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Also Wednesday, as part of Feet in Two Worlds’ coverage of the 2010 Census, WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show hosted a live conversation on New Yorkers at risk of being undercounted.

Francisco Avila, an immigrant from Ecuador, says he'll participate in the 2010 Census. (Photo: Annie Correal)

By Annie Correal, El Diario/La Prensa and Feet in 2 Worlds reporter

As part of El Diario/La Prensa’s coverage of the 2010 Census, I traveled to two hard-to-count Hispanic neighborhoods to explore the obstacles to getting people counted and what’s at stake for undercounted communities.

After talking to city planner Joseph Salvo about the neighborhoods that are hardest to count in New York City, I decided to focus on the area surrounding Jackson Heights in northwest Queens, which has seen an influx of new immigrants and where in some places only 40% of the population mailed back their forms in 2000.

To identify the Hispanic areas of the city where it may be difficult to get an accurate count this year, I also studied the map of neighborhoods with low mail response rates in 2000 and used a new mapping tool developed by CUNY to help outreach efforts in hard-to-count areas.

The area I chose in Queens has all the characteristics of hard-to-count immigrant neighborhoods in New York City: newly arrived, undocumented immigrants, non-English speaking households, and overcrowded housing, with a lot of illegal subdivisions or people living in basements. I talked to the city census coordinator, Stacey Cumberbatch, local census officials, and elected officials in the area about how the Census Bureau plans to overcome these obstacles.

They told me that this year, the bureau has gone beyond Spanish-language commercials and posters. It has partnered with community organizations who know how –and where– to find hard-to-reach immigrants, including the hardest to reach contingent in the area: undocumented immigrants.

Valeria Treves, director of New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), explained, “Our community members are themselves going to be the ones walking at the day laborers stop, tabling at the train stations, going to the taco trucks, going to the Herbalife meetings, going to all the places where immigrants or undocumented immigrants might congregate and talking to them about the importance of the Census.”

But none of the officials could say for certain whether the effort was working. Do undocumented immigrants plan to fill out census questionnaires, or are they too afraid? I went out to ask people who make up this hard-to-count contingent – at the day laborer stops, food trucks and CD stands on Roosevelt Avenue, and in their own homes. Their surprising answers led me to conclude that the city’s neighborhood-oriented, grassroots effort seems to have reached a lot of people, but that there are still obstacles to getting ‘behind the door’, as Salvo puts it. This story became my first project for Feet in Two Worlds, a news piece for WNYC.

Marta Moreira shares a small apartment with her husband, daughter and several housemates. (Photo: Annie Correal)

For my next story, I traveled to Bushwick, a poor, predominantly Hispanic neighborhood in northern Brooklyn which was undercounted in the 2000 Census and lost vital federal funding as a result. I wrote about the ‘census cycle’: how poor, immigrant neighborhoods desperately need funding now, precisely because there was an undercount in 2000. I focused on how overburdened health care facilities are in this area as a consequence of the undercount.

Here I interviewed hospital officials, as well as local community group leaders and the head of the local census office, Alvin Aviles, who discussed whether he anticipates a change this time around. My focus, though, was Manuel Zuniga, a 25-year-old from Ecuador who has to travel to Manhattan for medical care.

“I went around in circles for around a month, and then they told me they didn’t know what the problem was,” he told me, referring to the paralyzing pain in his right arm which began with an injury three years ago. “They told me if I wanted to get help I’d have to go to Manhattan.”

Alec Hamilton, a researcher at The New School, contributed to this report.

The Feet in Two Worlds project on the Census is made possible thanks to the generous support of the 2010 Census Outreach Initiative Fund at The New York Community Trust.

Obama met the Alabama football team Monday, but his immigration reform briefing was cancelled. (Photo: The White House)

It’s not the first time a White House meeting on immigration reform has been postponed under President Barack Obama. On Monday, it happened again when Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham could not get from South Carolina to Washington to meet the president and Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer to discuss the reform bill the two legislators have been crafting.

Grassroots advocates pushing for immigration reform wasted no time, however, lambasting Obama for the delay in approaching the subject and for the continuation of harsh immigration enforcement policies during his administration.

The Roll reported Monday afternoon Graham would not make it to D.C. because his flight had been cancelled. “The meeting will be rescheduled,” Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop said in a statement, according to the newspaper.

Lingering doubts on Obama’s real commitment to the issue notwithstanding, the last thing the president’s relation with Hispanic and pro-immigration reform advocates needed was an unexpected delay of this sort. This was made clear by a group of grassroots leaders at a press conference in Washington.

“Our community is angry. Our members feel betrayed,” said Brent Wilkes, of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), according to The Washington Post. (Politics Daily columnist Patricia Murphy remembered Tuesday that it was in front of a LULAC meeting that candidate Obama had promised to be “a president who isn’t going to walk away from something as important as comprehensive immigration reform when it becomes politically unpopular.”)

The advocates criticized Obama for not improving the lot of undocumented immigrants who had faced increased persecution under the Bush administration. They said that, on any given day under Obama, over 32,000 immigrants are under detention across the country, according to a New America Media report by Marcelo Ballvé.

Ballvé wrote,

The advocates said they felt betrayed by an Obama administration that promised to take their concerns into account and then became more aggressive than its predecessor in cracking down on immigrants.

The total of deportations during Obama’s first year in office –387,790– has greatly surpassed the number during George W. Bush’s last year in the White House –264,503–, the activists said, according to wire service AFP.

While Obama couldn’t discuss the reform bill with Schumer and Graham, The Wall Street Journal got ahold of the New York senator and revealed Tuesday that the plan includes a new national identity card with biometric information that would become mandatory for all U.S. workers, immigrant and native-born.

In an interview with the paper, Schumer said the idea was the solution to fears that a massive legalization of undocumented workers would only bring a new wave of unauthorized migrants to the U.S.

Immigration activists marched on the Capitol last October. (Photo: Jelena Kopanja/Fi2W)

President Barack Obama will sit down with Sens. Chuck Schumer and Lindsey Graham to finally talk immigration reform this evening. However, after more than a year of kicking the politically-divisive issue down the road, doubts linger on whether he may be just trying to reduce the impact of a potentially massive march for immigration reform to take place in Washington in less than two weeks.

The March For America is organized by a nationwide coalition of pro-reform activists, including unions, religious groups like the Catholic bishops’ conference, Asian American and Hispanic organizations, and others. They collaborate under the umbrella of the Reform Immigration For America campaign.

According to the organizers’ website, buses will depart from as far as Florida, Iowa and Tennessee to join the March 21 demonstration. The coalition expects “tens of thousands” of demonstrators, according to an article by Ali Noorani, director of the National Immigration Forum, on The Huffington Post.

Noorani said a caravan has already departed from Phoenix and will stop in Houston and New Orleans, among other locations, before reaching the nation’s capital.

