04/16/10 As the Spanish-language press continues to express alarm at the possibility that Arizona will criminalize undocumented immigrants, an ICE raid in that state also makes a splash; and El Diario calls out New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for failing to put his money where his mouth is on immigration reform.
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04/15/10 The Arizona House of Representatives' passage of a bill criminalizing undocumented immigrants sends shock waves through the Spanish-language press; one First Lady asks another to take care of undocumented children; and over the weekend, two Congressmen told Jorge Ramos that with enough White House leadership immigration reform could pass this year.
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04/14/10 On April 15, thousands of people associated with the Tea Party movement are expected to rally around the nation, demanding lower taxes and less government. These so-called "tea parties" stand in stark contrast to larger rallies and other events that have cropped up across the nation calling for comprehensive immigration reform and a rational solution to our broken immigration system. The immigration reform events provide an interesting contrast to the Tea Party movement because comprehensive immigration reform is about getting more people into the tax system, not less.
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04/06/10 Give up? We thought so. The answer? Immigration reform. That's right. Too many in the political class are looking in the rear-view mirror when it comes to immigration reform. Despite a number of election cycles in which old presumptions were proven wrong, some still believe comprehensive immigration reform mobilizes the right, saps independent support, and makes Latino voters shrug.
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03/10/10 The Spanish-language press keeps its attention on the postponed meeting between President Barack Obama and Senators Charles Schumber (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) to discuss the legislative prospects of an immigration reform bill. The meeting has been rescheduled for tomorrow.
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02/12/10 Lots going on today in immigration-- here's a quick recap. Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis announced a set of new farm worker rules, including the rollback of a 2008 Bush-era reversal in labor oversight for agricultural workers in the United States. The measure was promptly heralded as a victory by many farmworker advocates, including the United Farm Workers (UFW).
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02/05/10 Today, the Hispanic press highlights a study from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) indicating that immigration does not depress the wages of American workers. According to the report, titled "Immigration and Wages," Department of Labor statistics demonstrate that the arrival of 9.5 million immigrant workers between 1994 and 2007 resulted in native-born workers receiving a wage increase of $3.68/week.
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02/04/10 The president's State of the Union address last week continues to be a hot topic in the Spanish-language press. 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").
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02/03/10 The President announced his budget Monday, sending many members of Congress into an angry frenzy over $3.83 trillion that Obama had allotted for an array of programs – mostly in an effort to fight against the growing unemployment and to strengthen our weak economy. But some members of Congress -- some of the same who are complaining over the "huge" deficit (note: mostly inherited from the Bush Administration) – are trying to keep this big secret under wraps: There is a $4.1 trillion choice in Washington.
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02/03/10 Two reports with bearing on the immigration debate were released in Washington yesterday: an Urban Institute study finding that three-fourths of the 5.5 million children of undocumented parents were born in the United States and live under the fear that their parents will be arrested, separated from them or deported.
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02/02/10 The New York Times today uncovers how U.S. immigration authorities under President Bush colluded with a Mississippi marine oil-rig company to punish workers exercising their labor rights. The article details shocking correspondence between the employer, Signal International, and the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which advised the company how to privately deport workers who were complaining about mistreatment on the job.
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01/30/10 Yesterday Lindsey Graham, Republican Senator from South Carolina, stood up for a comprehensive fix to our badly damaged immigration system. Graham has been crafting bipartisan legislation with Senator Schumer for some time now, and details of the bill are expected soon.
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01/13/10 A new analysis by the Drum Major Institute (DMI) found that the Comprehensive Immigration Reform ASAP bill introduced by Congressmen Solomon Ortiz and Luis Gutierrez late last year would "make the grade" for strengthening and expanding America's middle class. DMI states the case succinctly: The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act sets the standard for an immigration policy, which will boost our nation's economy and strengthen and expand its middle class. The Institute administered a two-part "middle class test," which the bill passed with flying colors.
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01/12/10 Today's "Progress Report" is all about the economics of immigration reform, stating: "President Obama's current focus is, understandably, "jobs, jobs, jobs." However, Hinojosa's findings show that the issues of immigration and the economy are far from mutually exclusive. While anti-immigrant groups use anecdotal evidence to erroneously claim that legalization would be disastrous for the American worker, passing comprehensive immigration reform would not only strengthen the labor market, it would promote needed economic growth. Polling released yesterday additionally shows that 66 percent of voters support a program that requires undocumented immigrants to register, meet certain requirements, and become legal taxpayers on their way to becoming full U.S. citizens."
