National Latino Congreso Coverage
Publicado el 2010-02-04 21:04:36 [0 comentarios]
National Institute for Latino Policy
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Note: The National Latino Congreso just held their 4th convention in El Paso. Below please find the El Paso Times' coverage of this important event. For further information of the Congreso, click here. ---Angelo Falcón CONTENTS * "Congreso to debate the census count today" by David Montero, El Paso Times (January 29, 2010) * "Latino Congreso speaker sends 'showdown' warning to Democrats" by David Montero, El Paso Times (January 30, 2010) * "National Latino Congreso delegates vote on resolutions, conclude conference" By Diana Washington Valdez, El Paso Times (January 31, 2010) * "Latino Congreso participants tour border fence" By Diana Arrieta, El Paso Times (January 31, 2010) * "Latino Congreso ends with resolutions" By Diana Washington Valdez, El Paso Times (February 1, 2010) Congreso to debate the census count today By David Montero
El Paso Times (January 29, 2010)
EL PASO -- The question of whether immigrants should participate in the U.S. Census is becoming a hot topic for the National Latino Congreso, which convenes today at the Camino Real Hotel.
Organizers say two factions probably will debate the issue Saturday. But executives of the convention hope a resolution will emerge that directs Latino groups to urge participation in the census.
Steven Ochoa, vice president of research and public policy at the William C. Velasquez Institute, said opponents of participation in this year's census have it all wrong.
"By not getting counted, they are not going to affect a more positive immigration policy in Congress," Ochoa said. "It would be like trying to get our elected officials' attention by not voting. It doesn't work."
According to officials at the U.S. Census Bureau, volunteers will canvass communities and hand out forms for people to fill out, regardless of whether they are in the country legally. The officials said questions about citizenship would not asked of potential participants.
Ochoa said a lack of participation in the 2000 Census resulted in an undercount of Latinos by about 1.5 million.
He said an accurate count would affect, among other things, the way political districts are redrawn and the amount of state and federal dollars that flow into cities.
Opponents of being counted are a loose coalition of activists and clergy groups.
They say that by skipping participation, they will illuminate problems with immigration policy. They also are motivated to boycott the census because of a general mistrust of government.
Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association, has been a vocal critic of the census.
In a recent speech, he asked Latinos to boycott the census because it was being carried out by the same U.S. government that he says persecutes immigrants daily.
"This action seeks to disassociate ourselves from this repugnant and immoral policy, which strikes at the heart of the immigrant family," Lopez said in a recent speech at Princeton University..
Lopez will be at the census debate in El Paso but could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Some Latinos already fear an undercount because of the flagging economy and the number of foreclosures in their neighborhoods. The congreso estimates 2 million Latinos have lost their homes, and unemployment among that group is close to 20 percent.
Ochoa said delegates would vote on a resolution that builds upon an earlier congreso resolution on the census.
The new resolution would mobilize Latino groups in carrying out the message that it is safe to be counted.
This is the fourth congreso, and Ochoa said between 250 and 300 delegates will participate in the three-day event.
Antonio Gonzalez, president of the William C. Velasquez Institute, said other topics and resolutions to be discussed and voted on would relate to the economy and climate change.
The congreso will also be a campaign stop for dozens of candidates, ranging from Democratic Texas gubernatorial hopefuls Bill White and Farouk Shami to candidates in El Paso races.
Shami will speak to the congreso at 3 p.m.. today, and White will address the congreso at 3 p.m. Saturday.
Latino Congreso speaker sends 'showdown' warning to Democrats
By David Montero
El Paso Times (January 30, 2010)
EL PASO -- Antonio Gonzalez, frustrated because President Obama did not devote more of his State of the Union speech to Latino issues, had a warning Friday for the White House and Democratic members of Congress facing elections in November.
Do not, he said, assume that the Latino vote is a lock for Democrats.
"We think 2010 is a showdown year," Gonzalez said. "We have tremendous leverage."
Gonzalez, president of the nonpartisan William C. Velasquez Institute, made the comments at the start of the fourth annual National Latino Congreso at the Camino Real Hotel.
The congreso is seeking to highlight issues of importance to Latinos, including immigration reform, the economy and participation in the 2010 Census. Some groups want Latinos to boycott the census as a protest against the government they believe is ignoring their needs.
Nativo Lopez, national president of the Mexican-American Political Association, supports that position.
"We're living in serious, perilous times, as said by the president in his State of the Union address, where Latinos were essentially excluded from that address," Lopez said.
He also said immigration enforcement policies of the Obama administration are "more robust, more aggressive and more insidious than even under the Bush administration."
In 2007, census officials asked for a suspension of raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to ensure a more accurate count in 2010.
U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, said the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is still in talks with the White House to hold off ICE raids during the census count. So far, he said, the White House has not agreed to a freeze on raids.
"There is plenty of precedence for it. President Reagan did it," Reyes said.
Luis Figueroa, a lawyer for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said that if the policy does not change, many Latinos will remain "in the shadows" during the count.
Reyes said he hoped the split among Latinos over whether to be counted is resolved by the congreso. The debate will be today at the hotel.
"I am puzzled we are debating or discussing or wondering whether it's a good idea to participate in the census," Reyes said. "... It's a dumb idea not to be counted."
Lydia Camarillo, vice president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, said Texas could gain as many as four seats in Congress, depending on the census count. Texas currently has 32 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
National Latino Congreso delegates vote on resolutions, conclude conference
By Diana Washington Valdez
El Paso Times (January 31, 2010)
EL PASO -- National Latino Congreso delegates voted Sunday on resolutions related to violence in Juárez, debating drug decriminalization, Asarco and anti-immigrant policies.
