¡Alto Arizona!

Newt Gingrich Supports the Arizonification of America

By Chris Newman, Legal Director and General Counsel at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network | Source: USNews.com

Newt Gingrich's repugnant position on immigration should not be concealed by his faint use of the word "humane" during last week's GOP primary debate. The mere fact his remarks are deemed compassionate is further proof Republican discourse on immigration continues to dangerously metastasize.

Turning the Tide National Summit Video

Video highlights the wide-spread effort to target immigrants through SB1070 copy-cat bills, 287(g) & S-Comm programs. Video also highlights organizing efforts across the nation to push back against nativist movement and hateful legislation. Please share and/or embed in your social network channels.

 

Arizona state senator reacts to defeat of 5 immigration bills

Posted: 10:52 PM | Last Updated: 10 hours ago

By: Christina Boomer

 

PHOENIX - It was a stunning defeat at Arizona's state capitol Thursday when on a third reading all five immigration-related bills failed in the Senate.

ABC15 caught up with Senator Ron Gould minutes after the final bill was defeated.

He said he was disappointed.

On Twitter he provided the names of all the Republicans who voted against the bills and told his followers to “contact them."

Following the session he said that too many Republicans talk tough on the campaign trail but don’t deliver when it comes to votes.

Just two days prior 60 business executives and members of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce urged lawmakers to reject the bills.

They said while illegal immigration is a problem, it is an issue best left to the federal government.

They asked the legislature to “redirect its energy” toward job growth and the economy and away from controversial legislation that will continue to hamper Arizona’s image and probably lead to costly court battles.

Senator Gould was asked if that letter perhaps played a role to which he replied, “Well there’s some people who are bought and paid for by the Chamber of Commerce.”

When asked if he will try to introduce similar legislation next session he said, “Maybe we will put everybody through the same misery one more time.”

(Source: ABC15.com)

Immigrant Rights Organizer Banned from AZ Capitol

Mar 04, 2011

Sun Principe is Social Justice Director for the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Phoenix and AZ Immigration Ministry. Carlos Garcia is Lead Organizer at Puente Arizona.

The message below went out to Standing on the Side of Love supporters on Friday, February 25, 2011. You can sign up for these emails here.

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Salvador Reza and Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

On Tuesday, February 22, Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, who is well-known for his mean-spirited and inhumane approach to immigration, went one step further in his attempts to squash human rights. Senator Pearce decided that cheering and clapping from a group of immigrant-rights supporters in a hearing overflow room was a threat to Senate “decorum.” In response, he instructed the police that the community members should “be identified, photographed, and… that these offenders be denied further entrance into the Senate.”

One of the community organizers was Salvador Reza, leader of Puente Arizona and partner of the Standing on the Side of Love campaign. Sal is deeply committed to ensuring that our laws respect the inherent worth and dignity of immigrants and migrant workers.

When Sal returned to the Senate building for a scheduled meeting with a legislator, he was told by the police that he was no longer allowed inside. When Sal asked to see something in writing banning him from the building, he was arrested and booked on charges of trespass.

Just imagine it: Sal was arrested by police because a political leader who disagreed with him told the police to keep people like him out.

Is this what’s to come in Arizona? In the United States, we can’t let any political leader use police force to silence dissent.

Tell Governor Jan Brewer that arresting people is the wrong way to deal with political debate. Ask her to condemn and reverse the actions of Senator Russell Pearce — and allow everyone to participate in the public debate about issues that affect their lives.

Angry Arizona, Again

Published: February 26th, 2011 | New York Times Editorial

Many states are doing urgent business: jobs, the economy, broken budgets. Arizona’s legislators are trying to give government new powers to strip away individual rights, to extend immigration enforcement into schools, public housing, hospitals and doctor’s offices.

Arizona made itself ground zero for a new nativism last year with a radical policing law that encouraged racial profiling and declared the mass expulsion of undocumented immigrants to be official state policy. This led to boycotts, slumping tourism and convention business, and lawsuits, including one by the Obama administration. Yet Arizona’s current legislative session is overstuffed with nativist bills, several of which passed through committee on Tuesday in an “omnibus” measure.

