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| January 28th, 2012 03:45:09 am |
JUAN GONZALEZ : We turn now to the Republican presidential debates. During the second debate in Florida last night, one of the first issues to come up was immigration. Both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have been trying to court Florida’s large Latino vote ahead of next week’s primary. Romney has launched Spanish-language ads, highlighting Gingrich’s remarks in a 2007 speech in which he suggested Spanish was a, quote, "language of the ghetto." Meanwhile, Gingrich has released an ad accusing Romney of being the most anti-immigrant candidate in the Republican field. At last night’s debate, Romney was asked to respond to Gingrich’s ad. MITT ROMNEY : That’s simply inexcusable. That’s inexcusable. And actually, Senator Marco Rubio came to my defense and said that ad was inexcusable and inflammatory and inappropriate. Mr. Speaker, I’m not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico. My wife’s father was born in Wales. They came to this country. The idea that I’m anti-immigrant is repulsive. Don’t use a term like that. You can say we disagree on certain policies. But to say that enforcing the U.S. law to protect our borders, to welcome people here legally, to expand legal immigration, as I approve, that that’s somehow anti-immigrant is simply the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has characterized American politics too long. And I’m glad that Marco Rubio called you out on it. I’m glad you withdrew it. I think you should apologize for it. And I think that you should recognize that having differences of opinions on issues does not justify labeling people with highly charged epithets. NEWT GINGRICH : I’ll tell you what—I’ll give you an opportunity to self-describe. You tell me what language you would use to describe somebody who thinks that deporting a grandmother or a grandfather from their family—just tell me the language. I’m perfectly happy for you to explain what language you would use. MITT ROMNEY : Mr. Speaker, I think I described following the law as it exists in this country, which is to say, I’m not going around and rounding people up and deporting them. What I said was, people who come here legally get a work permit. People who do not come here legally do not get a work permit. Those who don’t get work will tend, over time, to self-deport. I’m not going to go find grandmothers and take them out of their homes and deport them. Those are your words, not my words. And to use that rhetoric suggests to people that, somehow, if you’re not willing to keep people here who violated the law, that you’re anti-immigrant. Nothing could be further from the truth. AMY GOODMAN : Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich debating last night in Jacksonville, Florida. To talk more about immigration and the Republican race, we go to Miami, where we’re joined by Marcos Restrepo, a Florida reporter with the Florida Independent . He’s been a reporter writing in both Spanish and English in Colombia and Florida for more than 15 years. Talk about this debate and what is being raised, Marcos. MARCOS RESTREPO : Well, last night, the Republicans jumped on the issue of immigration right away. And what I want to pick up on is, they were talking about the grandmother and the grandfather, that deportation, because Mitt Romney brought that up this week, self-deportation. And what that’s really hiding, if you want to put it that way, is attrition through enforcement. It’s a model where you deny immigrants or undocumented immigrants any kinds of services—health, education, work—any kind of services, any possibilities to make a living, with the idea that they’ll leave of their own recognition: "Well, this is horrible for me and my family. I’m leaving." But the Immigration Policy Center issued a brief yesterday that says that basically there is no real evidence that attrition through enforcement really does work. So, I think the heart of the debate last night also didn’t touch on issues like the DREAM Act. Mitt Romney this week said he would go for the DREAM Act, a piece of legislation that’s been sitting in Congress for at least 10 years now, and it would allow a path to authorized residency for people who came to the U.S. under 16, who have lived here more than—most of their lives, OK, either by going to a higher education or going into the military. What Romney—excuse me, Gingrich said this week is he won’t accept the DREAM Act unless it only allows young people to go into the military. So the issues of attrition through enforcement, denying the DREAM Act, and also the rhetoric that’s been coming out about immigrants only worried about immigration, that it’s the only issue that really hits home with Latino and Latino voters, that’s not true. I live here in South Florida, and we’re having a hard time with issues like jobs, unemployment, education and housing. The Pew Hispanic Center put out a report just yesterday how Hispanics have—were polled. Over 1,200 Latinos or Hispanics were polled throughout the U.S. And the understanding we have of our situation is that we’ve been harder hit by other groups by this Great Recession and the housing—the bursting of the housing bubble. JUAN GONZALEZ : Marcos Restrepo, I’d like to turn to a clip of Rick Santorum at the debate last night. MARCOS RESTREPO : Sure. JUAN GONZALEZ : Santorum criticized the Obama administration’s policy towards Central and South America. He singled out Honduras, in particular. RICK SANTORUM : Our policy in Central and South America under this administration has been abysmal. The way we have treated, in particular, countries like Honduras—Honduras, which stood up for the rule of law, which threw out a would-be dictator who was using the Chvez playbook from Venezuela in order to try to run for re-election in Honduras. And the United States government, instead of standing behind the pro-democra—the people in the parliament, the people in the Supreme Court, who tried to enforce the constitution of Honduras—instead of siding with them, the Democrats, President Obama sided with two other people in South America—excuse me, in Central America and South America. Chvez and Castro and Obama sided against the people of Honduras. This is a consistent policy of siding with the leftists, siding with the Marxists, siding with those who don’t support democracy. JUAN GONZALEZ : Marcos Restrepo, your response, and how this plays in Florida, not only in South Florida, but also in Central Florida, which is largely Puerto