TE PEDI ME MANDARAS UNO SIN RAYAS PERO NI MODO LE …



Shadow Report by the Los Angeles Indigenous Peoples Alliance (LAIPA),

the Association of Guatemalan Fraternities in Los Angeles (AFG)

and the Guatemalan Education Action Project (GEAP)

to the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)

on the Racist Persecution under Color of Law and State Racism against the Migrant Peoples and Migrant Indigenous Peoples in the United States

February 7, 2008

Presented to Ms. Nathalie Prouvez

Secretary, U.N. Committee for the

Elimination of Racial Discrimination

UNOG-OHCHR

CH-1211

Geneva 10, Switzerland

Response to the United States Periodic Report of April 2007 on the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

Background

The migrant Indigenous Peoples of Mexico, Central and South America in the United States are the population most severely affected by the policies of racism and discrimination furthered through the various anti-immigrant and anti-terrorist laws of this nation. Our ancestral lands have been robbed from us through campaigns of genocide and pillage supported by the U.S. government, and these conditions have displaced us into this country, whose government denles us our most fundamental human rights. Moreover, these policies legally obligate all citizen of the country to actively participate in such discrimination.

The establishment of the United States as a country embodied a campaign of persecution and extermination against the native population, along with slavery as a model for the agricultural development of the southeastern states. Subsequently, during the nineteenth century, as of the Mexican-American War (1846 - 1848), a serious of manifestations were unleashed in law and culture against Mexicans and Latin Americans in general, especially in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Colorado.

After the United States Civil War (1861-1865), given the contradictions between the slave owners of the South and the industrialists of the north, as well as the struggles of the Afro-American people, it was no longer possible to perpetuate slavery as a legal convention. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, in 1865, prohibited the existence of slavery. Therefore, in order to create a sector within the country that would work without rights and under fear, new legal conventions were devised to perpetuate such a model, one of which was the creation of immigration laws, which were adapted to such a perspective.

In fact, the first immigration law of the United States, which constitutes the base for all US immigration laws, was the Chinese Exclusion Act, enacted in the year 1882. This law formed a part of a campaign of racism against that people, initiated several years earlier, after using their labor in the fields, in mining, and in the construction of the railways of the west. Some of the racist mechanisms used in that era included the Foreign Miners Act (1850[1]), lynching campaigns[2], racist campaigns by the trade union movement of the era[3], an extreme form of exploitation as temporary “coolie” labor[4] and laws that excluded Chinese women from the country while at the same time prohibiting marriage between different “races,” for example, between blacks and whites (in effect at different times in 30 states of the country[5]).

In the 1940’s, the Bracero program was implemented, which would last for three to nine months for a participating immigrant worker. The majority of these contracts were for agricultural works, including planting and harvesting in California, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and New York. These workers, whose labor developed the world’s largest agricultural industry, enjoyed no benefits whatsoever.[6] The program is identical to the projected “guest worker program,” advocated by the current administration, which not only separates families, but also leaves a worker under the absolute power of his employer.

Up until the year 1965, immigration law and case law in the country expressly discriminated against non-European immigrants. Some classic examples include laws that excluded immigrants from India (1917) Japan (1924), and Philippines (1934),[7] or the McCarran-Walter Act, which imposed a race-based quota system (1952).[8] In the year 1965, during the historic movement of the Afro-American people led by Dr. Martin Luther King, the Hart-Cellar Act was passed, which adopted a system allowing legal residence for 170,000 immigrants from the eastern hemisphere, up to a maximum of 20,000 per country, and 120,000 immigrants, altogether, from the western hemisphere, with preferences for the direct relatives of US citizens and persons with exceptional skills or trades needed by the country.[9] This change of language and numbers game, nonetheless, did not eliminate racism from the immigration system, since the countries most affected by United States foreign policy are those that produce the most immigrants, who, unrecognized, suffer from an alarming discrimination.

