Desde Tucsón: Silencio y traición en la comunidad latina

April 24, 2014 12:00 am  •  By Ernesto Portillo Jr.

Ernesto Portillo Jr.

netopjr@azstarnet.com

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El pasado lunes 21 de abril asistí al seder, una ceremonia de la Pascua de los judíos. En el Templo Emanu-El, en North Country Club Road, cerca de East Broadway, unos 200 tucsonenses, no todos judíos, recordaron la ancestral historia del éxodo de judíos de la esclavitud de Egipto.
Es una historia de supervivencia y triunfo. Es una historia universal que ha sido vista y narrada por más de tres mil años, cuando los judíos, que una vez fueron esclavos, vagaron por el desierto para conseguir su libertad.
Sin embargo, nosotros no tenemos que voltear a la historia antigua para recordar el éxodo. Hoy en día, aquí en nuestro desierto, seguimos atestiguando historias de supervivencia y, desgraciadamente, de muertes de seres humanos que iban en busca de su libertad.
La ceremonia fue auspiciada por el Templo Emanu-El y por Humane Borders, un grupo de voluntarios basado en Tucsón que se esfuerza en prevenir muertes de inmigrantes colocando barricas de agua en el desierto. Crear la conexión entre esa histórica experiencia judía y nuestras historias actuales no fue nada difícil.
Ahí nos recordaron una de las más grandes enseñanzas judías: “Salvar una vida está en el corazón mismo de nuestra fe”.
Pero ese mandato trasciende a la fe judía. Es central en mi fe cristiana; no hacer nada para prevenir las muertes de migrantes en nuestro desierto viola nuestros valores fundamentales, ya sean cristianos, judíos o basados en cualquier otra fe religiosa.
El rabino Samuel Cohon, del Templo Emanu-El, condujo el servicio de oración. Reconoció que él también necesitaba saber más sobre la difícil situación de los migrantes que cruzan la frontera y de la necesidad de hacer más por prevenir sus muertes.
No es el único. De hecho, la inmensa mayoría de los tucsonenses y de los habitantes del Sur de Arizona son indiferentes a las muertes de los migrantes. Puede ser que nos conmueva cuando escuchamos o leemos sobre la muerte de un hombre, una mujer, un niño, pero no nos mueve lo suficiente como para hacer algo. Grupos como Humane Borders, No más Muertes y Samaritanos han existido desde hace unos 10 años en Tucsón. Los voluntarios se han desplegado por los campos de la muerte cerca de Arivaca, Sásabe y la Nación de los Tohono O’odham para rescatar a migrantes.
Pero los voluntarios son pocos y los grupos viven con escasas donaciones. Más aún, la mayoría de los voluntarios no son latinos, a pesar de que los migrantes que cruzan la muerte son latinos por mayoría abrumadora.
El silencio de la comunidad latina del Sur de Arizona puede escucharse a través de las rocas escarpadas, las duras montañas, en los estrechos arroyos, donde la gente de México, Honduras, Guatemala y otros países está enterrada. Aun así, en nuestra comunidad latina quizá conozcamos a una familia que perdió a un ser querido mientras cruzaba el desierto. Hemos visto en televisión reportajes en los que agentes de la Patrulla Fronteriza y personal médico recogen cuerpos devastados por la deshidratación y las heridas. Hemos visto películas de ficción basadas en experiencias reales de familias viviendo su duelo frente a cuerpos fantasmas que nunca serán hallados.
¿Nuestra respuesta? Sacudimos la cabeza y murmuramos: “Pobres”.
Les dejamos a otros la tarea de prevenir muertes. Nos decimos a nosotros mismos que esas muertes no son problema nuestro y castigamos a los muertos por haber intentado cruzar la frontera en busca de una vida mejor y de la reunión familiar.
Tristemente, los vivos traicionamos a los muertos y a sus familias.
Sin embargo, en la ceremonia nos recordaron que nuestra grandeza como comunidad, como país, no se mide por la cantidad de dinero que tenemos ni por el número de soldados uniformados, tampoco por cuántas grandes universidades hemos construido.
No, nuestra grandeza como comunidad se mide a través de nuestra compasión, del humanismo con el que tratamos a los demás, especialmente a los pobres, a los desprotegidos, a los adultos mayores y a los niños, y a los inmigrantes que cruzan nuestro desierto.
En la fe judía, el profeta Elijah regresa en cada generación vestido como el oprimido para comprobar si se le da el trato digno de un ser humano.
Elijah sigue esperando.

