Most Popular Immigrant Rights Posts
- Census Chief Arrives in Texas With Cops to Alleviate Immigrant Fears
- ACLU: Criminalizing Undocumented Immigrants Not in Our Best Interest
- Media Matters Fed Up With Fox News' Use of Term "Illegals"
- Immigration Officials Aided Labor Abuses, Human Trafficking
- United States Student Association Supports Undocumented Peers
Judge Fed Up with Criminal Prosecution of Immigrants
Published February 09, 2010 @ 11:26AM PT
"Operation Streamline" has done anything but streamline our kinked up immigration system. This genius Bush legacy decided to step up criminal prosecutions of undocumented immigrants, instead of simply deporting them for violations of immigration law. And one federal judge has had it up to here with the waste of taxpayer money, law enforcement resources, and his time.
Te-Ping Chen posts on Change.org's Criminal Justice blog about Judge Sam Sparks, of Austin, TX, who appears to be the first federal judge to publicly speak his mind in opposition to criminally prosecuting immigrants for the mere act of trying to make a life for themselves in America without documentation. In calling this wasteful practice "simply mind-boggling" -- that's a massive slam in judge-speak -- Sparks joins the ACLU's recent briefing on pointing out the harm of criminalizing undocumented immigrants.
In the past, only undocumented immigrants who had a prior felony conviction and thus might pose a danger to society, or those who broke immigration laws repeatedly after deportation, would be criminally prosecuted. Today, the majority of immigrants in detention don't have any criminal history, not even for minor offenses. All they've done is run afoul of labor law. Sparks considers imprisoning and prosecuting them, paying those jail and court costs, a burden to the taxpayer "neither meritorious nor reasonable." As Te-Ping sums up, "It's a pretty bizarre system [where] you decide to punish people for entering the United States by in turn making them stay in the United States, in jail -- and on the taxpayer's dime, as well."
Besides the financial strain, immigration prosecutions also bog down the criminal justice system, taking attention away from harmful criminals like gun traffickers and organized crime -- as immigration prosecutions have gone up, these prosecutions have gone down. So while these criminals might be toasting to our senseless immigration system, the rest of us aren't exactly feeling the bubbly.
Photo credit: bloomsberries
Latino Vote Critical in 40 Competitive Races This November
Published February 09, 2010 @ 08:00AM PT
The Field Poll in California recently discovered that Senator Barbara Boxer's reelection could be in danger if ethnic minorities did not turn out at the voting booths this November. That may come as a surprise for some people, but not for those who have seen and documented the growing power of the ethnic minority, especially the Latino vote, which catapulted Barack Obama and many other Democrats into office in 2008.
Today, America's Voice released a new report called "The Power of the Latino Vote in America: They Tipped Elections in 2008; Where Will they be in 2010?" Forty-eight pages long, it drills deep on Latino voting trends, how the issue of immigration reform will affect turnout, and also identifies up to 40 competitive races in 11 states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia) where Latinos are likely to make an impact this November.
We have already seen how ignoring the Latino vote is hurting Democrats. Despite his restrictionist views on immigration, GOP candidate Scott Brown handily won the Hispanic vote in Massachusetts after Democrat Martha Coakley ran a questionable campaign that failed to outreach to the Latino community. Democrats are faced with a unique set of problems now: First, that their Latino base might not show up to vote this November and second, that even when Latinos do vote, no party can take this constituency for granted.
Fake Marshal Gets By Airport Security, Kidnaps and Deports Pregnant Woman
Published February 08, 2010 @ 12:18PM PT
Maybe if the Transportation Security Administration spent less time playing derogatory Jeopardy games, they might actually catch a mentally disturbed man impersonating a federal marshal and deporting a five-months-pregnant immigrant woman.
A local news station reports that Gregory Raymond Denny showed up at the home of Craig and Cherrie Bell Hibbard last month, claiming to be a U.S. Federal Marshal charged with deporting Cherrie, a Philippines who was at that time undergoing the process of securing a green card. Her husband reports that Denny wore a badge and carried a holstered gun, and the couple believed that he was a federal official, so Cherrie went with him.
After making his "arrest" -- also known as, kidnapping the pregnant woman -- Denny took her to a U.S. Border Patrol station, but they would not take her because they were unable to find a warrant under her name. They wouldn't be able to, of course, since she wasn't actually violating immigration law. Now, this is one point where I don't understand what they were thinking. If a man shows up with a pregnant woman in his car he claims to have been told to arrest, but he doesn't have a warrant, and the officers can't find any reason that his prisoner should be deported, doesn't that send up any kind of red flags that maybe this dude isn't who he says he is? That maybe you should take a closer look at his badge and credentials? Be concerned for the well-being of the pregnant woman?
It seems, however, that the Border Patrol officers didn't do much of anything, because next thing we know, Denny, still pretending to be a federal marshal, is escorting the handcuffed woman through San Diego International Airport security and sticking her on a plane to the Philippines.
Nativist Tancredo Dooms Tea Baggers By Proposing "Civics Literacy" Test
Published February 08, 2010 @ 07:32AM PT
Tom Tancredo, the grandson of Italian immigrants and a former Congressional representative, kicked off the much anticipated Tea Party National Convention in Nashville, Tennessee with some typically racist comments, imploring a very white audience to take back their country.
