Immigration
Would You Ask This Man For His Papers?
originally posted by Daisy Hernandez for Colorlines [click here]
Jul 28th
Kudos to the ACLU for this new video exposing the racist underpinnings driving Arizona’s SB 1070 law, portions of which were temporarily halted today by a federal judge.
The two-minute video shows an older brown man doing yardwork in Arizona. He’s done this kind of work for 15 years, he tells us, but SB 1070 makes him afraid that because of the color of his skin and his work, he’ll be asked to prove his citizenship status.
The catch? The brown man is the president of the board of directors for the ACLU in Arizona, Roberto Reveles. That’s probably his own yard he’s cleaning.
But the message is clear. Unless SB1070 is dismissed by the federal courts, anyone who’s brown remains vulnerable.
Obama Slipping Among Latinos
originally posted by Daisy Hernandez for Colorlines [click here]
Jul 28th
A new poll by Univision and the Associated Press suggests that Obama and Democrats might have to fight, at least a little, for the Latino vote come November.
While 57 percent still approve of the job Obama is doing, according to the AP-Univision poll, that’s down from the close to 70 percent that Gallup pollsters recorded in January. The reasons are simple: the economy and immigration reform.
Of the 1,500 Latinos polled in English and Spanish by the AP and Univision, 45 percent said they or a family member had lost a job since last September, compared to 30 percent for the overall population. Naturally, that’s put a terrible strain on families. Close to half of the Latinos polled said they worry about being able to pay their bills now.
On immigration, the poll found a split between English and Spanish speakers. Among those speaking English, about 40 percent approved of Obama’s work on their key issues before Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, was signed into law. The figure rose to 52 percent in the weeks after as Obama voiced opposition to the legislation.
This is in line with what Gallup pollsters uncovered last month.
Obama’s big dip among Latinos was in February, after his State of the Union silence on immigration reform, and in May, as he was being criticized for not doing more about Arizona’s new law. But the large drop in support happened among Latinos who are mainly Spanish speakers.
Obama’s lost 21 points in his approval rating among Spanish-speaking Latinos since January– compared to 5 points for English-speaking Latinos.
It’s probably time for Obama to take a cue from California gubernatorial hopeful Meg Whitman and start working on those Spanish ads.
Dream Act Moves to the Top of the List
originally posted by Julianne Hing for Colorlines [click here]
Jul 28th
In what can only be called a major win for youth activists, Democrats may finally be moving to pull the Dream Act away from comprehensive immigration reform. Yesterday, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to discuss the possibility of moving the Dream Act as a standalone bill.
In so doing, Reid proved he’s not been deaf to the cries coming from outside–and occasionally inside–his office to pass the Dream Act this year. Yesterday Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who’s been hosting three fasting Dream Act activists outside her Los Angeles office since last week, said that she supports “incremental change,” code for a piecemeal approach that pursues smaller bills than one central overhaul to immigration reform.
The news comes on the heels of a week of public actions to get the Dream Act passed as a standalone bill. Last week, 21 Dream Act activists were arrested for a sit-in they staged in Democratic and Republican congressional offices in D.C. If passed, the Dream Act would allow hundreds of thousands of undocumented youth with a clean criminal record and a two-year commitment to either the military or college to adjust their status. Young people have been trying to pass some version of the Dream Act for almost ten years.
The new momentum around the Dream Act is also a tacit acknowledgment of what is by now plain fact: comprehensive reform won’t happen this year. Beltway immigrant rights groups which have continuously urged the immigrant community to wait for comprehensive reform, seem to be coming around to this reality as well. The news about Reid’s meeting with Pelosi came from America’s Voice, a DC non-profit run by Frank Sharry, who’s the former executive director of the National Immigration Forum. Sharry praised Reid’s action on the Dream Act, calling it “the right thing” in the face of an intractable Congress. And yesterday, the Washington Post reported that other immigrant rights groups have decided to change course and put pressure on Congress to pass the Dream Act and Ag Jobs, the bill between farm worker unions and businesses that would provide employment authorization and legal residence for farmworkers.
