Obama Sets Immigration Changes for 2010

By GINGER THOMPSON and MARC LACEY

Published: August 10, 2009

GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Flanked by his counterparts from Mexico and Canada, President Obama on Monday reiterated his commitment to pursuing comprehensive immigration reform, despite his packed political agenda and the staunch opposition such an initiative is likely to face.

Mr. Obama predicted that he would be successful but acknowledged the challenges, saying, “I’ve got a lot on my plate.” He added that there would almost certainly be “demagogues out there who try to suggest that any form or pathway for legalization for those who are already in the United States is unacceptable.”

But in the most detailed outline yet of his timetable, the president said that he expected Congress, after completing work on health care, energy and financial regulation, to draft immigration bills this year. He said he would begin work on getting the measures passed in 2010.

“Now, am I going to be able to snap my fingers and get this done? No,” the president said. “But ultimately, I think the American people want fairness. And we can create a system in which you have strong border security and an orderly process for people to come in. But we’re also giving an opportunity for those who are already in the United States to be able to achieve a pathway to citizenship so they don’t have to live in the shadows.”

The president’s comments came during a news conference at the end of a summit meeting of North American leaders aimed at increasing cooperation in the region and resolving some of the issues that have long strained trilateral relations among the countries, whose people and economies depend heavily on one another.

During the meetings, which began Sunday afternoon, Mr. Obama, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico and Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada discussed climate change and clean energy, swine flu, immigration, trade and organized crime. While it was clear at the news conference that the three leaders had not reached any significant new agreements, they expressed understanding for one another’s positions and vowed to keep working to resolve outstanding disputes.

Mr. Harper, for example, stood by a decision a month ago to require Mexicans to apply for visas but said that the problems were Canada’s, not Mexico’s. “It is simply far too easy to make a bogus refugee claim as a way of entering the country,” he said. “And we have to change that.”

A “Buy American” provision attached to the United States stimulus package has ignited a political storm in Canada. But on Monday, Mr. Obama played down the scope of the program, saying it was something he had grudgingly accepted to achieve the greater purpose of pumping money into America’s flailing economy.

“I think it’s important to keep this in perspective,” Mr. Obama said. “This in no way has endangered the billions of dollars in trade taking place between our two countries.”

Mr. Obama offered a spirited defense of Mr. Calderón’s efforts to rein in the drug cartels, a fight that has left nearly 4,200 people dead this year. Recently, Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, raised concerns about human rights abuses in the drug war, and Democratic legislators have threatened to withhold some financial support.

At the news conference, Mr. Obama said unequivocally that he would push for continuing America’s support for the Mexican effort, adding, “The biggest, by far, violators of human rights right now are the cartels themselves that are kidnapping people, extorting people and encouraging corruption.”

Mr. Calderón issued his own passionate defense, saying, “The struggle, the battle, the fight against organized crime is precisely to preserve the human rights of Mexican people.”

The Mexican Supreme Court supported the army on Monday by declining to take up a case pushed by human rights advocates that challenged the use of military prosecutors, instead of civilian ones, in pursuing charges against rogue soldiers.

If there were divisions on other issues, all three leaders seemed united in their support for Manuel Zelaya, the Honduran president who was ousted June 28 in what countries around the world have condemned as a coup.

“Let me be very clear in our belief that President Zelaya was removed from office illegally, that it was a coup and that he should return,” Mr. Obama said. He dismissed as “hypocrisy” the criticism from some in Latin America who say the United States has done too little to pressure Honduras’s de facto government to return Mr. Zelaya to power — among them Mr. Zelaya himself.

“The critics who say that the United States has not intervened enough in Honduras,” he said, “are the same people who say that we’re always intervening, and that the Yankees need to get out of Latin America.”

Because of Mr. Zelaya’s ouster, the United States has supported suspending Honduras from the Organization of American States and has cut $16.5 million in military assistance. The United States, which is Honduras’s largest trading partner, has been reluctant, however, to call for tougher economic sanctions.

Critics of Washington’s approach, led by President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, accuse the United States of placating the small group of Honduran elite who are among those who support Mr. Zelaya’s removal. Senior administration officials have said they were concerned about destabilizing the third-poorest country in the hemisphere.