On the day of the march, under the slogan “Change Takes Courage,” marchers will congregate in front of a stage draped in American flags with the Capitol as a backdrop, Noorani said. There will be an interfaith service led by 5,000 religious leaders, he added, “calling for the best of America to come together and welcome the stranger.”

This evening, Obama will discuss the immigration bill on which Schumer and Graham have been working. Conspicuously absent will be another legislator, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who has introduced his own, more progressive initiative in the House. Schumer has in the past outlined his principles for reform, which lean towards a heavier focus on enforcement rather than on family reunification or humane reforms to the immigration system.

Activists are not blind to the fact that Obama has not pursued immigration reform with the intensity nor the speed he had promised. Chicago activist Joshua Hoyt, who says he knows Obama since 1986, wrote last week that, while “the Obama administration was on track to deport some 400,000 immigrants” in its first year,

“The sense of betrayal among Latinos — especially immigrants — is palpable, just as it was after Obama’s 2006 vote on the border fence.”

Jennifer McFadyen, immigration blogger at About.com, saw a political maneuver in Monday’s meeting:

“I think the timing has less to do with midterm elections and more to do with the thousands of immigration activists that will be knocking on Obama’s front door in a couple of weeks.”

A Maipú building complex heavily damaged by the earthquake in Chile. (Photo: Esteban Maldonado A./Flickr)

PHOENIX, Arizona – Patricia Ewert hasn’t been able to hear her brother’s voice on the phone since a magnitude 8.8 earthquake hit her native Chile last Saturday. But a message from him on Facebook put her at ease.

“Necesito escuchar tu voz,” he told her in Spanish: “I need to hear your voice.”

The rest was bittersweet news.

“They don’t have water, they don’t have food. They lost everything, they weren’t even able to take their toothbrushes,” Ewert said about her family’s ordeal. They’re afraid of the ongoing aftershocks that rattle their town of San Carlos, near Concepción, the second largest city in the country.

Ewert who came back to live in Arizona six months ago, has banded together with dozens of Chilean immigrants in Maricopa County who are sharing their sorrow and organizing to send aid to their compatriots.

Hundreds of people died and thousands have lost their homes in the massive earthquake.

“We don’t want to have a repeat of what happened in Haiti, it’s been more than a month and there’s still people that need help over there,” said Pastor Magdalena Schwartz, a well-known community activist and a Chilean immigrant.

A Christian concert, food sales and raffles are among the events that several members of this immigrant community are planning in order to help their country.

“Our heart is there. We want to be there to offer them our spiritual and moral support,” said Elizabeth Cruz, the pastor of Iglesia Comunidad de Vida in the city of Gilbert.

Cruz and Schwartz are sisters. Their parents, two brothers, a sister and numerous other relatives lived in the central city of Chillán, one of the areas hit hardest by the earthquake.

Ewert said that the catastrophe has made a lot of Chileans come together and sometimes meet for the first time.

Through the Internet, she hears horrible tales of what is going on with her relatives that survived the quake.

“In Concepción people are going around the streets with sticks and knifes. The people that are protecting their homes, those that are stealing, everybody carries a weapon,” she said.

Ewert still fears for the life of her brother, who has been traveling between San Carlos and Concepción, trying to help others when there are tsunami warnings.

She had her suitcases packed and was ready to go to Chile. But then her husband convinced her that it would be best to wait at least two weeks to ensure her safety. It was a major shock when she found out that the ocean took a former boyfriend of hers away in the tsunami that followed the quake.

She knows she is not alone in the sorrow.

On a recent day, Cruz was on the phone with her father when the family felt a tremor. He didn’t want to hang up, so she heard as the children ran to a corner of the room trying to protect themselves.

“I lived through the emotions of fear as if I was with them,” she said. “And I prayed.”

Other Chileans like Juany Aguilera, 42, didn’t have family in the area affected by the earthquake. Most of her relatives live in Santiago, the capital.

Yet, Aguilera chokes when she sees TV images of beach resorts she and her husband used to frequent when they were young, now completely destroyed.

“I’m crying till this day,” she said. “I think of the people that lost it all and now have to start over again. But we’re a strong country and we will overcome this.”

Aguilera contacted Schwartz as soon as she heard the news to see what she could do to help. She has been planning a bake sale with her church, anything that could help send money.

Schwartz said she has received a number of calls from other Christian pastors, who expressed their willingness to help organize a concert to raise funds. The money will be used to purchase basic things like food, diapers and tents for those who have been displaced by the earthquake.

Cruz said that there are talks about sending a container with some of these items, but they still have to decide what would be the fastest course of action to get the help. She said that even if there are international organizations helping out like the Red Cross, there could never be enough help.

“The rainy season is coming and winter is cold over there. So there’s going to be a lot of people that will need shelter,” she said.

Ewert believes that this natural disaster is a good opportunity to reflect on solidarity and love.

“Let’s save the money that we spend making bombs and let’s buy more bread,” she said.

—-

*** Anyone interested in helping the “Iglesia Comunidad de Vida” Church in sending aid to Chile may call 480-430-2897 or 480-593-7186.

If you want to make a living as a belly dancer, Detroit is the place to be.

This is according to the latest piece by Feet in 2 Worlds and WDET reporter Martina Guzmán, who explored how Arab Americans in the Motor City metropolitan area try to maintain this tradition from their home countries.

Belly dancers in Detroit are hired for weddings, christenings, nightclubs and sporting events. Martina looks at how this ancient and often misunderstood form of dance reflects cultural conflicts and cultural pride in the largest Middle Eastern community in the U.S.

The piece aired on February 22 on WDET’s The Craig Fahle Show, which you can visit here.

Press play below to listen:

[Visit post to listen to audio]

(Photo: DreamActivist/Flickr)

The Dream Act, a proposal to legalize undocumented students who entered the U.S. as children, would have direct economic benefits that would “boost the American middle class,” according to a new analysis by a progressive think thank.

The bill, introduced in both houses of Congress last year, would allow immigrant students “to contribute more to the economic prosperity necessary to sustain a strong middle class,” wrote Cristina Jimenez, an immigration policy consultant for the Drum Major Institute, which published the report.

The Dream Act would put some undocumented students on a path to legal residency if they finish high school and attend college or join the military.

This, according to Jimenez, would enable the students to “get higher paying jobs and as a result pay more in taxes.

“A 30 year-old Mexican immigrant woman with a college degree will pay $5,300 more in taxes and cost $3,900 less in government expenses each year compared to a high school dropout with similar characteristics, according to the RAND Corporation.”

Another effect the bill would have, according to the study, would be to bring undocumented immigrants out of the underground economy on which they depend for work, goods and services.

“Research suggests that unauthorized immigrant workers routinely face violations of minimum wage, overtime and workplace safety laws – and that the exploitation of immigrants goes hand-in-hand with an atmosphere in which citizens are also taken advantage of on the job,” Jimenez wrote.

The students’ integration in the mainstream American economy would also help bridge the gap their families face in this regard, the study said.

