AFDAN

Displaced Children Due to War

2007-04-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

Visit:

Hometown Baghdad: The Untold Story of the Iraq War

2007-04-04T00:04:00.000-07:00

Hometown Baghdad
A documentary web series following the lives of a few Iraqi 20-somethings trying to survive in Baghdad.

The everyday life of the Iraqi citizen has been the great untold story of the Iraq war.

The Distribution
The brave Iraqi subjects and crew risked their lives every time they turned on a camera to make this series. They want to show the world what life is like when your hometown is a war-zone. We believe that people who see their stories will want to share them with others. That's why we're distributing the series online. So please - watch the videos, rewatch them, tell friends about them, comment on them, and link to them.

The Language
The intention of the Iraqi filmmakers and subjects was to show the world what Baghdad is truly like. That's why they usually speak English and not Arabic.

The Producers
It is a co-production between NY-based Chat the Planet and a group of Iraqi filmmakers in Baghdad. The subjects also turned the cameras on themselves when it became too dangerous for our crew to travel through Baghdad.

From: http://hometownbaghdad.com

*See video link below

U.S.-Mexico border fence builders sentenced for hiring undocumented workers

2007-03-29T13:29:00.000-07:00

Desert Sun Wire Services
The Desert Sun
March 29, 2007

The top two executives of a Riverside-based company that helped build a fence to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border were sentenced yesterday to home confinement for hiring undocumented workers.Golden State Fence Co., its founder and president, Melvin Kay, and the company's vice president, Michael McLaughlin, pleaded guilty Dec. 14 in federal court in San Diego to hiring unauthorized alien workers over a six-year period between January 1999 and November 2005.

U.S. District Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz sentenced both Kay and McLaughlin to 180 days of home confinement with electronic monitoring and ordered each of them to perform 1,040 hours of community service as conditions of their three years on probation.Kay was also fined $200,000 and McLaughlin $100,000.The company was ordered to forfeit $4.7 million in proceeds from its unlawful practices.

``Companies that willfully flout our nation's hiring laws will pay the price for their illegal actions; in this case $4.7 million of the corporation's assets are being forfeited to the government,'' said Michael Carney, Acting Special Agent in Charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of Investigations in San Diego.

``Knowingly hiring illegal aliens not only harms law-abiding businesses, it also exposes those companies that break the law to prosecution and financial penalties,'' he said.Golden State is based in Riverside and has offices in Oceanside, Bakersfield/Santa Paula, Palmdale, Anaheim and Brawley.

In the late 1990s, Golden State was hired by the government to build more than one mile of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.In July 1999, federal immigration officials inspected the company's Oceanside office and provided written notice that at least 15 employees were unauthorized alien workers, according to court documents.

In September 2004, immigration officials again determined that at least 49 Golden State employees at the Oceanside office were unauthorized aliens, court records indicate.In August 2005, ICE agents inspected Golden State's Riverside office and found at least three of the employees who had been listed in a 1999 notice as unauthorized alien workers.

Three months later, ICE agents served search warrants at the Oceanside and Riverside offices of Golden State, seizing evidence showing a pattern of hiring unauthorized alien workers, according to court documents.In a company-issued statement late yesterday, Executive Vice President Gary Hansen expressed relief that the judge chose probationary sentences rather than incarceration.

``Mel and Mike are hard-working men who have worked all their lives to make a better life for themselves and the people around them,'' Hansen said.``Their acts were not egregious, nor were they exploitive to the undocumented workers. We believe the court recognized the strength of their character when making its decision.''

He said the company since December 2005 has voluntarily participated in the Basic Employment Verification Pilot program run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, through which newly hired employees are screened by the government to help verify their legal immigration status.

http://www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20070329&Category=UPDATE&ArtNo=70329004&SectionCat=

The Face of War

2007-03-21T00:18:00.000-07:00

In addition to the thousands of Iraqi men, women and children killed during the
war, take a look at the faces of American soldiers: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/ages/21/

454 in all who were killed, all at the age of 21. The age group with the most casualties.
Other young men and women: (28) 18 year olds, (206) 19 year olds and (359) 20 year olds.

No more war, please.

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/fallen/ages/

What Will it Take?

2007-03-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

Wounded Vet Struggles with Deeper Injuries
By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - His biceps steel hard, injured Iraq war veteran Ken Sargent is looking more like the career soldier who shipped out for his second tour than the severely wounded man who was evacuated from Najaf in August 2004. But his appearance only tells part of the story.

A bullet responsible for his wounds entered below his right eye, blowing off a chunk of brain, erasing most of Sargent's vision, the hearing in his left ear and portions of his memory and mental functioning.

After eight surgeries -- including one to put a metal plate in his head -- and countless hours of rehabilitation, the 38-year-old Marine master sergeant's chest and arms are buffed from workouts with weights. He's again walking, speaking and cracking jokes, but is dogged by fatigue, unable to work full-time and depends on his family for help with daily tasks.

Sargent and thousands of other soldiers with traumatic brain injury (TBI) -- the signature wound of the U.S. war on terrorism -- represent America's new war wounded.

Based on information in a recent report from the Government Accountability Office, an estimated 4,000 troops have TBI.

While many of their lives have been saved by advances in medical technology, a number of them will require specialized, long-term care from a military health system that has been under fire for losing medical records, pay mishaps and miring troops in bureaucracy and red tape as they transition from military to civilian life.

"My injuries can't be fixed. I can't get inches of my brain back. I can't get my hearing back. Doctors told me that the damage to my eyes can't be fixed," said Sargent, who joined the Marines at 18 and wants nothing more than to do another 20.

While he has regained day-to-day function and works on base a couple days a week, what remains of his vision is blurred or doubled. His brain also took a major jolt from the bullet, which has upset its wiring.

He is now obsessive about cleanliness and order, washing his hands often and even making the bed while his wife is still in it. He still has a hard time remembering things from one day to the next and uses notebooks to remember telephone numbers and his ever-changing physical symptoms, which include black spots before his eyes to headaches and fatigue.

He wears gloves while working outside or in the garage because his body doesn't register pain -- any cuts or bruises won't be noticed until hours later.

WARRIOR WIFE

And Sargent is one of the lucky ones. His wife and family were there to support and fight for his needs. The Marines kept him on active duty after his injury so he can complete his 20 years and be eligible for fuller retirement benefits.

"I'm doing better than they thought I was going to do," he said. "I'm more of a joker and a funny man than I used to be."

While the experience has sharpened his sense of humor, it has also magnified his anxiety as his planned separation from the Marines looms in March 2008.

"I'm really worried about where we're going to live. Am I going to be able to make enough money to support my family? I feel bad because I can't take care of things like I used to," he said.

That role now belongs to Tonia, who is looking for ways to work and care for the man she married 20 years ago this week.

On top of that, she said her family is struggling to accept and make sense of their new roles and relationships.

"If you look at (Ken), the right side of his face from the side resembles the man that I was married to. The left side of his face is the man that I'm married to now," she said.

"What kind of relationship do I develop with this person that I am going to grow old with?"

For now, that takes a back seat to Ken's evolving needs.

"There is no finish line," said Tonia, who early on brought Ken back to Camp Pendleton, about 40 miles north of San Diego, rather than keeping him in a high-tech military hospital in northern California.

"I was assuming that the closer I got to home, the more structure and support I would have," said the 37-year-old, who also planned to join the Marines before getting pregnant with the first of their two daughters, Tasha, 19, and Alishia, 17.

