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Borders=Ethnic Cleansing?
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com | August 30, 2005


At a time when most of the nation realizes our porous southern border needs increased policing, at least one organization is working to erase that boundary completely.

La Tierra Es De Todos (henceforth, “La Tierra�) is an open-borders advocacy organization whose name means “The Earth Is For All.� Operating from the axiom that “No Human Is Illegal,� La Tierra characterizes as “racist� all U.S. efforts – however meager – to stem the tide of illegal immigrants flooding across the nation's border with Mexico. Founded on these principles, La Tierra easily dismisses every American concerned that some 11 to 20 million illegals (estimates vary from source to source) currently reside in the United States as “racists.� Some 57 percent of these hail from Mexico, a24 percent from other Latin American nations, and the number continues to grow rapidly. More than 700,000 additional illegals enter the U.S. each year.

In La Tierra's estimation, any measures aimed at reversing this trend are blatant racial prejudice. To combat this alleged bigotry, La Tierra busies itself with the task of organizing protest rallies against groups seeking to preserve the integrity of America's borders via the enforcement of existing immigration laws.

The Minuteman Project recently found itself in La Tierra’s crosshairs. The Minutemen are a nonviolent, volunteer, grassroots group initiated in April 2005 by private American citizens helping to enforce immigration law. Minuteman volunteers have monitored sections of the Arizona-Mexico border in an effort to assist the undermanned Border Patrol (which stations an average of scarcely five officers per linear mile along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border). La Tierra has staged numerous rallies denouncing the activities and objectives of the Minuteman Project and other border-control groups, portraying them, in characteristic fashion, as bands of racists.

La Tierra publicizes its events on its website. All this month, it has hyped a meeting taking place today under the headline, “Join in the Organizing for Immigrant Rights and Against the Racist Minutemen.�

Similarly tarring border-control advocates as hate-mongers, an August 16, 2005, headline on the La Tierra website read, “Border Bigot to Run for Congressional Seat.� The referenced “bigot� was Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project. The text below this headline read:



“Right wing extremist and not so closeted racist Jim Gilchrist has declared his Congressional candidacy for Orange County District 48. Still trying to justify his bigoted vigilante organization by evoking 9/11 [“You've lost patience with politicians who do nothing meaningful to mend our broken borders, especially since 9/11�], he is attempting to raise funds and garner support for a congressional run. Although many suspected the leaders of these various white supremacist groups couched in rhetoric of border security have had political aspirations all along, Gilchrist is the first to fulfill this prediction. All those concerned with preventing this hate-filled reactionary from making a serious run at congress need to mobilize. While Gilchrist and others like him are responsible for shootings and various other human right violations at the border, the corporate media and reactionary extremist California Governor have done their very best to make heroes out of them. These jingoistic individuals have spent so much of their lives in a culture of overt racism, they make racist statements while maintaining they aren't racists…Making it clear that running for office on supremacist ideology will not be tolerated is critical. Stopping Gilchrist will prevent his fellow hate mongers…from following suit in the future.



La Tierra neither addresses nor acknowledges the fact that illegal immigration has created a massive law-enforcement crisis in the United States. Heather MacDonald notes in the Winter 2004 issue of City Journal some startling facts about illegal immigration and crime in southern California (the state where 24 percent of all illegals reside):



(a) In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens, as do up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000);

(b) At least 60 percent of the members of southern California's 20,000-member 18th Street Gang are illegal, and police officers say the proportion is actually much greater. This brutal organization not only collaborates with the Mexican Mafia on drug-distribution schemes, extortion, and drive-by assassinations, but also commits an average of one assault or robbery per day in Los Angeles County. The gang has experienced dramatic growth over the past 20 years, recruiting primarily illegals from Central America and Mexico; and

(c) The leadership of the Columbia Lil’ Cycos gang, which uses murder and racketeering to control the Los Angeles drug market, was approximately 60 percent illegal in 2002.



