by the El Reportero’s wire services

California Senator Tony Cárdenas introduced on Thursday, March 28, a resolution in the House of Representatives recognizing the late farmworkers champion César Chávez.

This resolution honors the life of the labor leader who organized migrant and farm laborers in the western United States.

“I am thankful that 70 of my colleagues in Congress have committed to support this bill, and will advocate for its passage in the People’s House,” Cárdenas said
He said his father came to this country to work as a farm laborer, and his parents worked hard to support our family. Chávez fought for respect and human rights for all workers, regardless of how humble their job was.
César Chávez once said, “We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about the progress and prosperity for our community.” That’s what I work to do every day to make sure my constituents and all Americans have access to the American Dream.

Chávez is perhaps best known for founding the National Farm Workers Association, which became the United Farm Workers of America.

In 1994, Chávez was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2012, President Obama declared March 31st, Chávez’s birthday, as César Chávez Day and, later that year, directed the Secretary of the Interior to establish a César Chávez National Monument in Keene, Calif.

Cárdenas’ legislation recognizes the accomplishments and example set by Chávez, pledges to promote Chávez’s legacy, encourages the people of the United States to commemorate that legacy and honors Chávez’s famous rallying cry, “Sí se puede!” Spanish for “Yes, we can!”

50% of organized crime orchestrated from prison cells: Durazo
Public security secretary blames corruption in the system

Half of all organized crime in Mexico is planned inside jails due to corruption in the prison system, according to the federal public security secretary.

“Unfortunately, the prisons in the country are marked by corruption and the high rates of corruption sadly translate into 50 percent of organized crime being run from within prison facilities. This is an example of the challenge we have in front of us,” Alfonso Durazo said.

The secretary said that acknowledging the reality does not reflect poorly on the current government because it is not responsible for creating the situation. However, it does have an obligation to solve the problem, Durazo added.

The official also acknowledged the wider problem of corruption in Mexico, ironically describing Mexico’s low position on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index as a “feat” of past governments.
“In the year 2000… Mexico was in 53rd place on the worldwide corruption rankings, six years later, the government of president [Vicente] Fox left our country in 70th place. Six years later, the government of Felipe Calderón left it in 100th place. In 2016, we’re in 123rd place, then 134th in 2017 and 138th in 2018 out of 175 evaluated countries,” Durazo said.

“Understand that it is quite a feat to move from one position to another when there are only 175 countries evaluated and that speaks to us about the scale of the challenge we have,” he added.

To stamp out corruption in federal security forces, the Secretariat of Public Security is implementing an anti-corruption and open government program, Durazo said, explaining that its goal is to create a culture of accountability.

Measures to combat corruption “historically haven’t existed in the security forces,” he added.
“They haven’t existed because these forces have been used to commit abuses against the population . . . In this government, we will never use public force to repress. Consequently, we won’t have anything to hide . . .”

Despite recent spates of violence in Guanajuato and Veracruz, Durazo said that the security situation in both states is under control.

by the El Reportero’s wire service

Honduras will host for the first time the Summit of Heads of State of the Tuxtla Dialogue and Concertation Mechanism, which will be attended by governors from the seven Central American countries, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Mexico.

The event, to be held April 3-5 in San Pedro Sula, will focus its debates on four panels: Energy; Trade Facilitation and Treaties; Infrastructure and Logistics; and Strengthening MSMEs and Microcredits in the Region.

According to Maria Antonia Rivera, government official in charge of the summit’s development, this 17th edition is of special importance, as it will be held in parallel to the First Mesoamerican Business Meeting, which will bring together some 300 entrepreneurs from the region.

This cooperation, which arose as a result of fulfilling the mandates of previous editions, exceeds five billion dollars between 2008 and 2018, of which Honduras has benefited with more than one thousand 261 million dollars, in the construction of infrastructure works such as the highway between Tegucigalpa and El Amatillo.

‘We are one month away from the development of this great event. I ask Hondurans to be first line hosts, and the media to disseminate this great project that will be divided into two: the First Mesoamerican Business Meeting, and the (meeting) of the 10 governors of the region,’ Rivera said.