Rican in population? MARCOS RESTREPO : Well, the issues around that coup in Honduras two to three years ago, one thing I think—I’m pretty sure Santorum is wrong. I think the Obama administration, through Hillary Clinton, sided with the coup, alleging, yeah, that the president at that time had broken the law. But I’m not an expert on that, so I don’t want to get deep into that. What I do understand is that foreign policy, U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, let’s say, through free trade agreements that all the GOP candidates on the stage supported last night, don’t really fulfill the most pressing issues for countries like where I come from, like Colombia. Now, again, issues like immigration still play important—a very important role for Florida voters, even if they’re Cuban or Puerto Rican. Latino Decisions issued a poll this week, over a thousand Latino/Latina voters, 500 of them here in Florida. And a little over 40 percent of those voters said, yeah, immigration was important, but jobs is also important, unemployment is also important, housing is also important. The thing is that we can’t separate immigration from other issues, and that includes foreign policy. So when you have people kind of like Rick Santorum describing what happened in Central America, that the Obama administration is linked to Marxists and Chvez in an unconditional manner, or that the free trade agreement with Colombia is like the best solution for Colombia, I think that’s wrong. The Colombian press has covered that agreement that was recently approved, that free trade agreement, and there’s several issues there. We’re not just talking about some mild violations of human rights; we’re talking over 2,900 murders of union leaders in Colombia over a period of 25 years. Only 10 percent of those cases, of those murders, were ever taken to the courts. Convictions have not been, you know, fast in coming. And that’s just in the Colombian case. It’s not just an issue of— AMY GOODMAN : And we’re going to have to leave it there, Marcos Restrepo, as we come to the end of the show, reporter with the Florida Independent , covering social justice issues, speaking to us from Miami. |
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| January 7th, 2012 03:45:06 am |
JUAN GONZALEZ : The family of a 15-year-old girl from Dallas, Texas, is demanding answers after she was deported to Colombia, despite the fact that she is a U.S. citizen and speaks no Spanish. Jakadrien Turner reportedly ran away from home more than a year ago after her parents divorced and her grandfather passed away. She was living in Houston when, according to news reports, she was arrested for shoplifting and gave police a fake name that belonged to a 22-year-old undocumented immigrant from Colombia. That’s when the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE , got involved. Its agents reportedly took her fingerprints and ran them through their criminal database and biometric verification system. They discovered the prints did not match the name Turner gave them, but they did match a woman who had warrants for her arrest. Despite the lack of a fingerprint match to the name she provided, ICE then deported Jakadrien Turner to Colombia. Turner’s grandmother spent the last year searching for the teen on the internet and finally tracked her down using Facebook. She was shocked to find she was living in Colombia, reportedly cleaning houses. The girl’s mother, Johnisa Turner, and grandmother, Lorene Turner, spoke to CNN about their confusing ordeal. LORENE TURNER : You have to have IDs to get, you know, to another country. And I just don’t understand how it could happen. Someone made a goof, and I think it was in ICE or someone. They made—they goofed up. ED LAVANDERA : It seems like part of you thinks that this isn’t your daughter’s doing. JOHNISA TURNER : I mean, I feel like she was—she has been coerced. I feel like someone has told her, maybe promised her something, or something. I don’t know. But it’s not her—it’s not her. It’s not her personality. There has to be adults involved. No 14-year-old can change their name and get to Colombia on their own. AMY GOODMAN : Jakadrien Turner’s grandmother and mother. Well, the 15-year-old girl may now be on her way back to the United States. She’s expected to be turned over to officials from the U.S. embassy in Colombia later today. Meanwhile, ICE has issued a statement that the agency, quote, "takes these allegations very seriously. At the direction of [the Department of Homeland Security], ICE is fully and immediately investigating this matter in order to expeditiously determine the facts of this case," they said. For more on the case, we go to Dallas, where we’re joined by Reverend Peter Johnson, who has worked with the Turner family through all of this, longtime civil rights leader who is deeply involved in immigrant rights, working on scores of cases with actual immigrants. His history as an activist extends to the 1960s, when was the youngest staff member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He is the youngest man still alive from King’s original staff. We’re also joined in Chicago by Jacqueline Stevens, a political science professor of Northwestern University. Her most recent book is States Without Nations: Citizenship for Mortals . She recently published an exhaustive report on U.S. citizens who have been detained and deported. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s turn to Reverend Johnson first. How did this happen? Jakadrien, a 15-year-old Dallas girl, is deported to another country, to Colombia? REV . PETER JOHNSON : Well, first, I appreciate this opportunity. I’m sitting here with my friend Ralph Isenberg, who’s probably the leading voice in America regarding immigration. We’ve probably dealt with 300, maybe 400, cases over the last four years with immigrant families. It’s impossible for me to say how this happened, other than ICE and the United States government seemed to be committed to deporting as many people a month as they possibly can deport, without any adjudication, not going before a judge, not being charged, just rounding up people and deporting them. And most of the people they are deporting are poor people. To do this to this particular family is indicative of what ICE has been doing for the last four or five years. We can, Ralph and I can, state case after case after case where kids come home from school, mother is not there. Mother never comes back home. ICE have locked the mother up, sent her to a jail, and she is deported. Kids