Monday, March 6, 2017

“Decade of Betrayal”: How the U.S. Expelled Over a Half Million U.S. Citizens to Mexico in 1930s

By Democracy Now!
February 28, 2017

President Donald Trump is slated to give his first presidential address to Congress today. Democratic lawmakers have begun giving their tickets away to immigrants as a protest against Trump’s push to increase deportations and to block residents from some Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. Well, this is not the first time people of Mexican descent have been demonized, accused of stealing jobs, and forced to leave the country. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, more than a million people residing in the United States were deported to Mexico—about 60 percent of them were U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. We speak to the preeminent scholar on this often overlooked chapter of American history: Francisco Balderrama, professor of American history and Chicano studies at California State University, Los Angeles. He is co-author of Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s. […]

Watch segment or read full transcript:
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/2/28/forgotten_history_in_1930s_us_deported


Saturday, March 4, 2017

What Does an ICE Arrest Look Like?

Hundreds of thousands of people have now seen the video of Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez being detained by ICE agents as his 13-year-old daughter cries. Trump claims he’s just deporting “bad hombres,” but this is the reality—children traumatized by the threat of being separated from their parents. Interestingly, the rightwing trolls have been gloating on social media over what the Huffington Post describes as a “harrowing video.” The anti-immigrants may think they’re helping their cause; what they’re actually doing is exposing themselves as sadistic racists.—TPOI editor
ICE agents detain a father of four as his family watches
Harrowing Video Captures Teen Sobbing as ICE Arrests Her Dad on the Way to School
The father of four U.S. citizens was detained over a nearly decade-old DUI

By Carolina Moreno, Huffington Post
March 3, 2017
Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez was dropping off his daughters at school in Los Angeles on Tuesday when he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. His 13-year-old daughter, Fatima, sobbed as she recorded her father being handcuffed in front of her and her mother.

Avelica-Gonzalez, 48, who has been living in the United States for over 20 years, had just finished dropping off his 12-year-old daughter in the Highland Park neighborhood when he was detained. His 19-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, who was at work during the incident, told the LAist that a car had been following her father since the moment he left the house. […]

Read the full article:
Watch the video:

This Is What Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Is Doing to School Kids
Children struggle to understand why the president wants to take away their parents

By Roque Planas and Jessica Carro, Huffington Post
February 27, 2017
AUSTIN, Texas ― After an immigration sweep this month led to dozens of arrests here, a group of elementary school students looked to their teacher for an explanation. The teacher, who is forbidden from taking political stances in the classroom, asked them to write or draw what they were feeling.

The children all drew and wrote about President Donald Trump or his first major deportation operation.[…]

Read the full article:

Friday, March 3, 2017

"We Can't Organize Out of Fear": Undocumented Organizer Aly Wane on Resisting ICE

This is why I think, in many ways, the immigration conversation is a racial justice conversation.… I think that it would be a lie to have an analysis of the immigration system that doesn't speak very directly about the influence of race in this country.

Aly Wane at  SOA protest. Photo: Stephen Pa
By Sarah Jaffe, Truthout
March 2, 2017
Today we bring you a conversation with Aly Wane, an undocumented organizer based in Syracuse, New York. Originally born in Senegal, Wane works with a range of groups, including the Syracuse Peace Council, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, the Undocumented and Black Network and Black Lives Matter Syracuse.

Sarah Jaffe: Everybody is posting this story on Facebook of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) taking an immigrant with a brain tumor out of the hospital, and most people are posting this with "That is not normal," "I can't believe this is our new normal." Your response was, "I see ICE is getting back to its old tactics." Can you talk a little bit about what "normal" has been for immigrants?

Aly Wane: I think those of us who have been undocumented organizers for years are struggling with two energies right now. On the one hand, we are so excited to see so many new folks come into organizing spaces, realize what ICE and Border Patrol, with the cooperation of police, have been doing for so many years and really want to fight that. However, so much of this stuff was happening under both Obama and President Bush Jr., and we were not getting the same responses.[…]

Read the full article:

What Do ICE Raids Mean for the Rest of Us?


By David L. Wilson, MR Online
March 2, 2017 
The national sweeps by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the second week of February drew a great deal of media attention. Some of the coverage was devoted to analyzing whether the arrests of about 680 immigrants marked the start of a massive deportation campaign by the Trump administration. Some focused on the impact the raids had on the immigrants themselves and on their families, which often include U.S. citizens and green card holders. But there wasn’t much discussion about the impact of the raids on other working people—on citizens without immigrant friends or relatives.

For example, how much did these raids cost taxpayers?[...]

