They go through a lot of trouble just to be exploited ! Who is being exploited; the illegal worker or the American taxpayer?

oh my God this dummy's still messing with the same over and over. I'll tell you again and write a thesis on this. THERE IS NO EXPLOTATION of Mexicans or anybody else. ILLEGALS ARE CRIMINALS, why? because THEY CHOOSE to jump over the fence, sneak into my country like thieves in the night, the women CHOOSE to cross the border and drop their puppies right there on the ground but is guaranteed all types of benefits that belong to us.

ILLEGALS are CRIMINALS because even before they reach our country they decided to break all the laws and use our country to wipe their behinds. How? by not following OUR RULES and OUR LAWS. They don't go to our consulates around the world, take a number, and wait their turn. They CHOOSE to jump over the fence, hide in ships, pretend to be TOURISTS, and so on. Therefore, NO TO AMNESTY!!! SEND ALL ILLEGALS BACK!!!

Mexican children filling U.S. schools
01:58 PM CDT on Sunday, April 29, 2007
Associated Press

HOUSTON – Thousands of Mexican children are flocking across the U.S. border to attend school, sparking a debate in towns along the border over whether U.S. taxpayers should have to bear the costs of educating them.

The border crossing is so common in El Paso that officials opened a special lane just for students this month. The Houston Chronicle reported Sunday that more than 1,200 people passed through that lane from Mexico on a recent morning. Some were college or private school students, but many were coming to attend public schools.

The influx has prompted complaints from those opposed to spending U.S. tax dollars to teach students from Mexico. The issue is especially timely in El Paso, where the school district – which expects to take in 10,000 new students in the next five to eight years – is preparing for a $230 million bond election for new schools next month.

Elaine Hampton, a professor at the University of Texas-El Paso, says the strained state of public education in Mexico pushes many students across the Rio Grande, just as the hope of better jobs entices their parents.

The growth of Mexican border towns like Ciudad Juarez far outpaces the government's ability to build schools, Hampton said, forcing many to turn away students. Mexican schools also can be too expensive for some parents, charging fees for books, photocopies and sometimes even the cost of administering a test.

Although many school officials are unhappy about the situation, they say there are few ways to control the number of Mexican residents attending their schools. As long as a parent or guardian has proof of residency in that school district – such as a water bill or lease – their child can attend. Many of the students were born in U.S. hospitals, making them U.S. citizens who live in Mexico. Others use the addresses of American friends or relatives.

Community pressure has pushed other districts to crack down on those who violate residency requirements. Susan Carlson, a spokeswoman for the United ISD in Laredo, said her district's schools are extra vigilant with residency checks and recently began fining students found breaking residency rules. Luis Villalobos, a spokesman for the El Paso Independent School District, said the district has seven officers checking out potentially false addresses.

NEWS World:
Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Mexican journalists have grown impatient as more of their colleagues are murdered, kidnapped or threatened because of their work. Increasingly, the media have directed their frustration toward the office designed to provide them justice: the Special Prosecutor for Crimes Against Journalists.

Created amid fanfare in 2006 by then-President Vicente Fox, the office is now seen by many media organizations as a toothless entity without the resources or political will to successfully prosecute crimes committed against journalists.

The sense of urgency increased this month after the fatal shooting in Acapulco of Amado Ramirez, a reporter for Televisa, Mexico's largest television network. Ramirez was shot weeks after airing an investigation on drug traffickers, and his slaying prompted hundreds of journalists to rally for greater protections.

On Wednesday, the Vienna-based International Press Institute reported that Mexico's seven murders in 2006 made it the second-deadliest nation for journalists, behind Iraq. Media watchdogs said the violence is tied to warring drug cartels, often in league with corrupt police, who hope to intimidate journalists from reporting their activities.

In his first interview with the foreign press, Special Prosecutor Octavio Orellana defended his office's accomplishments but acknowledged he could use more manpower. Orellana said he often has to borrow investigators from the Attorney General's office because his budget is limited.

"I am satisfied that the work is being done, but I am not satisfied because we would always want more results," said Orellana, a lawyer and criminologist who assumed the post in March. "Like everything in life, if you have more human elements, a larger budget, you think you can do more."

Journalists have been under siege for decades, especially near a U.S. border region that remains a trouble spot. Just last week, the body of crime reporter Samuel Noe Martinez of the newspaper Interdiario was found wrapped in a blanket after he had been kidnapped from a town on the Arizona border.

Journalists hailed the creation of the special prosecutor's office as recognition that the violence had become a national crisis. But political analyst Jorge Zepeda said that the move created a false sense that the Mexican government took the problem seriously.

"The prosecutor was created by Fox as a demagogic, rhetorical attempt to lower the pressure in the public over the violence against journalists," said Zepeda, a former editor at newspapers in Mexico City and Guadalajara.

Jose Antonio Calcaneo, a newspaper editor in the city of Villahermosa, complained that President Felipe Calderon has not been any more willing than Fox to take on the issue. Calcaneo has seen the threats up close. An investigative reporter at competitor Tabasco Today, Rodolfo Rincon, was kidnapped in January, reportedly after receiving threats.

"Calderon declared himself against this wave of violence, but in his deeds, this has translated into nothing. Absolutely nothing," said Calcaneo, president of FAPERMEX, a national federation of media organizations. "They have practically made the special prosecutor disappear."

Calcaneo also said Orellana, the special prosecutor, has "shirked his responsibility" by not staking out his jurisdiction over crimes against journalists.

Orellana said he prefers to hand over cases in which journalists appeared to have been victims of organized crime to SIEDO, an arm of the Attorney General's office that investigates those groups. In defending his performance, he also noted that many cases remain at the state level and never make it to his office.

Without giving details, Orellana said his office could close some cases soon.

Orellana said he would support making crimes against journalists automatic federal cases. He said many reporters are threatened because they are investigating state authorities, and that the public generally has more confidence in the integrity of federal prosecutors.

"Sometimes, journalists complain that the ones who are complicating their work are the local authorities themselves," Orellana said.

Carlos Lauria, Americas program director at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, said the special prosecutor has not achieved any "breakthrough results," but blamed a generally "dysfunctional" justice system. Lauria noted progress in some investigations and said a federal prosecutor was still an improvement over state authorities who often are corrupt or inefficient.

Some colleagues of Ramirez, the slain Acapulco reporter, have complained that state investigators in Guerrero have botched the probe. Two men were arrested days after the killing but were released on bail.

Orellana said his office will push efforts to prevent, not merely prosecute, crimes against journalists. Staffers are training reporters how to preserve threatening e-mails and text messages that could later be used in criminal prosecutions, for example. About half of the office's 68 investigations in 2006 involved threats.

NEWS World:
Mexico
May 1, 2007
ATF agent: 5 planned to attack Mexicans

Bail denied after raids netted grenades, arrests of self-proclaimed militia

11:15 PM CDT on Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Five members of a self-styled militia were denied bail Tuesday after a federal agent testified that they planned a machine gun attack on Mexicans.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Armstrong said he could not grant bail to the five because of the agent's testimony and the amount of weapons – including about 200 homemade hand grenades – seized in raids Friday in northeast Alabama.

"I'm going to be worried if I let these individuals go at this time," he said.

Adam Nesmith, an agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified that the five planned a machine-gun attack on Mexicans in Remlap, just north of Birmingham, and went there on a reconnaissance mission April 20. The five are Raymond Kirk Dillard, 46; Adam Lynn Cunningham, 41; Bonnell Hughes, 57; Randall Garrett Cole, 22; and James Ray McElroy, 20.

During the raids last week, agents recovered 130 homemade hand grenades, a grenade launcher, about 70 hand grenades rigged to be fired from a rifle, a machine gun, a short-barrel shotgun and 2,500 rounds of ammunition, authorities said.

