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How should America handle immigration?
- Got a perspective? Make a point. Change someone's mind.
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- NON-PAID ASSIGNMENT
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- ENDS: 10/26/2008 01:00 AM
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U.S. Deported 90,000 Mexican Children
“In the first seven months of 2008 at least 90,000 Mexican children have been deported by the US government in its anti-immigrant policy, with the consequent separation of thousands of families.” This statement from the PRI party’s workgroup on immigration matters in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies (US equiv: House of Representatives) estimates that 15% of those children (13,500) live on the Mexican side near the border “without any government protection.” The coordinator of the partisan workgroup said that during the same period, 300,000 adults have been deported back to Mexico. The document also charges that besides the abandonment of thousands of children on the Mexican side of the border, it is estimated that for every three adults deported, they leave “a helpless Mexican infant” behind in the US.
“The children are left in the charge of human smugglers to bring them to the US with their parents and in that intent they are deposited and practically abandoned on the Mexican border since their family, for fear of deportation, does not reclaim them,” he said. [Note: We can't figure this one out either.]
The coordinator continues that just in seven months, the 90,000 children born in Mexico, but who accompanied their parents in search of better opportunities in the US, have been expelled by the US government as a consequence of massive deportations. He points out that, of the estimated 13,500 children “parked” along the northern border of Mexico, some stay in government or church provided shelters but others remain abandoned and turn to begging in order to survive and try to return to the US.
The OEM newspaper La Voz de la Frontera (Mexicali, Baja California) adds to their copy of this story, “There is disdain by the US for these children and there doesn’t exist a program of support for them on the part of the Mexican government.” “In the first seven months of 2008 at least 90,000 Mexican children have been deported by the US government in its anti-immigrant poli... more -
Border patrol robots not welcome!
Facial recognition and passport checking machines are being boycotted by the immigration service’s 5,000 staff, who don’t believe they are effective in stopping undesirables getting into the UK. The machines work on average 6 seconds faster than a human passport official and were introduced as part of a cost-saving exercise. Facial recognition and passport checking machines are being boycotted by the immigration service’s 5,000 staff, who don’t believe they... more
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Born in America, Heart in Mexico
American musician Shawn Kiehne, aka El Gringo, whose passion for Mexican culture is found not only in his love for norteño music, but also in his song lyrics in Spanish that champion the struggles of rural working class labor and immigrants, and against the Bush administration's plans to fortify the U.S.-Mexico border with a wall. Keihne -- who grew up in Los Lunas, New Mexico, in a German-American family -- is distinctive in that not only is he an emerging singer writing and performing music in a Latino genre, but genuinely embraces and identifies with Mexican culture.
ABQJournal.com's Bruce Daniels writes about Shawn Kiehne as profiled in Josh Kun's article in a New York Times article, "Born in America, Heart in Mexico" (20 July 2008); the NYT's article also offers sample audio. The NYT article is currently available online here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/20/arts/music/20kun.html.
Photo: Shawn Kiehne, aka "El Gringo". John Burcham for The New York Times. Source info courtesy of ABQJournal.com, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the New York Times. American musician Shawn Kiehne, aka El Gringo, whose passion for Mexican culture is found not only in his love for norteño music, but ... more -
Hong Kong emigrant's death attracts scrutiny of U.S. detention system
Hiu Lui Ng, a computer science engineer who worked in New York for the Empire State Building, died two days after his 34th birthday in custody at Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a Rhode Island hospital. His death was an unexpected final stop after consulting with officials about his green card with immigration officials last summer in New York, although his visa had lapsed years ago, and he was subsequently jailed and held in detention ever since.
