Migrant massacre shakes Central America

The recent killing of 72 people, from El Salvador, Honduras and other nations, as they tried to cross through Mexico into the U.S., has sent shockwaves across the continent. But many may still attempt the perilous trek.
By Alex Renderos and Ken Ellingwood
The Los Angeles Times
September 03, 2010

Reporting from Las Penitas, El Salvador, and — Cayetano Flores wishes he had just said no.

His granddaughter, Yedmi Victoria Castro, had just celebrated her 15th birthday in this mountain hamlet near El Salvador's border with Honduras. A suitor was becoming aggressive, and the idea arose that she join her mother in New York.

Flores, a wizened corn farmer, said he opposed her making the risky journey without papers. But the girl's mother was decided: Yedmi would go north.

The dark-haired and slender teenager read passages from the Bible to Flores for three days in a row. On Aug. 10, she set out for Guatemala and Mexico, a route traveled by thousands of Salvadorans before her.

Two weeks later she was dead.

Yedmi was among the 72 Central and South American migrants found slain in northern Mexico's Tamaulipas state on Aug. 24 — allegedly victims of the notorious Zetas drug gang. Salvadoran officials said 13 of the victims identified so far are from El Salvador.

"Her last call was from Guatemala saying that she was all right, but then afterwards, it was all darkness," Flores, 70, said this week, his eyes brimming with hurt. "She didn't deserve that fate."

The massacre was a horrifying reminder to Mexicans of the runaway violence in their country as drug-trafficking gangs wage war against the government and each other.

But the incident is rippling beyond Mexico to obscure places such as Las Penitas, a burg of 100 or so homes where some of the school's classrooms have dirt floors and the hills echo with rumors of gun-running and drug-smuggling.

This is an area long used to the rhythms — and dangers — of migrant life. Many of the rustic brick houses were built with money sent by Salvadoran workers in the United States. The surrounding region has itself drawn field workers from Honduras and Nicaragua, making it both a source and landing spot for migrants.

At the school Yedmi attended, about three-fourths of the 168 students between the ages of 12 and 15 have parents living in Los Angeles, New York, Houston and other U.S. cities, said the principal, Mario Romano.

The killings in Mexico have stirred indignation in Las Penitas, but few residents were eager to discuss them, fearful that the smugglers would come back for vengeance.

"Everybody is scared," said Yedmi's ninth-grade teacher, Milagro Martinez, who recalled her as a good student, quiet and humble.

The slayings underscored the perils of a more than 1,300-mile trip north that involves at least three border crossings, and often means dangerous rides atop Mexican trains. Past studies estimate that 400,000 migrants a year cross through Mexico.

Advocates have long complained that criminals and corrupt officials prey on migrants, but they say the risks have worsened due to the deepening involvement of crime groups.

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission estimated last year that 1,600 migrants are kidnapped each month.

In El Salvador and other countries from which the victims came, the massacre has raised another dark question: how many others have met the same fate, but were never found?

Mexico, whose citizens migrate northward too, is in the uncomfortable position of defending its treatment of foreign migrants. In Honduras, home to at least 14 of the victims, the front pages of newspapers have carried photos of coffins and grief-struck relatives.

A young man from Ecuador and a Honduran are the only known survivors.

Officials said the Ecuadoran, Luis Freddy Lala Pomavilla, 18, told them that the Zetas captured his group and demanded that they join the gang. Other news reports have quoted relatives of some of the dead as saying they received calls demanding money shortly before the bodies turned up on a ranch in Tamaulipas.

Lala, back in Ecuador, went on television to urge compatriots not to try crossing into the United States the way he did. "The Zetas are killing a lot of people," he said.

Mexican officials say they will crack down on drug gangs that have branched out into migrant smuggling and kidnapping migrants to extort money. Deportations of undocumented migrants have dropped drastically from 250,000 in 2005 to 43,000 so far this year — a sign that fewer people are crossing Mexico. Authorities attribute the decline mainly to a sagging job market and immigration crackdowns in the United States. But they note that the increasing violence in Mexico probably is also a deterrent.

Still, few in El Salvador expect the slayings to deter some people from the migrant trail.

"There are sons and daughters living alone here, taken care of only by their grandparents. And the parents want to hug their daughters and sons and give them a better life," said Martinez, the Las Penitas schoolteacher.

"But besides that, and most terrible, is that they think that the risk of death is maybe worth taking."

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

Renderos is a special correspondent and reported from Las Penitas. Times staff writer Ken Ellingwood reported from Mexico City.

Ind. restaurant owner admits illegal hiring

Ind. restaurant owner admits illegal hiring
The Associated Press

04/21/2010

SOUTH BEND, Ind.—A northern Indiana restaurant owner who employed four Mexican immigrants killed in a 2006 house fire has pleaded guilty to federal charges of concealing illegal immigrants.

Zhi Jian Jiang, 40, of Sacramento, Calif., faces up to three years in prison under a plea agreement with prosecutors. His sentencing was scheduled for July 12.

Jiang pleaded guilty this week in U.S. District Court in South Bend to charges that he hired illegal immigrants from Mexico. None of the charges is related to the Aug. 13, 2006, fire or the deaths.

The blaze broke out around 3:30 a.m. inside a Michigan City house that was near the Fortune House Chinese restaurant where the men worked.

Investigators found mattresses inside closets of the two-story home, and there appeared to be makeshift rooms with spots for about 12 to 15 people to sleep. Authorities aren't sure how many people were in the house when the fire broke out. Witnesses reported seeing some people leave the house.

Officials treated the fire as suspicious after a dog trained to sniff accelerants detected what could have been combustible liquids, but there was no record of any charges being filed. Investigators determined the fire began on the back porch.

No smoke detectors were found in the house.

The victims were identified as Felipe Bustamante Salgoto, 31; Roberto Jiamez Melquiadez, 26; Metodio Reyes Aparicio, 23; and Azael Jiminez Martinez, 23.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_14939462

Teen guilty of manslaughter in NY immigrant death

By FRANK ELTMAN
The Associate Press

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A former high school athlete who plunged a knife into the chest of an Ecuadorean immigrant during a street fight that cast a national spotlight on bias crimes against Hispanics was convicted of manslaughter as a hate crime Monday but acquitted of murder.

Jeffrey Conroy, 19, was one of seven teenagers implicated in the November 2008 stabbing death of Marcelo Lucero in what prosecutors say was the culmination of an ongoing campaign of violence targeting Hispanics. The teens alluded to "beaner-hopping" or "Mexican hopping."

Conroy shook his head slightly when the verdict was announced in the packed courtroom. His brother and sister left the courthouse in tears.

"The hunting season is over, at least for now," brother Joselo Lucero said later.

Four other defendants have pleaded guilty to hate crime-related charges. Two others are awaiting trial.

Conroy was the only one of the seven charged with murder and manslaughter; prosecutors said he was the one who inflicted the fatal wound in a midnight fight near the Patchogue train station. He faces eight to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on May 26.

District Attorney Thomas Spota called the verdict fair, but defense attorney William Keahon said he would appeal.

"Unfortunately, in our system of justice, sometimes young men and women are convicted of crimes they did not commit," Keahon said.

