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A.M. Costa Rica's Second news page |
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San
José, Costa Rica, Friday,
July 25,
2014, Vol. 14, No. 146
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 Municipalidad de Nicoya
photo
The Anexión party
already has begun in the community of Nicoya, and the history church of the Parroquia San Blas is adorned with festive lighting. By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Challenges are growing over the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which is known as FATCA. This is the law being enforced by the Internal Revenue Service. The law requires foreign financial institutions to report on the bank accounts held by U.S. citizens. The Republicans Overseas organization is planning to challenge the constitutionality of the law in court. The Republican National Committee has passed a resolution to repeal the law. Democrats Abroad has moved to support freeing from the law expats who do banking in the same country in which they live The U.S. House has passed an appropriations bill that contains $1 million to study the impact of foreign bank account reporting, basically a cost-benefit analyses. The Credit Union National Association, Inc., and the World Council of Credit Unions, Inc., said they support the Republican National committee resolution. In a letter to the Republicans, the organizations said that "These FATCA requirements have caused banks, both U.S. and foreign, to deny access to banking and other financial services to the 7.6 million Americans overseas, which effectively excludes them from employment opportunities and forces them to choose between U.S. citizenship and their livelihood. An increasing number of expatriate Americans—including music legend Tina Turner — have renounced their U.S. citizenship because of FATCA. "The IRS’s FATCA regulation requires U.S.-based financial institutions, including U.S. credit unions, to conduct due diligence and tax withholding on international funds transfers even though the FATCA statute passed by Congress made no mention of U.S.-based credit unions or banks. Although U.S. credit unions continue to serve their natural person member-owners who live overseas, FATCA’s requirements impose regulatory burdens on U.S. credit unions that make it more difficult and expensive for credit unions to serve their members living abroad as well as to serve their members who live in the United States and send cross-border wire transfers." Republicans Overseas said that a lawyer, Jim Bopp, would challenge the legislation on three grounds: That Treasury Department’s unilateral intergovernmental agreements violate the Senate’s treaty power, that FATCA’s excessive penalties violate the 8th Amendment, and that its privacy invasions violate the 4th Amendment. Republicans Overseas said the organization was moved to challenge the law after a California school teacher faced penalties for failing to file foreign asset disclosure forms on the foreign pension of her late Swiss husband of 30 years. The organization said she had to pay a law firm $124,000 to work with the IRS and expects to pay penalties of up to $800,000. Judge accused of keeping bail money By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A criminal court judge has been detained in an investigation of embezzlement. Prosecutors identified the judge by the last name of León, He is assigned to Cañas but the allegations involve actions in Upala when he worked as a criminal court judge there. He is accused of assessing some 2 million colons (about $3.760) in bail in a criminal case last Oct. 29 and then keeping the money himself, said the Poder Judicial. In April while he served temporarily as a family judge he ordered a man to pay 320,000 colons in child support and kept that, too, the Poder Judicial alleged. After the woman in the case complained, he eventually gave her the money, prosecutors said. Investigators conducted searches in Cañas and in Upala Thursday.  Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía y Seguridad Pública
photo
This a part of the lumber and
logs officers confiscated in Pueblo Nuevo.Police crack
down on illegal timber
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Police confiscated three loads of wood this week, including some valuable cocobolo (Dalbergia retusa) that they spotted being lumbered on a reserve owned by the Instituto de Desarrollo Agrario. This is a tree that is in danger of extinction because of the heartwood's great beauty. Officers also confiscated a team of oxen and a cart that was being used to move the lumber. This was on 27 de Abril in Paraíso de Santa Cruz, Guanacaste. Officers noted that the cocobolo wood can sell for as much as $80 a board foot. In Sabalito de Coto Brus other officers found a large quantity of sawed lumber on a truck, and the driver did not have paperwork to support the claim that the wood was legal, they said. And in Pueblo Nuevo police spotted a tractor pulling a load of logs, and the driver did not have paperwork, they said. In all cases the Ministerio de Ambiente y Energía becomes involved. N. Korean irked when Kim is mocked By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
