by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

A march against the immigration’s raids

In an expensive and confusing duel between ballot measures, California voters managed to prioritize the rights of homeowners and renters over developers and landlords, electing June 3rd to preserve rent control in one of the most expensive states in the country. Voters approved Proposition 99 and rejected Proposition 98, dueling ballot measures which both intended to limit the government’s ability to force Californians to sell their homes for private development projects, like shopping malls, hotels and housing.

Proposition 98, however, also would have phased out rent control, although that was never mentioned in the avalanche of television and print ads paid for by those who stood to profit from the measure.

“The voters do not like ballot initiatives that hide things in the fine print,” said Tom Adams, board president of the California League of Conservation Voters, which opposed Proposition 98.

“When people are confronted with very confusing messages the inclination is usually to vote no. And I think they were just bombarded with ad after ad and we didn’t know what to do. So it’s not surprising to me that Prop 98 lost,” said Proposition 98 supporter Kris Hunt.

“It’s shameless that these landlords would try to deceive California voters — just to put money in their pockets at the expense of renters like me!” said Janelle Longwell, a Los Angeles resident.

In another race marked by contentious issues, Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval came out ahead in his run to defeat Superior Court judge Thomas Mellon. However, as no candidate received a simple majority, Sandoval and Mellon must face a run-off in November.

Sandoval, whose parents emigrated from Mexico, has spent most of his campaign emphasizing the progressive ideas he will bring to the bench. He’s also come down hard on Mellon’s judicial manner, which is reputed to be harsh, during assignments in family law and criminal courtrooms.

On the other hand, Sandoval has come under fire for making his political affiliations known in a technically nonpartisan race. Sandoval’s posters around San Francisco prominently display his Democratic Party membership, and he has publicly endorsed other candidates. Mellon is a registered Republican.

The question of development in the Bayview/Hunters Point areas of San Francisco were also on the ballot. Proposition F, which would have mandated that 50 percent of new homes in the area be sold or rented at rates affordable to low-income residents, was defeated. Alternately, Proposition G was approved, a measure that endorses a major housing and commercial development at the polluted Hunters Point Shipyard, and the possibility of a new stadium for the 49ers.

Supervisor Chris Daly, who led the meagerly-funded Proposition F campaign, said that it was the record-breaking $3.4 million spent by the Lennar Corporation on Proposition G that secured its victory.

­by Alex Meneses Miyashita

Mexican and Central American immigrants are assimilating at a much slower pace than immigrants from other parts of the world, a study sponsored by the Manhattan Institute concluded.

On the other hand, Panamanians and Cubans tend to assimilate the most among Latin American immigrants.

The findings were part of research that emphasized that immigrants of the past 25 years are assimilating at a rapid pace considering the surge in the immigrant population, which tends to drop assimilation levels, thus widening gaps between native and foreign-born.

The study quantified the assimilation levels of immigrants based on an index devised from Census data that took into consideration economic, cultural and civic factors that compared immigrants with native-born citizens.

Economic factors taken into account included the labor force, education and home ownership rates. Civic factors included rates of naturalization and military service. Cultural ones included English-language ability, marriage and childbearing trends.

Mexicans scored lower than any country of origin group except for Nepalese immigrants. Mexicans scored 13 on a 100point scale in which the higher the number meant the higher the degree of assimilation.

Central American immigrants generally had some of the lowest levels of assimilation as well: Guatemalans, 14, Hondurans, 15, and Salvadorans, 18.

In contrast, Panamanians scored 80 and Cubans 43. Germans had the highest assimilation index with 87.

Jacob Vigdor, author of the study and public policy studies and economic professor at Duke University, said the low assimilation rates of Mexicans have mainly to do with economic circumstances and the immigration status of many of them.

Mexicans represent the largest immigrant group in the United States, with an estimated 11 million as of 2006, the report points out. The Migration Policy Institute estimated more than half of them are undocumented.

“For immigrants who come to the country primarily to take advantage of economic opportunities, there is less of a need to assimilate,” he said.

“There are many immigrants who come to the United States with a desire to return home one day. For that type of immigrant, it’s less important to become a citizen and take other steps towards integration.”

Vigdor explained this contrasts with immigrants from other parts of the world, many of whom become political refugees. “Immigrants from Cuba who escaped the Castro regime,” he said, “can probably expect to be persecuted if they return. Once they’re here, they expect to be here for a long time.”

Vigdor also maintained that the lack of legal status of many Mexican immigrants makes it harder for them to advance in terms of economic and civic assimilation.

He noted that Mexicans have similar levels of cultural assimilation to other immigrants.

Laureen Laglagaron, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, attributed language to be the main barrier to integration for Mexican and other immigrants from nonEnglish speaking countries.

Vigdor said that although several immigrant groups face similar language difficulties, that does not prevent them “from making progress in the other dimensions.”

Laglagaron explained that language barriens can stand in the way of “immigrants getting better paying jobs and going to better schools,” which “may play a part in slowing the pace of immigrant integration.”

She added that in the case of high-skilled immigrants, lack of recognition of their foreign education or professional credentials is their main barrier to integration.

Laglagaron said her organization recommends governments to increase access to language and civic instruction to speed up the integration of immigrants who do not assimilate as fast as other groups.

Both experts agreed that the children of immigrants integrate at a much faster pace than their parents.

Vigdor said the children of immigrants who entered the country before they were six years old are -difficult to distinguish from American born children.”

For more information on the study, visit www.manhattan-institute.org. Hispanic Link.

by the El Reportero’s news services

Dora María Tellez

Exguerrilla woman protests to Ortega with hunger strike

After several days of having begun a hunger strike, the legendary Nicaraguan guerrilla woman, Dora Maria Téllez, starts feeling the first effects of food absence.

