Tuesday, August 11, 2009

MEXICANS COLLECTIN SOCIAL SECURITY and living in MEXICO - thanks LA RAZA DEMS

What will happen when 38 million illegals head back to Mexico to collect their social security. La Raza Dems know these illegals will have doubled the population for even more “cheap” labor. 1 in 5 births in Los Angeles are illegals’ and paid for by LEGALS. 1 in 10 the rest of the county.

Amnesty Will Bankrupt The Social Security Program!
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According to the Government Accountability Office, both our SSP and our Medicare benefits are facing serious financial shortfalls.

GAO warned about the potential bankruptcy of our SSP, if Illegal Alien Amnesty is past. According to their calculations, the SSP will be immediately plunged into a deficit of $2.5 to 3.0 trillion!! Considering the SSP has less than $240 billion of Illegal Alien contributions, the rest of the deficit will fall on the American worker to make up the difference.

To add to this staggering potential amnesty deficit, is the current SSP deficit, which is nearing one trillion dollars! The reality is there is no money to fill the current shortfall. How then does Obama, Hillary, and McCain plan on financing amnesty? The GAO publically stated they can not. There is no money. We are nearing the end of sustaining irresponsible Federal spending through foreign governments purchasing our debt, and our government printing more paper money. Every day the World is losing confidence in the dollar, it will not stop without fiscal responsibility.

Add to the SSP woes - $34 trillion in obligations over the next fifteen years to sustain the Medicare Program. The Presidential candidates should be talking about reality not about amnesty dreams and Universal Health Care dreams. We are on the verge of losing the health benefits we have now. We need to focus on saving these programs first, then take a look at new programs. Under our current fiscal deficits there is no possible way to pay for anything new.

For all the good time promises, Obama, Hillary, and McCain can not deliver without bankrupting the United States government. What we are heading for is not just a Recession, but a Depression that will rival anything seen during the Great Depression. Government irresponsibility and its sell out to big business Globilization is finally showing the illness wrought on America by the power and greed of the few. Our once great industrial base, which we could count on during down times, has been eroded by over forty percent for the sake of big business profits. Millions of Middle Class Americans that worked in those industries are now out of work, or working service jobs - jobs that will be eliminated in any Recession, or Depression.

Unless the backbone, Middle Class America, of this country wakes up, there will be only the rich and the poor, and America will not be able to sustain the level of Military protection of our freedoms we now have. The terrorists will have won, and will be visiting our country on a regular basis.

We need leaders that will stop the exportation of our jobs, enforce our Immigration Laws, create a pathway for new industries, reduce government and its spending, outlaw lobbyists from having closed door meetings, stop all entitlements, enact a one bill/one vote law of procedure in Congress, have alternating term limits for all Federal elected offices, and so on.

Don't just talk change Obama. Don't just promise change Hillary. Don't tell me you are any different than the rest of the "Ole Boy" group in Washington McCain. Quite frankly, none of the three top candidates know much about what they are talking about, so how can they make changes, when they lack knowledge to do so. It will take the concerted effort of voters everywhere to write in your concerns to your favorite candidate. No to amnesty, no to new spending, no to lobbyists, and so on.

It is ironic that the candidates that were telling the public the truth and the needs of the country are all out of the race for the Presidency.

If listening to shallow promises retains your support, then you were never really in favor of change, just good time promises to make you at least feel better. However, if you want your children to have a future, you will stop being wooed with false promises, and start yelling for real changes.

www.midamericanparty.com


Illegal Aliens and Social Security Numbers
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Reply to: comm-585103570@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-02-24, 9:34AM PST


I totally agree with Anthony Ramirez, illegal aliens cause problems for others when they steal others social security number.

As I worked for the Food Stamp program two years ago, I was amazed at the number of illegal aliens who came to apply for Food Stamps and had Social Security numbers.

One woman stood out, because she wound up having three social security numbers. We would not have questioned her at all, but the first number she gave was a real social security that belonged to a 16 year old disabled kid on SSI. She was 42, with 6 kids. When I questioned her about it, she admitted she had bought it to try and find work.

Eventually the kid and his family would be in trouble because the Feds would start deducting the money from his SSI check and he might loss his benefits altogether or have to pay it back. When brought to her attention, she did not care.

The second one was a made up one on a card that I turned every which way and looked just as good as the first one. The 3rd was an ITIN number that illegal aliens use to do their taxes or get tax money back. I learned they were using the ITIN numbers to open bank accounts and buy houses.


It worried me back then, because I wondered where were the people who were supposed to be the checks and balances in the mortgage industry. How could they sell homes to 5 to 6 families with no real ID, no pay stubs, no receipts, an ITIN number and their signature? Plus they had 9 to 10 renters.

The budgets were next to impossible to figure out, so a lot of the eligibility techs would put down that the Illegals were renters. In that way all they needed was a signed piece of paper saying they paid rent and how much they paid. As we now know, lack of ethics and morals has destroyed the Sub prime mortgage industry.

At the moment more then 50 percent of all welfare and food stamp benefits in Orange County are going directly to children of illegal aliens. The California Legislators have enacted laws to enslave Californians into taking care of illegal aliens and their needs while we make Americans and Legal Immigrants go to work under the CAL-WORKS program.

Illegal aliens don’t have to go to work, because it is against Federal Law for illegal aliens to work. So just like my mother-in-law received welfare for close to 25 years, Illegal Alien mothers who sometimes have children 10 to 15 years apart, can and do stay on welfare, food stamps and other social programs 25 to 30 years living off Californians. In my opinion this is a huge social cost.

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Fake Documents Cartel
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Reply to: comm-570038044@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-02-10, 10:00PM PST


This story was first broken on the Wake Up America Talk Show "A Minuteman Project Chapter" Hosted by Steve Eichler.
Go to: WWW.Wakeupamericausa.com

A Mexican clan of document forgers operates in 33 states,
including Illinois. In Chicago, their annual take is around $2.5 million, and their main collaborators are gang members.

Los Angeles - In 1848 what came to be called the Gold Rush started. People came to California from all over the world to seek their fortunes. The idea of getting rich without much effort was the main reason they left their countries and headed for the promised land to seek the precious metal.

And so did Pedro Castorena-Ibarra and Manuel Leija-Sánchez, albeit 138 years later. In 1987 they found their goldmine in California. At that time the United States Congress had just passed a law giving amnesty to the undocumented who were living in the country.

This was when the boom in forged documents got going. Everybody wanted to get the paperwork and, whatever the cost, have the documentation to show length of stay in the country so they could work legally.

Pedro and Manuel took advantage of the situation and made
document forgery into a highly profitable family business. Authorities estimate that this organization generates earnings of $300 million annually.