Obituary: Emma Serrato Barrientos

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Emma Serrato

Barrientos Emma Serrato Barrientos, age 67, passed away in the early morning hours of December 28th after a brief illness. Emma was born in Galveston, Texas on February 18, 1942 to Miguel Serrato and Maria V. Serrato. She graduated from Galveston Ball High School in 1960 having been a member of the Ball High Tornettes. Through relatives, Emma met her future husband, Gonzalo Barrientos Jr. of Bastrop, Texas, at the age of 15. They married soon after graduating from high school and moved to Austin where Gonzalo enrolled at the University of Texas. Emma, Gonzalo and their growing family lived in near west, north and east Austin before settling on the south side in the late 1960s. Over the ensuing 50 years Emma would work for Lamme’s Candies, the Travis State School, Travis County Justices of the Peace Guy Herman (now a County Court at Law Judge), David Crain, Tomas Esparza, Juan Duran, Ricardo Madrigal, Mack Martinez, District Judge Lora Livingston and most recently, Travis County Constable Bruce Elfant. Emma was very supportive of her husband but also a leader in her own right. She truly believed that each of us possesses some gift or talent and that we have a corresponding duty to contribute to the betterment of our world. She was active in democratic politics for many years and worked on numerous local, state and national campaigns. She attended several Democratic National Conventions including those in Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Emma was a founding member of the Tejano Democrats and was particularly active in the Austin chapter at the time of her death. She was a permanent member of the Texas Senate Ladies Club, serving as president in 1999. In 2007 she participated in a minority rights conference in New York City sponsored by the Ford Foundation. A devoted mother, Emma made time to be involved in all five of her children’s activities including school functions, cultural and athletic events and booster clubs. A lover of the arts, Emma had a long history of work in the Austin Arts community. She was one of the founding members of the Roy Lozano Ballet Folklorico de Tejas, and instrumental in the creation of the Mexican American Cultural Center (MACC). Emma was also a spiritual woman of strong faith. She was a member of St. Ignatius Martyr Catholic Church, the St. Ignatius Thursday Bible Study Group and Stephen Ministries. Emma Serrato Barrientos was a tender soul whose kindness touched many people over her lifetime. Those left to cherish her precious memory include her husband, former State Senator Gonzalo Barrientos Jr; her children, Adelita Barrientos Medel (Matt), Veronica Barrientos Vidaurri (Jorge), Alicia Barrientos Lee (Martin), Angelina Barrientos and Gonzalo Joseph Barrientos (Lisa); a sister, Connie Flores (Raymond); brothers Fred Serrato (Maggie); Robert Serrato (Tina) and Miguel Serrato Jr.; ten grandchildren, numerous nieces, nephews, god children, extended family members and countless loving friends. She was preceded in death by her parents and a brother, Tomas Serrato. Pallbearers: Elias Thomas Barrientos, Jesus Alejandro Barrientos, Ruben Barrientos, Andrew Serrato, Raymond Flores, Jr., Javier Fuentes, Mario Fuentes and Antonio Fuentez, III. Honorary Pallbearers: Connie Flores, Velia Sanchez, Hon. Judge Bob Perkins, Alicia M. Barrientos, Matt Medel, Martin Lee, Jr., Jorge Vidaurri, John Cavallaro, John Ray Regalado, Richard and Gertrude Moya, Gloria Aleman, Hon. State Rep. Elliott Naishtat, Hon. Sandra Tenorio, David Flores, Sylvia Camarillo, Hon. Judge Lora Livingston, Hon. Constable Bruce Elfant, Arturo and Eileen Navarro, Jose Uriegas, Jr., Carlos Lopez, Mack Martinez, Johnny Limon and Yolanda Velasquez. Public Visitation will begin at 4:00 p.m., Friday January 1, 2010 at the Mission Funeral Home Serenity Chapel, 6204 South First St., Austin, Texas. A Rosary will follow at 7:00 p.m. Funeral Mass will be celebrated on Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 10:00 a.m., at the St. Ignatius Martyr Catholic Church, 120 East Oltorf St., Austin, Texas. Burial will follow immediately at the Texas State Cemetery, 900 Navasota Austin,Texas 78702. At your discretion, donations may be made in lieu of flowers to the Austin Community College (ACC) Barrientos Scholarship Fund in memory of Emma Barrientos, either through the ACC website: http://www.austincc.edu/foundation/scholarships/Barrientos.php or by mail, c/o The ACC Foundation (Barrientos Scholarship Fund), 5930 Middle Fiskville Rd., Austin, Texas 78752. To view memorial on-line, visit www.missionmemorials.com

Emma Barrientos championed Latino community, arts

Wife of retired state senator died Monday at age 67.

By Kate Alexander AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 12:34 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009

Published: 9:39 p.m. Monday, Dec. 28, 2009

Emma Barrientos, a champion for the arts in Austin and wife of retired state Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, died unexpectedly early Monday. She was 67.

Barrientos was an early advocate for the city’s Mexican American Cultural Center and served on the founding board of the Mexic-Arte Museum and as board president of the Austin Museum of Art.

