Legal Defense To Detained Immigrants
Latin Times - Nov 07, 2013
Like the other 13 detainees set to appear before an immigration judge on Wednesday afternoon, Maximiliano Ortiz had been roused in the wee hours of...
Latin Times - Nov 07, 2013
Like the other 13 detainees set to appear before an immigration judge on Wednesday afternoon, Maximiliano Ortiz had been roused in the wee hours of the morning from his cell in a county jail. Facing the judge at the Varick Street Immigration Court in Lower Manhattan, clothed in an orange jumpsuit, he looked groggy.
"Are you arriving at this decision voluntarily?" the judge asked. The interpreter translated the question into Spanish.
"Yes," said Ortiz, and shortly afterward, having agreed to concede the charge of "entry without inspection" and accept an order of removal from the country, the first of about 190 poor, detained immigrant to receive pro bono legal representation via the city of New York was escorted out of the courtroom, chains jangling at his wrist and waist.
On Wednesday, a coalition of seven public defender, legal advocacy and community activist groups unveiled the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP), the first program in the nation to win public funding for legal defense of detained immigrants who cannot afford to hire lawyers. In June, the New York City Council appropriated $500,000 for the pilot, which organizers say will be enough to meet about 20 percent of each year's need. Under the program, detainees whose income falls at no more than 200 percent of the federal poverty line can receive pro bono legal counsel from New York Immigrant Defenders, which consists of public defender offices The Bronx Defenders and Brooklyn Defense Services.
Organizers of the project trace its descent to the efforts of Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Robert Katzmann, who in 2010 commissioned two separate studies of detained immigrant representation in the city. The odds those reports gave detainees were dim: of the 4,818 detainees who had to argue their case from 2005 to 2010, one found, only 3 percent of them did it successfully, compared to 74 percent of those who were represented and weren't held in detention in the time leading up to their appearance. A separate study carried out previously by the City Bar Justice Center concluded that 39.2 percent of the 400 detainees it interviewed had "possibly meritorious claims for various forms of relief from removal".
Immigration law is one of the most notoriously complex types, comparable to tax law. But Lisa Schreibersdorf, founder and executive director of Brooklyn Defense Services, says detainees could win the right to remain in the country through a wide range of ways. Some have status and don't know it. "We had a kid who came to the country when he was two with his mom and dad. The parents got separated, and he went to live with his mom. His dad became a citizen before the kid turned 18. Now, that's automatic citizenship for the child, but the kid didn't know. When he was being interviewed by immigration officials, they'd ask if he was documented and he'd say, 'no'. So off he goes."
Others who have green cards or visas might be able to stay because of a US citizen spouse; those without papers might be able to receive legal status of some sort - for example, victims of domestic violence or trafficking could apply for U or T visas, or young people who grew up in the US could apply for DACA.
"People sometimes don't know, or they don't follow through and do it," she said. "Even now that they're facing deportation, it's not too late. You can still apply for those things, and that should actually negate the deportation proceeding. That's really where I think most of the benefit is going to come from."
"Then there's the low-level criminal cases where deportation is not required and the judge has the ability to cancel the removal. In that situation, a lawyer's very helpful because they explains to the judge what's going on with that family. It's very hard for an individual who's unrepresented to know what to tell the judge, what kind of things are going to help them. Plus it's very hard for people to speak in public. That's what we're good at."
On Wednesday, 10 of the 14 detainees who showed up for their initial court hearings were represented by lawyers provided by one of the two groups. All of them were from Latin American countries. Marianne Yang, the director of the immigration unit at Brooklyn Defense Services, says they expect demographics of clients to vary. But according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse(TRAC), a database of information obtained from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies, out of the top ten most common nationalities, eight of them are in Latin America. The most typical profile for a detainee in NYC's immigration system is a Mexican (26 percent of all nationalities; Dominicans make up another 15 percent) who has been charged with "entry without inspection" -- a charge which accounts for about 47 percent of all detainees and some 89 percent of those who are from Mexico.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials say the agency only goes after immigrants who fit in its priority categories: someone who has committed serious crimes while in the US lawfully, people who crossed the border illegally in recent times and has few community ties, and "egregious immigration violators", or those have committed fraud or violated immigration law on multiple occasions. But organizers point to the case of Carlos Rodríguez Vásquez, a 27-year-old cook from the Dominican Republic and husband to a US citizen wife who was arrested by the NYPD for "trespassing" in the apartment building of a friend in Washington Heights. "In court, they dropped the charges right away, because I'd never had any kind of trouble with the law," he said. But he'd never filed the paperwork to declare his marriage to his wife in the United States, and the NYPD passed him off to ICE, which transferred him to a detention facility in Hudson County, New Jersey.
