BREAKING NEWS: INDIGENOUS PEOPLE ALONG TEXAS-MEXICO BORDER INVESTIGATE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES

INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES ON THE TEXAS-MEXICO BORDER INVESTIGATING HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
Saturday, March 7, 2009, 9:57 a.m.

El Calaboz, TX, March 7. Dr. Eloisa G. Tamez, Lipan Apache, is talking with relatives and residents of the rancheria and collecting evidence related to her lands based upon reports from elder eyewitnesses who believe that the U.S. DHS/Contractors and U.S. Customs Border Patrol are encroaching upon the lands currently in dispute related to her legal case against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs Border Patrol and U.S. Army Corps Engineers to stop the construction of the Berlin-style wall on her ancestral lands. The construction of the wall, which now abuts Tamez' land, is clearly disturbing sensitive vegetation, wildlife, riparian, religious and cultural resources near, on and to the north of the levee. In a telephone communique this morning, Tamez indicated that she is documenting the possible violations against a standing court order which protects the lands in the area of dispute until her jury trial in June 2009. The land in question is situated within the International Boundary zone, which is governed by international customary law with related ties to indigenous international law. Tamez made telephone calls to the representative of the International Water and Boundary Commission numerous times on Friday. She attempted to communicate to IBWC officials of potential violations by contractors and to remind IBWC of the land-grant landowners' primary right-of-way in the dispute area. The IBWC failed to return her phone calls, nor has the IBWC provided a reasonable explanation as to why they have not processed her application to install a private property barrier across her section of the levee and riparian strip, an application which she filed more than nine months ago.

According to Tamez, the landowners of the original land grant have the first right of way to the land, resources, water and ecological and cultural resources. Tamez further insists that IBWC must consult land owners on all matters related to the levee and lands in question. According to Tamez, "the wall construction is now up to my property line on both sides--all the non-land grant peoples (those not descended from the original peoples) sold to the U.S. We're surrounded. By building the wall on the north side of the levee--literally at the foot of the levee--the U.S. reveals a rushed and forced process to spend the money Chertoff awarded to contractors. They built the footer right on top of the flood zone--putting the entire levee behind the wall and trampling over the property rights of land owners in litigation. When this weight dissolves the levee in a major storm, will they then ingress further? This is entirely out of hand. This is an outrage. They are encroaching upon my land and the impact is damaging. The Border Patrol units and the machines of the contractors are numerous; the high level of traffic in the area is intense. Not only is this harmful, it is dangerous. The levee is in no condition to hold this massive structure. It is obvious that this is about greed, payoffs and spending down the taxpayer's money in the final days of Chertoff's control. It appears that the new IBWC director (appointed by Bush after the sudden death of the former IBWC director, Carlos Marin) and the U.S. contractors made deals without consulting the land owners, nor did those of us-- in litigation against the construction of the wall-- receive prior notice or free and prior informed consent. By authorizing the construction of the wall on the north side of the levee, the IBWC is in violation of long-standing international laws, indigenous peoples' rights, human rights, and collective rights of indigenous peoples in El Calaboz. The customary laws of our community have protected lineal-descent land owners with Spanish land grant title."

El Polvo, Texas, March 7. Jumano-Apache community members are calling for an emergency investigation into widespread human rights violations targeting specific Jumano-Apache families by the U.S. Customs Border Patrol/I.C.E./DHS in the small community of El Polvo, situated on the banks of the Rio Grande River near the Big Bend National Park. A recent series of armed invasions by U.S. government personnel into the living spaces of noncombatant, unarmed Jumano-Apache communities have struck terror into parents, elders and children. Members of the Jumano-Apache community cite human rights violations stemming from forced displacement of rural indigenous families which they claim is a direct result of U.S. Customs Border Patrol abuses, threats, and armed assaults deployed against the quiet, rural village of traditional farmers in recent months. In the past year, numerous attempts by community members to resist Border Patrol violations of property rights, indigenous rights, community rights and human rights have been met with retaliatory measures in this community which is designated as one of the poorest in the United States, according the the 2008 U.S. Census. Eyewitnesses in El Polvo connect the violations experienced to intensified militarization of the Texas-Mexico border wall construction, the war on terror, the war on drugs and the war on migrant workers.
--Margo Tamez


Contact Eloisa G. Tamez (El Calaboz) at Eloisa.tamez1@gmail.com
and April Cotte (El Polvo) at acotte@igc.org
http://redfordtexas.blogspot.com/
lipanapachecommunitydefense.blogspot.com


Related Stories:

U.S. 'COUNTERINSURGENCY' 'AID' TO MEXICO

MEXICO SENDS TROOPS TO NORTHERN BORDER STATES/ (AFTER U.S. PROVIDES MONETARY & EQUIPMENT 'AID')

"BACK TO THE WALL"

by Melissa del Bosque, Texas Observer
February 6, 2009

Back to the Wall:
Can Janet Napolitano stop the border-fence boondoggle?
Melissa del Bosque | February 06, 2009 | Features

As President Barack Obama champions change in Washington, D.C., Eloisa Tamez waits to see whether an 18-foot steel and concrete wall will be built in her backyard.

The Department of Homeland Security has already taken Tamez to court in an effort to condemn a piece of property, a mile inland from the Rio Grande, that has been in her family since the 18th century. The wooden survey stakes that sprout from her land remind her that the bulldozers could arrive anytime. “Just about every week, DHS announces that they will start building,” Tamez says. “It seems to be some kind of strategy to keep everybody here uptight and nervous.”

