by Mark Hedin

Ethnic Media Services

The Census Bureau has said it expects to hire about a half-million people nationwide to help in its all-important counting of everybody living in the United States, something the government has done every 10 years since 1790.

That half-million hiring target is a sizable decrease from the last census, in 2010, when the bureau was more dependent on shoe leather than silicon to get the work done. Instead of the 635,000 people hired in 2010 to knock on doors to fill out questionnaires with people who hadn’t gotten theirs to the mailbox, in 2020, for the first time, the government is counting on people filling out their forms online.

The half-million Census Bureau jobs are open to any U.S. citizen who can pass a background check, is at least 18 and possesses a Social Security number. In California, census officials project they will fill or already have filled about 12,800 positions.

“It’s a relatively fluid number, just a projection,” said Celeste Jimenez, assistant regional census manager based in Los Angeles. That’s because for “enumerators,” the biggest category of census workers, the number of people hired will depend on how many people didn’t complete their census questionnaires promptly next year, leading the Census Bureau to hire people who know their communities and languages and can go out into the field and come back with completed questionnaires from the non-responders.

This year, the Census Bureau is focused on setting up and staffing offices across the country and checking and updating the list of addresses used to send people reminders and instructions on filling out the 2020 Census questionnaire online when it is released in mid-March.

In California, where there will be 30 census offices up and down the state, the administrative jobs ꟷ mostly already filled or due to fill soon (https://census.gov/about/regions/los-angeles/jobs/california.html)  ꟷ are expected to last all the way through till the census gathering is completed next summer, at a pay scale ranging from $18 to $51 per hour, depending on the assignment and the location.

The next wave of hiring, for “listers” who will do the address verification work this year, is under way. Those jobs pay from $16.50 to $33 per hour and are expected to last only for a couple of months, including paid training.

To apply for these positions, go to https://2020census.gov/en/jobs.html. Yolanda Lazcano, recruiting coordinator for the “Los Angeles Region,” which covers the entire West Coast from California to Alaska, plus Hawaii, Idaho and Nevada, is hoping to recruit 11,000 applicants for approximately 3,500 lister positions in California.

Next year, after mailings are sent out with instructions on the legally required process of filling out the census questionnaires, the biggest wave of hiring will begin: for “field staff” or “enumerators” to do the “non-response follow-up” work that in large part consists of knocking on doors at addresses where residents didn’t file completed questionnaires.

These positions also will be filled through the Census Bureau website: https://2020census.gov/en/jobs.html.

The Census Bureau hopes that having people file their questionnaires online will yield billions of dollars in savings on the shoe leather it’s always needed to get those questionnaires completed. It expects at least half of the country’s more than 300 million people to take the online option.

Nonetheless, Lazcano expects that each of California’s 30 census offices will need about 300 enumerators.

In the past, with questionnaires submitted through snail mail, the cost per person of gathering census data had grown to $92 in 2010, from just $16 in 1970, as measured in constant dollars.

The ability to bridge language barriers will be invaluable, and in fact is a requirement for some of the managerial positions the Census Bureau still has open in California, such as this one for a Spanish speaker in Bakersfield (https://census.gov/about/census-careers/opportunities/positions/region-field/cfm/LARO-CFM-CA22.html) or this one for a Chinese-language speaker in the Contra Costa County city of Concord: (https://census.gov/about/census-careers/opportunities/positions/region-field/cfm/LARO-CFM-CA47.html). (The application period for those two positions closes June 14.)

The Census Bureau is touting its jobs as ideal for people just starting their working life who need to establish a record of reliability, for people who can use the frequently evening or weekend hours to supplement jobs they already have, or for retirees who would like to re-enter the workforce in a limited way.

As for the background checks, Lazcano said that hiring will be on a case by case basis, so having a felony conviction, for instance, isn’t necessarily a disqualifier.

Lazcano said bilingual census staff will be needed wherever 5 percent or more of a community is believed to primarily use another language.

Payday comes every week and people using their cars will be reimbursed. Although the jobs are in most cases temporary, the work occasionally can lead to a career.

The state of California also is devoting millions of dollars to help ensure that the 2020 Census includes everyone in the state. As of early June, there are just a few state of California jobs related to the census, listed here (https://census.ca.gov/job-opportunities/). But the state will not be hiring enumerators or listers. That’s the federal Census Bureau’s responsibility.

Head of evangelical church La Luz del Mundo described as a sexual predator

by Mexico News Daily

Officials and followers of a Mexican-based evangelical church are defending and praying for its leader after he was arrested this week on human trafficking, rape and child pornography charges.

Naasón Joaquín García, leader or “Apostle” of the Guadalajara-based church La Luz del Mundo – Light of the World – was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday.

