Recently in Anti-Migrant Hate Category
Julio Maldonado will be deported this week unless DHS exercises its discretion to wait until Julio's pardon request can be heard. **Action requested: call DHS and Governor Rendell at the numbers below!**
Julio and his cousin Denis Calderon, longtime lawful permanent residents from Peru, were victims of a racially-motivated attack in Philadelphia in 1996 during which Denis was beaten and stabbed. Julio and Denis were wrongfully convicted of aggravated assault while their white attackers were never charged with any crime. The original convicting judge later vacated his own verdict after reviewing expert testimony that later came to light, but the District Attorney's office appealed the decision and won on a technical argument. Now Julio stands on the brink of deportation, 38 years after arriving in the U.S. as a toddler and 32 years after receiving his green card.
Julio has spent the last 4 years in jail for "hindering his own removal" by refusing to sign the papers required to process his Peruvian travel documents. Now the Peruvian consulate has issued temporary travel documents that do not require Julio's consent, and DHS wants to deport him now. Julio filed a request for a pardon from governor Rendell on July 1, 2009, but DHS does not want to wait for a decision on the pardon. In denying Julio's request for a stay of removal last month, DHS held that Julio's desire to remain with his family instead of accepting permanent exile to Peru was considered an adverse factor weighing against an exercise of favorable discretion.
Why does DHS view family unity as an "adverse factor"?
***Please call David Venturella, Acting Director of ICE's Office of Detention and Removal Operation, at (202) 732-3100 to request that DHS allow Julio to stay in the U.S. until his request for a pardon is reviewed by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.***
***Please call Governor Rendell's office at (717) 787-2500 and ask the governor (1) to expedite review of Julio's pardon request and (2) to request that DHS wait to deport him until the pardon request is reviewed.***
If you have not yet signed the petition for Julio and Denis, please do so here.
More complete summaries of the case are available here and here, and a list of coverage is here.
(Sign the petition demanding justice for Julio and Denis here.)
Julio Maldonado and his cousin Denis Calderon were victims of a bias attack in South Northeast Philadelphia in 1996. Denis's family was the first Latino family to live in the neighborhood. Tragically, one of the attackers, Christian Saladino, fell into a coma and later died. Police assumed that he had been struck in the head by Julio, acting in self-defense as a result of a fight. However, later medical evidence showed conclusively that Christian had not sustained any outer injury that could have led to his physical reaction. He did, however, suffer from a rare preexisting blood clotting condition. It is clear from the medical evidence that it was physically impossible for Julio to have put Christian Saladino into a coma.
But due to the one-sided investigation by police and the biased prosecution by Seth Williams, now the nominee for District Attorney of Philadelphia, Julio and Denis were convicted of assault. After Christian Saladino passed away, Williams brought murder charges. Once the medical evidence came to light in the murder trial, the jury acquitted Julio and Denis of murder. Then the original trial judge who convicted Julio and Denis of assault, Judge Gregory Smith, vacated his own verdict and called for a retrial.
Lou Dobbs has been an especially deep thorn in migrant advocates' sides for a long time. Almost every weekday at 7 p.m. ET, Dobbs uses his perch on the "most trusted name in news" to blame a marginalized unauthorized migrant population for almost every one of the U.S.'s problems. Scapegoating unauthorized migrants is a common trend on FOX News, right-wing talk radio, and among conservative bloggers, but there's something especially scathing about hearing it from the "most trusted name in news."
Post-election Voto Latino asked its membership what it should be doing and a majority suggested focusing on migration. This is another indicator of how important fixing the broken U.S. migration system is to voting Latinos. As a result Voto Latino is beginning a new campaign to fight back against hate. The kick-off for this campaign is an interview over Skype with Robert Cantu.
According to Mount Vernon News, Cantu has been the victim of two attacks in the small town of Mount Vernon, Ohio. The failure to act on behalf of the local police department raises serious questions about their commitment to justice. The attack that has been the subject of national headlines is one in which Cantu's attacker, Dale Klein, is alleged to have done the following:
According to Cantu the incident occurred on or about May 30, 2008. Cantu said he was with a friend when Klein and three others jumped him, and tied a rope with a noose around his neck. The other end of the rope was tied to a truck and Cantu said he was dragged for several feet. After stopping the truck, the attackers, allegedly including Klein, exited the truck and began to attack Cantu. According to Cantu, a passer-by, Ezzy Thompson, who was known to Cantu, intervened, chasing off the attackers and removing the noose from Cantu's neck.George Breithaupt - Mount Vernon News (17 June 2009)
In the Voto Latino video Cantu further alleges that his attackers called him a "spic" and a "border jumper" while they carried out the attack. Nevertheless, Klein has gotten only 10 days for his offense which clearly fits the profile of a hate crime. Cantu has reasons to continue to be fearful as he alleges in the Voto Latino he has received additional threats as a result of this case.
