"Cities whose leaders think they've got this whole illegal-immigrant business under control might want to take a long, hard look at Irving – which, not so long ago, thought it had things under control, too.
"But Irving learned the hard way it doesn't take much to pull the pin on this political grenade.
"Over the last couple of months, Irving has made the dismaying discovery that, as long as local governments are stuck making do-it-yourself immigration policy, there are no right answers.
"There's no compromise, no tightrope-walking the line between irreconcilable factions, no throwing wide the window to the fresh breeze of reason. At a more distant remove, it might still be a policy debate. In Irving, it's civil war.
"At least, that's what we're left to conclude when we read about Irving Hispanics comparing themselves to the Jews of 1930s Berlin, or witness the disturbing spectacle of an overwrought sexagenarian shooting the bird at TV cameras as the cops drag her off for attacking protesters at a pro-immigrant rally. This isn't debate – it's hysteria.
"It wasn't that long ago that Irving's most prominent problem was figuring out what to do with Texas Stadium once the Dallas Cowboys move out, and Mayor Herbert Gears was insisting firmly that the city had no intention of following Farmers Branch in passing divisive ordinances barring landlords from renting to tenants without proof of legal residency.
"Mr. Gears may not have wanted this particular brawl in Irving, but it came anyway, on the heels of what was perhaps the city's well-intended effort to forge a compromise.
"That was a unanimous council vote to sign the city on to an existing program that allows the police to contact federal immigration authorities should they arrest someone whose legal status is in doubt.
"Signing up to tip the feds to suspects who have actually been arrested for crimes does not, on its face, strike me as unreasonable. We're not talking about raiding people's homes or rounding them up after church.
"But angry protests have broken out from two sides. Some say the police have been overzealous in arresting Hispanics for minor crimes, which has resulted in Irving achieving a record-setting deportation rate.
"Dark rumors abound that it's unsafe for people of Hispanic appearance to drive across town or grab a latte at the mall; the school district says parents are keeping their kids home from school, lest they be snatched from their desks by deportation storm troopers.
"From the opposite pole comes the swelling chorus of those who want more, much more, in the way of enforcement: They want the city to adopt a program that would turn local cops into immigration police, never mind calling in the feds to handle the job.
"They want the public library to quit stocking books printed in Spanish. They want the city's official Web site reserved for readers of English only. They're outspoken, as was this recent Irving resident who wrote to The Dallas Morning News, about "the glut of illegal immigrants who are now occupying our city[.]"
"I defy even the sunniest of optimists to find much room for compromise between these two camps. Government inaction at the federal level has pushed this fight down to towns and schools and neighborhoods, where it's ugly and personal.
"Instead of a compromise, Irving has a fresh source of tension between those who think the city has resorted to racist profiling in its zeal for deportations and those infuriated over what they see as a growing indifference to the interests of lifelong residents.
"Irving, like Farmers Branch, was ripe for this collision, with a large population of older, middle-income residents, an aging housing stock that attracted an influx of lower-income minorities and easy proximity to jobs that draw illegal workers. The issue may have been forced in Farmers Branch by opportunistic political leaders, but the results are similar: fear, fury, neighbor-vs.-neighbor mistrust.
"Until there's some kind of sane and practical immigration reform out of Washington – and I'm turning blue from holding my breath – we'll have more of the same.
"We'll have more ugly conflict at the local level, where the destruction is the worst. We'll have more civil wars."
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." John Adams on Defense of the boston Massacre
RUBEN NAVARRETTE SAYS THAT AMERICAN'S CANNOT BLAME IMMIGRATION ON MEXICO AND THAT COUNTRY'S ECONOMIC POLICIES.
October 15, 2007 The Van Der Galien Gazette By marc moore
Oh, it's true that the United States is a country of immigrants. But in this case, what matters is that this also happens to be a country full of people who hire illegal immigrants. There is only one reason why so many Mexicans want to come to the United States: because there are so many jobs waiting for them here.
Some Americans still prefer to blame Mexico for illegal immigration. Of course, why wouldn't they? That sure beats taking their share of responsibility for it.
This is a great point. Like drugs, the other illegal import problem the U.S. has with its southern neighbors, the demand for labor creates the northward flow, at least when viewed from a simplistic economic model.