Local and federal officials returned to the area Tuesday because authorities got information that explosives could be hidden in a cave.

At the hearing, Agent Nesmith said Mr. Dillard told an undercover agent that the group, which calls itself the Alabama Free Militia, viewed government agents as "the enemy" and had a standing order to open fire if anyone saw government agents approaching.

The judge approved $10,000 bail for a sixth defendant, 30-year-old Michael Wayne Bobo, at a later hearing. Mr. Bobo, who is being kept in custody until at least today, was charged with being a drug user in possession of a firearm. The other five were charged with conspiring to make a firearm.

Meth production flourishes south of the border

11:51 PM CDT on Friday, April 27, 2007
By LAURENCE ILIFF / The Dallas Morning News
liliff@dallasnews.com

MEXICO CITY – The anti-drug operation was in the works for months. And the news would be big, officials said. But when Mexican police burst into a plush home in the capital's exclusive Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood last month, guided in part by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, they were taken aback.

They found stacks and stacks of crisp, green U.S. $100 bills. In closets, in drawers, and suitcases. The attorney general's office arranged the bills into a huge, bed-shaped platform, with Ben Franklin beaming from a thousand eyes. The first estimate by authorities put the take at $100 million. Then the bill-counting machines came in and the figure topped $200 million. It was the biggest drug cash seizure ever.

There was another surprise. The money did not belong to one of Mexico's powerful drug cartels, nor did it represent profits from the sale of traditional drugs such as Colombian cocaine, Mexican marijuana and black-tar heroin.

Rather, authorities said, it was amassed by a naturalized Mexican from China, Zhenli Ye Gon, who is accused of using his Asian contacts to illegally import the precursor drugs to make the new star of the U.S. and Mexican drug markets: methamphetamine.

As a U.S. crackdown against meth labs and precursor chemicals has been drying up domestic production in recent years, the Mexican cartels are enthusiastically filling the void, U.S. and Mexican officials say. Moreover, officials say, meth has advantages for the cartels over even highly profitable cocaine. It is a highly addictive drug that can be made at home, smuggled easily and reap huge profit margins.


Authorities seized weapons and $205 million last month – the biggest drug seizure ever – from a home in Mexico City. Agents believe the fortune was amassed by importing drugs that are used to make methamphetamine. Like the nonamphetamine designer drug "cheese" that is causing deaths in the Dallas area, cheap meth distributed through existing drug channels may be the coming nightmare on both sides of the border.

In September, police in Fort Worth reported a record seizure of methamphetamine: more than 48 pounds, with a street value of $3 million. In March, a convicted methamphetamine dealer was charged with the fatal shooting of a Dallas police officer, Senior Cpl. Mark Nix.

Mexican cartels are not just supplying demand for meth, a Mexican official said, but creating it as well.

"What we are seeing is a manipulation of the drug markets," said Santiago Vasconcelos, deputy director of international and legal matters for Mexico's attorney general's office.

"It is a diabolical plan by these criminal organizations" to increase sales of homemade amphetamines as an alternative to South American cocaine, which must be grown, processed, and transported thousands of miles.

"The lesson we get from this is very painful," said Mr. Vasconcelos. "The American people have yet to wake up from the nightmare of synthetic drugs, especially the nightmare that has brought them to methamphetamines."

It costs 20 cents to make a dose of meth that garners $20, he said in an interview.

Amphetamines can be taken as a pill, smoked as "ice," snorted as "crystal," or dissolved in water like the club drug "ecstasy," or MDMA. Some of the varied forms are old, some are new, but together they threaten to create new U.S. addictions and financially strengthen the Mexican cartels and their war against each other and the government.

DEA concerns
"Methamphetamine is something we're very concerned about, because we go back to our history in the early '80s when cocaine was not a big deal here," said Steven M. Robertson, DEA special agent for congressional and public affairs.

"Then, all of a sudden, it took off, and we were playing catch-up. DEA has learned from the cocaine flood in the '80s and we're saying, OK, [with] methamphetamine, we don't want to get to the point where they're bringing in thousand-kilo amounts," he said in an interview.

The effects in Dallas, and across the U.S., could be devastating over time. Meth addicts are infamous for their obsessive addictions and failure to care for themselves, which causes their teeth to fall out and leaves their emaciated bodies susceptible to illness. This is especially true among those who inject or smoke the drug.

In contrast, ecstasy, an amphetamine derivative taken as a pill, is best known as a "club drug" that causes hours of energy followed by lethargy.

Use of amphetamines has not exploded in the U.S., but the promise of a drop-off due to the U.S. crackdown on precursor chemicals and drug labs has not materialized – because of increased Mexican supply.

Rising addictions
And hard-core addiction seems to be rising quickly.

The U.S. Justice Department's "National Methamphetamine Threat Assessment" found that while the total number of meth users had stayed steady from 2002 to 2004 at about 600,000, the percentage of addicts within that group had increased significantly.

The number of people admitted to programs for treatment of methamphetamine-related drug use rose from about 68,000 in 2000 to nearly 130,000 in 2004, the report said.

One reason, it suggests, is the influx of Mexican ice methamphetamine, similar in its addictive qualities to crack cocaine.

"Smoking methamphetamine may result in more rapid addiction to the drug than snorting or injection, because smoking causes a nearly instantaneous, intense, and longer-lasting high," the report said. Seizures of ice along the Southwest border rose from 260 pounds in fiscal 2003 to nearly 1,500 pounds in 2005.

U.S. and Mexican officials do not agree on Mexico's role in meth production.

A.J. Turner, section chief for the FBI's criminal investigative division, said in an interview that Mexican cartels are the source of 85 percent to 90 percent of the methamphetamine in the U.S., according to the agency's intelligence. "The supply is on the Mexican side; the demand is on the United States side," he said.

Mr. Vasconcelos said suggestions that Mexico had become the dominant supplier to the U.S. were false. While U.S. meth lab seizures number in the thousands each year, Mexico raids about 100 labs annually, he said.

He described Mexico as an "incipient" producer that is now cracking down on the illegal import of precursor chemicals, such as ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. Mexico needs about 70 tons a year of pseudoephedrine for legal drugs but has imported as much as 240 tons year. It is now getting a handle on imports, although China remains a problem, he said.

Likewise, all ephedrine and pseudoephedrine coming into Mexico – 100 percent – passes through U.S. ports such as Long Beach before arriving in Mexico. Finger-pointing by U.S. officials, Mr. Vasconcelos said, only plays into the cartels' hands.

"The challenge here is to see ourselves as the community that we are; to see ourselves as neighbors," he said.

More labs in Mexico
According to the U.S. government's 2007 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, more methamphetamine labs are turning up on Mexican soil, and increasing amounts of the drug are being seized.

"Seizure statistics for cocaine and methamphetamine during 2006 demonstrate Mexico's significance as a production and transit country," the report says.

The suspect in the huge cash seizure in mid-March, Zhenli Ye Gon, was an important middleman for Mexican cartels because he was importing massive quantities of pseudoephedrine, a common cold medicine that can be easily transformed into amphetamine, Mexican authorities said.

Mr. Vasconcelos said the suspect appeared to be a legitimate businessman who found a profitable side business diverting pseudoephedrine to Mexican and U.S. meth producers. The fact that he was unable to launder the $205 million found in his home shows that Mexican bank controls are working.

Zhenli Ye Gon, the attorney general's office said, ran a pharmaceutical company, Unimed Pharm Chem de México, that illegally imported more than 60 tons of pseudoephedrine, which he processed into its purest form. Authorities say he was building a 45,000-square-foot laboratory near Mexico City, which officials have now dismantled.

