Posts tagged with 'Latinos'
Weekly Diaspora: Will Immigration Reform Bills Bring Voters to the Polls?
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by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger
Riding the media blitz that followed the DREAM Act’s recent defeat, Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) unveiled their own comprehensive immigration reform bills just before Congress adjourned last week. The bills are enforcement-heavy, party-line bills that were immediately referred to committee, where they are expected to languish for some time.
Few expect much to come of either bill, given their untimely introduction and the broad failure of previous immigration reform efforts. Rather, these bills are perceived as last-ditch attempts to score political points before midterm elections. The Menendez bill could net support for Democrats from an increasingly unmotivated Latino electorate, conversely, Hatch’s bill reinforces the hard-line immigration stance so popular among Republican voters. (more…)
Weekly Diaspora: Obama Deploys Troops to Border Amid Rising Civil Disobedience
by Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger
President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he would be deploying 1,200 National Guard troops to the Mexican border to beef up security along the Río Bravo. This surprise move has garnered criticism from immigrant rights supporters, who argue that it will dehumanize and endanger immigrant and Latino communities.
Julianne Hing at RaceWire offers more details on the plan, reporting that an extra $500 million has also been allocated to law enforcement along the border.
“Obama is reportedly asking for these troop increases in anticipation of Republicans’ demands on a war spending bill this week,” Hing writes. “But Obama’s already outpaced his predecessors in spending on border security and military presence at the border.” (more…)
Weekly Immigration Wire: A Cry for Change from Coast to Coast
by Nezua
Media Consortium Blogger
All over the nation, communities are clamoring to be heard. In this worsening economic landscape, migrant communities are being terrorized by violent raids, families are destabilized, wage earners are jailed or detained, and xenophobic pundits continue to fuel a rising wave of hate crimes against Latinos. The stakes could not be any higher: Now is the time to make our voices heard, especially after being ignored for so long by those with the power to make a difference.
And so we are gathering in numbers in San Francisco and throughout California:
A coalition of groups that has been working with San Francisco’s supervisors, community leaders, social service providers, and faith groups is gathering at City Hall to call for a halt to the raids and for support of fair and humane immigration reform. We will be joining our voices with thousands of others across California and across our country who found hope in the words of our new President Barack Obama during his inauguration speech [...]
—Choosing Hope Over Fear in Immigration Policy Reform, New America Media, Jan. 21, 2009
And on the same day, marching on Washington, DC (with photos):
Over a thousand people are gathered in DC, a day after inaugurating our new president, to demand A New Day for Immigration.
—Immigrants March for Reform in DC, RaceWire, Jan. 21, 2009
Sending letters from Albequerque, New Mexico:
[C]oncerned New Mexico groups are among thousands of people signed on to a letter to President Obama asking for drastic alterations [in U.S. immigration enforcement policy]. Jo Ann Gutierrez Bejar with the Southwest Organizing Project says even families in Albuquerque neighborhoods feel intimidated by the presence of the Border Patrol.
—NM Groups Push Obama for Immigration Change: “End Worker Raids Now“, Public News Service, January 28, 2009
Immigrant rights groups are organizing across the nation:
On January 27, the National Network of Immigrant and Refugee Rights will be releasing an “Open Letter to President Barack Obama” to establish a new framework for addressing immigration policy. You can help by circulating it to your friends and by signing the petition[.]
—Time to Take Action towards Humane and Sane Immigration Policies, RaceWire
Suing President Obama for relief in Miami, Florida:
The lawyers for over 600 American born children filed a lawsuit against President Obama to suspend the deportation of their undocumented parents until there is immigration law reform.
—U.S. Born Children of Undocumented Parents Sue Obama, New America Media, January 28, 2009
And starting a 100-day Countdown Clock in Arizona:
Arizona activists rallied in Tucson yesterday urging President Obama to keep his campaign promise to address immigration reform in his first 100 days on the job. Immigration rights organization Border Action Network wants a plan that respects human rights and preserves families[...]
