tag:newamericamedia.org,2009-04-06://19 2012-02-09T18:37:45Z New America Media is a nationwide association of over 3000 ethnic media organizations representing the development of a more inclusive journalism. Founded in 1996 by Pacific News Service, New America Media promotes ethnic media by strengthening the editorial and economic viability of this increasingly influential segment of America's communications industry. tag:newamericamedia.org,2012://19.8558 2012-02-09T18:00:00Z 2012-02-09T18:37:45Z

Latinos will turnout in record numbers in the next Presidential election, with at least 12.2 million casting ballots, according to projections released today by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund. This analysis also reveals...

NALEO ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
According to NALEO Executive Director Arturo Vargas, “Latinos continue to reshape the nation’s political map, and the Latino electorate will play a decisive role in Election 2012.” The NALEO Educational Fund projects that the Latino vote will increase 26% from 2008, and Latinos will account for at least 8.7% of the country’s voters.

California, Florida and Illinois are likely to see the greatest percentage increase in turnout since 2008. In three states – California, New Mexico, and Texas – at least one in five voters will be Latino, with the Latino share of the electorate in New Mexico reaching 35%.

Mr. Vargas continued, “While the Latino vote continues to increase with each Presidential election, much work needs to be done to fully engage Latinos in our country’s electoral process. In 2008, 19.5 million Latinos were eligible to vote, but half did not cast ballots, because they were not registered or did not turn out. The Latino electorate must make faster progress if America’s democracy is to thrive.”

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The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. However, the court allowed it to remain in effect while the case follows its course of appeals and decisions that until now have opposed banning gay marriage.From the...

Staff ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. However, the court allowed it to remain in effect while the case follows its course of appeals and decisions that until now have opposed banning gay marriage.

From the beginning we considered this a subject that must be seen from a point of view devoid of religious beliefs and traditions. This is even truer when it involves imposing a series of strictly personal values on the rest of society.

Not to mince words: In this case, a majority is deciding what is inappropriate for a minority. Traditional marriage, between a man and a woman, is not in danger because no one wants to change it. But some people are trying to make this the only acceptable option.

Some believe being gay is a sin; they are within their rights to think so. But this is an individual religious value that cannot be imposed on everyone in a diverse society like ours. This is a prejudiced attitude. In many cases, it comes from a lack of understanding about homosexuality and its scientific explanation.

Tuesday's court ruling was clear: A majority may not take away a minority's rights without a legitimate reason. Proposition 8 does just that by establishing a strict definition of marriage, a ban for no other reason than personal distaste. That is not a valid reason.

Therefore, it is frustrating that despite repeated legal rulings against this ballot initiative, the ban is still in effect. This will have to wait for the appeal of Tuesday's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The history of Proposition 187, the 1994 voter-approved measure that punished undocumented immigrants, is another case where having a majority of votes in favor of a proposition does not mean it is automatically legal. That was not the case for Proposition 187, and we think it won't be either for Proposition 8.


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Univision ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
"Changing the law will take an average of $1,800 out of the pockets of parents who don't have a social security number, who make an average of $21,000 a year or about $10 an hour," Janet Murguia, president of the National Council of La Raza (NLCR), said in a press release.

The legislation aims to cut the tax credit to those who use Personal Identification Numbers (ITIN). It would require people who claim the federal credit to have Social Security numbers to prove they are legal workers.


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Zaineb Mohammed ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=1440 Editor’s Note: On Tuesday, an appellate court ruled that California’s Proposition 8 -- the voter-approved initiative that banned same-sex marriage -- is unconstitutional. But the ruling won’t benefit undocumented immigrants in same-sex partnerships, according to Elizabeth Gill, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT and AIDS project. Gill spoke with NAM reporter Zaineb Mohammed.

Does California’s recent ruling mean that same-sex couples can now get married?

Gill: This is not necessarily the end of the road for Prop. 8. Right now, gay couples still can’t get married in California – there was a stay issued on the decision of the lower court. This is not going to go into effect until the appeal is resolved.

So then what’s the significance of Tuesday’s ruling?

Gill: This ruling is a very big victory – legally very important. It’s the first federal court of appeals to find that a ban on marriage for same-sex couples violates the federal constitution. But it doesn’t mean that folks will be able to get married tomorrow.

