“It’s not a short trip to Santa Fe from Anthony and Las Cruces, where most of our members live,” said Jose Manuel Escobedo, BNHR Policy Director. “The sacrifices our members make to fight for their licenses shows exactly how much this means to their families.”

The Day of Action will include a 9 a.m. press conference followed by rounds of visits with lawmakers.

Details: Border Network Day of Action and Press Conference at the Roundhouse

When: All day on Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Where: The Roundhouse in Santa Fe, Press conference in the Rotunda

More than 300 people marched in memory of Martin Luther King and in support of the current New Mexico driver's license law in Las Cruces on Monday, Jan 16.

(LAS CRUCES, New Mexico) — More than 300 Southern New Mexico residents marched and rallied in Las Cruces today to honor the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. Most of the marchers were members of the Border Network for Human Rights and where there to show support for the current driver’s license law in New Mexico.

The current driver’s license law in New Mexico, in effect since 2003, allows undocumented immigrants to legally obtain a license if they can show other ID, residency verification and security checks.

Governor Susana Martinez, who’s grandparents famously came to the U.S. without legal status, has vowed to try a third time to repeal the common-sense law.

Martinez has shamefully compared hard-working immigrant families in New Mexico to terrorists on her campaign to repeal the law.

Marchers answered this shameful, offense political rhetoric with solidarity. “Susana, escucha! Estamos en la lucha!” the crowd chanted. ” Susana, reacciona aqui no es Arizona!” (In English: “Listen, Susana, we are in the struggle!” and “Susana, be resonable, this isn’t Arizona!)

Fresh off the energy of the march and rally, Border Network members announced they would be sending a delegation of 15 people straight from the march to Santa Fe for the start of the legislative session.

Southern New Mexico residents sign large petitions that Border Network members will take to the Roundhouse on Tuesday, Jan 17.

Before sending the group off, BNHR members signed poster-sized petitions for the delegation to deliver to lawmakers in the Roundhouse on Tuesday.

Olga Pedroza, City Counciller of Las Cruces, addressed the rally in front of the Motor Vehicle Devision. “This is a beautiful event,” she said. “I thank you for marching congratulate you!”

Find more photos of the march and rally on Facebook.

The Border Network for Human Rights has analyzed the bill and is reviewing its consequences in all its Human Rights Committees throughout Dona Ana County.

Some major provisions of the bill include a guest worker program, guest worker fund, a family registry system and screening through the controversial “S-Comm” program, a driving privilege card for immigrants, and benefits screening.

If passed by state legislators and signed by Gov. Susana Martinez, the bill would not take effect unless the federal government agrees to allow New Mexico to implement the law at all.

BNHR recognizes that attempts at regulating immigration at the state level is patently unconstitutional.  The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is suing states that have passed immigration policy. It is unlikely that DOJ or the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will grant any waivers to states allowing state-based immigration policies.

This development should be another alert to Congress and the President that a comprehensive Federal solution can no longer wait.

Aside from the legal implications, many provisions of the bill are very controversial:

Employer Sanctions: Mandatory “E-Verify” for employers and creation of a NM-Verify system.

Dragnet Enforcement Approach: Codifies and expands “S-Comm,” a program that remains under federal investigation and has been suspended in some jurisdictions, such as Arizona.

Allows for Discrimination: Differentiated Drivers Licenses for immigrants creates opportunity for profiling.

Arizona and Maricopa County are examples of how state based immigration laws allow for abuses of civil and constitutional abuses by local officials.  County Sheriffs practiced racial profiling and targeted Hispanics because they felt they could.

New Mexico Can Do Better than Arizona.

BNHR believes that one community cannot be sacrificed for another.  New Mexico should not go backwards and treat one segment of the community as second class.  All New Mexicans will prosper when immigrants are fully integrated into the social, economic and political systems.

It is given that the impetus for this bill was the fabricated crisis that the Governor created regarding drivers license for immigrants.  We believe that a license to drive has nothing to do with immigration.  Attempts by some law makers to ‘compromise’ with the Governor are a dangerous gamble.

At a Nov. 1 press conference, BNHR highlighted the stories of Ruben Adrian Beltran and Antonio Garcia Varela, two young men who were wrongfully deported to Mexico and killed shortly afterward in Juarez.

EL PASO, Texas – Immigrant families and their supporters rallied in El Paso on Tuesday to call attention to what they describe as a “deadly combination”: U.S. deportation practices and Mexican cartel-related violence.

Yanet Marquez, 24, spoke at the rally. Last month, the El Paso woman says, her husband was accidentally killed in a gang-related shooting soon after a state trooper routinely stopped him and then dropped him off at the border for being undocumented. Marquez has been in the United States for 13 years and, with two young children who are U.S. citizens, she considers her family to be American.

