U.S./Canada Border station

Nobody crossed the border with proper screening...Another comedy perspective of the Border Patrol agents at the Borders. You be the judge.

Racism or Just plain Prejudice in Hawaii?. Find out..........



Mr. Rod Tam Why is so easy to talk and to hard to apologize?.

Wetback,” a term that is archaic and used only when intended to insult persons of Mexican ancestry has shattered the tranquil and paradise image of the Hawaiian island. Hawaii, which to date had not been drawn into the volatile immigration debate has now been plunged into the issue when Honolulu City Councilman Rod Tam used the term “wetback” not once, but twice during a public meeting.

Marie Villa, editor of the Hawaii Hispanic News, was at first dumbfounded and then offended by the use of the word. Ms. Villa had thought that her island home was above this type of public racism. According to Villa, “Hawaii is home to about 100,000 Hispanics from Puerto Rican to Mexican,” and an island that is truly multi-racial. In a phone interview Villa stated, “Hispanics and Hawaiians look so much alike it is hard to tell the difference. Hawaii is not a melting pot but more like a toss salad. We have truly assimilated into the culture.”

Villa stated that it was a shock to her and the Hispanic community when Chinese-American Rod Tam in discussing the use of undocumented workers by developers on public projects, at first paused, thought about his next words and said “uh, we don’t want any wetbacks basically and … developers, contractors, have been getting wetbacks from New Mexico, uh Mexico, sorry.”

Villa, who is also the President of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce stated she has been getting letters, phone calls, e-mails, and has been approached in person by Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, African-American, Caucasian, and other friends, who have expressed support and outrage at Tam’s comments. “So this is not just a ‘Hispanic thing.’ It’s a ‘people thing’” she stated.

For Villa the issue turned particularly nasty when she received a hate letter in her mailbox. “In my 19 years as a Hawaiian resident and as editor, this was the first piece of racist hate mail I had ever received. The amount of venom and hatred for Mexican people expressed in this letter is incomprehensible and overwhelming.”

Villa wrote in the Hawaii Hispanic News that, “a publicly-elected Hawaii official should not use a racial slur when referring to Mexican undocumented workers in an official government meeting. We didn’t attack anybody. We weren’t looking for a fight. We just expressed our individual rights as American citizens.”

“For that, the Hispanic community now finds itself immersed in a debate that we did not call for, or are familiar with. We sought out support from other Hispanic community leaders for political guidance and one of the first people I spoke to,” stated Villa, “was Herman Baca, President of the Committee on Chicano Rights (CCR), in National City.”

While racial hatred is new to Ms. Villa and the Hawaii Hispanic community for Baca and the CCR these types of issues have been addressed on a daily basis. Beginning in the late 1960’s with the INS./Border Patrol, San Diego Sheriff John Duffy, Chief of Police Ray Hoobler, County Supervisor, Susan Golding, who blamed immigrant for the rise in crime, and past CA Governor Pete Wilson who scapegoat the Hispanic community in his run for President. And, recently San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn in public statements depicted immigrants as gangsters coming across the border.

In a letter of support to Villa, Baca stated:

“As an organization that has been involved with the immigration issue for forty years we commend you and the community for standing up to the race baiting by Councilperson Tam. We extend our support for your declaration that you will ‘not tolerate any politician who facilitates or causes a Hawaii ethnic group to become the target of bigotry, racism or just plain prejudice.’”

Baca further stated, “Hawaii’s reputation as a progressive, multiethnic culture, diverse, and racially-tolerant state appears now to have been either a facade, or never existed. We urge you and the community to demand that Hawaii political leadership publicly denounces Councilperson Tam’s wetback comments. That they meet with Hispanic community leaders to give assurances that the civil and constitutional rights of our people are respected and protected, and if the state political leadership fails to address the community’s concerns; call for an economic boycott of Hawaii tourism industry.”

Villa stated she has also received other letters and emails of support from throughout the United States with the same sense of disbelief that this type of racism is occurring in Hawaii.

Marie Villa stated that two national Hispanic groups have called for Tam to be removed from the City Council; however, the local Hispanic community wants him to be removed from the chairmanship of the Zoning Committee where he used the “wetback” term.

The president of the Zoning Committee stated, “this is not going to happen.”

Tam has since apologized at a committee meeting and was censured, but Villa stated that, “the Hispanic community wants Tam to come before the Hispanic community and apologize.” Tam to date has refused.

In an interview with La Prensa San Diego Baca stated “The CCR has corresponded with Presidential candidate, Hawaii born Barack Obama, the Governor, and U.S. Senators from Hawaii, New Mexico’s Bill Richardson, National Council of La Raza and California Latino Legislative Caucus asking what they are going to do about, “the race baiting, xenophobia, and nativist Mexican bashing that has now crossed the Pacific Ocean into Hawaii? History teaches what will and does happen when the demonizing of a people is ignored by political leaders i.e. the Holocaust, Chinese Exclusion Act, interment of Japanese-Americans, Operation Wetback, etc.”

While the community waits for a response, the issue appears to be growing larger as the Hispanic community in Hawaii continues to rally around the issue, and more groups in the U.S mainline become involved in support of the Hispanic community in Hawaii.

It's not Funny how Minuteman members approached Day Labor groups anymore. It's Scary..



If you are so proud to be a Minuteman like these people. You should be ashamned.
making racist remarks & disrespecting people! That's the type of people who make America look bad and reason for other countries to hate us.

Stop Hate, Racism and Bring down Minuteman Groups.

If you ask you to choose between a Rapist and an Undocumented Immigrant.






I will choose the Law; The undocumented gardener said Joe Arpaio.


Sheriff Joe blasted at county budget hearing.


A group of labor union members, religious leaders and students took aim at America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff during Thursday's budget hearing by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.

Former state lawmaker Alfredo Gutierrez was among hundreds of people who turned out to pressure the supervisors about lawsuits against the sheriff and his use of tax money to carry out crime sweeps that have resulted in dozens of illegal immigrants being arrested.