But the problem, of course, extends far beyond southern California. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, approximately 30 percent of all inmates currently in U.S. prisons are illegal aliens. Recently the governors of Arizona and New Mexico – two of the states most heavily affected by illegal immigration – declared a state of emergency because of the high crime levels that illegals have brought to those states.

Such facts do nothing to sway La Tierra from its firmly held conviction that all attempts to curb illegal immigration are rooted in blatant racism and jingoism. Neither is La Tierra’s position influenced by such harsh economic realities as:



(a) California's nearly 3 million illegal immigrants cost taxpayers almost $9 billion annually (source: Federation for American Immigration Reform);

(b) Illegal aliens cost the federal government $10 billion more each year than they pay in taxes (source: Center for Immigration Studies); or

(c) It costs taxpayers $750 million annually to house the 18,000 illegal aliens in California prisons (source: U.S. Government Accounting Office).



Nor does La Tierra give even the barest shred of credence to speculation that America's borders constitute an open invitation for aspiring terrorists. A September 2004 Washington Times report stated, “A top al-Qaeda lieutenant has met with leaders of a violent Salvadoran criminal gang with roots in Mexico and the United States – including a stronghold in the Washington area – in an effort by the terrorist network to seek help infiltrating the U.S.-Mexico border, law enforcement authorities said.� This report was buttressed in even more ominous tones by the July 2005 issue of Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, which revealed:



[T]op U.S. government officials are contemplating what they consider to be an inevitable and much bigger assault on America – one likely to kill millions, destroy the economy and fundamentally alter the course of history…According to captured al-Qaida leaders and documents, the plan is called the 'American Hiroshima' and involves the multiple detonation of nuclear weapons already smuggled into the U.S. over the Mexican border with the help of the MS-13 street gang and other organized crime groups.



But for La Tierra and its fellow open-borders advocates, all of this amounts to nothing more than mean-spirited, jingoistic rhetoric. In La Tierra's final analysis, everything can be distilled to a simple, one-size-fits-all explanation for any efforts to monitor the traffic flow across U.S. borders: racism. On August 19, 2005, for example, the La Tierra website featured a denunciation of “Supremacist James Chase“ – an original member of the Minuteman Project and the founder of the southern California-based United States Border Patrol Auxiliary (USBPA), an offshoot of the Minuteman Project. Excoriating the USBPA's “Neighborhood Watch� program that was instituted along California's border with Mexico, La Tierra mocked the program's stated mission (to reduce the chance that criminals and terrorists will enter the U.S. by violating immigration laws) as nothing more than a contrived pretext for ethnic cleansing. “Chase is already advertising his next racist foray,� said La Tierra, “and trying to tie it to Bush's war on ter... uh... global struggle against global extr... er, uh, anyway here's a quote from his [Chase's] post: 'NO MORE AL QAEDA ATTACKS.'“ In short, La Tierra quite literally laughs off contentions that unrestrained illegal immigration could facilitate future terrorist threats.

Also on August 19, 2005, the La Tierra website featured a story titled “Poetic Justice for Minuteman Racistsâ€? – a tale of two illegal border-crossers (Edwin Alfredo MancÃÂ*a Gonzáles and Fátima del Socorro Leiva Medina, both of El Salvador) who were awarded a 70-acre ranch by virtue of their civil lawsuit victory against Texas landowner Casey Nethercott, who they accused of having used vigilante tactics against them. The plaintiffs, who were taken into custody by Nethercott and other members of the anti-illegal immigration group Ranch Rescue in March 2003, accused Nethercott of threatening them and of hitting Mr. Gonzáles with a pistol, charges that Nethercott denied. The plaintiffs, incidentally, acknowledged that the group gave them cookies, water, and a blanket before releasing them after about one hour. Gonzáles and Medina, who were represented in their lawsuit by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), testified that during their hour of detention they feared for their lives and consequently suffered post-traumatic stress. According to their attorney, the pair plans to sell the ranch they were awarded rather than live there. Commenting on the case, SPLC co-founder Morris Dees said, “Certainly it's poetic justice that these undocumented workers own this land,â€? adding that the loss of the ranch would “send a pretty important message to those [opponents of illegal immigration] who come to the border to use violence.â€? Dees did not say what message the court's verdict would send to aspiring illegal immigrants.

