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.

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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.

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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.

The front page of last Sunday’s New York Times Metro section made much of the emergence of immigrants as an increasingly important voting bloc in New York City electoral politics, particularly with a view toward next year’s municipal elections.

The acknowlegment of immigrant voting power flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which has long said immigrants are not as engaged in US politics as those of their home countries.

According to the New Americans Exit Poll Project (conducted by Columbia University) and a recent analysis by CUNY’s Center for Urban Research, the number of immigrant voters is on the rise in New York City. What’s more, immigrants are responsible for much of the expansion of the city’s electorate.The CUNY study found at least a third of new voters added to the city’s voter rolls since 2004 were Russian, Chinese, Korean, or Muslim.  These new faces and ethnicities in the city’s electorate join the roughly one million immigrants already registered to vote in New York.

According to the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), a nonpartisan immigrant advocacy group that registers new citizens to vote, over 265,000 immigrants have been added to the city’s voter rolls since 1996.In a city where City Council races are won and lost by a margin of 5,000 votes, this infusion of new voters puts a distinctly New York spin on the nation’s growing realization that immigrant voters are crucial to political races.

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In the media frenzy over the Latino vote and the candidates’ recent speeches before the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and National Council of La Raza, scant attention has been paid to Barack Obama’s increasing levels of outreach to other ethnic groups, notably Asian-Americans.

In June, Obama’s Indonesian-American sister Maya Soetoro-Ng appeared at a fundraiser targeting Asian voters in California, where she described Obama’s youth in Indonesia and Hawaii (a state where 56% of the population is Asian-American) in an effort to highlight his close ties to their community. Earlier, Soetoro-Ng’s Chinese-Canadian husband Konrad Ng told the New York-based Chinese newspaper World Journal that Obama was deeply influenced by Asian cultural values as a result of his upbringing. This appeal to Asian-Americans will likely increase as Soetoro-Ng continues to campaign more aggressively in the fall and as the campaign makes a more deliberate effort to engage ethnic media to reach voters.

The renewed emphasis on Asian Americans is part of Obama’s evolution in branding from a “post-racial” candidate at the start of the election cycle- remember his “swift and unequivocal” dismissal of race in November 2006—to that of a multiracial candidate who embraces his multicultural identity. Soetero-Ng acknowledged in an Associated Press interview that during the primary season,“the idea was to downplay to some degree race and ethnicity.” But the national maelstrom created by Rev. Wright’s comments and the burgeoning importance of Latino voters lessens the possibility of the campaign doing so now. (more…)

Despite appearances and poll numbers, neither presidential candidate has a lock on the Latino vote. The National Council of La Raza convention in San Diego, which just ended yesterday (7/15/08), showed that both candidates have to overcome a strong measure of doubt among Latinos – Obama because of his race and the bitter primary battle, and McCain because of his backtracking on immigration reform.

Obama appeared first, on Sunday, and McCain the next day. They were both well received but not with the same fervor: Obama got a bigger crowd, strongest applause, and two times more press.

By the time McCain came around on Monday, the press corps was diminished greatly, many activists didn’t show up for lunch –the overflow room that was full on Sunday was virtually empty on Monday- and the excitement level had noticeably dropped.

It’s completely anecdotal evidence, of course, but it shows that the Latino groups and activist crowd that usually attend the NCLR conferences support what the polls are saying. The latest Gallup Poll of Latinos shows a 30 point difference in support between Obama and McCain. Obama is getting close to 60 percent and McCain has about 29 percent. (more…)

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.

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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.

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.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNvdOYl63q0]

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.”

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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?

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