“The students affected by the legislation grew up in the United States, attended our schools, speak English, adopted American values and traditions, and know this country as their home. They often have siblings and other close relatives who are U.S. citizens. Continuing to marginalize these deeply rooted young people cuts a permanent segment of our population off from the American Dream.”

Students who are pushing for passage of the legislation last week held a series of nationwide events to promote their cause.

A Mexican restaurant in North Carolina. (Photo: newyorktomexico.com)

Fewer and fewer Mexican migrants have left their country in the last couple of years to move to the United States, with the total numbers declining “substantially,” says a recent report.

The 142,000 Mexicans who migrated abroad in the third quarter of 2009 were 8 percent fewer than in the same period in 2008, 39 percent fewer than in 2007 and 47 percent fewer than in 2006, according to the report from the Migration Policy Institute. The data come from a monthly household survey the Mexican government conducts nationally.

The study also notes that while “the number of migrants departing from Mexico has historically peaked in the summer months… this trend disappeared in 2009.”

The trend was “particularly pronounced” in Mexican towns with no more than 2,500 residents. The rate, which in 2006 used to be of 25.4 emigrants for each 1,000 residents, sank last year to 8.8.

“(R)ecent evidence suggests that immigration from Mexico has slowed in the context of the deep recession that officially began in December 2007 but started earlier in some regions of the country and sectors of the economy that are particularly important for immigrants,” the study’s author Aaron Terrazas wrote.

In any case, Mexicans continue to be the biggest foreign-born community in the U.S., with a total of 11.4 million that surpasses the populations of many countries, including Greece, Portugal, Belgium and Sweden, Terrazas noted.

With Mexico’s own population at 105.9 million in 2008, this means that about one of every 10 Mexicans resides in the U.S.

Mexicans are 30.1 percent of all immigrants in the U.S. and “over half of all Mexican immigrants reside in the (country) illegally,” the study says.

Terrazas pointed that “(t)he origins of Mexican immigrants have also changed over the past decade with more Mexicans coming from Mexico’s less prosperous south and southeast compared to the traditional sending zones in Mexico’s center-west region.”

Immigrants detained by sheriff deputies in Maricopa County, Arizona. (Photo: José Muñoz)

Last week, the Center for Immigration Studies, which espouses conservative views on immigration, published a poll claiming that “Hispanic, Asian-American, and African-American likely voters” prefer “enforcement and for illegal immigrants to return home,” because they think “that the current level of immigration is too high.”

Soon enough, advocacy groups accused the right-wing organization of “cooking the books” and taking “desperate measures” to derail any attempt at immigration reform.

The CIS report seemed a direct stab at the pro-immigrant organizations. CIS’ Steven A. Camarota wrote that the findings showed that “in contrast to the leadership of many ethnic advocacy groups, most members of minority groups think immigration is too high.”

According to Camarota, 56 percent of Hispanics, 57 percent of Asian Americans and 68 percent of African Americans think immigration is too high.

The poll –conducted by Zogby International– also found that most minorities think that illegal immigration is spurred by “a lack of enforcement,” that “there are plenty of Americans available to fill unskilled jobs,” and most also support “enforcement that would cause illegal immigrants in the country to go home” rather than legalization.

This survey of minority voters shows that when it comes to the issue of legalizing illegal immigrants, these voters disagree with the leadership of many ethnic advocacy groups. Most voters want the law enforced and illegal immigrants to return to their home countries. Overall they also feel that the current level of immigration is too high.

But advocates rejected the poll as unscientific. “This latest effort to muddy the waters about public opinion on immigration ventures into the realm of the absurd,” wrote America’s Voice blogger Jackie Mahendra. She then added:

“…the questions in the CIS-sponsored Zogby poll are engineered to produce anti-immigration responses and rely solely on input from online respondents, rather than a random sample of the general population (i.e. a true random digit dial telephone poll).

“The findings are a dramatic departure from the results of numerous other (credible) polls of Latino voters.”

Others were equally vehement.

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), issued a statement calling the CIS report “a hodgepodge of leading questions that distort reality.

“The CIS survey takes advantage of the current anxiety over our nation’s future and pits Americans versus immigrants who are here legally and illegally. What the survey fails to offer is real alternatives that have been shown to get bipartisan support in Congress, including a program that requires unauthorized immigrants to come forth, register, learn English, pay a fine, and pay taxes like everyone else.”

Clarissa Martínez De Castro, director of immigration and national campaigns at the National Council of La Raza, accused CIS executive director Mark Krikorian of relying on “junk science” on a post on The Huffington Post.

“What we know is that the Latino community supports a practical, real immigration reform solution that is in line with America’s values, and that gets unauthorized immigrants on the books and paying taxes, secures our borders, levels the playing field for all American workers, and goes a long way in reducing the hateful rhetoric that Krikorian and his organization clumsily blurt out.”

Mercedes Cazarez has created a memorial for slain youngsters at her home. (Photos: Valeria Fernández)

PHOENIX, Arizona – Warm, haunting violin music wafts through Mercedes Cazarez’s West Phoenix home. Like many in the room, she reacts to the music with conflicting feelings of joy and deep sadness.

In sharing their tears twice a month in a support group, some Latino and immigrant families here have found a sort of kinship. What brings them together is that they’ve lost a child to a violent crime.

The girl playing the violin is Michelle Ostos, 15, who came from a local church to entertain the group. Cazarez’s daughter, Berenice Camacho Cazarez, was the same age when she was fatally shot on December 10, 2002. The murderers were never found.

Cazarez, 45, an immigrant from Sinaloa, Mexico, founded “Bajo las mismas lágrimas” (Under the same tears), a support group in Spanish, about a year ago. The members sometimes meet to talk about their pain; on other occasions they listen to motivational speeches. Sometimes they just want to be together.

“Here everyone can feel comfortable to open their heart,” Cazarez said in Spanish. About 20 families have joined; their children were between 15 and 24 years old when they died unexpectedly.

Ana Ramirez, left, lost her 19-year-old son, who was killed just outside her home.

After her daughter’s death, Cazarez didn’t want to look for support.

“I knew that no one was going to give me my daughter back,” she said.

When she did look for help, she found most groups were in English.

“I didn’t want to go because I don’t speak the language and you feel like you’re different,” she said.

Cazarez also found out a lot of people don’t want to seek help due to their immigration status. Unconfirmed stories about a child who was denied aid by a psychologist because he was undocumented scared people, she said.

After realizing there was a need for a support group in Spanish, she decided to create her own.

Vicky Contreras saw Cazarez in a news report on local Spanish-language TV and joined her in the effort.

“I was going through a very difficult time, they had just murdered my daughter,” Contreras said. She connected instantly with Cazarez, she added: “I had felt for so long I was the only one.”

Contreras’ daughter, Karla Sánchez, was killed on March 25, 2008. Those responsible were never found and police are still investigating. Contreras could not open her daughter’s coffin during funeral services because of the violent way in which she was killed.

