Report: Hedge funds that ‘killed’ Toys ‘R’ Us ‘prey’ on Puerto Rico
Report: Hedge funds that ‘killed’ Toys ‘R’ Us ‘prey’ on Puerto Rico
Some of the hedge funds that are speculating on Puerto Rico debt also forced Toys R Us to shut down, according to a report released by Hedge Clippers, which advocates for income equality by...
Some of the hedge funds that are speculating on Puerto Rico debt also forced Toys R Us to shut down, according to a report released by Hedge Clippers, which advocates for income equality by targeting hedge and private equity funds, in partnership with the Center for Popular Democracy, a nonprofit that advocates for workers rights.
Read the full article here.
Good jobs for everyone
The Hill - 05-06-2015 - The strain from Modesta...
The Hill - 05-06-2015 - The strain from Modesta Toribio’s retail job weighed down her life. Despite working full-time as a cashier in Brooklyn, Modesta struggled to pay for rent, food, or transportation. The bills added up quickly. Taking the day off to care for a sick child meant risking losing her job. Going to school at night was not an option, and she could not arrange for steady childcare because her schedule changed every week.
Modesta’s story is not unique. It is the story of countless strivers who work to sustain their families, but collide against structural barriers that keep them from making ends meet.
In this case, Modesta and her co-workers took action, organized and won concessions from their boss. It was not easy – their boss initially retaliated by cutting their hours. But, the workers gained momentum, and eventually they won better pay and better treatment.
For millions of others, though, they still do not have the dignity of a good job.
That is why the Center for Popular Democracy is proud to have launched an ambitious campaign to win good wages, benefits and opportunity for all workers with the Center for Community Change, Jobs with Justice and Working Families Organization. Named Putting Families First, the campaign will advance the audacious idea that every American should and can have access to a good job.
It’s an effort undertaken with a sense of urgency. We know that good jobs and access to them for all cannot be achieved without confronting the deep history and continuing reality of racism and sexism in America, particularly as they play out in the labor market.
As such, we propose five straightforward and commonsense tenets:
Guaranteeing good wages and benefits. Investing resources on a large scale to restart the economy in places of concentrated poverty. Taxing concentrated wealth. Valuing our families and the work of women who care for children and elders Building a green economy.What stands between us and an economy that works for everyone are rules that unfairly favor the greedy few because they are written by politicians beholden to wealthy special interests. But workers and families who are working together for change know well that rules written by the few can be re-written by the many.
Workers around the country are launching over 100 campaigns that embody an ambitious jobs agenda that includes everyone, elevating demands that speak to the reality of people throughout our country.
One example: making high quality child care available to all working parents, raising wages and benefits for the millions of women who work in early childhood education and care fields, changing the state and federal revenue models to make childcare more accessible, and providing financial support to unpaid caregivers.
Ensuring that all working families have access to quality, affordable childcare – and that the jobs in that industry provide living wages and good benefits – is crucial to women’s economic stability, especially women of color who are the vast majority of workers in this sector.
Winning these campaigns will make a huge difference for Modesta and her family, and for millions of families in this country who are struggling to make ends meet.
The reality is that there is bold action happening in every corner of this country. Whether we are talking about fast food workers striking across the country, or immigrant workers winning policies against wage theft, or entire communities organizing to win ballot initiatives to enact paid sick days and better wages.
The American public is thirsty for a visible effort to create real, good, dignified jobs for everyone.
We are supporting important local fights that will produce very real change in the lives of workers. And we are changing the broader frame in which those fights are waged. We are not tinkering at the margins. We have our eyes set on transforming the country through campaigns in 41 states – campaigns that grow every day.
We are setting out to challenge the orthodoxies of both parties to focus on the real problem: the need to create jobs and improve wages.
Like Modesta and her co-workers, we are coming together to stand up for ourselves, for our families, for our communities and for America. We have a vision of honoring the dignity of work, and the dignity of the people who work. We believe that we can do better, but that we will have to challenge those who are stealing our wages, limiting our ability to sustain our families and destroying our planet in order to do so.
Putting Families First will change the national conversation about work and about greed, starting where it matters most: in our states. It will enable us to live up to our collective responsibility to create the country that we want our children to live in.
Archila is co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy.