I'm happy Voto Latino has listened to its membership and taken up this important cause. I look forward to the additional material that Voto Latino comes up with.
In support of the migrants who were chained together and marched through Phoenix by America's most out-of-control sheriff, hip-hop artists from Chicago, Detroit, and New York are coming together with local artists to perform on Tuesday, February 10 at the Stray Cat 2433 E. University Drive, Tempe, AZ at 8pm.
Performers will include One Be Lo, Wordsworth, Verbal Kent, G-Owens, Fiyah Station, Nobuddie, and Bliss!
Come out and lift your voices with these artists as they call for an end to the racially-motivated attacks being carried out by Sheriff Arpaio against residents of Maricopa County. Show the world that his latest spectacle of public humiliation against latinos will not be tolerated in our country, where all people are to be treated as equals. We will not stand silent while this fascist little man treats people like animals, with our federal government's blessing!
"Parading shackled detainees for public viewing is disgusting. The dire situation in Arizona is a shameful insult to the democratic freedoms of this country, and should draw cries of outrage from anyone who values the sacrifices our nation has made in the face of oppression." -Verbal Kent; Gravel Records Recording ArtistFor more information, contact Jill Garvey (jill@newcomm.org), Center for New Community 312-266-0319 or 773-787-6353 (mobile).
O anger, you are the root of conflict; compassion never rises up in you. You take the corrupt, sinful beings in your power, and make them dance like monkeys -Sri Guru Granth Sahib
You don't need a hate barometer to understand that the anti-immigration movement is fraught with intolerance, hatred and in many cases racism. The anti-immigration activist puts themselves above all others in a sick narcissism veiled as patriotism. While patriotism can be a good thing it loses it's flavor when the idea or thing becomes more important than the suffering and needs of others.
This morning I opened up my feed reader to get started back into the SanctuarySphere posts only to find that Robb Pearson, a former anti-migrant activist from New Jersey, conducted an interview, or confession, with 9500Liberty. I figured this deserves its own post and what better way to start the new year then to have a former anti-'illegal' immigrant protester confess. The following comment from Robb is very telling of the mindset many possess in this movement.
It's even effecting people of color from the U.S. as that last paragraph shows. U.S. citizens that read this and consider the situation in the U.S. to be better are completely mistaken. One needs only to look into the murder of Marcelo Lucero to see that, or research the policy of "attrition through enforcement."This year, 85 people have been reported killed and 367 injured in attacks by nationalists, Ms. Kozhevnikova said. She said the numbers were probably far higher because many attacks were unrecorded or were reported months later. Most of the victims have been dark-skinned men from Central Asia or the Caucasus, but tourists and foreign students have also been attacked.
A foreign student who was attacked on Dec. 5, Stanley Robinson, a young African-American from Providence, R.I., on a study-abroad program to Volgograd in southern Russia, remained in critical condition after being stabbed three times on his way back from a gym, a relative said. The police are investigating whether the attack on Mr. Robinson was a hate crime.Michael Schwirtz - New York Times (13 December 2008)
Roy Beck of Numbers USA recently published an article on his group's website on the murder of Marcello Lucero. What starts off as a piece against hate quickly turns into a piece explaining that Marcelo's death has nothing to do with his (anti-immigrant) movement while attacking those he calls "pro-illegal-immigrant" supporters. He also states quite coldly about Lucero's murder:
My guess is that these teenagers are opportunistic thugs who would have found somebody else to beat up if they hadn't had some animus toward Latin Americans.
Yes, and we can also state Lucero wouldn't be dead if he didn't look Mexican. Just like Luis Ramirez, of Shenandoah, wouldn't be dead if he'd wasn't in the Unites States without permission as was stated by the local anti-migrant group.
I knew FAIR was pushing their anti-immigration views through ads both in print and on television, but I never expected to find one in Mother Jones.
What you notice first is the large image of a bulldozer scrapping through a forest above the caption "One of America's Best Selling Vehicles." For an environmentally conscious person who reads Mother Jones this ad would seem to be right up their ally. Who doesn't want to stop the destruction of forests? However, for those of us with a conscious it'd serve us well to understand who's selling this message and what they're really asking us to do.
The groups pushing this ad are all groups founded by John Tanton better known as The Puppeteer to those familiar with the Southern Poverty Law Center. We know the SPLC considers FAIR a hate group, so why would Mother Jones allow them to spread their hateful message within the pages of this supposedly caring publication? While I don't know how they would answer I do know that FAIR's pro-environmentalist message helps them squeeze into places they normally wouldn't be welcome. Freetrade.org takes on this notion that immigrants are responsible for urban sprawl in FAIR Ads Unfairly Blame Immigrants for Urban Sprawl
