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LATIN AMERICA: Drug Law Reform
Reformas a las leyes de drogas en América Latina es un proyecto conjunto
del TNI y la Oficina en Washington para Asuntos Latinoamericanos (WOLA).
Puede seguirnos en este enalce: http://twitter.com/DrugLawReform
Drug Law Reform in Latin America is a joint project of TNI and the
Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA)
You can follow us on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/DrugLawReform
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IMMIGRATION: Two Outrages -- PLEASE ACT TODAY!! -- A VICTORY!!
Thank you for contacting me regarding the plight of Marlen Moreno, a
mother of two U.S. citizen children who was under the threat of
deportation. I was inspired by your passionate advocacy and your plea
to help a young woman in dire need. Like you, I appealed to the
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano to not deport Marlen and
separate her from her husband and little boys.
Our collective efforts to ensure that Marlen's family is not torn apart
by our nation's grossly unjust immigration laws were answered and I
would like to share with you the wonderful news: Marlen Moreno has been
granted a stay of deportation by the Department of Homeland Security.
Marlen's story is representative of the over 11 million other
undocumented, hardworking, family-oriented individuals in this country
who contribute to our communities and make up the fabric of America.
Stories like that of Marlen are the reason I stood in for DREAM students
in an act of civil disobedience in front of the White House in May to
protest the deportations of students and workers. The deportations
under the Obama Administration are absolutely unacceptable and cannot
and should not stand.
I haven't stopped fighting for immigration reform and I am glad that you
have not stopped, either. In the absence of comprehensive immigration
reform, I am prepared to continue fighting for the millions of
undocumented individuals and families, even if it means risking the
consequences of peaceful resistance.
Once again, thank you for your advocacy on behalf of Marlen Moreno.
This victory proves that together, we can make a difference. We must
continue the fight to put an end to this barbaric system that results in
the deportation of hundreds of thousands of good, hardworking people
each year and to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
Sincerely,
Luis V. Gutierrez
Member of Congress
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ACT NOW!! to stop Marlen Moreno's Deportation this Sunday!!
Call Secretary Napolitano, and tell her to stop Marlen's deportation: 202-282-8495
Call Assistant Secretary John Morton and tell him to stop Marlen's deportation: 202.732.3000
YOU SHOULD SAY: "I am calling to leave a message of support for Marlen Moreno who is being deported on August 8th. Marlen is eligible for the DREAM Act when it passes and should not be deported. I ask that Secretary Napolitano and/or Assistant Director Morton please step in to defer her deportation, she is an asset to this country. Thank you."
SIGN THE ON-LINE PETITION:
http://bit.ly/marlenpetition
Check out the FaceBook page:
http://bit.ly/marlenfb
Marlen's entire story is here:
http://bit.ly/marlenstory
Also, you can:
1. Call Rep. Grijalva (202-225-2435) and ask that he introduce a private bill on behalf of Marlen. Ask that he contact DHS and ICE immediately urging them to stop Marlen's deportation.
2. Call Rep. Gutierrez (202-225-8203) and ask that he also introduce a private bill on behalf of Marlen. Ask that he contact DHS and ICE immediately urging them to stop Marlen's deportation.
Script for speaking to member of Congress:
"Hi, my name is ____. I am calling about Marlen Moreno. She is a bright and talented DREAMer from Arizona . She is married to a legal resident and has two U.S. citizen children, but yet still faces an August 8th deportation. I am calling to ask that the representative step up to the plate and introduce a private bill for Marlen, in addition to directly contacting John Morton and Janet Napolitano, urging the both of them to immediately halt Marlen's deportation. Please do not allow for Marlen to be deported! Thank you."
BACKGROUND:
Marlen Moreno, 26-year old DREAMer is set to be deported on August 8th - this next Sunday!
Marlen is DREAM Act-eligible, is the mother of two US citizen sons and the wife of a Lawful Permanent Resident. Please follow the instructions below and act now to help keep Marlen in the United States . Please join us for a Press Conference tomorrow, 8/3, at noon at Southside Presbyterian Church to call on Secretary Napolitano to terminate Marlen's deportation proceedings.
Arizona- On Sunday, August 8th, less than a week from today, Marlen Moreno will no longer be in this country. She is a wife, married to a legal permanent resident, and a mother to two wonderful U.S. citizen children, Freddy Alan who is 3 and Leobardo, Jr. who is just 10-months old.
Marlen was brought to the United States when she was only thirteen years old. She has been living in Tucson, Arizona for over thirteen years and, like many DREAMers, considers this country her home. Since the start, her parents told her to value her education and, through hard work, she was the first person in her family to graduate from high school. Marlen aspires to become a pre-school teacher because she believes education is the key to success.
