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Immigration News - 2008 Migrant Death Count

In a grim disclosure, Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE) recently released its count of the number of Mexican migrants who died struggling to reach El Norte in 2008 so far. Until June 9, the SRE documented the deaths of 117 migrants who perished while attempting to cross the Mexico-US border. According to the SRE, most of the deaths, or 72 to be precise, were registered in the state of Texas. The McAllen area of the Lone Star State proved to be the deadliest point for would-be border crossers, with 26 undocumented Mexicans losing their lives in the zone. Additionally, 14 migrants died in the El Paso area and 4 around Eagle Pass. Nonetheless, the dangerous terrain surrounding Tucson, Arizona, was the deadliest single zone for migrants, claiming 40 lives during the first half of the year. The Arizona numbers suggest migrant deaths could be on a downswing in comparison to the last two years. Still, it’s important to note the reported deaths were registered before some of the hottest days of the year pound the border region.

The US Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector reported 204 migrant deaths during the 2007 fiscal year that ended on September 30 of last year. The death toll represented a 21 percent increase from fiscal year 2006, when 165 deaths were registered. However, the Tucson-based Human Rights Coalition reported a higher death toll for the region than did the Border Patrol. The immigrant rights group cited 237 deaths for FY 2007, a number 32 higher than in FY 2006, when the coalition documented 205 deaths. In 2007, 409 Mexican migrants died in the entire Mexico-US border region, according to the SRE. Official Mexican migrant death statistics for this year report most victims were individuals in the 18 to 45-year-old age category, with the death of one minor recorded. Since 2001, the SRE has tallied the deaths of 2,956 Mexican migrants in the northern borderlands. The federal agency has identified the main causes of death as dehydration (1062), drowning (583) and vehicle accidents (247). In terms of geographic origin, ill-fated migrants from the states of Mexico, Guanajuato and Mexico City topped the list of victims.

Sources: La Jornada, July 6, 2008. Frontera/SUN, December 31, 2007.
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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Labels: FNS, Immigration, US/Mexico Border

June 3, 2008
Tijuana News: Garbage Collectors vs. Green Automation

Professional trash scavengers known as pepenadores conducted a blockade June 2 of Tijuana’s municipal landfill for several hours, preventing garbage trucks from entering the facility. More than 600 people participated in the action to protest a new recycling program they contend will throw them out of work. As informal workers who make a living from gathering and selling recyclable materials, the disgruntled garbage collectors fear new machinery that processes cardboard and aluminum will result in their displacement.

Protest leader Mario Rodriguez charged that Tijuana’s municipal government had not complied with earlier promises to leave some materials for the pepenadores. Rodriguez contended that the city government was using new employees to recycle more than two tons of material every day. Advised of the blockade, Tijuana Mayor Jorge Ramos reiterated his disposition to negotiate with the protestors, but warned that force could be used to end the blockade and allow sanitation trucks back into the landfill.

After meeting with Department of Urban Development chief Marcos Sarabia, the protestors agreed to lift their blockade and resume negotiations on June 3. Sarabia said the city was willing to accommodate the needs of the
numerous landfill scavengers. “If it’s necessary, we’re going to put a recycling plant in the landfill so these people can have permanent work,” Sarabia vowed.

Although Mexican cities like Tijuana are barely ratcheting up formally-organized recycling programs, thousands of people across the country have long earned their livelihoods scavenging dumps for aluminum cans and other recyclables. Additionally, large public gatherings or scheduled events like the arrival of cruise ships to tourist ports attract individuals who scour the ground and poke through trash cans to recover goods that can be sold and recycled.

Sources: El Sol de Tijuana, June 3, 2008. Article by Fernando Barroso.
Frontera, June 2, 2008. Articles by Daniel Salinas.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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Labels: Envirionmental Justice, FNS, green economy, Green Jobs, US/Mexico Border, worker's rights

Health/Immigration News
Immigration law crackdowns and the growth of anti-foreigner sentiment in the United States are translating into increased psychological problems for migrants, mental health professionals and community leaders say. “Hispanics live with fear. I see it every day in my clinic,” said Tanya Mundo, a therapist in Jefferson County near Denver, Colorado. “They are fearful of going out on the street and making use of their rights.” An August 2007 study by Patrick Steffen, associate professor of psychology at Brigham Young University, supports the observations made by Mundo. According to Steffen’s study, the fear of deportation or separation from loved ones results in anxiety, insomnia and depression. Lack of sleep, in turn, can lead to higher blood pressure and increase the risk of heart attack.

