BY ERIN EINHORN, DAILY NEWS

Mayor Bloomberg - who has his eye on a third term at City Hall - has introduced a new twist to his standard news conference: Translation or, rather, traducción.

“Before we go to questions, I would like to summarize today’s announcements for some of our Spanish speakers,” he says at the end of most public events.

He then launches into two sentences of Spanish that - though heavily accented and somewhat mispronounced - are sure to land him on Spanish-language TV and radio.

“It’s extremely smart,” said Fernando Mateo, president of Hispanics Across America who advised Bloomberg on Latino outreach in his 2005 campaign.

“To hear it through a translator is not as good,” he said. “It’s someone else interpreting what you’re saying.”

Latinos are a sizable and rapidly growing segment of city voters - as much as 20% by some estimates - and with no Latinos in the race at the moment, every viable mayoral candidate is brushing up on his pretérito verbs.

City Controller William Thompson has been taking Spanish lessons - and pays his tutor out of campaign funds.

U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner routinely brings prepared Spanish remarks to press conferences to read for the Spanish-language outlets.

“Anthony has taken Spanish lessons in the past and practices his Spanish whenever he can,” spokesman John Collins said.

Bloomberg has famously taken Spanish lessons for years - as often as every day - and uses it at public events, including Spanish-language press conferences on a visit to Mexico in 2007.

He added Spanish to his almost-daily public events about two weeks ago.

“It’s a smart idea,” said Endy Rodriguez, a senior assignment editor at Noticiero 47, a Spanish language news program on Telemundo.

The station recently ran a live feed of the mayor speaking Spanish at a time when the cameras would otherwise have turned away.

The mayor’s pronunciation might trigger laughter among native speakers, Rodriguez said, but “as a Spanish-speaking person, you would understand.”

Getting on major Spanish networks could be good for politics. More New York adults watched the 6 p.m. weekday newscasts on the two major Spanish channels in November than were watching on CBS or NBC, according to Univision.

Simply speaking Spanish, though, isn’t enough.

“At the end of the day, what’s going to mean something to Latinos is policy,” said Bloomberg’s 2005 Democratic rival, Fernando Ferrer, who says he was the first mayoral candidate to hold bilingual press conferences.

When asked if the mayor’s recent addition of Spanish was merely pandering, Ferrer said. “Of course it is …. Would it have anything to do with the fact that we’re a few days from 2009, which is an election year? You think? That is certainly propitious.”

Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser did not respond to requests for comment on why the mayor is using more Spanish.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Carrie Budoff Brown, Nia-Malika Henderson Carrie Budoff Brown, Nia-malika Henderson, Politico

National Latino leaders vowed Sunday to press President-elect Barack Obama to nominate another Hispanic to the Cabinet post vacated by Gov. Bill Richardson, a leading light in the Latino community who caused “great disappointment” with his decision to withdraw from consideration.

Within hours of Richardson pulling his name as Secretary of Commerce, the head of the League of United Latin American Citizens had compiled a list of 10 Latino elected officials and corporate CEOs that would be offered to the Obama transition team. The list included Rep. Xavier Beccera (D-Ca.), who turned down the U.S. Trade Representative post, Albuquerque Mayor Marty Chavez and Miami Mayor Manny Diaz.

“It will be topic number one,” said Brent A. Wilkes, national executive director of the League, known as LULAC, which describes itself as the country’s oldest and largest Hispanic organization. “We were happy that they appointed three Latinos, and we hope we can keep that intact.”

With a deeper pool of Latino talent than at any point in history, advocacy leaders said they can easily suggest qualified replacements. But the loss of Richardson in the Cabinet was not only a substantial setback, but a sentimental one as well.

“Let’s face it: In terms of political appointments, Bill Richardson’s was the most important for the Hispanic community,” said Gilbert Sandate, chair of the Coalition for Fairness for Hispanics in Government. “He is the bellwether … the high water mark and the leading Hispanic political figure as far as we are concerned.”

Richardson was one of the country’s best-known Latino leaders. He completed two tours in the Clinton administration, and endured heated criticism from allies of his former boss for endorsing Obama over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primary.