The suspect got the attention of U.S. and Mexican officials in a big way in December when they seized 19 tons of pseudoephedrine in the port of Lázaro Cárdenas, the biggest Mexican seizure ever. The ship carrying it came from China and had passed through the port of Long Beach on its way to Mexico.

The ensuing investigation, "Operation Dragon," led officials not only to the $205 million and the laboratory under construction, but also to seven suspects and additional residences.

Zhenli Ye Gon remains a fugitive while Mexican authorities divide up the confiscated cash, one-third of which is to go toward drug treatment.

DRUG USE: A SNAPSHOT

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, methamphetamine is second only to marijuana of illegal drugs used most frequently in many Western and Midwestern states. Nationwide, it still trails cocaine among regular users.

Number of regular drug users: 19.7 million

Marijuana users: 14.6 million

Cocaine users: 2.4 million

Methamphetamine users: 600,000

"Ecstasy" (MDMA) users: 500,000

SOURCE: 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

DEFINITIONS

Amphetamines: A general term used to describe a family of synthetic drugs that boost energy and stimulate brain activity, enhancing mood and alertness. They have been used legally as mental stimulants and as diet pills. Currently, their legal uses in the U.S. include treatment of attention deficit disorder and narcolepsy.

Methamphetamine: A highly potent stimulant with long-lasting effects that make it very addictive, like cocaine. It is the most popular illegal amphetamine and takes several forms, such as pills, a white powder, or clear chunky crystals that can be snorted or smoked (known as "crystal" or "ice").

"¢According to the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 10.4 million Americans 12 and older had tried methamphetamine at least once.

"Ecstasy": Also called MDMA for its chemical name (the "a" stands for amphetamine), ecstasy is a stimulant that also has some of the hallucinatory effects of mescaline, the active ingredient in peyote. It is often called a "club drug" or a "love drug" for the energy and positive mood it creates.

"¢More than 11 million people have tried MDMA at least once, according to the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

SOURCES: National Institute on Drug Abuse; U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration

Border Patrol agent charged with killing unarmed migrant

Shooting at Az. border was in January

08:59 PM CDT on Monday, April 23, 2007
Associated Press

PHOENIX – A Border Patrol agent was charged Monday with first-degree murder in the shooting of an unarmed illegal immigrant at the border in January.

An investigation found that Agent Nicholas Corbett's killing of Francisco Dominguez-Rivera, of Puebla, Mexico, was not legally justified, said Cochise County prosecutor Ed Rheinheimer.

Corbett is also charged with second-degree murder, manslaughter and negligent homicide. A judge will determine which of the charges the evidence supports best, Rheinheimer said.

"We have concluded that the evidence shows that at the time he was shot, Mr. Dominguez-Rivera presented no threat to agent Corbett," Rheinheimer said.

His attorney, Daniel Santander, didn't immediately return a message left Monday afternoon by The Associated Press. The Border Patrol said it would make a statement Tuesday.

The shooting, which drew condemnation from the Mexican government, occurred while Corbett was trying to apprehend Dominguez-Rivera and three others who were trying to enter the country illegally.

In the days after the shooting, the Border Patrol said that a scuffle had led to it and that the agent had "feared for his life."

More than 300 pages of documents later released by prosecutors revealed that Corbett's account didn't match witness testimony or forensic evidence.

Amarillo Globe-News
Friday, May 04, 2007

Letters: Mexican truckers will be bane of U.S. highways

Mexican truckers will be bane of U.S. highways
The U.S. Department of Transportation is poised to open the border for trucks from Mexico to operate throughout the U.S.

The DOT says safety and security programs are in place. This is a joke!

U.S. truckers must have a valid commercial driver's license and 10 years' driving history. We don't know whether their Mexican counterparts are trained as truckers or terrorists.

U.S. truckers must be tested for drugs and alcohol and follow hours of service regulations for driving time. No such regulations exist in Mexico.

DOT says every truck will be inspected at the border. Not likely. They inspect fewer than 4 percent right now.

And what will these trucks haul into the U.S.? Could be people, or drugs, or dirty bombs. We won't know.

Why the rush to open the border? Money.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce believes we need more trucks and cheaper labor. So, safety is compromised and American drivers lose their jobs.

Doesn't sound like anyone in this country wins.

Right now, we have more questions than answers. Until the DOT can assure the public that Mexican trucks are just as safe as U.S. trucks, the border must stay closed.

Tell your elected officials to keep the border closed!

Rick Lafosse
Fritch


Loss of U.S. sovereignty just the beginning
I've always had an uneasy feeling about the North American Free Trade Agreement. I'm hard pressed to see how socialist Canada and corrupt Mexico have enhanced America's commerce.

The undoing of the United States will commence with the proposed NAFTA Superhighway, which will cut a 400-yard-wide swath from the Mexican border at Laredo to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn., effectively dividing this country.

Canada, Mexico and the U.S. could then be incorporated into what would be called the North American Union.

The sovereign United States will cease to exist. This alone is bad enough, but the nightmare continues.

A Cana-Mex corridor that will span the West from Mexico to Canada, through Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Montana, and Trans-Texas Corridor 69, which will run from Houston to Memphis, Tenn., to Port Huron, Mich., to Toronto - eliminating any form of border separating the three countries - also is planned.

Tens of thousands of personal properties could be destroyed through eminent domain while U.S. taxpayers foot the $183 billion construction bill.

If these under-the-radar plans disturb you, let Washington - including the president - hear from you a resounding: "What are you people thinking?"

Mary Chumbley
Canyon

UNION-TRIBUNE
March 4, 2007

BORDER PATROL CONVICTION

Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz shares with his students a three-pronged strategy for successfully defending cases. If the facts are on your side, Dershowitz says, pound the facts into the table. If the law is on your side, pound the law into the table. If neither the facts nor the law are on your side, pound the table.

And it's not just in a court of law that this happens. Apparently, the same tactics apply in the court of public opinion.

Take those who are rallying around former Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean. The pair became cult heroes with immigration restrictionists after they were convicted of shooting a fleeing drug smuggler on the Texas-Mexico border in February 2005 and then covering it up by tossing the shell casings and not reporting the incident.

It turns out that sort of thing is not only a violation of Border Patrol policy, but it's flat out against the law. Yet Mary Stillinger, the attorney for Ramos, considers the case one of Monday-morning quarterbacking. She told The Associated Press that what's really at issue is the contradiction between "the reality on the riverbank and the bureaucracy of regulations."

Some Americans agree, including one reader who, after an earlier column on the case, wrote me and suggested: Why not be like Mexico? "They shoot people who invade their territory," he said, "but we can't?"

No, we can't – because, in these matters and in most things, the United States should strive to achieve a higher standard than Mexico. Thanks to federal sentencing guidelines, Ramos and Compean were handed lengthy prison sentences – 11 years for Ramos and 12 for Compean.

As she seeks to overturn her client's conviction, Stillinger has charged in the media that prosecutors failed to show the defense a potentially exculpatory piece of evidence – a memo from a Department of Homeland Security investigator that says supervisors either knew of, or heard about, the shooting. Stillinger says if supervisors knew about the incident, it could undermine the claim that there was a cover-up. It would also mean the supervisors lied in court when they testified that the first time they heard of the shooting was when Homeland Security investigators showed up and began asking about it.

Stillinger claimed the memo is "Brady material" that should have been provided to the defense, and she's demanding a new trial. The term refers to the Supreme Court's 1963 ruling, in Brady v. Maryland, that the prosecution must turn over to the defense any exculpatory information.