“I want to give my children a better life. I wanted to go to college, have a career. Now I have no – no memories. No nothing.”

Marquez says she never got to say goodbye to her husband, and that he was murdered in the process of trying to return to her. She blames a “corrupt Mexican government” for his death, and is scared that U.S. authorities might deport her at any time. She’s filing for asylum on the grounds that Mexican officials would be even less likely to ensure her safety now that she’s speaking out.

Marquez’ El Paso attorney, Carlos Spector, says he’s seen a rise in family separations despite the Obama administration’s announcement earlier this year that it would reprioritize deportations. The new Justice Department policy focuses on removing dangerous criminals rather than peaceful families and students. Spector says some local-level law-enforcement officials have been slow to get the memo.

“It takes incidents like this for the community to come out and put pressure on their local law enforcement to start implementing the policy in the executive order of the president, in the way it was meant to be.”

Critics have called the new deportation policy “administrative amnesty,” but Spector says an underfunded court system has been so overwhelmed with the backlog of immigration cases that new priorities were inevitable. Some officers who oppose the policy, he says, have been taking matters into their own hands by shortcutting the administrative process and simply taking undocumented residents directly to the border.

En una conferencia de prensa 01 de noviembre, BNHR destacó las historias de Rubén Adrián Beltrán y Antonio García Varela, dos jóvenes que fueron injustamente deportados a México y murió poco después en Juárez.

EL PASO, Texas – Familias de inmigrantes y sus simpatizantes se manifestaron este martes en El Paso para llamar la atención hacia lo que describen como una “combinación fatal”: las prácticas de deportación estadounidenses y la violencia relacionada con los cárteles Mexicanos. Yanet Márquez, de 24 años y residente de El Paso, habló durante la manifestación. Narró que el mes pasado su esposo fue muerto durante una balacera entre pandilleros. Había sido detenido en octubre por un patrullero estatal, quien después de un interrogatorio rutinario lo regresó a la frontera por no tener documentos. Pero Márquez ya llevaba 13 años en el país y deja dos hijas ciudadanas americanas, por lo que Yanet considera que su familia es americana.

“Quiero darle una vida mejor a mis hijas. Y quería ir a la universidad, tener una carrera. Ahora no – no tengo recuerdos. Nada.”

Dice que nunca pudo despedirse de su esposo y que cuando lo asesinaron estaba tratando de regresar a casa. Culpa de su muerte al “gobierno mexicano corrupto” y teme que las autoridades americanas la deporten a ella en cualquier momento. Está solicitando asilo bajo la primicia de que los oficiales mexicanos no la protegerían, y ahora menos que antes por estar haciendo estas denuncias.

El paseño Carlos Spector, abogado de Yanet Márquez, dice que se está dando un aumento en la separación de familias, a pesar del anuncio por parte de la administración del presidente Obama a principios de año, en el sentido de que se iban a reacomodar las prioridades en cuanto a deportaciones. La nueva política del Departamento de Justicia se enfoca en sacar a criminales peligrosos en lugar de familias pacíficas y a estudiantes. Spector dice que algunos oficiales de la policía local se han tardado en recibir el memorándum.

“Y se necesita que sucedan incidentes como este para que la comunidad salga y presione a las instituciones del orden para que implementen la política de la orden ejecutiva del Presidente, tal y como fue concebida.”

Los críticos califican la nueva política de deportación como “amnistía administrativa.” Pero Spector asegura que, el circuito de las cortes, de fondos limitados, está tan abrumado con los retrasos de inmigración, que las nuevas prioridades eran inevitables. Agregó que algunos de los oficiales que se oponen a esta política han tomado el asunto en sus propias manos y acortan el proceso administrativo simplemente llevando a los residentes indocumentados directamente a la frontera.

At a Nov. 1 press conference, BNHR highlighted the stories of Ruben Adrian Beltran and Antonio Garcia Varela, two young men who were wrongfully deported to Mexico and killed shortly afterward in Juarez.

(EL PASO, Texas) — On Tuesday, BNHR members shared stories of loved ones lost and demanded justice from the U.S. and Mexican governments.

Deportations under Barack Obama have continued at a record-breaking pace. And on the border, a deportation can be a death sentence. This fact ripped through the families of BNHR members Janet Marquez and Catalina Valera, who spoke at the BNHR El Paso office on Tuesday.

Marquez and Valera explained how their families were victimized twice — first by the U.S. system and then by the Mexican government. In their cases, the U.S. deported young men across the border, where they were left in the hands of a corrupt, unaccountable government. Both men were murdered in Ciudad Juarez, where their cases have never been investigated by Mexican authorities.

