Proposal for day-laborer site brings a national debate to Centreville

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By Derek Kravitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 1, 2010; B01

At first, a Northern Virginia developer's plan to build a gathering place for immigrant day laborers seemed like a simple solution for a local problem. But as the national immigration debate continues to ramp up, the idea of erecting a double-wide work center in Centreville -- privately funded and staffed by church volunteers -- is facing increased scrutiny from those on both sides of the debate.

Albert J. Dwoskin, once described as the region's "shopping center king" and a longtime Democratic Party donor, last month proposed setting up a trailer behind his Centreville Square Shopping Center as a de facto work center for about 50 Guatemalan day laborers who for years have sought construction and landscaping jobs near the stores and the adjacent Centreville Public Library. Fairfax County Supervisor Michael R. Frey (R-Sully) has supported the plan, and a group of churches, calling itself the Centreville Immigration Forum, has offered to staff the facility.

But a town-hall-style meeting Tuesday to discuss the proposal is expected to bring out hundreds of shopping center tenants and nearby residents who oppose a day-laborer site because they worry that it could lure more immigrants seeking work. Dwoskin acknowledged the potential for a firestorm.

"The less press this gets, the better," Dwoskin, 67, said last week.

Frey, a moderate Republican with a low-key demeanor, said he, too, feared that the meeting could devolve into a larger discussion of federal immigration policy and threaten the community's carefully hatched plans.

"People have wanted me to grandstand and become some kind of a demagogue on this issue," Frey said. "This is a Centreville problem, not a federal problem. Not to say I wish this hadn't bubbled up, say, three months before Arizona," referring to a new Arizona law that makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.

Debate about Spanish-speaking day laborers gathering to seek work has been common in the Washington region, from Herndon, Annandale, Culmore and Falls Church in Northern Virginia to Wheaton, Silver Spring and Gaithersburg in Maryland.

In Centreville, a Fairfax County community of about 50,000 that is both prosperous and quickly diversifying, the controversy focuses on the four dozen or so Hispanic men, some of whom are undocumented immigrants, who often stand near Lee Highway and Centreville Road. For five years, Dwoskin has fielded complaints from many of his 120 shopkeepers, who say their customers are being scared away.

"I personally don't like to see them hanging around there. I have families with kids that come in, and it can be a problem," said Rayman Hamid, a Guyana native and former winner of the Centreville Businessman of the Year award who owns a Baskin-Robbins franchise a few blocks from where many of the laborers gather. "But I feel sorry for them, too. They're human beings, man. I don't know what to do."

A year ago, Dwoskin hired a full-time security guard to keep the men off his property, so they took refuge near the library. The Centreville Immigration Forum, the church group that organized three years ago to work with the Hispanic community, has offered its services, holding public forums about immigration and the difficulties of day laboring. Many of the men have told church officials that they have been cheated by employers, said Alice H. Foltz, a parishioner at Wellspring United Church of Christ. She is the unofficial "convener" of about 40 churchgoers who have agreed to staff the trailer as a day-laboring work center.

"It's an issue of exploitation," said Holtz, a history teacher at Northern Virginia Community College's Loudoun County campus. "But we're not trying to solve immigration here. We're trying to help these men."

No taxpayer funds would be used, Frey said, and Dwoskin would pay for the trailer and its utilities. Edgar Aranda-Yanoc, a community educator in the Falls Church office of the Legal Aid Justice Center, called it a "local solution to a local problem," adding that it has the support of the day laborers who live in a stretch of townhouses near the library.

David Garcia, 35, who moved from Guatemala with his wife about four years ago, said a work center could give him and other immigrants a haven and a steady income. "Sometimes they pick us up and don't pay. So a trailer would help," Garcia said.

But many shopping center tenants and customers said they fear that a hiring center would attract more immigrants seeking work, overwhelming already congested roads and spurring a spike in vandalism, loitering and petty crime.

"It's a terrible idea. They're going to come from all over, and we're going to get a reputation for not being a safe place," said Gary Malm, who owns Centreville Tire and Auto near the trailer's proposed site. "I wouldn't want my daughter or son or my wife dropping off a car at night around here if they were hanging around."

Del. Timothy D. Hugo (R-Fairfax), whose district includes Centreville, sent an e-mail to 9,000 supporters urging them to attend Tuesday's meeting -- scheduled for 7 p.m. at Centre Ridge Elementary School -- and oppose the work center plan. "Centreville is turning a blind eye to the concerns of its residents," said Hugo, who co-sponsored a bill this year that will allow Virginia localities to prosecute those who sell "goods or services" on roadways.

