Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category
Families Impacted by Obama’s Deportation Policy Demand Meeting. Cue the Crickets.
9:31 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Obama · 1 Comment
26 May 2011Yesterday at a press conference in Washington D.C., the organization Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM), some members of Congress, and some individuals whose lives are impacted by the current federal deportation policy, called on President Obama to “deal with the immigration crisis” and meet with those directly impacted as opposed to his recent meetings with alleged stakeholders including Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Tony Choi, an undocumented Korean-American student, spoke directly to the President after telling his story: “We ask you, Mr. President, to provide safety and protection to those in our communities – the families and students – who look to simply live their American lives.”
Brittney Babo, whose husband Serge was deported last August, told her story: “On May 12, 2010 Serge was picked up by ICE officials while doing dishes at our home. He was put in immigration detention and after three long months, deported to his native Cameroon.” Babo also laid out their family’s extreme hardship: “You can’t imagine how devastating this was for me and for our family. Since he was deported I have struggled to care for my two sons. I work 10-hour night shifts with a lot of overtime just to make enough money to support my family.”
You can see videos of the press conference here.
Obama’s response?
What to Expect and Not Out of Obama’s Immigration Speech
6:50 am By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Immigration|Obama|Politics|Secure Communities · 1 Comment
10 May 2011Today in El Paso, President Obama is scheduled to make a speech on immigration. According to background information from the White House, the focus will be immigration in the context of security and the economy – in other words how can this exploitative system of getting U.S. capitalist desires met keep working on the backs of immigrant communities. There will be the call for a need to a bipartisan legislative solution that not one person in Congress has taken seriously. There will be talk about how in a post-Osama world the U.S. is safer but not safe enough which is why we need a militarized border. There may even be a head nod acknowledgement to the DREAM Act the DREAMers.
What there will not be: a moratorium on deportations of anyone – not even the DREAMers and others that fall within the so-called “good immigrant” pool. Obama will reaffirm how the U.S. is a nation of laws and lie about how he has no power to take executive action.
Obama will not acknowledge the DREAMers that were arrested yesterday outside Gov. Mitch Daniels’ office in Indiana protesting both a mandatory E-verify bill and a bill that denies the right of undocumented students to be acknowledged as state residents for tuition purposes.
There will be no talk about the real consequences of all this security on the border and how safety, a mind trick more than anything tangible, is reserved for certain people, people not including those killed by border patrol because they are near their homes on either side of the frontera.
There will be no acknowledgement beyond imperialist pride of the increased deportations under Obama. The higher numbers, like the assassination of Bin Laden, will be used as macho political cred even as who comprises those numbers is questioned in states like Illinois y nationally.
Clearly my expectations for today’s immigration speech are low. Maybe I will be surprised and be forced to take back my criticism of the administration. However, given the number of speeches and meetings while immigration policy gets continuously more abusive, there where probably plenty more room for criticism and calls for action.
Someone Tell ICE Under Obama : Federal Agencies Remind Public Schools All Children Have Right To Public Education Regardless Of Immigration Status
2:20 pm By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Education|Immigration|Obama|Secure Communities · 2 Comments
7 May 2011Yesterday the Department of Justice and the Department of Education sent out a letter reminding school districts nationwide of their obligation under federal law to provide equal educational opportunities to all children residing in their districts, regardless of their race, color, national origin, citizenship or immigration status, or the immigration status of their parents and guardians. The guidance responded to discriminatory enrollment practices, documented in part by the American Civil Liberties Union, that unnecessarily and unlawfully inquire, directly or indirectly, into the immigration status of students and their families and foster the fear that the attempt to enroll in public school may bring students and their families to the attention of the immigration authorities.
The guidance made clear that a school district may not:
• ask about a child’s citizenship or immigration status to establish residency within the district; or
• deny a homeless child, including an undocumented homeless child, enrollment because she or he cannot provide the required documents to establish residency.
The guidance further specified that a school district may not prevent a child from enrolling in school because:
• a child has a foreign birth certificate; or
• a child or parent chooses not to provide the child’s social security number; or
• a child or parent chooses not to provide the child’s race or ethnicity.
This is not a new policy rather the letter was meant to reinforce established policy. Problem is that the directive fails to address how at the Federal level policy and practice is discouraging immigrant parents and their children from participating in education through the use of fear.
