San Diego Free Press is proud to announce our site’s debut of cartoonist Eric J. Garcia’s El Machete Illustrated. He’s a political cartoonist from Chicago who will be sharing the occasional toon with us here at SDFP. Much like the Free Press’ regular editorial cartoonist Junco Canché, Eric focuses his poli-toonists eye on latino issues and lefty politics. Please welcome him with a comment below. You can follow him on Twitter @garciaink or friend him on Facebook. [Read more…]
Hermanos en el Camino, Padre Solalinde, La Bestia, and the Plight of Refugees
A Photo Exploration of the Central American Humanitarian Crisis
Words and photos by Vanessa Ceceña
In late 2012 I decided to travel back to México to visit el pueblo de las nubes, Oaxaca. I had visited twice before but mainly stayed in the central valley and Oaxaca City. This time I stopped in Tezoatlán in the mixteca and made my way to Ixtepec in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
This border region with its high level of humidity and tropical climate is home to a vivid culture, bright hand embroidered tehuanas, to the muxes (a community of transgender Oaxacans), and the sones zapotecos de Juchitan.
While its cultural attractions bring many visitors, its geographic location, which neighbors Chiapas to the southeast, places it as the prominent pathway for Central American migrants making their way to el norte (the north). [Read more…]
The MinuteKlans Seek New Recruits
San Diegans Rally on Behalf of Central American Refugee Children
Acceptance and Love in the Face of Bigotry and Hate
By Brent E. Beltrán
On the evening of July ninth approximately 200 people from San Diego gathered for a rally and vigil at the Federal Building Downtown to show their solidarity with the refugee children of Central America.
The rally, called Demonstration in SOLIDARITY with the National Action for the Children and a Vigil for Love, was part of a series of actions across the US showing support for the children.
The refugees came to the forefront of America’s consciousness after bigots decided to block the buses these children were riding in. The buses were transporting these unaccompanied minors to get processed at an immigration facility in Murrieta, Ca.
The blocking of the buses unleashed a moral crisis in Murrieta and across the country as angry, mostly white people, let loose their bigoted ways against children whose only crime was to escape the violence of their own countries, much of which was instigated by past US policies in the region. [Read more…]
Central American Refugee Children Forced on a Dangerous Journey
The U.S. government has had a direct hand in creating the conditions of these migrants’ impoverishment and displacement
By Justin Akers-Chacon / Socialist Worker
The arrival of Central American refugees, including many young children, has garnered much attention in the U.S. media and among the anti-immigrant right.
True to the dominant right-wing discourse emanating from Washington, D.C. over the last decade, the knee-jerk reaction has been to analyze this latest development through the “tough on enforcement” framework. This has allowed the spotlight to be turned toward the actions of small groups of racists and reactionaries in Murrieta, Calif., giving them a national platform to promote a spectacle of resistance to immigration, using the coded racist rhetoric of white nationalism.
Lost in all of the noise is the plight of tens of thousands of children, why they are migrating or their basic human rights. [Read more…]
Not Following Rules: Cities and States Refuse to Enforce Federal Immigration Regulations
“We’re not just going to sit and wait. We’re going to make our local communities safe.”
By Alyssa Figueroa / AlterNet
Seven months ago, Santos Gutierrez and Victoriano Aguilar were driving to a store in Springfield, Mass, when they were pulled over by police.
“My husband and I have always liked to help other people and support when we are able,” Gutierrez said. “And so on the day that my husband was stopped, we were helping a neighbor who didn’t have a car go to the store and buy diapers.”
The police officer walked up to the car, but Aguilar, an undocumented immigrant, did not have a driver’s license. At the time, Gutierrez didn’t know that local law enforcement and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) worked together through a program called Secure Communities. [Read more…]
Our Children: Thoughts from #Murrieta
They ask again what side I’m on. I think and answer, “I’m on the children’s side.”
By Rick Najera / Latino Rebels
I’m in Murrieta, California, ground zero in the immigration debate.
I’m watching hundreds of protestors and supporters at a hastily called town hall meeting at the local high school.
Police surround the auditorium to shield between protestors and supporters. A massive wall of news vans fill the parking lot. Reporters with news cameras troll the crowd hunting for sound bites.
On both sides, people fly American flags. The crowd is polarized with protestors and supporters—islands of different groups arguing. The borders are blurred between the groups. [Read more…]
Junco’s Jabs: Murrieta: Land of the Ugly, Home of the Bigots
Immigrant Rights Leaders Urge San Diegans to Respond with Values to Humanitarian Crisis
We are not only facing a humanitarian crisis, but a crisis of values as well
By San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium
The leadership of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium (SDIRC), a coalition of nearly 20 community, faith, labor, and legal organizations released the following statement in response the current humanitarian crisis migrant families are facing in Southern California.
Alor Calderon, Chair of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium and Program Director at the Employee Rights Center:
The issue of unaccompanied minors fleeing their home countries is a humanitarian crisis, not an immigration crisis, and should be treated as such.
Furthermore, we are not only facing a humanitarian crisis but a crisis of values as well. [Read more…]
Junco’s Jabs: Unfortunately for México the Flying Dutchman Does Exist
Junco’s Jabs: Tijuana Celebrates Advancing to the Next Round of the World Cup
How US Private Prisons Are Making Millions by Jailing Migrants in Deplorable Conditions
Undocumented migrants have become easy cash cows for private prison companies.
By Aaron Cantú / AlterNet
As states move for the first time in decades to address swollen prisoner populations, federal immigration detention centers are the new front in private prison corporations’ business strategy, and undocumented migrants their easy cash cows.
Around the country there are 13 Criminal Alien Requirement (CAR) prisons, which are managed by private companies contracted by the federal Bureau of Prisons to house a total of 25,000 prisoners convicted of living in the United States without proper documentation. In the pursuit of profits, private prison corporations have created utterly fetid and psychologically frying conditions within these CARs, making even the most squalid prisons for citizens look better by comparison. The vulnerability of an inmate population without recognized citizenship, combined with aggressive immigration policy and legal statutes allowing for-profit detention centers to operate with lax oversight, have created conditions under which carceral corporations can operate legal gulags with an endless supply of incoming prisoners. [Read more…]
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