Sunday, March 1, 2015

Mines, Water, Roads, Borders

The Resolution Copper land grab is also a water grab, with a projected use of millions of gallons per year and contamination of more; and during what could be a mega-drought. Water is often compared to gold as its value increases the more scarce it becomes, which means we may soon be fighting not only the increasing privatization of land, but also of water. Despite the fact that the Resolution Copper deal, having been snuck into a defense bill, involves an exchange of land, it is being done to the advantage of a transnational mining corporation and to the detriment of the Chi’Chil’Ba’Goteel/Oak Flat/Apache Leap area and the people who hold it sacred. This land grab represents a continued prioritization of economic development in so-called Arizona, which means more resource-extraction and increased international trade (specifically with or through Mexico). Mining and other industries shaped by trade-related demand bring not only risk to water, but also more roads like Interstate 11 and rail (which require land acquisition), and increased border militarization. US trade policy is largely culpable for the violence on the border and south of the border.

Economic development is portrayed as bringing more jobs, but these “free-market” policies, as in the case of NAFTA, are meant to redistribute wealth to the hands of the rich. Because of their trade relationship and connecting infrastructure, Arizona and Sonora have a shared fate as land, water, safety, indigenous ways of life and sacred sites are all at risk. The state governments enable resource-extraction and other infrastructural projects, lucrative to those who would build them and those who would finance them, through subsidization and protection with our tax dollars.



Arizona's connection to a port in Guaymas, Sonora is crucial to the Arizona mining industry. Copper is one of the fastest growing US exports, and much of what is and would be mined in Arizona would be transported down to where mining companies such as BHP Billiton (of Resolution Copper) and Freeport McMoran do business at this Mexican port on the Sea of Cortez. Guaymas is also significant because shipping companies can have lower standards for working conditions in Mexico versus the US. This port is the southernmost point of the CANAMEX Corridor, the NAFTA trade route connecting Canada and Mexico through five US states including Arizona. The Port of Guaymas has been expanding over the years and brings along its own set of problems in the vicinity, requiring its own energy sources and water, damaging the environment, impacting the local communities, etc. Arizona is counting on the continued growth of the Mexican economy, yet the importance of the Port of Guaymas also signifies that a lot of exports from the US are meant to cross the Pacific ocean (especially if the Trans Pacific Partnership goes into effect), not stay within its favored trade partner's borders.

The CANAMEX Corridor already exists, but will be considered complete once Interstate 11, which is in the study phase (aside from the Boulder City Bypass which is scheduled to break ground this year) has been constructed, connecting Las Vegas and Phoenix with a route fit for freight traffic. Interstate 11 may eventually refer to the entire trade corridor reaching from Mexico to Canada, or at least is intended to span from the Mexican border and beyond Las Vegas. Parts of it maybe multi-modal including rail and other infrastructure possibly including water pipeline. This massive project will cut through communities and damage the environment. Conceptualized as the entire trade corridor, it is currently also referred to as the Intermountain West Corridor--basically CANAMEX but with a more updated, more western route where it would run north of Las Vegas. South of the border, the Mexican government has recently agreed to the request by Arizona officials to improve Route 15, which is part of this Corridor, for freight traffic.


Intermittent blockades of Route 15 have been one tactic used by Yaqui resisters in response to the theft of their water in the last few years. The rapid growth of the City of Hermosillo in the state of Sonora, Mexico situated along the CANAMEX Corridor, on the way to the Port of Guaymas, is due in part to NAFTA-fueled agribusiness and mining which are the primary water-users. As it is, Sonora essentially exports millions of gallons of fresh water to the US in the form of fruits and vegetables. In the context of the drought and overuse of water, and as a result of the ways international trade has impacted Sonora, Hermosillo has required acquisition of water, impacting the Yaquis, Mayos, and Guajiríos with aqueducts and dams on the rivers. These mega-projects, enacted by Sonora SI (started by the Sonoran Governor who has a close relationship with the mining industry), have the intention of addressing the water crisis (for Hermosillo), contributing to the competitiveness of the region and providing new infrastructural projects for companies to make money from.

Since technology is now allowing for relatively affordable removal of salt from the plentiful ocean water, one megaproject planned for Sonora is one or more desalination plants. It is possible that the Agreement of Cooperation between the states of Arizona and Sonora signed by the respective governors at the Arizona-Mexico Commission’s Plenary Session last summer to jointly evaluate the feasibility of desalination at the Sea of Cortez for a new water supply for Arizona and Sonora is related to the Sonora SI project, which includes a desal plant in San Carlos near Guaymas. The potential for desalinated water piped from California or Mexico is part of Arizona's official water strategy. This year, a bill is in the Arizona House of Representatives to fund and arrange a study for the potential for desalination for Arizona. The intention for Arizona to expand and become more competitive in trade, along with potential new copper mine(s) will mean new demand for water, and with the combination of scarcity and new infrastructure, the water could be privatized. Desalination plants threaten the environment in various ways including the direct impact on their location on the water, as well as through the use of energy in the process and transport of the water.

Despite the likely need for drastic measures even if Arizona doesn't grow, some in Arizona find that expansion is necessary and inevitable. A so-called “megapolitan” area including Phoenix and Tucson called the “Sun Corridor” is intended as an economically integrated trade hub along the CANAMEX Corridor. Those interested in this concept have been attempting to reform state trust land law in the interest of further growth and development. The Sun Corridor concept is supposedly justified by—at the same time as it is used to encourage—growth and accompanying infrastructure especially for freight traffic in the area despite that growth is not sustainable in the area. The infrastructure required includes new roads, rail, ports, and border security.

Along with the steps to build Interstate 11, just in the last few months, Arizona opened trade offices in Hermosillo and Mexico City, committed funding to increase freight rail infrastructure near the border and to expand ports of entry at the AZ/Mexico border. According to ADOT's press release, Arizona was involved in a US/Mexico joint investment “implementing U.S. technology, equipment and training to enhance the efficiency of the military inspection station north of Hermosillo," which involves $6.8 million almost certainly from the Mérida Initiative, with an additional $4 million from the Mexican Government.

