Cries for Immigration Reform Fill Mission Dolores

The San Francisco Chronicle
By Bridget Huber

More than 500 people from communities throughout the Bay Area packed the pews of the Mission Dolores Basilica Thursday night for an interfaith service calling for immigration reform and looking to inspiration from the late President John F. Kennedy and the book of Isaiah.

Standing beneath the church’s celestial dome, Leticia Medina, a leader with the San Francisco Organizing Project, had a message for the nation’s political leaders: ”We, the people, want immigration reform.”

Clergy from Christian, Muslim and Jewish congregations gathered on the altar to read passages from Kennedy’s 1958 book A Nation of Immigrants, which called for a reevaluation of U.S. immigration law.

Pastor Michael McBride quoted from a section of the book praising immigrants’ contributions to U. S. culture and the economy. “This has been the secret of America,” he continued, “a nation of people with fresh memories of old traditions who dared explore new frontiers.”

Bishop William Justice commended the crowd for its social justice work and said, “As clergy, it is our role to inspire that work — to lead with prophetic voices, to encourage the weary workers … and to cry with you at the pain we see in our communities,” he said.

Lulu Rodriguez, one of the event’s organizers, said Kennedy’s words were chosen because they remain inspiring more than 50 years after he wrote them. “We need a leader like him, with a strong voice that represents us all,” she said.

At least a dozen clergy from the Bay Area spoke to a crowd that included contingents from as far away as Sacramento as well as City Supervisors David Campos and David Chiu. Senator Dianne Feinstein was invited to the event but did not come, and her staff person who was supposed to attend canceled at the last minute.


City Supervisors David Campos and David Chiu attended the event. In his remarks, Chiu called on the crowd to take action. "We are the lucky ones. We are the ones who are here. We are the ones who can fight," he said. More than a quarter of the nation’s 11.9 million undocumented immigrants live in California, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

During his presidential campaign, President Obama promised to make immigration reform a priority. But, many who favor the reforms are worried these efforts will be stonewalled in the increasingly partisan senate or shelved longer in favor of efforts to reform healthcare and right the economy.

Read more »

Ellis Island is Closed: Ash Wednesday Rally for Immigrant Rights

by Alex DiBranco
category: Immigration Detention
Published February 17, 2010 @ 02:53PM PT

Walking around town today, you might have noticed gray smudges on certain foreheads. Yes, it's Ash Wednesday, a time when many Christians repent personal and societal sins. This year, some are marking the start of Lent not just with a symbol on their skin, but also with a march to protest against a flawed immigration system.

Marchers organized by the Pax Christi Summit began at Ellis Island earlier today, as a reminder that "Ellis Island is Closed" to all your tired, poor, and huddled masses; they will arrive at the Elizabeth, NJ, detention center by 6pm. As immigrant rights activist Shivali Shah writes in the Faster Times, observers -- both lay people and nuns and priests -- on the march have chosen to use this day to "repent for the sins of their generation for how we treat immigrant detainees in the US."

The protesters are particularly focused on inhumane treatment in detention centers, where conditions often rival third world jails -- for actual criminals. The majority of these detainees have not committed a crime -- they only violated immigration laws, and illegal presence in the country is a civil/administrative, not a criminal, offense. Shah reports that the Elizabeth Detention Center is infamous for brutal treatment of detainees, including physical assault, lack of health care, and denial of access to legal representation or even to make a phone call. Five reported deaths at the center are dogged by cover-ups and mistreatment, as revealed by an ACLU/New York Times Freedom of Information Request.

"Our immigration laws and policies must be aligned with our humanitarian values," says Kathy O'Leary, NJ Coordinator for Pax Christi. At the moment, that's clearly not the case -- if our current immigration and detention system reflects our humanitarian values, then our society has certainly lost its way.

Love Thy Neighbor -- Pass Immigration Reform

The Huffington Post
Jorge-Mario CabreraDirector of Communications and Public Relations, CHIRLA
Posted: February 3, 2010 01:56 PM

Drowned by 1,000 and more voices chanting "Viva Luis Gutierrez" and "Tu Puedes, Luis" (you can do it, Luis), the Representative from Illinois of Puerto Rican descent got up to the podium at Our Lady of Angels Church, better known as La Placita, to lift the spirits of a peoples pummeled through the ages, and to point his finger at the Obama administration's lukewarm forging of a road ahead to overhaul the nation's broken immigration system.

He did so in an earnest fashion, typical of him. He did so, red faced and passionate, addressing the crowd in the beautiful Boricua lexicon, fully aware his words were drops of water in a desert of hope. Immigrant families, their children, men and women, students, immigration rights advocates, faith leaders, and union members all watched in awe and welcomed the immigration reform champion to the city's oldest Catholic house of prayer.

Rep. Gutierrez arrived heaven-sent to Los Angeles this week, invited by the venerable labor leader, Maria Elena Durazo, to speak to their annual congress about labor laws and workers' rights. He took time off to talk about immigration reform to hundreds of advocates who came from all over the state bearing hundreds of difficult questions. He addressed the possible timeline ("If by April we have not introduced something, we will not have reform in 2010"). He spoke of challenges ahead ("It will be difficult, no doubt about it. But to those who oppose my plan, let them propose a better one"). And, he called upon the White House to humanize the immigrant plight ("We are illegals when it's convenient. We are criminals when it's not an election. We are human beings, and we cannot let them forget it.").

