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
Thursday, May 16, 2013
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
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Workers Claim Race Bias as Farms Rely on Immigrants
By Ethan Bronner, New York Times
May 6, 2013
VIDALIA, Ga. — For years, labor unions and immigrant rights activists have accused large-scale farmers, like those harvesting sweet Vidalia onions here this month, of exploiting Mexican guest workers. Working for hours on end under a punishing sun, the pickers are said to be crowded into squalid camps, driven without a break and even cheated of wages.
But as Congress weighs immigration legislation expected to expand the guest worker program, another group is increasingly crying foul — Americans, mostly black, who live near the farms and say they want the field work but cannot get it because it is going to Mexicans. They contend that they are illegally discouraged from applying for work and treated shabbily by farmers who prefer the foreigners for their malleability. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/us/suit-cites-race-bias-in-farms-use-of-immigrants.html
May 6, 2013
VIDALIA, Ga. — For years, labor unions and immigrant rights activists have accused large-scale farmers, like those harvesting sweet Vidalia onions here this month, of exploiting Mexican guest workers. Working for hours on end under a punishing sun, the pickers are said to be crowded into squalid camps, driven without a break and even cheated of wages.
But as Congress weighs immigration legislation expected to expand the guest worker program, another group is increasingly crying foul — Americans, mostly black, who live near the farms and say they want the field work but cannot get it because it is going to Mexicans. They contend that they are illegally discouraged from applying for work and treated shabbily by farmers who prefer the foreigners for their malleability. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/us/suit-cites-race-bias-in-farms-use-of-immigrants.html
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Right to Vote Seen Close to Reality for NYC Legal Residents
By Voices of NY, El Diario La Prensa, Queens Latino
Translated by Emily Leavitt from Spanish
Both El Diario La Prensa and Queens Latino covered a proposed bill being discussed in the City Council this week which will give legal residents the right to vote in municipal elections, including the race for mayor later this year. The articles are excerpted and translated below.
The Queens Latino story by Javier Castaño, headlined “The Right to Vote for Legal Residents Becomes a Reality in NYC,” was the most optimistic of the two, assuring readers that the measure is a shoo-in.
"After a 10-year struggle, the right to vote in municipal elections is starting to become a reality for legal residents. This Thursday, May 9, at 1 p.m. the City Council will hold the first public hearing on the measure." [...]
Read the full article:
http://voicesofny.org/2013/05/right-to-vote-seen-close-to-reality-for-nyc-legal-residents/
Translated by Emily Leavitt from Spanish
Both El Diario La Prensa and Queens Latino covered a proposed bill being discussed in the City Council this week which will give legal residents the right to vote in municipal elections, including the race for mayor later this year. The articles are excerpted and translated below.
The Queens Latino story by Javier Castaño, headlined “The Right to Vote for Legal Residents Becomes a Reality in NYC,” was the most optimistic of the two, assuring readers that the measure is a shoo-in.
"After a 10-year struggle, the right to vote in municipal elections is starting to become a reality for legal residents. This Thursday, May 9, at 1 p.m. the City Council will hold the first public hearing on the measure." [...]
Read the full article:
http://voicesofny.org/2013/05/right-to-vote-seen-close-to-reality-for-nyc-legal-residents/
Friday, May 10, 2013
Heritage Foundation Immigration Author Under Fire
“There are real differences between groups, not just trivial ones that we happen to notice more than we should,” he went on to say. “Race is different in all sorts of ways and probably the most important way is in IQ.”
By Sara Murray and Neil King Jr., Washington Wire, Wall Street Journal
May 8, 2013
It’s not just the Heritage Foundation’s research that’s controversial.
The conservative think tank earlier this week published a study – denounced by other conservatives – that concluded legalizing 11 million immigrants would end up costing taxpayers $6.3 trillion. By Wednesday the scrutiny had shifted to one of the report’s coauthors, Jason Richwine.
Mr. Richwine, who was hired as a senior policy analyst at the think tank last year, graduated from Harvard University with a Ph.D. in 2009. In his Harvard dissertation he asserted there were persistent differences between the average IQ of white Americans and that of immigrants. The relative IQs of different immigrant groups, he argued, should be weighed when determining who should be allowed permanent entry into the U.S. [...]
Read the full article:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/05/08/heritage-foundation-immigration-author-under-fire/?mod=WSJ_hpsMIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond
For information on the Harvard professors who approved Richwine's PhD dissertation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/05/09/what-the-anti-immigrant-movement-really-believes/
By Sara Murray and Neil King Jr., Washington Wire, Wall Street Journal
May 8, 2013
It’s not just the Heritage Foundation’s research that’s controversial.
The conservative think tank earlier this week published a study – denounced by other conservatives – that concluded legalizing 11 million immigrants would end up costing taxpayers $6.3 trillion. By Wednesday the scrutiny had shifted to one of the report’s coauthors, Jason Richwine.
Mr. Richwine, who was hired as a senior policy analyst at the think tank last year, graduated from Harvard University with a Ph.D. in 2009. In his Harvard dissertation he asserted there were persistent differences between the average IQ of white Americans and that of immigrants. The relative IQs of different immigrant groups, he argued, should be weighed when determining who should be allowed permanent entry into the U.S. [...]
Read the full article:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/05/08/heritage-foundation-immigration-author-under-fire/?mod=WSJ_hpsMIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecond
For information on the Harvard professors who approved Richwine's PhD dissertation:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/05/09/what-the-anti-immigrant-movement-really-believes/
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