Not quite ready for spring

Prince has signed, but there are plenty of offseason storylines remaining

Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images

Roy Oswalt doesn't have a team yet this offseason, with spring training approaching.

OPINION

By Tony DeMarco

NBCSports.com contributor

updated 9:58 p.m. ET Jan. 26, 2012

Tony DeMarco

Now that Prince Fielder has signed MLB's latest mega-deal, you might think all the huge offseason news already has occurred. But that's not the case. There remain several potential big headlines before training camps open in three weeks:

• Forget about Miguel Cabrera and Fielder hitting 3-4 in the Tigers' order. There's no bigger lineup than the list of bidders for the Dodgers ? including Mark Cuban, Magic Johnson, Joe Torre, Steve Garvey, Dennis Gilbert, Peter O'Malley, Stan Kroenke and Stan Kasten, not to mention a handful of under-the-radar billionaires.

And that likely means Frank McCourt is going to get at least $1.5 billion for the team he ran into the ground ? which doesn't seem right, but it will be the biggest-ever price tag for an MLB franchise.

Even at that number, the Dodgers could turn out to be a bargain, with an expected mega-dollars television rights deal along the lines of the one Angels owner Arte Moreno recently landed.

McCourt has until April 1 to pick a successor ? subject to the ultimate approval of MLB, with mediation possible in case of a dispute ? but it could come sooner. But certainly by the first week of the regular season, we're going to know who will head what should be one of the great sports-franchise turnarounds. In the very near future, MLB should have its West Coast version of the Yankees or Red Sox.

• There still is quality free-agent pitching to be had, led by Edwin Jackson. The Red Sox ? among others ? have serious interest, and no projected top contender needs him more. Behind Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz, there are only question marks led by Daniel Bard (starter or reliever?) and Alfredo Aceves. So an innings eater is needed, and that makes Jackson the better candidate than Oswalt, who's battled back issues in recent years.

That could leave Oswalt to chose between the Rangers, Cardinals, Reds, or even the Tigers. The problem is that neither of Oswalt's top two choices ? Texas and St. Louis ? has a big need for another starter.

The Rangers can line up six quality starters without Oswalt: Yu Darvish, Neftali Feliz, Derek Holland, Colby Lewis, Matt Harrison and Alexi Ogando. And the defending world champions will get Adam Wainwright back to top the 2012 rotation that includes Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia, Kyle Lohse and Jake Westbrook, with top prospect Shelby Miller in the wings.

• The paperwork has been completed, Yoenis Cespedes has established legal residency in the Dominican Republic, so the official bidding can begin for the right-handed-hitting Cuban outfielder.

Cespedes is listed at 26, and at a solid 5-10 and around 190 pounds, with power and capable of playing center field, reminds you of former Dodgers outfielder Raul Mondesi.

The list of reported suitors reportedly includes the White Sox, Orioles, Marlins, Indians, and Cubs. There could be immediate opportunities in left field with the White Sox and Orioles, and the Indians need a right-handed-hitting complement to their three projected left-handed hitting outfield starters.

The Marlins have the geographic edge, but not an apparent immediate opening unless they turn Emilio Bonafacio into a super-utility player rather than a regular center fielder ? not a bad idea, come to think of it.

But the Cubs are the most-intriguing possibility, especially since they haven't made a major financial move in a restructuring that so far, has resulted in this plus-minus roster churning:

Gone: Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano, Carlos Pena, Sean Marshall, Andrew Cashner, Tyler Colvin, D.J. LeMahieu.

Arrived: Anthony Rizzo, Paul Maholm, Chris Volstad, David DeJesus, Ian Stewart, Travis Wood.

They've cleared a lot of money, gotten younger and more left-handed, and built a little pitching depth, and Cespedes would give them another potential middle-of-the-order type they desperately need.

Here's one projected Cubs lineup as the roster stands now: SS Starlin Castro, 2B Darwin Barney, CF Marlon Byrd, LF Alfonso Soriano, 1B Rizzo/Bryan LaHair, C Geovany Soto, 3B Ian Stewart, RF David DeJesus. Obviously, there's a huge void in the middle.

• Josh Hamilton can become a free agent after the 2012 season, and says contract-extension talks need to wrap up before the start of spring training, adding a little urgency to the situation.

There's no better fit for him than where he's at, and given his addiction history, comfort level has to be a major factor in his decision-making. But just as with Fielder and Albert Pujols, there are obvious misgivings about a very-long-term deal for Hamilton, who will turn 31 in May.