In the United States, mocking political leaders is a national pastime that most Americans enjoy. Even the targets of ridicule usually laugh along or ignore it. In North Korea, poking fun at the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong Un, appears to be viewed as an existential threat. For example, in April, North Korean officials dropped by a London barber shop, which mocked Kim Jong Un’s hairstyle in a promotional poster. The poster showed Kim's famous coiffure and read “bad hair day?” Earlier this month, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ja Song Nam, filed a formal complaint urging the body to force the U.S. block the release of an upcoming movie, “The Interview.” The comedy, which stars Seth Rogen and James Franco in a plot to assassinate Kim, mocks North Korea’s ruler. The complaint read that “to allow the production and distribution of such a film on the assassination of an incumbent Head of a sovereign State should be regarded as the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism as well as an act of war." Now this week, North Korea asked China to stop the spread of a viral video that lampoons Kim. According to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, the North says the video, which shows Kim in a variety of silly situations, including being knocked out by President Barack Obama, seriously compromises Kim's dignity and authority. While North Korea’s response to the mockery of Kim may seem extreme to many, it is not surprising to North Korea watchers. “It is a political culture that cannot deal with ‘dissing’ their leaders or their country,” said Katharine H. S. Moon, the SK-Korea Foundation chairwoman in Korea studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. “Even though we can find humor in it as a clever, entertaining spoof – and have no problem laughing at and with our own political leaders – North Koreans regard the Kims as deities. And so, to them, it is sacrilegious.” Moon said North Korea may feel compelled to react to these incidents to save face. The Chinese video presented a new wrinkle as it comes from an erstwhile friendly nation. According to Ms. Moon, “Kim and his small leadership cohort know that China looks down on him and the country, and is tired of dealing with the recalcitrant behavior,” while at the same time, North Korea “does not see itself as a client of China – so, even if it benefits economically and politically from China's power, it has never acted with subservience or servility toward Beijing.”
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
A.M. Costa Rica Third News Page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 25, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 146 | |
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 Ministerio
de Obras Públicas y Transportes photo
This pedestrian overpass at
Abangares is one of nine being built. |
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| Interamericana
facelift between Cañas and Liberia nearly finished |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Interamericana is being transformed south of Liberia. A stretch between Liberia and Cañas is nearly finished. The job widens the key highway from two to four lanes. The road work alone is $85.6 million, and $44.6 million more is being spent on additional projects, said the Ministerio de Obras Públicas y Transportes. With four lanes, officials had to widen or build 18 bridges at a cost of $27.7 million. The contract covers 50.6 kilometers or about 31.3 miles. The government made the decision to put down 10 inches of concrete instead of asphalt because the concrete will last longer. Eventually the wider highway will run all the way north to the Nicaraguan border. Much of the money is coming from a loan by the Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo. The time of year around the July 25 Anexión holiday, officials usually announce major projects for Guanacaste and the Nicoya peninsula. These are not those types of projects. These jobs have been in the works for years and the contract was let in 2011. |
 Consejo Nacional de Vialidad photo
Job includes sidewalks, a bike
path and bus turnouts like this one. |
| An A.M. Costa
Rica reader's opinion Former resident says he had a really expensive return visit here |
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By
Ralph Simonson*
Special to A.M. Costa Rica I am writing now, because I love Costa Rica, and I am so upset at its decline. I hope the negative liberals do not feel compelled to respond because I am not criticizing, as much as I am sorry the country is taking the course it is taking. We just returned from a 16-day stay in Costa Rica. We planned this trip because of our love for the country and to see friends we have there. We started to come to Costa Rica in 1993. We purchased a coffee finca there that we owned for 12 years, and we lived in Escazú for four years. If I can return to Central America, we have decided on Panamá. This is another story since most people know the reasons to go there versus Costa Rica. When we arrived in Costa Rica, we had a marvelous experience with the rental car company. They were very friendly and efficient. We arrived in the evening and needed to find a place to eat after checking in with the B&B we had signed up for. We finally found a place near Multiplaza. They were very accommodating and a lovely place to eat. The problem was, we had two pasta plates and two glasses of wine and the bill was $72! We think this is very high. Our B&B went to great extents to get all our credit card information and would not reserve the room without it. They gave us directions which we were familiar with but no address or signs on the house. Finally a guard told us where it was. It was a very nice place, and they knocked themselves out with amenities. When we were leaving in the morning, we were informed we needed to pay?? We said we just did that with our credit card, Sorry, that was just to reserve the room, they had to have cash! We had booked our favorite hotel on the mountain because they gave us a great price. They told us in advance it would be cash only. We agreed. When we arrived, we noticed on their windows that they accepted virtually every credit card that existed!! So be it, but when we commented that the shower drain was stopped up and the shower head was like a faucet, they said there was nothing they could do about it. For the price, we lived with it. We immediately noticed the traffic problems. Drivers completely ignored all stop lights, signs and total disrespect for the laws. This was no surprise having lived there, but the disregard for traffic laws was unbelievable. We found out the parking tickets in Multiplaza |
were enough to
make one not go there. What a shame and
talking to friends who
live there, they all said they do not go there anymore. We
have favorite places we liked to eat and tried out most of them.
