Department of Homeland Security
High School Teens Deported on the Way to School
Three high school students were deported to Mexico last week when they were swept up in a Transportation Security Agency (TSA) raid at the Old Town transit center on their way to school in San Diego, California. Border Patrol confirmed that 21 people were detained. According to reports, TSA and Border Patrol agents inquired about the 16-year-old girl’s and two boys’, ages 15 and 17, residency status before taking them into custody and eventually deporting them. The teens were allowed to speak with their U.S.-based parents and Mexican Consulate officials before being deported. Read More
Immigrants Serve U.S. Abroad, Fight For Citizenship At Home
.!. From the Revolutionary War to the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, immigrants have voluntarily served in all branches of the U.S. military from the beginnings of America. Without the contributions of immigrants, the military could not meet its recruiting goals and could not fill the need for foreign-language translators, interpreters, and cultural experts. Since 2001, 47,500 service members have naturalized and become U.S. Citizens in ceremonies around the world from Afghanistan, to Iraq to South Korea and even on board Navy flagships at sea. But despite their honorable service and dedication to America, the U.S. government is still falling short on honoring the service of these young immigrant men and women. Attorney & Lieutenant Colonel in Military Police, Margaret D. Stock, testified before Congress in May of 2008: “Currently, many military members fighting overseas find that they must also fight their own government at home, as that government creates bureaucratic obstacles that impede military readiness by preventing family members from accessing immigration benefits, refuses to allow family members into the United States altogether, or even seeks to deport military personnel or their family members.” Read More
Crackdown on Bad Seed Employers a Step in the Right Direction
This week, the Denver Post watch underworld rise of the lycans in HD highlighted the case of five undocumented migrant farmworkers who were imprisoned in squalor at the hands of their smugglers, Moises and Maria Rodriguez. The Mexican farmworkers, who were found working the fields of Northern Colorado, lived in a fenced-in compound on the edge of the Weld County in vile makeshift houses that the Colorado Department of Labor inspectors deemed “uninhabitable.” According to reports, the men piled into an old school bus and rode to a farm field, then put in 12 hours planting, or weeding, or harvesting vegetables. The smugglers paid them a mere $7 an hour, but only allowed the workers to keep $2 an hour. The five migrant workers made headlines when they filed and won a federal lawsuit against Moises and Maria Rodriquez. Denver U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock awarded the imprisoned workers $7.8 million—more than $1.5 million each—for “numerous violations of the Agricultural Worker Protection Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act.” Read More
Immigrants Could Soften Effects of Baby Boomer Retirement
On Tuesday, the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees released their annual reports on the dire financial condition of the nation's two largest social safety-net programs. Not surprisingly, the reports highlight the devastating impact that the current recession is having on both Social Security and Medicare, which are now expected to run out of money years earlier that previously forecast. The reports should also serve as a reminder of the severe demographic crisis the United States is confronting as the native-born population grows older: as the 78-million Baby Boomers retire over the next two decades, immigrants will play increasingly important roles in the U.S. economy as taxpayers, workers, consumers, and homebuyers. Read More
Immigration Inching Towards Reform One Year After Postville Raids
Today, May 12, 2008, marks the one-year anniversary of the immigration raid in Postville, Iowa, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted the largest workplace immigration raid in U.S. history, arresting 389 immigrants at the Iowa Agriprocessors meatpacking plant for the crime of working without proper authorization. Aside from the tragedy of separating families and decimating a local economy, the raid symbolizes the failed enforcement-only policies of the Bush administration and serves as yet another grim reminder of the desperate need for fair and comprehensive immigration reform. Last May, undocumented immigrants in Postville were rounded up, charged as serious criminals for using false Social Security numbers or residency papers, and some even sentenced to five months in prison without being informed of their rights. An interpreter, Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas, who assisted as a translator during these below-the-belt trials described the event as a “twist in Dickensian cruelty:” Read More
Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Recruit and Arm Citizens, Neo-Nazis “Have His Back”
