On April 1, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 44 workers at the warehouses of three distribution companies—Samsung, Frontier and Imperial CSS—in an industrial park in Torrance, Calif., just south of Los Angeles. ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice said all but two of the 44 people arrested are Mexican. Kice said 17 of those arrested were released for humanitarian reasons. (Diario Hoy, LA/Chicago, April 2, 3; La Opinión, Los Angeles, April 3; Free Speech Radio News, April 2) The Mexican consulate in Los Angeles reported that its personnel were able to speak with 34 of the arrested Mexicans and offer them orientation about their legal situation. (El Financiero, Mexico, April 3) William Jarquin, the consul of El Salvador in Los Angeles, said he was informed that two of those arrested were Salvadoran, and that one of the two had been released. (Diario Hoy, April 2)

On March 3, jailed Palestinian professor Sami Al-Arian was informed that he would be called to testify before a grand jury in Virginia which is investigating allegations that Muslim charities aided terrorism organizations. Al-Arian responded by starting a hunger strike the same day, refusing all food and water. On March 20, Al-Arian appeared before the grand jury and declined to testify. Later on March 20 Al-Arian began drinking water, but he continues to fast at the Northern Neck Regional jail in Warsaw, Va. (On March 12 he was transferred to a medical prison in Butner, NC, but on March 18 he was returned to the Warsaw jail.) Over the course of this latest hunger strike Al-Arian, who is diabetic, has lost 30 pounds; he has not been offered an IV or treatment for any of his symptoms, including chest pains, severe dehydration and headaches.

In a decision dated March 11, US District Judge Dean Pregerson in Los Angeles ruled that the family of Salvadoran immigrant Francisco Castañeda can continue to pursue a lawsuit against individual government officials for violating Castañeda's constitutional rights and can ask a jury to award punitive damages. Pregerson determined that the immigration agency's decision to withhold critical medical treatment from Castañeda while detaining him was "beyond cruel and unusual" punishment. The government had argued that its employees were immune from the lawsuit, and that federal law allowed only a suit against the government, with a nonjury trial and a $250,000 limit on damages. A spokesperson for the US attorney's office said the Justice Department might appeal Pregerson's ruling.

In a March 2 petition addressed to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Attorney General Michael Mukasey, 93 immigration detainees at Middlesex County jail in New Jersey complained about inadequate medical treatment for two fellow detainees, including a man named Arturo Alvarez who died earlier that same day. According to authorities the Cuban detainee died on March 2 at St. Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick after suffering a heart attack at the jail on Feb. 29. In the letter, titled "Re: Crime Against Humanity," the detainees said Alvarez asked for help and was given Tylenol and his own medication, "but no doctor was available to see him." The letter states that Alvarez "passed away in this jail" and was not sent to the hospital. The petition also charges that a detainee named Cemar Koc complained of pain to a first shift duty officer, got no help, and after complaining to a second-shift officer lost consciousness. (Home News Tribune, March 15; copy of petition made available by New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee)

On March 7, a group of Indian welders, pipe-fitters, and marine fabrication workers employed under the federal H-2B visa program filed a federal lawsuit against Signal International, alleging that they were lured to work at the company's shipyards in Pascagoula, Miss., and Orange, Tex., with false promises of permanent US residency. Once in the US, the workers say they were forced into involuntary servitude and overcrowded labor camps. The class action lawsuit, David v. Signal Int'l LLC, was filed in US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, in New Orleans, by several organizations including the Southern Poverty Law Center.

An ongoing occupation of threatened oak trees on the campus of UC Berkeley reached its 485th day March 30. Perversely, the grove of some 90 California oaks was planted in 1923 as a memorial to Californians who lost their lives in World War I, adjacent to the university's Memorial Stadium. But UC now plans to destroy most of the trees to build an athletic training facility. Activists maintain the site is also an Ohlone Indian burial ground, noting remains found there when the stadium was built in the '20s. The campaign has taken on several demands beyond preservation of the threatened grove, including:

On Good Friday, March 21, three New Orleans residents who entered the vacant Lafitte Housing Development in a bid to save it from being razed were arrested and charged under an anti-terrorist "critical structure" law enacted by the Louisiana legislature in the wake of 9-11. The three activists—Jamie Laughner, Thomas McManus, and Ezekiel Compton—slipped below a barbed wire fence, scaled a metal grating and situated themselves on the balcony of an empty apartment. When the three were arrested an hour later, they were charged with trespassing, resisting an officer, and "unlawful entry into a critical structure." Apart from the insidious treatment of an act of civil disobedience as an act of terrorism, the charges are doubly Orwellian given that the activists—from the groups May Day Nola, C3/Hands Off Iberville, and Common Ground—were trying to save the "critical structure." City authorities subsequently ordered its demolition. (The Bridge, Boston, March 25)

Journalist Claims Philadelphia Police Officer Killed by Friendly Fire

by Hans Bennett, The Defenestrator

Almost 30 years after their imprisonment, the eight remaining "MOVE 9" prisoners are now eligible for parole. April hearings are scheduled for only seven, because Chuck Africa is eligible six months later than the others. In early April, they will be interviewed on an individual basis, and ultimately a majority 5-9 vote among the nine Parole Board Members will be needed for each prisoner's release on parole.