For U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, whose office prosecuted the case against the Border Patrol agents, these types of challenges are to be expected. "It's not uncommon," he told me, "(for defense attorneys) to say, 'They should have told us this, this is vital, this is Brady, this would have totally changed everything if I had this.' "

But, Sutton contends, the material in question was provided to defense attorneys. "To our knowledge," he said, "the United States Attorney's Office complied with all of its discovery obligations in this case. And I believe that we, in fact, on several occasions made that memo available to all defense counsel as well as a great deal of other information in the file."

Besides, he argued, the memo in question doesn't say what defense attorneys and their supporters claim it says. It reads that the investigation found "that the following BP agents were at the location of the shooting incident, assisted in destroying evidence of the shooting, and/or knew/heard about the shooting" and then includes on the list the names of two supervisors, Robert Arnold and Jonathan Richards.

"Maybe that's an inartful way to put it," Sutton said of the way the memo is phrased. "I was at the location of the shooting incident as well . . . months and months later, just as Arnold and Richards were at the location of the shooting incident after it was all over."

He said all the evidence presented at trial – including Compean's handwritten notes and the testimony of fellow agents – confirmed that the supervisors arrived at the scene after the fact.

For Sutton, all this second-guessing comes with the job. "Prosecutors have to follow the facts," he said, "and sometimes the facts lead to unhappy places to be – like the unhappy place of prosecuting a police officer. Prosecutors never like to do that. It's always uncomfortable. But the fact is, when they violate the law, and it's a provable case, we can't let it slide."

Why not? I bet they would in Mexico.

Navarrette can be reached via e-mail at ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.

LA mayor condemns rally violence

By ANDREW GLAZER, Associated Press
Last updated: 10:14 p.m., Friday, May 4, 2007

LOS ANGELES -- Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa shortened a foreign trade mission Friday, returning home to condemn a police clash with demonstrators and journalists at an immigration rights rally.

"Like every Angeleno I was deeply, personally troubled by the events of May 1st," the mayor said after cutting short his mission to El Salvador and Mexico, during which had seen TV reports of the violence.

"Those images hit me in the gut," he said at a City Hall news conference. "As I've said, every American has a right to due process, but we don't need a long and lengthy investigation to stand up and speak to the truth. What happened on May 1st was wrong, was wrong."

Villaraigosa's early return underscored the seriousness of the fallout from Tuesday's melee in MacArthur Park, where police beat reporters and demonstrators with batons and fired more than 240 rubber bullets into a crowd that included children. Officers say they responded after being pelted by rocks and bottles.

No one was seriously hurt, but images of officers swinging batons and knocking people to the ground have been played repeatedly on cable TV newscasts, ramping up the pressure on Villaraigosa to return from the trade mission. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo on Friday announced the conviction of one demonstrator, who pleaded no contest to throwing a bottle at a vehicle.

The police response to the demonstration is the subject of four investigations, including one by the FBI.

State legislators, immigration activists and others gathered Friday at MacArthur Park to denounce police conduct during the altercation, which occurred at the end of a large immigrant rights demonstration.

"There are no excuses; a simple apology is not going to suffice," said state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a Democrat and close ally of the mayor. "To say we are outraged is an understatement. We want those responsible in the highest levels of the LAPD to pay consequences."

The department's handling of the rally should be considered in determining whether Police Chief William Bratton is given another five-year contract, Nunez said.

"I don't think you heard anybody say Chief Bratton is immune to any of this," Nunez said.

Bratton has expressed "grave concern" about what happened and promised a full investigation. He has said the use of force began while officers were dealing with 50 to 100 "agitators" who threw objects. At the news conference, he said he was "embarrassed for this department and embarrassed for the city we serve."

Meanwhile, KTTV television news camerawoman Patti Ballaz filed a claim for unspecified damages against the city and Police Department, alleging civil rights violations.

Ballaz suffered a fractured wrist and injuries to her ankle and was hit in the breast with a police baton, said Kathy Pinckert, a spokeswoman for Ballaz's attorneys.

There was no official tally of how many reporters were struck by police. Local media groups said they would meet this weekend to determine how to proceed.

Victor Narro, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild who helped organize Tuesday's demonstration, said that police had promised to keep him abreast of any potential trouble but that his liaison, a police captain, was unreachable.
The guild is reviewing videotape and considering whether to sue the department. He noted that in one tape he saw police fire a rubber round at a boy who appeared to be 10 and "toss him aside like a piece of meat."

John Mack, president of the Police Commission, the civilian overseers of the Police Department, told reporters that the clash was "a terrible breakdown" and that the panel wants to get to the bottom of who was in charge at the time.

"We have a responsibility to protect individuals while they're expressing themselves," Mack said.

Column: Virgil Van Camp: North American Union would be disastrous for U.S.

migrant n. 1. A person, animal, bird or fish that moves from one region to another by chance, instinct or plan.
immigrant n. 1. A person who migrates to another country, usu. for permanent residence.
- American Heritage Dictionary

President Bush visited Mexico recently to meet with that country's president, Felipe Calderó®® In a joint news conference, Bush referred to our large and growing Mexican population as "migrants."

Not illegal immigrants, guest workers nor undocumented workers.

Was this just a slip of the tongue or a new attempt to soften the image and redefine the 12 million to 20 million aliens who have invaded our country? Another approach to amnesty?

Far right-wing blogs and publications routinely promote the idea that there is a conspiracy among one-world government elitists to erase national borders. At one time, the United Nations was to be the vehicle for their plan. That organization has become so corrupt and ineffectual that the conspirators have modified their goals. Now their sights have been lowered to create the North American Union, similar to the European Union. Some blogs suggest that this shadowy group also is responsible for the EU.

This plan has been implemented in stages, starting with the North American Free Trade Agreement, first making it an economic and free trade issue. What could be wrong with stimulating trade by removing tariffs and facilitating unfettered movement of products?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is supposed to be a part of the conspiracy, promoting a trans-Texas corridor that might become the biggest highway project in the world.

Starting in Mexico, it would go through Central Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, and end in Canada. Perry has floated the idea that the superhighway could be financed privately and paid for with tolls.

The Bush administration announced plans in February to permit Mexican trucking companies to travel beyond the present 20-mile mile limit from the border. Critics say that Mexican trucks are poorly maintained, not properly insured and that the drivers need to demonstrate English proficiency and be better trained for driving on our highways.

When we have accomplished the unconstrained movement of goods and workers across the border, it will be time for Phase 2: freedom of movement for the citizens of the three countries of North America. Americans and Canadians should be concerned that the movement would mostly be to the north from Mexico.

Could the North American Union idea work?

We have lived in relative peace for many years. There has been friction and even two wars with Mexico. Canada has been a good neighbor and ally in two world wars and during the Cold War with the former Soviet Union.

We have drifted apart in recent years, especially on foreign policy in the Middle East and the war on terror.

The biggest obstacle is likely to be language. Even though the French are a decided minority, Canada made many concessions to its French-speaking citizens to keep them from seceding. As a result, everything - street signs, products instructions, legal documents - in Canada is printed in two languages. Recently, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper answered questions in French at a news conference in the United States. His native tongue is English.

Talk about political correctness.

Imagine what a mess it would become with Spanish introduced into the mix.

The United States has created, possibly by accident more than design, something unique in the history of the world: a population of tolerant and diverse citizens who get along with their neighbors; a society that provides a high standard of living for most of its citizens; a safe and civil society based on just laws; a society with a common language.

A North American Union with corrupt Mexico and socialist-leaning Canada likely will destroy us.

Virgil Van Camp can be contacted in care of the Amarillo Globe-News, P.O. Box 2091, Amarillo TX 79166, or letters@amarillo.com. His column appears every other Friday.

If they are deported then they will no longer be exploited. What is your problem; make up your mind; do you want them to be deported or exploited???? You can't have both ! She says that anyone who disagrees with her is a bigot. What a moron.

