By Fernanda Santos, New York Times
August 19, 2016
PHOENIX — A federal judge on Friday referred Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his second-in-command for criminal prosecution, finding that they ignored and misrepresented to subordinates court orders designed to keep the sheriff’s office from racially profiling Latinos.
In making the referral to the United States attorney’s office for criminal contempt charges, Judge G. Murray Snow of Federal District Court in Phoenix delivered the sharpest rebuke against Mr. Arpaio, who as the long-serving sheriff in Maricopa County made a name for himself as an unrelenting pursuer of undocumented immigrants.
Sheriff Arpaio and Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan “have a history of obfuscation and subversion of this court’s orders that is as old as this case,” Judge Snow wrote in his order.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/us/arizona-sheriff-joe-arpaio.html
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Photos Offer Glimpse Inside Arizona Border Detention Centers
By Fernanda Santos, New York Times
August 18, 2016
PHOENIX — In June 2015, legal and civil rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit in Federal District Court in Tucson accusing the Border Patrol of holding migrants in dirty and crowded cells at stations in southeastern Arizona, after they were caught illegally entering the United States.
Late Wednesday, still images from surveillance video at the stations, offering a glimpse inside the cells, were publicly released. The videos were part of the evidence filed with the court during the discovery process and unsealed by Judge David C. Bury last week.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of migrants by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, the American Immigration Council, the National Immigration Law Center and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Some photographs show migrants lying shoulder to shoulder on bare concrete floors while neighboring cells are empty, sleeping pads stacked against walls. In one image, a man drinks from a gallon jug, apparently the only source of water for all the detainees in his cell. In another, men sleep against a toilet stall.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/us/photos-show-conditions-in-arizona-border-detention-centers.html
August 18, 2016
PHOENIX — In June 2015, legal and civil rights groups filed a class-action lawsuit in Federal District Court in Tucson accusing the Border Patrol of holding migrants in dirty and crowded cells at stations in southeastern Arizona, after they were caught illegally entering the United States.
Late Wednesday, still images from surveillance video at the stations, offering a glimpse inside the cells, were publicly released. The videos were part of the evidence filed with the court during the discovery process and unsealed by Judge David C. Bury last week.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of migrants by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, the American Immigration Council, the National Immigration Law Center and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Some photographs show migrants lying shoulder to shoulder on bare concrete floors while neighboring cells are empty, sleeping pads stacked against walls. In one image, a man drinks from a gallon jug, apparently the only source of water for all the detainees in his cell. In another, men sleep against a toilet stall.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/19/us/photos-show-conditions-in-arizona-border-detention-centers.html
Monday, August 29, 2016
Immigrant Family Detention Center Made For-Profit Prison Company $1 Billion in No-Bid Deal
By Sam Knight, District Sentinel, via Truthout
August 16, 2016
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) used an existing contract with a private prison company to reach a separate deal with the firm, without having to publicly solicit bids for a new detention center.
ICE and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) agreed on the four-year, $1 billion no-bid deal in 2014, to rapidly implement an Obama administration initiative designed to deter the arrival of asylum seekers from Central America.
The terms of the agreement were reported on Monday in an investigation published by The Washington Post.
The paper said that the deal was hastily struck after Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson determined that the US "could cut down the surge [of migration] only by demonstrating that asylum seekers wouldn't receive leniency."[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37248-immigrant-family-detention-center-made-for-profit-prison-company-1-billion-in-no-bid-deal
August 16, 2016
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) used an existing contract with a private prison company to reach a separate deal with the firm, without having to publicly solicit bids for a new detention center.
ICE and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) agreed on the four-year, $1 billion no-bid deal in 2014, to rapidly implement an Obama administration initiative designed to deter the arrival of asylum seekers from Central America.
The terms of the agreement were reported on Monday in an investigation published by The Washington Post.