Three women also affiliated with La Luz del Mundo – Alondra Ocampo, Azalea Rangel Meléndez and Susana Medina Oaxaca – also face charges. They had been under investigation since 2018 after California authorities received a tip via an online clergy abuse complaint form.

The accused are alleged to have committed 26 offenses in Los Angeles county between 2015 and 2018.

García, who is being held on US $50 million bail, as well as Ocampo and Medina appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom yesterday. Rangel failed to appear.

In a graphic criminal complaint filed Tuesday, prosecutors allege that García is a sexual predator and that the three women helped procure young girls for the pleasure of the man known by church members as “the Apostle of Jesus Christ.”

In one incident described in the complaint, Ocampo is alleged to have called a girl to García’s home and ordered her to remove her clothes and serve him coffee in his office.

When the girl entered his office, García allegedly kissed her on the lips and touched her in intimate locations. He is accused of sexually abusing three girls and one woman, according to the criminal complaint.

Prosecutors also allege that Ocampo took photographs of three naked girls, telling them that they were for “the servant of God” – García.

Just hours after the 50-year-old leader was detained, La Luz del Mundo bishops urged church members to start praying for their leader, and not stop.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the doors of La Luz del Mundo church in East LA, where García was once a pastor, have been left open overnight so the devout can pray for their leader around the clock.

“We’re united in prayer,” said Jack Freeman, a minister who has been with the church for almost three decades.

“An attack like this, which is meant to stumble us or bring us apart, it actually brings us closer together… We’re not giving up. The church is still going to go forward. We believe this is still the church of the Lord.”

At the church’s flagship temple in Guadalajara, scores of congregants have been praying for García, who has led services there during the past four and a half years. A minister leading a service yesterday told the congregation to have faith that their leader will return soon.

Jesus Christ himself and his disciples also faced persecution, he said.

Church members in California told the Times that García is a target of a smear campaign designed to bring him down, as occurred with his deceased father and former church leader, Samuel Joaquin Flores, who was also the subject of child sex abuse allegations but never faced charges.

“He is a man of God,” said David Salazar. “It’s not true… It’s just meant to discredit him.”

Another church member, Francisco Lucas, said: “This is a living church, we are a spiritual church. We believe in justice. We are praying for God to do justice.”

Silem García, a spokesman for La Luz del Mundo, told reporters in Mexico City that the church and its congregants consider the accusations to be “defamatory” and false.

“We believe firmly in the innocence of the Apostle of Jesus Christ,” he said.

Ashley García, who is also a La Luz del Mundo spokesman, said in East Los Angeles that the church is confident that the legal system will find García innocent.

“The Apostle of Jesus Christ has always adhered to the law… He is the mouthpiece for God,” he said.

Founded in Mexico in 1926 by García’s grandfather, La Luz del Mundo has spread to more than 50 countries and has more than one million members.

The church – which doesn’t celebrate Christmas or Easter, segregates sexes during services, prohibits alcohol and doesn’t allow women to hold leadership positions – has been the subject of controversy for decades and described by critics as a cult that preys on the poor.

Andrew Chesnut, a professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the church is “too large to be considered a cult” but has been run as a “cult of personality.”
“García took on godlike roles, saying he couldn’t be judged, that he was like a king.”

Source: The Los Angeles Times (en), El Universal (sp).

Mexico takes another hit as Fitch downgrades Pemex to junk status

If Moody’s follows suit there would be a huge sell-off of Pemex bonds

Mexico was dealt another ratings blow today: Fitch Ratings downgraded Pemex to junk status, reducing its credit rating from investment grade to speculative with a negative outlook.

The new rating of BB+, down from BBB-, follows yesterday’s downgrade of Mexico’s sovereign debt from BBB+ to BBB.

“Although Pemex has implemented some cost-cutting [measures] and received moderate tax cuts from Mexico, the company continues to severely underinvest in its upstream business, which could lead to further production and reserves decline,” Fitch said in a statement.

“The very high level of transfers from Pemex to the Mexican government continues to significantly pressure Pemex’s cash flow generation and reinvestment ability and weaken its standalone credit profile,” it added.

The downgrade had been anticipated by some investors but perhaps not quite so soon.

Reuters reported earlier today that investors at six of the world’s largest asset managers, all of whom own Pemex bonds, expected them to be downgraded to junk status within months.

If one of the two other ratings agencies follows Fitch’s lead— Moody’s currently rates the bonds at one level above junk — there would be a sell-off of up to US $16 billion by investors who are required to hold investment-grade bonds.

Reuters said if that were to happen Pemex would become the largest fallen angel — a borrower that descends from investment grade to junk — in history. (Mexico News Daily).