When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.
- Leviticus 19:33-34

quote:

Originally posted by SonofMichael:
If they are deported then they will no longer be exploited. What is your problem; make up your mind; do you want them to be deported or exploited???? You can't have both ! She says that anyone who disagrees with her is a bigot. What a moron.

FYI (For Your Information)

Congregations to Give Haven to Immigrants

By JAMES BARRON
Published: May 9, 2007
NYTimes

Recalling a movement that challenged United States policy in Central America in the 1980s, several religious congregations in New York and other cities will announce a campaign Wednesday to provide sanctuary to illegal immigrants who face deportation.

As of Tuesday, the organizers of what is being called the New Sanctuary Movement said that five churches in New York City had already offered assistance to two families "” one from China and one from Haiti "” and would provide them with shelter if the federal government moved to enforce the deportation orders filed against them.

"We're launching now because we're fed up with detentions, deportations and raids," said the Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper, the senior minister of Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. "We felt it was not morally possible to remain silent."

Dr. Schaper and a half-dozen other religious leaders are scheduled to gather this morning at the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, a Roman Catholic parish at 405 West 59th Street, near Columbus Avenue, to announce their participation in the campaign.

Other announcements about the New Sanctuary Movement are scheduled in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego and Seattle, and the organizers said that prayer vigils supporting the effort would be held in other cities.

The campaign comes as Congress and the Bush administration wrangle over immigration reform. President Bush and many Democrats have called for a path to legalize some 12 million illegal immigrants, but a significant number of Republicans in Congress advocate a broader campaign of deportations.

"We don't expect any easy answers, but we believe the moral issues have to be lifted up," said the Rev. David Rommerein, the pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brooklyn, which has been debating how it can help the campaign.

Juan Carlos Ruiz, one of three national coordinators of the New Sanctuary Movement, said one inspiration for the project was the case of Elvira Arellano, a Mexican woman who came to the United States illegally in the 1990s and who has been living under sanctuary at a Chicago church since August.

In New York, three Lutheran churches in Brooklyn have been looking after one immigrant family, while Judson Memorial and the Riverside Church in Manhattan have been monitoring the deportation case involving another, organizers said.

A sanctuary movement news release said one of the families is headed by Joe Liang, 26, and his wife, Mei Xing, 25, who have two children "” one 15 months old, the other 2 months old "” who were born here.

Mr. Liang, who buses tables at a Manhattan restaurant, said yesterday that he came to the United States from China 10 years ago, seeking asylum. "We lost our case," he said. "That's why we have a deportation order. Many people in our situation, even our caseworker, says the system is not right. Thank God we have the church leaders who are willing to help us out."

The second family lives in Brooklyn, the organizers said. The husband, who would identify himself only as Jean, 38, fled Haiti in 1986. He had a green card but was ordered to be deported because of a drug conviction.

Dr. Schaper, of Judson Memorial Church, said the movement organizers were motivated by an increase in detentions and deportations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials recently reported that they removed 221,664 illegal immigrants over the last year, an increase of more than 37,000 over the year before.

"The increase is less the problem than the actual fact of it," Dr. Schaper said. "We felt, why is anybody being detained or deported?"

It was not immediately clear whether the government would send agents into churches that harbor immigrants or what legal standing they would have to do so.

"We certainly understand, as does everybody, that nobody is above the law and that removal orders are issued by a federal judge, and they are something that should be complied with," Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in the Department of Homeland Security, said in an interview.

Religious leaders say the notion of providing sanctuary is rooted in American tradition. Churches provided sanctuary to help blacks escape slavery and draftees avoid serving in the Vietnam War.

But in the 1980s, when churches were involved in efforts to resettle Central Americans fleeing civil wars, the federal government said the church-as-sanctuary tradition had no standing in American law. Eight church workers were eventually convicted of criminal conspiracy.

IRC Americas Program Special Report
The New Tortilla War
Luis Hernández Navarro | May 7, 2007

Translated from: La nueva guerra de la tortilla
Translated by: Nick Henry

Americas Program, International Relations Center (IRC) americas.irc-online.org

Why has the price of the tortilla risen in Mexico? There are three reasons. First and foremost, it is due to hoarding and speculation by the agro-industrial monopolies. Second, the rising cost of gasoline, diesel, and electricity has affected production, transport, and processing costs. And third, the international price of corn increased due to its use in ethanol production. Only by looking at all three of these factors together, can we understand the recent spike in the cost of Mexico's staple food.

Mexico is the fourth largest corn producer in the world. Last year, it harvested 22 million tons of primarily, though not exclusively, white corn. That number, however, is dwarfed by U.S. production, which harvested 280 million tons of mostly yellow corn in 2005. The United States controls more than 70% of the world market.

Most corn-producing countries utilize corn primarily as livestock feed. But Mexico, along with most of Latin America, produces corn to feed its people. We are a culture born of corn.

Corn Processing in Mexico
For decades, the National Company of Popular Subsistence (Conasupo, for its Spanish initials), played a fundamental role in regulating the country's markets by storing, importing, and distributing the grain. With NAFTA, however, this came to an end.

Between 1994 and 1998, Conasupo served only as a kind of "last resort" buyer. In 1998, Ernesto Zedillo gave permission to the major marketers (Maseca, linked to ADM; Minsa, associated with Arancia Corn Products International; and Cargill, tied to Continental) to take control of the national market. Thus, what had been a fairly functional state monopoly in spite of its corrupt practices was transformed into a private monopoly seeking rapid gains.

Dismantling Conasupo was a critical step in privatizing the corn-tortilla market. Other steps taken by the government to that end were liberalization of the price of corn in 1999 and the dissolution of Fidelist, a corn-based subsistence program that fed 1.2 million families in marginalized urban areas.

Additional changes took place in the method of corn processing. For many years, tortillas were produced through a process of nixtamalization, in which small mills and tortilla factories played a critical role. The Salinas de Gortari administration (1988-1994) instigated changes that led to the gradual displacement of the traditional method by processed corn flour as the primary tortilla ingredient.

This change in the production process unleashed a fierce battle between the interested economic powers, which at the time came to be known as the tortilla war. By the end of the dispute, mill and tortilla factory owners had lost considerable ground. By 2003, 49% of tortilla production was in the hands of large industrial producers, and the Maseca Group alone controlled 70% of this sector of the market. Over the past five years, an alliance between the large corn processors and retail chains has shifted the market even more into the hands of the large processing companies.

Corn Prices: Domestic versus International
The major Mexican corn processors control both storage of domestic supply and are the major importers. By controlling inventory, they can manipulate supply and demand to raise or lower prices at their convenience. They acquired a significant part of the 10 million tons produced in the spring-summer harvest in Sinaloa, Mexico's largest corn producing state. They paid 1,350 pesos (US$123) a ton and accumulated a stockpile of an estimated one million tons of corn or more.

Sitting on this stockpile, the transnational processing companies have begun to play the game of speculation, artificially raising the price by cutting off supply. That same ton of grain they bought in Sinaloa for $123 is now being sold in Mexico City for $320"”$197 more than what they paid for it.

While the price of corn in the world market has increased in recent months due to its use in ethanol production, the increase does not explain the price hike in Mexico. Corn trades on the Chicago Board of Trade for approximately $144 per ton, in other words, less than half the price in Mexico City.

The cost of diesel, gasoline, and electricity necessary for the transport and processing of the grain rose during the last few months of the Fox administration, thus affecting the price of the tortilla. But those materials constitute only 30% of the cost of production.

Together the increased cost of inputs and the hike in the international corn price still do not justify the huge jump in prices to consumers. The real problem is speculation by the companies that hold large stockpiles.

