Wave of migrants becomes Rousseff’s latest headache
By: Carolina Barros

Haiti has become the biggest Latin American headache for Brazil: a chronic headache, unlike the self-inflicted year-long migraine brought by Honduras — that faux-pas and intervention in Central America’s politics in 2009 when the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa housed the deposed Mel Zelaya for various months.
Although Dilma Rousseff’s government is “retreating” from Haiti (a gradual reduction in humanitarian troops was announced by Defence Minister Celso Amorim, plus the waning of enthusiasm shown by Brazilian multi-nationals for building reconstruction projects after the January 2010 earthquake), Haitians are the ones that don’t want to break that bond. In other words: a wave of thousands of illegal Haitian immigrants has been trying to enter Brazil.
The reasons for the migration are clearly visible: Haiti, Latin America’s poorest country, with the most barren wasteland, which in addition has been further devastated by a furious earthquake followed by a cholera epidemic and with the cyclical karma of an apparently irredeemable tendency toward mendacity, sees in Brazil a promised land of abundance, health, prosperity and work. It is for these reasons that nearly 7,000 Haitians entered Brazil as from mid-2011, according to official figures. Of this number, only 1650 obtained temporary visas from Brazilian authorities, granting them the right to work for six months, with the possibility of renewing the same right for a further 18 months (yesterday, the Brazilian Justice ministry announced that it would grant another 2400). The rest of those inmigrants, without question, fall into the category of “illegals”, “poachers” or that semantic limbo (that does not ensure legality) of “humanitarian residents” inaugurated by Brazil ’s National Refugees Committee (Conare).

The arrival of these desperate Haitians presents a problem for Rousseff’s government: unlike Bolivia and Peru, Brazil allows Haitians to enter the country without restrictions for a lapse of 90 days. The comparison is apt because it is from the triple border with Peru (Iñapari) and Bolivia (Cobija) where the Caribbean immigrants enter Brazil, arriving in Brasilea, in the Western and Amazonian state of Acre. The other “sieve” for those entering is on another triple border: through Tabatinga, also in the midst of the Amazonian jungle, and bordering Peru and Colombia.

No wonder, as well, that those tides of Haitian immigrants are using the same entrance route as drug-traffickers — and the same as mafias. Apparently, according to the Brazilian media, those responsible for the “facilitation” of the routes and entrance of Haitians are Mexican criminal organizations, with experience in passing illegals accross the US border. From Port-aû-Prince, and after coughing up between US$ 3000- 5000 a head to the Mexican gangs, the Haitians cross to Panama and from there taken by bus to Peru and Bolivia after crossing Colombia and Ecuador.

The “coyotes”, or recruiters, assure their Haitian clients that they have over 5,000 jobs awaiting them at the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam in Pará state. But these are just promises: packed together and starving, the Haitians arrive in Brasilea, Assis and Tabatinga, the “receptor” cities for the immigrants.
Brazilian authorities have already met several times with their counterparts in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Colombia to try to limit the arrival of the Caribbean immigrants. All of the border countries said they had a tradition of “free transit” and that they would not intervene or restrain the immigrant wave. The Bolivians and Peruvians also stated that they could not provide humanitarian assistance before the Haitians cross into Brazil. The importance of the issue is such that it will be discussed again, this time by Dilma Rousseff, on February 1 in the Haitian capital when she meets with President Michel Martelly.

At the same time, prosperous Brazil has picked up on other groups entering through its porous and extensive Amazonian border: there are Afghans, Indonesians and Mauritians who, attracted by the possibility of being hired by meat processing companies in Brasilia, Minas Gerais and the Brazilian south, venture to these latitudes responding to the demand for Muslim employees to enable the slaughter and processing of beef to be exported to Islamic countries. Side effects of the Brazilian power-house which is today not only the largest country in South America — with the largest population and the largest middle class (almost 60%) — but also the world’s sixth largest economy and the main exporter of meat in Latin America.

Source: Buenos Aires Herald

By Davis, Clair
Proquest LLC

Caribbean Currents

Caribbean people who have been in the United States before the 1980s cannot even relate or understand the new rules when it comes to immigration. Why? It’s because the rules keep changing.