The primary intention of the Mérida Initiative (also known as Plan Mexico, a reference to the failed Plan Columbia) is supposedly to fight the drug trade, but one major role, to create a “21st Century Border Structure,” deals with trade and migration as well. This is meant to “Facilitate legitimate commerce and movement of people while curtailing the illicit flow of drugs, people, arms, and cash. The Mérida Initiative will provide the foundation for better infrastructure and technology to strengthen and modernize border security at northern and southern land crossings, ports, and airports.” Sure, the US wants to prevent the illicit activity that correlates with increased movement of trucks across the border. It is also the trade policies themselves, and the accompanying poverty and displacement, that contribute to migration (and arguably contribute to the drug trade). Many in US benefit from exploiting the cheap labor created by criminalization of migrants. And then there are the security and technology companies who can profit from infrastructure and equipment involved in securing the border. Large transnational companies such as Israeli company Elbit Systems brings their similar experience in militarizing the Gaza Strip and enforcing their apartheid wall to the border as well. The potential for any future Comprehensive Immigration Reform to bring about a "border surge" manifesting a massive profit-making opportunity for the military industrial complex to the US/Mexico border will likely make it even worse than it already is. Migrants continue to die crossing the border. Tohono O'odham who live along the border or visit relatives also face daily harassment, abuse, check-points, invasion of privacy, limits on movement, drones, cameras, etc. due to the border patrol's activities where the border bisects their lands.

Arizona officials and business leaders want to believe the myth that Mexico has the violence and organized crime under control. In the interest of becoming more friendly to international investment, for just a few years prior to the violent disappearance of the students from Ayotzinapa in late 2014, Mexico attempted to make itself look as though it was successfully instituting the rule of law. Yet law enforcement is clearly involved in much of this violence. And U.S. trade policy is largely culpable. Many violent acts tend to be depoliticized and obscured by associating the victims with drugs. Students at the Normal school in Ayotzinapa were known for protesting neoliberal reforms in Mexico. The fact that they were clearly not involved with the drug trade and that it involved so many youths made what happened to them more worthy of media attention.

The drug war, instead of curtailing the production and movement of drugs, functions, even if not specifically intended to, to facilitate resource-extraction and international investment in areas such as Mexico and Central America. Militarization and paramilitarization benefit US and transnational corporations' involvement there through displacement and social control, as described in Dawn Paley's new book, "Drug War Capitalism." With at least a couple dozen mining conflicts in Mexico alone, and the violence faced by activists who oppose mining, it is clear that even when organized crime groups are involved in law enforcement and violence, these are often acts of repression. For mining to continue, people are forcibly displaced, and the state facilitates this, in part by US tax dollars and to a certain extent for Arizona trade interests. Mining companies around the world often have arrangements with paramilitaries and/or military to protect them, such as in the cases of Resolution Copper's BHP Billiton in Columbia, and Phoenix-based Freeport McMoran in Indonesia.

In modern history in Arizona, displacement looks different but is no less significant. Confiscation of livestock, used as a tactic of attrition to force Diné who have resisted displacement from their lands so Peabody Coal can continue strip-mining the Black Mesa area, has occurred as recently as October 2014. Some members of Congress have recently urged that the relocation project be completed. Arizona's urban areas' access to water and electricity involves a mega-project that has a complex history few know about, which is all the more relevant in relation to the Yaqui water struggle and the potentiality of infrastructure being built for desalinated water. Often characterized as savvy and industrious, the efforts made to create the Central Arizona Project (CAP) that brings water from the Colorado River, and the whole project including Peabody Coal's strip-mining (to fuel the generating plant that powers CAP and provides electricity to Phoenix, Las Vegas and other areas), rests on a history involving manipulation, manufactured conflict between the Diné and Hopi and among tribal members, forced removal of families, contamination and depletion of water, and the poisoning of those who have lived close to the mines and the generating station.

Indigenous people's access to clean and plentiful water has been threatened since settlers arrived, even after they were given priority water rights by the federal government. Not only did Southern Arizona settlers divert water away from sources Tohono O'odham and other indigenous people relied upon, and contributed to erosion of their lands, indigenous people have been swindled for their priority water rights over the the last several decades. The Arizona Department of Water Resources considers the resolution of tribal water rights claims (9 more out of 22 total) the number one priority due to the uncertainty of long-term water availability for Arizona. Often the settlements promise infrastructure to provide water delivered to homes on the reservations, instead of addressing the root causes of poverty and lack of access to clean water. The mining industry consumes and contaminates water on a massive scale, and because of how much water it depends on, is especially interested in securing water rights at the expense of priority water rights held by some tribes in Arizona, such as in the case of Freeport McMoran being involved in the settlement of Hualapai water rights claims last year.

In some cases, mining companies like Freeport McMoran have been buying land for the associated water rights. Freeport and Resolution Copper have benefited from legislation and/or legal exemptions that allow them to essentially hoard water. No doubt the Resolution Copper mine near Superior would use several millions of gallons of water a year. Rio Tinto (of Resolution Copper) has purchased future water rights from CAP. The risk to water in AZ will be compounded if the Rosemont Copper mine near Tucson also gets approved. Access to clean water that is also affordable becomes a grave concern as water becomes scarce, commodified, and potentially privatized as more infrastructure is involved in its acquisition and treatment.

As is implied in "There is No Drought: California's Twisted Waterways," the threat of a serious drought can be used by those interested in profiting off the scarcity of water, and the "solutions" which are proposed are those that benefit these private interests. Obama made water privatization in the US easier, when on June 13 of 2014, he signed the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA) into law. This included the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Authority (WIFIA) which is a 5-year pilot program providing financing for P3s for water projects. WIFIA, mirroring the "Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act" (TIFIA), was a concept developed and promoted by the American Water Works Association (AWWA). The new director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources was a member of the AWWA.

Additionally, various companies involved in other Arizona infrastructural projects (AECOM, CH2MHill, CDM Smith, Bechtel) are involved in water privatization across the world.AWWA, a non-profit, is supported by CH2MHILL and closely affiliated with AECOM. And with more P3s for transportation, the likelihood for P3s for water increases.

Private interests have pushed for Interstate 11 due to its role in trade. I-11 is also likely to be procured as a public-private partnership (or several). Public-private partnerships (P3), a type of arrangement which we'll be seeing more of in the coming years (and is in the works for the South Mountain Freeway), are proposed as a mutually-beneficial solution that uses complicated financial strategies to leverage state assets and essentially provide federal and/or state subsidies (through tax-free bonds, low-interest loans, etc.) to the private sector. It helps finance projects for which funding is otherwise lacking—therefore it is a much desired arrangement for construction and engineering companies, consultants, as well as banks. The P3 creates new profit opportunities for financial institutions, in the meantime creating more debt, and therefore it is largely about financialization. A P3 can also be understood as a form of privatization, not because a P3-built road would not be publicly accessible, but because P3s afford private entities influence, agency, and financial deals they would otherwise not have access to. Projects such as roads are more likely prioritized based on the interest of private parties, and based on what is incentivized by the federal government. A public-private partnership could also refer to an organization ("P3 unit") that involves public officials and private members, creating new forms of governance that provide opportunities for private involvement in decision-making.

