Anti-gun activists are howling against Gov. David Patterson’s nomination of Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand to succeed Hillary Clinton as the junior senator from New York.

But the Second Amendment isn’t the only issue likely to cause trouble for Gillibrand, judging from a statement released Friday by the New York Immigration Coalition.

“Now that she will be representing a far broader and more diverse constituency, Senator-Designee Gillibrand must reconsider her positions on immigration,” Chung-Wha Hong, the NYIC’s executive director, said in the statement.

As a U.S. representative, Hong said, Gillibrand has taken positions on immigration “that are deeply troubling, to say the least.”

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One day after Pres. Barack Obama’s inauguration, demonstrations were held across the country to remind the president of his promise to address immigration reform in the first year of his administration. Protesters in Washington D.C. and several other cities also called for an immediate end to government raids aimed a rounding up undocumented immigrants.

Demonstrators in San Antonio (Photo: Express-News)

“Immigrants who lent President Barack Obama their support at the ballot box joined those who cannot vote in marches and prayers, writing letters and raising banners from Miami to Los Angeles to push the issue to the top of Obama’s long to-do list,” The Associated Press‘ Juliana Barbassa reported.

The demonstrations were more of a friendly reminder to the new president from activists who don’t want the issue to be forgotten in the din of the economic crisis. “He was the one who told us that you can dream big,” Altagracia Garcia, 25, told Barbassa at a pre-dawn vigil in front of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Los Angeles, where demonstrators lit candles and called for and end to immigration enforcement raids.

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

As the much-anticipated presidential inauguration of Barack Obama approaches, one group of immigrant activists in particular is feverishly pushing for their cause to be heard by the incoming president. They are young undocumented immigrant students who grew up in the U.S. and their supporters, who are hoping that the new administration will push for passage of the DREAM Act, a law that would allow the students to become U.S. citizens provided they meet certain conditions.

Hoping to come out of the shadows. (Video capture: ADreamDeferred.org)

Their cause got an extra bit of support through an online contest organized by Change.org, a social action network (not to be confused with the president-elect’s website Change.gov.)

For the last few weeks, the site hosted an online vote to select “the best ten ideas for change,” which will be announced today at an event at the National Press Club.

The contest was born as a response to Obama’s call to Americans to get involved in their government. “We started the Ideas for Change in America initiative in the hope that we could translate the energy behind the Obama election into a citizen-led movement for change around the major issues we face,” the organizers said.

Thousands of ideas were submitted and over 600,000 votes were cast. Activists for causes as varied as marijuana legalization, gay marriage, and green energy mobilized to make their voices heard and to gather votes for their ideas. As of 5pm EST Thursday, when the vote closed, passage of the DREAM Act stood in eighth place, making it one of the ten winners. (Marijuana legalization was first.)

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Aswini Anburajan, FI2W contributor

Democrats and Republicans alike appear to have little stomach to derail the nomination of Tim Geithner, President-elect Obama’s pick for Secretary of Treasury, despite his failure to pay $43,000 in taxes on time, and his hiring of a housekeeper who briefly lacked proper work papers.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid dismissed Geithner’s troubles this week as “a few little hiccups” in the nomination process.

Does political dismissal of Geithner’s troubles reflect a change in attitudes toward issues like the hiring of undocumented workers?

Little attention has been given to Geithner’s hiring of the worker, whose legal papers expired while she was employed him. Instead pundits and papers have focused on the irony that the man who will lead the Internal Revenue Service can’t figure out how much he owes in taxes.

Geithner (Getty Images/Wall Street Journal)

Geithner’s hiring of a housekeeper whose work papers expired should be noted, not as a criticism, but as a reality that the 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country are interwoven in the American workforce.

Geithner isn’t the first public official in this situation. In the presidential primaries, as Republican Mitt Romney campaigned around the country promising to crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the Boston Globe revealed that undocumented workers had been part of the landscaping firm hired by the Romneys.

Two of President Bill Clinton’s nominees for attorney general, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, were both disqualified for hiring nannies that were undocumented and for not paying social security taxes on their wages.

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By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Fides news service criticized U.S. immigration enforcement in a recent dossier. ("Frontera", by Daquella Manera/Flickr.)

Catholic leaders in the U.S. have been raising their voices in support of reform of the nation’s immigration laws, as Feet In 2 Worlds has reported in recent weeks. Now, a Vatican news service has issued a report that praises American Catholic bishops for their opposition to “the ineffectiveness and violence” of United States’ immigration measures.

“For many years,”  Fides news agency said, “the Catholic Bishops of America have strenuously fought for migrants and against systems of repression, (and have been) actively involved in promoting immigration reforms which encourage legality and respect for human rights.”

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Turns out that, if anything, the U.S economic crisis has motivated many Mexican migrants to remain in the U.S., rather than make the expensive trip back home to try to weather the economic storm in an economy that is less well-prepared to deal with it.

By Diego Graglia, FI2W web editor

Arpaio, coming soon, on the Fox Reality Channel.

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio has become famous for his made-for-TV antics, like forcing inmates to use pink underwear, and his immigration enforcement fervor, which has drawn heavy criticism from civil rights advocates. Now, he’s getting his own FOX reality show and pro-immigrant organizations are not happy.

In response to the FOX Reality Channel’s announced launch of Smile, You’re Under Arrest!, America’s Voice is gathering support for a petition which asks the Department of Justice to investigate Arpaio “for gross civil rights violations in the name of immigration enforcement.”

Arpaio is a controversial figure in his home of Maricopa County (which encompasses Phoenix) and way beyond.

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