It’s expected that California’s ruling will be appealed. If a higher court upholds the unconstitutionality of Prop. 8, then same-sex marriage would be legal in California. In that event, would undocumented partners in a same-sex marriage with a U.S. citizen be protected from deportation?

Gill: It doesn’t change the status of undocumented immigrants – partners of gay couples cannot become citizens by marriage.

The bigger problem with respect to undocumented immigrant partners of gay and lesbian couples in the U.S. is that it is a federal law, which actually prohibits their recognition as a citizen. State laws don’t govern immigration.

So even in a state where gay marriage is legal, protections are not afforded to undocumented immigrants?

Gill: Even in states like Massachusetts where gay marriage is legal, it’s still the case that immigration discrimination happens. That’s because of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, enacted in 1996. That prevents the federal government from recognizing any marriage that’s not between a man and a woman.

What about state laws such as SB 1070 in Arizona and HB 56 in Alabama that are trying to govern immigration?

Gill: A lot of the arguments that the ACLU and federal government are making in the court cases against those laws is that the state law cannot create immigration policy. And it is for sure the case here [with the same-sex marriage], that the problem is federal law. Federal law does certainly govern who gets recognized as a spouse for immigration purposes.

Are there any attempts to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act?

Gill: There are a number of lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. Lower courts have found that it is unconstitutional. Several suits are pending in California. There is one out of Massachusetts, one out of New York, one out of Connecticut.

In Massachusetts, a district court found that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. That ruling is waiting for a decision in the 1st circuit court of appeals. After that, the next step would likely be the Supreme Court. Litigation is often very slow – it is likely to take years.

There’s also congressional legislation proposed to repeal the federal Defense of Marriage Act – but that hasn’t made it through the congressional process either.

There are a bunch of moving parts involved – both favorable federal law and favorable state law. This ruling on Prop. 8 helps us get to a favorable state law. It’s not a final decision on a favorable state law – but it doesn’t help with the federal law.

Unfortunately for undocumented gay and lesbian folks, there’s a ways to go.





]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2012://19.8549 2012-02-08T18:00:00Z 2012-02-08T19:39:06Z

WASHINGTON -- As the story of sexual abuse at an elementary school in Los Angeles continues to shock the nation, Spanish-language media is reporting another tragic development. Parents of some Miramonte Elementary School children are afraid to go to informational...

America’s Voice Education Fund ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 WASHINGTON -- As the story of sexual abuse at an elementary school in Los Angeles continues to shock the nation, Spanish-language media is reporting another tragic development. Parents of some Miramonte Elementary School children are afraid to go to informational meetings or talk to the police because they worry that contact with the authorities could lead to deportation.

According to the Associated Press, “Parents of Miramonte school students . . . told The Associated Press that they aren’t talking to authorities because they are afraid that the Sheriff’s Department, which is in charge of the investigation, will refer them to immigration through the Secure Communities program” (translated from the Spanish by America’s Voice Education Fund). Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is a vocal supporter of Secure Communities, a controversial federal program that facilitates the deportation of some immigrants who come into contact with state and local police. According to the AP, the school is 98 percent Latino, and many of the children come from immigrant families.

“The parents and children of Miramonte are going through an unspeakable nightmare. The fact that many of them are afraid to work with law enforcement only adds to their tragedy. This is exactly why programs that blur the line between police and immigration enforcement are dangerous. They put enforcement of paperwork violations ahead of protecting the community from real crime,” said Lynn Tramonte, Deputy Director of America’s Voice Education Fund.


]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2012://19.8541 2012-02-07T09:00:00Z 2012-02-07T05:31:20Z

Elena Shore ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=7
A coalition of six of the nation’s leading labor and human rights organizations sent out letters last month to Alabama’s top three car manufacturers – Honda, Hyundai and Daimler AG – to urge them to use their influence to convince lawmakers to repeal the law. So far they have received a response from Hyundai, which has agreed to meet with the advocates.

As Alabama state lawmakers begin a new legislative session this week, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, National Council of La Raza, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Service Employees International Union, United Auto Workers and Southern Poverty Law Center will be sending out more letters to the state’s top 50 foreign investors.

Wade Henderson, president and CEO of LCCHR, is hoping that pressure from the state’s automotive industry and other foreign investors doing business in Alabama will convince state lawmakers that HB 56 is a “major black eye for Alabama.”

