Weekly Immigration Wire: These Are American Stories

Posted Sep 24, 2009 @ 12:20 pm by Nezua

Filed under: Immigration    

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

As the immigration debate grows increasingly tense and intertwined with economic worries, cultural anxiety, and deep-seated racism and xenophobia, it is important to be clear about what’s at stake. This debate is about our humanity; about our most fundamental legal precepts concerning a human rights; about refusing to exploit the weak. Put simply: Human beings have rights that cannot be taken away by the stroke of a pen, rap of a gavel, or by angry pundits who demonize the disadvantaged.

RaceWire reports on a new campaign to push back against CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who continually presents immigrants as bearers of disease, inherently criminal, socially corrosive. His hate speech contributes to hate crimes by extension. Pundits like Dobbs have long been able to remain under the radar, but seem to be losing their ability to keep their personal agendas within the bounds of acceptable speech. Presente.org is launching a new campaign that works “with dozens of leading Latino organizations and … allies in cities across the country — from Los Angeles to Phoenix to Orlando.” Presente.org and their allies are banding together to “demand that CNN no longer allow Dobbs to spew hate thinly disguised as ‘news.’”

We must not lose our moral bearing during difficult times. Let us be reasonable, as Alvaro Huerta is. Writing for the Progressive, Huerta notes how quickly the media leaped upon Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst, and yet all avoided “The central question: Why shouldn’t undocumented people get health care?” If the undocumented pay taxes; if they have “historically contributed to making this nation the most powerful and affluent country in the world,” then they shouldn’t be denied access to care.

But lest we equate morality with productivity; this conversation is not just about how many assembly lines a person has worked. It is about who we are as a nation. Today’s immigrant stories of exclusion and fierce struggle for rights are quintessentially American stories. They challenge us to respond in alignment with our stated ideals and the spirit of morality that we assume informs the law.

Naima Coster at Wiretap reports on a one group of people who have risen to this challenge. A coalition of immigrant community leaders and clergy came together to get Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials off of Riker’s Island. Every year, approximately “3,000 immigrant New Yorkers face deportation” due to a “collaboration between ICE and the New York City Department of Corrections (DOC).” This partnership was uncovered by a 2008 Freedom of Information request, which revealed a complete lack of policy for regulating the actions of ICE agents, who were “not required to identify themselves, provide interpreter services or inform detainees of their constitutional rights to remain silent and have an attorney present.” The coalition was successful: Former DOC Commissioner Martin Horn has agreed to regulate all ICE operations at Riker’s Island.

As Coster notes, this victory is critical because it “challenges Obama’s plan to expand the Secure Communities program,” an initiative developed under the Bush administration that places federal agents in local jails. Of course nobody wants dangerous people running around; we can all agree on that. But if there is nothing protecting the vulnerable from exploitation, then the law means nothing at all.

Speaking of those needing protection, the trend of sweeping social challenges into prisons continues at an alarming rate, as reported by New America Media. The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, H.R. 7311 may be well-intentioned and is ostensibly “designed to combat labor and sex trafficking,” but will it do more harm than good? Previously, the Border Patrol would reunite a minor with their family within hours upon detaining them. Under H.R. 7311, minors would be placed in detention and could stay there for months. While it is true that the private detention industry might cheer such a move, surely these children and their families will not.

Public News Service reports on immigration reform’s movement in Arizona. While Border Action Network director Jennifer Allen celebrates the suspension of “military-style workplace raids,” she is disappointed that the Obama administration “has put off promised comprehensive immigration reform, while at the same time expanding such harsh measures as having local police enforce federal immigration laws.” Allen points out that policies bringing federal forces into local communities “further marginalize immigrant communities, make public safety activity by local law enforcement more difficult, and in many ways discourage people’s hope that we’re in fact going to see new leadership on immigration reform.”

Finally, on a more positive note, we return to New America Media and hop a border or two with Juanes, a Colombian singer and activist. The second Paz sin Fronteras [Peace Without Borders] concert organized in Cuba was “an important step toward ending the island’s isolation created from both inside and out.” Juanes is scheduled to perform next year on the U.S.-Mexico border. Perhaps the power of music can again, at least momentarily, bridge a divide from which so much pain is born.

Weekly Immigration Wire: The Morality of Reform

Posted Jul 16, 2009 @ 11:12 am by Nezua

Filed under: Immigration    

by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger

On Tuesday, relations between the U.S. and Cuba thawed a bit more, as AlterNet reports. Discussions for implementing U.S.-Cuba Migration accord resumed after a six year stall. This move is another positive mark for diplomatic progress between the two countries. In April, travel and money transfers to Cuba from U.S. nationals of Cuban descent were authorized.

When it comes to progress on immigration matters, the resumed dialogue between the U.S. and Cuba is a good sign amidst a field of less tangible legislative movement. Aside from the positive messaging sent from the White House after the June 25th meeting with lawmakers, not all is as rosy as it seems.

AlterNet tallies up recent legislative moves in “Backward Steps on Immigration Reform”. As the title suggests, it’s not good news.  Advocates publicly praised the White House on their intention to pass reform and their recent decision to repeal the “no-match” rule which checks social security numbers against a database of controversial integrity. Unfortunately, the repeal was overturned one day later and got considerably less attention. We’re left with the impression of progress which is undermined behind the scenes.

