Washington State Leads effort on Comprehensive Immigration Reform

                                                                               Photo from weareoneamerica.org

WA State Leads on Immigration Reform

Washington State has seen an extraordinary amount of public support of comprehensive immigration reform from various government officials and esteemed members of the Asian Pacific Islander community.

1. Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell sent letters to President Obama stressing the importance and urgency  of passing comprehensive immigration reform, making Washington State the first to have both Senators commit to pushing for reform.

Senator Cantwell Letter to President Obama

Senator Murray Letter to President Obama

Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell   Source: weareoneamerica.org

2. The Seattle City Council voted unanimously to pass Resolution 31193 supporting comprehensive immigration reform. This resolution reiterates Washington State’s commitment to fully integrate immigrants into the community in a meaningful way.

Seattle City Council Resolution Supporting Comprehensive Immigration Reform

3. Members of the Washington State Legislature signed a letter directed to Senators Murray and Cantwell urging them to ask Senator Shumer to introduce a bill for comprehensive immigration reform as soon as possible.

Washington State Legislature Letter to Senators Murray and Cantwell

4. King County Executive Dow Constantine wrote letters to both Senators Murray and Cantwell urging both to work toward a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the Senate.

King County Executive Dow Constantine Letter to Senator Cantwell

King County Executive Dow Constantine Letter to Senator Murray

5. Members of the Asian Pacific Islander Coalition also sent a letter to Senators Murray and Cantwell stressing the importance of comprehensive immigration reform to the Asian American communities in Washington State.

Asian Pacific Islander Coalition of Washington State Letter to Cantwell and Murray

6. Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn wrote letters to Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell as well.

Mayor McGinn Letter to Senator Murray

Mayor McGinn Letter to Senator Cantwell

Read more from this Source:  http://www.weareoneamerica.org/wa-state-leads-immigration-reform
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Photo:  seattletimes.nwsource.com

The mayor of Seattle, Washington sent the following letter to Wash State Senator Patty Murry urging support for compassionate immigration reform.

March 17, 2010

Dear Senator Murray:

        Seattle has always been a city of immigrants. Immigration has been a driving force of economic growth throughout our history, and immigrants still play a key role in our economy today. With nearly 30 percent of all Seattle children in immigrant families and more than 100,000 foreign-born residents, Seattle’s history and growth have become even more strongly tied to immigration.
        The impact of a failed immigration system is felt across Seattle, by immigrant families, service providers, businesses, city agencies and other entities. Over the years, the City of Seattle has adopted policies that promote the inclusion of immigrants, resolutions that call for comprehensive immigration reform, and ordinances ensuring that city employees and police do not ask about immigration status. But local action is not enough to fully address the many issues facing our immigrant communities.
      That is why I write to you today to ask Congress to finally pass comprehensive immigration reform as soon as possible. Seattle needs immigration reform that:

• Provides a path toward earned legalization and citizenship
• Reforms visa programs to eliminate backlogs, keep families together, protect workers’ rights and ensure that future immigration is regulated and controlled
• Enables immigrants to pursue higher education
• Protects immigrants from employment abuse by enforcing immigration and labor laws and eliminating exploitation of immigrant workers
• Prioritizes immigrant integration into our communities and country
• Respects the due-process rights of all in the United States
• Provides local governments with financial and technical assistance to deliver social services, health care, education, language services and civic integration

      Seattle — and the State of Washington — will be stronger when our nation tackles the tough issue of reforming our broken immigration system. I urge you to continue the leadership you have already shown on this issue and to work for introduction of a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the Senate this March.

Read more from this source:  http://www.weareoneamerica.org/sites/weareoneamerica.org/files/404MurrayImmigrationReform20100317TMM.pdf

Immigration Experiment Under the Microscope: Very Costly, Unintended Consequences

Another community reports that its effort to rid itself of immigrants, ends up costing dearly.  For some the goal is to GET RID OF both legal and undocumented immigrants.  (It's pretty easy to call this Racism.)  For others it is an unintended consequence.  Either way, the community pays, both financially and through lost enrichment of life.