She found the opposite, and has taken up the warrior role her husband left behind by fighting to get him the best care.

"I'm a very squeaky wheel and I'm still misinformed," said Tonia.

She is trying to remain in the family's home on base, close to other resources and friends, for the six months or more it usually takes from the time one is discharged until benefits kick in from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which oversees care for non-active duty soldiers.

"It's like having two sides and you're missing a bridge. I'm saying 'You want me to jump from this end? I've got a 50-50 chance of making it. No. I want a 100 percent chance of making it. Don't make me guess,"' she said.

From: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070320/us_nm/iraq_veteran_dc

Soldiers Speak Out: Out of Iraq March on Wash. DC March 17

2007-03-09T07:19:00.000-08:00

www.appealforredress.org/

See also, MarchOnPentagon.org

Encampment to Stop the War Wash. DC, March 12-19

2007-03-07T09:36:00.000-08:00

Schedule of Events at the Encampment to Stop the War Schedule subject to change.

Monday, March 12
12 Noon - Encampment to Stop the War Begins
5 pm - Kick-off rally, featuring Pam Parker, Anne Feeney, and others
7pm - Protest at AIPAC Conference organized by DAWN
Tuesday, March 13
10 am - Morning meeting
Time TBA - Women's delegation to Iraqi embassy to protest the pending execution of three women in Iraq.
Wednesday, March 14
10 am - Morning meeting
The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on funding for the Iraq war. When voting on the war budget begins, groups are planning Direct Action and protest at the Capitol.
7 pm - A Forum: Target Iran. the Bush administration's plan for more war - All Souls Unitarian Church - 1500 Harvard St (16th & Harvard Sts.), NW Washington, DC
Thursday, March 15
10 am - Morning meeting
12 noon - May 1 Immigrant Rights Conference
3 pm - Veterans, Military Families Car Caravan and Protest at Walter Reed
Friday, March 16
10 am - Morning meeting
TBA - Youth action
Saturday, March 17
10 am - 11:30 “Cut war funding” kick-off rally at Encampment in front of Congress at 3rd St & the Mall, in front of West Side of Capital. At 11:30 we will begin a 20-30 minute march along Constitution Ave to Answer rally at 22nd & Constitution. This is a distance of 1.6 miles. (The March on Pentagon begins at 2pm from 22 & Constitution)
Sunday, March 18
10 am - Morning meeting
TBA
Monday, March 19
10 am - Morning meeting

Please check the blog for daily updates on logistics, program, actions, and other Encampment updates.
Dear Friend:Over the past few days, response to the call for an Encampment to Stop the War has been overwhelming. Students, antiwar activists, veterans, military families, community organizers, and trade unionists are coming from all over the U.S. to join the Encampment.Next week, Congress will be asked to vote on President Bush' request for another $245 billion for the war in Iraq. This will be, in effect, a vote to continue the war. The current Congress was elected with a mandate to stop the war, and the antiwar movement must be in DC to hold them accountable for their actions. The Encampment to Stop the War will start in just a few days - March 12 - and there is an enormous amount of work to be done in a short period of time. We have an opportunity in the next few days to have a major impact, if we work together--here's how you can help:
Let us know if you are coming to the Encampment. Use the Volunteer form at http://troopsoutnow.org/march12volunteer.shtml.
Volunteer at the Encampment - we will need hundreds of volunteers during the week of the Encampment let us know how you can help (logistics, security, medical, greeter, etc) - http://troopsoutnow.org/march12volunteer.shtml
Donate to to help with the enormous costs of the Encampment - http://troopsoutnow.org/donate.shtml. If you are not able to come to the encampment, help send a youth activist to the Encampment to the week- donate for transportation and housing costs here.
Get the word out -- forward messages to your email lists, list serves, etc. Download leaflets from http://www.TroopsOutNow.org and take them to your school, workplace, union hall, community center, or your church, mosque, or other place or worship.

Child Protection Act--Keeping Families TOGETHER

2007-03-06T23:36:00.000-08:00

THE CHILD CITIZEN PROTECTION ACT, HR 1176*
Deportation destroys families and leaves U.S. citizen children without parents.
Over 1 in 10 families are mixed status: at least 1 parent is a non-citizen, and 1 child a citizen.
We now have a vehicle to help protect our U.S. citizen children from the devastating effects of deportation: THE CHILD CITIZEN PROTECTION ACT (HR 1176); introduced by Congressman Jose Serrano (D-NY). The bill would allow an immigration judge to consider the best interest of U.S. citizen children before deporting their parent. Please join us and invite others to discuss next steps and plan actions both locally and nationally to promote this vital legislation. Information about the bill is available at www.thomas.loc.gov, search HR 1176. Also please review our fact sheet and sign on letter at the following links: Fact Sheet: http://familiesforfreedom.org/downloads/CCPAfactsheet.doc Sign on Letter: http://familiesforfreedom.org/downloads/CCPAsignon.doc Donâ€™t wait for our phone call to contact your local representatives. Call them today and ask them to cosponsor this vital legislation! If you donâ€™t know who your representative is, please call the congressional switchboard at 202-224-3121 or visit www.house.gov. BE A PART OF THE MOVEMENT TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES. LEARN WHAT YOU CAN DO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE! For more information contact Betsy DeWitt at Families for Freedom.(718) 858-9658 x204 or betsy12060@aol.com

Schools in Afghanistan

2007-02-17T09:24:00.000-08:00

At a recent press conference, US President George Bush mentioned that the literacy rate in Afghanistan has increased 10 fold.

See one man's, Greg Mortenson, efforts: http://www.threecupsoftea.com

Off of the Net and Into the Streets! NO MORE WAR Wash., DC January 27

2007-01-19T00:08:00.000-08:00

Anti-War March January 27 - Washington DC

As the death toll in Iraq continues to rise -- more than 3,000 U.S. soldiers and more than 600,000 Iraqis -- President Bush has made it clear that he has no intention of bringing the troops home. In fact, he wants to send 21,000 more troops to Iraq and is threatening war against Iran and Syria while U.S. gunships are shooting down Somali people in the streets.
It is equally clear that Congress, despite their clear mandate to bring the troops home, plans to vote for another $130 billion dollars in war spending this spring. The only way we will stop the war is if we stay in the streets.

Join the IAC (International Action Center) contingent in the January 27 March on Washington, organized by United for Peace and Justice and hundreds of other national and local groups. We will march to demand the Immediate, Complete, Unconditional withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq---no timetables, no surge, not another penny for war and occupation. Bring the Troops Home Now -- Money for Jobs, Healthcare, and Education, Not War!

Need a bus from Manhattan? Tickets are $35 leaving from 55 W. 17th St., at 6:00 a.m.
Tickets must be purchased in advance. You can purchase tickets from the Solidarity Center, located at 55 W. 17th St., 5th floor, from 12-8 Mon.-Fri., and 12-5 on Saturday.

** If you are not able to go, please consider donating to cover the costs of transportation for other activists. You can donate online at http://iacenter.org/iacdonate.shtml.
Call 212-633-6646 for information.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Please tell the IAC you read about this at AFDAN.blogspot.com.

Who's Killing the Immigrant Mothers of Fremont?

2007-01-18T09:05:00.000-08:00

Who's Killing the Immigrant Mothers of Fremont?

