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Archive for November 7th, 2008

border%20deaths.jpgAs Mala pointed out several times, immigration simply wasn’t an issue discussed during the presidential debates at all. So it’s good to know that Obama has created the space on his “pre-election” website to discuss exactly what he intends to do about the ‘problem’ of immigration:

Create Secure Borders

Obama and Biden want to preserve the integrity of our borders. They support additional personnel, infrastructure and technology on the border and at our ports of entry.

Improve Our Immigration System

Obama and Biden believe we must fix the dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy and increase the number of legal immigrants to keep families together and meet the demand for jobs that employers cannot fill.

Remove Incentives to Enter Illegally

Obama and Biden will remove incentives to enter the country illegally by cracking down on employers who hire undocumented immigrants.

Bring People Out of the Shadows

Obama and Biden support a system that allows undocumented immigrants who are in good standing to pay a fine, learn English, and go to the back of the line for the opportunity to become citizens.

Work with Mexico

Obama and Biden believe we need to do more to promote economic development in Mexico to decrease illegal immigration.

I don’t know about you, but I see several things wrong with this little ‘plan’ right off the bat–for example, why is learning English a part of any immigration plan? Did the U.S. suddenly declare a national language that I don’t know about? Or does this plan buy into stereotypes about immigrants that they refuse to learn English (it’s actually exactly opposite, most immigrants are desperate to learn English, they just don’t have the time/resources to do so).

Also, I wonder what this “work with Mexico” plan would entail. Would it involve dismantling NAFTA (or at least scaling it back significantly) such that the indigenous farmers (who are the vast majority of people immigrating) could continue sustenance farming in a successful way? Or would it mean creating more and more miserable factories that continue to destroy Mexico’s infrastructure and push more and more workers to desperate moves like crossing a war zone without the protection of papers?

I wait to see Obama’s actions on this, and until then, I pray to who ever is out there to touch Obama’s heart with a compassion stick.

Call for stories regarding the new HPV vaccination mandate

12:11 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Health| Immigration · Comments Off

7 Nov 2008

Please pass the word around, this is incredibly important!

Do you know a young woman or family member that has been affected?

In July 2008, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) added five new vaccinations to the list of required immunizations for immigrants seeking legal permanent residency in the U.S. or people applying for immigrant visas. The list included a vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV), a viral infection that is transmitted by direct skin-to-skin contact and is the leading cause of cervical cancer. Following a recommendation by the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices to administer Gardasil, the only HPV vaccine currently approved for the U.S. market to females ages 11 to 26 in the U.S., the recommendation became an automatic requirement for prospective immigrants and applicants seeking to adjust their status when the government updated its list of vaccines in July.

The policy went into effect on August 1, and advocates in the immigrant rights and public health movements are calling for a reversal with respect to the HPV vaccine. The mandate creates additional cost barriers for young immigrant women and immigrant families seeking adjustment of status or entry to the U.S., and unfairly forces immigrant women to subject their bodies to a vaccine that is new to the market and has unknown long-term efficacy rates.

Please consider sharing your story if you know someone who has been directly impacted by the new mandate for the HPV vaccine or any of the other vaccines involved. Contact Priscilla at phuang@napawf.org with your story.

Read more…

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Petition to President-elect Obama for a Moratorium on ICE Raids
President-elect Obama, we congratulate you on your historic victory, and we celebrate this moment with great hope that under your leadership we will finally be able to achieve a humane, inclusive immigration policy that unites families and offers a path toward citizenship for the undocumented. Fundamental reform of our broken immigration system is an urgent national priority. The first step, that you can take through executive order, is to immediately end all Immigration & Customs Enforcement raids.

The enforcement of the unjust laws of our broken immigration system is tearing our country apart. The workplace and neighborhood raids by squads of ski-masked ICE agents armed with automatic weapons are the most brutal and outrageous part of this enforcement. They tear our families apart. They terrorize our communities. And they routinely violate the civil and constitutional rights that define our nation.

The ICE raids must end now! President-elect Obama, Latino and immigrant voters responded to the promise of change you made to our nation and voted for you by huge margins and in record numbers. We call on you to uphold that promise and honor our support by declaring an immediate and unconditional moratorium on ICE raids until just and human immigration reform is passed and implemented.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION

via/Truly Outrageous

dan%20savage.jpgFrom the beyond irritating Dan Savage:

I’m not sure what to do with this. I’m thrilled that we’ve just elected our first African-American president. I wept last night. I wept reading the papers this morning. But I can’t help but feeling hurt that the love and support aren’t mutual.

I do know this, though: I’m done pretending that the handful of racist gay white men out there—and they’re out there, and I think they’re scum—are a bigger problem for African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans, whatever their color.

This will get my name scratched of the invite list of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which is famous for its anti-racist-training seminars, but whatever.

Finally, I’m searching for some exit poll data from California. I’ll eat my shorts if gay and lesbian voters went for McCain at anything approaching the rate that black voters went for Prop 8.

It’s interesting to me how mainstream organizations (oh, excuse me, I meant a few gay white guys) are only marginally racist (and yet they don’t even have signs printed off in different languages despite the fact that these organizations exist in one of the most diverse freaking states in the nation), but Black folks (and as usual, the marginalized Latino population) are *hugely* homophobic–homophobic enough, in fact, to deny all the mainstream white gay folks their rights.

But what really gets me is how freaking clueless us Black and Latinos really are. As one commenter noticed:

it’s bizarre that you’re talking about this. i just walked into work (in beverly hills) and sat down. the only two co-workers of mine that are in at the moment are black. we’ve spent weeks talking about politics, we all watched the debates together, etc. I just mentioned my shock and disgust at prop 8 getting passed. they didn’t say anything and quietly went back to work.

what.

the.

FUCK.

It’s a good thing that we have gay white folks running around covertly quizzing Black folks on their voting records. What better way could there be to let Black folks know that they were supposed to vote for Proposition 8 because they owed white folks something?

And never you fear, the quizz master will be sure to quizz Latinos about their votes once he’s figured out how to covertly ask questions in Spanish…

My, oh my, how far we’ve come since the days when racism existed…

::Queue La Macha pointing ironically at the ironic title of this ironic post::

via/racialicious
source/SLOG
title via/


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VivirLatino is a daily publication published by 2 Mujeres Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse and influential Latino and Latina community in the U.S.

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