Will the Economic Meltdown Push Fixing a Broken Immigration System to the Back Burner?

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet.

In his recent address to Congress, Barack Obama didn't mention immigration once -- what does it mean for the prospects for reform?

On the campaign trail last year, Barack Obama promised to make comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) "a top priority in my first year as president."
Stressing the importance of "finally bring[ing] undocumented immigrants out of the shadows," Obama laid out the basic framework of the deal that died twice in Congress in recent years: "they should have to pay a fine, and learn English, and go to the back of the line," he said. "That's how we'll put them on a pathway to citizenship. That's how we'll finally fix our broken immigration system and avoid creating a servant class in our midst."
But in his recent address to Congress, immigration was nowhere to be found in the 6,134-word speech. That left some wondering if the new administration had decided to put immigration reform on the back burner, especially in light of the tanking economy. In a recent interview with a Spanish-language radio station, Obama said that because of the economic meltdown, the environment for passing a comprehensive reform bill in this Congress would be even more difficult than in past years. But he also said he was "very committed" to making it happen.
The basic outline of CIR is a grand bargain between proponents of stronger enforcement efforts and immigrants' rights advocates. It would beef up border security, increase workplace enforcement, give employers the ability to check the immigration status of potential hires and create a path to legalization that would allow undocumented immigrants to "get in the back of the line" for a green card if they pay fines, learn English if they aren't already proficient and prove that they've paid their taxes in full.
As an approach that tries to split the difference between ideological camps, it is imperfect; I've called it the "least bad solution" that has a chance of getting passed.
Immigration reformers are hopeful that it will get done. Frank Sharry, director of America's Voice, a leading reform group, told me, "it's our guess that the legislative debate will commence in the fall and that the president will lay relatively low on the issue until then." Sharry said that the reason he's hopeful is that "there's a growing recognition among policy makers that the election this past November was a game-changer. Latino and immigrant voters turned out in record numbers, they helped turn at least four red states blue, and immigration emerged as a defining issue for the fastest-growing group of new voters in the nation."
Doug Rivlin of the National Immigration Forum agreed. "The prospects for reform are very good if advocates continue to build power and make it happen," he told me. "The Obama administration can read election results."
Rivlin predicted "strident but weaker Republican opposition to legal immigration, legalization, and commonsense reform led by Reps. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, and Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., in the House and Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., David Vitter, R-La., and other Southern Republicans in the Senate." But, he added, "if the legalization, due-process protections, worker rights and family components of a bill are strong enough, workable enough and generous enough, there will be wide Democratic support and enough Republican support to get a bill to the president."
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told the Detroit Free Press, "there's been an agreement between Obama and [Arizona Republican Sen. John] McCain to move forward on that. ... We'll do that." When asked if he had the votes to pass some form of CIR, he said: "We've got McCain, and we've got a few others. I don't expect much of a fight at all." Reid promised to work with the administration on the timing, but most of the analysts I interviewed expect a push for comprehensive reform this fall.

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Proyecto Censurado da luz a las noticias ocultas

Contra el discurso único, los medios independientes investigan y publican historias que rechazan los grandes medios.

