05/31/12 As Rep. David Rivera (R-FL) introduces the STARS Act and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) makes headlines discussing his alternative to the DREAM Act, DREAM Act-eligible youth are letting President Obama know that the ball is in his court, and it’s time to weigh in, too. A must-read written by Julia Preston in the New York [...]
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05/31/12 Even Republican admit the obvious: it is a good idea to protect young undocumented immigrants who have grown up in America.  But while talk of a legislative breakthrough this year sounds nice, what Latino voters really want to see is action. A New York Times piece reports today, DREAM Act students have launched a campaign a campaign calling [...]
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05/31/12 From Political Wire, we learn the news that a Nevada Republican Senator, who is running for election this year, is sending different messages via his English and Spanish-language websites: Sen. Dean Heller’s (R-NV) campaign has set up a Spanish-language website which “is not as robust as the English-language version but does have a summary statement about the [...]
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05/30/12 Tonight, Meg Whitman, who lost the 2010 California gubernatorial race, is hosting a major fundraiser for presumed GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, according to the San Francisco Chronicle: The former Massachusetts governor’s fundraiser is co-chaired by billionaire Meg Whitman, his former employee at Bain Capital and the 2010 Republican candidate for California governor who promised to produce [...]
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05/30/12 Pundits and politicians across the political spectrum all agree: the Latino vote will be crucial this November and beyond as a growing demographic becomes increasingly influential in electoral politics.  Two years ago, the Latino vote erected a “Western firewall” in Colorado, Nevada, and Colorado that saved the Senate for the Democrats.  This year, they are [...]
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05/30/12 Mitt Romney has apparently decided that he can’t compete for the Latino vote, so he’s going to focus his energies on depressing it.  This strategy is already in force in states like Nevada and Colorado, the latter being where PBS News Hour interviewed a Latina voter who summed up the situation: ”Obama promised us big immigration reform, and he [...]
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05/30/12 Cross-Posted at The Huffington Post: Having alienated Latino voters in the primary with hard right immigration positions and dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric, what will GOP nominee Mitt Romney and his surrogates do in the general election to attract the 40% of Latino votes experts say he needs to win the presidency? Many have argued that Romney [...]
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05/29/12 Over the weekend, CNN reported on undocumented immigrant entrepreneurs, and highlighted three stories of immigrants who have come forward hoping “to change the tone of the immigration debate.” CNN explains the problems many of these undocumented immigrants face: Without a path to residency or citizenship, these immigrants are prevented from getting regular jobs without lying [...]
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05/29/12 Immigration reform activists and supporters from all over Alabama converged on the state Capitol in Montgomery to protest the passage of HB 658 over the weekend, rallying together in a mega-march led by the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice. HB 658 became law last week when Alabama Governor Robert Bentley caved into anti-immigrant legislators and [...]
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05/29/12 We’ve been publishing a series of posts from the DREAMers of the Campaign for an American DREAM.  In March, they set off from San Francisco to begin a 3,000-mile, 8-month walk to Washington, DC to call attention to the DREAM Act and the need for immigration reform. Today’s post is from Alex Aldana, a queer undocumented immigrant rights activist who [...]
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05/25/12 While many are welcoming the recent news that minority babies are, for the first time, constituting a majority of the nation’s newborns—a rather predictable segment of America is not so receptive to the change. “It is clear that this, and other similar stories like this, are meant to serve as a warning to Republicans and [...]
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05/24/12 As many have noted, Latino vote turnout in November is one of the things that could determine the 2012 presidential race.  There are two choices Latino voters have to make: Whether to vote at all Which candidate to support When it comes to Latino voters, the two parties are facing different challenges: Democrats have the [...]
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05/24/12 Cross-Posted at Mom’s Rising and Daily Kos: It’s painful to watch. Rep. Sandy Adams (R-FL), a victim of domestic violence, has let herself become the spokesperson for the grievously flawed and dangerous Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed by House Republicans.  But asserting that “VAWA must protect all victims,” as Adams does in a new [...]