Source: The Hill
Federal Reserve under growing pressure to reform system, goals
Federal Reserve under growing pressure to reform system, goals
WASHINGTON, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve has two guiding goals when designing monetary policy: maximum employment and stable inflation.
But as the country's central bankers...
WASHINGTON, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Reserve has two guiding goals when designing monetary policy: maximum employment and stable inflation.
But as the country's central bankers converge for their annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming this week, they are under increasing pressure to reform their own system and goals to better reflect the diversity of America and its incomes.
At this year's flagship economic policy conference, from Aug. 25 to 27, U.S policymakers will confer not only with their counterparts from around the world but also host a meeting on Thursday with a group calling for a radical overhaul of the Fed.
Fed Up, a network of community organizations and labor unions that wants a more diverse, transparent and income-inequality aware central bank, will meet with Kansas City Fed President Esther George.
It may be one reason why the organizers changed the dress code for the evening, usually a suited and booted affair, to casual attire.
So far three other Fed policymakers, New York's William Dudley, Cleveland's Loretta Mester and Boston's Eric Rosengren, are also scheduled to show up.
A Fed spokesman said Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard from the Washington-based Board of Governors also plans to attend the meeting.
The activists will look to build on their proposals, put forward in conjunction with former top Fed policy adviser Andrew Levin, to make the Fed's 12 regional banks government entities. The Fed is the world's only major central bank that is not fully public.
POWERFUL ALLIES
The group has recently been joined by powerful allies in Congress in forcing racial, gender and income inequality up the Fed's agenda.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has come out in favor of restricting the financial world's influence on regional Fed boards.
In May, 127 U.S. lawmakers including Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders sent a letter to Fed Chair Janet Yellen urging more diversity among its ranks in order to "reflect and represent the interests of our diverse country."
Currently 11 of the 12 regional Fed presidents are white, 10 are male, and none are black or Latino. At the Board level, the highest echelons of the Fed, Yellen is the first woman chair in the central bank's 103-year history.
SIGNS OF CHANGE
There are indications that the steady drumbeat of pressure is having some effect on areas on which the Fed does have some control.
"I believe that diversity is extremely important in all parts of the Federal Reserve," Yellen told Congress in June under sustained scrutiny from lawmakers about the Fed's performance.
Minorities now make up 24 percent of regional Fed bank boards, up from 16 percent in 2010, while 46 percent of all directors are either non-white or a woman.
Yellen, who has not been shy in speaking on income inequality, has also noted that rising inequality could curb U.S. economic growth.
And for a Fed not used to addressing distributional issues associated with monetary policy, such considerations are now seeping into policy discussions.
"The unemployment rate for African Americans and for Hispanics stayed above the rate for whites..." the Fed noted in minutes released last week from its policy meeting in July.
Or as Yellen put it to Congress in June, "We're certainly very focused on...wanting to promote stronger job markets with gains to all groups." (Reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
By Lindsay Dunsmuir
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Drawing Undocumented Immigrants Out of The Shadows
USA Today - July 17, 2014, by Jake Grovum - With federal immigration bills stalled on Capitol Hill, many states are charging ahead on their own to open doors to unauthorized immigrants, from...
USA Today - July 17, 2014, by Jake Grovum - With federal immigration bills stalled on Capitol Hill, many states are charging ahead on their own to open doors to unauthorized immigrants, from allowing them to pay in-state tuition at state colleges and universities, to giving them driver's licenses and providing them with welfare or Medicaid benefits.
Sixteen states now offer in-state tuition rates to students who are in the country illegally and at least four other states (Hawaii, Michigan, Oklahoma and Rhode Island) seem to be moving in that direction, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). Unauthorized immigrants can now get driver's licenses in 11 states and the District of Columbia. Just five years ago, no state issued the licenses.
Other states are pursuing smaller, yet still significant, measures to make life easier for unauthorized immigrants and draw them out of the shadows. Some of the proposals would allow them to vote in state elections and even run for office, while others are looking to smooth immigration-related problems in foster care programs, for example.
It's all part of a trend of states moving away from the enforcement-focused immigration laws that took hold after the 2010 elections, most notably in Arizona, which pushed local law enforcement to check the status of people suspected of being in the country illegally. Courts have largely blocked enforcement of the Arizona law.
