The Guatemalan Consulate in Los Angeles paid for Pedro Pablos bus ticket home to Guatemala. He came to America seeking the American Dream. His first three years, he worked constantly in a variety of construction jobs. This year, he only worked 3 days. He can no longer afford to live in the U.S. He decided to return home to Guatemala, but wanting to avoid the violence of overzealous Arpaio type cops and inhumane treatment in the detention centers, he contacted his Guatemalan Consulate who provided him the ticket and sufficient documentation to return home safely and legally. I commend the Consulate for providing this assistance. It is logical, voluntary but most of all, it is safe and humane. This is a model that workers, citizens and humanitarians can all support. As I earlier reported, other countries, like India, are providing the same repatriating services.
These type of programs cost the U.S. nothing.
Our country spends hundreds of millions of dollars funding privately owned detention centers full of non-felonious workers. They are farmers, seamstresses, meatpackers and technical workers. Sheriff Arpaio spends millions Racial Profiling and incarcerating non-felonious workers, humiliating them, as he marches them through the streets to gain media attention for himself. None of these tactics work. The costs are outrageous. They are abusive and inhumane.
ICE owns a fleet of Con-Air type planes they use to repatriate workers to their home country. Of course these flights are involuntary as the workers are swept away into the night and flown to some unknown town in their home country, no one waiting for them, no one knowing they are arriving, families in America only knowing they disappeared. ICE flew 367,000 of them "home" last year.
Then you have Tucson Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Robert Gilbert. He does not believe in repatriation. He prefers prosecuting and jailing them. He prefers "teaching them a lesson." He prosecuted 13,000 "illeeegals" last year, bloating his budget by jailing them for 180 days, then dumping them into some unknown location in the deep interior of Mexico. No family. No notice. Just an unknown dumping ground. The enigma about this man is he married an illegal immigrant from Peru and side stepped the standard immigration policies, expediting the process via marriage. His wife wanted the same thing the migrant workers want, the attainment of the American Dream.
Given the state of our current economy, there are those here that are willing to repatriate to their home countries. We have two options. We can treat people like human beings or we can treat them as subhumans.
I choose Humanity!
“Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn”
References:
Does the Mexican Consulate provide transportation for their citizens back home? It seems that Mexico has the most citizens here illegally, more than any other country.
ReplyDeleteThe Mexican Consulate provides some services. It is important for anyone wanting more information and assistance to contact them.
ReplyDeleteHere is one article about their paying passage for those dying here:
"The Mexican consulate in Manhattan will be able to fully cover the costs this year of repatriating some 300 deceased Mexicans from the tri-state area back to Mexico, officials said Friday.
Consul General Ruben Beltran said the consulate is responding to the "strong desire" among Mexicans living outside of their native land to be buried in Mexico.
Last year, the consulate, which serves Mexicans living in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, subsidized the costs of repatriating slightly more than 200 deceased people to Mexico, Beltran said.
"This help we are giving is for people who can prove that they lack the financial means to repatriate their loved ones," he said. "If someone, say, looks at the coffin and says they want to kick in the difference for an upgrade, then my response is that this help and this program is not for them. It's clearly for people who are in dire financial distress."
To be able to help more people, the consulate also formed partnerships with eight funeral homes from the tri-state area to charge a flat rate for shipping bodies to Mexico. New York funeral homes set a flat rate of $1,700, and Connecticut and New Jersey homes set a rate of $1,900.
"This is considerably less expensive than what it would normally cost," Beltran said. "Without the rate, it could easily go as high as $4,000."
I also found this:
ReplyDelete"Rules for repatriating Mexican nationals revised
By Leslie Berestein
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
2:00 a.m. December 23, 2008
SAN DIEGO — Regional U.S. immigration and Mexican government officials have updated the guidelines under which Mexican nationals are to be repatriated along the California-Mexico border.
A version of the guidelines has existed since the late 1990s. Although not binding, they dictate procedures for repatriation, especially for vulnerable individuals such as unaccompanied minors, pregnant women and individuals with special needs.
Mexican Consulate spokesman Alberto Diaz said the updated guidelines cite hours during which vulnerable deportees might be sent through the turnstiles into Tijuana and Mexicali, and how these repatriations are to be coordinated with Mexican officials.
In February, a disabled Mexican man in his late 70s went missing in Tijuana for several days, with no record logged by Mexican immigration officials of his repatriation. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials later confirmed having returned such an individual to Mexico at nightfall on the day the man disappeared.
The agreement was signed last week by U.S. and Mexican immigration officials and Mexican consular officials"
There are lots of "Minutemen" and Watchers of "Candid Cameras" on the Border Fence.
ReplyDeleteThe Minutemen spend a lot of Money on Gasoline, Tires, Lubricant Oil for Cars, Snack Foods and Beverages, Repellents for Mosquitoes, Liquors and Alcohols and Smoking or Chewing Tobacco, not to mention good Mexican Marihuana or Snow Coke. ( the one that is not Black )
Those Watchers of the "Surveillance" Cameras on top of the Tortilla Wall spend many hours a day sitting at home in front of a computer screen. Not good for Health, and the eat a lot of Popcorn and French Fries with ketchup.
If they would help the "Illegal Immigrants" to return home they would be spending less money and time and perhaps learning many useful things, instead of increasing their rage, their anger, their hatred and false assumptions.
Who knows ?? ... They could even establish a business in Mexico with the Newly acquired friends, or with their little help.
Doing business is more creative that watching and watching and watching.
The Vigilante is a Sad Occupation.
Raciality.com
Murderor.com
Vicente Duque
I like what Guatemala and India are doing. If the migrant worker chooses to go, then they go to the consulate, are provided a return ticket (Guatemala a bus ticket; India a plane ticket) to their previous home town/family. This is humanitarian and also cost effective.
ReplyDeleteCost of Detention: $90 a day per head. If a detainee is detained 180 days, that equals $16,200. An average 1-way bus ticket $150, much less expensive and much more humane.
Vicente,
ReplyDeleteYou are right. Who is to say how much garbage the MMs contribute with all of their beer cans, trash and empty rifle shells. Look at all they spend on gas with their xenophobic border trodding.
Look at the millions that could be saved by eliminating their escapades.
Vicente said...
The Minutemen spend a lot of Money on Gasoline, Tires, Lubricant Oil for Cars, Snack Foods and Beverages, Repellents for Mosquitoes, Liquors and Alcohols and Smoking or Chewing Tobacco, not to mention good Mexican Marihuana or Snow Coke. ( the one that is not Black )
Vicente, you forgot their penile extensions/substitutes to make them feel like "big patriotic amerikun heroes"!
ReplyDeletehttp://immigrationclearinghouse.org/?p=445