On December 3, Róger 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 (INS), 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 this country 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 Free Trade 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 an 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 reentry 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 60-day sentence with three years probation.  
 
Permanent resident for 12 years
When Calero applied for permanent residency 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 a Spanish-language news magazine. INS officials are now trying to take away those rights.

Prior to beginning his job as associate editor of Perspectiva Mundial and 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 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 Hipolito Acosta, District Director, Immigration and Naturalization Service, 126 Northpoint Drive, Houston, TX 77060; fax: 281-774-5989; 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 Róger 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, P.O. Box 761, Church Street Station, New York, NY 10007. Contributions are tax-deductible.
 
 
Related articles:
Staffs of ‘Perspectiva Mundial’ and the ‘Militant’ fight INS effort to exclude editor
UFCW official: ‘A travesty of justice’
Inside an INS jail in Houston
Many immigrants face denial of rights like Calero
An Appeal to readers
How you can help  
 
 
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