SWOPblogger

http://www.newspapertree.com/opinion/1626-the-border-s-summer-of-discontent

by Frontera Norte Sur

It's as if all the contradictions of the U.S. War on Terror, immigration reform, U.S.-Mexico relations, free trade, and sagging economies on both sides of the border have burst at the seams, and at the same time. As the record hot summer of 2007 crawls to a close, the political barometer on the U.S.-Mexico border is tipping red. Barely a day goes by without hunger strikes, human chains, border crossing demonstrations, marches, and calls for economic boycotts.

In a press conference this week, Carlos Marentes, director of the El Paso-based Border Agricultural Workers Project, said "neo-liberal" economic policies exemplified by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are sparking a growing crisis in the borderlands and beyond. He contended that U.S. immigration laws and policies are shrouded in a veil of "hypocrisy" that views immigrant workers as an indispensable, cheap labor pool but then turns them into convenient political scapegoats. "We want to stop them, but we also need them," Marentes said.

While border protests are hardly new, what's striking about the latest manifestations of discontent is how they are cutting across the political spectrum and even incorporating centrist and conservative forces that are increasingly frustrated by a status quo dictated in Washington and Mexico City.

In the wake of the U.S. Congress' failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation this year, several developments are rekindling citizen activism. Among the most important are the construction of new border walls, long waits at border crossings, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdown on undocumented workers, the deaths of detained immigrants while in U.S. custody, Border Patrol shootings, and the Aug. 19 deportation of activist Elvira Arellano.

The Aug. 8 shooting of Jose Alejandro Ortiz by the U.S. Border Patrol in El Paso unleashed a wave of indignation on the border and in Mexico. Ortiz, who reportedly had a criminal record in both the U.S. and Mexico, was allegedly involved in an attempt to smuggle immigrants when he was fatally shot.

According to the Border Patrol's account, Ortiz threatened to throw a rock at a still-unidentified agent, who was forced to fire in self-defense at the young man. At least one witness contradicted the official version, and the local U.S. attorney's office is investigating the killing. Since Ortiz supposedly died south of the border, Mexico's Office of the Federal Attorney General has also opened an investigation. The Ortiz shooting was the fifth time El Paso Border Patrol agents have shot an undocumented person this year, but the first fatal incident of 2007.

Ortiz's killing was condemned in strong language by Ciudad Juarez Bishop Renato Ascensio Leon, Chihuahua Governor Jose Reyes Baeza, Chihuahua State Attorney General Patricia Gonzalez and members of the federal Mexican Congress. On Saturday, Aug. 25, several federal congressmen from President Calderon's center-right National Action Party leafleted motorists crossing the Bridge of Americas between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso. Two days earlier, Ortiz family members and supporters burned a Border Patrol pinata at another bridge linking the two cities.

El Paso Democratic Congressman Silvestre Reyes, who headed the El Paso Border Patrol office during the 1990s, said an investigation of the Ortiz killing was necessary but challenged critics he said downplayed the seriousness of rock-throwing against agents. "Anybody who thinks you can't get killed by a rock is a fool," Congressman Reyes said at an El Paso border security conference.

The construction of new U.S. border walls is another issue stoking anger in the region. While proponents of physical barriers insist the walls will guard against terrorists, deter illegal immigrants and curb drug traffickers, opponents, including most Texas border city mayors, contend the million-dollar structures will divide sister cities, intrude on private lands, create flood hazards, threaten ecosystems and wildlife like rare jaguars, and funnel undocumented immigrants to deadlier, isolated desert crossings.

Isabel Garcia of the Tucson-based Human Rights Coalition, said more than 200 migrants have died trying to cross the border in the Arizona-Sonora corridor alone since October of last year. The Arizona-Sonora border is "the epicenter of the war on immigrants," Garcia charged.

In opposition to border walls, a Texas-based group called Border Ambassadors kicked off a 16-day campaign Aug. 25 in El Paso. Led by Jay J. Johnson-Castro, the group organized a small human chain across the Santa Fe Bridge between El Paso and Ciudad Juarez.

The demonstration was supported by the League for United Latin American Citizens, Miss Latina Texas beauty contest queens and the mayors of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez. El Paso Mayor Cook said that people outside the region don't understand the "symbiotic relationship" between border communities dependent on mutual economic, academic and social exchanges.
Border Ambassadors plans human chains in the coming days in other Texas-Mexico border cities.

A separate anti-wall mobilization is planned for Oct. 11-13. Endorsed by 37 Western Hemisphere non-governmental groups, the action grows out of last year's Border Social Forum held in Ciudad Juarez. Protest organizers include San Antonio's Southwest Workers Union, the Border Agricultural Workers Union, Southwest Organizing Project, and many others.

Economic grievances remain are the core of many border-area protests.

Former Bracero Program guestworkers, for instance, are renewing demands that the Mexican government compensate all the eligible braceros who had money deducted from their paychecks decades ago for savings accounts that never materialized.

On Monday, Aug. 27, nine women initiated a week-long hunger strike in El Paso against the North American Free Trade Agreement, the conditions of women workers and treatment of immigrants in the U.S. Organized by La Mujer Obrera, a longtime group of former garment industry workers, the hunger strikers demand investment in women-centered economic development enterprises.

In Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, thousands of teachers are expected to hold a border demonstration Aug. 31 to protest the Mexican government's passage of a new social security law that lengthens retirement age eligibility requirements and sets the stage for the privatization of pension accounts.

Building on a trend that's developed over the past few years, the latest round of border activism is connected to issues affecting communities across North America. In Prince William County, Virginia, the Sin Fronteras organization launched an economic boycott this week to protest a new county law that gives local police immigration law enforcement responsibilities.

In an Aug. 27 telephone press conference, representatives of several U.S.-based human rights and Latino and Asian community organizations criticized the expansion of law enforcement measures once confined to the border region to the interior of the United States. Activist leaders condemned house-to-house ICE raids, alleged detention center abuses, employer verification letters, the use of local police forces to enforce immigration laws, and the appearance of high-tech aircraft monitoring communities far from the border.

Immigrant communities are in a "state of siege," charged Christian Ramirez of the American Friends Service Committee. Activists are "now calling for our communities to come together and say enough to these governmental initiatives," Ramirez added.

Veronica Carmona, an organizer for the New Mexico-based Colonias Development Council, told Frontera NorteSur that pro-immigrant groups are backing a national day of action for Sept. 12. Carmona said the character of the protest is still being debated.

If cross-border activism needed a media face, Elvira Arellano certainly provided it. The undocumented Mexican worker's long fight to remain with her child, a U.S. citizen, was abruptly interrupted when ICE agents arrested Arellano as she was leaving a Los Angeles press conference this month.
Arellano's rapid deportation to Mexico drew the protest of the Mexican government.

Arellano's arrest injected new life into the immigrant rights movement, and thousands of people streamed into the streets of Los Angeles on Aug. 25 chanting "We are all Elvira," a slogan evocative of the 1994 cry in Mexico, "We are all Marcos," in allusion to the Zapatista subcomandante.

The Arellano case received ample coverage and touched off sharp commentary in the Mexican media, with some outlets proclaiming the young woman as the “symbol” of the Mexican immigrant in the US.

Additional sources:
-- Univison, August 18 and 27, 2008.
-- El Universal, August 26, 2007. Article by Julieta Martinez.
-- El Sur, August 26, 2007.
-- Norte, August 14, 16, 25 and 26, 2007. Articles by Ricardo Espinoza, Antonio Flores Schroeder, Pablo Hernandez Batista, Jorge Chairez Daniel and Carlos Huerta.
-- La Jornada, August 11, 21 and 26, 2007. Articles by Ruben Villalpando, the Notimex news agency and editorial staff.
-- El Paso Times, August 21, 24, 25 and 26, 2007. Articles by Daniel Borunda, Louie Gilot and Adriana M. Chavez.
-- Lapolaka.com, August 9, 14, 25, 26, 27, 2007.
-- El Diario de Juarez, August 9, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 2007.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email fnsnews@nmsu.edu

Labels: Immigration, US Social Forum, US/Mexico Border

Since 1998, SWOP has been issuing the IRBIE, an award for the brazen exploitation of development incentives. The IRBIE is issued each April Fool's Day, commemorating the 1992 announcement date of the $1 Billion Industrial Revenue Bond (IRB) given to Intel Corporation. How far we have progressed!!

