Magdaleno

Dear Friends…

There is a lot to share and read…take your time and read some of my thoughts..as you have time

NOW FOR MY VIEW OF THE NEWS

 

1. No Immigration Bill is Better
2. President Vicente Fox
3. A letter to leno
4. Innocent in New Jersey
5. Congress split on Immigration Bills
6. Innocent In New Jersey
7. Karl Rove
8. Spy No More
9. Comparison on immigration bills
10. Killing the Innocents in Iraq

 

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   No Immigration Bill Is Better
By David Bacon
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

    Friday 26 May 2006

    San Francisco – When the US Senate yesterday passed its version of “comprehensive immigration reform,” Senators from both sides of the aisle claimed that despite the enormous controversy it has generated, passing a bill with flaws was better than passing no bill at all. Outside the beltway and its coterie of lobbyists, however, a groundswell of community groups now argue that Congress would do better to pass no bill than a bill that reconciles the proposal just passed by the Senate and that passed last December in the House of Representatives.

    In a statement condemning the Hagel-Martinez compromise, S 2611, the proposal that just passed on Thursday, a national group of immigrant rights advocates convened by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights argued Wednesday that “the rush to reach a bipartisan accord on immigration legislation has led to a compromise that would create deep divisions within the immigrant community and leave millions of undocumented immigrants in the shadows.”

    ”The current Senate bill,” said Sheila Chung, of the San Francisco Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition, “does not reflect the immigration reform called for by millions of immigrant communities marching the streets.”

    The United States is currently home to over 12 million people without immigration documents, which makes them and their families subject to deportation, and vulnerable to exploitation at work. Nevertheless, the groups point to provisions of the Senate bill that they say will make immigrants much worse off than they are even at present. Those include:

• Under the Hagel-Martinez legalization plan, undocumented immigrants with less than two years in the US (about a million people) would be immediately subject to deportation. Those with two to five years would also have to leave the country, and could apply to reenter through some currently unknown process. The ability of border stations to handle the applications of the 3 to 4 million people involved is extremely doubtful, given the current years-long backlog in normal visa applications.
• S 2611, like HR 4437 passed by the House in December, would ramp up the enforcement of employer sanctions. This provision of current law makes it a crime for undocumented people to hold a job, and is used frequently by employers to retaliate against workers who try to enforce labor standards or join unions. The Social Security Administration would become immigration police, forcing all workers to carry a new national ID card, and would require employers to fire anyone whose documents they question. The current Basic Pilot program, which moves in this direction, has shown the SSA database to be rife with errors.
• The Senate bill expands current guest worker programs and establishes new ones, allowing employers to recruit workers outside the country on temporary visas. These new contract workers would be vulnerable to employer pressure, since their visa status would be dependent on their employment. Further, as the AFL-CIO_s Ana Avendaño points out, “this turns jobs which are now held by permanent employees with rights and benefits into jobs filled by temporary, contract employees. It basically takes the jobs of millions of people out of the protections of the New Deal, won by workers decades ago.” The labor federation points out that if currently undocumented workers and new immigrants were given permanent residence status instead of temporary visas, they would be able to exercise their rights as workers and community residents.
• S 2611 “vastly increases detention and deportation, and further militarizes the border,” according to the New York-based Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. The Halliburton Corporation has already been given a US contract for construction of immigrant detention facilities near the border with Mexico, and proposals have been made for reopening closed military bases to house deportees and detainees. The bill, which makes document fraud an aggravated felony and grounds for deportation, would result in the criminalization of the millions of immigrant workers who have had to provide false Social Security cards to employers in order to get hired.

    Stan Mark, AALDEF director, warned before passage of S 2611 that “the upsurge in the mass movement will redefine this debate well into the elections if Congress passes their so called “compromise” of comprehensive immigration reform.” He calls instead for eliminating current laws penalizing lack of legal status, especially employer sanctions. “The political climate of the debate,” the AALDEF leader says, “has converted this immigration bill into a Trojan horse into which lawmakers have crammed anti-immigrant and undemocratic policies.”

    The NNIRR declaration, a similar set of principles enumerated by AALDEF, and other programs put forward by groups outside Washington all emphasize the need for positive, pro-immigrant alternatives. They include immediate legal status for the undocumented, easier family reunification and elimination of the backlog in processing visa applications, no expansion of guest worker programs, ending the indefinite detention of immigrants, restoring due process to immigration proceedings, and, instead of the new walls Congress wants to build, ending the militarization of the US border with Mexico.