Church forum members say they fear that Centreville could experience the turmoil that occurred in Herndon in 2006 over a plan for a town-sponsored day-laborer center. But Dwoskin and Frey hope the work center idea calms tensions. "We'll see what happens Tuesday," Frey said.

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Virginia medical team reaches Haitian city, begins to treat patients

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By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 20, 2010; A09

JACMEL, HAITI -- After 2 1/2 days of travel, over the sea, across borders, in planes so small they had to leave most of their food and water behind, the emergency relief workers from Northern Virginia had finally arrived.

They found that the hospital courtyard in Jacmel had become a village of the injured and their families, a community living under tarps, with laundry stretched out on rubble to dry and a large black pig wandering by the ruins of the maternity ward.

Jacmel, a beautiful city on the southern coast of Haiti, known for its artists, its pastel colonial houses and its carnival, had been hit hard by the earthquake and left with almost no functioning medical care. But hope remained. Residents here were still pulling out a few people from under buildings -- alive.

Image by ambafranceht via Flickr

The crew from Community Coalition for Haiti, with doctors and ER nurses from Inova Fairfax Hospital, was glad to finally join the effort, after a crazy, roundabout trip full of mishaps, the same kind of journey that many relief workers faced as they tried to get into the chaos of a devastated country.

The CCH group left Washington before dawn Sunday, flew to Santiago in the Dominican Republic, then got up before dawn again to catch another flight. It was a race that ended like a flat tire at the border with Haiti on Monday.

The relief workers found themselves caught in a throng of thousands of people on market day, women weaving about with huge sacks of macaroni balancing on their heads, small boys tapping at the glass of the CCH bus, asking for food. They waited, stuck without their passports, for the trip leaders to arrive in a truck and get them through the border.

Image by ambafranceht via Flickr

When they finally inched across the narrow bridge to Haiti, they knew they had probably missed their chance at a flight but rushed toward the airfield at Pignon anyway. They crammed people into a pickup truck for a jolting and bruising ride over rough dirt roads through mountains, veering around goats and ditches, fording streams and rattling through small villages, with a doctor on the back clinging to the pile of medical supplies and luggage.

They missed the flight, by a long shot. The next morning, as the sun rose, a Haitian boy shooed goats off the airfield as two six-seater planes arrived to fly them to Jacmel.

Once here, they dropped their tents at the convent where they would be sleeping and headed for the hospital. They were among the first overseas medical teams to arrive.

They found patients lying on beds of bright green planks pulled from the rubble. A girl held an IV drip for her sister, who was on a bed mat, sweat pouring off of her face, which was twisted in agony.

The patients were all outside. Tarps protected them from the almonds that dropped from trees overhead. But it was unbearably hot there, with families bringing meals and living alongside the injured crammed into the small courtyard.

Close enough to reach out and touch one another, patients lay moaning as volunteers wrapped gauze around injuries.

A small boy stood, hands on his head, mouth trembling, as he watched a doctor check his sister's leg.

A woman on crutches limped up the hill toward the tarps. Another, with bandages all over her head, dropped onto a bench, whimpering softly in the midst of the crowd. Another slept on a low concrete wall covered in white dust.

And more people were waiting at the gates.

Ted Alexander, an orthopedic surgeon from Inova, stepped out from under a tarp.

"I looked at one of the guillotine amputations they did at the shoulder," he said.

He was preparing to do an amputation himself as soon as the anesthesiology equipment was hooked up. The 55-year-old woman's arm was black and necrotic, one of many injuries that had gone untreated or had been given only the crudest first aid.

Nearby, a cluster of women waited for news outside the improvised operating room. They were friends of a woman who was killed with all but one of her children when her house collapsed. One girl, her legs crushed, had survived.

Russell Seneca, chairman of the surgery department at Inova Fairfax, was with some of the doctors who had just operated on the girl. He spoke to the waiting women through a translator. "She's going to be fine," he said, and their eyes widened with amazement.

Va. GOP makes timely adjustment to changes in state - washingtonpost.com

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McDonnell looks to end string of Democratic victories

By Rosalind S. Helderman and Anita Kumar
Sunday, October 25, 2009

In the 12 years since James S. Gilmore III last claimed the governor's mansion for Republicans, Virginia has undergone dramatic demographic changes, becoming more populous, diverse, wealthy and educated. There are almost a million more Virginians; six in 10 are minorities, and 43 percent live in Northern Virginia

Democrats have taken advantage of these changes to claim nearly every major office in the state, but their decade-long run is in jeopardy this year as Republican Robert F. McDonnell appears to be making inroads among suburbanites and minorities through concerted outreach, a message built around quality-of-life issues and a direct embrace of Northern Virginia.

