IDNYC: Fuente de Dignidad para Miles
El Diario - January 30, 2015, by Ana Maria Archila - Se puede palpar la emoción este mes en las comunidades inmigrantes...
El Diario - January 30, 2015, by Ana Maria Archila - Se puede palpar la emoción este mes en las comunidades inmigrantes pues los neoyorquinos, incluidos miles de inmigrantes indocumentados deseosos de más acceso e igualdad, acudieron en masa a inscribirse para IDNYC. El éxito del programa es claro, ya que más de 12,000 residentes ya se han inscrito y más de 100,000 otros tienen cita para hacerlo.
Los beneficios de tener tal identificación son básicos, pero la tarjeta de identificación gubernamental es absolutamente necesaria para quienes de lo contrario enfrentarían muchos desafíos en el diario vivir.
Guadalupe Paleta, madre indocumentada y residente de Queens, hizo cita la semana pasada. Con identificación, podrá visitar la escuela de sus hijos sin necesidad de preocuparse. No le molesta tener que esperar unas cuantas semanas para solicitarla. "Esta identificación indica que estamos acá, que nos ven", dijo.
Para las familias inmigrantes como la de Guadalupe, el programa de identificación ofrece mucho más que una tarjeta con foto. Nos dice que, independientemente de nuestra situación, si hemos echado raíces aquí, pertenecemos aquí.
El entusiasmo por IDNYC es enorme. Ante la oportunidad de tener una tarjeta que simboliza su estatus como neoyorquinos, los inmigrantes acudieron en masa. Nuestras familias atestaron oficinas e hicieron largas filas. Fue prueba de la labor hecha por la oficina del alcalde, como también la comunidad –organizaciones de servicio y de activismo, medios de prensa y otros– para informar a los neoyorquinos sobre el programa.
Pero no todos nuestros vecinos tuvieron la sensatez necesaria para darse cuenta del valor histórico y cívico de lo sucedido. Opositores al programa no pudieron resistir la tentación de armar escándalo.
Hicieron que otros en el entorno de comentarios noticiosos cayeran en la trampa de perder la perspectiva y fueran tendenciosos en su opinión sobre el programa.
La indignación y las protestas sobre las fallas del programa provinieron de quienes nunca apoyaron IDNYC, y a muchos nos parecieron poco sinceras. Simplemente no se percataron de la verdadera noticia que se producía ante sus ojos: la ciudad de NY sirve de inspiración al incluir cada vez más a todo tipo de personas.
Sin embargo, este programa es demasiado importante para demasiados neoyorquinos como para convertirse en una serie de golpes editoriales bajos al alcalde.
A todos nos deben alentar y conmover las imágenes de familias inmigrantes que se inscriben para IDNYC. Confirman la importancia de una política municipal dinámica que facilita la inclusión de los inmigrantes.
Para ver el articulo original, haga un clic aqui.
AG-elect Ellison announces transition team
Minnesota Attorney General-elect Keith Ellison announced a 36-member transition advisory board on Monday that includes...
Minnesota Attorney General-elect Keith Ellison announced a 36-member transition advisory board on Monday that includes state legislators, prominent attorneys, union members — and even a past political opponent.
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The White House announced that it would nominate Randy Quarles to a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors
The White House announced that it would nominate Randy Quarles to a vacant seat on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors
Quarles would take the lead on rolling back any banking regulation under the Trump administration as vice chairman for...
Quarles would take the lead on rolling back any banking regulation under the Trump administration as vice chairman for supervision, a post created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act …
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Inside the Avengers Cast’s One-Night-Only Performance of Our Town
Inside the Avengers Cast’s One-Night-Only Performance of Our Town
The Avengers, and friends, assembled in Atlanta on Monday night, though without their usual armor, shields, and...
The Avengers, and friends, assembled in Atlanta on Monday night, though without their usual armor, shields, and superpowers. The event, dreamed up by Scarlett Johansson, brought together some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest stars—all in town filming Avengers: Infinity War at Atlanta’s Pinewood Studios—for a stage reading of Thornton Wilder’s theater classic Our Town, a benefit for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico.
