El Magonista | September 1, 2023 | Vol. 11, No. 27

Mexico’s ruling party Morena revealed additional details of the secretive process by which it will select its nominee for 2024 presidential elections.

The party will survey 12,500 people as it seeks to choose a “national coordinator” for the campaign, who is widely expected to be the candidate, Morena’s national head Mario Delgado shared in a statement via text message. Four external polling firms will each conduct 2,500 surveys, while the party’s electoral committee will carry out 2,500.

The details come as Morena enters the final week of its party primary process, conducted primarily through a survey process that has faced criticism over its opacity. The name of the nominee that will seek to succeed President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will be released Sept. 6.

Though Lopez Obrador has vowed not to interfere in the candidate’s selection, tensions have been on the rise after one of the top contenders, former Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, said the party leadership was favoring former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum... READ MORE

International trade and globalization have brought the world closer together, offering opportunities for increased connectivity. Technology is a significant catalyst for regional and international development. The exchange of goods, services, and capital across borders has created unity among countries and the global community. However, what nurtures symbiotic relationships is the interconnectivity of people. Migration has become a significant driver of growth, playing a crucial role in addressing skill gaps, labor shortages, and the challenges posed by aging populations, particularly in the global north. Unfortunately, most countries do not have adequate policies to attract and retain talent.

Moreover, international student migration is a means for countries to attract talent and establish systems for skills formation to meet future employment needs. Student mobility across the globe yields numerous advantages. Migrant students tend to benefit from higher wages without detrimental effects on most native workers. Also, they can foster economic growth in their home and host countries. Implementing an open visa policy can serve as an effective strategy to attract more high-quality students (Chevalier, 2022). As of 2019, the number of students traveling abroad for educational purposes was over 5 million resulting in a direct annual expenditure of 196 billion dollars. It is projected that by 2030, this figure will rise to 8.95 million students (about half the population of New York) enrolled in foreign universities (Holon I.Q., 2023). 

North America is recognized as one of the world's most economically dynamic regions. Together, the three countries generate 28% of the global GDP (Gross Domestic Product)(2), despite representing only 6.3% of the world's population. Furthermore, in terms of international trade, these countries accounted for 13% of total trade (3) and 29% of global foreign direct investment flows in 2021 (4). Canada, Mexico, and the United States of America have a modern history of 30 years of economic integration since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Following the renegotiation of NAFTA, implementing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) has sustained economic prosperity, regional integration, and enhanced interconnectedness among the three countries... READ MORE

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, commonly known as DACA, is a policy that protects eligible immigrants who came to the U.S. as children from deportation. Because they’re neither U.S. citizens nor permanent residents, DACA students often face many hurdles when accessing a college education. DACA Dreamers don’t get free college, and college acceptance has hurdles.

But despite the challenges, New American Economy found that DACA students who finish their degree see a boost of more than 70 percent in their income and go to work in an array of industries, including science, health care, technology, design and education — all of which are essential to the U.S. economy.

 

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the agency that oversees the operation of the state’s prison and parole systems, routinely reports U.S citizens or green card holders in their custody to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California via a public records request.

The civil rights organization shared some of these communications between CDCR and ICE with my colleague Andrea Castillo, who broke the story.

The ACLU NorCal analyzed more than 2,500 emails, attachments and policy records from August and September 2022 in conjunction with four other advocacy groups, and published a report based on their findings on Tuesday.

They found that in that two-month period, CDCR handed over more than 200 people to ICE custody.

Sana Singh, an Immigrants’ Rights Fellow at the ACLU NorCal and author of the report, told Castillo that this batch of documents is only a fraction of what they expect to receive.

“What’s reflected in these records is CDCR engaging in formalized discrimination,” Singh said. “We felt it was worth sharing now even before we get the full universe of records.”

Per the report, individuals in CDCR custody who are suspected of being foreign-born can be given a “potential hold” designation, a “label invented entirely by CDCR with no direction from ICE” that carries serious consequences, including being “barred from lower security custody placements, certain jobs, reentry programming, and more.”

The report paints a CDCR that’s overly deferential to ICE, when it doesn’t have to be.