Forest City Covington has the inside track on this year’s IRBIE. After obtaining a purchase agreement for 3002 acres of land between the Albuquerque Airport and Journal Pavilion in 2005, company CEO Mike Daly let the Albuquerque Journal know they planned to ask for financing assistance from the state legislature in 2006. As documented by Common Cause New Mexico in “Developing Real Influence: the Real Estate Industry and the NM Legislature,” February 2007, Forest City invested heavily in state politicians including the governor and the state land commissioner. The total lobbying investment in cash and in-kind incentives (governor Richardson gets free plane trips) is estimated at over $200,000 in 2006 alone. In the short 2006 legislative session, Forest City hired a team of lobbyists and experts to ensure passage of the Tax Increment for Development Act which allowed for the creation of Tax Increment Development Districts (TIDD) for the purpose of expanding economic development opportunities. The bill passed at the very last minute of the session.

Next stop was the ABQ City Council for approval of an individual TIDD for Forest City Covington’s Mesa del Sol (MdS) project. In January 2007, the City Council approved MdS’s application for the creation of five TIDDs for just the first phase of its proposed 13,000 acre development. MdS then sought and was awarded state legislature approval of up to $500 million in increment tax capture of the state’s tax portion. The deal is now complete.

So what exactly does all this tax jargon mean? TIDD is the NM version (or perversion) of a development tool known as Tax Incentive Financing or TIF. It is supposed to work like this:

· A community designates a blighted or troubled area as a “TIF” district.

· The taxes coming from the area are measured at a “baseline” prior to the TIF creation.

· Development plans are made and hopefully implemented after the TIF designation.

· The new development generates increased taxes which are earmarked specifically to be used within that neighborhood for a designated period of time.

Essentially, Tax Increment Financing has historically been used as a way to generate new development in blighted areas, most often in the urban core. It’s a way to capture public revenue and reinvest it in older, sometimes historic, neighborhoods that sorely need it. The new tax revenues support new development and help restore health and viability of once declining neighborhoods.

An example:

A blighted inner city neighborhood annual gross receipts tax is $1000. A TIF district is created to promote economic development in the neighborhood, and the “baseline” GRT is $1000. The post-TIF development annual gross receipts tax contribution is $1500. Due to the TIF percentage agreement of 50%, $250 of those taxes is retained by the district to support its infrastructure needs, rather than being put into citywide coffers. $250 represents 50% of the new tax dollars that otherwise would not have been there. The baseline $1000 plus the other $250 is put into citywide coffers to support the many essential services we all share.

We think this type of use of our tax dollars is responsible and we support it. So what’s the problem?

In New Mexico, thanks to Forest City Covington and their friends in high places, the TIF concept has been changed to mean we give massive tax breaks to wealthy development projects on undeveloped land on the fringes of our city.

The proposed Mesa del Sol TIDD is not a blighted area. Rather, it’s a brand new and major real estate development in Albuquerque. And it sets a dangerous precedent.

NM TIDDs allow for the capture of Gross Receipt Taxes (GRT) and Property Taxes. Gross Receipts Taxes, which in NM are much more valuable than Property Taxes, are our primary concern. What’s the baseline GRT base for the MdS TIDD? Essentially ZERO, since it’s just open space. How much of the increment do the already approved MdS TIDDs allow? Up to 75% of the State’s taxing share, 67% of the City’s, and the County will soon decide how much to allow.

Yes, 75% of the State’s GRT taxing share in the massive new MdS development…dollars that are used to support every community, small or large, rural or urban, in New Mexico…can be retained by Forest City Covington to pay for their development needs. Total take for MdS from the State GRT is estimated at over $1 Billion over 45 years.

You have to hand it to the Albuquerque City Council. They bravely passed a “No Net Expense” city policy for new development. Now Albuquerque is meeting that “No Net Expense” to the city policy by having the rest of New Mexico pay for Albuquerque growth. Taxpayers from Clayton to Carlsbad are subsidizing core development in the Albuquerque Rio Grande Corridor. And so are taxpayers from Duranes to Westgate, which are in Albuquerque but outside of the MdS TIDD.

Still, we are probably looking at diverting over $75 Million in city tax revenues to the MdS TIDD. And by the way, approximately 70% of city revenue comes from GRT payments. Total anticipated TIDD Taxes (revenue diverted directly to the Forest City Covington MdS TIDD) are just short of $1.5 Billion, from the MdS pro formas!

Where does this leave SunCal which is planning the massive development project on the old Atrisco land grant on the west side? Working hard to get the same deal that MdS got.

Why does SunCal have a shot at the IRBIE? SunCal owns over 5 times the acreage that MdS controls. If SunCal is successful, the deal will be much larger and the impacts even more onerous. In fact, it will be the largest TIDD ever given in the United States. And once again, one of the poorest states in the nation will set a record for corporate welfare.

The state legislature was overwhelmed (“bowled over” according to the Common Cause report) by the lobbying and the money spent by Forest City. The City Council, not to mention the Mayor, got the same rush. But the Council has now had some time to contemplate the MdS deal and has reservations. Led by Councilor Cadigan, there have been attempts to remove the MdS type of development from future TIDD agreements altogether. Currently, Councilor Cadigan, who has worked very hard on this issue, has a new proposal to change the Albuquerque TIDD ordinance and make future “Greenfield” developments meet employment, housing, and business goals good for the city. His latest proposal goes before council on Wednesday, September 5.

Here at SWOP, we think that Greenfield development should be removed from the TIDD ordinance altogether.

In the absence of that, we should impose a Moratorium on TIDDS until a full and independent fiscal analysis can be completed and reviewed. Why is it that our city is always giving away the bank without proper fiscal analysis?

But short of what we consider the truly responsible approach to the creation of TIDDs, Cadigan’s current floor amendment does a lot toward at least ensuring we get something from these huge tax give-aways.

What does the other side say in opposition to having to provide the City with any guarantees that they will develop their TIDDs in what the City at large considers a responsible manner? Meaning, mixed-use development that provides workforce housing, small business incentives, transit oriented transportation routes, schools, and parks?

Well, the Chamber of Commerce’s “Position Paper,” dated August 27, outlines objections to many of Cadigan’s amendments to the current ordinance, which currently is devoid of any accountability measures. But in a nutshell, their position, which mirrors that of real estate developers, is that everything should be a matter of “Good Faith” case by case negotiations with the City.

Do we need to point out that here in Albuquerque, not to mention the State of New Mexico, “Good Faith” has never ensured our Corporate Welfare Tax Giveways pay off? Some of us do have pretty good historical memory.

Folks need to call or email their Councilors before next Wednesday’s meeting and tell them to stop giving away the store. Then go to the Council Session and speak out. The MdS deal is done. But other developers are at the table with a huge lobbying machine because the stakes are so high. Community leaders who care about the rest of the city must state their concerns. And state leaders and organizations must defend the interests of their communities.

The Council meets at 5:00 PM on Wednesday September 5. Council Meetings are held in the Vincent E. Griego Council Chambers on the basement level of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Government Center building, One Civic Plaza NW.

This article was prepared by Eric Schmieder.