Two such P3 units of note in Arizona are the Arizona-Mexico Commission (AMC) and the Transportation and Trade Corridor Alliance (TTCA). Both of these organizations involve the Director of the Arizona Department of Transportation and other state officials as well as various corporate leaders, with much overlap between the two. The pro-NAFTA AMC, who takes credit for pushing CANAMEX along, seems to have had a lot to do with getting TTCA instituted and becoming a major influence in Arizona policy on trade and transportation in recent years. Freeport McMoran has been a major sponsor of AMC and has had someone on the board of directors for several years. The locations of Freeport's Arizona mines and their use of the Port of Guaymas correlates with their interest in CANAMEX and I-11. Freeport hired the last director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources as their water strategist, and this department now has an intimate relationship with AMC, even listing AMC

It is no surprise as well that Senator John McCain has been a large proponent of the land swap for Resolution Copper, the Mérida Initiative, increased trade with Mexico, and the TPP. But this goes far beyond him and the AMC. Across the world, the World Bank and IMF have coerced countries into adopting structural adjustment programs or other changes in exchange for access to loans. We may be aware of austerity measures in the US, but we may not realize the various ways in which Arizona (or other US states for that matter) is also impacted by state-enabled free market ideology even as the state is not forced into formal agreements to open new areas up to private "partners." The economic development, made to seem intended to create jobs and improve the livelihoods of citizens is about nothing more than accumulation of wealth. It is clear though, that whether we call it neoliberalism, capitalism, or colonialism, is also a project of the state.

Monday, March 17, 2014

Circular Motion: Their Dream is Our Nightmare: How the Prison Industry is Holding the Human Rights Movement Hostage

from http://jupiternmarsattack.blogspot.com/2014/03/their-dream-is-our-nightmare-how-prison.html

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Their Dream is Our Nightmare: How the Prison Industry is Holding the Human Rights Movement Hostage

Civil rights eras of the past convey inspiration and hope. Hunger strikes have been used as a technique throughout history as a mechanism of both awareness and prayer. It is a sacrifice indicative of struggle and a plea to end oppression. It is symbolic and meaningful in this way, in many ways symbolic of strength in the face of adversity. The will to survive when deprived of necessary elements. This will is a source of inspiration and solidarity for that struggle. It brings public awareness to a cause often greater than the hunger strike itself, bringing awareness to suffering and a call for alleviation of it.

The private prison industry has a lot of power. It has a lot of money, influence, and is well connected with many people within the system. It IS the system. It can detain, incapacitate, steal, silence, torture, and kill. It represents an unchecked authority that is sick with power. This sickness continues infect society as long as it remains unchallenged.
Comprehensive immigration reform is a legal reflection this sickness. With the border surge amendment included, S. 744 allocates billions of dollars to the private prison industry, military contractors, and border patrol. It ensures that the industry is well endowed with money, prisoners, lots of ammo, and and much more. 
So how are nonprofit human rights organizations addressing these injustices? Do they make people aware of these discrepancies? Do they fight against militarization? Nope. Instead they put on a hunger strike to promote Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Instead they deceptively work to promote the very system they claim to campaign against—feeding into their prison industry power with legislation ensuring their profits.
I have to give it to the private prison industry. They are master minds! They have the perfect set up. With the nonprofit orgs now in full effect promoting CIR... hunger striking even... the prison industry now has a perfect hostage situation in which all of their demands are met and more. The nonprofits orgs are there, eager and ready to throw up signs, rally their paid cheerleaders, and fast for the cause. But what cause is this? Taken at face value, it sounds like they want to stop deportations. But then they continue...
“Comprehensive immigration reform now!”
“The time is now!”
The prison industry must love these tactics. It is the perfect power play! Not only are these hunger strikers advocating for legislation that the prison system helped create, the prison system can now use the strikers to their advantage, enabling the perfect hostage scenario to play out. As each hostage is released, the nonprofit organizations cheer and declare victory. As they dance around and celebrate, the hostage takers do also. They only have to release a few at a time for this master plan to work. Not only do they get to keep the majority of their prisoners in chains, they get billions of dollars in ransom! And of course, these hostages are hand picked to ensure maximum media coverage in the human rights circle. This ensures the sexiness and allure of the demonstrating nonprofit, so that they can continue to use them to do their dirty work. The private prison industry must be laughing their way to the bank!
Why do they give prisoners up to these hunger strikers?  If a non affiliated group of concerned citizens set up camp and did the same thing minus the CIR promotion, would they let anyone go?  Is it really normal for prisons to free prisoners just because people have demanded it? If this were the case, wouldn’t Leonard Peltier have made it out years ago?

When you pray, is there meaning and purpose behind your prayer? What do you pray for? What do you strike for? What is the goal? Is it to further human rights? Is it a fight against the status quo? Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves those questions when we take it upon ourselves to promote mass actions of resistance against oppression? Shouldn’t we be evaluating the effectiveness of this strategy?
When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established the border line in 1848, nobody consulted Tohono O'odham people when it effectively cut our land in half and divided us among two nations. Similarly, nobody gave these non profit organizations ownership of indigenous lands. Yet they take it upon themselves to compromise them and subject them to militarization. Nobody gave them the right to  Tohono O’odham, Hia C-ed O'odham, Lipan Apache, or any lands in the area. That also includes Ajo! The border patrol has been harassing, invading, and discriminating against indigenous people for as long as I can remember. The abuses are too many to list.  If they are willing to sell out indigenous lands and support legislation that actually encourages deportations, what human rights do they really advocate for?
When does it stop? When are we really going to fight back?
The prison industrial complex has demonstrated their weakness. They fear what they have effectively prevented: power to the people becoming an effective mantra—a collective mass taking matters back into their own hands. They want to keep us misinformed so that we keep fueling their power play.

For any real, effective movement to really work, people need to actually be informed on what they promote. Knowledge, information, and truth should be prized. In addition, the marginalization of indigenous voices has got to stop. Before any human rights struggle can make any motions to intervene, it must first show respect for indigenous people, the land, and also recognize that borders crossed people and not the other way around. 
 
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Thursday, January 9, 2014

Plunder Road: CANAMEX and the Emerging Impact of NAFTA, TPP on Western North America


As people across the world honor the twentieth anniversary of the Zapatista Liberation Army rising up in response to the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), resistance continues, most notably against resource extraction and other infrastructure. Meanwhile, what some call “NAFTA on steroids,” the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is currently pending agreement involving the North American countries and others scattered around the Pacific. And rather quietly, a transportation project called the CANAMEX Corridor is underway to facilitate trade along a north-south corridor of western North America. This corridor runs from a port on the Pacific coast of Mexico, through Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and north near the Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada.

