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Is This Alabama? Her Citizens Speak Out On HB-56
Posted on February 17, 2012 by scjustice
After the Alabama legislature passed its Arizona-on-steroids anti-immigrant law last June, Hollywood’s Chris Weitz, whose directing credits include About a Boy and The Golden Compass, took his camera down there to ask the locals, “Is this Alabama?“
Weitz’s camera captured some ugliness, but it also found the good people of Alabama denouncing their state’s major step backwards. A lot of us South Carolinians should be able to relate. Often we see our worst elements making the national news, leaving us to wish that outsiders could see what the rest of us have to offer. Just recently, the audience at the GOP primary debate in Myrtle Beach embarrassed our state by fiercely booing the African-American moderator who challenged Newt Gingrich’s racist lies about food stamps.
We know that lots of good people live here, but it was the angry mob of bigots that was broadcast across the nation. With that in mind, check out Weitz’s videos:
Filed under: Alabama, Arizona-copycat laws, Deportation, immigrant community, Racism, S.B. 20, South Carolina | Tagged: Christ Weitz, Civil Rights, Is this Alabama? | Leave a Comment »
The Injustice Of Losing Your Children
Posted on February 16, 2012 by scjustice
Colorlines.com reports that a North Carolina man, deported in late 2010, is now in danger of losing his children. Felipe Montes and his wife, Marie, may soon lose their three children permanently if the Allegheny County child welfare department has its way. After being deported, the welfare department took the children, all of whom are U.S. citizens, from his wife. They have since been in foster care and are about to be put up for adoption.
The county’s Department of Social Services is planning to ask a judge to end efforts to reunite Montes with his kids. But, Montes has not been charged with neglect, nor has he been a bad father in the least. Take a look:
Nobody who knows Montes doubts that he is a wonderful father. For several years before his deportation, Montes worked cutting grass, cleaning gutters, splitting wood and doing whatever else his boss asked him to do. The owner of the company is one of many in the town who have only good things to say about him.
“He was a real good guy and as a worker he could do anything,” said the former employer. “He loved those kids more than anything. We’d be doing tree work and it’d be kind of dangerous and he’d say, ‘I’ll do this but if something happens you have to take care of the kids, ok?’”
According to Marie’s aunt, who is close to the family, Montes was the children’s primary caretaker. “He took care of her and the children, made sure they were clean, cared for and dressed. He did everything for those children”
Indeed, even the child welfare department, which now wants to take Montes’s children from him permanently, does not base its arguments for terminating parental rights on his character or history as a father.
After his deportation, Montes travelled to his uncle’s home in a small town in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. It’s to this simple five-room house that Montes wants to bring his kids. With the support of his uncle and aunt and in the company of three young cousins, he says his children would be cared for and loved.
“I will give all that I have to my kids,” Montes said. “I married and tried to start a family. I did not imagine coming back here, but I would never abandon my kids and I want them to be with me.”
How many more families in this country need to be torn apart before Congress recognizes the urgent need for comprehensive immigration reform?
Filed under: Deportation, immigrant community, Immigration and Customs Enforcement | Tagged: Allegheny County, child welfare, foster care, immigrant children, immigrant families, North Carolina | Leave a Comment »
Baby Boomers: 77 Million Reasons For Immigration Reform
Posted on February 14, 2012 by scjustice
The Future of a Generation:
How New Americans Will Help Support Retiring Baby Boomers
Washington D.C. – Today, the Immigration Policy Center releases The Future of a Generation: How New Americans Will Help Support Retiring Baby Boomers, by Walter Ewing, Ph.D.
The United States is in the midst of a profound demographic transformation that will long outlast the current economic downturn. In 2011, the first of the baby boomers—Americans born between 1946 and 1964—turned 65 years old. There are 77 million baby boomers, comprising nearly one quarter of the total population, and their eventual retirement will have an enormous impact on the U.S. economy.
There will be growing demand within the U.S. economy for younger workers and taxpayers as the number of working-age adults supporting those over 65 diminishes. More and more of these workers and taxpayers will be immigrants and the children of immigrants. Given these trends, and given the size of the predominantly white, native-born baby boom generation that is now heading into retirement, projections point to an inescapable conclusion: immigrants and the children of immigrants will play increasingly important roles within the U.S. economy as workers and taxpayers for decades to come.
Filed under: Deportation, DREAM Act | Tagged: baby boomers, demographics, Immigration Policy Center, New Americans, retiring, retirment, Walter Ewing | Leave a Comment »
Are Judges Sending Congress A Message On Immigration?
Posted on February 14, 2012 by scjustice
Ninth Circuit Court House
David Leopold at The Huffington Post reported today on evidence of frustration in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals over our broken immigration system and asked whether federal judges “are effectively throwing their hands up and imploring Congress to get to the hard work of fashioning a law that will provide America with a safe, orderly and fair immigration policy — one that protects American families and businesses and restores civil liberties.”
