JeanCarlo Jimenez is one of 179 immigrants to die in U.S. custody since 2003. The missteps and errors of ICE and its contractors have led to concerns about the safety of immigrant detainees.
Capital & Main’s new project, Deadly Detention, is intended to give names and faces to undocumented immigrants who have died in federal detention, and to explain how they met such sad fates in the country most had come to in search of better lives.
Here are the immigration stories you might have missed this week.
Co-published by International Business Times
Darrell Issa, like the voters in his district, was a man under pressure. He put his finger in the air to test the political winds and then realized it was the ground beneath his feet that was moving.
Co-published by International Business Times
More than 600,000 immigrants are battling deportation or fighting for asylum in American immigration courts — nearly 20 percent of them live in California. Fewer than 40 percent of these are represented by an attorney, including children as young as 3.
Hundreds of protesters gathered to send a message to the Trump administration that they disagreed with the decision to rescind DACA. They marched towards Olvera Street from Echo Park, with the day beginning in MacArthur Park.
Co-published by The American Prospect
Guatemala-born Alex Alpharaoh may soon become a man without a country — and without a family. Brought to America when he was three months old, Alpharaoh is the only member of his immediate family who is not a U.S. citizen.
Co-published by Fast Company
The last few days have been tense for Camila. Four years ago, she was approved for status in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that has granted nearly 800,000 young people who were brought to the U.S. as children the right to live free from fear of deportation and to work here legally.
Co-published by International Business Times
The California legislature has responded to the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans with a number of bills that attempt to shield undocumented Californians from the effects of federal immigration policies.
Co-published by Fusion
How the language of division could spell disaster for immigrants in the era of Trump. BY LEIGHTON WOODHOUSE
Last month millions of undocumented immigrants were left in legal limbo when a divided U.S. Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that had blocked President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration.
As comprehensive immigration reform stalls along party lines in Washington, D.C., state Democrats are taking action in Sacramento. Backed by an assortment of coalition partners, California’s blue lawmakers have authored 10 new immigration bills (four in the Senate and six in the Assembly) to better the lives of two million undocumented individuals — five percent […]
As this series has made clear, “The California Chasm” is a challenge that threatens to transform the state into a shadow of its former self. Once a place where people came together to realize fortunes, remake their lives and attain their piece of the American Dream, we have become a state saddled with sharp […]
Nearly a decade ago, L.A. labor leader María Elena Durazo organized the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a national caravan that brought immigrants and their supporters around the country to Washington, D.C., to push for immigration reform. In the ensuing years, there has been much talk but no action on extending legal protections to the country’s […]
Activist Video Archive, that indispensable repository of Los Angeles’ progressive history, has recently released excerpts from an in-depth interview it conducted with Angela Sanbrano, a key figure in the Latino-rights movement. Sanbrano, who got her first reluctant taste of activism through the United Farm Workers union grape boycott, went on to co-found Inquilinos Unidos, was […]
María Elena Durazo announced today that she will leave the LA County Federation of Labor, which she has led for more than eight years. “I feel that the Los Angeles labor movement is very strong, very progressive, very proactive,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “Altogether, we have accomplished a lot. And there is a […]
Alone and Afraid from Capital & Main on Vimeo. The clock is ticking for six refugee children from El Salvador and Guatemala who are plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit that seeks to compel the Obama administration to ensure access to legal representation for tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors facing deportation proceedings. The plaintiffs are among the more than 50,000 Central American […]
After a long hiatus from the spotlight, the immigration debate has flared up once more. Following an incendiary incident in which anti-immigration protesters in Murrieta, California turned away buses of immigrants heading into a detention center, the issue is now receiving a significant amount of attention. The protesters were responding to a recent influx of […]
The caption under this front-page photo in Friday’s Los Angeles Times read: “Gov. Jerry Brown, center, is surrounded by cheering officials, from left, state Sen. Kevin de Leon, L.A City Councilman Gil Cedillo, Senate President Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.” Missing from that list is the smiling woman right behind Brown. That’s […]
As Labor Day approaches, here’s a question that many opponents of immigration reform don’t want to answer honestly: Can you be for the middle class and against comprehensive immigration reform? The answer is no — a fact that creates all kinds of problems for those lobbying to stop legislation that would create a path to […]
The future of immigration reform could well to be decided in the next three weeks. And this will occur not in the halls of Congress but in Congressional Town Hall meetings across the nation. Anti-immigrant activists are hoping for a replay of the Tea Party’s successful August 2009 attacks on health care reform; by triggering […]
A group of nuns began their 6,500-mile bus journey late last month in New Jersey with a view of Ellis Island. Since then, their brightly-decorated blue bus with images of hands raised — to show support for families and immigration reform — has rolled for more than 5,000 miles down Eastern Seaboard roads and into […]
Maria Elena Durazo serves as Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents more than 600,000 union workers. She is also the Chair of the National AFL-CIO’s Immigration Committee and recently spoke to Frying Pan News about the pending immigration bill in Congress, as well as a new student film competition […]
Seven years ago María Elena Durazo, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, stood on a stage erected at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, facing a sea of demonstrators who had just paraded miles in support of immigrant rights. In the twilight of that May Day, as Durazo […]
The “Gang of 8” has finally introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate, giving millions of undocumented workers hope for an immigration reform in 2013. One of these workers is Anabella Aguirre who arrived from Guatemala over 13 years ago. As a single mother of three children, her choice to migrate to the United States […]
The national discussion on immigration reform is heating up now that the “Gang of Eight” plans to release its detailed version of the Senate bill. As with similar efforts in past years to pass comprehensive immigration reform through Congress, the draft legislation to start the process will undergo massive changes as legislators debate the issue, […]
It was announced over the weekend the bipartisan Senate “Gang of Eight” came to an agreement in principle on a major aspect of creating a commonsense immigration process that benefits all workers. This agreement includes a new kind of worker visa program called the W-Visa, which will work for everyone, not just employers. Here are five things you […]