Why I’m in a Hunger Strike Outside of the White House? January 20, 2010

My name is Rodolfo Macias Cabrera.  I am architect by training, graduated from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (1984).  Ever since the year 2000, I have been the director of a small newspaper in San Antonio, Texas, with a monthly readership of 5,000 -printed papers- plus a daily online readership as well.  As a protest against the centuries-long corruption of the Mexican governments, for the period July 1, 1989-Dec. 1, 1994, I was chosen to be the Provisional President of Mexico in Exile, which in my native land 

which in Mexico would have implied an actual risk to my life.

My wife and the children who we raised in the United States of America are all undocumented immigrants, despite the fact that we have lived in this nation for the last twenty years.  All of my nuclear family is now in a deportation process.  Why?  I spent years trying to get political asylum in the United States, a privilege seldom if ever granted to the most deserving Mexican political refugees; the U.S. government would not listen to me.  Back in Mexico, we had been persecuted by government-related people: my wife was kidnapped and tortured.  But the standard of political persecution for Mexicans is very high: U.S. Embassy consular officers lied to me about the political asylum process, which –they said- had to begin at the Mexican border: a total lie.  Finally, 

in 1990 we obtained a visitor’s visa and crossed the border into the United States in 1990.

Back in 1995, we were in process of obtaining political asylum in the United States when, unexpectedly, the Mexican government filed a legal resource chargin

g me with crimes I had not committed.  The U.S. Immigration judge in charge of the political asylum proceedings listened to the Mexican government’s baseless allegations, and no political asylum was granted to my person.  The US government deported me by placing me at the border; there, a delegation of Mexican government administrators handcuffed me and took me to Mexico’s capital city, where I endured inhuman treatment at the hands of the government.  In a few words, I am not what people think of undocumented immigrants who sneak from Mexico: I can assert I am a victim of the United States’ double moral standards when it comes to political asylum.  The Unites States often preache

s freedom overseas, but it is not always ready to back its foreign policies with facts when we the persecuted people seek asylum in this great nation.

But why a hunger strike?

My children grew up in the United States, yet they cannot legally work in this nation, nor to drive a car, by the same token.  Going to the University, like any other young person likes to do, is not allowed to my grown-up children, also because of our Immigration status, which now is a deportation proceeding.  A hunger strike is always a desperate measure, but I found no other manner to make myself heard in the United States. 

What do you ask for?

I ask, for me, a review of my political asylum in the United States.  But my hunger strike is also meant as a claim for so many others whose Immigration status places then at a legal limbo in this great nation.  Barack Obama must fulfill his electoral campaign promise to push for an Immigration reform once at the Presidency. 

But your hunger strike has also other reasons.

Yes, but I guess it all boils down to one’s faith in this nation.  I want to have faith in President Obama, who did not swear his second oath over the Bible as he said he would do.  It is a matter of knowing whether or not the President is an observant Christian.  Tomorrow, it will be a year since President Obama took over the Presidency, yet he has not fulfilled his promises, one, the promise to swear over the same Bible used by Abraham Lincoln, the other the promise to push for an Immigration reform.  Along with President Calderon, Barack Obama promised, in Mexico, to push the Immigration reform this Winter, 2010, yet he has failed to do thus.  This is my reason to come to the U.S. Supreme Court: I want to know whether or not my letter to the Honorable Justice Sonia Sotomayor has merited a response on her side, as busy as doubtless she is.

You mention the Mexican government among your complaints.

A way of persecuting people is to seize their money, which the Mexican government has done to me after purportedly “forgiving” the crimes I never committed in Mexico.  The Mexican government entered a contract with my newspaper, yet it never fulfilled it.  My hunger strike is therefore also a call to decency: the Mexican government must at least have the decency of paying its obligations, no matter how disliked one of its citizens living abroad may be.