A Tale Of Two Arizona 9 Year Olds

By now everyone has heard the story about 9 year old Christina Taylor Green, who died along with five other people in the attempted assassination of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

President Obama mentions the born on 9-11 girl in his Tucson speech during the memorial service.  Pleas for national civility followed in her name and an overflow crowd complete with the 9-11 flag waving in the breeze attended her funeral that got national television coverage..

But for 9 year old Brisenia Flores of Arivaca, AZ, there wasn't any overflow crowd at her funeral.  There was no national news coverage of her funeral, continuing cable coverage or national outrage over her murder.

On May 30, 2009  Brisenia's home 11 miles north of the border was invaded by a group led by Shawna Forde of racist anti-immigration Minutemen.

The right wing extremist Minutemen had been on a mission to jack up drug dealers to fund their 'patriotic' activities of unsolicited vigilante patrols of the Mexican border.    Forde also has ties to FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform which was declared a hate group in 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center.  She appeared as their spokeperson in a 2006 PBS show about immigration issues and had formed her own Minuteman group called the Minuteman American Defense.

Forde and friends had been given inaccurate information that the Flores home had drugs and cash inside it. In the early morning hours of May 30 Forde and her accomplices forced their way into the house claiming they were law enforcement personnel looking for fugitives.   They killed Brisenia's father Raul and shot her mother Gina Gonzalez three times, who survived the shooting by playing dead.

In Terry Green Sterling's story posted to The Daily Beast, according to prosecutors, when Brisenia asked the gunman "Why did you shoot my mom?" the man put a gun to her head and fired the two bullets that killed her.    The Flores family's other daughter fortunately was staying with her grandmother at the time.

The trial of Forde, Jason Bush and Albert Gaxiola is taking place in Tucson and ironically was postponed in the wake of the Tuscon shootings.   Forde and friends are facing the death penalty if convicted and one of the witnesses will be Gina Gonzalez..
     

Arivaca, AZ also happens to be in Pima County as well.  Sheriff Clarence Dupnik earned the ire of the right wing when he said in the wake of the Giffords shooting::   

The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

Sheriff Dupnik was not shy about expressing himself in the wake of the Flores tragedy either.   He called the murder of Brisenia at the time 'one of the most despicable acts I'd heard of.'

I have the same questions as the Crooks and Liars blog story does.   Why hasn't the rest of America heard about it?   Is it because it happened to a Latino family?  Is it because it rips the so called patriotic 'were not racist' neighborhood watch mask off the Minutemen vigilantes running around in the desert playing with automatic weapons and hatin' on Latinos?

Or is it because once again it points out the connection between right wing political rhetoric,.talk show hate speech and the violence it leads to that cost a 9 year old Latina girl and her family their lives?

It also sadly points out the Grand Canyon sized chasm in terms of the level of attention that's garnered by two Arizona nine year olds and the value placed on their lives.

Alexandra Can Stay In USA

Tom Tancredo and most of the Republifool anti-immigration crowd are always screaming 'deport them' as their answer to the immigration debate when in many cases, it's not that simple.

In addition to the fact there are an estimated 12 million undocumented people here, what if you immigrated to the States without documentation to save your life?

That's the situation 32 year old transwoman Alexandra Reyes found herself in.   While growing up in Cenotillo, Mexico she got caught at age 8 wearing her sister's clothes and shoes. She was tied to a tree by her father and severely beaten for it.

The non acceptance and trans hatred in her family continued to fester and only escalated from that point.
An aunt once walked into her bedroom bearing a machete with the intent to kill her because she didn't want Alexandra in the family any more. 

The Mexican police would decline to arrest her tormentors, so in 2000 she paid a smuggler to get her across the border, then spent four days and nights walking across the desert until she reached Colorado and the safety of a friend who was living there.

She got into trouble over a round trip cab fare from Aurora, CO to Breckenridge that totaled $500 but the friend she was meeting refused to pay thus sticking her with the bill.   She went to the cab company a week later to pay it, but the cab company called the police, who then called ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) on her.    

Because Alexandra is preoperative, she spent 11 months housed with male prisoners in an immigration detention facility but according to a Denverpost.com report didn't have any adverse incidents happen.

Because same gender marriage is legal in Mexico City and GLBT tourists head to Mexican beach resorts on a regular basis,  there is a perception among immigration judges that Mexico is tolerant and welcoming.   But what many people also forget is that Mexico is a Roman Catholic with rural pockets of intolerance in in the country. 


