May 20, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Migration, Refugees
Three recent, but apparently unrelated, attacks in the Denver area on newly arrived political refugees from Bhutan have frightened a fragile community. “Before leaving the refugee camp, I was thinking: We have problems. . . . I’ll feel safe in the United States. Now my feeling has changed. I’m not safe in the United States,” said Yadav Rizal, 39, who was robbed of $250, beaten and dragged behind a liquor store in northeast Denver. The attacks aggravate a difficult situation for refugees. The government grants them only $450 a month for eight months to resettle, forcing most to live in rougher areas where police and caseworkers say street crime is more frequent. Those who find work in the anemic economy often ride buses late at night. The Nepali-speaking, Hindu refugees from Bhutan now number about 530 in the Denver area.
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May 18, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
China
Steelworkers in Pueblo and across the country say Chinese pipe “dumping” forced U.S. layoffs.
Pueblo steelworkers have joined steel companies nationwide asking for government help after layoffs they say were forced by unfair trade practices by Chinese steel competitors. “I have no health insurance now. I don’t understand how the United States can allow this,” said Eddie Barela, 39, one of about 50 workers laid off recently from Evraz Rocky Mountain Steel in Pueblo — the old Colorado Fuel & Iron plant that employed his father for 35 years. This week, federal investigators expect responses from 212 Chinese seamless-pipe factories and China’s government after launching a probe into how allegedly unfair trade practices might have hurt Barela and hundreds of other seamless-pipe steelworkers. A petition filed by Evraz Rocky Mountain Steel and six other companies urges the government to take economic action against China. It accuses China’s government of unfairly subsidizing Chinese production of seamless pipe used in oil and gas drilling and then “dumping” vast quantities on the U.S. market. The dumping forced layoffs of more than 2,000 seamless-pipe workers in Colorado and around the country, union leaders charge.
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May 18, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants
An elections clerk told Hong Skains she could vote. Now the Chinese woman married to a U.S. citizen may be deported.
A Chinese newlywed who proudly declared as she applied for citizenship that she had voted for George W. Bush is now facing deportation as a result of her admission. A Fremont County elections clerk signed up Hong Skains, 37, to vote in the 2004 elections in what officials now acknowledge was a misunderstanding. But the federal law barring non-citizens from voting makes no allowance for misunderstandings. Now, unless an immigration judge rules otherwise, Skains’ art education at the University of Colorado is jeopardized, and her husband, Doug Skains, 73, would have to move to China to avoid separation.
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May 3, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Pollution
Many around Cañon City oppose processing uranium again.
While their plant officially remains an environmental disaster, owners of a Cañon City uranium mill are pursuing a plan to reopen for nuclear business by hauling 12.5 million tons of ore by train from a protected mountain in New Mexico to refurbished facilities along the Arkansas River. Cotter Corp. executives have informed state officials they will crush and chemically leach 500,000 tons of uranium per year for 25 years — starting as soon as 2014 — “dependent upon market forces.” Yet Cotter’s latest data indicate groundwater contamination from Cold War uranium-processing still is spreading unchecked toward Cañon City (pop. 15,850). And federal investigators still haven’t completed a required comprehensive look at whether contamination could be causing cancer and other health problems. Local leaders who long tolerated the contamination — it’s been 25 years since the Environmental Protection Agency ordered a Superfund cleanup — now oppose any project until the cleanup is done.
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April 19, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Migration
Immigration enforcement yields new revenue during tight times.
Faced with a budget crunch that forced him to lay off deputies, El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa has tapped a new source of revenue: illegal immigrants. Maketa has started leasing space in his jail to house an average of 150 immigrants a night for federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He also sent 17 jail deputies for training in immigration procedures so they can initiate deportations without waiting for federal agents. ICE pays $62.40 a night for each detained immigrant, plus mileage for transport in sheriff’s vans. The arrangement pumped $3.6 million into El Paso County over the past year and now provides 10 percent of the jail’s budget. “I feel like we’re truly contributing to (solving) a national problem,” said Maketa, one of 67 law enforcement agency chiefs nationwide who have had deputies authorized to enforce federal immigration laws.
