09/30/09 By guest blogger Madhuri from the Restrore Fairness blog: "I am deeply disappointed that the Obama administration has failed to bring about immigration reform. Whereas I know he has the intention to do so, getting the job done is another story. Words from the farewell letter written by Dov Charney, American Apparel's chief executive, to almost a quarter of his staff laid off because of a federal investigation that found irregularities in their documents."
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09/30/09 Today the Senate Finance Committee is considering several key amendments on immigration to the current health insurance reform legislation. The worst amendments are sponsored by Senators Kyl (R-AZ), Grassley (R-IA) and Ensign (R-NV). Check out this alert by reform advocates working on the intersection of healthcare and immigration policy -- please take a moment to call your Senators now to oppose amendments that are bad policy for all Americans.
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09/30/09 Eric Byler and Annabel Park are local documentarians who have taken on the immigration debate in a unique, in-depth and innovative way. Their latest film, 9500 Liberty, documents the intense debate over immigration in Virginia's Prince William County when it, in Park's own words, "passed a local ordinance that was considered the harshest local ordinance cracking down on illegal immigration."
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09/29/09 Every weeknight, CNN airs one full hour of Hate TV -- it's called, "Lou Dobbs Tonight." For 260 hours every year, Dobbs has a bully pulpit from which to spew race-baiting, fear, and intolerance, stamped with the CNN seal of approval.
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09/28/09 Watch out, FAIR. The faith community has been flexing its muscle throughout September with one goal in mind: bringing humanity back into the immigration debate. And the momentum is most definitely building. Earlier this month, religious leaders holding a prayer vigil on Capitol Hill calling for an end to hate in the dialogue on immigration were featured on the front page of the Washington Post.
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09/28/09 UPDATE: Last week, over 5,000 emails were sent to the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, which has helped delay Alonso's deportation. In the following video message, Alonso thanks his supporters for the work they've done so far, and what it is that they can do to help further.
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09/28/09 Only 1 week old, our campaign to air a hard-hitting new Lou Dobbs television ad on CNN has already raised about a third of the $16,000 dollars needed. These contributions have come directly from hundreds of everyday people who are fed up with the hate speech on CNN. Check out the coverage so far.
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09/28/09 Some of us already knew this, but the fact that good immigration policy also boosts the middle class is a myth-buster that bears repeating, as well as a new report by the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (DMI). Immigration Impact argues: The myth that immigration is bad for U.S. workers has sullied the immigration debate for far too long. A new report by the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (DMI), "Principles for an Immigration Policy to Strengthen and Expand the American Middle Class: 2009 Edition," sets the record straight. In the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, and in an
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09/25/09 Today Democracia Ahora released a new report on their newly-launched website TellCNNEnoughisEnough.com. Check it out:"Latino Leaders and their Opinion of CNN's Lou Dobbs." According to the Politico: "The results of the report are not surprising – 90 percent of the interviewees believe Dobbs is helping create a negative image of Hispanics, with his frequent criticisms of illegal immigration."
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09/25/09 Today, Politics Daily captures the push and pull on Democrats and Republicans regarding Latinos and immigration politics, with Simon Rosenberg rightly cautioning Democrats that inaction will not be cost-free:"The disappointment of Latino voters will be profound" if immigration reform doesn't happen next year, NDN president Simon Rosenberg, whose group studies the Latino vote, told me. If Obama and his party delay the bill further, or their efforts look half-hearted, he added, "there will be costs. It will not be pain-free."
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09/25/09 Earlier this week, Senator Grassley (R-IA) pulled a Wilson. He claimed that the Baucus health insurance reform bill did not include sufficient provisions to keep undocumented immigrants from accessing care under the proposed health insurance reforms, as if we hadn't had enough GOP immigration wedge politics in one month.
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09/25/09 Update: Alonso is still facing deportation and needs his supporters to call Senators Cantwell and Murray asking them to introduce a private bill on his behalf.
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09/24/09 By weekly guest blogger, Nezua: "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."
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09/23/09 First, pardon the shameless self-promotion, but America's Voice has produced a TV ad regarding CNN's Lou Dobbs problem, in conjunction with the Media Matters campaigns to Drop Dobbs. Watch the ad and donate to get it on the air. Next up: health care. Cynthia Tucker, a brilliant editorialist with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, comments on the lack of compassion for uninsured immigrants and uninsured Americans in this supposed "city on the hill." Andrea Nill describes the outrageous claims by Senator Grassley (R-IA) that the Baucus bill doesn't do enough to screen out undocumented immigrants (speaking of shameless!). And check out this Matt Bor's cartoon from September 16, which skewers the likes of Grassley.
