Next month, the country’s educational community celebrates the 30th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Plyler vs. Doe. In Plyer vs. Doe, the high court ruled in June 1982 that it was against the law to prohibit primary and secondary education to an undocumented student. Although the decision has stood for nearly 30 years, attaining higher education for undocumented high school graduates has been, for most, a long, distant dream — a nightmare, even.

Too often, politics has gotten in the way of common-sense policy. In 2001, a bipartisan effort led by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) resulted in the introduction of the Development Relief for Alien Minors Act, or the DREAM Act.

This legislation, which many had hopes of passing, came to a screeching halt after the September 11th attacks. Since then, officials like Kris Kobach (the Kansas Secretary of State, who’s a key architect of Arizona’s S.B. 1070 immigration bill) have used fear tactics to fuel anti-immigrant sentiment.

A climate of hate, under the pretense that immigrants are criminals, have defined the immigration narrative, especially within the extreme wing of the Republican Party. When the DREAM Act came up for a vote in 2010, it was a Republican filibuster and five Democrats that altogether deferred the dreams of thousands of immigrant youth.

Across the country, students who were raised as Americans — who attend public high schools, who seek to become full-fledged, contributing citizens of the country they call home — live in limbo.

As we mark the Supreme Court’s decision on Plyler vs. Doe, it’s fitting that the DREAM Act and access to higher education are again at the forefront of the contentious conversation on immigration reform. Conveniently enough, the attention also comes in an election year, when both parties seek the Latino vote, which will prove critical, particularly in swing states.

For two years, the GOP has either been silent or shown great apathy on the issue. When asked about the DREAM Act during the Republican primaries, Gov. Mitt Romney said, “If Congress was to pass the DREAM Act, I would veto it.” But a few weeks ago, surprisingly, the silence and apathy was broken by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).

Rubio picked up the flag left behind in the battle field after the DREAM Act vote and began talking once again about education and immigrant youth — and a path to legalization for them.

United We Dream, the largest national organization of undocumented youth, has not dismissed Rubio’s attempt just yet. We are eager to learn the details of his upcoming bill. As the people who are directly impacted by this issue, we appreciate the senator’s interest to listen to our stories. We are thankful for being asked for our ideas on what the legislation will say, and are glad to see the Senator reaching out to our long-time champion on this issue, Senator Durbin.

To some, this outreach may seem like nothing more than a political calculation for a man who has higher ambitions.

Rubio’s name, after all, has continually topped Romney’s vice-presidential wish-list. But it cannot be overstated that Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a first-generation American, understands that the Latino population cares deeply about this issue. He also understands that the country as a whole wants to find a solution to this problem.

Immigrant youth are not beholden to one party. We’ve mobilized, organized and negotiated with both parties. With many risks, we’ve created our own stage. Now that we have the public’s attention, we are challenging Republicans and Democrats and President Barack Obama.

Four years ago, under the banner of hope and change, he promised to take on immigration reform during his first term. Though the Department of Homeland Security has offered some failed attempts of relief, through prosecutorial discretion, the Obama administration has also deported the highest number of immigrants in the history of the United States.

But Obama can also execute the power he holds in his hand — the power to stop the deportation of immigrant youth and grant them temporary relief, while Congress addresses the issue in a more complete and lasting way. After all, the Obama administration has increasingly been using Executive power under the slogan “We Can’t Wait.”

We will continue to push for the President to take action.

Sitting through my American history honors and AP classes, and learning the basis and foundation of this country, I’ve learned that the road to justice, though arduous, is one that America has always found.

Immigrant youth, like myself, fervently ask for an opportunity to adjust our undocumented status so that we can then serve and participate fully in our communities.

I graduated college in 2005; since I haven’t been able to work because I don’t have papers, I went back to school and earned two other degrees, one of which is in special education. I love children. My deepest desire is to one day be in a classroom teaching elementary-school children with Down Syndrome and autism so that they too have a voice — that they, too, matter in this country.

We are hopeful that the gap between feeling American and becoming American on paper soon becomes a reality. In the meantime, trendsetters and pioneers of education in this country, like Dr. Eduardo Padrón, President of Miami Dade College, understand the importance of ensuring that immigrant youth, who are part of the fabric of this nation, have an opportunity to receive an education.

Currently there are 14 in-state tuition laws that allow undocumented students to attend college. Miami Dade College, who has opened the doors to countless undocumented students in Florida, believes that “Opportunity Changes Everything.”

So do I.

Gaby Pacheco, editor of Latina Lista’s “American Dream” section, is an undocumented American and an immigrant rights leader from Miami, Florida. Since 2004 she has been working on the DREAM Act. Her passion for education and immigrant rights prompted her and three friends in 2010 to walked 1,500 miles form Miami to Washington DC, to bring to light the plight of immigrants in this country, this walk was dubbed the Trail of DREAMs. 

The City of Escondido has demonstrated once again how NOT to run a city government. With the evidence presented by the ACLU and documentary filmmaker John Carlos Frey that Escondido has been profiting on the backs of immigrants and the poor with towed vehicles from driver license checkpoints, City Manager Clay Philips will oversee an “internal audit” to look for discrepancies. He is precisely the person who should NOT conduct an audit of his own office! To further exacerbate the problem, the City Manager granted huge raises to his department heads without consulting the city council. And if this were not enough, Phillips’ son was hired by City Attorney Jeff Epps…and neither Epps nor Phillips advised the city council of such an obvious appearance of nepotism and conflict of interest. Who is running the show in Escondido???

With this type of supervision (or lack of it), it should not be surprising that Police Chief Jim Maher has been operating unsupervised and unchecked for years. His illegal Driver’s License Checkpoints were stopped only after a threatened lawsuit; he entered into an agreement with immigration authorities (the only local law enforcement agency in the country to do so) without advising the city council or seeking public input; and now there’s evidence that his abusive DUI (Immigration) Checkpoints have illegally been generating millions of dollars for the city. And our elected officials did not know!

It is painfully clear that administrators, not our elected officials, are the policymakers of Escondido.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!

What Should Be Done?

We want an independent audit of the city’s books on monies generated by OTS-funded DUI checkpoints.

We want the City Council to do what they were elected to do: set policy for the city and SUPERVISE THE CITY MANAGER AND CITY ATTORNEY!

We want the City Council to terminate the employment of City Manager Clay Phillips.

He has demonstrated that he cannot be trusted by engaging in actions that he should know are controversial without advising the City Council. The obscenely large pay hikes given to department heads, the informal and costly termination of a former employee, and the employment of his son as a deputy city attorney are only recent examples of Phillips’ arrogant and self-serving behavior.

We want the City Council to terminate the employment of Police Chief Jim Maher. This city has been divided since the passage of the Rental Ban Ordinance and continues to be divided by the policies adopted by Maher. His failure to see this huge divide caused by his policies of excessive checkpoints, his failure of transparency of his department with regard to who gets turned over to ICE, and his allowing himself to become the face of the anti-immigrant sentiment in this city has placed this city in a tenuous position in terms of safety and community relations. While claiming that checkpoints have increased public safety, he has yet to provide solid evidence that checkpoints have done anything but divide the city in two. Escondido needs to rid itself of the reputation of being an unfriendly place.

We want to end the unique and harmful relationship our police have with ICE. After years of working hand-in-hand, there is no evidence that Escondido is any safer because of this arrangement.

Will You Join Us?

The next city council meeting is scheduled for April 18, 2012. We want a large group of residents, organizations, and concerned persons to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the way the business of governing is being conducted in Escondido. We need to make the council aware of what they need to do to get this city back on track. Escondido can be a great city, but first this most-important purging needs to take place. This is not really about immigration, it’s about treating people in way that reflects the best of American ideals. Come and help us make these changes.

Contact me, Carmen Miranda, at (760) 884-3818 or at DemandEsco@yahoo.com There will be more information on the demonstration of April 18 as the date approaches.

Fourteen-year-old Jocelyn wants to be the first person in her family to graduate. But now she may have to do it without the one person who most wanted to be there: her mom.

When Alabama enacted the nation’s toughest immigration law, HB 56, her mother was faced with an impossible decision: stay and live in fear; or flee back to Mexico, denying her daughter the education that she had sacrificed so much to give her.

Six months ago, Jocelyn’s mom decided to return to Mexico with her stepdad and three-year-old sister, leaving Jocelyn to stay in Alabama with an uncle.

“I don’t have her to wake me up every morning and tell me to do my best in school,” said the eighth grader, who said her mom had brought her to Alabama when she was six years old “for a better education and a better life.”

Jocelyn spoke to 17 women leaders from across the country this week, who traveled to Birmingham, Ala., as part of We Belong Together’s National Women’s Human Rights Delegation.

“Women and mothers around the country are hearing these stories,” observed Miriam Yeung, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum in Washington, D.C., and co-leader of the We Belong Together campaign. “And when they do, they have deep, deep, resonance.”

The delegation – made up of women from some of the nation’s leading social justice organizations, including the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and the National Immigration Law Center – wrote a call to action in response to the stories they heard from Jocelyn and other immigrant women and girls.

In a statement released to national media Friday, during a telebriefing organized by New America Media and the We Belong Together campaign, they called on American women to join them in supporting the repeal of HB 56 and other “anti-immigrant, anti-family laws.”

Alabama’s immigration law, the delegates wrote, has created a climate of “fear, psychological abuse and torment” that has forced families like Jocelyn’s to make an impossible choice: “The reality is that for these women, the decision to leave or to stay here in their homes is an impossible weighing of unthinkable risks.”

