by Alex Meneses Miyashita

­Duncan Hunter

Republican presidential candidates failed to provide convincing or clear answers on issues of key importance to Latinos during an Univisión sponsored debate at 7the University of Miami Dec. 9.

Immigration was its central issue, with instant interpretation provided for the network’s Spanish-speaking audience.

Participating were Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul, John McCain, and Duncan Hunter.

In spite of pointed questioning by anchors Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas, the seven presidential contenders used the 90-minute forum to stress the need for border security but offered little else in specifics on how to resolve the nation’s immigration dilemma.

Fred Thompson

The general reaction was given voice by Democratic National Committee spokesperson Luis Miranda.

“They seem unable to deal with the possibility of doing anything other than forcing the 12 million (undocumented) people who are here to self-deport,” Miranda told Weekly Report. “They refuse to acknowledge that the undocumented immigrants who are already here have three million children.”

Univisión sponsored a debate by Democrats Sept. 9, with somewhat similar concerns expressed about straight answers.

John McCain

Miranda also claimed the GOP candidates promised to “continue more of the failed policies of the Bush Administration. Whether it was on Iraq, healthcare or education, they essentially promised to stay the course.”

Republican Hispanic National Assembly chair Danny Vargas offered another perspective, saying the candidates “were able to talk about values we share in common,” such as family, education and opportunity.

“We’ve got some great candidates who have a wealth of experience and are able to talk about issues that are important to the Hispanic community,” he said.

The GOP candidates concurred on securing the nation’s borders before addressing other immigrationrelated issues.

Mitt Romney

Giuliani said he sup ports physical and technological barriers along the border.

Romney called for an employment verification system.

Only Huckabee explicitly stated favoring a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants so long as they go to the back of the line and border security has been dealt with.

McCain, who introduced legislation to legalize the undocumented in the past, did not state a position other than to say the issue should be dealt with compassionately.

Ron Paul

Hunter said legalization would only create a new wave of unauthorized migration.

The candidates avoided answering whether they supported keeping some three million U.S.-born children and their undocumented: parents together.

Asked about anti-Latino sentiment as a result of the immigration debate, they referred back to securing the borders. Hunter said Latinos do not want permeable borders.

They praised the community’s participation in the military throughout the debate. Only Paul favored an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

Rudy Giuliani

He received boos when he called for opening dialogue with Venezuela and Cuba.

Absent were Alan Keyes and Tom Tancredo.

Tancredo explained, “Bilingualism is a great asset for any individual but it has perilous consequences for a nation. As such, a Spanish debate has no place in a presidential campaign.

­Huckabee called it a much bigger risk not to have participated at all. Hispanic Link.

by Juliana Birnbaum Fox

Marilyn Reynolds (speaker), a member of ACORN, announces the foreclosure crisis in East Oakland at a press conference. (photo by Jennifer Salgado)

Oakland members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) held a press conference this Thursday to announce plans to address the local effects of the nationwide mortgage meltdown. They called on homeowners and tenants to attend a December 8th Foreclosure Crisis and Solutions Forum, which will discuss possibilities for providing relief to victims of predatory lending and others affected by the growing problem. The forum will be attended by Senator Don Perata and other elected officials and representatives of financial institutions, along with local residents.

“There are communities falling into devastation because of these foreclosures,” said Marilyn Reynolds, a local ACORN member who announced the group’s plan to address the problem. “We ask that banks restructure loans, working with existing borrowers and those in foreclosure.”

Other proposed actions include a temporary stay on foreclosures by lenders and long term, fixed-rate loan modifications that would replace the adjustable rate mortgages linked to the crisis. ACORN is also calling for continued support and resources for targeted outreach in order to educate borrowers and prevent the disaster from worsening.

“Banks could save someone’s credit, livelihood and self esteem by doing something as simple as a stroke of the pen,” Reynolds said. “I’m hoping they will have a heart and restructure these unscrupulous loans.” She expressed frustration at the misconception that the crisis was the fault of uneducated borrowers.