Pablo Colle, of Ecuador's National Department of Migration, said Ecuadorean officials weren't satisfied with the verdict. "We did expect to have a charge for murder," he said.

The killing sent shock waves far beyond Long Island's Suffolk County, where animosity over the influx of thousands of immigrants from Central and South America has been on the rise for nearly a decade.

Latino Justice-PRLDEF repeatedly lobbied for a federal investigation of hate crimes on Long Island following the killing. The U.S. Department of Justice announced last fall it would investigate hate crimes and the police response to them.

Conroy, a three-sport athlete at Patchogue-Medford High School, told police he was responsible for the stabbing but took the witness stand to say he had taken the blame for one of his co-defendants — a teenager he had just met earlier that night.

Lucero, 37, was walking with a friend when they were confronted by the teenagers. Prosecutors say the teens were walking around town looking for targets, began yelling ethnic slurs and approached the two men. One of the teens punched Lucero in the face. Lucero and his friend swung their belts in self-defense and began to chase the teens.

Prosecutors said Lucero hit Conroy in the head with the belt and that the teen lost his temper, opened the folding knife and lunged at Lucero's chest.

Conroy, who has been held without bail since his arrest the night of the killing, testified that co-defendant Christopher Overton told him he had stabbed Lucero. He said Overton had told him earlier in the night that he had a burglary conviction in a case where the homeowner was killed and could not afford further trouble with the police.

Overton has pleaded not guilty in the Lucero case. His attorney has derided Conroy's claims as scapegoating by someone facing a long prison term.

Conroy has a swastika tattoo and a lightning bolt tattoo intended to symbolize "white power," according to trial testimony. On the stand, Conroy said he allowed a friend to place the swastika tattoo on his upper thigh on a dare.

Many Hispanics attacked in the days before Lucero's killing were afraid to report the crimes to police, fearing questions about their immigration status, prosecutors said. A September 2009 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a national civil rights organization, included the Lucero killing in its decade-long timeline documenting anti-immigrant attacks throughout the country.

Ecuador's ambassador in Washington, Luis Gallegos, said in a statement before the verdict was announced that he hoped an appropriate punishment would be meted out to set an example to others.

"What concerns us in the United States are crimes of hatred and xenophobia, obviously linked to racism," he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press before the verdict. "We believe that in the trial of Mr. Lucero, there must be a sentence of the greatest severity so that this kind of crime is not repeated."

The trial was being followed by many in Ecuador.

"We Hispanics are so unsafe when we go elsewhere, and let's hope that everyone involved in that group that mistreats Hispanics is punished," said Nimia Villacreces, a 33-year-old auditor.

Mauricio Trujillo, a 42-year-old lawyer, added: "It's not enough to punish just one youth, because various people were implicated."

After the Lucero killing, Suffolk Police assigned an Ecuador-born officer to work as a liaison between police and the Hispanic community in Patchogue. Some Hispanics say conditions have improved, but advocates have held several news conferences during the trial, contending much work still needs to be done to ease fears.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iyOq7mhNW2WjpPOWuAd607cd0xxgD9F68UH80

In Jury Selection for Hate Crime, a Struggle to Find Tolerance

By MANNY FERNANDEZ
The New York Times
March 8, 2010

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — Over the last several days, Justice Robert W. Doyle has heard the typical excuses from potential jurors. One woman mentioned her husband’s medical problems. Another woman complained about her back.

But other prospective jurors, seeking to be excused, have brought up larger issues in the judge’s Long Island courtroom.

A young woman said that her father, a mechanic, has a “huge opinion about illegal immigration,” and that his views on the subject have “become my opinions as well.” A man told Justice Doyle that his house was broken into by illegal immigrants while he was sleeping, a fact that he said would affect his ability to be fair and impartial.

And there were those who took a different view, like the bank worker who said that because her husband is of Mexican and Italian descent, she might have difficulty being fair. And the woman who explained that most of the clients in her job are illegal Latino immigrants.

“I don’t think that because of that they should be killed,” she told Justice Doyle.

The prospective jurors were being asked to sit in judgment in the case involving the killing of Marcelo Lucero, a 37-year-old Ecuadorean immigrant stabbed to death in November 2008 in Patchogue, more than an hour’s drive from Manhattan.

Mr. Lucero was attacked by seven teenagers who, the police said, had made a sport out of assaulting Hispanic men, calling it “beaner hopping.” Mr. Lucero’s death prompted widespread outrage and exposed racial tensions in Patchogue, where a number of Latinos came forward after the attack to describe muggings and assaults that had them living in fear.

Now, as Jeffrey Conroy, 19, becomes the first defendant to go on trial in the case, jury selection has proven difficult, in part because of the views on Latino immigration held by some prospective jurors in Suffolk County.

Last week, after three days of jury selection, about 130 men and women were questioned by the judge, the prosecutor and Mr. Conroy’s defense lawyer here in State Supreme Court. Only five were selected; the rest were excused. On Monday, jury selection continued as another roughly 130 were brought in, and more than a dozen were excused by the end of the day.

Once the jury is seated, Mr. Conroy’s defense may be complicated by the fact that four of the seven teenagers have pleaded guilty and may testify against him. But something larger may be at play: the treatment of immigrants in Suffolk County and the allegations that have been raised that some residents there are biased against them.

At times, the jury selection had the feel of a call-in show on talk radio, as men and women sounded off on illegal immigration, hate crimes, their ethnic background and the American dream. Most of the comments made by potential jurors came in response to questions asked by Justice Doyle in a third-floor courtroom of the criminal courthouse in Riverhead, as Mr. Conroy sat motionless in a dark suit at a table next to his lawyer.

Mr. Conroy is accused of second-degree murder as a hate crime, among other charges, in Mr. Lucero’s death, as well as attempted assault as a hate crime in episodes involving other Hispanic men. He has pleaded not guilty. The other two defendants have pleaded not guilty to a hate crime and other charges and are awaiting trial.

Justice Doyle has said that some of the witnesses who will testify in the trial are illegal immigrants, and the potential witnesses he has named in court include three Hispanic men whom prosecutors say some or all of the young men also attempted to attack. Mr. Lucero, who worked at a dry cleaning store, had lived in the United States for 16 years at the time he was stabbed.

Several potential jurors were let go because they said they had strong views on illegal immigration and would be unable to be fair and impartial. Others were excused because they said they had Hispanic family members, or were Hispanic themselves, and would side with the victim and his family. And still others said they had followed the case in the news, and had already formed an opinion about Mr. Conroy’s guilt or innocence.

On Monday, a Riverhead man in his early 20s told the judge that he grew up in a racist environment in Pennsylvania and felt that he could not be fair. Another man said that a neighbor has been verbally abusing his son’s family for several years because his daughter-in-law is Puerto Rican and Peruvian. Justice Doyle asked him if this would affect his ability to be fair.

“It could,” said the man, who declined to elaborate after being excused.

Those who raised illegal immigration as a factor in their ability to serve chose their words carefully, so as not to condone the crimes for which Mr. Conroy stands accused.

One man, a school bus driver, said his Teamsters union had taken a stand on what he described as a lack of a federal immigration policy, and because some witnesses might be illegal immigrants, this would be a problem for him. Before he was released, the man said that what he has and what he has earned was gained legally, not illegally. “I’m the old-fashioned way,” he told Justice Doyle.