The Castorena and Leija families, according to reports by the federal government, run a criminal organization dedicated to the production and distribution of fake documents. It is a criminal network extending into 33 states across the country.

Its main leaders are Pedro Castorena and Manuel Leija, both in prison, but still in control of the cartel.

The organization is run from their native Mexico by their parents, Alfonso Castorena and Natividad Leija, according to a federal agent involved in the investigation, ongoing for five years, which last month led to the arrest of Pedro Castorena in Guadalajara in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

In terms of financial organization and operation, the organization has been compared to the Arellano Félix cartel in drug running and the Peralta-Rodríguez brothers´ organization in the human trafficking business.

Specializing in forged ID cards, mainly the residency and work permit document called "green cards," the Castorena-Leija cartel is not above activities associated with the drug trade and human trafficking "coyotes."

Suad Leija, Manuel Leija´s stepdaughter, described in an interview the secrets of the organization , disclosing that it is also involved with human trafficking gangs which bring people across the United States border illegally.

"They also have connections with the Monterrey gang. Pedro knew the most about those people, and after him, my stepfather," Suad commented.

This organization is considered by Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as one of the largest internationally, with connections in Central America and Mexico.

Friends from their childhood days, Pedro and Manuel became so good at the counterfeit document business that they used other identities, with which they managed for quitea while to outwit whoever was hot on their heels.

They came to the US almost 20 years ago. Los Angeles was their cradle, where they first "went into business." Later they expanded to Chicago, where Manuel Leija ran the show. Little by little, they established themselves in New York, and then in Miami, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Albuquerque and Denver, among other cities.

US Attorney Bill Leone has described this organization as a large-scale threat to national security, as it provides tools to criminals to evade justice.

"These tools help criminals hide their identity and gain access to places where they should not be allowed. They facilitate other forms of identity theft," Leoni declared, revealing this organization´s operations. "They serve as a store for not just illegal immigrants but also for drug smugglers, money launderers and potential terrorists."

For ICE Director of Investigations Marcy Forman, the Castorena-Leija organization, which can provide forged documents to terrorists intent on violating national security, is one of the largest and most sophisticated counterfeiter networks.

Los Angeles City Prosecutor Arturo Martínez, who has prosecuted several cases of forged documents, explained that the proliferation of counterfeit documentation leads to the crime of identity theft and is a national security problem while generating multi-million dollar losses
to the economy.

It concerns a problem which goes beyond just getting a fake document to show proof of age for getting into a bar, Martínez explained. "It´s a highly complex problem, not just the crime of forging a document, but because other crimes are committed. There are criminals who get these documents to hide their identity, to get through airport security or to commit fraud."

In the year 2004, according to the prosecutor, there were around one million victims of identity theft registered in California and ten million across the entire country. © La Opinión

Counterfeiter´s stepdaughter puts family on display Suad Leija doesn´t care if she unmasks her family. This 22-year-old young woman feels that national security is more important. Her stepfather is Manuel Leija-Sánchez, identified by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as one of the ringleaders of a band of document ounterfeiters. She confirmed this.

In recent months, Suad has worked as informant for the federal government. Investigators from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been able to clear up several questions. Last month, together with Mexico´s Federal Investigations Agency (AFI, per its Spanish initials), managed to arrest Pedro Castorena in Guadalajara, one of America´s most wanted for the crime of
counterfeiting documents.

Pedro Castorena, aged 43 years, and Manuel Leija, aged 39,
godparents of each other´s children, are both in jail. The former is in the process of extradition from Mexico; the latter is close to completing a one-year sentence. They are the ringleaders of a band of counterfeiters operating in 33 states across the country, according to Suad, whose explanation is backed up by the ICE investigation.

From somewhere in the state of Georgia, Suad Leija offered a telephone interview to La Opinión. Her first words were, "My stepfather Manuel killed my real father in order to marry my mother."

At that time, she said, she was a baby. They were living in Mexico City. When Manuel got her mother, they moved to Los Angeles, California in 1987. Suad was two years old. Together with Pedro Castorena, Manuel Leija and a few other relatives got started in the counterfeiting business.

"My job was counting the money. I put it in envelopes, making envelopes of a thousand, two thousand, five thousand dollars." Suad remembered her work as a child, for which she was paid fifty dollars.

In just a few years, the Castorenas and the Leijas managed to amass a fortune. In Mexico they have chains of motels, bars and restaurants,the result of money laundering.

"When we arrived in Los Angeles, we lived in Pedro´s apartment - he was called `Perico´ [parrot] - and with his wife, Julieta León," the young woman explained. "That´s where they got started. Pedro and my stepfather sold documents and counted the money on weekends. That was my job, counting the money."

In the early 90´s, the business now flourishing, Manuel took charge of the Chicago market, where they were expanding. The whole family moved together.

"My stepfather took the Chicago area. My uncles, Julio and Pedro Leija, shared the other cities. In Chicago, my stepfather took in 2.5 million dollars a year," Suad commented.

The young woman assured that, in spite of being in jail, Pedro Castorena and Manuel Leija have kept control of the organization. Federal agents consulted by La Opinión indicated that this organization has a few hundred people operating across the country in various cells.

From Mexico, where the money is laundered in motels, bars, brothels and gyms, Suad said the business is controlled by Alfonso Castorena (in Guadalajara), Pedro´s father, and by Natividad Leija-Herrera (in Tlanepantla), Manuel´s father.

A report in the Library of Congress, called Organized Crime and Terrorist Activities in Mexico, 1999-2002, points out that the founders of this organization, based in Guadalajara, are Alfonso Castorena and Juan San Germán, who have members of the Latin Kings gang as collaborators in the Little Village neighborhood in Chicago.

In Las Vegas and Los Angeles, members of the 18th Street gang have also been linked to this organization. Suad fears for her life. She says she has already been threatened, so she moves from one place to another, under protection from the federal government. And for certain the Castorenas and Leijas have money and power aplenty. Authorities estimate that every year their document counterfeiting generates $300 million.

"I don´t know how they figure tha amount, but my stepfather is always the first one to have the latest model car. He is quite the showoff in Mexico, although in the United States he is ever so humble, appearing to be a low-level worker so as to not call attention, but there in Mexico he´s quite the opposite," Suad said.

Manuel Leija used to put on huge, rowdy parties in his parents´ home in the Jiménez Cantú section of the city of Tlanepantla in the State of Mexico. He liked drinking sprees and to have the band Los Tigres del Norte play "El Jefe de Jefes" [The Boss of Bosses] for him. With a
glass of Azteca de Oro brandy in his hand, wearing a Versace shirt, fine boots and jewels on his neck, Manuel would sing noisily. He would say he was The Boss of Bosses.

