"El Magonista"

Vol.3 No.13
July 3, 2014


The California-Mexico Studies Center
Armando Vazquez-Ramos President & CEO
1551 N. Studebaker Road, Long Beach, CA 90815
Phone: (562) 430-5541 Cell: (562) 972-0986
CaliforniaMexicoCenter@gmail.com or
Armando.Vazquez-Ramos@csulb.edu

Website: www.california-mexicocenter.org
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ACTIVIST GROUPS REBUKE OBAMA ON
ADMINISTRATIONS BORDER SOLUTION

Hispanic Link (Column No. 5549) July 3, 2014

http://hispaniclinkdc.org/2014/07/03/activist-groups-rebuke-obama-on-administrations-
response-to-50000-central-american-children-pressing-against-u-s-border/

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 3 The influential National
Coordinating Committee for Fair and Humane Immigration
Reform 2014, a coalition of more than 50 organizations, is
sending the following rebuke to President Barack Obama for his
administrations handling of the surge of women and

unaccompanied minors along our nations borders.

Among key signatories are Protect Our Families and Save the
Children Campaign; Hermandad Mexicana; Mexican American
Political Association; the California-Mexico Studies Center;
Southern California Immigration Coalition; Labor Council for
Latin American Advancement, Sacramento; Alliance for
Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Chicago; United Front for
Immigrants, Chicago; El Comite de Washington, WA and the
Willie C. Velzquez Institute.

OPEN LETTER TO THE CONGRESSIONAL
HISPANIC CAUCUS

Honorable Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus:

We write you with grave concerns regarding the refugee crisis
of unaccompanied minors besetting our southern border with
Mexico and the public posture and proposed actions articulated
by President Barack Obama for his administration and the
country.

Prior to enumerating these concerns, however, we wish to
express our full support of the CHCs April memorandum
addressed to President Obama in relation to the types of
executive action immigration relief urgently needed by our
communities. In many ways this is central to our concerns.

While we believe that appropriate immediate attention must be
paid to the current crisismost particularly the human factor,
this in no way should be an occasion or pretext not to address
the pending matter before the nation: fair and humane
immigration reform. Short of that, executive action in the form
of broad and generous relief would be in order.

While President Obama held out in a taunting manner the
prospect of executive action by the end of summer if House
Republicans dont find their way towards immigration legislative
reform, we are not convinced of his sincerity for the following
reasons.

1. President Obamas request for $2 billion for additional border
enforcement by moving more interior enforcement elements to
the southern border to demonstrate his willingness to secure
the perceived border sieve does not address the underlying
causes of the humanitarian crisis. Further militarization of the
border will not stop children in search of safe refuge from the
violence that assails them in their countries of origin. Expedited
deportation of the children, as proposed by the president, flatly
contradicts existing statutory and constitutional protections in
place to safeguard the well-being of the unaccompanied
minors.

2. President Obama has made clear his intention to seek to
undermine and undercut the statutory due process rights,
protections and procedures codified into law by President
George W. Bushs signature of the 2008 bipartisan legislation to
address the growing challenge of unaccompanied minors
arriving on U.S. territory. You are certainly aware that once a
person touches U.S. soil s/he is immediately accorded both
constitutional and statutory protections no different than any
other U.S. citizen. In this particular case, there is special
consideration accorded to children due to the tenuousness of
their situation. The 2008 statute clearly delineates the
procedure whereby these children refugees are to be treated
and protected by the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the
Department of Health and Human Services. More importantly,
they are to be availed the opportunity to have legal counsel of
their choosing and a hearing before a federal immigration court
to address appropriately their legal status.

3. We are very concerned that the CHC has not vigorously
opposed any effort to undermine existing constitutional and
statutory protections as referenced above. Any effort to ignore
or undermine these protections, either legislatively or through
executive action, will have ominous consequences and
implications for the rights of all U.S. citizens and permanent
residents.

4. The current humanitarian crisis of the explosive number of
unaccompanied minors on the U.S. southern border is no mere
accident. Over the past two years the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) has tracked the incremental increase of minors
attempting to cross the border, more than two-thirds of them
from Central American countries and the remaining one-third
from Mexico.

