REFLECTION-class discussion

Class discussion was better than ever because more people talked and mj, xsabiar, israel had great points and other people that talked also and i know like always i didn't talked because i'm VERY shy and i don't know i just get nervous. Immigration is a big issue in this country my question is, IS IMMIGRATRION EVER GOING TO BE ACCEPTED IN  THE U.S.? I actually have a lot of questions but whos going to answer my questions i know my mom or dad ain't. Class discussion should be posted on the internet so the world can see what we "teenagers" think about the issues in the u.s. i would want to be heared and i think a lot of us do too. Someone important should go to one our class discussions and that way they can see what great points my classmates have. I really think that the next discussion will be even better because hopefully their are going to be more of my classmates participating inluding ME. I will make sure i will bring out good points. I really think that it started off good but somehow it got to racism and it happens i mean you can't stop yourself from saying something you want to bring out.

Rescue efforts transition to recovery in hard-hit Alabama

By the CNN Wire Staff

April 29, 2011 11:37 p.m. EDT

Obama tours Alabama storm damage

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Alabama town "looks like a war zone"
• Alabama death toll rises to at least 238
• President Barack Obama: "I've never seen devastation like this"
• He promises "to do everything we can" to aid rebuilding

Read more about this story from CNN affiliates WBMA-TV and WIAT-TV.

Tuscaloosa, Alabama (CNN) -- Hopes of finding trapped survivors dwindled Friday evening in Alabama, the epicenter of storms that obliterated neighborhoods and towns and claimed scores of lives across the South.
Gov. Robert Bentley, speaking in Birmingham, said the long road to recovery will now begin.
"We've gotten past the rescue stage," Bentley said. "We have begun the recovery stage."
Earlier Friday, President Barack Obama toured rubble-strewn neighborhoods in Tuscaloosa, declaring the devastation brought by a series of powerful storms and tornadoes was beyond anything he had ever seen.
The storms killed at least 326 people in six states and left entire neighborhoods in ruins. Obama promised expedited federal aid to states affected by the tornadoes.
Has the severe weather affected you? Share stories, photos and video with iReport.
"We're going to do everything we can to help these communities rebuild," he said.

 

Wednesday's outbreak of severe weather brought what the National Weather Service categorized as a rare EF-5 tornado to one Mississippi town.
And according to the weather service, it's possible another twister was on the ground for 200 miles from Mississippi through Alabama.
The extent of the devastation became evident by Friday, when the death count in Marion County in northwest Alabama rose from three to 21, according to the state Emergency Management Agency. It said 20 people were missing.
See hi-res photos of the devastation
Marion County Sheriff Kevin Williams put the number even higher -- 29 people dead in the city of Hackleburg and six in Hamilton. The Hackleburg fatalities included 16 on the scene and 13 who died at several hospitals, he told CNN.
"It's pretty much wiped out," Williams said of the town. "It looks like a war zone."
The possible tornadoes destroyed a Wrangler clothing plant, a pharmacy, doctor's office and three schools, officials said.
Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia and Louisiana
Alabama suffered the greatest of loss of life, with fatalities in 19 counties confirmed by the state Emergency Management Agency. The agency reported Friday evening that the state's death toll had risen to at least 238.
In Tuscaloosa, Obama's motorcade passed street after street of homes reduced to splinters, crushed and flipped cars, and widespread debris on the way to his first stop to visit with families affected by the storms that pounded the region Wednesday and Thursday.
"I've gotta say I've never seen devastation like this," Obama told reporters.
Tuscaloosa city officials reported 45 deaths as of Friday afternoon, but later revised that to 39 because of a counting error. That change was not immediately reflected in the state's total.
People's lives have just been turned upside down
Nearly 450 people were unaccounted for Friday afternoon in the city, although they were not necessarily missing.
The president's visit took place as emergency responders in Alabama and five other states continued to assess the damage wreaked by one of the worst outbreaks of violent weather in the southeastern United States in decades, experts said. The storms leveled neighborhoods, rendered major roads impassable and left nearly 800,000 customers still without power Friday evening.
CNN iReporter Stephen Bozek, a broadcast news major at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, snapped a photo of a U.S. flag affixed to an overturned vehicle.
"The neighborhood is torn to pieces and the flag flying represented the unity (of) this town," Bozek wrote.
In Mississippi, where 34 were confirmed dead, Gov. Haley Barbour told reporters that some people remain unaccounted for and rescuers could still find bodies in the rubble or in the waters surrounding Smithville, where 14 of the state's known death's occurred.
He said the city was a scene of "utter obliteration."
On Friday, the National Weather Service said the tornado that struck Smithville on Wednesday was an EF-5 storm with peak winds of 205 mph. The last such tornado recorded in the United States struck May 25, 2008, in Parkersburg, Iowa.
The scene at Tuscaloosa's 'Ground Zero'
The tornado, the Weather Service said, destroyed 18 homes, a post office, a police station and a water treatment system. In addition to the 14 deaths, it caused 40 injuries, the weather service said.
Obama issued a federal disaster declaration for seven Mississippi counties.
The storms also left 34 people dead in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Arkansas.
In Alabama, emergency management officials said Friday that 35 teams have been deployed to Tuscaloosa and six other counties hit hardest by the storms to assist in recovery efforts.

 

 

 

 

Officials also warned Tennessee motorists not to cross the Alabama state line without filling up their tanks first. Widespread power outages and devastation from the storms have likely rendered functioning gas stations in northern Alabama hard to find, according to a statement released by officials in both states.

The storms cut swaths of death and destruction along U.S. Highway 72 in northern Alabama and Interstate 59 from Tuscaloosa County to the northeastern corner of the state.
Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox said at least one strong tornado swept through the city, leaving dozens of roads impassable and destroying hundreds of homes and businesses.
"It literally obliterated blocks and blocks of the city," Maddox said.
The city remained under a curfew for Friday night that was scheduled to expire at 6 a.m. Saturday. City officials early Friday also advised Tuscaloosa residents who live south of the Black Warrior River and east of McFarland Boulevard to boil their tap water.
Obama had signed a disaster declaration for Alabama, which enables storm victims and damaged businesses in eight counties to seek federal aid.
Outbreak could set tornado record, experts say
Such aid will be critical, Birmingham Mayor William Bell told CNN affiliate WBMA.
"It's beyond our local resources so we're going to have to get the federal government involved," Bell said. "The president assured us that he would do that."
The storms are being compared to the "super outbreak" of tornadoes on April 3 and 4, 1974, Craig Fugate, the FEMA administrator, said Thursday.

In that period, 148 tornadoes were reported in 13 states, and 330 people died. States affected were Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

Is the next immigration fight over 'anchor babies'?

