Political Report # 1423 Sweeping Language in Asylum Agreement Foists U.S. Responsibilities onto El Salvador by  John Washington, The Intercept

Amid a tightening embrace of Trump administration policies, last week El Salvador agreed to begin taking asylum-seekers sent back from the United States. The agreement was announced on Friday but details were not made public at the time. The text of the agreement — which The Intercept requested and obtained from the Department of Homeland Security — purports to uphold international and domestic obligations “to provide protection for eligible refugees,” but immigration experts see the move as the very abandonment of the principle of asylum. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy analyst at American Immigration Council, called the agreement a “deeply cynical” move. The agreement, which closely resembles one that the U.S. signed with Guatemala in July, implies that any asylum-seeker who is not from El Salvador could be sent back to that country and forced to seek asylum there. Although officials have said that the agreements would apply to people who passed through El Salvador or Guatemala en route, the text of the agreements does not explicitly make that clear. “This agreement is so potentially sweeping that it could be used to send an asylum-seeker who never transited El Salvador to El Salvador,” said Eleanor Acer, senior director of refugee protection at the nonprofit organization Human Rights First. DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Guatemalan deal has yet to take effect, as Guatemala’s Congress claims to need to ratify it first. DHS officials are currently seeking a similar arrangement with Honduras and have been pressuring Mexico — under threats of tariffs — to crack down on U.S.-bound migration. The agreement with El Salvador comes after the Supreme Court recently upheld the Trump administration’s most recent asylum ban, which requires anyone who has transited through another country before reaching the border to seek asylum there first, and be denied in that country, in order to be eligible for asylum in the U.S. Meanwhile, since January, more than 42,000 asylum-seekers who filed their claims in the U.S. before the ban took effect have been pushed back into Mexico and forced to wait there — where they have been subjected to kidnapping, rape, and extortion, among other hazards — as the courts slowly weigh their eligibility. Reichlin-Melnick called the U.S.-El Salvador deal “yet another sustained attack at our system of asylum protections.” It begins by invoking the international Refugee Convention and the principle of non-refoulement, which is the crux of asylum law — the guarantee not to return asylum-seekers to a country where they would be subjected to persecution or death. Karen Musalo, law professor at U.C. Hastings Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, called that invocation “Orwellian.” “The idea that El Salvador is a safe country for asylum-seekers when it is one of the major countries sending asylum-seekers to the U.S., a country with one of the highest homicide and femicide rates in the world, a place in which gangs have control over large swathes of the country, and the violence is causing people to flee in record numbers … is another absurdity that is beyond the pale,” Musalo said. “El Salvador is not a country that is known for having any kind of protection for its own citizens’ human rights,” Musalo added. “If they can’t protect their own citizens, it’s absolutely absurd to think that they can protect people that are not their citizens.” “They’ve looked at all of the facts,” Reichlin-Melnick said. “And they’ve decided to create their own reality.” Last week, the Salvadoran newspaper El Faro reported that the country’s agency that reviews asylum claims only has a single officer. Meanwhile, though homicide rates have gone down in recent months — since outsider president Nayib Bukele took office in June — September has already seen an increase in homicides. Bukele’s calculus in accepting the agreement is still opaque to Salvadoran observers (Guatemala’s version was deeply unpopular in that country), but he has courted U.S. investment and support. The legal status of nearly 200,000 Salvadorans with temporary protected status in the U.S. is also under threat from the administration. This month also saw the symbolic launch of El Salvador’s Border Patrol — with U.S. funding and support. This week, Bukele, who has both sidled up to Trump and employed Trumpian tactics, will meet with the U.S. president in New York to discuss immigration. Reichlin-Melnick noted that the Guatemalan and Salvadoran agreements, as written, could bar people not only from seeking asylum, but also from two other protections meant to fulfill the non-refoulement principle: withholding of removal (a stay on deportation) and the Convention Against Torture, which prevents people from being returned to situations where they may face torture. That would mean that these Central American cooperation agreements go further than the recent asylum ban, which still allows people to apply for those other protections. Another major difference between the asylum ban and these agreements is that with the asylum ban, people would be deported to their home countries. If these agreements go into effect, the U.S. will start sending people to Guatemala or El Salvador, regardless of where they may be from. In the 1980s, the ACLU documented over 100 cases of Salvadorans who were harmed or killed after they were deported from the U.S. After this agreement goes into effect, it will no longer be just Salvadorans who the U.S. will be sending into danger. Original article can be found (here). URL:      Click here for article

Political Report # 1422 U.S. announces asylum deal with Honduras, could send migrants to one of world's most violent nations

Political Report # 1422 U.S. announces asylum deal with Honduras, could send migrants to one of world's most violent nations by  Nick Miroff, The Washington Post

