Mayan priests to "cleanse" holy site after Bush visit.

Only days after immigration raids in Massachusetts resulted in the arrest and possible deportation of 361 undocumented immigrants, most from Guatemala and El Salvador, President Bush was met with disapproval during a visit to Guatemala City intended to shore up deteriorating relations in the region.

Even while engaging in what should have been a simple photo opportunity, typical of any tourist to the region, controversy followed the beleaguered President. As Bush's entourage arrived at a local Mayan ruins, hundreds of indigenous demonstrators faced off with police and soldiers to oppose the president’s visit to the spiritual site. After the visit to the ruins of Iximche, the ancient capital of the Kaqchiqueles kingdom, local Mayan priests vowed that they would have to "spiritually cleanse" the area of Bush's negative energy.

According to Mayan leader Juan Tiney, "That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture."

Perhaps the priests could be persuaded to do the same kind of "cleansing" in Washington.

Tiney said the "spirit guides of the Mayan community" decided it would be necessary to cleanse the sacred site of "bad spirits" after Bush's visit so that their ancestors could rest in peace. He also said the rites _ which entail chanting and burning incense, herbs and candles _ would prepare the site for the third summit of Latin American Indians March 26-30.
Washington Post

But the President's problems in the region go far beyond the exorcism of his "bad spirits." The backlash from last week's immigration raid is strong in Guatemala where 10% of the population currently lives in the US.

President Bush came to this struggling Central American nation on Tuesday bearing a message that free trade with the United States would improve conditions for even the poorest Latin Americans.

But he was also confronted with an angry, outside-in perspective on the immigration debate raging at home, with even his otherwise friendly host, President Óscar Berger, using a ceremonial welcome to criticize the arrest of several hundred illegal workers, many of them Guatemalans, in Massachusetts last week.

“As is the case in every mature relationship, once in a while differences of opinion arise,” Mr. Berger said in the central courtyard of the grand presidential palace here. “For example, with regard to the issue of migrants, and particularly those who have been deported without clear justification.”

The remark, coming during otherwise warm comments by Mr. Berger, reflected the longstanding anger here over deportation of Guatemalans from the United States, which has been stoked by a raid last week in which more than 300 workers were arrested at Michael Bianco Inc., a company in New Bedford, Mass., that provides vests for the military.
New York Times

News of the New Bedford raid has dominated the Guatemalan press in recent days with stories of families torn apart and children left behind as their parents were sent off to Texas and New Mexico for deportation.

Bush stood by the raid, saying, “People will be treated with respect, but the United States will enforce our law” when face with questions from Guatemalan journalists. (Watch Video)

When asked about “conspiracies” that children were taken away from families on purpose, he denied such accounts. “No es la verdad,” Mr. Bush said, “That’s not the way America operates. We’re a decent, compassionate country. Those are the kind of things we do not do. We believe in families, and we’ll treat people with dignity.”

Adding even more fuel to the fire is the recent change in US policy towards Guatemalan asylum seekers living in the US since coming the 1990's to escape civil war and political unrest.

…activists who represent Guatemalan immigrants say asylum officers from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have begun to systematically deny thousands of asylum claims from Guatemalans who fled in the 1990s, arguing that normalcy has returned to Guatemala since the 1996 peace accords.

… immigrant rights group in Los Angeles - Casa de la Cultura de Guatemala - recently discovered that USCIS asylum officers had begun denying asylum claims of many Guatemalans who arrived in the 1990s.

Byron Vasquez, president of the group, said his organization is preparing a lawsuit in federal court to prevent asylum officers from denying these claims, arguing they should have been decided earlier.

Immigration officials said the agency is not seeking to deny all petitions from Guatemalan asylum-seekers and they are being decided on a case-by-case basis. Denials are referred to immigration judges to reverse or affirm.

But officials acknowledged the agency delayed decisions on many Guatemalan asylum applications because at the time the number of green cards available to asylum seekers was limited.

