Executive Branch
How President Obama Can Kiss and Make Up with Latinos
In Spanish, the word cariño literally means “affectionate.” Cariño is used to describe warmth and care, but it is also often used as a pet name for your child or partner, for example, mi cariño/mi cariña. So in the Latino community where the word cariño is an important part of the vernacular, some might be surprised that Latinos have so warmly embraced a “cool and detached” President like Obama. This has been in large part due to his commitment to fixing immigration. However, the President’s recent lack of cariño towards the Latino community coupled with his inability to deliver on immigration reform has both his approval numbers dropping among Latinos and Spanish language media critics asking “Who’s in charge in Washington?” Also, his once masterful speeches are now being called nothing more than “cheap and easy rhetoric.” Read More
Senators Graham and Kyl Buy Tickets to the Birthright Citizenship Dog and Pony Show
Over the weekend, the second-ranking member of the Senate Republican leadership, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) joined Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in considering a repeal of birthright citizenship laws through a constitutional amendment. Birthright citizenship, guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, is the cornerstone of American civil rights and affirms that, with very few exceptions, all persons born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens—regardless of their parents' citizenship. Although the Supreme Court has consistently upheld birthright citizenship, year after year restrictionist groups and legislators trot out the “repeal birthright citizenship” mantra in the hopes of adding a few more immigration extremists to their dog and pony show audience. Read More
More Right-Handed Pot Stirring: Internal USCIS Draft Memo Exploited for Political Gain
Conspiracy theorists hate it when no one pays attention. Witness last month’s letter to President Obama in which eight Republican Senators accused him of planning to circumvent the will of Congress through a regulatory grant of “amnesty” suggesting that plans were afoot in the Department of Homeland Security to make it happen. Despite their mock outrage, the letter barely made a ripple in the immigration debate. And just a few days after his speech on immigration, President Obama unequivocally stated that he wanted a real solution to our immigration crisis, rejecting both a free pass for all undocumented immigrants and a scorched earth, deport them all approach. Read More
President Obama Urges Republicans to Help Bridge Bipartisan Divide on Immigration
Today, President Obama delivered his first major immigration speech at American University urging Republicans to put bipartisan and election politics aside and help Democrats fix our broken immigration system once and for all. With an audience of law enforcement, elected officials, and evangelical, business, labor, and community leaders, the President provided a framework for understanding the depth and complexity of the immigration issue—laying out the fundamental problems with our immigration system while highlighting the critical role immigrants have and continue to play in strengthening America. The President then asked Republican leadership to join his Administration’s efforts to step up, take responsibility and pass an immigration reform bill. Read More
Deporting America’s Future: Harvard Student Pushes for DREAM Act
Harvard sophomore, Eric Balderas, knows why the DREAM Act is important to so many. Earlier this month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) picked up Balderas in Boston on his way to visit his mother in San Antonio, Texas. Balderas now faces the possibility of deportation at a hearing next month. The 19 year old biology major was valedictorian of his high school class and is on a full scholarship at Harvard. Sadly, Balderas is just one of roughly 1.5 million unauthorized immigrant children—many of whom don’t speak Spanish and consider themselves American—currently living in the U.S. who are at risk for deportation. How many of America’s talented youth must the U.S. deport before Congress musters the courage to act? Read More
SB 1070 “Gets Tough” on Arizona’s Housing Market
With only six weeks until Arizona’s immigration enforcement law goes into effect, area housing analysts are already expecting the worst. According to the Arizona Republic, housing experts anticipate that SB 1070 will not only drive illegal immigrants out of the state, but legal residents and potential new homebuyers with them—“departures from a state where growth is the economic foundation.” The resulting exodus will likely spur more foreclosures and create more vacant homes and apartments, which as real-estate analysts point out, will scare off potential homebuyers who fear lower home values. With a budget deficit of $4.5 billion and an economy struggling to get back on its feet, a declining housing market is the last thing Arizonans need. Read More
CIS Claims California is ‘Least-Educated State’ Because of Immigration
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) yesterday released a report claiming that, due to immigration, “by 2008 California had the least-educated labor force in the nation in terms of the share [of] its workers without a high school education.” The report, entitled A State Transformed: Immigration and the New California, grossly mischaracterizes the educational profile of the California labor force by focusing exclusively on a single educational category: those without a high-school diploma. However, a more thorough analysis of recent Census data by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) reveals that California’s labor force is also rich in highly educated workers, many of whom are immigrants. CIS is attempting to propagate the stereotype of immigrants as being uneducated, when – in fact – immigrants have always filled U.S. labor needs at both ends of the educational spectrum. Read More
More Detention Abuse Highlights Need for Federal Oversight
Last week, the Associated Press reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is investigating allegations of sexual assault by a guard in one of their facilities on female detainees. The detainees, on their way to be deported, were groped while being patted down and at least one was propositioned for sex, according to ICE officials. The guard in question has been fired, and ICE is pursuing additional remedies against him, including preventing the guard from obtaining future federal employment. This case, however, is just the latest reminder of what happens in a detention system with little to no Federal oversight. Read More
1,200 National Guard Troops to the Border: A Bargaining Chip or More Political Pandering?
Yesterday, President Obama met with Senate Republicans to discuss, among other things, moving forward with comprehensive immigration reform. But what came out of the meeting was a letter to Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, requesting 1,200 troops to be sent to the U.S.-Mexican border and a $500 million request for additional border personnel and technology as part of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill. While the President’s intentions to address the real sources of violence and crime along the border—that is, drug cartels and gun traffickers, not immigrants—is duly noted, the President is being perceived as piling enforcement on enforcement and pandering to Republicans with no real forward movement on reform. Read More
Forward March: Hundreds of Thousands Took to the Streets Demanding Immigration Reform
Sparked by Arizona’s anti-immigration enforcement law, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets on Saturday to demand congressional action on immigration reform. Carrying signs that read “Do I Look Illegal?” and “We are All Arizona,” labor, student, civil rights and immigration activists gathered in more than 70 cities nationwide (including Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, Milwaukee and San Francisco) with one united message—we need immigration reform now. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