While Manuel lingers in jail, every third month his brothers Pedro, Julio, Elías and José Luis take turns with the business in the United States, Suad remarked.

"That is, everybody gets a chance to make money. They take turns with the business, each one putting together his sales team, and then my aunts take charge of handling and managing the money."

Why inform on your family? "For me, it´s like they never were. I am not of their blood. When I was little, they never treated me like I was part of the real family. Besides, it doesn´t matter to them if one of the documents they forge falls into the hands of a terrorist...All that matter to them is money."
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Social Security for Illegal Aliens? THEY ALREADY GET IT!
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Reply to: see below
Date: 2008-01-04, 2:29PM PST


When I lived in El Centro, CA. I would see MEXICANS DRIVING CARS & TRUCKS with BAJA CALIFORNIA TAGS (That;a MEXICO) Drive up to the SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE, park about 1/2 a block away, THEN WALK INTO THE SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE to PICK UP THEIR SSI & SocSec CHECKS, then DRIVE OFF to the CHECK CASHING PLACE & EXCHANGE it for PESOS!

(NOTE: I AM A SENIOR CITIZEN & WORKED 65 YEARS to OBTAIN MY Social Security...it's LESS than $900.00 a month! THESE CROOKS get ALMOST $2,000.00 A MONTH!)

IT'S WAY TOO LATE, STUPID GRINGOS! WE ARE DONE FOR!

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Social Security Totalization
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Reply to: see below
Date: 2008-01-04, 5:23PM PST



Totalization is a Bad Idea
January 8, 2007

Through a Freedom of Information Act Request, a private group recently obtained a copy of a 2004 agreement between the United States and Mexico that will allow hundreds of thousands of noncitizens to receive Social Security benefits.
The agreement creates a so-called “totalization” plan between the two nations. Totalization is nothing new. The first such agreements were made in the late 1970s between the United States and several foreign governments simply to make sure American citizens living abroad did not suffer from double taxation with respect to Social Security taxes. From there, however, totalization agreements have become vehicles for noncitizens to become eligible for U.S. Social Security benefits. The new agreement with Mexico would make an estimated 160,000 Mexican citizens eligible in the next five years.
Ultimately, the bill for Mexicans working legally in the U.S. could reach one billion dollars by 2050, when the estimated Mexican beneficiaries could reach 300,000. Worse still, an estimated five million Mexicans working illegally in the United States could be eligible for the program. According to press reports, a provision in the Social Security Act allows illegal immigrants to receive Social Security benefits if the United States and another country have a totalization agreement.
It’s important to note that Congress, like the American people, heretofore had not seen this totalization agreement. This decision to expand our single largest entitlement program was made with no input from the legislative branch of government. If the president signs it, Congress will have to affirmatively act to override him and in essence veto the agreement. This is the opposite of how it’s supposed to work.
There are obvious reasons to oppose a Social Security totalization agreement with Mexico. First, our Social Security system already faces trillions of dollars in future shortages as the Baby Boomer generation retires and fewer young workers pay into the system. Adding hundreds of thousand of noncitizens to the Social Security rolls can only hasten the day of reckoning.
Second, Social Security never was intended to serve as an individual foreign aid program for noncitizens abroad. Remember, there is no real Social Security trust fund, and the distinction between income taxes and payroll taxes is entirely artificial. The Social Security contributions made by noncitizens are spent immediately as general revenues. So while it’s unfortunate that some are forced to pay into a system from which they might never receive a penny, the same can be said of younger American citizens. If noncitizens wish to obtain Social Security benefits, or any other U.S. government entitlements, they should seek to become U.S. citizens.
Also, totalization agreements allow noncitizens to quality for Social Security benefits by working in the U.S. as little as 18 months. A Mexican citizen could work here for only a year and a half, return to Mexico, and retire with full U.S. benefits. This is grossly unfair to Americans who must work more quarters even to qualify for benefits-- especially younger people who face the possibility that there may be nothing left when it is their turn to retire.
Those in favor of sending U.S. Social Security benefits to Mexican citizens argue that crushing poverty in Mexico demands some form of U.S. assistance to that country's aged. While poverty in Mexico truly is deplorable and saddening, the fact remains that Congress has no constitutional authority to enact what is essentially another foreign aid program.

PELOSI HIRES ILLEGALS, and works hard for them!

Pelosi's corrupt insider passing of bills that make her rich.
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Reply to: see below
Date: 2009-01-16, 10:47PM MST


Check for yourself
http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_nancy_pelosi_get_wage_breaks_and.html


Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's home House District includes San Francisco.

Star-Kist Tuna's headquarters are in San Francisco, Pelosi's home district.

Star-Kist is owned by Del Monte Foods and is a major contributor to Pelosi.

Star-Kist is the major employer in American Samoa employing 75% of the Samoan workforce.

Paul Pelosi, Nancy's husband, owns $17 million dollars of Star-Kist stock.

In January, 2007 when the minimum wage was increased from $5.15 to $7.25, Pelosi had American Samoa exempted from the increase so Del Monte would not have to pay the higher wage. This would make Del Monte products less expensive than their competition's.

Last week when the huge bailout bill was passed, Pelosi added an earmark to the final bill adding $33 million dollars for an "economic development credit in American Samoa".

Pelosi has called the Bush Administration "corrupt".

Check some more for yourself

http://www.snopes.com/politics/pelosi/americansamoa.asp



• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 996127053
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DEAR FRIENDS,

A report from one of the authoritative Capitol Hill publications suggests that the Hispanic Caucus is quite pleased with the way the current House health plan will provide coverage for illegal aliens.

We will be adding new actions through the day for you to fight this.

NEW VIDEO ALERT POSTED

Just before I left D.C., I taped a Video Alert for the week. Take a look.

It will be on our NumbersUSA home page later this morning.

Please send this email far and wide to get as much opposition as possible to U.S. taxpayer health care to all illegal aliens.

WHAT'S UP WITH THE HISPANIC CAUCUS AND PELOSI?

You know we are in trouble when the supporters of a massive taxpayer health benefit giveaway to illegal aliens say the current House plan is just right. The authoritative ROLL CALL publication says Hispanic Caucus Members told it confidentially that the Caucus told Speaker Pelosi not to change a thing because as written illegal aliens will get the benefits.

CHC Presses Pelosi to Include Illegal Immigrants in Health Bill
-- Headline about CHC (Congressional Hispanic Caucus) by Jennifer Bendery in the Roll Call newspaper (July 24, 2009)

Interestingly, the article also says that CHC Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) said that only "documented immigrants" were discussed.

But the reporter got quite a different story from other CHC Members who talked off the record.