But the law has also galvanized women across the state to the forefront of the civil rights movement here, with what the delegates called a “spirit of resiliency, courage, empowerment, and most importantly – love.”

Some local women have established their own human rights organizations in direct response to HB 56 in Tuscaloosa and other cities across the state. Others, like Faith Cooper, executive director of Central Alabama Fair Housing Center (CAFHC) in Montgomery, have joined in lawsuits challenging the law’s provisions.

CAFHC was one of several organizations that challenged a provision of HB 56 that made it illegal for undocumented immigrants to engage in business transactions with the state. This effectively made it illegal for mobile homeowners – many of whom are Latino families – to pay their required annual licensing fee. In November, U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson found that state legislators had passed HB 56 “with racist intent,” and issued a preliminary injunction, temporarily keeping these families from losing their mobile homes.

HB 56 was “turning normal acts of everyday living into punishable offenses,” observed Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition on Human Needs, and one of the delegates who went to Alabama this week.

Cooper, who has lived in Alabama for 30 years, said she was “personally upset about how other women and families have been treated in this state … women who have had to find legal guardians for their children, people they don’t even know well, if they’re picked up by the police and have to leave quickly.”

Jocelyn, who is now living with her uncle, remembers when her mother first brought her to Alabama, telling her “all of this was going to be worth it someday.”

Now, she says, “I just want to be the first one [in my family to graduate] and be a role model for my little sister. I want her to come back and have an education.”

Household worker Cecilia Munoz, center,with film director Chris Weitz (far right) and cast of “A Better Life.”

When director Michael Weitz showed up recently at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, he couldn’t have picked a better audience for his new film, “A Better Life”. In attendance were more than 200 members of the National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON) gathered for a weeklong national assembly.

The protagonist of Wetiz’s film is Carlos Galindo, a Mexican gardener in Los Angeles, played by Damien Birchir. So compelling is Birchir’s performance that he was nominated as best actor for an Academy Award. (French actor Jean Dujardin won the award.)

The story: Galindo, a single dad, struggles to make ends meet while coping with his potentially wayward son Luis, who begins to tilt toward the gang life. Things get complicated when a co-worker steals Galindo’s truck, plunging him into a violent search that has sad consequences for both father and son.

Day laborers and household workers wept as the film ended, passionately sharing their stories with Weitz and three young cast members. A worker from Redondo Beach told Wetiz, “I, too have experienced many of these things. My son was lost in the desert, and with God’s help, we found him alive.”

The assembly

Other speakers addressing the five day national assembly of day laborers were AFL-CIO president Richart Trumka, PBS commentator Tavis Smiley, and Tom Saenz of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund.

“Your organizing, your pursuit of justice in the face of prejudice and under the threat of public power is what makes this nation great,” said Trumka. “Defending workers’ rights embodies the best of values of our country. I applaud you on behalf of the 20 million members of the AFL-CIO.”

Trumka’s visit to California included a trip to Sacramento to lobby for a domestic worker’s bill of rights and a rally for L.A. car washers who recently scored collective bargaining agreements and representation from the United Steel Workers of America.

Later, day laborers erupted into loud applause when NDLON president Pablo Alvarado announced a landmark decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned a 18-year-old City of Redondo Beach ordinance outlawing workers who solicit employers at street corners. The court victory has national implications, since other cities have drafted similar ordinances.

TV commenator Tavis Smiley lauded the decision and told delegates about visiting day labor sites as part of a nationwide “poverty tour” he took last summer with Prof. Cornell West of Princeton University. Smiley praised the workers for standing up for their rights.

“You represent the best of our black struggle, our black prophetic tradition,” he said. “How much longer can we be silent about what we are enduring? Someone has to speak truth to power.”

Smiley told the workers that their presence shows that there are severe challenges in this country. “Don’t forget that Martin Luther King, the greatest man America ever produced, said that if it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper—then sweep the streets like Michelangelo painted his murals, like Shakespeare wrote his poetry. There is dignity in all work.”

The five day assembly was geared to help promote day labor centers and corners, defend worker rights and occupational safety, form alliances, and to assist victims of wage theft.

Some municipalities have passed ordinances making wage theft a crime. Currently there is a bill before the Los Angeles City Council that will place stiff penalties on employers who refuse to pay their workers. According to the bill, employers found guilty will pay a surcharge that will be used to enforce the law.

The gathering included a march to the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors to protest Sheriff Lee Baca’s support of ICE’s Secure Communities program which has been responsible for the deportation of thousands of non-criminal immigrants.
After the screening of “A Better Life,” Cecilia Garcia, a household worker, posed for a photo with director Chris Weitz and cast members. “This film reflects our life experiences,” she said. “We, too, have passed through the desert. We have been assaulted, mistreated and exploited. People think we have come to rob. No, we have come to work.”

Mark R. Day is a filmmaker and co-founder, with Nidya Ramirez, of the San Diego Day Laborers and Household Workers Association. mday700@yahoo.com

Despite an adverse economic and political landscape, immigrant and low-income workers celebrated victories this past week.

In California, labor and community activists announced the winning of two new union contracts for car washers, or carwasheros, as they are called locally. The agreements with the Vermont Car Wash and Nava’s Car Wash in the south Los Angeles area were the latest in a campaign uniting the Community Labor Environmental Action Network with allies in organized labor. Last September, workers at Santa Monica’s Bonus Car Wash were the first shop unit to gain union recognition.

Edwin Leones, Nava’s Car Wash employee, said his fellow workers were “excited” to be union members. The victory, Leones said, now ensures that workers will have a “voice on the job and a say in our conditions.” In addition to a pay increase, the contracts will provide for extra safety equipment and on-the-job occupational health and safety training.

The car washers will be represented by the United Steelworkers, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. According to the national labor federation, the workers employed at the three southern California businesses are the only car washers nationwide to enjoy union representation in an industry that depends heavily on immigrant workers.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa hailed the union agreements, saying the contracts represented an improvement in the lives of “some of our city’s most exploited workers…”

The car washers’ movement and related struggles were on the agenda of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who visited California last week. In a speech to the annual convention of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), Trumka heartily endorsed the struggles of immigrant workers. He also blasted “armed vigilantes like the Minutemen,” and lashed out against “terrible, inhuman” state immigration laws in Arizona, Georgia, Alabama and elsewhere.

Inspired by immigrant workers, the US labor movement will continue pressing for the legalization of undocumented workers, Trumka said in a Los Angeles speech. To reclaim and honor the history of all workers, organized labor will celebrate May Day 2012, he added. The national union leader also contended that anti-immigrant and anti-labor forces constituted the same adversary.

“And let me tell you, it’s no coincidence that rogue state officials, like those in Arizona and Alabama who passed America’s worst anti-immigration laws, have also targeted unions,” Trumka said.

Trumka’s words were delivered as the NDLON, a network of worker centers spread across the United States, marked its tenth anniversary fighting for the rights of immigrant and low-paid who make a living on unpredictable, temporary work.

The contemporary victories of immigrant workers were celebrated as Chicano and labor activists remembered the 60th anniversary victory of the epic Empire Zinc Strike in southwestern New Mexico. The conflict erupted after Mexican and Mexican-American miners, many of whom were World War Two vets, rebelled against local segregation in housing and other services as well as discriminatory company employment policies.

The strike was notable for the participation of miners’ wives, who assumed picket-line duty after a judge slapped an injunction against their husbands that prohibited the men from picketing the company’s gates.

According to New Mexico labor activist and historian Hueteotl Lopez of Juntos en La Union, the women “persisted and proved to be strong and brave fighters even when they were thrown into jail and threatened.”

The long strike was depicted in the film Salt of the Earth, which included many of the original strikers in the cast. The film’s producers and actors faced blacklisting in the anti-communist atmosphere of the McCarthy Era, FBI investigations and other forms of harassment. Leading actress Rosaura Revueltas was deported to Mexico. Much later, Salt of the Earth was inducted into the Library of Congress as one of the top 100 films representative of the United States, according to Lopez.

In an essay circulated on the Internet, Lopez took the occasion of the Empire Zinc anniversary to analyze the history of the strike and its long-term significance. Wrote Lopez:

“It is one magnificent example out of many in U.S. history that set a precedent for the rest of the country and for the world to follow-that struggle and sacrifice in the name of humane and equal treatment is not in vain and that standing together in the face of adversity, persecution, incarceration and isolation for your belief in change is a testament to the power of right to win out over wrong.”

Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Oh, Governor Brewer, I look at a photo of you flashing such a sunny smile and I can’t help but think of a song Maya Angelou sings: When it looked like the sun wouldn’t shine anymore, God Put a rainbow in the clouds.

With that smile of yours you could surely put a rainbow in a people’s clouds but you’ve chosen instead, to literally, through a hateful bill called SB1070, turn your hounds on them. Your law gives “the law” the right to stop a range of brown folks, Mexican Americans, Chicanos, Mexicanos – on “reasonable suspicion.”