Twice in three years, foreign-born women have been killed by apparent strangers in the Centerville District. Some residents see hate.By Robert Gammon - East Bay Express (California)

January 10, 2007
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/Issues/2007-01-10/news/feature_%20full.htm

Who / What:Fremont immigrantsAlia Ansari Esperanza HernandezCarmelitaHernandezNews Category:Crime

Alia Ansari always wore her traditional Muslim headscarf in public. She was a doting wife and mother who spent most of her time in the Afghan neighborhood of Fremont known as "Little Kabul." She typically drove her six children to and from school and cricket practice, but on the afternoon of October 19, 2006, she had no choice but to walk.
Ali Ansari Courtesy of theArgus/DMV

The family minivan had recently overheated, and her husband, Ahmad, an auto mechanic, was too busy to fix it. So the 37-year-old woman set out on foot to pick up her children from the nearby elementary school. Before she got far, a car stopped and a man jumped out. He walked straight up to Alia and shot her in the head. She died clutching her three-year-old daughter's hand.
The brazen murder stunned Fremont's Afghan community and Muslims throughout the Bay Area. Muslim women, in particular, suddenly were afraid to wear their headscarves. "There was definitely fear in the community â€” even among women who don't wear hijabs, like me," said Samina Sundas, founder of American Muslim Voice, a Newark-based nonprofit that seeks to educate people and ease cultural tensions about Islam.
Ansari's tragic murder wasn't the first time an immigrant mom was brutally killed on the usually quiet streets of suburban Fremont. Two and a half years earlier, Esperanza Hernandez and her teenage daughter, Carmelita, were clubbed to death as they walked to work. The gruesome double homicide took place less than a half-mile from where Ansari was later gunned down.
The deaths of Esperanza and Carmelita Hernandez have been largely forgotten amid the clamor over Alia Ansari's slaying. But the two unsolved murder cases share more than just proximity. Ansari immigrated to the United States in 1986, at about the same time as Esperanza Hernandez sneaked across the border from Mexico. Both had no apparent enemies. Both were mothers who usually drove, and both were killed while walking with their daughters. All three victims were immigrants.
To many Fremont residents, the two murder cases appear to be completely random acts of violence in their usually safe city. But to others, the circumstances of both killings scream "hate crime." And it's no wonder. In the past decade and a half, this once-whitebread suburb has been transformed into an immigrant haven. And while much of the city has proudly embraced this newfound diversity, there remains a vocal contingent of people who are angry that their formerly homogeneous town is no more.
Fremont police say they have no reason to believe that the murders were hate crimes, and that to label them as such is irresponsible. "We can't call it something when we don't have any evidence of it," said police spokesman Bill Veteran, who also is the department's primary hate-crime investigator. "And if we were to focus on hate crimes, we are very potentially ignoring other motives."
But members of the women's families believe otherwise. They are convinced that Alia, Esperanza, and Carmelita were innocent women who must have been killed because of the clothes they wore or the color of their skin.
Shortly after Ansari's murder, Melanie Gadener and Anu Natarajan proposed "Wear a Hijab Day" to honor the immigrant's life and celebrate Fremont's multiculturalism.
The women came up with the idea after visiting Fremont's Muslim mosque, the Islamic Society of East Bay, during an open house. "We had heard from the women there â€” especially after 9/11 â€” that wearing a hijab drew attention that made them feel uncomfortable," explained Natarajan, the first South Asian immigrant on the Fremont City Council. "They feel like they don't belong, and we felt that we should show them that they do belong." The event eventually morphed into "Wear a Hijab/Turban Day," expanding to incorporate local Sikh men who also had felt wrongly conspicuous in the wake of September 11.
Rain and wind dampened the turnout at Fremont's Central Park. Still, about a hundred people braved the bad weather, including Christians, Jews, and people of other faiths. Sundas passed out colorful headscarves from Pakistan. "It's all about education," she said. "We strongly believe that if Americans know us firsthand, they will not fear Muslims and will not feel that Muslims are terrorists."
Yet the event sparked anger from other Fremont residents. One letter writer to The Argus called the idea "absurd," while Natarajan said she received several nasty e-mails. "One said I should take my religion and leave this country and go back to where I came from," the councilwoman recalled, noting with irony that she is Hindu and not Muslim.
Whites didn't always feel uncomfortable in Fremont. But in the past fifteen years, the city has undergone a dramatic demographic transformation. Stroll into one of Fremont's ubiquitous strip malls today and you may not hear a word of English. More than 120 languages are spoken, mostly by recent arrivals. There are so many newcomers that, according to the latest Census estimates, by 2005, 45.6 percent of Fremont's 210,000 residents were born outside the United States.
Fremont itself was born just fifty years ago, following the incorporation of five unincorporated districts â€” Centerville, Irvington, Mission San Jose, Niles, and Warm Springs. The new town grew rapidly, as Brady Bunch-style tract homes sprang up by the tens of thousands. "As fast as they could build homes, they filled up," Fremont historian Phil Holmes said. The city was especially popular with white families who fled the bigger Bay Area cities in search of better schools.
But Fremont's racial composition changed radically in the 1990s. Asian Americans â€” particularly Afghans, Indians, and Pakistanis â€” flocked to the city after landing high-paying jobs in Silicon Valley. Between 1990 and 2005, 73,000 Asian Americans moved to Fremont, according to Census data. At the same time, many white residents grew disenchanted with the city. During the same period, 46,000 whites moved away. Some were simply fed up with Fremont's rapid growth and its increasingly nightmarish traffic. But others were uncomfortable with the city's new ethnic makeup. By 2005, whites made up just 30.6 percent of the population.
Gadener, who runs the Fremont-based nonprofit Foundation for Self Reliance, which assists Afghan immigrants, said a few white acquaintances recently told her that they were moving to places where people are more like them. "People are becoming more racist," she said. "There's this growing resentment. Fremont used to be this sleepy town, but now it's like a mini United Nations. And some of the original settlers of Fremont do not like it."
Steve Cho experienced this diversity backlash firsthand. In the summer of 2004, the Chinese-American city councilman suggested that flags from around the world be flown during Fremont's Fourth of July parade. Cho wanted to pump new life into what had become a ho-hum event. But his idea was immediately met with scorn. Critics said Old Glory was the only flag that should fly on Independence Day, and they added that it was time for the city's immigrants to assimilate.
"There's a feeling out there that diversity is being forced upon people," Cho, a moderate Republican, explained in a subsequent interview. "Some people who have been in Fremont for generations are saying, 'Diversity is not something I wanted.'" Eventually, volunteers brokered a compromise: A parade entry would feature various national flags alongside the innocuous banner "Birthday Wishes from Other Nations."
But Cho's critics soon grew angry again. This time it was with the burgeoning Afghan community. In the past decade, thousands of Afghans have moved into Fremont's Centerville district, a 150-year-old section of the city that was the traditional home of its most conservative white residents. Afghan leaders, in an effort to commemorate their new ethnic enclave, proposed erecting a sign in the middle of Centerville that would dub the neighborhood "Little Kabul."
The idea outraged members of the old guard. Rona Popal, leader of the Afghan Coalition, described the reaction as "harsh." In a recent interview, she said Afghan leaders quickly shelved the idea and never dared raise it again.
More evidence of disharmony spilled onto the city's streets last year when Fremont earned the distinction of being the only East Bay community to host anti-illegal-immigration protests. The demonstrations came in stark contrast to the huge pro-immigration rallies in Oakland, San Jose, and San Francisco that attracted tens of thousands of people.
The Fremont protests were mounted by a group calling itself the East Bay Coalition for Border Security. The coalition demonstrated against a proposed federal amnesty plan for illegal immigrants already in the country. The plan was supported by Democrats, moderate Republicans, and even President Bush. But the Fremont group, like other conservative organizations nationwide, adamantly opposed it. Charles Dirkman, cofounder of the group, told The Argus that it intended to become the local chapter of the Minutemen, a controversial vigilante organization that patrols the US-Mexican border: "There's nothing about the Minutemen we don't like." Neither Dirkman nor the coalition's other founder, Casey Fargo, could be located for comment.