If that’s the strategy, it has worked. Last February, the Observer wrote about Tamez’ fight to keep her land in El Calaboz, a small rural community west of Brownsville (“Holes in the Wall,” Feb. 22, 2008). Since then, the 73-year-old has sued the federal government, held several protests against DHS on her property and, in the process, become an international spokeswoman for indigenous rights. (Tamez is part Lipan Apache.) But like many others, she remains trapped in the slow grind of a Washington bureaucracy that demands she forfeit her land to make room for a border wall that could end up costing taxpayers $30 billion—and which bypasses golf courses and resorts but targets working-class families and landowners like Tamez.

A new presidential administration and a new Homeland Security chief could bring an end to Tamez’ troubles. Along with the 121 other border residents embroiled in lawsuits with DHS, Tamez is cautiously optimistic that Janet Napolitano, Obama’s new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, will stop the construction before it’s too late.

“Once the wall is built, it means that DHS has lawlessly taken my land,” Tamez says. “It will take me until my last days to right that wrong. And after I am gone, my children will have to take up the fight.”

In 2006, with the passage of the Secure Fence Act, Congress mandated the construction of 670 miles of fence along the southern border by the end of 2008. As of Jan. 21, according to Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Angela de Rocha, 582.2 miles had been built. Despite the Dec. 31 cutoff date in the Secure Fence Act, DHS is still building its wall. So far it appears that properties entangled in lawsuits, like Tamez’, have been mostly bypassed. But there’s no telling how long that will last.

In Tamez’ case, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, has likely ensured that the bulldozers won’t be rolling in tomorrow. In March, he ruled that negotiations must take place between landowners and Homeland Security before property can be seized. The trial, set for June, will determine whether DHS has conducted “good faith negotiations” with Tamez over a fair price for her land.

Meanwhile, the agency continues putting up the fence on federally owned property such as the Lower Rio Grande Valley Wildlife Refuge, just east of McAllen, where other federal judges have allowed DHS to move ahead without negotiations. In Eagle Pass, a small border city 145 miles southwest of San Antonio, a mile of fence has already been built through the city-owned golf course. DHS plans to build another mile through the city’s downtown park, says Mayor Chad Foster.

Eagle Pass was the first city in Texas to get hit with former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff’s prerogative to waive federal law and condemn property to speed construction of the wall. Congress granted this unprecedented power in the 2005 REAL ID Act. “We weren’t even aware of it when it came,” Foster says. “It was just another blow under Chertoff—a tactic to steamroller us.”

The mayor hopes that Napolitano, as a former elected official from a border state, will work with communities and local elected officials on both sides of the border to come up with alternatives to the fence. “Napolitano understands the border and she has a history with the border governors,” Foster says. “And in this country boy’s opinion, that’s the way we’re going to resolve this issue—by working with our neighbors.” Chertoff never showed much interest in that approach.

When she was governor of Arizona, Napolitano once said, “Build a 50-foot fence; I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder.” Despite the comment, the new Homeland Security secretary is not completely against fencing. During her Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 15, she told senators that a fence in urban areas “might make some sense.” Napolitano was not asked to elaborate, but in past hearings, Border Patrol agents have testified that fencing in urban areas gives them time to detain crossers before they blend in with crowds of people.

Immigration reform and border control will not be the first items on the new Congress’ agenda, says U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who has been a staunch opponent of the border fence. And with an economic crisis and two wars being waged, they’re not high on the Obama administration’s agenda, either. “There’s a shift in priorities now with the economy,” Grijalva says. “Throwing $450 million at a fence pales in comparison to fixing our economy.”

The shift in focus away from border security might give Napolitano some much-needed time to evaluate and reinvent a department that has been taxpayers’ worst nightmare, and private contractors’ idea of heaven, ever since its creation after 9/11. In 2006, the agency estimated that a mile of fence would cost $1 million. By August 2008, the price tag had shot up to $7.5 million per mile.

Last year, legislators finally became frustrated by the agency’s lack of disclosure and escalating costs, and they refused to appropriate more funds to DHS to finish building the wall. Chertoff then transferred money from other programs, including port security and virtual fence technology, to continue the construction.

That’s been the mantra of the department Napolitano has inherited: Build fence, no matter the cost. “She has inherited that mentality,” says Grijalva, “and no doubt there is a rush to get the fence done.”

Napolitano has also inherited a pork-barrel mentality. From the agency’s inception, it has enthusiastically outsourced a majority of its duties. No one has benefited quite like the Boeing Corp. In 2006, Boeing won a three-year contract to build 6,000 miles of physical and virtual fences along the southern and northern borders. As of last August, Boeing had been awarded $993 million, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Boeing also has the right to three one-year extensions to the contract if Homeland Security is happy with the results.

Which raises another endemic problem: oversight, or the lack thereof. Private companies who get DHS contracts do not have to report the progress or outcomes of their work to the American taxpayer. Even members of Congress have difficulty getting answers about how the billions are being spent—another legacy of the Bush administration that Napolitano will have to grapple with. “The administration has ... hidden contractor overcharges from Congress, international auditors and the public,” Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California said in 2007, “impeding oversight and diminishing accountability.”

Conveniently enough, private contractors are also doing more of the oversight. The fence-building project, called SBInet, is a component of the DHS’s Secure Border Initiative program. In a 2007 audit report, Richard Skinner, inspector general for Homeland Security, said that 65 of the 98 DHS staffers responsible for oversight of SBInet were private contractors. After being criticized by Congress for the lack of oversight, DHS estimated that it would need at least 470 employees to properly oversee SBInet contracts. After a round of hiring, the agency still has only about half the staff it needs: 129 government employees and 164 contractors, according to a September 2008 GAO report.

“So much is kept under wraps, you don’t know what worked and what didn’t,” says Pete Sepp, a spokesperson for the nonprofit National Taxpayers Union. “You don’t know whether the expenditures that went out of the government’s treasury were worth it or not.”

