A new “click here” web ad circulating in South Florida shows Sen. Barack Obama and Fidel Castro pictured together and quotes Castro praising Obama as “the most advanced candidate.” There’s a tag at the bottom of the ad that reads, “Paid for by John McCain 2008.” It begs the question: Does the McCain campaign fear losing the Cuban vote this election cycle?
This Thursday, New Haven, Connecticut will mark its one-year anniversary as the first city in the nation to provide identification cards to undocumented immigrants which allow them access to local government services.
Despite harsh criticism and legal challenges the city has issued more than 6,000 Elm City Resident Cards since the program began last summer. Kica Matos, an administrator for New Haven’s Community Development Dept., says that the city has benefited along with immigrants, especially in crime prevention, because immigrants no longer fear that local police will turn them over to federal immigration authorities if they come forward with information about a crime. She has also taken New Haven’s program on the road. Matos just returned from a trip to California, where she advised cities including Los Angeles, on how to create their own identity cards.
Hartford, Connecticut is also considering a proposal that would allow the city to qualify as a so-called “sanctuary city” for undocumented immigrants.
In a rural Iowa town that was once a bustling model of small-town resurgence, scores of families are left to rely on local food pantries and churches for their meals. Parents have been left to watch over their children while wearing ankle bracelets but are unable to seek work to provide for them. The school’s population has been halved, and a gang of minors makes a weekly trip to Cedar Rapids to report to the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency which monitors their status. There’s nothing left to do but wait. Their fate doesn’t rest in their own hands, reports New America Media in a series of articles on the effects of the largest immigration raid in history has had on a local community.
And they are the lucky ones. Nearly 400 workers were arrested and detained in the largest immigration raid in history at Agriprocessors, a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. Three-quarters of these workers were hustled through the legal system in a matter of a few weeks — arrested, detained and then allowed to plead guilty to charges they didn’t understand, unaware that they were facing criminal charges and were being sent to prison for sentences averaging five months each. The treatment of these workers lead a long-time court interpreter and college professor, Erik Camayd-Freixas, to break his professional code of silence to report on the abuses that these workers faced in a 12-page essay that made national headlines. After serving time in jail, largely for identity theft including social security fraud, the workers will be deported back to their home countries, torn apart from their wives or children who are under government supervision in Postville.
For Agriprocessors, however, it’s back to business as usual. After a dip in production and escalating Kosher meat prices (the company produces about 40 percent of the country’s Kosher meat) production is nearly back to normal reports the Jewish Journal. So far only two low-level managers have been charged, despite the government accusing Agriprocessors of paying workers below the federal minimum wage, hiring minors, numerous safety violations and allegations of worker abuse that included a manager duct-taping one workers’ eyes and beating him with a meat hook. The company has also been accused of providing workers with false documentation, such as social security cards, to work at the plant.
There appears to be a stark disparity in the government prosecution of those who work illegally in this country and those who provide them with work despite bombastic claims by ICE officials that employers are no longer safe from prosecution.
Court Interpreter, Erik Camayd-Freixas breaks his code of silence to report on how undocumented workers were abused and terrorized by the justice system in the wake of the largest immigration raid in history. Read his essay, which made national headlines here.
The New York Times had a powerful editorial on Camayd-Freixas’ essay, also a must read.
The largest immigration raid in U.S. history has left scores of children without parents. Their stories here.
Criminal charges are being filed against illegal immigrants at an increased rate reports Syracuse University.
Migrant workers find a home in Maine.
Is the Confucian model of the family crumbling in Korea? An American in Seoul’s take.
Europeans are calling Obama’s trip abroad crucial. Read the coverage from the other side of the pond.
The Atlantic says that geo-politics really will make a difference in this election.
A conservative criticizes the prisoner of war swap between Lebanon and Israel.
And 3 YouTube Videos from “Crime, Justice and Immigration: Where do we go from here?” a conference at John Jay College.
Balls vs. DeStefano: How Do Cities Handle Illegal Immigration?
