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Dollars go South to purchase “food, clothing, and other basic needs.”

Mexico Remittances to Surge 20%, Central Bank Says (Update1)

Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) — Mexico will receive almost $24 billion in remittances from abroad this year, a 20 percent rise from a year ago, as the number of Mexicans working in the U.S. increases, said an official at the country’s central bank.
Jesus Cervantes, the Bank of Mexico’s director of economic measurement, said remittances will rise from $20.6 billion in 2005. The 2006 estimate is more than six times the $3.7 billion in remittances in 1995.

“We’re going to live with these increases for the next few years because for many Mexicans it’s very attractive to emigrate to the U.S.,” Cervantes said in a telephone interview.

An estimated 400,000 Mexican cross into the U.S. in search of higher paying jobs and many send money back to their families in transactions that for many years have averaged more than $300 each, Cervantes said.

The inflow of billions of dollars from Mexicans living abroad has helped keep the Mexican peso strong against the dollar and has driven consumption growth, said Alonso Cervera, an economist at Credit Suisse in New York.

The Mexican currency gained 5.5 percent to 10.85 pesos per dollar yesterday since it slipped to a low this year of 11.4806 pesos on June 19 amid concern that rising world interest rates would reduce demand for riskier emerging-market assets.

Private Consumption

Private demand rose 6.4 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the highest growth rate since the fourth quarter of 2000, in part because money received from abroad is used immediately to buy food, clothing and other basic needs, Cervera said.

“That money is not saved,” Cervera said. “That money is being spent and it’s one variable that has explained the pace of growth of private consumption.”

Unlike oil and export revenue, which can fluctuate with crude prices or can be affected by a slowdown in the U.S. economy, remittances have shown constant growth over the years, Cervera said. Unless the U.S. government takes drastic measures on immigration, such as deporting Mexicans already living and working in the U.S., the amounts will continue to grow, he said.

“The remittance story is a solid one for many years,” he said.

The Mexican government has encouraged competition among financial companies that provide services for sending money home, which has caused costs to drop by about a third, Cervantes said. In 1999, Mexicans paid an average of $28.50 to send home $300. The cost is now an average of $10 and will continue to drop as more Mexicans open bank accounts on both sides of the border, Cervantes said.

Some banks are offering free transfers of money for customers with bank accounts, he said.

“The big reduction in the cost of sending remittances already took place, but there’s still room for more reductions as new technologies are incorporated,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Thomas Black in Monterrey at tblack@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 10, 2006 11:14 EDT

By Jay Johnson-Castro, Sr.

All across this country, folks are rejoicing over the latest decision coming from ICE, of the Department of Homeland Security, under the direction of the Obama administration, to begin a transformation of immigrant detention policies . . . starting with T. Don Hutto.

When it comes to the end of children being imprisoned on American soil, right here in Texas, this victory is more that just about T. Don Hutto.

After the suffering of thousands of children and their families, this decision to quit imprisoning innocent children in a privately run “for profit” prison, is a victory, for not only the children, but, for the small group of “we the people” who engaged in the confrontation of human dignity over human cruelty, a group that grew to thousands around the country.

It is also a victory for the hundreds of thousands of other innocent immigrant children in this country that would have been victims of ICE fulfilling the blueprint of Operation Endgame. By exposing the conditions of T. Don Hutto, the entire system of federal corporatism.

While we rejoice all across this country, we do well to realize that there is more to do. Because Hutto has violated every one of those international rights of children, for over two years, the Hutto grassroots citizens have featured Rights of the Child at our Hutto walks and vigils for over two years now.

That is why a growing group of these same grassroots citizens that came together to fight for the freedom of the children imprisoned in Hutto, have launched a new campaign. They have formed a new group, known as Rights of the Child USA.

Rights of the Child USA is therefore organizing for a major networking initiative…to build an alliance of hundreds of organizations from around the country . . . to promote the ratification of the UN Rights of the Child. Why?

On November 20th, 1989, the UN held the Convention on the Rights of the Child . Rights of the Child was adopted in 1990. That same year, the US Congress voted to ratify the Rights of the Child. Yet, President George H.W. Bush refused to sign the legislation.

Under President Bill Clinton, the Rights of the Child was never important enough to get it ratified. Under George W. Bush, thousands of immigrant children all across this country were victims of some of the harshest treatment, imprisoned “for profit” by the Bush cronies, and deported by the hundreds of thousands.

Untold hundreds have died under the policies of Bush, Cheney, Chertoff, DHS and ICE.

November 20, 2009 marks the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet, with the exception of Somalia, the United States is the only country in the world that has refused to ratify the Rights of the Child.

