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.

FIOB members spend a lot of time talking about their indigenous culture, their organization has very political goals.

If there’s one experience that Mexicans have in common more than any other, more even than hatred and repudiation of the mutual violence of the narcos and the government, it’s migration. In Oaxaca, 18% of its 3.7 million people have left for other parts of Mexico, and especially for the U.S. Almost half its towns have shrunk, and migration has become part of the daily experience for almost every family.

I just spent three days listening to indigenous people here talk about it, in a unique organization that brings together people from both sides of the border, the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations (FIOB).

Two things make this organization different from the average hometown association organized in the U.S. by people from the same Mexican village or state. It’s not just an organization of the people who’ve left, but of those who still live in those hometowns as well. And while FIOB members spend a lot of time talking about their indigenous culture (languages like Mixteco, Zapoteco and Triqui, and the dances, music, food and history shared by people for hundreds of years before Columbus arrived in this hemisphere), their organization has very political goals.

The debates at the FIOB meeting, which lasted for two days in Oaxaca, revolved around two general rights. One is the right to migrate, and in particular the rights of Oax-acan indigenous migrants in the U.S. The other is the right to not migrate – to stay home.

Naturally, the members of FIOB in California, where it was first organized and today has several offices, feel the attack on migrant rights strongly. They came to the meeting after debating and adopting probably the most advanced and progressive proposal for immigration reform made by any migrant organization in the U.S.

Mexican members, who live mostly in Oaxaca (some of whom are also migrants within Mexico itself, principally in Baja California), came to talk about the right to not migrate. To implement this right, people need economic development that can make migration a voluntary choice, rather than one forced by poverty and desperation.

The FIOB meeting, which lasted for two days in Oaxaca, revolved around two general rights. One is the right to migrate; the other is the right to not migrate - to stay home.

In Oaxaca, that discussion has moved from agitation and critique of failed government economic policies to expectations of concrete change. In state elections this year the old ruling party, the PRI, lost the state’s governorship for the first time in 75 years, to an unwieldy coalition of the leftwing Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the rightwing National Action Party (PAN). Gabino Cue became governor. He then appointed Rufino Dominguez, former binational coordinator of the FIOB, to head an office charged with defending the interests of migrants.

Obviously this changed the relationship between FIOB and the government dramatically. Instead of governors who arrested and attacked FIOB leaders, Cue’s secretary for social development was on the stage as the assembly opened, reminding delegates of his long relationship with them.

But the real change wasn’t ceremonial. Delegates from Oaxaca have high expectations that the new state government, and especially its migrant affairs office, will be able to move the right to not migrate from slogan to reality.

That’s a tall order in one of the poorest states in Mexico. The Federal government and its neoliberal, free-market, anti-labor policies set the parameters for economic development in this country, regardless of what states do. Nevertheless, farmers want some way to stay on their land, and to sell their crops for a price that can keep them going from one year to the next.

Many delegates I spoke with also want to raise organic crops, protect Oaxaca’s corn (according to legend, the state is the historic home of corn cultivation) from genetic contamination, and undo the damage of deforestation. Oaxacan women are famous weavers, and indigenous artists and crafts people also see their production as a potential road out of the trap of forced migration.

Listening to the hundred-plus delegates trying to combine these related elements into a political program, and then into action capable of realizing even a part of it, was a moving experience. I don’t think there is any other place in our two countries where a debate and discussion like this takes place — not among academics discussing migration, but among the people who live it as a daily reality.

FIOB is run by its members, supported by their dues and participation. I used to be an organizer for the United Electrical Workers, so the culture of rule by the rank-and-file and fighting for social change, feels very familiar. In fact, it’s enough to make you believe that these aren’t ideas or practices tied to any particular nationality or culture, but part of the best of human experience.

This year Gaspar Rivera Salgado, the first Mixtec professor in the U.S. (at UCLA), and one of the few delegates who was around when FIOB was organized 20 years ago, stepped down as its binational coordinator. While other positions were filled by Oaxacan migrants living in California, the new coordinator, Bernardo Ramirez, lives in the heart of the Mixteca region of Oaxaca. Ramirez worked five seasons in the fields of the United States, an experience he shares not only with almost every FIOB delegate, but with hundreds of thousands of others throughout this one state alone.