Read the full article:
https://mronline.org/2017/03/02/what-do-ice-raids-mean-for-the-rest-of-us/

And They Ask Why Hondurans Flee Their Own Country…

March 2 marked the anniversary of Honduran activist Berta Cáceres’ assassination. The suspects appear to be linked to the country's corrupt and violent military, which is trained and funded by the U.S. government. Meanwhile, the U.S. media and political class raise alarms about Hondurans fleeing to the United States to escape the violence. “Why don’t these people stay and fix their own country?” the politicians and pundits ask. A better question would be: “Why are we enabling the forces behind the violence?”—TPOI editor

Assassinated Honduran activist Berta Cáceres
Berta Cáceres court papers show murder suspects' links to US-trained elite troops
The Honduran environmental activist’s killing a year ago bears the hallmarks of a ‘well-planned operation designed by military intelligence’ says legal source

By Nina Lakhani, The Guardian
February 28, 2017
Leaked court documents raise concerns that the murder of the Honduran environmentalist Berta Cáceres was an extrajudicial killing planned by military intelligence specialists linked to the country’s US–trained special forces, a Guardian investigation can reveal.

Cáceres was shot dead a year ago while supposedly under state protection after receiving death threats over her opposition to a hydroelectric dam.

The murder of Cáceres, winner of the prestigious Goldman environmental prize in 2015, prompted international outcry and calls for the US to revoke military aid to Honduras, a key ally in its war on drugs.[…]

Read the full article:

An Idealist’s Martyrdom Fails to Move Honduras
But our taxpayer dollars continue to flow to Honduras to support the government of Juan Orlando Hernández, thus enabling the climate of terror that is fed by his party’s corruption.

By Silvio Carrillo, New York Times
March 2, 2017
LA ESPERANZA, Honduras — Precisely a year ago, I awoke to a garbled text message from my mother. She was too distraught to write clearly, but I understood her immediately, and my heart dropped. Murderers had finally gotten to my aunt Berta Cáceres, who, as a child, had been young enough to be my playmate Bertita, and later, as a woman, was courageous enough to stand up to evil in Honduras.

As we mark this sad anniversary in the town where Berta died, there is no solace for my family. Neither Honduras nor the United States seems to have learned anything from this loss.[...]

Read the full article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/opinion/an-idealists-martyrdom-fails-to-move-honduras.html

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Authorities Arrest 22-Year-Old Dreamer After She Speaks To Media

 “I feel like I am an American,” Daniela Vargas said.

By Dana Liebelson and Elise Foley, Huffington Post
March 1, 2017
WASHINGTON ― Federal immigration authorities arrested a 22-year-old woman in Jackson,
Mississippi, on Wednesday shortly after she spoke to the media about the detention of her family. Law enforcement had initially declined to arrest Daniela Vargas, who was previously granted deportation reprieve under the Obama administration’s deferred action program.

On Feb. 15, Vargas was half-asleep at home when Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents came for her family. Her father, a house painter, kissed her goodbye on his way to work and was apprehended in the driveway, Vargas told The Huffington Post last week. She says she never saw her brother, a construction worker who was also detained.

Vargas’ family came to the U.S. from Argentina over 15 years ago. She’d previously had protection under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. The program now has an uncertain future under President Donald Trump.[…]

Read the full article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/authorities-detain-daniela-vargas-dreamer_us_58b724e8e4b023018c6c7abc

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Detainee Class Action Suits Threaten Private Prisons

Trump wants to expand use of private prisons, but a ruling by a federal judge in Texas could present a big problem. “The judge’s ruling could encourage similar lawsuits against other immigrant detention centers,” the Daily Beast notes. “That, in turn, that could have significant implications for President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement plans.” –TPOI editor

Detainees Sue Private Prison for ‘Forced Labor'
As many as 60,000 current and former detainees may join a class-action suit against one of the nation’s largest private prison companies over unpaid labor.

By Betsy Woodruff, Daily Beast
February 27, 2017
The nation’s second largest private prison company is facing some serious legal challenges—and other companies may soon be in the same situation.

On Monday, a federal judge ruled that current and former detainees held at an immigrant detention center in Colorado can join a class-action lawsuit against GEO Group, a private prison company. The plaintiffs allege that the GEO Group forced detainees to work for extremely low wages or for no wages at all, and in some cases threatened detainees with solitary confinement as punishment if they refused to work. The center holds undocumented immigrants facing deportation.[…]

Read the full article:

Former Detainees Can Sue Private Prisons for Forced Labor
Up to 60,000 people could join a class-action against prison companies they say paid them little or nothing for their work, and threatened solitary confinement if they objected.

By Rhonda Fannin, Texas Standard
February 28, 2017
In an unprecedented case, a federal judge ruled Monday that a private prison company can be sued under federal laws prohibiting what amounts to slave labor.

The ruling allows current and former detainees at a privately-run immigrant detention center to join a class-action suit alleging that the contractor running the prison forced detainees to work for low or no wages, threatening solitary confinement for those who refused.

GEO Group, one of the nation’s largest private prison companies, runs facilities in Colorado and in Texas. Betsy Woodruff with the Daily Beast reports as many as 60,000 current and former detainees could act as plaintiffs in the case.[...]

Read the full article:
Photo: Bob Jagendorf/Flickr