Author: mopress

Washington, D.C.—Today, Congressman Raùl M. Grijalva and 42 other members of Congress, asked U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, to review the environmental impacts of border security infrastructure and operations along the U.S./Mexico border region.

“It is the Secretary’s responsibility to protect the homeland, not selectively destroy our environment,” said Grijalva. “This review is necessary to quantify, compensate for and avoid the negative consequences of border security infrastructure and operations. DHS should cooperate with other applicable agencies to create and fund a robust border-wide environmental monitoring program and to provide sufficient mitigation funding for damage caused by border enforcement activities. Our local communities are open to working on behalf of security – not a selective security, but rather one that includes habitat, national, border, and regional security.”

In the past several years, miles of border fence have been constructed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This massive federal project has had serious consequences upon natural and cultural public resources, and has caused hardship for private land owners, whose lands have been condemned and livelihoods have been disrupted.

Editor’s Note: forwarded by Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.

July 23, 2009
The Honorable Janet Napolitano
Secretary of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, D.C. 20528

Dear Secretary Napolitano:

We write to you today with concern regarding mounting environmental and societal impacts
related to border security infrastructure and operations. As you conduct your evaluation of border security initiatives, we encourage you to consider the importance of monitoring, mitigation, and environmental training for border security personnel in order to quantify, compensate for and
avoid the negative consequences of border security infrastructure and operations. We ask that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cooperate with other applicable agencies to create and fund a robust border-wide environmental monitoring program and to provide sufficient mitigation funding for damage caused by border security infrastructure and enforcement
activities.

As you are aware, hundreds of miles of new border fences and patrol roads have been
constructed by DHS along the US Mexico border in the past several years. This massive federal
project has had deleterious consequences upon natural and cultural public resources, and has
caused hardship for private land owners, whose lands have been condemned and livelihoods
have been disrupted. Considerable annual maintenance operations will be required for border fencing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates annual maintenance costs will amount to 1500 of initial construction costs, which are averaging $3 Million per mile. In addition, with
DHS adding significantly more Border Patrol personnel, it is becoming increasingly important
that impacts related to off-road vehicles, low-level flights and other interdiction activities be
quantified and mitigated for, and that DHS provide training for its personnel in techniques to
minimize damage to sensitive resources during enforcement activities.

We understand that in 2008 DHS allocated up to $50 Million to the Department of the Interior
(DOT) for border fence mitigation. It is our understanding this money will be utilized primarily
for off-site mitigation targeted to benefit threatened and endangered species that have been negatively impacted by new border security infrastructure projects. We believe this first round
of mitigation for threatened and endangered species, along with the memorandum of agreement signed between DHS and DOl, demonstrate a positive commitment to mitigating negative impacts. However, there are numerous impacts across the border caused by both security
infrastructure and operations that will require significantly more resources to properly monitor
and mitigate.

For example, the National Park Service issued a report in August, 2008 confirming that border
fencing astride the Lukeville Port of Entry has exacerbated seasonal flooding and has caused
accelerated scouring and erosion on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument threatening to permanently alter the hydrology of the area if modifications are not made to rectify the
inadequate design. A similar problem was identified at the DeConcini Port of Entry, where
tunnel barrier and fence-exacerbated flooding caused extensive property and infrastructure
damage in Nogales, Mexico. There are also serious concerns related to border infrastructure
construction-induced siltation and resulting degradation of sensitive habitats of the Tijuana River Estuary and the San Pedro River located in southern California and Arizona, respectively. In
south Texas, private land owners and agricultural interests have significant tracts of land that
have been or will be isolated to the south of border fencing. Yet, DHS has only offered
compensation for the exact footprint of the infrastructure failing to recognize or compensate for fiscal losses of property value and accessibility caused by the construction of border fencing.

To date, there has been a lack of scientifically-based monitoring to quantify the environmental impacts of border security infrastructure and operations. Information from monitoring will provide objective data on impacts, so that efforts to avoid impacts and mitigate for unavoidable impacts can be targeted appropriately. It is our understanding that such a pilot program has been proposed and is to be led by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). We understand the initiation of this program is pending a memorandum of agreement between DHS and DOT. We are concerned that this monitoring program, currently in a conceptual stage, is not being implemented fast enough; ongoing acute and cumulative impacts continue to go unmonitored.

