This Just Makes No Kind of Sense : Catching the Undocumented Leaving the U.S.?

bus.jpgIs the anti-immigrant movement so desperate to up it’s numbers of undocumented that they have resorted to catching undocumented immigrants when they are leaving the U.S. into Mexico? Seems so. SAN DIEGO — U.S. border authorities no longer apprehend illegal immigrants only as they enter the country. Now they’re catching them on the way out.

At random times near the Tijuana-San Diego border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers have been setting up checkpoints, boarding buses destined for Mexico and pulling off people who don’t have proper documentation.
Vincent Bond, an agency spokesman, said departing immigrants are fair targets.
“If our officers come upon people who are here illegally . . . regardless of whether they’re leaving the country, we detain them, make a record of the fact they were here illegally and return them to Mexico,” Bond said.

Um. OK. With people all up in arms of how much “illegal immigration” is costing the country, does this seem like a good use of resources?

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I Never Buy the American Book Review : But I Will and You Should Too!

IssueV29_N4.jpgI never buy the American Book Review, but I’m going to make an exception for their latest issue and you should too! The current issue features Women of Color Publishing and contains the words of some blogger/writer hermanas! Just a taste:

“This Instant and This Triumph” an introductory essay that puts the current women of color publishing movement into historical context by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence’s crucial The Revolution Will Not Be Funded reviewed by the strategically fly organizer PAULINA HERNANDEZ!

Girlchild Press’s new anthology Just Like A Girl: A Manifesta reviewed by the most talented and necessary fiction writer of our generation DANIELLE EVANS! (I should note- La Mala is in here too!)

Hermana Resist’s collaborative ‘zine The MAIZ Chronicles reviewed by BROWNFEMIPOWER!

Check it out, buy it, and support.

Via / Kitchen Table : Women of Color Pressed for Knowledge

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Action Alert : Write and Call to Protest Recent ICE Raids

ice.jpgYesterday I wrote about how ICE has upped it’s antics by terrorizing schoolchildren and their parents in the Bay Area.

Please call and write to protest these actions.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office
630 Sansome Street between Washington and Jackson
San Francisco, CA

Ronald E. Le Fevre, Chief Counsel
415-705-4604
Washington, DC (Headquarters)

Michael H. Neifach, Principal Legal Advisor
(202) 514-1126
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
425 I Street NW, Room 6100
Washington, DC 20536

On the grassroots level, if you see ICE hanging around, let your neighbors know. Start a phone tree, text messaging system. If you can document ICE presence by taking photos and video (generally, they don’t like to be watched).

Via / National Immigrant Solidarity Network

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Latino Book Month Thursday, May 8th Pick : Borderlands:la Frontera by Gloria Anzaldua

Borderlands.jpgThis book changed my life. Borderlands: La Frontera, The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldua. The borderland referenced is this book is more than just one of geographical space, it is one of identity or language and struggling to survive while living in a place that is neither here nor there. While Anzaldua speaks/write personally from the physical/internal Chicana borderland, as a Puerto Rican woman born on the NY side of the island, this book made me cry. From the chapter How to Tame a Wild Tongue:

Linguistic Terrorism
Deslenguadas. Somos los del espanol deficiente. We are your linguistic nightmare, your linguistic aberration, your linguistic mestisaje, the subject of your burla. Because we speak with tongues of fire we are culturally crucified. Racially, culturally, and linguistically somos herfanos-we speak an orphan tongue.

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