The majority of potential jurors, including the school bus driver, have been white men and women of all ages. Only a handful have been Hispanic, black or Asian.

The economic and social impact that Latino immigration and Hispanic day laborers have had on communities in Suffolk County has long been a polarizing issue. A report released following the death of Mr. Lucero by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that monitors hate groups, found that an environment of racial intolerance fueled dozens of attacks on Latinos in the county in the past decade.

“It is a little bit of a glimpse into the soul of a community,” Bruce Barket, a Long Island defense lawyer and a former Nassau County prosecutor, said of the comments being made in this case so far. “These kinds of issues and these kinds of tensions are always present in the courtroom. Race is probably the most dominant unspoken factor in almost every trial.”

Advocates for immigrants and the brother of Mr. Lucero criticized those who said their feelings on illegal immigration prevented them from being impartial. “We’re not talking about any issues about immigration,” Mr. Lucero’s brother, Joselo Lucero, 35, said in an interview. “We’re talking about justice and human rights. This is totally different.”

Several more days of jury selection are expected. Mr. Conroy’s lawyer, William Keahon, said he was not concerned about how long it was taking to select a jury. “It’s going to take us a couple days longer than unusual, but there’s no doubt that the result will be a fair and impartial jury to both sides,” he said.

There were times during the jury selection process when illegal immigration did not seem to be such a daunting issue. Last week, Megan O’Donnell, an assistant district attorney, asked prospective jurors sitting in the jury box if the victim’s immigration status mattered to them, and all assured her that it did not matter.

Carla Panetta, 60, a Patchogue mother of four and grandmother of six, was among a large group of prospective jurors that Justice Doyle excused at the end of the day on Thursday. Outside the courthouse, she said that illegal immigration had no bearing on the case, and that even though her 14-year-old grandson is Hispanic, she would have had no problem being objective. She criticized those prospective jurors who said they could not be fair because of their views on illegal immigration.

“I don’t care whether the man was legal, illegal, white, black, purple or green,” she said outside the courthouse. “There was a murder. It almost seemed like the poor victim was the one going on trial.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/nyregion/09patchogue.html?hpw

Forgotten Corners of the Economy

By Stephen Franklin
The American Prospect
October 21, 2009

As unemployment rises, the illegal treatment of day laborers only worsens. Where's the government?

Another dead day on the street corner and Gonzalo Mejia is wondering how he will get by. He's been finding work just one or two days a week lately. Worse yet, a contractor recently stiffed him out of $400 worth of pay.

"All the time there is less work," grumbles Mejia, a short, muscular man in his mid-50s. His pals nod in agreement as they wait like hawks, ready to swoop down on the next contractor who pulls up. But it's well past 9 A.M., only three cars have trolled by in search of workers, and hardly anyone has budged off the street.

Yet it is not just the disappearance of work that troubles him and the 150 or so men killing time at Milwaukee and Belmont, once Chicago's busiest street corner for day laborers. Everything has become so difficult, so frustrating, so dangerous. For workers with minimal protections against employers who steal from their wages or sometimes leave them dead or maimed, life has lately become bare existence.

Before the housing bubble burst and the economy collapsed, the day laborers here tried to hold the line with employers at $10 an hour for basic work. Nowadays the going rate has dropped to $8 an hour, and some more desperate workers have grabbed $5-an-hour offers, saying it beats waiting around.

Day laborers here and across the U.S. have long suffered from employers who cheat them out of their wages. But there are more complaints recently about employers who give them bad checks or hire them at one rate and then pay less when the work is done or who vanish when it comes time to pay up.

"They say the job is for two or three days and they'll pay you when it's done. And then they disappear. Most of the guys have the same problems," explains Mejia, who was earning $18 an hour as a carpenter when there was work. Nowadays, he takes $12 an hour if he can get it.

Latino immigrants dominate this and nearly all of Chicago's day-labor street corners. But there has also been a rush of U.S. citizens, many of them newly unemployed or low-wage workers, as well as other immigrant groups.

Some day laborers will even continue working for weeks when they have not been paid. "They need money so desperately; they keep working, hoping to get paid. But they don't, and that's sad," says Kasia Tarczynska, a Polish-speaking worker with the Latino Union of Chicago, which serves day laborers. She works with the Eastern European day laborers -- Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, Bosnians, Albanians, and others -- who have been showing up increasingly on Chicago's street corners and who suffer from roughly the same problems and abuses as the rest of the day laborers. Many are also undocumented immigrants and because of their limited English skills and the street corner's pack mentality, they stick to themselves.

The flood of new workers has worsened conditions, say the men and workers from the Latino Union, because the increased supply has driven down the wages that the day laborers had struggled to maintain. But some also have made the work dangerous for themselves and others. "They face the greatest dangers because [many of them] have not done day labor before, and they don't have the training," explains Eric Rodriguez, executive director of the Latino Union.

The arrival of new groups of increasingly desperate workers threatens to wipe out a decade of efforts to set pay and safety standards on the nation's street corners, says Nik Theodore, a University of Illinois at Chicago expert on day laborers. He is a co-author of a 2006 national study of day laborers, the first and only one of its kind. It is a grim accounting of what takes place on more than 500 street corners across the U.S. where day laborers gather early each morning to catch the best jobs.

On any single day, about 117,000 day laborers are out looking for work or are on the job, the study said. Three out of four of these workers, according to the study, are undocumented immigrants. But because workers often float in and out of the street-corner job market, it is estimated that as many as half a million people do day labor during the year.

The West Coast accounts for the greatest number of the nation's day laborers, over 40 percent, followed by the East, the Southwest, the South, and the Midwest. About 43 percent of the employers are construction contractors. Another 49 percent are either homeowners or renters. This makes the worker situation even more hazardous, since these employers are unlikely to have safety equipment or know about safety rules.

***

The danger of their work is a reality to the day laborers who reel accounts of falling off buildings, getting hit by falling construction supplies, and being trapped while digging ditches. Their stories help explain the 125 percent spike in the number of Latinos killed in construction jobs between 1992 and 2005, a figure that Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis called "unbearable" in a June speech to safety engineers in Texas. Seventy-five percent of the day laborers contacted in the 2006 survey said their work is dangerous, and one worker in five reported being injured on the job in the last year. But more than half of those injured did not get any medical care for their injuries, mostly because they couldn't afford it or the employer refused to cover them under workers' compensation, according to the survey.

Day laborers often turn to Chicago attorney Jose Rivero because he is willing to file workers' compensation cases against shady contractors with the likelihood of minimal rewards for his clients. It is not uncommon for contractors to file bankruptcy or simply vanish or to threaten workers against taking them to court or reporting them to officials, Rivero adds.

But he has been getting fewer calls lately and doesn't think that is because the work has suddenly become safer. The injuries he sees are "as horrible" as ever. "I think the economy is a big factor," he explains. Workers know that they will be "blackballed" by contractors if they talk to a lawyer, he says. Because they are desperate to hang on to the work, they don't take such risks.

