Immigrant rights are an issue around the world, not just in the US.

Continuing our previous work with sample urgent action letters, this time we have one regarding immigrant and migrant rights, specifically in Mexico. This particular case involves folks at a migrant shelter who have been subject to threats and to information theft. We are writing a letter to urge the government to grant the shelter protection as well as to investigate the threats and the theft cases. Please send a letter to the address below, using the sample letter as an example of what you should write to the governor:

Governor of Coahuila State
Rubén Moreira Valdez
Palacio de Gobierno Piso 1, Zona Centro, Saltillo, Coahuila C.P. 25000
MÉXICO

Dear Governor,

I am writing in concern for the BELEN MIGRANTS SHELTER, which has been subjected to threats and to information theft over the past few months. I demand that you and the authorities provide effective protection to members of the shelter in accordance to their wishes.

I also call on authorities to carry out a full, prompt and impartial investigation regarding the information theft events and telephone threat received by members of BELEN  MIGRANTS SHELTER, and to carry out an effective protection program as stipulated in the precautionary measures granted by the Inter American Commission of Human Rights.

Sincerely,

Your Name

For additional sample letters, check out our examples on the death penalty and for a prisoner of conscience, as well as our write-a-thon letter examples:

• Girifna
• Gao Zhisheng
• Hussain Salem Mohammed Almerfedi
• People of Bodo
• Monica Roa

Stop the Deportations – 2013 Tampa Dream Defenders Campaign

2012 was filled with battles and the Presidential Elections. One of the facts that hit home for us Tampa Dream Defenders was Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) recent report of  actual deportation numbers–over 400,000 of our immigrant brothers and sisters were deported. A NEW RECORD HIGH.

What this means for us Dream Defenders-devout activists working at “ending the illegal war on the undocumented” is we have to fight back! For our communities, for our friends, for our family, for our NATIONS. We Tampa Dream Defenders must empower our communities to not hide in the shadows of the intimidation ICE, Secure Communities and everyone who assists and supports them. We must and we will be working closely this year with our communities and uniting University of South Florida students with the outside perimeters of campus and vice versa.

Our campaign, Stop The Deportations will be welcoming all information of anyone who is either arrested by use of Secure Communities and or on the verge of being deported. You may email us here: tampadreamdefenders@gmail.com.

Efforts will not end there, however. We have joined the National Call-to-Action; which we will be pushing forward at every action we hold. (You too, can endorse!)
Legalization For All is not a crazy idea; it’s one that many would and could benefit from. No human is illegal and this year, Tampa Dream Defenders is out to let it be known.

#BE THE POWER!
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
(versión en español)

2012 fue lleno de batallas y las elecciones presidenciales. Uno de los hechos que dio en el blanco para Tampa Dream Defenders, fue el anuncio de los números reales de deportaciónes por la Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE). Más de 400.000 de nuestros hermanos y hermanas inmigrantes fueron deportados. Un nuevo récord.

¿Qué significa para los Tampa Dream Defenders? Trabajamos a “poner fin a la guerra ilegal contra los indocumentados” y que tenemos que luchar! Luchar por nuestras comunidades, nuestros amigos, nuestras familias, y nuestros pueblos. Nosotros, los Tampa Dream Defenders debemos y vamos a potenciar nuestras comunidades a no ocultarse en las sombras del ICE, intimidación, Comunidades Seguras y todo el que asiste y apoya. Debemos y vamos a trabajar muy de cerca este año con nuestras comunidades y la Universidad de la unión de estudiantes del sur de la Florida con los perímetros exteriores del campus y viceversa.

Nuestra campaña, detener las deportaciones dará la bienvenida a toda la información de cualquier persona que sea detenida por el uso de Comunidades Seguras y oa punto de ser deportada. Usted puede enviarnos un correo electrónico aquí: tampadreamdefenders@gmail.com.

Los esfuerzos no terminan ahí, sin embargo. Nos hemos sumado al llamado nacional a la acción, lo que vamos a impulsar en cada acción que tenemos. (Usted también puede apoyar!)
Legalización para Todos no es una idea loca, es que muchos quisieran y pudieran beneficiarse. Ningún ser humano es ilegal y este año, Tampa Dream Defenders ayudara a que se sepa.

#SER EL PODER!

Endorse the Call-to-Action!

Specifically… marginalized women.

Specifically… native women, immigrant women, women who are lesbians.

Objections to provisions specifically targeting the special needs of these populations… desperate needs…. live saving needs… are what killed it.  Because as little as the republican party thinks of women in general, marginalized women… vulnerable women… these women apparently don’t even exist and so neither do their needs.

But wait!  A talking head defending republican actions assures me that this isn’t a new controversy.  He assures me that VAWA has been controversial since its inception, with many republicans opposing it all along!

So because this isn’t a new tactic but an old one changing forms, I’m supposed to feel reassured as a women that the republicans really aren’t out to get me?

If the last sentence wasn’t dripping with sarcasm in your head when you read it, go back and read it again.

The following lines should be read with equal sarcasm, if not more.

If you are a victim in a same sex relationship, it doesn’t matter that there may not be services welcoming for you.  Your needs aren’t as important.

If you are an undocumented immigrant victim, it doesn’t matter that you may be too afraid to call the police when you’re being beaten.  Your needs aren’t as important.

If you are a native women on tribal lands, it doesn’t matter that there’s no jurisdiction to hold a non-native abuser accountable for beating or raping you.  Your needs aren’t as important.

These are historical responses by a white privileged elite to marginalized populations designed to keep their own entitlements intact by stomping on the souls of the oppressed.

We are supposed to be beyond this, yet we are not.

We are supposed to be a country where everyone can expect protection under the law, yet we are not.

How dare our elected officials bring us to this point.  How dare we allow them to do so.

That’s just how it looks through Aspen’s Eyes…

To find domestic violence services near you: http://www.thehotline.org/
To find sexual assault services near you: http://www.nsvrc.org/organizations
For more information on VAWA provisions, see here:
http://4vawa.org/pages/s1925-is-the-real-vawa

By Alan Bean

Thanks to Scott Henson for alerting me to this piece in the San Antonio Express-News.  In the 2012 election, as everyone knows, Latinos turned out in record numbers, voting overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.  Signs abound that Republicans, even in safely red states like Texas, are taking notice.

Even if Latinos continue to support Democrats, the blue team won’t be competitive in the Lone Star State for at least another decade.  But Republicans can’t win the presidency without significant Latino support, and that sobering fact has deflated the anti-immigrant movement, at least temporarily.

Long-term, Texas Republicans can maintain control of their state’s legislative machine only by cultivating Latino participation and influence.  That won’t happen if Texas Republicans are lining up to sponsor anti-immigrant legislation.

Jason Buch’s article (see below) suggests the Texas GOP may be awakening to the new reality.

If so, this is great news.  Mass deportation is having the same impact in poor Latino communities that mass incarceration has wrought in poor African American neighborhoods, and for similar reasons.

During the most recent session of the Texas legislature, immigrant rights activists combined with pro-business groups to defeat most Arizona-style bills. Texas businesses, large and small, need undocumented workers in the same way the GOP needs Latino votes.  Texas Republicans can soldier on as the Party of White for at least another decade without Latino support, but bereft of undocumented labor the state’s economic infrastructure would collapse.

Immigrants, legal and otherwise, contribute far more in labor and taxes than they absorb in various forms of social assistance. Brave men and women (it takes courage to cross the border these days) come to America in search of work and show their gratitude by working far harder than most native born citizens.  As Texas moves reluctantly into new demographic territory, may these good people receive the dignity and respect they deserve.

Immigration low on Texas’ legislative radar next year

By Jason Buch

When it was time to file bills ahead of the 2011 Texas legislative session, the race to address illegal immigration was so urgent that one Houston-area representative camped out on the steps of the Capitol to ensure she was the first to propose making it a state crime to be in Texas without papers.

As lawmakers prepare for the 2013 session, they are mostly silent on the immigration front. Those calling for states to crack down on immigration in Texas saw their efforts dissolve last year as lawmakers struggled to pass a budget.

The ban on so-called “sanctuary cities,” which Gov. Rick Perry had deemed emergency legislation, died in a late-night committee hearing as Republicans watched evangelical and big business leaders line up with Democrats to defeat the bill.

This year, the Supreme Court struck down key provisions of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, including portions similar to the bill Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, stayed out all night to file in November 2010.

San Antonio’s Lyle Larson, one of the few representatives to file bills related to immigration so far, said one reason for the lack of interest may be that many of the legislators who pushed for state laws addressing the issue aren’t returning this session.

Riddle, who has yet to file an immigration bill, did not respond to a request for comment.

Some observers say there’s no stomach for anti-immigration laws this time around.

The widely held perception is that harsh rhetoric on immigration helped sink Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in November, and could do the same to the Republican majority in Texas

“People are a lot smarter about the issue,” Austin political consultant Bill Miller said. “They got really educated in the last general election.”

