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Posts Tagged ‘President Obama’

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 2011

Yesterday, 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.
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Looking at Report by Obama’s Task Force on Puerto Rico (Part 1)

10:16 am By Maegan La Mala · Politics|Puerto Rico · 5 Comments

17 Mar 2011

Yesterday the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status report was released. It is a 122-page report that starts with a 7-point series of recommendations on how to move forward from Puerto Rico’s colonial status. It also includes a look at the island’s economic and social issues.

In this first of a multi-part look, I am going to focus on the 7 points regarding Puerto Rico’s status.

Briefly, the 7 recommendations are as follows :

1: The Task Force recommends that all relevant parties—the President, Congress, and the leadership and people of Puerto Rico—work to ensure that Puerto Ricans are able to express their will about status options and have that will acted upon by the end of 2012 or soon thereafter .

2: The Task Force recommends that the permissible status options include Statehood, Independence, Free Association, and Commonwealth.

3: Although the Task Force supports any fair method for determining the will of the people of Puerto Rico, it has a marginal preference for a system involving two plebiscites.

4: If a plebiscite is chosen, only residents of Puerto Rico should be eligible to vote.

5: The President and Congress should commit to preserving U S citizenship for Puerto Rican residents who are U S citizens at the time of any transition to Independence, if the people of Puerto Rico choose a status option that results in Puerto Rico’s Independence.

6: The President and Congress should ensure that Puerto Rico controls its own cultural and linguistic identity.

7: If efforts on the Island do not provide a clear result in the short term, the President should support, and Congress should enact, self-executing legislation that specifies in advance for the people of Puerto Rico a set of acceptable status options that the United States is politically committed to fulfilling.

Now allow me to break this all down a little
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The VivirLatino Response to the SOTU

1:37 pm By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Education|Immigration|Obama|Politics · 6 Comments

26 Jan 2011

Despite not having any special beverages to get me through last night’s live-tweet of the State of the Union address, it was fun engaging with some of our followers, friends and fans. But now that morning after feeling sets in and we look back at what was really said and if it really matters in terms of policy.

What many in the Latino blogosphere were interested in was if President Obama would address issues like immigration and link that to the bigger issues of jobs and the economy, because yes, they do go together. To the surprise of many, Obama did mention immigration, specifically referring to the DREAM Act and then reverting to the usual enforcement first language we have come to expect from the right and we have seen in practice from the current administration. Overall, the SOTU though was an “America is Number 1″ pep rally and in the worse, most predictable, contradictory way.
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Waiting for the State of the Union. Waiting for Connections between Jobs & Immigration

9:27 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Politics · 2 Comments

25 Jan 2011

Tonight is President Obama’s State of the Union Address. I haven’t decided if I am going to live blog/tweet it from VivirLatino’s twitter account, but what I have decided on is that I will likely be disappointed in the messaging and it’s failure to connect the dots for communities of color, especially immigrant communities.

You will have to excuse me for losing faith in the administration to do anything on immigration remotely looking like reform, this is including the alleged new push to pressure employers instead of the employed (more on that later). Instead of how continued raids and increased enforcement have broken more families apart than ever before, we have a President who waves the enforcement first flag along with the best among the GOP. Additionally, we have Latinos in the media saying that advocates and activists have a messaging problem, not a humanity problem, not a compassion problem, but a marketing issue, since we as Latinos, as immigrants, are commodities, bargaining chips.
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578 Orgs Call on Obama to End Dangerous Merger of the Federal Immigration System with State Criminal Justice System

9:15 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Justice · 1 Comment

29 Sep 2010

Today, President Obama, the Department of Homeland Security’s Secretary Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Eric Holder and members of Congress will receive a letter signed by representatives from 578 civil rights, labor, criminal justice, immigration, and faith organizations from around the country demanding that the Obama administration stop the devolution of federal immigration responsibilities to state and local law enforcement. VivirLatino is one of those.

“The Obama administration’s overreliance on local law enforcement agencies to arrest, detain and deport immigrants legitimizes the racial discrimination that persists in the criminal justice system,” said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. “For all our communities, this marriage of convenience between the immigration system and the criminal justice system will only serve to further deter immigrants from cooperating with the police, and sever the already tenuous ties between law enforcement and vulnerable community members.”

President Obama Finally Says Something About Arizona Racial Profiling Bill

12:02 pm By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Immigration|Obama · 19 Comments

23 Apr 2010

But is it too little, too late?

Today President Obama finally made a comment against Arizona Bill SB1070.

“Our failure to act responsibly at the Federal level will only open the door to irresponsiblity by others,” Obama said. “That includes for example the recent efforts in Arizona, which threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.”