McDonnell's approach has been apparent throughout the race. He officially launched his campaign with a rally in Annandale, has returned to Northern Virginia repeatedly to target specific minority groups and has used the region as a backdrop for many major policy announcements.

The day before news of McDonnell's 1989 graduate thesis broke, as he and his aides scrambled to respond, he spent 12 hours in Northern Virginia opening campaign offices, canvassing in cul-de-sacs and meeting with Vietnamese and Latino voters. Two days after the story appeared, as McDonnell sought to limit damage from a paper in which he argued that working women are detrimental to the family, he went to a high school in Alexandria to announce his education plan.

Equally evident is what McDonnell has avoided: rhetoric that ignites the conservative base but could turn off independent voters. He has been careful to intermingle praise for President Obama's education policies with criticism of his spending and health-care initiatives. He pronounced himself "delighted" that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, separating himself from those in his party who were ridiculing the president. And after personally asking former Alaska governor Sarah Palin for help early in the summer, he changed his mind in August and asked the controversial conservative to stay away.

McDonnell campaign strategists said they don't expect to win Northern Virginia or a majority of minority votes, but they don't think they need to. In a state that remains Republican in most places, they said their goal is to keep Democrat R. Creigh Deeds from getting more than 60 percent of the vote in Northern Virginia -- the magic number strategists in both parties have come to see as a threshold for Democratic victories. In a Washington Post poll conducted this month, McDonnell trailed Deeds by just 5 points in Northern Virginia, 51 to 46 percent.

"Successful Republican candidates must be able to compete in Northern Virginia," said Phil Cox, McDonnell's campaign manager. "The old model where you could run up big numbers south of the Occoquan and hope for the best in Northern Virginia is a thing of the past."

The changes in Virginia have mirrored shifts that have occurred nationally, helping Democrats win elections by appealing to increasingly diverse, moderate, well-educated and affluent suburban voters outside such cities as Philadelphia, Denver and Minneapolis. On his way to winning the White House, Obama tapped into those shifts in Virginia and other states that previously tended to be unfriendly to Democrats.

National Republicans think a victory by McDonnell, who has led in every poll since June, would resonate well beyond Virginia because it would show that although many new, suburban voters have backed Democrats in recent elections, they're not wedded to the party.

"I think a win in Virginia will be a shot heard around the world and will show a strong comeback in the making," said Republican strategist Ron Bonjean, who added that a McDonnell victory would create a "template for Republicans on a national level."

Strategy alone has not thrust McDonnell into the lead in the polls. He has benefited from general discontent about Obama and the direction of the country. Virginia Republicans are desperate for a win and solidly behind him. And he enjoys a big money advantage that has allowed him and his supporters to dominate the airwaves during the final weeks of the campaign.

History is also on McDonnell's side. In every gubernatorial election since 1977, Virginians have elected the party out of power in the White House.

McDonnell has further benefited by running against an opponent who doesn't come from Northern Virginia and hasn't followed the same strategy as other Democrats. A native of rural western Virginia, Deeds has made a point of campaigning in what he terms "Deeds Country": Shenandoah Valley communities and towns near the North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky borders, where Democratic votes can be hard to come by. Deeds returned to that part of the state Saturday, with stops in Roanoke, Blacksburg and elsewhere.

Deeds has been the candidate more concerned with social policy. He has worked to paint McDonnell as an extremist, first over the Republican's opposition to abortion even in cases of rape and incest and then with an ad campaign built around the Republican's thesis.

Unlike many of his Republican predecessors, McDonnell has not sought a debate over social issues, despite his focus on them during his legislative career.

The Deeds campaign is also trying to reach out to suburbanites and minorities, with a concerted push in the final two weeks of the race. Deeds spent last Sunday at a number of African American churches in Richmond and plans to hit at least 10 this Sunday, and campaign supporters are targeting the young, minority and suburban voters across the state who backed Obama in last year's presidential election.

They think that Virginia's changes present a huge pool of new voters inclined to back Democrats, if they can be persuaded to vote. They note that Republican John McCain actually received more votes last year than George W. Bush did when he won the state four years earlier. But his gain was swamped by 500,000 new votes for Obama.