Larson, a Republican entering his second term, said he’s trying to “open a dialogue” on immigration with bills that would require institutions like hospitals and schools to record the immigration status of people who receive services, mirroring a bill that failed last session, and repealing a state law that gives in-state tuition to college students in the country illegally.

“My issue is for whatever reason, for the last 20 years, the state of Texas has taken a posture that we don’t want to alienate folks from Mexico,” Larson said “And I agree with that, but there’s nothing wrong with having a healthy discussion about some of the issues that are affecting our country.”

The various university systems’ boards of regents can decide if they want to grant in-state tuition to students who aren’t here legally, he said.

Larson also said he wants to track how much local service providers spend on those in the country illegally.

He points to a 2006 Texas comptroller’s study that found those here illegally pay more taxes than they use in services at the state level, but couldn’t calculate the cost at the local level.

A law proposed by Rep. Bill Zedler, R-Arlington, would prevent local governments from spending money on day labor centers.

Larson in sent a letter in April to then-Mexican President Felipe Calderón asking that Mexico compensate Texas for money spent on services to those here illegally. He didn’t get a response.

San Antonio Democratic Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said Larson is advocating “extreme immigration policies.”

Martinez Fischer said he’s not convinced immigration won’t become an issue later in the session, despite the dearth of bills addressing the issue.

“On the one hand, it could be a lesson learned for the Republican Party about what might happen when you pick on Latinos,” he said. “Quite frankly, the legislative session is 140 days, and perhaps would-be immigrant bashers are just waiting for the moment to strategically file legislation.”

The 2001 in-state tuition bill that Larson wants to repeal was cited by Perry during his unsuccessful bid for the GOP presidential nomination.

During the campaign, the governor stood by his decision to sign the bill, which his opponents used against him. A spokesman wouldn’t say if Perry would veto Larson’s bill, should it pass.

“The governor will review any bill that makes it to his desk, but as he has said before, he stands behind the decision the Texas Legislature made in 2001,” Perry spokesman Josh Havens said.

Perry still would like to see a ban on “sanctuary cities,” Havens said. The bill the governor supported last year would have punished governmental entities and law enforcement departments that prevent their officers from asking about immigration status. It was strongly opposed by police chiefs from the state’s biggest cities.

Steve Munisteri, chairman of the Texas Republican Party, said that with illegal immigration at the lowest it’s been in decades and members of Congress from both parties seriously considering immigration reform, the onus to address the program has moved off state legislators.

Creating a guest-worker program, which many Republican leaders support and which the state party called for when it ratified a new platform this year, needs to be done in Washington, Munisteri said.

“I think there’s an awareness in state legislatures that maybe we should wait to see what happens at the national level,” he said.

jbuch@express-news.net
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/One-word-no-longer-heard-in-Austin-4145436.php#ixzz2GMZguIpD

Americans don’t agree on issues like abortion and gun rights, but most sentient citizens understand that kids need to be with their parents and parents need to be with their children.  We grieve for the families in Newtown CT who lost a child to a mad rampage because the worst nightmare of any parent is the horror of losing a child.

Does our compassion extend to undocumented parents separated from their children through deportation?  Seth Wessler has faithfully covered this issue for Colorlines and his most recent article raises issues most of us never think about because we don’t have to.  Parents frequently cross the border illegally in an attempt to reunite with a child.  Deportation destroys families.  Some deportees make several failed attempts to cross the border regardless of the consequences.  That’s what parents do.

Nearly 205K Deportations of Parents of U.S. Citizens in Just Over Two Years

by Seth Freed Wessler

The federal government conducted more than 200,000 deportations of parents who said their children are U.S. citizens in a timespan of just over two years, according to new data obtained by Colorlines.com. The figures represent the longest view to date of the scale of parental deportation.

Between July 1, 2010, and Sept. 31, 2012, nearly 23 percent of all deportations—or, 204,810 deportations—were issued for parents with citizen children, according to federal data unearthed through a Freedom of Information Act request. [See the full data set here.]

Because some people may have been deported more than once in the time period, the data represents total deportations conducted, not the number of individuals removed from the country. However, experts say that the total number of deportations of parents may be higher because some mothers and fathers fear telling authorities that they have kids. An additional group of parents whose kids are not U.S. citizens are not reflected in the numbers.

As Congress and the White House promise immigration reform legislation in the new year, the numbers raise questions about the impact of the government’s immigration policies on families and about what happens to the children whose mothers and fathers are deported from the United States.

“We are in a crisis situation in which we need to start taking action immediately to prevent these needless and often-times permanent separations of American children from their families,” California Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard said in an interview with Colorlines.com. Roybal-Allard, a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, introduced legislation last year that would protect detained and deported immigrant parents from losing their children.

“We have to make sure that all children are protected,” Roybal-Allard said. “We’re talking about U.S. citizens; their pleas and cries for help are pretty much being ignored at this point.”

Congress in 2009 ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement to compile data on parental deportation beginning on July 1, 2010, and to release it every six months. Since then, however, the federal government hasreleased the figures just once, and only for the first six months of 2011.

The new data includes all deported mothers and fathers who reported having U.S.-citizen kids since July 1, 2010, including those in the previously reported six-month period. Rates of parental deportation have remained more or less level since the government began collecting the data, and annually, more than 90,000 parents with U.S.-citizen kids are removed from the United States.

Families Torn Apart

Questions remain about what happens to the children of deportees.

“We don’t know how many [children] stay here and how many go with their parents,” said Luis H. Zayas, the dean of the University of Texas School of Social Work who is at work on a federally funded study on the mental health impacts on children when mothers and fathers are deported

“We know there are traumatic effects on the kids,” Zayas added. “We are talking about separating families from children. That’s not something our government should be doing.”

Zayas said that when children follow their parents to Mexico, the country where most deportees are from, they often struggle with stigma and deep poverty. “Many of their parents fled poverty, fled government oppression and when they return, they return to these origins. That puts kids at risk.”

It’s clear, however, that a disturbing number of children are separated from their families for significant stretches of time, and some permanently. A Colorlines.com investigation released in November 2011 estimated that there were at least 5,100 children in foster care who faced significant barriers to reunifying with their detained and deported parents. We projected that if deportation and child welfare policies remained unchanged, another 15,000 kids could face a similar fate over the three years between 2012 and 2014.

Among them were the children of Felipe Montes, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who was deported from his home in North Carolina in December 2010 because he had racked up a series of driving violations. He left behind three young U.S.-citizen children and a wife, Marie Montes. The kids initially remained with their mother, but Felipe Montes had been the primary caretaker and wage earner in the family and without the support of her husband the county child welfare department soon determined that Marie Montes, who had long struggled with mental illness and drug abuse, could not care for them. The three young boys were shuttled into foster care with couples who hoped to adopt them and the child welfare department refused to reunite the kids with their father in Mexico.

Last month, after a long court battle that drew national attention, a state judge in North Carolina granted Montes custody of his three kids. The 32-year-old father expects to take them with him to Mexico after the child welfare case is closed as planned in February.

The Administration’s ‘Discretion’

The new figures show that rates of parental deportation have remained largely level since Congress ordered ICE to begin collecting the data, quashing hopes from some advocates that the agency’s 2011 “prosecutorial discretion” guidelines would lead to a decline in these removals.

The guidelines, released on June 17, 2011, in a memo from ICE director John Morton, instructed ICE agents to focus deportation efforts on people with serious criminal convictions, those picked up crossing the border into the U.S., and those who had previously been deported from the country.

The memo also ordered agents making deportation decisions to weigh “the person’s ties and contributions to the community, including family relationships,” and “whether the person has a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse, child, or parent.”

In answer to questions about the parental deportation data, ICE officials told Colorlines.com the continued pace of deportations does not reflect a failure to implement prosecutorial discretion, because most deported parents have other factors weighing against them.

“Evaluation of this data in the past has repeatedly shown that the overwhelming majority of these individuals have significant criminal and/or immigration histories placing them within ICE’s enforcement priorities,” wrote agency spokesperson Gillian Christensen in an emailed statement, “therefore making them ineligible for an exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”

In April, the Arizona Republic reported over 74 percent of deported parents had been convicted of crimes, according to ICE figures. Another 13 percent had been deported previously.

But the devil is in the details. And the question for parental deportation is the same as for other groups the federal government have said are criminals: what’s considered “significant” criminal background? Figures on deportations though the Secure Communities, an ICE program that picks up immigrants in local jails, reveals that nearly 40 percent of deportees with convictions were charged with the lowest level crimes, including driving offenses.

Advocates note that regardless of whether a deported mother or father falls into one of the government’s priority groups, the impact on their kids the same. “Any deportation of a parent is a horrible thing for the child,” said Emily Butera, senior program officer at the Women’s Refugee Commission who advocates in Washington for greater protections for these families. “The reason for the deportation is immaterial for the kid.”