“You are left with a question mark,” she said. “What happened? Why did they do it?”

Those questions haunt other parents in the group. They are part of the reason the group works closely with a Phoenix Police Department officer who helps families in grief understand the investigation process in a country whose institutions are quite new to them.

Ana Ramirez, 52, another member, is still looking for justice in the death of her 19-year-old son Salvador Tarango. He was shot a few footsteps outside their home and those who did it were not prosecuted.

Ramirez feels her son’s case was handled differently because the family is poor and Latino. Talking to others, she finds support to endure her frustration.

“My son was my future and my hope,” said Ramirez. “They just didn’t take away his life, they took mine and that of the rest of my family.”

One of the members’ goals is to help other youngsters accomplish the dreams their children couldn’t reach.

“We want our children to live through other children’s dreams,” Cazarez said. The group has organized a number of events to teach children dancing and modeling – which were her daughter’s goals.

But the members are still looking for assistance from psychologists, counselors and even legal experts who could help them work through the many challenges they face.

Cazarez at her murdered daughter Berenice's bedroom.

Cazarez has turned her daughter’s room into a memorial. The floor is covered with white satin fabric. Plastic roses and pictures of Berenice’s quinceañera –a traditional Mexican celebration similar to a sweet sixteen– cover the walls. She has also staged an area to honor other children. A long table covered in red hearts displays their pictures, which the parents could see on a recent meeting as they listened to Michelle Ostos’ violin.

Contreras, the other organizer, said she sometimes thinks she can feel her daughter’s presence. But she doesn’t like talking about this with others who haven’t gone through the same experience.

“They think we are crazy or sick because we want to talk about them all the time,” she said. “You learn how to know, understand and carry your pain. But forget it? You never forget it.”

A recent march for immigrant rights in Arizona. (Photo: Detention Watch Network)

Immigration activists in New York and other cities launched a campaign on Thursday asking the U.S. government to respect human rights in its immigrant detention system.

“The campaign is a nationwide effort led by the Detention Watch Network (DWN) to expose the profit-driven expansion of the detention system,” the network said in a press release.

As a snowstorm blanketed New York City, the activists were to hold a press conference at New York University Law School. The protest was initially planned outside Manhattan’s Varick Federal Detention Facility, slated to close at the end of the month after being the target of many complaints and protests. New York and New Jersey advocates said they planned to “track the transfers of detainees from Varick Street” to the Hudson County Correctional Center in Kearny, NJ.

The protests come on the heels of a report by the New York Civil Liberties Union which analyzes a year of grievances filed by detainees at the Manhattan jail to provide “a snapshot of the inhumane and illegal conditions plaguing the federal immigration detention system.”

After years of complaints about the immigrant detention system, the “Dignity, Not Detention” campaign demands that the government spend less on immigrant detention, restore due process for those subject to deportation proceedings, stop the expansion of enforcement programs and use “community-based alternatives to detention,” according to a press release from the New Sanctuary Coalition.

Thursday’s actions include events in Phoenix, San Antonio, Gainesville, Chicago, Atlanta and Los Angeles, the organizers said.

“Over 300,000 immigrants a year are detained in a secretive web of 350 private, federal, state and local jails, and prisons at an annual cost of more than $1.7 billion to taxpayers,” organizers said. “Over eighty percent of detained immigrants go through the immigration system with no lawyers.”

The system is so secretive, indeed, that last month New York Times reporter Nina Bernstein showed how an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman rebuffed her questions at the same time he tried to prevent embarrassing publicity on the death of Guinean tailor Boubacar Bah. According to the activists, since 2003 “a reported 107 people have died in immigration custody.”

The NYCLU report says 34 percent of detainee grievances at the Manhattan jail allege inadequate medical care, 25 percent complain of abusive treatment and 13 percent concern food services.

One of the cases it mentions is that of a detainee with an abscessed tooth, for whom officials took “10 months to schedule a dental appointment.” By that time, “the infection had spread to seven teeth.”

Because the government did not authorize a series of root canals which would saved the detainee’s teeth, “after 16 months, the detainee’s teeth still have not been treated,” the NYCLU said.

Hayworth has made clear that immigration is one of the main subjects on which he is challenging McCain from the right, since the senator has advocated immigration reform in the past (although he flip flopped on it during the 2008 presidential campaign.)

Cover shot for Whatever It Takes, a book on immigration by J.D. Hayworth. (Photo: Amazon)

In a recent interview with the Christian Science Monitor, Hayworth advocated a “broken window” policy, saying “when you start enforcing the law, people respond to that action.”

“If [Obama] really wanted a grand public works project, building and securing the border and ports of entry makes common sense,” he says. “It’s unconscionable [that] we spent almost a decade after 9/11 and have failed to protect our border.”

[ Underdog Hayworth says he'll rap McCain on illegal immigration - CSM ]

Hayworth’s campaign website compares both candidates’ stances toward immigration reform under the headline “Who shares your values?“.

McCain, it says, “wrote the bill granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. McCain’s bill was estimated to cost the taxpayers more than $2.6 Trillion.”

Hayworth, on the other hand, “helped lead the fight against the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill. JD is a national leader in the fight to secure our borders and protect our nation.” (And of course it notes that he “wrote the book” on the issue, referring to “Whatever It Takes: Illegal Immigration, Border Security and the War on Terror.”)

“It is no surprise that he has been endorsed by great leaders like Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and State Senator Russell Pearce,” the site notes elsewhere, referring to two of the most controversial conservative figures in the Arizona immigration debate.

While Hayworth received the endorsement of the right-wing restrictionist Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee on Tuesday, McCain has the support of some Republicans who are looking for a way to attract Latinos by promising immigration reform, including noted Washington D.C. organizer Grover Norquist.

[On Tuesday, CQ Politics reported that the McCain campaign said in a press release "that the Anti-Defamation League has raised questions about ALI-PAC and complained in 2009 that it 'disseminates its message with virulent, anti-immigrant rhetoric.'"]

In pitting these forces against each other, the August 24th race takes the air of a test for this new Republican approach. A McCain victory could arguably show the way to those Republicans who want to walk towards the center on immigration so as not to miss out on the biggest electoral-demographic trend of this century, the accelerated growth of the Hispanic voting population.

Hayworth’s getting to the Senate on a strident anti-immigration platform, on the other hand, could wreck that strategy at a time when conservative groups opposed to “amnesty,” like the Tea Partiers, are ascendant within and without the GOP. However, NPR’s Ken Rudin reminds in his Political Junkie blog that Hayworth was voted out of the House not that long ago:

“Voters had also tired of Hayworth’s anti-immigration tirades, which many Republicans insist is self-defeating … Ed Gillespie, a former RNC chair who was involved in last year’s gov race in Virginia, said (Virginia Gov.) Bob McDonnell reached out to Hispanics, ‘instead of indulging in the anti-immigration rhetoric of past Republican campaigns.’”

