From Cuéntame:

Last week, Cuéntame launched a powerful animated video exposing private prison corporations. The first of a sustained documentary campaign to expose the greed and the abuse by CCA (Corrections Corporation of America), The Geo Group and Management and Training corporations – which combined currently profit more than $5 billion a year at the expense of the detention and abuse of our immigrant community.

Already media outlets have taken notice and our video has been played in full on MSNBC, The Nation, Hola TV, The Huffington Post among many others. It won’t be long before private prison corporations begin retaliating and will put their unlimited resources in efforts to derail our powerful exposé.

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This is why we need your support today! Here are two ways you can help us prepare for the battle ahead and continue producing our documentary:

1.   Donate $20 that will go directly to our efforts and make sure we continue making a powerful impact.

2.   We need you to recruit at least 5 of your friends by sharing our animated video on your Facebook wall or by forwarding this email and letting us know what your friends thought by posting a comment on our Facebook page wall.

The battle ahead won’t be easy but with your support and building strength in numbers we will be ready to take it on. We hope you enjoy our latest work by checking out some of our videos below.

- Axel Caballero and the rest of the Cuéntame team

Immigrants For Sale [ immigrantsforsale.org ]

•   Private prison using chemicals on detained migrants: — Cuéntame locked an exclusive interview with an ex CCA employee – here is a preview. The revelations are horrifying – including the use of chemicals and agents to quell detained migrants. Stay tuned for the full story. [ MORE VIDEOS ] [ IMMIGRANTSFORSALE.ORG ]

•   Journey through Georgia: Victims of private prisons: — Pedro Guzman was locked-up in a private detention facility for 19 months because of a procedural mistake. His wife Emily has gone through great lengths to get him out here is a preview of their powerful journey. Stay tuned for the full story. [ VIDEO ]

•   MSNBC’s ‘The Last Word’ covers Cuéntame: — Thanks to all of your help in sharing the ‘Immigrants for Sale‘ video. We now need to double our effort! Please continue to make a difference by sharing the video with your friends and letting them know about our work! [ VIDEO ]

•   Boycott Georgia corporations funding discrimination!: Georgia has followed in Arizona’s footsteps with discriminatory bill HB87. Like in AZ, the discriminatory bill has been taken to court and will cost taxpayers millions. Did you know GA also houses the largest private detention facility in the nation? Boycott the corporations which have funded those responsible for this discriminatory bill. Pledge to boycott GA @ Mycuentame.org/BoycottGeorgia [ VIDEO ]

•   Gov. Brewer asks people to pay SB 1070 legal fees: — AZ Gov. Brewer is asking the public to pay the legal bill as she tries to defend her discriminatory SB1070 law in the U.S. Supreme Court. This should be a note to GA as it follows in AZ’s footsteps. We created a pop-up video message highlighting how these laws are unconstitutional and expensive! [ VIDEO ]

The L.A. Film Festival: Important Latino films to be featured — The Los Angeles Film Festival is focusing their International Spotlight this year on Cuba. When people think about this country, some only remember stories heard on the news about their political unrest and poverty. I bet what they didn’t know is that Cuba is filled with amazing culture and art among so many other of its colorful qualities… [ READ THE ARTICLE ]

Playlist: The Apartheid States in The U.S.

Playlist: American Anti-Immigrant Xenophobia — Exposing American Anti-Immigrant Bigots, Racists and Xenophobic Extortionists.

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Fox on Immigrants: Just Hang ‘Em All!; Immigrants Are Serial Killers!
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Fox Obfuscates The Fact That A Majority Detained By ICE Program Are Nonviolent Immigrants: During Fox News’ coverage of Secure Communities, a deportation program begun under the Bush administration, Fox pushed the idea that opting out of the program would create “sanctuary states” for dangerous undocumented immigrants. In fact, a large proportion of individuals who are detained and deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry only misdemeanors and minor infractions or have no criminal conviction or background. [ READ MORE ]

Fox Suggests If States Opt Out Of Program, Serial Killers May Be On The Loose: On Fox, Lars Larson Seizes Opportunity To Rehash Immigration Myths — On Fox News, radio host Lars Larson repeated the myths that immigrants commit a disproportionate amount of crime and that the Obama administration “has not been great on deportations.” In fact, data don’t support the claim that undocumented immigrants have high crime rates; moreover, under Obama, deportations are at an all-time high. [ READ MORE ] [ READ MORE ]

On Fox, Lars Larson Seizes Opportunity To Rehash Immigration Myths:

MMFA: On Fox News, radio host Lars Larson repeated the myths that immigrants commit a disproportionate amount of crime and that the Obama administration “has not been great on deportations.” In fact, data don’t support the claim that undocumented immigrants have high crime rates; moreover, under Obama, deportations are at an all-time high. [ READ MORE ]

Reference: Resistance Grows — A failure of Decency and Good Sense. – Massachusetts, New York and Illinois reject the Obama administration’s enforcement-only way on immigration. — A New York Times Editorial

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New York Times: While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

“I know this is an emotional issue; I know it’s a controversial issue,” he told an audience at a town meeting on March 18 in Costa Mesa, Calif. “I know that the people get real riled up politically about this.” But, he said, immigrants who are long-time residents but lack legal status “have to have some mechanism over time to get out of the shadows.”