A CHC member, who requested not to be identified, said the group is urging Pelosi to ensure that everyone — including illegal immigrants — will be able to receive services . . . 'We’re pushing to include everyone in the health care bill. Everyone,' said one CHC member.
-- Roll Call

So, what does CHC want Pelosi to add to the House Health Bill to make sure 12-20 million illegal aliens get full taxpayer-paid health coverage?

Nothing.

That is because CHC apparently feels that the House Bill as written pretty well guarantees the coverage. Look:

Asked if CHC leaders will ask Pelosi to specifically spell something out in the bill to address illegal immigrants, the Member said no. Rather, the Member said the CHC simply wants to make sure the bill — as drafted — doesn’t prohibit illegal immigrants from accessing care.
-- Roll Call

Our allies on the Hill have been making just this point. Speaker Pelosi and others have been trying to say that the House plan doesn't cover illegal aliens because it doesn't specifically say that it does. Our allies, however, point out that unless legislation specifically bars illegal aliens from anything -- and requires verification -- illegal aliens always end up getting the benefit.

The fact that the Hispanic Caucus appears to be satisfied with the language the way it is suggests that our allies are right.

Roll Call reported that the CHS emphasized to Pelosi that she must block any language that would restrict the federal health plan to illegal aliens.

Once again, it appears that the Hispanic Caucus cares more about illegal aliens than Hispanic American citizens.

We will continue to provide multiple opportunities through the week for NumbersUSA members to fight this incredible reward for immigration lawbreakers. At a time when negotiations are breaking down because of the gigantic projected costs of the House plan and as lawmakers try to find ways to cut benefits to -- and increase taxes on -- U.S. citizens, it is most telling that so many Members of Congress are insistent on protecting beneifts for illegal aliens.

Any federal health plan must include verifiable prohibitions against inclusion of foreign citizens who are illegally in this country.

NUMBERS USA - IMPORTING FOREIGN WORKERS

Millions of Americans are Out of Work (Reject Foreign Worker Importation )
Ask your Congressmen to Reject Foreign Worker Importation when Millions of Americans are Out of Work
This new fax has been posted in your Action Buffet based on your answers to the Interest Survey.

You can find this fax by proceeding to
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=11567


You might remember in February NumbersUSA (along with other like-minded organizations) ran a television ad highlighting the number of foreign workers the United States imports each year. With unemployment at record highs, NumbersUSA is again participating in a national ad campaign. You can view the advertisement here.


At least one of your Members of Congress has a "D-" or worse recent immigration reduction grade. Please send a fax to your Congressmen and urge him/her to support legislation that would restrict the importation of foreign workers at a time when so many Americans are unable to find a job. Make it clear that you are aware of his/her poor immigration voting record and that you hold him/her personally responsible for reducing the number of foreign workers and getting unemployed Americans back to work.

WASHINGTON POST - Ousting American Workers for "cheap" labor ILLEGALS

The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com
ARRIVAL OF ALIENS OUTS U.S. WORKERS

By Jerry Seper THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published April 10, 2006
An Alabama employment agency that sent 70 laborers and construction workers to job sites in that state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina says the men were sent home after just two weeks on the job by employers who told them "the Mexicans had arrived" and were willing to work for less. Linda Swope, who operates Complete Employment Services Inc. in Mobile, Ala., told The Washington Times last week that the workers -- whom she described as U.S. citizens, residents of Alabama and predominantly black -- had been "urgently requested" by contractors hired to rebuild and clear devastated areas of the state, but were told to leave three job sites when the foreign workers showed up. "After Katrina, our company had 70 workers on the job the first day, but the companies decided they didn't need them anymore because the Mexicans had arrived," Mrs. Swope said. "I assure you it is not true that Americans don't want to work. "We had been told that 270 jobs might be available, and we could have filled every one of them with men from this area, most of whom lost their jobs because of the hurricane," she said. "When we told the guys they would not be needed, they actually cried ... and we cried with them. This is a shame." Mrs. Swope said employment agencies throughout Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi faced similar problems, when thousands of men from Mexico and several Central and South American countries -- many in crowded buses and trucks -- came into the three states after Katrina, looking for employment and willing to work for less money. The number of foreign workers who flooded the area after the hurricane has been estimated at more than 30,000. Many of them have been identified by law-enforcement authorities and others as illegal aliens. The Gulf Coast Latin American Association noted in a report that whether those workers will remain after the cleanup work is completed is not clear, but the longer those jobs last, the more likely it is that the workers will settle permanently. After Hurricane Andrew hit southeastern Florida in 1992, the association said, the construction boom attracted large numbers of Hispanic immigrants to several areas, including Homestead, Fla., where the Latino population doubled during the 1990s. Many of the illegal aliens came into the Gulf Coast states not only from south of the border but also from California, Arizona and Texas, responding to the demand for workers. U.S. Border Patrol officials in the three states have reported an increase in the number of illegals apprehended. Some of the migrants who did get jobs in the Gulf states also were mistreated, records show. Two class-action lawsuits are pending in federal court in New Orleans in which thousands of migrant workers said they never were paid, although many worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week and were required to remove toxic contamination from hurricane-ravaged buildings. Some of the named companies were working on contracts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other government agencies. Government estimates put at 400,000 the number of jobs lost in the Gulf region as a result of Katrina, which displaced more than 1.5 million people, and many of those workers left the area to seek employment elsewhere because available construction, laborer and cleanup jobs in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi had been filled by foreign workers, including illegal aliens. President Bush last week signed the Katrina Emergency Assistance Act of 2006, which extended for 13 weeks unemployment compensation benefits to more than 140,000 residents of the Gulf states who were displaced from their jobs by Katrina. Their benefits, funded by FEMA, had expired March 4. Would-be employers in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, awash in cleanup and reconstruction jobs, faced little in the way of legal problems in hiring the illegal aliens after Katrina because the Department of Homeland Security temporarily suspended the sanctioning of employers who hired workers unable to document their citizenship. Mr. Bush also had suspended the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires local contractors to pay "prevailing" wages, in the areas hit by Katrina to encourage reconstruction and cleanup. "The men we sent to jobs in Alabama were local fellows looking for work, men who needed jobs," Mrs. Swope said.
"After driving 50 miles to the work sites where they had been promised $10 an hour, they discovered the employers had found substitutes who were willing to work for less."
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What Would Happen if 38 Million Illegals Went Home????

WHAT IF THE MEXICAN WELFARE STATE WAS ENDED? WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THIS ONCE GREAT NATION, BEYOND THE FACT WE’D HEAR ENGLISH AGAIN, AND NO LONGER SEE MEXICAN FLAGS WAVING?


MEXICAN VISITOR’S LAMENT

Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a column titled, 'Mexican Visitor's Lament' -- 10/25/07.