The group protested several times throughout 2006, on the same corner as a taqueria owned by two illegal immigrants from Mexico. Two years before, the taqueria's owners had endured a horrific nightmare that they believe was caused by intolerance toward people such as themselves.
As whites fled Fremont in the mid-'80s, Maria "Esperanza" Hernandez began her long journey to southern Alameda County. The desperately poor teenager from QuerÃ©taro, Mexico, slipped across the border into Southern California. She hoped to find a job and send her earnings back home to her parents, who were taking care of her young daughter, Maria del Carmen "Carmelita" Hernandez.
Like millions of illegal immigrants, Esperanza gladly took a job that many native-born Americans think is beneath them. She worked at a Taco Bell in Santa Ana. In 1989, her sixteen-year-old niece, Helidee "Heli" Hernandez, sneaked into the country and joined her; Esperanza landed her a position at the same restaurant. Heli also wired most of her earnings back home to QuerÃ©taro, where her mom needed the money to survive.
In 1992, Heli moved to the Bay Area with her new husband, Filberto "Fily" Cuellar. The two had met three years earlier in Santa Ana. He had been working at a Carl's Jr. restaurant, and accepted an offer to manage one of the company's franchises in Fremont. Esperanza joined the couple in southern Alameda County two years later.
For more than a decade, Heli, Fily, and Esperanza toiled anonymously among Fremont's immigrants â€” Fily at Carl's Jr., and Heli and Esperanza at Taco Bell. Most of the time, they worked second jobs. Esperanza awoke well before dawn each morning and headed off to the laundry room of a Fremont nursing home before her afternoon shift at the fast-food restaurant.
In 2002 Esperanza's daughter, Carmelita, was finally old enough to come to America. The seventeen-year-old slipped into the United States, traveled to the Bay Area, and got a job at Carl's Jr. She moved in with Esperanza and nine other relatives in a Newark house just across Interstate 880 from Fremont.
But one rainy morning two years later, neither mother nor daughter made it to work.
Esperanza's boyfriend usually drove her to the nursing home, but in the early hours of February 1, 2004, he felt too ill to drive. Esperanza didn't have a driver's license, so she decided to walk the five miles to work. Carmelita offered to keep her company, but after a few blocks in the dark, the two grew afraid. They called Heli and asked for a ride. Heli immediately jumped into her car, but as she lived in Hayward at the time, she said it would be ten to fifteen minutes before she could get there.
When Heli drove into Fremont, she couldn't find the two women. "I called again and they answered the phone," she recalled, her voice shaking and her eyes welling up with tears. "I called to see where they were â€” and they started screaming." Heli was listening to the brutal murder of her aunt and first cousin.
She and her husband believe the killings must have been a hate crime. They can think of no other explanation. It certainly wasn't some robbery gone wrong. "They didn't take no money," Heli said of the killer or killers. "They didn't take anything."
Esperanza and Carmelita's blood-curdling cries shattered the silence of a quiet, tree-lined section of Centerville. The mother and daughter were beaten to death with a thirty-inch-long thick tree branch at the corner of Alameda Drive and Contra Costa Avenue.
Thirty-two months later, another immigrant woman would be murdered just a few thousand feet away.
On paper, at least, Fremont appears to be a vast hate-free zone. According to an analysis of FBI Uniform Crime reports, Fremont has fewer hate crimes than most other large California cities. It reported just three hate crimes per 100,000 residents on average each year from 2001 to 2005 â€” the last year for which data is available. By contrast, during the same period, San Francisco reported an average of 18.1 hate crimes per 100,000 people.
But experts caution that such reports are meaningless. "Hate crime statistics, by and large, are completely useless across the board," said Mark Potok, director of hate crime monitoring at the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Why? One reason is that reporting hate crimes is voluntary under federal law. As a result, some police agencies fudge their numbers out of fear that such crimes will damage their city's image. "They're seen as bringing bad press to the city," said Potok, who made it clear that he was not referring specifically to Fremont or any other Bay Area police agency.
Other jurisdictions view hate crimes as a product of liberal political correctness. To them, a murder is a murder, and it's irrelevant that a person was killed because she wore a hijab or was an illegal immigrant.
Some prosecutors, meanwhile, refuse to charge hate crimes because they can be difficult cases to prove, which reduces the incentive for police to investigate them in the first place. Other agencies just seem too busy to worry about hate crimes. Oakland, for example, has one of the highest violent-crime rates in California and one of the most diverse populations anywhere, but on average, it has reported less than one annual hate crime for every 100,000 people this decade. In 2003, it reported none.
The result is a cavernous gap between the number of hate crimes reported by police and the number that victims say actually occur. According to a wide-ranging study by the US Department of Justice, there are an estimated 191,000 total hate crimes in the country annually. But police agencies nationwide voluntarily report only 6,000 to 10,000 on average. In other words, from the victims' perspective, the US hate crime problem is twenty to thirty times worse than police agencies say it is.
One final reason for this huge discrepancy is that 56 percent of victims said they didn't tell police. Illegal immigrants don't report crimes for fear of being deported. Even legal immigrants may be too intimidated, or disinclined to make waves. Refugees from oppressive regimes such as Afghanistan under the Taliban aren't in the habit of sharing their troubles with the authorities.
To combat such issues, San Francisco adopted an ordinance in 1989 that declared the city a hate crime "sanctuary." The law prohibits police and prosecutors from inquiring about the immigration status of victims and witnesses. The following year, San Francisco established a special unit with two inspectors who solely investigate hate crimes. It should come as no surprise, then, that one of the most tolerant places in the world consistently reports more hate crimes per capita than most other big American cities. And it's not because of San Francisco's large gay and lesbian population either. The majority of hate crimes in the city are attacks based on race, ethnicity, and religion.
"San Francisco is supposed to be the city of love, but we look like the city of hate," said San Francisco hate crimes Inspector Milanda Moore. "But at least we're being honest; we're not trying to hide anything. ... I get really angry when so many cities report zero hate crimes."
Fremont does not have a "sanctuary" law on its books, nor does it employ a special police unit dedicated only to hate crimes. But Police Chief Craig Steckler has made it a department policy not to inquire about the immigration status of crime victims or witnesses. "Our chief has said we're not an arm of the INS," department spokesman Veteran said, adding that Fremont fully investigates every hate crime report that it receives: "We just don't get that many hate crimes."
The Hernandez case was Fremont's first double homicide in nearly twenty years, and the city called in every available detective. As with any murder case, investigators first looked at friends, family members, and acquaintances. When that turned up nothing, detectives investigated whether the killings were gang-related and looked for similar murders in other cities.
America's Most Wanted aired a story about the murders, and Governor Schwarzenegger offered a $50,000 reward. But neither produced a viable tip. For a time, evidence led detectives out of California, but that trail eventually dried up. Detectives even brought in an arborist from San Jose State University to determine the origin of the murder weapon. "We didn't leave out any option," lead detective Tom Severance said. "We looked at everything."
Yet Severance and the other detectives were not completely in the dark: They had an eyewitness. This person â€” whose identity police have never revealed â€” described the killer as being white and about six feet tall, wearing a blue denim jacket with tan sleeves. Police distributed a sketch of the suspect, but never found him, and to this day, the case remains unsolved.
"We have no idea why they were killed," Veteran said during a November interview with Severance. "I think about the case daily. Last week, I talked to one of our homicide investigators and said, 'What could we have missed?'"