By Ed Hornick, CNN

April 28, 2011 -- Updated 1716 GMT (0116 HKT)

Opponents of illegal immigration mount a small counterdemonstration last year in New York City.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• 'Anchor babies' is a term used to describe children born in the U.S. to illegal immigrants
• The U.S. Constitution says they are U.S. citizens
• Some immigration activists say the Constitution's 14th Amendment should be clarified

Washington (CNN) -- While the nation's political dialogue was hijacked over the issue of President Obama's birthplace, bubbling below the surface is the fact that a child of illegal immigrants born in the United States -- derided by some as "anchor babies" -- could one day be president.
Under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
So under the law, children of illegal immigrants born on U.S. soil are automatically granted citizenship. It's a point backed up by the U.S. State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. However, some critics, such as U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner, have questioned whether those children are "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S.
Stoking the larger debate is the fact that under the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, those children may sponsor other family members for entry into the U.S. when they reach age 21.
Critics say they, in turn, anchor family members outside the U.S. on American soil, creating an end-run for illegal immigration.
The issue is not a new one. In 1993, Sen. Harry Reid, who is now the Senate majority leader, blasted the rise in what amounts to legal illegal immigration because of the stress it places on the system.
"If you break our laws by entering this country without permission and give birth to a child, we reward that child with U.S. citizenship and guarantee a full access to all public and social services this society provides. And that's a lot of services," he said.
That position has been recently taken up by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, among others in Congress.
And state governments are taking matters into their own hands.
In February, Arizona state Sen. Ron Gould, a Republican, pushed for a bill that would ban U.S. citizenship for these babies. The proposal was later rejected.

I think most of the legal and constitutional scholars who have spoken on the issue have said the Constitution is clear on the issue of citizenship.
--Clarissa Martinez de Castro, National Council of La Raza

In January, a group known as the State Legislators for Legal Immigration proposed a legislative "fix" to prevent these babies from being citizens. The coalition of lawmakers from 40 states says the 14th Amendment has been wrongly applied to those born purposefully on U.S. soil to gain American citizenship.
The National Council of La Raza, the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., is lashing out against recent attempts in several states to change the 14th Amendment because of anchor babies.
And the group has the backing of the American public, according to a 2010 nationwide poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. A majority of Americans -- 56% -- opposed changing the 14th Amendment; 41% favored changing it.
Clarissa Martinez de Castro, director of immigration and national campaigns for the National Council of La Raza, says opponents want to take their cause all the way to the Supreme Court.
"Even the state legislators who announced they were trying to push this measure and tinkering with the 14th Amendment acknowledge that what they're seeking is a lawsuit and to take this to the court," she said. "I think most of the legal and constitutional scholars who have spoken on the issue have said the Constitution is clear on the issue of citizenship."
Martinez de Castro said that if advocates want to change the nation's immigration policy, they should fix it rather than tinker with the Constitution.
Jon Feere, a policy expert with the nonpartisan Center for Immigration, agrees.
Feere said that even if the wording of the amendment is changed so children born to illegal immigrants are not granted U.S. citizenship, "you're still going to end up with illegal immigration and illegal immigrants having children in the U.S."
"The result of that is we have an influx of illegal immigration," he said. "So I think a lot of people feel that our immigration and citizenship system is controlled by immigrants rather than citizens, because when you think about it -- 'Who is a U.S. citizen? What will our future look like?' -- The (babies) are the ones who decide."
The American Resistance organization says "the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 to protect the rights of native-born Black Americans, whose rights were being denied as recently freed slaves."
The group, which describes itself as "a coalition of immigration crime fighters opposing illegal and undocumented immigration," said that the intent of the amendment "was clearly not to facilitate illegal aliens defying U.S. law at taxpayer expense."
According to a Pew Hispanic Center study released in late 2010, 79% of the 5.1 million children of unauthorized immigrants were born in the U.S.
Almost one of four children born in the U.S. in 2008 had parents who were immigrants, the study also found. Of those, 16% of the parents were legal immigrants and 8% were in the U.S. without proper documentation.

In addition, more than three-fourths of all unauthorized immigrants in the United States in March 2009 were Latinos, the study said. And nearly one of every four children under age 18 in the nation was Hispanic. That trend is likely to continue, the study found.

FBI given piece of Pentagon wall hit during 9/11 terror attack

By Carol Cratty, CNN Senior Producer

April 27, 2011 7:30 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• 800-pound limestone block to be displayed in FBI lobby
• Bureau is honored for its assistance in 2001
• Another chunk to go to New York

Washington (CNN) -- A chunk of a Pentagon wall smashed by a plane hijacked by 9/11 terrorists was presented to the FBI's Washington field office Wednesday in recognition of its assistance.
During a military ceremony, the FBI received an 800-pound limestone block that was recovered from the west facade of the Pentagon and has been kept in storage for almost 10 years.
The head of the FBI's Washington office, assistant director James McJunkin, said the stone will be permanently displayed in the building's lobby "so that every visitor who enters this building, every employee who walks through these doors, and every agent assigned to this post will remember what happened on that horrific day, what the bureau did in response to that attack and the unending commitment we have to never letting it happen again."
McJunkin said FBI agents arrived at the Pentagon six minutes after the plane hit the building. "We found the scene reflected what America saw on their televisions that day: confusion, destruction, dread," he said. By day's end, the bureau had 700 agents and support staff on site who set up a security perimeter to guard against possible follow-up attacks. Agents then began to collect evidence while simultaneously respecting the remains of those who died. The evidence-gathering continued for three weeks.
Maj. Gen. Karl Horst, of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington, said FBI agents responded "with extraordinary heroism when -- without warning -- they were called upon to perform their duty in the midst of an unimaginable act of terrorism."
Horst and FBI officials said September 11 required law enforcement, the military, fire departments and medical teams to work closely together without regard for jurisdictional issues.
John Perren, one of the FBI officials who rushed to the scene, warned, "Al Qaeda will not go quietly, it is resilient, it adjusts its tactics." Perren led the local Joint Terrorism Task Force on September 11.

The military reserved two other 800-pound chunks of Pentagon wall, one for the Arlington County (Virginia) Fire Department, which responded to the Pentagon attack, and one for the New York City Fire Department.

Hundreds begin protests against Florida immigration bills

By Nick Valencia, CNN

April 26, 2011 5:58 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Demonstrators are mostly students, farm workers, immigrant families and advocates
• Bills would force employers to verify proper documentation, senator says
• The bills come as Arizona's immigration law is stuck in a federal appeals court

(CNN) -- With less than two weeks before the scheduled last day of the Florida legislative session, demonstrators against the state's proposed immigration bills are putting on a full court press.
On Monday an estimated 600 people, mostly Hispanic students, farm workers, immigrant families and advocates, boarded buses from Clearwater to the capitol building in Tallahassee where they began a week of scheduled demonstrations against SB 2040 and HB 7089.
The bills come as Arizona's immigration law is stuck in a federal appeals court.
If passed, Florida's bills would turn "all local law enforcement into immigration agents," the League of United Latin American Citizens said in a written statement.
"With these powers, local police can ask anyone for papers regardless of their status. Just like Sheriff Joe Arpaio does in Arizona," the statement said. "This bill also mandates 'e-verify' for all businesses under the threat of license revocation."
Republican Sen. Anitere Flores proposed one of the bills.
"Senate Bill 2040 in its current form simply seeks to ensure that in a time of such great unemployment, employers are verifying that any new employees hired have proper documentation to work," Flores said in an email to CNN. "Senate Bill 2040 does not deputize police officers, nor does it criminalize immigrants."
She is against an Arizona-style immigration bill, she said.
Gov. Rick Scott has indicated that he is in favor of moving along with immigration reform soon, but he has come short of endorsing the proposed bills.
HB 7089 would give law enforcement the ability to check the documented status of people under criminal investigation if there is "reasonable suspicion." It would also make being undocumented a state crime.

