カテゴリーアーカイブ: Immigrant

ICE opens 400-bed immigrant detention center near Bakersfield

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The federal government has begun transferring immigrants facing deportation to a new, 400-bed detention center in the Central Valley town of McFarland.

The facility, a former prison about 25 miles north of Bakersfield, will house immigrants who were taken into custody in the Central Valley as well as some long-term detainees who have been detained in other parts of the state, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for ICE, said the agency has needed bed space in the region since a previous detention center there closed nearly two years ago.

The opening of the new facility in the small farming community, she said, “again affords us the option to house foreign nationals encountered in Central California at a facility closer to their families and communities.”

But immigrant advocates groups argue that the facility’s rural location will make it difficult for detainees to access legal help.

“It’s going to make it virtually impossible for us to represent the detained population,” said Ilyce Shugall, an attorney with Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, which helps low-income clients. 

Because there are no immigration court judges based in the Central Valley, most immigrants at the new site, known as the Mesa Verde Detention Facility, will have their court hearings via live video feeds. 

Advocates are not concerned only about the new facility’s isolation. 

They have also raised questions about the private prison company that will be paid about $107 per day per detainee to operate the site. 

In a news release, Florida-based GEO Group said it expects the McFarland facility to generate about $17 million in revenue each year.

GEO operates immigrant detention facilities around the country, including a sprawling jail complex in the high desert town of Adelanto that is being expanded from 1,300 to 1,950 beds. ICE officials have said the Adelanto expansion is necessary to help meet demand for more bed space in the Los Angeles area.

Advocates have accused GEO of neglect, citing the death of Fernando Dominguez, a Mexican immigrant who died of pneumonia in 2012 after being detained at Adelanto. An inspection report by the Department of Homeland Security found the detention center “failed to provide adequate healthcare” to Dominguez.

GEO Group officials said the company’s facilities are safe. All immigrant detention facilities are subject to regular federal inspections.

Immigrant advocates have long pushed for cheaper alternatives to detention, including parole-type programs or electronic-monitoring devices. They oppose a rule that for years has required the federal government to pay for roughly 34,000 beds in detention centers each night.

So far this year, actual detention numbers have fallen far below the so-called “bed mandate.”

According to Kice, the agency’s average daily detainee population is 26,374 for fiscal year 2015. Approximately 13% of the nation’s detainees were housed at facilities in California, she said.

Twitter: @katelinthicum

Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times

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ICE opens 400-bed immigrant detention center near Bakersfield
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The Immigrant Perspective Defines Success for 21st Century Leaders

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Miguel (Mike) Fernandez is Chairman of MBF Healthcare Partners, L.P., a private equity firm located in Coral Gables, Florida that focuses on investing in healthcare service companies nationwide. His book Humbled by the Journey: Life Lessons For My Family…And Yours, with proceeds going to The Early Childhood Initiative Foundation, shares lessons learned from his Hispanic upbringing and the values that inspired him to work hard, overcome obstacles, and help others along the way.

These values are very much in line with the six characteristics of the 21st century leader that I often write about and that I discuss here with Mike in our recent interview.

Mike-Fernandez
Glenn Llopis: The immigrant mindset defines 21st century leadership and represents the values that we as Hispanics are brought up with in our families and that we live throughout our community. They are the values that inspire the natural ways we think, act and lead.

Mike Fernandez: Adopt an immigrant mindset. I love that line. Hispanics are the biggest game changer since the baby boom. They are one in four kids in the classrooms of New York and Texas. We are one out of every six people. Latinos in the U.S. are the 16th largest consumer economy in the world! How can we continue to ignore this fact? You can’t help but increase your results by reaching out and learning our culture.

Llopis: Agreed. It’s a tremendous opportunity. In fact, without Hispanics, America’s corporations won’t be able to grow and compete.Which brings me to the first of the six characteristics of the 21st leader: the ability to “see opportunity everywhere.” How does that fit with what you wrote in your book, that it’s better to restructure or reinvent an existing business or product rather than invest in something new and start from scratch?

Fernandez: If no one has been successful at something before, the odds of you being the one who comes in and turns everything around and creates the perfect solution are pretty slim. It’s been my experience that it’s much better – and you’ll have much more success – when you can see the opportunity in something that’s been tried before but didn’t quite work, find out why it failed, and look for potential resolutions to the problem(s). When you’re the second or third one to take on a situation, instead of the first, the execution risk is greatly reduced. So reinventing or restructuring something reduces the risk of failing and heightens the chance of succeeding.

Llopis: The second characteristic is “always staying on your toes.” This made me think of something you said about confidence, that it’s not about knowing all the answers, but about being open to all the questions.