Opposition to the CANAMEX Corridor is necessary not only because it is a major piece of the physical infrastructure needed to facilitate this trade. Its function in international trade is also used to justify the damage brought by its imposition locally, throughout the corridor. CANAMEX, designated as a High Priority Corridor shortly after NAFTA was implemented, already exists in the form of highways, but requires improvement and expansion to effectively facilitate trade.

The trade corridors of North America, CANAMEX being one of them, are extensions of NAFTA. They function as the infrastructure, such as roads, rail, ports, etc., that perpetuates the harms caused by so-called free trade. Among the effects of NAFTA since its implementation have been dramatic unemployment and displacement in Mexico due to subsidized US agricultural products such as corn, and a shift in privatization/ownership of Mexican land by private interests. One of the worst environmentally damaging projects in the world is the Tar Sands extraction in Alberta, Canada, which is in operation at its current level largely due to the NAFTA obligations to supply oil to the US. CANAMEX would also be an important corridor of TPP trade due to its Pacific seaport in Guaymas, Mexico, and its proximity to the west coast in general.

The impact of CANAMEX involves displacement of people and destruction of sacred sites and the environment, thereby affecting indigenous communities and various others. Trade transportation infrastructure is necessary for free movement of goods across borders, but along with it must come heightened border security in response to displacement caused by the impacts of trade agreements. Because it requires fuel, trade infrastructure is one of the primary reasons for resource extraction and is an extension of colonialism. Additionally, it is justified and imposed locally in the form of development and sprawl with compounded reliance on energy and resources such as water.

A project increasingly being used to circumvent the obstacle of lack of funding for these trade corridors is called a public-private partnership (P3), which is an arrangement that is essentially privatization but with some state control. Having been utilized throughout the world, P3s in North America seem now more than ever to go hand-in-hand with trade infrastructure development and neoliberalism in general.

In simple terms, neoliberalism involves trade liberalization, privatization, and relaxation of state power in effort to allow for a free market economy. It is important to frame opposition to the practice of neoliberalism and its trade pacts, privatization, etc., by foremost addressing state collusion and repression, in addition to its form as an extension of colonialism and capitalism. State repression against resistance makes possible the ease with which these colonial/neoliberal projects expand.


Trade and Resource Extraction

In December 2013, tens of thousands of Mexicans demonstrated against the recent decision by the president to open oil and gas reserves to foreign investment, the implications of which, due to NAFTA and TPP, are predictably negative for the people. Up in the north, Nez Perce, Umatilla, and Warm Springs tribal members, and Rising Tide members, among others, have partially stalled attempts to transport massive pieces of equipment called “megaloads” to the Tar Sands in Alberta over the last couple of years with various protests along the route from ports in the northwest US to the Tar Sands. By no coincidence, Interstate 15, which is part of CANAMEX, will possibly be used to transport megaloads north from where the 90 meets it in Montana. Expansion of trade transportation infrastructure is dependent on resource extraction and vice versa. Trade corridors provide the infrastructure for the movement of this type of equipment and could additionally facilitate future extraction at the tar sands in Utah, which is not very far from the CANAMEX Corridor. Rail may possibly be a significant mode of transportation of crude oil in the near future, especially with obstacles, largely due to grassroots resistance, to the construction of pipelines.

The CANAMEX Corridor is one expansive piece of the physical infrastructure of NAFTA and potentially the TPP. Even though the TPP does not seem primarily to emphasize trade as much as one might assume, it is undoubtedly the case that increased trade traffic will have an impact along the corridor, in the form of prioritization of transportation projects, and shifts in policy.

Citing the problem of bottlenecks in trade ports on the US west coast, CANAMEX-proponents favor trade products entering North America through western Mexican ports such as the Port of Guaymas, the southern-most tip of the CANAMEX Corridor, which is due to double in size in the next couple of years, making it the second largest seaport in Mexico. The benefits (for capitalists) of receiving trade shipments there, rather than in the US, are multiple aside from avoiding the bottleneck problems. Dockworkers in Mexico have lower wages, lesser benefits, and fewer safety measures than union workers in the States.



In his commentary as the Arizona-Mexico Commission’s CANAMEX expert, Jim Kolbe stated that trade with Asia will likely continue to increase and CANAMEX is meant to facilitate the movement of those goods into Arizona. This was discussed years prior to official TPP talks. Certainly if the agreement goes forth, trade with Asia will grow even more.

Currently, talks on the TPP involve Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States, and Vietnam. Not only are Chinese wages lower than Mexican wages, but the wages in Vietnam are half to a third of that of Chinese workers. The ramifications of this could involve increased unemployment and lowering of wages in Mexico and the US. Clearly some of these countries, or specifically their corporations, could easily take advantage of some of the other countries. For example, aspects of the TPP would make it even easier for companies to wreak environmental havoc wherever they choose; saving money on measures that would otherwise limit pollution.

There are various benefactors of the broadening of trade pacts and expansion of infrastructure. Describing the web of connections behind these neoliberal projects would take pages and could look a bit too much like conspiracy theory. We do not need a conspiracy theory to see how neoliberalism works and to understand that certain powerful individuals, corporations, and their organizations are going to have their hands in projects that promote their causes. Elsewhere, I have drawn connections between NAFTA, the Council of the Americas, North American Business Council, Security and Prosperity Partnership, North American Competitiveness Council, UPS and other corporations, McLarty Associates and its member Jim Kolbe who is part of the Arizona-Mexico Commission and the new Arizona Transportation and Trade Corridor Alliance which encompasses the Governor’s CANAMEX Task Force. Exposing these networks can be useful to show that these projects are being imposed by a wealthy few.

On a more local level, certain organizations and businesses are seeking expansion of “inland ports” consisting of multi-modal transportation nodes and foreign trade zones (FTZ) especially along trade corridors like CANAMEX. In regions zoned as FTZs, businesses get tax breaks and duty exemptions and deferrals. The placement of these FTZs will serve to justify infrastructure for this trade traffic to and through these areas. The presence and authority of the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in these foreign trade zones have unknown implications for migrants within them.


Trade and Border Security

On May 21, 2010, protesters locked down at the Border Patrol Headquarters in Tucson, Arizona with demands for self-determination for indigenous people, to regularize (“legalize”) all people, and for an end to NAFTA, among many related general and specific demands, which were and continue to be lacking from other similar actions. Involving members of Indigenous Nations of Arizona, migrants, people of color and white allies, it represented a more cohesive and radical analysis of the interlocking impacts of border security and trade.



