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http://humane-rights-agenda.blogspot.com/2006/09/9-11-06-aztlannetnews-report.html
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~~~List of Aztlannet_News Articles & Weblinks Below~~~
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-latino10sep10,0,4713947.story?coll=la-story-footer
September 10, 2006 = Latino Activists Put Faith in Ballots
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http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-2/600/600_12_LaborDay.shtml
September 8, 2006 = Labor Day rallies for immigrant rights
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0609080288sep08,1,5600403.story
September 8, 2006 = County measure would shield illegal immigrants
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0609080239sep08,1,3699855.story
September 8, 2006 = Feds turning up the heat + Immigrant son won't lose rights, U.S. says
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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/08/MNGD7L1M4A1.DTL
Friday, September 8, 2006 = House GOP to try again on immigration crackdown
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http://www.latimes.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept
September 8, 2006 = House GOP Makes Border Security Its Priority
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/oneworld/20060907/wl_oneworld/45361389951157642907
Thu Sep 7, 2006 @10:28 AM ET = Latino Leaders Convene First National Latino Congress in a Generation
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http://us.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unfpa.org%2Fnews%2Fnews.cfm%3FID%3D859
06 September 2006 = New Report Calls on World Leaders to Protect Human Rights of Female Migrants
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-latino10sep10,0,4713947.story?coll=la-story-footer
September 10, 2006
Latino Activists Put Faith in Ballots
As immigration rights leaders assess gains and losses since rallies last spring, they turn their focus to the recruitment of 1 million new voters.
By Teresa Watanabe, Times Staff Writer
Email: teresa.watanabe@latimes.com
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Has the immigrant rights movement fizzled?
At a national Latino conference that drew hundreds to downtown Los Angeles last week, movement leaders emphatically said no.
Although Congress has stalled action on broad immigration reform and Labor Day marches failed to mobilize wide support, activists said they were only now beginning to roll out the next stage of their battle: a massive effort to produce 1 million new Latino voters and U.S. citizens.
"Now is not march time," Antonio Gonzalez, president of the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project in Los Angeles, said Saturday. "We're mobilizing voters. That's the big deal."
But immigration control advocates say the marches last spring doomed activists' efforts by alienating most Americans and strengthening support for stronger border control and opposition to legalization.
"The mass sea of illegal aliens bearing foreign flags and hostile placards really produced a pronounced backlash, from which they've never recovered," said John Keeley, spokesman for the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.
The movement's fate is in question just months after hundreds of thousands of immigrants and their supporters startled the nation by pouring into the streets to protest a House bill that would criminalize undocumented immigrants and those who support them. Buoyed by their success, they helped push the U.S. Senate to pass a landmark bill increasing visas and offering legalization to many of the nation's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Since then, some activists acknowledge, their ranks have become demoralized as congressional action on the issue stalled over the summer and recent marches have fallen flat.
In Los Angeles, for instance, police estimated that only about 1,500 people turned out for a Labor Day weekend rally that organizers had predicted would draw as many as 50,000. And Cecilia Munoz, a vice president of the National Council of La Raza, said some immigrants were reluctant to risk their jobs to march because the likelihood of legalization and other reform does not appear imminent.
"A lot of people feel a loss," immigrant activist Oscar Garcon said Saturday at the National Latino Congreso, which was billed as the most comprehensive gathering of Latino leaders in nearly 30 years. "They say, 'We demonstrated, we came out by the millions, but what did we change?' "
But he and others said a movement cannot fairly be measured by the size of its marches or its early setbacks, and some experts agree.
Louis DeSipio, a UC Irvine associate professor of political science and Chicano/Latino studies, said it was premature to dismiss prospects for broad immigration reform. He said such aims could take years to achieve. The 1986 amnesty for illegal immigrants, for instance, took a decade to pass and did so abruptly, just as most members of Congress thought the provision dead.
DeSipio said movements cannot be built from marches alone.
"It's good they've moved away from the marches," he said. "Marches can get people's attention, but it doesn't necessarily get a higher percentage of the community involved in civic participation. That's what things like get-out-the-vote and voter registration drives do."
