LatinaLista — On April 27, The U.S. State Department issued a travel alert warning against any unnecessary travel to Mexico because of the “H1N1 influenza,” more commonly known as the swine flu.
Mexico City residents go about their day wearing government-issued face masks.
(Photo: Mara Muñoz)
The alert, barring the outbreak gets worse, expires on July 27, 2009.
Yet, while the State Department urges people not to travel to Mexico, it’s business as usual with the Department of Homeland Security’s ICE division.
In a call with Latina Lista earlier today, DC-based ICE spokeswoman, Barbara Gonzalez, said there is no change in deportations.
While assuring me that no detainee, to ICE’s knowledge, has contracted the “H1N1 influenza,” Gonzalez didn’t take a breather in explaining how ICE is fully prepared to meet any medical emergency that should arise and how the department is following Secretary Napolitano’s outlines for handling the current medical crisis on both the south and north borders.
Gonzalez was also quick to point out that each detention center has its own response plans on how to handle an outbreak if one should occur.
While the idealistic assumption is that all people transported and deposited across the border will stay there, that’s not the reality of the situation.
Anecdotal information from immigrant communities across the country is that while some deportees are opting to stay south, those who have families on this side are not willing to just be deported and comply with forgetting their spouses and children — they’re coming back.
What makes this news particularly disturbing is that these same people, because of a lack of money and family support, are finding themselves exposed to the elements, and now, diseases of where they’re being deposited. Though I didn’t ask Gonzalez if ICE was supplying face masks to deportees, my educated guess would be they are not.
That’s unfortunate because it makes sense that at the very least one of these deportees would come into contact with the virus. Since the symptoms don’t manifest for several days, it’s highly probable that someone could make it back into the country, fall ill and expose a new round of people.
Given the volatility of the present situation, the question needs to be asked why doesn’t ICE just suspend deportations until the travel alert has been lifted?
It would seem to be the most prudent course of action to take and one that definitely safeguards national security.
Comment(26)
Grandma
Your question: Given the volatility of the present situation, the question needs to be asked why doesn’t ICE just suspend deportations until the travel alert has been lifted?
A better question: Why hadn’t the border been sealed?
MaryElizabeth
That is horrible that they would continue to deport people during a crisis like this. What incompetent people we have in charge of this detention system.
Evelyn
CDC already answered that question Grandma
They said it would do no good. The virus was already here.
hissy
Why should the US stop deporting??? They haven’t stopped sneaking in here have they??? NO!! BLAME the criminals for once. STAY HOME…do not bring any more desease to the American citizens. We are already BROKE and in debt.
Horace
Grandma,
A better question concerns why Mexico doesn’t provide returning illegal immigrants a job, as the welfare of its citizens is their job.
The responsibility for poviding masks to returning illegal aliens is that of the Mexican government, not the U.S. taxpayer.
Why suspend deportations just because there’s a flu outbreak in Mexico? This is another irrational Marisaism, one that stretches logic to the limit and just another wacko opportunity for abusing the U.S. government.
These people were never entitled to come to the U.S. in the first place. Upon returning to their homeland they will be exposed to the same conditions as other Mexicans, just as if they had never left Mexico.
Horace
One more thing, if the illegal aliens are somehow entitled to masks from the U.S. government, then shouldn’t U.S. citizens be entitled to masks from the Mexican government when exiting Mexico?
I suspect that Gonzalez found your question illogical and frivolous and that’s why you were given short shrift. I would do the same, if asked the same dumb questions.
Closing the borders makes sense, as the fewer carriers there are from Mexico, the slower the disease will spread in this country. Our government is sacrificing citizens for the political benefit of keeping the border open. Once again the Democrats fear of offending Hispanics is threatening our citizens.
EYES OF TEXAS
The idea of not sealing the border because the Mexican Flu is already here does not make good common sense. If one infected person will infect 50 other people, for example, then how many people can be infected by 100, 200 or 300 infected people. The way to stop the spreading is to isolate, the same as they do in hospitals. Seperate the infected from to uninfected. Seal the damn border in both directions and place National Guard to stop all illegal aliens coming here for free medical treatment.
Karen
The disease isn’t coming from illegal immigrants. It’s allegedly coming from Smithfield Farms, an American based pork factory in La Gloria, Veracruz, Mexico. They have eight farms in Mexico that don’t have any waste treatment facilities. They put the waste in ‘fecal lagoons’ that are swarming with flies. In 1985, this company was fined for dumping untreated waste into the Chesapeake Bay. Once NAFTA passed they moved to Mexico. They have nearly 1 million pigs on their farms living in close confinement breathing ammonium emitting from their own excrement.