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April 14, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Africa, Security
There would seem to be a simple solution to the problem of piracy off Africa: Arm merchant ships to the teeth, put guards on board and shoot anyone who tries to climb on deck. But insurance and security costs, restrictions on weapons imposed by the world’s ports, and concerns about the safety of crews sailing with flammable or explosive cargo have led the industry to pause rather than arm crews.
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April 1, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Refugees
A blind immigrant wins his five-year battle to become a citizen.
A five-year fight for citizenship ended with a closed, five-minute swearing-in ceremony Tuesday for Palestinian refugee Zuhair Mahd. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials, known for routinely conducting mass swearing-in ceremonies of new citizens in downtown Denver, excluded the media for the brief presentation of a certificate of naturalization to Mahd. Some of Mahd’s family and friends attended. “It’s over,” Mahd, 35, said on the windy steps outside the USCIS building, waving a U.S. flag. “Someone asked me, ‘Why do you even want to be a citizen after all this?’ In my mind, this is a country with good people that get up every morning to do the right thing — just to be good people. I wanted to be part of that.”
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March 31, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment
Demand for materials decreases as supply keeps climbing
White signs on sides of Denver’s curbside recycling pick-up vehicles declare: “Recycling. It’s easier than ever.” But today recyclers say it’s increasingly difficult to move mounting heaps of plastics, cardboard, bottles and newspaper that Denver residents enthusiastically stuff into purple bins.
The problem: The ultimate end-users of recycled material — largely factories in Asia — aren’t buying as much as they did when the global economy was growing. Prices paid to recyclers, which once topped $150 a ton, plunged by 70 percent last fall and have stayed relatively low. That leaves recycling plants, such as Waste Management Inc.’s single-stream facility in Denver, struggling to get rid of the heaps. “Right now, there’s an imbalance,” said Chuck Schmidt, Waste Management’s director of recycling for 11 Western states and part of Canada.
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March 24, 2009 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Human Rights, Refugees
Rights groups are challenging the U.S. position that violence by Mexican drug cartels does not entitle a refugee to haven.
The drug-related violence plaguing Mexico has led to a surge in asylum requests from Mexicans seeking safe haven in the United States. The number of asylum petitions from Mexican citizens increased from 1,331 in 2005 to 2,231 last year. While most are denied because the U.S. does not recognize fear of violence as grounds for automatic admission, the approval rate has grown during that time from 5 percent to 13 percent. At least 68 Mexican asylum cases have been received since October 2007 in Denver’s Immigration Court — more than from any other country — with more than 3,749 cases in courts nationwide, federal records show. Lawyers who represent asylum-seekers point to the approximately 6,000 people killed over the past year in Mexican drug wars and worry that a failure to gran t more requests will lead to more deaths. Among the asylum-seekers: a former Mexican police officer named Jesus, who asked that his last name not be used for fear of repercussions against his family and friends still in Mexico. Three days after drug-cartel gunmen killed his police partner, Jesus resigned from the force. He fled northern Mexico to Denver with his family. They entered the United States legally as tourists. Now Jesus is seeking political asylum. “If I go back,” he said, “I’d be waiting for death.”
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November 23, 2008 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Immigrants, Migration
With its faltering economy, the U.S. is no longer the land of opportunity it once was for Mexican immigrants.
The tightening economy may be driving once-hopeful immigrants home. This report presents evidence of a gradual exodus: Workers line up at Mexico’s consulate for permits that let them haul U.S.-purchased possessions tax-free. Car dealers catering to immigrants say cash-only business is brisk as workers hunt for affordable pickups, 1998 or newer to comply with Mexico’s laws. Bank data show that the amount of money Mexican workers send home is falling. Mexico-bound buses at Denver’s bus deport are filling up more swiftly than usual. Interviews indicate growing numbers of immigrants uprooted by economic hard times are recalculating whether to go or stay. Violence in Mexico complicates decision-making. Any exodus would add to what recent surveys in both the U.S . and Mexico show to be sharply reduced migration into the United States. Colorado’s population of 5 million includes 243,000 Mexico-born residents — many of them with U.S.-born children — and another 37,000 immigrants from elsewhere in Latin America. Latinos, half of them immigrants, make up 14 percent of the nation’s workforce.
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A journalist and lawyer, Bruce Finley has investigated local, national and international issues with on-site reporting in more than 40 countries. In his position as a staff writer for the Denver Post, he is focusing on environment-related news including water challenges, the oil and gas boom and wildfire.