The two detectives said investigators found no evidence of a hate crime. "It would be easier if we knew it was a hate crime," Severance said. "It would be much easier if we knew why. But we looked at every possible angle of how this occurred and we didn't find any evidence of a hate crime."
Severance and Veteran were tight-lipped about the Ansari case, which is still being investigated. Yet Severance admitted that shivers shot down his spine when he arrived at the scene of the murder and discovered that another immigrant mother had been killed. "Anything that even remotely resembles the Hernandez double strikes a chord with me," he said.
But police have declined to label the Ansari case a hate crime. Investigators have identified a Latino man whom they're calling "a person of interest" because he appears to match a witness description. However, authorities are holding the man on a separate crime and have not charged him in the murder.
The Hernandez and Ansari cases are both somewhat unusual because Fremont police have a strong track record of solving violent crimes. Fremont solved 55.1 percent of all violent crimes committed between 2001 and 2005 â€” the most recent year for data â€” according to statistics compiled by the California Department of Justice. By comparison, the clearance rates for San Jose, San Francisco, and Oakland in the same period all averaged between 30 and 33 percent.
Hate crimes, however, are difficult to investigate, partly because they seldom involve members of known hate groups. "The classic hate crime is just some person driving down the street and shooting the first black person they see," said Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center. As such, the Ansari killing, in particular, appears to fit the profile. "It sounds a great deal like a hate crime," he said. "It's a typical case where a person is shot by someone she doesn't know â€” for no apparent reason other than her headscarf."
Unless police prove otherwise, the Hernandez and Ansari families will probably continue to believe that the three women were killed because of the way they looked. Why would anyone want to kill an Afghan mom who was happy and loved, and helped care for a huge extended family â€” unless it was because she was wearing a hijab? "She never argued, always had a smile," her cousin, Amin Ansari, told the Mercury News a few days before a funeral that drew five hundred mourners. "In my opinion, I don't see any other reason for this."
But not every local Afghan or Muslim believes the murder was a hate crime. Popal, for instance, said there could be any number of motives, including a possible grudge that traced back to Afghanistan. But Sundas, who is Pakistani American, believes Ansari was likely killed because of her religious garb. "All things point to that," she said. "We're trying to refrain from saying that because we don't know for sure. But it definitely looks that way."
Several Muslim groups led by the Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations held an early-November forum to talk about the killing. "We hope that it's not a hate crime," council spokeswoman Abiya Ahmed said. "We just wanted to call on law enforcement officials to resolve the case in a timely manner. There were a lot of community members who were concerned about their safety." Among the hundred attendees were a representative from the US Justice Department and Fremont Police Chief Steckler. The chief assured the crowd that his department was investigating every angle.
If Ansari's killer did intend to send a message that immigrants are not welcome in Fremont, then that message was heard loud and clear. A week after the killing, Ahmad Ansari bought one-way tickets home to Afghanistan for himself and his six kids. Family members told reporters he was overwhelmed with grief, and that caring for the children, plus his job fixing cars, was just too much. He had a large extended family back home that would help him, they said. Several other Ansari family members subsequently moved home as well.
The Cuellar family, too, was crushed by the horrific deaths of their close aunt and cousin, Esperanza and Carmelita Hernandez. The killings took their toll, especially on Fily and Heli's children, Kevin and Mary, then aged ten and seven. "When we found that they had been murdered, my sister started crying," said Kevin, who is now thirteen. He added that he and his sister had bad dreams, and Heli said she and the kids began to fear the dark. "At first, we felt scared to go out at night," she said. "Now, sometimes when we're alone in the house and we hear something ... it makes us scared."
Scared or not, the Cuellars are not about to flee. After all these years, Fily and Heli finally saved up enough money to open their own restaurant, El Pique Taqueria, in a strip mall at Mowry and Fremont avenues. And even with all they've been through, and even though their kids have trouble sleeping, they have no intention of giving up on their American dream. Quite the contrary; they are determined to become legal citizens despite governmental threats of deportation (see sidebar on page 14).
In that way, the Cuellars are much like the tens of thousands of other immigrants in Fremont, and the thousands more who arrive each year. And there's no reason to believe they won't keep coming, regardless of the hate crimes, the diversity backlashes, and the brutal murders of immigrant women.
ESCAPING THE SHADOWS Heli and Fily's effort to become citizens turned out badly for the family.
By Robert Gammon
Thirteen months after their aunt and cousin were bludgeoned to death on a Fremont street corner, Heli and Fily Cuellar suffered another emotional body blow. A federal immigration judge in San Francisco told them to leave the United States voluntarily or the government would deport them.
It didn't matter that they had endured a devastating family tragedy. It didn't matter that they had been taxpayers for nearly two decades, working low-paying jobs that no one else wanted. It didn't matter that they were raising two kids while putting in sixteen-hour days, year after year, saving and scrimping so that they could finally open their own business â€” El Pique Taqueria in Fremont. They had snuck into the country illegally.
The Cuellars' appearance before the judge was not an unforeseen outcome of their involvement in the murder investigation; it was their own doing. They could have remained hidden in the immigrants' secret world of fake driver's licenses and purloined Social Security numbers, but they decided to risk everything and try to become citizens. "We wanted to come out of the shadows," Fily explained over a recent lunch at El Pique. "I think we've done good things for this community. We wanted to be on the level."
Heli and Fily began their immigration-court odyssey in 1998, when they decided to hire a lawyer and apply for asylum. "We explained to them that this was very dangerous," recalled the attorney, Norma Molinar of San Francisco. "You're basically telling the federal government, 'Here we are!'"
By then, the Cuellars already had two children for whom they chose the most American-sounding names they could think of â€” Kevin, now thirteen, and Mary, now ten. "I love this country," Fily explained when asked about his kids' names. "It's given me the opportunity I didn't have in my country."
As their case moved slowly through the courts, the Cuellars began to realize that Kevin had a learning disability. He's a smart, outgoing kid, with a contagious smile, but he has trouble concentrating on his studies. At first, Fily said, school counselors blamed them for not being strict enough about his homework every night. Even their family doctor ignored their concerns.
The Cuellars worried that if they were forced to return to Mexico from their tidy, split-level house in Newark, then they would never be able to afford the help Kevin needed. "What am I going to do in Mexico?" asked Fily, who managed Carl's Jr. restaurants for eighteen years before opening El Pique two years ago.
At their March 2005 immigration hearing, Molinar told the judge about Kevin's problems. But the judge waved her off, ruling that the Cuellars had failed to prove that Kevin would suffer "exceptional and extremely unusual hardship" as required under US asylum law if they returned to Mexico.
The Cuellars appealed the ruling in June 2006 after taking Kevin to a psychiatrist. The doctor diagnosed him with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Under asylum law, that should be enough to trigger the hardship exception, Molinar said. "He's not going to get the treatment he needs in Mexico," she explained. But the appeals board ruled against the Cuellars, saying they should have taken Kevin to a psychiatrist earlier.
Molinar says she will continue to appeal the case as far as she can, but the Cuellars have few legal options left. At any time, the US Department of Homeland Security could order them deported. If that happens, Fily, Heli, Kevin, and Mary could be forced back into the shadows again. "I just can't see us going back to Mexico," Fily said.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/Issues/2007-01-10/news/feature_%20full.html