She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while visiting Denver last week. Hernandez said, 'They (The illegal aliens) pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes...What Happens to your country's economy if 20 million people go away?' That's a good question - it deserves an answer. Over 80 percent of Americans demand secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million or more vacated America? The answers may surprise you! In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupt hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave highways cleaner, safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominant language again. In Colorado, 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids and grand-kids - would move back 'home', mostly to Mexico. That would save Coloradans an estimated $2 billion (other experts say $7 billion) annually in taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration costs. It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone. Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens. Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegals. Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67 percent drop-out/flunk-out rate because of thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41 different languages. At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our gridlocked cities in Colorado. Denver 's four percent unemployment rate would vanish as our working poor would gain jobs at a living wage. In Florida, 1.5 million illegals would return the Sunshine State back to America, the rule of law, and English. In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegals would free up hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free experience. If 20 million illegal aliens returned 'home' the U.S. Economy would return to the rule of law. Employers would hire legal American citizens at a living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn't be working off the books. That would result in an additional $401 Billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local, state and city coffers. No more push '1' for Spanish or '2' for English. No more confusion in American schools that now must contend with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids. Our overcrowded schools would lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches. We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually. That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country. In cities like L.A., 20,000 members of the ' 18th Street Gang' would vanish from our nation. No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans! No more foreign rapists and child molesters! Losing more than 20 million people would clear up our crowded highways and gridlock. Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American deaths by illegal aliens! America's economy is drained. Taxpayers are harmed. Employers get rich. Over $80 billion annually wouldn't return to the aliens' home countries by cash transfers. Illegal migrants earned half that money untaxed, which further drains America's economy – which currently suffers an $8.7 trillion debt. At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle. At least 86 hospitals in California, Georgia and Florida would still be operating instead of being bankrupt out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act. Americans wouldn't suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country-brought in by illegals unscreened at our borders. Our cities would see 20 million less people driving, polluting and grid locking our cities. It would also put the 'progressives' on the horns of a dilemma; illegal aliens and their family’s cause 11 percent of our greenhouse gases. Over one million of Mexico 's poorest citizens now live inside and along our border from Brownsville, Texas to San Diego, California in what the New York Times called, 'colonias' or new neighborhoods. Trouble is, those living areas resemble Bombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases, drugs, crimes, no sanitation and worse. They live without sewage, clean water, streets, electricity, roads or any kind of sanitation. The New York Times reported them to be America’s new ' Third World ' inside our own country. Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 20 million residents of those colonias. (I've seen them personally in Texas and Arizona; it's sickening beyond anything you can imagine.) By enforcing our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico. We should invite 20 million aliens to go home, fix their own countries and/or make a better life in Mexico. We already invite a million people into our country legally more than all other countries combined annually. We cannot and must not allow anarchy at our borders, more anarchy within our borders and growing lawlessness at every level in our nation. It's time to stand up for our country, our culture, our civilization and our way of life. Interesting Statistics. Here are 14 reasons illegal aliens should vacate America, and I hope they are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them: 1. $11 billion to $22 billion dollars are spent each year on welfare to illegal aliens.

2.$2.2 billion dollars are spent each year on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. 3. $2.5 billion dollars are spent each year on Medicaid for illegal aliens. 4. $12 billion dollars are spent each year on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! 5.$17 billion dollars are spent each year for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. 6.$3 Million Dollars PER DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. 7.30% percent of all federal prison inmates are illegal aliens. 8.$90 billion dollars are spent each year on illegal aliens for welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. 9.$200 billion dollars per year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. 10.The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US. 11.During the year 2005, there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our southern border with as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from terrorist countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine, and marijuana crossed into the U.S. from the southern border. 12.The National Policy Institute, estimates that the total cost of mass deportation would between $206 and $230 billion, or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period. 13.In 2006, illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. 14.The dark side of illegal immigration: Nearly one million sex crimes are committed by illegal immigrants in the United States. The total cost is a whopping $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR!!! .....................................

PELOSI DEMANDS to continue under the table FREE HEALTHCARE ILLEGALS

OBAMA SAYS IMMIGRATION “REFORM” MUST WAIT. This is simply more of the WALL STREET owned government’s propaganda. Since 1986 we’ve had “immigration reform on hold” while the La Raza dems stood and watch as our borders were stormed by the MILLIONS. MEXICO, which has more billionaires than Saudi Arabia or Switzerland, has found that maintain the ruling class’s hold on their economy is more simply accomplished by sending their poor, illiterate, criminal and typically pregnant over our borders. Our own government’s corporate propaganda is that there are only about 12 million illegals in this country. This is total crap. Other non-government figures put the figure at nearly 40 million. One has only to drive from San Diego to San Francisco looking for American born that speaks English to see that there are 20 million of these “12 million” along 101 alone!

It’s all about DEPRESSING WAGES for employers of illegals. WHO ARE THE EMPLOYERS OF ILLEGALS? Let us start with NANCY PELOSI, long an advocate of the DEMS program of MORE WELFARE FOR MORE ILLEGALS. Pelosi had long hired illegals at her St. Helena, Napa winery, and her restaurants. Pelosi has substantial investments in SUNKIST, which does not hire America born, or pay living wages. Her La Raza sister, Dianne Feinstein has long illegally hired ILLEGALS at her San Francisco hotel. She’s also taken massive bribes from two of the worst bankster criminal operations, LA RAZA donors WELLS FARGO and BANK of AMERICA. Both banks make huge profits, particularly in their mortgage scams exploiting ILLEGALS. While it’s unlikely a stupid gringo can go into one of these banksters’ banks and negotiate a check, ILLEGALS do it all the time using the phony Mexican consulate IDs that MEXICO hands out like grocery store coupons. CNN reports that about 20-30% of the billions of our economy sent back home to Mexico is in fact MEXICAN DRUG CARTEL MONEY.

FEINSTEIN and BOXER also take mucho big bribes from BIG AG BIZ, which also will not pay living wages despite their massive profits. Against the will of their constituents, FEINSTEIN – BOXER were back at working for a special “amnesty” for 1.5 million illegal farm workers despite the stats that one-third of these workers end up on welfare, and certainly most come, or become pregnant which puts them on welfare until that child is 18 years old.