One measure of the momentum is that some Republicans are getting on board. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who took a hard line on illegal immigration during his campaign in 2010, signed a bill this year to offer unauthorized students in-state tuition. Last year, Nevada's Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval signed a driver's license law, which cleared the Democratic-controlled legislature.
"It seems like it's becoming more widely accepted across political lines that it makes sense to invest in immigrants who live and work in our communities," said Tanya Broder of the National Immigration Law Center, an immigrant advocacy group.
Washington state Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, a Democrat who co-chairs the NCSL immigration task force, said states are filling the vacuum left by Congress.
"Without federal action states are really focusing in on what is the specific nature of immigration or immigrant integration policy that resonates or that is a priority at home," she said. Santos is worried, however, that the recent influx of Central American children on the U.S.-Mexico border could reverse the trend. "It does make me concerned that we may see a resurgence of border security proposals," she said.
California Courts
Few states have gone as far as Democratic-dominated California in aiding unauthorized immigrants. For example, Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown last year signed a law directing child welfare courts and agency workers not to let a potential guardian's citizenship status stand in the way of placing a child in the guardian's care.
Previously, courts or social workers across California handled the issue inconsistently, sometimes placing children with noncitizen guardians, other times seeing immigration status as a roadblock, said Phil Ladew, legal director at the California CASA Association, whose members serve as court-appointed advocates for children in the foster care system.
"When you do that, and you have a system that's overburdened, time passes and after a year the child is still in foster care, then you just threw a grenade into the entire family," Ladew said. "This is getting back to that notion that in the first instance you need to keep the child with that family."
In 2012, Brown signed another measure designed to keep immigrant families together. Under the Immigrant Family Reunification Act, immigrant parents who have been placed in immigration custody or deported now have an additional six months to meet the requirements of the courts for family reunification. The bill also allows children who cannot be reunited with their parents to be placed under custody of a relative without taking into consideration the relative's legal status.
For years, many California cities have been "sanctuary cities," offering assistance and protection to undocumented immigrants. And California is one of four states (New Mexico, Texas and Washington are the others) to offer state financial aid to unauthorized immigrants, in stark contrast to those states where even offering discounted in-state tuition rates paid by all other residents remains a political nonstarter.
Citizens of the State
New York state Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Democrat from the Bronx, last month introduced what might be the most sweeping state-based immigration measure in the country. Under the New York is Home Act, New York could declare both documented and undocumented immigrants citizens of the state, regardless of federal immigration status.
The measure would make unauthorized immigrants eligible to participate in most aspects of civic life, from voting in state elections and serving on juries to holding public office, earning professional licenses and enrolling in safety-net programs such as Medicaid.
"There has not been a proposal that is this broad and this comprehensive," Rivera said. "The purpose of this bill is to recognize that there are people who are already contributing."
While the measure has limits—applicants would have to prove their identity and that they have lived in the state and paid taxes for the previous three years —it has garnered plenty of skeptical and negative headlines. Even Rivera sees a long road ahead before it would become law, although he's already in contact with interested lawmakers in other states.
"I understand that it is new and out-of-the-box thinking," he said. "There are a lot of details that would have to be worked out."
Others see it as simply the latest attempt to whittle away at the distinction between citizens and noncitizens, all but neutering federal immigration policy in the process. Indeed, some see the New York proposal as the culmination of the chipping away at immigration policies that has been underway for years.
"This is usually how these things start," said Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an organization that supports more border security and limiting illegal immigration. "It is part of this incremental acceptance based on helping people who have violated the law in the first place."
The problem, he added, is "if you sort of take the position, 'Well they're here, so we have to accommodate,' you're going to have to keep accommodating."
The New York move also sets up a potential clash with federal law, although Rivera said his measure is designed to focus only on areas under state control.
Nevertheless, components like allowing unauthorized immigrants to sign up for Medicaid — the joint state-federal health care program for the poor — would surely raise questions about whether federal money is being used to care for people who are in the country illegally under federal law.
City-State Clash
Clashes between local governments, states and the federal government have become a defining feature of the immigration debate.
Earlier this month, for example, the Maine Municipal Association filed a lawsuit against Republican Gov. Paul LePage over his order to stop payments from the state's General Assistance welfare program to unauthorized immigrants.
The LePage administration, citing a 1996 federal law against states offering certain benefits to those immigrants, ordered the state's cities (which administer the benefits and are reimbursed by the state) to stop paying them.