Alabama’s HB 56, known as the toughest immigration law in the country, has been criticized by both Democratic and Republican elected officials since it went into effect last year. The law, which requires police to ask people for their papers during routine traffic stops, also forbids the government from doing business with anyone who is undocumented. This means that Alabamans need to prove legal residence every time they want to do something as simple as renew their driver's license.

Several state Republicans, including Sen. Gerald Dial and Sen. Jabo Waggoner, have said they plan to make some changes to the law to address what they call its “unintended consequences.”

But national civil rights groups this week said tweaking the law is not enough.

“There is no fix for HB 56,” Henderson said, during a press conference Monday. “The only option that makes any sense – and the only option that will help Alabama restore its reputation in the U.S. and with the international business community – is for the legislature to approve a complete repeal of this obnoxious law.”

Foreign automakers have already seen the effects of the law on their own executives. In two separate, highly publicized incidents, Alabama police stopped a German executive at Mercedes-Benz and a Japanese Honda executive under the law.

Farmers in the state, meanwhile, have reported anecdotally that they don’t have enough workers in the fields since the law went into effect and many workers fled the state. While statistics are not available of how many people actually left Alabama since the law was implemented, the University of Alabama estimates that there has been an exodus of some 40,000 people.

In a recent cost-benefit analysis, University of Alabama economist Samuel Addy found that the state’s immigration law would also cost the state between $2.3 billion and $10.8 billion. According to his analysis, the law would lead to a reduction of between $56.7 and $264.5 million in state income and sales tax, and a reduction of 70,000 to 140,000 jobs.

Since HB 56 went into effect, Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, said their hotline has received 5,164 “anguished” calls from families reporting that their water had been cut off; domestic violence victims who were told they would be reported to immigration authorities; lawyers who were told that they had to turn in their undocumented clients; Latino workers who were denied wages.

Cohen said the hotline has even received a “wave of reports” from various counties of U.S.-citizen children being denied food stamps they were legally entitled to, simply because their parents are undocumented.

In short, said Cohen, HB 56 has led to a “climate of fear.”

“Why would these 21st century companies want to do business in a state that is trying to replicate some of its most egregious sins of the past century?” asked Janet Murguia, president and CEO of National Council of La Raza (NCLR). “HB 56 harkens back to a very dark time in Alabama’s past that does not bear repeating.”

In fact, when Daimler first opened a Mercedes plant in Alabama in the 1990s, the company reportedly had concerns over the continued presence of the Ku Klux Klan in the state and made sure that the state had removed a Confederate flag it had flown at the capitol. Billy Joe Camp, director of the Alabama Development Office, told the Associated Press at the time, “I don’t believe we would have ever gotten this plant if the Confederate flag was atop the capitol.”

Next month, Alabamans will take to the streets to commemorate the 1965 marches from Selma to Montgomery. The message of the march this year will focus on two current legislative issues that recall a time when discrimination against communities of color was written into the law: this year’s voter suppression efforts and Alabama’s immigration law.

In building opposition to HB 56, civil rights groups are using a strategy similar to the approach they took in Arizona -- seek new allies in Alabama’s business community. NCLR was among the groups that called for a boycott of Arizona after that state enacted its controversial immigration law SB 1070. Reports estimate that as a result of the boycott, Arizona lost about $750 million.

“In Arizona,” Murguia observed, “we felt like the steps that we took have been validated. And we’ve seen, I think, a turning somewhat of the tide in Arizona, with the failure to pass more extreme legislation in this most recent legislature, but in particular, with the downfall of Russell Pearce, someone who was the architect of these laws.”

Murguia noted that Alabama has a different economic landscape and they are not calling for a boycott of the state, but are using “a similar approach, in looking at the economic power to push back” against a harsh immigration law that has already had economic consequences.

In April, the Supreme Court is expected to rule in a case brought by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who is challenging a federal judge’s move to block of some of her state law’s key provisions. The main provision in the Arizona law – which allows police to ask people for their papers in routine traffic stops – was replicated in the Alabama law.

“Obviously what the Supreme Court decides in that case will have a significant impact on Alabama,” noted Cohen of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But civil rights groups say they are not waiting for the court to address the problems in Alabama. As legislators begin their new session this week, civil rights leaders hope that the influence of the state’s auto industry will be the necessary push that will convince lawmakers to repeal HB 56.



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Valeria Fernández ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 PHOENIX --Lisa Marie Cookingham, an OBGYN doctor at several hospitals in Maricopa County, often sees cases of incarcerated patients being shackled to their beds during labor—a practice, she said, puts women and their unborn babies at risk.