—100-Day Countdown Clock Started for Obama Border Reform, Public News Service, January 22, 2009
In essence,
The American people want real solutions, not divisive rhetoric. The new administration and new Congress hold great promise for progress on immigration reform. Now it is up to people of conscience to hold our elected representatives accountable and demand immigration reform that benefits the American people, America’s economic and homeland security, and moves us towards a new era of recognizing that immigration is not a source of weakness for America, it is a sign of our strength.
—Immigration Reform: Yes We Can?, New America Media, January 27, 2009
In the absence of national leadership, we end up with law enforcement so devoid of ethical guidance that it declares racial profiling an “important tool” and propaganda television that omits the horrors of the standing system. The fact is, fearful rhetoric has taken over what could be a sane dialogue and we are all suffering for it. Higher walls are not the solution. Letting our fellow humans move into caves is not the answer. And politicians who think only in terms of punishment and speak divisively will get us nowhere.
The People have spoken. And are speaking. And we will continue speak. Until we are heard.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration. Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.
Weekly Immigration Wire: From Brooklyn Streets to Hollywood Blvd, Responses to Growing Tension
By Nezua
Media Consortium Mediawire Blogger
We are living in unsure times, filled with drastic transitions that shift our perspectives from day to day. In one sense, immigration is about groups of people shifting in size and moving from place to place. It is also about the formation of new groups, how we live through the transitions, and who we are on the other side. For this week’s Immigration Wire, I’d like to look at how different social groups are dealing with issues related to immigration—and all of its accompanying cultural shifts.
There is much talk, still, of Jose O. Sucuzhañay, the Ecuadorean immigrant who was killed by a homophobe in Brooklyn. ColorLine’s RaceWire blog reminds us that Sucuzhañay is the fourth (reported North Eastern) Latino hate crime victim since July, and Jonathan Adams reports on how Jose’s family is coping in Vigil in Brooklyn for Jose Sucuzhañay:
The victim’s family is reaching out to the public to bring the hateful attackers to justice. Diego Sucuzhañay says, “It shows how far we must still come to address the devastating problem of hate crimes in our communities. Only by exposing these crimes and working together will we be able to make a difference.”
Hundreds of Brooklynites marched to support the Sucuzhañay family, and to “condemn the recent anti-immigrant and homophobic hate crimes.” Over 16 organizations were represented at the march, as reported by New America Media in New Yorkers March Against Hate Crimes.
In The Good, the Bad, and the Promotor, New America Media examines one solution for migra-related tensions: Lucha Libre!
Mexicans love a good fight, or at least seeing one.
And when it reflects a social reality, like pitting them against the U.S. Border Patrol, the seats are going to be sold out.
Gabriel Ramirez, owner and founder of the independent wrestling promotion Pro Wrestling Revolution has taken advantage of this, presenting as his most popular attraction a wrestling match between Mexican legends of lucha libre and American wrestlers who are dressed as Border Patrol agents.
On the topic of entertainment and the Latino community, Nothing Like the Holidays, a major studio release focused on a Puerto Rican family, is out just in time for Navidad (Christmas). RaceWire features the trailer in Dreaming of a Latino Holiday?
Film production houses aren’t the only ones profiting from our changing national demographics. In an upsetting find, Products Marketed to Latinos Can Be More Expensive, New America Media reveals that some retail outlets are taking advantage of their customers.
Also a sign of changing times and relationships, Latin American leaders held a summit in Brazil to “discuss a post-U.S. hegemonic world.” They met to discuss the global economic crisis and Latin America’s growing independence from “the empire” of the United States. Among them were Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, and Bolivia’s Evo Morales. From Truthdig’s Latin Leaders Rebuke U.S.:
The talks, which centered on the “demise” of the capitalist model, also snubbed former colonizing nations Portugal and Spain in a further demonstration of the increasing political autonomy of the region.
And in health-related news, Asian American Donor Program (AADP) Executive director Carol Gillespie put out a call for multi-ethnic and mixed-race heritage people to “step forward and volunteer to become [bone marrow] donors” in New America Media’s Asian American Bone Marrow Donor Program Expands to Include Latinos. The article touches on the difficulty in getting much of the Latino community to register and participate and directly addresses the community’s fears of giving out their personal information.
This week’s collection of stories can be broken down in a few ways. Over here, you have people working together to overcome changes that scare just about everyone. And over there, people are taking advantage of the fear that often accompanies these changes. In this season of giving and love and familia, may you and yours be surrounded by those who fight with and for you.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration. Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and was created by NewsLadder.
