By William Fisher, Inter Press Service
July 22, 2009
NEW YORK, Jul 22 (IPS) - Duarnis Perez, a native of the Dominican Republic, became a U.S. citizen at 15 when his mother was naturalised. But he didn't know that meant he was also a citizen. He thought he was an illegal immigrant, and so did the authorities.
He was deported and subsequently arrested trying to sneak back into the U.S. from Canada. Perez spent almost five years in prison for unlawful reentry. But when he was released in 2004, an official of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) reviewed his file and told him he had been a citizen all along. [...]
Read the full article:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47759
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Racist Web Posts Traced to Homeland Security
By Kirk Semple, New York Times
July 24, 2009
After federal border agents detained several Mexican immigrants in western New York in June, an article about the incident in a local newspaper drew an onslaught of vitriolic postings on its Web site. Some were racist. Others attacked farmers in the region, an apple-growing area east of Rochester, accusing them of harboring illegal workers. Still others made personal attacks about the reporter who wrote the article.
Most of the posts were made anonymously. But in reviewing the logs of its Internet server, the paper, The Wayne County Star in Wolcott, traced three of them to Internet protocol addresses at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border protection. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/nyregion/25immig.html
July 24, 2009
After federal border agents detained several Mexican immigrants in western New York in June, an article about the incident in a local newspaper drew an onslaught of vitriolic postings on its Web site. Some were racist. Others attacked farmers in the region, an apple-growing area east of Rochester, accusing them of harboring illegal workers. Still others made personal attacks about the reporter who wrote the article.
Most of the posts were made anonymously. But in reviewing the logs of its Internet server, the paper, The Wayne County Star in Wolcott, traced three of them to Internet protocol addresses at the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees border protection. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/nyregion/25immig.html
Friday, July 24, 2009
Arizona activist faces death threat
by Demetria Martinez, NCR Today
July 15, 2009
Isabel Garcia, a Tucson, Ariz., attorney whose work on behalf of immigrants has earned her international acclaim, has received a death threat from an individual claiming to offer a half million dollars to anyone who might assassinate her.
Written in broken Spanish, the threat arrived by e-mail at the offices of Coalición de Derechos Humanos, or the Human Rights Coalition, in June. Garcia is the co-chair of the organization, which monitors the growing militarization of the border, tracks border patrol abuses, and promotes community education about rights when encountering law enforcement officials. [...]
Read the full article:
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/arizona-activist-faces-death-threat
July 15, 2009
Isabel Garcia, a Tucson, Ariz., attorney whose work on behalf of immigrants has earned her international acclaim, has received a death threat from an individual claiming to offer a half million dollars to anyone who might assassinate her.
Written in broken Spanish, the threat arrived by e-mail at the offices of Coalición de Derechos Humanos, or the Human Rights Coalition, in June. Garcia is the co-chair of the organization, which monitors the growing militarization of the border, tracks border patrol abuses, and promotes community education about rights when encountering law enforcement officials. [...]
Read the full article:
http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/arizona-activist-faces-death-threat
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Report Says Immigration Agents Broke Laws and Agency Rules in Home Raids
By Nina Bernstein, New York Times
July 21, 2009
Armed federal immigration agents have illegally pushed and shoved their way into homes in New York and New Jersey in hundreds of predawn raids that violated their own agency rules as well as the Constitution, according to a study to be released on Wednesday by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
The study by the school’s Immigration Justice Law Clinic, backed by several law enforcement experts including Nassau County’s police commissioner, found a widespread pattern of misconduct by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement after analyzing 700 arrest reports obtained from the agency through Freedom of Information lawsuits. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/nyregion/22raids.html?ref=nyregion
For the text of the report:
http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/uploadedFiles/Cardozo/Profiles/immigrationlaw-741/IJC_ICE-Home-Raid-Report%20Updated.pdf
For internal ICE memos
http://cardozo.yu.edu/uploadedFiles/Cardozo/Profiles/immigrationlaw-741/memos%20and%20data.pdf
July 21, 2009
Armed federal immigration agents have illegally pushed and shoved their way into homes in New York and New Jersey in hundreds of predawn raids that violated their own agency rules as well as the Constitution, according to a study to be released on Wednesday by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
The study by the school’s Immigration Justice Law Clinic, backed by several law enforcement experts including Nassau County’s police commissioner, found a widespread pattern of misconduct by agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement after analyzing 700 arrest reports obtained from the agency through Freedom of Information lawsuits. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/nyregion/22raids.html?ref=nyregion
For the text of the report:
http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/uploadedFiles/Cardozo/Profiles/immigrationlaw-741/IJC_ICE-Home-Raid-Report%20Updated.pdf
For internal ICE memos
http://cardozo.yu.edu/uploadedFiles/Cardozo/Profiles/immigrationlaw-741/memos%20and%20data.pdf
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
NY area events 7/25-8/1
1. SAT 7/25 & SAT 8/1: Last 2 Performances of “Las Escenas de la Cruz.”
There are only two more performances of this powerful play by NYC immigrant youths about their own and their friends’ experiences coming to the US and living and working here. Make sure you don't miss out on a unique experience--order your tickets now.