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: August, 27, 2007
Contact:

Michael Leon Guerrero 310-7676160
Alexa Kasdan 646-400-2657

Grassroots Global Justice Delegation Travels to New Orleans to Support

International Tribunal and Survivor’s Assembly Tribunal Will Bring Together Representatives from Around the World to Hear Testimony from Katrina Survivor’s on US Government’s Human Rights Violations

Two years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, Grassroots Global Justice members will travel to New Orleans to provide logistical support for the International Tribunal and 2nd Survivor’s Assembly. The Tribunal, which is being organized by GGJ member group, the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund, with support from other organizations, will bring together hurricane Katrina survivors, international delegations, expert witnesses, a team of human rights and civil rights prosecutors, and a panel of US-based and international judges. The international delegations will include government officials, scholars and advocates from around the world.

The Tribunal is being held to bring charges of racial discrimination and the denial of the right to return for more than 300,000 residents, mostly poor and black who have been unable to return to New Orleans since Katrina hit two years ago. The survivor’s testimony will highlight the discriminatory rebuilding and public assistance efforts post-Katrina, and will call into question government practices before and during the storm.

The Grassroots Global Justice delegation will include representatives from at least six different organizations from around the country including, Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) in Rhode Island, Fuerza Unida from San Antonio, TX, Community Voices Heard from New York City, Southwest Worker’s Union from San Antonio, Project South from Atlanta, GA, and the Labor Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles. The delegation will be providing logistical support for the tribunals and working in solidarity with the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund as well as many other organizations and volunteers from around the country.

This delegation is part of GGJ’s Gulf Coast Support Campaign and will further the campaign’s goals of supporting organizing work in the Gulf Coast and promoting education of GGJ member organizations about the issues in the post-Katrina Gulf Coast. GGJ is comprised of 60 grassroots organizations throughout the U.S. confronting the effects of corporate-led globalization including the elimination of public services, job loss, displacement, and environmental destruction. The alliance promotes human rights, peace and environmental sustainability nationally and internationally.
###

Grassroots Global Justice
ggj@ggjalliance.org

424.772.6410
424.675.5419 FAX

Labels: GGJ, globalization, grassroots global justice, Hurricane Katrina, International Tribunal, Katrina, New Orleans

National Day of Action to Stop Anti-Immigrant Repression & Migrant Deaths at the U.S.-Mexico Border
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Join the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights with its members and partners to Raise Our Voices for Justice & Human Rights!

Join us on Tuesday, August 28, 2007, - in a national day of action to expose and continue denouncing the devastating humanitarian crisis being visited on immigrant families, workers and communities by U.S. policies and actions in border control, immigration law enforcement and services.

Please call your Congressional delegation, urging them to take immediate action to stop the migrant deaths and disappearances at the border and to end all immigration raids and a moratorium on the detention and deportation of all immigrants.

Take Action for Immigrant Rights!

Please call or fax your Congressional delegation (two Senators and one Representative) to demand an investigation into the horrific numbers of migrant deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border and to call for hearings to end immigration raids and immigrant detentions and deportations.

To find your Congressional delegation's telephone and fax numbers, open the link below and then click on your state, then click on your two Senators' and Representative's name to find their district offices numbers:

English: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

Español: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/index.es.html

Tell them to stop the repressive ICE and Border Patrol operations and to change the immigration policies that are terrorizing and violating the rights of immigrant families, workers and communities.

In your voice make an urgent call for:

* Socially just legalization that protects and expands the rights of all immigrants, keeps families together, provides access and options to permanent residency and citizenship

* Stopping the deaths of migrants at the border and demand a Congressional investigation into the root causes of the humanitarian crisis being caused by immigration enforcement and services

* Ending the militarization of border and immigration control, which deliberately cause the deaths and disappearance of migrants on the border

* An end to all immigration raids

* A moratorium on all immigrant detentions and deportations

* Restoring and expanding the due process rights of all immigrants

* Uphold the labor rights of U.S.-born and immigrant workers: Repeal employer sanctions and all employment verification systems, including Social Security no-match letters

* Protecting and expanding the civil, labor, and human rights of all immigrants and refugees

Raise your voices and take action as part of the growing movement calling on Congress and on all people of good conscience to stop the raids and the jailing and deportations of all immigrants.

Immigration Policies Are Causing a Humanitarian Crisis

Over 200 deceased migrants have been recovered from the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona in the last 11 months; about half of all migrant dead are recovered in Arizona alone. Migrants are dying and disappearing in the desert and mountainous regions of the border as a result of deliberate U.S. policy called "prevention through deterrence," forcing migrants to risk their lives in order to reunite with their families in the U.S. or find work to survive.

An average of two migrants who have died from dehydration and exposure to the natural elements are found every day on the U.S. side of the border. Border community groups estimate that for every deceased migrant recovered, at least ten others are missing.

Since 1994, when the current strategy was implemented, over 4500 migrant dead have been recorded deliberately caused by the U.S. government's failed border and immigration control policies that force migrants through the most deadly and isolated desert and mountainous regions of the border.

The Department of Homeland Security is using immigration law enforcement strategies that destabilize and traumatize immigrant communities everywhere and are causing horrific migrant suffering and deaths on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Operations involving ICE and Border Patrol agents, as well as other law enforcement agents, have led to a widening assault on migrant communities, where neighborhoods, stores, and workplaces are targets of indiscriminate immigration raids, and where jailing and deporting of thousands of documented and undocumented immigrants occurs on a daily basis.

Starting in September, the U.S. will have enough jail space to imprison as many as 31,000 immigrants per day. The Bush Administration will also dramatically increase the resources and funding to jail and deport immigrants, increasing its law enforcement personnel with thousands more ICE and Border Patrol agents who, in collaboration with local police, will be hounding immigrant families, workers and communities to fill private and public jails with space exclusively meant for immigrants.

National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Red Nacional Pro Derechos Inmigrantes y Refugiados

310 8th Street Suite 303 * Oakland, CA 94607
Tel (510) 465-1984 Fax (510) 465-1885

www.nnirr.org
www.migrantdiaries.blogspot.com

The National of Action to Stop Anti-Immigrant Repression is being convened by
The National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights with
Coalición de Derechos Humanos
AFSC Project Voice
Colonias Development Council
AFSC U.S.-Mexico Border Program &
Border Agricultural Workers Project

For more information, call or email:
* Arnoldo Garcia, (510) 465-1984 ext. 305, agarcia@nnirr.org
* Veronica Carmona, (915) 873-6475, carmonav@zianet.com
* Isabel Garcia, (520) 770-2373, chita.garcia@yahoo.com
* Carlos Marentes (915) 873-8933, marentes@farmworkers.org
* Christian Ramirez, (619) 885-1289, cramirez@afsc.org
* Pedro Rios, (619) 233-4114, prios@afsc.org

Labels: ICE, Immigration, immigration reform, migrant deaths, NNIRR

I hate to sound like a broken record, but for crying out loud!!!!!!

Gangs are a product of poverty, bad educational system and lack of social support for many of these young people. It's a way they have learned to survive. As a society we haven't figured out how to support single parents, children of immigrants, young teenagers, and in fact working people. Ken Sanchez is highly misguided.

This is an example of how politicians just band-aid a problem. All they do is throw words on paper, pass the law and then feel like they've fixed a HUGE crisis in this country. This registry won't stop and won't prevent violence. We need a hands on approach to dealing with these young people who are in dire need of help.

Gangs are a mechanism to deal with the structural oppression communities are faced with. Ken Sanchez: you should be asking why there are gangs in the first place, and before you make this racist registry (because we know, racial profiling is the inherent basis for this registry) I challenge you to look at other models of fixing the problem of gang violence. Keep reading.

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The Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts is divided by railroad tracks. For years those tracks defined the zones of two warring gangs, the Crips and the Bloods. More people were killed in their fighting than in Northern Ireland or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Then, in 1992, the gangs signed a peace treaty, the terms of which have mostly held to this day.

