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From the MALDEFian

AUGUST 8, 2008 – On July 12, Luis Ramirez, a 25-year-old Mexican immigrant residing in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, was beaten and stomped to death. Witnesses overheard anti-Mexican and ethnic epithets shouted by his assailants. This violent hate crime is a tragic example of the growing and virulent anti-immigrant sentiment heard and felt around the nation. We must put a stop to it.

In the days following his murder, MALDEF called upon U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the United States Attorney’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to conduct a full and fair federal investigation, and to bring appropriate criminal charges against those responsible.

MALDEF also called for the dispatch of representatives from the Department of Justice Community Relations Service to quell community tensions. The Department of Justice subsequently opened a federal civil rights investigation and dispatched CRS representatives to Shenandoah.

MALDEF organized a vigil and press conference in memory of Luis Ramirez together with local community members, and focused national attention on the significance of this hate crime specifically, and those against Latinos generally. MALDEF provided much needed legal support to Luis Ramirez’s fiancé and their children in the aftermath of this tragedy.

While local officials initially attempted to minimize the ethnic aspects of the murder, the county district attorney filed murder and ethnic intimidation charges against three local teenagers. Charging documents and eyewitness accounts indicate that Luis Ramirez suffered racial slurs as the perpetrators punched and kicked his body and head causing him to foam at the mouth, to sustain two skull fractures, and ultimately, to die.

The death of Luis Ramirez has repercussions beyond his family and community. The FBI Hate Crimes Statistics Report documents that hate crimes against Latinos have increased by 35% over the past several years. We must prevent these crimes from happening and demand prosecution and punishment to the full extent of the law when they do.

MALDEF will continue to assist Luis Ramirez’s family and Latinos in the Shenandoah community as the criminal case goes forward. Luis Ramirez’s death elevates the importance of strong hate crimes laws and enforcement and exposes the depth of hostilities immigrants face all too often.

MALDEF has worked this year on the recent introduction of federal legislation to improve the integration of immigrants into cities, towns and communities across the country. S.3334/H.R.6617, introduced by Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Representative Mike Honda (D-CA), Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Representative Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) will authorize the creation of immigrant integration councils bringing together local leaders from labor, business, education, faith, ethnic and other walks of life to promote education, job training, civic engagement and broader interaction of immigrants and the wider community. Tough prosecution of hate crimes and avenues to empower immigrants in their new communities can make a difference.

MALDEF will represent the family of Luis Ramirez and will do all that we can to ensure that justice is done. We call on you to help ensure the safety and advancement of immigrants in your own city or town. Call your Senator and Member of Congress today and ask them to cosponsor S.3334/H.R.6617. Send the message that the demonization of Latinos and immigrants must desist, our civil rights must be protected, and our contributions to the community must be respected.

Founded in 1968, MALDEF, the nation’s leading Latino legal organization, promotes and protects the rights of Latinos through litigation, advocacy, community education and outreach, leadership development and higher education scholarships.

Victory!

NEW DELHI – Bhopal survivor organisations today celebrated victory after the Government of India announced that it will set up an Empowered Commission on Bhopal, and take legal action on the civil and criminal liabilities of Uni*n Carbide and Dow Chemical. (Read more . . . )

Hunger Strike International Home Page

“These documents show that Carbide’s officials knew that by 1989 the ground water was severely poisoned” he added.

According to Champa Devi “The new evidence not only compound the crimes against humanity committed by Uni*n Carbide, they clearly establish the serious liability of Dow Chemical, Carbide’s new owner. Dow announced its merger with Uni*n Carbide in August 1999 less than a year after Carbide’s scientists found deadly poisons in the ground water. Dow knows that a whole new generation is today being poisoned in Bhopal and so far has done nothing to prevent it”.

According to independent experts, the clean up of contamination could cost Dow up to $500 million.

Press Release November 22, 2002

Also see notes on Diane Wilson’s arrest at the Indian Consulate of Houston in June, 2008.

Note: portions of the above were previously posted in the announcements section of the Texas Civil Rights Review.–gm

Excerpts from a UPI Column by Arnaud de Borchgrave:

Ilan Pappe, an Israeli historian and Haifa University lecturer, whose ninth book is titled “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,” documents how Israel was born with lands forcibly seized from its Palestinian inhabitants who had lived there for hundreds of years.

During the British mandate (1920-1948), Zionist leaders concluded Palestinians, who owned 90 percent of the land (with 5.8 percent owned by Jews), would have to be forcibly expelled to make a Jewish state possible. Pappe quotes David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, addressing the Jewish Agency Executive in June 1938, as saying, “I am for compulsory transfer. I do not see anything immoral in it.”

Pappe outlines Plan D (Dalet in Hebrew), which followed earlier plans A, B and C, and included forcible expulsion of some 800,000 Palestinians from both urban and rural areas with the objective of creating by any means necessary an exclusive Jewish state without an Arab presence. The methods ranged from a campaign of disinformation — “get out immediately because the Jews are on their way to kill you” — to Jewish militia attacks to terrorize the Palestinians.