Worse than this, the Democratic administration is extending the 287(g) provision, which “deputizes local law enforcement as immigration agents.” AlterNet also points out that “extensive research” has already determined how this “roundup and deportation program has run roughshod over civil and human rights and undermines public safety.” Status Quo, meet Two Steps Backward.

Public News Service’s Ariel Keck reports on how the E-verify system is wreaking havok on the economy. E-verify is a “federal system for determining employment eligibility” of workers. The U.S. Senate will soon consider expanding this heavily flawed program, which means that many employed and productive members of society will lose their income, and many of them citizens. Jennifer Allen of Border Action Network estimates there are “21 million U.S. citizens who don’t possess government photo ID, as required by E-verify.” They too, would be scooped up in this flawed system, should the Employment Verification program continue as proposed.

How would this play out on the ground? In Virginia, workers that harvest “labor-intensive” crops will have their documentation checked against a database of social security numbers. If no match is found, they will lose of their job, and possibly become involved in a legal battle to prove their identity. As noted, the integrity of the process as well as the database is debatable, so many workers will be unjustly unemployed. And all the while, the economy suffers from a loss in production and consumer spending.

It is ironic and cruel that the most vulnerable are scapegoated in these times of hardship. Writing for WireTap, M. Junaid Levesque-Alam points out the hypocrisy of groups who exploit economic downturns to promote anti-immigrant agendas. A recent development includes banning immigrant families from receiving state benefits and public services.

There is a “dishonest disconnect” to these arguments, Levesque-Alam argues:

When Americans loaded up on goods and services on the cheap at the expense of the undocumented during the boom, the hankering to curtail immigrant access to services scarcely rose to the level of a pipsqueak. But now that we’re in a poor economy and the undocumented are forced to avail of public services—precisely because they are denied private options by default—we are witnessing an outpouring of hysterics and moral effluvia about an immigrant “invasion.”

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who certainly owes some thanks to this country’s generosity toward immigrants, has proposed one of the very initiatives Levesque-Alam writes of. Michelle Chen, writing for RaceWire, describes the new legislation as an attempt to impose “a five-year limit on state welfare support for citizen children of undocumented immigrants.”

“Approximately 100,000 U.S.-born children in about 48,000 California households headed by illegal immigrants, who receive a monthly average of $472”  would be affected by this legislation. Even if you view this through a fiscal lens alone, the amount “saved” is questionable, given the state’s massive deficit.

“[Is it] really worth taking away a family’s monthly welfare stipend—money that, in the midst of a recession, barely buffers a household against starvation and homelessness?” Chen asks.

Addressing current immigration policies, and thelack thereof, Sojourners asks Where’s the Love? Reverend Anne Dunlap offers a pointed and simple plea for kindness and fairness, with an eye for hipocracy: For those who are “trying to be faithful to God’s way, God’s vision of communities filled with justice, dignity, and love, the reminder to “love the ‘alien’ as you love yourself” should be the touchstone of our work in solidarity with the immigrant community.”

Affording others the kindness and opportunity we’d want to be given ourselves is an honored tradition among many peoples—those who believe in a God or otherwise. And for good reason, as other options tend to encourage isolation, exploitation and imbalance. We must act to help those in need and suffering because that’s what a healthy, growing world does for itself in order to keep thriving. Ultimately, a less fearful and more humane approach has many positive results for all of us.

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 Audit: Unions and Wage Growth Can Fuel Recovery

Posted Jul 14, 2009 @ 8:07 am by ZachCarter

Filed under: Uncategorized    

by Zach Carter, TMC MediaWire blogger

The U.S. economy is in big trouble right now, and the reform process may be missing a key point. When banks ran into severe trouble late last year, the government responded quickly with a massive bailout, but very little has been done to address a major structural flaw that has left our economy so vulnerable: rampant income inequality. In a system based on consumer spending, we have stretched consumers beyond their limit.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich argues that we are in for a long period of economic woe over at Talking Points Memo. Consumer spending accounts for about 70% of the U.S. economy, so when consumers go broke, everything shuts down. Ordinary Americans’ wages have been declining for decades, and the collapse of the housing bubble wiped out roughly $14 trillion in household wealth. Simply rebooting in the hopes that our simultaneous assault and dependence on consumer pocketbooks will work again will not be effective.

“This economy can’t get back on track because the track we were on for years—featuring flat or declining median wages, mounting consumer debt, and widening insecurity, not to mention increasing carbon in the atmosphere—simply cannot be sustained,” Reich writes.

Strengthening our labor unions is probably the biggest single step the U.S. can take toward economic stability. And the best way to do that would be passing the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it much easier for unions to organize by circumventing executive intimidation. Empowered workers can demand fair wages, decent benefits and help build a society that values all labor as an important part of collective existence.

In a profile of AFL-CIO leader David Trumka for The Nation, David Moberg presents a vision of an economy in which policymakers and voters are concerned with how much wealth exists and how that wealth is distributed. Widespread prosperity does not inevitably flow from technological or financial innovation if the resulting gains are diverted to a select few.

“In Trumka’s view, the unionism of the 1930s forged a social compact that made possible the middle class prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s,” Moberg writes. “But since the early 1970s, Wall Street and financial interests have dominated American politics, dismantling the compact and increasing inequality, debt and insecurity as workers struggled to keep up.”