Reporter Nina Bernstein, in her contribution to the International Herald Tribune ("Hong Kong emigrant's death attracts scrutiny of U.S. detention system", August 13, 2008) writes about the investigation surrounding Ng's death -- his body "riddled with cancer" untreated and undiagnosed for months, and a spine fracture which he suffered from in July before his death. His attorneys have initialized a criminal investigation in a letter to U.S. and state prosecutors in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont, and the Department of Homeland Security. Court affidavits say, Bernstein writers, that "guards at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island, dragged him from his bed on July 30, carried him in shackles to a car, bruising his arms and legs, and drove him two hours to a U.S. government lockup in Hartford, Connecticut, where an immigration officer pressured him to withdraw all pending appeals of his case and accept deportation."
Photo: Rhode Island Hospital where Hiu Lui Ng died after being diagnosed with cancer and a spinal fracture. Credit: Steven Senne/AP, image courtesy of findingdulcinea.com. Hiu Lui Ng, a computer science engineer who worked in New York for the Empire State Building, died two days after his 34th birthday in... more -
In a Generation, Minorities May Be the U.S. Majority
The New York Times Reports
Ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation’s population in a little more than a generation, according to new Census Bureau projections, a transformation that is occurring faster than anticipated just a few years ago.
The census calculates that by 2042, Americans who identify themselves as Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander will together outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Four years ago, officials had projected the shift would come in 2050.
The main reason for the accelerating change is significantly higher birthrates among immigrants. Another factor is the influx of foreigners, rising from about 1.3 million annually today to more than 2 million a year by midcentury, according to projections based on current immigration policies.
“No other country has experienced such rapid racial and ethnic change,” said Mark Mather, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a research organization in Washington.
The latest figures, which are being released on Thursday, are predicated on current and historical trends, which can be thrown awry by several variables, including prospective overhauls of immigration policies and sudden increases in refugees.
So-called minorities, the Census Bureau projects, will constitute a majority of the nation’s children under 18 by 2023 and of working-age Americans by 2039.
For the first time, both the number and the proportion of non-Hispanic whites, who now account for 66 percent of the population, will decline, starting around 2030. By 2050, their share will dip to 46 percent.
“A momentum is built into this as a result of past immigration,” said Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center. “In the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, there were more Hispanic immigrants than births. This decade, there are more births than immigrants. Almost regardless of what you assume about future immigration, the country will be more Hispanic and Asian.”
According to the new forecast, by 2050, the number of Hispanic people will nearly triple, to 133 million from 47 million, to account for 30 percent of Americans, compared with 15 percent today.
More than three times as many people are expected to identify themselves as multiracial — 16 million, accounting for nearly 4 percent of the population.
The population of people who define themselves a black is projected to rise to 66 million from 41 million, but increase its overall share by barely two percentage points, to 15 percent.
“What’s happening now in terms of increasing diversity probably is unprecedented,” said Campbell Gibson, a retired census demographer.
Several states, including California and Texas, have already reached the point where members of minorities are in the majority.
“Within the conventional definition of race, of white, black, Asian, minority vs. non-minority, this is a big change,” said David G. Waddington, chief of the Census Bureau’s population projections branch.
All the projections are subject to changing cultural definitions. The share of Americans who identify themselves as white, regardless of their ethnicity, will remain largely unchanged, declining from less than 80 percent in 2010 to about 76 percent when the majority-minority benchmark is reached in 2042.
The Census Bureau’s projections are likely to fuel debates over immigration policy, overpopulation and the changing electorate, and recall earlier eras when the Irish, the Italians and Eastern European Jews were not universally considered as whites. As recently as the 1960s, Hispanic people were not counted separately by the census and Asian Indians were classified as white.
William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, said that by the 2028 presidential election, racial and ethnic minorities will constitute a majority of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 for the first time. The New York Times Reports ... more -
A Dangerous Crisis of Invisible Refugees
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is on track to meet its 2008 goal of taking in 12,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of next month. That's the good news about the worst refugee crisis in the Middle East in 60 years.
The bad news is that 12,000 people represent a tiny fraction of the vast exodus of Iraqis driven from their homes by the violence and ethnic cleansing unleashed by the 2003 U.S. invasion. Estimates of their number vary. The widely used figure of 5 million is about one in five. To get that into context: relative to the size of the population, it would equal the forced displacement of almost 60 million Americans.