Following Obama’s win in November, Latino organizations initially set their sights on Richardson becoming the first Hispanic Secretary of State. He ended up with Commerce, which – viewed as a consolation prize by some. With Richardson as commerce secretary, Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Ca.) as labor secretary and Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) as interior secretary, Obama had nominated more Hispanics than Bill Clinton or George W. Bush.

“It’s kind of back to the drawing board in terms of political appointments,” Sandate said.

Despite the disappointment, Sandate and Wilkes said they were pleased Richardson decided not to create distractions for Obama and remove his name from consideration amid a grand jury investigation into the awarding of New Mexico state contracts.

It is a “great disappointment, certainly,” Sandate said, “but then really, we understand the position that Gov. Richardson has taken in stepping away for the right reasons from that appointment.”

Less than two weeks after Obama announced Richardson as his pick for Commerce, news organizations reported on Dec. 15 that the grand jury was looking into “pay-to-play” allegations concerning a contract awarded to a California firm that has contributed to three political committees formed by Richardson.

In a statement Sunday, Richardson said the ongoing investigation “would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process.”

Obama accepted the withdrawal with regret, saying he looks forward to Richardson’s “future service to our country and in my administration.”

LULAC’s list of potential replacements includes former Equal Employment Opportunity Chairman Gilbert F. Casellas, Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D-N.Y.), and Bronx Borough President Aldolfo Carrion, who is expected to head the White House Office of Urban Policy.

Wilkes said Obama might consider four Hispanic corporate heads: Antonio Perez of Eastman Kodak, Hector de J. Ruiz of Advanced Micro Devices, Paul J. Diaz of Kindred Health Care, and Jose Maria Alapont of Federal-Mogul, a manufacturer of car components.

Wilkes said he got no early warning that Richardson’s nomination was in trouble. He hopes the governor can clear his name and emerge as a contender for Cabinet posts in the future.

“He still has a wonderful career ahead of him,” Wilkes said.

Popularity: 2% [?]

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg, International Herald Tribune

WASHINGTON: Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for commerce secretary, withdrew from consideration for that job on Sunday, saying a pending investigation into whether his administration gave lucrative contracts to a political donor would have “forced an untenable delay” in his confirmation.

The president-elect and the governor, close friends as well as political allies, announced the withdrawal in joint statements. Richardson, one of the nation’s best-known Latino politicians, promised to stay on as governor and said his administration had “acted properly in all matters.” But he said he had concluded that the inquiry could last weeks or even months, drawing out his confirmation hearings and distracting the new administration as it grappled with the economic crisis.

Obama said he accepted “with deep regret” Richardson’s decision to bow out. People familiar with discussions between the two men said that while the president-elect did not press Richardson to step aside, neither did Obama try to talk him out of it.

The announcement, just days before the Senate is to begin confirmation hearings for some of Obama’s cabinet selections, was a setback for the president-elect, who has assembled his cabinet in near-record time. It raises questions about the thoroughness of Richardson’s vetting, deprives the Obama administration of a prominent Hispanic — Obama has, however, named two other Latinos, Representative Hilda Solis of California and Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado, to cabinet posts — and leaves a hole in the new White House economics team at a critical juncture.

Obama officials could not say on Sunday how quickly the president-elect would move to fill the job, or who may be on his short list. Obama is hoping to persuade Congress to pass an ambitious economic stimulus plan that he can sign quickly after taking office, and he is set to meet with his economic advisers on Monday. The commerce secretary would play an integral role in that process, as Richardson himself noted on Sunday.

“Given the gravity of the economic situation the nation is facing,” the governor said, “I could not in good conscience ask the president-elect to delay for one day the important work that needs to be done.”

The investigation concerns CDR Financial Products Inc., a Beverly Hills, California, company that in 2004 was awarded two consulting contracts worth about $1.4 million to advise the State of New Mexico on a large bond issue for building infrastructure, one of Richardson’s initiatives. The company’s president, David Rubin, a major Democratic contributor, gave about $100,000 to two political action committees controlled by Richardson, as well as $10,000 to his re-election campaign in 2005, according to published reports.

