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 Thursday, May 23, 2013
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Immigrant Rights At The OK Corral |
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MIGUEL GUZMÁN
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Wednesday, April 12, 2006 |
A HISTORY BEHIND BARS
An NYPD captain monitors a crowd waiting to cross yet another border. Many protestors wore a variety of costumes and carried an assortment of placards and banners depicting scenes of a time when English-speaking immigrants were the "illegals" and Mexicans were known as natives. Photo: Rafael Merino Cortés/grupoHuracán
 istory has a way of mixing and contorting facts with perspectives, depending on who’s doing the writing. Take the brief yet notable gunfight at the OK Corral, in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, back on October 26, 1881. What makes this gunfight legendary are the actual -- and alleged -- events that led to the infamous exchange of bullets; the politics, business concerns, characteristics and ideological factors of both groups involved are what made this event the subject of novels and Hollywood films.
The Earps were viewed by their enemies as badge-toting pimps who ruthlessly enforced the business interests of the town; the McLaurys, Clantons and their cowboy crowd were viewed by their enemies as cattle rustlers, marauders, and murderers.
Many immigrants today look at some our legislators as the Earps, while a good deal of conservative politicians view Mexicans and other immigrants as a bunch of McLaurys and Clantons looking to rob American jobs and kill the employment aspirations of "legal" immigrants and citizens alike.
It’s all a matter of perspective -- the perspective of the author, the facts that are focused on and the facts left out.
Just as Hollywood has infamously depicted Native Americans as wild and savage killers in countless of films, US Cavalry soldiers (typically referred to simply as the “white men”) do not have such a heroic and intrepid aura about them in Native American folklore. Many Mexican stories of the northeast in the 1850s parallel the Polish account of the Soviet Union in their country in the 1950s.
Just a few weeks ago, as a heated debate over immigration reform was taking place in Congress, CNN gave a report about secret tunnels found between the US and Mexican border, allegedly used to smuggle drugs and people into the United States. We heard the authorities give their report but we never heard anything from anyone else. We have also been inundated with news and images of people sneaking into the United States to allegedly steal jobs from “Americans.” From a certain perspective, many of these so-called “illegals” are more “Americans” than the people writing and reporting about them. But closer to the issue at hand -- and probably less debatable -- is the contribution the so-called “undocumented” workforce has bestowed upon the US economy.
CORRAL CONTROL
NYPD top brass converge and converse as thousands of demonstrators are caged off from the protest on Monday, April 19, 2006. Portions of the crowd were allowed to gradually filter through as authorities deemed it safe and within their containment strategy. Officials have praised these efforts, claiming that it strikes a balance between First Amendment rights and the safety and security measures needed for such large crowds in today’s world. On the other hand, many have criticized this restricted form of public gathering, comparing it to the dictatorships many of these immigrants have fled from. Photo: Rafael Merino Cortés/grupoHuracán
Researchers in North Carolina University estimate that billions of dollars in manufacturing and agriculture revenues would be lost to foreign countries if it were not for the immigrant -- both legal and “illegal” -- workforce. Contrary to some of the racist banter spewed by some white supremacists, it is the employer, the laws and ultimately the market that dictates hiring practice -- Mexicans and other immigrants are not holding a gun to anyone’s head. The construction industry, for example, has benefited greatly by paying immigrants lower wages and seeing higher returns on investments and building contracts. In 2002, Latinos held 95 percent of the construction jobs in Charlotte and 90 percent of the construction jobs in Raleigh, the two major cities of North Carolina. The only offer the contractors were forced to look at was the one that was going to make them the most money -- which is the same rationale US manufacturers have been using to export hundreds of thousands of jobs overseas. Of course, this perspective has not been very popular, unlike, say, trying to tie terrorism to the Mexican border.
