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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (191486)	6/23/2004 12:36:21 PM
From: Tenchusatsu	Respond to of 1578531

Jim, Bush has 5 months to clean up his act on some things that are important. You might be interested in this: latimes.com It might be news to you that the border patrol is now making arrests further inland from the border checkpoints. ***** Groups May Sue to Halt Arrests by Border Patrol** Activists consider action to stop a crackdown in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. By Sandra Murillo, Times Staff Writer Latino community leaders and civil rights groups on Tuesday said they might take legal action to stop a U.S. Border Patrol crackdown on suspected illegal immigrants in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. "The only way to stop this is if the community comes together," said UC Riverside political science professor and local organizer Armando Navarro. "All of a sudden, the Border Patrol is hitting different parts of Southern California away from the border. Something is going on." Navarro and other activists met at the Villasenor Branch Library in San Bernardino on Tuesday evening to coordinate their efforts against the Border Patrol, vowing to file lawsuits and engage in civil disobedience if the arrests continue. Since June 4, agents have arrested more than 200 suspected illegal immigrants in the two counties. Agency officials said arrests are a result of a shift in tactics by one Border Patrol station based in Temecula, and not a new national crackdown. Richard Kite, a Border Patrol spokesman with the San Diego sector, said Tuesday that there had been no recent sweeps but that the operations would continue "based on intelligence received" from law enforcement agencies or citizens. He said the protests would not stop the inland patrols. Agency officials have said the arrests were made after "consensual conversations" between agents and residents being questioned, and they denied allegations that agents were using racial profiling to target suspects. A letter made public Tuesday from U.S. Rep. Joe Baca (D-San Bernardino) to Robert Bonner, commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, expressed concern over "the apparent expansion of your jurisdiction to engage in disruptive enforcement in crowded residential and workplace communities." Patricio Guillen, executive director of Libreria del Pueblo, a private social service group, called the arrests "something that is unfair and uncalled for." Carlos Giralt-Cabrale, the Mexican consul in San Bernardino, said Tuesday night that the arrests appeared to be localized incidents. "It doesn't appear to be a general shift in policy," Giralt-Cabrale said. "We will remain vigilant and try to stay abreast of any actions that might constitute a violation of human rights." Representatives for both the American Civil Liberties Union and Mexican American Legal Defense Fund said that they were interviewing people arrested or questioned by the federal agents to see if their civil rights were violated. "We've been inundated with calls describing what the Border Patrol is doing, but we want to verify all these stories," said Ahilan Arulanantham, staff attorney at the ACLU. "We definitely know that there were some very, very unusual and frightening activities [occurring], but we don't have a huge amount of detail about exactly what's happened." MALDEF has three attorneys, two paralegals and several interns researching the constitutionality of the Border Patrol arrests, said Martin Munoz, vice president of public policy. They too are verifying and documenting accounts and do not yet know enough to decide on whether legal action is appropriate, Munoz said. "We're concerned about the constitutionality of certain actions, but we're still researching, and we'll see," Munoz said. "Whether you have your documents or not, the Constitution protects everyone." Navarro said the mass arrests in cities away from the border are a return to what occurred regularly in the late 1970s and 1980s. In 1994, when "Operation Gatekeeper" began under the Clinton administration, focusing on illegal immigrant crackdowns at the Mexican border, inland patrols largely ceased, he said. "This was commonplace in the late '70s, early '80s. They pulled back with the militarization of the border in 1994. As a result of that, it quieted down in Southern California for a while."

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (191486)	6/23/2004 3:32:24 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1578531

Bush has issues... Whether Kerry outweighs them is another question. Bush has 5 months to clean up his act on some things that are important. If he doesn't a lot of people will sit home come election day. I don't think there is enough time to clean up his issues. Even the economy.....his strong suit right now....is wavering. However, Bush's GOP base is very much intact........after all, this election is not about the best man for the job but rather about whose ideology will rule. A clash long in the making is about to make itself very apparent this fall.