They include:

A bill to chop up the 14th Amendment to deny citizenship to children born in Arizona to undocumented mothers. A bill requiring hospitals to check every patient’s citizenship status, turning doctors and nurses into the immigration police. A bill to deny education to undocumented children by requiring proof of citizenship to enroll in any public or private school. A bill to criminalize driving by illegal immigrants, and to evict them from public housing. This will fix nothing, and do real harm.

The birthright citizenship bill interprets the 14th Amendment in a way no federal court or Congress ever has. The state would issue a different type of birth certificate to babies whose parents lack papers. It’s a nonexistent problem; women are not sneaking over the border to have babies who--when they turn 21--may be able to sponsor them for green cards. The plan will not drive away illegal immigrants, but it would turn generations of young Americans into deportable criminals.

The Supreme Court has ruled that undocumented children have a right to primary education, because the country is not served by perpetuating an illiterate underclass. And yet Arizona’s elected leaders persist in their assault on that principle. The bills’ sponsors don’t seem to care about the damage they do. They are bent on inflaming the anxieties in a changing country, even when crime is down in border cities and immigration has tapered off. New Census data shows America’s population growing more slowly than it has since the 1930s--another era of rampant bigotry and racial scapegoating.

We hope the angry Arizonans, and the rest of the country, will soon return to their values. Citizenship by birth and assimilation of newcomers are central to the American experiment. All that separates our newest immigrants from previous waves is the lack of a working system to assimilate them.

A version of this editorial appeared in print on February 27, 2011, on page WK7 of the New York edition.

(Source: The New York Times)

Undocumented Immigrants Stand Up to Chipotle

David Bacon | February 11, 2011 | The Nation

Last month six hundred workers at the Chipotle fast food chain were fired in Minnesota.

Their crime?  Working.

In the last two years, thousands of others have been fired for the same offense—1800 young women at Los Angeles sewing machines, 500 apple pickers in eastern Washington, hundreds of janitors in Minnesota and California.  They're all victims of the administration's "softer" immigration enforcement strategy.

Its logic is brutal:  Make it impossible for 12 million undocumented people in the US to earn a living—to buy food, pay rent, or send money home to their children.  Then they'll deport themselves.  When their families hear they can't get jobs in the US, they won't join those already here.

This inhuman logic convinced Congress to pass the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. For 25 years employers have had to verify workers' immigration status, and cannot legally employ people without papers.  The real impact, though, is on workers.  It's become a crime to hold a job.

But that hasn’t prompted undocumented immigrants to leave the United States.  Over those 25 years NAFTA and CAFTA, and pro-corporate market reforms in Mexico and other developing countries, profoundly deepened the poverty driving people from their homes.  More people came than ever before.

A Minor Setback for Arizona's Nativists

Anyone who is a parent knows well that few things are able to change plans like the will of an eleven year old. Simple truths like this one may be the one missing piece on Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce's formula for rewriting the constitution.

Last week, the effort to take away the citizenship rights of Arizona's first generation children born of undocumented parents hit a wall. What the out-of-town conservative ringer, Dr. Eastman, could not accomplish in more than an hour and a half of testimony, Katherine Figueroa finished in four words; "We are the future."

These children of migrants speaking for themselves, family, and friends are at the crux of complicating the recent nativist attempts to revoke birthright citizenship to those born in the US. If we were to revoke citizenship to those born here, what would happen with those stateless children? When asked how they should be treated, the "constitutional expert" replied, 'as their parents with the same status would.' Completing that sentence ends with newborn babies in detention and deportation. In the context of Arpaio's Arizona, it means the tent city jailer would be issuing pink onesies the way he does underwear to prisoners.

Within that circle of doubt and due to the firm line of questioning of Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Adam Driggs, the judiciary committee of Arizona's Senate decided to hold the 14th amendment bill rather than put it up for an uncertain vote. The fact that it did not steamroll through is a setback for the nativist legislators. One caused by minors.

