Remittances

Remittances going to Mexico from the United States have been steadily growing. They are the crucial survival method of the recipients. They have grown from 20 million to almost 30 being predicted for next year. What is the significance of all this? To the U.S. it means that they are loosing a large portion of money to foreign banks, but not only that people sending this money could invest it in the States and better the community. To Mexican recipients this means a way to survive, a way to feed the family and buy the household basics. I think this process is becoming larger and larger, but it is not good in my opinion. It is just showing that a good portion of the Mexican population is depending on the U.S. economy to survive. The Mexican government is not worrying about its poor and the remittances are making up for that. These remittances are what is holding Mexico afloat, without them chaos would break out because there are no jobs and the government is not doing anything.

The Latino Vote in America

The Latino vote is becoming more powerful every year since the younger generation is becoming older and that means they are eligible to vote. Of the 44 million Latinos in America about o third of them are eligible to vote. Like between to nation says it because of the lack of citizenship. Many of these Latinos will not become citizens because they do not know English or they simply are not politically active. My dad fits this category, he is a permanent resident but won’t become a citizen. He says he will but he makes no real effort and everyone could tell he doesn’t want to deep inside. I think that is the problem with many Latinos in the US the older generation just doesn’t want to, but watch out here comes the second generation Latinos ready to vote. This generation is one that politicians are afraid of because the majority is going to be politically active and they are not necessarily loyal to one party, they could be democrat one campaign and republican the next. This could be as consequences of some Latinos getting a bit wealthier and successful. All I know is that Latinos will become a huge part of the presidential campaign from now on.

Sex for Green Card

A screening officer of the U.S. immigration agency faces charges of sexual assault. 22 year old Colombian women of New York met with Isaac Baichu to settle her green Card issues, everything was in place ready to go. Isaac asked this lady for her number in case anything came up. He called her and arranged a meeting in an informal place (car) and demanded sex. This women tried to leave but the immigration officer grabbed her and forced her to perform oral sex. This is one of those few cases where, the immigrant builds up courage to speak out and go against the immigration office. Many times immigrants do not stand up for themselves in fear that they will get deported. This 22 year old women said that was the only reason she stayed in the car, because she was afraid that the immigrant officer was going to mess with her paper work that was ready to be accepted. I think that the immigration officers should not be allowed to meet outside of their office and be supervised a little more closely. If this doesn’t happen their will be many more cases on CNN related to this one. I also think their should be some campaigns or awareness of what immigration officers can and can not do, also on the steps an abused immigrant can take to turn in these corrupt officials.

Should Puerto Rico become a State?

Should Puerto Rico become a State? Puerto Rico is currently a common wealth of the United States, all Puerto Ricans become U.S. Citizens upon reaching mainland. Senator McCain said that he will bring up the process if he becomes president. McCain basically wants to ask Puerto Rico if it wants to become a state. This in his view would be better since they will get senate representation with voting rights, becoming a state for Puerto Rico does not come cheap in my opinion. This means that they will be a full part of the United States and this means that in a way their culture will be lost once fully mixing with the greater U.S. population. I think Puerto Rico has no real need to become a state. They have citizenship once they reach mainland and can travel back and forth and maintain their culture. Puerto Rico has no worries since the U.S. has their back in case of an invasion or attack. The only way I see Puerto Rico becoming a state is if the United States would say we no longer have your back if someone where to attack. Then I think Puerto Ricans will feel that need of protection, and make that decision otherwise Puerto Ricans have it nice U.S. Citizenship and their country, because that is what it is their country.

Law 300

The anti immigration laws have gone over and beyond, affecting many that maybe don’t even know their country of origin and just want to better themselves here in the their country. This is the case with the Arizona State law 300. This law is making it basically impossible for any undocumented immigrant to have a college education. This law makes illegal immigrantes pay thousands more by having them pay out of state tuition. To me this is not right because if the students are at the university they are trying to better themselves and want to be someone some day. It’s like the state is closing the doors on them, because many of theses students have to fund most if not all of their education and making them pay out of state tuition will make it impossible for them to continue. In the long run the US will benefit from their immigrants being educated because they are probably going to become citizens in the future and be a part of this country. To me this move by Arizona is saying that they are trying to keep the immigrants population (mainly Latinos) ignorant or uneducated. They fear that one day immigrants will be equal or better than them and that’s why they charge them out of state tuition to make it almost impossible to become educated and be able to fight for rights and be more politically aware to where maybe in the future they can vote against laws like this

