EEUU hace demanda para expropiar tierra indigena para el muro fronterizo en Texas

Contacto:

* Laura Rivas: 510-282-2500, xicanitatli@gmail.com

* Lawdefense1@gmail.com

Para difusión inmediata

30 Abril: Gobierno EEUU hace demanda contra mujer indígena en cortes de TX;

El gobierno busca expropiar inmediatamente más terreno para el muro fronterizo

Inmigración y Seguridad: Aún más usurpación de tierras indígenas para el muro fronterizo

Brownsville, Texas –26 de Abril, 2013 –Eloisa Garcia Tamez volverá a la corte federal el 30 de abril de 2013 para defender sus derechos contra el gobierno de Estados Unidos. En un intento gubernamental de tomar posesión inmediata de la propiedad del subsuelo de Eloisa Garcia Tamez para el dique y el muro fronterizo que divide sus tierras ancestrales, el gobierno de EE.UU. tendrá que convencer al juez federal Andrew S. Hanen que tiene el derecho a despojarla y para justificar que se requiere el subsuelo para la seguridad nacional.

El equipo legal de Tamez ya habían estado en diálogo con abogados del Departamento de Justicia de EEUU en los últimos meses para establecer las fechas para un juicio con jurado en el caso actual de Tamez. Simultáneamente a la solicitud de posesión inmediata, el gobierno propone un calendario de juicio con jurado que se extiende hasta mayo de 2014. Una declaración del abogado de la acusada, Peter Schey, que se presentó ante la corte el 15 de abril establece:

“El acordado Orden de Programación Propuesta establece fechas y el juicio bien hacia el futuro y no es claro por qué; el demandante no ha dado explicación de por qué necesita una orden de posesión inmediata para la pequeña franja de tierras adicionales implicadas en la moción actual.”

Mientras que EE.UU. tomó forzosamente las tierras de pueblos indígenas y otros pueblos vulnerables durante la primera ronda de la construcción del muro fronterizo en 2009, no tenía la autoridad para desposeer a Eloisa Garcia Tamez de sus derechos de propiedad del subsuelo, y la agresión del estado continua contra una dueña indígena de la propiedad con profundos lazos ancestrales a la tierra y su subsuelo.

Un comunicado emitido por Daniel Romero, Presidente del Consejo General de la Banda de Lipan Apaches de Texas (NDE) dice: "Pedimos que el gobierno de Obama y el Congreso incorporen las demandas del CERD [las Naciones Unidas] por una consulta apropiada y la consideración de los pueblos indígenas y comunidades de la región fronteriza. Solicitamos que el gobierno de EE.UU. incluya la solicitud de los pueblos Ndé [Lipan Apache] dentro de la reforma migratoria actual y nuestra propuesta de la política sobre tierras fronterizas la cual ha influenciado negativamente la forma de vida Ndé.”

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Lipan Apache Women Defense http://lipancommunitydefense.wordpress.com/

Lipan Apache Band of Texas http://www.lipanapachebandoftexas.com/

Immigration and Security: Further Encroachment of Border Wall on Indigenous Lands

Contact:

Lawdefense1@gmail.com

Press Release – For Immediate Release

April 30:

US Government will bring Indigenous Woman in Texas back to court;

Government seeks to immediately seize more property for US-Mexico Border Wall

Immigration and Security: Further Encroachment of Border Wall on Indigenous Lands

Brownsville, Texas – April 26, 2013 – Defendant Eloisa Garcia Tamez is going back to federal court April 30, 2013 against the United States government. In an attempt to win immediate possession of Eloisa Garcia Tamez’s sub-surface property beneath the levee and the border wall which bisects her ancestral property, the U.S. government will have to convince Federal District Judge Andrew S. Hanen that it has the right to dispossess her and to justify that the subsurface is required for national security.

Tamez’s legal team had already been in dialogue with the U.S. Department of Justice attorneys in recent months to establish a timeline for a jury trial on Tamez’s current case. Simultaneous to the request for immediate possession, the government is proposing a jury trial schedule which extends through May of 2014.

A declaration from the defendant’s attorney Peter Schey submitted to the court April 15 states:

“The agreed upon Proposed Scheduling Order sets deadlines and trial in this cause well into the future and it is unclear why, and plaintiff has failed to explain why, it requires an immediate Order of possession on the small strip of additional land involved in its present motion.”

While the U.S. forcibly took Indigenous and other vulnerable peoples' lands for the first round of border wall construction in 2009, it did not have the authority to dispossess Eloisa Garcia Tamez of her subsurface property rights, and the state aggression continues against an Indigenous property owner with deep ancestral ties to that land and what lies beneath.

 

A statement issued by Daniel Romero, General Council Chairman for the The Lipan Apache Band of Texas (Ndé) states:

 “We ask that the Obama Administration and Congress to incorporate [the United Nations] the CERD’s demands for proper consultation and consideration of the Indigenous peoples and communities of the borderlands region. We request that the U.S. Government be inclusive of Ndés’ [‘Lipan Apache peoples’ ] request in current immigration reform and our proposal of the border lands policies that have negatively influenced the Ndé way of life.”

