Immigration 08 Blog

Posted 09/22/09 at 08:30am By Paco Fabian

Boehner Interview Shows That GOP Still Doesn’t Get It

Over the weekend, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) appeared for the first time on Univision’s Al Punto – the Spanish language equivalent of Meet the Press. His interview followed President Obama.

So what did Boehner have to say?

When asked whether he would “consider” supporting legalization of the undocumented workforce, Boehner said:

We’re a nation of laws, and enforcing the law has to be the first step in this process. There is a way to allow [undocumented immigrants] to continue to work in the United States for a temporary period of time. And if they want to become citizens, they need to do what everybody else in the world does, and that’s apply for their home countries.

Translation:

There should be ramped up enforcement, presumably the kind that is terrifying and dividing immigrant families already, followed by some sort of a temporary work permit, presumably with second class labor, civil, and political rights. Then, these workers should leave the country to get in line to apply for permanent resident status, despite the fact that the entire viewing audience knows that the primary cause of illegal immigration is that there simply is no “line” to get into, whether in the country of origin or here in the United States.

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Posted 08/10/09 at 02:24pm By Paco Fabian

Made in L.A.: The Human Side of Immigration

Made in LA is back! PBS will air an encore broadcast of the Emmy award-winning film that documents the lives of three Latina immigrants; Lupe Hernandez, Maria Peneda, and Maura Colorado all work in the garment industry and seek to win basic labor protections from a well-known clothing retailer, a battle which will take them about three years.

Watch a sneak preview here: 

 

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Posted 08/07/09 at 04:45pm By Paco Fabian

We Will Miss You, Mel.

Senator Mel Martinez, one of the few Republican Senators who had it right on immigration, announced that he would not return to the U.S. Senate after the August recess.

The Senator has long been an advocate of coming up with sensible, practical and fair solutions to fixing our broken immigration system. He has also long been voicing the same message that McCain recently got credit for voicing -- in short: to quit alienating the Hispanic population.

During NBC's "Meet the Press," Mel Martinez was quoted as saying:

"...there were voices within our party, frankly, which if they continue with that kind of rhetoric, anti-Hispanic rhetoric, that so much of it was heard, we're going to be relegated to minority status."

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Posted 08/06/09 at 05:18pm By Paco Fabian

Si, Se Puede! Yes, We Did!

Sotomayor was finally confirmed today, which not only makes this a proud day for the Latino community, but a historic day for all Americans.

Unfortunately, what should have been a proud moment of bipartisanship was tarnished by the divisive votes of so many Republican senators who opposed Sotomayor. In fact, some right-wing organizations, such as the Americans for Legal Immigration Reform (ALIPAC), put the pressure on asking their supporters to call out "Republican Sell-outs" and oppose their Sotomayor votes. According to the Orlando Sentinel:

In the e-mail blast, the group told its followers to make "thousands of angry, yet proper and legal calls" to stop those senators --including Florida's Mel Martinez-- from voting for her, "because this is EXACTLY HOW THEY PLAN TO PASS AMNESTY NEXT!"

That sounds remarkably as if they're saying a capable judge shouldn't be confirmed because she's Hispanic.

The thirty-one Republican senators who voted against Sotomayor--after acknowledging her distinguished record--show that the GOP has yet to change its stripes and set aside partisanship in favor of progress. And considering the Republican Party's historic losses among Latino voters in the 2008 elections, you would think that GOP leaders would realize that they need to change course or risk further marginalization.

The GOP will have another chance to redeem itself when Congress considers comprehensive immigration reform later this year; if the Party continues its 'politics as usual' strategy, watch for further losses among Latino voters in 2010 and beyond.


Posted 08/06/09 at 02:52pm By Paco Fabian

A Step in the Right Direction, DHS Detention Policies to Change

Today, the Department of Homeland Security announced changes to detention policies that have been in place since 2006. According to the New York Times:

"Details are sketchy, and even the first steps will take months or years to complete. They include reviewing the federal government's contracts with more than 350 local jails and private prisons, with an eye toward consolidating many detainees in places more suitable for noncriminals facing deportation - some possibly in centers built and run by the government."