Officials say they’ve made strides to protect parents who fall outside of their target populations and are the primary caretakers for children.

“ICE works with individuals in removal proceedings to ensure they have ample opportunity to make important decisions regarding the care and custody of their children,” Christensen noted. “ICE is sensitive to the fact that encountering those who violate our immigration laws may impact families.”

As a sign of this, agency officials point to Felipe Montes, to whom the agency granted a rare “humanitarian parole” to reenter the country in August so that he could attend court hearings on his parental rights.

But immigration attorneys say the Montes case is a rare exception and that few, if any other deported parents have the opportunity to come back. Meanwhile, attorneys say that immigrants held in immigration detention centers continue to struggle to maintain contact with their children.

The data does show a slight decline in the number of parental deportations in the most recently reported three month period. From July until September of this year, ICE deported 20,878 parents, about 10 percent less than average. The overall deportation numbers for August to September of this year have yet to be released however, so it’s impossible to know whether this also marks a decline in the larger rate of deportation.

One reason for the small decline could be that in recent months, ICE appears to have had less luck getting judges to order the deportation of parents. Before January of this year, ICE was able to obtain deportation orders from immigration judges in 50 to 58 percent of cases. Since April, courts have handed down deportation orders in fewer than 43 percent of cases.

Concern over what happens to the children of deportees is now squarely at the center of recent advocacy and congressional promises about an immigration reform bill likely to be introduced next year. Last week, dozens of children, some whose own parents have been deported, arrived on Capitol Hill to deliver boxes of letters from other kids asking Congress to stop deporting parents. The “We Belong Together” campaign, as the effort convened by several advocacy groups is called, aims to call attention to the impact of deportations on kids.

White House officials and members of Congress have promised to push an immigration reform bill early next year, after deliberations over the “fiscal cliff” settle. Rep. Roybal-Allard, who joined a briefing with the group of children last week, told Colorlines.com that she and other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are demanding that any comprehensive immigration reform bill focus on family unity. She wants the bill she introduced last year, the Help Separated Families Act, to be folded into the comprehensive immigration legislation passed by Congress. The bill would provide protections for deported parents and for undocumented family members who care for their young relatives

“There needs to be a path to citizenship for those here, and there needs to be provision to keep families together,” she said. “I’m not sure that my colleagues in general are aware of the information that you are now bringing to light.”

“Imagine, if you will, that, on the same day, all migrants and immigrants decide to return to their countries of origin. The Filipina nanny would pack her bags and leave the family in Singapore whose children she has been raising. The sub-urban couple in San Diego would be without their Mexican gardener who worked for less than five dollars an hour. Italian farmers would find the fruit rotting on their trees because their cheap migrant workers left the orchard. New York’s manufacturing sector would collapse because a large portion of the workforce is absent. Worse, Wall Street would be closed because cleaners, security guards, office staff, and taxi drivers are unavailable. Many sectors of the economy in industrialized countries would come to an immediate standstill. The rest of the economy would follow within days, if not hours. Although not your typical doomsday scenario, this hypothetical example illustrates that our economy depends on the labor of often “invisible” international migrants.” (Bauder 2006: 3)

18 December is the International Migrants’ Day proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in remembrance of the adoption of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families on 18 December 1990. Today, large-scale immigration is even more a reality than 20 years ago and the opening passage of Harald Bauder’s book Labor Movement above nicely illustrates the degree to which the Western economies have become dependent on the employment of migrant labor. Migrant workers surround us, do the jobs we are no longer willing to do ourselves and work hours and under conditions we would not tolerate. But what explains this demand in our purportedly advanced “knowledge economies” for low-skilled and low-paid labor done by immigrants? What vital function are they playing for our economy?

Here are 10 reasons why employers like hiring immigrant workers:

1. Migrants ideally satisfy the need to fill the bottom positions in the social hierarchy

Some jobs in our economies just do not offer much in terms of social status or prestige, think for example of cleaners, door-keepers or agricultural laborers. They are dead-end and offer no real opportunities for promotion. Yet, as studies show, people do not only care about earning money, but also about the immaterial benefits a job offers, in particular the position in the social hierarchy compared to others. It is hence difficult for employers to find motivated natives who are willing to do these jobs and they resort to migrants. Migrants, at least in the early stages of their stay, consider themselves less a part of the host society and the standards by which they judge their jobs are usually lower. Their primary goal is to earn as much money as possible in a short time and to improve their social status back home (e.g. building a house, sending the children to school).

2. Migrants are a flexible and disposable workforce

In an unstable economic environment characterized by continuous ups and downs, migrants can offer employers some extra flexibility. While native workers do often benefit from some form of employment protection, migrants mostly hold unstable jobs and can be easily laid-off when business conditions worsen. They form a disposable workforce, what Marx called a “reserve army of labor”, that employers can draw on to fill temporary needs when business is thriving. On the other hand, migrants will typically be the first ones to be fired when the economy worsens.

3. Migrants offer employers an opportunity to lower salaries and cut wage costs

Globalization – the outsourcing and offshoring of production abroad – and technological change have created new opportunities for high-skilled workers and multinational enterprises. However, small and medium sized companies, in particular those in the labor-intensive service-industries, do not have the option of relocating operations to low-cost countries: offices and hotel-rooms have to be cleaned and dinners served where the customers are. They hence react to the new pressures by cost-cutting measures, subcontracting and lowering wages. Migrants are more willing to accept lower-wages since they compare what they can earn here to the conditions back in their home country, which are often far worse. Working conditions in their home country may be so bad – or unemployment that high – that many migrants prefer working for very low wages here than working for almost nothing back in their home countries.

 4. Rising inequality in income and wealth

Over the last decades, inequalities in income and wealth have been rising in almost all Western societies. The rising inequality has not only created poverty and deprivation in the lower strata of society, but also a wealthy upper-class that has a growing need for personal and domestic services. Hence low-income workers, often immigrants, serve in the restaurants where the wealthy dine, clean the offices where the wealthy work and care for their children or their elderly parents. The growing wealth has also led to an increase in the size of people’s homes over the last two decades, creating a need for cleaners, gardeners, etc. just to keep everything nice and pretty.

5. The growth of the informal economy

The informal or so-called “shadow” economy plays and increasingly important role especially in bigger cities.  Companies that can no longer compete in the formal economy may prefer to go “underground”. Often these firms do not produce illegal products but affordable goods for the low-income communities. In particular for undocumented migrants, who do lack the permission to work in the formal economy, employment in the shadow economy is often the only possibility to find a job and earn a living at all. But also documented migrants may be hired in the informal economy since the lack of a formal contract gives employers additional flexibility and opportunities to further lower costs.

6. Migrants have a superior ‘work-ethic’

Studies that involve interviews with employers of migrants often highlight migrants’ perceived superior ‘attitude’ or ‘work ethic’ when compared to local workers. Migrant workers are described as more disciplined and hard working than natives. They are often more willing to work night shifts or over-hours and complain less about their tasks and working conditions. This should not surprise us. On the one hand, migrants are often just more in need of earning money in order to send it back to their families. The smaller size of family and social networks also makes them more likely to live on site or work long hours. On the other hand, migrants often don’t know their rights at the workplace, e.g. regulations concerning breaks and over-hours. Their informal or precarious employment status also makes them less likely to complain because of fear of loosing their job.

7. High-levels of seasonal fluctuation

Migrants often work in industries like agriculture, construction or the hotel sector that have a need for a high number of workers during peak season. This allows them to earn money over a short time and spend the rest of the year at home with their families. Yet, these jobs are also often those referred to as the “3-D” jobs: dirty, dangerous and degrading.

 8. Racial and gendered stereotypes

In some cases, the choice of migrant workers is based on racial and gendered stereotypes regarding the appropriateness of certain kinds of work for certain kinds of people. This affects in particular women who clean and care in private households or work in the sex industry. Their employers might prefer women from developing countries because they consider them as inferior and appropriate for the kind unskilled work they have to perform.

9. Disciplining the local workforce

At least historically, migrants have also been used by employers as strike-busters in order to break the power of labor unions. When workers laid down their tools and went on strike against harsh working conditions or low wages, employers recruited immigrant workers to keep up the work. Immigrants are much less likely to be organized in unions and to join the ranks of the labor movement. This allowed employers to withstand the strike and to defeat unions’ claims. This tactic often drove a wedge between different parts of the workforce and undermined the power of the labor movement to the detriment of all workers.

10. Path-dependence

A final reason why employers may want to hire immigrants is a matter of path-dependency. Once a substantial part of his workforce is made up of immigrants from one country speaking the same language, it may be just more practical for an employer to hire workers with the same background that can easily interact and communicate with their co-workers. Moreover, there is ample evidence that immigrants and their communities, once one or a few immigrant workers are hired in a given workplace, will tend to bring in other members as job openings arise. Finally, once specific types of jobs or sectors are associated with particular immigrant communities, this may further discourage native workers to take on these jobs in the long run.

Looking at the demand for migrant labor in our economy from this perspective, we see that migrants perform vital functions in our societies that allow us to sustain our own lifestyle, in particular concerning the consumption of cheap products and services. In reality, immigrants do not ‘steal our jobs’, as often claimed by anti-immigrant populism, but do the jobs natives are no longer willing to do themselves. On the other hand, the current model works by restricting the rights of migrant workers, producing a flexible and vulnerable workforce. This opens the gates for exploitative labor practices and abuse ranging from sub-standard working conditions, to the withholding of wages to slavery-like practices of forced labor and human trafficking.

Making migration more beneficial and equitable for both the host society and the migrants hence requires the protection of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of migrants as set out in the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. What we need is a rights-based approach to international migration that not only furthers employers’ interests in flexibility and cost cutting, but also the interests of migrant workers in decent employment. No migrant-receiving State in Western Europe or North America has ratified the Convention yet! This is a shame. After all, we are as dependent on them as they are on us.

- Joscha

Literature

Anderson, B., (2000) Doing the Dirty Work? The global politics of domestic labour, London, Zed Books

Bauder, H., 2006. Labor movement, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Cohen, R., 1987. The new helots: Migrants in the international division of labour, Gower.

Piore, M.J., 1979. Birds of passage : migrant labor and industrial societies, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Ruhs, M., Anderson, B. & Phil, D., 2010. Who needs migrant workers?: labour shortages, immigration, and public policy, Oxford University Press.

Samers, M., 2010. Migration, London; New York: Routledge.

Sassen, S., 1996. New employment regimes in cities: the impact on immigrant workers. Journal of ethnic and migration studies, 22(4), pp.579–594.

Taran, P. & Chammartin, G.M., 2003. Getting at the roots: Stopping exploitation of migrant workers by organized crime.

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New York, NY, and Newark, New Jersey, December 17, 2012 − Today, the Center for Social Justice (CSJ) at Seton Hall University School of Law and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) released a report documenting an alarming number of cases in which U.S. hospitals have forcibly repatriated vulnerable undocumented patients, who are ineligible for public insurance as a result of their immigration status, in an effort to cut costs. This practice is inherently risky and often results in significant deterioration of a patient’s health, or even death.  The report asserts that such actions are in violation of basic human rights, in particular the right to due process and the right to life.

According to the report, the U.S. is responsible for this situation by failing to appropriately reform immigration and health care laws and protect those within its borders from human rights abuses. The report argues that medical deportations will likely increase as safety net hospitals, which provide the majority of care to undocumented and un- or underinsured patients, encounter tremendous financial pressure resulting from dramatic funding cutbacks under the Affordable Care Act.

The report cites more than 800 cases of attempted or actual medical deportations across the country in recent years, including: a nineteen-year-old girl who died shortly after being wheeled out of a hospital back entrance typically used for garbage disposal and transferred to Mexico; a car accident victim who died shortly after being left on the tarmac at an airport in Guatemala; and a young man with catastrophic brain injury who remains bed-ridden and suffering from constant seizures after being forcibly deported to his elderly mother’s hilltop home in Guatemala.

According to Lori A. Nessel, a Professor at Seton Hall University School of Law and Director of the School’s Center for Social Justice, “When immigrants are in need of ongoing medical care, they find themselves at the crossroads of two systems that are in dire need of reform—health care and immigration law. Aside from emergency care, hospitals are not reimbursed by the government for providing ongoing treatment for uninsured immigrant patients.  Therefore, many hospitals are engaging in de facto deportations of immigrant patients without any governmental oversight or accountability.  This type of situation is ripe for abuse.”

“Any efforts at comprehensive immigration reform must take into account the reality that there are millions of immigrants with long-standing ties to this country who are not eligible for health insurance.  Because health reform has excluded these immigrants from its reach, they remain uninsured and at a heightened risk of medical deportation,” added Shena Elrington, Director of the Health Justice Program at NYLPI. “Absent legislative or regulatory change, the number of forced or coerced medical repatriations is likely to grow as hospitals face mounting financial pressures and reduced Charity Care and federal contributions.”

Rachel Lopez, an Assistant Clinical Professor with CSJ stated, “The U.S. is bound to protect immigrants’ rights to due process under both international law and the U.S. Constitution.  Hospitals are becoming immigration agents and taking matters into their own hands.  It is incumbent on the government to stop the disturbing practice of medical deportation and to ensure that all persons within the country are treated with basic dignity.”

More information about this issue can be found at medicalrepatriation.wordpress.com, a NYLPI- and CSJ-run website that monitors news and advocacy developments on the topic of medical deportation.

About New York Lawyers for the Public Interest

New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) advances equality and civil rights, with a focus on health justice, disability rights and environmental justice, through the power of community lawyering and partnerships with the private bar. Through community lawyering, NYLPI puts its legal, policy and community organizing expertise at the service of New York City communities and individuals.

About the Center for Social Justice at Seton Hall University School of Law

The Center for Social Justice (CSJ) is one of the nation’s strongest pro bono and clinical programs, empowering students to gain critical, hands-on experience by providing pro bono legal services for economically disadvantaged residents in the region. The cases on which students work span the range from the local to global. Providing educational equity for urban students, litigating on behalf of the victims of real estate fraud, protecting the human rights of immigrants, and obtaining asylum for those fleeing persecution are just some of the issues that CSJ faculty and students team up to address.

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Media Contacts:

Lori A. Nessel, Professor of Law and Director, Center for Social Justice, Seton Hall University School of Law, Lori.Nessel@shu.edu, 973-642-8708

Stephanie Ramirez, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, sramirez@groupgordon.com, 212-784-5704

Photo Credit: SEIU International

The United States embodies a history of anti-immigrant sentiment, underlining the challenge we face in integrating immigrants into our society. By stereotyping newcomers and placing pressure on immigrants to assimilate into mainstream, American culture, we struggle to construct policies that will effectively integrate immigrants in a respectful, productive manner. Released by the University of Southern California’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) in September 2012, The California Immigrant Integration Scorecard represents an in-depth study that can help policymakers better understand the current social and economic circumstances for immigrant communities as they work to reform policies that address the needs of immigrants in California. Representing 27% of California’s population, research on the way in which particular regions in the state incorporate immigrants into society is crucial in understanding the immigrant experience. Using this study and similar research, we can begin to eliminate anti-immigrant sentiment by understanding their stories and illuminating their perspectives to form policies that will address the needs of immigrant communities in the United States.

In contrast to the notion of assimilation, in which immigrant communities begin to loose ties to their home countries and cultures as they become more “Americanized,” integration takes on a much more respectful approach that considers the value of the immigrant experience and perspective as they enter the United States. The California Immigrant Integration Scorecard defines integration as “improved economic mobility for, enhanced civic participation by, and receiving society openness to immigrants.” This view of integration envisions the empowerment of immigrants to find a voice in our country and have a chance to achieve economic upward mobility. It also requires citizens of the United States to wipe away anti-immigrant sentiment and welcome newcomers to our country by understanding their perspectives and contributions to society. The Scorecard goes on to describe immigrant integration “as a dynamic, two-way process in which newcomers and the receiving society both have a responsibility for integration, and both benefit as they work together to build secure, vibrant, and cohesive communities.” Unlike assimilation, which places an emphasis on American culture by ignoring the contributions of an immigrants home culture, integration requires a sense of open-mindedness from both citizens and immigrants that will build more accepting, diverse communities and further collaboration to benefit a more productive society.

As demonstrated in the purpose of this study, in-depth research that emphasizes statewide data helps policymakers improve immigration reform policies. In better understanding the experiences of immigrant communities, we can establish effective institutional structures to support immigrants economically and socially. According to Scorecard, this study serves as a tool for “policymakers and organizers to find promising policies and actions to model in their regions” and “to highlight a common agenda across regions throughout the state.” In finding what environments best support immigrant communities, we can begin to replicate these practices in other parts of the state that fail to successfully integrate immigrants. In addition, it helps further the common agenda of creating reform measures to integrate immigrants by establishing environments in which they can achieve economic and social mobility, and feel welcomed and respected.

An investigation economic snapshots, the economic trajectory, the warmth of welcome, and civic engagement in each of the ten California regions studied in this report demonstrates the level to which each area successfully or unsuccessfully integrates immigrants. According to the data, Santa Clara provides the most civic engagement and the best economic snapshot for immigrant communities. In addition, San Francisco appears to be the most welcoming and San Joaquin provides the highest economic trajectory for immigrants. On the other hand, Fresno is the least welcoming area and has the fewest opportunities for the civic engagement of immigrants. Also, Los Angeles provides the poorest economic snapshot and San Francisco has the lowest economic trajectory. Using this data, researchers can find out which policies and practices represent the most inclusive means of integrating immigrants into society.

