El Magonista Newsletter | Vol. 10, No. 35 | September 26, 2022

Former President Barack Obama, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Sen. Alex Padilla scheduled to speak at 5th annual conference.

SAN DIEGO — The power, diversity and success of the Latino community will be on full display at San Diego’s annual L’Attitude conference, where everything from homeownership to higher education to purchasing power will be fodder for some of the biggest names in business and politics over the next four days.

Backers of the event hope to highlight how the success of Latinos is no longer a conversation solely about the Latino community — its fate is tied to that of the entire country.

The conversation comes as Democrats are losing ground with the Latino vote, possibly by underestimating how important economic policies are to Latino voters or by assuming every Latino feels the same about certain social issues, such as immigration... READ MORE

The Biden administration late last month issued a new rule designed to fortify DACA, the 10-year-old policy started under former President Barack Obama that has shielded from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

Created in 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy granted some undocumented people who entered the U.S. as minors — often called Dreamers — the right to live and work in the country as long as they met certain criteria and weren’t convicted of serious crimes.

“These are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighborhoods, they’re friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag,” Obama said when he established the program. “They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper.

I am a proud undocumented medical student attending the UCLA School of Medicine — a reality that still seems like a dream. It is a reality because of the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA.

However, the DACA program and its beneficiaries remain in jeopardy as the policy could be ended by a court ruling any day now. If Congress does not pass legislation this year, nearly 700,000 DACA recipients — including teachers, parents, students and nurses — will be at risk of being forced out of the workforce and subjected to the threat of deportation.

I decided that I was going to pursue medicine during my third year in college. I hoped to become a physician whom folks like my family could identify with and rely on — even though because of my immigration status, it was clear from the beginning that I might never be able to practice as a physician in the U.S. I made the decision to pursue a medical career in spite of this, because it’s important to me that my community is represented in healthcare.

I wasn’t deterred by the fact that I didn’t know any undocumented medical students or undocumented practicing physicians. Living in constant uncertainty for as long as I can remember, I’ve had to develop a sense of resiliency to push past roadblocks and continue pursuing my goals... READ MORE

By Christian Paz | VOX | SEP. 20, 2022 | Photo by Alberto Mariani

Inside the Arizona’s representative’s restless, highly online, and seriously combative plan to transform the Democratic Party.

PHOENIX, Arizona — Rep. Ruben Gallego picked up a steak knife, twisted his left wrist, and began stabbing the air in front of him. He’d been ranting about why he hates Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, and, an hour into dinner, he was clearly getting flustered. “Politics is dark and hard. It’s not a bunch of people trying to do their best. It’s who can shank each other in a smarter way,” he said.

It was the Monday night before primary day in Arizona, and we were at an overheated Sonoran-style Mexican restaurant in South Phoenix with Gallego’s wife and a couple of staffers. One of them reminded Gallego we were in public, and he put down the knife. After some laughter cleared the air (“first of all, this isn’t even hard enough to stab you”), he continued. “Too many young Democrats grew up watching West Wing thinking that’s what politics is.”

To Gallego, the 42-year-old Congress member from Arizona’s Seventh District and potential 2024 Senate candidate, politics should be treated like more of an existential fight. Republicans, inspired by Donald Trump, definitely are. The next day, a slate of election-denying Trump loyalists would sweep the primaries for Arizona’s statewide elected offices; a second GOP member of Congress who voted to impeach Trump would lose his race in Michigan; and a third was on track to lose in Washington state... READ MORE

They sent out the hard-shell tacos on Thursday at Mitla Café the same way they have for 85 years — freshly fried, with a blizzard of cheddar cheese on top and a side of history.

The diner off the former Route 66 in San Bernardino is one of the oldest Mexican restaurants in Southern California. Glen Bell of Taco Bell infamy bugged the founders during the 1950s for their taco recipe, and they generously obliged.

More importantly, Mitla has served as a neighborhood anchor in the city’s Westside barrio for decades. It’s a place where historic civil rights battles were planned and community groups still meet over heaping combo plates and multiple orders of those crunchy, sublime tacos.