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Hispanos afrontan barreras de idioma en NY, según informe
El Diario – August 5, 2013, by Ruth E. Hernández - Las agencias del Gobierno estatal de Nueva York tienen importantes...
El Diario – August 5, 2013, by Ruth E. Hernández - Las agencias del Gobierno estatal de Nueva York tienen importantes carencias a la hora de facilitar el acceso a sus servicios a los más de $2 millones de personas y familias que no dominan el inglés, según un estudio presentado hoy.
“Todavía queda mucho por hacer para romper las barreras del idioma y asegurar que reciban una competente y consistente asistencia”, señala el “Informe de Acceso a Lenguaje”, que destaca que esta situación dificulta a estas personas el poder obtener servicios básicos como el carné de conducir o denunciar un crimen.
El estudio, de la organización Se Hace Camino Nueva York, es el primer informe que se publica luego de que, en 2011, el gobernador de Nueva York, Andrew Cuomo, firmara una orden ejecutiva para garantizar que inmigrantes reciban, en los seis idiomas más hablados, los servicios de agencias estatales que brindan ayuda directa a la comunidad.
“Con esta orden la administración del gobernador Cuomo no sólo tomó un paso importante para garantizar el acceso a servicios del gobierno a los que aún no dominan el inglés, sino que demostró liderazgo a nivel nacional en este asunto”, indica el informe de la entidad sobre las agencias que más en contacto están con el público.
Sin embargo, reveló que, un año después de entrar en vigor esta medida, los inmigrantes afrontan dificultades para tener acceso a servicios importantes como puede ser un carné de conducir, recibir los cupones de alimentos porque los formularios no han sido traducidos en su idioma o solicitar el desempleo, entre otros trámites, dijo a Efe Theo Oshiro, codirector de la organización.
Entre los hallazgos destaca, que pese a los esfuerzos de las agencias gubernamentales, la mayoría de los inmigrantes no están recibiendo documentos importantes traducidos en su idioma, tal y como estipula la orden ejecutiva.
Cita como ejemplo que en Buffalo sólo el 11 % de los hispanos afirma recibir la documentación en su idioma, mientras que en los pueblos de la región central del estado la cifra fue del 45 %.
Igualmente el estudio mostró que a través del estado sólo el 45 % de las agencias están brindando servicios de interpretación.
En específico, señala que en el Departamento de Vehículos de Motor, una de las agencias que más público atiende, sólo se ofreció información en los idiomas establecidos en el 32 % de los casos, mientras que en el Departamento del Trabajo esta cifra aumenta al 61 %.
También indica que en aquellas agencias en las que se brindó esta posibilidad, el público estuvo complacido con la calidad del mismo.
En cuanto a la Policía estatal, Oshiro explicó que aquellas personas que acuden en busca de ayuda tienen que esperar mucho tiempo y que “no tiene ni siquiera puesto en su página que puede brindar servicios” en varios idiomas.
Durante la evaluación, los autores descubrieron que el estado contrata a agencias locales en varios de sus condados para suplir servicios, y que éstas están exentas de cumplir la orden ejecutiva.
“Eso no es aceptable. No entendemos por qué no les cubre la orden ejecutiva”, dijo Oshiro.
Indicó además que, aunque las agencias del estado con sedes en la Ciudad de Nueva York, mejoraron en un 15 % los servicios que brindan, desde que entró en vigor la orden ejecutiva, “el estudio muestra que les está tomando tiempo” cumplir con ella, lo que, según Oshiro, no es aceptable porque tuvieron tiempo para prepararse.
Entre las recomendaciones que aporta el reporte figura mejorar el acceso de interpretación y la traducción, desarrollar y distribuir una guía de cómo mejorar los servicios y establecer colaboraciones con organizaciones que estén en contacto con la comunidad que no domina el inglés.
