Feds Sue Local Landowners For Access to Their Border Property
Feb 08, 2008 Amy Isackson kpbs.org
The U.S. government is suing two landowners in Imperial County for access to their properties along the U.S.-Mexico border. The government wants to survey the land in preparation for building more fencing along the border. KPBS reporter Amy Isackson has the story.
The lawsuits are the first against California landowners.
The government has filed 47 more against people in Arizona and Texas.
Department of Homeland Security officials say there'll be 102 in all, with 20 total in California.
The government wants access to the border properties for about three months.
During that time, they'll send in contractors to survey the terrain in preparation for possibly building more border fencing, roads and structures government officials say will help secure the border.
A federal judge in San Diego ordered the landowner in one case to grant the government access.
The other case is still pending.
The landowner would not speak on the record.
The lawsuits have riled people in Texas and Arizona. Many fear they'll lose property that's been in their families for centuries.
February 5, 2008 BY SARAH A. WEBSTER FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
Ford Motor Co.'s future subcompact car for the United States, called Verve, will likely be built in Mexico, the Free Press has learned, adding to that nation's growing automotive industry, particularly for small cars.
Ford officials would not comment on their production plans for the European-engineered Verve, which was well-received at the Detroit auto show in January and is slated to come to market in the United States in 2010.
Two people with knowledge of Ford's production plans said the car is slated to be assembled in Cuautitlan, Mexico.
They did not want to be identified because the automaker has not yet publicly disclosed its decision.
Mexico would make sense, said Haig Stoddard, the manager of North American light-vehicle production forecasting for Global Insight, because movement of auto factories to that low-cost country "is escalating."
"In general, we still see capacity in the U.S. dropping ... and continuing to gradually rise in Mexico," he said.
Despite a new labor contract with the UAW, which lowered the wages of incoming hourly workers by about half, Stoddard and other experts said it still doesn't make sense to build the cheapest and smallest cars in the United States -- at least, not until a substantial number of older UAW workers have been replaced.
While some automotive analysts said the automaker is still considering Brazil as a possible location to build the new subcompact car, others said Mexico is a far more logical location.
"We've not identified where we would build our new subcompact car," said Ford spokesman Said Deep.
"I just don't think they'll make it in Brazil," said Erich Merkle, vice president of auto industry forecasting for the consulting firm IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids. "Mexico really makes the best sense for the subcompact."
That's especially true, Stoddard and Merkle noted, as consumers increasingly turn to smaller, economical cars in the face of higher gas prices. Last month, U.S. sales of subcompact cars increased 40%, while overall passenger cars sales declined by 2%.
But it is going to be difficult to meet that demand with U.S.-made cars, experts say.
Under the new Ford-UAW labor contract, the automaker can pay new workers a starting rate of $14.20 per hour, or about half the salary of outgoing UAW workers. The number of workers paid the lower wage will be limited to about 20% of Ford's UAW workforce. At GM and Chrysler, the lower wage is limited to new workers in noncore jobs.
"You're still going to have lower labor rates in Mexico for several years," Stoddard said. "It makes more sense to build smaller vehicles down there, that don't have large profit margins to begin with."
Merkle agreed.
"It's very difficult to make money on a vehicle like that in the U.S.," he said.
A host of fuel-efficient cars are already built in Mexico or are likely to be built there soon. Stoddard said that, among Detroit automakers:
"¢ Ford: The Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan and Lincoln MKZ are built in Hermosillo.
"¢ Chrysler LLC: The PT Cruiser and 2009 Dodge Journey will be built in Toluca.
"¢ General Motors Corp.: The Chevy HHR, Saturn Vue, and Chevy C2, which is sold outside the United States, are built in Ramos Arizpe.
In June, the Chevy Aveo will also begin production at a new GM plant in San Luis De Potosi. Stoddard said GM will increase production at that new plant from 150,000 cars a year to 400,000.
Aside from Mexico's low wages, the country is a favorable plant location, experts said, because of its proximity to the United States, especially the big auto markets of California and Texas. Ford can also export vehicles easily from Mexico to South America.
And there's already an established and growing supplier community there.
In a 2006 Ford internal document, published by the Free Press, Ford noted these benefits, as well as the willingness of the Mexican government to contribute incentives.
"Mexico is ready," Louise Goeser, president and CEO of Ford of Mexico, wrote. "Mexico is a key partner as we're targeting lower fixed costs."
After the Free Press published that document, Ford disclosed that it was investing in its assembly plants in Cuautitlan and Hermosillo, as well as an engine plant in Chihuahua.
The Cuautitlan plant, which opened in 1964 outside of Mexico City, has two production lines on its 1.2 million square feet. One line currently builds the F-Series and the other built a subcompact car called the Ikon until September.
But the automaker has never said what it would build in place of the Ikon. That line could easily be retooled to build the Verve, experts said.
Some experts suspect Ford would need more than one production line to satisfy global demand for the Verve. Merkle said the automaker might choose to build the car in both Mexico and Brazil.
Making the right decision about where to build the Verve could be important for Ford's future financial performance.
Ford reported a net loss of $2.7 billion for last year, compared with a record loss of $12.6 billion in 2006. And the automaker's management team has repeatedly said that Ford must re-establish its credibility in cars.
While Ford's new midsize cars, like the Fusion, have been successful, Ford hasn't sold a subcompact car in the United States since it ended the Ford Aspire after the 1997 model year.
The same factors that are encouraging other automakers to invest in Mexico will likely entice Ford there as well.
Greg Gardner, a Troy-based analyst for Oliver Wyman, a global consulting firm and publisher of the Harbour Report on automotive manufacturing efficiency, said: "You look at what GM is doing with its new plant in San Luis Potosi and it makes sense that Ford would look at upgrading Cuautitlan, especially since they have idle capacity there now."
Contact SARAH A. WEBSTER at 313-222-5394 or swebster@freepress.com.
Americans go to Mexico for a cheaper perfect smile
By Robin Emmott REUTERS 9:07 a.m. February 1, 2008
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – It was fear of the hefty bill as much as fear of the drill that kept American musician Don Clay away from U.S. dental clinics for 30 years.
When a sorely infected tooth eventually drove him to the dentist last month, it was to a clinic in a Mexican border city better known for violent crime and drug cartels.
Shrugging off concerns about hygiene and Mexico's brutal drug war, thousands of Americans are heading to Ciudad Juarez and other Mexican border cities for cheap dental treatment.
"I had to get my teeth fixed. I need a perfect smile to make a successful career in music. Treatment in the United States is so pricey," said Clay, a Texan trying to get a record deal as a hip-hop artist.
U.S. dental treatment costs up to four times as much as in Mexico, making it tough for uninsured Americans to treat common problems such as abscessed teeth or pay for dentures.
Wow, now if only MEXICANS WOULD STAY IN MEXICO AND STOP LEECHING OFF OF AMERICAN TAX PAYERS MAYBE . . . OH WAIT, AMERICANS HAVE TO PAY IN MEXICO AND MEXICANS CAN'T AFFORD TO RECEIVE ANY MEDICAL OR DENTAL CARE IN MEXICO SO THEY COME TO THE US AND SHUT DOWN OUR HOSPITALS AND EMERGENCY ROOMS WHILE WE GET STUCK PAYING THEIR BILLS.
Grandma Says ... "Take Care OF Your Teeth ... You Only Get One Set!" ... Good thing you listened ... You have the most beautiful smile and more money in your pocket!!
A recent study by the National Institute of Justice found that stalking was far more prevalent than anyone had imagined: 8% of American women and 2% of American men will be stalked in their lifetimes. That's 1.4 million American stalking victims every year. The majority of stalkers have been in relationships with their victims, but a significant percentage either never met their victims, or were just acquaintances - neighbors, friends or co-workers. [For information on how to receive a free copy of this study, see our research studies page.]
Types of Stalkers
There is tremendous confusion in the stalking research literature about how to classify stalkers. Everyone uses different terms. For the purposes of this web site, we have broken down types of stalkers into three broad categories: Intimate partner stalkers, delusional stalkers and vengeful stalkers. Obviously, there is overlap. Since studies show that the overwhelming number of stalkers are men and the overwhelming number of their victims are women, we will be referring to stalkers and their victims accordingly. I Know You Really Love Me delves into much greater detail and provides extensive case histories about each of these types of stalkers.
Intimate partner stalkers are typically known as the guy who "just can't let go." These are most often men who refuse to believe that a relationship has really ended. Often, other people - even the victims - feel sorry for them. But they shouldn't. Studies show that the vast majority of these stalkers are not sympathetic, lonely people who are still hopelessly in love, but were in fact emotionally abusive and controlling during the relationship. Many have criminal histories unrelated to stalking. Well over half of stalkers fall into this "former intimate partner" category.
In these types of stalking cases, the victim may, in fact, unwittingly encourage the stalker by trying to "let him down easy," or agreeing to talk to him "just one more time." What victims need to understand is that there is no reasoning with stalkers. Just the fact that stalking - an unreasonable activity - has already begun, illustrates this fact. When the victim says, "I don't want a relationship now," the stalker hears, "She'll want me again, tomorrow." When she says, "I just need some space," he hears, "If I just let her go out with her friends, she'll come back." "It's just not working out," is heard as "we can make it work out." In other words, the only thing to say to the stalker is "no." No explanations, no time limits, no room to maneuver.