His family shelled out for a lawyer. But when his case went before a judge, Vásquez says, "The lawyer I hired made me sign a voluntary deportation agreement without talking to me about it, without me knowing." He ended up calling the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, which helped him win a retrial, but not before remaining in detention for an additional eight months.
In a report released on Thursday, the project's organizers argue that it makes good financial sense for the public, saying it will save New York state nearly $1.9 million per year in public health insurance spending, foster care services, and lost tax revenues. It also says it'll help employers save $4 million annually which they lose through turnover when immigrants are forced to leave their jobs. "Taken together," the report says, "these savings offset the majority of the investment needed to establish he program."
"It's presented as something which is just for immigrant families," said Brittny Saunders, senior staff attorney at the Center for Popular Democracy. "But in reality it's for everybody."
Source:
The Left's Fed Up Makes A Naked Power Grab For Control Of The Fed
The Left's Fed Up Makes A Naked Power Grab For Control Of The Fed
The left is undertaking an amazing back door plan to dramatically increase its influence over the Fed’s interest-rate-setting Open Market Committee.
The key activist group, a division of...
The left is undertaking an amazing back door plan to dramatically increase its influence over the Fed’s interest-rate-setting Open Market Committee.
The key activist group, a division of the Center for Popular Democracy, is working to kick the bankers off the boards of directors of the district Federal Reserve banks. Those boards choose the presidents who serve, in rotation, as voting members on the FOMC. Brilliant.
In scope, the left’s plan makes trivial by comparison Auric Goldfinger’s “Operation Grand Slam” to contaminate America’s gold holdings at the US Treasury Depository at Fort Knox. Goldfinger planned to turn them radioactive. Those holdings amounted, in 1964, to about $14 billion. They are now valued at close to $200 billion.
Either way, a tidy sum. Yet it’s just a nickel compared to the Fed’s more than $4 trillion holdings.
Most impressive. The left is undertaking its own Operation Super Grand Slam.
It is doing so proficiently and systematically. Unfortunately for the left, fortunately for America, it has run into a real life James Bond: House Monetary Policy Subcommittee Chairman Bill Huizenga (R-MI). The irresistible force has met its immovable object.
Fed Up, the left’s instrumentality, was repelled during the most recent skirmish. This occurred last week at a hearing of a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee, “Federal Reserve Districts: Governance, Monetary Policy, and Economic Performance.”
Fed Up is a project of the Center for Popular Democracy, which, according to Wikipedia (citing a paywalled article by John Judis from the National Journal) is the successor, at least in part, to the somewhat notorious ACORN. According to the Center’s website:
The Federal Reserve has tremendous influence over our economy. Although our communities continue to suffer through a weak recovery and economic inequality keeps growing, corporate and financial interests are demanding that the Fed put the brakes on growth so wages don’t rise. There is a real danger that in early 2015 (sic), the Fed will cut the legs out from the recovery before the economy reaches full acceleration, costing our communities millions of jobs and workers tens of billions in wages.
True, and fair, enough. Let it be said that I, along with much of the right, also am highly critical of the Fed. I, a dues paying member of the AFL-CIO, am of the wing of the right wing that is in full solidarity with Fed Up’s commitment to wage growth.
We share identification of the Fed as a main perp in the failure of workers to thrive. From the right check out, for example, Put Growth First. Its website is headlined “End the Fed’s War on Wage Growth: Restore Prosperity for the Striving Majority.”
I, while opposing tokenism, am in sympathy with Fed Up’s stand that the Federal Reserve is unacceptably deficient in social, gender, and ethnic diversity. I have great admiration for Fed Up’s tactical proficiency, clarity of message, and decency in presenting that message. I, too, am fed up with the Fed.
That said, I am on record as dubious about the Fed’s power to “set” interest rates outside the trivial, and mostly symbolic, impact of setting the discount rate. I also am not part of the “raise interest rates” cheerleader squad on the right. I’m for allowing the credit markets to organically set interest rates based on … wait for it … supply and demand.
I part company with the left on its proposed solution of taking over district Federal Reserve Bank governance. Hola, Venezuela! Upon encountering Fed Up’s representatives while we were waiting to enter the Congressional hearing I requested the opportunity to engage in further conversation. Waiting, eagerly, to hear back.
