We were all once foreigners

Rob Christensen: Published: Dec 09, 2007 12:30 AM Modified: Dec 09, 2007 01:25 AM

In the 1750s, Ben Franklin thought the country
was being overrun by Germans.

"Why should the Palatine Boors [Germans] be suffered to swarm into our Settlements and, by herding together, establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours?" asked the inventor and statesman. "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us, instead of our Anglifying them?"

Franklin was talking about my mother's people.

Who knew that the hard-working, God-fearing, thrifty German farmers in Pennsylvania -- some of whom made their way to North Carolina down the Great Wagon Road -- would be such a threat to the national character?

My mother's people, in fact, are different. They eat ethnic foods -- such as shoo-fly pie, scrapple, pork and sauerkraut. Some Mennonite relatives paint their chrome ***pers so as not to show a sinful pride.

My father's people arrived here much later -- a great-grandfather from Scotland, a great-grandmother from Ireland and a grandfather from Norway, who spoke with a thick accent.

I have an immigrant name far more exotic than any Jose. Although I have been called Rob my whole life, my formal first name is the Norwegian Helmer.

My ancestors were neither legal nor illegal immigrants: Before the 1920s, America had an open-door policy.

As in the 1920s, immigration has become the new third rail of politics.

Which is why last week, all five of North Carolina's major gubernatorial candidates denounced a decision by the state community college system that would allow illegal immigrants to enroll as out-of-state students.

Only lame-duck Gov. Mike Easley had the courage to say it was the right thing to do.

The voices that dominate the debate tend to be the angry ones.

But my sense is that most voters have a more nuanced approach.

In talking to voters, I find they tend to think the immigration system is badly broken and needs to be fixed. They tend to think that the border needs to be beefed up and that there needs to be more control on who comes and stays here.

But there is also an understanding that if Hispanic immigrants -- legal or illegal -- left tomorrow, houses would not get built, chickens would not be plucked, and crops would not get picked.

Immigration has been a political issue in North Carolina before.

Sen. Furnifold Simmons in 1906 pushed a national voting literacy test aimed at what he called "the scum" immigrating to the U.S. from Southern and Eastern Europe.

Sen. Bob Reynolds in 1939 set up a group called the Vindicators Association, whose goal was to end all immigration for 10 years and deport all alien criminals and undesirables.

The Vindicators had a program for boys ages 10 to 18, called the Border Patrol, in which they could earn a badge and a $20 reward for catching "alien crooks."

As Harry Truman said, "The only thing new in this world is the history you don't know."


rob.christensen@newsobserver.com or (919) 829-4532

Republicans talk tough against illegal immigration

By Steve Holland

MIAMI (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidates stuck to their tough line against illegal immigration at a Spanish-language debate on Sunday, a stance that could spell trouble for them with Hispanic voters in next year's election.

Hispanic-Americans had backed President George W. Bush's plan to grant illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship and watched in dismay as conservatives torpedoed it last summer.

Given the outrage over Bush's proposal to give illegal immigrants a temporary worker status, the overriding Republican position is to vow to improve control over the U.S. border with Mexico and insist that illegal immigrants not be allowed to get ahead of prospective legal immigrants.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney defended his firing last week of a landscaping company that cared for the lawn at his home, saying he terminated the contract with the company because it had employed illegal immigrants even after he had told the company "in no uncertain terms" to stop the practice.

"We're going to end illegal immigration to protect legal immigration," said Romney.

Even Arizona Sen. John McCain, whose campaign almost collapsed because he took a more compassionate approach toward illegal immigration, spoke of the need for better border enforcement.

"We cannot reward illegal behavior. We have to fix the border," McCain said, while adding: "We cannot allow this nation to be inhumane or without love and compassion."

The debate, sponsored by Univision, dealt largely with issues important to Hispanic voters, and was a far more gentlemanly affair than some of the recent Republican encounters.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who had a bitter exchange with Romney at the last debate in November over whether either of them had turned a blind eye to illegal immigration, seemed to try to avoid a repeat of that fracas.

He said of illegal immigration: "This is a situation where none of us have been perfect. All of us have been struggling with this for a long time."

The debate came at a tense time in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

LATINO SWING VOTE?

Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, has vaulted past Romney to take the lead in many opinion polls in critical Iowa and taken over second place in other national polls behind front-runner Giuliani in the quest to be the party's candidate in the November presidential vote.

On January 3, Iowa on begins the state-by-state battle to choose the Republican and Democratic candidates who will contest the November 2008 election for president.

A recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center said 9 percent of the American electorate in 2008 will be Latinos, but if the past is any guide Hispanics representing just 6.5 percent of the electorate will vote. Some experts believe Hispanics could be an important element in swing states.

Bush took 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in his re-election race in 2004 but Republicans only drew 30 percent support in last year's congressional elections.

An anti-immigrant candidate, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, refused to attend the debate because he objected to the Spanish language format.

"I think some of the rhetoric that many Hispanics hear about illegal immigration makes some of them believe that we're not in favor or seek the support of Hispanic citizens in this country," said McCain.

The candidates were largely in agreement on most issues, although a long-shot contender, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, drew some boos from the audience when he said he would be willing to talk to Venezuela's fiery anti-American president, Hugo Chavez.

Both McCain and Giuliani said they preferred to deal with Chavez as Spain's King Juan Carlos did recently, telling him "Why don't you shut up?"

"Chavez is acting like a dictator and he should be treated that way," Giuliani said.

The Republicans also talked tough on Cuba, saying they would maintain the U.S. trade embargo against the communist island.

Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, asked how he would handle Cuba differently since nine U.S. presidents had failed to dislodge Fidel Castro from power, drew laughter with his reply. "I'm going to make sure that he didn't survive 10 U.S. presidents," he said.

(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at http://blogs.reuters.com/category/events/trail08/)

(Editing by Lori Santos and Todd Eastham)

The New Colossus

Poema de Emma Lazarus,inscrito al pie de la Estatua de la Libertad en New York.

Dadme vuestros seres pobres y cansados.
Dadme esas masas ansiosas de ser libres,
los tristes desechos de costas populosas.
Que vengan los desamparados
que las tempestades batan.
Mi antorcha alumbra un umbral dorado.

( Fragmento )

¿Hasta cuando esta nacion
nos seguira dando la espalda
a los nuevos inmigrantes?

Entrant who aided boy gets Grijalva's help

By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.08.2007

Illegal border crosser whom officials credit with saving the life of a 9-year-old boy he encountered in the desert on Thanksgiving night has been given a chance — albeit with long odds — to obtain a green card.

Rep. Rául Grijalva, D-Ariz., submitted a private bill Thursday asking Congress to approve a green card for Manuel Jesus Córdova Soberanes, 26, of Magdalena de Kino, Sonora. If approved, it would make Córdova eligible to become a legal permanent resident, and that could eventually lead to citizenship.

The bill would specifically exclude Córdova's parents and siblings from becoming eligible for green cards if he is granted a green card.
While there exists some strong public sentiment to help Córdova acquire a visa — a strong factor in Grijalva's decision to draft the bill — not everybody agrees that Córdova's actions warrant a special visa.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., doesn't support the private bill, said her spokesman, C.J. Karamargin.

"Rep. Giffords considers Manuel Jesus Cordova Soberanes a hero," he said. "She supports the spirit of congressman Grijalva's request and believes that Mr. Córdova Soberanes deserve our thanks and admiration. But the congresswoman does not support making exceptions to immigration laws."

The bill has been assigned to the U.S. House subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, refugees, border security and international law, said Gloria Montaño, Grijalva's chief of staff. The earliest it would be addressed would be the beginning of the next session, which is scheduled to begin in mid-January.

Private bills, which deal with individual matters such as claims against the federal government, immigration and naturalization cases, usually struggle to get through Congress, Grijalva said. This year, about 160 private bills — most concerning immigration — have been introduced, Montaño said. Only about two or three are usually passed each year, she said.

"It's a long shot, but it's a shot," said Montaño.

If the bill has a chance, it will because the story has garnered international attention, she said.

"Not just in the United States and Mexico, but in Europe, Australia, etc.," Montaño said. "I think it's just the humanitarian part of it that has reached people."

Córdova's moment of fame began at about 5 p.m. Thanksgiving evening west of Peña Blanca Lake, about 60 miles southwest of Tucson, when authorities say he encountered Christopher in shorts and a T-shirt walking with his golden retriever, Tanner.

Christopher and his mother, Dawn Alice Tomko, 45, had been camping in the area. While driving on a narrow dirt road, she lost control of their van, hit an embankment, and the vehicle fell about 275 feet off a cliff. She died. Christopher and his dogs walked away with only ***ps and bruises.