The Congressman was not bluffing when he warned that our community risks bitterness and apathy after so much disillusionment and deadlines past. During the nationally-syndicated El Piolin por la Manana radio show, the legislator heard from a caller named Geovanni. "Why don't you give up, Mr. Congressman," asked the caller. "We are not wanted in this country; we are not going to get anything good from them." Rep. Gutierrez listened, breathed deeply and responded:

If my wife had given up on me whenever I did something wrong, we would not be together still after 33 years of marriage. When you love someone, you tell them they are doing wrong because you want them to be a better person. I want my president to be the best one ever. I want him to excel. We do not have the luxury of giving up, my people, we cannot let this president down. We need to tell him he's being ill advised.
The crowd at La Placita heard the same exact message, straight from the horse's mouth. The Congressman added, "my wife and I were united by love and God. No one, not even the president of the United States of America, can undo what God has made. When we say we value families, we cannot mean we value some families above others. If you love thy neighbor, we must approve immigration reform. No more family separations, no more raids." The thunderous applause echoed the sentiment and underscored the deeply felt resentment of a community in crisis. A woman sitting in the front row lifted a little girl above her head as if to say, no one will separate me from this child. No one.

Read more »

Pregnant and Shackled: Hard Labor for Arizona's Immigrants

Pregnant and Shackled: Hard Labor for Arizona's Immigrants

New America Media, News Feature, Valeria Fernández , Posted: Jan 26, 2010

PHOENIX, Ariz.— Miriam Mendiola-Martinez, an undocumented immigrant charged with using someone else’s identity to work, gave birth to a boy on Dec. 21 at Maricopa Medical Center. After her C-section, she was shackled for two days to her hospital bed. She was not allowed to nurse her baby. And when guards walked her out of the hospital in shackles, she had no idea what officials had done with her child.

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'Illegal Me'

In the wake of 911, after my return home from the Americorps, I met my future husband who was and is an "illegal immigrant". He invited me to go salsa dancing - I declined secretly hoping he would ask me to do something else, less daunting for a near 6’ gal. He was relentless and I finally accepted.

Raul and I got married on a beautiful day in June of 2006. We knew going into our marriage that there would be no way for us to legally stay in the states. I ask myself all the time, especially now with two little innocent baby girls, why I got us into this, knowing the repercussions of Raul’s trek across the Arizona desert. In my better moments I thank God for the wonderful man I share my life with and for the people I have come to know because of him.

Our story burns inside me because I know we are not alone. I hope this blog will create awareness, however small, of undocumented immigrants in the U.S and families just like mine.

The Prospects for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

January 21, 2010

Senate Democrats Press Advocates to Embrace Expanded Enforcement
The Prospects for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
By STEWART J. LAWRENCE

After months of procedural delay and understandable preoccupation with the economy and health care, the White House has quietly announced plans to introduce a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the Senate next month. The move surprised many political observers who have watched the Obama administration constantly postpone action on immigration reform in order to address a host of other policy issues.

Read more »

What King's Civil Rights Legacy Means for Immigration Reform

What King's Civil Rights Legacy Means for Immigration Reform


By Seth Hoy, Immigration Impact

Posted on January 18, 2010, Printed on March 9, 2010


Today, we celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man whose dream of equality and human rights changed the course of history. His legacy will be remembered this week by people of all colors and creeds who still believe in the American dream and who continue to fight for equality, civil rights and the basic human dignity they deserve. Over the weekend, thousands of human rights activists took to the street in Phoenix, Arizona, to march for civil rights and for "long-overdue federal action on immigration."

So how is immigration a civil rights issue? In a recent editorial, Rev. Harvey Clemons Jr., the pastor of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church in Houston, connects Dr. King’s fight for equality with the struggle many immigrants face today.

Immigration is about human dignity and the nobility of parents of different tribes and nations facing the risk of coming to a foreign land, a land of opportunity, to work for a better tomorrow for their children…Dr. King invoked the truth, the truth being that all humans ought to be treated with a certain dignity. It would be natural for us to look to him as an example for fighting for a just cause.

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Follow MLK's guidance on immigration reform

Follow MLK's guidance on immigration reform
By THE REV. HARVEY CLEMONS JR.
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Dec. 3, 2009, 7:41PM

It is nothing new for an African-American minister like me to look at Scripture and perceive that something is amiss in our society. That was Martin Luther King Jr.'s story. King dared to read Scripture and proclaim God gave all people the dignity and intelligence to choose which bus seat was right for them, even in Alabama. King's vision included more than justice for black folk. His vision included all God's children, red and yellow, black and white.

King's vision and struggles are important to remember as serious conversations about immigration reform are again beginning to brew, as indicated by the remarks last month of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano at the Center for American Progress. Though the conversation concerning immigration in America is more ancient than King, King's vision provides a helpful tool with which to view the immigration struggle today. Immigration is about human dignity and the nobility of parents of different tribes and nations facing the risk of coming to a foreign land, a land of opportunity, to work for a better tomorrow for their children.

Nearly 18 months ago, a conversation with a Latino brother demanded that I move my understanding of the immigration issue past propaganda and common perception. Spurred by his passion, friends and I gathered with prominent immigration lawyers, leaders from the Greater Houston Partnership and the Latino community to learn how the immigration system was affecting the daily lives of people in our community and the well-being of our community itself.

The perception garnered from the media is often that undocumented immigrants simply go around the open door of the legal immigration system, but that morning I learned how an unworkable immigration system closes the vast majority of legal avenues for those who desire to immigrate legally. The perception from the media is often that immigrants do not pay taxes; that morning I learned undocumented workers pay taxes and to a much greater degree than what they consume in our state, with an estimated $400 million surplus. Also, I did not know undocumented immigrants contributed more than $17 billion to our state's economy, how an enforcement-only policy would cost our economy $651 billion in annual output, or how immigrant parents lived continually under the threat of being separated from their children. For too long, advocates who fear immigrants have acted as the primary molders of our perception concerning immigration, convincing us all too easily that their fears fall in line with reality.

