‘Qué pasa’ in Immigration: Hispanics Unhappy with Obama, Tía Goes to Court, and $4 Trillion

America's Voice Blog

Posted 02/04/10 at 11:45am

The president’s State of the Union address last week continues to be a hot topic in the Spanish-language press. Philadelphia’s Al Día has posted an article from the news service Hispanic Link, “Hispanics unhappy with Obama for slighting immigration reform” (“Se resienten los hispanos con Obama por desairar la reforma migratoria”); Chicago’s La Raza runs the headline “Obama avoids Hispanic immigrants” (“Obama elude a inmigrantes hispanos”); and an article in La Prensa, in Orlando, is titled “Only a few words for such a big issue” (“Una pequeña frase para tanto tema”).

President Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, faces a deportation hearing after overstaying her tourist visa and having her application for political asylum rejected, as reported by the AP, the EFE, La Voz (Arizona), and La Crónica.

Yesterday’s edition of New York’s El Diario-La Prensa includes a column from undocumented activist Elvira Arellano, who has been deported to Mexico, titled “What Every Mother Knows” (“Lo que todas las madres sabemos”). Arellano writes:

2009 began with a new President of the United States who had promised to pass immigration reform in the first year of his administration. Days passed, then months, and the president didn’t fulfill his promise. We tried to persuade him to do so, because it was his promise and his responsibility, because it was the right thing to do. Peacefully we presented him with the millions of cases of separated families, the injustices of “racial profiling,” the inhumanity of raids and deportations.

An article in Hispanic Link quotes Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America’s Voice, affirming that immigration reform is viable and necessary. Hispanic Link also reprints an AV statement about the positive economic effects of legalizing immigrants, “Immigration Reform: The $4 Billion Opportunity” (“Una oportunidad de 4 trillones de dólares” .)

On AOL Latino, a blog post from Maribel Hastings of America’s Voice, “Study asks to protect children of undocumented parents” (“Piden protección a niños con padres indocumentados”), discusses an Urban Institute report about the consequences of deportation for U.S. citizen children of undocumented parents.

Miami’s El Nuevo Herald covers an American Bar Association study proposing changes to the immigration law system regulating deportation.