Whoa! “Reasonable suspicion” is a chilling term for some of us. I’m one of the most law abiding people I know and I have been “reasonably suspicious” on a number of occasions. Like I was suspected of being a thief one time based on a “burglar tool” (a screwdriver) being in my car. A house had been robbed in the “vicinity,” an area, in these kinds of situations, equal in size to the continental United States. I could throw in another “reasonable suspicion” story but I don’t want to scare you because guns were involved, police officers pointing them at my head screaming: “Put your hands on your head and get down on your knees!” I would have been killed if I had as much as sneezed. And they were looking for a Pillsbury Doughboy looking dude about five feet tall. I’m standing six feet five, the color of coffee, no cream. Black people looking alike is one thing but looking like white midgets, too? That’s too much for a brother. Hey, your deputies will be stopping Latinos for listening to corridas. Believe me.

How can one who has such a smile play a role in subjecting human beings to being treated like that? Is that all we, as a society, can offer people as they struggle to survive, some having risked their lives on fiery desert floors and snow ravaged mountain trails to get here?

But getting Latinos on the run was just the beginning of you and your cronies’ fun because no sooner than all the “illegal immigrant” madness was in place, you were cheering yourselves, hailing the ending of Mexican American Studies as a job well done. And like characters in a horror Nazi-like sci-fi Netflix flick you stomped on and now the childrens’ books are gone.

Where have your consciences’ gone? Of your excuses for your actions this one stands out for me, the allegation that Chicano Studies classes promote “ethnic chauvinism.” For those like me who don’t know what that means wikianswers.com says: “Ethnic Chauvinism is the excessive love of one’s own race/ethnicity, usually meaning that all other races/ethnicities are looked down upon as inferior.” Very interesting, Jan. You can see them as inferior but they, the “inferior,” can’t view you as the same? Is that what this is? But let’s be real. No class is going to influence some brown skinned kid who has lived 16 years, say, in the barrio, to look out at people with swimming pools and spectacular cactus gardens, tended in some cases by people who look like him and think “Now, there’s some inferior folks if I’ve ever seen any.” And what if he did think that you were inferior? What’s he going to do? Set the law on you and ban your “Little House” book series?

I know what you’re doing. You don’t want the children to enjoy the power that knowledge gives one; you fear that if they learn about who they are, and how they have gotten to where they are, and what their future can bring knowing such things, they will be as hateful as you have been when they become the majority.

But that’s not and has never been what Ethnic Studies is all about, as the very concept was born out of a spirit of love, with an intent to endow a people with an understanding of their past so they can, with dignity, play a role in building a better world.

Victoria Earle Matthews, in 1895, in a speech about “The Value of Race Literature,” says it this way:

“Race literature does not mean things uttered in praise, thoughtless praise of ourselves, wherein each goose thinks her gosling a swan. We have had too much of this… Race literature does mean, though, the preserving of all records of a Race, and thus cherishing the material, saving from destruction and obliteration what is good, helpful and stimulating. But for our Race Literature, how will future generations know of the pioneers in Literature, our statesmen, soldiers, divines, musicians, artists, lawyers, critics, and scholars?”

Well, governor, we all desire to shine and overtime your transgressions against humanity will be made right. Our stories, no matter who we are, tell us that “We Shall Overcome,” that our truths will set us free.

Hopefully, someday, the beauty of your smile will be for everyone.

BERKELEY— As President Obama delivered his third State of the Union Address, the 11 sentences he dedicated to addressing my current immigration status did little to instill in me any more optimism than did similar statements from the last State of the Union… or the one before that.

“Let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, defend this country,” Obama stated. “Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.”

With that, Obama put the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors (DREAM) Act – which would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented students like me – back on the table.

But I wasn’t completely convinced. That’s because the optimistic picture Obama painted of the future of America doesn’t seem to include me.

As my graduation looms, the reality of being undocumented becomes increasingly stark. Unlike my U.S.-citizen classmates, I won’t be able to do basic things, not the least of which is working legally.

As the president spoke, among the coterie sitting next to the president’s wife was Juan Rose Redín, a former DREAM student who attended UCLA and is now a practicing attorney and U.S. citizen. His case demonstrates how an undocumented student can become an integral part of reinvigorating the American work force.

There are thousands of us.

Yet listening to the president lay out his “blueprint” for building “an economy that’s built to last,” I couldn’t help but think of friends with degrees in civil engineering or education, recent graduates and fellow DREAMers with the skills needed to energize domestic manufacturing and bolster the creation of green jobs.

But because of their immigration status, they remain in the shadows.

Of course the DREAM Act alone wouldn’t solve the problem.

If approved, the DREAM Act would provide a path to citizenship for only a select group of undocumented high school graduates who have enrolled in college or the military, and meet certain requirements. For example, they must have come to the United States before the age of 16, lived here for at least five years, be within a certain age group, and have “good moral character.”

But more undocumented students would be excluded from this than would actually benefit under the legislation. A Migration Policy Institute report found that although 2.1 million young people could potentially be eligible to benefit from the DREAM Act, in reality only about 825,000 would likely gain legal status under the bill.

With the niche population the federal DREAM Act targets, it would seem more of a moderate compromise capable of attaining bipartisan support, yet not even Democrats were able to gather the needed votes to pass the bill during the lame duck session in 2010.

Left with little sign of a possible vote this year, combined with a record number of deportations under the Obama administration (including DREAM Act students), the pres-ident’s speech seemed more aimed at garnering campaign support than enacting substantive change.

I am a supporter of our current president. However, the continuous stream of political rhetoric without clear action has slowly begun to eat away at me.

“The opponents of action are out of excuses,” he said. “We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now.”

Agreed. But Republican lawmakers continue to throw up what Obama termed “excuses,” and the possibility of any real reform seems out of reach.

For me, as for thousands of other undocumented students who are looking ahead toward graduation, the future has never seemed more uncertain.

By next month Congress must extend the 2012 payroll tax cut to help boost our nation’s economic recovery. In 2011 this tax cut resulted in 122 million American households boosting their take-home-pay worth to the total tune of $120 billion. The extension and expansion of the payroll tax holiday through 2012 would put an average of $1,426 in the pockets of U.S. households and could create more than 1 million new jobs.

Some members of Congress, however, are looking to offset the lost revenue in callous and counterproductive ways so that they don’t have to raise taxes on millionaires by a single penny. A disturbing number of conservatives are proposing that American-born children in low-income immigrant families should be the ones to foot the bill. Their proposal is economically self-defeating and smacks of the class warfare conservatives deride.

First the facts. Congress enacted the Child Tax Credit in 1998 to help keep America’s children from falling into poverty by allowing families with children to reduce the amount of federal taxes that they owe. Because the objective of the credit is to protect children in low-income families, Congress only requires the Internal Revenue Service to ensure that the child being claimed is a U.S. citizen or legal resident alien.

Immigrant parents of American-born children can claim the Child Tax Credit using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, which enables immigrants who are not eligible for Social Security numbers to file and pay federal taxes. In practice, this means that undocumented workers whose wages are taxed and who file federal income tax returns are eligible to claim the credit on behalf of their U.S.-citizen children.

Conservatives now want to help pay for the payroll tax holiday by stripping the ability of these Individual Taxpayer Identification Number tax filers to claim the credit. Rep. Sam Johnson (R-TX) has introduced a bill with 36 Republican co-sponsors titled the “Refundable Child Tax Credit Eligibility Verification Reform Act,” which would require taxpayers to provide their Social Security numbers in order to claim the portion of the Child Tax Credit that is refundable. In other words, it would disqualify low-income American children of undocumented parents from receiving this economic relief.

How the Child Tax Credit works

Low-income families often owe less in federal income taxes than the amount of child tax credits they can claim. In these cases they may be eligible for the Additional Child Tax Credit—the portion of the credit that is refundable. The refundable amount is designed to incentivize hard work by linking the credit to earnings: The more the parent earns from working, the larger the available credit. As of 2009 the value of the Additional Child Tax Credit refund is equal to 15 percent of earnings above $3,000 and cannot exceed $1,000 per child.

Imagine a single mother with two children, working full time for minimum wage with a yearly income of $15,000. Federal, state, and local payroll taxes are withheld from her paychecks, but her income is too low to owe federal income tax. (Filers who are not liable for federal income tax have usually paid other federal taxes such as Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, as well as state and local taxes.) The Additional Child Tax Credit, however, makes her eligible for a $1,800 ($15,000 minus $3,000, times 0.15 = $1,800) refund to help defray the costs of raising her two children. A similar parent working in a higher-wage job who has sufficient federal income tax liability would be able to claim the full $1,000 per child.

If this woman were an undocumented worker whose children are U.S. citizens, when she filed her taxes using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, she would be eligible to receive this refund under current law. According to a report by the Treasury Department’s inspector general, in 2010 there were about 2.18 million taxpayers like this woman who filed with ITINs and claimed a refund. That means millions of American children rely on these parents’ refunds to put food on the table, buy school books and clothes, and shelter them.

Approximately $4.2 billion in refundable credits were issued in 2010 to ITIN filers, representing about 15 percent of the total Additional Child Tax Credit refunds paid. These same 2.18 million filers also contributed more than $7 billion in federal taxes toward Medicare and Social Security, programs from which they will never recoup benefits, meaning the U.S. Treasury still comes out ahead. 

Harsh and counterproductive consequences

The average household income for ITIN filers claiming Additional Child Tax Credit refunds in 2010 was about $21,240. This is less than half the 2010 median household income in the United States of $49,445, and would mean that a family of four with two children was living below the poverty line. Latino children are more likely to live in poverty than any other racial or ethnic group, and more than half of the 6.1 million Latino children in poverty are the U.S.-born children of immigrants.

