Tag: Undocumented immigrants

New Homeland Security Chief Napolitano To Focus On Employers Who Hire Undocumented Immigrants

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
New York Times.

Napolitano - Photo: New York Times.

Hours after President Barack Obama was sworn in, the Senate confirmed now-former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano to head the Department of Homeland Security, an agency created in response to the attacks of 9-11.

Napolitano’s confirmation did not face any opposition: only a voice vote was taken on the Senate floor — no need for a roll call, according to Azstarnet.com.

The former governor succeeds Michael Chertoff as Secretary of Homeland Security, and is the first Democrat to head the agency. She comes to the job pledging to get tougher with “the demand side” of illegal immigration, namely employers who hire undocumented workers.

“You have to deal with illegal immigration from the demand side as well as the supply side,” she told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee during her confirmation hearing last week.

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Advocates Hopeful About Immigration Reform Under Obama, Maybe Even In First Year

Advocates want a stop to deportations and raids.

Advocates want a stop to deportations and raids. (Photo: El Diario/La Prensa).

As soon as President Barack Obama was sworn in the new White House website went up, in a rapid move celebrated by geeks everywhere. Some also found a bit of encouraging news on the site.

“Barack Obama’s White House Spoke of Immigration Reform,” headlined Univision.com. A story by Jorge Cancino on the Spanish-language network’s website underlined the fact that the “Agenda” section of the new White House site “included the commitment to promote a change to immigration laws that allows for legalizing millions of undocumented immigrants.”

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Today They Celebrate, Tomorrow They March For Immigration Reform

*Note: This post includes an update after the march, at the end.

Today is a day for celebration across the land. Tomorrow the real task of governing begins for some, and for others the work of lobbying and pushing for reform starts. Before the dust of the inauguration has time to settle a group of pro-immigrant organizations will hold a march in Washington D.C. for “just and humane” immigration reform. (See more below.)

Latino civil leaders and lobbying organizations intend to keep the issue in the front burner despite a new nationwide poll showing the economy, not immigration, is Latinos’ top concern.

Latino leaders reminded the incoming administration just that Monday during the Latino State of the Union gathering, organized by the National Council of La Raza, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and the League of United Latin American Citizens.

anewdayforimmigration.org

FIRM banner displayed on D.C. cabs this month. (Photo: anewdayforimmigration.org)

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Immigrant Students, DREAM Act Supporters Hoping Obama Will Take Up Their Cause

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

As the much-anticipated presidential inauguration of Barack Obama approaches, one group of immigrant activists in particular is feverishly pushing for their cause to be heard by the incoming president. They are young undocumented immigrant students who grew up in the U.S. and their supporters, who are hoping that the new administration will push for passage of the DREAM Act, a law that would allow the students to become U.S. citizens provided they meet certain conditions.

Undocumented students, hoping to come out of the shadows.

Hoping to come out of the shadows. (Video capture: ADreamDeferred.org)

Their cause got an extra bit of support through an online contest organized by Change.org, a social action network (not to be confused with the president-elect’s website Change.gov.)

For the last few weeks, the site hosted an online vote to select “the best ten ideas for change,” which will be announced today at an event at the National Press Club.

The contest was born as a response to Obama’s call to Americans to get involved in their government. “We started the Ideas for Change in America initiative in the hope that we could translate the energy behind the Obama election into a citizen-led movement for change around the major issues we face,” the organizers said.

Thousands of ideas were submitted and over 600,000 votes were cast. Activists for causes as varied as marijuana legalization, gay marriage, and green energy mobilized to make their voices heard and to gather votes for their ideas. As of 5pm EST Thursday, when the vote closed, passage of the DREAM Act stood in eighth place, making it one of the ten winners. (Marijuana legalization was first.)

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News Analysis: Geithner’s Problems Refocus Attention on Undocumented Gardeners and Housekeepers

Aswini Anburajan, FI2W contributor

Aswini Anburajan, FI2W contributor

Democrats and Republicans alike appear to have little stomach to derail the nomination of Tim Geithner, President-elect Obama’s pick for Secretary of Treasury, despite his failure to pay $43,000 in taxes on time, and his hiring of a housekeeper who briefly lacked proper work papers.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid dismissed Geithner’s troubles this week as “a few little hiccups” in the nomination process.

Does political dismissal of Geithner’s troubles reflect a change in attitudes toward issues like the hiring of undocumented workers?

Little attention has been given to Geithner’s hiring of the worker, whose legal papers expired while she was employed him. Instead pundits and papers have focused on the irony that the man who will lead the Internal Revenue Service can’t figure out how much he owes in taxes.

Getty Images/Wall Street Journal)

Geithner (Getty Images/Wall Street Journal)

Geithner’s hiring of a housekeeper whose work papers expired should be noted, not as a criticism, but as a reality that the 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country are interwoven in the American workforce.

Geithner isn’t the first public official in this situation. In the presidential primaries, as Republican Mitt Romney campaigned around the country promising to crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the Boston Globe revealed that undocumented workers had been part of the landscaping firm hired by the Romneys.