The scheduled last day for the Florida legislative session is May 6.

Arizona governor criticizes birther 'distraction'

 

April 25th, 2011

09:21 PM ET

Washington (CNN) - Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who vetoed a bill in April that would have required presidential candidates to prove they were American citizens born in the United States, thinks the so-called birther movement is a "huge distraction."

"It's just something that I think is leading our country down a path of destruction and it just is not serving any good purpose," Brewer said Monday on CNN's "John King, USA."

Brewer's move effectively stopped the bill unless state House and Senate lawmakers garner a two-thirds majority needed to override Brewer's veto.

The former Arizona attorney general said she does not regret her action on Arizona's "birther bill," which she said was a veiled attack on President Barack Obama.
"In Arizona, you know, it was pretty well known it was directed, I believe, at the president of the United States," Brewer told CNN Chief National Correspondent John King. "Our bill was crafted poorly and it would not serve the people of Arizona. It was a distraction. I don't feel any regrets about vetoing the bill."
Brewer received national attention when she signed the controversial immigration bill into law in 2010 that gave law enforcement officials greater authority to arrest illegal immigrants. Since then, federal courts have struck down many of its major provisions, but she vowed Monday to keep fighting.
"I certainly will not drop our lawsuit," Brewer said. "I feel very, very strongly about moving forward and I intend to get it all of the way to the Supreme Court."

ps: I think she's trying to make obama look bad and show that he's not doing a good job as a black president.

Body of N.C. honor student missing for months found floating in river

By the CNN Wire Staff

April 21, 2011 9:30 p.m. EDT

Phylicia Barnes said she was going to get something to eat and then disappeared.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Police say there are no "overt"signs of wounds or injuries on Phylicia Barnes
• NEW: Hers and another body were found in a river, three to four miles apart
• NEW: A top officer says her body could have been in the cold water since December
• That's when she was last seen in Baltimore, where she was visiting her half-sister

(CNN) -- The body of a 16-year-old honor student from North Carolina -- missing since December -- has been found in a Maryland river, her father and police said Thursday.
Russell Barnes, the girl's father, said that a female body found in the Susquehanna River in northeast Maryland is that of his daughter, Phylicia Barnes. It was recovered about 40 miles from where she was last seen, in the city of Baltimore.
On Thursday night, Maryland State Police Superintendent Terrence Sheridan and Baltimore Police Commissioner Fred Bealefeld confirmed at a press conference that the body is that of the teenager student from Charlotte, North Carolina.
"All of us, since that fateful day, have been praying and hoping for a different outcome," said Bealefeld. "But unfortunately, we are here today."
Phylicia Barnes' body was one of two found Wednesday in the river -- one south and the other north of the Conowingo Dam -- state police said.
Her body was recovered around 10 a.m. that morning, less than three hours after people spotted it and flagged down police, said Sheridan. Authorities spotted another body -- which hasn't been indentified but was described by the superintendent as a black male weighing 240 pounds and standing about 6 feet, 4 inches tall -- floating in water about three to four miles away just before 2 p.m.Wednesday. There were no clothes on either body.
"There's no other indication of any connection," Sheridan said of the bodies, besides the fact both were found in the same river, though he didn't rule out a link.
The teenage girl said she was going out to get something to eat and maybe a haircut when she left a residence in Baltimore where she'd been staying with her half-sister, according to that city's police.
Later, authorities said they feared that Barnes had been abducted or otherwise harmed. She had left her debit card where she was staying, and hadn't answered her cell phone since her disappearance, her mother, Janice Sallis, told HLN.
Sallis, who described herself as very "protective" as a mother, said she was "stunned" and "devastated" after learning from one of Phylicia Barnes' siblings "there was a listing of 20 different guys going in and out" of where the teen was staying. The mother claimed that the daughter was also allowed to drink alcohol.
On Thursday, Russell Barnes said that his daughter didn't know anyone besides immediate family in Baltimore.
"She's a well-loved individual, with everyone," Russel Barnes told HLN's "Nancy Grace."
According to police, Phylicia Barnes communicated through text messages with her half-sister about 12:30 p.m. the day she disappeared.
The half-sister's ex-boyfriend was moving out of the apartment and he saw the teenage girl on the couch around 1:30 p.m. But he said when he came back around 5:10 p.m., she was not there there. The door was reportedly unlocked, and music was blasting very loudly in the apartment.
In January, Baltimore police spokesman Anthony J. Guglielmi said the FBI did a profile on the girl and found no reason that she might run away. She was a good student with no major emotional disturbances in her life, he said.
"The fact set of this case is different than anything else we've seen," he said.
Her body was positively identified at the Baltimore city medical examiner's office thanks to a tattoo on "her lower extremity," said Sheridan. He added there was "no indication of any overt wounds or injuries," nor any indication either body found was weighed down.
The superintendent said the bodies may have been dumped much further down the fast-moving river, and said that its cold temperatures may have prevented the bodies from signficantly decomposing for several months.
"The medical examiner has indicated that it's not out of the ream that the body could have been there" since December, said Sheridan. "If you look at that river, look at how fast it's moving, all sorts of things could have happened."
Bealefeld, the top policeman in Baltimore, vowed that authorities will "work as hard now as we've worked all those days since December 28." A city police spokesman earlier said more than 100 Baltimore police officers, Maryland State Police troopers and FBI agents had been working on the case.
"Our goal is simply to bring closure to Phylicia Barnes' family ... and hold those responsible accountable," Bealefeld said.
The girl's father called the discovery of her body a "first step" in providing closure. But he said that the family won't be fully satisfied until justice is done.

"We're still not finished," Russell Barnes said. "We're going to find out what happened with Phylicia ... There are a lot of answers that we need to find out."

90,000 Botswana government workers on strike

By Oarabile Mosikare, For CNN

April 21, 2011 2:07 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Nearly 90% of government workers are on strike in Botswana
• They are seeking a 16% pay raise
• Their salaries have not been increased for the past three years

Gaborone, Botswana (CNN) -- Public servants across Botswana are in the fourth day Thursday of a strike that is expected to last until April 29.
The strike began after the mediator between the five unions representing civil servants and the Directorate of Public Service Management gave the unions the go-ahead to strike.
The workers are seeking a 16% salary hike. The government of President Ian Khama has not increased civil servants' salaries for the past three years.
It is estimated 90,000 government workers out of a total of some 103,000 have been staying off the job.
It has been reported that 50 doctors at Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, the southern African nation's capital, have also joined the strike. This is in addition of hundreds of health workers, including nurses, across Botswana who have been off the job.
There are reports that some schools in the country have closed because of the absence of teachers and cooks.
But despite the five unions' threat to paralyze border posts, it has been business as usual at Ramokgwebana border post throughout this week.
Members of the Botswana Defence Force were deployed there to render service that is usually offered by immigration officers. The soldiers were apparently inducted on Sunday to man the border for the duration of the strike. They manned the offices in full military uniforms, allowing travelers in and out of the country.
This action, seen as disregard of strike rules agreed upon by the Directorate of Public Service Management, has incensed the unions.
"This is a clear contravention of strike rules, especially Section 37 of the Trade Dispute Act, which says an employer cannot replace (people) on strike before 14 days elapses. The government does not respect the rule of law," charged Ketlhalefile Motshegwa, secretary general of the Botswana Land Boards Local Authorities and Health Workers Union, who was making the rounds to assess the situation in the northeast.