The WHO and the CDC are currently testing that company’s pigs.
http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2009/04/swine-flu-smithfield-foods-statement-vs-the-ugly-truth.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters
Horace
Karen said: “Once NAFTA passed they moved to Mexico. They have nearly 1 million pigs on their farms living in close confinement breathing ammonium emitting from their own excrement.”
What’s NAFTA go to do with this? The Mexican people through their government are responsible for enacting legislation regulating businesses within the Mexican borders. Nothing in NAFTA precludes Mexico from protecting its own citizens from unhealthy conditions. Even if NAFTA had not been enacted, such a thing could occur. Your reference makes no sense at all. Moreover, blaming NAFTA insults the Mexican people, as you are apparently asserting that the Mexicans are like children and cannot run their own country. On the other hand, judging from the mass exodus of their people, and their immature demands for rights to which they are clearly not entitled to in this county, this may be true.
Evelyn
Karen :
The disease isn’t coming from illegal immigrants.
~
Sorry I cant agree with you on this issue my friend. Swine flu was brought in by illegal immigrants, from Europe in 1620.
So was smallpox, measles, and a whole slew of other deadly diseases.
~~
hissy says
NO!! BLAME the criminals for once.
I agree, blame the criminals from Europe who used genocide to annihilate 95% of the indigenous population so they could anchor themselves to this land. After all it is these criminal illegal alien Europeans who brought the disease with them to the Americas.
If they hadn’t come we wouldent be worried now would we?
Horace
Karen said: “The disease isn’t coming from illegal immigrants.”
Illegal immigrants crossing our northern and southern borders bypass the immigration inspection process and are thus potential sources of infectious disease that originates in Mexico or Canada. Your statement ignores the very reason why we have immigration laws. The U.S. is like most of the world in its immigration policies. Illegal immigration is only defensible if you’re an illegal alien, as every nation has the right to inspect those who would cross its borders, regardless of their motivations to do so. While illegal immigrants are the source of an infectious disease today, judging by Mexico’s failure to care for its people and stem the spread of disease, they could very well be.
Karen
Re: “blaming NAFTA insults the Mexican people, as you are apparently asserting that the Mexicans are like children and cannot run their own country.”
Mexico is a quasi-dictatorship. Their current President was appointed by their Supreme Court. (Sound familiar?)
Only they had military all over the streets when it happened.
Not all countries are rich and free. I know that’s difficult to fathom. In addition, our country supports the Mexican ruling class and globalists like Mexico’s current President, Calderon.
In this scenario, Mexico will not enact laws that curtail the ability of corporations to maximize their profits. They could be fined by the WTO, their currency could be devalued, etc. I don’t think you really understand NAFTA and these ‘trade agreements.’
To break free, they would have to get away from the “Washington Consensus” and the World Bank and the IMF just like South America did. Our own government would block any attempt to do that 100%.
I said in an earlier post that the CDC and the WHO were testing Smithfield pigs. Actually, a Mexican lab is doing the testing. If those pigs are infected, I wonder if they will release the information? Such a finding would devastate the pork industry, and we can’t have that.
An independent test should be conducted. And why isn’t our own government demanding such a test?
Evelyn
Your statement ignores the very reason why we have immigration laws. The U.S. is like most of the world in its immigration policies. Illegal immigration is only defensible if you’re an illegal alien, as every nation has the right to inspect those who would cross its borders,
~
Every European who came to America was an illegal alien therefor making their descendants anchor babies.
They wrote laws to make themselves and the anchor babies legal and laws to make the original inhabitants of this land and their descendants illegal.
Even the Native American Indians that survived the European invasion and genocide used to exterminate them were not considered U.S. citizens.
Unbelievable!
Fast forward to today and we have a few very vociferous nativists who use spin and lies to try and justify doing this all over again.
Horace
“Every European who came to America was an illegal alien therefor making their descendants anchor babies.
Our current immigration laws are consonant with good socioeconomic policy that is followed by every country in the world, including Mexico, as they prevent our way of life from disruptive change through the import of those who would ultimately take more out of our economy than the put in.
Times have changed if you haven’t noticed, Evelyn. We are no longer a country of superstitious stone age American Indian culture or pilgrims who tilled the soil by horse and plow. Your references to conditions that existed long ago no longer apply, anymore than concerns over the accumulation of manure in the public streets.