Nydia Egremy

Ocultar la verdad o no relatar las historias que revelan la puja entre intereses, sean privados o gubernamentales, es una práctica común de la prensa corporativa en todo el planeta. Sin embargo, esa política de silenciar información decisiva para los ciudadanos ha generado un movimiento de contrainformación. Así, para suplir ese ocultamiento informativo, surgió el Proyecto Censurado.
Año con año, dicho informe revela 25 historias periodísticas que omitieron los grandes medios. En su edición 2008 –que se puede consultar en el portal www.voltairenet.org–, retoma, por ejemplo, una investigación que descubre la cifra real de civiles iraquíes asesinados por la ocupación militar estadunidense: más de 1 millón.
También publica reportajes sobre la militarización que se gesta detrás del Tratado de Libre Comercio para América del Norte (TLCAN) en México, el resurgimiento de las guerras sucias de Estados Unidos en América Latina, así como la confiscación de los bienes de quienes se manifiestan contra la guerra en Irak.
Proyecto Censurado surgió en 1976, cuando el académico Carl Jensen decidió trabajar con un grupo de estudiantes y profesores de su universidad, la Sonoma State de California, para emitir un primer informe público de las noticias silenciadas por la prensa. Después de 32 años, ese programa continúa ahora bajo la dirección de Peter Phillips. Reúne a organizaciones civiles y ciudadanos, quienes cada año seleccionan las historias que censuró la “gran prensa”.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Noticias Fox y las principales agencias de noticias conforman una telaraña mediática universal que decide qué información se excluye, explican Phillips y Andrew Roth, otro periodista del Proyecto Censurado. “En Estados Unidos tenemos tal concentración de la propiedad de los medios en tan pocas manos que no se divulgan las noticias que afectan a los poderosos”, manifiesta Phillips en el informe de 2008. En su opinión, esos medios corporativos mantienen una actitud “claramente hostil” hacia el presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez Frías.
Así quedó de manifiesto cuando el científico social Justen Delacour revisó las páginas de opinión de los 25 periódicos más importantes de Estados Unidos, publicadas en el primer semestre de 2005. En su análisis, él expresó que esos medios “tergiversan a diario las acciones de los gobiernos de Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador y otros países”.
Por su parte, Stephen Lendman, coautor con Laura Carlsen y Constance Fogal del reportaje EU, Canadá y México militarizan el TLCAN, que publicó el Centro para la Política Internacional, precisa que en América del Norte ya funciona “una fuerza trinacional militarizada” a partir de la Alianza para la Seguridad y la Prosperidad de América del Norte (ASPAN). Asegura también que “sus acuerdos asignan acciones militares fronterizas, entrenamiento de policías, modernización de equipos y adopción de nuevas tecnologías frontera, encuadrando todo bajo la lógica de la campaña contra el terrorismo de Estados Unidos”.
Stephen Lendman describe a Contralínea que la política de la ASPAN “es terrible y más lo que ocurre en torno a ese tema de manera secreta”. Considera que “los medios independientes son nuestra salvación, incluyendo el The Global Research News Hour”, un espacio electrónico que coordina con Michel Chossudovsky, economista canadiense y crítico de la globalización.
Al mismo tiempo, Lendman expresa su “preocupación por las fuerzas que quieren controlar internet, herir a los medios independientes, silenciar o censurarnos”. Este investigador graduado en Harvard fue, por seis años, investigador de mercadotecnia para importantes corporaciones estadunidenses, hasta que decidió dedicar todo su esfuerzo a causas progresistas, como divulgar noticias que omite la prensa. Respecto del acoso contra la prensa independiente, en Estados Unidos y en otros países, Lendman aclara a los periodistas mexicanos que vería sólo “un pequeño cambio o ninguno bajo (el régimen de) Obama”.
Cabe destacar que todas las historias que saca a la luz Proyecto Censurado se publicaron en medios alternativos, como Citizen’s Watch, Alternet, After Downing Street, Salón, Democracy Now!, The Nation, Peacework, In These Times, Rense, Rock Creek Free Press, Truthout, Upside Down World, Global Research, The Electronic Intifada, entre otros. Algunas de esas historias, muy pocas, las retomaron medios de más alcance, como Vanity Fair.
