Eagle Pass Has Been Invaded, And Not by Migrants

By Peter Schurmann

This once quiet Texas town has been overrun by a swarm of agents and officers as Gov. Greg Abbot wages war on migrants along the US's southern border.

Above: Jessie Fuentes stands during an August 7 vigil organized by residents of Eagle Pass to protest Gov. Greg Abbot’s policies and to remember migrants who died crossing the Rio Grande. Fuentes is the owner of a kayak business in Eagle Pass, which he started after he retired in order to offer tours of the river. According to Manuel Ortiz, Fuentes is a deeply spiritual man and a lover of nature. He sees Abbot’s barriers as a violation of life, both of the people and of the natural world.

“What the government is doing here is killing the river… They are destroying our community.”

(Credit: Manuel Ortiz)

“When you approach Eagle Pass from San Antonio, there’s nothing for miles… then you hear the helicopters.”

That’s how photojournalist and Peninsula 360 founder Manuel Ortiz describes this tiny Texas

What’s for dinner

Amber Worrick of Southfield, MI went grocery shopping recently.

When she got home her daughter was helping her unpack and suddenly let out a scream when she spotted a live frog in the plastic package containing the spinach. “It was alive and moving,” according to Amber who told one TV reporter she didn’t want to become known as the “frog lady.” The grocery store manager, of course, gave her an apology and refunded the cost of the spinach.

###

Iguanas and snakes

You can imagine the shock Crystal Collins of Hollywood, FL had when her husband discovered an iguana in a toilet bowl in their home recently. "We both looked at each other like what are we going to do. I joked about burning the house down. Neither of us do lizards." They wound up calling a friend to come over and help get rid of the creature. Meanwhile, in Tucson, AZ, Michelle Lespron had a similar shock when she returned from vacation; she lifted the lid of her toilet and found a black and pink coachwhip snake. "I slammed the lid back down right away when I saw it," she told reporters. Michelle wasted no time in contacting a snake wrangler who explained that coachwhip snakes aren’t poisonous but can get aggressive.

###

A wedding they won’t forget city that is now the latest flash point in the ongoing fight over U.S. immigration policy. What was once “el pueblo de paso,” says Ortiz – a town to pass through – has now been invaded, and not by migrants.

Cailyn McRossie-Martinez and Brandon Martinez of Boulder, CO were married recently and, boy, did they have a wedding reception they’ll never forget. For one thing, the day featured what was described as monsoon rains and then a bear showed up at their wedding reception. The newlyweds took it in stride, though. As Brandon put it, “It’s not too often you go in to your dessert table and see a bear crashing it and eating all of it." Cailyn called it “the perfect Colorado wedding. Life doesn't always go to plan, but it's how you get through it together."

“Everywhere you go you see law enforcement officers, border patrol agents, soldiers” says Ortiz, who describes setting up his laptop at a local Starbucks to join an Aug. 4 briefing on the situation at the border. “It was full of police and border agents. That’s why I had to set up at one of the tables outside.”

The scene Ortiz describes is the result of Texas Gov. Greg Abbot’s increasingly harsh policies intended to curb the daily flow of migrants arriving at the U.S. southern border, most of them women, children, mothers, and fathers fleeing dire conditions in their home countries.

Manuel Ortiz, Sociologist, Journalist, and Documentary Filmmaker, Ethnic Media Services and Peninsula 360 Press, reports that even those in favor of strong border security find Governor Abbot’s new policies too extreme.

Ortiz’ photos, taken during a recent trip to the region, paint a stark portrait of the hope and desperation driving migrants, on the one hand, and the brutal measures advocated by officials like Abbot and presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis of Florida, on the other. Floating, spike tipped barriers interspersed with circular saws and razor wire line stretches of the Rio Grande separating Eagle Pass from Piedras Negras on the Mexican side, while all around the scorched terrain lie the detritus of passing migrants; discarded shoes worn to shreds, emptied water bottles.

An exhausted three-year-old gazes up at a state trooper, his father and mother – their faces burned by the sun – squat in the shade of a tree, gently assuring him that food will be coming. They wait, hopeful yet uncertain.

