Daily Headlines: May 15, 2012

* Latin America: Members of the UNASUR bloc vowed to “share information on their military spending” but will it be enough to stem the growing arms trade throughout Latin America?

* U.S.: Despite objections from immigrant rights groups and Latino rights activists the federal government continues to implement the “Secure Communities” program across the country.

* Mexico: The recent discovery of forty-nine headless bodies in northern Mexico has brought additional scrutiny on President Felipe Calderon’s offensive against on drug gangs.

* Ecuador: A U.S. judge dismissed some of the claims made by attorneys for Chevron against Ecuadorian plaintiffs in an environmental damages lawsuit.

Video Source – YouTube via Al Jazeera English (From April 2009 – “Latin America's largest defense trade show in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro has attracted governments from all over the region.”)

Online Sources- UPI, MSNBC, Fox News Latino, BusinessWeek

Daily Headlines: April 3, 2012

* Mexico: At the “Three Amigos” summit yesterday Mexican President Felipe Calderon called on the U.S. to revive an assault weapons ban while Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed to boost trade with his North American partners.

* Ecuador: President Rafael Correa said that he would skip this month’s Summit of the Americas in Colombia since Cuba was not invited.

* U.S.: Over 3100 undocumented immigrants, most of whom are convicted criminals, were apprehended as part of a federal immigration sweep last week.

* Nicaragua: The head of the Nicaragua Sunflowers sex workers’ organization claimed that seven prostitutes have been murdered over the past twelve months.

Image Source – Flickr via Oldmaison (The heads of government of the U.S., Mexico and Canada met at the 2009 edition of the “Three Amigos” summit in Guadalajara). (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Online Sources- Voice of America, Huffington Post, LAHT, Bloomberg

Latino detainees among unreported deaths

Yet another reason why immigration reform is needed ASAP:

U.S. immigration officials say they have discovered the records of 10 previously unreported deaths of immigrants detained in U.S. custody since 2003. Eight of the dead were Cuban nationals, one was from Ecuador and one from Mexico. The American Civil Liberties Union says deficient medical care is believed to be a leading cause of death among immigrant detainees.

The 10 newly-discovered deaths bring the total number of immigrants who have died in U.S. immigration detention to 104 since October 2003. One additional detainee, Huluf Guangule Negusse, a 24-year-old Ethiopian, died on Friday in a Florida prison from the effects of a suicide attempt earlier this month. His death has not yet been added to the official roster.

No further comment necessary.

Image- Houston Chronicle (“A detainee awaits processing at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in north Houston.”)
Online Source - Voice of America

Immigration agents to get expanded powers

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will receive expanded powers to make drug arrests.

Holder announced the changes to the Senate and the actions are particularly targeted towards Mexico. Furthermore, the move was also done to quell a “long-running turf dispute with the Drug Enforcement Administration:”

In the past, when ICE agents wanted to work on their own drug investigations, they had to seek the permission of the DEA and make sure that the ICE agents involved had Title 21 authority. ICE maintained this scenario hampered their ability to work cases, especially on the border where ICE has such a large presence. DEA fought back, claiming that ICE agents did not have the expertise to handle narcotics investigations.

A real world example would be when ICE agents raid a safe house full of illegal immigrants and discover that it’s really a drug operation. Under the current regulations, the ICE agents would not be allowed to make any drug-related arrests unless the DEA was called to the scene.

With such an escalation of crimes near the U.S.-Mexico border, the plan will also try to contain any spillover of violence into the U.S.

Holder is expected to formally announce the move at a news conference on Thursday.

Image-Voice of America
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, MSNBC, AP, Washington Post

Reports: Awful medical care in detention centers

Medical conditions at immigration detention centers are substandard and are “dangerously inadequate” according to a pair of advocacy groups.

The Florida Immigration Advocacy Center and Human Rights Watch each released reports on Tuesday that detail the substandard and woeful medical care provided at U.S. detention facilities.
Both groups gave a litany of problems in the centers from unskilled staff to bureaucratic red tape. Overcrowded facilities would be less of an issue if immigration officials were to halt detaining the elderly or those have serious health issues according to the reports.

As one eyewitness reportedly mentioned, some mentally disabled detainees received terrible treatment:

Marlene Jaggernauth, 43, who entered the U.S. 32 years ago as a lawful permanent resident from Trinidad, was arrested by ICE agents in 2003. Because of an old shoplifting charge, Little said, immigration agents labeled her an ''aggravated felon'' and jailed her. She was separated from four children, including 6-year-old twins and a 14- and 15-year-old…

Jaggernauth, who had a full-time job at Florida Atlantic University as an administrative assistant, said she witnessed deplorable conditions while detained, including an elderly German woman who appeared to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia.

''She was hearing voices,'' Jaggernauth said. ``Rather than help her, the guards joined in making fun of her.''

Image- miamiherald.com
Online Sources- South Florida Sun-Sentinel, miamiherald.com, Human Rights Watch, AP

ICE wants to deport dead immigrant

The family of a deceased man claimed that U.S. immigration officials tried to deport him back to Central America.

