Thread: Mayan leaders denied visas; UA visit canceled

Published: 04.14.2007

Mayan leaders denied visas; UA visit canceled
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
A University of Arizona-sponsored talk by two indigenous leaders from Mexico has been canceled after the pair was denied visas to visit the United States, officials announced Friday.
Mayan leaders Pedro Bernal Raymundo and Baltazar Solano Canay were invited by the UA's Center for Latin American Studies and Department of Women's Studies for a talk Thursday at Grace St. Paul's Episcopal Church, according to a statement from Laura Briggs, acting head of women's studies.
Briggs wrote that U.S. consular officials denied the visa requests because the indigenous leaders earn less than $130 per month and are presumed to be lying about the nature of their visit, instead intending to immigrate.
Consular officials won't discuss individual cases due to privacy rights, but typically will deny visas unless convinced the applicant will return to Mexico, said John Ibarra, visa chief with the U.S. Consulate in Nogales, Sonora. All applications are reviewed on a case-by-case basis and take into account a variety of factors, he said.
"It's really establishing the purpose for the travel, their ties to the U.S. and what they have going on in Mexico," he said.
The UA departments will continue to work with Raymundo and Canay to secure a visit in the fall, Briggs wrote. The talk was to be about their participation in a 13-year transnational health project with organizations in the Tucson and Denver areas.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/178417

U.S. bars door to Guatemalan visitors
CLAUDINE LoMONACO
Tucson Citizen
The U.S. government has denied two Guatemalan indigenous leaders visas, forcing the cancellation of a planned three-week visit to St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church here and other groups and universities in Arizona and Colorado.
The visas were denied because the leaders failed to show "sufficiently strong" ties to Guatemala.
Mayan health adviser Pedro Bernal Raymundo, 46, and tribal council member Baltazar Solano Canay, 52, were to arrive in Tucson Tuesday for visits with churches and community, university and business groups in Tucson, Phoenix, Flagstaff and Denver.
The men, together with another community leader, were invited by St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Tucson as a part of a 14-year collaboration to support community health efforts in a region devastated by the Guatemalan civil war.
U.S. law assumes that all Guatemalans who apply to visit the United States intend to immigrate and charges the applicant to prove otherwise.
In an e-mail to Rep. Raùl Grijalva's office obtained by the Tucson Citizen, Deputy Consul General to Guatemala Kathryn Cabral said that the men earned less than $130 a month.
"Unfortunately," she said, "at the time of their visa interviews they were unable to demonstrate that they have ties to Guatemala sufficiently strong to overcome the law's presumption that they are intending immigrants."
Laura Briggs, a professor of women's studies at the University of Arizona, has worked extensively with a group of Guatemalans known as the Communities of Population in Resistance of the Sierra and invited the trio to give a talk on immigration and health promotion after the civil war.
She described Bernal as a highly skilled health promoter who has played a key role in dramatically improving the health of community members since the 1980s.
"To suggest that he doesn't have substantial social and profession links with the community is outrageous," Briggs said. "I can't think of anybody in any community that has deeper and more substantial ties."
Grijalva, who had written a letter in support of the men, said the denial discriminated against them because they were poor and indigenous.
"These people are not coming here to get a job at Swift Meat Packing," Grijalva said. "They were here on an invitation because they had something to contribute. Their income or lack of income should not be a factor."
He said the denials sprung from a wave of "immigration paranoia that limits the ability to have the exchanges we need to have between countries whether it's Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua or whoever."
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/48264.php

St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church has had ties to the Sanctuary Movement and border groups that aide illegal aliens.

I think that is a scream No thanks we do not need anymore illegal aliens with low or no skills sucking off american taxpayers. We are all full up here Gee do ya think they should do that for all visa applications