DeSipio said the ferment over immigration could in time lead to a surge in Latino voters similar to the one after the 1994 passage of Proposition 187. The measure would have denied health benefits to undocumented immigrants had it not been overturned in the courts.
The number of legal residents who became U.S. citizens increased from 434,000 in 1994 to more than 1 million in 1996; and Latino registered voters in California increased from 1.6 million in 1996 to 1.9 million in 2000, according to the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund in Los Angeles.
Activists argue that some preliminary data offer evidence of another surge. According to U.S. immigration statistics, the number of citizenship applications increased by 41.5% in May over last year, a far larger increase than in previous periods.
"This is one of many issues, and it's going to take time, but it will come," said Cristina Basurto, 32, a member of Women of Earth, a social justice organization, who attended a small rally after the conference Saturday near downtown. "I think people still have it in their hearts and still want to fight for what they believe in."
The number of new Latino voters grew by 35,000 in Los Angeles County from March to August, helping to boost their share of the electorate from 20% to 24% over last year, according to an analysis of Los Angeles County registrar-recorder data by the Latino officials' organization.
Marcelo Gaete, the organization's senior program director, said his staff used a surname dictionary to determine how many of the county's new voters were Latino.
Keeley, however, said the political landscape proves his point: A get-tough stand on immigration is a winning political message.
In Pennsylvania, for instance, he said Republican Sen. Rick Santorum is rapidly closing what had been a double-digit deficit in the polls in his race against his Democratic challenger, state Treasurer Robert Casey Jr., by campaigning with a tough immigration message.
He also said congressional hearings on immigration and local town halls during the summer recess have convinced many legislators that constituents see border control as a top priority.
As a result, he said, "the chances are less than zero" of winning legalization this year.
Some Latino activists, including UC Riverside ethnic studies department Chairman Armando Navarro, agree that the movement for immigrant rights has lost steam. He said internal squabbling, a lack of leadership and a failure to organize immigrants for long-term political change had squandered their gains of the spring.
DeSipio and others, however, said activists had already scored a significant victory by so far stopping the House bill, especially the provision that would criminalize undocumented immigrants and those who aid them, from becoming law. Elements of that bill, including border enforcement measures, however, may still pass.
Now, activists say, they are gearing up to launch what they envision will be a long-term effort to mobilize Latino voters for elections this November and, more important, in 2008.
Two organizations — the Service Employees International Union and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project — have raised $7 million for national voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts.
The National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials plans to include 150,000 voter registration cards in La Opinion later this month and help sponsor another major workshop at the L.A. Convention Center to help immigrants apply for citizenship. A July workshop produced about 1,300 completed new citizenship applications, Gaete said.
Spanish-language radio DJs, who helped turn masses out for marches, have also begun to actively promote voter registration and citizenship efforts. Renan Almendarez "El Cucuy" Coello took his "Votos por America" campaign to 10 cities over two weeks last month.
DeSipio cautioned, however, that it was easier to register voters than to get them out to the polls.
"There's certainly the potential there," he said, "but it will require sustained investment and a lot of hard work."
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Times staff writer Bettina Boxall contributed to this report.
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http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-2/600/600_12_LaborDay.shtml
Labor Day rallies for immigrant rights
Taking a stand for all workers’ rights
September 8, 2006 | Page 11
THOUSANDS OF immigrant rights supporters returned to the streets in mobilizations around the country on Labor Day weekend.
In Chicago, activists traveled nearly 50 miles on foot to take the message of justice for immigrants to the doorstep of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a chief supporter of anti-immigrant legislation in Congress.
In Los Angeles, thousands turned out for two marches in solidarity with those facing deportation and making the connection between immigrant rights and workers’ rights.
In other cities and towns across the country, many more rallied to the call for equal rights for immigrants.