The first Jewish militia attacks, says Pappe, began before the May 1948 end of the British mandate. In December 1947 two villages in the central plain — Deir Ayyub and Beit Affa — were raided, and their panicked Palestinian inhabitants fled. Jewish leaders gave the order to drive out as many Palestinians as possible on March 10, 1948. The terror campaign ended six months later. Pappe writes 531 Palestinian villages were destroyed, and 11 urban neighborhoods in cities were emptied of their Palestinian inhabitants.

There is no doubt in Pappe’s mind that Plan D “was a clear-cut case of an ethnic cleansing operation, regarded under international law today as a crime against humanity.”

By Greg Moses

CounterPunch

An infant girl who was nearly born into a Texas immigration prison has been ordered deported to the same occupied Palestinian territories where her older sister suffered gas poisoning during an Israeli assault on the family home in 2000.

The deportation order will be appealed, says family attorney John Wheat Gibson.

The baby girl was born to Hanan Ibrahim since the pregnant woman was released from the T. Don Hutto immigration prison in early February. Hanan, her husband Salah, and four of their children – ages 5 to 15 – received global attention when they were impounded for three months in Texas immigration prisons for the crime of not vacating to countries that would not take them. During the family’s imprisonment, a fifth child was placed into foster care with her uncle Ahmad.

“Faith of Ibrahim Redeemed” said the headline celebrating the family’s miraculous release in early February after they were granted a motion to re-open their deportation trial. But that re-opened trial in early August has now tossed the family back into the position of having no land to welcome them — not even the USA where two of the girls have been born.

The timing of the family’s treatment by USA authorities appears to coincide with an agenda of propaganda. They were arrested to headlines and a press release in early November, the weekend before the national elections. Hanan and the four children were hastily released from the Hutto prison, just one week before a scheduled media tour of the facility. And the new trial for the family was steadily pushed back into the August news hole.

According to legal briefs filed in the family’s behalf, the young Ibrahim girls, while in the USA prison, were known to “sob uncontrollably on a near-daily basis, complain of nightmares, and exhibit symptoms of psychological traumatization.”

“Maryam Ibrahim was about two years old in 2000 when a gas canister crashed into her Palestinian home, rendering her unconscious for lack of breath,” reported the Texas Civil Rights Review in January. “Pleading to USA authorities for asylum in 2002, Maryam’s father Salah testified that his little girl was fearful of people in uniform.”

Here is an interview conducted via email this week with Ibrahim family attorney John Wheat Gibson:

Texas Civil Rights Review: At last week’s trial before the immigration judge in Dallas, what arguments did you make in behalf of the Ibrahim family’s right to remain in the USA?

John Wheat Gibson: We argued that Israel continues to steal land and murder Palestinians simply because they are not Jewish. We pointed out the 59 Palestinian mothers who have been forced to give birth at check points because the Zionist thugs would not allow them to proceed to the hospital. We also argued that it was unfair for the immigration judge to allow the government to put into evidence all of its documents on the day of trial, when the rules require that they be submitted and served on the opposing side at least 10 business days before the trial.

TCRR: What reasons did the judge give for ordering the Ibrahim family deported?

Gibson: The immigration judge said Israel does not abuse human rights and that Fatah will protect the rights of the Palestinians in the West Bank. He said punishment by Hamas for refusing to give money to Hamas because of political disagreement with Hamas would not be persecution on account of political opinion. The immigration judge was just following orders. He is no Himmler; he is a measley Eichmann.

TCRR: Last time the family was ordered deported to “Palestine” there was difficulty securing travel permission from Israel. Is there any reason to think that Israel will change its policy toward returning Palestinians?

Gibson: Israel is more brutal and racist than ever. After going to so much trouble since 1947 to exterminate and expel the Palestinians so the Master Race can settle on their land, why would the Israelis allow them to return?

TCRR: Where does this ruling leave the family? What can they expect from immigration authorities in the coming months?

Gibson: Appeal has been filed to the Board of Immigration Appeals.

TCRR: Is there anything our readers can do to help the family?

Gibson: Send letters to editors and to Chief Immigration Judge complaining about racist policy of denying asylum to Palestinians simply to avoid embarrassing the Jewish supremacist governments of Israel, the UK, and the US. Law and facts, not AIPAC, JINSA, WINEP, et al, should have some influence on trial results. In the United States today Muslims get the same treatment in the courts that Jews got in the courts of Nazi Germany. This case is a perfect example. Your readers should rally to the resistance instead of goose-stepping to Armageddon behind the Furher and his Chosen Race.

TCRR: When Hanan Ibrahim was impounded by immigration authorities during a pre-election raid last November, she was pregnant. Can you tell us, how is the new baby?

Gibson: Healthy girl, which God’s Chosen People will kill when the Gestapo sends her back to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as they have killed so many other little girls, whom they view as racially inferior.

Note: The Chief Immigration Judge can be reached at:

David L. Neal
Office of the Chief Immigration Judge
5107 Leesburg Pike, Suite 2500
Falls Church, VA 22041
(703) 305-1247