In 2008, as she slept with her 8-month old son in her hands, ICE showed up at her house to detain her. She would spend the next four months in jail and detention all because she needed to work to provide for her family. She now faces deportation from the only country she knows. Worst of all, she faces separation from her husband, a legal resident, and her two sons, both American citizens.
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BILL WOULD FUND UNMANNED AERIAL DRONES, ADD 1500 NEW ENFORCEMENT AGENTS WITHOUT ADDING TO DEFICIT. It includes huge increases (five or six times the current amount) on H1B and L Visas for Indian tech workers. It is what President Obama asked for...
Now let's demand passage of the DREAM Act and Comprehensive Immigration Reform!
WASHIGNTON, DC—U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), the Chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, and Senator Clare McCaskill (D-MO) will hold a news conference TODAY, August 5, 2010 at 12:15 pm to unveil a $600 million emergency package to improve security along the U.S.-Mexican border. The proposal from Senate Democrats would deploy 1500 new border patrol agents and fund unmanned aerial vehicles to boost border surveillance. It will also avoid adding to the deficit by raising fees on a handful of foreign corporations that abuse U.S. visa programs to import workers from India .
Last June, to respond to concerns about increased violence along the U.S.-Mexican border, President Obama announced he would deploy 1500 National Guard troops there. At the same time, he called for Congress to approve the $600 million in spending to further bolster border security operations. Since then, the House has approved the requested spending, but it was not deficit-neutral. The proposal announced by Senate Democrats today differs from the House proposal in that it is fully offset.
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TRADE JUSTICE and ENVIRONMENT: Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, Ecuador
From CEPR's Latin America News Round-up. Congratulations to our friends at United Students Against Sweatshops for this groundbreaking victory!
Pressured, Nike to Help Workers in Honduras.
Steven Greenhouse. New York Times. July 26, 2010
Facing pressure from universities and student groups, the apparel maker Nike announced on Monday that it would pay $1.54 million to help 1,800 workers in Honduras who lost their jobs when two subcontractors closed their factories.
Nike agreed to the payment after several universities and a nationwide group, United Students Against Sweatshops, pressed it to pay some $2 million in severance that the two subcontractors had failed to pay.
The University of Wisconsin, Madison terminated its licensing agreement with Nike over the Honduran dispute, and Cornell warned that it would do the same unless Nike resolved the matter.
A Nike spokeswoman, Kate Meyers, said on Monday that the $1.54 million was for "a worker relief fund" and was not for severance. Nike also agreed to provide vocational training and finance health coverage for workers laid off by the two subcontractors.
"This may be a watershed moment," Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a group of 186 universities that monitors factories that make college-logo apparel, said. "Up until now, major apparel brands have steadfastly refused to take any direct financial responsibility for the obligations to the workers in their contractors' factories. Now the most high-profile sports apparel firm has done just that."
The agreement is the latest involving overseas apparel factories in which an image-conscious brand like Nike shows its sensitivity - advocates might say vulnerability - to campaigns led by college students who often pressure universities to stand up to producers of college-logo apparel over workers' rights.
Nike issued a statement in conjunction with a Honduran labor federation, Central General de Trabajadores, saying it had "reached an agreement to help improve the lives of workers affected" by the plant closings. As part of the deal with the labor group, Nike pledged that other factories it used in Honduras would give priority to hiring workers laid off by the two subcontractors.
"We were trying genuinely to find a way in which we can help set up a program that would be meaningful to workers on the ground," Ms. Meyers said.
The dispute began in January 2009, when Hugger and Vision Tex - two subcontractors that made T-shirts and sweatshirts for Nike in Honduras - closed their plants. After the workers complained, the Workers Rights Consortium gave more than 100 American universities a report it did finding that the subcontractors had failed to pay more than $2 million in severance owed under Honduran law.
United Students Against Sweatshops mounted a pressure campaign, holding protests at dozens of Niketown stores and Nike retailers. The campaign adopted the slogan "Just Pay It."
At Cornell, 1,100 students petitioned the university to end its contracts with Nike. Thirty student groups, the student newspaper and the University Assembly also endorsed that idea.
Mr. Nova of the Workers Rights Consortium said Nike at first claimed that the two subcontractors were not making college-logo apparel. On April 20, the company issued a statement saying it was disappointed that the subcontractors had not paid the severance, but added, "It remains Nike's position that factories which directly employ workers are responsible for ensuring that their employees receive their correct entitlements, and as such Nike will not be paying severance to workers that were employed by Hugger and Vision Tex."
Alex Bores, president of the United Students Against Sweatshops chapter at Cornell, argued that it was only fair for Nike to make good on its subcontractors' obligations.
"Nike plays a key role in setting up the worldwide apparel system that its contractors and subcontractors work in," Mr. Bores said. "Nike plays factory against factory, causing them to shave a penny here and a penny there, creating an ultra-competitive environment that drives down wages and gives factory owners virtually no choice but to disrespect workers' basic rights."
