Category: Uncategorized

By Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
by permission

A petition was filed in federal court this July with a very simple request. Please instruct the Border Patrol to answer this question: Are you going to be conducting immigration ID checks in the event of a hurricane evacuation? It’s a very good question. If tens of thousands of cars start leaving the Valley together and crowds arrive at the bus stations, won’t there be huge lines while IDs are checked? And what if I can’t find my ID? I interviewed someone working on the issue, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, Corinna Spencer-Scheurich.

Nick Braune: The Monitor reported that a number of groups, including LUPE and Brownsville’s Proyecto Digna, have filed a suit to find out evacuation procedures and policies. One lawyer was quoted as saying that the Border Patrol is being “reckless” and that they would be “creating a danger for everyone” if they start asking people for identification during an evacuation. Are those comments too strong?

Corinna Spencer-Scheurich: No, I don’t think they are too strong. Border Patrol is being reckless because the most important thing in advance of a disaster is to have a plan that everyone knows. We saw what happened when Houston residents tried to evacuate before Hurricane Rita. It took more than 24 hours for people to reach Dallas. Only half of the residents ended up evacuating. Luckily the main force of Rita did not hit Houston. What is clear is that in the event of a hurricane evacuation, everyone needs to be prepared and we have to get people to safety as quickly as possible.

Can you imagine the additional hold up at the Falfurrias checkpoint if Border Patrol is checking IDs? Holiday weekends are bad enough! And some people will not evacuate, risking harm, because they know they might run out of gas because of the gridlock or because they might have other problems. People who might have trouble proving their immigration status or have family members with that problem are also not going to flee. This is a humanitarian disaster waiting to happen.

Braune: Is it really necessary to go to a judge on this? Won’t the Border Patrol answer its phone and explain its evacuation procedures?

Spencer-Scheurich: We have asked several times in many different ways. We even asked again before we filed this lawsuit. I don’t think that the Border Patrol has realized the potential devastation that it might cause by not being clear and not working with the community on a humane evacuation plan.

Braune: If the judge rules on your side, what would be a possible next step?

Spencer-Scheurich: It depends on what Border Patrol’s plan is. If the Border Patrol will step aside in the face of an impending natural disaster, then the community groups who are plaintiffs in this case, like LUPE and Proyecto Digna, will be able to work with their members to help assure that we don’t have a loss of human life. But if the plan is to stop everyone evacuating and check their ID at the checkpoints, then we have some constitutional issues to grapple with.

Why are they only checking here in advance of a natural disaster and not in Florida or Louisiana? We believe that would be a violation of constitutional rights to Equal Protection based on national origin discrimination. It also might cause a deprivation of life, liberty and property in violation of the 5th Amendment. Once we know their plan we will take action accordingly.

Braune: In my column, I denounced the recent Postville, Iowa immigration raid as mean-spirited and confrontational. And I think Homeland Security’s push for the Border Wall, when our Valley is overwhelmingly opposed to it, has the same mean, confrontational quality. Do you think the Border Patrol’s tactics (demanding identification during the mock evacuation drill earlier this year) and the general “zero-tolerance” Operation Streamline are intentionally vicious?

Spencer-Scheurich: It is sad but true. I believe that immigration policy is being set for purely political reasons. It is being determined without regard to the experience that people have in their communities, without an understanding of the economic and social costs, and without even taking into account that similar policies have not worked in the past. It is shameful and hateful. I think we will look back at this period like we do to the days of segregation and Jim Crow laws, 19th Century treatment of Irish immigrants, and the Japanese internment camps during WWII. I just hope that by saying “enough is enough,” the nonprofit organizations in this lawsuit will be able to help their members, no matter what their immigration status is, to avoid life-threatening danger.

By Susan Van Haitsma

A brief reflection posted on Susan’s makingpeace blog fits with our theme this Flag Day 2008. And Susan says it will be okay if we post it here, too.–gm

I’m glad that for another year, Austin is hosting the Republic of Texas Biker Rally and the Austin Pride Parade on the same weekend. As the years
go by, I hope there will be more overlap of people between the events.

Last month, my partner and I spent a weekend in Fredericksburg when there happened to be several biker rallies in the vicinity. We had a chance to talk with a group of bikers about their passion for the open road and biker culture.

I asked if they knew of any male-female biker couples who rode with the woman driving and the man sitting behind her. They responded with
quips like, “only if he’s sick and she’s taking him to the hospital.”

They said there are definitely more women riding solo at the rallies, but women just don’t drive with men on the back. One of the women in the group said she wouldn’t necessarily want a guy sitting behind her anyway.

But I’m going to hope some biker dudes decide that being a real man means
not being afraid to be the passenger for a change. Isn’t part of biker culture about freedom from convention?