Why does a crisis of that magnitude barely register in public discourse in the U.S. and make few headlines? For one, the refugees are virtually invisible. There are no Darfur or Rwanda-style refugee camps that produce television images of shock value. More important, the refugees have not fit into the political agenda of the governments in Washington and Baghdad. The narrative is that Iraq is returning to normal.
At the height of the bloodshed, in 2006, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said 50,000 people a month were fleeing from their homes, either to safety across the borders or inside Iraq. While violence has sharply subsided since, political and sectarian divisions remain and there has been no mass return. Only a trickle have been granted permission to settle in the U.S. - a paltry 134 a month in 2007...
by Bernd Debusmann
Complete article: http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersComService4/idUSI... WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is on track to meet its 2008 goal of taking in 12,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of next month... more -
The Bourne Illegal?
Something tells me that he is not an international assassin.
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Ill and in Pain, Detained Immigrant With Undiagnosed Spinal Cancer Dies in U.S. Ha...
He was 17 when he came to New York from Hong Kong in 1992 with his parents and younger sister, eyeing the skyline like any newcomer. Fifteen years later, Hiu Lui Ng was a New Yorker: a computer engineer with a job in the Empire State Building, a house in Queens, a wife who is a United States citizen and two American-born sons. He was 17 when he came to New York from Hong Kong in 1992 with his parents and younger sister, eyeing the skyline like any newcomer. F... more
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YouTube - Comedian Doug Stanhope on Immigration
He's got a really foul mouth, so be warned. But he makes some good points. What do you think?
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College board to discuss immigrants
North Carolina community college leaders will discuss this week whether to admit illegal immigrants to degree programs after federal officials told the college system it was up to the state, a newspaper reported today.
Community college spokeswoman Audrey Bailey said the discussion will take place during board meetings Thursday and Friday, The Fayetteville Observer reported.
Officials are looking at a decision made in May to bar illegal immigrants from degree programs. Officials said at the time they wanted to get guidance from federal immigration experts.
Last month, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was the state's call and that no federal law banned ban illegal immigrants studying for degrees.
Hispanic advocate Tony Asion said the decision to reopen discussion would benefit everyone.
"This is good for everyone in the state, not just Hispanics," said Asion, director of the Raleigh-based advocacy group El Pueblo.
David Sullivan, an attorney for Fayetteville Technical Community College, told state community college officials in November that illegal immigrants should be admitted.
"This is such a hot political issue," Sullivan said. "But in the position I serve, I can't make decisions on the politics of it. I have to base my work on whether it is legal or not."
Larry Keen, president of Fayetteville Tech, said he is ready to comply with whatever decision the board makes.
"I'm looking forward to the state board taking this up and resolving it once and for all," Keen said.
Officials said there are 112 illegal immigrants among the 297,000 students seeking degrees in community colleges across the state. None were at Fayetteville Tech as of May. North Carolina community college leaders will discuss this week whether to admit illegal immigrants to degree programs after federal o... more -
Asylum for transgender individuals? US say 'yes' to Indonesian case
For the first time, The United States have granted asylum to an Indonesian transsexual as Michelle Saraswati, 42, formerly known as Michael Setiabudi, won her case at the San Fransisco Immigration Court in July.
When Saraswati, a graduate from Trisakti University school of architecture, first came to the United States in 1998, she did so as a gay man. She stayed illegally after her work visa expired in 2001 and after her asylum claim as a gay man was rejected in 2005. In August 2006 she was arrested for violation of immigration rules. She appealed and her case was re-opened as a transgender.
Indonesian LGBT activist King Oey acted as an expert trial witness, describing the quality of life of transgender people in Indonesia. He supported Saraswati's case due to the lack of laws and legal recourse for transgender discrimination and limited employment opportunities for transvestites.