The FBI began examining the contracts last year; in August, the inquiry was reported in the New Mexico news media. But an Obama transition official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the president-elect’s team, while aware that one of Richardson’s donors was being investigated, did not know that the inquiry extended to Richardson until after Obama announced the New Mexico governor as his commerce secretary choice in early December.

About two weeks after the announcement, newspapers reported that a federal grand jury was examining accusations that the Richardson administration had awarded the contracts because of the political contributions. Whether the Obama team learned of the grand jury inquiry through news reports, or perhaps from Richardson himself, was unclear on Sunday. Obama officials would not say.

But Robert Gibbs, the incoming White House press secretary, defended the vetting process. “The totality of our cabinet picks, it’s impressive and I think our vetters have done a good job,” he said.

Sunday’s announcement comes as Obama was still dealing with the uproar over another inquiry, this one into whether Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois had tried to sell Obama’s Senate seat. But while the president-elect has distanced himself from the Illinois governor, he praised Richardson on Sunday as “an outstanding public servant” who would have brought “great insights accumulated through an extraordinary career” to the Obama administration.

“It is a measure of his willingness to put the nation first that he has removed himself as a candidate for the cabinet in order to avoid any delay in filling this important economic post at this critical time,” Obama said.

Richardson and Obama spoke Friday, officials familiar with the conversation said, and Richardson informed the president-elect that he intended to withdraw his name from consideration. The Obama transition team had grown concerned that Richardson’s confirmation could be delayed because of the federal investigation, which would have kept Obama’s full economic team from being in place as the new president tried to jump start the economy.

Associates of Richardson said the governor was convinced that the investigation would clear him, and that ultimately he would be confirmed. But they said the inquiry was taking longer than he thought, and that he decided to drop out on his own.

Obama did not ask Richardson to step aside, associates close to both men said. But when Richardson offered to withdraw, the officials said, Obama simply accepted, without trying to persuade Richardson otherwise.

Richardson, whose mother is Mexican, has long been a fixture of Democratic politics and has deep experience in public life. He is known for his easy sense of humor — during the 2004 Democratic convention, he distributed jars of salsa with his picture on them — and remains popular in his home state. Prior to becoming governor, he served in Congress and in the Clinton administration as energy secretary and ambassador to the United Nations. But after his own bid for the Democratic nomination for president failed last year, he made a public — and by his own account, painful — break with the Clintons to endorse Obama; in return, some speculated he might be selected for a top-tier cabinet position, like secretary of state.

Instead, Obama rewarded him with the commerce secretary’s job; at the press conference announcing the appointment, the president-elect dismissed the notion that the post was a “consolation prize,” adding, “I think the notion that somehow commerce secretary is not going to be central to everything we do is fundamentally mistaken.”

Popularity: 2% [?]

By Ivan Mejia, Latin America Herald Tribune

LOS ANGELES — Wishing to be part of an event seen worldwide, Hispanic families in Southern California are pitching in to help decorate floats for the New Year’s Day Rose Parade in Pasadena.

“Year after year I’ve seen so many people come with their families to decorate these creations, and when I get up on the float with Sebastian (his pet bird) I see all the people who have worked on the floats with me,” float designer Raul Rodriguez told Efe.

“It’s something personal for them, because they work on something that will be shown around the world,” the artist said, standing in front of the China Airlines float with its phoenix atop five lanterns, on which he will ride in the Rose Parade on Jan. 1 with his bird Sebastian on his shoulder.

The theme of the 2009 Rose Parade along Colorado Blvd. will be “Hats Off to Entertainment.”

Designed with this theme in mind will be 46 flower-bedecked vehicles, which together with 20 equestrian groups and 21 marching bands will make up the New Year’s Day spectacle.

The Pasadena parade has become an international tradition on the first morning of the year because its TV coverage reaches so many nations.

In Azusa, California, under the roof where the Festival Artists construction company this year created six floats, non-profit groups, schools and entire families come to help decorate them.

“I thank God for the talent he gave me, but also because I found a place where I can work with so many people and together we can make a more beautiful world,” said Rodriguez, who will exhibit 14 floats in all.