``Common sense ought to visit his brain periodically," said Gutierrez. ``When you have to choose between (arresting) a rapist and a gardener, I think most people would choose the rapist. Sheriff Joe would not. Most people would choose the murderer, Sheriff Joe has not."

Gutierrez added, ``The issue is that the man's anger, the man's hate has overwhelmed his common sense."

Gutierrez specifically mentioned last week's raid on Splashworld, a water theme park where the sheriff said several illegal immigrants were working.

``There's just a total imbalance in terms of what the priorities are to the sheriff," Gutierrez said.

Arpaio showed up at the hearing and told the supervisors, ``We will enforce the laws regardless of what the law is. If they don't like the law, don't come after the sheriff. Come after the county, get the laws changed."

Among Arpaio's critics was Monica Sandschafer, who said the county is facing its biggest economic crisis ever and the sheriff continues to rack up lawsuits.

She said money is being wasted ``defending Arpaio from lawsuits, a lot of money being spent on public relations." Sandschafer said, ``We think that he needs to respect and protect civil rights, not violate them."

While many county departments are being asked to cut budgets and lay off employees, Sandschafer said the sheriff is spending money on crime sweeps targeting illegal immigrants, and other ``frivilous things" like training sessions in Honduras and big offices.

At one point during the hearing, things got out of control when one of the speakers thought he did not get enough time to speak. After a lot of screaming and yelling, many in the audience got up and walked out.

A group of Arpaio supporters and members of the group trying to recall Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon attended the budget hearing.

Most American jails are poorly-funded and dangerous. The Maguire Correctional Facility in Redwood City, California, is typical of US jails. It's supposed to house no more than 688 inmates; but it houses 978. Some inmates are crammed 15 to a room, with no toilets, windows, or water.

It can be worse. In Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio brags that he spends more per day to feed his police dogs than he does to feed the 8,000 prisoners under his control.

Arpaio houses 2,000 prisoners in tents in the desert. In the summer, temperatures soar to 120ÞF (49ÞC). Arpaio's jails have been the subject of lawsuits and federal investigations since the early 1990's. His guards have been found guilty of brutality.

He also set up the first all-women's chain gang in history. The female inmates work as county cemetery gravediggers in the desert sun, burying indigents and dead babies.

Arpaio also created an Internet "JailCam" that showed prisoners being strip-searched, shackled in "restraint chairs," and women using the toilet.

In Arpaio's jails, inmates work seven days a week, are fed only twice a day, and have to pay $10 if they need medical care. The sheriff bought a military tank to assist in drug busts – but investigators say gangs and drug dealers pervade his jails.

In 1996, an inmate named Jeremy Flanders was beaten nearly to death by gang members in Arpaio's tent city jail; the Arizona Court of Appeals recently upheld a jury's damage award that gave Flanders $635,000 of taxpayer's money to compensate him for the injuries, which the court found "could have been prevented" if Arpaio had not been "deliberately indifferent" to existence of violent gangs in his jails

A Salisbury couple has a few more months to fight deportation.




Gerry Vazquez, a Salisbury University professor and an immigrant from Mexico, faces deportation after he unknowingly invalidated his visa when he returned home to see his ailing mother more than a year ago.

Vazquez and his American wife, Claire Kew, also a professor at Salisbury University, were recently given an extension of almost four months before they have to appear at an immigration trial. They say they are using the time to assemble enough documentation to prove the Vazquez should be in good standing with his visas.

"There were about 40 people with us in the courtroom last time, and I'm afraid that's going to be the same setup this time," Kew said of the upcoming trial. "I'm wondering how much time the judge is going to actually have to hear our case and how much time, and if we're really going to get heard the way we need to be."

If the judge decides to go through with deporting Vazquez, the government will prohibit him from entering the US for 10 years.

New Instructions to ICE: Get FEMA. Find Every Mexican Available.
Feds Make Immigration Raids In Rutherford County.


Two Chinese restaurants and a home were searched by federal agents in an immigration raid on Tuesday against Hispanics. That's totally sad.

http://www.wsmv.com/video/16636289/

Lou Dobbs reported his madness, fear and bigotry against Mexico and Mexicans.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Transcript from Yesterday. Click here.

LOU DOBBS TONIGHT

Flooding Costs Rises; University of Iowa Campus Flooded; Taliban Attacks on the Rise; Your Food Safety; Border Security Crisis

Aired June 16, 2008 - 19:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LOU DOBBS, HOST: Tonight tens of thousands in Iowa still unable to return to their homes. Floodwaters in some cities are beginning to recede tonight, but there are new concerns now for towns along the Mississippi River, as those waters are rising.
The shocking results tonight of a Congressional investigation into our broken borders after years of promises and billions of dollars, it's as easy as ever to cross into this country, especially from Mexico

SCHIAVONE: In a study that preceded the latest tomato scare, the Harvard School of Public Health found more than half of those surveyed only barely trust the food inspection process. More than half do not trust food imports from communist China and almost half don't trust foods from Mexico

The FDA reports the overwhelming majority of tomatoes consumed in the U.S. at the time of the salmonella outbreak were from inside the U.S., Central Florida and outside the U.S., Mexico.


How Schiavonne, Lou Dobbs and FDA found out Salmonella outbreak is from Mexico? When they had admitted there is no regular inspections or enough inspectors.!!

SCHIAVONE: Not only will they not reveal what the chain is, which wouldn't all of us like to know what the chain is. They won't even say what the region of the country was that this chain was located in, but they know they have this cluster of nine people that they feel they can now do a more disciplined trace back.

DOBBS: I've got to say Congress should be removing everyone at the top of the FDA right now. They should just be simply removed and get out of the way because they're not public servants. They're not acting responsibly or intelligently or effectively.

What in the world are they doing? Secondly, the idea that there is no inspector in the field either in Central Florida or Mexico, more than a week after this outbreak, a week and a half.
What!!!!!!!! That's your answer Lou blame Mexico for your arrogance and your ignorance....

SCHIAVONE: They don't have anybody in any farm anywhere because they say they just don't know where to go.