Córdova, who had been walking alone for 2 1/2 days in his second attempt at illegal entry into the country, stayed with the boy through the night, building a fire, getting him food and giving him a sweater. In the morning, he found a pair of hunters who called authorities.
Christopher, who had lost his father on Labor Day, was flown to University Medical Center in Tucson, and Córdova turned himself in to Border Patrol agents and was returned to Mexico that same day.

Had Córdova not been there, nobody knows what would have happened to the boy, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada has said.

At a ceremony Tuesday in Nogales, officials from both sides of the border thanked Córdova and presented him with plaques and certificates.

When Córdova heard the news Friday evening, he expressed his gratitude to Grijalva. A green card would help him very much by giving him the opportunity to work in the United States, he said. He is currently working for city public works in Magdalena de Kino, Sonora, but said work is always more plentiful north of the border.

"I hope there is a chance," he said in Spanish. "Now, I just have to wait and see."
If he does get the visa, one man has already offered him a job. Al Flores, owner of Al's Carpet Clean and Cleaning Services in Nogales, told Córdova on Tuesday he has a job waiting for him if he can obtain a work visa.

"I think he really deserves it," said Flores, "He could have just walked away."
Even though he is a staunch opponent of illegal immigration, former Border Patrol supervisor Dave Stoddard said he has no problem with making an exception as long as Córdova doesn't have a criminal record in Mexico or the United States.

"If this guy, Córdova, is clean, then as an American citizen, I have no objection to him joining American society," said Stoddard, who retired in 1996 after 27 years with the agency and lives in Cochise County. "He has demonstrated some degree of moral character by sticking around and helping that boy."

Grijalva's office has researched Córdova's past and determined that he has never been formally removed, or deported, from the country and has not committed any criminal acts, said Natalie Luna, Grijalva's press secretary. He has been apprehended before by the Border Patrol but was granted voluntary returns.


● Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.

RIGHTS: Anti-Immigrant Surge Tramples Int'l Norms

ipsnews
By Peter Costantini*

SEATTLE, Washington, Dec 9 (IPS) - Fifty years ago in the southern United States, a system called "Jim Crow" denied African-Americans their civil rights. Now, some immigrant advocates are using the term "Juan Crow" for nativist ideologies that deny human rights to undocumented immigrants, most of whom are from Latin America.

Like the civil rights movement, the immigrants' rights movement asserts that all immigrants have certain inalienable rights regardless of which way the winds of public opinion blow.

Across the political divide, some opponents of immigration fear that their country is being overrun by alien cultures. The anti-immigrant backlash has been especially strong in some areas along the Mexican border and in the southeast, where in some states the number of new immigrants has quadrupled in a decade.

The failure twice in the past two years of immigration reforms in the U.S. Congress has left a legal and political vacuum in which controversies around immigrant rights have come to a boil. In response, the George W. Bush administration has unleashed raids on many immigrant workplaces and localities, coupled with more aggressive enforcement along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Some states and cities have passed their own laws criminalising undocumented immigrants and those who assist, hire and do business with them. Currently, crossing the border without permission or overstaying a visa is a civil, not criminal, violation under U.S. laws. In Arizona, an anti-immigrant group has proposed an initiative that would deny citizenship to babies of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S.

In immigrant communities and along the border, these crackdowns have sown fear and confusion. Immigrant advocates say some enforcement measures violate the human and civil liberties of not just illegal immigrants, but also legal immigrants and citizens who happen to have the "wrong" accent or skin tone.

According to Flavia Jiménez of the non-governmental National Council of La Raza (NCLR), "The rights of immigrants have dramatically decreased over the past two years. We've seen policies introduced at the federal, state and local level with the goal of essentially doing away with the undocumented population. But when implemented, they have significant impacts on the immigrant community generally, not just the undocumented."

Jiménez cited increases in racial profiling and a recent FBI report that hate crimes against Latinos have risen. Mounting deaths along the Mexican border due to increased enforcement are "a huge human rights violation that is not being taken care of," she told IPS.

A report released in October by the NCLR found that for every two immigrants apprehended by immigration enforcement, one child was left behind. Two-thirds of these children are U.S. citizens or legal residents, the study said.

When people cross the border into the U.S., many human, civil and economic rights go with them under international and U.S. law regardless of immigration status.

Human rights conventions associated with the United Nations, the International Labour Organisation and the Organisation of American States (OAS) guarantee basic human rights to all people, citizens or not. These rights apply to them in the workplace as well as on the street and at home, anywhere in member countries.

But when these rights are not respected and international law is disdained, remedies to protect the newcomers can be elusive. The relationship between international agreements and U.S. law is a frequent point of contention.