    Since the Senate has approved a bill far removed from these principles, and the House passed an enforcement-only HR 4437 even more hostile to immigrants, immigrant rights advocates believe killing all current proposals is their only option.

    That might in fact be the outcome of efforts to reconcile the House and Senate bills, since the most conservative House Republicans oppose any legal status for the undocumented. “It is possible that reconciliation between HR 4437 and S 2611 will not happen in the conference committee,” speculates Evelyn Sanchez of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride. “Should this happen, we will have time to continue pushing for real and fair comprehensive immigration reform. If HR 4437 and S 2611 are successfully reconciled, and the President signs the bill into law, then we have the task of overturning that law.”

    This is a grim scenario, but despite it, advocates are unwilling to give up. “It’s been done before,” Sanchez says.

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President Vicente Fox

Fox became the first Mexican President to come to the state of Washington in a time of hot immigration debate. He was met by protestors in both Yakima, and Seattle. Most were from groups demanding protection of Central American Immigrants and Indigenous Communities in Mexico. There was also the right wing that demonstrated against his visit demanding that all Mexicans be deported.

His visit to Mexico was important because it pointed out Washington’s need for immigrant workers. Fox is in the last weeks of his term in office and will not be able to make any changes but he can tell the truth.

Traveling with him was Governor Christine Gregoire who spoke stronger on immigrant issues than we had ever heard before. It is clear that our demonstrations and push is helping to change the language used.

In Seattle they had a formal dinner after a carefully selected public forum that had even more carefully selected speakers from our community.. Even with this careful screening…. speakers still were able to criticize Fox on NAFTA, Corruption, abuse of Central Americans and other key issues. Fox did a spirited response to these accusations and also called for Immigration reform. Fox did say enough about punitive measures in this legislative debate.

He had nothing to lose …and everything to gain by demanding A COMPLETE IMMIGRATION REFORM with out all the other many restrictions. Unfortunately he did not take a strong principled stand.

Nonetheless I felt that his visit gave us yet another platform to raise our flags.

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LETTER TO LENO

Leno

I love the poem! (Grandmothers Dance) It is very powerful.  The signs (Immigrant Rights are Human Rights) were a big hit at the Norwegian parade in Ballard.  My sister and I carried them as we marched and the response was 100% positive, lots of cheers.  One white guy stood up and yelled ‘that’s right we all came from someplace!’  It was great.  I’ll forward you some pictures.

Ann  Strandoo….Seattle, Washington                                                                                  

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Innocent in New Jersey                                                           

Please attribute all quotes from this statement to Celeste Fitzgerald, Executive Director of New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.  Fitzgerald is available today by mobile phone at 973-495-5302.

NJADP Statement on the Exoneration of Larry Peterson after nearly eighteen years of wrongful incarceration.

“The fact that Larry Peterson has spent a large part of his life behind bars for a crime he did not commit is a personal tragedy.  It is also a sad reminder that wrongful convictions can, and often do, occur in capital cases – and that they can happen right here in our State.

“While Larry Peterson was thankfully not sentenced to death, the next Larry Peterson might be, and the risk of executing an innocent person must no longer exist in New Jersey.

“The fact that the State of New Jersey tried to execute Larry Peterson should serve as a wake-up call to the minority of New Jerseyans who still support the death penalty.  While nothing can be done to restore the years of freedom wrongfully taken from Larry Peterson, this case underscores the need to replace New Jersey’s death penalty with the more certain punishment of life in prison without parole.

“New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty sympathizes with the family of the victim in this case, Jacqueline Harrison.  We are mindful that they still suffer from their loss and now must endure the pain of uncertainty as this case reopens.  We cannot forget that when the wrong person is accused and convicted, the real guilty party is still free to commit more crimes.

“Almost a year ago, Larry Peterson became the first person in New Jersey to have his murder conviction overturned using DNA evidence.   Today, Larry Peterson begins the rest of his life, a day that is long overdue.”

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KARL ROVE

To indict or to make a deal

Rumor has it that there is enough information to indict Rove but we have yet to hear the details…it might be that Rove and his lawyers are busy trying to make a deal that would diminish the charges against Rove. I hope that they will continue to peruse him and this case.

