Immigrant Rights News -- Monday, November 17, 2008
Immigrant Rights News -- Monday, November 17, 2008
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1. AlterNet: Profligate Water Use in the U.S. Is Fueling the Flight of Mexicans Across the Border
2. New York Times: A Killing in a Town Where Latinos Sense Hate
3. Associated Press: Election spurs 'hundreds' of race threats, crimes
4.
5.
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AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story/106565/
Profligate Water Use in the
By Jo-Shing Yang, AlterNet
Posted on November 11, 2008
On October 21, 2008, the U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne inaugurated the ground breaking of the new
This reservoir, along with the $250 million project to line a 23-mile stretch of the All-American Canal, also in the Imperial Valley, with concrete to prevent water seepage to an underground aquifer, Mexicali Valley aquifer, which is used currently by Mexican cities and farmers, means that there will be substantially less water from the Colorado River and dire consequences for Mexico.
An estimated 67,000 acre-feet of water seeps from the canal annually. In 2006, the Mexican government and two
The losers are, naturally, poor Mexican peasants and subsistence farmers. Drought-induced social strains are the hardest for the most vulnerable people in
The problem with
As more than 85 percent of
The poor have staged street protests-the so-called tortilla riots-since January 2007 when tens of thousands of Mexicans marched to protest against a 50 percent price hike of corn tortillas. Now the subsistence farmers have even less water to irrigate their crops, which means decreased harvests and more expensive food staples further out of reach of the urban poor; but the livelihood of those living on subsistence farming will be affected as well by drought and water scarcity and higher food prices for the food they cannot grow and must buy themselves. Thus, this water scarcity and water insecurity is triggering food insecurity in
Global Climate Disruptions and Extreme Drought in
Like the southwestern
The Mexican drought has coincided with major changes in the Mexican economy and agriculture triggered by the North American Free Trade Agreement and moves to privatize water supply in much of
Scholars of climate and water resources have cited stories of poor farmers who find it more difficult to tap into groundwater to irrigate their subsistence crops using traditional, manual techniques due to a combination of factors: deforestation, drought, over-withdrawal of water by cities, and over-pumping of water by agribusiness and large ranchers. In Tamaulipas (the Mexican border state across from the
Unfortunately, with the construction of the new Imperial Valley reservoir and the lining of
For the past eight years, the Bush administration has not placed climate change and finding solutions to cope with extreme climate disruptions on of its list of priorities, nor has upgrading its domestic infrastructure been a priority: instead, fighting the war on terror and the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were its priorities.
What Really Drove
Several factors have contributed to
- Neoliberal policies and NAFTA's destructive impacts on
- Biofuel and ethanol production leading to soaring corn prices
- Commodities speculation by index funds and hedge funds
- Hoarding, speculation, and market consolidation by multinational food corporations
NAFTA. Millions of Mexico's medium-size and small farmers went out of business when they couldn't compete with much cheaper, U.S. government-subsidized agricultural exports to Mexico at zero or low duty (in fact, U.S. taxpayers directly subsidized corn in the U.S. to the tune of $8.9 billion in 2005).