The Trump administration announced a migration deal Wednesday that will give U.S. immigration authorities the ability to send asylum seekers from the border to Honduras, one of the most violent and unstable nations in the world. Department of Homeland Security officials reached the accord with the government of President Juan Orlando Hernández, who is embroiled in allegations of government corruption and charges that he and others have been operating the nation as a criminal enterprise — Hernández has been named as a co-conspirator in a major U.S. drug trafficking case. The deal paves the way for the United States to take asylum seekers from the U.S. border and ship them to a nation with one of the highest murder rates in the world, a country with gang wars that have fueled waves of mass migration and multiple “caravans” to the United States that became a major irritant to President Trump. More than 250,000 Hondurans have crossed the U.S. border during the past 11 months alone, many filing protection claims that have added to the soaring number of asylum cases clogging U.S. courts. That DHS would enter into such an accord with the Honduran government a month after its president was named by U.S. prosecutors as a co-conspirator in a drug case is a sign of the Trump administration’s eagerness to armor the U.S. immigration system against a new surge of Central Americans. Last week, DHS Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan signed a similar deal with El Salvador, after reaching an accord with the government of Guatemala in July. None of those pacts have been implemented, but once in place, U.S. officials say they will have the ability to redirect asylum applicants from the U.S. border to the same three countries that accounted for the vast majority of unlawful migration. McAleenan and other U.S. officials said asylum seekers should try to find refuge “as close to home” as possible, rather than embarking on the long and often dangerous trip to the United States. A senior DHS official who described the Honduras agreement to reporters Wednesday said that the accord would allow the United States to redirect asylum seekers to the countries through which they transit while on the way to the United States — if they failed to seek protection in those countries first. An asylum seeker from Nicaragua or Venezuela, for example, would be asked to choose among Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador as places to seek protection, under the scenario the senior DHS official described. Immigration attorneys and rights advocates have denounced the DHS agreements as a flagrant abrogation of long-standing U.S. legal protections extended to those fleeing persecution. Trump administration officials have acknowledged that their goal is to deter migrants from using U.S. humanitarian programs as a way to avoid detention and deportation at the border. “If you don’t have integrity in the system, if you can’t effectuate immigration results as people arrive at the border, and they’re invited to come up with a promise they’ll be released into the next country, they’re going to keep coming,” McAleenan said Wednesday on Fox News. McAleenan has made several trips to Honduras in recent months seeking a deal, and he met with Hernandez and other senior officials on Aug. 27 in Washington. DHS officials say the agreement will be key to unlocking U.S. investment and a renewed commitment to job creation and growth in the region. The acting DHS secretary also hosted Honduras’ first lady, Ana García Carías, during a border tour in June, making a personal appeal to her government and others in the region for help stemming a record influx of Central American families at the border. DHS officials say the accord signed with Honduras also will expand information-sharing and improve cooperation targeting transnational criminal organizations. Hernández, the Honduran president, was accused by U.S. prosecutors in New York last month of conspiring with other top officials to protect cocaine traffickers, including a crime ring allegedly led by the president’s younger brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández. U.S. prosecutors described the president’s brother as a “a violent, multi-ton drug trafficker” after taking him into custody in Miami last year. He has pleaded not guilty to weapons and drug charges. The charges include claims that about $1.5 million in drug money was used to finance Hernández’s 2013 presidential campaign, paying for bribes and gifts to politicians who provided their support. President Hernández has denied the charges. Asked whether the Trump administration took the pending charges into account while hashing out the migration accord with Hernández, the senior DHS official declined to answer. Original article can be found (here). URL:      Click here for article

Abstract, Marking “Preemptive Suspects”: Migration, Bodies, and Exclusion

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Marking “Preemptive Suspects”: Migration, Bodies, and Exclusion
by Seth M. Holmes 


The dynamics of inclusion and exclusion are central to public perceptions and policy responses to transnational immigrants, including those arriving from Latin America in the United States. Scholars have shown in various contexts that even official inclusion by a nation-state involves important gradations of exclusion on social, economic, political, and symbolic levels (e.g., Blommaert and Verschueren, 1998; Castañeda, 2012). Social scientists have analyzed the metaphors through which different variations of exclusion are promoted and enacted, including the dichotomy of the undeserving voluntary economic migrant versus the (relatively) deserving forced political refugee (e.g., Holmes, 2013; Holmes and Castañeda, 2016; Yarris and Castañeda, 2015). Lynn Stephen analyzes the “preemptive suspect” as a metaphor of exclusion in the treatment of unaccompanied Central American minors arriving in the United States in 2014. She builds on her previous work on indigenous Mexican families (2007), resistance (2002; 2005; 2013), and transborder life (2007), synthesizing and organizing substantial scholarship and placing it in historical context. At the same time, her diverse experiences as ethnographer, activist, expert witness, and comadre add local color and thick description to her rigorous analysis. She develops her analysis explicitly in honor of Michael Kearney, who examined theoretical understandings of immigration and conducted ethnographic work focused on indigenous Mexican migrants in the United States and especially on their health (e.g., Kearney, 1986; Kearney and Nagengast, 1989). His focus on health, health care, and bodies seems especially important here. After all, for many transnational migrants the gradations of exclusion encountered in the process of displacement can easily become a matter of life and death. 

Abstract, Commentary: The U.S.-Mexican Border, Immigration, and Resistance

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Commentary: The U.S.-Mexican Border, Immigration, and Resistance
by María L. Cruz-Torres



Border crossing and its implications for both indigenous communities in Mexico and Mexican communities in the United States were at the heart of my late colleague Michael Kearney’s research, personal commitment, and activism. He sought to understand the movement of people in global and transnational spaces. Contributing to Michael’s legacy, Lynn Stephen’s article raises many important issues that provide us with a broad historical and contemporary perspective on the movement of people across borders. Her discussion begins with the immigration policies of the 1980s under the Reagan administration and ends with those of the Obama administration, both of which have permitted and prohibited the entry of people into the country by creating and implementing a set of legally ambiguous categories for labeling, separating, and stigmatizing people. The underlying laws, regulations, and policies have led to racial profiling or what Stephens calls the “differential perception” of an entire population based on physical appearance, gender, ethnicity, language, or degree of cultural and social assimilation.