Fernandez: The moment you think you know it all is the moment that you stop learning. That’s why I like to say it’s good to be the dumbest guy in the room, the dumbest guy sitting around the conference table.

Socially, I’m surrounded by friends who play or know a lot about basketball. But it’s not something I know a lot about. So whenever we’re together I’m like a sponge soaking up everything I can learn about the game. And I leave knowing a lot more than I walked in, certainly learning more than anyone else in the room did.

It’s the same in business. Even if you know the answer (or think you do), be quiet and listen to everybody else talk. You might just learn something new. Especially if you keep an open mind at all times. It’s alright to have firm convictions, but don’t them be an anchor hanging around your neck.

Source Article from http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2015/03/19/the-immigrant-perspective-defines-success-for-21st-century-leaders/?ss=pharma-healthcare
The Immigrant Perspective Defines Success for 21st Century Leaders
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2015 RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards

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TORONTO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – Mar 19, 2015) – Canadian Immigrant magazine today opened online voting for the seventh annual RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards. The program serves to recognize and celebrate the inspiring stories of Canadian immigrants who have made a significant contribution to Canada since their arrival. The program receives nominations from across Canada and is proudly supported by title sponsor RBC and associate sponsor Chevrolet.

More than 150,000 Canadians have cast votes to determine the Top 25 winners over the last seven years. Past winners have included entrepreneurs and business leaders, artists, academics, community volunteers, sports heroes, philanthropists, inventors and visionaries, as young as 17 years and as old as 92. Their reasons, circumstances and timing for coming to Canada are as varied as their backgrounds – some fled strife in their home countries, while others chose to gain higher education; some arrived as young children, while others arrived with only a few hundred dollars.

No matter their roots, each of the 25 winners’ stories every year shares a common thread: an individual rose to a challenge and used that opportunity to make Canada a better place for all. This year is no different.

“Every nomination we received was poignant and deserving. The 75 shortlisted Canadians moving into the next stage are nothing short of inspiring. We invite all our readers to vote for their favourites to determine who we should honour as the Top 25 Canadian immigrants of 2015,” said Margaret Jetelina, editor, Canadian Immigrant magazine.

Hundreds of nominations were received over the past two months. A judging panel composed of several past winners and contributors to the magazine reviewed the entries and narrowed them to a shortlist of 75 finalists who represent diverse ethnic communities, cities and industries across Canada.

Canadians can now vote for up to three of their favourite finalists online at www.canadianimmigrant.ca/rbctop25 until May 11, 2015.

“Each nominee has a unique story that helps define Canada. Their successes help build a country that is rich in diversity and a home where newcomers thrive,” said Christine Shisler, director, Multicultural Markets, RBC. “We thank everyone who took the time to nominate a dynamic individual from their community and now encourage all Canadians to vote for their favourite finalists.”

This year, title sponsor RBC will further recognize one of the 25 winners who demonstrates excellence in business, with the RBC Entrepreneur Award. Associate Sponsor Chevrolet will recognize one winner with the Chevrolet Ingenuity Award, for showing exceptional ingenuity on their road to success.

“Chevrolet supports the RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards to recognize the people who have shared their passions for Canada as they earned significant achievements and realized their dreams,” said John Roth, vice president for Chevrolet in Canada. “The Chevrolet Ingenuity Award will further recognize the efforts of a truly inspirational individual.”

The Top 25 winners will be announced on June 23, 2015. They will be recognized on canadianimmigrant.ca and in Canadian Immigrant magazine. Each winner will also receive a commemorative plaque and $500 toward a charity of their choice provided by RBC. This year’s media partners are the Toronto Star, Metro, Sing Tao and South Asian Focus.

About Canadian Immigrant and canadianimmigrant.ca

Attracting more than 400,000 readers each month and over 100,000 visitors every month online, Canadian Immigrant is distributed in Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary and helps new Canadians build a successful life and home in Canada. Our mandate to arrive, succeed and inspire- provides content for newcomers looking for information on careers, education and settling-in to culture and business. Our website, canadianimmigrant.ca, offers daily editorial, forums, tools and resources to help newcomers across Canada. Canadian Immigrant is a division of Metroland Media Group Limited, a dynamic media company with more than 100 community and daily newspapers in print and online, as well as innovative websites including wheels.ca, goldbook.ca, flyerland.ca, Travelalerts.ca and localwork.ca.

About RBC

Royal Bank of Canada is Canada’s largest bank, and one of the largest banks in the world, based on market capitalization. We are one of North America’s leading diversified financial services companies, and provide personal and commercial banking, wealth management, insurance, investor services and capital markets products and services on a global basis. We employ approximately 78,000 full- and part-time employees who serve more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the U.S. and 39 other countries. For more information, please visit rbc.com.