But Democrats’ habitual refusal to acknowledge the end of comprehensive immigration reform wasn’t based on hopeful ignorance or even naivete so much as it was a strategy to hold off talk on immigration as mid-term elections near. In the meantime, Democrats have been able to keep some distance (but not that much) from Republicans, who make offensive and plainly untrue anti-immigrant claims regularly and with no provocation at all.
As activists well know, there’s never a convenient time to discuss immigration. Congress has been trying to pass comprehensive immigration reform since before Sept. 11, and came close in 2006 and 2007, when millions of people across the country turned out for massive May Day rallies. Congress failed both times.
Still, political shifts in the movement don’t come without their own growing pains.
As of yesterday, an unnamed non-profit had been pressing activists to take down a recording of a phone call between Dream Act activists and Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez in which Gutierrez scolds the Dreamers for their aggressive tactics. Dream Act activists would not publicly share the group’s identity.
Other immigrant rights groups outside the Beltway have acknowledged the intra-movement controversies, but remain focused on their ultimate goals, which don’t necessarily include comprehensive reform anymore. That comprehensive reform is desperately needed is common knowledge— that there may be alternatives to it is much more controversial.
“Every movement goes through this. I think it’s divisive, but only to a point,” said Laura Rivas, a researcher with the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. “It’s only divisive on the top layer, the most public groups. But the people on the ground, organizing, doing the work…people all agree at least on what they’re not going to accept.”
“I can very openly say we disagree with the narrow legislative-only strategy that the mainstream groups have been espousing for the last few years, and channeling millions of dollars into,” Rivas said.
In its current shape, immigration reform is little more than a package of enforcement-only legislation: increased funding for border security, more promises to extend and strengthen immigration enforcement for people who enter and live in the country without papers, and no end to detentions and deportations that have devastated immigrant communities.
“We agree that what we really need is rights and due process and a life free from fear and policing and without targeting,” Rivas said, adding that her organization has been relying on old-fashioned organizing to fight the local immigration enforcement that’s popping up in communities these days.
Sonia Guinansaca, a core member with the New York State Youth Leadership Council, which is pushing for the Dream Act, resisted pitting the Dream Act against comprehensive immigration reform. She says it’s not an either-or proposition. “We want CIR, but the Dream Act is a stepping stone to that. Gutierrez said, “If we fail, let’s fail together, but do we really want that? Do we want everyone to fail?”
“We want little steps. That’s how you make change, and we need to recognize that,” Guinansaca said.
Photo: Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla
A Breakdown of Legal Challenges to SB 1070
originally posted by Hatty Lee for Colorlines [click here]
Jul 28th
A federal judge has blocked the most controversial portions of the law while lawyers battle over it in court. But the case–or cases–move on. Here’s a look at the seven lawsuits challenging Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, along with a breakdown of the constitutional protections the critics argue the law violates.
Arizona–and Arpaio–Already Lead Country in 287(g) Round Ups
originally posted by Kai Wright for Colorlines [click here]
Jul 28th
As we await District Judge Susan Bolton’s ruling on whether she’ll let Arizona’s SB 1070 take effect tomorrow, the Associated Press has numbers on just how many folks are already being deporting through local law enforcement. As Aarti Shahani wrote for ColorLines, Arizona’s new law actually grows out of the federal 287(g) program, which deputized local cops to investigate the immigration status of people who they’ve arrested. AP found that infamous Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been a standout in that program:
Statistics obtained by The Associated Press show that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office was responsible for the deportations or forced departure of 26,146 immigrants since 2007.
That’s about a quarter of the national total of 115,841 sent out of the U.S. by officers in 64 law enforcement agencies deputized to help enforce immigration laws, some since 2006, under the so-called 287(g) program.
The tens of thousands of immigrant arrests show local officials already have a significant amount of authority to enforce immigration laws and help remove illegal immigrants from the country.