But it is clear that those expenditures amount to a virtually bottomless pit. Stunningly enough, Boeing’s SBInet contract has no spending limit, despite repeated protests from government auditors. As costs continue to climb, DHS must go to Congress to beg for more money—and until last year, when Congress finally applied the brakes, they were getting it.

“We don’t want another industrial-military complex where contractors have an inordinate amount of control over policy,” Grijalva says. Referring to the Department of Defense, long known for its largesse in doling out private contracts, Grijalva adds, “We don’t need another DOD, which is what’s starting to happen at DHS.”

It’s been happening all along. A 2006 Forbes magazine article estimated that DHS had already doled out $130 billion in private contracts since 9/11. The department is certainly not shy about wooing private contractors; it even has a Web page called “Open for Business.”

“The federal government now spends nearly 40 percent of discretionary spending on contracts with private companies, a record level,” Waxman said in 2007. “This surge in contract spending has enriched private contractors like Halliburton, but it has come at a steep cost to taxpayers through rising waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement.”

Nobody has gotten richer off DHS contracts than Boeing. And as the lead contractor on the border, the company has in turn subcontracted out a large portion of the management, design and development of the fence to hundreds of other companies. Boeing will not release the names of those subcontractors, calling this “proprietary information.” Among the names that have leaked out is Texas-based Perot Systems, owned by former presidential candidate Ross Perot.

One classic example of the waste to which Waxman referred is Boeing’s Project 28. In this pilot project, a high-tech “virtual fence” with video surveillance towers, sensors and radar devices was to be put up along 28 miles of the Mexican border. After an original $20 million investment was run through, DHS gave Boeing $65 million to upgrade its software; the original version, one used by police dispatchers, did not meet the Border Patrol’s needs. The system had been developed, it turned out, without consulting with Border Patrol agents working in the field.

Last year, Congress deemed Project 28 a failure. Once touted as a key component of border security by the Bush administration, the virtual fence was put on hold, with the remaining money transferred to build more physical fence.

Sepp says it will be a stiff challenge for Napolitano to reform Homeland Security. “The new secretary will have to bring an outsider’s perspective and approach it as if it were a fresh initiative,” Sepp says. “It will have to be a top-down process. Congress will be the wild card, because they will have to decide how much power they are willing to cede to the executive branch to rein in costs.”

Members of Congress typically find it difficult to ignore the power of lobbyists from companies like Boeing, or requests from their home districts to invest in pet border-security projects. And when it comes to lobbying, Boeing, the second-largest aerospace and defense contractor in the world, has some of the most powerful connections in the Beltway. Its board of directors includes such Washington heavyweights as former Secretary of Commerce William Daley, who served on the Obama/Biden transition team, and Kenneth Duberstein, a former chief of staff for President Ronald Reagan. In 2008, Boeing was the top recipient of federal contracts, at $2.9 billion, according to the nonprofit OMB Watch.

During the 2008 election cycle, Boeing gave more than $2.1 million to political campaigns. The top recipient was Barack Obama, who received $167,098. Most members of the Texas congressional delegation also got some of Boeing’s bounty, led by Republican Ron Paul ($22,688) and Democrats Ciro Rodriguez ($10,250), Silvestre Reyes ($10,000), Solomon Ortiz ($7,500) and Ruben Hinojosa ($2,500). Republican Sen. John Cornyn’s re-election campaign got $9,000 from Boeing.

Reyes, Ortiz and Hinojosa all voted against the Secure Fence Act in 2006. Rodriguez was not a member of Congress at the time but told the Observer that he opposes building the fence. Obama, Cornyn and Paul all voted for the fence legislation. Cornyn did not respond to requests for comment. Paul’s media director, Jesse Benton, said that his contributions came not from Boeing but from individuals who identified themselves as Boeing employees. “Dr. Paul often says that lobbyists do not even bother to visit him on Capitol Hill because they already know they will get zero concessions,” Benton said in an e-mail. Ortiz reiterated his opposition to the border fence in an e-mail, adding that “campaign contributions have not altered or influenced my position on the border security.”

Janet Napolitano has thus far refused to talk about her plans for the border fence. She told the Arizona Star in December that she would have no comment “Until I actually get in and see what the status of the project is, the status of payment of the project is, what’s anticipated, what problems have been incurred and the like.”

Eloisa Tamez, Mayor Chad Foster and others who’ve been battling Homeland Security think Napolitano should come to Texas and take a gander. “The new secretary needs to come to Cameron County and see what the land looks like,” says Tamez. “Chertoff never set foot down here.”

In 2007, Congress tried to force DHS to reach out to border communities. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez added wording to a Homeland Security appropriations bill requiring the agency to consult with folks about plans for the fence. The agency’s response was to outsource the job—in this case, to E2M, a Colorado company. E2M asked border residents to submit their questions and complaints in writing to a stenographer. They have received no responses.

Tamez, long since tired of waiting, sued Homeland Security last February over the plan to run the fence through the center of her land. Tamez filed a motion for formal discovery in federal court in Brownsville to force the agency to explain how the value of her property is being assessed and what DHS plans to do with her land. Among other things that DHS hasn’t made clear to property owners like Tamez is whether there will be entryways to access their properties on the other side of the fence. Nor do they know whether the fence on their land will have cameras or other surveillance devices, which could be an invasion of their privacy.

Unlike most complainants, Tamez has been granted a jury trial, scheduled for June. “We’re really lucky here, because we have a judge who really values and follows the Constitution,” she says. Her lawsuit seeks fair market value for her land, claiming this right under the U.S. Constitution. (Most property owners have been awarded far less than market value by the feds.) Ultimately, she hopes her legal action will put off the fence-building long enough for the Obama administration to halt the construction.