Detention standards are often disturbing, and the skepticism felt by some folks is understandable. The news comes shortly after the launch of the Enough! campaign, an initiative that calls for the DHS to correct the unacceptable conditions for immigrants and asylum-seekers in the expanding immigrant detention system.

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Posted 07/30/09 at 12:33pm By Paco Fabian

DHS Enforcement Priorities Have Violated Human Rights

Today, we released a new video calling on DHS secretary Napolitano to investigate Bush-era home raids and focus on real, comprehensive immigration reform-- instead of half-baked enforcement measures that are only making communities less safe.

Check out the video, based on a new report by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law:

Raise your voice - Sign the Petition to Secretary Napolitano today!

The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law recently found that immigration agents engaged in widespread abuse during "home raids" over the last few years.  Some of the agents' most egregious violations include entering and searching homes without legal authority, seizing people without any basis other than their racial or ethnic appearance, or limited English proficiency.  DHS's response, from an e-mail to the New York Times:

"The men and women of I.C.E. are sworn to uphold the laws of our nation.  We do so professionally, humanely and with an acute awareness with the impact enforcement has on the individuals we encounter. While I.C.E. prioritizes our efforts by targeting fugitives who have demonstrated a threat to national security or public safety, we have a clear mandate to pursue all immigration fugitives."

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Posted 07/24/09 at 01:41pm By Paco Fabian

Shuler Back with Same Tired Immigration Playbook

Heath ShulerIt’s official, Heath Shuler is back trying to insert himself into the immigration debate. The only problem? He didn't get it in 2008 and he still doesn't get it today.

It's almost as if he has a cheat sheet of ineffective policies that are becoming a revolving door for his legislation. Keep increasing border enforcement - check. Disregard police chiefs' suggestions and increase local crackdowns - check. Place more responsibilities in the hands of ICE; which a report found plagued by a cowboy mentality - check. Expand the ineffective and burdensome E-Verify program - check.

Didn't Shuler learn last year? Not only will this legislation solve nothing in the immigration debate but, much like his old Redskins days, he’s not able to read the field well. These annual enforcement-only proposals are becoming increasingly out of touch with what America actually wants; a wide-ranging fix to the broken immigration system and not piecemeal bills designed to look tough for political purposes.

Maybe Shuler didn't get the memo:

  • 62% of Independent voters support Congress passing comprehensive immigration reform

  • 66% of Independent voters prefer a comprehensive approach to the enforcement-only alternative

The country is ready for a comprehensive solution to immigration reform, and changing the title and date of old, failed legislation isn't exactly a solution and it's definitely not leadership.Shuler needs to take a page from the real leaders in Congress and listen to voters.

Who would have thought his Congressional career would make his Redskins career look good by comparison?


Posted 06/13/09 at 01:45pm By Paco Fabian

White House Meeting Postponed But Commitment, and Stakes, are High

ClocksYesterday the White House rescheduled the immigration meeting set for next Wednesday, June 17th to the week of June 22nd. The meeting will bring together key leadership in Congress and kickoff the Adminstration's work on immigration reform. It was originally scheduled for June 8th, but was delayed as a result of the President's travel schedule abroad.

Wasting no time, the political class is already pronouncing that immigration reform is "doomed" as a result of the delay. The Hill reports that the meeting is being "put off indefinitely," despite the fact that the very same article cites an Administration official who says:

"The meeting will happen soon and a new date is being set," the official said.

Here's the thing. President Obama has consistently pledged to move forward on immigration reform this year, and the expectation is clear that he will do just that. The time is ripe, with an overwhelming majority of voters supporting real reform  an overwhelming majority of voters supporting real reform, a new national campaign to garner support in Congress, and both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi putting comprehensive immigration reform on the front-burner last week. 

Frank Sharry, Executive Director of America's Voice, put it like this today in a press statement:

While we are disappointed that the meeting has been delayed, we are confident that immigration reform will move forward this fall. The President has promised to advance the issue many times, and we believe he is a man of his word.

In fact, we believe this White House wants to enact immigration reform because they know that the American people expect Congress and the new President to move forward practical solutions to important problems like illegal immigration. Once the President kicks off the debate, all eyes will turn to Congress to see whether Congressional Democratic leaders advance the plan, and whether Congressional Republican leaders recognize that they have to get right on this issue--or continue to alienate the fastest growing group of new voters in the country and deepen their reputation as the ‘Party of No?’