But the day laborers' biggest day-to-day worry, according to the 2006 survey, is getting paid. Nearly half said they had not been paid by an employer in the months just prior to the survey, and another 48 percent told of being underpaid. There has been no comprehensive survey since 2006, but my reporting suggests that these trends are worsening.

Chris Newman, Legal Programs Director for the National Day Labor Organizing Network, which links together several dozen groups that serve day laborers, says the level of wage theft "has been amplified by the [financial stresses] downtown. Before, you would be owed $200, but now it is more likely $2,000." Theodore of the University of Illinois at Chicago adds, "I can't tell if you have unscrupulous employers taking advantage of what's happening or it's the financial problems facing those higher up in the contracting chain."

***

As the ranks of the workers on the streets have swollen in the last decade, day labor activists like Newman have steadily complained about the federal government's failure to stop the wage theft or to halt the unsafe conditions the workers face. Now, they say the Obama administration should take these steps:

First, the Labor Department should increase the ranks of investigators in its Wage and Hour Division, the office responsible for making sure employers do not cheat workers out of their wages. Kim Bobo, author of the recent book Wage Theft in America and head of Interfaith Worker Justice, a Chicago-based group organization, praises the administration's plans to hire several hundred more investigators. "But that's not enough. They need double the number of investigators," she says.

Second, employers need to live in fear that will they face stiff fines for violating federal wage and worker-safety laws. They should not be allowed to negotiate down the penalties so that overworked federal bureaucrats can clear the cases. The likelihood of serious penalties should increase for employers with repeat violations. "Every time we file a case, [the Labor Department] settles it for 50 cents on the dollar, and that means workers don't get what they are owed," says Bobo, whose organization operates a network of worker centers around the U.S. She adds that the government should make employers' violation records more "transparent" and accessible so businesses can be tracked.

Third, the government should develop direct ties with day-labor and worker centers, creating a system that will regularly inform workers of their rights and educate them on safe workplace practices. Theodore says the government should use the locations as worker development centers, where they can train and improve workers' skills. By authorizing the centers to directly file workers' complaints, the government can also expand its investigative outreach to the workers, he says.

Fourth, federal offices serving day laborers should be more accessible to workers, especially in the case of undocumented immigrants who are both fearful of visiting government buildings and who usually cannot enter them because they lack proper identification. "The agencies are designed to serve bankers, not low-wage workers who cannot make a 3 P.M. meeting," Bobo says. So, too, she says there need to be more government workers able to communicate with the largely Latino day-laborer work force. After the Katrina disaster, the government was hard-pressed, she recalls, to cope with the number of Spanish-speaking day laborers drawn to the recovery work in New Orleans.

To Newman, however, the most important step is "harmonizing" the government's immigration and labor-enforcement policies. "If undocumented immigrants are unable to come forward and form unions and file complaints and get redress from unscrupulous practices, then the bad guys will continue on," he says.

As for prospects of the Labor Department improving its day-to-day performance, he is quite upbeat about Solis. "The team that she is assembling is fantastic," he says. "There are all the indications that the U.S. will get its Labor Department back after eight years of self-mutilation."

Solis, the daughter of Latino farmworker immigrants, tells me her agency is hiring 250 investigators, some of whom will be bilingual. She wanted more, "but we didn't have the money." Besides "looking at increasing penalties" against employers who break the laws, she also plans to create a strike force to focus on firms with the "most egregious abuses." If the companies cooperate, the agency will offer them training and assistance, she says. And if they don't want to comply, "we are not going to sit around," she adds.

The agency will closely investigate how employers who use the government's recovery funds treat their workers. "They better know we are taking a different approach here," she says. As for workers' fears of dealing with a government agency, she vows to increase the agency's links with organizations that "have the trust of the community."

***

Help dealing with abusive employers or those who put him in dangerous situations could not come fast enough for Guillermo Caicero. Not long ago he got into an argument with a contractor who promised him $15 an hour but paid him only $10 an hour when the work was done. He complained and the employer called the police. But the police "didn't do anything," he says.

Four years ago he tumbled off a roof and broke a leg, he says. Several months ago, the 50-year-old day laborer dislocated an arm on the job. Not long ago a pipe also fell and hit his head, sending him to a hospital. But the contractor refused to pay for treatment or time lost, and Caicero was not covered by workers' comp. He went to a county hospital and was able to get free care, Caicero says.

Despite it all, here he is, on the corner, waiting and waiting.

Stephen Franklin is a former labor writer for the Chicago Tribune and author of Three Strikes: Labor's Heartland Losses and What They Mean for Working Americans (2001).

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=forgotten_corners_of_the_economy

Brutal beating of immigrant, charges against six boys bring alarms in Lynn

‘Look how they left him’
Brutal beating of immigrant, charges against six boys bring alarms in Lynn
By Maria Sacchetti
Boston Globe Staff
September 11, 2009

LYNN - Damian Merida was the seventh of 11 children born in a thatched-roof house with a dirt floor in Guatemala. He was just a boy when he left, following his brothers to the United States because their village had little food, no medicine, no work, and no future.

All of that he found here, in an immigrant enclave of Lynn. Everyone in his family knew how far they had come.

Then, in the middle of a warm summer day on July 22, the family’s vision of America was lost in a blur of bricks, rocks, bottles, and sticks.

As Merida slept under a shade tree in a Lynn park, a mob of children allegedly descended on the 30-year-old landscaper and savagely beat him. The vicious attack is provoking questions and inciting fear throughout this city and beyond, because police say he was targeted because of his ethnicity.

His alleged attackers are six boys age 11 to 14; most were on championship sports teams, and one is an immigrant himself, from West Africa, the Globe has confirmed.

Police are investigating whether the same group was responsible for an attack in the area two weeks before on another man from Guatemala, and are urging the victim to come forward.

Once stocky and strong, Merida is now in Tewksbury Hospital, learning to walk and feed himself. Family members say he has permanent brain damage and will never live and work on his own. Sometimes he suffers from long crying fits. His family is suddenly tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

“Look how they left him,’’ his 66-year-old mother, Teofila Merida, said in Spanish, covering her deeply lined face with hands wrinkled from decades of picking coffee and husks of corn. She stared at a photograph of her son in the hospital, his eyes swollen shut, his face covered in tubes, his legs wrapped in bandages. “I can’t understand why they would have done it.’’

The boys are facing multiple assault charges, including armed assault with intent to murder, and a civil rights violation because they allegedly targeted him as an immigrant. Authorities would not confirm the boys’ names because they are minors, and juvenile court proceedings are private.

Merida family members and the Daily Item of Lynn said the boys pleaded not guilty and all but one is free pending trial. Lynn public schools suspended four of the boys indefinitely, which they will appeal today, said Rick Iarrobino, a school official. The oldest boy, age 14, is still in state custody.

The sixth boy’s status is unclear. He attended St. Mary’s Junior-Senior High School last year but he did not re-enroll in the fall, the principal said.

Despite their anonymity, the boys are under heavy scrutiny as the city searches for answers. The Anti-Defamation League and the Latino Professional Network condemned the attack this week. Doubts about the attackers’ motive have also surfaced: Frances Martinez, executive director of the nonprofit La Vida Inc., said she did not believe Merida was targeted because of his ethnicity, as crime is widespread in Lynn.