don’t know what happened to their mother. This is typical of ICE : the destruction of families in this society. JUAN GONZALEZ : Well, but, Reverend Johnson, this— RALPH ISENBERG : Hello, this is Ralph Isenberg in Dallas. You know, the thing is, is that everything that could possibly go wrong seems to have gone wrong in this case. I think one thing that’s important that we have to remember is that we’re talking about a minor. And minors are supposed to be protected. So I’m not so certain that it’s wise to go into too many details, because that child has got a life to live yet. And the important thing is, is that we get her home. Clearly, law enforcement is going have to look into what happened and why it happened. You know, we have thousands of people every single day that are deported that don’t want to get deported. My understanding, and apparently it has been verified, is that this young lady, in fact, wanted to be deported versus going home. Now, if she was influenced in that, that has to be looked at, too. But I actually see so much abuse in our system, I understand why she would have been deported. It happens every day. AMY GOODMAN : Let me ask Reverend Peter Johnson how you and Ralph Isenberg, who is sitting next to you there in Dallas, a Dallas businessman, came to be involved in immigrants’ issues. REV . PETER JOHNSON : Oh, well, first Ralph and I had worked together in civil rights and social justice and human rights issues for many years. Ralph and I have traveled together and done things all over the South together. For me, it’s all divine. God moves in mysterious ways. Ralph is married to a beautiful girl from China, who one day was picked up by the Dallas Police Department, turned over to ICE , put in a prison 400 miles from Dallas, and eventually deported to China. Ralph, fighting to get his wife, who was pregnant at the time with his little boy, back into the country, eventually moved to China. In fact, I told my friend that I didn’t think I was going to ever see him again, because I knew how much he was committed to his family, and I didn’t think he would ever come back. But he fought with the United States government, the State Department, and eventually got his wife back into the country. But Ralph— RALPH ISENBERG : Peter, you got about every fact wrong there, but I love you. But the truth of the matter is that, you know, I had my own experience with immigration. It was not very healthy. I was not back in the United States for two days, and an attorney, Ted Cox from New York City, a very good immigration attorney— REV . PETER JOHNSON : Ted, yeah. RALPH ISENBERG : —called me up and said, "Ralph, do you know that there’s a prison in Texas that has kids in it?" I thought Ted was just joking with me, because I was back, and I had jetlag. And all of a sudden, I’m introduced to Hutto. And I find out that we have 500 kids, three-year-olds, five-year-olds, two to a cell with a toilet in the middle, basically in a maximum security prison, being housed. And these kids haven’t committed any crimes. And for the most part, their families had not committed any crimes. And, you know, I was aghast. You don’t—you don’t jail kids in the United States. We had to put an end to that. With the help of Josh Bardavid, another fine attorney in New York, we were able to shut that place down. And we were in court actually a month and a half before the ACLU . But that just started opening up the calls that came to my office. And I got Peter involved. Hundreds and hundreds of people in need. You know, someone that’s been in the United States since they’ve been six weeks old, they’re 20 years old, they get picked up, and in a matter of a week’s time they’re deported to Mexico. They don’t even speak Spanish, and they’re in Mexico. We were able to get that man back, Hector Lopez, last year. We have another lady who is married to a U.S. citizen, three beautiful citizen daughters, the Lopez children, and she’s three-and-a-half months pregnant. We have a policy. We’re not supposed to be deporting pregnant people. Last March, she is deported to Mexico. These kids are hysterical. REV . PETER JOHNSON : Yeah. RALPH ISENBERG : They want their mother home. And yet, you know, in reviewing her case, everyone said that, you know, she was wrong. Well, I found error after error after error that the government had made. In fact, the government performed an illegal search and entry in the home that led to her deportation. We have people on ankle monitors that are released on OR. Now, it’s an oxymoron to say that we’re going to put an ankle monitor on somebody that’s released on OR. We’ve got a suit filed there for cruel and unusual punishment. Imagine having to be plugged into an electric wall plug three hours a day. The number of cases that I’m seeing from across my desk— JUAN GONZALEZ : Ralph Isenberg— RALPH ISENBERG : —I’m not—yes? JUAN GONZALEZ : Ralph Isenberg, I’d like to ask you—you’ve been back and forth to Mexico, as well, in recent years to try to help some of these folks who have been deported. Has there been any change during the period of the Obama administration in terms of how ICE operates? We obviously have seen increases— RALPH ISENBERG : Oh, yeah, it’s gotten worse. REV . PETER JOHNSON : It’s gotten worse. That’s been a change. JUAN GONZALEZ : —in the number of deportations, but what about the change of administration? RALPH ISENBERG : Obama—you know, you look recently at a statistic coming out of Denver, Colorado, 85 percent of the people deported out of Denver, Colorado, have got no criminal history. We still have in Dallas, Texas, a group from ICE that’s going around and picking up people that have no criminal record, and they’re basically each day getting a couple so they can fill the bus up. And they’re performing illegal searches and entries. And this is happening every single day. AMY GOODMAN : I want to bring— RALPH ISENBERG : Just last Thursday, ICE showed up at a home and took—tried to deport a lady who had a seven-year-old son who had cerebral palsy that was a United States citizen. I mean, the country has no idea that we have got a rogue police force. That rogue police force is called ICE . REV . PETER JOHNSON : Yeah. RALPH ISENBERG : As far as I’m concerned, they’re bullies, and they’re thugs, and they don’t follow the law. They don’t follow the Constitution. And they’ve got free rein on people that really need help. AMY GOODMAN : We started this conversation— REV . PETER JOHNSON : We were just in Mexico a couple of weeks ago— AMY GOODMAN : Reverend Johnson? REV . PETER JOHNSON : —trying to bring Miss Betty Lopez back, and of course we were stopped at the border with this lady and her family. The family went to spend Thanksgiving with Miss Lopez in Mexico, and a gunfight took place in front of the building they were living in, scared these children to death. These were straight-A children before this happened to this family. Why we are destroying families in this nation is beyond me. And I’m hoping that Black America, who have a history of understanding the destruction of our families, because slavery done that to our families, will at some point wake up and understand that the problem of immigrants is something we cannot ignore. We must stand up and speak out, because this is a civil rights and a human rights issue that’s directly related to our history. AMY GOODMAN : We started this conversation— RALPH ISENBERG : Well, I think, more importantly, it’s probably a constitutional right issue. You cannot illegally search— AMY GOODMAN : Just one sec—just one second, Ralph. I want to bring in—I want to bring in Jacqueline Stevens, a professor at Northwestern University, who has just published an exhaustive report on U.S. citizens who have been detained and deported. She’s joining us from Chicago. We began the conversation with Jakadrien Turner, 15-year-old girl from Texas, who gives a false name when she’s arrested. She’s afraid. And this name links to a name of an undocumented immigrant. And though they take her fingerprints, and they do biometrics and see she is not that person, she is still deported to Colombia. Her family is looking for her for a year. How typical is this, Jacqueline Stevens? JACQUELINE STEVENS : Well, I did research in the southern Arizona area to look at the rate at which people who had been detained in that area were found—had their deportation orders terminated by an immigration judge because they were determined to be U.S. citizens. And I found that between 2006 and 2008, 82 out of the over 8,000—the 8,007, I think—files that I considered showed these cases that were terminated because the people were found to be U.S. citizens. That area has 10 percent of the nation’s detainees. And so, I think it’s, you know, reasonable on the basis of that research and additional research, including interviews with immigration judges, ICE agents and people who have actually been deported, to extrapolate that figure. There was also a study that was done by the New York City Bar Association in 2009, and they found that 8 percent of the people that they interviewed in the Varick detention center appeared to be U.S. citizens. So, I think there’s a systemic problem in this country of ICE detaining and, in addition, deporting U.S. citizens. JUAN GONZALEZ : Now, Professor Stevens— JACQUELINE STEVENS : And I just want to say something about the 1 percent figure. Some people might think that sounds kind of low. I mean, it’s just 1 percent. But in light of the massive sweeps and deportation efforts by ICE , in absolute numbers that’s an actually quite large number. That works out to thousands of people each year— JUAN GONZALEZ : But Professor Stevens— JACQUELINE STEVENS : —who are U.S. citizens who are being detained or deported. JUAN GONZALEZ : Professor Stevens, when you talk about cases being terminated because they’re found to be U.S. citizens, these are people who may have spent months or years in detention while their cases were being adjudicated? JACQUELINE STEVENS : That’s absolutely correct. So, these are people who were either in the Florence or Eloy detention centers, and they were detained, in some cases, over a year before they were released. You know, it’s interesting, because on the one hand, in a previous case of Mark Lyttle, who was born in North Carolina and deported to Mexico, ICE tries to justify that by saying, oh, well, you know, based on their documents, which were not reflective of his actual record, an immigration judge ordered his deportation. But there’s a case going on right now in the southern Arizona area involving a man named George Ibarra. An immigration judge terminated his deportation order in February of 2010—sorry, in February of 2011, and yet ICE ignored that and held him in detention and appealed the termination, ignoring the evidence of his U.S. citizenship that he had submitted. So, as the gentlemen were saying in Texas, they do appear—ICE just really does appear to be bent on deporting people regardless of their valid claims to U.S. citizenship. There’s a case going on right now in—also in southern Arizona involving Esteban Tiznado. And he’s the cousin of a gentleman named Humberto Carrillo Carrillo-Tiznado, who had his U.S. citizenship affirmed in June 2011 based on the same family history that also verifies Esteban Tiznado’s U.S. citizenship. Both of these men had been deported and served—had not only been deported, but they actually, when they returned to the United States, were convicted and served, each, years in prison for illegal reentry. In 2008, Esteban Tiznado again returned, after being deported following serving his prison sentence for illegal reentry, which is predicated on alienage, and at that point he had a very good lawyer, who presented evidence, had a jury trial, as opposed to the plea deal to which Esteban had been encouraged to agree in the previous trial. And the jury unanimously found him not guilty on the basis of the evidence that his lawyer presented of his U.S. citizenship. Nonetheless, after he’s found not guilty, ICE immediately deports him again. And so, you know, he then returned, and now, on the basis of legal work that was done on his behalf by a legal organization in that area, has a habeas order—sorry, a stay on his removal while the federal courts work out the mess that ICE has created. AMY GOODMAN : And veterans, final— JACQUELINE STEVENS : There’s a— AMY GOODMAN : Final point on the issue of veterans? JACQUELINE STEVENS : Excuse me? On the issue of veterans? AMY GOODMAN : The issue of veterans deported, people— JACQUELINE STEVENS : People—well, so, George Ibarra was an honorably discharged marine, and he had been deported. There’s also, I guess, thousands of U.S. veterans who are in deportation proceedings or have been deported. There’s an organization that was set up by Manuel Valenzuela and his brother. The Valenzuela brothers is their website . And they’ve documented these cases that involve people who have green cards, served in the military, are honorably discharged, and then, because of a run-in with the law, are put into deportation proceedings. And they, understandably, find