To many, it seems strange that I, an African-American minister from the Fifth Ward, would focus much of my energy and resources to work along with other leaders in our city for immigration reform. Yet I am a Christian and a disciple with the call to see Christ in the humanity of all who suffer. This was the remarkable passion of King. Today, many others and I share this same passion. King saw the world from the perspective of God's love. God's love gave King the courage to work with all God's children so that the foolishness of fear-mongers would not cut the country off from its pursuit of a more perfect union.

Listen not to false prophets who wrap their politics around the fear of the immigrant. It is not a new song they sing. In fact, it is eerily similar to the songs sung not too long ago. They sang that slavery was God's way until that song sounded ridiculous. They altered the song and sang segregation was God's way until that too sounded ridiculous. Now the song of the false prophets paints the immigrant as a threat to, rather than a pillar of, American society; paints undocumented fathers and mothers working from sunrise to sundown as a drain of our nation's resources rather than a reminder of our heroic beginnings; and paints immigrant children as a national burden rather than our nation's blessing.

Napolitano closed her remarks on immigration by stating that immigration is “ingrained in our national character …. But we must modernize our laws for the 21st century so that this vision can endure. This is a task that is critical, that is attainable, and that we are fully committed to fulfilling.” Like in the days of King, we know much of what we need to do. The only question is whether or not we have the courage to continue the noble legacy with which we have been entrusted by working to be the land of opportunity for all people in all positions of life. Please join us at www.houstonimmigrationreform.org.

In Quake Aftermath, U.S. Suspends Deportations to Haiti

The New York Times
January 14, 2010
In Quake Aftermath, U.S. Suspends Deportations to Haiti
By JULIA PRESTON

Responding to the devastation from the Haiti earthquake, Obama administration officials on Wednesday temporarily suspended deportations of illegal immigrants from that country.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Haitian deportations would be halted “for the time being,” without specifying a time period. Immigration officials said it was clear they could be putting Haitians’ safety at risk by sending them back to a country staggering from the vast destruction of the quake. About 30,000 Haitians in the United States are facing deportation orders, immigration officials said.

Lawmakers and immigrant advocacy groups renewed calls for the administration to grant Haiti a special status that would shield Haitian immigrants in this country from deportation for an extended period and allow them to work legally. The Haitian government and advocates here have been asking Washington to grant the status, known as temporary protected status, since late 2008.

Read more »

To Overhaul Immigration, Advocates Alter Tactics

The New York Times
January 2, 2010
To Overhaul Immigration, Advocates Alter Tactics
By JULIA PRESTON

Lacing up new pairs of walking shoes with a flourish, four immigrant students set out on foot from downtown Miami on Friday, starting a four-month walk to Washington to protest what they called the Obama administration’s lack of action on legislation granting legal status to illegal immigrants.

Three of the four protesters, who are current or former students at Miami Dade College, do not have legal-resident status and risk detention by immigration authorities during the 1,500-mile walk.

The students’ trek showed the resolve and also some limitations of groups supporting an immigration overhaul that would include measures to legalize illegal immigrants. Those groups said this week that they would start a national campaign in January to pressure President Obama to push for the overhaul before midterm elections in November.

But as immigration enforcement has continued at a steady pace during the first year of the Obama administration, many illegal immigrants are clinging to jobs and families in this country and may be afraid to participate in public demonstrations. With unemployment holding at 10 percent, immigrant advocates acknowledge that their campaign could awaken passionate opposition in Congress and around the country.

Read more »

Fight on Immigration Reform Looms for Obama in '10

TIME
Fight on Immigration Reform Looms for Obama in '10
By Michael Scherer / WASHINGTON Sunday, Jan. 04, 2009

In the fall of 2007, federal agents raided 11 McDonald's restaurants in the Reno area, rounding up 56 employees on suspicion of working in the country illegally. A couple of weeks later, Barack Obama, then a long-shot candidate for President stumping through Nevada, got asked about the Bush Administration's policy of sporadic workplace immigration raids.

The candidate was unimpressed. "We are not going to solve the problem of 12 million immigrants here, 50 immigrants at a time," Obama said in October of that year. "I think this is much more for show than having a practical effect. We need comprehensive immigration reform."
(See pictures of immigrants in America.)

Two years later, that need is still unaddressed, and it's Obama's Administration that is the target of criticism. President Obama has eliminated the regular workplace roundups of illegal immigrants, but the crackdown on employers of illegal immigrants has, by contrast, increased. In November, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) announced 1,000 new audits of employers who were suspected of employing illegal immigrants. This followed the July announcement of audits of 654 companies, which included reviews of more than 85,000 employee records and the discovery of more than 14,000 suspect documents. As a result of the crackdown, thousands of undocumented workers were fired from their jobs.
(Read a report card on Obama's first year in office.)

"On the enforcement side, we are really stepping up our efforts to audit employers, to investigate employers for knowing violations, to fine them and to prosecute them when appropriate," says John Morton, Obama's choice as director of ICE. "We are doing it on a much larger scale than it was done before."

According to government records, 1,897 workplace enforcement cases were initiated between April 30 and Nov. 19 of 2009, compared to 605 cases during the same period a year earlier under the Bush Administration. In Los Angeles, the designer clothing company American Apparel fired about 1,800 employees in September following an ICE audit of employee records. In Minneapolis and St. Paul, the contract company ABM fired about 1,200 unionized janitors after a similar investigation.