When twelve year old Heidi testified, she explained simply, "I may not be perfect but I don't think you should spend your time on discriminating laws." Like the young man from Iowa who scolded legislators for considering a bill that would impact his gay parents, the voices of those directly impacted by today's policies are at the forefront of leading this era of the immigrant rights' movement. They state what no amount of meandering about allegiance to the king or interpretations of the word jurisdiction can negate; that we are here. We are loved. We have dreams. Like my two US citizen children who excel in school and music and art, who love their father who came here from El Salvador, we are a part of the fabric of this society.

The US population is the same percentage foreign-born as it was when they signed the 14th amendment. We do not come as tourists or random visitors. We are as much the American family as anyone. We have come, like Katherine said yesterday, "to fight for kids' rights." Sí somos miliones, but sometimes it is the voice of an eleven year old girl that must be counted.

Whoever hears the bills next may wish to keep Katherine's words in mind as they vote. Not only because they ring true, but because they will be echoed by thousands who announced today that on April 23rd, they will be returning to march in the streets of Phoenix.

- Pablo Alvarado, Director of NDLON.

In Detention: Behind Arizona's Walls 2/7/10

Editor’s note: This is the latest blog post from a 27-year-old college graduate who ran a small construction clean-up company in Arizona until he was stopped by police for a traffic infraction in late summer of 2010. After Yogi (not his real name) was arrested and fingerprinted his information was shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was then transferred from jail to ICE custody because he lacked proper immigration papers. Yogi has lived in the United States since 1990. Deportation Nation is publishing his letters as a blog from the Florence Correctional Center, a private detention center in Arizona that is owned by the Corrections Corporation of America.

2/07/2010.
http://www.deportationnation.org/2011/02/in-detention-feb-7-2010/

I consider myself layman. It’s not because I consider myself dumb, ignorant or inept, but because I feel I can always learn something and grow. In here, I have been able to do things otherwise unimaginable to me, like helping fellow detainees with their cases.

I am, in reality, the most stupid person here, with two degrees, never had I been so humbled as I am when I speak to a fellow detainee about their case, how they came to this country, and why they are detained all these teachings add to why I want to help people as soon as I get out. I am not sure how but if its in the realm of helping migrants then that’s what I want to do.

So far in here, I have helped one man win his cancellation of removal and one win his asylum case. At the moment, I am helping two more fellow detainees, one with cancelation and another asylum. This is something I would have never imagined I would do. And all that from a prison cell. I imagine its not unheard of and in fact, I think they call people that do this “jailhouse lawyers” I guess out of necessity and seeing the desperation of others the least I can do is try, but when we were successful its extremely gratifying. Like doing the impossible, taking on an entire system without resources or previous knowledge.

I would obviously never want to be incarcerated again, but to help someone get out is unexplainably special. It is self-rewarding and humbling simultaneously. The weird part comes when you see people leave you are overjoyed and jealous at the same time. I suppose it’s because of the uncertainty of how long you will be in, and continuing to wait for that fateful cry of:

“[Your Name]”

“Roll Out!!”

In Detention: Behind Arizona's Walls 2/5/10

Editor’s note: This is the latest blog post from a 27-year-old college graduate who ran a small construction clean-up company in Arizona until he was stopped by police for a traffic infraction in late summer of 2010. After Yogi (not his real name) was arrested and fingerprinted his information was shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was then transferred from jail to ICE custody because he lacked proper immigration papers. Yogi has lived in the United States since 1990. Deportation Nation is publishing his letters as a blog from the Florence Correctional Center, a private detention center in Arizona that is owned by the Corrections Corporation of America.

Feb. 5, 2010
Posted from: http://www.deportationnation.org/2011/02/in-detention-feb-5-2010/

Today is my third month of incarceration.

I was supposed to be the best man at my friends wedding. I was supposed to go to Vegas to watch a big fight, flight and tickets paid for. I was supposed to compete in my first Judo tournament. I was supposed to be the role model for my godson that I never had. I was a partner in two small businesses, and the breadwinner for my girlfriend and her two boys.

From in here, this whole experience seems surreal, I like many of the men in here, don’t believe imprisonment should be the way about solving this migration issue. Although at the moment I have no solution either. Al I know is that in my cell alone, there are two men who have had their green cards for 24 and 30 years, respectively, after 5 years with permanent residency people are eligible to apply for citizenship, but after 20 you would think it should be automatic.