More:
These people are here illegally, and yet you hire them to clean your toilets, reserving the right to bellyache about them and what they're costing you. It's the first act "” hiring illegal immigrants "” that sets the rest of the story in motion. I have a solution: Clean your own toilets, or at least make sure that those who clean them for you are in the country legally. Or, shut up already.
Strong medicine, tastes bad. And this would be good advice except for one little detail - the Bush administration's new plan to require employers to verify their workers' Social Security numbers was recently blocked by Federal Judge Charles Breyer of California, a ruling that caused a justifiably exasperated California congressman to wonder:
"What part of ˜illegal' does Judge Breyer not understand? " asked Representative Brian P. Bilbray, Republican of California and chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus. "Using a Social Security number that does not belong to you is a felony. Judge Breyer is compromising the rule of law principles that he took an oath to uphold."
Navarette is correct in saying it's not that simple, especially when a judge like Bilbray decides to take the law into his own hands. How are we supposed to enforce the laws of the land with lawbreakers like this individual sitting on the bench?
While feeling sympathy for the plight of illegal aliens - many of whom have given up everything for the chance at success here - is admirable, it is inappropriate for the judiciary branch to dictate immigration policy with the gavel.
Breyer's justification for his ruling?
Judge Breyer chastised the Department of Homeland Security for making a policy change with "massive ramifications" for employers, without giving any legal explanation or conducting a required survey of the costs and impact for small businesses.
His concern is for American business' compliance costs? Right.
The ruling makes me suspect that Judge Breyer's sympathies are more closely aligned with those of former Mexican President Vincente Fox than the American people's. Fox, who is currently traveling the U.S. to promote his memoirs, said:
"The xenophoblics, the racists, those who feel they are a superior race...they are deciding the future of this country [the United States]."
"What I perceive here is fear in this nation."
So it has nothing to do with the fact illegal workers driving down wages and creating communities of non-citizens that cannot integrate with American society? It's all about race? Hardly.
And when queried about what Lou Dobbs says are the 50% of Mexicans who live in poverty - a number disputed by Fox - and why Mexico has a policy of exporting workers, Fox denied that Mexico has such a policy, saying: "We need that talent, that productivity in Mexico."
That's very true, as I've said before. But that talent has to have opportunity and hope in order to flourish. Mexico's corrupt leadership and high tax rates are a bad combination that make entrepreneurs' lives miserable.
Defending Fox, Navarrette said:
It's not that simple. Mexico has now had just seven years of democracy under the rule of Fox's National Action Party "” following on the heels of more than 70 years of corrupt governance at the hands of the Institutional Revolution Party. The United States has had more than 200 years to get democracy right, and it still has to work out the kinks now and then.
Also true. What Navarrette leaves unsaid is that the PRI's corruption is still alive and well in Mexico. Until this feature of the government is rooted out Mexico will be unable to provide real economic opportunities for its people.
All of this brings us back to Navarrette's assertion that illegal immigration is caused by the U.S.'s demand for low cost labor. This is true, of course. But it's not so simple, Ruben.
Mexico's failure to create a functional economy means the pay rate in Mexico is unbelievably low (even Fox admits that 18% of Mexicans subsist on < $2 per day). This fact forces Mexican workers to flee their homelands and brave the unknown here in the U.S. in spite of the hazards involved.
Both supply and demand create the problem and it's time that Mexico's leaders tell the truth about that.
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TULSA, Okla. (AP) - A group opposed to a sweeping new anti-illegal immigration bill announced that it's filing a lawsuit to stop the measure from taking effect Nov. 1.
The Rev. Miguel Rivera announced the lawsuit on Monday. Rivera is the head of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy.
The suit names Gov. Brad Henry and Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson as defendants.
Rivera says an estimated 25,000 people already have left Tulsa County because of fear over the impact of House Bill 1804.
The new law requires law enforcement agencies to check the immigration status of people arrested for felonies. It also makes it a felony to knowingly harbor or transport illegal aliens.
A local attorney for the coalition, Rohit Sharma, says the group plans to file for an injunction Tuesday, preventing the bill from taking effect.
South of Pinar del Rio, officials have limited commercial fishing because smugglers using the beaches to load illegal Cuban migrants can be mistaken for fishermen. (Jose Goitia for The New York Times)
RUSH OF CUBAN MIGRANTS USE MEXICAN ROUTES TO U.S.
