Border crossers get no justice in Operation Streamline’s kangaroo court.
By Nancy Fleck and Susan Nelson, In These Times
May 13, 2013
Five days a week, between 40 and 80 men and women in handcuffs and shackles are brought into Tucson’s DeConcini Courthouse, a high-rise that houses the U.S. District Court. The prisoners are dirty, hungry and sometimes injured from days spent walking across the desert before Border Patrol agents caught them entering the United States along the southern Arizona border without the proper documentation. Led into a second-floor courtroom, they sit quietly in neat rows on spectator benches and in the jury box. Across the courtroom sit two men in dark green shirts with “Border Patrol” across their backs.
Upon arriving, the judge advises the migrants en masse of the charges and their constitutional rights. In a few cases the charge is simply “illegal entry,” a misdemeanor. But for most of the defendants, this is not the first time they’ve been caught trying to enter the country, and they are charged with both the misdemeanor and felony “illegal entry.” The judge then offers those defendants a plea bargain: Plead guilty to the misdemeanor entry, and the felony entry charge (which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison) will be dismissed. The felony entry charge is “the easiest felony to prove and the fastest-growing felony in the country,” says Isabel Garcia, the co-chair of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos and Pima County Legal Defender.
All of the defendants take the deal. [...]
Read the full article:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/14985/deportation_in_90_minutes_or_less/
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Biometric Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform
By David Kravetso, Wired
May 10, 2013
The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.
Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.
Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/immigration-reform-dossiers/
May 10, 2013
The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.
Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.
Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/immigration-reform-dossiers/
Friday, May 17, 2013
Immigrant Workers Are Organizing in New York -- With or Without Immigration Reform
Actions like this aren't unusual in New York City these days. Everywhere you look you see workers organizing: at supermarkets in Brooklyn, at restaurants and cafés in Manhattan, at carwashes in the Bronx. And over and over again this organizing is in the low-wage service industries that largely employ undocumented immigrants.
By David L. Wilson, MRZine
May 17, 2013
Some 50 to 60 union meat cutters and their supporters turned out on the afternoon of April 6 for a noisy protest against what they said was a lockout by Trade Fair, a chain of nine small supermarkets based in Queens, New York.
Standing in a picket line on a busy sidewalk outside a Trade Fair store in the Jackson Heights neighborhood, many wearing their white aprons, the workers explained that after a year without a contract, they held a brief strike the morning of March 13 over workplace abuses. When they tried to return to work, they said, Trade Fair CEO Farid ("Frank") Jaber responded by laying off all 100 or so meat cutters and hiring non-union replacements. [...]
Read the full article:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/wilson170513.html
By David L. Wilson, MRZine
May 17, 2013
Some 50 to 60 union meat cutters and their supporters turned out on the afternoon of April 6 for a noisy protest against what they said was a lockout by Trade Fair, a chain of nine small supermarkets based in Queens, New York.
Standing in a picket line on a busy sidewalk outside a Trade Fair store in the Jackson Heights neighborhood, many wearing their white aprons, the workers explained that after a year without a contract, they held a brief strike the morning of March 13 over workplace abuses. When they tried to return to work, they said, Trade Fair CEO Farid ("Frank") Jaber responded by laying off all 100 or so meat cutters and hiring non-union replacements. [...]
Read the full article:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2013/wilson170513.html
Thursday, May 16, 2013
From the I-Word to the I-Deed
Still, the question is, what impact will greater linguistic sensitivity have on the rapidly growing apparatus of immigration control and boundary policing—one that cost almost $18 billion and exiled via deportation a record-breaking 410,000 people last fiscal year?
By Joseph Nevins, Border Wars, NACLA
May 1, 2013
On April 2, the Associated Press announced that it would no longer sanction the term “illegal immigrant” or use “illegal” to describe persons living in a country without authorization. Eight days later USA Today, the largest circulation newspaper in the United States, announced a similar policy.
These changes are the result of a three-year, national campaign spearheaded by the Applied Research Center and its online news site, Colorlines.com, as part of a collection of organizations and activists that includes the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Jose Antonio Vargas, journalist and founder of Define American. The effort, called “Drop the I-Word,” is now seeking to build on its victories by pressuring The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times to follow suit. [...]
Read the full article:
http://nacla.org/blog/2013/5/1/i-word-i-deed
By Joseph Nevins, Border Wars, NACLA
May 1, 2013
On April 2, the Associated Press announced that it would no longer sanction the term “illegal immigrant” or use “illegal” to describe persons living in a country without authorization. Eight days later USA Today, the largest circulation newspaper in the United States, announced a similar policy.
These changes are the result of a three-year, national campaign spearheaded by the Applied Research Center and its online news site, Colorlines.com, as part of a collection of organizations and activists that includes the National Hispanic Media Coalition and Jose Antonio Vargas, journalist and founder of Define American. The effort, called “Drop the I-Word,” is now seeking to build on its victories by pressuring The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times to follow suit. [...]
Read the full article:
http://nacla.org/blog/2013/5/1/i-word-i-deed
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
How to Close the Distance Between Washington and the Reality of Immigration
By Pablo Alvarado, Huffington Post
May 2, 2013
Last week, an exchange between Jeff Flake, Janet Napolitano, and Chuck Schumer exemplified all that is wrong with the way in which immigration gets discussed within Washington and how far removed the beltway is from the daily reality and aspirations of people who are marching for immigrant rights this week.
