Test Test Test

On MONDAY, OCT 11 (2-4PM) Stand in solidarity with immigrants and
other Boston residents held captive at the ICE Detention Center &
South Bay House of Correction!

On MONDAY, OCT 11 (2-4PM) Stand in solidarity with immigrants and
other Boston residents held captive at the ICE Detention Center &
South Bay House of Correction!

Click here to download:

flyer-2010-08-28.pdf (625 KB)

(download)

Click here to download:

flyer-2010-08-28.pdf (625 KB)

ORGANIZING RETREAT

Click here to download:

flyer-2010-08-28.pdf (625 KB)

(download)

Click here to download:

flyer-2010-08-28.pdf (625 KB)

ORGANIZING RETREAT

WHO: All those that want to work towards justice for immigrant
families are welcome to come join us!

WHEN:
Saturday, August 28 2010
11 AM - 3 PM

WHERE:
Boston Common (Southeast Corner)
- Follow signs from Boylston & Tremont
- Park under Boston Common; signs also from the Park St. T-stop

*Back-up location (in case of bad weather): 33 Harrison Ave, 5 Floor,
Boston, MA 02111

CONTACTS:

Alex 857-719-8914
Suren 617-968-0880

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-19/obama-affirms-commitment-to-immigration-overhaul-update3-.html

(Updates with agreement on oil exploration in 17th paragraph, trucking dispute in 18th, other events during state visit in 21st.)

By Nicholas Johnston and Roger Runningen

May 19 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said tightening border security and revamping immigration laws are vital to economic growth in the U.S. and Mexico, as he pledged to “aggressively” pursue cross-border cooperation.

Obama, at a joint news conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, said the U.S. government hasn’t done enough to address frustration with “a broken immigration system” that has boiled over with steps by states such as Arizona to act on their own. That threatens to disrupt U.S.-Mexico commerce, he said.

“Our shared border must be an engine, not a brake, on our economic growth,” Obama said at the White House. “We’ve got to control the borders, but do so in a way that does not have an adverse impact on the economies of those regions.”

The U.S. president welcomed Calderon today for a formal state visit intended to demonstrate the close relationship between the two countries. Mexico is the second-largest source of imported oil for the U.S. and is the U.S.’s third-largest trading partner after Canada and China. Goods worth $305.5 billion flowed between the two nations in 2009, Census Bureau figures show.

While the agenda for Obama and Calderon included trade, climate change and energy development, border issues dominated their public remarks, including U.S. immigration law and the threat posed by increasingly violent drug cartels.

Arizona Law

Obama and Calderon both were critical of a law recently signed by Arizona’s governor requiring local police to check immigration status of people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. Obama said it was an outgrowth of frustration over the failure of Congress to overhaul the immigration system and modernize border security.

“I’m sympathetic to those frustrations, I share those frustrations,” Obama said. “We have a responsibility to create an orderly border.”

Calderon said his government is “firmly” opposed to Arizona’s actions. The U.S. has a right to establish whatever laws it sees fit, he said.

“But we will retain our firm rejection to criminalize migration so that people that work and provide things to this nation will be treated as criminals,” Calderon said.

Immigrants in U.S.

About 10 percent of U.S. citizens are of Mexican descent and a majority of the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally are from Mexico, according to the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington.

Obama has called on Congress to begin work this year on an immigration overhaul that would bolster border security and provide a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants. Congressional efforts in 2007 to pass immigration legislation failed due to disagreements over how to treat people who are in the U.S. illegally.

Obama today called on Republicans to support his efforts on legislation that includes a way for immigrants in the U.S. to stay legally if they pay their taxes and learn English.

“I have confidence I can get the majority of Democrats both in the House and Senate to support a piece of legislation,” he said. “I’ve got to have some support from Republicans.”

The nation’s immigration debate was reignited this year with passage of the Arizona law, which makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally and grants new power to local police officers on immigration matters.

