Tag: Undocumented immigrants

Volunteer is Convicted of Littering for Leaving Water Jugs in the Desert to Save Migrants' Lives

By Valeria Fernández, FI2W contributor
José Lopez, 22, a migrant from Chiapas, Mexico got lost in the Sonoran desert in Arizona during three days and he survived on the water he found on water stations set in place by humanitarian groups. (Photo: Valeria Fernández)

José Lopez, 22, a migrant from Chiapas, Mexico, got lost in the Sonoran desert in Arizona for three days and survived on the water he found at water stations set in place by humanitarian groups. (Photo: Valeria Fernández)

AJO, Arizona — José López, 22, injured his left leg while jumping the border fence in the middle of the night as Border Patrol agents chased him. At daylight, he found himself lost and alone in the middle of the Sonoran desert. Three days later he ran out of water and food. He survived by refilling his jug at water tank stations he happened to find across the desert, until he found a road and, in desperation, turned himself in to the Border Patrol.

As three-digit summer temperatures loom, human rights activists are stepping up their efforts to provide humanitarian aid in the form of water and food to immigrants who cross the Mexican border into Arizona. The state is a principal gateway for unauthorized migration to the U.S.

Humanitarian groups argue their goal is to save lives. Border crossers are often abandoned by human smugglers and get lost in the arid terrain without water. But sometimes those involved in efforts to aid the migrants encounter roadblocks and even prosecution. A volunteer was convicted Wednesday of littering for leaving water jugs in a national refuge.

“We have a humanitarian crisis on our borders, it is a disaster and very little if anything is being done to address it in a humanitarian way,” said Laura Ilardo, coordinator of the Phoenix chapter of No More Deaths.

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Census Representatives Ask New York Ethnic Media for Help With Population Count

From left: NYC immigrant affairs commissioner Guillermo Linares, NYC Census 2010 director Stacey Cumberbatch, and NY Community Media Alliance director Juana Ponce de Leon - Photo: Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska.

From left: NYC immigrant affairs commissioner Guillermo Linares, NYC Census 2010 director Stacey Cumberbatch, and NY Community Media Alliance director Juana Ponce de Leon. (Photo: Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska.)

Census representatives made a plea to New York ethnic journalists to help them spread the message that every New Yorker will benefit from the 2010 Census, even undocumented immigrants. City officials and immigrant organizations supported the initiative, during a press briefing held Tuesday at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

“Census data determine the number of delegates the city gets in Congress and the State Legislature, as well as the size of each of our 51 City Council districts,” said Stacey Cumberbatch, New York City director for Census 2010. “But they also determine how much federal funding New York City gets each year. This money funds things like health care, housing, education or senior services.”

Cumberbatch told the few dozen journalists at the briefing that in 2007 New York City got $22 billion (or $2,700 per person) to fund its various programs. That amount was calculated based on Census data using a simple equation: the more people counted, the more funding appropriated.

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Wisconsin, California Would Join Utah in Giving Driving Cards to Undocumented Immigrants

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
Photo: Welmoe/Flickr

Photo: Welmoe/Flickr

Wisconsin would become the second state in the union to issue undocumented immigrants special cards allowing them to drive but not grant them other rights, according to a provision in the state budget that still has to be approved by the full legislature and Gov. Jim Doyle.

A similar bill sponsored by State Sen. Gilbert Cedillo (D.-Los Angeles) was approved in the California Senate Monday. It now heads to the Assembly and possibly the governor’s desk. Cedillo’s initiative, however, has been defeated several times in previous years.

So far, Utah is the only state that issues special cards allowing immigrants to drive, but stops short of granting them other rights — creating a two-tiered system where about 40,000 drivers have the cards, The Associated Press reported.

Three other states –Washington, Illinois and New Mexico– allow the undocumented to receive regular driver’s licenses, The A.P. said. Maryland stopped issuing them this week.

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Gay Marriage Meets the Immigration Debate: A Bill Would Allow Sponsoring a Same-Sex Partner

By Valeria Fernández, FI2W contributor

Photo: Richard Settle/Flickr.

PHOENIX, Arizona — David used to be one of those people who say: “Get out of our country if you don’t belong here.” That was until he fell in love with an undocumented immigrant.

After seven years of living together, David, an American citizen, worries about his same-sex partner’s ability to remain in the country. Guille, 38, came to the U.S. over nine years ago from Colombia, and his tourist visa has expired.

While federal immigration laws allow heterosexual residents to sponsor their spouses to immigrate to the country, gay and lesbian couples are not afforded the same benefit.

“My rights are being denied because Guille is a ‘boy,’” said David, 48, who asked for both of their last names to be withheld because of his partner’s immigration status.

A bill introduced in Congress last February might open up new options for couples like David and Guille.

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AgJOBS Bill Would Allow Undocumented Farmworkers to Become Legal, Granting Them Labor Rights

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
Two workers pick up tobacco leaves last summer in eastern North Carolina. (Photo: Diego Graglia)

Two workers pick up tobacco leaves last summer in eastern North Carolina. (Photo: Diego Graglia)

A bill now in Congress would allow over a million undocumented farmworkers –or 75 percent of the nation’s agricultural workforce– earn legal status in the U.S.

Similar measures have been proposed several times over the last decade, but its proponents are hoping this time the AgJOBS, or Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act will become law under what some see as a more favorable climate for immigrants under the Obama Administration.

