside their mothers and fathers, holding signs that read, “Kids must grow with their family” and “Dignity for the worker, reunification now.”
Jorge Romero, 12, a son of one of the IFCO workers, spoke during the rally. “I did not want to see my dad taken from me,” he told the World afterward, “and I didn’t go to school so I can remember this day.”
He mentioned how his little brother began to cry nights before when watching the news on television, and is scared that his father is going to be taken away. “I hope that they don’t take him to Mexico,” he said. “My dad makes us happy in the house, he makes us laugh.”
A little girl began to address the press at the rally, to make a statement saying she did not go to school that day so she could be there with her grandfather. She broke down and began to cry as the cameras pointed at her.
Emma Lozano, executive director of Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a local immigrant rights group, said she was glad the judges gave extensions to the workers regarding deportation. She also spoke about the torture and trauma being caused for the children in this process. “We will not stop and we will not accept the injustice being done to these families,” she said. “We need a moratorium to stop deportations.”
Lozano said that while some believe a political shift in Congress this November holds the best promise for improving immigrant rights, the reality is that raids, arrests and deportations continue to haunt and separate the immigrant community right now. However, Lozano stressed that she plans to lead two campaigns: one for mass citizenship training for undocumented immigrants, and another for mass voter registration. “Please fight with us to keep these families together,” said Lozano at the rally. “We need to change America, we are all America.”
After waiting anxiously in the hall outside the courtroom, while their children played, family members began to sob after hearing that their loved ones have only a couple of months before facing possible deportation.
Roberto Lopez, director of the Pueblo Sin Fronteras Legal Program, consoled the group in the hall, saying, “We have two months to work with, we’ll get more signatures and talk to our elected officials. We are going to have to keep on working, that’s the only thing we can do now.”
Email: plozano@pww.org
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http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20060608040417232
Millions strike, march in massive May Day protests: Thursday, June 08 2006
From California to the northeastern seaboard and the deep south, May 1st was marked by massive demonstrations. People poured into the streets of over 200 U.S. cities in support of immigrant workers' rights as part of the "Grand Paro Americano de 2006," or the Great American Boycott of 2006. With between two and three million participating, it was largest single day of protest ever in the United States.
By Adam Welch - Industrial Worker, June 2006
From California to the northeastern seaboard and the deep south, May 1st was marked by massive demonstrations. People poured into the streets of over 200 U.S. cities in support of immigrant workers' rights as part of the "Grand Paro Americano de 2006," or the Great American Boycott of 2006. With between two and three million participating, it was largest single day of protest ever in the United States.
But the day was far more than a movement of mass demonstrations, as nation-wide restaurants were shuttered, meat processing plants were idled, ripe fruit laid waiting to be picked and the nation's largest port stood at a near standstill. Classrooms were empty in some cities as well, as students, often joined by teachers and staff, skipped school in support. Many of those participating in the "Day Without An Immigrant," both documented and undocumented immigrants along with their supporters, heeded the call by some groups to not work, buy goods or attend school. The tactic is a traditional one called paros civicos, borrowed from social movements in Mexico.
"People will look back at May Day 2006 as a historic moment," says John Baranski, an IWW member and professor of American history at Fort Lewis College in Colorado. He draws connections between today and the 1886 strike for the eight hour day. "Both were mass worker mobilizations, led largely by immigrants."
Although it is impossible to peg the exact number of those who joined the work stoppages, as participation rates varied by region, neighborhood and industry, the sectors most affected were agriculture, food service, food processing and construction. They also tended to be in workplaces with high concentrations of Latino immigrants. While many stayed away from work, others were confused by mixed messages as many unions and larger advocacy non-profits opposed the calls for boycotts and strikes.
New York IWW organizer Bert Picard, who organizes among immigrant warehouse workers and is involved with the community center Make The Road by Walking, says standard pay for immigrant workers there is $300 for 65 hours a week. "There is no effective minimum wage in New York for immigrant workers and the Labor Department is doing nothing." But he has noticed a change. Referring to the workforce of immigrant Latinos in Bushwick, New York, who Make the Road By Walking organizes, Picard says: "Before all these marches we used to say we were a union of fired workers. Only after folks lost their job would they be willing to fight over unpaid wages. But within the last year, whole shops have come to us with their issues saying they want to fight, they want to organize. We hadn't seen this before."
As part of the larger movement, IWW branches and members in nearly a dozen cities participated by joining the demonstrations often in contingents or marching in coalition with other groups. Wobblies also organized support for workers retaliated against for participating in demonstrations and mobilized their co-workers to strike, call in sick or take the day off in numerous workplaces. The IWW General Executive Board approved a resolution encouraging all members to participate in the called-for strike and protest as their circumstances allowed.
Chicago
Joining the 750,000-strong demonstration on May Day was a contingent of IWW members with banners and thousands of business cards promoting the Workers National Defense Committee. The group is a loose collaborative of organizations across the country supporting workers who were fired or retaliated against for participating in the May 1st and previous immigrant rights demonstrations. Over a month ago the Chicago GMB formed a committee of members who trained themselves in providing support for workers involved in the May 1st movement, later discovering and joining the Workers National Defense Committee which was already working on the issue.
"This is a real struggle for workers. Here in Chicago, we're working with factory workers in the area, assisting them with unemployment and pressuring the companies to rehire them," says Matt Zito, who is chairing the committee of IWW members working around the issue. A machine shop worker who attended the demonstrations and met IWW members who supported him around a severe hand injury he recently received on the job has joined the branch.