United Students Against Sweatshops estimated that Nike's total payments, including those for health coverage and training, would exceed $2 million.
Even with Monday's agreement, Ms. Meyers said her company would stick to its position that contractors and subcontractors were responsible for obligations like severance pay.
Workers' rights groups say that while many brands boast that they are complying with codes of conduct to protect workers, the brands at the same time balk at assuming responsibilities when contractors' violate their obligations to their workers.
Jane L. Collins, a University of Wisconsin sociology professor who is on the school's licensing committee, which called on the university to end its licensing agreement with Nike, said, "If apparel companies can't take responsibility for the factories where they have contracts, they can't claim to be adhering to a code of conduct."
Officials at several universities had warned Nike that unless it settled the dispute, it would face larger protests once the fall semester began.
Last November, the student movement against sweatshops got Russell Athletic to agree to rehire 1,200 workers in Honduras who lost their jobs when the company closed their factory soon after the workers had unionized. The students had persuaded 100 universities to sever or suspend their licensing agreements with Russell.
Explaining Monday's agreement, Jack Mahoney, national organizer for United Students Against Sweatshops, said, "After we got over 100 universities to boycott Russell, Nike understood the university pressure would not simply go away."
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Honduras to Assess Bunker Fuel Leak (Inside Costa Rica)
Honduras to Assess Bunker Fuel Leak TEGUCIGALPA - A Honduran congressional commission traveled to the southern department of Valle to assess the environmental impact of a bunker fuel leak in San Lorenzo Bay.
www.insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2010/july/31/centralamerica10073103.htm
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Immigration Policy Update from National Immigration Forum
What's Happening with Immigration Reform?
Since the introduction of a "framework" for immigration reform at the end of April, there has not been much to report in terms of movement in Congress towards comprehensive immigration reform. In the Senate, no Republican has signed on to the effort, and the Democrats have not converted their "framework" into legislation. In the House, CIR ASAP has received more co-sponsors since its introduction in December (it now has 97), but no bill has been considered in Committee, and the House does not plan to move until a bill has been passed in the Senate.
Coming up in the Senate is consideration of a Supreme Court nominee. The Judiciary Committee will begin hearings at the end of the month. Also coming up are elections. We are in the midst of primary season, and this magnifies the shyness politicians have about doing anything that might be viewed by potential voters as controversial. Many Republicans have faced challenges to their right and, even if they had been inclined to support reasonable immigration reform in the past, they are running fast from those previous positions and saying instead that we need to "secure the border."
Meanwhile, there is a lively debate brewing in the advocacy community about what to do with legislation that has already been introduced targeting smaller populations for legalization-the DREAM Act and AgJOBS. In part, the viability of an effort to pass these bills will depend on what will be packaged with them. The DREAM Act or AgJOBs will still have to move through the same Senate and House, with their strong restrictionist contingents. What are the enforcement measures that restrictionists will demand in payment?
Obviously, any enforcement measures that come with legislation that would legalize a portion of the undocumented population will have a more severe impact on the remainder of that population than enforcement measures contained in legislation that would legalize most of the undocumented population.
Enforcement Amendments Thwarted on Supplemental Appropriations
Appropriations season is approaching, but we've already been treated to a teaser in the form of a supplemental appropriations bill that recently passed the Senate. The bill was drafted to provide funds for costs related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Supplemental appropriations bills have a way of becoming loaded with various politicians pet projects.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is better known as a critic of the "pork-barrel" projects that get tacked on to "emergency" spending bills, but this year he is in a tough primary fight against immigration hardliner J.D. Hayworth, so he has a pet project of his own: border enforcement. He offered an amendment to have 6,000 National Guard troops deployed to the southern border. That amendment failed in a procedural vote requiring 60 votes (51 to 46).
Senator Jon Kyl, also from Arizona, attempted to tack on spending in the amount of $200 million to beef up Operation Streamline, a federal program that has focused federal prosecutorial resources on illegal border crossers with a consequent reduction in prosecutions of more serious crime. That amendment also lost on a procedural vote (54 to 44).
Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) completed the strikeout with an amendment that would have added more than a billion dollars to the tab for border and interior immigration enforcement personnel. This amendment also went down in a procedural vote (54 to 43).
These amendments were all defeated thanks to the good work of advocates in Washington and around the country.
On the positive side, the bill contains funding to cover the cost of USCIS work on Haitian TPS. The House has yet to pass its version of the spending bill.
USCIS Proposes Fee Increase
On June 11, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services published a Proposed Rule to adjust the schedule of fees for immigration benefits. After it completed its latest fee review earlier this year, USCIS proposed to increase fees, on average approximately 10%. Some fees will go up much more, and some fees will be decreased.