Another example how Lou Dobbs pandering and make waves of Anti Immigrant sentiment against Mexico and Mexicans..

it's as easy as ever to cross into this country, especially from Mexico.

A new Congressional investigation tonight shows what we've been reporting on this broadcast literally for years. That our borders remain virtually wide open, that our border with Mexico is wide open, and as Casey Wian now reports, undercover investigators had a more than 90 percent, 90 percent success rate as they tried to enter this country illegally.

Casey Wian relied on a GAO SECRET INVESTIGATIVE report performed on 2006.

Even the test with explosives or Radioactive Material were performed on the Northern Border. Why he didn't Mentioned Northern Border.(Canada)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is an undercover tester for the Government Accountability Office packing phony radioactive material and then smuggling it across unguarded sections of the U.S./Mexico border. The same GAO study of border security over the past five years found that even at legal crossing points testers were able to use fake ID to enter illegally 93 percent of the time.

GAO concluded that terrorists or other criminals could use counterfeit identification to pass freely through most of the tested ports of entry with little chance of being detected.

None of this Investigative report from Casey Wian mentioned Northern Border either Canada just Mexico.. Why?
Even they didn't took the time to read this Important statement on page 7.

Safety considerations prevented our Investigators to performing the same assessment work on the U.S./Mexico Border as performed on the Northern Border. In Contrast to our observations on the Northern Border, Our Investigators observed

After the acts of September 11, 2001. Seems that The Terrorist were and are just Hispanics, Latinos.
The Department of Homeland security are more concern to search, persecute, dimished the Undocumented Latino, Hispanic Immigrants. That's sad and clearly Violation of their Constitutional rights. ICE continue Building more Detention Center for Private Corporations profit out of the people who's do not have a political voice. That's ashamed.

Anti-Immigrant Fervor, ICE Deporting More American Citizens. By Jacqueline Stevens




A headline in the San Francisco Chronicle screams, 900 Nabbed in State on Immigration Charges. The Seattle Times reports, Feds Combing Jails for Illegal Immigrants. An AP article declares, Immigration Raid in Iowa Largest Ever in US and reports 390 arrests. In 2007, more than 276,912 US residents were deported. Thanks to a recent Bush Administration crackdown, the net cast by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) is wide--so wide, it turns out, that some of those being deported are US citizens.

Is ICE an efficient law enforcement agency? Or, in the words of Robert, 38, a US citizen twice deported to Mexico, is ICE "just throwing us out for nothing"?

Consider what happened to Peter Guzman. Last year Guzman, a US citizen born in Los Angeles in 1977, drove onto the tarmac of a regional airport in his hometown of Lancaster, about eighty miles northeast of Los Angeles, boarded a charter plane without a ticket and refused to get off. Guzman was arrested and sentenced, and served forty-one days in a Los Angeles County jail. According to his lawyer, Mark Rosenbaum of the Southern California ACLU, Guzman was excited about being released in time for his brother's July wedding in Las Vegas. "It was a big deal to Peter. He was going to be the best man." It never occurred to Guzman that in July he'd be eating garbage and bathing in the Tijuana River.

But on May 11, 2007, he called his family and said he'd been deported. According to the ACLU lawsuit, before his sister-in-law could find out exactly where he was and give him instructions, the line was cut. She overheard him ask, "Where am I?"

In early August 2007, after Guzman had spent three months trying to return, his appeal to a border agent in Calexico was finally successful: Guzman was arrested for missing his first probation hearing and brought back to Los Angeles. ICE says it has Guzman's signature on a voluntary departure agreement. Guzman's attorneys say the signature was coerced and that it is never legal to deport a US citizen.

Gary Mead, ICE assistant director for detention and removal, testified at a Congressional hearing in February that Guzman's case is unique. But California Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren calls Guzman the "poster child" for an epidemic of detaining and deporting US citizens by ICE. Kara Hartzler, an attorney at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project (FIRRP), agrees with Lofgren.
Last year Hartzler's staff of six attorneys provided presentations and occasionally individual advice to more than 8,000 detainees in southern Arizona. About 10 percent of people ICE detains nationwide are sent to Florence and nearby Eloy, about sixty miles south of Phoenix. Hartzler testified, "The deportation of US citizens is not happening monthly, or weekly, but every day."

ICE does not keep records on cases in which detainees claim to be US citizens. If larger trends are consistent with the pattern in Hartzler's caseload, since 2004 ICE has held between 3,500 and 10,000 US citizens in detention facilities and deported about half. US citizens are a small percentage of ICE detentions for this period, which totaled around 1 million, but in absolute terms the figure is staggering.

Phone interviews suggest the higher end may be more accurate. I called fifteen private immigration attorneys whose names appear on a Justice Department list of pro bono attorneys in Los Angeles and left messages asking whether they had clients in the past three years who were US citizens held in ICE detention for at least one month. Seven of them called back, each describing one to four clients who meet these criteria. Using these accounts, and those from attorneys at three nonprofit immigration clinics, I documented thirty-one cases from across the country of US citizens, eight born here, incarcerated as aliens for one month to five years. Fourteen were deported. Five remain in detention.

Between 2001 and 2007 Robert, who requested that his last name be withheld, was incarcerated for five years and deported to Tijuana twice because ICE refused to believe he was a US citizen. Robert described meeting seventeen other US citizens in ICE detention. Robert was born in Mexico in 1970 and orphaned at age 4. When he was 8 his uncle from Baldwin Park, California, adopted him. In 1983 he became a legal permanent resident, automatically acquiring US citizenship.

In 2000 Robert was arrested for a DWI and evading arrest. After serving sixteen months, he was transferred to El Centro Detention Facility, about 100 miles east of San Diego, where ICE set about deporting him as a criminal alien.

Robert told the court and his attorney, to whom he paid $5,000, that he was a US citizen, but his lawyer did not submit the necessary documents, and Robert lost the case. Robert believed an appeal was hopeless. The year he'd spent in detention was enough: "I decided to leave and come back [to the United States] the next day."

In February 2002 Robert disembarked from the ICE van in Tijuana with an order forever banishing him from the United States. The next day his sister-in-law picked him up and they drove into the United States together, telling the border agent they were US citizens, which they are. They drove to their homes in a Los Angeles suburb.

