I have brought this up before, however, I would like to drive home that although the consequences of immigration court are often times just as serious, if not more so, than criminal court, people in these “civil” proceedings are not guaranteed representation. As Olivas points out, those held in immigration detention centers are often discouraged from seeking counsel, even when free or low-cost legal aid is available.  Because immigration law is so complex, it is incredibly difficult for someone to effectively represent him or herself in such a situation.

The specific case of political refugees from Central America that Olivas focuses on happens to be the founding source of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, where I interned.

With the cards stacked against them, unaccompanied minors who fled on their own or who had been sent ahead by their parents hoping to ensure their safety, were kept in detention centers (“el corralon”) without adequate care as they suffered from PTSD.  Kept in remote camps, it is difficult for these children to access social services resources like Las Americas among others.

Though not necessarily applying to minors, but to detainees in general, I mentioned in a previous post the difficulty facing detainees held at the Otero Detention Center ( versus the El Paso Detention Center.  Detainees at Otero are kept far from legal resources and must appear in the El Paso immigration court via television.

Transferring detainees is another common practice aimed at disadvantaging subjects of immigration proceedings.  This is surprisingly common.  I remember working on the case of one woman who had been living in working in an upper-plains state on a J1 visa (the one now made infamous by the Hershey abuses).  Although she had acquired the services of a lawyer back in the state where she had been detained, she was abruptly transferred to El Paso.  She did not know anyone in El Paso, much less what exactly was going on. Had it not been for a caring, wealthy advocate and Las Americas she likely would have been, for the lack of a better word, screwed.

As a law professor, Olivas points to law students to fill in these gaps.  I agree that law students who set up clinics may be able to help, however, I believe that these clients need and deserve representation with the experience necessary to stand up to these stumbling blocks, among others, posed before their clients. This complex system cannot be learned in the classroom in a semester or two.

Perhaps its because I loved working at Las Americas, but I would like to see  more organizations like this one throughout the country who are able to respond adequately to such real needs.

López argues that although economic disparity between neighboring countries may be necessary to foment mass migrations, economic disparity alone is not enough.  He points out that mass migrations have been absent in numerous instances despite the existence of great economic disparity between neighbors.  The economic disparities between the United States and Mexico have existed since time immemorial, however the mass migrations have not.

Rather, the destination country must promote (de jure or de facto) access to a much better minimal wage.  If a country consistent demands laborers and offers a significantly higher wage, the migrations will continue.

López is referring to the temporary wage-workers who come to the United States each year who send money home to their families during their stay and then return at the end of the season. These migrants primarily work in the agricultural industry and are predominately male.

López comments further that the unit of this “decision-making calculus” is not the individual, but the household unit.  Therefore, any strategy aimed at lessening mass-migrations should approach the issue from the level of the household-unit.

Despite the households’ insistence that such seasonal migrations by the adult men in their families are temporary, the cycle simply has not stopped.  The families do not want their men to leave.  From my own personal experience talking with such migrant workers (both documented and undocumented alike) they generally have no desire to be away from their families.  They do not want to leave their homes and rarely do they wish to stay permanently.

Published in 1998, López’s article provides a snapshot of a time very distinct from the present, both in terms of the economy and national security.

Three years before September 11^th, 2001, crossing the US/Mexico border required significantly less risk and was much less costly. The Border Patrol force had not yet ballooned to its current size, nor did it have the resources to go after relatively harmless farm-workers as they crossed, much less security fences and walls riddled with surveillance devices.

Once these measures began to be implemented following 9/11, although the mass migrations did not end, they did begin to decrease.  In line with López’s argument, though crossing became harder, the same motivation remained: the US continued to promote (de facto) low level jobs that paid considerably better than those in Mexico.

As seen recently in states like Alabama and Georgia, which enacted harsh anti-immigrant laws, documented and undocumented laborers alike fled the state, leaving crops to rot in the field.  These laws  came from legislators who were trying to blame current economic problems on those immigrants, but their states ended up far worse off, demonstrating a reflexive dependence between the  migrant laborers and their United States employers.  The jobs left vacant were not jobs marketed to Americans.  When they did begin marketing those jobs to Americans, they wouldn’t take them, much less for the pay being offered.

Though increased border measures alone were often not enough to deter migrant workers, when combined with the lack of “promotion” by destination states like Georgia and Alabama, the ”decision-making calculus” must result in a very different outcome.

López makes his arguments with the ultimate implication being that “we are at least responsible for the commitment implicit in our long-standing relationship [between Mexican workers and their American employers].”

Not only do Mexican households depend on that income, their American employers depend on their cheap labor.

“If, as it appears, Mexicans cannot humanely be dissuaded from coming, some form of access must be legislatively accommodated or they will simply continue to come and to work outside the boundaries of the law”.

