PewHispanic : #Hispanic household wealth... Hispanic Household Wealth Fell by 66% from 2005 to 2009. The Toll of the Great Recession By Rakesh Kochhar, Richard Fry and Paul Taylor Median household wealth among Hispanics fell from $18,359 in 2005 to $6,325 in 2009. The percentage drop—66%—was the largest among all racial and ethnic groups, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends project. During the same period, median household wealth declined 53% among black households and 16% among white households. The Pew Research report provides the first look at how the Great Recession impacted household wealth. The Pew Research analysis also finds that the median wealth of white households is 18 times that of Hispanic households and 20 times that of black households.
These findings are based on a Pew Research Center analysis of newly-available data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), an economic questionnaire distributed periodically to tens of thousands of households by the U.S. Among the report’s other key findings: Alabama Hispanics wait on immigration law ruling – in pictures | World news. Christian conservatives say they’ll vote for Romney in order to beat Obama | Perry Watch. WASHINGTON — Four years ago, evangelicals didn’t rally around John McCain, the Republican nominee who wasn’t their ideal candidate. This year, many Christian conservatives say the fervor to replace Barack Obama ensures they won’t stay at home, even if it means supporting Mitt Romney. “Romney is the most liberal of the conservative candidates we have, and he’s not my first choice,” said Tom Cooney of Virginia Beach, Va., a delegate at last week’s Values Voter Summit.
“But if he were to get the nomination, I’d vote for him.” That was the feeling of many attending the political showcase of Christian conservatives. They’re united in the desire to oust the current occupant of the White House, but clearly divided over the best candidate to do it. “The party’s headed for a showdown,” said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Iowa.
“Romney’s still of the view that elections are run in the center, so that’s the strategic divide within the party,” he said. Pressure on Perry. Profit Motive Underlies Outbreak of Immigration Bills. The Dreamers - Activate. Progressives condemn racial profiling and arrest of migrant farmworkers. Anti-Immigrant New Mexico Governor Reveals Her Grandparents Were Undocumented Immigrants.
By Marie Diamond on September 9, 2011 at 9:40 am "Anti-Immigrant New Mexico Governor Reveals Her Grandparents Were Undocumented Immigrants" New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R) has long been known for her vitriolic rhetoric against undocumented immigrants. Just this week, she slammed presidential contender Rick Perry (R-TX) for once supporting the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform. But on Wednesday, Martinez surprised many when she admitted that her own grandparents were among those “people…who violated the law” when they came to the U.S. as undocumented immigrants: New Mexico Gov. This is the first time Martinez has definitively answered questions about her grandparents’ immigration status, and admitted that she would not be in this country — let alone be a governor — if they had not entered the U.S. without papers. Martinez’s office was quick to preemptively denounce anyone who would “personally attack the governor” for this revelation.
Brendan Fischer: Article on ALEC and immigration wasn’t just about Arizona. Journalists Unite to Drop the I-Word. Covering Immigration Post 9-11: A webinar on the rise of the i-word in public discourseLISTEN IN HERE We’re very excited about the latest endorser of the Drop the I-Word Campaign is UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc., a strategic alliance advocating news coverage about people of color, and aggressively challenging its organizations at all levels to reflect the nation’s diversity.
UNITY, represents more than 10,000 journalists of color and is comprised of three national associations: Asian American Journalists Association, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and the Native American Journalists Association. To kick off our partnership, UNITY co-sponsored a Drop the I-Word webinar last week for ethnic and community press also co-sponsored by our friends at New America Media, the country’s first and largest national collaboration and advocate of 2000 ethnic news organizations.
You can listen to the informative briefing here. Border Patrol Abuses on the Rise. Phoenix, Arizona - The number of apprehensions of undocumented immigrants on the U.S. -Mexico border has dropped, but reports of abuses against immigrants are on the rise. Those are the findings of a new report released by the Arizona humanitarian aid organization No More Deaths. The report, “A Culture of Cruelty,” documents 30,000 incidents of human rights abuses against undocumented immigrants in short-term detention between fall 2008 and spring 2011. Nearly 13,000 people were interviewed in the Mexican border towns of Naco, Nogales and Agua Prieta.