Hayworth has great possibilities of alienating the Hispanic voters the party now realizes it will need. He has associated illegal immigration with “crime and … other social problems”; called the Arizona border area an “environmental wasteland” and “a veritable war zone”; blamed undocumented immigrants for having “interrupted training” at the Barry Goldwater bombing range and leaving “six tons of trash a day” and transporting “tons of marijuana.” He also said Mexico “has acted more as an accomplice in illegal immigration than a partner in preventing it.”

A Census road tour staff member helps set up a stand at an event in Suitland, Md. (Photo: Census Bureau)

Almost a year ago, the Census Bureau began reaching out to ethnic media and immigrant organizations looking for help in convincing minorities and immigrants that being counted in the 2010 Census is in their best interest. But warnings that these groups will go undercounted persist.

“The big campaign the Census Bureau has launched to persuade the immigrant population into participating in the 2010 demographic count has not convinced some who think that responding to the enumerators can complicate their situation in the U.S.,” the Spanish-language EFE wire service reported from Chicago this week.

The bureau has proffered numerous assurances that Census information will remain confidential. But EFE quoted immigrant Maria Figueroa saying, “If they ask me about my migratory status, I would simply not say yes or no, because I don’t know whether they will share that information with Immigration.”

Just a few days ago, President Barack Obama joined the bureau’s promotion efforts when he recorded a public service announcement in fulfillment of what the agency called “a White House tradition of strong support for the census dating back to 1790.”

But the concerns that many will not be counted remain. Chinese-English newspaper Sampan reported that Census promotion efforts among Asian Americans “in large immigrant communities such as Lowell, Brockton, and Chinatown have stressed the benefits of being counted and reinforced the safety from threats such as deportation.”

But it added: “Many fears are not unfounded. A bill was introduced to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to include citizenship and immigration status in the form, even as the 2010 materials have already been disseminated. It was eventually defeated, but not overwhelmingly.”

This is despite the Census Bureau’s very broad initiative to reach various immigrants groups. Samoan American Jean Melesaine wrote on New America Media:

…this time around, when the Census arrives at my parents home, it will be familiar. For the first time in history, the Census is being translated into Samoan, the language my family.

In my household, and similar families across the country, the translations of the forms will give comfort to people who never quite understood how to count in a country when they barely could understand the language. And it will be their children who will translate its importance.

Last month, Paul Watanabe, director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston and an advisor to the Census Bureau, told Feet in 2 Worlds that the government’s massive effort is not enough.

“The participation of groups and organizations is essential,” he said, “especially in hard to count communities.”

U.S. Senate candidate Marco Rubio from Florida speaks at CPAC. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

The Conservative Political Action Conference this weekend in Washington illustrated the conundrum Republicans face when considering the immigration issue against the backdrop of a growing Hispanic electorate. While most conservatives still adhere to the accustomed recipe of more restrictive policies and fighting against “amnesty” for the undocumented, some right-wing activists have started advocating a new approach to woo Latinos with a mix of conservative moral values and immigration reform.

At CPAC, a new group called the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles hosted a panel where it promoted attracting socially-conservative Hispanics to the GOP column in future elections and –a bit counterintuitively– convincing Republicans that immigration reform is not a bad thing.

The partnership “will campaign among Latino voters and invest substantial resources to support pro-immigration candidates who are committed to fundamental conservative values and ideals,” it said in a press release (opens pdf file).

The group’s proposals –supported by prominent conservative organizer Grover Norquist– spurred a withering critique from former anti-immigration presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, in an online column under the headline “CPAC betrays America on immigration.”

Tancredo wrote:

“Whereas grass-roots conservatives and millions of 912 patriots – along with 80 percent of the American people – understand the need for border security as a precondition for immigration reform, CPAC board member Grover Norquist is busy launching a new project in support of the Obama administration’s plan to grant another amnesty to 20 million illegal aliens.”

Tancredo’s restrictive position is the one Republicans have most often expressed in recent years. But conservatives are not blind to the growth of the Hispanic electorate.

“If current demographic and voting trends continue, Hispanics’ growing share of the electorate could make Republican electoral college victories a near impossibility as early as 2020,” a Wall Street Journal article warned Monday.

Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant, told The Washington Post: “If Republicans don’t do better among Hispanics, we’re not going to be talking about how to get Florida back in the Republican column, we’re going to be talking about how not to lose Texas.”

“What’s happening at CPAC is a microcosm of the debate that’s taking place in the Republican Party,” wrote pro-immigration reform activist Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, in The Huffington Post.

“And while the immigrant bashers remain ascendant for now –Sharry said–, the Hayworth-Tancredo-Malkin axis may just be the gift that keeps giving for progressives.”

That may be just so: the Journal noted that even a Hispanic candidate as Cuban-American Marco Rubio, running for the U.S. Senate in Florida, is courting “anti-illegal immigration advocates” by taking extreme right positions on the issue.

Shortly after her release, Celia Alvarez reads from a journal she kept to document the mistreatment she says she suffered while in custody. (Photos: Valeria Fernández)

PHOENIX, Arizona – Celia Alejandra Alvarez, a former undocumented worker detained in a workplace raid, is accusing the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office of negligence and mistreatment in a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit joins a long list of legal actions against Sheriff Joe Arpaio –currently under a criminal grand jury investigation for abuse of power– and comes less than a week after he defiantly announced he will train 881 of his deputies to enforce immigration laws.

Alvarez’s attorneys filed the case before the U.S. District Court of Arizona on February 11. That was exactly a year after she was arrested with 60 co-workers at landscaping contractor Handyman Maintenance Inc. (HMI) for working with false documents.

“I’m not interested in the money I could get out of this,” Alvarez, 32, told Feet in 2 Worlds. “What I want is to denounce the abuse, cruelty and inhumanity of the way in which we are treated by Arpaio.”

In the lawsuit, Alvarez alleges deputies wearing ski masks found her hiding, “lifted her off her feet, and slammed her face into a wall,” causing her injuries on her face, jaw and teeth. A deputy allegedly hit her hard with a clipboard for trying to speak to another detainee. During the three months she spent in detention, Alvarez claims that she didn’t receive proper medical treatment or medicine for the resulting pain.

“He is going to go after more people and that is why we can’t remain silent,” she said. “He should train his deputies so they know they are not supposed to mistreat people.”

Arpaio’s recent decision to escalate his immigration crackdown –his deputies arrested 35 people Tuesday– has become the target of criticism by legal scholars that argue he is operating outside the scope of the law in trying to play the role of the federal government.

In October, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) revoked part of the agreement –known as 287 (g) for the legal provision that permits it– that allowed 160 Maricopa County deputies to enforce immigration laws. But the sheriff has remained defiant ever since.

“We are going to continue our enforcement,” he said during a recent press conference. “My deputies can enforce the illegal immigration laws without the 287 (g) agreement.”

Arpaio also claims he can continue to use Arizona state laws to go after workers, which is what happened in Alvarez’s case.