"The math is definitely there," Deeds said. "The voters are identified. It's just a matter of motivating them to get out."

Republicans are showing signs of adjusting to the reality of a changed state. In past elections, they have held an Ethnic Unity Rally in Fairfax County targeted to a slew of groups. But this year, they ditched the old focus and name -- not wishing to appear condescending and out-of-touch by lumping minorities together as "ethnic" groups -- and instead held a rally for Hispanic voters. McDonnell headlined the event this month, which drew more than 150 people.

Democrats question whether McDonnell can erase a historical stain on the Republican brand in minority communities, made worse in Virginia in recent years with then-Sen. George Allen's use of what many considered a racial slur in his 2006 campaign and the party's harsh rhetoric on illegal immigration.

But McDonnell has barely mentioned immigration this year, instead choosing to try to make inroads with communities Republicans have struggled to attract. He has organized six coalitions dedicated to Asian Americans, who have campaign signs written in Korean, Vietnamese and other languages. He has also attended 60 events geared to Asian American communities.

To woo Hispanics, McDonnell has run ads in Spanish-language newspapers and encouraged Hispanic businesses to post signs in their windows. He has ads on African American radio in which he talks positively about Obama, former Democratic governor L. Douglas Wilder and businesswoman Sheila Johnson.

McDonnell has also made a point of appealing to Northern Virginia's business community, presenting himself as a can-do executive who speaks the language of the state's increasingly high-tech business base.

That sort of pitch would not have been as necessary a dozen years ago, when a list of the state's top private employers included a number of fast-food chains and convenience stores, such as Pizza Hut, 7-Eleven and Hardee's. Today, those names have been replaced by some of the nation's top government contractors: Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Science Applications International Corp., which announced last month that it is moving its corporate headquarters and 1,200 new high-paying jobs to Tysons Corner.

"Virginia's been a big winner in the technology boom, and it's attracted highly educated people from all over the world," said Richmond lawyer Frank Atkinson, author of two books on Virginia politics and an adviser to McDonnell and other Republicans. The result, he said, has been an increase in independent suburbanites. "It's a mistake to assume that voting patterns are static. What really goes on in Virginia is that party fortunes tend to ebb and flow based on issues, and that drives the outcome of statewide races."

Staff researcher Meg Smith and polling director Jon Cohen contributed to this report.

For Salon Owner, It's All About Roots - washingtonpost.com

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A Virginia Businesswoman Helps Other Hispanic Hairstylists Gain Confidence and Experience

By Dagny Salas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Corina Cornejo never forgets how she got her start: as a "shampoo girl" in a beauty salon in Arlington. In the mid-1980s, the owner of the salon put the Salvadoran immigrant in charge of washing hair and sweeping clippings while she studied for her cosmetology license. A few years later, Cornejo and her sister saved enough to open their own salon.

Now Cornejo is a mentor to stylists throughout Northern Virginia's Hispanic community. Her salon in Manassas and her sister's in Arlington, where Cornejo worked before selling her share to her sister, have served as training grounds for several aspiring salon owners to gain entrepreneurial confidence and experience before branching out on their own. "We have to share what we know," Cornejo said in Spanish. "God puts people that help you in your life. Now I can give it others."

With more than 500 foreign-born, self-reported Hispanic hairdressers in Virginia, mostly concentrated in Northern Virginia, salons are a popular choice in the immigrant-heavy region for newcomers who want to avoid low-paying, day-labor jobs in favor of a career. Hair salons require little overhead, have relatively fewer bureaucratic hurdles than some other businesses and tap into skills that many immigrants cultivated in their home countries.

Cornejo opened the salon, expanded and hired other immigrants who later took off on their own, a path not unlike that followed by Korean and Vietnamese nail salon workers and other new arrivals. Her shops helped train Ignacio Rodriguez, who operates in Alexandria; Yesenia Galdamez, who took over one of Cornejo's salons in Warrenton; and others whose intertwined histories demonstrate how many immigrants settle and prosper.

Cornejo's deep ties in the local community have paid off during the economic downturn. Although her annual revenue dipped from a high of about $200,000 in the late 1990s and early 2000s to $100,000 last year, Cornejo said she has not had to cut hours or employees. Her Manassas shop employs six stylists and an assistant manager.

But the economy has affected how often patrons frequent the shop. "You can say 'I don't have the money, I'll wait another week,' " but she expects customers to return as the economy improves. Freddy Ventura, a longtime Manassas business owner, remembers when Cornejo opened her Manassas salon in the early 1990s. There weren't many Spanish-speaking businesses in the area. Corina's Hair Design was a hit.