this very upsetting, and they’re urging President Obama, after people have served their prison sentences, if they’re veterans, for the President to pardon them, so that these veterans won’t be deported. AMY GOODMAN : A final comment from Reverend Johnson—is Jakadrien— REV . PETER JOHNSON : Yeah, I just— AMY GOODMAN : We only have 30 seconds, but is Jakadrien expected to reunite with her family soon? REV . PETER JOHNSON : From what we can understand, that she will be turned over in Colombia to the United States embassy and brought back to America. So that’s the information that we’ve been given. RALPH ISENBERG : But I want to add, how do you—how do you justify someone that was selling cocaine or crack to kids afterwards being allowed to stay in this country? A lot of these cases where people are deported, that are veterans, have committed serious felonies. And just because they served this country doesn’t give them the right then to go sell drugs to kids and expect to be able to stay— JACQUELINE STEVENS : Well, right. That’s what we have prison sentences for. So the people who were— RALPH ISENBERG : —if they’re not citizens. AMY GOODMAN : Jacqueline Stevens? JACQUELINE STEVENS : Of course, but that’s what we have prison—that’s what we have prison sentences for. So, they’re not arguing that people who are convicted of crimes shouldn’t serve their prison time. Of course they should. But what they’re arguing is that people who, including his brother, have a Bronze Medal, shouldn’t be deported because of some run-in with the law after they’ve served their prison sentences. By the way, the Valenzuela brothers also have a claim to U.S. citizenship through their mother, who is a U.S. citizen. She was born in New Mexico. And they’ve presented—they’re in deportation proceedings right now, although they’re not detained. And again, you know, despite having documents of their U.S. citizenship through a birth certificate from their mother, as well as the death certificate, both indicating her birth in New Mexico, ICE is nonetheless trying to get them to file an N-600 application for a certificate of citizenship, rather than simply recognize the documents, which, under the law, are sufficient to ascertain their U.S. citizenship. AMY GOODMAN : We’re going to leave it there, and we’re also going to continue to follow the case of Jakadrien Turner, as well as a number of these cases. Professor Jacqueline Stevens of Northwestern University, thanks for joining us from Chicago. And thank you to Reverend Peter Johnson and Ralph Isenberg for joining us from Dallas. |
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| November 19th, 2011 03:45:03 am |
AMY GOODMAN : We turn across the country to Berkeley and Oakland, California. Juan? JUAN GONZALEZ : Well, the Department of Homeland Security has begun a highly anticipated review of all deportation cases before the immigration courts. According to a memo obtained by the New York Times , the Department has begun a nationwide training program to instruct enforcement agents and prosecuting lawyers in how to focus on speeding up the deportations of dangerous criminals and halting those of undocumented immigrants with clean records. Well, we turn now to Occupy Oakland, where the arrest of a high-profile undocumented protester has brought immigration issues to the forefront of the movement. On Monday, Francisco "Pancho" Ramos Stierle was arrested while meditating at the Oscar Grant Plaza during an early morning raid on Occupy Oakland encampment. He was charged with two misdemeanors: "refusing to disperse" and "loitering." However, rather than being released on bail, Pancho was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody under the Secure Communities program, which shares arrest information from local jails with federal immigration agents. AMY GOODMAN : Even after the District Attorney’s Office dropped all protest-related charges against Pancho Wednesday, it said it could not undo the federal hold. Thousands of Pancho’s supporters launched a campaign for his release, which included a Change.org petition that attracted 6,600 signatures in just 24 hours. Thursday morning, Pancho was finally released from ICE custody. It will be up to the immigration courts to decide whether Pancho has a legal basis to remain in the U.S. He came to the United States six years ago on a student visa to seek a master’s degree in astrophysics at UC Berkeley. However, he dropped out over concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation. We are going to a University of California, Berkeley, TV studio right now, where Pancho joins us, Francisco "Pancho" Ramos Stierle himself. Pancho, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you tell us what happened, from police custody right into ICE hands? FRANCISCO " PANCHO " RAMOS STIERLE : Yes. Good morning, Amy and Juan. Well, basically, after they arrest everybody of the people that did civil disobedience, we had a group of people that—they call it the interfaith. And I was just practicing receptive silence. And these people were released. And people inside of the system, they want to really get your information exactly to get through that database of ICE . So, what I would say for people that are looking around for all our brothers and sisters, you don’t have to answer those questions. So every time the people ask me, "Where are you from?" I say, "Well, I’m from planet earth." "And where is your citizenship?" "Well, I’m a citizen of the world." So that created a little bit more time, but that—you know, it lasted that much, because they have the fingerprints. So, at the end of the day, this is what’s happening. Instead of using these resources for building more clinics, for fixing those bridges, for getting more schools, for having meaningful livelihood, we’re using those resources—some people in the 1 percent are using those resources to harass peaceful people, to harass nonviolent people, to harass people who are looking for creating communities in harmony. And this is just another example of what happened two weeks ago, when the city of Oakland used two million dollars to oppress people in using rubber bullets, tear gas and helicopters. And in the same day, they didn’t close one or two, they closed five schools. So this is just a small example on how this is not a economic crisis. This is a crisis of priorities, because the resources are right there, and they can be used for oppressing people, or they can be used to harassing people for fingerprints. I was outraged today. I was in a place maybe three meters