Secretary Janet Napolitano will continue to lead the Department of Homeland Security into President Barack Obama’s second term, according to an agency official. That means Napolitano is likely to play a central role should Congress take on immigration reform. Napolitano left her post as governor of Arizona four years ago to join Obama’s
No pasa un día sin que Sara Martínez, link una inmigrante ecuatoriana sin papeles, stuff agradezca el poder vivir con su hija Hillary en Estados Unidos. Martínez, de 48 años, fue arrestada en enero del 2011 en una parada de autobús en Rochester, Nueva York, y casi deportada, pero la nueva política del gobierno de priorizar la expulsión de inmigrantes que cometen delitos graves y mantener en el país a los que no representen una amenaza pública y tengan lazos con la comunidad la salvó de tener que separarse de su hija, que es ciudadana estadounidense. Aun así, su caso se prolongó durante un año y cuatro meses, y pudo cerrarse gracias a una larga campaña mediática en la que intervinieron activistas, congresistas y varios grupos de ayuda a favor de la inmigrante, que no tiene historial criminal ayuda como voluntaria a familias de escasos recursos. “Esto es algo que se podría haber resuelto mucho antes, pero no sabe todo lo que tuve que luchar para lograrlo”, dijo Martínez a la Associated Press.
Every year millions of Americans are victims of what some call wage theft — a practice in which a company fails to compensate workers for their time, short-changes them on their benefits or intentionally misclassifies employees in order to save money. And even though all that is illegal, Kim Bobo, executive director of Interfaith Worker Justice and author of “Wage Theft in America,” says it’s surprisingly common in the U.S. “Minimum wage and overtime violations are two of the most common ways that wage theft occurs. Another way is payroll fraud, when employers intentionally call people independent contractors when they are really employees. Now if your boss — not you — declares you an independent contractor, you probably aren’t one. Then there is also tip stealing. About 10 percent of tipped workers actually don’t get their tips; their employers just don’t give it to them,” says Bobo. “This is really a crime wave in the nation. And it’s a crime wave that we don’t recognize.”
The Texas legislature convened in Austin on Tuesday. The lawmakers gather once every two years. And in regard to cracking down on illegal immigration, the political pendulum swing is certainly in evidence this time around. In January 2011, site Governor Rick Perry gave the traditional opening remarks to the 82nd Texas legislature and he made it clear:
Last year delivered some milestones in U.S. immigration history – including a historic demographic shift, fueled by immigration, as the children of nonwhite parents became the majority of babies born in this country. Also for the first time, more than 100,000 young people who arrived in the United States as minors are living out of the shadows after obtaining temporary legal status through deferred action, a new program that lets young undocumented immigrants who qualify live and work legally in the U.S. And in late June, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of Arizona v. United States, upholding the most contested provision of Arizona’s trendsetting SB 1070 anti-illegal immigration law. But the issue of states’ rights in setting their own immigration policies remains in flux as new controversies arise.
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Federal immigration authorities quietly announced a new policy just before Christmas that promises to ease conflicts with local law enforcement agencies while targeting violent criminals for deportation. The new Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency policy mirrors what was promised four years ago when the Se Communities program was launched. ICE will review fingerprints from people arrested by local police, and it will seek custody of people believed to be in the United States illegally if they have committed a serious crime or are repeat offenders. In practice, ICE has detained and deported thousands of people with no criminal record or who have been arrested for petty offenses such as traffic violations. In Sonoma County, 47 percent of the people turned over to immigration agents in the first year of the program hadn’t been convicted of the crimes that landed them in jail.
The Obama administration has spent nearly four years trying to convince states and local law enforcement that the federal immigration program known as Se Communities is narrowly targeted to deporting dangerous criminals. It’s not. And late last month, the administration finally conceded as much when it announced long-overdue reforms that should restore some credibility and fairness to the controversial program. Se Communities was created to identify “dangerous criminal aliens” for deportation. Local law enforcement agencies were supposed to send the fingerprints of arrestees to federal immigration officials, who would run them through national crime databases. If an arrestee turned out to be an illegal immigrant with a serious criminal background, a “detainer” could be issued requesting that he be held for up to 48 hours so that federal officials could take him into custody.
A new study revealed that a program that was once intended to protect Davidson County against acts of terrorism was counterproductive. The study released Wednesday was conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and it focuses on the consequences of the 287(g) program. The 287(g) program was once used by the Davidson County Sheriff’s department to enforce immigration law and allow deputies to check the immigration status of anyone brought to the jail. The report alleges that it leads to immigrants being treated differently, and to be detained often for minor infractions. According to the new study, the program makes immigrants lose trust in public safety. The study said the majority of people arrested were racially profiled and deported for minor traffic offenses.