Feds oppose lawsuit, attorneys for migrant minors

投稿日時: 09/04/2014 投稿者: admin

SEATTLE (AP) — Moving forward on a lawsuit demanding legal representation for immigrant minors facing deportation could create a “magnet” effect at the border, attorneys for the federal government said.

On Wednesday, a U.S. District judge in Seattle heard arguments from attorneys involving a lawsuit filed in July by a coalition of immigrant rights advocacy groups who say most minors in deportation proceedings lack legal representation, and that violates the Constitution. The groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, say the minors are entitled to due process under the Fifth Amendment.

The government opposes the demand in the lawsuit, saying it would attract more minors to travel to the U.S., among other concerns.

“It would create a magnet effect,” said Deputy Attorney General Leon Fresco, who added it would be unlikely for Congress to provide the money needed to provide legal representation.

U.S. District Court Judge Thomas S. Zilly did not issue a ruling Wednesday on the lawsuit brought on behalf of eight immigrant children. Three of the children have court hearings on Thursday.

While the flow of thousands of unaccompanied minors from Mexico and Central America to the U.S. southern border has decreased recently, the impact of the surge this summer has been felt around the country. The surge overloaded several crossing points and detention centers and sparked heated protests and political fights. In response, federal officials are fast-tracking court deportation proceedings for minors caught at the border.

“It is undeniable that thousands of kids are moving through this process and getting deported,” said Matt Adams of the Seattle-based Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle on behalf of the plaintiffs who range in age from 10 to 17 and are living in the Pacific Northwest and California. Several of them were fleeing violence in their countries — one of the reasons behind the surge of tens of thousands of minors coming to the southern border recently, the lawsuit said.

Currently under federal law, the government is not required to provide attorneys for immigrants of any age facing deportation. However, immigrants can hire private attorneys or seek free legal representation.

“The right to counsel hasn’t been denied,” Fresco said.

Government attorneys also argued that the district court doesn’t have jurisdiction over this case.

In addition to requiring the government to provide minors with legal representation, the lawsuit also seeks class-action certification to include other immigrant children.

The judge decided not to rule from the bench on the class-action certification or on a preliminary injunction to halt the deportation hearings scheduled this week.

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Californians back Obama acting on immigrant children if Congress won't

投稿日時: 09/04/2014 投稿者: admin

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(Reuters) – Most Californians would support President Barack Obama’s issuing an executive order to deal with the flood of immigrant children who have entered the country illegally if Congress fails to act, according to a new poll published on Wednesday.

Fifty-five percent of respondents said they would favor unilateral action from the White House regarding the 63,000 unaccompanied immigrant children who have entered the country since last October, according to the Field Research Corporation, though opinions varied starkly by race and political affiliation.

The findings come just days after the president said he was committed to taking executive action on immigration issues, despite threats from conservatives who have said they may tie a must-pass budget bill to immigration policies.

The rush of minors crossing the southwestern U.S. border, many from crime-plagued Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, has pushed immigration into the national spotlight for lawmakers before Congressional elections in November.

Americans have expressed deep concerns that illegal immigration threatens U.S. beliefs and customs and also burdens the country’s economy, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey published last month.

But in California, three out of five Californians said the government should renew Obama’s 2012 executive order that temporarily deferred deportations for illegal immigrants who were students, recent graduates or former U.S. military members, according to the Field Poll.

Some 46 percent of respondents also told pollsters they would back an executive overhaul of the country’s immigration system more generally in the absence of Congressional action, compared with 36 percent who would oppose such a measure.

Democrats, Hispanics and blacks supported executive orders regarding immigration more than Republicans and whites, the poll showed.

The Field Research Corporation poll surveyed 1,280 adults during late August, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Larry King)

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Californians back Obama acting on immigrant children if Congress won't

投稿日時: 09/04/2014 投稿者: admin

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Americans have expressed deep concerns that illegal immigration threatens U.S. beliefs and customs and also burdens the country’s economy, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey published last month.