“We all believed that the arts bridges communities, and I think that was her way of bringing the arts to every segment of the population,” said Travis County District Clerk Amalia Rodriguez-Mendoza, who knew Barrientos for 40 years.

Barrientos wanted cultural options for her five children, but there were few, said Velia Sanchez, one of Barrientos’ closest friends.

So the two women helped establish the Ballet Folklórico de Texas, a Mexican folk dance school and company. Barrientos’ daughters danced at the school.

Like her husband, Barrientos was a community activist and fought to ensure that the talents of Latinos in Austin were acknowledged and celebrated, Sanchez said.

Gonzalo Barrientos said that she marched with him in the streets for social justice and that they shared a philosophy that he was a public servant, not a politician.

“If she ever ran against me, she would have beat me,” he said Monday.

She played an active behind-the-scenes role in her husband’s political campaigns, beginning with his first — and unsuccessful — bid for the Texas House of Representatives in 1972.

When her husband decided to run again in 1974, Emma Barrientos said it took her three days to swallow the news because the family was financially strapped, according to a 2002 oral history recording at the Austin History Center.

“We were constantly — our life seemed to be driven by things that we thought … needed to be done, and we worked our finances out,” she said in the recording.

He won in 1974 and held that job until jumping to the Senate a decade later . He retired in 2007.

In 1999 , Emma Barrientos served as the president of the Texas Senate Ladies Club, an organization of senators’ wives.

“He was a senator for a reason,” said Fred Cantu , chairman of the Austin Tejano Democrats. “She was always making sure that things got done.”

The Travis County Democratic Party honored her earlier this year for her contribution over the decades to countless political campaigns. At the time of her death, Barrientos was helping plan next month’s statewide nominating conference of the Tejano Democrats, of which the former senator is the chairman.

She worked for Travis County for 30 years in various jobs, the last with Constable Bruce Elfant, before retiring in 2007.

Gonzalo Barrientos said his wife died within a day of becoming ill. Early indications are that a staph infection near her heart led to cardiac arrest.

She leaves behind her husband, five children and 10 grandchildren.

A rosary service is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday at Mission Funeral Home, Serenity Chapel , 6204 S. First St. On Saturday, a 10 a.m. burial Mass will be celebrated at St. Ignatius, Martyr, Catholic Church , 126 W. Oltorf St. , followed by burial at the Texas State Cemetery.

kalexander@statesman.com; 445-3618

Justice for Immigrants

Lou Dobbs, Looking at Public Office, Says He's in Favor of Policy He Used to Spin as “Shamnesty for Illegals”

By , . Posted November 26, 2009.

Dobbs said he now favors the very legalization process for unauthorized immigrants that he’s long derided as a brain-dead “amnesty”.

First, , Lou Dobbs gave up on the birther conspiracy theories. 

Then he said that perhaps he’d been wrong to assert that illegal immigrants were spreading leprosy far and wide across the U.S. ().

And now, in the ultimate betrayal of the faux-populist shtick he’s been riding all these years, Dobbs told Telemundo (in an interview caught by the Wall Street Journal) that he now favors the very legalization process for unauthorized immigrants that he’s long derided as a brain-dead “amnesty” policy pushed by pernicious liberal elites in order to keep down the wages of good, hardworking Americans.

If you’ve followed Dobbs’ career at all, you’ll understand that this is no standard-issue flip-flop:

Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, pondering a future in politics, is trying to wipe away his image as an enemy of Latino immigrants by positioning himself as a champion of that fast-growing ethnic bloc.

In a little-noticed interview Friday, Mr. Dobbs told Spanish-language network Telemundo he now supports a plan to legalize millions of undocumented workers, a stance he long lambasted as an unfair “amnesty.”

[...]

Mr. Dobbs twice mentioned a possible legalization plan for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., saying at one point that “we need the ability to legalize illegal immigrants under certain conditions.”

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Perhaps reports in The Onion are accurate, and Lou Dobbs really is an undocumented Mexican immigrant named Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez who’s been passing as an American citizen since 1961.

The only other explanation for Dobbs’ eye-opening reversal on comprehensive immigration reform is that the “fiercely independent” talk-show host is one of the greatest hypocrites the universe has ever known. Dobbs is reportedly eyeing a senate run in New Jersey. And here’s a fun fact: in the 2000 census (), Jersey was one of just six states with a foreign-born population of more than a million! And according to , it was one of the three states in which Latinos represented the highest share of new voters since

2000.

But I’m sure Dobbs’ sudden embrace of what he’s long derided as “” is heart-felt, and a result of sober introspection on the issue rather than some crass political calculation.

