Sunday, May 30, 2010

Arizona Immigration Law Confronts Unions: Is an Injury to One Still an Injury to All?

By Louie Rocha, Labor Notes
May 28, 2010


It took the passage of an anti-immigrant bill by rightwing forces in Arizona for the Obama administration to refocus on the question of immigration law, now boiling over on its back burner. The Latino community has been reinvigorated by this latest shameless attempt to step up policing of those who look like they might be undocumented.

When will organized labor raise its voice loudly in opposition to this attack on civil and human rights?


Read the full article:
http://www.labornotes.org/2010/05/injury-one-still-injury-all

Arizona: Grassroots Organizing to Repeal All Anti-Immigrant Laws

Joel Olson Interviewed by Ashley Smith, MRzine
May 28, 2010

Joel Olson is a member of the Repeal Coalition in Flagstaff, Arizona. Repeal spearheaded the grassroots mobilization that successfully pressured the Flagstaff City Council to pass an injunction threatening a lawsuit against the state for its anti-immigrant law SB 1070. [...]
Read the full interview:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/olson280510.html

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Mexico’s Other Disappeared -- 31 Migrants Go Missing

By Frontera NorteSur, New America Media
May 25, 2010


A Mexican lawmaker is demanding that government authorities pay more attention to a case of 31 missing migrants. Juan Fernando Rocha Mier, a state legislator for the National Action Party (PAN) in the central state of Queretaro, said the same “emphasis” should be placed on locating the disappeared migrants as on safely returning former presidential candidate and millionaire lawyer Diego Fernandez de Cevallos. [...]

http://newamericamedia.org/2010/05/mexicos-other-disappeared----31-migrants-go-missing.php

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Action Alert: Stop O'Reilly's Immigrant Crime Slurs

Blaming immigrants for nonexistent Arizona crime wave

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
May 17, 2010


Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly has repeatedly singled out one reason to support Arizona's draconian new immigration law: the state's exploding crime rate. But there is no documented crime wave in Arizona, and O'Reilly's attempt to link immigrants to crime is equally unfounded. [...]

Read the full alert:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4075

Monday, May 24, 2010

Public Justice E-lert: Supreme Court Finds Public Health Officials Immune in Castaneda Case

May 4, 2010

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) officials are immune from suit for violating the Constitution and causing Francisco Castaneda's death.

Castaneda was the El Salvadoran native whose penis was amputated after state and federal immigration officials in California repeatedly ignored or downplayed his medical needs, refusing to follow their own doctors' recommendations for a biopsy.

Eventually, Castaneda got the biopsy on his own, following his abrupt releaTse in February 2007. he amputation was intended to save his life, but the cancer had metastasized. Castaneda died in February 2008. He was 36 years old.

The U.S. government, one of the defendants in the lawsuit filed by Public Justice in 2007, has admitted medical negligence in Castaneda's case. Public Justice maintained, however, that the PHS officials responsible for Castaneda's treatment could be held personally accountable for violating his Eighth Amendment rights. Monday's Supreme Court ruling eliminates that prospect.

We are, of course, disappointed, but this case is far from over. The Supreme Court held that the Castaneda family cannot pursue claims under the U.S. Constitution, but the U.S. government has already conceded liability under the Federal Tort Claims Act and we are actively pursuing claims against the state of California and the state officials involved for denying Castaneda treatment while he was in state custody.

Click here to read the Supreme Court ruling in Hui v. Castaneda: http://www.publicjustice.net/repository/files/Castaneda-SupremeCourtRuling-050310.pdf

Click here to read the Associa ted Press article about the ruling:
http://www.publicjustice.net/repository/files/Castaneda-AP-SupremeCourtRuling.pdf

We are grateful for the tireless and determined work of everyone who worked on this appeal -- lead counsel Conal Doyle, our Board Member who argued the case before the Supreme Court, Public Justice Managing Attorney and Supreme Court Counsel of Record Adele Kimmel, Goldberg Waters & Kraus Fellow Amy Radon, Board Member Tom Dempsey, Staff Attorney Leslie Brueckner, Brayton-Baron Fellow Melanie Hirsch, Budd-Kazan Fellow Matt Wessler, and me.

With your help, we will keep fighting for justice. Thanks so much for making that possible.

Arthur Bryant
Executive Director
Public Justice and the Public Justice Foundation

email: abryant@publicjustice.net
voice: 202-797-8600
web: http://www.publicjustice.net

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Hundreds of Union Janitors Fired Under Pressure From Feds

By David Bacon, truthout
May 7, 2010

San Francisco, Ca.