Meanwhile, Khama and his Cabinet went on leave Monday after the adjournment of Parliament last Friday. Some union members have complained this shows the president is not taking their plight seriously

Government: Drug cartel leader 'El Kilo' caught in Mexico

By the CNN Wire Staff

April 18, 2011 11:25 a.m. EDT

Omar Estrada Luna, aka "El Kilo", of Los Zetas drug cartel, is presented to the press in Mexico City on Sunday, April 17.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: The Tamaulipas state governor appoints a new head of public security
• Martin Omar Estrada Luna has been captured, Mexico's government says
• He is a presumed leader of the Zetas drug cartel in northeastern Mexico
• Tamaulipas is one of Mexico's most active states when it comes to drug trafficking

Mexico City (CNN) -- Mexican authorities announced Saturday the arrest of a drug kingpin -- nicknamed "El Kilo" -- based in the country's northeast and suspected of having links to the mass graves recently found in the region.
Security forces have captured Martin Omar Estrada Luna, who is a presumed leader of the Zetas drug cartel in San Fernando, a town in the border state of Tamaulipas, the government said in a statement.
No information was immediately provided on how, when or where he was detained.
Mexico's attorney general had previously identified Estrada Luna as one of three prime suspects behind the mass graves.
Authorities began finding the graves earlier this month during an investigation into a report of the kidnapping of passengers from a bus in late March. The investigation led them to San Fernando -- the same place where in August of last year, the bodies of 72 migrants were found at a ranch.
Officials recovered 10 more bodies from the clandestine graves Wednesday and Thursday, bringing the total number of bodies found to 126, state attorney general's spokesman Ruben Dario Rios Lopez said.
In the wake of the grisly discovery, the Tamaulipas state governor appointed a new head of public security.
Tamaulipas is one of Mexico's most active states when it comes to drug trafficking. The Gulf cartel and the Zetas cartel operate in the state and have strongholds there.
The Zetas have been blamed for the mass graves and also for the deaths of the 72 migrants found last year. One of its presumed members, Jose Manuel Garcia Soto, was arrested earlier this month and is a suspect in the killing of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Jaime Zapata.

Nationwide, the Mexican government says there have been some 35,000 drug-related deaths since President Felipe Calderon began a crackdown on the cartels in December 2006.

Iraqi immigrant gets 34 years for killing 'too Westernized' daughter

By the CNN Wire Staff

April 15, 2011 8:56 p.m. EDT

Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 50, was convicted of second-degree murder, aggravated assault and leaving the scene.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• An Arizona judge sentences Faleh Hassan Almaleki to 34½ years in prison
• He was convicted in February on 4 counts, including second-degree murder
• Almaleki ran down his daughter and also hit the mother of the woman's fiance

(CNN) -- An Arizona judge sentenced an Iraqi immigrant on Friday to more than 34 years in prison, about two months after his conviction for running over his 20-year-old daughter because he claimed she'd become "too Westernized."
A Maricopa County, Arizona, jury in February convicted Faleh Hassan Almaleki, 50, of one count of second-degree murder in the death of Noor Faleh Almaleki. He was also found guilty of aggravated assault for causing serious injuries to Amal Edan Khalaf, the mother of Noor's fiance, as well as two counts of leaving the scene.
On Friday, Judge Roland Steinle sentenced Almaleki to a total of 34½ years in the Arizona Department of Corrections for his crimes. That includes 16 years -- less than the maximum possible sentence of 22 years -- on the murder charge, which will be served concurrently with a 15-year aggravated assault sentence. In addition, Almaleki will get consecutive 3½-year terms for leaving the scene.
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery applauded the judge's decision, saying "Mr. Almaleki will have an appropriately long time in prison to ponder this truth."
"The killing of one's own child is more than just a violation of the law," Montgomery said in a press release. "It is an offense against parenthood itself and the awesome responsibility parents have for nurturing and protecting their children."
Noor Faleh Almaleki died in November 2009 at an Arizona hospital, nearly two weeks after being run over by a Jeep in a parking lot in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria, authorities said.
Faleh Hassan Almaleki believed his daughter had become "too Westernized" and had abandoned "traditional" Iraqi values, Peoria police said. The family moved to the Phoenix area in the mid-1990s, and Almaleki was unhappy with his daughter's style of dress and her resistance to his rules, according to police.
Khalaf testified that Almaleki made no effort to stop before she and Noor Almaleki were struck, according to CNN affiliate KTVK in Phoenix.
Defense attorneys said Faleh Almaleki was trying to spit on Khalaf, but swerved and ended up running down both women, KTVK reported.
Almaleki chose not to testify in his trial.

After the incident, Almaleki drove to Mexico, abandoning his vehicle in Nogales, police said. He then made his way to Mexico City and boarded a plane to Britain, where authorities denied him entry into the country and put him on a plane back to the United States.

Congress passes budget deal despite GOP defections

By Alan Silverleib, CNN

April 14, 2011 9:21 p.m. EDT

 

House passes 2011 budget deal

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Obama tells ABC that some fiscal issues won't get resolved before the 2012 vote
• Congress passes the budget measure for the rest of the FY2011
• Democrats and Republicans remain at sharp odds over the fiscal year 2012 budget
• The two parties also have to reach an agreement over raising the debt ceiling

Washington (CNN) -- A budget deal reached last week to avert a government shutdown won approval Thursday from both the House and Senate, sending it to President Barack Obama for his signature.
The measure cuts $38.5 billion in spending while funding the government for the rest of the current fiscal year, which ends September 30. With its passage, the White House and Congress will now focus on what are expected to be more rancorous battles over a budget for fiscal year 2012 and the upcoming need to raise the federal debt limit.
A final-hour agreement last Friday in talks involving Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and House Speaker John Boehner included the spending cuts demanded by Republicans as a step toward controlling America's skyrocketing debt.
The measure passed the Republican-controlled House on a 260-167 vote. The bill would not have passed without support from members of both parties, as 59 members of the Republican majority opposed it, showing the challenge faced by Boehner in keeping his conservative Tea Party-infused caucus unified. amid politically perilous tax and spending negotiations with the Democrats.

The House vote also reflected growing liberal angst and anger over the impending spending reductions. Only 81 Democrats backed the measure; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, voted no.