In moving forward, the California Immigrant Integration Scorecard and other studies can be used as tools to increase immigrant inclusion in society. More specifically, it can be used by “business leaders, community organizers, civic leaders, policy makers, philanthropists, and the like, to build consensus and funnel investments toward immigrant inclusion.” Essentially, we must establish common agendas for reform based on the lived experiences of immigrants. We can work towards creating these agendas through outreach and acknowledging institutional issues facing immigrants such as housing inequities, language barriers, and lack of access to adequate healthcare. “In the face of anti-immigrant sentiment and more minimal immigrant-serving infrastructure,” in-depth research can highlight the areas we need to improve to include immigrants and the methods that are effective in integrating immigrant communities.

By Alan Bean

Two Latino parents were arrested in Detroit on Tuesday morning as they dropped their children off at school.  Immigrant rights groups are outraged.  Officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) say they were simply following procedures.

Although Latino voters gave Barack Obama his margin of victory in 2012, more undocumented residents have been deported under his watch than under any previous administration.  Obama won because Latino voters perceived, correctly, that the situation would have deteriorated even further had Mitt Romney become president.

Were the ICE officials who arrested two men in front of their children following standard procedures?  Probably.  The Obama administration is ostensibly focusing on deporting criminals while going easy on undocumented residents with close family ties in America.  Unfortunately, as the article below makes clear, entering the country without documentation is now a federal crime even, as is often the case, the primary reason for entering the United States was to be re-united with young children.

If you were deported as an “illegal alien” while your citizen child remained in the United States, what would you do?

Nothing?  Perhaps, but if you didn’t do everything in your power to get back with your child you would lose my respect (and Jesus wouldn’t be impressed either).

Yet this was precisely the crime that transformed one of the arrested fathers into a “criminal alien”.

The other man had been arrested for driving under the influence.  A serious crime, right?  But would an arrest have taken place if the man’s physical characteristics hadn’t placed him in the “suspicious” category?

On the basis of this brief article, it’s impossible to know.  Was he apprehended because he was swerving all over the road; or was he stopped because he fit the “criminal alien” profile and when they ran a routine test it turned out he had consumed one too many?

How many times have you slid behind the wheel in a state of mild inebriation?  Perhaps never, but most of us will drive if we don’t “feel drunk”, not realizing that we are probably a hair over the legal limit.  Should we do this?  Of course we shouldn’t.  Should we be deported for doing it?  Well, that’s not a question most of us will never have to worry about.

Immigrant rights activists say they were outraged by the arrests because watching your father arrested by ICE agents might traumatize young children.  I’m sure it does.  But would the children have been less traumatized if the immigration people had waited for a more opportune moment to make their move?

What the immigrant rights people really mean is that separating families in this way is immoral and ungodly under any circumstances. But they can’t say that because the nations’ right to control its borders by any means necessary cannot be questioned.  So we say the ICE guys were being tacky and insensitive.  And they were.  But they were also just doing their jobs.  Firing a couple of people for doing what we pay them to do will solve nothing.  We need to rethink the immigration issue from the perspective of the child who watches daddy disappear into a police car never to be seen again.

If the Bible is anything to go by, that is God’s perspective.

Groups Protest Operation by Immigration Agents

By JULIA PRESTON

Published: October 17, 2012

An operation by federal immigration agents in Detroit set off protests from Latino and church groups on Wednesday after the officers stopped two illegal immigrants as they were dropping off their children at school.

Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement followed both immigrants, who are from Mexico, as they left their homes in southwest Detroit on Tuesday morning, officials from the agency said. Both men had children in their vehicles.

One man, Jorge Hernandez, said he was pulled over by agents in unmarked cars across the street from his 4-year-old daughter’s school, the Manuel Reyes Vistas Nuevas Head Start center in southwest Detroit. Mr. Hernandez was questioned but eventually released.

The other man, Hector Orozco Villa, told immigrant advocates that he had been detained by agents near the elementary school of two of his children, Cesar Chavez Academy, a few blocks from the Head Start center. Mr. Orozco remains in the custody of the agency, which is known as ICE.

The presence of the agents spread alarm among arriving parents and children in the Latino neighborhood, school officials said. More than 100 people rallied on Wednesday to protest, according to a report in The Detroit News, saying the immigration agency had broken an earlier promise to avoid arrests near schools and other community gathering points.

“It is very alarming to me to have this happen during the rush hour of people taking their children to school,” said Rashida Tlaib, a Democratic state representative who attended the rally. “We are really worried about the impact on these United States citizen children.” Several of Mr. Hernandez’s and Mr. Orozco’s children were born in the United States.

The incident revealed the raw sensitivities in some immigrant communities as federal agents carry out the increasingly complex deportation policy of the Obama administration. Agents have been instructed to focus on capturing illegal immigrants who are convicted criminals or repeat immigration violators, and to avoid detaining those who have committed no serious crimes and have strong family ties to the United States.

After investigating, immigration officials said that the officers’ actions were consistent with agency policies.

“After a thorough review of facts, the arrest of a priority target today in the Detroit metro area adhered to, and was in full compliance of, the stated policies and procedures of the agency,” said Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for the agency. “This includes ICE policy regarding enforcement actions at or near sensitive locations.”

Immigration officials said agents had moved to arrest Mr. Orozco because he had a criminal conviction in 2008 for driving under the influence and had also returned to the United States after being formally deported, which is a felony. The officials said that Mr. Orozco had been detained four blocks from the Chavez Academy.

The officials said that Mr. Hernandez was not a primary target of their operation, but that he had two convictions for driving with an expired license.

In an interview, Mr. Hernandez said his 7-year-old son had also been in his vehicle, along with his wife, when he was stopped. He said his son had become distraught and said, in English, to the officers: “Please don’t take my dad. We want to go to school.”

The episode was reminiscent of a similar confrontation last year when immigrant rights organizations accused immigration agents in Detroit of patrolling near schools and, in at least one instance, setting off a panic. The agency determined that agents had violated no policies but clarified its guidelines for operations near schools.

This year has been rough around here–a massive tax cut turned our Kansas half-a-billion dollar ending balance into deficits as far as the eye can see.

I’m buying reams of paper for my kid’s public school. Things are depressing.

But we have to gear up for the year to come. We have a lot to do and reasons to believe that we can do much.

So, a list of some good news (not exhaustive, certainly) about which we should get excited.

I’m crowdsourcing this one, because, quite honestly, my list isn’t long enough and I need some help here. Please share your good news–encouraging progress with a client, progressive policy changes I missed, social movements that we should be excited about, even just random acts of kindness worth sharing.

As we inoculate ourselves for the year to come, we can use all the good news we can get.

• DACA Scholarships: I love it when people get it, that immigrant students are one of the best things we have going for us, and then are willing to put their money behind supporting their dreams. This rocks.
• The economy has improved: I don’t know if it will last, and it certainly doesn’t erase the hardship, but every new job opening means an opportunity for someone who needs one, and we need to celebrate that, even while working harder to build an economy that will really work for working people.
• $500 can mean the difference between a kid going to college or not: Think about it. Seriously. For less than the cost of a fancy new television, we can dramatically alter a student’s educational prospects, just by providing them with seed money to orient them towards college. And, hurray! Research works, too!
• Advocacy works, and people want to help us do it better: I’ll have more next year about the findings of this report, but, for now, I’m rejoicing that there were so many successful advocacy campaigns and advocacy organizations for them to profile. Advocacy can make a difference.
• People are still welcoming: I love Welcoming America, and I love Welcoming Week, and I love that people–teenagers and church women and city council people and librarians and business owners–are coming together to reject anti-immigrant rhetoric and build welcoming communities that are prosperous and harmonious.
• Scholarships to assist people with mental illness in completing higher education: I have been enriched by my opportunities to learn from my students who have mental illnesses, and I am grateful for efforts to reduce some of the barriers that these potential students face in their education.
• Half the Sky: I really, really needed that this year. Are these women the most amazing and inspiring people? Yes. Do I appreciate even more their apparent averageness, because it challenges me to do more, instead of just putting them on a pedestal? Also yes.

What else? What good news are you sitting on that you just have to share?

On the immigrant rights front, from which I cannot extricate myself even if I try–I know the stories too well to be a dispassionate observer to the injustices on those front lines–it could be a very, very ugly year.

But that doesn’t mean that our only option is to bang our heads against the wall, or–heaven forbid–just to sit down and take it.

If we think about the entire framework of advocacy, and all of the different avenues that are available to us, then new arenas for change open up.

Maybe the Kansas Legislature won’t be a very fruitful venue for progressive change in 2013 (THAT was as nice a way of saying that as I can possibly muster!), but we can still think about engagement with the public, media advocacy, research and policy design, and community mobilization, among others, as paths we might take.