His election promises another big change. The center of gravity in FIOB is moving south into Mexico. That’s not hard to understand. The change in Oaxaca’s state government opens up new political possibilities, and it won’t be a surprise if FIOB members are elected to state, and even national, office in the next few years.

Nevertheless, “the fact that one of its best recognized leaders [that is, Rufino Dominguez] is now a government official doesn’t mean that the organizations will simply obey the state government,” observed Arturo Cano, longtime journalist for the Mexican leftwing daily, La Jornada.

This change gives us a better chance to hear the voices of Mexicans as they debate what should be done about the principal phenomenon that draws our people together – their movement back and forth across the border. We need a Mexican voice from the left. For years FIOB has opposed guest worker programs and the exploitation of undocumented migrant labor. It has fought for the right of migrants to full political and labor rights in both countries.

But now people in the U.S. will also have the chance to hear Mexicans talk about their right to stay home. That means they will expect us to do more to oppose the measures designed on Wall Street (listen up you Occupiers) that have enforced poverty on the indigenous people of Oaxaca’s countryside. With three trade agreements approved in Congress just last week, that’s something we should be doing anyway, and not just for Mexicans or Colombians, but for people in the U.S. too.

For me, though, two days of political discourse have some added benefits. The pleasure of listening and interacting with FIOB is that along with the talk you get to eat mole, watch the dances of the Guelaguetza (and dance a little yourself) hear explanations of the pre-Hispanic codices, and share the sophisticated culture of these warm and engaging people.

   An electrified fence. On the border. Designed to kill people. Along with “real guns with real bullets.”

   This is the immigration “plan” recently proposed by Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.

   And he’s one of his party’s frontrunners.

   There’s no question that immigration is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. No one wants to see people entering this country illegally — that’s why we need bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform in this country. We need leaders who aren’t afraid to take up this problem and acknowledge the realities of how we live. For too long, Washington has failed in its responsibilities and not lifted a finger to do anything about this issue.

   But Mr. Cain doesn’t support bipartisan immigration reform. Neither do any of the other Republican presidential candidates. They all oppose a path to citizenship. They all oppose a federal DREAM Act. They all support Arizona’s draconian law that promotes racial profiling.

   Instead, Mr. Cain supports electrified fences, guns and bullets. His proposal is not just offensive to the Hispanic community but unbecoming of someone seeking high office, and it flies in the face of everything this great country stands for.

   After repeating his comments several times, Mr. Cain said he was merely joking. But there’s nothing funny about the violent imagery he’s espoused. His comments are reprehensible and should be condemned.

   Instead, what we got from the other Republican candidates was silence. They spent the most recent debate pandering to the worst elements of the Tea Party and arguing over who was the most right-wing, but not one critical word was said about Mr. Cain’s remarks.

   Disappointing? Yes. Surprising? Sadly, no.

   The Republicans running for president, and many running for other office (like Senate candidate Heather Wilson in New Mexico) have embraced a Tea Party agenda that will hurt many average Americans — but will be particularly devastating to Hispanic Americans.

   While Mr. Cain may try to laugh off his offensive comments about an electrified fence as a joke, there are very serious consequences to the Tea Party agenda shared by Cain, Romney, Rick Perry, Heather Wilson, and Republican candidates across the country.

   Thirty-one percent of New Mexico Hispanics under the age of 17 live below the poverty line. Yet the Republican candidates continue to coddle Wall Street, millionaires and large corporations while proposing to slash Medicaid funding, causing 36 million people to lose their coverage. And they would cut food stamp benefits for a family of four by nearly $1,800 a year. As someone who grew up in public housing while living on food stamps, that’s no laughing matter.