The main negotiator of that peace was Aqeela Sherrills. Born and raised in Watts, Sherrills was part of gang life as a teenager. By the time he was 16, thirteen of his best friends had been killed. He got out of Watts by attending college. But in 1989, as a young man, he returned to the neighborhood with a personal commitment to creating peace. With some friends, he began spending his days on the streets, risking his life by listening and talking to both Crips and Bloods. His efforts were supported financially by former football star Jim Brown, who also offered his Los Angeles-area home as a neutral ground for rival gang members to meet. At the meetings, Sherrills and Brown offered training in how to resolve conflicts, in order to break the endless cycle of violence and revenge.

In 1992, the three years of dedicated work paid off. Leaders of the Crips and Bloods agreed to peace. Sherrills recalls the day: “Everyone was happy, grandmothers were crying, everyone was calling each other, for the first time fathers were able to visit their children on the other side of the railroad tracks. It totally changed the quality of our lives.” In the year following the treaty, the homicide rate in Watts dropped by 44%.

Let’s assume that my readers know nothing about your story. Where would you start?

I would start by saying that I truly believe that Watts is the catalyst for the next major peace movement in this country; it’ll come out of a place that looks like hate, that looks like anger and frustration and despair.

We were able to create a peace treaty between the warring gangs in this neighborhood, factions of the Crips and Bloods. We have sustained it for ten years—not without problems and challenges, however. We have redefined what peace is and what it looks like for folks in this community. Peace is not this utopian idea of dashing through a field of dandelions, you know, it’s hard work. Sometimes the peacemakers lose their lives in the process. But the key is that individuals consistently come back to resolve their conflicts to take them the next few steps towards peace.

Watts is a microcosm of what’s taking place in the country and in the world: it’s an urban war zone. Over the past 20 years, in LA county alone, there’ve been over 10,000 gang-related deaths. That’s roughly the number of lives lost in the Northern Ireland and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts combined. But because they’re poor black and brown youths, they have been totally criminalized and marginalized. “Gang member” is a scapegoat term society created that makes them inhuman, and when they get killed, people say, “Oh well, they were gang members.” But these were somebody’s daughter, somebody’s son, crying out for help in their own way. There’s this perception that people in urban communities are hardened killers and it’s not true. They’re bright and intelligent individuals, but they’re wounded deeply and carrying that around, which is basically a trigger. They’re only emulating what they see taking place in the world.

Most of the kids as well as the adults are also suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. People have become desensitized to the violence in this neighborhood, and our approach has been to address this situation, because it truly threatens a whole generation of young people. I mean, it already has taken a generation of folks, and we don’t want it to spread.

We have a vision, we’re going to make Watts a place to raise our children. We don’t want to move to a better neighborhood because this is a better neighborhood. But it requires us taking responsibility for it. We’re also looking at creating an alternative economy, because Watts has a 20 percent unemployment rate and has had that pretty much for 30 or 40 years.

Trust me, you want to read the rest of the article.

Read Aqeela and Calvin's Story
**************************

How does that solution sound? I think I like it, and I want to get that in this state. So Ken Sanchez, there's your direct link. You want to do something for New Mexico? Call them.

Journal Article

Labels: Aqeela Sherrills, gang registry, gangs, racial profiling

Whenever I think of this, I feel so much pain for her and her son. Now that I have kids, I wonder to what extent I would go to make sure they were fed and healthy. Let me tell you, I would go far.

My parents went far as well when they decided to cross the border. I'm tired of criminalizing people for trying to survive and make a better life for themselves and family.

We're living in scary times. The housing market has taken a huge plunge and really brings economic distress in this country home. I ask, what is the US going to do when our economic system fails us? Will we cross borders to eat, to work, to survive. How far would you go? How many borders would you be willing to cross?

I truly feel awful for the separation this family like many others have endured. This was not an easy decision for Elvira. I applaud her courage and hope that she finds the strength to continue fighting. Viva Elvira Arrellano!
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We would like to inform and update that Elvira Arellano has been deported by ICE last night please read article in

La Opinion

Our community partners, the Raza Rights Coalition in San Diego, has obtained her statements as soon as she was deported, which will be released soon.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Unión del Barrio will be organizing a press 5pm conference, followed by a protest 6pm and a Vigil at 8pm. All taking place at the Federal Building in downtown. 300 north Los Angeles Street. For anyone in LA that want to support this struggle there.

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Immigration activist Arellano arrested

By Antonio Olivo
Chicago Tribune

August 20, 2007

LOS ANGELES - An immigration activist who sought refuge inside a Chicago church for a year was arrested in Los Angeles this afternoon after taking her campaign on the road.

Elvira Arellano was arrested about 4:15 p.m. Chicago time by law-enforcement officials after leaving Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in downtown Los Angeles, said Emma Lozano, an adviser who was there during the arrest.

After talking to news media inside the church, Arellano and her supporters got into their van to head north to San Jose, where she was scheduled to speak at another church, Lozano said. Moments after they entered the van, an unmarked vehicle stopped them.

The driver of Arellano's van, Roberto Lopez, poked his head out because he wanted to see why they were being blocked. Several other unmarked vehicles surrounded their van.

Agents emerged from all the cars screaming for Arellano to get out, Lozano said. Her 8-year-old son, Saul, started to cry, and Arellano said to everyone in the car, "Calm down. Don't have any fear. They can't hurt me."

Then she turned to the people who were about to arrest her and she said, "You're going to have to give me a minute with my son," Lozano said. She spent time with her son in the car, then surrendered.

Arellano was arrested on Main Street, near the church, where she slept Saturday night and where she's held several press conferences Saturday and today.

aolivo@tribune.com

Labels: deportation, Elvira Arrellano, Immigration, immigration reform

At last night’s APS Policy Committee meeting, the School Board heard recommendations from a study commission that had been looking at whether or not the community would be better served by having an actual APS Police Department. Currently, the status quo is that APS has “security officers” who are commissioned by the Bernalillo County Sheriff.

SWOP along with numerous other community based groups have long argued that armed police officers mingling among our students during school hours is a bad idea. We firmly believe this and have maintained our clarity on what we consider a core youth rights issue without expanding our observations to the pros and cons of establishing an actual police department in general. But now it seems we are at that point. So let’s talk about police and criminal justice, racial profiling and guns.

Guns are lethal weapons. As we all surely know, guns riddle our society…they are literally everywhere. One of the officers who gave public comment at the APS meeting last night commented that they have a room full of confiscated weapons collected from APS campuses. We say GOOD FOR YOU. You obviously were able to confiscate, and maybe even de-escalate a bad situation, without using guns. When we consider the scenario he described, it begs an obvious question: had police officers been armed in those situations, would they have been more likely to use their weapons? And, given that racial profiling is a social reality would they have been more likely to use their weapons against youth of color?

Racial profiling is a social reality and to argue that it isn’t is to turn a blind eye to the incredible over-representation of men of color in the criminal justice system.

The fact that the United States, the “land of the free,” with our vaunted social prosperity, has the largest prison population in the world should be considered a crisis. While only making up 5% of the worlds’ population, we account for 25% of those behind bars worldwide. If we have a healthy and inherently good system, as so many of us believe, we should be viewing what we have collectively allowed to happen as a cancer.

It is most certainly a cancer for communities of color, let’s make no mistake. According to Glenn Loury's excellent article on this topic in this month's Boston Review, while three out of 200 young whites were incarcerated in 2000, the rate for young blacks was one in nine. There is no disputing the enormous amount of evidence we have that our criminal justice system stigmatizes by race. The criminalization of large sectors of minority populations in this country maintains racial hierarchies and perpetuates the life of poverty statistically so much more prevalent in brown and black communities.

And the entrance of people of color into the criminal justice system begins at a young age, sometimes as early as junior high.

