"Disclaimer": A Feminist Analysis

The series Disclaimer has been praised and panned, in about equal measure. I began watching without much idea of the plot. I admire the work of Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón and the cast is exceptional--with Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron-Cohn in the leads. Although there are some gaps in the story, it's beautifully shot (by the brilliant cinematographer--also Mexican--Emmanuel Lubezki) and masterfully acted. That was enough to draw me in, Then I found it absolutely fascinating. I was still thinking about the series-and my own reactions- long after the 7th and final episode.

It's the plot that's haunting, and the particular way--often forced, but always challenging-- of telling Catherine's story. The script was written by Cuarón, based on the novel by Renée Knight. It's a deep reflection on stereotypes of women and the power of misogynist narratives. That may sound trite as a social commentary, but when you experience it, which you will unless you've completely succumbed to the patriarchal separation of intellect from emotion,  it's powerful. Some reviewers have called it "a failed feminist commentary" or "misguided feminist thriller" because it grapples with conflicting views of women's experience of sexual assault and as film seems contrived. But although they freely throw around the word "feminist" just because of the gender violence portrayed, not one attempts a feminist analysis or even a semi-serious discussion of the feminist issues raised in the series.

It's necessary, because Disclaimer's flaws as a television series are far less important than the issues it raises and our responses to them. 

The story

***Read on only if you've already watched Disclaimer, you don't intend to watch it, or you don't care if you know the entire plot beforehand***

Catharine Ravenscroft is a successful documentary producer with money, prestige, a husband and a son. The beginning shows her receiving a professional achievement award. At the ceremony, Christiane Amanpour as the presenter delivers a core message:

“Beware of narrative and form. Their power can bring us closer to the truth, but they can also be a weapon with a great power to manipulate. They can manipulate us only because of our own deeply held beliefs and the judgments we make, and in this way, Catherine reveals something more problematic and profound: our own complicity in some of today’s more toxic social sins.”

Returning home, Catharine opens a package she got in the mail that contains a book. She soon recognizes that it's a novel based on her experience at an Italian beach resort two decades ago. It portrays a married woman seducing a young man, Jonathan, on holiday. After a night of passion, the woman falls asleep on the beach, leaving her five-year old unattended. She awakes to find him far out in the ocean, floating in a dinghy as a storm comes up. Jonathan leaps into the ocean and saves the child. He drowns.

The narrative of the novel, ostensibly written by Jonathan's father under a pseudonym but actually written by his mother, dominates the story line. The scenes written by the grieving mother show Catharine using the naive Jonathan to satisfy her desire. He takes erotic photos of her as part of their bedroom play as her son sleeps in the next room. The day after, she hugs her rescued son, surrounded by the Italian lifeguards and a crowd of beach-goers, and doesn't tell anyone that Jonathan is still out there in the waves, struggling for his life. She's portrayed as the heartless villain. 

The other voice is Stephen, Jonathan's father. He describes how the parents traveled to Italy to identify the body of their son. The mother of the drowned boy, the author, lives out her life in grief and isolation and dies early of cancer. Stephen finds the hidden novel years later and publishes it as the centerstone of his obsessive campaign of vengeance against Catharine. This is basically the only version of events we get in the first five episodes.

Stephen delivers the book Catherine's husband, son and coworkers. He also sends the pictures to her son and husband. Almost every detail of the storytelling connives to convince us that the self-centered Catharine led the teenager on, prevented his rescue, and kept the secret as she built her successful life.  But there are signs--the warning about narratives, the furtive appearance of foxes, a phone call indicating that the boy's girlfriend left due to something awful he did, and a comment by Catharine in the argument with her husband--that indicate something below the story's surface. Throughout this set-up, Catherine is not heard, we don't know her side of it at all. Her life falls apart as everyone, including the viewer, assume she is the woman portrayed in the novel.

Finally, Catherine goes to Stephen's house where she makes him listen to what really happened: Jonathan entered her hotel room and brutally raped her at knife point, forcing her to pose for the photos. At first, Stephen is still determined to carry out his revenge plan by murdering Catherine's son, who is in the hospital. But there he has an epiphany and realizes that Catherine's version is true. He tells her husband she was raped, and admits the real nature of Jonathan as a sexual predator and of his wife as an enabler.

Conflicting narratives

The last-minute twist comes after such intricate measures to cover it up that I felt tricked rather than surprised. But I also felt guilty for my own willingness at first to buy the version of the evil Catharine. As a feminist, I have always and will always believe the woman, unless there is overwhelming evidence otherwise. I felt like I'd been caught in an elaborate trap. I had to go back and figure out why.

That's the point. The plot carefully constructs antipathy towards Catherine using classic patriarchal prejudices. Catharine is a successful journalist in a society that censures women for prioritizing career over childrearing--a choice men are not expected to make at all.  When Catherine calls herself "a shitty mom", it is viewed as a blanket condemnation of her moral character, while "shitty" or absent fathers are considered normal, and negligent fatherhood does not reflect on men's characters or social standing. 

Society also censures women for expressing the kind of sexual desire vividly shown in the scenes of supposedly consensual sex between Catherine and Jonathan, adding yet another negative stereotype to the case against Catherine. And since Catherine's character defies the conciliatory and self-deprecating manners associated with femininity, her strength and anger manifest as narcissistic arrogance. 

The prejudices and stereotypes pile up against her so when she begs to explain her side to her husband, we see it as a plea to accept what we already think she did. Imagery conspires with other peoples' visions of reality and the patriarchal "deeply held beliefs" mentioned at the outset to seal judgement. 

This is Cuarón's intention and while some people comment that they figured it out from the outset, it's fair to say many, like me, did not. Cuarón said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter that he talked to audiences and found that “Almost everyone has created a judgment of Catherine that is completely different from the ending that we reveal.” He added, “It was a way for audiences to confront their own judgments.”

The director describes the development of the narratives — Stephen's inner voice, the novel through graphic visual reenactment, Catherine's in a third-person voice (the most criticized aspect of the series and rightly so) and the narrative the audience builds as they watch. When asked if the critique of narratives has special relevance after the US elections, Cuarón replies: "I believe the reason of the results [the election of Trump] is nothing but a manipulation of narratives. And the danger [is] that we’re living in this world that is overpopulated by narratives... we’re invaded by these conflicting narratives all the time. The one that hits emotional cords is going to hit the strongest."

The story also uses society's lack of understanding and empathy for sexual assault victims as a tool to build the case against Catherine. It doesn't occur to us that she's a victim of an attack because she hasn't said so for twenty years. Why would Catherine remain silent for so long, even as her life is being viciously destroyed?

First, why didn't she report the rape in Italy? At the end, Catherine explains to Stephen that after being sexually assaulted she collected evidence (photos of bruises, semen) and weighed going to the police. She dreaded the consequences for herself and for her family. She went to the beach with her son in the morning and before she had made a decision, her attacker drowned. She felt like she could move on without going through months or even years of renewed trauma. 

Cuarón notes that the Mexican feminist journalist Lydia Cacho, who has specialized in sex trafficking, femicide and trauma from sexual abuse, served as a consultant and confirmed that Catherine's behavior is  is very common. The Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) estimates that less than 1 out of every 3 sexual assaults are reported, with some estimates as low as 5%. The reasons include revictimization as the victim's past and current behavior are placed under scrutiny, stigmatization, consequences for loved ones and a lack of faith in the justice system. 

Then why didn't she say something when Stephen went after her? Disclaimer makes the point that she tried to, but nobody listened. This is also common. The prospect of re-opening a trauma to share it with people who even then might refuse to believe you can be daunting, as thousands of testimonies of rape victims prove. Often even after making the difficult decision to talk, victims are shut up and shut down, even by those closest to them.

You also can't expect trauma victims to act in ways that seem logical to someone who hasn't experienced what they've lived through, much less blame them. A victim's silence, whether for days or years, should never be construed as guilt. And yet, in the early episodes of Disclaimer we are shockingly easily convinced to do just that. 

Reflections 

Not everything makes sense in the plot. There are missteps and cheats to lead us into the trap and the resolution at the end feels incomplete. But I still couldn't shake the disturbing question of how as a feminist I leapt to conclusions based mostly on the same patriarchal norms I work against. Why was I so quick to condemn the woman? What made me so susceptible to believing that Catharine was the villain for so long? Where are my blind spots?

In my daily life I work against the same stereotypes employed in the ruse. I have experienced sexual assault and told no one. Yet I saw, at first anyway, a manipulative woman who watched her lover die. Part of it is that the first episodes don't offer two conflicting versions of reality--the woman's and the man's-- as usually happens in real life. We see only Jonathan's parents' version, with a few clues that there is a different story (although some viewers claim to have read the trigger warning on "sexual violence" as a tip-off). The script employs a sanctimonious third-person narration to offer insights into Catherine in damage control mode without revealing the rape.  It is often purposely misleading in order to build up to the surprise ending.

So what we see is Catherine as a self-centered climber who manipulates those around her for her own interests. Again, this is a criticism that is typically leveled against women. The same traits in men are considered positive; "ambition", "motivation" and "drive" are the hallmarks of successful men and signs of ruthlessness in women.

The most damning fact is really the only confirmed fact the two versions share and one we have early on: Catherine watched the young man drown after saving her son and did nothing to save him. I work with women who have lost children, mostly sons, to disappearance and violence. I lost a son. I wrongly sided with the grieving mother. This moral issue is explained, but not resolved, by the rape.

The discussion

The reviews offered little insight into what it means to confront the judgments we are taught to make about women. Although many reviewers acknowledged the feminist subject matter, they chose not to engage with it--a typical response of mainstream media to gender violence. Instead they wrote glib and simplistic "thumbs-up" or "thumbs down" reviews. Most reflect the annoying hubris that seems to be a job requirement for commercial media film reviewers. One reviewer (The Spectator) wrote and published a negative review in which he admitted that he did not watch the full series. Another (The New Yorker) used the words "vacuity" and "dreck" to describe the series in a brief and substanceless review that exemplified vacuity and dreck. 

So I turned to social media to find out what other regular people (well, regular people who compulsively share their opinions on Reddit) had to say. I hardly ever delve into the discussions, threads and debates that thrive in that world. I find it a compelling rabbit hole, but foreign and a little bit scary. I was immediately impressed by the vitality and the depth of the debate on Disclaimer. 

These are just a few of the comments: 

One person wrote skeptical of the idea that Catherine didn't say anything sooner. "In a post-metoo world, she’s wielding a tactical nuke against a creepy old man. It’s utterly ridiculous."

I had also questioned why she didn't come out with the truth earlier. Long ago, I didn't tell anyone about an attempted rape. But I was only 14 and it was the seventies. The commenter, I found out they're called "subs", is right in pointing out that one gain of feminist movements is that women have more tools to identify and respond to sexual assault and can often find more support.

But I also agree to some extent with this writer, and her example is hard to argue with:

"Metoo is a farce. In reality no one believes you or cares more than they did before. This week's results are evidence of that - 25 accusations against a man found liable in court last year for sexual abuse, and its not only tolerated but rewarded, lifting him to the highest position in society in a country."

Other comments, clearly from women, also give context to Catherine's silence: 

"The price a victim has to pay to receive any empathy, let alone justice, is too high and drains whatever mental capacity they might have left, if any. Just risking being told you might have caused or deserved it, can permanently ruin whatever's left from your mental sanity. Could she have been sure that he would have believed her? And could a rape survivor really use that traumatic experience to defend herself against accusations of an affair?"

"You don’t necessarily need to have been raped as a woman to relate to Catherine’s character. There are countless situations where women are outright villainized and retraumatized all over without anyone even asking for the facts. It’s a cognitive shortcut, bias, that people have when it comes to women. I wish I could someday live in a world where I'm not defined by those biases and I could be seen just as a person. Until then, we will never know what life without these fears feels like, the way men experience it" 

"The part where she explains her relief for Jonathan’s death and says at least she 'didn’t have to prove her innocence' just hurt. It is not innocence that must be proved. And it should not be her scrambling to be believed nor needing to justify herself. Yet that is the way many of these instances go."   

"Gut wrenching. The strength it takes to become gentle and live a life of “truth telling” or whatever she was getting an award for in the beginning, after being raped and violated- this is a strength like no other. They were sucessful in make me dislike her in the beginning. Fucc."

"This series meant the world to me as a survivor of multiple rapes: how it effects relationships; how a person just wants to move on and not speak of what happened; and how the victim's external posture in the world is almost always misinterpreted."

Another Reddit sub called TruckWash Channel writes a lengthy commentary comparing the series to the book and criticizing the resolution in the final episode after Stephen realizes his son's monstrous crime. They quote a line from Stephen in the book, which could have added more depth to the theme of the power of narratives, and that we see what we are programmed to see:

"The photographs in the hotel room are different. There is nothing natural about them. They are posed, I see that now. And as I look at them, horror is added to my shock. I see something I had chosen to miss before. It is fear."