Los Angeles County came in a distant second, having sent 13,784 people to the feds. SB 1070 would require local cops to go a step further and investigate the immigration status of *anybody* they suspect of being in the state without papers. It’s of course that suspicion bit that’s most troubling, as it’s sure to set up widespread racial profiling.
But many argue that’s what 287(g) already encourages, if not requires. Both the Government Accountability Office and the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general have raised concerns about how 287(g) is run and about potential civil rights violations by local cops. Arpaio is already facing a federal investigation for civil rights violations.
Meanwhile, 287(g) ain’t cheap. As AP reports,
U.S. taxpayers pay the federal cost, which has grown from $5 million in 2006 to $68 million in 2010, according to the DHS inspector general. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reimburses some of the local agencies for housing immigrants in their jails.
Photo: Getty Images/John Moore
An Interactive History of Arizona’s March to SB 1070
originally posted by Kai Wright for Colorlines [click here]
Jul 27th
Aarti Shahani explained yesterday how Washington spawned Arizona’s SB 1070 by deputizing local cops as immigration officers. That fact leaves the Justice Department appearing to split legal hairs when arguing that Arizona’s law unconstitutionally usurps the feds’ power to control the border. Shahani’s analysis of the DOJ suit against SB 1070 is important, but it’s also worth noting that the door for renegade, state-led immigration enforcement opened long ago. So check out Valeria Fernandez’s interactive timeline of Arizona’s long march toward SB 1070 as well.
Youth Activists Shake Up Congress, but Reform Still a DREAM
originally posted by Julianne Hing for Colorlines [click here]
Jul 27th
DREAM Act advocates are spending the summer turning up the heat on Congress to pass what many consider to be the easiest political sell of the immigration reform proposals circulating in the Beltway. Last week, hundreds of young activists staged a mock graduation ceremony in Washington, D.C., and another 21, many of them undocumented, were arrested after staging a sit-in in Democratic and Republican congressional offices. Meanwhile, four activists have been on a hunger strike since Friday in front of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Los Angeles offices to demand the bill’s passage.
The DREAM Act would create avenues for young people who are undocumented to win legal status. Under the bill, those with a clean criminal record who came to the country before they were 16 years old, have graduated from high school and complete two years of military service or college would be eligible for citizenship. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the bill could benefit about 825,000 people.
These days, no matter what Democrats might say, comprehensive immigration reform is but a dying glimmer on the horizon. Young people pushing for the DREAM Act have long known that, and have been stepping up their actions in recent months as a result.
But not everyone appreciates their aggressive and public tactics. The DREAM Act online organizing clearinghouse DreamActivist.org released a recording of a phone call that took place last week between protesters in Sen. Harry Reid’s office and Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez. Gutierrez remains one of the last congressional voices who still has hope for comprehensive immigration reform this congressional session.
Gutierrez scolded the activists for demanding the DREAM Act be pushed independently from the broader immigration reform package:
Every time someone says the whole thing cannot pass, only part of it, it weakens us, it divides us, it confuses us, it scatters us all over the place. We once had a united movement for comprehensive immigration reform. Now we don’t have a united movement, and that is causing, that is detrimental to the movement for all of us.
It’s a tense, emotional phone call, but not an unusual conversation among immigration activists long used to hearing promises, followed by foot-dragging and delays, that rarely lead to action. Mainstream immigrant rights groups in the Beltway have often joined Democrats in discouraging the DREAMers and others who are pushing for a piecemeal approach to reform.
The DREAM Act has won strong bipartisan support in the past, but even those who still support it have softened. Even the bill’s author, Sen. Dick Durbin, claims he’s still holding out hope for comprehensive reform–leaving the bill with a steep climb as a stand-alone effort. Meanwhile, anything that resembles the forbidden “amnesty” is dangerous territory for both parties.
Two days after the 21 young activists were arrested in the lobby of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office, he indicated that he might push the DREAM Act forward if a comprehensive reform bill weren’t possible. He reiterated that message to La Opinion, saying, “I would like to figure out when can we do the DREAM Act. I would like to do it before the elections,” if comprehensive immigration reform failed.