But acting Police Chief Kevin Coppinger said witnesses said the boys targeted Merida because he is Latino. He urged immigrants to report crimes to the police even if they, like Merida, are here illegally and said the police do not generally ask about the immigration status of victims.

“The attack to us was a very serious incident, very out of the ordinary,’’ Coppinger said.

At least five of the six boys had won recognition in their community. Four were on Pop Warner football teams that were among the best in the state last year. In online photographs, one team is pictured being praised in a ceremony at City Hall. After the attack, the boys were allowed to play until the Merida family and others expressed outrage.

One of the boys is a soccer star from West Africa. He is pictured on the Internet with a medal around his neck. He is still playing in a private league, according to his coach, who said he believes the boy is innocent. The coach spoke on condition of anonymity.

Five boys are under age 14 and cannot be tried as adults, but they could be committed to the Department of Youth Services until they turn 18. The 14-year-old could be in DYS until he turns 21, said Stephen O’Connell, spokesman for the Essex district attorney’s office. The district attorney’s office is reviewing whether to try him as an adult.

Merida was not much older than the boys who are accused of attacking him when he decided to move to the United States. But he had a starkly different life.

He was born in a rural village near San Sebastian. His family slept in one large room, scrubbed clothes by hand, carried water for washing and cooking from the river, and cooked over an open fire, according to family members.

His mother, a quick, bubbly woman, said she raised them largely alone because their father, now dead, refused to recognize them all. Sometimes all they had to eat was egg soup seasoned with chili peppers.

None of the children spent more than a few months in school.

By age 11, Damian Merida worked in the fields. At 16, he followed his older relatives to the United States. He crossed the border illegally and took cash-only jobs in Massachusetts landscaping, cleaning, and cooking to send money home to his mother, who later joined them here.

In the United States, his family said, Merida blossomed from a skinny youth to a strong, handsome man. A skilled cook, he delighted his family by breaking two eggs at once, one in each hand, and frying them one-handed in the skillet.

Though still poor, he lives with other family members in a large house in Lynn, with an electric stove, a microwave oven, and plenty to eat.

But relatives said Merida also developed a vice: drinking alcohol. It started years ago when a girlfriend broke up with him, though family members said he had dramatically cut back in recent months.

Instead, he was attending an evangelical church with them, and talked about getting married. “I want to get my life in order,’’ his mother recalled him saying.

On July 22, he could not find work and decided to have a couple of beers and take a walk to Robert McManus Field, a wide, grassy park about a mile from his house, relatives said. Police said he settled down for a nap near a graffiti-strewn embankment just below the train tracks.

At 2:49 p.m., police said, someone called 911.

At Massachusetts General Hospital, where he spent the first few weeks, family and friends said he was barely recognizable. He cannot precisely remember the attack, friends and relatives say, but suffers violent flashbacks.

“Sometimes he’ll say, ‘Please stop, don’t hit me. Don’t hit me,’ ’’ said Nanci Pye, his landscaping boss. “And then he’ll start really crying.’’

He was recently transferred to Tewksbury Hospital. His family is trying to move him closer to Salem, so that his mother can see him more frequently, said his brother, Fredy Pojoy.

They are also raising money through Sovereign Bank for his care, Pojoy said.

Merida’s sister-in law and Pojoy’s wife, Maria Gonzalez, said the family has been shaken by the violence, and were troubled that the boys were allowed to return to Pop Warner football until there was public outcry over it. “My question is, when will we have justice?’’

Before the attack, Merida cared for his mother and they shared a room. Now, in the hospital, she curls up at the foot of his bed to keep him company.

“They tell me to be patient,’’ his mother said, her hands clasped in the apron of her lap. “If God allows it, he’ll come back. But he’ll never be the same.’’

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/09/11/attack_on_immigrant_raises_concerns_in_lynn/

"Better to Be Deported Alive Than to Be Dead"

For undocumented residents, a call demanding ransom for a kidnapped loved one can lead to an equally fear-inducing call to federal immigration authorities.
By Josh White and Dagny Salas
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, August 23, 2009

Ulises Martinez received the first call on a cold January morning, a stern voice shocking him through his cellphone. His in-laws had been taken hostage after a grueling border crossing from the Mexican desert into Arizona. Martinez would have to pay $3,000 to secure their release.

"I am not responsible for what will happen to them if you do not pay the money," the voice said. He would dismember the in-laws and dump them in the desert if Martinez didn't pay up. It was $3,000 Martinez, a 40-year-old Alexandria mechanic with a wife and toddler, didn't have and couldn't get.

As demands quickly increased to $5,400, Martinez's in-laws cowered in their underwear in a dark, squalid room in Phoenix and were told that their fingers would be cut off and their organs harvested if the cartel's demands weren't met.

Desperate and confused, Martinez, himself an undocumented immigrant, called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Washington area, touching off an intense federal investigation. It was one of dozens of such search-and-rescue missions spurred by similar menacing calls over the past year, and one of two cases in Northern Virginia in recent months.

As U.S. control of the border has strengthened since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, it has become harder for people to cross illegally. That has spawned a boom in hostage-taking as smuggling cartels have realized that they can extort money from illegal immigrants' families in the United States, many of whom wire the ransom instead of risking their own deportation by contacting police.

Although the cartels hold captives in the southwest border states, the crimes have reached into the Washington region, where established immigrant communities include undocumented people who left their families behind in Central America. The kidnappers prey on working-class, Spanish-speaking immigrants because they are especially vulnerable: They would do almost anything to free their loved ones, and they are sometimes equally fearful of U.S. authorities.

Two recent cases, involving victims who received extortion calls in Alexandria and Prince William County, highlight how reporting such crimes can lead to daring rescues. ICE officials and local police hope the cases encourage others receiving extortion calls to come forward, both to save lives and to help them make inroads into the sprawling criminal organizations.

"Nobody deserves to be held against their will, regardless of their immigration status," said James Dinkins, special agent in charge of ICE investigations in the District and Virginia. "Nobody deserves to be abused or tortured or to have their life threatened. . . . The hostage takers must think the loved ones aren't going to call the cops."

The extortion demands -- which also have been reported in places including Washington state, California, Illinois and Florida -- have led ICE agents to work with victims to record and trace the calls. Officials estimate that more than 1,000 captives have been rescued in raids after victims such as Martinez come forward. But ICE officials say countless other kidnappings have gone unreported as victims quietly pay millions of dollars in ransom.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/22/AR2009082202356.html?sid%3DST2009082300832⊂=AR

Texas: Border Patrol Agent Shoots Man

National Briefing Southwest
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 2, 2009

A Border Patrol agent shot a man he suspected of being an illegal immigrant during an altercation in a South Texas convenience store. The agent, who was not identified, chased the man into a Kwik Pantry convenience store in Kingsville after he and other people ran from a vehicle the Border Patrol was pursuing around 8 a.m., said an agency spokesman, John Lopez. Inside the store, the man fought the agent’s efforts to detain him and wrested away the agent’s collapsible baton. At that point, the agent, “fearing for his life,” shot the man, Mr. Lopez said. The man, who was shot in the abdomen, Mr. Lopez said, was flown to a hospital in Corpus Christi. The man was out of surgery and recovering in the intensive care unit, Mr. Lopez said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/us/02brfs-BORDERPATROL_BRF.html?ref=us

Female vigilante 'led drugs raid on illegal immigrant home' where girl, 9, and father were shot dead

By Mail Foreign Service
15 June 2009

A female vigilante from an anti-illegal immigration group led a raid on a house where a man and his nine-year-old daughter were shot dead, it emerged today.

