In Memory of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez and Her Unborn Child and All Farm Workers Who Have Died to Make our American Life Easier

Every day Mexican citizens work in the United States. For instance, these hardworking individuals toil in the fields, assist and bathe babies and old people, clean homes, wash dishes, mow lawns and even build homes and businesses destroyed by fire, flood and hurricanes in the sun, cold and rain. In some of the Katrina states, police would pick up Mexican citizens at the local home building store in buses to take them to work cleaning up the toxic waste left behind by the storms. The police would make sure that they were taken to places they were needed most. Today, those same police now arrest for deportation the same workers that helped to rebuild their communities.

In Lodi California last week, a 17 year old Mexican citizen working in a field (so that you could have wine grapes) died in 95 degree heat from lack of water. She worked for a contractor who denied all the fieldworkers regular access to potable water and adequate rest in severe heat conditions. He may be the direct reason for her death, but what about the indirect influences? Are we all the real culprits? Are you silent when it comes to assuring that vulnerable workers like Mexicans, who do hard labor that we do not wish to do, have decent working wages and conditions? [Spring break used to be necessary when communities worked together to harvest its fields and all hands were needed – especially the strong hands of teenagers! How long would your teenager last in a field in these conditions without water?] She and her unborn child died for our strawberry shake, our tree bean salad, our farm fresh corn; so we can eat organic and drink wine with our dinner!

Here is the question of the day – why is it that the Mexican worker is suddenly the devil incarnate in the United States?”*

• In Argentina, One Person Dies Every 28 Hours from Police Repression
• Police in Peru say gang members killed people to drain their fat for cosmetics
• Do Long Island Police Ignore Hate Crimes?
• The wave of crime besetting Puerto Rico seems to be out of control with 800 murders being committed here so far this year, but the island’s top police official says the problem does not fall exclusively within his department.
• The University of Panama indefinitely suspended classes on Wednesday after confrontations between students and police during a protest against alleged U.S. involvement in plans to build new military installations.
• Pennsylvania State Police officials meet with Chambersburg Area Hispanic leaders about traffic stop procedures
• After accidental deportation, critics say immigration officials making mistakes – After a Salvadoran man was mistakenly deported, immigration rights activists have complained about toughened enforcement by authorities.
• Hundreds of defendants awaiting trial for violent crimes in Dallas County have been deported by federal immigration officials and then set free in their home countries. – The practice goes back to at least 1991 and includes the release of murder, kidnapping and child rape suspects.
• A Chicago City Council committee wants federal officials to halt deportation proceedings against immigrant students. – The Human Relations Committed on Friday approved a resolution urging the Department of Homeland Security to allow immigrant students to stay in the U.S. – Rigo Padilla
• Reaction to internal affairs investigation touches on Hispanic/police relations – Dallas
• Stop the deportation of Rigo Padilla
• Monterrey (Mexico’s 3r-largest city) has fired almost a quarter of its traffic police for failing tests designed to detect corruption and ineptitude. And half of Monterrey’s traffic cops were ordered to undergo more training after performing poorly on the tests. Only a bit more than a quarter were found to be completely fit for the job.
• Reporting for the Big Bend Sentinel, Sterry Butcher reported on the US Department of Homeland Security’s new mass deportation program taking place in Presidio, Texas.
• Heroic Texas Latino officer says policewoman at Fort Hood ‘erased a lot of prejudice’ – (interesting)
• Charlie Beck, the mayor’s nominee to head the Los Angeles Police Department, told Hoy Newspaper he will make a particular effort to reach out to Latinos through community meetings and by conducting news conferences and any other police function in English and Spanish.
• Roberto Rodriguez: Beaten by police and running to victory – November 7 marks 30 years since he won his first police brutality trial in East L.A.
• Many illegal immigrants deported in ‘a cloud of uncertainty’
• Iraq war veteran’s wife spared deportation – Frances Barrios, who was brought to the U.S. illegally as a child, receives humanitarian parole and can stay in Los Angeles and apply for a green card. Her husband suffers from post-traumatic stress.
• Soldiers wary of often corrupt Mexican police
• Would Mass Deportation Mean More Jobs for U.S. Workers?