SICA Foreign Ministers Debate Region’s Future in Guatemala
Guatemala is hosting this Thursday a meeting of the Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Central American Integration System (SICA), with a view to regional integration.

Opening the meeting, Guatemalan Foreign Minister Sandra Jovel thanked her counterparts for attending this first high-level meeting as a preamble to the summit of Heads of State and Government in June.

We know that this dialogue will be very positive to strengthen the five pillars of Central American integration,’ said Jovel as he welcomed to Guatemala.

SICA’s Foreign Relations Officers will deal, according to the agenda, with regional integration, institutional strengthening of the organization and progress in the agreements adopted by the Central American Security Commission.

In addition, they will review migration, economic development and investment.
It is also expected that a memorandum of understanding will be approved for the establishment of the SICA Forum for Political Dialogue and Cooperation with the Republic of Turkey and the Kingdom of Morocco.
SICA was created on 12 December 1991 by Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.
Subsequently, Belize joined as full members in 2000 and, from 2013, the Dominican Republic.
Guatemala took over the pro tempore presidency of the organization from Belize last December and for six months.

This cooperation entity is headquartered in El Salvador.

Guatemalans vote focus on three women, according to poll
Three women are leading Thursday the Guatemalans” intention of vote, just 11 days before the start of the electoral campaign and amid accusations against candidates from the 27 parties involved in the contest.
If we look at the results of the most recent CID-Gallup poll, presidential candidate Sandra Torres, of the National Unity of Hope, would have the support of 17.7 percent of the population over 18 years old registered.

A little more than a thousand interviewees indicated in second place, with 10.7 percent, ex-prosecutor Thelma Aldana, who next Sunday will be officially proclaimed by the Seed Movement.

She would be followed by Zury Rios (7.9 percent), Alejandro Giammatei (5.80 percent), Edwin Escobar (3.1 percent) from the Prosperidad Ciudadana Party, and Roberto Arzu (2.8 percent) from the Alianza Podemos-Partido de Avanzada Nacional.

Mario Estrada, from the Union of National Change (2.7 percent); and Julio Hector Estrada, from Creo, (1.5 percent) are in the last places.

The statistics also show that 18 candidates did not exceed one percent, so they were included in the ‘other’ category.

It is also striking that 6.5 percent would not vote for anyone and another 34.4 percent do not know or did not respond, almost 50 percent.

by the El Reportero’s wire services

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Many in the immigrant rights community are rejoicing after federal authorities agreed this week to let people with Temporary Protected status from Honduras and Nepal continue to live and work here legally until litigation is resolved.

The Trump administration already had granted a similar nine-month extension for people from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.

Ahilan Arulanantham, senior counsel at the ACLU of Southern California, maintains that the government is targeting TPS holders for deportation on the basis of race.

The government argues that the initial crises in these people’s home countries have been resolved, so they should return.

But many of them have been here – legally – for decades and have businesses and children who are U.S. citizens.

There are about 300,000 TPS holders overall, with 85,000 from Honduras and 15,000 Nepal.

Arulanantham is urging Congress to step in and grant permanent status to people with TPS.

“All of the relief that is being provided by these lawsuits is temporary, and it is not what people from these countries deserve,” he states. “What they deserve is permanent residence because they’ve lived here for years, contributed so much to this country.”

The case now is in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals where this summer a judge is expected to hear the TPS case involving people from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.

All sides now have agreed that the ruling on that case also will apply to TPS holders from Honduras and Nepal. (Source: Suzanne Potter, California News Service).

Wave of migrants from Haiti, Africa, Asia appears in Chiapas
They are applying for transit visas in order to travel to the US border

by Mexico News Daily

Central Americans are not the only migrants entering Mexico at the southern border: more than 500 Africans, Asians and Haitians have also arrived recently in Chiapas.

Migrants from the Congo, Cameroon, Angola, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Haiti crossed into Mexico from Guatemala in the final days of February and the first week of March, according to a report in the newspaper El Universal.

The migrants voluntarily reported their entry to immigration authorities and requested transit visas that will allow them to legally continue their journey to the United States’ southern border, where they plan to seek asylum.

As they wait for their visas to be processed, most migrants are staying at a National Immigration Institute (INM) facility in Tapachula, where some of them claim they have been discriminated against because of the color of their skin.