According to a 2003 Carnegie Endowment report, at least 1.3 million farmers were displaced by NAFTA and many of them eventually migrated (often illegally) to the
Biofuels. A suppressed World Bank study completed in April 2008 revealed that at least 75 percent of recent escalating food prices can be attributed to biofuel production in the
Speculation. Analysts have also attributed much of the sudden rise of food prices in the international market to Wall Street traders and speculators who speculated on oil and other commodities as a hedge against
Multinationals. Laura Carlsen wrote an in-depth analysis of Mexico's food crisis in the middle of this year and attributed the steep food price hikes to four corporations' hoarding and speculation to achieve consolidation (to drive out the small players) in the corn-flour market and to maximize speculative profiteering: the corn-tortilla cartel of Cargill, Maseca-ADM, Minsa-Arancia Corn Products International, and Agroinsa. But in most serious analyses of
As neoliberal policies and NAFTA have decimated many small farmers in
California's legal entitlement to Colorado River is only 4.4 million acre-feet (MAF) plus 50 percent of any declared surplus, based on 1922 Colorado River Compact, but in recent years, the state has used as much as 5.37 MAF annually. (One acre-foot is 326,000 gallons.) This additional water usage above the 1922 compact occurs in the context of a historic, decade-long drought in
The severe water shortages have intersected with soaring migration of Mexicans into the
Underlying undocumented immigration is poverty and hunger, and one underlying factor of poverty is chronic and severe water shortages in
The next time Southern Californians water their lawns or central Arizonans fill their swimming pools or the Las Vegas casinos display their elaborate waterworks in those fancy fountains as if they are actually in Venice and not in a desert, they should think that they are taking water away from their neighbors across the border, those desperately poor peasant farmers in northern Mexico who rely on that water for their very survival and who now must depend on extremely costly water trucked over long distances. More children, elderly, and sick people-an untold number of
Many of our so-called illegal aliens may be, in fact, water refugees or environmental refugees. With intensifying global climate disruptions, there will be more of this category of people in
But will water negotiators and water lobbyists representing
Jo-Shing Yang is the author of Ecological Planning, Design, & Engineering, Solving Global Water Crises: New Paradigms in Wastewater and Water Treatment, Small and On-Site Systems for Water Self-Sufficiency and Sustainability and can be reached at jsyang@alum.mit.edu.
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New York Times
November 14, 2008
A Killing in a Town Where Latinos Sense Hate
Friends of Jeffrey Conroy, a star athlete at the school, say he was known to do it, too. And last Saturday night, after drinking in a park in the Long Island hamlet of
They found their target in Marcelo Lucero, a serious-minded, 37-year-old immigrant from a poor village in
After the boys surrounded, taunted and punched Mr. Lucero, the authorities say, Mr. Conroy plunged a knife into his victim’s chest, fatally wounding him.
The attack has horrified and puzzled many in this comfortable
Interviews with business owners, students, government officials and immigrants in the area suggest that illegal immigration has been a wellspring for anger and tension in the neighborhood, with day laborers drawing the greatest fire. Indeed, a number of people — adults and students alike — drew sharp distinctions between assimilated immigrants, who they said should be welcomed as friends and neighbors, and newly arrived illegal immigrants, who they said do not belong.
“No disrespect here, but I’m a firm believer that if you want to come to this country, you should have a job waiting for you,” said the co-owner of the Medford Shooting Range, who gave only his first name, Charlie, and is known by the nickname Charlie Range.
He said he was offended by the behavior of some day laborers — throwing trash in the street, urinating in the bushes, hooting at passing women — and complained that illegal immigrants were crowding rental apartments and swelling the ranks of criminal gangs.
“How do you stop the illegal alien influx?” he wondered aloud. “How do you stop the rain?”
Thousands of immigrants from Latin America have flowed into Long Island in the past two decades, attracted by employment opportunities, particularly in the construction industry, which until recently was booming. Patchogue’s Latino population has risen sharply during this time, village officials say, with Ecuadoreans now being the single largest Latino group.
According to the 2000 census, Latinos were 24 percent of Patchogue’s population, up from 14 percent in 1990, and government officials say the percentage has continued to grow. In just the past five years, the Latino student population of the
Anti-immigrant hostility has led to several highly publicized attacks in recent years in
Immigrant advocates have accused some local politicians, particularly Mr. Levy, of helping to fuel anti-immigrant sentiment by promoting tough policies against illegal immigration. But Mr. Levy said this week that the attack on Mr. Lucero “wasn’t a question of any county policy or legislation; it was a question of bad people doing horrific things.”
For all the parsing of motives and rationales in the case, many Latino immigrants here describe
Latinos say the attack against Mr. Lucero, if not his murder, was foretold. Some report being threatened and physically harassed in the streets, with bottles thrown at them and their car windows smashed during the night. Anti-immigrant epithets and racially motivated bullying are common in the hallways of the schools, children say.
“They tell us to go get a green card, ‘Go back to your community!’ ” said Pamela Guncay, 14, an Ecuadorean-American born in the
Many Latinos, particularly those who are here illegally, say they would never report such incidents because they do not trust the police and fear deportation.