We urge you to ensure that DHS is an active partner in establishing this program and in utilizing the information derived from it to inform a robust, multi-year border mitigation fund.
We appreciate your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

43 Signatures

The weekly meeting of the Texas Workforce Commission turned into an emergency room for unemployment benefits on Tuesday morning.

The best overview of the “sit-yi-ashun” comes out of the Waco Tribune in today’s editorial titled, “Get with It.”

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram offers good coverage in a news story by Dave Montgomery and a column by Mitchell Schnurman.

Here at TCRR we have been watching the Governor’s dogmatic attachment to supply-side economics since he presented the Laffer Report last Fall. The Laffer model has worked well as a campaign platform in ordinary times. But these are no ordinary times.

According to figures released last week by the National Employment Law Project, large numbers of jobless Texans will begin exhausting their 33 weeks of federal unemployment benefits. About 47,000 will hit the end of that lifeline in September, with the number growing to nearly 80,000 by the year-end holidays.

Texas is one of four states (all from the former Confederacy) that rejected a 20-week extension of those federal benefits, and so far most Texans agree that the state did the right thing. –gm

The international press is carrying the story of the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., but they usually fail to give his full title: Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

According to the AFP report: “Gates was seen by a passing woman to be attempting entry to the front door of his house — which was damaged — along with another black man, according to the police report from July 16.”

When police questioned Gates at his own home, he reportedly told them “this is what happens to black men in America.” He was arrested at his own home for allegedly being “loud and tumultuous” in his denunciations.

Has a person no right to protest?

The story of Gates’ arrest follows news about one imprisoned immigrant in South Texas who was indicted after being roughed up by authorities (see Nick Braune’s story below.)

We draw a comparison between what was done to Gates and Rama Carty. In both cases free expression was countered by official misuse of power. These two cases become the latest symptoms of a systemic disease.

As we watch for developments in both cases we also keep our watchwords close at hand. Today we take our watchwords from “Living Morally: A Psychology of Moral Character,” by Laurence Thomas.

“the desire not to be wronged by others is the most minimal attitude of positive regard that a self-respecting individual can have toward herself or himself.”

These two cases of official retaliation against Gates and Carty are obstructions to the right to be a self-respecting individual in America today. –gm

Here is an excerpt from Gates’ attorney as posted at The Root:

When Professor Gates opened the door, the officer immediately asked him to step outside. Professor Gates remained inside his home and asked the officer why he was there. The officer indicated that he was responding to a 911 call about a breaking and entering in progress at this address. Professor Gates informed the officer that he lived there and was a faculty member at Harvard University. The officer then asked Professor Gates whether he could prove that he lived there and taught at Harvard. Professor Gates said that he could, and turned to walk into his kitchen, where he had left his wallet. The officer followed him. Professor Gates handed both his Harvard University identification and his valid Massachusetts driver’s license to the officer. Both include Professor Gates’ photograph, and the license includes his address.

Professor Gates then asked the police officer if he would give him his name and his badge number. He made this request several times. The officer did not produce any identification nor did he respond to Professor Gates’ request for this information. After an additional request by Professor Gates for the officer’s name and badge number, the officer then turned and left the kitchen of Professor Gates’ home without ever acknowledging who he was or if there were charges against Professor Gates. As Professor Gates followed the officer to his own front door, he was astonished to see several police officers gathered on his front porch. Professor Gates asked the officer’s colleagues for his name and badge number. As Professor Gates stepped onto his front porch, the officer who had been inside and who had examined his identification, said to him, “Thank you for accommodating my earlier request,” and then placed Professor Gates under arrest. He was handcuffed on his own front porch.

See Also: Statement from Gates’ Attorney and link to police report at The Root.

