Author: mopress

The first web report from today’s press conference at Camp Mabry, headquarters of the Texas National Guard, comes from Lee McGuire of Austin’s KVUE-TV (with video clip online).

“Yesterday, we just found out, was a deadline the President set to have 800 members of the National Guard on the border already, and today we learned that that deadline has been met,” says McGuire in his live report.
When and how did the President set that deadline? A review of online sources turns up an AP story of May 24 that references “a first wave of 800” that “will head to the US-Mexico border next week” (or by June 1).

Of the eventual force of 6,000 planned for the border, McGuire reports that half will be spending anywhere from two weeks to two years “making sure that folks do not cross illegally.”

“They will be armed, but they will be not allowed to shoot anybody. They will only be allowed to fire in self defense, if that is the case,” says McGuire, blinking into the camera.

“That is one concern that the Mexican government had had, that folks along the border would be armed and providing some kind of military presence along the border. Again, the National Guard will be armed, but they will not be ‘militarized’,” says the messenger, who we would prefer to have said “say officials” at that precise point.

Armed miltary will not be militarized, say officials.

“The rest of the folks there will kind of be watching cameras and also looking at what is happening along the border trying to learn about where folks are coming across, and supporting the border patrol in their existing mission along the border.”

Reuters splits the remaining half in two: with a quarter helping to gather intelligence, while the other quarter will build “roads and metal barriers.”

More coming at five and six. “We learned a lot of facts today.” Thanks Lee for being there. But let’s call militarization for the fact it is, pretty please. Just give us a little space to think clearly while we try to figure out why today we are learning for the first time about yesterday’s Presidential deadline.

Following the spaghetti trails of binational and international policy groups in the Americas, we find a “Declaration of San Carlos” adopted on March 24, 2006 by the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism (CICTE). Venezuela’s footnotes to the declaration suggest some discomfort with the emerging anti-terrorism category of “emerging threats.”
This is an international, rather than multinational initiative, since it falls under the Organization of American States (OAS).

Interesting to find are three objections in the form of footnotes from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The first objection concerns wording of a paragraph that connects terrorism to “illicit drug trafficking, illicit trafficking in arms, money laundering, and other forms of transnational organized crime.” Such wording, says Venezuela, “is geared toward pointing out a direct and permanent connection between terrorism and transnational organized crime, as that entails a repudiation of the norms of due process and the presumption of innocence—universally recognized principles in the area of human rights.”

The second objection concerns the category of “Emerging Threats.” Venezuela refuses to support the framework of this category, “because no common definition is given of emerging threats and because it introduces elements that are not consistent with the realities of the Hemisphere and that are disproportionate with regard to one another, by their nature and according to the provisions of the Declaration on Security in the Americas.”

Concerns embraced by the category of “emerging threats” do seem to be “disproportionate to one another” if you compare security for the 2007 Cricket World Cup alongside weapons of mass destruction. As for its reference to “elements that are not consistend with the realities of the Hemisphere” it is more difficult to see what Venezuela intends. Perhaps this is a reference to the category’s preoccupation with cyberterrorism. Perhaps it has more to do with the issues that surround nuclear materials (see below).

One interesting phrase under “emerging threats” defers to “each state” to define “emerging threats” according to its own laws. We read in this language the influence of the USA.

In objection three, Venezuela returns to the category of “emerging threats” in order to single out disapproval of the reference to UN Security Council Resolution 1540 (2004). The resolution pertains to “proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons”. This category rings familiar as a motivation (or pretext) most vigorously applied by the USA to Iraq and Iran. Does Venezuela worry that such powerful linkages between emerging threats, nuclear and chemical materials, and pre-emptive warfare may soon go South?

Instead of viewing nuclear issues in terms of “emerging threats”, Venezuela’s footnote encourages a framework established in 1967 by the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean in the form of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, a self-adopted prohibition of nuclear weapons from the region.

Judge Rules That U.S. Has Broad Powers to Detain Noncitizens Indefinitely

By NINA BERNSTEIN
The New York Times
Published: June 15, 2006

A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation.
The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit by Muslim immigrants detained after 9/11, and it dismissed several key claims the detainees had made against the government. But the judge, John Gleeson of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, allowed the lawsuit to continue on other claims, mostly that the conditions of confinement were abusive and unconstitutional. Judge Gleeson’s decision requires top federal officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, to answer to those accusations under oath.