TruckWash argues that the twist should have been revealed beforehand, and that the series glorifies Catherine's right to determine when, if and how to tell her story even as her life is torn apart by false narratives. I don't agree though that it glorifies or blames her silence. And from a feminist perspective, that's positive, because that's a destructive judgment any way you look at it. 

I agree that for Disclaimer to be a more effective social commentary, the series could have worked less hard to cover up its tracks and harder to create coherency. The audience probably could have used more time after the climax to validate and support the truth that Catherine finally reveals. The ending feels rushed, incomplete and unconvincing--instead of getting something like her day in court, Catherine has merely convinced a deranged man and a deeply insecure and insensitive husband. When the pieces of the puzzle finally fit together, we don't have enough time or background to fully reassemble it. But in the end, we the viewers discover the truth of the story, and some truths about ourselves and our society. And life's lessons are rarely tied up neatly with a bow.

From women's rights to women's liberation

 Note: For some time, we have noted the dangers of a narrow human rights focus in viewing emancipation struggles of women in our countries and coined the term "rights-washing" to warn against the attempted cooptation of women's movements. This article seeks to deepen that debate.

By Colectivo Desde el Margen

In Latin America there are more women killed by femicide than in Afghanistan1. This statement scares us, but it allows us to think of femicide as a political, state and corporate act that threatens the life of our bodies, our peoples and our territories; that are occupied by the great empires, transnational companies, local governments and NGOs. 

 

Currently, we are experiencing a broad media campaign that portrays Afghan women as passive victims of the horror of the Taliban, in a society that is horrified by the photographs of women wearing burqas, and countless foundations that advocate for the formation of a democratic and secular government, where Afghan women enjoy the same rights as women in Western countries. 

 

This social panorama reduces all the struggles of the women of the Middle East to the implantation of a modern state and the accumulation of rights. From Abya Yala we question the idea that the struggle of women is limited to the dispute for rights within a patriarchal state. During our republican history we have experienced the promise of liberation through western citizenship, which offers us the full enjoyment of rights and equal opportunities. However, to this day, in most of the countries that make up our region, women do not have choice and control over our bodies, because abortion is criminalized; even in circumstances of sexual violence. 

 

We propose a critique of institutional feminism that falls into the state trap of rights. This framework  restricts the fight for women's liberation, because it is satisfied with small constitutional and judicial crumbs that the governments promise. We firmly believe in the need to debate in the streets about our rights, however, we know that this cannot be the main objective of the agenda of the women's movement. 

 

For this reason, we propose the need to build an anti-patriarchal project in which no empire, government, company or individual can violate our lives and our territories. This project is nourished by the permanent dialogue between the local struggles of different territories. From this anti-patriarchal project, arises the criticism of NGOs and other foundations dedicated to capturing Afghan women's figures and exposing them in international forums and conversations, turning them into simple passive objects in the midst of a dispute over Western ideas. Many of these organizations limit themselves to developing humanitarian assistance projects and pro-rights campaigns, without even listening to the realities and demands of the women in question. Furthermore, the paternalistic orientation of these organizations seeks to annul women's struggles politically, weaken us and make us doubt our political and revolutionary capacity.

 

We canot ally ourselves with Western and racist interpretations of what is happening in Afghanistan. The international press and analysts are scandalized byAfghan women's inability to access education; the next day, the Taliban announce that women will be able to study, as a strategy to achieve international approval. This is just a sample of how the pieces are played on the chessboard of power, where the nation-state manages the lives of women according to their interests. 

 

In our country, where women have had the right to study for more than 100 years, the classrooms of public schools and colleges continue to be overcrowded spaces of indoctrination, instead of spaces for play, reflection, dialogue and collective liberation. For these reasons, the Taliban's decision to restore women's right to education should not be cause for celebration, as it is only a move to maintain international alliances. 

 

1 https://www.milenio.com/politica/afganistan-cifra-mujeres-asesinadas-compara-mexico

Publicado originalmente en Desinformémonos. 6 septiembre 2021. https://desinformemonos.org/del-uso-de-los-derechos-de-las-mujeres-a-la-liberacion-de-las-mujeres/

AMLO-Trump, An Ugly Alliance Against People's Movements

When Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he was making his first diplomatic trip abroad to thank Donald Trump for being a good friend to Mexico, at first I didn't believe it would really happen, mainly because I couldn't want to conceive of such an enormous betrayal of principles and coherency.