MEXICO USA border

The Multimillion Dollar wall between the United States and Mexico border is a great attempt by the United States to stop illegal immigrants as well as illegal drugs from entering the country. To tackle this problem Bush proposed a huge wall that would span much of the border. This proved too costly and labor intense especially due to the desert conditions in Texas where most of the construction was planed to happen. Instead Boeing Co. took on a multimillion dollar project to build a virtual wall called project 28. This wall will consist of about 9 tours that have very sophisticated cameras and censors that are capable of distinguishing from cattle and humans. These set of towers will cover a span of about 1,078 kilometers and will require less labor intense work in the desert. My question is, will all this spending to stop illegal immigration and drugs really work? I believe it won’t work, it will drop the numbers for a little but it’s only a matter of time before the coyotes figure out a way to get around this technology. I think this will not help stop the drug problem because most of the drugs smuggled in to this country don’t come through the desert. Drugs are usually flown in or passed through the border itself, all it takes it a price and every border patrol agent has a price. If not by air the drugs enter under ground. There have been tunnels that connect these two countries used to smuggle drugs, a couple have been found but their could be more that remain undiscovered. I just think the United States government should use other methods to handle the immigration issue because this wall thing is not going to work.

Anti-Gang Continued

It seems that it was not very hard at all to find a case of racial profiling in Sunnyside Washington. I simply asked my friends if they had heard of any cases and it turns out that it actually happened to one of them. Jerry was a case of racial profiling. It was his sister’s graduation and he was wearing shorts, Hawaiian shirt, and a shaved head. I guess the shaved head must of done it because he was confronted by a Sunnyside Police officer while making a trip to the restroom, he was asked if he was a gang member. Obviously a gangster will not wear shorts with a Hawaiian shirt, so was it the shaved head that made him look like a gangster, or was it the shaved head and the fact that he is Mexican. This is just one case that I did not have to look to far for. It had happened to a friend here at the university so I think that if I dig a little deeper their will be allot more cases of this happening in Sunnyside.

Mistreatment of immigrants in INS detention facilities.

The bad treatment in INS detention facilities has proved to be violation of human rights. The simple fact that a person is not American does not give anyone the right to violate them as human beings. This has been the case in detention facilities across the nation in the past couple of years. With the new program ICE which intends to cleanse the country of illegal immigrants, the detention facilities have over populated and the mistreatment of prisoners has escalated. The mistreatment alone ids an understatement when you consider that there has been 62 deaths in the past three years in INS detention facilities. This is a very high number. In a place where prisoners are treated fairly this many people never die. INS officials have argued that they do what they can , they claim to have spent 98 million dollars to care for “illegals” in these facilities. When someone spends that much money the death rates should not be tat high. In the case of Victor Vargas, he died simply because INS of Los Angeles would not permit him to take his medication. Vargas suffered from HIV, but even so many live long lives with this disease as long as they take their medication. The detention facility basically killed him by not allowing him to take his medications. This is not the only case another case a pregnant women out of El Paso, Texas died in a detention center of this kind. It is not in one city but all around the country. The INS treats immigrants like if they are an animal or something and they claim to spend millions. Why don’t they just deport these immigrants instead of keeping them incarcerated for months in some cases.

Anti Gang Ordinance in Sunnyside

The anti-gang ordinance is an effort to stop a wave of violence that has troubled the Sunnyside community for some time. This ordinance says that it is illegal to be a member or affiliated with any gangs or gang activity. This ordinance while trying to do a good for the community has sparked conflict within the community. It has generated huge debate because many community members feel like this is a way of racial profiling. Many feel that this ordinance is being used to target specially Latinos. This ordinance to me is a good attempt to fight crime but an inefficient method. The city of Sunnyside is one of the only ones in Washington to implement this drastic ordinance. To me it is not a good method because of the way it is done. Targeting someone because they wear to much blue or to much red, is not the way to go about fighting crime. This reminds me of the Zoot suit rioters not for the riots, but for how these rebelling teens are distinguished by what they are wearing. Many teens in Sunnyside are not affiliated with gangs but dress with that "cholo" look, now does that make them gangsters? No. Well this ordinance has gone to far it basically limits to what someone can wear, how low someone can wear their pants it’s just to much. Even though many community members did not like this ordinance it went in affect and it immediately identified more than 200 gang members. How would officers identify so many gang members so fast? It’s simple if someone looks gangster, walks gangster and dresses gangster than they are. That is basically how officers go about deciding who is and who is not. I don't know about you but I think it’s not right and something should be done, it should be amended and fixed so that racial profiling disappears. It will be successful once someone can walk down the street and wear what ever they want and not be considered or viewed as a gang member.