The introduction of the bill, which has bipartisan support, was hailed by farmworkers advocates:

The AgJOBS compromise was carefully negotiated by the United Farm Workers and major agribusiness employers after years of intense conflict. AgJOBS is endorsed by major labor and management representatives, as well as a broad spectrum of organizations, including Latino community leaders, civil rights organizations, religious groups and farmworkers themselves.

[Harvesting Justice blog]

Just as predictably, the initiative sparked immediate rejection among those who want to limit immigration:

AgJOBS would grant amnesty to at least 2 million illegal alien agricultural workers and “reform” the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program to allow employers easier access to cheap foreign labor.

[FAIR Legislative Update]

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Despite Recession Coyotes Still Doing Well, El Diario/La Prensa Reports

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor
A portion of the U.S.-Mexico border - Photo: Isha.Net*/Flickr

A portion of the U.S.-Mexico border. (Photo: Isha.Net*/Flickr)

The economic recession does not seem to be affecting the human smugglers known as coyotes, according to a story published Tuesday in the New York Spanish-language newspaper El Diario/La Prensa.

The coyotes‘ business is still doing well, reporter Cristina Loboguerrero wrote after interviewing two men who take part in a chain of human trafficking that starts in Guatemala and reaches the New York metropolitan area and other U.S. regions.

“Last September, I got scared because the business went down 50 percent,” Jorge, a Salvadoran smuggler who has done this work for ten years, told the reporter. “But the truth is that it has been picking up slowly, although the price for bringing someone went up almost $1,000.”

According to the story, Jorge is one of the people in charge of transporting undocumented immigrants from cities in the southwest such as Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, to states including South and North Carolina, Maryland, New York and New Jersey.

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Supreme Court Ruling in Identity-Theft Case Too Late for Some Immigrants

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Last year under the Bush Administration hundreds of immigrants rounded up at work-site raids were charged with “aggravated identity theft” for using Social Security numbers that belonged to other people.

Monday, the Supreme Court said in a unanimous decision that the federal government cannot use the charge in those cases: “the crime is limited to those who knew they had stolen another person’s Social Security number,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

In Flores-Figueroa vs. United States, the Court said the government had failed to prove that the defendant, Ignacio Flores-Figueroa, a Mexican man from Illinois, knew that his fraudulent documents belonged to another person.

Ignacio Flores-Figueroa, a citizen of Mexico, said he had bought a set of false documents in Chicago and used them to work at a steel plant in East Moline, Ill. His employer later reported him to immigration authorities. He was charged with entering the country illegally, using false documents and aggravated identity theft. Only the latter charge was at issue in the Supreme Court.

[ Los Angeles Times ]

The ruling “makes it harder for federal prosecutors to use the aggravated identity theft statute to boost prison sentences in undocumented immigrant cases,” the Christian Science Monitor said. Prosecutors would now have to prove that the defendant knew the actual numbers he or she used belonged to someone else.

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Influenza and Immigration: Keeping the “Anti-Immigrant Flu” Out of Newsrooms

A pro-Sheriff Arpaio demonstrator in Phoenix on Saturday. (Photo: Nick Oza)
A pro-Sheriff Arpaio demonstrator in Phoenix on Saturday. (Photo: Nick Oza)

PHOENIX, Arizona — Conservative talk-radio commentators were faster than a virus in spreading the idea that undocumented immigrants are a hazard to public health by bringing a new flu virus across the country’s “porous border.”

But one national media organization is trying to keep the anti-immigrant fervor out of newsrooms.

On Wednesday, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) called for the mainstream media to “resist the baseless blame of immigrants” in connection with the spread of influenza A-H1N1.

“This virus should not be characterized as a Mexican disease,” said Iván Román, NAHJ’s executive director. “We should also resist covering it in a way that furthers anti-immigrant rhetoric.”

Román pointed out that while there may be a temptation to link Mexican immigrants to the spread of the disease in the United States, it is necessary to keep in mind that this community is no more responsible for it than American spring-breakers traveling to Mexico.

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Stories

FI2W Video: The Voices of Immigrant New Yorkers at May Day Rallies for Immigration Reform

Feet In 2 Worlds contributor Sooyeon Kim covered the immigration rallies that took place Friday in Manhattan.

The earlier Madison Square Park rally, which featured a text messaging campaign, was attended by immigrants from many different backgrounds. Kim reports:

Despite the pouring rain, hundreds of immigrant rights supporters started marching at 6 p.m. to City Hall, flaunting flags and chanting, calling for immigration reform.

You can read our story about the Madison Square Park rally here.

Kim later covered the second rally, which met in Union Square. Here’s a slideshow with images from both demonstrations.

You can see another FI2W video from the Union Square rally here.

Stories

FI2W Video: New York March for Worker and Immigrant Rights in Union Square

A second pro-immigration reform rally took place in New York in Union Square on Friday. While attendance was sparse in the early afternoon, more activist groups had arrived by the time speeches and performances begun at 4 pm, amid chants of “Sí, se puede” (“Yes, we can”.)

Rain came soon and forced protesters to duck under blue tarps or even their own banners and picket signs. Many did not leave. “Although the rally filled the plaza on the south end of the park, the attendance was nowhere near the numbers we saw in 2006 or even last year,” reports Feet in 2 Worlds senior producer Jocelyn Gonzales, who created the video below.

Read about the other march for immigration reform that took place in New York on Friday.