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National Immigrant Solidarity Network
No Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights!
webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.org
e-mail: info@ImmigrantSolidarity.org
New York: (212)330-8172
Los Angeles: (213)403-0131
Washington D.C.: (202)595-8990

Stop the War on Iran!

2007-01-17T14:01:00.000-08:00

Join U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark; Bishop Thomas Gumbleton; Harold Pinter; historian Howard Zinn; George Galloway MP; former UN Assistant Secretary-General Dennis Halliday; Tony Benn, and 20,000 more signers to say No War on Iran!
The growing threat of military action against Iran was made very clear last week as President Bush used his prime time "surge" speech to issue threats against the people of Iran. This speech was immediately followed by a U.S. attack on the Iranian consulate in northern Iraq and the arrest of Iranian consular personnel.
As this time, the U.S. has deployed two full carrier groups to the Persian Gulf. Each carrier carries more than 80 combat aircraft including F/A-18 Hornets, F-14 Tomcats, SH-60 Seahawks, S-3B Vikings, E-2C Hawkeyes and EA-6B Prowlers, capable of flying more than 150 strikes a day. In addition, each carrier group includes guided missile cruisers, fast frigates, guided missile destroyers, and submarines, all equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles.
We know from reports last year that the Pentagon's Central Command and Strategic Command planners are already identifying targets, assessing weapon-loads and working on logistics for an attack and that the planned strikes could kill thousands of Iranian people. We must mobilize now to against the threat of a new war. Over the next few days and weeks, Stop War On Iran will be organizing meetings, rallies, and protests across the country to build a movement to stop another disastrous war.
So far, we've gotten more than 20,000 signatures on the Stop War On Iran petition, and we've sent nearly half a million petitions to Bush, Cheney, Congress, and Halliburton. But we must do more--the threat of an imminent attack is growing. We need your help. We cannot count on politicians (of either major party) to stop the war--we must build a grassroots movement to stop another brutal war. Here's how you can help:
- Sign the petition - Send a message to Bush, Cheney, Congress, and Halliburton - http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml
- Tell a Friend - Help get the word out - http://www.stopwaroniran.org/friend.shtml
- Donate - Help with organizing meetings, teach-ins, protests - http://stopwaroniran.org/donate.shtml
- Put a link to Stop War On Iran on your website - http://www.stopwaroniran.org/link.html
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Duplicity of the UN Security Council
January 11, 2007
In light of the imposition of new United Nations Security Council sanctions directed against Iran, and in the face of a massive U.S.- led military build-up in the Persian Gulf, StopWarOnIran.org campaign calls on all peace loving and justice-seeking people to endorse SWOI’s demand for U.S. withdrawal of its naval forces from the Persian Gulf and for the annulment of U.N. Resolution 1737.
Under the ongoing pressure and probable offer of economic incentives from the United States and Britain, the United Nations Security Council on December 23, 2006 approved Resolution 1737 that:
* Requires Iran to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and to stop work on the construction of a heavy-water research reactor at Arak.
* Prohibits all member states from supplying Iran with items including dual-use equipment and prohibits Iran from exporting any related equipment or technology to other countries.
* Requires all states to avoid providing Iran with technical assistance, training or financial services that could contribute to a nuclear program advancement.
* Requires all states to freeze the assets of a specified list of individuals and entities identified as having a key role in Iran’s nuclear program, and requires all states to notify the sanctions committee of travel by those individuals outside of Iran.
* Requires the suspension of Iran’s uranium enrichment as a necessary pre-condition for the resumption of Iran-European Union (EU3) negotiation.
U.S. plans to strangle Iran go far beyond the formal UN Security Council decisions. Immediately after the Council vote, U.S. Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns said, “We’re certainly not going to put all our eggs in the UN basket…We’d like to see countries stop doing business as usual with Iran…We would like countries to stop selling arms to Iran. We would like countries to try to limit export credits to Iran.” He boasted that the U.S. already has had “full-scope sanctions on Iran in every conceivable area” in place since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Finally, Mr. Burns clearly stated that the U.S. differences with Iran go far beyond the nuclear issue. “Our beef with the Iranians is threefold,” he said. First is their effort to attain a nuclear capability, second is their support for the Palestinian and Lebanese movements and their interference in Iraq, and third is the system of their governance domestically, according to Burns.
Washington recently called for “regime change” in Iran and began working towards that objective. Congress approved a more than $100 million budget to finance covert and overt activities to provoke insecurity and undermine the country’s economic, social and political stability.
In each major nuclear issue confronting the United Nations nuclear non-proliferation regime, the United States and Britain have tried to replace the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with the Security Council. In cases of disputes with the other Council members, as with Iraq, they feel free to by-pass the UN and begin a pre-emptive war without the consent of the international community that they are so fond of appealing to rhetorically.
Iran has consistently placed its entire nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards; furthermore, it adopted and fully implemented the Additional Protocol for over 2 years and announced its readiness for extension of its implementation, while permitting over 2,000 person-days of IAEA inspections of all its relevant and even unrelated facilities.
Iran has been singled out and charged unfairly with violations of the UN nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran signed onto the NPT and has fulfilled its commitments to the Treaty and has dutifully complied with the NPT governing rules and IAEA regulations. The UN nuclear energy agency (IAEA) has consistently declared that Iran has made no diversion of nuclear materials and equipment for purposes other than the use for civilian nuclear energy. Iran has the right to enjoy its legitimate and inalienable rights to research and development of a nuclear industry for peaceful use, as it is stipulated in Article Four of the Treaty.
To build confidence and eradicate any Western misconceptions regarding Iranian “intentions,” the Iranian government had voluntarily suspended its nuclear enrichment and processing operations for a period as along as 15 months while holding marathon negotiations with EU3--Britain, France, and Germany--for nearly three years. Despite this Iranian display of good will and dialogue, the EU3 not only failed to provide a resolution entrusting Iran to produce its own nuclear fuel (in accord with the provisions of the NPT), but collaborated with the U.S. behind the scenes and accused Iran of the “intention” of building nuclear weapons.
To portray Iran as a threat to peace in the Middle East or in the continents of Europe and America is slander. Contrary to the history of the U.S., U.K., Germany, Japan, France, Russia and Italy, Iran has not initiated a single war against any nation on earth in the last 250 years.
StopWarOnIran believes the U.S. has targeted Iran for reasons other than its nuclear energy program. The U.S. anti-Iran foreign policy has its deep roots not in Iran’s future plans for proliferation of military nuclear technology, but in Washington’s insatiable thirst for controlling Iran’s present and tangible flow of gas and oil. By extension, it is the U.S. and EU’s craving to control Iraq’s oil reserves has attracted hundreds of thousands of Western troops and armaments to the region (not for the non-existent presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction or terrorists ready to invade Europe and the United States)
No government in the Middle East, with the exception of Israel’s, considers Iran’s civilian nuclear energy program a threat to its national security. The only country in the Middle East that is armed with nuclear weapons—most likely more than 200 of them—is Israel, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acknowledged recently. This state has been at war with all its neighbors for the entirety of its existence. Yet the IAEA has made no demand to receive an entry permit to visit Israel’s nuclear stockpiles and the UNSC has issued no resolution of sanctions against it.
The menacing presence of the U.S.S. Enterprise, which includes all the warships that compose Carrier Strike Group 12 (CGS12) Destroyer Squadron 2 and Carrier Air Wing1 (CVW1) in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, is a clear sign of U.S. plans of intimidation and hostility. And now the U.S has sent a second carrier group to the Gulf. It is not Iran, but the U.S. and the UK that are a serious threat to peace, security and progress in Iran and the entire Middle East region.
Here's how you can help:
- Sign the petition - Send a message to Bush, Cheney, Congress, and Halliburton - http://stopwaroniran.org/petition.shtml
- Tell a Friend - Help get the word out - http://www.stopwaroniran.org/friend.shtml
- Donate - Help with organizing meetings, teach-ins, protests - http://stopwaroniran.org/donate.shtml
- Put a link to Stop War On Iran on your website - http://www.stopwaroniran.org/link.html

STOP THE DETENTION & DEPORTATION OF A WHOLE FAMILY!