El informe se realizó en cooperación con la oficina del gobernador y, de acuerdo con Oshiro, los autores se reunirán con sus representantes para saber qué pasos van a tomar para cumplir con la orden ejecutiva.
“El estudio es una herramienta para que la oficina del gobernador haga lo que deben hacer”, afirmó.
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New York Fed taps Williams for top post, ignoring Democrats on diversity
New York Fed taps Williams for top post, ignoring Democrats on diversity
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had called for the co-chairs and Williams to appear before the Senate Banking Committee...
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had called for the co-chairs and Williams to appear before the Senate Banking Committee if Williams ended up as the choice. Fed Up co-director Shawn Sebastian said the coalition supports that call. “Today, the Fed concluded another opaque and controversial Reserve Bank presidential selection process by ignoring the demands of the public and choosing another white man whose record on Wall St regulation and full employment raises serious questions,” he said in a tweet.
Read the full article here.
Fed Up Coalition comes to Jackson to join the conversation on Economic Policy
People in green shirts stating “Let Our Wages Grow” and “Who’s Recovery?” are all over the main lobby and outdoor areas...
People in green shirts stating “Let Our Wages Grow” and “Who’s Recovery?” are all over the main lobby and outdoor areas of the lodge.
As officials meet for the Economic Policy Symposium, the Fed Up Coalition consisting of workers, economists, and allies are holding a conference simultaneously to discuss ways to foster full employment, higher wages and racial equality.
Ed Donaldson, who is with the San Francisco Alliance of Californians for Community Emplowerment is here to join the conversation on interest rates, unemployment and how the decisions of the Federal Reserve impact Americans.
“We are here exercising our democracy,” said Donaldson. “Monetary policy and the activities of the Federal Reserve are so very important.”
Between 75-100 representatives for the Fed Up Coalition from all over U.S. are at the Jackson Lake Lodge to voice their opinion.
“We have people here who represent every Federal Reserve district across the country. Many have met with Federal Reserve presidents in their area, which has been a very interesting dialog,” he added.
According to Donaldson, instead of looking at abstract data, it is important to have people who can tell you first hand how the economy is impacting them.
“I don’t think numbers tell the whole story about what’s going on. We have a high number of long term unemployed people and a high rate of underemployment. The Federal Reserve assisted Wall Street in getting them out of trouble and we think it’s only democratic that they begin to look at main street and look at ways they can help,” he added.
The Fed Up Coalition’s voice is beginning to be heard. Donaldson mentioned that the Federal Reserve is creating a Community Advisory Counsel, where they will select 15 people to help get insight from the ground.
“I am happy to be here. I think in many ways this is historic,” said Donaldson. “We sort of butted into the conversation, but I think it is far too important of an issue to let this conversation take place and not ask questions.”
The 2015 Economic Symposium’s central theme is “Inflation Dynamics and Monetary Policy,” and takes place August 27-29 at the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park.
Source: Buckrail
‘We are not ready’: Arizona voters warn Election Day could be worse than primary fiasco
‘We are not ready’: Arizona voters warn Election Day could be worse than primary fiasco
PHOENIX, ARIZONA — On Arizona’s primary day this April, voters in Maricopa County waited five hours in the hot sun to...
PHOENIX, ARIZONA — On Arizona’s primary day this April, voters in Maricopa County waited five hours in the hot sun to cast a ballot, because the county slashed the number of polling places from 200 to 60. Some people gave up and left without voting; some fainted in the desert heat. Polling places ran out of ballots.
After the dust settled, angry voters, candidates, and political parties filed a slew of lawsuits against the state, leading to court settlements and a promise that no voter will have to wait longer than half an hour this fall.
“The primary fiasco was a huge wakeup call,” said Samantha Pstross with the Arizona Advocacy Network.
But elected officials and voting rights advocates fear the situation could be just as bad or worse on Tuesday.
“We are not ready for what I presume will be one of the largest turnouts in Arizona history,” Maricopa County supervisor Steve Gallardo told ThinkProgress. “Everyone is banking on a large number of vote-by-mail ballots. But this is not an ordinary election. We have a record number of new Latino voters. We see lots of excitement out there. We need to be prepared to handle this, but we’re already seeing problems.”