ACLU demands halt to alleged harassment of checkpoint monitors in Arivaca

A group of Arivaca residents are not giving up on their efforts to have a Border Patrol checkpoint removed from their community.
The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter Wednesday to Border Patrol Tucson Sector Chief Manuel Padilla to “immediately cease interfering with lawful protest and monitoring of the Arivaca Road checkpoint and respect the civil rights of all residents and motorists at Border Patrol checkpoints.”
The ACLU is ready to sue if the agency does not allow residents to exercise their First Amendment rights, said James Lyall, the organization’s attorney in Tucson.
Since Feb. 26, groups of at least three people have showed up to the checkpoint 25 miles north of the border with a sign that reads: “checkpoint monitoring to deter abuse and gather data” and a video camera.
But the residents said agents immediately harassed them and ordered them to stand far from the checkpoint, where they can’t see or hear anything.
Among other things, the ACLU letter said the agents have:

• Placed “no pedestrian” signs, barriers and rope blocking the public right of way.
• Threatened to arrest them.
• Parked their vehicles to further obstruct view of the photographers and protesters.
• On one occasion, left a Border Patrol vehicle running for several hours, blowing exhaust in the faces of the monitors.

Customs and Border Protection said in an emailed statement that the issues raised in the letter are being investigated. It said it could not comment further because “it is not the practice of the agency to discuss matters under the investigative process.”
“If they are in the area where agents are performing their duties, I can see how that would cause not only an officer-safety issue but a safety issue to the general public,” said Art del Cueto, president of the agents’ union in the Tucson Sector, the National Border Patrol Council Local 2544. “I’ve been involved in incidents where you send someone to secondary inspection and they are carrying drugs or people as contraband and speed out of the checkpoint driving erratically. I can see how people standing by it could get hurt.”
The process used by the agency to handle complaints works well, he said.
Residents say the checkpoint is a source of rights violations, racial profiling, harassment, unwarranted searches and economic deterioration.
People have to go through the checkpoint when they go shopping, have a doctor’s appointment or take their children to school, said Patricia Miller, who has lived in the Arivaca area for 36 years and volunteers to monitor the checkpoint.
“You never know what kind of attitudes you are going to get when you go through,” she said. “They don’t let agents get familiarized with the community. They are stopping people who have lived here for years.”
Last year, the Arivaca group of residents launched a campaign to demand the removal of the Arivaca Road checkpoint — one of three Border Patrol checkpoints that surround the town. The petition was signed by over 200 people and 10 businesses, about a third of the population. U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva also wrote a letter of support.
Padilla responded by saying the agency could not remove the checkpoint because it was a lawful and effective tool to secure the border, but he encouraged them to bring to his attention any specific incidents regarding local residents and the checkpoint.
In January, the ACLU of Arizona also filed an administrative complaint with the Department of Homeland Security regarding alleged abuses at six Southern Arizona checkpoints, including the checkpoint on Arivaca Road.
Lyall said the ACLU got a response saying the claims were being investigated. It did not include a timeline.
“Until we actually see some results or actions, we remain very concerned that there are effectively no real accountability mechanisms in place,” he said.
Residents plan to keep monitoring the checkpoint in four-hour shifts.