‘Make Some Decisions’

Obama said he has instructed the Department of Justice to examine the law and that after receiving a report his administration will “make some decisions.”

Obama and Calderon also pledged to continue steps to reduce violence along the Mexican side of the 2,000-mile border. More than 22,000 Mexicans have been killed throughout the country in almost four years of battles among drug cartels and with police.

Calderon said Mexico will put more resources into curbing the flow of drugs and stemming violence in the border area.

“We want to make this quite clear: We, both countries, want to have a safe border,” Calderon said.

The two presidents agreed to seek a moratorium on oil production activities in the western Gulf of Mexico in light of the BP Plc drilling accident off the coast of Louisiana that has spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf since April 20.

Mexican Trucks

No agreement was announced by the two countries on allowing Mexican trucks into the U.S. as required under provisions of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.

Calderon said resolving the dispute, which began in 2009 when the U.S. Congress ended a pilot program allowing Mexican trucks to deliver goods in the U.S., is vital to trade between the two countries.

“We continue to work to solve this quickly,” Calderon said.

After a welcome ceremony in the morning, Obama and Calderon met at the White House for almost two hours before the press conference. During his two-day stay in Washington, Calderon will also address the U.S. Chamber of Commerce today and the U.S. Congress tomorrow.

Tonight Calderon and his wife, Margarita Zavala, will be the guests of honor for the second state dinner of Obama’s presidency. Obama has visited Calderon in Mexico City and Guadalajara.

“We’re looking forward to returning the hospitality, the wonderful hospitality, that we received in Mexico,” Obama said today.

--With assistance from Kate Andersen Brower, Andres R. Martinez and Julianna Goldman in Washington. Editors: Joe Sobczyk, Bob Drummond.

To contact the reporters on this story: Nicholas Johnston in Washington at +1-202-654-1264or njohnston6@bloomberg.net; Roger Runningen in Washington at +1= rrunningen@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mike Tackett at mtackett@bloomberg.net.

Just three weeks after signing a highly controversial anti-immigrant bill that orders police officers to stop and interrogate anyone they suspect is an undocumented immigrant, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has signed a new law banning ethnic studies in Arizona public schools. The law could shut down a popular Mexican American studies program in the Tucson school district. It will also affect specialized courses in African American and Native American studies. In response, students have taken to the streets to voice their opposition to the bill. On Wednesday, fifteen people, most of them students, were arrested protesting the law at the state offices of education in Tucson. [includes rush transcript]

To read, listen to, or watch the whole story:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/14/arizona_students_protest_new_law_banning

Arizona Students Protest New Law Banning Ethnic Studies Classes

Just three weeks after signing a highly controversial anti-immigrant bill that orders police officers to stop and interrogate anyone they suspect is an undocumented immigrant, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has signed a new law banning ethnic studies in Arizona public schools. The law could shut down a popular Mexican American studies program in the Tucson school district. It will also affect specialized courses in African American and Native American studies. In response, students have taken to the streets to voice their opposition to the bill. On Wednesday, fifteen people, most of them students, were arrested protesting the law at the state offices of education in Tucson. [includes rush transcript]

Guests:

Kim Dominguez, arrested at Wednesday’s protest. She is a graduate of La Raza studies.

Isabel Garcia, co-chair of the Tuscon-based Coalition for Human Rights and legal defender of Pima County, Arizona.

Rush Transcript

This transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
Donate - $25, $50, $100, More...

JUAN GONZALEZ: Just three weeks after signing a highly controversial anti-immigrant bill that orders police officers to stop and interrogate anyone they suspect is an undocumented immigrant, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer has signed a new law banning ethnic studies in Arizona public schools. The law would shut down a popular Mexican American studies program in the Tucson school district. It will also affect specialized courses in African American and Native American studies.

In response, students have taken to the streets to voice their opposition to the bill. On Wednesday, fifteen people, most of them students, were arrested protesting the law at the state offices of education in Tucson.