Back in the “good old days” when someone had a green card they could travel back and forth to the Caribbean and as long as they came back to the United States within a year everything was fine. Many people from the Caribbean and other countries obtain their permanent visa to the United States and don’t understand that there are rules governing their travel between their new home country (the USA) and other countries, especially their birthplace.

They return to the Caribbean and sometimes they get a little too comfortable, staying for more than the allotted amount of time. When they decide to return to the U.S. their permanent visa is revoked and they are given a visitor’s visa or in some cases, they have to return to their home country.

I was so surprised when I turned my radio to 900 AM radio to hear Attorney Andrea Clarke addressing this issue. She advised listeners who plan to have an extended stay (over six months) outside of the U.S. to get permission from the immigration department before leaving the country or there could be consequences when you return. She described situation where green cards were revoked and a visitor’s visa was issued.

Today it is very hard to live illegally in the United States; some who do not understand, live as if they are legal and do not have a care in the world.

The governments of all Caribbean countries have always encouraged their citizens to become a citizen of the U.S. They continue to reassure them that they will always be regarded as a citizen of the land of their birth.

Ladies and gentlemen keep this in mind. It is only gonna get harder. The cost of becoming a citizen keeps escalating and the new rules make it harder.

There are some Republican candidates running for the presidency and you should know their position on immigration. Some are taking a harder line than others.

Mitt Romney is considered to be on the “borderline” in his approach. He has been accused of hiring a landscaping company that he definitely knew had been using undocumented immigrant workers. His opponents pointed out that whiles he was the governor of Massachusetts, he signed a healthcare reform bill that allowed illegal immigrants to receive medical treatment. Romney argues that the bill did not draw illegal immigrants to Massachusetts. In addition, he pointed out that he was against drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants, no tuition breaks and seven months before he was out of office. His solution to the immigration problem is to build a fence along the USMexico border. He has been quoted to say that he is in favor or the HI-B visa where the best and the brightest can come here to work.

Newt Gingrich says that mass deportation is not the only way to deal with illegal immigration, he was quoted as follows: “I do not believe that people of the United States are going to take people who have been here a quarter century, who have children and grandchildren, who are members of the community, who may have done something 25 years ago, (and) separate them from their families, and expel them,” Gingrich said.

Herman Cain seems to be the harshest. Or is he? He reportedly said, “I just got back from China. Ever heard of the Great Wall of China? It looks pretty sturdy. And that sucker is real high. I think we can build one if we want to! We have put a man on the moon, we can build a fence! Now, my fence might be part Great Wall and part electrical technology. … It will bea twenty foot wall, barbed wire, electrified on the top, and on this side of the fence, I’ll have that moat that President Obama talked about. And I would put those alligators in that moat!”

Later on when he was confronted about this his response was, can’t you people take a joke, let a man have a sense of humor.

His come back was that the real solution to the problem is to secure the border by any means necessary, enforce the existing laws, promote the path of citizenship that is already in place, called legal immigration, and empower the states to deal with immigration issues.

Whoever is elected president in 2012, Democrat or Republican, the immigration issue will continue to be a hot button. We all need to stay informed because knowledge is power.

Copyright: (c) 2011 Philadelphia Tribune

Sixteen Latin American and Caribbean nations on Tuesday asked to join the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against South Carolina’s new immigration law amid fears it would lead to their citizens facing state-sanctioned discrimination.
Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, Ecuador and Chile were among the nations filing papers Tuesday, asking to join the litigation filed by the Justice Department last week in Charleston.

In the complaint, federal lawyers asked the court to stop the state from enforcing a law that takes effect in January. The measure would require law officers who make a traffic stop to call federal immigration officials if they suspect someone is in the country illegally. The measure bars officers from holding someone solely on that suspicion. Opponents railed against the measure as encouraging racial profiling.

The nations state in their filings that their relationships are with the United States and that relationship should not be affected by what states do. They’ve filed similar challenges to Alabama’s new law.