The stakes are high. (But you wouldn't know it to hear the political class chatter).


Posted 04/28/09 at 01:37pm By Paco Fabian

As Specter Switches Parties, GOP Must Craft Survival Strategy

As Chuck Todd reported on MSNBC today, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has decided to switch his party affiliation:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

With Specter joining the Democratic Party, Todd is basically arguing:

The GOP better come up with a story about how they can be considered a national party when they can't keep a moderate Republican like Specter in the party. This was a survival decision by Specter because he has been chased out of the party by rank and file Republicans.

What could the GOP's national survival strategy look like? Oh I don't know, let's try a sane immigration policy, for starters.

Stay tuned for more on Specter's immigration stance later today.

 


Posted 04/14/09 at 02:00pm By Paco Fabian

Immigration System Rife with Human Rights Abuses

prisonOur immigration system is broken, and if you think that because you are a citizen this doesn't affect you, then you should read today's Associated Press  piece.  In it, Suzanne Gamboa describes how the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike are being violated. The article points to several examples of how our system is denying citizens basic protections under the law: 

The American judicial system deems everyone innocent until proven guilty and guarantees a fair hearing with a lawyer - but not when it comes to immigration. Then there are far fewer rights. And as the system comes under pressure from a flood of new cases, the strain is showing.

One result is that U.S. citizens arrested as illegal immigrants or deportable residents cannot count on the legal system as a safety net. The odds are stacked against them. On the basis of interviews, lawsuits and documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, The Associated Press has documented more than 55 such cases since 2000, and immigration lawyers count hundreds more.

Another Associated Press piece goes on to profile some of the US citizens that have been rounded up and detained and in some cases deported, because they don't carry their passposts or birth certificates with them at all times. 

On Aug. 16 last year, Juan Manuel Carrillo Jr. was beginning his shift at the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Mount Pleasant, Texas, when managers began calling workers to the office. His name was called.

"I went and another group of people went. We thought it was a drug test. We didn't think it was immigration," Carrillo said in Spanish.

Instead, immigration officials had his name on a warrant. The sweep for illegal workers was one of five in April 2008 at Pilgrim's Pride plants across the country. About 400 people were taken into custody, Pilgrim's Pride said. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said 300 were arrested.

Carrillo, who was born in San Diego, was among them. He said he told officers he was a citizen, but his hands and feet were cuffed and he was put in a van and taken to a detention center in Tyler, 40 miles away. He only had a driver's license on him.

Carrillo protested again and told the driver he was a citizen. The driver told him to shut up.

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Posted 04/01/09 at 11:46am By Paco Fabian

The Bush Administration’s Epic Fail on Immigration Enforcement

Enforcement PoliceToday we're releasing a new report that outlines in stark detail why the Bush Administration had it backwards when it came to immigration enforcement. 

The report finds that in three key areas- immigration law enforcement, labor law enforcement, and support for state and local police- the Bush Administration focused its resources on undocumented workers rather than high value targets like unscrupulous employers and dangerous criminals. 

Two years ago, then-Secretary of DHS, Michael Chertoff, promised to crack down on unscrupulous employers, saying:

"[The] days of treating employers who violate these laws by giving them the equivalent of a corporate parking ticket -- those days are gone. It's now felonies, jail time, fines and forfeitures." 

Well, the new report shows that in 2007, the same year Chertoff made his claim, 98% of all workplace immigration arrests and 89% of all workplace criminal arrests were of undocumented workers, rather than their employers.  The following year, 2008, was more of the same - 98% of all workplace immigration arrests and 87% of workplace criminal arrests that year were of the worker, not the employer. 

In case we've forgotten, these aren't just abstract statistics.  Remember the raid in Postville, Iowa and the human toll borne by hundreds of families, entire communities torn apart? That was the consequence and cost of the Bush recipe for enforcement without first fixing the immigration mess.

Click here to read more.
Posted 03/25/09 at 03:53pm By Paco Fabian

Amnesty International Shines 1000 Watt Bulb on Immigrant Detention Crisis

detention crisisA scathing report by Amnesty International USA shines a 1000 watt light bulb on a pressing human rights crisis: the appalling conditions and lack of due process that undocumented immigrants, some legal immigrants, and asylum seekers are dropped into when they are detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agency. 

Tyche Hendricks, from the San Francisco Chronicle, describes it this way:

The system is attracting increased attention in part because the number of people in detention has grown exponentially in recent years and in part because of dozens of in-custody deaths and a lawsuit over the treatment of children.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano last month ordered her department to examine all aspects of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and hired a special assistant, Dora Schriro, to oversee detention and removal conditions.

Hendricks continues:

The Amnesty International report, "Jailed Without Justice: Immigration Detention in the USA," noted a variety of concerns over due process and the conditions of detention:

  • People in immigration custody don't have the same guarantees as criminal detainees to challenge their detention before a court, make a phone call or obtain legal representation.

  • Detainees can be transferred from one facility to another, sometimes in another state, with no notice given to their families or attorneys.

  • Two-thirds of people in federal immigration custody are housed in state or county detention facilities, usually alongside criminal detainees, even though violations of immigration law are considered administrative, not criminal, and asylum seekers have committed no violation.

  • Immigrants are subject to excessive use of restraints such as handcuffs, waist chains and leg restraints.

"In the criminal justice system, anyone arrested is assumed innocent, but in the immigration system, they're put in detention, and then it's the individual's burden to prove they shouldn't be detained," said Sarnata Reynolds, an author of the report. "That's why you'll see long periods of detention, because it's an incredibly high burden."

Click here to read more.
Posted 03/12/09 at 10:20am By Paco Fabian

Lou, El Loco

So, Lou has officially gone ‘loco,’ as Barbara Morrill noted yesterday in her Late afternoon/early evening open thread on the front page of Daily Kos. Morrill needed only quote Dobbs word for word to demonstrate the full depths of his heightened locura:

I don’t know what’s happened to this White House, but the wheels appear to have come completely off here over the last several days. Making a decision to talk about a national initiative on education from the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which is effectively an organization that is interested in the export of American capital and production to Mexico and Mexico’s export of drugs and illegal aliens to the United States. This is crazy stuff.

The only wheels that have come off here are Dobbs’ own. It’s hard to imagine how he gets off smearing the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which is made up primarily of small and large American business owners of Hispanic descent, as a down-and-dirty drug cartel.

Dobbs used to be known as “Leprosy Lou” for his wild imagination when it comes to all things immigration, but now he can safely be called "Lou, El Loco."

Crazy stuff is right.

-

Update: Check out Media Matters' latest report on the effects of lopsided immigration reporting by major cable news outlets.


Posted 02/23/09 at 09:18pm By Paco Fabian

Immigration and Customs Enforcement: $218 Million in Misplaced Priorities

prisonThis weekend, a New York Times Editorial entitled, “Enforcement Gone Bad,” drew a disturbing conclusion from the Pew Hispanic Center’s latest report on national incarceration rates:

Since the early 1990s, you could write the federal government’s immigration strategy on a cardboard sign: Deport Them All. […] A report last week from the Pew Hispanic Center laid bare some striking results of that campaign. It found that Latinos now make up 40 percent of those sentenced in federal courts, even though they are only about 13 percent of the adult population. They accounted for one-third of federal prison inmates in 2007.

Of this huge spike in Hispanics convicted in federal courts, more than 81% were tried only for the offense of being in this country without documents. In fact this is not a criminal offense, but it does have grave implications, as the Editors argue:

The country is filling the federal courts and prisons with nonviolent offenders. It is diverting immense law-enforcement resources from pursuing serious criminals — violent thugs, financial scammers — to an immense, self-defeating campaign to hunt down ... workers.

Misplaced priorities don’t come cheap.

Murderers and corporate criminals get off scot-free while immigrant workers are rounded up in large-scale raids, separated from husbands and daughters, sentenced to jail, deprived of basic human rights while incarcerated, and hopelessly separated from American-citizen children and spouses through the final act of deportation.

Even as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency’s budget spiked to $218 million last year (up from $9 million in 2003), report after report on horrendous ICE detention conditions continued to surface as people died and jails were forced to close.

The piece continues:

According to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, of the 72,000 people arrested through last February, 73 percent had no criminal record. Border Patrol agents in California and Maryland, meanwhile, tell of pressure to arrest workers at day-labor corners and convenience stores to meet quotas.