“I experience first-hand the harmful practice of shackling prisoners,” she testified at Arizona’s Senate Public Safety and Human Services Committee in support of a bill to ban the practice statewide.

Mother’s, Baby’s Care Compromised

Cookingham testified that as recently as two weeks ago correctional officers refused to take the shackles off a woman in labor delaying the delivery of the baby by making it difficult for the mother to push.

“It was clear that the patient’s care and the care of the baby was being compromised,” she said. Eventually, the shackles were removed. “This, unfortunately, is not a unique situation, it has been repeated many times,” she added.

The physician said the use of restraint was “excessive” and didn’t take into consideration the “overall safety and health of the patients.”

Senate Bill 1184, sponsored by Arizona Sen. Linda Gray, a Republican, would prohibit correctional facilities from using restraints on a pregnant inmate in a baby’s final trimester (three months) of gestation or during labor, delivery and postpartum recovery.

The bill provides an exception for the use of restraints at the request of medical staff or if a correctional official believes the woman presents a flight risk. An amendment approved by the committee would still allow for the use of “tether chain” attached to the bed frame or a detainee’s ankle “during postpartum recovery,” if there are safety concerns. But Gray wants to ensure that the tether is long enough to ensure the woman can move.

SB 1184, which has the support of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), found a strong advocate in Gray who is known for her pro-life stance.

Gray said she became aware of the issue through the American Civil Liberties Union and read a story in the Arizona Republic about Miriam Mendiola, who was shackled before and after her Cesarean section, by detention personnel from the sheriff’s office.

“I want to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said Gray.

She describes Mendiola’s treatment as “inhumane.”

Miriam Mendiola’s case came to notoriety first in 2009. But when she filed a lawsuit last December stating she was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, the issue resurfaced in the public eye.

Support Across Political Spectrum

“Because this bill is trying to ensure safer delivery conditions for mother and baby, this is an issue that tends to appeal to people on all points of the political spectrum,” said Anjali Abraham, ACLU of Arizona’s public policy director.

Abraham said that pregnant inmates are a vulnerable population, and the current practice puts their children at risk.

“These inmates by and large are focused on delivering their child,” she said. “In order to ensure the safety of mothers and babies we want to have a statewide standard.”

Gray said she was glad to work together with the ACLU. “We have a couple of issues we have agreed upon,” she said.

A similar bill is moving through Arizona’s House of Representatives, sponsored by Republican Cecil Ash. That bill did not get a hearing last year.

The practice of shackling prisoners in Arizona, especially those in the custody of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office came into public scrutiny when 2008 media reports surfaced in Spanish about the case of Alma Chacon. She alleged that a sheriff’s officer shackled both her arms and legs during labor.

Chacon was an undocumented immigrant, who was pulled over during a traffic stop by sheriff’s deputies in the town of El Mirage.

Joy Bertrand, Mendiola’s attorney, said the use of shackling would affect any pregnant woman, but she believes undocumented women are more vulnerable to the practice because state law requires that undocumented immigrants be kept in the jail without bail.

Bertrand doesn’t think that they legislators are connecting immigration policy with women giving birth, but the public does. “People saw what happened to Miriam and said: ‘What if it was my daughter that was arrested? What if it was my wife?’

No Arizona Standard

At least 14 other states have legislation banning the practice of shackling. Arizona has no uniform standard on the use of shackles.

For example, The Arizona Department of Corrections, which oversees state prison inmates, initiated a policy in 2003 requiring that a pregnant woman will not be restrained in any manner while in labor, while giving birth, or during the postpartum recovery period.

In 2008, the Federal Bureau of Prisons barred the shackling of pregnant inmates in federal prisons except when it was necessary for security concerns.

Also, the practice of shackling women during childbirth is frowned upon by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

During the hearing, Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office deputy chief Ray Churay--who is not opposing the bill--maintained that his agency only uses a long chain to restrain prisoners after a mother’s postpartum recovery. But Cookingham said she often sees instances of women’s ankles being restrained with a “short shackle” that would prevent them from moving.

There’s no data of how often the practice of shackling prisoners occurs in Arizona, but the bill would require correctional facilities to keep a publicly available record when they have to use shackles due to flight risk.

“One of the reasons we can’t say how often this happens is because there’s no reporting mechanism,” said the ACLU’s Abraham. But she said the multiple complaints her office has received show “it’s happened enough to be a real concern.”