Leopold doesn’t have the answer to that question, but he does have a tidy, air-tight explanation of what the judges’ motives would be, if this is indeed the case:
Every day in this country, courts are forced to turn their backs on deserving immigrants and American citizens alike because of the dysfunctional immigration law. In courtrooms all across America, judges sit helplessly by, their hands legally tied, as the twisted immigration law wreaks havoc on American families, stymies American business, fails to protect people fleeing persecution, and stomps on the due process rights of immigrants and U.S. citizens. Its mean spirited provisions tear husbands from wives, parents from children and brothers from sisters. Like some sinister beast in a horror movie, the immigration law creeps into peoples’ lives and destroys them without so much as a second thought about the human suffering it leaves behind.
Filed under: Deportation, DREAM Act, immigrant community, Immigration and Customs Enforcement | Tagged: comprehensive immigration reform, Congress, courts, judges, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals | Leave a Comment »
This Week In Immigration
Posted on January 20, 2012 by scjustice
From Immigration Impact:
Holding the Obama Administration to Its Word on Prosecutorial Discretion
Signs that ICE is invested in the “Morton Memo” and subsequent guidance on prosecutorial discretion are beginning to show up at both ends of the legal spectrum. At one end, the New York Times reported yesterday that approximately one in six cases reviewed in a pilot program at the Denver immigration court may be indefinitely suspended. At the other end, a government attorney invoked ICE’s prosecutorial discretion policy during an argument this week before the Supreme Court. While both instances offer encouraging signs, they also demonstrate that the strength of the policy depends not on what’s been said in the past, but on how it will be implemented in the future.
Border Patrol to Roll Out New “Get Tough” Policy on Unauthorized Immigrants
This month, the U.S. Border Patrol is set to end the practice of sending unauthorized Mexican immigrants back to Mexico without any sort of punishment. As reported by the Associated Press, the Border Patrol believes it now has sufficient resources and personnel “to begin imposing more serious consequences on almost everyone it catches from Texas to San Diego.” This new policy, however, is as misguided as it is ambitious. While protecting our borders is certainly important, the Border Patrol will waste even more resources than it already does on criminalizing unauthorized immigration rather than targeting the dangerous cartels that smuggle unauthorized immigrants into the country. Furthermore, the Border Patrol’s new policy threatens to inundate federal courts and prisons with even more non-violent immigration offenders.
New Report Says Legalization Would Result in $1.4 billion in Revenues for Houston, Texas
A new report issued this month by the Greater Houston Partnership (GHP), a business advocacy organization, confirms that legalization of unauthorized workers would result in those workers earning higher wages and paying more taxes. Potential Tax Revenues from Unauthorized Workers in Houston’s Economy uses data from the Pew Hispanic Center to estimate the number of unauthorized immigrant workers, by industry, in the Houston area. Then, assuming that legalized workers would earn the prevailing wage in their industry, GHP estimates their projected incomes to which it applies the standard tax rate.
Advocates Call Romney’s Relationship with Anti-Immigrant Hawk “Political Suicide”
As if Mitt Romney’s repeated promise to veto the DREAM Act wasn’t alienating enough, advocates warn that Romney’s continued relationship with famed anti-immigrant hawk Kris Kobach is killing future support from Latino voters, especially in key states like New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida. Kobach, co-author of Arizona and Alabama’s extreme immigration enforcement laws, appeared in South Carolina Monday night to spin for the Romney campaign following the GOP debate.
Filed under: DREAM Act, immigrant community, Immigration and Customs Enforcement | Tagged: Mitt Romney, Morton Memo | Leave a Comment »
AZ-Copycat Laws Threaten Local Farmers, Crops
Posted on January 18, 2012 by scjustice
South Carolina peaches, they’re meant to be eaten.
It looks like farmers have woken up to the threat that “show me your papers” legislation poses to their livelihoods.
Case in point: In a recent article decrying the effects of state-level anti-immigrant laws on fruit and vegetable growing, Southeastern Farm Press described Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina as “three states that have become self-destructively hostile to migrant farm workers.”
Here’s what a couple of anonymous S.C. growers had to say in the article:
“We’re looking for alternative sources for our peaches, even for use as biofuels, because we don’t have the labor to pick the crop or to run our packing house,” says a South Carolina peach grower (he doesn’t want his name used because he fears it will bring down investigations of his farming operation and his use of migrant laborers).
The state’s vegetable industry is equally challenged. A Charleston County vegetable grower says he ended up burning 25 percent of his 80-acre tomato crop, because he had no labor for hand picking.
“I could have used 300 pickers,” he says. “I had 40. These people don’t cause any trouble — they just come here to work.” Like the South Carolina peach grower, he fears reprisals and is hesitant to say too much about the labor situation in his state.
I’m not sure that the peach farmer didn’t mean to say that he’s looking for “alternative markets” for his produce, but I do know that allowing even one delicious S.C. peach to skip our plates and go toward biofuel would be a crime against nature.
Seriously though, farmers, we welcome y’all to this fight and trust you will find numerous reasons to stand with us against these needlessly fearful laws.