Contact reporter Perla Trevizo at ptrevizo@azstarnet.com or 573-4210. On Twitter: @Perla_Trevizo

Esther Cepeda: Obama strings Hispanics along on immigration

Last week’s award for truer words were never spoken goes to David Martin, who served as deputy general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security in the first two years of the Obama administration.
Martin made a blunt observation to a New York Times reporter — one that made sense to everyone who has seen through President Obama’s immigration reform gambit designed to appease Hispanic voters.
“It would have been better for the administration to state its enforcement intentions clearly and stand by them, rather than being willing to lean whichever way seemed politically expedient at any given moment,” he said. “They lost credibility on enforcement, despite all the deportations, while letting activists think they could always get another concession if they just blamed Obama. It was a pipe dream to think they could make everyone happy.”
Martin’s comments appeared in a Page One news story about the number of unlawfully present immigrants without criminal backgrounds who have been deported despite the president’s request that DHS use discretion and focus on hard-core criminals.
DHS’ inability to put a priority on drug dealers or terrorists while deporting red-light runners or those who misstep after overstaying a visa has been well-known for years. Yet the reason the Times article has been dissected and used to push the agendas of national immigrant advocacy organizations is that it puts Obama’s cynicism on display.
Yes, Obama did step up deportations after he promised Latinos he’d find a way to offer relief while he negotiated a path-to-citizenship immigration reform. Yes, he did get miffed when activists, journalists and community leaders called him out on his inability to keep his promise, and he did scold them during White House meetings for criticizing him.
Time and again, he did say he could not act unilaterally to legalize unlawfully present immigrants and then , practically on the eve of his re-election, granted deferred action to young people who would have been eligible for the Dream Act and who, coincidentally, were active campaigners on Democrats’ behalf.
And yes, he is once again responding to renewed calls to end deportations with his stock answers of, basically, “I can’t do anything about it” and “Blame the Republicans.”
Obama did ask supplicants at recent White House meetings to shelve the anecdotes about the pain and suffering of deportation and families torn apart. Not because he doesn’t care, of course , but because it’s more productive to discuss strategy for legislating permanent relief. That at least was honest, if a bit cold.
His machinations to preserve favorability ratings among Hispanics have been on display for years, even if his disciples didn’t want to see them. And though every year Obama has gone on speaking tours during Hispanic Heritage Month to make clear he cares about passing immigration reform, his approval rating among Latinos is at an all-time low — 52 percent, according to Gallup.
But why it was ever so high, 75 percent just one year earlier, is a mystery. As he was nearing the end of his first year in office, it was clear his governing agenda for year two and beyond did not put immigration on the map.
I don’t blame Obama for his inability to rally obstructionist Republicans toward a compromise on one of the most contentious issues of our time.  And most levelheaded people wouldn’t have blamed him for focusing on repairing the economy and getting people back to work, if he would have just said so. Instead, he kept overpromising and underdelivering on immigration reform.
Obama’s  legacy will be how foolish his most ardent Hispanic supporters will forever feel knowing it took them so long to realize he has been stringing them along on the issue that strikes at the heart of their dignity.

Bilingual Education

   

The Fight For Bilingual Education Programs In The U.S.

Anyone who felt the ice was thinning regarding the controversial nature of bilingualism education took it on the chin after the fallout from Coke’s recent Super Bowl commercial featuring “America the Beautiful” sung in eight languages. Yeah, there are still plenty of myopic folks who simply believe, “Either speak English or leave.”

The anti-bilingual wall

Still, there are cracks in the anti-bilingual wall in terms of K-12 education with California legislators currently debating the elimination of Prop 227, which in 1998 effectively ended bilingual education in that state.

Florida International University Assistant Professor of Linguistics Phillip M. Carter told VOXXI the irony is the smoking gun in favor of bilingual education is tied directly to Prop 227’s effect in Northern California, where such programs were allowed if more than 50 percent of parents signed waivers.

“There are very successful bilingual education programs in San Francisco City Schools for languages like Mandarin and Japanese,” Carter said. “The data from those programs is very, very good. Those students do better than their peers in non-bilingual programs within the same district.”

