A New Latin America Says "No" to Torture

In 1991, during my senior year of college, I partook in an alternative spring break trip to Guatemala. While I had visited parts of Mexico during the late 1980s, this was my first foray further into Latin America.  Prior to this – and I hate to admit it – I was pretty naïve about Latin American history.  Although I have written before about the United States’ involvement in the region, I did not appreciate the full extent and long-lasting effects of that involvement until this sojourn.

It is no accident that Loyola University sponsored the trip.  Loyola is a Jesuit school and Jesuit priests at the time were the leading proponents of liberation theology. Liberation theology offered a revised interpretation of the Bible, specifically the New Testament Gospels, and had significant influence in Latin America.  That interpretation held, in a nutshell, that the poor and powerless were not on this earth to suffer towards a greater reward in heaven, but rather should work with the religious and others to improve their lot in this life.  In short, liberation theology offered an early response to the question “What would Jesus do?”  The answer was that Jesus would uplift the poor.

As one can imagine, liberation theology was an attractive notion to a young college student - just the right mixture of politics, activism, and revisionist Catholicism.  The two weeks I spent with my classmates at the Catholic mission in the Guatemalan countryside, some miles from the capital city, had a profound influence on me that continues up through today.

Carmelo de Nazareth Catholic Mission, Guatemala, 1991
Source: Author's private collection

One reason this experience was so profound is that my visit occurred when Guatemalans were engaged in a civil war, with the United States having supported the repression of indigenous populations conducted by various ruling military dictatorships over the years.  It is no wonder then that a recent New York Times piece grabbed my attention.  Thankfully, a lot has changed in Guatemala over the 22 years since my visit, evidenced by the impending public trial of former military dictator, Efraín Ríos Montt.  Charged officially with genocide, Montt is responsible for numerous cases of murder, torture, rape, and other human rights violations conducted during his rule.  Montt’s trial marks a significant turn for Guatemala and promises to provide some measure of justice and closure for the victims and survivors of Montt's cruel reign.

Some of the locals and I pause from our work - building a new church.
Guatemala, 1991. Source: Author's private collection

But what is as equally significant as Montt’s impending trial is not only the measure of justice it offers the people of Guatemala, but also that Guatemala as a nation has learned from its past.  Other nations in the region also seem to have learned from their own experiences with repressive dictatorships.  As it happens, the announcement of Montt’s trial for human rights violations coincided with a recent Washington Post analysis of those countries that have or continue to cooperate with the United States in its transnational torture program of suspected terrorist suspects - a program consisting of among other things, rendition by way of secret late night flights to undisclosed and officially non-existent black sites.  As discussed at Tom Dispatches.com, seemingly every country on the planet has fallen into the US’ imperial sphere of torture – every country that is except for those in Latin America.

Speaking almost uniformly, Latin American nations have said "No" to their imperial neighbor to the north.  In so doing, they have taken a stand for human rights and against the most violent forms of repression by denying the US the use of air space to spirit away suspects, the use of it territories to establish black sites, and the other types of support needed to conduct rendition and torture.

This is a positive and hopeful development for Latin Americans as they emerge from the darkness of their histories while simultaneously gaining the confidence to refuse US demands rather than capitulate under US economic, military, and political intimidation.  Still, while admit my youthful naiveté about how the world works, I cannot do so now.  I realize that Latin American nations’ stance against US-sponsored torture will not bring about the practice’s immediate end, but it does provide an example other countries – including our own – can and should follow.

The Guatemalan countryside, 1991
Source: Author's private collection

Immigration Reform and the Presidential Race

There has been much ado about President Obama's announcement last week that he would use his executive privilege to use discretion regarding dealings with unauthorized immigrants who meet certain criteria. This discretion is focused on Dreamers, the self-named group of young people whose parents brought them to the United States illegally when they were very young, who attended and completed their schooling in the U.S., have no criminal background, and/or have served in the military. Obama has said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will now use discretion with regards to this group, halting their deportation if they meet certain criteria, and even granting them temporary 2-year work permits. 

Initially, there was elation from immigration reform advocates, especially the Dreamers, but upon further examination that excitement was tempered. 

First, they had to respond to critics that this executive order was unconstitutional and sidestepped the legislative process and Congress. This was despite an open letter to Obama sent by a large group of legal scholars and lawyers  two weeks prior to the President's announcement, criticizing the President for not using executive powers around immigration. They argued that historical actions by other presidents and legal precedent would allow Obama to exercise his authority to halt deportations and grant temporary legal status to some immigrants. 

A second point, was the issue of political pandering by Obama. Some argued that Obama's decision to defer action on the deportation of some unauthorized immigrants was reacting to this pressure and the pressure from Dreamers who were occupying some of his campaign offices. They suggested that Obama's act was purely political, but pragmatically for them it was a step in the right direction. 

This raised a third area of doubt, because the order did not represent any sort of permanent change. Obama had a longstanding position that discretion should be used with regards to unauthorized immigrants who had no criminal records. Despite that he still holds the dubious distinction of deporting record numbers of unauthorized immigrants compared to other administrations. Actually, some wondered if anything changed at all because his current announcement is really just "old wine in a new wineskin." 

These previous points relate to the issue of the President's commitment to immigration reform and  Latinos more generally. Despite promises of comprehensive immigration reform that would occur in his first year in office, he did nothing to move the issue forward. When the less comprehensive DREAM Act reached Congress for a vote, he expended very little, if any political capital to get it passed. When called out by immigration reform advocates regarding his lack of support, Obama has proven "testy" and even "hostile." An extended Washington Post piece cites numerous examples of Obama's defensiveness around immigration issues, and a seeming overall unwillingness to change his actions, leading some to question where he really stands on the issue.

Romeny's political reaction was muted at first, but he finally proposed some potential reforms to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) yesterday. Ironically, despite calling the president's immigration policy unconstitutional, he proposed very similar unilateral executive policies as part of his immigration stance. Overall, though, he presented little of substance in the way of immigration reform, perhaps showing that he still stands on his simplistic "self-deport" platform.

Perhaps Romney believes that his immigration and Latino trump card is Marco Rubio. An article by African American writer Earl Ofari Hutchinson seems to suggest this might be true. In this article I think that Mr. Hutchinson's lens is clouded by the Black-White binary paradigm that pervades American thinking. Latinos are really diverse and complex. While there are some trends such as being opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage, IN GENERAL, when you look at Latino sub-groups, such as generational status, age, specific country of origin, these overall trends disappear; One trend that does seem to trump that complexity and gives Latinos something to stand together on is immigration; we are all still pretty closely tied to our immigrant roots AND many people (using the Black-White paradigm) assume that Latino is synonymous with immigrant. Because we realize that having our nativity questioned is a big source of bias, we tend toward favoring immigration reform that might remove that stigma. We would probably be much more likely to vote on that issue alone, as the Obama bump in the last week shows. That is much more a reason for us to vote as a bloc than whether someone with a Spanish surname was on the ticket of either party. While Rubio may offer some moderate views that are agreeable to Latinos, especially given his Democratic past and love of hip-hop (sarcasm), he too has been pretty much in the background in terms of his immigration stance, with the public still awaiting the immigration reform legislation that he said he would be putting forward a while ago. 

All of this is to say that immigration will certainly be a big deal this election. And, with the Census releasing more evidence of the ever-growing Latino population, it really is time that politicians of both parties stop talking and start acting.