In 2003 Robert, fearful of being turned over to ICE, sped away from a police car signaling him to pull over. He was sent to a deportation center in Chino and had a video hearing: "You face the TV and some little judge is inside TV talking to you." He explained that he was a US citizen. The little judge ruled otherwise and told Robert an appeal would take nine months. Robert decided to repeat the 2002 routine. ICE again dropped him off in Tijuana.

Robert told the US patrol agent apprehending him during the middle of the night in the hills of El Centro, "I am a US citizen." The agent charged Robert with falsely impersonating a US citizen and other felonies associated with an illegal border crossing. The public defender told Robert to plead guilty to the impersonation charge, or he'd face additional time for entering the United States as an illegal immigrant. "I said, 'No, I can't. There's no way. I'm trying to tell you, my dad is a US citizen. I am a US citizen.' I told the judge that the things they're charging me with are not true, but I have no choice and if that's what it will take for me to go faster to my family, I will plead to that." Robert served three years for falsely impersonating a US citizen.

In 2006 Robert was released into ICE custody at Terminal Island in San Pedro. At this hearing the immigration judge considered the information Robert had assembled in the prison library and realized he was probably a US citizen. Robert was released on bond to find the relevant documents and a lawyer. A few months later Robert and his new attorney, Veronica Villegas, went to the Los Angeles United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office. Villegas told me, "The agent looked at his papers and said, 'Congratulations! You've been a US citizen since 1983.'"

ICE has no jurisdiction over US citizens. If someone claims birth in the United States, as Guzman did, then ICE agents must have a "reasonable suspicion" for disbelief before detaining him. Racial profiling doesn't count. "Not speaking English, not being white and appearing to be from a Central American country is not enough," says Rebecca Musarra, of the Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic of Washington College of Law. In practice, ICE detains thousands of people who were born in the United States and forces them to prove citizenship. According to Mario Quiroz at Casa de Maryland, which assists low-income Latinos, "People who have Spanish names, are five-four, have black hair, get profiled. At the end of the day, [ICE] only says, 'Oops, we made a mistake.' But somebody's life was messed up."

Proving citizenship can be tough, especially when the people who might help can't find you. An immigration judge, who requested anonymity, told me it was "notoriously common for people to be whisked away and nobody knows where they are. When you just want to get rid of someone, you don't want their family to know where they are. It's something that would happen in a Third World country. It's not something that should happen [here]."

Pastor Aquiles Rojas agrees. On October 11, 2007, he went to pick up his brother-in-law from a two-month sentence at the Honor Farm jail in Modesto, California. René Saldivar, 38, wasn't there. "They told me that immigration had taken him, and they didn't know where he was," says Rojas. He called everywhere: San Francisco, Sacramento, Arizona. "They told me they had no record of my brother-in-law. We thought maybe he was in Mexico, but we couldn't figure out why he didn't call. Certainly he was in trouble. We just wanted to find out where he's at." Saldivar's family was especially concerned because of Saldivar's impaired psychological condition.

After the family's five-month vigil, Saldivar called. He was in the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. Saldivar told me, "I didn't have no money and no way of talking to nobody." The center allows collect calls but cellphone plans will not accept them. Eventually a stranger lent Saldivar a calling card. In February Saldivar explained his ancestry to an immigration judge, who concluded that Saldivar most likely was a foreign-born citizen--like John McCain and George Romney--and sent the case to FIRRP.

Hartzler told me she thought she could get Saldivar released at his hearing on April 9, but she had to track down the Social Security employment records of her client's deceased father to prove his citizenship. She wrote, "I don't think it's appropriate for government proceedings with consequences as severe as lifetime deportation to rely on nonprofit organizations for their safeguards. For every René, there's dozens of people with valid claims to US citizenship who are deported."

Detainees with psychological disabilities find it especially hard to navigate their release, but according to a FIRRP social worker, Erin Maxwell, "Even people who are not diagnosably mentally ill or developmentally challenged still don't really get [why they're in deportation proceedings], and it can be very scary." One client of hers was arrested for possessing drug paraphernalia and then detained at Eloy for four months. "He didn't bring up his citizenship with the judge," Maxwell said. "Then I met with him and he said, 'I don't know why this is happening. Both my parents are US citizens.'"

According to Nancy Morawetz, a New York University Law School professor supervising the Immigrant Rights Clinic, "a lot of people don't know they're citizens." The rules for foreign-born citizenship are complicated. Different laws apply to different years of birth. Since the state does not guarantee legal representation in civil cases, 90 to 95 percent of detainees lack attorneys. Even the immigration lawyers seem not to understand the laws, the immigration judge told me. So it's not surprising that Saldivar's eleven siblings are just learning that they, too, are US citizens.

For the millions of US citizens who are foreign-born, court precedents shift the burden of proving citizenship onto them. But the Fourteenth Amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" should be treated equally. Therefore, the Human Rights Impact Litigation Clinic is planning to challenge the constitutionality of the burden of proof placed on US citizens born abroad.

Finally, it was April 9, and Saldivar had his hearing, where his documentation was deemed insufficient. The Social Security Administration's annual employment records in Arizona went back only to 1959. ICE wanted the additional two years to verify Isidoro Saldivar's US residence the entire ten years before René's birth in 1967. Hartzler was hoping the Washington office had the fifty-one-year-old employment records. René would begin his eighth month in detention.

Giving Saldivar his liberty while ICE figured out the paperwork would have made sense because of his family's roots in Stanislaus County, going back to 1940. In addition, NYU's Morawetz says that doing otherwise may be unlawful: "I believe they don't have the power to put a detainer on someone and figure it out later. It's an abuse of the detention power. They only have jurisdiction over people who are noncitizens."