At the foot of a series of stars on a float called “Hats Off to Disco,” Spaniard Antonio Matos cuts the stalks off red flowers that will later be stuck to different parts of the float following the creator’s design.

“I’ve been living here for 18 years and for the last 10 I’ve been helping with this, because on my mother’s side - she’s American - I have family members who have worked making floats,” Matos said.

“And now that I have two kids I bring them, their cousins, and since my wife is a Boy Scout leader we bring the whole troop to help,” he said.

The flowers that Matos puts glue on are later stuck to the float by his children Lucas and Isabel.

The allegorical floats compete in a contest of the Rose Parade organization, with the main rule being that the colors and textures of the figures must be composed of flowers, leaves, seeds or natural fibers.

“What I like is the extreme artistic detail we work with, for example we were gluing onion seeds, which is a very small black seed,” Matos said.

“And as they told me the first time I came to work here, it’s that degree of detail that makes the floats so exquisite and so beautiful,” he said.

On another section of the same vehicle, while he was sticking yellow daisies on a star, Jehovanni Macias said that his girlfriend signed him up on behalf of her community-aid group called Girls Inc.

“This is interesting because anything you do will be seen all over the world,” he said.

Amid the noise of drills and the smell of paint and glue, Miguel Alcaraz, the production manager at Festival Artists, said that Hispanics who work at assembling and decorating the floats tend to bring their whole families.

“This is a unique experience because every year the theme is different and the designs are all new,” he said.

Popularity: 4% [?]

By AMY TAXIN, Business Week

The recession may have taken its toll on Central Americans who needed to postmark their immigration renewal paperwork by Tuesday to remain in the U.S. legally, consular and embassy officials said.

More than 300,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua had to renew their temporary protected status — which was granted by the U.S. government to help the countries overcome natural disasters.

As of Friday, only 54 percent had filed papers to do so, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Many immigrants went to consulates to get help in filling out the paperwork the day of the deadline. But consular officials questioned whether last-minute applicants would make up the difference in what have so far been low renewal numbers.

Honduran and Salvadoran officials say many immigrants put off extending their permission to remain in the country because they couldn’t afford $420 in processing fees after losing their jobs and having their work hours cut in the recession.

At the Salvadoran Consulate in Santa Ana, Salvador Morales, 41, said he waited until the last minute because he needed to save nearly $2,000 to cover the cost of renewing paperwork and obtaining work permits for himself, his wife, and their three children.

“In past years we would have been among the first ones here,” said Morales, who has seen revenue from his trucking business cut in half during the last three months. “This year, we feel like going to El Salvador. The government isn’t going to kick us out, but the economy will.”

Immigrants must pay $80 to renew their status and another $340 for a work authorization card, which many say they can’t afford.

Consular officials had been urging immigrants to renew their legal status now and worry about the work permit later — especially since their current work authorization cards are valid through the middle of 2009.

Berta Alicia Gonzalez, 46, said she filled out the forms two weeks ago but didn’t have money for the fees after losing her job in May. The Salvadoran citizen plans to ask the federal government for a fee waiver. Such waivers are granted on a case-by-case basis.

The U.S. government has the ability to grant temporary protected status to citizens of countries ravaged by natural disasters to allow them to stay and work here legally while their countries recover. The U.S. granted the status to Salvadorans when a pair of earthquakes ravaged the country in 2001 and to Hondurans and Nicaraguans in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch in 1999.

Anna Bessie de Recinos, consul of El Salvador in Santa Ana, said she could only hope that Christmas mail slowed the receipt of applications and that more were on their way to the U.S. government.

David Hernandez, minister at the Honduran Embassy in Washington, D.C., said his government urged Hondurans to call their relatives in the U.S. and tell them to renew their paperwork to avoid becoming illegal immigrants.

“The crowds have been small (at Honduran consular offices),” Hernandez said. “Economic problems have been one of the biggest causes.”

Popularity: 5% [?]

Stephen Wall, Daily Bulletin

In a year when jobs have become scarce for everyone, the proportion of working-age Latino immigrants participating in the labor force has fallen, according to a new report.

The slowdown in the growth in the number of Latino immigrants who are employed or actively looking for work is a testament to the depth of the recession, according to the report issued last week by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.