--Saturday July 25, 1 pm
--Saturday August 1, 7 pm
At Dorothy Streslin Theater, 312 W 36th St, Manhattan
(A/C/E to 34th St-Penn Station)
Tickets: 866-811-4111 and http://midtownfestival.org/
More information: http://ipoweryouth.org/ & http://myspace.com/idotheaternyc
* * *
2. SUN 7/26: "Enemy Alien" screening, punk benefit in NJ
[Politics of Immigration co-author Jane Guskin is playing with two of the bands.]
Punk for Economic Justice
Sunday July 26, 2009
Huasipungo
Ke Chu=Cha
Joda!
Anti-Armada
Public Disturbance
PLUS: a preview screening of "Enemy Alien," a 70-minute documentary about the struggle to free Palestinian activist Farouk Abdel-Muhti from immigration detention:
http://www.lifeorliberty.org/enemyalien.html
Doors open at 3:30 pm
(film to start promptly at 3:30pm, followed by brief Q&A/discussion, then the bands)
8 Park St. (downstairs)
Montclair, NJ (see directions below)
$6-10 suggested donation at the door goes to help Palestinian rights activist and radio producer Sharin Chiorazzo battle a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer. Sharin has worked for many years to support Palestinian rights and further the cause of peace in the Middle East. Sharin produced and hosted the "Live from Palestine" segment on WBAI, and helped win the release in April 2004 of her close friend and colleague, New York Palestinian activist Farouk Abdel-Muhti, from immigration detention. At the time of Farouk's death on July 21, 2004, he and Sharin were engaged to be married. Sharin has a young daughter, Nadia.
You can contribute to Sharin's medical expenses by donating at the show or by making a check payable to either "Farouk Fund" or "Sharin Chiorazzo," note "healthcare" on the memo line and mailing it to Sharin Chiorazzo, 267 Mattix Run, Galloway, NJ 08205. (Donations are not tax-deductible.)
Directions to the screening and show:
By car take the Garden State Parkway South to the Watchung Ave. Exit (151). Take a right at the light after the toll. Follow to the end (under train trestle). Take a left (Park Ave.) Follow 2 miles to 8 Park (just before Bloomfield Ave).
By bus (from Newark Penn Station): use NJ Transit Trip Planner:
http://www.njtransit.com/sf/sf_servlet.srv?hdnPageAction=TripPlannerTo
For more information, email Greg at info (at) anti-racist.org or call 201-803-7574
See show flier at http://anti-racist.org/pfej726.html
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Remittances to Mexico Drop as Some Migrants in the USA get Money from Home
Frontera NorteSur
July 17, 2009
For decades, money sent home by Mexicans laboring in the United States has been a key pillar of the Mexican economy. Now, scattered reports are surfacing of Mexicans sending money to support relatives in the United States hard hit by the economic crisis north of the border. Latinos, especially immigrants, are suffering a disproportionate share of the joblessness that is officially rising to engulf close to 10 percent of the overall US population.
According to Chihuahua state tourism department official Demetrio Sotomayor Cuellar, a 21 percent decrease over last year in the number of "paisanos" (Mexican immigrants traveling home for visits) crossing the Chihuahua border from June 26 to July 14 led officials to investigate the visitor drop. In the course of the probe, Sotomayor said, officials ran across unusual reports in the hands of Mexico's Interior Ministry.
Much to their surprise, officials learned that some Mexicans were financially sustaining migrant relatives. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.mexidata.info/id2343.html
July 17, 2009
For decades, money sent home by Mexicans laboring in the United States has been a key pillar of the Mexican economy. Now, scattered reports are surfacing of Mexicans sending money to support relatives in the United States hard hit by the economic crisis north of the border. Latinos, especially immigrants, are suffering a disproportionate share of the joblessness that is officially rising to engulf close to 10 percent of the overall US population.
According to Chihuahua state tourism department official Demetrio Sotomayor Cuellar, a 21 percent decrease over last year in the number of "paisanos" (Mexican immigrants traveling home for visits) crossing the Chihuahua border from June 26 to July 14 led officials to investigate the visitor drop. In the course of the probe, Sotomayor said, officials ran across unusual reports in the hands of Mexico's Interior Ministry.
Much to their surprise, officials learned that some Mexicans were financially sustaining migrant relatives. [...]
Read the full article:
http://www.mexidata.info/id2343.html
Friday, July 17, 2009
Immigrant Drama: “Maybe You Have to Yell a Little”
By David L. Wilson (co-author, The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers)
July 16, 2009
Something truly original is coming to the New York theater scene this week. In a small West Side playhouse a dozen immigrant youths will give the world premiere on Friday of a bilingual one-act play they have created from their own experiences and those of their friends.
“Las Escenas de la Cruz/Scenes From the Cross” follows a group of young people on their journey from Mexico to New York, cutting back and forth between their grueling days and nights in the desert and the dramas and disappointments they face once they get here.
The play grew out of the iDoTheater project of iPOWER , a New York-based nonprofit that helps immigrant youths expand their skills and talents.
