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From Los Angeles Times

Massacre leaves 27 dead in northern Guatemala

Witnesses say an attack by 200 gunmen killed at least 27 farmworkers in Guatemala's Peten province, an area used by Mexican-based drug cartels. The victims were decapitated.

by Ken Ellingwood and Alex Renderos, Los Angeles Times

May 15, 2011

Reporting from Mexico City and San Salvador

At least 27 people were slain early Sunday in a remote area of northern Guatemala that has become a key base for Mexican drug-trafficking groups, authorities said.

Police said a small army of gunmen attacked workers on a coconut farm in the northern province of Peten, a zone that has become increasingly dangerous as Mexican drug smugglers extend operations in Central America to escape a crackdown at home.

The victims included 25 men and two women, all of whom were decapitated, according to Jaime Leonel Otzin, director of Guatemala's National Civil Police. He said witnesses reported that the attack was carried out by 200 gunmen, who arrived in buses.

Authorities had not determined a motive.

Otzin said police were investigating a possible link to the killing a day earlier of Haroldo Leon. He was the brother of a suspected trafficker, Juan Jose "Juancho" Leon, who was slain by gunmen in 2008 in a hit attributed to the Zetas gang.

The Guatemala office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement condemning the massacre as a further sign of the state of lawlessness in Peten, a region it said is beset by narco-trafficking, oligarchic landownership, illegal cattle-raising and threats to evict rural dwellers from their plots.

Peten, which hugs Mexico's southern border, is home to ancient Maya ruins and some of the region's most scenic countryside.

But isolation and thin police forces have allowed Mexican trafficking gangs such as the Zetas to build clandestine airstrips for smuggling cocaine north to the United States.

Regional officials and analysts say Mexican President Felipe Calderon's 4-year-old crackdown on drug gangs has sent them scrambling for other spots to package and transfer narcotics bound for the United States.

Traffickers have opted for relatively isolated spots in Central America, where weak law enforcement and longstanding corruption provide limited risk of detection or arrest. Peten is especially useful to smugglers because the border with Mexico is only lightly patrolled.

The influx of Mexican traffickers, most notably the Zetas and the cartel run by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman that is based in the western Mexican state of Sinaloa, has stoked worry that criminal groups could overwhelm Central American nations.

Countries such as Guatemala and El Salvador are still rebuilding from long civil wars and already have high homicide rates.

The threat from the drug cartels was a key subject of talks when President Obama visited El Salvador in March to meet with Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes.

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom declared a state of emergency in the northern province of Alta Verapaz in December, deploying army patrols to seize territory in effect ruled by the Zetas, one of Mexico's most vicious crime groups.

Authorities in Honduras have discovered cocaine-processing labs, and officials in El Salvador found a suspected Zetas training camp and $15 million in drug funds buried in plastic barrels.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-guatemala-massacre-20110516,0,1535023,print.story

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States make their own tuition rules for undocumented students

A new law in Maryland allows illegal immigrants to pay in-state rates at public colleges. In neighboring Virginia, many are required to pay out-of-state fees. The lack of a comprehensive federal plan allows such discrepancies.

by Julie Mianecki, Washington Bureau

May 15, 2011

Reporting from Washington

Anngie Gutierrez was a child when she arrived in the United States as an illegal immigrant 10 years ago. There's still no path to legal status for her, but in Maryland and a handful of other states, there is a more affordable road to college.

Gutierrez, a high school junior in Hyattsville, Md., will benefit from a new state law that allows illegal immigrants who reside there to pay in-state tuition rates at Maryland's public colleges. If she lived in Virginia, about 15 miles to the west, she would find that many public colleges require undocumented students to pay out-of-state tuition.

Some Virginia legislators want to go further: In February, the House of Delegates passed legislation that would prohibit the state's public universities from admitting illegal immigrants. The proposal has not passed the state Senate.

The states' radically different approaches illustrate the polarization of Americans over what to do about the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S., and the heated nature of a debate that extends far from border states such as Arizona and California.

The tuition battle has grown, in part, because of a lack of action by Congress. The federal government holds jurisdiction over immigration law, and a 1982 Supreme Court ruling mandated that states provide illegal immigrants with access to K-12 education in public schools. But the absence of a comprehensive federal immigration plan has given states relatively free rein to impose their own rules on issues such as who can attend public colleges, and at what rates.

"If you don't have a coherent immigration policy, then you end up with 50 different rules about what kinds of authority police have to stop people, what kinds of documents you have to carry around and so on," said Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a think tank in Washington. "You can have two states right next to each other, identical profiles of the foreign-born … and yet you get this incredible difference in outcome and treatment toward newcomers."

