Our New Anahuac

La Raza Justice Movement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:MARCH 10, 2010

La Raza Justice Movement Responds To Rumors of Raids At Wal-Mart

Description: LRJM continues to follow up on leads regarding immigration enforcement activity at or around Houston-area Wal-Marts

Rumors, sent via text messages, have suggested that within the past few days immigration enforcement activity has taken place, ranging from worker raids to customer harassment by ICE officials, at Houston-area Wal-Marts.  Most seem to be largely false, but LRJM continues to seek verification.

Members and supporters of La Raza Justice Movement continue seeking witness accounts of any immigration enforcement activity.

Wal-Mart has denied coordinating or supporting information raids.  However, questions regarding whether or not I-9 verification activity has taken place, referred to as desk raids by many, were not immediately answered by Wal-Mart’s corporate office.

La Raza Justice Movement continues to seek witness accounts and will follow up with Wal-Mart’s corporate offices regarding desk raid activity.  Hector Chavana Jr of LRJM  is meeting the Little York Small Business Group today, where discussions about this rumors will take place, among other normal business.

As of the release, LRJM has neither discounted nor verified the rumors and will continue with its inquiries.  The panic and fear spread by these rumors speak to the national call for a moratorium on all immigration enforcement activities, a call which LRJM supports.  Such a call is not unheard of, as a certain form of enforcement moratorium was enacted in the Reagan administration.

WHAT:                    Little York Small Business Group Meeting, where rumors will be one topic of conversation

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I received a text message from an out-of-state friend on March 8.  The text message said, “WALMART dio autorizacion para atrapar imigrantes (sic) dentro de la tienda empieza 20 de marzo apoya el movimiento hispano no comprando en walmar (sic).”

I took it as a hoax for many reasons that many of my activist colleagues did as well.  Wal-Mart is a sick company, but they wouldn’t be dumb enough to hurt their own profits.  ICE doesn’t need permission to conduct raids.  The text technically makes no mention of ICE or deportations, but the implication is clear. 

I really just did not pay much attention to it.  I put out a post on facebook to see if anyone else had received this text.  I got information from many friends (on and off facebook) that they had spoken to people who had seen ICE, in one way or another, at various Wal-Mart locations throughout the Houston area. 

As much as I tried, I could not find an eye witness to the activity.  I went to one of the Wal-Marts in question, and I could find no first-hand accounts, but myriad second and third hand accounts y un monton de gente que ya habian oido de las supuestas redadas el dia 20 de marzo.

The closest that I got to eye-witness accounts was an account from a Wal-Mart employee who says their personnel department did confirm that they authorize ICE to “check papers.”  It’s kind of a vague statement, but after speaking to some respected organizers, I believe that the personnel employee might have been referring to the sharing of paperwork with ICE, not ICE checking workers directly for documentation.

As Dick Cheney once used the term ”new normal.”  While a mentor of mine and some respected organizers object to the term, many groups, like FIRM, are calling this “new normal” nothing less than “desk raids.”

We have to treat the text message and the recent rumors of ICE activity as Wal-Mart as two separate incidents. I don’t believe that the text message is accurate, for many reasons. However, I have heard too many second and third hand accounts of recent ICE activity to discount them completely. I was planning for a press conference today, but I feel that I need more time to check out some things before speaking intelligently. I am still not convinced that raids, even desk raids, have taken place (though I think it is possible), and I am not convinced that these are simply rumors. I am a show-me kind of guy.  I think that there is a great danger in erring on either side of the argument.  So for now, I’ll put this in the ”need more info.”

While we’re on the subject, the Obama administration released a statement suggesting that reports about increased deportations were simply an accounting error, because of the way deportations were counted. I am not buying it, and neither is Matthew Kolken, who says:

The Washington Post has reported that a DHS spokesman is trying to minimize the number of individuals “deported” by President Obama by excluding individuals who have received “voluntary departure” and who have not actually been removed from the United States under an order of removal (deportation).