For example, DHS was aware that more than 25,000 minors
arrived unaccompanied at the U.S. border seeking entry in
2013. Aside from doing nothing to address the underlying
causes of this refugee exodus failing states and collapsing
economies in a region where the United States has historically
meddled economically and militarily it is a crisis that could
easily have been anticipated and prepared for and not
presented by the corporate media and the administration to the
public as a sudden unexpected occurrence. And, yet, without
seeming insensitive to the plight of tens of thousands of
children and youngsters, this situation is symptomatic of a
deeper systematic catastrophe.

5. Record deportations, now exceeding 2 million, have resulted
in devastating and near unprecedented separation of families;
25 percent of the deported are reported to have U.S.-born
children; and an estimated 500,000 U.S.-citizen minors find
themselves in Mexico as undocumented Americans obliged to
accompany their deported undocumented Mexican parents. In
effect, these children find themselves exiled from their
birthright to a land foreign to them. The number of similarly
exiled youngsters to Central American countries are
unavailable, but undoubtedly also large. Additionally, 36,000
privatized jail beds are permanently filled by the migrant adult
wards of the state because they are arbitrarily budgeted to be
so by Congress with the complicity of the president.

6. The mutual acrimonious rhetoric and foot-dragging between
the Democrats and Republicans related to comprehensive
immigration reform has come to naught as the country moves
closer to Novembers midterm elections. Even the proposed
legislation passed by the Senate last year, numbered S.744, is
primarily enforcement laden and defers preferentially to the
cheap labor demands of industry and agriculture. The brokered
provisional legal status offered to the 11 million undocumented
looks nothing like the generous amnesty signed into law by
Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Reputable legal
experts estimate that fewer than 60 percent of the potential
applicants would qualify for the tenuous status. Minimum wage
earning female heads of household with children, for example,
would not qualify and therefore be held deportable.

7. For all the reasons enumerated above, we appeal to you to
oppose the enforcement measures proposed by President
Obama, most especially his penchant toward expedited
removals of the minors by undoing constitutional and statutory
protections. The current crisis along the border is truly
humanitarian and of a refugee character. Therefore, it is
imperative that this administration recognize the minors as
refugees as defined in U.S. legal statutes and United Nation
declarations and conventions related to the treatment of
refugees of which the U.S. is a signatory.

This, we expect nothing less from the Congressional Hispanic
Caucus as the representative body that aspires to represent the
legitimate interests of all U.S. Latinos irrespective of their legal
status or whether they just arrived and touched U.S. soil
seeking safe haven and refuge.

We stand ready to work with the Caucus to assure that the
most basic constitutional and statutory protections accorded all
persons in the United States are not weakened or ignored.

Respectfully,

National Coordinating Committee for Fair and Humane
Immigration Reform 2014

Protect Our Families and Save the Children Campaign

Hermandad Mexicana

Mexican American Political Association

California-Mexico Studies Center

Southern California Immigration Coalition

Labor Council for Latin American Advancement- Sacramento,
California

Alliance for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Chicago, Ill.

United Front for Immigrants, Chicago, Ill.

El Comite de Washington, Seattle, WA

Willie C. Velazquez Institute
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Obamas Chickens Coming Home to Roost

By: Nativo Vigil Lopez nativolopez@gmail.com
July 1, 2014 Los Angeles, California

James Russell Lowell wrote in 1870, All our mistakes sooner or
later surely come home to roost. The older fuller form was
curses are like chickens; they always come home to roost,
meaning that your offensive words or actions are likely at some
point to rebound on you. And, the offensive actions of President
Barack Obama over the past six years in terms of mass
deportations, prolonged incarcerations, streamlined removals,
and border and interior immigration enforcement, have
certainly come back to haunt him, his administration, and the
U.S. Congress.

The current humanitarian crisis of the explosive number of
unaccompanied minors on the U.S. southern border, at last
count 52,000, but increasing daily, is no mere accident. Over
the past two years the Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) has tracked the incremental increase of minors
attempting to cross the border, over two-thirds from Central
American countries and the remaining one-third from Mexico.

