Tag: immigration

The “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. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service.  With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!

This post will mark the completion of the first week of the DREAM Now Letters.  This social media campaign has been an immediate success, which is in large part due to the historic actions of DREAMers this week. 

Major bloggers from across the net, which I will link to below, have already cross-posted both Mohammad Abdollahi’s and Yahaira Carrillo’s stories.  The letters even made a brief appearance on memeorandum, a news aggregator that I’m addicted to.

If you haven’t read about it, yet, on Tuesday, 21 DREAM Act youth were arrested on Capitol Hill.  Nativists’ heads are already exploding at the notion that undocumented youth could openly declare their immigration status, get arrested, and not get deported.  David Bennion, my co-blogger at Citizen Orange, has the best write up of the action, by far.  It’s new media at it’s best.  He was actually there while it was happening. 

Is it chickens or is it eggs?  Is it that Governor Brewer’s immigration extremism gives cover to Nazis?  Or is it that Neo Nazis give cover to the ugliness that is SB 1070? Is it that Joe Apraio was thought to be as extreme as anyone could be, but people have emerged in Arizona who are even further beyond the Pale?

simulposted at The Dream Antilles and Stars Hollow Gazette and dailyKos

Recently I have detailed the relationship that Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul of Kentucky and State Senator Russel Pearce of Arizona have with their Neo Nazi, white supremacist supporters.

That is why it was no surprise to me to learn today that Rand Paul told a Russian journalist that he opposes birth citizenship as protected under the 14th Amendment, or, as Russel Pearce calls it “anchor babies”.

   We’re the only country I know of that allows people to come in illegally have a baby and then that baby becomes a citizen. And I think that should stop also.

thinkprogress.org

Yeah, that’s called the Section 1 of the 14th Amendment

More below the fold.

Every once in awhile the media mouthpieces attempt to explain to the public that the immigration issue is “complex.”  Would anyone here like to explain to me in real terms how this is so?  I am not going to name names or point fingers here.

(Crossposted at Orange and at Firedoglake)

Battered by the media tsunami caused by Arizona’s “show us your papers” law and the resulting lawsuits and threats of boycotts, Arizona’s legislature today sought cover by seeking to moderate provisions of SB 1070.  Are these real changes or are they just cosmetic changes and an effort to save face?  It’s probably some of each.  Put another way, those who oppose the law can know that their outrage is being heard and felt.  But the changes don’t eliminate the problem, they just provide better cover for it.

The Arizona Daily Star reports:

– State lawmakers voted late Thursday to repeal one of the more controversial provisions from the new law aimed at illegal immigration….

HB 2162, approved by the House and Senate, changes the law to specify that when deciding whom to question about immigration status, police may not use race, ethnicity or national origin as a factor.

That is a significant change from SB 1070 as it was approved by lawmakers and signed less than a week ago by Gov. Jan Brewer. That version of the law permits police to consider any of those factors when deciding if there is “reasonable suspicion” someone is not in this country legally, as long as it is not the only reason for investigating further.

There’s more, of course:

As originally approved, SB 1070 requires police to determine the immigration status of those with whom they have “lawful contact” if there is reasonable suspicion the person is not here legally.

That “reasonable suspicion” language remains. But the language about “contact” is replaced with a reference to “stop, detention or arrest.” Paul Senseman, the governor’s spokesman, said the changes effectively reduce checking immigration status to “secondary enforcement.”

“There have to be other steps, such as another law being broken first,” he said, before an officer could, with reasonable suspicion, inquire if a person is a citizen or legal resident.

He compared it to Arizona’s seat-belt laws: Police cannot stop a motorist solely because the person is unbuckled. But officers can issue a ticket for failing to buckle up if the driver is stopped for some other reason.

Join me in Nogales.

(published at Truthout.org)

Immigration is a sensitive issue, but the immigration bill that passed the Arizona legislature is the wrong way to try to solve it. The new law gives Arizona law enforcement broad new authority to enforce federal immigration laws. It is so broad, not to mention vague, that abuse of this new authority by law enforcement is assured.

The New York Times summarizes the new law: “The law would require the police ‘when practicable’ to detain people they reasonably suspected were in the country without authorization. It would also allow the police to charge immigrants with a state crime for not carrying immigration documents. And it allows residents to sue cities if they believe the law is not being enforced.”