Op-ed: Immigration and the New Old Me

New America Foundation, 5/16/12

Los Angeles

Despite my family’s rootedness in Southern California, migration has had an inordinate effect on my life. Now that it has come to a virtual halt, how do I see myself? Angeleno, as always.

The news that Mexican immigration to the United States has come to a virtual halt has me thinking about all the ways that will change things. It will affect politics, culture, labor and the nation’s racial climate. And it will also change how we see each other and ourselves as Americans and as Californians, me included.

I’m one of those mythical native Californians you might have read about. I was born near the corner of Sunset and Vermont in Hollywood. My father was born in L.A. and baptized, as was I, at La Placita Church downtown. My mom was born in northern San Diego County and baptized at the San Antonio de Pala mission there. My paternal great-grandfather arrived in the U.S. — Arizona — from Mexico in 1893. My family has been American so long that sometimes I think I should wear one of those buckled Pilgrim hats.

Read more…

Priest who denounced abuse, kidnapping of migrants in southern Mexico flees death threats

The Washington Post, 5/14/12

An outspoken priest who runs a shelter for migrants in southern Mexico has temporarily left his facility after receiving death threats, the shelter coordinator said Monday. The “Hermanos en el Camino” shelter run by the Rev. Alejandro Solalinde said in a statement that the Roman Catholic priest is “protecting his physical safety” until state and federal prosecutors thoroughly investigate the threats.

The shelter said Solalinde is expected to return to his work, but didn’t say when. “International human rights organization that work closely with Solalinde suggested he go away for a while,” said Jose Alberto Donis, who coordinates activities at the shelter.

Donis said the most recent threat came on April 15. Prosecutors in southern Oaxaca state have said they are investigating and are providing police security for Solalinde. Solalinde has become widely known in Mexico for publicly denouncing corruption and abuse of mainly Central American migrants who cross into Mexico seeking to reach the United States.

Read more…

Child Immigration is Rising

Wall Street Journal, 5/7/2012

South Texas is seeing a rise in children from Central America who have slipped across the border unaccompanied into the U.S. from Mexico after that country began deporting fewer kids who arrived without visas, some experts say.

The influx across the U.S. border is causing a political outcry in the state, where the federal government has set up five temporary shelters to deal with the growing numbers of young immigrants.

From October to the end of April, the U.S. government has detained more than 6,500 unaccompanied minors who had crossed the border, nearly double the number detained in the comparable period the previous year, according to U.S. officials.

Most of them come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, countries that are close to Mexico’s southern border, and generally range in age from 14 to 17, though some are younger.

The jump comes as illegal immigration is down sharply overall, thanks to declining immigration from Mexico paired with a rising number of people returning south from the U.S.

Read more…

In Mexico, rising tension at shelter for migrants

The Sacramento Bee, 5/7/12

The travelers, with bloodshot eyes and sleep-wrinkled clothes, press around a man with a map of Mexico taped to the wall. He speaks, and his finger traces various routes north to the border. All roads lead to trouble.

Up here, kidnappers and drug killers. Over there, Mexican army checkpoints. Farther along, a giant desert, with poisonous snakes and deadly heat. Listeners rise on tiptoes to see better. A woman asks for a piece of paper; she wants to remember the name of the Mexican state bordering Arizona. Sonora. Others swap hesitant looks but stay silent, like soldiers being briefed on a terrible foe.

They are migrants, almost all from Central America, and they have endured much to reach this place, a church-run shelter about an hour’s drive north of Mexico City. And they will endure more. The man with the map is a volunteer whose job is to make sure they know how much more.

Read more…

ABC News, Univision launch channel

Politico, 5/7/12

ABC News and Univision News have announced that they will launch a new 24-hour network, the first English-language channel aimed toward U.S. Hispanic audience. ABC News announced the news this morning.

ABC News and Univision News today announced they have agreed in principle to form a far-reaching, multiplatform joint venture dedicated to informing, empowering and inspiring Hispanic Americans in English while providing all audiences with uncompromising coverage of current events with a unique perspective.

The landmark agreement would capitalize on Univision’s news leadership and expertise in reaching U.S. Hispanics and ABC’s global news leadership to serve over 50 million Hispanics, the youngest and fastest-growing demographic in the U.S. The new 24/7 network will include America’s first English-language channel for English-dominant and bilingual Hispanics as well as integrated digital and social platforms.