International Herald Tribune By Marc Lacey Published: October 15, 2007
CORTÉS, Cuba: Cubans are migrating to the United States in the greatest numbers in more than a decade, and for most of them the new way to get north is first to head west - to Mexico -in a convoluted route that avoids the U.S. Coast Guard.
U.S. officials say the spike in migration is due to a lack of hope for change on the island, since Raúl Castro took over as president from his other brother Fidel last year. The Cuban authorities contend the migration is more economic than political, fueled by Washington's policy of rewarding Cubans who enter the United States illegally.
In fact, unlike Mexicans, Central Americans and others heading to the United States' southwest border, the Cubans do not have to sneak across. They just walk right up to United States authorities at the border, relying on Washington's so-called wet foot/dry foot policy, which gives Cubans the ability to become permanent residents if they can only reach American soil.
It took Savater almost four days to reach the Mexican island of Isla Mujeres in a rickety boat made from wood, fiberglass and aluminum, powered by a jerry-rigged motor used for irrigating fields. The 15 men and one woman with him took turns bailing.
It's extremely dangerous," Savater recounted in a recent interview from Cancún. "I saw myself dead. I suffered a lot." But his next step was far easier: a flight to the United States-Mexican border, with the help of money wired from relatives in south Florida.
Some American officials are calling this new approach - Cubans strolling up to desert border stations and seeking political asylum - dusty foot.
Statistics make clear that Cubans now believe the route, although considerably longer, boosts their odds of reaching Miami. Almost twice as many Cubans - 11,487 - used it as in 2005.
By comparison, during the same time, the coast guard intercepted just 2,861 Cubans crossing the Florida Straits, and 4,825 others eluded American authorities and the applied for political asylum in the United States, according to the coast guard.
The figures indicate a spike in migration from the island, which in fiscal 2007 was at its highest level since 35,000 Cubans left in a mass exodus in 1994.
"The reason why people are willing to risk their lives to leave Cuba is the lack of hope and expectations," Sean Murphy, the U.S. Consul General in Havana, told reporters earlier this month.
The new route is not just diverting migrants. Smugglers are shifting too, resulting in turf battles that are believed to be behind a string of murders in recent months of Cuban nationals in the Yucatan. The same place that Cubans are coming ashore is criss-crossed by narcotics traffickers and there is fear that the two businesses could merge.
Safe houses have also been set up along the Mexican coast to help the Cubans elude Mexican authorities and avoid paying the fine. One Cuban who made it to Mexico said he was impressed by the organization of it all. Cuban rice and beans awaited him upon arrival in Mexico. Within days, he was off to the Texas border with instructions with what he should say to quickly enter the United States.
Some Mexicans are even getting ideas from the Cubans. A trade is developing in Cuban identity documents and some savvy Mexican migrants are now practicing Cuban accents and rehearsing dramatic stories they intend to tell U.S. Border Patrol agents about the horrors they have suffered in Havana.
Altogether, the issue has attracted the attention of officials from throughout the region, since Cubans sometimes go off track and land on other Caribbean islands or further south in Central America.
The coast guard's aggressive patrols off the Florida Straight prompted the new route, most agree. The coast guard returns migrants who are caught at sea to Cuba, where authorities have said they will not take retribution against them.
"It's practically Mission Impossible to go directly to Miami," said an American official who is tracking the issue but who did not have approval to speak on the record about it.
In Mexico, however, the coast is far more loosely patrolled and, some say, local authorities are more likely to look the other way for a bribe.
The rocky eastern shore of Isla Mujeres, a speck of an island near the resort town of Cancún, is a popular landing spot. Despite the presence of a Mexican Navy post there, Cuban boats come ashore regularly.
"We're looking for Colombian drug dealers, not Cubans," said a Mexican Navy officer who was on a nighttime watch on a bluff that is the island's highest point.
When the navy does intercept vessels, mostly those in distress, they are escorted ashore. The traffickers are arrested and their boats seized. But the migrants themselves are in most cases fined and then released. They have 30 days to leave the country, plenty of time to find their way north.
That is not the only new dynamic in Cuban migration. The boats leaving island used to be the most ramshackle of crafts imaginable. They were inner tubes strung together or rusted out vessels that were powered by car engines, oars or even, in one case, a weed whacker.
