AZMEX I3 17 MAR 2017
Border agents arrest deportee in southern Arizona
KTAR.COM | March 17, 2017 @ 9:34 am
http://ktar.com/story/1495275/border-agents-arrest-deportee-in-southern-arizona/
PHOENIX — A man who had recently been deported from America was arrested this week at the Arizona-Mexico border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said Genaro Galvan-Mora, 26, was taken into custody Wednesday near Nogales, Arizona.
He had been sent back to Mexico last month after finishing a prison stint in Tennessee.
Galvan-Mora had been convicted of reckless homicide in May 2016. Border agents said the Mexican national been deported from the United States last month after serving a nine-month prison term for reckless homicide in Tennessee.
Authorities in the Tucson Sector found out about his previous conviction while they were processing him.
Galvan-Mora was deported on Feb. 27. He faces felony immigration charges for illegal re-entry into the country.
END
Note: ¿¿¿ "With more than 3,000 unfilled positions at local maquiladoras" ???
Even with job offer, stranded Haitians can't get Mexican work visa
By Kendal Blust
Nogales International 13 hrs ago (1)
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/news/even-with-job-offer-stranded-haitians-can-t-get-mexican/article_021cf536-0aa9-11e7-b6ed-1b855f1d2ba8.html
Haitians
Photo by Kendal Blust
In October, more than 65 Haitians camped out in Nogales, Sonora south of the Dennis DeConcini Port of Entry trying to gain humanitarian parole in the United States. Though eventually more than 200 Haitians came to the border in Nogales, Sonora, only 21 remain in the city.
After waiting as long as five months without work and relying on local charities for food and shelter, 21 Haitians still living in Nogales, Sonora hope the support of a local assembly plant, known as a maquila, will be the push Mexican immigration authorities need to grant their requests for humanitarian visas, allowing them to work legally in Mexico.
While the Haitian migrants initially came to the border seeking access to the United States, hardened U.S. policies led some to stay in Mexico instead. Though they have so far been denied Mexican visas as well, Hipolito Sedano Ruiz, a spokesperson for the local Rotary Club, which is housing some of the migrants, said this mutually beneficial agreement could change that, not only helping a company struggling to find enough workers, but also providing the Haitians a chance to build their lives in Nogales, Sonora.
"All they are asking is for a chance to work," Sedano said, "It's an injustice not to help them."
Like thousands of Haitians who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border last fall, the 21 migrants remaining in Nogales, Sonora made a months-long journey from Brazil, where they settled after fleeing Haiti in 2010, when the country was devastated by an earthquake. When construction work dried up in Brazil after the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, many decided to head north to the United States, where Haitians had been granted humanitarian parole.
However, as an increasing number of Haitians sought entry at the southern border, the U.S. government revoked that protected status, and apart from a short reprieve in October after Hurricane Matthew once again brought destruction to the poorest country in the Americas, has resumed deportations to Haiti.
With little chance of gaining legal status in the United States, some Haitians applied for humanitarian visas in Mexico instead. However, while other Mexican states – including Baja California, which has had the greatest influx of Haitian migrants – have agreed to grant the visas, Sonoran delegates from the National Institute of Migration (INM by its Spanish acronym) have denied all of the at least 50 applications made in the state, according to Marla Conrad, an advocacy coordinator with the Kino Border Initiative (KNB), a humanitarian aid group that works with migrants in Ambos Nogales.
"Sonora is the glaring exception," said Joanna Williams, a spokeswoman for KBI, who called humanitarian visas the "key for them to be self-sustaining and able to integrate into Nogales."
"The ideal is that we don't have to give them food, because they are more than happy to work, they just need work permits," Williams added.
All of the Haitians in Nogales, Sonora have applied for the visas a second or third time, or have chosen to appeal their cases, Conrad said. However, Sonoran immigration delegates have said they will only reverse the decision if they receive an order from headquarters in Mexico City.
The visa application process has also been complicated in part, Sedano said, because the Haitians claimed to be migrants from Africa when they arrived at Mexico's southern border.
KBI is asking community members to sign a petition urging the Sonoran delegates to grant humanitarian relief, but while there was a surge of support for the Haitians when they first arrived, Williams said, that has largely been forgotten as the months wear on.
"There's no longer local political will," she said.
Job offer
With more than 3,000 unfilled positions at local maquiladoras, as internationally owned factories on Mexico's northern border are called, one U.S.-based company has agreed to contract Haitians in Nogales, Sonora, promising not only to give them work if their visas are approved, but agreeing to petition immigration authorities on their behalf, Sedano said.
"They have agreed to send a letter to the migration delegation here in Sonora," he said. "They also promised they would pay for the cost of the work visas."
The factory, which makes medical products, could hire as many as 60 Haitian migrants and would offer them training in French, one of Haiti's two official languages, he said.
Many factories in Nogales, Sonora would like to hire Haitian workers, said Richard Rubin, a member of the Sonoran Maquiladora Association and President of the Sonora-based company Javid de Mexico. He said he had heard that a factory hired Haitians, though he wasn't sure which one. And while Rubin's company has tried to hire Haitian migrants, he said: "It's quite an involved process."
"Mexico is a closed-border country, especially when it comes to working," he said, but added: "The fact is there are Haitians stuck here in Nogales. I would love to hire 500 if I could."
However, while any support is appreciated, Conrad said she is doubtful that a letter from a maquila will persuade immigration authorities, who have staunchly refused to use their discretion to give Haitian migrants work permits.
Sedano also said they are still looking at other options, just in case, including contacting the Canadian government to learn of any possibilities for finding work further north. But staying in Nogales, Sonora still seems like the most viable option, he said.
"They don't have many possibilities," he said. "This may be their best chance."
END
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