With the General Assembly about to convene, it is now time to take a look as some possibilities that may take place. Let’s list them in order. Let us not forget that Senator Donald Munson voted to give this organization over 1 million dollars of tax dollars to help with their Day Labor Centers.
1. In-State-Tuition – The Montgomery County Delegation and PG Delegation will be working with Casa De Maryland to lobby our Assembly for In-State-Tuitions to our University system. Identity Inc, along with Catholic Charities.
2. They will lobbying for more tax dollars to assist and open more Day Labor Centers in Maryland as they expand their operation across Maryland. As of now, Maryland is funding Illegal Aliens with tax dollars to the tune of 1.5 billion annually.
3. The Republican Delegation will be introducing E Verify to be instated State Wide along with the Federal ICE Program 287g, for which Gustavo Torres labels this as Racial Profiling, what he does not understand, is that, background checks on possible illegals are not done unless they have committed a crime and or pulled over for Traffic Violations.
4. Delegate Joe Vallario, who sits on the Judiciary Committee will make sure that any piece of good legislation that is purposed, to Help Save and Protect the Legal Immigrants and Marylanders, will be thrown out of committee without an open Quorum. PG and Montgomery County, collectively control over a 3rd of the House of Delegates. You can do the math. Gustavo Torres and Identity Inc, along with Catholic Charities is constantly harassing Sheriff Chuck Jenkins of Frederick County Maryland for racial profiling, but all he is doing is his job. They file factious lawsuits on the Sheriff and this must stop. We must take a stance against these groups and fight them in the assembly while they try to push through their so called Dream Act, which Amy White of the Episcopal Faith Based Group is lobbying for in Washington again. Here is a picture of all of them when I attended their so called Open Immigration Reform Meeting in Bethesda, Maryland, to which, our questions when unanswered. When I asked Candance Kattar of Identity Inc, who is trying to get Illegals back across the border, and I quote “So you say they are undocumented, I say undocumented means Illegal and Illegal means you are breaking the Laws”, I got the stare of death from her and no answer.
Immigration Reform Meeting in Bethesda, MD
In this document, I have attached the work form for Immigrants looking for work through Casa De Maryland and their Day Labor Centers, you will notice, their is not one line requesting legal presence to be assigned work duties, no I-9, etc.
Casa De Maryland Written Agreement – Notice No I-9 request for verificaton
Let me give you a little background in to Gustavo Torres, Executive Director of Casa De Maryland who continues to lobby the legislature for funds to help and assist Illegal Aliens in our Communities. One Example, here is a document that was posted on their website on how to evade the Law if they were caught and or arrested.
Illegal Alien Giving Americans the Finger
Raids_document and How to Evade the Law
You will need to open the two documents in a new tab by right clicking them, then select, open in new window or tab.
Gustavo Torres
Biography of Gustavo Torres:
First off, let me state, Casa De Maryland is in bed with Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela and was brought down on Hugo’s dime to attend the Ward Churchill Conference’s which teaches Illegal Aliens how to rise up in the communities.
History:
CASA was originally known as “Central American Solidarity Association of Maryland”. It is also known as “CASA de Maryland”, as well as “CASA Maryland”.
CASA was founded in 1985 in the basement of the Takoma Park Presbyterian Church by concerned U.S. citizens and Central American immigrants. It has since expanded its scope[2] It is an affiliate organization of the National Council of La Raza.[3] It has received funding from a variety of sources, including a two-year grant funding operations in Baltimore from George Soros‘ Open Society Institute. [4] CASA of Maryland is also a founding member of the National Capital Immigration Coalition (“NCIC”) which promotes “comprehensive immigration reform”.[5] Other funding sources include the Annie E. Casey Foundation and United Way. They are a member of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.[6] CASA also has received $1.5 million from CITGO, the state-owned Venezuelan petroleum products corporation.[7]
CASA operates five day labor centers throughout the state, with public and private funding, three in Montgomery County, where there efforts have been the center of controversy. There is both significant support, and significant opposition, to their efforts to provide central sites where contractors can pick up day-laborers.[8] Much of the support centers around removing day-laborers from informal settings to more formalized centers. Most of the opposition centers around the assumption that many of the day-laborers in Montgomery County are undocumented workers, mostly from Central America.[1]
CASA offers health assistance, medical interpretations, English classes, financial literacy classes, vocational training, social services, leadership development, legal services and employment placement for low-income families, particularly Latino immigrants and other immigrants.[1] CASA has been extremely active in terms of providing legal support to the large and growing community of immigrants — legal or otherwise – in the Greater Washington DC Metropolitan Area. They have successfully promoted a wide range of legislation in support of the immigrant community, including a Maryland law which requires reasonable access to government services for people with limited English proficiency.[9] CASA is very aggressive in pursuing absconding employers, contractors who do not pay their day-laborers.