   Nearly half of New Mexico’s Hispanic students don’t graduate from high school. Many of them come from rural communities that are among the most economically distressed in the country. Yet the Republican candidates have a plan that would cut federal spending for education and training by 25 percent — it would cut 320,000 children from Head Start and cut assistance for families trying to send their children to college. As the first from my town to graduate from law school, the husband of a public school teacher, and father of children in New Mexico public schools, that’s not funny.

   There are over 60,000 Hispanic senior citizens in New Mexico. Yet the Republican candidates have proposed privatizing Social Security, putting it at the mercy of a volatile stock market. And they support eliminating Medicare as we know it, increasing costs for seniors by $6,400. As someone who was raised by a single mother that now relies on Medicare, there is nothing funny about that.

   For too long, the wealthy and powerful have benefited from Washington policies that continue to help them at the expense of everyone else. Rather than focus on policies that will grow our economy, create jobs, hold both Washington and Wall Street accountable, and lift everyone up by bringing people together, Republicans and the Tea Party have decided that it is in their political interest to continue dividing us by pitting us against one another.

   Mr. Cain’s remarks take that to a whole new level. That, I’m sorry to say, is no joke.

   And, sadly, given the harmful plans they have for the country, his “joke” about an electrified fence is not that shocking all.

Hector Balderas is a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate from New Mexico. If elected, he would be the first Hispanic Senator from New Mexico since 1977. He was elected New Mexico’s State Auditor in 2006 at the age of 33, and he was overwhelmingly reelected in 2010. For more information, visit www.HectorBalderas.com. This article was previously published on the Huffington Post.

Birmingham, Alabama – Illinois congressman Luis Gutiérrez has always said that the fight for immigration reform is a civil-rights issue for the immigrant community in the United States.

   That community finds itself in dire straits in Alabama under its new law HB 56, which, even after a court ruling temporarily blocking some provisions from being enforced, continues to wreak havoc among families made up of immigrants, legal residents and citizens, and continues to affect the economy and the image Alabama is projecting to the country and the world.

   Gutiérrez was in Alabama over the weekend, presenting a united front with African-American leaders in the state—led by the NAACP—in the fight against the toughest anti-immigration law in the United States.

   In the historic center of Birmingham, which saw much of the 20th-century civil rights movement, we encountered a diversity of opinion among African-Americans regarding HB 56.

   Some said that the situation the state’s immigrants face amounts to a civil-rights and human-rights crisis. Others said that what’s happening now can’t be compared to the fight for civil rights for African Americans, but everyone agreed that it’s morally wrong for persons who are just working for the betterment of their families to be criminalized and demonized to the point of having to flee the state. They also agreed that the law doesn’t make economic sense.

   In a barbershop which has been in operation for nearly 50 years, we talked to barbers and clients.

   “Not only a civil rights but a human rights issue. It’s supposed to be the land of opportunities and you’re breaking up families, you’re destroying families. But not just immigrants. It’s also affecting the people they work for. To me, it’s a disgrace how they’ve handled this. It’ll result in racial profiling. And yes, it’s a civil rights crisis because a lot of civil rights will be violated because of this law,” said one of the patrons referring to HB 56.

   “And with Alabama’s past, you’d think that they would shy as far away from that as possible, instead of trying to be the leader on something that is so unpopular. People have worked so hard to change the image of this state, and to me it’s a giant step backwards,”  he added.

   Nor did he think that the jobs abandoned by immigrants fleeing HB 56 would be taken by U.S. citizens. “It won’t work. In agriculture, for example, that’s really hard work, it’s demanding, and to be honest, most people won’t want to do it or can’t do it.”

   And referring to republican State Senator Scott Beason, who championed the law, the customer added “It’s all politics…there’s always an agenda. Politicians have created more unemployment in this state than bringing in employment.”

   “It’s politics because they think that this segment of the population will (eventually) vote a certain way, and if you don’t want that, and if you can make them leave, it’s less likely that they’ll vote against you. Because I don’t think that the great Senator Beason cares one way or the other who’s working in the fields or who’s working in construction. And now, all of a sudden they (immigrants) are doing something wrong? No,” he said.

   His conclusion: HB 56 is “a disgrace to the state.”

