08/06/12 Cross-posted at Latino Decisions and Latino Vote Matters: Florida is rich in electoral votes, party competition, and ethnic diversity, making it one of the most interesting states to watch during presidential elections. Republican Senator Marco Rubio adds yet another compelling element to the state political narrative during this election cycle.  Frequently mentioned as a potential running mate for Governor [...]
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08/03/12 Last week, ICE agents granted a man deported two years ago a rare request:  a 90-day humanitarian parole back into the US so that he could attend a custody hearing for his three US citizen children. Felipe Bautista Montes arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina last Wednesday, 21 months after ICE detained and deported him for [...]
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08/03/12 The following is a statement from Lynn Tramonte, Deputy Director at America’s Voice Education Fund, responding to today’s release of additional Deferred Action guidelines by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS): There’s a lot of excitement around this announcement from DHS because the pieces are falling into place.  In less than two weeks, thousands of young immigrants [...]
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08/03/12 Given his long-standing history of buffoonery and anti-immigrant agitating, it should come as no surprise that Rep. Steve King (R-IA) presided over an embarrassing and offensive hearing yesterday in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Yesterday’s House Constitution Subcommittee hearing on King’s English Language Unity Act—a bill to mandate “English-only” government documents and services—featured two members [...]
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08/02/12 Yesterday was Day 6 of the Melendres vs. Arpaio civil lawsuit under way in Phoenix probing into whether Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office are guilty of routinely engaging in racial profiling. A post at Fronteras sums up how the trial has been going so far:  So far the federal judge hearing the case has [...]
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08/02/12 Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) continues to criticize the President’s smart move to protect DREAM-eligible young people from deportation—despite clear similarities between Obama’s action and the bill Rubio has talked about introducing for months.  In an interview with Florida reporters, Rubio said the Obama program will end up binge a “bureaucratic nightmare” and make it more [...]
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08/01/12 Tomorrow’s House Constitution Subcommittee hearing on Rep. Steve King (R-IA)’s English Language Unity Act—a bill that would mandate “English-only” government documents and services—is hardly the first indication that the House GOP is taking its cues on immigration from the anti-immigrant movement’s playbook, but it might be the most brazen. Since returning to power in 2011, [...]
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08/01/12 With his sensational spin on a new Congressional Research Service (CRS) memo, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is proving once again that he believes “immigrant” to be synonymous with “criminal”—and showing why the Republican Party is having such a hard time courting Latino voters and others with immigrant roots. Smith is the leading lawmaker behind the [...]
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08/01/12 As the trial against “America’s Toughest Sheriff”, Maricopa County’s Joe Arpaio, continues,  the bar has been set high to prove that he is guilty of racial profiling, despite “offensive letters, tearful stories and reams of statistics”. From the Associated Press via the Washington Post: Arpaio has repeatedly denied the racial profiling allegations. And experts say [...]
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08/01/12 Yesterday the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) released a treasure trove of data on DREAM Act-eligible youth, including where they come from and where in the US they tend to live.  The report, entitled “Who and Where the DREAMers Are: A Demographic Profile of Immigrants Who Might Benefit from the Obama Administration’s Deferred Action Initiative,” is [...]
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07/30/12 “No papers, no fear.” That is the slogan that is driving (so to speak) a group of undocumented immigrants and allies of different ages from Arizona to cities where there is heated anti-immigrant sentiment. The group is calling out the injustices toward immigrants that have been taking place throughout the country, especially in states where there [...]
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07/30/12 Election 2012 is not for another three months, but already, an existential struggle over state voter ID laws is brewing—one that could help decide who wins the White House and determine who is allowed to participate in American politics. On one side stands groups like Mi Familia Vota and Voto Latino, which are busy registering [...]
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07/30/12 by LD Guest Blogger Casey Klofstad on 07/30/2012 Cross-posted from Latino Decisions. As we get closer to the Republican National Convention in August in Tampa Bay, FL, speculation grows as to who Mitt Romney will nominate as his candidate for Vice President. Marco Rubio, Cuban American freshman U.S. Senator from Florida, has been a very visible member of the short [...]