Abstract, Creating Preemptive Suspects: National Security, Border Defense, and Immigration Policy, 1980–Present

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Creating Preemptive Suspects: National Security, Border Defense, and Immigration Policy, 1980–Present
by Lynn Stephen 


Analysis of U.S. immigration, border defense, and national security policies and their impact on individuals, families, and communities from Mexico and Central America who have migrated or fled to the United States as refugees since the mid-1980s suggests that through immigration programs such as Prevention through Deterrence, the United States has crafted a set of policies that creates “preemptive suspects”—categories of people from Central America and Mexico that may be systematically excluded as dangerous, criminal, undeserving, and less valuable than U.S. citizens.

Latest LAP Issue!

Immigrants, Indigenous People, and Workers Pursuing Justice

Issue 223 | Volume 45 | Number 6 | November 2018

Table of Contents

This issue of Latin American Perspectives includes several key clusters of current topics that are very much in the forefront of political discussion.  These are: immigration, indigenous rights, labor, and politics.  Within each cluster there are articles that look at a case study or an overall aspect of public policy and even political and economic theory.  This issue features contributions to discussions of displaced peoples, resistance to displacement and the struggles of workers in Argentina. 

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English

Political Report # 1337 Mexico in the Time of the Caravan

By Danica Jorden, ZCommunications

Puebla, Mexico, 8 April 2018: An annual Easter march to shine a light on the plight of Central Americans living in a region with the highest murder rate in the world drew the attention of international aid groups, the United Nations ... and the President of the United States. While the U.N. admonished the government of Mexico to provide safe conduct to the approximately 1,200 persons who crossed the southern border of their country, Donald Trump reacted with incommensurate fear, threatening to deploy National Guard troops to his own border, 1,200 miles (2,000 km) away. The march, or caravan, is also known as the Via Crucis del Migrante (Migrant Stations of the Cross). A more-or-less yearly event, the caravan has been organized by Pueblo Sin Fronteras (People Without Borders), an NGO with a presence in Arizona, for over a decade. The original Via Crucis recalls the path Jesus Christ took to his execution according to the Christian religion: a fourteen-step journey that recounts the burdens, humiliations, consolations, torture and death he suffered, before being resurrected and ascending to heaven on what was to become Easter Sunday. In historically Catholic Central America, marking the Stations is a significant event. Usually numbering less than a hundred, Via Crucis del Migrante 2018 grew unexpectedly, according to organizer Irineo Mújica, though not unpredictably in retrospect. This year's caravan has a high number of Hondurans, reflecting that country's extreme levels of violence and deepening political crisis following a contested presidential election in November that resulted in widespread protests and "excessive use of force" in response. The caravan is also mostly made up of women, children, unaccompanied minors and LGBTI persons, compelled to leave their homes but seeking the protection afforded by the organized march. According to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), even hospitals in Honduras are dangerous for victims of gender-based violence because they cannot be guaranteed safety within. And the road through Mexico is fraught with danger for even the most able-bodied. Violence is the main factor pushing Central American emigration. A Canadian professor attending a conference on comparative education in Mexico City's historic centre says she no longer goes to El Salvador: "It's too dangerous." Discovery of trucks packed with Central Americans suffering and perishing from heat and thirst has become routine nowadays in Mexico, even occurring simultaneously with the march.

Book Review: Day Labor in Two U.S. Cities

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Book Review: Day Labor in Two U.S. Cities
by David Stoll

Jornalero: Being a Day Laborer in the USA
Ordoñez Juan Thomas Jornalero: Being a Day Laborer in the USA. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2015.


Against the Tide: Immigrants, Day Laborers, and Community in Jupiter, Florida
de la Vega Sandra Lazo & Steigenga Timothy Against the Tide: Immigrants, Day Laborers, and Community in Jupiter, Florida. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013.



Day laborers and open-air labor markets are not new in American history, but in the twentieth century, thanks to high employment and increasing job security, they almost disappeared. Now they’re back, fed by heavy migration from Mexico and Central America, and a bone of contention in the U.S. immigration debate. For immigrant-rights activists, the increasing visibility of day laborers is irrefutable evidence of the demand for immigrant labor. Since most day laborers lack legal status, their advocates continue, they also illustrate the need for a comprehensive legalization program. For critics who wish to reduce immigration, in contrast, the resurgence of day labor is a sign that job markets are being flooded and labor laws are being ignored.

Book Review: Day Labor in Two U.S. Cities

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Book Review: Day Labor in Two U.S. Cities
by David Stoll

Jornalero: Being a Day Laborer in the USA
Ordoñez Juan Thomas Jornalero: Being a Day Laborer in the USA. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2015.


Against the Tide: Immigrants, Day Laborers, and Community in Jupiter, Florida
de la Vega Sandra Lazo & Steigenga Timothy Against the Tide: Immigrants, Day Laborers, and Community in Jupiter, Florida. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013.



Day laborers and open-air labor markets are not new in American history, but in the twentieth century, thanks to high employment and increasing job security, they almost disappeared. Now they’re back, fed by heavy migration from Mexico and Central America, and a bone of contention in the U.S. immigration debate. For immigrant-rights activists, the increasing visibility of day laborers is irrefutable evidence of the demand for immigrant labor. Since most day laborers lack legal status, their advocates continue, they also illustrate the need for a comprehensive legalization program. For critics who wish to reduce immigration, in contrast, the resurgence of day labor is a sign that job markets are being flooded and labor laws are being ignored.