But, says Ortiz, this is a community with deep and historic ties that transcend the border, ties that won’t be severed by floating death traps and razor wire – images one would normally associate with places like the DMZ separating North and South Korea. Indeed, he says, Eagle Pass residents are fighting back, even erstwhile Abbot supporters who now say his policies have gone too far. People like Jessie Fuentes, who runs a kayaking business in Eagle Pass, or Madre Isabel Turcio, director of Casa Frontera Digna in Piedras Negras – where

E G A L S C L A S S I F I E D S your county law library, or the courthouse nearest you. If you cannot pay the filing fee, ask the court clerk for a fee waiver form. If you do not file your response on time, you may lose the case by default, and your wages, money, and property may be taken without further warning from the court. There are other legal requirements. You may want to call an attorney right away. If you do not know an attorney, you may want to call an attorney referral service. If you cannot afford an attorney, you may be eligible for free legal services from a nonprofit legal services program. You can locate these nonprofit groups at the California Legal Services Web site (www.lawhelpcalifornia.org), the California Courts Online SelfHelp Center (www.courtinfo.ca.gov/ selfhelp), or by contacting your local court or county bar association.

NOTE: The court has a statutory lien for waived fees and costs on any settlement or arbitration award of $10,000 or more in a civil case. The court's lien must be paid before the court will dismiss the case.

¡AVISO! Lo han demandado. Si no responde dentro de 30 días, la corte puede decidir en su contra sin escuchar su versión. Lea la información a continuación. Tiene 30 DÍAS DE CALENDARIO después de que le entreguen esta citación y papeles legales para presentar una respuesta por escrito en esta corte y hacer que se entregue una copia al demandante. Una carta o una llamada telefónica no lo protegen. Su respuesta por escrito tiene que estar en formato legal correcto si desea que procesen su caso en la corte. Es posible que haya un formulario que usted pueda usar para su respuesta. Puede encontrar estos formularios de la corte y más información en el Centro de Ayuda de las Cortes de California (www. sucorte.ca.gov), en la biblioteca de leyes de su condado o en la corte que le quede más cerca. Si no puede pagar la cuota de presentación, pida al secretario de la corte que le dé un formulario de exención de pago de cuotas. Si no presenta su respuesta a tiempo, puede perder el caso por incumplimiento y la corte le podrá quitar su sueldo, dinero y bienes sin más advertencia. Hay otros requisitos legales. Es recomendable que llame a un abogado inmediatamente. Si no conoce a un abogado, puede llamar a un servicio de remisión a abogados. Si no puede pagar a un abogado, es posible que cumpla con los requisitos para obtener servicios legales gratuitos de un programa de servicios legales sin fines de lucro. Puede encontrar estos grupos sin fines de lucro en el sitio web de California Legal Services, (www. lawhelpcalifornia.org), en el Centro de Ayuda de las Cortes de California, (www.sucorte.ca.gov) o poniéndose en contacto con la corte o el colegio de abogados locales. AVISO: Por ley, la corte tiene derecho a reclamar las cuotas y los costos exentos por imponer un gravamen sobre cualquier recuperación de $10,000 ó más de valor recibida mediante un acuerdo o una concesión de arbitraje en un caso de derecho civil. Tiene que pagar el gravamen de la corte antes de que la corte pueda desechar el caso.

The name and address of the court is (El nombre y dirección de la corte es):

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO San Bernardino Justice Center 247 West Third Street San Bernardino, CA 92415-0210