When a police officer enters a person’s identification into their computer system, that person has entered the criminal justice system. That person has psychologically registered that they are suspected of being a criminal. This has profound impacts on the very young who are still developing their sense of themselves and what their life opportunities will be. And, this simple act also brands that young person in the eyes of the community as well as the broader police force, as someone that is “suspicious,” creating a shift in perception and in many people a forgone conclusion. This is just one example of how insidious policing can be to vulnerable communities.

We need to break the punitive chain that has spiraled out of control in this country. We certainly do not believe we should add to it by integrating a police department with our school system. Our campuses should be havens that young people can have an expectation of going to without being criminally targeted on the basis of subjective suspicion.

For us, the “guns in school” issue is essentially about this larger social issue. In the past, the issue was whether or not APS security officers should carry guns on their persons. This community worked hard to address this question a few years back, and the outcome was a compromise…security officers would have lethal weapons in their trunks and would be allowed to carry them on their persons after hours. We know that we are perceived as oppositional to the police force. But let’s be clear: while we know our society depends upon police and we want them to be able to do their jobs safely, we also think the police force itself needs to be controlled through rules, regulations, and oversight, just as we do our military. We do not think any institution is inherently able to police itself, including the police. And in this case, we believe that guns add fuel to the fire of what is already an environment fraught with danger for young people, coming at them from both their peer sets and from the very society that ought to have the best interests of all young people at heart, regardless of their cultural norms, ethnicity or class. Sadly, we can’t make the statement that all young people are treated equally in the United States.

After a motion was made by one of the Board members last night to keep the current system of security officers in place rather than create an APS police department, the Board heard public comment, during which they finally heard from community members that guns in school are a bad idea. To his credit, Board member Marty Esquivel quickly asked a very pertinent
question …was the motion to not create a Police Department really about not having guns in school? If so, he said, we should call it what it is and address that, but not trash the idea of a department because of that issue. We agree, actually. Since early summer we’ve been asking that question, but from the converse: is the effort to create a Police Department really about fully arming officers at all times without having to bring it up, essentially undermining the lengthy community debate and outcome which created the current APS policy concerning guns?

Marty Esquivel did not vote with us last night, in fact he said he thought that the efforts of a volunteer study commission should be validated by the wholesale adoption of their recommendations. I was confused by his position given the unrepresentative nature of the commission, not to mention how he comes across, which is as someone willing to ask detailed and pertinent, even if hard, questions. And I would also like to point out that in the run up to his election in March, he unequivocally stated that he would not support armed police in schools. Here is the exact Q&A printed in the Tribune during his campaign:

Q: Would you vote to arm school police 24/7?

“No. We need to proactively identify threats to our schools with better, smarter security.”

This is, of course, our position here at SWOP. And we were pleased when a candidate who shared our views won an election.

We understand that perspectives change, but we also hope politicians know that people really do seek to understand the positions of candidates in order to make informed choices about who they elect. In this particular case, we would like to see more clarity and we would also like to see the inclusion of a more diverse set of constituents when studying and making recommendations on these sorts of tough topics. APS does not have a good track record in this area and it needs to improve.

Labels: APS, Guns in Schools

Jessi is a fifth year medical student at the Latin American International School of Medicine outside of Havana, Cuba. Along with 5 other New Mexicans and about 90 others from the US, Jessi is studying under a full scholarship provided by the Cuban government. Thousands of other students from throughout the world, especially from Latin America and Africa, are also studying under scholarship at the school.

Students at the school make a commitment to return to their home countries to practice in medically underserved areas. This program should provide obvious benefits to New Mexico, which is ranked #2 in incidence of population with no health care insurance.

Oh, btw, there are no guns in Cuban schools. No police either, for that matter.

This interview ran on National Public Radio's "Justice Talking" program this past week.

070813_BarretoExtra.mp3

You can hear other interviews with medical students and learn more about the school at http://www.justicetalking.org/viewprogram.asp?progID=614

This is so crazy. Sometimes I think of how naive I am. It's still hard for me to believe how nasty and evil some people are.

What's awful is that we always talk about how we can't trust people anymore. Well in reality it's these people we can't trust. How can they live with themselves.

Let's trust our neighbors and lets get people in office we do trust.

October 2nd Albuquerque municipal elections. City Councilors are running for office. So let's get out to vote and get the right people in!

**********************
by Amy Goodman

Karl Rove’s resignation as deputy White House chief of staff cements the political future of the waning Bush administration. George W. will have little to do except wield his veto pen; he doesn’t need the steadying hand of Rove for that, or his strategic insight. As Rove joins the ranks of discredited politicians who resign “in order to spend more time with family,” a retrospective of his dirty tricks might be in order. Much is attributed to Rove, dubbed “Bush’s Brain” by Texas journalists Wayne Slater and James Moore-yet very little sticks to the man. Bearing in mind that we presume innocence until guilt is proved, read on:

-In 1970, College Republican Rove stole letterhead from the Illinois Democratic campaign of Alan Dixon and used it to invite hundreds of people to Dixon’s headquarters opening, promising “free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing,” disrupting the event.

-In 1973, Rove ran for chair of the College Republicans. He challenged the front-runner’s delegates, throwing the national convention into disarray, after which both he and his opponent, Robert Edgeworth, claimed victory. The dispute was resolved when Rove was selected through the direct order of the chairman of the Republican National Committee, who at the time was none other than George H.W. Bush.

-In 1986, while working for Texas Republican gubernatorial hopeful William Clements, Rove claimed that Rove’s personal office had been bugged, most likely by the campaign of incumbent Democratic Gov. Mark White. Nothing was proved, but the negative press, weeks before the election, helped Rove’s man win a narrow victory. FBI agent Greg Rampton removed the bug, disrupting any attempt to properly investigate who planted it.

-When Rove was an adviser for George W. Bush’s 1994 race for governor of Texas against Democratic incumbent Ann Richards, a persistent whisper campaign in conservative East Texas wrongly suggested that Richards was a lesbian. According to Texas journalist Lou Dubose: “No one ever traced the character assassination to Rove. Yet no one doubts that Rove was behind it. It’s a process on which he holds a patent. Identify your opponent’s strength, and attack it so relentlessly that it becomes a liability. Richards was admired because she promised and delivered a ‘government that looked more like the people of the state.’ That included the appointment of blacks, Hispanics and gays and lesbians. Rove made that asset a liability.”

-After John McCain thumped George W. Bush in the 2000 New Hampshire primary, with 48 percent of the vote to Bush’s 30 percent, a massive smear campaign was launched in South Carolina, a key battleground. TV attack ads from third groups and anonymous fliers circulated, variously suggesting that McCain’s experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam had left him mentally scarred with an uncontrollable temper, that his wife, Cindy, abused drugs, and that he had an African-American “love child.” In fact, the McCains adopted their daughter Bridget from a Bangladesh orphanage run by Mother Teresa.

-According to the investigation of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Rove played a central role in the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak and former Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, in retaliation for the accusation by her husband, Joe Wilson, that the Bush administration falsely claimed Saddam Hussein had sought uranium in Niger.

-Rove has ignored subpoenas to testify before Congress about the Justice Department scandal stemming from the firing of nine U.S. attorneys. He skipped a hearing on improper use of Republican National Committee e-mail accounts by White House staffers that allowed them to skirt the Presidential Records Act. Rove claims he enjoys executive privilege, which travels with him as he leaves the White House.

These are but some of the dirty tricks attributed to Karl Rove. We are to believe that Rove, born Christmas Day, 1950, is retiring to write books. Former Texas Agriculture Commissioner and populist firebrand Jim Hightower describes Rove’s departure as “a rat jumping off a sinking ship.” But arch-Rove watcher Wayne Slater of The Dallas Morning News knows better. He notes that Rove and his wife have built a house in the Florida Panhandle-the “Republican Riviera”-and that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will be 59 in 2012, a ripe age for a run for the White House. Regardless, the art and science of the political dirty tricks, learned by Rove in the Nixon years and perfected by him in the George W. Bush White House, will be with us for years to come.

