Mexican Groups Denounce Nighttime Deportations of Youth
El Norte Digest
New California Media, News Digest, Compiled and Edited by Marcelo Ballve, Posted: Mar 26, 2003
“El Norte” is a weekly report on news and views from the Latino press and communities. Traducción en Español
- Mexican Groups Denounce Nighttime Deportations of Youth
- Latino Veteran Writes on Haunting Realities of War
- Florida Migrant Farm Workers in Historic Push for Protections
- Colombian Kidnap Victim Nominated for Peace Prize
The U.S. Border Patrol may be violating agreements that bar the deportation of minors at night along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to Adelante, a weekly Spanish-language newspaper published in California’s Imperial Valley.
The border patrol has said they cannot keep the minors since that would mean holding them with adult criminals. According to the Border Patrol it’s the Mexican authorities’ responsibility to attend to the deportees appropriately.
The U.S. Border Patrol has been deporting minors at night and on the weekends, when the young deportees have nowhere to go in sprawling border cities, since Mexican shelters for migrants close in the afternoon, alleged Mónica Oropeza, director of the Youth Shelter of the Mexicali Desert. The Mexican consul in Calexico acknowledged there is a lack of infrastructure for youth deportees on both sides of the border, but said the U.S. Border Patrol should not deport after 3 p.m.
The problem is urgent in Mexicali, the Mexican city in the Imperial Valley east of San Diego, because authorities worry the U.S. Border Patrol will be stepping up deportations due to the Iraq war and the increased level of alertness along the border.
In 2002, nearly 600 minors were deported across the border to Mexicali. A 1997 bilateral agreement prohibits the deportation of minors to Mexico on the weekends or after 3 p.m. on weekdays, the paper said, in the story by Edgar Fabián Chávez in its March 26 edition.
Latino Veteran Writes on Haunting Realities of War
The bad news flowed in from Iraq for Latino families with children or husbands in the military.
Iraqis held a Mexican-American from Texas, Edgar Hernández, as a prisoner of war. Two Marines, Mexican-American Jose Ángel Garibay, and Guatemalan-American José Gutiérrez were both killed in battle.
Though published before the news of the deadly battles came, the risks of conflict was the topic of a March 21 essay written by Vietnam War veteran and columnist Jorge Mariscal for the bilingual weekly, La Prensa-San Diego.
In the essay, Mariscal also explained how he feels he can support troops while opposing the Iraq war.
Mariscal recalled a tune played incessantly by Armed Forces radio during the Vietnam conflict, “Jimmy Mack”, by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. The song, though ostensibly about the strain placed on a relationship by the war, carried a deeper meaning with its chorus, ‘Jimmy Mack, when are you comin’ back? Need your lovin’,’” Mariscal wrote.
The song, although “a great pop classic with pulsing bass and a tight horn section”, haunted soldiers with the possibility of death: “For young GIs far from home, the central question of “Jimmy Mack” always carried an extra level of meaning with a special weightiness. The ultimate question for all of us was ‘Are you comin’ back at all?’ Or are you going to die thousand miles away for reasons no one really understands?” wrote Mariscal.
Politics aside, it is important to remember that most U.S. soldiers have one overriding goal, he said.
“I have no doubt that what motivates the majority of these young men is one thing and one thing only, to survive the conflict and get back to their families. Do those of us who disagree with Bush’s drive to war support our troops? We support them so much that we want them home now, alive and psychologically sound.”
Florida Migrant Farm Workers in Historic Push for Protections
In California, farm workers prepared to commemorate the March 31 birth anniversary of César Chavez, who organized California rural laborers into a union that gained them protection from harmful work conditions and ensured fair pay.
Now, with Hispanics increasingly becoming a crucial voting bloc in Florida, migrant farm workers in that state are close to gaining protections of their own for the first time, according to a story published March 24 by El Sentinel, a Spanish-language daily in South Florida.
Florida farm workers - who help harvest tomatoes, pine trees, sugar cane and oranges - are pushing for the approval of a package of laws to protect them from pesticides and abusive employers who do not pay their workers, the paper said.
The laws have a good chance of passing since both parties are fighting for the Florida Hispanic vote that is seen as crucial in the 2004 presidential elections, according to El Sentinel. The various bills are gaining support among both Republicans and Democrats in the Florida legislature, with broad support among Hispanic and Black legislators, the paper said.
The Florida House Majority Leader, Marco Rubio, a Republican from Miami, is co-sponsoring the bill that protects migrant farm workers from pesticides, El Sentinel said.
Political analysts believe that the Cuban voting bloc in Miami was key in pushing President Bush to victory in Florida in the 2000 elections, when the populous state established itself as the nation’s pre-eminent political battleground. Puerto Ricans, Central Americans and other Hispanics are also increasingly becoming registered voters in South Florida.
Colombian Kidnap Victim Nominated for Peace Prize
The governor of an important Colombian province, still held by leftist rebels after being kidnapped during a peace march almost a year ago, was presented as a candidate for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize by a U.S.-based organization, reports New York daily El Diario/La Prensa.
Though it was unclear if Guillermo Gaviria, former governor of Antioquia, had a good chance of winning the prize, the Honolulu, Hawaii-based Global Center for Nonviolence sent a petition to the Nobel committee asking for Gaviria to be considered, along with his wife, Yolanda Pinto de Gaviria.
“The governor and first lady’s examples of pacifist nonviolent leadership, supported by thousands of Colombians of all social levels, offers hope to a 21st Century world that is tired of bloodshed,” wrote Glen Paige, the center’s director, according to El Diario/La Prensa.
In the story filed March 25 from Medellin, Colombia, reporter Orlando Cadavid Correa said that Colombian President Álvaro Uribe had offered to negotiate Gaviria’s release, along with that of his peace minister Gilberto Echeverri, who was also kidnapped. But the rebel group, the FARC, rejected Uribe’s demands that negotiations be overseen by the United Nations.
Both men were kidnapped April 2002, during a peace march on a Colombian highway that was raided by the rebels. Since their capture, the men’s two wives have been high-profile crusaders for peace in Colombia’s 40-year Civil War and for the release of thousands of kidnap victims, including former presidential candidates, government ministers and legislators, who are held in the rebels’ “concentration camps”, according to the paper.
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