Another August 2005 headline on the La Tierra website read, “Racists attempting to garner support for bigoted ballot measure.� Below the headline was the assertion that Joseph Turner (the founder of the anti-illegal immigration group Save Our State, or SOS) “and his little band of SOS supremacists� were joining the Minuteman Project (MMP) and Friends of the Border Patrol (FOBT) in a campaign to collect enough signatures to place a California Border Police Initiative on the state ballot in the November elections. If the measure were to pass, the California Border Police would be a force of sworn and trained police officers, not volunteers, to be authorized by both the state constitution and the Governor to patrol the California-Mexico border and enforce all federal immigration laws statewide.

On August 19, 2005, the La Tierra website posted the USA Today article, “Illegals Dying at Record Rate in Arizona Desert.� This piece showed tremendous sympathy to those who had met misfortune while in the process of breaking U.S. immigration law, painting them as victims of both tragedy and injustice.



“With about six weeks remaining in the Border Patrol's fiscal year – and more Border Patrol agents patrolling than ever – 201 men, women, and children have succumbed to the elements in Arizona. In Pima County, which includes Tohono O'odham and Tucson, so many corpses are waiting to be identified, autopsied and returned to Mexico that the coroner is storing 60 of them in a refrigerator truck. The problem stems from federal border policies dating to the late 1990s. First, the government moved to stop illegal immigration in California and Texas. Next, Border Patrol agents clamped down in urban areas along the nation's 1,951-mile border with Mexico. As a result, smugglers and their human clients have been funneled to a deadly passageway - Arizona's remote desert… Bruce Parks, the coroner, says stress overtaxes the body's cooling system. As the body temperature soars to 107 degrees, blood pressure plummets. Vital organs fail. Victims suffer cramps, nausea, exhaustion. Some strip or go crazy. “Ultimately, they just sit down or collapse,� Parks adds.



Also quoted in the article was Beth Sanders of No More Deaths, a coalition of volunteers who cruise along southwestern backroads in search of illegal border-crossers to whom they can offer water and medical care. “Each of these individuals has dignity, and we need to recognize that,� said Sanders.

In March 2005, Jesse Diaz, a University of California-Riverside graduate student and a member of the La Tierra coalition, helped organize a “call to action,� in which nearly 50 protesters picketed in front of Jim Gilchrist's Aliso Viejo, California, home and pilloried him as a racist. “No other place is as symbolic as his [Gilchrist's] home,� said Diaz. “We're here to make noise, chant and let his neighbors know what he's doing.� Diaz also participated in an Easter Sunday demonstration in front of the church where Gilchrist worships. “He will not go unfettered and [un]challenged,� Diaz declared. “This is a response to the Minuteman militia going to the border to apprehend individuals at gunpoint. We feel this is domestic terrorism. We want to expose him [Gilchrist] for what he is – a white-supremacist racist.�

The 39-year-old Diaz, who has a recorded history of drug use and gang involvement, graduated from Pitzer College in 2002 after developing his own major in Chicano psychology. In 2003 he was awarded an American Sociological Association Minority Fellowship. Diaz is also a member of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), a race- and ethnicity-conscious “civil rights� organization that seeks to expand race-preference programs and the rights of illegal aliens in the U.S. José Velez, who headed LULAC from 1990 to 1994, is a kindred spirit to Diaz. According to Velez, the U.S. Border Patrol is “the enemy of my people and always will be.� Several years ago Mr. Velez reportedly submitted false papers for more than 6,000 illegals seeking amnesty, an action that resulted in his conviction for 10 counts of immigration fraud. Consistent with its opposition to measures intended to protect America from foreign would-be terrorists, LULAC has given its organizational endorsement to the “Community Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties� campaign, a project of the California-based Coalition for Civil Liberties (CCL). The CCL tries to influence city councils to pass resolutions creating Civil Liberties Safe Zones; that is, to be non-compliant with the provisions of the Patriot Act, a federal law. Such are the values and ideals that Jesse Diaz embraces as a LULAC member; and these ideals are entirely consistent with those of La Tierra Es De Todos.

