HispanicVista Columnists
“Manuel Baltazar: A US-Mexico Scapegoat”
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By
Sal Osio, JD - From the Publisher's Corner
- January 25, 2008
- From the Publisher’s Corner
- “Manuel Baltazar: A US-Mexico Scapegoat”
- By Sal Osio, JD
- In addition to your prayers, should you want to be heard, write to your public servants. For starters communicate with Sheriff Leroy Baca, 4700 Ramona Blvd., Monterey Park, CA 91754. And, let Manuel know that you care for his well being: Manuel Baltazar, booking number 9354396, Pitchess Detention Center, Terminal Annex 86164, Los Angeles, CA 90086-0164. Voice your opinion. Express your outrage. DO SOMETHING!
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- Sal Osio, JD is the publisher and CEO of HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com). Contact at: SPosio@aol.com
A silver lining to being held in detention, as I was until recently at the Pitchess Detention Center in Los Angeles County, awaiting my appeal, is the opportunity of meeting inmates, who with rare exceptions, are members of society’s underclass. Last year I had the privilege of meeting and befriending a noble being of giant human values and honest principles. His name is Manuel Baltazar.
Manuel is in jail. He is being held prisoner without a trial and without the benefit of charges brought against him. He is being held in involuntary servitude against the 14th Amendment of our Constitution at the Pitchess Detention Center by Sheriff Leroy Baca. Manuel was supposed to be released, based on his guilty pleas to an infraction, on his release date of January 26, 2007. His full sentence expired on June 30, 2007. When I met him in September, he had already served 4 months past his sentence and 9 moths past his release date. He was performing hard labor, digging ditches and constructing public works, without compensation and against his will.
I was so taken by his plight that I wrote a letter in September to Sheriff Baca, on behalf of Manuel, highlighting his situation and grievance. Manuel was immediately notified by jail authorities that he was being released. He was a changed man. Hope glittered in his eyes where before there was a vacancy signaling his despair. Everyone who knew him, guards and inmates, celebrated his imminent release.
Then, nothing happened.
October, November and December came and went without a word of his release. Manuel went into a depression. He suffered from nightmares. He experienced hopelessness. His loneliness was highlighted by the fact that his mother and other family members had no clue as to his fate and probably suspected that a great tragedy had befallen him. He had no one on the outside with whom he could communicate. His only friends were his fellow inmates, who came and went, since their average detention was 45 days.
Why was he informed in September that he was being released and then denied his freedom without any explanation? Is this not cruel and unusual punishment by any standard of human behavior?
In December, last month, Manuel was a broken man. He refused to work like an ox and was punished for his “insubordination.” When I last saw him he had been handcuffed and thrown into the “hole” - solitary confinement in a cell without access to recreation or outdoor activities, such as exercise. He didn’t care. He had lost the will to live.
I cried for him then. And, I cry for him now.
I have suffered the consequences for standing up to a principle or going out of my way to help another. The old saying that “No good deed shall go unpunished,” regrettably, in my experience, holds true. In Manuel’s case, however, I would not be able to sleep in peace if I did not bring out this great injustice to light.
Manuel is a descendant of the noble Meso-American community, the Tarasco Indians, who inhabit the central plateau of Mexico between Lake Chapala and Lake Patzcuaro, in the state of Michoacan. He came to Los Angeles, illegally, to work in order to support his mother. His family was victimized economically by the importation of cheaper agricultural products from the U.S. than the cost of cultivating these in Mexico, such a grains to make bread and tortillas.
It turns out that the reason for his incarceration is that the INS is paying the Sheriff’s office to “hold” him, albeit without due process of law and in violation of his human rights, not to mention the U.S. Constitutional prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude. Baltazar, at his expense, is a “profit generator” to the County. For which reason the Sheriff’s office ignores the injustice.
And, what is Mexico doing to help Manuel? After all Mexico receives over $25 billion per year from its nationals working illegally in the U.S. – remittances that they send to their families in Mexico. The answer is NOTHING. The Los Angeles Mexican Consulate is too busy processing thousands of complaints with similar and even more egregious grievances.
Manuel’s situation is hopeless. He has no champion to defend him. He is in an abyss of despair. He is a casualty of the North America Free Trade Agreement which enriches U.S. and Mexico economic interests by more that $250 billion per year. In the scheme of things he is an insignificant nuisance to be spit out in the name of law and order, trade and commerce.
Possibly, Manuel’s only salvation is the care and concern among true Christians. I say “true” because the majority of our so called “Christian Community” are comprised of church/club affiliates interested in self promotion, as opposed to ministering to the needy in the path paved by Jesus. We should ask ourselves: “What would Jesus do in the case of Manuel Baltazar?”