You’re an angry, sad, hateful and pathetic racist who lives in the past, and has no appreciation of the detrimental affects of importing 20 million poor and illiterate people on a society that values literacy and academic achievement. I find this consonant with the culture that Marisa has described as often contemptuous of academic achievement, viewed manual labor as the only honest kind, so what can I expect. It must be hard on you that your people’s predilection towards low pay work is paid and appreciated so little .
cookie
Incorrect, there were no immigration laws prior to 1920 and most Europeans and other nationalities who came after that came within the immigration laws that the U.S. had in place at the time. It wasn’t only the white Europeans that you so obviously hate that came after 1920 either.
Read my post again in regards to your so-called genocide of the native indians. The white Europeans did not come to commit genocide. It was only after their numbers increased that cultural clash ensued and both the Europeans and the natives started killing each other off.
Most Hispanics in this country today have native indian blood but they also have white European Spanish blood so they are no better or have no more right to be in this country than any other white group in this country. As for the Mexicans, their native indian tribes were from way south of this country. Your living in past is so adolescent that it defies any kind of logic.
Liquidmicro
Here Karen is a very good article on understanding the Corn Issue in Mexico and how our Policymakers have caused the issue to grow.
NAFTA harming Mexico corn industry
…..
NAFTA eliminated Mexican import restrictions on U.S. corn. Soon after the ratification of NAFTA, Freedom to Farm eliminated the floor price mechanism for U.S. corn. Not long after that, Washington policymakers decided not to segregate or label genetically modified corn and we lost our corn export markets to the European Union, Japan and South Korea. The net result was a large volume of cheap U.S. corn dumped onto the Mexican farmers’ markets. This, in turn, displaced thousands, possibly millions, of Mexican farmers, causing many to illegally cross into the United States to find work to support their families.
Supporting corn prices at the market with a fair loan rate would be a much better option than our current system of paying subsidies that allowed cheap corn to steal the livelihoods of Mexican farmers and gave the American taxpayer a bill for corn subsidies and illegal immigration. Even if we do not care about the monetary cost, the moral shame is ours to bear.
This is just another example of the indirect and unintended consequences of U.S. farm and trade policy. But more important, this atrocity is another example of the reason all family farmers need and deserve a fair price for the fruits of their labor, not taxpayer subsidies.
….
As you can see, it is the sub-sidies paid to our farmers, as I have previously stated in other posts, that is causing a large portion of the problem.
MaryElizabeth
“One more thing, if the illegal aliens are somehow entitled to masks from the U.S. government, then shouldn’t U.S. citizens be entitled to masks from the Mexican government when exiting Mexico?”/ Horace…Huh!!Are you for real?
First of all Horace…the ICE police are treating the people they deport in an inhumane manner (the deported do not have money nor do they have freedom to stop at a local walmart to by a mask before being deported). Secondly Horace…you are playing a guessing game on this one. There is a good chance that a vacationing US citizen would be intructed on where to get their Mask in Mexico?? You really come up with alot of silly rhetoric! You are such a freak of nature. lol
Evelyn
Incorrect, there were no immigration laws prior to 1920 and most Europeans and other nationalities who came after that came within the immigration laws that the U.S. had in place at the time.
~
Did some one state otherwise or do you suffer from reading comprehension? I stated, “They wrote laws to make themselves and the anchor babies legal and laws to make the original inhabitants of this land and their descendants illegal.
Even the Native American Indians that survived the European invasion and genocide used to exterminate them were not considered U.S. citizens.”
~
You said:
It wasn’t only the white Europeans that you so obviously hate that came after 1920 either.
~
Repeating the History told in credable History books about Europeans is not hate! Ask anybody that has an education, since you obviously dont.
~
You said:
Read my post again in regards to your so-called genocide of the native indians. The white Europeans did not come to commit genocide. It was only after their numbers increased that cultural clash ensued and both the Europeans and the natives started killing each other off.
~
Your openion , or how you perceive history doesent count. History books that havent been whitewashed are credable.
The fact that Native American grandmothers were raped by Europeans does not make them European, any more then it makes a Black person who’s greatgrandmother was raped by a European a European.
The fact that you think exposing the bad part of our history so it wont be repeated as equal to racism , is so ignorant that it defies any kind of logic.
People who embrace racism some times need a little prod in the butt to bring them back to reality and stop them from comitting the same mistakes from our past.
Horace
“..(the deported do not have money nor do they have freedom to stop at a local walmart to by a mask before being deported). Secondly Horace…you are playing a guessing game on this one. There is a good chance that a vacationing US citizen would be intructed on where to get their Mask in Mexico?? You really come up with alot of silly rhetoric! You are such a freak of nature. lol….”