Prices are high, but I will not go into that. We did go to one we
liked and looked at the menu and saw a pasta plate for $22. We
left and later found out a friend went there and did not order drinks
and his bill was $150 for two people. I am sorry, but that is absurd and not the Costa Rica I knew. With good friends and destinations we went to, we did enjoy and I should elaborate on all the good as well as the bad, but it would be to no avail. What I am trying to point out is WHY tourism is not what it used to be and why. As we leave, we pay the $29 per person exit fee that no other country has. Getting the ticket, I ask if people over 75 have to remove their shoes going through security since we do not do that in any other country. The ticket agent said she had never heard of that and at 75 they considered that young in Costa Rica. OK, we are well aware of the attitudes here. We went through security removing everything. I had to take my belt and watch off and my wife was never asked to remove her jewelry?? We proceed to the gate and wait our turn. When we presented our boarding pass, we are immediately subjected to a total baggage search upon entering the plane. This luggage has been searched and x-rayed before, but we are subjected to another manual search!!! We spent a lot of money in Costa Rica since I had some cosmetic dental work. I am not complaining about the prices, but I noticed that everywhere we used our credit card, the colons charged was in excess of the bill. They talked about the conversion rate, but they charged on the rate to sell colons, not buy them. I ended up paying a couple hundred dollars more than the actual charge because of this exchange. Our credit card does not charge for foreign transactions, so this excess is only attributable to the Costa Rica system!!! I only hope the new president can straighten out some of these problems, but I doubt it. Costa Rica is such a beautiful country and we truly love it, BUT it is losing out to other Central America countries that are progress oriented!!!! We will visit again, but only when we are flushed with cash and know we will pay way in excess of anywhere else in Central and North America. *Mr. Simonson is from Leesburg, Florida. EDITOR'S NOTE: Businesses that decline to take credit cards sometimes are defrauding the country by not remitting the sales tax. |
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| You need to see Costa Rican tourism information HERE! |
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
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| A.M. Costa Rica's Fourth News page | |||||
| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 25, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 146 | |||||
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| APM Terminals gets more time to obtain permits for
Moín project |
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By
the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Plans to begin construction of a new container terminal in Limón are on hold for three months more due to legal reasons. The Caribbean economic development agency agreed to extend the start date for the work that was slated to begin Thursday. A request to do so came from the Consejo Nacional de Concesiones. This is the nearly $1 billion modern container facility that is highly controversial. Construction is now set for Oct. 24, according to the written agreement. The business APM Terminals is contracted to build the structure in Moín. However officials say that there are more permits and background requests that need to be checked before the company can break ground. “Legal certainty must be guaranteed so to allow the state and Costa Ricans to continue attracting investments, generating employment, and maintaining the export interests of a stable economy,” said Ann McKinley Meza, the president of the development agency, the Junta de Administración Portuaria y Desarrollo Económica de la Vertiente Atlántica. According to a clause in the contract, the company's work will be postponed until it presents all necessary permits, approvals, and |
licenses required
by Costa Rica. A current problem is the environmental impact statement
that has been ruled deficient. “In this case the administrator will postpone the order's commencement until it's been verified that the contracted party has complied with all the stated conditions that are pending approval,” the contract reads. The government is not financially liable to APM Terminals for the suspension, according to the suspension agreement. APM Terminals has been dogged by legal appeals and complaints from unhappy employees of the government docks in Moín. A recent problem was an access road that passed over mangroves. APM Terminals will build an artificial island and do major dredging, so the environmental impact is substantial. Some shippers also oppose the new facility because their costs will be greater. The political implications of the terminal facility are complex. Some business leaders expect President Luis Guillermo Solís to try to find a way to dump the project to appease allies who do not favor concessions of public facilities. Lawmakers from leftist Frente Amplio already have called for the contract to be trashed. |
Here's reasonable medical care
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| What we published this week: | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Earlier |