Remember what happened in Detroit? Read more…
From New America Media : Immigrant Rights Supporters Refocus Struggle on Obama
3:45 pm By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Obama|Politics · Comments Off
4 May 2011Note from Mala : I wanted to share this piece for a few reasons. I find it interesting that the article makes it seem as if Obama has never had pressure put on him or been the target of campaigns and criticisms over White House Immigration policy. I will also admit to being amused at the continued posturing of Congressman Gutierrez and threats to pull support from the President. It is a promise he has made often and has yet to make good on in any real meaningful way.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — More than 300 people packed the Sacred Heart church in San Jose last Tuesday to hear Congressman Luis Gutierrez speak about immigration reform at a town hall meeting. The event was part of a 20-city tour being organized by the congressman from Illinois to energize and refocus immigrant rights supporters ahead of a national day of protests scheduled for Sunday, May 1.
Five years after immigrant rights advocates staged their first large-scale May Day protests, and with little indication that Congress will be making any moves on immigration legislation in the near future, immigrant communities and their supporters are switching tactics, using their voting power as leverage to lobby President Obama to use his executive power to halt deportations.
“I have not come to talk to you about comprehensive immigration reform; to speak to you about a legislative process that will bring about change. It isn’t possible,” Gutierrez told the crowd.
“We are not losing hope, just refocusing our struggle on President Obama. We responded [to his Presidential campaign] with our vote and our confidence and we need him to be the champion that he promised he would be for our community,” he said.
Since Obama took office, said Gutierrez, his administration has overseen a record number – 400,000 – of deportations.
The town hall meetings are part of a larger campaign, “Change Takes Courage,” which is demanding that the U.S. government cease all deportations of parents whose children are citizens, of DREAM Act-eligible youth and military veterans. The campaign is also calling for the discontinuation of joint federal and local law enforcement programs such as Secure Communities and 287G, which immigrant rights advocates say are making their communities unsafe.
“Immigration reform has been dead the last couple of months and this looks like there will be another spark (by offering) some form of relief. It may not affect all the community, but it will affect a portion of the community – the DREAM students – and give (legal) status to families,” said Jesse Castaneda, chair of the Silicon Valley Alliance for Immigration Reform, a coalition of diverse religious, labor and non-profit community groups that helped organize the forum in San Jose.
Many people arrived early just to hear Gutierrez speak.
“Congressman Gutierrez is on the vanguard of immigration reform and he lifts up the spirit of our families. That’s important with the May 1 march coming up this week,” said Jose Sandoval, the founder of Voluntarios de la Comunidad, a group that has been “urging people …[to] become citizens to vote because their vote is their power.”
San Jose resident Katya Ceballos, who spoke on a panel during the forum, told the crowd that her husband was facing a deportation order and eventually beat it, although the ordeal was a nightmare for her family. Ceballos is a member of Silicon Valley De-Bug, a community group that supports individuals who face deportation orders due to contact with the criminal justice system.
“I have a daughter who is an American citizen, who deserves and has the right to have her father by her side like any other child,” she said. Ceballos urged the crowd to become citizens and vote for immigration reform, so that families would not separated.
The meeting attracted city and county officials who reaffirmed the commitment of local governments in Santa Clara and San Jose to do whatever possible to not put their immigrant communities at further risk. Speakers included San Jose’s new Chief of Police Chris Moore, Supervisor Dave Cortese, Congressman Mike Honda, and testimonials from youth impacted by the immigration system.
Moore, who spoke on a panel, emphasized the importance of separating local and federal law enforcement duties.
“In my own department, we have made it very clear that we should not be engaged in civil immigration (enforcement),” he said. “It has become very important to add our voices to the need for immigration reform.”
Counties like Santa Clara have tried to opt out of Secure Communities — a program that requires local police to submit fingerprints of arrestees to federal immigration officials – but don’t yet have a clear legal roadmap to do so effectively.
Student Raul Martinez described his frustration and disappointment in getting turned down for jobs, because he doesn’t have a Social Security Number. Martinez called for passage of the DREAM Act, legislation that would give eligible high school graduates a path to citizenship. The legislation was defeated in Congress last year.
“I am undocumented and unafraid,” Martinez said.
A petition for immigration reform, signed by those who have been attending the town hall meetings, will be hand delivered to President Obama next Wednesday when Gutierrez meets with him personally.
.
From New America Media : Obama Is Our “Frenemy”—An Open Letter to Latinos
2:43 pm By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Immigration|Justice|Obama|Politics|Secure Communities · 9 Comments
21 Apr 2011Publisher’s Note : There have been many posts here and in other spaces regarding President Obama’s failure to push immigration reform effectively at the legislative level and more recently, his continued dismissal of executive actions he can take. With the 2012 presidential campaign season officially kicking off, the question that is often presented to those of us offering the critiques is : who to vote for then? a Republican? No one at all? The always provocative Roberto Lovato offers the following commentary and options for what the Latino community can and should be doing. And for the record, I agree.