According to Zito, the Workers National Defense Committee is supporting an unprecedented class action Unfair Labor Practice charge brought by the Change to Win union grouping on behalf of all workers fired for participating in the recent immigration marches. The San Francisco Chronicle reported on May 2 that some trade associations and union busting law firms even advised their members and clients not to fire their workers as it could be covered as concerted activity under the National Labor Relations Act.
San Francisco Bay Area
In the Bay Area two large marches were held, along with smaller rallies in surrounding cities -- a day of action and march of about 100,000 in San Francisco and an afternoon march of over 150,000 in San Jose. About 45 Wobblies and supporters marched as a contingent in San Francisco carrying the red and black flags and a large IWW banner.
A number of members took part in strikes, including the majority of the Spanish-speaking Wobblies at the Community Conservation Centers Inc., commonly known as Berkeley Buy-Back recycling, which is a shop under an IWW contract. While most attended the nearby Richmond protests, one recycler, who had never attended a demonstration before the recent immigration protests, joined the San Francisco contingent. He noted that many of the African-American workers supported the effort. "No questions asked, that's how it was going down," he said of the African American workers. "They're taking their day on Malcolm X Day too." The next day everyone in the yard was talking about how big the rallies were, he said.
Also leading a workplace action was Tristan Bunner, working at the Foothill Dining cafeteria on the UC Berkeley campus. He organized his shift of 5 workers, saying, "I talked with my Fellow Workers at work, they were supportive and so we worked out that we would all call in sick for the day."
Bay Area members, such as Samantha Levens, are also working as part of the Workers National Defense Committee around a case of eight fired Chevy's restaurant workers in Stockton, Calif. "We are working to target the franchise owner," who owns several restaurants, Levens says.
New York
"It was a whole day of struggle," says New York IWW member Bert Picard. Members started at 5:30 in the morning to picket in front of Amersino warehouse workers who faced a lockout after threatening to strike in response to the suspension of worker leaders. Later in the morning members took buses with other groups to Chinatown, where they met up with Chinese, Polish, Latino and other immigrant workers groups in a feeder march to the larger Union Square rally. The feeder march was organized by the Break the Chains coalition, which included the Chinese Staff and Workers Association and the National Mobilization Against Sweatshops among others, whose message was "Equal Rights for All Workers.
The New York IWW was part of the pre-existing May Day Coalition made up of Make the Road by Walking, Million Worker March and United Electrical union. But leading into May 1st, the coalition expanded rapidly and formed networks with numerous other worker centers and working class immigrant rights and church-based groups. "It was definitely a catalyst for our organizing efforts," said IWW Starbucks organizer Sarah Bender. "People were holding their heads high."
Portland, Oregon
In Portland, May Day demonstrations were part of an ongoing tradition that the IWW branch, along with leftist groups and rank-and-file members of business unions, participated in. This year immigrant groups merged together with this coalition for the largest march ever of 10,000 mostly immigrant families.
IWW members focused on outreach to service workers in the downtown area and at bus stops with a flyer asking workers to see the common cause between native-born and immigrant workers on May 1st. They held a contingent within the march and hosted their usual social event afterwards at the Portland IWW Hall.
Philadelphia
In Philadelphia members of the IWW's South Street Workers Union participated in a May 1st rally and community meeting in support of immigrant rights. Spanish-speaking members, who are part of a larger network of immigrant organizations across Southeastern Pennsylvania, had also previously organized work stoppages and larger rallies on April 10 and February 14, Valentine's Day.
Boston
In Boston members of the local branch organized small contingents within multiple neighborhood feeder marches that met up at a larger rally at the Boston Common. They were joined by several workers in the grocery stores that members are organizing in.
"When I stopped by work to pick up a co-worker [for the demonstration], there were only five out of 20 people there," says Boston IWW member Mike Bell who described how the May 1st march suddenly opened up many conversations between co-workers who didn't talk before at the workplace.
Los Angeles
In Los Angeles two separate marches merged together with over 500,000 participants crowding the downtown area. At the LA harbor IWW members were part of a loose coalition that worked to support an independent truckers' strike. Port traffic was brought to a halt with about 90 percent of the mostly Latino truckers honoring the strike call.
IWW members also joined demonstrations in Arcata, Calif., Denver, Madison, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Pensacola, Fl., Pittsburgh, Santa Barbara, Calif., Tampa and many other cities. Internationally, the IWW participated in May Day actions across Canada and in Australia, England, Germany and Mexico.
http://www.iww.org/en/node/2587
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http://www.csindy.com/csindy/2006-06-08/news.html
'No longer a stranger' = June 8-14, 2006
Local Catholic leaders unite to support immigrants' rights
by Naomi Zeveloff
Colorado Springs Bishop Michael Sheridan (left) and Pastor Francisco Quezada oversee a confirmation ceremony at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church.
Photo By © 2006 Bruce Elliott
Colorado Springs Catholic Bishop Michael Sheridan calls Jesus an itinerant rabbi. As a traveler who fled to Egypt to escape Herod's death threat thousands of years ago, Jesus the immigrant has become a powerful symbol for the Catholic Church's new immigrants' rights campaign.
"The image of the migrant is replete in Scripture," says Sheridan. "It becomes an example for how [Catholics] are to treat the foreigner in their own land."
In the past few months, Sheridan has worked with Pueblo Bishop Arthur Tafoya and Denver Bishop Charles J. Chaput to organize immigration town hall meetings, where Catholic leaders share with the laity the moral and religious impetus for supporting immigrants' rights. They also offer parishioners ideas as to how they can fight restrictive politics on the state and local levels.
In a town hall meeting last week at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Colorado Springs, Sheridan fielded questions about a federal immigration reform bill that could criminalize aid workers who help the undocumented.