Since playing 156 games in 2008, Hamilton's season totals have been 89, 133 and 121. Those last three numbers will be discounted some if Hamilton can log 150-plus games in 2012. But another injury-interrupted season will only add to durability questions.

But if Hamilton puts up another MVP-type season similar to Fielder's 2011, then you know somebody ? and all it takes is one ? will go way past the range of conventional wisdom in terms of contract length and money. And that's not likely to be the Rangers ? even though they can afford Hamilton as their new television deal kicks in.

The situation dictates a short-term/big money extension ? three or four years in the $25-million per season range.

• Johnny Damon is running out of American League teams. In a 17-year career in which he has totaled 2,723 hits, Damon has played for a half-dozen of them ? the Royals, A's, Red Sox, Yankees, Tigers and Rays.

If he'll take a dramatically reduced salary, there's a chance he could return to the Yankees to platoon at DH with Andruw Jones. The A's are another reunion possibility, but it's likely Damon will add AL team No. 7 to his resume.

Seattle desperately needs offense of any kind, has money to spend, and currently has right-handed-hitting Trayvon Robinson penciled in as the regular left-fielder. And Minnesota's projected starting outfield is Ben Revere, Denard Span and Josh Willingham, so there certainly are at-bats to be had there.

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Not quite ready for spring

DeMarco: Just because Prince? Fielder finally signed, that doesn't mean the offseason is out of storylines. Here's what has to be sorted out before spring training starts in three weeks.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/46156759/ns/sports-baseball/

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Motorola to continue pushing 'smart actions', wants to make you look cleverer

Motorola's automated smartphone rule system first appeared on its Droid Razr; a way of sidestepping laborious menu hopping for everyday tweaks and extra functionality -- with some location-based awareness thrown in. Motorola's senior VP, Alain Mutricy, recently announced that the company plans to continue the roll-out of this smart actions system, presumably on its Razr series, which will also see further expansion this year. The VP added that Motorola will focus on its high-end hands in the US, continuing to roll-out LTE capable handsets. Moto's earnings report will arrive soon and should set the stage for whatever else its new owners are plotting for 2012.

Motorola to continue pushing 'smart actions', wants to make you look cleverer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/25/motorola-to-continue-pushing-smart-actions-wants-to-make-you/

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A year on, has Egypt's revolution stalled? (Reuters)

CAIRO (Reuters) ? A few dozen activists huddle around tents on a grubby traffic island in Cairo's Tahrir Square, a forlorn reminder of the revolutionary ardor that ended Hosni Mubarak's 30-year rule.

A year on, the revolution that youth activists spearheaded appears to have stalled as the military rulers who replaced Mubarak seem to be exploiting opposition splits and popular fears of chaos to shore up their power and limit the scope of change.

Many Egyptians admire the youthful fervor of the revolutionaries but oppose their implacable hostility to the military caretakers, who have pledged to step aside by mid-year and hand power to elected civilians.

In a nod of approval to the army's transition timetable, voters have thronged polls for Egypt's first free parliamentary vote in decades and elected an assembly dominated by Islamists.

Their victory is a huge change in itself. Egyptians speak more freely a year on, their daily protests evidence both of newfound liberties and hope that people can make a difference.

For activists, however, the revolution will be incomplete as long as the army remains in power. Too little has changed, they say, to end a street movement demanding deeper, broader, faster reform. New campaigns have been born, such as 3askar Kaziboon, or Military Liars, in which activists roam the streets showing videos of protesters wounded since the end of the 18-day revolt.

"The more time has passed the more people have become convinced that the regime has not changed... They decapitated the regime so that the people would calm down, convinced that change has happened when it has not," said Amal Bakry of the No To Military Trials pressure group set up after the revolt. "It's still present in its ministers, its government, in everything."

Kamal al-Ganzouri, the generals' choice for prime minister, led the cabinet under Mubarak in the 1990s.

Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the general who is now Egypt's ruler, was Mubarak's defense minister for two decades. A leaked U.S. embassy cable said officers called him Mubarak's "poodle."

An emergency law in force since 1981 remains. The generals say it is necessary to keep order, but activists say it allows them to ride roughshod over civil liberties as Mubarak once did.

No To Military Trials estimates 12,000 people have been referred to military courts since Mubarak fell, four times the number who faced that fate during his 30-year tenure, when state security courts were the venue of choice for emergency trials.

Some were jailed for their criticism of the military council and now speak of a campaign to crush the pro-democracy movement.