"We are moving forward and will continue our efforts to align programs with federal rules to ensure that precious taxpayer dollars are used appropriately for those in need and protected for those who are legal residents of Maine and this country," Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew said in a statement announcing the change.
But the cities balked, saying LePage circumvented proper rule-making procedure. The state's Democratic Attorney General Janet Mills has questioned the order as well.
In the meantime, a number of cities are continuing to pay the benefits, even though the LePage administration has raised the stakes, threatening to withhold funding for benefits for anyone on the program, regardless of their immigration status, if cities refuse to remove unauthorized immigrants from their welfare rolls.
The cities say their lawsuit is intended to clarify procedure, leaving aside for now the politics of offering welfare to unauthorized immigrants.
Jerre Bryant, city administrator for Westbrook, Maine, said many of people in question are asylum-seekers who need help.
"The bottom line is these individuals, regardless of their current citizenship status, are members of our community, they live in our community, they have children in our schools," Bryant said. "The whole concept behind General Assistance is, when you have members of your community, who, for whatever reason, can't provide their basic needs, the community is there to assist them."
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Hundreds of New Yorkers gather at MOMA PS1 to raise money for Puerto Rico
Hundreds of New Yorkers gather at MOMA PS1 to raise money for Puerto Rico
The movement to help hurricane ravaged Puerto Rico continues. Hundreds of New Yorkers attended a fundraiser at MOMA PS1 in Long Island City Wednesday night.
According to organizers, all the...
The movement to help hurricane ravaged Puerto Rico continues. Hundreds of New Yorkers attended a fundraiser at MOMA PS1 in Long Island City Wednesday night.
According to organizers, all the money raised for the Hurricane Maria Community Relief and Recovery Fund will go towards relief work and supplies on the island.
Watch the video and read the article here.
Lawmaker calls for passage of construction worker bill
Lawmaker calls for passage of construction worker bill
In particular, a 2013 report by the Center for Popular Democracy concluded that 75 percent of construction workers who died on the job between 2003 and 2011 were U.S.-born Latinos or immigrants....
In particular, a 2013 report by the Center for Popular Democracy concluded that 75 percent of construction workers who died on the job between 2003 and 2011 were U.S.-born Latinos or immigrants. Based on the report, 60 percent of the fall death cases investigated by OSHA were Hispanic or immigrants. In New York, the percentage stands at 74 percent and 88 percent in Queens, respectively.
Read the full article here.
The Dyett Hunger Strikers’ Fight For Green Technology and a Better Bronzeville
...
All this in an effort to make Chicago Public School (CPS) officials heed their plea: to end the privatization of education and to make Walter Dyett High school into a Green Technology community high school.
The hunger strikers are saying what needs to be said: that Black and brown children must be valued, their families must be valued, and their schools must nourish their inherit value.
The demands of the hunger strikers are easy to understand. They don’t merely want a re-opened school, as was finally agreed to by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS last week after 18 days of hunger strike. They want a Green Technology community high school with parent engagement in decision-making from the beginning. Their plan for the new school was vetted by multiple education experts at the University of Chicago. The comprehensive plan presented by the community and the hunger strikers to CPS was “excellent and should be chosen,” said Jeannie Oakes, president of American Educational Research Association, AERA.
Why Walter Dyett High School was set up for closure by the CPS to begin with is difficult to understand. The school received awards in 2008 and 2011. First, for the largest increase of students going to college out of all Chicago’s public schools, and then the ESPN “Rise Up” award for small schools making great improvements, but in need of some help. The school won a $4 million athletic facilities renovation.
So what happened? In a part of town activists say is a target for gentrification, the school was closed before students even got a chance to enjoy the new facilities. The strikers called it “racism” and “systemic disinvestment.” “Our schools weren’t failing,” they said. “They were failed.” And Walter Dyett High School was set to become yet another victim in the closing of over 50 neighborhood Chicago public schools in favor of privately owned and managed charter schools, with poor records of achievement, no accountability and inadequate oversight. But due to the sacrifice of the hunger strikers risking their health, that plan was overturned last week.