CASE NUMBER (Número del Caso): CIVSB 2127485

The name, address, and telephone number of plaintiff's attorney, or plaintiff without an attorney, is (El nombre, la dirección y el número may be taken without further warning from the court. There are other legal requirements. You may want to call an attorney right away. If you do not know an attorney, you may want to call an attorney referral service. If you cannot afford an attorney, you may be eligible for free legal services from a nonprofit legal services program. You can locate these nonprofit groups at the California Legal Services Web site (www.lawhelpcalifornia.org), the California Courts Online SelfHelp Center (www.courtinfo.ca.gov/ selfhelp), or by contacting your local court or county bar association. NOTE: The court has a statutory lien for waived fees and costs on any settlement or arbitration award of $10,000 or more in a civil case. The court's lien must be paid before the court will dismiss the case. ¡AVISO! Lo han demandado. Si no responde dentro de 30 días, la corte puede decidir en su contra sin escuchar su versión. Lea la información a continuación. Tiene 30 DÍAS DE CALENDARIO después de que le entreguen esta citación y papeles legales para presentar una respuesta por escrito en esta corte y hacer que se entregue una copia al demandante. Una carta o una llamada telefónica no lo protegen. Su respuesta por escrito tiene que estar en formato legal correcto si desea que procesen su caso en la corte. Es posible que haya un formulario que usted pueda usar para su respuesta. Puede encontrar estos formularios de la corte y más información en el Centro de Ayuda de las Cortes de California (www. sucorte.ca.gov), en la biblioteca de leyes de su condado o en la corte que le quede más cerca. Si no puede pagar la cuota de presentación, pida al secretario de la corte que le dé un formulario de exención de pago de cuotas. Si no presenta su respuesta a tiempo, puede perder el caso por incumplimiento y la corte le podrá quitar su sueldo, dinero y bienes sin más advertencia. Hay otros requisitos legales. Es recomendable que llame a un abogado inmediatamente. Si no conoce a un abogado, puede llamar a un servicio de remisión a abogados. Si no puede pagar a un abogado, es posible que cumpla con los requisitos para obtener servicios legales gratuitos de un programa de servicios legales sin fines de lucro. Puede encontrar estos grupos sin fines de lucro en el sitio web de California Legal Services, (www. lawhelpcalifornia.org), en el Centro de Ayuda de las Cortes de California, (www.sucorte.ca.gov) o poniéndose en contacto con la corte o el colegio de abogados locales. AVISO: Por ley, la corte tiene derecho a reclamar las cuotas y los costos exentos por imponer un gravamen sobre cualquier recuperación de $10,000 ó más de valor recibida mediante un acuerdo o una concesión de arbitraje en un caso de derecho civil. Tiene que pagar el gravamen de la corte antes de que la corte pueda desechar el caso. The name and address of the court is (El nombre y dirección de la corte es): Superior Court of California, County of SONOMA 600 Administration Drive, #100J, Santa Rosa, CA 95403. The name, address, and telephone number of plaintiff's attorney, or plaintiff without an attorney, is (El nombre, la dirección y el número de teléfono del abogado del demandante, o del demandante que no tiene abogado, es): Tristan P. Espinosa, Esq. (CA Bar No.: 312481) , REESE LAW GROUP, 3168 Lionshead Avenue, Carlsbad, CA 92010; 760/842-5850 (File No. 290293), DATE (Fecha): 2/15/2023 8:00 AM, Robert Oliver, Clerk (Secretario), by Misty Aguillo, Deputy (Adjunto) (SEAL), NOTICE TO THE PERSON SERVED:

Having our say against carbon pollution

by Benjamin Todd Jealous

Covid Makes a Comeback, But New Vaccines Are Around the Corner...continued

wildfires across North America, flooding across the northeastern U.S., and in July the single hottest month in recorded human history. These are the predictable consequences of manmade climate change, and unless we act with urgency, they only will get worse.

President Biden promised to reduce U.S. carbon pollution by half by 2030. We won’t reach that without even more ambitious rules than EPA has proposed, including more demand for community outreach by state regulators around pollution from existing plants.

Dr. Schaffner: Let us make it clear the vaccine is not associated with long Covid. There are some people who have received the vaccine who nonetheless can get Covid. We all know that that can happen. The vaccines seem to have some effect in reducing the likelihood of long Covid. But, yes, you can get Covid, and as a consequence, long Covid, even though you have been vaccinated. But the vaccines really reduce the risk of long Covid.

national bridge program. And then if you have insurance or MediCal or MediCare, people are obligated to give you the vaccine for free without a copay because of the Affordable Care Act.

Final remarks?

More than one million Americans told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that they aren’t willing to wait any longer.

Their comments insisting that EPA move forward quickly to cut carbon pollution from new and existing coal and natural gas-burning power plants were delivered in person in Washington by a coalition of a dozen national environment, environmental justice, and public health groups. It reportedly is the most public responses to a proposed environmental rule since President Biden took office. Their impatience is understandable. Power plants are the second largest source of climate-damaging greenhouse gases in the United States after cars, trucks, and planes. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported nearly six months ago that at the current global pace by 2030 we will blow through the threshold for carbon pollution that will keep the planet livable.

Unless we act fast and significantly, we are the allegorical frog in slowly warming water, except we are turning up the heat on ourselves. In just three months since EPA proposed the tougher carbon regulations, we’ve experienced

Not surprisingly, the groups representing electric utilities offered their typical knee-jerk responses to higher standards to curb pollution – too much, too fast, too risky. It sounded a lot like the complaints nearly a decade ago when the Obama administration unveiled its Clean Power Plan, and plants have met those targets since.

It begs the question of why an industry that reportedly saw $14 billion in profits last year, carried out $11 billion in stock buybacks, and asked for 14 percent more rate increases from consumers compared to 2021 isn’t doing more to create the technology it needs to keep from slowly baking the planet. And why it’s building enough new natural gas-burning plants to power 12.8 million households. Those plants could still be open in 2050 when even power companies say they’ll be at net zero carbon pollution and as the cost of producing electricity through renewable sources is slipping below the cost for generating it burning fossil fuels.