Sentimental dates or special days like the recent Mother’s Day celebration can also trigger feelings of sadness, frustration and impotency. Separated by borders and travel restrictions, members of migrant families, especially individuals without papers, cannot easily visit relatives.Grandparents and grandchildren come to know each other only through pictures or long-distance telephone calls. In many migrant families, anger, powerlessness and physical alienation arise from the denial of a travel visa at the US Embassy.

Although immigrants face an array of mental health issues because of their status in US society, few seek or receive any kind of professional help.

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), only one in 20 Latino immigrants with mental health problems searches for help.Of those who do get assistance, only one in four receive adequate treatment, according to the DHHS. Even though the need for mental health services in the Latino and immigrant communities is greater than ever, few Latino professionals work in the field. In the United States, only 29 Latino mental health professionals exist for every 100,000 Latinos.

In contrast, there are 173 mental health professionals for every 100,000 Anglo-Saxon residents of the country.

“The paradox is that at the same time the need is growing for Hispanic mental health professionals or at least culturally competent ones, due to the increasing number of Hispanics we see with mental health problems, very few of these professionals exist,” Colorado therapist Mundo said.

Sources: Univision, May 10, 2008. La Voz de Nuevo Mexico/EFE, May 9, 2008.
Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
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Labels: FNS, Immigration, immigration reform

The Political Winds of May
Frontera Norte-Sur
May 2, 2008

The turnouts might have been much smaller than in 2006 when perhaps millions participated in the Great American Boycott, but pro-immigrant and pro-labor actions yesterday still underscored how International Worker's Day is making a comeback in US political life. In dozens of communities across the US, immigrant advocates and their allies organized diverse actions.

Activists demanded that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) stop raiding workplaces and deporting undocumented workers, and they urged the passage of a comprehensive immigration reform that legalizes workers without papers.

"We sent a letter to President Bush asking for a moratorium on the (ICE) raids while the future of our 12 million brothers and sisters is resolved," said Tedoro Aguiluz, executive director of Houston's Central American Resource Center.

Large marches drawing thousands were held in Los Angeles and Chicago, while smaller protests took place in Seattle, Tucson, Milwaukee, Miami, Houston, and Washington, D.C., where activists picketed the Supreme Cou rt and the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic parties. In El Paso, Texas, immigrant advocates staged a short hunger strike and a march, while in Albuquerque, New Mexico, community members braved the chilly winds to attend a "family day" celebration convened by the Center for Equality and Rights.

At least 30 US cities witnessed a May Day event. Unlike 2007, when Los Angeles police attacked demonstrators and journalists at a May Day rally, this year's demonstration in California's largest city proceeded peacefully.

In Santa Fe, New Mexico, a group of 9 women held a creative protest in front of the Santa Fe Hilton, where they were formerly employed as housekeepers. Taping their mouths shut with messages like "Fired" and "No rights," the women charged that they were unfairly dismissed because of worker complaints over hazardous and abusive labor conditions last March. The action by Latina and immigrant workers was supported the non-profit Somos Un Pueblo Unido organization and the Service Employees International Union.

In a phone interview with Frontera Norte Sur, Marcela Diaz, executive director for Somos, said the women approached her group for help after their firings. Complaining of being forced to clean with dangerous chemicals, the former housekeepers told Diaz and the media they were expected to clean 23 rooms during shifts averaging less than 7 hours each.

According to Diaz, the women averaged $9.50-10.50 per hour in a city known for its California-level cost of living The housekeepers' wages put them just slightly above Santa Fe's minimum wage of $9.50 per hour, which was achieved after a long struggle by Somos and other living wage advocates.

Diaz said the workers chose May 1 for their public protest to express "solidarity with workers around the world." Locally, the former Hilton employees "felt that Santa Fe should know that Hilton workers are treated that way, and that they are the backbone of the tourist economy in Santa Fe," she added.

