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MALDEF CALLS ON TEXAS GOVERNOR TO AVOID FURTHER CIVIL RIGHTS ABUSES AND RECONSIDER RISKY BORDER PLAN

SAN ANTONIO , TX – Today, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the nation’s leading Latino legal organization, called on Texas Governor Rick Perry to reconsider implementing a risky border watch program that is unproductive at best and could promote racial profiling. The plan places surveillance cameras on private homes and ranches along the Texas-Mexico border and allows anyone with Internet access anywhere in the world to claim they have seen undocumented aliens.

“The Perry plan is equal parts George Orwell and Orson Welles. It’s not responsible or constructive,” stated John Trasviña, MALDEF Interim President and General Counsel.

Nina Perales , MALDEF Southwest Regional Counsel, stated, “Local law enforcement and private citizens are not authorized, trained, or equipped to enforce federal immigration laws. Improper enforcement by unqualified private individuals will lead to more problems for federal law enforcement that will have to respond to false alarms, frivolous allegations, and racial profiling.”

According to the Governor’s plan, the surveillance cameras will have night-vision capabilities, and the video feed will be available 24 hours a day to state, local and federal law enforcement agencies. People who believe they have seen criminal activity will be able to call a toll-free number and be routed to a law enforcement agency. However, the program does not protect against fraudulent reporting and would allow persons anywhere in the world to “report” illegal border crossings on their home computers. Governor Perry’s plan thus opens the door for wasted tax-payer dollars as police officers would be forced to chase the fabrications of intolerant individuals.

MALDEF is aware of increased reports of civil rights violations along the border by local law enforcement and is concerned the Governor’s plans will result in further civil rights and privacy violations, as well as incite fear and tensions along the Texas border community.

“Rather than untrained enforcement by state, local and private individuals, MALDEF supports a bi-partisan and realistic approach to comprehensive immigration reform that will result in safer communities, proper enforcement of immigration laws, and a long term solution to our broken immigration system,” stated Luis Figueroa, MALDEF legislative staff attorney.

Founded in 1968, MALDEF, the nation’s leading Latino legal organization, promotes and protects the rights of Latinos through advocacy, litigation, community education and outreach, leadership development, and higher education scholarships. For more information on MALDEF, please visit: http://www.maldef.org

Press Release received via email.

Today is National Hunger Awareness Day, the grassroots movement to raise awareness about the hunger crisis in America.

In Texas, it is a solemn reminder that we suffer the highest rate of “food insecurity” in the nation, with 16.4% of households at risk for hunger and 4.9% of households experiencing hunger – well above the national average of 11.4% (food insecure) and 3.6% (hungry).

Families with children are the most likely to be at risk for hunger. National Hunger Awareness Day also provides an opportunity to raise awareness about an important public-private partnership to keep children healthy and well-nourished – the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP).

This week, thousands of sites will kick off their summer feeding programs in low-income communities all over Texas. The program is 100% federally funded and meals are provided for free to children in low-income communities.

The summer presents a challenge for many low-income families, whose children no longer have access to the free meals they receive during the school year through the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. Research shows that requests for emergency food from families with children soar during the summer months when school is out and energy bills are high.

In Texas, 60% of all children enrolled in public school are eligible for free or reduced-price meals due to their families’ limited income. Yet of these 2.4 million children, less than 10% are served by the summer food program each day. A combination of factors contributes to low participation, including lack of awareness, lack of transportation, and the fact that most summer food sites are located at schools, which generally shut down in late June or mid-July.

Last summer, 30% of feeding sites shut down at the end of June, with 70% closed by July 31.

And Nobody Called in the National Guard.

From the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, via email. Last sentence added here.

Also, for a thick statistical report on food programs in Central Texas, see the website for the Capital Area Food Bank.

From email forwarded by Steve Yang, translated by Google, with edits.–gm

经过与多方面协商决定，全部募捐款将以大休斯顿地区侨学界参与联合募捐活动的全体社团、组织和工商企业的名誉交中国红十字会转交灾区。其中六万美元经中国驻休斯顿总领事馆直接交中国四川红十字会，其余近十四万美元经中国驻休斯顿总领事馆转交中国红十字会。

After many consultations on the decision, all of the donations raised by Chinese scholars in the Houston area joint fund-raising activities will be paid to the Chinese Red Cross via the Chinese Consulate General, with $60,000 going to China’s Sichuan Red Cross, and the remaining $140,000 to the Red Cross Society of China.