Along with property owners, environmental and wildlife-conservation organizations have also been battling the DHS in court, but with little success. The nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court last March, arguing that the Homeland Security secretary’s authority to waive laws to build the border wall violates the constitution’s separation of powers. In June, the court rejected the petitions without explanation.

The results of Homeland Security’s sweeping powers were all too vivid when Noah Kahn, a federal lands associate with Defenders of Wildlife, recently went to see some of the border fence under construction just east of McAllen. The steel and concrete fence is being built on a federally owned tract of the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge. “Mud and fill were being dumped in the wetlands,” Kahn says. “Palm trees and native hardwoods were covered in mud. A silt fence had been installed, but it was clearly too little, too late.”

Kahn sees the damage as directly related to Homeland Security’s ability to ignore legal restrictions. “When you disregard environmental laws, it leads to real adverse impacts,” he says. “It’s not just an academic argument.”

So far, the new Homeland Security regime has provided few clues about how it will reinvent the department—or overhaul the waste-laden SBInet project. During her six years as Arizona governor, Napolitano managed to anger groups on both sides of the immigration debate. She was the first governor to call for National Guard troops to patrol the border, pleasing the right wing. She supported drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants, angering conservatives.

Napolitano’s early actions at Homeland Security have hardly done more to indicate a clear direction beyond assessing the damage already done. Her first directives to the staff involved gathering information and reviewing programs and strategies inherited from the Bush years. Urging the staff to create a “more effective and efficient department” is about as specific as she’s gotten so far.

But like others who battled the old department and lost, Kahn sees reasons for hope, noting that Napolitano “has made the comment that DHS is still a new agency and there is still an opportunity to shape it. I think she will make the agency more transparent and more responsive.”

All of which is well and good, Tamez says. But she won’t rest until Napolitano stops the bulldozers. “I’m just really angry,” she says. “It’s aggravating and appalling that the executive branch continues to persecute us. They have tried in every way to keep us from having justice served.”

http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2951

INDIGENOUS POLITICS FROM NATIVE NEW ENGLAND AND BEYOND: INTERVIEW WITH MARGO TAMEZ

The interview is accessible here.

Show #5
Join host J. Kehaulani Kauanui for an interview with Margo Taméz (Lipan Apache and Jumano-Apache) co-founder of the Lipan Apache Women Defense/Strength - an Indigenous People’s Organization of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues that was formed to protect sacred sites, burial grounds, archaeological resources, ecological bio-diversity, and way of life of the indigenous people of the Lower Rio Grande, North America. Margo Taméz and her mother, Eloisa G. Taméz, founded the group in response to the US Department of Homeland Security’s attempt to force their surrender of hereditary lands in El Calaboz, Texas for the US/Mexico border wall. The US department of Homeland Security had voided over 35 federal laws, including environmental laws and laws protecting American Indian cultural and burial places. However, South Texas Apache women took the lead, in December 2007 in organizing the most persistent, and to date most successful, constitutional law case against the United States Army, US Customs Border Patrol and the US Department of Homeland Security. On October 22, 2008, Taméz delivered testimony in Washington, DC before the Organization of American States (OAS) Inter American Commission on Human Rights. The Commission examines and monitors compliance by member States of the OAS, including the US, with human rights obligations established in international law. Taméz will explain to us how this crisis came about and how she is working to protect the lands of her people from being divided in a way that result in relocation-a forced Indian removal that would constitute a 21st century genocide. Original air-date: 10-28-08.

NATIONAL TELEPHONIC PRESS CONFERENCE--LIPAN APACHE WOMEN DEFENSE DELIVER LETTER TO OBAMA-TRANSITION TEAM

PRESS CONFERENCE PANEL:

Dr. Eloisa Garcia Tamez
Margo Tamez
Diana Valenzuela (Jumano-Apache)
Daniel Castro Romero, Jr. (Lipan Apache)
Jose Matus (Yaqui)
Michael Paul Hill (Chiricahua Apache)
Chris Scherer, Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law
Denise Gilman, University of Texas Law Working Group--Texas-Mexico Border Wall
Jeff Wilson,University of Texas Law Working Group--Texas-Mexico Border Wall
Arnoldo Garcia, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

YES, YOU CAN JOIN EFFORTS TO PRIORITIZE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES & PRINCIPLES! SIGN-ON OUR LETTER TO PRES.-ELECT OBAMA

EMAIL MARGO TAMEZ AT sumalhepa.nde.defense@gmail.com to join!

SIGNATORIES on LETTER TO PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA
INTERIOR DEPARTMENT TRANSITION TEAM
ROBERT ANDERSON--CO-CHAIR