Billed as a renovated, smoke-free hotel situated amid the marvels of culture and history, the Santa Fe Hilton advertises off-season rooms for between $159 and $209 per night. Quoted in the Santa Fe New Mexican, Michael Newbrand, Santa Fe Hilton manager, maintained that the company held "our employees' safety and satisfaction in the highest regard and encourages workers to effectively alert management of issues that may affect or have affected their work environment." Newbrand, however, did not address specific complaints by his ex-workers.

Diaz said her organization has assisted the onetime Hilton employees in filing complaints with the National Labor Relations Board, Employment Equal Opportunity Commission and Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Elsewhere, elected officials and other community leaders attended or endorsed different May 1 events. In Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa contended that stepped-up ICE raids not only threatened the livelihoods of 500,000 people employed in the food and other industries, but jeopardized the broader economy as well. Villaraigosa's stance was shared by Samuel Garrison, vice-president of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

"The raids are terrorizing the workers, and they are worrying businessmen. I think that it is going to cause many businesses to think twice before coming to Los Angeles," Garrison said.

Though May Day 2008 was barely a blip in the US English-language media, it clearly had an impact on the political scene. Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both released statements in favor of immigration reform. Clinton pledged to present a legislative initiative within "100 days of my administration," while Obama committed to working for a comprehensive immigration law overhaul that would bring "order and compassion to a system that is broken." Republican presidential candidate John McCain had no immediate comment on the day's events.

In an election year, political power was on the minds of May 1 organizers.

"Besides demonstrating on this day, we are in a permanent campaign to have the people vote in November," said Emma Lozano of the May 1 International Coalition in Chicago. "May 1 is another step. I estimate we brought together 10,000 people in Chicago, but in November millions of us will march to the polls. I can be sure of this." For his part, Juan Jose Gutierrez of Latino Movement USA said activists are aiming to get the immigrant legalization issue onto the plank of the Democratic Party at this year's convention scheduled for Denver, Colorado.

Growing out of a 1886 Chicago strike and the police killing of workers, May Day was purposely downplayed for political reasons in the United States. Instead, the official Labor Day holiday was designated in September. But the 2006 revival of International Worker's Day as an international day of mass action by the immigrant rights movement set in motion a new political dynamic in the US that's now touching other sectors.

In another May 1 event that was largely glossed over by the US mass media, 25,000 West Coast longshoremen conducted day-long work stoppages at 29 ports from San Diego to Seattle, or "border-to-border" as one radio host described it, to protest the war in Iraq. Two years ago, business at West Coast docks was disrupted by truckers who refused deliveries to show their support for the surging immigrant rights movement at the time. Many of the participating truckers were immigrants.

Jack Heyman, an official with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union that sponsored the work stoppage in defiance of an arbitrator's ruling, said on Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now program that college students, teachers, truck drivers, postal workers and others in New York, North Carolina and California held small, quiet activities in support of the dock workers. But the "most stunning act of solidarity" came from Iraqi dock workers who also shut down ports, Heyman said. "We're hoping that these kinds of actions will resonate with other unions and workers," he said.

Santa Fe activist Diaz said smaller events commemorating May Day have taken place for years, but she credited the pro-immigrant movement for pumping new life into an international commemoration that, ironically, began in the US. "It has gotten more attention lately because of the immigrant rights movement.I hope we continue to bring light to it," Diaz said.

Additional sources: El Paso Times, May 2, 2008. Article by Louie Gilot.
Democracy Now, May 1 and 2, 2008. Univision and Univision Online, May 1 and
2, 2008. KLUZ (Albuquerque), May 1, 2008. La Jornada/AFP/DPA, May 1, 2008.
El Universal/Notimex, May 1, 2008. El Diario de Juarez, May 1, 2008. Santa
Fe New Mexican, May 1, 2008. Article by Kate Nash. Los Angeles Times, May 1,
2008. Article by Louis Sahagun. Ilwu.org

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin
American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New
Mexico
For a free electronic subscription email fnsnews@nmsu.edu

Labels: FNS, ICE, Immigration, Marcela Diaz, May 1st, May Day

Some more news from our friends at FNS. The first article is on a rice shortage near the border. The second is on migration demographics.

