A talk radio event sparks an ugly exchange. (Image: FAIR)

Over 45 of “America’s finest radio hosts,” according to organizers, have converged on Washington D.C. to hold a conservative event Tuesday and Wednesday in opposition to President Obama’s health care proposal and the possibility of immigration reform.

But the event’s organizer, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, is being denounced by America’s Voice, one of the leading pro-immigration lobbying organizations, as a hate group.

While both groups have long disagreed, and maintain widely divergent views on immigration, seldom have their attacks been so direct.

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By Maibe Gonzalez Fuentes, FI2W contributor

Pro-immigrant activist Humberto De La Cruz holds a copy of the letter advocates will send to the New York City council, during the press conference at Judson Memorial Church in Manhattan. (Photo: Maibe Gonzalez Fuentes)

Saidah Mohammed, an 18-year-old from Brooklyn, New York, hasn’t seen her boyfriend, Jaun Pierre, for over a year. He’s being detained while he awaits deportation to his native Jamaica, an island he hasn’t visited since his parents brought him to the U.S., settling in Brooklyn some 10 years ago.

Jaun, 19, has spent the past 11 months in immigration detention. Before that he spent months detained on a minor charge in New York City’s Rikers Island prison. It was while he was a prisoner at Rikers that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents caught Jaun. His lawyer advised him to plead guilty to charges stemming from a fight he was allegedly involved in without informing him that such a plea would set grounds for deportation. Now proceedings are underway to return Jaun to Jamaica, away from his parents, siblings, friends and Saidah. (*In response to a reader’s comment, this paragraph was edited for clarity.)

Saidah told her boyfriend’s story through tears at a press conference Tuesday in New York where advocates and religious groups launched a new campaign to end the presence of ICE at the city’s jails.

Advocates called on New York City’s government to pass legislation that would preclude ICE from accessing detainees’ place of birth information prior to conviction. A bill drafted by the groups and sponsored by Council Member Eric Gioia will be introduced in the City Council next week.

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Danbury has seen a heated debate on undocumented immigrants. (Photo: mystical_swirl/Flickr)

Billed by a Latino newspaper as “one of the most controversial measures enacted by the city’s Common Council”, an agreement between Danbury, Conn., and the Department of Homeland Security for that municipality to join the criticized 287 (g) program is finally going into effect after extensive debate.

Under the agreement, which at least 66 local law enforcement agencies nationwide have joined, two Danbury Police detectives will be trained by DHS to enforce immigration laws. The Associated Press reported, the agreement has already resulted in immigrants’ moving away from the southern Connecticut city.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton says the agreement will function under new rules set by the Obama administration, which supposedly would prevent local officers from going after non-criminal undocumented immigrants and those who commit minor infractions, like traffic violations.

According to the Tribuna Connecticut newspaper, Boughton said:

“The revised program was not created to cater to either of the extreme sides of this issue.

“It will not pick up the (day laborers) at Kennedy Park, nor will it turn a blind eye to the legal status of someone who robs a bank.

“This program caters to the 70 percent of the population that wants a safer community, whether they were born here or not and are here legally or illegally.”

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Obama keeps revving the immigration reform engine, advocates want to take it for a spin already. (Photo: The White House)

The second White House meeting on immigration reform under President Barack Obama went well. Or did it? It depends on whom you ask.

Much like the overall situation since Obama took office, the meeting left room for conflicting interpretations: some came out thinking the president is committed to passing immigration reform despite his overloaded agenda, others emerged with a sense that Obama and Homeland Security Sec. Janet Napolitano need to start backing up their promises with action.

A glass half-full example: Politico‘s headline, “Obama addresses immigration reform,” when all the president did was show up at the meeting to give a brief pep talk.

Glass half-empty: The Wall Street Journal’s take, “Some Hear More PR, Less Policy at White House Immigration Meeting.”

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Obama and Calderón had a bilateral meeting on Sunday in Guadalajara. (Photo: Alfredo Guerrero/Mexican Presidency - Click to visit Flickr page)

The summit of the “Three Amigos” (the presidents of the U.S., Mexico and Canada) in Guadalajara brought no good news for Mexicans on the immigration front. The headline in Monday’s Mexico City newspaper El Universal summed it up: “Neither immigration reform nor does Canada eliminate visas.” At a press conference at the summit President Obama said that Congressional action on immigration reform will have to wait until next year.

With a raging drug war south of the border, trade controversies and the U.S. Congress occupied with other matters, Mexican President Felipe Calderón apparently did not even intend to push the issue of immigration with his American counterpart, Barack Obama, in their private meeting on Sunday.

Also at the summit, Canada, which recently started requiring all Mexican visitors to obtain a visa, said it has no intention of going back on that decision, which has incensed Mexicans, already sensitive on the issue.

According to El Universal, Obama told Calderón that the White House has a full plate right now, which makes it impossible to deal with an immigration reform bill.

The Mexican ambassador to the U.S., Arturo Sarukhán, narrated the encounter, saying Obama told Calderón that “if the rest of the legislative agenda in the U.S., in Congress, moves in the right direction, space could open up between November and March. But evidently, right now, the immigration reform bill is not ready at this time to be introduced in Congress.” (more…)