Tazed by ICE - And Now In A Coma

The LA Weekly carries the story of long-time LA resident, sound engineer, father, and band singer Jose Gutierrez who was recently deported to Mexico (where he has no family). Upon trying to return to the US through a checkpoint he was tazed and "hit his head," placing him in a coma in a Phoenix hospital. And, ICE says his family in LA - the one that they claim was not enough reason for him to stay in the US - gets to cover his medical bills.

Read the whole story here.

But This Isn't New....

A reminder that random searches without cause and process have been legal in the US for some time. The Patriot Act has allowed check points within 100 miles of the US Border in what the ACLU has dubbed the "Constitution free zone" - a zone in which most Americans live.



This video was posted in February. The man is a preacher that was beaten at the checkpoint several months earlier.

To see a US Vet harassed, see this.

Caution: Two Way Street

Put aside the guns, and most U.S. Americans aren't thinking about smuggling from the United States in to Mexico. This news release from ICE:

LAREDO, Texas - Two businessmen from New Jersey and a California each pleaded guilty on Thursday for their roles in an illegal export scheme. The guilty pleas were announced by U.S. Attorney Tim Johnson, Southern District of Texas. The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Vahram Aynilian, 59, of New Jersey, and Fred Lukach, 50, of California, each pleaded guilty to one count of illegally exporting goods from the United States into Mexico. Both defendants appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Diana Saldana to enter their guilty pleas.

From 2005 to 2009, Aynilian received about $199,201 for providing and/or allowing fraudulent NAFTA Certificate of Origin documents and fraudulent U.S. invoices to be provided for 243 shipments. As part of his plea agreement, Aynilian agreed to forfeit and will pay to the United States at or before sentencing the $199,201.20 he profited from the scheme. During the same time period, Lukach paid for and obtained fraudulent NAFTA Certificate of Origin documents and fraudulent U.S. invoices from Aynilian for numerous textile shipments. Read more.

It's Cold at the Top... ICE is Numero Uno

The TRAC Immigration project at Syracuse University reports:

The number of individuals held in custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the just-ended FY 2009 is now estimated to have reached 369,483 detainees, more than twice what the total was in FY 1999. According to a recent agency report, this growth means that ICE is now operating the largest detention system in the country. Read more here.

This detention also comes with arbitrary and confusing transfers from center to center. For example, the Houston Chronicle reports:

After Alejandro Sibaja was picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Houston 15 months ago, he was transferred six times and finally ended up in Haskell, north of Abilene.

By the time an immigration judge in Dallas granted Sibaja a green card last Wednesday, his wife, Iris Lopez-Sibaja said she had spent countless hours trying to track him through the nation's troubled immigration detention network, which faced criticism on Wednesday from government auditors and immigrant rights advocates for resulting in haphazard detainee transfers.

“It was tough. It was harder on my kids, though,” Lopez-Sibaja said. “They were the ones always asking where their dad was.”

In separate reports released Wednesday, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security and the nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch criticized the controversial and increasingly common practice of transferring immigration detainees to detention centers far from their families and attorneys.

The Deportation of Rigoberto Padilla

This came in the e-mail today. Thought I would pass it on:

Dear Colleagues-

Please help us. We only have 2 weeks left to act to prevent the deportation of our student and Latin American and Latino Studies major, Rigoberto Padilla.
The faculty of the Latin Amercan and Latino Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago is asking university faculty across the nation to join in a petition to halt the deportation of Rigoberto Padilla. Last winter, Rigo was arrested by the Chicago Police for a driving violation. While in police custody, his undocumented status was discovered by ICE officials, who charged him with entering the United States without authorization in 1994 as a six-year-old child. While his misdemeanor is not a deportable offense, his deportation is now set for December 16, 2009.

We are asking university faculty to sign an online petition requesting an administrative closure of his case. The online petition automatically sends faxes to the offices of Janet Napolitano (Secretary of Homeland Security), John Morton (Director of I.C.E.), Senator Richard Durbin and Senator Roland Burris.

In addition, we are asking university faculty to sign an individual petition to halt Rigo's deportation. This second petition can be signed by anyone so please forward the link to non-faculty. Links to both petitions are listed below.

To sign the university faculty petition, please click on the following link:
icirr.org/facultyletter

To sign an individual petition, please click on the following link:
http://icirr.e-actionmax.com/takeaction.asp?aaid=184

For details on Rigo Padilla's case go to:
http://icirr.org/en/issue/dont-deport-rigo
Please send this message to your colleagues. We urge you to act now as Rigo's deportation is quickly approaching. We truly appreciate your support.