Political Report # 1271 The Spanish Inquisition Lives On in Arizona's Ban on Mexican American Studies

By Roberto Rodriguez, Truthout

I have always viewed Arizona's effort to eradicate Mexican American Studies (MAS) as something akin to an unholy Inquisition. For some, that will sound hyperbolic; not for me. US district Judge Wallace Tashima is expected to make a decision soon on whether the 2010 Arizona House Bill 2281 legislation, which bans Arizona public schools from offering ethnic studies classes, was passed with the intention of discriminating against Tucson's Mexican American students. The measure prohibited public schools from offering classes that allegedly "promote the overthrow of the United States Government," "promote resentment towards a race or class of people," "are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group," or "advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals." In practice, HB 2281 was used in 2012 to dismantle Tucson's Mexican-American Studies program, which was created in the 1990s to highlight Mexican American/Indigenous literature and history. In dismantling the program, Arizona banned more than 80 books from use in public school classrooms, including titles such as Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, by Bill Bigelow, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire, Critical Race Theory, by Richard Delgado and 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, by Elizabeth Martinez. (Two of my books were banned the year before.)

Political Report # 1234 The Long History of Deportation Scare Tactics at the US-Mexico Border

By Cora Currier, The Intercerpt

The Trump administration's first moves on immigration enforcement represent an unprecedented hard-line position, envisioning thousands of new agents, enlisting local police as immigration enforcers, making virtually anyone a priority for deportation, bypassing immigration courts, and, of course, ordering the construction of the infamous wall along the Mexican border. And then there is the president's own rhetoric equating immigrants with criminals - after campaign talk characterizing Mexicans as rapists, this week he referred to his immigration policy as a "military operation" against gang members, "drug lords," and "bad dudes." Despite the emotionally charged rollout of these policies, it remains to be seen whether they will be fully implemented; the money and manpower required to do so would be extraordinary. There are parallels between Trump's efforts and previous U.S. immigration crackdowns, when rhetoric about "criminal aliens," hyped-up raids, and inflated deportation numbers created what was essentially a "terror campaign" in Mexican immigrant communities, says Kelly Lytle Hernandez, a historian at the University of California, Los Angeles. "I think it would serve us to do our best to fight back against the scare campaign" promoting Trump's enforcement operations, she said. "I don't want to suggest that the terror isn't real. But we don't want to inflate it. I don't want to fulfill Trump's vision of mass deportation by fueling the panic and fear."

Book, Violence Against Latina Immigrants Citizenship, Inequality, and Community

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Violence Against Latina Immigrants
Citizenship, Inequality, and Community
by Roberta Villalon 

Caught between violent partners and the bureaucratic complications of the US Immigration system, many immigrant women are particularly vulnerable to abuse. For two years, Roberta Villalón volunteered at a nonprofit group that offers free legal services to mostly undocumented immigrants who had been victims of abuse. Her innovative study of Latina survivors of domestic violence explores the complexities at the intersection of immigration, citizenship, and violence, and shows how inequality is perpetuated even through the well-intentioned delivery of vital services. Through archival research, participant observation, and personal interviews, Violence Against Latina Immigrants provides insight into the many obstacles faced by battered immigrant women of color, bringing their stories and voices to the fore. Ultimately, Villalón proposes an active policy advocacy agenda and suggests possible changes to gender violence-based immigration laws, revealing the complexities of the lives of Latina immigrants as they confront issues of citizenship, gender violence, and social inequalities.

Political Report # 1212 Deportation Profits: El Salvador's Call-Center Industry Is Profiting off US Deportees

By Hilary Goodfriend, Jacobin

had chosen a Mr. Donut café in San Salvador to meet Raúl. An agent in El Salvador's burgeoning call-center industry, Raúl had been a member of the so-called 1.5 Generation of immigrants who were born abroad but spent their formative years in the United States, before he was deported. The donut shop sits in the shadow of the iconic Salvador del Mundo monument, now dwarfed by several towering call centers. That day, they were giving out two-for-one donuts to celebrate Civic Month, which marks the country's independence from the Spanish Crown, in a deal that has become a patriotic ritual in El Salvador. Raúl was taken off guard by the festival of patriotic gluttony. Like mine, Raul's civic education had taken place elsewhere. In effortless English, he tells me, "Growing up pledging allegiance to the American flag, it sinks into you . . . To this day, for example, I hear the national anthem at a football game, I'm not gonna lie, I get teary-eyed. I mean, when I hear the Salvadorian national anthem it's like, okay." He laughs and shrugs his shoulders. "I mean, it's my country, I know I'm born here, but my life has been over there." Raúl and other 1.5-Generation deportees have been forcibly removed from the only homes they know and deposited in foreign territories to which they no longer have any connection - often, they don't even speak the language. While much contemporary literature on deportation relies on the metaphor of waste - like Nicholas De Genova's work on how migrant labor is made "disposable," or Jock Young's concept of a "bulimic society" - these workers' experiences suggest something different: recycling.