"That place was packed. I never went because of the long line," Ventura said. "But everyone knew the name of the business."

The Mid-Atlantic Hispanic Chamber of Commerce counts 400 businesses as members in the D.C. region, said Jacqueline Krick, vice president of the Northern Virginia regional office. The chamber opened its first office in Northern Virginia in January and a second last week in Arlington. Cornejo's client list has been built largely on word of mouth. Many of her future employees found her that way too.

In the early 1990s, Rodriguez walked into a well-known salon in the Culmore area of Fairfax County. The salon where Rodriguez had been working had just closed. He struck up a conversation with a stylist who knew Cornejo and her sister and learned that they had an open chair in their Arlington shop. Once he passed the in-person test, he was hired. When Cornejo opened the second salon in Manassas, Rodriguez followed her there.

During an interview he gave in Spanish, Rodriguez credits his time working for Cornejo as instrumental in opening his own salon.

"A lot of people come here without papers and have to clean bathrooms, but I got to work in my chosen profession," said Rodriguez, whose father had owned a barbershop in Mexico. Rodriguez picked grapes and strawberries in California when he first emigrated to the United States in the 1980s. "You open with a vision of what you'll do and you're excited about having your own business."

Other shop owners say that Cornejo gave them a chance when they didn't have much else. After losing two houses to foreclosure in 2006, Galdamez was in no position to open a business when Cornejo approached her last year about taking over her Warrenton shop where Galdamez worked. She had already tried running a house-cleaning service in Arlington, a lunch-truck serving pupusas along Route 1 in Woodbridge, and a hair salon in Herndon. But Cornejo told Galdamez that she believed in her and would support her.

"I always said to myself 'I just need one more opportunity,' " Galdamez said in Spanish. "When I started, I said: 'This is mine; this is what I want to do. I won't leave this.' " She said she still regularly calls Cornejo with questions about treatments, prices, how to treat a particular client.

After nearly two decades, Cornejo's reputation remains strong. A few weeks ago, Doris Morales burst into Cornejo's Manassas shop. She was on a mission to find the salon a friend had recommended for her granddaughter. Was this the right place? The granddaughter was guided to a stylist's chair as Morales sat to relax.

A ramp agent at Dulles International Airport, Morales sees what Cornejo has done for herself -- and for others -- as setting the kind of example the Hispanic community needs.

"A woman who has her own business has to want to fight to come out ahead," Morales said. "She gives opportunities to people who want to learn. That's how the community grows."

Virginia Laos, Hmong Appeal to Senator Webb To Release Lao Students, End Hmong Abuses

2009-08-14 06:57:51 - An urgent action appeal letter and statement to U.S. Senator Jim Webb by many of the Laotian and Hmong organizations in Virginia, was sent just prior to his departure to Laos, Thailand, Burma and Southeast Asia on behalf of the Center for Public Policy Analysis and many in the Virginia Laotian and Hmong-American community.

Vientiane, Laos, Arlington, Virginia and Washington, D.C., August 14, 2009

The following are excerpts of an urgent action appeal letter and statement to U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) issued jointly by the Center for Public Policy Analysis ( CPPA ) and a coalition of Virginia and national Laotian and Hmong organizations to request his assistance in ending the current human rights, refugee and humanitarian catastrophe in Laos and Thailand facing the Laotian and Hmong people.

“An urgent action appeal letter and statement to U.S. Senator Jim Webb by many of the Laotian and Hmong organizations in Virginia, was sent just prior to his departure to Laos, Thailand, Burma and Southeast Asia on behalf of the CPPA and many in the Virginia Laotian and Hmong-American community,” said Philip Smith, Executive Director of the CPPA in Washington, D.C.

“The letter appeals to Senator Webb, while visiting Laos and Thailand, to raise key issue regarding the plight of jailed Lao Student Leaders (of the peaceful October 1999 Students Movement for Democracy protests in Vientiane, Laos) and the terrible forced repatriation of thousands of Lao Hmong refugees from refugee camps in Thailand back to the Stalinist regime in Laos that they fled,” Smith said. www.pr-inside.com/secretary-of-state-clinton-end-laos-r1427935.h ..

“The appeal letter and statement request that U.S. Senator Jim Webb raise key issues in Laos to seek to end the horrific religious persecution of Christians, Animists, independent Buddhists and other religious believers and political dissidents who continue to be persecuted and killed; It also asks the Senator Webb’s help in stopping the ongoing brutal military attacks and bloody atrocities against unarmed civilians in Laos, including the Hmong people,” Smith concluded.