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PHOENIX -- Two months after being ousted in a recall election, Russell Pearce was elected by GOP leadership to the second highest position in Arizona's Republican Party. Pearce won election as first vice chairman at a state party meeting on...

Univision ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
Pearce, the architect of Arizona's immigration law SB 1070, became the first legislator in state history to be recalled in November, when voters opted to replace him with Republican Jerry Lewis, who is known as having a more moderate stance on immigration.

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Alabama Coalition of Immigrant Justice ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 new study from economist Dr. Samuel Addy, the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Alabama, provides the latest conclusive evidence that HB 56 has been, and will continue to be an economic disaster for the state of Alabama. Dr. Addy concludes that “Instead of boosting state economic growth, the law is certain to be a drag on economic development even without considering costs associated with its implementation and enforcement...While the law’s costs are certain and some are large, it is not clear that the benefits will be realized.”

Among Dr. Addy’s key findings:

By driving some immigrants out of the state and others underground, the law will damage the economy by shrinking demand for the goods and services that Alabama businesses provide. Dr. Addy estimates that HB 56 will shrink the state’s GDP by at least $2.3 billion (1% of the state’s 2010 GDP), and possibly as much as $10.8 billion (6% of 2010 GDP).

Supporters of HB 56 have misleadingly pointed to the declining unemployment rate among Alabamians to argue that the law is “working.” However, Dr. Addy points out: “recent data show employment falling in the four sectors (agriculture, construction, accommodation, and food and drinking places) that are often alleged to employ migrant and unauthorized workers.” Dr. Addy estimates that the law will ultimately cost Alabama 70,000-140,000 jobs.

The supporters of HB 56 who deny that immigrants pay taxes might be surprised to learn that HB 56 is costing the state $57-$265 million in state taxes, with an additional $20-$90 million loss in local sales taxes. This is a staggering cost to the state budget even without considering the costs of enforcing the law and defending it in court all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will cause the cost to balloon even more.

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]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2012://19.8491 2012-01-31T22:38:13Z 2012-01-31T22:41:35Z

Colorlines ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103
Last November, a DREAM Act-eligible youth named Joaquin Luna committed suicide because he was reportedly distraught about his immigration status. Activists say depression is common among undocumented youth and they’re rallying to save Hernandez’s life.

Hernandez was charged with a DUI last April—activists say that she turned to alcohol to deal with the depression that came with her immigration issues. She had attempted suicide first in 2009, and attempted suicide more recently in jail while incarcerated.

Luna’s family has spoken out in support of Hernandez.

“I hope that ICE and the proper authorities find it in their heart to release her. She needs to be out, with her mother. Only a mother knows how to take care of her child, and also what it feels like to lose a child after we’ve try everything to keep them safe,” Luna’s mother said in a statement.

The National Immigrant Youth Alliance, which organized the nationwide vigils, also have plans to launch a 24-hr hotline in the future so that undocumented youth can reach out to fellow young immigrants. The plan is for the newly launched website, undocuhealth.org, to be a resource, and a way to address the very real mental health issues that come along with being young and undocumented.“A lot of our very active DREAM leaders contemplated suicide or have dealt with depression, so it’s a very real thing for us. We want people to know that if you’re feeling that way, it’s okay. There are other folks who can support you and help you,” the National Immigrant Youth Alliance’s Mohammad Abdollahi told Colorlines.com

“We are stepping up and identifying ourselves as undocumented, and also as survivors of depression. We’re coming out and saying it. It’s a very taboo thing, and it’s a very difficult thing to say, and if we never represent it, then other folks are going to feel they’re doing something wrong or they don’t have support.”

For more information and resources visit undocuhealth.org/.]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2012://19.8462 2012-01-30T18:30:00Z 2012-01-30T19:12:26Z

MarioWire ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 East Haven Police Chief Leonard Gallo resigned on Friday, Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. announced in a press conference Monday.

“He is retiring from this position for one reason alone, that is his desire not to be a distracting element in East Haven’s efforts to rehabilitate its image,” Gallo’s attorney John Einhorn said.

The immigration rights organization Reform Immigration for America delivered 400 tacos to the office of East Haven’s mayor Thursday in protest of the mayor's statement that he would address accusations of anti-Latino bias by eating tacos.