Crime Trends and the Law: Are We Criminalizing Immigration?
U.S. Rep Silvestre Reyes’ Speech. Reyes is Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
This week’s New Yorker cover showing Barack Obama in Muslim garb and his wife, Michelle, dressed as a Black militant has shown that even in a political campaign where race, gender and age barriers have tumbled, there are still some segments of American society that the media must handle with the utmost delicacy. The cover, meant as a parody of right-wing rumors about the Obamas, has instead re-ignited long-standing complaints by Arab Americans about mainstream media depictions of Islam.
Leading Arab American organizations have released statements and sent letters criticizing the New Yorker for falling prey to the same stereotypes that the magazine had aimed to dispel, or at least poke fun at, in regard to the Obamas.
“What this puts on display is the deep disconnect that exists between the “liberal snobs” of NYC and the rest of us,” Dr. James Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute wrote Feet in 2 Worlds in an email.
“They think this is cute. Those of us who get our lives threatened and our careers ruined by the bigots who believe this crap do not think it is cute,” Zogby added.
Sen. Barack Obama’s speech at today’s National Council of La Raza (NCLR) conference introduced little new in terms of policy or rhetoric, but it served as a reminder that immigration reform could still be used as a wedge issue in the presidential election.
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As he did in his speeches to the National Associate of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Obama made a speech that emphasized the importance of the Latino vote, promised to get an immigration reform bill passed within his first 100 days in office and attacked Sen. John McCain for ultimately withdrawing support for the 2006 immigration reform proposal he had originally sponsored.
La Opinion reported that for the nearly 20,000 people in attendance the reaction to the speech was emotional and overwhelmingly positive; Obama also got a standing ovation from the mainly Latino crowd of activists and advocates at last week’s LULAC conference, where the candidate emphasized his own immigrant background.
But outside the convention hall, Obama’s speech and promises on immigration reform were greeted with jeers. About sixty members of the Minute Men, the self-proclaimed anti-immigration militia that patrols the US – Mexico border to stop illegal immigration, lined up with placards in opposition to NCLR, the nation’s oldest Latino civil rights group – and one of the most powerful.
The San Diego Union Tribune reported that one man carried a sign that showed a cartoon boy urinating on a sign that read “NCLR.” The man carrying the sign claimed that it was not against Latinos but the organization that represented them.
Chuck Malon, another member of the Minute Men, told a La Opinion reporter, “NCLR helps the illegal invasion. Helps get drivers licenses. They’re destroying everything we’ve built in this country.”
The presence of the protesters, though small in number, is a reminder that despite the embrace of the Latino vote and the calls for immigration reform by both candidates, there is a segment of the American public that is as turned off by those campaign promises as those attending the conference were turned on.
It’s often the issues within the issue that can become lightning rods for controversy. Take the issue of drivers’ licenses for undocumented immigrants that Malon raised.
Last November, a highly publicized moment in a Democratic debate in Philadelphia showed Sen. Hillary Clinton unwilling to take a strong stand for or against drivers licenses. Clinton was criticized for not being a straight talker; after expressing initial support for New York’s then-Governor Eliot Spitzer’s proposal to extend driver’s licenses to some undocumented residents. Clinton’s popularity, especially in Iowa where illegal immigration was a concern, took a dive. Obama, who had also quietly approved Spitzer’s proposal, hedged his answer a bit as well (notably at another Democratic Presidential debate in Las Vegas) but ultimately has maintained support for the measure.
A few other states, including New Mexico and Utah, have extended driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants who can prove their identity and state residency without using immigration documents.
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In the long run, in a Democratic primary, the issue never took precedence. But it’s often the nuances of highly publicized and polarizing issues that can turn even a bipartisan election year goal into the thorniest of political footballs. If anti-immigration sentiment grows over the course of the election cycle, look for Obama’s statements on supporting that measure to come up again.
Senator John McCain speaks at the NCLR conference later on today.
“Sticky rice” is no longer an option at the polls in this year’s presidential election, but that hasn’t changed Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin’s opposition to transliterating English names into Chinese characters on the November ballot.
A battle has raged for the past year between Asian American activists and Galvin over the extension of a 2005 voting rights agreement that has required Massachusetts to transliterate English names into Chinese characters on election ballots.
At the end of June, elderly Asian Americans marched through the rain to the State Capitol to demand a meeting with Gavin over the issue of bilingual ballots. However, Gavin has repeatedly denied requests to meet with the Asian American community over the issue.
Galvin said that transliteration, the practice of using Chinese characters to approximate the sound of a candidate’s name in Mandarin or Cantonese, is imprecise and would confuse voters. Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, for example, would literally translate to “sticky rice.” Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, could translate as either “Oh Intellectual Overcome Profound Oh Gemstone” or “Europe Pulling a Horse.” Former Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, could translate as either “Upset Stomach” or “Like Prosperity.”
In this year’s historic elections Latinos are poised to play a historic role. If Latinos vote in the precedent-setting numbers that marked their participation in the presidential primaries, they could be responsible for putting a candidate in office.
When Sen. Hillary Clinton exited the race in June, the support that she had among this voting block appeared up for grabs. Both campaigns released Spanish language ads and Sen. John McCain even traveled to Mexico and Colombia to appeal to Hispanic voters. Demographic profiles showed that Latinos could help decide who would win key battleground states like New Mexico, Colorado, Florida and Nevada.
But despite the hype, perhaps Latino votes aren’t really that swing-able? Ever since Clinton’s departure, polls have shown Latinos steadily moving to support Obama. A recent Gallup Poll appears to confirm this trend, showing Latinos backing Obama 59% to 29% over McCain. The poll concludes that Latino support enjoyed by Clinton appears to have shifted to Obama.
The shift in poll numbers raise the question: Is this group really as elastic as the political narrative has suggested?
The battle for the Latino vote has returned to American soil after Sen. John McCain’s three day trip to Colombia and Mexico.
The campaigns engaged in their own Independence Day back and forth on who would best represent Latinos. Nothing that would resemble fireworks, but remarkable because the first attack ad the McCain campaign has launched was aimed at a Hispanic audience. (more…)
In a recent Feet in 2 Worlds post, writer Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska, wrote that ethnic minorities pay attention and cast a favorable eye on a political candidate when he takes the time to acknowledge their communities.
Nothing provides a better object lesson for that sentiment than the contents of Sen. Barack Obama’s pockets.
Obama, asked by a woman at a town hall what he carried in his pockets, revealed a handful of good luck charms given to him by well-wishers on the campaign trail. They included a bracelet of a soldier deployed in Iraq, a poker chip, some lucky coins, a Madonna and child, and a small “monkey god.”
A picture of Obama’s palms outstretched with the charms scattered across them made Time’s ‘White House Picture of the Day,’ and the little “monkey god”, Hanuman, caught the eye of many Indians.
The headlines in the Indian press were ecstatic, praising Obama for seeking aid in the Lord Hanuman, such as “Obama Takes Hanuman’s Blessing in Race for White House.”
Some Indians saw it as an embrace of Hinduism, and one erstwhile member of the Indian Congress decided to send a sanctified, two-foot high Hanuman idol to Obama for good luck.
“Obama has deep faith in Lord Hanuman and that is why we are presenting an idol of Hanuman to him,” said Indian Congressman Brijmohan Bhama.
The idol was prayed over for eleven straight days before being packed and shipped to the United States.
“Deep faith” may be questionable, but as the Washington Post reported, it’s making Indian Americans, solidly behind the Clintons during the primaries, take notice.
“They think it’s kind of neat. They rarely see our religion played out in the mainstream media in America,” Bhavna Pandit, an Indian American political fundraiser told The Post.
“In India, they’re like, ‘Wow! The person who can be the president has a connection to us that’s very personal,’” Pandit said.