"Would the diocese stop providing aid to illegal immigrants?" an audience member asked.
"No," answered Sheridan, to applause. "How can anyone stop us from carrying out the gospel of Jesus Christ?"
Working through the national Catholic Campaign for Immigration Reform, also called Justice for Immigrants, bishops across the country are articulating a series of policy recommendations that include a path to permanent residency, family reunification provisions, and labor protection for undocumented immigrants.
Sheridan squares the Church's recommendations with the Senate's version of immigration reform, which would provide an 11-year path to citizenship for immigrants who have been in the United States longer than five years.
"Whenever we find legislation that seems to do a good job of bringing together the principles of social justice, then we will support it," he says.
The House version of the immigration bill, which has yet to be reconciled with the Senate version, takes a harder line on undocumented immigrants, making it a felony to reside illegally in the United States.
If the House bill prevails, anyone who provides aid to undocumented immigrants could also face penalties, including clergy in the Church who create soup kitchens and sanctuaries for the immigrant poor. In Colorado, a proposed constitutional amendment would deny non-emergency medical and social services to illegal immigrants.
Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) who helped draft the House bill, has said the Catholic Church's immigrant rights campaign is run by "left-leaning religious activists" who want "blanket amnesty" for the undocumented. "They put together a sloppy theological argument that concludes that if you are a religious person, you have to be in favor of amnesty," says Tancredo's spokesperson, Will Adams.
Father Francisco Quezada, pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Colorado Springs, estimates that half his congregation is comprised of undocumented immigrants. In addition, he believes approximately 80 to 90 percent of his assembly hails from Central America and Mexico.
"We ask no questions about where they come from or who they are," Quezada says. "We open doors to the poor, and today the poor are the arriving immigrant. You are no longer a stranger,' we say. We offer them the opportunity to continue their faith journey and fulfill their Catholic obligations without the paperwork."
For instance, Quezada offers baptisms and Sunday school to immigrants, no matter their legal status. "They come to God first as pilgrims," he says. "It behooves us to welcome them."
— naomi@csindy.com
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http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2006/06/post_229.php
Immigrants Flee Raid Meant To Help Them
by Tess Wheelwright | June 8, 2006 09:02 AM | Permalink
Tess Wheelwright PhotoAn effort to bust a landlord for taking advantage of immigrant tenants turned ruinous Wednesday. Cops blew whistles while undocumented Mexican immigrants fled out the back door into the rain with whatever they could carry, wanting nothing to do with advocates who pleaded with them to wait.
The scene unfolded Wednesday morning in a house on Elm Street where immigrant workers have been living in crowded apartments, one of which was a dank, low, unfinished space with a wire-strung ceiling, chunks of exposed wall, and heating appliances marked flammable interspersed with the few pieces of worn furniture.
What began as a housing inspection to protect the tenants turned into a sweep of illegal immigrants once a police officer arrived on the scene. No arrests were made, but the officer's "care to cross [his] ts and dot [his] is" seemed to run against city leaders' promises of working with immigrants rather than trying to help the feds track down undocumented workers.
“Why are we here?” asked officer Jon Haddad (pictured below at left), surprised to be met at the door by a hallway-full of city inspectors, immigrant rights advocates, and documentarians.
“I called [the police] because these tenants want to make a complaint of trespassing. Their landlady came in uninvited and removed the refrigerator,” explained Rafael Ramos, inspector with the city’s Livable Cities Initiative (LCI).
“Did you see her do it?”
A Mexican tenant, pseudonym Alfredo, did. He stepped forward to explain through translation the landlord’s steps --blocked electricity, shouted insults, a sudden seven-day deadline – over the past week to drive them out.
“When she came and took the fridge, why didn’t you call the police?”
“They were scared,” explained John Jairo Lugo (pictured at right, with Haddad) of the immigrant rights group Unidad Latina en Acción.
“She was apparently out on the sidewalk shouting, threatening to call Immigration,” added Ramos.
Haddad stopped, lifting calculating eyes to the rolling camera of a visual anthropology student from the University of London. She was there with permission from Lugo to film for a documentary on the struggles of Connecticut's undocumented immigrants.
“Are you telling me they don’t have documents?” Haddad asked.
Lugo and Ramos exchanged glances. “I don’t know,” said Lugo.
Ramos attempted to steer focus back to the landlord’s violations. Haddad wouldn’t be steered.
“Someone just said they’re illegal aliens: Now I have to do something. Are they legal?”
Scoot
They’re not. Wednesday morning's episode, reflective of how American cities have stumbled dealing with their growing immigrant populations, drove home just how insecure that makes them.
Officer Haddad soon returned from the landlord’s house a few doors up with two messages. First, you’re right: She can’t scoff landlord-tenant code like this, no matter what. The eviction she’s demanding has to be carried out the legal way -- over months and via sheriff’s visit and an official notice to quit. Meanwhile she can't be bothering you anymore.
Second, I’ve filed this police report to Immigration: If I were you, I’d be gone by morning.
“Let them know I’ve had to file to immigration. They could find themselves in Mexico tomorrow. Word to the wise.”
With reluctance, Lugo translated Haddad’s message to the gathered group of Dwight neighborhood tenants whose relations with their landlord had grown increasingly sour over the past few months. She charged obscene amounts for electricity and gas without presenting them the bill, they said, and when they finally refused to pay, she’d cut the electricity, removed their fridge without warning or permission to enter, and shouted threats of calling federal authorities on them if they weren’t gone a week from June 1.
A group of their friends formerly living upstairs were driven out by similar problems back in April. Now Lugo’s months of attempted mediation with their landlord (herself an immigrant, from Jamaica) had come to the same for the first-floor group: fear, and plans for quick flight.
