San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Mexico

Two Guatemalan Teens Explain Why They Traveled 2500 Miles, Without Their Parents, To America

by

By Esther Yu-His Lee / ThinkProgress

In August SDFP Editorial Board member and Desde la Logan columnist Brent E. Beltrán interviewed Logan Heights restaurateur Mark Lane about death threats he faced for taking in a refugee family from Guatamala. This ThinkProgress article gives an update on the status of that family.

These two Guatemalan brothers can play soccer now. There aren’t gang members waiting to grab them out on the playing field. They are less likely to witness shootings now. They likely won’t get beat up on their way to school. And the death threats — the reason they ran in the first place — are 2,500 miles away. But the stability they sought, the security two host families have provided, may not last.

The 15 and 16-year-old brothers, M.C. and D.C., were among the wave of 68,445 Latin American children and parents, who arrived at America’s southern border this year. Like many others, they said that they fled Guatemala to escape gang violence. It took them a month to make the journey on foot, by train, then bus, before they surrendered at the Tijuana port of entry, a vibrant border city that abuts the border wall along San Diego County. After 20 days in an immigration detention center, the pair were released with three other family members to a host family. Although ThinkProgress is unable to verify the details of their journey, M.C. and D.C. were thrust into the national spotlight when one of two host families that took them in began receiving death threats by anti-immigrant extremists for their hospitality. Now, nearly five months on, the media attention and threats have ebbed away. While the host family has returned to a life resembling cautious normalcy in this coastal San Diego suburb, the Guatemalan teens have only just begun to navigate the complications of being undocumented with the uncertainty of an impending immigration court decision.   [Read more…]

Injustices in Ferguson, Mexico and the Fast Food Business Trigger Protests in San Diego

by

By Doug Porter

There are protests aplenty in San Diego this week. Yesterday City College students walked out in solidarity with those who see recent events in Ferguson as part of a larger problem of injustice. They also acknowledged the international outcry over the 43 missing Mexican students from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero.

Today protesters will come together in 43 cities (including San Marcos) across the United States in a display of solidarity to demand that the government uphold its own human rights laws by stopping funding for the Mérida Initiative, also known as Plan Mexico.

And tomorrow fast food workers and their allies in San Diego and 150 other cities will be making a statement about inherent unfairness of a business strategy needing government programs to keep wages low and profits high.

We’ll look at all three of these protests today.   [Read more…]

Temporary Legal Protection for Some Immigrants A Good Beginning But Not At the Expense of Border Communities 

by

Obama’s immigration action protects some, yet promotes deeply flawed policies

By American Friends Service Committee

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is gratified by the parts of President Obama’s executive order announced today which offer welcome relief to immigrants who have suffered too long under cruel immigration enforcement practices. Yet AFSC is dismayed that the action does not account for millions of others needing relief, and keeps an emphasis on increasing border security – thus ensuring more violations of civil and human rights.

“We are deeply disappointed that President Obama’s executive action will boost so-called ‘border security.’ Granting deferred action for many parents of U.S.-born children will shield those families from the fear of inhumane detention and deportation. But millions of undocumented immigrants were left out. They will continue living in fear of being detained and deported,” said Pedro Rios of the AFSC’s US-Mexico Border Program in San Diego, CA.   [Read more…]

Mounting Protests Over 43 Kidnapped Mexican Students Resonate in San Diego

by

By Doug Porter

San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Tijuana Mayor Jorge Astiazarán appeared at inside the glass-walled Shiley Special Events Suite at the Central Library for ceremony this morning to announce plans for greater collaboration between their cities.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is the first agreement of its sort since 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was implemented. Local governments are pledging collaboration in the areas of economic development, border infrastructure, environmental stewardship and public safety.

Their commitment to collaboration on public safety may be tested sooner than they think. Unrest in Mexico, triggered by the disappearance of 43 students in the state of Guerrero is reaching a fevered pitch. Nationwide demonstrations in Mexico on November 20th are prompting activists north of the border to hold protests that day. Here in San Diego, a protest is scheduled for Thursday at the Mexican Consulate (1549 India St) in Little Italy.   [Read more…]

Friendship Park and Boundary Monument 258

by

By Barbara Zaragoza / The South Bay Compass

Inside Border Field State Park you can find the center of the immigration issue. On the American side, each Saturday and Sunday Friendship Park is open to the public from 10am to 2pm.

A gated area heavily monitored by Border Patrol,Friendship Park has a binational garden and thick mesh beyond which you can see Boundary Monument #258 on the Mexican side.

This park is where activist groups come to protest the ever increasing construction of fencing at the U.S.-Mexico border.Border Angels often comes here to bring awareness to the number of immigrants who have died trying to cross to the United States. Protestant Minister John Fanestil provides bi-national religious services on Sundays. Dan Watman has created a binational garden and also hosts events such as binational poetry readings. You can also find out what’s happening at Friendship Park through caring volunteers who run the website FriendshipPark.org.   [Read more…]

Cross Border Culture at The Front Art Gallery

by

By Barbara Zaragoza / South Bay Compass

When you live in the South Bay, the city of Tijuana appears on the horizon just about wherever you go. If you don’t cross the border daily, then most of your neighbors and friends do. South Bay residents know that Tijuana offers shopping, art, business opportunities, time with family and, of course, good food and wine.

So when a wonderful on-line newspaper like Voice of San Diego descends upon our border neighborhood of San Ysidro, bringing with them an audience of “northerners” to tell them about how they should visit Tijuana, we South Bay locals look at each other rather perplexed. Don’t they already know that?

On October 22nd Voice of San Diego’s culture report writer, Alex Zaragoza, hosted a “Meeting of the Minds” at The Front Art Gallery: a building along historic San Ysidro Boulevard designed by famed architect Louis Gill in 1929. The purpose of the meeting was to highlight the many delights of Tijuana. Karl Strauss offered beer, perhaps to make the experience less frightening to the audience members who presumably trekked all the way from places like North Park to visit the depths of the border region.   [Read more…]

A Tour of Tijuana’s Maquiladoras

by

By Barbara Zaragoza / South Bay Compass 

Each month, Enrique Davalos, a professor at City College, gives a tour along the U.S.-Mexico border of the Tijuana Maquiladoras. A social activist tour, Enrique as well as former employees of the maquilas brings awareness to American consumers about the poor working conditions and environmental exploitation taking place right along our frontera. 

What are maquiladoras?

Enrique’s tour passes the gates of several maquiladoras (or maquilas): foreign owned factories that have come to Mexico in order to benefit from cheap labor and lax environmental laws.

The tour begins at the San Ysidro Trolley in the U.S. where our group is taken through the busiest land port of entry in the world. On the Mexico side, a shuttle bus waits to take us along the border.   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry