09 12 2006 by The University Star

HOT BODIES, HOT DANCING

STAYING PAT

Salsa Night packed George’s with live music and even livelier dancing

Texas State’s showing this weekend proves Division I is not in the near future

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SEE SPORTS PAGE 8

DEFENDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT SINCE 1911

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SEPTEMBER 12, 2006

TUESDAY

VOLUME 96, ISSUE 8

Sept. 11 ceremony remembers lives lost “W

e have come together today not only to remember the lives that were lost on the infamous day of September 11, 2001, but to celebrate heroism that was given to us on that day by our ﬁremen, policemen, paramedics and all our leaders.”

— Susan Narvaiz mayor

Cotton Miller/Star photo IT STILL HURTS: San Marcos EMTs stand in silence Monday morning outside City Hall in honor of the victims of Sept. 11. Mayor Narvaiz proclaimed Sept. 11 a day of remembrance in San Marcos.

By Kathy Martinez The University Star

he City of San Marcos held a remembrance ceremony in front of City Hall yesterday, honoring the 3,000 lives lost on September 11, 2001. Five years after the terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, Mayor Susan Narvaiz proclaimed September 11 a day of remembrance in

San Marcos. “We have come together today not only to remember the lives that were lost on the infamous day of September 11, 2001, but to celebrate heroism that was given to us on that day by our ﬁremen, policemen, paramedics and all our leaders,” Narvaiz said. At 8:45 a.m., the San Marcos Fire Rescue honor guard raised the ﬂag over City Hall and then lowered it to half-staff. At ap-

proximately the same time in 2001, terrorists had crashed the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Narvaiz spoke of coming into work the morning after September 11, remembering the quote that read from her calendar on that day. “I remember turning my calendar to September 12 as I sat at my desk and I read the

quote on my calendar which I tore out and has been hanging in my office ever since,” Narvaiz said. “It read ‘Out of every crisis comes the chance to be reborn.’ That day marked the rebirth of patriotism in our nation.” The ceremony also included the toll of the fire-bell 15 times, followed by a procession of placing red and white carnations on a Sept. 11 memorial wreath. Narvaiz placed the first flower in the memorial wreath,

followed by firefighters and the public. The wreath was left to stand throughout the day, for the community to come and bring flowers. “Today’s ceremony is about not forgetting the past — and we don’t want to forget it,” Fire Chief Mike Baker said. “We lost 343 of our brothers and sisters and we continue our work to honor them.” City Councilman John Thomaides said San Marcos not only wants to pay tribute to the victims of the attack, but also recognize the everyday efforts of emergency personnel across the nation. “We have a close relationship with our police and firemen who would at any time give their own life for the call of duty,” Thomaides said. “We stand by them today as they commemorate their fellow brothers in New York.”

Immigrant rights marchers return to State Capitol Demonstrators’ numbers dwarfed by April’s turnout By Nick Georgiou The University Star AUSTIN — As 500 demonstrators gathered Thursday evening on the steps of the State Capitol to march for immigrant rights, Mike Murphy greeted the crowd. “It’s good to see the sleeping giant is still awake,” Murphy, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers organizer and business manager, said. While Murphy discussed worker rights, the rally’s focus, however, was on the human aspect of illegal immigration enforcement and security. “Today, we remember the hundreds who have died crossing the Arizona border every year and the tens of thousands locked up in detention centers across the country,” said Silky Shah, an organizer with the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition. “Texas has become the ground zero of this type of enforcement,” she said, “from National Guard troops on the border to a city referendum in Houston requiring police to act as immigration enforcers to the expansion of nearly 10,000 more detention beds in southwest and south Texas.” DetentionWatchNetwork.org reports that on any given day, detention centers house approxi-

mately 22,000 illegal immigrants — a number many immigrant rights advocates expect to rise due to the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, an act which authorizes no less than 40,000 new immigrant detention beds by 2010. Detainees can spend weeks, months or years in the detention centers, Shah said. Anybody who goes into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on expedited removal automatically gets 22 days and those who go in for criminal proceedings get at least 30 days, but due to a backed-up legal system and other factors, Shah said people are held in detention for extended amounts of time. “A lot of Americans are under the impression that there is a catch and release program, but nobody is ever caught and released,” Shah said. Luisana Santibañez’s family has had ﬁrst-hand experience with the effects of immigration enforcement. “My mom has been detained in an immigrant detention center now for 15 months,” Santibañez, an immigrant rights advocate, said. “It’s been a horrible hardship for my family and me.” The situation with her mother, she said, is not an isolated incident and hundreds of thousands of immigrant families are expe-