Dr. Eloisa García Támez, Lipan Apache, Associate Professor, Department of Nursing, University of Texas Brownsville and Texas Southmost College; Co-Founder Lipan Apache Women Defense, El Calaboz Ranchería, TX
Margo Tamez, Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache, Co-Founder Lipan Apache Women Defense, WA; PhD Candidate, American Studies, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Carmelita (Tamez) Lamb and Family, Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache, Bottineau, North Dakota
M. ReBeca (Tamez) Drury and Family, Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache, San Antonio, TX
Daniel Castro Romero, Jr., Lipan Apache, Chairman, Lipan Apache Band of Texas, Inc., TX. Official Representative of 745 Members
Michael Paul Hill, Nnee’ (Chiricahua Apache), San Carlos Apache Tribe, Staff, Lipan Apache Women Defense, AZ
Enrique Madrid, Jumano-Apache, Council Member, Jumano-
Apache Tribe of Texas, ( El Polvo) Redford, TX
Adelina Carrasco Whitecrow, Jumano-Apache, Community Leader & Elder, (El Polvo) Redford, TX
Roberto Lujan, Jumano-Apache, Council Member, Jumano-Apache Tribe of Texas, Presidio-Redford, TX
John Wood, Cameron County Commission, Commissioner—Precinct 2, Brownsville, TX
Andrea Carmen, Yaqui, Executive Director, International Indian Treaty Council, AK
Tia Oros, Zuni, Executive Director, Seventh Generation Fund, Arcata, CA
Petuuche Gilbert, Indigenous World Association, United Nations NGO
Teresa Leal, Ópata-Mayo, Proyecto Comadres Ambos Nogales, Sonora, Mexico
Peter Schey, Founder and Director, Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, Los Angeles,CA
Jose Matus, Yaqui, Director, Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras/Indigenous Alliance Without Borders, AZ
Lori Riddle, Akimel O’odham, Co-Founder, Gila River Alliance for a Clean Environment, Bapchule, Gila River Indian Community, AZ
E. Elizabeth Garcia, Director, Coalition of Amigos in Solidarity & Action (CASA), TX
Reverend Michael Seifert, Proyecto Digna, Inc., Brownsville, TX
Juanita Valdez-Cox, Executive Director, La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE), TX
Graciela Sanchez, Director, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, San Antonio, TX
Gloria A. Ramirez, Editor, La Voz de Esperanza, San Antonio, TX
Bill Guerra Addington, Sierra Blanca Legal Defense, Sierra Blanca, TX
James C. Harrington, Director, Texas Civil Rights Project, TX
Ann W. Cass, Executive Director, Proyecto Azteca, San Juan, TX
Benigno Pena, South Texas Immigration Council Inc., Brownsville, Texas
Alejandro Siller-González, MACC, San Juan Diego Project, Immigrants and Migrant Farmworkers /Inmigrantes y Campesinos Migrantes, San Antonio, TX
Kriss Worthington,Council Member, Berkeley City Council, Berkeley, CA
Arnoldo Garcia, National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, CA
Pedro Rios, Director – US/Mexico Border Program, American Friends Service Committee, San Diego CA
Bradley Angel, Co-Founder and Executive Director Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, San Francisco, CA
Mark Sanchez, President, San Francisco Board of Education, San Francisco, CA
April Cotte, Co-Founder, El Polvo Women’s Network, Redford, TX
Kamala Platt, The Meadowlark Center, KS
Noemi Lujan Perez, Raramuri, Chief Information Architect, Desert Runner, LLC, Washington, D.C.
Kirk L. Smith, MD, PhD, Frontera de Salud, Galveston, TX
Bill Chandler, MIRA! Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance
Paul "Pablo" A. Martinez, Apache, NM State Director, New Mexico LULAC Organization, Las Cruces, NM
Fabiola Torralba, Buena Gente y Nepantlera, Espereranza Peace and Justice Center, San Antonio, TX
Lupita De La Paz, El Comité Cultural Del Pueblo,Inc. Del Rio, Texas
Morning Star Gali, Citizen of the Pit River Nation, Community Liaison Coordinator, International Indian Treaty Council
TONATIERRA, Phoenix, AZ
Mary Ann Tenuto Sanchez, Chiapas Support Committee
United Native Americans, Inc., Turtle Island
Adrienne Evans, Co-Founder, No Wall - Big Bend Coalition


Angelique Eagle Woman (Wambdi A. WasteWin), Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Oyate, James E. Rogers Fellow in American Indian Law, Associate Professor, University of Idaho College of Law, ID
Pablo Padilla Jr., Zuni, Attorney, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Jeff Wilson, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science, University of Texas-Brownsville, University of Texas Law Working Group (Texas-Mexico Border Wall), Brownsville, TX
Aurora Vasquez, Senior Attorney, Advancement Project, Washington, D.C.
Tom I. Romero, II J.D., Ph.D. Associate Professor, Hamline University School of Law
Diana Webster, Minnesota Ojibwe White Earth, Attorney at Law, Redondo Beach, CA
Monica Schurtman, Associate Professor and Clinic Supervisor, University of Idaho College of Law, Idaho
Jeffrey P. Shepherd, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of History, University of Texas at El Paso, TX
Cynthia L. Bejarano, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, New Mexico State University, NM
Amy Kastely, Board Member, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and Law Professor, St. Mary's University, San Antonio, TX
J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Kanaka Maoli/Native Hawaiian, Associate Professor American Studies and Anthropology, Wesleyan University, CT
Victoria Bomberry, Muscogee Nation, Assistant Professor, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, Riverside, CA
Dr. Gail Perez, Ethnic Studies, Professor University of San Diego, San Diego, CA
Emmy Perez, Assistant Professor, Department of English, University of Texas-Pan American, TX
Linda Zuniga-Heidenreich, Chair and Associate Professor, Women’s Studies Department, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Martha Bárcenas, Pitzer College (Professor/Language and Culture Lab Director), Claremont, CA
Madeline Newman Rios, Ríos Translations, Claremont CA
Dorinda Moreno, Fuerza Mundial/Elders of 4 Colors 4 Directions, Santa Maria, CA
Jeanne Chadwick, Cherokee, Publisher/Editor My Two Beads Worth~Indigenous News
Ken Koym, Indigenous R & D Institute & A Maya Artifacts Museum Exchange Program, Austin, TX
Enrique Morones, Border Angels, San Diego CA
T.V. Reed, Buchanan Distinguished Professor American Studies and English, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Joni Adamson, Associate Professor, Environmental Humanities, Arizona State University,Mesa, AZ
Vicente M. Diaz, Associate Professor and Director, Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies, Program in American Culture, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan



Erik Tamez-Hrabovsky & Children: Hawk Mendoza (14), Milpa de Otoño Mendoza (13), Maura Sun Tamez (9), Aria Mikassandra Reina Mundo Yellow-Basket-Weaver Tamez-Hrabovsky (5), Lipan Apache, Jumano-Apache ,Pullman, WA
Rosie Molano Blount, Chiricahua Apache, Del Rio, Texas and Pecos, Texas
Lucille Contreras and Children, Beto Chacon, JoseKuautli Contreras Maestas, LuzTlanezi Contreras Maestas, Jesus Tekuani Contreras Maestas, Lipan Apache Band of Texas—Azteca, Flatonia, TX
Emil LaRocque, Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Tribal Scholarship Director, Turtle Mountain Community College/Chippewa Rancher, North Dakota
Yvonne 'Little Fawn' Oakes, Mohawk Nation
Richard Oakes Jr., Mohawk Nation
Leonard Oakes, Mohawk Nation Akwasasne, St. Regis, Canada
Pura Fe Crescioni, Tuscarora Nation of North Carolina
Looking Back Woman, Suzanne Dupree, Minneconjou Lakota, Cheyenne River Agency, Eagle Butte, SD
Bettina Escauriza, Oakland, CA
Abner Burnett, Attorney (Civil Rights), Rio Grande Valley, TX
Isabel Sanchez, San Antonio, TX
Lupita Santana, Pharr, TX
Phillip H. Duran, New Mexico
Jacqueline White, RN, PhD, Tucson, AZ
Erika Gisela Abad, Chicago, Illinois
Ryan Tauber, Educator, Brownsville Independent School District, and Member of Coalition of Amigos in Solidarity & Action (CASA), Brownsville, TX
Yajaira Fuentes-Tauber, Brownsville Independent School District, and Member of Coalition of Amigos in Solidarity & Action (CASA), Brownsville, TX
Judy Meuth, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Women's Studies, Washington State University, Pullman, WA
Cesar Alejandro (Filmmaker), President, Alexandria Films, El Paso, TX
Iram and Molly Verduzco, Austin, TX
Joe and Jane Krause, Pax Christi, Brownsville, TX
Sandra Cisneros, Author, San Antonio, TX
Yolanda Moreno, A Resource In Serving Equality (ARISE), Rio Grande Valley, TX
Sanjuanita Martinez, Rio Grande Valley, TX
Esperanza Berrones, Pharr, TX
Maria Esparza, Rio Grande Valley, TX
Hortencia Medina, Rio Grande Valley, TX
Gary James, Ontario, Canada
Teresa Kurtzhall, Elk, Washington State
Braulio Carvajal Veloz, Esperanza Peace & Justice Center, San Antonio, TX
Lila Maes, The Marigold Project, San Francisco, CA
Juan N. Reza, California
Xoxi Nayapiltzin, Yolihua, Alpine, Tx
Francisco Solis Garcia, Jr., Lower Rio Grande Valley, TX

Letter to Robert Anderson, Interior Department Transition Team Co-Chair, from Lipan Apache Women Defense

Professor Robert Anderson
Co-Chair, Interior Department Transition Team
Director University of Washington School of Law
Native American Law Center

Cc: Keith Harper
Team Lead, Interior Department Transition Team
Kilpatrick Stockton LLP
Suite 900
607 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005-2018

Dagotee' Robert Anderson,

At this time, on behalf of my mother, Dr. Eloisa Garcia Tamez, Indigenous peoples, and impacted land owners of El Calaboz Rancheria, and in coordination with our allied communities throughout the hemisphere, we are handing to you an important document which articulates the prayers, vision and requests from traditional elders, women, families, veterans, and workers of the Texas-Mexico bordered lands.

Since I last spoke to you, an enormous effort has gone into the preparation of this document, encompassing the voices of a vast binational, international network of grass-roots communities, legal advisors, NGO's, non-profit organizations, and key Indigenous leaders along the U.S.-Mexico bordered lands

We are entrusting you with this historical document in the hopes that you will safekeep and deliver our message to the Interior Department Transition Team and to President-Elect Obama.

Attached is our letter addressed to to the President-Elect, care of yourself, and copied to Keith Harper.

Ahe'ye'e,

Margo Tamez
Co-Founder
Lipan Apache Women Defense

LETTER TO OBAMA TRANSITION TEAM (ENGLISH)

LETTER TO OBAMA TRANSITION TEAM (SPANISH)

ALL MEDIA ADVISORY (20DEC08)

LIPAN APACHE BAND OF TEXAS--SUPPORT LETTER

All We Need ... A Few Sparks...

Texas landowners win small victory on border fence
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN Associated Press Writer © 2008 The Associated Press
Dec. 18, 2008, 6:24PM