The paper said that the deal was hastily struck after Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson determined that the US "could cut down the surge [of migration] only by demonstrating that asylum seekers wouldn't receive leniency."[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37248-immigrant-family-detention-center-made-for-profit-prison-company-1-billion-in-no-bid-deal
Sunday, August 28, 2016
La Barrera del Perfeccionismo/The Perfection Barrier
La barrera del perfeccionismo
Por Elvira Arellano, Familias Unidas
13 de agosto, 2016
(English Version follows below)
Me dio gusto ver que hubo una gimnasta latina que representó a la selección estadounidense en las olimpiadas. También me encantó ver que Donald Trump va perdiendo apoyo según los sondeos de intención de voto, y que hasta dirigentes del partido republicano lo están rechazando. Sí, estamos logrando cambiar las cosas.
Hace 20 años, las familias indocumentadas latinas contábamos con poquísimos aliados. El congresista Gutiérrez introdujo un proyecto de ley que hubiera legalizado a los indocumentados en el Congreso, y prácticamente nadie del partido demócrata – y mucho menos del partido republicano—lo apoyaba. Actualmente cuesta esfuerzo hallar un político del partido demócrata que no apoya nuestras luchas. ¿Cuáles son los factores detrás de esta transformación?
Hemos obligado a esta nación vernos, nos hicimos muchos y logramos la unidad. Millones de familias comunes y corrientes luchaban para sobrevivir en el medio de hostilidad, de la dificultad de criar sus familias a base del salario mínimo o menos. Nosotros registramos la cifra más elevada de trabajadores heridos en el contexto del trabajo. Nos hacían muchas trampas. Tuvimos que vivir bajo una amenaza constante de ser deportados. Pero no nos dimos por vencidos.[...]
The Perfection Barrier
By Elvira Arellano, Familias Unidas
August 13, 2016
I was pleased to see the first Latina gymnast representing the U.S. in the Olympics. I was also pleased to see Donald Trump dropping in the polls, rejected even by leaders of the Republican Party. Yes we are making change.
Twenty years ago, undocumented Latino families had few allies. Congressman Gutierrez introduced a legalization bill in the Congress and had almost no democrats – much less Republicans – step forward to support his effort. Now it is hard to find a democrat who does not embrace our cause. What has brought about the change?
We made this nation see us, we became many and we were unified. Millions of ordinary families struggled to survive in the midst of hostility, raising children on minimum wages or less than minimum wages. We had the highest rate of injuries on the job. We were often cheated. And we lived with the constant threat of deportation. Yet we persevered.[...]
Lea el artículo completo/read the full article:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/la-barrera-del-perfeccionismo-rev-walter-l-slim-coleman
Por Elvira Arellano, Familias Unidas
13 de agosto, 2016
(English Version follows below)
Me dio gusto ver que hubo una gimnasta latina que representó a la selección estadounidense en las olimpiadas. También me encantó ver que Donald Trump va perdiendo apoyo según los sondeos de intención de voto, y que hasta dirigentes del partido republicano lo están rechazando. Sí, estamos logrando cambiar las cosas.
Hace 20 años, las familias indocumentadas latinas contábamos con poquísimos aliados. El congresista Gutiérrez introdujo un proyecto de ley que hubiera legalizado a los indocumentados en el Congreso, y prácticamente nadie del partido demócrata – y mucho menos del partido republicano—lo apoyaba. Actualmente cuesta esfuerzo hallar un político del partido demócrata que no apoya nuestras luchas. ¿Cuáles son los factores detrás de esta transformación?
Hemos obligado a esta nación vernos, nos hicimos muchos y logramos la unidad. Millones de familias comunes y corrientes luchaban para sobrevivir en el medio de hostilidad, de la dificultad de criar sus familias a base del salario mínimo o menos. Nosotros registramos la cifra más elevada de trabajadores heridos en el contexto del trabajo. Nos hacían muchas trampas. Tuvimos que vivir bajo una amenaza constante de ser deportados. Pero no nos dimos por vencidos.[...]
The Perfection Barrier
By Elvira Arellano, Familias Unidas
August 13, 2016
I was pleased to see the first Latina gymnast representing the U.S. in the Olympics. I was also pleased to see Donald Trump dropping in the polls, rejected even by leaders of the Republican Party. Yes we are making change.
Twenty years ago, undocumented Latino families had few allies. Congressman Gutierrez introduced a legalization bill in the Congress and had almost no democrats – much less Republicans – step forward to support his effort. Now it is hard to find a democrat who does not embrace our cause. What has brought about the change?