Denis Moynihan provided research assistance on today’s column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 500 stations in North America.

© 2007 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate

Labels: Bush, Corruption, Karl Rove

School systems are in place to provide a healthy environment for children and youth to learn and grow. This is where our priorities should lay and when it comes to the safety of the young people in our schools, the focus should be on a proactive approach with a comprehensive safety plan.

This seems to have slipped the mind of the Safety Commission enacted by Superintendent Elizabeth Everitt. They are recommending Albuquerque Public Schools to create its own police force for schools K-12. The last time I checked APS was in the business of educating students not running a security team.

Another unstated problem with the commission is the gross lack of representation from working class people of color. This poses quite a problem because yet again those most affected by these polices are not included in the decision making process.

The best option is for APS to strengthen the existing security team and create clear guidelines and procedures around emergencies and safety plans without guns.

In the end Safe Schools are GUN FREE schools and creating a police force or arming officers is not going to make students feel safer. What will keep students safe, is safety plans that are holistic and preventative and to invest more money directly to an environment conducive to learning.

Act now! We need your support at the APS Policy and Instruction Committee Meeting on Thursday August 16, 2007 at 4:30pm 6400 Uptown Blvd NE (across from Coronado Mall) De-Layo-Martin Community Room. What you can do:

1. Meet us at SWOP at 3:30pm Thursday or show up at the meeting at 4:30pm to say: Reject the recommendation of the Commission. APS should create an emergency plan that prioritizes a comprehensive approach to safety without guns. Safe schools are gun free!

2. If you cannot make it please call (505) 880-3739 or e-mail the School Board members Wednesday and say: Reject the recommendation of the Commission. APS should create an emergency plan that prioritizes a comprehensive approach to safety without guns. Safe schools are gun free!

3. Come to the School Safety Focus Group to talk about alternatives Tuesday August 21, 2007 211 10th St SW @ 5:30pm

Pajarito residents have no utilities, and many can’t prove residency

BY WINTHROP QUIGLEY
Journal Staff Writer

The tall buildings of Downtown Albuquerque, maybe a 20-minute drive away, are easily seen to the north and east. Down the hill is the green Rio Grande Valley, squares of irrigated farm land, paved roads and big-box retail stores.

That’s the view from Pajarito Mesa, a 28-square-mile desert expanse that ends past the horizon at Rio Puerco. Dirt roads lead to trailer homes that have no running water or (unless the owner has a generator) electricity.

One late afternoon in mid-July, a mobile health clinic operated by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico was parked where the hill rising from the valley flattens out into mesa. Three physicians and a medical student from the University of New Mexico stood in the shade cast by the van waiting for people to stop in on their way home from work.

Here, the familiar statistics about New Mexico’s poverty, lack of health insurance and poor access to care acquire human faces.

On the mesa, said Arthur Kaufman, a family practice physician and chairman of UNM’s family and community medicine department, doctors see “out of control hypertension, out of control diabetes, a lot of injuries, dental problems, gum disease. Many women have had no Pap smears in 10 years.”

Many of the 400 families living on the mesa migrated from Mexico, said community organizer and 10-year resident Sandra Montes.

Most of the men work in construction, the women as house and hotel room cleaners, though Montes knows two residents who worked as a nurse and as a banker in Mexico and says some residents have degrees earned in Mexico.

It looks like Hollywood’s idea of an isolated village in some vaguely chartered waste between Mexico and the United States. A movie company this summer used Pajarito Mesa as a set for a film about a Border Patrol officer.

Going thirsty

Two boys walk by. They ask in Spanish what the van is doing on Pajarito Mesa. The taller boy’s front teeth are beginning to turn brown.

A man gets out of his pickup. In Spanish, he tells the group he is suffering from dizziness. Maria DeArman, a medical resident in UNM’s family practice program, and Erin Corriveau, a medical student, examine the man inside the van and discuss the effects of dehydration with him, which Montes said is a common problem given the lack of water here.

Gabriel Duarte stops by to get his blood sugar tested and to get a prescription. He is 60 years old and works as a painter. Asked why he lives on the mesa, Duarte points to the green valley below. “It’s better than paying rent down there,” he said.

“The people who live here have a great deal of dignity,” said Roberto Gomez, associate dean of students at the UNM Medical School and a psychiatrist. “They’re hardworking individuals. They love their land.”

Montes bought her land in 1997 from a broker who told her water and electricity would be installed the following year. The mesa is still waiting. Bernalillo County officials say Pajarito Mesa does not get services because it was never legally subdivided.

The roads are those that drivers have carved into the dust while getting to their homes, and the roads have no signs. Families haul water in containers they fill in town. Residents have been haggling with the state and county for years for permission to dig a community well using federal grant money for payment.

“They’ve created their own mini village,” Kaufman said.

‘They don’t care’

Health policy thinkers have long known health status is affected by housing, income, environment, culture and demographics as well as insurance status and availability of doctors. Pajarito Mesa has its own special problems.

A good health clinic that charges fees based on income is just a few miles away.

“They ask for proof of residency,” Montes said. “It’s very hard for us to prove residency. We have no address. We don’t get utility bills. They don’t believe that in this country there is a community like ours. Or they don’t care.”

Residents are also worried they’ll be asked for a Social Security number, that the staff will be rude or that it will cost too much, Kaufman said.

Since most families have no electricity, they have no refrigeration, so it is difficult to keep fresh vegetables, fruits, meats and milk on hand, Montes said. Diets suffer.

Romero wants to find a way to offer more dental services out of the van.
One of UNM’s goals is to connect people to a medical home — a clinic, a physician, a nurse practitioner or anyone else who can provide consistent care. “If you have a large minority not using services, that’s a health problem,” Kaufman
said.

UNM and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield van ended up on Pajarito Mesa because of Maria DeArman.

UNM’s family practice program requires its students and residents to find community-based projects to work on. “We’re trying to train very different doctors,” Kaufman said. “The health problems they see have very big environmental and social causes. We want them in the community. When she talks with the community, she sees a different reality. We can’t teach that in a hospital.”

DeArman attended a Pajarito community meeting and invited her brother, Jerry Miramontes, who was visiting from Las Cruces, to come along.

DeArman recognized the community needed health care and described what UNM’s Health Sciences Center offered.

Her brother, she said, leaned over and said, “Maria, these people need a mobile clinic. You’re asking them to schlep down to UNM.”

DeArman called the state Health Department, which told her about the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Care Van. “This is exactly what the van is made for,” said Robert A. “Bobby” Romero, the Care Van coordinator and driver.

No charge

The van has been at Pajarito three times this summer and sees 10 to 15 families per visit. Neither UNM nor Blue Cross and Blue Shield charge for the service.

“It’s our input to the uninsured situation,” said Becky Kenny of Blue Cross and Blue Shield media relations. “It’s how we can impact the problem in New Mexico.”

The Care Van is constantly on the road. It provides immunization clinics in cooperation with the Health Department, health fairs for Blue Cross and Blue Shield members, sports physicals for students in San Jon, AIDS testing in Albuquerque.

Romero would take the van the next day to the intersection of Pennsylvania and Central in Albuquerque where he would exchange clean needles for used needles with junkies.


That would help a lot, Montes said. When some people on Pajarito Mesa develop a tooth problem, “they just wait until they can’t stand the pain. Then they go to the hospital and ask them to pull it out.”

Facts about Pajarito Mesa

Pajarito Mesa is located in unincorporated Bernalillo County and covers about 18,000 acres, or 28 square miles. It is bounded by Coors Boulevard on the east, the Isleta reservation on the south, the Rio Puerco escarpment on the west and the Atrisco Land Grant boundary on the north.