Weekly Immigration Wire: Harvesting Hate in Hard Economic Times
By Nezua, The Media Consortium MediaWire Blogger
Hate does not emerge in a vacuum writes the editorial staff of El Diario/La Prensa [translated by New America Media]. Nor could it thrive there, we might add. While many collude to bring about positive change, they face opposition from others who have coalesced to propagate negativity on a large scale.
As of late, it is the Latino community catching the hate that has been unleashed upon the immigrant community. El Diaro/La Prensa gives the gruesome details:
In July, Luis Ramirez was beaten to death by a gang in Shenandoah, Pa. In August, a Staten Island man rammed his vehicle into the storefronts of three Latino merchants. Last month, a gang hunted and stabbed Marcelo Lucero to death in Patchogue, Long Island. This list of hate attacks has now grown with the brutal beating of yet another Latino immigrant, according to an editorial in El Diario/La Prensa.
Jose Sucuzhanay, a Bushwick business owner, was with his brother Romel on Sunday when he was beaten by a group of men using a bat. He was reportedly declared brain dead yesterday. Romel had come from Ecuador to visit his brother, not bury him.
Witnesses heard the cowardly attackers shout anti-gay and anti-Hispanic slurs at the brothers, according to police. They mistook Jose and Romel cozying up in the extreme cold as a sign that they were gay.
The article goes on to document the soaring statistics of hate crimes against Latinos and Hispanics (even underreported, they have increased 40 percent since 2003, with over 60 percent of all bias/ethnicity/race/hate crimes being against Hispanics) and lays the blame unflinchingly on a “hostile anti-immigrant campaign targeting Latinos.”
Where is all this hate coming from? Duke of The Sanctuary gives a firsthand account of another group fanning the flames of violence now eating away at our communities in the info-packed article Hearts of Darkness: A Journey Into the Nativist Lair. To write it, Duke phoned in to join a press conference hosted by the anti-immigration group The Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which was led by FAIR President, Dan Stein. The purpose of the call was to discuss “the implications of the recent elections and (their) agenda for immigration reform in the 111th Congress.”
As we’ve come to expect from far-right ideologues, Stein opened up his presentation with a statement intended to stir up maximum resentment and fear. He spoke at length about the changing political climate due to economic instability and how only strict enforcement and severe limiting of all new immigration would be accepted by the American people.
Against this backdrop of economic uncertainty, he couldn’t resist the temptation to blame the nation’s entire economic collapse on “illegal aliens” and their allies who managed to force well-meaning bankers into giving them mortgages they had no intention of ever paying… [.]
The article proceeds to destroy a slew of Stein’s anti-immigrant talking points (including blaming the immigrant community for the economy) with links, facts, and a true bewilderment that Stein can live in a “reality of his own making.”
Attacking minority or immigrant communities (and specifically the Latino community, as we saw with the California Apology Act of the 1930s) during times of economic downturn is hardly a new mistake. Carl Ginsburg at Air America tackles the vile idea that we ought to blame blacks and Latinos for the collapse of the economy in The Sting: A Matter of Honor.
The ugly details of America’s Great Credit Scam of 2008 continue to surface, including what amounts to a colossal transfer of money from minority communities to rich investors.
The so-called “Race Tax” involved African Americans, Hispanics and Native American with incomes and credit scores on par with whites who were up-sold costlier, high interest mortgages. Recent studies reveal that more than half of blacks were sold subprime loans when cheaper loans were merited.
Media attention continues to be focused on borrowers and the lack of personal responsibility they employed in taking on mortgages. Against the backdrop of the Race Tax, one can now see that the fraud that was so pervasive in the ranks of the mortgage industry sales force–and the resultant rate gouging–played a big role in the foreclosure pandemic in America today.