Mexico said it “has an interest in protecting its citizens and ensuring that their ethnicity is not used as the basis for state-sanctioned acts of bias and discrimination.”

That was a view shared in a separate request to join the litigation by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

Lawyers filing the papers referred questions to the Mexican embassy in Washington.

In a subsequent statement, the Mexican government said some of the law’s “provisions would criminalize immigration and could lead to the selective application of the law. Its enforcement could adversely affect the civil rights of Mexican nationals living in South Carolina or visiting that state.”

Mexico said it would “continue to make use of all available means and channels in order to firmly and immediately respond to any violation of the fundamental rights of Mexicans, regardless of their immigration status.”

In a request filed Monday seeking a permanent halt to the law, the Justice Department argues that only the federal government has the constitutional authority to enforce immigration laws.

South Carolina’s law also mandates that all businesses use an online system the U.S. government runs to check their new hires’ legal status. If they knowingly violate the law, they can lose their business license.

It also makes it a felony to create fake identifications or harbor illegal immigrants.

U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles in South Carolina said the law violates people’s right to due process and is unconstitutional.

The Justice Department is challenging similar laws in Alabama and Arizona and is reviewing them in Utah, Indiana and Georgia.

They argue the state laws divert resources from efforts to fight terrorism, drug smuggling and gang activity and will bring harassment and detention of foreign visitors, legal immigrants or U.S. citizens who can’t immediately prove their legal status.

But supporters say the state laws wouldn’t be necessary if the federal government would do its job of enforcing the law.

Rob Godfrey, Gov. Nikki Haley’s spokesman, said Tuesday that the governor wouldn’t back down in the face of lawsuits and challenges.

“The governor’s job is to protect the citizens of South Carolina. That’s what she’s doing, and she isn’t going to stop no matter who decides to sue her, whether it be the unions, the ACLU, DOJ or anyone else,” Godfrey said.

CHICAGO (ELCA) – Nearly 60 of 65 synod bishops of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) expressed their concern over new state
immigration laws in Nov. 2 letters to President Barack Obama and members
of Congress. In their letter, the synod bishops asked that both Congress
and the administration work together on a complete federal overhaul of
the U.S. immigration system and offered provisions for what the reform
should entail.

The synod bishops said federal reform should restore trust in
communities and include:
+ An earned pathway to lawful permanent residency and eventual U.S.
citizenship for immigrants and their families who learn English and pay
back taxes.
+ Expeditious reunification of families and protection against separating
families.
+ Expansion of legal avenues for workers to allow immigrants to migrate
to the United States in a safe and legal manner.
+ Decreased use of immigration detention, improvement in detention
conditions with increased access to medical assistance, pastoral care and
legal council and the increased use of community-based programs that
assist immigrants who do need to be incarcerated.
+ Improved border policies that treat all individuals with respect and
allow the U.S. government to focus on individuals involved in the
trafficking of people, drugs, weapons or other dangerous people seeking
entry.
+ Increased programs and resources to help immigrants participate fully
in U.S. social and civic life.

“The fair treatment of immigrants is a core religious value and
welcoming the stranger is welcoming a child of God,” wrote the synod
bishops.

Six U.S. states have passed immigration laws that are “shortsighted
and misguided,” the synod bishops wrote. Because this church values
family unity, justice, equity, compassion and the humane treatment of all
people, the synod bishops said they are concerned that the individual
immigration laws of each state “damage the social fabric of our
communities.”

“We are particularly troubled by the laws which would criminalize
churches, church ministries and church members that serve all people who
need assistance – regardless of their immigration status,” they wrote.

“The ELCA believes and teaches that all people are created in the
image of God and are beloved of God. In our scriptures, we are instructed
to care for the stranger and to love the immigrant living among us,” they
wrote, adding that the ELCA carries out social ministry programs,
initiates programs to aid all God’s people and partners with Lutheran
Immigration and Refugee Service.

Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service is one of the nation’s
leading agencies in welcoming and advocating for refugees and immigrants.
Based in Baltimore, it works on behalf of the ELCA, The Lutheran Church-
Missouri Synod and the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The letters to the president and Congress were initiated by Bishop
H. Julian Gordy of the ELCA Southeastern Synod, Atlanta, and Bishop
Michael W. Rinehart of the ELCA Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod, Houston.

