Tanton’s ProEnglish & The Company They Keep

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Last week, we posted a blog outlining the internal problems at ProEnglish, an organization that lobbies for measures that would make English the official language of the United States. Despite some successes, ProEnglish has recently faded a bit. In 2010, it championed legislative victories; in 2011, it makes the ludicrous demand that Puerto Rico adopt English as its official language.

And then there’s the issue of turnover, with four different executive directors in eight months. In late October, ProEnglish announced the hire of its newest, Robert Vandervoort, who’s well-connected amongst anti-immigrant legislators and organizations in the beltway.

Vandervoort has some more controversial friends, as well. He has attended events held by the… Read more

FAIR Issues New Report on H-1B Visas

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Yesterday, anti-immigrant group Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) released a report decrying the H-1B visa program. Entitled Jobs Americans Can’t Do?: The Myth of A Skilled Worker Shortage, the report claims that “[s]killed guest worker programs are being abused by employers,” going on to fault these visas for high unemployment in the United States.

Hundreds Turn Out to Support “Residents Against SW Ranches ICE Detention Center”

Written by Rebecca Poswolsky

With bold and colorful signs that read, “Protect Our Children,” and, “ICE stop destroying families,” over 250 residents of Pembroke Pines and the town of Southwest Ranches, Florida, attended a public meeting Saturday, November 5.

These residents, members of a group called Residents Against SW Ranches ICE Detention Center, came together to voice their opposition to the creation of a new immigration detention center in their area.

In front of local and federal police and prison administration, residents explained how they were concerned about the lack of transparency surrounding the proposal and planning of the detention center. Bill Di Scipio, a concerned resident, commented that community members have been fighting the detention… Read more

NC FIRE’s 88 Pages of Nonsense

Written by Guest Blogger

by Domenic Powell

North Carolinians for Immigration Reform and Enforcement (NC FIRE) released yet another bigoted “Illegal Alien Crime Report” last week, keeping the flame of anti-immigrant sentiment lit among its flimsy base.

“These crimes are not compiled in any statewide database and that tends to make the problem look smaller than it really is,” James Johnson writes to the recipients of the report. Here are some of the entries cited as evidence of this vicious, lurking crime wave:

  • “Melo, Erin, Marie – Speeding”
  • “Giordano-Faines, Jordan – No operator’s License/Failure to reduce speed”
  • “Garcia, Jessica Lynn – Speeding”
  • “El-Haddad, Hazim, Moussa – Expired registration card/tag…Expired, No Inspection”

… Read more

An Epidemic of Violence

Written by Jessica Acee

There is an epidemic of violence in this country that’s all but completely ignored.  And it’s costing women their lives.

It seems that every week there is another news story of a man who kills his wife or girlfriend, and then maybe himself or their children.  A quick Google search pulled up four such cases in the last three weeks alone.

Also routinely, random and horrific acts of violence are committed against groups of women by men.  A few examples that come to mind are the mass killing in 2009 at a health club in Pennsylvania, the 1998 school shooting in Jonesboro, AK, and the Amish school shooting in 2006.

When a… Read more

Ecopolitics

Cross-Post-Bridging Movements to Build Climate Justice

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Originally posted by Population and Development Program on November 11th, 2011

The first night of PopDev, SisterSong, and the Political Economy Research Institute’s Bridging Movements to Build Climate Justice convening, Thursday October 20th, was dedicated to story-telling.  Loretta Ross, Nia Robinson, and Jacqueline Patterson each shared histories of reproductive justice, climate justice and environmental justice.  The group of about thirty activists from different social justice movements sat together, learning from the veteran organizers.

This story-telling set the tone of the convening, which aimed to bridge the work of reproductive, climate, and environmental justice movements.  As a participant in this convening, the importance of telling our own histories stuck with… Read more

Culture

Cross-Post:American Citizen Racially Profiled At School In Alabama Because She Looked Foreign

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Originally posted by Think Progress on November 8th, 2011

In the wake of HB 56, Alabama’s extreme immigration law, students have been bullied by their peers simply for looking Hispanic, and now even one teacher has singled out a student because she looked foreign — even though she is an American citizen.

The ACLU reports that a teacher gave Cineo Gonzales’ young daughter a pamphlet in Spanish about HB 56. When Gonzales, a Birmingham taxi driver, went to the school’s principal to ask why it was given to his daughter specifically, the principal told him that the school handed out the pamphlets to students “who looked like they weren’t from there”:… Read more

Friday Media Recall (11.11.11)

Written by Imagine 2050 Editors

Every Friday we want to offer a collection of media pieces that we’re finding provocative, vital, persuasive, prophetic, genius, infuriating, mind-blogging, and other adjectives that gesture at all things thought-provoking. Some of these posts will, of course, focus on immigration, but some will not. Some of these posts will represent the foreground of our national attention, but others will have sunk far into its background. Regardless, we hope to pass on a bit of what we’ve been reading, and what’s been capturing our attentions. If you’d like to pass on any media, please contact us at Imag2050@gmail.com. Enjoy!

… Read more

Professors Harrison & Lamm: More of the Tanton Network on Campus

Written by Catharine Debelle

Concerned about immigration? Think that every immigrant “invading” the United States is lazy and/or is trying to destroy American values? Believe that policymakers are not actively addressing the immigration problem? Not yet an anti-immigrant activist who’s a member of the John Tanton Network?

If you answered yes to some or all of these questions, continue reading because you’ll want here what professors Lawrence Harrison and Richard Lamm have to say about their bold new plan to resolve the US’s immigration complications.

Immigration quotas, according these two, shouldn’t be reserved solely for the undocumented; nope, anyone who isn’t considered to be from a desirable country should be barred entry. Why? Well, according to Richard… Read more

Give Me Your Wired, Keep Your Poor: The New Welcome Mat for High Tech Immigrants

Written by Rev. David L. Ostendorf

Recent bipartisan action by the House Judiciary Committee to approve more high-skilled, high-tech immigrants from China and India into the US reveals, once again, the crass – indeed class – politics of Congressional immigration policy gridlock.

The ironically named “Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act” passed out of Committee with nary a peep of opposition from its fiercely anti-immigrant members.  Chairman Lamar (“Deport ‘Em All) Smith himself waxed eloquent about the need for immigrant “professionals with advanced degrees and aliens of exceptional ability”; Iowa’s Steve King raised obligatory questions to varnish his anti-immigrant credentials, but eventually kept his quiet.  Democrats joined the Republican choir, and thereby made the… Read more