When Haddad left, the talk turned to where the group could head that night, just in case. A likely alternative apartment was expected to be ready for them Friday
"If I were you, I'd leave. And if I stayed, I wouldn't open the door for anybody," said Lugo
Meanwhile, he seemed still shaken by Haddad's demands for immigration papers all around. Lugo had understood at least an informal agreement with police, after a series of community meetings last year, that immigration questions wouldn't be asked when safety complaints were lodged. Lugo remembered a message of "We're here to protect everybody" from the police officials -- important toward fixing the under-reporting of violent crimes against undocumented immigrants afraid to call attention to themselves. "Robberies, rapes, and the victims don't call!" said Lugo.
He offered the newly displaced first-floor tenants two interim spots at his own apartment. Fellow Unidad Latina activists Raúl Rivera and Fátima Rojas offered the other six needed.
John Jairo Lugo photoThe Elm Street landlord, an immigrant herself, is named Carol K. Combie (pictured after a fretful front-porch exchange with Ramos). She described herself to Officer Haddad as a victim in the situation, new to landlording and taken advantage of. (Combie didn't speak to a reporter Wednesday. She did in an earlier interview, in which she said she wanted to help her tenants.)
"I'm taking a huge hit," Haddad reported that Combie told him Wednesday, claiming her tenants failed to pay rent. "The house is up for foreclosure today. They owe me twelve grand."
"They haven't been here long enough to owe her twelve grand," said Rafael Ramos.
"We tried to mediate with her. We had to take action,” said Lugo, referring to his decision to call in the city's Liveable City Initiative to take record of the landlord’s violations and issue official orders against her. Lugo had hoped the city intervention would win the tenants compensation for their relocation to another Dwight apartment, and empower them to see that papers or no papers, they had basic rights in this country, too.
“Usually, we prevail,” said Ramos, referring to a new LCI inspections program designed to ensure baseline decency of all New Haven housing. In other cases, code-violating landlords have been successfully taken to task, made to pay hotel bills until up-to-par alternative housing is found for their mistreated tenants, he said. After surveying the Elm Street scene, Ramos had every reason to expect Wednesday’s inspection would end in the same.
The tenants’ reports on their landlord’s rash eviction threats and unlicensed entry already had LCI's Scott Sheeley pretty convinced that she stood in violation. “Regardless of what’s going on here, she has no right to get them out like that. There’s an eviction process.” But what really got the inspectors was a peek for themselves into the house’s basement.
Ramos said he’d been waiting months since seeing pictures on the Internet of the dangerous basement to locate and condemn it. Once in, it took him about two minutes to rule it unfit for occupancy. “I can’t believe they’re really living here,” Ramos exclaimed, fixing immediately on the dangers of the dank, unfinished space, its low ceiling and exposed pipes both strung with hanging wire. Checking for fire hazard, he found them warm to the touch: “This becomes like a fuse!” (pictured).
Lugo reminded of the months-long effort to reverse these abuses through negotiations with the landlord. “There is no negotiation!” said Ramos, adding carbon monoxide poisoning to the list of risks, turning around to see a crawl-space housing heating tanks a few feet from one cramped sleeping quarters (like those pictured below, being inspected). In a minute he was on the phone to headquarters: “I’m in a situation. It’s an illegal basement. No second egress, no smoke detectors: The landlady’s taking total advantage.”
That was the unanimous ruling among Unidad Latina and LCI contingents Wednesday. “These are human rights violations. She’s committing abuse,” said Lugo. LCI Inspector Scott Sheeley was quickly on the same track. “It’s illegal. She’s going to get an order letter from us. At this point, we’re going to have them removed, and the basement apartment needs to be taken out.”
Tenants Panic
The ones who needed more convincing were the basement tenants themselves. As Ramos and Sheeley were inspecting, murmurings among that stricken-looking group of seven were pessimistic: “This is all going to come out badly...”
“No one’s going to call any agency,” assured Ramos. But as they hurried out of the basement and the line of the still-rolling camera, the tenants looked anything but confident. To Fátima Rojas (pictured, trying to reassure tenants), two from the group contrasted their relationship with the landlord with their upstairs first-floor neighbors’. With those living in the basement, she was a “good person.” Of course they weren’t happy with the arrangement, but “We earn very little. A day like today, when it’s raining, we don’t work.” They used to live, they said, on a dangerous part of Chapel Street where they would be “attacked” walking at night, where there was “much less security than here.” This landlord helped them.
“This isn’t a help!” said Rojas, gesturing toward the dark entrance below. “We’re not rats. We’re talking about peoples’ lives.” She told of fires killing families in similar situations. “That’s why housing codes exist.” She said of course the landlord was friendly with them: She was benefiting from exploiting them. And she knew it. “It’s very different here than in Mexico. Here, landlords have obligations. She has to comply with the codes, with the rules. It doesn’t matter whether you have status.”
“She’s committing abuse, isn't she?” probed Lugo.
“Yes,” one of the basement tenants allowed. But “she charges very little.”
“I need to cool them out. We’re not the Gestapo,” said Ramos, at seeing the concern on the faces surrounding Rojas. "In a way I don't blame them. It's easy for her to explain that to them" -- that as indocumentados they still have rights -- "but they see she's got her job, her driver's license... If I'm them, I could be on my way in a wagon tomorrow."
The new apartment “is going to cost a little more than five hundred a month,” he told the group, “but it’s going to be much safer.” Safe and secret also, he promised, would be the two hotel rooms Sheeley had booked them until the new place was found.