It may be surprising for those of us who don’t work on Wall Street, but there is actually an enormously influential school of thought in Washington, D.C. that believes recessions are actually good for the economy. The reasoning goes something like this: When economies gorge themselves, something has to happen to correct the mistake—to “purge the rottenness from the system,” as Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon once said. The idea has some level of intuitive appeal, but as Christopher Hayes writes for The American Prospect, it’s also a complete distortion of how recessions actually work.

“Economic contraction feels quite different to a bond trader and an unskilled worker,” Hayes writes. “A spike in unemployment hits those on the margins of the labor market the hardest, while contractions also usher in deflation, which has a strong tendency to make the rich richer.”

In reality, the government almost never makes the perpetrators of an economic collapse pay serious consequences. When the economy gets into trouble, the government usually takes emergency measures to avert a crisis, and then refuses to adopt reforms that would protect those dealt the most harm. It’s been this way for decades.

Not only have workers been neglected, but billions of their tax dollars have bailed out banks that ran themselves into the ground via predatory loans. But even that bailout money is not being used to help strengthen the broader economy. Writing for The Washington Independent, Mary Kane highlights a host of reports that indicate banks are  booting people out of their homes, and then refusing to care for the houses once they’re vacant. When homes are overgrown and infested with all kinds of critters, the value of nearby properties plummets. Banks are hurting completely innocent homeowners whose tax dollars helped bail them out.

We don’t even know the full extent of the favors the government has performed for financial firms. In a video for the American News Project, Lagan Sebert, Harry Hanbury and Mike Fritz detail some of the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented actions during the financial crisis. The Fed has lent out over $1 trillion to banks over the course of the financial crisis without disclosing who received the loans or what kind of collateral the Fed received in return.

Much of what we do know about the Fed’s rescue plans is disquieting, as William Greider, an economics journalist with The Nation, explains in the ANP video. When Bear Stearns collapsed in March 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York negotiated a rescue plan in which JPMorgan would acquire the failed Wall Street icon in exchange for $30 billion in loss protection from the Fed. But JPMorgan would have been one of the hardest hit by a Bear Stearns collapse, and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon sits on the board of directors at the New York Fed.

“Tim Geithner, who was then President of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and is now Treasury Secretary, was negotiating with his own board member,” Greider says.

Going back to labor: Hourly workers will get some much-needed relief later this month, when the federal minimum wage increases from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour, as Doug Ramsey explains for Public News Service of Arizona. While executives like to argue that raising the minimum wage is a job-killer, the fact is that no serious study has ever linked the two phenomena. Interestingly, the wage increase was not a response to the economic crisis. It was one of the first legislative victories for the Democratic Party when it won back majorities in the House and Senate in 2006.

Anybody who lives on less than $7.00 an hour can attest that the added income is a welcome improvement over the status quo. But $7.25 an hour is just $15,000 a year—not nearly enough to save for the future or pay for a serious medical procedure. Our economy is suffering because many, many ordinary people are living paycheck to paycheck. We have to create an economy where work and workers are given their fair value.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the economy. Visit StimulusPlan.NewsLadder.net and Economy.NewsLadder.net for complete lists of articles on the economy, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical health and immigration issues, check out Healthcare.NewsLadder.net and Immigration.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: In Midst of Crisis, Signs of Reform

Posted Jun 25, 2009 @ 10:30 am by Nezua

Filed under: Immigration    

by Nezua, TMC Mediawire Blogger

President Obama has often stated that immigration reform cannot be approached in a piecemeal fashion, and that his administration would tackle the issue in 2009. This week, Obama will be meeting with members of Congress to kick off a bi-partisan approach to reform. These meetings don’t guarantee any legislative action will take place this year, but are at least an encouraging sign. In the meantime, the deportation industry shows no sign of slowing, hate crimes are rising and hate groups are being main streamed. As a result, the polarization between reform advocates and foes is getting worse.

New America Media’s Jun Wang writes about the disapointing consensus reached by a panel of immigration activists last Thursday at California State University in Los Angeles. A lack of movement around immigration reform won’t help curb rising rates of hate crimes against Latino/as, and compounds other instances of “othering” and racism. According to one panelist: “Employers in conservative cities” are learning that “they are better off not hiring people who are ‘foreign looking or having foreign sound names.’”

Not content with simply raiding homes, workplaces, or storming the local  7-11, Immigrations Customs and Enforcement (ICE) is escalating its enforcement tactics. Also in New America Media, Hiram Soto reports on the joint operation between the Border Patrol and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in deporting three high-school age girls, one as young as 16, who were stopped by ICE on their way to school. Immigration attorney Lilia Velasquez, who is representing the minors, said she “hasn’t seen anything like this in her 25-year career,” because the children are being let back into the U.S. to fight their deportation.

The plight of these girls is proof that the destructive deportation fetish sweeping the Department of Homeland Security is producing increasingly ridiculous results.

Pundits like Michael Savage are also feeding the violent and anti-immigrant, anti-Latino/a energy in the U.S. Samhita Mukhopadhyay at Feministing writes that these broadcasts are are created “for the purpose of inciting violence against immigrants and to fuel racial tension.” Exposing Savage’s “paranoid” and fearful obfuscation of reality, Mukhopadhyay clears up the anti-immigrant propaganda by pointing out that despite Savage’s tortured logic, the truth is that Immigrants are the “working base” of California, and not the ones creating a drain upon it. California’s immigrants pay roughly $40 billion in taxes every year.