The timing of their objections to the new EPA rules is ironic. We’re also marking the oneyear anniversary of the historic package that the President and Congress crafted directing more than $350 billion in federal support to clean energy and good jobs.

Minority populations and low-income communities have always been at a higher risk for hospitalization and death from Covid. With the end of the Public Health Emergency, how can we ensure that everyone gets the tests, vaccines, and therapeutics they need to stay healthy?

Dr. Chin-Hong: Throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen a lot of disparities, including and particularly amongst the African American communities, both in terms of who is dying first of all and who is being hospitalized. But then we began to address some of the root causes, which were related to access to testing and related to probably a lot of structural racism. Of course, politics played a role, but even after the new administration, those disparities still persisted.

I think one silver lining was that vaccinations increased uptake in all communities, probably given the advocacy of a lot of grassroots organizations and community-based organizations.

So what is still free, after the Public Health Emergency ended May 11?

Vaccines are still free. There’s a bridge program that’s going to probably come into effect nationally that allows people — without demonstrating ability to pay — to get them at least until the end of the year in California, and probably extended with a

Dr. Neuman: The moon is far away. Mars is far away. We’ve been to both of those. It seems like the end of COVID is far away right now, but I have to believe that with human ingenuity, we can get there. I think the biggest challenge was and is in people’s hearts, convincing them not to fear the new and the newly approved and to do everything in their power to stop this virus. Because it doesn’t add anything to life, it only takes it away.

Dr. Schaffner: We have to remind ourselves that although the pandemic has receded, the virus is still with us and will be for the foreseeable future. It has the capacity to make people very, very ill. As I like to say, the virus is bad, vaccines are good. Take advantage of the new updated booster vaccine that will be available this fall, starting sometime in September. That will provide the best protection for yourself. Make sure your family is protected, and contribute to the protection of your own community.

Dr. Chin-Hong: Who would ever believe that we rallied together as a world to have so many tools to solve this crisis? It’s going to be around with us for a while: the 1918 flu influenza pandemic, there’s still vestiges still today. But the point is, we have these tools and it’s up to us to use it. And science and taking care of ourselves is not a political issue.

We have to take care of all populations and make sure everybody has access and ability to get these tools.

Eagle Pass Has Been Invaded, And Not by Migrants...continued

from page 6

LAO: Gov Newsom’s Mental Health Proposal Is “Unclear” on Children’s Services...continued from page 4 on six specific populations to gather input for community members on the most significant mental health needs of the population and effective advocacy for better access to behavioral health services. up to 100 migrants a day are sheltered and fed – are organizing in protest against measures they describe as inhumane, measures designed to inflict bodily harm on exhausted and impoverished people who – as have generations of people before them – sought shelter, safety and the chance for a better life in the U.S.

June 19, 2023, which proposes a $4.7 billion bond for behavioral health facilities and housing for veterans.

The statistics on mental illness among Black youth are troubling, according to experts. The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) reports that suicide rates among Black youth have risen to more than 12 per 100,000 youth in 2020, up from six per 100,000 in 2014. That number is much higher than the rates for White, Hispanic and Asian youth.

Nationally, rates of depression and anxiety have surged among Black youth as well. According to the National Institutes for Health, Black youth exhibit a greater susceptibility to stress, depression, and anxiety.

The CDPH reported that more than 16% of the state’s mental health clients were African American between 2007-2008. The overall Black population in California is less than 6%.

Newsom’s $4.7 billion Master Plan for Kid’s Mental Health released in 2022, the state allocated $30.5 million to 63 organizations providing mental health services that utilize community and evidence-based practices to provide support for parents, grandparents, and other family givers.

“California is stepping up to tackle the mental health crisis facing kids across the country. We’re overhauling our mental health system with an unprecedented all-of-the-above approach to connect families with the care and support their kids need to grow up healthier and stronger,” Newsom stated in the plan.

Tom Orrock, MHSOAC’s Deputy Director of Operations, and staff welcomed nearly 60 Listening Session participants to the online meeting that lasted 90 minutes.

Natalie Champion, Project Manager for Los Angeles-based California Black Women’s Health Project (CBWHP), was one of the speakers during the session. Champion and her husband, Marcus Champion, were part of the effort that helped Secretary of State Shirley Weber create the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans through Assembly Bill (AB) 3121.

