Archive for April 15th, 2009
Colombia Bags Biggest Druglord
7:00 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Colombia|crime|Drugs|Latin America · 2 Comments
15 Apr 2009Colombian authorities have captured the country’s biggest drug lord. Daniel Rendon Herrera, known as “Don Mario”, was arrested today near the Panamanian border, after a 2 million dollar bounty was offered for his capture (video above of this first images of the capture).
Don Mario was no small fry. The BBC gives a rundown of some of the highlights of Rendon’s “career” and how he eluded authorities:
Once a paramilitary in a branch of the now-demobilised United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), Daniel Rendon had refused to surrender as part of a peace deal.Instead he used paramilitary networks to build up a personal army of up to 1,000 heavily-armed fighters, also striking a deal with left-wing Farc rebels, the BBC’s Jeremy McDermott reports from the capital, Bogota.
Authorities had been tracking the 43-year-old for months, but he had always managed to stay one step ahead of them until now, he says.
Rendon reportedly has exported literally tons of cocaine to Mexico, which has in turn made its way around the globe. According to the UK’s Telegraph, little is known about Rendon, who has successfully eluded media for years.
Pew Reveals New Face of Undocumented Immigrants
5:53 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · children|Family|Immigration|Politics|society · 2 Comments
15 Apr 2009
The image of the undocumented immigrant has been, for years, that of a single man from Mexico who comes to the U.S. to work and lives alone. But according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a new study (PDF here) reveals a demographic shift which shows that undocumented immigrants tend now to be part of a family unit, with different immigration statuses between the members; some are married to documented immigrants, others have children who are U.S.-born, etc. From the Pew report:
Unauthorized immigrants living in the United States are more geographically dispersed than in the past and are more likely than either U.S. born residents or legal immigrants to live in a household with a spouse and children. In addition, a growing share of the children of unauthorized immigrant parents—73%—were born in this country and are U.S. citizens.Most children of unauthorized immigrants—73% in 2008—are U.S. citizens by birth. The number of U.S.-born children in mixed-status families (unauthorized immigrant parents and citizen children) has expanded rapidly in recent years, to 4 million in 2008 from 2.7 million in 2003. By contrast, the number of children who are unauthorized immigrants themselves (1.5 million in 2008) hardly changed in the five-year period and may have declined slightly since 2005.
According to Pew, nearly half of undocumented immigrant households are families with children. In addition, a third of these children and a fifth of adult unauthorized immigrants lives in poverty, practically double the poverty rate for children of U.S.-born parents (18%) or U.S.-born adults (10%).
Why is any of this important? Because as we move closer to “immigration reform”, the Obama administration is going to have to take all of this into consideration as it develops new policy. This new reality is proof that policy must protect families — which over the past few years we’ve seen torn apart by raids and deportation — and that immigration status can no longer be only about the individual when families are involved.
Via / Pew Hispanic Center
Labor Gets Down With Immigration Reform
9:36 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration|Labor|Politics · 1 Comment
15 Apr 2009
Understanding that what benefits some workers in the US should benefit all workers has been a struggle in the pro-migrant community. Finally it seems that there us some movement towards recognizing that scapegoating undocumented workers as the cause for labor and economic woes isn’t helping anyone.
The nation’s two major labor federations have agreed for the first time to join forces to support an overhaul of the immigration system, leaders of both organizations said on Monday. The accord could give President Obama significant support among unions as he revisits the stormy issue in the midst of the recession.
What does pro-labor/pro-migrant immigration reform look like?
The accord endorses legalizing the status of illegal immigrants already in the United States and opposes any large new program for employers to bring in temporary immigrant workers, officials of both federations said.
The guest worker program has been a huge sticking point since the business sector loves guest worker programs and sees them as a “trade-off” for legalizing millions of undocumented.
Good Immigrant/Bad immigrant
8:59 am By la Macha · Haiti|Immigration · 3 Comments
15 Apr 2009Hoo, boy, this video just *reeks* of “good immigrant/bad immigrant” logic.There’s the good immigrant Cubans who just want to come to the U.S. legally to be with their families (and resist a brutal dictator)–and then there’s the unnamed “bad immigrants,” that surprisingly, look a lot like Mexicans and sneak into the U.S. through Mexico.
I think we need to be real here and recognize that Cubans claim a very privileged status in a corrupt system. They are not “privileged” in the sense that white U.S. citizens are (clearly, as shown by the woman in the video), but compared to other immigrants, they have a lot of privilege because of the U.S.’s interest in eliminating the communism of their home country.
Hence, you have Cubans that are given citizenship within a year under family reunification acts–and then you have Hatians that are “repatriated” (or sent back to) Haiti after they take the same route to get to the U.S. that many Cubans do (those rickety boats mentioned in the segment) and Mexicans, Guatemalans, Arabs from multiple countries and others that are now sitting in federal prisons after being forcibly rounded up and separated from their families by ICE.
Why do the families of one group of people count more than the families of another group of people doing the same thing?
What this all says to me is that there are some definite undercurrents of tension that exist within the immigrant community. I don’t blame or in anyway sit judgment on Cubans for capitalizing on the small amount of benefits that they get within the system–but I do think it’s really important to call out “good immigrant/bad immigrant” logic whenever we see it.
Immigrants who are “legal” are not better than those who are not–and all immigrants, no matter where they come from or how “legal” they are, deserve to be with their families. And the immigrant community really needs to start talking amongst ourselves about all the differences that we have–so that we can be a stronger, more united community.
From the Angie Zapata memorial that took place last night, comes this video (taken by Autumn Sandeen from Pam’s House Blend) of supporters talking about why they showed up at the memorial.
It’s a moving video, one that speaks of generations of violence and murder and love and tenderness and compassion. I hope we can all be as brave as the people on the video are–people who experience violence and fear, but still have the courage and strength to be vulnerable to love and compassion.
April is National Poetry Month : El Reverendo Pedro Pietri
6:23 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Bilingualism|literature|Puerto Rico · 1 Comment
15 Apr 2009No words can describe Pedro Pietri‘s work and his influence on many a poet, myself included. El padre of the Nuyorican poetry movement, political, funny and as Rican as they come.
Hola!
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