- Mala
Local media is abuzz with news of President Obama’s visit to San Francisco. Unfortunately for immigration policy and for the noble cause of immigrant rights, the media coverage reflects the editorial filters built up by the multimillion-dollar media apparatus set up by Obama’s immigrant rights allies in Washington, D.C., who are still seen by the press as the official voice of immigrants in the United States.
Consciously or not, these D.C. groups, their leaders, and their – until very recently – ominous silence about Obama’s radical immigration policies have so conditioned the ears of journalists and editors to the faux-applause and the JumboTron sound of support, to the sickly “Sí Se Puede” legalization of it all, that anyone talking about Obama’s repressive and devastating immigration policies sounds and looks like what SF Weekly wrote about activist Prerna Lal, who is currently in deportation proceedings: marginal and out of the mainstream.
Dangerous stuff. I’ve been traveling around the country a lot lately and am sickened of stories like what’s happening to Prerna, countless cases of immigrant children forced to watch in terror as their parents are treated like criminals and taken away forever by ICE – the agency Obama has the power to tell, “Stop it, stop it immediately.”
Failure to bring the Obama administration to some reasonable, concrete relief for DREAMers, or around cooperation agreements between local police and federal immigration authorities, like 287(g) and Secure Communities, will bring the bar of immigrant and Latino respect to even more dangerous lows. Democratic and Republican politicians and their allies will see that they can get away with continued repression without paying a political price. Such perception will, I fear, result in even more unprecedented terror and devastation of a community perceived to know no lower limits to its self-disrespect when its says “Sí Se Puede” in support of the administration that is breaking records as the most violent and repressive in the history of the immigrant United States.
Fortunately, we – not they – are the ones we have been waiting for.
I know many of you who will not allow Obama to glide through Latino communities as if he has not been the commander in chief of the war on immigrants. If things don’t change soon, any and all Obama Latino events should be subject to non-violent actions that defend both immigrants and our self-respect and dignity. Even his closest allies have communicated the need to take action on urgent matters like the deportation of DREAMers and the 287(g) and Secure Communities programs. If he doesn’t heed them, then he is clearly committed to moving beyond being a “frenemy” of immigrants, one deserving of having his electoral campaign aspirations dropped and devastated in Latino communities with the same zeal with which he and his administration prosecute the war on immigrants in Latino communities.
We cannot allow people to humiliate, attack and terrorize Latinos and still have Latinos singing their praises. Without relief for immigrants, we should make support for Obama’s re-election – and for the election of violent Republicans – synonymous with being what we used to call “vendidos” or “sellouts” in a previous political era. The moral reality is there to do so as is the urgent necessity.
Thankfully, I think the will and courage are there too. I am very proud of those who are teaching Obama and his allies what living hope and heart-driven change look like. Please enlist me in your heroic effort as I find great edification and inspiration in your actions.
For his own dignity and for ours, I hope President Obama does the right thing and stops the terror and devastation against immigrants.
Respectfully,
R
Roberto Lovato is co-founder of Presente.org.
White House Immigration Meeting : A PR Stunt with Little Substance?
5:48 pm By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Obama|Politics · 8 Comments
19 Apr 2011Today the White House held yet another one of it’s meetings on immigration, where lots of press attention is garnered but little movement forward actually happens. According to a background press release, at the meeting were “Administration Officials and Stakeholders” including DHS Secretary Napolitano, Cecilia Munoz, Deputy Assistant to the President & Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, the mayors of NYC & San Antonio, law enforcement officials like the heads of the NYC and Philly police departments, business leaders such as the COO of Facebook, and organizational leaders such as John Podesta, CEO, Center for American Progress, Al Sharpton of the the National Action Network, and Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO.
It has been confirmed by VivirLatino that there were Latino and immigration advocates at the meeting whose names were not on the official press list, perhaps on purpose to avoid the White House being criticized in the media for their inactions and actions that have led to increased enforcement and deportations. Those people were Eliseo Medina of SEIU, Janet Murguia of the NCLR, Ali Noorani of RI4A, Frank Sharry of America’s Voice, and Karen Narasaki of the Asian American Justice Center.
Pablo Alvarado, Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network said of the meeting :
“While we appreciate the President’s effort to keep immigration reform on the national agenda, his actions belie his intent. We’re greatly disappointed that the meeting didn’t include more voices of immigrants at the table, including representatives of directly affected communities especially the people in the state of Arizona and Georgia where there is a modern day human rights crisis. If the President genuinely wanted to fix the broken immigration system, he would respond to the growing chorus of voices calling for the suspension of the secure communities program and move to legalize instead of further criminalize our immigrant communities.”
