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Friday, July 11, 2008
Article from the NYTimes discussing the lack of due process given to immigrants arrested in the Iowa Pottsville raid.
"In the essay and an interview, Professor Camayd-Freixas said he was taken aback by the rapid pace of the proceedings and the pressure prosecutors brought to bear on the defendants and their lawyers by pressing criminal charges instead of deporting the workers immediately for immigration violations."
read more | digg story
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Thursday, June 19, 2008
News article from the BBC. It appears that Sierra Leone will start to crack down on Nigerians illegal in the country.
Our correspondent says thousands of Nigerians live all over Sierra Leone, many running shops in business district of the capital, Freetown.
But many Sierra Leoneans regard them with suspicion as they believe they are involved in crime, especially drug dealing or con tricks - known as 419 scams, he says.
Sounds very similar to the situation faced by undocumented immigrants in the US. I wonder if there is a propaganda machine similar to FAIR over there pumping out misinformation.
Our reporter says the news of the crackdown has prompted fear among the large Nigerian community - many fearing it may prompt xenophobic attacks.
Yet another similarity to the United States and ICE with their stepped up raids.
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Monday, June 16, 2008
Did you know you can send an email to a phone number and the user will recieve it as a text message. I was thinking it would be a neat idea to use in Voter Registration drives to send people an SMS to remind them to vote. Here is the format for the email:
Cricket
phonenumber@mms.mycricket.com
T-mobile
number@tmomail.net
AT&T
number@txt.att.net
Sprint(PCS)
number@messaging.sprintpcs.com
Sprint(Nextel)
number@page.nextel.com
Verizon
number@vtext.com
More can be found here on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_gateway#Carrier_Provided_Email_or_Web_to_SMS_gateways
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You see it time and time again. The “estimates” of how many “illegals” there are. Is it 12M, 13M, some estimates say there are 30M. Wow! As one, commenter mentioned, NASA has some competition from these folks and their calculators. So how many undocumented are there? Don’t forget to cut and paste it to your favorite forum next time Joe Patriot starts getting creative with the figures!
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Estimates on the unauthorized population of the United States
Analysis of the March 2005 Current Population Survey shows that there were 11.1 million unauthorized migrants in the United States a year ago. Based on analysis of other data sources that offer indications of the pace of growth in the foreign-born population, the Center developed an estimate of 11.5 to 12 million for the unauthorized population as of March 2006.
Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S.
http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=61
FAIR estimates that in 2007 the illegal alien population is above 13 million persons. Government and academic estimates indicate that as of 2006 there were 11 to 12 million illegal aliens living in the United States. The Center for Immigration Studies estimated the illegal alien population at 10 million as of November 2004.
http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersb8ca
Given that these two are on very different sides of the immigration debate, I’d say its safe to assume its somewhere in the middle.
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Blogging can be dangerous for your health in some parts of the world. Without a doubt, it has changed the way we receive our news. Its a form of citizen journalism that is available to almost anyone (including repressive regimes) in the world.
Last year, 2007, was a record year for blogger arrests, with three times as many as in 2006. Egypt, Iran and China are the most dangerous places to blog about political life, accounting for more than half of all arrests since blogging became big," said Assistant Professor Phil Howard, lead author of the World Information Access Report. Howard also suggests that the real number of arrests may be much higher, as not every arrest makes it into the media.
Ars Techina has a great story about a report recently released from the University of Washington that details the increase in arrests.
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Thursday, June 12, 2008
The Record of North Jersey has an article on Sen. Menendez’s floor speech against ICE raids that have targeted Latino US Citizens:
Another U.S. citizen named Gladis was at her home one day when eighteen vehicles drove into her front yard, and twenty agents jumped out.
Agents banged on the door and threatened to throw gas inside the house if they didn’t let them in. While the children in the house ran and hid in the bedroom, the agents broke down the door.
One of the agents grabbed Gladis and attempted to handcuff her. Gladis said she could prove her citizenship, and gave them her social security card. After interrogating Gladis and her family for twenty more minutes, the agents left as fast as they came—
they had no warrant, no probable cause, no reason for their actions besides suspicion about someone’s name, their accent, and the color of their skin.And there’s one more detail I should mention: Gladis was six months pregnant at the time.
It makes you wonder, about what the future holds for the immigration debate and for the country in general. The last eight years have shown us that respect for the guarantees of the Constitution are no longer an obstacle.
We all knew that the propaganda of groups like ALIPAC and NumbersUSA was distorting the immigration debate. We also knew that politicians saw value in scoring political points by pandering to the least common denominator. But did we ever thing it was actually going to lead to Latino US Citizens having to fear being deported from their own country?
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Wednesday, June 11, 2008
What part of ILLEGAL do you not understand?
You know its your favorite comment. You’ve seen it posted on every message board from the New York Times to the Millwood Gazette.
Hmm… What is ALL the fuss about? I mean it must be something big if everyone is always writing in these CAPITAL LETTERS! Well it turns out that these are not criminals per se. As they have not committed a criminal violation, it is a CIVIL offense.
Just cut and paste the info between the lines to your favorite hate filled comment section!
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Being illegally present in the U.S. has always been a civil, not criminal, violation of the INA, and subsequent deportation and associated administrative processes are civil proceedings. For instance, a lawfully admitted nonimmigrant alien may become deportable if his visitor’s visa expires or if his student status changes.
Immigration Enforcement Within the United States
Congressional Research Service ˜ The Library of Congress
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL33351_20060406.pdf
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Latin artists make so much money in the US. The people supporting them are the some of the ones suffering the most right now. Why haven’t any of them spoken up for immigration reform? Don’t they care? Are they afraid of a backlash from Lou Dobbs?
Billboard’s Leila Cobo has written a great article about their apathy.
The omission is glaring, not only because so many Latin acts that are now citizens of this country initially came here as illegal aliens, but also because many of the people who support their music are here illegally and under siege. Indeed, fear of immigration crackdowns have had a direct impact on Latin concert attendance and album sales, according to promoters, managers and retailers.
