Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 10:39:23 -0600
To: immig@...
From: IRC Communications <communications@...>
Subject: [immig] Immigration Debate - Whose Side Are You On?

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Immigration News from IRC
“Forging local-global links for policy alternatives, strategic dialogue, and citizen action since 1979.”
http://www.irc-online.org
 
June 2, 2005
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Introducing a new paper from International Relations Center (IRC)

The Immigration Debate -
Whose Side Are You On?
By Tom Barry

Based on the immigration-terrorism connection, anti-immigrant groups have made inroads within the traditionally pro-immigrant neoconservative camp. Most of the leading neoconservatives, especially Jews and Catholics, have a strong sense of their immigrant origins. Moreover, the neoconservatives have regarded immigration flows of both cheap and skilled workers as an unmitigated benefit for U.S. corporations and hence the U.S. economy. However, neoconservatives are fierce opponents of affirmative action programs and government-sponsored bilingual educations and are also proponents of “Official English” laws. The 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror have caused many neocons to back away from their pro-immigrant posture.

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a neocon think tank that focuses almost exclusively on promoting an Israeli-centered U.S. foreign policy, includes Richard Lamm on its board of advisers. In an FDD policy paper, Lamm, the former Colorado governor who is one of the country’s most prominent cultural nationalists, reframed his restrictionist positions within the new framework of counterterrorism. Asserting that the 9/11 attacks forever changed “the nature of warfare” for the United States, Lamm, who also serves on the board of advisers of FAIR, warned, “America is now the battlefield and every American is a potential target.” We ignore this fact, he insists, at our peril. And “if we wish to respond to this new type of warfare,” he says, “we must confront the relationship between immigration and terrorism.”

Tom Barry is policy director of the International Relations Center (IRC), online at http://www.irc-online.org, and an associate of the IRC Americas Program.

See complete new IRC paper online at:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2005/0506immig.php

With printer-friendly PDF version at:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/pdf/0506immig.pdf

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Produced and distributed by the International Relations Center (IRC) http://www.irc-online.org

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Siri D. Khalsa
Outreach Coordinator
International Relations Center (IRC) http://www.irc-online.org
siri@... | 505.388-0208 vox | 505-388.0619 fax | P.O. Box 2178, Silver City, NM 88062
Home of IRC Americas Program | Foreign Policy In Focus | Right Web

"In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor -
the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the right of others."
 President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933

From: "Hank Ramey" <hankramey@...>
To: atlatlal@...
Subject: RE: Fwd: Re: 6/2005 - Nevada Minutemen Conference...report....did they notice who was changing the sheets, Cooking their conference meals, Cleaning up after them, Taking their cash??
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 22:10:28 -0700

Let's have one at UCLA on June 12, and Baldwin Park (Maine and Ramona) on
June 25.

>
>Great Idea...in Tucson next April...
>
>yeah with 2005 Conferences everytime and where ever the Minutemen have 100
>or more show up... a sort of Camp Out watch....Conference...for
>dialogue...
>
>They didn't have 700-800 as reported by CNN NYT WSJ...what lies...they
>perpetuate....
>
>And there was violence...pulling a loaded gun on innocent people is
>violent...
>
>Al Soto
>
>
>We should have our own f---ing immigrants rights convention. Any
>suggestions?
>

Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 14:07:55 -0700 (PDT)
From: Rosalio Munoz <rosalio_munoz@...>
Subject: More on Minutemen
To: *Aztlannet_Action <aztlannet_action@yahoogroups.com>

Rossana Cambron emailed this report she got from somewhere on the Minutemen

 

 

 Minutemen Show up in Fallbrook, CA

      Many people call it the tiny little town that time forgot, because of
it's small size and somewhat out of the way location from other urban
areas, and the sense it presents that nothing has changed in years:
Fallbrook, California is located in North County San Diego, off I-15,
just south of the Temecula checkpoint.  It is the capital of avocados,
which for decades have been picked by, who else, but Mexicans;
Mexicans who have been the back bone of the avocado industry by
serving as a cheap labor force, subjected to the exposure of cancer
causing chemicals, racism and what was referred to as, "Beaner
Bashing"(the brutal beating of lone walking Mexicans by gangs of
teenage Anglo youths) amongst other unjust and inhumane conditions.