In one email shared in the report, an unidentified CDCR official asks an ICE agent if it’s OK to remove a “potential hold” designation from an inmate despite its own records indicating they are a U.S. citizen.

“Can you confirm that the [individual] is a citizen please so I can clear this up,” the agent asks. “There were some identifiers that showed MX Citizenship, but I am thinking this is a mistake.”

“We’ve heard over and over through years from incarcerated people that this collusion was happening.” Singh told the Times.

“It’s particularly heinous in California, which is home to the largest immigration population,” she said. “So many families are implicated by these practices... READ MORE

A rural county in Iowa is at the center of a study analyzing the impact of immigrants on communities that have long seen their populations decline.

Sioux County — one of the state's largest corn producers and home to several meatpacking plants — is one of three counties featured in a new report that shows how immigrants have helped revitalize small towns and strengthen its workforce. FWD, a bipartisan political organization in Washington, D.C., released the 35-page report, claiming that an influx of immigrants — even as small as 100 to 200 a year — could rebuild rural America.

Phillip Connor, senior demographer at FWD, said the number of residents living in rural counties has continued to decrease in the last two decades. The people are leaving often in their "prime working years," and their reasons differ: work, education, family or other business opportunities, the report said.

That loss is tough.

"This is not only a population loss, but also a real loss of people, deeply felt by communities in which they had lived much of their lives," the report stated.

But who they leave behind leads to another issue.

According to the report, 77% of the nation's rural counties have fewer "working-age people" — those between the ages of 15 to 64 — than 20 years ago. And the gap will continue to widen unless a demographic change occurs, Connor told the Des Moines Register... READ MORE

It’s the latest development in a long-shot effort by some Republicans to use the 14th Amendment to prevent the former president from appearing on the 2024 ballot.

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office is “carefully reviewing the legal issues involved” in a long-shot effort by some Republicans in the state to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot in 2024, the office announced on Tuesday.

Bryant “Corky” Messner — an attorney and prominent Republican who ran on Trump’s endorsement as the state’s 2020 U.S. Senate nominee — has publicly questioned Trump’s eligibility to run for president, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The section disqualifies those who’ve taken an oath to support the Constitution from holding office again if they’ve “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States “or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

But other Republicans in the state have pushed back.

“I don’t think the effort to limit the options for our primary voters has any legs whatsoever,” Chris Ager, chair of the state Republican Party, told POLITICO.

Now, the state’s top legal and election officials are weighing in.

“Both the Secretary of State’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office are aware of public discourse regarding the potential applicability of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to the upcoming presidential election cycle,” New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella and Secretary of State David Scanlan said in a joint statement on Tuesday, calling out “misinformation” implying that Scanlan’s office had already taken a position on the issue... READ MORE

WASHINGTON —  Every once in a while, the voices of ghosts emerge to reveal dark chapters in U.S. political history.

The State Department with the CIA last week declassified two 50-year-old documents that had been withheld from public view that shed new light on the military coup in Chile that overthrew the country’s elected president. 

One is then-President Nixon’s intelligence briefing notes from the day of the coup, Sept. 11, 1973, marked top secret “For the President Only.” The National Security Archive, a non-governmental research organization, described the papers as some of “the most historically iconic of missing records” on the coup.

“[T]hey contained information that went to President Nixon as a military takeover that he and his top advisor Henry Kissinger had encouraged for three years came to fruition,” the National Security Archive, which studies and stores vast troves of formerly secret official documents, said in a statement.

The coup led to the death of the Chilean president, leftist leader Salvador Allende, and installed years of brutal right-wing military rule headed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet in what had been until then a promising young democracy.

While the newly declassified documents don’t substantially change the story, they reveal the considerable amount of detail that Nixon knew about the steps leading to the coup. In addition to the briefing papers from the day of the coup, a second document recounts Nixon’s briefing from two days before the military takeover.

Thousands of Chilean civilians were killed, imprisoned or tortured, with some rounded up by the army and held in a stadium where they met their death.