Nasin Mauricio Rivera was supposed to attend a deportation hearing in November 2008 after he was arrested for a restraining-order violation. Yet he died suddenly in August and his body was subsequently shipped to his native El Salvador for burial. Nevertheless, his deportation case remains open since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials rejected the photocopy of Rivera’s death certificate presented by his family at the deceased’s immigration hearing.

Representatives and family of the deceased man are understandably miffed at ICE’s incompetence:

"To us, it's a matter of principle -- a dead person should not be deported," said immigration attorney Edgardo Quintanilla…

"It's the most ridiculous thing I have heard," (Rivera’s widow, Blanca Ramirez) said.

Immigration reform cannot come soon enough.

Image- Los Angeles Times (“Blanca Ramirez, right, with her daughter, Amy Rivera, doesn’t understand why the deportation case against her late husband is proceeding.)”
Online Sources- SFGate.com, Los Angeles Times

Haiti, U.S. in tug-of-war over deportations

Officials in Haiti and the U.S. are in discord over the thousands of Haitians awaiting deportation from the U.S.

Last December, U.S. immigration authorities resumed deportations to the Caribbean country despite being hit by a string of tropical storms and increased impoverishment. A January plea by President Rene Preval for the granting of temporary protected status to Haitians was rejected by the Bush White House.

An estimated 30,000 Haitians await deportation to their native country yet Haitian officials are preventing it by not issuing travel documents. A spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claimed that the delays are causing more detainees to spend time in already packed detention centers. Haitian authorities allege that their broken country doesn’t have the capacity to handle so many deportees.

Meanwhile, ICE is forcing Haitians to get their own travel documents including passports so they can be sent home. It’s a move that has upset Haitian community leaders in the U.S.

Phillippe "Bob" Louis Jeune, president of the Haitian Citizen United Taskforce, said he hears daily from many Haitians facing pressure from immigration officials.

"I tell them don't sign anything until we get further word from Washington," Jeune said.

Image- Amnesty International USA (“Detainees are searched before returning to the male dormitory at the Krome Detention Center…1996.”)
Online Sources- USA TODAY, The Latin Americanist, CBS4.com, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

The consequences of not being legal enough

Today’s New York Times highlighted the plight of Bronx resident Olga Berroa who came legally to the U.S. with her two daughters in 2002. Despite her background as a teacher in the Dominican Republic, she labored in several menial jobs in New York for the next four years. In July 2006 she slipped and fell down a flight of stairs and received multiple injuries. Though Berroa received disability leave she was unable to incur more aid during her time of most need:

She applied for welfare for herself and her daughters…

But when she applied for disability assistance, Ms. Berroa found out that as a legal immigrant who was not yet a citizen, she had not paid federal taxes long enough to qualify…

She covered most of her rent with a federal housing subsidy. But when the rent went up and her share increased, she realized that she could not pay the rent anymore. – [ed. emphasis added]

Let’s summarize:

• Immigrates to the U.S. legally, not undocumented.
• Works for four years apparently without resorting to public aid.
• Has an accident that costs her her job.
• Is not a legal enough immigrant to receive welfare when she needs it most.
• Is about to be evicted with the rest of her family.
  

There are those who will grandstand and declare that the current immigration system is doing well. (I’m looking at you Mikey Chertoff). Yet Berroa’s case is indicative of a broken system that needs to be fixed ASAP.

How can it be that someone who has proved her worth to her family and community be treated so flippantly? How can one believe that immigration reform is unnecessary or that the solution involves either mass deportations or a general amnesty? How fair is it for legal immigrants to have to jump through so many hoops like a circus act in order to reach citizenship? How much longer must we wait for politicos to get their heads out of the sand and enact just, well-meaning changes to a rubbish immigration status quo?

Despite the obstacles, Berroa was able to receive help mostly from the Catholic Charities along with a little public aid. Yet for her to have to face the burden of not being a sufficiently legal immigrant speaks volumes of a system in dire need of repair.

Image- New York Times (“Olga Berroa with her daughter Eliana Lozada, 18. They came to the Bronx from the Dominican Republic in 2002.”)
Online Sources- New York Times, Washington Times

ICE accused of abuse in Miami raid

U.S. immigration officers used excessive force during a series of raids in Miami according to several advocacy groups.

The raids targeted a suspected sex trade ring, a fact that was praised by some Florida-based immigration advocacy entities. Yet these groups also accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents of gross misconduct and racial profiling:

At the conclusion of the raid, ICE announced that it had arrested four suspected sex traffickers and rescued nine women who had been forced into prostitution in several brothels.

But the groups say too many innocent people were roughed up. ''The sum actions of these raids, meant to protect victims of trafficking, have victimized many in the Homestead community and created a climate of fear and mistrust,'' the coalition of groups wrote in a letter...

The raids culminated in the arrest of 77 illegal immigrants, mostly of Guatemalan and Mexican background. Yet it has been alleged that “agents had relied on vaguely worded warrants to invade people’s homes and arrest nearly anyone who looked Hispanic.”

An ICE spokeswoman responded to the allegations by claiming that officials are “obligated” to arrest any illegal immigrants they encounter regardless of the circumstances. (In other words, the old "collateral damage" excuse.)