During Senator Webb’s trip to Laos and Southeast Asia, eight Hmong children where captured by LPA forces in Laos during a recent attack on civilians that left 26 dead. www.pr-inside.com/laos-8-lao-hmong-children-captured-r1434824.ht ..

In recent days, elements of the Thai Third Army and Ministry of Interior (MOI) used tear gas, electric cattle prods and tazer-like guns to forced back 24 Hmong political refugees from Thailand to Laos following the visit of a Lao communist official to the camp at Ban Huay Nam Khao.

Foreign prisoners and dissidents continue to be jailed in Laos as well as three Hmong Americans from St. Paul, Minnesota.
www.live-pr.com/en/laos-lpdr-gulag-foreign-prisoners-dissidents- ..
www.live-pr.com/en/secret-prisons-in-laos-hold-hakit-r1048311013 ..

Former U.S. Ambassador H. Eugene Douglas, B. Jenkins Middleton, Esq., Distinguished U.S. Foreign Service Officer Edmund McWilliams, U.S. Department of State, Ret., and others have again recently issued appeals and statements regarding the dire plight of the Lao Hmong in Thailand and Laos facing persecution and forced repatriation.
www.pr-inside.com/honorable-h-eugene-douglas-urges-help-r1430464 ..
www.pr-inside.com/secretary-of-state-clinton-end-laos-r1427935.h ..

The following are excerpts of the appeal letter and statement sent to U.S. Senator Jim Webb prior to his departure to Laos, Thailand, Burma and Southeast Asia, by Mr. Philip Smith, Executive Director of the CPPA and a coalition of Laotian and Hmong community organizations in Virginia, and nationally.

”On behalf of the United League for Democracy in Laos, Inc. (ULDL), the Lao Veterans of America, Inc. (LVA), the Lao Veterans of America Institute (LVAI), the Lao Veterans organization and association (LVOA), Hmong Advance, Inc.(HA), Hmong Advancement, Inc., the Lao Students Movement for Democracy (LSMD); the Lao Students Association; the Lao Hmong Human Rights Council (LHHRC), the Center for Public Policy Analysis (CPPA), and a coalition of Laotian and Hmong non-profit organizations in Virginia, and nationally in Washington, D.C., we would like to request that you, Senator Webb:

I. While on your trip to Thailand, urge the Royal Thai Government, and officials you meet with in Thailand, to:

1.) Allow international access to some 5,500 Lao Hmong political refugees being imprisoned in Ban Huay Nam Khao Camp (Petchabun Province) and Nong Khai Detention Center, Thailand and urge the Thai military and Royal Thai Government to cease repatriating them back to the communist regime in Laos they fled;

2.) Urge the Royal Thai government and Thai military to allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to have unfettered access to the Lao Hmong refugees and asylum seekers at Ban Huay Nam Khao and Nong Khai Detention Center for the purpose of screening the refugees so that they can be resettled in third countries such as France, Australia, New Zealand and other countries that have agreed to take the refugees;

II. When you travel to Laos, we request that you urge the communist Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (LPDR) regime, and officials that you meet with, to:

1.) Work to immediately seek the release, by the LPDR military junta, of the Lao Student Movement for Democracy pro-democracy dissidents (of the October 1999 Movement for Democracy) who the Lao Communist regime continues to imprison in Laos (as reported by Amnesty International and other independent human rights organizations);

2.) Urge the LPDR regime to provide unfettered access to the Hmong political refugees, and refugee camp leaders, forcibly repatriated from Thailand in June/July 2008 from Huay Nam Khao refugee camp in Petchabun Province, Thailand; many of the Lao Hmong camp leaders forcibly repatriated have disappeared or are imprisoned --or have disappeared in Laos;

3.) Work to immediately urge the LPDR regime to release three (3) Hmong-American citizens from St. Paul, Minnesota, including Mr. Hakit Yang, who were arrested and imprisoned in Laos in August, 2007, while engage in tourism and a business investment trip to Laos; they have since been moved from Vientiane, Laos, to a secret prison in Sam Neua Province;

4.) Urge the LPDR regime and Lao Peoples Army (LPA) to stop its horrific and bloody military attacks largely directed at unarmed Laotian and Hmong civilians, and political and religious dissidents, in hiding at Phou Da Phao mountain and Phou Bia Mountain areas as well as elsewhere in Luang Prabang Province, Vientiane Province, Khammoune Province, Xieng Khouang Province, Savanakhet Province and elsewhere in Laos; Urge the LPDR regime LPA to cease its campaign of starvation against Laotian and Hmong civilians and stop using food as a weapon of war like its ally in North Korea; Amnesty International and other human rights organizations and independent journalists, including reports by the New York Times, have documented this humanitarian and refugee crisis in Laos under the brutal LPDR regime that should warrant the attention of you, Senator Webb. and your colleagues in the U.S. Congress.