AMY GOODMAN: Kim Dominguez was one of those arrested. She’s a graduate of La Raza studies. She joins us now from Tucson, along with Isabel Garcia, who also took part in the protest. Isabel Garcia is the co-chair of the Coalition for Human Rights, which is based in Tucson. She’s a legal defender of Pima County, Arizona.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Kim, let’s begin with you. Explain what La Raza studies are and why you were arrested.

KIM DOMINGUEZ: Well, the program is actually called Mexican American Raza Studies. When I enrolled in the class in 2002, it was titled Hispanic Studies. And so, Mexican American Raza Studies, junior year, is American history through a Chicano perspective, and we look at several different issues, not just nationally and not just within the Chicano community, but globally. And senior year is American government through a social justice perspective, so we learn how to do different methods of looking at social injustices, such as video documentation, photo documentation, blogging, different things like that.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And the proponents of this legislation have claimed that this kind of ethnic studies program is creating divisions among the American people, among youth, in terms of how they see their role in the United States. What’s your response to that?

KIM DOMINGUEZ: Well, I don’t think—I don’t think it’s creating any division, and I don’t think that this process of, like, division starts between the students in the classes. I think that if anything is promoted in the classes, it’s solidarity among humanity, not any—between any ethnic group.

AMY GOODMAN: Isabel Garcia, can you talk about how this fits into your whole campaign around human rights? I mean, this is the second bill that has been passed in the last month. You first had the bill around immigration, and maybe you can talk about that and how that has fueled the response to this second bill that would ban ethnic studies in the public schools of Arizona.

ISABEL GARCIA: Yes, for the last ten, fifteen years, this state, of course, has seen a dramatic increase in like the anti-immigrant, anti-immigrant Mexican sort of hysteria around here. And as—following 1070, like you say, 2281 was also approved. If you can imagine, this is a Republican government and legislature that portends to or pretends to say that all control should be local. Here we have a local successful Chicano, Mexican American studies program that has proved over and over and over again that the students who take these classes not only do much better in the high stakes testing system that they have here, but these are students that come out into the world and the relate to the entire—all cultures because they’ve been able to learn something about Mexican Americans. So it is totally tied to this anti-immigrant fervor that has gripped the state because they have come here.

Tom Horne, who is now running for attorney general, has come here to focus on TUSD and what we believe is sort of like a cultural cleansing, an ethnic cleansing. It’s very, very clear what this legislature is up to. They’re trying not only to drive immigrants either underground or out of state, but all of us to put us in—really in our place. These measures are absolutely racist measures, backed by racist tendencies on the part of these legislators, and they’re absolutely lying about everything that they say about Raza studies. They’re totally lying.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Isabel Garcia, you mentioned Tom Horne. He’s the state superintendent of public instruction. He fought for years to end Tucson’s ethnic studies programs. Horne is a Republican who, as you mentioned, is running for attorney general. He was interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN yesterday, where he staunchly defended the bill.

TOM HORNE: The standards that we promulgate require that all social studies classes teach different cultures. We want all kids to be exposed to a lot of different cultures. But what I’m opposed is dividing kids up, so they have La Raza studies for the Chicano kids—“La Raza” means “the race” in Spanish—African American studies for the African American kids, Asian studies for the Asian kids.

ANDERSON COOPER: But what’s wrong with that? If an African American kid wants a class that, you know, has a focus on African American studies, what’s wrong with that?

TOM HORNE: What’s wrong with it is that it divides students up by race, and I believe that one of the principal ideas of the American public school system is we bring kids together and we teach them to treat each other as individuals. What matters about a person is what does he know, what can he do, what’s his character, or hers, not what race was he born into.

You know what? I was on that March on Washington in summer of 1963—I just graduated from high school—where Martin Luther King gave his famous speech saying we should be judged by the quality of our character and not the color of our skin. And that has been my most fundamental belief my entire life, that we are individuals. We are not exemplars of the race we were born into. And this philosophy that’s preached by this program in Tucson and by your other guest, that’s a race-obsessed philosophy, and it’s a downer philosophy, teaches people that they’re oppressed, make them angry, make it so that they don’t have hope for their future.