Speculative practices have thrived under the free market model that went into effect with NAFTA. That model dismantled state-run development agencies and businesses and led to extremes in privatization. The market is clearly inefficient, borderline monopolistic, and speculative. It is a market where the government"”thanks to policies promoted by people with close corporate ties like Luis Tel*** and Santiago Levy"”has cut off its own arms and is now unable to impose order.

Cargill Can't Lose in Mexico
When the national price of corn flour hits the roof, Cargill the Mexican processor and wholesaler comes out the big winner. When more corn has to be imported from the United States, Cargill the U.S. exporter profits. When Cargill the producer exports to other countries, it receives subsidies from the Mexican government. When it bids on the use of port grain terminals, it comes away the winner.

Cargill, founded 140 years ago, is the second largest private company in the world. It employs 149,000 people in 72 countries. Fortune magazine ranks it among the top 20 most important companies in the world. It deals mostly in grains"”buying, processing, and distribution"”and other agricultural and livestock products.

In its own corporate brochure, it describes itself: " We are the flour in your bread, the wheat in your noodles, the salt on your fries. We are the corn in your tortillas, the chocolate in your dessert, the sweetener in your soft drink. We are the oil in your salad dressing and the beef, pork, or chicken you eat for dinner. We are the cotton in your clothing, the backing on your carpet, and the fertilizer in your field."

The transnational company began its project in Mexico in the 1920s in forestry operations in the northeast until it was expropriated by the post-revolution Mexican government. Two decades later it was back, this time in agriculture. NAFTA and the disappearance of Conasupo left huge gaps in the domestic market, which the giant company rushed in to fill. Since then, its presence in Mexican agro-industry has been unstoppable.

Under NAFTA, corn imports from the United States can be subject to a yearly established quota and duties applied when they exceed the limit. The Mexican government, however, unilaterally eliminated this protection, allowing imports to flood the market duty-free. Between 1994 and 2001 alone, imports in excess of the quota equaled nearly13 million tons. Agro-industrial transnationals like Cargill and ADM sold most of that corn, benefiting enormously. They also benefited from hidden subsidies inherent in export loans awarded by Washington.

Cargill has received a lion's share of government funds to programs for cleaning, storing, transporting, and shipping to ensure delivery of Sinaloa's corn to remote areas and to regulate supply over time. When, as in 2006, Cargill exports thousands of tons of corn to other countries, the Mexican government subsidizes the venture.

Commercial producers of white corn in our country receive what is called an 'objective price' from the government. That price is set above the "indifference price." The indifference price refers to the international price for corn plus costs of freight and storage from the reference point of New Orleans to the final destination in Mexico. The difference between the 'objective price' and the 'indifference price' generally fluctuates between 450 and 500 pesos ($40-45) a ton, and is paid by the government. The grain companies pay only the 'indifference price.' In this way Cargill, one of the major grain holders, indirectly obtains an important subsidy.

In 2002, the Federal Competition Commission authorized Cargill to use a specialized port in Guaymas, Sonora, along with Grupo Contri, whose principal business is silos for the harvest, storage, conservation, and marketing of many types of grains, especially wheat, corn, and sorghum. Cargill also controls the port of Veracruz, the largest entry point for grain imports.

Cargill's operations in Mexico suffered a slight setback in 2001 when Congress approved a tax on fructose. At the time, the transnational was importing nearly 385,000 tons of the corn-based sweetener a year. The tax was contested in international commercial tribunals. The Mexican government lost.

There is reason to believe that Cargill was one of the primary contributors to the tortilla cost increase. The company bought and stored 600,000 tons of corn in Sinaloa at 1,650 pesos ($160) a ton, which sold months later at a rate of 3,500 pesos ($320). Now, with the Mexican government's decision to lift import quotas to lower the price, Cargill has it made. According to Lorenzo Mejia, president of the National Industrial Union of Mills and Tortilla Factories, "The mills cannot import and will have to seek the services of Cargill."

The company has denied such accusations. In a press release it stated, "Cargill, shares the concern over recent corn price increases with consumers, corn flour and tortilla producers, as well as the livestock industry." It blamed the price increase on the free market, claiming that purchases by the country's pig farmers have put pressure on the price.

The Fracture of a Model
The increase in the price of the tortilla has brought to light the powerlessness of the Mexican government against private monopolies. Those who control the marketing and production of corn can spark an inflationary spiral and emerge unscathed. The executive power, it seems, has no weapons to fight this battle.

The federal government's response to the increase has been pathetic. First it offered a voluntary pact to hold tortilla prices at 8.5 pesos. Then it closed a few tortilla factories, making a media show of its actions and claiming to wage a frontal attack on abuse by the responsible factories. It accuses them of not displaying the selling price publicly and tampering with the scales. What's clear, even though a few isolated vendors have taken advantage of the situation, is that they're not the ones to blame.

The administration announced that it will allow tariff-free white corn imports. Ironically, those who will obtain the grain are, in part, those responsible for the price increase"”the inventory holders. The imports will only serve to harm farmers and campesinos within the country by glutting the market with low-quality corn and contaminating native corn varieties with genetically modified varieties and aflatoxins.

T he Calderón administration has suppressed information on the identity of the speculators, although the national farm support program, ASERCA, has made a detailed report on them. Under the current storage and marketing structure where the government subsidizes commercialization, it must keep track of warehouse inventories.

The tortilla crisis came at a particularly bad time for President Calderón. His government already lacks legitimacy, especially in the eyes of the poor. At the same time, the country now risks suffering an inflationary spiral.

The tortilla crisis illustrates the vulnerability of Mexicans' access to food. Since NAFTA went into effect in January of 1994, the price of the tortilla has risen 738%. As a result, per capita consumption has decreased. In addition, its quality has diminished.

The supply of Mexico's food depends much more now on the United States. In some places, native corn land species have been contaminated with imported transgenic varieties. Partly as a result of out-migration, a substantial part of Mexico's maize production has been transferred from small farms to irrigated zones, which are more ecologically appropriate for other crops. Faced with precipitous price falls for other crops, corn has become one of the few relatively profitable crops.

Today we are experiencing a new tortilla war, which, unlike the previous one of the 90s between companies, is being fought by the large agro-industrial corporations against the poor. It is a war in which Calderón has taken sides with the monopolies that played a fundamental role in giving him the presidency.


Translated for the IRC Americas Program by Nick Henry.

Luis Hernández Navarro is Opinion Editor at La Jornada in Mexico, where parts of this text were published. He is a collaborator with the Americas Program online at www.americaspolicy.org.
For More Information

Hernández Navarro, Luis. Tortilla: la quiebra de un modelo
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/01/16/index.php?section...ion&article=021a1pol
(16/01/2007)

Hernández Navarro, Luis. La nueva guerra de la tortilla
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/01/12/index.php?section...ion&article=010a1pol
(12/01/2007)

Hernández Navarro, Luis. Cargill: "el maíz de sus tortillas"
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2007/01/30/index.php?section...ion&article=021a1pol
(30/01/2007)

Other Articles from the Americas Program:
The Movement to Defend Traditional Maize
Laura Carlsen
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/873

Biodiversity in Danger: The Genetic Contamination of Mexican Maize
Carmelo Ruiz Marrero
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/1636

Americas UPDATER
We want your Feedback. Tell us what you think of this article. Your comments may be published in our Americas UPDATER or Boletin Transfronterizo.

For media inquiries, email media@irc-online.org or call (505) 388-0208.

Published by the Americas Program at the International Relations Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org). Copyright © 2007, International Relations Center. All rights reserved.

Recommended citation:
Luis Hernández Navarro, "The New Tortilla War," Americas Program Special Report (Silver City, NM: International Relations Center, May 7, 2007).