2007-01-14T18:37:00.000-08:00

ACTION ALERT! TAKE A FEW URGENT STEPS IN THE NEXT 48-72 HOURS to... STOP THE DETENTION & DEPORTATION OF A WHOLE FAMILY ARRESTED BY IMMIGRATION TUESDAY MORNING AS AN INTIMIDATION TACTIC!
What Happened: At 5:30am Tuesday morning, January 9th, upwards of ten ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) violently arrested an entire Pakistani family - all active members of DRUM - from their home in Queens, just hours after a federal court judge sentenced their twenty-four year old son, Matin Siraj, to 30 years in prison for (false) terrorism charges. The family has been in jail in New Jersey since Tuesday. The racist 'War on Terror' is destroying South Asian and Muslim communities and families. The migra is destroying all immigrant communities! We must unite and act to put an end to it!
For more coverage of Siraj Matin's case, read Democracy Now' s interview with the attorney( http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/10/151203 )
WHAT WE NEED YOU TO DO:
WRITE a letter in support of the family addressed to the Hon. Judge Tadal, and FAX it to 718-205-3037We will collect all letters, and the lawyer will present them to the judge on the day of the hearing. The letters should indicate support for the family, politely request leniency from the judge, and that the family should be "released on their own recognizance or on reasonable bond."
CALL ICE at 973-645-3666 (Deputy Director - Ext.5010, or Supervising Deportation Officer - Ext.5017), or FAX at 973-645-6124 (leave messages if necessary) 1. Demand that the entire Siraj family be released on recognizance or a reasonable bond (ICE officials have stated that that the father was picked up because his asylum case appeal was denied, but in fact his appeal is still pending and the mother & daughter still have not had there day in court on asylum) 2. Demand that ICE, NYPD, and other enforcement agencies stop targeting immigrant communities, in particular Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians
CALL Warden Charlotte Collins at Elizabeth Detention Center at 908-352-3776, Press *2, Press 242# (leave messages if necessary)1. Demand that Elizabeth Detention Center and ICE officials provide continuing medical care and medication for the mother and father for their ongoing, severe medical conditions 2. Demand that the Siraj family be kept together, and that the family be allowed to visit and see each other in the facility. Currently, the father is unable to see the mother and daughter who are in a separate room3. Demand that the family be able to directly communicate and visit their son, Matin, who is being held at Metropolitan Detention Center, and both detention facilities pro-actively facilitate direct communication between members of a traumatized family
Support the family by contributing to their legal and support fundFor checks over $50 â€“ tax-deductible â€“ Send checks made out to our fiscal sponsor: The AJ Muste Memorial Institute, and write "DRUM â€“ Siraj Family Fund" on the memo line. For checks under $50 â€“ non-deductible â€“ Make checks out to DRUM. Mail checks to DRUM, PO Box 720187, Jackson Heights, NY 11372
COME show support for the mother & daughter's Bail Bond hearing by demonstrating outside Elizabeth Detention Center before, during & after the hearing 1. The hearing is at 1pm on Tuesday, January 16th at 625 Evans Street, Elizabeth , NJ 072012. DRUM is organizing a bus or vans (with limited seats) to take allies to the detention center: please plan to donate to help cover costs. CALL Kavitha, 718-216-0756, to reserve seats or for day-of info, OR e-mail: fahd@drumnation.org *We plan to be back in NYC at approximately 3-4pm
Bus Meeting times:
10am at DRUM, 72-26 Broadway, Jackson Heights: EFVGR to Roosevelt; 7 to 74th St11am, Midtown: 327 W. 42nd St between 8th & 9th Ave at Burger King.
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Desis Rising Up & Moving72-26 Broadway, 4th Fl., Jackson Heights, NY 11372
Tel. (718) 205-3036 Fax (718) 205-3037 info@drumnation.org www.drumnation.org
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PRESS RELEASE January 13, 2007 Bond Hearing Set for Entire Queens Family Arrested as Intimidation
For questions, contact: Fahd Ahmed, DRUM (940) 391-2660 MEDIA IS INVITED TO ATTEND A COMMUNITY SUPPORT DEMONSTRATION FOR THE FAMILY IN ELIZABETH, NJ ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 16TH, AT 1PM
One week after their home was raided, and they were arrested, two members of the Siraj family have an immigration bond hearing set for Tuesday, January 16th, at 1pm at Elizabeth Detention Center.
At 5am on the morning of January 9th, 2007, upwards of ten ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officers raided the Queens home of and arrested three members (father, mother, and daughter) of the Siraj family, a tight-knit Pakistani family that has been caught up in the U.S. "War on Terror's" most recent act of racial and religious profiling. Tuesday's deplorable raid on the home of an innocent family is amongst dozens of other targeted, prejudiced sweeps across the country that are tearing Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities apart. The arrests occurred less than 12 hours after their young son, Shahawar Matin Siraj, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for alleged terrorism-related charges emerging from a clandestine NYPD-paid informant's entrapment. The father said that after the sentence was given, they "went to sleep at night and woke to this nightmare."
ICE officials are currently falsely reporting that the family was arrested on immigration-related charges and that the father's appeal for an asylum case was "denied." The reality is that the father's appeal is still pending in the Second Circuit Court and has not been decided, and that the mother and teenage daughter do not have any immigration cases or deportation orders pending against them. Given the high-profile media attention on their son's case, in which there were many underhanded legal irregularities and rights violations, these arrests are being seen by the community as an attempt to silence and make an example of the family through harassment. The family maintains that their son was ensnared by an NYPD informant, evidence of which the court did not properly consider, resulting in an unfair trial and sentencing. The family has filed a notice of appeal for their son's case. The mother said that "this is a systematic targeting of Muslims, a political attack on a peaceful familyâ€”and we have been caught in the middle of it. We have not gotten any justice and will continue to speak the truth. We will continue to struggle with patience and courage."
Both the father and the mother have ongoing and severe medical conditions, and require medical care in a safe and healthy environment. All three family members are currently being held at Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, NJ , where the mother and daughter have not been allowed to see or talk to the father. By separating the family in three different places, "they are breaking our family apart," said the mother from the Detention Center.
DRUM, as a community based organization that works with Muslim and South Asian immigrants and has seen the targeting of this community before and especially after 9/11, is calling on all concerned individuals and organizations to support the immediate release of the Siraj family. DRUM, alongside countless civil and human-rights organizations and concerned citizens will continue to expose the ongoing injustices of the "War on Terror" against this family and all targeted communities.

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National Immigrant Solidarity NetworkNo Immigrant Bashing! Support Immigrant Rights!webpage: http://www.ImmigrantSolidarity.orge-mail: info@ImmigrantSolidarity.orgNew York: (212)330-8172Los Angeles: (213)403-0131Washington D.C.: (202)595-8990

Time Magazine has named immigrant rights activist Elvira Arellano as one of their people of the year.

