NDLON in the News

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Critican sistema de revisión de deportaciones

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.

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Robbed on the job: Advice on fighting wage theft | Marketplace.org

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.”

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After Sandy, immigrant groups keeping an eye out for abuse of laborers

Nearly a month after superstorm Sandy, ask immigrant labor rights advocacy groups say they’re unaware of any cases of day laborers being denied payment for work related to recovery efforts. “I’m not hearing anything right now that they’re not getting paid, pharm ” said Stuart Sydenstricker of Wind of the Spirit, an immigrant resource center in Morristown. “But it could take a few more weeks to come out.” Sydenstricker and Diana Mejia, also of Wind of the Spirit, document incidents of wage theft or injuries among immigrant laborers — many of whom speak little or no English — that otherwise might go unreported. Part of the problem with officially tracking such incidents is that the state does not and cannot make inquiries at work sites about workers’ immigration status. Consequently, it’s not possible to say whether undocumented laborers are performing work, according to Department of Labor spokesman Brian T. Murray. If a worker complained of being ripped off for wages by a contractor…

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5 immigration stories to watch in 2013 and beyond | 89.3 KPCC

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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