Driver's licenses in the O'Malley hands	The first raid under Obama government
leaders who support the candidates Mauricio Funes (FMLN) and Rodrigo Avila (SAND) debate in DC.	War declares the USA to the Sinaloa cartel
Navarrese Nancy points at the Latin vote to gain election	They approve law against undocumented persons

The delegate Ann Sol Gutiérrez along with the director ejectivo of House of Maryland, Gustavo Torres during the Night of Latin Action in Annapolis, they advocate the proposals for immigrants in the Term of MD Photo: Alvaro Ortiz / Washington Hispanicd.

Mitzi Mace
Washington Hispanic

Forty eight hours later that tens immigrants were coming up to the capital of the state of Maryland in Annapolis to express his rejection to the antiimmigrant proposals of law that are discussed in the Legislative Assembly in the frame of the called Night of Latin Action, the governor of Maryland, Martin O'Malley declared himself in favor of a proposal of law that demands test of legal presence for the securing of the driver's license. This act has been considered to be a slap for the immigrant community that came full from hope before the mansion of the governor to make to hear his voices and advocate just politics that help to improve the quality of life in Maryland last Monday, the 23rd of February.

“ This decision took us as a surprise and we feel betrayed because we had been in conversations asking the governor that should not be pronounced by any proposal as regards the access of the licenses, but finally it did it”, it expressed to Washington Hispanic, the delegate Ann Sol Gutiérrez.
It was during the yesterday hearing that the members of the judicial committee listened to the different testimonies of the proposals of law qu they demand legal presence to obtain a driver's license or a card of identification. In whole to present to you two negative proposals for the immigrant community and a proposal presented by the delegate Ann Sol Gutiérrez who establishes the emission of a card of identification under the regulations of called Really GO, that would serve to tackle planes and to have access to governmental buildings, but at the same time it keeps the process inalterable to obtain a driver's license for safety questions in the highways.

He was the secretary of transport of Maryland, John D. Porcari who showed during the hearing that the state could not wait any more and that they had to be ready to start the stipulated in the Real law GO because otherwise the residents of Maryland would run the risk of not being able to use his driver's licenses to tackle a plane or to visit a federal building.

On the other hand, the governed one of Maryland said to have discussed the topic with other governors during a national meeting last weekend and that existed concluído that Maryland could not remain behind compared to other jurisdictions of the country.

For his part the manager of the Administration of Engines and Vehicles (MVA, for his initials in English), John T. Kuo also declared himself against the driver's licenses for undocumented persons and argued that to have two types of identifications would create major expenses and confusion.
Porcari said that the administration of O'Malley decided to support the most strict legislation in this sense because he might assure the integrity of the system mentioning that the cases of fraud had quadrupled in the last years.

In this sense the delegate Ann Sol Gutiérrez did called the community to initiate a campaign to flood the governor with letters in support to the driver's licenses and the negative implications of denying the access to this important document.

“ We mean the governor that if it does not change his position the community will remain very disappointed”, pointed out Gutiérrez.
For prompt the chief of the Judicial Committee will decide what proposals will be submitted to votes...

Back to top

Sigfrido King, Salvadoran deputy and spokesman of the FMLN. photo: Alvaro Ortiz / Washington Hispanic.

“There is an immense change desire”

Víctor Caycho
Washington Hispanic

For deputy Sigfrido Reyes, who is a spokesman of the FMLN, party that postulates Mauricio Funes as candidate for the Presidency of the Republic of El Salvador, “the elections of last January 18 gave us a parameter of what there can be the presidential elections of April 15”.

“ In this legislative and municipal process – it added - the FMLN was consolidated like the first Salvadoran political force, obtaining not only most of the votes, 42,6 per cent, while the party of government (SAND) obtained a little more than 38 per cent”.

Kings, who was of visit in Washington during which he met with political leaders and American legislators, told that his party obtained the biggest number of deputies of the Congress “and had an impressive ascent in the quantity of municipalities that are going to be governed from this year by our party”.
On this matter, it pointed out that this achievement “left us in a quite solid position the goal appeared of reaching the presidency”.

On this matter, it told that in a recent meeting in San Miguel, as well as in other Salvadoran cities, “the signs that the population gives are clear, that there is an immense desire of change of economic and political course of the country”.
Reyes remembered that the party SAND has governed per decades “and there is necessary this relief, this oxygen, and the village sees the alternation in the power like a need so that a democratic direction is consolidated”.
Nevertheless, it clarified that this existing optimism in the lines of the FMLN “does not make us fall down in a triunfalismo either”.