Web location:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/4205

Production Information:
Author(s): Luis Hernández Navarro
Translator(s): Nick Henry
Editor(s): Laura Carlsen, IRC
Production: Chellee Chase-Saiz, IRC

PO Box 2178, Silver City, NM 88062-2178 | irc@irc-online.org | 505.388.0208 | www.irc-online.org
Copyright © 2007, International Relations Center. All rights reserved.

Leviticus liked to kill a lot of people:
1
The LORD said to Moses,
2
"Tell the Israelites: Anyone, whether an Israelite or an alien residing in Israel, who gives any of his offspring to Molech shall be put to death. Let his fellow citizens stone him.
3
I myself will turn against such a man and cut him off from the body of his people; for in giving his offspring to Molech, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name.
4
Even if his fellow citizens connive at such a man's crime of giving his offspring to Molech, and fail to put him to death,
5
I myself will set my face against that man and his family and will cut off from their people both him and all who join him in his wanton worship of Molech.
6
Should anyone turn to mediums and fortune-tellers and follow their wanton ways, I will turn against such a one and cut him off from his people.
7
Sanctify yourselves, then, and be holy; for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.
8
Be careful, therefore, to observe what I, the LORD, who make you holy, have prescribed.
9
"Anyone who curses his father or mother shall be put to death; since he has cursed his father or mother, he has forfeited his life.
10
If a man commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.
11
If a man disgraces his father by lying with his father's wife, both the man and his stepmother shall be put to death; they have forfeited their lives.
12
If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall be put to death; since they have committed an abhorrent deed, they have forfeited their lives.
13
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives.
14
If a man marries a woman and her mother also, the man and the two women as well shall be burned to death for their shameful conduct, so that such shamefulness may not be found among you.
15
If a man has carnal relations with an animal, the man shall be put to death, and the animal shall be slain.
16
If a woman goes up to any animal to mate with it, the woman and the animal shall be slain; let them both be put to death; their lives are forfeit.
17
If a man consummates marriage with his sister or his half-sister, they shall be publicly cut off from their people for this shameful deed; the man shall pay the penalty of having had intercourse with his own sister.
18
If a man lies in sexual intercourse with a woman during her menstrual period, both of them shall be cut off from their people, because they have laid bare the flowing fountain of her blood.
19
You shall not have intercourse with your mother's sister or your father's sister; whoever does so shall pay the penalty of incest.
20
If a man disgraces his uncle by having intercourse with his uncle's wife, the man and his aunt shall pay the penalty by dying childless.
21
If a man marries his brother's wife and thus disgraces his brother, they shall be childless because of this incest.
22
"Be careful to observe all my statutes and all my decrees; otherwise the land where I am bringing you to dwell will vomit you out.
23
Do not conform, therefore, to the customs of the nations whom I am driving out of your way, because all these things that they have done have filled me with disgust for them.
24
But to you I have said: Their land shall be your possession, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am giving it to you as your own, I, the LORD, your God, who have set you apart from the other nations.
25
You, too, must set apart, then, the clean animals from the unclean, and the clean birds from the unclean, so that you may not be contaminated with the uncleanness of any beast or bird or of any swarming creature in the land that I have set apart for you.
26
To me, therefore, you shall be sacred; for I, the LORD, am sacred, I, who have set you apart from the other nations to be my own.
27
1 "A man or a woman who acts as a medium or fortune-teller shall be put to death by stoning; they have no one but themselves to blame for their death."

U.S. may boost aid to fight drug trafficking in Mexico

Plan highlights concern that violence could move north of border


11:31 PM CDT on Wednesday, May 9, 2007
By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News
acorchado@dallasnews.com

WASHINGTON – The U.S. and Mexican governments are discussing a plan to significantly expand U.S. assistance to Mexico to fight drug traffickers and their widening violence, officials from both countries say.

The plan, formally called a "regional security initiative," would represent a departure for the Mexican government, which has accepted only limited U.S. aid in the past out of a sense of nationalism and fears that more significant aid would come with strings attached. It would also represent an acknowledgment by Mexico that its military-led offensive against drug traffickers is falling short of its goal of controlling violence.

The plan underscores U.S. concerns that violence in Mexico could continue to spill over into the United States, a U.S. official said.

"What we [now] get from the U.S. doesn't correspond with the size of the challenge we face, and that has to change if we are to be more effective against a common enemy," Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said Wednesday in a phone interview from Madrid, Spain, where he was attending the International Drug Enforcement Conference. "That's the issue on the table."

Mr. Medina Mora said he has had several discussions with his U.S. counterparts during the conference about continuing efforts "to deepen our cooperation in a more articulate, systematic way in order to be more effective."

Drug trafficking groups, he said, are transnational organizations with distribution routes and consumer markets beyond Mexico. "There's a greater realization that this is a shared responsibility," he said.

Some officials involved in the discussions referred to the effort as Plan Mexico, an apparent reference to the multibillion-dollar U.S. assistance program known as Plan Colombia, which is designed to fight cocaine producers and their rebel allies in that South American nation. But U.S. and Mexican officials, including Mr. Medina Mora, denied that the amount of assistance for Mexico would be on the scale of Plan Colombia.

Officials involved in the discussions provided few details but said the Mexico plan is aimed at "significantly" enhancing U.S. aid to bolster the nation's telecommunications and its ability to monitor its airspace, as well as providing other assistance to Mexico and parts of Central America to battle drug traffickers, transnational gangs and potential terrorists.

In Mexico, the plan also calls for strengthening existing programs aimed at professionalizing Mexico's police, strengthening the rule of law and providing law enforcement with technologies that will enable them to take on drug traffickers equipped with advanced weapons, electronic monitoring systems and aircraft.

Most of the officials spoke about the plan on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitive nature of the talks. They said the negotiations were being kept quiet because they are in the early stages. Participants also said they want to keep from raising public expectations too high and from overshadowing talks on immigration policy.

"We don't want to muddy the waters," said a U.S. official familiar with the negotiations.

'Co-responsibility'
Officials stressed that the plan, first put together by the Mexican government's intelligence service, known as CISEN, faces several obstacles, possibly in the U.S. Congress and from Mexican domestic politics. In Mexico, even the hint of greater U.S. involvement taps into deep-seated fears of a loss of Mexican sovereignty.

But Mexico is capable of monitoring less than 50 percent of its airspace, one U.S. official said, leaving the country vulnerable to "brutal drug traffickers" as they fly in their drug shipments from South America.

Officials also stressed that the plan would address the U.S. demand side along with the Mexican supply side.

"This isn't about charity," said a senior Mexican law enforcement official. "This is a matter of co-responsibility and mutual trust."

"The so-called Plan Mexico is a mixture of enhancing cooperation and coordination and providing Mexico with skills and tools to be more efficient," said Armand Peschard-Sverdrup, director of the Mexico Project for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization in Washington. "If we're serious about helping President Calderón, then we have to move beyond just information-sharing and provide Mexico with the tools and other infrastructure means to help Mexico modernize."

For now, Mr. Peschard-Sverdrup added, the two sides are trying to find the middle ground of cooperation.

"The United States will ask for more cooperation than Mexico is prepared to provide, and Mexico is asking for more financial assistance than the United States is willing to give," he said. "My sense is that the Mexicans want to be very careful in terms of what they ask for, and the Americans are worried about the Mexicans providing a shopping list. There is no free lunch here for either side."

Different from Colombia
Under Plan Colombia, the South American nation has received about $5 billion in U.S. assistance over the last six years to fight rebel groups and the illicit drug trade. But the situation in Mexico is different because guerrilla groups are not waging war against the government, officials noted, and they cautioned against comparing the two countries.