This is nothing more than political spin. Voluntary departure is a euphemism for voluntary deportation. Although an individual may avoid the stigma of an order of removal if they are granted voluntary deportation by attesting to their willingness to leave the United States within a set number of days (a maximum of 120 days) and by paying for their own way home to their native country, make no mistake about it, the individual MUST LEAVE the United States, and there is nothing voluntary about it.

It’s more of the same: spin.

I received what seemed to be a hoax-like text message yesterday regarding Wal Mart having given permission to ICE to conduct raids on premises. I found various reasons to discount this as a rumor, for one, ICE doesn’t need permission to conduct raids, or so I reasoned.

I heard from a third-hand sources that two days ago there had been a raid at the 290-Tidwell Wal Mart, but I have been unable to speak to the witness to corroborate.

A few minutes ago, I heard that there had been another raid at a Wal-Mart in the north part of town. I spoke to a trustworthy Wal-Mart employee who confirmed the following:
-According to his/her conversation with someone from personnel, Wal-Mart has given permission to ICE to check their employees’ papers. “Employees only,” this person clarified, “not customers.”
-This person also confirmed that many customers walked in the store today claiming that ICE was outside of the store checking for papers.
-This person confirmed that ICE was NOT in his/her store, as far as he/she was aware.
-This person heard rumors that employees from another store claimed that ICE had entered their store and had performed an operation inside their location.

I am heading to Wal-Mart right now.  This could be bad information from a personnel employee and rumors from other employees, so I am trying to gather more facts.  The rumors seem to be stacking up, however.

I am thinking about calling for a press conference in the later afternoon tomorrow. Stay tuned.

After visiting Wal-Mart, I could not find one person who had seen an ICE agent outside of Wal-Mart.  This could be, in part, due to having shown up too late.  As far as the comment from personnel, I have concluded that this person might have been referring to the practice of turning in I-9 documentation to ICE when asked, which is, unfortunately, common practice.  If ICE asks personnel for documenation, they get it one way or the other.  I have not chalked this up to merely rumor yet.  I think it is possible that there was an I-9 verification (desk raids) at some locations, but I have found no evidence of detention raids.  I’ll keep an eye out.  I spoke to two different managers and they also confirmed that they had seen nothing, but suggested that I speak to the corporate office, which I will do tomorrow.

Cesar Espinosa, Mike Espinoza, Maria Xiquin and I presented a panel discussion at St Thomas University.  Our sincerest thanks to Dave Atwood, St. Thomas U, Pax Christi, Maryknoll and Catholic Worker Newspaper.  My comrades knocked it out of the park.  I am posting a few pics, and the audio follows.

Cesar

Mike

Maria

Talk about spin: When I asked my wife why the pic was so blurry, my enchanting wife said that she was too captivated by me to worry about the photos. lol. Flettery gets her everywhere. Translation: new camera and can't use it.

Still need to chop it into sections, but here’s the mp3

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Mi Querido Jefe: Hector A. Chavana

My father, an attorney for thirty years, came in this morning to the office with a funny smile, which made me know something was up.  We exchanged our morning greeting, and I paused, knowing that he had something to say. 

I was eating some oatmeal at the time, and he told me that the courts are a buzz with a recent decision.  I bit.  “What is it I asked?”  He told me that a judge had made a very “courageous decision,” by ruling that the death penalty was unconstitutional. 

I quickly tried to clarify whether he had ruled the entire death penalty was unconstitutional or whether something specific to this case made its application unconstitutional.  I guess I was a little too quick to react, and ended up literally choking on my oatmeal before I could get the question out.  Just another normal morning at Oficinas Chavana.

It’s true. Check out what Judge Kevin Fine said as quoted in the Houston Chronicle.

A Houston judge on Thursday granted a pretrial motion declaring the death penalty unconstitutional, saying he believes innocent people have been executed.

“Based on the moratorium (on the death penalty) in Illinois, the Innocence Project and more than 200 people being exonerated nationwide, it can only be concluded that innocent people have been executed,” state District Judge Kevin Fine said. “It’s safe to assume we execute innocent people.”