We made this nation see us, we became many and we were unified. Millions of ordinary families struggled to survive in the midst of hostility, raising children on minimum wages or less than minimum wages. We had the highest rate of injuries on the job. We were often cheated. And we lived with the constant threat of deportation. Yet we persevered.[...]
Lea el artículo completo/read the full article:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/la-barrera-del-perfeccionismo-rev-walter-l-slim-coleman
Saturday, August 27, 2016
Chicago alderman Rosa, community, activists denounce ICE raids on day laborers
By Michelle Zacarias and Earchiel Johnson, People's World
August 10 2016
CHICAGO -- Activists, community residents and laborers gathered on the corner of Milwaukee and Belmont in the heavily Latino neighborhood of West Avondale August 9 to denounce the recent increase in ICE raids taking place on the north west side of the city. Government agents had raided a neighborhood location where immigrant workers gather on Friday August 5 at around noon, forcing a group of laborers to to submit to illegal searches and mobile fingerprint scanners.
Aristides Banegas was one of the laborers who came face to face with ICE agents that day. He recalled details of the incident. He said that in the 23 years he's been living in the U.S., the last couple of years have exposed the type of energy and effort being directed at targeting immigrant communities. [Ed. note: Mr. Banegas' remarks are translated from Spanish.] "I came to this country for a better life and for change, and not to be mistreated." [...]
Read the full article:
http://peoplesworld.org/chicago-alderman-rosa-community-activists-denounce-ice-raids-on-day-laborers/
August 10 2016
CHICAGO -- Activists, community residents and laborers gathered on the corner of Milwaukee and Belmont in the heavily Latino neighborhood of West Avondale August 9 to denounce the recent increase in ICE raids taking place on the north west side of the city. Government agents had raided a neighborhood location where immigrant workers gather on Friday August 5 at around noon, forcing a group of laborers to to submit to illegal searches and mobile fingerprint scanners.
Aristides Banegas was one of the laborers who came face to face with ICE agents that day. He recalled details of the incident. He said that in the 23 years he's been living in the U.S., the last couple of years have exposed the type of energy and effort being directed at targeting immigrant communities. [Ed. note: Mr. Banegas' remarks are translated from Spanish.] "I came to this country for a better life and for change, and not to be mistreated." [...]
Read the full article:
http://peoplesworld.org/chicago-alderman-rosa-community-activists-denounce-ice-raids-on-day-laborers/
Friday, August 26, 2016
Escape to New York
Many Central American immigrants seeking legal help are fleeing organized crime in their own countries.
By Francisco Goldman, New Yorker
August 9, 2016
I fiirst learned of Central American Legal Assistance in the fall of 2009, from a letter mailed to my Brooklyn address that I read months after it was posted, having just returned from a long summer in Mexico. The letter was written by Betsy Plum, a cala caseworker, and described the situation of a Guatemalan woman living in the metropolitan area who was in deportation proceedings while also seeking political asylum. In Guatemala, the woman had discovered that her romantic partner had been involved with men previously linked to the 1998 murder of the Guatemalan bishop and human-rights activist Monsignor Juan José Gerardi Conedera; in a 2001 trial, some of those men were sentenced to prison for that crime. The woman had unwittingly, though at close hand, overheard a conversation implicating at least two of them, including her partner, in a prison murder. (One of the men, Byron Lima Oliva, was murdered in prison, on July 18th of this year.)
