Jose Maria Islas of New Haven caught a break this week, at least for a while, in his desire to keep from being deported to his native Mexico by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. His lawyer, Danielle Briand, thinks that since ICE is considering their request for a stay of removal, Islas ultimately will be given the stay and allowed to…
The homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, order testified on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill. For hours, in a calm and methodical manner, she flipped each confrontational line of questioning on its head. No, the bill would not loosen security at borders and ports. It would tighten it….
Bajo la sombra de un árbol en la esquina de Wilshire y Union de Los Ángeles, ask cuatro jornaleros esperan el milagro de cada día: encontrar trabajo. Marco Mejía, health Wálter Castillo, Paulino Ramos y Mario Alonso saben que sin una reforma migratoria prevalecerá esa angustia que experimentan a diario por no tener
The just-released music video from Los Angeles-based La Santa Cecilia shares the anguish that the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants experience in the United States because of their precarious status. For the band members, "ICE El Hielo," is more than just a heartfelt song tells of their community. La Santa Cecilia’s vocalist,…
In Arizona, health more and more immigrants find themselves joining the ranks of a group that could be excluded from immigration reform: undocumented immigrants with criminal records. The local grassroots pro-immigrant group PUENTE is calling on Congress to enact an immigration reform package that includes those whose criminal records are related to the…
As the immigration debate has moved forward, and it has also gone topsy-turvy; left and right are jumbled and players are in unfamiliar positions. President Obama says the right words about giving hope to the unauthorized, but is still playing the role of hard-core enforcer: his administration is deporting people at record rates and keeping detention…
One by one, there some twenty people—mostly youth—stood under a canopy of butterflies in front of the George Washington statue in New York’s Union Square yesterday, and came out as undocumented. Despite some rain, their allies in the crowd gathered for the fourth annual Coming Out of the Shadows event, a nationwide, month-long push to create a space for…
Despite the fact that political winds are blowing away from Arizona-style attrition politics, some officials in that state are determined to keep their tent staked in the ground, by hook or by crook. For those living under the shadow of Maricopa County Sheriff Arpaio, looking at federal immigration reform comes with a specific perspective…
For ten months between October 2010 and August 2011, a Korean contractor named June Bong Park hired a group of eight Latino construction workers to excavate the basement of a building in upper Manhattan. The workers were required to break the existing cement floor, excavate eight to ten feet of earth beneath it, and then pour cement for the new
Like many struggling workers, Mr. José Ucelo Gonzalez looks for work every day at the Home Depot by Brookhurst Ave. and the interstate 5 fwy in Anaheim. On March 9th, 2012, Mr. Ucelo accepted a job offer by Michael Tebb; owner of M.T Asphalt, an Anaheim based company. The agreement was $10 an hour. After a hard 10-hour day work, Mr. Ucelo tried to collect his salary, but instead he got verbally abused and challenged to a fistfight by his employer. Mr. Ucelo remained calm and tried to deescalate the situation, but the harassment continued. Tebb accused his employee of robbery and threatened to call the police if he insisted on asking for his pay. The contractor got in his truck and left. Mr. Ucelo called 911 to ask for assistance but before he could give his location to the operator,