One has to pause for a moment and consider how Dobbs’ most loyal fans must be taking this news (in the unlikely event they’re fans of Telemundo). He’s always sold himself as a fearless, plain-spoken everyman whose lack of mushy-headed political correctness drove him to call it as he sees it, never mind the repercussions. And this ostensibly put him a world apart from those craven political elites who would sell out the white working-class in a heartbeat for a few dusky “new voters.”

That straight-talking right-populism has always been his appeal, and Dobbs’ most ardent supporters lapped it up. What a sad joke it is — sold out by their most passionate and visible champion. And how insulting it is to those fans that Dobbs even thinks he can hold onto their devotion and also try to soften his image with Latinos by going jiggly on the very issue on which his’ hard-line stance has long defined him.

He won’t be able to do it. Dobbs’ problem is one shared by anyone who goes too far with the anti-immigration rhetoric and then seeks public office — it reliably pleases the base and loses general elections (). Dobbs’ rants averaged 650,000 viewers out of a nation of more than 300 million; to grab a Senate seat he needs over half of New Jersey’s 3.6 million voters.

Now let me offer an easy prediction. Dobbs has always lied, , about the legalization provisions in the comprehensive immigration reform bills Congress considered during the Bush years. If he’s called on this flip-flop, he’ll continue to do so. He’ll say that he’s for legalization, “with conditions,” and spin it as if they weren’t the exact same conditions in the Senate bill which prompted Lou to shake his abnormally large head and marvel: “This is no longer amnesty, but shamnesty.”

As , the 2007 bill that Dobbs devoted so many hours condemning as a free ride for “illegals” was anything but — the whole narrative was a Big Lie. While an amnesty connotes simply making people legal — the bill Ronald Reagan signed required just a criminal background check and a very small paperwork fee — the Senate proposal would have required undocumented immigrants to prove they’d been working and paying taxes in the country for an extended time, then fork over $9,000 in fines and application fees (for a family of four), and that would only have gotten them to the back of the line, with a four-year “Z” visa. Then, after those four years were up, the head of the household would have been required to return to his or her native country and file an additional application — paying $4,000 more in penalties and application fees. Then, if the adults were to pass a health screening, an English proficiency test and another test of American civics, the family could become legal. But only after the backlog of existing applicants was cleared — no “cutting in line.”

The Lou Dobbs of this world knew all his at the time, and they also understood that people favor this approach as long as they know something about the various approaches to immigration control. That was the key finding in of a whole bunch of public opinion data by political scientist Ruy Teixeira during the 2006 immigration debate. “If you just ask, with no further specifications, whether we should make it easier for illegal immigrants to become legal workers,” Teixeira wrote, “you get a negative response … And you get an even more negative response on whether we should make it easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens. But that initial reaction turns around if it sounds like helping illegal immigrants to get legal worker status or to become citizens isn’t a free lunch for those who broke the law.”

Teixeira concluded:

… the public favors a tough, but not punitive, approach to the problem of containing illegal immigration and is willing to consider fairly generous approaches to the illegal immigrants already here, provided they feel expectations for these immigrants are high and that they will play by the rules.

Public opinion’s been relatively steady for years. Americans don’t like “amnesty,” but when pollsters explain that immigrants would be required to jump through some hoops to become legal — paying fines and back taxes, learning English and American history and getting in the “back of the line” behind those already working the legal process — large majorities say they favor the approach.

And while Dobbs prides himself on being the voice of the middle — of independents and pragmatic moderates — popular support for earned legalization, with those hoops, cuts across ideological and party lines. That was clear from a poll of Republican voters conducted this summer (). When asked if they support Congress passing “comprehensive immigration reform” without hearing details about the plan, 63 percent of GOP supporters said yes, and when given the details behind reform –  asked whether they’d support a law that would “Secure the border, crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, and require illegal immigrants to register for legal immigration status, pay back taxes, and learn English in order to be eligible for U.S. citizenship” — almost nine in ten were on board.

Obviously, what they support is not in any way an “amnesty” policy — Americans don’t favor an easy ride. So Lou Dobbs and his fellow travelers just spun it and spun it until thousands of furious constituents flooded their representatives’ offices’ with complaints about what they thought the reform legislation contained. And not only did Dobbs call the proposals “amnesty bills,” he also had the nerve to accuse his opponents of dishonesty when they tried to correct the record.

Now, as he considers public office, he’ll counter-spin, claiming that he’s always

championed a pragmatic approach to undocumented immigrants based on a tough-love process of earned legalization. But don’t be fooled — when it comes to “shamnesty for illegals,” Lou Dobbs was against it before he was for it.