TresSugar

US Lifts HIV/AIDS Travel Ban

TresSugar — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:00:00 -0700

For the last 22 years, foreign citizens living with HIV or AIDS have been forbidden to legally enter the US. As of Monday, that ban will be a thing of the past. On Friday, President Obama announced the decision to overturn the policy he called "rooted in fear rather than fact." He said:

"We talk about reducing the stigma of this disease - yet we've treated a visitor living with it as a threat. We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic - yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people from HIV from entering our own country. If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it."

Before this decision, the US joined a less-than-impressive list of countries that banned HIV-positive outsiders. The list still includes: Armenia, Colombia, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sudan, and Yemen. Considering there are already Americans living with HIV/AIDS, it served little purpose to "quarantine" the country. I'm happy to see that our HIV/AIDS prevention strategies will no longer include an ineffective and discriminatory ban.

Top Official: Burqa Not Part of France's "National Identity"

TresSugar — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:00:00 -0700

Cheese. Wine. Baguettes. These are all seemingly welcomed signifiers of French identity. Burqas? Not so welcome.

France has been debating a ban on the head-to-toe garment for some time now. Most recently, the country's immigration minister Eric Besson said yesterday that burqas should not be worn on French streets because they are not part of the country's "national identity."

Besson wants the government to reaffirm national pride by having a "great debate" about what it means to be French. With more than five million Muslims living in France (the largest Muslim population in Western Europe), doesn't French identity include Muslim traditions? It sounds like Besson, who was born in Morocco, disagrees. Based on his previous statements, being French means speaking better French if you're an immigrant and having more opportunities to sing the national anthem if you're a kid in school.

Do you think the French government has a right to dictate dress codes under the guise of "maintaining tradition," or should it be more accepting of minority and immigrant group influences? Would you worry if US officials organized a meeting to decide what it means to be American?

Abused Women May Be Able to Seek Asylum in the US

TresSugar — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:00:00 -0700

Women don't have a single nationality or a common religion, but they do make up a defined group regularly subjected to domestic and sexual abuse. Yesterday, the Obama administration paved the way for women who are victims of severe abuse to receive asylum in the United States.

The administration signaled the policy change in its court filing in the case of a Mexican woman who is currently seeking asylum. The woman (who is known as "L.R.") says that her common law husband raped her at gunpoint, held her captive, and tried to burn her alive when he found out she was pregnant. L.R. maintains that if she were to be sent back to Mexico, she could be killed.

In its filing with the court, the Obama administration said that a woman such as L.R. should be granted asylum if she meets existing conditions for asylum and shows not only that her abuser views women as subordinate but also that domestic abuse is widely tolerated in her home country.

Do you think women who meet such conditions should be allowed to stay in the US, or do you worry that this policy will worsen the already overwhelmed US immigration situation?

Masochist President Obama Prepares to Tackle Immigration

CitizenSugar — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:30:50 -0700

With unemployment on the rise, President Obama is not shying away from America's immigration problem.

Obama will soon get started on a plan that will likely include a pathway to citizenship for the 12 million illegal immigrants living within America's borders. George W. Bush tried to do the same thing, but his comprehensive reform went down in Republican opposition. Obama faces an even tougher climate, since Americans are more concerned with losing their jobs to immigrants thanks to the recession.

Obama will frame his agenda as "policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system." Let's see if he can keep the debate process orderly.

Obama will start his policy push in May, and gather bipartisan groups to discuss legislation. The hope is to introduce a bill in Congress this Fall.

Do you think people are ready for reform?

Source

Homeschooling German Family Seeks Asylum in US

CitizenSugar — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:00:55 -0700

Like many Europeans before them, Uwe and Hannelore Romeike have left the mother country for America under a cloud of religious persecution. That's what the husband and wife are telling US immigration authorities, anyway. The couple says they were persecuted in Germany for their evangelical Christian beliefs and for homeschooling their children. They now seek US asylum so they can stay in Tennessee where they homeschool their children.

In Germany, families cannot homeschool. German police even took the Romeike children from their home to school. Parents can face prison or fines for teaching their children at home, instead of sending them to school. In America, homeschooling is legal and gaining popularity.

The case will go before an immigration judge this Thursday. How do you think the judge should decide? Should the Romeikes swallow their pride and follow the German rules, or should the US offer them refuge?

Source

Should Unemployment Rates Impact Immigration Policy?

CitizenSugar — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:30:59 -0800

As the unemployment rate rises, so does the call for stricter immigration rules. Many Americans resent that they have lost their income while visaed foreigners bring home dollars, or even worse, while corporations illegally hire undocumented workers.