   A retired teacher who now sells encyclopedias for a living commented that the way (HB 56) is structured, “it’s just a punitive kind of law, I just don’t think it’s fair.”

   “I would agree to an extent, it has parallels (between the African-American civil rights movement and the immigrant movement’s fight today) for the people who are directly going through it that is similar. Now, being the descent that I am, maybe I wouldn’t completely latch onto it as close, but I think from a human rights stand point, I think that perhaps I should,” he said.

   The politicians who pushed for the law argue that their objective is to open up jobs for Americans. “I think that the real reasons, for the most part, are because of personal prejudices,” he allowed.

   “People in political office, because they’re greedy, because their objective is keeping those offices, tend to say what they think people want to hear. It’s not good, but it happens.”

   A young University of Alabama student added that HB 56 is “uprooting and displacing a lot of families. Their livelihoods are basically being crushed because they don’t have the proper papers. I disagree with how they came, but now that they’re here 10,12, 20 years in, there’s no way you can just tell somebody that they have to uproot their entire life and just go…I just don’t think it’s fair at all.”

   Some people, he told me, think that passing the law was good politics, but for him it was “morally wrong.”

   “I don’t think that it’s comparable to what happened during the civil-rights era, because they pulled out guns, hoses, dogs…, but I do feel is wrong.”

   But he added that it is a civil-rights issue “because they know who it will (HB 56) effect, who it will target the most, and hit the hardest, and that’s the Latino demographic here in Alabama.”

   One of the barbers, meanwhile, said that “I used to have a lot of Mexican clients who left, and I miss them. I miss their money, and they’re good people. As an African-American, it broke my heart to see them have to go through what we had to go through.”

   “I miss them. I know a lot of Mexicans. They work hard and I like them a lot. And I think that what’s happening is wrong,” he said.

Hastings is Senior Advisor, America’s Voice Education Fund. Originally published in AOL Latino and La Opinión

   Obama Administration officials this week touted their high record numbers of deportations – nearly 400,000 last fiscal year – as “smart and effective” law enforcement. It is neither.

   Rather it reflects a precipitous loss of moral ground by a Washington political elite that has lost touch with the political realities of communities for which it is supposed to be representing.

   In fact, in state capitols and cities around the nation, increasingly officials are questioning the Administration’s immigration policies for its lack of transparency, enforcement-only dogma, and disregard for local community safety.  Earlier this year several governors and state legislatures, including the California Assembly, withdrew their support from such controversial operations as the deceptively named “Secure Communities” program.

   Throughout San Diego County, these policies are causing irreparable harm to relationships between local police departments and the immigrant community. In Escondido, for instance, it was through Secure Communities that a woman was recently turned over to immigration officials after she reported being the victim of domestic violence. How can anyone fathom trusting a police agency that will further victimize someone reporting a crime against them? The anti-immigrant rhetoric and heavy-handed enforcement is generating a risky wedge between the Escondido Police Department and those they have sworn to protect and serve.

   Based on our decades of work with immigrant communities and our current programs to help families find work and feed their families, we are dismayed by the federal government’s repressive operations against migrant communities.

   When armed agents descend on communities, breaking in doors, handcuffing mothers, arresting workers and deporting students, the consequences are devastating; families are torn apart, creating terror and trauma for those impacted and hampering attempts to build reliance on local authorities.

   Furthermore, while awaiting deportation many immigrants are detained in a for-profit prison system that rakes in billions of taxpayer dollars in exchange for detaining those immigrants, often under inhumane conditions.

   During the past decade, three million immigrants went through the hodgepodge of 350 facilities in the immigration detention system. Tonight, thousands of innocent people who only want to work and feed their families will sleep in a detention cell.

   The AFSC has always operated from the Quaker belief that all of us, wherever we were born, equally deserve dignity and respect. This belief in equality has not always been popular.  But it has sustained our support of immigrants and their families since 1924, when US immigration policies set strict quotas on Italians, Eastern Europeans and others and excluded Asian immigrants. 