Be a rebel, guys. Defy the biker status quo, and see how good it feels when a woman is doing the driving.

I was thinking about the issue of gender expectation and tradition in relation to the Pride Parade also. One of the families in our neighborhood is a household of two gay men and their 3 children, each born of a surrogate
mother and fathered biologically by one of the men.

As I observe my neighbors raising their children, I notice ways they take on more equal
parenting roles. The men are freed from the baggage associated with societal expectations and traditions of man-woman parenting couples. I
think their more naturally equal relationship gives all couples some cues for ways that parenting can be more equally shared.

So, thank you to all the parents, couples and individuals of all ages out there who show what equality means by living it. Whether you’re two men on a bike, two women, or a pioneering pair with a woman in the driver’s seat, you’re helping build a republic of Texas that we’ll be proud to live in.

By Greg Moses

CounterPunch / DissidentVoice

As the ten-year anniversary of Azem Hajdari’s assassination approaches, the killing of the philosophy student who led the democratic movement in Albania is being fanned into memory by US efforts to deport the brother of an eyewitness to the crime.

***

It was the evening of Sept. 12, 1998 when the legendary moral leader of the Albanian democratic movement was at the headquarters of the Democratic Party of Albania, in the capital city of Tirana. Azem Hajdari had been leader of the student movement widely credited for toppling the Communist regime in Albania. He had been the Democratic Party’s first chairman. And he was serving his fourth term as a member of the Albanian parliament. At party headquaters, Hajdari and his personal bodyguard, Besim Cerja were chatting with a volunteer doorkeeper, Xhemal Neza; and with Xhemal’s cousin Zenel.

“Hajdari was a man of great integrity and we respected him very much,” recalls Xhemal Neza in an affidavit of April 2007. “Shortly before 9:30 p.m. the telephone rang and Hajdari spoke to the caller. When he hung up the telephone, he told us, ‘We have to leave immediately,’ because Izet Haxhia had told us to come at once. Haxhia was the personal body guard of Sali Berisha, who had become president of Albania in 1992. Berisha was the main leader of the Party on 12 September 1998. I personally heard Hajdari say the call was from Haxhia.”

“I opened the door,” continues the affidavit of the volunteer doorkeeper, “and Hajdari, Cerja, and my cousin Zenel Neza went out and got into Hajdari’s car, which was inside the walled compound. Cerja was driving; Hajdari was in the front passenger seat, and Zenel Neza was in the back seat. While I was closing the gate the car traveled out and turned right onto the street; after it moved about four meters, a black Mercedes 500 with Vlora license plates moved up and blocked its path. There was a light gray Jeep SUV just behind the Mercedes.”

“At about 9:30 p.m. Hajdari was shot. News reports saying he was killed at 10:00 p.m. are mistaken. I was about four meters from Hajdari when they killed him. I saw the persons who fired the shots and saw them pull the triggers. There were four assassins in the two cars.” Three of the assassins got out of their cars carrying automatic rifles. They were all wearing police uniforms. Xhemal recognized them as people he had grown up with.

Hajdari and his personal body guard were killed on the spot. In the back seat, Zenel Neza was critically wounded. Xhemal called his brother Rrustem, and together with cousins Skender and Gani they managed to drive Zenel to a doctor and then to safety in a nearby town.

The next day there was a demonstration. Police fired on the crowd, killing several people, and knocking Xhemal unconscious. The day after that, there was yet another demonstration. And this time, Rrustem Neza told the crowd of “about a thousand people” what Xhemal had seen on the night of the assassination and who the killers were. Xhemal went into hiding, moving every week. During one of the moves, his driver, cousin Skender, was killed.

“The police blasted Skender’s car with gunfire and began searching for me, but fortunately I had run in the opposite direction.” Meanwhile, cousin Gani was also killed. Of the four men who were part of the fateful rescue mission for Zenel Neza, two were dead. Zenel managed to escape the country. The other two, brothers Rrustem and Xhemal, eventually fled to Texas.

***

When the Neza brothers arrived in the USA, Xhemal was granted asylum and legal residency, but his brother Rrustem’s application for asylum was denied. According to court documents filed in Rrustem’s behalf, the immigration judge for Rrustem’s case simply did not believe Rrustem’s story. Xhemal testified at Rrustem’s hearing, but the judge wanted some corroborating evidence. Said the judge: “one would assume that his [the cousin’s] killing would have been reported in some newspaper in Albania which the respondent could have brought to court.”

As Rrustem’s present attorney John Wheat Gibson points out in this week’s brief to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the newspaper story about Gani Neza’s killing is available to anyone who can Google “Gani Neza.” Who knows why Rrustem’s former attorney did not present that newspaper article, or why the judge did not believe the brothers. Rrustem has been appealing for asylum ever since.