Check out this video of one such incident, where ICE agents rounded up Latino men at a 7-Eleven Convenience Store:

 

Our country should not be hunting down and incarcerating immigrant men and women buying coffee at 7-Eleven—turning them into scapegoat criminals – while real criminals roam free and taxpayers foot the bill.

It’s time, in the Editors’ words:

…to clear out backlogs in legal immigration, to rescue families from limbo, to throw sunlight on the shadow economy, to deter unlawful hiring, to replace chaos with lawfulness and order. All those priorities have languished in the deportation era.

Let’s reallocate the $218 million currently spent jailing workers, splitting apart families, and trampling human rights.  Now is the time for a new administration to move quickly to turn the tide of the costly misplaced priorities of the last.


Posted 02/20/09 at 04:45pm By Paco Fabian

The Great GOP Immigration Battle: Mass-Deportation vs. Political Survival

battle

We busted out the popcorn last week and watched the battle raging over at the National Review Online -- for nothing less than the future of the Republican Party. 

The back-and-forth was mainly between Richard Nadler, who argues that Republicans need to rethink the politics of mass-deportation to remain viable, and his five critics:  Glynn Custred, John Fonte, Mark Krikorian, Heather Mac Donald, and Rep. Lamar Smith, who we already wrote about this week.

Well, yesterday the American Spectator added this to the debate:

Conservatives are thus caught between a rock and a hard place. If Nadler is right, and I think he is, immigration enforcement has the potential to alienate the country's fastest-growing demographic group and push it to the left.

In other words: enforcement-only immigration policy, focusing mainly on the mass-deportation of Latino voters' friends and family members, is probably a politically risky venture for a Party that's struggling to stop bleeding Latino voters.

The article continues:

But if the restrictionists are right, and I think they are, failure to enact sound immigration policies that better integrate newcomers will also have the effect of pushing the country to the left. It's not an easy dilemma to resolve.

First, it would help to realize that the restrictionists are not advocating for the "better integration of newcomers." They are advocating the mass deportation of 12 million hard-working immigrants, but continue trying to mask their agenda, instead claiming to be advocates for lower immigration levels, as conservative analyst Richard Nadler so clearly articulated.

Ramesh Ponnuru, a Senior Editor at the National Review Online, weighed in on the National Review's  "great immigration dust-up" this way:

The critics mostly battled straw men and refused to acknowledge that opposition to comprehensive immigration reform incurs any political cost at all.

That's right. But it seems that this message is finally breaking through and that the debate is turning from whether mass-deportation policies are politically costly to whether Republicans should still pursue them, despite the fact that they are.

One of the more humorous statements in the Spectator read:

Almost nobody of consequence advocates mass deportation.

Tell that to Richard Nadler.  In "A Costly Debate: Memo to the restrictionists: Mass deportation is a deal breaker," he writes:

So I'll restate my thesis. If conservative Republicans continue to advocate the mass removal of resident illegals, our candidates will lose Hispanic vote share - to the point where our performance among Hispanics mirrors that among African Americans.

The debate can be summed up as "Mass-Deportation" vs. "GOP Political Survival," and it's far from over.


Posted 02/18/09 at 11:00am By Paco Fabian

Lamar Smith on Immigration: Stuck in Stage One

GriefOn Monday, in the National Review Online, Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) showed once again that certain restrictionist Republicans, after bearing a significant electoral defeat in 2008, are stuck in what psychologists refer to as "Stage One of Loss and Grief:"

Denial and Isolation.

In his NRO piece, Smith attempts to refute conservative analyst Richard Nadler's recent essay that urges the GOP to change its stance on immigration reform.     

Amazingly, Lamar Smith still thinks that the Republicans' path back to power somehow hinges on calling for the deportation of millions of Latinos and other immigrants-including the family members, friends, and loved ones of the fastest-growing group of new voters in America.

This, at a time when Democratic leaders like White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel show signs of getting ready to move forward on brokering a new Comprehensive Immigration Reform package?

Treating immigrants like the enemy and advocating the continued blockage of progress on comprehensive immigration reform by Republicans shows that Rep. Smith is in absolute denial when it comes to learning the lessons of this past November.

