America’s favorite bigot, Lou Dobbs, has been caught red-handed being exactly what he has built a career on being against.
Conservative hypocrisy never seems to know any bounds…
(Video of Dobbs vs. Macdonald.)
America’s favorite bigot, Lou Dobbs, has been caught red-handed being exactly what he has built a career on being against.
Conservative hypocrisy never seems to know any bounds…
(Video of Dobbs vs. Macdonald.)
Pop singer and cultural phenomena Lady Gaga has spoken out against the racial profiling law recently proposed in Arizona at a recent concert in the same state. Urged against performing in Arizona by her follow musicians, she has decided instead to perform and to promote to message of protesting vile and unjust laws that tear us apart as a nation.
“If it wasn’t for all of you immigrants this country wouldn’t have shit.”
I welcome Lady Gaga to the immigration political arena. We need more attention directed at the rampant racism on display in Arizona and also more voices speaking out against the bigotry directed at the LBGT community.
A group of 14 civil and immigrant-rights organizations and 10 individuals on Monday filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Arizona’s new immigration law. It is the fifth legal challenge of the law, which goes into effect July 29 and makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.
All the lawsuits seek to prevent the law from going into effect. However, this latest case names Arizona’s county officials as defendants, while previous suits were filed against state officials.
Participants in this case include the American Civil Liberties Union, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Immigration Law Center, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Day Laborer Organizing Network and Asian Pacific American Legal Center.
Protests were held in Tucson, and Phoenix, Arizona against the racial profiling law (known as “AZ SB 1070” which is the acronym of Arizona Senate Bill 1070) that was vomited up thanks to the incompetent Governor Jan Brewer and the group knows as “FAIR” that maintains multiple ties to racist elements.
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These are some political cartoons on the topic of immigration, all of these images coming mainly from a 1.5 million member Facebook group that formed as “1 MILLION Strong Against AZ SB 1070” and now has outgrown its title.
At its May 2010 meeting, the Executive Council approved the following open letter to Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona.
Dear Governor Brewer,
We write regarding legislative and policy initiatives in the State of Arizona that concern us as teachers and scholars of language and literature. You have recently signed legislation (SB 1070) that may place nonnative speakers of English and speakers of other languages in legal jeopardy. In addition, we understand that the Arizona Department of Education has decided to bar teachers from teaching English if they speak English with an accent. Furthermore, you have signed legislation (HB 2281) critical of ethnic studies curricula.
These actions raise several concerns regarding education and language, topics at the heart of the mission of the Modern Language Association of America (MLA). We urge you to keep the following in mind as the State of Arizona pursues its education policy:
(1) There is no rational basis for making language ability an indicator of an individual’s citizenship or residency status. This is especially the case in the United States, where many different languages are spoken on a daily basis. The MLA documents this diversity of language speakers in the United States with its Language Map (http://www.mla.org/map_main), which we urge you to consult. Many native as well as immigrant populations use languages other than English, and English language fluency is, of course, hardly restricted to the United States: a speaker of English is not necessarily a United States citizen or legal resident.
(2) Native and nonnative speakers alike always display considerable variation in accent. This fact holds for speakers of American English—compare accents from the Northeast with those from the Southwest—as well as for speakers of other languages. Indeed, there is no unaccented English. There are only speakers with different accents. It therefore makes little sense to bar individuals from teaching because they “have an accent,” since accent is always unavoidable. Efforts to exclude individuals on the basis of accent will likely be arbitrary and discriminatory. The recruitment and retention of effective teachers should not be impeded by concerns that are irrelevant to the important goal of facilitating student learning.
(3) For several decades, ethnic studies curricula have provided important gateways for students to learn about the diversity of heritages in the United States, a key educational goal of the liberal arts education that is the bedrock of American higher education. The field has developed sophisticated pedagogies that stretch across the humanities and the social sciences, providing significant insights into American history and society. Students in ethnic studies classes gain an appreciation for a wealth of cultural expression in literature and the arts and a recognition of the multiple traditions that have found a home in our nation. Policies that curtail this vision will weaken the quality of education, thereby depriving students of key learning opportunities as they move on to higher education institutions.
Because citizens of the United States speak many different languages in addition to English, because every speaker of every language has an accent, and because ethnic studies is important to contemporary American education, we urge you to work toward reversing the policy decisions we cited at the beginning of this letter.
The MLA would be delighted to cooperate with you to formulate educational and language policies that are based on sound research and scholarship and that reflect the state of the art in contemporary American education.
These are the kinds of incidents we can expect more of under the unconstitutional Arizona immigration power-grab and racial profiling law.
LOS ANGELES — The family of a mentally disabled man claims that the federal and local governments mistakenly had an American citizen deported and said U.S. officials should help find him in Mexico.
Relatives of Pedro Guzman, 29, are suing the Department of Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in Los Angeles federal court.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit this week over what the civil rights group contends was the wrongful deportation of a developmentally disabled man.
Pedro Guzman was serving time in Los Angeles County’s Men’s Central Jail for misdemeanor trespassing when he was deported to Tijuana on May 10 or May 11, according to the ACLU. The family said they’ve been looking for their loved one in Tijuana for a month. Michael Guzman said his worst fear is that his brother is “no longer living.”
He said Michael can’t read, gets lost and often can’t remember the family phone number.
The suit said Pedro Guzman was sentenced in April to 120 days in jail for a misdemeanor trespassing violation. The suit said that sometime after that the Sheriff’s Department identified him as a non-citizen, obtained his signature for voluntary removal from the United States and turned him over to federal authorities for deportation.
Guzman, who knows no one in Tijuana, was last heard from on May 11, when he phoned his brother and sister-in-law’s home to say he had been deported to that city, but the call was interrupted before he could say exactly where he was, according to the ACLU.
Guzman’s mother, brother and sister-in-law traveled to Tijuana and searched shelters, jails, churches, hospitals and morgues, but have not found him and fear for his safety, ACLU officials said.
“This is a recurring nightmare for every person of color of immigrant roots,”
Mark Rosenbaum, the legal director of the ACLU’s Southern California branch, said in a statement.
There are no circumstances under which a U.S. citizen can legally be deported.
Many U.S. cities across this nation have taken a respectable stance against the state of Arizona for its “immigration law.”
Austin, TX became the latest in a growing list of cities that are boycotting Arizona in some capacity to protest the law, which makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally and requires local law enforcement to ask for documentation from people they suspect are in the country illegally.
A List of Great Cities in Support of Boycotting Arizona (or are considering to boycott AZ and its so-called immigration law):
San Francisco, CA
Madison, WI
Austin, TX
West Hollywood, CA
Boston, MA
Oakland, CA
El Paso, TX
St. Paul, MN
Springfield, MA
Worcester, MA
Washington D.C.
Milwaukee, WI
Chicago, IL
NYC, NY
Boulder, CO
St. Paul, MN
Tacoma, WA
Lawrence, MA
Amherst, MA
Sacramento, CA
Baldwin Park, CA
South el Monte, CA
Santa Cruz, CA
And the list continues to grow!