The biggest news today is undoubtedly whether Kevin “Corrupt Bargain” McCarthy will be able to secure enough votes from the feral pack of politicians known as the Republican House caucus to fulfill his years-long quest for the House speakership. But there have also been big developments in the immigration world you have missed due to the holidays (I hope they were peaceful ones for you).
Republican Kevin McCarthy and others in his caucus have carried out campaign stunt after campaign stunt at the southern border, at times happening when the wannabe speaker is desperately attempting to distract from certain scandals that also pertain to him. What a coincidence.
But now Republicans have won slim control of the U.S.
One of the nation’s foremost civil rights organizations is urging radio stations in Georgia to stop running an ad tied to former Donald Trump adviser Stephen Miller that falsely accuses Democratic leaders of “anti-white bigotry.
El Paso Times this past summer reported a rising number of migrant deaths in the region, many losing their lives due to heat exposure and drowning in dangerous canals. That report said that at least 37 migrants had died in the region since October 2021, approaching the death toll of 39 during the previous fiscal year. Advocates in that report warned of “a major human rights crisis at the border.”
They have been horrifically, tragically correct.
Advocates and bipartisan lawmakers in both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate have long urged that the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Latino (along with the American Women’s History Museum) be built on or near the National Mall. While lawmakers noted this importance in their historic legislation creating these museums, it’s still up to a board of trustees.
Beloved comedic actor Leslie Jordan died on Monday after reportedly suffering a medical emergency while driving his car. The New York Times reports that the 67-year-old crashed into the side of a building and was dead at the scene. The nature of the reported medical emergency that led to the crash is unclear.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) consistently makes hell for detained immigrants and their lawyers. Federal immigration officials know as well as we do that when immigrants have access to legal help, they’re more likely to be able to stay in the U.S.
Their blockading is a pervasive problem.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s unprovoked invasion have been able to find safety in the U.S. under a successful Biden administration policy implemented this past spring. Under the Uniting for Ukraine policy, Americans can apply to sponsor a Ukrainian refugee (or refugees). The program has been immense, with nearly 125,000 Americans submitting an application as of last month.
One of the nation’s top Latino voter engagement organizations has released a new ad targeting Greg Abbott on a swath of issues on which they say the Republican governor has failed Latinos in Texas, from voter suppression to COVID-19 to gun violence. The ad’s tagline is aptly, “Abbott nos abandonó.” Or, Abbott abandoned us.
U.S Marine veteran Joseph Dietzel writes in Military Times that he had no idea his interpreter Mustafa Aahangaran would become one of his closest friends after being deployed to Afghanistan back in 2010. Dietzel writes that before his deployment, he’d never even met anyone from Afghanistan before.
He said the two soon became “practically inseparable,” sharing meals and stories throughout a dangerous mission.
The California proposal that would halt the double punishment of immigrants in the state has died in the legislature after it failed to get enough support in the Senate. The “ICE out of California” coalition said that the VISION Act failed to advance, with 18 votes in support, 13 opposing, and nine lawmakers abstaining.
California Supreme Court Associate Justice Patricia Guerrero is now a major step closer to becoming the court’s first Latina chief justice, after a panel approved her nomination last week. The confirmation process is not yet complete, however. Her name must now go before voters this November. But as the only candidate on the ballot, her confirmation is not in doubt.
Since the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the federal government has allowed U.S. businesses to verify potential and current employees’ work eligibility documents remotely, including through email and fax.
U.S. border agents in the Yuma sector have seized turbans from almost 50 Sikh asylum-seekers in recent weeks, civil rights advocates said in an alarming letter earlier this month. But volunteers with an immigrant advocacy group along the borderlands revealed the number could actually be into the hundreds, and that these religious freedom violations have also stretched into the Tucson sector. Lawmakers are now demanding answers in an Aug.
Border Patrol agents have violated the religious freedom of dozens of asylum-seekers throughout the past two months alone, confiscating and refusing to return turbans belonging to almost 50 Sikh individuals who have crossed the southern border into Arizona.
Advocates have noted border agents seizing turbans and other sacred items from Sikh migrants as far back as 2019, and rising sharply this past June, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Arizona said.
An asylum-seeking parent who has filed a lawsuit against the federal government after being separated from her son under the previous administration’s zero-tolerance policy said they were never even given a chance to hug goodbye. Instead, M.S.E., as she is known in court documents, said her son, identified only as J.M., could only wave as officers ripped him and other children from their parents for legally seeking asylum.