However, the Bronzeville hunger strikers know what a growing chorus of national education experts recognize: while just keeping schools open is not enough, sustainable “community schools” can help transform neighborhoods. As it is now, Bronzeville is a food and job desert, but Green Technology addresses both problems. There are already 5000 community schools in the US that through civic partnerships address the majority of challenges in a neighborhood by providing wrap-around healthcare, social and psychological services, in addition to the standard educational offerings. Community schools focus on restorative justice practices and a curriculum based in the community and evaluated by teachers, so students can learn more. Community schools are making marked gains in student outcomes both academically and socially.
Take Cincinnati. The city turned around their public schools’ statistics when they bet on the effectiveness of community schools over charter schools. The results are staggering. In 2003, before introducing the model, only 51 percent of all students graduated. In 2014, when 34 out 55 schools were community schools, 82 percent of all students were graduating. Community schools combat racial inequality, as well: in Cincinnati, the black/white achievement gap dropped 10 percent in those same 11 years. Similar results are seen in New York, Baltimore, Kentucky, Ohio, Minnesota, and other places where community schools have been prioritized.
These are the kind of schools that Bronzeville deserves.
It is under this history of political disinvestment that Bronzeville community leaders arrived to last month’s protests: community members risking their health to fight for their children’s access to something as basic as a good public school. While school officials took the right first step by moving to keep Dyett open, they must heed the deeper call of the people of Bronzeville and invest in a community school that will better the future of the children in Chicago.
Source: In These Times
U.S. Cities Issue IDs to Protect Undocumented Immigrants
U.S. Cities Issue IDs to Protect Undocumented Immigrants
To help combat such unintended outcomes, the Center for Popular Democracy has consulted with policymakers and advocates—including those from Poughkeepsie—who seek to start municipal ID programs....
To help combat such unintended outcomes, the Center for Popular Democracy has consulted with policymakers and advocates—including those from Poughkeepsie—who seek to start municipal ID programs. In 2015, the organization published a municipal ID toolkit listing a series of best practices for local governments to follow.
Read the full article here.
Escuelas Chárter: Encuesta Cuestiona su Función y Pone la Lupa en sus Finanzas
Miami Diario - March 4, 2015 by Donatella Ungredda - Existe una preocupación creciente entre padres, representantes, maestros y contribuyentes a nivel regional y nacional con relación al...
Miami Diario - March 4, 2015 by Donatella Ungredda - Existe una preocupación creciente entre padres, representantes, maestros y contribuyentes a nivel regional y nacional con relación al rendimiento y cumplimiento de los objetivos educativos establecidos para las escuelas chárter. Las escuelas chárter son una forma más libre de educación pública o privada. Usualmente son fundadas por padres o maestros, manejadas por organizaciones con y sin fines de lucro; funcionan independientemente del sistema de educación pública y hacen hincapié en métodos y aéreas educativas más específicas. Normalmente atienden a un universo mucho más variado de alumnos y deben cubrir los requerimientos de educación especial de los mismos. El tamaño de las clases es más pequeño y en general se espera que tengan un nivel de rendimiento superior al promedio ya que, en teoría, al ser más libres de ensayar nuevas metodologías los alumnos encuentran más oportunidades para explotar sus capacidades. Estas instituciones conviven con las escuelas públicas que están sometidas a los estándares y regulaciones del Departamento de Educación y se mantienen con fondos públicos así como recolección de fondos privados. El crecimiento del número de escuelas chárter a nivel nacional se ha duplicado tres veces desde su implementación en el año 2000, según Donald Cohen, Director Ejecutivo de la organización no gubernamental In The Public Interest (ITPI). Cohen, junto a Kyle Serrette del Centro para la Democracia Popular (Center for Popular Democracy, CPD), revelaron los resultados de una reciente encuesta realizada entre un universo de 1000 votantes: la gran mayoría apoya la existencia de las escuelas chárter, pero asimismo exige una más exhaustiva supervisión del funcionamiento de estas instituciones, así como la realización de auditorías en sus finanzas, dados los pobres resultados académicos y la falta de transparencia en su administración. "Las escuelas chárter han estado presentes desde hace 20 años, y su funcionamiento se implementó para servir de ejemplo, marco referencial para la reforma del sistema educativo estadounidense. Nuestras investigaciones nos han revelado que 75% de las escuelas chárter han tenido un rendimiento igual o peor que las escuelas públicas para las cuales se supone debían servir como modelo de reforma. Este es un síntoma de falta de supervisión de parte de los responsables", afirmó Serrette "Lo que estamos tratando de lograr es poner un alto al crecimiento momentáneamente y asegurarnos que estamos obteniendo unos resultados educativos idóneos. Recordemos que estas escuelas se financian con fondos públicos y tomando en cuenta las dificultades que enfrenta la nación, debemos hacer una pausa y asegurarnos que tenemos una serie de medidas legales robustas para la protección de los alumnos, maestros y contribuyentes", agregó Cohen. ITPI y CPD consultaron a los encuestados acerca de una serie de 11 propuestas para la mejor supervisión de las escuelas chárter y su administración y en base a los resultados obtenidos dieron a conocer su Agenda de Responsabilidad de las Escuelas Chárter. Las 11 propuestas son abarcadas por 4 puntos principales: · Transparencia y responsabilidad, · Protección a las escuelas del vecindario, · Protección de los fondos aportados por los contribuyentes, · Educación de alta calidad para cada alumno.