One of the loudest politicians feeding anti-immigrant hostility is Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman from Colorado. The Colorado Independent has linked Tancredo to the Minuteman American Defense (MAD) and its former Executive Director Shawna Forde, accused of murdering Raul and Brisenia Flores, via a letter expressing the politician’s solidarity and gratitude to the organization for organizing a rally. It turns out that not only was this beaming “boilerplate rejection letter” (as campaign chair Bay Buchanan hopes to position it) sent to Forde, but a story published by the Everett Herald in 2007 places official Tancredo campaign staff at the event. The connections don’t end there and only grow more unsettling.

Those fighting for justice and on the side of human rights are hardly laying low in this time of legislative uncertainty. In a guest column for RaceWire, undocumented immigrant Sonia Guinansaca writes about how over 500 students from all over the U.S. attended a “Mock Graduation ceremony” on Capitol Hill last Tuesday. The ceremony was intended to both draw attention and show support for the DREAM Act. Guinansaca reminds us of our country’s most inspiring ideals: To be a nation where “nothin’ is impossible.”

RaceWire also brings us more news of youth behind change in Immigrants’ Kids File Lawsuit Against US, and Other News. In this political lull, “the kids of hundreds of deported parents are filing a lawsuit against the government claiming their constitutional right to stay in the U.S. is violated by the deportation of their parents.”

*Editor’s note: The original version of this post implied that all movement towards immigration reform had halted. We’ve updated this blog to reflect recent developments. Stay tuned to next week’s Wire for in-depth analysis of the push for effective immigration reform.

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: Modern Day Slave Trade Uncovered

Posted Jun 4, 2009 @ 9:03 am by Nezua

Filed under: Immigration    

The Wire will be brief this week, as I’m attending New America Media’s Expo and Awards at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. I’ll be speaking about New Media and accepting an award on the behalf of the Sanctuary group at ProMigrant.Org.

But the situation on the ground doesn’t pause for conventions or award ceremonies. So, in lieu of a full post, here are a few important stories from the Immigration Ladder this week that are worth checking out. We’ll be back in full force next week.

In the American Prospect, Renee Felts and Stokely Baksh examine the Obama administration’s Secure Communities initiative, which “supporters say will be more focused in its pursuit of undocumented immigrants with felony records” than Bush-era immigration measures, which indiscriminately corral immigrants and Latinos alike. Felts and Baksh offer a wary admonition to the White House: Trying to draw a line between those who cry for harsher enforcement and “comprehensive reform advocates” might result in further racial and ethnic profiling, which has bloomed since the implementation of programs like the 287(g) agreement.

On Monday, the “Reform Immigration for America Campaign” launched in over 35 cities and Mary Kuhlman reports on the local event in Chicago, Ill. for Public News Service. “Community, faith, labor, and business leaders” met to begin the campaign designed to “build momentum” for the immigration reform that so many hope to see in 2009. “We hope people will join us in fighting for sensible solutions,” Kuhlman quotes Joshua Hoyt, the executive director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

OneWorld reveals that while the U.S. military recruits non-citizens by offering them “expedited citizenship” for enlisting, “loopholes in immigration policy are preventing military personnel from becoming citizens even after years of service to the country.” One soldier is still in limbo, even after eight years of service as a Marine. This is yet another example of immigration policy that badly need fixing: Sometimes the families of these soldiers are deported. This is horrific treatment for those who offer their lives in a bargain for inclusion.

Finally, RaceWire’s Michelle Chen reports on the discovery of a “modern-day” slavery operation based in the U.S. Any involved in the struggle for human rights must read this article. A group of “Missouri-based employers” now face allegations of running an international operation that solicited, transported, and housed foreign nationals so they could enter the U.S. workforce. The ring was a grossly exploitative scam in which humans were “essentially held captive, crammed into substandard housing, and charged huge fees.” Worse, yet, the threat of deportation was leveraged against them when they dared seek better living arrangements.

We must change how we handle those who offer their lives for our nation’s well-being, reshape the entire conversation on immigration, and recognize the great value in accepting those who work to make their dreams come true and keep their families safe. These changes are essential to our country’s well-being and future health. Let’s make big changes this year. Especially in light of the newest supreme court nominee, made by a President who hails from Hawaii and Kenya, let’s live up to our potential and remember what it means to be a “nation of immigrants.”

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: Enforcement Creates Aura of Criminality

Posted May 14, 2009 @ 10:33 am by Nezua

Filed under: Immigration    

by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger

The Latino/a community has had ample reason to hope that President Obama would take on immigration reform in a humane manner. While Obama is undeniably centrist in his political approach, and has long been fond of language stressing punitive solutions to the immigration issue, he certainly seems to understand that “America is changing and we can’t be threatened by it.” Enforcement policies are becoming a threat, not only to immigrants, but the country at large.

AlterNet picks up on a position paper authored by the Sanctuary’s founding editors (of which I am one) on the Luis Ramirez killing and subsequent court case. The article ties the crime and Shanendoah jury’s decision to a larger pattern of dehumanization aimed at Latinos/as, and analyzes “[h]ow effortlessly a subhuman category of being is constructed and subsequently reviled.”

It’s a disturbing lens for examining current immigration-related news, but useful. If a person is deemed criminal by nature of their appearance, name, and culture, then the larger public will feel comfortable treating them in ways they would never condone for themselves. This process unfolds when the nation is made fearful by hack punditry and politicians who continually employ aggressive verbiage and dishonest framing of the realities we face.