In the Senate, the final vote was 81-19.
Under the deal, $38.5 billion would be from the budget including funding from a wide range of domestic programs and services such as high-speed rail, emergency first responders and the National Endowment for the Arts.
As part of the agreement, Congress also voted Thursday on measures to de-fund Planned Parenthood and Obama's health care overhaul. As expected, both passed the House and were defeated in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
One point of concern for conservatives was a report released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showing that of the $38.5 billion in savings, only $352 million will actually be realized this fiscal year. Boehner insisted Thursday that all of the cuts will take effect eventually, but conceded that the analysis "has caused some confusion" among House members.
"There are some who claim that the spending cuts in this bill ... are gimmicks," he said on the House floor. "I just think it is total nonsense. A cut is a cut."
Freshman Rep. Joe Walsh, R-Illinois, told CNN that the uproar "certainly doesn't help (Boehner's) case and added that he would oppose the bill.
"I'm disappointed," he said. "I just think we could have gotten more."
Regardless, the measure cleared Congress one day before the federal government's current spending authorization expires. Negotiators narrowly avoided a partial government shutdown last week by agreeing to the deal and passing a short-term spending measure to give Congress time to review the agreement.
In an interview Thursday with ABC News, Obama cited areas of agreement with Republicans in starting a process for reaching a deficit reduction agreement, but he conceded some deep-rooted differences will remain unresolved until after the 2012 elections.
Obama repeated his theme from Wednesday's speech on fiscal policy that America faces a choice between a budget-slashing Republican vision that will change how society functions and a revenue-raising Democratic vision that maintains the social safety net in place for decades.
So far, both sides generally agree on seeking deficit cuts of $4 trillion over the next 10-12 years, Obama said, and they have similar thoughts on some areas for fiscal reform and spending reductions.
At the same time, Republicans adamantly oppose Obama's call for increasing tax revenue by ending Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and other reforms that would eliminate loopholes.
In the end, Obama said, "some of it will be settled by the American people in the election, and I think that is how democracy should work."
Earlier Thursday, Obama said that "no matter how we may disagree between parties, no matter how much we spend time debating the issues, at some point we're going to have to come together as Americans."
He spoke uring a meeting with former Sen. Alan Simpson, a Wyoming Republican, and former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, the co-chairs of Obama's deficit reduction commission that issued its report last December.
As attention turns to larger battles over the fiscal year 2012 budget and raising the nation's debt ceiling, Democrats and Republicans continued expressing widely differing positions designed to appeal to their respective political bases.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin laid out the GOP's vision last week when he unveiled his 2012 fiscal blueprint. The congressman's plan, which he says would cut projected deficits by roughly $4.4 trillion over the next decade, calls for significant changes to Medicare and Medicaid -- two hugely popular entitlement programs.
Under Ryan's plan, Washington would eventually stop directly paying bills for senior citizens enrolled in Medicare. Instead, recipients would choose a plan from a list of private providers, which the federal government would subsidize.
Medicaid, which provides health care for the disabled and the poor, would be transformed into a series of block grants to the states. Republicans believe state governments would spend the money more efficiently and would benefit from increased flexibility, while Democrats warn that such a move would shred the health care security provided to the most vulnerable Americans in recent generations.
Ryan's plan also would overhaul key portions of the tax code, dropping the top rate for individuals and businesses to 25% while eliminating a number of loopholes.
The House is expected to pass the Ryan proposal Friday. Senate Democrats, however, are certain to block the measure.
Obama's budget plan, outlined in Wednesday's speech, aims to cut deficits by a combined $4 trillion over the next 12 years without significantly changing Medicare and Medicaid.
The president's plan includes a repeal of the Bush-era tax cuts on families making more than $250,000 annually -- something sought by Democrats but strongly opposed by Republicans. Obama also called for the creation of a "debt fail-safe" trigger that would impose automatic across-the-board spending cuts and tax changes in coming years if annual deficits are on track to exceed 2.8% of the nation's gross domestic product.
The president claimed that by building on or adjusting the health care reform bill passed last year, $480 billion would be saved by 2023, followed by an additional $1 trillion in the following decade. He proposed tightly constraining the growth in Medicare costs starting in 2018.
The rhetoric over the two leaders' respective plans has become increasingly heated in recent days.
In the ABC interview, Obama framed what he called the two choices that will face voters in the 2012 vote.
"We can't get everything the government offers and not pay for it," Obama said. "Either we don't pay for it, in which case we have a society that is not caring for our seniors the way it should, is not providing some basic security for people who really need it, and is not investing in the future.
"Or we can decide to continue on the path that has made us the greatest country on Earth," the president continued. "Make those investments. Have a basic social safety net. And we can do it without hurting the middle class or fundamentally changing these programs."
Earlier, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York said the Ryan plan would lower the tax rates on America's wealthy to the lowest levels "since 1931 when Herbert Hoover was president."
"Talk about trying to turn back the clock," said Schumer, who also pledged that "no plan to end Medicare as we know it will ever, ever pass the Senate."
Ryan, meanwhile, ripped Obama on Thursday for using "demagogic terms and comparisons."
The president's plan is "fundamentally unserious," Ryan said. Obama has brought himself "down to the level of the partisan mosh pit" and made it tougher for the two parties to reach an agreement, he said.
Against that backdrop, Democrats and Republicans also have to contend with an impending vote to raise the nation's debt ceiling. Congress needs to raise the limit before the federal government reaches its legal borrowing limit of $14.29 trillion later this year or risk a default that could result in a crashing dollar and spiraling interest rates, among other things.
GOP leaders have stressed that any vote to raise the cap has to be tied to another round of spending cuts or fiscal reforms.

The administration, in contrast, has called for a "clean" vote on the cap, which would raise the limit without adding any conditions. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney has warned that trying to force the issue would be tantamount to playing a game of "chicken" with the economy.

Rep: U.S. faces agriculture 'crisis' without farm-worker visa reform

By Rafael Romo, CNN Senior Latin American Affairs Editor

April 13, 2011 9:44 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• A congressional hearing focuses on migrant farm-worker visas
• Rep: "Simply not enough Americans willing ... to take the jobs of migrant farm workers"
• The Labor Department says nearly half of farm workers in the U.S. admit they are illegal
• Another congressman says if reforms are not enacted, the US. faces "a crisis in agriculture"