Rather than cleaning up his police department and addressing allegations of racial profiling and discrimination, Arpaio has decided to recruit and arm more Maricopa citizens in the absence of state funds. Back in April, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in Arizona voted to postpone the acceptance of $1.6 million from the state to help pay for County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's controversial immigration enforcement tactics. Observers said the decision could signal that the board is concerned by federal inquires into Arpaio's practices that stem from his hard-line immigration tactics which include the deputization of volunteer "posses" to perform immigration sweeps, armed workplace raids, and set up checkpoints. Read More
Obama Budget Not a Replacement for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
The Obama Administration appears increasingly poised to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform, as promised. Yesterday the White House announced budgetary initiatives that signal a change in priorities and pave the way for immigration reform. At the same time, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, testified before the Senate yesterday about her plans to protect our borders and enforce our immigration laws in smarter and more effective ways. While the changes are welcome, they're still just fiddling along the edges of a real solution. Comprehensive immigration reform is the only real way to fix the problem. Read More
Jury Member, Witness, Legal Experts Condemn Pennsylvania Hate Crime Verdict
Embedded video from CNN Video Last week, in the small town of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, an all-white jury acquitted defendants Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarsky, 17, of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, and ethnic intimidation in the death of Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez last July. "Ethnic intimidation" is Pennsylvania's legal term for "hate crime." Both teens, however, were convicted of simple assault. The verdict has left many feeling that the two teens got away with murder. Last summer, Ramirez, the 25 year-old father of two, was walking down the street with his girlfriend when he encountered the group of teens who had been drinking earlier in the night. Prosecutors said the teens "baited Ramirez into a fight with racial epithets and provoked an exchange of punches and kicks that ended with Ramirez convulsing in the street, foaming at the mouth." According to one affidavit, one teen in the group yelled to Ramirez's girlfriend, "Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here!" Another witness, a retired police officer, overheard the teens screaming at Ramirez's girlfriend as they ran, "Tell your effin Mexican friends [to] get the eff out of Shenandoah or you're gonna be laying effin next to him." Ramirez died two days later in the hospital. Read More
Supreme Court Overrules Government Tactics to Criminalize Immigrant Workers
Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that federal identity-theft law can not be applied against many undocumented workers who used false Social Security numbers to work in the U.S. In Flores-Figueroa v. United States the Supreme Court held that, to convict a defendant of aggravated identity theft -- which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison -- the government must establish that the person knew the identification belonged to another person. The ruling puts a damper on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency's (ICE) common and controversial strategy of using identity theft charges as a threat to get undocumented workers to agree to immediate deportation or boost prison sentences. taken movie download, twilight movie download, the wrestler movie download, spider man 2 movie download, killshot movie download, dragonball evolution movie download, wall e movie download, fight club movie download, sin city movie download, iron man movie download, dark knight movie download, transporter 3 movie download, australia movie download, the incredibles movie download, yes man movie download, enchanted movie download, 007 quantum of solac movie downloade, toy story movie download, race to witch mountain movie download, inkheart movie download. Read More
Olbermann Blames “Republican Echo Chamber” for “Making Scapegoats Out of Mexicans”
This week, Keith Olbermann went after right-wing pundits who are scapegoating immigrants for the swine flu epidemic. During his MSNBC show, Olbermann condemned comments made by Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and others: In responding to Swine Flu, however, the Republican party‘s chosen talking heads have opted for an oldie but goodie. Our third story tonight, making scapegoats out of Mexicans... Well, yes, you [Michelle Malkin] are a racist. Exactly how does that apply, though, to the people who the Centers for Disease Control confirmed actually carried the Swine Flu from Mexico to the U.S., a group of Catholic school students from New York City, who spent Spring Break in Cancun. Uncontrolled Catholic immigration, open borders for private school kids reckless? Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