It may even be that, sometimes, direct policy change isn’t even the ‘end’ towards which our means are directed, at least not in the short-term.

It may be that what we need to do, and the ends towards which we are aimed, is to change the conversation, to begin to bring a fuller complement of ‘our’ issues into the dialogue, and to include a better representation of the voices that matter to us.

That’s essentially the thinking behind the “I Am Kansas” campaign, launched by an organization with which I’ve worked over the years, as part of a ‘welcoming’ initiative.

It’s about highlighting the contributions of immigrants, normalizing their experiences, and counteracting some of the negative and misleading information that is pumped into the debate, in order to artificially set the parameters of acceptable policy approaches.

This isn’t just ‘loosey-goosey’ touchy-feely stuff about helping people get to know each other better.

I tend not to get too into that.

It’s intentional, and it’s linked to a theory of change and a whole psychology of policymaking decisions, that holds that people are more inclined to be comfortable harming, through policy, those who they consider to be the ‘other’.

If immigrants are ‘us’, though, then our policy options are a bit more limited.

If we can change the conversation, and change the tone, then we change the context in which policies are enacted, and stopped.

And, then,

we can start winning again.

Photo Credit: Ivan Boothe

Having befriended a local activist from the Boyle Heights, East LA area, I have had many opportunities to immerse myself into the everyday life Los Angelenos enjoy. Since I had never visited this city before college and did not have any relatives or friends to divulge the realities of LA life, I came with an open mind and eagerness to explore. However, never did I expect to find what I can only describe as an underground community of artists, cumbia musicians, activists, and grassroots community supporters- and I say underground, not because they are unknown, but simply because they deviate from mainstream popular culture.

Last weekend, friends and I rode our bikes over LA’s challenging hills to the Salon De La Plaza for the three year anniversary of Corazon Del Pueblo- a volunteer-based, non-profit community center promoting peace and social justice through the arts, education, and social action. Even though I have only been in Los Angeles for approximately three months, I’ve had the privilege of meeting several of the volunteers in Corazon Del Pueblo. Every single one greeted me with genuine warmth and friendliness, encouraging me to become active in the community. During the event, poets, musicians, and community leaders explained how community members managed to keep their doors open without outside funding, grants, or private money. Offering free classes of yoga, jiu-jitsu, self defense, dance, and music, Corazon Del Pueblo thrives on the donations and work of its volunteers.

One member of the community, who was honored at the event, told his story of how he had been arrested and detained for an alleged crime even though he was later declared innocent. Hauntingly echoing the story of the Sleepy Lagoon, he exclaimed to the mostly Mexican and Chicano/a immigrant community, “I realized at that moment how media, how discrimination, and how lies can become real and have real effects on people. They will try to convince us we are criminals, they will try to convince us we are worthless and what we truly are, but we are here to remind everyone of their value, to remind youth of the tremendous contributions they can provide to society.”

While the audience responded with applause, I was again reminded of the power social stereotypes can have on people and the importance community organizations can play in the shaping of immigrant youth and peoples. Just as Filipino associations have provided community support in Los Angeles, and Korean hagwon provides Asian Americans with after-school activities and language classes, Corazon Del Pueblo caters to the Latino/a immigrants in surrounding LA neighborhoods. Having observed and learned how our public education system structures failure into the lives of so many immigrant youth, I am ecstatic to see so many grassroots organizations helping youth. Resisting labels that stereotypes Mexican immigrants as individuals who depend on welfare and consume tax-dollar money, Corazon del Pueblo creates safe havens for immigrants and youth who want to find a supportive home away from home, and family that encourages and challenges them to do their best and succeed. I will certainly be going back soon, and I urge anyone in Los Angeles to find their way too!

Great news! On November 14^th, 2012, Suffolk County Executive Steve Ballone signed an executive order requiring county government agencies to translate vital public documents into the top six languages spoken by limited English proficient (LEP) residents of Suffolk County and to provide interpretation services for all LEP residents as well.

Twenty percent of Suffolk County’s 1.5 million residents are LEP. Now, residents whose primary languages are Italian, Mandarin, Spanish, Polish, French Creole, and Portuguese will be able to access local government offices and communicate with officials. This means victims of domestic violence and hate crimes can access police protection. Residents affected by Superstorm Sandy can receive much needed information about recovery efforts. Support services such as unemployment insurance and public benefits are now also accessible to LEP residents. Thanks to this executive order, an individual’s language will no longer be a barrier to participation in government services or access to important resources.

The order is descended from similar legislation, including President Clinton’s 2000 executive order that mandated all agencies receiving federal funding develop language access plans in order to comply with the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s prohibition of discrimination based on national origin; Mayor Bloomberg’s Executive Order 120, signed in 2008, that bans city agencies from discriminating against residents based on their primary language or national origin; and Governor Cuomo’s 2011 Executive Order 26 that does the same for executive state agencies.

One of the first of its kind in a suburban county in the United States, Mr. Ballone’s executive order comes on the heels of the previous Suffolk County executive, Steve Levy, who in his tenure utilized county police as immigration agents, criminalized Latino day laborers, and marginalized Latino-majority neighborhoods, earning the county a reputation for anti-immigrant resentment and violence.

Suffolk County’s executive order is a result of the advocacy of the organizations with which NYLPI partnered on this campaign, including the Long Island Civic Engagement Table, the Long Island Language Advocates Coalition, Make the Road New York, the Center for Popular Democracy, and other groups that have tirelessly promoted immigrants’ rights in Suffolk County for years. Since 2009, NYLPI has advocated for language access orders on the city, state, and county level, and is currently working to develop materials to help other advocates replicate these efforts.

We are thrilled Suffolk County has taken this critical step toward advancing the civil rights of LEP individuals and making New York a more inclusive home for all its diverse residents. Congratulations to all of the advocates involved and thank you, Steve Ballone, for your work toward equality and justice on behalf of LEP residents! May yours be one of many county orders to come.

What if the person crossing the border had been a Latin American? What if the person had not been white? It seems to me that no amount of “God-talk” would let that person cross. Our perspectives and attitudes are colored, and they are often colored with shades of injustice or inequalities in the way we treat others. This is an invitation to examine our prejudices.

The vast majority of these individuals are in civil detention, which means that they are locked up not because they are considered a threat to society, but rather because they are deemed a “flight risk”. Their detention is to ensure that they show up for hearings and comply with court decisions, exposing detainees to inhumane conditions at massive costs to American taxpayers. The ACLU identified that many of  ”those unnecessarily locked up are survivors of torture, asylum seekers, victims of trafficking, families with small children, the elderly, individuals with serious medical and mental health conditions, and lawful permanent residents with longstanding family and community ties who are facing deportation because of old or minor crimes”. Not only are these individuals detained for months and sometimes years, detainees are exposed to a multitude of abuses from rape and sexual abuse to a lack of adequate medical and mental health care that has caused unnecessary deaths.

The Detention Watch Network just launched a new campaign to “Expose and Close” widespread abuse at detention centers across the country and close the worst facilities. The campaign hopes to appeal to the Obama administration to issue reforms in order to ensure safety, dignity and well-being of immigrants held in detention. The administration acknowledged these injustices in 2009, however no measurable improvement has taken place.

While comprehensive immigration reform still eludes those in Congress who are pushing for change, Andrea Black, the Executive Director of the Detention Watch Network believes real change can still happen. According to Black, “We hope that the Administration will act. ICE claims it has taken steps to reform the detention system, but the people actually in detention are suffering as much as ever. In his second term, the president has the power to bring about change that will uplift immigrants instead of locking them up”.

The report identifies the ten worst jails and prisons in the United States and calls for their immediate shutdown. In all ten facilities detainees reported waiting weeks and sometimes months for medical care, minimal and inedible food, the use of solitary confinement as punishment, and the extreme remoteness of many of the facilities from any urban area making access to legal services nearly impossible. The report explains the realities of detention; “parents are taken from their children and shipped hundreds of miles away to prisons where visits are impossible. Immigrants who have lived in the U.S. almost their whole lives lose their jobs, their homes, and their livelihoods while locked up in an ICE jail trying to fight deportation to a country they don’t even remember, without even a lawyer to help guide them through the complicated morass of immigration law”. The report details a myriad of abuses in various facilities throughout the country. At Pinal County Jail in Arizona detainees made “complaints regarding sanitation including receiving food on dirty trays, worms found in food, bugs and worms found in the faucets, receiving dirty laundry, and being overcrowded with ten other men in one cell with only one toilet”. This treatment of immigrants in the United States goes against everything our country should stand for. To read more about the campaign, to read individual stories of detainees, and to learn how you can help out, visit the Detention Watch Network online.

-Emily N.