Washington (CNN) -- The agricultural industry in the United States could face a crisis if the country doesn't find a way to attract more legal farm workers from abroad soon. That's one of the conclusions reached Wednesday at a congressional hearing.
The House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement met to evaluate a migrant farm-worker visa program frequently used by Mexicans to legally work on farms and ranches across the United States. The H-2A visa program was created for that purpose back in the late 1980s.
Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-California, in his opening remarks as chairman of the subcommittee, said, "There are simply not enough Americans willing to do, to take the jobs of migrant farm workers. In fact, our government's policy for generations has been to remove Americans from such labor."
The lack of American farm workers and the labor needs of the agricultural industry coupled with low wages in Mexico create a situation in which the demand attracts many Mexican workers who enter the United States legally or otherwise.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor's National Agricultural Workers Survey, which canvasses hired farm workers, over the period of 2007 to 2009, 48% of farm workers in the country admitted they were in the United States illegally.
The agricultural industry has repeatedly asked the federal government to streamline and expedite the H-2A visa program as its labor needs have grown over the years.
Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association -- an organization with 600 grower members and the largest H-2A program user in the country -- said the current program is ineffective. Wicker called it "costly, time-consuming, and flawed. Farmers have to complete a lengthy labor certification process that's slow, bureaucratic, and frustrating."
Immigration remains a political hot-button issue in the country. Far from finding a way to legalize farm workers already in the country, many legislators at the federal and local levels are calling for stronger enforcement of the current immigration laws.
Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, said the argument that the country doesn't have enough farm workers and therefore has to import them is flawed. "I'm thinking about a nation that has a lot of people that are riding along on this boat and not pulling on the oars. Wouldn't a logical nation want to employ all of those that are eligible to work before they would bring people in, especially given that we have 71 welfare programs?" said King.
But Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-California, the subcommittee's ranking member, said Wednesday at the hearing that a hard approach, including deportations, wouldn't solve the problem.
"If we somehow deported the 1 (million) to 1.5 million undocumented workers on our farms and ranches right now, there are too few Americans jumping at the change to fill those jobs, and I suspect that's why we're having this hearing," Lofgren said.
Agricultural states like California and Florida would greatly benefit from an expedited visa program for farm workers. But Rep. Dan Lungren, D-California, says the appetite for such measures in the U.S. Congress is just not there.
"I doubt anybody running for president, including the incumbent, is going to run on the fact that he's going to be softer on immigration enforcement that he has been," Lungren said.

He went further, saying that if no action is taken, "we're going to have... a crisis in agriculture."

Mexico finds more bodies in mass graves, blames the Zetas

By the CNN Wire Staff

April 12, 2011 9:09 p.m. EDT

Photos from the Mexican attorney general show nine people detained in connection to mass graves in San Fernando, Mexico.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: The brother of a missing man says he's probably dead
• A total of 116 bodies have now been recovered
• Authorities are working to identify the dead
• 17 suspects have been detained so far

Mexico City (CNN) -- Mexican authorities said Tuesday they have so far found 116 bodies buried in mass, clandestine graves in the northern border state of Tamaulipas.
They had previously said they found 88.
Mexican Attorney General Marisela Morales told reporters that 17 suspects have been detained in connection with the killings, which she said were likely the responsibility of the Zetas drug cartel.
She said investigators are working to identify the dead and vowed to bring the guilty to justice.
Authorities began finding the graves earlier this month during an investigation into a report of the kidnapping of passengers from a bus in late March. The investigation led them to San Fernando, Tamaulipas -- the same place where in August of last year, the bodies of 72 immigrants were found at a ranch.
Ricardo Rivera, who lives in California, says his brother, Sergio, was kidnapped from a bus in Tamaulipas on March 25. He hasn't spoken to his brother since.
"He's probably dead," said Ricardo, adding that Sergio has four young children living in the United States.
"I don't want to tell them," he said. "They're too little. I don't want to break their hearts."
Tamaulipas is one of Mexico's most active states when it comes to drug trafficking. The Gulf cartel and the Zetas cartel operate in the state and have strongholds there.
The Zetas have been blamed for the killings of the 72 migrants found in San Fernando last year.
Nationwide, the Mexican government says there have been some 35,000 drug-related deaths since President Felipe Calderon began a crackdown on the cartels in December 2006.

"These reprehensible acts underline the cowardice and the total lack of scruples of the criminal organizations, which generate violence in our country, and especially in the state of Tamaulipas," Calderon's office said in a previous statement about the mass graves.

Why Mexico's violence is America's problem

By Raj Kumar, Special to CNN

April 11, 2011 12:07 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Raj Kumar says El Paso aware of the violence over the border in Mexico's Ciudad Juarez
• He says drug violence worsening; thousands have come to U.S. to escape
• Juarez failed city in failing state; U.S. should engage there as much as in conflicts abroad
• Kumar: U.S. must raise awareness, halt gun sales, money laundering, give more aid

Editor's note: Raj Kumar is president of Devex, an online community of aid workers and international development professionals.

(CNN) -- In the Coen brothers' movie thriller "No Country for Old Men," a grisly scene plays out in El Paso, Texas. Having discovered a bag of cash from a drug deal gone bad, a veteran recently returned from Vietnam ends up crossing the border into Mexico and fleeing a psychotic hit man before ultimately getting shot-up in a motel room.
A traveler to El Paso today could be forgiven for imagining himself in that movie scene. The West Texas town feels as though time stopped a few decades ago, and the psychotic hit men, having multiplied a thousand-fold, are roaming just over the border.
El Paso is not just a border town. It's really the smaller of two Siamese-twin cities, attached at the hip to Ciudad Juarez, its larger and more unruly brother that would easily overwhelm it if not for the international border that holds the two sides apart.
In recent years, Juarez has slipped deeper into a state of true chaos, a "failed city" inside a country inching closer to being a failed state. It's easy to ignore this infection quietly spreading just over our border, even as our interest is captured by conflicts much farther from home. But its proximity alone makes Mexico worthy of our national attention and immediate action before their crisis becomes our own.
By the numbers, Juarez isn't Mogadishu, Somalia, or Kandahar, Afghanistan. It's worse. Some 3,000 people were killed in this city of 1.5 million in each of the past two years. For several years now, hundreds of young women have disappeared in Juarez annually, only to turn up dismembered or tortured in ways too gruesome to recount.
Besides a report on the weekend movie box office hits and the latest budget battles in Washington and Austin, Texas, the Sunday TV news here in El Paso invariably notes the number of dead in Juarez over the weekend: 30, 40, 50, or more.
The city of El Paso is safe of course -- save for the stray bullets that hit the University of Texas campus here and City Hall recently, you might not notice what's taking place so close by.
But when your cellphone suddenly connects to a Mexican network while you're sitting at a coffee shop or the border highway takes you past a particularly grim-looking Juarez neighborhood, there's a flash of realization that two-thirds of this lovely, mountain-ringed metropolis is a war zone. (This month, the Mexican government announced that a former Army lieutenant colonel, Julian Leyzaola, will be the new head of public safety for Juarez, where he'll direct the military in a frontal assault on the cartels.)
These are the odd facts of life in El Paso. Locals dine at what can literally be called the most authentic Mexican restaurant in the United States, inasmuch as it has been forced to relocate here from Mexico because of extortion and violence.
Many thousands of Mexicans come to El Paso every day on border visas, enjoying the calm and rule-of-law this country offers during the day, and returning each evening to a nightmare. Those who can permanently relocate do. A study by the local university puts the number at some 230,000 so far -- 124,200 of them to El Paso and vicinity. But for most, there are family ties that require running the gauntlet of life in Juarez.
Then there is the story of the 20-year-old police chief of a town near Juarez. Marisol Valles García got the job in October because no one else would take it. She promised to not wear a uniform, not carry a gun and not go after drug gangs. Even she was chased out by threats on her life and arrived this month in El Paso with her baby son, asking for asylum.
El Paso residents are well-aware of their odd circumstance: They feel no personal danger, but all the while know a heinous crime might be taking place a stone's throw away. It's something like watching a movie. The only question is what role their own country will play.
The U.S. government is certainly involved to a degree -- USAID spent $28 million in Mexico for education and health programs in 2010, and our militaries are cooperating through the Merida Initiative, modeled in part on Plan Colombia that helped to beat back the cartels in that country.
But our efforts in Mexico pale by comparison to our national focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and the like. Last year when a pregnant American consular officer was killed in Juarez, along with her husband and the husband of another consulate official, it made the news but didn't spark a national conversation.
That conversation could have focused on the fact that almost half of all Mexicans live below the poverty line. This poverty provides fuel for the cartels' fire, giving them a ready supply of hopeless young recruits for their activities.
That conversation could have also forced us to ask our own government tough questions about our priorities and our plan to ensure that Mexico doesn't become a failed state whose problems pass through the porous membrane that is our border.
There will be no easy solution to stopping the downward spiral in Mexican cities such as Juarez, and certainly Mexicans will have to take the lead. But in addition to tough military tactics from Mexico's army, the U.S. needs to be at least as engaged in this conflict as we are in those that are thousands of miles away.
We can start by launching a national campaign, significant enough to be introduced with an Oval Office address by President Barack Obama, to raise awareness of what's happening just steps away from American cities such as El Paso and to galvanize support for a more robust U.S. engagement there.
Perhaps once Americans around the country see what is so clear from El Paso, we can put a stop to sales of grenades and assault weapons to cartels, crack down on the laundering of billions of dollars through U.S. banks and invest more in Mexico to create jobs and educational opportunities for their unemployed youths.
This might even be a moment when we take a hard look at U.S. drug policy -- traditionally a politically sensitive issue -- to consider reducing our law-enforcement emphasis in favor of more cost-effective prevention approaches such as drug education and treatment programs for our kids.
We have many priorities as a country, but visit El Paso, and you'll see that as much as any other overseas conflict, this is our fight, too.