-- In Chicago, one of the most inspiring actions, the Immigrant Workers’ Justice Walk, kicked off in the Chinatown neighborhood on September 1. A crowd of 400--including groups of Latinos, Asians and other immigrants, as well as members of local unions and churches--sent off marchers on the beginning of a four-day, nearly 50-mile march through the city’s western suburbs.
According to Jorge Mújica of Chicago’s March 10 Movement, which initiated the march, the length was chosen to represent the distance that many undocumented immigrants are forced to travel when they enter the U.S. across punishing desert terrain.
The culmination of the march came on Labor Day, when as many as 3,000 marchers and activists from around the area gathered in Batavia, Ill., outside Hastert’s office.
Unfortunately, groups of racists, including members of the Minuteman Project, turned out to confront marchers along the march route--including a collection of more than 100 right-wing counterprotesters who showed up in Batavia.
But for participants like Gonzalo Enriquez, an immigrant from Mexico, taking part in the march was about demanding equal rights--and the opportunity to become a citizen. “I have been in this country 20 years. About nine years ago, in 1997, I applied for residency,” he told Socialist Worker. “About five members of my family put in our applications, and almost all of us are still waiting.”
-- In Los Angeles, approximately 3,500 people marched through downtown to City Hall September 2, demanding amnesty for all undocumented immigrants. The march was called in solidarity with Elvira Arellano, a Chicago woman facing deportation who has taken sanctuary in a church.
The march was led by a contingent of women to the chant of "Mujeres unida, jamás será vencida" (Women united, will never be defeated), while carrying a large banner calling for equality and justice for all. “We all take the risk she has,” one marcher said of Arellano. “We all live in fear.”
Two days later, another 1,000 turned out for a Labor Day march from the Longshore Workers’ hall in Wilmington, Calif., to Banning Park, near the ports of Long Beach.
The Teamsters, International Longshore and Warehouse Union, United Teachers Los Angeles and many other unions joined with the newly formed National Alliance for Immigrants' Rights to call for a moratorium on deportations and amnesty for the undocumented.
The march highlighted an organizing drive by the Teamsters to which aims to unionize the almost exclusively Latino (both documented and undocumented) workforce that makes “just in time” deliveries to the ports.
As Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association, told the crowd, “You can’t talk about immigration reform without talking about labor, and you can’t talk about the labor movement without talking about immigration. It’s one in the same.”
When a group of approximately 20 Minutemen tried to disrupt the rally, marchers surrounded them, chanting “Union! Union! Union!” and “Racists go home” in both English and Spanish--until police were forced to escort the racists out of the park.
-- In San Francisco, as many as 5,000 turned out for a march from Justin Herman Plaza to the Civic Center. The march and rally included large contingents of Asian Americans and Filipino students from several schools, and favorite chants included “No one is illegal--we are the people.”
-- In Madison, Wis., 300 turned out, marching from Brittingham Park, to the city’s Labor Temple, where the annual “Labor Fest” was taking place. Workers from Star Packaging in Whitewater, Wis., arrested by Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Whitewater police, and under threat of deportation, spoke, calling for solidarity with other workers and for the government to not split up their families.
-- In Portland, Ore., a September 3 rally sponsored by VOZ Workers' Rights Education Project, Portland Jobs with Justice, PCUN farm workers’ union and others brought out 1,500. Protesters chanted “Queremos amnestia, ahora, ahora!” (We want amnesty, now, now!) and “The workers united, will never be defeated.”
-- In Burlington, Vt., 500 people turned out to celebrate Labor Day with a march and rally for worker rights, better health care, fair contracts and immigrant rights. The struggle against racist deportations was highlighted by a speaker from Immigrant Rights Vermont, who read a message of solidarity to the crowd from an undocumented dairy worker.
-- In Providence, R.I., 300 turned out to support workers’ rights and immigrant rights at Brown University at a rally organized by a coalition of labor and immigrant rights organizations. In Greensboro, N.C., 200 people gathered in the Bethel A.M.E. church in for a rally, followed by a unity march on Labor Day organized by the Guilford Country Coalition Against Intolerable Racism. And in Winston-Salem, N.C., more than 100 people gathered downtown to support immigrant rights.