“[There’s] a lot of discrimination in Mexico, a lot of discrimination . . . The whites eat first and once a day we get the little that’s left over,” a group of migrants told El Universal.
They also said they have to sleep on the floor or in the bathroom area of the shelter and that they are involuntarily hosed down each morning with cold water.

In addition, the migrants claim that Central Americans staying at the same facility smoke cigarettes and marijuana inside the facilities.

However, some of the migrants – including pregnant women and children – say that they haven’t been allowed into the immigration facility and have instead been forced to sleep outside on a concrete floor.
Around 200 migrants from African countries and Haiti claim that they have also been prevented from requesting 20-day transit visas that will allow them to continue their journey north.

Without money to pay for alternative accommodation, the migrants are forced to wait in front of the facility in temperatures that can rise to as high as 40 C.
African migrants said they flew from their countries of origin to South America before continuing to Mexico’s southern border via Central America.

Many said they were attacked by criminals and police during their journeys and spent all their money on people smugglers, transportation, accommodation and food.
Source: El Universal (sp).

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador on Tuesday called on all parties involved in the conflict in Venezuela to seek a negotiated solution through dialogue and non-violence.

In his morning press conference at the National Palace, López Obrador was asked about the US pressures to recognize the artificial president created by the White House in the figure of a lawmaker in contempt, Juan Guaidó, and he said that Mexico’s stance in accordance with the Constitution is invariable.

Respectfully, I ask all parties in the conflict to sit to talk and seek a peaceful solution. I can do that because our Constitution speaks about non-violent solutions to disputes.

I call for that, not for polarization, not for confrontation, not for manipulation, least of all for violence. I don’t want to give any kinds of opinions. We have established our position, which is in the Constitution, he repeated. López Obrador confirmed that Mexico is willing to assist in a dialogue to achieve peace in any nation. The doors to our territory are open to dialogue and that mediating role can be done not only by us, but also by the Uruguayans, diplomats of world prestige, the UN, even the Church has already done so.

It means that there are ways to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Venezuela and the parties must show their will to that. That is one of the reasons why we don’t want to take sides.

What I don’t want is to get involved in an affair that is very polarized. I don’t want to be lamp in the street, darkness in the house. First to attend to our problems and follow the principles which have always been applied on the best times of the country: non-intervention, self-determination of the peoples, peaceful solution.

Mexico is respectful of the decision made by other peoples and other governments, and no one likes that our neighbors interfere in the colony, in the affairs of our families, in our homes, the president added.
Let us not forget that respect for the rights of others means peace. Who are we to interfere in and judge what is happening in that country? He wondered in reference to Venezuela.

PAHO Warning of possible dengue outbreaks in LATAM, Caribbean
The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) today urged countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to prepare for possible outbreaks of dengue, a disease endemic to the region.

Marcos Espinal, director of the Department of Communicable Diseases and Environmental Determinants of Health of the entity, explained in a statement that ‘dengue is the viral infection transmitted by mosquitoes of greater spread in the Americas.

He stressed that the complexity of the disease increased over time due to factors such as unplanned urban growth, water and sanitation problems, climate and environmental change, as well as the simultaneous circulation in some countries of the four existing types of dengue.

According to the latest epidemiological update of PAHO on dengue published on February 22, 560,586 cases were reported last year in the Americas, including 3,535 severe patients and 336 deaths. In the first six weeks of 2019, almost 100,000 cases were reported, of which 632 were serious and 28 people dead.

PAHO provides technical cooperation to its Member States to prevent and control the disease.

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Hundreds of Central American migrants continue their march through the Mexican territory to the United States, with no incidents reported despite the fact that they violated the rules of this country.
The 1,000-people contingent entered Mexico on Tuesday. They did not enter Tapachula presumably due to the acts of violence happened there that day when two municipal agents were shot to death by a presumed gang member, governmental sources informed.

They said that the Central Americans walked on the south beltway and agreed to spend the night in Viva Mexico community, located on the outskirts of Tapachula, already heading towards Huixtla municipality.
The migrants arrived in the Rodolfo Robles International Bridge on Monday, located on the border between Mexico and Guatemala.