Administration officials said that Mr. Obama’s plan would not add new workers to the American work force, but that it would recognize millions of illegal immigrants who have already been working here. Despite the deep recession, there is no evidence of any wholesale exodus of illegal immigrant workers, independent studies of census data show. — [ READ MORE ]

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President Obama’s announcement immediately UNPLUGGED the Phallus filling up the ass of the KING OF XENOPHOBIA, Lou Dobbs — Igniting a torrent of fear-mongering Diarrhea!

Even evil Racist Tom Tancredo crawled out of his hiding-hole, proclaiming the “end of America as we know it!”

Obama’s timing is provocative, and will again bring out the worst in Republicans. They are frothing in the mouth, literally, like Rabies infected dogs, snarling like pregnant spotted hyenas.

Before leaving office George Bush warned fellow Republicans: “It’s very important for our party not to narrow its focus, not to become so inward-looking that we drive people away from a philosophy that is compassionate and decent.” Translates To: Stop the Xenophobia or you will drown in your “Nativist Hate!”

This will be a brutal and bruising battle, for as Osama Bin O’Reilly puts it: “The Obama, the left wing loons and New York Times are out to dismantle the “White, Christian Male Power Structure.”

Jacob Monty puts the upcoming battle in true perspective: It will be a difficult and uphill road with lots of sharp curves, but for the GOP, there’s no alternative. The path they’re on [ XENOPHOBIA ] leads right over a cliff.

Let The Fear-Mongering and Loathing Begin!

Dobbs’ “amnesty” caption returns, appearing under Crowley’s report

Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News

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A New York Times Editorial

A Catastrophic Silence

   Suffolk County executive
   - Steve Levy [Enlarge]
The killing of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, on Long Island this month brought with it a cruel blessing. From a shocking crime — an assault by a gang of boys accused of making a hobby of hunting Latinos — came a chance for a stricken, divided community to bind old wounds and to bury anger.

Instead, the moment is collapsing into the same old shouting. Advocates for immigrants are condemning the Suffolk County executive, Steve Levy, as somehow complicit in the killing for his rigid devotion to immigration enforcement. Mr. Levy is lashing back and trying to distribute blame fairly. He wonders, for example, how a gang out of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ could have run free for so long, firing BB’s and hateful slurs at random victims, jumping and punching them for sport.

Why, he asks, were their friends and acquaintances silent? It’s a fair question, but there is another silence Mr. Levy should focus on.

The silence that echoes most painfully is that of the Latino victims of these and other hidden crimes. Mr. Lucero’s death has set loose a flood of stories of abuse and harassment. A police precinct commander lost his job over his handling of two other attacks against Latino men that fatal day, an acknowledgment that in Suffolk, equal protection may not always apply to everyone.

Mourners Grieve for Slain Immigrant

Suffolk is not the only place with hate crimes or fearful immigrants. The same silence ruled in Postville, Iowa, where children worked brutal hours on a slaughterhouse killing floor. It hung over a factory in New Bedford, Mass., that systematically cheated workers of wages and the Louisiana shipyards where legal guest workers were held in modern-day indentured servitude.

The Racist ‘Republican’ Killers Jeffrey Conroy, 17, foreground, and other teens arrested in a hate crime murder, are led out of the Fifth Precinct in Patchogue, N.Y., for arraignment on gang assault charges in connection with the death of a 37-year old immigrant. Police said the seven high school students looking “to beat up some Mexicans” attacked the immigrant from Ecuador who worked in a dry cleaners shop. According to police, Conroy fatally plunged a knife into the man’s chest him during the brawl.

The silence of undocumented immigrants is the catastrophic silence of people taught by legislative harassment and relentless stereotyping to live mute and afraid.

Mr. Levy sees no role for himself in this drama.

‘Since when is enforcing the law seen as something negative and inflammatory?’ he asked his critics this week.

Here is an attempt to explain. — [ READ MORE ]

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References:

1. Grand Jury Indicts 7 Teens in Immigrant Killing — Seven teenagers learned Friday that they had been indicted in the fatal stabbing of an Ecuadorean immigrant who police say was targeted because he was Hispanic, but they must wait to hear the specific charges.

2. Teen Crime Suspect to Face Murder Charges — Police say man was targeted in the killing because he was Hispanic.

3. Welcome to the Action Center for Justice for Marcelo Lucero

4. Key Findings In New Report: Immigrants Contribute $10.6 Billion to Long Island — Long Island WINS released a new report yesterday entitled “Strengthening Long Island: The Economic Contributions of Immigrants to Nassau and Suffolk.”

5. News about Marcelo Lucero — including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

6. Related Content from NYDailyNews.com — Marcelo Lucero

7. Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News — “Number one, the illegal aliens shouldn’t be here. And number two, the culture from which they come is a lot more violent than the USA.” — The O’Reilly Factor, January 15, 2007