When ICE detains and deports US citizens, it is not only illogical; it also can be false imprisonment, a felony. When I asked Rosenbaum, Guzman's ACLU attorney, why the government wasn't prosecuting ICE agents for civil rights and criminal violations, he laughed and said, "Good luck!" Rosenbaum said the ACLU's complaint was alleging false imprisonment, but US Attorneys were defending the government in the lawsuit. No US Attorneys have stepped forward to prosecute ICE agents. Meanwhile, immigration judges, many of whom are patronage appointments from the Bush Administration or former ICE agents, entertain the flimsiest of arguments on behalf of deportation.

The case of Anna (not her real name), arrested in Phoenix on October 8, 2007, for prostitution, is particularly tragic. When the police asked for her place of birth she answered, "Paris." When applying under another name for a US passport, in 1991, Anna wrote that she was from Tehran. According to Hartzler, Anna also claims JFK is her father and the Pope is her father. Anna is from France the way that Borat is from Kazakhstan. In February 2007 an Arizona Superior Court dismissed drug charges against Anna, finding her "unable to understand the nature of the proceedings" as well as "criminally incompetent and a danger to herself and others." Anna has been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic.

On October 9, based only on her claim to have been born in Paris, Anna was taken to the Eloy Detention Center, where an ICE agent took full note of her US passport application and "8 different aliases, and 2 SSNs." On February 20 immigration judge Thomas Michael O'Leary, who had Anna's records, including the diagnoses of the court psychiatrists, issued an order to remove Anna from the country. The French consulate refused to issue travel documents for her, telling ICE that Anna is not a French citizen. Having been possibly stripped of her citizenship rights in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Americans With Disabilities Act, Anna will be held in detention for at least three months. If released, she is not functional enough to attend the meetings ICE requires of aliens remaining in the country with deportation orders. A warrant for her arrest will be issued, and in her next encounter with law enforcement the warrant will trigger an arrest. Kristine Brisson, the ICE agent initiating Anna's removal, did not return messages requesting comment. Judge O'Leary has been promoted to run the Tucson Immigration Court.

Anna's case may seem unusual, but US citizens with mental disabilities reflect the criminal inmate population ICE targets. According to a 2006 Justice Department press release, about 40 percent of the incarcerated population has "symptoms of mania." Twenty-four percent of the jail population and 15 percent of state prisoners have a "psychotic disorder, such as delusions or hallucinations." Rachel Rosenbloom of the Center for Human Rights and International Justice in Boston testified to Congress, "It is not uncommon for someone who is mentally ill and suffering from delusions to state that he or she was born abroad." By using the incarcerated population as its hunting grounds, ICE is inevitably going to snare mentally ill US citizens. The immigration judge observed, "If you don't have your marbles, or someone on the outside, there's no safety net."

Carlos Barrios, a Los Angeles private attorney who has represented US citizens in detention, notes, "It is strange. How can they keep a person detained in an immigration facility if they're a citizen?"

In response to different versions of this question from members of Congress in February, ICE's Mead pretended that the events brought before him did not exist. He repeated the law stating that ICE has no jurisdiction over US citizens, and then affected ignorance of ICE agents detaining US citizens. Mead was in the same room as US citizens testifying to ICE abuse. At one point Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez exploded in frustration over Mead's failure to have any comment on a racial-profiling incident in Chicago during which ICE detained more than 100 Latino men: "Thank you very much for not knowing any of the information about a very well-publicized case on which Secretary Chertoff has been well informed!"

The official line, as ICE public affairs officer Brandon Alvarez-Montgomery explained it to me, is that ICE does not "knowingly detain US citizens." This is false. Hartzler showed an ICE attorney the Minnesota birth certificate of Thomas Warziniack, and yet ICE held him for two weeks until his hearing. Morawetz described a citizen in detention whose attorney faxed a New York birth certificate "and detention says, 'How do we know this is that person's record?'" even though the law requires ICE to prove otherwise.

While Saldivar remained in detention, I sent Alvarez-Montgomery the details of his case, explaining that Social Security employment records for Saldivar's father did not exist before 1959. He responded, "Anyone who[se] first year of earnings were recorded between 1937 to the present will appear on the Social Security statement. For this case, it's safe to assume that 1959 was the first year of recorded earnings for his father."

Alvarez-Montgomery was wrong. Later, using ancestry.com, I found a Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) record for Isidoro Saldivar from before 1951. I sent it to Alvarez-Montgomery and other ICE officials. They did not reply or release René. I sent it to Hartzler, who contacted the RRB, which provided records of "compensation received by René's father each year from 1947 to 1958, as well as a copy of his application for a Social Security card in 1947." Hartzler gave these to ICE, which held René for six more days, releasing him on April 28.

Shortly after that I asked Saldivar, who was drywalling his sister's home in Chowchilla, how he understood what happened. "Someone took me to prison, even though I had my papers. It's bad. It's not fair," he told me. ICE alleged that René lacked legal permission to reside in the United States. Even if ICE is correct, the charge of undocumented residence is a minor civil infraction that requires release to be disputed and is not a crime. ICE's false imprisonment of US citizens and other legal residents, however, is a serious crime.

Flaws on U.S. History exposed against Mexico and Mexicans. Why Build a wall in our southern Border and not our Northern Border?


After September 11, 2001. Everything changes for U.S. Citizens and Mexicans. Why? The Terrorist weren't Mexicans or Latinos!!!!! Terrorist do not crossed or arrived thru our Southern Border? The rhetoric about immigration remains as passionate and hysterical as ever. And so government officials respond to the hysteria, but they know in their hearts that the immigration crisis is a solution in search of a problem. Why so much ignorance stereotyping, demonizing, scapegoating, persecuting Mexicans under hypothetical word rule of Law?

Why so much ignorance that Terrorist will arrived in Mexico to crossed their border?

Even many called themselves Patriots just because their stand against Immigration when their never fought for our Country; Right Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo?
Why many labeled themselves as a True Patriots just wearing a U.S. pin flag but they never fought for our Country?

Why we never listed Mexico as an Allied for the World War II? Why U.S. celebrated 5 de Mayo? Why Historians and political hidden the true about Mexico and his aid on the World War II and the Battle against France in Mexico City in 1862? or they forgot the last intentions of Germany in the World War II and France in 1862?
Those events could it changed the course of who we are: United States of America?