The HMI sweep was part of Arpaio’s controversial enforcement of Arizona’s employer sanctions law.

The State Legislature passed that law to investigate companies that knowingly hire undocumented labor. But the Sheriff’s and Maricopa County Attorney’s offices have used it to arrest workers on criminal charges of identity theft for using false documents to work.

Alvarez with her youngest son, Daniel, during a march in August for the children of migrants detained during Arpaio's raids.

Alvarez, the mother of four U.S. citizens, worked under the false name of Francisca Perez Mendoza. She worked for three years at HMI, picking up trash for $6 an hour. The company had a contract with Maricopa County for over ten years: some of the services it provided included landscaping at county buildings, including Arpaio’s jails.

Through her cleaning job, Alvarez became familiar with the outside of the Estrella jail for women. She never expected that one day she would find herself inside its walls.

She describes the experience both as traumatic and humiliating.

She said on arrival she was forced to strip in front of male guards. She had to take off the garments she wore as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to put on the black and white stripes uniform used in the jail.

Alvarez regrets that she was separated from Daniel, her youngest son, who was three months old and breastfeeding at the time of her arrest.

“What happened marked me for a lifetime,” she said, “but it also hurt my children.”

Claims of mistreatment and negligence by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office have resulted in over $40 million in settlements and legal fees to victims and families, according to county records.

Another lawsuit filed last week by Armando Nido, a U.S. citizen, alleges sheriff deputies ran him over with a patrol vehicle during a traffic stop outside his home.

Arpaio’s office didn’t return calls regarding the recent lawsuits.

This is the second time the agency is sued in connection to the HMI raid. Last August, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit claiming that Julian Mora, 66, a permanent legal resident, and his son Julio, 19, had been improperly detained.

They both were driving towards the company, where Julian worked, when vehicles from the sheriff’s office cut them off 100 yards from HMI. The deputies zip-tied them and transported them to the site and made them wait for three hours, according to the lawsuit. They were not allowed to use the restroom.

ACLU has also sued Arpaio on behalf of U.S. citizens and a tourist who alleged they were racially profiled. Last week, a federal judge imposed sanctions on Arpaio’s office for destroying evidence in connection with this lawsuit.

Many things have changed in Alvarez’s life since the raid on HMI a year ago. On September, she pleaded guilty to one count of criminal impersonation of a legal worker. She was able to obtain a work permit as she fights a process to remove her from the country.

Now she works as an assistant nurse caring for an elder woman.

“It’s hard for me to forget that dark day in which I was arrested,” she said. “Many things have changed in my life, I really can’t stand the sight of seeing the sheriff’s patrols, but this also has opened the doors to a new life.”

A 2009 event in support of the Dream Act in Los Angeles. (Photo: Korean Resource Center/Flickr)

Immigration reform supporters may be feeling the wind on their faces, but at least one group –undocumented students who arrived in the U.S. as children– is keeping up the fight. Next week, youngsters who are pushing for legislation that would allow these students to become legal residents will hold events across the country to continue pushing for the DREAM Act’s approval.

The week of action, from Monday through Saturday, will feature events in at least 16 states: from a 5k run in Phoenix to a Koreatown-East L.A. walk in Los Angeles to a movie screening in Washington D.C. to meetings in Stony Brook, Yeshiva and Fordham universities in New York.

Activists will be pushing for approval of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act as well as for the larger –and more complicated– goal of comprehensive immigration reform.

Organized nationwide largely through social media and other internet tools, the students realize the momentum has shifted from a year ago, when President Obama’s inauguration was seen as an omen of an almost sure victory for the immigration movement in general.

“The immigrant rights movement has been flooded by challenge after challenge in the past few months,” writes Kemi Bello, one of the young activists, “but we have chosen to use this period of adversity we find ourselves in to escalate and continue to fight. What other choice do we have?”

The DREAM Act would grant conditional residency to those who entered the country before they were 16 years old and have lived here for at least 5 years, as long as they show “good moral character” and have finished high school, obtained a GED diploma or entered college. They have to be under 35 years old and cannot have a deportation order pending. The resident status could become permanent upon college graduation or completion of at least two years either in a university or in the military.

The action week will include meetings with Congress members on Friday and on Saturday, activists will march in support of four students who are walking from Miami to Washington D.C. since Jan. 1 to call for passage of this bill.

“We cannot afford to wait another day,” Bello wrote, “to let another student be deported or detained, to sit by while more youth grow up without parents, to shrug our shoulders while promising high school graduates become construction workers or janitors as a result of simple lack of opportunity.”

This story appeared originally in RUMBO newspapers in Texas and was produced as part of New America Media’s Stimulus Watch coverage. It was funded with a grant from the Open Society Institute. Republished here with permission.

The Southwest School of Arts and Craft was one of the Latino organizations that received ARRA funds in Texas. (Photo: Southwest School)

Many were called, few were chosen.

Only 14 Latino artistic and cultural organizations received funds from President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) says.

Passed a year ago today, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), one of President Obama’s first legislative victories, was designed to create new jobs and save others that were jeopardized as a result of the economic crisis.

“We are aware that it was a competitive process, but 14 Latino organizations, out of more than 630 NEA beneficiaries, is only two percent,” said Maria Lopez de Leon, executive director of NALAC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development of Latino arts in the country.

ARRA included several stimulus initiatives. One of the chief measures for the arts consisted of $50 million to be distributed by NEA, the largest governmental entity dedicated to supporting the arts in the United States. 60% of ARRA funding for the arts was awarded directly by NEA ($29,925,000), and the remaining 40% was awarded through local and state agencies.

According to NEA, aid was granted to only 636 of the 2,424 art institutions that requested funds directly from them, including museums, symphony orchestras, art schools, dance academies and opera companies, among others. Most awards were in the $25,000 to $50,000 range.

NEA would not confirm NALAC’s count of only 14 Latino groups (see list below) receiving funds. “I am not sure that the number is accurate,” said spokeswoman Sally Gifford. “The details of how the funds were awarded are much more complex.”

Gifford said more Latino cultural organizations received funds through regional and state arts agencies, which redistributed some ARRA funds for the arts. Those entities apparently granted 63 awards for a total of $19,790,000.

“Many of these funds were channeled directly to Latino organizations through local or regional art agencies,” Gifford said.

“Another element that has not been taken into consideration is how many of the awardees support Latino art, and reach Latino audiences,” she added.

But NALAC’s Lopez de Leon argues that a Latino arts organization is defined as one whose mission is focused on Latino art and culture, whose executives or artistic directors are of Latino origin or whose board of directors is at least 51% Latino.

“Simply because an organization serves a Latino population this does not make it a Latino organization,” she said. According to NALAC’s database, there are more than 500 Latino cultural institutions and more than 5,000 Latino artists in the United States.

“We know that funds were allocated at the local and state levels also, but what we observed is that there was a lack of fair representation in the distribution at the federal level [through NEA],” Lopez de Leon said. “In addition, federal funds were greater than those distributed at the state and local levels.”