Gutierrez also would be eligible for in-state tuition if she graduated from high school in one of 11 other states, including border states such as California, New Mexico and Texas. On Thursday, Connecticut's House passed a bill guaranteeing in-state tuition at its public colleges to illegal immigrants who live there.

But Gutierrez would pay out-of-state rates if she lived in Arizona, Georgia or Colorado. Georgia adds an extra barrier by prohibiting public universities from enrolling undocumented students if the school has rejected any academically qualified applicants for the last two years because of enrollment limits.

South Carolina does not allow undocumented students to attend its public universities. Alabama bars admittance to its community colleges. Other states — including Virginia — avoid the issue by leaving it up to individual schools to determine tuition rates for undocumented students.

Immigration policy has long been a divisive issue, but since a federal judge blocked controversial parts of an Arizona immigration law last year, the topic has been dominated by heated rhetoric. The federal DREAM Act, which would provide young people who were brought to the country illegally a path to citizenship if they met certain criteria, failed in Congress last year. It was reintroduced by Democrats on Wednesday, but faces long odds in the Republican-controlled House.

Kelley believes a majority of U.S. lawmakers see the need for immigration reform, but said Congress gets caught up in the same politics driving the differences between states on the tuition issue.

"If lawmakers could vote anonymously on immigration reform, then you would have an overwhelming vote in support of comprehensive reform," she said. "But it's very tied up in the politics. There's just a lot more shouting than there is sober thinking."

The opposing political leanings of Virginia and Maryland, two states that are relatively new destinations for illegal immigrants, have sparked different reactions to the influx, according to Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda, a UCLA professor and immigration expert.

"Bottom line, I think it comes down to the fact that, politically speaking, the Republican Party can appeal to its older, white base that says, 'You don't want to see this change,' " Hinojosa-Ojeda said, "while the Democratic Party has a younger, more multicultural base that is more open to that change."

Yet some conservatives also see the peril in states dictating policies on educating illegal immigrants.

Jena McNeill, a homeland security policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, agreed that "the federal government hasn't done what they need to do, and because of that, you see states taking it upon themselves to handle it. And every state has its own political bent or certain partisan ways."

Andrew Flagel, dean of admissions at George Mason University, a public university in Fairfax, Va., said banning illegal immigrants from Virginia's public colleges would hurt the state.

"If you bar illegal immigrants from enrolling as out-of-state students, it doesn't create any new spaces," Flagel said. "In fact, it's revenue lost to the Virginia institutions and would actually possibly lower the amount of spaces available for Virginia students."

The Maryland law's primary sponsor, Sen. Victor Ramirez, a Democrat, said a state wastes its investment when it educates illegal immigrants through high school and then forces them to pay higher prices to attend a public college. The cost difference is significant: In-state tuition at the University of Maryland is $8,416 a year, but rises to $24,831 for students coming from out of state.

Proponents of more hard-line measures sell them as a way to drive illegal immigrants out of their states, but Ramirez believes they will stay where they are, only without a college education.

"These students, when they graduate, they're not going to go back to their home country, because this is all they know," Ramirez said. "They're going to end up being bus drivers or servers, cutting our grass, when they potentially could be doctors, lawyers, helping make Maryland more productive and have a stronger workforce."

Glynis Jordan, principal of Bladensburg High School in Maryland, said she favored the new law because "as an educator, this means that all of my students, both documented and undocumented, now have the pathway to go to college and pursue their dreams."

Gutierrez, who arrived from Guatemala and has lived in Maryland since she was 8, said she could not afford college were it not for the new law. "I feel really happy and grateful to everybody who worked so hard to do this. I feel like I can actually do something with my life now," she said.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat, signed the bill into law Tuesday, but it does not have universal support. Neil Parrott, a Republican state delegate, has started a petition drive to put the issue before voters.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immigration-tuition-20110516,0,1348784,print.story

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Smoke the Iraqi donkey, a favorite of Camp Pendleton Marines, arrives in U.S.

A donkey adopted as a pet by Marines from Camp Pendleton while they were deployed in Iraq has been brought to America to serve as a therapy animal for wounded military personnel.

Smoke arrived last week in New York aboard a cargo flight that originated in Turkey after a combined effort of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and retired Marine Col. John Folsom.