But nowadays Cubans are more likely to climb aboard a sleek modern boat with three 275-horsepower outboard motors hanging from the back.
"They look like they can fly," said a fisherman on Cuba's southwestern coast who has spotted the vessels and spoke of them with a jealous look in his eye.
"People want a more secure way out and they are turning to smugglers," said Shannon, the diplomat.
The smugglers operate out of Miami, with representatives on the coasts of Cuba and Mexico, experts say. They carry satellite telephones so the transfers are done with military-like precision.
The boats swoop in to a prearranged spot on the Cuban coast line, and quickly load and leave, with the price for the express service exceeding $10,000 a head in many cases. Some are allowed aboard without paying the full price, Cubans with knowledge of the business say, but they have to commit to joining the smuggling network and return to pick up more migrants.
Cuban authorities are usually caught flatfooted. They have set up military checkpoints along the coast and banned locals from fishing on some stretches of beach to get a handle on the new escape routes. But the flow continues, mostly from remote beaches on the western half of the island.
The Cubans use loud speakers to warn of the dangers of the voyage and urge everyone to come back. But the boats rarely, if ever, do. If the boat is heading to Florida, the Cuban authorities radio information to the U.S. Coast Guard. If it is heading to Mexico, they throw up their arms.
U.S. FAST FOOD CHAIN'S EFFORT TO SELL GRINGO TACOS IN MEXICO MIGHT GET LOST IN TRANSLATION
statesman.com By Mark Stevenson ASSOCIATED PRESS Wednesday, October 10, 2007
MEXICO CITY "” It sounds like a fast-food grudge match: Taco Bell is taking on the homeland of its namesake menu item by reopening for the first time in 15 years in Mexico.
Defenders of Mexican culture see the chain's return as a crowning insult to a society already overrun by U.S. chains like Starbucks, Subway and KFC.
Monica Rueda ASSOCIATED PRESS Taco Bell is back in Mexico for the first time since the '90s, when it collapsed like a soggy tortilla. Anayancin Llanes and son Maximiliano eat at the one in Apodaca, Nuevo León.
"It's like bringing ice to the Arctic," said pop culture historian Carlos Monsivais.
The company's branding strategy "” "Taco Bell is something else" "” is an attempt to distance itself from any comparison to Mexico's beloved taquerias, which sell traditional corn tortillas stuffed with a variety of fillings, including spicy beef, corn fungus and cow eyes.
Taco Bell, a unit of Louisville, Ky.-based Yum Brands Inc., made its name in America promoting its menu as something straight out of Mexico. But it's a very different dynamic south of the border.
In Mexico, the company is trying to project a more "American" fast-food image by adding soft-serve ice cream as well as french fries "” some topped with cheese, ground meat and tomatoes "” to the menu at its first store, which opened in late September in the northern city of Monterrey.
"Our menu comes almost directly from the U.S. menu," said Yum Mexico Managing Director Steven Pepper.
Some of the names have been changed to protect the sacred: The hard-shelled items sold as tacos in the U.S. have been renamed "tacostadas." This made-up word is a play on "tostada," which for Mexicans is a hard, fried disk of cornmeal that is always served flat, with toppings.
Though Mexicans eagerly buy many U.S. brands, the taco holds a place of honor in their national cuisine. Mexicans eat them everywhere, any time of day, buying them from basket-toting street vendors in the morning or slathering them in salsa at brightly lit taquerias after a night on the town.
Taco Bell officials have taken pains to say that they are not trying to masquerade as Mexican tradition.
"One look alone is enough to tell that Taco Bell is not a 'taqueria,' " the company said in a half-page newspaper ad. "It is a new fast-food alternative that does not pretend to be Mexican food."
It's still a mixed message for Mexicans such as Marco Fragoso, a 39-year-old office worker sitting down for lunch at a traditional taqueria in Mexico City, because, he says, the U.S. chain uses traditional Mexican names for its burritos, gorditas and chalupas.
"They're not tacos," Fragoso said. "They're folded tostadas. They're very ugly."
Taco Bell failed with a highly publicized launch in Mexico City in 1992.
Mexicans were less familiar with foreign chains back then, and the economy was on the verge of a crisis. The restaurants didn't last two years.