Further on, he said that one of the existing fears with regard to the next day is the electoral system “that is one of the most backward and less transparent than the whole Latin America”.
He emphasized that several factors exist “that make us distrust this system, like which the electoral court is practically to the service of the party of government, while a truly dirty and illegal campaign is realized against our candidate Mauricio Funes and the FMLN in the mass media, and nevertheless the electoral court does not operate”.

René León, Ambassador of El Salvador in Washington. photo: Alvaro Ortiz / Washington Hispanic.

“Any of the two can win”

“Definitely I believe that the surveys reveal that any of two candidates can win and that there is no favorite for the elections of March 15”. This is the opinion of the ambassador of El Salvador in Washington, DC, René León, on having referred to one of the last opinion polls related to these elections, that of the Center cios, which gives 41,7 % for the candidate of the FMLN, Mauricio Funes, and 40,5 % for the sand standard-bearer, Rodrigo Avila.

René León had recently the responsibility of coordinating a team of more than 1.600 professionals, that the program of civil government was in charge of working 2009-2014 of Rodrigo Avila, who is named “a more Just Country”.

According to the Salvadoran diplomat, it are 20 per cent of voters who are still undecided who are going to define the above-mentioned election. “I believe that two candidates come with equal opportunity to win and of what it is a question it is to have an electoral process that is clean, just and transparent, and where the sovereign decision of the Salvadorans is respected at the moment of choosing his next leader”, it pronounced itself. Nevertheless, he thought that the principal risk that confronts the imminent election “is that the FMLN, our political adversary, is not prepared to lose”, and that “the strategy of this party, of basing his campaign on the surveys and in a possible fraud it went flat completely, it does not exist, they the stage fell down”.

“ The Salvadoran democracy is going to demonstrate that it is mature and functional, but we hope that if the results are not for those that the FMLN waits, there should not be going to happen sprouts of violence and of destabilization”.

When one asked him for which of the candidates it would be necessary to vote, René León answered: "I would leave this quandary and this decision to him on the future of El Salvador to the conscience of the Salvadorans when they are going to vote. It is an individual decision that the Salvadorans have to take considering a series of variables, including the possibility that the country should keep on prospering at large, with democracy, in constitutional state and with a political diet that guarantees the individual rights. The Salvadoran will know what to do when it has the voting ballot paper. The Salvadoran will know what to do when it has the voting ballot paper opposite to them”.
Back to top

Eric Holder, Secretary of Justice, during the press conference on Wednesday, the 25th, where he announced the hundreds arrest of implied in the cartels of Mexican drug trafficking. Photo: Lawrence Jackson / AP.

It was a surprising operation against the traffickers' powerful organization of drugs, but not in Mexico but in several cities of our nation

Devlin Barret
AP

Federal agents detained on Wednesday, the 25th more than 750 suspects in a wide operation that constituted a hard blow the cartels of Mexican drug trafficking that operate inside the United States.

In the night raids that the DEA realized in cooperation with the local and state police officers arrests were done in the states of California, Minnesota, and in several suburbs of Maryland, adjacent to Washington, DC.
More than 50 suspects were arrested during the night in a series of raids coordinated by the Agency Against drugs (DEA) destined to capture members of the cartel of Sinaloa, which it takes responsibility of provoking an increasing violence in Mexico and in the United States.

Another 700 suspects had been detained previously during the “Operation Xcellerator” that began 21 months ago, they revealed the authorities.

The secretary of Justice, Eric Holder, pointed out that the cartels “are lucrative, extremely violent and they are handled by surprising planning and precision”.

Holder announced the arrests in a press conference, in which also it hinted that if it turns to impose in the United States the prohibition of the sale of automatic weapon, it might reduce the blood spilling in Mexico, where last year 6.000 persons died in actions of violence related to the traffic of drugs.

The American authorities have the responsibility of making sure that the Mexican police “should not have to fight to a considerable armament, or should have to face rifles AK-47 or another similar type of weapon that have been introduced to Mexico”, stood out Holder.

The temporary director of the DEA, Michele Leonhart, pointed out that the raids were demonstrating that the tentacles of the organized crime had expanded to several places of the United States, not only in the big cities like Washington and Los Angeles, but also in calm communities as Stowe, Iowa, that supposedly the cartel was using like a distribution center of the drug to the whole country.

Back to top