Mayor Joseph Maturo, Jr. has apologized for remarks he made to a TV news reporter after the arrest in Tuesday of four town police officers, who were described by one FBI official as “bullies with badges.” Four of his police officers were arrested on federal charges of violating the civil rights of Latinos.

Maturo has resisted calls to resign by Connecticut’s Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs Commission.

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2012://19.8474 2012-01-30T09:00:00Z 2012-01-30T14:44:51Z

Marjorie Valbrun ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 WASHINGTON—More than 5,000 children of immigrants are languishing in state foster care nationwide because their parents were living in the United States illegally and were detained or deported by federal immigration authorities.

These children can spend years in foster homes, and some are put up for adoption after termination of their parents’ custody rights. With neither state nor federal officials addressing the problem, thousands more are poised to enter the child welfare system every year.

“They can be dropped into the foster care system for an indefinite period of time,” says Wendy D. Cervantes, vice president for immigration and child rights policy at First Focus, a bipartisan advocacy organization in Washington, D.C. “This causes severe long-term consequences to a child’s development. It has a negative impact on the country as a whole and a direct impact on taxpayers. The fact that these children have parents means they shouldn’t be in the system in the first place.”

A recent report by the Applied Research Center (ARC), a national racial-justice think thank, found that when immigration enforcement methods intersect with the child welfare system, consequences for immigrant families can be devastating and long-lasting.

Jailed or deported parents are prevented from reuniting with their children, and parents held in immigration detention centers are penalized for being unable to attend hearings in family court. They are also penalized for not meeting court-ordered requirements for regaining custody of their children. The requirements are impossible to meet from jail.

In addition, detained parents often aren’t aware that they can request that their children be returned upon deportation, placed with relatives in the United States, or allowed to return to their home countries. Parents unable to speak, read or write English, let alone understand complicated legal rulings, are often uninformed of their legal rights or where their children have been sent. They often don’t have lawyers to help navigate the child welfare system.

“Immigration policies and laws are based on the assumption that families will, and should, be united, whether or not parents are deported,” the ARC report states. “Similarly, child welfare policy aims to reunify families whenever possible. In practice, however, when mothers and fathers are detained and deported and their children are relegated to foster care, family separation can last for extended periods. Too often, these children lose the opportunity to ever see their parents again when a juvenile dependency court terminates parental rights.”

Encarnación Bail, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, who is in a prolonged fight to regain custody of her son, has confronted many of these obstacles.

She lost custody of her infant son, Carlos, in 2008, a year and a half after she was arrested and jailed by federal immigration authorities during a raid of the poultry plant where she worked in Cassville, Missouri. Awaiting deportation, she spent two years in federal detention, first in a local county jail in Missouri and then in a federal prison in West Virginia. During her imprisonment, relatives caring for Carlos gave the baby to a local couple who were childless.

After a county court terminated Bail’s parental rights on grounds that she had abandoned the baby, the couple adopted her son.

The court sent an official letter to Bail informing her that the couple was caring for her son, but the letter never reached her and was returned unopened to the court. When a formal adoption petition did reach her, Bail was stunned. With the assistance of a prison guard and an English-speaking visitor from Guatemala, Bail wrote back that she did not want her son put up for adoption and wanted him placed in foster care until she was released. She also requested visitation with Carlos. She never received a response from the court and she was never informed about the custody hearings.

The Guatemalan government learned of her case through news reports and intervened on her behalf, prompting the American government to put the deportation order against her on hold and grant her temporary legal status allowing her to stay and work in the United States while she continues a legal battle to regain custody of Carlos.

“I’m very sad, I very much want to be reunited with him,” Bail said through her lawyer. “I suffered an injustice. I’m the mother of Carlos and I was worried for Carlos during my entire detention. I was always thinking about him and I never gave my consent for his adoption.”

The Obama administration now says it is no longer targeting immigration enforcement activities on undocumented workers, such as Bail, and is instead focused on seeking out and deporting immigrants who have committed major crimes. However, immigrant advocates say that federal immigration agents, state law enforcement agencies and local county police departments participating in federal immigration enforcement programs do not follow that policy uniformly.

In fact, the government deported more than 46,000 parents of children with U.S. citizenship in the first half of 2011, according to the ARC report.

“It’s clearly un-American to take kids away from loving families,” says Rinku Sen, president and executive director of ARC. “It should give Americans real pause about what we’re engaged in. We need to take a very hard look at these policies and practices.”