Filed under: Alabama, Arizona-copycat laws, immigrant community, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Migrant Workers, S.B. 20, South Carolina | Tagged: farmers, Georgia, peaches, tomatoes | 1 Comment »
Bless Those Gathered Here Today And…
Posted on January 13, 2012 by scjustice
Filed under: Migrant Workers | Tagged: crops, farm workers, immigrants, migrant labor | Leave a Comment »
New Americans In SC: Their Political & Economic Power
Posted on January 13, 2012 by scjustice
The Immigration Policy Center has released an important study, highlighting the political and economic muscle of immigrants in each of the 50 states. The South Carolina stats are below. If you’d like your own PDF, which includes links and footnotes, click here.
NEW AMERICANS IN SOUTH CAROLINA:
The Political and Economic Power of Immigrants, Latinos, and Asians
in the Palmetto State
Immigrants, Latinos, and Asians account for large and growing shares of the economy and population in the state of South Carolina. Immigrants (the foreign-born) make up 4.7% of the state’s population and nearly one-third of immigrants in South Carolina are naturalized U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote. “New Americans”—immigrants and the children of immigrants—account for 2.3% of all registered voters in the state. Latinos and Asians (both foreign-born and native-born) wield $6.8 billion in consumer purchasing power. At last count, businesses owned by Latinos and Asians had sales and receipts of $4.6 billion and employed more than 29,000 people. At a time when the economy is in a slump, South Carolina can ill-afford to alienate such an important component of its labor force, tax base, and business community.
Filed under: immigrant community, South Carolina | Tagged: Asians, business, economic power, electorate, Immigration Policy Center, labor, Latinos, naturalized citizens, New Americans, political power, students, vote | Leave a Comment »
Analysis: The Next Immigration Challenge
Posted on January 12, 2012 by scjustice
From The New York Times:
By DOWELL MYERS
January 11, 2012
LOS ANGELES — THE immigration crisis that has roiled American politics for decades has faded into history. Illegal immigration is shrinking to a trickle, if that, and will likely never return to the peak levels of 2000. Just as important, immigrants who arrived in the 1990s and settled here are assimilating in remarkable and unexpected ways.
Taken together, these developments, and the demographic future they foreshadow, require bold changes in our approach to both legal and illegal immigration. Put simply, we must shift from an immigration policy, with its emphasis on keeping newcomers out, to an immigrant policy, with an emphasis on encouraging migrants and their children to integrate into our social fabric. “Show me your papers” should be replaced with “Welcome to English class.”
Restrictionists, including those driving much of the debate on the Republican primary trail, still talk as if nothing has changed. But the numbers are stark: the total number of immigrants, legal and illegal, arriving in the 2000s grew at half the rate of the 1990s, according to the Census Bureau.
The most startling evidence of the falloff is the effective disappearance of illegal border crossers from Mexico, with some experts estimating the net number of new Mexicans settling in the United States at zero. The size of the illegal-immigrant population peaked in 2007, with about 58 percent of it of Mexican origin, according to the Pew Hispanic Center; since 2008, that population has shrunk by roughly 200,000 a year. Illegal immigrants from Asia and other parts of the globe have similarly dwindled in numbers.
This new equilibrium is here to stay, in large part because Mexico’s birthrate is plunging. In 1970 a Mexican woman, on average, gave birth to 6.8 babies, and when they entered their 20s, millions journeyed north for work. Today the country’s birthrate — at 2.1 — is approaching that of the United States. That portends a shrinking pool of young adults to meet Mexico’s future labor needs, and less competition for jobs at home. Read more »
Filed under: Deportation, immigrant community, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Law Enforcement, Migrant Workers | Tagged: baby boomers, birthrate, home ownership, homeowners, housing market, illegal border crossers, Latinos, Mexico, Pew Hispanic Center, show me your papers, Welcome to English class | Leave a Comment »
Obama Plans Change In Immigration Rule On Waivers
Posted on January 6, 2012 by scjustice
From The Associated Press:
By AMY TAXIN
Jan. 6, 2012
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration proposed a rule change Friday to reduce the time that illegal immigrant spouses and children are separated from their American relatives while they try to gain legal status in the United States.
Currently, many illegal immigrants must leave the country before they can ask the government to waive a three- to 10-year ban on legally coming back to the U.S. The length of the ban depends on how long they have lived in the U.S. without permission.
The new rule would let children and spouses of citizens ask the government to decide on the waiver request before they head to their home country to apply for a visa.
The illegal immigrants would still have to go abroad to finish the visa process, but getting the waiver approved in advance would reduce the time an illegal immigrant is out of the country from months to days or weeks, said Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The purpose is “to minimize the extent to which bureaucratic delays separate Americans from their families for long periods of time,” Mayorkas told reporters.
The waiver shift is the latest move by President Barack Obama to make changes to immigration policy without congressional action. Congressional Republicans repeatedly have criticized the administration for policy changes they describe as providing “backdoor amnesty” to illegal immigrants. Read more »
Filed under: Deportation, DREAM Act, immigrant community, Immigration and Customs Enforcement | Tagged: Barack Obama, children, illegal immigrants, Janet Napolitano, spouses, undocumented immigrants, visa, waivers | Leave a Comment »