Anti-Immigrant Laws in the Modern Era

Currently, immigration laws continue to apply formulas that fail to respond to the patterns of displacement from the various countries, creating a sector of approximately 12 million persons classified by the federal government as “illegal.”[10] In addition, new legal conventions have been introduced at the federal level, undercutting the full human development of immigrant peoples. Among them are the federal e-Verify[11] employment verification program, designed to enforce employer sanctions laws. Employer sanctions obligate employers to fire immigrants who lack a work permit, resulting in the marginalization and super-exploitation of millions of workers.[12] This measure was introduced into federal law in the year 1986, as part of the law popularly known as the “amnesty law,” since it allowed approximately 3 million persons to regularize their immigration status. In addition, at present, unlike during the 1970’s, minor citizen children can no longer petition the government to regularize the immigration status of their parents, which has led to a life of great insecurity for persons already settled in the country, the separation of families (parents deported and minor children left behind) and a major increase in the size of the undocumented population. This population includes approximately 500,000 young persons who have grown up in the United States,[13] but who are denied their basic human rights. We would note that the great majority of these young people are unable to complete their higher education. In the case of California, they have a right to enroll in community colleges and even universities, but are not entitled to receive any financial aid, and, just like the rest of the undocumented population, live under the constant threat of deportation. This year, out of the approximately 2.8 million students who graduated, some 60,000 were young immigrants, thousands of them indigenous youth denied the opportunity to contribute their knowledge and abilities to the development of this country and that of their families. An example is that of a young engineer who recently graduated from the Cal Poly Pomona University, currently working as a gardener on account of his immigration status.[14] Seeking to overcome this policy, student and community organizations have worked for passage of the Dream Act, which would allow these youth to regularize their status upon completing two years of college or serving in the military. That bill was rejected by the U.S. Congress.[15]

In addition to federal laws, several states have passed their own anti-immigrant legislation. For example, in several states, including California and New York, the undocumented do not have a right to obtain a drivers license or a state I.D. In zones such as Southern California, where public transportation is deficient and automobiles are needed on a daily basis to get to work or transport children to school, hundreds of undocumented persons each day are fined $1,200.00 for driving without a license. Often, their vehicles are seized. At times, regardless of lack of documentation, simple appearance is enough to result in persecution. Such was the case of Marcelino Tzir Tzul, a 37-year old Maya Quiché born in Guatemala, who was arrested when riding his bicycle in the city of Costa Mesa (45 minutes from Los Angeles) and deported.[16] The denial of the right to an identification is a clear cut denial of a person’s civil rights.

At the municipal level, anti-immigrant campaigns have been waged during this first decade of the millennium to prohibit the undocumented from renting housing in cities such as Hazelton, Pennsylvania; Escondido, California; Carpentersville, Illinois and several others. Through lawsuits filed by American Civil Liberties Union, these laws have been declared illegal. Nonetheless, such campaigns have contributed to the increasingly anti-immigrant environment in the country. Some cities (such as San Francisco) have passed sanctuary ordinances and are even planning to issue municipal I.D.’s for all the residents of the city, yet that has not halted deportations and the presence of the immigration service (ICE) in those jurisdictions. Another issue that has received little attention to date is the review of students’ immigration status by at least certain school districts. From the time a child starts elementary school, the forms filled out by their parents include data on their country of origin. If the documentation demonstrating their residency or citizenship is not exhibited to the school, the school district’s databases list the student as “undocumented.” These data are available to the child’s parents over the Internet, where this information has appeared.[17]

Raids

This same decade has seen an alarming increase in raids against immigrant populations. In many cases, the populations affected have been indigenous communities displaced from Latin America by wars, genocide, and free trade agreements that undermine their capacity to survive in their countries of origin. Such is the case, for example, of agricultural communities in Florida and the widely known case of the raid that took place in New Bedford, Massachusetts on March 6, 2007, where most of those detained were indigenous Maya Quichés who had fled from Guatemala during the 1980’s.[18] This was one of the largest raids in the country, where some 100 to 200 children were separated from their parents.[19] It should be noted that the raids not only affect the direct victims and their families, but also the community in general, since they create an atmosphere of insecurity and fear among millions of persons.