Even back in early November, Public News Service broke down the hard truth that so many anti-immigrant factions never seem to grasp: you cannot separate immigrants from the US. We are all one and the same. In Advocates Push the “Dollars and Sense” of Immigration Reform, Michael Clifford details the national “compact for racial justice”:
“In New York City, 40 percent of all restaurant workers are undocumented and 70 percent are foreign-born. Without immigrants, the industry would just shut down. This is one of the few industries that’s somewhat strong and stable through this economic crisis.” [Saru Jayaraman, co-director of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United]
More than 100 New Yorkers who are concerned about immigration reform are in California today to sign onto a national “compact for racial justice.” Among them is Rinku Sen, author of the The Accidental American and executive director of the Applied Research Center, the compact’s host. [S]he says the compact makes the case that the nation cannot escape its biggest problems unless it includes the foreign-born in the solution.
Exploring the opposite approach, one of blatant divisiveness and persecution, Joshua Hoyt at AlterNet chronicles the revealing backtory of how the Republican party lost the Latino/Hispanic vote in GOP Going Full-Throttle on the Wrong Track for Latinos:
In December 2005, Dennis Hastert, then House speaker, pandering to the hard right of the GOP, allowed Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) to push through the House a truly draconian piece of legislation that would have turned all undocumented immigrants and the priests and nuns who serve them into felons.
The Sensenbrenner legislation triggered the historic immigrant marches in the spring of 2006, where millions chanted, tellingly, “Today we march; tomorrow we vote!” Nativist-haters and talk-radio demagogues who don’t like to “Press 1 for English” mobilized their cultural conservative base, and cynics in the Republican Party thought they had a beautiful little “wedge” issue. They would paint Democrats as pandering to Mexican-Americans by supporting “amnesty for lawbreakers.” Republican tax activist Grover Norquist warned of the consequences, saying, “We can’t afford to do to the Hispanics what we did to the Roman Catholics in the late 19th Century: tell them we don’t like them and lose their vote for a hundred years.”
Ignoring his warning, the Republican National Committee covered the nation during the 2006 elections with mailers and TV commercials painting the Democrats as soft on illegal Immigration, to no avail. The GOP lost the House and Senate, and many anti-immigrant hard-liners were defeated.
Many hands come together in a democratic process, and the idea is we collectively decide upon the party that best represents the People. If you believe in this democratic process, then humane immigration reform apparently has a mandate today.
A striking and iconic example of someone hired to enforce the law and yet subverting it at the same time is that of Lorraine Henderson, the Boston area director of Homeland Security, Customs, and Border Protection who was arrested for employing undocumented workers.
Henderson is responsible for stopping illegal aliens from entering the country through the Port of Boston.
But according to an affidavit, for several years Henderson employed a Brazilian housekeeper who was an illegal immigrant. She also allegedly hired two other illegal immigrants, even after fellow agents warned her it was against the law.
And continuing the pattern of leveling the power of the law in such egregiously asymmetrical fashion, an in-depth article by Jennifer Lee Koh titled Immigrant Rights Signed Away? tells the unhappy story of yet another Bush administration legal feat. Once again, due process is dragged out of the equation and in its wake, over 100,000 people (so far) detained and immediately removed from the country through a process called Stipulated Removal.
Here’s how stipulated removal works: Government officials present immigrants with a stipulated removal order. If immigrants sign the paper, then the government can issue a removal order against them. Once the government convinces them to sign the stipulated order, they give up their right to go before an immigration judge and have a hearing. Even if the law could give them a chance to stay here legally (for example, if they have U.S. citizen family members, face persecution in their home country, or are victims of a crime), the government can still send them back. After they are removed, they are barred from returning for 10 years, if they would otherwise have a legal way of doing coming back. And they face serious penalties (including criminal prosecution) if they do re-enter. No judge ever explains these things to the immigrants.
There is great danger in continuing along this path of unwarranted and unchecked persecution of such a large part of such a large nation. If the shape of Web 2.0, the success of open source software, the might of Barack Obama’s grassroots campaign, and the reality of the new global world we live in has taught us anything, it is that everything is interconnected, and our strengths lie in working together. So if we want our hope for the future to be more than campaign lettering, we have to remember to live by a much older slogan: United We Stand, Divided We Fall.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration. Visit Immigration.NewsLadder.net for a complete list of articles on immigration. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy and health issues, check out Economy.NewsLadder.net and Healthcare.NewsLadder.net. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of 50 leading independent media outlets, and created by NewsLadder.