I guess that just is another question I would like to put out in the universe.

Regardless of what your view is on the subject, I am sure you believe there needs to be some kind of reform or solution. Unmistakably, I believe that there are too many families at stake not to give an opportunity to those hardworking individuals who have spent decades contributing to this country without status. How is it just for people to be ineligible, or have to wait 15 to 20 years, to become permanent residents after all those years of struggling here. Why do people have to be arrested and humiliated to have the opportunity of a work permit? In the respect I agree with many politicians and like other folks like to say, the system is broken.

Just. Plato writes that justice is or does something for good. I cannot see incarceration, humiliation, and a systematic Gestapo tactic to do anything with just. Whether you think so or not, I am as you and you are as me, at least in the sense
that I am a person with his own feelings and notions. I want to be a part of a better society just like you. I have a set of ideals and one voice that can only say

I Am Human!

Statement of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) to the Congressional Subcommittee on Immigration – January 26, 2011

The 112th Congress will hold the first hearing of its Congressional Subcommittee on Immigration on January 26, 2011.

The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) believes this hearing should be watched carefully for both its policy prescriptions and the tone it sets regarding immigrant workers. Our network includes more than 40 organizations of day laborers located throughout the country. It is our understanding that the Immigration Subcommittee will focus its first hearing largely on strategies for targeting immigrant workers for deportation through their worksites.

NDLON believes that this focus demonstrates at best, a lack of understanding about how to protect workers’ rights, and at worst, a mean-spirited scapegoating of immigrant workers that can increase bias, dehumanization, and violence.

Immigration crackdowns do not protect workers’ rights or local communities: Crackdowns and raids at the workplace have never proven effective in protecting the rights of any workers, US-born or immigrants. On the contrary, aggressive targeting of immigrant workers facilitates their exploitation by unscrupulous employers, who are only too willing to use immigration status as a threat against workers who might complain. In workplaces where immigrants are exploited, this brings down the wages of native-born workers as well.

In addition, technology-based screening programs such as “E-Verify” are prone to errors and tend to drive undocumented workers further underground. These programs confuse good employers and provide the most abusive employers with an additional scheme to be used in violating workers rights. Piecemeal worksite verification programs only exacerbate this problem by incentivizing exploitation by predatory employers seeking unfair competitive advantage. Immigrant workers and their families, whether documented or undocumented, are a crucial part of the United States economy, and they are members of local communities across the country. Raids targeting workplaces have been devastating to these families and have been particularly harmful to their children. As the new congress pushes the re-set button on an immigration debate that has been on the national agenda for a decade, we implore the subcommittee to take note of the following:

Blaming immigrants for the economic situation of the country will increase violence: Day laborers and other immigrants are not to blame for the financial crisis and the resulting rise in unemployment. However, too often, political demagogues attempt to blame immigrants for the lack of jobs available to native-born workers. Our organization is very concerned about a rise in violence and hate based attacks against the Latino community in general. Across the country, a rise in political rhetoric and scapegoating has resulted in bias attacks against immigrants: in the most tragic of these cases, the murders of immigrants in Pennsylvania, New York, and Arizona.

We ask that the Immigration Subcommittee members refrain from using language that scapegoats immigrant workers. The immigrant community will be observing the hearings closely, to see whether the inflamed anti-immigrant rhetoric dominates these proceedings. It is our hope that the rhetoric at least, will reflect some of the civility lessons that many in politics professed to have learned after recent events in Arizona. Rather than attacking newcomers and turning a nation of immigrants against itself, we ask that Congress listen to the voices of these Americans in Waiting. Over the past year, immigrant families have spoken at various hearings regarding the impact of repressive immigration tactics on display in Arizona. The Immigration Subcommittee would do well to listen and learn from these voices.

Dispatch from Detention: Jan 18th.