The UIC Latin American and Latino Studies Faculty:
Frances Aparicio
Xochitl Bada
Christopher Boyer
Simone Buechler
Ralph Cintron
Nilda Flores-Gonzalez
Elena Gutierrez
Alejandro Madrid
Joel Palka
Amalia Pallares
Cristian Roa
Maria de los Angeles Torres
Javier Villa-Flores
----------------

Fun note: I found an anti-immigration site that lists Padilla's offenses against the United States. This includes: "The guy is a race pushing activist. He has focused his college on attaining an Associates Degree in Arts with a Latin American and Latino Emphasis. He is the former president of the Organization of Latin American Students and a volunteer for the non profits Casa Aztlán and Erie Neighborhood House" (I hesitate to do it, but you can find the full quote here). Travel there at your own risk.

The emphasis is put in by the anti immigration site. Oh no! He has an emphasis on studying Latin America. I have a whole Ph.D. in Latin America and I teach red-blooded WASP kids about it almost every day. Wow, me and Whitey Bulger... dangers to society all.

Mex Mont, or Really Good Beef for those Tacos

Bozeman (MT) Daily Chronicle had a nice (in some ways) article on the presence of Mexican labor in the resort town of Big Sky and in the Bozeman area in general. I was struck by a couple of things.

1) When the author asks why hispanics are not coming to Montana in large numbers, the fall-back answer is "the weather." I'm not sure what sort of magic happens between the winters of Denver and the winters in Bozeman, but it certainly isn't anything that makes Montana winters more brutal. The real story here is jobs, and recognition that Mexicans won't move to where there are no jobs is key to understanding immigration. If it was about weather, Toluca would be depopulated, as would most places in the high sierra from EdoMex to Chihuahua.

2) The similarities that the migrants described when talking about Montana compared to Mexico: beautiful mountains, small towns, farms and ranches, and that rural "lifestyle" that dominates the area. That is perhaps why I like western and south eastern Mexico State so much.

3) The emphasis on the rejection of the presence of Mexicans. This rejection, I would very much be willing to bet, is one not only based in competition for jobs, but also with the indigenous appearance. Montana is an interesting place racially. Never segregated for African Americans, it is a brutally racist place for Native Americans. Indigenous in appearance, Migrants from central and southern Mexico are most certainly running into that same wall. In all fairness, however, as a Montana-born person living in exile in Texas , people from anywhere ***cough cough California*** are generally not welcomed.

4) The "uninviting" nature of the state based on the ability of the ICE folks to enforce laws. I would aver that there is more going on to ICE effectiveness in Montana than just a lower population. ICE can apparently do their job without fences and internal checkpoints.

And finally, I was blown away how yesterday many of the Montana news sources made a big deal out of the busting of 6 Mexicans tied to Pharmaceuticos Collins, a company in GDL supplying chemicals for (wait for it).... meth. Again, we have a local example of how the consumption of drugs in the far-flung corners of the United States ties this nation to drug cartels and it is doubtful we will ever start taking drug uses seriously as a health issue.

Department of Treasury

Over the last two weeks I've had my blog entries (here and here) on Homeland Security visited over a dozen times by the treasury department. Really? I provide some links to interesting resources (I think) and a few news stories that really caught my eyes regarding the ICE folks. Treasury? Really? Is it the Financial Crimes team?

Well, for you guys at Treasury, here's another ICE-y treat.

ICE is Chilling ... An Interesting Report on Homeland Security

The National Commission on ICE Misconduct and Violations of 4th Amendment Rights has put out an interesting report on ... ICE misconduct and violations of 4th Amendment rights (duh). It makes for an interesting read. In case the half-a-dozen regular readers haven't heard of this report, here is a link to the PDF. And here is a link to the web site. http://www.icemisconduct.org/icemisconduct/ NOTE: The commission is associated with the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

You can read the ICE 2008 Annual report here. I'm still combing through it, but I'm sure I'll have something to say. And I suppose in a few weeks after this goes live someone will come and inquire as to my immigration status. "Sorry, officer, my family did illegally enter North America in the early 17th century ... ."

The ABCs of DHS...All BS, or, Homeland Security - the Sitcom

ABC has what looks to be a perky little program about the Department of Homeland Security slated to air this week (fittingly, produced by the guy that brought us "Big Brother" on CBS). I'd like to see the what odds Vegas bet takers are laying down that the following get little air time:

1) Corruption by US border agents.

2) The US threat to Mexico via arms smuggling.

3) The internal US border points that suspend the US Constitution.
(Thanks to MexConnect for pointing that one out)

4) Firing whistle blowers from Border Patrol.

5) Suspending property rights for a border fence.

6) Homeland Security Child Rapists.

7) The general "waste, fraud, and abuse" found in DHS.