Despite NAFTA being sold as a way to increase job opportunities in all three countries, the timing of beefed-up border security such as Operation Gatekeeper in the San Diego area, launched in 1994, indicates that the US government knew that NAFTA would cause an upsurge in migration from Mexico to the US due to the economic impact. On the surface it seems contradictory for Arizona to promote further NAFTA (and TPP) trade while enforcing immigration law. Yet capitalists and their government collaborators simultaneously want goods to move freely across borders and they want people moving across those borders to be criminalized and limited, thereby making them more exploitable. Governor Jan Brewer, for example, enthusiastically signed SB1070 and is promoting CANAMEX through the Arizona-Mexico Commission and the new Transportation and Trade Corridor Alliance.

This is not to imply that SB1070-style immigration enforcement is the preferred type. In fact, many would prefer some level of legalization, particularly guest worker programs, but either way it would be a “solution” with an emphasis on border security, and certainly not something that addresses the root causes of mass migration.

Border security will increasingly militarize O’odham communities in Arizona, coinciding with the invasive development and construction of trade infrastructure (roads, ports of entry, foreign trade zones) involved with CANAMEX. In Arizona, various freeways, or possibly toll-ways, comprising (or in close proximity to) the CANAMEX Corridor might be built through or along reservations and/or sacred sites, such as the Loop 202 Freeway extension in Phoenix, slated to cut through South Mountain which is sacred to O’odham. Construction of the wall, border-patrol harassment (and reckless driving), check-points, cameras, drones, severe limits on movement across the border for ceremonies (or for any reason), are some of the impacts of border security on O’odham and others living near the border—repercussions that would only worsen if/when Comprehensive Immigration Reform were to pass as proposed. CIR fans clearly ignored the escalating detriment it would create for border communities and recent/future border-crossers, and have largely failed to even mention the root causes of mass migration such as NAFTA.

CANAMEX-promoters are selling their development projects as ways to increase job opportunities, as did those hyping NAFTA in the ‘90s. However, the so-called free trade pushed by neoliberals has contributed to a hike in out-sourcing of jobs from the US. Rather than blaming the companies moving their facilities to countries with cheaper labor while continuing to pay their CEOs extravagant sums, it is the migrants who are scapegoated for the loss of jobs in the US. And while migrants are also blamed for taking advantage of welfare in the US, criminalization of migrants essentially acts as a form of welfare for the rich in that it maintains a permanent underclass of exploitable undocumented workers making wages, goods, and services cheaper. Without state repression, this situation would look far different.


Trade, Colonialism, and Sprawl

Unist’ot’en, Wet’suwet’en, and their allies continue to resist the imposition of various pipelines being planned to cut through unceded Wet’suwet’en Territory in northern British Columbia to link the Tar Sands to the west coast for trade with Asia. Down south in Mexico, the Council of Ejidos and Communities in Opposition to La Parota Dam (CECOP) and guerrilla group Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias-Liberación del Pueblo (FAR-LP), continue to resist La Parota hydro-electric dam intended to provide water and electricity to the Port of Acapulco. There are numerous other examples of opposition to the slew of negative impacts of the Athabasca Tar Sands project, against the Keystone XL Pipeline and countless other pipelines, movement of megaloads, development of the Utah Tar Sands, numerous fracking sites, and on and on. These and other forms of resistance are met with state repression. The physical infrastructure of neoliberalism such as highways, mines, pipelines, dams, etc. embody the continuation of colonialism. The plunder results in destruction of indigenous ways of life, displacement of people, and detriment to their health.

Every community the trade corridors cut through is affected by it. To the extent that people are even aware of the intentions meant for their local area, decision-makers may simply promote whatever benefit to the economy that might supposedly be brought by trade traffic. There are bigger plans at work, however. In the so-called Sun Corridor, expanding development, trade infrastructure and policy changes are justified by supposed population growth in general, and promises of prosperity that ideologues of regionalism are using to entice state leaders to embrace CANAMEX. The growth is forecasted by academics and others associated with organizations such as the Brookings Institute, the Morrison Institute working with Arizona State University, and companies such as AECOM promoting the concept of the Sun Corridor. The Sun Corridor is the name for this so-called megapolitan or mega-region consisting of Phoenix and Tucson (and possibly Prescott and Nogales), and making up part of the CANAMEX Corridor. ADOT and other transportation committees have taken this concept of the megapolitan, an economic integration of nearby metropolitan areas that are expected to reach 10 million residents by 2040, as inevitable. The Federal Highway Administration website also includes megapolitans in discussion on planning.

Increased sprawl in the so-called Sun Corridor is generally unpopular. Various communities oppose highways due to environmental impacts on the air, animals, plants, climate, and health. Additionally there are concerns about accidents involving dangerous cargo, and noise pollution. While highways are thought of as a way to improve movement, to the local community they often has the effect of a wall, dividing neighborhoods (not to mention demolishing homes and other places of importance) and often involving actual walls (which helps with noise pollution, but one would rather have a view of the mountains than of a wall). In the case of the Loop 202 Freeway extension, the above issues apply, along with concerns regarding threats to the O’odham way of life and sacred sites. Even if this proposed road isn’t part of the official CANAMEX Corridor, it is meant to support Sun Corridor sprawl and trade traffic.

Often the issue of sprawl or the requirement for expansion is framed as a problem of over-population primarily blamed on immigrants. This blame often functions to shift the responsibility away from massive resource-extraction projects that use water, energy and other resources (a never-ending cycle); use of fuel in trade-related shipping; irresponsible and inefficient planning and expansion; etc. This expansion and required resources is pushed by neoliberal academics and consultants, and even small-time real estate developers, resulting in over-consumption. Applying the label of “sustainable” or “green” to their projects makes it seem that they are doing this responsibly. Water is a particularly volatile issue, threatened by pollution from energy extraction, use of massive amounts in these projects, climate change, and the requirements of supporting the consumption involved with sprawl.


Neoliberalism and Public Private Partnerships

The public-private partnership (PPP or P3) is becoming increasingly more common in North America. Researching the P3s being discussed locally or globally for an infrastructure project is definitely a useful way to follow the money. It should be clear, however, that this type of arrangement is not in and of itself the problem (see most other imposed projects prior to P3s), but the problem is that it carries with it new and more insidious problems.