His words may have come too late, just like his actions or lack thereof on immigration reform. Obama hit the nail on the head when he says it is the irresponsibility of the federal government that led to this and I dare say a general lack of real concern for the lives of immigrants, especially immigrant Latinos.

Gov. Brewer is expected to sign SB1070 any moment now after praying on it.

Video Via / Think Progress

Video & Text of President Obama’s State of the Union Address

12:01 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Obama|Politics · 4 Comments

31 Jan 2010

You all know what I thought of the State of the Union address, what did you all think? I know there is alot more commentary to come..

Full text of the speech after the jump
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The President’s State of the Union : Missed Opportunities on the Push for Immigration and Health Care Reform

1:37 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Health|Immigration|Obama|Politics · 10 Comments

28 Jan 2010

After President Obama’s State of the Union address last night, I needed to get out of Casa Mala. I knew what was coming, the analysis, the discussion, and the disagreements about what needed to done and what tone to use in doing it. But I needed a drink, I need to sing and dance a little as an act of mourning because in all of these discussions, which I am now engaged in, there was little mention of actual people.

While I was preparing mentally for the State of the Union address, I saw on the Spanish language news about an immigrant mujer, Alexandra Nunez, who died from massive bleeding during an abortion in a clinic walking distance from Casa Mala. A single mother, like me, made a decision about her body and life within the limits placed on her because of law and who she is.

During the State of the Union speech, Obama spoke about the problems with getting health care reform passed and spoke on immigration from a law and order perspective, following the laws and securing the borders. He failed, as so many do, in pointing out where health care reform and immigration reform intersect, in the very lost life of mami Alexandra Nunez.
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Being Color Blind

10:58 am By la Macha · Media|Politics|race|TV · 1 Comment

28 Jan 2010

If you were around last night at the amazing VL live chat of Obama’s State of the Union speech, you know that as things wrapped up, Chris Matthews (of MSNBC fame) got a little excited–and accidentally let his mouth go crazy. Now, Matthews is known for letting his mouth run a muck, but last night sorta took the cake.

I was trying to think about who he was tonight. It’s interesting: he is post-racial, by all appearances. I forgot he was black tonight for an hour. You know, he’s gone a long way to become a leader of this country, and past so much history, in just a year or two. I mean, it’s something we don’t even think about. I was watching, I said, wait a minute, he’s an African American guy in front of a bunch of other white people. And here he is president of the United States and we’ve completely forgotten that tonight — completely forgotten it. I think it was in the scope of his discussion. It was so broad-ranging, so in tune with so many problems, of aspects, and aspects of American life that you don’t think in terms of the old tribalism, the old ethnicity. It was astounding in that regard. A very subtle fact. It’s so hard to talk about. Maybe I shouldn’t talk about it, but I am. I thought it was profound that way.

Forhead? Meet desk.
The “I forgot you were black/latino/a woman/etc” line is one that even the most conservative people of color/women don’t appreciate. Because what is our reaction supposed to be to this? A smile? A thank you? A “thank jesus we aren’t acting the negro” prayer?

Chris tried to clarify his comments later on in the night:

But I’m not necessarily feeling his explanation. At the most charitable, what Chris appears to be struggling to say is that Obama, by virtue of being black, carries a lot of baggage for white folks within his very body. In his skin. I think most of us colored folk get that. But for a white man to say that he *forgot* that baggage–that history of violence and resistance–I don’t know as if it’s his right to say so.

Again–the most charitable conclusion one could reach from this explanation is that Obama makes Chris comfortable. Allows Chris to forget that racism and violence are a part of US history. I don’t think Chris has the right to forget what white supremacy has done to the bodies and souls of people of color in the US. And I don’t think he has the right to use the body of a person of color in such a way.

The scrubbing away of color is not what sets the US free from racism. Ending inequality based on race is. It’s that simple. And I don’t think Chris is brave or talking about hard subjects when he tries to pretend otherwise.

VivirLatino’s Live Blogging of President Obama’s State of the Union Address

7:32 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Events|Politics · 2 Comments

27 Jan 2010

It’s been a minute since we’ve done a liveblogging of an event here at VivirLatino. Since We have covered in depth the Obama presidency from the campaign promises to their fulfullment (or not), I figured that hosting a live chat here would be fun.

So come and join us here tonite at 8:45 EST. The actual State of the Union Address is at 9 pm EST pero we’ll start serving drinks a little earlier to get warmed up.

Invite your friends, please note however that la Mala enforces a strict door policy.

<a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=ad5de7b608" >VivirLatino’s Live Blogging of President Obama’s State of the Union Address</a>

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