“We are not ready for what I presume will be one of the largest turnouts in Arizona history.”
Gallardo cited troubles that have already plagued the county during early voting, when turnout is usually much lighter than on Election Day itself.
On Friday, the final day of in-person early voting, voters in Tempe waited more than three hours to cast a ballot. Among them was Bob Davis, who arrived around 1:15 p.m. with his four-year-old daughter. Though he was told it would be a two-hour wait, he didn’t cast a ballot until nearly 5 p.m.
“I watched like 20 people leave the line who couldn’t wait,” he told ThinkProgress. “I knew the chance of them coming back and trying again was negligible. I felt really upset.”
Davis noted that there is a ballot measure before Arizona voters this year that would raise the minimum wage from just over 8 dollars an hour to 12 by the year 2020. He said he worries those the measure would impact most will not be able to have a say in its passage.
“If you make only 8.05 an hour, your ability to stand in line for four hours is minimal,” he said. “This is actual voter suppression.”
In Glendale, another Phoenix suburb, an understaffed site with insufficient equipment forced voters to wait more than two hours earlier this week.
“It’s discouraging,” Gallardo said. “No one should have to stand in long lines. It becomes a voting barrier. Some folks don’t have the opportunity to wait. Some are elderly and physically can’t stand that long, others only have a short lunch break from work when they can vote. So if you let long lines occur, you are disenfranchising voters.”
Maricopa County had 724 polling places for the 2012 general election. This year, they will have the exact same number, despite adding more than 90,000 more voters to the rolls. Many of those precincts’ polling places are located in the same building, meaning there will be only 640 separate locations.
“What is scary is what could happen on Election Day,” said Pstross. “If there are long lines, people will be disenfranchised left and right.”
Ever-changing laws fuel voter confusion
Arizona smashed its Latino voter registration record in the final weeks of the 2016 election, adding 150,000 new voters to the rolls. The state also led the nation in Latino early voting. Latino residents cast an unprecedented 13 percent of the votes, up from just 8 percent in 2008. Organizers credit Donald Trump for some of this participation spike, noting that his disparagement of immigrants and promises of mass deportations have mobilized Latinos who previously avoided electoral politics.
But as community advocacy groups like Bazta Arpaio, the Arizona Advocacy Network, LUCHA, and others hit the streets of Phoenix in the campaign’s final days, some fear an avalanche of last-minute court cases and legal changes could confuse and disenfranchise the voters they have worked so hard to engage.
This year alone, Arizona mailed out incorrect information about where to vote and mistranslated one of the ballot propositions on thousands of Spanish-language ballots. The state also allowed the final day of voter registration to fall on a federal holiday, leaving thousands of voters unable to register in time.
Then, on Friday night, a federal appeals court temporarily enjoined Arizona’s new law that made it a felony for anyone other than a relative or caretaker to pick up and mail in a voter’s absentee ballot. On Saturday morning, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision and gave Arizona its blessing to enforce the ballot collection ban.
The back-and-forth left organizers scrambling.
Ben Laughlin, an organizer with the “Bazta Arpaio” campaign to unseat the controversial county sheriff Joe Arpaio, got the news of the ruling just before dispatching a small army of canvassers to knock on doors across the city.
“It causes a lot of confusion,” Laughlin told ThinkProgress. “For months we haven’t been collecting ballots because of the ban. Yesterday, we started collecting ballots. Now we’re not. It was a sweet 24 hour window.”
Bazta Arpaio blasted out this message on Friday night: “This weekend, when a volunteer comes to your door, you can have them turn in your ballot with confidence.” Less than a day later, the group had to abandon those plans.
A mother and her two sons hit the streets of West Phoenix with the Bazta Arpaio campaign. CREDIT: Alice Ollstein
Across the city, Asya Pikovsky with the Center for Popular Democracy scrambled to inform dozens of volunteers about the legal development.