A victim should say "no" once and only once. And then, never say anything to him again. If a stalker can't have his victim's love, he'll take her hatred or her fear. The worst thing in the world for him is to be ignored. Think of little children: If they're not getting the attention they want, they'll act out and misbehave because even negative attention is better than none at all. Former intimate partner stalkers have their entire sense of self-worth caught up in the fact that, "she loves me." Therefore, any evidence to the contrary is seen as merely an inconvenience to overcome. Since giving up his victim means giving up his self-worth, he is very unlikely to do so. Don't help him hang on.
Delusional stalkers frequently have had little, if any, contact with their victims. They may have major mental illnesses like schizophrenia, manic-depression or erotomania. What they all have in common is some false belief that keeps them tied to their victims. In erotomania, the stalker's delusional belief is that the victim loves him. This type of stalker actually believes that he is having a relationship with his victim, even though they might never have met. The woman stalking David Letterman, the stalker who killed actress Rebecca Schaeffer and the man who stalked Madonna are all examples of erotomanic stalkers.
Another type of delusional stalker might believe that he is destined to be with someone, and that if he only pursues her hard enough and long enough, she will come to love him as he loves her. These stalkers know they are not having a relationship with their victims, but firmly believe that they will some day. John Hinckley Jr.'s obsession with Jodi Foster is an example of this type of stalker.
The typical profile of delusional stalkers is that of an unmarried and socially immature loner, who is unable to establish or sustain close relationships with others. They rarely date and have had few, if any, sexual relationships. Since at the same time they are both threatened by and yearn for closeness, they often pick victims who are unattainable in some way; perhaps she is married, or has been the stalker's therapist, clergyman, doctor or teacher. Those in the helping professions are particularly vulnerable to delusional stalkers, because for someone who already has difficulty separating reality from fantasy, the kindness shown by the soon-to-be victim, the only person who has ever treated the stalker with warmth, is blown out of proportion into a delusion of intimacy. What these stalkers cannot attain in reality is achieved through fantasy and it is for this reason that the delusion seems to be so difficult to relinquish: Even an imaginary love is better than no love at all.
These delusional stalkers have almost always come from a background which was either emotionally barren or severely abusive. They grow up having a very poor sense of their own identities. This, coupled with a predisposition toward psychosis, leads them to strive for satisfaction through another, yearning to merge with someone who is almost always perceived to be of a higher status (doctors, lawyers, teachers) or very socially desirable (celebrities). It is as if this stalker says, "Gee. If she loves me, I must not be so bad." As Dean Martin compellingly crooned what could be considered the delusional stalker's anthem: "You're Nobody ˜Til Somebody Loves You." It is not unusual for this type of stalker to "hear" the soothing voice of his victim, or believe that she is sending him cryptic messages through others.
Some studies show that delusional stalkers are the most tenacious of all. Erotomanic delusions themselves last an average of ten years. How is this possible when the stalker has had little if any contact with his victim? As if drawn from the National Organ Donor Registry, the victim becomes the perfect match, with the potential to save the stalker's life. When the victim says "no," he rationalizes it away, believing that, "her husband made her get that restraining order, she really loves me," or "her agent told her it would be bad for her career if we dated, but she really loves me." Therefore, as with every type of stalker, it is imperative that victims have no contact.
The final category of stalker is not lovelorn. He is the vengeful stalker. These stalkers become angry with their victims over some slight, real or imagined. Politicians, for example, get many of these types of stalkers who become angry over some piece of legislation or program the official sponsors. But, disgruntled ex-employees can also stalk, whether targeting their former bosses, co-workers or the entire company. Some of these angry stalkers are psychopaths, i.e. people without conscience or remorse. Some are delusional, (most often paranoid), and believe that they, in fact, are the victims. They all stalk to "get even."
Former intimate partner stalkers and delusional stalkers can become vengeful for a variety of reasons. For example, when their victims get restraining orders, or marry. Why a stalker's anger is a very bad sign is described under what to do.
In general, for any type of stalker, the less of a relationship that actually existed prior to the stalking, the more mentally disturbed the stalker.
Mexican cop, now in El Paso hospital, is a marked man
By Bill Conroy, narcosphere.narconews.com Posted on Sun Feb 10th, 2008 at 05:30:39 PM EST
Mexican state police commander Fernando Lozano Sandoval is currently recovering from multiple gunshot wounds inflicted after gunmen ambushed his SUV on a boulevard in Ciudad Juárez on Monday evening. Jan. 21.
Lozano was one of three Mexican cops gunned down during a bloody shooting spree over the course of Jan. 20 and 21 in Juárez. The other two cops, who were municipal police officers, were not so lucky. They are both dead.
But Lozano is not receiving the critical medical attention he needs in a Juárez hospital. He is, in fact, under the care of physicians and nurses at El Paso's Thomason Hospital, which is now under the armed protection of U.S. law enforcement officers.
The extreme security at Thomason has created a backlash in the community of El Paso, located just across the Rio Grande from Juárez. Press reports indicate that El Paso residents are concerned about the safety of their community due to the Lozano's presence, fearing that their city has now been thrust into the front lines of Mexico's bloody narco-trafficking turf war.
If that is the case, it may well be officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that have put El Paso in that position. ICE sources tell Narco News that Lozano is an ICE informant who was marked for assassination because narco-traffickers in Juárez believe he tipped off U.S. law enforcers to the location of a stash house in the El Paso area that contained more than five tons of marijuana.
El Paso ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa, when asked about the Lozano case, said, "There are many aspects of this that I am not at liberty to discuss."
The El Paso Times also reported that "law enforcement officials would not discuss details of the lockdown for security reasons or whether Lozano was cooperating with U.S. authorities."
Likewise, a local El Paso TV station reported that the head of the El Paso Police Department is concerned that Lozano is in some way connected to drug-trafficking organizations in Juárez.
From a Jan. 24 report by KVIA-TV in El Paso:
Because of the implication of drug trafficking involvement, there was uncertainty as to the type of relationship Lozano might have with the cartels.
"I don't know if it was a positive or negative involvement relationship, but it required us to have some type of response to make sure if he were to be attacked at the hospital, citizens of the community wouldn't be injured as well," [Interim El Paso police chief Gregory] Allen said.
ICE sources, who spoke with Narco News under the condition that their names not be used, indicate that Lozano was not a normal informant. He is a U.S. citizen with dual citizenship in Mexico who just happens to work as a Mexican state police commander. In addition, they claim he was not officially documented as an ICE informant, as the agency's rules require, and his relationship with ICE was not through a special agent, as agency rules require, but rather he worked directly for an ICE supervisor in El Paso.
This "off-the-books" informant relationship, assuming the ICE sources are on the mark, would go a long way toward explaining why Lozano ended up in an El Paso's publicly owned county hospital and is now under the watch of heavily armed law enforcers from the El Paso Police Department, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office and ICE.
Bungled operation
Mexican state police commander Lozano was in his Jeep Cherokee on a street in Juárez when he was attacked on the evening of Jan. 21 by the occupants of two vehicles "” who unloaded some 50 rounds into the Jeep. Lozano was hit several times while returning fire, according to press accounts, and then, after the assailants had fled, he allegedly managed to stop another car, whose driver transported him to a hospital in Juárez.
While at the Juárez hospital, Lozano was under the protection of the Mexican military, which posted guards at the facility, press reports say. However, it is from this point that the official version of events departs from information supplied to Narco News by ICE sources.
The official line, according to ICE's Zamarripa, is as follows:
ICE was asked by the Chihuahua State Police to assist in coordinating and to help facilitate the crossing of Chihuahua state police commander Fernando Lozano Sandoval from Mexico into the United States. Lozano is a U.S. citizen who required medical attention and ICE assisted with his entry into the United States.
However, ICE sources claim the official version leaves out several key facts. They claim that it was Lozano's ICE handler, a supervisor in the El Paso field office, who coordinated Lozano's transfer from the Juárez hospital to El Paso's Thomason Hospital, and that he did so without getting the required approvals through the ICE chain of command.
The fact that ICE officially confirms that it was the Chihuahua state police who reached out to ICE for the assistance does not preclude that it was Lozano himself who made the contact "” since Lozano is a commander with the Chihuahua State Investigations Agency. Some press reports indicate that it was Lozano's family who requested the hospital transfer through the Chihuahua state police.
A statement released by Thomason Hospital makes it clear that the hospital itself did not initiate the chain of events that led to Lozano's move to El Paso.
From the hospital's press statement:
On the night of Tuesday, January 22, 2008, an El Paso EMS ambulance arrived at Thomason Hospital carrying a patient who had been critically injured. As is required by federal law of all U.S. hospitals, medical personnel began immediate treatment of the patient.
... Thomason did not accept the patient in transfer. The decision to transport the patient to Thomason Hospital was made by the first responders who were dispatched to the international bridge following a 911 call.
That hospital statement conforms with what ICE sources told Narco News. They claim the ICE supervisor, who operated Lozano as an informant, made the calls to arrange Lozano's transfer to Thomason Hospital. If ICE was officially acting in coordination with the Mexican state police to transfer Lozano, then why would they place a 911 call as opposed to coordinating directly with Thomason Hospital?
Why the ICE supervisor allegedly acted on his own to arrange Lozano's move to El Paso remains a mystery. ICE sources point out that Lozano clearly was at great risk in Juárez and they speculate that he also likely possessed information that could compromise ongoing ICE investigations, personnel or his "off-the-books" status as a U.S. government informant "” any of which might give him some leverage over the ICE supervisor.
