By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Western Hemisphere presidents pose for the Summit of the Americas' official photo. (Photo: AFP)

Four years ago, President George W. Bush arrived in Mar del Plata, Argentina, escorted by U.S. Navy ships and hounded by thousands of demonstrators who rejected a U.S. initiative to create a hemispheric free trade zone. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Bolivian then-presidential candidate Evo Morales joined football star Diego Maradona and the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in a parallel demonstration that filled a soccer stadium with anti-Bush, anti-U.S. slogans.

This past weekend, the Summit of the Americas met in the Caribbean island of Trinidad and the mood was much calmer. When it was over, many in the Latin American news media joined their nations’ leaders in hailing what they described as the start of a new era in inter-American relations.

Latin American columnists this morning confirmed the consensus emerging from Trinidad over the weekend: the region is ready for a rapprochement with the U.S.

“Few times had a gringo president arrived in a summit of the American continent like Barack Obama did last Friday in Trinidad and Tobago,” Colombian newsweekly Semana said. “The president had solved a great number of the things his Latin American colleagues were going to ask from him.” Semana mentioned Obama’s statements in favor of immigration reform, his vows to help Mexico fight drug cartels and last week’s softening of U.S. policy towards Cuba.

(more…)

MEXICO CITY — As President Barack Obama arrived in Mexico City Thursday, a small group of immigration activists demonstrated at the U.S. Embassy on leafy Paseo de la Reforma, close to downtown. They were there to demand comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. and a stop to immigration raids and deportations.

Children who are U.S. citizens but now live in Mexico because of their parents’ deportations were there. After President Obama said at his speech in the Democratic National Convention last year that no one “benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child,” activists had hoped he would stop deportations that break up families with an executive order. That has not happened.

The Pew Hispanic Center said this week that 73% of the children of undocumented immigrants were born in the U.S. and are U.S. citizens.

One of the protesters present was Elvira Arellano, who became known nationwide when she fought a deportation order in 2006 by seeking sanctuary inside a Chicago church. Arellano was finally deported in 2007 and now runs a shelter for deported women and children in Tijuana while continuing to work for immigration reform from the other side of the border. She came to the embassy with her 10-year-old son, Saúl, a U.S. citizen.

You can watch a slideshow on the Arellanos below or, for higher quality, go to our YouTube channel.

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

MEXICO CITY — Even before he landed in Mexico City today to begin a two day visit, President Obama had already sent a strong message to Mexicans via one of the capital city’s most influential newspapers.

“Years of Progress, At Risk: Obama”  That was the headline this morning on the cover of El Universal, announcing an op-ed article penned by Obama, which ran simultaneously in several countries in newspapers belonging to the Grupo de Diarios de América consortium.

In the piece, the president acknowledges that the U.S., distracted “by other priorities,” has on many occasions “neither sought nor maintained relationships with its neighbors.”

…our progress is directly linked to progress in the whole American continent. My government has committed to the promise of a new day. We will renew and sustain more extensive relationships between the United States and the hemisphere.

(more…)

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Two major labor federations have announced they will support immigration reform –albeit with some conditions– providing a boost to President Obama’s plan to address this thorny issue.

Unions want "an immigration system that works for America's workers." (Photo: Change to Win)

Leaders of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and of rival federation Change to Win told The New York Times they will support an immigration reform plan that includes a path to legalization for millions of undocumented immigrants, but they will oppose any expansion of guest worker programs that bring immigrants temporarily into the country.

“The accord could give President Obama significant support among unions as he revisits the stormy issue in the midst of the recession,” reporters Julia Preston and Steven Greenhouse wrote.

Later on Tuesday, the labor leaders announced a “unity framework” composed of five main points:

1. The creation of an independent commission to allocate employment visas based on real market needs and not on “political compromise.”
2. A secure and effective worker authorization mechanism.
3. “Rational operational control” of the border.
4. “Adjustment of status for the current undocumented population.”
5. Improvement of the existing temporary worker programs, but not “a new ‘indentured’ or ‘guest worker’ initiative.”