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Marshall Braun, Matt Ivey, Sarah Knopp, Elizabeth Lalasz, Ben Lassiter, Chris Murphy, David Rapkin, Jim Ramey, Kyle Schmaus, Robert Skeels and Alessandro Tinonga contributed to this report.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0609080288sep08,1,5600403.story
September 8, 2006
County measure would shield illegal immigrants
By Oscar Avila, Tribune staff reporter
Email: oavila@tribune.com
A resolution introduced Thursday would make Cook County a "sanctuary" for undocumented immigrants, meaning authorities could not inquire about their immigration status in routine interactions.
County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado, the measure's sponsor, said he wants to prevent the county from joining a growing group of local jurisdictions that are cooperating with the Department of Homeland Security to enforce immigration laws.
If the measure passes, Maldonado said, sheriff's deputies could not ask for immigration papers during traffic stops and county employees could not report suspected illegal immigrants to federal authorities. Maldonado said he has no evidence that county officials are currently doing that.
The measure offers illegal immigrants no protection from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who are free to make arrests in the county. But Maldonado said the resolution is still important because turning county authorities into immigration agents would detract from their other duties.
Those who support sanctuary policies say they don't want to send illegal immigrants underground. Earlier this year, the Chicago City Council strengthened its sanctuary policy by turning a long-standing executive order into law.
But critics say sanctuary policies undermine law enforcement and let criminals go free when they might otherwise be arrested for immigration violations. Residents in Elgin and other suburbs have recently appealed to their elected officials to become more aggressive in assisting with immigration enforcement.
The County Board did not discuss the resolution Thursday. Maldonado said he hopes to have a public hearing on the measure before the Law Enforcement and Corrections Committee. The hearing has not yet been scheduled.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chicago/chi-0609080239sep08,1,3699855.story
September 8, 2006
Feds turning up the heat + Immigrant son won't lose rights, U.S. says
By Oscar Avila, Tribune staff reporter
Email: oavila@tribune.com
The U.S. government and Elvira Arellano's legal team escalated their skirmish Thursday over an unusual federal lawsuit contending that to deport the undocumented immigrant would violate her young son's rights. Attorneys for 7-year-old Saul Arellano say his constitutional rights would be violated if he is forced to return to Mexico with his mother even though he is a U.S. citizen by birth.
Prosecutors detailed their counterarguments in a motion filed Thursday to dismiss the case, insisting that Saul would not lose legal rights by his mother's deportation.
Arellano has taken refuge in a Humboldt Park church since defying a government deportation order Aug. 15, creating a standoff that has generated international notoriety.
U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said Saul Arellano's lawsuit raises "novel issues." Normally, illegal immigrants contest their own deportation orders instead of having their U.S. citizen children become plaintiffs, experts say.
Legal observers and advocates on both sides of the immigration debate are closely watching the lawsuit, which could affect the 3.1 million U.S. citizen children with at least one parent living here illegally. Some say the lawsuit is a long shot but could have political benefits.
"The courtroom is only one arena in which this lawsuit is going to play out. There is also the political arena," said Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church, where Arellano has taken refuge.
Arellano, a well-known activist for undocumented immigrants, and the government have been in a stalemate since she took refuge at the church. Arellano said she is not leaving the church. Immigration officials say they don't plan to enter the church to get her even though she is a fugitive.
For now, Arellano's hopes rest on Saul, who had already taken center stage at sympathetic rallies, quietly playing with a Spiderman action figure or a TV microphone cord. Arellano said she does not want to take Saul to Mexico because she fears that he will return to the United States as she did: with no knowledge of English and little formal education. Arellano said she has never seriously considered leaving her son behind either.
Federal prosecutors, in their court filings Thursday, said allowing Arellano to stay in the U.S. because of her son would grant her a benefit that Congress never intended. They implied that Arellano was hypocritical in turning to the court after ignoring the government's orders.
"Ms. Arellano should not be permitted to ignore the law and yet use the law through the means of a legal fiction by challenging the order through her son," prosecutors argued.