This statement made by López kills me, especially considering the current state of Immigration-related laws and policies currently in place.  Though there are some temporary worker visas available, it takes a long time and a lot of money to acquire them.  I would agree with the application of such a statement to today’s policies: they do seem inhumane.  The current policies encourage people to cross through the most isolated and dangerous parts of the desert, paying for immigration infractions with their lives.  In addition, because crossing the border is so dangerous and difficult, it encourages people who are successful to stay indefinitely, even though perhaps they would prefer to return to their home.

Although the times have changed since López originally wrote this piece, policy-makers should still pay attention to the underlying message: American employers (at least in agriculture) and Mexican laborers are perpetually dependent on each other. Rather than trying to deny this fact or mistakenly use immigrants as scapegoats, legislators should bring such laborers into the fold with appropriate visas and programming.

While working at Las Americas I did not encounter a single migrant worker coming in to ask for our services.  And I know that it’s not because there aren’t any seasonal migrant workers.  It’s because there is no real legal recourse for them besides the costly temporary worker visas.  While working at Annunciation House—a shelter for migrants and refugees—the summer before, I waw them all the time.  If you drive by the The Border Farmworkers Center each day you’ll see a line out the door.

There is no shortage of workers who are both willing and able; there is no shortage of (agricultural) work*; the only extant shortage is of logical humane policy.  Compared to other immigration battles, this one seems to have a relatively simple answer, and perhaps would be a good place to start.

*In a recent LA Times article Ken Ellingwood points out that many jobs in the Restaurant and Construction fields have dropped off due to the US Economy. Jobs in the Agricultural sector, which seem to be the primary focus of Olivas’ article seem to be otherwise immune.

At the most abstract level, their struggle is that of having one’s voice be heard despite circumstances of gendered violence, economic inequality and legal status.  The first instance of this predominating theme (and one of the strongest) appears in the first chapter of the book.  The thoughts of Nopal , the matriarch of the family,  stream as she observes her funeral:

“I want to tell them something but I have seeped in under alley stones and dirt to blood’s birthplace, and my language is the molten core where fire and matter merge to create the music of minerals that become earth, and if you look at the hills and mountains and fields, you gaze at me, I am near you, next to you, beneath, above, and beside you. I hear one man saying, “She was a better singer than Chavela, Lola Beltran, or Amalia Mendoza but things don’t work out sometimes; why a man would cut her throat, silence her-dear, dear God” (Page 4 in the Kindle edition).

Nopal’s voice reappears throughout the novel as does her memory as her remaining loved ones ( husband Casimiro and sons Lorenzo and Vito) continue to think of her.  One gains an intimate view of Nopal while reading her monologues: some are directed at her sons, others at Casimiro and her future daughter-in-law Carmen.  Despite her death, Nopal’s spirit not only continues to be conscious of her family’s struggle, but also continues to play an important role in the emotional life of the family.

When Nopal was aboard a train northward at the age of sixteen, another migrant had sexually assaulted her, but she was able to escape before the man could rape her.  It shocked her how the other migrants looked on at the spectacle and did nothing to try and stop him.  This same man found her years later when she was a singer at a cantina, married with two sons.  He killed and butchered her.

I read A Glass of Water shortly after having read selections from Roberto Bolaño’s 2666,  specifically “The part about the crimes”, an expansive section of over three-hundred pages which chillingly describes the brutal murders of  women in the border-city of Ciudad Juárez.  More specifically, 2666 describes the bodies of the women and the circumstances in which they were found.

The style Bolaño employs screams of police reports.  I know this because I examined my fair share of Mexican police reports while interning as Las Americas.  Just the act of reading them was disturbing and traumatic to a certain extent.  I reviewed these police reports while helping to construct a case for asylum, demonstrating that the client belonged to a social group that the government systematically refused or failed to protect.

The disturbing reports featured abrupt graphic sentences, coroner’s notes on the autopsy and photographs of the crime scene. Though each of these specific elements found in a police report may not be included in “The part about the crimes”, their content and style are pervasive in Bolano’s writing.  Despite the detailed accounts of the bodies and the conditions under which they are found are explicit in Bolaño’s work, little to nothing is ever made evident about what the women actually experienced or who they were before they met their cruel fate.  The reader never hears their voices because the reader never meets them, only their remains.

In A Glass of Water, however, Nopal’s voice is a driving force, even though the reader meets her at her funeral.  Santiago Baca resists the neoliberal order present along the US/Mexico border that dehumanizes and silences cheap labor by making Nopal’s voice, the one that was brutally silenced and ignored.  In the end, her sons avenge her, killing her murderer.  The “justice” they achieve, however, is unsettling; it occurs outside the law.