El Paso-Ciudad Juarez News

Living in the US-Mexico borderlands, residents grow up eating mouth-watering, inexpensive meals rounded off by beans and rice. At least that was the case until now. In El Paso, Texas, residents are stunned by sharp price increases that saw the wholesale value of a ton of Thai-produced rice shoot up by more than 100 percent since last January. At the retail level, rice prices increased by ten percent just last month, according to government reports. El Paso resident Estela Garcia is among locals who are expressing mounting concern about the availability and affordability of a culturally-defining food.

“But as we know everything goes up in this country, except wages. I hope that other grains don’t go up, like wheat, which is also a staple,” Garcia said.

In Garcia’s hometown, the international rice price crisis made local news last week when Sam’s Club, which is owned by Wal-Mart, announced it was limiting sales of jasmine, basmati and long grain white rice to four 20-lb. sacks per customer. Costco also reportedly instituted a similar local policy. According to a statement from Sam’s Club, the sales rationing was implemented in order to assure a steady supply of a basic product. In a place where enchiladas with beans and rice or burritos with beans and rice are daily vittles, the prospect of no rice was disturbing to some.

“I’ve never found myself in a situation where there is no rice,” said restaurant customer Arturo Duran.

Siria Rocha, however, is one person who is already looking at rice-free pantries. Rocha, marketing director for the West Texas Food Bank, which serves 100,000 needy people in 22 counties, said her organization has not received a new shipment of rice since last October.

; And in an increasingly multi-cultural city, the rice price hikes have jolted owners and workers at East Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants. The responses of restaurateurs have been mixed, with some trying to hold the line on prices while others are jacking up meal prices by a dollar or two, according to press accounts. “I cannot afford to run out of rice. Oh, my God. That’s like a Mexican restaurant without tortillas,” said Francisco Wong, the owner of three Chinese-style diners in El Paso.

Sam’s Club restrictions on local rice sales quickly became international news, with the online edition of the Mexico City-based La Jornada daily posting a story on its home page. Many analysts discount an actual rice shortage, attributing the sudden price increase to speculation in futures markets, where basic grains currently fetch hefty profits, as well as the strategic decision of countries like the United States to subsidize and promote the production of biofuels at the expense of crops produced for animal and human consumption.

Sources: El Diario de El Paso, April 24 and 25, 2008. Articles by Gustavo Cabullo. El Paso Times, April 25, 2008. Article by Doug Pullen and Maria Cortes Gonzalez. La Jornada/DPA/Notimex, April 25, 2008. KFOX News (El Paso), April 24, 2008. Pagina 24/Notimex, April 22, 2008.

***********************************************

Immigration News

Adios, Michoacan

In the southwestern Mexican state of Michoacan, the historic migration of entire communities continues to define the landscape. And increasingly, the feet on the move belong to women. In a report to State Migrant Secretary Alma Griselda Valencia Medina, three state legislators from the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution ran down the latest migration trends. Of 100 migrants, 36 are women, according to the local congressional group, which consisted of state legislators Antonio Garcia Conejo, Gustavo Avila Vazquez and Sergio Solis Suarez. All three men serve on the Michoacan State Legislature’s Migrant Affairs Commission.

According to the legislators, the number of women entering the migrant stream is a steady increase from seven years ago when only one in five migrants was a woman. Sixty eight percent of the women from Michoacan who relocate to the United States are married and intend to rejoin their spouses, they said. The legislators expressed concerns to Secretary Valencia that the traditionally agricultural state is being depopulated, with the overall population decreasing by 400,000 people in the last six years. Their report identified 87 of Michoacan’s 113 municipalities as the areas most impacted by migration. In addition to the United States, a growing number of migrants are moving to cities in Mexico outside Michoacan.

The Bajio, Tierra Caliente and Costa areas of Michoacan were identified as the zones experiencing the greatest migration pressures. It was not immediately clear from the report if other motives apart from economic ones are compelling people to leave their homes. The Tierra Caliente and Costa regions, in particular, have been hit hard during the past few years by violence related to Michoacan’s deeply-entrenched illegal drug economy. Residents from other areas of Mexico afflicted with similar levels of narco-violence, such as Tijuana or Ciudad Juarez, sometimes cite insecurity as the primary reason for abandoning their hometowns.

