Posts Tagged ‘immigration reform’
Late to the Civil Disobedience Party (Again)
7:43 am By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Immigration|Obama|Politics|Puerto Rico|Washington DC · 3 Comments
2 Aug 2011
Last week, Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill) was arrested in front of the White House protesting the over one million deportations that have happened under President Obama and as a push for President Obama to use his executive power to stop the deportations of at least some undocumented.
While there was some media coverage of the event that created a short term buzz, the overall response from many in pro-migrant circles was a collective, non-impressed yawn. Especially given the fact that while Gutierrez was getting arrested “for show”, a young man was getting deported for real.
Civil disobedience is important. I feel it is a tool like street protests, like voting, like not voting but civil disobedience in a vacuum, and a divided one at that smells of opportunism. For a while now, DREAMers have been getting arrested, risking not just a few hours in jail (and usually getting little to no mainstream media coverage- hell Fox News covered Gutierrez’s arrest), but risking their very existence in the United States. At first their campaign was to push the DREAM Act when it was before Congress, lately to push for more equal access to educational opportunity and executive action. Gone on the days when bodies participating in civil disobedience needed to represent, be symbolic for something else. Young people have been and are standing as themselves, confronting a system that wants to disappear them, their families, and their opportunities.
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.
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.”
So Now the Senate Wants to Get Real About Immigration Reform?
7:27 am By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Immigration · 8 Comments
8 Feb 2011So the political rumor mill has it that my own Senator, Biometric Chuck Schumer, and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham are teaming up to work on some sort of immigration reform deal.
Why does it feel like we’ve heard this before? Oh yeah because we have. Since 2009, immigrant communities have been hearing that Senator Schumer was going to be the “champion” of immigration reform. And remember how far that got us? His “blueprint” which was far from an actual plan included :
a requirement that all U.S. workers verify their identity through fingerprints or an eye scan and he rejected the euphemism “undocumented workers,” he said: “Illegal immigration is wrong — plain and simple.”
Doesn’t sound like my champion. Then Schumer delayed, delayed again (this time with Graham). And then all talk of CIR essentially disappeared from Schumer’s mouth, even with young DREAMers on hunger strike outside his Midtown Manhattan office.
Oh and then the state whose interest Schumer is supposed to represent, NY, adopts Secure Communities.
Pardon me if I’m not engraving a trophy for Schumer.
Obama Reaffirms Commitment to Immigration Reform, Again
4:55 pm By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Politics · 3 Comments
22 Dec 2010Yesterday President Obama held yet another closed door meeting with some Latino lawmakers on the subject of the future comprehensive immigration reform. To the surprise of no one, out of the meeting came Obama saying that he supported CIR but that the chances of any immigration reform bill coming out in the next two years are slim to none.
The focus instead, according to media reports, will be on keeping anti-immigrant efforts from becoming law such as repealing birthright citizenship.
From the L.A. Times:
Obama told the five Latino lawmakers who met with him in the Oval Office that he would veto certain punitive legislation if need be.
The other commitment Obama made on the issue of immigration? To mention it in the State of the Union Address next month. Followers of VivirLatino will remember how well the President did with covering immigration reform in the last State of the Union Address.
Read more…
Lawmakers to Meet with Obama on Immigration Today
1:13 pm By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Immigration|Obama|Politics · 2 Comments
16 Nov 2010According to various news sources and organizations, later this afternoon U.S. President Barack Obama will be meeting with some lawmakers regarding immigration reform. Those who will allegedly be at the meeting include Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Rep. Nydia Velasquez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). What kind of immigration reform will be pushed is still up in the air.
Some politicians like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL), and Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) have recently expressed their support and desires to bring the DREAM Act for a vote.
However Senator Menendez has stated that he sees DREAM as a fall back position. From Politico :
“I would not like to start there,” Menendez said. “I am a strong supporter of the DREAM Act. If that is all that can be achieved, then I certainly support the opportunity.”
I hope that Menendez’s plan, if he has one, doesn’t resemble NY Senator “Biometric Chuck” Schumer’s plans as they were presented last year.
This could just be another one of those meetings for show where nothing comes out except more statements in support of immigration reform while enforcement is amped up in the United States. But that’s just the cynical side of me writing. I really hope that this meeting yields something positive including steeping away from enforcement first language and policies. What’s a little different this time around is some Republicans stepping up in favor of the DREAM Act, which was lacking the last time it was presented for a vote.
A ver and we’ll keep you posted.
Via / Politico & America’s Voice
Take Our (Farm) Jobs Campaign Update
9:48 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Labor · 1 Comment
23 Sep 2010There has been much attention on the push for the DREAM Act as a downpayment on the promised Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) but not as much attention to another piece of legislation that would also potentially pave a path towards justice for undocumented workers, AgJobs.
