Spanish police Feb. 11 arrested 14 prominent members of the outlawed Basque nationalist party Batasuna. Most of the arrests, ordered by leading anti-terrorist prosecutor Judge Baltasar Garzon, took place in towns around the northern Basque region and neighboring Navarra. One, Nuria Alzugarai, was arrested in the southern city of Cordoba, where she was visiting a prisoner. Police searched the houses of Karmelo Landa and Mikel Etxaburu, arrested in Bilbao, and seized several computers. police also searched several houses in other Basque towns, including Elorrio. The detainees, who have been transferred to Madrid, are accused of "collaboration with a terrorist group." (EiTB, Feb. 11)

An estimated 3,500 people attended a rally on Feb. 6 in Danbury, Connecticut, to protest a partnership between Danbury police and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While the demonstrators voiced their opposition outside City Hall, inside the Common Council voted 19-2 to invite ICE to train and deputize Danbury police as immigration agents. Mayor Mark Boughton, who backs the plan, said it will start with the training of two detectives to carry out investigations of immigrants suspected of human trafficking, drug smuggling or document fraud. (News-Times, Danbury, Feb. 7; Hartford Courant, Feb. 7)

At a press conference on Jan. 28 at the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, activist Flor Crisóstomo announced she would not comply with her deportation set for that date, and would instead go into sanctuary at the church. "I'm not going. I've asked my pastor and my church for sanctuary and they have granted it." US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement that Crisóstomo had been granted "voluntary departure" by an immigration judge, requiring her to leave the US no later than Jan. 28. Crisóstomo said she is not "defying the laws of this country and I'm not hiding. I am taking the position of civil disobedience to press this government to act, to fix the broken laws and end this inhumane system of cheap undocumented labor and exploitation." Church pastor Walter Coleman noted that "the forces that bring people here are still there. The Free Trade Treaty has destroyed agriculture in Mexico and other countries and until it is renegotiated people will keep coming." (Diario Hoy, Jan. 29)

On the afternoon of Feb. 7, more than 100 ICE agents raided the headquarters of Micro Solutions Enterprises (MSE), a manufacturer of computer toner and inkjet cartridges in Van Nuys, California. ICE executed a federal search warrant at the site and arrested 130 MSE employees on administrative immigration violations. ICE also arrested eight current and former MSE employees on federal criminal charges for providing fraudulent information to gain employment. The search warrant remains under seal because the investigation is ongoing. (ICE news release, Feb. 8; AP, Feb. 7)

On Feb. 7 Henry Ruben and other US activists were forcefully removed from a public hearing held by the US House Subcommittee on Western Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, DC on "Plan Mexico," a secretive $1.5 billion package of military aid to Mexico, ostensibly to fight narco trafficking. The activists had demanded that the hearing include testimony from groups that oppose the plan, including the United Steelworkers (USW) and the San Francisco-based nonprofit Global Exchange; the people called to testify were supporters of the plan, like Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon.

A group of five men armed with AK-47 and AR-15 rifles and 9mm pistols shot and killed Alejandro Barrita Ortiz, director of the Auxiliary, Industrial, Bank and Commercial Police for the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, on Jan. 30 as he was jogging on the track at the Bosque El Tequio sports complex near Oaxaca city. Also killed in the military-style ambush were one of Barrita Ortiz's bodyguards, Juan Eduardo Prado Perez; government employee Rafael Alonso Muñoz; and sports trainer Virginia Galan Rodriguez, who won the state sports prize in 2003. Two other people were wounded. It was not clear whether Muñoz and Galan were with Barrita Ortiz's group.

The Nueva Vida Women's Cooperative Maquiladora (COMAMNUVI), a Nicaraguan women's sewing cooperative in Ciudad Sandino, just outside Managua, says that it is about to lose its land. According to the cooperative, a certain Yelba Carvajal is suing in court to take over the land because of a typographical error in COMAMNUVI's land title; the cooperative says it purchased the land from another cooperative in the 1990s and that Carvajal bought some other land from the same cooperative.

While at a Feb. 5 Havana screening of a documentary on his youth, popular Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez criticized regulations that keep Cubans from staying in Cuban hotels reserved for tourists. "I belong to a generation that when we had 30 pesos in our pockets, we could stay in any hotel," he said. Rodriguez also criticized the requirement for Cubans to get special permission to travel out of the country. These and similar criticisms have become common since July 2007, when acting president Raul Castro called for a reform of the system; in September and October people participated in a series of meetings in which they were encouraged to voice criticisms.