Most of the parcels are about 10 acres in size.

About 400 homes were counted from 2006 aerial photographs of the area, compared to 100 in 1999.

The population is estimated to be between 500 and 1,500 people.

In the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Comprehensive Plan planning document, Pajarito Mesa is designated as a “Reserve” area, meaning the land can be used for a planned community or a very rural development.

There are few legally platted parcels on the mesa because none of parcels was created with rights of way, so no legal roads can be constructed.

Residents of Pajarito Mesa have purchased a road grader and have constructed a network of dirt roads so they may travel to and from their homes.

No public utilities are available.

Some Pajarito Mesa residents formed the Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association to lobby for construction of a water source on the mesa. The association has received $750,000 in state funding for a community well and is currently working with the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority on a solution.
Journal staff writer Juan-Carlos Rodriguez Source: Bernalillo County Department of Zoning, Building, Planning and Environmental Health.

Labels: health care, Pajarito Mesa, UNM

Normally I don't do this, but instead of posting the beginning of the article first. I'm putting the end before the beginning. Why? Because its probably the most important piece of information.

I try REALLY hard to read as much news as my brain can take...daily. But sometimes its too much. 1 line is usually what I read and decide from that line if I should continue reading it or not. Not a good habit and one I am trying to break. But don't we all do it.

How can we sit there and read every single sentence and minutia of every single article on a daily basis? It's too much. What's scary is that I always trust the 1st line. I like to consider myself a conscious person. But even still, I trust.

We need to get better at reading more and learning more about the actual issues at hand. But that's difficult to do. As the left we are way behind on the 1 liners. If you go to the Washington Post and read their headlines, you can pretty much get the gist of what is being said. If you go to the Common Dreams website....well there are many more articles that have "cool" titles, but no information.

So with that I give you the end.....and then the beginning. (in hopes that you will read it all....to get the facts.)

*****************

...this debate isn't really about making good use of federal funds. It's about using immigration as a weapon against at-risk Democrats -- and assuming voters won't bother to learn the truth.

******************

Attack Ads You'll Be Seeing

By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, August 8, 2007; Page A15

Here's an emerging line of attack you can expect to hear more of in the 2008 congressional campaigns -- especially if you live near a vulnerable Democratic incumbent: Democrats vote to give welfare benefits to illegal aliens.

Or, even better: Democrats vote to take benefits away from deserving senior citizens to pay for welfare for illegal aliens.

Ugly? Absolutely. Devastating? So Republicans hope. True? No.

Bashing Democrats on immigration -- accusing them of doing everything but carrying illegals' luggage across the border -- is a GOP mainstay. But the accusations that Republicans started to peddle last week reached a new low in dishonest nativism.

The first salvo involved the House version of the measure to extend the children's health insurance plan, SCHIP.

"What we do is take, at the cost of seniors who get . . . choices of their own health-care plans, we take it away," former speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) claimed during the House debate. "We wipe it out, and we give it to people who are illegal aliens."

"That bill, if it becomes law, would take $197 billion out of the Medicare trust fund, from our seniors, to give to illegal aliens," charged Rep. Ron Lewis (R-Ky.).

Leave aside the inflated numbers. Leave aside the scare talk about "our seniors." (AARP, the seniors' lobby, supports the bill.)

The provision at issue would repeal a 2006 requirement that everyone applying for Medicaid provide proof of citizenship -- passports or original birth certificates. That might sound sensible, but it has been a cumbersome, expensive solution to a non-problem.

In 2005, when he was overseeing the Medicaid program for the Bush administration, Mark McClellan noted that an inspector general's investigation did "not find particular problems regarding false allegations of citizenship, nor are we aware of any."

Read the rest of the article here.

Labels: Media, Media Bias, SCHIP

Students for a Free Tibet | Free Tibet Campaign

***Video footage and photos available

Contact:
Kate Woznow
(Hong Kong) + 852 657-34874

Matt Whitticase
(Hong Kong) + 852 915-21256

Tenzin Dorjee
(New York) +1 917-304-4571


ACTIVISTS DETAINED FOLLOWING DARING BANNER HANG

Hong Kong - Six Tibet independence activists from the UK, US, and Canada
(1) were detained today after rappelling from the top of the Great Wall of
China with a 450-square foot protest banner reading "One World, One Dream,
Free Tibet 2008" in English and Chinese. The dramatic action took place
on the eve of the one-year countdown to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Tibet
advocacy groups assert that China is attempting to use the 2008 Games as a
tool to legitimize its illegal occupation of Tibet. Chinese authorities
removed the activists after two hours; their current whereabouts are
unknown.

"The Chinese government is exploiting the Olympics to gain acceptance as a
world leader. By protesting at the Great Wall, the most recognizable
symbol of Chinese nationhood, we're sending a clear message that China's
dream of international leadership cannot be realized as long as it
continues its brutal occupation of Tibet," said Tenzin Dorjee, Deputy
Director of Students for a Free Tibet. "We're appealing to the
international community to shine the light of scrutiny on China in the
coming year," added Dorjee. "The Olympic dream of Tibetans is freedom by
August 2008, and we call on the IOC and the global community to help us
make this a reality."

Today's protest is also directed at the International Olympic Committee
for failing to fulfill its commitment to hold the Chinese government
accountable with regards to its human rights record. In 2002, IOC
President Jacques Rogge said, "If ... human rights are not acted upon [by
China] to our satisfaction then we will act." (2) According to a report
released by Human Rights Watch last week, "the Chinese government shows no
substantive progress in addressing long-standing human rights
concerns." (3)

Matt Whitticase, spokesperson for Free Tibet Campaign said, "The IOC
assured the global community that China's human rights record would
improve as a result of staging the Games. Instead, we have seen the
opposite with a hardening of China's position in Tibet (4), a sustained
government-sponsored resettlement program of Tibetan nomads (5),
increased social and economic marginalization of Tibetans following the
launch of the China-Tibet railway (6), and the closing off of Tibet to
journalists and media scrutiny (7). To stop the Chinese government from
acting with impunity in Tibet, the IOC must publicly demand that
journalists have unrestricted access to Tibet. By refusing to "act", as it
promised, the IOC only helps China to cover up its lamentable human rights
record in Tibet."

Lhadon Tethong, a Tibetan and the Executive Director of SFT, is
currently in Beijing and will try to meet with IOC President Jacque Rogge
today who is in Beijing for tomorrow's celebrations. Tethong is demanding
the IOC immediately oppose propaganda efforts by the Chinese government to
underscore its claim to Tibet, and use its influence to affect substantive
progress on human rights in China and a meaningful resolution to the
occupation of Tibet. In Beijing since Wednesday, Tethong has been openly
blogging at www.BeijingWideOpen.org, exposing the reality behind China's
blatant Olympics propaganda. To mark the Olympics one-year countdown,
Tibetans and their supporters worldwide are organizing protests to demand
a solution to the Tibet issue.
Demonstrations will continue at China's historical landmarks, sports
arenas, and at Chinese Embassies and Consulates around the world between
now and the August 2008 Games.