“Latinos are still an important source of workers to the U.S. economy,” wrote Rakesh Kochhar, Pew’s associate director for research. “However, this growth is now led more by native-born Hispanics and less by immigrant workers.”

Latino immigrants, including many undocumented workers, had found plentiful job opportunities in the construction boom earlier this decade. It was a sector in the economy that grew even during the 2001 recession.

But Latino immigrants aren’t immune from the current economic disaster spell, which was triggered by the slump in housing markets.

“You’ve had hundreds of thousands of jobs lost in the construction industry. Immigrants are particularly hard hit because you have so many immigrants working in that industry,” said Jose Calderon, a professor of sociology and Chicano Studies at Pitzer College in Claremont.

According to the Pew analysis, the decrease in the percentage of Latino immigrants in the labor force was 1.1 percent, from 72.4 percent in the third quarter of 2007 to 71.3 percent in the third quarter

of this year. The drop was about twice as high among Mexican immigrants and among immigrants who arrived in the country since 2000.

While slight, the decline is significant because there had been steady annual growth in the Latino immigrant workforce over the past decade, the report states.

Overall, the unemployment rate for Latino immigrants in the third quarter of 2008 was 6.4 percent, compared to 6.1 percent for the total workforce and 9.6 percent for Latinos born in the United States.

But workers who drop out of the labor force are not counted among the unemployed. If Latino immigrants had remained as active in the labor market in 2008 as they were in 2007, their unemployment rate would be much higher today, the report says.

“I think the numbers are much larger than the statistics,” Calderon said. “That’s how deep this recession is.”

The Pew report, based on the latest Census Bureau data, says it is not possible to conclude whether Latino immigrants who left the labor force have returned to their home countries.

But it is clear, according to another recent Pew report, that the number of illegal immigrants entering the country has decreased since 2005.

Calderon, who is on the board of directors of the Pomona Day Labor Center, said that many Mexican immigrants are realizing that economic conditions here “are as bad or maybe worse” than back home.

“Either they have given up looking for jobs or they are returning back,” he said. “At least back home they have a family and a place to stay and a community to support them.”

Going back to Mexico has crossed the mind of Federico Galicia, a 56-year-old Colton resident who came to this country in 2002.

When he arrived in the United States, Galicia said he quickly found a $9.50 per hour soldering job at a San Bernardino company that manufactured safe deposit boxes.

Nine months ago, he was laid off when the company moved its operations to Tijuana.

He now provides for his wife and three children by trimming trees, doing yard work, cleaning garages and performing assorted odd jobs for friends and neighbors. His wife also earns $100 every weekend making tortillas at a Mexican restaurant.

But the couple is having a hard time paying the $650 monthly rent on its 1 1/2 bedroom home.

Galicia said his children are divided about whether the family should return to Mexico. His 20-year-old daughter wants to leave, while his two younger kids, ages 18 and 15, want to stay.

Galicia said he has looked for jobs at several factories and construction companies, but to no avail. If he doesn’t find work by March, he said he will have to decide whether to move.

“I didn’t think this was going to happen,” Galicia said in Spanish. “I thought it was going to be easier to get my children ahead in this country.”

Popularity: 8% [?]

By BEN GOAD, PE.com

WASHINGTON - Democrat Joe Baca is heading into his sixth congressional term with high hopes following his party’s Election Day sweep.

Baca, D-Rialto, said he plans to introduce more than 20 bills and resolutions, including initiatives to fight gangs, cut down on home foreclosures and ensure access to food stamps for the poor.

Baca said his chances to enact the measures are bolstered in the House, where Democrats picked up 21 seats Nov. 4.

Democrats also picked up at least seven seats in the Senate and won the White House.

“It’s an excellent opportunity for me to carry some of the legislation I want to work on,” Baca said during a recent interview in his Capitol Hill office. “I’ll continue to be an advocate for the poor and disadvantaged.”

As chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Baca was a leading proponent of comprehensive immigration legislation in the last congress.