Allegations range from Border Patrol agents denying food and water to adults and children in detention for several days, to purposely separating families during deportation or forcing people to sign removal orders. They also include concerns that detainees were not provided the right to due process. “We didn’t go out looking for these stories. Hafter said that part of the problem is a culture of abuse within the agency. Sen. Sessions: It’s Not Sad That Immigrant Children Are Too Scared To Go To School, It’s Sad They’re Even Here. By Marie Diamond on October 6, 2011 at 12:20 pm "Sen. Sessions: It’s Not Sad That Immigrant Children Are Too Scared To Go To School, It’s Sad They’re Even Here" As ThinkProgress has been reporting, a federal judge’s decision last week to allow Alabama’s harshest-in-the-nation immigration law to go into effect has had heartbreaking consequences. Hispanic families have been fleeing Alabama in droves and thousands of children have been too terrorized to show up for school.
The law allows police to racially profile and pull over anyone they suspect might be in the country illegally, and blatantly violates children’s constitutional right to an education by forcing schools to check students’ immigration status before they can be enrolled. But Republican lawmakers who supported the measure have been remarkably short on compassion for immigrant families that have been torn apart. INGRAHAM: Do you think it’s bad all these Hispanic kids have disappeared from the schools?
Listen here: Update. Tucson flights return 9,000 illegal immigrants to Mexico. Nearly 9,000 illegal border crossers took free flights home this summer to Mexico City in the eighth-annual edition of a binational program aimed at saving lives. The final flight of the Mexican Interior Repatriation Program left Tucson on Wednesday with 139 people aboard, said Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Vincent Picard. The 8,893 people who participated are the fewest since the program was launched in 2004. At least 10,500 have participated each year, with a record 23,384 taking the flights in 2010, government figures show.
The decrease in participants this summer is likely attributed to a precipitous decline in Border Patrol apprehensions. Officials reduced the program this year to one flight a day, instead of two, because of that decrease. Under the voluntary program, non-criminal Mexican illegal immigrants caught by the Border Patrol in Arizona are offered free flights to Mexico City. Read more in Friday's Star. Alabama Immigration Law: Justice Department files motion to block controversial law. Forced by a Private Company to Wear an Ankle Monitor? The Truth About Obama's Latest Immigration Reform | Civil Liberties. September 30, 2011 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Now that the electronic shackle is off, it's really nice not having to listen to the eerie computer-voice commands regularly broadcast from its plastic speaker.
For 10 miserable days, I had to wear a thick rubber and plastic cuff around my ankle for 24/7 GPS monitoring. Every few hours, it would bark out strange comments and commands until I pressed a button to make it stop. What does that even mean? On the other hand, now I get what it really means to experience abusive government intrusion into your life. Under a new policy instituted in August, immigration agents and judges are supposed to use more discretion when deciding whether to deport someone.
Under this program, a BI goon shackled me with a GPS-enabled monitoring device on my ankle that I'd have to wear at all times, even in the shower. The experience was shocking and upsetting. Georgia’s Anti-Immigrant Politics Overshadow Women’s Struggles. Friday, Sep 30, 2011, 2:20 pm BY Michelle Chen The We Belong Together Delegation gathered in front of the Georgia capitol building on September 29 to raise awareness about HB 87. (Photo from webelongtogether.org) The words "undocumented worker" evoke images we're all familiar with: poor day laborers huddled on a street corner, sun-battered tomato pickers hauling buckets through the fields.
One image that people often overlook is a far more intimate presence: the nanny caring for our kids, the home aide comforting our ailing parents, the quiet mother waiting nervously outside the doctor's office. Immigrant women are present in every aspect of American life, in the workplace and in the home, yet they're among the most invisible. In a statement opposing the controversial HB 87 law, the We Belong Together Coalition declared: This law is part of a string of concerted efforts by state and federal officials to criminalize, detain, and deport undocumented immigrants.
Redondo Beach day laborer law is ruled unconstitutional. In a decision that could have a wide-ranging effect on other cities with similar laws, a federal appeals court ruled that a Redondo Beach ordinance aimed at cracking down on day laborers is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. The anti-solicitation ordinance, which has been in place for more than two decades, drew attention in 2004 after police arrested nearly 60 day laborers over about four weeks.
The National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Comite de Jornaleros de Redondo Beach later sued the city. The ordinance, which Redondo Beach officials said was needed to regulate traffic safety at two major intersections, barred standing on a street or highway and soliciting "employment, business or contributions from an occupant of any motor vehicle. " In its ruling issued Friday, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the ordinance "regulates significantly more speech than is necessary to achieve the city's purpose of improving traffic safety and traffic flow. " MPS parent says child asked for immigration status. Alabama Workers Leave State As Immigration Law Takes Effect. MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Alabama's strict new immigration law may be backfiring. Intended to force illegal workers out of jobs, it is also driving away many construction workers, roofers and field hands in the country legally who do backbreaking jobs that Americans generally won't.