RBC supports a broad range of community initiatives through donations, sponsorships and employee volunteer activities. In 2014, we contributed more than $111 million to causes worldwide, including donations and community investments of more than $76 million and $35 million in sponsorships.

About Chevrolet in Canada

Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, doing business in more than 140 countries and selling more than 4 million cars and trucks a year. Chevrolet provides customers with fuel-efficient vehicles that feature spirited performance, expressive design and high quality. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.ca, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/chevroletcanada or by following @ChevroletCanada on Twitter.

Source Article from http://finance.yahoo.com/news/2015-rbc-top-25-canadian-132129869.html
2015 RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards
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Deaf Immigrant Jailed 6 Weeks With No Access to Interpreter

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Abreham Zemedagegehu

He knew he was in jail, but he didn’t know why.

Eventually, Abreham Zemedagegehu learned that he’d been accused of stealing an iPad — an iPad whose owner later found it. He spent the next six weeks in jail, unable to communicate with his jailers because he is deaf. He described a frightening, isolated experience in which medical procedures were performed without his consent and he feared for his safety.

Zemedagegehu sued the Arlington County sheriff last month in federal court, saying his treatment failed to meet the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“I felt like I was losing my mind,” Zemedagegehu said through an interpreter in an interview at his lawyer’s office. “I thought Virginia would give me an interpreter and they said no. That’s why I felt lost.”

Zemedagegehu, who is homeless, is a U.S. citizen who was born in Ethiopia. He grew up using Ethiopian Sign Language. He has learned American Sign Language, but he has never learned more than rudimentary written English.

Maj. Susie Doyel, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office, which runs the jail, declined to comment on the specific allegations. She generally defended the jail’s ability to handle deaf inmates and others with disabilities, and said several deputies in the jail are proficient in sign language.

But she also acknowledged that communication with a deaf inmate is more problematic in cases where the inmate can’t communicate in written English.

In court papers filed Monday, lawyers for the sheriff ask a judge to dismiss the case, arguing that even if Zemedagegehu’s allegations are true, they fail to show intentional discrimination because they attempted various different ways to communicate with him, including handwritten notes.

And even if the discrimination were intentional, the lawyers write that it would not violate federal law because there is a rational basis for the discrimination: “it takes extra resources and creates additional security considerations to bring in an ASL interpreter,” they write.

Zemedagegehu’s ordeal began Feb. 2, 2014, as he sought a warm place to sleep at Reagan National Airport. According to Zemedagegehu’s lawsuit, officers from the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority arrested him on a complaint that he had stolen another man’s iPad.

Zemedagegehu says he requested an ASL interpreter to explain what was happening, but instead was taken to the Arlington jail for processing. He said the booking process was bewildering, with someone speaking on a video screen and he not understanding what was happening.

After he was booked, he underwent a medical screening, and says he was given forms to sign. He didn’t know what they were, and refused to sign them. He says they stuck a needle in his arm without explaining what was occurring — he later learned it was tuberculosis test, to which he suffered a bad reaction.

It was not until he was arraigned Feb. 4, and a court interpreter was present, that he understood the charge against him.

When he was offered an opportunity to communicate, he said the jail provided a TTY device. Zemedagegehu said the machine was useless — it types out English text he doesn’t understand, and as a practical matter, he said, no one in the deaf community still uses a TTY device. He needed instead access to a videophone or video relay service that is more commonly used, he said.

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Chinese Immigrant Gets Law License 125 Years Later

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The California Supreme Court finally erased one of the last vestiges of the state’s anti-Chinese laws by granting a law license posthumously to Hong Yen Chang, an immigrant who was barred because of his race in 1890.

The state’s high court– one of the most diverse in the country – currently composed of three Asian Americans, led by a female Filipina – unanimously overturned the 1890 decision, and issued a new nine-page ruling that it said required “a candid reckoning with a sordid chapter of our state and national history.”

“It is past time to acknowledge the discriminatory exclusion of Chang from the State Bar of California was a grievous wrong,” the unsigned ruling stated. “He was by all accounts qualified for admission to the bar. It was also a blow to the countless others who, like Chang, aspired to become a lawyer only to have their dream deferred on account of their race, alienage or nationality.”

Chang emigrated from China in 1872 as part of a program to teach Chinese youth about the West. He graduated from Philips Academy and Yale University. He then went to New York’s Columbia Law School in 1886. In 1888, he passed the New York Bar and became the only “regularly admitted Chinese lawyer in this country.”

But when Chang went to California with the hope of working with the Chinese community of San Francisco, he found the state had passed a law citing the federal Chinese Exclusion Act, voiding his application in California, and Chang’s New York license.