For example, DHS was aware that more than 25,000 minors
arrived unaccompanied at the U.S. border seeking entry in
2013.

Aside from doing nothing to address the underlying causes of
this refugee exodus failing states and collapsing economies in
a region where the U.S. has historically meddled economically
and militarily - it is a crisis that could easily have been
anticipated and prepared for and not presented by the
corporate media and the administration to the public as a
sudden unexpected occurrence.

And, yet, without seeming insensitive to the plight of tens of
thousands of children and youngsters, this situation is
symptomatic of a deeper systematic catastrophe.

Record deportations, now exceeding 2 million, have resulted in
devastating and near unprecedented separation of families;
twenty-five percent of the deported are reported to have U.S.-
born children; and an estimated 500,000 U.S. citizen minors
find themselves in Mexico as undocumented Americans obliged
to accompany their deported undocumented Mexican parents.

In effect, these children find themselves exiled from their
birthright to a land foreign to them.

The number of similarly exiled youngsters to Central American
countries are unavailable, but undoubtedly also large.
Additionally, 36,000 privatized jail beds are permanently filled
by the migrant adult wards of the state because they are
arbitrarily budgeted to be so by Congress with the complicity of
the president.

The mutual acrimonious rhetoric and foot-dragging between
the Democrats and Republicans related to comprehensive
immigration reform has come to naught, as the country moves
closer to Novembers mid-term elections.

Even the proposed legislation passed by the Senate last year,
numbered S.744, is primarily enforcement laden and defers
preferentially to the cheap labor demands of industry and
agriculture.

The brokered provisional legal status offered to the 11 million
undocumented looks nothing like the generous amnesty signed
into law by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1986.
Reputable legal experts estimate that less than 60 percent of
the potential applicants would qualify for the tenuous status.
Minimum wage earning female heads of household with
children, for example, would not qualify and therefore be held
deportable.

In effect, Americas immigration system is in structural and
social crisis as policy-makers and legislators seek to transition
away from family reunification in deference to a labor skills-
based point system to legally immigrate to the U.S. Under such
an immigration regime most Mexicans and Central Americans
would not pass muster, although they make up the bulk of
todays undocumented population.

But, back to the unaccompanied minors - President Obamas
press conference this past Monday sought to allay fears about
his capacity to deal with the challenge, demonstrate his
commitment to secure the border, declare another ultimatum
to Republican House members to pass immigration reform by
the end of summer, and threaten use of executive action to
address the systems inadequacies in absence of legislation. He
will request $2 billion from Congress immediately upon their
return from the Fourth of July break to further militarize the
border.

Perhaps most important is what Obama did not share with the
public. He feigned to his political left with yet another promise
for executive action in a placating maneuver and once again
delayed the moment to walk the walk. But, he steadfastly
moved to the political right with his proposed emergency
allocation to secure the border and his intention to seek
expedited removal of the children refugees to their countries of
origin, notwithstanding the 2008 bipartisan legislation approved
under his predecessor, George W., to codify due process
protections of unaccompanied minors except for Mexicans
and Canadians.

Obama, the much heralded constitutional law professor and
first black president of the U.S., will first have to attack the due
process rights of children refugees and undo current legal
protections and procedures put into place to safeguard their
well-being, even if only temporarily, in order to expedite their
deportation. This is the equivalent of Mexicanizing the Central
American minors in that Mexican minors, being from a
contiguous country, do not enjoy the same protections under
the 2008 statute.

The public little acknowledges that the U.S. Constitution,
especially all of the inherent protections against government
abuse and overreach, applies equally to the unaccompanied
minors immediately upon setting foot on American soil, as it
does to the most red-bloodied American amongst us.

Shamefully, Congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas (28th
District) and Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, both
Democrats, are working feverishly behind the scenes to clear
the legislative path for President Obama to meet the
humanitarian crisis with more stick and not much carrot.
Removal of the Bush-era due process rights and protections is
the task they have accepted.