“The Hispanic businesses and malls are empty. You used to see 100 people at the shopping center, and after the resolution, you'd see five. You noticed the difference."

This quote describes the fallout from Prince William County’s polarizing local immigration law which was passed in 2007 and modified in 2008. A three-year, $385,000 University of Virginia study of the policy released this week found that it drove out a significant number of immigrants—both legal and undocumented.
Under the original policy, local police were directed to check the immigration status of any individual they had probable cause to believe was in the country without authorization. After much controversy, Prince William limited the measure in 2008 to require police officers to check the immigration status of all arrestees.
Clearly, Prince William’s immigration actions cost the county the contributions of thousands of immigrant taxpayers, workers and consumers. From 2006 to 2008, Prince William’s non-citizen Hispanic population dropped by 22 percent, or by 7,700 people. During the same period, the undocumented population decreased by an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 people.
Immigration hawks are quick to separate legal from undocumented immigrants; we’re told harsh laws aren’t anti-immigrant because they only target undocumented immigrants. The UVA study shows us that this is a naïve assumption. Too often, restrictive immigration enforcement and the corresponding policy debates also impact legal immigrants and the broader Hispanic community.

Whether UVA’s findings are indicators of the policy’s success or troubling evidence of collateral damage depends on who you ask. For county supervisors, driving out legal immigrants and Hispanics was never a goal of the measure, but an “unintended consequence.” For others, this was a victory. From the report:

Some actors in the drama of the resolution’s passage had quite different goals. Some in the community who advocated the policy made clear…that they were hoping to “take back the County” by reversing the tide of rapid in-migration of Hispanics to Prince William County.

Immigration restrictionists also counted this as a win for “attrition through enforcement,” a strategy that calls for crafting harsh laws to make life so untenable for undocumented immigrants they choose to leave—an approach best described as “a product of delusion and cruelty.”

Should other localities follow Prince William’s approach to immigration enforcement? The authors conclude that their results should be only applied to other jurisdictions with “great caution.” ..... Moreover, these less-than-stellar results cost Prince William almost $3 million to implement. One author of the study advises would-be copycats: “This not a free policy…Don’t try this if you don’t want to spend some money.”

See more of this article:  http://www.dmiblog.com/archives/2010/11/under_the_microscope_one_count.html

Arizona Anti-immigrant Law Backfires. Mexicans Welcome Back

Arizona's anti-immigration law is causing tremendous economic hardships on Arizona's businesses and citizens.  In a radical change of heart, many are calling for a new worker visa program in order to bring mexican workers back to Arizona.

Latinos and Sept 11

What is the face of service to this country?

Hispanics in US Marines: What kind of citizens do they make?

A familiar calling might have led Miguel Vazquez to enlist in the U.S. armed forces: for generations, many of his relatives decided to serve his country with weapons and joined the ranks of the Marines.

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But his day of calling was September 11, 2001. When American Airlines Flight 11, controlled by five hijackers crashed into the north tower of World Trade Center. He thought, like many compatriots, it was an accident.
The second attack on the south tower, dispelled the theory of chance and became "a sign or symbol" of what should be his life: his response to the attacks was to run to join the military.
"It was a moment when I heard that the government declared that we were in an emergency. September 11 made me feel that I should get ahead of others, many people who needed my services," said the former soldier, now dedicated to finance a family business in California.

"It was also the moment when I realized that we had powerful enemies who were willing to hurt many people, beyond the enemies that we had faced in the past."

In 2002, at age 19, Vazquez, Latino, became a soldier. By then, the list of U.S. military recorded 12.9% of registered Hispanic, according to the Heritage Foundation.

Born of Puerto Rican father and Mexican mother (from the state of Tamaulipas), the young man now aged 28, is a Hispanic second generation sees America as "the only country that I can consider as my home."
Although fluent in Spanish, when speaking of memories he prefers to use the language in which he was educated at school and the neighborhood. Memory speaks in English for him and emotions are expressed in half sentences.
"I never talk about the Sept 11.  I do not know why, it's weird, confusing ... sorry ..." doubt, breathe deeply, is silence. "It's hard to relive the day that marked a before and after, not only for me but for a whole country, and it is hard to think of everything that came after."