These are the more than 2 million families threatened by this assault on the ACTC—hard-working families with children who are U.S. citizens. This tax increase could harm as many as 4 million of these American children already living on the economic margin. At a time when our nation has the largest number of people living in poverty since data were first collected 52 years ago after the deepest recession since the 1930s, tipping the scales against low-income children is not only immoral but also bad economic policy.

Federal assistance to lower-income families has a stimulating effect on our economy because these families are more likely to spend these funds on the necessities of daily life rather than saving them. Every dollar spent on a payroll tax cut generates $1.25 of economic growth. According to the Congressional Budget Office, refundable tax credits to low- and middle-income families have the second-highest positive impact on the economy out of all the current fiscal policy options. Only increased aid to the unemployed provides a bigger economic boost.

Tax refunds for lower-income families and payroll tax cuts are both important fiscal policy strategies. Terminating one policy to pay for the other is like robbing Peter to pay Paul and will cause more harm to our economy in the process. While Congress considers ways to offset the cost of extending the payroll tax cuts, denying tax credits to the parents of American children should not be among the options.

It makes zero economic sense to raise taxes on those who are already disproportionately likely to be living in poverty and who are certain to pour those additional resources back in to the economy.

An obvious alternative

The payroll tax cut extension is expected to cost $120 billion, while by his own admission Rep. Johnson’s “Refundable Child Tax Credit Eligibility Verification Reform Act” is expected to save at best only $24 billion over 10 years. What if, instead of singling out a subset of American children to take food out of their mouths, we asked millionaires to pay their fair share in taxes?

America’s millionaires currently pay an average tax rate that is significantly lower than what it was in the mid-1990s. Senate Democrats have proposed a 1.9 percent surtax on adjusted gross income more than $1 million, which would generate $155 billion over 10 years. A paltry 0.2 percent surtax on millionaires would result in the same savings as denying Additional Child Tax Credits to the citizen children of immigrant parents.

Congress should be asking themselves who benefits from keeping taxes low for millionaires (answer: no one but the millionaires in question), and who will benefit from the payroll tax cuts (answer: the entire economy through increased incomes and job creation). In spite of the political rhetoric, immigrants and their children contribute positively to the economy and will continue to do so in the future. Asking poor children to bear the brunt of these costs while millionaires continue to enjoy tax breaks is cruel and poor public policy.

Marshall Fitz is Director of Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress. Sarah Jane Glynn is a Policy Analyst with the Economic Policy team at the Center.

The Oaxacan Institute for Attention to Migrants, and its director Rufino Dominguez, organized a celebration of the International Day of the Migrant, which included recognition of the braceros who were among the first migrants from Oaxaca to go work in the United States.

OAXACA, MEXICO — The Oaxacan Institute for Attention to Migrants, and its director Rufino Dominguez, called for a new era of respect for the rights of migrants, in commorating the International Day of the Migrant in the Palacio del Gobierno, Oaxaca’s state capitol building. Representing the newly-elected state government, Dominguez paid tribute to the contributions of the braceros, the first of Oaxaca’s migrant workers to travel to the United States. from 1942 to 1964, and to the women who cared for the families they left behind.

Around the balconies of the palacio’s courtyard hung photographs showing the lives of current migrants from Oaxaca, working as farm laborers in California. Migrant rights activists, artisans and public officials spoke about the important role migration continues to play in Oaxaca’s economic, social, political and family life. The state, in southern Mexico, is the source of one of the largest waves of migration from Mexico to the U.S.

Dominguez, the former coordinator of the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations, which organizes indigenous migrants in both Mexico and the U.S., was appointed director of the IOAM by Oaxaca’s new governor, Gabino Cue Monteagudo. Cue defeated the PRI, the party that governed Oaxaca for the previous 80 years. In an interview with David Bacon, Dominguez described the different road the new government is taking to ensure social justice for Oaxacan migrants today:

We can’t tell the U.S. government, or the governments of California and other states, to respect the rights of our people who are living there, if we ourselves are not respecting the rights of migrants here in Oaxaca. Many migrants passing through Oaxaca from Central America and other places suffer systematic violations of their human rights.

Have we just paid attention to migrants in the U.S. because they send dollars home? Sometimes the problems of migrants within Mexico are even greater than those we have in the U.S.

Oaxacans are also migrants within our own state, like those who work in the coconut palms on the coast. About 30,000 Oaxacans migrate for work without leaving the state, and we’ve never paid attention to them. Another 300,000 live in Mexico City and states in the north, like Sinaloa, Sonora and Baja California. The Institute hasn’t paid attention to them in the past either.

And we’ve never consulted the people who actually live in the U.S. about our activity there, or asked for their opinions. We want a different vision, a more level or equal relationship where we’re not dictating policies because we’re the government, but asking people for their input and opinions.

A former bracero listens to the speakers.

Our starting point is to understand the need for economic development, because the reason for migration is the lack of work and opportunity in people’s communities of origin. If we don’t attack the roots of migration, it will continue to grow. There’s a fear of investing in our own people, but there’s no other way. We have to have economic development, and respect for the human rights of migrants as they come and go.

We also have to tell people about the risks of migrating. In Durango and Tamaulipas they’ve found hidden graves of many migrants, and the surprising thing is that the big majority killed with such cruelty are Mexicans. It’s not just a risk to cross the border into the U.S. You’re risking your life migrating here in your own country.

People also need to understand that the economic crisis in the U.S. hasn’t gotten any better. When you get there, your chance of finding work is worse than ever, and there’s a lot of competition for jobs.

So we have to work on implementing the right to not migrate, while protecting the ability to migrate safely, making sure that people’s dignity and human rights are respected.

In March alone, four thousand migrants were sent back after trying to cross into the U.S. That tells us that there’s still a huge number of people trying to cross, and that the number isn’t getting any smaller. The economic pressure on people to migrate, and the violation of human rights on the border, are still part of our reality. Migrants are raped and beaten, and recruited into criminal gangs. Over 300 Oaxacans have disappeared, and we don’t know if they’re alive or dead. Their families haven’t heard from them. Our state is responsible for them, along with the Federal government.

Yet we don’t accept responsibility for the economic development that could change it. This silence is a disgrace, at the same time we’ve become so dependent on the remittances migrant send back to their families.

The labor of migrants in the U.S. has been used throughout history.

They tell us to come work, and then when there’s an economic crisis, we’re blamed for it. They accuse us of robbing other people’s jobs, and our rights are not respected. These new state laws in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Arizona and elsewhere are not just anti-immigrant but inhuman. Meanwhile, the current U.S. administration has hardened its policy of detaining and deporting immigrants unjustly, which accomplishes nothing. In IOAM we feel like we’re just shouting at the wall — they don’t hear us.

I don’t believe that a program of guest workers or braceros will resolve these problems of migration. First, it perpetuates a dependence on remittances. We also know from our experience with the bracero program in the 1950s and 60s that these programs don’t work.

We have many former braceros who are still fighting to get the 10% of their wages that was withheld during those years. Current H2A and H2B programs give people a work visa, but the rights of workers in these programs are not respected. Often they aren’t paid legal wages, they live in terrible conditions in substandard housing, and they have no right to organize or make demands on their employers.

With a green card, or residence visa, people migrating have some security. That doesn’t exist with a guest worker visa or crossing with a coyote. If people’s rights are violated, if they’re not paid adequately, if they can’t earn Social Security to allow them to eventually retire, then this system is worthless. It’s just producing throw-away workers, whose labor gets used but who have no benefits. So why are we talking about more programs that fail to respect human and labor rights, and which don’t guarantee housing, education and healthcare?

If we begin by talking about rights and decent wages and conditions, maybe we can see a way forward. But if it’s just “come sell your labor” with no respect for your rights, these programs are worthless.

The governments of both Mexico and the U.S. must prioritize human and labor rights.

We will work with everyone. We are a government of everyone. We say, we are all Oaxaca, with a government for all of us. So we have to implement this idea in practice.

Pro-immigrant and civil liberties groups are stepping up the pressure against US Immigration and Customs Enforce-ment’s (ICE) Secure Communities program. Designed to remove immigrant lawbreakers from the United States, Secure Communities enlists local law enforcement agencies in a cooperative relationship with ICE in order to identify, hold and deport foreign nationals.

But a coalition of non-governmental groups including the American Civil Liberties (AC-LU) and National Immigration Law Center charged this week that Secure Communities has resulted in the unlawful detention of US citizens. They also urged Los Angeles County to severe its ties with the federal immigration initiative.

“It is time for us to finally say, ‘no, we will not participate in a program that detains people unlawfully, crowds our jails and compromises community policing,” said Hector Villagra, executive director of the southern California branch of the ACLU.

In a statement, the ACLU and its allies summarized four recent California cases in which citizens arrested for alleged non-immigration offenses had a detention hold put on them from ICE.

In one instance, a 40-year-old Los Angeles-born resident was charged last month with shoplifting but kept on an immigration hold even after a judge ordered him released on the original charge. Antonio Montejano was then forced to sleep for two nights on the floor of the county jail, according to the ACLU and its coalition partners.

“My eight-year-old son asked me: ‘Dad, can this happen to me because I look like you?’ I feel so sad when I heard him say this. But he is right,” Montejano was quoted. “Even though he is an American citizen-just like me-he too could be detained for immigration purposes because of the color of this skin-just like me. What am I supposed to tell him?”

The ACLU and other groups also cited findings from the University of California-Ber-keley’s Warren Institute that reported approximately 3,600 citizens had been detained under Secure Communities since the program’s inception through April 2011.