Editor’s note: This is the latest blog post from a 27-year-old college graduate who ran a small construction clean-up company in Arizona until he was stopped by police for a traffic infraction in late summer of 2010. After Yogi (not his real name) was arrested and fingerprinted his information was shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was then transferred from jail to ICE custody because he lacked proper immigration papers. Yogi has lived in the United States since 1990. Deportation Nation is publishing his letters as a blog from the Florence Correctional Center, a private detention center in Arizona that is owned by the Corrections Corporation of America.

Jan. 18, 2011

originally published on Deportation Nation

The lockdown lasted for two days and it was never made clear why it happened. They don’t need to give a reason, I suppose, but when you are punished for something without explanation it’s a little unnerving. Aside from that, we weren’t even allowed to take showers! Nevertheless, the ingenuity of a person with limited resources does not cease to amaze, we put together two boxes we would normally use for personal belongings and took “bird baths”. In other words, we used the stream that shoots past the sink next to the toilet to cleanse ourselves.

A Call for Civility Toward All of Arizona’s Residents

Dear friends and fellow Arizonans,

 Arizona has had a rough time lately.  The tragic shooting of January 8 is the latest in a long line of challenges the state has faced over the last few years.  As Arizona residents, all of us here have felt the stress of these challenges.  We empathize with those who have felt the pain of recent events directly.

 We are here today to state that we are proud to live in Arizona, and to ask our state’s lawmakers to seize the silver lining in these tragic events.

 Calls for greater civility in politics have gone out across the nation as a result of the tragic shooting in Tucson.  President Obama, Governor Brewer, Senator McCain, and others all called for “a more civil and honest public discourse” at the memorial for the fallen just last week.

“In Detention” | Voices from Behind Arizona's Walls

Yogi (not his real name) is a 27-year-old college graduate who ran a small construction clean-up company in Arizona until he was stopped by police for a traffic infraction in late summer of 2010. He was arrested and transferred to a detention center because of his lack of proper paperwork. Yogi has lived in the United States since 1990. Deportation Nation is publishing his letters from the Florence Correctional Center, a private detention center owned by the Corrections Corporation of America.

Dec. 2,

via www.deportationnation.org

I’m 27 years old, this is my first blog.

It’s odd to think I am writing it from a jail cell.

Although, I should mention that officially I am not a prisoner, I am a detainee. Much like the people held in Guantanamo, I suppose, but my charge isn’t terrorism. My main charge is not being a US Citizen.

My story is much the same as many kids who grow up in the US, Honor Roll K-12, captain of Football and Wrestling teams.  Then off to college I went to learn and prepare how to master the “Real World”. Except my story is different, like the fact that I have been adopted twice or that I was born in Mexico.

The latter point drastically changes my current situation. It makes me, shall we say, susceptible to deportation from the country I grew up in.

A traffic violation leads me to my present position, the corner lower bunk furthest from the iron door, and toilet. A 16 men cell with one stainless steel toilet with no door to block your duties, one stainless steel sink. No contact with the outside letter except letters and now this blog.

Maybe you didn’t know a detention center like this existed. I know I didn’t. And yet, here I sit within a maximum-security facility, where hundreds of ICE detainees are housed. And my hope is that my writing this blog will bring awareness to something that is very real.

My intention is to relate and relay what I can attest to, what I have been through, what I do and most importantly the endless stories of other people from around the world that join me amidst these walls. I am in a most advantageous position in the respect. And given that time seems abundant in here, I think I will be able to do just that. Relate and relay.

Rep. Sinema Threatend for Militia Ban Proposal

E.J. Montini

Arizona Republic columnist
Jan. 30, 2007 | 12:00 AM

Last year, state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema introduced a bill that essentially would have outlawed civilian border patrol groups like the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.

The proposal went nowhere, just as she expected.

"It got a brief mention in (Phoenix) New Times and that was it," she says.

As a liberal Democrat operating in a Legislature controlled by conservative Republicans, Sinema understands the odds against the passage of such a proposal.

Still, this year, she introduced her bill again.

House Bill 2286 reads, in part:

"An individual or group of individuals commits domestic terrorism if the individual or group of individuals are not affiliated with a local, state or federal law enforcement entity and associate with another individual or group of individuals as an organization, group, corporation or company for the purpose of patrolling to detect alleged illegal activity or to individually patrol for the purpose of detecting alleged illegal activity and if the individual or group of individuals is armed with a firearm or other weapon."