Photo Credit: Anuska Sampedro

After over 70% of Latinos voted to reelect Barack Obama into office on November 6^th, 2012, the President made immigration policy a top priority on his list of objectives for his second term. Therefore, it is important that we take a close look at the financial effects of passing immigration reform in the United States, given the current economic state of the nation. Many of the Latinos who voted for Obama in the past election did so with the hopes of seeing him pass a comprehensive immigration reform that includes some version of a legalization program. With an increasing national deficit and the existing high unemployment rates, the process of passing such a piece of legislation is sure to spark much controversy among nativists and immigration supporters.

Contrary to the nativist attitude on the legalization of undocumented immigrants, which claims that it would lead to more competition and decrease job opportunities for U.S. citizens, there is much research that proves that such a reform would actually benefit the country. According to Dr. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda who conducted a study in 2010 using a model based on the outcomes of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, the implementation of a similar comprehensive reform act that includes the legalization of immigrants would “stimulate the U.S. economy” and “increases all workers’ wages.” He also finds that the opposite approach, which may include mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, would actually be more costly, would lower wages for workers, and ultimately harm the economy (Immigration Policy Center).

Another study also directed in 2010 by the Research and Development organization (RAND) articulates the concern of how legalization will help boost the economy and relieve the impact of poverty within the undocumented immigrant community. “Illegal status generates barriers that constrain the choices of both workers and employers,” states RAND. “In this sense, legalization could be interpreted as a removal of such barriers, which could potentially improve… the overall efficiency of the labor market” (Huff Post Latino Voices). This statement offers a perspective that allows us to understand that the authorization at hand has the potential to set off a series of positive impacts, beginning with removing immigrants’ main impediment for lifting themselves out of poverty.

Needless to say, despite the opposing claims to the legalization of immigrants, it is evident that most of the research serves to prove that a comprehensive approach to reforming the immigration system in the U.S. could greatly lead to a better economy, increase wages, and lessen the effects of poverty. Ultimately, the nation would benefit and prosper from the decision to give current undocumented immigrants legal residence.

Published at Common Dreams and CounterPunch.

Detention Watch Network released detailed reports of human rights violations at the facilities, which incarcerate undocumented immigrants. Among them were privately-run Texas facilities Polk County Detention Facility and Houston Processing Center. The facilities held 700 and 851 detainees at the time of  a July 2012 visit by four volunteers from non-profit advocacy groups Grassroots Leadership and United for Families.

At a site like Polk, the Detention Watch Network says detainees have poor medical care and are given no recreation time. Nurses and medical staff don’t speak Spanish, which leads to inadequate treatment, according to some of the immigrants at Polk.  The report also alleges labor exploitation at the facility– stating detainees are paid $1 for their work– and are given limited visitation hours where families must talk through a glass partition, just like a prison. According to Alejandro Quinones, an immigrant detainee who was quoted in the report, “I feel like a boat in the middle of the ocean, just being carried by the water with no control. Everything is up to the decision of the judge. He took my freedom, he took my life. They can just do what they want. There should be human rights.”

RELATED: Outrage after ICE officers detain undocumented immigrants bringing their kids to school

Meanwhile, at the Houston Processing Center, there is mistreatment, inadequate nutrition and family separation due to a terrible visitation process, says the Detention Watch Network. There are also reports of random solitary confinement and poor mental and physical healthcare. One woman quoted in the report said that at HPC, “There are some of the younger women who have kids who get really depressed. They start thinking stupid things like suicide, and then the other women try to support them.”

According to Andrea Black, Executive Director of Detention Watch Network, “We hope that the Administration will act. ICE claims it has taken steps to reform the detention system, but the people actually in detention are suffering as much as ever. In his second term, the president has the power to bring about change that will uplift immigrants instead of lock them up.”

With the report, the Detention Watch Network is calling for the closing of these facilities and demanding that President Obama take the first step towards ending inhumane detention in immigrant prisons across the United States.

But the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), which operates the Houston Processing Center, says the report is an inaccurate portrait of their facility.

“This is a stale rehash of recycled attacks against CCA facilities that save taxpayers money while providing safe, high-quality detention services,” says Steve Owen, CCA’s Senior Director for Public Affairs. “It is yet another unfortunate example of the lack of seriousness with which political attack groups approach the very real and practical challenges our nation faces in safely, humanely and cost-effectively housing immigration detainees.”

Owens says that, “Overall, we take the treatment of the detainees entrusted to our care very seriously and act swiftly if our own high standards and those of our government partners are not met.” He notes that the allegations are based on an ACLU report that CCA refuted several months ago after the information CCA provided was excluded from the final product. Owens also says that CCA was provided “no opportunity whatsoever to provide feedback or context to the allegations made.”

RELATED: School requires students to wear tracking device

Talia Inlender, who is a staff attorney at Public Counsel, a nonprofit law firm, which has one of the country’s largest immigration and asylum practices, says that while she has no specific knowledge of the Polk or Houston facilities, findings like the ones in this report are commonplace.

“Although the conditions at the facilities highlighted in the report are particularly egregious, some of the conditions recounted–high phone costs, limited family visits, poor medical care, and especially lack of access to legal services of any kind are, unfortunately, common themes among many detention centers,” Inlender says.

In Inlender’s opinion, there’s much room for improvement and one fix may be to ensure access to legal services. “This system does not serve anyone well — not the detainees, not ICE, and not the public who ultimately bear the massive costs that the detention system incurs in both dollars and human lives.”

Carl Rusnok, a U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement spokesman, told the Dallas Morning News that they’ve heard some criticism of these facilities and cited a 2009 report by an adviser to Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security. Rusnok also said that some reforms have taken place to improve the facilities since 2009.

“Changes made in one state (or even facility) do not necessarily translate into changes everywhere (or even in the facility next door). Again, this is the logical consequence of running a massive detention system with a large number of subcontractors and limited oversight,” says Inlender.

Since the reports surfaced, ICE said it plans to meet with Detention Watch to discuss their report, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Patricia Diez contributed to this report. 

By Alan Bean

A week ago, I asked “Can the Republicans Romance Latinos?”  My conclusion was negative.  Immigration reform will require strong bipartisan support and the initial leadership must come from the Republican side of the aisle.  Barack Obama’s embrace of mass deportation (we deported more people in 2011 than were deported between 1907 and 1980) shows how desperate Democrats have been to flex their tough-on-immigrants muscle.  Obama is unlikely to stick his head out for the Latino community so long as the Republicans are competing to see who can offend Hispanic voters the most.  Only if the Republican party moves to the left of the Democrats on this single issue will the dynamics of the immigration debate shift significantly.

And that is unlikely to happen.  I argued that a political party that has prospered for two generations by tapping into white racial resentment is unlikely to discard it’s trump card.  How can you play to angry white men and advocate meaningful immigration reform at the same time?  You can’t.

Of course there is more than one kind of racial resentment.  If the Democrats have been undermined by white racial resentment, the Republicans just stumbled over Latino racial resentment.  Latinos have good reason to resent both parties, but the Republicans tried to shore up white votes by intentionally demeaning Hispanic voters.  It came down to choosing which brand of racial resentment would hurt you the most.  Republicans decided, correctly, that they had more to lose by alienating their Tea Party base than they would gain from courting Latino votes.  Obama, realizing he couldn’t out-tough the Republicans, wisely decided to toss the Latino electorate a bone.

Republicans should understand that conservative white voters won’t be voting Democrat anytime soon.  Unfortunately, it isn’t that simple.  Conservative whites will vote Republican even if the party moves to the left on immigration; but a large chunk of the party faithful, perhaps a majority, will voice their displeasure.  An internecine civil war will be avoided at all cost.

Barack Obama would likely do his part if the Republicans took the lead on immigration, but he is unlikely to go to the wall on this issue  if he isn’t sure his party has his back.

So it comes as no surprise that Chuck Schumer of the Blue Team and Lindsay Graham of the Red Team are now associating “reform” with an even more militarized border and no real path to citizenship for undocumented residents.  That kind of talk will get us nowhere.

Seth Wessler, the author of the article pasted below, is the guy I call when I have a question about immigration.  He has a thorough grasp of the key issues and the courage to speak painful truth.

Until we get it through our heads that undocumented immigrants are normal men and women with a compelling interest in bettering their lives, we won’t create just policy.  Even those who seem willing to grant “amnesty” insist on “sealing the borders” first.  That is the approach Ronald Reagan took: “The people that are already here can become citizens, but that’s it.”

In the real world, however, people keep crossing the border no matter how many walls we build or how dangerous the passage.  Moreover, in their shoes, we would do the same–if we could summon the courage, that is.

Dust Off Those Old Immigration Reform Deals? Not So Fast

by Seth Freed Wessler

Just 48 hours after the election was called and exit polls had fully confirmed that Romney pulled fewer Latino votes than the Republican candidate in any recent election, GOP congressional leaders, tails between their legs, began promising a new push for immigration law reform. But as the once-stalled reform process lurches back into action, familiar and vexing questions are quickly emerging: What qualifies as “reform,” for whom and at what price?

