The Year in Review: Arizona Immigrants Face New Year With Old Fears
For Arizona immigrants 2009 was the year of raids in workplaces, traffic stops that led to deportations and reports of violations of human and civil rights.
Tag: Phoenix
Immigrants in Phoenix.
Their Parents Deported, Arizona Children Get Christmas Gifts from Churches
On the face of an increase in the number of parents deported from Maricopa County, a local church decided to organize a Christmas gift-giving event for the first time this year.
AudioStories
Undocumented Immigrants in Arizona: FI2W’s Valeria Fernández on New America Now Radio
Feet in 2 Worlds reporter Valeria Fernández was interviewed on the latest edition of the New America Now radio program to talk about the recent passage of a law in Arizona that forces public employees to report undocumented immigrants to the authorities if they apply for federal or state benefits.
AudioStories
Released from Immigration Jail, a Mother Dances to Fulfill her Promise to the Virgin of Guadalupe
Sandra Figueroa, an undocumented immigrant, first heard about the dance of the Matachines while she was in jail. She promised that she would learn it to honor the Virgin of Guadalupe and thank her for helping her to be free and to reunite with her family.
New Law Forcing State Employees to Report Undocumented Immigrants Causes Fear in Arizona
Arizona starts enforcing a new law aimed at denying public benefits to undocumented migrants.
With No Official Help, Program Offers Another Chance to Latino Addicts, Many of them Immigrants
Phoenix’s Centro de Rehabilitación “Volviendo a Vivir” (“Returning to Life” Rehabilitation Center) rests in the heart of a neighborhood surrounded by drug dealers’ stash houses and provides services to men who live in the area without any government help.
AudioStories
For Battered Latina Immigrants: Dwindling Resources, But Also Hope
De Colores, a domestic violence shelter in Phoenix, specializes in helping undocumented Spanish-speaking migrant women like her.
AudioStories
Children of Detained Immigrants Call for End to Raids in Arizona: Raid Today One of the Largest
PHOENIX, Arizona — While the Obama administration has established new federal guidelines to focus on employers that break the law by hiring undocumented workers, local authorities in Maricopa County are going in the opposite direction, and increasing the crackdown on employees. Just today sheriff’s deputies conducted one of the largest raids to date at a paper plant in Phoenix.
Heidi Rubi Portugal, holding sign, and other child protesters look up at the office of Sheriff Joe Arpaio in downtown Phoenix. (Photo: Nick Oza)
Last Friday dozens of children took to the streets to call for an end to immigration raids by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and to bring attention to the social and economic impact the raids have had on their families.
“I want to tell Sheriff Joe Arpaio to let my parents alone and let them free. And leave the people that are working out, and (instead) get the people that are killing others and robbing,” said Katherine Figueroa, a 9-year-old U.S. citizen.
Katherine’s parents Sandra and Carlos Figueroa –both undocumented — were arrested in June in a raid at a Phoenix carwash where they worked , and charged with identity theft. Katherine found out about their arrest when she saw her dad detained on a local TV news program.
It’s been two months since Katherine has shared a meal with her parents. She now stays with one of her aunts.
“He needs to stop the raids is not fair what he’s doing to people,” said Katherine who held a cardboard sign in the shape of a colorful orange and black butterfly.
Listen to Katherine here:
[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/children3.mp3]The Monarch butterfly was the theme for the young marchers because it endures an epic migration between Mexico and the U.S. for its survival.
Chanting “Obama, Obama we want our parents back,” the children walked in the hot Arizona summer from Madison Jail, were their parents are detaine to Sheriff Arpaio’s offices in downtown Phoenix.
Listen to the children chanting:
[audio:http://www.jocelyngonzales.net/FI2W/children1.mp3]
“Should I Stay or Should I Go?” – Immigrants in Arizona Weigh Recession and Anti-Immigrant Policies
PHOENIX, Arizona — When things got tough in Arizona, many families decided to leave to avoid being caught in the local illegal immigration crackdown. But Maria Garcia’s family wouldn’t move. When her husband was fired for not having legal documents, they stayed and weathered the storm. After 23 years, the Garcias say they’re here to stay.
“My father passed away, he was sick for many years and I couldn’t see him. Now my mother is sick. But I know that if I leave it would be very dangerous for me to come back,” said the migrant from Colima, Mexico.
The Los Perros swap meet has seen fewer customers lately. (Photo: Valeria Fernández)
Two recent national studies present contradicting data about whether the current recession and anti-immigrant climate are pushing undocumented immigrants to leave the U.S. and return to their home countries.
A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies – a group that advocates lower immigration levels – shows that the illegal immigrant population has fallen by one-third over the past two years. According to the study based on Census Data, Arizona is the state with the highest drop. About 180,000 of the 530,000 undocumented living in Arizona left, according to research conducted by Steven Camarota.
Yet another study released earlier by the Pew Hispanic Center said while that the number of people entering the country illegally is dropping, undocumented migrants who are already here are not returning.
So are immigrants leaving or staying?
Farewell to a Compañero: Former Guest Workers From Mexico Mourn the Loss of One of Their Own
Catalino Díaz Villa. (Courtesy of La Voz-David Kadlubowski)
PHOENIX, Arizona — Flowers in hand, day or night, visitors have been coming to the little house of Catalino Díaz Villa‘s widow to pay their respects after his death. Some never met him, but to them he is a brother. They share a common bond: they all were farmworkers in the American countryside as part of the Bracero Program over 50 years ago.
Díaz Villa, 84, died in a traffic accident when a vehicle struck him while crossing the street. It was the Fourth of July, but he was working as usual. He made a living by selling cans and metal scraps he picked up on the streets of central Phoenix.
He was part of a generation of aging braceros struggling to survive without a pension, hoping to win a fight to recover wages withheld from them decades ago as part of a controversial guest-worker program between Mexico and the U.S. The money that was supposed to be given to the workers to encourage them to return to their country was instead kept by Mexico.