      Fallbrook, California is also home to the KKK and Tom Metzker, a
Grand Dragon of the white hooded white supremacists.  It is also where
United Pride (a youth group) and Mexicanos Unidos en Defensa del
Pueblo (MUDP) were founded and are based, and have been politicizing
and working with the Mexican Community.  Where once white supremacists
were used to dealing with a humble, timid Mexican community through
antagonism, beatings and intimidation, it appears that the sleepy
little town of Fallbrook has shown, after all, that it has changed.
Gone are the days where Mexicans walked with their heads down not
knowing their rights: Gone are the days where Mexicans quietly bared
the humiliation.  In the quiet little town of Fallbrook a wake up call
has come.  Not just to the Mexican community which now also consists
of first, second, and third generations who have witnessed and lived
their parents' injustices, but also to the white community in general,
and more important, the white supremacists who live there.

      With the initiation of the minutemen in Arizona comes a new season of
attacks on Mexicans, as well as Latin- Americans.  Nothing new in a
land who's history has bared witness to the genocide of the North
American Indigenous population, the enslavement of the children of
Africa and the lynching, exploitation and theft of Mexicans and their
land.  After Arizona, Save Our State, an Oxnard racist clan hiding
behind political rhetoric and laws, feeling re-invigorated by the
minutemen, decide they will tear down a monument in Baldwin Park, CA
and fail, but succeed in catalyzing the Mexican community when about
800 strong face off against Save Our State.  Then came Garden Grove,
where a minuteman purposely tries to run over anti-minutemen
demonstrators with his van.  The police press no charges and instead
attack and arrest anti-minutemen demonstrators on various charges,
including, attempted murder with a water bottle.

      On June 4, 2005 the minutemen entered the town of Fallbrook early in
the morning.  There had been no prior warning to their arrival as
there was in the previous demonstrations.  Their objective; to stop
City Bank from allowing their Mexican patrons from using Mexican ID to
cash checks or open accounts.  They stood on the sidewalk on Main St.
next to Denny's with racist anti-Mexican signs.  There were reports
that they were intimidating and harassing a disabled Mexican man who
was walking down the sidewalk.  The man was forced into the street to
walk around them.  As their presence became noticed, the community
started coming out and cruising the streets causing street jams as
they exchanged words and gestures from their vehicles. 

Eventually someone contacted MUDP about the situation and several
members showed up across the street with their own signs.  At first
only four MUDP members stood there, but soon people from the community
started joinging the now growing group of Mexicans, including a couple
of City Bank employees.  The group had grown to about 25 people by the
time me and another MUDP member arrived at the scene.  We deliberately
walked through the minutemen contingency and exchanged words.  Unlike
the scene in Bell Gardens and Baldwin Park, there were no officers
between us and the minutemen.  Patrols were parked several blocks away
while a helicopter circled the sky, but no troops set up to keep us
apart.  As they exchanged words, they seemed to expect us to back off
and feel intimidated and antagonized, but we confronted them.  With no
officers to protect them, they stressed that they didn't want a
confrontation to their contingency and soon most of them began to
leave with their tail between their legs.  Across the street the crowd
was now over fifty with many tri-colored flags waving from the crowd
and the accumulating traffic which cruised back and forth on Main St.
and honked in our support.

We, eventually, joined the rest of the still growing crowd across the
street.  A few minutes later there were no minutemen left, although
several returned to take photos of the growing crowd.  At one point
Tom Metsker made a cameo appearance where the minutemen once stood
wearing a black cowboy hat and shorts instead of his white hood.  As
the crowd began to point and yell at him, he soon left.  Now where the
minutemen once stood, Mexicans occupied the space raising fists of
power into the air in support of the victory. 

But the crowd did not dissolve after the minutemen left.  It continued
to grow with kids, youths, parents and senior citizens.  Traffic
continued to honk and wave Mexican flags.  About 75% of traffic was
Mexican; the rest was white.  Most white people honked or made some
gesture of support for us with an occasional car flipping the crowd
off or yelling out comments like, "Mexicans
Suck." 

We then had a small rally where we could sum the confrontation up and
where community members could also express themselves and give their
views and opinions.  The crowd itself was energized and interested in
further organizing some kind of response to what had occurred.  After
the brief discussion, rather than end it, several people from the
community suggested we march down to the end of Main St. and Back to
the other side of the street. When we arrived at the end of Main St.
at a small market.  The owner brought out free water and drinks to the
crowd.  Then we marched back chanting and waving signs and flags.
During the entire process, vehicles continued to honk and wave flags
as others joined in the march.  By the time we returned the crowd had
grown to about 100.  MUDP then made a brief statement on how it is the
Mexican community which continues to be the back bone of the Fallbrook
economy and avocado industry and on how we are still living in an
unjust and racist system.  This could not have been said to soon as
the following incident illustrates it.

