America's Voice Blog

Posted 09/08/10 at 12:37pm By Guest Blogger

DREAM Now Letters to Barack Obama: Chih Tsung Kao

The "DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama" is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act.

Dear President Obama,

My name is Chih Tsung Kao.  I am 24 years old and am now currently living in Taipei, Taiwan awaiting military service.  This is not what I had planned for my life as I entered high school, but it was drastically altered when I found out that I was undocumented at 17.

I arrived in the US on a visitor's visa when I was about 4 years old.  My mother had obtained a student visa for me shortly afterwards and moved me to Boulder, Co to live with my grandparents.  By the age of 13 my grandparents decided they wanted to retire and move to California.  Being raised in Boulder, the only city I've ever known, I decided I wanted to stay and found a friend's parents who would take me in.

Click here to read more.
Posted 09/08/10 at 08:50am By Guest Blogger

DREAM Now Letters to Barack Obama: Matias Ramos

The "DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama" is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act.:

Dear Mr. President:

I greet you with respect and admiration, but also with a complaint and a request.

In April 2010 I packed my clothes in two bags and left my family and friends in California to work full time for the DREAM Act, a bill that you know well, and for which I have waited for many years. At that time I had nowhere to live but a friend lent me his chair for several months until I could rent a room. Washington is very different from Los Angeles in the culture and lifestyle. The adjustment was difficult, but received the support of many people across the country, who share the same dream: to become citizens of the United States.

Read the original (in Spanish) at America’s Voice Español.

Posted 09/07/10 at 09:27am By Maribel Hastings

‘Qué Pasa’ in Immigration: Permanent Status for Salvadorans?; “Arpaio, Obstructionist”

In the Spanish-language press this morning, the president of El Salvador suggests that after extending Temporary Protected Status for Salvadorans in the U.S. for the seventh time, the federal government might consider giving them a path to permanent status. Meanwhile, La Opinión (Los Angeles) calls out Sheriff Joe Arpaio for obstructing the Department of Justice's investigation against him while continuing to receive federal funds.

Permanent status for Salvadorans? News agency EFE and La Opinión report that the President of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, is requesting that the United States consider granting a path to permanent status for Salvadorans who obtained Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for the seventh time when it was last extended for another 18 months in July.

According to Funes, the idea is that:

“as a first step toward (immigration) reform, those who have renewed their TPS for the seventh time could acquire a more permanent form of immigration status. This depends on internal politics and whether Congress is inclined (to pass the measure), but it’s our responsibility to make the effort.”

According to AFP, Funes added:

“it’s necessary that we seek a regionwide commitment across Latin America to deal with the issue of our immigrants. Nobody wants people to emigrate, at any price, from countries that don’t offer them opportunities to stay.”

Click here to read more.
Posted 09/07/10 at 08:05am By Jackie Mahendra

Immigration Blitz: Brewer Fesses Up, Birth Tourism Debunked, Happy Labor Day

Welcome back from the Labor Day weekend! Here's what you may have missed while tending to the grill:

  • Reviews still pouring in for Rodriguez' 'Machete' -- a bloody, star-studded, ostensibly immigration-related action flick, which opened Friday: Machete Review: Sharp, Bloody Fun (TIME); HuffPost Review; Vivir Latino "at the Cine".

  • A Labor Day Thank You to Immigrants for building the economy, via Alternet: "In tough economic times, undocumented immigrants are convenient scapegoats for stagnation and unemployment. But the economic reality doesn’t match up. And there’s no better time than Labor Day to set the record straight."

  • Finally, AP debunks the latest FOX News talking point on immigration, "birth tourism." Via AP "Princeton University demographer Douglas Massey said in 30 years studying Mexican immigration, he's never interviewed a migrant who said they came to the United States just to get citizenship for their children."

Welcome back. Stay tuned.

Posted 09/03/10 at 12:07pm By Jackie Mahendra

WATCH and READ: The Worst of Governor Jan Brewer

Straight from the "Wild Wild Southwest," you won't want to miss this satirical look at the "Worst of Jan Brewer:"

Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) has become prime fodder for late night comedians and political satirists, after getting her head handed to her in a debate this week.

As Melinda Warner notes at Political Correction:

During her first gubernatorial debate last night, she was unable to answer to her false claims about headless bodies lying in the desert and literally walked away from reporters who tried to follow up. 

And her opening statement was less than professional:

While it is understandable that someone thrust into the national limelight would stumble a bit as they get used to the stress and attention, it is inexcusable that Brewer is using her new fame to promote falsehoods about the state of immigration both in Arizona and nationally.

This last point is key. As ridulous as the latest gaffe may be, our latest report and tongue-in-cheek infomercial show that Gov. Brewer has a long history of immigration distortion that has included defending indefensible claims time and again. Whether it's calling the majority of unauthroized immigrants "drug mules,"  or fabricating beheadings by immigrants in the Arizona desert to shore up support for the state's controversial immigration law, Gov. Brewer's immigration rhetoric is poisoning our national debate.

Watch the Worst of Jan Brewer, share it with your friends on Facebook, and sign up to fight back here.

