Monday, June 30, 2008

INB 6/29/08: Raids at Houston Rag Company, Washington Aerospace Plant

"Our question to the federal government is very simple," said Mike Espinosa with Houston Justice for Janitors. "How does putting a working woman in jail keep this country safer?" Protesters also said ICE should be held responsible for the injuries the workers suffered during the raid.

Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 14 - June 29, 2008

1. Houston Clothing Company Raided
2. Washington Aerospace Plant Raided
3. Tennessee Restaurants Raided
4. "Fugitive" Raids in Midwest

Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is posted at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.

*1. HOUSTON CLOTHING COMPANY RAIDED
Early on June 25, some 200 agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided Action Rags USA, an international supplier of used clothing and rags in Houston, Texas. The ICE agents executed a federal search warrant at the plant and arrested 166 workers for administrative immigration violations. According to ICE, 135 of the arrested workers are from Mexico, 12 are from Honduras, 10 from Guatemala, eight from El Salvador, and the nationality of one is unknown. [...]

Read the full INB:
http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2008/06/inb-62908-raids-at-houston-rag-company.html

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Juan Crow in Georgia

"There are many differences between our experience and that of immigrant Latinos," Rev. Joseph Lowery said, "but there is a family resemblance between Jim Crow and what is being experienced by immigrants. Both met economic oppression. Both met racial and ethnic hostility... [T]hough we may have come over on different ships, we're all in the same damn boat now."

By Roberto Lovato, The Nation
May 8, 2008

Justeen Mancha's dream of becoming a psychologist was born of the tropical heat and exploitation that have shaped farmworker life around Reidsville, Georgia, for centuries. The wiry, freckle-faced 17-year-old high school junior has toiled in drought-dry onion fields to help her mother, Maria Christina Martinez. But early one September morning in 2006, Mancha's dream was abruptly deferred.

From the living room of the battered trailer she and her mother call home, Mancha described what happened when she came out of the shower that morning. "My mother went out, and I was alone," she said. "I was getting ready for school, getting dressed, when I heard this noise. I thought it was my mother coming back." She went on in the Tex-Mex Spanish-inflected Georgia accent now heard throughout Dixie: "Some people were slamming car doors outside the trailer. I heard footsteps and then a loud boom and then somebody screaming, asking if we were 'illegals,' 'Mexicans.' These big men were standing in my living room holding guns. One man blocked my doorway. Another guy grabbed a gun on his side. I freaked out. 'Oh, my God!' I yelled." [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080526/lovato

Economics of Immigration: CPE 28th Summer Institute

[The Politics of Immigration co-author Jane Guskin will be on the opening plenary of this year's Summer Institute, and will be facilitating some workshops on our dialogue model.]

The Center for Popular Economics invites you to our
28th Summer Institute

July 26-August 2, 2008
Roosevelt University, Chicago, IL


Special Track:
Economics of Immigration & Migration
Co-sponsored by Chicago Jobs with Justice, ICIRR (Illinois Coalition
for Immigrant & Refugee Rights) and CAAAELII (Coalition of African,
Arab, Asian, European & Latino Immigrants of Illinois) and the
Department of Economics/Program in Social Justice Studies at Roosevelt
University

Learn how the economy works and
gain tools to make your activism more effective.

CPE's Summer Institute is a week-long intensive training in economics
for activists, educators, and anyone who wants a better understanding
of the economy. We focus on the how the economic system impacts our
lives, communities and work every day. No background in economics is
required.

Core Classrooms At the heart of the Summer Institute program are two
core courses, one on the U.S. Economy, one on the International
Economy. All participants must choose one core course. The core
classes meet each day in the mornings. Below is a sample of topics.

US Economy

Intro to the economy
Race, Class and Gender
Labor and the workplace
Macroeconomics: fiscal policy
Macroeconomics: monetary policy & the Federal Reserve
Introduction to international economics
What's the alternative?

International Economy

Brief history of the global economy
Development policies & neoliberalism
Trade
Globalization of production
International finance
Gender and globalization
What's the alternative?

Afternoon and evening events: In addition to the core courses is a
rich selection of speakers, panels, workshops, videos, discussion
groups and cultural events. All of these events are open to
participants of both classes.

Special Track: Economics of Immigration and Migration
Each year we choose an issue area that we focus on in the workshops,
panels as well as in the core classrooms. This year's special track is
on the Economics of Immigration & Migration and will explore questions
such as:

What's the relationship between corporate led globalization and migration?
What's the impact of immigration on wages, jobs, state expenditures, healthcare
Economic dimensions of race, class, gender and immigration.
What's the economic impact of border militarization
What's the impact and potential of remittances to the home country
How are women impacted differently?