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New York City Increases Its Resistance to Federal Entreaties on Foreign-Born Detainees
The New York Times - December 5, 2013, by Kirk Semple - For years, New York City correction officials routinely provided federal immigration authorities with information about foreign-born...
The New York Times - December 5, 2013, by Kirk Semple - For years, New York City correction officials routinely provided federal immigration authorities with information about foreign-born detainees in their custody. The city, in response to federal requests, would transfer many of those detainees into federal custody, often leading to their deportation.
But a series of laws passed by the City Council over the past two years sought to restrict this cooperative agreement.
And according to new city statistics, the laws appear to be achieving their goal, prompting celebration — albeit guarded — among immigrants’ advocates.
From July, when the most recent of the restrictive laws went into effect, to September, city officials responded to 904 federal hold requests, known as detainers, according to the statistics. Of those detainers, the city declined to honor 331, or 37 percent.
In contrast, until the laws were passed, the city customarily honored every detainer, according to city officials.
“We feel good about the impact that this legislation has had because it has stopped the deportation of a lot of New Yorkers,” Javier H. Valdes, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, an advocacy group, said on Thursday.
“Our hope,” he said, “is that with the new administration we can increase the number of New Yorkers who will not be turned over to immigration.”
Even with the new city laws, New York’s restrictions are still not as tight as those of other major cities, like Chicago and Washington, advocates said.
Cooperation between local governments and federal immigration authorities has been a deeply contentious issue around the United States.
Some jurisdictions, convinced that the federal government has not done enough to enforce immigration laws, have increased their role in immigration enforcement. But others, concerned about the impact of deportations on their communities, have tried to put distance between themselves and the immigration machinery of the federal government.
Much of the recent debate has surrounded the federal Secure Communities program. The initiative allows Homeland Security officials to more easily compare the fingerprints of every suspect booked at a local jail with those in its files. If they find that a suspect is a noncitizen who is in the country illegally or has a criminal record, they may issue a detainer.
The Secure Communities program, a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement strategy, has been vehemently opposed by some elected officials around the country, who have sought to limit their jurisdictions’ participation.
In November 2011, the City Council passed a law that narrowed the range of detainers the city would honor. Among other terms, the law prevented correction officers from transferring immigrants to federal custody if the inmates had no convictions or outstanding warrants, had not previously been deported, were not suspected gang members or did not appear on a terrorist watch list.
The effect on the detainer system was immediate: Correction officials went from routinely honoring all detainers to, according to the recently released statistics, about 75 percent of them.
In February, the Council imposed additional restrictions, including blocking detainers for immigrants facing all but the most serious misdemeanor charges, like sexual abuse, assault and gun possession.
Under these new guidelines, the percentage of detainers the city rebuffed rose to about 37 percent from about 25 percent. The rates may have even been higher had the federal government not concurrently altered its own detainer policy, limiting the range of immigrants it would seek custody of.
Still, immigrant advocates said they would press for more restrictions and have reoriented their lobby toward Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, who has vowed to end the city’s cooperation with federal immigration detainers except for detainees convicted of “violent or serious felonies.”
Newark, San Francisco and Santa Clara, Calif., are also among the cities that have more restrictive detainer policies than New York, according to Emily Tucker, staff attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy, an advocacy group in New York.
“New York City can do much better than these numbers show we are doing at the moment,” she said.
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