Sinema said that it isn't the honest intentions of most people affiliated with such organizations that bother her but a belief that they attract racist extremists and other xenophobic recruits to their cause.

Arizona's Long Dark Night Continues

by Randall Amster - Huffington Post.

Perhaps not since the full-on throes of the Civil Rights era has a single state been so beset by crisis, conflict, and now catastrophe. Chronicling Arizona politics has been a trying and tiresome experience on many levels, with few points of optimism at hand to buffet the constant blows of injustice and brutality. The open persecution of people of color at the level of both bodies and minds; the outright hijacking of the state's politics by far-right figures with white supremacist ties; the bankrupting of the economy while private interests gain tax breaks and write favorable laws for themselves; the decimation of the public infrastructure including the education and health care systems -- all of this and more has been front and center for beleaguered Arizonans in recent years.

Standing of the Side of Love and Interfaith Impact Challenge NY Governor to Rescind Agreement Targeting Immigrants

This post provided by Robb Smith, Executive Director Interfaith Impact of New York, member at First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, NY

The Hispanic Coalition New York, Interfaith Impact of NYS (New York’s UU legislative ministry), a representative of ARISE (interfaith congregation-based community organization), and representatives of the Standing on the Side of Love campaign from the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany held a press conference Friday in Albany. The purpose was to commemorate International Migrants Day and ask NYS Governor David Paterson to rescind an agreement that New York State secretly signed last May with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement that unjustly targets immigrant communities and families.

View TV news coverage of the press conference here:

http://capitalregion.ynn.com/content/your_news/527183/international-migrants-day/

And here:

http://manhattan.ny1.com/content/top_stories/130372/immigrant-groups-urge-state-to-re-think--secure-communities-

We are deeply concerned about the terrible impact that implementation of this agreement could have on minority immigrant communities, families and children. It opens the door to mass deportations, the destruction of productive lives, and the dehumanizing of strangers in our midst. New York owes a special debt to immigrants, and to treat them in this way is a betrayal of our deepest values.

Nationwide, more than 1,000 persons are deported every single day. The impact this is having on minority working class communities is incalculable. Arguments that a few criminals are caught in the ICE dragnets do not justify treating an entire class of persons as criminals. That is not the American way, and certainly not New York’s way. New York is not Arizona.

Click here send your own letter to Governor Paterson. We have only a few days to get the word out to him before his term ends. Let’s take advantage of it.

(Source: Standingonthesideoflove.org)

U.S. program to deport criminal undocumented immigrants has deported high percentages of noncriminals in some areas

By Shankar Vedantam

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 20, 2010; 11:16 PM

Despite vows by the Obama administration to focus its immigration enforcement efforts on criminals, a quarter of those who have been deported through a program called Secure Communities had not been convicted of committing any crime, government statistics show. And that percentage was vastly higher in some jurisdictions, including Prince George's County, where two-thirds of the 86 undocumented immigrants were not criminals.

The Prince George's rate of noncriminal deportation was the second-highest in the country among counties or cities with at least 50 removals, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement figures through the end of July, the latest numbers made available.

By comparison, 15 percent of the 105 immigrants removed from Prince William County, which has taken a much tougher stance toward illegal immigrants than Prince George's, were not criminals. Even Maricopa County in Arizona - home to Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff in America" - deported noncriminals at a rate of less than half that of Prince George's.

The disparities have left local authorities puzzled and immigrant rights activists outraged.

Immigration officials declined to explain the disparities but defended Secure Communities, which is becoming the nation's central immigration enforcement mechanism.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently credited the program with helping to produce a more than 70 percent increase in deportations of criminals, including gang members, murderers and drug traffickers.

"Secure Communities has resulted in the arrest of more than 59,000 convicted criminal aliens, including more than 21,000 convicted of major violent offenses like murder, rape, and the sexual abuse of children," Napolitano said.

Immigration rights groups say the program has led to the removal of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who have committed far less serious crimes or none at all.