Thomason Hospital spokeswoman Margaret Althoff-Olivas told Narco News that after the 911 call came in, an "El Paso EMS ambulance" was dispatched to one of El Paso's international bridges (she could not say which one) where it met up with an ambulance from Juárez that was transporting Lozano.
"Local El Paso police were asked by federal officials [ICE] to provide assistance at the bridge with the patient's (Lozano's) arrival in the U.S.," Althoff-Olivas says. "The EMS first responders assessed the patient and determined that he needed treatment at a Level 1 trauma care facility."
Thomason Hospital is the only Level 1 facility in the El Paso area.
Althoff-Olivas says that El Paso police arrived at the hospital with Lozano, but then left, since their assignment was completed. Simultaneous to that, she says, federal law enforcers (ICE) arrived at the hospital "” which leaves open the possibility that those ICE agents were notified of Lozano's transport to the hospital after the El Paso police were contacted.
ICE sources allege that it was the ICE supervisor who coordinated the 911 call and the call to the local El Paso police "” again, without clearing it first with the ICE Special Agent in Charge in El Paso. However, the ICE sources claim that ICE leadership in El Paso is now covering the tracks of that ICE supervisor. If Lozano was operating as an undocumented informant and ICE cases are at stake, then ICE leadership might well be inclined to keep the whole affair quiet to avoid further public scrutiny, law enforcement sources point out.
Whatever went down on that night, multiple sources have told Narco News that the "feds" clearly bungled the operation, including the security, which put the hospital in a dangerous spot, since it now has a man marked for assassination on the premises.
Press accounts of the incident back up the alleged bungled nature of Lozano's transfer to El Paso.
KDBC 4 News TV in El Paso reported the following on Thursday, Jan. 24:
For the past few days the hospital has been put on lockdown, with El Paso Police Officers and Sheriff's Deputies guarding the doors outside. However, El Paso Interim Police Chief, Greg Allen, said the Sheriff's Office "dropped the ball." He said Thomason Hospital staff called the police to guard the hospital even though it's a county facility "The point of this could have been handled better in my view," said Allen. "We can't be expected to pick up the ball when high level activities like this are done." [emphasis added]
Local press reports also make clear that the security detail was not put in place until Wednesday, the day after Lozano arrived at Thomason Hospital. That means even the ICE agents that arrived at the hospital at the same time as Lozano on Tuesday evening, Jan. 22, didn't stick around the whole night.
ICE sources point out that if this was a properly run operation, then ICE should have assured security was in place on the first night of Lozano's arrival at the El Paso hospital, for the protection of their informant and El Paso citizens. The fact that hospital officials had to make the calls to arrange that security is evidence, the ICE sources claim, that ICE command in El Paso was not clued into Lozano's alleged status as an informant.
However, ICE spokeswoman Zamarripa confirms that ICE is now working closely with the El Paso Police Department and the El Paso County Sheriff's Office "in providing security at the hospital."
"The Sheriff's office has the lead in the case," she says. "ICE is in a support role to the Sheriff's office."
Narco News sources also confirm that ICE agents are on-site at Thomason Hospital in a security role.
Attorney Mark Conrad, a former supervisory special agent with U.S. Customs, which has since become part of ICE, says the fact that ICE is now involved in providing security at the hospital indicates Lozano is connected to ICE in some way.
"With the shortage of ICE agents now on the southern border, why would ICE send agents there [to the hospital]?" he says. "There is a reason for it, but we don't know what that is."
In a high-profile case like this, involving a foreign country, it also would seem prudent for ICE to coordinate Lozano's transfer with other U.S. offices that have a major presence in Juárez, including the U.S. Consulate as well as DEA. However, that does not appear to have happened, which seems to lend more credence to the claim that Lozano's transfer from the Juárez hospital was not properly coordinated through the ICE chain of command.
Carlos Mitchem, a spokesman for DEA's office in Mexico City, told Narco News he is not aware of any involvement his office, or the DEA office in Juárez, had in the Lozano case. Likewise, Mathew Taylor, spokesman for DEA's El Paso office, says, "We were not involved in it."
Silvio Gonza***, public affairs officer for the U.S. Consulate General office in Juárez, also told Narco News that he is not aware of any involvement by the Consulate in assisting with the transportation of Lozano from Juárez to El Paso.
"[The ICE supervisor] was trying to keep the fact that Lozano was an informant secret, but after he was shot, he knew he had to do something because the [drug] cartel was going to try to finish him off," one ICE source alleges. "Most people inside ICE [in El Paso] didn't even know this was going on. Because Lozano was not documented [as an informant], he [the ICE supervisor] didn't follow the rules."
Snitch fingered
Lozano's ambush in Juárez stems from the discovery of more than five tons of marijuana in late December of last year at a warehouse in Horizon City, which is located about 17 miles east of El Paso along the Texas/Mexico border, ICE sources claim.
The drug bust, which received scant media attention at the time, was carried out by ICE, with some assistance from the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, and resulted in the arrest of four people linked to the warehouse, according to court records and an ICE press release.
From the ICE press release:
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents here on Wednesday seized 10,907 lbs. (almost 5½ tons) of marijuana discovered in a vehicle and a warehouse. The warehouse may have been a major stash house for a Juárez drug cartel. ... The investigation revealed the marijuana was scheduled to be shipped to cities such as Chicago and New York, where it would have had a street value of about $8 million.
"ICE took down a cartel's main stash house," said David F. Fry, acting special agent in charge for ICE's Office of Investigations in El Paso. "This was a significant seizure that dealt a strong blow to a major criminal enterprise. ...
The four individual arrested on the day of the warehouse raid are now pending trial in U.S. District Court in El Paso, which is under the jurisdiction of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton in San Antonio, Texas.
According to the complaint filed in that case against the defendants, ICE had set up surveillance on the warehouse prior to the drug raid. However, the complaint does not indicate how ICE was tipped off to the warehouse in the first place.
ICE sources claim Lozano was the source of that information "” and that is apparently what the narco-traffickers who controlled the warehouse believed as well. ICE sources tell Narco News that is why the hit was placed on Lozano as well as the two Juárez municipal cops killed just prior to Lozano being ambushed.
Assuming the allegations being made by these ICE sources are accurate, it would not be the first time that the ICE El Paso office was involved in informant-related shenanigans.
Between August 2003 and mid-January 2004, a dozen people were tortured and murdered in Juárez, and then buried in the ground behind a home that has since been dubbed the House of Death. Those murders were carried out with the help of an ICE informant (a former Mexican cop) who was a high-ranking member of a Juárez-based narco-trafficking cell.
ICE supervisors as well as a U.S. prosecutor in El Paso were aware of the informant's participation in the first murder at the House of Death, yet continued to utilize the informant, resulting in at least 11 additional murders.
After a DEA Special Agent in Charge in El Paso blew the whistle on ICE's involvement in the House of Death murders, that DEA commander, Sandalio Gonza***, was retaliated against and a cover-up orchestrated by high-level officials within ICE as well as the Department of Justice at the urging of U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, according to court records in Gonza***' successful federal discrimination case against the U.S. government.
In the case of Lozano, if he was serving as an ICE informant, then agency rules seem to dictate that he should have been properly documented. ICE sources indicate that a possible reason Lozano was not documented was to assure there was no paper trail that might somehow leak out through law enforcement channels and jeopardize his position in Mexico as a state police commander.
Narco News obtained an ICE memo that outlines some of the requirements for properly documenting an informant (also referred to as a Confidential Source).
From the ICE memo:
"The original source [informant] ID card will be mailed to HQ [ICE headquarters in Washington, D.C.]. ... The source file will contain a sealed envelope with the source's photograph. ... An opening Report of Investigation will be located in the source file documenting information provided by the source. ... For payments of $25,000 and below there will be documentation in the source file detailing justification for the payment. For payments over the $25,000 level, there will be a completed and signed 14-point memorandum to HQ requesting the payment.
If Lozano was working as an undocumented informant for an ICE supervisor, then the memo makes it clear that relationship was outside the bounds of standard agency regulations. In addition, in such a case, ICE sources contend Lozano could not have been paid for his service without violating the rules governing informants.
"And a professional informant does not work for free. They do not take those kinds of risks for nothing," an ICE source says. "So what was Lozano getting in exchange for being an informant?"
The answer to that question "” as well as Lozano's true relationship to ICE "” remains an official mystery at this point.
One law enforcement veteran explains that if there is no documentation at ICE proving Lozano is an informant, ICE can now wash their hands of him and claim they know nothing. Unless Lozano has some leverage on ICE, or the ICE supervisor he worked for, that is likely what will happen, the source says.
Lozano will eventually have to be released from the hospital to a rehabilitative facility to complete his recovery. When that time comes, given the high risk he poses, who will then provide the security?
And when Lozano is finally able to return to his life in El Paso (since he certainly has no more life in Juárez), will there be some innocent bystander, maybe even a small child, with the misfortune to be near him when the next round bullets are unleashed?
Kind citizens of El Paso, welcome to the drug war, courtesy of the U.S. government.
More immigrants to get green cards before full review
By MARISA TAYLOR McClatchy Newspapers ajc.com published on: 02/11/08
Washington "” In a major policy shift aimed at reducing a ballooning immigration backlog, the Department of Homeland Security is preparing to grant permanent residency to tens of thousands of applicants before the FBI completes a required background check.
Those eligible are immigrants whose fingerprints have cleared the FBI database of criminal convictions and arrests, but whose names have not yet cleared the FBI's criminal or intelligence files after six months of waiting.