by six meters with 42 people. We were two people per square meter in that place. Many of us were with shackles and with handcuffs. And I learned later that there’s a program that you can have a bracelet in your ankle. A bracelet ankle. I was like, "What? Are we using money and GPS to monitor people like that? Like, this is the modern slavery, wearing many of those things." So, I think that, again, we are really missing the boat. So what we’re saying is that we’re the 99 percent, facilitating the healing, facilitating the awakening of the 100 percent. So that was pretty much what happened. JUAN GONZALEZ : And Pancho, once you were detained, you were— FRANCISCO " PANCHO " RAMOS STIERLE : Yes. JUAN GONZALEZ : —treated as a high-security prisoner? Could you talk about that? FRANCISCO " PANCHO " RAMOS STIERLE : Oh, that was incredible. Oh, yeah, yeah, I would love to. So, the idea here—I loved the story you shared that this brother, you know, was working on Wall Street, and then he is using all those resources to share with the movement. So, the idea of this movement to be the non-violence of the strong, the anarchism of the strong, is that we need to touch the heart of police officers, to touch the heart of these Wall Street people, to touch the heart of these deputies. So, I was friends with one of these deputies, and he was very interesting, because I was—if you—I mean, if you’re in one of those jails—I was in Santa Rita—and what I do for self-care, I meditate. So I was meditating most of the time. And he got very curious. And he’s like, "Yo, what are you doing there?" So I, you know, share a little bit of what I do for meditation. But then I say, "Hey, brother, like, what’s up with all these colors? Why do we have—you know, we’re dressed in different colors?" And he is like, "Well, blue means is the least dangerous people, and yellow is the most dangerous people." And I was, "And why I’m dressing in red?" "Oh, that’s the ultra-dangerous people." And I was like, "OK," and I was, you know, with shackles and with handcuffs. AMY GOODMAN : Pancho, we’re going to have to leave it— FRANCISCO " PANCHO " RAMOS STIERLE : And I understand that maybe—yes? AMY GOODMAN : We’re going to have to leave it there— FRANCISCO " PANCHO " RAMOS STIERLE : OK. AMY GOODMAN : —because the show is ending. I want to thank you for being with us. FRANCISCO " PANCHO " RAMOS STIERLE : OK, just let me tell—let me tell you this— AMY GOODMAN : Francisco "Pancho" Ramos Stierle, undocumented immigrant, arrested while meditating at Oscar Grant Plaza. |
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| November 11th, 2011 03:45:14 am |
JUAN GONZALEZ : We turn now to Arizona, where the architect of the state’s controversial anti-immigration law lost a major recall election Tuesday night. State Senator Russell Pearce was challenged by fellow Republican Jerry Lewis. Pearce wrote Senate Bill 1070, which requires police to investigate the immigration status of people they have lawfully detained. He was also behind an effort to pass legislation aiming to give the state discretion to deny citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants. Pearce is the first Arizona legislator ever to lose a recall election. He’ll be required to step down immediately. Pearce conceded defeat in a brief press conference in the city of Mesa, surrounded by politicians, friends and controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. STATE SEN . RUSSELL PEARCE : I intend to spend a little time with my god, my wife, my family, and reassess where we need to go. But I want to make something very clear: if being recalled is the price for keeping one’s promises, then so be it. I have always kept my promises. I have always put my loyalty to this republic, to the rule of law, and the moral principles that folks have died for from the beginning of this great republic ahead of any personal interest. I will continue to do that. I will always keep my promises. I will always keep my oath of office. I will always defend this republic and the rule of law. And with that, thank you very much. God bless. AMY GOODMAN : Recalled Arizona state senator Russell Pearce, the first Arizona legislator ever to lose a recall election. Pearce’s supporters mostly criticized the recall, saying opponents should have waited until the regular primary election. For immigrant rights activists, the recall marked the success of a new political organizing strategy that brought together a diverse array of voters representing various religious and political affiliations. While the immigration law SB 1070 wasn’t the main focus of the recall, it did much to motivate voters to join the movement, especially Latino voters, who make up about 13,000 of the district’s 70,000 registered voters. We’re going to Phoenix now to speak with Petra Falcon. She is the executive director of Promise Arizona, an immigrant rights organization. Welcome to Democracy Now! , Petra. How did this recall take place? How significant is it to you? PETRA FALCON : Good morning, Amy. And thank you for inviting me to Democracy Now! This recall has taken place over the course of this year, but Citizens for a Better Arizona took out petitions, they collected over 10,000 verified voters in the district, to place him on the ballot on November 8th. And what it took was the community to come together in Mesa, Arizona. The district has over 100,000 residents. And the voters spoke on Tuesday. They spoke that—about values. This was a contest over two high-profile Republican Mormon members of that church, and people had a choice. They had a choice between someone who demonized immigrants, somebody who divided our state, somebody who cast distrust in democracy, over somebody who was talking about bringing the community together, living his values, as he had been a resident in Mesa for over 30 years. And then, quite frankly, the voters, the voters themselves, 70 percent—over 70 percent of the voters voted early by mail. And on Election Day, over 6,000 people voted. So Mr. Lewis’ vote won the early ballot election, and he won the election on the day of the election. And the Latino community had a significant role. There’s 13,000, as you said, 13,000 registered voters. Over 4,000 requested an early ballot. We still don’t know the full analysis, but we know that over 2,000 Latinos voted early. So, again, I think yesterday was an opportunity for people to speak of what they cared about. And Latinos care about everything that it sounds like all Americans do. They want to live in safe communities. They want to have