The votes weren’t even fully counted when Republican leaders signaled they were ready to return to the negotiating table. On Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner said he would support changing immigration laws. “This issue has been around far too long,” he told ABC’s Diane Sawyer. And on Sunday, the promises began to take some form when Sen. Lindsay Graham, the South Carolina Republican who two years ago fled all reform efforts in protest of Obamacare, announced a reinvigorated bipartisan effort.

In a coordinated blitz, Graham and New York Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer appeared on separate morning shows. Graham said on CBS’ “Face The Nation” that he would sit down with Democrats to craft a plan for undocumented immigrants to “come out of the shadows, get biometrically identified, start paying taxes, pay a fine for the law they broke.”

Two years ago, Graham joined Schumer, who’d just taken the immigration reform reigns from Ted Kennedy, to draft a blueprint for change. President Obama said their plan “should be the basis for moving forward.” And until Graham jumped ship, it was on its way. Now, the two senators are trying to take the country back to that March 2010 moment.

But as in 2010, both senators said on Sunday their plans would be heavy on enforcement and avoid anything that sounds like amnesty. They would include tougher border enforcement; a new, tighter identification system for all workers; a limited number of visas for a select group of new immigrants and a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants if they learn English and pass a background check.

Many immigration reform advocates were not impressed.

“The paradigm has shifted and we can do better,” said Kica Matos, the immigrant rights director for the Center for Community Change, which coordinates FIRM, a national coalition of state immigrant advocacy groups. “Dusting off a plan that is years old isn’t going to cut it.”

Where to Begin?

Pollsters and election watchers say there’s no doubt that the Republicans’ rightward move on immigration helped propel the steady decline of their Latino support. The Romney campaign drew votes from an historically low proportion of Latinos, a demographic that ranks immigration among the top issues of concern. Only 27 percent of Latino voters supported Romney on Tuesday, according to exit polls, down from the 31 percent who supported John McCain in 2008 and 44 percent who voted for George W. Bush in 2004.

Graham acknowledged on Sunday that the GOP’s anti-immigrant tone “has built a wall between the Republican Party and Hispanic community.”

“This is an odd formula for a party to adopt,” he said of the GOP’s strongly anti-immigrant stance. “The fastest growing demographic in the country, and we’re losing votes every election. It’s one thing to shoot yourself in the foot, just don’t reload the gun.”

But many immigrant rights advocates say that a plan that looks like the one Schumer and Graham proposed in 2010 is too close to a loaded gun to be acceptable.

The 2010 Graham-Schumer plan was the result of protracted bipartisan wrangling that pulled many Democrats to the right. Critics say the bill overemphasized deportation and border enforcement and didn’t do enough to open pathways for new immigrants to lawfully come to the country.

Ultimately, despite all the Democrats’ concessions, the bipartisan bill still failed to become law. But in the last two years, the enforcement part of the bill came true—not through hard cross-aisle agreement, but because Obama’s Department of Homeland Security rapidly expanded enforcement operations in local jails and deployed more border patrol agents than any previous administration. The result? Record numbers of non-citizens deported.

As a result, in the opening days of a renewed conversation of about immigration reform, many advocates say they’re unlikely to fall in line with a bipartisan plan that slow down the Obama pace of deportations.

“While Republicans do their soul searching,” said Pablo Alvarado, the director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, “we’ll be pushing for solutions for all our community. The Schumer-Graham plan is unacceptable; we’re still fighting Obama’s deportations.”

Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program brought hundreds of thousands of young people, so-called DREAMers, out of the shadows. But while polls showed the administrative program gave Obama a boost, young undocumented activists say that they’re not content with a deportation deferral alone, nor with any system that deports their parents.

“By having this relief and having access to greater resources we can begin to push harder for relief for the entire community,” said Lorella Praeli, advocacy director of the group United We Dream, a coalition of young undocumented immigrants. “This fight for DREAMers in our community has never been about ourselves…. It’s been about our families.”

United We Dream plans to release its own blueprint for immigration reform soon and will be bringing their demands to whomever will listen in Washington.

Schumer said on Sunday, “The Republican Party has learned that being anti-immigrant doesn’t work for them.” But in the face of a growing Latino electorate that’s claiming the election results as its own, the same old compromises from Democrats may not be enough either.

Checkpoint at the U.S.-Mexican Border in the rearview mirror. Photo Credit: Flicker username, “Jennoit”

Last year’s deportation statistics were record-breaking. During 2011, approximately 400,000 undocumented immigrants were deported (Record Number of Illegal Immigrants Deported in 2011). Like all immigrant populations, the people deported formed a heterogeneous group. While some were recent arrivals, others lived here for years and established families, potentially containing mixed-immigration statuses. Too frequently, the deportation of an undocumented immigrant means dividing families in ridiculous ways. Many times, it means that the citizens-by-birth children of undocumented parents are the only members of the family allowed to stay in the U.S. Separating children from their parents is issue enough by itself, but let’s take a moment to think about the ramifications of these divisions. What would you do if you were sent to your home country and your child was living in a foreign nation, potentially without the widespread network you have at home? Get back in that country ASAP.

The penalties for reentry are based on the reasons for a person’s deportation in the first place. When attempting to reenter, undocumented immigrants who were deported as otherwise law abiding non-citizens face a fine and imprisonment for up to two years. In addition, undocumented immigrants deported for criminal activity are fined and imprisoned for up to ten years (Legal Information Institute). This means that if your family was divided because of deportation issues, not only would you have to risk everything you’ve already risked before and spend money you may or may not have, but you now face years of incarceration, wherein you have no opportunity to provide for your family.

Parents aren’t the only people that face the pressure of deportation. If children are allowed to stay, the parents can choose to leave them with family, bring them back to the home country, or put them in foster care as wards of the state. These options place both financial and ethical stress on the government. The financial aspect is clear: more wards of the state means more funding must be put towards foster care. Ethically, the government has to think about whether we are comfortable with U.S. citizens living in environments their parents worked so hard to leave.

When it comes to deportation, no one wins. Deportation separates families, displaces children, tests our nation’s ethics, and causes the government to spend more money. So far, the only alternative is an open border, which will not happen any time soon. Clearly, something needs to change. The question is how are we going to limit deportations through immigration reform?

“It’s an important issue that I think ought to be dealt with. This issue has been around far too long,” said House of Representatives John Boehner last Thursday in an interview with ABC. “I think a comprehensive approach is long overdue. And I’m confident that the president, myself, others can find the common ground to take care of this issue once and for all.”

Boehner’s comments show a new urgency for thinking about immigration. Just earlier this year, he had expressed skepticism of Republican support for the DREAM Act. “This is a breakthrough to have the speaker endorse the urgency of comprehensive immigration reform,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer in a statement. “Democrats in the Senate look forward to working with him to come up with a bipartisan solution.”

In identifying immigration as a key issue, Boehner joined Obama, who has called immigration reform his own “biggest failure” and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “Only thing we need to get immigration reform done are a few Republican votes,” said Reid last Wednesday. “I get 90 percent of the Democrats. Couldn’t we get a few Republicans to join us? So it’s high on my list. And we’re going to have some votes on it.”

Obama was re-elected, partly thanks to huge support from Hispanic voters. The President won 71% of the Hispanic vote. Among the swing states, Obama won 74% of the Hispanic vote in Colorado and 60% in Florida. In exit polls from last Tuesday, 77% of Hispanic voters said that undocumented immigrants should have a change to apply for legal status, while 65% of all voters favored legal status.  Obama also received growing support from Asians, who have surpassed Hispanics as the largest wave of new immigrants to the U.S.

After Boehner’s remarks and Romney’s loss, the New York Times noted that several Republican leaders have also quickly moved to reconsider their positions on immigration, citing Sean Hannity, the conservative talk show host and Haley Barbour, Republic elder statesman and former governor of Mississippi, as two conservative leaders who recently voiced their support for a more open immigration policy than the one Romney supported. The article did also anticipate, however, impeding hostility from many other Congressional Republics, such as Representative John Fleming, Republican of Louisiana, who said, “The first thing we need is for President Obama to finally enforce current immigration law and strengthen our borders. To take up any other agenda is bad policy for the American people and bad politics for Republicans.”

While immigration reform had reached a partisan standstill in Obama’s first term, this heightened and early attention towards the need for reform in his second term is promising for immigration advocates and the 12 million undocumented immigrants currently in the country. Obama’s support for the DREAM Act, as well as the passage of the DACA relief, were steps in the right direction, but as Boehner and other leaders are now urging, much more is needed, and expected, from the President.

To do your part in bringing attention to immigration reform, please help A Wish for the Holidays campaign collect letters from children that express one wish: stop deportations so that all of our families can stay together. We Belong Together, an initiative of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, and others to bring attention to unjust immigration laws, will deliver the letters to members of Congress.  Sign up and get your letters into Congress before holidays!

-Julia Chen