Why on earth would a left-leaning leader of the nation that has experienced the worst of Trump's white supremacist attacks decide to travel to Washington in the middle of a pandemic to pat him on the back? And mostly, four months before elections, why would he set himself  up to be a ploy in Trump re-election campaign? Couldn't he stay home like he has for the past year and a half? After all, his country is roiled by a deadly disease and unnecessary travel over the border is banned (for the poor--if you can pay for a plane ticket, you can come and go as you like).

Trump doesn't do anything these days that isn't directly related to his bid for reelection, which is clearly flailing. He needs to woo the Latinx vote--a tough crowd given the reign of terror he has unleashed on them and their families since taking office.

Shortly after Trump's inauguration, we spent more than a month traveling the border with The Caravan Against Fear, organized by the SEIU, Global Exchange and others, to register the reaction of mostly Mexican-American border communities. We talked to Dreamers who had built careers and futures and were terrified that they would lose it all, to families who no longer went to the neighborhood park for fear of raids, to mothers who couldn't drive their kids to school anymore because the short drive could result in a one-way ticket to Mexico, to people whose towns were occupied by the border patrol, to common citizens who spent their weekends searching for bones or dying migrants in the desert.

Things didn't get any better after that. Although deportations didn't soar immediately, the fear continued. One after another, a hail of executive orders, rule changes and obsolete laws came down, steadily constructing Stephen Miller's vision of a white America and cutting away at migrants' already limited rights, pushing them into self-deportation, detention or forced removal. Families that harbored dreams of living together in safety were shattered and the open racism of the "thieves and rapists" and "bad hombres" comments led to a spike in hate crimes against people of Mexican and other Latino origins. Racial profiling went from bad to worse.

In Mexico, what happened stunned many of us who work in migrant rights. Lopez Obrador, the defender of Mexican sovereignty, bowed to Trump's every whim and Trump's whim was overtly anti-immigrant. Instead of rallying the international community to support Mexico when Trump used trade as a billy club to get Mexico to block migrants and refugees traveling north, AMLO sent his foreign minister to negotiate around it. What he negotiated, or rather accepted, was a program that is unprecedented in a sovereign nation--to warehouse third-country asylum seekers awaiting hearings in the United States. After first hiding it, Trump literally waved the agreement to the press bragging 'Look what I got out of Mexico!'

So this Washington meeting is, as a broad group of Mexican immigrant organizatons put it on a letter also signed by teh Americas Program "a slap in the face to Mexican families in the U.S. who have sufferd 4 years of constant attacks from Trump's anti-immigrant administration."

Going back to the Washington meeting... Amarela Varela, immigration export and arights activist, expressed what many of us on both sides of the border were feeling. Here's the translation:

[López Obrador] thanked him for the "respectful treatment of Mexico. Was he referring to the ICE detention of mothers and fathers of families with mixed immigration status outside their children's schools, the families who are torn apart? Or the 6,000 children in cages in teh 21st Century and separated from their families, forced to "declare" in courts alone? Or the squads of nativists who assassinate migrants in the desert?  ...He said that the U.S. hasn't imposed anything on Mexico--does that mean that the 4T decided for itself to sign and put into practice the Remain in Mexico or MPP program that has left 65,000 asylum seekers surviving, exposed to the elements, on Mexico's northern border?

Over the past week, I've given reasons for why this meeting should never have happened:

1) It wasn't necessary--the USMCA was already signed, ratified and in force and needed no ceremony, signing or statements. The ony purpose was to give Trump a stage to say he kept a campaign promise (to renegotiate NAFTA) and for Lopez Obrador to use the agreement to attract foreign companies, most of whom are already in Mexico because we have had essentially the same agreement for the past 26 years.

2) It insults and endangers the 36 million Mexicans and their families who live in the United States. Although small groups came out to welcome AMLO, all the statements from major migrant organizations opposed the visit. Strengthening Trump, especially in the context of re-election, endangers their lives, their livelihoods and their famlies.