Sipping tea at a cafe in an upscale district of Cairo, Bakry said her group struggled, at first, to convince Egyptians that the army was trying to block real democratic change.

The army was feted for pushing Mubarak aside last February and ensuring order when his hated state security forces fled the streets, but its handling of street protests in recent months has appeared at times to take a leaf out of Mubarak's book.

In October, at least 25 people were killed near the state media building in Cairo. Protesters say military police drove vehicles into a crowd of protesters and fired live shots. The army blamed foreign elements and other instigators. Watching state media, some Egyptians thought the army had been attacked.

"People were not emotionally ready to face the truth," Bakry said. "They did not want to admit that the revolution had been defeated and ... that the army, so highly regarded among the people, was doing all these things."

TRANSITION TO CIVILIAN RULE

Egyptians willing to give the army the benefit of the doubt went out to vote for parliament from November 28 and found they could cast their ballots for the first time without fear of intimidation from thugs or finding ballot boxes already stuffed.

The new assembly, which held its first sitting on Monday, is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood -- officially banned from politics under Mubarak.

Egyptians speak more freely since the revolt, they can and do protest more freely despite repeated crackdowns and they have set up a dizzying number of political parties in recent months.

There has been an increase in what activist Mozn Hassan, head of Nazra for Feminist Studies, calls "active citizenship."

"It could fail, it could be stolen but there are spaces and subjects open now that you could not discuss in 2010," she said.

"Whether you like what happened or not, there has been an experience with political parties now."

But critics question how much say new deputies will have in drafting the new constitution or naming the government. Under the latest timetable, there will be a two-month window from the end of parliamentary elections in March to presidential polls in June in which to name a 100-member body to draft the document, agree on its contents and put it to a referendum.

To those who have campaigned for years for an empowered parliament and for the rule of law, it seems the generals are railroading the reform process. The army says it will not field a presidential candidate, but activists worry it will back its preferred choice via state media, with others unable to compete.

Veteran activist and politician Ayman Nour told Reuters the army was conceding control of parliament to politicians while trying to keep its grip over the powerful presidency.

"They see it as them giving parliament to political forces, or Islamic forces, while they keep their right to a president who belongs to them," he said. "They want a person to whom they can give instructions, who guarantees loyalty to them."

Disappointed by what they see as the superficial reforms of the army-led transition, candidates have quit the presidential race. Mohammed ElBaradei, former head of the U.N. nuclear agency, withdrew complaining too little had changed. So has Nour, the only man to ever challenge Mubarak to the presidency.

Since the uprising, Nour has failed to overturn a Mubarak-era conviction on charges of falsifying party registration documents that bars him from the presidential race. Critics complain that Egypt's judiciary is still filled with Mubarak-era appointees who resist change. Mubarak-era laws remain in place.

"I warned from Tahrir Square of the danger of leaving responsibility in the hands of the army, and I said clearly that I fear the military beret and the religious turban," Nour said.

"The counter-revolution is managing Egypt now."

ONE YEAR ON

Egypt's most powerful Islamist force, the Muslim Brotherhood, has largely kept its followers off the streets to focus on winning elections, consolidating its power inside parliament and working through the institutions of state.

Egyptians tired of political turbulence that has hit the economy and keen to restore normality, say it is time to end protests and give the newly-elected parliament a chance.

Despondent at the Brotherhood's position, street activists want to wrest back the initiative and are urging mass protests against the generals on the January 25 anniversary of the uprising.

With marches, wall art and videos of wounded protesters, activists are trying to revive the euphoria that swept the Arab world in 2011 for fear that creeping fatalism among their compatriots could allow Egypt to return to authoritarian rule.

"I am against protesting on January 25. Military rule will be meaningless after the parliamentary and presidential election; you are rushing something that if you wait will come on its own," said 30-year-old Ahmed Farouq, an optician who, like some two thirds of Egyptians, voted for Islamists. "Ordinary citizens want to calm down and achieve stability."

The army has declared January 25 a public holiday to celebrate, part of what critics say is an effort to appropriate what the revolution stands for and limit calls for change. It appears to have stepped up Mubarak-era scrutiny of civil society groups.

In December, Egyptian authorities swooped on some 17 non-governmental groups, part of a probe into what they say are illegal foreign funds for political activities.

Nazra was not raided but has faced a smear campaign.

"They said I was an American agent!" said Hassan, slumping her head on the desk in mock shame. "Our funding delays worsened after the revolution. It was hard anyway but it worsened."

