NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERS
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Foreign News Report
The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis. You are free to disseminate this information, but we request that you credit NAFBPO as being the provider.
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A proposal for Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement and Reform
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Friday, 11/12/10
Prensa Libre (Guatemala City, Guatemala) 11/12/10
Paying the consequences and left holding the bag (An op/col. by Haroldo Shetemul, titled “El Chompipe de la fiesta”)
Just as foreseen, the Democrats suffered a hard setback in the past mid-term elections in the U.S. This time, the Republicans were able to snatch control of Congress from their adversaries, not only in the number of seats, but they will hold the leadership of the Chamber of Representatives and will head the working committees.
The conservatives will be able to control internal and foreign policy, and logically, this will mean a strong counterbalance for President Obama for the impulse of his programs, because they will force him to negotiate, and he will have to give in more than once. For Latin America, this new scenario will not result favorably at all in various issues, mainly in an almost certain rejection of an immigration reform and the economic assistance to the region.
Granted that in these elections there was progress in the choosing of candidates of Hispanic origin, those don’t have the least intention of favoring migrants, and they tailored their campaigns precisely against that. That was the case of Susana Martinez, who was elected as the first Hispanic female governor in U.S. history; (and) of Marco Rubio, son of Cubans, who swept to victory in Florida to become a senator, and who is already considered a strong candidate to the Republican vice-presidential post for the next election. Both were part of the strong, ultra-conservative Tea Party movement and they have an anti-immigrant posture, such as the one fostered by the Governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer. For them, Latin migration must be halted by means of stronger border control and laws that will expel the undocumented.
The possibility of a migratory reform approval is nullified by the segregationist discourse that tends to spread in the United States by means of the Republicans. The control of the chairmanship of the majority of legislative committees by that party makes difficult the advance of that initiative, and it is very probable that the Democrats will also not risk losing more electoral power by backing a reform that lacks popular support in that country. Because of that, it’s probable that the round-ups of the undocumented and the measures to reduce the precarious benefits for the Hispanics may increase.
The conservative policy of cutbacks in the budget could place the Democrats in a bind regarding the promotion of their programs, among them those aimed at Latin America. Even the policy of combating drug traffic could be affected by the cutbacks, which would mean a major regional discredit for Obama, and a weakening of anti-narcotics programs. The freezing of initiatives for the normalization of relations with Cuba, a greater hostility toward Venezuela and a reinforcement of the southern border are also foreseen, which implies a discriminatory impulse against Mexico and Central America, as much for the violence that exists in their territories as for being the main migrant exporting and drug traffic countries, which they synthesize as “a threat to the American way of life.” For the U.S., this situation will obviously mean a strong distancing from its neighbors to the south, who end up paying the consequences and left holding the bag.
http://www.prensalibre.com/opinion/chompipe-fiesta_0_369563082.html
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El Diario (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua) 11/11/10
Editorial page cartoon: “At last, some good news! Mexico is the Latin American country with more facilities for conducting business! We went up from the 51st to the 31st place in the list of the World Bank!”
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El Sur (Acapulco, Guerrero) 11/11/10
Acapulco today
On Wednesday night, a group of armed men attacked the facilities of the “El Sur” newspaper in Acapulco. Twelve employees managed to survive, though rounds of ammunition hit walls, ceilings, windows and desks. The intruders also used gasoline in an attempt to start a fire there.
http://www.suracapulco.com.mx/principal1.php#Scene_1
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El Universal (Mexico City) 11/11/10
The walls that still stand
[A long op/col. commentary by Jose Luis Arevalo about the Berlin Wall and the Middle East Wall also included these statements]:
And there’s another fence, the one we have close to us, the one that imperils the lives of thousands of Latin Americans in their struggle to reach the America dream. The one that due to the lack of integral policies with the United States has produced family disintegration, the assassination of many men and women (and) xenophobia and racism. That wall that divides Mexico and the United States has been the last alternative to bring illegal immigration to a halt, without achieving it.
It is not the remedy, because thousands of persons cross there with the dream that many times becomes a nightmare. There’s that wall, with its crosses in memory of all those who died there.
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/editoriales/50568.html
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La Jornada (Mexico City) 11/11/10
Forty thousand Mexican children deported yearly
According to figures from Mexico’s National Migration Agency some 40,000 Mexican children who emigrate illegally to the United States are repatriated each year, and almost half travel alone. These numbers could be higher if one considers that at least 12,000 are intercepted before crossing the border in order to reunite themselves with their families, improve their living conditions through employment, or to escape family violence and sexual exploitation.
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2010/11/11/deporta-eu-anualmente-a-40-mil-ninos-mexicanos-inm
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- end of report – el fin –
We have room for but one flag, the American flag…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
~Theodore Roosevelt 1919
