Workers Criminalized, Employers Untouched

From a ImmigrationProf Blog today comes a commentary on the lack of employee convictions in the wake of the flurry of recent immigration raids.

Undocumented workers continue to face horrific consequences (including the new tactic of conviction of criminal offenses), while the employers remain unscathed by the law.

Statistical silence on the issue of employer criminal sanctions is not surprising.  Truth is that ICE does not spend many of its resources prosecuting employers, despite what is reported in the media immediately after a raid. And the reality of how raids are conducted suggests that employer prosecutions are hardly a priority.  Otherwise, why would the government remove and convict practically all the witnesses it needs to build a case against the employer – the workers themselves.

ICE continues to wage war on immigrants without addressing the root issues of workplace standards, living wages and job improvement. Scapegoating hard-working immigrants will not deter these employers from exploiting and abusing anyone in the future.

But the mainstream media remains focused on the spectacle of the raids, shouting that ICE is tracking down “illegal” people and perpetuating the myth that these raids are “working”.

But what does “working” mean? If it simply means a horrid fate for the undocumented workers and their families caught in the raids, then yes.  But if it means actually improving jobs and work conditions for U.S. workers or deterrence of bad practices by U.S. employers, then think again!

Click here for full post.

New Jersey’s Senator Menendez Gets Real about ICE and Racial Profiling

Washington, DC – Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) delivered an important speech on the U.S. Senate floor yesterday, calling for reform to U.S. immigration policies and a renewed emphasis on protecting the constitutional rights of those improperly targeted by recent immigration raids.

In his speech, Senator Menendez said that “[t]he legitimate desire to get control over our borders has too often turned into a witch-hunt against Hispanic Americans and other people of color.”

The Senator also highlighted the moral stakes of the immigration debate, saying that immigration policy is “more than a legal issue – it becomes a human rights issue, and it is our job to do all we can to secure our country while protecting the dignity of all human beings. If we fail to do so, not only do we blemish ourselves, but we lose the moral high ground to be a beacon of democracy and a leader in human rights around the world.”

Let’s hope that this will quash any hope of Lou Dobbs and his potential gubernatorial run….

You can watch the senator’s speech in two parts below:

Part One

Part Two

 

Art is Action - Pro-Migrant Poster Power!

“We need strong pro-immigrant and migrant art to confront the multitude of images of disempowerment given to us by our daily media.”

The Taller Tupac Amaru set out to meet this need by enlisting the help of artists, art enthusiasts and movement supporters this May 2008. Jesus Barraza, Melanie Cervantes, Dylan Miner and Artemio Rodriguez, under the leadership of fellow artist Favianna Rodriguez, set out to produce of FIVE empowering posters for the international immigrant rights movement.

There has never been a movement for social change without the arts – posters in particular – being central to that movement. Protest posters flaunt their politics and court discussion. They can deepen compassion and commitment, ignite outrage, elicit laughter, and provoke action. The power of the poster is that it is produced in multiples, and therefore can be easily distributed for all to see.

 

Posters are available for sale and distribution at a cost of $30 per set. Please email or call Melanie Cervantes, melanie@dignidadrebelde.com, Cell: 510-502-6393 OR Favianna Rodriguez, (English or Spanish), favianna@favianna.com, Cell: 510-918-9075

Court Rejects Decisions of Immigration Board

From the New York Times

By ALAN FEUER

 

Published: June 12, 2008

In a scathing opinion, a federal appeals court in Manhattan ruled on Wednesday that immigration judges and the appellate system established as a check on their decisions committed “obvious errors” by denying asylum to three Guinean women who claimed that they were victims of genital cutting back in Africa.

Click here to read full article.

The Common Thread that Binds Us

From the Sanctuary today, a powerful post that speaks to the humanity of us all.

What follows are seven news stories, all from different places and times. Some happened only weeks ago … some years. Some are well known … others obscure. But a common thread runs through them all.

Click here to read the seven stories, from the original post on the Sanctuary.

From Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez dying from a lack of water, to Francisco Castaneda of neglect and cancer, to Luz Dominguez losing a job for having the audacity to ask for fair wages and treatment, to Adriana Torres-Flores left in a holding cell for days without food and water… they share a common thread that binds them.

They are part of the silent and forgotten, living in the shadows, unprotected by laws and regulations most take for granted. It matters not if they toiled in fields to put food on our tables, supplied the weapons of war, or cleaned the rooms we sleep in. Nor does it matter if they ran afoul of the law … they share a common thread that binds them.

They are the other.

They are those who go unseen even in the light of day.