The still-wary tenants (pictured holding Unidad Latina literature as Ramos addressed the group) said nothing, except to refuse the rooms, mentioning someone’s boss they could stay with a few days.
An hour later, an ambassador for the group would return for a low-voiced conference with Rojas on the porch: Would the landlord know where the new apartment was? What if she called Immigration to punish them? Would she know how to find them at the hotel?” There was no boss host after all.
For now, as Ramos and the others went with misplaced hope to greet the squad car and Officer Haddad at the front door, the basement tenants disappeared in a few bundle-laden trips, through the back door and out into the rain.
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http://solidarityacrossborders.org/en/demands
The four demands of Solidarity Across Borders
Submitted by admin on Tue, 2005-06-07 13:40. Solidarity Across Borders
Solidarity Across Borders : RESISTING THE WAR ON IMMIGRANTS AND REFUGEES
NO TO DEPORTATIONS! NO TO DETENTIONS!
FOR THE ABOLITION OF SECURITY CERTIFICATES!
A STATUS FOR ALL!
In addition to the specific demands of each group comprising Solidarity Across Borders, the network maintains four principal demands: 1) The regularization of all non-status persons ;
2) An end to deportations ;
3) An end to the detention of migrants, immigrants and refugees ;
4) The abolition of security certificates.
The Regularization of non-status peoples :
Regularization calls for the recognition and affirmation of the rights and status of people residing in Canada without citizenship or other legal standing.
There are as many as 200 000 people living and working without legal status in Canada today. A person becomes non-status when their immigration application is rejected, or when their temporary visa or work permit has expired. Immigration Canada helps create this invisible class of irregulars. By selectively importing laborers and constructing a highly discretionary state bureaucracy to process refugee and residential claims, Canada produces an ‘illegal’ population - thousands upon thousands of individuals and families who live in poverty, insecurity and fear while seeking work at the bottom of the economic food chain.
NO ONE IS ILLEGAL !
Since 2001, the new Immigration and Refugee Protection Act has exacerbated the systematic racism, discriminatory criteria and arbitrary decision-making of Immigration Canada, creating more obstacles for people to qualify as refugees and permanent residents. Additionally, the asylum procedure for refugees lacks an appeal process, and bureaucracy has created an enormous backlog. Yet, day by day, this growing underclass of exploited clandestine workers, deprived of all rights, fuels the Canadian economy.
Many non-status people survive in Canada for years, establishing roots and forming families. The children of non-status persons, even when born in Canada, are often denied their basic rights to adequate and affordable healthcare services, governmental family assistance programs, and education. Families live in fear, stress and despair and people suffer dangerous
and unhealthy working conditions with no recourse to justice.
REGULARIZATION IS A SOCIAL JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE!
Canada has implemented mass regularization programs on various occasions since 1960. In 1973, Canada regularized 39,000 non-status people, primarily draft dodgers from the United States. In 2002, the Action Committee for Non-Status Algerians won a regularization program whereby 83% of the 1000 non-status Algerian families and individuals residing in Quebec gained access to permanent residency. Many of these families had been living here for over 10 years.
A comprehensive and inclusive regularization program should be based on the 12 principles drafted and approved at the Status Conference held in Toronto in November 2004, attended by dozens of groups from throughout Canada, including Solidarity Across Borders.
These 12 principles stress that a regularization program must be "comprehensive, transparent, inclusive and ongoing" and should not exclude groups on grounds traditionally used to discriminate in Canadian immigration law, such as: race, color, faith, disability, sexual orientation, or medical condition; poverty, unemployment or inability to pay fees; receipt of government assistance; or possession of a criminal record, especially resulting from minor infractions or civil disobedience.
Read about all the 12 principles for a Regularization Program.
End to deportations :
The deportation industry is highly privatized and very lucrative. Every day, many major airline companies, including Air Canada, KLM, Air France and British Airways, make money by deporting human beings - governments look for cheap solutions by relying on deportation deals with aviation companies. Often, deported individuals and families are handcuffed; at times, they are drugged.
The "safe third country" agreement, implemented on December 29, 2004, encourages the immediate rejection of any refugee claimant who enters Canada via the United States; they are then detained in U.S. jails until their deportation. Refugees attempting to enter Canada from the U.S. account for up to 40% of all claims. Instead of providing a fair hearing to refugee claimants, the Immigration Refugee Board acts as a confrontational tribunal, populated by judges notorious - sometimes even censured - for their incompetence, political partisanship, and/or corruption.
The new refugee determination system under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act has no appeal process for a rejected claim, though the government had promised implementation of the Refugee Appeal by June 2003. Meanwhile, all the other avenues - such as the Pre-Removal Risk Assessment (PRRA) process - are deeply flawed. Over 97% of refugees are unable to obtain a positive PRRA decision and refugees can be deported while waiting for a decision on a pending Humanitarian and Compassionate claim.
End to detentions :
Approximately 400 people, including children, infants and pregnant women, are held in Canada's immigration detention centers without charge for indefinite periods of time. The majority of these detainees are fleeing war, misery and persecution, having risked the dehumanization and dangers of migration. Detention is an integral part of Canada's racist immigration regime, which criminalizes people for who they are rather than for any act they commit.
Detention is arbitrary. Border guards have total discretion to throw people in jail for not having valid identity documents or by claiming suspicion that the newcomer is a flight risk. The Immigration Prevention Center in Laval and the Rivière-des-Prairies maximum security prison are two such detention centers for migrants arriving in Montreal.
Many are denied bail, and there is minimal access to legal and translation services, hindering the ability to properly complete forms required for status applications, all of which have very short and strict deadlines. Lawyers and unscrupulous immigration ‘consultants’ often do not bother to fill out these forms correctly either.
