Victoria Defrancesco Soto: The current immigration legislation holds out the opportunity for only good coming out of the reform. However, unintended consequences can and do arise.
Can Deferred Action Beneficiaries Get Driver’s Licenses?
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Michele Waslin: As the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative begins accepting applications this week, many are wondering whether beneficiaries of the program will be eligible to obtain a state driver’s license. At this point the answer is: it depends.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio Faces Music on Racial Profiling
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Seth Hoy: The renowned anti-immigrant media glutton and self-proclaimed “America’s Toughest Sheriff” stands accused of discrimination and harassment charges in a class action lawsuit involving the ACLU and MALDEF.
To Be an American
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Unai Montes-Irueste: Can American democracy be true to its ideals without a nonracist and nonsexist culture and society?
SB 1070: California Is Not Arizona
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Hector Villagra: Monday’s decision shows that Arizona is a failed experiment. Most of this law – most of it has been struck down. And the piece that remains is obviously on life support. And it’s just a matter of time before that dies the death that it deserves.
Colorado, Hawaii and Delaware Progress on Tuition Equity for Undocumented Students
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Seth Hoy: To date, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Washington permit qualifying undocumented students to pay the same tuition as their classmates at public colleges and universities.
Silicon Valley Leaders Fund Effort to Help DREAM Students
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Michele Waslin: A group of technology leaders from Silicon Valley are providing scholarships, career advice and legal assistance to undocumented students through a campaign called Educators for Fair Consideration
How Pasadena’s Implements “Secure Communities”
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Justin Chapman: In reality, Secure Communities has not only identified criminals, it has identified everyone who come through the criminal justice system, a lot of whom have done nothing wrong.
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
Oregon Fights E-Verify Bill
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Seth Hoy: The Coalition for a Working Oregon, a group made up of 22 Oregon businesses, called out Smith’s proposal, highlighting E-Verify’s inaccuracies and calling for a “comprehensive retooling” of our broken immigration system.
Alabama Governor Signs Costly Immigration Bill
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Seth Hoy: Arizona has shown us that using a “get tough” immigration law to drive undocumented immigrants out of the state is not only costly, discriminatory and unconstitutional; it’s also ineffectual in actually addressing larger immigration problems.
States Toss Costly Immigration Legislation
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Seth Hoy: Clearly, states attempting to take immigration law into their own hands will continue to face costly uphill battles. The question is not whether but when voters will notice that their leaders are putting politics before the state’s best economic interest.
DHS Extends Temporary Protective Status for Haitians
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Seth Hoy: The extension would allow approximately 48,000 Haitian nationals—whose homeland was devastated by an earthquake in 2010 and is still plagued by disease and instability—to extend their TPS for an additional 18 months.
Restrictive Immigrations Measures Dying
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Seth Hoy: The legislative graveyard got a little bit bigger this week as lawmakers in Mississippi pronounced a series of restrictive immigration measures dead.
New DHS Documents Highlight Internal Confusion Over Secure Communities Program
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Michele Waslin: While ICE has said that the agency will eventually install Secure Communities in all state and local detention facilities nationwide (which makes it seem like a federal mandate), they have also indicated that the program is voluntary.
Will State Legislators Continue to Pull the Plug on Restrictive Immigration Measures?
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Seth Hoy: While some state lawmakers reject the enforcement-only approach to immigration, others—like state Sen. Russell Pearce, author of Arizona’s SB 1070—continued to sink their state in restrictionist quicksand.
Businesses Fear Restrictive Immigration Measures Will Drive Jobs to Other States
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Seth Hoy: As Arizona-style enforcement legislation continues to work its way through state legislatures, local business and industry groups are beginning to realize just how much these laws will affect the way they do business.
Arizona Considering Requiring Hospitals to Verify Immigration Status
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Andrea Nill: SB-1405 would require hospitals to conduct an immigration status check before admitting a patient for non-emergency care. If the person is in the country illegally, hospitals will be forced to report the patient to federal authorities.