McALLEN, Texas — Dozens of South Texas landowners whose land is being condemned for the border fence scored a victory when a federal judge ordered that juries will decide the value of their property rather than an appointed land commission as the government had requested.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen set the stage for a series of trials to begin in March with his order signed Wednesday. While the trials will be restricted to determining how much the government pays landowners for the property, it gives Texas landowners their first opportunity to take an issue related to the border fence before a jury.
"I'm proud of him, he's doing his job," Eloisa Tamez, a landowner facing condemnation near Brownsville, said Thursday. "To have this kind of news before the holidays is like a Christmas gift for me."
The federal government has filed more than 300 condemnation lawsuits against South Texas landowners to make way for portions of the 670 miles of fencing it is building along the U.S.-Mexico border. So far about 500 miles is up, but it has been slow going in the Rio Grande Valley, where opposition is widespread.
Federal prosecutors had argued that the number of jury trials would swamp the courts, result in uneven payments and be extremely complex. A panel of land experts appointed by the court would be a more efficient option and more fair since it would be difficult to find enough unbiased jurors in an area where the fence has been a hot-button issue for months, the government said.
But Hanen, based in Brownsville, sided with landowners, 28 of whom are set for trial next year and all requested juries. The U.S. Attorney's Office did not immediately return a call for comment.
"This court is a firm believer in the jury system and the ability of everyday citizens to set aside their personal beliefs, biases and prejudcies to decide cases solely on the evidence presented within the context of a court's instructions," Hanen wrote in his order.
Hanen also cast doubt on the government's claim that about 80 cases will eventually need juries to determine land values. He suggested that even among the 28 cases scheduled for trial so far, similar parcels could be clustered in groups of three to be heard by the same jury. Most property owners settled with the government out of court.
The condemnations range from a quarter acre to more than 12 acres, but in many cases those are just slivers taken from tracts covering hundreds of acres north of the Rio Grande. Land commissions are generally believed to award lower compensation than juries, eminent domain attorneys say.
Each case will offer its own complexities, from calculating the impact on hunting leases to the value of the land left in the no-man's land between the fence and the river.
Kimberli Loessin, an attorney representing some of the landowners, wrote in an e-mail, "Landowners are pleased and believe that Judge Hanen did the right thing."

Get Ready, Get Set... Nde' Cultural Survival in the Lower Rio Grande

El Calaboz, Lower Rio Grande Valley, TX
December 18, 2009A year ago… the hostile enforcement policies of the US DHS/Secure Border Initiative against ancient border communities came to the foreground in landmark struggles on the Texas-Mexico border. The construction of the border wall through the middle of ancient, Rio Grande communities, forced Eloisa Garcia Tamez, (Lipan Apache), and community elders of El Calaboz Rancheria, as well as numerous poor Native land owners along the Rio Grande to stop the U.S. DHS from taking the community’s lands, ancient burials, archaeological resources, botanical and medicinal riparian zones, and their pastoral ways of life dependent upon cattle, grazing rights, water rights and Indigenous Peoples’ communal lifeways. The conflict raised constitutional, civil, and human rights in the face of intensified government force to pressure the community in numeros ways to surrender their lands.

Along the way… a robust independent media, and grass-roots network exposed deep corruption among local elites, scandal, and repressive government regimes managing the dispossession of the region’s poor Indigenous Peoples and persons along the Rio Grande's banks.

One year later…approximately eighty landowners continue to litigate their ancestral and communal land claims along the Texas-Mexico border. Success is measured in Chertoff's failures to wall in the resisting communities. Their firm resistances--based in living their daily lives and developing new strategies borrowed from older generations, from coalitions with like-minded grass roots Indigneous persons and groups; and working with allied media, law, grassroots, NGO's, nonprofits, faith-based communities, immigrant rights communities has enlarged the capacity of the prayer. Resistance and ceremony take on new meanings as the struggle continues.

Faith v. Greed...The new layer of corruption, beyond 'holes in the wall', is 'rigged jury system' and 'corrupt appraiser racket', whereby the U.S. and local industry leaders have attempted to shut out any possibility of a fair jury trial for litigants. 'Not on my shift', is fundamentally the message issued from Judge Hanen, in a ruling yesterday. Empaneled jurors will prevail, at least, as long as the resistance to oppressive government and industries continues.

Some of the land claims, such as Eloisa Garcia Tamez’, pre-date the United States as a sovereign nation, and are directly connected to Lipan Apache (Nde') peoples' struggles against forced colonization and dispossession by Spain, Texas, Mexico and the U.S. The Indigenous Peoples rights to exist as self-determining communities is gaining traction, in a region with a history of slavery, Jim Crow, hacendado culture, and harsh repression. In the face of increasing public criticism of the border wall, and claims of human rights violations before the Inter-American Commission/OAS, Indigenous Peoples are reframing and redefining the border wall conflict. We are organizing our networks around a framework of ‘Indigenous Peoples & Principles.’
(Part I)
Stay tuned...

Today, December 12, 2008 Is Our One Year Anniversary

On December 11, 2007, my mother Eloisa Garcia Tamez, called me to tell me that she had received a vision, an answer to her prayers for help from the Holy Mother to stop the construction of the border wall and the United States use of colonial instruments to steal Indigenous lands and to quash Indigenous resistance: Eminent Domain, Condemnation Proceedings, Declaration of Taking and Just War... She received instructions to go to the people, be unafraid, tell the truth, defend the people, and have faith. My mother followed the instructions...

[photo: Arnoldo Garcia]

Traditionally, the women of our culture pray to the Holy Mother. The Spanish Catholics converted the Apache of the Lower Rio Grande in the colonization process, and the Holy Mother of All Nde' (Apache People) who is Naiiess Isdzanaklesh, eventually became collapsed into the Guadalupe, the Virgin who gave birth to the Child of Water--Monster Slayer, or in the Catholic tradition, 'Jesus.'

In the U.S.-Mexico border region, Indigenous elders, grandmothers, mothers, daughters, and the men who support them, continue to live out the ancient rituals and Nde' beliefs 'under-the-cover' of state-approved religions. In the Lower Rio Grande, the religious practice of Catholicism is Indigenized.

A year ago, my mother called me to joyously announce that the Holy Mother came to her and told her that my mother must go to the local parish priest on December 12, at San Ignatius church, in the sister Rancheria of El Ranchito, down the road. The Holy Mother told my mother that she must pray, be strong, and that she must tell the people that they must unite and join in the fight against the injustice of the border wall. She commanded my mother to tell the parish elders and community that they must all join and go to the march in Brownsville, and to take the message of the people to the government, who were staging deception in corporate-contracted and controlled 'meetings.'