Democrats, Hispanics and blacks supported executive orders regarding immigration more than Republicans and whites, the poll showed.

The Field Research Corporation poll surveyed 1,280 adults during late August, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Larry King)

Californians back Obama acting on immigrant children if Congress won't

投稿日時: 09/04/2014 投稿者: admin

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Americans have expressed deep concerns that illegal immigration threatens U.S. beliefs and customs and also burdens the country’s economy, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey published last month.

Democrats, Hispanics and blacks supported executive orders regarding immigration more than Republicans and whites, the poll showed.

The Field Research Corporation poll surveyed 1,280 adults during late August, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Larry King)

Californians back Obama acting on immigrant children if Congress won't

投稿日時: 09/04/2014 投稿者: admin

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Americans have expressed deep concerns that illegal immigration threatens U.S. beliefs and customs and also burdens the country’s economy, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey published last month.

Democrats, Hispanics and blacks supported executive orders regarding immigration more than Republicans and whites, the poll showed.

The Field Research Corporation poll surveyed 1,280 adults during late August, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Larry King)

To Model Manhood, Immigrant Dads Draw From Two Worlds

投稿日時: 09/02/2014 投稿者: admin

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Lindolfo Carballo, an immigrant from El Salvador, meets his son, Raynel, outside school. In El Salvador, he says, families often “teach their boys one thing and their girls differently.” He’s trying to set a different example for his children.

Sarah Tilotta for NPR

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Sarah Tilotta for NPR

Lindolfo Carballo knows there’s a stereotype about men like him. He grew up in San Miguel, El Salvador, he says, in a male-dominant culture.

“I’m coming from a so-called ‘machista’ country, right? I mean, in this country, we all think that Latin America, in general, is where machismo is promoted,” Carballo says.

In many families in Latin America, he adds, “parents — fathers and even mothers — teach their kids that men are to be served by their sisters.”

But that wasn’t what his parents taught him and his nine siblings, says Carballo, who lives in Silver Spring, Md., near Washington, D.C.

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Carballo says many parents in Latin America teach their children that “men are to be served by their sisters.” He tries to model a different approach by sharing cooking and other household duties with his wife.

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For immigrant men, life in the U.S. can be a transformative experience. But many immigrant fathers work hard to hold onto what it means to be a man in their native countries — while also rejecting more rigid gender roles that are sometimes the norm in their homelands.

That’s what Carballo, now 52 and a father of a 10-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter, is trying to do.

As a teenager, he supported leftist revolutionaries in El Salvador’s civil war, which, along with his parents’ teachings, helped shape his egalitarian views about gender roles. After coming to America in 1990, he says, he’s found that same machismo that defined mainstream culture in El Salvador here in America.

“I don’t think it’s a Latino thing,” he says. “I think it’s a family thing, where families teach their boys one thing and their girls differently.”

Carballo, who works full time as a community organizer for an immigrant rights group, often makes door-to-door visits to immigrant families — sometimes meeting with husbands and wives together.

“I ask the woman a question, and it is the man answering the question for her,” he explains. “They don’t do it on purpose. But I think they feel it’s normal for them because that’s how they grew up.”

Carballo says he’s trying to model a different normal for his children by sharing household duties with his wife.

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Carballo’s wife, Carla Naranjo, and his son look on as he holds his 1-year-old daughter, Reina de la Paz. Her name means “queen of peace” in Spanish.

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Carballo’s wife, Carla Naranjo, and his son look on as he holds his 1-year-old daughter, Reina de la Paz. Her name means “queen of peace” in Spanish.

Sarah Tilotta for NPR

“Doing dishes, it relaxes you,” he says. “Doing some work at home, some people think that it’s for women only. No, not true!”

Samuel Adewusi, a 54-year-old immigrant father of four living in D.C. agrees. Adewusi, a lawyer, was born in Lagos, Nigeria. His father had no formal schooling and worked as a carpenter. When his mother wasn’t around, Adewusi says, his father would often cook and clean.