Federal immigration authorities have pressured one of San Francisco's major building service companies, ABM, into firing hundreds of its own workers. Some 475 janitors have been told that unless they can show legal immigration status, they will lose their jobs in the near future.

ABM has been a union company for decades, and many of the workers have been there for years. "They've been working in the buildings downtown for 15, 20, some as many as 27 years," said Olga Miranda, president of Service Employees Local 87. "They've built homes. They've provided for their families. They've sent their kids to college. They're not new workers. They didn't just get here a year ago." [...]

Read the full article at:
http://www.truthout.org/hundreds-union-janitors-fired-under-pressure-from-feds59210

NY Dream Act Hunger Strike Postponed; Meeting Set for Wed. 5/26

***POSTPONED*** NY Dream Act hunger strike at Sen. Schumer's office (was Mon. 5/24)

http://www.nysylc.org/2010/05/meeting-this-wednesday-may-26-630pm/

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Mobilize: Arizona Solidarity & DREAM Actions Nationwide

1) ALTO Arizona: National Convergence to Stop the Hate
2) Donate to the Grassroots Arizona Solidarity Fund/Contribuye al Fondo de Grupos de Apoyo Solidario
3) Occupation of Tucson Air Force Base--First Nation & Migrants Oppose Border Militarization
4) MON 5/24: NYC Dream Act Indefinite Hunger Strike at Sen. Schumer's Office - lunes 24 de mayo, huelga de hambre en la oficina de Sen. Schumer en NYC
5) Dream Act civil disobedience actions and hunger strikes in California, Michigan, Arizona
Acciones de desobediencia civil y huelgas de hambre para el Acta DREAM en California, Michigan, Arizona

1) ALTO Arizona: National Convergence to Stop the Hate

Saturday, May 29, 2010
ALTO Arizona
NATIONAL CONVERGENCE TO STOP THE HATE
Day of Action Against SB1070
Phoenix, Arizona
http://altoarizona.com/events.html

May 29 National Day of Action

What: NDLON and Puente call on all people of conscience across the country to converge on Arizona on May 29. Together we will march to Stop the Hate and demand that Obama issue an executive order nullifying SB1070. STOP THE HATE!!!

Let Us Show The World That We Won’t Stand For Hateful Laws And Attacks On Immigrants And People Of Color. [...]

Read the full message at:
http://immigrantaction.blogspot.com/2010/05/mobilize-arizona-solidarity-dream.html

Friday, May 21, 2010

Worried Girl Asks Michelle Obama if Her Mother Will Be Deported

By Robert Mackey, New York Times
May 19, 2010

Michelle Obama fielded an awkward question on the immigration debate on Wednesday. It came from a worried young girl who seemed to say that her mother is an illegal immigrant. The encounter, caught on video, came during a visit by the first lady and Margarita Zavala, the wife of Mexican President Felipe Calderón to a second-grade class in Silver Spring, Md. [...]

Read the full article and view the video at:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/worried-girl-asks-michelle-obama-if-her-mother-will-be-deported/?ref=us

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Ignoring the Grassroots in Latin America

Our independent media tend to ignore grassroots struggles in Latin America and the Caribbean until something happens that gets them covered by NPR or the New York Times.

by David L. Wilson, World War 4 Report
May 1, 2010


During several days in early August 2009, thousands of Haitian workers walked off their jobs at assembly plants near the airport in northern Port-au-Prince and marched into the center of the city to demand an increase in the national minimum wage. Supported by public university students—who back in June had added the wage increase to their own list of demands—the strikers tied up traffic, surrounded government offices, tore down United Nations flags, and threw rocks at vehicles of the 9,000-member UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), a military force which has occupied Haiti since 2004. At one point the vehicle carrying US embassy chargé d'affaires Thomas Tighe was damaged, although the embassy insisted he hadn't been a target of the protests.

These dramatic protests barely got a mention in the US corporate media. This is not surprising: US opinion makers want us to believe that the workers, mostly young women who stitch garments for big US and Canadian apparel companies, are grateful for the chance to work at backbreaking jobs for starvation wages (they were calling for a raise to $5 a day). In fact, just as the workers were protesting, former U.S. president Bill Clinton, now the UN special envoy for Haiti, was pushing a plan to expand Haiti's assembly plant sector. Thousands of wildcat strikers marching on the capital clearly had no place in the corporate narrative.

What is more surprising is the apparent silence of the progressive US media about the protests. [...]

Read the full article:
http://www.ww4report.com/node/8564