As everyone began to disperse and return to their vehicles, a car with
about five teenage high school girls pulls out of a driveway onto Main
St. waving tri-colored flags as it honks (as just about every other
vehicle is honking).  At this point a sheriff vehicle is driving by
and upon seeing the young ladies, pulls a U turn and stops them.  Me
and another MUDP member rush across the street into the small parking
lot where she is now stopped and the officer is at the young the
driver's window.  I get there just in time to hear the white officer
ask her if she has a license.  As she response something t o the
effect that she does, but that she has forgotten it with her parents,
the officer yells at her in a demeaning, condescending and authoritive
tone of voice, "SHUT UP!", before she could finish her sentence. 

At this point a crowd of people begins to gather while vehicles
continue to honk on the street.  We ask the driver from a distance
what the stop was for.  She states that it's for honking her horn.  At
that point the officer starts telling us to leave in a disrespectful
manner.  We respond by saying we are at a legal distance and have the
right to observe.  An MUDP member then demands that he treat the young
lady with respect and dignity.  While this is going on I call another
MUDP member to get over here with the video camera to document the
incident.  A young teenager brings out her own camera.  Once the
officer sees the cameras documenting his actions, his demeanor and
character changes.   Within moments after the officer calls for more
backup several other cop cars arrive almost instantly.  During this
time the crowd has grown to about 20 and is starting to make demands
of the officers.  Every time a vehicle honks, the crowd yells out
things like, "there goes another one, arrest him, too?," in a
sarcastic manner.  As the officers arrive and exit their cars, they
form a perimeter around the stopped vehicle.

By this time MUDP has contacted a lawyer who is giving legal advice on
how to handle the situation.  As the young lady is asked to sign the
ticket, she bravely stands on principle and says she will not sign,
because she believes she has not broken any law.  She makes this
decision knowing she will be handcuffed and arrested on the spot.  She
is then handcuffed as expected. Some of the officers seem
uncomfortable wanting the situation to be defused as the crowd
continues to get agitated.  Then a mobile phone is handed to the young
lady with the lawyer MUDP contacted on the other end.  The lawyer
advises her to sign and that it is not an admission of guilt.  She is
told that she could then take it on in court.  At some point the young
lady's parents arrive with her driver's license.  After learning and
observing how her daughter was being treated and the support she was
receiving from the community, he understood that her daughter had done
nothing wrong other than express herself in a peaceful and non-violent
manner.  Her parents were willing to stand by whatever principled
decision her daughter decided to take.

As the incident defused, the community was calling and asking when
there would be a mobilization at the sheriff station.  It was clear to
see that while the white supremacist minutemen were allowed their
rights of freedom of speech without any intervention by authorities,
the opposing target group, us Mexicans, weather we are US citizens or
legal residence, do not have the same rights or limited rights.  The
constitution does not apply to us; or has it ever?  Does manifest
destiny still prevail behind state policy?  Were we lucky some of us
were not arrested for carrying loaded water bottles?  It seems that
the state, instead of defending our rights, intimidates us from
exercising them.  In fact, an MUDP member noticed an unmarked vehicle,
with civilian dressed officers within. 

The reason we know they were officers, because one of the individual
inside the vehicle was in uniform at the Baldwin Park incident.  This
officer had harassed and tried to intimidate an MUDP member in Bell
Gardens and that's why the MUDP was able to identify who this plain
clothed officer was.  It is evident to see that law enforcement has
some kind of network or task force set up, specifically to deal with
us, but we only demand our rights and more important, we will not lay
down our self-respect, culture, pride, and more important, our dignity.

At this point MUDP is committed to struggle for our rights and
dignity and commits itself to organize against the new wave of attacks
against our community.  We will do this along side our community and
with our community's participation.  We are planning a meeting with
the resident of Fallbrook to see what coarse of action will be taken
as a response to the selective targeting of Mexicans by the local
sheriffs, as well as the minutemen.  We are also networking with other
organizations throughout San Diego, Orange, and Los Angeles, Riverside
and San Bernardino Counties. 

If you are interested in joining our struggle and participating, or
can and are willing to help and support our struggle, contact us.  We
can use your help in various ways, from manpower, to outreach, to
legal services, to donations, or any other forms support.

We must use creative and effective methods of struggle in our fight
for a dignified way of life. 

QUE VIVA NUESTRO PUEBLO!

Contact information:
www.mudp.org
    Mexicanos Unidos en Defensa del Pueblo
    202 Ammunition Dr. #38
    Fallbrook, CA 92028

Fallbrook and San Diego:
Office: 760-451-1754
Ricardo Favela:
760-478-4519
ricardo@... or

Yesenia Favela:
760-468-4518
yesenia@...

Riverside:
951-288-8319
hector@...

Los Angeles:
626-806-4686
fro@...