Oh but we criticized, blamed and demonized Mexico and Mexicans for Drugs, for they called Invasion, for the Terrorist Attack on Sept 11, 2001, crime and our financial crisis.!!!!!!

THEY ARE NOT THE ENEMY.!!!!!!! SINCE WHEN MEXICANS BECOME THE ENEMY????.

U.S. agents accused of aiding Islamist scheme.the case was never prosecuted.

A criminal investigations report says several U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services employees are accused of aiding Islamic extremists with identification fraud and of exploiting the visa system for personal gain.

The confidential 2006 USCIS report said that despite the severity of the potential security breaches, most are not investigated "due to lack of resources" in the agency's internal affairs department.

"Two District Adjudications Officers are allegedly involved with known (redacted) Islam terrorist members," said the internal document obtained by The Washington Times.

The group "was responsible for numerous robberies and used the heist money to fund terrorist activities. The District Adjudications Officers made numerous DHS database queries to track (Alien)-File movement and check on the applicants' status for (redacted) members and associates."

According to the document, other potential security failures include reports that:

Employees are sharing detailed information on internal security measures with people outside the agency.

A Lebanese citizen bribed an immigration officer with airline tickets for visa benefits.

A USCIS officer in Harlington, Texas, sold immigration documents for $10,000 to as many as 20 people.

A USCIS employee, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, said many of the complaints in the multipage document are as many as three years old.

"Terrorists need immigration documents to embed in our society and work here without raising alarm bells," said the employee.

"Whether through bribing an immigration officer, an employee with the department of motor vehicles, or utilizing highly effective counterfeit documents produced by the Mexican drug cartels. They are always looking for that documentation to live amongst us."

Bill Wright, spokesman with USCIS, said that he could not comment on any ongoing investigations but that USCIS "takes all internal allegations seriously."

"The investigations that are referenced are ongoing investigations that we can not comment on," Mr. Wright told The Times. "We take all of these allegations seriously, and we are acting on them. For anyone to suggest that they are ignored is blatantly wrong."

In March, USCIS established the Office of Security and Integrity to investigate internal corruption.

"We'd like to clean up our own house first," Mr. Wright said.

The office would add 65 investigators and internal-review specialists, for a total of 245 employees and contract employees, but none of the new 65 vacancies approved in March has been filled.

The Times disclosed a confidential DEA report substantiating the link between Islamic extremists. The 2005 DEA report states that Middle Eastern operatives, in U.S. sleeper cells, are working in conjunction with the cartels to fund terrorist organizations overseas. Several lawmakers promised congressional hearings based on the information disclosed in the DEA documents.

USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez in March told Congress that he could not establish how many terror suspects or persons of special interest have been granted immigration benefits.

"While USCIS has in place strong background check and adjudication suspension policies to avoid granting status to known terror risks, it is possible for USCIS to grant status to an individual before a risk is known, or when the security risk is not identified through standard background checks," said a statement provided to lawmakers.

"USCIS is not in a position to quantify all cases in which this may have happened. Recognizing that there may be presently known terror risks in the ranks of those who have obtained status previously."

Mr. Gonzalez's response, along with the 2006 USCIS document obtained by The Times, show a "pattern of national security failures that have put the nation at risk," the agency source said.

Another investigation involved more than seven USCIS and Immigration and Custom's Enforcement (ICE) employees — including special agents and senior district managers — who were moving contraband via "diplomatic pouches" to the United States from China.

ICE — the original investigating agency — downgraded the criminal investigation to a managerial problem, and the case was never prosecuted, a source close to the investigation said.

Why a nation so keen on seeing itself as a light for the world, and both admired and hated for its bluster and swagger.




I outlined the ongoing strains of xenophobia and racism in U.S. society. By Gregory Rodriguez.


Last February, I found myself in the difficult position of explaining American insecurity to a group of Mexican undergraduates at a college in Matamoros, Mexico, just south of the border at Brownsville, Texas. I was taking questions after delivering a lecture on the long-term prospects of Mexican immigrants being accepted into U.S. society. A neatly dressed young man in the back stood up to ask a pointed question. "How," he said politely in Spanish, "could such a rich and powerful country be so self-centered as to build a wall on its border to keep people out?"

For a moment, I figured I could give him a simple answer: A vocal constituency wants to keep border crossers out at all costs; they operate under the easy rubric of law enforcement and homeland security. But he was asking a deeper question than that

First, I discussed the historical cycle of the U.S. embracing and then rejecting the outside world, how we can sometimes be both generous and selfish to newcomers. I outlined the ongoing strains of xenophobia and racism in U.S. society. I mentioned the profound ethnic demographic shift in the U.S. and asked him whether he thought Mexicans would be any less "self-centered" if faced with a similar situation. And then I got to the hard part: having to explain why citizens of arguably the richest and most powerful nation on Earth could feel so put upon by the world.

Last week, the Bush administration's Department of Homeland Security announced that it would use its waiver authority to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations to finish building 670 miles of fence along our southern border by the end of the year. And if all that goes according to plan, I won't be the only American having to explain what this new border wall says about us as a people and a country. For the last 120 years, Americans have been able to point to the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of our collective pride in our immigrant origins. But future generations are more likely to point to the wall on our southern border as an altogether different symbol.

The most vocal supporters of the border wall like to portray the United States as a hapless victim of illegal immigrants. They act as if these people show up out of nowhere, as if they are not part of a long-established pattern. There's little recognition that the U.S. is just as responsible for creating the flows northward as is our eternally mismanaged southern neighbor.

We forget that as early as the late 19th century, we looked to Mexicans to build the railroads throughout the Southwest; that, in 1917, when Congress closed the door to European migration, it quietly made plans for Mexicans to fill our labor needs; that, beginning in World War II, we imported hundreds of thousands of Mexican guest workers who familiarized themselves with life in the U.S. and shared their experiences and networks with their families and friends back home.

Yes, there is a difference between legal and illegal immigration, but sometimes one begets the other. When Congress began to reduce the number of legal visas available to Mexicans from an unlimited supply in the mid-1960s to 20,000 per year in 1976 (not including family reunification), it not only didn't stop the northward flow it had helped foster, it literally created illegal immigration.