By Nick Braune

July 8, Brownsville Herald: “A federal grand jury has returned a two-part indictment against Rama Carty Tuesday, charging him with assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating or interfering with Lt. Eric Saldivar and detention officer Hector Buentello, Jr. in the performance of their official duties, the court record shows.” The article says Carty may face 16 years in prison and a $500,000 fine for his alleged violence last month at the Port Isabel Detention Center in southern Texas.

The next day, in response to the Herald article, I proudly joined a quickly-called morning picket line in McAllen outside the Federal Building, where Homeland Security has its offices; on the sidewalk about 14 of us chanted for justice and demanded that Carty be freed and that the frame-up charges be dropped.

The background is fairly simple. Rama Carty, 39, had been held in the Port Isabel Detention Center for about a year. After reading coverage of an Amnesty International report in the spring about the lack of due process in immigration detention centers, the poor conditions, and the disorganization of the system, Carty was invigorated and tried to get Amnesty to visit and take testimony at PIDC. He soon became somewhat of a spokesperson among the detainees and a key figure in a hunger strike trying to draw attention to the problems involved.

Not shy, he was soon in touch with some Rio Grande Valley activists around the Southwest Workers Unicn (SWU) who helped publicize problems at PIDC, and he was interviewed on Democracy Now and by Texas Monthly.

Amnesty International leader Sarnata Reynolds announced that she was going to personally visit Texas to speak to detainees at PIDC, making it clear that she believed a hunger strike had taken place – PDIC kept denying that it happened. Then on June 3, Amnesty visited, and Reynolds sent out a letter to supporters that very evening that she had met inmates, including Carty, and that she believes there are significant problems at PDIC, referencing Amnesty’s spring report.

(Amnesty reports are carefully prepared, taking the time to provide documentation, and they have considerable public weight because they are prepared well. Although over the years I have often wished Amnesty would take up different issues than it does, I do realize how limited their resources and personnel are and the large numbers of people internationally vying for Amnesty’s immediate attention on particular issues. Incidentally, I have been particularly pleased this decade with their 2005 report criticizing the egregious U.S. policy of imprisoning people for “life with no parole” for crimes they committed as children and was very pleased over this last month with their report strongly criticizing Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza last winter.)

The very day after Carty was interviewed, awfully early in the morning, Carty was roused from his sleep to be transferred to a Louisiana center, and from there to be shipped back to Haiti. It is obvious that the PDIC wanted to get rid of this nuisance who had been making waves for several months.

Apparently, according to one report I heard about, two of the guards who were assigned to process him became angry when he “went limp” in standard civil disobedience style, and they proceeded to rough Carty up as they moved him out. There was a report by inmates that there was blood on the floor. The SWU local members heard of the event from detainees who called them, and they began rousing their members and friends to make phone calls protesting this.

Amnesty, which was scheduled to speak to more inmates that day — it was a two-day visit – protested to the PDIC officials and demanded to talk to the guards who took Carty away that morning. The PDIC authorities were not cooperative and insisted that nothing was amiss, that the transfer of Carty had been planned for over a week and was not in response to their visit.

After the Brownsville Herald this week said that Carty was being charged with assault, resisting, etc., the Port Isabel prisoners and Rama’s supporters outside were of course shocked and angry. One prisoner communicated to the network outside. His comments: “I spent most of my days with Rama Carty in the library; not once had he ever gotten into a physical or verbal fight with anyone; his demeanor [was] refreshing. I can clearly say that the charges are trumped up.” There were also prisoners who witnessed the officers taking him out, and they verify Carty’s version of the story, although they were not allowed to get their version into the grand jury room.

One thing that may be behind the assault charges is that DHS had hoped to ship the hot potato Carty off to Haiti after they got him to Louisiana. But Haiti officials said they did not want him; he knows no one there and he is actually not from Haiti. True, his parents are Haitian, but he was born in the Congo and lived in Africa only his first year, moving to spend the rest of his life in the States.

Because Carty had been held in detention all these recent months supposedly to process him out of the country, when DHS found out he could not be deported to Haiti, they should have released him. Not having papers is a civil not a criminal offence, after all. Unable to send him to Haiti, however, DHS is apparently now arranging to send Carty to prison.