The April 6 Youth Movement, one of the army's most prominent critics, has been labeled a foreign-funded agency doing the bidding of unnamed outsiders. Its members say they are regularly attacked by "concerned citizens" who think they are spies.

Many campaigners say the real revolution has not happened in the government but in the Egyptian people, who have found more courage to stand up for their rights.

"The real change is in the people who acted, people like me who had never been to a protest in my life before January 28 last year... Now there are thousands, hundreds of thousands who are willing to be part of this change," said Bakry.

Hassan agreed: "Uprisings are 18 days, protests are 18 days, but if you want use the word revolution in a difficult society like Egypt's... you are talking 10 years."

(Additional reporting by Tamim Elyan and Tom Perry; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer and Diana Abdallah)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/wl_nm/us_egypt_revolution

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Youtube hit 4 billion views per day, deals with 60 hours of uploaded content every minute

It looks like that redesign was worth it. The Google-owned video site has recently revealed that it's now streaming 4 billion videos every day, up 25 percent on daily views from eight months earlier. According to Reuter's report, the site now has to deal with around 60 hours of uploaded video every minute. As long as those education videos are kept separate and the cat content keeps coming, we'll be happy.

Youtube hit 4 billion views per day, deals with 60 hours of uploaded content every minute originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jan 2012 07:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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No ?Drastic Change Needed?? Looks Like RIM?s Stockholders Disagree

Good news: You've been promoted to CEO! Bad news: Public perception of your company has tanked over the past few years, and your stockholders are looking at you to save the day. What ever you do first, just hope that you don't give the world that sound bite that suggests you think everything is okay and that nothing at the company needs to change. Whoops! Less than 24 hours after RIM's executive shakeup, the company is already seeing its first "drastic change": its stock price.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Gm1aI6ipcJQ/

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RIM's new leader raises doubts among investors (Reuters)

TORONTO/LONDON (Reuters) ? The new leader at Research In Motion on Monday dismissed talk of drastic change at the BlackBerry maker, a declaration seized on by impatient investors who say Thorsten Heins has only 12 to 18 months to turn RIM around.

Takeover talk, swirling around RIM for months, picked up steam as Heins took the helm at a once-dominant smartphone company that now struggles to compete. But RIM's shares tumbled more than 8 percent as investors wondered whether Heins could reverse RIM's decline.

"I don't think that there is some drastic change needed. We are evolving ... but this is not a seismic change," said Heins, who joined RIM in 2007 and previously served as a chief operating officer.

RIM's co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the men who engineered RIM's rise, resigned on Saturday after intense investor pressure. Their presence had been seen as a big obstacle to a possible sale of the company, although Heins insisted that was not an option he was considering.

Shareholders and analysts have grown impatient in recent months and calls for Lazaridis and Balsillie to step aside had reached a crescendo. RIM has lost market share and market value after being comprehensively outplayed by Silicon Valley tech giants Apple and Google.

"If Thorsten really believes that there are no changes to be made, he will be gone within 15 to 18 months. He will be a transitional CEO and this will be a transitional board," said Jaguar CEO Vic Alboini, who leads an informal group of 16 RIM shareholders calling for a radical restructuring. The group holds a little less than 10 percent of RIM's stock.

Lazaridis and Balsillie - two of RIM's three largest shareholders with more than 5 percent each - will remain board members, while Lazaridis will also head a newly created innovation committee. Their new roles suggest continuity was a goal in the transition.

Critics have called for a new leader who can rejuvenate both the design and operational sides of the business, or prepare it for sale to one of a raft of rumored buyers.

Heins, a former Siemens AG executive, said during a conference call on Monday that he would hone rather than abandon current strategy at RIM, which after years of massive growth needed to start operating like a mature business, not a startup.

The new CEO, who scored his last major promotion as RIM was shedding some 2,000 jobs last June, said no further job cuts were currently planned and that with RIM's $1.5 billion in cash he had no qualms in spending on the right projects.

"If I have a great strategic project or a good business case I can go to the board anytime and ask for approval for additional investment and the money's in the bank to do this," he said.

INVESTORS DISAPPOINTED

Analysts were cautious.

"People may have been a little disheartened that he was defending the current RIM strategy," said Morgan Stanley analyst Ehud Gelblum. "I think (investors) might have wanted to hear a mea culpa."

"People would have been happier hearing 'we are on the wrong path'. We didn't hear a lot of talk about change."