At UC-Riverside, Jesse Diaz has been exposed to the teachings of the radical professor Armando Navarro, a Mexican nationalist and anti-American activist who chairs the university's Ethnic Studies Department and who has, like Diaz and La Tierra Es De Todos, also denounced the Minuteman Project. “These are the critical years for us in the Latino community,� says Navarro. “We're in a state of transition. And that transformation is called the browning of America. Latinos are now becoming the majority.� With this trend in mind, Navarro advocates the reclamation of the Southwestern United States by Mexico, and the “liberation� of the ancestral Mexican homeland of “Aztlan.�

Navarro is the head of the National Alliance for Human Rights (NAHR), an activist organization that promotes open borders and demands increased rights for illegal aliens. In 2002, he was sworn in as a new member of the State Central Committee for the Party of Democratic Revolution, Mexico's Socialist Party and a member organization of Socialist International. In January 1995, speaking at the “Latino Summit Response to Proposition 187� conference at UC Riverside, Navarro declared:



You are like the generals that command armies. We're in a state of war. This Proposition 187 [which denied illegal immigrants access to public services but was later nullified] is a declaration of war against the Latino/Chicano community of this country! They know the demographics, they know that history and time is on our side, as one people, as one nation within a nation as the community that we are, the Chicano/Latino community of this nation. What that means is a transfer of power. It means control. It means who's going to [have] influence. And it is the young people that are going to be in a position to really make the promise of what the Chicano movement was all about in terms of self-determination, in terms of empowerment, even in terms of the idea of an Aztlan!



Such opinions have found a receptive audience in Jesse Diaz and his fellow La Tierra members.

La Tierra holds its place among a coalition of organizations pushing for the passage of a bill permitting illegals in California to obtain driver's licenses. “We put more into the economy than we take out,� said Diaz in April 2004, failing to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants. “There's definitely a need for it [a measure granting licenses to illegals],� Diaz explained. “They're going to drive regardless. It's just [that] now the rules will be safer. They're going to have insurance. There will be driver's training. It will be great.� Diaz helped lead an April 2004 boycott aimed at making this issue a centerpiece of public debate. The boycott also called attention to the efforts of anti-illegal immigration groups to get a revised Proposition 187 on the November ballot; the revised initiative would deny illegal aliens access to driver's licenses and public benefits.

La Tierra Es De Todos is affiliated with Bikers Against Borders (BAB), an organization founded in August 2005 by a handful of La Tierra members. BAB membership consists of motorcycle enthusiasts who support La Tierra's open-borders goals. Says a La Tierra spokesman, “We entertained the idea of having fellow leftists ride with us [for the purpose of making political statements] in the future and thought it was a great idea. An ISO [International Socialist Organization] comrade furnished the name, and hence 'Bikers Against Borders' was born.� BAB membership guidelines are as follows:



Socialists, Anarchists, Peace and Justice and all similar affiliations are welcome. No serious rules, all riders and passengers are welcome, just the following: (a) Have fun, but be a safe rider; (b) Be a member of either Gente Unida [an anti-Minuteman, pro-open borders group] or La Tierra es de Todos coalitions; (c) Be in full agreement with our leftist assessment of anti-immigrant groups (SOS/MMP/FOBP, etc.); (d) Be familiar with the La Tierra es de Todos Covenant or similar mission statements; (e) Be serious in realizing that confrontation is an important part of combating the proto-fascist nature of anti-immigrant groups; and (f) Be involved with the work that Gente Unida or La Tierra es de Todos coalitions are doing in order to make these mobilizations possible.