The reason why bilingual education programs produce higher-achieving students has to do with cognitive benefits such as enhanced understanding of mathematics, creativity and selective retention.

What’s currently being proposed in California is to allow bilingual education, thus benefiting millions of Spanish speaking students who right now are taking English-only classes.

“The proposal is for dual language immersion (DLI) programs, which differ slightly from bilingual education programs,” Carter said. “The goal is to give students education in all core areas in both languages – acquiring English and maintaining the home language if you’re an immigrant student or acquiring the second language and maintaining English if you’re U.S. born.”

He added that DLI programs, which begin with young children, actually increase the cognitive benefits for students. This also effectively dispels the introduction of foreign language study in high school.

“You get less benefits the older you are when you learn the language, so that means it makes very little sense to block use of both languages until high school,” Carter said. “That’s a huge missed opportunity, not only for Latino students who come to school probably speaking Spanish and they forget it, but also in terms of the cognitive benefits all students regardless of language background will receive.”

One of the more devastating byproducts of the bilingual education debate is its affect on the Latino family, which sends kids to school to learn English. The result is not only do the young students lose their cultural heritage and the ability to speak to their extended family in their native tongue, but deny themselves career opportunities.

“There’s an astounding number of cascading effect on Latino families where parents and grandparents only speak Spanish and kids who only speak English or have receptive bilingualism, where they can understand their parents but aren’t comfortable responding in Spanish,” Carter said. “That’s how language attrition takes place.

“Which you can say, ‘OK, who cares? Do we need Spanish in the U.S.?’ And you can say, ‘Yeah, we do.’ It’s good for the students, and it’s good for the local economies. Imagine if all of the millions of U.S. Latinos had full education in both languages, what kind of economic benefit that would usher in. It would be tremendous.”

It’s one thing to be able to communicate bilingually but what’s lost on, say, Latino students who no longer study Spanish is literacy – these are skills that are desperately needed in places such as Southern California, the southwest and Miami.

Considering a bilingual education benefits all students – Latinos, African Americans, whites – Carter remains hopeful the concept will soon be embraced by all sides.

“The page is turning on account of globalization,” Carter said. “I think that people from across the political spectrum are recognizing the globalizing forces on the economy and political systems of putting people in contact with one another from diverse places in ways that are unprecedented.”

“Despite that inherent political nature of language issues, I think the tide is turning and people are starting to say ‘OK, yes, actually this does make sense.’”

Originally published on VOXXI as The importance of dual language immersion programs

More children crossing border alone using dangerous Arizona corridor

The Southwest border has seen a surge in children and juveniles trying to cross into the United States without their parents — and officials fear this summer could be the most dangerous for them yet.
Border Patrol apprehensions of unaccompanied juveniles nationwide more than doubled from 16,000 in 2011 to almost 39,000 in fiscal year 2013 — and the government expects the number to hit 60,000 this year. The Tucson Sector saw a 54 percent increase in the same two-year span, from nearly 5,900 to just over 9,000.
Most of unaccompanied minors are from Mexico and Central America. Some are fleeing violence in their home countries, others want to come to work and many are trying to reunite with parents they haven’t seen in years.
The Border Patrol is particularly worried about a spike in the number of kids, both alone and accompanied by parents, from Guatemala — more juveniles from that country were apprehended in the first six months of this fiscal year than in all of last year. Worse yet, they are coming through one of the deadliest parts of the border.
It’s not unusual for Border Patrol agents to find Guatemalan women carrying a baby strapped to their back and pulling along two or three toddlers, a trend that worries the Border Patrol as well as the Guatemalan government.
“We are finding them just walking randomly through the desert by themselves,” said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Andy Adame. “It’s something we need to get a handle of ASAP because this thing can turn tragic any day.”
That’s especially true with summer approaching, said Jeffrey Self, commander of the Arizona Joint Field Command center, which oversees operations of three major Customs and Border Protection branches, including the Border Patrol.
“It is imperative that we get the message to Central America and Mexico that Arizona’s desert is one of the most dangerous places for anyone to attempt illegal entry into the United States,” Self said in a written statement. “The elderly, women and children are the most susceptible people to die as a result of the unscrupulous actions of criminal smuggling organizations.”
So far this fiscal year, the Border Patrol has apprehended nearly 2,500 Guatemalan juveniles. That exceeds the 2,456 detained in all of the previous fiscal year.
To help them survive, the Border Patrol is relocating rescue beacons — 30-foot tall towers with a blue flashing light at night and 20 wallet-size mirrors hanging from it to reflect the sun and attract crossers who need help. It also will deploy its Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue Unit (Borstar), a specialized unit trained in emergency search and rescue, today — about a month earlier than usual.
“We are already in lifesaving mode and it’s not even summer,” said Adame. The deadliest month for border crossers is July.
The Guatemalan Consulate in Phoenix will open an office in Tucson as a response to the increased demand, said Jimena Díaz, the consul in Phoenix. Together with the Border Patrol, the consulate has intensified its campaign warning Guatemalans of the dangers of the desert and to emphasize how vulnerable children are.