Death and Terror along the Border

Since the nineteen eighties, the number of deaths occurring along the Mexico-United States border has been rising, clustering in the State of Arizona. Crossing the border, for most undocumented immigrants, is a truly terrifying experience. In addition to border patrol, equipped with high-tech military gear,[20] immigrants are confronted by smugglers associated with organized crime (who often hold persons prisoner in “safe houses” until they receive payment). There are even gangs that demand an extra payment, as well as paramilitary groups, discussed below. Rapes of women by human traffickers are taking place at an alarming, yet unquantified rate.[21] The journey includes large treks over mountainous and desert terrain, and even the crossing of major highways, up to 12 lanes wide, on account of which numerous persons have been run over by vehicles traveling at more than 70 miles per hour.

It should be mentioned that in Southern California, in the border zone and near the internal immigration check points (an hour north of the border), signs are posted depicting an undocumented family crossing a highway. The colors and form of the sign are similar to those used to indicate the danger of deer crossings along rural roads. As such, this sign has become a symbol of stereotyping, dehumanization, and racial persecution.

Deaths in the desert are increasing and create a most painful situation, above all among our indigenous communities, who are identified by the governments solely as rural communities. In fact, any of those who have been displaced come from southern Mexico and Central America, where the rainy and dry seasons do not correspond to those of the United States. Moreover, they have never seen a desert the size of those found in the US southwest. Accordingly, they are completely unprepared for a trek through such a climate. Marginalized in their own countries of origin, they often begin their journey in a precarious health situation (most arrive in an advanced state of malnutrition). Hundred of immigrants die each year in the desert for lack of water, sometimes leaving nothing behind but their literally charred remains.[22] Yet the coyotes (smugglers) invariably charge their fees, even if the person has died en route, leaving their relatives in debt.[23]

At the same time, our peoples are conscious that other communities have to cross the sea on rafts (from the Caribbean) or in ship containers (from Asia), where they also face the possibility of a cruel death.

The United States is currently implementing a plan to build a 700-mile wall along the border with Mexico. The building contractors who have won the bidding competition include Boeing and the Israeli firm Elbit Systems,[24] the same company that built the wall within occupied Palestine.[25] The border is ever more militarized, with iron bars, sheet metal fencing, and a myriad of armed forces (the Border Patrol, the National Guard, among others), as well as armed paramilitary forces[26] that operate with total impunity and have good relations with the authorities. The most famous but not only one of these groups, going by the name “Minutemen,” have made presentations at prestigious universities in Southern California and elsewhere, where they have commenced a recruitment effort among student youth to denounce undocumented students, with the blessings of the university authorities.[27]

Notably, large extensions of border lands still belong to the Indigenous Peoples of the United States, among them the Tohono O’odham nation and the Lipan Apache people. In the case of the Tohono O’odham, whose Tribal Council has so accepted, the immigration service has installed towers and detention “cages,” regularly patrols with land vehicles and helicopters, and is starting to install approximately 70 miles of the border wall. Those who oppose the militarization and the border wall, as is the case of the Lipan Apaches, are facing severe repression, which is the subject of another shadow report also filed with the CERD.