In Secure Communities, a detained person’s fingerprints are sent to ICE for immigration status verification.

For its part, ICE called the experiences cited by the pro-immigrant coalition and reported in national media “highly unusual with unique circumstances.”

The federal agency said in a statement: “ICE is strongly committed to the prevention of similar situations and have taken numerous steps to ensure that the detention of US citizens does not occur. Secure Communities is not designed and should not be used to detain U.S. citizens and we work hand-in-hand with our state and local partners to ensure that it is used appropriately.”

Reportedly, ICE is cleaning up its data base to make sure US citizens are not mistakenly classified as foreign nationals. The agency is expected to issue a new detainer form for the purpose of avoiding the detention of US citizens for immigration law violations.

In other immigration news, the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR), Arizona’s Tonatierra organization, the Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West and other groups organized a series of activities since December 18, International Migrants Day. Planned for at least ten US states, the events are part of a global day of action against racism and for the rights of migrants, refugees and displaced people.

The NNIRR took the occasion of the approaching day to renew a demand that the Obama administration stop detaining and deporting immigrants. The Oakland-based immigrant advocates contended that Washington’s record deportation of 396,906 immigrants in Fiscal Year 2011 harvested a “high human cost” in terms of shattered lives and separated families.

Frontera NorteSur: on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news Center for Latin American and Border Studies New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

By Vivian Marlene Dunbar

People unite on both sides of the International Border to celebrate the annual Friendship Park Holiday Posada. Photo credit: Scott M. Bennett.

Sat. Dec. 10 20ll — People of two nations came joined together, at the border, to celebrate the Annual Posada Sin Frontiers. This event marked the 18thyear of people gathering at Friendship Park to share in this traditional holiday. This year’s them is ‘The Star Still Shines—the search for shelter continues.’

The annual event commemorates Joseph and Mary’s search for shelter on Christmas Eve, is conducted with people of faith from Tijuana who meet the U.S. participants at the border fence.

They will remember in prayer those who have died crossing the border into the United States in the past year. Crosses bearing the names of border victims will be placed along the coastline at the west end of the park.

Friendship Park is a very special piece of land that sits by the Pacific Ocean in Playas Tijuana. Here, for over 30 years, Mexican families, separated by their legal immigration status and an international border wall, would meet here to reconnect with loved ones. The Annual Posada became a favorite way that these families could share this special holiday.

Today, the people gathered to celebrate under the shadow of a newly constructed secondary fence. Children carved their names in the fresh concrete, still wet after the huge rusty beams had been installed, probably in the early hours before the posada took place. The new fence was ominous and oppressive.

The celebration transcended the fence as people began to sing. A little book was passed around with the words to Christmas carols so everyone could join in. Rev. Juan-Daniel Espitia’s powerful sermon, called for nations to come together and recognize the equality of man, rang though the air. Music filled the air as people from all walks of life shared the magic of the event. On the US side of the fence, people holding crosses faced those on the Mexican side, holding up pink cardboard pieces that formed the shape of a heart.

People from all over gathered at this posada. A number of people in the group had been recently deported. One lady told her tearful story of deportation. Another recent deportee asked where he could sell his handmade jewelry. Several people from the Tijuana Casa Migrants were present, and explained how they offer temporary shelter, food and assistance. Members of the Border Angels and Friends of Friendship Park stood on the US side of the fence.

After the music and songs, everyone was treated to tamales and champarado, even the border patrol agents were offered food, but they could not accept it.

   Much news has been made overAlabama’s tough immigration policy, HB 56, and how it has adversely affected the state’s agriculture economy by driving the immigrant labor out of the state.

   Rather than scrap the law or make changes that could help the farmers, politicians would rather have officials with the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries meet today with farmers to propose a solution — use prison inmates to do the labor nobody else wants to do.

   It seems the prison system isn’t too enthusiastic about the idea.

   Prison spokesman Brian Corbett says the state has about 2,000 work-release prisoners, and most already have jobs.

   Corbett says the prison system isn’t the solution to worker shortages caused by the law.

   If Alabama lawmakers continue to dig their heels into the proverbial soil, it may not be too long before they end up eating their legislation — just like theirOklahomacolleagues.

   Back in 2007, theOklahomalegislature passed a bill titled the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007, otherwise known as HB 1804. Its intent was just like that ofAlabama’s HB56 — drive out undocumented immigrants.

   Supporters of HB 1804 said the same thing about undocumented immigrants that Alabama supporters are saying now — that the undocumented are a drain on their state.

   Well, it’s been four years and Oklahoma legislators are seeing and feeling the effects of just how wrong they were.

   “Since the passage of House Bill 1804, we’ve seen a mass exodus of undocumented immigrants who have taken up residence in Texas and other surrounding states where they pump millions of dollars into those economies,” Sen. Harry Coates, R-Seminole said. “House Bill 1804 did little more than put Oklahoma companies at a disadvantage by sending dedicated, knowledgeable workers to competing companies in other states. Losing that workforce has been devastating for many of Oklahoma’s industries, including agriculture, energy and construction.”

   To undo some of the harm that HB 1804 did, Sen. Coates filed on Monday, Dec. 5, Senate Bill 995 that would allow undocumented guest workers to work in the state if they bought a $2,000 guest worker permit, renewable every two years.

   Now, if I was someone who had already left the state and was working elsewhere, the notion that I would return and pay $2000 to a state that treated me so badly is a no-brainer.

   Yet, if I never left the state and my children were born in Oklahoma then the proposal could have some merit, except for one thing — the cost.

   Two thousand dollars is a lot of money to a family who is living in poverty, and we know that undocumented immigrant families are living a very hand-to-mouth existence. Yet, the legislator not only wants the undocumented workers to pay the fee but even more:

   SB 995 would also establish an immediate family permit that would provide protection to the immigrant’s immediate family members including spouses and children. Each family member would be required to purchase a permit for $500.

   The press release issued by the Oklahoma State Capitol doesn’t clarify whether or not that $500 permit has to be paid for those family members born in theUnited States. Common sense would dictate no, but common sense didn’t prevail in the passage of this bill so anything goes.

   If Oklahoma legislators were serious about wanting undocumented immigrants to help their economy then they should reduce the cost of the permits to a more reasonable and practical amount and give them their money’s worth — issue a state sanctioned ID that allows them to get a driver’s license, car insurance and have healthcare.

Reprinted from Latina Lista (http://www.latinalista.net/palabrafinal/)

Editor’s Note: Victor Escobar said today he has received notification from ICE that his case will be reviewed at some apparently undetermined point; the Dec. 7 deadline for leaving the country has been lifted. Escobar said he can remain in the country until the review is completed. The best possible outcome, he said, would be a “termination of proceedings” that would give him a chance at getting a work permit.

Victor Escobar

    In an e-mail to supporters, Escobar writes: “We need to focus our efforts on sharing my story through the media and by demanding that our elected leaders take action to repair our broken immigration system, a system which is increasingly penal and does not meet the needs nor realities of our country.”

    On May 19, 2009, Victor Escobar completed paperwork for graduation from Chico State and rented the gown that for many years he had dreamt of donning. Then he headed for his family’s home in Redding.

    Escobar was a political science major who would graduate as a member of the student honor society. But he would never don the rented gown nor walk the stage with his class; his trip back to Redding would commence a two-and-a-half year ordeal that is now, for better or worse, on the brink of some kind of resolution, even if it’s perhaps tentative.

    That May afternoon, Escobar found himself behind a slow-moving trailer-tanker on Highway 99, and chose to pass. As he crossed back over to his side of the highway, he crossed a double yellow line and was pulled over by an officer who had been headed the opposite direction.

    For most drivers, a traffic citation would ruin their day. For undocumented immigrants, it’s the kind of dreaded event that can ruin a life. It landed Escobar, who had been brought to this country illegally when he was 13 years old, in ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention centers and changed the course of his life.

    On Dec. 7, 24-year-old Escobar knew whether he must leave immediately or whether ICE has agreed to defer action on his case. Inadvertently, Escobar is testing a national shift in immigration policy that has taken form in the past few months. His effort to remain in the United States by winning deportation deferment has received support from former professors, a Southern California congresswoman and via an online petition that he says 1,200 people have signed on his behalf.

    Escobar is a deeply religious, outgoing young man who dreamt of becoming an attorney. He now lives in Southern California and is working toward an MBA, the degree he says would serve him most if he returns to his native Peru.

    Under the Obama Administration, immigration officials have deported a record number of undocumented residents, often splitting up families and deporting young people who were raised as Americans and barely know the countries they came from. As opposition to that policy has grown, officials have said they will do a better job of prioritizing deportation cases, concentrating their efforts on individuals who have criminal records.

    But in November, two national organizations — the American Immigration Lawyers Association and the American Immigration Council — released survey results showing that the prioritization policy had been implemented inconsistently and often not at all. The Department of Homeland Security said last month that it would begin a review of 300,000 pending deportation cases and train agents in using “prosecutorial discretion” in pursuing enforcement action.

    Escobar’s attorney, Vanessa Frank Garcia, says that makes sense because police officers and prosecutors use discretion all the time. Immigration officials “just don’t have the resources to go after all violations,” said Frank Garcia, who says Escobar has a strong case “if the [Obama] Administration and ICE are serious about exercising discretion.”

    “He’s so articulate, so caring, so bright,” Frank Garcia said of her client. “He’s a great kid. He’s the kind of kid we want.”