The immigrants who are granted permanent status, more commonly known as getting their green cards, will be expected eventually to clear the FBI's name check. If they don't, their legal status will be revoked and they'll be deported.
The decision to issue green cards demonstrates how federal agencies are struggling to keep up with surging immigration applications while applying stringent post-Sept. 11 background checks.
About 150,000 green card and naturalization applicants have been delayed by the name check, with 30,000 waiting more than three years.
DHS officials are determining exactly how many are affected, but confirmed that tens of thousands of people could be eligible for the expedited procedure. The new policy was outlined in an internal memo obtained by McClatchy Newspapers. Officials said the policy will be posted this week on the department's Web site.
Lawyers who represent immigrants applauded the change and predicted green cards would be issued faster.
However, advocates of stricter immigration enforcement accused DHS of creating security loopholes and not solving the problem.
"It defies the imagination that you can require a security check only to decide that you're going to ignore it," said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies.
DHS officials said the new process does not pose new security risks because green card applicants have been allowed to remain in the country while they wait to be screened.
"This is something that we're doing to get benefits to people who deserve them as quickly as possible," said Chris Bentley of Citizenship and Immigration Services, the DHS agency that processes green cards and citizenship.
Immigrants seeking citizenship will continue to be required to clear name checks before being naturalized. Officials said the requirements remain in effect for naturalization because U.S. citizenship is more difficult to revoke than a green card.
The backlog of background checks swelled in the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks after immigration officials resubmitted 2.7 million names to the FBI.
At the same time, the bureau tightened its background check requirements. The FBI not only runs applicants' names against lists of suspects in criminal and intelligence files but also looks for names of applicants that have surfaced during the course of an investigation or any associates of suspects.
"It's a very complicated process," said Bill Carter, a FBI spokesman. "It involves dozens of agencies and databases and often foreign governments."
Adding to the backlog, a surge of applications flooded Citizenship and Immigration Services last year, prompted partly by fee increases.
Although the FBI clears about 70 percent of the name checks within 72 hours, the bureau struggles to keep up with more than 74,000 requests per week, roughly half arising from immigration applications.
Slowing the process even more, many applicants who don't immediately clear are flagged for extra scrutiny because their names are similar to those of suspects.
Hundreds of people caught up in the backlog have sued the government to force the agencies to initiate background checks. Some of the plaintiffs have found the FBI inexplicitly clears them soon after a lawsuit is filed.
Michael Baylson, a judge in Philadelphia overseeing six of the lawsuits, recently expressed frustration with the government for what he described as "a strategy of favoring delay by litigation, instead of developing an orderly and transparent administrative resolution."
"Congress certainly did not intend for the process to become tortuous, expensive, mystifying and delayed, but it has," the Bush appointee wrote in January when ordering the government to explain the delays.
Critics have charged the naturalization delays could unfairly shut potential voters out of the upcoming presidential election. Last month, Emilio Gonza***, director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, vowed to hire 3,000 new and retired employees to cut the backlog.
Immigrant advocates question why applicants waiting for naturalization couldn't be approved before the FBI clears their names, too. Many people who apply for naturalization are green card holders who have lived in the United States for at least three years and have undergone similar background checks before.
"These people already have been scrutinized," said Daniel G. Anna, an immigration lawyer.
Two of Anna's clients, a Pennsylvania psychologist and a doctor who works at a New York veterans' hospital, have waited years to become U.S. citizens even though they have green cards. The doctor, who is from Pakistan, recently cleared the name check after she filed a lawsuit, but the psychologist, who is from Nigeria, is still waiting.
"If you're going to speed it up for green cards, then it makes sense you would do the same thing for naturalization," Anna said.
Krikorian said the better solution would be for Congress and the administration to earmark more money for both agencies to conduct the complete background checks or to reduce the number of people who are eligible for green cards or citizenship.
Libertad ⇒ "Ignorance and obscurantism have never produced anything other than flocks of slaves for tyranny." "” (Emiliano Zapata's letter to Pancho Villa)
NEXT PRESIDENT WILL TONE DOWN ANTI-IMMIGRATION RHETORIC
by Cynthia Tucker Atlanta-Journal Constitution Sat Feb 9, 7:56 PM ET
So much for Tancredoism.
Tom Tancredo is the Colorado congressman who ran for the Republican presidential nomination on a simple platform of nativism and undisguised contempt for illegal immigrants. Since his ill-tempered and simplistic views reflected the sentiments of the hard-core Republican base, several other members of the GOP field adopted a similar mean-spirited rhetoric.
As Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney -- Republican hopefuls with moderate records on illegal immigration -- tacked toward Know-Nothingism, Arizona Sen. John McCain stood largely apart, resisting the impulse to blame illegal immigrants for everything from terrorism to high taxes. As his signature legislation to legalize undocumented workers was routinely excoriated as "amnesty" by conservative talk-show hosts and right-wing bloggers, McCain barely budged.
In November, during a Republican debate in St. Petersburg, Fla., his GOP rivals worked to prove their anti-immigration bona fides, citing their support for such dubious measures as high fences and hot pursuit of Mexican landscapers. A clearly unenthusiastic McCain pledged to tighten the borders but declined to ratchet up his rhetoric.
"We must recognize these are God's children as well," he said. "They need our love and compassion, and I want to ensure that I will enforce the borders first. But we won't demagogue it."
Now, McCain is the likely Republican nominee. Among the losers in last Tuesday's mega-primary was the Tancredo Credo, which placed illegal immigrants at the center of every peril and every problem facing the American voter. With both remaining Democrats -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- having voted for comprehensive immigration reform, there is little chance the Oval Office will be occupied by an anti-immigration mossback.
Even Republican voters have moved immigration down to their second most-important issue, after the economy, according to Super Tuesday exit polls. The war in Iraq ranked third among GOP voters. Democrats, meanwhile, don't list immigration among their top three concerns. Instead, they emphasize the economy, the war in Iraq and health care.
Illegal immigration remains a complex and nettlesome issue, requiring a thoughtful and measured response. That, by the way, was represented by the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive reform bill, which failed when Republicans, despite support from President Bush, refused to vote for it.
While illegal immigrants burden the social infrastructure -- schools, hospitals and housing -- they also revitalize many neighborhoods as they open new businesses and buy additional goods and services.
Many immigrant children will start elementary school with poor English skills. That forces teachers to work harder and places an undue burden on schools that are already overcrowded. But those Mexican and Guatemalan schoolchildren will learn to speak English quickly because language skills are more easily acquired in youth. (The relative youth of illegal immigrants also helps the United States solve a demographic problem: As the U.S. birth rate falls, we are aging as a nation. We need a steady supply of younger workers.)
At the very bottom of the wage scale, illegal immigrants probably take a few jobs away from uneducated and marginalized American laborers. But the effect is minimal, according to researchers. The most comprehensive analysis has found that illegal immigration depresses wages no more than 50 cents to 60 cents an hour -- hardly a figure that makes or breaks a budget.
Those subtleties were drowned out by the Know-Nothing demagoguery that dominated the Republican presidential campaign. But with the GOP race largely settled -- and with Obama and Clinton conscientiously courting Latino voters -- the rhetoric will likely moderate.
That's because voters didn't fall for the scapegoating premise of Tancredoism. It was a bad product, and few voters bought it.
About the Author: Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a syndicated columnist whose commentary appears in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Back in 1966, it took a high profile raid of a Mardi Gras party at the Jackson Country Club to break the back of the nation's last statewide prohibition law.
After lawmen raided the party - attended by many of the state's social elite and several statewide elected officials - the Legislature repealed the statewide liquor ban and stopped winking at illegal liquor sales and consumption.
Now, 42 years later, federal officials have for the second time in two years caught the Jackson Country Club knowingly employing illegal immigrants. In September 2006, the feds arrested 18 illegal immigrants employed at the swanky private club.
Later that same year, as many as 43 illegal immigrants were shown to have been in the club's employ. Even after being caught, the club continued to employ the workers - saying their presence was "necessary for business."
The Jackson Country Club situation points up the hypocrisy and political grandstanding that the illegal immigration issue produces in this state and nation. During the 2008 legislative session, another spate of punitive bills has been introduced - including some downright silly ones - to make the state appear "tough" on illegal immigration.
But at the same time, legislators know as did the golfers and socialites at Jackson Country Club that immigrant workers likely to be illegal were serving their food and drinks, mowing their lawns and performing any other manual labor they didn't want to do for themselves.
Illegal immigration is a problem - as former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott was pilloried for recognizing - that begs for a comprehensive national solution, not piecemeal state fixes that aren't enforced. Mississippi doesn't need any more "feel good" immigration laws.
The fact of life is that many Mississippians who talk the talk against illegal immigration don't walk the walk. They see nothing wrong with hiring immigrant laborers - but they operate in a "don't ask, don't tell" fog of hypocrisy.
The one part of the Jackson Country Club debacle that is laudable is the fact that the feds are levying a substantial fine of $214,000. Only by punishing employers for failing to document workers will the supply-and-demand economics of illegal immigration be thwarted.
But as the folks over at the golf course are asking themselves today: "Who will do all this work that we weren't able to hire Jackson-area citizens to do?" Who, indeed? And for what costs?
Legislators should ponder that question before raising their hands to pass pandering state immigration enforcement laws.