Notably, in the territories of the Tohono O’odham nation,[28] the migration service has initiated a campaign to recruit indigenous peoples with the pretext of protecting the environment from the trash left behind by migrants in their journey to the cities north of the border. This campaign fails to note that the construction of the border wall would interrupt the migration of wild animals that help to maintain the region’s ecological balance, irrevocably harming the ecosystems shared by the two countries. Paramilitary magazines, such as “Soldier of Fortune,” which constantly feature articles on the issue of immigration, have documented the misappropriation of the traditional knowledge of this people for the persecution of immigrants. At the same time, such articles attempt to associate the immigration of workers with drug trafficking.[29]

Imprisonment of Non-Delinquents and Entire Families

Entire families are being imprisoned in detention centers, such as Hutto[30] in Texas, simply for being in the country without authorization. There, children live in the same conditions as a delinquent, are denied basic hygiene, recreation, and education, and are mixed with the adult population, in flagrant violation of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child.[31] Another detention center is that of Tacoma, Washington. Both are administered by private contractors. Notably, the detention of unaccompanied immigrants children grew by 125% between 1997 and 2001 (prior to 911), as was documented in an exhaustive report by Amnesty International in June 2003.[32] These abuses of the innocent are perhaps the gravest manifestations of governmental racist persecution in the country.

Racist Electoral Campaigns

Finally, given that this is an electoral year in the United States, along with the accentuated anti-immigrant environment and racist, anti-immigrant culture in the country, the electoral campaign includes an abundance of anti-immigrant declarations by the candidates. Accordingly, Republican candidate Mitt Romney attacked his co-Republican rival Rudy Guliani, accusing him of “supporting illegal immigration when was governor of New York,”[33] while Guliani, for his part, has advocated a greater presence of the border patrol and the National Guard along the border, together with a “guest worker” program[34] that would revive the Bracero program of 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s, where the employer controlled his worker’s right to remain in the country, resulting in horrendous labor abuses. Senator McCain, the current leader in the Republican primary elections, takes the same approach. Among the Democrats, Hillary Clinton, tends to seek some type of reform in favor of immigrants together with “more rigorous border security,” and stepped up campaigns against those who employ the undocumented. Barak Obama, the son of a black immigrant from Kenya, has sought out the Latina community and workers. Nonetheless, prior to launching his presidential run, when addressing the US Senate on April 3, 2006, he stated,

“Those who enter our country illegally, and those who employ them, disrespect the rule of law. And because we live in an age where terrorists are challenging our borders, we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, and unchecked. Americans are right to demand better border security and better enforcement of the immigration laws.”[35]

All these persons are current public office holders of the United States.

Police Repression

In several cities, encouraged in part by federal cooperation funds, the city police forces cooperate with the immigration service, often against persons who are not even crime suspects. One documented example is that of Maricopa County, Arizona, where day laborers have been arrested simply because they seek to work.[36] This case is one of many that occur on a daily basis. Meanwhile, white supremacists arrive at sites where day laborers congregate. Targeting persons by their racial features (including short stature) and those who speak an indigenous language,[37] they offer to hire them, take them to remote places, beat them and leave them behind, without fear of being reported due to their victims’ fear of deportation.

On May 1, 2007, participants in a peaceful demonstration, along with members of the press, were attacked with Billy clubs and rubber bullets in MacArthur Park, Los Angeles. This police aggression left several persons seriously injured and temporally disabled, many of whom were indigenous community members. The peaceful protest included the participation of whole families, whose children witnessed this action particularly targeting the indigenous migrant communities. The area of the incident is the area of residence of the largest concentration of indigenous Maya Quichés in Los Angeles.

No-Match Letters

This is another significant form of persecution against those who do not have a social security number. The letter is sent to the employer from the Social Security Administration[38] (the country’s retirement system), after which the employer has 90 days to corroborate the worker’s correct name and number or fire him. Though an injunction has temporarily halted this practice, the base of the defense against this mechanism was solely its impact on permanent residents and citizens of the country. In reality, the target of the measure is the country’s unrecognized, displaced community, that is, the undocumented, whose human rights were not argued in the lawsuit. Moreover, the injunction is not permanent.

The Effect on the Community

Throughout this report, we have mentioned the terror, labor exploitation, perceptions of oppression and fear experienced by the undocumented in the United States. This situation is faced on a long-term basis, throughout the country. It impinges upon the right to work, to study, freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and even the right to life.