“I am overjoyed that so many of our leaders are willing to speak
boldly for immigrants,” said Rinehart.

“This is a key moral issue of our day. Are we going to welcome the
stranger or are we not? Will we be the city on the hill or a mean-
spirited gated-country for the elite? Will our laws make immigration
impossible through exorbitant fees, racist quotas and decade-long waiting
periods? I hope not. The America most of us know and love has open arms
for huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” said Rinehart.

Gordy said he’s grateful that “our church has spoken clearly on
behalf of immigrants living among us, both in this letter, signed by a
large majority of our bishops and in the actions of our Churchwide
Assembly in August. It is appropriate that the church, which counts
migrants like Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Miriam and the wandering
Hebrews as its spiritual ancestors and the migrant infant Jesus as it’s
Lord, speak against and resist these unhelpful state laws, passed in the
absence of comprehensive immigration reform.”

“Since the passing of anti-immigration legislation in Alabama and
Georgia, two of the states in the synod I serve, undocumented and
documented immigrants are leaving our communities and our congregations
to move to more immigrant friendly states,” Gordy said. “This exodus does
harm to our communities, farms and businesses. Such state laws do not
succeed in addressing our immigration crisis. They do, however, succeed
in fostering a spirit of hostility, suspicion and ethnic discrimination
in our communities. Our immigrant church must speak out and resist these
laws.”

The ELCA synod bishops’ letters follow two Nov. 1 letters sent to
the president and members of Congress by ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S.
Hanson, who serves on Obama’s advisory council on Faith-based and
Neighborhood Partnerships.

The 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly voted to “declare its support of
and encouragement for all efforts to prevent the enactment of punitive
and unjust federal and state laws that target immigrants.” This action
also calls for leaders of this church to support comprehensive U.S.
immigration reform and the DREAM Act (the Development, Relief and
Education for Alien Minors Act), legislation that would provide a path
for citizenship for undocumented high school graduates.

The churchwide assembly is the ELCA’s highest legislative authority
serving on behalf of the ELCA’s 4.2 million members.

The full text of the synod bishops’ letters is available at
http://www.ELCA.org/immigration.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Derrick Cotterel was a farmworker who came to the United States from Jamaica, picking citrus in Florida and apples in West Virginia for 10 years, before a pay dispute with a landscaping employer led to his arrest last year on robbery charges.

Given his long-expired visa, the arrest landed Cotterel in immigration custody in York, Pa. But judges there struggled for nearly a year to understand his request for political asylum.

Cotterel, 42, speaks a Jamaican patois, or Creole, that might alone be difficult for Americans to grasp. But his speech is further compromised by a severe stutter that makes him nearly impossible to understand.

This undated photo provided by the West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority shows Derrick Cotterel. Cotterel, a Jamaican farmworker detained for more then a year for overstaying his visa, had no lawyer to speak for him in court despite a severe stutter that made it impossible for a judge to understand him, the ACLU of Pennsylvania is argueing in a case before the Board of Immigration Appeals. (AP Photo/West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility Authority)

Nor can he read or write. So many of his thoughts remain trapped inside of him.

“Me can, me can, me can … ” Cotterel once stammered to an immigration judge charged with deciding his case. “I said me can’t say what (indiscernible). Please, sir, I say I can’t tell you what I want to tell you about.”

Unlike criminal defendants, immigration detainees like Cotterel have no right to free counsel. So Cotterel sat in the York County Prison, where about 700 detained immigrants are housed with 1,700 convicted or suspected criminals, from July 2010 until May while frustrated judges continued his bail and asylum hearings.

One judge tried to toss him only yes-or-no questions about his political asylum claim, and asked Cotterel to raise his left or right hand, depending on his response.

On May 18, Judge Andrew Arthur tried another tack. He asked two fellow inmates from Jamaica to translate. That worked to a point, though Arthur was not always sure whose answer was being relayed to him.

