DRANT #269: UPDATE: OURSCHWITZ IN SAN DIEGO

DEMOCRACY NOW covered this story yesterday.
Please check it out now- you can access the show, watch it, listen to it, or read the transcript.
Thanks,
DR

Monday, October 29th, 2007
The Forgotten Victims of the California Wildfires: Undocumented Migrant Workers
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/29/141205
AMY GOODMAN:
Andrea Guerrero of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium says law enforcement deported evacuees and checked identifications of evacuees fleeing fires. [includes rush transcript] Thousands of people are beginning to return home as the wildfires across Southern California slowly die out. But for the thousands of undocumented migrant workers in San Diego's lucrative agriculture industry, the process is fraught with the threat of harassment and deportation.

According to the Los Angeles Times, over 100 Border Patrol agents have been redeployed to evacuation centers and neighborhood checkpoints for returning residents. Rumors of immigration raids only increased when an undocumented family was deported to Mexico Wednesday after local law enforcement arrested them for allegedly stealing food. Immigrant rights groups claim that local law enforcement is racially profiling immigrants. They say there is no need for them to involve Border Patrol agents.

Andrea Guerrero is the Chair of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium. She is also the Field and Policy Director of the ACLU in San Diego. She joins me now from San Diego, California.
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The tragic fires in Southern California proved that neither 9-11 nor Katrina was an aberration. Instead they were full dress rehearsals for our future. Most of us cried for the fire victims, knowing full well that as always the poorest and least politically viable would be most harmed.
But for Bush, Schwarzenegger, Federal Troops and Border cops, FEMA, and local police- this was another great chance to kick some brown butt.
Once again, for minorities it was out of the fire, into the frying pan.
Stop me if you've heard this one before:
A vast cataclysm, causing significant injury, death, and widespread destruction, provides a perfect laboratory environment for the imposition of martial law, the suspension of basic rights, and the ongoing obliteration of posse comitatus prohibitions; and -- the immediate widespread disenfranchisement, demonization, imprisonment and deportation of minorities, immigrants, and people of color- citizens and not, with the full and enthusiastic complicity of major media.
Last week, the worst fears of our founding fathers came true when once again, Federal Troops were used to enforce local law- i.e. Martial Law.
In San Diego, the Federal Immigration Cops (I.C.E.) - working ostentatiously with FEMA, The Red Cross, and local police, caused local volunteers to turn away fire victims without "proper" ID, forcing them to abandon the evacuation centers, or sleep outside in the parking lots.
INSIDE Qualcomm Stadium -- the I.C.E. rousted, questioned, arrested, detained, and actually deported victims of the fires.
Inhumane Treatment of Evacuees
by NaNa
Friday Oct 26th, 2007 3:59 PM
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/10/26/18456262.php

City officials in charge of the evacuation site at Qualcomm invited a Border Patrol information unit to drive in a van and set up a tent next to FEMA and Red Cross inside the stadium. Although the unit is present to provide map information for burn areas, the presence of a BP van and uniformed BP officers has intimidated a number of immigrant families seeking refuge. The presence of BP led a volunteer today who was registering evacuees to turn away undocumented individuals because the volunteer presumed that the evacuees would be in danger of apprehension, especially following an incident yesterday (described below). She did not communicate this to those turned away. She simply turned them away from the only open evacuation center in the county.

POLICE VIOLATION OF IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT POLICY:

Yesterday (Wednesday), the police initiated an immigration enforcement action that was contrary to their policy of not calling in Border Patrol / ICE unless and until they file a formal criminal charge against a person. Police detained approximately 12 evacuees (at least four were children) who they alleged were "looting" donated blankets, food, and toys for the children. The detained evacuees and witnesses reported to us that volunteers were urging all evacuees, some of whom were preparing to return home after two days, to take as much as they could because the evacuees might find their home damaged and might not be able to access food and other important items due to the evacuation and destruction of stores in the area. Taking this to heart, the evacuees in question who were part of the same family, gathered multiple blankets and as much food as they could carry in preparation of returning home. There have been no shortage of donated goods and in fact, the city has asked the good people of the city to stop donating items.