This is the first time a federal judge has addressed the issue of discrimination in the treatment of hundreds of Muslim immigrants who were swept up in the weeks after the 2001 terror attacks and held for months before they were cleared of links to terrorism and deported. The roundups drew intense criticism, not only from immigrant rights advocates, but also from the inspector general of the Justice Department, who issued reports saying that the government had made little or no effort to distinguish between genuine suspects and Muslim immigrants with minor visa violations.

Lawyers in the suit, who vowed to appeal yesterday’s decision, said parts of the ruling could potentially be used far more broadly, to detain any noncitizen in the United States for any reason.

“This decision is a green light to racial profiling and prolonged detention of noncitizens at the whim of the president,” said Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the detainees. “The decision is profoundly disturbing because it legitimizes the fact that the Bush administration rounded up and imprisoned our clients because of their religion and race.”

A spokesman for the government, Charles S. Miller, would not respond to those assertions, saying only that the Justice Department was “very pleased that the court upheld the decision to detain plaintiffs, all of whom were illegal aliens, until national security investigations were completed and plaintiffs were removed from the country.” He said the government was reviewing the rest of the opinion to decide whether to appeal the rulings Judge Gleeson made to allow the plaintiffs’ other claims to proceed.

In his 99-page ruling, Judge Gleeson rejected the government’s argument that the events of Sept. 11 justified extraordinary measures to confine noncitizens who fell under suspicion, or that the attacks heightened top officials’ need for government immunity to combat future threats to national security without fear of being sued.

But his interpretation of immigration law gave the government broad discretion to enforce the law selectively against noncitizens of a particular religion, race or national origin, and to detain them indefinitely, for any unspecified reason, after an immigration judge had ordered them removed from the country.

“The executive is free to single out ‘nationals of a particular country’ and focus enforcement efforts on them,” the judge wrote. “This is, of course, an extraordinarily rough and overbroad sort of distinction of which, if applied to citizens, our courts would be highly suspicious.”

Yet, he continued, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that Congress and the executive branch, in exercising their broad power over naturalization and immigration, can make rules that would be unacceptable if applied to American citizens.

In the judge’s view, the government has the right to detain people indefinitely as long as their eventual removal is “reasonably foreseeable.” If that interpretation stands, it could apply to millions of noncitizens, including tourists removable for visa violations, said Gerald L. Neuman, a law professor at Columbia who is an expert in human rights law and was not involved in the case.

“It doesn’t seem to limit the motives the government has to have in being slow in removing them; it could even be just basic neglect,” he said.

But Professor Neuman cautioned that “it’s only a district judge’s decision.”

“The decision encourages the government to behave this way without fear of financial liability,” he said, but it does not carry the weight of a ruling by an appellate court. “This interpretation is attackable even among other judges in Brooklyn, let alone Lower Manhattan.”

But David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University and a co-counsel in the lawsuit, said the ruling was the only one of its kind and made New York “an equal protection-free zone” because the government can detain immigrants wherever it chooses.

“What this decision says is the next time there is a terror attack, the government is free to round up every Muslim immigrant in the U.S., based solely on their ethnic and religious identity, and hold them on immigration pretexts for as long as it desires,” he said. “We saw after 9/11 what the government did in an era of uncertainty about how far it can go. Judge Gleeson has essentially given them a green light to go much further.”

The class-action lawsuit, Turkmen v. Ashcroft, is the first and largest of several brought by immigrants held after 9/11. The named plaintiffs in the case include former detainees who came back to the United States this year for depositions and were required to be in the custody of federal marshals at all times. Among them were Hany Ibrahim, a deli worker, and his brother, Yasser, a Web designer, Egyptian Muslims who said then that putting themselves back in the hands of the government they were suing was an act of faith in America.

Yesterday, Yasser Ibrahim, who had lived in New York for three or four years on an expired tourist visa and was delivered in shackles to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn soon after Sept. 11, said through his lawyers that he was shocked and very disappointed by the judge’s decision.

“I can’t believe the court would allow this to happen,” he said.” I am frightened for other Muslims in the United States, who could face the same discrimination and abuse that I suffered.”