Smith's letter cherry-picks data from 25 years ago to assert that Latinos do not care about immigration reform and the 2008 Latino exodus from Republicans was not related to immigration.  However according to a recent Pew Hispanic Center poll:

88% of Latinos did cite [immigration] as important. The issue had even more resonance for foreign-born Latinos: 99% said it was important, compared with 75% of U.S.-born Latinos.

The fact that 88% of Latinos called immigration an important issue is even more remarkable when we note that Latino immigrant voters made the largest swing from Republican to Democrat of any demographic group in the 2008 cycle - a fact that can only be explained by their close attention to the immigration debate and their opposition to the Republican Party's handling of the immigration issue.  In 2004, Spanish-dominant Latino voters supported Kerry narrowly over Bush 52-48%, but we found that in 2008, these voters went for Obama over McCain 75-25%.  

Smith also claims that 2008 "congressional elections showed that amnesties and other open-borders proposals are still widely unpopular among voters."  However, every independent survey of public opinion on the subject over the last several years has found the exact opposite.  And recent analysis by America's Voice's showed that in battleground House and Senate races, candidates supporting broader immigration reforms consistently beat out hard-line immigration politicians.  In 20 of 22 competitive House and Senate races where immigration played a key role, the candidate favoring a more comprehensive approach on immigration defeated the hard-line opponent. 

Clearly, the American people are more interested in practical policies and real results than obstructionism and scapegoating. 

Smith and Nadler's back and forth represents an ongoing battle in Republican circles over the issue of immigration.  On one side are conservative strategists and thinkers, from Karl Rove to Grover Norquist, who are taking note of the political power of Latino voters and the GOP's tattered brand image due to its stance on immigration reform, and are pushing for change within the Party.  On the other side are Lamar Smith and his allies, who led the charge against immigration-related provisions of SCHIP and attempted to sabotage the stimulus passage using the immigration bogeyman.

We hope that Lamar Smith and his mass-deportation allies will quickly advance through the other four stages of grief and finally reach acceptance that the anti-immigration wedge issue simply doesn't work and doesn't reflect the wishes of the American people.


Posted 02/12/09 at 02:11pm By Paco Fabian

A Portrait of Dysfunction

studyIn "Report Faults Homeland Security's Efforts on Immigration," the New York Times does a good job encapsulating our current immigration disaster, citing an analysis by Migration Policy Institute:

An immigration policy group said Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security's immigration mission has been undermined by wasteful spending along the southern border, law enforcement efforts that focused on snaring illegal workers rather than high-risk criminals, and an often hostile bureaucracy that discourages people eligible for legal entry from playing by the rules.

A new report, largely a portrait of dysfunction, comes when President Obama faces increasing pressure from Hispanic groups, who played a critical role in his election, to break with the aggressive immigration enforcement strategies of the Bush administration. Those groups have called on the president to push for comprehensive legislation that balances law enforcement with the opening of new legal pathways to citizenship.

"A portrait of dysfunction" pretty much sums it up.

The article continues by citing one of the study's authors:

The report's authors offered 36 recommendations that they said would allow the new administration to deliver on its promise to make change without being forced into a politically costly fight in Congress. [...]

While many of these recommendations are vital, even imperative for the new administration to implement, we believe that comprehensive immigration reform is the only way to fix our broken immigration system.

What's more, there is a new reality when it comes to the politics of immigration reform. Even in polling done in the wake of the financial crisis this fall, the numbers show that comprehensive reform makes good political sense. Swing voters want solutions on tough issues, and Latino voters are demanding them.

The new administration should overhaul the worst of the Bush-era administrative immigration policies immediately, but they must also tackle the larger project of stabilizing the work force through cracking down on bad employers, leveling the playing field for all workers and providing a pathway for those here working without papers to get in line to become citizens. In short, they must tackle comprehensive immigration reform in a way that is smart and fair.

To not do so would mean taking a portrait of dysfunction and turning it into a legacy.


Posted 02/10/09 at 09:16pm By Paco Fabian

Running for Governor, Rep. King Runs Smack Up Against Immigration Stance

Iowa clockReconciliation is an interesting idea for Republican Representative Steve King (R-IA) to be throwing around as he gears up to run for Governor of Iowa. Quoted in the Chicago Tribune yesterday, King stated:

"There's a duty for me, I think, I've made no decisions," King said, adding later that "It would be constructive for me at this point to say that the most important job right now is to bring together and reunify the Republican Party in this state."