Since then, free trade and growing migration have made many U.S. brands ubiquitous in Mexico.
"Taco Bell wants to take advantage of the perception that if something comes from the United States, it tastes better, that a country that has been Americanized is willing to Americanize food that is central to its cuisine," Monsivais said. "It is an absurd idea, and given that it's so absurd, it may just be successful in upper-class areas."
Other U.S. chains, including KFC and Chili's Grill & Bar, are wildly popular in Mexico. One of the most successful has been Starbucks, which has expanded to more than 150 stores in five years, even though its venti chai latte costs almost as much as a day's minimum wage.
The Starbucks outlets are mainly in wealthier neighborhoods. Taco Bell is aiming at a different demographic "” opening in the solidly middle-class Monterrey, Nuevo León, suburb of Apodaca, an area where residents might not have traveled to the United States.
"We want to appeal to consumers who haven't tried Taco Bell, for whom this would be their first experience with Taco Bell," said Javier Rancano, the company's director in Mexico.
Taco Bell is building its second store in another Monterrey suburb and plans to open between eight and 10 more locations in 2008, with plans to eventually reach 300 stores, Rancano said.
On a recent weekday afternoon, about 20 customers were eating at the first store, picking from a menu offering tacos for just over $1 and a grilled beef burrito for about $5.70. That's in line with prices at other fast food outlets in the area, but some customers weren't impressed.
"Something is lacking here," said Jonathan Elorriaga, 26.
"Maybe the food shouldn't come with french fries."
CRITICS OF $1.4 BILLION AID PROPOSAL FEAR THE MONEY WILL BRING MEXICO'S DRUG-FIGHTING STRATEGY UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL.
statesman.com By Jeremy Schwartz MEXICO CITY BUREAU Monday, October 15, 2007
MEXICO CITY "” A proposed massive American aid package to fight violent drug cartels has sparked a collective bout of hand-wringing in Mexico, where anything hinting at U.S. intervention has long been viewed with suspicion.
For months, Mexico has been consumed with news of the proposed package, although little has been publicly revealed besides its price tag: a reported $1.4 billion over two years, on par with what Colombia receives as part of its controversial drug-eradication program.
Alexandre Meneghini ASSOCIATED PRESS Felipe Calderón has stepped up military's involvement in drug fight.
Mexico, which has had more than 2,000 drug-related slayings this year, might be expected to welcome such a bounty with open arms. But the nations' mutual history, which includes the loss of a third of Mexico's territory to the United States, makes any U.S. involvement in Mexico a touchy subject.
President Felipe Calderón's government has pursued American assistance, but opposition politicians have argued that the aid package would violate Mexico's sovereignty. Polls show that most Mexicans oppose the help.
Concern has centered not on the aid itself, which probably will be used to pay for military and law enforcement training and equipment such as helicopters, but on what might accompany it.
Analysts on both sides of the border say the aid most likely will come with some level of oversight from the U.S. Congress, which may be hard for Mexican agencies, unaccustomed to a public accounting of any kind, to swallow.
"There will be an enormous amount of scrutiny and a lot of questions on how the money is used and how effective Mexico's anti-narcotic strategy is," said Ana Maria Salazar, a Mexico City analyst and former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for drug enforcement policy and support. "That will always be an uncomfortable factor."
Presidents Bush and Calderón are expected to announce details of the plan in two or three weeks, when the proposals are expected to be sent to the nations' respective congresses for approval.
American officials have praised Mexico's recent drug-fighting efforts, saying military crackdowns on the cartels have disrupted the flow of drugs into the United States.
"Calderón has done a phenomenal job in addressing the cartels and criminal gangs," said U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, who has pushed for the aid package. "I think they warrant and deserve our assistance."
Mexico's complicated relationship with the United States causes Mexican officials to chafe at comparisons to Plan Colombia, as the Colombian aid package is known, and to lecture reporters who have baptized the proposed aid package "Plan Mexico."
Analysts also worry that the aid may come with increased pressure to allow American agents to carry weapons and pursue drug traffickers on Mexican soil, long a goal of U.S. law enforcement.
Mexican and U.S. officials have insisted that the package will not include an American military presence in Mexico, as exists in Colombia.
Calderón's political opponents have railed against the package, some to make political hay, others because they fear the money will bring the nation's drug-fighting strategy under American control.