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Lipan Apache Women Defense http://lipancommunitydefense.wordpress.com/

Lipan Apache Band of Texas http://www.lipanapachebandoftexas.com/

At the PGA: Migrant Rights Unite Us Across Borders

Salaam from the third day here at the People´s Global Action on Migration here in Mexico City!

By Monami Maulik

I am here at the People's Global Action gathering in Mexico City with with my colleague, Ayesha Mahmooda. Ayesha is a former youth member of DRUM and current Worker Organizer and has lived undocumented in the U.S. for 19 years until winning her deportation case this year.

I am excited to be here together representing South Asian and Muslim communities in the U.S. who are members of DRUM-Desis Rising Up & Moving. DRUM organizes a membership of over 1,000 South Asian and Muslim low-wage workers and youth who are fighting for their rights as migrants in the U.S.

We Raise Our Voices From New York to Mexico

DRUM played a major role in hosting the first ever People´s Global Assembly in New York City in 2005 as the UN released its report after the Global Commission on Migration and Development process. I had the chance also to testify at the last GCMD in Mexico City in 2005 about the need to de-link migration policy from national security.

In New York City DRUM hosted over 50 migrant leaders from Latin America, Asia, and Europe in our community of Jackson Heights. Bangladeshi women, who spoke no Spanish, shared our traditional food with Latin American women migrant leaders who spoke no English -- but they understood each other´s struggle without words. Later that week, we organized a town-hall and action at the UN as we saw the increasing importance this global process would take over the next decade.

We did not want unaccountable governments, private corporations and exploitative international institutions like the World Bank to decide our futures for us.

We decided that DRUM must raise the voice of migrant people ourselves in this global process towards human rights for migrants, rather than allowing the GFMD to only view migrants as tools to make greater profits for sending and receiving nations and corporations.

Migrant Rights Unite Us Across Borders

We are very honored and excited to be present at this international gathering with hundreds of migrant rights leaders from across the globe. We are humbled to be in Mexico, from where many of the 14 million undocumented brothers and sisters of ours in the U.S. come from. We see the dignity and pride in the faces of workers here, of indigenous people and the poor who are displaced by NAFTA yet continue to struggle for a better world. Mexico has a rich history and legacy of the workers and poor waging revolutionary movements for equity and human rights for all people.

On opening day of the PGA, I spoke on the welcome plenary about the need to unite across nationalities, both within the U.S. and globally, to challenge the 'national security' framework that is destroying the rights of migrants around the world.

The U.S after September 11, 2010 has created and spread this model of permanently placing all issues of migration as a permanent threat to national security, stoking exaggerated fears of terrorism. In the U.S., this has meant the mass raids, deportations and unjust imprisonment of thousands of Muslim immigrants. But it has not ended there and will only increase for all communities of color.

The national security paradigm in the U.S. has fundamentally channeled billions of dollars and unparalleled law enforcement resources towards the immigration enforcement regime of the Department of Homeland Security -- both in the interior and by hyper militarizing the borders.

This is at the same time that the US is waging endless wars and occupations that have murdered over 1.5 million people in the Middle East and South Asia since 2002. As the mothers of victims of this attack on Muslims in our membership say, "The government is manufacturing terrorists out of poor migrant workers in order to justify its endless wars abroad and security regime."

Yesterday, as we participated in a roundtable on National Security & Migrant Rights, this same story was told by half a dozen people from all over the world -- from Thailand to Mali, from Holland to Mexico. I learned that in Mexico, the government is copying the U.S. model and converted its national Migration Institute into the National Security Institute. Moreover, the Mexican government has opened up "Migration Centers" as National Security detention facilities that are top secret, deny access to lawyers and others, and use abusive tactics on migrants.

Under the national security paradigm, the end goal here is the same as everywhere : to permanently by-pass human rights and accountability and to justify non-transparency and the abuse of migrant people. A Haitian migrant leader from the Dominican Republic spoke about how Haitian migrants in the DR are being detained as 'national security' threats by claiming they will create crimes and degrade the environment.

Human Rights and Sustainable Development Make Us Safer

Today, we held a formal workshop on "National Security & Human Rights of Migrants" and drafted proposals that will be presented to the governments at their Global Forum on Migration and Development, where civil society will pressure the governments:
1) De-link migration policy from National Security globally, and
2) Reject the framework of National Security and replace it with "Human Security" -- that when human rights and access to sustainable development are provided for all, communities and nations are safest.

We are raising the issue of national security at the GFMD even though the U.S. government has been silent on the issue. We know that the U.S. is actively promoting this new tool to suppress rights and accountability behind closed doors with other governments. As Muslim migrants in the U.S., we are building bridges with our colleagues globally because we see that our organizing for human rights are interdependent and that none of us can win alone.

Saludos!

Monami Maulik
Executive Director, DRUM-Desis Rising Up & Moving

www.drumnyc.org/