"The numbers out of Prince George's are absurd," said Gustavo Andrade, organizing director of CASA of Maryland, an immigrant rights group that is active in the county. "Even one family destroyed because of this kind of program makes it unacceptable."

Let DREAMers Lead, Allies Must Follow

By David Bennion on December 19, 2010 11:55 PM | from CitizenOrange.com

It's been hard for me to set fingers to keyboard to organize my thoughts about yesterday's Senate vote blocking the DREAM Act. I have a lot of thoughts and emotions swirling around inside right now. Even before the vote, I felt stymied--anxious about the bill's prospects, angry at the obstinate ignorance displayed by opponents, and frustrated at my own feelings of powerlessness.

If there is any cause for optimism in this dark moment, it is that the DREAM movement has now come into its own. Dreamers will never again be token poster children held up to support someone else's agenda--the enforcement first, legalization later agenda unsuccessfully promoted by President Obama, Democrats, and national advocacy groups.

That agenda failed, the plans that others made for Dreamers failed, and at the end of it all, advocacy groups and politicians jumped on board the DREAM Act bandwagon because it was the only legislative vehicle that was moving, the only one that had even left the factory. And the primary reason the DREAM Act got as far as it did this legislative session was because of the activism of Dreamers: the hunger strikes, the 1500-mile Trail of Dreams march, the acts of civil disobedience targeting key legislators, the Dreamers coming out to journalists, and hundreds of other actions around the country planned and executed by Dreamers themselves.

As we look for a way forward, it is important to think about what has worked and hasn't worked so far. With this in mind, I want to address a few key groups.

Migrants: growing criminalization, intolerance, xenophobia and racism mark key anniversary

Date: 17/12/2010 - 18:08

GENEVA – “Today, we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families*, a key day that has been marked by worrying trends in the situation of migrants, both regular and irregular, around the world.

What should be an opportunity to celebrate the successful adjustment of countless migrants to their new environments, enriching their new societies with their cultures, ideas, technologies, skills, or the diversity that they bring, has become a dire warning to renew our efforts to effectively address the legal, social and practical challenges that migrants face.

This year, we particularly note with concern the increasing trend towards criminalization of migration in irregular situation. This criminalization makes migrants in irregular situation more likely to  face discrimination, exclusion, exploitation, abuse at all stages of the migration process.

We are especially concerned at the recent rise of intolerance, xenophobia and racism directed at migrants and their communities, which has sometimes manifested itself in acts of extreme violence against  migrants in transit and in destination countries.  Migrants can also easily fall prey to criminal traffickers and smugglers. Their irregular status often makes these men, women and children afraid or unable to seek protection and relief from the concerned authorities.

Inauguration of the Day Worker Center in Mountain View - What Immigration Reform Looks Like at the Neighborhood Level

 

More than 1,000 people turned out for the inauguration of the Day Worker Center of Mountain View. (from NDLON Youtube Channel).

French Ask for Return of Statue of Liberty

End of United States' ‘World-Wide Welcome’ Prompts Request

12.09.2010 – New York, NY

2010 may mark the year of international embarrassment for the United States. For the first time, this year marked the President submitting findings to the United Nations Human Rights review. After Arizona’s state law proved an international embarrassment for the United States, the country finds itself in a new diplomatic quandary.

 

The country of France has requested the return of the statue of liberty, a gift dedicated to the US in 1886.

 

“We have been watching developments with concern for quite some time,” explains French Ambassador, Mister Pierre Vimont. “It would seem now that America no longer considers herself the ‘Mother of Exiles’ as she once did.”

 

The ambassador refused to directly comment on what specifically motivated the dramatic request, stating, “We cannot interfere in US politics.” However, a representative of the embassy commented  “The statue’s inscription says, ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.’ These words would seem more appropriate on the doors of your country’s private prisons than on a symbol of liberty.”

 

Columbia University Professor of International Relations, Dr. Franklin Jenkins, observed, “the recent debate within New York over the state’s participation in the secure communities program, where the statue is located, is likely to be the most direct cause of the ambassador’s move.”