CASA is also involving itself in housing law and advocacy, and represents “immigrants who are targeted by landlords if they raise concerns or try to form residents’ associations”, according to CASA attorney Kimberley A. Propeack.[10] CASA has involved itself in the prosecutions of several local cases of domestic slavery, also known as trafficking in human cargo.[10] While slavery is illegal in the United States and in Maryland, nonetheless it is a practice which some maintain is almost commonplace within certain communities of immigrants. In most cases which have come to light, generally legal immigrants have convinced other immigrants to come to the United States, ostensibly for a good job, but when the newcomers arrive, threats of imprisonment, deportation, or violence are often combined with very low or nonexistent pay to keep the victims captive in total social isolation, or as slaves in all but legal name.
Governor Martin O’Malley recently joined CASA at the launching of a three-year $30 million campaign to restore the George Oakley Totten, Jr. designed historic Langley Park mansion in Langley Park, Maryland, to be converted into a multicultural center. The center will offer English lessons, legal assistance, job placement assistance, and a variety of other services intended primarily to benefit low-income immigrants and their families.[11] Governor O’Malley’s Secretary of the Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation (DLLR) is Thomas E. Perez.[12] According to the Maryland State Archives website, Mr Perez was a member of the CASA of Maryland board of directors from 1995 to 2002, and served for some time as the president of the board. [12] CASA opened a new worker’s center in Baltimore on December 20, 2007. [13] According to Maryland Secretary of the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, Thomas Perez, “Labor centers are the most cost-effective investment of government money I can imagine … We’re providing employment, addressing public safety by creating an orderly process, keeping people from street corners and protecting workers.”
CASA involves itself in many issues of concern to Maryland’s community of immigrants, legal or otherwise. Thus CASA has been the source of much controversy.
Much of the controversy involves criticism of Day-Laborer Centers which critics allege primarily serve illegal aliens. In the USA, it is illegal to employ, or to aid or abet the employment of, illegal aliens. One frequent criticism inMontgomery County, Maryland is that CASA is a contractor employed by the county government, and thus taxpayer dollars are being collected and distributed for the benefit of illegal aliens.
When CASA was awarded a contract to develop a new day-labor center in the vicinity of Gaithersburg, MD considerable controversy erupted, which is well covered by, and may be found by search within, the Montgomery Gazette[14]. The opinion of Brad Botwin, leader of Help Save Maryland can summarize the controversy from the viewpoint of opponents of CASA and the day-labor center.[15] A more neutral article covering the start of the controversy notes that the decision of the site was an executive action by County Executive Isiah “Ike” Leggett, without giving the public the legally mandated opportunity for discussion and comment, and without the legally mandated consideration by the Planning Board.[16] [17] The Planning Board later approved the executive decision amid opposition within the target community[18].
Two immigration raids created significant fear in the community of illegal aliens and persons whose relatives or loved ones were illegal aliens. In response, CASA published a pamphlet with basic information about rights such as the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney. Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin raised concerns on her website about the publication, titling her critique “Undermining immigration law: Your tax dollars at work”.[19]According to the Washington Times the pamphlet “…features cartoonlike drawings of armed black and white police officers escorting Hispanic men in handcuffs and shows babies crying because their fathers are behind bars…” and “…is the product of CASA of Maryland Inc., working with other organizations.”[20].