Steven Camarota of the Centre for Immigration Studies, which favors restricting immigration, told IPS: "In general I think illegals must always be dealt with in a humane way when they are apprehended and deported. As for the U.N. or other international agencies, I would say I can't think of any role for them to help. Who we allow into our country is a domestic matter."

In contrast, Jennifer Gordon, professor of Law at Fordham University, proposed two basic arguments for recognising the human rights of undocumented workers: "One is about human dignity: if you give up your labour, you're benefiting the country that you're in, so you deserve to be treated with respect and paid fairly."

"But there's also an instrumental argument," she told IPS. "We must protect these most vulnerable workers if any worker in the United States is to have any protection. If you deny undocumented immigrants the protection of laws such as the minimum wage and health and safety standards, you increase the incentive for employers to hire them, thus lowering the floor for all workers."

Treatment of immigrants in the U.S. has attracted the attention of international organisations. Earlier this year, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, Jorge A. Bustamante, visited several U.S. cities to take testimony on violations of immigrants' human rights.

Bustamante found problems including arbitrary detention in substandard conditions, separation of families, lack of centralised information on detained migrants, and inadequate legal representation for deportees. He also noted concerns about racial and ethnic discrimination and violations of children's and women's rights.

In 2003, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), part of the OAS, issued an advisory opinion that labour laws that discriminate against undocumented workers violate international law. Mexico initiated the case in response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision denying compensation for lost wages to an undocumented worker illegally fired for union organising.

Currently, another case against the U.S. is pending in the IACHR for violations of the human rights of immigrants.

"The U.S. views itself as a beacon of human rights in the world," said Rebecca Smith of the National Employment Law Project, counsel on the current case. "We must live up to that view, and the treatment of migrant workers is a bellwether for whether our actions are as good as our talk. As the largest migrant-receiving nation in the world, what message do we send to our international partners if we tolerate the worst kinds of abuses of our most vulnerable workers?"

In Mexico, too, citizens and public officials have criticised human rights abuses against immigrants in the U.S. According to the television network Univisión, Mexican activist Elvira Arellano told a meeting of Mexican legislators and migrants' associations: "Every day they are arresting, criminalising, deporting and separating families, and our government remains silent."

After taking refuge in a Chicago church for more than a year, Univisión reported, Arellano was deported from the U.S. to Mexico in August with her son Saúl, who is a U.S. citizen.

*This article is the first of a three-part series on the immigrants' rights movement in the United States.

(END/2007)

RIGHTS-US: AIDS Care Spotty in Migrant Detention, HRW Says

By Rajiv Fernando

NEW YORK, Dec 7 (IPS) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's wing of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has used its authority to detain nearly 30,000 immigrants in hundreds of prisons, jails and immigration detention centres throughout the United States.

In a 71-page report released Friday, "Chronic Indifference: HIV/AIDS Services for Immigrants Detained by the United States," the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) documents the experiences of HIV-positive detainees whose treatment was denied, delayed, or interrupted, resulting in serious risk and often damage to their health.

According to HRW, the Department of Homeland Security's detention guidelines for HIV/AIDS care fail to meet both national and international standards for appropriate care, and the agency does little to enforce their own minimal standards.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, HRW asked the government to release the number of immigration detainees with HIV/AIDS -- only to discover that this information is "not tracked". Failure to collect this vital statistic, as well as information about the treatment and services provided to detainees with HIV/AIDS, prevents the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from improving its programmes to meet the needs of this vulnerable population, the group says.

This can be seen in the case of immigrant detainee Victoria Arellano, a 23-year-old trans-gendered woman from Mexico with HIV/AIDS who died in ICE custody on Jul. 20.

She had been detained at the San Pedro Service Processing Centre in California (SPSPC) for eight weeks. According to her cellmates, her health began to deteriorate when medical staff refused to continue her regular prescriptions.

Victoria's condition steadily worsened during the month of July, and she began to vomit blood, and blood appeared in her urine. The detainees in Pod 3 at San Pedro became increasingly concerned for her welfare as she became too weak to sit up in her bunk. Victoria was seen in the medical clinic, but she was told only to take Tylenol and drink large amounts of water.

On the night of Jul. 12, as her conditioned worsened, she was taken to a hospital but returned to the detention centre the next day. She was very weak and told her cellmates that the medical and security staff had put her in a holding cell and taunted her.

The following morning she was taken to the hospital again, where she died a week later of meningitis, a condition often associated with advanced AIDS.