The scope of the crackdown has raised objections from many of Obama's labor and civil rights supporters, who are demanding a more targeted enforcement effort focused on employers that provide poor work conditions or substandard wages. "These seemingly arbitrary audits represent a version of the flawed thinking that went into the Bush Administration's work-site raids," wrote Service Employees International Union president Andy Stern in a Dec. 11 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. "Forcing the dismissal of such a tiny percentage of the hardworking men and women who work long days mopping floors, sewing our clothes, or handling meat on a factory line does not make us any stronger as a nation."

Morton says that the ICE audits, which involve individual checks of employee citizenship documentation, are intentionally broad and part of an effort to get companies to self-regulate. At the same time, the Department of Homeland Security has been marketing the voluntary use of the E-Verify program, an Internet-based system that allows employers to check the citizenship status of new hires. "We have to enforce the law, and the law isn't restricted to people who employ unlawful labor and have abusive working conditions," says ICE's Morton. "The law is that employers must hire people with work authorization."

The crackdown helps set the stage for a major legislative push for immigration reform in 2010, an effort that is supported by unions and the Department of Homeland Security. In a speech at the liberal Center for American Progress in November, Napolitano argued that the stronger enforcement efforts, combined with a more robust border-protection effort in the past year, set the stage for the passage of reform, which would provide a path to citizenship for many of the 12 million illegal immigrants in America. "Over the past year, as this Administration has pursued more effective strategies within the current laws, the picture of how exactly those laws need to be changed has become clearer than ever before," Napolitano said. "If we are truly going to fix a broken system, Congress will have to act."

Both Democratic and Republican strategists express hope and concern about a battle over immigration reform this year, which could yield legislation for the President to sign as soon as the summer. For Republicans, the concern is that a divisive battle could motivate Hispanic turnout for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections. For Democrats, the concern is that independent voters, who are deeply concerned about high unemployment and a still sluggish economy, will see a major fight over citizenship for undocumented immigrants as an unwelcome distraction from other priorities. Democrats have already introduced an immigration bill in the House, and one is expected in the Senate early next year.

Groups opposed to Obama's immigration-reform effort have taken little solace in the stepped-up enforcement efforts, in part because the Obama Administration is not aggressively seeking to deport those workers who are fired for fraudulent paperwork. "Effective enforcement is pretty much past tense," says Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a conservative group that opposes giving a path to legalization for current undocumented residents. "The illegal workers are clearly allowed to remain in the country."

That said, few doubt that Obama will have an easier time selling the idea of reform that legalizes current undocumented immigrants if he can argue that the reforms would be accompanied by serious enforcement, something that never happened after the last legalization effort. "We know that one-sided reform, as we saw in 1986, cannot succeed," Napolitano said in November. "During that reform effort, the enforcement part of the equation was promised, but it didn't materialize."

All this suggests that 2010 is sure to see even more crackdowns on employers around the country for employing undocumented workers. The President who once dismissed immigration enforcement "for show" is now clearly trying to make a show of his own enforcement chops.

A Closer Look at Immigration Reform Legislation in the New Year

By Mary Giovagnoli

Everyone pulled out the sports analogies last week when Congressman Luis Gutierrez and his 91 co-sponsors introduced H.R. 4321, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009—and rightly so, as this bill marks the opening bell in the 2010 immigration debate. It is not only the first major piece of comprehensive reform legislation introduced in the 111th Congress, but the first since the last debate on immigration reform, which took place in May and June of 2007 in the Senate.

But CIR ASAP also marks the end of a year that has been filled with movement on immigration reform. Most of it was not legislative, but reflected instead the change in Presidential administrations. Among the key developments:

-Janet Napolitano, governor of Arizona, an outspoken supporter of the comprehensive immigration reform and smart enforcement strategies, was named Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. She immediately called for review of enforcement programs that were highly criticized, including 287(g), E-verify, and worksite raids. This review ultimately led to major reforms in detention practices, an end to the massive worksite raids of the past, and a revamping of 287(g).

-President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to CIR over and over again, most notably by calling a White House summit of key Congressional leaders in May, naming Napolitano as his point person for getting reform done. Other cabinet leaders have been pulled into the effort, too. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, speaking at the Center for American Progress last week noted that cabinet secretaries and their staff are meeting weekly to coordinate administration efforts on reform.

-The President’s budget included a request for appropriated funds for USCIS, to pay for the costs of processing, asylum refugee, and military naturalization applications. Although Congress ultimately appropriated only a small portion of those funds, the mere fact that the administration recognized the need to revisit current fee structures (in which the agency must fund its operations almost exclusively through fees), marked a major policy departure, and the glimmer of true fee reform.

Still, there’s no denying the significance of the 644 page legislative package introduced last week. While it is a product of 2009, many of the proposals, including detention reforms and family reunification proposals, reflect tremendous work over the years by many of the co-sponsors—including Reps. Woolsey, Roybal Allard, Honda, Grijalva, Reyes, and Berman—while other sections incorporate legislation from Senators Menendez, Durbin, and former Senator Obama. As with all legislation of this type, it is a compilation of new and old ideas, woven together to reflect both a prescription for immigration policy and a plan for bringing along votes.