The point is, ME, that it is the responsibility of Mexico to see to the welfare of their citizens, not the U.S. If it’s citizens have no money or masks, then it’s up to the Mexican government to take care of them. Maybe if Mexico collected the half of the taxes that its citizens owe their treasury but do not pay, maybe ignorant ranters like yourself wouldn’t have to take pity on their poor. As a U.S. citizen, I do not feel morally or legally responsible for taking care of Mexicans after they’re deported. If you and your friends feel inclined to contribute to a charity to take care of destitute Mexican citizens, then do so out of your own purse, but don’t drag the rest of this nation into it.
MaryElizabeth
How can Mexico be responsible for their citizens if they are unexpectedly getting dropped of in the middle of XXXXXX in a deportation process from America. It is our responsibility to make sure we try to get a grip on this flu as a joint effort worldwide. People travel all over worldwide…it cannot be just addressed in the US. This is common sense! That is not charity…it is a common sense solution to stop the spread of a flu. Do you think the flu is going to listen to you rhetoric?? It’s in America and despite your dumb comments it might just be knocking on your door Horace waiting to snuff you out. The flu isn’t racist..it likes everyone!
cookie
Evelyn wails, “They wrote laws, etc.” Yes, the U.S. government wrote those laws and this is the USA and has been since 1776.
The descendants of the native indians ARE citizens of this country. Are you ignoring that little fact?
Right, repeating history (including the role that both the native indians and the settlers played in killing each other) is not hate. What is hate and racism is blaming the white settler’s descendants for the past and many of our ancestors never killed anyone anyway.
I am sure there was some rape involved (mostly by the Spaniards, I might add) but there were far more mutual consent relationships and it doesn’t matter anyway how their offspring were conceived,they are still every bit as white as they are native indian. One can’t choose to deny a part of their genetics regardless. You need to take a course in genetics. Genetics are set in stone.
For example was your native indian grandmother raped by an Irishman? I doubt it but you would have us believe that they were all raped so you can deny the white part of you or the illegal aliens that you are defending.
I harbor no racism against anyone. I just believe in legal immigration and for immigrants all over the world to get a shot at the American dream within reasonable numbers every year. Not illegal immigration and mostly from one ethnic group. Is that what you call racism? LOL!
Look in the mirror for the true racist. You are the one hating white people. I hate no one.
Evelyn
My answer to all the spewing of BS cookie does was not posted.
I wont answer again because with every answer I do research to back up everything with facts, and it takes time.
I believe all the spewing of BS that cookie does is not worth double my time.
Spew on to your hearts content cookie!
HAPPY SPEWING!
cookie
Translation…Evelyn can’t dispute one thing I said so she calls it “spewing” BS”.
Marisa, I would be interested in your point of view on this subject. Do you hold the entire white race of “today” responsible for the sins of the past even though they weren’t even alive back then? Assuming you are of mixed Spaniard and native indian blood, do you deny the Spanish side of you? Do you believe that our country has no right to sovereign borders and to make its own laws?
Evelyn
cookie :
Translation…Evelyn can’t dispute one thing I said so she calls it “spewing” BS”.
I have disputed most everything you spew with ample proof. It is you who never presents proof of any kind to back up your spewing.
~
Marisa, I would be interested in your point of view on this subject. Do you hold the entire white race of “today” responsible for the sins of the past even though they weren’t even alive back then? Assuming you are of mixed Spaniard and native indian blood, do you deny the Spanish side of you? Do you believe that our country has no right to sovereign borders and to make its own laws?
If you cant take the truth (heat) get out of the kitchen! Cant stand on your own two feet. Would you like some cheese with that whine?
Cut the spin cookie, no one ever disputes the fact the U.S. has a right to have borders or to make laws. What we the American people dont accept is racism, racists, bigots, etc who would reather see this country go to hell in a basket reather then fix the broken immigration system by compromising on the issues so that our immigration laws can be fair and just instead of treating immigrants like they were the Jews and this was Hitlers era.
cookie
You failed to refute your claim that the entire white race is here illegally and that they are responsible for their dead ancestor’s actions. Many of us had ancestors that came way after the native indian conflicts. That is what I called you on and that is what you ignored and are calling “spewing BS”. You also failed to refute that you and most Mexicans are of mixed blood. WHITE BLOOD and native indian. So neither you nor they have anymore right to be in this country then the rest of the citizenry here. The tribes that the Mexicans are descendants of were the Mayans and Aztecs. They never lived in this country and they aren’t entitled to indigenous rights of the entire continenet just because they occupied land hundreds of miles south of here hundreds of years ago. I don’t see them banging on Canada’s door.