Prosecutors said they considered but rejected a plan to grant Arellano a temporary stay of deportation while her son's case is heard.
Joseph Mathews, attorney for Saul, said Arellano had been willing to wear an ankle bracelet or observe a curfew if she could be protected from deportation while the case is heard.
"I am disappointed in [the government's] decision, but I understand it," Mathews said. "They have a job to do, and they are doing it."
Prosecutors said legal precedents work against Arellano, and many experts tended to agree.
David Martin, a law professor at the University of Virginia and former counsel for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said he would be surprised if a judge agrees with the boy's claim.
"Some people's knee-jerk reaction is that you can't force a U.S.-citizen child to live somewhere else," Martin said. "This isn't really forcing him. Technically, they aren't deporting the child."
Muzaffar Chishti, director of the non-profit Migration Policy Institute's office at New York University School of Law, agreed that Saul's rights would be violated only if the government was ordering him to leave. In this case, Arellano is choosing to take him to Mexico rather than leave him in the U.S. with a guardian.
"It's a tragic human case but not a very compelling legal issue," Chishti said.
Even if Arellano's strategy doesn't hold up in court, some legal observers think her lawsuit could have political value in publicizing the situations of families like hers.
"This reflects the fact that our immigration laws are not accomplishing what they set out to, which is family unification," said Mary Meg McCarthy, director of the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center.
Critics say Arellano's rhetoric and legal tactics show how cynically many illegal immigrants use their U.S. citizen children as protection from their lawbreaking.
For some illegal immigrants, their children could eventually provide a legal window. When the children turn 21, they can petition for legal status for their parents living here illegally although the process is not easy. Those children gained U.S. citizenship through the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 mainly to reverse pre-Civil War legal barriers against African-Americans. The amendment states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."
A growing number of congressmen want to strip the citizenship rights of the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants. U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) sponsored a bill last year to change the practice and received nearly 100 co-sponsors, almost all Republicans.
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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/08/MNGD7L1M4A1.DTL
Friday, September 8, 2006
House GOP to try again on immigration crackdown
Speaker sees chance to appeal to voters on hot-button issue
- Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau
Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com
(09-08) 04:00 PDT Washington -- House Republicans, who have campaigned hard
against illegal immigration with few legislative accomplishments to show for
it, announced Thursday they would try to cobble together a package of border
crackdown measures before their recess next month.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert said he would convene an unusual forum
Wednesday in which Republican committee chairmen would report their findings
from immigration hearings held around the country this summer and suggest
proposals such as the creation of voter identification cards that the House
would try to pass before Congress adjourns.
"It won't be the whole 95 tons of what we've tried to work between the House
and Senate, but we will try to get some things done," Hastert, R-Ill., said,
emphasizing that the measures would be passed quickly by his house --
although their fate in the Senate is uncertain.
Republicans have made illegal immigration a linchpin to preserving their
threatened House majority in the November midterm elections, seeing it as
one of the few issues that may work in their favor. Yet after insisting the
issue is a crisis, House Republicans can't show voters they've addressed the
issue because of an impasse with fellow Republicans in the Senate.
The two chambers have been at loggerheads since the spring, when the Senate
passed a bill with broad support from the minority Democrats that contrasted
sharply with a House-approved bill.
The Senate's bill would greatly expand legal immigration, particularly by
providing a way for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now in the
country to become legal residents.
The House bill passed last December would make illegal presence in the
country a felony and build a 700-mile fence on the Mexican border. It
sparked large immigrant protests.
Instead of trying to reach a compromise with the Senate, House Republican
leaders held more than a dozen hearings across the country ripping the
Senate bill as a Democratic amnesty measure they promised never to support.
The chance of passing major legislation has been doomed for months. Senate
Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee acknowledged the obvious Wednesday,
when he said it would be next to impossible to pass a major immigration
overhaul before Congress adjourns.