“The women usually make fun of him, and the men usually just pretend as if they didn’t see him,” he says. “It’s like, ‘Oh, leave that man alone! He’s something else, you know.’ “

Adewusi says his father taught him a man’s true strength comes from his character.

“You don’t have to fit yourself in any mold that people are trying to put you [in],” he says. “What is necessary to be done has to be done, without trying to say, ‘Well, I am in this mold. Men are not supposed to cook.’ But you are starving! And you are saying men are not supposed to cook? What kind of crap is that?”

After more than three decades living in the U.S., Adewusi has decided that there are some fundamental differences between Nigerian and American men.

Brent Almond with his 4-year-old son, Jon. Almond began blogging several years ago to review kids' products, but soon found that he got more satisfaction from chronicling daily life as a father.

Ashanti Branch, an assistant principal at Montera Middle School in Oakland, Calif., leads boys in a "check in" circle at his after-school Ever Forward Club.

Matt de la Peña is the author of Ball Don't Lie, Mexican WhiteBoy, We Were Here, I Will Save You and, most recently, The Living.

Men holding hands platonically is “totally cool” in Nigeria, he says. But in America, Adewusi learned, it is taboo unless you’re in a romantic relationship with another man. He recalls a former classmate in the U.S. who once told him, “Men don’t do that! We don’t touch each other. We don’t hold each others’ hands.”

That’s a shame, Adewusi says. “This doesn’t let human beings live to their full extent. [Though] I don’t mean to say, ‘Well, all of us should go around and start singing ‘Kumbaya,’ and holding each others’ hands.’ “

Since moving to the U.S., Adewusi has traveled back to Nigeria occasionally to visit his family. One airport arrival was especially memorable.

“Everybody was there to welcome me and all that good stuff. And my younger brother tried to [hold] my hands. And I said, ‘Ah! Don’t do that! Don’t touch me!’ ” he recalls with a laugh.

Adewusi says he eventually adjusted back to Nigerian culture during his visit, but the incident reminded him of the limits of being a so-called “man” in America.

Still, he says, he has seen a positive development for men in the U.S. since moving here. “Nowadays you see grown men actually hug each other.”

This story was produced for broadcast by Marisa Peñaloza. You can find other stories from All Things Considered‘s series on what it means to be a man in America today here.

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Fil-Ams join big immigration protest near White House

投稿日時: 09/01/2014 投稿者: admin

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Immigrant rights activists stage the largest civil disobedience protest in front of the White House. PHOTOS BY JON MELEGRITO

WASHINGTON, DC – Filipino American Christine Poquiz was among the 150 immigrant rights activists, elected officials, labor and religious leaders arrested in front of the White House on August 29, asking President Obama to provide relief to families and immigrant workers as part of his announced review of U.S. immigration policies.

Poquiz and a dozen other Filipino American activists marched with more than 1,000 protesters to the White House where they staged the largest civil disobedience protest in immigrant rights history.

“Filipinos are disproportionately impacted by the long waiting periods for family members to be reunited,” said the 30-year-old activist from San Diego, California, who’s a Reproductive Justice Fellow at the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF).

“The Philippines has the longest waiting time of any country because of the outdated visa system in the U.S. Some of us have been waiting over 20 years,” Poquiz explained.

Before marching to the White House, the demonstrators led by Casa of Maryland and Casa of Virginia – two leading immigrant rights advocacy groups – rallied in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) headquarters in Washington, DC.

Among the participants were children who wore T-shirts that pleaded: “Don’t Deport My Mom.” Speakers took turns lambasting the Republicans for their inaction.

Relief from deportations

They also prayed for Obama to reverse his immigration policies before deportations during his administration reach two million, which would surpass the number of deportations that occurred under President George W. Bush.

Ben de Guzman, co-director for programs at the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), was among dozens of Asian Pacific Americans also at the rally. “With President Obama inching closer and closer to his self-imposed timeline of the end of the summer to announce executive action he will take on immigration, every opportunity we take now to call for the change we need becomes ever more important,” he said.