But by the time Reid made it to Las Vegas this weekend for the Netroots Nation conference for progressive bloggers, BeyondChron.com reported that he’d once again changed his mind on immigration reform: “I’m not going to do the DREAM Act if I don’t have 60 votes.”
Photo: Creative Commons/DreamActivist
In Arizona, Feds Are Fighting a Monster They Built
originally posted by Aarti Shahani for Colorlines [click here]
Jul 26th
President Obama’s lawyer has argued more than a hundred cases before the Supreme Court. Last Thursday in Arizona, he got served.
Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler came to challenge SB 1070, the controversial law that would make police arrest and prosecute people suspected of not having papers. It’s set to go into effect on Thursday, July 29. The Justice Department has argued the law oversteps constitutional bounds by creating a parallel immigration system that threatens the federal one and interfering with foreign relations. Latin American governments are up in arms.
Looking federal Judge Susan Bolton straight in the eye, Kneedler indicted Arizona for ending an era of “great cooperation” between federal and state officials. For years, local officers have helped the feds perform deportation duties. “That doesn’t mean the state can make its own immigration law,” he explained.
Before Kneedler could ram home the full force of the Constitution, however, the judge put the plaintiff on defense.
“Arizona can’t remove anybody,” she asserted. “They don’t claim they can.” The bill doesn’t have a section empowering police to dump people over the border; it directs them to investigate and report people without papers. “Why can’t Arizona be as inhospitable as they wish to people who have entered or remained illegally?” Judge Bolton asked.
Arizona was the premiere state partner in a Homeland Security program called 287(g), which since 2002 has made it okay for local law enforcement to ask about papers and detain immigrants without criminal charge. Local police had been picking up immigrants by the thousands, with the feds’ blessing, and it’s in part why the Obama administration has set deportation records. Kneedler argued that SB 1070 is nonetheless an unconstitutional departure from the course they set because the feds are no longer in the lead.
Given 287(g), Bolton wasn’t shocked by the proposition of police asking for papers. She was more interested in sparring with Kneedler over the bureaucratic challenges SB 1070 poses than the constitutional ones. The state bill complicates ICE’s ability to set deportation priorities.
Bolton peppered Kneedler with questions about the line between bureaucratic headache and unconstitutional preemption: “Can you really say this is preempted because they’re going to make too many phone calls [to ICE]?” and “Can you really take issue because it’s burdensome?” and “Can’t ICE use its discretion to do what it wants, which could be nothing?”
Kneedler responded, lamely, “The way these things are coded, it’s not always apparent whether it’s something of time urgency.”
It was more a plea than a comeback: Please stop SB 1070 so that it doesn’t overload ICE’s shoddy databases. We all know the feds created a Frankenstein’s monster, he seemed to argue, but at least it doesn’t violate the Constitution. Arizona’s monster does.
Perhaps. But the feds may have trouble slaying the monster they built.
Gov. Jan Brewer sat front row in the packed courtroom. Though she signed the law in question, her predecessor ought to take more credit.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was nowhere in sight. As Arizona’s chief executive, she was the nation’s first governor to sign up her jailers for 287(g).
With her backing, in 2007, the feds gave the nation’s largest 287(g) contract to Sheriff Joe Arpaio. “If I have to set up tents from here to Mexico, I’ll do it,” Arpaio said, with typical bravado.
It wasn’t an empty threat. A beloved media whore, he’d already made pre-trial detainees wear pink underwear, eat rotten bologna, and stay in makeshift tents under the blazing desert sun. The federal program gave him a new toy gun. Now journalists could watch his deputies round up traffic violators.
Arpaio made a few too many headlines. The Justice Department launched an investigation into racial profiling, which is still pending. Napolitano, as head of Homeland Security, chopped off his street arrest powers, though she left him with the ability to flag people for deportation in the jails. Arpaio, using other state laws that make immigration a crime, continued to arrest people and hand them off for deportation. His and other sheriffs’ use of the program is the subject of on ongoing controversy, in and out of the White House.