“M.S.E.
There is a direct pipeline of former federal immigration officials who have then gone to work for the private prison profiteers that make big bucks from jailing immigrants for the federal government. This includes officials from the previous administration, who, for their intentional anti-immigrant abuses, should be societal pariahs.
Massachusetts Republicans want to make roads less safe by calling for the repeal of a law that will allow undocumented residents in the commonwealth to apply for driver’s licenses and drive legally. The Work and Mobility Act was passed in June and doesn’t even go into effect for another year, but state Republican officials and candidates are backing an effort to get a repeal on November’s ballot.
It is a fact that the Fox propaganda channel is virulently anti-LGBTQ. In just one example, Daily Kos’ Marissa Higgins has previously reported how the right-wing outlet has played a significant role in re-popularizing the Anita Bryant-era “groomer” slur against LGBTQ people.
Oh, but that’s just outright false, Fox might rebut. We honored LGBTQ Pride month just a couple weeks ago, it might insist.
The federal government has been slapped with another civil rights complaint alleging abuses against immigrants in U.S. custody, this time at a facility in Florida. More than a dozen people either currently or formerly detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Baker County Detention Center (Baker) say in the complaint that they were subject to “frequent” physical and verbal abuse, including arbitrary punishment and racist harassment.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) this month finally released the long-awaited report on the mistreatment of Haitian migrants at Del Rio last fall, but the demand for justice is nowhere near over. While the report said border agents used “unnecessary” force and derogatory language against migrants, investigators claimed they found “no evidence” that agents “struck, intentionally or otherwise, any migrant with their reins.
Nearly two dozen members of the U.S. House have added their voices to a recent call urging the Biden administration to protect the survivors of the horrific San Antonio tragedy last month, which resulted in the deaths of 53 people and hospitalized at least 16 others. San Antonio Rep. Joaquin Castro leads 22 colleagues in asking the survivors be spared from deportation and detention, and be allowed to quickly access certain humanitarian visas.
While the Supreme Court in June 2020 ruled against the previous administration’s attempt to terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, it didn’t mark the end of GOP-led litigation against the popular and successful policy. Nearly a year ago, a notoriously anti-immigrant judge ruled against the program following a lawsuit from corrupt Texas attorney general Ken Paxton.
Byron Gomez worked his way from Burger King worker to Top Chef cooking competition contestant to executive chef at an Aspen, Colorado, restaurant. In between that time, he’s also worked under noted chefs Daniel Boulud and Daniel Humm.
While he’s accomplished this through his own talent and grit, he says the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has played a monumental part in his advancement.
More than 100 organizations are urging the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to not deport survivors of the San Antonio tragedy that took the lives of 53 people, and allow them to apply for certain visas that are made available to victims of crime.
While officials have said it could possibly take weeks to identify all 53 victims from this past week’s horrific tragedy in San Antonio, some are now publicly known. Two of the youngest were just 13, The Washington Post reports.
Pascual Melvin Guachiac Sipac and Juan Wilmer Tulul Tepaz, Indigenous cousins from Guatemala, started their journey just over two weeks ago. Pascual was seeking to reunite with his dad in the U.S., the report said.
Hundreds of thousands more Californians will now be insured, after Governor Gavin Newsom and state leaders reached a budget agreement this week that provides access to health care to all income-eligible residents regardless of immigration status.
It is a historic first for any state in the nation, policy experts said.
The onslaught of anti-LBGTQ bills across the nation’s statehouses aren’t to protect children, or anyone else for that matter. They’re actually to make the lives of LGBTQ youth and adults as miserable as possible. These bills are having that intended effect, regardless of whether or not they’ve actually been passed into law (and some have been).
The U.S. House under the leadership of Speaker Nancy Pelosi last year passed a historic bill that would put undocumented farmworkers onto a path to legal status. That legislation passed the chamber with support from 30 Republicans, surpassing the bipartisan support for the bill legalizing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals beneficiaries.
But more than a year after House passage, the U.S.
Black immigrant domestic workers who were already vulnerable in their workplace settings have continued to struggle more than two years since the onset of the pandemic, new survey findings show. The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) Black Worker Initiative and the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) said that 37% of respondents from a survey of 1,000 domestic workers revealed the’ve had difficulty finding work.