Tancredo worked hard to put immigration issues at the forefront of the tea party agenda. He expressed his gratitude that John McCain had not won the election because that may well have spelled an "amnesty." Then, Tancredo call for a "civics literacy" test because apparently, the people who voted for Barack Obama “can’t even spell the word vote or even speak English.”
It's Black History Month, so maybe Tancredo is expressing nostalgia for the days when African-Americans were denied suffrage through the use of literacy tests. Yay for Jim Crow! He wants to bring back those days but couches it by saying that all Americans must take the "same basic test we give legal immigrants applying for citizenship."
I am almost gung-ho about the idea because after reading Tom Tancredo's Twitter feed, I am left wondering if he could pass a literacy test. If Americans knew anything about their own histories, they might not elect people like Tancredo in the first place. Although, like Jimmy Kimmel in the video below, I am not so sure that Tancredo should be demanding a "civics literacy" test in order for people to vote. That may make most of the tea baggers, his very own base, ineligible for voting rights. Take a look:
Nancy Pelosi has got to be thankful that Republicans like Tom Tancredo exist. They continue to give Democrats a slight edge among minorities.
Video Credit: JimmyKimmelLive
Schwarzenegger Makes "Cruel Cuts" to Services for Immigrants
Published February 07, 2010 @ 07:06PM PT
Hasta la vista, baby: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to slash access to program services for the most vulnerable documented immigrants in California's proposed state budget.
The Terminator -- I mean, governor -- announced in his State of the State speech that there would be "cruel cuts" in his upcoming proposed budget. And the California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC) finds that, when it comes to health and human services programs for the most vulnerable immigrants who have been in the country less than five years, most of whom are permanent resident green card holders, the cuts are cruel indeed.
These immigrants will lose most Medi-Cal services, which provides health coverage for low-income working parents, persons with disabilities, and the elderly. Besides walking all over those who are most in need of aid, this short-term money saver would quickly turn into a bigger expense for the state of California, as CIPC points out in a report, "The Cost of Cutting Immigrant Programs: Illness, Hunger, & Homelessness." Unable to pay for regular health care, these people will have to turn to overwhelmed emergency rooms when they get sick -- but will probably wait until their illnesses grow much worse, making treatment harder and more expensive.
ACLU: Criminalizing Undocumented Immigrants Not in Our Best Interest
Published February 06, 2010 @ 07:49PM PT
The American Civil Liberties Union has a new issue brief out criticizing attempts by state and local law enforcement to prosecute undocumented immigrants under criminal laws in the past few years as harmful to society.
The ACLU points out, "The act of being present in the United States in violation of the immigration laws is not, standing alone, a crime." Being undocumented is a civil offense; however, we have seen major increases in "federal prosecutions for illegal entry and reentry of the United States," a related infraction which can be prosecuted as a misdemeanor or felony. (About half of undocumented immigrants entered illegally, in contrast to entering legally but overstaying visas.) It's gotten to the point that half of all federal criminal cases are immigration prosecutions. Simultaneously, the number of prosecutions for "gun trafficking, public corruption, organized crime and white-collar crime" went down.
Gun trafficking and organized crime are overt dangers to society and people's lives that should be a top priority for criminal prosecutions. And I'd love to see more smug white-collar criminals prosecuted for screwing over the economy, gouging customers, and gipping workers (a cost to America to the tune of at least $300 billion a year, according to the FBI) -- but prosecutors choose to go after 97% of immigration law crimes referred to them, while passing over half of white collar crimes. Prosecutors are going for the easy game -- gun traffickers and white collar criminals can put up a good fight with fancy lawyers, while undocumented immigrants are vulnerable pickings.
Attempts by state and local government to pass laws in some way criminalizing undocumented status have generally been ruled unlawful, the ACLU points out, since the federal government retains sole authority to regulate immigration -- although that hasn't stopped states like Arizona from thinking about giving it another go. But the ACLU warns that it's also a waste, given limited resources, to choose to criminally prosecute undocumented immigrants simply for their lack of legal status, when there are more dangerous, harmful criminals to worry about. And that hurts the well-being of our country.
Media Matters Fed Up With Fox News' Use of Term "Illegals"
Published February 05, 2010 @ 07:00PM PT
I was surprised to discover Media Matters is going after Fox News' use of the loaded word "illegals" as shorthand for "illegal immigrants," their term for immigrants in the United States lacking legal status -- it seemed like once the network had hired Sarah Palin as a commenter, progressives and people who support journalistic integrity would give them up as a lost cause. Glad Media Matters is still fighting on against pretty much the least trustworthy name in news. (You should be watching the Daily Show mock them instead.)
Media Matters' mission is "comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media." So, basically, they could spend all their time critiquing most of what comes out of Fox News pundits' mouths. But, at the moment, they've chosen to hone in on the pejorative, unprofessional, and just plain grammatically offensive use of the shorthand "illegals."
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists, with the support of the Asian American Journalists Association and the National Association of Black Journalists, has asked responsible journalists to stop using the term "illegals" as a noun, both because it has the grammatical quality of nails scratching on a chalkboard, and because it "crosses the line by criminalizing the person, not the action they are purported to have committed." Furthermore, the term "illegal immigrant" has the inaccurate connotation the sense of having entering the U.S. illegally, whereas an estimated 40% of undocumented immigrants entered legally and overstayed visas.