While interning at Las Americas, I often felt frustrated with the legal process and the question of justice. In the United States, immigration policy has been primarily based on economics and the benefits of cheap labor.  For instance the “Bracero program” opened the doors to many Mexicans during WWII to alleviate labor shortages, and as farmers in states like Georgia and Alabama are realizing more than ever as their unpicked crops rot in the fields, migrant labor has proven essential in maintaining the American food market.

In the United States when the American public could no longer ignore the dire situation of immigrant women following the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911.  The fire caused the deaths of 146 female garment workers, most of whom were Jewish and Italian immigrants between the ages of 16 and 23.  Because the managers had locked the doors to the stairs and exits, many women jumped out the windows from the 8th, 9th and 10th floors.  Americans demanded a change after this*, but did exploitation and poor working conditions end, was the neoliberal model edited, or  did such practice simply move south to the border?

The question that remains when comparing the representation of these victims in the works by Santiago Baca and Bolaño is whether there is room for justice, humanity and morality in a neoliberal context that tends to treat people like commodities despite their vibrant hopes and dreams, family  and inner personal lives.

The question of the voice seems to be essential in either changing that system or being treated humanely in spite of it. Bolano demonstrates this by underlining how unjust and terrifying a situation becomes when a class of people (the working women of Juarez) remain faceless and voiceless and Santiago Baca achieves a similar effect by highlighting the importance of Nopal’s character, even posthumously.

*One might argue that the public didn’t necessarily motivate the change, but the workers themselves initiated a movement that the public couldn’t ignore:

“I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting. … We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, brothers and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us.

Public officials have only words of warning to us—warning that we must be intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of the law beats us back, when we rise, into the conditions that make life unbearable.

I can’t talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement” –Rose Schneiderman (a prominent labor activist) April 2nd 1911

I had arrived by the usual route from my home state of North Carolina; I flew to the large Dallas/Ft. Worth airport and continued on to El Paso.

But when I left, I left by train.

Although I am back home in NC now, I did not arrive here immediately.  The train I took was headed West to California.

I had a chance to say one final adios to El Paso, Cd. Juarez, even the Asarco stack as the train hugged the border on its way out of Texas.

I spent nearly my entire train trip talking to people in the Club/Observation Car.  I spoke to a retired black woman

traveling with her granddaughter back to California after spending the summer in Arkansas and Texas with family; a portly woman traveling with her son from Florida back to their home in CA (because of the routes they had traveled through Chicago first, though!), a middle-aged white man from Rhode Island with a background in diplomacy and intelligence who was traveling to Arizona to administer some kind of program to the military; and a hispanic man in his 30s who teaches 2nd grade in Lynwood, CA. I talked to each of them for a while, and I really encourage anyone who has the time to take at least one long train ride during their lifetime, preferably outside New England.  You will likely meet at least a couple people you wish you hadn’t but it’s worth it.  I had real conversations with people I would likely never have spoken to otherwise.

The train-ride gave me time to reflect and decompress, though I can say throughout the 16-hour ride, I slept very little.

When I arrived at Union Station in Los Angeles, California I had a week of fun with a great friend awaiting me, but I have to say, my head was still stuck in El Paso a little bit. Perhaps it was just the lack of sleep. Unlike last summer, my first summer on the border, there were no tears.  I felt like I had accomplished and learned what I had wanted to.  I have been to El Paso three times now (last summer, winter break and this summer), so whether it will be sooner or later, my return feels pretty inevitable. This was no final goodbye.

Hasta la vista, El Paso y la frontera.

The A# is an identification number used by the various immigration related agencies that fall under the umbrella of DHS (Department of Homeland Security), including ICE, CBP and USCIS.  I could go on about how we should not be identifying non-criminals by numbers, but rather their names, but that argument is pretty weak.  A lot of the detainees, for example, use aliases  because of their fear of persecution.

We handed the ICE agent the necessary form for each detainee we were going to interview so that they could bring them over to that part of the facility. And then we waited.

We actually did not have to wait that long, at least in comparison to other visits I’ve made.

Andrea and I interviewed four people [I will continue with pseudonyms]:

(1) Rosa is a middle-aged woman from Juarez who has been living in the USA for nearly 10 years.  Another woman who had been threatening her, who allegedly wanted to steal her boyfriend, called Immigration since she knew of Rosa’s undocumented status.  A plainclothes ICE agent brought Rosa in and detained her.

(2) Maria is a middle-aged Filipino woman who has been in the USA for about 2 years.  She entered legally with a fiance visa and within a month of arrival married a US Citizen.  He physically and emotionally abused Maria and they got divorced 6 months later.  Maria failed to adjust her status because she did not have enough money and did not completely understand the process.

