Landlord Frank McHugh lives above rules and regulations

April 26, 2009 -

By fall 2006, community organizers at the tenants rights group Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, known as SAJE, launched a campaign against McHugh.

Representatives of the group met with McHugh but said he did not fulfill their demands for repairs. They decided to target him with public protests, including one last Halloween when tenants trekked from their rundown units near downtown to McHugh's condo in Marina del Rey. The children dressed as cockroaches and adults held signs declaring McHugh L.A.'s "Worst Landlord."

A year before that protest, SAJE got the attention of prosecutors. A newly appointed manager in the housing unit of the city attorney's office met with McHugh tenants and taught them how to file complaints with city and county regulatory agencies -- and also referred 15 properties for inspection by a special city-county slum housing task force.

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Rights group says detained immigrants stage Hunger Strike

Immigrant rights groups on Wednesday demonstrated outside a federal detention center here to draw attention to illegal immigrants who they said were waging a hunger strike to protest abuse.

About 70 to 200 inmates launched a hunger strike on Monday to protest physical and verbal abuse at the Port Isabel Detention Center, said Anayanse Garza of the Southwest Workers Union, a human rights group.

But a federal official said only one inmate was on a hunger strike.

Nina Pruneda, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Antonio, denied accusations that inmates were abused.

About 20 demonstrators gathered across the road from the detention center, holding banners that carried slogans like, "Detainees are starving for justice."

Garza led a group of demonstrators on a march onto detention center property in an attempt to hand-deliver a letter to administrators.
Garza presented the letter to a government agent who drove in a van to order the marchers to turn back.

"You have to stay on the other side of the street. This is private government property," said the agent who identified himself only as A. Machacek.

Machacek told Garza he would present the letter to administrators.

"I understand your concern and I respect that," he said.

In the letter, Garza wrote, "... we want you to know that if any harm should fall on any of the detainees on hunger strike we are holding you personally responsible."

"Our main priority is to ask for you to recognize the hunger strike publicly and allow community members (to) be allowed into the facility to monitor the detainees on hunger strike so that we can have a transparent process," Garza wrote.

Benigno Peña held a long banner that read, "Illegal aliens like all people have inherent human rights."

Some of his clients are held at the detention center, said Peña, director of the South Texas Immigration Council, an immigrant rights group.
Government officials restrict information on the conditions of inmates, Peña said.

"It's almost like a kind of secret government and unfortunately we support it with our taxes," Peña said.

Pruneda said health officials are monitoring the inmate on a hunger strike.

"ICE is committed to ensuring that all detainees are maintained in a safe, secure and humane environment," Pruneda said. "We also treat
our detainees with respect and dignity in a fair and humane manner."

March With Immigrant Workers Friday, May 1st 3:30 PM at the Fruitvale Bart (Oakland), CA

March With Immigrant Workers
Friday, May 1st
3:30 PM at the Fruitvale BART

Dear friends,

EBASE and the Worker's Immigrant Rights Coalition (WIRC) have been organizing with a large coalition of organizations in Oakland for this year's May 1st March for Immigrant Rights. We are turning out supporters to march with immigrant workers.

In the last few years of the Bush administration, immigrant workers saw their fundamental rights trampled upon. As inhumane raids ripped the fabric of workplaces and communities, unscrupulous employers learned to use broken immigration laws as tools to intimidate and fire workers who organize unions or stand up for their rights, eroding workplace conditions for all. In order for all workers to have good jobs with dignity and respect, we urgently need a just and compassionate immigration policy.

This year we have a critical opportunity with President Obama in office and a Democratic majority in Congress to pass immigration reform, but we're still uncertain as to when it will happen and what kind of reform might ultimately be enacted. During his campaign, President Obama promised to take up immigration reform this year and he has recently said that it's still a priority. Now, we need thousands of immigrant and non-immigrant supporters out on the streets, marching this May 1st , to hold our new president accountable to his promises just immigration reform. We'll be marching to demand an immigration system that prioritizes equal rights for all workers, an end to raids and deportations, and legalization and family reunification.

Join us at the entrance/exit to the BART station in the Fruitvale Plaza between 3:30 and 4:00 PM. We'll have a big banner that says "Labor Stands with Immigrant Workers" and we'll be marching in a labor contingent of immigrant and non-immigrant union members and workers. If you're a union member, remember to bring your union banners and t-shirts to show your labor presence. We look forward to seeing you there. Click here to forward this email and spread the word to your friends and colleagues.

Persistent Racial Gap Seen in Students’ Test Scores

The achievement gap between white and minority students has not narrowed in recent years, despite the focus of the No Child Left Behind law on improving black and Hispanic scores, according to results of a federal test considered to be the nation’s best measure of long-term trends in math and reading proficiency.

Black and Hispanic elementary, middle and high school students all scored much higher on the federal test, administered last year, than did their counterparts decades back. But nearly four decades of scores on the same test show that their most important academic gains came not in recent years, but during the desegregation efforts of the 1970s and 1980s.

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A Family Divided by Two Words - Legal & Illegal

For the father, the choice was obvious: An engineer with several jobs yet little money, he saw no future for his daughter and son in their struggling country, Ecuador. Eight years ago, he paid coyotes to smuggle him into Texas, then headed to New York, where his wife and children flew in as tourists, and stayed.

But the consequences of that clear-cut decision — the immigrant’s perennial impulse to uproot for the sake of the next generation — have been anything but simple.

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After Losing Freedom, Some Immigrants Face Loss of Custody of Their Children

By Ginger Thompson

CARTHAGE, Mo. — When immigration agents raided a poultry processing plant near here two years ago, they had no idea a little American boy named Carlos would be swept up in the operation.

One of the 136 illegal immigrants detained in the raid was Carlos’s mother, Encarnación Bail Romero, a Guatemalan. A year and a half after she went to jail, a county court terminated Ms. Bail’s rights to her child on grounds of abandonment. Carlos, now 2, was adopted by a local couple. Read more

EVAF-LA

We had our first quarterly meeting of the EVAF-LA grantees/group last month with approximately 16 groups represented. We had decided to work on two major themes as our next steps -- (1) proposed community organizing conference and (2) upcoming regional report card. This blog is being set up so that we can all share our thinking around these two topics for further discussion between our face-to-face meetings.

Our next face-to-face meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, May 12th from 11:30am to 1:30pm at CARECEN-LA.