However, undermining the rights of these minors has ominous
implications for the rights of all U.S. citizens. It is a fatal and
futile attempt to plug the proverbial dam with a finger, which
will only lead to greater crises. Yes, curses are like chickens;
they always come home to roost.

#####

Copyright 2014 Nativo Vigil Lopez, Advisor to Hermandad
Mexicana founded in 1951.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Like those children, I too fled Central America

By Pablo Alvarado, CNN.com, Thu July 3, 2014
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/03/opinion/alvarado-
immigration-children/index.html?hpt=ju_mid

(CNN) -- A few days after my little brother received death
threats, he and I jumped on top of la Bestia -- the Beast -- the
train heading north, to escape El Salvador. The country that
financed the armed forces seeking to kill our friends and family
would be our destination for safety. And like the millions of
people forced into migration, I was compelled to leave my
home for the uncertainty and waiting unwelcome of the United
States.

I left on my last day of college before graduation and dedicated
myself to guaranteeing the safety of my brother, still a teen not
much older than the unaccompanied minors currently arriving
en masse at the U.S.-Mexico border. Although I cannot pretend
to know their situation, I can see the faces of those we traveled
with in the photos of those children crowded into detention
centers.

Right-wing conservatives have fully seized upon this latest turn
in the immigration debate to harp upon border security and
scoff at troops unable to stop little children. President Barack
Obama, who seems to have made it his mission to appease
them in his first six years, would now do better to ignore them
completely than to continue to step on the gas of his
deportation apparatus.

In a debate that has centered on criminalizing migrants and the
act of migration, the faces of children, huddled and scared,
hoping and vulnerable, defy vilification. Instead, they
demonstrate what the President has declared but not yet acted
on: Immigration is a humanitarian crisis. It is not to be met
with soldiers, jails and handcuffs but with relief and aid.

Intractable nativists, unable when confronted by these children
to demonize people crossing the border, will turn to their
equally favorite target -- demonizing the administration.

One of the mouthpieces of anti-immigrant initiatives in the
House, Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, insists on repeating the
rumor that it was actually the Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals program and the misunderstanding of the prospect of
immigration reform that caused the youths' arrival. He would
want us to believe that this Congress has made legalization
look so promising that children who would have otherwise
stayed put are making the journey across a continent to be one
of its rumored beneficiaries.

But like any magnet theory, it misses the primary factor of
displacement. The push is stronger than any pull. The White
House initially tried to dispel the bluster from the right. But the
debate has reverted to the most common pattern in
immigration policy: hyperbolic denunciations from the right,
appeasement from the administration and near silence from the
rest of the Beltway.
To have a real conversation about children at the border
requires understanding the humanitarian crisis, but it also
requires addressing the dynamic among the United States and
its neighbors.

We must examine the reason people are being pushed to the
north. Exactly what is happening in their home countries? And
what hand does the United States play in creating those
problems?

My brother and I did not leave our parents behind, only to be
assaulted on a monthlong journey north and witness the worst,
including people dying, because we simply wanted to. We did
not leave the work we had and the life we had started to build
because we would be happier looking for jobs on the street and
paying what we could to sleep in a living room.

We came because it was our opportunity to survive, because
counterinsurgency forces, known now to have been financed by
the Reagan administration, fought a dirty war in El Salvador. It
claimed the lives of 70,000 people and displaced 1 million
more.

I hope the plight of the children who have taken center stage in
the immigration debate can shatter the myth that we can
continue the conversation without considering our neighbors.

The children have shown that proposals and issues of the
debate have been inadequate. When I return to El Salvador, as
a citizen of the United States, and I interview those who were
deported for a soon-to-be-released study, the most common
refrain people share is "What choice do I have but to go north?"

The walls erected and the troops deployed and even the
legislation that has been introduced do not answer that
question and do not address people who desire to survive,
harbor the hope for something better and see the possibility of
neither.