“We got on the phone the second the decision came out and told every single person,” she told ThinkProgress on Saturday. “Our canvassers are following the decision to the letter.”
But other advocates expressed fears that some people could accidentally violate the newly-restored law if they did not get the news in time.
“No one should be considered a felon for helping someone else vote — especially someone who would have no other way to get to the polls,” Pstross said.
She fears even those following the law could face unlawful harassment from poll watchers, who have been instructed to follow and photograph those turning in multiple ballots.
“We’re worried that, say, someone who works at a retirement home could show up with 50 to 100 ballots,” she said. “They’re a legitimate caretaker, but even if they’re totally within the law, a crazy person could challenge and intimidate them.”
Sheriffs and vigilantes
Concerns about intimidation by poll-watchers were elevated Saturday, when a federal court declined to put a halt to plans by Trump’s campaign, the Arizona GOP, and a group run by Trump ally Roger Stone to patrol minority-heavy precincts, film those who they suspect of voter fraud, and question people exiting the polls about which candidate they supported.
“It is Plaintiff’s burden to illustrate that these activities are likely to intimidate, threaten, or coerce voters,” the court ruled. “The evidence…has failed to do so.”
But officials and voting rights advocates in Arizona are not just worried about intimidation from such volunteers — They are also sounding the alarm about the potential presence of the county sheriffs at the polls on Election Day.
The Maricopa County Recorder’s office, which administers the election, plans to call in sheriffs if there are any disputes at the polls, even though the head of the department is currently on trial for criminal contempt and racial profiling. Sheriffs have already been summoned to early voting sites, including one incident this week in which voters were upset about turned away at 4:30 p.m. because the polls were supposed to be open until 5 p.m.
“This should be an exciting time for voters — not a time of anxiety or fear.”
Voting rights advocates and elected officials said that having the same sheriffs who conducted immigration raids patrol the polls will intimidate Latino voters. Some groups have called on the Justice Department to send monitors to oversee the sheriffs’ activities, while others are demanding the County Recorder use a different law enforcement agency on Election Day.
“We have a sheriff that has divided and polarized this county and created distrust between the community and the sheriff’s office,” Gallardo said. “It’s time to distance ourselves from the sheriffs’ office and use other agencies like Phoenix Police that actually have credibility with the public. The sheriffs should not be involved in this election.”
“This should be an exciting time for voters — not a time of anxiety or fear,” added Alex Gomez, Executive Director of the Arizona Center for Empowerment. “On Election Day, the story should be about Arizonans proudly casting their ballots — not voters scared off from the polls.”
By Alice Miranda Ollstein
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Would independent prosecutors make police shooting investigations fairer?
Would independent prosecutors make police shooting investigations fairer?
Critics say the close connections between prosecutors and local police leads to unjust decisions not to prosecute...
Critics say the close connections between prosecutors and local police leads to unjust decisions not to prosecute officers following officer-involved shootings.
The absence of indictments of police officers in shooting deaths – especially in high-profile cases like the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Tamir Rice in Cleveland – is raising questions about the fairness of using local prosecutors to investigate police officers with whom they may have close ties.
Critics say the close working relationships between local prosecutors and law enforcement injects a bias into investigations of shootings and other deaths at the hands of police. A solution, some suggest, would be to use independent prosecutors to investigate charges of wrong-doing by police officers.
The investigation into the death of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., offers one example of the closeness often seen between prosecutors and police departments. East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore recused himself from the investigation, as he had worked closely with both police-officer parents of one of the officers involved in the shooting.
When a police officer is involved in a shooting, often the officer's own police department opens an internal investigation into the incident. In some cases, says Walter Katz, an independent police auditor of the city of San Jose, Calif., who has studied investigations of police use of lethal force, there is evidence that suggests the investigator's close relationship to the officer can lead to a lack of objectivity.
"That can be amplified when also the local prosecuting agency is the agency that reviews to decide whether or not to file criminal charges against a police officer," Mr. Katz tells The Christian Science Monitor. "In smaller jurisdictions ... they're going to have a close working relationship, so it creates the potential impression that it's not an arm's length review of the use of force."