(3) Alberto is a middle-aged El Salvadoran man who has been in the US for about 5 years.  Before entering the US illegally he had been living in Mexico for over 20 years.  Alberto fears being deported to El Salvador, his country of origin, because of the terrible pandillas.

(4) Juan is a young El Salvadoran man who has been living in the US for under 5 years.  He fled El Salvador because of the pandillas who had been threatening and assaulting him, spending about 30 days in Mexico as he made it up to the United States. He entered illegally but now has a US Citizen girlfriend. He fears returning to El Salvador.

Who might have a shot? I wish I could say all of them, but I’d be lying. Before reading on, I encourage you to think about the basics of each case. Consider which ones you think might be able to stay, and why.

(1) At first, it may seem that Rosa  has no recourse.  After a few questions though, it appears that Rosa‘s family’s proximity to the border, like many other juarenses (people from Cd. Juarez) may have a positive effect on her case, and the rest of her life.  Rosa claims that her father, as stated on her birth certificate, is actually a native-born El Pasoan… a US Citizen, which means that she is also probably a citizen.  If Rosa  is able to get the paperwork together she will be able to claim her citizen status and leave the Detention Center in a better legal state than when she entered it.

(2) One fact that Maria has going for her is that she entered the US legally. She obtained a K-fiance visa since she was planning to marry a citizen. After hearing about the domestic violence she experience, my first thought was VAWA. 

The Violence Against Women Act   acknowledges the vulnerable position of undocumented people when they marry a USC (US Citizen) or LPR (Legal permanent resident).  Undocumented people can easily be manipulated and abused because their husband or wife can hold their immigration status hostage.  They can refuse to petition for them, or threaten to turn them into ICE if they don’t do what they say.  VAWA allows victims of domestic violence, when the abuse is committed by a USC or LPR spouse, to petition for themselves in order to adjust their immigration status.

My main concern about Maria’s case is that her marriage was so short, only 6 months (I am guessing its brevity is due to the abuse), and that the facts of how they met seem unclear.  It is possible that Maria was what we might call a “mail order bride”, and I do not know how that might affect her VAWA claim.

(3) Alberto may very well have good reason to fear returning to El Salvador, but he has zero case for asylum.. the only apparent recourse available to someone like him.  He was firmly resettled in Mexico.  Is there a way for him to be returned to Mexico rather than El Salvador? Perhaps. Let’s hope so. Otherwise, he’s got a long journey back to the north of Mexico where he had been living before.

(4) Juan might have an asylum case. Maybe.  He first has to pass a “credible fear” interview, a closed-door session with an immigration judge who will determine if Juan is afraid and may have a possible basis for applying. If so, Juan will need to show proof of past persecution by the gangs, perhaps by using scars, submitting affidavits or police reports from El Salvador.  Building an asylum case, even when the claim is sufficiently strong, can be extremely difficult.  If Juan is found not to have “credible fear”, the first step in being allowed to pursue an asylum application, he could appeal, but would then most likely be removed/deported.

As we interviewed Juan I realized towards the end why he looked so familiar.  During the first “master calendar” hearing I attended at the Immigration Court, there was a large group of detainees who were all in removal/deportation proceedings.  All of them were given deportation orders that day except for Juan. Juan said he was interested in asylum.  When i realized that I kind of knew who he was, I got so tongue-tied.  You have to maintain a certain amount of emotional distance, or you’ll just break after hearing so many of these stories.  Once I could place him, though, he was real.  That’s why I couldn’t speak.  He was suddenly one of the many good friends I made while at Annunciation House last year.  We could have been playing basketball after dinner or cleaning up the office together.

I know I said before that I shouldn’t criticize the A# system because it is so good at keeping track of people and their cases, especially when names may not always be consistent.

I have to say though, when I spoke with Juan I didn’t recognize his A#, the alias he provided ICE, or his real name which he divulged to me.

I recognized his bright eyes and serious look.  What had an impact on me this afternoon was a face. A familiar one.

Will things work out for Rosa, Maria, Alberto or Juan? At this point, who knows. Only time will tell.

I cannot find the specific figures on the number of Mexicans granted political asylum in the United States from the El Paso Immigration Court, but in the past few years, these cases have been denied across the board.

Although El Paso’s judges are tough on all asylum seekers as I pointed out in my last post, only ONE of the many Mexican asylum seekers has been granted relief.  Cipriana Jurado, a human rights activist in Cd. Juarez and Mexico in general, was granted asylum through the affirmative process.  Because Cipriana already had a Visa to be in the United States, rather than presenting herself at the Bridge between Cd. Juarez and Mexico as do many, she was not detained and was not required to go before a judge as a part of her asylum application.