Political Report # 1209 Presidente Trump, Mexico's Worst Nightmare

By Laura Carlsen, Americas Program

Mexico's proximity to the United States has always been a big headache for Mexico. Popular proverbs such as "When the U.S. sneezes, Mexico gets pneumonia" and "Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States" speak to the downside of being next-door neighbors to the world's superpower. Now, with the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, that headache has developed into a brain tumor. Trump used Mexico as what's called a "wedge issue" in U.S. political nomenclature. This is a subject that divides the population, but consolidates and mobilizes a core nucleus of support. At a time when even the Republican Party believed that direct insults to Mexicans (referred to as "thieves", "rapists" and "bad men", in various Trump speeches) would lead to the loss of the critical Latino vote, Trump took advantage of it, proving that U.S. society is a lot more racist than we thought. Skillfully, and with the widespread use of lies, he blamed Mexico for unemployment ("Mexico robs us of jobs"), the loss of purchasing power among working families, and the trade deficit. And he won the election, in the anti-democratic Electoral College. Trump's victory puts Mexico up against the wall. We're looking at the prospect of imminent political, social and economic crisis. What are the implications of Trump's triumph and his policy agenda for the U.S.'s third largest trade partner?

Political Report # 1201 "Obama Built the Structures for Trump": A Terrifying Legacy of Mass Deportation

Jose Juan Moreno sits in the room at the University Church on Chicago's Southside where he has sought sanctuary from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since April. (Photo: Hoda Katebi) By Alex Shams, Truthout

For the last six months, Jose Juan Moreno has been confined to a small room above the University Church on Chicago's South Side. Safe inside, he cannot venture more than 50 steps from the corner where he sleeps. If he goes beyond that, US authorities have promised to deport him from the country. Although he has lived 17 years in Chicago -- the only home any of his five American-born children have ever known -- Moreno originally crossed the border from Mexico without papers. Under US law, that means he is subject to arrest and deportation at any time, a status he shares with 11 million people in the United States considered "undocumented." Earlier this year, Moreno received a deportation order from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the authority that carries out the raids and arrests that represent the strong arm of national immigration policy. He was told to leave by April 15, otherwise he'd be deported. In response, Moreno did the only thing he could think of -- he sought sanctuary in the church, praying that even if the authorities would not respect his family or his long years of work in the US, at least they might respect the sanctity of a holy place. So far, they have. But for how much longer is anybody's guess.

Political Report # 1185 Is Trump an Aberration?,The Dark History of the "Nation of Immigrants"

By Aviva Chomsky, via Tom Dispatch

Liberal Americans like to think of Donald Trump as an aberration and believe that his idea of building a great wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent immigrants from entering the country goes against American values. After all, as Hillary Clinton says, "We are a nation of immigrants." In certain ways, in terms of the grim history of this country, they couldn't be more wrong. Donald Trump may differ from other contemporary politicians in so openly stating his antipathy to immigrants of a certain sort.  (He's actually urged the opening of the country to more European immigrants.)  Democrats like Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton sound so much less hateful and so much more tolerant.  But the policies Trump is advocating, including that well-publicized wall and mass deportations, are really nothing new.  They are the very policies initiated by Bill Clinton in the 1990s and -- from border militarization to mass deportations -- enthusiastically promoted by Barack Obama.  The president is, in fact, responsible for raising such deportations to levels previously unknown in American history. And were you to take a long look back into that very history, you would find that Trump's open appeal to white fears of a future non-white majority, and his support of immigration policies aimed at racial whitening, are really nothing new either.  The policies he's promoting are, in an eerie way, a logical continuation of centuries of policymaking that sought to create a country of white people. The first step in that process was to deport the indigenous population starting in the 1600s.  Later, deportation policies started to focus on Mexicans -- seen by many whites as practically indistinguishable from Indians.  Except, white settlers found, Mexicans were more willing to work as wage laborers.  Since the middle of the nineteenth century, Mexicans have been treated as disposable workers.  As Europeans were invited to immigrate here permanently and become citizens, Mexican workers were invited into the country to work -- but not to become citizens.

Political Report # 1125 ICE's War on Refugees By Nick Tabor, Jacobin

A protest against ICE in 2013. Bonnie Gutierrez / Flickr By Nick Tabor, Jacobin

From the time that she fled from El Salvador and was picked up at the US border, Ana Silvia Orellana Urias wore an ankle monitor so the immigration police could track her between check-in dates. On January 2, when immigration agents surrounded her house and she awoke to them banging on the door, she was living just outside Atlanta with her four children. The agents said they'd only come because of her ankle monitor. She was confused - she'd just changed the batteries. When she tried to call her lawyer, an agent reportedly seized her phone. Then they rounded up Urias and her children and sent them to a jail in south Texas, where she said an agent tried to make her sign a paper agreeing to be deported. Hers is one of twenty-eight families the federal government arrested over New Year's weekend, in a series of deportation raids intended to scare off other would-be asylum seekers from Central America. News of similar arrests has trickled in since, and the secretary of homeland security has pledged to keep them up indefinitely. In reaction to the roundups, activists across the country have launched a social media campaign, "Know Your Rights" workshops, and street protests in at least ten cities. On the legal front, attorneys have set up a makeshift bureau in the Texas jail where deportees are being housed and halted the deportation of a dozen families. Other attorneys are investigating possible civil rights abuses during the raids.