Paul Amro Yuwono, a gay Indonesian residing in San Francisco, who helped Saraswati, said that the case could be a wake up call for the Indonesian government to eliminate discrimination and do more to protect sexual minorities: "They are loosing their own talented people. Michelle is an architect and soon she will take up a great job in a design and architecture company. Michelle is only one example There are many Indonesians including GBLT and other minorities that have bailed out from Indonesia and are building a good life here in the United States." For the first time, The United States have granted asylum to an Indonesian transsexual as Michelle Saraswati, 42, formerly known as Mi... more -
Mom arrested, kids left on I-85
An illegal immigrant arrested on a traffic violation last month was forced to leave her three children on the shoulder of Interstate 85 in the middle of the night -- where they were alone and stranded for eight hours.
An Alamance County sheriff's deputy pulled Maria Chavira Ventura over just before 2 a.m. on June 14, according to arrest records. He took her to jail for driving without a license and displaying a false license plate, and she was eventually put under a federal deportation order. He left her children, 14, 10 and 6, with a man they barely knew, according to the N.C. Justice Center and Maryland social workers. He was a fellow church member who had been catching a ride with the family.
Lawyers with the Justice Center are investigating the incident. They say the man, fearing deportation if the officer returned, abandoned the children, leaving them to wait for their father to drive from Maryland.
The father, Antonio Perez, said he got a cell phone call from the sobbing children around 2 a.m. They had been headed from their home in Western North Carolina to visit him in Maryland. Perez, who doesn't have a license and had to get his uncle to drive him, arrived at 10:30 a.m. to find his children scared, exhausted, hungry, and distraught over the loss of their mother.
"They were left abandoned there in the middle of the street," Perez said. "It was a horrible experience for them, just horrible."
Perez, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, agreed to give only his middle and last names. His story was confirmed by Justice Center lawyers who interviewed Ventura in jail. The 14-year-old also told the same story in an interview with social workers in Maryland. The Justice Center provided a copy of that interview.
Officials at the Alamance County Sheriff's Department say they handled Ventura's arrest according to their policies. They say children are frequently left with neighbors or family friends, as long as parents approve. If there is no adult available, the department calls social workers, said spokesman Randy Jones.
"We make arrangements all the time, and we have to do it on a case-by-case basis," Jones said. "We're not going to let something happen to a child."
In this case, Jones said, the department has not received a complaint and was unaware until last week that the children ended up alone.
Jones said the man, who had no identification or driver's license, had a cell phone and told the officer that help was on the way. The mother spoke very little English, so the officer had the teenage daughter ask her handcuffed mother whether she approved of them staying with the man, Jones said.
"The girl said something to the mother in Spanish," Jones said. "And the officer said the mother looked at him and nodded."
However, both Ventura and her daughter say the officer never asked permission to leave the children with the man. Dan Rearick, a Justice Center lawyer, interviewed Ventura at the Alamance County jail on July 9.
"She said very clearly that the officer never mentioned her children and she was never told anything about what would happen to them," Rearick said.
Ventura got no response when she tried to ask the officer, in broken English, about her children, she told Rearick.
The daughter said in an interview with Casa de Maryland, an immigrant advocacy group, that the officer asked only if they had a phone and someone to call.
Jones said the sheriff's department doesn't know what happened to the children after their mother's arrest. He said they don't plan to look into it any further, unless they receive an official complaint. He said that, if the children were left alone, the man bears responsibility for abandoning them.
**story continues, please click link to read** An illegal immigrant arrested on a traffic violation last month was forced to leave her three children on the shoulder of Interstate 8... more -
Community Theatre Teaches ICE Raid Survival Skills
From the Aztecs to the Greeks, civilizations around the world have used theatre as their primary means of mass communication. Important messages crucial to the survival of the people were broadcast through plays, something that has been lost with the passage of time. Today, in a city known as the birthplace of high-tech, a group of Hispanic students is resurrecting popular theatre, and using it to help instruct immigrants in an urgent task: protecting them from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
The series was organized by Students Advocates for Higher Education (SAHE) from San Jose State Univesity, COCHITLEHUAL-LI ("dream" in the Mexican indigenous language Nahuatl) from Evergreen Community College, and LULAC (the League of United Latin American Citizens).
