Texas Civil Rights Review

Category: Uncategorized

  • National Immigration Law Center Exposes Immigrant Detention Abuse

    “This report presents the first-ever system-wide look at the federal government’s compliance with its own standards regulating immigrant detention facilities, a view based on previously unreleased first-hand reports of monitoring inspections. The results reveal substantial and pervasive violations of the
    government’s minimum standards for conditions at such facilities. As a result, over 320,000 immigrants locked up each year not only face tremendous obstacles to challenging wrongful detention or winning their immigration cases, but the conditions in which these civil detainees are held often are as bad as or worse than those faced by imprisoned criminals.”

    Get the full report on “A Broken System” from the National Immigration Law Center

  • Ramsey Muniz: Celebrating King's Life

    “One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of things we’ve done. Yes, we will be able to say we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings to kiss the skies. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate oceanic depths. We brought into being many other things with our scientific and technological power.

    “It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, That was not enough! But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me. That’s the question facing America today.”

    –Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

    “I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear.”

    –President Barack Obama

    “I do not believe that our society in this 21st century can ever live up to its promise of justice, equality, and the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, until it stops insidious oppression, discrimination, prejudice, hostility, and my imprisonment on the basis of political, cultural, and spiritual philosophy as it pertains to the freedom to all humanity.”

    –Ramiro R. Muñiz

    Even though I have been confined in the prisons of America for sixteen years, I celebrate not the death of my brother, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but his life that continues to live in a most powerful, spiritual realm in this mode of darkness. His memorable life continues to demonstrate that we must have faith, courage, and the will in our hearts to struggle for our God-given rights. His life proved that the time has come for us to reunite and rise once again, and seek the rights for which he gave his life– freedom, justice, and equality.

    In exile,
    Ramsey – Tezcatlipoca

    www.freeramsey.com

  • Reprint with Note: Aggie Snake Pit Going Forward

    “Aggie Snake Pit” From the Editorial Board of the Dallas Morning News (June 16, 2009)

    Disarray in the administration of Texas A&M does not befit the great university that loyal Aggies typically rise to defend.

    It’s impossible for many of them to defend A&M today.

    President Elsa Murano’s resignation under duress drips with embarrassing irony. She was boosted into the job over three outsider candidates who, unlike her, made a search committee’s finalist list as sitting university presidents. Now, 17 months later, Murano has been squeezed out by the regime of chancellor and regents who handpicked her from her job as agriculture dean.

    A&M’s board and Chancellor Mike McKinney apparently didn’t know what they were getting when they promoted her and didn’t know what to do with her afterward. This is not to indict Murano’s short tenure. This simply addresses the leadership breakdown that stewards of a legacy institution are expected to avoid.

    One sub-theme is perceived string-pulling from Gov. Rick Perry, Texas’ most prominent A&M alum. Key administrators have strong ties to the governor, most notably McKinney, a former Perry chief of staff. Murano had complained of being surprised by developments within her purview. If true, that would represent meddling that no chief executive ought to tolerate.

    Other moves by top administrators bordered on underhanded. McKinney mused to the Bryan-College Station Eagle recently that perhaps A&M didn’t need a president. Perhaps, he said, the job could be combined with his duties of overseeing a system of 11 universities.

    The ostensible reason was saving money, though some on campus said they were unaware of a fiscal crisis that would call for such drastic action. The effect was to undermine the university president at a time she was smarting from emergence of her written job review. The Eagle obtained and published McKinney’s hand-written evaluation of Murano. It has the look of a paper that a professor graded on his way to class, with scribbles in the margins and crossed-out remarks.

    Even if McKinney hit the mark with the low grades he gave her, the process deserved an effort respectful of the office.

    As for Murano’s performance, her first months on the job merited her inclusion among finalists for the annual Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year feature for 2008. Accomplishments included a new program for tuition-free education to students with family income below a certain threshold.

    Murano’s tenure was rocky at times, including charges of dishonestly during her clumsy hiring, unhiring and rehiring of a vice president – a former Perry classmate – whose candidacy had not been vetted by campus stakeholder groups.

    But Murano’s bosses have taken personnel clumsiness to new heights, shortchanging the university mightily at a time it aims to measure up to its ambitious Vision 2020 plan. The job of A&M president must now look like a snake pit to top talent capable of leading a university of distinction.

    Editor’s Note from the Texas Civil Rights Review: Sources have been quoted to the effect that a new President for Texas A&M at College Station will be named within six months’ time. But keeping that deadline is not the most important thing to the institution. What is more important is an autonomous and dignified international search that is clearly anchored from within the community at the College Station campus–a search that is spot free from even the appearance of willful shenanigans in high places.–gm

  • Whose Economy will the Average Worker Pay for?

    It’s a monetarist bubble that is popping under the global economy argues Asia Times economist Henry CK Liu, and throwing future debt into past debt is only going to result in a decade of hard times.

    From Liu’s point of view, 2008 was a year mis-spent. First there was complacency and denial. Then, future debts were applied directly to past debts in a colossal waste of wealth and opportunity.

    In the end, says Liu, the average taxpayer is being forced to assume “risks” made by financial elites. In return, the same elites will demand leaner capital budgets. The result? Average workers will soon be financing their own unemployment.

    At some point, says Liu, emergency attention needs to turn to average worker wages. This is where the battle for economic health will be lost or won.