"Mexico is a country that can afford to pay the cost of the plan," Manuel Camacho Solis, a top official in the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, wrote recently in a newspaper column. "It represents just a small proportion of public and oil-related income. On the other hand, accepting the donation puts us completely in the hands of the United States government."
Leftists in Mexico have also expressed concern that the aid package could be used to go after guerrilla groups and other political opponents of the government.
Meanwhile, there is concern on both sides of the border about the Mexican military's human rights record and its effectiveness in fighting the drug cartels.
While the military's involvement was initially meant to be temporary, the aid plan could give it a permanent role. According to published reports, 40 percent of the money in the aid package would go to the military, and the rest would go to police agencies.
Calderón's decision after taking office late last year to step up the military's involvement in drug enforcement initially caused an unprecedented surge in violence. Mexico averaged almost 100 drug-related killings a week earlier this year. Dozens of police and public officials were gunned down.
The violence decreased over the summer as the nation's two major cartels reportedly entered into a truce. Supporters called the truce, which proved short-lived, proof that the military pressure worked.
Critics said the violence had more to do with the internal workings of the cartels than with anything that Calderón's government did. Recently, violence has spiked again.
Human rights groups say the military has committed a host of atrocities during its battle with drug traffickers. Mexico's human rights commissioner has recommended sending the military back to its barracks, citing numerous abuses.
For example, four soldiers were sentenced in connection with the rape of 14 women in the border state of Coahuila in July 2006, and a family of five was gunned down as they drove through a military checkpoint in Sinaloa in June. Seven soldiers involved in the incident later tested positive for marijuana and cocaine.
"We could be entering a spiral in which we strengthen the presence of the military," said Jose Luis Pineyro, a national security expert. "Time will tell if there are more pros than cons with this plan."
A WOMAN who succeeds in a field dominated by men is always intriguing to the public, but when that field happens to be big-time cocaine trafficking, and the woman is graced with both charm and beauty, a criminal celebrity is born.
Ever since her arrest last month, Sandra Avila Beltran, better known as the Queen of the Pacific, has been receiving the kind of press that would have made Jesse James envious. Mexicans are closely following the case against her and the efforts to extradite her to the US, where she is wanted in Florida.
Prosecutors say Avila Beltran, a shapely 46-year-old with a taste for high fashion, has played an important role in forging a federation of drug traffickers in western Sinaloa State as well as creating an alliance between them and Colombian suppliers.
Along the way, she seduced many drug kingpins and upper-echelon police officers, becoming a powerful force in the cocaine world through a combination of ruthless business sense, a mobster's wiles and her *** appeal, prosecutors say.
It is a measure of her importance in the Mexican underworld that some musicians have written a song in her honour. This "narcocorrido" extols her virtues as "a top lady who is a key part of the business." It is being played repeatedly on radio stations.
The police say Avila Beltran was born into the trade. She is the niece of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, a trafficker from Guadalajara jailed for smuggling and the murder of an American drug-enforcement agent, Enrique Camarena. Her list of conquests, the police say, includes important members of the Sinaloa cartel such as Ismael Zambada and Ignacio Coronel. Both remain powerful leaders.
Her lovers have fared better than her husbands. She was at one time married to Jose Luis Fuentes, the commander of the federal police in Sinaloa, who was executed gangland style. Later she married Rodolfo Lopez Amavizca, the commander of the now defunct National Institute for the Combat against Drugs. He was also murdered in 2000 by a gunman in a hotel.
Of all her love affairs, however, it was her long-time union with a reputed Colombian trafficker, Juan Diego Espinosa, that cemented her position in the upper echelons of the Mexican underworld.
Together, they forged deals between Mexican and Colombian traffickers in the 1990s and in 2000. She took control of shipping cocaine from the North Valley Cartel in Colombia to ports in western Mexico, earning her name the Queen of the Pacific.
At the same time, she established several legitimate businesses that investigators suspect were used to launder money.
But her luck began to run out in December 2001 when the authorities seized a tuna boat, the Macel, in the port of Manzanillo and found more than nine tons of cocaine aboard, worth $80m.
Six months later, her teenage son was kidnapped in Guadalajara, and she slipped up. She asked the police to stay out of the way, handled the negotiations with the kidnappers herself and got her son back after 17 days. But prosecutors say the $5m ransom request raised their suspicions about her income. They started investigating her, and by July 2002 they had found evidence linking her to the tuna boat shipment. They also linked her to other members of Espinosa's family.
