The bodies were found on August 24. According to Mexican authorities, the dead were illegal migrants making their way to the US. They were from Central America, Ecuador and Brazil. San Fernando is located about 150 kilometers from the border with the US.

Since December 2006, when Felipe Calderón took office as president of Mexico and cracked down on the drug gangs, it is reported that 28,000 people have died in the fighting.

As Calderón has tightened the screws on the drug traffic, the drug gangs have taken to exploiting illegal migrants as they travel through Mexico to reach the US, extorting fees or robbing and kidnapping them.

In some cases the illegals are forcibly recruited into the drug gangs and if they refuse, which seems to be what happened in San Fernando, they are simply killed.

The Brazilian embassy in Mexico is sending diplomats to the location.

Corruption

A legislative investigative commission known as the Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito da Codeplan, at the Federal District Legislative Assembly, investigating a long running corruption scheme based in the local executive branch Planning Company (Codeplan), has issued its final report.

In the document, which was approved by four Federal District deputies (Paulo Tadeu (PT), Aguinaldo de Jesus (PRB), Raimundo Ribeiro (PSDB) and Cristiano Araújo (PTB)), the commission recommends the indictment of 22 people for corruption, including two former governors of the Federal District, Joaquim Roriz and José Roberto Arruda.

Roriz is presently leading the opinion polls for governor in the October general elections. Arruda has dropped out of sight after leaving jail a few months ago.

According to the author of the final report, deputy Paulo Tadeu, the corruption scheme, consisting mainly of bribes paid by companies that provided services to the government of the Federal District, began during the administration of Roriz and continued under Arruda.

According to the report, a total of 4.2 billion reais (US$ 2.37 billion) greased many various palms between 2000 and 2010. “The egregious administrative practices were exactly the same in both governments,” says the report.

A spokesman for the Roriz campaign called the accusations “…political and electoral. Obviously produced to get headlines in the media.”

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The information is from the Brazilian Foreign Ministry. There is no official information on deaths, although it is reported that there were some. A few injured Brazilians have been removed to the capital, Paramaribo. And the Brazilian Air Force has sent planes to evacuate the injured and any Brazilians who want to leave the country.

Albina is located on the Suriname border with French Guiana and is an area with many gold mines where Brazilians who have entered the country illegally work competing with the maroons who do not like foreigners.

Relations between Brazil and Suriname are close in a number of areas. In foreign affairs, Suriname is a strong supporter of Brazil’s desire to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Brazil gives Suriname soldiers places in its military academies for officer training and frequently provides humanitarian aid when the neighboring country is hit by flooding.

In 2008 Brazil and Suriname signed a military defense cooperation agreement. Suriname has tense relations with its other neighbors: French Guiana (and the French) and Venezuela because of political and territorial (border) disputes.

In spite of the good relations the Brazilian community in Suriname, numbering around 15,000, is problematic as most of them are not in the country legally.. Because of them for most Surinames the image of Brazil is associated with illegal mining and prostitution.

Between 2003 and 2008 bilateral commerce has increased 360%. In 2008 Brazilian exports to Suriname totaled US$ 47 million, mostly chicken, machinery and footwear. Imports from Suriname were worth US$ 29 million, mostly aluminum. Suriname has a foreign debt with Brazil of around US$ 116 million.

Murder

The conflict apparently stated after a fight between a Brazilian and a local over a debt. According to reports, the Brazilian killed the local maroon and then the rest of the maroons in the town (a couple thousand)  tried to massacre all the Brazilians in the area (around 200).

Suriname covers only 163,000 square kilometers, a little larger than the state of Ceará in the Brazilian Northeast. It was discovered by the Spanish, settled by some English but became a Dutch colony in 1667. It is culturally and ethnically diverse.

The Dutch brought slave labor from Africa, but when slavery ended in 1863 many slaves just disappeared into the jungle. Today their descendants are known as maroons and they make up around 10% of the population.

The total population of 480,000 breaks down like this: 37% are descendants of workers from India who came after the end of slavery; they are the Hindustans. Other workers came from Java – 15% of the population. Creoles (a mix of black and white) 31% of the population.

Some 380,000 Surinames live abroad, most of them in Holland. Suriname continues to have a strong Dutch presence and connection with Holland. The result is a country with a solid social safety net, high levels of literacy and education, along with basic infrastructure and potable water.

Suriname has South America’s seventh highest HDI (Human Development Index). Life expectancy is 73 years. Government spending is 3,6% of GDP. But the economy is weak depending in large part on bauxite (15% of GDP), gold and petroleum. Suriname imports most consumer goods.

Almost all the 15,000 Brazilians who live in Suriname are in the country illegally and compete directly with the so-called maroons working as prospectors in the interior of the country. The maroons do not want any foreigners working in mining.