    After the 2009 traffic stop, Escobar said Tehama County turned him over to immigration agents who bused him to Bakersfield. It was strange, he said, to arrive in that town — where as a competitive swimmer he had known many other teens — handcuffed and shackled.” I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, here I am,’” he recalled. “I got good grades, I’m a good kid… I was really bummed out.”

    From Bakersfield, he was taken to Arizona detention centers. He won release on a bond and hired attorneys who helped him delay deportation. But without any way of achieving legal status in the foreseeable future, Escobar began making plans to leave the country voluntarily. He was five hours away from leaving in August when he received what he believes were signs from God that it wasn’t the time to go.

    One of the signs came in the form of a telephone call from an immigration rights activist who told him that under new Obama Administration deportation guidelines, Escobar could apply to become a low-priority case, effectively deferring action. “It was a total miracle,” Escobar said.

    Until his Dec. 7 deadline, he can argue that prosecutorial discretion could be exercised in his favor. He has mounted an online campaign through the Website dreamactivist.org, posting videos in which he tells his story.

    Frank Garcia argues that Escobar is a classic example of the kind of young person Dream Act legislation would help. That legislation, which would provide a path to citizenship for some young people who were raised in this country and perform military service or obtain a college degree, has thus far failed in Congress but will likely resurface.

    The deferment ICE could grant Escobar wouldn’t move him toward legal status, but depending on how it’s issued, might make a work permit possible.

    Chico State Political Science Department Chair Charley Turner agrees the Dream Act was designed to help young people like Escobar. When Escobar was his student, it didn’t occur to Turner — and it probably didn’t occur to the other students — that he didn’t have citizenship or legal residency. Turner, who wrote a letter of support for Escobar, said Escobar was thoughtful and persuasive in class discussions and “considered himself a Californian like everyone else in the class.”

    Students sometimes discuss Escobar’s case in the graduate government class Turner teachers now; some knew him as undergraduates. “Everyone recognizes we’ve got a problem,” Turner said of immigration policy. “The current rules aren’t particularly effective for dealing with the problem. We have people ending up in the United States, many of whom entered as minors… the Dream Act is an example of trying to come to terms with this.

    “I don’t know if it’s a perfect law or not, but something along these lines is a step in the right direction.”

    Escobar himself is a passionate Dream Act advocate. If he could stay in the United States, he’d like to attend law school and do missionary work. “The education system has invested so much in us,” Escobar said, adding that the Dream Act won’t grant citizenship readily to all the young people who might qualify. “There’s a pretty high level of scrutiny. You have to be in good moral standing. We’re kids who would actually help the community.”

    This story was published in the Dec. 1 Chico News & Review. Leslie Layton publishes ChicoSol and can be reached at chicosol@sbcglobal.net 

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich

    Can GOP voters stomach a presidential candidate who talks about undocumented immigrants without calling them “illegals”?

    Can the tea party base that’s driving the Republican Party handle a presidential hopeful who acknowledges the impossibility of deporting every one of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country, and who voices anything beyond an enforcement-only approach on immigration?

    Such are the questions the Republican Party has been grappling with in the days since Newt Gingrich, the GOP’s most recent frontrunner, broke away from the pack during CNN’s national security debate last Wednesday and uttered a fairly startling set of words on immigration.

    “I’m prepared to take the heat for saying, let’s be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship but by finding a way to create legality so that they are not separated from their families,” Gingrich said on Wednesday. “If you’ve been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you’ve been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don’t think we’re going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out.”

    In the current immigration debate, where anything besides a “secure the borders” agenda gets slammed as reviled “amnesty” by immigration restrictionists, the backlash was immediate, but Gingrich refused to be cowed the way Rick Perry was when he was attacked for defending an in-state tuition bill for undocumented immigrants he’d backed in Texas. On Friday, Gingrich defended his remarks at a town hall in Florida.

    “I am not for amnesty for anyone. I am not for a path to citizenship for anybody who got here illegally,” he said, The Hill reported. “But I am for a path to legality for those people whose ties run so deeply in America that it would truly be a tragedy to try and rip their family apart.”

    In a field full of anti-immigration hardliners, Gingrich’s sophisticated tonal shift marked the first real departure this election season away from the fear-mongering tactics and demagoguery that’s become all but a prerequisite for GOP candidates talking immigration these days. And in doing so, Gingrich dared remind his party of days gone by, when even conservatives had enough political space to back legalization proposals. His remarks were a reminder of how far the right has moved on immigration, and how twisted the immigration debate has become for both parties. It’s too soon to say, but Gingrich’s remarks could be a sign that Republicans are ready to heed growing calls from within their own party to temper the anti-immigrant rhetoric and stop alienating Latino voters.

    It was Ronald Reagan, after all, who signed the most recent amnesty 25 years ago which allowed nearly 3 million undocumented immigrants to gain legal status. And it was just a few years ago when Sen. John McCain backed the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform with immigrant rights champions like the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, only to turn his back on both in recent years. The open racism of anti-immigrant campaigns in last year’s midterm elections, and the bitter defeat of the DREAM Act last December, when even original sponsors of the bill like Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett voted against the narrow legalization bill for a set of undocumented immigrant youth, showed how far right the party had moved on immigration.

    And Mitt Romney, who many consider the likely GOP nominee, has followed the tide. On Wednesday night Romney advisor and spokesperson Eric Ferhnstrom told the Washington Examiner Romney was pushing a hard right “attrition through enforcement” platform. “”You turn off the magnets, no in state tuition, no benefits of any kind, no employment,” Ferhnstrom said. “You put in place an employment verification system with penalties for employers that hire illegals, that will shut off access to the job market, and they will self retreat. They will go to their native countries.”

    What’s notable where Gingrich is concerned is his very clear tonal shift. Gingrich was willing to recognize immigrants as members of U.S. communities, as people whose presence sustains their families, as people whose work contributes to the economy. But more than that, it’s the fact that Gingrich was willing to acknowledge a practical reality that the hard right of the GOP is currently unwilling to address—it’s not just impossible to deport every undocumented immigrant in the country, it’s also unwise.

    It’s this new tone that helps obscure the nuts and bolts of Gingrich’s actual policy platform, which has been criticized roundly by both immigration advocates and restrictionists. Gingrich’s proposed “red card program,” put forth by the conservative Krieble Foundation, calls for giving the millions of undocumented immigrants in the country a literal red card that would grant them work permits and permanent residency but no citizenship. Under Krieble’s Red Card Solution, children of this class of immigrants would not be granted birthright citizenship, which is currently an automatic right afforded to anyone born in the country. Immigration restrictionists have called it, predictably, “amnesty.” Immigrant rights advocates say that the program would create a second class citizenry who are granted legal status but none of the rights and privileges that come with it.

    For now, Gingrich is forcing Republican voters to grapple with the question of whether their party can nominate someone who dares to see immigrants as human beings.

    After all, as Gingrich said Wednesday night, “I don’t see how the — the party that says it’s the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter century.”

    The contents of Maria Teresa Fuentes’ immigration file take up an entire table. Legal appeals, government letters carrying bad news, attorney advertisements clipped from newspapers, technical explanations of cryptic immigration laws, a Spanish prayer printed on blue paper… Collectively, they tell the story of a fight that’s been going on for years; one that Fuentes doesn’t want to see come to an end. At least, not like this.

    Fuentes, 40, is not likely what most people envision when they imagine an undocumented immigrant. She is an entrepreneur, the owner of two hair salons, the wife of a U.S. citizen and the mother of two children –one of them with a strong temper.

    It’s late at night for our interview, and Fuentes’ hair seems unusually messy for a hairstylist, as if she just rushed out of the house. She pulls out a letter that says it all. An immigration judge has ordered her to leave the country by December 17 of this year.

    “This is ironic,” she said, as she pulled out her wallet to show me her work permit. Despite the deportation order for December, her permit is valid until August 2012.

    Her situation illustrates the complexities of a set of immigration laws that some attorneys claim are out of date and have led to unfair outcomes for people like Fuentes, whose legal fate remains undetermined despite an announcement by President Obama earlier this year that he will ask immigration prosecutors to focus on deporting only serious criminals from the country.

Following Love Across the Border

    Fuentes came to Arizona 12 years ago to start a new life with her husband Martin, a U.S. citizen. It’s been a life of uncertainty and stress for the couple ever since, as they’ve worked through the legal system to remain united in the U.S. as a family with their two children.

    She met her husband in their hometown of Zamora, Michoacán when they were both in their late 20s. He lived in the U.S. and was just there to visit a relative.

    “People don’t believe in love at first sight, but it happens,” said Fuentes.

    The two carried on a long distance relationship, going through endless calling cards to talk to each other every night. They finally married in September 1999. She didn’t want to move to the U.S., but he convinced her.

    What happened next would affect the course of her life.

    Fuentes paid a Mexican attorney —recommended by a friend— to complete her visa application at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City. She had grown tired of never getting an appointment at the embassy, waiting for hours in the long lines. An attorney, she hoped, could aid in the process.

    “I trusted him blindly,” she lamented.

    Eventually, Fuentes got her passport back from the attorney with what she thought was a valid visa. But when she arrived at the U.S. port of entry in San Ysidro, California, immigration agents detained her for questioning. Fuentes was soon sent back to Mexico and accused of presenting a fraudulent document in an attempt to enter the U.S. illegally.

    Over the next few days, Fuentes waited in Tijuana and considered her options – to remain in Mexico or to cross illegally and reunite with her husband in the U.S. She took a chance, and chose the latter.