You will never hear of PELOSI, FEINSTEIN, BOXER or the other California LA RAZA politicians, LOFGREN, ESHOO, WAXMAN, BACA, FARR, SANCHEZ, HONDA, FONG ever talking about the staggering bankruptcy of California due in large part to the creation of the Mexican welfare state = depressed wages. Their big mouths never, ever, ever open about the staggering unemployment in CA. In Los Angeles 47% of those with a job are ILLEGALS with stolen social security numbers. You will never hear these lifer-politicians talk about the foreclosure problem, or the millions of Americans that lost their life savings invested in their homes due to it. Foreclosure is substantially higher in the states most occupied by Mexico. In fact, the single most guilty party that cause the foreclosure debacle is DIANNE FEINSTEIN, who fronted for her LA RAZA bankers WELLS FARGO and BANK of AMERICA, when they fucked us over with the BANKSTERS’ BANKRUPTCY REFORM = NO MORTGAGE SCAM RENEGOTIATION. Sitting next to Feinstein when she was fronting the banksters’ reforms were BOXER, PELOSI, WAXMAN, and CLINTON, our LA RAZA clowns endlessly selling us out to the corporate interests. These same whores also voted for every possible NO-STRINGS, NO REGULATION, NO FORECLOSURE REFORM that the banksters and their bought OBAMA demanded. The facts are there people!
Nancy Pelsoi has vowed over and over again, along with Feinstein, Boxer, Waxman, Lofgren, and Reid that there will NEVER be anything but amnesty. There will never be a real wall. There will never be an real enforcement of law prohibiting the employment of illegals. Our red carpet addicted actor in the White House just sent three (3) letters to employers of illegals say no! No! However, these employers know, just as Feinstein, Boxer and Pelosi, that the DEMS FOR WALL STREET already have all the amnesty to depress wages they need. Every day thousands of illegals walk over our borders, bringing their crime wave, and right into our jobs, welfare lines, or “free” medical in hospital emergency rooms.

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ILLEGALS COLLECT NEARLY $40 MILLION PER MONTH IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY ALONE, WHICH HAS A TAX-FREE MEXICAN UNDERGROUND ECONOMY CALCULATED TO BE MORE THAN $2 BILLION PER YEAR. YOU THINK THE ILLEGALS ARE CONCERNED THAT THE DEMS UNDER THE LA RAZA PRESIDENT WILL CURTAIL THE RAPID EXPANSION OF THE MEXICAN WELFARE STATE = depressed wages???

JUST WATCH THESE POLITICIANS HISPANDER LEFT AND RIGHT FOR THE ILLEGALS ILLEGAL VOTES!


From the Los Angeles Times
Q & A
Sorting out claims about healthcare legislation
How would an overhaul really affect senior citizens? Abortion funding? Illegal immigrants?
By Noam N. Levey

August 10, 2009

Reporting from Washington — With lawmakers home for their August recess, a fierce battle has broken out over what precisely is in the mammoth healthcare bills being pushed by congressional Democrats. There has been no shortage of misinformation, much of it advanced by critics of President Obama's overhaul effort who have made sometimes outlandish claims. Here is a look at a few of the most contentious points.

Would illegal immigrants get free healthcare benefits?

Provisions in the House and Senate bills explicitly prohibit people who are "not lawfully present in the United States" from getting federal aid to help them buy health insurance in the new exchanges.

Congressional Democrats have resisted Republican efforts to put tougher documentation requirements on those applying for aid, arguing that that could discourage many poor people from signing up for health insurance.

No matter what happens with the legislation, illegal immigrants would almost certainly still be able to get care in emergency rooms, a major burden in some parts of the country.

THESE LA RAZA ENDORSED POLITICIANS, FEINSTEIN, BOXER, PELOSI are well trained to speak out of both sides of their mouths!

From the Los Angeles Times
Debate heats up on healthcare for illegal immigrants

House Speaker Pelosi has said that they would not be covered under overhaul proposals, but activists say medical care should not be denied to the sick, no matter their status.


By Antonio Olivo

August 11, 2009

Reporting from Chicago — Pushing around a cart filled with steamed corn, sliced cucumbers and other street food, Omar Castillo is the embodiment of what has become a third rail in the healthcare debate.

The 19-year-old, who received a kidney transplant last year, is in the U.S. illegally and has no ready access to long-term medical care. So peddling snacks is how he pays for the expensive drugs he needs to stay healthy.

To cover the needs of an estimated 6.8 million uninsured illegal immigrants, some advocates have proposed broadening the healthcare overhaul legislation now before Congress.

But fierce opposition has kept the idea off the table.

Castillo received his transplant and a year of free medicine as part of a hospital study at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago after lobbying by Latino activists and a call from the governor's office. With the study over, his last free prescription is running out.

"We don't know what we'll do when the medicine is gone," said Castillo, holding two nearly empty bottles of the immunosuppressants he takes to ward off an organ rejection.

It is immoral, immigration activists say, for hospitals and doctors -- as well as a nation -- to deny healthcare to the seriously ill, no matter their legal status. But proponents of tougher immigration enforcement and others fighting to contain runaway costs fear that providing such services would encourage more illegal border crossings.

Given spotty healthcare in countries such as China and Mexico, "health insurance alone might be worth people coming here . . . especially if you've got a family that's got a lot of illness in it," said Roy Beck of NumbersUSA, which has pushed for tighter restrictions on medical aid to illegal immigrants.

The issue is so sensitive that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) has made a point of emphasizing that illegal immigrants would not be covered under the current healthcare proposals. And the Congressional Hispanic Caucus issued a statement backing coverage only for "legal, law abiding" immigrants who pay their "fair share" for healthcare.

Under federal law, illegal immigrants are entitled to receive emergency healthcare, although some states offer assistance to cover uninsured children.

FEINSTEIN and BOXER work (AGAIN) for CHAIN MIGRATION even with unemployment soaring

The LA RAZA DEMS move for CHAIN MIGRATION, TO DOUBLE THE 38 MILLION ILLEGALS HERE, AND DEPRESS WAGES FOR THEIR CORPORATE PAYMASTERS