5.) Urge the Lao LPDR regime to respect religious freedom and cease its campaign of religious persecution, imprisonment and killing of Lao and Hmong Christians; Urge the LPDR regime in Laos to cease its confiscation of the property of Laotian and Hmong Christians, Animist and Buddhist believers who wish to practice their faith independently from the LPDR regime's close monitoring and oversight.

Again, the Lao and Hmong community in Virginia and nationally, including many of the Laotian and Hmong veterans and their families who served with U.S. clandestine and military forces during the Vietnam war, would appreciate your leadership and your assistance in raising these issues at the highest levels with officials in Thailand and Laos that you meets with on your trip, including Royal Thai and LPDR officials in Thailand and Laos.”

(--End excerpts of the August 2009, appeal letter and statement sent to U.S. Senator Jim Webb prior to his departure to Laos, Thailand, Burma and Southeast Asia, by Mr. Philip Smith, Executive Director of the CPPA and a coalition of Laotian and Hmong community organizations in Virginia, and nationally --)

----
Center for Public Policy Analysis
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www.centerforpublicpolicyanalysis.org

Tele. (202) 543-1444


Contact: Ms. Susanna Jones
info@centerforpublicpolicyanalysis.org

Kontaktinformation:
CPPA-- Center for Public Policy Analysis

2020 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Suite No.# 212
Washington, D.C. 20006

Kontakt-Person:
Susanna Jones
Public Affairs & Policy Research Assistant
Phone: 202.543.1444
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Web: http://www.centerforpublicpolicyanalysis.org

Obama's Domestic Policies Are Having Immediate Effects on Race for Va. Governor

By Sandhya Somashekhar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The coffee was still brewing when Chris Ann Cleland got her first reminder of the day that voting for Barack Obama might have been a mistake.

The Prince William County real estate agent was sitting at a long wooden table covered with paperwork. Her clients, a young couple who had brought their 2-week-old baby, were finalizing a short sale on a townhouse that they were anxious to unload, even if it meant ruining their credit, because they had maxed out their credit cards trying to make the payments.

For Cleland, it was another example -- one of many this day -- of the broken promises of a president who she thought would be different. Obama pledged to change a Washington culture that favored corporations and the connected and instead lift families such as the one sitting next to Cleland out of their economic funk. Rather, she said, Obama has backed billions of dollars to banks that continue to "act like they're broke" and started the country down a path that Cleland said she thinks will lead to more grief for the middle class.

"He's just not as advertised," she said. "Nothing's changed for the common guy. I feel like I've been punked."

There is no empirical evidence at this point in Virginia's race for governor showing that huge numbers of voters think like Cleland and will respond by sending a message to Washington. But Obama's policies are nonetheless having immediate consequences in the campaign as the candidates adjust their strategies to account for the president's controversial domestic agenda, which has overshadowed many state issues.

The president will make his first appearance in the campaign Thursday, when he headlines a fundraiser for R. Creigh Deeds (D) in McLean, in part to try to help the state senator from Bath County win over wavering Democrats such as Cleland.

But Obama's entry into the race presents a challenge for Deeds: How does he continue the momentum created by Obama, the first Democratic presidential candidate in more than four decades to carry Virginia, without being saddled with the baggage the president now carries?

His answer has largely been to distance himself from the president's policies despite attempts by Republican Robert F. McDonnell to force him to take positions on issues such as unions, climate change and health care.

Deeds has declined to take firm stands, commending the administration's intentions to limit greenhouse gas emissions and expand health care but objecting generally to actions that would strain small businesses and families. He has also accused McDonnell of focusing too heavily on federal issues, declaring in a recent debate that "I'm not running for Congress." And he skipped two health-care town halls hosted by Obama in Virginia in recent weeks, saying it would be inappropriate to mix campaigning with White House policy initiatives.

Supporters of the president say his efforts will pay off for Deeds. But Republicans are gambling that many of Virginia's middle-of-the road voters, who have backed Democrats in recent races, will be up for grabs as people grow more skeptical of Democratic leadership.