“We’re here to work, we’re not here to do any damage,” pleaded César Angamarca, 45, who rents a room in a small house where Mr. Lucero lived. “We’re working honorably.”
Friends of Mr. Conroy and the other suspects insisted that the defendants were not racist and said they were shocked that a frivolous escapade by bored, drunken teenagers had quickly turned tragic. They pointed out that one of the defendants, José Pacheco, 17, is the son of an African-American mother and a Puerto Rican father, and that Mr. Conroy counted Latino and black classmates among his closest buddies.
“They were good kids,” said Sean Ruga, 19, who graduated from the high school in 2006 and remained friends with the defendants. “It’s not something I could see them capable of doing.”
Mr. Pacheco’s uncle, Jerry Dumas, said his nephew was with the group because he was looking for a ride home and would not have knowingly joined an attack against a Latino, especially considering his ethnic heritage. He also said that Mr. Pacheco’s parents had themselves been apparent victims of violent racism: When they moved into the Patchogue area in the early 1990s, Mr. Dumas said, their house was burned down twice.
Mr. Conroy was the best known of the defendants and, according to prosecutors, the leader of the group. He was on the school’s lacrosse and wrestling teams, according to his friends, and his lawyer, William J. Keahon, said he had received “a number” of offers of college athletic scholarships.
Jeffrey Francis, 18, who is black, said Mr. Conroy befriended him soon after he transferred into the school this fall. They were on the wrestling team together, he said.
Acquaintances of the defendants said it was not unusual for groups of students from the high school to go out looking for people to mug. “It was just for fun, or for money,” said Taylor Fallica, 15, a student at the high school who said he was a friend of Mr. Conroy and the other defendants.
A friend who said he had been hanging out with the seven defendants in the park that night said there had not been much in the way of a plan before the group set out.
“We were just chilling, having a few beers,” said the friend, who requested anonymity because he had also been interviewed by the police and feared making contradictory statements.
Toward midnight, he recalled, “they said they were going to go jump a Mexican,” and they left.
Mr. Lucero had come to the
Marcelo Lucero was a hard worker and had little social life, according to his brother and a resident in a house where he rented a room. When Joselo joined Marcelo in Patchogue in the mid-1990s, the older brother frequently counseled him on how to take care of himself and be safe.
“He was a like a protector,” Joselo recalled. “He told me: ‘You have to be a man here. There’s no mom here anymore.’ ”
As the mob descended, Mr. Lucero’s friend managed to escape and contact the police, who rounded up the suspects minutes later.
Mr. Conroy was charged with first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime and first-degree gang assault; the others were charged with first-degree gang assault. They were arraigned on Monday and the case was sent to a grand jury, which began reviewing evidence on Thursday, according to a spokesman for the
Joselo Lucero said his priorities were now to get his brother’s body back to
“I don’t really feel hate,” he said.
“I feel sorry for the families, in some way, because they have to be responsible for their kids.”
Since Mr. Lucero’s death, local officials have almost universally played down any suggestion that ethnic and racial tension had been prevalent in the community. Nonetheless, local, county and state officials have responded to the killing with various plans, including the introduction of sensitivity task forces, outreach programs in the Latino community and community forums.
“It is imperative that we bridge the divide,” Patchogue’s mayor, Paul V. Pontieri Jr., said on Thursday, “and realize that the things we have in common far outnumber those that divide us.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 15, 2008
An article on Friday about fear and anger in Patchogue, N.Y., after the stabbing death of an Ecuadorean immigrant in what prosecutors have called a hate crime, referred incorrectly to Jeffrey Conroy, 17, a high school athlete who has been arrested in the case. He has not been offered a lacrosse scholarship to the
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Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081115/ap_on_re_us/obama_racial
Election spurs 'hundreds' of race threats, crimes
By JESSE WASHINGTON, AP National Writer Jesse Washington, Ap National Writer Sat Nov 15, 5:18 pm ET
Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting “Assassinate Obama.” Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.
Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in
From
There have been “hundreds” of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.
One was in
She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear.