This all came to pass, and is documented now throughout our communities, and the internet, how an elder woman from El Calaboz confronted the U.S. DHS at the "community meeting", and exposed the scandalous corruption of the U.S., and its 'Chiefs'--war contractors.

In the process, an Indigenous restoration movement gained strength in our communities. For decades, Nde' in the Lower Rio Grande struggled for rights to our culture and way of life. This year, we witnessed the miracle of our ancient traditions emerge from the shadows and under-cover, to the open light. The Holy Woman/Mother Naiiees Isdzanaklesh (White Painted Woman) ceremony returned to our people in the open, and the ancient and the current converged in our resistance movement.

Please join us in taking a moment today to pause, reflect and to pray for the elders who are going to churches, sweat lodges, teepees, and to earth and water today, throughout the Americas. We stand firm on the rights of our Indigenous people to send the prayers and thoughts of peace and justice on the wings of Eagles, up to the Creator.

Join us in our celebration of a strong year helping in the efforts of many who are uniting our Indigneous people communities throughout the border, December 12, 2008, and celebrate the ongoing resistance and disruption of the Texas-Mexico border wall, from El Calaboz Rancheria!

Join and support Indigenous Women's Tribal Law, Lands and Life. We need all of your support.

PLEASE MAKE a financial contribution to the LIPAN APACHE WOMEN DEFENSE FOR 2009! USE THE PAY-PAL BUTTON. AHE'YE'E'
--Margo Tamez

More Soldiers (Troops) On the Ground Is a Threat to Nde' Way of Life

(Photo: PBS)

(Film still: Kieren Fitzgerald)

(Photo: Margo Tamez)

(Photo: Austin American Statesman)

Yuma, Arizona News Reveals Suspicion, Napolitano Could Send More Troops to Border

Indigneous Nde' people of the Lower Rio Grande Valley are threatened by increased militarization of our home communities, rancherias, farmlands, stock areas, water, riparian wetlands, and sacred sites.

Nde' and other indigenous communities of the rancherias along the Rio Grande, who uphold traditional indigneous teachings of sacred lifeways which respect and honor Life, stand firm on denouncing further hostile encroachments upon our traditional ways of life and cultures.

Nde' teachings come from our foreparents and our contemporary elders who are leading the resistance against a Berlin-style steel-concrete wall through indigenous traditional sacred lands. We ask all Nde' people and our friends and allies throughout the region to stand firm against further militarization of our region. Peace cannot come through armed force and aggression. Local Nde' elders, children, women and men, indigenous workers, and our communities will be first impacted by increased armed uniformed soldiering in our communities.

The elders and families of the Lower Rio Grande Valley currently endure one of the harshest, violating and lawbreaking militarized operations in North America, as evidenced in the numerous layers of armed guards policing the unarmed, noncombatant civilian population. These layers of soldiering are comprised of the U.S. Customs Border Patrol, U.S. Army National Guard, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. D.H.S., local police, Texas Highway Patrol, Texas Rangers, paramilitaries, and private security personnel, among others. The U.S. Department of Defense, North Command (NorthCom) Task Force directs the training of all armed units in the region, as part of the tripartite U.S. global military campaigns: 'war on terror', 'war on drugs', and 'war on illegal immigration.'

NEWS KSWT, YUMA, ARIZONA reports early warnings that Janet Napolitano, if confirmed as Secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security, may initiate a secondary "Operation Jump Start."

The following is excerpted from a news report from Yuma, Arizona

"Would Napolitano Send Troops Back to the Border?

Governor Janet Napolitano is gearing up for confirmation to the post of Homeland Security Chief. If approved, would she send troops back to the U.S.- Mexico border? A job with the Obama administration would come six months after the Bush adminstration denied Napolitano's request for further help at the border.

The governor's office refused to comment on any decisions that may come after Napolitano's confirmation, but in a June 12th interview, Napolitano expressed concerns over the National Guard's departure from the border.

"We've made progress at the border," she said in that interview. "But things that were supposed to happen while the National Guard was here: the completion of some of the fencing, the staffing up of the Border Patrol, the virtual fence, the technology, you know, has been slower than you said."

The Yuma Sector Border Patrol says the Guard was very helpful. During the deployment, the agency nearly doubled its staff, adding about 400 agents.

"Our recruitment team has been very active holding job fairs throughout our area of operation which includes eastern Arizona, parts of Nevada and Kansas. So we've gone out there and attended colleges. We've gone to job fairs," says Agent Laura Boston. "We now have fencing covering almost all 125 linear miles of Yuma Sector. It's not always fencing but some type of tactical infrastructure."

The proposed virtual fence remains at a stand-still as officials struggle to optimize the technology. It's hard to tell right now whether Arizona could see a second Operation Jump Start."

THE BORDER WALL, A film by Wayne Ewing Premiering in Brownsville, Texas

Border Fence Documentary to be Shown This Week At Two Locations in the Lower Rio Grande Valley

Details

Date?: Thursday 12/4/8
Where?: Galleria 409 ( 409 E. 13th St. ) in Brownsville
Time?: 6 pm

Date?:Friday 12/5/8
Where?: South Texas College mid- Valley campus in Weslaco, (Auditorium, Bldg G190)
Tiime?: 6pm

12 Methods Used to Deny 'Lipan Apache' Genocide in Texas and to Regulate Nde' Struggles to the Normative Discourse of 'the Past' & 'Extinction'

REVIEW the 12 Methods of Denying Genocide

Read; Read; Read;

Consider critical analysis for further consideration of indigenous self-determination movements, settler colonialism, Nde' struggles for self-recognition, self-governance and self-determination.