In 2008, Folsom and Marines from the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Logistics Group found the donkey at Camp Taqaddum in Anbar province. The animal quickly became a favorite. His name comes from his color and the fact that he once snatched a cigarette from a Marine.

In 2009 the Marines departed but Folsom never stopped thinking of Smoke and what a morale boost he was for the troops. With help from the SPCA, Folsom raised funds and cleared away bureaucratic obstacles to get Smoke to America.

The SPCA estimates the final cost at upward of $40,000. The group has brought dogs and cats from Iraq but Smoke was the first of his species. The U.S. ambassador in Turkey was recruited to help get Smoke from neighboring Iraq.

"Once you met him and saw what a unique donkey he was, it was hard to say no to him," said SPCA official Terri Crisp.

Supporters are bringing the donkey by truck to Folsom's home in Omaha, Neb., where Smoke will serve as a therapy animal for the Wounded Warrior Family Support organization.

"He's an American donkey now," Folsom told the Associated Press.

The latest case of U.S. paranoia

Americans' fear that Sharia, or Islamic law, will work its way into U.S. courts is delusional.

May 16, 2011

A federal appeals court will soon consider a challenge to an Oklahoma measure prohibiting the use of Sharia, or Islamic law, in the state's courts. The constitutional amendment is part of a national trend in which politicians — including Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich — argue that it is vital to prevent Sharia from insinuating itself into the administration of justice in U.S. courts. Never mind that there is scant evidence that American judges are resolving cases on the basis of Sharia.

Like the belief that President Obama wasn't born in the United States, the fear that Islamic law will become a touchstone of American justice is delusional. What is depressing is how widespread it is. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing a Muslim man challenging Oklahoma's law, says 24 states have adopted or considered measures forbidding the use of Islamic law. In the paranoid anti-communism of the 1950s, it was said that Americans feared a Red under every bed. Now the dark fantasy is an imam on the bench.

Are American judges applying Islamic law? Rarely, if ever. In New Jersey last year, a judge declined to issue a restraining order against a Muslim man accused of forcing himself on his wife; the judge said his behavior was "consistent with his [religious] practices." An appeals court overturned the decision, rejecting the idea that courts should take religious law into account.

Speaking of the courts, they may be the undoing of anti-Sharia laws. The plaintiff in the Oklahoma case made two arguments: that the amendment favored one religion over another, thus violating the 1st Amendment's ban on an establishment of religion, and that it interfered with his free exercise of religion. The first argument is more persuasive than the second, which is based on the idea that the courts might not probate his will because it refers to elements of Islamic prophetic traditions. But a federal district judge found both arguments persuasive enough to issue a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law while the case moves through the courts.

The courts may save Oklahoma from itself by continuing to block the anti-Sharia amendment. But a legal test of such measures wouldn't be necessary if politicians stopped pandering to Islamophobia. Almost 10 years after 9/11, and despite the preachments of two presidents, too many Americans still regard their Muslim fellow citizens as subversive strangers. That attitude is a bigger threat to American values than Sharia is.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-sharia-20110516,0,2173220,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Remembering the Freedom Riders

Fifty years ago this month, a group of black and white volunteers boarded two public buses in the District of Columbia to travel into the Deep South, where segregated waiting rooms, restrooms, lunch counters and other indignities were a fact of life despite Supreme Court rulings striking down segregation in interstate travel.

These Freedom Riders would be followed by hundreds of others. Their mission was to nonviolently confront local laws and customs that perpetuated illegal segregation. Their aim was to jolt Americans' consciousness and challenge the Kennedy administration to enforce African-Americans' constitutional rights.

A new documentary on PBS stations captures the political complexities and drama of this pivotal chapter in civil rights history. Written and directed by Stanley Nelson, it is based on Raymond Arsenault's 2006 book, “Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.”

Fears that the integrated teams would meet with violence proved well founded. The first bus was attacked in the Alabama town of Anniston by a mob of Ku Klux Klansmen who slashed the tires and then firebombed the crippled vehicle. The mob first held the doors shut, and then beat passengers escaping the burning bus. When the second bus arrived in Birmingham, passengers were brutally attacked by another Klan mob.

The violence did not end the Freedom Rides. In all, more than 400 men and women participated. Many were arrested and ended up spending time at Mississippi's bleak Parchman prison farm. In the end, they could claim victory. Acting at the request of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued a sweeping order in September 1961 ending segregation in all interstate facilities and calling for all “Whites Only” and “Colored Only” signs to come down.

Five decades later, injustices remain. But the country's debt to the Freedom Riders is clear.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/opinion/16mon4.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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