Economic Refugee News: Weekly Roundup 05/23/10


  • The AFL-CIO and the nation’s largest civil rights coalition issued a strongly worded call for the Obama administration to sever its ties with law enforcement officials in Arizona.  Drop them a comment in support here.
  • 4 undocumented youth have staged a sit-in at John McCain’s office urging him and Congress to pass the Dream Act now.  Check out this TwitPic that was posted as it happened.  The students were later arrested and put on deportation proceedings.
  • Marielena Hincapie’s Huffington Post column explains why the National Immigration Law Center and its allies filed their lawsuit against Arizona’s SB 1070.
  • Show your support for Jessica Colotl’s struggle to remain in the U.S. to finish her college education by voting on these two polls: wsbtv.com & Fox5.
  • Several members of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors introduced a resolution asking law enforcement to opt-out of the dangerous police-ICE collaboration program which is so disingenuously called the “Secure Communities” program.
  • President Obama’s Organizing for America wants to hear the stories of those who voted for the first time in 2008.  Please forward this link to those who voted for the first time with immigration reform in mind.
  • The SEIU recently sent this e-mail asking the following question: Who benefits from our broken, enforcement – heavy Immigration policies?  Check out this graphic and this video that shows who are the people that benefit.  Last year, there was over $1.7 billion in revenue – 40% of it from contracts with ICE, US Marshals Office, and Federal Bureau of Prisons – and a large portion of that work was immigration related.
  • It looks like Mr. Cafferty is trying to pick up where Lou Dobbs left off at CNN.  He has published a few anti-immigrant blog posts using lines like these: But when one of our states that is being ravaged by the presence of 460,000 illegal aliens inside its borders does something about it, the president says that’s “misguided.”
  • Rhode Island State Rep. Palumbo has introduced a bill that is similar to Arizona’s authoritarian police law.
  • Amazingly, the President of FAIR (an organization with ties to white supremacists) Dan Stein is scheduled to appear On Democratic Party Panel.
  • Michelle Obama Talks Immigration with 2nd Graders; Mrs. Obama was having a little problem explaining to a little girl why Obama is deporting so many people. The little girl then reveals to her that her mom doesn’t have papers.  DIGG the story.
  • Protesters, many of them college students, rallied outside the downtown Orlando office of Sen. George LeMieux to call for his support of two immigration reform bills lingering in Congress without enough votes for passage.
  • Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun (AH’-oon) has endorsed a federal proposal that would allow undocumented college students a pathway to permanent residency and U.S. citizenship.
  • Check out this opinion piece from Cesar Chavez’s long time press aid.  The Tea Party folks should not be able to use Cesar Chavez as a symbol of anti-immigration!