| The contents of this page and this Web site are copyrighted by A.M. Costa Rica.com Ltda. 2014 and may not be reproduced anywhere without permission. Abstracts and fair use are permitted. Check HERE for details | ||||||
| A.M. Costa Rica's Fifth news page |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 25, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 146 | |||||||
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 Kathy Babcock photo
The border fence at Sasabe,
Arizona, looking south into Sonora, Mexico.Volunteers
work the border
to keep migrants healthy By the A.M. Costa Rica wire services
Kathy Babcock’s involvement with immigration issues began with a knock on her door. Three days after she moved to Green Valley, Arizona, two Mexican migrants who had crossed the border knocked, asking for food and water. “We had no idea what was going on here,” said Ms. Babcock, who had recently moved from the San Francisco area to the retirement community, which is located about 70 kilometers from the border. “We gave them food and water and $10 and pointed them north.” She soon became involved with a group called the Green Valley Samaritans, whose mission “is to save lives in the desert,” she said, noting their group has about 100 active volunteers, almost all of them retirees, and is funded by donations. Like Ms. Babcock, many of the dozens of organizations and volunteer groups that work along the U.S.-Mexico border became involved, and continue to operate, because of the immigration concerns they see occurring in their own backyard. The groups have one common goal: no more deaths of migrants crossing illegally into the United States. The groups say Operation Gatekeeper, a border enforcement policy enacted in 1994, has led to a marked increase in migrant injuries and deaths. The operation concentrated border agents and added walls and fencing in populated areas. The result: it forced migrants trying to cross the border into increasingly remote, harsh environments, using natural barriers as a deterrent. A 2009 report by the American Civil Liberties Union stated: Since Operation Gatekeeper went into effect in 1994, an estimated 5,600 migrants have died while attempting unauthorized border crossings. Enrique Morones, the president and founder of San Diego-based Border Angels, said that number has now grown to more than 10,000 deaths. In response to migrants dying in these conditions, many longtime groups, such as Humane Borders, No More Deaths and Border Angels, place water, food and other essentials along well-traveled paths that migrants use in the deserts from Texas to California. Juanita Molina, executive director of Humane Borders, said dehydration is the No. 1 cause of death among those crossing the border. Humane Borders, beginning in 2000, started maintaining a network of dozens of water stations – ranging from a single 250-liter barrel of water to a half-dozen barrels – in remote locations in Arizona and across the border in Mexico. The land that migrants travel across is high desert, Ms. Molina said. “I think it’s very difficult to understand. What we’re looking at here in the desert is you have the vast wilderness, extreme heat and lack of water. “It’s possible for someone to be perfectly healthy and to die within 48 hours,” she said. In addition to the water stations, Humane Borders has joined the Pima County, Arizona, medical examiner in mapping the deaths of migrants attempting to cross the Arizona-Mexico border, Ms. Molina said. Between October 1999 and June 2013, Humane Borders collected data on more than 2,400 migrant deaths in Pima County. The Arizona OpenGIS Initiative for Deceased Migrants allows family members who have lost a loved one to find the location where they died and, when possible, the cause of death, Ms. Molina said. Among the main causes of death, when a cause can be found, is exposure and blunt-force trauma. The Tucson sector, which covers much of the Arizona border, and the Rio Grande Valley sector in Texas are the most deadly for migrants crossing the border, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. In 2013, 194 people died in the Tucson sector; 156 died in the Rio Grande Valley sector. Earlier this month, the Border Patrol said it had already identified more than 220 deaths along the Southwest border, including 34 water-related deaths, so far this year. Ms. Molina noted that migration is down by all accounts and yet “we find over 150 remains each year and we aren’t actively searching.” It “was always the hope when the organization started – we would put out water and show the rate of deaths and the government would be horrified and we’d find an end to this,” Ms. Molina said. “That hasn’t happened.” Maryada Vallet, a media spokesperson with No More Deaths, founded in 2004, said the group’s volunteers run year-round camps in remote sections of the Arizona desert. They hike the Sonoran desert, mapping migration trails and leaving water, food and other critical items along high-traffic paths. In the past 10 years, she said the group has maintained its core desert aid work, but they have adapted to changes along the border. In 2006, they began providing support to the thousands of undocumented migrants being deported from the U.S. to Mexico, Ms. Vallet said. These were people, Ms. Vallet said, “who had lived in the U.S. for 20 to 30 