NDLON in the News

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Feds Use Counter-Terrorism Laws to Fuel Deportation Machine

Jose Barahona says that he would have been killed had he refused to open his door when the armed guerillas occupying his town demanded he let them use his kitchen and sleep on his floor. He says that’s what happened to his father. Dead. And he says it was because of the fear of death during the war raging between the FMLN guerillas and the Salvadoran government that at the age of 24, with his new wife and baby boy, he left his Salvadoran mountain village and came to the United States where the couple would have two more children and where he’d spend the next two and half decades. He thought he’d left all the violence behind. Twenty six years after that departure, on March 22nd 2011, now 51-year-old Barahona was shuttled from a Virginia immigration detention center to an immigration court

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Se Communities gear up is the mother of all flawed immigration policies

The announcement came just in time for Mother’s Day: Se Communities, the arbitrary and despised Department of Homeland Security program that requires states to identify immigrants for deportation, ed is expected to be activated across New York State, including in New York City, on Tuesday. In a brave gesture Gov. Cuomo, nearly a year ago, unsuccessfully tried to remove the state from the deportation program that is also strongly opposed by law enforcement officials and domestic violence groups across the country. These groups correctly believe Se Communities undermines public safety by compromising the trust between police and the communities they serve, in addition to encouraging racial profiling, separating families and even deports U.S. citizens. Despite the criticism, the calls for reform or for ending it, and Cuomo’s concern, the Obama administration has continued imposing the fundamentally flawed program in blatant disregard of the human cost and dire consequences.

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Obama’s Broken 2008 Immigration Promises Create Dilemma For Democrats

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), one of President Barack Obama’s most vocal critics on immigration, was sitting at dinner with his family a couple of weeks ago when his youngest daughter began talking about the president’s “terrible” deportation record. “If they invite us to the White House, I won’t go,” the 24-year-old said, according to Gutierrez. His wife, though, summed up the family’s mixed feelings on the president and immigration. “Yes — but you should clarify that notwithstanding that, we’re all voting for him,” his wife said, according to the congressman. “We can be angry, but we cannot vote for” Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee. To many supporters of immigration reform, Obama has been a major disappointment.

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Obama’s Broken 2008 Immigration Promises Create Dilemma For Democrats

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), one of President Barack Obama’s most vocal critics on immigration, was sitting at dinner with his family a couple of weeks ago when his youngest daughter began talking about the president’s “terrible” deportation record. “If they invite us to the White House, I won’t go,” the 24-year-old said, according to Gutierrez. His wife, though, summed up the family’s mixed feelings on the president and immigration. “Yes — but you should clarify that notwithstanding that, we’re all voting for him,” his wife said, according to the congressman. “We can be angry, but we cannot vote for” Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee. To many supporters of immigration reform, Obama has been a major disappointment.

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ICE to Expand Se Communities Program in Mass. and N.Y. – NYTimes.com

Obama administration officials have announced that a contentious fingerprinting program to identify illegal immigrants will be extended across Massachusetts and New York next week, expanding federal enforcement efforts despite opposition from the governors and immigrant groups in those states. In blunt e-mails sent Tuesday to officials and the police in the two states, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the program, Se Communities, would be activated “in all remaining jurisdictions” this Tuesday. Last June, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts declined to sign an agreement with the immigration agency to expand Se Communities beyond a pilot program in the Boston area since 2006. Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said he wanted to suspend the program, which had already been initiated in a number of counties.

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