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01/12/10 Under the EB-5 visa program, which was established in 1990, immigrants who have created at least 10 US jobs with their investment of $500,000 - $1 million can be granted legal permanent residency. An appropriate thank you, don't you think, for those who are creating jobs in a country desperately in need of them? According to the Washington Post , the number of immigrants taking advantage of the program tripled from 1,443 in 2008 to 4,218 in 2009, partly because the recession motivated the government to streamline often slow-moving procedures -- and the benefits of doing so have been tremendous.
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01/07/10 This morning I was live-tweeting from an event at the Center for American Progress, co-sponsored by the Immigration Policy Center, where economic experts from a wide range of institutions had come together to document the astounding economic benefits to the United States that would come from passing a comprehensive immigration reform package. The event centered around a new study entitled, "Raising the Floor for American Workers," which was written by Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, a professor at UCLA.
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12/17/09 As the holidays rapidly approach, our focus shifts to shopping, cooking and decking the halls for the invasion of relatives. But, as we hit the shops, we often forget to take a moment to think about the origins of our chic outfits and abounding feasts (those of us lucky enough to still have these). Those trendy peacoats and ripe, delicious pears didn't fall off of a sleigh after all.
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12/10/09 If there is one thing that the movement for comprehensive immigration reform can learn from the congressional fight for health care reform, it's that Republicans will distort the facts and delay in order to block the change Americans need. They'll even resort to feigning support for policies and programs that they've historically opposed -- like Medicare -- and then reverse course and file amendments to privatize it.
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12/10/09 The nation's 10% unemployment rate is feeding anti-immigrant sentiment, as Marcelo Ballvé reports for New America Media. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) critiqued President Barack Obama's recent jobs summit as "fatally flawed" because President Obama did not discuss wresting millions of jobs away from undocumented families. Smith's argument is flawed.
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12/09/09 The Washington Post has a devastating feature today entitled, "Left behind: A child's burden," and subtitled, "An undesirable inheritance." In it, N.C. Aizenman reports on the diverse ways in which the U.S.-born kids of Hispanic immigrants are coping with poverty, as well as the fact that they are two times more likely to face poverty than other American children.
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11/25/09 We know that immigrant workers are a crucial, though often invisible, part of the American workforce. However, as we sit down to pumpkin pies with whipped cream on top this week, it's important to remember just how many American businesses --dairy farming firmly among them -- rely on immigrants to run.
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11/06/09 A: Billions upon billions, if some Republicans get their way. Fortunately, they didn't get their way on the Census yesterday. The Vitter-Bennett census amendment to the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill became a moot point yesterday afternoon when the Senate ended debate on the bill in a nail-biting procedural vote of 60 to 39, which comes as a relief to advocates who worked non-stop, through hubs like DontWreckTheCensus.org, to help sink the unconstitutional, impractical, and expensive measure.
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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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09/08/09 As we mentioned in our Labor Day reflection last Friday, a recent report by the Center for Urban Economic Development, National Employment Law Project, and UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment explored the treatment of approximately 4,500 workers in three of America's biggest cities. Well, in "Down and Out: Low-wage workers and the everyday symptoms of abuse." the Washington editorialized today:
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09/04/09 The Center for Urban Economic Development, National Employment Law Project, and UCLA Institutute for Research on Labor and Employment, released a study titled "Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers that explored the treatment of approximately 4,500 workers in three of America's biggest cities - New York, LA, and Chicago. It cites a surprising number of labor and workplace abuses happening right here in the United States. One finding is that the current dysfunctional immigration system also makes it harder for immigrant workers to assert their rights in the workplace-- and that this hurts all American workers.
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09/02/09 Immigration Policy Center just released a new report by Senior Researcher Walter Ewing that injects "a healthy dose of economic realism" into the debate over how the government should handle the 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country. According to Ewing, our current economic situation needs immigration reform that helps rather than hurts the US economy, and so he lists three potential changes in immigration policy and compares their economic impact – leaving aside the moral and civil issues that surround various options.
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08/25/09 Stories like this one make me proud to be American (but not in a creepy way). They make me want to keep fighting for an America that lives up to its ideals that anyone can do anything, if they put their mind to it and work hard enough.
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