The scarcity of indictments in a variety of high-profile shootings has increased scrutiny of officer prosecutions by local authorities. The prosecutors in both the Tamir Rice case in Cleveland and the Michael Brown case in Ferguson said they believed the officers involved had acted legally. Both were accused of not presenting a fair review of possible charges to the grand juries, as Ari Melber, MSNBC’s chief legal correspondent, explained in The Washington Post.
The problem of officer-involved shootings of blacks wouldn't be solved with independent prosecutors, Marbre Stahly-Butts, the deputy director of racial justice for the Center for Popular Democracy, a progressive advocacy organization, tells the Monitor. But "certainly accountability is an essential step that needs to happen," she says.
"We have the common sense that asking prosecutors who work everyday with police and depend on police for their cases, to then be objective in prosecuting them, is just not reasonable," Ms. Stahly-Butts says.
Local advocates are working to address these issues, Stahly-Butts says, especially in St. Louis and New York, where it has contributed to the passage of an executive order ensuring independent prosecutors.
On the federal level, Congressman Steve Cohen (D) of Tennessee is sponsoring a bill that would withhold federal funding from law enforcement unless the use of independent prosecutors to address instances of deadly force by police is instituted.
"There's no good reason not to have independent prosecutors," he tells the Monitor. "If you have the prosecutors who work with the law enforcement agency, which they do hand-in-glove to investigate cases and present cases, there is... an appearance of, if not outright, impropriety."
This can limit the citizenry's faith in the justice system, especially if no charges are brought against the officers, Representative Cohen says. On the flip side, when local prosecutors do bring charges, police can react negatively. After Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby brought charges against officers in the death of Freddie Gray, some believe there was a work slowdown among Baltimore Police, which police officials denied, the Baltimore Sun reported. This hurts the entire community, Cohen says.
The bill, introduced in October 2015, has 80 co-sponsors as of Wednesday morning. Several states have made moves to implement independent prosecutors, including Connecticut and New York. Cohen says it is important to set a nation-wide standard, but House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R) of Virginia has not yet scheduled a hearing.
The bill is opposed by the National Association of Police Organizations, a law enforcement advocacy group. The organization's executive director, William Johnson, wrote a letter to Cohen expressing fears that officers would face "a great deal of pressure" if investigated by independent prosecutors, The Hill reported.
"There is a risk that decisions to prosecute would be made based on politics, not on the law and admissible evidence," Johnson wrote. "NAPO is concerned that an officer would be indicted, even if he/she did nothing wrong."
Johnson did not respond to requests for comment from the Monitor.
Cohen says local law enforcement may oppose his bill because they benefit from the current system and may be "getting home cooking".
"That's not what justice is about," he says. "All games should be on neutral courts."
By AIDAN QUIGLEY
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EXCLUSIVE: City Offices Fail to Meet Law Requiring Them to Help New Yorkers Register to Vote
New York Daily News - October 21, 2014, by Erin Durkin - City agencies are failing to do their part to make voter...
New York Daily News - October 21, 2014, by Erin Durkin - City agencies are failing to do their part to make voter registration easier — even though they’re required to by law.
Legislation passed in 2000 mandates that 18 agencies give voter registration forms to visitors. But the Center for Popular Democracy found that 84% of those visitors were never offered a chance to register, according to a report to be released Tuesday.
In fact, 60% of the agencies didn’t even have forms in the office. And 95% of the clients were never asked if they wanted to register to vote.
“This is an urgent problem which is leading to the disenfranchisement of many thousands of low-income New Yorkers,” said Andrew Friedman, the group’s co-executive director.
The group found that 30% of people who visited the city offices weren’t registered to vote, higher than the national average.
Mayor de Blasio’s spokesman Phil Walzak said Hizzoner has ordered agencies to step up their compliance with the law.
Advocates say having city agencies help out with voter registration is especially important because most people nationwide sign up to vote at motor vehicle departments, but many city residents don’t drive.
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