Political Report # 1121 Five Children Murdered After Being Deported From US to Honduras By Esther Yu-Hsi Lee, ThinkProgres

Immigrant families and children's advocates rally in response to President Barack Obama's statement on the crisis of unaccompanied children and families illegally entering the United States, outside the Los Angeles Federal building in July. (photo: Nick Ut/AP) By Esther Yu-Hsi Lee, ThinkProgres

Between five and ten migrant children have been killed since February after the United States deported them back to Honduras, a morgue director told the Los Angeles Times. Lawmakers have yet to come up with best practices to deal with the waves of unaccompanied children apprehended by Border Patrol agents, but some politicians refute claims that children are fleeing violence and are opting instead to fund legislation that would fast-track their deportations. San Pedro Sula morgue director Hector Hernandez told the Los Angeles Times that his morgue has taken in 42 dead children since February. According to an interview with relatives by the LA Times, one teenager was shot dead hours after getting deported. Last year, San Pedro Sula saw 187 killings for every 100,000 residents, a statistic that has given the city the gruesome distinction as the murder capital of the world. That distinction has also been backed up by an U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency infographic, which found that many Honduran children are on the run from extremely violent regions “where they probably perceive the risk of traveling alone to the U.S. preferable to remaining at home.” Hugo Ramon Maldonado of the Committee for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras believes that about 80 percent of Hondurans making the exodus are fleeing crime or violence.