3) It would be a direct endorsement of Trump's candidacy and a boon to his campaign. This was obvious. So obvious, that here in Mexico rumors that the AMLO government would actually prefer another Trump administration are rampant.

4) The least said by an "anti-neoliberal" president about the USMCA, the better. One could understand it being seen as a necessary evil after two decades, but the over-the-top acclaim was cringeworthy among anyone who is committed to national sovereignty, fair trade and social justice. A new study from the Global Development Policy Center found that free trade treaties including the USMCA actually inhibit the ability of developing countries to respond to the crisis.

5) A major increase in foreign investment is a non-starter as the central strategy to respond to the crisis. For one, it is unlikely to work, and more importantly, the ansolute reliance on export-oriented foreign investment is a major cause of Mexico's social and environmental crises today.

6) It ignores the largest movement in the history of the United States, the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice and equality. AMLO set aside his discourse on transformation and purposely fortified Trump who has repeaetedly attacked the movement and stands for everything this movement is against.

If any readers can find anything new about these promises that we didn't hear in 1994 with the first NAFTA, please tell me in the comments section below. Here is the statement: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/joint-declaration-united-states-mexico/ 

Same with the speeches. Many defenders of the AMLO-Trump show have called the Mexican President's speech an historic occasion of the defense of national sovereignty. I have read it over and over and I have no idea what they are talking about. Readers can read it here to weigh in: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-president-lopez-obrador-united-mexican-states-signing-joint-declaration/

LA NETA: All that is important, but not the most important.

The betrayal, the unfathomable part of it, is that Donald Trump is heinous. He not only has initiated open season on migrants in the United States and, with the full cooperation of Lopez Obrador, in Mexico, he also is a buffon who lies, cheats, bullies, denigrates and abuses women and leads the effort to roll back our rights, responds to demands for racial justice with repression and is confronting the largest and one of the most radical and hopeful movements in US history with hate. Days before the meeting, he tweeted a "White Power" video (and then removed it), and just two days before, on July 6, issued an order to revoke student visas for students attending schools where in-person classes have been suspended to protect lives during the pandemic.

On the world stage, he has withdrawn the wealthiest nation in the world from the World Health Organization when more than half a million people have been killed by COVID-19 and his own country has more fatalities than any other in the world, He also withdrew from the climate change accords as the planet faces the real possibility of not being able to sustain the lives of our great-grandchildren.

For Lopez Obrador to go out of his way to praise this man as a statesman in the middle of a re-election campaign is not even political pragmatism--it's simply immoral.


Success or failure? The debate rages on. Time will tell, just as we discovered decades later that the pundits who predicted the success of NAFTA were wrong when they promised the agreement would reduce migration, close the wage gap, create more equal economies, cut poverty, develop Mexico and raise the standard of living for the majority. None of that happened.

What's disturbing is that the AMLO administration, and especially Ebrard, seem to be banking on and actively apromoting what for most of the world is the worst-case scenario: another four years of Donald Trump.

FUTURE CHECKLIST: Here's the list of claims by the presidents for the USMCA so we can go back in a few years to assess whether the trip benefited Mexico and if the ugly alliance was worth it:

Trump's claims:
* "will bring countless jobs from overseas, back to North America, and our countries will be very big beneficiaries." AMLO reiterated this claim.
* "will bring enormous prosperity to both American and Mexican workers and Canada"
AMLO's claims:
* "reverse North American trade deficit with the rest of the world
* "volumes of our country’s imports [to] the rest of the world may be produced in North America at a lower transportation cost with reliable suppliers"
* attract investments from other places of the hemisphere, bringing those investments to our countries"

AMLO's letter to Donald Trump: "I am not a coward, I act on principles"

Here is our translation of the letter sent by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to US President Donald Trump. While we have criticized the Mexican government's immigration policies and actions in recent months-- and will no doubt continue to do so-- this letter represents a welcome turning point in what has been a disappointingly conciliatory attitude on the part of the AMLO administration toward Trump's most aggregious anti-immigrant and anti-Mexico positions.

Look for the full analysis on www.americas.org 

President Donald Trump,

I am aware of your latest position related to Mexico.  First, I want to express to you that I do not want confrontation. The people and the nations that we represent deserve that, when faced with any conflict in relations, however serious, we rely on dialogue and act with prudence and responsibility.