Avila Beltran eluded arrest and went underground. She lived in Mexico City with Espinosa in a middle-class neighbourhood and went by the name of Daniela Garcia Chavez.
She did not drop her taste for luxury. She was fond of dining at Chez Wok, an expensive Thai restaurant. She drove a BMW and frequented hair salons favoured by celebrities.
In March 2004, she was indicted on separate drug smuggling charges in Miami along with several members of the Espinosa family. But US agents made no headway with her arrest, even though she was living a high-profile lifestyle in Mexico City. Eventually, last year, a US judge ordered that the arrest warrants for two other defendants be quashed in an effort to get them to cooperate and help locate Avila Beltran.
On September 28, more than 30 Mexican federal agents swarmed into a restaurant and arrested her. She coolly asked the agents to let her freshen her make-up before the police filmed her transfer to jail.
Her life behind bars at the Santa Martha Acatitla women's prison in the capital has apparently not been to her liking. She filed a complaint with a Mexico City human rights commission, saying her cell was infested with insects. She also said the ban on bringing in food from restaurants violated her rights.
Caveat: As a former INS Citizenship Attorney, I offered to provide USCIS with 100 questions and answers for free which would have saved the agency $6.5 million and six years of hard work (and would probably have saved you from paying the new, higher filing fees). But alas, after seeing my proposed Question #10 above, they decided to reject my application even though I was the low bidder on the contract, and not to use any of my questions For those of you who failed on Question #10, the answer is Woody Guthrie.
For more information about the song lyrics quoted above, see the Wikipedia entry at:
Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)" is a protest song with lyrics by Woody Guthrie detailing the crash ... Guthrie considered the racist mistreatment...four Americans and 28 illegal immigrant farm workers who were being deported...
By Eric Kelderman, Stateline.org Staff Writer Tuesday, October 16, 2007
In April, Wisconsin began enforcing a new law to prohibit illegal immigrants from getting driver's licenses, but several longtime legal residents ran into unexpected hurdles to keeping their driving privileges under the rules.
An 82-year old World War II refugee from Poland, a Cuban immigrant who arrived during the 1980 Mariel boatlift and Laotians who came to the United States after the Vietnam War were among those who had a hard time proving they were in the country legally, said Patrick Fernan, deputy director of the Wisconsin motor vehicles department.
Citizens in other states also have been surprised by tighter driver's license requirements, including in Georgia, where some women who took their husbands' last names have had their licenses revoked because their surnames no longer matched their Social Security numbers.
In Tennessee, which began requiring proof of legal presence for driver's licenses this year, some legal immigrants also are finding themselves locked out of the driver's seat.
And in Alabama, new real-time background checks on driver's license applications have led to the arrest of more than 12,000 people on a variety of charges in the past four years, including a man arrested in 2006 with 66 felony warrants from the neighboring state of Georgia. Motor vehicles officials also have identified more than a dozen runaways this year alone because of the tighter scrutiny of license applicants.
Who can and can't get a driver's license and how those documents are issued have become part of a national debate since 2001 when terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11th attacks were found to have multiple state-issued identification cards.
Partly in response to those attacks and to a set of recommendations by the federal 9/11 commission, Congress passed the Real ID Act in 2005, which will require states to begin checking the identity of all license-holders beginning in May 2008.
Under Real ID, an estimated 245 million drivers will have to renew their licenses in person and show a form of photo identification and documents proving date of birth, Social Security number and address. Non-citizens will be able to get a Real ID license only while they are in the country legally.
The Department of Homeland Security has described the regulations as voluntary, but non-compliant licenses will no longer be valid for boarding airplanes or entering federal buildings. Instead, license-holders from those states will have to use a passport or other federally issued identification, such as a military ID.
Despite the penalties, six states have passed laws refusing to comply with the law because it infringes on state practice and carries an estimated $14 billion cost, which will fall largely to state governments and license-holders. Privacy advocates and civil libertarians charge that Real ID will compromise security because states will have to share personal data with the federal government and other states to verify an applicant's identity.
Among that group of six, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and South Carolina do require some proof of legal presence to get a license, such as a Social Security number, but they will not cooperate with other aspects of the federal rules.