AMY GOODMAN: That, again, was Tom Horne, who is running for the state attorney general. He’s the superintendent of schools. Isabel Garcia, your response to his points?

ISABEL GARCIA: Well, as you can hear, to be able to get Martin Luther King’s quote about judging everybody on the content of their heart and character is absolutely outrageous that he can use to defend this. To say that an African American kid, because, in fact, he’s African American, he can then not take African American studies—I guess that’s what he’s saying—is absolutely preposterous.

This program is so successful that every school in the United States of America should take this class. That’s what we believe. It should be expanded. He’s absolutely right. It should be open to everybody, and in fact, here in TUSD, it is open to every student. We have many students that are white students that take this class and have come to give testimony about how valuable it is. Can you imagine if every student took this class in the United States? We wouldn’t have 1070. We wouldn’t have 2281. We wouldn’t have any of these anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican, anti-human measures we have in Tucson—

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask Kim—

ISABEL GARCIA: —in Arizona.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I’d like to ask Kim Dominguez, first of all, you and the other students who were arrested, how were you treated after your arrest? And what was the response of either fellow students or other folks in your community to your actions?

KIM DOMINGUEZ: I think the whole community and fellow students were supportive of the arrests, not because we got arrested. That wasn’t the intentions. The intentions were to do the right thing and to ignite a spark within the nation that we have to demand to move to the next step to protect these classes, to protect our communities against HB 2281, SB 1070. We’ve done petitions. We’ve done letters. We’ve done calls. We’ve done everything that this American United States system has asked us to do. We vote. I vote. And I think it’s time to move to the next step.

Tom Horne came to grandstand here at TUSD and, you know, promote that this bill had been passed. And he canceled that meeting, and he ignored us. And so we moved to the building where he was having a press conference, in hopes that he would hear our demands. Although Tom Horne has a lot of allegations about what the program is and what the classes do, he’s never visited a classroom, he’s never had a conversation with any of the students or the alumni. And so I think it’s time to move to the next step. I think Tom Horne needs to hear our demands. He needs to speak with the students. He needs to speak with the alumni. He goes around saying, “Read this bill, read this bill, before you make any judgment,” but he hasn’t read any of our books. He hasn’t talked to us.

And so, I think the community was supportive of us moving it to the next step, as the Capitol 9 did and as the fourteen who were arrested in LA have. You know, it’s not just about ethnic studies. It’s not just about SB 1070. It’s beyond that. This is a blatant attack to the Latino, Mexicano, Chicana indigenous community, and we’re stepping up our game. And the students are not going to take this kind of violation of our community’s rights.

AMY GOODMAN: Kim, though, now you’ve been arrested. You have a record. How do you feel about doing that for—well, for your education?

KIM DOMINGUEZ: Well, I mean, being arrested, it really means nothing to me. I feel like if I didn’t have these classes, if I didn’t have a voice, and if I wasn’t able to do the right thing and be a role model for my daughter, who I hope can someday take Chicano studies and take Chicano literature, and that, you know, she doesn’t have to feel that she’s reading books that are banned, banned by her own country, banned by her own state and her own city, you know, getting arrested is nothing to me. It’s really nothing. It’s doing the right thing.

And, you know, having a record or having court or having to deal with any of that, it’s really a minor thing in what really happens in our communities and the attacks that I feel every day and the attacks that our communities feel. People are crossing the desert and dying. There’s kids all over this country who don’t identify with their curly hair, their dark skin, the literature, their parents, the Chicano culture, the indigenous culture, and I think those are far worse than, you know, being arrested. So, you know, it’s just something that happened because we took a stand, and, you know, I don’t feel—it was a small offer. I offered a small piece of myself to the community.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I want to ask Isabel Garcia about a related issue, a video that has been published on the internet showing a former Bush administration attorney training police officers in Arizona on how to detect undocumented immigrants. The training is conducted by Kris Kobach, a Kansas-based attorney who helped draft Arizona’s law that orders police officers to stop and interrogate anyone they suspect is undocumented. During the training, he listed twenty ways police officers can detect undocumented immigrants.