Former Mexican president sees U.S.-Mexico relations as cold, distant

By Sandra Dibble

Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 9:17 p.m.

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox during an interview Thursday at USD's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice. / Photo by Peggy Peattie, U-T

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox spent Thursday on the University of San Diego campus, where he delivered a speech titled, “Advancing U.S.-Mexican Relations in the 21st Century.” He spoke about immigration, security, drug trafficking, economic cooperation and the development of his Centro Fox research center in his home state of Guanajuato, which also houses his presidential library — Mexico’s first.
The following are excerpts from his talk at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice, remarks made at a news conference and a separate interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Q: How do you see the U.S.-Mexico relationship?
A: It’s cold, it’s distant, it’s beginning to be conflictive. It never has happened before that a U.S. ambassador to Mexico resigned, or he was resigned. ... We have a big black cloud on the future of this relationship. We’re not having a vision of the future and where we should go.
Q: You are advocating NAFTA-plus, an expansion of the North American Free Trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico that was ratified in 1994. What do you see as the benefits?
A: We have to work together in a very positive, harmonious way for Canada, the United States and Mexico to regain the productivity that we have lost. The only way to compete is to put together our resources, by forming NAFTA-oriented corporations that will nourish our capacity to compete with Asian corporations.
Q: What do you think of U.S. states, including Arizona and Alabama, taking a stronger role in pushing immigration-related legislation?
A: They don’t see Congress taking action. They make their own decisions, their own wrong, xenophobic decisions.
Q: You and many other Mexicans have said Mexico is facing an unfair burden as it fights drug-trafficking groups supplying the U.S. market. Why?
A: Why are we trying to stop the drugs from crossing to the United States? Wouldn’t it be easier for the U.S. government, for President (Barack) Obama to give instructions to U.S. enforcement agencies and tell them stop drugs from moving freely within the United States? ... The United States is sending a few dollars to Mexico for the Merida agreement and some instructions, “Please Mexicans hold the drugs down there, we don’t want it here in the United States.” How many lives are we going to be sacrificing?
Q: You have been calling for drug legalization for the past two years. Why not during your presidency?
A: If I would have seen 40,000 people die during my term, believe me, I would have changed things. ... I see the process in the United States — how it’s advancing quickly toward legalization. I see cases abroad, like Portugal, and see a solution there.
Q: Last month, major Mexican news organizations agreed to guidelines for more restrained coverage of the drug-related violence in Mexico. Why are you against this pact?
A: Freedom does not have a degree. Freedom has to be all the way, even if in the name of freedom you make mistakes, even if in the name of freedom you affect others. This was done wrongly by the media in Mexico. I would like to hear their explanation of why they were forced to, either by the group or some leaders, to act like that. By taking out crime coverage from the papers, it’s not going to solve the problem in Mexico, that’s for sure.

Be in the know: Today's political bullet points

Posted: 02:10 PM ET

Every day we ask influential politicos to send us their top three bullet points that are driving the day's conversation inside and outside Washington.
Good day and it’s a consequential one here in Washington. President Obama again summons the congressional leaders to the White House, with the goal of averting a government shutdown. The president doesn’t want one, and Speaker Boehner doesn’t want one. So logic says there shouldn’t be one. But logic doesn’t always apply at the day care center, and sadly DC often appears to be one of late. As Erick notes below, there are real principles at stake — big questions about the size and role and reach of government. Those questions will be in sharper focus – and both the financial and policy stakes will be a lot higher – when the debate shifts to next year’s budget. Amid all the finger pointing in the current short-term fight, remember: we wouldn’t be here if Congress did its job and passed a budget last year. But Democrats (remember they controlled both the House and the Senate then) didn’t pass a budget, in part because they didn’t want to take risky votes in an election year. They are paying for that timidity now, as the new Republican majority demands more cuts and policy changes on issues like abortion and environmental regulation. Important developments in Libya and Japan today, too. Enjoy your day. – John King
RedState.Com Editor Erick-Woods Erickson:
- Remember back in January, the Democrats were telling us we needed a new tone. The hostile tone somehow caused Jared Loughner, a apolitical nut job, to assassinate a federal judge and attempt to assassinate Congresswoman Giffords. Now these same Democrats are proclaiming the death and starvation of the old and young because of Republican budget cuts.
- The media is doing a wonderful job of finding every kid who will be deprived of seeing Mount Rushmore because of a government shutdown and has resorted to the typical "they're behaving like kids" rhetoric. But beyond the simplistic narrative, there are, in fact, real principles at stake.
- Donald Trump at number two for the GOP? It has more to do with just how unexciting the others are.
Mario Solis-March: Senior Editor of MarioWire.com Mario Solis-Marich:
- New Play: The Wisconsin State Supreme Court race is potentially a game changer, is Obama watching the news?
- Return Engagement: Olympic champion Henry Cejudo is back in the wrestling ring and is dedicating his next Gold Medal to the fight for comprehensive immigration reform, let’s see if anybody dares call him an “Anchor Baby”.
- Stage Manager: Leader Harry Reid goes toe-to-toe with the GOP and is keeping the White House on track while refusing to gut social security making him the most powerful behind the scenes player in D.C.