###

Editor's note: Pablo Alvarado is the executive director of the
National Day Laborer Organizing Network. The opinions
expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writer.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Estados Unidos y Mxico, Estados terroristas: Juntos
hostigan y aniquilan a migrantes

En ocasin de los nueve Arieles que recibi el pasado
martes La Jaula de oro, entre ellos, por mejor pelcula,
actor, coactuacin masculina, guin y fotografa, les
envo este correo esperando sea de su inters.

Por Primitivo Rodriguez ~ 30 de mayo, 2014
Las polticas y leyes migratorias de los gobiernos de Mxico y
de Estados Unidos alientan xenofobia y racismo, y a la vez
causan directa e indirectamente abuso, explotacin,
desmembramiento familiar, extorsin, secuestro, violacin,
trata, desaparicin, asesinato y muerte sin precedente de
migrantes indocumentadas/os.

Debido al cierre de su frontera con Mxico, el cual comenz
en 1993, as como a la guerra sin cuartel que inici contra el
terrorismo y la migracin indocumentada despus de los actos
terroristas de 2001, guerra que en 2008 extendi a Mxico a
travs de la Iniciativa Mrida, Estados Unidos se erigi como el
principal responsable de las atroces violaciones a los derechos
humanos, laborales y civiles, incluido el derecho a la vida, que
padecen migrantes indocumentados en ambos lados de la
frontera.

Por su parte, Mxico se ha esmerado en hacerle el trabajo sucio
a Washington en el terreno migratorio ejerciendo
comedidamente su papel de enganchador, guarura, carcelero y
sicario del To Sam.

Desde hace veinte aos por lo menos, los territorios de la
frontera sur norteamericana y el de Mxico representan en el
mundo el espacio donde ms sufren, desaparecen, mueren y
son asesinados migrantes sin documentos.
En consecuencia, tomando en consideracin:

el poco o nulo respeto que Estados Unidos y Mxico
exhiben por leyes constitucionales que resguardan
derechos bsicos de toda persona, as como por
documentos internacionales que han suscrito, por
ejemplo, los concernientes al respeto a la vida y
proteccin de la dignidad de nias/os, mujeres y
minoras raciales;

el impulso que las restrictivas y contraproducentes
polticas y leyes migratorias de ambos pases han dado a
grupos de la delincuencia organizada para lucrar con el
trfico de migrantes y la trata con fines de explotacin
sexual y laboral de nias/os y mujeres;

la masiva violacin a derechos y la impunidad que
propician tales polticas y leyes, dando como resultado el
aumento sin precedente de la extorcin, secuestro,
desaparicin, muerte y asesinato de migrantes,

Estados Unidos y Mxico deben ser condenados por la
ONU y la OEA, y ser declarados Estados terroristas.

Las mujeres y hombres que emigran al Norte sin documentos,
ya sea solos o con familia, responden fundamental e
histricamente a la demanda estadounidense de
trabajadoras/es internacionales. Demanda que no ha querido
satisfacer el gobierno norteamericano por medios legales y en
conformidad con los derechos que corresponden a las
trabajadoras/es de Mxico y otros pases de origen.

Estados Unidos se ha vuelto un adicto al suculento negocio de
la migracin indocumentada, en tanto que los gobernantes
mexicanos disfrutan el alivio social y poltico que les ofrece la
migracin al extranjero, y felices dan la bienvenida al ingreso
de millonarias remesas.

Sin embargo, pese a las infiernos que encaran, las/os
migrantes continan abriendo camino a un mejor futuro
para todas y todos. Hoy como ayer, las mejores
defensoras y defensores de migrantes son ellas y ellos
mismos.

Migrantes somos y en el camino andamos!

Primitivo Rodrguez Oceguera

P.D. Para entender mejor la ingente desgracia migratoria
que tiene lugar en Mxico, me parece til repasar
brevemente la nueva desastrosa- ley de migracin y
el papel que jug su principal impulsor civil: el
Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano que dirigen Jos
Jacques Medina, Marta Snchez y Rubn Figueroa.
The California-Mexico Studies Center, Inc.
1551 N. Studebaker Rd.
Long Beach, CA 90815
www.california-mexicocenter.org

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