The plan Hastert announced Thursday followed a meeting among President Bush
and Republican House and Senate leaders. Bush supports the Senate approach
but has almost no political leverage to rein in House Republicans. The
administration in recent weeks has been touting its efforts to tighten the
border, including sending 6,000 National Guard troops to back up the Border
Patrol. Hastert said discussions continue with the Senate but "in the meantime ...
there are things we can do right now."
House Majority Leader John Boehner of Ohio outlined interim measures the
House could push through in the next month, such as increasing the number of
Border Patrol agents, adding fencing and surveillance along the border and
granting greater authority to state and local law enforcement to enforce
immigration laws. The GOP leaders suggested several of these measures could
be attached to spending bills expected to move in the next month.
For example, the Senate passed an amendment by Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.,
adding $1.8 billion to the military appropriations bill to pay for 370 miles
of triple fencing and 461 miles of vehicle barriers on the border.
"We believe that solving this problem is important and the American people
expect us to solve it," Boehner said.
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http://www.latimes.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept
September 8, 2006
House GOP Makes Border Security Its Priority
Plans for a hearing next week indicate that work on a larger immigration
overhaul will have to wait until after midterm elections in November.
By Nicole Gaouette / Times Staff Writer
Email: nicole.gaouette@latimes.com
WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders announced Thursday that rather than negotiate the type of sweeping overhaul of immigration law that President
Bush had called for, they instead would hold an unusual hearing next week to
help fashion a tightly focused "border security package."
The decision effectively ends any chance that Congress will pass legislation
addressing the status of millions of illegal immigrants before November's midterm congressional elections.
It also adds another act to the House's summer long series of immigration "field hearings" around the country, which critics said were meant less to solicit public input than to promote the get-tough approach to immigration favored by conservative lawmakers.
At next week's session, various House Republicans will testify to their leaders about lessons learned in those hearings and measures that could be included in the border security effort.
"We will quickly do border security legislation before we leave" for Congress' preelection recess, said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). "Congress can't wait to act on this issue. The border is a sieve. We're at war, and we certainly need to act like we are at war and close our borders."
The announcement came as a few thousand immigrants and their supporters
demonstrated on the National Mall to demand legalization for the estimated
12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.
House Republicans have announced that they will concentrate on national
security for the rest of this session, before an election in which many
Republican seats are at risk.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said the border security initiative would provide more border patrol agents, add fencing and surveillance along the southern border, and toughen the enforcement of immigration laws inside
the country.
Republican aides said enhanced enforcement efforts could include giving state and local officials greater authority to enforce immigration laws. Hastert said measures could include tamper-proof Social Security cards.
"The House leadership is committed to sending legislation to the president's desk before Oct. 1," Blunt said.
House and Senate leaders met with Bush on Wednesday to discuss the fall agenda, and Blunt said the administration would issue its own series of proposals related to border security in the next few days.
In December, the House passed a bill focused on enforcement of immigration laws and border security, but there has been no progress since the Senate passed its bill in late May. The Senate legislation includes steps to improve enforcement, a guest worker program and a way for illegal immigrants to gain citizenship — elements that Bush has called for but which the House has adamantly rejected.
On Thursday, Hastert said that discussions were continuing with the Senate but that House leaders had no intention of considering measures beyond security.
"Before you have a guest worker program or any other program, you have to heal the wound," he said, referring to the border with Mexico. "There are nuggets of things we can do. It won't be the whole 95 tons of what we'd been trying to work out between the House and Senate, but we can get some things done."
Supporters of the Senate bill criticized the House announcement.
"Security alone cannot fix the problem of illegal immigration," said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), who backs the Senate bill. "If we do enforcement without anything else, crops in the field will be rotting, nothing will be picked and the problems will ripple throughout the entire economy."
At the immigration rally, less than a mile from the Capitol, speakers promised the crowd of immigrants and activists that the fight for a broad overhaul was far from lost.
Gina Jean, a 20-year-old Haitian American from Brooklyn, clutched a Haitian flag and a sign urging bilingual education and English classes for recent immigrants.
"I see suffering people are trying to gain their rights, but people don't want to hear what we have to say," she said.