Nina Jacinto, writing for WireTap, thinks it crucial that communities of color “continue the conversation about Luis Ramirez, in order to find some kind of justice” in the situation. “[R]acial injustice may continue to exist subversively in many parts of the country,” Jacinto writes, “But in many areas, hate crimes against people of color go beyond language, can become violent, and end in death.”

Using a lens that positions immigrants as the Other and less-than, it’s easy to understand why some staunchly oppose the DREAM act, which grants temporary citizenship to people brought here as children, who have lived in the U.S. at least five years, received high school educations and are of “good moral character,” as Public News Service reports.  Supporters of the DREAM act view its opposition as cruel; a punishment leveled on children who have done nothing wrong. But if one had no interest in seeing those children become an educated part of U.S. culture, opposing the DREAM ACT makes perfect sense.

It is hard to make sense, however, of continuing enforcement measures that clearly wreak havoc on a state’s economic well being. Arizona is harming its own economy via an extremely heavy-handed enforcement approach towards communities that keep the state healthy. Doug Ramsey interviewed Alessandra Soler-Meetze, director of ACLU-Arizona for Public News Service. She claims that “[w]e have relied on punitive measures that have targeted not just recent immigrants, but long-time legal residents and even U.S. citizens, simply because of the color of their skin.” This creates an aura of discrimination that bleeds consequences into surrounding communities.

This aura is visible in the comment threads of almost any immigration-related article online. Commenters show nothing but hostility towards mothers who are losing their children and jobs. They demonstrate absolutely no empathy. This atmosphere is cultivated by enforcement measures like those enacted in Arizona. As Leslie Savan writes in AlterNet, Mexicans have been “the prime target of the most rancid typecasting” in the discussion that plays out in the media. And “once the type has been cast, it has jumped easily to Latinos of any origins.”

A year has passed since the devastating Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Postville, Iowa. New America Media’s A Year Later Iowa Raid Haunts Immigrants covers how some workers were treated during the raids, and what their lives are like in the aftermath. Veronica Cumez, a “soft-spoken 33-year-old mother of three” was hit on the head by a ICE agent during the raid, then yanked from her hiding place. Now, as she awaits the final outcome of her case, she lives wearing an electronic ankle bracelet that reminds her of her status at every turn.

Besides anxiety, loneliness is also a major ingredient of her new life. In the weeks and months after the raid, an entire network of kin from her village in Guatemala, San José Calderas, including three brothers-in-law, were either arrested and deported or abandoned Postville.

In 2006, Barack Obama confessed a limit to his own mental prowess:

It’s hard to imagine that we want to live in a country where we would have police and immigration officials coming into people’s homes and taking away the father of a family, sending him back to Mexico, leaving a mother and child behind.

But this is where we live. And when the talk is constantly about how borders are unsafe, how Mexicans are bringing Swine Flu to our communities, or how immigrants are taking jobs away from U.S. citizens, of course events will play out violently.

In U.S. Women Migrants Protest Abuse in County Jails, Feministing’s Courtney Martin writes of how one woman’s arm was allegedly broken by Maricopa County Sheriff’s guards. And in a letter signed by many women (one who tells of her jaw being broken during an ICE raid) the situation is made starkly clear. “Please help us,” plead the women. “[W]e’re in a tunnel without end, treated like dogs.”

And yet, Democrats hem and haw, afraid to take a firm moral stance on what so many humans in the nation are living through. Less than a week after the annual May Day marches, and at the end of President Obama’s first 100 days, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano “carefully skirted repeated questions” about whether the forthcoming Immigration reform should include “broader opportunities for legalization of the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants living in the United States,” according to the Colorado Independent.

The administration views the immigration issue as “controversial and politically dicey.” It’s too bad that our representative are not comfortable coming out in strong support of human rights as they apply to all these situations.

There is a major problem with continuing a public dialogue stressing dangerous borders, plays tough with phrases like “going to the back of the line” and rounding up and deporting people. These “solutions” ignore one of the most important causes of the problems. There is an imbalance in the economic exhange between the U.S. and nations like Mexico.

Fortunately, there are those who fight such injustice. You will find these people at the very roots of the situation, such as students who start hunger strikes to protest the “violence and terrorism” aimed at the Latino/a community and hope to inspire “those in higher power to say that they can’t close their eyes to the injustices we see day after day.”

And as Yes! Magazine reports, May Day marches filled the streets of over 125 cities this year. Author Colette Cosner reminds us that the “hope of the May Day marches resides not in the media coverage nor the government’s lack of response, but rather in how it connected people in the community in their efforts for further actions.”

Finally, it is often mothers who fight the hardest against the injustices that affect their families. RaceWire’s Julianne Hing reports on Elvira Arellano, who was deported in 2007. Now in Mexico, Arellano is running for a seat in the Mexican Congress. “I am going to seek laws in Congress that protect women, and also that protect undocumented Central Americans who are treated like criminals in Mexico,” Arellano said.

Weekly Immigration Wire: Swine Flu Infecting Immigration Debate

Posted Apr 30, 2009 @ 11:21 am by Nezua

Filed under: Immigration    

by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger

It’s no shock that those long-opposed to All Things Immigrant are using the Swine Flu outbreak—which has mostly affected Mexicans at this point—to ratchet anti-immigrant rhetoric up to an irresponsible level. It’s disappointing though, especially because the last few weeks saw more rational dialogue emerging in media coverage. This week’s Wire examines the voices talking about immigration both in the media and on the ground, from those recycling age-old “eliminationist” rhetoric to those who put their own bodies on the line to fight for inclusive justice.