Political Report # 1110 UR-Cuba Relations By Cuba Central

Last Spring, when President Obama addressed the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, he said to the reporters on hand at the annual 'Washington Celebrates Itself' Gala, "Welcome to the fourth quarter of my presidency."  "I am determined to make the most of every moment I have left." He said, "After the mid-term elections, my advisors asked me, 'Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?'...Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list." In a series of punchlines that the White House transcript dutifully reports as eliciting laughter and applause, the president mentioned taking executive action on immigration, climate change, and Cuba policy. Funny thing was, he meant it. Roll the tape forward to this month - roll past diplomatic relations, Cuba getting off the terror list, new embassies, new travel and trade rules, State, Commerce, Agriculture Secretary visits and other changes - and the President is now telling the Wall Street Journal that he is prepared to do more. Before considering what specific items that might add to the President's "bucket list," let's take a step back and look at the big picture. Last year, when President Obama announced he was determined to normalize relations with Cuba, he stood up against the policy he'd inherited from his predecessors, saying it "does not serve America's interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse." The old policy - immiserating Cubans to force their government to succumb to our demands - was both cruel and futile. No American president had ever conceded that truth. Secretary of State John Kerry was captured by the same thought on a walk he took following the flag-raising at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba. "Walking the streets of Old Havana, and seeing the faces of young Cubans, I felt the futility of trying to make them fit their dreams into a Cold War straight-jacket. "They deserve more than that," Kerry wrote, and "through our diplomacy we hope to help them achieve more than that." Yes, in 2016, we can expect to see intensified diplomacy between Cuba and the U.S. on a host of issues - law enforcement, property claims, human trafficking and human rights - that our two countries never discussed when the thrust of U.S. policy was trying to make Cuba's system fail. But, the president apparently will use what remains of his fourth quarter to do more than that. "On Cuba," the Journal says, "that means taking additional executive actions so Americans become accustomed to traveling to the island-nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida and U.S. businesses are deeply invested there." Reforms already implemented by the President this year have boosted travel by Americans to Cuba by over 70 percent over travel in 2014, as the Nation reported last week.  The surge                                                   in travelers will help fill the seats of planes poised to take advantage of the new agreement between Cuba and the U.S. to resume regularly scheduled commercial service. But short of repealing the ban on tourist travel, which requires an Act of Congress, the President can substantially increase those visits by applying to individuals the same rules that currently apply to trips by groups under the people-to-people. He has the authority to do that today. As Senators Flake and Leahy said in their letter to the President last week, he has the authority to increase substantially the flow of commerce between our countries. They advocate changes in regulations to increase access for Cubans to U.S. tools, equipment, and                                                   consumer products, and expanding the ability of Cubans in private enterprise to benefit from U.S. services in the areas of finance and planning. Despite helpful and well-meaning policy changes the President already ordered to lighten the regulatory burden on companies who want to do business in Cuba, Bill LeoGrande makes a strong case - as others have - that U.S. firms are still "terrified" of running afoul of sanctions and incurring ruinous financial penalties. To alleviate regulatory risks, LeoGrande says: "Obama could license U.S. businesses to provide credit to Cuban customers to stimulate nonagricultural trade (agricultural credits are prohibited by law). He could authorize Cuban banks to establish correspondence accounts with U.S. banks to facilitate payments to Cuban customers. Finally, he could issue a general license to U.S. banks to process dollar-denominated transactions conducted by foreign banks (so-called "U-turn" transactions) that must be processed through a U.S. financial institution." Let's be clear. Cuba has a lot of work that it can do to increase economic activity, as the government has already pledged to do, so it can address the island's economic crisis and create a future for the Cuban people that is more compelling than migrating to the United States. Cubans want this relationship to work for a host of reasons, not the least of which is to increase prosperity by increasing trade and travel income from the United States. Not all Cubans, as Tracey Eaton documents here, are sharing in the increased prosperity driven in part by President Obama's reforms. Our friend Portia Siegelbaum tweeted a forlorn picture of dimmer Christmas lights in Havana than she saw, as we did, one year ago. The President has the capacity - and now we're told the willingness - to drive this new policy much farther in the time remaining in the fourth quarter of his presidency. He can act                                                   knowing that his new policy has put him on the right side of history, and that taking additional steps will improve the lives of those his policy is designed to benefit - the Cuban people. Sure, there will be dissent among the dwindling numbers of naysayers who want America to go back to the Cold War ways of doing things. To them, he can just say, "Bucket. Let's make these changes irreversible," and plough forward with more ambitious reforms. It is, after all, the fourth quarter. Who could possibly argue with that? U.S.-Cuba Relations Prominent editorial boards call for further changes in U.S.- Cuba relations editorial "Houston, we have a problem," as Tom Hanks said in Apollo 13.  Except, it's the hometown paper, The Houston Chronicle, making the statement, and it's about the embargo against Cuba. Following the one-year anniversary of the U.S.-Cuba diplomatic rapprochement marked last week,  the editorial boards of The New York Times,  the Los Angeles Times, and the Houston Chronicle this week called for additional reforms in U.S. policy. The New York Times Editorial Board urged U.S. policymakers to end preferential treatment                                                 for Cuban migrants under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board affirmed its support for negotiations with Cuba and for ending the embargo. Perhaps, most strikingly, was the editorial published by the Houston Chronicle.  In arguing for repeal of the embargo, it calls the policy "a major hurdle to good relations and, in our opinion, to change on the island."  The paper adds that the embargo's "attempt at economic coercion only hardened the [Cuban] government's resistance to change, gave it an excuse for the country's problems and severely limited U.S. influence." Against the grain of tough talk dominating the debate over U.S. foreign policy, the paper concludes "In America, we're accustomed to tough talk and bellicose foreign policy, but sometimes - maybe a lot of times - soft power works best. That's what Obama is trying with                                                 Cuba. Congress can help by ending the embargo as quickly as possible so that American business can fully access the market and commercial ties between the two countries can grow." The New York Times called on Congress to repeal the preferential treatment enjoyed by Cuban migrants under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, saying it "has been a boon for human smugglers in Latin America and created burdens for countries from Ecuador to Mexico through which they move."  Should Congress fail to act, the editorial went on to say that the Obama administration should use its executive authority to "negotiate a new agreement with the Cuban government that makes orderly immigration the norm. Cubans who arrive in the United States without authorization should be sent back unless they show a credible fear of persecution." The editorial also endorsed an end to the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, a program which allows Cuban doctors working in third party countries to enter the U.S., which was adopted by an executive action under President Bush. Earlier this year, 14 Members of Congress called on the President to end this program, arguing in part that it undermines what Cuban medical professionals are doing globally for underserved communities and in response to crises like the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Like the Houston Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board endorsed ending the embargo, saying "The embargo has not only exacerbated the hardships faced by people living under the Castros' totalitarian regime, it has harmed Americans and American companies without weakening the Castros' grip on power." The editorial also urged the U.S. and Cuba to look to the future in its negotiations, particularly in the compromises needed to resolve longstanding compensation claims- saying, "The administration should ensure through these crucial negotiations that Americans who lost property to the Cuban revolution receive some measure of justice." Do editorials matter any longer in the public policy discourse?  