Separately, the Senate on Thursday passed a $470-billion defense spending bill for fiscal 2007 that includes $1.8 billion for the National Guard to install 370 miles of fencing and 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the southern border.
The Senate bill will have to be reconciled with the $428-billion defense
spending bill the House passed in June.
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Times staff writer Moises Mendoza contributed to this report.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/oneworld/20060907/wl_oneworld/45361389951157642907
Thu Sep 7, 2006 @10:28 AM ET
Latino Leaders Convene First National Latino Congress in a Generation!
Aaron Glantz, OneWorld US
SAN FRANCISCO, Sep 7 (OneWorld) - Thousands of Latino community leaders from across the country convened in Los Angeles Wednesday for what organizers say is the first massive gathering of Latino community leaders, organizations, and elected officials since 1977.
"The Latino Congresso is deigned to do something that the Congress in Washington is not doing--paying attention to issues of importance to the Latino community," explained John Trasvina, who heads up the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF).
Organizers say 2,000 people will participate in the four-day gathering, which is co-hosted by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The goal is to come away with a unified program on immigration, labor rights, health care, the environment, and even foreign policy.
Equally important, organizers say, is to maintain momentum gained in May, when millions rallied around the country to protest a harsh immigration measure, which had been passed by the House of Representatives.
The demonstrations forced Congress to shelve the proposal, HR 4437, which would have made it a crime to be an undocumented immigrant in the United States or to help those who remain in the United States illegally. It would have also required churches and non-profit organizations to require proof of legal status before providing charity and would have mandated construction of a giant fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Having killed that measure, leaders in the Latino community are hoping to gather enough momentum to push forward a proposal they see as immigrant-friendly.
"We want Congress to be more practical in dealing with the immigration issues. We want to deal with these issues as a whole," Arizona State legislator Steve Gallardo told OneWorld. "Controlling the border is important but it's just one piece of the puzzle."
What immigrant groups want most, Gallardo said, is a legal path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
"The fact is our job market is dependant on undocumented workers," he argued. "Agriculture would just falter if the undocumented were not there. Look at the housing market. The State of Arizona had a $1 billion surplus and that was due to the housing market. Who do you think builds that housing? Undocumented immigrants."
Gallardo is part of a growing number of Latino officials elected nationally as the ethnic group grows in population and a higher percentage become citizens. Three Latinos currently serve in the U.S. Senate--the highest number in history. Twenty-three serve in the House of Representatives. There are 232 Latino state law-makers--almost double a decade ago.
But Gallardo said that rise in representation is creating a backlash. In 2004, the State of Arizona passed Proposition 200, which barred all state services for undocumented immigrants. New measures have been introduced every year since. This fall, Arizona voters will consider a proposition forbidding judges to grant bail to the undocumented.
The trend has hardly been limited to Arizona. In California, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger ousted incumbent Democrat Gray Davis pledging to revoke driving license privileges for undocumented immigrants.
"What you're seeing now is a reaction by the entire country for some kind of immigration reform," Gallardo said.
In such an environment, Latino organizers are looking toward this week's Congress in Los Angeles, which will conclude Sunday with a get-out-the-vote training, as a way to put forward a united front.
"This Congress comes at a time when the Latino community is mobilized," said Angela Sanbrano, head of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities (NALACC). "We not only need to march. We also need to develop policies and strategies that show that our marches have impact on policies at all levels of government."
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http://us.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unfpa.org%2Fnews%2Fnews.cfm%3FID%3D859
06 September 2006
New Report Calls on World Leaders to Protect Human Rights of Female Migrants
Women Make Up Half of All Migrants But their Contributions Often Overlooked
LONDON/NEW YORK — Today, half of all international migrants—95 million—are women and girls. Yet, despite substantial contributions to both their families at home and communities abroad, the needs of migrant women continue to be overlooked and ignored.
This year’s State of World Population report, A Passage to Hope: Women and International Migration, examines the scope and breadth of female migration, the impact of the funds they send home to support families and communities, and their disproportionate vulnerability to trafficking, exploitation and abuse.