The main organizations promoting CANAMEX – the Arizona-Mexico Commission (the “godfather” of CANAMEX) and the new Arizona Transportation and Trade Corridor Alliance (TTCA), which is said to encompass the Governor’s CANAMEX taskforce – are both entities comprised of public and private members, with overlapping membership between the AMC and TTCA. The weight of their influence is uncertain, as they are not official decision-making bodies although there is also overlap with government committees. Sometimes an organization like this is referred to as a P3 or a “P3 Unit.” An example of a better-known P3 Unit is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), exposed in 2011 for its facilitation of collaboration between private prison companies and state legislators, resulting in the proliferation of SB1070-type anti-immigrant laws.

P3s more often refer to business arrangements between the state and private companies, often to build infrastructure and/or to manage a utility or service. P3s have been implemented across the world, primarily in cases where countries are indebted to neoliberal institutions. A lot of water privatization programs across the world are actually P3s. Along the lines of austerity measures, these arrangements in North America are not unlike structural adjustment programs (SAP) mandated in countries in debt to the World Bank or IMF. But while SAPs are largely involuntary, public-private partnerships in North America for projects such as transportation, are being promoted voluntarily as “innovative financing” by many government officials in cahoots with private interests. Compared to total privatization, an arrangement in which the government remains in so-called partnership with private interests makes the scenario easier to stomach for the residents affected, yet the private interests profit while the state government, or more specifically taxpayers, are left in debt to the companies for decades.

Arrangements such as these have been increasingly pushed by neoliberal organizations such as the Security and Prosperity Partnership and its successors, partly to promote the idea that the private sector is more efficient in projects such as for infrastructure, partly because various businesses want to make a buck, and because the funding is not available for these projects that are supposedly needed. The needs of the public are being defined in many ways by private interests such as construction businesses, real estate developers, trucking companies, banks; and in the case of international trade corridors, investment firms, and especially neoliberal think-tanks and consulting services, who often have ties to NAFTA and SPP and/or big banks. A little web research into who the members of P3 organizations are, and who is attending or sponsoring P3 conferences, reveals how steeped in the trend various public officials and big construction companies are.

If a company or companies see dollar signs in a particular project, this project is likely to be prioritized by the state, as in the case of trade transportation, for example. Many people do not even know about the plans for CANAMEX and its freight truck traffic, yet the roads that would facilitate this trade flow are being promoted (by politicians) as useful to the residents of the area in question. New transportation legislation like MAP-21 and institutions such as the Federal Highway Administration encourage and help facilitate public-private partnerships for transportation projects. Private conglomerates can potentially take advantage of loans (such as TIFIA loans) and tax breaks that the state would access. Sometimes in conjunction with, but often in lieu of toll roads, the private companies would receive availability payments, which ultimately come from taxes.

This information became relevant in Arizona when a business conglomerate proposed a P3 to build the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway extension in Phoenix in 2012. Legislation is in place in Arizona for a range of P3 arrangements and Arizona Department of Transportation is salivating for a good P3 deal in transportation.

These public-private partnerships, along with the so-called free trade pacts, are the brainchildren of neoliberalism. Often in discussion on neoliberalism, the political Left presents false dichotomies between privatization vs. the commons (held by the state), and regulation vs. deregulation. While regulation might mean keeping private interests from doing more damage, it encourages a reliance on the settler state to protect the people, meanwhile diverting attention from the ways in which the state has perpetrated harm against the people from its beginning, and has hardly been neutral regarding the interests of the rich. Although perhaps ideologically inconsistent, in practice neoliberalism relies on collaboration between state and the private sector to provide privileges to those private interests in the form of defense and security (police, military, prisons, border security), tax breaks, subsidies, access to information, prioritization, and promotion of private plans. While lobbying dollars and such likely have a lot to do with it, this is not corruption; it is the role of the state in this latest form of capitalism. Capitalism has always involved power and force; neoliberalism just comes in a different form. In this sense, it does not matter the extent to which a project is privatized or neoliberal if it harms people, but the focus is on neoliberalism because it is the primary modern economic form particularly in relation to infrastructure.


CANAMEX Development

The naming of the concept of the CANAMEX Corridor goes back at least to 1993 just prior to the passing of NAFTA, followed by the designation as a High-Priority Corridor by congress in 1995, and implementation of the Arizona Governor’s CANAMEX Task Force in 1998. The Arizona-Mexico Commission (AMC), now along with the TTCA, seems to be the main promoter of the corridor.



The route given for CANAMEX, which is subject to change, involves Mexico Federal Highway 15 in Sonora connecting the Port of Guaymas with the US border in Nogales; State Route 189, Interstates 19, 10, and US Route 93 (and now Interstate 11) in Arizona; Route 93/Interstate 11, Interstates 515 and 15 in Nevada; Interstate 15 through Utah, Idaho, and Montana; then a complicated route involving the following highways in Alberta and British Columbia: 4, 3, 2, 216, 16, 43, 2, and 97.

For a while, it seemed like there was some sort of hiatus on the project, likely due to the economy. However, things picked up in 2012. Currently the primary project within the CANAMEX Corridor is Interstate 11, which is in the study phase. It is meant to provide transportation for freight traffic for which the US Route 93 between Las Vegas and Phoenix is inadequate. In fact, many news articles seem to refer to Interstate 11 interchangeably with the often-unnamed trade corridor stretching from Mexico to Canada.

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) designated this route as Interstate 11 in 2012. Part of what would be Interstate 11, phase one of the Boulder City, a.k.a. the I-11 Loop, is currently in the works. Phase two will connect with the Hoover Dam Bypass which was completed in 2010. A public-private partnership involving a toll road had been a possibility for the Boulder City Bypass in Nevada but this idea was abandoned mid-2013. Instead a gas-tax increase would fund the construction. Public-private partnerships, possibly including tolls, are being discussed for implementation of other parts of Interstate 11. In fact, despite this being a priority corridor, some experts have stated that most new projects would require a P3 or won’t be built at all due to lack of funding.

The Arizona Transportation and Trade Corridor Alliance (TTCA), in conjunction with Pima County, is talking about southern Arizona connectivity, and therefore Interstate would not only connect Las Vegas with Phoenix, but extend through Tucson and Nogales.

Ports of entry along the borders will likely be expanded for easier movement of goods, in addition to seaports such as the Port of Guaymas in Mexico which is the southern tip of the CANAMEX Corridor, due to double in size in the next couple years. The Corridor also involves rail, fiber optic telecommunications, and possibly pipelines.