Important to note is that Canadian security concerns are more than adequately taken care of by criminal law. There is no need or justification for imprisoning people under immigration law.
Abolition of Security Certificates :
A measure of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, Security Certificates allow the government to detain non-citizens without charge, under secret evidence, for years. The detainee faces deportation on the basis of broad and vague allegations that they are not permitted to fight in a fair trial. A judge reviews the certificate, but only to see if it is reasonable, not whether the allegations are actually true. The detainee and his lawyer are not allowed to see the evidence; hearsay, evidence extracted under torture or plea-bargains is permitted; cross-examination of informants has not been allowed. There is no appeal. The government has taken the position in four of the current cases that the detainees should be deported even if they face torture. All of the men currently under an (in)security certificate face torture if they are forced to return to their birth-countries, in some cases because of the widely-publicized and hysterical allegations that have been made against them in Canada.
The security certificate, in its present form, has been used to trample on the dignity and fundamental rights of refugees and immigrants since 1991. Since 9/11, the use of security certificates has helped to fuel an atmosphere of racist paranoia that is oppressing Muslim, Arab and migrant communities in Canada and justifying foreign policy.
WAR ON TERROR - IMMIGRATION AS NATIONAL SECURITY
On the heels of September 11th, the government presented their $280-million Anti-Terrorism Plan, which included the infamous Anti-Terrorist Act Bill C-36) aimed to quickly tighten controls and increase enforcement. Immigration was cast as a national security priority. The Immigration Minister received $49-million for a five-part security strategy :
* fast-tracking the permanent resident biometric card for new immigrants ;
* front-end security screening of refugee claimants ;
* increased detention capacity ;
* increased deportation activity ;
* 100 new staff to enforce upgraded security at Ports of Entry.
These measures have led to increased and blatant human rights abuses and racial profiling, as in the case of Maher Arar. Detention and deportation now fall under the newly-formed Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, in charge of enforcing Canada's domestic component of the so-called war on terror.
Canada’s immigration regime is a system built on stolen land, on exclusion and displacement of indigenous peoples, and on detention and deportation of migrants. Its purpose is to prevent and control the movement of people, denying their right to decide for themselves where they wish to live and work, and subjugating entire classes of people to the interests of the business elite.
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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06428072.htm
Migrants number 191 million across globe, UN says = 06 Jun 2006
By Nick Olivari
UNITED NATIONS, June 6 (Reuters) - Some 191 million people now live outside their country of birth and migration is a major feature of international life, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported on Tuesday. While most migrants move to wealthy nations, 75 million people have moved between developing countries, Annan said in a report to the 191-nation U.N. General Assembly.
Calling the report "an early road map for this new era of mobility," he proposed a standing forum on migration at the United Nations to help governments pursue an integrated approach to migration and development at both the national and international levels.
The report recognizes the right of governments to decide who may enter their territory but encourages them to work together to upgrade economic and social benefits at both ends of the migrant chain.
"It is for governments to decide whether more or less migration is desirable," Annan said. "Our focus in the international community should be on the quality and safety of the migration experience and on what can be done to maximize its development benefits."
Migration has several positive benefits for both the host nation and the country of origin, according to the report. Migrants undertake less desirable jobs in the host country while stimulating demand and improved economic performance. They also help to shore up pension systems in countries with aging populations. Poor countries benefit by receiving an estimated $167 billion a year in remittances, up from $58 billion in 1995.
Worldwide, money sent home by migrants totaled $232 billion in 2005, up from $102 billion in 1995. One third of global remittances went to just four countries, India, China, Mexico and France.
The report found that one third of all immigrants in the world have moved from one developing country to another. But migration to high income countries -- including some still regarded as developing such as South Korea, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- has grown much faster than to the rest of the world, it said.
Six out of 10 international immigrants reside in countries considered "high income," according to the report.
Europe hosted 34 percent of all migrants in 2005, North America 23 percent and Asia 28 percent. Only 9 percent were living in Africa, 3 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and another 3 percent in Oceania.
Nearly half of all immigrants are women, and in developed countries they outnumber men, the report said.
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http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1946179,00.html
US border troops deployed: 06/06/2006 08:18 - (SA)
Phoenix - The United States on Monday deployed the first wave of up to 6 000 National Guard troops along its border with Mexico as it cracks down on illegal immigration, officers said.
The Utah National Guard fielded 55 soldiers at the Arizona town of San Luis, about 330km southwest of Phoenix, near the California border, as part of Operation Jumpstart, said Major Hank McIntyre. "Our mission here is to provide a structure to support the border patrol," he told AFP by telephone from the border town where his unit will help extend a border fence and construct a new road to be used by border patrols. " Our main task is construction. They're working on three different construction projects," McIntyre said. "We're there for two weeks. We arrived last Saturday."
More deployments
In Washington, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, Lieutenant General Steven Blum, said that the deployment would only gather pace later this month. Some 800 troops will be deployed by the middle of June, and 2 500 by the July 1, building up to 6 000 by August 1, he told a press conference. But he warned that when Jumpstart was fully operational, troops would be armed on a case-to-case basis in areas where they could clash with smugglers.
"We don't call ourselves the armed forces for nothing - if you fire on me, and I know where it is coming from, you can expect similar treatment back," he said.
Immigration reform
The deployment came after President George W Bush on May 15 unveiled a plan to send the National Guard to guard the porous border. Some critics of Bush's plan charged the guard troops, controlled by individual US states, have already been overtaxed by other mobilisations to Iraq and elsewhere. Bush also wants legislation that would create a guest worker programme providing a possible pathway to US citizenship for millions of undocumented migrants.