The delegates, who came from the region and several other states, concluded their national three-day conference in El Paso by resolving to continue battling against abuses of undocumented immigrants.
They also passed a resolution to oppose Operation Streamline, which the federal government uses to process large groups of undocumented immigrants en masse through the courts.
Latino Congreso participants tour border fence
By Diana Arrieta
El Paso Times (January 31, 2010)
EL PASO -- Some call it "El muro de odio," or the "wall of hate" -- the approximately 670-mile border fence installed by the United States.
The part that runs through El Paso was on display Saturday for some participants of the National Latino Congreso that is meeting in the city.
The controversial border fence, which was started in 2006 at a cost of $2.6 billion, was built by the federal government to prevent illegal immigration, to stop terrorists, to prevent violence along the border and to restrict harmful diseases.
Hispanic leaders from throughout the nation were in El Paso on Saturday to speak about immigration reform and the importance of Hispanics in the nation during the congreso.
The congreso is working to highlight issues important to Hispanics, such as immigration reform, the economy and clean energy.
More than two dozen participants of the congreso took a tour of the recently constructed border fence, which separates the U.S. from Mexico.
Bill Addington, who led the tour, said it cost between $5 million and $7 million a mile to build the fence, which was completed in 2008. The total cost to build and maintain it for about 20 years is an estimated $40 billion to $57 billion, he said.
He said the longest section of the fence in Texas extends 57 miles from Yar brough Drive in El Paso to McNary.
Most of those who took the tour were vocal opponents of the border fence who said it did not prevent motivated immigrants from crossing into the U.S. Groups that support the fence, such as the Border Fence Project, claim that the fence helps stop illegal immigration.. They claim that undocumented immigrants increase costs to the local and federal government, and contribute to overcrowded classes in schools.
Saturday's tour of the fence included people from areas such as El Paso, San Antonio, Arizona and California.
Addington said it would take only three to five minutes for someone to climb the fence and enter the country. He said about 8,000 people die each year while trying to cross the desert after entering the country illegally. Most of these deaths occur in Arizona, he said.
Opponents of the fence said its existence is a violation of human rights.
"Without immigration reform, communities will just be terrorized by hate, by people who abuse immigration laws," said Mary Rose Wilcox, commissioner of Arizona's Maricopa County.
Miguel Rosales, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens Council 4483 in San Antonio, said Americans need to become more aware of the contributions immigrants have made nationally.
He said that while many blame undocumented immigrants for increases in crime, it is a problem that would exist anyway.
"This is a wall that is being constructed because of political issues," said Efrain Jimenez, spokesman for the Zacatecan Federation of Southern California, a group of organizations from Zacatecas, Mexico. "It is a monument for the incapacity of our government to make a responsible solution. It definitely should not be here, by no means."
Latino Congreso ends with resolutions
By Diana Washington Valdez
El Paso Times (February 1, 2010)
EL PASO -- National Latino Congreso delegates voted Sunday on resolutions related to violence in Juárez, Asarco and immigration reform.
The delegates, who came from the region and several states, concluded their national three-day conference in El Paso by resolving to continue fighting against the abuses of undocumented and legal immigrants.
Southwest city Rep. Beto O'Rourke addressed the Congreso regarding the Juárez violence and his proposal to explore alternatives to drug-prohibition policies that may be contributing to the violence.
The delegates voted for a resolution to join the El Paso City Council in calling for immediate action to end the violence, which has claimed the lives of about 4,400 people in Juárez since it began in January 2008.
After the meeting, O'Rourke said he felt the delegates were open to his proposal to look at different options, including legalizing marijuana.
"It is the least bad option we have, another one being to do nothing," O'Rourke said. "We can attack the problem at its root."
Experts say marijuana makes up a large portion of drug-traffickers' profits, and cutting into that profit would reduce their power to corrupt, he said.
Immigration-related policies drew strong reactions on the part of delegates who said the Obama administration has backed away from its earlier promise to push for comprehensive immigration reform.
Robert Lovato, a writer based in New York, said any chance of immigration reform with President Obama is dead.
Others advocated using the ballot box to propel reluctant lawmakers to support reform legislation.
It is estimated that 12 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States.
Carlos Marentes, director of the Border Farm Workers Center in South El Paso, voiced opposition to the Congreso's resolution supporting the immigration reform bill proposed by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.
He said the bill contains a guest-worker provision that does not adequately protect workers.
"It would create a new bracero program .... We already have (worker) exploitation," Marentes said.
Pedro Garcia, a former bracero, told delegates that he was forced to work seven days a week and had 10 percent taken out of his paycheck for a Mexican government savings fund that disappeared..
The U.S. government created a series of bracero or guest worker programs, mostly to fill agricultural jobs during World War II and through 1967.
Another delegate, Isabel Garcia, spoke in favor of a resolution to end the federal government's Operation Streamline.. She said it violates the constitutional rights of suspects by fast-tracking the judicial process -- from initial appearance to sentencing -- en masse.
Federal courts are sentencing large groups of undocumented immigrants who are then shipped off to private prisons.
"They're doing it in one to two hours ... If they can do it to immigrants, then they will do it later to the rest of us," Garcia said.
Delegates also want political leaders to eliminate immigration raids in workplaces, and for only the federal government to be involved in enforcing federal immigration laws.
Mariana Chew, an El Paso environmental engineer, successfully pushed through a resolution demanding that the administration of the $52 million Asarco cleanup project exclude anyone who had worked on behalf of the former smelter.
El Pasoan Belen Robles, former national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, offered a resolution thanking the Obama administration for naming the new federal courthouse after the late Judge Albert Armendariz Sr., who championed the civil rights of Hispanics.
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