In its opening performance, the curtain goes up and various workers appear who are suddenly interrupted by immigration agents asking for their papers. They perform the scene twice: The first time, the workers get arrested; the second time they don’t. The only difference in the two scenes is the way the workers respond to the ICE agents.
The MC, student Luis Ruelas, leads a discussion with the audience, asking them what they would do in real life to avoid falling into the hands of immigration authorities, and the best way to get out of it if they do.
More and more people now carry what they call a “red card,” an information card that can be shown to ICE agents by immigrants who want to avoid saying anything that could incriminate them. The card explains that the worker has the right to remain silent and ask for a lawyer. But few people know that they should also have a phone card with them so they can make a call if they are arrested, and a separate piece of paper with the phone numbers of their emergency contacts. “You know this, but in the moment you get nervous and you forget what you have to do. Listening to all of this, I remember and I feel safer,” explains José Antonio, who works in roofing. “You have to speak forcefully, not bow down, if something like this happens,” he adds.
Lawyers Mark Silverman of the Immigrants Legal Resource Center in San Francisco and Richard Hobbs of Santa Clara County tell the audience all the details they need to know, and advise them to learn to fit in and go unnoticed. They suggest that they should maintain their cars in good condition and not drink when they go to parties. “These are difficult times and you have to be more ready than ever,” says Cecilia Tabares, a mother who lives in San Jose.**continues, click link to read** From the Aztecs to the Greeks, civilizations around the world have used theatre as their primary means of mass communication. Importan... more -
CASA DEL MIGRANTE
Casa del Migrante is a shelter located in Tijuana, Mexico. The organization provides temporary lodging and other services to migrant workers who are stranded in Tijuana while attempting to cross the U.S Mexico border without documents. Many of these migrants come from other parts of Mexico and numerous Latin American countries. In this pod, Matilde, a social worker of Casa del Migrante in harrowing detail explains why migrant workers leave their families behind and attempt the dangerous journey across the border, and her day to day experiences of working at the organization.
Original Music by Tonalli Magaña Casa del Migrante is a shelter located in Tijuana, Mexico. The organization provides temporary lodging and other services to migrant w... more -
Inquiry finds under-age workers at meat plant
tate labor investigators have identified 57 under-age workers who were employed at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, and have asked the attorney general to bring criminal charges against the company for child labor violations, Dave Neil, the Iowa Labor Commissioner, said on Tuesday.
“The investigation brings to light egregious violations of virtually every aspect of Iowa’s child labor laws,” Mr. Neil said in a statement announcing the results of a seven-month investigation at Agriprocessors, the nation’s largest kosher meat plant.
In a raid in May, 389 illegal immigrant workers were detained there in the largest immigration enforcement operation ever at a single workplace.
Mr. Neil said that investigators had found multiple child labor law violations for each under-age worker at the plant. They included employing minors in prohibited occupations, exposing them to hazardous chemicals, and making them work with prohibited tools like knives and saws, he said.
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After the raid, many of the young workers said they felt they had nothing to lose in speaking out about their work at the plant. In interviews, they said they were forced to work long hours on night shifts, sometimes up to 17 hours a day, and were not paid all of their overtime. They said they were put to work on racing production lines using knives to cut meat and poultry with little or no safety training. tate labor investigators have identified 57 under-age workers who were employed at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, and ... more -
HIV-positive transgender immigrant died of neglect while chained to bed in US dete...
23-year-old Victoria Arellano, an HIV-positive transgender Mexican immigrant, spent two months succumbing to infections in a US migrant detention centre. She did not get to see a doctor and was not given the appropriate medicine.
Her mother, Olga Arellano, and fellow inmates begged for help after Victoria started vomiting blood in their holding cell, where 105 detainees were crammed onto bunks and mattresses in a space designed for 40. However, the pleas were to no avail and Victoria Arellano died, chained to a hospital bed, three days later.