Though his term as caucus chairman has ended, Baca remains a member. He said he will continue fighting to provide a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

“Our nation needs it,” he said, adding that he also favors measures to secure the nation’s borders. “It doesn’t take away from enforcement.”

Baca, pointing to overwhelming support among Latino voters for President-elect Barack Obama, has stressed the need to make immigration reform a priority during recent conversations with Obama’s incoming chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Angela Kelley, director of the nonpartisan Immigration Policy Center, said Baca and the caucus were instrumental in last year’s push for immigration reform, though it failed. This year, they’re likely to have an even bigger voice on the issue, given the Hispanic turnout for Obama, she said.

Baca’s access to Obama’s administration advisers is a sign of that, she said.

“They’re turning to folks that have been on the front lines, and Baca is among them,” she said. “The caucus is going to play a critical role.”

Baca’s legislative agenda goes well beyond immigration. He also is pushing legislation that would allow struggling homeowners to swap out their subprime and adjustable-rate mortgages with government-backed, fixed-rate loans.

Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., has promised to schedule a hearing on the bill in the upcoming session, Baca said.

Baca also is promoting legislation that would provide federal dollars and coordination to prevent gang violence, a significant problem in his district, which includes San Bernardino, Rialto, Colton and Fontana.

He’s also pushing a plan that would provide food stamps to more Americans and another that would designate the day after Thanksgiving as a federal holiday in honor of Native Americans.

Popularity: 8% [?]

USA Today

The fence that the U.S. government is erecting along the border with Mexico had been a vague notion to Victor Serrano — until he drove by a new section near his house last month.

An 18-foot-high, steel-mesh structure planted in Jersey barriers stood behind a four-lane boulevard. The view of sprawling Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, was gone.

“I was like, oh, man, I can’t believe this is happening,” Serrano, 20, says, standing in his yard three blocks from the border. “We’re actually going to have a Berlin Wall here.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has installed hundreds of miles of steel fence along the U.S.-Mexico border that stretches 1,934 miles from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas. The $2-billion fence — or “wall,” to opponents — is the most visible symbol of stepped-up U.S. efforts to stop illegal border crossings, and the most controversial.

As construction crews have moved into El Paso, a working-class, largely Hispanic city of 600,000 in Texas’ western corner, emotions have intensified. Some residents quietly support the fence, saying it will make their city safer and improve conditions for legal El Paso residents. Many others say it will destroy the sense of community the two cities had.

The crews have been greeted with protests and lawsuits seeking to halt building. Local officials are pleading with President-elect Barack Obama to stop the project he voted for in late 2006, or to begin tearing it down.

“It does violence to our sense of community,” says El Paso County Attorney José Rodriguez, whose county has sued the federal government over the fence. “For 400 years, people have been going back and forth across the river. All of a sudden for the first time, you see this major structure separating the communities.”

Crossing the border

Fencing already blocks 70% of the 693-mile border in California, Arizona and New Mexico, according to a USA TODAY analysis of Border Patrol and Census Bureau figures.

Much of the border in those states is vacant desert. About half of the fencing is a thigh-high barrier aimed only at stopping vehicles.

A total of 670 miles of fence will be in place by the end of 2008, including sections at the east and west end of Texas’ 1,241-mile border with Mexico. In the rest of the state, the Rio Grande will serve as the blockade.

The fence does not stop people from crossing the border legally. Thousands of cars from Juarez line up each day at the three bridges leading to El Paso, where visitors shop boulevards packed with discount stores offering $6 sweaters and $10 jeans.

Nor is fencing new to El Paso. A chain-link fence about 6 feet high has stood for years in the crusty embankment on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, which itself is virtually dry. The fence was useless, Border Patrol Supervisory Agent Ramiro Cordero says.

Cordero plays a surveillance-camera video showing people hauling bales of marijuana into El Paso through a slit in the fence.

Another video shows a pickup suspected of carrying marijuana escaping Border Patrol pursuit by driving through the fence into Juarez.

Five miles outside El Paso, in Sunland Park, N.M., where suburbs fade to desert, a five-strand barbed-wire fence stands in the sand. “This is what protected our country,” Cordero says.