The security debate regarding the Mexican border continues to leave some important arguments in the shadows. For example, you don’t hear much about how all the September 11 hijackers had visas and entered the US legally, mostly through Orlando, Miami, Washington, or New York, as tourists, business travelers, or students. None of the hijackers or any of the other suspects identified fully qualified as an “immigrant,” in the sense of someone who was admitted to the United States for permanent settlement. They were all “visitors,” most of them authorized to enter the US for short periods. None came across the Mexican border. This was a screw-up of Federal administrators and policies at the time, which was used as pretext to create the Department of Homeland Security.
However, suspected terrorists have infiltrated the United States through the Mexican border before. For some strange reason, however, you don't hear much about this particular case:
CROSSING THE MEXICAN BORDER AND
OTHER ADVENTURES
Luis Posada Carriles is wanted in Venezuela to stand trial for multiple counts of terrorism, including the bombing of a Cubana Airlines plane in 1976 that killed 73 people. Posada Carriles has also admitted involvement in a deadly hotel bombing campaign in Cuba in 1997. However, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice have made no plans for deportation or trial for Posada Carriles as of yet. Photo: Teresita Chavarria/Agence France-Presse
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In late March of 2005, a gentleman by the name of Luis Posada Carriles, one of the "engineers" of the 1976 terrorist bombing of Cubana Airlines flight 455 that killed 73 passengers, according to declassified CIA and FBI records, used a false passport to enter the US and ask for political asylum. However, Cuba and Venezuela, two countries currently on the "not-good-for-our-business" list of the White House, want him to face trial for that attack and other terrorist bombings that have been connected to him, including a 1997 bombing compaign in Cuba, which he admitted involvement in. In addition, Posada Carriles has been tied to cocaine trafficking in support of the
Contras during the 1980s Iran-Contra scandel.
Posada Carriles had training and experience by way of the US Army, where he trained at Fort Benning in Georgia and trained for the CIA. Declassified documents place him in several Latin American operations, including the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961.
He has been granted temporary asylum in the United States while facing charges of "entering the country illegally." Washington won't extradite him to Venezuela for fear that he would be tortured.
Although he is directly accused of several terrorists acts, supported by self-testimony and declassified intelligence reports, and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have declared him to be a threat to national security, he is not being held in Abu Gurab, Guantanamo Bay or some secret place in Europe -- he's in El Paso, Texas.
Posada's Miami lawyer, Eduardo Soto, argued that keeping Posada jailed violates his constitutional rights. Soto asked a federal judge last week to let Posada live with his family in Florida while immigration
officials find a country willing to accept him. He told the judge to consider Posada Carriles's service to the United States's national security efforts by helping in "US-led efforts to combat communists and totalitarian regimes in Latin America."1 See? It's all about perspective. Don't be surprised if you spot Posada Carriles sipping on a Piña Colada in a Miami Beach retirement home later this summer.
You just can't make this stuff up.
Unfortunately, not all immigrants can share the privileges of having done some dirty work for the US government. Hundreds of Haitians, for example, looking for asylum in the US have been thrown in prisons only to be deported back to Haiti to face very real and documented torture. And of course, hundreds of Mexicans are hunted down, shot at or die of dehydration every month looking to make a better life under the shadow of the richest and most powerful nation on the planet.
As conservative legislators depict the US-Mexico border as our new “Wild West,” fighting to restore law, order and protection from terrorists, more rational minds are reaching back to human rights, economic logistics and the founding principles of this country to consider new immigration reform against potential abuse of authority and political agendas.
So who stays, who has to leave and what price will our “Mother of Exiles” charge the poor and huddled masses yearning to breathe free? It’s hard to say. However, smearing the “terrorism” brush over this issue is stupid, unless plans are made to build a fence -- or wall -- across the Canadian border as well. Being how that would certainly give NAFTA a new coat of paint, we need to consider other excuses. Say that you’re afraid of La Reconquista and I’ll respect you more.
;-)
1 "Cuban militant Posada Carriles files bid to be released from jail" Alicia A. Caldwell, The Associated Press, April 7 2006
MIGUEL GUZMÁN
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