Among the 145 immigrant rights activist arrested at the White House sit-in is Filipino American Christine Poquez (standing, third from left) of San Diego, California

De Guzman added: “Filipinos have a stake in this fight to fix our broken immigration system and the changes that we are calling for will keep families together. LGBT Filipinos know all too well that the 11 million undocumented need relief as well. Jose Antonio Vargas is well known, but the LGBT undocumented population is disproportionately Asian, and his story is more the norm in our community than we might want to admit.”

Immigration advocates have been pressuring Obama to use his executive powers to protect many of the 11.7 million undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. from deportation.

Obama did just that for undocumented young immigrants when he announced the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in 2012. The program allows undocumented youth to stay and work in the U.S.

‘Not your model minority’

With banners and signs urging Obama to “Stop the Deportations,” most of the demonstrators gathered for the noontime rally at Lafayette Park across the President’s residence while a smaller group sat near the White House fence chanting “No Justice! No Peace!” and “Si Se Puede” (“Yes We Can”).

Defying orders to move out of the area, the protestors were taken one by one by Park Police, handcuffed and brought in vans and buses to a detention facility outside the city. Released five hours later, each paid a $50 fine for holding an unlawful demonstration.

Poquiz, who was wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Not Your Model Minority,” was among the first to be arrested and booked. “I volunteered to participate in this mass action because it is very important to me that we highlight the fact that Filipinos are adversely affected by our nation’s broken immigration system,” she said. “We need to speak up.”

Noting a lack of active engagement on this issue in the Filipino American community, the US-born daughter of immigrant parents from the Philippines said political education is needed to heighten awareness and move people to act. “We cannot afford to be indifferent while families are being separated and unjust immigration laws are destroying our communities.”

Christine Poquiz is arrested by Park Police during a mass civil disobedience protest in front of the White House. PHOTOS BY JON MELEGRITO

Poquiz was also worried that “many Filipina women work in the home as domestic caregivers where they are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Domestic caregivers face an additional barrier because it doesn’t count towards eligibility for citizenship the way other work does. We want the President to immediately address these two issues.”

First act of civil disobedience

Although this was her first act of civil disobedience, Poquiz had participated in several protest actions in the past, including a fast for immigrant women. “I know I’m very privileged to be able to participate in this civil disobedience and being safely detained and released in the same day. This is not close to the experiences of others from detention facilities to the protests happening in Ferguson.”

She added: “. At the end of the day it was an amazing experience to go through with my brothers and sisters in the struggle, particularly all the fierce AAPI women who got arrested along side me.”

Other APA groups participating in the event, billed as “National Day to Fight for Families,” include the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA), National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), and the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA).

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Nearly 2,900 immigrant children resettle in Harris County in 7 months

投稿日時: 08/30/2014 投稿者: admin

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Nearly 2,900 immigrant children, most of them from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, have been released to sponsors in Harris County in the first seven months of the year, according to federal statistics.

The figures, released this week by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, provide the first glance yet into where they are being placed. The unprecedented arrival of roughly 63,000 mostly Central American children on the Texas border since October has created a crisis for the White House and Congress. The Obama administration has asked Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency funds to help process the cases and care for the children, but lawmakers left for summer recess without deciding how to deal with the issue. Though the arrivals have steadily dropped in July and August, the total amount is still more than nine times as many as were apprehended in 2011.

Harris County led the nation in the greatest amount of children resettled here, 2,866, followed by Los Angeles County, where 1,993 children were released to adult sponsors. In all, 37,477 children were released to sponsors between Jan. 1 and July 31 and 5,280 children were placed in Texas.

When children who are not accompanied by parents or legal guardians and are not from contiguous countries to the United States are apprehended by immigration authorities, federal law mandates that they are transferred to ORR’s custody, which provides shelter and care for them until they are placed with an appropriate adult guardian while they await their immigration hearings.