According to rights activists, Arellano's death shows the failure of immigration officials to deal humanely with HIV-positive inmates among the 30,000 migrants held in detention centers across the United States. Often, HIV-infected migrants are not given their medicine regularly, which is crucial to their survival. As soon as the medication regimen is interrupted, the virus rebounds and causes the immune system to crash.
In Arellano's case, the failure to provide medical help was fatal. According to mother Olga Arellano: ''She [Victoria] told me after a month in detention that she still hadn't seen a doctor. I told her I could send her more medicine, but she said they would not give it to her. They were mostly giving her Tylenol.''
''Her foot was chained to the bed and when she tried to turn over, it would hurt her,'' Arellano said. ''That made it twice as hard. It was so humiliating. No human should have to live their last days like that.' 23-year-old Victoria Arellano, an HIV-positive transgender Mexican immigrant, spent two months succumbing to infections in a US migran... more -
Facebook to help save gay refugees?
Facebook, the online social network, is being used as a tool by some claimants to help prove their sexual orientation to immigration officials in Canada, Pink News reports.
"Sexuality has always been very complicated and when you have to prove it as a matter of life and death you will use any resource you have available to you," Diego Macias of Among Friends, a Toronto-based gay and lesbian refugee support group, told The Canadian Press.
Those seeking refuge after 1992 were permitted to claim status based on their sexual orientation and required to prove their claim to the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).
Wearing their sexuality on their sleeve was never an option for many back in their home countries and finding suitable evidence to support their claims can be difficult.
Macias tells his members to use technology to their advantage and feels facebook can help demonstrate involvement in the gay and lesbian community.
"During Pride we took hundreds of pictures and we have a facebook group and when people sign up to that group we encourage them to show their membership to the IRB member."
In more than 75 countries people face jail, or worse, for having gay sex.
Acts of homosexuality are punishable by death in several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan. Facebook, the online social network, is being used as a tool by some claimants to help prove their sexual orientation to immigration o... more -
Immigrants deported by US hospitals
Many American hospitals are taking it upon themselves to repatriate seriously injured or ill immigrants because they cannot find nursing homes willing to accept them without insurance. Medicaid does not cover long-term care for illegal immigrants, or for newly arrived legal immigrants, creating a quandary for hospitals, which are obligated by federal regulation to arrange post-hospital care for patients who need it.
American immigration authorities play no role in these private repatriations, carried out by ambulance, air ambulance and commercial plane. Most hospitals say that they do not conduct cross-border transfers until patients are medically stable and that they arrange to deliver them into a physician’s care in their homeland. But the hospitals are operating in a void, without governmental assistance or oversight, leaving ample room for legal and ethical transgressions on both sides of the border.
Indeed, some advocates for immigrants see these repatriations as a kind of international patient dumping, with ambulances taking patients in the wrong direction, away from first-world hospitals to less-adequate care, if any.
“Repatriation is pretty much a death sentence in some of these cases,” said Dr. Steven Larson, an expert on migrant health and an emergency room physician at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “I’ve seen patients bundled onto the plane and out of the country, and once that person is out of sight, he’s out of mind.”
Hospital administrators view these cases as costly, burdensome patient transfers that force them to shoulder responsibility for the dysfunctional immigration and health-care systems. In many cases, they say, the only alternative to repatriations is keeping patients indefinitely in acute-care hospitals.
“What that does for us, it puts a strain on our system, where we’re unable to provide adequate care for our own citizens,” said Alan B. Kelly, vice president of Scottsdale Healthcare in Arizona. “A full bed is a full bed.”
Medical repatriations are happening with varying frequency, and varying degrees of patient consent, from state to state and hospital to hospital. No government agency or advocacy group keeps track of these cases, and it is difficult to quantify them.