IPS was unable to speak to Victoria's mother, Olga Arellano, but managed to reach her lawyer, Judy London. According to London, Olga was at Victoria's side when she died. Despite the fact that she was hooked up to a breathing machine, Victoria was shackled to her bed and a guard posted at the door.

London told IPS: "Olga wants this story told, as she believes that no human being should ever suffer what Victoria suffered. She loved and misses Victoria, but feels peace in that she accepted Victoria as a woman, and supported her efforts to live as a trans-gendered individual, free of hate and discrimination."

The HRW report highlighted several other cases in which detainees were not given adequate care or treatment.

Charles B. had emigrated from Jamaica to New York City in 1987 as a lawful permanent resident. Immigration authorities detained Charles for four years and eight months, from September 2000 until May 2005. At the time he entered ICE custody, Charles was HIV-positive but otherwise healthy. During detention, his health deteriorated significantly, declining to a point where his condition verged on full-blown AIDS.

Gloria M. was a 43-year-old woman from South Africa with two children and a fiancé. In 1995, Gloria served jail time on a criminal charge, but after release obtained her green card and worked as an AIDS counselor at a non-profit agency in Indiana. In 2003, she was detained at the airport while returning from a trip to South Africa.

She was released, but immigration officials kept her green card and told her she would be notified where to pick it up at a later date. In January 2004, immigration advised her that she could pick up her green card at an office in Chicago. Upon her arrival at the office, she was told that they planned to deport her because of her 1995 criminal conviction. She was handcuffed, placed in a van and taken to McHenry County Jail in Woodstock, Illinois where no intake medical exam was conducted and Gloria received no HIV/AIDS education, counseling or information.

They informed her at the facility that they would not put her on AIDS medication because she was a resident of Indiana, not Illinois, so the state would not pay. She had to beg them to get her fiancée to bring her medication from Indiana.

The report notes that DHS fails to collect basic information concerning HIV/AIDS cases in the hundreds of detention facilities contracting with ICE to incarcerate immigrants.

"Although the U.S. government 'outsources' much of its immigration detention to local jails and facilities across the country, it cannot evade its responsibility to protect the well-being, health and lives of HIV-positive immigrants," said Megan McLemore of HRW's HIV/AIDS programme.

HRW made several recommendations to the Division of Immigrant Health Services, DHS, ICE, the U.S. Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Congress.

They outline the basic rights of immigrant detainees, how to ensure and protect their care, gather proper information and keep medical records current, improve the current system of tracking complaints from detainees, and ensure oversight.

The report shows how ICE is unwilling to provide information to the public, which hinders oversight of its compliance and monitoring activities.

For example, ICE permits the American Bar Association (ABA) to conduct inquiries into complaints received from immigration detainees. However, the agency prohibits the ABA from publicly releasing of the results of these inquiries.

The U.N. Special Rapporteur for the Human Rights of Migrants, Jorge Bustamante, attempted to visit some detention centres during his May 2007 mission to the United States, but was turned away from two of the three facilities.

According to the HRW report, the medical care provided by ICE does not meet the "equivalence" standard set by national correctional health experts, nor does it meet the recommended standards under international law for compliance with human rights and best medical practice.

"The Department of Homeland Security needs to upgrade their policies and more closely monitor and ensure effective treatment for immigrants living with HIV or AIDS," said McLemore. "Otherwise these individuals will continue to suffer, and even die, in the care of the U.S. government."

Asked about the report, ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel told Reuters, "ICE provides excellent care to the detainees in our custody, it's an absolute priority with us."

She added that the agency spends nearly 100 million dollars a year on detainee health care.

RIGHTS-US: Billions Spent Locking Up the Poor

By Abra Pollock

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (IPS) - Hardnosed sentencing policies that have caused the U.S. prison population to soar over the past three decades have done little to reduce crime, but have devastated low-income, minority communities, according to a report released here Monday.

Titled "Unlocking America: Why and How to Reduce America's Prison Population", the report found that the U.S. prison population has increased nearly eightfold since 1973 -- 196,429 to 1.5 million -- while crime rates have remained virtually the same. If sentencing policies aren't adjusted, the 40-page report said, the prison population over the next five years will swell by another 192,000 prisoners, costing an additional 27.5 billion dollars in construction and operational costs on top of the 60 billion dollars already spent annually on corrections.

"Our contemporary laws and justice system practices exacerbate the crime problem, unnecessarily damage the lives of millions of people, waste tens of billions of dollars each year, and create less than ideal social and economic conditions in many sections of our largest American cities," said the report, which was co-authored by nine leading criminologists and penal experts and coordinated by the criminal justice research group JFA Associates.