Does this mean that CIR ASAP is merely a marker bill, one designed to throw down the gauntlet, but not to move? Not exactly. Senator Schumer, as head of the Senate’s immigration subcommittee, and Congresswoman Lofgren, chair of the House Immigration subcommittee, are both expected to champion their own legislative packages in the coming year. It’s anticipated that Sen. Schumer will introduce his own comprehensive package early in 2010, which is likely to change significantly as it goes through committee, and then through the whole Senate. Assuming Senate passage, then the House will have to decide whether to simply take up the Senate bill, introduce a new package, or take CIR ASAP and its fellow proposals (and there will be more, it’s the nature of the game) through committee markups and so forth. So, it’s hard to tell what everything will look like by the time a bill hits the president’s desk. But CIR ASAP contains a number of viable solutions, and the final package will no doubt reflect some of those ideas—and hopefully some of the passion that infuses the bill.

So, while CIR ASAP may be the beginning of an era, it is also the end of a period of transition. The administration has made its position pretty clear. A big chunk of the House has now, too. The next move is Senator Schumer’s—and then the real games begin.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform to be Introduced December 15

Comprehensive Immigration Reform to be Introduced December 15

December 11, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Washington D.C.) On Tuesday, December 15, Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) will introduce new legislation, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (CIR ASAP), to the U.S. House of Representatives. Gutierrez will be joined by members of many different faiths and backgrounds, including the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Black Caucus, Asian Pacific American Caucus and Progressive Caucus.

Who:
Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (IL-4), Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Immigration Task Force

Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (NY-12), Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus

Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (NY-11), Whip of the Congressional Black Caucus

Rep. Mike Honda (CA-15), Chair of Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus

Rep. Lynn Woolsey (CA-6), Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus

Rep. Judy Chu (CA-32)

Rep. Joseph Crowley (NY-7)

Rep. Pedro R. Pierluisi (PR-At large)

Rep. Jared Polis (CO-2)

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-9)

Rep. Jose E. Serrano (NY-16)

Other Members of Congress

What:
Introduction of Comprehensive Immigration Reform Legislation

When:
12:30 pm, Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Where:
Room 2220, Rayburn House Office Building

"We have waited patiently for a workable solution to our immigration crisis to be taken up by this Congress and our President," said Rep. Gutierrez. "The time for waiting is over. This bill will be presented before Congress recesses for the holidays so that there is no excuse for inaction in the New Year. It is the product of months of collaboration with civil rights advocates, labor organizations, and members of Congress. It is an answer to too many years of pain —mothers separated from their children, workers exploited and undermined security at the border— all caused at the hands of a broken immigration system. This bill says 'enough,' and presents a solution to our broken system that we as a nation of immigrants can be proud of."

Testimony on "Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security"

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano reiterated the Obama Administration’s plan to push for Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation early next year.

...Finally, we look forward to working with you on immigration reform. The President is committed to that. He is committed to reform that includes serious, effective and sustained enforcement, that includes improved legal flows for families and workers, and a firm way to deal with those already illegally in the country.

We need to demand responsibility and accountability from everyone involved. The Department of Homeland Security, our law enforcement partners, businesses who must be able to find the workers they need here in America, and immigrants themselves as we enforce the law moving forward.

So I look forward to working with you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Sessions and others on this Committee to develop a path forward early next year to reform the immigration system as a whole.

In Commemoration of Human Rights Day 2009

December 9, 2009
From FCNL: In Commemoration of Human Rights Day 2009

Hello all,

Becca Sheff at FCNL, the organization I used to work for, wrote this article which was published in yesterday’s E-News. She makes a powerful argument that health is a human right as she discusses why immigrants should be included in the final heathcare reform bill.

Much of what she says also rings true to my work here in Burundi. Check it out:

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. ~World Health Organization, 1948

If you don’t have your health, then almost nothing else matters. From the smallest of injuries to grave illnesses, poor health disrupts daily life and can threaten your livelihood or even your survival. What so many of us take for granted – a healthy body, access to health care, and an environment conducive to good health – remains inaccessible for many of today’s immigrants.

This Thursday, December 10, is Human Rights Day, which commemorates the 61st anniversary of the creation of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. This year, as health care reform advances in Congress and immigration reform is around the corner, let’s take a moment to consider whether immigrants deserve to be in good health.

This should seem like a no-brainer, right? Of course immigrants deserve to be healthy, just like everyone else. But this notion, that people have rights based on their common humanity, is actually not yet well accepted in the United States. It is time for the U.S. government to recognize that the right to health is an essential and basic human right.

Immigrants face multiple barriers to good health. Conflicts abroad can force them from their homelands, sending them on a circuitous journey across national borders with few resources. Environmental destruction can dry up wells, destroy crops, and send people out in search of a better life. Economic disparities and governmental policies can deny immigrants and other marginalized populations access to basic health care even when it is widely available to the rest of the population.

The premise of human rights like the right to health is that people deserve to live with a certain level of dignity, and if they are unable to achieve that on their own, then their government will step in and help them out. Human rights law is a way of holding governments responsible to their people.

International human rights law clearly supports health as a human right. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights both state that all peoples have the right to a standard of living that promotes physical and mental health and well-being. In addition, the United States, as a signatory to the Charter of the Organization of American States, is committed to development efforts that promote a healthful life for all.

But how do these international commitments translate on the ground?

If the state of the current health reform legislation is any indicator, then the United States has a long way to go in ensuring that all of its residents – including immigrants – have access to adequate health care. Even with the upcoming reforms, immigrants face significant and unfair restrictions. Undocumented immigrants may not be able to buy coverage in the health insurance exchange even with their own money. Immigrants with green cards, who are in the country legally, would still face a 5-year ban for Medicaid.

From a public health standpoint, it just makes sense to want as many people as possible to have good access to health care. Healthy people make for healthy and productive communities. This is a common-sense solution to a shared problem. From a human rights standpoint, immigrants deserve health care coverage just as much as anyone else.