CASA of Maryland is also controversial because of some of the statements to media by some of its leadership. Gustavo Torres, the Executive Director of CASA, remarked to a reporter for the local Gazette newspaper that CASA was determined to track the leadership of a local unit of Minuteman Project, and take the following actions: “We are going to target the Minutemen in a specific way… we are going picket their houses, and the schools of their kids, and go to their work. If they are going to do this to us, we are going to respond in the same way, to let people know their neighbors are extremists, that they are anti-immigrant.”[21] Mr Torres later backed off from this threat to engage in organized stalking and potential workplace “mobbing”. [22] One of the people threatened in the original statement, Steven Schreiman, said of CASA of Maryland, “[t]he threat shows an intent and it shows their mentality, and it shows them for what they are … They’re a bunch of thugs and bullies and they have a political agenda and they want to push that agenda regardless of the costs or consequences. Furthermore, they’ve threatened to go after us at our homes and our places of business, which is harassment.”[23]
CASA promotes community policing, and opposes enforcement of immigration law by local and State police. CASA promotes the idea that this power is reserved to the federal government. CASA also supports the notion that no local law-enforcement agencies, and indeed no arm of local or State government, should in any way either enforce immigration status requirements, or be allowed to either inquire about immigration status, or report immigration status information to other agencies. Montgomery County officials expressed support for this notion, and in fact anti-reporting policies are the norm throughout all county agencies. It is thus nearly impossible to use agency records to determing the level of use — by non-citizens — of taxpayer resources through statistical analysis; the data does not include those classifications.
In 2002, the Department of Homeland Security ordered that the identities of absconders from final judgement and orders for deportation would be entered into the National Crime Information Center database. When police officers “call in” the identity numbers of crime suspects or motorists stopped for alleged traffic violations, this database can instruct the officer that there is a warrant, and to take the person(s) into custody.[24]
CASA advocated that the Montgomery County Department of Police should refuse to honor and serve these federal fugitive warrants.[24] [25] “These are people who haven’t broken any laws other than getting a traffic ticket, and they’re being arrested and taken to jail”, declared Kim Propeack, an attorney and public-relations spokesperson for CASA.[26]. Police Chief J. Thomas Manger shortly thereafter made a remark to the effect that if higher officials debarred him from using the NCIC databases to run wants-and-warrants checks, the County had better start looking for a new police chief, and then subsequently clarified that he was not looking for a new job.[27] As of June 2007, Montgomery County police were still checking, and honoring, the NCIC wants-and-warrants notifications, albeit with some reluctance as evidenced in this statement from Chief Manger: “It’s very important for the local police department to develop strong relationships with the community … That trust is being jeopardized [28] CASA has advocated to have County Executive Isiah Leggett order the police department to stop enforcing civil deportation orders. CASA’s executive director Gustavo Torres said, “enforcement of civil immigration law has severely damaged the faith of the immigration community in its county”.[29] Yet there is no enforcement of civil immigration law when standard police procedure is followed. When a warrant is entered into the NCIC database, police procedure is to arrest a person and remand them to the court that issued the warrant. It would be impossible to have effective policing if it were permitted for any officer, at any rank, to pick and choose which warrants are to be honored. Thus, all police departments in the USA honor the US Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clausewhen they honor warrants and remand to custody any persons named in the warrants. It is a violation of the Constitution of the United States for them to fail to do so.
[edit]Lawsuits
CASA has launched a variety of lawsuits. One such lawsuit was against the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration to improve the administration of drivers licenses for out of country applicants.[30] The lawsuit is ongoing, but may be affected by implementation of the Real ID Act of 2005. In response to REAL ID, the Motor Vehicle Administration considered a two-tiered system, issuing Maryland drivers licenses and then another REAL-ID compliant identification that would permit entry into federal buildings and the boarding of airplanes. [31]. Maryland, along with several other states, was given an extension of time to comply with Real ID requirements. Governor Martin O’Malley decided that he would direct the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration to phase in compliance with Real ID starting in 2010[32], and CASA’s Kim Propeack characterized this as “… prioritizing political pandering over good policymaking”.