Experts attribute the surge in U.S. prison population numbers to a shift in policies and attitudes originating in the 1960s and early 1970s that favoured a "tough on crime" approach resulting in longer and harsher sentencing.

Responding to an increase in crime during the 1960s, politicians scrambled to win votes by adopting this stance, explained New York University professor David F. Greenberg and one of the report's authors.

Mandatory sentencing is just one example of a "tough on crime" policy arising out of this era. In mandatory sentencing, adopted first by the state of California in 1973, certain crimes are linked with a minimum number of years' imprisonment, such as 15 years for possession of a "hard" illegal drug -- leaving the judge with no flexibility in sentencing.

"Many of these policies have been politically inspired," according to Marc Mauer, executive director of the Sentencing Project, a national organisation whose mission is to promote fairness and effectiveness in the criminal justice system, and who spoke on a panel at the report's release on Monday.

In comparison with other Western countries, the same crimes in the U.S. are often met with much harsher sentences. U.S. prisoners receive sentences twice as long as English prisoners, three times as long as Canadian prisoners, four times as long as Dutch prisoners, and five to 10 times as long as French prisoners, the report said. Yet each of these countries has a lower rate of violent crime than the United States.

"If putting people in prison was the way to create a safe society, then we should be the safest society in the world," Mauer said. "And that's clearly not the case."

Furthermore, the U.S.'s bloated sentencing policies have had a devastating impact on low-income minority communities, the report highlighted. Incarceration rates for African-Americans and Latinos are more than six times higher than for whites, and 60 percent of the prison population is either black or Latino.

At current rates, the report said, one-third of all African-American males will go to prison in their lives.

This racial makeup of the U.S. prison population "should be setting off alarm bells", Mauer said.

As Greenberg and other experts see it, the disproportionately high number of African-American and Latino males in prison contributes to a "vicious cycle" of social breakdown.

"At a certain point, you're taking so many people out of low-income, minority neighbourhoods that you're disrupting the fabric of those communities, taking father figures out of children's lives," Greenberg said.

To counteract the high social and economic costs of the current U.S. prison system, the report outlined a series of recommendations, including an increased emphasis on community-based therapeutic programmes to avert the behaviours that lead to imprisonment, such as substance abuse.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, 30 to 40 percent of current prison admissions are "victimless" crimes, meaning that the criminal act poses little or no threat to others. Drug-related offenses comprise 31 percent of all prison admissions within this category.

Beyond community-based therapeutic care, policymakers must take action with regards to reforming U.S. sentencing laws, as well as on policies related to re-entry for prisoners who have completed their terms, the report said.

Reducing sentences, eliminating the use of prison for parole or probation violators, and decriminalising "victimless" crimes were all offered as policy alternatives to the status quo.

Current laws that exclude ex-prisoners from receiving welfare, public housing, and other subsidies should be revisited, the report said. In order to help ex-prisoners integrate back into society, subsidies could be offered to government agencies to hire ex-prisoners, thereby helping to diminish any hesitations these employers may have.

"Our recommendations would reestablish practices that were the norm in America for most of the previous century, when incarceration rates were a fraction of what they are today," said the report.

Advocates for prison reform hope that this research will inspire policymakers who have been intimidated in the past by a "tough on crime" political climate to instead raise their voices in favour of reducing incarceration rates.

"It's one thing to 'act tough' [on crime], but that doesn't necessarily mean increasing results in public safety," Mauer said. "This report is grounded in trying to look at what works -- and what doesn't work."

US: Immigration Detention Practices Endanger Health, Life

New York, December 7, 2007

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should upgrade its care and treatment of immigrant detainees with HIV, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The organization charged that the agency has failed to meet its obligations to and respect the rights of its detainees with HIV. It fails to monitor the appropriate treatment of detainees with HIV, or even how many have HIV, and has substandard policies and procedures for providing life-saving care.

The Department of Homeland Security needs to upgrade their policies and more closely monitor and ensure effective treatment for immigrants living with HIV or AIDS. Otherwise these individuals will continue to suffer, and even die, in the care of the US government.

There are nearly 30,000 immigrants detained in hundreds of prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers throughout the United States.

"The US government has no idea how many of these immigrants have HIV or AIDS, how many need treatment, and how many are receiving the care that is necessary," said Megan McLemore of Human Rights Watch’s HIV/AIDS program.