Source: La Jornada, April 25, 2008. Article by Ernesto Martinez Elorriaga.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico
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Labels: FNS, Immigration, US/Mexico Border

Human Rights News
Despite the creation of a special federal prosecutor and protests from virtually all international press organizations, new attacks against journalists in Mexico continue to mount while old ones go unpunished. Two young radio announcers from the southern state of Oaxaca are the latest journalists to suffer violent deaths. Felicitas Martinez, 22, and Teresa Bautista, 24, were shot to death in an ambush April 7 while on their way to cover a state meeting of indigenous peoples. Four other persons were wounded in the attack, including two young children aged 2 and 3. As of April 19, no suspects had been arrested for the crimes.

Indigenous Triquis, Martinez and Bautista were announcers for the “The Voice that Breaks the Silence” community radio station in San Juan Copala, a town which has enjoyed autonomous status since early 2007. Outspoken commentators in a region riddled with social conflicts, Martinez and Bautista allegedly suffered threats before their murders. “Some people think we are very young to know, but they should know we are very young to die,” Martinez and Bautista reportedly said on the air shortly before their deaths.

Alfonso Ortiz, radio station coordinator, blamed a group connected with the PRI state government of Ulises Ruiz for the killings of his colleagues. Ortiz also accused the state government of attempting to bribe family members of Martinez and Bautista into silence. Oaxaca State Secretary Manuel Garcia Corpus, who earlier met with the victims’ survivors, said a truce was necessary between warring political factions in the region.

Oaxaca State Attorney General Evencio Martinez (no known relation to the victim) said the radio announcers were in the wrong place at the wrong time. “What's clear from the preliminary investigation is that the attack wasn’t against them, but against the person who was driving the vehicle,” Martinez said. The presumed target of the attack, in the state attorney general’s view, was Faustino Vasquez, a local government employee who was hospitalized with a gunshot wound to his left arm.

Earlier, the San Juan Copala radio station demanded that Mexico’s Office of the Federal Attorney General take over the murder investigation.

The Martinez-Bautista murders were condemned by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mexican Episcopal Conference and the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), among other organizations.

AMARC representative Aleida Calleja said Mexico was already dangerous territory for communicators but that the murders of the two young indigenous women “added to it.” In a statement, the UN’s human rights ombudsman contended that “only through the effective clarification” of the Martinez-Bautista slayings will similar attacks against journalists and social communicators be prevented.

Mexico´s official human rights commission is investigating the Oaxaca murders, while the AMARC has announced it will dispatch an international investigative delegation to the country between April 21-25.

In northern Mexico, another media outlet has also suffered aggressions. Readers of the daily El Cinco newspaper in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, have had a difficult time getting the news lately because of an escalating wave of intimidation that culminated April 16 in the kidnapping of the paper’s pressman by alleged members of the Tamaulipas state police force. Quoted in the Apro news service, El Cinco’s management added that other workers were threatened with guns. Copies of the paper which managed to make it onto the streets were then reportedly bought out by unnamed individuals offering higher-than-normal prices to vendors. There was no immediate word of the fate of the kidnapped pressman. Prior to the armed invasion of the printing facility, editions of the newspaper had allegedly been confiscated by state policemen at different intersections in Ciudad Victoria.

In the northern Mexican border community of Agua Prieta, Sonora, meanwhile, about 60 friends and relatives of murdered journalist Saul Noe Martinez staged a protest last week on the first anniversary of his killing, which like the vast majority of murders of journalists in Mexico remains unsolved. The editor of Interdiario, Martinez was kidnapped from an Agua Prieta police station by armed gunmen; his body was later found in the neighboring state of Chihuahua. Demonstrators demanded the speeding up of the murder investigation, and that Martinez’s name be cleared of allegations that cocaine was found along with his body. According to Martinez’s supporters, the substance in question was rat poison.