Alexandra's immigration attorney Bryon Large argued before the Board of Immigration Appeals against her deportation back to Mexico by recalling a case of a gay Mexican citizen that was deported after being denied asylum by Canada.   That person was found dead after returning to Mexico.

Alexandra clearly fit into that category.   "It would be physically dangerous for her to walk down the street," said Large. 'She could be sexually assaulted"

 
Thanks to the efforts of Large and the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, Reyes was

granted asylum last week based on the abuse she'd already suffered and the determination that she would not be protected by the Mexican government if she were deported.

One of the conditions of her asylum status is she can't leave the US and has to stay out of legal trouble.   But it's not like Reyes is eager to return to her birth country.  She's now living in a Aurora apartment with friends and deciding what kind of work she'd like to do while waiting to receive her work permit

"What I have seen here is people are more open than people from my country," she said. "Sometimes I miss Mexico, but I am scared to return."

Tomball Refuses To Pass Anti-Immigrant Measures

There's anti-Texas sentiment in liberal-progressive circles that is fueled in large portions due to the extreme dislike of the GW Bush misadministration and the Texas GOP being as nekulturny, homophobic, transphobic and racist as they can be.

It's something that annoys me as a proud daughter of the state who knows its progressive history and is acutely aware of the fact that current Republican control of it is only a recent phenomenon.

Thought I'd hip you Texas haters to a story that isn't getting much coverage in the national press outside of the Houston Chronicle that bolsters mine and a lot of true blue Texans faith in our fellow citizens.

It also points out that progressive attitudes just aren't ensconced in Austin, Dallas, Corpus Christi, El Paso, Houston and the Rio Grande valley.

Tomball is a 'burb in the far northern reaches of Harris County which has had an influx of Latinos throughout the years. For the last month the local Tea Klux Klan has been stirring up anti Latino and anti-immigrant animus over a ten year old day laborer center funded by the city of Tomball.

Tuesday night first term Tomball City Councilman Derek Townsend, Sr. placed two anti immigrant measures on the Tuesday city council calendar in front of a packed city council chamber filled with proponents and opponents of the measures.

Townsend told the audience the usual 'white wing' spin line that his proposals were not about racism, but about standing up for the US Constitution.

Bull feces. One proposal was to make English the official language of the city of Tomball. What was the other one? It sought to prohibit undocumented immigrants from renting, owning property or owning or operating a business there.

So Texas haters, guess which way the Tomball City Council voted? If you said in favor of both proposals, wrong. Both went down in flames.

The Tomball councilmembers besides Derek Townsend probably had in mind what happened to the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch.

In 2006 Farmers Branch voted to make English the city's official language and followed it up in 2007 with a measure to prohibit landlords from renting property to illegal immigrants. Both ordinances got struck down earlier this year by federal judges as unconstitutional.

"I'd sure hate to take our people down that route," said City Councilman Rick Brown. "It's lawsuit after lawsuit."

Councilman Preston Dodson agreed, saying such a move could have "huge constitutionality issues."

So there you have it, Texas haters. A group of Texas politicians that did the right thing and not the 'right wing' thing.

Imagine that. Now where's my Blue Bell homemade vanilla?

Fatine Gets To Stay In The UK

In August 2006 Ian Young, who was working as a security guard at the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, sat next to a beautiful 32 year old young woman in the crowded Starbucks at the base of the Petronas Towers.

Little did the then 26 year old know at the time he would be sitting next to his future wife. He also didn't know at the moment she was trans. Fatine and Ian struck up a conversation and at the end of it when she got up to leave Young asked her out.

Fatine transitioned at age 17 and after revealing her trans status to him, he still took her out to a local bar. A friendship and romance was kindled that night which eventually led to her moving to the UK and marrying Young.

But Fatine's paperwork to remain in the UK with her husband met some resistance and she faced deportation to a Malaysia that is not exactly friendly to trans people thanks to increasing Islamic fundamentalist anti-trans sentiment.

The UK Home Office wanted her to go back to Malaysia and reapply for admission into the UK, and she had already had some questionable nitpicking occur with her application in addition to outright transphobia in the Kuala Lumpur office because gender code on her Malaysian passport didn't match the presentation of the person in possession of the passport.

The publicity surrounding her love story also plucked some nerves in Malaysia's Muslim community and generated death threats on her FB page. Had she been deported, as a Muslim she faced being arrested and tried under Sharia law upon her arrival, so she applied for asylum in the UK.

I'm happy to report that it was recently granted, and now Fatine can focus on living her life with the man she loves.

I love happy endings.