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BORDER-BETWEEN-CALIF-AND-MEXICO/
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October 22, 2015, 2:40 PM
Elaborate drug tunnel discovered between California and Mexico
31 Photos
This Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2015 photo released by Mexico’s Federal Police shows an
underground tunnel that police say was built to smuggle drugs from Tijuana, Mexico to San
Diego in the United States. Mexican federal police said the tunnel extends about 2,600 feet (800
meters) and is lit, ventilated, equipped with a rail car system, and lined with metal beams to
prevent collapse.
AP/ MEXICO FEDERAL POLICE
SAN DIEGO — Mexican authorities said Thursday they seized about 10 tons of marijuana in an
elaborate tunnel with a rail car system that extended well into San Diego and was designed to
smuggle drugs into the U.S. from Tijuana.
The discovery on Wednesday marks one of the longest and more sophisticated clandestine
tunnels found on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The passage was 9 feet deep and about 2,600 feet long – about three-quarters of that distance
in Tijuana and the rest in San Diego. It was lit, ventilated and built with metal beams to prevent
collapse.
It was unclear whether any drugs got through the tunnel or if it had an exit yet in the U.S.
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Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to
comment.
It was also unclear which drug trafficking organization began the engineering feat.
The region is largely controlled by Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, whose leader Joaquin “El Chapo”
Guzman escaped from a maximum-security prison in Mexico in July .
Guzman is known to be highly skilled in tunnel building. He escaped from prison through an
elaborate, ventilated tunnel over a mile long with a motorcycle mounted on rails.
Mexican police said in a press release about the drug tunnel that 16 people were detained on
suspicion of drug trafficking and had told authorities that they had ties to a criminal group that
operates in the state of Jalisco – an apparent reference to the Jalisco New Generation cartel,
which controls that part of western Mexico.
The people were caught off-guard when Mexican authorities arrived at a Tijuana warehouse
with a search warrant, police said. No shots were fired.
The drugs were wrapped in 873 packages covered with plastic and tape, police said.
Dozens of tunnels have been found along the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years – the most
sophisticated equipped with hydraulic lifts and electric rail cars.
The San Diego-Tijuana region is popular because its clay-like soil is easy to dig with shovels
and pneumatic tools, and both sides of the border have warehouses that provide cover for
trucks and heavy equipment.
CBS/AP
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/raid-of-mexico-ranch-looking-for-el-chapo-turns-up-empty/
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/21/anti-muslim-harassment-american-
classrooms-student-bullying
How anti-Muslim sentiment plays out in classrooms across the US
Words are the most common weapon of bullies, but in the past month harassment in schools is
increasingly manifesting in physical attacks and incidents are taking a psychological toll on some
students
Ghazala Irshad
Monday 21 December 2015 07.00 ESTLast modified on Tuesday 5 January 2016 07.27 EST
While watching a TV news report on the Paris attacks with her seventh-grade class, Farah
Darvesh became acutely aware that she was suddenly the center of her classmates’ attention.
“When they said Muslim terrorists did it, everyone’s heads turned and all eyes in the room
were on me,” says 12-year-old Farah, one of only three Muslims at her middle school in
Columbus, Georgia.
A few weeks later, a classmate asked Farah point blank: “Why did your people kill those people
in Paris and San Bernardino?”
Farah, a highly confident and self-described popular girl among her peers and teachers, had
“gotten used to people joking” that she was a terrorist. But even so, she said: “Before the
attacks I was mostly treated like everyone else. But now I’m having to answer questions about
my religion and the actions of people I don’t even know. It’s a lot of pressure. I mean, I’m only
12.”
She waited for her anger to cool down before retorting to her classmate: “Don’t ask me, ask
them. Do I ask you why your people are shooting up schools?”
“That shut him up,” Farah said. She concedes that she may not have the best answer, but
she’s doing her best considering the circumstances. “I’m feeling the same way everybody else is
– I’m mad at Isis too. They’re killing innocent Muslims everywhere too. The shooting in San
Bernardino happened 9 miles from my cousin’s school. It’s very scary that she was so close to
danger. But exactly because I’m a good Muslim, I’m not going to take my anger out on
anyone.”
Muslim American students, many of whom weren’t even born until after September 11, are
coming of age in an era of a protracted “war on terror” abroad, and broad surveillance and
profiling of their community at home. In the month since attacks in Paris and San Bernardino
have spurred escalating rhetoric from Donald Trump and other politicians, the long-
simmering Islamophobia in America has reached a boiling point with a litany of threats,
vandalism, and violence against Muslims.
Versions of this anti-Muslim sentiment have also been playing out in the classroom setting.
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Muhammad Rahman, a 15-year-old at a Chicago high school, says he gets asked “Is that a
clock or a bomb?” at least once a day since the international outcry over the arrest of 14-year-
old Ahmed Mohamed. That the uproar was over teachers and police wrongfully assuming
Ahmed’s homemade clock to be a bomb – when in fact it was a clock – doesn’t matter to
Muhammad’s bullies.
Muhammad Rahman is a 15-year-old Chicago high school student. Photograph: Ghazala Irshad
“Even the nicest people, who you wouldn’t expect to be mean, say stuff,” Muhammad says. “I
know my friends aren’t racist of course, but the jokes aren’t funny when they’re disrespectful.
“Every day, they make sure to let me know that I’m different from everyone else.”
In Georgia, a school principal apologized last week after a teacher asked a Muslim student if
she had a bomb in her backpack.
Words are the most common weapon of school bullies, but in the past month, anti-Muslim
sentiment in schools is increasingly manifesting in physical attacks, particularly against girls who
wear the hijab. On 19 November, three boys allegedly beat up a sixth-grade girl wearing a
hijab, calling her “Isis”. A 2014 study by Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) study
found 29% of students who wore hijab experienced offensive touching or pulling of their
scarves.