From Katrina debris removal to the poultry industry to construction to landscaping to other Mississippi industries, immigrants have stepped in to fill labor shortages that our own citizens won't fill. Don't think so? Ask the country club set what they think about it.
Read reactions to this story
newtrick wrote:
"Who will do all this work that we weren't able to hire Jackson-area citizens to do?" Talk about a hard question - and one that usually sends a much needed conversation in the wrong direction. Twenty years ago we answer the nobel call to increase adult literacy by saying, "without an education, the only job you'll be qualified for is to ask folks what size fries they want with their burger". We're doing much the same with drop-out prevention - a nobel call as well. Our "sticks" versus "carrots" approach does not affirm the dignity of work that does not require post-secondary education and/or training. The benefits of an educated, trainable workforce are obvious;
however, it's not others we need to change but ourselves - teach all children to read; offer schools so good people want to drop-in; and promote the dignity all work provides and the documented benefits to children in working parent families regardless of family income. A positive approach will bring positive results.
The failure of Congress to reform U.S. immigration laws last summer was disappointing on many levels. Most troubling was the consequence of that failure for a vulnerable population: the 5 million children of illegal immigrants. People like the Diaz children of Windsor Mills - Edwin, 13, and Cynthia, 8.
As The Sun's Kelly Brewington reported recently, their mom was taken from home by immigration officers and deported to El Salvador, leaving her husband, a legal resident, to care for their children. It is hard to see how anyone gains from the government's action in this case, and easy to imagine the losses.
The nation's increasing emphasis on immigration enforcement lacks a strategy to cope with the moral consequences of that policy. Comprehensive immigration reform is dead for now, but simple changes in the law could at least give immigration judges greater flexibility to consider the effects on children when making deportation rulings.
Immigration enforcement is on the rise, especially workplace raids, which account for a small but rapidly increasing proportion of immigration arrests, according to a study for the National Council of La Raza and the Urban Institute. It found that, on average, the arrest of 100 illegal immigrants in a workplace raid will affect 50 children - many of whom may be U.S. citizens.
Those children can be traumatized, impoverished, even physically abandoned when parents disappear. The vast majority of them will grow up in the U.S.
As Randy Capps of the Urban Institute points out, "The law, as written, leads to family separation," even as it does very little to deter illegal immigration. The situation was better before changes in the law greatly tied immigration judges' hands.
Now, only an illegal immigrant who has been in the country at least 10 years and can prove "extreme" hardship to a child under 18 has any chance of avoiding deportation. That standard is too tough, and it offers no hope to those facing automatic removal orders; they never get to see a judge at all.
Maryland has the 11th-highest total of illegal immigrants: 225,000 to 275,000, according to a 2006 estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center. The need to deal sensibly and compassionately with them is one reason this page supported last year's immigration compromise.
We still hope for a wide-ranging solution to this vexing issue that goes far beyond the scattershot, punitive approach of many bills pending in the Maryland General Assembly. Absent that, Congress should restore judicial discretion in deportation hearings, if not out of compassion for illegal immigrants, then at least for the children's sake.
Businesses need immigrant workers but extremists 'are stirring the pots of hatred'
By Tom Harvey The Salt Lake Tribune Updated: 02/10/2008 07:06:28 AM MST
On the one hand, they want a legal immigrant work force in order to prosper or even to survive. On the other, they have been steamrolled by an opposition that crushed the recent proposal in Congress to reform the nation's immigration laws.
The federal raids took out about 10 percent of Swift's work force in Utah and five other states in December 2006. If that were a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I moment for other Utah businesses, the reality is that the nation's wink-wink system of employing illegal workers has changed little since then.
Indeed, that was unscored Thursday when immigration agents raided Universal Industrial Sales, Inc., in Lindon, and detained 50 undocumented workers, charged the metal fabrication business with haboring illegal aliens and arrested its human resources manager.
In the Swift case, court records show that the company dutifully filled out required forms known as I-9s when hiring employees. The company also had used a federal program under development called Basic Pilot, which was meant to help identify the illegal use of Social Security numbers. Workers were required to present a Social Security card and another form of government-issued ID with a matching photo. Beyond that, Swift was legally required only to keep the information in its files.
Records show that undocumented Swift workers simply purchased SSNs and IDs on the street for about $800, which easily got them work.
JBS Swift & Co., the new name of the company bought by the Brazilian meatpacker JBS S.A. in July, turned down several requests for interviews.
But experts argue that a meatpacking company the size of Swift had to have known whether it hired workers without proper documents.
"It stretches credulity to state they had no idea they had these workers," said Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C. think tank.
For businesses such as construction, landscaping, agriculture, hospitality, meat processing and food services, hiring immigrants has become a matter of course. But with strenuous opposition to "amnesty" for the 12 million undocumented people already in the U.S. (an estimated 100,000 in Utah) stalling federal immigration reform or other reforms that might create a guest-worker program, Swift's labor problems are now widely shared by others.
"It's now much bigger than a meat-processing issue," said James Mintert, professor of agriculture economics at Kansas State University. And if the Swift raids exposed the meatpacking industry's practice of hiring low-wage immigrants who used stolen or fake IDs to get jobs they could not have gotten legally, the aftermath also has raised plenty of questions about immigrant labor in Utah - and there appear to be few answers. Normally, business interests in Utah and nationally are politically powerful, but in the case of immigration-reform legislation they backed in Congress this year, they've found themselves overwhelmed. Utah's senators received perhaps 100 calls in opposition for every 10 in favor of the immigration-reform bill that failed to pass the Senate in June, said Clark Ivory, CEO of Ivory Homes, the state's largest home builder.
"The reason that immigration reform has failed is that extreme elements are stirring the pots of hatred. [They] are anti-Hispanic, very vocal and very vindictive with these politicians," Ivory said. "A moderate, thoughtful and quiet voice that comes from business is not heard over that extreme voice that comes from the far right wing."
The business community wants to abide by the law, and it wants the nation to control its borders, he said. But that community also wants reform that provides an adequate skilled and unskilled work force, which has been a constant challenge in recent years.
In the past two decades, Utah's economy has gone through changes that have created a greater need for more low-skilled workers than a native-born population could or would want to fill, said Pamela Perlich of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Utah.
During that span, Utah saw a huge boom in commercial and residential construction - projects such as the LDS Church conference center, facilities for the 2002 Winter Olympics and the rebuilding of Interstate 15 and construction of TRAX light rail.
In addition, a demographic shift to a higher percentage of workers with four-year college degrees (10.2 percent in 1960, compared with 26.1 percent in 2000) meant more Utah-born workers landed higher-paying jobs.
"As more of our native-born population moves up the ladder, we still continue to have demand for people in tortilla factories or meatpacking plants or people to clean buildings or make beds in hotels," Perlich argues.
But there are plenty of people inside and outside the business world who don't buy that argument. Robert Wren, for one, thinks something more sinister is in play.
Wren is chairman of UFIRE, a Utah group advocating enforcement of the nation's existing immigration laws, and although he agrees that "business needs a work force," he argues that "what has happened is that having an illegal immigrant work force allows them to get a cheaper employee.
"They aren't willing to pay what the job should be paying to get an American to do it," he said. "And by hiring more and more illegal immigrants, we basically depress the wage rates in America."
Ivory and Perlich counter that it's not that simple and that there is no way to fill available jobs without resorting to immigrant labor. Economists, too, generally agree that the nation as a whole has benefitted from immigrant labor - but disagree on how much native-born, low-skilled workers who directly compete with immigrants have been hurt economically by the influx.
Regardless of who's right, Utah businesses have been lobbying Congress for reforms that would expand the number of visas available for workers, not only those in entry-level jobs but also those in highly skilled positions, such as the high-tech sector.
"Without effective immigration reform, there's going to be a huge shortage of labor for the construction industry," said Scott Parson, president of Staker & Parson Cos., a Salt Lake City sand and gravel, concrete and road construction company. He has been involved in the immigration question on behalf of the Salt Lake Chamber.
Ivory and others worry that with federal legislation stalled and a new presidential administration still a year away, the Utah Legislature might step into the void the way its counterparts have in a few other states, where laws against hiring illegal workers have been tightened and immigrants' use of public services has been restricted.
RH Reality Check Posted February 8, 2008 alternet.org
Over the summer, the 110th Congress failed to push through flawed, yet essential legislation that would have moved the immigration debate forward. Despite this setback, comprehensive immigration reform will continue to be a key issue throughout future election seasons and legislative sessions.
Immigration is a multifaceted issue, but one component that should not be overlooked as progressives continue to work on this issue is the reproductive health of immigrant women.
About 36 million foreign-born people live in the United States as of 2005--12 percent of the U.S. population. Over half of these immigrants are from Latin America, just under one-third are from Asia, 14 percent are from Europe, and the remaining 6 percent are from Africa, North America, and elsewhere. Slightly less than 50 percent of these 36 million immigrants are women, and 95 percent of these women are of childbearing age.
Female immigrants, both documented and undocumented, often work in industries that are low-wage and do not offer health insurance. They may not speak English and are likely to have reduced access to culturally and linguistically competent reproductive health information and services. As a result, access to affordable, quality reproductive health care is of significant concern to these women.
A vocal anti-immigrant lobby has touted sweeping mischaracterizations about immigrants, including beliefs that immigrants do not contribute to the economy and that they are to blame for skyrocketing health care costs. Each of these assumptions is incorrect. Immigrants are net-contributors to the U.S. economy, including $7 billion annually to the Social Security Trust Fund alone, and they consume significantly less health care than native-born Americans.
