BY ROSS CLARK  
"Róger Calero, your fight is our fight because we are facing the same issue," said Zainab Hassan, a Somali activist for human rights and against deportations. Hassan was speaking at a January 11 meeting in South Saint Paul to protest efforts by the INS to deport Róger Calero from the United States.

Calero is a journalist and associate editor of Perspectiva Mundial (World Perspective), a Spanish-language news magazine published in New York, who lived and worked in the Twin Cities for several years.

Says Hassan, "We are seeking to mobilize the broadest possible forces to stop this deportation. Many organizations and individuals will understand that they have a stake in the outcome of this fight and other fights against deportations: unions, organizations of journalists and writers, Black and Latino rights organizations, civil liberties groups, student organizations, anti-war groups, and many more."

The meeting was sponsored by United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) Local 789 and was attended by about 100 people from a cross section of the community, including packinghouse workers, leaders of various unions and community organizations, and elected officials.

The tone of the meeting was confident and upbeat. Unity in the face of government polices and actions were the dominant theme. "Enough of these unjust attacks--the campaign of Róger Calero is a campaign we should all be supporting," said Augustina Borroel, a member of UFCW local 789.

Underscoring Borroel’s point, Feliciano Laurent, coordinator of the Social Action Committee of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on Saint Paul’s West Side, said, "We must unite and figure out how we can move forward in this struggle."

Other speakers included Bill Pearson, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 789; Pablo Tapia of ISAIAH, a local immigrant rights organization; Uriel Perez, an organizer with Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union Local 17; as well as representatives from other social justice organizations.

The meeting was organized to take advantage of Calero’s visit to the Twin Cities as part of a national speaking tour organized by the Róger Calero Defense Committee, which is spearheading a broad, nonpartisan campaign to stop his deportation.  
 
Somali immigrants fight back
The event coincided with other activities over the weekend addressing the same issue. At one event, a meeting in the Somali community demanding an end to the deportations of Somalis and the breaking up of their families, Calero had the opportunity to speak. The activities locally are a part of, and strengthened by, what appears to be a growing willingness on the part of immigrant communities and their supporters to resist government efforts to abridge their rights...

Calero noted this dynamic in his remarks to the gathering, explaining that, "Supporters of [the] campaign in New York joined with 300 people protesting the national registration order by the Justice Department. It’s an example of how our struggle is one of many struggles and how a victory for one is a victory for all."

According to materials released by the defense committee, Calero’s fight began on December 3 of last year when, upon returning home to the United States from a reporting assignment in Guadalajara, Mexico, and Havana, Cuba, he was arrested by the INS at Houston Intercontinental Airport. Calero was told he was being denied entry to the United States and taken to an INS jail in Houston.

Calero was paroled December 13 after the INS district director in Houston was flooded with protest messages. The INS has now set a March 25 hearing for Calero to institute "removal proceedings" against him.

Calero has been a permanent resident of the United States for the past 12 years. The INS, in their attempt to deport him to his native Nicaragua, is citing a 1988 conviction when he was a high school student in Los Angeles on a charge of selling an ounce of marijuana to an undercover police officer. Calero explained that, "Faced with a possible jail term I made a plea bargain and received a suspended 60-day sentence, three years probation, and a $50 fine.

"When I applied for permanent residence in 1989, I explicitly included information about my conviction. In granting me my resident status, the INS waived the conviction. In 2000 they renewed my green card," he said.

The January 11 meeting raised over $2,000 for Calero’s defense fund, and a number of people endorsed the campaign. One young man who introduced himself as a Mexican worker who finds himself in this country because of the [high] unemployment rate in Mexico, summed up many of the sentiments expressed over the course of the evening: "Today we fight for Róger, tomorrow we fight for ourselves."
 
 
Related articles:
Meetings in Northwest back fight against deportation  
 
 
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