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09/23/09 Today is a national day of action in support of the DREAM Act, legislation that would create a path to legal status through college education or military service for undocumented youth who have been in this country since an early age. Students all over the country are standing together in declaration of the "Back to School DREAM ACT Day of Action"—check it out over at Dream Activist. Very timely, as Jorge Alonso Chehade, a 21 year old "Dreamer," as Dream Act-eligible students are called, currently awaits news that could literally make or break his futur
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09/22/09 This week, America's Voice is launching a campaign to air our new TV ad targeting CNN. The goal: to get Lou Dobbs off the air. This is about taking a microphone away from one of the most dangerous propagandists in America. Few individuals have done more to bring extremism and race-based hate speech into the mainstream than Lou Dobbs. The network that purports to be "the most trusted name in news" broadcasts his vitriol every weekday during primetime.
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09/22/09 Over the weekend, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) appeared for the first time on Univision's Al Punto – the Spanish language equivalent of Meet the Press. His interview followed President Obama. So what did Boehner have to say? When asked whether he would "consider" supporting legalization of the undocumented workforce, Boehner said: We're a nation of laws, and enforcing the law has to be the first step in this process. There is a way to allow [undocumented immigrants] to continue to work in the United States for a temporary period of time. And if they want to become citizens, they need to do what everybody else in the world does, and that's apply for their home countries.
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09/21/09 Faiz Shakir of Think Progress is reporting today in "Rhode Island GOP assemblyman quits party following embarrassment of Wilson's 'you lie' screed:" Ivan Marte, the ex-chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Hispanic Assembly, has announced that he's quitting the Republican Party because he was embarrassed by Rep. Joe Wilson's "you lie" outburst at President Obama: "I do not want to continue being a member of a party in which the members of the party express themselves in that way," said Marte, 59, of Cranston. In a phone interview, he called Wilson's behavior "shameful" and "uncivilized."
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09/21/09 NYT editorial urging DHS to keeps its promise on detention reform despite departure of top official; asks for public release of her report (don't hold your breath). Intersection of health and immigration continues to upset Latino leaders: Reuters blog off of AV press conference last week and NPR interview with Rev. Luis Cortes. Video from Al Punto, the Sunday news show of UNIVISION (take that, Fox News), with Jorge Ramos interviewing President Obama and Minority Leader Boehner.
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09/18/09 Democracia AHORA is the latest Hispanic group to have launched a campaign asking CNN to get rid of Lou Dobbs. They're kicking their campaign off today with a scathing report that reveals that ninety out of the hundred Hispanic leaders interviewed feel that Dobbs has created a negative image of Hispanics. Politico reports: Democracia Ahora is hoping the report inspires a grassroots movement aimed at executives at CNN's parent company, Time Warner, to draw attention to what the group calls "frequent negative portrayals of Hispanics on the Lou Dobbs show."
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09/18/09 Rep. Gutierrez (D-IL) says yes to community call to introduce immigration reform legislation. There's a Washington Times piece that actually captures what's happening on the immigration and health care debate. Sen. Menendez, who is on the Senate Finance Committee, prepares to play a key role on immigrants and health care.
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09/18/09 Yesterday Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) spoke at the National Citizenship Day celebration in Washington, DC, in front of hundreds of community leaders and Members of Congress, who urged him to introduce real immigration reform legislation, real soon. To an eager crowd, Rep. Gutierrez announced that he would introduce such comprehensive immigration reform legislation this Fall, and in a press statement late yesterday, said:
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09/17/09 Few of us have seen the world as Jose Hernandez has…literally. On Monday, José M. Hernández, an American astronaut and son of Mexican immigrant farm workers, announced that America should legalize undocumented immigrants, saying, according to the Associated Press: "The American economy needs them…I believe it's only fair to find a way to legalize them and give them an opportunity to work openly, so they can also retire in a traditional U.S. system."
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09/17/09 After a huge push to drive up turnout, and after event organizers promised to storm Congress with anti-immigration citizen lobbyists this week, a mere fifty (yes, 50) people showed up for the Federation for American Immigration Reform's (FAIR) annual "Hold their Feet to the Fire" event in Washington, DC yesterday. Ironically, a prayer vigil held by faith leaders in support of immigration reform – organized at the last minute – turned out twice that number of people on Monday. It was featured on the front page of the Washington Post.
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09/17/09 The immigration debate seems to be rushing forward on its own timetable—and without a structured frame to guide it, the effort is damaged from the start. As Rev. Luis Cortés, Jr., of Esperanza USA said during a call with media members yesterday, Democrats and Republicans are "running toward the harshest positions to show they can be the hardest on those who are the weakest."
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09/16/09 If you can't stand up for innocent children, then who can you stand up for? Faith communities across the state of New Jersey did just that yesterday, hosting prayer vigils in ten different cities to highlight the destructive policies that are tearing U.S. children from their immigrant parents.
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09/16/09 This week, Media Matters, a media watchdog group, along with a number of civil rights, progressive advocacy, and national Hispanic organizations, have launched a campaign calling on CNN to drop Lou Dobbs. America's Voice is a proud partner of the campaign and its website, which launched yesterday at www.DropDobbs.com.
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