By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

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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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Immigrant women are keeping families together. (Photo: New America Media)

Immigrant women in the U.S. “face formidable barriers” –lack of language skills, discrimination, low wages, lack of health care–, but still their numbers continue to grow and they are “now on the move as much as men,” a poll released Thursday said.

As they settle in America, traveling great distances and adapting to a new culture, women’s roles in the family have changed too: many assume the role of head of household or start sharing responsibilities and power with their husbands, said the study, commissioned by New America Media (NAM), a group that fosters cooperation between ethnic news organizations.

According to the poll of 1,102 people, Women Immigrants: Stewards of the 21st Century (click for pdf), many female immigrants “acknowledge speaking little or no English, while confronting anti-immigrant discrimination, lack of healthcare and low-paying employment well below the status of the professional work most did in their home countries.”

This problem was reported by large majorities of the women polled –79% percent of Latin American women, 73% of Vietnamese women, 70% of Korean women, and 63% of Chinese women.

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

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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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

There is fear among Latinos in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania.

“The message the justice system sent to young white men here is that they can continue to beat up and kill Latinos, because in the end, a year in jail is all they will have to pay,” Jon Zamudio, a 26-year-old local resident, told New York newspaper El Diario/La Prensa.

Zamudio was referring to the verdict last week that cleared two local teenagers of the most serious charges in relation to the fatal beating of an undocumented Mexican immigrant last summer.

An all-white jury acquitted Brandon Piekarsky, 17, of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation, and Derrick Donchak, 19, of aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation, The Associated Press reported. Both were convicted of simple assault, a second-degree misdemeanor. They could be sentenced to one to two years in prison.

The victim was Luis Ramirez, a 25-year-old man originally from the Mexican state of Guanajuato. He worked at a factory and in the fields, picking strawberries and cherries. He lived with his American fiancee Crystal Dillman and had two children.

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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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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.

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