The CANAMEX Corridor is an important part of NAFTA (and possibly TPP) trade, and as such, is a weak point of globalized infrastructure according to the strategic campaign Root Force. The promise of economic prosperity is used as justification for the imposition of trade infrastructural projects throughout the corridor. Discussion on these “NAFTA Super-Highways” has been dominated by right-wing conspiracy theorists concerned about US sovereignty. It is important to shift the debate towards indigenous sovereignty and solidarity, towards an end to capitalism rather than just a reaction to economic integration, towards an end to resource extraction projects, towards an end to state repression and the state in general.


See stopcanamex.blogspot.com for more info.

Monday, December 31, 2012

Repost: Private Prisons in a Wider Context: Video

I watched this video again and felt that it might be worth re-posting. There are some really important points in here, especially those made by Michelle Alexander. Many people watched the first video but not the second. Are you one of those people? Check it out.

Saturday, July 2, 2011


Private Prisons in a Wider Context: Video

It has been encouraging to see the awareness about the role of private prison companies in influencing criminalization of people grow and grow in the last year.  SB 1070 and the relationship between various legislators like Russell Pearce and private prison companies like CCA and Geo Group within the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and between governor Jan Brewer and CCA, has been exposed recently.  People had already started to address the connection between Wells Fargo and private prison-run detention centers that hold thousands of migrants in other parts of the country and a tiny bit here in AZ.  Now there are country-wide campaigns popping off against private prisons companies and against ALEC.

However, as horrible as the conditions in private prisons are (and they do tend to be several times worse than state-run facilities), and as obvious as it is that SB 1070 passed with great influence on the part of those who stand to make millions off of putting people in cages, I would hate to see the focus be solely on this most recent phenomenon.  An anti-private prison campaign can easily fall into the same traps as the "go after the real criminals" message, as though there's nothing wrong with the "criminal" "justice" system.  As though the criminalization of people who cross a man-made line is not similar to the criminalization of so many of the people in prisons today and historically.  We should also consider the limitations of previous nation-wide anti-private prison campaigns like the one that targeted Sodexho in the early 2000's. A focus only on the privatization of prisons can only divert energy from addressing the prison system in general; the various reasons people end up in jail or prison, and the ways in which the system will never and is not meant to address the real ills of our society.

I put together the following video to provide a complex yet still simplistic (limited by time and resources) history of criminalization of people for the benefit of the few.  Please share it with anyone you think would be interested.  This video is a follow up from several of my blog entries including No Borders or Prison Walls and What came first: the Racism or the Profit Motive? On Private Prisons' push for SB1070



Please also view the 2nd part.  It all ties together, and there's some good commentary towards the end.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

DeConcini Not the Only CCA Board Member of Concern

The current prison divestment campaign in Arizona seems to be concentrating on Arizona Board of Regents member Dennis DeConcini's involvement on the board of CCA (Corrections Corporation of America).  What I find interesting is that many groups associated with the prison divestment campaign are funded by a group who has a board member who is also a CCA board member.  The following are emails I've sent to inform groups of this (which I never got responses to).  (I have more to say about a concentration on privatization of prisons, but the last post I was working on this summer got lost, but I'll likely pick it up again some day.)

to: fuerzatucson@gmail.com
Tuesday, July 31, 2012 2:02 PM
Hi there,
I recently came across your website and learned about your campaign regarding Deconcini on the CCA board.  I'm wondering if you know about Thurgood Marshall Jr.  He is also on the CCA board, but he's also on the Ford Foundation board.  A number of groups involved in the campaign(s) against private prisons or CCA in particular get funding from Ford Foundation.  I personally feel that a group that gets money from Ford Foundation must not be doing anything too threatening to the system in the first place, but it should be alarming to those groups that there is this relationship... (the rest is the same as the latter part of the following email)
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to: info@enlaceintl.org
Tuesday, July 31, 2012 2:37 PM

Hi there,
I am contacting you because of your prison divestment campaign, and some info you might not be aware of.
I'm wondering if you know about Thurgood Marshall Jr.  He is on the CCA board, but he's also on the Ford Foundation board.  A number of groups involved in the campaign(s) against private prisons or CCA in particular get funding from Ford Foundation. It should be alarming to the groups that there is this relationship.  Some groups that get Ford funding: Enlace though perhaps indirectly, Detention Watch Network via Tides Center, The Sentencing Project, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, etc. (see more below).
I'm wondering what you think of this issue.  The Fuerza Tucson campaign is seeking to get DeConcini to resign from the CCA board.  I wouldn't guess that groups who get funded by Ford would have any influence on the foundation but instead are concerned with maintaining that funding.  It is possible that Marshall Jr. is just on these boards on paper and Ford or CCA may not ever realize the seeming conflict that arises.
I have my own ideas, which are part of this essay that i wrote last year: http://chaparralrespectsnoborders.blogspot.com/2011/07/beware-funders-of-immigrants-rights.html
I'd be interested in hearing what you all think about this.


You can search the grants database here: http://www.fordfoundation.org/grants/search
more groups:
(Alto Arizona via NDLON)
Brave New Foundation
Border Network for Human Rights
Center for New Community
(Cuentame via Brave New Foundation)
Enlace Institute/Communities United for People
Grassroots Leadership
Interfaith Worker Justice
Institute for Transnational Social Change
National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON)
National Immigration Law Center
National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild
(Puente Movement, via NDLON/Alto Arizona, Tonatierra)
Resource Generation
Seventh Generation Fund
(Tonatierra via Seventh Generation Fund and NDLON)

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to: info@enlaceintl.org 
Thursday, August 2, 2012 6:53 PM
Hi there,
Not sure if you've seen my last email yet, but i was looking at your website again today and noticed the most recent article posted about Wells Fargo, at least the first few paragraphs (see below) could apply to Ford Foundation in only a slightly different way.  I am genuinely interested in how you feel about this issue.  We don't know what Ford Foundation invests in.  For all we know they have stock in CCA or Geo or Wells Fargo, but having a board member on CCA is adequate for me to be a bit alarmed.
anyway, here's an article from today that you might like:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2012/08/02/20120802immigrants-prove-big-business-prison-companies.html