Support from the powerful labor organizations —Change to Win includes the Teamsters, the Service Employees International Union, food and commercial workers and farmworkers— can be important in pushing an immigration reform bill through Congress. President Obama and White House aides have recently said they intend to start introducing a comprehensive reform initiative as soon as next month — and the controversial issue has been getting more attention in the last couple of weeks.

(more…)

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

The White House keeps sending signals that President Barack Obama intends to follow through on his campaign promise to address immigration reform in his first year in office. As the president prepared for his first official visit to Mexico (later this week), senior administration officials last week repeated the vow the president himself has made before: that action on this divisive issue will begin soon.

The debate on immigration reform will likely focus on the high rate of unemployment. (Photo: ABCNews/AP)

While pro-immigration advocates welcomed the new statements –by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Muñoz–, others pointed out that they were essentially repeating what the president himself has said recently.

Still, with the news this time being picked up by major newspapers–The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal–, momentum seems to be building for the much-expected debate on immigration.

In a story published on Wednesday, Muñoz told the Times Obama “intends to start the debate this year,” framing his initiative as “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system.”

(more…)

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

As census workers hit the streets across the country to start verifying addresses in preparation for next year’s head count, the chair of a key House subcommittee is urging the government to relax enforcement of immigration laws to ensure that minorities and the undocumented are not undercounted on April 1, 2010.

Immigration restrictionists and conservatives are incensed at the Census Bureau’s efforts to count “all illegal aliens in 2010.”

The 2010 Census is becoming yet another battleground in the immigration reform wars.

U.S. Rep. William Clay (D.-Mo.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives, “said he plans to ask the Obama administration to suspend immigration raids over the next year,” Fox News reported. “He wants the raids put on hold so illegal immigrants don’t worry that sharing accurate information with Census workers could somehow expose them to punishment, even deportation.”

Clay said in a recent news release that the last Census “missed 3 million Americans. Many of them were African American or Hispanic, most were poor, and all of them deserved to be counted.

“…The Census is really about three things: information, federal funding, and proper political representation,” Clay added. “When we miss any American, we deprive his or her community of all three of those precious resources. Every American counts, and every American deserves to be counted.”

As we reported previously, the Census Bureau has already started reaching out to immigrant communities to ensure an accurate count. The acting director of the Census Bureau, Thomas Mesenbourg, told conservative news site CNSNews.com that the agency intends to count “every (U.S.) resident whether they’re documented, undocumented, whether they are citizens or non-citizens.”

“This means,” wrote CNSNews.com’s Nicholas Ballasy, “that a state harboring more illegal aliens can gain more House seats as long as the Census Bureau finds the illegal aliens and counts them. This also means that the illegal alien population resident in the United States during a census year has the potential to alter the regional and philosophical balance of power in Congress.” (more…)

Immigration activists confirmed Thursday that marches are planned for several cities on May Day to press the Obama Administration and Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform.  Immigrant advocates want to put pressure on the president to follow through on campaign promises to reform the nation’s immigration system. They also want a stop to enforcement raids and deportations.

“On May 1, we’ll go out on the streets to tell Barack Obama’s government and the Congress that we need an immigration reform with a path to legalization for millions of the undocumented,” Juan José Gutiérrez, director of Movimiento Latino USA, told Univision Interactive Multimedia (UIM) in Los Angeles.

Activists in L.A., Gutierrez added, will start demonstrating this Saturday, April 4, on the 41st anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. “We will tell (the president) that the date is coming, the countdown to the 100 days when he promised to send an immigration reform proposal to Congress,” he said.

Gutiérrez said Obama had promised L.A. activists to send a bill to Congress before his first 100 days in office during a meeting in December 2007.

(more…)

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Biden tells Central American leaders immigration reform will have to wait. (Photo: Reuters)

Forget the tea leaves. Divining the intentions of the Obama administration with respect to immigration reform is more like reading the leaves of a fern: conflicting signals sprout every which way, leaving observers dizzy.

On the one hand, none other than Vice President Joseph Biden said this week that this is not a good economic time to pass immigration reform that would allow for the legalization of millions of foreign workers.

On the other hand, in an unusual move, Immigration and Customs Enforcement freed a group of undocumented workers it had detained during one of its much-criticized work-site raids, giving them authorization to work while their cases are decided.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, anyone?

(more…)