Plum’s letter, which shared only some of what her client knew, included names that would only be known to somebody familiar with the small, dangerous circle of convicted and alleged co-conspirators linked to the bishop’s murder and other criminal activities—a mix of military men and civilians, some involved in arms and drug trafficking, some in and some out of prison, and one extremely powerful politician long suspected by some investigators of being the group’s secret leader and protector. Alarmed by what she’d discovered about her partner’s deepening entanglement with this group, the Guatemalan woman had sought to leave him. Months later, she was kidnapped, tortured, and repeatedly raped. A relative whom she was suspected of having told about what she’d witnessed was murdered. Through a subterfuge, she managed to escape her imprisonment and fled to the United States, where for a few years she lived the hidden life of an undocumented migrant, until she was detained by U.S. authorities.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/escape-to-new-york
By Francisco Goldman, New Yorker
August 9, 2016
I fiirst learned of Central American Legal Assistance in the fall of 2009, from a letter mailed to my Brooklyn address that I read months after it was posted, having just returned from a long summer in Mexico. The letter was written by Betsy Plum, a cala caseworker, and described the situation of a Guatemalan woman living in the metropolitan area who was in deportation proceedings while also seeking political asylum. In Guatemala, the woman had discovered that her romantic partner had been involved with men previously linked to the 1998 murder of the Guatemalan bishop and human-rights activist Monsignor Juan José Gerardi Conedera; in a 2001 trial, some of those men were sentenced to prison for that crime. The woman had unwittingly, though at close hand, overheard a conversation implicating at least two of them, including her partner, in a prison murder. (One of the men, Byron Lima Oliva, was murdered in prison, on July 18th of this year.)
Plum’s letter, which shared only some of what her client knew, included names that would only be known to somebody familiar with the small, dangerous circle of convicted and alleged co-conspirators linked to the bishop’s murder and other criminal activities—a mix of military men and civilians, some involved in arms and drug trafficking, some in and some out of prison, and one extremely powerful politician long suspected by some investigators of being the group’s secret leader and protector. Alarmed by what she’d discovered about her partner’s deepening entanglement with this group, the Guatemalan woman had sought to leave him. Months later, she was kidnapped, tortured, and repeatedly raped. A relative whom she was suspected of having told about what she’d witnessed was murdered. Through a subterfuge, she managed to escape her imprisonment and fled to the United States, where for a few years she lived the hidden life of an undocumented migrant, until she was detained by U.S. authorities.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/escape-to-new-york
Thursday, August 25, 2016
9 Critical Points on Anti-Blackness, Immigration and Why Latinxs Must Shut It Down Too
Immigrant rights leaders in the U.S. show how to concretely build solidarity between the immigrant rights and Black Lives Matter movements.
By Raul Alcaraz-Ochoa, Jorge Gutierrez, Alan Pelaez, and Deborah Alemu, TeleSUR
August 7, 2016
An Open Letter to the Immigrant Rights Movement:
In light of the brutal murders of Alton Sterling, Philando Castille, Delrawn Smalls Dempsey, Alva Braziel, Joyce Quaweay, Skye Mockabee and Korryn Gaines, anti-Blackness, patriarchy and transphobia need to profoundly and urgently be addressed within immigrant rights organizing, now more than ever. Although non-Black Latinx solidarity with Black lives has increased and grown, there is still a lot of work to be done.
How do Latinxs and the immigrant rights movement navigate anti-Blackness? First of all what is anti-Blackness?
“Anti-Blackness is not simply the racist actions of a white man with a grudge nor is it only a structure of racist discrimination—anti-blackness is the paradigm that binds blackness and death together so much so that one cannot think of one without the other," according to Nicholas Brady in the Progressive.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/9-Points-on-Anti-Blackness-and-Why-Latinxs-Must-Shut-It-Down-20160806-0019.html
By Raul Alcaraz-Ochoa, Jorge Gutierrez, Alan Pelaez, and Deborah Alemu, TeleSUR
August 7, 2016
An Open Letter to the Immigrant Rights Movement:
In light of the brutal murders of Alton Sterling, Philando Castille, Delrawn Smalls Dempsey, Alva Braziel, Joyce Quaweay, Skye Mockabee and Korryn Gaines, anti-Blackness, patriarchy and transphobia need to profoundly and urgently be addressed within immigrant rights organizing, now more than ever. Although non-Black Latinx solidarity with Black lives has increased and grown, there is still a lot of work to be done.
How do Latinxs and the immigrant rights movement navigate anti-Blackness? First of all what is anti-Blackness?
“Anti-Blackness is not simply the racist actions of a white man with a grudge nor is it only a structure of racist discrimination—anti-blackness is the paradigm that binds blackness and death together so much so that one cannot think of one without the other," according to Nicholas Brady in the Progressive.[...]
Read the full article:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/9-Points-on-Anti-Blackness-and-Why-Latinxs-Must-Shut-It-Down-20160806-0019.html
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