A few feet away, the new fence rises out of the desert and extends endlessly into the horizon. The quarter-inch-thick mesh still allows a view of Mexico but is weaved tightly enough to prevent easy climbing.

Cordero says the new fence will not stop people from digging underneath it, driving around it or cutting through it with a blowtorch. Nearly 2,000 people a day are caught trying to sneak into the USA from Mexico, Border Patrol figures show.

But in urban areas, where most of the border is under video surveillance, agents can spot someone trying to climb or cut the fence and have a few extra seconds to catch him before he enters the USA and disappears into a city, Cordero says.

“It makes the job a lot easier when you have that fence,” he says.

Dividing communities

In an El Paso neighborhood of small houses and neat lawns next to the border, Oscar Davila walks his two dogs and says the new fence makes him feel safer from the drug-related violence raging in Juarez. “We can stop people from coming here,” says Davila, 42, a maintenance worker.

Ruben Alvarado, 55, a custodian whose mother and sister live in Juarez, is skeptical. “To me, Juarez and El Paso are the same city. I don’t care how many fences you put up, the people will still try to come over illegally.”

Serrano, the El Paso Community College student who recently saw the new fence for the first time, says it takes away some of his pride at being a frontera, a border resident. “What made us proud is that we can easily see Juarez,” he says. “With the wall, it’s like, are we allowed over there?”

Popularity: 8% [?]

It’s way too early to tell whether the United States under President-elect Barack Obama will restore realism, sanity and lawfulness to its immigration system. But it’s never too early to hope, and the stars seem to be lining up, at least among his cabinet nominees.

If Mr. Obama’s team is confirmed, the country will have a homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, and a commerce secretary, Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who understand the border region and share a well-informed disdain for foolish, inadequate enforcement schemes like the Bush administration’s border fence. And it will have a labor secretary, Hilda Solis of California, who, as a state senator and congresswoman, has built a reputation as a staunch defender of immigrants and workers.

The confluence of immigrants and labor is exactly what this country — particularly, and disastrously, the Bush administration — has not been able to figure out.

In simplest terms, what Ms. Solis and Mr. Obama seem to know in their gut is this: If you uphold workers’ rights, even for those here illegally, you uphold them for all working Americans.

Read Complete Article

Popularity: 11% [?]

By DIANNE SOLÍS / The Dallas Morning News

Federal immigration officials, over the past year, have dramatically curtailed the controversial practice of sedating deportees with powerful anti-psychotic medication.

The move followed court challenges and a public outcry over the practice, which often involved the use of Haldol, a drug used to treat schizophrenia.

Data collected through Freedom of Information Act requests by The Dallas Morning News show that Immigration and Customs Enforcement sedated only 10 people in the past fiscal year. Haldol was used in only three cases.

Over the past six years, through October, federal immigration personnel sedated 384 deportees, an average of 64 a year, the government disclosed. Of those cases, 356 involved the use of Haldol.

U.S. officials defended the sedation policy but declined to discuss it in detail, including the frequency with which sedation has been used, which led The News to request the information through the Freedom of Information Act.

U.S. officials say the procedure is done on the recommendation of medical personnel and now requires a court order – a change made when the American Civil Liberties Union began opposing the procedure and after Julie L. Myers, then assistant homeland security secretary, learned of the cases.

“When we do ask the court to involuntarily sedate, it is both necessary to effectuate removal and medically appropriate,” said Pat Reilly, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security.

Critics said there had been no effective oversight of the process, and some continue to say that the policy violates medical ethics. They praised the use of the court order and sedation restrictions.

“What you are seeing here is that the courts have proven once again that sunshine is the best disinfectant,” said Wade Henderson, a lawyer and the president and chief executive officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in Washington, D.C.

Though the agency has dramatically reduced its use of Haldol to sedate deportees, the practice remains controversial.

Haldol is used to treat schizophrenia and such psychotic symptoms as hallucinations, delusions and hostility.

It is sometimes used in hospital emergency rooms to manage acute agitation and psychosis.

Medical authorities say the use of Haldol carries potential complications. The drug can trigger such adverse reactions as muscular spasms and a condition known as neuroleptic malignant syndrome that can result in a coma and even death if left untreated.