In June, the United Farm Workers announced a campaign to draw attention to the plight of undocumented farm workers who help bring food to tables across the United States. The campaign invited documented residents of the U.S. and citizens to take farmworker jobs. Stephen Colbert took the call.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Fallback Position – Migrant Worker – Zoe Lofgren | ||||
|
||||
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano : “All the Statistics that are Going Up Are Supposed to be Going Up”
8:45 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Labor|mexico|Politics|U.S.-Mexico Border · 2 Comments
31 Aug 2010
If nothing else, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is a woman of her word. During a telephonic press briefing yesterday, Napolitano proudly crowed the start of unmanned predator drone flights out of Corpus Christi, Texas, beginning on Wednesday, Sept.1.
The rest of the telephonic conference was more of the same with an emphasis on more. I think the Secretary of Homeland Security said the word “more” so many times creating a dramatic crescendo effect that drove home just how militarized the U.S. border with Mexico was becoming and just how far we are from comprehensive immigration reform.
The drones, which beginning tomorrow will be able to monitor the entire U.S. Mexico border, are meant to track the “illegal movement of drugs, money and people”. While I know many will say the “illegal movement” of people refers to the disgusting crime of human trafficking, I picture families and individuals crossing the frontera and wonder how is movement declared illegal and only the movement of certain people.
Read more…
DREAM Now Letters to Barack Obama: Lizbeth Mateo
2:29 pm By Maegan La Mala · arizona|DREAM Act|Immigration · 2 Comments
30 Aug 2010Dear Mr. President,
My name is Lizbeth Mateo and I am undocumented. On May 17th, on the 56th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, I, along with Mohammad Abdollahi, Yahaira Carrillo and two others, became the first undocumented students to risk deportation by staging a sit-in inside Senator McCain’s office in Tucson, Arizona, to demand the immediate passage of the DREAM Act. As a result of that sit-in we were arrested, turned over to ICE, and we now face deportation.
DREAM Now Letters : Carlos A. Roa Jr.
8:16 am By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Education|Immigration|military|youth · 7 Comments
25 Aug 2010The “DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama” is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act.
Dear Mr. President,
My name is Carlos and I’m a 23 year old undocumented immigrant from Caracas, Venezuela. I want to legalize my immigration status in this country through the passage of DREAM Act this year. For too long have I lived in the U.S. without papers. It has been over 20 years, now. I want to legalize my immigration status in order to fulfill my dreams of becoming a young professional in architecture.
There are obstacles in my daily life that make it extraordinarily difficult to pursue a career in architecture. Fortunately, because of my determination to continue my studies after graduating high school in 2005, I’m currently a student in Miami Dade College. It has not been without great difficulty. For many years it felt as if all the potential I developed in high school was for nothing.
I am the perfect example of other students in similar situations whose voices have been silenced by the fact that we are not truly accounted for. We are afraid of speaking up because doing so might affect our immigration status in this country and possibly even lead to deportation. I myself felt this way for several years, but after dealing with my status for so long, I now consider it a duty to speak up for myself and for other youth in my shoes.
I remember that dark and cold feeling of shame, fear and hopelessness.
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
- Scrying Nicki Minaj, Stupid Hoe, and #Afrofutures | Nuñez Daughter: [...] forest of things that seem to matter a lot–like fingers waving in presidential faces [...]
- Karen: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/01/09/120109fa_fact_auletta [...]
- Karen: I just read this about Rubio. Let's see the GOP make him a VP nominee. LOL http://www.democraticu [...]
- Martes Media Minute : Roe v. Wade Anniversary, Medicaid Mama y Midwife Victory, Cervical Cancer Awareness month, & Mala’s Mami Closeup, | VivirLatino: [...] last week’s liveblog of a conversation on cervical cancer and Latin@s, Bianca Laureano s [...]
- Emiliano: thanks for your reviews. i feel like you tell it like you really feel. [...]
- Sexy Singing and Scary Primetime TV Latino Stereotypes : Glee & The River
- Explaining the Sudden Hiatus
- Eye on the Florida Primary : Mirror on the Wall, Who is the Most Anti-Immigrant of All?
- Live Blog/Tweet of Obama’s SOTU Address Tonight 8:45 EST
- Martes Media Minute : Roe v. Wade Anniversary, Medicaid Mama y Midwife Victory, Cervical Cancer Awareness month, & Mala’s Mami Closeup,
- VL Pelicula Giveaway!
- Today at 1 pm EST : Conversation on Latinas and Cervical Cancer
- Today in Latin@ History : Birthday of Martha P. Cotera
- Mistaking Immigration Proposals for Policy in an Election Year
- Casa Blanca Camino 2012: DREAMing of Hypocrisy in Iowa
