Illegal immigration – A global problem

SANTA TERESA, N.M. – Recent headlines in the U.S. have focused on a major influx of undocumented immigrants crossing our southern border with Mexico, many of them children either traveling alone or with single mothers seeking refuge. According to Homeland Security some 52,000 children have arrived on the U.S.-Mexico border since October of last year, most coming from Central American countries including Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, looking to escape the upsurge in violence and destitution threatening those countries. Some, apparently, are trying to take advantage of special treatment afforded children and families that cross the border illegally which they believe, mistakenly or otherwise, will allow them to stay. The paid “coyotes” smuggling them encourage this misinformation in promoting their services throughout the perilous journey from their home countries to the border. This is only the latest in the influx of undocumented (illegal) immigrants from the south that have looked to the U.S. for shelter from economic and/or violent social oppression in their homelands.

Cecilia Muñoz, Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council. (www.whitehouse.gov)

Hispanics are tired of Obama’s lip service on immigration reform

By Kay Bárbaro

For Borderzine from Hispanic Link

WASHINGTON – WE’RE STILL WAITING:  Cecilia Muñoz, longtime vice president of the National Council of La Raza whose appointment in Jan. 20, 2009, to President Obama’s initial cabinet was seen as a payoff to the Hispanic community for its huge role in Obama’s winning a front-door key to the White House. This, we and many others innocently believed, would ensure that el presidente nuevo would move quickly to make good on his repeated promises to end our undocumented immigrant agony by delivering genuine immigration reform legislation. Did he? Of course not.

(Left to right) Senators Dick Durban, D-Ill., John McCain, R-Ariz., Charles Schumer, D-N.Y, Robert Menendez, D-N.J. and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., present comprehensive immigration reform blueprint at Monday news conference. (Jasmine Aguilera/SHFWire)

Experts: immigration plans place too much emphasis on border security

WASHINGTON – Immigration experts who have been pushing for reform  welcome the attention to the issue but say the emphasis on border security and law enforcement are misplaced. A group of eight bipartisan senators introduced a proposal Monday that is meant to eventually give legal status to undocumented immigrants living in the United States. The proposal also aims to increase border security. Josiah Heyman, professor and chair of the department of sociology and anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso, said the overall proposal for reform is necessary and good, but he disagrees with an increase in border security. “The border enforcement parts are very rhetorical and exaggerated,” Heyman said.

Families made a good part of the participants in the march for immigration reform. (Justin Monarez/Borderzine.com)

Rival immigration reform plans could ignite Capitol Hill fireworks

By Basilisa Alonso

The comprehensive immigration reform proposal spread out Jan. 29 in Las Vegas by President Obama could eventually put as many as 11 million undocumented immigrants, about 80 percent of whom are Hispanic, on a path to U.S. citizenship. It is could also light up the sky with an awesome display of political fireworks by the Fourth of July. While Obama’s 25-minute televised speech was seen and heard by millions and then regurgitated and analyzed for days by print as well as broadcast  media, its message was clearly directed to those 535 members of Congress who must sign off before it reaches his desk for signature. The stakes — the President’s reputation, the future viability of the Republican Party and the welfare of the Hispanic community — are enormous.