Migrants' Advocate to Take Baja Human Rights
Post
 Mexico: In controversial appointment, Raul Ramirez Baena, a
critic of U.S. border policy, will take over the largely ceremonial job.
By KEN
ELLINGWOOD, Times Staff Writer
TIJUANA--A
migrant rights advocate and frequent critic of tighter U.S. border
controls takes office today as official human rights ombudsman for Baja
California, despite objections by rivals over the selection process.
Raul Ramirez Baena, who has directed a
migrant aid center in Tijuana sponsored by the left-leaning Democratic
Revolution Party, is to be sworn in as the attorney general for human
rights in the state capital of Mexicali.
Ramirez, 50, said he intends to use the
high-profile--though mainly ceremonial--post to spotlight what he and
other critics contend is a deadly U.S. strategy that diverts illegal
immigrants from urban areas, such as San Diego, to treacherous routes
through mountains and desert terrain.
"The [U.S.] immigration policies are
violations of human rights--most notably the right to life," Ramirez said
during an interview in the migrant aid office, whose walls are covered
with posters marking rights observances worldwide.
Ramirez was named as the state's
independent rights advocate last week by the Baja California legislature
amid noisy protests from some activists. Other contenders and some of
their backers charged that lawmakers improperly whittled the list of 12
applicants to three finalists.
Some
rights groups now refuse to recognize Ramirez, saying that he was chosen
through back-room dealing as a way of granting a token spot in state
government to his party, which holds only three of 25 seats in the
legislature. The remaining seats are evenly divided between the
Institutional Revolutionary Party, which dominates national politics, and
the opposition National Action Party, which holds sway in Baja California.
"We and many of the groups in Mexicali
do not recognize Ramirez as ombudsman because he was an accomplice to a
process that's a farce," said Victor Clark Alfaro, a highly regarded
Tijuana activist who was one of the applicants.
Ramirez is to replace Antonio Garcia
Sanchez, whose three-year term is ending.
This selection of Ramirez took place the
first time the legislature was fully in charge of choosing the human
rights ombudsman, an independent post created in 1991. The ombudsman
receives citizens' complaints of abuse or shoddy treatment at the hands of
government officials at the local, state or federal levels. The rights
agency can investigate complaints, in some cases referring suspected
criminal acts for prosecution, but lacks much legal clout beyond
recommending corrective action.
Observers, however, credit the office
with taking on police misconduct and fostering a greater willingness among
ordinary citizens to step forward with complaints of official wrongdoing.
The ombudsman's office received 951 complaints statewide in the 12 months
ending in October.
Ramirez said he would
push for changes in the law to arm the office with the authority to impose
fines or other sanctions as punishment for official wrongdoing.
In the meantime, Ramirez said, the
advocate's most potent weapon is the bully pulpit. He said he would launch
a campaign to better acquaint Baja's "vulnerable population"--women, gays,
the elderly and the disabled--with their legal rights and would continue
raising concerns about immigrants. As a Mexican official, he will have no
say over U.S. policy but could monitor mistreatment of would-be immigrants
by Mexican authorities south of the border.
Ramirez has been active in a binational
network of activists who have criticized the U.S. border crackdown--the
California portion of which is known as Operation Gatekeeper--on human
rights grounds. Critics say that shoring up patrols in once porous urban
zones pushes undocumented immigrants to risk their lives crossing
elsewhere.
Fifty-eight Mexican nationals
have died trying to enter California illegally since Oct. 1, according to
the U.S. Border Patrol. The body of an immigrant was found last weekend in
the desert mountains in Imperial County, and Border Patrol agents rescued
five others who became stranded in Imperial County.
U.S. immigration officials blame
unscrupulous smugglers who charge immigrants hundreds of dollars for
passage but often abandon them along the border without food, water or
proper clothing. U.S. authorities argue that they have taken pains to
prevent tragedies by publicizing the perils of back-country crossings and
providing agents with rescue gear.
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