Marquez, a 24-year-old who is eligible for the DREAM Act, said Tuesday that she wants to stay in the U.S. with her two sons, who are 5 and 1. “I consider my family to be American,” she said. “I have dreams and plans for me and my family.” Marquez said she now lives in fear that her children will be orphaned if she is deported to Juarez. Her attorney, Carlos Spector said that they will be filing for political asylum based on the apparent complicity of the  Mexican government in the violence that killed her husband. Marquez, who has been a human rights activist for years, fears criminals in the Mexican government will target her for speaking out.

Valera described the circumstances that led to her son’s deportation. She detailed how ICE swept through her neighborhood, where they searched multiple homes without warrants. She said ICE humiliated, threatened and beat members of her family that fateful day. “My son begged ICE. He said ‘Please, I have a wife, I have children,’ but the agent said “I don’t care,’” Valera said through tears. “We don’t want others to have cases like this.”

Cristina Parker, BNHR media coordinator, said that the organization is filing a complaint with the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security on the Valera family’s behalf. “We have already made the call to the OIG,” she said. “We believe their case needs to be investigated.”

Fernando Garica, Executive Director of BNHR, told reporters that the U.S. and Mexico were to blame for the recent increase in deaths of immigrants. “In recent years, migrants and border residents have been subjected to a brutal reality of government actions in the U.S and in Mexico and by intention or omission, these have resulted in institutional abuses, mistreatments and death,” Garcia said. “The ill-conceived immigration and enforcement policies in the U.S. have not only separated families, but in a number of cases, have violated basic legal and human rights of individuals arrested or put into deportation proceedings.

“At the same time, we now see a horrifying pattern where the Mexican government has completely failed to protect those migrants deported into its territories due to corruption, criminal relations and lack of responsibility,” Garcia continued. “For BNHR, both governments are responsible for the violence and immigrants that have been killed at the border, in Juarez and in the U.S.”

After the women spoke, a group of 250 people dressed in black marched down Montana Avenue carrying crosses, coffins and photo’s of Marquez’s husband and Valera’s son. BNHR’s annual Dia De Los Muertos procession ended downtown.

After marching for nearly four miles, BNHR joined protestors occupying San Jacinto Plaza to rally, break bread and hold vigil in solidarity. Marquez and Valera spoke to the crowd and BNHR coordinators delivered messages of solidarity from their communities to the occupiers.

BNHR members then held vigil and led three teach-ins with occupiers to discuss the impact of deportation, detention and ill-conceived enforcement policies on migrants and border communities. Topics they discussed included how the deaths of thousands of people were connected to the $3 billion border wall and how powerful private prisons and their lobbyists worked to get anti-immigrant legislation passed in Arizona and other states.

Garza's Republican Party membership card, via Somos Republicans: http://bit.ly/qcYiBc

Peter Malof, Public News Service – TX

KATY, Texas – The Texas director of the nation’s largest Latino Republican organization abandoned his party this week.

Lauro Garza remains a staunch conservative, but says he’s fed up with what he calls a hostile “Tea Party nativism” toward which the GOP has been tilting in recent years – at the expense of immigrants and Latinos.

“The party has left us behind. Our credibility among Latinos is strained because we identify with the Republican Party. Saying it’s strained is putting it mildly.”

Garza remains state leader of Somos Republicans, and says the future direction of the organization still is being worked out. While he does not excuse illegal immigration or advocate open borders with Mexico, he says politicians are guilty of exploiting ungrounded fears when they suggest comprehensive immigration reform must wait until the border is safe and sealed. On the contrary, Garza insists, reform is essential for taking the load off the border.

Garza has criticized his now-former party in recent months. He took Gov. Rick Perry to task for moving away from a relatively immigration-friendly agenda. But Garza says this week’s reaction to comments from a leading GOP presidential candidate was the last straw. Herman Cain had suggested building a lethal electric border fence. Although he later insisted he was joking, Cain continued to stand by his general concept.

“The comment was met with cheers, not with laughter. Further, it’s reprehensible that the Republican Party and the other candidates have let him get away with it, and for the news media to let him get away with this stupid explanation that it was a joke. It’s not a joke.”

Garza believes Latinos tend toward conservatism, and thus should naturally be drawn to the GOP. However, he says the party is driving them away in search of short-term political gain. While Republicans are openly hostile, he says, Democrats are apathetic and weak when it comes to immigration issues.

Cristina Parker, media director for the non-partisan Border Network for Human Rights, agrees, saying few leaders are talking honestly about what needs to happen.

“Immigration reform is absolutely needed in this country, and, unfortunately, we’re at a stalemate – with the Republicans catering to nativism, and the Democrats are no better. No one’s willing to step up and get the hard work done.”