"There is absolutely no talk of U.S. military involvement here," the senior Mexican law enforcement official said. "The issue hasn't even been raised by either side. Any new cooperation between the two countries must be politically sustained. Mexico has to feel comfortable with that."

Some critics of Plan Colombia are taking a wait-and-see approach on the Mexico plan.

"The devil is in the details," said Maureen Meyers, associate of the Washington Office on Latin America's Mexico Project. "The U.S. has a big responsibility in Mexico, especially on the issue of security, but this is not just a question of throwing money at the problem. There are a lot of things the U.S. has to do, like drug treatment programs, etc."

Mexico receives about $40 million a year for anti-drug efforts, compared with an estimated $146 million for Peru and about $600 million for Colombia, according to the State Department and the Center for International Policy, a Washington-based think tank.

Mr. Medina Mora, the attorney general, met recently in Washington with high-ranking Bush administration officials, including Attorney General Al Gonzales. Mr. Mora also met with U.S. legislators, including Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

"I did meet with the attorney general, and we discussed several ways in which we can further assist them in dealing with the violence throughout Mexico," said Mr. Reyes, adding that he is planning congressional hearings this fall on Mexico's drug violence and its impact on border security.

Mr. Reyes is co-sponsor of a bill that calls for $170 million a year in assistance to Mexico over four years.

"I have been very impressed with the job that President Calderón is doing to address border violence. I like his commitment," Mr. Reyes said. "We believe we need to do more on our part to help Mexico become a more secure country."

More to do
While recent U.S.-Mexico cooperation has drawn praise, officials on both sides insist that more must be done. Mexican officials complain about the flow of illegal weapons from the United States, contributing to the nearly 3,000 drug-related killings in the last 18 months.

Since 2003, a turf war between the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels has also led to a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of more than 40 Americans in the border region near Laredo.

The border violence has also been marked by beheadings, grenade attacks and the use of military-style weapons, including bazookas, grenade launchers and .50-caliber machine guns.

Officials said the idea for increased U.S. aid was broached by President-elect Felipe Calderón during his first meeting with President Bush in November at the White House. During Mr. Bush's brief visit to Mexico in March, the two presidents signed an agreement recognizing that the fight against organized crime in Mexico could be boosted with sustained support from the United States.

"Mexico needs to be secured in order for the United States to be secured, and in all honesty, we're not doing enough on our end," said Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, a member of House Select Committee on Homeland Security. "We provide more resources and much more attention to the Middle East than we do for our own back yard. We simply have to be more engaged with what's going on in Mexico, or we will pay the price later."

In a recent report, the Austin-based public policy intelligence firm Stratfor warned that the ongoing military anti-drug campaign is targeting the Zetas, the enforcement arm of the Gulf cartel. As a result, the report said, the paramilitary group may flee north across the U.S. border.

"Years of operating in towns along the U.S.-Mexico border has allowed the Zetas to form close relationships with a number of criminals and organized crime organizations in the United States," said Fred Burton, vice president of counterterrorism and corporate security.

"Some, in fact, already have been associated with killings as far north as Dallas. There also is far more money to be made in the United States. ... It is highly likely that a number of Zetas will find their way to U.S. cities."

PLAN COLOMBIA: A SCORECARD

"¢ Plan Colombia is a U.S.-backed counternarcotics and counterinsurgency plan begun in 2000. The multibillion-dollar plan has had mixed results. The Colombian military has made gains against leftist insurgents and right-wing paramilitaries, and coca acreage has dropped as a result of heavy aerial spraying. But the military has been accused of human-rights abuses, and cocaine production has remained fairly steady, in part because of improved yields by growers.

"¢ A second phase, Plan Colombia II, places more emphasis on economic development than on military force and aerial spraying. It is designed in part to draw support from European governments as well as the U.S.

"¢ Although an assistance plan for Mexico is being referred to as Plan Mexico, officials caution against comparing the countries because their situations are different.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Senators are Working Quietly on An Immigration Reform Bill Likely to Feature a Guest Worker Program

By Michael Coleman
Copyright © 2007 Albuquerque Journal; Journal Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON"” A bipartisan group of a dozen senators"” including Pete Domenici of New Mexico"” is working behind closed doors to craft a new immigration reform proposal that could have an expanded guest worker program as its centerpiece.
Domenici, a Republican, said in an interview that the group, led by Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., is hoping to develop a measure that could come to the floor within days.
"I believe there is a chance we will get a bill that will be put together and offered"” and this will not be put together by just two or three people," Domenici told the Journal.
If the group does not reach consensus, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he would use legislation introduced last year as a starting point for new floor debate.
The House and Senate tried to reach agreement on immigration reform before the midterm elections in 2006. President Bush, who has dispatched Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to many of the private Senate meetings, wants Congress to try again.
Democratic Senate aides said Tuesday that negotiators from both parties are working in good faith, but the aides were skeptical that the Senate group could forge an agreement that Reid would agree to as a first step.
Domenici said the Senate group, in recent talks, has considered scrapping the idea of a so-called path to citizenship from last year's legislation in favor of an expanded guest worker program.
Some members of Congress have proposed allowing the estimated 12 million undocumented workers already in the U.S. to remain and earn citizenship without being deported first if they meet certain requirements, such as paying fines and back taxes and learning English.
"It will be one or the other, but not both," said Domenici, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Even the expanded guest worker proposal might be put off until more border enforcement mechanisms are in place, which could take at least two years, Domenici's chief of staff confirmed.
However, Domenici and Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., said efforts to increase border security are well under way since last year's debate.
Domenici said the proposed guest worker program under discussion would allow illegal workers already in the U.S. to apply for a temporary legal guest worker permit under terms similar to the former "path to citizenship" proposals. Those terms could include paying back taxes and passing a citizenship test, his office confirmed.
The permit might be valid for two, three or four years and would be renewable, he said. Such a program could reduce calls to give undocumented workers a path to citizenship, Domenici predicted.
"The overwhelming majority (of undocumented workers) will say that's good enough," he said.
The Democrat-controlled House plans to wait for Senate action before it takes up the issue, members of New Mexico's House delegation said last week.
Pearce, a Republican who represents New Mexico's southern border area, also said a guest worker program that brings millions of illegal workers out of the shadows would satisfy many.
"A lot of them, their intent is not to become citizens. They just want to feed their family," Pearce said.
Pearce and Rep. Heather Wilson, also a New Mexico Republican, oppose allowing undocumented workers already in the U.S. to stay while awaiting citizenship. Both support expanding guest worker programs.
"I don't think it's right to allow people to come here illegally, when there are tens of thousands who have been waiting to come here legally," Wilson said in an interview.
Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., supports a path to citizenship for illegal workers as the most realistic option for getting massive numbers of them out of the shadow economy and onto the tax rolls. But he said they should have to pay fines and meet other criteria.
"If there is going to be earned citizenship, you'd have to pay your back taxes," Udall said.
Udall said he also supports expanded guest worker programs.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., last year persuaded the Senate to reduce the number of proposed guest worker permits for people not yet living in the U.S., but applying to come, from 400,000 to 200,000 annually. He said he would propose that again if a Senate bill comes to the floor.
The proposal under consideration by Senate negotiators would allow up to a half-million more guest workers who are currently not in the U.S. to come and fill jobs, Domenici's office said.
Other difficult issues in the negotiations are a proposal to curb the ability of legalized immigrants to bring family members into the U.S., and to prohibit temporary workers from bringing family if they don't have health insurance or meet income requirements. Both proposals are opposed by many pro-immigrant groups.
Bingaman said he expects plenty of debate on how many family members can accompany a guest worker.
"There is some value in continuing to support the reunification of families, but then the question is how large a group does that cover," Bingaman said.