A Progressive Agenda Connects Reproductive Justice with Immigrants' Rights
Reproductive justice involves more than the right to end a pregnancy. Safeguarding an individual's right to determine her or his own reproductive future is an integral part of an overall agenda to promote social justice. That vision includes the ability of all people, whether American-born or immigrant, to:
Become a parent and parent with dignity. Determine whether or when to have children. Have a healthy pregnancy. Have healthy and safe families and relationships. Rejecting the efforts of comprehensive immigration reform opponents to control the reproductive decisions of immigrant women is an important component of ensuring continued reproductive freedom for all Americans and the humanity of all immigrants. By investing in the reproductive health care needs of female immigrants, we ensure a society that is healthy, productive, and just.
Population Control Efforts Have Been Tied to Anti-Immigrant Sentiments in the Past
Racially restrictive immigration policies have peppered U.S. history. Some policies have tried to control the population's composition by barring admission to a number of women of childbearing age from specific countries or ethnic groups. The Page Act of 1875, for example, served to restrict the entry of "obnoxious" Asian individuals from entering the United States. The law claimed to deny entry to prostitutes and unskilled laborers but functioned primarily to prevent Asian women, including the wives of immigrants already living in the United States, from entering the country.
The early 1900s saw attempts at population control and social engineering by the eugenics movement. The philosophy behind the movement purported to improve the human race through reproductive interventions, including selective "breeding" and forced sterilization of "undesirable" populations. Even as recently as the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of Latinas, especially those of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent, were sterilized in public hospitals following childbirth without their knowledge or fully-informed consent.
Anti-Immigrant Sentiments Threaten the Reproductive Rights of Immigrant Women Today
Even today, efforts to manipulate the composition of the U.S. population persist.
Anti-immigrant policies create barriers to immigrant women's reproductive health care
In most states, immigrants who have been in the United States for less than five years -- regardless of their legal status -- are denied Medicaid coverage for essential reproductive health care, such as prenatal care, despite the fact that they pay taxes and contribute to the economy. Only emergency services like labor and delivery are covered.
The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 requires that American citizens applying for or enrolled in Medicaid must present proof of citizenship, such as a U.S. passport or birth certificate, before receiving services. Although it does not disqualify documented immigrants who have met other eligibility requirements from receiving Medicaid coverage, the DRA has resulted in many eligible immigrants mistakenly thinking they have to be citizens in order to obtain services.
These legal barriers, combined with cultural and economic obstacles, have led to immigrant women receiving fewer basic reproductive health care services such as annual Pap smears, breast cancer screening, HIV/AIDS testing, and access to contraceptive options.
Right-wing rhetoric about immigrant women's reproductive decisions has been used to influence the recent immigration debate
Anti-immigrant activists have accused immigrants of sneaking across the border to have "anchor babies" in the United States so that the child can then sponsor the parent to live legally in the United States. The reality is that by law a person must be 21 years of age in order to sponsor a parent to obtain permanent legal residence.
Currently, parents may be separated from their children and deported to their country of origin at any moment, which causes great anxiety and stress for their American-born children who must choose between living with their parents and pursuing educational and economic opportunities. The fear of immigrant women giving birth to citizen babies led to the introduction of the Citizenship Reform Act of 2005, reintroduced this session as H.R. 133 with a companion bill called the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007 (H.R. 1940). These measures would flout the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship by denying citizenship to children whose parents are not citizens or permanent resident aliens.
The conservative think tank Center for Immigration Studies has published a report that argues that the "family values" of immigrants are not as strong as commonly believed, given that their out-of-wedlock birth rates are roughly equivalent to that of American citizens. The implication is that any policies that make it easier for immigrants to enter the United States or become citizens will contribute to what conservatives see as the further erosion of so-called American family values.
This type of rhetoric is likely to resurface as Americans continue to debate our country's immigration policies. Progressives must be ready to identify these attacks and respond.
Organizations Working on Immigration and Reproductive Rights
The National Coalition for Immigrant Women's Rights is comprised of a number of organizations that are working together to support comprehensive immigration reform and social justice for all immigrants. Founding members include:
Legal Momentum
National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health National Organization for Women
This fact sheet was created and originally published by the Center for American Progress.
Problems with communication, carriage of firearms, jurisdiction impede efforts
By DEAN BEEBY The Canadian Press Mon. Feb 11 - 6:19 AM
OTTAWA "” A tangle of conflicting laws on both sides of the border is tying the hands of joint Canada-U.S. border squads, undermining efforts to nab international criminals, says a newly released report.
Team members can't radio one another. They have to surrender their sidearms when crossing into the other country. And they're forbidden from crossing the Canada-U.S. boundary except at official border stations, even though criminals prefer the isolated points in between.
"Communication among partners and the co-ordination of activities has not been fully achieved," says the document, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
"Legislative issues pertaining to the carriage of firearms across the border and to the jurisdiction of law enforcement personnel, combined with the lack of enforcement resources, mostly on the Canadian side, are impediments to the pursuit of criminals or suspects across the border."
The censored internal report, prepared by the Public Works Department, examines the first five years of the Integrated Border Enforcement Teams, or so-called IBETs, which expanded nationally in April 2002.
The teams include RCMP officers, Canadian and U.S. border guards, American immigration and customs officers, and the U.S. coast guard.
The Mounties, the lead agency for Canada, have committed 150 officers and $25 million a year to the program, which traces its roots to 1996 when officers in British Columbia began working closely with their counterparts in Washington State.
There now are 23 IBET teams situated along 15 regions of the Canada-U.S. border, poised to catch drug smugglers, illegal immigrants and terrorists. An estimated 240 crime groups use the border for illegal activities.
The evaluation of the IBETs, completed in late 2006, found a raft of problems, including incompatible radios that won't communicate with equipment from the other side of the border.
The radio problem is partly legal: a cat's cradle of federal, state and provincial laws require special licensing to use designated frequencies on each side of the border. There are also technical hurdles, which a stopgap solution in place since 2002 has failed to resolve.
Gun laws in each country also effectively prevent officers from routinely carrying their duty sidearms and similar weapons into the other country.
Canadian laws are so strict, in fact, that an RCMP officer who is given extraordinary dispensation to carry a sidearm into the United States must forfeit the weapon at the Canadian border on re-entering Canada.
Laws in each country also force all IBET officers to check in at official border stations before crossing into the other country, forbidding them to cross at isolated areas preferred by criminals.
The hurdles are in sharp contrast to Europe, where seven countries "” Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria "” have signed the Prum Convention, which enables close police co-operation, including the cross-border carriage of weapons.
The RCMP director of the IBET teams cautions there are no quick solutions to the problems cited by the evaluation.
A $1-million, year-long pilot project to be announced next month will field-test a new radio system that will harmonize equipment and avoid the legal quagmire of telecommunications laws, said Insp. Warren Coons.
"We believe that the legal issues won't be a part of it, and that the technical issues will be resolved as well, as far as taking disparate radio systems and matching them up and allowing us to communicate with each other," he said in an interview.
Talks are also underway between Washington and Ottawa to draft a policing treaty that would resolve many of the jurisdictional issues.
The president of Mexico made his first trip to the United States since he was elected into office.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon touched down in New York on Sunday, and is expected to make several stops across the country.
He also has plans to meet with Governor Schwarzenegger during his trip.
Some say coming to the U.S. during an election year is good timing on the part of the Mexican President.
"His visit can push immigration to the top of the agenda and force the candidates to talk about it. And he can showcase the benefits and the hard work of the Mexicans that are here in the U.S.," said Camille Cook, an Immigration Attorney in Fresno.
Some Valley residents also believe President Calderon's visit to the U.S. will be a step in the right direction for the immigration debate.
"I think he has an opportunity to let people know he cares about them, and that he is trying to give them freedom to come into our country," said Fresno resident Johnny Rey Barreno.
President Calderon will not be meeting with President Bush or any of the remaining presidential candidates, but he is expected to speak about issues such as border control, deportations and drivers licenses for illegal immigrants.
Mother of two happy to be alive after losing legs in accident By MARSHA DORGAN Register Staff Writer Thursday, February 07, 2008 AddThis Social Bookmark Button
The Napa woman whose legs were crushed when she was hit by a drunk driver Sunday night has a long, tough road to recovery.
Doctors at Queen of the Valley Medical Center operated on Lilian Clark the night of the crash, amputating both of her legs just above the knee, according to her husband, John Clark. Clark, 38, is the mother of two boys, 4 and 6. She was pinned between the rear ***per of her car and a 1990 Plymouth driven by Francisco Pacheco, 24, of Napa.
The crash happened around 6:30 p.m. Sunday on South Terrace Drive, north of Shetler Avenue.
After the crash, Pacheco put his car in reverse and sped away from the scene. Neighbors followed him to his house about a block away, where they held him until police arrived and arrested Pacheco on felony DUI, hit and run and driving without a valid license. Pacheco has a prior misdemeanor DUI conviction from January 2007. He is on probation.
He is being held in the county jail on $100,000 bail.
Pacheco does not have auto insurance.
"I have no idea at this time what will be involved in Lili's recovery. I know there will be months, maybe years of rehab, and she will have to be fitted for prosthesis," her husband said.
A fund has been set up to help the family with medical expenses and to bring Lilian Clark's family from Chile, where they live, so they can help out with the children and their family member's recovery.