The two-tier approach was opposed by CASA and their staunch ally Ana Sol Gutierrez. Gutierrez has remarked “[i]n this climate, that’s a scarlet letter”, and CASA attorney Kimberly Propeack remarks “We think the best system is to retain the license … We believe the vast majority of people will want to keep the system the way it is”. Yet without changes, the Maryland driving permit and non-driver identification cards won’t be usable to enter Federal buildings, board airplanes, transact business at Federally-insured banks, or for many other purposes. CASA and others propose as an alternative that the default Maryland ID and driving permits will continue to be issued to people illegally present in they USA, and qualified Marylanders can apply for and be issued a special ID conformant to the Real ID standards[31]. Maryland has been granted an extension on compliance to REAL ID by the Department of Homeland Security.
As of June 2009, Maryland law has been changed so that no new driver permits or state identification cards may be issued to anyone who cannot prove legal presence in the USA, although those who already possess such documents may continue to possess them although they cannot renew. Maryland licenses had become unfortunately widely abused by, and in, interstate fraud.[33]
In November 2008, by Casa, filed a lawsuit under a Public Information Act lawsuit, alleges constitutional violations and racial profiling in the Frederick County, Maryland Sheriff’s Office’s participation in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement 287(g) program. [34]
http://www.themilitant.com/2007/7145/714503.html
Vol. 71/No. 45 December 3, 2007
Venezuela forum debates prospects
for revolutionary change in U.S.
(front page)
BY OLYMPIA NEWTON
CARACAS, Venezuela—A five-day rolling panel discussion on “United States: A possible revolution” was the central event at the third Venezuela International Book Fair, which took place here November 9-18.
The 22 panelists, four or five of whom spoke each day, included political activists and writers from the United States expressing diverse political views, as well as a number of U.S. citizens living in Venezuela. Hundreds of Venezuelans and others took part in one or more sessions, with dozens raising questions and making comments from the floor. The forum was covered by Venezuelan television, radio, and newspapers. The issues debated on the character of the working class and prospects for revolution in the United States sparked a political discussion that permeated the book fair. An article on the fair itself will appear in next week’s Militant.
The forum kicked off November 10 with presentations by Mary-Alice Waters, a member of the Socialist Workers Party National Committee and president of Pathfinder Press; Eva Golinger, a Venezuelan-American lawyer and author of The Chávez Code; Chris Carlson, a contributor to the venezuelanalysis.com website; and Tufara Waller, cultural program coordinator of the Highlander Center in Tennessee. The issues joined at that first session remained at the center of the debate the following four days. (See “Venezuela book fair theme: ‘U.S., a possible revolution’” in last week’sMilitant.)
In addition to the forum panelists mentioned below, others included Bernardo álvarez, Venezuela’s ambassador to the United States; former University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill; August Nimtz, a University of Minnesota political science professor; William Blum, an author who has written a number of books opposing U.S. foreign policy; ex-Maryknoll priest Charles Hardy; and Dada Maheshvarananda, yoga instructor and founder of the Prout Institute.
Debate over immigrant workers
The political perspectives most sharply debated over the five days were, first, the impact and importance of millions of Latin American immigrant workers in the United States, and, second, the history of revolutionary struggles of working people in the United States and the lessons of those struggles for revolutionary prospects. In a striking way, the discussion registered that those living and engaged in the class struggle in the United States generally expressed greater confidence in the revolutionary capacities of working people there than did those—both U.S. citizens and many Latin American participants—living outside the United States.
Several panelists are active in work to expand rights for immigrants in the United States. These included Diógenes Abreu, a Dominican-born community organizer who currently lives in New York; Luis Rodríguez, a Chicano activist in California’s San Fernando Valley; and Gustavo Torres, an organizer for the immigrant rights group Casa de Maryland. Several of them gave a vivid and accurate picture of conditions of life for immigrant workers in the United States and the growing resistance and confidence manifested in strikes and ongoing street mobilizations against raids and deportations.