Shawna Forde, 41, and two others allegedly dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into the family's rural home just ten miles from the Mexican border.

Brisenia Flores and her 29-year-old father, Raul Junior Flores, died and Brisenia's mother, who has not been named, was wounded in the attack.

In handcuffs, vigilante Shawna Forde leaves the sheriff's office following her arrest on Friday

Forde, Jason Eugene Bush, 34, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, have been charged with first degree murder along with other charges said Sheriff Clarence Dupnic of Pima County, Arizona.

Forde and Bush are part of Minutemen American Defence, a small border watch group in Arizona whose mottos are 'Doing the job our Government won't do' and 'Defending America's borders'.

According to the group's website Forde is the leader while Bush, who also goes by the nickname 'Gunny', is its operations director.

Forde, shown here during a recent interview in America, is a leader in Minutemen American Defense, a group that fights illegal immigration - and that, under her leadership, is accused of murder

According to Sheriff Dupnic the motive for the murder was financial.

He said: 'The husband who was murdered has a history of being involved in narcotics and there was an anticipation that there would be a considerable amount of cash at this location as well as the possibility of drugs.

'This was a planned home invasion where the plan was to kill all the people inside this trailer so there would be no witnesses.

'To just kill a nine-year-old girl because she might be a potential witness, to me, is just one of the most despicable acts that I have heard of,' he added.

A law enforcement officer guards the house in Arizona where the raid took place

According to Brian Levin, director of the Centre for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, Forde is well known in the anti-illegal immigration community.

He said: 'She's someone who, even within the anti-immigration movement, has been labelled as unstable.

'She was basically forced out of another anti-immigrant group, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, and then founded her own organisation.'
Forde denied involvement for the crime saying she had 'nothing to do with it' as she was led from the sheriff's headquarters. Gaxiola also denied involvement.

Bush was arrested while at an Arizona hospital where he was being treated for a leg wound he allegedly received when the woman who survived the attack managed to get a gun and fire back.

A statement posted on Minutemen American Defense's website extended condolences to the victims' families and said the group does not condone such acts and will cooperate with law enforcement.

Shawna Forde's long and troubled history

Trouble and controversy has frequently found murder suspect Shawna Forde in the past.

Details have emerged about her juvenile convictions for felonies, prostitution and other street crime in Snohomish County, Washington.

She's been married and divorced four times, has been fired from numerous jobs and according to sources, alienated many in Minutemen circles, largely due to her inability to follow rules.

San Diego Minutemen, on its Web site, lists her among people they won't work with, calling her 'unstable'.

Arrested: Shawna Forde is now facing first-degree murder charges

In 2007, Forde ran for Everett City Council, campaigning on an anti-immigration platform.

However, her bid for office came to an abrupt end after she was convicted of shoplifting a container of chocolate milk.

Late last year she was at the centre of a a bizzare case involving her ex-husband who was shot in an ambush attack at his Everett home.

A week later, Forde called The Daily Herald to say she had been beaten and raped by strangers at the same house.

According to the newspaper, she claimed the attack was retaliation for her activities targeting criminal groups operating on both sides of the border between Mexico and the U.S.

She suggested that the street gang MS-13 was involved, and for a time she posted photographs on her web page showing herself partially dressed, displaying what she said were injuries to her thighs and upper buttocks.

A few weeks after the rape claim, Forde was found in an alley with apparent gun shots wounds to her arm.

During an interview with The Daily Herald, she suggested the investigation should focus on a local gang who had been breaking into Everett-area homes and trafficking in stolen firearms.

The story takes another remarkable twist, with Forde's own son, Devon Duffey, 19, being a member of this gang.

He is serving more than two years at a state penitentiary for possession of firearms.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1192987/Female-vigilante-Shawna-Forde-led-drugs-raid-illegal-immigrant-home-girl-9-father-shot-dead.html#

Home invasion suspects tied to border group

KVOA.COM
June 15, 2009

Two of three people arrested in a southern Arizona home invasion that left a little girl and her father dead had connections to a Washington state anti-illegal immigration group that conducts border watch activities in Arizona.

Jason Eugene Bush, 34, Shawna Forde, 41, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, have been charged with two counts each of first-degree murder and other charges, said Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County, Ariz.

The trio are alleged to have dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into a home about 10 miles north of the Mexican border in rural Arivaca on May 30, wounding a woman and fatally shooting her husband and their 9-year-old daughter.

Their motive was financial, Dupnik said.

"The husband who was murdered has a history of being involved in narcotics and there was an anticipation that there would be a considerable amount of cash at this location as well as the possibility of drugs," Dupnik said.

Forde is the leader of Minutemen American Defense, a small border watch group, and Bush goes by the nickname "Gunny" and is its operations director, according to the group's Web site.

She is from Everett, Wash., has recently been living in Arizona and was once associated with the better known and larger Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

A statement attributed to officers of Forde's group and posted on its Web site on Saturday extended condolences to the victims' families and said the group doesn't condone such acts and will cooperate with law enforcement.

"This is not what Minutemen do," said member Chuck Stonex, who responded to an e-mail from The Associated Press sent through the Web site. "Minutemen observe, document and report. This is nothing more than a cold-hearted criminal act, and that is all we want to say."

The assailants planned to leave no one alive, Dupnik said at a press conference in Tucson on Friday. He said Forde was the ringleader.

"This was a planned home invasion where the plan was to kill all the people inside this trailer so there would be no witnesses," Dupnik said. "To just kill a 9-year-old girl because she might be a potential witness to me is just one of the most despicable acts that I have heard of."

Dupnik said Forde continued working through Friday to raise a large amount of money to make her anti-illegal immigrant operation more sophisticated.

Forde denied involvement as she was led from sheriff's headquarters.

"No, I did not do it," she said. "I had nothing to do with it."

Gaxiola also denied involvement; Bush was arrested at a Kingman, Ariz., hospital where he was being treated for a leg wound he allegedly received when the woman who survived the attack managed to get a gun and fire back.

Killed were 9-year-old Brisenia Flores and her 29-year-old father, Raul Junior Flores. The name of the wounded woman who survived the attack hasn't been released.

Forde is well known in the anti-illegal immigration community, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino.

"She's someone who even within the anti-immigration movement has been labeled as unstable," Levin said. "She was basically forced out of another anti-immigrant group, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, and then founded her own organization."

Stonex, of Alamagordo, N.M., said he met Forde while on an Arizona border watch operation last fall, and liked her despite her reputation in the Minutemen community.

"I know she's always had sort of a checkered past but I take people for what I see and not what I hear," the 57-year-old said.

She recruited him to start a new chapter in New Mexico, but was secretive about her group or its members.

Stonex said he didn't know how to recruit for a chapter and never did.

He said Forde called him on the day of the attack while he was visiting Arizona and asked him to bring bandages to an Arivaca home because Bush had been wounded.