In the case of indigenous immigrants, certain specific factors exist that further exacerbate the marginalization of our communities. These include a high percentage of persons who are monolingual in the native languages of our peoples, the extreme repression of our peoples in our countries of origin, increasing the fear of deportation and, similarly, the extreme poverty of our communities, intensely affected by the Free Trade Agreements, the presence of large numbers of our immigrant community members in remote agricultural zones (where conditions are present of slavery and racism “worse than during the era of the massacres in Guatemala”[39]) and the lack of recognition of our existence due to racist and excluding policies of the political and social systems not only here, but also in our countries of origin. Indeed, given the marginalization we face in our own countries, many of us have no formal schooling, placing us at a disadvantage when dealing with the governmental system, and are also targeted in transactions with our employers.

Taking the case of the indigenous Guatemalan Mayas as an example, we know that during the era of genocide and ethnocide, the US government, which was allied with the Guatemalan government of the time, did not recognize the community as victims of persecution. The percentage of asylum cases granted was insignificant.[40] Similar situations are repeated in all the indigenous immigrant communities, where the displacement of peoples provoked by the United States itself is ignored, and the percentage of persons living in the category of “illegality” is therefore exceptionally high. Here again we note that one of the country’s largest raids (New Bedford, Massachusetts) targeted a Guatemalan Maya community. Likewise, in the above-cited attack against the peaceful pro-immigrant march in Los Angeles, the first group attacked by the police were the Mexica dancers, who entered the streets around the park during their spiritual dance, as was witnessed by thousands of the march’s participants that day.

Another particular factor affecting the Indigenous Peoples coming from Latin America is that the existence of our ethnic groups in the civil life of the country is simply not recognized. No government form that any of us have seen includes an ethnic category with which our communities identify. On census and school forms, and even the birth certificates of our children or citizenship certificates in the case of those who attain such status, we are either identified as “white” or as “Hispanic.” When members of our community mark “Native American,” social workers ask for the name of the tribe with which we are affiliated. Upon ascertaining that it is not a federally recognized tribe of the US, they “correct” the form. Our invisibility reaches such heights that despite the existence of a numerous Mayan community in the Los Angeles area, the schools still teach that the Mayas no longer exist. A favorite anecdote is that of an elementary school student who asked her teacher, “So, am I extinct?” All this constitutes a form of undermining the ethnic existence of our communities.

We wish to emphasize that our communities are numerous and not only represent a movement of individuals, but a displacement of Indigenous Peoples. For example, the majority of the Maya Kanjobal of Guatemala has been displaced to communities such as Indiantown, Florida or Los Angeles, California. There are also numerous Maya communities clustered in parts of New England, for example in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Houston, Arizona, Tucson, Montana, Connecticut and many other states. In addition, there are large Aymara and Quechua communities clustered in Orange County, California and New Jersey. Furthermore, there are indications of an accelerated immigration of monolingual speakers of the indigenous languages of the Americas, reflected by an increase in the number of requests for translation services for these languages.[41] Among the organizations of our peoples, there is the Frente Indígena Oaxaqueño Bi-National, with strong ties to a Mixteca community in New York and Los Angeles. The indigenous communities from south of the Rio Bravo in the U.S. cherish our cultures, languages, identity and spirituality and strive to preserve them, as is seen in the celebrations of the Maya Washaquip B’atz ceremonies and the practice of the Mexica spiritual dance. Nonetheless, for our peoples, the separation de families, lack of resources and lack of access to land place obstacles for our cultural development and the transmission of our traditional knowledge. For indigenous peoples, land has a meaning far beyond its economic value. It is a spiritual and cultural factor and the basis of our identity. Our efforts to conserve our spaces are deeply affected by the policies of expropriation of the sacred places of the indigenous peoples of our home countries and even in our country of destination.[42] Often, we live in very reduced urban spaces, without access to even a small garden area. When we try to conserve our land-based traditions, we have faced repression, as occurred the forced eviction of the farmers of a South Central Los Angeles community garden and the closing of the garden itself.[43] Such conditions hinder the transmission of traditional knowledge and customs, such as the identification and use of medicinal plants by our curanderas, imparted from generation to generation.