years … who hardly spoke Spanish anymore,” and they were being left to fend for themselves in towns across the border. Their group works in the border towns of Nogales, Sonora, and Agua Prieta, Mexico, providing aid to recent deportees, including an orientation to the towns as well as how to contact family members from whom they’ve been separated. They also provide witness in the desert to what they call a low-grade war zone, Ms. Vallet said. No More Deaths has begun to document abuse suffered by the migrants in short-term border custody, Ms. Vallet said. The group’s 2011 report, "A Culture of Cruelty," documented more than 30,000 incidents of abuse and mistreatment of detainees over a three-year period, Ms. Vallet said. She said detainees, who are usually held less than 72 hours, say they have endured verbal and physical abuse while in custody, medical negligence, loss of belongings and repatriation at night. With this information, Ms. Vallet said, it’s “concerning that so many thousands of children are in custody now.” The Green Valley Samaritans have found hundreds of migrants by traveling the old mining roads between their town and the border crossing near Sasabe, Arizona, Ms. Babcock said. These roads are deceiving, she said. When migrants get in trouble in the desert – they have lost their group, they are unable to walk because of injury, or they are elderly or young, tired or ill – they head for a road, thinking someone will travel by, she said. But these roads don’t get much traffic, said Ms. Babcock, 68, who regularly goes out on searches with her partners, who are 78 and 83 years old. Of the people they do find, 90 percent of them “want to go back to where they came from,” she said. In those cases, they call the Border Patrol, who will send an agent to pick up the migrant. If migrants want to go on, though, Samaritans caution them about the dangers of crossing the desert and explain about the checkpoints in the distance. They can’t give migrants a map, so they will point them in the right direction. And the group’s members always send off the migrants with water and food, first aid supplies, clean socks and a hat, she said. The Samaritans also clean up the trash left by migrants traveling through the desert. They find lots of cans of Red Bull and bottles of No-Doz, she said, adding that traffickers often feed the migrants these items to keep them walking and to walk faster. They also find packages of birth control, she said. Some women, Ms. Babcock said, fearing they will be raped on the journey, take birth control to prevent pregnancy. Victor Brabble, Customs and Border Protection spokesperson for Arizona, said the agency shares a common goal with the humanitarian groups: mitigating deaths in the border region. But "do we see eye to eye with these groups all the time? No," Brabble said. “We don’t work side-by-side with them, but we do share the same mission.” He said the agency shares with the groups information about some aspects of their mission, such as a recent rescue beacon program. The Border Patrol has erected in the desert nearly two dozen nine-meter-tall beacons that shine a blue light that is visible for kilometers. The beacons have signs in three languages that direct users to push a red button that sends out a signal for help, and border agents respond. He said the agency has about 5,000 agents on the Arizona border. Many are trained first-responders, because enforcement can often lead to search-and-rescue efforts by the agents, he said. Over the July 4th holiday, Brabble said border agents rescued a diabetic migrant who had fallen ill and been left behind by his group. Brabble said border agents are told not to interfere with humanitarian groups' efforts. However, No More Deaths videotaped border agents vandalizing water drops last year. Brabble said that did happen, and the agents were dealt with and instructed not to interfere with the group's efforts. While Babcock said the Samaritan volunteers have never been threatened or seen evidence of drug trafficking, Brabble said the Border Patrol has warned the humanitarian groups of the potential for danger. “We urge our humanitarian groups to proceed with caution. You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” he said, adding the migrants could be criminals, gang members or drug traffickers. That's just what Jim Gibson, executive vice president and media liaison for the Texas Border Volunteers, said he sees in Brooks County, Texas. Gibson said of the migrants that have been apprehended in the county, many have links to Mexican gangs, such as MS13 and La Hermandad de Pistoleros Latinos. Brooks County is part of the Border Patrol’s Laredo sector, which ranks third in both migrant apprehensions and deaths, as well as drug seizures, according to patrol statistics. Yet the county lies more than 100 kilometers from the border. The Volunteers, which started as part of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps in Arizona, broke away and formed its own group, focusing on Texas-specific issues and becoming more proactive in aligning themselves with law enforcement, he said. The group works closely with Border Patrol and local law enforcement, conducting surveillance watches about eight times a year, Gibson said. Members will conceal themselves on private land and, using night-vision and thermal-imaging equipment, identify, observe and report to