They asked the national immigration authorities on Tuesday to give them the card for humanitarian reasons, but as the response was negative, they decided to enter the country without documentation.

Opposition accepts official approach on Mexican National Guard
The opposition bloc in the Mexican Senate accepted Thursday President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s position that the armed forces should be part of the National Guard for the next five years.

After more than two months of intense negotiations, debates, lobbying, criticisms and disagreements, the group of four parties opposed to the government agreed with the ruling Morena to establish a period for the return of the Armed Forces to their barracks, and to replace a transitory article on the issue they had withdrawn from the proposal for constitutional reform.

It was the most controversial point of disagreement of the draft with the constitutional reform of the National Guard and that the opposition advocated because his command was civilian and not military, which created, according to Lopez Obrador, a cartoon of the current and failed federal police.

During this period, the Army and the Navy will continue in the fight against organized crime, while consolidating the new police corporation responsible for public security tasks when it already has 50,000 troops recruited from among the country’s youth and more than 300 regional coordinators are operational.
Although the main part of the controversial document has already been resolved, there are still some other points that are expected to be cleared up during the course of the day to reach the plenary session of the Senate without major problems and with the support of all the political forces.

The change of attitude of the opposition was not free, as Morena had to accept several modifications aimed at clearly establishing the civil character of the organization and committed to secondary legislation, referring to three laws, the organic law to govern the National Guard, the registration of detainees and the Legitimate Use of Force, will be approved in a 60 and 90-day period.

The four opposition parties, Institutional Revolutionary, National Action, Democratic Revolutionary and Citizen’s Movement insisted that the Operational Coordination to replace the Joint Chiefs of Staff be directed by the Secretariat of Security and Protection with the support of the Defense and Navy.

by the El Reportero’s wire services

President Andres Manuel López Obrador described Wednesday as a meeting in good terms the one held with Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump, to finance with 10 billion dollars development plans in Mexico and Central America.

We are reaching a commitment of understanding to foster cooperation for investment, employment generation and economic growth in Mexico and Central American countries, he pointed out.
We insist, he said, that to face the migratory phenomenon the best thing is to develop in Central America and in the south southeast of our country.

There has been progress in this purpose, we deal with this issue in a friendly way, there is a very good relationship with the U.S. government and that is why this meeting was held, he added.

He revealed that the meeting was in a private home of a mutual friend, and were present Marcelo Ebrad (Foreign Minister) and the charge d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy.

“We were talking until 11 p.m. about development cooperation, a bilateral agreement to guarantee 10 billion dollars investments in Central America and the south of our country, so that there will be job, work and that migration will be optional, voluntary, not forced by the lack of opportunities or by violence,” he said.

The other issue discussed, he said, was to reaffirm the commitment to approve a trade treaty in which we can maintain the current terms to avoid misunderstandings because what was already achieved was good for both countries.

There will be work, he said, the Sowing Lives programs already benefit 80,000 farmers who are already receiving resources to work their own plots and so on in almost all states of the country.

Just the Mayan Train, he said, will result in the creation of 300,000 jobs, and we will have employment throughout the country. People don’t go to the United States just because they like it, but because they need it.

We are talking about a 5 billion dollars Mexican investment and the same for Central Americans, that is what is most important to us, not because of what the money means but because it is an investment to generate jobs and so that people do not have to abandon their comforts, customs and cultures, stated the president.

In other news in Mexico:

López Obrador affirms that Mexico leaves neoliberalism behind

President Andres Manuel López Obrador said on Friday that Mexico leaves neoliberalism behind and replaces it with a new policy, including the economic one, and that he will soon announce his new post-neoliberal project.
In his morning press conference at the National Palace, he promised that next Monday he will announce what he called the new national development plan, which is, in practice, a post-neoliberal project, a model that has sunk the country.
The president didn’t go into many details on the matter and created expectations for the next conference on Monday by admitting that many are wondering what is the government’s alternative proposal to neoliberalism, its economic policy and how this new era will be distinguished from the previous one.
What is sought, he said, is to do everything necessary for the country to move forward, to bring about the rebirth of Mexico. He added that consultations and forums will be held to define the national development plan.