Inch by Inch, Hearing by Hearing: A Look Ahead at the GOP’s Immigration Agenda
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Seth Hoy: Revitalizing the economy and growing jobs are never part of the equation when it comes to ramped-up state and federal immigration enforcement measures.
While Defending Meg Whitman, Megyn Kelly Contradicts Fox News Reporting On No-Match Letters
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Andrea Nill: In her interview Nicky Diaz Santillan’s attorney, Gloria Allred, Kelly insisted that the Whitman family had no legal obligation to do anything upon receiving the letter.
Florida Legislators Oppose Proposed Anti-Immigration Legislation
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Seth Hoy: Bipartisan opposition to Florida’s proposed anti-immigrant legislation is a rare example of those who actually prioritize policy over politics.
Reframing the Birthright Citizenship Debate with Facts
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Seth Hoy: The truth is that majority of immigrants come to the U.S. to work, to reunite with their families, or to flee persecution—not to have children.
States Might Jump Off Arizona’s Immigration Bandwagon
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Seth Hoy: State legislators are citing fear of costly lawsuits and a charged political environment in which restrictive immigration legislation might not pass as factors in their decision.
Arizona’s New Law Upends Federal Priorities
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Michele Waslin: While the proponents of SB1070 say that Arizona will help ICE enforce immigration laws, the fact is that it would impinge upon ICE’s ability to fulfill its mandate, set enforcement priorities, and allocate resources effectively.
SB-1070 Proponents Accuse DOJ for Not Going After ‘Sanctuary Cities’
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Andrea Nill: Proponents of Arizona’s new immigration law, SB-1070, have a new talking point: they are now arguing that if the Department of Justice (DOJ) is going to legally challenge SB-1070, it should also go after “sanctuary city” policies as well. “Sanctuary city” is a right-wing derisive term used to describe cities that have adopted community policing policies that prevent police from asking about the immigration status of or detaining and arresting immigrants solely for being undocumented.
Immigrant Women: The Silent Victims of a Broken Immigration System
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Michele Waslin: Without immigration reforms, many immigrant women will continue to lack economic access, experience separation from their families, and be subjected to exploitation and criminal activity.
Do We Really Have to Explore Dora’s Immigration Status?
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Seth Hoy: Absurdity takes many forms in the immigration debate. For example, restrictionists have blamed immigrants for everything from global warming and our mortgage crisis to the swine flu epidemic and leprosy. (Where did my other sock go? Immigrants!) But this week, we reach a new level of absurdity—the exploitation of a bi-lingual cartoon character. In a news article published last week, America tackles the age old question, “Is Dora the Explorer an Illegal Immigrant?” Insert. Eye roll. Here.
Arizona Law Author Kris Kobach Wants to Cast a Wide Net Against Latinos
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Andrea Christina Nill: Wonk Room recently obtained an email written by Kris Kobach, a lawyer at the Immigration Reform Law Institute — the group which credits itself with writing the bill — to Arizona state Sen. Russell Pierce (R), urging him to include language that will allow police to use city ordinance violations such as “cars on blocks in the yard” as an excuse to “initiate quieries” in light of the “lawful contact” deletion
May 1st: People Power: Build Progressive Alternative to the Tea Parties
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Lydia Howell: It’s high time for progressives to escalate our own mass movement, to make it loud enough it cannot be ignored. The immigrant rights movement’s recent May Day marches have gotten far more media attention than any peace rallies since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The labor movement needs a jump-start. It’s crucial to have a broad, united progressive counter to the reactionary, racist Tea Parties.
Razing Arizona: How Local, State and Federal Authorities are “Rooting Out” Arizona’s Immigration Problems
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Michelle Waslin: However, the timing and tone-deafness of this action could not have been worse. ICE has a history of conducting raids just as state or local governments are contemplating critical immigration-related policies. At best, the action left the impression that ICE wants to influence those policy decisions; at worst ICE left the public with the impression that local law enforcement is the same thing as an ICE officer.
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