Today’s Weather

Scattered T-Storms 91˚/67˚

Precipitation: 60% Humidity: 63% UV: 9 Very High Wind: N 7 mph

Nick Georgiou/Star photo STRUGGLING FOR RIGHTS: Demonstrators marched on the Capitol and City Hall buildings in Austin Thursday night to ﬁght for immigrants’ rights. Although the group’s numbers were far fewer than during the April marches, demonstrators vow to continue ﬁghting for fair immigration laws and the release of detainees who many say have done nothing wrong.

riencing the same thing. “They’re being forced to visit their parents or relatives in these detention centers which often times have the worst horrible living conditions and they have denied these immigrants the freedoms that they should deserve,” she said. “They do nothing wrong other than try and prosper their families.” Assisted by an Austin Police

Two-day Forecast Wednesday Sunny Temp: 92°/ 64° Precip: 20%

Thursday Partly Cloudy Temp: 92°/ 69° Precip: 20%

Department motorcade, Santibañez and the other protestors marched down Congress Avenue chanting slogans like “Si, se puede!” (“Yes, we can!”). Moving across the bridge, the march looped back around to City Hall, where a candlelight vigil was held to commemorate the lives of those who have been detained, deported or who have died crossing the border.

Although the attendance at Thursday’s march was noticeably smaller than those at similar marches in April that brought out record numbers, proponents of immigrant rights attribute the disparity to “just different moments in time.” “(In April) it was a particular moment where people were reSee RIGHTS, page 3

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Trauth speaks on ‘careful growth’ at ASG meeting By A.N. Hernández The University Star After a brief moment of silence in memory of Sept.11, President Denise Trauth addressed the Associated Student Government in its second meeting of the 20062007 school year. Trauth announced the 2006 fall enrollment at 27,500 students with the highest freshman enrollment ever: 3,300 students. She praised Texas State’s retention rate, which was one of the highest retention rates in Texas at more than 76 percent, up almost 2 percent from last year. “If students come back for their sophomore year, they are probably going to graduate. If students are going to drop out, most do it at the end of their freshman year,” Trauth said. She said the university is “growing carefully” and that a two percent growth is one the university can handle without throwing the student-faculty ratio “out of kilter.” Trauth mentioned a $47.5 million project to build a “very large” classroom building, which she said would most likely house a branch of the College of Liberal Arts, along with some student services. The project, which has been approved, has not been funded and will be addressed further in the Texas legislative session in January 2007. Trauth also addressed the major construction efforts around campus that began over a year ago. She understood the “many inconveniences caused” by the construction and hoped students could understand the effort to improve what she called an “already-attractive campus.” Later in the meeting, Ronald Brown, dean of University College, explained state-mandated legislation that could potentially reduce the number of credits students need to graduate from 128 hours to 120 hours. Some exceptions to this decrease would be engineering programs and medical degrees. “I think it is necessary that it’s possible for a student to graduate with a major and a minor at a minimum of 120 hours,” Brown said. Brown said by the end of September each department will submit the minimum number of hours required for an undergraduate to graduate. He said a number of departments want 42 general education credits instead of the current 46 credits. Texas State classes that may be cut by this legislation are Communication 1310, University Seminar, mandatory physical ﬁtness and wellness classes, a philosophy course and the additional required hour of a science lab. Toward the end of the meeting, ASG President Kyle V. Morris urged an ASG senator to write legislation banning the San Antonio Express-News from soliciting on campus. Morris cited the paper’s handing out of University of Texas gear after subscriptions were made. “This should not be tolerated and if a Senator would author the legislation, I would take a strong stance behind it,” Morris said.