by the El Reportero staff

ID for the undocumented Members of the Day Labor Program march on Mission St. toward City Hall to support legislation. (photo by Marvin J. Ramirez)

The legislation sponsored by San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano which will provide undocumented with a City ID card, received strong support from labor and immigrant rights groups at a City Hall hearing on Wednesday after filling in some details.

If it passes, it San Francisco will become the first mayor city in the nation to pass such legislation.

­From the Mission District, members of the Day Labor Program marched to City Hall to express their support to the proposal, which will bring them out, a little bit, from the shadow.

As the proposed legislation now stands, residents would be required to complete an application form, show proof of identity and San Francisco residency to receive a city ID card.

For immigrants without state ID or a passport, identity could be demonstrated by providing any number of documents, from a foreign birth certificate, to a Social Security card.

To prove residency, applicants would be asked to present documents showing both a name and a residential address in San Francisco. Those documents ­include utility bills, rental agreements, homeless shelter forms and bank statements.

The action on Wednesday sent the legislation proposal to a committee to be voted on at another date.

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by the El Reportero news services

Fidel Castro

Havana – An ailing Fidel Castro cast his ballot in private on Sunday in Cuba’s municipal elections, which he said were a rejection of United States pressures for political change in the communist state.

Castro, who has not appeared in public for 15 months, summoned an electoral official to his convalescence quarters to vote in the first elections since he turned over power to his brother Raul last year.

“The commander in chief expressed his confidence in the massive and enthusiastic turnout of our people in these elections that are an outright rejection of (US President George) Bush’s threats,” government-run media reported.

“Bush is obsessed with Cuba,” Castro said in a statement read out on state television. He criticised the war in Iraq and the torture of detainees at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Preparing the ground for a slimmer, redirected Plan Colombia

President Alvaro Uribe’s plea to the US Congress to maintain the aid it has been providing for his anti-drugs and counter-insurgency campaigns seems highly unlikely to be heeded.

The US ambassador in Colombia is already predicting figures as much as a third lower than the Bush administration’s request, and has announced that aspects of Plan Colombia will start to be handed over to the Colombian government. Military training has already been reduced by a quarter in 2006.

Colombian defense minister slams Chávez

On 18 October Colombia’s defence minister, Juan Manuel Santos, said that the possible prisoner swap between his government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) was a “godsend” for Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez.

Santos almost certainly said what the Colombian government and the US believes in secret. However, the official line of both governments is that they want Chávez to do everything he can to secure the prisoner swap, especially because many Colombians and many Latin American leaders believe that Chávez is the one person who could make such a deal possible.

Narrow win still leaves Cafta-DR implementation into doubt

Costa Rica’s implementation of the free trade agreement between Central America, the Dominican Republic ­and the US (Cafta-DR) remains in doubt despite the victory of those supporting the deal in a popular referendum on 7 October.

Indeed, even though the referendum has ratified the Cafta-DR without the need of further legislative action, congress still has to approve 13 measures that are required to adjust Costa Rican law to what was promised during the treaty’s negotiations.

Crucially, opponents of the agreement may be able to delay the approval of these measures until after March next year – when the CAFTA-DR implementation deadline expires.­

by Adolfo Flores

Marielena Hincapié

Early next year the undocumented community in Prince William County, Va., will walk and drive on eggshells. A resolution passed 7by the County Board of Supervisors Oct. 17 will give police officers the power to check immigration status during traffic stops If they have “probable cause” to do so.

After a 12-hour session during which 375 people addressed the eight-member board on the issue, it voted unanimously to implement provisions allowing local police to enforce immigration ­laws and further deny undocumented immigrants services.

Reading from notes he had written on three pieces of paper, 11-year-old Jonathan Aldaz, whose head could barely be seen over the podium, said with emotion, “l think all the time that they will deport my family and now I just say no, don’t approve this law,” Many members of the community expressed their concern that the resolution would lead to racial profiling.

The board agreed as part of the resolution to refer to a consulting group or a university after two years to ensure the resolution is fair in that regard.

“We’re not going to be stopping the mother at the grocery store with the baby, we’re not going to be stopping someone who is getting coffee at 7-11 because of their skin color,” Supervisor Hilda M. Barg said moments before the vote. “This is not going to happen.”

Other members of the community expressed satisfaction that the resolution was passed and something was done with regard to undocumented immigration.

“We don’t think of (undocumented people) as anything other than human,” said Maureen Wood, who stayed until the early hours of the morning for the vote, “but still that doesn’t mean you can cross a border and expect people not to be upset by this. Board Chairman Corey Stewart said that through extensive and thorough training the authorities will avoid racial profiling. He said the resolutions are not geared at Latinos, but the undocumented community.

The total cost of implementing the police aspect of the resolution is projected to be $14 million through the course of 5 years. The board agreed to allocate $325,000 for the time being. The chairman said the county will come up with the rest of the funding one way or another.

Seven offi­cers will be trained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to make up a Criminal Alien Unit, six detective positions and one crime analyst position. The other police offi cers will be trained to check for documentation. It will take several months for them to be fully trained.

Another part of the resolution further restricts public services to undocumented immigrants, for example business licenses and services offered at senior citizen center.

President of the grassroots anti-immigrant organization, Help Save Manassas Greg Letiecq said that police have already started to enforce aspects of this resolution. “Tuesday (Oct. 16) Prince William County police offi cers stopped a van with 10 illegal immigrants and turned them over to ICE,” he said.

The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund has fi led a lawsuit on behalf of the Woodbridge Workers Committee and 21 residents, some of them reportedly undocumented.

It claims the measures are unconstitutional because enforcement of immigration laws is a federal matter. It calls for halting its implementation.

“We feel extremely hurt, but at the same time we are conscious about the fact this was going to happen,” said general coordinator for Mexicans Without Borders Ricardo Juarez. “Now we are going to focus on getting justice through the federal court.”

Hispanic Link.

by Armando Manzanares

­Janet Murguía

Civil rights advocates and educators are urging the federal government to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act so long as improvements—such as full funding—are part of the deal.

The White House, a strong advocate for the law’s reauthorization’ met with leading civil rights activists and educators Oct. 9 to discuss the matter and confirm that education is the leading civil rights issue for the next 100 years.

Proponents of the law are also pushing for better assessment systems’ better inclusion of English Language Learners and students with disabilities in the accountability systems, and more training and support for teachers and parents, respectively. Rep.

Rubén Hinojosa (D-Texas) said progress is being made on the reauthorization and that key improvements have been added to ensure that more students have the opportunity to learn and excel in school.

Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza, said it is essential that current ELL provisions remain protected, but also “make sure we are able to stave off any other anti-immigrant provisions that could be proposed.”

“We got a commitment from the president that he would help us address those issues,” she said.

Members of the Conference on Civil Rights, the National Urban League and the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights also took part in the meeting with the President.

Other ELL advocates, however, are more critical of NCLE3 as it stands.

“It is killing bilingual education, It is a step  backward for equal education opportunity,” James Crawford, president for the Institute for Language and Education Policy, told Weekly Report.

Crawford added it is shocking to see certain organizations supporting a law of this kind and that NCLB must be “thoroughly reformed to eliminate excessive high-stakes testing – which is one of the major factors in the Latino dropout crisis.”

Supporters of the law’s reauthorization say it is crucial that it happens this year as next year is an election year.

Hispanic Link.­

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