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Brazilian President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, had tough criticism against the new EU rules on immigration calling them "hateful persecution. According to the Brazilian leader the problem of illegal immigration will not solved by prohibiting the poor from entering Europe.

"We keep on backing the civilian society's participation channels and favoring the free circulation of men and women while, on the other side of the ocean, a hateful persecution is being unleashed against Latin-Americans, often accompanied by racial overtones," said Lula in the speech that marked Brazil's presidency in Mercosur.

Celso Amorim, Brazil's Foreign Minister, announced that the Unasur countries will appeal to the UN against the EU decision.

"We will call attention to the theme during the UN's General Assembly," Amorim stated, "and maybe also at the Human Rights Council, We've been analyzing several action to take. The subject needs juridical analysis. What they use is the same term that was used against terrorist during the time of the IRA, when even children were detained."

"We have to defend our citizens who emigrated abroad because they weren't able, at that time, to find the conditions in our own countries to build a better life," said Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez during the summit in Tucuman, Argentina.

"It's xenophobic and discriminatory," he insisted. "Emigrating is not tourism" said Vazquez who talked of being the grandson of poor European immigrants. "It hurts us deeply that there is no respect for the human rights of Latin American immigrants, who had to leave and seek elsewhere what they don't have in their own lands, just like their grandparents did."

The strong attacks on the EU both for its migratory and farm subsidies policies centered the last of the two day Mercosur summit when the pro tempore chair, for the second half of 2008 was passed on to Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Argentina presided over the first half of the year.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said the migratory measure could hurt trade and investment ties between Latin America and Europe. "We can't be silent about this," Chavez said at the summit. "We need to take a stand. So called civilized Europe is doing something barbarous."

The EU adopted the new immigration rules on June 18, and they are to take effect by 2010. The policy allows governments to detain illegal immigrants for up to 18 months and imposes a re-entry ban of up to five years. Thousands of Latin Americans migrate to Europe in search of job opportunities and the EU estimates eight to 12 million illegal immigrants live in Europe.

The Mercosur meeting also focused on the global food and energy crisis, noting that member nations have the potential to thrive, since its members include major energy and food exporters.

Brazil is the world's largest producer of sugar and of cane sugar ethanol, and second in soy. Argentina, also an important soy grower, is the world's No. 2 in corn and No. 4 in wheat.

"The situation of food and energy prices presents the region with an enormous opportunity if we can take advantage of it with solidarity and regional integration" said President Cristina Kirchner of Argentina, which hosted the summit.

Bzz/Mercopress

Pedro Lima, a house painter from Brazil who has been in the United States for
nine years, removes his hat as he enters the room. Pressing his thick,
hard-worked hands into his pockets, he speaks tentatively, but with passion. He
lives in New York and must drive in order to work, he says, “in this country
that we love so much, America.”

The “we” Lima refers to is the community of undocumented immigrants living in the United States, and his plea for a driver’s license is one of thousands like it.

After months of cacophonous political debate, the voices considering giving driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants have fallen abruptly silent. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s license plan was rejected across the board politically, and stirred up tumultuous reactions from presidential candidates and congressmen alike.

Underneath and often silenced by the political clamor are the stories of people like Lima, whose lives would be transformed by the ability to drive legally. Like many, Lima has watched the politics unfold with ebbing hope, and is crestfallen that the change he was praying for has not come.

Those working with communities of undocumented immigrants say that necessity often forces people into driving with no license. Ramona Ortega is the daughter of Mexican immigrants whose activist parents raised her in the midst of the Chicano movement in California.

She is the founder of a non-profit organization turned to the Brazilian immigrants in the United States called Cidadão Global, meaning “global citizen” in Portuguese. As her 4-year-old son maneuvered himself on her lap, she explained the difficulties faced by the Brazilian community in particular: “The drivers license issue is huge.”

The most concentrated numbers of Brazilian immigrants are in smaller cities such as Danbury, Connecticut; Framingham, Massachusetts or Deerfield Beach, Florida. In these places, Ortega says, “You have to drive to get anywhere, so your livelihood depends on the process of driving – that’s basic. So when you don’t have a driver’s license you are putting yourself at risk every day just to make a living.”

The fear of being pulled over or getting into a car accident is very real, says Alessandro Pereira, a Brazilian immigrant who has been in the United States for nine years.

“Sometimes people, they get in accidents because of that, because they are scared of everything. Or if they get into an accident they are going to run, they are going to leave the person there. They are not going to call 911, because they know they would be in trouble not just because of being responsible for an accident, but because they didn’t have a license,” he said.

The people most in need of driver’s licenses are immigrants living in suburban settings, who must choose daily between breaking the law and not going to work. When asked if people drive without any documentation, Ortega leaned in for emphasis: “Oh absolutely, they have to drive,” she said.