A matter of perspective

As to whether or not Latino groups received a fair share of ARRA funds, Jim Bob McMillan, deputy director of the Texas Art Commission (TAC), said that “with such a small amount of funds allocated to the arts in general, there were some limitations.” His agency received just $427,300 from ARRA to support art organizations in the state, he said.

TAC established some criteria to screen who was eligible for ARRA funding. The chief requirement was that applying institutions ought to have received funding from NEA in the previous four years.

In Texas, 300 organizations requested ARRA funds through TAC, but only 26 received grants of $16,000 each. According to the arts commission, this helped keep or create 47 art-related full-or part-time jobs. Five of the groups were Latino ones, McMillan said.

Winners and losers

“Our objective is not to attack NEA just to see what comes of it,” said Lopez de Leon. “We understand that they did what they could, but they should have been more inclusive when awarding federal funds to minorities. Especially because of the social and economic repercussions that this may have on the Latino arts, as well as on artistic Latino organizations.”

In 2009, NALAC conducted two surveys. One, of 64 organizations and more than 120 artists, centered on the effects of the economic crisis on Latino organizations. The second —with the participation of 34 Latino organizations— focused on the ARRA economic stimulus awarded through NEA.

Preliminary results from the second survey, shared exclusively with RUMBO, show that 99% of the organizations that did not receive ARRA dollars were forced to carry out a series of cutbacks, including layoffs. 57.9% of those groups reported programming cutbacks, 31.6% had to lay off some staff or reduce overall labor time, and 36.8% took other measures.

“The decision not to fund minority organizations carries grave consequences for many communities. Many of these organizations will be forced to close their doors, doing away with venues for cultural expression. The creation of art will also be affected,” Lopez said.

NALAC, which initially was not approved for ARRA funding through NEA, received $50,000 from the stimulus in a subsequent round. It used the funds to save two jobs and keep a contract to make improvements to its website.

“We estimate that the money awarded by ARRA directly through NEA will help maintain or create 4,000 full- or part-time jobs in the country, which is a great contribution to the arts,” said NEA spokeswoman Victoria Hutter.

For now, the $50 million in funds awarded through NEA in 2009 were one-time award packages, and it has not been decided if similar resources will be available in 2010.

Latino organizations funded by ARRA through NEA

1. Amigos del Museo del Barrio. New York, NY. $50,000
2. Ballet Hispánico. New York, NY. $50,000
3. Gala Grupo de Artistas Latinoamericanos. Washington D.C. $50,000
4. José Limón Dance Foundation. New York, NY. $50,000
5. National Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation. Albuquerque, NM. $50,000
6. National Museum of Mexican Art. Chicago, IL. $50,000
7. Radio Bilingüe. Fresno, CA. $25,000
8. Santa Cecilia Opera and Orchestra Association. Los Ángeles, CA. $25,000
9. Spanish Theatre Repertory Company. New York, NY. $50,000
10. Arte Público Press. Houston, TX. $25,000
11. National Association of Latino Arts and Culture. San Antonio, TX. $50,000
12. Borderlands Theater Teatro Fronterizo. Tucson, AZ. $25,000
13. Cornerstone Theater Company. Los Ángeles, CA. $50,000
14. Ballet Concierto de Puerto Rico. San Juan, PR. $50,000

New York immigration activists set out from Manhattan Monday afternoon. (Photo: NYIC)

Looking to pressure on elected officials to act on immigration reform, a group of New Yorkers set out Monday on a five-day road trip across the state to call for immediate action on the issue through rallies and meetings in ten cities and towns.

The “Road Trip for Our Future” includes U.S.-born and immigrant activists, with roots that trace back to South Korea, El Salvador, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, among other places. They will be blogging, tweeting and publishing pictures and videos online during their trip. The caravan is organized by the New York Immigration Coalition, the national Reform Immigration for America campaign and local organizations in several upstate communities, according to a press release.

“I am going on this ride … to fight for better conditions for immigrant working mothers who struggle so hard to put food on the table, while suffering the pain of rarely seeing their children awake,” says Margarita, a Dominican-born rider, on the group’s website. “I know many employers exploit immigrants and I want to see that end.”

Kevin, a 20-year-old second-generation Korean-American, says: “I’ve heard stories about seperated (sic) families, deported immigrant parents forced to leave their U.S. born children behind and young people not able to go live up to their potentials and dreams because of barriers accessing higher education.”

The caravan will stop in communities where the immigration debate has real-life consequences, the coalition said in its release. It will touch on Sodus, west of Syracuse, where according to organizers police have stopped residents on their way to church and turned them over to immigration authorities; on Syracuse, where Border Patrol officers have boarded trains and buses to inquire about the passengers’ immigration status; and in Batavia, home to a federal detention facility holding hundreds of immigrants and asylum seekers.

“President Obama has committed to passing immigration reform, and Senator (Chuck) Schumer is leading the effort in Congress,” said the Coalition’s executive director, Chung-Wha Hong. “But with the administration inexplicably ramping up enforcement of a system that they acknowledge is broken, and Congress faltering on so many issues of critical importance, we can’t afford to get mired in Washington gridlock.”

Hong noted that “nearly 5,000 people will be deported and more than 5,000 will be detained” in the time it will take the activists to complete their trip “and we’ll be no closer to a workable, common-sense immigration system that serves the national interest.”

Click here for the trip’s full schedule, including events in Carmel, Pittsford, Greece, Buffalo, Ithaca and a welcome party in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

The Warsaw Village Band. (Photo: Kayax)

Can traditional Polish music sound funky? Or Asian? Or bluesy? The members of the Warsaw Village Band think it can. When the six-piece band was founded 12 years ago, its young members visited Polish villages to gather vanishing songs from elderly musicians. Later these melodies became the inspiration for a new modern and eclectic style of music.

Today the Warsaw Village Band has fans all over the world. They call themselves barbarians playing hardcore folk. Recently the American magazine PopMatters named the band’s latest CD “Infinity” the top World Music album for 2009.

But while American audiences welcome the band’s innovative ideas, New York’s Polish immigrant community has had a mixed reaction.

Young Poles are enthusiastic, but older immigrants are skeptical, seeing the Warsaw Village Band’s innovative mix of styles as a blow to traditional Polish folk music.

Feet in Two Worlds and Polish Daily News reporter Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska recently produced an audio portrait of the Warsaw Village Band.  Click “play” below to hear her story.

[Visit post to listen to audio]

Health care reform supporters in Minnesota. (Photo: AFL-CIO/Flickr)

President Obama’s health care overhaul is waiting to be revived in Congress, but whether it finally passes or is killed would not make much of a difference to immigrants, according to a new report by two progressive organizations in New York.

The study shows that immigrants both documented and undocumented would “continue to face major barriers to health coverage even if federal health care reform is enacted,” according to a press release from New Yorkers for Accessible Health Coverage (NYFAHC) and the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC).