But the broken U.S. immigration system prevents immigrants from demanding their rights. Undocumented immigrants, unable to adjust their legal status, are particularly at risk of human rights abuses.

One of the most prominent sites of human rights abuses is the immigration detention system. The Department of Homeland Security will detain more than 440,000 immigrants annually by the end of 2009. Most of these immigrants are non-criminal and are suspected only of immigration violations, yet they are detained in jail-like settings and routinely denied access to basic and timely health care. Cases have been documented in which regularly taken medication was withheld, follow-up treatment for cancer was denied, and sick call requests were ignored. At least 104 immigrants have died in detention since 2003. This is unacceptable.

Just about everyone agrees that the U.S. immigration system is broken and needs fixing. Immigrants and their families need workable solutions that make it possible to live with dignity, in a way that is consistent with this country’s values of equality and opportunity. Health is an essential part of this equation.

In honor of Human Rights Day and in recognition of health as a human right, Congress should include immigrants in the final health reform bill and work toward passing humane and comprehensive immigration reform in early 2010.

We Can Fix This

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/11/napolitano_event.html

White House to Begin Push on Immigration Overhaul in 2010

The New York Times
November 14, 2009
White House to Begin Push on Immigration Overhaul in 2010
By JULIA PRESTON

The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.

In her first major speech on the overhaul, Ms. Napolitano dispelled any suggestion that the administration — with health care, energy and other major issues crowding its agenda — would postpone the most contentious piece of immigration legislation until after midterm elections next November.

Laying out the administration’s bottom line, Ms. Napolitano said officials would argue for a “three-legged stool” that includes tougher enforcement laws against illegal immigrants and employers who hire them and a streamlined system for legal immigration, as well as a “tough and fair pathway to earned legal status.”

With unemployment surging over 10 percent and Congress still wrangling over health care, advocates on all sides of the immigration debate had begun to doubt that President Obama would keep his pledge to tackle the divisive illegal immigration issue in the first months of 2010.

Speaking at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, Ms. Napolitano unveiled a double-barrel argument for a legalization program, saying it would enhance national security and, as the economy climbs out of recession, protect American workers from unfair competition from lower-paid, easily exploited illegal immigrants.

“Let me emphasize this: we will never have fully effective law enforcement or national security as long as so many millions remain in the shadows,” she said, adding that the recovering economy would be strengthened “as these immigrants become full-paying taxpayers.”

Under the administration’s plan, illegal immigrants who hope to gain legal status would have to register, pay fines and all taxes they owe, pass a criminal background check and learn English.

Drawing a contrast with 2007, when a bill with legalization provisions offered by President George W. Bush failed in Congress, Ms. Napolitano said the Obama administration had achieved a “fundamental change” in border security and enforcement against employers hiring illegal immigrants. She said a sharp reduction in the flow of illegal immigrants into the country created an opportunity to move ahead with a legalization program.

Some Republicans were quick to challenge Ms. Napolitano’s claims that border security had significantly improved or that American workers would be helped by bringing illegal immigrants into the system.

“How can they claim that enforcement is done when there are more than 400 open miles of border with Mexico?” asked Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the senior Republican on the House Judiciary Committee. He said the administration should “deport illegal immigrant workers so they don’t remain here to compete with citizen and legal immigrant job seekers.”

But Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the top Republican on the Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, agreed that it was time to open the immigration debate. “My commitment to immigration reform has not changed,” he said in a statement Friday. “I am interested in seeing a proposal sooner rather than later from President Obama.”

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York and the chairman of that subcommittee, has been writing an overhaul bill and consulting with Republicans, particularly Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Mr. Schumer said that the administration’s agenda was “ambitious,” but that he was “confident we can have a bipartisan immigration bill ready to go under whatever timeline the president thinks is best.”

Ms. Napolitano has been leading the administration’s efforts to gather ideas and support for the immigration overhaul, meeting in recent weeks with business leaders, religious groups, law enforcement officials and others to gauge their willingness to go forward with a debate in Congress.

Framing the administration’s proposals in stark law and order terms, she said immigration legislation should include tougher laws against migrant smugglers and more severe sanctions for employers who hire unauthorized workers.

Ms. Napolitano said that the Border Patrol had grown by 20,000 officers and that more than 600 miles of border fence had been finished, meeting security benchmarks set by Congress in 2007. She was echoing an argument adopted by Mr. Bush after the bill collapsed in 2007, and by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, in his race against Mr. Obama. They said Americans wanted to see effective enforcement before they would agree to legal status for millions of illegal immigrants.

Some immigrant advocates were dismayed by Ms. Napolitano’s approach. Benjamin E. Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council, praised her package of proposals, but said some enforcement policies she outlined “have proven to do more harm than good.”

Over 100 Democrats Push Obama on Immigration Reform

Over 100 Democrats Push Obama on Immigration Reform

Posted By La Prensa San Diego On October 30, 2009 @ 7:28 pm

By Marcelo Ballvé

Is immigration reform back?

Hoping to jump-start a major legislative drive on immigration reform in the U.S. Congress, more than 100 pro-reform House Democrats signed a letter reminding President Obama of his administration’s commitment to overhaul immigration.

The letter was clearly meant to nudge the White House toward engaging an issue it has allowed to languish.

The letter expressed House Democrats’ “commitment to fix our broken immigration system” and cited “strong support for moving forward on fair and humane comprehensive immigration reform this year.” One of the signees, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, is gearing up to introduce a major immigration reform bill as early as next month.

Immigration advocates and their allies in Congress believe there is a window for immigration reform to pass early next year, before midterm elections complicate the political calculus.