Legal Limbo

   Back in the U.S., Fuentes filed paperwork in 2001 to become a legal resident under a federal immigration law that was being phased out but still in effect at that time, known as section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. The law afforded people who entered the country illegally but were married to a U.S. citizen the opportunity to legalize their immigration status.

   Fuentes’ 245(i) case dragged on for years. She was issued temporary work permits as she waited for a chance at a green card – the document that would make her a legal immigrant and open up a path to citizenship.

   But in 2006, five years after applying for residency under 245(i), Fuentes saw her legal avenues blocked by a new law. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) stated that a person who enters the country illegally and is deported needs to wait a period of 10 years in their home country before they can try to re-enter legally.

   Because Fuentes had been previously deported, immigration authorities claimed she was no longer protected under the 245(i) law.

   So Fuentes was placed in deportation proceedings a second time. Monica Sud-Devaraj, then her attorney, fought the government’s interpretation of the immigration laws, to no avail.

   “I have a lot of clients in her situation,” said Sud-Devaraj. “There are hundreds of cases like [this].”

   The outcomes of certain immigration laws, said Sud-Devaraj, sometimes defy logic.

   “You’re basically telling the couple, that… she’ll have to spend the next 10 years of her married life in Mexico. Can you imagine living without your spouse for 10 years?”           

A Successful Entrepreneur

   Despite living with the anxiety of not knowing whether or not an immigration judge would allow her to stay, Fuentes became an entrepreneur. She ditched her job at a hair salon and told her working husband she wanted to do more for herself.

   About five years ago, she knocked on the door of a hair salon and told the owner that she heard it was for sale. She wasn’t really sure, but her instinct turned out to be right. Fuentes bought the salon and soon the investment allowed her to open up another business. She now employs 10 other people.

   “[Immigrants] are not the public drain that they say we are,” said her husband, Martin.

   “I just want to go to Washington D.C. (to) meet with someone there and see what we can do to help my wife,” he said. “This gives me so much grief. Someone has to listen.”

   Over the years, Martin has become an immigration sponsor for at least two workers at the hair salon. He was able to help one of them obtain a work permit and legal documentation to stay in the U.S., although ironically he hasn’t been able to help his own wife.

   “I feel bad that everything is crumbling down for us,” he said. “I own two houses, I have four apartments for rent. I have all of that, and now to see everything crumbling down…”

   But it’s not material things what worry Fuentes.

   “Those things come and go,” she said. “I’m not afraid of starting from the bottom. It’s my children that worry me. No one is safe from danger in Mexico.”

   Most of Maria Teresa’s Mexican clients don’t know about her situation. She doesn’t like to complain. Sometimes she swallows her fears and keeps quiet when she hears others talk about how violence has changed the life of many in Mexico.

   One client told Fuentes that a family returned to Mexico – fearful of SB 1070, Arizona’s anti-immigrant law – only to have their 6 year-old son kidnapped. The family didn’t have the $10,000 requested for ransom. The family, the client was told, received a box from the kidnappers with their child’s hands in it.

   Fuentes doesn’t know if the story is true, but it scares her to death.

   “They target you because you come from the U.S.,” she said. “They think you have lots of money.”

   Last October, The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) turned down Fuentes’ latest plea to stay in the country.

   Sud-Devaraj did not think Fuentes could win an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court – the next step – given the court’s recent decisions on cases similar to hers.

   So Fuentes and her husband hired another attorney, Eric Bjotvedt, to file the appeal. They missed the deadline by a day. Now, they are trying to see if another court will grant them an exception to allow the appeal to proceed. Bdjotvedt did not return calls for an interview.

   “She’s a fighter,” Martin said.

   Tears stream down Fuentes’ eyes as she listens to her husband. She knows she needs to touch hearts and minds if she’s to have any hope of staying.

   “I leave it in God’s hands,” she said

   There are real problems and there are distractions. The former require our undivided attention and focus but it’s the latter that often make the morning headlines.

   Recently, our partner and ally Presente.org, joined by some writers, took issue with a statement signed by CHIRLA and eighteen other organizations decrying the personal targeting of Cecilia Muñoz, President Obama’s Director of Intergovernmental Affairs. Our open statement, dated October 31st, challenges the wisdom of singling-out Muñoz to “return to her advocacy roots” and to “renounce” her positions on Secure Communities and other deportation programs.

   It seems our statement was misread by some, including Maegan Ortiz, publisher and managing editor of Vivir Latino, a news website. In a posting titled “How do you solve a problem like Cecilia?” (November 9, 2011), Ortiz goes for the jugular right from the start. Although the article is supposed to be about the reprehensible negative impact of blindly enforcing broken and unjust immigration policies by the Obama Administration, Ortiz singles- out Muñoz as the “once-fierce advocate” and slams her for “her complicity in sugarcoating the negative impact of Obama’s immigration policies” on Latino and immigrant communities.

   Ortiz, much like other critics, fails to distinguish between a player in a larger movement and the real problem-absence of immigration reform and cowardly enforcement of broken immigration laws. Ortiz would lead us to believe that without Muñoz in the picture all would be well for immigrants as far as immigration enforcement is concerned. She is mistaken.

   What happens next in Ortiz’ article would be quite amusing were it not outright insulting. After praising “independent journalists and organizations” for targeting, even calling on Muñoz to resign, Ortiz goes on to slam “other, more mainstream Latino civil-rights organizations” for jumping to Muñoz’ defense. Out of a long list of co-signing organizations and individuals, which includes Dolores Huerta, Eliséo Medina, Janet Murguía, Anthony Romero, Gustavo Torres, and Petra Falcón, Ortiz places CHIRLA in the crosshairs of an illogical, uninformed and unwarranted critique.

   For the record: CHIRLA is a community-based organization based in Los Angeles founded in 1986 with a strong and transparent track record of organizing and advocating on behalf of the immigrant community. In spite of our long history of work, our budget and our funding remain relatively modest. As much as we would like, we still do not have access to President Obama’s private line nor are we the recipients of gold-embroidered invitations to White House or Congressional dinners.

   Since Ortiz questions our position on several issues, we should clarify that CHIRLA has been an enthusiastic proponent of the federal DREAM Act since its original introduction in 2001, AB540 one of the first in-state tuition bills enacted in the country, and the California Dream Act, which provides limited state aid to undocumented students to pursue higher education. And, we were intricately involved in ensuring that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender families and individuals were respected and included in the various versions of immigration reform legislation that were introduced.

   Had Ortiz bothered to call CHIRLA, we would have told her that we agree with her argument that “it’s foolhardy for a community to pin its hopes on one of its own” now in a position of power and influence. It is an argument that even she ignores as she focuses her energy on singling out Muñoz and CHIRLA.

   Had Ortiz taken the time to read in full CHIRLA’s statement on Muñoz, she would have noted that we openly chide her for “defending the indefensible.” We also fault “the President’s indecision, soft leadership on immigration reform, and mistaken focus to please Republicans in Congress,” and we call on his Administration to halt the human crisis reaching the one and a half million deportations. The full statement was posted on our website and on Facebook on October 31, 2011.

   Had Ortiz taken the time to learn about CHIRLA, she would have read our take on DHS, ICE, and Secure Communities in a Huffington Post blog titled “A record as straight as immigration’s broken promise” (August 17, 2011), where we likened ICE’s fuzzy math to “Mark Twain’s three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.” In the same story, we tell Muñoz that “S-Comm and other deportation machines are nothing to be ‘proud’ of. Shame is more accurate.” Furthermore, we call on Muñoz and President Obama to “swallow egos, flip the switch and pull the plug on this Frankenstein,” referencing the faulty SComm program.

   CHIRLA’s strong values-based ministry, which Ortiz opines has succumbed to influence, access, and “political favors or funding,” has never been and will never be for sale. Our work is rooted in our mission and vision of a nation where immigrants are welcomed, appreciated, and respected; regardless of who is president and how many Cecilia Muñoz’s serve as intermediaries. Guided by our membership priorities, CHIRLA has never been shy to question, challenge, or demand changes in local, state, or federal policies we judge harmful to our community. At times, we must confess, we have done the unthinkable: sit at the table across from friends and foes alike and we will continue to do so when it advances our collective agenda.

   Still, in spite of our organization’s hard work and the work of many other allies and supporters on behalf of more honest and humane immigration policies, we are far from winning a major fight on the immigration reform front. Elected or appointed leaders come and go, but our issues remain unresolved. With or without Muñoz, we face innumerable challenges moving forward. Muñoz just happens to be a strong ally of the immigrant community and a consistent voice of reason within the Obama Administration and we have worked with her in the past and will continue to work with her in the future. She is but one voice, however, where many more are needed to convince a stubborn Congress and a frightened White House that change is needed.

   That is why talk of resignation, retraction, and silly questioning of CHIRLA’s intentions and values is of lesser importance to the immigrant community than proactive, timely, and common-sense solutions. CHIRLA will not stop pressuring our policy makers, elected leaders, and their staffers to provide our community with answers, not just lip service. We will be passionate and use forceful advocacy when needed never forgetting to be respectful and compassionate as we expect others to be with our community.

   To us, the most pressing issue is not Cecilia Muñoz, it is President Obama, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, ICE Director John Morton, and a gutless Congress. The real question is, how will we, together as a diverse community, work with Congress and the White House to approve just, humane, and sensible fixes to our broken immigration system before any more lives are disrupted, families separated, and dreams crushed. We think that’s also the most pressing concern for Presente.org and writers like Ortiz.