Non-citizens already comprise 29 percent of those uninsured in New York, although they are only 12 percent of the state’s population, the study says.

The high rates of lack of insurance among immigrants are due to numerous factors, according to the report. Among them: immigrants work lower paying jobs at smaller workplaces that tend not to provide health coverage; the undocumented cannot join public health programs like Medicaid or Medicare, and lawful residents are barred from these for five years; and “legal immigrants fear that enrolling in public coverage will classify them as ‘public charges’ who may be denied permanent residence status.”

“The health reform bills currently being debated in Congress fail to address most of these barriers,” said Mark Scherzer, one of the study’s authors.

“Even more ominous,” he added, “some proposals, such as one to exclude undocumented immigrants from using their own money to purchase full-price coverage in health insurance exchanges, would make it even harder for immigrants to enroll in coverage.”

“Two million New Yorkers are noncitizens, and they lack health insurance to a much greater extent than citizens,” said co-author Jenny Rejeske. “The substantial majority of these noncitizens are here legally, and they pay the same taxes as citizens do. There is no justification for impeding their access to insurance and the care that they and their families need. It is time for policy makers to remove the barriers that prevent immigrants from getting the health care they need.”

PHOENIX, Arizona — When Oscar Valenzuela, 18, was driving home after picking up his brother Abel Castellón, 15, at a school soccer game, an encounter with the U.S. Border Patrol resulted in their deportation the following morning.

However, as quickly as the teenagers were deported, authorities brought them back.

Most immigration attorneys agree that the undoing of their deportation was a rare occurrence and advocates argue their case is a testimony of the perils and challenges faced by undocumented youth raised in the U.S.

“I never thought that I was going to get deported,” said Abel, who speaks English with no hint of a Spanish accent. Abel was used to seeing the white and green Border Patrol cars on the road on his way back home on the school bus. His family lives near the town of Casa Grande, where the agency has a station.

The brothers entered the country when they were four and one years old. Abel has no recollection of ever crossing the border.

Their encounter with the Border Patrol began late in the evening of January 11, on their way back from a soccer tournament at Vista Grande High School, which Abel attends. Oscar was behind the wheel as he passed a Border Patrol vehicle on the side of the road. The agents began to follow them, he said.

After about three minutes, an agent pulled them over and told them they were speeding, which Oscar argues wasn’t the case. Both brothers gave him their school identifications.

“He said we had no social security number and that he had to deport us,” said Oscar. “’Are you sure you are going to deport us?’ I asked. And he said: ‘Yes, I’m going to deport you.’”

Shortly thereafter, they were deported.

“They were trying to make us sign paperwork for our voluntary removal in Spanish but we wouldn’t,” said Oscar. The brothers were transported to the Tucson Border Patrol station – about two hours from the border.

The following morning, they were ushered into a bus with other detainees and dropped across the border at noon at the Nogales, Sonora, port of entry. Oscar and Abel had never been in the border city, where violence has escalated over the last couple of years.

“My brother Abel was scared. I didn’t even know how to use pesos,” he said.

The night before, their mother Ana Hernández had received a desperate phone call from Oscar.

“He told me: ‘Mom, they gave us dinner. And they say they will deport us.’ It was horrible, I don’t wish this on anyone,” she said.

The following morning the Mexican Consulate in Tucson told her her sons had been deported and nothing else could be done. But after a Feet in Two Worlds reporter requested information on the circumstances of the teenagers’ removal on January 13, the consulate received a call from the Border Patrol.

Jacobo Tellez, a Mexican officer in charge of the Department of Protection at the Tucson Mexican Consulate, said the Border Patrol contacted him to say there had been an “error” in the youngsters’ removal. He said they shouldn’t have been deported if they didn’t sign a voluntary removal form; instead, they should have been sent before an immigration judge. Tellez helped locate Oscar and Abel, who had a cell phone with them and were staying at a hotel in Nogales.

Soon, a BP agent and a Mexican official picked them up near the border crossing. The kids were handcuffed and driven home in the back of a small border patrol truck used to carry detainees.

Oscar and Abel were surprised. “They drove us home really fast,” Oscar said.

Tucson Border Patrol spokesman Mario Escalante said the boys “were inadvertently given a voluntary return” and they were reunited with their family thanks to the collaboration with Mexican consular authorities.

“There was an error made and an investigation will take place,” he wrote. Escalante said that a migrant return to the U.S. is possible and happens mostly when the Border Patrol discovers that it wrongfully deported a Central American migrant to Mexico.

Tellez said that Mexico has treaties in place with the United States for the repatriation of minors. Typically, the consulate is contacted before a minor is repatriated and often, if the parents live in the U.S., they are given custody of the minor while he or she awaits a removal proceeding.

In this case, Abel, 15, wasn’t considered a minor because he was with Oscar, a family member, according to the Border Patrol.

Pastor Magdalena Schwartz, from the Disciples of the Kingdom Free United Methodist Church, says she sees similar situations often.

“Many people bring their children when they are really young, sometimes three years old, sometimes months old. And (the children) believe they’re from the U.S. and they act as if they were from here,” she said. “So when things like these happen, they wake up to reality an realize they’re not really from here, and they’re without documents.”

Schwartz said that the main concern in these situations is that children are being deported across a dangerous border to a place they don’t know, where they could become the victims of smugglers and kidnappers.

“I’m glad they corrected the mistake,” she said. “But what about the cases we never hear about, because the parents are afraid to speak up because they’re undocumented?”

Marianne Gonko, the teenagers’ immigration attorney, said their case was odd. That’s why, she said, she wasn’t surprised that the Border Patrol acted to correct it immediately.

“I’ve never heard of a minor being deported so quickly,” she said.

But what is rare is for the Border Patrol to admit they made a mistake, said Phoenix-based immigration attorney Kevin Gibbons.

“It is difficult to get something reversed,” he said.

Gibbons is familiar with cases in which U.S. citizens are deported by mistake and even they have to wait — sometimes for months — to return to their country once they can prove their citizenship.

Part of the problem is that at the border, immigration agents are acting as “judges” that have to make a quick decision as to whether or not a person has a claim as a refugee or has family ties to stay in the country, he said. Sometimes undocumented immigrants are also pressured to sign a voluntary removal, Gonko said.

Schwartz argues that Abel and Oscar’s case was handled differently because there’s been a shift in the way immigration authorities are working under the Obama administration.

“I think this administration is being more compassionate and benevolent,” she said.

The boys’ future in the U.S. is still in limbo.

Gonko, their immigration attorney, said they currently have to report to immigration authorities monthly and she will fight against their removal from the country. She added that they would be perfect candidates for the DREAM Act, a bill that would allow undocumented students to legalize their immigration status. But its possibilities in Washington D.C., as well of those of immigration reform, are uncertain for this year.

Oscar said they shouldn’t have been deported in the first place.

“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” he said. “Just coming back from a soccer game.”