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07/27/12 Undocumented women run an especially high risk of being victimized by employers, romantic partners, and immigration enforcement officers. To combat this, Breakthrough–a group committed to building a “human rights culture”–has begun a campaign called “I’m Here.” The group is focused on shedding light and providing support to immigrant women who feel alone due to fear [...]
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07/27/12 Most days, Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio acts like a caricature of a Western law man: the cowboy, “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” the man who brought back chain gangs, parades prisoners around in pink underwear, and clearly believes he’s above the rule of law. “After they went after me,” Arpaio gloated in a 2009 speech to [...]
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07/26/12 A new Wall Street Journal/NBC/Telemundo poll of both Latinos and general voters confirms two fundamental truths about the politics of immigration: 1) Latino voters see this issue as very important; 2) other voters are far less focused on it, but remain more open to practical solutions than some politicians would believe. When Latino voters were asked, “Using a short phrase or [...]
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07/26/12 President Obama’s June announcement (that DREAM Act-eligible youth would be spared from deportation and granted work permits) was widely applauded as a move that would finally grant relief to young immigrants and allow them to move toward legal status.  But a shady, cynical cadre of fraudulent lawyers and notarios has already sprung up, prepared to [...]
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07/25/12 When the notorious anti-Latino and anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio took the witness stand this week at his civil rights trial in Phoenix, he chose to play a game of duck and dodge, pinning responsibility for his offensive remarks and actions on others, including his deputies and the ghostwriter of his autobiography. Unfortunately for him and [...]
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07/25/12 Yesterday, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-IL) took to the stage at the Center for American Progress to launch a new website featuring the lives and stories of DREAMers.  (We live-tweeted the event here.) Durbin has long been one of the foremost advocates of immigration reform and the DREAM Act, first sponsoring the bill to [...]
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07/25/12 In court yesterday, the self-proclaimed “America’s Toughest Sheriff” ran from his record of terrorizing immigrant communities. Gone was the swagger, and under the light of overwhelming evidence, he tried to scramble away and evade responsibility for all of it. 1. “I don’t get involved in those operations. I’m not there on the street patrolling and [...]
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07/24/12 Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio is expected to take the stand today, when a civil trial probing into his department’s chronic abuse of racial profiling resumes. The no-jury, single-judge trial began last week in Arizona, with plaintiffs arguing that Arpaio and his department regularly profile and detain Hispanics without probable cause, often only so that [...]
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07/23/12 On a webinar today, experts from Latino Decisions and America’s Voice released the final results of a new national poll of Latino registered voters, revealing how these voters view the politics of immigration in light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on SB 1070 and the President’s decision to stop the deportation of DREAM-eligible youth. [...]
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07/20/12 This week, notoriously anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio heads to court, facing charges of civil rights violations, namely racial profiling.  (For a rundown of the worst things Sheriff Joe Arpaio has done, view this list.) Here’s what the media covered the trial: From Edvard Pettersson and William Hermann of Business Week: Stanley Young, a lawyer for [...]
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07/20/12 Cross-Posted at Mom’s Rising: I’d like to believe that most Americans, perhaps with the exception of the hard-core nativists, like Rep. Steve King and Romney advisor Kris Kobach, knows our nation’s immigration policies need to be fixed.  But behind these failed policies are real human beings:  those who make decisions about how to enforce the [...]
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07/19/12 Cross-Posted at Jack and Jill Politics: Today, at an oversight hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Steve King (R-Peanut Gallery) ominously threatened to sue DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano unless she reversed the Obama Administration’s popular new policy to grant temporary relief to DREAMers. In case you don’t know him, Rep. King is one of [...]
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07/19/12 Today, Latino Decision’s Gary Segura spoke on a panel entitled “The Latino Vote, 2012 and Beyond”, with Representative Becerra (D-CA); Angela Kelley, VP for Immigration Policy and Advocacy, Center for American Progress; and Janet Murguia, National Council of La Raza (we live-tweeted here). Below are findings of part II of the polling commissioned by America’s [...]
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07/19/12 Cross-Posted at Latino Vote Matters and Latino Decisions: In polling data released today, Latino Decisions reports that Latino registered voters oppose the Supreme Court decision to uphold the controversial provision in Arizona’s SB1070 law that would require state and local police to check immigration status if they suspect a person they have stopped is an [...]
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