When the topic of immigration enters the beltway, it gets reduced to an issue and divorced from the people whose lives hang in the balance. The dehumanizing view of migrants promoted by people like Sheriff Arpaio and Jan Brewer in Arizona finds a home inside the Capitol. At the Senate Judiciary Committee witness table, nativist "experts" share tables with self-identified undocumented Americans and continue to call them 'alien.' But it isn't just the xenophobes intent to block reform who attempt to deny migrants' humanity.
Recalling the so-called "Gang of 8" visit to the Arizona border, Sen. Jeff Flake openly mocked a woman who was apprehended by Border Patrol. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pablo-alvarado/how-to-close-the-distance_b_3201551.html
May 2, 2013
Last week, an exchange between Jeff Flake, Janet Napolitano, and Chuck Schumer exemplified all that is wrong with the way in which immigration gets discussed within Washington and how far removed the beltway is from the daily reality and aspirations of people who are marching for immigrant rights this week.
When the topic of immigration enters the beltway, it gets reduced to an issue and divorced from the people whose lives hang in the balance. The dehumanizing view of migrants promoted by people like Sheriff Arpaio and Jan Brewer in Arizona finds a home inside the Capitol. At the Senate Judiciary Committee witness table, nativist "experts" share tables with self-identified undocumented Americans and continue to call them 'alien.' But it isn't just the xenophobes intent to block reform who attempt to deny migrants' humanity.
Recalling the so-called "Gang of 8" visit to the Arizona border, Sen. Jeff Flake openly mocked a woman who was apprehended by Border Patrol. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pablo-alvarado/how-to-close-the-distance_b_3201551.html
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Give Us Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses—We Have Private Prisons to Fill
The profits and losses of criminalizing immigrants
By Forrest Wilder, Texas Observer
May 1, 2013
When Jose Rios walked into a Bank of America branch last year, he hoped to open an account for the car repair shop he owned. He didn’t expect to end up with a prison sentence.
Days after Rios provided the bank with a home address and Social Security number, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showed up at his house looking for him. (Rios said ICE agents later told him that Bank of America turned him in.) Rios wasn’t home. His wife, a pretty, sad-eyed woman of 38, answered the door.
“They said, ‘if we don’t find [Jose], we come back for you,’” she said, sitting outside her daughters’ elementary school on a gorgeous California day while her smiling 2-year-old brought us handfuls of dainty red geraniums. Her daughters, the agents warned, could end up in foster care.
Both Jose and his wife, Marta, are undocumented immigrants. (The Observer has changed their names to protect their identities.) Their three girls—ages 2, 7 and 12—are U.S. citizens. Facing the prospect of a shattered family, Jose turned himself in to ICE. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.texasobserver.org/give-us-your-tired-your-poor-your-huddled-masses-we-have-private-prisons-to-fill/
By Forrest Wilder, Texas Observer
May 1, 2013
When Jose Rios walked into a Bank of America branch last year, he hoped to open an account for the car repair shop he owned. He didn’t expect to end up with a prison sentence.
Days after Rios provided the bank with a home address and Social Security number, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents showed up at his house looking for him. (Rios said ICE agents later told him that Bank of America turned him in.) Rios wasn’t home. His wife, a pretty, sad-eyed woman of 38, answered the door.
“They said, ‘if we don’t find [Jose], we come back for you,’” she said, sitting outside her daughters’ elementary school on a gorgeous California day while her smiling 2-year-old brought us handfuls of dainty red geraniums. Her daughters, the agents warned, could end up in foster care.
Both Jose and his wife, Marta, are undocumented immigrants. (The Observer has changed their names to protect their identities.) Their three girls—ages 2, 7 and 12—are U.S. citizens. Facing the prospect of a shattered family, Jose turned himself in to ICE. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.texasobserver.org/give-us-your-tired-your-poor-your-huddled-masses-we-have-private-prisons-to-fill/
Monday, May 13, 2013
A New Era for Worker Ownership, 5 Years in the Making
The New Era Windows Cooperative opens its doors (and windows) for business
By Kari Lydersen, In These Times
May 9, 2013
The workers know launching and running a company won’t be easy, but given their deep knowledge of the industry and their personal investment in the project, they are confident they can do it.
Today, in a revamped Campbell’s Soup building in an industrial and residential section of southwest Chicago, the New Era Windows Cooperative will celebrate the grand opening of its new factory.
Becoming a worker-owned cooperative is the latest chapter in the saga of the workers of Republic Windows and Doors, who gained the nation’s attention by occupying their factory—twice—and became a symbol of resistance in the face of corporate corruption and the economic crisis. [...]
Read the full article:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/14972/at_last_occupiers_turned_owners_celebrate_factory_opening/
For more on Republic Windows:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2009/wilson260109.html
By Kari Lydersen, In These Times
May 9, 2013
The workers know launching and running a company won’t be easy, but given their deep knowledge of the industry and their personal investment in the project, they are confident they can do it.
Today, in a revamped Campbell’s Soup building in an industrial and residential section of southwest Chicago, the New Era Windows Cooperative will celebrate the grand opening of its new factory.
Becoming a worker-owned cooperative is the latest chapter in the saga of the workers of Republic Windows and Doors, who gained the nation’s attention by occupying their factory—twice—and became a symbol of resistance in the face of corporate corruption and the economic crisis. [...]
Read the full article:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/14972/at_last_occupiers_turned_owners_celebrate_factory_opening/
For more on Republic Windows:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2009/wilson260109.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