52 Year Old Who Came to US as a Toddler to be Deported

Mike now waits for ICE agents to break into his house for a second time and send him to a land he has never known. Then he would likely never see his parents again.

December 6, 2010 | Mike Burrows came to America when he was two years old, and has lived here for 50 years. Due to a technicality in harsh anti-immigration laws, he will likely be deported to his birthplace of Canada within weeks, a country that he has no current connection to and no memory of.

I was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. My dad worked for a division of Capitol Records. He received a transfer to Los Angeles, got permanent resident visas for the whole family and when I was two years eleven months old, we moved to the States. I grew up in Glendale, California, where I said the pledge of allegiance, played baseball, and lived like any American. Except for a first grade teacher who told me I could never be President, I thought I was just like everybody else. In high school, I played guitar in a band, played first base for the jv then varsity baseball team. All in all, I was living an American life.

-Mike Burrows

Is Obama an Accomplice to Arizona's Human Rights Crisis?

Now that the political posturing of the elections are behind us, it’s time for those in office to get to roll up their sleeves and enact policies that will take our country forward.  Free of ballot box considerations, the next months will demonstrate to the country where President Obama truly stands.

 Up until now, the rancid anti-immigrant atmosphere created by Republicans has left the president free to triangulate his position on the issue.  As long as the administration shows a hair’s width more compassion, the Democrats assume they’ve secured the Latino vote.

One place that assumption will be put to the test is in Maricopa County, Arizona. In the state that codified discrimination this Spring and most recently banned affirmative action as of the elections, the  administration appears to be talking from both sides of his mouth.

Sea Captains Learn, Babies Make Bad Anchors

Following the press conference of Arizona state legislator Russell Pearce in which he offered his amendment to the constitution to deny citizen ship to "anchor babies" or rather the first generation citizens born in the US, the Nautical Association of Sea Captains held their own press conference to refute Pearce's claims.

"Arrr see tha ting is. Turns out the little ones float." explained the association's representative.  "The thing Pearce doesn't realize is ya can't anchor anything to a baby. Tie one to the QE2 at full steam. You tell me which won't be budging."

The captain is an unlikely ally and added voice to the usual human rights advocates denouncing the bill.  Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network added, "[Pearce] is moving forward in yet another initiative that is sure to embroil Arizona in even more lawsuits and further make its name synonymous with the modern day McCarthys and Bull Connors."

The captain continued, "I don't know about the constitution but I do know at least one set of laws we DO obey and that's the laws of physics. Being from a desert climate I wouldn't much expect him to understand the ways of the ocean."

"Now if people are looking to anchor themselves somehow, I would suggest wrought iron, galvanized steel, or the like. Now that stuff will keep someone in place."

Advocates responded well to the Association's announcement, Alvarado concluded, "the Nautical Association's clarification that babies do not make good anchors shows what we all have known, this is one is a series of wrong-headed policies built upon a faulty logic. 

The joining of the Sea Captains into our coalition shows growing opposition to hateful laws like those proposed by Russell Pearce.  We will continue to fight, and we will certainly accept their rudders as we work together to turn the tide." -Satire.

 

 

No Need for a Warrant, You’re an Immigrant

DIFFERENT RULES A federal raid aimed at undocumented immigrants in Long Island last month angered local officials who objected to the lack of warrants.

By JULIA PRESTON

Published: October 14, 2007

Correction Appended

LONG ISLAND officials protested when federal agents searching for immigrant gang members raided local homes two weeks ago. The agents had rousted American citizens and legal immigrants from their beds in the night, complained Lawrence W. Mulvey, the Nassau County police commissioner, and arrested suspected undocumented immigrants without so much as a warrant.

“We don’t need warrants to make the arrests,” responded Peter J. Smith, the special agent in charge in New York for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the agency that conducted the raids.

His concise answer helps explain the friction that the Bush administration’s recent campaign of immigration enforcement has caused. Last week, immigration officials announced that they had made more than 1,300 arrests across the country over the summer when they went looking for gang members. Since the raids were carried out under immigration law, many protections in place under the American criminal codes did not apply. Foreign residents of the United States, whether here legally or not, answer to a different set of rules.