Click here to read more.
Posted 09/03/10 at 11:18am By Guest Blogger

Weekly Diaspora: The High Cost of Cheap Labor

by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger:

A new study about the effects of immigration on U.S. employment supports the long-standing arguments of immigration advocates: Rather than displacing American workers, immigrant labor actually makes our economy stronger. Kevin Drum has the details at Mother Jones.

Now, with reports that undocumented laborers are a mainstay of disaster relief efforts all over the country, Americans are beginning to get a sense of the unsavory work relegated to many immigrants, and the high price immigrants pay for the simple privilege of employment.

Undocumented workers driving wages up

Going back to Mother Jones, new research examining the relationship between immigration and U.S. employment found that—contrary to conventional anti-immigrant wisdom—immigration does not negatively affect American employment. Instead, immigration drives wages up by pushing low-wage American workers into higher-paying jobs.

Here’s how it works: As less-educated immigrants gravitate towards work that requires fewer English language skills (like manual labor), their less-educated American counterparts move on to higher-paying, communications-intensive work that capitalizes on their comparatively better English language skills. This naturally drives wages up, and makes for a more productive economy overall.

The irony, as Drum notes, is that those who complain about immigrants stealing American jobs are the same people who want immigrants to learn English and assimilate as quickly as possible. “If they did,” Drum argues, “then they’d just start competing for the higher paying jobs that natives now monopolize.”

Click here to read more.
Posted 09/03/10 at 09:49am By Maribel Hastings

‘Qué Pasa’ in Immigration: Arpaio “Betrayed” by Federal Suit; Brewer “Loses Her Head” in Debate

The top story in the Spanish-language press today is the lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice against Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff Joe Arpaio for refusing to comply with a DOJ civil-rights investigation. The press also reviews Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's disastrous debate performance.

Arpaio "betrayed" by federal suit. The lawsuit demands that Arpaio turn over documents related to an ongoing federal investigation into potential civil-rights violations and discriminatory practices in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office. According to news agency EFE, the controversial sheriff said he was “disappointed” by the news. AFP adds that Arpaio characterized the lawsuit as a “stab in the back”:

“These people in Washington met with my attorneys only a few days ago. And in that meeting, Washington got our cooperation; they admitted they already have thousands of pages of the requested documents; and they were given access to interview my staff and get into my jails. They smiled in our faces and then stabbed us in the back with this lawsuit.”

But Reuters quotes Thomas Pérez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice:

“It is unfortunate that the department was forced to resort to litigation to gain access to public documents and facilities.” 

Click here to read more.
Posted 09/02/10 at 11:38am By Jackie Mahendra

DOJ to Arpaio: Show Me Your Papers—Suit Shows Sheriff Not Above the Law

News just broke that the U.S. Department of Justice is suing Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio to compel him to turn over documents needed for the federal government’s civil rights investigation.

Arpaio has denied investigators access to this information for a full year and a half. 

In light of the news, here's a little background reading on Sheriff Joe.

Arpaio's Record: Higher Crime, Wasted Money, Squandered Trust

America’s Voice Education Fund’s latest report on Sheriff Joe’s record reveals that his high-profile tactics have actually led to higher crime rates, nearly 3,000 lawsuits, millions of wasted taxpayer dollars, and a degradation of the community policing strategies that law enforcement agencies have developed to keep us safe. 

What's more, violent crime is down across the state of Arizona -- except in Sheriff Arpaio's Maricopa County.  From 2002 to 2009, while the violent crime rate across the state as a whole plummeted by 12 percent, Arpaio's jurisdiction suffered a 58 percent surge in violent crime. The numbers speak for themselves:

Click here to read more.
Posted 09/02/10 at 09:52am By Guest Blogger

DREAM Now Letters to Barack Obama: Saad Nabeel

The "DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama" is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act.

Dear Mr. President,

My name is Saad Nabeel and I am writing to you from Bangladesh. Prior to my arrival in this nation, I lived in the United States for 15 years. My parents brought me to America at age three. It is the only home I know. I used to attend the University of Texas at Arlington with a full scholarship in Electrical Engineering. Through no fault of my own I was forced to leave my home, friends, possessions, and most importantly, my education behind.

November 3rd 2009 is a day I will never forget. My mother called me and told me that my father had been detained by ICE and that we needed to leave immediately to Canada to seek refugee status. Being an only child, I had to take care of my mother and go with her.

Click here to read more.
Posted 09/01/10 at 11:49am By Jackie Mahendra

STUDY: Immigration Fattens Our Paychecks, Makes us Richer

A new study by the San Francisco Fed, highlighted by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg,  and Reuters, provides state-level proof that immigrants, well, make us richer.

According to the author of the report:

[T]otal immigration to the United States from 1990 to 2007 was associated with a 6.6% to 9.9% increase in real income per worker. That equals an increase of about $5,100 in the yearly income of the average U.S. worker in constant 2005 dollars. Such a gain equals 20% to 25% of the total real increase in average yearly income per worker registered in the United States between 1990 and 2007.

The study is making the rounds in the blogosphere.  Matt Yglesias writes, in “How Immigration Boosts Living Standards:”

When new workers come onto the scene and do jobs, they create more surplus. To get the kind of zero-sum effect that people think occurs when you get rid of immigrants, what you would actually need to do is send retirees to the Death Panels and turn them into Soylent Green.

Click here to read more.

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