The 71-page report, “Chronic Indifference: HIV/AIDS Services for Immigrants Detained by the United States", documents the experiences of HIV-positive detainees in immigration custody whose HIV treatment was denied, delayed, or interrupted, resulting in serious risk and often damage to their health. The investigation included interviews with current and former detainees, DHS and detention facility officials, and an independent medical review of treatment provided. Detention facilities which housed immigrants with HIV infection failed to consistently deliver anti-retroviral medications, conduct necessary laboratory tests, ensure continuity of care, and ensure confidentiality or protection from discrimination.

Contrary to international human rights obligations, constitutional protections, and best practice advisories, the Department of Homeland Security’s detention guidelines for HIV/AIDS care fail to meet both national and international standards for appropriate care, and the agency does little to enforce their own minimal standards.

“Although the US government ‘outsources’ much of its immigration detention to local jails and facilities across the country, it cannot evade its responsibility to protect the well-being, health and lives of HIV-positive immigrants,” said McLemore.

The report highlights the death of Victoria Arellano, a 23-year-old HIV-positive transgendered detainee who died in July 2007 after eight weeks in an immigration detention facility in San Pedro, California. Arellano was reportedly denied treatment and became gravely ill. Detainees in her housing unit repeatedly called to guards that she needed medical care, but she was left suffering in her bunk as her condition worsened. Finally taken to the facility clinic, she was taunted and ridiculed by staff. She told her cellmates before she died, “It was a nightmare.”

“The Department of Homeland Security needs to upgrade their policies and more closely monitor and ensure effective treatment for immigrants living with HIV or AIDS,” said McLemore. “Otherwise these individuals will continue to suffer, and even die, in the care of the US government.”

Additional examples highlighted in the report:

Charles B., a Lawful Permanent Resident from Jamaica, became resistant to 13 leading AIDS drugs during more than four years in immigration custody;

Anna F., a 61-year-old woman born in Germany, failed to receive medically indicated treatment to prevent pneumonia;

Peter R., a pharmacist by profession, received a complete dosage of AIDS medication in immigration custody only 65 percent of the time, leaving him at risk of developing resistance to the drugs he depends on for survival.

Jean P., fleeing violent persecution in Haiti, has an AIDS-related condition that left him blind in one eye, yet this condition is inadequately monitored in immigration detention;

Gloria M., an AIDS counselor in Chicago, was told by jail officials that “the state won’t pay” for her HIV medications.

¿Habla español? Nothing illegal there

Don't be scared or litigious over folks speaking Spanish

Ruben Navarrette
08:49 AM CST on Thursday, December 6, 2007

There was one priceless scene in an episode of the PBS television show American Family in which the patriarch – played by Edward James Olmos – argues that there shouldn't be things like bilingual education and that here in the United States, everyone should speak English. His friend wholeheartedly agrees. What makes the scene funny is the irony: Both men are making their arguments in Spanish (with English subtitles).

The scene is a neat metaphor for the complicated views that many Hispanics have on the subject of language – views that often confuse non-Hispanics and create tension between the groups.

For instance, there are plenty of Hispanics who oppose bilingual education because they think it hurts kids by making it more difficult to learn English. Yet at home, many Hispanics tend to switch effortlessly between Spanish and English and make an effort to ensure that their children maintain their command of Spanish.

Not that they always succeed. The Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based research institution, recently reported that while half the adult children of Hispanic immigrants speak some Spanish at home, the percentage falls to a quarter or less for their children and grandchildren.

And despite the fact that many Hispanics are committed to learning English, many of them also flatly resent English-only laws or workplace rules prohibiting languages other than English.

That makes sense to me. Just because you think people should learn English doesn't necessarily mean that you think a government or private employer should coerce them into doing so through pressure, threats or intimidation. And for what purpose? Just because you think it is in a person's own self-interest to learn English doesn't mean that you need laws and regulations that seem intended to accommodate English speakers by forcing others to conform to the ways of the mainstream.

So don't be surprised if many Hispanics applaud the decision by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to sue the Salvation Army because its thrift store in Framingham, Mass., required employees to speak only English on the job. The requirement was posted, and yet at least two Hispanic employees defiantly continued to speak Spanish while at work. The EEOC claimed that their firings violated the law. English-only proponents said that the EEOC's position violated common sense.

The critics are wrong. It's not that a business doesn't have the right to expect its employees to speak English. It does. It just doesn't have the right to prevent workers from speaking languages other than English. That's what this case is about, after all – not a requirement that employees be able to speak English, but a rule that banned the speaking of other languages.