Both Torres and Antonio González, president of the Southwest Voter Education and Registration Project, said the road to “empowerment” is organizing Latinos to vote. “What does a revolutionary do in the U.S. today?” asked González. “Take power wherever you can” by electing Latinos to city, state, and federal offices. His PowerPoint presentation highlighted the growing number of Latino voters.
During the discussion periods day after day, a number of participants from Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America took exception to the evidence that immigrant workers resisting the superexploitation they face in the United States are an important force in the working-class vanguard that is emerging there. In various ways, several said that Latin Americans living and working in the United States are simply there to get “a piece of the pie.”
“They are only there to get passports,” said one participant. “Once they get them they’ll stop marching.” Many characterized immigrant workers as sellouts who have bought into the “American dream” at the expense of fighting for political, economic, and social change in Latin America.
In the discussion, Carlos Samaniego, a packinghouse worker from Minnesota, countered this view. He described the vanguard role that immigrant workers are playing in struggles in the United States—from coal mines in the West to union struggles in Midwest slaughterhouses.
America’s revolutionary heritage
The other hotly debated question was the revolutionary history of toilers in the United States and, by extension, prospects for a Third American Revolution, a socialist revolution.
“America was created by revolution,” said panelist Lee Sustar, labor editor of the Socialist Worker newspaper, which reflects the views of the International Socialist Organization. Speaking at the November 13 session, he referred to the U.S. Civil War as “the completion of the bourgeois democratic revolution” that had won independence for the 13 British colonies some 80 years earlier.
“There has never been a revolution in the United States, and anyone who thinks there has been is ignorant of their own history,” responded panelist Richard Gott, a British author and journalist. Gott said the American Revolution, which defeated British colonial rule, could not be considered a revolution. Rather, it was a war to take land from Native American tribes, whose territory, he said, was being protected by the British royal army.
“No, a revolution is not possible in the United States,” said Gott. “It is conservative and reactionary. The only hope is Latin America.”
“I want to express my total agreement,” interjected Haiman El Troudi, the moderator of the panel that day. “There never has been a revolution in the United States and never will be!” El Troudi has held several offices in the Chávez government and written books including Being Capitalist is Bad Business and History of the Bolivarian Revolution.
“It is impossible for a revolution to begin in the United States,” said a Venezuelan participant from the floor. He pointed to what he considered U.S. workers’ complicity with Washington’s wars against Iraq and Afghanistan as proof that working people there are desensitized to injustice.
But in remarks during the November 11 panel, ex-Marine and founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War Jimmy Massey described his evolution from a prowar patriot to a staunch opponent of the war in Iraq. He walked through day-to-day experiences in Iraq that led him to oppose U.S. policies in the Middle East and to organize fellow soldiers to do the same.
Another idea frequently expressed by speakers from the floor and by a few panelists was that “change has to come from the South,” referring to Latin America. Many said the only hope was to wait until enough countries in Latin America close their doors to imperialist penetration so as to cause a collapse in the U.S. economy. The fact that nowhere in Latin America but Cuba have working people yet successfully carried through to victory the kind of revolutionary struggle necessary to end imperialist domination received scant attention.
Some participants argued that U.S. capitalism would be thrown into crisis if enough leftist governments were elected in Latin America and refused to sign bilateral “free-trade” agreements with Washington or join the U.S.-initiated Free Trade Area of the Americas. Others pointed to popular struggles in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua as being the key to educating working people in the United States. Despite different arguments and emphases, the point of agreement was that no initiative could be expected from working people inside the imperialist bastion.
A contrasting point of view was presented by Héctor Pesquera, a leader of the Hostosiano Independence Movement of Puerto Rico. “The Puerto Rican struggle is connected to the North American revolution,” he said. Pesquera summarized the worsening conditions facing both working people in Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans living in New York. Pointing to the movement that forced Washington to withdraw its naval bases from the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, Pesquera noted that this blow to the U.S. rulers had strengthened social movements in the United States.