The best president of Mexico, Benito Juárez, maintained excellent relations with the  Republican hero, Abraham Lincoln. Later, at the time of the oil expropriation, the Democratic president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, understood the profound reasons that led the patriot president Lazaro Cárdenas to act in favor of our sovereignty. By the way, President Roosevelt was a titan of liberties. Before anyone else, he proclaimed the four fundamental rights of man (sic): the right to freedom of speech, the right to freedom to worship in one’s own way, the right to freedom from fear, and the right to freedom from want. 

This is the basis of our policy on immigration. Human beings do not abandon their homes because they want to, but rather out of necessity. This is why from the beginning of my government, I proposed to choose cooperation for development and aid to the Central American countries, with productive investments to create jobs and resolve the root causes in this unfortunate matter.

You know that we are complying with our responsibility to avoid, to the degree possible and without violating human rights, transit through our county. It is pertinent to recall that, in a short time, Mexicans will no longer need to turn to the United States and that migration will be optional, not forced. This is because we are fighting corruption--the main problem in Mexico-- as never before. And in this way, our country will become a great power with a social dimension. Our countrymen and women will be able to work and be happy where they were born, where their family, customs and culture are.

President Trump: social problems are not solved with taxes or coercive measures. How can it be that the country of brotherhood for migrants of the world be converted, from one day to the next, into a ghetto, an enclosed space that stigmatizes, mistreats, persecutes, expels and cancels out the right to justice of those who seek, through their effort and work, to live free of want? The statue of liberty is not an empty symbol.

With all respect, although you have the sovereign right to express it, the slogan “America First”· is a fallacy because until the end of time, even above national borders, universal justice and fraternity will prevail.

Specifically, Mr. President: I propose to you that we deepen dialogue, search for alternatives that go to the root of the migration problem, and please, remember that I do not lack courage, that I am not a coward nor timid, but that I act on principles: I believe that politics, among other things, was invented to avoid confrontation. I do not believe in the Law of Talion, with its “tooth for a tooth” and “eye for an eye” because, if that is where we take this, all of us will be toothless and blind. I believe that statesmen and even more, nations’ leaders, are obliged to seek peaceful solutions to controversies and to put them into practice, for example, the beautiful idea of non-violence.

Lastly, I propose that you instruct your officials, if you find it appropriate, to sit down with the representatives of our government, headed by Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Relations who will depart tomorrow to Washington to arrive at an agreement that benefits both our two nations.

Nothing by force, everything by reason and law!

Andrés Manuel López Obrador

President of Mexico

Trump's 'Zero Tolerance' Bluff on the Border Will Hurt Security, Not Help

The Washington Post published this op-ed today by former Border Patrol directors on the completely absurd and non-viable proposal of the Trump administration to prosecute all illegal border crossings. The article is mixed in its policy recommendations, favoring other measures that continue to criminalize migrants, and hailing Mexico's terrible southern border crackdown in Central American migrants, but it's worth a read. 

This is a debate we must be having. If the Democrats don't stand up to the whole "border security" farce going on to enrich the few and make political hay for the racists, we will never get our of this vicious policy cycle. 

By Alan Bersin, Nate Bruggeman and Ben Rohrbaugh May 31 at 5:41 PM

 

Alan Bersin, Nate Bruggeman and Ben Rohrbaugh worked together at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where Bersin served as commissioner. He earlier was the U.S. attorney in San Diego.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen recently announced a “zero tolerance” policy on border security. Though its contours have not been described in great detail, at its core, it is a commitment to criminally prosecute every person who illegally crosses the border. 

This strategy may provide sound bites, and harsh rhetoric may generate some short-term deterrent effect, but it is impossible for this policy to actually be implemented over any reasonable time period. By announcing a threat that is effectively a bluff, the Trump administration likely will harm border security rather than enhance it.

The federal criminal-justice system is not equipped to handle the flood of cases that would result from referring every single illegal border crosser for prosecution. There is a limited number of federal judges, magistrate judges, federal prosecutors, public defenders and U.S. marshals in the judicial districts along the border. Prosecuting more than 300,000 people (the number apprehended for illegally crossing our southwestern border in fiscal 2017) would overwhelm their resources. And this is to say nothing of inadequate detention capacity; each of the illegal crossers would have to be processed, housed, guarded and fed before trial — and after, if convicted.