Téllez who was Minister of Health in the previous government of President Daniel Ortega, took this decision in protest against the threat from the Nicaraguan Electoral Power of cancelling their Movement Renovator Sandinista (MRS) political party’s right to participate in the next municipal elections.

Constantly risk to the life of the exguerrilla, might be putting in check the stubbornness with which the government of President Ortega has tried to ignore this protest.

This topic is causing high political fuss between diverse sectors within the Nicaraguan population that have shown their solidarity with the exguerrilla member.

In the international area, the General Secretary of the Organization of American States (OEA) Miguel Insulza, said that they are evaluating this political situation.

Latin America closes ranks at food summit

On 5 June delegates representing Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, and three other Latin American countries expressed their dissatisfaction with the final document drawn up at the end of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)’s global food crisis summit in Rome.

Argentina refused to sign the declaration, which was nonetheless ratified by the 42 other heads of state attending.

The FAO food summit – which ran from 3 to 5 June and was attended by over five thousand different delegates from 183 countries including, embarrassingly, the president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe – was characterized by a lack of consensus and heated debate over the main causes of the current crisis.

The protests of Argentina, Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia – together with Brazilian President Lula da Silva’s angry defence of biofuels on 3 June – signalled a growing sense of unity on the world stage among a number of Latin American countries.

Chávez revamps Venezuelan secret intelligence service

The government is poised to carry out a sweeping reform of the secret intelligence service to counter “U.S. intervention in the country’s domestic affairs”. The secret police (Disip) and military intelligence (DIM) will be superseded by a four-pronged service consisting of military and police intelligence and counter-intelligence services, the former answerable to the defence ministry and the latter to the interior ministry. The interior minister, Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, did not set an exact timeframe for the changes to be implemented but he implied that it could take a year.

Brazil acts against perceived risk of conflict in Amazonia

The government of President Lula da Silva has decided to station troops within indigenous reservations, disarm Indians in the border state of Roraima, impose controls on the presence of foreigners and foreign-controlled organisations in Amazonia, and introduce legislation regulating the activities of NGOs. The move, which comes in the wake of a media-inflated row over military criticism of the government’s indigenous policies, has been months in the brewing. It reflects the widespread conviction that the Amazonian region is under threat from a variety of foreign interests.

Is it different this time?

Usually, when the US tips into a recession, Latin America slows down. This does not seem to be happening in 2008. The region, by and large, is expecting a bumper year thanks to high commodity prices and a near-decade of solid economic policymaking.

Over the past decade, Latin America has shifted its debt burden from foreign markets to domestic ones and, with the notable exception of Argentina, governments have learnt to live within their means. The other significant change in the region’s economic policymaking is (again with the exception of Argentina and also Venezuela) that countries have adopted floating exchange rates.

by Alex Meneses Miyashita

Robert Menéndez

Congressional leaders, civil rights and religious advocates are building up pressure to ensure that immigrant detainees receive basic and critical medical care that they claim is often not provided to them at federal detention centers.

They maintain that several immigrants held under custody at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities have died as a result of inadequate or lack of medical treatment since the agency was created in 2003.

The American Civil Liberties Union cites long treatment delays, denied medications and refusal of referrals as part of the “gross medical neglect” of detainee care, as documented in the facility of Otay Mesa, near San Diego. The facility now faces a lawsuit from the organization.

Members of both chambers of Congress are trying to move through a bill that would address this issue. The Detainee Basic Medical Care Act of 2008 would require compliance with basic medical care standards and create some oversight of ICE. Sen. Robert Menéndez (D-N.J.), sponsor of the bill in the upper chamber, said he would seek existing ‘vehicles” to attach the bill in order to ensure it gets a vote before the end of this Congress.

In addition, Menéndez said he would meet with the heads of the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to discuss an issue the senator said could be dealt with administratively to a large degree.

“A detention should never amount to a death sentence,” he said, adding that such “neglectful treatment” of immigrants, regardless of their legal status, should not be tolerated.

Menéndez called the medical treatment found in immigrant detention centers “atrocious.”

One of the most showcased stories is that of Salvadoran immigrant Francisco Castaneda, who received such inadequate medical care for penile lesions while detained in 2006 that it led to terminal penile cancer his attorneys claimed could have been prevented.

Care delays and refusals by federal authorities sealed Castañeda’s fate. While detained for 11  months, biopsies ordered by on-site medical personnel were denied by off-site officials. After 11 months he was released, but his cancer was so advanced, his penis had to be amputated. But the cancer had already spread elsewhere. He died at age 36.

The Washington Post estimates that 83 immigrant detainees have died since the agency’s opening in March 2003 to March 2008. ICE is currently not required to report or keep track of these deaths. The bill would impose the requirement upon the agency.

ICE spokesperson Richard Rocha said that “while every death is an unfortunate occurrence,” the agency “goes to great measures to ensure that our detainees are provided adequate health care.”

Rocha pointed out ICE has held nearly 1.5 million individuals since 2003, and stated that the proportion of deaths is “dramatically lower” for ICE detainees than for the U.S. prison population.

The agency spends nearly $100 million annually on detainee health care and has spent tens of thousands of dollars to pay for necessary medical procedures, such as a coronary bypass, he added Rocha said all detainees are medically screened once they are in ICE custody, and added the agency has about 700 trained medical personnel throughout its facilities. The agency will work with outside medical professionals if necessary.

The ACLU maintains there are “serious systemic problems” with the medical care policies and procedures of ICE, such as requiring on-site medical personnel to obtain off-site authorization to perform specialty services such as a biopsy—the same bureaucratic procedure that cost Castaneda his life. Hispanic Link.­