Donations may be made at Washington Mutual Bank, 699 Trancas St., Napa, 94558. The account is under the name Lilian Clark and Children.
Clark said that on the night of the accident, his wife had double-parked her car and was putting their sons, Jake and Sam, in their child safety seats.
"She went around to the back of the car to get to the driver's door. I was right there. I said ˜see you later,' and within a split second I heard tires screeching and saw this car come roaring down the street about 50 miles an hour and just slam into the back of Lili's car, pinning her between the two ***pers," Clark said.
With the impact of Pacheco's car, John Clark said, "The trunk popped open, and she flew inside. Then, the guy threw his car in reverse and left. Lili just fell to the ground in a heap. The neighbors ran out of the house. I was yelling ˜Call 911.' They said they already had and asked me which way the guy went. They followed him in their car and found his car parked in front of his house down the street.
"I was holding Lili. She was conscious. All she kept saying was ˜Check the kids.' Her legs were crushed, and she was just worried about the kids," he said. "The kids were crying and saying ˜What happened to Mommy?' The neighbors helped me and we kept the kids from seeing what happened. Just horrific, horrific is the only way I can describe it."
Doctors amputated her legs that night. "There was no way they could save her legs." She had over 60 breaks in her bones, Clark said.
Clark said his wife had undergone her third operation on Tuesday. "She knows what has happened. She's such a strong woman, I just can't believe it. Like I said, her main concern is the kids.
"They took the tubes out Tuesday and she got to see the kids. They need to know that mom is going to make it. Lili is in good spirits. She feels very fortunate to be alive. That woman is just remarkable," Clark said.
Victim lost both legs from crash; husband founded Napa's Minuteman chapter
By MARSHA DORGAN Napa Valley Register Saturday, February 09, 2008
Federal immigration officials have asked that Napa authorities hold without bail the man charged with felony DUI and hit and run in an east Napa accident that resulted in the amputation of a woman's legs above the knee.
Francisco Pacheco, 24, is in Napa County jail on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold. ICE seeks holds on criminal suspects who the agency believes may be in the United States illegally. Such holds may result in deportation.
On Feb., 3, Pacheco, who was intoxicated, was driving his 1990 Plymouth on South Terrace Drive when he plowed into the back of Lilian Clark's vehicle, which was doubled-parked.
Clark, 38, had just finished securing her two sons, 4 and 6, in their car seats and was walking around the back of her car to get to the driver's door. Pacheco hit the rear ***per of Clark's car, pinning her legs between her ***per and his front ***per.
Pacheco, who is on probation for a 2007 DUI conviction, fled. He was chased by Clark's neighbors, who found him about a block away and held him until police arrived.
In addition to the current charges and the 2007 DUI conviction, Pacheco was picked up last July for misdemeanor DUI. That case is pending, according to Napa County Chief Deputy District Attorney John Goold.
Pacheco had no insurance and does not have a valid driver's license.
If found guilty of the charges from Sunday's incident, Pacheco is looking at a maximum of six years in state prison, Goold said.
John Clark, the husband of the victim, has been active in the movement to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States.
"I am passionate about people coming to this country legally. I certainly learned that with the battles I fought to bring Lili here," he said.
Clark said his wife is improving each day.
"I took the kids to see her. They know that something terrible happened to their mom because they were in the car when she was hit. When we went to the hospital, she showed them she didn't have any legs. My son asked her, ˜Why did the bad guy take your legs?'" But Lili is such a remarkable person. She is so strong. She is more worried about the kids than herself."
Dan Johnson, the Napa County Department of Corrections acting director, said when an inmate is placed on Immigration and Custom Enforcement hold, he is interviewed by ICE to determine if he is in the country illegally. If ICE, which is under Homeland Security, determines the inmate is here illegally or violated his or her visa, a deportation hearing is held.
"If it is ruled the person is to be deported, the individual is sent to a penal institution in Arizona to await for transport to their native country," Johnson said.
Johnson said if the person is in custody at the jail and a criminal complaint has been filed, the deportation issue is dealt with after the criminal case is adjudicated.
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Those children can be traumatized, impoverished, even physically abandoned when parents disappear. The vast majority of them will grow up in the U.S.
As Randy Capps of the Urban Institute points out, "The law, as written, leads to family separation," even as it does very little to deter illegal immigration. The situation was better before changes in the law greatly tied immigration judges' hands.
Now, only an illegal immigrant who has been in the country at least 10 years and can prove "extreme" hardship to a child under 18 has any chance of avoiding deportation. That standard is too tough, and it offers no hope to those facing automatic removal orders; they never get to see a judge at all.
Maryland has the 11th-highest total of illegal immigrants: 225,000 to 275,000, according to a 2006 estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center. The need to deal sensibly and compassionately with them is one reason this page supported last year's immigration compromise.
We still hope for a wide-ranging solution to this vexing issue that goes far beyond the scattershot, punitive approach of many bills pending in the Maryland General Assembly. Absent that, Congress should restore judicial discretion in deportation hearings, if not out of compassion for illegal immigrants, then at least for the children's sake.
Hmm Isn't Maryland one of the states that offered drivers license to undocumented? Along with North Carolina who is also recognizing the same problem.
I totally do not understand this so called punitive approach as it is called. If the family needs to be kept together, then the husband should take the children and follow his wife. isnt that what most people would do??
If the wife was put in jail here for a crime.. would that not seperate the family . so what is their argument justifiable stupidity or what?
Those children can be traumatized, impoverished, even physically abandoned when parents disappear. The vast majority of them will grow up in the U.S.
As Randy Capps of the Urban Institute points out, "The law, as written, leads to family separation," even as it does very little to deter illegal immigration. The situation was better before changes in the law greatly tied immigration judges' hands.
Now, only an illegal immigrant who has been in the country at least 10 years and can prove "extreme" hardship to a child under 18 has any chance of avoiding deportation. That standard is too tough, and it offers no hope to those facing automatic removal orders; they never get to see a judge at all.
Maryland has the 11th-highest total of illegal immigrants: 225,000 to 275,000, according to a 2006 estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center. The need to deal sensibly and compassionately with them is one reason this page supported last year's immigration compromise.
We still hope for a wide-ranging solution to this vexing issue that goes far beyond the scattershot, punitive approach of many bills pending in the Maryland General Assembly. Absent that, Congress should restore judicial discretion in deportation hearings, if not out of compassion for illegal immigrants, then at least for the children's sake.
Hmm Isn't Maryland one of the states that offered drivers license to undocumented? Along with North Carolina who is also recognizing the same problem.
I totally do not understand this so called punitive approach as it is called. If the family needs to be kept together, then the husband should take the children and follow his wife. isnt that what most people would do??
If the wife was put in jail here for a crime.. would that not seperate the family . so what is their argument justifiable stupidity or what?
Until recently, there were 8 states that gave illegals drivers' licenses. Since the Sptizer debacle was made public and Hillary flip flopped on the issues, only 4 remain. Those four states are currently reviewing and considering revocation of this catastrophic idiocy.
As for separation of families:
ITA. Of course the fact that millions of them have "separated their families" by leaving them behind in Mexico is always negated such as the one holed up in the Aldaberto church, no LaRaza outrage that this so called "mother" hasn't seen her 3 children in SEVEN YEARS . Many start NEW FAMILIES after arriving here of course there is NEVER any mention of that fact either.
Separating families only counts when the US is deporting an illegal alien mother who has deliberately given birth after coming to this country in order to USE that child as a meal ticket/welfare recipient. The reality of the situation is they don't want to be separated from that monthly check and link card, the children are merely pawns in their scheme to garner media sympathy.
That being said:
Notice that the perpetually criminal drunk driver who caused the woman to lose both her legs status is FINALLY be checked. But of course we already know that he's an illegal alien from Mexico.
Manager Crescenciano Montiel supervises the installation of a fountain at the Valle Paraiso water park in Ixmiquilpan, Mexico. "Little by little, things have improved" in Mexico, he says.
Construction workers apply stucco at the 7,000-home Paseos de San Juan housing development in Zumpango, Mexico. The country is experiencing a housing boom as lenders make it easier for the growing middle class to get mortgages.
Shopping malls have multiplied: A wasteland once used for evaporating chemicals from groundwater is now the site of the Las Americas mall in the Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec.
In Mexico, an energized economy raises hopes
By Chris Hawley, USA TODAY February 11, 2008
IXMIQUILPAN, Mexico "” As Mexicans risk their lives to illegally emigrate to the USA and shootouts among drug lords continue to dominate the news, it's understandable why Mexico might be perceived as a place with little hope. Yet in places such as this tourist town that caters to the burgeoning middle class outside Mexico City, many Mexicans say their future looks brighter than it has in generations.
On weekends, a line of Chevrolet hatchbacks and other inexpensive new cars snakes into parking lots at the town's water-slide parks. There, tourists munch on $2 corn dogs, snap pictures with digital cameras and spend some of their modest incomes. Every year, their numbers grow, the town's tourism department says. And every year, they have a little more to spend.
"The last five or six years have been good for Mexico," says Crescenciano Montiel, 34, manager of the Valle Paraiso water park. "Little by little, things have improved."
Such stories abound, involving Mexicans of all income levels. The economy is growing steadily, and poverty rates are declining significantly. Crime is down, public health and education levels are improving, and Mexico's democracy is more robust than at any time in its history.
"The country is stronger than ever," says Leon Krauze, a political author and television host in Mexico. "We have managed to overcome many of the political and economic tempests that used to threaten us."
