NEW ORLEANS — Federal immigration officials have been visiting command centers on the Gulf Coast to check the immigration status of response workers hired by BP and its contractors to clean up the immense oil spill.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Louisiana confirmed that its agents had visited two large command centers—which are staging areas for the response efforts and are sealed off to the public—to verify that the workers there were legal residents.
“We visited just to ensure that people who are legally here can compete for those jobs—those people who are having so many problems,” said Temple H. Black, a spokesman for ICE in Louisiana.
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, thousands of Hispanic workers, many of them undocumented, flocked to the region to help in the reconstruction of Louisiana’s coastal towns. Many stayed, building communities on the outskirts of New Orleans or finding employment outside the city in oil refineries and in the fishing industry.
It was one year ago that this week that President Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus package. It’s the biggest investment in our country since the Great Depression, but in this commentary I show how for most of us, a year of stimulus is not enough.
“The Tea Party movement has energized activism against President Obama’s vision for immigration reform. The link between tea partiers and immigration politics developed last summer, when the impact of illegal immigration on the health care system became a prominent side issue in town hall debates. Since then, illegal immigration has steadily gained ground on the Tea Party agenda.” — Article by Marcelo Ballvé for New America Media.
I like being so diverse, my ethnicity so diverse that it could overwhelm an U.S. Census taker because the blood flowing through my veins makes me so unique, and people don’t know what language I can or can’t speak, as well as guessing where I come from or “ I really like this “ who I am.
Natalia M. Clavijo
The commuting experience of students taking an advanced writing class I occasionally teach — MEDP 299.47, fated to morph real soon to a full-fledge course number sans a decimal point — is finally a functioning assignment.
Interns for New America Media. Has made a connection with a New York Times reporter who is drawing on her skills and talent so that he can write and report about the Korean community in metropolitan NYC. A Times immigration beat. This is not a freebie. She does translation and interpretation and is getting valuable field and professional experience and making serious career connections.
She also has been getting write-ups in Korean news media [like this one] for her work with New America Media.
Sandy Close, the Executive Director of NAM, has said more than once that Eunji Jang is vital to NAM’s goals to develop better coordination with Korean news media in the United States. Jang travels the country for NAM when slaving over a full-time course load and, of course, publishing in the WORD.
“We won’t allow the network to court us as viewers while, at the same time, they allow Dobbs to spread lies and misinformation about us each night,†Roberto Lovato, a founding member of Presente.org, was quoted in the New York Times as saying about CNN’s Lou Dobbs. Also wrote the NY Times reporter: “The hypocrisy, critics say, lies in CNN’s decision to woo Hispanic viewers with a prime-time documentary while still giving Mr. Dobbs a nightly forum.”
On Eve of CNN’s ‘Latino in America’ Series, Demands Grow for CNN to Dump Lou Dobbs
Events planned in more than 20 cities represent growing backlash to the network’s October 21-22 special in light of CNN’s continued support of Lou Dobbs. New Yorkers to gather in front of Time Warner/CNN Headquarter, 4 p.m. tomorrow.
A federal judge has determined that the Fire Department of New York City used racially discriminatory hiring practices that unlawfully prevented hundreds of qualified African American and Latino applicants from joining the department. New York City has the least diverse fire department of any major city in the nation.
Shayana Kadidal, managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights and Paul Washington, past president of the fraternal order of black firefighters, the Vulcan Society join Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales.
For Ethnic Communities, a Year of Stimulus Not Enough
Saturday, February 20th, 2010New America Media, Commentary, Aaron Glantz, Posted: February 20, 2010
It was one year ago that this week that President Obama signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the stimulus package. It’s the biggest investment in our country since the Great Depression, but in this commentary I show how for most of us, a year of stimulus is not enough.
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Tags: New America Media, Obama, stimulus package
Posted in Commentary, Ethnic News, I Didn't See This on the Evening News (A Work in Progress), Journalism, Journalism Education, New America Media, News/Commentary/Opinion | Comments Off