Stonex said it appeared Bush had a relatively minor gunshot wound, which he treated.

He said Forde and Bush told him Bush been wounded by a smuggler who shot at him while the group were patrolling the desert.

Stonex said he didn't suspect that might not be the case until was contacted by a deputy on Saturday about their alleged involvement in the crime.

http://www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=10526106&nav=HMO5ZryK

Shootings in Binghamton, N.Y., 'truly an American tragedy'

13 are slain at a crowded immigration services center. The gunman also killed himself, authorities believe. Evidence may point to Jiverly Wong or Jiverly Voong, formerly of Southern California.
By Geraldine Baum and Anna Gorman
April 3, 2009
From the Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Los Angeles and Binghamton, N.Y. — For immigrants in chilly Binghamton, the doorway to America opens through the friendly building on Front Street. But Friday, the American Civic Assn. -- a place crowded with recent arrivals taking English classes and citizenship exams -- became a killing zone.

A gunman barricaded the back door of the immigration services center with a car, thwarting escape, then entered through the front door. Opening fire, he killed 13 people and seriously wounded four others before apparently committing suicide.

Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said the gunman gave no warning. "I don't think there was any conversation," he said.

As the gunman entered the building, he killed one receptionist and shot another in the stomach. She pretended to be dead, hiding under a table and waiting for a chance to call 911, while he moved down the hall. In a nearby room he opened fire on a group taking a citizenship class.

Police arrived less than two minutes after receiving the receptionist's call at 10:31 a.m., Zikuski said. Amid the carnage, they found a body believed to be the shooter's, along with two handguns, body armor, ammunition and a magazine. He apparently shot himself.

"We have no idea what the motive is," Zikuski said, but added that the shooter was "no stranger to the Civic Assn."

An anonymous law enforcement source told the Associated Press that the gunman had an identification card that said he was Jiverly Voong, 42. Authorities searched his home in nearby Johnson City on Friday and confiscated computer hard drives, a rifle case and luggage.

A second law enforcement official said the two handguns found with the body were registered to Jiverly Wong, another name the man used. He once lived in Southern California.

Paulus Lukas, human resources manager for Kikka Sushi in Inglewood, said Jiverly Wong worked for the company as a deliveryman for nearly seven years, until July 2007. Kikka Sushi is a caterer serving supermarkets and corporate and school cafeterias.

Wong was a good worker, Lukas said, but quiet. It was only in talking to co-workers Friday afternoon, Lukas said, that he learned Wong was Vietnamese.

When the staff at Kikka heard about the shootings, Lukas said, "we didn't really think this person could do such a thing. He was really good at doing his job -- we respected him for that. He's never late, he's always punctual. And when he finishes his job, he goes home. He doesn't complain, he doesn't argue with people. He gets along."

The only blemish he could recall was that Wong sometimes drove the company van too fast. But after being reprimanded, Lukas said, he improved his driving.

He said that Wong earned $9 an hour by the end of his employment, and that he never formally quit but just failed to show up for work one day, leaving co-workers speculating about what might have happened. In early 2008, Lukas said, Wong called to ask that his W-2 forms be sent to an address in New York state.

Binghamton Mayor Matthew Ryan, who described Friday as "the most tragic day in Binghamton history," said the gunman reportedly had been laid off from his job nearby at IBM. "I believe he was trying to get assistance [at the center] for obtaining employment," Ryan said.

"The word was he lost his job and was pretty distraught. . . . If the story checks out, it's obvious that he was very concerned about being unemployed and not dealing with it well."

An IBM employee said Jiverly Wong did not work at IBM.

After the shooting, the SWAT team removed 37 people from the building, four of them critically injured; 26 of them had taken shelter in a boiler room. Many were immigrants who spoke little or no English.

As officers sought to determine who might be a shooter, they led some people from the building in flex cuffs, but they were ruled out as suspects, authorities said.

Binghamton is a town of about 46,000 people, located at the junction of two rivers some 140 miles northwest of Manhattan. Ryan described it as "a very proud city," with 30 languages spoken at local schools and a long history of welcoming immigrants -- from Europe in the past and from Asia more recently. About 1 person in 4 is nonwhite, according to a demographic estimate.

The city's main street features old four-story brick buildings in the classic style of the industrial Northeast, with a sprinkling of ethnic restaurants and food marts and a nearby Martin Luther King memorial promenade. The Binghamton area is the birthplace of IBM, which has suffered job cuts in recent years.

"We really celebrate all the cultures here," Ryan said. "Because there has always been a strong immigrant population here, I just think it's been somewhat of a natural fit."

New York Gov. David Paterson noted that Friday's violence followed other mass gun slayings in the last month. He cited the case of a man who fatally shot 10 people in Alabama before killing himself, and the Oakland slayings of four police officers.

"When are we going to be able to curb the kind of violence that is so fraught and so rapid that we can't even keep track of the incidents?" the governor said.

President Obama issued this statement: "Michelle and I were shocked and deeply saddened to learn about the act of senseless violence in Binghamton, N.Y., today. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, their families and the people of Binghamton. We don't yet know all the facts, but my administration is actively monitoring the situation and the vice president is in touch with Gov. Paterson and local officials to track developments."

The shooting resonated with groups that work with immigrants in Los Angeles and around the nation.

"Everyone who works with the immigrant community is heartbroken," said Judy London, directing attorney of the immigrant rights project at Public Counsel in Los Angeles. "Any time a tragedy happens in a workplace that is similar to yours, it hits close to home."

Ali Noorani -- executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant advocacy group in Washington, D.C. -- said he urged people to resist using the shooting for political purposes in the immigration debate. Any workplace shooting is horrific, he said, but this was especially tragic because it occurred at a place that gives hope to newcomers to the country.

"This is truly an American tragedy in that these were people who were looking to become the newest of our American communities," Noorani said. "So many people come to this country fleeing persecution or violence, and here they were studying to become citizens -- only to become victims of violence."

Ryan said a family center had been set up in Binghamton where people could find out about relatives.

"By process of elimination, families are probably starting to realize they lost a loved one," he said.

The mayor called the American Civic Assn. "a mainstay of our community." The group assists immigrants and refugees with resettlement, citizenship, family reunification, interpretation and translation. Many of its clients have fled war and conflict in other countries and have been working to build new lives in the U.S., according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a network of organizations serving immigrants and refugees.

The network said the Binghamton group was one of its partner agencies. The network issued a statement saying that it was "shocked and saddened by the shooting" and announcing that it had established a fund to help the community.

"Our hearts go out to the victims, their families and the Binghamton community," the statement said. "We know the entire community of Binghamton will rally around the American Civic Assn., the people it serves and, in particular, the victims and their families."

Every pew was filled Friday evening at a candlelight vigil for the victims at Redeemer Lutheran Church.

Among those in attendance was Greg Jenkins, a disaster coordinator for the Broome County Council of Churches, who said the area had a long history of welcoming immigrants -- Asians, Italians, Poles, Bosnians.

The victims "were trying to do it the right way, becoming American citizens," he said, shaking his head as he gripped a candle.