Within a few years, neighboring Argentina also fell to a brutal military dictatorship, while other countries including Bolivia and Paraguay followed suit. It was a difficult and torturous era in Latin America that slowly shifted to more progressive democracies, although the political dynamics have continued to change, with the return of the right and authoritarians... READ MORE

A study in Pediatrics found that Latinos from 3 to 17 in states with more discriminatory policies have higher odds of having certain physical and mental health conditions.

Latino children living in states with more anti-immigrant laws and policies — and the resulting inequities in access — were linked to higher odds of chronic physical or mental health conditions, according to a study published Tuesday in the medical journal Pediatrics. 

Researchers analyzed data from the National Survey of Children’s Health from 2016 to 2020. They measured 17,855 Latino children participants from 3 to 17 years old; almost 30% lived below the federal poverty level and a little over half were from an immigrant family.

The researchers ranked a state’s discrimination level by factoring policies toward immigrants, including health services, employment, immigration policy enforcement, discrimination prohibition, and access to rental housing , driver's licenses and higher education. They also included prejudicial attitudes toward immigrants and Latinos using data from the American National Election Study.

Latino children living in states with more of these policies and attitudes were found to be 1.13 times more likely to have a chronic physical health condition and 1.24 times more likely to have multiple mental health conditions.

For the study, the surveyed caregivers provided information on children’s physical and mental health issues, including allergies, asthma, blood disorders, diabetes and heart conditions, as well as depression, anxiety and behavioral and conduct issues... READ MORE

After nearly 20 years at the head of the California Community Foundation, Antonia Hernández announced in March that she would retire this year, setting up a potential drama over the future of one of Southern California’s most influential charities.

On Tuesday, the foundation’s board of directors unveiled a transition that will be as smooth as Hernández’s quiet leadership that saw the organization’s assets grow five times over.

Miguel A. Santana, a singular L.A. leader who has held high-level positions in government and philanthropy, will make a short crosstown move from his current position as president and chief executive of the Weingart Foundation to the same role at Weingart’s larger counterpart in public service.

Santana, 54, is scheduled to take over the $640,000-a-year job Oct. 16, three days after Hernández’s departure.

In announcing the appointment, CCF board Chairman Thomas A. Saenz praised Santana’s “unmatched and lengthy leadership track record of successfully confronting myriad challenges in our dynamic region.”

Once chief of staff to then-Supervisor Gloria Molina, Santana rose in the county to become a deputy in the chief executive’s office.

Then, as Los Angeles city administrative officer, he led the city through the Great Recession, building a reputation for soft-spoken but firm discipline in the face of hard financial decisions.

Prior to joining the Weingart Foundation, Santana took over leadership of the financially troubled nonprofit that runs the annual county fair in Pomona and managed its recovery through the pandemic... READ MORE

With its stars sidelined due to the strike, a coalition of advocacy groups are finding ways to promote the DC film.

Two years ago, Xolo Maridueña made a surprise appearance on the red carpet of Warner Bros.’ DC feature The Suicide Squad. It was a coming-out party of sorts, as the night before, at a surprise dinner thrown by DC executives, the Cobra Kai actor learned he had nabbed his biggest role yet: starring as the title character in the action-adventure feature Blue Beetle. “It feels like a fairy tale,” an ecstatic Maridueña told The Hollywood Reporter at the time. 

Now, as Blue Beetle arrives in theaters Aug. 18, the actor won’t be walking a red carpet premiere for the film, the first studio movie to center on a Latino superhero. Not because Maridueña doesn’t want to but because there is no premiere, red carpet or blue, for the movie.

Blue Beetle is the first major live-action release to bow since the actors strike began July 14 that did not have a press tour banked ahead of time. The movie would ordinarily be getting a full publicity push, with its cast — including George Lopez, Bruna Marquezine and Harvey Guillén — making stops at San Diego Comic-Con and speaking about the significance of this film.

“It’s heartbreaking,” director Angel Manuel Soto says of his cast not being able to promote the film. “This is their moment. We’ve never had a [studio superhero movie] that celebrates our culture, with characters who look like my family and many other families out there. So it’s a shame they cannot have the spotlight that they deserve.”