KRIS KOBACH: Indications from the dress or appearance of an individual that he has been—has recently—that he’s an illegal alien and perhaps that he has just entered without inspection, based on the totality circumstances. Number nineteen, related indications that the vehicle and/or its occupants have been on a very long trip. And number twenty, the individual avoids making eye contact with the officer, and this, of course, can give rise to reasonable suspicion, not only in the immigration context, but in other law enforcement contexts, as well.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Kris Kobach also has claimed that he was in some way responsible for drafting the legislation in Arizona. I’d like to ask you, Isabel Garcia, about this video and about the continuing battle that you’re waging there around the Senate bill that was passed recently.

ISABEL GARCIA: Well, you heard his description. It’s unbelievable that people are identified based on their clothing. I mean, clearly we have eleven, twelve, I don’t know how many million people that are working hard in this country, in their communities, every single day, many people who have lived here for a long time, other people for a short time. And for him to say that that is how you identify an undocumented immigrant, well, that means you’re identifying so many working men and women here.

Yes, Kris Kobach is one of their favored consultants in this legislature, and we’ve recently, you know, surfaced an email when the state of Arizona was under such fire and attack because of the issue of racial profiling. What he did was he made some cosmetic changes, and in order to make sure to be able to arrest as many people as possible, he even indicated that any violation of any city code or ordinance—and he gave examples that, you know, some poor people have cars up on blocks—that that kind of violation could trigger the suspicion of an officer in order to investigate this new alleged crime of trespass. It’s very clear where this man comes from. And it’s really—he’s done an incredible disservice to this community. I think he should take Raza studies at TUSD, and maybe he would learn a little something about history in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: Isabel Garcia, you’re a longtime human rights activist in Arizona. What do you think is going to be the fate of this new Arizona law, of this law that tells police they have to stop immigrant—any immigrant they think is undocumented and check their papers? You have, what, in the headlines today, another prominent Latino hip-hop artist, Pitbull, he’s canceled his concert. Cypress Hill canceled their concert. You have the Suns wearing the Los Suns jerseys as they played, the Arizona basketball team, the boycotts that are being passed in one city after another. What’s going to be the fate of this law?

ISABEL GARCIA: Well, we believe really strongly that this law cannot survive in the courts. It’s clearly unconstitutional. It is clear attempt to have a power grab from the federal government to try to enforce immigration law. We believe that this will be defeated in the courts. But, you know, obviously the courts are also political entities. I think that the reason it will be is not only because the law states that that’s the way it should be ruled unconstitutional, but I think that because there are also political entities that this entire movement and ridiculing of Arizona, I think, is going to have an impact.

Clearly, Arizona and our communities are suffering, because we are being placed in a really untenable situation where you would not believe the discussions that are already being held. One of our local Pima colleges is already attempting to enforce 1070. Police officers are enforcing it left and right. And even individuals, just civilians, feel free to make racist comments, to question anybody that looks brown. It’s really a pretty amazing thing here, considering the history, especially of this particular region. All of this was Mexico. It was Tohono O’odham lands. It was the other Indian lands, Mexican lands. And here we are being subjected to a law of racial profiling.

We believe it will be defeated. We have absolutely no doubt that, one way or another, our community will not accept our rights, our very basic rights, to be put up for either legislative action or even for voter approval.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you both for being with us, Isabel Garcia, co-chair of the Tucson-based Coalition for Human Rights, legal defender of Pima County, Arizona, and also thanks so much to Kim Dominguez, an alumni of La Raza studies who was arrested protesting yesterday in Tucson.

Printer-friendly version

Email to a friend