2007-01-14T18:36:00.000-08:00

"The time has come for usto civilize ourselvesby the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
Time Magazine has named immigrant rights activistElvira Arellano as one of their people of the year. For the past 5 months, she has actively disobeyed anorder by the Department of Homeland Security to turnherself in for deportation.http://www.time.com/time/personoftheyear/2006/people/3.html
In 2002, Elvira became a public figure here inChicago. She was working as a cleaning woman andarrested with 53 immigrant employees at O'Hareairport. This was a specific Department of HomelandSecurity post-9/11 raid named "Operation Chicago LandSkies." There have never been any official claimsthat these arrested workers were terrorists and manyof them have not been heard from. But shortly afterher arrest, Elvira began her campaign of speaking outfor the rights of undocumented workers.
The U.S. immigration system is broken (and health careand education and social security). And this is nosurprise. Our government has never handed out change.People have had to demand change again and again: theright to vote, to unionize, to have an abortion. Inall of these cases, individuals have stepped forwardto test the system and create a historical record forchange.
"....reality is really a process,undergoing constant transformation."
-- Paulo Freire,Pedagogy of the Oppressed
What is the responsibility of an activist? Moreimportantly, what are our responsibilities to eachother? To the communities where we live, create, andteach? At the city college and in the public schools,I ask my poetry students (mostly immigrant and black)to take risks in their writing. To question uses oflanguage. To rethink metaphors. I expect andcertainly hope their ideas will not just stay on thepage. Taking risks also means taking risks in oureveryday lives.
The U.S. policy of uberconsumersim/globalcapitalismhas created extreme economic inequality around theworld. According to the United Nations, 60% ofimmigration represents people moving from poorcountries to richer countries. People are desperatelyrisking their lives and willing to break laws. Yet,most Americans do not complain about illegal practiceswhile they are paying in cash for any of the leisureservices (gardeners, nannies, bus boys, prostitutes)provided by undocumented workers. If one is lookingfor accountability, the powers that run theinternational economy are a good place to start.
"....the economy is a set of shared social practices,ideas, and institutions that are created, maintained,and reproduced by people....Progress towards economicjustice is not inevitable; it is won by people throughtheir work, individually and collectively, to betterthe economic practices and institutions they haveinherited from the past."
-- Teresa Amott and Julie Matthaie,Race, Gender, & Work
With Revolutionary Optimism,Jennifer Karmin

Cactus, TX: Urgent Help for Families And Their Deported Relatives at Swift Raid!

2007-01-14T18:35:00.000-08:00

1/13: Cactus, TX: Urgent Help for Families And Their Deported Relatives at Swift Raid!
From: vividallas1@yahoo.com To Whom it May Concern, A group of activist traveled to Cactus, Texas on December 27 to find out about the events that took place on December the 12th regarding the deportation of Swift employees. I am writing to you because our visit to Cactus has left us with a mission to help 400 families who have been left behind and have not heard from their deported relatives.I wrote an article, which I am enclosing with this message and I would like to find out if there is a way we could get your organization to join us in the efforts to help this community in great need. Thank you Viviana HallDallas, Texas
Where is my dad? The struggle of MANY CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND!
Christmas has come and gone, but for approximately 250 children in Cactus, Texas, Christmas was just another day going to bed wonderingâ€¦ where were their parents? On December 12, 2006 immigration authorities, wearing black masks and carrying machine guns, seized the Swift meat packing plant. Employees were taken and their children left without their father or mother. In some cases they are missing both. Local residents and activists have been organizing humanitarian efforts to provide for these childrenâ€™s basic needs, but what could possibly fulfill the need for these children to be in the heart of their WHOLE family?
15 days later, on December 27, we decided to take the almost 8 hour trip from Dallas to Cactus to learn firsthand about this heart breaking story. It was amazing to learn that out of the 400 families affected by the December 12 events, only a small number have had contact with their loved ones; most of them do not know where they are We spoke with Guatemalan indigenous women whose husbands were taken away on that day. Only one of them had received a call from her husband, a native Guatemalan, who reported being dropped off at Juarez, Mexico. His lack of ability to speak Spanish (Quiche is his native language) and the fact that he has no knowledge of the Mexican system, or the city of Juarez, has made it impossible for him to do anything to reunite his family. This young mother, holding their baby in her back, shared with us that she would be too scared to go with him since he has never been there beforeâ€¦. He is not in Guatemala.
Mercedes Rodriguez, a local civic activist, has opened a donation center where near one hundred families receive food, clothes, and other basic needs on behalf of the children who have been left with no household provider. Catholic churches located at near-by towns such as Dumas and Amarillo are operating other donation centers. Father Juan Garza coordinates the efforts from these churches, which help close to 300 families where children have been LEFT BEHIND. This group includes families of workers who use to travel to Cactus to work, but lived in the surrounding areas. Father Juan reports that the situation is more than sad, itâ€™s terrible, he said. Imagine the chaos! Babysitters and local elders who are already impacted by poverty, are caring for children who lost both parents, while single mothers are soon to ran out of the financial means to pay for the sites they currently occupy. In a short amount of time these 400 families will be homeless and if their main providers canâ€™t be contacted, who is going to pay for their expenses? Whatâ€™s going to happen when the children are expected to go back to school next week? The separation of these families is a criminal act, but much more complicated issues are also arising. For starters, not knowing any NEWS from those who were forced to leave their children behind means this situation is going to extend for a very long period of time. How are these people supposed to be reunited with their loved ones when they donâ€™t even know where they are?
These and many other questions need to be answered. They are core human rights issues. Humanitarian efforts need to double and if the whole Texas community responds with love and compassion for these children, perhaps they will grow up remembering this event not as what it really is: the most cruel and depressing part of their lives, but as one full of memories of warmth, support, and the tender loving care that characterizes our Nation under God. On January 14 we celebrate immigrant day. It would be great if we could get support to help these children and make January 14 the deadline to bring donations and money. We Need Your Donations! The donations can be sent to: St. Peter & Paul Church Children FundP. O. Box 503Dumas, TX 79029Attention Priest Juan Antonio cell 806-930-5283. The phone of Imelda Maldonado is 806-570-1540. To raise funds there is going to be a party on January 27th in Cactus, TX. The tickets are $10.00 each or $15.00 at the door. In Dallas we are planning to buy several tickets even though we will not be able to go. If you want to buy the tickets send the check to the address above to the St. Peter and Paul Church Children's Fund. Imelda has all the information. The money from the donations will be used to buy food, help the families to pay bills and buy bus tickets for the families affected by the deportation. Some of these families want to go back to Mexico or Guatemala. Sincerely, Mireya Davidson

Just Say "NO!"

2007-01-12T07:44:00.000-08:00

Bush pitches Iraq plan to Egypt, Jordan http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070112/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq_213

Welcome to AFDAN

2007-01-10T12:33:00.000-08:00

AFDAN (American Families of Deported and Detained Arab Nationals) is for those who are concerned with or whose loved ones have been deported, who were or are being detained, or for those who know of a family in this situation--of any nationality. Group deportation is not new. It happened to Mexican farm workers in the 1950's and to Japanese Americans in the 1940's. If you would like to voice your opinion on this issue, please do so here. Everyone is welcome to join. Everyone is welcome to post messages. However, the messages are moderated to avoid the inevitable spam.