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05/23/12 Apparently, Republicans are having a hard time courting the Latino vote.  We can’t understand why. Yesterday, anti-immigrant blowhard and vice-chair of the House Immigration Subcommittee Rep. Steve King (R-IA) was speaking to a crowd in Pocahontas, Iowa about how the US should be more selective about which immigrants it allows in, when he began comparing [...]
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05/23/12 Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney addressed the Latino Coalition in Washington today in an apparent attempt to begin repairing his relationship with Latino voters. Memo to Romney: to gain ground with Latino voters, you’re going to have to talk about immigration. He didn’t: the speech did not mention “immigration” or “the DREAM Act,” even once, [...]
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05/23/12 Alfonso Martinez Sanchez, a 39 year-old father of five, died while trying to cross the Arizona desert last month. He was attempting to reunite with his family after Border Patrol arrested and deported him to Mexico. As the North Carolina Times reports, the tragic story began when Martinez signed for a letter as an employee [...]
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05/22/12 Alabama Governor Robert Bentley pulled a complete reversal on HB 658 last weekend, caving in and signing a bill that makes the state’s already harsh anti-immigrant policies even worse–after he had initially expressed reservations and a wish to see the bill revised.  Since then, leading editorial writers in Alabama and across the nation have been [...]
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05/22/12 Detroit: Home to Kid Rock, Eminem, and one of America’s most rogue ICE agencies. Detroit ICE agents are known as some of the most aggressive immigration agents in the country.  Just last year, they were targeting parents they suspected of being undocumented by stalking children at an elementary school. Other victims have spoken up about [...]
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05/22/12 Alabama and its anti-immigrant legislative vendetta have been in the news for the past few weeks. And we’re awaiting a Supreme Court decision on Arizona’s SB 1070. But we can’t forget about the other states that have passed these ugly laws — like Georgia. Writing at Huffington Post on the anniversary of the passage of Georgia’s [...]
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05/22/12 The Colbert Report is on hiatus this week, but the topic of immigration is currently front-paged on their website as one of five hot button issues.  Watch the clip below: The Colbert Report Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive Colbert discusses Alabama’s anti-immigrant bill, HB 56, and how it has [...]
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05/21/12 Senator Scott Beason — the guy who once said that we should “empty the clip, and do what has to be done [on illegal immigration]“;  referred to people at a casino in a predominately black county as “aborigines”; and author of the worst anti-immigrant law in the country, H.B. 56 — introduced a “tweak bill” [...]
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05/21/12 Great read from the Associated Press today about DREAMers and the growing movement of students who are defying the law, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and their parents by “coming out” publicly as undocumented. From the article: It began several years ago, tentatively, almost furtively, with a few small rallies and a few provocative T-shirts. In [...]
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05/21/12 Big news from the US Census Bureau this week: for the first time, ethnic minority babies are the majority of children born in the US.  Plenty of blogs and editorials have covered the seismic shift, pointing out that these demographic changes will transform policies and politics, whether certain policymakers accept the facts or no. A new National Journal cover [...]
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05/21/12 We’ve been publishing a series of posts from the DREAMers of the Campaign for an American DREAM.  In March, they set off from San Francisco to begin a 3,000-mile, 8-month walk to Washington, DC to call attention to the DREAM Act and the need for immigration reform. Today’s post is from Jose Sandoval, who was inspired by the CAD [...]
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05/18/12 This week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) went on Fox News Latino to discuss immigration, the Latino vote, and the 2012 election with Juan Williams. He started out strong, discussing how important the Latino vote will be in November and admitting that Republicans have essentially scared Hispanic voters away with their positions on immigration: …we all [...]
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05/18/12 Cross-Posted at Mom’s Rising: “Russian Women are no longer the best kept secret of the cold war” notes the website of Encounters International, the mail-order bride company that is lobbying hard for the passage of the scary Republican version of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) — the version that passed the House of Representatives [...]
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05/18/12 Yesterday, the Census Bureau reported that, in 2011, 50.4% of all births in the United States were to minorities: For the first time, racial and ethnic minorities make up more than half the children born in the U.S., capping decades of heady immigration growth that is now slowing. New 2011 census estimates highlight sweeping changes [...]
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