A few hospitals and consulates offered statistics that provide snapshots of the phenomenon: some 96 immigrants a year repatriated by St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix; 6 to 8 patients a year flown to their homelands from Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; 10 returned to Honduras from Chicago hospitals since early 2007; some 87 medical cases involving Mexican immigrants — and 265 involving people injured crossing the border — handled by the Mexican consulate in San Diego last year, most but not all of which ended in repatriation.
Over all, there is enough traffic to sustain at least one repatriation company, founded six years ago to service this niche — MexCare, based in California but operating nationwide with a “network of 28 hospitals and treatment centers” in Latin America. It bills itself as “an alternative choice for the care of the unfunded Latin American nationals,” promising “significant saving to U.S. hospitals” seeking “to alleviate the financial burden of unpaid services.”
[click link above for entire 9 page article]
more on the topic here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/us/18immig.html# Many American hospitals are taking it upon themselves to repatriate seriously injured or ill immigrants because they cannot find nursi... more -
The first word I learnt was 'whatever'
Child immigrants from Poland, the US, and Latvia, among others, tell the Guardian what moving to the UK was like, why their families came here, and how it measured up to their Mr Bean-influenced expectations.
Favourite quotes:
"I like fish and chips, but steak and kidney pie is kind of scary".
"My mum said she was going to England and that she'd be able to take me in one year, but I didn't want to stay in Lithuania because my mum's important".
"In your country people are always smiling".
"We've been to Blackpool, and last week we went to Featherstone Castle. We're going everywhere when it's not raining".
"When you go into a shop and someone pushes you or knocks you by accident, we say sorry and then go away - but here you say: 'Sorry, sorry, sorry'".
"I learnt English really quickly; it took less than a month".
"My grandparents are [in Nepal] and my aunties and uncles. We phone them but in Nepal the lines are cut off nearly every single day. It is getting worse and worse. People get hurt and the kings and queens are being taken over by terrorists and I feel bad about it".
"On the first day here I saw somebody stealing things in a shop".
"I didn't know anybody and I didn't know English but someone said, 'Do you want to play football?' and I said, 'Yes, all right.' I wasn't playing well so after a little bit they said, 'You can't play any more'". Child immigrants from Poland, the US, and Latvia, among others, tell the Guardian what moving to the UK was like, why their families c... more -
Illegal versus inhumane: Unauthorized immigrant shackled while in labor; Can'...
An undocumented pregnant woman faces the horror and neglect of the U.S. justice system ... giving birth only to have her child stripped from her.
JUANA VILLEGAS is a Mexican immigrant who broke federal law. As The New York Times recently reported, she was deported in 1996, but she returned illegally to the United States. What is more troubling, however, is what happened to her in custody of law enforcement this month. Overzealous use of the law trampled decency.
On July 3, Villegas, nine months pregnant, was pulled over in a Nashville suburb and arrested after admitting that she did not have a license. At the county jail, Villegas's illegal status was discovered by a federal official. That official was there as part of the federal 287(g) program, which trains local police to enforce federal immigration laws.
Two days later, Villegas went into labor. At the hospital her foot was cuffed to the bed, and the cuffs were reportedly removed only for two hours before she gave birth and for six hours after. An officer stood guard in her hospital room.
After she left the hospital, Villegas was held in jail. She could not breastfeed her baby and was not allowed to use a breast pump. She says she developed a breast infection and her baby became jaundiced.
Needless to say, the 287(g) program wasn't intended to snare pregnant women. Rather, it is supposed to help officers "pursue investigations relating to violent crimes, human smuggling, gang/organized crime activity, sexual-related offenses, narcotics smuggling, and money laundering," according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Yet the perceived need for even local officials to crack down on illegal immigrants has become an obstacle to treating people humanely.
Villegas has been released to the custody of her family and faces deportation. Her case shows how much the country needs comprehensive immigration reform that deploys legal resources where they are most needed. An undocumented pregnant woman faces the horror and neglect of the U.S. justice system ... giving birth only to have her child strippe... more
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Immigration