Read more…

The Americanization of Cinco de Mayo

National Journal, 5/4/12

Cinco de Mayo lands on a Saturday this year, and Americans of all backgrounds are scoping out sunny patios to meet friends or planning to hit festivals and parades.

Cinco de Mayo, as it’s celebrated in the U.S. these days, is a recognition of the contributions of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans to American culture, said Eric Olson, of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.  Cinco de Mayo technically marks the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, where, in 1862, Mexican troops defeated the French Army—considered one of the most powerful at the time. It’s most commonly mistaken as Mexican Independence Day, which falls on Sept. 16.

The holiday isn’t celebrated as widely in Mexico, Olson said. But he believes it’s a good thing that Mexicans and Mexican-Americans have made the holiday their own here.

Read more..

Op-ed: 3 things Americans don’t need to worry about

Chicago Tribune, Stephen R. Kelly, 5/2/12

The United States is not being overrun by illegal aliens, is not running out of oil or natural gas, and is not being sucked into the vortex of Mexican cartel violence along the border.

In fact, illegal immigration is at a 40-year low, oil production is at an eight-year high and U.S. cities along the Mexican border are among the safest in the nation. All this might come as news to anyone who has closely followed this year’s presidential primaries, whose general theme seemed to be that America is circling the drain. To help lift the national mood, here are three things you can remove from your worry list.

Virtually all the GOP presidential candidates have talked about illegal immigration in starkly negative terms, with the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, proposing further crackdowns so undocumented immigrants “self deport.” But the numbers suggest this rhetoric has been overtaken by events.

Read more…

Op-ed: Mexican Food North of the Border

The New York Times, Julia Moskin, 4/30/12

ADMIT it, tortilla-chip fans: you are curious about Taco Bell Doritos Locos tacos, introduced in March. These salt bombs take the usual fast-food taco filling and stuff them inside a giant orange-dusted nacho-cheese chip. They have been so successful that the company has just introduced a Cool Ranch flavor.

But to truly grasp the significance of these creations, the taco must be eaten in the company of Gustavo Arellano, a journalist and Orange County, Calif., native who is perhaps the greatest (and only) living scholar of Mexican-American fast food.

And preferably, you will eat it here, in the birthplace of American fast food, while he explains to you precisely how the Frito, America’s first corn chip, was copied from the Mexican tostado, then evolved into the Dorito and eventually the Tostito.

Read more…

Op-ed: Central Americans determined to trek north to U.S.

The Washington Times, Guy Taylor, 4/29/12

About 200 impoverished and undocumented migrants recently packed into a small building in this ramshackle town 20 miles north of Mexico City.

Nearly all were from Honduras and headed for the U.S. border. Almost none spoke a word in the shelter’s dark main room, where the only thing thicker than the smell of unwashed clothes was a sense of fear. “Yeah, I’m scared,” said Victor Caseres, 26, who had traveled 750 miles by hopping freight trains to arrive at the shelter, one of more than a dozen run by the Catholic Church in Mexico to provide refuge for migrants.

“Everything’s been all right so far, but going forward, I’m afraid. Sometimes criminal guys hop on the train, and they’ll rob you or kill you.” Migrants in search of jobs in the U.S. face a gantlet of life-or-death risks in their treks across Mexico from its southern border: Many fall prey to extortion, kidnapping, rape and killing by crooked police and criminal gangs.

Read more…

More kids crossing Mexico border alone

San Francisco Chronicle / Associated Press, 4/29/12

Texas – An unprecedented surge of children caught trudging through southern Texas scrublands or crossing at border ports of entry without their families has sent government and nonprofit agencies scrambling to expand their shelter, legal representation and reunification services. On any given day this year, the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement has been caring for more than 2,100 unaccompanied child immigrants.

The influx came to light recently when 100 kids were taken to Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio for temporary housing. It was the first time the government has turned to the Defense Department – in all, 200 boys and girls younger than 18 stay in a base dormitory.

While the issue of unaccompanied minors arriving in the United States isn’t new, the scale of the recent increase is. From October through March, 5,252 kids landed in U.S. custody without a parent or guardian – a 93 percent increase from the same period the previous year, according to data released by the Department of Health and Human Services. In March alone, 1,390 kids arrived.

Read more…