At the Pentagon

Watching television, Vazquez received the news that the third attack in September: American Flight 77 had reached the Pentagon, the heart of the U.S. Department of Defense.
His father was there, unhurt, but young Vazquez didn't know until later:  in the chaos of the moment, his father was unable to communicate over telephone lines what sort of luck he had had.

 

Sept 11 made Vazquez feel the need for unity in the country.

"It was the first time I felt I had something bigger and more important than myself. The first time the country needed to unite, not only as a country on paper, but basically in order to survive," he says.
Although he had wanted to be in the military, the bombings gave his mission a sense of history: "I knew it would be part of history, it was a moment of profound change and I wanted to share."
His parents opposed his project and tried to dissuade him, not for lack of principle, but fear: they assumed that, for the first time, one member of their military family actually would go to war.
And there he was. The U.S. Marine Corps took him to Iraq in 2003 for the initial invasion and then in 2004 as part of the operation to regain control of Fallujah.

"The pride of a Marine is related to the team spirit that is built in to everything you do with your fellow soldiers. Being in the field, I was responsible not only for those who were fighting next to me but for all people who were here in my country, [the USA] "reveals Vázquez.

One of the provisions of the Dream Act debated, but defeated, in congress this last year, would have allowed young immigrants to earn US citizenship through service in the US military.  There are a lot of parents in the US who would die to call Miguel Vázquez their son.

See more:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/noticias/2011/09/110910_11s_soldado_latino_az.shtml

History of Immigration in U.S.

The history of immigration in the U.S. centers in Ellis Island, though some entered through the West coast as well as our northern and southern borders.  The following documentary reminds us of our common condition.

California: financiación a estudiantes indocumentados pendiente de una firma

Tal vez los estudiantes sin papeles en California puedan tomar clases a la universidad sin pagar los cargos del los de otros estados.  Les falta una firma este proyecto.

Artículo de BBC Mundo:

Es época de regreso a clases y los estudiantes hispanos del estado de California tienen una razón para empezar el año con optimismo renovado.

Desde hace unos días, la legislatura estatal aprobó su propio clic Dream Act, una ley que allanará el camino a miles de indocumentados que quieren continuar con su educación después de la secundaria en esa región estadounidense.

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La norma es, en realidad, un paquete de medidas presentadas por el representante demócrata Gil Cedillo para proveer financiación universitaria a jóvenes sin papeles, muchos de ellos traídos a Estados Unidos de pequeños por sus padres.
En dos partes, el proyecto recibió el visto bueno del Congreso estatal: la AB130, que entrará en vigor en 2012, permite solicitar fondos privados o préstamos; luego, la AB131 da un paso más allá y daría acceso a los indocumentados a becas y subsidios de tipo estatal, casi en pie de igualdad con los residentes legales de California.
Aprobada el viernes pasado, la segunda porción del llamado Dream Act californiano está a la espera de la firma del gobernador Jerry Brown.
Estudiantes y activistas celebraron la medida como un paso adelante en la larga batalla por conseguir mejoras educativas para indocumentados. El Dream Act federal -un acrónimo que identifica a la Ley para el Desarrollo, Alivio y Educación para Menores Extranjeros- permitiría acceder para la residencia legal a aquellos estudiantes que cumplan con ciertos requisitos, pero lleva diez años esperando convertirse en ley.
Así, estados como California o Illinois -donde se probó una norma parecida a la AB130 este verano- han decidido avanzar por su cuenta, sin esperar una reforma a escala nacional. Aunque, a diferencia del criticado Dream Act federal, las normas estatales plantean ayudas económicas pero no ofrecen un camino a la ciudadanía.