White House Response to Senators’ Letter on Deferred Action : Send in the Latina Yes Mujer?
8:51 am By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Immigration|Obama|Politics · 10 Comments
15 Apr 2011Yesterday, I told you about the letter sent to President Obama, signed by 22 Senators, asking him to stop the deportation of DREAMers and to grant deferred action. In the letter, they lay out very clearly that he has the authority to do it.
The official White House response came via Cecilia Munoz, former Senior Vice President for the Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and current Director of Intergovernmental Affairs at the White House.
In an interview which aired yesterday on Univision, (this link autoplays in case you are at work), Munoz said that the answer is a legislative one, passing the DREAM Act, and said that there could be a better way to deal with DREAMers cases, but on a one by one basis. Munoz says :
…the President cannot say that he will ignore the law and not apply it for a group of people on a large scale.
Munoz asserts the same position in an interview with Telemundo (autoplay link), that Obama cannot defer the deportations of a whole group of students, but that an option is to do so on a one by one basis.
Read more…
Obama: For Deportations & Against DREAMers
6:58 am By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Immigration|Obama|youth · 2 Comments
14 Apr 2011The Immigration Policy Center just released their Second Annual DHS Progress Report.
From the Executive Summary:
From the beginning of the Obama Administration, there has been a tension between enhanced immigration enforcement and a push for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). This tension increased significantly in 2010 as the Administration ramped up its immigration-enforcement efforts at the expense, many believe, of the very people most likely to benefit from legalization and CIR. With the 111th Congress essentially immobilized on reform, but for the dramatic lame-duck passage of the DREAM Act in the House and its near miss in the Senate, the public looked to the President and his Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for some measure of immigration relief. For the most part, they didn’t find it.
Image Via America’s Voice y Feet in Two Worlds
Obama’s Hopes for Immigration Can’t Hide Ugly Realities
12:15 pm By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|GLBT|Immigration|Obama|Politics|Secure Communities · 7 Comments
31 Mar 2011Earlier this week, President Obama appeared on an Univision hosted television forum on Latinos and Education. While education is an important key in the future of the growing Latino population in the US, now estimated at 50 million, immigration is tied into this future as well. During the forum, Obama said that he still had hope for comprehensive immigration reform including the DREAM Act. All the hope in the world however, cannot obscure the ugly reality of current policy and this week has proven chock full of examples of the double speak the administration is engaging in, especially to the Latino community in all it’s intersections.
False Hope for Immigrant LGB Couples
For 24 hours, immigrant gay and lesbian married couples believed that their struggle to have their marriages recognized and having that recognition work in their favor to access the same right to permanent residency green cards as straight married couples was over.
For 24 hours U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services initiated a temporary hold on on green card applications from married same-sex couples based on President Obama’s declaration that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. This meant a hold on deportations of foreign nationals in legally recognized same-sex marriages. Quickly though, USCIS declared it’s intention to return to business as usual as per Obama’s deportation first immigration policy.
Christopher Bentley, a spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services, confirmed on Wednesday that the temporary hold on green card applications from married same-sex couples has been lifted after the agency received the anticipated legal instructions on issues that emerged after President Obama declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.
“USCIS has not implemented any change in policy and intends to follow the president’s directive to continue enforcing the law,” Bentley said.
Steve Ralls, spokesperson for Immigration Equality, expressed disappointment that the Obama administration resumed its authority to deport foreign nationals in legally recognized same-sex marriages.
“Our government should be in the business of keeping families together, not tearing them apart,” Ralls said. “The Department of Justice has said it believes DOMA is unconstitutional. Immigration Equality agrees, and we believe it is inappropriate to use that unconstitutional law to separate American citizens from their loved ones.”
US citizenship does not equal safety from being separated from your loved ones, even if you are a U.S. citizen child. Just ask four year old Emily Ruiz.
Read more…
From New America Media : Obama in El Salvador — “Trapped by History” or “Space for Hope”?
9:08 am By Maegan La Mala · El Salvador|Latin America|military interventions|Obama|Politics · Comments Off
29 Mar 2011I wanted to share this article via New America Media and by Roberto Lovato because I feel like Obama’s Latin American trip was overshadowed by the decision to engage in a military intervention in Libya. In the mainstream media at large, I think there has been a failure to make the connection between the U.S’s past and current interventions in Latin America, their impact and what is happening now.
