Sunday, February 28, 2010

Immigration Reform Advocates Losing Patience with Obama

by Marcelo Ballvé, New America Media
February 22, 2010

Subhash Kateel thinks impatience with President Obama's immigration agenda has begun to boil over. An immigrant advocate in Florida, Kateel says there is a potent mix of frustration and disappointment percolating through immigrant communities nationwide.

President Obama promised sweeping changes to the immigration system before taking office and raised immigrants’ hopes, says Kateel. Instead of delivering, the administration has maintained the status quo: high-handed enforcement tactics that separate families and funnel immigrants into substandard immigration courts and detention centers.

“Yeah, things are changing,” says Kateel, who works for the Miami-based Florida Immigrant Rights Coalition. “They’re getting worse. That’s what we hear on the ground.” [...]

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=c52cf379fcd5f0404d326d73fc8b06b0

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Brooklyn, Feb. 18: CINEFORO on Immigration

CINEFORO on Immigration

Film: "Al Otro Lado" ("To the Other Side")
Dialogue on immigration facilitated by David L. Wilson
(co-author, with Jane Guskin, of The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers)
There will be particular attention to Haiti; Wilson recently returned from Haiti.

Date/time: Thursday, February 18, 6:30 p.m.

Location: Brooklyn Society For Ethical Culture
53 Prospect Park West near 2nd Street in Park Slope
See a map
Train: 2/3 to Grand Army Plaza; F to 7th Avenue (at 9th Street); Q to 7th Ave (at Flatbush)

Admission: Donation requested $10/$5 low-income, students; no-one turned away!

Sponsor: Brooklyn For Peace Latin America Committee
Questions? Call 718-624-5921 or e-mail latinam@brooklynpeace.org

Immigrant Action: NY Road Trip for Our Future; End Violence Against Hunger Strikers; Raids Protested in Baltimore

1) New York Road Trip for Our Future: http://www.nyimmigrationreform.org/
2) Port Isabel Detention Center Action Alert: End the Violence Now!
http://detentionwatchnetwork.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/port-isabel-detention-center-action-alert-end-the-violence-now/
3) Raids Protested in Baltimore: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/anne-arundel/bal-md.raid05feb05,0,3834674.story

[...]

Read the full item:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/2010/02/1-new-york-road-trip-for-our-future.html

Subscribe to the Immigrant Action listserve: https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Immigrant Action: Mother Joins Detainees on Hunger Strike at Port Isabel

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Indefinite Hunger Strike at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Los Fresnos, TX:
“Fast For Our Families” in Front of the Port Isabel Detention Center


Press Conference Feb. 08, 2010 @ 1PM in front of Congressman Ortiz Office Building
(1805 Ruben Torres, B-27 Brownsville, TX)

February 08, 2010
CONTACT: Anayanse Garza, 956.207.2571, SWU RGV

Zoila Molina goes on Hunger Strike with son Ronald Molina, who is being detained at Port Isabel Detention Center, to stop the separation of her family. [...]

Read the full item:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/2010/02/mother-joins-detainees-on-hunger-strike.html

Subscribe to the Immigrant Action listserve: https://lists.riseup.net/www/subscribe/immigrantaction

Sunday, February 7, 2010

"Haitian Communities Need to Be Involved in the Distribution"

Margaret Trost Interviewed by David L. Wilson
MRZine, February 6, 2010


The U.S.-led international operation to distribute food, water, and medical supplies in Port-au-Prince after earthquake of January 12 has drawn a good deal of criticism. In contrast, for the past 10 years the Ste. Claire parish in the Petite Place Cazeau (Ti Plas Kazo) neighborhood at the city's northern edge has operated a very successful food program, started by the late Father Gérard Jean-Juste. This week I asked Margaret Trost, founder and director of the California-based What If? Foundation, to describe by email her experiences with this program in the past and in the current crisis. -- DLW [...]

Read the full interview:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/wilson060210.html

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Suit Points to Guest Worker Program Flaws

By Julia Preston, New York Times
February 1, 2010


Immigration authorities worked closely with a marine oil-rig company in Mississippi to discourage protests by temporary guest workers from India over their job conditions, including advising managers to send some workers back to India, according to new testimony in a federal lawsuit against the company, Signal International.

The cooperation between the company and federal immigration agents is recounted in sworn depositions by Signal managers who were involved when tensions in its shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., erupted into a public clash in March 2007.

Since then, hundreds of the Indian workers have brought a civil rights lawsuit against the company, claiming they were victims of human trafficking and labor abuse. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/us/02immig.html?ref=us