“I can’t say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it,” said Millner, who is black. “But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they’re capable of and what they’re really thinking.”
Potok, who is white, said he believes there is “a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them.”
Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white
“If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama’s) church being deported,” he said.
Change in whatever form does not come easy, and a black president is “the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War,” said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the
“Someone once said racism is like cancer,” Ferris said. “It’s never totally wiped out, it’s in remission.”
If so,
The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of
The student’s mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: “Whether you like it or not, we’re in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision.”
Other incidents include:
-
-
- Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.
- Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in
-
- Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on
- Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in
- A black teenager in
- In the
Emotions are often raw after a hard-fought political campaign, but now those on the losing side have an easy target for their anger.
"The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book "A Peacock in the
"We saw the same thing happen after the 9-11 attacks, as a wave of anti-Muslim violence swept the country. We saw it happen after the Rodney King verdict, when
"It's as stupid and ineffectual as kicking your dog when you've had a bad day at the office," Gallagher said. "But it happens a lot."
___
Associated Press writers Errin Haines, Jerry Harkavy, Jay Reeves, Johnny Taylor and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR2008111403388_pf.html
New Immigration Regulation Eased After Firms Complain
Homeland Security Measure Requires Checks of New Hires
By Spencer S. Hsu
Saturday, November 15, 2008; A02
In a concession to business groups, the Homeland Security Department will significantly scale back its planned crackdown this winter on federal contractors that hire illegal immigrants.
Under a rule published yesterday, the agency said only contractors that do more than $100,000 in federal work will be required to use an electronic government system to check the work documents of new hires. Originally, officials had proposed that companies doing $3,000 in federal work must comply.
The agency also said it would require federal contractors to check only laborers used on specific contracts, instead of their entire workforce.
The revisions significantly reduce the number of companies that will be subject to the program, which will apply to federal contracts and solicitations issued after Jan. 15. The Bush administration had hoped to make the work eligibility system, called E-Verify, mandatory for nearly 200,000 government contractors, covering about 4 million U.S. workers over 10 years.
The government did not say how many companies would be exempted, but stated that it awarded 2.8 million new contracts last year at or below the $100,000 threshold. The contracts, mostly set-asides for small businesses, were worth $9 billion, or less than 3 percent of federal obligations.
In any case, the program will usher in a new degree of employee scrutiny in a wide swath of corporate America that does federal business, including industrial giants with household names such as General Electric, Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, as well as Beltway mainstays such as computer services firms CACI, ManTech International and SRA International.
The change came after months of intense lobbying by business groups, which argued that the requirement singled out contractors, was unduly burdensome and was so big that it would overwhelm the government system. Randel K. Johnson, vice president and spokesman for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said that the Bush administration "had been responsive to a substantial amount of business concerns," particularly by limiting the rule to large contractors, but that the chamber is reviewing its legal options.
In a statement, the Bush administration said it took into account 1,600 comments and made changes "designed to lighten the burden on small businesses who decide to accept federal contracts, and to provide contractors with flexible means of complying with the basic requirement that all persons working on federal contracts be electronically verified."
Still, critics accused the lame-duck administration, which has made E-Verify a centerpiece of its immigration reform effort, of trying to force through the program before the new Democratic administration takes office.
The proposal "vastly understates the burden imposed on employers, and leaves unanswered a number of fundamental questions," said Eric Bord, a lawyer at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius who represents companies facing immigration investigations.
Mike Aitken, top lobbyist for the Society for Human Resource Management, a trade association for
Congress created a worker-verification system in 1996, and participation has remained voluntary, although 13 state legislatures have passed similar measures for state contractors.
With E-Verify, human resources officials can use an Internet-based system to check federal Social Security and immigration databases and determine whether an employee is authorized to work.
The federal program was expanded nationwide in 2003, with enrollment growing from 3,000 to 92,000 companies. However, it still covers less than 2 percent of an estimated 6 million
In early June, President Bush proposed doubling the number of companies, mandating participation by 169,000 federal contractors and requiring them for the first time to verify the eligibility of existing employees, not just new hires.
