http://www.inthesetimes.com/archives/tags/immigration/ In These Times features award-winning investigative reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter. en-us Expression Engine jessica@inthesetimes.com seamus@inthesetimes.com Thu, 20 Apr 2006 16:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2612/walking_out_and_standing_up/ No one knows exactly how it started: fliers, text messages, MySpace bulletins and one code phrase--HR 4437--circulated throughout schools and cyberspaces over the course of a few days. But the massive student walkouts that occurred between March 24 and 30 were among the largest in California's history. Adults observing 40,000 students in Southern California spilling into the streets expressed skepticism. "These kids don't know anything," NPR's Juan Williams told Bill O'Reilly on a March 29 episode of "The O'Reilly Factor." Other commentators dismissed their actions as truancy. But the spontaneous eruption of a massive, coordinated walkout was proof that these students, no matter how poor, deprived or English-limited, used technology and networking to make themselves heard. "You know how they… activism immigration David Sirota Mon, 24 Apr 2006 04:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2608/keeping_america_empty/ At the northern tip of Michigan's lower peninsula lies the quaint town of Petoskey, population 6,080. In late March, a thick white shelf of ice still covers Lake Michigan, and a few miles north, over the Mackinac Bridge, the Upper Peninsula appears as a grey tangle of virgin wilderness. This isn't the end of the world, residents say, but you can see it from here. The town seems to have escaped much of the last four decades. Mom-and-pop stores and unassuming churches line its downtown, and there's hardly a chain restaurant in sight. People wear flag pins on their lapels, even when they're not running for office. On the day I drive to Petoskey, the radio is buzzing with voices… immigration David Sirota Tue, 25 Apr 2006 04:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2620/solidarity_from_barrio_to_barbershop/ "There's no doubt that Mexican men and women--full of dignity, willpower and a capacity for work--are doing the work that not even blacks want to do in the United States." Mexican President Vicente Fox's comments last year to a group of Mexican businessmen ignited a political firestorm across the Americas. Fox also foreshadowed a powerful divide in the national debate over immigration reform. He was defending Mexican immigrants, arguing they are hard-working, essential assets to the American economy. Some African Americans retorted that Fox's declaration was racist and demeaning, and that "they" are breaking our laws and taking our jobs. There is esperanza. In February, a provocative museum exhibit opened in Chicago that is confronting Mexico's racist past head-on. "The… activism immigration David Sirota Tue, 04 Jul 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2720/immigration_echoes/ Driven as much by presumed political necessity as by xenophobic fears, the immigration issue has grabbed headlines and the talking heads of the media over the past few months. Recent mass demonstrations against proposed immigration restrictions have only fueled the issue further, and among blacks come echoes of nativism, a fear-driven rejection of these newcomers, who are "taking our jobs." While it can be argued that many of the jobs taken by Mexican immigrants are jobs that most Americans, black or white, won't do, the fear remains, and black radio, newspapers, and other media are awash in expressions of concern, and frankly, xenophobia. This happens, I'm convinced, in the context of a nation with a deep racial hierarchy, which traditionally… Race Immigration David Sirota Thu, 10 Aug 2006 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2740/superheroes_invisibles_no_m/ On a pleasant June evening, I'm seated across the table from photographer Dulce Pinzón in a crowded Mexican restaurant in Brooklyn. Looking over the menu while trying to come up with a few reasonably articulate questions for an interview, I notice out of my right eye a broad-shouldered worker rushing by our table. He looks strangely familiar. "Is that ... Hombre Elástico?" Pinzón nods--it is Mr. Fantastic, the man of astounding intelligence and extreme malleability, leader of the Fantastic Four (and who, in Spanish-speaking countries, is known as the "Elastic Man"). Even without the three-foot-long forearms and the blue six-pack stomach, I remember his photo clearly, with his chubby cheeks and easy smile on display as he delivers a dish… art and culture immigration activism David Sirota Wed, 08 Nov 2006 17:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2888/immigrants_sue_to_retrieve_funds_seized_in_arizona/ When Illinois truck driver Javier Torres sent $1,000 via Western Union to a friend in Arizona to pay for a car he'd purchased from her, it seemed like the money just disappeared. The same thing happened to North Carolina resident Alma Santiago when she sent $2,000 to her cousin in Arizona so he could visit family. Likewise for Lia Rivadeneyra, who sent $500 to her brother when he was visiting Sonora, Mexico, from his home in Peru. Several weeks after each sent their money, they found out it had been seized by Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, on suspicion that it was intended for "coyotes," human