My inquisitor in Matamoros, and others in the audience, seemed to acknowledge that the U.S. had no moral obligation to offer economic opportunity to the people of Mexico. But he did seem genuinely confused about why a nation so keen on seeing itself as a light for the world, and both admired and hated for its bluster and swagger, could cower behind a wall from a migration that it helped create. Mexicans -- and Canadians for that matter -- who live in our shadow and define themselves against casual displays of U.S. power can't fathom our anxieties.



"The average American," I said, "doesn't feel as powerful and entitled as the national image would suggest. In fact, in many ways both our economic system and our diverse origins encourage a strong sense of social insecurity. As individuals and members of groups, Americans are constantly jockeying for position and legitimacy. On an everyday level, they're not likely to feel as secure as you'd imagine."

But nearly two months later, I realize that I didn't fully answer the man's question.

So here it is: Although there has always been a flip side to American confidence and bravado, by building the wall --

all three leading presidential candidates voted for it

-- we Americans have chosen to enshrine and showcase our insecurity. And whether you agree with the decision to build it or not, you have to admit that such a defensive act is an odd thing to do for a nation so proud of its global power and largesse


http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-rodriguez7apr07,1,7050658.column

AL LADO DE UN GRAN LIDER ESTUVO UNA GRAN MUJER. DOLORES C. HUERTA





Dolores C. Huerta (born April 10, 1930) is the co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW)

Her parents divorced when she was three years old. Her mother, Alicia Chavez, raised Dolores, along with her two brothers, and two sisters, in the central San Joaquin Valley farmworker community of Stockton, California. Her mother was a businesswoman who owned a restaurant and a 70-room hotel that often put up farmworker families for free.

In 1955, Huerta co-founded the Sacramento chapter of the Community Service Organization, and in 1960 co-founded the Agricultural Workers Association. In 1962, she co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Cesar Chávez, which would later become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee and still later, the UFW. In 1966, she negotiated a contract between the UFWOC and Schenley Wine Company, marking the first time that farmworkers were able to successfully collectively bargain with an agricultural enterprise.

Huerta directed the UFW’s national grape boycott, taking the plight of the farm workers to the consumers. The boycott resulted in the entire California table grape industry signing a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the United Farm Workers.

She has been highly politically active, lobbying in favor of (and against) numerous California and federal laws. The laws that she supported included:

A 1960 bill to permit people to take the California driver's examination in Spanish

1962 legislation repealing the Bracero Program

1963 legislation to extend Aid to Families with Dependent Children to California farmworkers

The 1973 Agricultural Labor Relations Act

As an advocate for farmworkers' rights, Huerta has been arrested twenty-two times for participating in non-violent civil disobedience activities and strikes. Huerta's organizing and lobbying efforts are often overshadowed by those of Cesar Chávez, who is revered by many (especially Chicanos) as the primary figure of the Chicano civil rights movement. She remains active in progressive causes, and serves on the boards of People For the American Way and Feminist Majority Foundation.

In September of 1988 in front of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, Huerta was severely beaten by San Francisco Police officers during a peaceful and lawful protest of the policies/platform of then-candidate for president George H.W. Bush. The baton-beating caused significant internal injuries to her torso, resulting in several broken ribs and necessitating the removal of her spleen in emergency surgery. The beating was caught on videotape and broadcast widely on local television news, including the clear ramming of the butt end of a baton into Huerta's torso by one of the helmeted officers. Later, Huerta won a large judgment against the SFPD and the City of San Francisco, the proceeds of which were used in benefit of farm workers. The assault is credited with starting yet another movement to change SFPD crowd-control policies, as well as the manner in which officer discipline is handled.

HONOR A QUIEN HONOR MERECE. YOUR LEGACY WILL CONTINUE CESAR E. CHAVEZ.

On April 29, 1993, Cesar Estrada Chavez was honored in death by those he led in life. More than 50,000 mourners came to honor the charismatic labor leader at the site of his first public fast in 1968 and his last in 1988, the United Farm Workers Delano Field Office at "Forty Acres."
It was the largest funeral of any labor leader in the history of the U.S. They came in caravans from Florida to California to pay respect to a man whose strength was in his simplicity.

Farm workers, family members, friends and union staff took turns standing vigil over the plain pine coffin which held the body of Cesar Chavez. Among the honor guard were many celebrities who had supported Chavez throughout his years of struggle to better the lot of farmworkers throughout America.


Many of the mourners had marched side by side with Chavez during his tumultuous years in the vineyards and farms of America. For the last time, they came to march by the side of the man who had taught them to stand up for their rights, through nonviolent protest and collective bargaining.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahoney, who celebrated the funeral mass, called Chavez "a special prophet for the worlds' farm workers." Pall bearers, including crews of these workers, Chavez children and grandchildren, then carried their fallen leader, resting at last, from the Memorial Park to Forty Acres.

The death of Chavez marked an era of dramatic changes in American agriculture. His contributions would be eroded, and others would have to shoulder the burden of his work. But, Cesar Chavez, who insisted that those who labor in the earth were entitled to share fairly in the rewards of their toil, would never be forgotten.

As Luis Valdez said, "Cesar, we have come to plant your heart like a seed . . . the farm workers shall harvest in the seed of your memory."

FINAL RESTING PLACE/FINAL RECOGNITION


The body of Cesar Chavez was taken to La Paz, the UFW's California headquarters, by his family and UFW leadership. He was laid to rest near a bed of roses, in front of his office.

On August 8, 1994, at a White House ceremony, Helen Chavez, Cesar's widow, accepted the Medal of Freedom for her late husband from President Clinton. In the citation accompanying America's highest civilian honor which was awarded posthumously, the President lauded Chavez for having "faced formidable, often violent opposition with dignity and nonviolence.