Throughout the process, Spitzer’s license plan was modified a number of times, although the main objective was to include undocumented immigrants by permitting them to drive legally. Without a driver’s license, it is impossible to obtain car insurance, making the situation for unlicensed drivers even more risky. Allowing illegal immigrants to obtain licenses would be safer, Spitzer’s aides confirmed, reducing the number of uninsured drivers on the road and bringing undocumented immigrants “out of the shadows.”

Illegal immigrants caught between the necessity to work and the lack of a driver’s license find ways around the law, says Tiago Hartman, a construction worker who has been in the United States for nine years. As he expertly maneuvers spoonfuls of a traditional Brazilian pudding across the table to his young daughter, the expression in his blue eyes is one of conviction. “I have always loved it here,” he says.

Four years ago, he says that it was possible to obtain a driver’s license without any false documents for a thousand dollars. Now, both the price tag and the risk are higher.

“You call the person, and the person says they will organize everything so that you can pick up the license,” he says. Although people know that the state of New Jersey requires a green card, a valid visa, or a social security card in order to get a driver’s license, “when you are desperate, you fall for it.,” he says. For this process, which includes the forging of documents, Hartman states that “here in New Jersey it costs something like $5,000.”

Ortega describes a similar process. She says that people are often caught in scams that leave them bereft and in legal trouble. “What they are doing is going really out of their way, putting themselves at risk, to go to work, to live day by day,” she says.

“Whether they’re paying people money to get on the inside to get them a driver’s license, or to file false documents,” she says the desperation is enough for people to risk everything that they have built in the United States to attempt to drive legally.

Adriana Cruz, a masters student in health care management, lives with a family in a suburb 30 minutes outside of Boston, where she goes to school. Despite her student visa, she says she is forced to deal with issues of documentation.

In a phone interview she explained that when she drives every day she must tote with her a folder filled with documents – driving record, international driver’s license among others – and their English translations. There are seven documents in total, including her passport, which she is extremely apprehensive about carrying with her.

When she uses her Brazilian passport as a form of identification, she says that she is often treated differently by bouncers at bars, but felt lucky not to be harassed by the police the one time she was pulled over, as friends had been. “There is prejudice against us for being from the Third World,” she said in Portuguese, “those of us that are here legally end up being wronged” by those who are illegal, she says.

In an interview with CNN, Spitzer defended his move to abandon the driver’s license plan, saying, “I’ve listened to the legitimate concerns of the public and those who would be affected by my proposal, and have concluded that pushing forward unilaterally in the face of such strong opposition would be counterproductive.”

The issue has riled up politicians from both the Democratic as well as Republican parties, and is responsible for Spitzer’s plummeting poll numbers – one of which says that 70% of New Yorkers oppose the plan.

Pedro Santiago spends his days surrounded by Kafka and Chaucer, Koontz and Clancy, and he reads them all voraciously, in Spanish. He walks down the street around the Morningside Bookshop where he works and is greeted every couple of steps by his various friends: backpack-toting college students, waiters on their way to work, suits on cell phones. Santiago, who, at 38, has been in New York for eight years, carries his portly figure with confidence. He has the firm handshake and loquacious manner of a born networker.

Despite living in New York City, where public transportation is available, when asked if he would take the opportunity to obtain a legal driver’s license, Santiago replies with a firm “yes.” Although he currently lives close to his job, when he moved to New York he lived almost twenty miles from the bookstore, near John F. Kennedy airport. “The first thing I hated about New York is the transportation,” he said in Spanish, “it’s terrible,” he said of the four hour daily commute from his job to his home.

The feeling within the community of undocumented immigrants, in many aspects, is of exasperation with a system that doesn’t recognize them. Ortega explains that “people are really sort of without hope right now. I think they are feeling really depressed – they were all excited,” she said.

Despite years of waiting and watching the doors to documentation slam shut, many undocumented immigrants are tiring of the struggle. Shrugging his shoulders and taking a sip of his espresso, Agnaldo dos Santos, a construction worker who has been in the U.S. ten years shakes his head, “immigrants here just never get a turn,” he says.

Service

Cidadão Global – www.cidadaoglobal.org.

Julia Furlan is a graduate student of journalism at New York University.

These charges are the result of an investigation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency and the DMV Office of Investigations. Silva is facing federal criminal charges and most of his workforce could be deported to Brazil.

Glenio Silva, 38, of Fremont, California, is accused of having staffed two restaurants in northern California – Monterey Pizza, in San Francisco and Pizza House, in Hayward – with unauthorized workers from Brazil, paying them in cash to conceal their illegal employment and avoid paying payroll taxes.

"Last week's enforcement action is part of ICE's continued effort to investigate employers who facilitate the hiring of undocumented workers," said Charles DeMore, special agent in charge of the ICE office of investigations in San Francisco.