Cipriana presumably had an attorney help her write up her I-589 Asylum Application compiling relevant documentation, including a declaration of the past persecution that she and her family had faced as well as reports and articles documenting the Mexico’s “country conditions”.   All asylum-seekers go through this process, whether they are detained, paroled out of detention, or if they remain detained for the duration of the application process.

While asylum-seekers not applying affirmatively will go before a judge (those judges I mentioned by name in my last post) Cipriana went to the USCIS office and met with an Asylum Officer and went through a bureaucratic application process.  This USCIS representative presumably interviewed her to establish her credibility and reviewed the facts of her case as stated in her paper application and in the interview. This process is a bit easier on the applicant and usually much less intense.  If you are interested in learning more about what asylum officers do, I suggest watching a documentary titled Well-Founded Fear (2000).

If an affirmative asylum applicant does not get recommended for asylum with the asylum officer, they actually get a second chance in court, too, before a judge.  I’m not saying that the affirmative asylum application process is a cake-walk by any means, but there does seem to be more institutional lenience, or at least room for luck in terms of finding a sympathetic Asylum Officer, or one who’s having a good day.

Considering that the only Mexican to get asylum down here in El Paso in the recent past is Cipriana, who had an exceedingly strong case and who went before an Asylum Officer, rather than a judge, there is clearly something going on. That much has been clear to the people on the border for quite a while.

It’s clear that none of these judges wants to set a precedent for giving Mexicans asylum because they fear that the flood-gates will open.

I challenge these judges to think about the purpose of Asylum.

They need not open the doors for everyone. That’s not the point.

Right now, Mexico is generally not a safe place for its inhabitants, but for those people whose circumstances are truly exceptional, of which I have encountered a number during my time at Las Americas: take the time to read their applications before deciding to deny.

Listen to their stories objectively.

I’m not asking them to put on a powdered wig, but please consider taking off the hat of government attorney, at least until the case is over.

As you may already know, Immigration is handled by the Federal government (although recently some states seem to be confused about that).  Depending on the venue (state) of the court proceedings, the judge follows the case law of the circuit to which it belongs.  Texas, along with Louisiana and Mississippi, belongs to the Fifth Circuit.  From what I have seen, Texas seems to live up to its reputation of being tough on the Defense.

Recently the El Paso Times did a story on the asylum denial rate of El Paso immigration judges: 83%.  The national average for asylum denial is 53%. This article is based on research conducted by Syracuse University that profiles the Bench of immigration judges at each immigration court location.  Two judges in EL Paso were given extended profiles summarizing their personal record on asylum rulings: J. Abbott and J. Roepke.  J. Abbott had a denial rate for asylum cases of 74.6%, meaning that Abbott rejected 144 asylum applications and granted 49. A plurality of the cases he reviewed were from Mexico and El Salvador, though 73% were from countries outside Latin America.  I’ve been in the courtroom a number of times with J. Abbott and I am very appreciative that he allowed us, the interns, into the courtroom to observe as the Las Americas attorneys did their jobs. That being said, I have noticed that although he seems to make an effort to be fair, he is naturally predisposed to favoring the government and distrusting the immigrant.

Considering the origins of most Immigration judges, at least in El Paso, this should not be a surprise.  With few exceptions, nearly all Immigration judges are former trial attorneys representing the government.  If you’ve been fighting for one side for over 20 years, it should be no surprise that although the uniform may have changed, these same patterns of thinking persist.

I have only been in J. Roepke’s courtroom once, so it’s hard for me to comment on him, but his denial rate is even higher: he denies 96.7% of all asylum cases, the third highest denial rate among judges nationwide.  J. Roepke is the sole judge responsible for seeing the detainees from the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, New Mexico.  Detainees with the worst criminal records are sent to Otero, which has a higher security standard than the El Paso Processing Center.  In theory, I have no problem with rapists and murderers being detained apart from others, but as we all know too well, separate is rarely equal.  I’m not talking about the quality of the food, or beds, or anythign like that.  From what i have heard from clients and Annunciation House guests, being in detention is pretty awful, regardless of the center’s location.

What makes the Otero detention center particularly problematic in my eyes is its location.  Detainees at the Otero detention center are not routinely able to attend their own court dates in person, if special arrangements are made, they can be connected telephonically with a television screen.  In addition, since the detention center is located out in Chaparral lawyers, especially non-profit lawyers who would represent indigent clients (which are most of them) don’t have the time or resources to go all theh way out there to meet with them.  Across the board, regardless of the facts of the case, removal (deportation) is exceedingly more likely without representation.  The Otero clients (1) are largely un- or under-represented and (2) are unable to attend their own hearings in person.  I’m not saying to give the felons at Otero a free-pass, but I do think that the rule of law requires they be afforded the same rights and protections that others facing the same proceedings do.