Jaguar's Alboini criticized the retention of Balsillie and Lazaridis on RIM's board and called for several other board members to step down before RIM's mid-year annual meeting.

"If we're wrong, prove us wrong," Alboini said in an interview, referring to the group of shareholders who support his view. "This group is not going anywhere. This is just putting RIM in a position where it might be able to get back into the game. It's early days."

Barbara Stymiest, a former banking and exchange executive, will replace Lazaridis and Balsillie as the chair of the board. Stymiest, a RIM board member for five years, is also viewed as an insider tied to the old regime.

LOOKING AHEAD

Heins' immediate concerns are to generate sales of RIM's current lineup of BlackBerry 7 touchscreen devices, deliver on a promised software upgrade for its PlayBook tablet computer by February, and rally RIM's troops to launch the next-generation BlackBerry 10 phones later this year.

But even if he had a credible overall plan to foster change, some analysts question whether RIM had fallen too far behind its competitors to catch up.

Its existing product lineup has struggled to compete with Apple's iPhone and iPad and the slew of devices from Samsung and others using Google's Android operating system. In North America particularly, RIM has hemorrhaged market share during a year marked by product delays and a botched launch of the PlayBook.

"If RIM's going to grow in the U.S. ... they have to have products better than the iPhone or Android," said Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette. As of now, "they don't have products that are competitive with those, let alone better."

But RIM has also shown a renewed seriousness about getting its message delivered, hiring crisis management firm Sitrick and Company as strategic counsel.

Sitrick helps companies in crisis and celebrities navigating scandal. Clients have included Paris Hilton as she faced jail time and Michael Vick, an NFL quarterback involved in a dog-fighting ring. The firm also helped Roy Disney remove Michael Eisner as chairman of Walt Disney.

SEEKING A PLAN

Analysts circled their calendars for an analyst day in early May as the first opportunity for the new leader to lay out a detailed plan for reversing the decline.

The event "will now become the focal point to the unveiling of Thorsten's vision," CCS Insight analyst Ben Wood told Reuters. "The speed with which you make strategic changes and implement them is absolutely critical because the mobile phone business will not stand still."

"If there are no meaningful signs of an imminent turnaround, then I think the spotlight will turn back on to the assets that RIM holds and who they might be attractive to."

Investors have seized on any rumor of a deal involving RIM as a reason to celebrate, whether talk is of a pact with Amazon as reported by Reuters in December, or with Samsung last week.

Analysts have said logical buyers for RIM also include fellow-struggler Nokia, perhaps with support from Microsoft, and Facebook which is increasingly pushing its content to users via their mobile phones.

If there is no obvious buyer, Heins has more immediate options to add value to the business.

RIM could license its software or integrate its email package, a strategy that many analysts and investors have thought the company might pursue. Heins said it would be wrong to focus on that option but he is still open to discussions.

"RIM have had big challenges in the past and they succeeded in moving from a corporate product to be also a consumer product, to get a foot in the consumer market and very few people expected them to do that," consultant John Strand said.

"Now they have to reinvent themselves again."

RIM's U.S.-listed shares closed 8.5 percent lower at $15.56, for a market capitalization of little more than $8 billion. In the company's heyday, just three and a half years ago, it had a market capitalization around $80 billion.

(Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York and Andrea Hopkins in Toronto; Editing by Frank McGurty and Janet Guttsman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120123/bs_nm/us_rim

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Posthumous US asylum bid highlights gang debate

JERSEY CITY, N.J.?? Josue Rafael Orellana Garcia fled his impoverished neighborhood in Honduras for the United States as a teenager, to escape what began as teasing over his disabilities and escalated into what his mother said were threats to kill him if he did not join a gang.

Making his way illegally to New Jersey to be with his mother, he applied for asylum in 2008, claiming he'd be killed by gangs if forced to return to the small but violence-plagued nation. He lost his case, was deported in 2010, and last year was found dead, his body riddled with bullets. He was 20.

Now his family has taken the unusual step of trying to win him asylum posthumously. His attorney, Joshua Bardavid, said it's an effort to get the U.S. government to acknowledge the "entire system let him down" and to call attention to the plight of thousands of Central American teenagers.

But the case also highlights a growing debate among immigration experts over whether the grounds for asylum in the United States should be expanded to include more modern forms of conflict, such as gang violence.

To be granted asylum in the U.S., applicants must prove a well-founded and documented fear of persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. They must also show that the government or ruling authority in their home country is unwilling or incapable of adequately protecting them.