“I know a lot of collegeeducated young people whose credit is ruined and who are going to be without a place to live, or have to go back to live with parents,” she said. “The small print in their loans would be hard for the average lawyer to sort out.”

Dorothy Hicks, a victim of the crisis who is also organizing with ACORN, pointed out that tenants are also feeling the negative impacts of foreclosures. When lenders have foreclosed on the owners of rental units, utilities have been turned off and in some cases tenants have been evicted in violation of the law.

Californians of color are particularly vulnerable to foreclosures. A report released by RealtyTrak showed that five of the top ten cities for foreclosures in the third quarter of 2007 are in California. A previous ACORN study showed that minorities are disproportionately affected by the crisis; for example, higher-income Latino homebuyers were more likely to receive a high-cost loan than low-income whites.

“We must continue to make comprehensive reforms to the sub-prime industry now,” said Leslie Marks, a foreclosure victim and single mother living in Oakland who is among the organizers of the forum.

“We’re calling on people who have been affected by this crisis or know someone who has, and the community as a whole, to attend the December 8 meeting,” Hicks stated. The event will be held from 9:30 a.m. to noon at the East Oakland Senior Center at 9255 Edes Avenue. For more information, contact Oakland ACORN at 510-434-3110, ext.235, or at ­caacornoaro@acorn.org.

by the El Reportero news services

­Hugo Chávez

President Hugo Chávez narrowly lost both parts of the referendum to reform the constitution on 2 December.

The result does not mean that Chávez’s grip on the country’s institutions has been weakened.

No opposition leader called on Chávez to make good on his threat “to go” if he was defeated in the referendum.

Paradoxically, Chávez’s influence in Latin America may even have been strengthened because his ready admission of his defeat (before all the ballots had been counted) underlines his democratic credentials and demolishes the rightwing claim that free elections are not possible in Venezuela.

Calderón rethinks relations with Gordillo

MEXICO – President Felipe Calderón’s private secretary, César Nava, said on 24 November that the government is rethinking its relations with Elba Esther Gordillo, the hugely influential leader of the teachers’ union and leader of the Partido Nueva Alianza.

Felipe Calderón

The statement, by one  of Calderón’s chief advisers, has huge implications. Gordillo sees herself as one of the country’s power brokers: she claimed that she tilted the 2006 election Calderón’s way. This year, however, her importance in elections has been less meaningful.

Draft constitution “approved” in Bolivia amid bloodshed

Against a backdrop of violence which saw at least four dead and 130 injured, on November 24, delegates from the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) pushed a draft of the new constitution through the constituent assembly.

Jurisdiction ruling in Nicaragua-Colombia will be Dec 13

Whether it has jurisdiction  to decide a border dispute between Nicaragua and Colombia over a tiny group of Caribbean islands, will be decided on Dec. 13. The U.N.’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) will rule on December 13.

Nicaragua petitioned the ICJ, the United Nations’ highest tribunal based in The Hague, to grant it sovereignty over the archipelago and end the row that Colombia says started nearly 200 years ago and was settled nearly 80 years ago.

“The judgment will deal solely with the preliminary objections raised by Colombia regarding the jurisdiction of the court,” the ICJ said in a statement.

The two nations, separated by Panama and Costa Rica, lay claim to the isolated Caribbean Islands San Andres and Providencia off Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast, as well as several keys and some 50,000 sq km of fishing waters.

According to a Reuter’s repor­t, Colombia told the court in June border disputes were inevitable after the fall of the Spanish Empire in the Americas and the one in question was “definitively settled” in 1928, when Nicaragua and Colombia signed a treaty granting Colombia sovereignty over the islands.

But Nicaragua’s Sandinista government in the 1980s annulled the accord and argued it was signed while Nicaragua was under U.S. military occupation.

Many Nicaraguans consider the treaty a U.S. payoff to Colombia for arranging the independence of Panama from Colombia in order to build the Panama Canal.­