Immigration: October 2009 Archives

A few weeks ago, several hundred advocacy organizations demanded that the Obama administration overturn the aggressive enforcement policies that have alienated immigrant communities over the past eight years. The mounting opposition to one of the most controversial Bush Era anti-immigrant programs was joined this week by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

In a letter to the White House, Latino lawmakers called on the administration to "immediately terminate" 287(g), which enables collaboration between local and federal law enforcement in crackdowns on undocumented immigrants:

Although [the program's] stated purpose is to provide law enforcement a tool to pursue criminals, it is our experience that state and local law enforcement officials actually use their expanded and often unchecked powers under the program to target immigrants and persons of color. It is our opinion that no amount of reforms, no matter how well-intentioned, will change this disturbing reality.

by Adebe DeRango-Adem, research intern at the Applied Research Center.

Scholars should know the ABCs of United States visa processes if they're hoping to participate in any sort of intellectual activity — including the right to speak. As the new research intern at ARC, and the first Canadian to work in the New York City office, I've noticed how freedom-of-speech issues speak consistently to freedom-of-movement struggles and the politics of migration. When people can be capriciously barred from the United States for statements they made decades ago, what does this say for migrants with nobody to speak for them?

PEN, the international organization for the protection of writers' and activists' rights, has shed light on the recent news that prestigious German publisher and former activist Karl-Dietrich Wolff has been denied entry into the US. Scheduled to speak at Vassar College about the history of civil rights within the historical contexts of both Germany and Black America, the former head of the Socialist German Students Organization (SDS) and founder of Germany's Black Panther Solidarity Committee was refused entry at JFK airport in New York this past weekend.

Barred from entry due to an invalid visa, Wolff was forced to turn down his opportunity to speak at Vassar College, where he would have shared the stage with prolific activist/scholars such as Angela Davis to speak upon the larger global role of the civil rights movement. According to the the Guardian, Wolff was apparently denied entry due to his involvement in civil rights as a high school exchange student in the US in the early 1960s, a period during which he founded the Black Panther Solidarity Committee and was engaged with other radical thinkers, students and faculty alike.

By Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger

It's a sad irony that a President who wants to unite opposing factions presides over an increasingly entrenched and partisan political landscape. There seems to be no satisfactory compromise for both the health care and immigration reform debates. Well-worn rallying cries and talking points are tooled and retooled until the root issues are nearly forgotten. The situation is tragic because the people's needs are made secondary to an unending war between two political entities.

Alternet has the lowdown on several proposed, immigration-related amendments to the Senate Finance Committee's health care bill. Race is an absolute contributor to these amendments. Need an example? Senator Steve King (R-IA) is shunning free-market ideology when it comes to immigrants purchasing their own health care with their own money. As author Jackie Mahendra puts it, "Free-market Steve King vs. Anti-immigrant Steve King. That pretty much sums up how absurd this debate has become."

It is better for all of us that immigrants pay for their own insurance, and the health care bill should allow this. Mahendra notes that FAIR, an anti-immigrant organization and recognized hate group, is recruiting callers to pressure the Senate. She asks readers to take a moment to call their Senators "to oppose amendments that are bad policy for all Americans." If you are as tired of the unceasing, empty rhetoric on these issues as I am, this seems a good way to take action.

The truth is, race very much affects our politics today, and in many ways. Wiretap's M. Junaid Levesque-Alam writes of the increasing hostility towards President Obama, whose most raucous and visible opposition today comes from "monochromatic, middle-aged, white throngs." Levesque-Alam concludes with some advice for the President: Remind the voters how a reformed government can affect them positively. Without this reminder, people's anxieties and deep-seated biases are curdling into a sour and toxic brew.

Race-based irrationality and paranoia have also given birth to a new genre of infomercial, reports Talking Points Memo. Justin Elliot reports on the 28-minute Birthermercial that asks late-night viewers to "give $30 to have faxes sent to government officials demanding Obama produce his birth certificate." Attorney Gary Kreep, is one of the men behind the below video that asks "Where was PRESIDENT Obama BORN?" According to TPM, Kreep is "engaged in an intra-movement feud with the pioneering Birther attorney Orly Taitz."