Rights of the Child USA is planning a major event to be held this coming November 20th . . . and has every confidence that the Obama Administration, that just chose to end the imprisonment of innocent immigrant children “for profit” in T. Don Hutto, will also ratify the international Rights of the Child.

If you and-or your organization would be interested in joining this movement and supporting legislation to ratify the Rights of the Child, or know of others who would, please feel free to contact Border Ambassadors as well as share the following contact information.

Jay J. Johnson-Castro, Sr.
jay@villadelrio.com
(830) 734-8636

By Ralph Isenberg
Special to the Texas Civil Rights Review

This will be my first attempt to communicate a message since mid-2008 when the pressure of fighting the government became too much for me to handle and my own experiences with immigration, although behind me, started to haunt me. This is better known as post traumatic stress.

Time does heal most wounds and I am slowly feeling comfortable enough getting back into the fight.

For families having immigration trouble, the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas is now a facility of the past. Families will be placed in a facility more suited for their detention or not even detained at all.

It took an amazing effort of people, the majority of which have nothing in common and do not even know each other, to come together and demand change. The struggle lasted about three years and the result is good.

The result confirms that we as Americans are good people with a heart. There is reason to celebrate and this is not the time to blend negative thoughts into what is truly wonderful news.

I contacted several families of Hutto and know they share in the celebration. So many of the families now reside back in their homelands away from the place they want to call home. Yet, they still celebrate the news for they know that their experience was not in vain.

Thousands of future families will no longer have to endure what they endured. The families of Hutto are the true heroes that must be acknowledged first.

For every situation there must be a lesson to be learned. History will judge those that implemented the policy that created Hutto. History will judge those that supported the concept for nothing more than financial gain. History will judge those that worked inside Hutto. History will judge the community of Taylor, Texas. History will not be kind.

History will not judge those of us that became involved for I suspect we are what I call a “living history” and we will continue to look not to the future, but to the present, to find the next Hutto that deserves attention. We do this knowing that already there is plenty of work to be done.

So let us celebrate what is truly remarkable news and move on. Blessed are those that make the peace.

By Nick Braune

Back on July 4th, The Monitor of McAllen ran a surprising — surprising, in the sense that I was surprised they ran it — article: “Border Patrol uni*n criticizes agency’s hiring, training push.” The gist of the piece is that the national uni*n (the National Border Patrol Council, NBPC) has publicly criticized how the agency is using “shortcuts” in hiring and training to massively increase its ranks.

A Washington, D.C. agency spokesman denied the NBPC charges that the Border Patrol has lowered its standards, and he told The Monitor that the Border Patrol’s new recruits are actually better selected and better educated than ever before. Because this response (“better… than ever before”) sounded like a defensive exaggeration, and because I have watched some of the new batch of agents, I decided to read the uni*n’s report. It is on-line, 14 pages long, and seems credible to me.

In 1994 there were fewer than 4,000 agents, but all enforcement and detention ballooned during the Clinton years, so that there were 9,000 by the time Bush reached office. Increases were incremental until 2006. Then Bush suddenly announced another “immigration reform”: he would double (!) the number of Border Patrol agents by the time he left office. The NBPC report says, “In order to meet that overambitious goal, the Border Patrol was tasked with hiring and training approximately 10,000 agents in…two and a half years.”

How could an agency double its ranks so quickly? The Border Patrol lowered its standards, charges the NBPC. For instance, a high school diploma or GED requirement is not required of recruits. (The Border Patrol spokesman denied the charge that they had lowered their standards, according to The Monitor, insisting that the agency never did have a high school diploma or GED requirement. Hmm.)

The uni*n report, in my reading, reflects particular bitterness on one point: recruits who scored under the 85th percentile on the qualifying exam used to be turned down, but during the recent Bush push, any passing grade suffices. “Anecdotal and other evidence suggests that the reading comprehension and writing abilities of a small percentage of new-hires are no better than those of middle school students. In an occupation where poorly written documents can result in miscommunication of critical information and botched prosecution, this is completely unacceptable.” One unhappy Academy instructor said, “We definitely know when we get a class from the seventieth percentile.”

The training program for the recruits has been compressed to facilitate the greater numbers, and there is a scramble for trainers, according to the report. Verbal and written communication skills are being deemphasized, and even the Spanish language class, a longtime component of the training, has changed. The new Spanish program is no longer grammar-based, but is conversation-based with gimmicky pictures and storyboards.

“Instead of requiring students to speak in complete sentences in order to collect biographical data necessary to complete arrest reports,” trainees are “often taught single word questions.” Nombre? “There is a great deal of concern that agents who are taught this method will no longer be able to elicit enough information in Spanish to effectively do their jobs.”