And he was victorious. Cesar Chavez left our world better than he found it, and his legacy inspires us still. He was for his own people a Moses figure," the President declared. "The farm workers who labored in the fields and yearned for respect and self-sufficiency pinned their hopes on this remarkable man who, with faith and discipline, soft spoken humility and amazing inner strength, led a very courageous life"

The citation accompanying the award noted how Chavez was a farm worker from childhood who "possessed a deep personal understanding of the plight of migrant workers, and he labored all his years to lift their lives." During his lifetime, Chavez never earned more than $5,000 a year. The late Senator Robert Kennedy called him "one of the heroic figures of our time."

Chavez's successor, said, "Every day in California and in other states where farm workers are organizing, Cesar Chavez lives in their hearts. Cesar lives wherever Americans' he inspired work nonviolently for social change."

National Geographic gives a fair and balanced view of 'Border Wars'.
Tonight at 8 pm. by Tom Dorsey.

First meet Jose tonight in Altar, Mexico, on his way to his new Kentucky home
"We've come to this town on our way north to find work to help our families," he says. "We're planning to go to Kentucky, but we don't have a job lined up yet, but as soon as we get there we'll find one," Jose tells a National Geographic Channel reporter (Insight 450) on "Explorer: Border Wars" at 8 p.m.

Jose doesn't use his last name because he's an Undocumented immigrant. He does have a wife, and their three children were born in this country.

Jose spends half of the money he makes in Kentucky on his family and sends the rest home to his parents. His father is sick, so he goes back to see him once a year and then runs the gantlet back from Mexico to somewhere in Kentucky.

Jose is in a $3-a-night room in Altar, Mexico, crowded with other men headed for the promised land. We're told that only one or two will make it.

The others will be scooped up by the Border Patrol and shipped back to Mexico if they don't have criminal records. Some are first-timers. Many are people who just keep coming back until they make it or die.

Lots of them are found dead in the desert, where temperatures soar well above 100 degrees. Their sun-bleached bones are discovered after the buzzards are through with them.

The Mexicans pay $4,000 a head to be guided through the no man's land to America. Half is in cash upfront. There is a regular line of shuttle vans that transport them from Altar to the border for the risky trip. The guide refuses to let the Geographic crew go beyond a certain point, and the team loses track of Jose.

Then the documentary unit joins up with the U.S. Border Patrol to get the other side of the story. Viewers who think nothing is being done should watch what members of the patrol are doing.

We see them operating everything from high-tech, remote-control Predator drone airplanes to low-tech methods used by guys who track the Mexicans by following their footprints in the desert.

It takes 50 pounds of water to survive the three-day trek across the desert. The cameras are there when one delirious woman, who got separated from her group and couldn't keep up, wanders down a road.

She just wants to go home. The Good Samaritan who gives her a drink could be sentenced to 10 years in prison for giving her a ride to the border.

The Border Patrol operation is especially intense and sophisticated at places such as Nogales, Ariz. A fence runs down the middle of town separating it from Nogales, Mexico, on the other side.

The fence extends to a point outside town, where it runs out. America has a 2,000-mile-long border with Mexico, and there's no wall that long. Besides, people always find ways around it.

The patrol has an army of vehicles and equipment to stop the flow, which isn't all just desperate people trying to find work to feed their families. We watch the patrol running down drug dealers who use this route to mule-pack large bales of marijuana into the U.S.

The average immigrant poses no problem when he's stopped. He or she simply surrenders when confronted and goes back willingly across the border. Drug dealers, however, can be deadly enemies.

The agents catch up with thousands of Mexicans every day. Thousands more, no one knows how many, slip by. The most popular estimate is that 12 million are in this country illegally.

President Bush is seen saying border protection is critical, but that it's not ever going to be enough to solve the problem. It might take an army bigger than the one we have in Iraq to do the job.

In the end, the Geographic teams finds Jose in Kentucky with his family. He's defied the odds again. His biggest fear is that he and his wife will be deported.

Geographic doesn't take sides. It just shows us the people caught up in the drama. Lou Dobbs, who has made a career out of ranting about the dilemma on CNN, might not care for this approach, but it's a fair, balanced and honest one that pictures the problem for what it is.

Inland activists head to immigration summit in Mexico.

Several Inland immigration-rights advocates are heading to Mexico City to participate in a first-ever summit Friday and Saturday between U.S.-based activists of Mexican ancestry and members of the Mexican Congress.

The Mexican Congress last month called for the "parliament," which will include up to 500 delegates, to discuss immigration-related issues.

"It is important they hear what is really going on" in the U.S. among people of Mexican origin, said delegate Gilberto Esquivel, president of Hispanos Unidos, a Riverside-based advocacy and assistance group. "We're the ones living through this situation. They need to get off their duffs and do something."

Participants will discuss proposals for the Mexican Congress to fund programs to help immigrants in the United States and defend their rights, and to pay for an organization that would lobby the U.S. government on immigration policy. The Mexican government has previously lobbied in the United States, as have other countries.

Delegates will also discuss ways that people on both sides of the border can work together on immigration-related issues.

Delegate Armando Navarro, coordinator of the Riverside-based National Alliance for Human Rights, said he would also urge the Mexican government to institute wage increases, job-creation programs and other policies to reduce the extreme poverty that causes many Mexicans to leave for the U.S.

Delegate John Rodriguez said the parliament is necessary because of anti-immigrant attitudes in the United States that have affected even U.S. citizens like him. For example, Rodriguez said that when he voted in his Moreno Valley precinct last year, he was asked to show identification -- but white voters were not.

People of Mexican ancestry make up 45 percent of San Bernardino County's population, and 41 percent of Riverside County's, according to the U.S. Census.

It is unclear how many members of Mexico's Congress will attend the meetings or how much influence the parliament's decisions will have on the Congress. A Mexican congressional spokesman did not return phone calls for comment.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which seeks greater limits on immigration, said the meeting was another example of the Mexican government interfering in internal U.S. politics.

"The problem is we have permitted Mexico to view our immigration policy as a bi-national matter," Krikorian said. "The Mexican government now views itself as having a role in U.S. policymaking."

Yet Navarro said foreign countries regularly lobby within the United States, and the U.S. regularly tries to influence other countries' policies.