Business groups mobilized in protest. The
The Professional Services Council, an Arlington-based trade group for 330 government services contractors, complained that the proposal singles out federal contractors for greater administrative headaches and potential liability for discrimination and other lawsuits by workers.
"It was the uncertain process, it was the uncertain liability, it was the uncertain scalability of the E-Verify system to handle the size and scope of what the president's executive order was demanding," said Alan Chvotkin, top lobbyist and counsel for the council. With the changes, "I think we're getting closer to a system that is executable in practice, rather than just in theory, but it will remain to be seen whether we will be able to implement this rule."
One concern is database errors. The government acknowledged that the system initially rejects about 5 percent of workers, which could threaten the jobs of 220,000 contractor employees in coming years.
Though the announced changes will slow E-Verify's expansion, federal officials stood by their prediction that the initiative will eventually cover more than 20 percent of
Grandfathered contracts will eventually expire, Keehner said, and big employers also may choose under the rule to verify the immigration status of all employees, not just those working on federal business.
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Houston Chronicle [series]
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6116355.html
An abuse of freedom
Many illegal immigrants out on bail commit another crime or vanish before trial
By SUSAN CARROLL
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Nov. 17, 2008, 6:51AM
About this series
This three-day Houston Chronicle investigation examines how scores of illegal immigrants cycle through local jails and fall through the cracks of immigration enforcement.
Day 1: Revolving Door
Illegal immigrants, including convicted child molesters, drug dealers and suspected murderers, avoid deportation after being arrested in
Day 2: Bail problem
Dozens of suspected criminals, who told jailers they were in the country illegally, are freed on bail, later abscond and are accused of more crimes, or even vanish.
Possible solutions for bail dilemma
Photo gallery: Family search for justice
Day 3: Second Chances
Illegal immigrants convicted of crimes from prostitution to sexual abuse avoid prison time by being sentenced to probation.
Case studies
Some Harris County Jail inmates who said they were in the country illegally were ordered deported decades ago, but never left. The worst escalated to commit more serious crimes. Their court files hold stories of squandered second chances. See where they are now.
The bailiff called the murder suspect's name for the second time, scanning the courtroom. "Juan Sanchez?"
It was June 30, the day Sanchez's trial was scheduled to start in Harris County District Court in the killing of Gregorio Diaz, a 25-year-old paramedic and U.S. Navy veteran.
Even though Sanchez told
Now, he was nowhere to be found.
Judge Joan Campbell called Sanchez's defense attorney and the prosecutor to the bench. "I am revoking bond on Juan Sanchez," she said. "Now."
Under her breath, the judge said, "So much for that murder case."
A Houston Chronicle investigation found dozens of cases in Harris County involving suspected illegal immigrants who posted bail and absconded on criminal charges, including murder, aggravated sexual assault of a child and drug trafficking.
The Chronicle examined arrest and immigration records for 3,500 inmates who told jailers that they were in the country illegally during a span of eight months starting in June 2007, the earliest immigration records available.
The review found at least 178 cases involving suspects who absconded, meaning they had their bails revoked for missing court dates or allegedly committing more crimes. Of those, 30 cases involved felony charges and two-thirds had initial bails set below $35,000 — the minimum recommended in the county's bail schedule for illegal immigrants accused of felonies.
Local officials said the problems stem from a shortage of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents dedicated to identifying illegal immigrants in the county's jails. When ICE doesn't file paperwork to detain illegal immigrants, prosecutors and pretrial services officers said, they have few tools to verify defendants' claims of legal status.
Lynne Parsons,
ICE officials have acknowledged difficulties screening all foreign-born inmates in the county's jails but said they have increased staffing and are identifying more criminals before they can post bail.
Campbell, the judge on the Sanchez case, did not return phone calls. Prosecutor Rifian Newaz took over the case in December from a colleague who said Sanchez had a Social Security number.
'No consistency at all'
The Chronicle review found a wide range of cases involving defendants who told jailers they were in the country illegally, posted bail and absconded.