Hispanics make up the majority of undocumented immigrants in the United States and, as a result, children of color born to parents from poor countries in Latin and Central America and the Caribbean are affected disproportionally.

What’s clear, say immigrant advocates, is that racial bias toward Latinos and other people of color play a significant role in separating children from parents and relatives.

Court transcripts strongly indicate that social workers’ decisions about foster-care placements and judges’ rulings on custody are sometimes driven by the feeling that the children are better off living in the United States with middle-class, white Americans rather than uneducated and unemployed parents who have been deported to poor home countries.

Furthermore, children in foster care are often not placed with relatives unless the relatives are here legally. Child-welfare workers consider undocumented relatives unsuitable foster parents because their status in the United States is unstable and they, too, can be detained or deported at any time.

“There are definite judgments being made about the value of one particular family over another family,” Sen says. Immigrants and their lawyers “have been told by officials in the child welfare and court system that a child placed in foster care is better off than being with family in Guatemala. There are racial biases that language and immigration status play into that we should be very careful about.”

In Encarnación Bail’s case, the judge who terminated her parental rights made clear in his ruling that he believed the adoptive parents, who make a comfortable living, were more suitable parents than Bail, whom he characterized as a serial lawbreaker. He wrote in his opinion that she, "would be unable to provide adequate food, clothing or shelter” to Carlos in the future.

“Encarnación is a human being, there’s nothing quote unquote illegal about her,” said Omar Riojas, who is her pro-bono attorney. “She lacked proper documentation to work; her defunct crime was one of immigration status, not of violence, not of larceny, not of any crime involving moral turpitude. Being undocumented does not render her unfit to be a parent.”

Seth Freed Wessler, senior research associate at ARC and author of the report, says caseworkers told him that when parents are detained, “they fall off the face of the earth and when they are deported, it’s even worse. It makes their job to reunify families all but impossible.

“Most caseworkers want that to happen but when immigration enforcement is involved, that outcome starts to rise. A whole set of systemic biases starts to emerge and take hold, a revealing assumption that children are better off in the United States no matter what, which ensures that children are not reunited with their families.”

Marty Rosenbluth is executive director of the North Carolina Immigrant Rights Project, a
nonprofit in Durham that works to protect rights of people in deportation proceedings. He says laws give judges and child-welfare workers little latitude to reunify parents and children more easily.

“People will get picked up on some minor violation and end up being deported without any due process or hearing,” Rosenbluth says. “We try to slow down the process enough so people can make some plans.”

The biggest fear of parents in the immigrant community, he says, is that they're going to be deported and forced to abandon their children. “My clients talk about it all the time,” Rosenbluth says. “They ask, ‘If I get deported, what’s going to happen to my kids?’ ”

He says he tells them to grant power of attorney in advance to someone who can take custody of their children.

“But even that is risky,” says Rosenbluth, an attorney. “Do you want to sign over custody of your children to someone you may not know simply because they are legal? A lot of Latino organizations are now telling undocumented immigrants with children to have an action plan and to have certain documents prepared and signed.

“I’ve seen several different models of these action-plan packs. They include power of attorney and representation forms to have others sell their car or their property. I tell them to have someone who they can trust and who has some kind of legal status. They ask if they can sign over custody to their pastor or to their priest, but there’s only so many children pastors can take.”

Cervantes says that since release of the ARC report, First Focus has been “in more intense conversations” with the Obama administration about adjusting current enforcement policies to ensure that nonviolent, non-negligent parents are not detained, and if they are, that they can make arrangements for the care of their children.

Her organization also lobbies for congressional passage of legislation that would establish “nationwide protocols to help keep children with their parents or caregivers while immigration proceedings are underway, and guidelines for certain immigration enforcement activities that involve parents, guardians, or primary caregivers of minor children.”

“Responsible enforcement includes letting parents have due-process rights and ensure the well-being of their children,” she said.

The Humane Enforcement and Legal Protections for Separated Children Act, also known as the HELP-Act, was introduced in the Senate by Al Franken (D-Minn.),and Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) introduced a companion bill in the House. Both are stalled. Cervantes says the ARC report gives advocates momentum to make a new push for passage.

Meanwhile, Bail is now back in Missouri and working in a turkey processing plant. A year ago, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously overturned the judgment terminating her parental rights and the adoption of Carlos and ordered a new trial scheduled to begin on February 28. She is optimistic that the court will rule in her favor.