“I’m going to take issue with what every one of you has said,” stated Amiri Baraka, a poet from Newark, New Jersey, speaking from the audience. Baraka, a panelist on the closing day of the event, has been active in Black nationalist, Maoist, and Democratic Party politics since the 1960s. Attacking Sustar for not identifying himself as a “Trotskyite,” and falsely accusing fellow panelist George Katsiaficas of introducing himself as a former member of the Black Panthers, Baraka’s intervention was the first time in four days of sharp debate that the tone of civil discourse was breached.
Final session
“When I first heard the theme of this forum, I thought it was a joke,” said Steve Brouwer, an American living in Venezuela and writing a book on peasant cooperatives. Brouwer was a panelist at the final session. “But the more I thought about what is happening in the world, the more I listened to my Latino brothers here, the more I became convinced that revolutionary change in the U.S. ispossible.”
Brouwer said that working-class complacency in the United States in the 1920s had given way to labor battles in the 1930s that shaped U.S. politics for 45 years. He cited a “mildly progressive” Democratic Party, influenced by these developments in the labor movement, as key to what he called a progressive course that ended with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Amiri Baraka and Amina Baraka were also panelists at the final session.
Amina Baraka, introducing herself as “a Black woman who is a communist who uses the cultural arena,” spoke about her work and read a poem.
Amiri Baraka came back to the previous day’s discussion, disagreeing with Gott and others who denied the two great revolutions in U.S. history. He also disagreed with Sustar’s characterization of the Civil War as the completion of the bourgeois democratic revolution.
“That revolution has never been completed,” Baraka said. “There is still no democracy for Blacks.” He proposed that Blacks and Latinos, including the “progressive” Black bourgeoisie, unite around a program to abolish the electoral college; establish a unicameral parliamentary system; ban “private money” from election campaigns; make voting compulsory; and restore voting rights to felons. Such constitutional reforms, he said, would shift power towards “people’s democracy” in the United States. Revolutionary goals could then be put on the agenda.
What has derailed all previous revolutionary struggles in the United States, Baraka argued, is “white privilege.” He citied the defeat of Radical Reconstruction following the Civil War, the failure of the 1930s labor upsurge to go further, and the decline of the mass movement that brought down Jim Crow segregation as three examples. Moreover, “white privilege” and the failure of the “white left” to fight it remain the primary obstacle to struggles today.
Baraka also renewed his attack on Katsiaficas, who had spoken about Asian student struggles on the panel the previous day. Baraka accused him of being an agent trying to stir up support in Venezuela for student marches against the government of Hugo Chávez.
Baraka concluded by reading his poem, “Somebody Blew Up America,” a Spanish translation of which was distributed to participants. Written after September 11, 2001, the poem presents a long list of historical atrocities, interlacing anti-imperialist and anticapitalist rhetoric with conspiracy theories of history and anti-Semitism. “Who decide Jesus get crucified,” the poem asks. “Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed / Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Tower / To stay home that day / Why did Sharon stay away?”
During the opening day of the panel, a participant from Panama had said during the discussion that Jews are the main problem facing working people in the world today because “they have all the money” and control everything. Norton Sandler, a member of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States, spoke from the floor the next day and pointed to the danger of scapegoating and Jew-hatred for the working-class movement.
After Baraka’s remarks the final day, Mary-Alice Waters took the floor to thank the organizers of the book fair “for bringing together diverse forces for such a broad variety of views for the discussion that took place here.” She stressed the importance of civil debate, noting that “the poison of agent- and race-baiting should be rejected by all.”
Some prominent speakers invited to take part in the central forum were unable to make it during that event, but joined the discussion in the following days.
A November 17 program on “Liberation, Imagination, Black Panthers” featuring Kathleen Cleaver, former national spokesperson for the Black Panther Party, was one of the larger events of the fair outside the central forum. A video interview with Noam Chomsky, the well-known author, anarchist, and a linguistics professor, was played after the conclusion of the forum, and a booklet containing a translation of his comments was distributed for free.
Ramón Medero, president of Venezuela’s National Book Center, the sponsor of the fair, expressed his appreciation to all the panelists whose efforts had contributed to the success of the event, and satisfaction that the fair served to open a much-needed political discussion.
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