In AlterNet, Joshua Holland uses history to contextualize virulent statements hurled by anti-immigrant pundits like Michael Savage. Holland deftly debunks numerous anti-immigrant, right-wing myths using a historical lens: By tying the source of contagion to immigrants, today’s pundits are echoing age old patterns that “contributed to a series of pogroms in which thousands were burned alive” in 14th Century Europe. Just what are today’s pundits saying? Savage asks “Could this be a terrorist attack through Mexico?” Michelle Malkin, Bill O’ Reilly and Neil Boortz agree: “[W]hat better way to sneak a virus into this country than give it to Mexicans?” shrieks Boortz.

While Colorado lawmakers aren’t using such frantic hyperbole, they are doing nothing to dispel the state’s reputation as heavy-handed when it comes to immigration enforcement. On Monday, the Democratic-controlled state legislature introduced a non-binding Joint Memorial that requests the use of DNA technology and expanded local police powers to “identify, arrest, and detain” immigrants. If granted, the request would allow the state to use “biometric identification—like DNA tracking—and federal databases to create in enforcement dragnet,” according to Erin Rosa of The Colorado Independent. Rosa also reports on scary developments in enforcement technology that attempt to mend the gap between the federal government’s lack of reform and the needs of each state.

Not all harsh enforcement measures result from a lack of federal legislation. A Republican-led Congress passed a law in 1996 restricting the ability of immigrants to challenge the legality of their deportation,” as Rochelle Bobroff and Harper Jean Tobin report for New America Media. The measure is pointedly cruel: It allows courts to proceed with deportation even if an asylum-seeker will be endangered upon their explication. Though there is a provision that the courts can use to rule otherwise, this law represents yet another policy that needs to be revisited when the White House negotiates humane and effective reform.

Writing for AlterNet, Frank Sharry reports on the divide deepening between moderate Democrats, who are “ready to tackle common sense reform” and Republican “hardliners.” “While Democrats seem to be making headway,” Sharry writes, “The Republican Party continues to be dogged by Minutemen hard-liners who oppose practical solutions.”

The political gap is growing, as other groups draw together. RaceWire’s Michelle Chen reports on the Black Immigration Network, “the first national network concerned about immigration issues and racial equity issues surrounding both African Americans and immigrants of African descent.” This Network is important because it bridges historical tensions between the two communities. And as Chen makes clear, there are people who exploit such divides to their own benefit.

The effects of the Iraq war, while a much quieter subject in today’s news cycle, are still playing out. AlterNet’s Nina Berman tells the tragic story of Iraqi refugees who are struggling in the poor U.S. economy and lack adequate help to get ahead. Omar Ibrahim is one such refugee who came to Texas in 2008. He is still jobless and family back in Iraq doesn’t quite understand. “They know that America is a dream,” Ibrahim says, “but it is a bad dream.”

Finally, in an inspiring show of activism, Public News Service’s Mary Kuhlman reports on two nuns who engages in civil disobedience at a Chicago ICE detention facility to draw attention to the fight for human (immigrant) rights. Obama’s 100th day marked their “tipping point,” after more than two years of prayer vigils. They needed to try something different. The nuns’ agenda? Making it possible for detained immigrants to see religious workers. Immigrants, many of them asylum seekers, are isolated even from their families. In this particular case, the women’s actions paid off.

At play today in our immigration debate are warring philosophies of who a “people” are and what we owe each other for simply belonging to the same human family. On one side, frothing, fearful punditry stoke division and hostility. And on the other, fearless and brave activists champion for our better natures. It is no small battle.

Weekly Immigration Wire: Legalize the Undocumented, Help Fix the Economy

Posted Apr 16, 2009 @ 10:38 am by Nezua

Filed under: Economy, Immigration    

by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger

The dialogue on immigration has, historically, been contentious and cyclical. There are times when hysteria peaks, and rational thought struggles to enter the national dialogue. There are also moments of truth. This week, independent media debunked many myths about the undocumented and made the case for the positive impact of immigrants in the US, including the positive effect of legalizing the undocumented on the economy and how citizens are holding elected representatives accountable for votes against pro-immigrant measures.

Wendy Norris, writing for the Colorado Independent, held the New York Times to task for using questionable sources in an article about President Obama’s push for immigration reform. Norris exposes the background of quoted anti-immigration groups like NumbersUSA, CIS, and FAIR, who have ties to white supremacy groups and eugenics promoters and calls the New York Times out for quoting organizations “repeatedly discredited as hate groups.” When hate groups are quoted as legitimate sources, society suffers from the misrepresentation.

Also in New America Media, Jacqueline Esposito and Jumana Musa explore the kinds of “enforcement” that groups like NumbersUSA and FAIR claim is the most important part of Immigration Reform. Esposito and Musa cite the case of Guido Newbrough, a detainee who made multiple requests for medical attention; there was a treatable bacterial infection in his heart. Newbrough was locked in an isolation cell and died of the ailment.

“As the country moves forward on comprehensive immigration reform,” they write, “We must uphold American values by ensuring that all people, no matter where they come from, are afforded fundamental rights, including the right to a fair day in court before being deprived of liberty and the right to be free from inhumane conditions of confinement. As a nation, we cannot stand for anything less.”