Firma pendiente

Las estadísticas oficiales señalan que más de 65% de los universitarios estadounidenses recibe alguna forma de ayuda financiera para completar la carrera. Los extranjeros sin permiso de residencia, en tanto, no son elegibles para asistencia federal o estatal.
La firma de la AB131 podría cambiar eso y ahora las miradas están puestas en el gobernador Brown.
"Le pedimos al gobernador Brown que encienda la antorcha de oportunidades para estos estudiantes", expresó Angélica Salas, directora de la Coalición por los Derechos Humanos de los Inmigrantes de Los Ángeles (CHIRLA, en inglés).
Pero Brown no la tiene fácil: aunque, por principio, el demócrata defiende la propuesta y su firma le sumaría apoyos entre los hispanos, tiene sobre sí el fantasma de la economía estatal, con un déficit de US$26 mil millones.
"Hay incertidumbre por una cuestión que es meramente financiera: el presupuesto es muy ajustado y hay muchos que dicen que el estado no puede hacerse cargo de proveer ayudas económicas para más gente de la que ya tiene", señaló a BBC Mundo John Pitney, experto en política californiana del Claremont McKenna College.

"Le pedimos al gobernador Brown que encienda la antorcha de oportunidades para estos estudiantes"

Angélica Salas, directora de CHIRLA

La primera parte (AB130), rubricada por Brown el pasado agosto, no generó tanta oposición porque legisla sobre el acceso a fondos privados. Ahora, los que rechazan la medida se han valido de los números para pedir el veto del gobernador a la segunda porción del Dream Act estatal.
El congresista californiano Tim Donnelly, por ejemplo, lleva adelante una campaña desde su página web.
"Los analistas estiman el costo (de dar acceso a los estudiantes indocumentados a subsidios estatales) en decenas de millones al año… al tiempo que la promesa de educación barata y de alta calidad atraerá cada vez más inmigración ilegal", señaló el republicano.

Mejor futuro

En tanto, quienes defienden la norma también apelan a los números: la economía del país necesitará el día de mañana de latinos con capacitación universitaria y los hispanos representan, al fin de cuentas, 12,5% de los inscritos en la educación superior.

Lea más:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/noticias/2011/09/110908_california_dream_act_en.shtml

Border Patrol Agent turns migrant supporter

Former Border Patrol Agent,  John Randolph, decides it has not worked to chase people around and detain them for wanting to cross our border and find a better job to support their families. 

In my twenty-six years as a US Border Patrol/ICE Agent, I caught many people. At the time, common sense told me that the vast majority of the people who I caught were good, hard working people. I began to wonder why immigrants had to be chased like animals, and why I was being paid to chase them.

Early on in my career, death and injury brought it all into perspective. In the early 1980's one of my classmates who transferred over to DEA was murdered during an undercover rip-off. Another co-worker friend was shot to death while on surveillance of an alien smuggling ring. I witnessed a young Mexican man fall to death from a freeway overpass while running from me. I myself fell out of the passenger side of a patrol unit when my partner blindly accelerated before I could get back in the car. I saw a young Mexican woman who while running at full speed in the dark, hit her head on the dropped cement ceiling of a drainage tube. She required hospitalization and facial surgery.
One night, after coming home from a day of work, I had a dream of a high-speed pursuit in which the car that I was chasing crashed. I ran up to the overturned car to apprehend the perpetrator. When I opened the car door, I found that my own son, injured inside. This dream had a profound effect on me.
Since my days as a Border Patrol Agent, I've had a change of heart. I'm now a musician and a migrant activist, above all else. It's all hard to put into words, I suppose. Hungry people, friends getting killed, and no real sense that what we were doing was doing any good. "What are we doing here? Why am I chasing these people?", I'd ask myself.
I learned early in my twenty six year career as a US Border Patrol Agent, INS Criminal Investigator, and a DHS Special Agent, that we neither had nor were provided the resources to stop people or drugs from entering the country. I knew officers who worked at the port of entry in San Diego. They told me of the large amounts of drugs that were being intercepted. I naturally wondered how much must have been getting through.
After thirty-five years of working and observing our government's failed immigration and drug enforcement systems, I am now convinced that both are insidiously designed to fail. The failure of NAFTA and the unrelenting violence of the US-backed war on drugs in Mexico have created conditions for a Mexican exodus. There have been close to 40,000 drug war-related deaths in Mexico since 2006. I know the real victims of these two forces; I've met them. They are the poor and hard-working Mexican citizens who only want a better life. The border is really meant to keep the good people from both sides from joining together, from knowing each other, and from prospering.
I therefore support the use of asylum as a means of protection for such Mexican citizens whose lives are put in danger everyday by the US backed drug war. While the Obama administration just announced its decision to back off of the deportation of "low priority" immigration cases, I believe that this is not true immigration reform. Rather, it postpones any actual case decisions from being made. I also believe we should support the millions of US Dream Act kids and undocumented Mexicans with the use of immigration hearings as a vehicle for reform. I say we should turn the 300,000 case back log into a million case backlog. It is now clear to me that Washington will not reform failed drug or immigration systems until it is put in the position where it is forced to do so.