U.S. Immigration Judge Frederic Leeds in Newark found Orellana's claims credible but said the young man had not sufficiently documented that he and his family had been targeted by gangs. Even if he had, there is no legal precedent for extending "the concept of family group to the concept of joining gangs," wrote the judge, while expressing appreciation for what he said were creative arguments on the young man's behalf.

Though the law does not consider the threat of gang recruitment as meeting the definition of a protected social group, some believe it should, said Dana Leigh Marks, the president of the National Association of Immigration Judges.

"There are those who would argue the asylum law is old-fashioned and needs to be modernized, while others would argue it is a limited remedy that is not supposed to resolve all problems and allow everyone to qualify," Marks said.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the international body responsible for the protection of refugees and asylum seekers worldwide, issued a memo in 2010 urging courts to expand existing asylum law interpretations to consider victims of organized gangs as warranting protection, if their cases satisfy all other legal requirements.

But those who oppose expanding the class of potential asylum seekers say it could undermine an already overburdened U.S. immigration system with a flood of new applicants.

"There's no limit to the categories you could add by our (U.S.) standards. There is a lot of oppression in the world," said Steven Camarota, director of research at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, an organization which advocates stricter immigration rules and believes asylum and all other aspects of immigration law should be decided by the U.S. Congress, not the courts.

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"We may find the treatment of women in some countries poor, compared to our standards, but would you say if they're treated poorly, they're a member of a particular social group?" Camarota said.

Ricardo Estrada, a minister of migratory affairs with the Honduran embassy in Washington, said he was not familiar with Orellana's case but that "it's likely that his story could be true, because conditions point to it."

"Lamentably, our country is going through a crisis of violence," Estrada told The Associated Press, in an interview conducted in Spanish. "The problem is enormous, and security is an issue the government is really trying to tackle, but it's very challenging with a government that has little resources in comparison to the narco-cartels, who often have better arms than the police."

Investigators face a huge backlog of homicide investigations, but have few resources, he said.

Honduras has the highest homicide rate in the world, according to a 2011 United Nations report which cited 6,200 killings, or 82.1 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, in 2010. Earlier this month, the Peace Corps withdrew all volunteers from the country, citing safety and security concerns. The U.S. agreed this past week to send a team of experts to help the Honduras government with "citizen security issues."

In a motion filed in December with the Board of Immigration Appeals, Bardavid argued that Orellana, as a result of being shot dead after being deported, now meets the burden of proof required of asylum applicants to show they would suffer irreparable harm if sent back to their country.

"I think it's something that needs to be acknowledged: that we failed him; that he came here seeking safety, and the entire system let him down," Bardavid said.

Spokeswoman Kathryn Mattingly of The Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the BIA, said the agency does not comment on pending cases or prior decisions.

Orellana's mother, Josefa Rafaela Garcia Mejia, lives legally in the United States under a program that allows immigrants from qualifying countries to live and work in the U.S. on a restricted visa. She said gangs killed her son, the youngest of her four children.

Orellana had been picked on from a young age after losing one eye and much of his hearing from being struck by a tree during Hurricane Mitch, which devastated much of Honduras in 1998, Garcia said. She sent money home, working as a home health aide in New Jersey, to support Orellana and his three siblings, and to buy him a glass eye.

As he got older, his mother said, Orellana told her in frequent phone calls that he was being pursued and threatened by gangs that controlled their San Pedro Sula neighborhood, trying to recruit young people. The threats got so bad, she said, her son fled, against her advice. He was alone at the age of 17 when he crossed illegally into the U.S. to join her in New Jersey.

In a court hearing in July 2009, the judge asked Orellana why, if he had been attacked several times by notorious Central American gangs, he had never gone to the police to file a report.

"Like I mentioned, we would call the police but the police were afraid to come where we lived," Orellana replied.

After Leeds' decision was upheld on appeal, the young man was deported to Honduras in March 2010. He disappeared on July 23, 2011, after telling his grandmother he was running to the store, his mother said. His body was discovered three days later in a nearby wooded area, according to a story in the Honduran newspaper La Tribuna.

"I say as a mother, as a Christian woman, my son was not involved with gangs; he never carried so much as a nail clipper," Garcia said, crying as she clutched a photograph of him. "If they had not deported my boy, he would not be dead."

___

Follow Samantha Henry at http://www.twitter.com/SamanthaHenry

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46092033/ns/us_news/

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