“The room for doing this is very tight,” Gutierrez said earlier this month on the Spanish-language Univision network’s political talk program, “Al Punto.” “We have to do it in February or early March of next year.”

The renewed buzz around reform has raised expectations in the Hispanic community, but since such hopes have been dashed before, there is still an undercurrent of skepticism.

Despite the stirrings in the lower House of Representatives, it’s still unclear how much traction an immigration fix has in the Congress overall. Gutierrez’s bill and the letter to President Obama are only opening plays in a long campaign to push immigration to the center of Washington, D.C.’s always crowded agenda.

The recent moves might help Democrats show Hispanic voters that the party is aware of widespread frustration with the current immigration system. But there’s still no clear commitment to a timetable for an overhaul, or certainty that it will come.

“The timeline for immigration remains uncertain,” acknowledged Rep. Joseph Crowley, the New York Democrat who organized the letter on immigration sent to President Obama and signed by 111 House Democrats.

Time, he went on to admit, is short. Because of the November 2010 elections, “the further we go into next year… the more difficult I think it will be to address this issue” as risk-averse incumbents avoid controversial issues like immigration.

Rep. Crowley spoke during a teleconference call with reporters organized last week by the National Immigration Forum, a nonpartisan pro-immigration advocacy group in Washington, D.C., and New America Media.

Immigrant advocates know that once health care reform is settled, immigration will compete with other crucial issues, including banking regulation and the interrelated climate and energy questions, for political attention, said Ali Noorani, National Immigration Forum’s executive director.

That is why pro-immigration groups like his are organizing letter-writing, fax, and email campaigns, to create a groundswell that will inject urgency into their demands that Congress act on immigration.

As always, immigration reform pivots on one sensitive question: What happens with the nation’s 12 million undocumented immigrants?

While most pro-reform advocates envision a path to some sort of legal status for undocumented immigrants already in the country, opponents call such plans an amnesty that would encourage still more illegal immigration.

The cries of “amnesty” sunk Congress’s last serious attempt to reform immigration in 2007, and this time pro-reform advocates want to ensure that they are not drowned out by anti-immigration voices.

“We must keep up the drumbeat,” wrote Tamar Jacoby, head of Immi-grationWorks USA, a pro-immigration business group, in an e-mail to supporters. “Many members of Congress still don’t get it. Many are still leery of immigration. And when they go home to their districts, they still hear only the voices shouting ‘No.’ We have to help change that.”

Local groups advocating for immigrants’ rights are striving to be proactive.

“We need to take control of this [reform] timeline,” said Chung-Wa Hong, New York Immigrant Coalition executive director.

Hong, who participated in the teleconference last week with Rep. Crowley, said immigrant voters “are angry – they voted for change and they’re seeing more of the same.” She said that only a surge of voter demands for an immigration overhaul would galvanize Congress into action, and any expectations of a Washington, D.C.-initiated fix were politically naive.

Part of the problem for immigration reform is partisanship. Rep. Crowley could cite only one possible Republican backer by name: Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake.

When pushed to outline a reform plan that House Democrats could get behind, Rep. Crowley emphasized tighter border security and the targeting of “bad actor” employees who exploit undocumented immigrants. These get-tough measures are clearly designed to attract Republican support for a reform bill that would presumably create a path to legalization for those without papers.

President Reagan tried a similar “carrot and stick” plan in 1986, granting legal status to millions of undocumented along with cracking down on employers who hired unauthorized workers.

But there is little indication that present-day Republicans have an appetite for following Reagan’s lead. Michael Steele, president of the Republican National Committee, has long blamed the 1986 immigration law for today’s illegal immigration crisis.

More recently, in his own appearance on Univision’s Al Punto program, Steele said he was sick of politicians exploiting the “hot politics” of immigration. He also advocated for immigrants to assimilate by working hard, eating apple pie and learning the Star Spangled Banner.

But he gave no specifics on what sort of an immigration reform plan Republicans might be willing to hammer out with Democrats.

Noorani, of the National Immigration Forum, believes immigration reform has a “very, very good opportunity to move early in 2010.”

But until a substantive debate on immigration begins to build in Congress and nationwide, it will remain unclear whether the deadlock on immigration really is loosening.

The LAPD fights crime, not illegal immigration

Opinion

The LAPD fights crime, not illegal immigration
The outgoing chief of police urges the department to keep focusing on community outreach.
By William J. Bratton

October 27, 2009

On March 12, Juan Garcia, a 53-year-old homeless man, was brutally murdered in an alley off 9th and Alvarado streets in the Westlake District, just west of downtown Los Angeles. At first, the police were stumped; there were no known witnesses and few clues. Then a 43-year-old undocumented immigrant who witnessed the crime came forward and told the homicide detectives from the Rampart station what he saw. Because of his help, a suspect was identified and arrested a few days later while hiding on skid row. Because the witness was not afraid to contact the police, an accused murderer was taken off the streets, and we are all a little bit safer. Stories like this are repeated daily in Los Angeles.

Keeping America's neighborhoods safe requires our police forces to have the trust and help of everyone in our communities. My nearly 40 years in law enforcement, and my experience as police commissioner in Boston and New York City and as chief in Los Angeles, have taught me this.

Yet every day our effectiveness is diminished because immigrants living and working in our communities are afraid to have any contact with the police. A person reporting a crime should never fear being deported, but such fears are real and palpable for many of our immigrant neighbors.