Napolitano said of SB 1070 in May, “That’s not the kind of law I would have signed.” She doesn’t see (at least not publicly) a direct line from 287(g) to SB 1070. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network does.
“If she reigned in Arpaio earlier, by removing his 287(g) in its entirety,” said the group’s lawyer Chris Newman, “then the country would be debating whether police involvement at all is okay.” Last year NDLON asked the president to terminate the program, on the premise that it leads to mini-Arpaios nationwide.
SB 1070’s proponents agree, sort of. In front of the courthouse last week, they closely tied the state law to the federal program.
The intent of SB 1070 is “attrition through enforcement.” That is, to scare people without papers into leaving and never coming back. Its author John Kavanagh, however, believes 287(g) is more powerful. Under 287(g), he argued, “You can approach anybody.” SB 1070 requires reasonable suspicion of a crime. Officers “have to comply with greater civil liberties safeguards,” he explained.
Tom Liddy, Arpaio’s attorney, thinks SB 1070 will resuscitate Arpaio’s 287(g) model and put it on steroids. Instead of just 160 deputies making immigration arrests, you get 15,000 officers statewide.
“It makes it very difficult for municipalities to do what the federal government is doing, which is ignore the law,” Liddy said. In his jurisdiction, he believes “it’s not going to be much of a difference.”
As part of the Arizona legal team, he told the judge, “The proper forum for the plaintiffs is the U.S. Congress.” Standing in front of protesters outside the courthouse, Liddy caught a glimpse of the many signs against and few signs for the bill. “The people of Arizona are happy with the way the federal law is,” he said. “They’re not happy with the way it’s being enforced.”
Carlos Garcia dislikes the state law enough to break it. With six other opponents of SB 1070, he unfurled a handmade sign: “We will not comply.”
Just before getting arrested for obstructing traffic, he read from a prepared statement, “We expect [President Barack Obama] to take responsibility for ever opening the door that led to SB 1070 with programs like 287(g).”
Garcia is an organizer with Puente, though he said he was acting as an individual in the civil disobedience.
Before organizing a 100,000-person march in May against SB 1070, Puente organized a 25,000-strong march in January against 287(g). “It’s a moving target,” Garcia said. “And it’s getting worse.” He points to the sections of the state law that will criminally prosecute day laborers seeking work.
Obama’s legal team was the only one to not attend the press conference outside the federal courthouse. There, reporters were ready to add another question to the judge’s list: What happens to the federal program that made it okay for local officers to ask about papers in the first place?
The answer won’t come from Bolton’s much-awaited decision. The fate of 287(g) is in Obama’s court.
Soundstrike Artists Rage Against Arizona
originally posted by Naima Ramos-Chapman for Colorlines [click here]
Jul 26th
Music, has often lent itself to the anti-establishment and protest themes of the moment. There’s the somber like Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” the damning like Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us,” or the combatant like Public Enemy’s…well any song really. We don’t yet have a popular protest song for the immigrant rights movement. But as Arizona prepares for its controversial anti-immigration law to kick in on Thursday, musical talents from across genres have banded together behind Soundstrike, a coalition of artists who have chosen to boycott Arizona until it repeals SB1070.
Last Friday, Rage Against The Machine, which is spearheading the boycott, threw a benefit concert at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. The show raised $300,000 that will go to organizations fighting the bill, which makes it a crime to be in Arizona without immigration papers and empowers cops to stop and search anyone they suspect of doing so.
“SB 1070 if enacted would legalize racial profiling in Arizona. This law runs counter to music’s essential purpose, which is to unite people and not divide them. We want to thank the artists of conscience that have joined the Soundstrike throughout the world who use their role as artists to stand for civil and human rights,” said band leader Zach de la Rocha in a press conference last week.