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SPY NO MORE…

Our government continues to spy and track our everything in the name of security. This administration has two and half years to further erode our rights. And we must fight back. It seems that the only thing that has upset congress is when one of their member’s offices is raided…

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Congress Split over Immigration Revamp

by Maria Godoy npr.org

Below, a comparison of the two bills:

BORDER FENCING

House: Calls for the construction of reinforced fencing of at least two layers along 700 miles of the 2,000-mile U.S. border with Mexico. That’s equivalent to the distance from Atlanta to Chicago. The fence would run across parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Senate: Calls for the construction of about 370 miles of reinforced, triple-layer border fencing. Also adds 500 miles of vehicle barriers along the southern U.S. border.

GUEST-WORKER PROGRAM

House: Has no provisions for a guest-worker program.

Senate: Allows up to 200,000 foreign workers to apply for U.S. guest-worker permits each year. Guest workers would receive an initial three-year visa, with the ability to extend the visa once for another three-year period. After four years, foreign workers would be able to apply for permanent U.S. residence.

WORKPLACE ENFORCEMENT

House: Requires employers to use an electronic verification system to screen employees’ Social Security and foreign identification numbers with the Department of Homeland Security. Requires the system to be in place within three to six years. Imposes fines of up to $40,000 on those who hire undocumented workers.

Senate: Also requires employers to screen all new hires against an electronic verification system. Mandates that the system be in use 18 months after Congress funds it, and that workers’ information be submitted within three days of their hire. Fines employers up to $20,000 for each illegal immigrant they hire. Authorizes hiring 10,000 agents to enforce workplace rules.

CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR ILLEGAL STATUS

House: Makes it a felony to live illegally in the United States. Also mandates criminal penalties for those who help illegal immigrants enter or stay in the country. Requires new immigrants to clear background checks for prior criminal records, links to terrorism and prior use of fraudulent documents before they are granted legal status. Allows deportation of any illegal immigrant convicted of driving under the influence.

Senate: Makes it a criminal misdemeanor to have entered the country illegally; however, those who have overstayed their visas are not subject to misdemeanor charges. Mandates penalties for smuggling illegal immigrants, but allows for exceptions for those who offer “humanitarian” aid to undocumented aliens. Provides for immediate deportation of immigrants — legal or illegal — who are convicted of a felony or of three misdemeanors unrelated to their residency status. Permanently bars those convicted from applying to the guest-worker program or other paths to U.S. citizenship. Allows immigrants facing court-ordered deportation because of immigration-related violations the chance to appeal.

PATHS TO LEGALIZATION (EARNED ADJUSTMENT OF STATUS)

House: Makes no provisions for illegal immigrants to gain legal status.

Senate: Classifies illegal immigrants into three groups:

– Those in the United States for less than two years would be deported.

– Those in the U.S. between two and five years would need to register with the Department of Homeland Security, leave the country and return through a port of entry before applying for legal status. They would eligible for U.S. citizenship in about 13 to 15 years.

– Those in the U.S. longer than five years would be allowed to stay in the United States while they apply for legal status. This last group would need to work in the country six more years, pay back taxes, learn English and U.S. civics, pass a background check and pay a fine.

Makes farm workers eligible for legal status, provided they can prove they’ve been working in agriculture for at least 863 hours or 150 work days during the 24-month period ending Dec. 31, 2005. Over the next five years, up to 1.5 million farm workers would be eligible for legalization under this provision.

GREEN CARDS

House: Does not address “green cards,” which give immigrants legal permanent residency.

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Death of Innocents in Iraq

It is clear that we have a case of American Soldiers killing innocent individuals. The Marines are now investigating this case only after the media released this information. This can change the attitude of even more against the war effort of President Bush. The Military did not move to investigate this issue until Time Magazine brought this to the forefront.

This is Memorial Day weekend…a time to honor those who have died in times of war. But today we must remember all those killed by all wars not just our soldiers. And then why don’t we have a day of recognition for all those injured and crippled for life by these wars.  They are those who suffer every day the wounds of war both here and abroad.

 

TELL THE TRUTH

 

Each and every day I try to tell the truth to others about the human rights condition in the world and I know that I will reach someone and help to change their lives… That’s what I do every day…

 

Say it now…. don’t wait until tomorrow.

leno