by Marc Heller

Mexico-California salute Arnold Schwarzenegger and President of Mexico Felipe Calderón shake hands at Sacramento International Airport during the arrival of the Mexican head of state, Feb. 13 while their respective wives observe. (photo courtesy by the Governor Office)

The Bush administration has announced plans to simplify the H2A guest worker program for farm laborers and boost fines for farmers who break the rules.

The administration said farmers will no longer go to state employment offices to show they had tried to find U.S. workers, Instead, statements from them that they have done so will suffice. Farmers will apply directly for the program at two federal centers.

Officials claim the changes will ease delays that discourage many growers from using the program, but critics, including the United Farm Workers union, have attacked the proposal for not including wage safeguards and other worker protections.

UFW chief Arturo Rodríguez called the plan “nothing more than the gutting of existing protections for both domestic and foreign workers.”

The H2A program provided about 75,000 workers last year out of more than one million farm workers in the country at the height of harvest. The Department of Labor estimates that 800,000 farm workers In  this country are undocumented immigrants.

Other changes include lengthening from 10 days to 30 days the time a temporary agricultural worker may remain in the United States after employment. Workers who move from one job to another will be allowed to do so before the change is approved by U.S. Customs and: Immigration Services.

Arturo Rodríguez

The administration also proposes a pilot program for a land-border exit system, whereby immigrant workers will present “designated biographical information,’’ including fingerprints, the Department of Homeland Security announced.

The administration proposed the changes after lengthy congressional efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform failed. The reforms would have made several changes to the H2A program, which lawmakers agree is too cumbersome and fails to provide an adequate supply of workers.

Federal law requires the Labor Department to process H2A applications within 15 days, but that requirement is almost never met, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said at a news conference. She said the program has not been updated in about 20 years.

The proposal is open for public comment for 45 days at www.dhs.gov or at www.regulations.gov under docket number “USCI5-2007-0055.”

Hispanic Link.­

by the El Reportero news services

U.S.- Mexico border

Border property owner, Dr. Eloisa Tamez, is suing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to stop irreparable harm to her community and the land on the Texas-Mexico border.

Tamez is a descendent of the Lipan Apache and Basque people who were brought into the region by the Spanish colonizers to work. She accusses DHS of threatening to confiscate her land that has been held by her family and community since the 1700s.

“DHS has not consulted with communities in the region, as proscribed by law, and has failed to provide venues to assess the environmental, cultural and economic damages that are being caused by the militarization of the border,” says a stament.

Daniel Ortega

DHS plans would forcibly displace, says Tamez and other community members, “fatally damaging the heritage of the region.” According to the complainants, the border wall will cause irreparable harm to the eco-systems, wildlife and the economy, including cutting off farmers from the irrigation water for their crops.

The Department of Homeland Security hasfailed to comply with the law and has not consulted key stakeholders on the impacts of its border wall-building and militarization plans. DHS continues to harass community members as it attempts to take over private land to build the controversial border wall along stretches of the Texas-Mexico border, says the statement.

Hugo Chávez

Liberals for amnesty “decree” in Nicaragua

On 7 February liberal deputies announced an initiative to approve a broad amnesty as a legislative decree rather than a law. As legislative decrees cannot be vetoed by President Daniel Ortega the move opens another front in the campaign by members of the Partido Liberal Constitucionalista for an amnesty law to pardon all public officials and former public officials of the last three governments (1990 – 2006) who had been convicted of (or suspected of involvement in) acts of corruption.

Antonio Saca

El Salvador investigating whether Venezuela plans funds for leftist

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador – El Salvador’s president asked his diplomats Thursday to investigate allegations that Venezuela plans to funnel money to the country’s main leftist party.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said this week in Washington that Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez was expected to “provide generous campaign funding” to the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front to help the opposition party win the presidency next year.

Sigfirdo Reyes

FMLN spokesman Sigfrido Reyes denied that, saying the accusations were aimed at making Chávez an issue in the upcoming campaign. The Venezuelan government has not yet commented.

President Tony Saca warned Venezuela to stay out of the presidential race, telling CNN en Español in an interview broadcast Thursday from Washington that it would be “a clear intervention in the internal affairs of my country.”

Mike McMonnelll

Kirchner wins Lavagna’s support for united PJ in Argentina

A caricature in Argentina’s national daily, La Nación, this week depicted Roberto Lavagna trying an enormous Penguin costume on for size. Lavagna, a former economy minister under Néstor Kirchner who came third in October’s presidential elections with 17 percent on an anti-Kirchner ticket, had said he would either get into the presidential palace or go home.

He found a third option: he agreed to join Kirchner’s bid to unite the Partido Justicialista (PJ). This amounts to a reconciliation between Kirchner and Eduardo Duhalde, who supported Lavagna and had mooted reshaping the PJ himself. Duhalde said the alliance was “good news” for all members of the PJ.

(Associated Press contributed to this report)

by Marc Heller

The 2010 census is two years away, but analysts already are predicting sizable Hispanic gains in Congress when mapmakers redraw congressional district lines to keep pace with population trends.

Heavily Hispanic districts are likely to be created in Texas and Florida – two states that stand to gain additional seats in the House of Representatives – and in California, even though that state is not likely to gain seats in Congress, analysts say.

Population growth in Texas and the Southwest should create opportunities and depending on whether Democrats or Republicans in those states’ legislatures control the redistricting, said Nathan Gonzales, political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan publication in Washington, D.C.