“God is listening to my prayers,” she said.

(America’s Wire is an independent, non-profit news service run by the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. America’s Wire is made possible by a grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. For more information, visit www.americaswire.org or contact Michael K. Frisby at mike@frisbyassociates.com.)]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2012://19.8461 2012-01-27T17:30:00Z 2012-01-27T19:00:33Z

New America Media ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 WASHINGTON — The Miami Herald reported Friday that Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, introduced a bill that would provide a path to citizenship to young people who serve in the military. The “Adjusted Residency for Military Service Act,” or ARMS Act, is a limited version of the DREAM Act. While the DREAM Act would grant legal status to qualifying undocumented high school graduates who are enrolled in college or the military, the ARMS Act would only apply to those who serve in the military.

Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, criticized the legislation and the timing of the bill. “The introduction of the ARMS Act legislation during the Florida primary debate is politics at the expense of policy," he said in a statement. "We expect Florida voters to see right through this effort and demand better.”

“In the words of military expert Margaret Stock," he said, "‘A military-only DREAM Act would also contradict the fundamental premise of the All-Volunteer Force, as many DREAM Act beneficiaries would be motivated to join the military out of a desperate desire to legalize their status, and not because they are truly interested in military service.’”

“By denying immigrant students the right to higher education," Noorani added, "America is losing out on their entrepreneurship, productivity and economic contributions.”

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Presente.org ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 MIAMI, Fla. – Outside the Hispanic Leadership Network’s 2012 Conference, Latino advocacy organization Presente Action launched the campaign “NO SOMOS RUBIOS,” (We are not Marco Rubios!) with a protest staged by Florida DREAM Act students and others beneath a circling airplane with trailing banner that flew overhead for an hour. The campaign will also release its NO SOMOS RUBIOS video, a television ad revealing what Presente Action considers to be Senator Rubio's "anti-Latino" record. Presente Action is also asking its more than 250,000 members to donate money that will allow them to place the ad on Florida television in the next few days before the Jan. 31 primary.

GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich recently made a public statements supporting a possible Rubio vice presidential candidacy.

Felipe Matos, campaigner for Presente Action, called Marco Rubio "the anti-Immigrant son of immigrants, who supports Arizona’s racist SB-1070 law, rejects the DREAM Act and thinks that Latinos won’t notice that he’s closer to the Tea Party extremists than he is to Latinos on immigration and other key issues.”

Cynthia Arevalo, an immigration attorney and Florida representative of Somos Republicans, a Latino GOP organization that recently announced its support for Gingrich, said, “As a child of immigrants and as an attorney who has to listen daily to the tragic stories created by anti-immigrant policies supported by Marco Rubio, I think it's utterly ridiculous to think that he will 'deliver' Latino votes. Latinos are not stupid.”

Watch the video

]]> tag:newamericamedia.org,2012://19.8454 2012-01-26T18:35:00Z 2012-01-26T19:48:04Z

A majority of Latinos (54 percent) believe that the economic downturn that began in 2007 has been harder on them than on other groups in America, according to a new national survey by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of...

Pew Hispanic Center ]]> http://publisher.namx.org/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=19&id=103 new national survey by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.

Large shares of Hispanics report that they or someone in their household has been out of work in the past year (59 percent); that their personal finances are in "only fair" or "poor" shape (75 percent); that they canceled or delayed a major purchase in the past year (49 percent); or that they are underwater on their mortgage (28 percent of Latino homeowners).

Latinos, who at 50 million strong make up 16 percent of the nation's population, have long trailed other Americans on most measures of economic well-being, but analyses of recent government trend data indicate that the gaps have widened since 2005, a period that encompasses the housing market crash and the Great Recession. For example:

* From 2005 to 2009, median household wealth (all assets minus debts) among Latinos fell by 66 percent, compared with a drop of 53 percent among blacks and 16 percent among whites.
* The unemployment rate among Latinos in December 2011 was 11.0 percent, up from 6.3 percent at the start of the Great Recession in December 2007. Over the same period, the national unemployment rate increased from 5.0 percent to 8.5 percent.
* Between 2006 and 2010, the poverty rate among Hispanics increased from 20.6 percent to 26.6 percent. By contrast, poverty rates increased among whites from 8.2 percent to 9.9 percent, and increased among blacks from 24.3 percent to 27.4 percent.

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