National Catholic Reporter "Arizona activist faces death threat"
National Catholic Reporter
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/arizona-activist-faces-death-threat
By Demetria Martinez
Created Jul 15, 2009
Isabel Garcia, a Tucson, Ariz., attorney whose work on behalf of immigrants has earned her international acclaim, has received a death threat from an individual claiming to offer a half million dollars to anyone who might assassinate her.
Written in broken Spanish, the threat arrived by e-mail at the offices of Coalición de Derechos Humanos, or the Human Rights Coalition, in June. Garcia is the co-chair of the organization, which monitors the growing militarization of the border, tracks border patrol abuses, and promotes community education about rights when encountering law enforcement officials.
Written in broken Spanish, the unsigned e-mail warns Garcia, "We know where you live and we watch and follow you and your compatriots."
Death threats are nothing new to Garcia, but this one is particularly chilling: It arrived the same month that a break-away faction of the Minutemen, an armed, anti-immigrant vigilante group, murdered a Mexican-American father and his daughter in their home in the border town of
I had the privilege of working with Garcia as a member of Derechos Humanos in the 1990s when I lived in
Her work has angered both anti-immigrant groups in the
In 2006, the Mexican government awarded Garcia its National Human Rights Award for her work as the Pima County Legal Defender; this was the first time the award went to a person not born in
According to Kat Rodriguez, coordinator of Derechos, there has been no response to date from the FBI, who was notified of the threat the day after it was received. When Rodriguez attempted to follow up, she was told that a customary five to seven business day waiting period was to be expected for "all complaints." When it was reiterated that this was a death threat, the FBI staff person asked, "Well, did they give a time frame?"
Rodriguez responded that the letter states that a half-million dollars has been offered for "Garcia's head," to which the staff person responded, "Well, I still think we should wait the five to seven business days." This conversation, explained Rodriguez, happened June 11, the day after the murder of the guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
To date, there has been no contact made by the FBI to either Garcia or the office of Derechos Humanos.
Meanwhile, Garcia continues to be in the spotlight because of her work with Derechos Humanos. The group's mission centers on bringing attention to the human cost of militarizing the U.S.-México border. Since the 1990s when border policies began to change and the numbers tracked, the remains of more than 5,000 men, women and children have been recovered on the U.S.-México border.
For more than five years, Derechos Humanos has compiled data on the human remains recovered on the Arizona-Sonora border, where more than half of all border crossing attempts are made. Data from the medical examiner shows that the remains of at least 29 individuals were recovered in June -- nearly one per day. Since Derechos Humanos began collecting data in 2002 -- that is when
For more information and to see a complete list of recovered remains, visit http://www.derechoshumanosaz.net [1]. Derechos Humanos considers this information the property of the community and encourages sharing the information about this tragic reality to anyone and everyone who will listen.
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