I may add more to this post later. It’s a serious topic. This is it for tonight, though.

• Hiking in the Franklin Mountains at McKelligon Canyon
  

We got up pretty early this past Saturday morning to go hiking in the Franklin Mountains in El Paso. It was very close- no more than a 20 minute drive from my house located in the downtown area.  Despite being just outside the city, it was a fairly strenuous hike.  At certain points it was more like rock climbing than hiking. The view was pretty incredible and we could see the far reaches of the city in the distance.  On the way down, I ended up sliding down feet first for certain stretches as it became increasingly steep. It was a great work out!

• Art museum, history museum

   We also hit up the downtown museum scene.  I had noticed the banner outside the El Paso Art Museum advertising the Paul Strand in Mexico exhibition, but I hadn’t yet made a trip over to see it.  So, in addition to visiting the museum’s permanent collection on display, I also paid the $5 to see the Strand exhibit.  I appreciated the photography, but I was particularly interested in the film piece that was played on loop at the far end of the gallery, Redes (1936).  Commissioned by the Mexican government, the half-hour-long film encouraged Mexican laborers to organize against unfair bosses.  The film depicted  fisherman, for whom the short film was named, uniting against their oppressors [Redes means nets].  In terms of cinematography and editing, Redes was not that impressive, despite Strand having crossed paths with the likes of Eisenstein. Of more interest to me, however, was how the message of the propaganda film relates to what Mexicans are dealing with today.  A friend recently brought a NYT book review of Jorge Castaneda‘s book Manana Forever? to my attention. I can’t say I’ve read the book, and I can’t cite the review directly because I have already exceeded my NYT article limit for the month (Brandeis, please work on making it more accessible for your students!), but the gist of Castaneda’s argument is that a major factor contributing to Mexico’s continued violence, governmental corruption, etc. is that Mexicans do not believe in collective action. Maybe someone needs to commission some more Paul Strands to make pro-organizing film propaganda. But you can bet it wouldn’t be the government this time, especially since the people against whom they better be organizing are primarily elected officials and military.

In addition to the art museum, we also went to the El Paso Museum of History , which also happened to be showing a very interesting exhibition.  It focused on the Mexican Revolution along the border.  It seemed to pay special attention to media (books. newspaper, pictures, newsreels, etc. ) during the Revolution, which I found to be particularly interesting.  I ended up snapping a lot of shots of the descriptions written by the curators in order to look up authors and artists they mentioned.

• Press conference for Emilio Gutierrez Soto

Even though I took a couple of days off work, I ended up going back to the office on one of them, last Friday, to attend a press conference about the case of Emilio Gutierrez [pictured in the middle wearing a pink shirt], a Mexican journalist who has made some headlines himself regarding some the articles he has written in recent years that criticize the Mexican government and military.  After being threatened back in 2005, Gutierrez filed a complaint with the federal Human Rights agency in Mexico after receiving threats from officials and following the raid of his home.  He is now applying for asylum in the United States with Carlos Spector [to the left of Emilio] as his attorney.

Recently back in June, Gutierrez finally received an official response from the Human Rights agency–over five years later.  In its response, the agency reported that the raid could not have happened on date X because the government did not conduct any raids on day Y. The report is full of blatant errors and holes, which demonstrates a total lack of respect for the process and its complainants.  It’s not entirely surprising, but as an American, it’s just a bit shocking for corruption to be so “in your face”. The agency goes even further, stating in its report that an investigation of the complaints will take place [it's a little late now, no?] and it will conducted by the military. Wait, is that allowed? Can the military investigate itself? The answer is NO.  As a result of this ridiculous response, Paso del Norte Civil Rights Project lawyer Chris Benoit [right of Emilio]  filed a petition against the state of Mexico with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a commission of the OAS [Organization of American States]. The petition claims the Mexican government is not doing enough to protect journalists from human-rights violations by the military. It will be interesting to hear the commission’s decision and how Mexico reacts, especially given that Mexico officially recognizes decisions made by the OAS.

• Music and dancing

We also had the chance to appreciate some live music at Music Under the Stars and took an outdoor Cumbia/Salsa dance lesson at Dancing in the City where a live band played.

—————————-

Eventually, I had to go back to work.  The beginning of this week was kind of rough.  I oscillated between feeling  overwhelmed/confused/frustrated by the work I was supposed to perform and feeling totally bored.  Today made up for it, though.