Of course, a business has the right to consider one's ability to speak English as a prerequisite for employment. But once the person is hired the employer shouldn't discriminate against some employees just to put other employees at ease.

The immigration debate is already splitting the country. Now language has become a proxy for the foreignerswho frighten us.

Library books frighten some folks in Lewisburg, Tenn. – library books in Spanish, to be precise. A while back, at the Marshall County Memorial Library, an employee named Nellie Rivera proposed a bilingual story time where children could have books read to them in Spanish. Some townspeople raised a fuss and demanded that all books in the library – whether bought with public funds or donated by private individuals – be in English.

The silver lining is that there are good folks in Lewisburg, and around the country, who scoff at such cultural censorship. As word of this bilingual backlash got around, outraged patrons began sending checks to the library that were specifically earmarked for buying Spanish-language books. Perhaps to tweak the opposition, some of the donations were in Ms. Rivera's name.

That's what I love about story time – in whatever language. There's usually a happy ending.


Ruben Navarrette is a columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune. His e-mail address is ruben.navarrette@uniontrib

Mexico: Cuban-Americans Aid Smuggling

By MARK STEVENSON Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — Cuban-Americans are financing the smuggling Cuban immigrants through Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, an illegal trade that is fomented by the U.S. policy of granting Cubans automatic asylum, Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said Monday.

A violent ring of immigrant smugglers operates in Mexico, where Cubans land on the coasts in rickety boats before crossing overland to the U.S. border, Medina Mora told reporters.

"This has been legally proved, that people of Cuban origin but who are citizens of the United States are involved, financing these people-smuggling operations, obviously with the complicity of Mexicans," the attorney general said.

"This has to do with U.S. policy toward Cubans," he said. "Those who make it to (U.S.) territory by their own means can get automatic refugee status, so that policy serves as an incentive" to smuggle Cubans here.

Under the so-called "wet foot, dry foot" policy, the U.S. turns back Cubans intercepted on the seas but grants asylum to most who make it to shore. To avoid capture by U.S. authorities before making it to land, many Cubans decide to go through Mexico.

Mexico is struggling to deal with a series of gangland-style slayings apparently related to the trafficking of migrants from Cuba, which lies only about 130 miles east of the Yucatan Peninsula, just slightly ****her by boat from Cuba than Florida.

In a new trend, nearly 90 percent of all undocumented Cubans who make it to the United States now travel overland rather than reaching U.S. shores by boat, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Mexico also is having problems with its burgeoning population of detained Cuban migrants, most of whom want to go to the U.S. Most Cubans are released after being held 90 days at a Mexican immigration center. Only about one-third of all those arrested in 2006 were repatriated to Cuba, Mexican migration officials say.

Last week, three Cuban immigrants were treated for dehydration at a Mexican hospital after going on a hunger strike to demand release from a detention center. They were returned to the center and are awaiting decisions in their cases.

Extortion hoax stuns Mexican Congress
Bogus abduction phone calls likely made by inmates

By GREGORY BROSNAN
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Nov. 30, 2007, 11:59PM

MEXICO CITY — One by one, the shrill rings of cell phones cut through the din of a typically raucous session in Mexico's Congress. Each lawmaker who answered got the same chilling news: A close relative had been kidnapped and that they should do as they were told.

The messages to the Mexican ruling party lawmakers turned out to be from phony kidnappers pretending to hold family members captive for ransom, giving birth to a disturbing new criminal trend.

So-called express kidnappings have been common in Mexico City for months. Victims are usually held at gunpoint for as little as 20 minutes while assailants empty their bank accounts from ATMs. Lately, though, extortion by telephone has emerged as a relatively risk-free way for criminals to prey on the public.

At least 13 deputies from the ruling National Action Party, or PAN, received the phony calls one after another during a parliamentary session on Tuesday. Each call demanded that up to $30,000 be deposited in nearby banks. The would-be extortionists claimed to be watching their victims and described clothes the deputies were wearing.

For Congress member Mirna Rincon, the shock was too much. A television camera caught her as she gripped her cell phone to her ear with a look of terror, then passed out.

Another lawmaker, Lizbeth Medina, noted afterward, "I said 'Hello, Hello,' and somebody screamed 'Mom, Mom!' about six times." She added, "I hung up because it wasn't my daughter's voice."

Authorities say the callers are often prisoners behind bars, using cell phones that have been smuggled into jail.

The extortion calls "could have happened to anyone," Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said. "Lawmakers are not immune to this."

gregbrosnan@mac.com