Champion said CBWHP created a mental health program that provided state training for over 160 Black women to become mental health advocates in communities across the state. CBWHP is the only statewide, nonprofit that is committed to improving the health of 1.2 million Black women and girls through advocacy, education, outreach, and policy, she said.

Champion also proposed that the MHSOAC create systems to address the “snow balling impact” of mental illness in the Black community.

Chattel slavery, Jim Crow laws, redlining, racial terror, convict leasing, mass incarceration, and “ongoing antiBlack discrimination that exist historically and currently” aligns with mental illness in the Black community, she said.

“This country was made by migrants,” says Ortiz. “And what Abbot is doing is treating migrants as the enemy. He is waging a war on migrants who are the very same people who built this country.”

Floating barriers tipped with spiked and interspersed with circular saw line stretches of the Rio Grande separating Eagle

Pass, Texas and Piedras Negras in Mexico. The barriers, which have recently been linked to the discovery of two bodies, are a part of the increasingly harsh measures being adopted by Texas Gov. Greg Abbot. (Credit: Manuel Ortiz)

Many of the migrants are women, children, mother and fathers. According to Ortiz, they arrive full of hope, after arduous journeys, believing that once on US soil they will find refuge, which is often not a given as many are detained and deported within 24 hours, while others face arrest on charges of trespassing, are imprisoned for up to two weeks and then sent back across the border.

“When people cross the river they sometimes lose their shoes,” says Ortiz. “I saw migrants with just one shoe, or no shoes. So I started to take images of what people leave on the road. Sometimes the shoes are so worn out… migrants find others left on the road. There are masks and a bottles of water. There are a lot of shoes.”

Madre Isabel Turcio directs Casa Frontera Digna Piedras Negras, a shelter that houses and feeds up to 100 migrants per day.

Turcio joined a vigil in Eagle Pass held just 2-3 meters from the Rio Grande. Participants placed white flowers in honor of those who died crossing the river. “This is what the border looks like,” says Ortiz. “It’s ugly.”

Eagle Pass residents hold signs that say Rest in Peace, in honor of Felecita Lucrecia, who died trying to cross the border. “It’s a tricky river,” says Ortiz, shallow in parts but with shifting currents and places where the depth can suddenly change. Migrants can sometimes succumb to heat stroke while crossing, while Abbot’s barriers are in shallower sections, forcing migrants to cross in deeper waters.

Few people in Eagle Pass argue for open borders, says Ortiz. But there is a “difference between a controlled border and the war zone that is there now.” The army of agents and officers, he adds, are not there to stop drug traffickers. They are there to intimidate kids, mothers, fathers… and the aggression is not just against migrants. People in Eagle Pass are also being impacted.

This family is from Ecuador, the only migrants Ortiz encountered from that country. (The majority he met, he says, were Venezuelan.) They told Ortiz they traveled 26 days to get to the US border. The boy is 3 years old. He was so hungry and thirsty, Ortiz explained, adding the parents recounted to him how US border agents threw bottles of water to them as they crossed the river. The empty bottles are visible by the father’s side. Above them stands an officer with the Texas State Police, watching over them as they await for border agents to arrive. The family was arrested for trespassing, says Ortiz.

The Governor's Master Plan and LAO’s analysis came a week after the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) held a virtual discussion titled “Advocacy Listening Session for Diverse Racial and Ethnic Communities.”

The listening session focused

“These things have never been redressed,” Champion added. “So, when we talk about the mental health needs in our community, all of this has to be lifted up.”

“It’s actually a form of reparations,” she pointed out.

Having our say against carbon pollution...continued

Back then, the Edison Electric Institute, which represents the nation’s private power companies, said the tax credits and incentives included would “deliver a clean energy future and a carbon-free economy faster.” The package would put the U.S “at the forefront of global efforts to drive down carbon emissions” and provide “muchneeded certainty to America’s electric companies over the next decade.” The same companies have gone from applause to hand wringing in 12 months.

When it comes to what must be done now to avert unrecoverable damage to the climate, ignorance isn’t bliss – it’s an impending catastrophe. President Biden through EPA must face up to a grave obligation by seizing every opportunity to make good on his 2030 pledge.

The word protection in EPA’s name refers to people and the planet, not polluters. That must start now with stringent standards ensured by rigorous monitoring and enforcement mechanisms and reinforced by meaningful community voices in the conversation.

Ben Jealous is executive director of the Sierra Club, the nation’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization. He is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “Never Forget Our People Were Always Free,” published in January.