Weekly Diaspora: Local Laws Target Immigrants; Activists Take to the Streets

by: The Media Consortium

Thu Apr 15, 2010 at 13:11

By Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger

While immigrant rights groups pressure the federal government via high-profile marches and rallies, anti-immigration forces are pushing punitive laws on the state and local levels. Thousands of immigration reform proponents rallied last week to push federal lawmakers to pass reform this year, but the Arizona House of Representatives passed one of the toughest immigration laws in the country, which enables racial profiling of Latinos.

If the Senate fails to propose a reform bill this Spring, immigration reform won't be on the agenda for 2010. With elections at the end of the year, it's uncertain if reform will pass after that, as the resulting Congress could be more conservative.

More rallies from the grassroots

As Seth Freed Wessler reports at RaceWire, "Rallies for immigration reform were held in at least seven cities on Saturday, including Las Vegas, Seattle and Chicago, and were meant to maintain momentum from the massive march in Washington last month." The rallies were part of a sustained effort by reform supporters to pressure the Senate to take up reform this year.

In Las Vegas, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made an appearance and told supporters that the Senate would start work on reform soon after legislators came back from a brief recess this week.

"Speaking before a crowd of more than 6,000, Reid, a vulnerable incumbent, assured his audience of his commitment," Steve Benen wrote for the Washington Monthly.

"We're going to come back, we're going to have comprehensive immigration reform now," Reid was quoted as saying. "We need to do this this year. We cannot wait."

New America Media cites a report from Univision, writing that "Reid, fresh from the fight for health system reform and with a difficult re-election campaign ahead, told demonstrators that there is some urgency to passing legislation to reform the immigration system, including improving border security and creating a guest worker program for seasonal workers."

New America Media also reports on a surprising conservative-evangelical alliance that supports comprehensive immigration reform that protects children and families. "While not entirely new, the involvement of conservative Latino and evangelical leaders in the immigration debate puts additional pressure on Congress and the president to take up the issue this year."

In Seattle, AlterNet reports  on the large presence of Asian immigrants at the local rally, quoting Diane Narasaki, executive director of the Asian Counseling and Referral Service:  "There are about 1 million Asians living in this country who are undocumented, so comprehensive immigration reform is really key to our community," Narasaki said.

Local laws target immigrants

Meanwhile, the GOP-controlled Arizona House of Representatives voted along party lines this week to pass a state law that would, as RaceWire's Freed Wessler reports, "make it a criminal offense simply to be an undocumented immigrant on Arizona soil and to require local cops to determine a person's immigration status if there is any 'reasonable suspicion' the person is undocumented."

"The law would essentially require police to racially profile Latinos and threatens to terrorize immigrant communities already trying to survive in what is arguably the country's most anti-immigrant state," writes Freed Wessler.

In Colorado, where a similar state law passed despite wide criticism of civil rights abuses, there are reports on an effort in Denver to push back against a a local city-wide anti-immigrant  law that encourages police to impound vehicles of undocumented immigrants.

"Members of the city council here are considering eliminating a controversial vehicle impound law that has raised financial and constitutional questions," Joseph Boven reports for the Colorado Independent. "It's unconstitutional, for example, to require Denver police to judge whether someone driving in Denver without a license might be an illegal alien."

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Linking national concerns with local issues, the National Radio Project reports on a panel called "Race, Immigration and the Fight for an Open Internet," which focused on how telecommunications corporations' moves to restrict internet access could affect immigrant communities.

"Right now, telecommunications companies are pursuing a restrictive pay-for-play business model for online access that many say will only further the digital divide, discriminating between those who have Internet access and those who do not," the news outlet notes.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members  of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse . This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

WTO Still Pushing More of the Same, WTO Turnaround Demanded

by: toddntucker

Mon Nov 30, 2009 at 13:12

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Dispatch: Lori Wallach. Location: Geneva, WTO Ministerial.

It's late afternoon here in Geneva as the 7th ministerial of the WTO is opening - 10 years to the day that the Seattle WTO protests rocked the world.

Ten years after the world's most powerful governments and corporations failed to launch a massive WTO expansion at the 1999 Seattle WTO Ministerial, there still is not WTO expansion. BUT, there also is still no WTO turnaround - and the current rules are causing major damage on many fronts.

In fact, the damaging outcomes of the WTO's radical financial service deregulation requirements, agribiz-written food trade rules and more have resulted in most of the WTO member countries favoring negotiations to fix the existing WTO rules.  

Thus, it was not surprising that the 300-plus press and civil society representatives who were just in a briefing presented by WTO Director General Pascal Lamy burst into repeated bouts of laughter when Lamy declared in short order that the WTO and the version of corporate globalization it implements had absolutely NOTHING to do with, respectively, the world financial crisis, the world food crisis or growing unemployment in numerous countries. In fact, the WTO was part of the cure to all of the above - oh, and the climate crisis also.

This after the WTO Director General had been directly contradicted on the financial deregulation the day before at a public event that included Lamy and the trade ministers of various countries, including Brazil and South Africa. Meanwhile, yesterday the G-33 bloc of countries focused on the food crisis also explicitly fingered the current WTO rules as a cause of the crisis, not a solution.

Lamy's comments came in response to questions about HOW the WTO intended to change its current rules to address their untenable outcomes. Instead, we were treated to the bizarre notion that the "Doha Round" - a watered-down-from-the-Seattle-plan-but-nonetheless-dangerous WTO expansion - is the answer to all ills. Yup, MORE WTO financial service dereg as the answer. More corporate control of food production and distribution as the answer.

Meanwhile, the topic of the WTO Doha Round is too toxic to put on the agenda here. Yes, this is a WTO summit at which negotiation is not on the agenda. The WTO boosters knew that one more collapsed WTO summit, and the WTO expansion idea would certainly be toast. But, it's been too dangerous to get together for FOUR years, and this has caused an increasing crisis of legitimacy for WTO which is supposed to met biannually in a conference of minister-level officials who, per WTO mythology, set the organization's agenda and lend it the credibility of their governments. So, here we are.

No country is willing to be blamed for officially pulling the plug on the Doha Round, yet many would be extremely relieved if some other country or bloc of countries did so. The speeches now being given at the opening ceremony are a bit Alice in Wonderland with calls for completion of the Doha Round based on terms and conditions not related to what is on the table. Perhaps the most interesting point raised by a trade minister here came yesterday from Brazil's Celso Amorim, who asked why almost a year into the Obama administration, the U.S. WTO representatives were continuing to push the same extreme GOP WTO agenda.

Under Mounting Pressure, Starbucks Settles Yet Another Labor Dispute

by: ZP Heller

Tue Jun 02, 2009 at 16:45

This is a huge win for the IWW Starbucks Workers Union, an organization of over 300 current and former Starbucks employees -- the David to Starbucks' caffeinated, union-busting Goliath.  Though really, it's a big win for all Starbucks employees, since unionization would enable workers to negotiate set hours, fairer wages and better benefits for everyone.

Angel Gardner, a Twin Cities barista and member of the IWW Starbucks Workers Union, said, "This settlement proves that Starbucks executives are not above the law and cannot block hard working baristas from making positive change.  How can Starbucks claim that it maintains a positive work environment when one labor case after another exposes its lack of respect for employees?"

In Bellevue/Seattle Until Friday

by: Matt Stoller

Mon Feb 18, 2008 at 10:56

Photo by PunkJr

Mostly I'll be working, but if you have any suggestions on food/stuff to see, let me know.  Also, if you'd like to get together for an OpenLeft coffee, suggest a place in the comments and I'll see if there's enough interest for a Wednesday evening.