   After decades of work with immigrant communities, we remain convinced that all people have the right to be treated with dignity, and the right to earn a living. We urge the Obama Administration to show its respect for these common values, halt the deportations immediately, end mandatory detention, and work with Congress to craft just and humane immigration policies.  These are the reforms needed that will result in truly “safe and effective” communities.

Pedro Rios is Director of the US/Mexico Border Program of the American Friends Service Committee in San Diego.  The American Friends Service Committees serves migrant communities throughout San Diego County. He can be reached via email at prios@afsc.org

   Alabama is famous for self-deception, lying and stupidity unmatched in American history, except of course, by its neighboring sister state, Mississippi.

   Starting with the Big Lie that the American Civil War was fought for state’s rights, not to protect slavery, Alabama went on to totally subjugate the huge percentage of its population that was and is Black by sheer terror. Bombing and KILLING CHILDREN in a Birmingham church comes to mind in the Sixties, as do savage police dogs attacking American flag carrying marching Black children. Police officers using cattle prods on men, women and children demonstrating for their rights to vote also bring back more warm memories of the Sixties.

   The Federal Government made a huge mistake when it ended the Army’s occupation of Alabama in 1876; it should still be there bayonets fixed.

   The lies continue — the lies are based on race and white duplicity.

   Example: Alabama’s state legislature passed and the governor signed an anti-illegal alien law. The Federal Government and myriad private groups sued to stop enforcement of the law.

   A Republican-appointed (Bush 41) Federal District judge enjoined parts of the law but allowed several other parts to go into effect. The state is permitted to ban it and local governments from entering into contracts with illegals. Result: some residents are receiving notices to cut off water because the people have Spanish surnames (no proof of illegal residence has been offered by those threatening to cut off the water).

   The law requires that school districts document the legal residency of school children and their parents. This is necessary it is claimed, to determine how much of education funding is spent on illegals; this, despite the Supreme Court’s 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision that mandated a state educate any child who enters the school door. The Federal Government and its private partners appealed the district decision to the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court. Luther Strange, the Attorney General of Alabama, a Republican, opposes the government’s appeal. This brilliant man continues the century and a half of Alabama lies and deceit in presenting his case to the Atlanta court.

   He claimed to the three judge panel that “illegal aliens” make up a substantial portion of the state’s prison population, thus causing huge state expenditures. As evidence, he used an affidavit saying that “182 state prison inmates are currently subject to deportation based on holds placed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” That is 182 inmates out of more than 31,000 total Alabama state prison inmates. For Alabama residents who are capable of dividing 182 by 31,000 that amounts to 0.6% of the total prison population.

   Is 0.6% of the Alabama prison inmate population a “substantial portion” of the state’s prison inmates?

   Strange also claims that “many of these people are taking jobs away from United States citizens and authorized aliens who desperately want to work in these hard economic times: while the unemployment rate in Alabama stands at 10%, approximately 4% of Alabama‘s workforce consists of illegal aliens.”

   Two more lies. He does not provide any proof that Americans are flooding to replace illegal alien workers who are leaving their jobs and homes out of fear. In fact, the truth is that crops are rotting in the fields because there are few workers applying for empty jobs. So desperate are Alabama farmers for workers that the Governor is talking about sending state prison inmates to the fields to harvest crops. The state of Georgia tried this and flopped — the work is “too hard” for prisoners.

   Where are all the “desperate” American workers?

   Alabama’s Attorney General Luther Strange continues the Big Lie by stating “the difficulties in collecting taxes from these persons, many of whom work off the books, means that many of them are utilizing Alabama’s public resources without paying their fair share.”

   He offered no proof to back up his stupid assertions. According to the Institute on Tax and Economic Policy, undocumented immigrants in Alabama pay $25 million in state income taxes, $5.8 million in property taxes, and $98 million in sales taxes, for a total contribution of more than $130 million.

   It comes, then, as no surprise that the learned judges of the 11th Circuit not only continued the injunctions leveled at the district court but enjoined the school census provision and several others until such time as the court can handle the entire case in November.