The current court acknowledged that both the state and federal anti-Chinese laws have been repealed. California ended its citizenship requirement in 1972.

Though a more a symbolic ruling, Rachelle Chong, Chang’s great-grandniece and a California lawyer told the media the family was “excited” by the news. The effort to gain a posthumous license for Chang was started in 2011 by UC Davis Law Professor Gabriel Chin.

The California Supreme Court finally erased one of the last vestiges of the states anti-Chinese laws by granting a law license posthumously to Hong Yen Chang, an immigrant who was barred because of his race in 1890.Courtesy Ah Tye family

IN-DEPTH



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Chinese immigrant, denied law license in 1890, gets one posthumously

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A Chinese immigrant denied a California law license in 1890 because of his race will receive one posthumously, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday.

An Asian student law association at UC Davis asked the state’s highest court to “right this historic wrong” by admitting Hong Yen Chang to the California bar.  

The court in 1890 found Chang qualified to practice law, but refused him admission because a federal law at that time barred “persons of the Mongolian race” from citizenship. At the time, only citizens or people eligible for citizenship could receive a California law license.

“More than a century later, the legal and policy underpinnings of our 1890 decision have been discredited,” the court said.

“Even if we cannot undo history,” the ruling said, “we can acknowledge it and, in so doing, accord a full measure of recognition to Chang’s pathbreaking efforts to become the first lawyer of Chinese descent in the United States.

“The people and the courts of California were denied Chang’s services as a lawyer,” said the unsigned ruling. “But we need not be denied his example as a pioneer for a more inclusive legal profession. In granting Hong Yen Chang posthumous admission to the California Bar, we affirm his rightful place among the ranks of persons deemed qualified to serve as an attorney and counselor at law in the courts of California.”

Today, the California Supreme Court has three Asian American justices, one Latino, one African America and two white women. Only last year, the state bar gave a law license to a Mexican immigrant without a green card.

The law school’s Asian Pacific American Law Students Assn. filed the motion to have Chang admitted. Although posthumous admissions are rare, courts in other states have permitted them.

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New ISANS program tries to help immigrant women advance careers

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Alberta is short 20,000 nursing home beds according to a new study released Monday by the province’s Liberal party. Donna Wilson, a nursing professor at the …

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Missouri bills could keep many immigrant students out of college

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Missouri students who brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents could face the prospect of receiving no federal financial aid, state aid or in-state tuition under measures moving through the state Legislature.

That, some immigrant advocates and school counselors say, could also mean no college.

Already, Missouri has blocked funding to any public college or university granting such students in-state tuition. The measures in the House and Senate target the estimated 6,000-7,000 immigrant K-12 students in Missouri, although refugees and others seeking asylum in the U.S. also could be affected, American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri policy director Sarah Rossi said.

Republican lawmakers say it’s unfair to share already-thin taxpayer-funded education resources with noncitizens, but the bills’ sponsors note that the intent isn’t to block the immigrant students from attending college.

The Senate bill, sponsored by Farmington Republican Gary Romine, would require students be permanent residents or U.S. citizens in order to get the state’s A+ Scholarship, which provides two years of free tuition at community colleges. Shell Knob Republican Rep. Scott Fitzpatrick’s bill and the House higher education budget would block state-funded scholarships for students without legal status and require them to pay the international rate of tuition.

Federal aid, such as student loans or need-based Pell Grants, is closed to such students. And though some might qualify for amnesty from deportation under President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, many would have few options under these bills, unless they or their parents can pay their tuition in full. They may have to return to their home countries to study or not attend college at all.

“The economic situation is not the best” for many immigrant students at Kansas City’s Alta Vista High School, parent liaison Paola Vera said, noting many of those kids qualify for free or reduced lunch.

Legislation that could bump up tuition “discourages our children, and the families,” said Vera, who acts as a go-between for the school and parents who sometimes struggle with English. “It makes it extra hard, and I don’t see the reason for that.”

Students who would be affected by the measures were reluctant to speak with The Associated Press.

It’s unclear what effect Fitzpatrick’s bill could have, because most Missouri colleges and universities don’t have an international tuition rate and instead charge international students out-of-state tuition – the same rates already mandated for immigrant students without legal status.

So far, no students spared deportation under Obama’s program have received the A+ Scholarship, Missouri Department of Higher Education spokeswoman Liz Coleman said, although a department rule set to take effect March 30 would clarify that they’re eligible.

A Senate hearing for Fitzpatrick’s bill, which passed the House 111-41, has not yet been scheduled. Romine’s bill won initial approval last week, but needs a second Senate vote before it can move to the House.

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Missouri bills could keep immigrant students from college

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