Angelica Salas is Executive Director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA). She can be reached at asalas@chirla.org.

    On Nov. 19, 2011, the Border Angels will hold their 25 anniversary celebration at the San Diego Centro Cultural de la Raza. The event marks a quarter of a century of defending and protecting immigrant rights on the US border and throughout America.

    The Border Angels was founded by Enrique Morones in 1986. The organization is best known for providing food, water and clothing stations in remote border areas, such as the Imperial Valley area and mountain areas. This simple act of compassion brought much criticism to the group, criticism which included threats to Morones.

    Born in San Diego to Mexican parents, Mr. Morones has met with US President Barak Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and international news media, bringing world-wide awareness to the urgent need for immigration reform. On Sept 15, 2009, the eve of Mexican Independence Day, Enrique Morones received Mexico´s highest award, the OTHL, presented to him by the Mexican government. Recently, Morones was a guest speaker at the Front Line Defenders Human Rights Conference in Ireland. He explained to the attendees that since the US initiated Operation Gatekeeper 1994, over 10,000 migrants have lost their lives trying to cross the border into the US. He described the living conditions of these migrants once they reached the US, such as entire families living outdoors and in canyons.

    Border Angels has demanded justice for the many immigrants who have been shot or killed in vigilante killings, and border patrol killings.

    According to the group’s webpage, in Feb. of 2006, Border Angels organized and led a National March for Migrants, leading 111 cars across the US, from San Diego to Washington DC, and back, visiting 40 cities in 27 days and demanding NO! on HR 4437 and “No more deaths and justice for immigrants!” The group has also been successful in shutting down California’s Vigilante Minutemen.

    The work of Border Angels goes on to include education and awareness of migrant issues. This involves fending off the many myths, myths which can provoke discrimination and even hate crimes. It has recently been popular to blame immigration for US economic woes, and many politicians, happy to have a scapegoat, have enacted new anti-immigration laws across the nation. Border Angels has been vocal in questioning the constitutionality of these laws.

    The Border Angels group will be holding their 25th anniversary on Sat. Nov. 19, from 7-10 pm at the Centro Cultura de la Raza 2004 Park Blvd. San Diego Ca. 92101. For info  www.borderangels.org

Rosibel “Rosy” Mancillas Lopez

WASHINGTON

— Rosibel “Rosy” Mancillas Lopez, a law student and advocate for immigration reform from San Diego, is the recipient of the 2011 Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award. The award is sponsored by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), the anti-poverty program of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

    Mancillas Lopez, 24, will be honored for her work on behalf of immigrants at a reception Monday, November 14, during the U.S. bishops’ Fall General Assembly in Baltimore. Rosy became involved in immigrant advocacy work through a Catholic parish’s involvement with the San Diego Organizing Project (SDOP), a CCHD-funded group, to empower immigrants to know their rights. Rosy also leads delegations across the Mexican border, volunteers to provide legal advice to immigrants, and advocates to improve laws that affect immigrants. Her work with immigrant families and her family’s own experiences inspired her to pursue a law degree.

    “Rosy draws on her faith and her family’s experience as Mexican immigrants to stand up for the dignity, rights and lives of people who have no one else to speak for them,” said Bishop Jaime Soto of Sacramento, California, chairman of the USCCB’s CCHD Subcommittee. “Both our country and the Church need more young people who are willing to take a stand for the vulnerable and voiceless.”

    Mancillas Lopez’s desire to excel is a reflection of the responsibilities she’s had during her upbringing. She is a native of Tijuana, Mexico, from where her family legally immigrated to the United States when she was 6. Financial woes pushed her and two brothers to assist their mother, Rosa, with a daily newspaper delivery route.

    An honors student since junior high, Mancillas Lopez has worked hard for all she’s achieved.

    “More than anything, it has taught me the value of hard work and being detached from material things,” Mancillas Lopez said. “I don’t have that longing to become rich, have money or stop working at some point in my life. My major longing is to help others.”

    “My faith empowers me in all I do. It inspires me to work for love, compassion and justice,” said Mancillas Lopez. “It’s humbling to have my work singled out by the bishops for this award. I thank them for this honor and for the care and concern they’ve shown for immigrants.”

    Mancillas Lopez is now studying at the University of San Diego Law School and serves as an assistant in the university ministry office.

    The Cardinal Bernardin New Leadership Award honors a Catholic between the ages of 18 and 30 who demonstrates leadership in fighting poverty and injustice in the United States through community-based solutions. It is named for the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, former archbishop of Chicago and a leading voice on behalf of poor and low-income people, who understood the need to build bridges across ethnic, economic, class and age barriers.

Excerpts taken from “Inside USD USD’s Model Student-Employee is Wise Beyond Her Years by Ryan T. Blystone”

   In response to a new report out [last week] on families separated by deportation, I have to express my profound disgust with a system that has left more than 5000 citizen children in foster care because their parents were deported. These policies are un-American and deeply troubling.

   The report, entitled Shattered Families: The Perilous Intersection of Immigration Enforcement and the Child Welfare System, was released by the Applied Research Center. It found that “there are at least 5,100 children currently living in foster care who are prevented from uniting with their detained or deported parents” among other findings. It can be accessed here: http://www.arc.org/shatteredfamilies.

   This important report conservatively estimates that there are at least 5,100 children currently living in foster care whose parents have been either detained or deported (this projection is based on data collected from six key states and an analysis of trends in 14 additional states with similarly high numbers of foster care and foreign-born populations). This is approximately 1.25 percent of the total children in foster care. If the same rate holds true for new cases, in the next five years, at least 15,000 more children will face these threats to reunification with their detained and deported mothers and fathers. These children face formidable barriers to reunification with their families.

   The report also found that:

   In areas where local police aggressively participate in immigration enforcement, children of noncitizens are more likely to be separated from their parents and face barriers to reunification.

   These cases have emerged in at least 22 states in the last two years. This is a growing national problem, not one confined to border jurisdictions or states.

   An immigration policy that separates children from their parents is inhumane and un-American, and should not be an outcome of our immigration policy. Keeping families united is a basic human right, and a fundamental principle in our nation. I am deeply troubled that our nation is implementing policies which could end up permanently separating families and causing children to end up in adoption proceedings.

   When I introduced the Child Citizen Protection Act for the first time several years ago, I warned that a rigid deportation policy would end up separating children from their parents for no good reason. Today we have learned that that dire prediction is turning out to be true. This Act would have provided discretionary authority to an immigration judge to determine that an alien parent of a United States citizen child should not be ordered removed, deported, or excluded from the United States.

   Today I call on DHS Secretary Napolitano to immediately halt and review all deportation proceedings where a child is being held by child protective services as a result of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions. This indiscriminate and harmful policy outcome is wrong, and it must end immediately. A parent should never lose their child simply because of deportation proceedings.

Congressman José E. Serrano has represented the Bronx, New York in Congress since 1990.

   How does waiving the Endangered Species Act in Glacier National Park help secure the border?

   Simple. It doesn’t.

   But that doesn’t matter to Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah, author of the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act (HR 1505). Bishop claims that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which includes the U.S. Border Patrol, cannot enforce immigration laws without violating the rest of our nation’s laws, so his bill waives 36 important laws on federal lands within 100 miles of the U.S. – Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders for anything that CBP may want to do, from carving roads through wilderness areas to building Border Patrol bases in national parks to erecting walls.

   Most of the laws that HR 1505 tosses aside, including the Endangered Species Act, Wilderness Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, protect the environment. But the bill also waives laws like the Farmland Policy Protection Act and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. 

   Bishop’s bill is an expansion of the Real ID Act, a Bush era policy intended to address federal ID card standards and certain aspects of immigration law.  Tucked into Real ID’s overarching language was Section 102, which gave the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to waive local, state and federal laws to build walls along the southern border. 

   The existing Real ID Act waivers have paved the way for tremendous environmental damage. To build border walls in California’s Otay Mountain Wilderness Area, 530,000 cubic yards of rock were blasted from mountainsides; walls have caused serious flooding in Arizona’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument; and walls fragment the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, which was established for the preservation of ocelots, an endangered feline. Without the waivers, those walls would be illegal.

   Would complying with our nation’s laws really prevent CBP from securing our borders?

   Not according to the Border Patrol.

   The irony is that the Border Patrol has not asked for the power to ignore environmental laws, but instead has sent officials to testify against Bishop’s bill in Congress. Last spring, the Government Accountability Office said, “Most agents reported that land management laws have had no effect on Border Patrol’s overall measure of border security.”

   So what is the pressing need that justifies expanding the Real ID Act’s destructive reach and undermining the rule of law? 

   Bishop’s targeting of environmental laws simply fits the current Republican zeitgeist.  House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has attacked environmental regulations and the Environmental Protection Agency as “obstacles to economic growth” that must be “removed,” and Mitt Romney says the Clean Air Act should be rewritten to exclude the regulation of greenhouse gasses.  

   Environmental laws have nothing to do with our economic crisis, but the bad economy provides cover for efforts to repeal or rewrite them.

   The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act is just more of the same.

   Waiving environmental laws would not make our nation any safer, but then Bishop’s bill isn’t really about protecting our borders. It is an assault on federal lands and environmental laws that uses border security as a convenient Trojan horse. 

Scott Nicol co-chairs the Sierra Club’s Borderlands Team. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org/borderlands.