or drug smugglers. While smuggling across the Arizona border has certainly become an increasingly… Immigration Economy Judiciary David Sirota Tue, 06 Feb 2007 05:00:00 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3015/families_behind_bars/ Named after the co-founder of the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the T. Don Hutto Correctional Center in Taylor, Texas, opened as a medium-security prison in 1997. Today, the federal government pays CCA, the nation's largest private prison company, $95 per person per day to house the detainees, who wear jail-type uniforms and live in cells. But they have not been charged with any crimes. In fact, nearly half of its 400 or so residents are children, including infants and toddlers. The inmates are immigrants or children of immigrants who are in deportation proceedings. Many of them are in the process of applying for political asylum, refugees from violence-plagued and impoverished countries like Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Somalia and Palestine.… immigration central america prison David Sirota Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:00:01 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3100/the_lessons_of_sacco_and_vanzetti/ This year marks the 80th anniversary of the execution of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Convicted of a double murder after a notoriously corrupt trial, the anarchists went to their deaths maintaining their innocence. Director Peter Miller's new documentary Sacco and Vanzetti follows the men's lives from their arrival in America to their infamous journey through the U.S. justice system during the '20s red scare. Throughout their trial, they held to the paradoxical ideas that had guided them as activists. As the film's narrator puts it, "They believed in the America that they and their peers had rushed to--a place of political freedom, shared resources and diminished social stratification." And yet they realized, in Vanzetti's words, that "in no other… immigration movies David Sirota Mon, 23 Apr 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3143/abuses_alleged_during_immigration_raid/ Seventeen immigrants detained for several weeks after an immigration raid at a candy packaging company in the Chicago suburbs were strip-searched, denied medical attention, roughly handcuffed, coerced to sign deportation papers they did not fully understand, and charged up to $23,000 for bond, according to some of the detainees and their advocates. This treatment underscores a trend in the accelerating number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids on workplaces nationwide--unnecessarily rough treatment of detainees that makes not only the threat of deportation, but detention itself a source of fear and anxiety. On the morning of Feb. 27, ICE agents swept into the Cano Packaging Corporation in Arlington Heights, Ill., a mostly middle class, white suburb 25 miles from… immigration activism David Sirota Fri, 11 May 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3125/rebelde_for_the_cause/ Dolores Huerta is a hustler. At around 5 foot nothing and 77 years old, she does not look like a force to be reckoned with. And while neither her face nor her name might be familiar, Huerta is one of the most significant rabble-rousers of her time. When Huerta founded the National Farm Workers Association (what later became United Farm Workers, or UFW) with Cesar Chavez in 1965, nobody--let alone a single Latina mother--was organizing farm workers. But with UFW, Huerta became a thorn in the side of major agricultural corporations. She helped direct the famous five-year Delano grape boycott, and negotiated a three-year collective bargaining agreement signed by the majority of the California table grape industry. She secured unemployment… immigration labor religion David Sirota Thu, 19 Jul 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3263/despite_raids_ids_for_all/ On June 4, New Haven, Conn., became the first city in the country to authorize a municipal identity card for use by both citizens and undocumented immigrants. Thirty-six hours after the city council approved the card, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) staged a citywide raid that led to the arrest of 31 people. In some cases, ICE agents, entering apartments without warrants, took parents away in front of their children. City officials and community activists charge that ICE is retaliating for the city's immigrant-friendly policies, although the feds deny that. New Haven has vowed to roll out the new IDs sometime in late July. The Board of Aldermen approved the measure by a vote of 25 to 1,… civil rights immigration David Sirota Wed, 25 Jul 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3271/illegal_immigrants_uncle_sam_wants_you/ In 1996, Jesus Alberto Suarez del Solar was a 13-year-old boy, up from Tijuana on a family shopping trip, when he stopped at a Marine Corps recruiting table at an open-air mall in Chula Vista, Calif. Jesus had been an easy mark for the recruiter--a boy who fantasized that by joining the powerful, heroic U.S. Marines, he could help his own country fight drug lords. He gave the recruiter his address and phone number in Mexico, and the recruiter called him twice a week for the next two years, until he had talked Jesus into convincing his parents to move to California. Fernando and Rose Suarez sold their