Read this study "The Persistent Advocate: The New York Times Editorials and the Normalization of U.S. Ties with Cuba," published last week by the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, and reach your own conclusion. A year in reflection, opponents and supporters of normalization speak outad Sunday, a prominent group of Cuban American businessmen, including Carlos Gutierrez, former U.S. Commerce Secretary under President George W. Bush, and Mike Fernandez, a top backer of Jeb Bush's campaign, took out a full-page ad in the Miami Herald calling on their fellow Cuban-Americans to recognize progress in Cuba. Their words stood in sharp contrast to two open letters sent to President Obama last week in opposition to the administration's Cuba policy. Carlos Gutierrez and Mike Fernandez paid for Sunday's ad explaining that, while visiting Cuba, "We saw progress beyond what we could have imagined...We saw entrepreneurs with a thirst for knowledge and families benefiting from the newfound freedom of enterprise..." The letter eschewed political interest affirming, "We have arrived at the point in our lives where we have no interest in personal advancement, but only in what would be good for 'nuestra gente.'" Gutierrez, who has traveled to Cuba three times this year added, "It's so difficult to have a point of view understanding the changes that are going on unless you go to Cuba." Those who signed the ad were denounced by unpersuaded members of the exile community.  Silvia Iriono, in Babalublog, wrote "These gentlemen are not my fellow Cuban                                                 Americans." Another essay labeled the signers as dollar-hungry opportunists under the sway of handlers by the Cuban government. Last week's letters in opposition, one published jointly by the Cuban Resistance Assembly and the Democratic Directorate and the other published by former political prisoners, complain that the U.S. policy of normalization has had "negative consequences" for human rights on the island. The Cuban Resistance Assembly and the Democratic Directorate publicized their letter at the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban American Studies with Bertha Antúnez, sister of Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez," a prominent pro-democracy activist in Cuba, and Míriam and Mario de la Peña, parents of Mario Manuel de la Peña, one of four                                                 Brothers to the Rescue members shot down by Cuban forces in 1996. The letter from political prisoners highlights the increasing number of arbitrary detentions in Cuba as evidence that normalization has, in their words, "...has taken a bad situation and made it worse." By contrast, as the ad cosigned by the new Cuban American supporters of U.S. policy suggests, "As fellow Cuban-Americans, let us recognize the progress that has been made on both sides of the 90-mile Florida Straits, albeit halting, in the right direction. Just consider what has been accomplished in the last 12 months versus what has been accomplished in the last century." Cuba re-opens market to Arkansas poultrychicken This past Saturday, Tyson Foods and Simmons Foods announced that poultry trade will resume between Cuba and Arkansas this year, reports Arkansas Online. Governor Asa Hutchinson, who traveled to Cuba in September, said that Cuba's government has ordered 4,500 tons of poultry from Arkansas companies scheduled to ship in January. Cuba's government banned poultry imports from Arkansas earlier this year after an outbreak of bird flu. Governor Hutchinson confirmed that, "Because of our trip we got this success story of the poultry contract." Global U.S. poultry and egg exports took a huge hit early in 2015, with export sales falling from $2.4 billion in 2014 to only $386.3 million over the same period in 2015. Most bans on U.S. poultry were lifted earlier in the year but Cuba remained a hold out. In September, the governor led a 3-day trade mission to Cuba accompanied by poultry industry executives and others. For more on Governor Hutchinson's trip to Cuba, check out our previous reporting. In Cuba Cuba's economy grows 4 percent, boost over previous yearsecon In a year of détente with the U.S., Cuba's Gross Domestic Product grew by 4 percent reports state media. From 2011-2014, despite Cuba's economic reform measures, the economy grew by only 2.3 percent. The official economic report makes no mention of this year's normalization process, highlighting instead that growth continues despite sanctions faced by Cuba, reports Reuters. Cuba's government hopes to reach 7 percent economic growth for "significant development." State media reports a 30 percent increase in productivity for the first six months of 2015 and salary growth of 12 percent. This brings the Cuban monthly salary to roughly 700 Cuban pesos (CUP) or approximately 26 USD. Falling import costs, including decreasing oil and food prices, likely boosted growth while declining export prices in oil products, nickel, and sugar likely constrained growth. The report does not mention sectors directly benefiting from normalization, namely tourism and remittances. It also remains silent on revenue from professional exports to Venezuela. The report maintains that Cuba will provide the same level of basic service in education and health to the Cuban people for the coming year. This year's economic plan will be presented for approval before the National Assembly on December 29. For more on Cuba's economic reforms, see our previous publications. Cuba reports a new record in aquaculture productionfish Cuban aquaculture produced a record 27,228 tons of fish this year, which is 1,200 more than what they expected to produce in 2015, according to officials. The national director of aquaculture, Nelson Pérez, declared that they hope to close the year with 27,500 tons of fish. More than 20,000 of the fish are silver carp (or "tench"), 1,150 are tilapia, and 6,150 are "clarias." Shrimp production also had a record year with more than 4,678 tons in 2015. Sancti Spriitus, Camagüey, and Villa Clara produced largest supply of fish. Pérez attributed the result to better organization, fishing gear insurance, better feed supply, and management collectives, along with more motivation between workers and management collectives. The majority of aquaculture production is used as primary material in the production of croquetas, embutidos, picadillo, and other Cuban foods products. The director highlighted the success despite the drought in the country, which affected some fish stations. Aquaculture in Cuba depends on the importation of feed and other products; development in this sector requires large investments. When U.S. agriculture leaders visited the island in March 2015, they noted that "Aquaculture is a sophisticated growth industry, and the Cuban                                                 waters 'are pristine.'" The Norwegian government currently supports an aquaculture facility in the Bay of Pigs, but U.S. investment in this area is still restricted by the economic embargo. Cuba's Foreign Relations Update: Costa Rica suspends its SICA membership over Cuban migration, region fails to agree on solutionSICA Effective last Saturday, Costa Rica will no longer give Cuban migrants temporary visas. President Luis Guillermo Solis explained, "the national capacity to address the migrants has                                                 reached its limit." Previously, the government of Costa Rica pledged that no Cuban migrant would be deported from Costa Rica, a promise it continues to honor for over 5,000 Cuban migrants already within its borders. New migrants entering the country will be deported according to President Solis who strongly discouraged would be migrants from attempting to enter Costa Rica. Friday, Costa Rica suspended its membership in the Sistema de Integración Centroamericana (SICA), a regional body designed to mediate issues between participants. Leading up to the meeting, Costa Rica refused to participate in the SICA summit unless the issue of Cuban migrants was discussed. While the issue surfaced, no agreement was reached, causing a frustrated President Solis, to withdraw all political participation with SICA according to Progreso Semanal. Costa Rica will remain a participant in the economic, commercial, and technical bodies of SICA. Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Belize refuse to allow Cubans passage through their territory for the migrants headed northward. As we have reported previously, the uptick in Cuban migration is at least in part due to suspicions among Cubans that the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act (which established the so-called "wet foot, dry foot" policy allowing Cubans to expedite their path to permanent residency in the U.S) will end as relations normalize. Last week, U.S. Representative Carlos Curbelo (FL-26) introduced legislation to begin treating Cuban immigrants like immigrants from other countries, reports the Miami Herald. Under his legislation, Cubans would be required to file a claim for asylum and enter the pipeline for approval, a process that can take years. Curbelo acknowledged that his legislation, HR 4247, could be seen as a "first step" in rewriting CAA, although the legislation as written only amends the Refugee Education Assistant Act, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. Representative Curbelo is not the first to propose reforms to the CAA, Representative Paul Grosar (AZ-4) introduced a bill in October to repeal the CAA as we previously reported, and hardliners including Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-27) and Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25) have proposed curtailing the benefits of CAA for some migrants, reports the Sun Sentinel. Original and sources article can be found: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=07d1d7e3-4d85-468a-887c-f9996e60e81e&c=744170d0-45c0-11e3-92fd-d4ae52806905&ch=7581b900-45c0-11e3-9384-d4ae52806905