Fear of ‘being judged as either oppressed or radicalized’
Lana Alshahrour is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed 12-year-old Syrian Muslim at a Chicago middle
school. Because she does not wear the hijab and has Caucasian features, when Lana was a new
student she was privy to Islamophobic gossip about a classmate who wore the hijab.
Lana risked her social standing to defend the girl. “Instead of making fun of her, why don’t you
get to know her?” she told the bullies. “But that’s what terrorists wear,” they replied. “No, that’s
what Muslims wear. It’s just a piece of cloth,” Lana countered.
Lana appears to be clearing the path for her own future, too – she is conflicted by her desire to
wear the hijab out of devotion to God, her fear of “being judged as either oppressed or
radicalized,” and the “pressure to represent the hijab for all Muslims without letting it define
me”.
Fifty-five percent of Muslim students surveyed by the Council on American Islamic Relations
(CAIR) last year reported that they were bullied at school in some form because of their Islamic
faith. That’s twice the national percentage of bullying reported by all students, regardless of
their religion. According to the CAIR survey, verbal harassment is the most common, with non-
Muslims calling Muslim students terrorists or referencing bombs. But physical assaults also
occur.
These incidents are taking a psychological toll on Muslim youth. “At a crucial time in their
identity development, they’re suffering from chronic trauma,” says Dr Halim Naeem, a
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/12/muslim-teen-upset-georgia-teacher-question-backpack
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psychotherapist and president of The Institute of Muslim Mental Health. Dr Naeem says that in
the past few months alone, he has seen increased cases of depression, anxiety, image issues,
paranoia, and substance abuse among Muslim American youth. In the short term, the constant
stress wreaks havoc on students’ immune systems and destroys their focus, disrupting learning
ability.
The role of teachers
Most kids don’t report any Islamophobic harassment to their teachers. “I don’t think they’d do
anything that would make a difference, because they probably wouldn’t take it seriously,” says
Farah. Her fear may not be unfounded, as she reports that even some of her teachers recently
asked her questions about Islam“in a way that wasn’t just curious.”
Lana Alshahrour worries that if she wears her hijab, she’ll be “judged as either oppressed or
radicalized”. Photograph: Ghazala Irshad
The CAIR survey found that the sentiment that teachers don’t take Islamophobia seriously is
shared by a majority of Muslim American students, and it goes beyond the typical adolescent
fear of being labeled a tattle-tale. “I was afraid they [teachers and administration] would have
their own opinions and give priority to the others,” reported one California student when asked
about reporting Islamophobic bullying to teachers.
One in five Muslim students reported being discriminated against by school staff. Recently,
a California teacher asked her class “Who thinks Muslims should die?” and called a Muslim
student in class a terrorist. The school board disciplined the teacher, but he is still teaching.
Students discriminated against by teachers often transfer classes or schools in order to feel
more comfortable, as Ahmed Mohamed ended up doing.
How parents respond
Muslim parents are grappling with how to respond appropriately to protect their children while
maintaining a sense of normalcy. Some have reluctantly kept their children home from school,
fearing reprisals after the Paris and California attacks.
Many are sitting down to give them “The Talk,” much like African American parents do with
their children, about how to avoid raising suspicion and avoid physical harm or arrest. “I told
Farah that it’s not wrong to be Muslim, but it might not be a good idea to be vocal about it right
now,” says Mrs Darvesh. “It’s sad because I want my kids to be proud of who they are, and
that’s what this country is about.”
Others, such as St Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Aisha Sultan, call for engaging kids instead.
“Part of raising your child when you’re a minority is showing them and modeling through your
own confidence and advocating for them non-confrontationally without shame, and without
fear.”
Experts say addressing the problem requires the cooperation of non-Muslim parents and
teachers to educate their kids.
Homepage
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http://www.stltoday.com/users/profile/asultan/
“This is where teachers and parents of all faiths need to come up with a plan together to talk to
kids about Islam and current events both at home and at school,” says Naeem, the
psychotherapist. “When you teach racism and incite hatred in a developing brain, you actually
alter its structure.”
Shaheen Pasha, a professor of journalism at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and
mother of two, says that she sees too many students come into her classroom unaware of
what’s going on in the world. “Non-Muslim student awareness and allyship can play a big part in
resolving this issue.”
Islam in the curriculum
On Friday, tensions boiled over in Augusta County, Virginia, when schools were closed after a
lesson in Arabic calligraphy elicited an uproar from the community. Students in the world
geography class were presented with an Islamic Statement of faith written in Arabic to
demonstrate the artistry of the calligraphy, but a community forum that night blasted it as an
“indoctrination” of faith.
The incident sparked a fiery social media debate that reinforced the fears many students have
about expressing their religion at school.
But while Lana ponders the consequences of appearing visibly Muslim through the hijab, she
can’t help herself from using her own background for reference when the subjects of Islam,
terrorism, and Arab refugees come up in her eighth-grade classes. In a recent debate about
refugees, her classmates argued that Middle Eastern refugees should not be allowed into the
US “because they could be Isis”.
Lana laughs. “They think if we don’t let anyone in here, then the terrorism stays overseas. But
Isis doesn’t need to send fighters to America – they can recruit from the internet. Besides, Isis
is not the root of the refugee problem.”
When someone suggested bombing the entire country of Syria to eliminate all threat of terror,
Lana realized that her classmates didn’t see them as individual humans. “They think all Muslims
and Arabs are scary. So I shared my family’s story: My uncle was a student in Syria but he is
now a refugee living with us in Chicago after he had to escape being captured by Bashar al-
Assad’s forces. The root of the problem is Assad, not Isis.”