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Australian triathlete mistaken for illegal immigrant on Channel swim

投稿日時: 08/28/2014 投稿者: admin

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MELBOURNE (Reuters) – An Australian triathlete was mistaken for an illegal immigrant by British residents and held up by border authorities when set to swim the English Channel, local media reported.

John van Wisse was attempting to set a world record on an ultra-triathlon from London to Paris when he was swooped on by local police and the British Coastguard on Wednesday, the Dover Express reported.

“It looks like a couple of people called thinking it was illegal immigrants coming ashore because some people were seen jumping off a boat,” a police spokesperson told the newspaper.

“The Border Force were down there and the Coastguard.

“But it was a Channel swimmer.”

Police saw “the funny side” and allowed van Wisse to proceed after a short delay on the second leg of the triathlon, having already run the 87-mile first leg from London’s Marble Arch to the Kent coast.

The third and final leg is an 181-mile bike ride from Calais to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

(Writing by Ian Ransom; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)

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Grand Junction couple jumps into the immigrant rights battle

投稿日時: 08/28/2014 投稿者: admin

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GRAND JUNCTION — Estrella Ruiz and Alejandro Solis are tired of living with the constant threat that their family could be split apart because immigration policy isn’t changing. So they are leaving their three children behind this week and traveling to Washington, DC to take part in a demonstration — and likely to get arrested.

The Grand Junction couple has never participated in an act of civil disobedience before, but they raised their hands recently when an immigrant rights group asked for volunteers. Then they explained to their children why they were taking part in what is being called the largest act of vicil disobedience in the current immigrant rights movement.

“Our focus is for Obama to see all of us there and to act,” said Ruiz. “We are not worried. We are not going to be alone.”

About 300 people — four of them from Colorado — are converging on the capital from across the country to march in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters and on to the White House where they plan to sit down in the street and refuse to leave.

The march has been organized by immigrant rights groups from around the country, including the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. The march is an attempt to push President Obama to take executive action to reform immigration because Congress has failed to act on any reforms that Obama had promised when he took office.

Ruiz has been able to take advantage of one Obama administration change, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. She was brought to the United States as a child and has lived most of her 30 years here.

She is attending college and has been very involved in the Grand Junction community as a small business owner, a PTA president and a parent volunteer at her daughters’ schools.

Solis, 36, grew up in Mexico but crossed the border every day to attend school in the United States. He moved to the United States in 1994 and his father, who was a legal resident in this country, applied for citizenship for his son in 1997.

Solis, a construction worker, has been attempting through all the proper legal channels to become a citizen since then. He is too old to gain legal status through the Deferred Action law that helped his wife.

“I have been waiting 17 years for my visa. I have been trying to do it right. I have been trying to do it legally,” he said.

Solis said his frustration with that is why he agreed to join his wife at the sit-in outside the White House.

Solis and Ruiz will be joined by Esmeralda Dominguez, who has been fighting for three years to gain legal status for her husband. He has been denied because of a clerical error.

Jeanette Vizguerra is also going. She has been fighting deportation for five years since she was pulled over for driving without a license.

“We expect all 300 to get arrested,” said Victor Galvan, a Western Slope representative of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition.

For Ruiz and Solis that represents quite a change from their previous plans for Thursday. It is Solis’s 36th birthday that day and they had hoped to go to Moab to sky dive.

“I guess we’re actually jumping into something else,” Solis said.

Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957, nlofholm@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nlofholm

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Immigration, Naturalization and Transmigration Information

カテゴリーアーカイブ: Immigrant

Feds oppose lawsuit, attorneys for migrant minors

Californians back Obama acting on immigrant children if Congress won't

Californians back Obama acting on immigrant children if Congress won't

Californians back Obama acting on immigrant children if Congress won't

Californians back Obama acting on immigrant children if Congress won't

To Model Manhood, Immigrant Dads Draw From Two Worlds

Fil-Ams join big immigration protest near White House

Nearly 2,900 immigrant children resettle in Harris County in 7 months

Australian triathlete mistaken for illegal immigrant on Channel swim

Grand Junction couple jumps into the immigrant rights battle