Finally, we note that there are patterns of migration on the American continent that predate the European invasion, which ought to be respected. One can hardly keep from noting the irony that the indigenous peoples of the Americas are being deported from a country dominated by ethnic groups that have not even undergone a process of mestizaje with the original inhabitants of our continent.

Conclusions

There is an evident persecution in the United States against the immigrants peoples, which currently takes the form of discrimination under color of law. This persecution is exacerbated by the existence of the armed, anti-immigrant paramilitary groups that operate with total impunity in the country, especially in the border regions; as well as the racist climate encouraged by public academic institutions and high-ranking government officials in the country, including each of the current presidential candidates. All that results in death and discrimination, affects the full human development of our peoples, and especially maintains the Indigenous Peoples in a true state of terror.

Given the fact that the indigenous communities have been displaces by wars, genocide ethnocide, and unfair trade agreements, the countries responsible for the displacement have the dual moral and historic obligation of remedying their errors in our countries of origin and of treating the displaced peoples with dignity, aiding us in reestablishing the life with dignity for which all of us yearn, with civil rights, ethnic recognition, and full participation in our country of destination. Any immigration policy that fails to take that reality and obligation into account is inherently racist.

We thank you for your attention and, as part of our efforts to build an inclusive, dignified, peaceful and just society, we are hoping that you will support us against the racism we face.

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[1]

[2]

[3] See, for example, American Federation of Labor. Some reasons for Chinese exclusion. Meat vs. rice. American manhood against Asiatic coolieism. Which shall survive? Washington, D.C.: American Federation of Labor, 1901.

[4] See, for example, Moon-Ho Jung, Coolies and Cane, Race, Labor, and Sugar in the Age of Emancipation, The John Hopkins University Press, 2006.

[5]

[6] See

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10] See

[11] See

[12]

[13] Raj Jayadev, Claiming a Public Space -- Undocumented Youth Come Out of the Closet,

[14] Presentation at Immigration Encounter, Church of Our Lady of Assumption, Claremont, California, August 28, 2007.

[15] See

[16] See

[17] As is the case, for example, of the Claremont Unified School District in California.

[18] Human Rights Immigration Community Action Network, Over Raided, Under Siege, p. 5. Although this publication does not identify these persons as indigenous, they so identified themselves in an interview with Rubén Luengas of Noticiero Telemundo, among other media interviews.

[19] Ibid, p. 67.

[20] See

[21] See.

See the video De nadie.

[22] See

[23] Interviews with the Guatemalan Mayan community.

[24]

[25] Ibid.

[26] See

[27] See

[28] See

[29]

[30]



[31] See

[32] Available at .

[33]

[34]

[35]

[36] Over Raided, Under Siege, op cit, p. 35.

[37] Private interviews in the area of La Canada in the suburbs of Los Angeles, California.

[38]

[39] Conversation with a Guatemalan woman in the year 2006, regarding the conditions faced by her husband, an immigrant worker employed in the state of Arkansas.

[40] See

[41] Question and Answer Session, American Translators Association, Convention in Houston, Texas, November 1, 2007, workshop on Community Interpreting in the Health Sector Involving Mexican Indian Languages in Mexico and in the U.S.

[42] One example would be Puvungna, located on the Cal State Long Beach University campus, tenaciously defended by the Tongva people with support of many other indigenous peoples, where the indigenous peoples of the South are often guests of the Tongva spiritual leaders. See

[43] See

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Photo by ARNIE GRAFTON /Union-Tribune,

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