59 bodies found in Mexico mass graves

By the CNN Wire Staff

April 7, 2011 8:23 a.m. EDT

Soldiers in Honduras last year unload the body of one of 72 immigrants who died in San Fernando, Mexico, in August.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Authorities discover eight mass graves in northern Mexico
• At least 59 bodies were recovered
• The local governor and the president of Mexico condemned the violence

(CNN) -- Eight mass graves were uncovered in northeastern Mexico Wednesday, holding at least 59 bodies, the Tamaulipas state attorney general's office said.
Authorities found the graves during an investigation into a report of the kidnapping of passengers from a bus in late March. The investigation led them to the town of San Fernando, the same place where in August of last year the bodies of 72 immigrants were found at a ranch.
This time, authorities arrested 11 suspects and rescued five hostages, the state attorney general's office said.
They also discovered the eight mass graves. There were 11 bodies found in the first six graves, 43 bodies in the seventh, and five in the eighth, the agency said.
Forensic investigators will examine the bodies in an attempt to identify them and to see if they are the missing bus passengers.
Tamaulipas Gov. Egidio Torre Cantu condemned the violence, and said he would collaborate with federal authorities to locate and punish those responsible.
"These reprehensible acts underline the cowardice and the total lack of scruples of the criminal organizations, which generate violence in our country, and especially in the state of Tamaulipas," the office of Mexican President Felipe Calderon said in a statement.
Read about a deadly four-day stretch in another part of Mexico
Amnesty International also called on Mexico to fully investigate, and it criticized the country's efforts to protect its citizens and migrants passing through.
"The mass graves found yesterday once again show the Mexican government's failure to deal with the country's public security crisis and reduce criminal violence which has left many populations vulnerable to attacks, abductions and killings," said Rupert Knox, a researcher on Mexico at Amnesty International. "All too often such human rights crimes have gone unpunished, leaving criminal gangs and officials acting in collusion with them free to target vulnerable communities, such as irregular migrants."
The nationalities of the victims found in the mass graves were not immediately known.
Tamaulipas is one of Mexico's most active states when it comes to drug trafficking activity. The Gulf cartel and the Zetas cartel both operate in the state and have strongholds there.

The Zetas have been blamed for the killings of the 72 migrants who were found in San Fernando last year.

Illegal migration from North Africa to Italy reaching crisis levels

By the CNN Wire Staff

April 6, 2011 7:42 p.m. EDT

A steady flow of North African migrants have set sail from Tunisia to the Italian island of Lampedusa.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Thousands of migrants leaving Africa for the Italian island of Lampedusa
• An estimated 100 to 250 people are missing in latest capsizing of boat
• Migration official: This is a "crisis" even if EU doesn't acknowledge that yet
• "The loss of life is all too common when it comes to this exodus," official says

(CNN) -- An estimated 100 or more would-be North African migrants remained missing Wednesday, a day after the boat they were in capsized in the Mediterranean Sea, officials said. The incident is the latest of a number of tragic ends in what has become a steady flow of people who set sail from Tunisia to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Political unrest, increased enforcement in other areas and calmer waters have all contributed to what is becoming an issue that the European Union will have to face.
Under a European Union directive, the member countries are to distribute a mass of unauthorized immigrants through a yet-to-be determined formula among all the countries, said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute. According to this directive, temporary protection is triggered when there is a "mass influx" of displaced persons,
This directive remains untested, but the current crisis is such that they might be forced to face it.
According to Papademetriou, more than 22,000 migrants have landed on Lampedusa in the past few weeks. Though owned by Italy, Lampedusa's closest shore is Tunisia.
"Of course, it's a crisis, but the Europeans do not want to call it a migration crisis," he said.
In the most recent incident, the boat was carrying about 200 passengers when it sank about 39 miles (62 kilometers) west off Lampedusa in Maltese waters, the Italian Coast Guard said. About 100 remained missing. That number is in some question. According to the International Organization for Migration, there were 300 passengers, and number of missing was even higher, at 250.
"The loss of life is all too common when it comes to this exodus," he said.
According to IOM, the majority of unauthorized immigrants arriving in Lampedusa are Tunisian and come from the Tunisian ports of Zarzis, Djerba and Sfax. Some 2,000 other African migrants have arrived on the island after sailing from the Libyan coast, the agency said.
A popular uprising in Tunisia led to the ouster of its president, Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali, in January. While protesters succeeded in spurring a regime change there, many Tunisians are not seeing the kind of transformation they were imagining.
"I come from Tunisia, everyone you see here comes from Tunisia, we are all afraid after the revolution that has taken place because nothing has changed up until now," said one migrant who made it to Lampedusa. "From the date of January 14 (when Ben Ali left), nothing has changed. All of us here, we are not asking for anything, we only ask for a possibility to find work in Europe."
In response to the migration, the Italian government has declared a humanitarian emergency and has asked the European Union for assistance in blocking their arrival.
This week, Tunisia's Interior Minister Habib Essid met with his Italian counterpart Roberto Maroni and signed the minutes of a technical agreement that would be the basis for an immigration policy based on economic, social and security considerations, the official TAP news agency reported.
The agreement will include economic development for regions in Tunisia that are considered zones from which most unauthorized immigrants come, TAP reported.
Italy also agreed to provide Tunisian authorities with the equipment to bolster its border security to deter Tunisians from making the perilous trip to Lampedusa.
In addition to the Tunisians, the unrest and fighting in Libya has created an influx of Libyans who have escaped to Tunisia and then out to sea.
Italy's foreign minister has estimated as many as 300,000 Libyans could try to leave and could potentially end up in his country.
The result has been overcrowding at Lampedusa.
The migrant reception center there has a capacity for 800, but almost 5,000 migrants are there, IOM reported.
Laura Boldrini, spokeswoman for the United Nations' High Commissioner for Refugees in Italy, said the overcrowding is very difficult to handle.
"We are in a worst-case scenario," she said. "We have tremendous population explosion in North Africa (and the) Middle East. Two-thirds of the population is under the age of 25. At the same time, the economies are completely dysfunctional and can't provide work and opportunity."
Meanwhile, the tales of ill-fated migration attempts pile up.
In February, survivors of one trip said that they were deliberately rammed by Tunisian authorities. As many as 25 people lost their lives in the water, the survivors said. The government says all but five survived and blames the captain of the boat for the collision with the coast guard vessel.

"After the army boat hit us, our boat flipped over upside down, and I saw my friend Waleed still holding onto the sinking boat," said one of the survivors, Wissem Ben Yehyeten. "I asked him to leave the boat, but it went upside down. Everyone who held onto the boat is missing or drowned. My cousin and I got a small piece of wood, which helped us get to the army boat seven hundred meters away. The water was so cold I don't know how we made it."