Michele Waslin: This week, DREAMERS got a huge boost from 96 law professors who sent a letter to President Obama outlining the extensive authority under law that his administration holds to halt deportations of DREAMers.
Labor Rights: It’s Personal
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Bob Letcher: I have long thought that, if labor rights had been recognized back then, there might have been an OSHA to enforce safety standards, and Pop might have been able to hold me with either hand.
How The South Can Rise Again: Immigrants
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Tina Dupuy: Despite the conservative bona fides, the South isn’t pulling herself up by her bootstraps … mainly because she can’t see her toes she’s about to lose to diabetes.
An Apology for Mass Mexican Deportation
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Bill Fletcher: For right-wing populists and for too many of our own people, it is easier to blame the immigrant for our suffering than to recognize that capitalism will use whoever it can to weaken the power of working people.
Romney Adopts Hard-Line Anti-Immigrant Campaign Posture
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Mitt Romney: GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney stole a page from the restrictionists’ playbook this week when he promoted the idea of “self-deportation” during a presidential debate.
Harsh Enforcement May Not Drive Unauthorized Immigrants Out
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Seth Hoy: The idea that harsh state immigration enforcement policies are “working”—that is, forcing unauthorized immigrants to return home—just doesn’t seem to hold water.
Anti-Immigrant State Senator Recalled
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Michele Waslin: Today, many in Arizona and across the U.S. celebrate Pearce’s defeat as a victory for practical solutions over extremist rhetoric and anti-immigrant proposals.
Secure Communities Has Devastating Impact
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Michele Waslin: The problems with Secure Communities are so wide spread that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appointed a task force to recommend fixes for the program.
Raising Per Country Immigration Caps
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Michele Waslin: H.R. 3012 would make small but significant changes to the way green cards are distributed by eliminating per country numerical limits on employment-based green cards and raising the limits on family-based green cards which go to immigrants from each country.
Why Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Is Bluffing on State Immigration Laws
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Seth Hoy: Evidence suggests that many unauthorized immigrants are firmly integrated into U.S. society. According to a Department of Homeland Security report, three-fifths of unauthorized immigrants who were in the country as of 2010 (11.1 million) were here for more than a decade.
Immigrant Rights Coalition Launches Campaign to Repeal Mandatory Detention
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Detention Watch Network calls for Dignity, Not Detention on 15-year anniversary of controversial immigration law
Immigrant Laborers Strengthen American Workforce, Economy
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Michele Waslin: While immigration restrictionists have long tried to demonize immigrant workers and blame them for high unemployment rates and other economic woes, the facts make it clear that immigrants actually create jobs and businesses and boost the wages of native-born workers.
The City of Second Chances
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Julie Gutman: On Labor Day, Let’s Celebrate L.A.’s Status as a Bastion of Human, Immigrant and Workers’ Rights
Congressional Candidate’s Husband May Face Deportation
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Paul Hogarth: As the Administration now refuses to defend DOMA – again, thanks to activists giving him heat – the anti-gay legislation is still used as a basis for deporting immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens.
Immigration Lawyers Clarify DHS’s Prosecutorial Discretion Announcement
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Seth Hoy: To protect immigrants who might be taken advantage of by immigration consultants, the American Immigration Lawyers Association recently issued a consumer advisory outlining what DHS’s announcement is and is not.
Latinos Defend DHS’s Focus on High Priority Immigration Cases
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Seth Hoy: Anti-immigrant restrictionists will continue to drive a wedge between Latino voters and the Republican party by hurling racially charged sentiments—like today’s accusation that President Obama is waging a war on “white America”—in hopes of stirring up their own base.
Immigration Case Backlog At All-Time High
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Michelle Waslin: The growing backlog means that more immigrants are being kept in detention for longer periods of time. Making matters worse, a bill by Rep. Lamar Smith (H.R. 1932) to allow the U.S. to detain immigrants indefinitely is currently making its way through the House of Representatives.
Let’s Stop Blaming Immigrants
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Alvaro Huerta: Whether it’s Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blaming the wildfires in the Southwest on immigrants coming across the border or whether it’s the state of Alabama passing the harshest anti-immigrant law in the country, it’s clear that brown-skinned immigrants have become the targets of the day.
Palin Slams DREAM Act at Ellis Island
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Andrea Nill Sanchez: Actually, the DREAM Act aims to accomplish precisely what Palin described. Under theDREAM Act bill that Republicans killed last December, applicants would have had to go through a rigorous process of background checks, in addition to paying taxes, learning English, and either serving in the military or attending college.
Immigrant Entrepreneurs Leaving the U.S.
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Michele Waslin: Immigrants can start new businesses here, but they’re doing it somewhere else in recent years due to our complicated and dysfunctional immigration system.
Unauthorized Immigrants Pay Taxes, Too
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Seth Hoy: One of the biggest myths perpetuated by restrictionist groups is that the roughly 12 million unauthorized immigrants currently living in the U.S. use a variety of public services yet paying nothing in taxes.
Brisenia Flores: The Little Girl That You Don’t Know
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Jessie Daniels: Brisenia Flores was a 9-year-old girl murdered in Arizona by anti-immigrant vigilantes, yet her death – unlike that of the 9-year old killed last week in Arizona – is getting almost no attention in the U.S. mainstream media.
New DHS Data Highlights Benefits of Integration Requirements
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Michele Waslin: Without the promise of a green card, legalization is nothing more than an expanded temporary worker program, running the risk of creating a second-class citizen with the right to work, but with no incentives to put down roots, become U.S. citizens, and fully integrate.
New Report Describes Peril Immigrant Women Face in U.S. Food Industry
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Michele Waslin: Many of the women who make it to the U.S. safely are confronted with the horrendous working and living conditions made possible because of the existence of a group of vulnerable, desperate, and disposable workers.
From Tween Day Laborer to Urban Planning Scholar
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Alvaro Huerta: Working alongside Latino immigrant men during a hot summer in Malibu, I learned firsthand the trials and tribulations of manual labor. This grueling experience became the impetus for my academic trajectory, scholarship and lifelong commitment to social justice.
Post-Election Day Immigration Fallout
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Andrea Christina Nill: While many Democrats are lamenting post-Election Day results, immigration advocates are breathing a small sigh of relief. The general sentiment seems to be that things are bad, but they could’ve been much worse. But the immigrants rights movement also took some big hits last night. . .
A Look Into Lamar Smith’s Anti-Immigrant Agenda
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Andrea Nill: Described as a lawmaker who is “less interested in getting in the spotlight and more interested in driving immigrants out of the country,” Smith will undoubtedly use his leadership position to push through his anti-immigrant agenda.
The Plight of the Roma Minority: Signs of Hope Amidst This Challenge to Rainbow Europe
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Steven Hill: Ironically, the overblown stridency over new Muslim immigrants only has served to obscure the failure of Europe to integrate its longstanding ethnic minorities, most of whom are the children or grandchildren of immigrants and have resided there for years.
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Anti-Immigrant ALIPAC Advises Supporters To Lie About Where They Live When Calling Congress
Andrea Nill: There’s nothing wrong with grassroots advocacy that’s focused on putting pressure on key lawmakers. However, actually calling Congressional offices and pretending to be a constituent isn’t just disingenuous, it disrupts the democratic process.