border agents the groups or individual migrants they see. Many times, the groups will walk right by the concealed members, he added. Unlike groups that provide humanitarian aid to migrants, Gibson said the Volunteers try to avoid contact with the migrant groups. In fact, they have a strict no-contact policy, he said, for several reasons, including group members have no way to know if a migrant has a criminal background or is ill. Also, he said, if they cause a group to scatter, it makes the Border Patrol's job harder in locating the migrants, and could cause some migrants to get lost in the rugged countryside. Gibson described the terrain in Brooks County, which has a population of about 7,000, as harsh – filled with heavy brush, sandy soil that makes it difficult for foot traffic, triple-digit temperatures in summer. “If you get lost out there and don’t know what you’re doing, don’t have food and water,” you could die, Gibson said. “In the process of reporting these people,” he said, “we’re saving lives.” The humanitarian crisis caused by a recent influx of migrants from Central America crossing the U.S.-Mexico border is no surprise to the many organizations and volunteer groups who work there. All the humanitarian groups interviewed said that, up until about 2006, the majority of those crossing the border illegally were Mexican migrants looking for work. But about three years ago, the groups said they started to see a dramatic shift in the migrant population, to people from basically three Central American countries: Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. “This current phenomenon shouldn’t be called a surge,” said Ms. Vallet, of No More Borders. “We’ve seen this increase steadily over the last few years, in women and children from Central America.” The reason for the crossings changed as well, they said, from migrants looking to make a living to feed their families to those escaping violence, poverty and gang activity. Texas’ Rio Grande Valley is not only the No. 1 spot for migrant apprehensions along the Southwest U.S. border, but it also has become the most popular crossing area for Central American migrants. Since October 2013, Border Patrol agents have apprehended nearly 43,000 migrants trying to cross the border in the Rio Grande Valley. A collective of south Texas community and faith organizations, known as South Texas Refugee Response, joined efforts, setting up a short-term shelter on June 10. Since then, they have helped more than 3,200 people. For the Brownsville diocese, the response to the humanitarian crisis began as a grassroots effort, said Brenda Riojas, communications director for the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville. Earlier this year, local parishioners witnessed migrant women and children being dropped off at the bus station in McAllen, Texas. The women and children had been caught illegally crossing the U.S. border, and after being detained and given hearing dates to appear before immigration courts, were released to find family members living elsewhere in the United States. Riojas said many of the women and children were in need, tired, confused, unsure of how to contact family members in some cases. At first, parishioners started providing humanitarian aid, food and water, from the trunks of their cars at the bus station, she said. As the numbers grew, though, officials at the bus station requested Catholic Charities’ help, saying their space was not suitable for the services the volunteers were providing. Riojas said the organizations throughout the community, and especially the city of McAllen, stepped up and provided multiple services to the migrants. The Salvation Army provides meals, Save the Children works with the children, allowing the mothers to shower, rest or make travel arrangements. The local municipality brought in portable showers, doctors donate their time, and one private donor even provided the use of a medical unit. Two parishes – Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville and Sacred Heart Church in McAllen – provide space for the families. Some women and children stay just long enough to catch the next bus, but most stay for about 24 hours, long enough to shower and arrange travel. On a recent day in San Diego, Morones, of the Border Angels, was working with college student volunteers who had planned to deliver water to the desert as well as helping recent detainees - a woman and her young daughter who had made the long trek from El Salvador - coordinate travel plans to find relatives in the U.S. The mother and daughter came, he said, because the daughter, who is just 7 years old, had witnessed a man get killed and the mother feared for her daughter’s life. Project manager Lonnie Briseno said Project Oak Tree, an effort by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces, started providing aid on July 2 and has helped about 80 migrants from Central America so far. By the time the refugees arrive in Las Cruces, he said, “Some have been very distraught. Some women were separated from their husbands at the border and they don’t know where their husbands are.” Medically, many are tired, dehydrated and emotionally drained, Briseno said. Earlier this month, the Border Patrol launched an ad campaign directed at Central America residents who are considering crossing the U.S. border. Brabble said the campaign stresses the many dangers