For more information or registration form, please visit our website:
http://www.populareconomics.org/
or contact us: programs@populareconomics, phone (413) 545-0743

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

INB 6/22/08: Indian Workers Suspend Hunger Strike

Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 13 - June 22, 2008

1. Indian Workers Suspend Hunger Strike
2. Deport Flight to Albania, Nigeria
3. California Farmworkers Arrested
4. No-Match Firings at California Farm
5. Arizona Water Parks Raided
6. Rhode Island: 42 Arrested in Fugitive Raid

Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs@gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is posted at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com.

*1. INDIAN WORKERS SUSPEND HUNGER STRIKE
On June 11, Indian workers who say they were forced into involuntary servitude under the H-2B visa program rallied in front of the Department of Justice (DOJ) headquarters in Washington to demand that they be allowed to remain in the US to participate in a DOJ investigation into labor trafficking. A group of the workers had been carrying out a hunger strike in Washington since May 14, demanding congressional hearings into abuses of guest workers, talks between the US and Indian governments to protect future guest workers, and "continued presence" status under the Trafficking and Victims Protection Act so they can remain in the US and pursue their case. [...]

Read the full INB:
http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2008/06/inb-62208-indian-workers-suspend-hunger.html

Saturday, June 21, 2008

More Reviews of the Politics of Immigration

Ammunition for Immigration Activists
by Marty Goodman, Socialist Action
March 2008

This book is the stuff of hard-core immigration activists. It’s pro-immigrant rights, no apologies. Their side was in the streets in May 2006, when millions of immigrants and their supporters demonstrated for citizenship rights, an end to raids and deportations.

Written by two veteran New York City activists who have spent years on the frontlines of immigration issues, the book takes on today’s racist myths one by one. You want the facts? Here they are.

Moreover, this book is a terrific primer for people who are just confused by immigrant bashing politicians in both parties and need to know more. Much of the information presented in the book’s 141 pages has been available before, but never in such a concise, comprehensive form. [...]

Read the full review:
http://www.socialistaction.org/goodman16.htm

Myths and facts on immigration
By Raquel Vega, Socialist Worker
February 22, 2008, Issue 663

IN THE context of increased raids and deportations, more detention centers and further border militarization, Jane Guskin and David Wilson provide readers with a basic political framework to dispel common myths about immigration put forward by the mainstream media in The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers.

Immigration is a topic that has been polarizing through most of U.S. history. This book succeeds in switching the narrow terms of debate from guest-worker programs and mass deportations to an open-borders policy that would allow the free flow of people across borders as the only real solution to the crisis today, where undocumented workers effectively live under second-class status

Read the full review:
http://socialistworker.org/2008/02/22/myths-and-facts-immigration

Friday, June 20, 2008

Paying the Price of the Immigration Crackdown

By Tom Barry, May 16, 2008
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)

Are Americans willing to pay for the intensifying crackdown on immigrants?

Just as we are squandering billions abroad in the war in Iraq, we are wasting billions of dollars at home in what has become a war on immigrants. The collateral costs of this anti-immigrant crackdown—including labor shortages, families torn apart by deportations, overcrowded jails and detentions centers, deaths on the border, courts clogged with immigration cases, and divided communities—are also immense.

Together the financial and social costs of the administration's "enforcement-first" immigration policy are too high to bear. [...]

See full article online at:
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5234

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Criminal Charges for Immigrants Strain System

Immigration Prosecutions Hit New High
Critics Say Increased Use of Criminal Charges Strains System
By Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post
June 2, 2008

[...] Other federal officials are more critical, warning that the focus on immigration is distorting the functions of law enforcement and the courts. Several Arizona officials noted that U.S. prosecutors there last year were so short on resources, they chose not to prosecute a number of marijuana seizures of less than 500 pounds, although they later revised the guideline to 20 pounds.

"We're concerned about the misdirection of resources," said Heather Williams, first assistant to the federal public defender of Arizona. Each day her office's lawyers spend on misdemeanor border-crossing cases, she said, "they're not talking about a drug case, a sex crime, a murder, assault or any number of white-collar cases -- and the same is obviously true of the prosecutors." [...]