The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) would no doubt agree with that sentiment, as Beatriz Herrera reports for Wiretap. Apparently, the DCCC voted 20-1 against San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to preserve Sanctuary ordinances for juvenile offenders. These ordinances ensure that offenders have a chance to prove their innocence instead of facing immediate deportation.

During the 2008 election season, voices calling for reason in the immigration debate were often drowned out by the near-hysteria that certain elements of the Right called forth. Another encouraging sign that we are, perhaps, at a new juncture: Today, even democratic state senators are being held accountable. Colorado Sen. Morgan Carroll (D-Aurora) was recently forced to defend her vote against SB 170, the tuition bill was one that would provide in-state tuition equity for undocumented Colorado high school graduates, on the air.

According to the Colorado Independent, Sen. Morgan appeared on progressive talk radio host Mario Solis-Marich’s show on April 10—after “a week of being beat up in the press and on the blogs” for her opposition to the bill.

In Public News Service, Doug Ramsey has news about a report which focuses on the benefits of legalizing currently undocumented workers. Compiled by the nonpartisan Immigration Policy Center, the report breaks down how legalizing the undocumented community would increase the amount of income that the immigrant community brings into the economy. Rather than immigrants costing us, “legalization would boost tax collections at all levels of government by $66 billion over the next few years.”

Public News Service also explores the economic benefits to bringing the underground economy above ground. According to David Kallick, an economist with the Fiscal Institute, billions of dollars are simply “lining the pockets of employers who hire folks in the underground economy and avoid contributing to payroll and other taxes.”

And OneWorld US reports that Hispanic rights advocates are eager to hear the president’s plan for immigration reform and note that very reform is key to economic recovery. Janet Murguía, President and CEO of the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the US notes that “the path to a strong economic recovery includes strategies that lift wages, increase revenue, and create a level playing field—and immigration is a crucial element of that equation.”

Even the American Prospect’s Ezra Klein is writing about immigration in a more proactive light. Just last week, Klein wrote Why Immigration Reform Won’t Happen. He is now making The Political Case for Immigration Reform.

So maybe we’re figuring it out as we go. The costs of letting parts of our country fail and fall away are more than economic, they are moral and profound. We have time to act, but opposition voices are gathering in number. There are many anti-immigrant myths, and many oppose a truly progressive stance on immigration. But we have the will for the struggle and the payoff will come not only in a healthier economy, but in a sounder national soul.

Are you ready? Let’s go.

Weekly Immigration Wire: Binghamton Shootings Impact all Sides of Debate

Posted Apr 9, 2009 @ 10:13 am by Nezua

Filed under: Immigration    

by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger

Last Friday, 13 people were killed at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York. The event shocked the nation and was “the worst mass shooting in the United States since the 2007 massacre at the Virginia Tech college,” as New America Media reports. Because the violence erupted at an immigrant service center, the immigrant community has been especially affected, and immigration opponents are predictably using the tragedy to justify, or at least voice, their vitriol toward the undocumented population.

The impact of the Binghamton shootings on the U.S. immigrant community, already aggravated by ICE raids that funnel them into an abusive system, evokes multiple concerns. One is of further violence. But a grim possibility has also emerged: Immigrant activists who want to become integrated members of U.S. society might stop patronizing the places that can help them do just that, as Public News Service reports. Facilities like the American Civic Association provide many services for the immigrant community, one of which is improving their English. It’s hard enough for those with a limited grasp on a new language to navigate life in a new country. If immigrants fear the places that help them learn, it only makes their lives harder.

When issues like immigration become politicized, nothing is off-limits. Even the national census is “morphing from sociological project into a political one,” according to RaceWire’s Michelle Chen. Conservatives fear losing votes and political power to regions where “illegals” are counted as a part of the census (As if they didn’t lose the Latino vote all on their own in 2008). Civil rights and immigrant advocates fear a worse miscount this year of the Latino population than 2000’s 3 per cent under count.

Erin Rosa reports on possible census-count solutions for the Colorado Independent. Rosa writes of “Ya es hora! Hagase contar!” (It’s time! Make yourself count!), an “unprecedented media campaign” that encourages Latinos to participate in the census.

The Colorado Independent has a few interesting articles on immigration this week. In Bush Admin’s Environment Waivers Remain Intact at Border, a contrast is drawn between President Obama’s recent speech in Germany about walls “between races and tribes” being “the walls we must tear down” with the controversial construction of a border wall in southern stated. Construction proceeds, despite President Obama’s professed philosophy. And in Senate kills immigrant in-state tuition bill, Wendy Norris writes about Colorado’s legislative “companion to the federal DREAM Act” that would have provided college tuition equity to undocumented Colorado high school graduates was lost on a 18-16 vote.” One Democrat explained her vote against the bill as a practical one: Because children of immigrants are at risk for deportation, the bill is “at odds” with federal law.

This type of legislative deadlock doesn’t escape Ezra Klein of the American Prospect, who comments on Senator John Mccain’s “testy” rejoinder to a number of Hispanic business leaders who questioned when reform would come. “Where the reformers will turn,” Klein asks. In 1986, a particular alignment of politicians enabled the last major reforms in immigration law to pass—a configuration of forces not currently in place.