The two other interns and I accompanied Betsy to court this morning at the detention center for a hearing about the asylum case of a Somali woman.  Betsy had been able to get affidavits from legal experts in Mexico regarding the Mexican immigration system and their adjustment process, as I described would be necessary in my previous blog post.  We needed to show that she had not been offered a path to “firm resettlement” in Mexico, through which she had passed in order to arrive in the US.  In order to officially submit their expert testimony documents as evidence, however, the government had to be afforded the opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses.  That”s a bit difficult when they are located in Juarez and Mexico City, however.  The plan was to reach the two expert witnesses telephonically.  This proved to be more difficult than any of us anticipated. Because it was an international call, Betsy had purchased a phone card for the government to use [with her own money b/c she's a saint].  I was really glad that we interns were there, because I am pretty sure that the Judge was more patient as a result.  I took detailed notes for us to review later. We were eventually able to reach one of the two expert witnesses, however, he was the weaker of the pair. We have scheduled a follow-up hearing for later in the month in order to try and get the more credible of the two.  I hope it works out and the Somali woman is considered eligible to pursue her asylum claim.

After the hearing, another intern and I had been planning to meet with several detainees to talk about their cases.  As has been apparent in many posts, I haven’t had any trouble getting into the visitation area. I had a background check and my name was on the list. The end. Not so today. Somehow they magically only had the old  list, which had names of employees at Las Americas that I’d never even heard of.  We headed back to the Las Americas office since there was nothing more we were allowed to do at the detention center.

When we arrived back at the office around 12:40 PM, we found out that the matters pertaining to one of those clients were very urgent: we had to submit his asylum application by 3:30pm and we didn’t have his declaration [a written statement explaining the relevant details of an event or circumstance] ready to go! We knew that the volunteer attorney who had been working on his case, Seigi, would be able to see the client because he’s a lawyer and has a “bar card” to prove it.  Seigi, however, doesn’t speak Spanish. Either I or Kimee would normally just go with him and translate, but they won’t let us in! The director as Las Americas made a few calls…repeatedly… and eventually the EPSC (detention center) acquiesced and stated that Kimee and I were indeed on the list.

-Seigi and I drive over there and finally get in to see the client around 2:15 pm.

-When we see him, we find out that he hasn’t written his declaration yet! Great. I explain to him what he needs to write, and he starts scribbling.  As he finishes a page, I read through it, translating to English as I go so Seigi can review it with me.

-The clock is ticking!

-We leave sometime after 3:00 pm and rush down the street to Eddie’s new office to use his copier and printer.  I feverishly bang out the translation of his three-page declaration on my laptop as we speed down the street in Seigi’s Mustang.

-We run into Eddie’s office and I keep translating.  I’ve never translated a document that quickly in my life.  I look up one word, alacran, and then it’s done. We print it out. We make copies. It’s 3:26.

-We have to have it stamped by 3:30 because their offices close early on Fridays.

-We rush out of there, go about 80 mph and make it to the EPSC at 3:31.  Seigi runs in to get the brief stamped, but they’ve already pulled the curtain at the window.  He starts talking to the person behind the curtain, though he knows they’ve closed up.  Then he spots it…her Libra tattoo. He recognizes it because he’s a Libra, too. “Libras get along with each other. Wanna help another Libra out?“

-The briefs are stamped 3:32.  Mission accomplished.

Speedy Gonzales and I had quite a bit in common this afternoon!

With its Transmountain Road location, one cannot help but notice the unforgiving mountains and rocky, sandy terrain. It’s not as built-up and covered in asphalt and concrete as other parts of the city.

We went with the intention of learning what is it that they tell people, what is their narrative?

I wasn’t expecting to hear, see, or read (smell? taste?) anything that would leave me feeling especially satisfied. That wasn’t the objective.

When we first walked in, I asked if they had anyone who could talk to us or give us a guided tour.  We wanted to hear their side of the story, after all. After a little while, an older woman whose rheumatoid arthritis made getting around more challenging appeared.  She was the head curator of the museum.  Boy, did she like to talk.  She showed us a twenty-minute-long DVD that talked about the history of the Border Patrol (which ended up being a glorification video. We weren’t surprised.) In terms of scale, the museum reminded me of an old Coast Guard Museum that I visited a few summers ago on St. Simons Island, GA near Savannah. That museum also had a “history” video that glorified the Coast Guard. Cool. That video was informative and told a seemingly objective  version of history that highlighted its strengths and triumphs. That video did not, however, use a menacing husky-voiced narrator and images and heavy-metal music akin to some of the US Military recruitment advertisements that have appeared over the past few years.The Border Patrol Museum “history” video did.

But okay, fine. My sole objective is not to whine about it.