The evacuees were detained by the police for three hours on site without being charged. The police asked the evacuees for their documents. When they presented none, the police called in an outside unit of Border Patrol to conduct an "immigration inspection". The police never brought any charges against the evacuees. Prior to the arrival of the BP, a Channel 8 cameraman attempted to film the police interaction with the evacuees. One of the officers covered the camera with his hand, pushed it and the cameraman away, and took the microphone from the reporter. When a Spanish-speaking volunteer attempted to intervene to assist the family, one of the officers took her picture with his cell phone to intimidate her. When BP, came they asked the detained evacuees for documents and six of them (plus a 2-year old U.S. citizen child of one of the evacuees) were taken away, held for several hours without food, and deported. They are needless to say devastated.

Please listen to yesterday's devastating full report and eyewitness account from ACLU San Diego attorney and field and policy director Andrea Guerrero - on Dennis Bernstein's great "Flashpoints" show from KPFA FM in Northern CA.
http://flashpoints.net/index.html#2007-10-26

"Immigrants who are undocumented or do not have their ID documentation with them are being rejected and ejected from evacuation centers..."
"...folks who were staying at Qualcomm Stadium were woken up Tuesday night/ Wednesday morning between the hours of 12am and 2am, the San Diego Police went family to family, and asked for identification and proof that families were from zones that were evacuated... and if they could not provide that, they were escorted out of Qualcomm... those who were sleeping outside of the stadium, on the perimeter, and there were a lot of them, were checked for their identity documents and their residency when they came in in the morning to get breakfast or take a shower or use the bathroom, and whether they were rejected or ejected ... homeless people were denied access to resources.. and the undocumented population... were denied access to services, and that people, both legal citizens/residents and undocumented persons were denied access to services if they had identity documents that did not correspond to an evacuation zone"
"on Tuesday afternoon, the San Diego Police alleged that a family was looting - they did not formally charge them -- the family was, in fact, simply taking the donated items back to their home (returning to their home) because they didn't know what they would find. They were encouraged to do this by the volunteers inside, but when they left the facility, they were detained by police for several hours. The police then called Border Patrol, and Border Patrol conducted an immigration inspection, and then took them off and deported them. They deported six members of the family plus a 2 year old US citizen. They are now in Tijuana, devastated - uncertain of whether their home is there or not, and unable to return..."

Later in the show, Bernstein's partner, Miguel Molina, tells us how his brother, guilty of Existing While Brown, was prevented from escaping the fire with his neighbors, and segregated into the "immigrant" area, in a Safeway parking lot, and kept from Qualcomm.

Until late last year, The Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C. § 1385-June 16, 1878) served to prohibit Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Posse Comitatus Act (and the Insurrection Act) substantially limited the powers of the Federal government to use the military for law enforcement.
For those of us who snoozed-- Senator Warner's Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007 (H.R. 5122.ENR), contains a provision, (Section 1076) which allows the President to:
“...employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to... restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States..., where the President determines that,...domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order; suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy...”

Now ...... this time... the President did not "determine" that circumstances occurred etc etc. to jeopardize public order.
But- there were the troops, and there were the I.C.E. agents, and the local cops and FEMA-- working hand in glove, constitution be damned.

Once again the privileged got one treatment, and The Rest got abused, and the rights we once took easily for granted were stomped.
And now the pimp media rushes to proclaim that it was all arson, that "Illegal Immigrants" set the fires.
For the likes of Fox News - this was more racist kindling.
It wasn't the severe drought exacerbated by the profound effects of the destruction of the planet, it was some disgruntled wetbacks.

One thing we know for sure- these kinds of disasters are going to proliferate. Atlanta GA. is dying of thirst, and California will have to go on strict water rationing next year.
While in other places, flood warnings will multiply, and inundation is a certainty.

And one other thing we know for sure- what we see as tragedy or catastrophe, the fascists celebrate as operative opportunities.
Not too hard to believe that some of these will not be so entirely "natural" either.
If the miraculous implosion of three huge buildings worked so well, no reason not to try a flood or fire or two, the better to bring in the troops.