Speaking out on the Oaxaca murders, UNESCO General Director Koichiro Matsuura called the killings of journalists “an odious crime that causes great damage to society, since it suffocates the democratic right of the citizens to debate issues of common interest…”

Sources: Aguas/EFE, April 18, 2008. Proceso/Apro, April 17 and 19, 2008. Articles by Pedro Matias. Cimacnoticas, April 17 and 18, 2008. Articles by Soledad Jarquin Edgar, Susana Trejo de Jesús and Jessica Cecilia Martinez. Pagina 24/Apro, April 17, 2008. CNN en Español/Aristegui, April 16, 2008. La Jornada, April 9, 12 and 17, 2008. Articles by Matilde Perez U., Carolina Gomez, Ulises Gutierrez, Emir Olivares, Octavio Velez, and the AFP news agency.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

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Labels: FNS, Media

Political News

The future of the Pemex nacional oil company continues to be at the center of national politics in Mexico. Negotiations to lift the four day-old blockade of the Mexican Congress, which was carried out by legislators opposed to the privatization of Pemex, were expected to take place, on Monday, April 14. Affilated with the Progressive Action Front (FAP), the legislators stormed and seized the tribunals in the Senate and Chamber of Deputies last Thursday after the administration of President Felipe Calderon submitted a fast-track set of proposals designed to permit the greater involvement of national and foreign capital in the government-owned company’s functions, many of which are already outsourced to both Mexican and foreign businessmen.

Opponents of the Calderon plan argue that it violates the Mexican Constitution, which reserves petroleum resources to exclusive government ownership, jeopardizes national security and cheats social services, which are heavily dependent on Pemex’s income for funding. A second group of lawmakers opposed to the Calderon legislation announced a hunger strike on Sunday, April 13.

Meanwhile, legisators from the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), an organization which is not participating in the anti-privatization protests, proposed that Pemex bonds be sold to Mexican migrant workers as way of averting foreign investment while putting remittances earned in the United States to good use back home. The PRI proposal expands on an earlier one pitched by President Calderon that would allow Mexican citizens to buy Pemex bonds in order to strengthen the company’s finances and permit it to expand production, especially in deep ocean waters located in the Gulf of Mexico where Mexican and US territorial waters converge.

Noting that almost all migrant dollars sent back to Mexico go for basic survival needs, PRI Congressman Edmundo Ramirez Martinez, who serves as the secretary for the border and migrant affairs commission in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, said investing remittances in Pemex could uplift the quality of life for migrant families.

“If we offer them a return of 10 percent, many Mexicans who have gone to work in the US for lack of employment, could then have an important investment and an additional income for their families,” Martinez said.

Holding the decisive vote in legislative showdown over Pemex, the PRI is torn over the Calderon initiative. Congressman Jose Aispuro Torres said the president’s legislation coincides with many PRI proposals, but that party members have “serious doubts” about the participation of private capital in Pemex. The nationalization of Mexico’s oil industry in 1938 by then-President Lazaro Cardenas remains perhaps the key legacy of a political party that aims to recover the Mexican Congress in 2009 and the Mexican White House in 2012. Clearly, PRI leaders are worried about being outflanked by opposition leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution, who is leading popular and legislative protests against the Calderon legislation.

Compared by the media to the “Adelitas,” or women combatants of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, pro-Lopez Obrador brigades led by women are spearheading the anti-privatization movement across the country. Posters with a picture of the revered President Cardenas backdropped by an oil rig and pointing a finger at passerby have begun appearing on Mexican streets.

“Now it’s your turn: Mexico needs you,” they read, in a direct appeal to patrirotism. Adding a blast at Mexican electronic media coverage of the Pemex issue, which Lopez Obrador’s partisans accuse of bias in favor of the federal government, the posters urge citizens to “Turn off the television, and turn on your mind.”

On Sunday,. April 13, tens of thousands of demonstrators once again turned out in Mexico City’s Zocalo Plaza to hear Lopez Obrador speak against the Calderon plan. It was the third large anti-privatization demonstration in the Zocalo since last March 18. To counter negative media coverage, Mexico’s leading opposition politician announced that his
followers would distribute information about the Pemex issue door-to-door.

“Everyone of us will be a medium of communication,” Lopez Obrador vowed. Comparing President Calderon with 19th century President Santa Anna, the leader who ceded Mexico’s northern territory to the United States, Lopez Obrador said it was “almost a certainty” that the actions of the FAP legislators and the “Adelitas” had rendered the Calderon legislation a dead letter for the current congressional session, which ends on April 30. Joining others, he called for a broader national debate over Pemex’s future.