The report, produced and published every year by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, reveals that although migrant women contribute billions of dollars in cash and services, policymakers continue to disregard both their contributions and their vulnerability—even though female migrants tend to send a much higher proportion of their lower earnings back home than their male counterparts
“This report calls on governments and individuals to recognize and value the contributions of migrant women, and promote and respect their human rights,” says Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, UNFPA Executive Director. “There is an urgent need for stronger cooperation between countries to make migration more safe and fair. And there is a dire need for greater action to address the lack of opportunities and human rights violations that lead many women to migrate in the first place.”
The launch of the State of World Population 2006 comes just a week before the High-Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development in New York. This meeting, which will take place at the United Nations from 14 to 15 September, is the first of its kind to bring together the world's governments to discuss the many challenges and benefits of migration. The timing could not be more critical, nor the issues explored in A Passage to Hope: Women and International Migration more complex and pressing.
A Passage to Hope shows that although female migration can enhance equality and offer women opportunities simply not available at home, it can also lead to terrible human rights violations—cases of migration gone bad.
The human rights violations of trafficked women are well documented. Restrictive immigration policies that limit opportunities to migrate safely and legally fuel the desperation that drives millions of women and girls to entrust their well-being and, in some cases, their very lives to unscrupulous traffickers who misrepresent themselves as legitimate labour recruiters. Today, human trafficking represents the third largest illicit trade after drugs and gun smuggling. Unlike both however, trafficking victims remain an ongoing source of “revenue” to be exploited over and over again until they are too ill too worn out to continue. Many die as a result of their servitude—either as a direct result of violence or from contracting the many diseases including HIV to which they are susceptible.
“Although awareness and action against trafficking is growing, there is an urgent need to do more to end this terrible crime and the impunity that goes with it,” says Ms. Obaid. “The report calls for greater cooperation between and within countries to bring traffickers to justice and to provide services and human rights protection for trafficking victims.
Today, domestic work remains one of the largest sectors driving international female labour migration. Every year, millions of women migrate from Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and increasingly from Africa, to Europe and North America, the Gulf States and the industrializing nations of Asia. However, labour laws rarely protect domestic workers, nor do they permit them to organize. This leaves millions dependent on employers for their continued legal presence in the host country, in addition to housing, food, and wages. The isolated nature of domestic work, coupled with official neglect and a dearth of appropriate labour protections, can relegate domestic workers to virtual slavery.
Another manifestation of female migration is the massive outflow of nurses from the developing world to industrialized countries. Ageing populations, coupled with a shortage of nurses and doctors in host countries, is fueling demand, while crumbling health systems and poverty in developing nations is driving supply. The yearly exodus of 20,000 highly qualified nurses and doctors from Africa is worsening an already grave situation for a region ravaged by HIV/AIDS, malaria and high numbers of maternal and child deaths. “Now is the time for vision and leadership on behalf of women migrants,” says Ms. Obaid. “Labour, human rights protections and sound immigration policies can ensure that migration for women is a passage to hope as the title of this year’s State of World Population report suggests.”
In addition to the main report, UNFPA is launching Moving Young, a special companion volume that explores the topic of migration through the words of migrant youth. It is a report that brings to life, through first-person accounts, the issues raised in The State of World Population. The youth report is a new initiative that will become, henceforth, a joint annual report. As an organization that also specifically focuses on youth, UNFPA wants to give voice to their dreams, aspirations, challenges and hopes.
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UNFPA is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.
UNFPA’s State of World Population report has been published annually since 1978. Each year, the report focuses on questions of current interest and concern for the future.
Contact information:
Abubakar Dungus
Tel.: +1 (212) 297-5031
Email: dungus@unfpa.org
Omar Gharzeddine
Tel.: +1 (212) 297-5028
Email: gharzeddine@unfpa.org
Related Links: The State of World Population 2006
http://us.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.unfpa.org%2Fnews%2Fnews.cfm%3FID%3D859
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