When they lived in Albania, the Neza brothers shared family land where there was gold and chrome. In Texas they opened up a pizza shop in the small college town of Nacogdoches. Things were quiet and apparently prosperous enough for them until they put in for a license to sell beer. An affidavit from the preparer of that license states that, “I never asked Xhemal or Rrustem about citizenship. I just assumed.”

On Jan. 18, 2007 Rrustem Neza was arrested for claiming to be a citizen on a beer license application, but he was never charged. In February, he was transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who locked him up at the Rolling Plains Prison of Haskell, Texas. In order to get out of prison he would only need to agree to go back to Albania. But he decided being alive in Haskell was better than being dead in Albania, so he waited in prison, separated from his wife and two children.

In June 2007, President Bush visited Albania, where the triumph of the Albanian Democratic Party was imaged via color photographs of Bush and Berisha smiling, waving, joined at the hip.

In late August 2007, ICE officials retrieved Rrustem from Haskell and forced him to board an Albania-bound airplane in Dallas. He screamed for his life. ICE was forced to abort the deportation, so they threw him back in prison.

***

On Sept. 4, 2007 attorney Gibson shared an email about Rrustem’s case, which was posted under his byline at the Texas Civil Rights Review. From there, the story went around the world to an Albanian tabloid, Korrieri. “WITNESS COMES FROM AMERICA,” shouted the headline of Sept. 5. “Rrustem Neza is considered by Texas Civil Rights Review one of those who made public the names of the people who killed Mr. Hajdari on 12 September 1998 in Tirana. While in Albania, there are calls for truth in the investigation process, witnesses and all the people connected to the case are still battling in the courts.”

On Sept. 11, 2007 Rrustem Neza made headlines in the Dallas Morning News as the “Albanian who screamed himself off plane.” Completely unembarrassed by all of this, the heart of ICE was hardened, and on Oct. 1, US officials asked for a federal court order to “dope and deport” Mr. Neza, so that he could be rendered pharmaceutically incapable of screaming the next time they put him on a plane.

Yet by this time, finally, the patent absurdity of America’s treatment of Rrustem Neza attracted the public attention of conservative East Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert, who on Oct. 23 penned an editorial for the Lufkin paper, calling Mr. Neza’s treatment “intolerable.” On Nov. 1, Gohmert introduced two personal bills in Congress in Mr. Neza’s behalf.

During the holiday season of 2007, ICE continued to keep Mr. Neza in Haskell prison, separated from his wife and two children.

Finally, on leap day 2008, three days after a Congressional committee took up Rep. Gohmert’s personal bills, Rrustem Neza was allowed to go back to his wife and two children after 13 months of imprisonment.

In March 2008, Rep. Gohmert announced that Mr. Neza’s deportation would be “stayed” until March 2009, the Lufkin paper editorialized in Mr. Gohmert’s behalf, and federal authorities announced that the “dope and deport” efforts had been officially “closed.”

All of w

hich brings us well into the summer of 2008. To date, the federal government of the USA is still refusing to grant Rrustem Neza an asylum hearing where attorney Gibson can submit corroborating evidence that Gani and Skender Neza are, in sad fact, as dead as the respected leader of the Albanian democratic uprising, Azem Hajdari. And if they were all gunned down in cold blood, doesn’t Rrustem Neza deserve to be believed when he says that deporting him to Albania would place him in reasonable fear for his life?

NOTE: edited 7/23, correcting number of children–gm

Dear Editor

Thank you for writing about Riad’s Memorial. It made me laugh and cry. I wanted to go but it was impossibly expensive and I feel so bad. Your essay took us there. My friends were there so I could picture them in the audience and will call them next. It was wonderful to hear what his wife and children had to share.

I met all of these people online doing Palestine peace work. . . . I don’t know how he could have committed suicide knowing how much he loved his children. After listening to his principal give her press conference and finding about all the kids who loved him..it made even less sense.

I met him online too of course. Friends in California, in Gaza, and in Belfast all knew him. When I heard he was coming in 2005 to LA area for the Al Awda conference I offered him a place to stay in my home. I didn’t know he would have slept in his car! So he got to sleep on my very comfortable futon couch.

He stayed until Monday or so and we went all over to UCLA and to friends where he dropped off goods for people to sell. He’d say, “just take it and send me the money as you sell it.” Anticipating staying here he said, “I’m shipping stuff to your address.” Dozens of big boxes showed up from Jerusalem and other places.

I still have on can of oil and had honey to sell and use .. gave to another friend who sold some too and my friends from WIBLA bought some too.

He was funny. Very self deprecating.Talked about being an Arab a lot. I can’t find my picture of him. I loved reading his take on the pink shirt. Don’t remember if he wore pink here though. He was a whirlwind. How his family is surviving . . . how shocking to have his life end so abruptly.