Two of President Bill Clinton’s nominees for attorney general, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, were both disqualified for hiring nannies that were undocumented and for not paying social security taxes on their wages.

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Immigration-Related TV Season In Full Gear: First, Arpaio; Now, Homeland Security

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

The show doesnt have a political point of view, its creator says

The show "doesn't have a political point of view", its creator says. (Photo: New York Times)

It seems immigration-related reality shows are all the rage this season. Only a couple of weeks after the launch of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s show, the ABC network this week launched “Homeland Security USA”. The show — a border protection version of “Cops” — debuted Tuesday and, as anything that touches on the issue of immigration these days, immediately drew both high praise and scornful denunciations.

Even before its first airing, a Facebook group opposing the series had been set up, drawing “more than 500 postings within its first few days,” The AP reported. “Many were negative, including denunciations of the show as government propaganda.”

The show’s own website became a place for confrontation. “Cancel the show,” was the title of one thread in the message board. “Immigration reform now!!!” demanded another. “Liberal news slams the show. You know it has to be good,” wrote someone else.

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Vatican News Service Criticizes U.S. Immigration Enforcement, Commends U.S. Bishops

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
Daquella Manera/Flickr

Fides news service criticized U.S. immigration enforcement in a recent dossier. ("Frontera", by Daquella Manera/Flickr.)

Catholic leaders in the U.S. have been raising their voices in support of reform of the nation’s immigration laws, as Feet In 2 Worlds has reported in recent weeks. Now, a Vatican news service has issued a report that praises American Catholic bishops for their opposition to “the ineffectiveness and violence” of United States’ immigration measures.

“For many years,”  Fides news agency said, “the Catholic Bishops of America have strenuously fought for migrants and against systems of repression, (and have been) actively involved in promoting immigration reforms which encourage legality and respect for human rights.”

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News Analysis: Immigration Policy in 2009

By Suman Raghunathan, FI2W columnist

As the dust begins to settle after the historic November elections, the incoming Obama administration has lost no time in assembling transition teams on a host of pressing issues, including immigration.

The new administration faces difficult questions about the recent focus on immigration enforcement, particularly after the Obama campaign’s promises to reform the nation’s immigration laws in a fair and humane fashion. In fact, one of President-elect Obama’s only explicit references to immigration policy during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention was about the harsh effects of immigration raids on immigrant families – particularly on the over 5 million U.S.-citizen children nationwide with parents who are non-citizens.

What’s more, there’s a sense among many immigrant communities and civil rights groups that Obama is indebted to them after a landslide victory among immigrant voters. Strong Latino voter support for Obama tipped the balance against Sen. McCain in several key battleground states, including Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, and Florida.

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A Brazilian Immigrant Journalist Looks Back at 2008

By Eduardo A. de Oliveira, EthnicNewz and FI2W reporter

For millions of immigrant workers 2008 began with a sour taste in all the mouths they have to feed. Six months into 2007, Congress had drowned their highest hopes by killing the Immigration Reform bill.

For many families there was no choice but to return home – in the Brazilian community of Massachusetts alone there were 10,000 retornados, according to the Brazilian Immigrant Center.

Among those who remained here, much of the rhetoric about the need for immigrants to learn English got stuck in the back of their heads. The consequences were best seen in Framingham, Mass.

During a lottery for seats in an English-as-a-second-language course at Fuller Middle School, 500-plus immigrants competed for 165 seats. Of course the ‘no cost’ policy wooed many. But more than ever, they saw English as the language of their future – whether or not they are documented.

EDUARDO A. de OLIVEIRA

Hairdresser Marta dos Santos smiles upon hearing the news that she is one of 165 immigrants picked for an ESL course at Fuller Middle School. More than 500 people tried to get a seat in the classes. Photo: EDUARDO A. de OLIVEIRA

Despite being an election year, 2008 also served to harden immigrants’ hearts.

In the Republican presidential primary, candidates debated who would be the toughest on deporting undocumented workers. Forget about the melting pot, at that point workers learned that to half of America, all that mattered was their immigration status.

In the end, the Republicans selected a presidential candidate who had a record of trying to help undocumented immigrants. But the workers’ future in the U.S. looked grimmer as gas prices hit $4 per gallon, straining the livelihoods of delivery men, truckers, and taxi drivers.

But David Grabowski, a Health Economist at Harvard Medical School, found something about higher gas prices that was not bad news at all.

“We’ve discovered that for every 10 percent in price increase, there are 2.3 percent fewer fatalities in traffic related accidents. Among teenage drivers, at least 6 percent more lives were spared,” said Grabowski, who compared data from Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), from 1985 to 2006.

In another health-related story, a Dominican doctor used her Boston University credentials to fill a gap left behind by the Massachusetts Health Care Reform law. (more…)

Mexican Migrants' Return Home Not As "Massive" As Expected

Turns out that, if anything, the U.S economic crisis has motivated many Mexican migrants to remain in the U.S., rather than make the expensive trip back home to try to weather the economic storm in an economy that is less well-prepared to deal with it.