"ICE will use every tool at its disposal to target businesses that exploit an illegal workforce to turn a profit."

In addition to the charges against Silva, four of the Brazilian national workers illegally employed by the restaurants are being charged with federal identity theft. The workers allegedly assumed the names of U.S. citizens and used that information to obtain identification documents from the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

George Valverde, Director of the California State Department of Motor Vehicles said, "The security of our customers' identities and personal information is of paramount importance to the DMV. By working with our law enforcement partners, the Department helps apprehend and fully prosecute any persons who threaten that security."

Two of those workers using the names were arrested during the operation. The remaining two workers charged with identity theft are still being sought.

The Brazilian restaurateur was arrested late Friday, June 15, 2007 at one of the two restaurants he operates, Monterey Pizza in San Francisco. Criminal search and arrest warrants were also executed at a second establishment Silva runs in Hayward called the Pizza House.

Silva made his initial appearance in federal court in San Francisco on Monday, June 18, 2007 and was released on a US$ 75,000 unsecured bond. He and his wife were ordered to surrender their passports. Mr. Silva's next scheduled appearance is at 9:30 am, on July 11, 2007, for a Preliminary Hearing before Chief Magistrate Judge James Larson.

The maximum statutory penalty for harboring illegal aliens, in violation of Title 8, United States Code, Section 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) is five years and a fine of US$ 250,000. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence.

Denise Marie Barton is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Wilson Wong. The prosecution is the result of a four month investigation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency and officers from the DMV Office of Investigations.

"What they did is not right," Silva told reporters earlier this week. "This is going to change many people's lives." He described how armed agents invaded one of this restaurants at 6:30 pm, last Friday.

Silva, who has been living in the US for about 18 years, used to be a pizza deliveryman himself. He opened Monterey Pizza, a decade ago. The Hayward pizza parlor started in 2004. The father of two small children, he says he doesn't know what's coming next.

More than 17,500 Brazilians have been deported from the US since 2003, according to ICE data. Most of them seem to have arrived on business or vacation visas overstaying them.

United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan; Bruce M. Foucart, Special Agent in Charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Investigations in New England; and Steven Mocsary, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement Office of Professional Responsibility for the Eastern Region, announced that José Neto, 40, formerly of 33 Blaine Street in Allston, was sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge Morris E. Lasker to five years in prison, to be followed by two years of supervised release.

In addition, a multifamily residence in Allston where Neto previously resided has been ordered forfeited to the United States. Upon completion of his term of imprisonment, Neto faces deportation to his native Brazil.

On May 10, 2006, a trial jury convicted Neto of knowingly harboring illegal aliens. Prior to the trial, on April 3, 2006, Neto had pled guilty to charges of bribing an immigration official, inducing illegal aliens to remain in the country and having a pattern or practice of knowingly employing illegal aliens. The sentence imposed by the court reflects both Neto's trial conviction and guilty plea.

Neto was among approximately 700 suspected foreign nationals who were directed to report to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the wake of an investigation into the fraudulent sale of identity records.

When Neto reported to the ICE office, he offered to pay the interviewing agent a bribe to assist Neto and his wife with their immigration status. The ICE agent, operating undercover, arranged to meet Neto at a nearby mall.

Neto paid the agent US$ 20,000 in cash for Green Cards (i.e. documentation for legal permanent residency) for himself and his wife.

In subsequent meetings, between October 2004 and March 2005, Neto paid the undercover ICE agent more than US$ 147,000 in additional bribes, mostly for Green Cards but some to obtain the release of individuals from ICE custody.

At the time of Neto's arrest, ICE Agents interviewed over 50 employees of a company that Neto operated, Spectro Cleaning Services, all of whom were identified by ICE as unauthorized aliens.

Evidence presented during the three-day trial proved that, between 2003 and 2005, Neto knowingly harbored illegal aliens from Brazil in an apartment he leased in Agawam and in a house he owned in Allston. Neto also employed some of the individuals he harbored and offered to sell others identification documents.

The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Levenson in Sullivan's Public Corruption and Special Prosecutions Unit.

The police have been investigating the gang since 2003 in an operation known as Aegean Sea Operation (Operação Mar Egeu) and found that corrupt employees of Petrobras have been supplying corrupt employees of the Federal Police with personal data about their own relatives so that false passports could be issued to other people who then travelled illegally to the US.

The operation also identified another gang that has been herding Brazilians across the border from Mexico, providing a complete package which included a traveler’s itinerary and false passports, even though the route into the US from Mexico by land has become extremely hazardous.

In order to travel, the illegal immigrants put up collateral in Brazil (homes, cars, etc) and then paid off the trip expenses from their earnings in the US.

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