Scott Allen, an internist and co-founder of the Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights in Providence, R.I., said he opposes sedation except for deportees with schizophrenia or other mental illness.

“The medical community needs to assert itself and make clear the medical ethics of involuntary chemical restraint: It is not acceptable,” he said.

As for its decline in use, Dr. Allen said, “That is certainly encouraging, but it enforces the impression they were overusing forced medication in the past.”

New policy

ICE established the policy of requiring a court order for involuntary sedation of detainees during removal with “no exceptions” in January. ICE said it restated a policy from June 2007.

Ms. Myers, who resigned as assistant homeland security secretary last month, said she moved toward a policy of “getting a court order so only in the narrowest of circumstances would we proceed like this.”

She defined the narrow circumstances in which sedation would be used as those in which the agency believes that “based on the advice of medical professional, that this is the only way to have a safe and secure deportation, and a court agrees with that.”

The policy went into effect in June 2007 after the Los Angeles Daily News reported that two detainees had been forcibly drugged in an effort to sedate them for a deportation flight.

Last year, the ACLU sued the U.S. government on behalf of the two immigrants, one from Senegal and another from Indonesia. Attorneys for the men believe both were given Haldol. The case was settled for $55,000 in total for the two, and the government admitted no wrongdoing or liability.

In November 2007, the federal government attempted to get a court order to sedate an Albanian man who resisted deportation and boarding from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, screaming he would be killed if he were sent back to Albania.

The man, a political-asylum seeker, was aided by U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, who wrote a private bill that effectively stalled the Albanian’s deportation until early 2009.

Government data

The government’s FOIA disclosures don’t indicate whether all 384 sedations were forced or voluntary. But government officials and lawyers who have represented deportees said it is clear that a significant number were involuntarily sedated.

“Immigrants are not animals,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, the ACLU attorney involved in the lawsuit against Homeland Security.

A FOIA request for government data for the five fiscal years prior to Oct. 1, 2002, was denied because the federal government said it was unable to locate any records.

The issue of sedations drew further attention in May, when The Washington Post reported its use in more than 250 cases.

The report was based in part on information from the confidential medical logs of deportees.

Even before the policy shift, the practice was used in a relative handful of deportations. In fiscal year 2007, more than 240,000 people went through deportation proceedings.

Race as a factor

The documents show that sedation was used disproportionately against Africans, leading some to suggest that race was a factor.

“The racial dimensions add a particularly troubling dimension to what was already an unacceptable regime of choices,” said Mr. Henderson of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

U.S. officials deny that race was a factor.

“Nationality is purely coincidental,” said Ms. Reilly, the ICE spokeswoman.

Over the six years, nearly 40 percent of those sedated with Haldol were Africans. No other continent had that high a percentage. The cases cover a period from October 2002 through October of this year.

According to the federal data, sedations with Haldol were scattered among deportees from all over Africa, but clusters can be found among deportees from Guinea, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Senegal and Uganda.

On their own

Former Dallas resident Stanley Ukeni of Nigeria was deported in October 2007 after overstaying a visitor visa by more than a decade.

Mr. Ukeni pleaded with immigration officials to let him stay in the U.S., saying he had provoked the wrath of high-ranking officials in Nigeria with human-rights work he had done there on behalf of the Ibo tribe. He said he feared he would be tortured if he returned.

According to Mr. Ukeni, immigration officials gave him a choice: He could land in Lagos, Nigeria, sedated and manacled, or he could remain unsedated, fully conscious and better able to protect himself from harm. He chose to go peacefully and avoided sedation.

In a phone conversation from a relative’s home in Nigeria, Mr. Ukeni said he would like to return “home” to Dallas, where he has two small U.S.-born children with his girlfriend. E-mails from Mr. Ukeni and a letter from his Nigerian attorney asserted that Mr. Ukeni had been abducted and severely beaten several times since his return.

ICE officials would not discuss specifics of Mr. Ukeni’s case.

But Ms. Reilly acknowledged that deportees are on their own once they arrive in their home country.

“When we remove a person from the United States,” she said, “our authority over them ends when they leave an aircraft in their country of origin.”

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