Maine and Washington also have passed laws rejecting Real ID. But they also would fail to meet the federal standards anyway because they issue licenses to illegal immigrants, along with Hawaii, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Utah.
New York recently joined that group when Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) announced that his state would accept a valid international passport to get a driver's license, even for illegal immigrants. Spitzer argues that the policy will improve road safety and increase the number of insured drivers.
But New York Republicans, including several county clerks responsible for issuing driver's licenses, have charged that New York now will become a haven for illegal immigrants and potentially criminals and terrorists who can validate their presence with state-issued identification. One county has even passed a law refusing to comply with Spitzer's order, and advocates for stronger immigration laws have blasted the governor.
"Rather than enforce laws that New York uses to punish other people for driving without licenses or without auto insurance, Gov. Spitzer is seeking to reward illegal alien scofflaws with the privilege of driving and a U.S. identity document," said Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
Only Utah currently issues a different sort of license for people, including immigrants, who don't have Social Security numbers. The state's "driver privilege card" has red outlines and, at the top, states the card is "not valid identification for Utah government entity."
Officials in Maryland and Oregon also are considering offering two different licenses for their residents: one that would meet the new federal guidelines and another for people who cannot provide proof of residency or don't want the extra cost and hassle.
Tennessee this year passed a law eliminating a separate driving certificate for non-citizens -- the model for Utah's regulations -- but the new rules shut some legal residents out. The state now allows legal non-citizens to have a driver's license while they are in the country legally. But the state won't issue a license that is valid for less than a year, eliminating people who may have to renew annual visas, for example, according to immigration advocates.
In Wisconsin, which began this year to enforce its new law requiring legal presence, Fernan of the motor vehicles department warned that states planning to crack down on licensing face a host of problems, unintended consequences and unhappy customers.
"You all will have a lot of mad people," Fernan told a roomful of state motor vehicles officials and private companies at a Washington, D.C., meeting last month. In addition to difficulties educating the public about how to comply, many individuals could not prove citizenship but also weren't illegal immigrants, he explained.
The World War II immigrant and Laotian refugees had been accepted to the country legally but simply had not completed the process for citizenship, Fernan said. The Cuban immigrant could not gain citizenship because of a criminal record in his home country, but also could not be deported, he said. In most of these cases, the motor vehicle department gave exceptions allowing the residents to get licenses.
LE MARS, Iowa (AP) - Police arrested seven people in an immigration raid in northwest Iowa.
Plymouth County sheriff's officials said that on Thursday, they searched a hog confinement and home owned by Michael Vander Windt.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents assisted in the raid, which resulted in the arrest of seven people alleged to be illegal immigrants.
Sheriff Mike Van Otterloo said the raid came after allegations that Vander Windt employed the illegal immigrants. Federal authorities took those who were arrested to Omaha, Neb.
Otterloo said three people will be charged with falsifying documents. The other four face deportation.
CONSERVATIVE NEW JERSEY MAYOR IN HOT WATER OVER HIRING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
AP Posted: 2007-10-16 12:25:44
BOGOTA, New Jersey (AP) - A conservative Republican mayor who has pushed for tighter regulations to curb illegal immigration recruited two undocumented immigrants for work without asking for their residence papers, the workers said in a local media report Tuesday.
The Guatemalan men, 20-year-old Elder Chuta and 22-year-old Victor Evaristo disputed Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan's account of events, saying Lonegan picked them at a popular roadside spot for day laborers to help him assemble campaign signs and never asked whether they were legal residents.
Lonegan, a staunch proponent of stricter policies on illegal immigration, has acknowledged recruiting the men on Oct. 8 but insisted they told him they had proper papers.
The Record of Bergen County reported that Chuta and Evaristo, said Lonegan drove them to a house, showed them campaign signs and offered the men $80 (euro56.50) each for eight hours of work to assemble the signs.
The two men were later questioned by police at the house Lonegan owns in Bogota after a resident called police and said there were two men walking through the vacant residence.
"It doesn't matter to me," Lonegan said of the differing accounts. "To me, it's irrelevant, whether they were standing inside or outside. I will hire anybody I want, and if they don't prove to be proper, they don't get paid."
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For those of you who failed on Question #10, the answer is Woody Guthrie. 