We don’t want to know their names or their stories. We don’t want to hear of their suffering, or know about their dreams and aspirations. We don’t want to have to look them in the eye and see their humanity.

Because if we did for only just one moment, then we might be forced to see not only them …but us …for what we really are.

So hide your eyes, walk quickly as you pass. Don’t acknowledge their presence.

Don’t look at the mother holding her child and see the love between them. Don’t admire the workers, laboring to supply the goods and services on which you rely, for their industriousness. Don’t stop for a moment to smile or even nod a quick hello.

Because if you did, for only just one a moment, you might be forced to see …. the common thread that binds us.

On Thin ICE

By Jacqueline Stevens, The Nation. Posted June 10, 2008.

“I documented thirty-one cases from across the country of US citizens, eight born here, incarcerated as aliens for one month to five years. Fourteen were deported. Five remain in detention.”

A headline in the San Francisco Chronicle screams, 900 Nabbed in State on Immigration Charges. The Seattle Times reports, Feds Combing Jails for Illegal Immigrants. An AP article declares, Immigration Raid in Iowa Largest Ever in US and reports 390 arrests. In 2007, more than 276,912 US residents were deported. Thanks to a recent Bush Administration crackdown, the net cast by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) is wide–so wide, it turns out, that some of those being deported are US citizens.

Is ICE an efficient law enforcement agency? Or, in the words of Robert, 38, a US citizen twice deported to Mexico, is ICE “just throwing us out for nothing”?

Consider what happened to Peter Guzman. Last year Guzman, a US citizen born in Los Angeles in 1977, drove onto the tarmac of a regional airport in his hometown of Lancaster, about eighty miles northeast of Los Angeles, boarded a charter plane without a ticket and refused to get off. Guzman was arrested and sentenced, and served forty-one days in a Los Angeles County jail. According to his lawyer, Mark Rosenbaum of the Southern California ACLU, Guzman was excited about being released in time for his brother’s July wedding in Las Vegas. “It was a big deal to Peter. He was going to be the best man.” It never occurred to Guzman that in July he’d be eating garbage and bathing in the Tijuana River.

But on May 11, 2007, he called his family and said he’d been deported. According to the ACLU lawsuit, before his sister-in-law could find out exactly where he was and give him instructions, the line was cut. She overheard him ask, “Where am I?”

Read the full article here.

Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) and National Lawyers Guild (NLG) Release Joint Statement on ICE Raids

“SALT and NLG deplore these raids that are creating a moral, legal, and humanitarian crisis in our nation. ICE’s heavy handed enforcement against undocumented workers in the wake of failed immigration reform is shameful. Immigration laws remain completely out of touch with reality, and the absence of labor protection for these workers leaves them vulnerable to exploitation.”

To read the full statement, click here

Undocumented, but not Unamerican - One Immigrant’s Story

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HEY the movmeent vision lab has a great video contest for clips on immigration and community values.

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Congress tries to kill sanctuary- may hit anti-terror

Salon.com published this article on sanctuary- thought it was worth sharing.

Popular proposals to choke off federal support to immigrant-friendly “sanctuary cities” would also dry up anti-terror funding for the cities most at risk.

By Alex Koppelman

Oct. 04, 2007 | Al-Qaida’s targets on 9/11 were in New York City and Washington. But if Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and 233 other members of the U.S. House have their way, those cities and others at high risk of terrorist attacks, including some that have reportedly been the target of foiled plots, would be stripped of the federal funding intended to keep their citizens safe from attack.

At issue are so-called sanctuary cities. There is no single definition of a “sanctuary city,” but in essence it is one that takes a “don’t ask, don’t tell” stance toward the immigration status of its residents. For example, a sanctuary city might bar local police from inquiring about or disclosing the status of a victim or witness of a crime. A comprehensive list of sanctuary cities would have to include a huge swath of urban America. It would include the four biggest cities in the United States, the majority of the 25 biggest cities, and every one of the six urban areas the Department of Homeland Security says face the highest risk of terrorism — New York, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Houston.

Spurred by the GOP base’s anger over illegal immigration, Republicans in the House have introduced several bills and amendments that would impose financial penalties on those sanctuary cities. Two measures, amendments to larger spending bills, have already passed. Such proposals have also become an issue in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and several candidates have voiced their support.

But the proposals involve depriving the nation’s biggest and most vulnerable cities of their anti-terror funding. To fight the War on Illegal Immigration, the party is willing to defund the War on Terror. For residents of America’s major cities, it might therefore be reassuring to know that most of the measures, even as they’re approved by Congress, are written in such a way that they’ll be hard to enforce. Get the REST