Participating in the joint disaster relief fund-raising activities are the following associations and businesses (in no particular order):

Chinese Centre
Sichuan Overseas Development Association
Guangdong Association of Texas
Southern Shandong Association
American Association of Chinese experts
Houston School Graduates Association
Huaxia Chinese School
Chinese Scholars Association
Texas Association for Promoting Peaceful Reunification of China
The Association of Chinese cotton Liu
Houston Association for Promoting Peaceful Reunification of China
“China donation” Charitable Foundation
Houston restaurant industry Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Houston Branch of the National Association of Chinese
Overseas Chinese’s Bay
Houston Yellow River Chorus
Texas Chaozhouhuiguan
Texas Association of Wuyi
An Liang Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Hong Kong Hall
Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai Association of Texas
Northeast Association
Jiangxi Association
Hunan Association
Henan Association
Houston China Joint Alumni Association
Houston, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Alumni Association
Southern Chinese News
Southern Bank
Texas Chinese Taiwan
Chinese Radio 1050AM times
Asian-American Research Center of the University of Houston
Shenyang Association
Houston Coastal Chinese Association
University of Texas Houston Medical Center Student Union
Southern Fujian Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Chinese newspapers,
Kincheng
Chinese-American Petroleum Institute
Texas Alumni Association of China University of Geosciences
US-China Joint Chamber of Commerce
Wong’s Family
SST Energy Corp.
Chinese river next to the Church
Chemistry and Chemical Industry Association of the ROC-US
Red fan dance
Reaching apartment
Society of Chinese Bios in America
Broad Health Texas International
Geospace
TEPP
Tsz Ching hall
Chinese Restaurant
Phoenix seafood Hotel

Note: Story corrected at request of source, June 7, 2008–gm

A Sunday Sermon

Those are the final words in the press release of Sept. 14, 2004 announcing the Governor’s appointment of Wallace Jefferson as the new Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.

The appointment of Jefferson came one day before State District Judge John Dietz was to announce his ruling in the school funding case. The Governor’s real message was in the timing.

To comment on this article please visit the comment blog.

If when it takes up the school funding case July 6 the Texas Supreme Court is to deliver “the kind of justice Texans demand” , then what kind of justice will that be?

Will it be the kind of justice that demands from the state constitution a more clever codification of discrimination?–The kind of justice that a majority of our representatives are now demanding from voters in the next Constitutional referendum?

Or will it be the kind of justice that demands immediate and serious struggle against all manner of discrimination in public education?–The kind of justice that for the past decade has set the Texas Supreme Court apart from popular drift of the legislative mob?

To this observer, walking into the Supreme Court on July 6 is like walking into a gulley with high walls on both sides. Is this where Robin Hood will be ambushed?

If the question were idle to ask, why would the legislature not have solved the problem of school funding prior to June 1? Confronted by a history of court rulings that have demanded more and better education for Texas children, why did legislators merely settle for funding increases that Bloomberg today calls ‘negligible’?

Yesterday’s analysis by April Castro and Harvey Kronberg boils the difficulty down to a couple of egos, but we wonder whether one or both of those egos also have fingers crossed behind their backs that the Supreme Court will see the deadlock and yet give it a passing grade?

After all, it must be remembered that initial legislative drafts of the school solution were so obviously inadequate that is was clear from the beginning of the session that the Dietz decision would not be used as any kind of lawful guide. As the session started, so it ended. Bad faith in; bad faith out.

Rather than change the fact basis that was used by Judge Dietz to declare the school funding situation unconstitutional, the legislature has now frozen the evidence in place. None of the yellow ribbons around the crime scene have been broken.

In strategic terms, the care taken to preserve the evidence may result from simple egomania, or it may reveal a motive. Maybe the top three honchos of Texas politics (the gov, the speaker, and the comptroller) have reason to anticipate an ingenious new model of judicial logic?

Texas legal theory is getting quite a reputation these days thanks to Prez Bush, his shotgun counsel Alberto Gonzales, and his prized nominee to the federal bench, Priscilla Owen. It is torturous theory (pardon the pun). And we have the right to worry that it will define the legal history of our time—the kind of history that will be taught inadequately, inefficiently, and remorselessly in Texas schools.

As I wait for the Texas Supreme Court to hand me down “”the kind of justice Texans demand” pardon me while I shudder.