home and their laundry business and immigrated with their children to Escondido,… immigration military David Sirota Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3273/risking_everything_for_europe/ Before setting out across the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Italy, the Ghanaian human traffickers who had hired Samuel and his two friends to captain the boat in exchange for their passage warned them not to sail with more than 90 immigrants aboard--nor to trust the Libyan police. But under the cover of night, when a freezer truck delivered them to the beach they realized that corrupt local cops had filled the leaky, stolen fishing boat with more than 100 sub-Saharan Africans. Samuel and his friends, fishermen from a coastal village in Ghana, were responsible for reaching European shores, alive. What were they to do now? "If the sun rose and we were discovered, who knows what problems could have… africa europe immigration David Sirota Thu, 16 Aug 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3307/no_match_no_ms/ On the heels of Congress' failure to pass an immigration reform bill, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is releasing a get-tough regulation that would force employers to either fire workers whose names and Social Security numbers don't match or risk a fine of up to $10,000. Corporation and labor advocates both fear it could lead to mass layoffs of immigrants. The regulation had been sitting in the hopper for a year as Congress debated immigration. As In These Times went to press, DHS Spokeswoman Laura Keehner declined to say whether the regulation's deadlines and restrictions would loosen due to hundreds of comments that business, labor and immigrant-rights groups submitted last year, decrying the rule. Laura Reiff, co-chair of the… immigration labor David Sirota Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3322/no_happy_endings/ There is no happy ending in Jia (Cleis Press), Hyejin Kim's grim novel about North Korea, no final scene of freedom, no hint about what might happen in a future without the Great Leader; there isn't even the usual scrap of hope that even the bleakest novels about survivors from totalitarian regimes frequently offer. Based on stories Kim heard when working with North Korean refugees in China and told (mostly) in a first-person narrative from the point of view of the title character, a North Korean orphan who manages a comparatively privileged existence, Jia doesn't pretend to have documentary verisimilitude. What it does is paint a composite portrait with small, intimate strokes. This is a fast, oddly flat but hypnotic… asia books immigration David Sirota Wed, 12 Sep 2007 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3327/on_strike_without_a_union/ When a human resource manager told immigrant workers at the Cygnus soap and detergent factory on Chicago's far south side on July 25 that they had to prove their legal status within 15 days or be fired, they took matters into their own hands. The next day, 118 workers walked out and formed a picket line, going on strike even though no union represented them. What followed is a scenario that is likely to become increasingly common as the country forges ahead with a new immigration enforcement mandate without comprehensive immigration reform. Cygnus employee Francisco Reyes says he was told that if he and other workers couldn't prove that they were in the country legally by Aug. 10, they would… immigration labor David Sirota Mon, 05 Nov 2007 05:00:01 -0600 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3380/banana_republic_to_baby_republic/ On any given day in Antigua, a touristy colonial town in Guatemala, as many as a dozen American couples can be seen lounging with their soon-to-be-adopted Mayan children in the Parque Central or dining nearby in posh restaurants. The couples enjoy the leisurely Latin American lifestyle--constant spring-like temperatures, drooping bougainvillea plumage and stunning views of Volcán de Agua to the south. But lately, fear has set in among the Guatemalan adoption industry. The Guatemalan government is threatening to wrestle control of adoption away from the private sector and either slow it to a crawl or shut it down completely. Last year, at fancy Antigua hotels or in the lobby of the Marriott in Guatemala City's upscale Zona 9, Guatemalan foster… central america immigration David Sirota Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:00:00 -0500 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3744/ice_cold_to_kids/ At 10 a.m. on May 12, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents descended on a meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa, about 200 miles northwest of Des Moines. ICE agents arrested 389 workers who it determined were undocumented -- 304 of whom were indicted on various charges, mostly related to their immigrant status. The list of arrested did not include the owners or managers at the meat processing plant. After Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform in 2006, ICE adopted what is referred to as an "enforcement-only" approach to immigration. The incident in Postville is one example. ICE arrests have increased 45-fold since 2001, according to the National Council of La Raza, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit. In 2007, nearly… immigration civil liberties social justice politics David Sirota