In response to the growing anti-privatization mobilization, Mexico’s federal government is stepping up its own publicity offensive. Running ads on national television that say reforms are meant to strengthen Pemex and not privatize it, the oil company is making its own brand of appeal to Mexicans’ futures. If it is reformed, Pemex promises, enhanced oil and gas revenues will translate into better educational opportunities, improved social services and universal health care for all Mexican citizens.

Additional sources: AFP, April 14, 2008. El Universal, April 14, 2008.
Article by Ricardo Gomez and Andrea Merlos. La Jornada, April 14, 2008,
Article by Enrique Mendez and Alma E. Munoz. Televisa, April 14, 2008.
Frontera, April 13, 2008. Proceso, April 13, 2008. Articles by Jenardo
Villamil and Rosalia Vergara.


Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email
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Labels: FNS

Immigration News

In a rapidly changing world economic environment, many countries increasingly compete with the United States for the labor of Latin American immigrants. Lured by economic growth outside the global North, Latin American workers are heading for neighboring countries, Europe, Canada and even the Middle East.

Located in South America’s Southern Cone, the nation of Chile, which once expelled hundreds of thousands of people due to political and economic reasons, is now becoming a destination for other migrants. From 1999 to 2008, the number of foreign residents of Chile almost tripled to an estimated 290,000 people.

“This change merits attention,” said Andrea Cerda, a researcher with Chile’s Diego Portales University. “Since Chile could become a receptor county, it has to focus its social policies to see how to receive this new population group.”

Although Argentinians long accounted for most new immigrants, Bolivians and especially Peruvians are making up ever greater numbers of new residents. As many as 100,000 Peruvians now reside in Chile, according to the Peruvian Consulate. Bolivian and Peruvian workers are currently in demand by Chilean agriculture, and Peruvian restaurants are the rave among Chilean diners. Other nationalities represented in Chile’s new social landscape include Colombians, Ecuadorans, Cubans and Mexicans. Granted by the administration of President Michele Bachelet, an amnesty benefited 50,000 undocumented immigrants.

Besides Chile, Brazil and Costa Rica are also magnets for immigrants of Latin American and other descent. A small Central American nation that has registered growth in the high technology and tourism sectors in recent years, Costa Rica is contracting Nicaraguans for jobs such as bus drivers. In Brazil, professional workers are being sought for the
entertainment and oil industries, while unskilled workers, including many Bolivians who reportedly labor under adverse conditions, are forming a new, low-paid urban working-class. The Ministry of Labor of Brazil
authorized almost 30,000 temporary and permanent work permits for foreigners in 2007. Last year’s number of legal permits was a 46.2 percent increase over the total given in 2004.

Outside Latin America, Canada, a country whose dollar has gained strength vis-a-vis the US currency, continues to draw many different nationalities; an estimated 200,000 undocumented immigrants could be living in the country. In late 2007, the Canadian and Mexican governments decided to expand a guestworker program to encompass the tourism, construction and financial services sectors.

Under the accord, a three-year pilot program will be launched to grant 6-10 month contracts to 100 Mexican workers in each of the new categories. The expanded guestworker program builds on an existing system of temporary agricultural labor that provides Canada with 18,000 Mexican farmworkers every year, mainly for farms in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia.

A hot new global tourist destination, the Middle Eastern nation of Dubai is also on the prowl for Mexican workers. In early April, Emirates Airlines and Group announced it would interview candidates in Mexico for new job openings in the tourism sector.

“Mexicans are nice, friendly, work as a team, speak fluent English, work well, and know how to treat tourists from all over the world,” said Rick Helliwell, vice-president of recruitment and human resources for Emirates Airlines. At least 23 Mexicans currently work as pilots and three others as cargo handlers for the airline company. The annual number of tourist visits to Dubai by air is expected to grow from 40 millon in 2008 to 75 million by 2015.

In a familiar pattern, many Latin American migrants plan on working abroad for a relatively short period of time before returning home to purchase properties and open new businesses. This was the story of Natalia Vigneri and Eduardo Collins. Finding their long hours and hard work in the Uruguayan tourism industry wasn’t paying off, the couple decided to try their luck in Europe. Six years later, the one-time Uruguayan emigrants returned home with savings. The money was enough to buy a ranch in the trendy resort of Punta de Diablo.

