Is
The US Getting Paranoid? Or is it a new way of ripping off people
by taking their cars and possessions using a zero tolerance law.
Either way it is a blatant abuse of the law. Is
The US Getting Paranoid? Or is it a new way of ripping off people
by taking their cars and possessions using a zero tolerance law.
Either way it is a blatant abuse of the law.|
A4 · SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 2000 ROBERT MATAS An aid worker from British Columbia who travels regularly to Guatemala is being held in a U.S. detention camp for illegal aliens near the Mexican border, accused of failing to tell U.S. Border Patrol guards about his marijuana conviction more than 20 years ago. Ira Zbarsky, a B.C. Green Party activist who has spent the past 10 years helping peasant groups in Guatemala, was detained on Dec. 4 and charged with attempting to enter the United States illegally by failing to tell officials at the U.S.Mexican border about his criminal conviction in 1978. His truck, carrying Mayan textiles and about 70 kilograms of organic coffee for Canada, was seized. The United States insists that foreigners with a criminal record obtain special permission from a U.S. consulate before entering the country. In a phone message to a friend in British Columbia shortly after his arrest, Mr. Zbarsky said he was detained on the grounds that he had a history of drug trafficking. His comments have been distributed as part of a campaign to organize support for his release. Mr. Zbarsky is quoted as saying he was fined $25 in 1978 for possessing marijuana, not for trafficking. He is being incarcerated in Texas with about 130 prisoners "virtually all Latino, the majority, like myself, with legal papers," he said. "Some have been in jail for upwards of six months, waiting for immigration hearings. All have faced constant humiliation. "I have been removed from the prison for public complaint of inadequate diet and loss of basic rights. I have been placed in solitary confinement," he added. Reynald Doiron, a spokesman for Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, confirmed in an interview yesterday that Mr. Zbarsky was arrested because of a minor drug-related conviction. The conviction was not for trafficking, he said. No matter how long ago, how minor or whether the crime is a,q. longer part of a Canadian citizen's record in Canada, a criminal conviction is enough for U.S. border officials to detain foreigners and confiscate their vehicle, he added. "It happens frequently," he said. "It's just not always reported." However, people in that situation are usually sent back to Canada within two or three weeks, Mr. Doiron said. . |
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
Concerns over the threat of terrorism, millennium madness and Y2K computer glitches have meant that Mr. Zbarsky remained in custody for an unusually long time, he said. Mr. Zbarsky is to appear in a Texas court on Wednesday. Mr. Zbarsky has endured unusual hardships while in custody. He is in arm and leg chains when he is moved about the detention centre. Also, his request to be released with bail until his court hearing was turned down. U.S. officials in Texas and at the U.S. consulate in Vancouver would not comment yesterday. The Canadian consulate in Dallas has been in touch with Mr. Zbarsky and his family. But the government has not intervened in the process or provided Mr. Zbarsky with any legal assistance, Mr. Doiron said. "In the same way, we would not accept interference from a foreign government in our process for handling foreign nationals," he said. Mr. Zbarsky has not brought his concerns about the conditions in the detention centre to Canadian government representatives, he added
Suzanne Rose, who has worked with Mr. Zbarsky, said she was told the border patrol found a record of the 1978 conviction during a computer check carried out when Mr. Zbarsky was crossing the border. "He presented himself with his passport, and then he was charged," she said. Mr. Zbarsky, a former executive member of the B.C. Green Party and the Green Party of Canada, travels regularly between Guatemala and Canada. He has been active for 10 years in the Shuswap Association for the Promotion of Eco Desarrollo, a Canadian registered charity that helps Mayan peasant groups in Guatemala and the Chiapas region of Mexico develop community-based projects. He spends about four months each year in Canada, collecting donations such as bicycle parts, sewing machines and gardening tools, according to members of a B.C. group pushing for his release from the detention centre. For the rest of the year, Mr. Zbarsky is involved with Mayan organizations: on a pedal-powered pig-feed production system, a water treatment system and development of greenhouse production. |
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