Free Roger Calero, Journalist/INS detainee

It seems that even with our newly discovered axis of evil enemies, we remember our long time enemies. And we take the time to prosecute those who dare go against the regime. I became aware of Mr Calero at a Seattle Cuba Friendship Committee press conference. Thomas Warner has come to the attention of Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control. His crime was to forward notice of a legal visit to Cuba. Internet journalism as he admits doing for years. See: http://seattle.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=21022&group=webcast

Now, it seems, journalism is terrorism or at least is trading with..., aiding and abetting... or some such persecutable legal abomination.

Below are the documents passed out over the Calero Case. A long time resident, professional journalist, he now finds himself in trouble, but the journalism isn't being made the issue. It's a case from his high school days, when he "coped a plea" and took 60 days( suspended) and 3 years probation. If that was all the motivation, this could be nothing more than a cautionary tale, a warning about making deals with the devils. But the facts indicate a pattern. Those who are not in line are the ENEMY. Those who humanize the enemy are the enemy too. So perhaps it's still a cautionary tale. About letting the devils run the country
and letting the devil deal it out to the world, americans included.


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Free Roger Calero from INS Custody! Stop the Exclusion Proceedings!

On December 3, Roger Calero, the associate editor of Perspectiva Mundial, a Spanish language news magazine published in New York, was returning home to the United States from a reporting assignment in Havana, Cuba, and Guadalajara, Mexico. At Houston Intercontinental Airport, Calero was seized by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, told he was denied entry to the United States, and carted off to an INS jail. He now faces exclusion from this country
Calero has lived in the United States for the past 17 years and has held permanent residence since 1990. Besides his position as an editor of Perspectiva Mundial, Calero works as a staff writer for the Militant, a New York based newsweekly. As a reporter he has traveled widely, both in this country and in Latin America, covering labor and political events.
This attempt by the INS to exclude Calero from the United States and deport him to Nicaragua is an attack on his rights as a permanent resident, on his right to exercise his work as a journalist, and on the rights of all.
Calero and his supporters have launched a public campaign to win his release and the restoration of his rights .Your help is needed. Join the fight!

December 3: INS detention
The INS seized Calero on December 3 at Houston Intercontinental Airport. Calero was on a one?week assignment for Perspectiva Mundial to report on an international conference in Havana on the FreeTrade Area of the Americas, attended by trade unionists and other delegates from Latin America, the United States, and Canada. He then spent several days covering a n international student conference in Guadalajara, Mexico, sponsored by the Continental Organization of Latin American and Caribbean students. In Houston, Calero was detained and then transferred to an immigration jail run by a private company the Corrections Corporation of America.

Charges against Calero

The immigration cops are seeking to "exclude" him?deny Calero re?entry into the United States?and deport him to his native Nicaragua, based on a 1988 conviction, when he was a high school student in Los Angeles, on a charge of selling marijuana to an undercover cop. Faced with the prospect of jail, Calero copped a plea and received a suspended 60day sentence with three years probation.

Permanent resident for 12 years

When Calero applied for permanent residence in 1989 he specifically included information about his conviction, which immigration officials waived in order to grant him a green card giving him the right to live and work in the United States, In 2000 the INS replaced his card with full written information of the 12?year?old conviction. Today, Calero, who is married to a U.S. citizen, lives in Newark, New Jersey

For the past 12 years Calero has exercised his rights as a permanent resident, including most recently as a journalist for the Spanish?language magazine Perspectiva Mundial. INS officials are now trying to take away those rights.
Prior to beginning his~job as associate editor of Perspectiva Mundial and as a staff writer for the Militant, Calero worked as a meat packer in Des Moines, Iowa, and then in Twin Cities, Minnesota, where he participated in a successful union?organizing drive at the Dakota Premium Foods plant in South St, Paul, He is continuing his work as a journalist from his prison cell in Texas.

Action is needed now! You can help!

Calero is fighting today to win his freedom on bond from an INS prison and for an immediate halt to government exclusion proceedings against him. He has retained an attorney and is appealing for public support to press the INS to restore his rights and his freedom.

* Send a letter of protest to HipolitoAcosta, District Director, Immigration and Naturalization Service, 126 Northpoint Drive, Houston, TX, 77060; tel: 281?774?4610. Please send copies to Calero's magazine, Perspectiva Mundial, 410 West Street, New York, New York 10014.
* Sign and distribute petitions demanding justice for R6ger Calero.
* Make a financial contribution to help cover rapidly mounting legal and other expenses. Checks can be written out to the Political Rights Defense Fund, PO. Box 761, Church St. Station, New York, NY 10007. Contributions are tax?deductible.

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Clip and mail to: Perspectiva Mundial, 410 West St., New York, NY 10014. E?mail: TheMilitant0compuserve.com
( ) 1 support the campaign to demand the INS free R6ger Calbro now.
( ) 1 have sent a contribution of $__________ to PRDF to help cover the costs of this fight for justice.
Name
Phone
Address/City/State/Zip
E?mail
Organization

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To Supporters of the Fight to Stop the Exclusion Proceedings Against Roger Calero:

Dear Friends,

The fight to stop the exclusion of Perspectiva Mudial editor and Millitant staff writer Roger Calero has been joined by a broad array of defenders of freedom of the press, immigrants' rights, the rights of trade unionists, and defenders of civil liberties.