of trying to cross the border and tries to dissuade migrants from making that decision. The U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that it has worked with several non-governmental organizations regarding migrant detainees. Danielle Bennett, a spokesperson for the agency, said in a statement that its Enforcement and Removal Operations officers in Arizona work with the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project regarding their mission to provide legal access and assistance to detained aliens. In 2013, the Border Patrol apprehended more than 400,000 migrants crossing the Southwest U.S. border. Since October of last year, 50,000 unaccompanied children, as well as 39,000 adults and children, have been caught crossing the border, according to the Obama administration. President Barack Obama recently asked Congress for $3.7 billion to address the huge influx of Central American migrants attempting to cross into Texas, calling the situation an urgent humanitarian crisis. Several of the groups said they were pleased with his word choice. However, they said his response to the crisis – the proposal includes more money for border enforcement and speedier deportation hearings - is anything but humanitarian. “With his request, he’s treating it as more of a homeland security issue and enforcement issue, instead of a humanitarian one,” No More Death’s Ms. Vallet said. “More enforcement isn’t part of the answer … it’s leading to the problem.” Border Angels’ Morones agreed, saying, “A humanitarian crisis needs a humanitarian response. Deporting them is not a humanitarian response,” he said. “The best thing the president could do is have humane reform.” Morones said for all the debate over immigration, no one has bothered to ask the migrants themselves why they are crossing. “We’re talking to these families. They just want to be documented,” he said. There are three main reasons the migrants come, Morones said. “The No. 1 reason, they want to put food on their table. No. 2, they want to be with their families already in the U.S. No. 3, they want to escape the violence. The most violent countries in the Americas” are Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Riojas, of the Brownsville diocese, said what their volunteers are hearing from the migrants is they just want a safe place to raise their children. “I don’t think anyone has an easy answer” to this current crisis, she said. “We do have to consider that they are refugees – they’re not leaving to come here for vacation. They’re leaving because the situation in their home country makes it very challenging to raise a family. They’re trying to find a safe space. “The world is watching how we’re reacting to this humanitarian crisis,” Riojas added. The women and children who come here “want a safe place for their families to grow. Simply returning them to their home countries is not an answer.” |
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| San José, Costa Rica, Friday, July 25, 2014, Vol. 14, No. 146 | |||||||||
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Murdered
woman identified fully
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
A United States woman who was killed Wednesday after being hit over the head with a rock has been identified as Esther Pearl Kropf Yoder, according to the Judicial Investigating Organization. The organization's initial report named the 36-year-old Costa Rica resident as Crock. More details emerged Thursday concerning the woman's fatal outing in the mountainous area of Los Ángeles de Limoncito en Sabanillas de Coto Brus. According to judicial agents, a man who belonged in the same Mennonite sect as Kropf is considered the primary suspect. Police said that the man, identified as Moisés Jimenéz Torres, attempted to sexually assault Kropf and beat her over the head with a large rock when she resisted. Torres, 20, then approached the religious group's leader and they decided to alert authorities, who immediately arrived at the scene where Torres showed them where the body lay, the report said. Torres is currently in custody awaiting a decision on his judicial status. It appears the two had known each other for a long time as Torres told police that the woman had physically and emotionally attacked him from an early age. A spokesperson said there was no information on how long the woman was living in Costa Rica.  Ministerio de Gobernación,
Policía y Seguridad Pública
That's the turtle in the
trunkPolice were surprised opening the trunk By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Police appear to have saved a leatherback turtle from the butcher's block. Fuerza Pública officers flagged down a vehicle for inspection just before noon Thursday only to be met with gunfire. After a chase one person was caught when the vehicle was stopped, they said. A second man, presumed to be the gunman, fled, they said. The big surprise came when officers found a live leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) in the trunk. They said they thought the men were going to slaughter the creature and sell the meat. The incident happened on the Caribbean coast in La Bomba de Limón where police maintained a checkpoint. They also said that the vehicle involved has been reported stolen. The turtle appeared to be unharmed, and it was to be returned to the sea. |
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