The vacancies have created a void that will surely deal a blow to the state's economy and could slow the rebuilding of Tuscaloosa and other tornado-damaged cities. Employers believe they can carry on because of the dismal economy, but when things do turn around, they worry there won't be anyone around to hire. Many legal Hispanic workers are fleeing the state because their family and friends don't have the proper papers and they fear they will be jailed. Rick Pate, the owner of a commercial landscaping company in Montgomery, lost two of his most experienced workers, who were in the country legally. "They just feel like there is a negative atmosphere for them here. One of the bill's authors, Republican Sen. Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law. Hide captionGlenn Nichols, city manager of Benson, Ariz., says two men came to the city last year "talking about building a facility to hold women and children that were illegals. " Laura Sullivan/NPR Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.
Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch. "The gentleman that's the main thrust of this thing has a huge turquoise ring on his finger," Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman. " What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants. "They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate.
" But Nichols wasn't buying. "They talked like they didn't have any doubt they could fill it," Nichols said. Behind-The-Scenes Effort To Draft, Pass The Law The law is being challenged in the courts. Recent immigration laws disadvantage us all. The reckless hunt for undocumented immigrants is placing all of us in the economic crossfire. Recently, U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn ruled that portions of HB 56, a controversial Alabama immigration bill signed into law last June, could now be implemented. As a result, already financially strapped local police and school administrators will be forced to shift precious resources to assume an enforcement role that blurs the historic line between local and federal authority.
For local communities, these unfunded mandates are no longer simply a way to express frustration with a broken immigration system. Rather, they have become an economic problem that cuts across class, race, and ethnicity. Under the misguided notion of “controlling undocumented immigration,” white men are experiencing the negative economic impact of these laws right along with black and Latino Americans. And laborers are fleeing already. Eric K. Alabama Law Makes It A Felony For Undocumented Immigrants To Have Water At Their Homes.
By Amanda Peterson Beadle on October 7, 2011 at 4:39 pm "Alabama Law Makes It A Felony For Undocumented Immigrants To Have Water At Their Homes" Allgood Water Works officials posted this sign letting customers know they had to prove their legal status. At least one utility company in Alabama posted a sign informing its customers that a section of Alabama’s extreme anti-immigrant law prohibits them from providing water service to undocumented immigrants. According to the sign at Allgood Water Works in Blount County, Alabama, customers must have “an Alabama driver’s license or an Alabama picture ID card on file” by the date that the immigration law went into effect; otherwise, they risked losing their water service. Sadly, the picture for Alabama’s immigrants is even grimmer than this sign suggests.
Indeed, under one provision of the state’s immigration law, HB 56, it is a felony for an undocumented immigrant to even attempt to do business with Alabama’s state-run water agencies: Arpaio crime sweep nets 87 arrests so far. Oct. 7, 2011 08:43 PM Associated Press PHOENIX - Eighty-seven people have been arrested so far in Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's latest crime and immigration sweep in southwest Phoenix. Arpaio says at least 19 of those arrested were illegal immigrants. During the sweeps, deputies flood an area of a city - in some cases, heavily Latino areas - over several days to seek out traffic violators and arrest other offenders. Critics say deputies have racially profiled Hispanics during the sweeps, while the sheriff denies the allegation. The U.S. Justice Department is conducting a civil rights investigation of Arpaio's office. The sheriff says the probe is focused on his immigration efforts. Immigrant rights advocates fanned out across the sweep area with video cameras to record exchanges between deputies and motorists and plan to give their recordings to federal investigators.
Report: Border Patrol abuses widespread. New GOP campaign is aimed at Hispanics. Immigration law in Alabama to be enforced, toughest in US. Alabama bishops criticize ALEC's immigration law - On the LAKE Front. CCA, immigration and ALEC: the years-old national story you only recently heard of. Judges indicate they may let Arizona implement controversial part of SB 1070 - East Valley Tribune: Arizona. Will our community win the court battle to Save Ethnic Studies in Tucson? Private prison industry helped draft Arizona immigration law - War Room.
Nations-farm-states-push-competing. A Costly Move - Dashboard.