According to an AP article, other artists who have joined the battalion of bands boycotting Arizona are Kanye West, Sonic Youth, Cypress Hill, Tenacious D, Spank Rock, Massive Attack, Norteno superstars Los Tigres del Norte, Colombian rock singer Juanes, salsa-ska band Ozomatli, and Puerto Rican reggaeton duo Calle 13.
Others who have expressed their discontent with SB1070 but have not formally signed up with Soundstrike are Talib Kweli and Shakira, among others.
In light of some arguments that an artist boycott will only hurt the local concert venues, promoters, and fans, some artists–includingTalib Kweli–have chose to perform in Arizona but not without making their position on the anti-immigration law heard. Kweli kept two performance dates this spring with hopes his song “Paper’s Please”, about SB 1070, would become a movement anthem.
As outspoken as Lady Gaga has been in her (very recent) past about civil rights for the LBGT community, she hasn’t yet canceled her concert scheduled in Phoenix on July 31, just three days after SB 1070 goes into effect. Fans of Lady Gaga are pleading via Facebook for Gaga to join the boycott and show her support for another marginalized group.
Arizona’s SB 1070 is expected to go into effect this Thursday, July 29. As Julianne Hing reports, litigation over SB 1070 will probably be long and drawn out, with the bill being bounced court to court.
For a full listing of artists boycotting Arizona under the Soundsrike banner click here.
Utah’s Not An Anomaly
originally posted by Jamilah King for Colorlines [click here]
Jul 23rd
At least 70 percent of identity theft starts with employees stealing personal data, according to a report published in 2004 by researchers at Michigan State. So while the investigation continues into two government workers in Utah accused of releasing the private information of 1,300 Latino residents as part of an anti-immigrant witch hunt, another important question is being bandied around: What happens when a crime usually described as one of “opportunity” becomes a weapon used for hostile political purposes?
Surveillance is certainly not a new phenomenon for black and brown bodies in this country, and there’s long been talk of how Internet giants like Google protect — or expose — users’ personal information. But in the case of Utah’s list, there weren’t any “users.” Instead, there were hundreds of families legally accessing government services, which begs the question of how far government agencies are willing to go protect the sensitive personal information it collects, especially in times of political upheaval.
Kristen Cox, who works as Executive Director of Utah’s Workforce Services, said in a statement earlier this week that her staff is trained on how to properly use and disseminate data.
“We carefully protect the personal information that we gather, and take very seriously breaches of that public trust. The list contained inaccurate information and undermines the need to maintain confidentiality and adhere to the due process rules of our country.”
But all the training in the world won’t stop someone on a mission. So far Teresa Bassett, a 15-year-verteran of the Department of Workforce Services and Department of Corrections, has been the only person unofficially identified in the scandal, while another temporary suspected worker has gone nameless. Although eight additional workers were under suspicion, Gov. Gary Herbert debunked that notion, saying that the actual process of compiling a list with such detailed information required more than your average amount of tech savvy.
Bassett has refused to comment publicly about the case, but as the Justice Department moves in to start a federal investigation, she could face up to five years a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.
One worker, not publicly identified as Bassett, has already been fired, while the other still faces termination proceedings.
For many legal advocates, a criminal investigation is just one piece of the puzzle.
“The Department of Workforce Services says they’re looking at new policies, and we’re interested to find out what their protocols are for protecting people’s private information,” said Karen McCreary, Executive Director of ACLU Utah.
In a press release issued last week, the ACLU pushed the privacy frame even further, saying that no matter what a person thinks of immigration, more needed to be done to regulate access to personal information held in government databases.
But that’s where it gets tricky. Each person on the list was targeted for being Latino and, presumably, undocumented. Unfortunately, there’s no way to regulate decent behavior or professionalism, and these days almost any crazy with a computer can wreak havoc on an unsuspecting crowd.
After completing its investigation on Tuesday and announcing the termination of both workers, there’s still no word from the governor’s office what, if any, policies will change moving forward.
“The truth is … I am afraid [immigration agents] will come knock on my door at night,” one man with an 8-year-old son told the The Salt Lake Tribune. “I don’t feel good about this. I’m worried all the time.”