    On the supply side of the argument, as we hear daily from CNBC, the “bailout” funds are being tossed onto assets that will some day recover their worth, keeping the tax burden low.

    Since banks are now asking for even more billions, it seems sensible that taxpayers should demand assets in return for any money spent upon a banking institution. If worse comes to worst, banking functions should be nationalized.

    Trillion dollar priorities are being reordered at a rapid rate these days, and workers are feeling the pain of being left outside. Yet as Henry George very sensibly observed, there is no good reason why busy people cannot be merged into an economy where each busy person helps to meet some other busy person’s needs.

    Henry CK Liu puts it this way:

    When unemployment of 6% of willing workers is accepted as structural in an economic system, the fault is with the system, just as if a hospital accepts an annual mortality rate of 6% of its curable patients as structural, the hospital’s operation needs to be reexamined. The fundamental flaw in market capitalism is its inherent failure to deliver full employment as a social goal.

    The hard times are already hitting our Texas neighborhoods, and everyone who knows anything about it only promises that times will soon get harder.

    Against the hard times we have voices that can demand: keep us working together for the things that all of us need. The average worker can afford to pay for a program like that.–gm

  • Nixing the Border Patrol’s Plan to Use Herbicides

    By Nick Braune
    Mid-Valley Town Crier
    by permission

    The Border Patrol is planning on doing some aerial spraying (herbicides) near Laredo, Texas. Because Laredo and the Mexican city across the river from it, Nuevo Laredo, each have about 350,000 people (not exactly one of Texas’ sparsely populated county areas), concern about the spraying has been growing.

    However, the Border Patrol says it is not going to be spraying people, it is simply intending to spray a herbicide over a one mile-long stretch of unpopulated land, the purpose being to kill a tall plant (carrizo cane, similar to bamboo) which has been growing wildly there. The Border Patrol thinks it is too easy for undocumented people to hide in the carrizo where the Patrol does not have a clean line of sight.

    The Border Patrol argues that spraying the carriso is a practical, common sense, solution, although quite a few people in the Laredo area, on both sides of the border, are not convinced it is necessary and are not staying quiet. Logically, the burden of proof falls heavily on the Border Patrol — they are not spraying in a desolate region and the spray must be pretty powerful to knock out these bamboo-like shoots. The stretch lies between the Laredo Railroad Bridge and the Laredo Community College, directly across from a populated area in Mexico, according to an article in Frontera NorteSur on March 21st.

    According to the Frontera article, the manager for Nuevo Laredo’s water utility said that the Border Patrol advised his office to start turning off water pumps when the spraying takes place. The fact that the Border Patrol has warned the Mexican side that it should not pull water from the Rio while the spraying is taking place made a water manager for Nuevo Laredo raise the obvious question: The utility manager is quoted as saying, “If there is no problem, why are they asking us to do this?” And in a phone interview for this column, Jay Johnson-Castro, the Executive Director of the Rio Grande International Studies Center at Laredo Community College, said that the U.S. authorities are actually suggesting the Mexicans not draw off any river water for a day or two after the spraying as a precaution.

    Johnson-Castro was at a meeting of the city council in Nuevo Laredo where they voted 20 to 0 to call on the U.S. to stop the spraying. No doubt many people felt there was a danger and felt confused about the necessity of the project: if the carrizo cane is such a problem, why doesn’t the Border Patrol just hire some crews to cut it down? The Border Patrol has two million dollars for the project, according to Johnson-Castro.)

    Johnson-Castro, in the phone interview, said bluntly, “The Border Patrol has not been upfront.” They have been talking about “eradication” of the carrizo cane for some time, but they were not telling many people that they were intending aerial spraying with herbicides. “Back in July, they advertized for one day that they were carrying out an environmental assessment. People just didn’t know this was being discussed.”

    Later, according to Johnson-Castro, government people said that they had done an environmental assessment, although the city council members and the city’s environmental department personnel told Johnson-Castro that they hadn’t even seen the report. “The environmental assessment process was abused.” And as far as Mexico goes, says Johnson-Castro, “I myself sent out the initial warning to the health and water departments in Nuevo Laredo and Tamaulipas. If I hadn’t done that, I wonder if the Border Patrol, now sending warnings on the water, would have ever informed them.”

    The chemical being used is Imazapyr. Versions of this are made by BASF and Monsanto. Is it safe for people, plants, animals, water? Well, chemical safety standards vary by country. It is labeled as relatively safe in the U.S., but Mexican regulators label it as more toxic and dangerous. And the Europeans have virtually banned it for these defoliation uses, according to Johnson-Castro.

    How does the matter stand at present? An association of citizens called Barrio De Colores, composed of residents of the barrios El Cuatro and De Colores, whose homes are near the proposed Border Patrol pilot project site for helicopter spraying, filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the planned action. It was filed one day before the March 25th starting date for the spraying. A judge has responded and the spraying is temporarily being held off. This may be extremely important in the long run because the Laredo spraying is intended as a “pilot project” for several stretches of the river, Great Bend to Brownsville.

    (Just some thoughts-in-progress. In the above discussion, I didn’t connect this arrogant Border Patrol spraying plan to the increased militarization of the Border. But President Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano have just this week pushed — good grief — for more Feds down here on the Border. And they are deliberately, it seems, giving mixed (friendly/unfriendly) messages to Mexico and seem to want to run Mexico’s anti-drug campaign.)