"The mood is becoming just as lousy for the Democrats as it has been for us the last couple of years," said J. Kenneth Klinge, a longtime Virginia GOP strategist. "It's evening the playing field."

According to a Gallup poll last week, about 52 percent of Americans approved of Obama's job as president, the lowest number of his tenure. That number rose to 56 percent in the most recent poll but was down from an average of 61 percent early last month and 69 percent immediately after he took office in January.

Stephanie Slater, 44, a neighbor of Cleland's who leans Republican, voted for Obama on the strength of his character and because of his positions on education, energy and health care. She recalled brimming with confidence after Obama's historic inaugural address.

"When he gave that speech that day, I was in awe. I was really inspired and thought, 'Wow, this is a guy who can do it,' " said Slater, a medical transcriptionist and mother of three.

But she has been disturbed by the large Wall Street bonuses that Obama doesn't seem to be able to halt and his inability to rein in credit card companies that raise rates even on those with good credit. Although she is trying to be patient, she said she is losing faith in the Democrats running Washington.

"Honestly, at this point, I have to say I'm worried. I haven't come across one person that seems to have been helped," she said. "If I don't see a spark, a light at the end of the tunnel, I may be voting Republican [for governor]."

Cleland, 39, is not so generous. Obama was supposed to help the everyman but instead he helped the banks and General Motors, she said. He was supposed to help homeowners keep their houses, but the primary federal effort in that direction, called Hope for Homeowners, has had limited success. She said she has grown uneasy as government spending has seemingly grown out of control.

Despite voting for Democrats in the past three statewide elections, she is undecided about the governor's race.

Her disappointment with Obama persists when she returns home to her neighborhood, Tartan Hills Village, outside Manassas, where about 400 houses are arranged in neat rows along landscaped lanes with a Scottish theme -- Bonnykelly, Woolen Kilt, Rob Roy Way. Cleland said that under Obama's leadership, little has improved for struggling residents in this upper-middle-class enclave.

As president of the Tartan Hills homeowner's association, she has heard from many neighbors seeking a reprieve from their $100-a-month homeowner's dues because of job losses, skyrocketing mortgage payments and other problems. But Cleland tries to explain that, without the money, the pool contract would lapse, the cul-de-sac circles overflowing with crape myrtles and azaleas would brown and wither, and the grass would eclipse the footpath.

The most stark evidence of Obama's failure, as Cleland sees it, is at her job at Long & Foster. Her workload consists of short sales, an arduous and often unsuccessful real estate maneuver that makes her feel less like a salesman and more like a social worker or lawyer.

Too often, she said, she has seen banks turn down perfectly good offers. Each time, she researches the bank to find out how much its executives have made in bonuses, and each time she calls the offices of Sen. James Webb (D) or Sen. Mark Warner (D) to ask them for help. Sometimes, she gets it; most times, she doesn't.

"Frankly, business has never been better," she said. "But these banks, they're given leeway that we as citizens are not."

She offers the example of Amy VanMeter, 29, whose story is familiar in this era of foreclosures. VanMeter, a cancer researcher at George Mason University, said she had impeccable credit until a couple of years ago, when she bought a house with an adjustable-rate mortgage at the urging of a broker.

The area wasn't ideal, but she tried to make the townhouse her own, VanMeter said while dropping by Cleland's office to sign some papers. She gutted the bathrooms and updated the kitchen. She brightened the living room with a coat of sage green paint. But despite her pleas to her lender to freeze her interest rate, the payments ballooned to $2,700 a month, double what a similar place would cost to rent and an impossibly high sum even with two roommates.

VanMeter, who stopped making her payments and moved out, is hoping to cut her losses by pursuing a short sale, but every day she edges closer to foreclosure -- a word that brings tears to her eyes.

Unlike Cleland, however, she cheers a little when Obama's name is mentioned. She blames her troubles on the bank and the broker, not on the president whom she helped elect in a groundswell of goodwill.

"He has a tough job ahead of him, but I think he has the passion to make it happen," she said of Obama. "It seems like he tried to make changes really quickly, and maybe that wasn't realistic. I think with time we'll see things change."

VanMeter has not tuned in to the governor's race, but she expects that she will vote for the Democrat.

For Cleland's part, however, she's seen enough of Obama's leadership to know that she is open to voting for a Republican this fall. "We really needed something different," she said, "but instead we are doing the same things over and over and over."