Congress is debating immigration reform, an emotional issue that has divided many in the United States, a nation overwhelmingly populated by descendants of immigrants and recent arrivals.
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http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060605/METRO/606050364/1003
Rally pushes for immigrant rights: Monday, June 05, 2006
200 Arabs, Latinos, African-Americans call for the end of hostility at historic Detroit church.
Doug Guthrie / The Detroit News
DETROIT -- In a Catholic church that contains the remains of a French-born immigrant priest who represented Michigan in Congress before it became a state, Arabs, Latinos and African-Americans gathered Sunday to call for justice and tolerance for immigrants who continue to seek opportunity in the United States.
"We have come together this afternoon because of the same dream and the same prayer as all the immigrants who came before us," the Rev. Tom Sepulveda told the crowd at Ste. Anne de Detroit. About 200 gathered at the Detroit parish, many of whom held printed signs that said, "We are America."
The diverse groups claim a climate of hostility toward immigrants, here legally and illegally, has risen since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The debate among the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and President Bush over conflicting new immigration policy proposals has intensified the problem.
"Today there is a flurry of laws being passed that lead to racial profiling, and we need to stand up against it," said Ismael Ahmed, executive director of Arab Community Center of Economic and Social Services.
Walter Jones of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Ecorse said Sunday elected officials are caught up in the politics of racial division and fear. "They keep us apart by spreading myths that immigrants take jobs and that African-Americans and Latinos can't get along," Jones said.
Orlando Rojas, a Mexican immigrant and a member of Ste. Anne's parish, told the crowd the U.S. immigration system is badly broken, causing frustration and heartache for those who want to follow the rules. "I have not seen my wife and kids for several years. Is that right? Our laws are broken," Rojas said.
State Rep. Steve Tobocman, D-Detroit, promised to introduce legislation that would eliminate state policy he said makes Michigan the only state to refuse to pay workman's compensation to undocumented immigrants who paid taxes.
Ste. Anne de Detroit was founded by French immigrants 305 years ago. The parish is the second oldest in the United States. The remains of Gabriel Richard, pastor at Ste. Anne until his death in 1832 and one of the founders of the University of Michigan, are in a marble and glass crypt in a chapel built in 1886 behind the altar where speakers led chants in English and Spanish.
"For many years, people in this city have fought for civil rights and justice," Monsignor Don Hanchon said. "We must continue this fight."
Edith Castillo, director of Latin Americans for Social & Economic Development Inc., said she is aware of this year's crop of Metro Detroit high school graduates who have good grades and could help to counteract the "brain drain" resulting from the loss of jobs in Michigan, but they can't qualify for college loans, grants or scholarships because they are undocumented residents.
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You can reach Doug Guthrie at (734) 462-2674 or dguthrie@detnews.com
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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/272722_guard05.html
Border duty optional for state's Guard: Monday, June 5, 2006
OLYMPIA -- Gov. Christine Gregoire said she will not compel any of the state's National Guard troops to serve on the Mexican border if they're asked.
"I'm not going to force any National Guard member to go there," Gregoire said. "If I have volunteers who want to, we will support their request."
President Bush wants to post 6,000 troops along the border of four states in the Southwest during the next year as the government hires and trains new Border Patrol agents to capture people trying to come to the U.S. illegally.
The governors of those states -- California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas -- signed agreements with the federal government Thursday to provide the first deployments of this effort starting this month. Federal officials have not begun talks with Washington state leaders on a similar pact.
"We have been involved in the process from the beginning," Maj. Phil Osterli, public affairs officer for the Washington National Guard, told The (Everett) Herald for a story published Sunday. "We have not been asked by the Department of Defense to provide anybody."
Washington has about 6,000 members of the Army National Guard and 2,200 in the Air National Guard. Today, roughly 600 are deployed overseas, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan, Osterli said. That total is down from a peak of nearly 4,400 in 2004. Last year, nearly 600 Washington Guardsmen went to the Gulf Coast to assist in recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina.
Bush outlined his plan last month, calling for rotating National Guard members from across the country for one-year deployments on the U.S.-Mexican border. Troops from Southern states in the Gulf Coast and Atlantic Coast regions are expected to be excluded so they will be available in case another major hurricane hits. The president said troops will not be involved in any direct law enforcement activity. Instead, they will carry out duties such as constructing fences, installing vehicle barriers, running surveillance systems and analyzing intelligence. The intent is to absorb duties of the existing raft of Border Patrol agents, so the Border Patrol can focus on nabbing people trying to cross into the U.S. illegally.
Gregoire said she is not opposed to the federal plan, dubbed "Operation Jump Start." She said she views it as a stopgap measure to boost border security.
Operation Jump Start will begin in the coming days, with Arizona dispatching 300 troops to its border and New Mexico sending 50 Guardsmen to its border. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger committed 1,000 troops to his state's border, starting July 15. Texas will act similarly, though no specific number has been announced.
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http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=05-09-06&storyID=24087
News Analysis: Immigrant Movement Must Reach Out to Blacks
By Jasmyne A. Channick and Earl Ofari Hutchinson
LOS ANGELES — Immigrant rights leaders have repeatedly and with great pride compared the movement for humane immigration reform to the great civil rights battles of the 1960s. They have cited the Poor Peoples March in 1968, the high esteem that Cesar Chavez held for Dr. Martin Luther King, and the unequivocal support that top civil rights leaders and the Congressional Black Caucus has given to immigrant rights as solid models of black and brown cooperation. Yet, despite these public pronouncements, there has been no sustained movement to build any real coalitions with blacks on the immigration issue.
