06/12/12 As we reported yesterday, immigration lawyers, community leaders, and advocates representing a broad spectrum of Latino and immigrant communities declared the Department of Homeland Security’s implementation of prosecutorial discretion a failure and asked the Obama Administration to take immediate action to protect families, DREAM Act eligible youth, and those standing up for their civil and [...]
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06/11/12 UPDATE: Heydi Mejia learned late yesterday that her deportation was deferred: Mejia’s reprieve came unannounced in a fax that arrived at her attorney’s office in the late afternoon. It represented the first step in what could be a long legal process, Malik said. “The Deferred Action will expire June 11, 2013,” the memo read. Here’s [...]
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06/11/12 After a growing outcry by immigrants, allies, and Members of Congress, outraged at the record number of deportations carried out by the Obama Administration, the Department of Homeland Security announced a new policy in June 2011 that was supposed to focus immigration enforcement on the “worst of the worst” and spare individuals who have been in the [...]
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06/07/12 As you know, 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. This week, the DREAMers arrived in Denver to [...]
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06/07/12 The New York Times’ immigration-beat reporter, Julia Preston, wrote an important article today which confirms what we’ve known to be true: the Obama administration’s prosecutorial discretion program is not working: After seven months of an ambitious review by the Obama administration of all deportations before the nation’s immigration courts, very few of them have been halted, disappointing [...]
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06/05/12 Representative Luis Gutierrez is one of our fiercest champions on immigration reform, and isn’t afraid to speak truth to power. Quite admirably, he never backs down — even when the person he’s challenging is one of the most powerful people in the world: President Barack Obama. “Today’s New York Times editorial, ‘A Start on the Dream,’ eloquently [...]
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06/05/12 Check out this Huffington Post article on Kris Kobach’s latest screed over immigration and voting rights: The author of Arizona’s controversial immigration law accused the U.S. Justice Department of going after conservative states during an appearance on a talk radio show in Wichita, Kan. Monday morning. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) used an [...]
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06/01/12 Today is the deadline to comment on the Family Unity Visa Waiver — a proposed change in immigration policy to help keep some immigrant families together.  Until the end of the day today, the public will be able to propose suggestions for the rule, which is, like a lot of rules, a good start…but not [...]
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06/01/12 Since the DREAM Act was narrowly defeated in Congress in December 2010, DREAMers around the country have been calling on President Obama to provide executive relief to immigrant youth and their families.  However, the Obama Administration has repeatedly stalled, saying that they lack the legal authority to grant this type of relief. Legal experts disagree.  [...]
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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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05/30/12 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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05/23/12 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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05/16/12 Tomorrow, United We Dream (UWD) is hosting rallies, marches and protests as part of its “Right to DREAM” campaign’s National Day of Action. Frustrated with the Obama Administration, undocumented youth around the country are calling on President Obama to keep families together and use his executive powers to protect DREAMers from deportation. In a press [...]
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05/15/12 President Barack Obama’s announcement that he now supports same-sex marriage came, he said, as the result of a process of “evolution” and a question of principles. The announcement was a risky political move, to be sure, to make a handful of months before the general election; it will undoubtedly help him with a broad and [...]
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05/14/12 Record high deportations, Secure Communities and 287g enforcement programs, and millions of people still living in the shadows – This is the Obama Administration’s mark on immigration policy. Undocumented youth and their allies aren’t having it any longer. They’re speaking truth to power through a new campaign called the Right to DREAM. “Enough is enough…through [...]
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05/11/12 The Obama administration’s Secure Communities program is making headlines again — and that’s never good. Secure Communities has played a key role in the Obama administration’s record-breaking number of deportations. Last year, PBS produced a documentary, Lost in Detention, that examined the controversial program. It’s must see for anyone concerned with immigrant rights. The website for  last year’s [...]
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05/09/12 RNC Hispanic Outreach Director Bettina Inclán started a media firestorm yesterday when she said that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is “still deciding what his position on immigration is.”  As we wrote yesterday, Inclán’s colleagues at the RNC immediately tried to walk back those comments, as they should have.  Romney’s immigration positions are extremely [...]
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05/07/12 Political analysts agree: Latino voters will be pivotal in numerous 2012 battleground states – and perhaps determine the presidency in the process.  Today, the Orlando Sentinel captures the dynamics at play in Florida, writing: The presidential race could come down to this: To win in November, President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney needs the biggest swing [...]
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04/16/12 In a series of interviews with Spanish language media this past weekend, President Obama promised to make immigration reform a year one priority of a potential second term.  He also lamented Republican obstructionism on the issue.  In an interview with Univision, Obama said: I can promise that I will try to do it in the [...]
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04/12/12 It was last year that we first told you about Pedro Gutierrez, a DREAMer from Arizona who aspires to become a Marine, who came to the US when he was 7.  His grandmother, his only caretaker, died when he was still a child, leaving him an orphan.  But Pedro rallied, and with the help of [...]
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04/12/12 La Opinión has a withering editorial today about Secure Communities (a.k.a. S-Comm). It’s a brutal takedown of a failed program: Because of its inability to act in a consistent manner, the Secure Communities program has set an example of incompetence in the federal bureaucracy. Through confusion and a lack of transparency, this program has provided false [...]
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04/03/12 While campaigning in Wisconsin yesterday, Mitt Romney debuted a new line of attack against President Obama—focusing on immigration. Said Romney, referring to immigration, "This has always been a priority for the President he chooses to do nothing about."
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03/23/12 A positive development in the deportation case of Alfonso Garcia. He's undocumented, a DREAMer and he's married to a US citizen. But, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex benefits, complicates the situation, because Alfonso is married to Brian Willingham.
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03/06/12 North Miami High School senior Daniela Palaez has a 6.7 GPA, the valedictory nod from her classmates, a brother in the U.S. Army and deportation papers to Colombia.
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03/05/12 According to a new poll from FOX News, "Latino voters favor President Barack Obama by six-to-one over any of the Republican presidential hopefuls." None of the GOP hopefuls garner more than 14% of the Latino vote against Obama.
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