Since the last fee increase in 2007, USCIS has heard from many advocates expressing concern that the fee for an application for naturalization is set too high for some low-income immigrants and is discouraging immigrants from applying for citizenship. In the new proposed fee schedule, USCIS has decided to retain the current fee for naturalization ($595, though the cost of biometric services will be increased by $5 to $85). The fee for naturalization will remain the same despite the finding by USICS in its latest fee review that the cost to the agency for processing naturalization applications is $655. Had not the agency decided to keep the naturalization fee stable, the total cost to apply for naturalization, including the biometric fee, would have been $740. (Currently, it is $675.) The agency will make up the difference in recovering its costs by distributing that cost over other applications, adding approximately $8 to applications for other immigration benefits.
The public comment period for this proposed rule ends on July 26. You can submit a comment by going to http://www.regulations.gov and typing the DHS Docket Number "USCIS-2009-0033" in the search box.
Following are links to further information:
Proposed fee rule: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/pdf/2010-13991.pdf
Press Release (USCIS): http://tinyurl.com/37szn3z
Fact Sheet (USCIS): http://tinyurl.com/2wmxsgx
Questions and Answers (USCIS): http://tinyurl.com/332sox8
Press Release (National Immigration Forum): http://tinyurl.com/3ajrcja
Refugee Act Gets a Hearing
The Refugee Protection Act of 2010, a bill introduced in the Senate by Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Carl Levin (D-MI), received a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 19. Among other things, the bill would eliminate the one-year waiting period before refugees and asylum seekers can apply for permanent residence. It would also attempt to fix a problem with current law where some refugees and asylum seekers are denied protection because of a broad interpretation of material support and terrorism bars. Certain vulnerable groups will be eligible for expedited adjudication as refugees.
The Refugee Council USA has information connected to the hearing on its Web site, including a link to the Judiciary Committee Web page about the hearing, witness testimony, and testimony submitted by advocacy groups submitted in support of the act. You can find it all on their Web site.
For Senator Leahy's press release upon introduction of the legislation, click here.
For the Forum's press release at introduction, click here.
June 20 is World Refugee Day, and there will be events in Washington on June 18th and 20th to celebrate.
Arizona Update
The Department of Justice has not yet announced whether it will file a law suit against the State of Arizona to SB 1070 from taking effect. Meanwhile, a number of other lawsuits have been filed challenging the law. Friendly House v. Whiting, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the National Immigration Law Center on May 17 on behalf of several organizations and individuals, is a class action lawsuit alleging that SB 1070 is a usurpation of federal authority to enforce immigration laws. On April 29, another class action lawsuit was filed by the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders. More information on these and other lawsuits, including links to the complaints, can be found on the Web site of the Legal Action Center of the American Immigration Council.
Meanwhile, the number of local jurisdictions that have passed resolutions, launched boycotts, or taken some other action to oppose the Arizona law is growing. You can find a link to that list on this page of the Web site of Reform Immigration FOR America.
Administration weighs in against AZ worker verification law: In related news, a legal challenge to the Legal Arizona Workers Act, passed in 2007, has been making its way through the courts. The law requires all employers operating in Arizona to verify the work authorization of their workers using the federal government's E-Verify electronic work verification system or face penalties. In Chamber of Commerce v. Candelaria, Arizona businesses challenged the law, and last year the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Arizona law. Plaintiffs are seeking review before the Supreme Court, and the Court asked the Administration for its views. Last month, the Acting Solicitor General submitted a brief to the Court, in which the Administration argues that the Arizona law is pre-empted by federal law, and that the Court should hear the case.
The Administration's position in this case may be an indication that the Administration will soon intervene in the most recent Arizona anti-immigrant law.
If the Supreme Court decides to take up the case, it will do so in the next term, starting in October.
President sends National Guard to border: The President announced on May 25th that he would send up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the border. In this, the administration appeared to be bending to political pressure rather than reacting to facts on the ground. According to recent statistics and press reports (documented here), crime is down in Arizona and law enforcement in border communities say the border is more secure now that it has ever been. At the time the President made his announcement, Senators McCain and Kyl were trying to tack on an amendment to a spending bill (see above) to send 6,000 National Guard troops to the border.
The Forum's reaction to this development can be read here, and a release from America's Voice about this can be read here.
Announcement: Immigrant Integration Conference
The National Immigrant Integration Conference will be held in Boston, Massachusetts, September 29 to October 1, 2010. The conference will address, among other things, how immigrant integration is emerging as a national agenda; successful practices states and municipalities are implementing to respond to their changing demographics; and the implications of current federal government priorities for addressing immigrant integration and immigration reform.
More information about the conference, including agenda, accommodations, and registration information, go to the conference Web site:
http://sites.google.com/a/miracoalition.org/niic/
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