This fear is not unfounded. Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that 11 more locations across the United States have agreed to participate in a controversial law enforcement program known as 287(g). The program gives local law enforcement agencies the powers of federal immigration agents by entering into agreements with Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Although many local agencies have declined to participate in 287(g), 67 state and local law enforcement agencies are working with ICE, acting as immigration agents.

Some in Los Angeles have asked why the LAPD doesn't participate. My officers can't prevent or solve crimes if victims or witnesses are unwilling to talk to us because of the fear of being deported. That basic fact led to the implementation almost 30 years ago of the LAPD's policy on immigrants, which has come to be known as Special Order 40. The order prohibits LAPD officers from initiating contact with someone solely to determine whether they are in the country legally. The philosophy that underlies that policy is simple: Criminals are the biggest benefactors when immigrants fear the police. We can't solve crimes that aren't reported because the victims are afraid to come forward to the police.

The idea of engaging all members of the public in reporting crime and identifying criminals not only helps us with short- and medium-term goals of reducing crime; it helps improve relations with community members. We all have an interest in helping our young people develop into healthy, educated and law-abiding adults. Breeding fear and distrust of authority among some of our children could increase rates of crime, violence and disorder as those children grow up to become fearful and distrustful adolescents and adults. That is why the Los Angeles Police Department has not participated in 287(g) and the federal government is not pressuring the department to do so.

Americans want a solution to our immigration dilemma, as do law enforcement officials across this nation. But the solution isn't turning every local police department into an arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Police Foundation published a report in April titled "The Role of Local Police: Striking a Balance Between Immigration Enforcement and Civil Liberties." The report confirms that when local police enforce immigration laws, it undermines their core public safety mission, diverts scarce resources, increases their exposure to liability and litigation, and exacerbates fear in communities that are already distrustful of police.

The report concluded that to optimize public safety, the federal government must enact comprehensive immigration reform. As police chief of one of the most diverse cities in the United States, and possibly the world, I agree. As I leave my position as leader of the LAPD, I will encourage my successor to adopt the same rigid attitude toward keeping Special Order 40 and keeping the mission of the men and women of the department focused on community cooperation instead of community alienation.

Working with victims and witnesses of crimes closes cases faster and protects all of our families by getting criminals off the street. We must pass immigration reform and bring our neighbors out of the shadows so they get the police service they need and deserve. When officers can speak freely with victims and witnesses, it goes a long way toward making every American neighborhood much safer.

William J. Bratton is chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. The Police Foundation's report is available online at http://www.policefoundation.

Police chiefs press for immigration reform

By Dennis Wagner, The Arizona Republic
PHOENIX — Some of the nation's top cops on Wednesday called upon Congress to promptly adopt an immigration reform measure, saying local law enforcement agencies across America are struggling to deal with crime and confusion caused by a broken system.
About 100 police chiefs and administrators from Framingham, Mass., to San Diego joined Department of Homeland Security officials in Phoenix for a National Summit on Local Immigration Policies sponsored by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit law enforcement educational organization.

During closed discussions, the participants agreed that America needs a comprehensive new law containing guest-worker programs, a means for immigrants to become permanent residents and federal enforcement of the prohibition against hiring illegal immigrants, according to Chuck Wexler, the forum's executive director.

Dennis Burke, senior adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, agreed with the police chiefs.

"Congress needs to work quickly," Burke said. "Delay is not painless. Secretary Napolitano has said the situation the country is in is not defensible."

The meeting focused on the struggles of community police agencies in coping with unlawful immigration and related crime. Police administrators said Department of Homeland Security enforcement efforts have inconsistent and unreliable for years, leaving police and sheriffs agencies to establish helter-skelter policies that polarize the public.

"It's starting to tear my town apart," said Steven Carl, the chief in Framington, "especially with the economy going south. You see a hatred toward the immigrant population."

Larry Boyd, police chief in Irving, Texas, said he has been "beaten over the head" by conservative groups for not going after illegal aliens, and by Latino groups for enforcing immigration laws. "Neither side was dealing with factual information," Boyd added, "but it's an issue the media loves to cover."

Phoenix police Chief Jack Harris noted that Arizona's capital city leads the nation in kidnappings — mostly involving human-smuggling syndicates that reflect federal policy failures. "It needs to be fixed, and it needs to be done sooner rather than later," Harris said.

Alan Bersin, President Obama's border czar, assured police administrators that a transformation is underway in Homeland Security.

"There's no question that under this secretary there's been a sea change," Bersin said, adding that ICE already is focusing more on workplace violations rather than immigrant roundups. However, he concluded, enforcement is likely to remain schizoid "until there is a reform of immigration law that is acceptable to the American people."

Police administrators were especially critical of the government's so-called "287(g)" program which provides for state and local police to enforce immigration law. The program has created nationwide confusion and controversy.

Paul Lewis, an associate professor of political science at Arizona State University who recently surveyed 237 U.S. police agencies, said nearly one-fifth of the departments have a policies that eschew immigration enforcement, 28% pursue undocumented aliens to some extent, and nearly half have no immigration enforcement policy at all.

George Gascón, outgoing police chief in Mesa, Ariz., noted that 60 Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies raided his suburban City Hall and library recently, looking for undocumented workers. Gascón said only three were arrested, adding, "I have seen the ugly side of this enforcement."

Many of the chiefs stressed that state and local immigration enforcement conflicts with community policing because it makes undocumented aliens fearful of reporting crimes or serving as witnesses. They said short-sighted policies lured the estimated 11.5 million undocumented immigrants into the United States, and the enforcement debate has been oversimplified by advocacy groups.

"I think a lot of people are trying to see, well, where's the new (Obama) administration going to go with this?" added Boyd, the Irving, Texas, police chief.