When Hillary Clinton ran for president, she stormed the country telling ILLEGALS that they should legally be permitted to bring their entire families up here also. CNN reports that CHAIN MIGRATION may add 272 extended family members to each and every illegal already illegally here. Due to the very high birth rates of illegals, the population of California will double mid-century by illegals assuring the special interests many generations of “cheap” labor. Only China does better in creating a slave sub-culture as the LA RAZA DEMS.
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When Hillary was campaigning in Las Vegas, she told the crowd of mostly illegals, “There is NO illegal woman here!” What she meant to say is that you’re no longer an illegal if you illegally vote DEM. Nevada is now 25% illegal, and has the unemployment, crime rates and foreclosure that goes with the Mexican occupation.
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In Mexican occupied Los Angeles, where 47% of those employed are ILLEGALS, and Mexican gangs murder from 500 – 1,000 people yearly (more than the entire European Union put together), Clinton hired La Raza’s virulently racist mayor, ANTONIO “TACO RUNT” VILLARAIGOSA as her co-campaign chair. Clinton promised Villaraigosa that he would find himself in a juicy cabinet post if he delivered the illegals’ illegal votes. These politicians know how Reps. Loretta and Linda Sanchez of Mexican occupied Orange County got their seats with the votes of illegals. When Villaraigosa ran for re-election, his TV campaign ads ran an illegal momma on welfare with a brood of kids telling us how good it is in Mexican occupied Los Angeles, which pays out $40 million per month in welfare to illegals.
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Both LA RAZA endorsed lifer-dems Feinstein and Boxer work tirelessly for amnesty, no wall, no ICE, no enforcement of laws prohibiting the hiring of illegals. They both also work for NO ID FOR ILLEGALS TO REGISTER TO VOTE FOR LA RAZA CANDIDATES, AND NO ENGLISH ONLY, knowing how much Mexicans loathe speaking English.
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ZOE LOFGREN, of San Jose, also works tirelessly for the LA RAZA invasion. 94% of her campaign money comes from special interests that refuse to pay legals a living wage.
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Across town REPS. FONG and HONDA are now working to defeat E-VERIFY. NO LEGALS NEED APPLY HERE!
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OBAMA has already signaled employers of illegals that there will be no real enforcement of laws against the hiring of illegals. There will never be an unemployment number high enough for these LA RAZA DEMS to work for the American people.
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Feinstein and Boxer for Chain Migration! (Millions of Americans are out of work!)
________________________________________
Date: 2009-08-10, 4:36PM PDT
Reply to: comm-sctpz-1316492600@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
________________________________________

Urge your Rep. to Support H.R. 878 to Restrict Chain Migration!
This new fax has been posted in your Action Buffet based on your answers to the Interest Survey.

You can find this fax by proceeding to
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=11563


Rep. Phil Gingrey has introduced the Nuclear Family Priority Act (H.R. 878), a bill that would would eliminate the extended family visa categories (e.g., married sons and daughters of citizens, etc.), thus ending “chain migration” as recommended by the bi-partisan Barbara Jordan Commission in 1997. (Chain migration is the process where seemingly endless “chains” of foreign nationals are allowed to immigrate to the United States, since our laws allow citizens and lawful permanent residents to bring in their non-nuclear, adult family members. It is the primary mechanism that has caused legal immigration in this country to quadruple since the 1960s.) This bill would reduce overall immigration to the United States by over 111,000 per year.

Unfortunately, your Representative has not yet cosponsored H.R. 878. Please send your Representative a fax and urge him/her to support this great bill.

NEW YORK TIMES Mexico releases DRUG CARTEL while USA hands them billions and leaves BORDERS UNDEFENDED

