Annotations for Communities: Prisoners

In New York City, Mayor David Dinkins is calling for amnesty for Puerto Rican political prisoners. Mandalit del Barco reports.

Today, there are more than 45 Puerto Ricans in federal prisons across the country, some of them in jail for 10 years or more because of their work to free Puerto Rico from its U.S. ties. Three years ago, New York City mayor David Dinkins called three of the most famous Puerto Rican Independentistas assassins. Recently, however, he announced a support for freeing more than 21 political prisoners. Dinkins agreed with an amnesty resolution approved last fall by the New York City Council, and he said he's even written to President Clinton on behalf of the prisoners, asking for freedom as a humanitarian gesture. In November, the city council called on the United Nations to declare a general amnesty for the Puerto Ricans now in jail. Their status is a continuing issue for the Senate and Congress as hearings on a Puerto Rican plebiscite continue. For Latino USA, I'm Mandalit del Barco in New York.

The movement to restrict immigration is reaching new levels. According to a "USA Today" CNN poll, 65% of those questioned want curbs on immigration. Perhaps nowhere is the anti-immigrant movement stronger than in California. In that state, two longtime supporters of immigrants have recently called for measures to limit immigration.

Armando Botello reports.

California State Senator Art Torres, a longtime supporter of immigrants, said that because of the lack of resources, California and the United States have reached a point where we have to be much more restrictive in terms of legal and illegal immigration. Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein has proposed steps to curb illegal immigration, including restrictions of undocumented women's access to maternity care, an increase in the number of border patrol agents, and deportation of undocumented immigrants who are serving prison sentences. To pay for her six-point program, the Senator has proposed a $1 fee for each person who comes into the United States at one of the international borders.

Reporting for "Latino USA," I'm Armando Botello in Sacramento, California.

The simple fact is that we must not and we will not surrender our borders to those who wish to exploit our history of compassion and justice.

At a time when polls show many Americans favoring curbs on illegal immigration President Clinton is calling for tighter controls on who can come to this country and stay legally. The President says his plan will reduce the number of undocumented immigrants and also smugglers and terrorists who take advantage of present laws and enforcement capabilities. From Washington, Patricia Guadalupe has more on the President's new immigration plan.

President Clinton's immigration initiative seek to prevent illegal entry into the United States, remove those with criminal records immediately and increase criminal penalties particularly for those who smuggle undocumented workers.

We will treat organizing a crime syndicate to smuggle aliens as a serious crime and we will increase the number of border patrol equipping and training them to be first class law enforcement officer.

To accomplish this, President Clinton is requesting an additional 172 million dollars. 32 million dollars will be directed to the immigration and naturalization service to implement a program that seeks to crack down on fraud by promptly removing those who arrive in the country without legal documents. Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein of California supports President Clinton's initiatives. Feinstein says California spends more than 300 million dollars a year on keeping foreigners in prison. She believes Clinton's new immigration initiatives address her concerns.

You've got to remove the option inmates have of doing time when they're here illegally and they're convicted of a felony, they can opt to serve in a state prison. I think they ought to go back, serve the time in their own prison of their own country.

Democratic representative Ed Pastor’s Arizona district includes 200 miles of the US Mexico border. He believes Clinton's proposals to hire and train 600 new border patrol agents will pump needed money and personnel into the border patrol department and cut down on abuse.

President Clinton said that there would be reviews of allegations when there would be abuse of civil rights, so if the president follows through with that and we have enough officers, hopefully then we won't have as many allegations of violation of civil rights.

But aside from acknowledging the need for increasing the number of border patrol agents, support from most Hispanic members of Congress for President Clinton's immigration plan was lukewarm at best. Although President Clinton publicly thanked them for their help, none were present at the plan's announcement. Hispanic Caucus Chair Democrat, José Serrano of New York said he worried expediting asylum claims at the airport would discriminate against those who arrived with legitimate claims of persecution, but for obvious reasons have no legal papers. But Republican representative Henry Bonilla of Texas with over 600 miles of the border in his district says the United States does not pay enough attention to its own people.

Illegal aliens in this country tax our local communities in a way that's really choking them. Hospitals, schools, economy- and we need to do something about it and I'm glad that he's paying attention to this problem.

Representative Bonilla's concern, along with many in Congress is about how to pay for these immigration initiatives, and Democrats are on the same wavelength. Clinton's immigration plan will be taken up after Congress returns from the month long recess in September. For Latino USA, I'm Patricia Guadalupe in Washington.

With us on the phone to discuss the implications of these proposals are from Washington, Warren Leiden, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and from Los Angeles, Attorney Viviana Andrade, the National Director of the Immigration Rights Project of Maldive, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund. First of all, let me ask both of you, your general impressions of the President's new immigration plan.

Well, I think that it's quite a mixed bag. I think that there are a number of proposals that have been supported and called for for some time. I like the rhetoric with which it was introduced, respect for legal immigration and New Americans, but I think in its details, some of the proposals and especially the expedited exclusion proposal will have a negative impact unless it's amended.

We are deeply troubled by the summary exclusion proceedings as well as with the increase in the number of border patrol agents unless there are improvements in civilian oversight in training of the agency and perhaps in restructuring the agency. I don't think that the president's plan really honestly addressed that. And obviously, our concern is that given this time of very precious federal resources that we ought not to be throwing good money after bad.

Let's talk a little bit more about the changes that this policy as announced by the president would make in the political asylum process.

Unfortunately, they have set a high legal standard that will return legitimate refugees to the country they came from. They employ a what's called a safe country standard. There'll be a list of countries, mostly western European countries that have some kind of refugee processing system. If your plane or ship touched at one of those countries, you can be sent back to that country without regard to whether in fact you would have a hearing or protection there. And so kind of washing our hands of you.

From my perspective and after having handled and participated in some litigation against the INS, I think that what I find the most troubling, and again, no one is going to disagree that the process needs to happen as quickly as possible. But the thing that I find most troubling as a civil rights attorney is the fact that the administration's proposal would make it impossible for us to sue them if they chose to adopt policies that completely violated their own laws. And it is the lack of those kinds of checks that I find particularly disturbing.

As you said, president Clinton's tone was very positive. He was careful to repeat several times during his presentation that he did not want to send an anti-immigrant message. However, could some of his proposals play into a larger scenario that could augment the backlash against immigrants in this country? Do you have any fears about that?

Well, I'm constantly in fear of that when the opportunist and people who are misguided target people instead of targeting laws, instead of targeting legal procedures, I become very fearful of that.

Particularly, here in California, the backlash against immigrants is extremely strong. It comes from cities that are banning day laborers who are clearly immigrant workers. It comes in the form of an increase in abuses against immigrants in the southern border in San Diego, and it's a real concern that we have here; that we ought to keep focusing on policy honestly and not on as Warren talks about, on people and on the individuals, and oftentimes it's a very daunting task.

Well, thank you very much for speaking with us, Warren Leiden of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and Viviana Andrade of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund here on Latino USA. Thank you.

1,500 Cubans holding US federal prisons will be repatriated to Havana. The prisoners who came to this country as part of the Mariel Exodus of 1980 are being deported under an agreement between the Clinton administration and the government of Fidel Castro. But some Cuban Americans are concerned about what could await the prisoners and fear that disagreement might signal the start of broader concessions between the governments of the United States and Cuba. I'm Vidal Guzman. From Austin, Texas, you're listening to Latino USA.