By Greg Moses

Jerome Corsi raises some timely questions about “trilateral” arrangements being forged by “working groups” between North American actors. World Net Daily (WND) is on the document trail of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) thank goodness. But when you look at these kinds of initiatives, you get a shape-shifting mess of spaghetti. Asks WND: “Bush sneaking North American super-state without oversight?” To which we answer, well, duh. I mean what else has he ever been up to?
From the Mexico report to the U.N. Commission on Rights of Migrant Workers, we find a list of “bilateral mechanisms” (pasted below) headed by the Mexico-United States Binational Commission. As Corsi suggests, these things are difficult to see through, and the opacity is cleared up not a bit by a Washington press corps which begins the press conference on the US-Mexico Binational Commission (USMBC) by asking about Iran.

There were ten working groups active at USMBC 2006, and they arrived well-oiled and warmed up, because it appears that the conference lasted only a day. But what were the working groups? One can surmise from the “accomplishments” listed in a March 24 fact sheet that the working groups include:

Narco Wars and Anti-Terror (don’t get us started)

“Mesoamerica energy initiative” encompassing Central America and involving USAID, USTDA, and our [whoever “we” are] participation in the Inter American Development Bank. By the way, this also involves Methane exploitation (from oil and gas fields or garbage).

Transportation and air safety (they don’t mention NASCO here, but it seems a likely topic).

Regional good government (oh boy, this little project was convened with USAID in Mexico City on 9-11 2005, which makes us all feel tingly, yes?) Says the fact sheet: “USAID is now working with the Mexican Government to respond to technical assistance requests from the Central American countries. USAID has also supported the efforts of Mexico and its states to modernize criminal justice systems to better serve their citizens, increase their access to justice, and make them more secure.” (Access to Justice? Can this mean anything other than more police?)

Social Development (actually this boils down to improved banking structures, saving money on the cost of handling remesas and figuring out how to make this cash flow work better for lending practices of local banks in Mexico. Soon enough, the remesas will be returning back to the USA in the form of interest payments on debt?)

Liberalizing air traffic (neo-liberalizing is probably the better term)

Education (this is the key word for the democratic solution to USA-Mexico relations and that’s why it gets $50 million over an eight year period, while, let’s see, what does a single missile cost these days?)

Cultural Cooperation (I mean, once the cargo gets to pumping from China through Mexican ports and up into the heartlands, and once those remesas start falling back into the hands of bankers, and USAID starts funding technical requirements for good government in Central America, too, what’s left but to sell tickets for “increased mutual understanding through the arts”? We’ll entitle our own grant application: Circus of Bread.)

Air Quality (put Texas and Mexico together on this one and no doubt the air will continue to be safe enough for smoke stacks far into our children’s childrens’ futures.)

Innovative Housing Technologies (just tell us which famous names will be getting the contracts).

There you have it, our best guess at the ten working groups chaired by Secretaries Rice and Derbez before they chatted privately about Bush’s plans for the way things are really going to be. (As in, how ’bout that National Guard?)

-Mexico-United States Binational Commission. The Binational Commission’s Working Group on Migration and Consular Affairs is the main forum for dialogue on
migration matters. It deals with the most important issues related to the protection of Mexican nationals at the level of Secretaries of State. Its decisions and agreements have ensured decent treatment of Mexicans abroad.

− Liaison mechanisms for border matters (MEF). These mechanisms are the main forum for participation by the three levels of government of Mexico and the United States and deal with the main issues in the border area: consular protection,
public safety and border crossing points and bridges.
Their main purpose is to promote coordinated action between the two countries’ federal, state and local governments and to ensure that local issues at each border point are addressed from the standpoint of those who, because they live in the border
area, have the clearest idea of the problems. This enables border communities themselves directly to influence federal public policy on border matters and also permits the solution in situ of a variety of border problems and issues that previously required intervention and decision-making by authorities based in Mexico City and Washington. The mechanisms are headed by the consuls of Mexico and the United States at each border point.

− Internal consultation mechanisms (MCI). These are operated by all consulates and have immediate responsibility for addressing the problems of Mexicans detained by the United States immigration authorities, consular notification, access and protection and repatriation problems.

− Pilot voluntary programme for interior repatriation.3 This is based on the Memorandum of Understanding on the Safe, Orderly, Dignified and Humane Repatriation of Mexican Nationals signed in February 2004 between the Ministries of the Interior and Foreign Affairs of Mexico and the United States Department of Homeland Affairs. The pilot programme was intended to safeguard the lives of
migrants attempting to cross the border in the Sonora-Arizona area and involved the
migration authorities of both Governments.