Image- Fox News (ICE agents during a 2008 raid in New York.)
Sources- UPI, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, miamiherald.com, CBS4.com, New York Times

Deportations to Haiti resume

There’s a Spanish saying: llover sobre mojado (rough translation - raining where it’s already wet). Such a cliché applies to Haiti.

Haiti’s one of the most impoverished countries in the Americas and in the recent months the country has had to face additional troubles. A wave of summer storms and a food crisis have led to more misery and suffering in that Caribbean country.

As a humanitarian gesture the U.S. government placed a moratorium on deportations to Haiti three months ago. Starting this week, however, the suspension was removed and deportations have resumed.

''We determined that it was appropriate to resume based on the circumstances in Haiti,'' declared a U.S. immigration spokeswoman to the miamiherald.com. Yet leaders of the Haitian community in Florida denounced the measure based on the country’s ongoing humanitarian crisis. Meanwhile, some politicians have entered the fray and have called on the federal government to stop the deportations:

(Reps. Alcee Hastings and Robert Wexler)…took the opportunity to call for granting temporary protected status to Haitians in the United States. That designation, generally bestowed upon countries experiencing severe economic or political problems, allows noncitizens to live and work in the United States for a limited period of time.

“Haiti has long met the qualifications for TPS, and it is now more urgent than ever that the United States provide them with this much needed, long overdue, temporary assistance,” they said.

Image- Voice of America
Sources- The Latin Americanist, Voice of America, Palm Beach Post, AP, miamiherald.com

U.S. citizen held under ICE detainment

Immigration officials recently released a U.S. citizen who had been detained for fifteen days.

As first reported by the Los Angeles Times, Guillermo Olivares Romero was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on September 25th. Despite claiming his U.S. citizenship, he was held until October 9th when an American Civil Liberties Union attorney showed his birth certificate, school and vaccination records to authorities.

An ICE spokeswoman claimed that Olivares said he was born in Mexico and that was confirmed by his California criminal rap sheet. Olivares, meanwhile, mentioned that he has had to prove his citizenship several times:

In 2007, he was deported after serving time in state prison. Olivares said he insisted that he was not Mexican, but immigration officials say he signed a document acknowledging that he was and that was why he was being deported. Olivares decided to live with relatives in Jalisco but said that this summer he tried to return because his father was ill. Authorities wouldn't let him in. Desperate to see his father before he passed away, he said, he crossed illegally through the mountains. Olivares said he was arrested in Imperial County and deported again at the beginning of September -- the day his father died.

Olivares is not alone in having been falsely deported; in 2007, a mentally disabled U.S. citizen was erroneously deported to Mexico and wandered for three months before being reunited with his family.

Image- SignOnSanDiego.com (Immigration detention facility located in California)
Sources- The Latin Americanist, Los Angeles Times, San Jose Mercury News

Reports: High price tag from Postville raid

Oftentimes the immigration debate centers on issue of race and national security. But what about the costs related to immigration?

Case in point: federal officials claimed that the price tag of a May 12th immigration raid in Postville, Iowa was approximately $5.2 million. As reported by The Des Moines Register and picked up by the AP, the figures are partial in that they’re from May until mid-August. Yet the taxpayers’ bill comes up to an average of $13,396 for each of the 389 illegal immigrants arrested.

One local politico tried to defend the high cost of the Postville:

U.S. Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, disagreed. He said immigration laws must be enforced, regardless of the expense to taxpayers.

"If we start saying, 'Well, it costs too much money to enforce the law,' then we will see more and more of these radical, pro-illegal immigration activists drive more wedges between us and make it harder to enforce the law," King said.

I would agree with King that excising laws should be implemented except that the status quo hasn’t been working and is in dire need of being repaired. “Enforcement” of a flawed system yields little benefit and the only real “wedges” are among families, communities, and local governments trying to figure out what to do.

Of course, immigration reform requires politicians to stand up and face the issue rather than provide sound bites when they feel it’s convenient. Unfortunately, King’s colleagues on both sides of the aisle in Congress and the major presidential candidates have viewed immigration as a taboo. Alas, reform is nothing but a distant notion so as long as politicos ignore finding meaningful solutions to the immigration debate.

Image- Time (“Two women attend a press conference at Saint Bridget Parish in Postville, Iowa” shortly after the May raid.)
Sources- chicagotribune.com, SFGate.com, The Des Moines Register

News Briefs: Immigration

* A U.S. federal judge granted a temporary injunction against a controversial immigration law that included all employers to register with a federal data base.

* Meanwhile, South Carolina passed yesterday a tougher immigration law which goes beyond Oklahoma’s by barring illegal immigrants from receiving public assistance or attending state colleges.

* A report from the Pew Hispanic Center claims that Latino unemployment, especially among illegal immigrants, has spiked higher than the general population.

* A senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official told Congress that the government plans to release more data on detainees who die in U.S. federal detention centers.

* Speaking of ICE, agents reported that 491 people were detained in raids in New York and New Jersey in May alone.

Sources- WJBF, JURIST, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, newsday.com