Daniel Carlton, a professional actor and playwright, has worked with the cast over the past year to develop the eight-scene script out of a series of improvisations. The result is a rare opportunity to hear from the people who have largely been excluded from the immigration debate in the mainstream media—the immigrants themselves.
Giving immigrants a voice was the iDoTheater project’s goal from the time it started two years ago, according to one of the founding members, who came here from Mexico’s Puebla state when he was thirteen. “We wanted to create a group to tell our own stories,” he says. The collective produced two brief plays previously; “Las Escenas” is the group’s first large-scale effort.
Most of the cast members are from Latin America; one was born in China. Many of the people they know have made the dangerous crossing into the United States that provides much of the play’s action; more than 4,000 people have died in the attempt during the past fifteen years. Like the play’s characters, most of the actors came here with dreams of greater opportunities in El Norte and instead found labor exploitation, broken promises, disrupted families, and threats from criminal gangs.
The young actors aren’t always polished, but they more than make up for their lack of experience with a deeply felt emotion and, sometimes, surprising humor.
“The hardest part is just getting them together for rehearsals,” says the energetic and talented Carlton, who coaches the cast in a very New York mixture of Spanish and English. Like many teens in the city, the actors in “Las Escenas” have to juggle schedules that include low-wage jobs and classes in high schools and community colleges. Carlton and the cast held the rehearsals and script writing sessions in whatever spaces they could find: in classrooms at The Door, a downtown youth project, in local restaurants, and, when the weather was good, in city parks.
For the youth from Puebla the result was worth the effort. He hopes that seeing the play will be “good for the others…for the people who don’t face the risks” of immigrant life.
Asked if he thinks “Las Escenas” will help non-immigrants see the point of view of the people who cross the border, another cast member says he’s not sure. “But if you don’t tell them, they won’t hear you. Maybe you have to yell a little.”
The play is part of this year’s Midtown International Theatre Festival. Performances will held be at the Dorothy Strelsin Theatre at 312 West 36th Street in Manhattan on Friday, July 17 at 7 pm (sold out); Saturday, July 18 at 3 pm; Sunday, July 19 at 4 pm; Tuesday, July 21 at 6:30 pm; Saturday, July 25 at 1 pm; and Saturday, August 1 at 7 pm. Tickets are available from 886-811-4111 or http://midtownfestival.org/).
July 16, 2009
Something truly original is coming to the New York theater scene this week. In a small West Side playhouse a dozen immigrant youths will give the world premiere on Friday of a bilingual one-act play they have created from their own experiences and those of their friends.
“Las Escenas de la Cruz/Scenes From the Cross” follows a group of young people on their journey from Mexico to New York, cutting back and forth between their grueling days and nights in the desert and the dramas and disappointments they face once they get here.
The play grew out of the iDoTheater project of iPOWER , a New York-based nonprofit that helps immigrant youths expand their skills and talents.
Daniel Carlton, a professional actor and playwright, has worked with the cast over the past year to develop the eight-scene script out of a series of improvisations. The result is a rare opportunity to hear from the people who have largely been excluded from the immigration debate in the mainstream media—the immigrants themselves.
Giving immigrants a voice was the iDoTheater project’s goal from the time it started two years ago, according to one of the founding members, who came here from Mexico’s Puebla state when he was thirteen. “We wanted to create a group to tell our own stories,” he says. The collective produced two brief plays previously; “Las Escenas” is the group’s first large-scale effort.
Most of the cast members are from Latin America; one was born in China. Many of the people they know have made the dangerous crossing into the United States that provides much of the play’s action; more than 4,000 people have died in the attempt during the past fifteen years. Like the play’s characters, most of the actors came here with dreams of greater opportunities in El Norte and instead found labor exploitation, broken promises, disrupted families, and threats from criminal gangs.
The young actors aren’t always polished, but they more than make up for their lack of experience with a deeply felt emotion and, sometimes, surprising humor.
“The hardest part is just getting them together for rehearsals,” says the energetic and talented Carlton, who coaches the cast in a very New York mixture of Spanish and English. Like many teens in the city, the actors in “Las Escenas” have to juggle schedules that include low-wage jobs and classes in high schools and community colleges. Carlton and the cast held the rehearsals and script writing sessions in whatever spaces they could find: in classrooms at The Door, a downtown youth project, in local restaurants, and, when the weather was good, in city parks.
For the youth from Puebla the result was worth the effort. He hopes that seeing the play will be “good for the others…for the people who don’t face the risks” of immigrant life.
Asked if he thinks “Las Escenas” will help non-immigrants see the point of view of the people who cross the border, another cast member says he’s not sure. “But if you don’t tell them, they won’t hear you. Maybe you have to yell a little.”
The play is part of this year’s Midtown International Theatre Festival. Performances will held be at the Dorothy Strelsin Theatre at 312 West 36th Street in Manhattan on Friday, July 17 at 7 pm (sold out); Saturday, July 18 at 3 pm; Sunday, July 19 at 4 pm; Tuesday, July 21 at 6:30 pm; Saturday, July 25 at 1 pm; and Saturday, August 1 at 7 pm. Tickets are available from 886-811-4111 or http://midtownfestival.org/).
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