In the two weeks since Calero was stopped at the Houston Intercontinental Airport, dragged off to detention, and exclusion proceedings against him initiated, a significant campaign has been launched on his behalf, In the charges presented to Calero, the INS says he cannot be admitted into the U.S. because he was convicted in 1988 of selling an ounce of marjuana to an undercover cop when he was in high school. They say they can do this even though the INS waived this conviction in 1990 when they granted Calero permanent residence, and renewed his green card in 2000.
News about his fight has been widely circulated from EI Dia, the Spanish?language daily in Houston; to Free Speech Radio News carried across the country on the Pacifica radio network; to the bulletins of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants, the National Network on Cuba, and many others.

Letters to Houston INS District Director Hipolito Acosta demanding the deportation drive be stopped have been sent by Bruce D. Nestor, president of the National Lawyers Guild; Marleine Bastien, executive director of the Haitian Women of Miami; Bill Pearson, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union local 789, which covers the Dakota Premium Foods plant where Calero worked and helped lead the ground?breaking union organizing drive; Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists of Britain; and many more.

Calero paroled out of jail, immigration hearing canceled to be, rescheduled later

The rapidity and breadth of the outcry made the INS officials who seized Calero on December 3 step back and take stock of what they had on their hands. They made a calculated decision to let Calero out, paroled into the country, to gain time to quiet the opposition to their move to exclude him and deport him to Nicaragua.

The INS grabbed Calero, like they have grabbed tens of thousands of others, because they have been working overtime to dump local court records into their computers. More and more permanent residents who, like Calero, leave the country for work. travel. or family reasons, find themselves arrested, as old convictions pop up on the screen when they return to the U.S.

With Calero's release, the exclusion hearing originally scheduled for inside the Houston Processing Center jail on December 17 was postponed. It will be rescheduled before an Immigration Judge in the INS center in Houston.
The INS presented Calero with a set of conditions to meet while on parole. Among these conditions is the requirement that he "obey all Federal, State and local laws." This means that the INS can take action on any minor infraction like jaywalking or trespassing and he can be expelled from the country.

We are locked in a toe?to?toe battle with the government over Calero's right to live and work in this country, and over rights important to all, native?born and immigrant alike. There is no reason to believe they knew who Calero was when they arrested him, but they know now that they are in a fight.

Step up the fight to stop the exclusion proceedings against Roger Callero

The campaign in defense of Calero expanded quickly because a broad range of people understood the importance of the rights involved and because they saw an opening to participate in an effective public fight.

Many reporters are frustrated with growing restrictions on the rights of the press as the government drives to war in the Middle East. Immigrants are being targeted for increasingly frequent attack. Unionists' right to organize and workers' wages and health and safety conditions are being attacked as the economy worsens. Political rights face government assault. People coming from many different perspectives see in Calero's battle an opportunity to defend their own space to work and to fight.

We must respond to the INS move to slow down and defuse the defense campaign with a stepped up effort to strengthen our efforts to press forward.

* Send messages to INS District Director Hipolito Acosta demanding that the exclusion moves against Calero be dropped. Messages can be faxed to 281?774?5989; or mailed to him at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 126 Northpoint Drive, Houston, TX 77060. Copies should be sent to the Political Rights Defense Fund, Box 761, Church St. Station, New York, NY 10007.

* Sign and distribute petitions demanding the INS drop the exclusion of Roger Calero.

* Funds are urgently needed to meet rapidly mounting legal and other expenses. Defense campaign backers in every city need to raise thousands of dollars for the Political Rights Defense Fund to launch the Roger Calero Defense Committee. Organize phone calling for donations, seek honoraria for speaking engagements, and take collections at political meetings, demonstrations and union meetings. Our goal is to raise over $50,000 by the end of January.


Tour of Roger Calero announced

The editor of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial has released Calero from assignments to allow him to tour the country, speaking on the fight to stop his deportation. He can address broadly sponsored defense meetings, along with other supporters of his fight; he can meet with groups of workers, immigrants rights fighters, reporters, and others to spread the word about the fight, get media coverage and raise funds.

The first stops on the tour will include the Twin Cities in Minnesota, where he was involved in the union organizing drive at Dakota Premium Foods, and other Midwest centers where packinghouse workers are centered, like Des Moines, Chicago and Omaha, Nebraska; Houston, where he was arrested by the INS and organizing efforts were first mobilized to get him out; and Los Angeles, where his family lives and where he went to school.

Requests for tour dates can be made now as the schedule is being prepared.

Defense material available

Up?to?date materials are available on?line at the website of Calero's paper, the Militant. The location is http://www.themilitant.com. Posted there are a fact sheet on the case, a petition, and a sample packet of letters sent to the INS demanding the exclusion proceedings be dropped.

Build the Rogger Calero Defense Committee

PRDF is working with other supporters of Calero's rights to launch the Roger Calero Defense Committee. We are soliciting sponsors for this defense committee. There is space on the defense fact sheet for people to sign on. It reads, "I support the fight to stop the exclusion proceedings against Roger Calero. List me as an endorser of the Roger Calero Defense Committee." The breadth of the sponsors' list will show the nonpartisan character of the support for the campaign to stop the deportation of Roger Calero.
The INS has thrown down the gauntlet. We are responding. We can deal some blows to the government's attack on Calero and on all of us that will help a new generation of defenders of political rights to work together and become stronger.
Join us.
In solidarity
John Studer
Executive Director
Political Rights Defense Fund