Read full article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/01/AR2008060102192.html?hpid=topnews

More Illegal Crossings Are Criminal Cases, Group Says
By Julia Preston, New York Times
June 18, 2008

Criminal prosecutions of immigrants by federal authorities surged to a record high in March, as immigration cases accounted for the majority — 57 percent — of all new federal criminal cases brought nationwide that month, according to a report published Tuesday by a nonpartisan research group. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/18/us/18immig.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

Surge in Immigration Prosecutions Continues
TRAC Immigration (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse)
17 Jun 2008

Federal immigration prosecutions continued their recent and highly unusual surge in March 2008, apparently reaching an all-time high, according to timely data obtained from the Justice Department by TRAC. The total of 9,350 such prosecutions was up by almost 50% from the previous month and 73% from the previous year.

Read the full report:
http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/188/

Friday, June 13, 2008

Study Says Foreigners In U.S. Adapt Quickly

"A major reason for...disparities in assimilation levels may be the high percentage of Mexican immigrants who are in the country illegally, Vigdor said. When only cultural factors are considered, Mexicans score almost as high as Vietnamese and higher than immigrants from countries such as India and China... 'If you're in the country illegally, a lot of the avenues of assimilation are cut off to you,' he said. "There are lot of jobs you can't get, and you can't become a citizen."

By N.C. Aizenman, Washington Post
May 13, 2008

Immigrants of the past quarter-century have been assimilating in the United States at a notably faster rate than did previous generations, according to a study released today.

Modern-day immigrants arrive with substantially lower levels of English ability and earning power than those who entered during the last great immigration wave at the turn of the 20th century. The gap between today's foreign-born and native populations remains far wider than it was in the early 1900s and is particularly large in the case of Mexican immigrants, the report said. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/12/AR2008051202575.html

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Two Chicken Stories: NAFTA's Real Winners and Losers

by Laura Carlsen, Americas Policy Program
April 17, 2008

The single most important thing to understand about NAFTA is who are he winners and the losers. The international system is rigged to strengthen the hand of mega-corporations and weaken small farmers, workers, women producers, and migrants. These interconnected chicken anecdotes illustrate the realities of NAFTA. [...]

Read the full article online at: http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5159

Laura Carlsen (lcarlsen(a)ciponline.org) is Director of the AmericasPolicy Program (www.americaspolicy.org) of the Center forInternational Policy. The Americas Mexico Blog can be found atwww.americasmexico.blogspot.com.

Monday, June 9, 2008

INB 6/6/08: ICE Raids Bakery; 1,800 Arrested in "Fugitive" Sweeps

Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 12 - June 6, 2008

1. San Diego: ICE Raids Bakery, Campus
2. Florida: Raid at Jail Construction Site
3. 1,800 Arrested in "Fugitive" Sweeps

Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate [at] gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs [at] gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is posted at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com/.

*1. SAN DIEGO: ICE RAIDS BAKERY, CAMPUS
On May 15, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 18 workers on immigration violations in a raid on the French Gourmet, a popular bistro, bakery and catering company in San Diego's oceanfront Pacific Beach neighborhood. Agents executed a criminal search warrant at the restaurant and remained there for about six hours collecting company documents, said ICE spokesperson Lauren Mack. Agents took files and computers from the site. No one from company management was arrested. ICE said the search warrant is under seal because the investigation is ongoing. [AP 5/15/08; XETV FOX6 News (San Diego) 5/16/08][...]

Read the full INB:
http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2008/06/inb-6608-ice-raids-bakery-1800-arrested.html

Friday, June 6, 2008

INB 6/2/08: Massive Raid at Kosher Meat Plant in Iowa

Immigration News Briefs
Vol. 11, No. 11 - June 2, 2008

Immigration News Briefs is a weekly supplement to Weekly News Update on the Americas, published by Nicaragua Solidarity Network, 339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012; tel 212-674-9499; weeklynewsupdate [at] gmail.com. INB is also distributed free via email; contact immigrationnewsbriefs [at] gmail.com to subscribe or unsubscribe. You may reprint or distribute items from INB, but please credit us and tell people how to subscribe. Immigration News Briefs is posted at http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com

Special Issue: Massive Raid at Kosher Meat Plant in Iowa

On May 12, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) carried out its largest ever mass arrest at a single worksite, seizing 389 of the 970 employees at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. ICE took the workers, most of them Guatemalan, to the National Cattle Congress fairgrounds in Waterloo, Iowa for processing. [AP 5/16/08]

Read the full INB:
http://immigrationnewsbriefs.blogspot.com/2008/06/inb-6208-massive-raid-at-kosher-meat.html

INB editor Jane Guskin will be in the Bay Area June 7-10, 2008. For events go to:
http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/2008/05/bay-area-events-june-10-with-jane.html