No roads, little shade

It’s hard to pinpoint a reason for the surge, Díaz said, since neighboring countries such as El Salvador and Honduras have issues similar to Guatemala’s.
“If you ask the migrants, they said it’s an economic reason, because there are no jobs,” she said. “But they don’t give out any more information.”
The consulate and Border Patrol suspect a well-organized mafia is coordinating the crossings and telling migrants not to talk.
The area many of them are crossing is about 20 to 30 miles west of Sasabe and the most remote, deadliest portion of the desert, Adame said.
It is a vast land of leveled valleys with few mountain ranges. There are none of the big, shady mesquite trees seen in Nogales. There are no natural springs. No houses. No roads or nearby towns.
Unaccompanied juveniles have tried to cross into the United States for years. But in previous years, Adame said, they would cross close to Nogales, Douglas or Naco — and never alone.
Most of the Guatemalan children Border Patrol agents are apprehending — both accompanied and unaccompanied — are younger than 13, with many under 5 years old, Adame said.
To raise awareness about the growing problem, the Tucson Samaritans, a local nonprofit founded in 2002 to provide humanitarian aid to border-crossers, will show the film “Which Way Home” and host a panel discussion with local experts.
“Which Way Home,” released in 2009, follows the 1,450-mile journey of a group of children from Central America trying to reach the United States.
“I felt a film should be made to make people aware of the reasons of why people are coming,” said Rebecca Cammisa, who directed the documentary, which is being used in Mexico to educate rural communities and by U.S. government officials and judges.
“The message of the film is not a political film, not to make you be a pro- or anti-anything, but to promote compassion and understanding,” Cammisa said. “To spend 1ƒ hours in someone else’s shoes and see what they go through.”
She started off with the goal of following children who were trying to reunite with their parents. But along the way she learned they had myriad reasons for undertaking a dangerous journey on which they are often extorted, robbed or even killed.
In 2006, Eloy Francisco and his cousin Rosario Hernández, at age 13 and 16, decided to seek a better future across the border and leave their town of Tehuacán, in southern Mexico.
As seen in the film, Eloy’s body was found in the Arizona desert a month after he left home. The medical examiner’s report said he died of exposure on May 27.
Five months after that, Rosario’s parents got a call from the Mexican government saying they had found a body, but because of decomposition they needed to perform a DNA test.
The test confirmed it was Rosario, who most likely died of exposure nearly a week earlier than his cousin and travel companion. 

