10/11/11 Our colleague, Maribel Hastings, who has been in Alabama for the past week, wrote a very powerful column, which appeared in The Guardian over the weekend. It's definitely worth a read, highlighting the very human toll the new anti-immigrant law is having. The piece is titled, "Sweet home Alabama no more."
Read More »

10/07/11 News reports continue to highlight the devastating effects of Alabama's new immigration law on children, families, and entire industries. Meanwhile, supporters of the law, including anti-immigrant members of Congress and nativist organizations, seem quite comfortable with its destructive impact.
Read More »

10/07/11 Breaking news today on the legal front regarding the Alabama immigration law. The Department of Justice has asked the 11th Circuit to block implementation of the law: The federal government asked an appeals court on Friday to halt an Alabama immigration law considered by many as the toughest in the United States, saying it invites discrimination against foreign-born citizens and legal immigrants.
Read More »

09/30/11 One of the most egregious sections of the Alabama's horrific immigration law turns schools into immigration enforcement authorities. That's already having an impact on school kids.
Read More »

09/29/11 Yesterday, a Federal District Court Judge in Alabama delivered a decision that will have an immediate negative impact on immigrants and Latinos in that state. Judge Blackburn upheld some of the most egregious sections of Alabama's punitive and discriminatory.
Read More »

09/28/11 Major news from Alabama today. Federal District Court Judge Sharon Blackburn upheld several sections of Alabama's worst-in-the-nation immigration law today
Read More »

09/16/11 The DHS Task Force on Homeland Security issued its report this week, showing a deeply flawed program. Arturo Venegas resigned from the Task Force, noting, "I believe that Secure Communities is a deeply flawed program and that, in its current form, it is undermining public safety."
Read More »

08/24/11 In advance of the final DHS Secure Communities Task Force hearing in Arlington Virginia, America's Voice Education Fund (AVEF) will release a new report, "Public Safety on ICE: How Do You Police a Community That Won't Talk to You?" which documents the "chilling effect" that police-DHS collaboration has on immigrant crime victims and witnesses, and describes how programs like Secure Communities (S-Comm) actually make all of us less safe.
Read More »

08/15/11 Boston's Mayor and Police Commissioners were early supporters of the Secured Communities program. But, they've seen first hand that S-Comm is not what it was promised to be. They were misled by DHS, which is deporting non-criminals and disrupting communities while making them less safe. The DHS message to Governors and Mayors is: "We don't want your input — we just want your fingerprints."
Read More »

07/20/11 Alabama, which is 2.8 percent Latino, has a race problem again. Dark people are on the verge of taking over and like George Wallace and Bull Connor before them, today's politicos in Alabama aren't having it. "Anything short of shooting them," one politician has said from Alabama. From another: "Empty the clip and do what has to be done."
Read More »

05/25/11 More bad news today for Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio: following news that he misspent $100 million in taxpayer funds and failed to investigate 400 sex crimes cases, "America's Toughest Sheriff" found himself sporting another black eye yesterday after the arrest of three employees involved in a drug- and human-trafficking ring.
Read More »

05/24/11 ABC 12 News in Arizona today reports that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sex-crime cases over a two-year period, many of which involved children from 2 to 16 years old.
Read More »

05/19/11 Texas State Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa (D-McAllen) used a procedural tactic to derail an anti-immigration bill that was moving in that state's legislature. The bill could be brought back, but time is running out. The legislative session ends on May 30th.
Read More »

05/16/11 Last Friday, despite intense opposition from business, student, immigrant, and faith groups, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal (R) placed his state on a perilous path by signing anti-immigrant legislation modeled after Arizona's "papers, please" law.
Read More »

05/06/11 Today, after intense pressure from immigration advocates, Arizona-like immigration bills, SB 2040 and HB 7098, died with the end of legislative session in Florida.
Read More »

05/06/11 As the federal government and state legislatures try to expand the role of police in immigration enforcement, state and local police are pushing back. In Texas, Illinois, California, and elsewhere, law enforcement leaders are speaking out against proposals to gut their community policing policies and require them to participate in the Secure Communities program.
Read More »

04/27/11 One year after Arizona's infamous SB 1070 immigration bill was signed into law, chief architects Governor Jan Brewer and Senate President Russell Pearce are convinced their legislation is an unqualified success. Pearce told the East Valley Tribune last week: "They're leaving in caravans,'' he said of illegal immigrants. "I've talked to a U-Haul dealer."
Read More »

03/24/11 The Washington Post's editorial praising the Secure Communities program ("How to improve an immigration status check," March 20th) glossed over some very important details. If the program was targeted at actual criminals, it wouldn't be so controversial and police agencies wouldn't be asking to opt-out.
Read More »

03/07/11 There is growing concern that the federal 287(g) and "Secure Communities" programs, which puts local law enforcement officers on the front lines of enforcing federal immigration laws, are actually making communities less secure.
Read More »

02/09/11 For those of you who don't know, E-Verify is part of a Republicans' strategy of expelling 11 million undocumented immigrants and their families from the country. However, if the program worked as Reps. Smith, Gallegly, and King hope, the GOP would essentially be deporting the entire U.S. agriculture industry and send more of our nation's food supply—and jobs--overseas.
Read More »

01/24/11 Someone enter this entire Washington Post Editorial into the Congressional record. Seriously. "The limits of immigration enforcement," January 22, 2011: "TYSON FOODS, one of the world's largest food processing firms, has a checkered past when it comes to employment practices, specifically the hiring of undocumented workers."
Read More »

01/12/11 The Immigration Policy Center has released a comprehensive new guide to responding to the controversial Arizona-style immigration laws already popping up in states like Florida and Texas.
Read More »

10/29/10 Tennessee advocates have come forward to argue that immigrants' rights were violated in a police-ICE raid last week. ICE says the raid was a police collaboration to root out criminal gang activity in a Nashville apartment complex, but local advocates say that innocent residents were treated like criminals. The allegations disturbing, to say the least.
Read More »

10/22/10 If you thought Arizona's immigration law, SB 1070, was controversial, keep reading. Republican State Legislator (FL), William Snyder (pictured at right, to the left), has proposed a new immigration bill for his state, modeled after the infamous Arizona law that has people all over the country in a tizzy over the fact that the law encourages racial profiling.
Read More »

10/14/10 The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced last week that it had broken its own record for deportations, affirming the Obama administration's zeal for heavy-handed immigration enforcement. According to the announcement, deportations have increased by 70 percent since the Bush administration, totaling 392,000 in fiscal year 2010.
Read More »

09/10/10 According to Chief Judge Theodor McKee: "It is … not our job to sit in judgment of whether state and local frustration about federal immigration policy is warranted. We are, however, required to intervene when states and localities directly undermine the federal objectives embodied in statutes enacted by Congress."
Read More »

08/18/10 Secure Communities won't make the country more secure, not the way it is working. Police departments that don't want to participate should be able to opt out. The Obama administration needs to fix it or jettison it.
Read More »