As the debate over illegal immigration percolates in the USA, there are hopes on both sides of the border that Mexico's improving economy eventually will provide enough jobs to encourage significant numbers of Mexicans to stay and prosper in their country.
There are signs that's starting to happen.
The brighter economic outlook in Mexico is one reason the number of migrants caught by U.S. border agents has declined 20% during the past year or so, although tighter border enforcement and the slowing U.S. economy also are factors, says Wayne Cornelius, a University of California, San Diego, specialist in Mexican migration.
Continued improvements in Mexico would be good for the U.S. economy, says Eduardo LorÃa, an economist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Mexico bought $126 billion in U.S. goods between January and November last year, up 25% since 2004. Mexico likely would continue to buy more if its economy continued to improve, he says.
Reduced Mexican emigration and an increasingly stable government here also could ease turmoil along the U.S.-Mexican border, Krauze says. Immigrant smugglers have brought violence to the U.S. side, engaging in shootouts in the Arizona desert, attacking Border Patrol agents and kidnapping each other's clients on U.S. soil.
"In terms of the tensions that are very evident as far as migration and the turmoil along the border, I would hope that, in a decade, if Mexico continues along this path and begins to see these microeconomic benefits, the United States would see a reduction in those areas," Krauze says.
For now, though, problems remain.
Corruption and a feeble legal system are constraints on growth here, and there is still an acute shortage of well-paying jobs. And Mexico's dependence on the United States for exports and cash remittances could leave it especially vulnerable to a U.S. recession.
Even so, Mexicans such as Montiel cite increasing examples of how their country is undergoing a slow but dramatic transformation.
Born into a farming family of 14 siblings in Ixmiquilpan, 70 miles north of Mexico City, Montiel says he could have headed to the USA like many of his relatives and neighbors.
Instead he went to college with a small scholarship, got a business degree and worked at a bank and insurance company. Montiel and his wife have one child, a 2-year-old daughter, a reflection of how Mexican families have become smaller in recent years, thanks in part to better planning. The fertility rate is 2.1 children per woman, on par with the U.S. rate and just enough to keep population levels stable.
In 2003, Montiel persuaded his family to build a water park on a corner of their 25-acre farm, using water from a thermal spring formerly used for irrigation. The park has five swimming pools, three water slides, a restaurant and a nine-room inn, and is visited by 800-1,500 people a month.
"We've been subsidizing it with our crops, but I think this year we're going to break even," Montiel says as he supervises installation of a faux-rock fountain topped with a fiberglass dolphin. "This is going to be the new family business."
A stabilizing economy
Such displays of entrepreneurship and optimism were uncommon a decade ago, when Mexico was reeling from an economic meltdown and an armed uprising in the southern state of Chiapas. Banks collapsed nationwide under a mountain of unpaid loans.
Politically, Mexico was monopolized by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had used payoffs, intimidation and election fraud to rule the nation under a virtual one-party system since 1929.
But change was in the air.
The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement opened a huge market for Mexican-made goods, spurring the construction of factories along the U.S. border.
Meanwhile, a new generation of government technocrats, many of them Ivy League graduates, began to tame the runaway public spending and inflation that had locked the Mexican economy in bust-and-boom cycles for generations.
In 2000, the conservative Vicente Fox became the first president from outside the PRI in seven decades. Under Fox and his successor, Felipe Calderón, inflation has averaged about 4% a year with no major financial meltdowns.
"The stability of the past decade-plus has allowed financial markets and banks to grow up. Mortgages exist now. People can get loans. There has been a birth of a middle class in Mexico," says Gray Newman, head economist for Latin America at Morgan Stanley investment bank in New York.
Economic growth has been modest, averaging about 3% per year, but the greatest improvement in living standards among Mexico's 103 million people has been seen among those of humble means "” surprising, perhaps, given the historic gap between rich and poor.
"All of the international indicators show improvement," LorÃa says. "And it's not just improvement in poverty. There's improvement in equality as well."
Mexico's economy created roughly 950,000 jobs last year, according to the government.
That is a major improvement from a decade ago, when job growth was nearly flat, but still not quite enough to absorb the 1.1 million Mexicans who entered the workforce in 2007.
That disparity, plus the fact U.S. jobs often pay five times as much as those in Mexico, is a major reason why migrants continue crossing into the USA, Newman says.
However, if Mexico's economy keeps growing at similar or slightly better rates, and if population growth continues to level out, then within a generation there might not be enough working-age people to fill its labor force, says Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, a Mexico specialist at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.
Mexico "could go over the next 20 years from being an exporter of people to an importer of people," Martinez-Diaz says. "That would be a pretty remarkable change."
The emerging suburbs
Perhaps nothing is more emblematic of Mexico's transformation than the rows of identical, low-cost houses growing like corn on the dusty plain in places such as Zumpango and Tecamac, north of Mexico City.
At the 7,000-home Paseos de San Juan subdivision, construction workers move in waves across the ground, seemingly unable to meet demand fast enough "” one team pouring concrete, others applying stucco, running cable and installing windows.
At the sales office, former schoolteacher Manuel Navarro waited to pick up the keys to his new retirement home.
Navarro built his first house the traditional Mexican way: He saved a little money, bought some blocks and mortar and built it himself, one room at a time, over 15 years. Mexican cities are full of such half-finished homes.
Navarro's new home "” a two-bedroom, two-story concrete town house "” cost him $41,200 with financing through a housing fund for government employees. "Who wants to wait 15 years for a house anymore?" he says.
In all, 1.2 million homes were purchased using mortgages in 2007, up from 476,788 in 2000. Most of the mortgages were arranged through Infonavit, a government-backed fund that has doubled its lending in seven years.
Navarro credits Mexico's move to a multiparty democracy for the change.
"When the PRI was in power, you could get housing credit from the government, but only if you were a party member or from a PRI town," he says. "Things are more transparent now, more open to everybody."
After decades in which big-ticket items had to be purchased with cash, credit is available for other purchases at terms more typical of developed countries.
At Abamex Chevrolet in Mexico City, supermarket clerk David Galvez, 20, and girlfriend Priscilla Torres were shopping for their first new car.
"I've pretty much decided on that one," he says, pointing to a burgundy hatchback called the C2, which sells for $7,300.
Chevrolet was offering interest-free, 30-month financing to any buyer who supplied a 35% down payment.
A rapid transformation
At places such as Las Americas shopping mall, which opened two years ago on the site of an old chemical factory in the suburb of Ecatepec, many of the shoppers are a generation or two removed from peasants who lived the same way for centuries.
Its movie theater buzzes with people lining up to see the latest Will Smith flick, families shop for puppies at the pet store, and the food court is full of shoppers eating McDonald's and Chinese fast food.
The transformation has been so rapid that some people "” particularly those who lived through economic meltdowns in 1982 and 1994 "” fear the prosperity could vanish just as quickly.
"People have houses and cars and things, but they're in debt," says Susana Hernández, 34, between bites of an ice cream cone in the food court of the mall.
"I'm afraid a lot of people are going to be out on the street because they don't know how to manage credit," she says.
Some Mexicans are cynical about progress because of their country's long history of high hopes followed by devastating crises, Krauze says.
"We are a country that loves its historical scars," Krauze says. "People don't listen to the good side of the story."
Crime may be an example of how public perceptions have yet to catch up with reality.
The nationwide crime rate has been dropping steadily since 2001, according to the independent Citizens' Institute for Studies on Insecurity. The murder rate has fallen 23% during the past decade.
Such good news, though, has been overshadowed by the drug war in cities along the U.S. border.
Beheadings, shootouts in daylight and a wave of police killings have convinced many Mexicans their country is not safe.
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After the crash, Pacheco put his car in reverse and sped away from the scene. Neighbors followed him to his house about a block away, where they held him until police arrived and arrested Pacheco on felony DUI, hit and run and driving without a valid license. Pacheco has a prior misdemeanor DUI conviction from January 2007. He is on probation. 
"She went around to the back of the car to get to the driver's door. I was right there. I said ˜see you later,' and within a split second I heard tires screeching and saw this car come roaring down the street about 50 miles an hour and just slam into the back of Lili's car, pinning her between the two ***pers," Clark said. 
"I was holding Lili. She was conscious. All she kept saying was ˜Check the kids.' Her legs were crushed, and she was just worried about the kids," he said. "The kids were crying and saying ˜What happened to Mommy?' The neighbors helped me and we kept the kids from seeing what happened. Just horrific, horrific is the only way I can describe it." 
Doctors amputated her legs that night. "There was no way they could save her legs." She had over 60 breaks in her bones, Clark said. 
Federal immigration officials have asked that Napa authorities hold without bail the man charged with felony DUI and hit and run in an east Napa accident that resulted in the amputation of a woman's legs above the knee.
In addition to the current charges and the 2007 DUI conviction, Pacheco was picked up last July for misdemeanor DUI. That case is pending, according to Napa County Chief Deputy District Attorney John Goold.
Pacheco had no insurance and does not have a valid driver's license.
"I took the kids to see her. They know that something terrible happened to their mom because they were in the car when she was hit. When we went to the hospital, she showed them she didn't have any legs. My son asked her, ˜Why did the bad guy take your legs?'" But Lili is such a remarkable person. She is so strong. She is more worried about the kids than herself."
"If it is ruled the person is to be deported, the individual is sent to a penal institution in Arizona to await for transport to their native country," Johnson said.
justifiable stupidity or what?