Kasim Kopuz, an imam who runs the mosque in Johnson City, said the missing included a 56-year-old Iraqi woman and a Pakistani woman in her 20s, both of whom attended English classes at the immigrant service center.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-binghamton-shooting-hosta-2009apr04,0,956695.story

Shootings in Binghamton, N.Y., 'truly an American tragedy'

13 are slain at a crowded immigration services center. The gunman also killed himself, authorities believe. Evidence may point to Jiverly Wong or Jiverly Voong, formerly of Southern California.
By Geraldine Baum and Anna Gorman
From the Los Angeles Times
April 3, 2009

Reporting from Los Angeles and Binghamton, N.Y. — For immigrants in chilly Binghamton, the doorway to America opens through the friendly building on Front Street. But Friday, the American Civic Assn. -- a place crowded with recent arrivals taking English classes and citizenship exams -- became a killing zone.

A gunman barricaded the back door of the immigration services center with a car, thwarting escape, then entered through the front door. Opening fire, he killed 13 people and seriously wounded four others before apparently committing suicide.

Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said the gunman gave no warning. "I don't think there was any conversation," he said.

As the gunman entered the building, he killed one receptionist and shot another in the stomach. She pretended to be dead, hiding under a table and waiting for a chance to call 911, while he moved down the hall. In a nearby room he opened fire on a group taking a citizenship class.

Police arrived less than two minutes after receiving the receptionist's call at 10:31 a.m., Zikuski said. Amid the carnage, they found a body believed to be the shooter's, along with two handguns, body armor, ammunition and a magazine. He apparently shot himself.

"We have no idea what the motive is," Zikuski said, but added that the shooter was "no stranger to the Civic Assn."

An anonymous law enforcement source told the Associated Press that the gunman had an identification card that said he was Jiverly Voong, 42. Authorities searched his home in nearby Johnson City on Friday and confiscated computer hard drives, a rifle case and luggage.

A second law enforcement official said the two handguns found with the body were registered to Jiverly Wong, another name the man used. He once lived in Southern California.

Paulus Lukas, human resources manager for Kikka Sushi in Inglewood, said Jiverly Wong worked for the company as a deliveryman for nearly seven years, until July 2007. Kikka Sushi is a caterer serving supermarkets and corporate and school cafeterias.

Wong was a good worker, Lukas said, but quiet. It was only in talking to co-workers Friday afternoon, Lukas said, that he learned Wong was Vietnamese.

When the staff at Kikka heard about the shootings, Lukas said, "we didn't really think this person could do such a thing. He was really good at doing his job -- we respected him for that. He's never late, he's always punctual. And when he finishes his job, he goes home. He doesn't complain, he doesn't argue with people. He gets along."

The only blemish he could recall was that Wong sometimes drove the company van too fast. But after being reprimanded, Lukas said, he improved his driving.

He said that Wong earned $9 an hour by the end of his employment, and that he never formally quit but just failed to show up for work one day, leaving co-workers speculating about what might have happened. In early 2008, Lukas said, Wong called to ask that his W-2 forms be sent to an address in New York state.

Binghamton Mayor Matthew Ryan, who described Friday as "the most tragic day in Binghamton history," said the gunman reportedly had been laid off from his job nearby at IBM. "I believe he was trying to get assistance [at the center] for obtaining employment," Ryan said.

"The word was he lost his job and was pretty distraught. . . . If the story checks out, it's obvious that he was very concerned about being unemployed and not dealing with it well."

An IBM employee said Jiverly Wong did not work at IBM.

After the shooting, the SWAT team removed 37 people from the building, four of them critically injured; 26 of them had taken shelter in a boiler room. Many were immigrants who spoke little or no English.

As officers sought to determine who might be a shooter, they led some people from the building in flex cuffs, but they were ruled out as suspects, authorities said.

Binghamton is a town of about 46,000 people, located at the junction of two rivers some 140 miles northwest of Manhattan. Ryan described it as "a very proud city," with 30 languages spoken at local schools and a long history of welcoming immigrants -- from Europe in the past and from Asia more recently. About 1 person in 4 is nonwhite, according to a demographic estimate.

The city's main street features old four-story brick buildings in the classic style of the industrial Northeast, with a sprinkling of ethnic restaurants and food marts and a nearby Martin Luther King memorial promenade. The Binghamton area is the birthplace of IBM, which has suffered job cuts in recent years.

"We really celebrate all the cultures here," Ryan said. "Because there has always been a strong immigrant population here, I just think it's been somewhat of a natural fit."

New York Gov. David Paterson noted that Friday's violence followed other mass gun slayings in the last month. He cited the case of a man who fatally shot 10 people in Alabama before killing himself, and the Oakland slayings of four police officers.

"When are we going to be able to curb the kind of violence that is so fraught and so rapid that we can't even keep track of the incidents?" the governor said.

President Obama issued this statement: "Michelle and I were shocked and deeply saddened to learn about the act of senseless violence in Binghamton, N.Y., today. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, their families and the people of Binghamton. We don't yet know all the facts, but my administration is actively monitoring the situation and the vice president is in touch with Gov. Paterson and local officials to track developments."

The shooting resonated with groups that work with immigrants in Los Angeles and around the nation.

"Everyone who works with the immigrant community is heartbroken," said Judy London, directing attorney of the immigrant rights project at Public Counsel in Los Angeles. "Any time a tragedy happens in a workplace that is similar to yours, it hits close to home."

Ali Noorani -- executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a pro-immigrant advocacy group in Washington, D.C. -- said he urged people to resist using the shooting for political purposes in the immigration debate. Any workplace shooting is horrific, he said, but this was especially tragic because it occurred at a place that gives hope to newcomers to the country.

"This is truly an American tragedy in that these were people who were looking to become the newest of our American communities," Noorani said. "So many people come to this country fleeing persecution or violence, and here they were studying to become citizens -- only to become victims of violence."

Ryan said a family center had been set up in Binghamton where people could find out about relatives.

"By process of elimination, families are probably starting to realize they lost a loved one," he said.

The mayor called the American Civic Assn. "a mainstay of our community." The group assists immigrants and refugees with resettlement, citizenship, family reunification, interpretation and translation. Many of its clients have fled war and conflict in other countries and have been working to build new lives in the U.S., according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a network of organizations serving immigrants and refugees.

The network said the Binghamton group was one of its partner agencies. The network issued a statement saying that it was "shocked and saddened by the shooting" and announcing that it had established a fund to help the community.

"Our hearts go out to the victims, their families and the Binghamton community," the statement said. "We know the entire community of Binghamton will rally around the American Civic Assn., the people it serves and, in particular, the victims and their families."

Every pew was filled Friday evening at a candlelight vigil for the victims at Redeemer Lutheran Church.

Among those in attendance was Greg Jenkins, a disaster coordinator for the Broome County Council of Churches, who said the area had a long history of welcoming immigrants -- Asians, Italians, Poles, Bosnians.

The victims "were trying to do it the right way, becoming American citizens," he said, shaking his head as he gripped a candle.

Kasim Kopuz, an imam who runs the mosque in Johnson City, said the missing included a 56-year-old Iraqi woman and a Pakistani woman in her 20s, both of whom attended English classes at the immigrant service center.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-binghamton-shooting-hosta-2009apr04,0,956695.story