New America Media, Roberto Lovato
SAN SALVADOR — Hours before President Obama was set to land in their country, Salvadorans were listening and reading — and weighing — each statement he made before his historic arrival. From the crowded, tin-roofed shantytowns of Soyapango — one of the most densely populated areas in the hemisphere — to the gigantic gated mansions of the Escalon district in San Salvador, Obama’s words seemed to gain weight with each minute leading up to the arrival of Air Force One.
Expectations were almost as varied as the many rumors and questions filling the smoggy air in this very political country where, according to the Catholic University, one of every three people organized against the U.S.-backed government during the bloody 12-year civil war. Nearly 20 years after the end of that war, one would be hard pressed to find someone in this country of 6.5 million whose conversation did not eventually turn to a story about a friend, family member or acquaintance who was among the 75,000 who lost their lives in the conflict. To date, few have been brought to justice for these deaths, and many here wonder if Obama will apologize for or even acknowledge the U.S. government’s support for the Salvadoran regime that according to a report by the United Nations Truth Commission was responsible for 95 percent of the deaths. Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes has already acknowledged and apologized on behalf of previous Salvadoran governments.
“What did he mean when he said that we should not be trapped by our history?” asked Alonso Flores in Cuzcatlan Park, not far from the cathedral where Obama will visit the tomb of the most famous Salvadoran in history, slain Archbishop Oscar Romero. Flores was referring to statements the U.S. president made in response to a Chilean journalist who asked whether the United States should apologize for its role in the military coup that led to the death of then-President Salvador Allende. “Is it true that Obama is going to visit the tomb of Roberto D’Abuisson?” Flores wondered. Rumors of a possible Obama visit to the tomb of the notorious founder of the ARENA party (and, according to the UN Truth Commission, the paramilitary death squads that killed Romero) were sparked by recent statements made by ARENA party legislator Mario Valiente, who suggested that the president should also lay a wreath on the tomb of D’Abuisson.
Obama’s statements about history have a special resonance for Katya Martinez and Douglas Magana, two students born three years after the civil war.
“I hope Obama says something about what happened to my uncle and other family members,” said Martinez, who was staring into the 1980 section of the “Massacres in El Salvador” part of the Monumento a la Memoria y la Verdad (Monument to Memory and Truth). The black granite memorial in Cuzcatlan Park to 30,000 (cases documented by the Truth Commission) of the 75,000 men, women and children killed during the war.
“Obama should know how important it is not to forget,” added Magana, who said he thought homicides in El Salvador, which have now surpassed levels seen during the war, will not end unless “we have someone like General Martinez again. He was strict.” Magana’s was referring to Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez, the dictator who initiated El Salvador’s long line of military dictatorships with the massacre of more than 30,000 mostly indigenous people in 1932, and an accompanying myth that what historians call “La Matanza” (The Great Killing) was necessary to cure the crime problem that took place during the only economic downturn worse than the one El Salvador is now experiencing.
After saying goodbye, they walked along the rest of the football field-long monument built as “a space for hope, for dreaming and building a more just, humane and equal society.”
Hola!
VivirLatino is a daily publication published by Mamita Mala Media, dedicated to featuring all the latest politics, culture, entertainment of interest to the diverse Latin@ diaspora.
About | Advertise with us | Contact | Twitter
blog advertising is good for you
blog advertising is good for you
- Maegan La Mala: Thank you Julio! To be honest I was a little nervous. [...]
- Ana L. Flores: I was very excited when you decided to join us. I really wanted your voice there as it would add dep [...]
- Maegan La Mala: Hola Juliana and thanks for commenting. There is a dearth in activist/critical thinking Latino blogg [...]
- Julio Ricardo Varela: Good for you for asking. I got goose bumps just reading this and yes, yes, yes, to it all. Thank you [...]
- julianabritto: The sense that I get is that you might feel a little frustrated at the dearth in activist bloggers? [...]
- LATISM/Top Bloguera Retreat Reflection II : Yes There a Place for a Latin@ Political Blog
- Top Blogueras at the White House : Beyond Puppetry and Pendejas
- Washington DC Bound
- By Land & By Sea Drawing Attention to Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Oscar Lopez Rivera
- Welcome to NY Secure Communities
- DOJ Puts Sheriff Arpaio on Notice. Who Will Put the DOJ on Notice?
- VL at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival: Babygirl
- 45th Precinct Residents to File Complaint Against Abusive NYPD Officers
- Monday Musica : Maga Bo – Quilombo do Futuro
- NYC : Confronting Police Violence in the Courts – May 19, 1-3pm – Justice Committee Workshop