…snip…

According to Vasquez, as many as 250,000 Guatemalans could face removal proceedings. Immigration officials said the figure may be much lower than that.
Kansas City Star

As Bush continues of his journey to attempt mend fences throughout Latin America after years of neglect, he's bound to face even further criticism. Perhaps he can convince some Mayan priests to work some mojo in his favor…but somehow I doubt they'd be too receptive to the idea.

tags: immigration, Bush , Guatemala, Maya

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Immigration News Roundup: Feb 12 - Feb 18

This week features some news that’s current and some that re-examines policies of the past. Recently released documents showed that restrictive immigration policies during WWII prevented the most famous victim of the Holocaust from migrating to the US. Refugees from Regan era policies in Central America now face new immigrations restrictions. We look at some immigrant meatpackers who are fighting to unionize and examine the effects of last December's meatpacking raids. Speaking for raids …there was a bunch of them this week.

• Anne Frank Was Turned Away by American Immigration Restrictions


• US Shifts Policy towards Cold War Refugees from Central America


• Immigrant Workers Fight to Unionize Tyson Plant


• Two Months after Swift Raids Families Still Struggling


• Raids this Week throughout the Country

Anne Frank Was Turned Away by American Immigration Restrictions

Anne Frank’s family tried to escape the Nazis by immigrating to America — but they were turned away.

This extraordinary new chapter in the teenager’s tragic saga was made public on Wednesday, when the YIVO Institute for Jewish Studies in New York City released eighty newly discovered documents from the correspondence of Anne’s father, Otto Frank. They detail his efforts, in 1941, to gain permission to bring his family to the United States.

At the time of the correspondence, the Franks were living in exile in Holland, having fled their native Germany after Hitler’s rise to power. By 1939, with anti-Semitism spreading throughout Europe, the Franks began thinking about how to get to America. Otto Frank had already lived in the United States from 1909 to 1911, working as an intern at Macy’s Department Store in New York City.

But by 1939, it was a different America. After World War I, in response to the public’s intense anti-foreigner sentiment, Congress had enacted restrictive immigration quotas. The quota system was structured to reduce "undesirable" immigrants, especially Italians and Jews.

…snip…

The new annual quota for Germany and Austria allowed a maximum of 27,370 immigrants — far fewer than the hundreds of thousands of German and Austrian Jews searching for haven from Hitler.

Remarkably, even those meager quota allotments were almost always under-filled. American consular officials abroad were directed by Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long to "postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of the visas" to refugees.

…snip…

In May 1940, the Germans conquered and occupied the Netherlands. Emigration was forbidden, and the Franks’ hopes of going to America appeared to be dashed.

But they didn’t give up. In 1941, Otto Frank began writing to his American relatives, and to U.S. officials, in the hope of securing permission to immigrate. The details of his efforts are disclosed in the YIVO correspondence. What we already knew, however, is that at the same time the Franks were seeking shelter in America, State Department officials were seeking new ways to shut the nation’s doors even tighter.

In the summer of 1941, Breckinridge Long implemented new procedures to further reduce the number of immigrants. His actions had the full backing of President Roosevelt

…snip…

We need to teach our children why America cast aside its proud tradition of welcoming "the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free" and closed its doors. Only then can we hope that such moral failures are not repeated by the next generation
NJ Jewish Standard "Why America closed its doors to Anne Frank", Feb. 15, 2007

Related:
Daily Telegraph (UK)
New York Times
Time

US Shifts Policy towards Cold War Refugees from Central America

Immigrants from El Salvador and Guatemala have complained that the U.S. government may be targeting them for deportation -- despite a lingering Cold War legacy of problems in their countries.

Herman Martinez fled when right-wing death squads targeted him and many other leftists in El Salvador.

He sneaked into the United States in August 1980, and remained undetected until immigration agents detained him at a Homestead tomato farm in May 1985 and placed him in deportation proceedings. Martinez asked for asylum, but immigration authorities did not believe his story and pressured him to voluntarily return home.

''I refused,'' said Martinez, who eventually stayed under a 1986 U.S. amnesty law. ``Had I been sent back, they would have killed me right at the airport, on arrival.''

…Martinez, 47, was among tens of thousands of Salvadorans who in the 1980s were discouraged from seeking asylum. That practice ended in 1988 when a Los Angeles federal judge issued an injunction ordering immigration authorities to advise Salvadoran immigrants about their right to seek asylum.