Blue Beetle arrives after a series of ill-fated movies featuring Latino representation. Last year, Warner Bros. Discovery unceremoniously shelved Batgirl, starring Dominican American actress Leslie Grace, as a tax write-down. A year before, the musical In The Heights failed to ignite audiences in a way studio Warner Bros. had hoped, with accusations of colorism leveled at the studio.

Hopes for the movie were high for the Latino community. The film was originally developed for HBO Max with a budget in the $70 million range before being supersized into a theatrical release and greenlighted with a budget of about $120 million. Alongside the Eva Longoria-directed Hulu hit Flamin’ Hot and A24’s Problemista (since delayed amid the strike), Latino representation looked to be on the upswing. “We were hopeful that our long overdue cultural moment had finally arrived,” wrote 27 Latino advocacy groups in a joint open letter published Aug. 9, urging the public to support Latino creatives... READ MORE

An imitation In-N-Out restaurant that opened in Mexico this summer has already given up the California lifestyle and changed its name, likely after facing legal action from the original burger chain.

No one said it would be easy to capture the In-N-Out style, a diner-esque slice of Americana that was cultivated when the burger chain first opened in Baldwin Park in 1948, but the owners of a restaurant in Culiacán, Mexico, tried their best.

In-I-Nout, as the imitation was originally known, not only cribbed In-N-Out’s recipes but also furnished its dining room with red diner booths, a faux plant wall and a reversed In-N-Out logo. The restaurant garnered plenty of hype this month when it went viral, its existence first reported by SFGate.

The owners of the knockoff restaurant captured the attention of foodies across the internet as well as the legal team at In-N-Out proper. A spokesperson for In-N-Out declined to comment this month “due to ongoing litigation,” suggesting the owners of the knockoff restaurant were facing a legal dispute. In-N-Out declined to comment about the knockoff restaurant’s name change for the same reason.

While the animal-style fries and double cheeseburgers seem to remain, In-I-Nout is dead and in its place is Sofi’s Burger, according to a job posting on the restaurant’s Facebook page and a rebranded Instagram account. Gone are the images of the In-I-Nout logo and the restaurant’s dining room. The owners also removed an Instagram video showing people chomping down on burgers with Spanish text that read, “It’s not in California. It’s in Culiacán.”

The restaurant did not respond to requests for comments. The job posting said the restaurant is looking to hire cooks, servers and other staff. The advertisement says, “Solo personas con muchas ganas de trabajar” or that they want to hire people who really want to work... READ MORE

DannyLux’s first guitar was a castaway that his father plucked from the trash while driving garbage trucks in Palm Springs. Growing up, the young musician vibed to an unruly mezcla of Maná, “a lot of Pink Floyd,” regional Mexican music and The Beatles, honing his earnestly introspective vocal persona.

“My mom even has a video of me singing ‘Let It Be’ as a little kid, and the guitar is all huge on my body,” Danny, 19, said in a recent interview, laughing at the memory of himself as a Paul McCartney proxy. “I couldn’t even reach to play the guitar, but I was still playing it!” 

Now he’s braiding those elements into a songwriting style that has partnered him with Gen-Z regional Mexican groups like Fuerza Regida, Eslabón Armado (both recently in L.A.) and everyone’s favorite artist of the last 15 minutes, the omnipresent Peso Pluma.

Collectively, these artists are fashioning a regional Mexican music renaissance for the Age of TikTok. Most are in their late teens or early twenties, Mexicans as well as bilingual Mexican Americans from places like South L.A. and the Inland Empire, accustomed since birth to crossing sonic borders.

The biggest push factor in their surging popularity is the exponential growth of the U.S. Latino population, which skews younger than the nation as a whole. But this reimagining of centuries-old music might not have happened if not for two interrelated phenomena: the COVID pandemic and the explosion of TikTok and online music tutorials.

After Danny was kicked off his school soccer team due to his slumping GPA, and confined at home by the coronavirus, he would cry every night and beseech God, “What am I supposed to do? I want to be good at something!” Then he started posting music covers and, later, original songs, and his phone blew up. Now he’s poised to release his first full-length album on Warner Latina, launching a tour of Mexico, and will appear with Interpol and The Red Pears October 30 at the Greek Theatre... READ MORE