That has led to confusion and even anger. California Legislative Black Caucus Chair Assemblyman Mervyn M. Dymally came out in support of humane immigration reform. Dymally, who is was born in Trinidad and became the first foreign-born black member of Congress, in a statement on his Web site said that, “While I have not participated in any of the demonstrations because I was never invited by the organizers to do so, Assemblymember Joe Coto, vice-chair of the California Legislative Latino Caucus knows of my support for the demonstrations.”
While a Field Poll in California found that blacks—by a bigger percentage than whites and even American-born Latinos—back ed liberal immigration reform measures, little has been done on the side of immigrant rights groups to work with blacks on issues that both groups have in common.
Immigrant rights leaders have been MIA at rallies and gatherings on issues that blacks find important, including renewal of certain parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that are due to expire in 2007, police misconduct, improving failing inner city public schools, and most important the astronomical crisis of black joblessness among young blacks. That’s particularly important because most blacks perceive that illegal immigrants take jobs away from blacks.
The NAACP’s mission statement reads: “The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is to ensure the politica l, educational, social and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination.” But unlike the NAACP, the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), which has been a major backer of the immigrant rights protests, has not spoken out continually and relentlessly for black rights issues. Its mission statement reads: “The Mexican American Political Association, founded in Fresno, California in 1960, has been, and is, dedicated to the constitutional and demo cratic principle of political freedom and representation for the Mexican and Hispanic people of the United States of America.” There is no mention of blacks, poor whites or even other immigrant groups, just Latinos.
This lack of an interracial message in the fight for civil rights has been heard loud and clear by blacks in America.
When black members of the Minutemen Project held a protest in a predominantly black neighborhood in Los Angeles, immigrant activist and MAPA president Nativo Lopez said that he believes they are out of step with most black leaders and that both blacks and Hispanics face the same problems.
While many blacks denounce the Minutemen, blacks, especially in Los Angeles, are not completely supportive of illegal immigrants.
With the exception of a few black leaders, blacks in general have not come out in support of illegal immigrant rights, but many have gathered opposing illegal immigration.
While the Spanish language continues to be a huge divide in communication between blacks and Latinos, black-brown relations will continue to be strained as long as blacks are the only ones reaching out to Latinos to build coalitions.
Latinos who want to change the mindset of blacks on illegal immigrants’ rights must make a visible and concer ted effort to reach out to blacks—not just on immigrant rights issues, but on issues that are important to blacks as well. Just as they vigorously pound on Congress, the Bush administration, employers and the American people to make jobs and justice the w atchwords for dispossessed immigrants, they must make jobs and justice the watchwords for dispossessed poor blacks too. That is the right and indeed the only way to build a firm and lasting relationship between blacks and immigrant rights groups.
Jasmyne A. Cannick writes political and social commentary and is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is the author of The Crisis in Black and Black (Middle Passage Press). The Hutchinson Report blog is now online at E arlOfari Hutchinson.com.›
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http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon05082006.html
Marx After Marxism: The Global Fight for Immigrant Rights in a Neo-Liberal Economy
May 8, 2006 = By RICARDO ALARCÓN
"Let us remember that he said that it was not enough that the idea clamored to be made reality, but that it was also necessary that reality shout out to be made into idea." -- Franz Mehring
I will not attempt to delineate here the ample and rich intellectual production of Karl Marx, his deep analysis of capitalism or the principal events of his era, nor will I touch upon his exemplary life as a social fighter and revolutionary leader. I know that these themes are familiar to you all.
I propose, if you allow me, to separate Marx from Marxism. With that I allude to the necessity of thinking of Marx as Marx, rather than from any of the versions of Marxism, to imagine him declaring the challenges of the twenty-first century, separating what is essential of his work from what others made of his work. Instead of embarking on the endless succession of reviews of his thinking that goes along with those who have claimed him as their own, as well as with those who have tried unsuccessfully to bury him, it is necessary to rescue his fundamental legacy, that which makes him transcend his era to be [with us] here and now in the struggle for human emancipation.
I take as a starting point the warning, not always heeded, of Rosa Luxemburg: "The work Capital of Marx, like all his ideology, is not gospel in which we are given Revealed Truth, set in stone and eternal, but an endless flow of suggestions to keep working on with intelligence, in order to continue researching and struggling for truth."
To take his work, on top of any other consideration, as a source of inspiration and guide for those who, like he, want not only to explain the world but, more than anything, transform it, fighting until achieving socialism…… {Goto Websource}
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Latin America Working Group
http://www.lawg.org/index.htm
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http://www.immigrantsolidarity.org/cgi-bin/datacgi/database.cgi?file=Issues&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=0545
5/27: Center for Human Rights & Constitution Law's Response to Senate Immigration Bill: Released 29 May 2006
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http://www.nnirr.org/projects/immigrationreform/statement.htm
NNIRR Statement: Fair and Just Immigration Reform for All: April 2006
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National Immigrant Solidarity Network
No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights!
Webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
Email: info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org
or visit: http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/isn
US-Mexico Border Information:
No Militarization of Borders! Support Immigrant Rights!
send e-mail to: Border01-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
or visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Border016/
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Solidarity Across Borders
http://www.solidarityacrossborders.org/en/node
Email: sansfrontieres@resist.ca
or 514-848-7583
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Total Amnesty Is Humane Sanity! Build Bridges, Not Walls!
Venceremos!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka Peta de Aztlan
Email: sacranative@yahoo.com
Sacramento, California, Divided States of Amerika
Join Up! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
Join Up! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Immigrant-Rights-Agenda/
Related Blog: http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/
Key Blog: http://detodos-paratodos.blogspot.com/
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Sunday, June 11, 2006
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