The question is, what will King rally Republicans around? Will he indeed prioritize the "core conservative principles" he now argues for a return to, or sink further into the kind of hardline, immigration restrictionist viewpoints he's espoused up to now?

A few months ago we reported how Rep. Steve King believed that the massive immigration raid in Postville, Iowa, which local officials and clergy describes as "a humanitarian crisis" was a "step in the right direction" for our immigration policy.  King applauded deportation-only solutions to illegal immigration, which he claimed would "help protect American workers and local communities."

Not surprisingly, as King gears up to run state-wide, it turns out he is already running up against strong resistance from those who see his positions as less than unifying.

According to the Chicago Tribune, a group of faith leaders protested in front of the Statehouse yesterday, where King was speaking to a Catholic-backed gathering of anti-abortion activists:

Former priest Frank Cordaro, who led the hecklers, said it was a "staggering mistake" for Catholic officials to invite King to speak at the event because he is "against all the important life issues that the Catholic church teaches" except for abortion. King is pro-war, pro-torture, pro-death penalty and anti-Immigration, said Cordaro.

"He takes every opportunity he can to put down the poor and the oppressed and expresses only what we consider contempt for the people whom Jesus said 'are the least of these"' Cordaro said during a telephone interview after the event. "It humiliates Catholics who work among and struggle for the poor and disenfranchised in this state.

King officially joins our short list of politicians who need to ditch the anti-immigrant playbook, and fast.


Posted 02/05/09 at 07:27pm By Paco Fabian

Vote Postponed for Solis, Champion of Workers and Immigrants Rights

hilda solisCNN just announced that the confirmation of Hilda Solis (D-CA) as Secretary of Labor has been postponed yet again.

According to Talking Points Memo:

The administration had to appoint an interim secretary because this was taking so long...

SEIU President Andy Stern issued a statement this evening that urged Solis' prompt confirmation:

As the daughter of two immigrant workers and proud union members, Hilda Solis is the embodiment of the American Dream. She will never back down from putting the American Dream back within the reach of America's workers.

When President Obama first announced Solis as his pick for Secretary of Labor, we cheered her appointment. We shared the National Immigration Forum's sentiments:

In this time of economic insecurity, it is more important than ever that we have stability in our labor market and the conditions by which workers - immigrant and native-born alike - can stand together to win better wages and better jobs.

In nominating a leader as skilled and dedicated as Rep. Solis to this important office, President-elect Obama is sending the clear signal that American workers, regardless of their country of birth, are a valued part of America's future and a top priority for his Administration.

Let's hope that Hilda Solis will quickly be confirmed, so all workers will have this champion fighting for them in Washington.

 


Posted 02/04/09 at 06:08pm By Paco Fabian

Kids Health Bill: A Thank You to Congress

schip thank youAs we speak SCHIP, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, is being signed into law by President Barack Obama. The bill will provide access to health care for millions of children across the country. Importantly, the bill passed with provisions for lawfully-present immigrant children firmly intact.

When it passed out of the Senate last week, the New York Times reported:

One of the most significant sections of the child health bill would allow states to use federal money to cover children and pregnant women who are legal immigrants. Under existing law, legal immigrants are generally barred from Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program for five years after they enter the United States.

"The bill would end an inequity that we have been trying to eradicate for more than a decade," said Jennifer M. Ng'andu, a health policy specialist at the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic rights group.

Thanks to the leadership of Congress and the Obama Administration, the most vulnerable among us-including immigrant children-will now have access to the critical medical care they deserve.  The White House and Congress are standing up for what's right, and moving forward on common sense solutions that help all Americans. 

Click here for the full page ad we helped sponsor in today's Politico (pictured to the right). We look forward to working with the new Congress to tackle broader reforms needed to get America back on track, like comprehensive immigration reform.

The full list of ad sponsors are: National Korean American Service & Education Consortium, Mexican American Legal Defese & Educational Fund, National Council of La Raza, Center for Community Change, America's Voice Education Fund, Immigration Policy Center, National Immigration Forum, National Immigration Law Center, and the Service Employees International Union.