The Orantes Injunction is now under official attack. The Department of Homeland Security is pressing a federal court in Los Angeles to lift it -- and for Congress to prohibit similar future injunctions.

…snip…

Also, activists who represent Guatemalan immigrants say asylum officers from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have begun to systematically deny thousands of asylum claims from Guatemalans who fled in the 1990s, arguing that normalcy has returned to Guatemala since the 1996 peace accords.

Meanwhile, other immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua are growing increasingly fearful about possible deportation if the Bush administration does not renew their temporary work and residence permits -- which expire later this year.

More than half a million Central American immigrants could face deportation proceedings if temporary protected status ends, the Orantes Injunction is lifted and most Guatemalan asylum claims fail.

Miami Herald"Policy shift may speed up deportations", Feb. 12, 2007

Immigrant Workers Fight to Unionize Tyson Plant

Each day 150 semitrailers loaded with cattle arrive at Tyson Food Inc.'s Holcomb plant for slaughter. Each day workers here butcher 5,700 head of cattle.

And each day at least one meatpacker at the plant gets hurt on the job.

…snip…

For years, the 3,100 workers who toil here have accepted injuries as a risk of working in one of the nation's most hazardous occupations. Now they are seizing upon those injuries to buck a trend of low union participation that grew as the nation's meatpacking industry consolidated and drew more immigrant labor.

…snip…

Adopting farm labor organizer Cesar Chavez's rallying cry: "Yes, we can," immigrant workers have now taken on behemoth Tyson. On March 1, workers will vote on whether to unionize under the United Steelworkers union. If they succeed, the union would represent 2,450 workers in Tyson's Holcomb plant, about 80 percent of whom are Hispanic.

The workers face a formidable opponent. Tyson is the world's largest processor of chicken, beef and pork — employing 114,000 people at 300 plants around the globe. Human Rights Watch reports that about 30,000 employees in 33 Tyson facilities are represented by unions.

Union membership and wages in the nation's meatpacking industry plummeted in the 1980s amid plant closings, lengthy strikes and deunionization struggles, according to a study by the Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service. Union rolls had remained stable through the 1970s, but fell from 46 percent of workers in 1980 in 1980 to 21 percent in 1987, and has stayed at those lower levels.

Declining unionization coincided with changes in the slaughter plants' demographics, with immigrants from Southeast Asia, Mexico and Central America making up larger shares of the work force, the study found. The frequent movement of immigrant workers limited union opportunities to organize.

The Holcomb workers hope bringing in the union will help slow the production line to ease repetitive strain injuries, while getting them better health and retirement benefits.

Workers last year reported 452 job injuries at the plant, in addition to a man who died in December after getting hit in the head by a large metal door, Occupational Safety and Health Administration logs show. While the reported injury rate at the Holcomb plant was higher than national averages, the company contended the number of serious injuries was far lower.

Nationwide, about 47,500 workers in the animal slaughter and processing industry were hurt in 2005 while on the job.

Houston Chronical "Immigrant workers take on giant Tyson in bid for union", Feb. 14, 2007

Two Months after Swift Raids Families Still Struggling

In Minnesota, US born children still try to cope with the loss of their immigrant parents. Teenagers care for their younger siblings until arrangement can be made, and mixed status families try to figure out how best to reunite.

Two months after the immigration raid in Worthington, families remain split and the nation's immigration "system" is still broken.

One mother was reunited with her baby. One father was released from jail to undergo the testing that might make it possible for him to donate a kidney to his (U.S. citizen) son. But most of the rest of the 230 families whose fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters were arrested in Worthington on Dec. 12 are gone.

Many have been shipped out of the country. Most of the rest are still in custody, far from Worthington and far from Minnesota.

…snip…

- The thirteen-year-old girl, left without parents when her mother was shipped to Mexico and her father disappeared. Days later, he was found in detention in Atlanta.
- The twelve- and thirteen-year-old U.S. citizen children, the only safe members of their families, who had to look for missing relatives, shop for groceries, seek help.
- The parents, trying to get passports for their U.S. citizen children, so they could take their sons and daughters away from the towns where they were born and raised and go to school to return to a "homeland" that offers no opportunity for parents or children.