aspirations for their children. And that’s what they said. And going door to door, people said, "We need to believe in democracy." And we had a representative that did not represent those values. And we now see a new day in Mesa, Arizona, and across the state and across this country. We do see this as an opportunity of understanding how to put the coalitions together that can fight back these bad legislations. Mr. Pearce was the harshest proponent of laws against immigrants. And we are very grateful for the voters in Mesa, Arizona, that spoke. JUAN GONZALEZ : Well, I’d like to ask you about what Pearce symbolized a little more, and also the fact that there was Joe Arpaio by his side on the night of his loss, and Joe Arpaio is still the sheriff of Maricopa County, another national figure almost, in terms of this draconian approach to the immigration problems in the country. Could you talk about the significance, nationally, of this? PETRA FALCON : Well, I think it’s the—it talks about the division around, you know, how people want to approach immigration reform. They talk about the rule of law, which is great, and we all are about the rule of law, but we also need to talk about humane and just reform that keeps families apart, that hasn’t stopped deportation. And that’s one of the first things Mr. Lewis was recorded to saying: we have to—we have to stop these deportations, we have to think about civility, and we have to stop separating families. The district is 43 percent Latino, and there’s obviously a lot of immigration families all across our state. And we need to address that rather than always trying to keep dividing the state. And I think this is a wonderful step. Yes, Joe Arpaio was by his side, but I think the message on Tuesday was, that’s not the kind of politics we want in Arizona. We want to think about the economy. We want to think about all families. We want to think about education. You know, Mr. Pearce cut back $450 million in education programs. And that is what we kept hearing at the door. We need solutions; we don’t need to have all this negativity and all this extremism. And that’s what I think, we think, Russell Pearce and Joe Arpaio represent, is extremism. And Tuesday, there was a clear message that that is not what we want our state to be about. AMY GOODMAN : And, of course, the man who beat him, Jerry Lewis, is also a Republican. PETRA FALCON : He’s a Republican. Yes, he is. And in fact, one of the things he’s doing today is actually having a—conversations with the National Immigration Forum, because that’s—again, that’s one of the things he had been using as his talking points. We have to address this broken system. And I’m really happy that he’s doing that as a first step. He has recognized that the Latino community had a lot to do with his election on Tuesday. |
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| October 21st, 2011 03:45:06 am |
AMY GOODMAN : We turn now to federal immigration issues. Juan? JUAN GONZALEZ : Well, on Tuesday, the Obama administration released new figures that show U.S. deportations of immigrants are at a record high. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE , says it deported nearly 400,000 people in fiscal year 2011, the highest total in the agency’s eight years. The data was released on Tuesday, the same day a coalition of Latino and immigrant rights groups held a National Day of Action to protest President Obama’s immigration policies. The protesters called for an immediate end to the Secure Communities program, which requires local police to forward fingerprints of every person they arrest to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. More than one million immigrants have been deported during the Obama presidency, even as efforts to reform immigration policy have languished. The record-high numbers are examined in a new episode of PBS’s Frontline . Here’s a clip from the program, starting with comments from Obama’s director of intergovernmental affairs, Cecilia Muoz. AMY GOODMAN : We’re going to try to get to that clip in a minute. But why don’t we turn right now to Maria Hinojosa, who did Lost in Detention , award-winning broadcaster, president of the Futuro Media Group, anchor and managing editor of NPR’s Latino USA , host of WGBH’s Maria Hinojosa: One-on-One . It’s great to have you with us. Talk about this documentary you did for Frontline . MARIA HINOJOSA : You know, it was an amazing documentary. We spent about a year doing a deep investigation into what is happening right now with the policies under the Obama administration. We got extraordinary access, because we never gave up and continued pushing. So I would say that at this point, Amy and Juan, as journalists, we have probably seen more than most people, because we’ve seen the entire circle, from the knock on the door at 6:00 in the morning with agents from Immigration, though they’re wearing outfits that say "police" everywhere, the then detention of that person, where they’re detained, the detention centers, the conditions in the detention centers, and the impacts of what happens in the communities when these parents often are ripped outside of the home. So we’ve seen quite a bit. And it’s—it is in fact shocking. AMY GOODMAN : Let’s play that clip—we have it now—with the—starting with the comments of President Obama’s director of intergovernmental affairs, Cecilia Muoz. CECILIA MUOZ: As long as Congress gives us the money to deport 400,000 people a year, that’s what the administration is going to do. MARIA HINOJOSA : That figure of 400,000 a year is a target number, a goal. It’s set by ICE , Immigration Customs and Enforcement, based on the agency’s annual appropriation from Congress. MICHAEL ROZOS : Once you tell Congress a number, they’re fixated on that number. So, if you were to say 400,000, well, that’s etched in their mind. They’re going to give you the resources to get the 400,000. But you never go back to Congress and say, "Oh, by the way, we weren’t able to meet our goals," and then expect the next year is going to be as resourced up, if you will, as the previous year. AMY GOODMAN : That was Michael Rozos, former ICE field officer, speaking on this new PBS Frontline documentary, Lost in Detention , Maria Hinojosa its correspondent. MARIA HINOJOSA : Yeah. AMY GOODMAN : Your response to that? MARIA HINOJOSA : To what Mike Rozos said? I think Mike Rozos gave an amazing interview, because Mike Rozos, essentially, he helped write Secure Communities, that is now being enacted and is so controversial. Mike Rozos is one of