América Latina, bajo censura
La política de exclusión informativa que practican los medios corporativos se evidencia al conocer las noticias sobre América Latina que revela el informe del Proyecto Censurado. Las inquietantes historias que ocurren en esta región son, después de las que atañen a la ocupación militar de Irak y Afganistán, las más censuradas en medios estadunidenses. Por ejemplo, la nueva Ley Migratoria para los trabajadores invitados (guest workers), que a juicio de Charles Rangel, senador demócrata por Harlem, es “la cosa más cercana a la esclavitud que nunca he visto”.
Así lo reporta la investigación periodística de Mary Brauer, Sarah Reynolds, Felicia Mello y Chidanand Rajghatta, titulada Guest Workers Inc; fraude y tráfico humano. Los reclutadores de estos trabajadores los convierten en “víctimas del cebo y de cambios de esquema que los obligan a pedir enormes sumas de dinero a altas tasas de interés (a menudo, hipotecando los hogares familiares) para aterrizar a corto plazo y a menudo en los trabajos de bajos salarios, siempre por menos tiempo y una paga más baja que la prometida. Frecuentemente, los jefes poseen los documentos que mantienen atrapados a estos trabajadores y les impiden saltar a otro empleo”.
Esa forma de esclavitud laboral salió a la luz en marzo de 2008 durante el juicio colectivo llamado “de acción de clase” que entablaron más de 500 trabajadores de astilleros –todos provenientes de la India– contra Signal International, la subsidiaria de Northrop Grumman en Luisiana y Mississippi, por cargos de trabajos forzados, tráfico humano, fraude y violaciones a los derechos humanos.
Wes Enzinna y Benjamin Dangl son autores del reportaje ILEA: ¿resurgen las guerras sucias de EU en América Latina?, otra de las noticias censuradas en 2008. Trata de la amenaza para la paz y la democracia que representa el resurgimiento del antiguo militarismo estadunidense en América Latina tras la creación, en El Salvador y con una base satélite en Perú, de la Academia Internacional de Aplicación del Derecho (ILEA, por sus siglas en inglés).
Esa institución –subsidiada por recursos del gobierno estadunidense y dotada de inmunidad ante eventuales cargos de crímenes contra la humanidad– impartirá “técnicas de contraterrorismo a un promedio anual de 1 mil 500 oficiales de policía, fiscales y otros funcionarios de combate al crimen en el continente”.
Para los salvadoreños, la ILEA es una nueva Escuela de las Américas (EA) destinada a entrenar policías, indican los periodistas. Tal suspicacia se explica por la política de secretismo en torno al funcionamiento, programas académicos y lista de graduados, igual como ocurrió con los exalumnos de la EA hasta que el sacerdote Roy Burgeois, fundador de Observadores de la Escuela de las Américas, reconoció en sus egresados a líderes de escuadrones de la muerte y grupos de contrainsurgencia.
El reportaje cita que los graduados de la ILEA son anfitriones en otras instalaciones de entrenamiento de policías y militares creadas por agencias estadunidenses, como la Oficina Federal de Investigaciones (FBI), el servicio de inmigración y aduanas (ICE) y la Agencia de Control de Drogas (DEA).
Otra noticia acallada es la privatización del agua y la forma en que se libra la guerra global contra el terrorismo en El Salvador. Los periodistas Jason Wallach, Wes Enzinna, Chris Damon y Jacob Wheeler denuncian la represión policiaca contra los líderes y residentes de la comunidad de Santa Eduviges, ocurrida en julio de 2007, cuando protestaron contra la privatización de los sistemas de abastecimiento y distribución del líquido en aquel país centroamericano.
También se inconformaron porque los diputados de la derecha buscaban poner bajo control particular la Administración Nacional de Acueductos y Alcantarillado, con lo que el agua dejaría de ser un bien público.
Terror y beneficio
La invasión y ocupación militar de Irak por Estados Unidos, que comenzó en 2003, causó más de 1.2 millones de civiles muertos. Esa cifra es muy superior a la que a cuentagotas brinda el gobierno estadunidense, según el estudio del grupo británico Opinion Research Business (ORB), que realizó 2 mil 414 entrevistas en 18 provincias iraquíes. Esa investigación encontró que más de una de cada cinco personas consultadas tuvo, por lo menos, una muerte en su hogar como resultado del conflicto.