Janus-Faced Banking: How Wells Fargo Profits on Communities of Color

By Christopher Petrella
Social geographer, David Harvey, is famous for having noted that economic crises often “reveal the rationality of fundamentally irrational systems.” For Harvey, a crisis discloses the “irrational rationalizers” of our contradictory capitalist arrangement. Philanthro-capitalism, or the popular practice of applying business strategies to social challenges, represents the very core of this contradiction. Firms participating in philanthro-capitalist (ad)ventures privately support the very oppressive systems—white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, to name a few —that they publicly denounce.
Enter Wells Fargo, the nation’s fourth largest bank and the principal mortgage originator in the United States.
Earlier this summer Wells Fargo announced its historic $3.395 million grant in support of theHispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF).  The grant represents the single largest corporate contribution to HSF, “the nation’s premier not-for-profit organization supporting Hispanic higher education.” Founded in 1975, “HSF provides American families with the financial and educational resources they need to achieve a college education.”  To date, HSF has awarded over $360 million in scholarships and has supported a broad range of outreach and education programs to assist students and their families navigate collegiate life, from gaining admission and securing financial aid to finding employment after graduation.
HSF’s strategic vision includes “build[ing] a coalition of corporate and philanthropic partners committed to increasing Hispanic degree attainment.”
But Wells Fargo’s largess is as generous as it is ironic. Generous because $3.395 million is a large chunk of change, but ironic because of Wells Fargo’s simultaneously antagonistic relationship with the “Latin community.”
According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—the federal agency responsible for protecting investors and maintaining fair markets—Wells Fargo currently holds somewhere between 4,400,000-4,700,000  shares in the GEO Group, the nation’s largest private detention  owner and operator. With over 4 million shares of the GEO Group valued at close to $90 million, Wells Fargo owns nearly 8 percent of the company.

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The following is the portion of my essay which discusses my thoughts on this situation.

Opposition to Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)—which runs private detention centers and has influenced legislation like SB1070 (through the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC) so they may continue to profit—is at odds with the interests of Thurgood Marshall Jr, a board member of both Ford Foundation and CCA. Whether or not there is some awareness of this seeming contradiction on the part of CCA or Marshall Jr., it may be more useful for Ford to fund legal, non-militant opposition in contrast to the much more militant targeting of businesses that invest in private prison companies (like Wells Fargo who invests in GEO Group, another large private prison company) such as the actions by anarchists that have been happening in various cities across the US. In addition, it seems as though focusing on private prisons as an aberration of the criminal “justice” system, deflecting attention away from the state and towards private entities, would be more in the interest of the Ford Foundation since they seem to be more generally allied with the state than any one corporation. To them it would be more important to have activists worrying solely about the privatization of prisons while leaving mass incarceration intact.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Border-control bill an affront to American Indians

From the Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2018623764_guest09flores.html#.T_sdydmcNbc.facebook
Would the Congress pass laws that tell other countries what to do, or dictate how their natural and cultural resources will be used and abused in whatever way Congress sees fit? Tribes are nations, and within this nation there is a protocol for this type of action.

Special to The Times

THERE are dozens of tribal nations with lands along the U.S. borders.
Our families, sacred sites and cultural treasures and traditions are based here, and protecting this heritage is critical to our identity and our sense of community. That's why a bill recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives was so disconcerting to American Indians. It proposed to waive protections for public lands and those who live or hunt or graze cattle within 100 miles of the northern or southern borders — under the guise of national security.
The border-control bill was buried in a massive public-lands bill, passed by the House, sponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah. H.R. 2578, as amended and approved by the House, allows U.S. Border Patrol to build roads and airstrips and forward-operating bases, erect vehicle barriers, and close off national parks, forests, and grazing lands to the public at a moment's notice within that 100 mile radius.
The 100-mile zone includes iconic locations in Washington state — North Cascades and Olympic National Parks; the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie, Okanogan-Wenatchee, Kaniksu and Colville national forests; and the San Juan Islands, Little Pend Oreille National Wildlife Refuge.
As passed, the bill also authorizes Border Patrol to ignore 16 key laws protecting our heritage, including the National Historic Preservation Act, National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act of 1973, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and the Wilderness Act.
The bill removes public participation in land-management decisions and amounts to what some have dubbed a land and power grab by the U.S. government.
Thing is, Border Patrol didn't ask for the bill and testified before Congress that it doesn't need it. The agency is already working hand-in-hand — and increasingly effectively — with tribal governments, private landowners, and national park and forest land managers.
Tribal nations weren't consulted when the bill was drafted, either, and the National Congress of American Indians has registered its concern by approving a resolution in opposition to the bill.
Individual tribes have also weighed in with Congress. The original version of Rep. Bishop's bill even overrode tribal sovereignty, but that was redacted in the final version passed by the House.
Tribes have a nation-to-nation relationship with the United States. The U.S. government has a responsibility to consult with tribes when an action such as this will affect their homelands. President Obama has upheld the rights of our people.
But these types of bills and actions by the House and Senate upset this relationship and responsibility. Would Congress pass laws that tell other countries what to do, or dictate how their natural and cultural resources will be used and abused in whatever way Congress sees fit? Tribes are nations, and within this nation there is a protocol for this type of action.
Despite efforts by some members of Congress to strip the border bill from the broader package of lands bills, the overall act passed the House in a 232-188 vote.
In Washington, only Reps. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton; Rick Larsen, D-Lake Stevens; Adam Smith, D-Tacoma; and Jim McDermott, D-Seattle; supported the effort to throw out the border bill. In addition to those members, Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, voted against the overall bill.
A Senate version of the border bill is sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
We'll be looking to see that our Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray don't allow the same railroading of our rights and responsibilities to protect our heritage for the next generation.
Kesner C. Flores Jr., is of Wintun and Paiute descent and is a member of the Cortina Indian Rancheria Band of California. He works for the National Tribal Environmental Council, a nonprofit that works with tribes to preserve the environment. 

 Bill Summary & Status - 112th Congress (2011 - 2012) - H.R.2578 - All Information - THOMAS (Library of Congress)

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Raúl Alcaraz Ochoa: Beyond the BS1070 Supreme Court Ruling

Beyond the BS1070 Supreme Court Ruling:
“Not even the highest court can turn back a determined people!”

By Raúl Alcaraz Ochoa / 25 June 2012

This can’t be said any other way. Our migrant/Latino community is getting crushed. In fact, we are getting stomped on and beaten like a colorful piñata. The piñata is electoral and the more they hit, the more political points are scored—at our expense.

On the surface, the political class wants to make us think they are at war with each other over immigration. When in reality we have a US Supreme Court ruling over BS1070 that is in complete alignment with Republican and Democrat immigration policies of exclusion, exploitation, and police and ICE collaborations.

In the wake of the US Supreme Court ruling, injustice and oppression are upheld once again. The “papers please” section of BS1070 has been upheld. In effect standing in the tradition of white supremacist historical Supreme Court decisions such as Dred Scott v. Sanford of 1857 in which the court ruled that slaves and their descendants were not protected by the Constitution and were not US citizens...

Read more...