   What this law and its supporters show the country is that Alabamans are the problem, not Republicans or Democrats. The outrageous racial terror against Blacks and now Mexicans was perpetrated first by Democrats and now Republicans.

   Only 4% of Alabama is Hispanic and three-quarters of them are legal. Thank God the federal courts exist, for only they can protect this tiny number of people from being lynched literally and figuratively by the same people who used dogs and cattle prods on children when I was a Twentysomething.

Contreras’ books are available at amazon.com

By Elia Esparza

   The National Hispanic Media Coalition is moving forward with a boycott of the John and Ken Radio Show after KFI management canceled a meeting with the immigrant rights group.

   Latino leaders were surprised and disappointed with the Clear Channel representative’s unwillingness to address the concerns of the Latino community. Clear Channel’s refusal to face Latino leaders for a civil conversation about the ramifications of John and Ken’s actions has left NHMC and its allies with no choice but to ask the show’s advertisers to cease their support.

   Alex Nogales, President and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, received a surprise phone call from Greg Ashlock, the President and Market Manager of KFI and Clear Channel’s other seven Los Angeles radio stations, cancelling the meeting he himself had scheduled and widely publicized on KFI’s website.

   “This cancellation is only one incident in Clear Channel and KFI’s disappointing pattern of disregard for the Latino community,” states Nogales. “Clear Channel and KFI have proven that they are hate profiteers. Their refusal to face the music regarding John and Ken’s egregious behavior shows us that they are not concerned with the people they harm but only their bottom line,” he adds.

   According to Nogales, “This is not the kind of response we would expect from responsible broadcasters. By their actions, Clear Channel and KFI have sent a strong message – they have blessed John and Ken’s hate-filled rants while at the same time demonstrated their complete disregard to serving the Los Angeles community.”

   Ashlock told the Los Angeles Times, “I’m more than happy to sit down with anybody who has concern and talk it out but we’re not going to be held hostage to demands that are outlandish.

   This is the typical response when cornered to discuss the hate speech targeting Latinos on the John and Ken Show, state several Latinos in line at a Culver City theater to Latin Heat Online.

   The advertisers that NHMC and its allies will be connecting with on behalf of the Latino community nationwide consist of on-air advertisements and official endorsements, which include such clients and brands: AT&T Wireless, Auto Insurance Specialist, Ayres Hotels, Cadillac, Cunning Dental Group, Jarvis & Krieger Attorneys at Law, Riverside Metro Auto Group, Saddleback Eye Center, Susam’s Healthy Gourmet, The Bugman, and endorsements from Albertson’s, Aquarium of the Pacific, BMW, Cars for Causes, Chevron, Citrix “Go to my PC”, Home Depot, Hyndai, Quicken, Ralphs, The Bicycle Casino, Verizon FIOS, and Vons.

Call to Action:

   The National Hispanic Media Coalition is asking the Latino community to join in the “Take John and Ken off the Air” Campaign. Supporters are asked to call and write letters to Clear Channel, parenting company of KFI, as well as to join an online petition.

   Find all the information on NHMC.org.

Hate Sample:

   The most recent example of John and Ken at their worst is their attacks on CHIRLA and its representative, Jorge-Mario Cabrera. On September 1st John and Ken began ranting about CHIRLA’s support for the California DREAM Act. The duo provided Mr. Cabrera’s office and personal cell phone numbers and encouraged their listeners to call and harass him.

   Mr. Cabrera proceeded to receive over 450 abusive and threatening calls. Many of the callers repeated John and Ken’s exact words, and then wished death upon Mr. Cabrera and/or threatened his physical safety. And indeed, many callers directly referenced John and Ken in their nasty messages. According to Ashlock, “Expressing your opinion is not a firing offense. KFI stands behind John and Ken and their right to speak their minds- opinions shared, incidentally, by over a million California listeners each week and protected by the First Amendment.

   For samples of John and Ken’s incendiary rhetoric and of the calls Jorge-Mario Cabrera received, go to: http://nhmc.org/content/take-john-and-ken-air