Thanks for giving us this peek in Riad’s life.

By Nick Braune

I noticed that an activist friend of mine was quoted in an article, and the issues being raised seemed very important. I called Martha Sanchez at her office in Mission and asked for a quick interview. She is an organizer for La Uni*n del Pueblo Entero (LUPE).

Nick Braune: I noticed in the Rio Grande Guardian that you and Juanita Valdez-Cox, the LUPE director, have been meeting with police officials recently about enforcement practices. What is the problem you are trying to resolve?

Martha Sanchez: We met with the police chiefs of La Joya, Peñitas, and Palmview because we had received phone calls from our members with complaints of incidents where the police had stopped people for traffic violations and then called the Border Patrol. We are trying to let the police chiefs know that we are active advocates for our members. We also want to provide a dialogue between the police and members so that our members will not be afraid of them.

Braune: If I understand this right, you are hoping that the local police do not see their role as enforcing immigration laws. Is that a major issue?

Sanchez: We remind them of their real role to protect and serve, which is not to do the work of immigration. And we explain to them that when they act as immigration officers, they lose the confidence of the people, and these people will be less likely to call on the police when major crimes and emergencies happen.

Braune: What is the concern about driver’s licenses and the LUPE cards?

Sanchez: Many working people we advocate for don’t have an ID. We are offering our membership cards as an alternative; this way the police can identify the individual instead of simply calling the Border Patrol as some of the departments were doing.

Braune: I read in the Valley Morning Star today about Operation Streamline starting up near Brownsville, and I was shocked. The paper made it clear to me that it is a major Border Patrol sweep, and it is not just sending immigrants back home for being out of compliance in their paperwork. Operation Streamline intends to hit the undocumented with criminal charges and apparently intends to send many tens of thousands more to prison, for periods of up to six months, before deportation. And I loved Juanita Valdez-Cox’s comment in the Guardian that it would make the private jail companies rich. Any more comments on this Operation Streamline?

Sanchez: About Operation Streamline, we are asking this: Who is going to be making money on these jails? And we make the further point that we are all going to suffer with the shortage of workers. Who is going to pick the crops and who is going to clean the dishes in the restaurants? Who is going to take care of the children when we work outside of home? We hope that everybody knows we will have to pay more money for services if Operation Streamline takes hold. But the big issue is this: When the government slaps more and more people with criminal charges, this will make it impossible for these undocumented workers to ever have a chance of getting legitimate work papers, because they will then have a criminal record.

Curious about Operation Streamline?

An article in Harlingen’s Valley Morning Star on June 11 reports that the new policy intends “criminal prosecution of every migrant caught crossing the border without documentation,” and the article calls it a “zero-tolerance” deterrence policy. (I personally consider both “zero tolerance” enforcement and “deterrence” generally to be ethically problematic, but I’ll hold that thought.)

Although Operation Streamline has raised criticism in other places like Del Rio, the Valley Morning Star says that it is now hitting our Valley. “The Border Patrol rolled out the policy Monday along a four-mile stretch of Cameron County’s border with Mexico from Brownsville to Fort Brown.”

“Formerly, first time offenders were offered the option of voluntary deportation and were processed, put on a bus and sent back to Mexico within hours of their arrest.” But under Operation Streamline they will be “detained, sent to court, jailed for up to 180 days if found guilty, and then deported.”

In Del Rio where this policy was recently tried, one federal Public Defender, William Fry, was quoted as worrying about due process. “We get a case on Wednesday and the court expects us to be ready to go by Friday. That’s not enough time to adequately represent a client.”

I called Meredith Linsky, a Harlingen attorney practicing immigration defense law:

Braune: What did you think of the report in the Valley Morning Star?

Meredith Linsky: I am greatly dismayed by the expansion of Operation Streamline. Our country has clearly made a priority of criminalizing immigrants and their efforts to seek work, opportunity and a better future. What would this country look like if this had been done to our parents, our grandparents and our great-grandparents? There needs to be some recognition of the push and pull effects of immigration. If we want to stop illegal immigration, we should invest in Mexico and Central America and punish the employers who provide jobs to undocumented workers.

Braune: The Border Patrol’s streamlined, “zero tolerance,” deterrence policy seems like a mess-maker to me. Do you agree?

Linsky: Yes, expanding law enforcement efforts like Operation Streamline causes needless suffering, including painful separation of families, and it will cost the American taxpayers millions of dollars. Although illegal entry is a crime on the books, the people who enter illegally are usually economic migrants and asylum seekers who come to this country seeking hope, promise and protection. America needs to recognize its own roots and find a legal way to meet the needs of employers and citizens from impoverished nations.

NOTE: a breifer version of this article first appeared in the Mid-Valley Town Crier.–gm