To see the footage of these amazing Tibetan freedom activists in action,
click on the links below:

You Tube Video 1
You Tube Video 2

You can also see still photos at: Free Tibet Banner Drop Pictures

To read the press release, go to: www.studentsforafreetibet.org
To see press, interviews and blogging go to:
http://blog.studentsforafreetibet.org/
******************
(1) The detained activists are: Melanie Raoul (Vancouver, Canada), Sam
Price (Vancouver, Canada), Leslie Kaup (South St. Paul, Minnesota), Nupur
Modi (Oakland, California), Duane Martinez (Sausalito,
California), Pete Speller (Cambridge, UK).
(2) President Rogge was speaking on the BBC's Hardtalk television
programme in April, 2002.
(3) Human Rights Watch press release available at:
http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/08/02/china16560.htm.
(4) In November 2005 Zhang Qingli, previously hardline Party
Secretary in Xinjiang, was appointed Party Secretary to Tibet. He has made
increasingly vitriolic public denunciations of His Holiness the Dalai
Lama, referring to "a fight to the death with the Dalai clique". (5)
Human Rights Watch report available at:
http://hrw.org/reports/2007/tibet0607/index.htm.
(6) The official People's Daily reported on 25 July 2007 that
tourists traveling to the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) in the first 6
months of 2007 reached 1.1 million, an increase of 86.3% over the same
period for 2006, according to the regional tourism bureau. Xinhua
reported on 9 May 2007 that the region is forecast to host 3 million
visitors this year, a total that exceeds the population of the TAR. (7)
Despite a pledge by Olympics Press Chief, Sun Weijia, that "they (foreign
journalists) can travel anywhere in China. There will be no restrictions"
(DPA, 28 September 2006), China subsequently announced that all foreign
journalists must obtain a special permit prior to traveling to Tibet.

Labels: 2008 olympics, free tibet, great wall of china

Nearly 60 union supporters marched from the East Side to downtown under a blazing midday sun Saturday to protest what they called poverty wages that school districts pay to cafeteria workers, bus drivers, teacher aides, education assistants and other school support staff.

"We're demanding a living wage," said Southwest Workers Union organizer Che Lopez. A living wage would be $13.75 an hour for a family of three and is based on federal poverty guidelines, he said.

The issue touches about 120,000 school workers throughout the city, said union organizer Tanya Garduño. Salaries for most of the workers are at or near the minimum wage, currently $5.85 an hour, she said.

Many of the marchers wore yellow T-shirts with the slogan "School Zone — Caution — Poverty Wages" written in English and Spanish.

At noon they stopped at the Bill Miller's Bar-B-Q at East Durango, across from the Alamodome where the Dallas Cowboys were practicing.

The union claims the restaurant chain pays workers on the South Side $6.50 an hour while North Side workers get $9 an hour for the same work.

The difference in wages is another example of how the county is divided between rich and poor, said Robert Alvarado of the Brown Berets, who was marching in sympathy with the protesters.

Labels: living wage, SWU, worker's rights

July 30, 2007

Women’s/Human Rights News

Angela’s Story: Mixtecs, Migration and Murder


Raised in a dirt-poor indigenous Mixtec community, 25-year- old Angela Alejandro Ortiz left southern Mexico’s Guerrero state one day in 2002 to seek a better life in the northern borderlands. Accompanied by her four-year-old daughter, the new migrant initially landed work along the familiar harvest paths of Sonora state.

Last weekend, Angela’s remains arrived in a cardboard coffin to her home village of Yozondacua Llano del Carmen, a place which is known as one of the most destitute communities of Latin America and a prime expeller of migrant labor for the north.

Angela’s parents, Francisca Ortiz Flores and Francisco Alejandro Varela, lost contact with their daughter in 2003 after Angela called them from La Palma, Sonora. Undertaking a grim journey that traversed Sonora, Baja California, Sinaloa and Chihuahua states, the couple did not know that Angela’s beaten and decomposed body had been recovered in a rural part of Chihuahua back in November 2003.

For three years, Angela’s remains sat in the cold storage facilities of the Chihuahua Office of the State Attorney General (PGJE). A missing person’s report had long been filed by Angela’s parents, but state law enforcement authorities did not match their body with the report.

While working as laborers in the Chihuahua community of Casas Grandes last year, Angela’s parents finally got their break. A relative informed the migrant couple that Angela had been murdered. After knocking on the doors of the official Chihuahua Women’s Institute, the parents were put in touch with the PGJE. Officers displayed pictures of murdered women, and Angela’s parents identified their daughter as one of the victims. To verify the identity of Angela’s probable remains, DNA tests were conducted in
November 2006; it took six months for the results to confirm the bad news to Angela’s parents.

The state’s story is that Angela was murdered in Casas Grandes by her common-law husband, Porfirio Santiago Gonzalez, 34, and two of his friends, Rutilio Diaz Martinez and Catarina Ortiz Ortega. In the official account, Angela was beaten to death after confronting her husband over the Ortiz woman.

Claiming that Angela strolled out of the couple’s house to go to the bathroom early on the morning of September 22, 2003, and never came back, Santiago filed a missing person’s report for his wife in 2003. However, authorities later extracted a murder confession from the man. Santiago and Diaz received 14-year sentences for killing Angela, but Ortiz, who was allegedly involved in the homicide, remains free.

Angela’s daughter Zenaida witnessed the killing of her mother, but the 9-year-old’s retelling of the crime differs somewhat from the state’s version. According to Zenaida, different men participated in the brutal slaying.

For several years, Zenaida was missing too. Angela’s parents later found out that their granddaughter had been dumped at a church and raised by a minister. The young girl is now in the custody of her grandparents and headed back to Guerrero.

Angela’s parents are investigating a story that their daughter was pregnant with another child before the murder.

“This situation has hurt us a lot,” Angela’s mother Francisca said. “We ask the authorities to investigate and clear this up to guarantee legality.”

The wrenching odyssey of Angela’s parents has involved years of frustrating travel, reams of paperwork and shuffles between offices. In their struggle to transport Angela’s remains back home and recover Zenaida, Francisca Ortiz and her husband were assisted by Lucia Chavira Acosta of Chihuahua City’s Integral Family Development program, attorney Lucha Castro of the Women’s Human Rights Center of Chihuahua City and staff members of the Guerrero-based Tlachinollan Human Rights Center of the Mountain.

Neil Arias Vitinio, a lawyer for Tlachinollan, contended that Angela’s case sums up the perils that indigenous women migrants encounter on a long and dangerous road.

“Considering what happened to Angela, it should be understood there are no mechanisms to guarantee the integrity of indigenous women, whose vulnerability is grave,” Vitinio said.

According to the religious beliefs of the Mixtec people, the burial of Angela Alejandro Ortiz will mean that the woman’s soul can finally rest in peace.


Sources: El Sur, July 29, 2007. Article by Gonzalez
Benicio. Cimacnoticias, July 27, 2007. Article by Patricia
Mayorga. El Diario de Juarez, July 27, 2007.


Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

Senate Passes Ethics Reform Legislation

Bush Undecided On Signing Bill

BY CHARLES BABINGTON
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Senate sent President Bush a bill Thursday to make lawmakers pay for private plane rides and disclose more about their efforts to fund pet projects and raise money from lobbyists.

Some advocates called it the biggest advance in congressional ethics in decades, but Bush received it coolly. He has “serious concerns” about the measure and has not decided whether to sign it, said White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore.

Democrats, however, hailed the 83-14 Senate vote as proof they are fulfilling their 2006 campaign promise to crack down on lobbying abuses, which sent some lawmakers and a prominent lobbyist to prison. Like the House, the Senate passed the bill by a margin that would overcome a presidential veto, assuming no lawmakers switched sides.

Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., both voted for the measure.

The bill would require lawmakers seeking targeted spending projects, or earmarks, to publicize their plans in advance. Lawmakers and political committees also would have to disclose those lobbyists who raise $15,000 or more for them within a sixmonth period by “bundling” donations from many people.

The Democratic-crafted bill would bar lawmakers from taking gifts from lobbyists or their clients. Former senators and very high-ranking executive branch officials would have to wait two years before lobbying Congress; ex-House members would have to wait one year.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, DCalif., called it “the most sweeping reform bill since Watergate.”

But several Republicans said it fell short of requiring full disclosure of earmarks, which have soared in number — and controversy — in recent years. Some earmarks fund popular civic projects that boost a lawmaker’s re-election prospects. Others help large contractors or other companies that hire lobbyists and donate to campaigns.

Bush feels the earmark disclosure requirements are “toothless,” Lawrimore said. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., agreed during the Senate debate.