Fine said trial level judges are gatekeepers of society’s standard for decency and fairness.

“Are you willing to have your brother, your father, your mother be the sacrificial lamb, to be the innocent person executed so that we can have a death penalty so that we can execute those who are deserving of the death penalty?” he said. “I don’t think society’s mindset is that way now.”

I have personally known (before their legal troubles) five or six people who have been sentenced to death row (that makes for a different blog post).  It looks like a sixth might be headed there soon.  One of them, Johnnie Bernal, was removed from death row because the crime that he committed occurred one night before his eighteenth birthday.  All of them are minorities.

I stand against the death penalty due to the decidedly prejudiced form in which the death penalty is applied to minorities and the poor. 

The chances are that this ruling will be promptly overturned, but this judge has taken a bold stance toward a more human outlook from the bench.

Raul Alcaraz has a message on the answer to the migration woes that our community faces. It is refreshing to know that my ideas are not unique. Separation, revolution, self-determination, restoration:

Their system should not be the “end all/be all” of our visions for a better world. If we limit ourselves to the confines of their system, we have already lost from the very beginning and we ourselves will continue upholding the very same colonial structures we proclaim to defy. Like Audre Lord once declared: “We cannot take down the Master’s house with the Master’s tools.” We must stop defining ourselves and the Migrant Rights Movement on foreign ways of being, on their system, on the continuing occupation of our minds, bodies, hearts and souls.

We must reclaim/transform language and our points of view. The current debate on “borders” and “immigration reform” even from the so-called pro-migrant camp comes from a colonial framework that lacks a social justice vision and never challenges borders or citizenship. Instead, the migrant rights movement Hispanic/White liberal establishment negotiates and collaborates with colonization and occupation.

With U.S. government-sponsored immigration raids, detentions, deportations, and genocide of our people and corporate interests increasing unemployment, poverty, imperialist wars and inaccessible health care at global levels, times are proving that “government [and corporations are] best which govern not at all.”

Let’s take it all back! ¡YA BASTA!

¡Un abrazo fuerte a tod@s mis compañer@s en la lucha!

I was first attracted to the discord in some of their riffs. That’s kinda their thing. Have loved them ever since.

I was a little slow off the mark posting about the decision to halt 287-g in Houston. I was hoping to post something soon, but Stace says it all in his blog DosCentavos.net. Check out his post entitled
Parker Cites Cost, Not Community Trust, in 287g Opt-Out.

MSNBC Commentator Keith Olbermann speaks on racism present and past.  He even goes into the anthropological aspects for a second. 

Many people confuse my rants against “White Power” with me taking a position against all white people.  In fact, my measure for a human being are her soul and her deeds. 

It is true, as Olbermann suggests, that I do look at whites with some suspicion because of their inherent racial/cultural privilege, and because I believe that most are not willing to sacrifice their privilege for any moral good.

I do not excuse liberals who, were it for their impotence, would grant us equality of opportunity in a heartbeat. This classic liberal stance will not remedy the immense theft of cutural and economic wealth which has put our people at a disadvantage, and on an inherent uneven playing field. We do not wish to compete in race to build in which we are handed a hammer at the same time that our competitors have been out stealing power tools all night.

My test for a white person is whether or not they will consciously act toward giving our gente the ultimate rights that we deserve and that we are owed: self determination.  If a white person can respect and actively support our desire to have full authority of ourselves (equality of authority) then they are no longer deserving of the title gringo.

Full self determination, autonomy and sovereignty over our own lands (without political, military or economic intervention) shall complete the cycle of justice.  The Azteca concept of justice was equated with untwisting a twisted rope.  The last stage of such atonement is reparations.  Unfortunately, this country and the gringo populace in general has not even embarked on the first stage of atonement. Listen carefully to Keith Olbermann. Does he ever suggest that the solution to the problem of racism is granting people of color the rights to govern ourselves? Instead he defends the classic liberal position that we are all the same and should be colorblind, that integration is the answer and that the president is just as capitalistic as anyone else.

We don’t want colorblindness. We want land.