Workdat Minnesota"Two months after Worthington raid, families still struggling to cope", Feb 15, 2007

Raids this Week throughout the Country

Herndon immigration raid nets 11 Fairfax County Times, VA

Immigration Agents Conducting Raids In S.F. CBS5, San Francisco CA

Immigration agents detain 51 in Auburn, WA., raid The Colombian, WA

Authorities say they arrested 48 illegal immigrants Charlotte Observer, SC

19 suspected illegal immigrants arrested in Peach Macon Telegraph, GA

17 Illegal Immigrants Arrested In Wheeling The Intelligencer WV

46 Illegal Immigrants, 9 Smugglers Found and Arrested in Locked House FOX, Houston TX

tags: immigration, labor unions , refugess, immigration raids

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300,000 to lose special immigration status

Upwards of 300,000 immigrants now living and working legally in the US under “Temporary Protection Status” may soon see their status revoked and face deportation. The Department of Homeland Security has recommended that the special immigration program that has allowed some 300,000 undocumented Salvadoran, Honduran and Nicaraguan migrants to remain in this country not be continued.

According to DHS numbers, more than 220,000 Salvadorans, 70,000 Hondurans and 3,600 Nicaraguans across the nation would be effected by the rules change and could be forced to leave or go underground if special status is removed.

(more below the fold)
tag: immigration

…the final decision on the Temporary Protected Status for the three nations, which would force those migrants to return home or remain here illegally and risk deportation, is still under intense debate within the administration, the officials add.

TPS, which bars the deportation of illegal migrants from those countries, was approved for Nicaragua and Honduras after Hurricane Mitch struck them in 1998, and for El Salvador after earthquakes there in 2001 killed more than 1,000 people and destroyed more than 220,000 homes.

TPS was intended to allow illegal migrants from these countries to stay in the United States temporarily and thereby soften the blow of the natural disasters. But today these poor countries rely heavily on remittances sent by their citizens working in the United States.

In the past, TPS renewals -- usually for 18-month periods -- have been almost routine for the Central Americans.

Miami Herald

Coming on the heels of the controversial bill, HR4437, sponsored by Congressional Republicans to toughen border controls and eliminate many legal protections for immigrants, the move by the Administration is seen as further evidence of the shifting climate in Washington. With the mid-term elections drawing near, an ever increasing number of Republican have begun to jump on the anti-immigrants bandwagon in hopes to bolster waning popularity in their home districts caused by controversy and sandal within the national party.

Some government officials have voiced concern over the “public relations nightmare” that the deportation of hundreds of thousand Central Americans would cause, and are looking to formulate an alternative “exit strategy” for the program.

The revocation of the status has also made waves in diplomatic circles, particularly in regards to El Salvador, the country with the greatest number of immigrants effected.

Salvadoran President Tony Saca has been calling President Bush and other top officials in an effort to win another extension of TPS, officials said.

-snip-

The case of El Salvador is emblematic because it is the biggest beneficiary of TPS and a loyal U.S. ally. It is the only Latin American nation that continues to contribute troops in Iraq. Not getting TPS renewed would be a major blow for Saca, who is facing legislative elections in March. Almost two million Salvadorans living in the U.S. send almost $2.5 billion back home in remittances, a lifeline for the country's economy, according to the Inter American Development Bank.

On Friday, Saca talked with Bush about trade and immigration issues, but apparently did not get a firm commitment on TPS. Bush ''listened carefully and reaffirmed our continued focus on an approach that combines reasonable border enforcement with a temporary worker program,'' said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

The situation with El Salvador is of particular concern for those in the foreign policy wing of the government given the increasingly anti-Bush bent of many of the newly elected regimes in Latin America. Any possibility that an anti-US backlash could take place amongst the Salvadoran electorate would be viewed as highly problematic.

A formal announcement on TPS must be made 60 days before its expiration -- in July for Nicaragua and Honduras and in September for El Salvador -- although a decision could come from the Bush administration as early as the spring.

The Republicans will be forced to walk a fine line on this issue, trying to appease Congressional candidates hell bent on using the immigration wedge to gain local favor, while still having to deal with the very real international ramifications of their draconian policies.

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