And post-Academy field training is found inadequate. The report prefers “one-on-one instruction and mentoring,” but it is now common “to have one Field Training Officer to be assigned to instruct twelve or more trainees.” And interestingly, lax field evaluation makes it hard to screen out unsuitable newcomers. Several times the report implies there is less emphasis on weeding out potential “bad apples.”

The Academy training (except for the classes teaching Spanish) is now only 55 days, and the report says this is too quick for recruits to digest the material or for trainers to evaluate recruits carefully.

In the rush to recruit, one can even be admitted to the Academy before background screening is completed. The report mentions increased theft of personal and government property at the quickly reorganized (disorganized?) Academy. One fellow, Angel Avina, was already getting Academy enforcement training when it was discovered that he had been a gun smuggler the previous year.

Overall, it is a short, scathing report, evidencing morale problems in the agency and some embarrassment among older agents who perhaps dreamed of being in a premier law enforcement agency…which, of course, it was never intended to be.

Agents all know that most federal law enforcement agencies require at least a four-year college degree, while the Border Patrol doesn’t even require high school graduation. (An Introduction to Policing textbook I own says only 17% of America’s local (!) police agencies require less than a diploma or GED. The federal agency Border Patrol ranks lower than most all local police agencies in education standards.) But I suppose Homeland Security sees the beefed-up Border Patrol as a thug component in their “virtual wall.” And walls don’t need complete sentences.

***

The above article appeared in my weekly Mid-Valley Town Crier column in mid-July, 2008. A few further comments: First, I realize that a “police uni*n” like the NBPC is usually less than the best source to quote; police uni*ns are often prejudiced and busy covering for one faction or another. Still I think it is very significant that the NBPC report describes divisions in the ranks in regard to the massive doubling of Border Patrol officers ordered by Bush two years ago.

The BP has always been part of the hated La Migra, taking a central part in the vicious “Operation Wetback” (Ethnic Cleansing) in the early 1950s and always representing the side of oppressors. Still, it does seem to be getting worse, if one accepts the NBPC document.

The Spanish language training was criticized for being less rigorous, which the report indicated would make report-taking from immigrants more difficult and inaccurate, and the report seems to say there is less attention paid to weeding out “bad apples” early. That both of those complaints were raised lends credence to the report. This report is not just the griping of the old guard, concerned that new guys are coming in and taking valuable spots. The authors of the report might even be concerned that the credibility of the BP, traditionally low among Mexican Americans, is now being further undermined.

Secondly, to Valley residents it is obvious just how big the Border Patrol is getting. The BP is part of a big wall rising up along the border. (I visited with Jay Johnson-Castro recently, who estimated that of the nearly 20,000 agents nationally, less than two thousand are assigned to the Canadian border, which leaves a whopping number on the U.S.–Mexico line) As was mentioned in the article, Clinton doubled the ranks of the BP, and he doubled the INS budget in a four-year span. And now Bush is doubling the numbers again in two and half years.

The BP’s uniforms are green, which contributes to the sense of militarization in the Rio Grande Valley. Indeed one fourth of the Border Patrol are ex-military, and the percentage will increase because BP recruiting stations are set up now in military bases overseas. Want a good military-style job, a green uniform, and a gun? You can have it all and stay in the States, by joining the exciting BP. (With the reports of poor psychological screening of those leaving the military and with the hurry-up mentality of BP recruiting, we may see some loose cannon problems soon.)

The BP has opened this very month a new station for Brownsville, on 51 acres of land, in a facility with 54,000 square feet. Two years ago they completed a new station in Edinburg and there is a new giant o

ne expected in McAllen in six months. There are nine stations in the Rio Grande Valley sector.

Thirdly, incidental observation might also lead one to the conclusion that the fast growing BP is not trying hard to do public relations, but rather to harden its image. When assailed by rock throwers from the Mexican side of the border in December near San Diego, the BP fired powerful tear gas and pepper spray over the border, in complete disregard of Mexican family dwellings nearby the rock throwers. There were perhaps eight such incidents. (AP wire, Dec. 17) The BP has now put razor wire (concertina wire) on top of miles of border wall in California, supposedly to protect its ranks from attacks.

And here are three things I have mentioned recently in previous columns indicating a hardening of image:

• The Border Patrol’s “Operation Streamline” is a provocative escalation, a machine-like street-level enforcement policy criminalizing the undocumented.

• They have refused to discuss with community groups their plans during possible hurricane evacuation.

• They bulldozed down the small Candelaria Bridge to Mexico, a bridge that had been a symbol of friendship for the Mexican American community for decades.