After twenty-six years of chasing people on the behalf of the U.S. government, finally, I have to ask our politicians this question: How many more people will die until our system fundamentally changes?

See article:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-randolph/from-border-patrol-agent-to-immigration-reform-activist_b_943799.html?ref=tw

Sale of Immigrants provokes reaction

And what is the reaction of others toward the U.S. immigration detention centers (private prisons operated by the Corrections Corporation of America)?  This corporation is for profit.  Profit made from rounding up and holding foreigners.

Thousands of Mexican Professionals emigrating to USA

With salaries ten times larger for some professionals in the US, violence and insecurity at home, thousands have been leaving home in another version of the "Brain-Drain" phenom.  The majority head north.  This trend contradicts the recent drop-off in Mexican immigration statistics.

By

Alberto Nájar

BBC Mundo

La emigración de México a Estados Unidos ha disminuido, según datos oficiales de ambos países. Pero existe un grupo de mexicanos que parece caminar en sentido contrario a la tendencia.

Cada año miles de profesionales abandonan el país en busca de mejores oportunidades o para huir de la inseguridad, reconocen especialistas y autoridades.

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Estados Unidos es el destino de la mayoría. La Secretaría de Educación Pública informó que en la última década se duplicó el número de mexicanos con licenciatura y posgrado que emigraron al país.
En 2000 había 411.000 de estos profesionales, y para 2010 el número aumentó a más de un millón. Uno de cada cinco mexicanos con doctorado vive en Estados Unidos.
El fenómeno alarma a las autoridades, que han implementado varios programas para retener y repatriar a los migrantes altamente capacitados, pero hasta ahora el proceso migratorio no se ha detenido, le dice a BBC Mundo Camila Tigau, especialista del Centro de Investigaciones Sobre América del Norte (CISAN).
"Hubo la perspectiva optimista de que con la crisis de 2008, como iba a haber menos empleo en Estados Unidos y Canadá se resolvería el problema de la fuga de cerebros en México, pero eso no ha pasado", explica.
"Ha habido factores más importantes que llevan a la gente fuera, entonces en vez de que tengamos un retorno importante lo que hay es una salida importante de gente".

Sueldos

Un recién graduado puede ganar casi diez veces más en Estados Unidos que en México.

La diferencia salarial parece ser uno de los principales estímulos para la migración de profesionales.
De acuerdo con la Oficina de Estadísticas Laborales de Estados Unidos un ingeniero civil recién graduado obtiene un ingreso mensual de US$4.500.
En México, en cambio, el sueldo de un profesional de este nivel es de unos US$590 cada mes, según la Secretaría del Trabajo.
Tal vez por eso aumentó la migración de ingenieros, sobre todo de los especializados en mecánica.
Recientemente la Asociación Mexicana de la Industria Automotriz dijo que la demanda de estos profesionales en el mercado estadounidense está al alza, pues muchos ingenieros de ese país se jubilarán en los próximos años.
Así, la semana pasada la Asociación de Ingenieros Universitarios Mecánicos Electricistas (AIUME), dijo que unos 40.000 ingenieros mexicanos emigran cada año a Estados Unidos en busca de mejores empleos.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/noticias/2011/08/110810_migracion_profesionistas_mexico_an.shtml