So just where is the racism and bigotry in the above statements?
We don’t treat legal immigrnts badly. We embrace them. So you are lying to yourself. This is about illegal immigration. You keep blurring those lines between legal and illegal. Our immigration laws are not broken, they just weren’t enforced. We have no obligation to legalize those who snuck into our country illegally. We tried that one before and now we have quadruple what we had back in 1986.
Racism and bigotry are words used to describe an opinion that one race is inferior to another. Where is that in this immigration debate? NOWHERE! As a matter of fact, Latinos have the second highest percentages of alloted legal immigration into our country.
You and yours need to put that race card and revisionist history behind you.
Evelyn
You want me to refute the fact that every white person that came to America was an illegal alien immigrant. How can I refute a fact.
How can I refute the fact that white people made laws to make themselves legal and laws to make the original inhabitants of America illegal? It is the truth.
You want me to refute the fact that I and most Mexicans are of Native American Indian and European ancestry. I cannot do that either, because that is also true.
Because our ancestors have roamed these lands for thousands of years we have a right to be here.
Some people like you are trying to strip us of that right like your ancestors did.
It wont happen again. We are better armed this time (with collage degrees.
Guillermo Banfil Batalla said it best.
The conquest of this continent did not end with the Spanish leaving, nor with the American Declarations of whatevers. The conquest bloodily, blindly, desperately staggers on. But unless you kill every single one of us and our descendants (or wipe our memories), this conquest will never succeed. Invent laws, invent courts, invent reasons why Indians are subhuman, but it doesn’t matter, your small-scale dreams and greed-stained papers flutter like sick flies in a mighty wind of inconsequence. Some of us keep our hearts in the hands of the Earth, our precious truths in the gold envelopes of the Sun, herself—places where time will not yield to the Lie. Some of us have deeper alliances than those formed by the Dollar. We are still here. We will be here to watch the balance restored.
Here is an article by Berry Carter of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community he explains it best.
The brown people of Mexico have been on the North American continent for tens of thousands of years. They are American Indians indigenous to America and thus cannot be illegal aliens. One cannot be both indigenous and alien since these are opposites.
Euro-Americans renamed them Hispanic, Latino, Mexican, Mestizo, Chicano for reasons of self-gain. By renaming them eventually people forget that they are Indigenous North American Indians.
Once forgotten then the American land is free for the taking.
All one has to do is look at a pre-contact map of the North American continent to see that the US-Mexican border, is an artificial line, that bisected the territory of Indian people, such as the Ute-Aztecan. The Ute-Aztecan territory covers much of current day Mexico, Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uto-Aztecan_languages
Thus the border is illegal, not the Indians. The Indian peoples never approved this border. Thus American Indians as illegal aliens in America is as ridicules as someone coming into your house, taking your house at gunpoint and then getting an illegal court order barring you from entering your own house.
It does not matter how many years pass it is your house. If you are the illegal alien in the house, what better defense than pointing the finger at the real owners as the illegal aliens, in order to hide your true status and theft.
It does not take a rocket scientist to simply look at Mexicans to know that they are American Indians. Demographics for Mexico show that 90% of the population is Indian.
So why then does Euro-America see Mexicans as illegal aliens and not as American Indians? Because it conflicts with their self-interest and vision of manifest destiny or “greedifest destinyâ€. They feel that they have some god given right to American Indian land and seeing Mexicans
as American Indians threatens this illusion.
~~~
The word “immigrant” has nothing at all to do with legal status. It means, simply, to move from one place to another for the purpose of settling down. Papers, no papers — it’s all irrelevant to the act of migrating. The claim can be dispatched easily enough with a little elementary etymology. The word “migration” first appears in the English language in reference to humans in 1611, some 37 years before the modern nation state, with its discrete borders, came into existence. The Latin root of the verb “to immigrate,” immigrare, predates that by more than a thousand years. Human migration is a phenomenon that dates back to before homo sapiens even existed — pre-modern humans migrated wily-nilly. So, clearly, the word “immigrant” has nothing whatsoever to do with one’s paperwork being in order; its roots predate the existence of contemporary legal systems.
When someone lies and blames immigrant children for the mess Bush made that has impacted our schools not having enough money to operate, that is racist. Only a bigot would scapegoat innocent children.
You and yours need to tone down the rhetoric and educate yourselves.
Being open minded is a virtue. Harboring racism is a burden.
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