“There are just so many moving parts,” Gonzales said. “You’re increasingly going to see the Southwest be the battleground.”

The House has 25 Hispanic members. California leads with 10’ Texas has six and Florida four.

Analysts’ projections are based on Census Bureau estimates. Between 2000 and 2006 the Hispanic population grew from 35.3 million to 43 million.

If trends hold~ Texas would be the big winner, gaining between two and four House seats due not only to its fast growth’ but to stagnant or declining population in other states. Because the House must remain at 435 seats, the allocation of seats to various states changes with every 1 O-year population count.

Arizona and Florida could each gain two seats. The fastest growing state by percentages, Nevada’ could gain one more seat, analysts say.

In Texas, Dallas and Houston are likely to pick up Hispanic districts, said Andy Hernandez, a political analyst in Austin and author of The Almanac of Latino Politics 2000. If Texas picks up two seats, he said, “There’s no question in my mind that at least one will be a Latino district, if not both.

“You get to four, and it’s almost impossible,’ not to draw additional Hispanic districts, Hernandez said, because of Hispanic population growth and the federal Voting Rights Act’s requirement that districts be drawn to keep ethnic or racial groups together when there is sufficient concentrated population.

­Mapmakers may also have to make up for not creating Hispanic districts in Dallas and Houston after the 2000 census, said David Wasserman, House analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C.

Key is who controls the state legislatures. They draw the congressional map in most states. Those elections are already in play. “Those who win in 2008 draw the lines in 2010,~ Hernandez said.

The process begins in summer 2010 when the census count begins. Latino organizations are already making plans to boost participation; Latinos are typically undercounted, and the U.S. Supreme Court has said districts must be drawn with an actual headcount, not the statistical adjustments the government uses for federal programs, for instance.

In January 2011, Congress will approve an apportionment plan – the number of seats per state. In March of that year through the summer, more detailed population counts will give mapmakers in the states the information they need to start drawing districts. The 2012 election will be the first with the new congressional districts.

In Florida, growing communities of Puerto Rican, Venezuelan and Colombian immigrants could lead to creation of a Hispanic district in the Miami area, said Guarione Diaz, president and chief executive officer of the Cuban-American National Council. In Orlando, more Colombian, Mexican and Peruvian immigrants could mean an additional Hispanic district, he said.

California could gain Hispanic districts in San Diego or the San Fernando Valley, said Steven Ochoa, director of voting rights and policy research at the William C. Velasquez Institute’s California office. Although some analysts have said California stands to lose one House seat because of slowing population growth, Ochoa said a worst-case scenario is to break even.

Analysts said they do not expect many Hispanic congressional gains in other states, including Nevada, despite population growth. In some states such as Georgia, the Hispanic population is too spread out to build a congressional district, they said.

And while Arizona will gain seats in Congress, its independent redistricting commission is not necessarily favorable to Hispanics, who have finally made strides in the more partisan state legislative redistricting process elsewhere, Ochoa said. Hispanic Link.

por los servicios de noticias de El Reportero

Alvaro Colom

Yesterday saw the conclusion of the international conference on the role of trade unions in the fight against impunity, held in Guatemala City by the ITUC, its regional organisations ORIT and CLAT, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and the ITUC’s Guatemalan affiliates, the CGTG and CUSG. The event was inaugurated by the President of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom. At the close of the event, the Conference Declaration was handed over to the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Edgar.

The aim of the Conference was to devise and apply political and trade union strategies to promote respect for core labour standards, to build trade union capacity to fight impunity, and to secure full investigations into the murders of trade unionists, so that those responsible are brought to justice and sentenced as soon as possible.

Guatemala is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for trade unionists; a fact confirmed just one day prior to the Conference when two armed men attacked the head office of the CGTC. The two individuals forced staff at gunpoint to open one of the offices, from which they took two computers containing valuable information.

Killing in southern Mexico sparks new fears

The state government in Oaxaca said on 31 January that the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca had hired gangsters to kill a local police chief. The federal government’s nightmare is that its war on organised crime will become politicised and this is what may be happening in Oaxaca, one of the poorest and most politically polarised states in the country.

U.S. responds to Alba challenge with soft diplomacy

Food and war. These were the main topics of discussion during the Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas (Alba) summit in Caracas. Unsurprisingly, the world’s media preferred to focus on the latter. President Hugo Chávez accused Colombia of plotting with the US against Venezuela and discussed with his Nicaraguan peer, Daniel Ortega, creating a joint defence force in readiness for an attack on any Alba member. The U.S. did not take the bait. The State Department rejected what it described as “wild conspiracy theories”, focusing instead on a charm offensive in the region.

Conservatives form new bench in Nicaragua

On 30 January the Partido Conservador (PC) in Nicaragua decided to end its alliance with the Alianza Liberal Nicaragüense (ALN) and form its own bench in congress.

Nicaraguan dairy firms eying Venezuela

Managua, Jan 30 (Prensa Latina) Nicaraguan dairy producers are setting their sights on Venezuela, a market with 30 million consumers, where they aspire to market their excess production.

Businessman Alfredo Lacayo considers that the country must use its great exporting potential of these products, as only 20 percent of it is currently used.

Nicaragua went from exporting dairy products worth $300,000 in 1996 to $100 million in 2007, which shows its potential, according to official statistics.

He considered that if transportation conditions improve, a flourishing business in the sector may emerge, favoring both countries.