A pro-Sheriff Arpaio demonstrator in Phoenix on Saturday. (Photo: Nick Oza)

PHOENIX, Arizona — Conservative talk-radio commentators were faster than a virus in spreading the idea that undocumented immigrants are a hazard to public health by bringing a new flu virus across the country’s “porous border.”

But one national media organization is trying to keep the anti-immigrant fervor out of newsrooms.

On Wednesday, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) called for the mainstream media to “resist the baseless blame of immigrants” in connection with the spread of influenza A-H1N1.

“This virus should not be characterized as a Mexican disease,” said Iván Román, NAHJ’s executive director. “We should also resist covering it in a way that furthers anti-immigrant rhetoric.”

Román pointed out that while there may be a temptation to link Mexican immigrants to the spread of the disease in the United States, it is necessary to keep in mind that this community is no more responsible for it than American spring-breakers traveling to Mexico.

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Feet In 2 Worlds contributor Sooyeon Kim covered the immigration rallies that took place Friday in Manhattan.

The earlier Madison Square Park rally, which featured a text messaging campaign, was attended by immigrants from many different backgrounds. Kim reports:

Despite the pouring rain, hundreds of immigrant rights supporters started marching at 6 p.m. to City Hall, flaunting flags and chanting, calling for immigration reform.

You can read our story about the Madison Square Park rally here.

Kim later covered the second rally, which met in Union Square. Here’s a slideshow with images from both demonstrations.

You can see another FI2W video from the Union Square rally here.

May Day rally in East Boston. (Photos: Eduardo A. de Oliveira/EthnicNEWz.org)

With unexpectedly low turnout, peaceful protests took place across the country today, with rallies in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, New Jersey, New York and other cities. Although two factors –rain and the possible spread of swine flu– represented a setback in some cities, advocates feel this is the right moment to push for immigration reform. Police in East Boston, Massachusetts estimated there were 1,000 protesters at a local rally. Across from City Hall in Manchester, N.H., demonstrators numbered only 60, according to organizers.

Fausto da Rocha, a Brazilian activist in Massachusetts was not disappointed with the low attendance. “I’m satisfied to see several religious leaders here today, people who can influence many in their communities,” he said . “Everyone knows the time for legalization is now.”

What the rallies lacked in numbers they compensated for with the participation of entire families.

At least three immigrant families whose members were separated by recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids attended the rally in Manchester. At one point, Aaron Silvestre, 6, an American citizen whose father was detained for a few weeks, told the crowd: “We need to keep families together. The police should not take fathers away like they took my father.”

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MEXICO CITY — As President Barack Obama arrived in Mexico City Thursday, a small group of immigration activists demonstrated at the U.S. Embassy on leafy Paseo de la Reforma, close to downtown. They were there to demand comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. and a stop to immigration raids and deportations.

Children who are U.S. citizens but now live in Mexico because of their parents’ deportations were there. After President Obama said at his speech in the Democratic National Convention last year that no one “benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child,” activists had hoped he would stop deportations that break up families with an executive order. That has not happened.

The Pew Hispanic Center said this week that 73% of the children of undocumented immigrants were born in the U.S. and are U.S. citizens.

One of the protesters present was Elvira Arellano, who became known nationwide when she fought a deportation order in 2006 by seeking sanctuary inside a Chicago church. Arellano was finally deported in 2007 and now runs a shelter for deported women and children in Tijuana while continuing to work for immigration reform from the other side of the border. She came to the embassy with her 10-year-old son, Saúl, a U.S. citizen.

You can watch a slideshow on the Arellanos below or, for higher quality, go to our YouTube channel.

“In the criminal justice system, anyone arrested is assumed innocent, but in the immigration system, they’re put in detention, and then it’s the individual’s burden to prove they shouldn’t be detained,” Sarnata Reynolds told the San Francisco Chronicle. “That’s why you’ll see long periods of detention, because it’s an incredibly high burden.”

Alternatives to detention are significantly cheaper, AI says. (Photo: Amnesty International/Steven Rubin)

Reynolds is one of the authors of yet another report that is highly critical of the detention conditions people –both immigrants and wrongfully-detained American citizens– are subject to when held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The report, Jailed Without Justice: Immigration Detention in the USA, published Wednesday by Amnesty International, adds to other dismal appraisals published in recent weeks. Anticipating its publication, an ICE special advisor on detention said it would be taken into account, and acknowledged the need to change the detention system.

The Chronicle’s Tyche Hendricks writes about the cases of two American citizens from the Bay Area, one born in Thailand, the other from Afghanistan, who were taken into custody by ICE in 2007.

Though the men told immigration officials of their citizenship, neither had papers to prove it, and both languished in immigration custody in Santa Clara County jail –Nasir for 11 months, Simma for seven– before a lawyer finally secured their release.

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Cardinal George - Photo: AP

It was not the first time a Catholic leader has called for changes to the nation’s immigration policies. But Saturday’s appeal by Cardinal Francis George, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was notable in that it was aimed directly at President Barack Obama and his promise of change.

“I stand with other faith leaders and all of you gathered here today and with every immigrant family in this nation to call on our government to end immigration raids and the separation of families,” George said at a Chicago church where a prayer forum was held to call for renewed debate on immigration reform. “Such reform would be a clear sign this administration is truly about change.”

The cardinal’s call came after a week in which, for the first time in office, President Obama spoke at length about immigration before a mainstream audience; and after he told members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus he will address immigration reform soon, with some (unspecified) action to come in the next couple of months.

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