The issue showed up last week on CNN's Cafferty File. Jack asked whether a 7.6 percent unemployment rate meant it was time to change the immigration policy in America to keep jobs from going to millions of legal, and illegal, immigrants. One viewer said:

Halt all immigration until the unemployment rate is below 3 percent. Plus impose a 50 percent tax on all money sent back to home countries by noncitizens.

Columnist Thomas Friedman has a different take on it. He was wants an "open-door bailout." To see what that means, read more.

Friedman summed up the message immigrant business people want to send America:

Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart, and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.

Last year Bill Gates argued to Congress that allowing more foreigners to work in the US would not steal jobs away from Americans, but rather create more jobs for them. He said for each H-1B visa hire, four support employees are hired.

Do you think open immigration will help solve the economic crisis, or is it just part of the problem?

Source

Child Slavery in the US? Wealthy Immigrants Bring "Hired" Help

LibertySugar — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:00:42 -0800

Well, this is just great. Behind the gated and planned communities of Southern California housewives aren't just employing children as drug dealers, they're smuggling children into the US to work.

As affluent immigrants move here from Africa, where the rich think nothing of employing children for little to no money, many bring children with them to employ for meager wages ($30-per-month meager). The US State Department found that in the past year, children from at least 10 African countries were sent to the US and Europe to work as maids.

To learn about one former child slave who found justice, if that's even possible, read more.

The family that brought Shyima over when she was 10 from Egypt was reported by a neighbor. After a long court battle - where the couple tried to claim her as their child - they pleaded guilty to forced labor and slavery. They were ordered to pay $76,000, which hardly seems like enough but is the amount she would have earned at minimum wage; sentenced to 22 months (wife) and three years (husband) in prison; and deported upon release. Shyima was adopted, finished high school, and at 19 now wants to become a police officer.

If it's possible to call Shyima lucky, it could be said. Because child slaves are cloaked behind the curtains of private homes, her case is an exception. Tasks like sorting laundry, taking out the garbage, and ironing shirts can easily be mistaken as chores, so nobody can even estimate how many children are enslaved. And since none of it is considered abusive (at least not physically), cases are rarely prosecuted.

People who keep child slaves not only see themselves as employers but also as benefactors, giving poor children opportunities. Sure, if you call 12-hour work days and no education in a nice American home an opportunity. And many in Africa, including Shyima's parents, do.

Source

Immigrants the New Slave Labor? FBI Probes Treatment

LibertySugar — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:00:31 -0800

Mexican guest workers at the center of an FBI investigation say that their boss treated them like animals.

Charles "Bimbo" Relan, the Louisiana farmer who employs the immigrants, allegedly confiscated the workers' passports, kept them working hunched over for hours, fired his shot gun over the workers' heads, killed the stray dog the workers kept as a pet, and sometimes paid them only $2 an hour. He also exposed the immigrants to dangerous pesticides.

Some of the immigrants, who had obtained visas to legally work on the strawberry farm, left without their passports. They organized, protested, and caught the FBI's attention. Do you think more should be done to make sure non-American workers are treated with dignity and have the same civil rights as American workers?

Source

Federal Agents Cast Wide Net for Illegal Workers in California

LibertySugar — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:00:32 -0700

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in San Francisco, San Diego, and Los Angeles just finished three weeks of immigration raids. Those who ignored deportation orders or returned to the US after being deported were the targets of the effort.

At a bakery in Palm Springs, 60 agents arrested or detained 51 workers - coming out to more than one agent per detainee. Twenty-one of the workers were later released because they were primary caregivers to children or elderly. The bakery supervisor was also arrested on suspicion of continuing to employ an unauthorized alien.

In Northern California, 20 percent of those arrested had criminal records. The ICE's fugitive operative teams have gone after immigration violators that pose a threat to national security or community safety. The units claim to have deceased the number of people that remain in the US after receiving deportation orders by 34,000, since 2007.

Source

How To Become a Legal Immigrant? Here's a Handy Flowchart!

CitizenSugar — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:00:18 -0700

With equal parts sincerity and critique, the Libertarian minds over at Reason magazine have put together a fully-illustrated flow chart addressing what they designate as the argument of illegal immigration opponents, the "get in line" theory. What does that line look like? Follow along and see the steps and relative wait times for each part of the process, whether to become a lawful permanent resident or a full-fledged citizen.

Following each path of the "game" with steps like "Married adult children [of citizens]: seven to 15-year wait" the payoff comes at the end - they calculated the best case scenario timeframe to immigrate and become a citizen at six to seven years. The longest path could take 28 years from immigration to legal status. The step that gives pause? Answering "no" to "Are you skilled?" Receives the answer: "Sorry! There is virtually no process for unskilled immigrants without relations in the US to apply for permanent legal residence. Only 10,000 green cards are allotted every year."

Does that make sense to you? Do the checks and balances limiting immigration regulate the process appropriately?