Immigration

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  • Immigration-button

    GOPers Claim Softened Immigration Stance in Bid to Win Florida Latino Vote, But Key Issues Ignored

    January 27, 2012 | Story

    Both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich have been trying to court Florida’s Latino voters ahead of next week’s primary. Romney has launched Spanish-language ads highlighting Gingrich’s remarks in a 2007 speech in which he suggested Spanish was a "language of the ghetto." Meanwhile, Gingrich has released an ad accusing Romney of being the most anti-immigrant candidate in the Republican field. We’re joined by Marcos Restrepo, a reporter with the Florida Independent. "The rhetoric that’s been coming out about immigrants only worried about immigration, that it’s the only issue that really hits home with Latinos and Latino voters, that’s not true," Restrepo says. "I live here in South Florida, and we’re having a hard time with issues like jobs, unemployment, education and housing." Restrepo says the candidates should also address the DREAM Act and the free trade agreements with Central and South American nations. [includes rush transcript]

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    Deportation of U.S. Teen to Colombia Latest Failure of Immigration System

    January 06, 2012 | Story

    The family of a Dallas teenager Jakadrien Turner is demanding answers after she was deported to Colombia, despite the fact that she is a U.S. citizen and speaks no Spanish. Turner, a 15-year-old African-American runaway, was living in Houston when she was arrested for shoplifting and gave police a fake name that belonged to a 22-year-old undocumented immigrant from Colombia with warrants for her arrest. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) reportedly discovered Turner’s fingerprints did not match those of the Colombian national, but deported her anyway. "The country has no idea that we have got a rogue police force. That rogue police force is called ICE," says Ralph Isenberg, a Dallas businessman who has become an advocate for immigrants. "I’m hoping that Black Americans, who have a history of understanding the destruction of our families, because slavery done that to our families, will at some point wake up and understand that the problem of immigrants is something we cannot ignore," adds Dallas Reverend Peter Johnson, a longtime civil rights advocate who has worked with the Turner family. We also speak with Jacqueline Stevens, a political science professor at Northwestern University who recently published an exhaustive report on U.S. citizens who have been detained and deported. [includes rush transcript]

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    Occupy Oakland Protester Pancho Ramos Stierle Faces Deportation After Arrest While Meditating

    November 18, 2011 | Story

    The arrest of a high-profile undocumented protester has brought immigration issues to the forefront of the movement. In California on Monday, Francisco "Pancho" Ramos Stierle was seized while meditating at Oscar Grant Plaza during an early morning raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment. Rather than being released on bail, Pancho was turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody under the Secure Communities program, which shares arrest information from local jails with federal immigration agents. Thousands of his supporters launched a campaign for his release, which included a Change.org petition that attracted 6,600 signatures in just 24 hours. Thursday morning, Pancho was finally released from ICE custody. Pancho joins us from Berkeley, California. "Every time the people ask me, 'Where are you from?' I say, 'Well, I'm from planet earth.’ 'And where's your citizenship?’ 'Well, I'm a citizen of the world.’ So that created a little bit more time, but... they have the fingerprints," he says. "So, at the end of the day, this is what’s happening. Instead of using these resources for building more clinics, for fixing those bridges, for getting more schools, for having meaningful livelihood, we’re using those resources—some people in the 1 percent are using those resources to harass peaceful people, to harass nonviolent people, to harass people who are looking for creating communities in harmony." [includes rush transcript]

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    Latino Voters Help Dethrone Anti-Immigrant Champion in Historic Arizona State Senate Recall Election

    November 10, 2011 | Story

    The architect of Arizona’s controversial anti-immigration law, Russell Pearce, lost a major recall election Tuesday night, becoming the first Arizona state senator ever to do so. He is required to step down immediately and will be replaced by newly elected Republican Jerry Lewis. Pearce wrote Senate Bill 1070, which requires police to investigate the immigration status of people they have lawfully detained. He was also behind an effort to pass legislation aiming to give the state discretion to deny citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants. For immigrant rights activists, the recall marked the success of a new political organizing strategy that brought together a diverse array of voters representing various religious and political affiliations. We go to Phoenix to talk to Petra Falcon, executive director of Promise Arizona. "People had a choice. They had a choice between someone who demonized immigrants, somebody who divided our state, somebody who cast distrust in democracy, over somebody who was talking about bringing the community together, living his values, as he had been a resident in Mesa for over 30 years," Falcon says. [includes rush transcript]

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    Harsh Immigration Laws Threaten "Humanitarian Crisis" in Alabama, Prompting Latinos to Fight Back

    October 20, 2011 | Story

    The state of Alabama became the latest hotspot in the national immigration debate when it enacted a new law, HB 56, that requires police to arrest anyone they suspect of being in the country without legal status. It also prevents courts from enforcing contracts involving undocumented immigrants and allows public schools to determine the immigration status of enrolled students. Last week, a federal appeals court blocked enforcement of parts of the law, but not before thousands of Latinos fled the state. A number of businesses in Alabama were forced to close their doors after Latinos across the state staged walk-outs in protest. We speak to Isabel Rubio, executive director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, a lead plaintiff in one of the lawsuits challenging the Alabama law. "We are in a state of humanitarian crisis here," Rubio said. "I can’t even begin to explain to you the level of fear and chaos that HB 56 has created in the community... We really think at the core this is aimed at the Latino community, not the entire immigrant community." [includes rush transcript]

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    "Lost in Detention": As Obama Admin Deports Record 400,000, Film Explores What Immigrants Face Behind Bars