One of the main things that irked me in terms of content and rhetoric was the focus on September 11th.  Yes, Border Patrol received more funding after 9/11 because of its association with the new Department of Homeland Security. Fact. I don’t appreciate how the events of 9/11 were used over, and over, and over again to explain and justify EVERYTHING that they do.  I think it’s disgusting and disrespectful to repeatedly use the people who died on 9/11 to promote a certain political agenda. Yes, if you are concerned about Homeland Security, please point of flaws in the system, but you don’t need to exploit the pain and loss of the 9/11 victims’ families, an even that occurred TEN YEARS AGO to talk about concerns we have today. Really. Don’t juxtapose pictures of the Twin Towers with glorified images of Border Patrol. Please, just don’t.

Another important part of their narrative, aside from the repetition of the September 11th creed, was their humanitarian role. “We save countless lives every year.”  The curator, who we found out later is the wife of a former Border Patrol Chief in El Paso, told us how “sad” it was for a certain group of people who were being trafficked across the US/Mexico border. Apparently their coyote had brought them part of the way, and then abandoned them without water after having crossed into the US.

Nativists, if you really insist that English become the sole official language of the United States, please learn to use it correctly. Tortillas cannot possess things: they are inanimate objects.

“They would have died” she said, had it not been for the Border Patrol. Regardless of how I or anyone else feels, that logic is just silly. Yes, Border Patrol picked them up, gave them water, and then returned them to Mexico. They would  have died in the desert if those agents hadn’t picked them up.  Would those people have tried to cross in the desert there if Border Patrol hadn’t obstructed every other path? No.  Border Patrol forced them into the desert. I’m not the first to say this.  People don’t hire coyotes and spend their life savings for fun. They do it because they are fleeing terrible circumstances, possibly even death itself.  Thank goodness Border Patrol was there to save us from the situation they forced us into!

But beyond that, a greater problem I have with the humanitarian argument as support for Border Patrol on the US/Mexico border is this.  There are non-profit organizations like No More Deaths whose sole mission is preventing deaths of migrants in  the desert by filling up potable water stations.  They don’t advocate people crossing without documentation in the desert, but they don’t think “illegal entry” warrants a death sentence. We have due process in the United States… at least in theory.  Then why is Border Patrol going out of its way to arrest people for doing this kind of humanitarian work? It should ease the burden on Border Patrol, no?

Apparently not.  This is supposed to be a historical museum, not an episode of Glenn Beck.

As much as CBP/Border Patrol causes my gag-reflex to engage, I know they serve an important role. They are doing their jobs. If we had “open borders” I think chaos would likely ensue.  As it is now, however, Border Patrol is a swollen department. It is too big and has too many powers for its own–or anyone else’s–good.  Can we please, Congress, can we please come up with some POLICY changes for immigration so that we don’t have to stopper-up the border with CBP?

Thanks.

She’s pretty darn ballsy to be denouncing the Mexican military and police as being corrupt out in the open like this. Everyone knows it’s true, but it’s another thing to see it in print or to watch it on Youtube. I hope it doesn’t land her or her family in trouble.

Here is the article based on the interview she gave at Las Americas yesterday).

I’ve copied and pasted/translated a couple of short selections:

Narra cómo huyó, con su esposo herido, de militares mexicanos

[...]

Dice que desde el 2008, algunos miembros del Ejército Mexicano se han coludido con el crimen organizado en esa zona del estado de Chihuahua, fronteriza con Texas. Son varias las familias, agregó, a las que les han pedido sus tierras de siembra.

“Me golpearon con una arma; me tiraron al piso, y después me pegaron en la espalda, en el estómago, con los pies”, narra. “Ellos querían las tierras, ya nos habían pedido cuota de 30 mil dólares, pero nosotros apenas sacábamos para la comida”.

She says that since 2008, some members of the Mexican Army have colluded with organized crime in this area of the state of Chihuahua, bordering with Texas. The families are varied, she added, those who have been asked for their farmlands.

‘They hit me with a weapon; they threw me to the floor, and afterwards they hit me in the back, the stomach, with their feet”, she told. ‘They wanted the land, they had already asked us for 30 thousand dollars, but we hardly were making enough for food.”

[...]

Eduardo Beckett, abogado de migración del organismo de El Paso, asegura que el caso tiene características valiosas para ser aprobado por el gobierno de Washington.

Afirma que miembros de las redes del narcotráfico que operan en el Valle de Juárez han cruzado la frontera y le han dejado amenazas de muerte en su propio domicilio, en Socorro, Texas, municipio ubicado del lado Este del Condado de El Paso.

Eduardo Beckett, the immigration lawyer from the organization in El Paso affirmed that the case has characteristics that merit approval by the government in Washington.

He affirms that members of the narcotics trafficking networks that operate in the Valley of Juarez have crossed the border and are leaving death threats at her own home, in Socorro, Texas, a municipality located to the east side of El Paso County.

[...]