The cases include:
•Jose Blanco, a 64-year-old accused of repeatedly sexually molesting a 6-year-old girl in southwest
•Juan Fernando Villalon, 43, told Harris County jailers twice in 2007 he was an illegal immigrant from Mexico — both times after being arrested on suspicion of assaulting his ex-girlfriend. He posted $10,000 bail in December 2007 and was released from Harris County Jail. In January, while out on bail, he tracked her down and punched her, leading to another felony assault charge. He was arrested in June and is serving a two-year prison sentence.
•Arturo Munoz Osorio, 62, was charged in August 2007 with aggravated sexual assault of a child. He told jailers he was in the country illegally when he was booked into jail Aug. 2, 2007. He posted $10,000 bail four days later and missed a September court date. A warrant for his arrest was issued in January.
Debbie Mantooth Stricklin, administrative judge for the county's 20-plus criminal district courts, said she did not know why felony defendants believed to be in the country illegally had initial bails set below the $35,000 guideline. She said the criminal judges adopted the higher bails for illegal immigrants in December 2006 to reduce their flight risk.
"There is no consistency at all," when it comes to illegal immigrants and bail, said S. Bruce Hiran, a defense attorney and a licensed bail bondsman in
Lost in the crowd
In addition to ICE manpower shortages, the number of defendants moving through the court system makes it difficult to identify illegal immigrants before bail is set, officials said. More than 100,000 people were arrested and charged with Class B misdemeanors or higher in
The bail-setting process generally moves quickly after an arrest. An initial bail amount is set using guidelines that factor in the severity of the charge and the defendant's criminal history.
Pretrial services officers interview most defendants about their personal history and prepare reports designed to help magistrates set bail.
In October,
Carol Oeller, the county's pretrial services director, said her department has tried different methods to verify immigration status over the years, including testing an immigration database in 2007 and calling ICE about individual cases. She said pretrial services officers note in their reports whether ICE has placed a hold on a defendant.
Oeller said she has found that most defendants are honest about their legal status. "They own up to it" if they're undocumented, she said.
Constitutional concerns
States and counties across the country have tried to address the issue of bail for illegal immigrants, but many proposals stalled because of constitutional concerns. In 2006,
Defense attorneys and immigrant advocates have criticized
There is no conclusive research to show whether illegal immigrants are more likely than their U.S.-born counterparts to abscond on state charges while out on bail.
Patrick McCann, a
"What possible business is this of the state courts?" McCann said. "I thought we had immigration courts."
Stricklin, the administrative judge, defended the policy, saying, ''The fact that someone is here illegally is relevant to whether they are going to be a flight risk."
For family, no closure
Gregorio Diaz was Maria Martinez and Hipolito Diaz's only son. Over the years, the Mexican immigrants had split time between a ranch in the hills of
A
On the night of June 10, 2007, Gregorio and some friends were in a southwest
The Sanchez brothers left the bar, returned with guns and shot Diaz at least five times, records say. As they tried to flee, the brothers were involved in a car accident and were stopped by police, records say. Juan Sanchez, 30, was taken to the hospital, and his younger brother was questioned and released.
Gregorio Diaz was pronounced dead at 1:48 a.m. That night, his mother said, she had a premonition of his death, awoke in the family's home in north
"Father," she read in Spanish, "receive the soul of our son."
Both Sanchez brothers were charged in Gregorio's slaying. Adolfo Sanchez disappeared the night Gregorio died. Juan Sanchez was arrested in July 2007 and skipped on his bail in late June.
After Juan Sanchez fled, Gregorio's mother and his two sisters, Elizabeth and Nora, printed up hundreds of Crime Stoppers fliers with photos of the Sanchez brothers. They posted them in the strip mall on South Post Oak where Gregorio was shot and in the neighborhood outside the Sam Houston Tollway where the Sanchez brothers used to live.
"They can't run away forever," said Nora, a college student.
"I think they can hide from us, and maybe from everyone else, but not the one up there," said
Gregorio's white cowboy hat still hangs on a hook in the entrance to the family's home. A black mourning ribbon is tied to the front door.
On his birthday in April, Nora and her mother and sister baked a chocolate cake, his favorite, and brought it to the
<><><> the end / el fin / tamat <><><>
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