“We were able to do this with the savings that we brought here,” said Vigneri. “The idea is to remain living in our country and educate our son Maximo, who is two years old. He can return to Europe if he want to, but to have a good time and to get to know it.” Meanwhile, many other Uruguayans are following in the footsteps of Vigneri and Collins. Confirming an increasing trend since 2004, statistics from the country’s National Migration Department reported 16,603 Uruguayans left the country in 2007.

Sources: Tribuna de la Bahia/Agencia Reforma, April 4, 2008. Article by Lilian Cruz. El Universal, December 29, 2007; March 23, 2008. Articles by Natalia Gomez Quintero, Cesar Bianchi and the El Pais (Uruguay) newspaper. El Diario de Juarez, January 20, 2008.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email fnsnews@nmsu.edu

Labels: FNS, Immigration, US/Mexico Border

Ciudad Juarez - Cipriana Jurado, a prominent Ciudad Juarez women’s rights activist, is now free after posting a $700 bond. The director of the Worker Research and Solidarity Center, Jurado was arrested by Mexican federal police outside her home on Wednesday, April 2. The veteran activist was charged with blocking a public roadway during an October 2005 protest sponsored by the binational Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice and other organizations at one of the international bridges that link Ciudad Juarez with El Paso, Texas. Also arrested on the same charges as Jurado was Carlos Chavez Quevedo, who was reportedly picked up by federal police in the city of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua.

Chavez is a co-founder of the National Agrodynamic farm organization, whose leader Armando Villareal Martha was assassinated in Nuevo Casas Grandes last month. According to Chihuahua state legislator Victor Quintana, at least 40 other arrest warrants stemming from the October 2005 protest are pending. No additional word of Chavez’s detention status was available as Frontera NorteSur went to press.

A former maquiladora worker and a member of the PRD political party, Jurado has been active in a variety of labor, environmental and human rights causes in Ciudad Juarez and the Mexico-US border region. A long-time supporter of relatives of femicide victims, Jurado was reportedly arrested after returning from forensic offices where she had gone on business related to investigations of the women’s murders. Interviewed by the local press after her release, Jurado contended that she resisted officers who did not show her an arrest warrant. The policemen were driving a vehicle without license plates and with tainted windows (similar to the vehicles employed by drug cartel hit men) and possessed dubious identifications, she said. As a result of the stand-off, the police officers shoved her into their vehicle, Jurado charged.

Jurado’s detention came in the middle of a major operation by Mexican federal police and soldiers ostensibly aimed at organized crime in Ciudad Juarez. On Friday, April 4, US Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza visited Ciudad Juarez to express the Bush Administration’s support for Mexico City’s border military offensive. It wasn’t immediately clear why the Mexican federal government suddenly acted on legal issues almost three years old at a time when Mexican troops and federal police were supposedly focused on dislodging the power of well-rooted drug cartels.

“(Government officials) are taking advantage of this situation to resolve one thing with another,” said former Chihuahua Women’s Institute head Vicky Caraveo. “We don’t know the purposes of the (arrests). We know we are in a difficult situation and we know they are carrying out operations against delinquency, but (Jurado) is not a delinquent. She’s an authentic social activist. If this happens to her, it is a warning to us what will follow.”

Jurado’s arrest quickly drew responses from US and Mexican supporters who sent e-mails and organized a demonstration in front of federal court offices in Ciudad Juarez. Individuals and groups who rallied to Jurado’s defense included Casa Amiga’s Esther Chavez Cano and Nuestras Hijas de Regreso a Casa. After leaving jail, Jurado charged that her detention was a case of government repression.

“We are going to continue struggling for the causes we have struggled for all these years,” she said, “because we have a commitment to the community and to our children. We don’t want them to live with the repression and the problems with which we are living.”

Additional sources: Lapolaka.com, April 4 and 5, 2008. La Jornada, April 4 and 5, 2008. Articles by Ruben Villalpando and M.Breach. Norte, April 5, 2008. Articles by Luis Carlos Ortega and Felix A. Gonzalez. El Diario de Juarez, April 5, 2008. Articles by Gabriela Minjares, Juan de Dios Olivas and Sandra Rodríguez.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico
For a free electronic subscription email fnsnews@nmsu.edu.

Labels: Cipriana Jurado Herrera, FNS, US/Mexico Border