Sunday September 16, 2007, 1:47 pm
Rene Perez, a 42 year old homeless immigrant from Guatemala was found on a road in Bedford, N.Y. nearly dead on April 28th. He died shortly thereafter of internal injuries according to a medical examiner but the death of Perez has raised questions with possible answers including police brutality and a pattern of immigrant deaths in the suburban town north of New York City.

Mount Kisco police have acknowledged that three of its officers met up with Perez after the 42-year-old placed a 911 call from a coin-operated laundry. The officers determined that Perez "did not have a police matter," the Mount Kisco police said.

The county medical examiner classified Perez's death a homicide. Menzel said the injuries showed that Perez was "struck."

Monday September 17, 2007, 5:34 am
Noted, thanks Jill.

Monday September 17, 2007, 2:41 pm
And to think the people who stir up anti-immigrant feelings think it's "good for America" to do so...!

Tuesday September 18, 2007, 2:55 am

Yes, Eric G, and thank you for your comment.

This is why I have posted this story; the anti-immigration fervor is responsible for creating a climate of hate, the rise in hate crimes and stigmatizing people as probable criminal, dealers, prostitutes, etc., when in the vast majority, Latin American immigrants are simply trying to earn a living far away from home.

And, what the anti-immigration people do not want to understand is that it is the neo-liberal economic policies supported by the US in the form of the World Bank, NAFTA agreement, IMF, etc that prevent these countries from having the prosperous economies that would keep their populations at home, where they would rather stay in the first place !

From the "Public Citizen" site:

NAFTA opponents - including labor, environmental, consumer and religious groups - argued that NAFTA would launch a race-to-the-bottom in wages, destroy hundreds of thousands of good U.S. jobs, undermine democratic control of domestic policy-making and threaten health, environmental and food safety standards.

NAFTA promoters - including many of the world’s largest corporations - promised it would create hundreds of thousands of new high-wage U.S. jobs, raise living standards in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, improve environmental conditions and transform Mexico from a poor developing country into a booming new market for U.S. exports.

Now, over a decade later, the time for conjecture and promises is over: the data are in and they clearly show the damage NAFTA has wrought for millions of people in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Thankfully, the failed NAFTA model - a watered down version of which is also contained in the World Trade Organization (WTO) - is merely one among many options.

The same interests who got us into NAFTA are pushing to expand it to include 31 more countries in Central and South America through the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In 2005, Congress voted to extend NAFTA to five Central American countries through the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and the Bush administration is now looking to add Peru and Colombia to the list as well.

Tuesday September 18, 2007, 2:56 am

Yes, Eric G, and thank you for your comment.

This is why I have posted this story; the anti-immigration fervor is responsible for creating a climate of hate, the rise in hate crimes and stigmatizing people as probable criminal, dealers, prostitutes, etc., when in the vast majority, Latin American immigrants are simply trying to earn a living far away from home.

And, what the anti-immigration people do not want to understand is that it is the neo-liberal economic policies supported by the US in the form of the World Bank, NAFTA agreement, IMF, etc that prevent these countries from having the prosperous economies that would keep their populations at home, where they would rather stay in the first place !

From the "Public Citizen" site:

NAFTA opponents - including labor, environmental, consumer and religious groups - argued that NAFTA would launch a race-to-the-bottom in wages, destroy hundreds of thousands of good U.S. jobs, undermine democratic control of domestic policy-making and threaten health, environmental and food safety standards.

NAFTA promoters - including many of the world’s largest corporations - promised it would create hundreds of thousands of new high-wage U.S. jobs, raise living standards in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, improve environmental conditions and transform Mexico from a poor developing country into a booming new market for U.S. exports.

Now, over a decade later, the time for conjecture and promises is over: the data are in and they clearly show the damage NAFTA has wrought for millions of people in the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Thankfully, the failed NAFTA model - a watered down version of which is also contained in the World Trade Organization (WTO) - is merely one among many options.

The same interests who got us into NAFTA are pushing to expand it to include 31 more countries in Central and South America through the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In 2005, Congress voted to extend NAFTA to five Central American countries through the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and the Bush administration is now looking to add Peru and Colombia to the list as well.

Tuesday September 18, 2007, 3:07 am

Hey, look what I've found; an Action Center with a petition to Congress NOT to spread NAFTA to South American countries:

The Bush administration notified Congress of its intent to negotiate a trade agreement with the South American countries of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia in November of 2003. The idea was to create an Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA). Like CAFTA, AFTA would be another piece to add to the FTAA jigsaw puzzle and is based on the same failed NAFTA model, which has caused the "race to the bottom" in labor and environmental standards and promotes privatization and deregulation of key public services.

Because of the large territories of bio-diverse Amazon tropical rainforest and long histories of violence and unrest in the Andean countries, the mistaken application of the one-size fits all NAFTA model of trade in the region would likely have devastating consequences.

Despite heavy pressure from the Bush administration, the presidents of Ecuador and Bolivia have announced that they are not interested in NAFTA-style trade deals. But Peru and Colombia bowed to threats from the administration and Republican congressional leaders who threatened to end the countries’ existing access to U.S. markets if they didn’t sign up for full fledged NAFTA deals. The result was the U.S.-Peru and U.S.-Colombia “free trade” agreements (FTAs).

In December 2006, the U.S. and Panama concluded long delayed negotiations, and and a U.S.-Panama FTA was added to the queue of agreements that the Bush administration hopes Congress will ratify – with an up or down vote under the undemocratic "Fast Track" rules.

Incoming Democratic House and and environmental Senate leaders had long been critical of the weak labor rights provisions in the deals. But, as Public Citizen and the large coalition of labor, environmental, Latino, small farm, and faith groups have long argued, the unacceptable labor provisions are just the beginning of what needs to be fixed so that these agreements meet a minimal “do no harm” test.

Unfortunately, this May 2007 brought shockingly bad news. A handful of Democrats in the House of Representatives struck a "deal" with President Bush on the Peru and Panama FTAs that could pave the way also to the passage of the Colombia FTA and even to more Fast Track trade negotiating authority for President Bush. The deal makes needed improvements to the labor and environmental provisions, but unfortunately leaves in almost all the bad NAFTA-style provisions that fair trade groups demanded be taken out. Thus, the deal only puts a new roof on a condemned building.

It is likely that there may be a vote on the Peru and Panama FTAs this fall. After the painful 1-vote margin on the CAFTA in July 2005, and the close Oman FTA vote in July 2006, if we speak up loudly now, we can assure that – deal or no deal – these NAFTA expansion trade agreements are sent back to the drawing board.

Learn more about the many problems plaguing the Peru, Panama and Colombia pacts by visiting the issue-areas listed in depth. (links on the site : http://www.citizen.org/trade/afta/)

ACT NOW! - Tell Congress: "No Deal!"