One inmate-translator told the judge that police had failed to investigate the killing of Cotterel’s brother “because of the political activity.”

“Did he say that or did you say that?” Arthur asked.

York immigration lawyer Craig R. Shagin is frequently asked to take cases pro bono, but can only take a few, and chooses those he thinks have merit. He recently agreed to help Cotterel – who lost his asylum bid – with his appeal. He believes his client could be killed if he returns to Jamaica.

“These types of cases, you basically have death-penalty consequences while employing traffic-court procedures. It’s very frightening,” Shagin said.

—

Immigrants have every right to hire counsel or find pro bono lawyers to take their cases, noted spokeswoman Elaine Komis of the U.S. Executive Office for Immigration Review. And immigrant aid groups get government funding to inform detainees of their rights.

But few have the money to hire lawyers, and there are a finite number of immigration lawyers near York, which is two hours west of Philadelphia. So 84 percent of detained immigrants go it alone, according to Angela Eveler, director of the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center in York.

“The need for legal services in the immigration detention system far outweighs the capacity of nonprofit legal services organizations. It has become a legal and humanitarian crisis,” Eveler said.

Judge Arthur, who presided over most of Cotterel’s hearings, had called the American Civil Liberties Union on May 10 – as he delayed another hearing – to ask them to represent him.

The ACLU has a single immigration lawyer in York, Valerie Burch, who works out of her home. The ACLU agreed to file a friend-of-the-court brief that argues for the government to provide lawyers to disabled immigrants, based on fairness and disability law. The group has a similar class-action lawsuit pending in California that seeks to guarantee lawyers for mentally ill immigrants.

In Cotterel’s case, they also want the government to provide a speech professional to determine whether an electronic device or other tools could help him communicate to the court.

“Mr. Cotterel found himself ordered removed from the United States at a hearing that he could not meaningfully participate in,” the ACLU wrote.

—

Cotterel, a brawny man, has supported himself mostly as a farmer and fisherman – jobs that don’t require communication skills. In Jamaica, he lived with his brother for a time, until the brother was killed.

“He told me he never gotten government benefits. He has always supported himself,” Burch said. “He takes great pride in that.”

After exhausting exchanges between Cotterel, Arthur and the two inmate-translators on May 18, Cotterel disclosed that two brothers had been killed in what he deemed politically fueled violence. His family belonged to the Peoples’ National Party, and one brother handed out government contracts, he said.

Cotterel said he himself was injured and scarred in a 1998 machete attack. He said he fears being killed.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement lawyer, Jeffrey T. Bubier, was sympathetic, according to a hearing transcript.

“If I was him, I would be afraid of going back to Jamaica too, but I don’t think he’s established that more likely than not he’s going to be persecuted on account of any political opinions,” Bubier argued, citing the standard for asylum relief. “And (he) certainly hasn’t established that the government of Jamaica is going to torture him.”

Arthur concluded that Cotterel had testified credibly. But he was unconvinced of the political violence claim, and denied the asylum bid.

However, the judge seemed unsure of whether the “translators” amounted to a proper accommodation, and agreed to certify an appeal to the Bureau of Immigration Appeals.

—

This past week, ICE lawyers notified Shagin that they will not oppose the motion for another asylum hearing. The Bureau of Immigration Appeals will ultimately make that call.

Arthur had set bail at $1,500, but Cotterel’s friends in Martinsburg, W.Va., have so far scraped together just $900.

And now, there’s another hiccup to overcome: Cotterel was recently moved to state custody in West Virginia because he missed a court date in the robbery case while he was incarcerated in York. He has no prior convictions.

According to Shagin, the case stems from an argument that ensued when the landscaper, who was also Cotterel’s landlord, came to the apartment and said he wasn’t going to pay him.

“You take for granted how valuable the ability to speak is until you don’t have it,” Shagin said. “It’s particularly bad if you don’t have it and you’re being accused. You’re unable to give your side of the story.”

Cotterel has now spent 15 months behind bars.

“You can imagine how hard it is to be in a criminal prison, and having a handicap,” Shagin said. “It makes you very vulnerable.”

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