Boarding “the Beast”

Since 2001, the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office has recorded the remains of 2,228 border crossers and determined the age in 62 percent of those cases.
Out of those, 72 are juveniles and children 17 and under. They include a 2-year-old girl who died in a car accident in 2003 and a 3-year-old boy who probably died of hyperthermia as his mother carried him through the desert in Sells.
Another 600 sets of remains belong to girls and boys ages 18 to 29.
No matter how many people die or how dangerous crossing the desert can be, some people have to experience it in order to believe it.
Isaac Fernández, 15, arrived in Nogales, Sonora, last week from Honduras with two cousins who are in their 20s. Twenty-four days before, he had left his home in Sand Pedro Sula, a town near the coast, close to the Guatemala border.
He took a seven-hour bus ride from Honduras to Guatemala, another bus from Guatemala all the way to Puebla, Mexico, and from there rode “The Beast,” as migrants call the freight trains they climb aboard even as it speeds down the tracks.
During his journey, Isaac saw a man fall off the train and “split in half,” he said in Spanish from the park where immigrants hang out during the day before going to the shelter at night. Wearing blue shorts, Converse tennis shoes and a green backpack with the essentials: toothpaste, toothbrush, pants and soap.
One day he entered a rail car to find a man dead, his hands tied.
And at one point he jumped onto a rail car with no place to sit and was forced to ride standing up, gripping a metal bar all night.
“If I fell asleep I would tumble down,” he said with a smile.
That was the first time he felt scared during the trip, but not enough to deter the Honduran high school student. He was determined to travel to Houston and see his father, who left nine years ago, when Isaac was just 6.
“They say the trip kills you, but I am not afraid,” he said. “Not all the trips are the same.”

Contact reporter Perla Trevizo at ptrevizo@azstarnet.com or 573-4210

Deportees seek 'humanitarian parole'

Two men are in custody after turning themselves in at the port of entry in Nogales, asking the government to grant them humanitarian parole and to re-open their immigration cases.
Ardani Rosales presented himself Wednesday morning after traveling by bus for four day from his native Guatemala. While Jaime Valdez walked through the turnstile at the Morley Gate Tuesday morning, as dozens of people chanted “bring him home,” from both sides of the border.
Valdez and Rosales’ move is part of pro-immigration activists’ latest efforts to bring attention to the nearly 2 million people who have been deported during President Obama’s administration.
Last year, nine young adults who lived in the United States without legal status were the first to seek entry back into the country asking for humanitarian parole. Since then, larger groups in Texas and California have followed their footsteps.
Organizers, including members of Puente Arizona, a grassroots organization for human rights, claim Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Valdez and Rosales in retaliation for their activism and are asking the federal government to reconsider their cases based on Obama’s request for a review of deportation policies and practices.
Valdez said he was deported in the middle of the night while Phoenix police tried to evict his father and others from their two-week hunger strike outside the ICE office.
The 31-year-old Michoacan native moved to Phoenix when he was 14 years old.
He said he worked at a restaurant and fixed computers in his free time before he was pulled over by a Phoenix police and cited for driving under the influence — his second DUI since 2004.
He was transported to Eloy Detention Center, where he was among a group of people who started a hunger strike, while his parents protested outside the ICE offices in Phoenix.
Amber Cargile, spokeswoman for ICE in Arizona, said, “ICE is committed to sensible, effective immigration enforcement that focuses on its priorities, including convicted criminals and those apprehended at the border while attempting to unlawfully enter the United States.”
An immigration judge ordered Valdez’s deportation in June, according to ICE, and on Feb. 24, a day before he was deported to Mexico, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied his request to put off his removal.
Valdez said he had poor legal representation, but recognizes he made mistakes.
“I’m going to try to do things the right way,” he said Monday from Nogales, Sonora, before he attempted to cross.
Rosales was deported on Dec. 13, 2013. ICE said he was deported to Guatemala after the board of immigration appeals dismissed his appeal on Nov. 29, 2013. He had been previously deported in 2005.
Wednesday also marked the beginning of a three-day, 60-mile march from Phoenix to the Eloy Detention Center in preparation for the April 5 National Day of Action for Not1More Deportation, during which rallies and marches will take place across the country to demand an immediate stop to all deportations.

Contact reporter Perla Trevizo at ptrevizo@azstarnet.com