The core of effective border security is risk management — focusing law-enforcement resources on the greatest threats. This is why the Border Patrol developed the Consequence Delivery System, a program that matches different types of crossers to different categories of processes or penalties. For example, a known human smuggler receives harsher treatment than a first-time crosser. Referring every illegal crosser for prosecution removes the ability of the Border Patrol to manage risk effectively.

The opportunity cost associated with this prosecution strategy will be even more acutely felt by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices along the border. Already handling a massive workload, including drug- and human-trafficking cases, these prosecutors focus their time and effort on cases that have the greatest impact on public safety. The administration’s new “mission impossible” will force prosecutors to misallocate resources to economic migrants; but even then, there will not be enough resources to get the job done. In the meantime, organized crime, drug smuggling and financial crimes will receive short shrift.

Meanwhile, the new policy is likely to have little deterrent effect. We know this from experience. For example, in San Diego during the 1980s and early 1990s, enormous numbers of illegal crossers were subject to misdemeanor prosecution. That effort consumed huge amounts of resources simply to create a revolving door in area jails. It was only when the enforcement strategy changed to focus on prevention and deterrence at the border — supported with targeted felony prosecutions and strategically situated walls — did the situation change.

The administration is looking for quick fixes to illegal immigration, but action is instead needed on the difficult policy questions and trade-offs that are inherent in this arena.

For example, the administration needs to strengthen its security partnership with Mexico. Demonizing Mexico may score political points, but it is directly contrary to our border-security interests. All irregular southwest border crossers transit Mexico, and since 2015, Mexico has stopped more than 500,000 Central Americans at its southern border with Guatemala. If these efforts are halted, the effect on the southwestern U.S. border is clear.

One area of focus should be entering a “first safe country” agreement — which the United States has with Canada — providing that migrants from third countries claiming asylum here would be returned to Mexico to pursue their claims. This arrangement would be a powerful deterrent to economic migrants making false asylum claims, while leaving open a refuge for those fleeing extreme violence directed against them. The United States could provide assistance to Mexico to help implement the system.

Rather than focusing on criminal prosecutions, the administration should be reforming the overloaded immigration court system, where backlogged cases wait years for final disposition. That means adding resources and streamlining procedures so that asylum and other cases can be adjudicated efficiently. This would yield the dividends the attorney general’s recent token offer of 35 prosecutors and 18 immigration judges cannot.

“Zero tolerance” looks like an easy way to increase deterrence, but there are no easy solutions or silver bullets for a broken immigration system. While we wait for comprehensive immigration reform and a strategy for tackling the drivers of Central American migration, the administration needs to devise a deterrence scheme that is effective and sustainable. Criminal prosecution will certainly be a part of such a strategy, but if it is the only part, it will fail.

Read: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-zero-tolerance-bluff-on-the-border-will-hurt-security-not-help/2018/05/31/fafbe316-642a-11e8-99d2-0d678ec08c2f_story.html?utm_term=.d4856cec1b7c&wpisrc=nl_opinions&wpmm=1

Mexico is siding with President Trump on migrants

By James Fredrick - May 25

MEXICO CITY — I heard a familiar story on a recent trip to the southern border.

“There’s been harassment against my fellow Guatemalans, asking them if they’re citizens, demanding their papers, it’s an all-out persecution,” Hector Sipac, a Guatemalan consul, told me.

But we weren’t in the United States. We were in Tapachula, on Mexico’s southern border, where Sipac is based. In the age of President Trump’s xenophobia, Mexico has quietly aligned itself with the American president against migrants.

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EEUU: ¡Justicia, no impunidad! Agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza enfrentará nuevo juicio por el asesinato de José Antonio

Revista Documentos El Derecho de Vivir en Paz - 16 mayo 2018

En la mañana del 11 de mayo, fiscales federales de Tucsón anunciaron su decisión de volver a juzgar al agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza Lonnie Swartz por cargos de homicidio voluntario e involuntario por el asesinato, el 10 de octubre de 2012, de José Antonio Elena Rodríguez. Aunque el 23 de abril, un jurado en un tribunal federal en Arizona absolvió a Swartz de asesinato en segundo grado, la decisión de hacer un nuevo juicio le da a José Antonio, a su familia y a todas las víctimas de la Patrulla Fronteriza una oportunidad más para lograr justicia y detener la impunidad de la Patrulla Fronteriza. El nuevo juicio comenzará el 23 de octubre de 2018. Leer más.