those—he’s a career ICE guy, so he understands the business. And he told us very truthfully what goes on. And he said—he said, "Look, you know, if you don’t show these numbers, you know, it’s a problem." I said, "Well, you mean what kind of a problem?" He’s like, "Come to the office at 9—come up to Washington, D.C., and explain yourself: how come you haven’t deported this number of people? You’re supposed to be held to a quota." The administration says that’s not true. We have paperwork that says it is. But the fact is, is that when you have Cecilia Muoz, who represents the Obama administration, saying this administration will oversee—and not challenge—the deportation of 400,000 people a year, that’s what it is. They’ve been very upset about the fact that this is kind of out there, but the fact is, is that the Obama administration is not saying, "Let’s halt all these deportations. We need to roll this back. There some abuses. There are some due processes that might be violated. We need to really step this back. There may be some laws here that are being infringed upon." They’re not saying that. They’re saying, "Congress has mandated. Congress makes the law. Congress funds 400,000 deportations. Four hundred thousand people will be deported." JUAN GONZALEZ : And the irony of Cecilia Muoz talking about this deportation program when not only is it at record levels, but the reports that I saw said that about 93 percent of the people deported were Latino, even though Latinos represent only about 65, 67 percent of the undocumented population of the country. So not only is it massive deportations, but it is especially disproportionately targeting the Latino community. And you have someone like Cecilia Muoz, who used to be a leader of the Latino community before she entered the Obama administration, defending it. MARIA HINOJOSA : I think that this is really hard for Cecilia. I think that Cecilia, like many, many, many people, believe in the Obama administration. I think that Cecilia is very torn. I think it’s really hard to govern. I think, you know, when you’ve got pressure on the right and pressure on the left, you know, I think it’s really hard to govern. And that’s why I’m glad I’m not in that business. But the point is— AMY GOODMAN : But it’s quite astounding that it’s led to these figures, the greatest number of deportations— MARIA HINOJOSA : Yes. AMY GOODMAN : —in the history of the country, under President Obama. MARIA HINOJOSA : And you know what? As journalists, what we have to do is we have to do our job, and we have to tell this story. And there is not a lot of light on this story. Most networks don’t even want to touch this story. It’s a difficult story. There’s all kinds of reaction. We have to do our job shedding light on the truth. JUAN GONZALEZ : I wanted to ask you about the Willacy Detention Center, because, again, this is another—I know Willacy County well. Raymondville used to be the mushroom capital of the world, where the Texas Farm Workers organized more than 30 years ago. And now Willacy has become the center of these enormous abuses. Could you talk about some of what you saw, especially with women and other folks in the detention centers? MARIA HINOJOSA : Juan, you know, you know that I’ve been covering the story of immigration for 25 years, OK? And you would think that after 25 years of covering this story it gets better. Unfortunately, in this situation, the story has gotten worse. The things that I heard—and many of it—much of it didn’t end up in the documentary, because we had to do an hour investigation onto a bunch of things. We could have done just an hour on Willacy. For example, the mental health coordinator, African-American woman, who starts hearing from detainees that they’re getting fed food that’s rotten, that’s spoiled, that’s uncooked, that has worms in it. And she says, "I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it,” until one day, she says, one of the detainees comes in and brings a napkin and lets the napkin open, and in it there’s garbanzo beans, and there are maggots, live maggots, crawling in that. And this is what they’re expected to eat. The fact that we know that a former ICE official went down and asked for everybody to be weighed, because when she went in—and she understands corrections, this is Dr. Dora Schriro here in New York now, who heads corrections—she said, "I want to see the weights of everybody, because people here look gaunt, they look depressed." Everybody had at least lost 10 pounds, at least. Stories about women who are being sexually assaulted by the guards. When they want to complain, they are told, "Don’t complain, because it’s going to get worse for you." "What do you mean it’s going to get worse?" "You’ll get deported." Talk about a situation where you have a population that could be victimized. And then, if they want to complain, and they try, and they’re deported, what happens to the case? The case goes away. It’s like you’re really just disappearing complaints. There were 900 complaints, grievances, filed at Willacy. Only four of them were addressed. And the Obama administration has a Department of Homeland Security official, an ICE official, saying to us, when they get an audit that says they’re good, that they’re good. AMY GOODMAN : And the sexual abuse grievances, specifically? MARIA HINOJOSA : The sexual abuse grievances from the ACLU , we found over 170 cases, complaints of sexual abuse over the past several years. We found at Willacy over a dozen. I spoke personally with two women who were sexually assaulted by the guards at Willacy. And the fact that they just—they don’t have, in fact, any legal recourse, which should be of concern, not for immigrants, but for all American citizens. AMY GOODMAN : One of the women you talked to begged to be deported? MARIA HINOJOSA : She begged to be deported, because she was so afraid of this. And this is what happens. Is there coercion happening? She left behind American citizen children. So what is happening when you have people who have lived here—she had lived here for more than a decade, Canadian, a Caribbean Canadian—and now she says, "I’ve got to get out of here. Get me out of here." And that kind of case, the "get me out of here," I heard former guards tell me that that happens all the time. AMY GOODMAN : Maria Hinojosa is the correspondent on this new Frontline documentary called Lost in Detention . She is president of Futuro Media Group. You can watch the film in its entirety on _Frontline_’s website . |
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