So, who will reform immigration? It’s an important question. The terrain is dangerous because there is no clear consensus or policy to rely on. In the legal gaps that this absence creates, questionable legislative bridges spring up, like agreement 287(g), which enlists local law in enforcing federal immigration violations. The most famous symbol of 287(g) is, of course, Sheriff Arpaio, who has left an entire community “terrified and afraid to call the police.”

“We’re dealing with a climate of hate, people don’t understand they’re being moved by people who hate,” says Phoenix attorney Danny Ortega. “Then you’ve got the Joe Arpaio’s of the world making it politically popular to hate.”

The power that can be leveraged by law and political agenda is vast and must be closely monitored. Immigrants, especially women of these communities, have long been a target of such iniquities. National Radio Project reports on yet another instance in a long line of oppressive reproductive health policies that target women of color and the immigrant community.

Going back to RaceWire, Michelle Chen follows up on President Obama’s Aunt Zeituni’s fight for citizenship, and how anti-immigrant groups have fixed upon her case as a high-profile example of how immigrants “game the system.” The article outlines precisely how ludicrous this stance is.

Finally, make sure to check out In These Times‘ thoughtful review of the new “immigration/baseball drama” Sugar, by Brooklyn-based filmmakers Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden. Reviewer Brandon Harris writes that “Sugar’s experiences reveal the labors of all immigrants who struggle to adjust to the harsh realities of American life on the margins.”

That phrase could apply to many today. And to many who paved the way for us today. It is a story we must not forget.

Weekly Immigration Wire: ‘Systematic Failures’ in U.S. Detention Healthcare

Posted Mar 19, 2009 @ 11:31 am by Nezua

Filed under: Immigration    

by Nezua
TMC MediaWire Blogger

This week, two comprehensive reports on the health of immigrant detainees were released by Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. As Public News Service reports, “Immigrants are, literally, dying for decent care.”

There have been many cases of inadequate medical treatment or neglect leading to death in U.S. detention centers. The cases are horrific—ranging from an ignored broken spine to deadly metastasized genital cancer—and must stop immediately. But, a thorough accounting of the realities of detention is needed if the United States can engage in an honest dialogue about immigration policy.

RaceWire doesn’t shrink from offering an incisive analysis in Health in Detention. Michelle Chen writes that “Part of the problem is that the mission of ICE’s Division of Immigration Health Services isn’t really to ensure that all detainees receive the care they need, but rather, to keep people essentially well enough to be kicked out of the country before they die.” Chen adds that in some cases, that low bar isn’t met.

There are many causes. After 9/11, the U.S. stopped aiming for a “more perfect union” of its diverse population. The Bush administration responded (starting in Florida) to the immigrant community with suspicion and force. And so it has continued, ultimately leading to the conditions outlined in this week’s reports. The poor treatment of immigrants in U.S. custody reveals a very ugly side of the country, but it’s hardly a new side. AlterNet’s Lynn Tramonte offers a scathing indictment of how dangerous Agreement 287(g), which recruits local police to enforce immigration law, has become to communities.

The stalemate on immigration reform is sometimes portrayed as a disagreement over “safety” and “security” and “jobs.” But, in many cases, it’s a disguised resistance to the always-changing face of America. It’s an old game of Tug-of-War. Wiretap reminds us how long this culture battle has been going on in the below video. It recalls eerily familiar past attitudes:

We don’t know why the human race has such a short memory when it comes to cyclical xenophobia. It’s confounding, especially in the U.S.: How can we be so proud of our own families’ immigrant roots, but not wish that happiness for others? If a mother, daughter, or sister is called “immigrant”—in the U.S. or the Middle East—she’s suddenly worth less.

Going back to the aforementioned Public News Service article: According to Human Rights Watch researcher Meghan Rhoad, “the detention system routinely subjects women to suffering and humiliation. It is a system that needlessly shackles pregnant women with no criminal background, that ignores requests for care, and does all of this with impunity.”

But confront ICE officials, even their spokesperson, with the many documented cases of medical neglect or human rights abuses, and reporters will be given the standard statement that the agency is “committed to humane and safe treatment of detainees.” The inadequacy of the answer mirrors their effectiveness.

Speaking of inadequate approaches, we now turn to the investigation into Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). On March 12, RaceWire reported on the positive reaction to the investigation from local activists and community groups in Arizona. Click through to see photos of Members of Maricopa Citizen for Safety and Accountability (MCSA) delivering the Sheriff numerous “pink slips” or see letters the DOJ delivered to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office on March 10.

In other immigration news, The Texas Observer reports on non-profit consumer advocate group Public Citizen’s suit against DHS on behalf of Denise Gilman. Their efforts are helping shed some light on the construction of a border fence.

It also appears that Speaker Pelosi was actually forecasting a change in immigration policy last week. Yesterday President Obama met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and announced his intention to move forward “possibly within the next two months” with the unveiling of a legislative package that will address immigration reform. Hours later, at a town hall meeting in California, he repeated his conviction to do so.

Some have expressed concern that President Obama is taking on too much at once. But all of these things, the economy and immigration and healthcare, are intertwined. For example, the growing detention center industry will continue to take the place of productive workers and damage a healthy economy.

It is in our nation’s best interest to veer sharply away from the path that George W. Bush set us upon. Obama’s announcement yesterday is exciting news, considering how long the nation’s immigration laws have languished and how many humans have suffered because of them. The change that President Obama promised the nation seems to be coming for one and all.