New York Times

August 11, 2009
WAR WITHOUT BORDERS
Mexico’s Drug Traffickers Continue Trade in Prison
By MARC LACEY
MEXICO CITY — The surveillance cameras captured it all: guards looking on nonchalantly as 53 inmates — many of them associated with one of Mexico’s most notorious drug cartels — let themselves out of their cells and sped off in waiting vehicles.
The video shows that prison guards only pulled out their weapons after the inmates were well on their way. The brazen escape in May in the northern state of Zacatecas — carried out in minutes without a single shot fired — is just one of many glaring examples of how Mexico’s crowded and cruel prison system represents a critical weak link in the drug war.
Mexico’s prisons, as described by inmates and insiders and viewed during several visits, are places where drug traffickers find a new base of operations for their criminal empires, recruit underlings, and bribe their way out for the right price. The system is so flawed, in fact, that the Mexican government is extraditing record numbers of drug traffickers to the United States, where they find it much harder to intimidate witnesses, run their drug operations or escape.
The latest jailbreak took place this weekend, when a suspected drug trafficker vanished from a Sinaloa prison during a party for inmates featuring a Mexican country music band. The Mexican government is considering isolating drug offenders from regular inmates to reduce opportunities for abuse.
The United States government, as part of its counternarcotics assistance program, is committing $4 million this year to help fix Mexico’s broken prisons, officials said. Experts from state prisons in the United States have begun tutorials for Mexican guards to make sure that there are clear ethical guidelines and professional practices that distinguish them from the men and women they guard. “There’s no point in rounding all these characters up if they are going to get out on their own,” said an American official involved in the training, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Although Mexican prisons call themselves Centers for Social Rehabilitation, “Universities of crime would be a better name,” said Pedro Héctor Arellano, who runs the prison outreach program in Mexico for the Episcopal Church.
Mexico’s prisons are bursting at the seams, with space for 172,151 inmates nationwide but an additional 50,000 crammed in. More arrive by the day as part of the government’s drug war, which has sent tens of thousands to prison since President Felipe Calderón took office nearly three years ago.
Inside the high concrete walls ringed by barbed wire, past the heavily armed men in black uniforms with stern expressions, inmates rule the roost. Some well-heeled prisoners pay to have keys to their cells. When life inside, with its pizza deliveries, prostitutes and binges on drugs and alcohol, becomes too confining, prisoners sometimes pay off the guards for a furlough or an outright jailbreak.
“Our prisons are businesses more than anything else,” said Pedro Arellano Aguilar, an expert on prisons. He has visited scores of them in Mexico and has come away with a dire view of what takes place inside. “Everything is for sale and everything can be bought.”
Guards Work for Inmates
For drug lords, flush with money, life on the inside is often a continuation of the free-spirited existence they led outside. Inmates look up to them. Guards often become their employees.
For more than a decade, Enrique, a strapping man with a faraway look in his eyes, worked in one of the roughest prisons in Mexico, imposing his will. He assigned prisoners to cell blocks based on the size of the bribes they made. He punished those who stepped out of line.
“I was the boss,” he declared. Not exactly. Enrique, whose story was corroborated by a prisoner advocates’ group, was actually an inmate, serving time inside Reclusorio Preventivo Oriente prison in Mexico City for trafficking cocaine. “It shouldn’t work the way it does,” said Enrique, now released, who asked that his full name not be published so he can resume life after his 12-year sentence.
Miguel Caro Quintero, a major drug trafficker wanted in Arizona and Colorado on charges of supplying multi-ton shipments of marijuana and cocaine to the United States, was jailed for 10 years in Mexico. Federal prosecutors accused him, like many drug lords, of continuing illegal activities from behind bars, using smuggled cellphones to maintain contact with his underlings on the outside and recruiting prisoners who were nearing the end of their sentences.
When his sentence in Mexico was up, he was sent off to the United States to face charges there, becoming one of more than 50 Mexicans, most of them drug offenders, extradited this year.
“When we keep a criminal in a Mexican prison, we run the risk that one way or another they are going to keep in contact with their criminal network,” Leopoldo Velarde, who heads extraditions for the federal attorney general’s office, said. “The idea is to stop criminals, not just jail them.”
Life in Reclusorio Preventivo Oriente prison’s Dormitory No. 9, where many top drug traffickers are held, shows the clout that influential inmates enjoy. The prisoners are a privileged lot, wearing designer clothing and enjoying special privileges ranging from frequent visits by girlfriends to big-screen televisions in their spacious cells, federal prosecutors told local newspapers after one of the inmates recently bought his way out.
Traffickers continue to run their operations through their lieutenants inside the prison as well as outside, using supposedly banned cellphones.
The government says it is moving aggressively to ship off dangerous criminals who are wanted in the United States and are likely to restart their criminal enterprises from jail. Once the legal requirements are met by both governments, the handcuffed suspects are flown by American government agencies to face trial in the United States. Usually the country that requests extradition pays expenses, but American officials said that who pays depends on individual cases.
Since Mr. Calderón came to office in December 2006, his government has surprised the United States by extraditing more than 200 criminal suspects, more than double the rate of predecessors. Based on the legal battles they begin to avoid extradition, it is clear that inmates fear going to the United States. Their support network, prison officials in both countries say, is considerably weaker there.
For years, the Justice Department lobbied Mexico to allow more criminal suspects to face trial in the United States. But until 2005, Mexican court rulings limited extradition to those cases in which neither the death penalty nor life in prison was sought, and Mexican pride about sovereignty made Mexican officials drag their feet. That changed with Mr. Calderón’s resolve to embark on a tougher drug war.
American officials say they are thrilled with the Mexicans’ more aggressive extradition policy. “The best way to disrupt and dismantle a criminal organization is to lock up its leaders and seize their money — so we will work with our Mexican counterparts to locate and extradite, when appropriate, cartel leadership to the United States for prosecution,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in July.
A Wave of Escapes
The jailbreak in May at the Cieneguillas prison in Zacatecas was just one of several escapes that showed how porous Mexican jails are. The Zetas, a paramilitary group known for its ruthlessness in protecting its drug turf, planned the escape, and have organized jailbreaks in at least four states, Mexican law enforcement officials said. Zacatecas prison has had at least three escapes in recent years.
The situation there is so bad, according to a local lawyer, Uriel Márquez Valerio, that inmates managed to invite a musical group into the prison in 2005 to celebrate the birthday of a drug trafficker, who several weeks later found a way to escape.
In recent weeks, the authorities have managed to catch three of the 53 escapees from May and have thrown 51 prison officials, including the director, into jail while the investigation into collusion in the escape continues. The prime piece of evidence against the prison employees was the surveillance system they were supposed to use to monitor inmates. The video, leaked by law enforcement officials and now available on YouTube, recorded the jailbreak in detail.
It was clearly an inside job, one that prompted Interpol to issue an international alert for 11 of the escapees, who were deemed “a risk to the safety and security of citizens around the world.”
One of the escapees, Osvaldo García Delgado, a 27-year-old trafficker with the nickname Vampire, said after he had been re-arrested that the Zetas planned the breakout. Carefully plotted for weeks, the operation was designed to release some top Zeta commanders. Scores of lower-level Zetas were taken along as well.
The Vampire told police interrogators that the prisoners were awakened early one morning and told to dress in their best clothes. He expressed surprise that the guards were doing no guarding that day but instead had become instrumental players in the escape plan.
The men carrying out the escape were dressed in federal police uniforms and drove what appeared to be police vehicles, with lights, sirens and official-looking decals affixed to the sides. There was a helicopter flying overhead as well, giving the operation the air of legitimacy. Since drug cartels frequently recruit law enforcement officials as allies, it is never clear in Mexico whether they will in fact enforce the law — or whether they are impostors.
In this case, the authorities later disclosed that the uniforms worn by the gunmen who carried out the escape were either outright fakes or outdated outfits. The vehicles, which screeched away from the scene with sirens blaring, were not actual police-issue either, the authorities said. All that said, investigators have not ruled out the possibility that corrupt law enforcement officials helped carry out the operation.
After the latest escape, federal authorities have begun interviewing prison workers to determine how Orso Iván Gastélum Cruz, who was arrested by the army in 2005, disappeared Sunday from jail in Sinaloa, where one of Mexico’s major drug cartels is based.
Last July, Luis Gonzaga Castro Flores, a trafficker working for the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, bought his way out of Reclusorio Preventivo Oriente prison, where he was described by the local media as the godfather of Dormitory No. 9, the area where many drug prisoners are kept.
Other detainees escape before ever getting to prison or while being transferred to court, often with the aid of their cartel colleagues as well as complicit guards. In March, an armed group opened fire on a police convoy outside Mexico City, freeing five drug traffickers who were being taken to prison.
The government acknowledges it does not have full control of its prisons, but it attributes part of the problem to its aggressive roundup of drug traffickers. Escapes are on the rise, a top federal law enforcement official, Luis Cárdenas Palomino, told reporters recently, because the government was locking up so many leading operatives that it was getting harder for the cartels to function.
A Space Crunch
Mexico’s prison system is a mishmash of federal, state and local facilities of varying quality. The most dangerous prisoners are supposed to be housed in maximum security federal facilities, but there is nowhere near enough space. So the federal government pays the states to take in drug traffickers and other federal prisoners in their far less secure lockups.
From August through December 2008, in the most recent statistics available, state prisons across Mexico reported 36 violent episodes with 80 deaths, 162 injuries and 27 escapes, the government said. There was no breakdown in those statistics of how much of the violence was linked to traffickers, but experts said prisoners involved in the drug trade tend to be the most fierce and trouble-prone of all.
“These are clear signals that the penal system, as it is currently organized, is not meeting its primary obligation of guarding inmates efficiently and safely while they serve their sentences,” the federal government’s recently released strategic plan on prisons said of the string of assaults and escapes.
To relieve the congestion and better control the inmates, the government is planning a prison-building spree that will add tens of thousands of new beds in the coming years. One goal, officials say, is to keep drug lords separate from petty criminals as well as the many people who have been imprisoned but never convicted, thus reducing their ability to recruit new employees.
The government is also focusing on personnel, boosting guards’ pay, putting them through a newly created training academy and screening them for corruption. Mexico recently sent several dozen of its guards to beef up their skills at the training academy used by the New Mexico Department of Corrections.
All of the trainees, even guards with 15 years’ experience, had to start with the basics, shining their boots, cleaning out dormitory toilets and listening to lectures on how conniving inmates can be in trying to win over weak-willed guards.
Some of those Mexican guards who are now active participants in Mexico’s deeply flawed penal system say they welcome the moves toward professionalism.
One prison guard acknowledged, “We have guns, but we know it is them, not us, who really control things.”