    October 20, 2011 | Story

    The Obama administration has released new figures showing U.S. deportations of immigrants reached a record high. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it deported nearly 400,000 people in fiscal year 2011, the highest total in the agency’s eight years. The data was released the same day a coalition of Latino and immigrant rights groups held a National Day of Action to protest Obama’s immigration policies. The protesters called for an immediate end to the "Secure Communities" program, which requires local police to forward fingerprints of every person they arrest to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. More than one million immigrants have been deported during Obama’s tenure, even as efforts to reform immigration policy have languished. A new PBS Frontline documentary, "Lost in Detention," investigates the immigration program under Obama. We are joined by the award-winning broadcast journalist who led the investigation, Maria Hinojosa. [includes rush transcript]

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    "News for All the People": Juan González & Joseph Torres on the Epic Story of Race & the U.S. Media

    October 13, 2011 | Story

    After seven years of research, the groundbreaking new book, "News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media," examines how the media has played a pivotal role in perpetuating racist views in the United States. It recalls lives of the unsung pioneering black, Latino, Native American and Asian-American journalists who challenged the worst racial aspects of the white-owned media. It also tells the untold story of how the fight over who controls the internet is just the latest chapter in a centuries-old debate on the role of the media — and the technologies used to deliver it — in a democracy. Today, in a Democracy Now! exclusive, we speak with the book’s authors, Democracy Now! co-host and award-winning journalist Juan González, and Joseph Torres of the media reform organization Free Press. "One of the things that we’ve uncovered is that this fundamental debate that is constantly occurring is: does our nation need a centralized system of news and information, or does it need a decentralized, autonomous system? And which serves democracy best?" González says. "It turns out that in those periods of time when the government has opted for a decentralized or autonomous system, democracy has had a better opportunity to flourish, racial minorities have been able to be heard more often and to establish their own press. In those periods of the nation’s history when policies have fostered centralized news and information, that’s when dissident voices, racial minorities, marginalized groups in society are excluded from the media system." On the role of civil rights groups in the digital age, Torres notes that "the internet is an open platform. [Internet service providers], up to now, have not been able to interfere with your web traffic. You can access any site you want without being slowed down. What they want to do is ... have a pay-for-play system, where if you have a website at Democracy Now!, Democracy Now! will have to pay more to make sure the public can see your site at the fastest speeds, otherwise you’re going to be slowed down. For people of color, it is critical, because of the low barrier of entries, the internet, that we keep the internet open — a free platform — because we don’t have the economic wealth to be able to pay ISPs to make sure our sites are loaded faster." [includes rush transcript]

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    Alleging Captive Labor, Foreign Students Walk Out of Work-Study Program at Hershey Plant

    September 01, 2011 | Story

    We look at the story of 300 foreign students who came to the United States as part of a work-study program and found themselves engaged in what they refer to as captive labor at a Hershey’s packing plant in Palmyra, Pennsylvania. The students — from Eastern Europe and Asia — went on strike two weeks ago, after they were reportedly required to lift heavy boxes, work eight-hour shifts beginning at 11 p.m., and stand for long periods of time while packing candy on a fast-moving production line. Federal agencies have launched four investigations into the alleged exploitation. The walkout apparently marks the first time that foreign students have engaged in a strike to protest their employment. The guest workers are demanding a return of the $3,000 to $6,000 each student paid for the cultural exchange program to work at Hershey, that Hershey end exploitation of J-1 student cultural exchange workers, and that the 400 jobs the guest workers filled instead be given to local workers paid a living wage. We speak to two of the student guest workers who took part in the strike at the Hershey plant: Decebal Bilan, an economics student from Romania, and Zhao Huijiao, a foreign languages student from China. We are also joined by Saket Soni, director of the National Guestworker Alliance. "Today the J-1 program has essentially become the United States’s largest guest worker program," says Saket. He notes that while students are recruited ostensibly for cultural exchanges, "they do learn about American culture, just the wrong part of American culture." [includes rush transcript]

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    Undocumented Student Fanny Martinez Arrested Protesting Controversial Secure Communities Program

    August 18, 2011 | Story

    Last night in Chicago, the controversy over the immigration enforcement program called Secure Communities reached a dramatic standoff when six undocumented students were arrested protesting a meeting to discuss the program. Wearing T-shirts that said "Undocumented and Unafraid," the students joined about 300 people in walking out of the meeting. Once outside, they blocked an expressway on-ramp in an act of civil disobedience. Protests against Secure Communities were also held earlier this week in Houston, Boston, Miami, Atlanta and Charlotte. We go to Chicago to speak with Fanny Martinez, a 23-year-old graduate student in Chicago, one of those arrested at the meeting. She was released from jail shortly before we went to broadcast. [includes rush transcript]

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    Should U.S. End Secure Communities? Sheriff Adrian Garcia Debates Immigrant Advocate Chris Newman

    August 18, 2011 | Story

    Many are criticizing the Obama administration for unilaterally pushing ahead with a controversial federal immigration enforcement policy called Secure Communities that requires local police to forward fingerprints of every person they arrest to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In recent months, the governors of Illinois, Massachusetts and New York announced they are pulling out of the program, but now officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) say it is mandatory. ICE has also created a task force to study possible reforms. We host a debate on Secure Communities program with Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, who helped ICE begin Secure Communities as a pilot program in Texas and is a member of the Secure Communities Task Force, and Chris Newman, legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, one of the immigrant rights groups spearheading national organizing efforts against Secure Communities. [includes rush transcript]