Tacos were what San Bernardino Superior Court Judge John Pacheco ordered as he waited for the start of a civics experiment...READ MORE

Gov. Gavin Newsom has embraced the role of migrants advocate on the national stage, dueling with Republican governors who are trying to score points with xenophobic voters by transporting asylum seekers out of their states to liberal destinations.

But his defense of migrants abused by GOP leaders comes at a puzzling time for California immigrants awaiting his signature on a bill that would protect tens of thousands of them from abuse. Many fear he’ll veto it later this month.

“He’s criticizing another governor for being anti-immigrant, but he’s doing the same here in the state,” Xochitl Núñez, a 52-year-old single mother and Tulare farmworker from Mexico, told me. “He’s doing the same with farmworkers.”

Núñez is one of thousands of people who marched 335 miles in triple-digit heat with the United Farm Workers last month to pressure Newsom to sign Assembly Bill 2183, which passed the state Legislature with overwhelming support. The bill would make it easier for state farmworkers to unionize by allowing them to vote by mail in union elections if an employer agrees not to interfere with the effort. If an employer won’t agree, voting would occur through a union-led petition process... READ MORE

The National Security Archive calls for full disclosure of covert history as countdown to 50th Anniversary of military coup begins.

Washington D.C., September 12, 2022 - One day after the violent, U.S.-backed, coup d’état in Chile, the overthrow of Salvador Allende was the very first item in President Richard Nixon’s September 12, 1973, CIA intelligence report—known as the President's Daily Brief (PDB).

“Chile’s President Allende is dead and the armed forces, together with the carabineros, are working to consolidate their successful coup,” stated a short summary of principal developments around the world. On page 1 of the PDB, the CIA informed Nixon that the members of the new military junta “are all respected and experienced leaders” but not supporters of democracy. According to the PDB, “the new rulers have declared [the Chilean] Congress to be in recess.”

But on the day the military moved to overthrow Salvador Allende, September 11, 1973, what the CIA informed President Nixon remains TOP SECRET. Forty-nine years after one of the most infamous military coups in Latin American history, the intelligence report in Nixon’s 9/11/1973 PDB on Chile continues to be classified as sensitive national security information... READ MORE

MEXICO CITY — A high-level United States delegation on Monday invited Mexico to participate in a push to shift semiconductor production from Asia to North America and expand production of electric vehicles.

Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador about recently passed legislation that would provide $28 billion in incentives for semiconductor production, $10 billion for new manufacturing of chips and $11 billion for research and development.

López Obrador, for his part, explained his plan to make the northern border state of Sonora a leader in lithium, electric vehicle and solar energy production, Ebrard said. Lithium is a key component of batteries for electric vehicles. The president said last month that he had already discussed... READ MORE

Eight Venezuelan migrants were flown last week from Texas to Sacramento with little cash — some without shoes — and the men have no idea why they were sent or who paid for the flights, an advocacy group said.

The men, who crossed the border in Laredo, Texas, had intentions to travel to New York, Florida or Utah and said they were confused as to why they were sent to California, where none of them had contacts or prospects.

Three migrants landed Thursday morning in Sacramento, then walked about 20 miles to an address listed on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement documentation where they were told they’d find a shelter. Instead, the men arrived at a closed office building in downtown Sacramento, said Autumn Gonzalez, a volunteer with NorCal Resist, which provides services to migrants and advocates for immigrant rights.

“It’s never happened to us before that people just randomly showed up, needing housing or assistance,” Gonzalez said... READ MORE

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY, Sept 13 (Reuters) - As border crossings have soared to record highs, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration is quietly pressing Mexico to accept more migrants from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela under a COVID-19 expulsion order that the White House has publicly sought to end, seven U.S. and three Mexican officials said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised concerns about an escalating number of crossings by migrants from the three countries during a visit on Monday to Mexico City, two U.S. and two Mexican officials told Reuters, but Mexico did not promise any specific actions.

One U.S. official said trying to convince Mexico to agree is "an uphill battle."

All sources requested anonymity to discuss internal government matters.

Mexico already accepts U.S. returns of migrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. So far, this fiscal year about 299,000 people from those nations have been expelled at the border, compared to about 9,000 returns from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela... READ MORE