Para leer articulo completo AQUI.

Che's spirit burns on in Latin America

Che's spirit burns on in Latin America

Che's image crops in protests in Latin America and beyond

By Daniel Schweimler

BBC News, Buenos Aires

Fifty years ago saw the triumph of the Cuban revolution, led by Fidel Castro. A key figure in that success was Ernesto Che Guevara, who led rebel fighters into Havana on 2 January following the overthrow of Cuba's dictator Fulgencio Batista.

But Che Guevara's attempts to spread the revolution throughout the continent ended with his execution in a remote Bolivian school in 1967.
His image and ideology were suppressed in his native Argentina - and beyond - throughout the 1970s and much of the 1980s, a period that saw much of Latin America governed by right-wing or even military administrations.
Some in Latin America see Che as a failed revolutionary, while others say he was a misguided killer, a brutal man who ordered the execution of dozens of his opponents.
But what is clear is that Che Guevara's image and ideals have continued to resonate - and in some parts of 21st century Latin America now stronger than ever.
The reasons, for some observers, is that the region's institutions are generally weak. The people simply don't trust their governments, banks and judicial systems.
Their protests are often lost in a sea of bureaucracy or corruption, and so for many, the only way to be heard is by taking to the streets.
Iconic image
As a result, there are protests almost every day across Latin America by trade unions, indigenous groups, human rights campaigners, shantytown residents and more.

And you can pretty much guarantee it - some demonstrators will be bearing the famous image of Ernesto Che Guevara captured by photographer Alberto Korda in Havana in 1960.
Buenos Aires-based journalist, Michael Casey, is the author of the book Che's Afterlife - The Legacy of an Image.
"It's much easier to put on a T-shirt and say 'I'm dedicated to self-sacrifice and to the hard slog of revolution' that Che himself, the man, pursued than it is to actually do it yourself," Mr Casey says.
"He would be demanding a lot of people. And I don't think the revolutionary fervour that drove people to imitate him in quite a real way, certainly here in Argentina and across Latin America, is quite there."
In Europe and North America, his image is used to sell everything from vodka to baby clothes to T-shirts, while in Latin America it still carries a revolutionary appeal.
Stunning comeback
Che Guevara died, defeated and with little support in a remote Bolivian village in October 1967.
So how are Che and the message he carried with such success in the Cuban revolution relevant to 21st century Latin American politics?
The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, has certainly helped to burnish Che's image.
Mr Chavez recently marked the 10th anniversary of his own election - and he has made it clear he wants to stay a lot longer to implement what he calls his brand of 21st Century socialism.
As he spreads his message throughout Latin America, lubricated by his country's vast oil wealth, he often talks of the advice he receives from the former Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, and the inspiration from Che Guevara.
But it is perhaps in Bolivia, the country where Che Guevara's plans to spread revolution failed so dramatically, that ironically his image and ideals are most prevalent.
Indigenous leader, coca leaf grower and now president Evo Morales also says he is continuing to spread the message carried by Che.
He often talks about Guevara's self-sacrifice and cites the work he did with the poor, the sick and indigenous communities.
At the height of the Cold War, Che's CIA-backed killers hoped his revolutionary zeal was dead too. It seems that they were wrong.
"It's like people feel that he represents many of our deep needs, politically speaking," says Ecuadorean writer Maria del Carmen who has written extensively about the bearded, beret-wearing Argentine.
"So I really think that is the main point about the growing of his popularity all over Latin America. Because this is growing all the time."
Hero's shrine
Most in Latin America could probably not tell you specifically what Che stood for. They use him mainly as a symbol of hope, of independence, of freedom, of something to sing about.
Eladio Gonzalez used to run the only Che Guevara museum in Buenos Aires.
It is closed now but his shop filled with Che memorabilia acts as a kind of shrine for visitors in search of whatever they feel the Argentine revolutionary can offer them.

Wearing his Che T-shirt and playing a song about his dead hero over the shop's music system, he said: "Guevara is everywhere. He is being reborn."
He cites the example of Bolivia: "I am very, very happy that the seed Guevara put in this earth, Bolivia, has grown and we are seeing, are looking at, these new fruits. And nowadays, he has won. Guevara has won. You will see."
Mr Gonzalez said that successive governments and the media in Argentina have distorted the Che Guevara story because they are frightened of the message he carried.
It was only with the return to democracy in Argentina 25 years ago that his image could be legally displayed and his books read.
Although Buenos Aires remains without a Che Guevara museum, there are plans to open one in Rosario, the city in which he was born, and there is one in the northern province of Cordoba where he grew up.
Few in Latin America, it seems, want to turn their countries into new versions of Cuba.
But the spirit of the Cuban revolution, and all that it promised, is still burning strong - at least in the image of Comandante Che Guevara.