Fed Up is a class act. Making the voices of the have-nots heard is commendable. Bring it on.
By Ralph Benko
Source
Starbucks vows to do more to ease barista schedules
An internal memo from a Starbucks executive this week urged store managers to "go the extra mile" to improve workers' schedules.
The letter was distributed on...
An internal memo from a Starbucks executive this week urged store managers to "go the extra mile" to improve workers' schedules.
The letter was distributed on Tuesday and refers to a New York Times story that was set to be published the following day titled, "Starbucks falls short after pledging better labor practices."
The Times story referred to a survey by the nonprofit advocacy group Center for Popular Democracy.
Based on interviews with 200 baristas in 37 states, the survey says Starbucks "is not living up to its commitment to provide predictable, sustainable schedules to its workforce."
In 2014, Starbucks said it was changing its policies telling managers to post schedules at least a week in advance and not make store employees work an opening and closing shift back-to-back.
In this week's memo, Cliff Burrows, Starbucks (SBUX) group president of the U.S. and Americas, said the findings of the new survey "suggest" that neither commitment was being met -- "contrary to the expectations we have in place."
In his letter, Burrows urges managers to improve scheduling for coffee baristas, who the company calls partners.
"To our store managers, I want to stress that as we continue to evolve and improve the usability of our system, we have to go the extra mile to ensure partners have a consistent schedule -- free of back-to-back close and open shifts that are less than 8 hours apart -- that is posted 2 weeks in advance," he wrote.
Source: CNN Money
Fed policymakers see rate hikes, blurring dove-hawk divide
Fed policymakers see rate hikes, blurring dove-hawk divide
Whitehurst’s group of activists, Fed Up, has printed pamphlets to distribute at the conference venue that say George, along with other traditionally hawkish policymakers, “wants more people to be...
Whitehurst’s group of activists, Fed Up, has printed pamphlets to distribute at the conference venue that say George, along with other traditionally hawkish policymakers, “wants more people to be unemployed.”
Read the full article here.
Clinton offers fresh support for key progressive priorities
Clinton offers fresh support for key progressive priorities
Over the course of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton hasn’t had a whole lot to say about the Federal Reserve or monetary policy in general, which is why it was...
Over the course of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton hasn’t had a whole lot to say about the Federal Reserve or monetary policy in general, which is why it was all the more interesting to see the Democratic frontrunner’s campaign yesterday endorse a change long sought by progressive activists. The Washington Post reported:
The Fed is led by a seven-member board of governors based in Washington and a dozen regional bank presidents based across the country, from New York to Kansas City to San Francisco. The governors are nominated by the White House and approved by the Senate, but regional bank presidents are selected by their boards of directors, whose occupants are chosen by the banking industry and by the Fed governors in Washington.
In a statement to The Washington Post, Clinton’s campaign said she supports removing bankers from the boards of directors and increasing diversity within the Fed.
In a written statement, a campaign spokesperson told the Post, “The Federal Reserve is a vital institution for our economy and the well-being of our middle class, and the American people should have no doubt that the Fed is serving the public interest. That’s why Secretary Clinton believes that the Fed needs to be more representative of America as a whole and that commonsense reforms – like getting bankers off the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks – are long overdue.”
This brings Clinton in line with Bernie Sanders, who endorsed this policy late last year, saying he wants a system in which “the foxes would no longer guard the henhouse.”
The statement also came the same day Clinton wrote an op-ed for the Washington Informer, an African-American newspaper, vowing to be a “vocal champion” for D.C. statehood.
“In the case of our nation’s capital, we have an entire populace that is routinely denied a voice in its own democracy,” Clinton wrote, adding, “Washingtonians serve in the military, serve on juries, and pay taxes just like everyone else. And yet, they don’t even have a vote in Congress.”
Earlier this week, Clinton also emphasized her support for a “public option” in health care coverage, including a possible Medicare buy-in policy.
The broader pattern matters, and it’s not altogether expected.
When Clinton’s campaign got underway nearly a year ago, the former Secretary of State started laying out her platform, and on a variety of issues – immigration, criminal-justice reform, expanding voting rights, etc. – the Democrat not only endorsed progressive ideas, she endorsed an agenda that was even more ambitious and further to the left than many expected.
At the time, of course, the question that loomed over the race dealt with motivation: was Clinton throwing her support behind a series of bold proposals because she was worried about Bernie Sanders, or was she serious about these plans? It’s one thing to make appeals to the left as the Democratic race gets underway, but would Clinton follow through when she shifts her attention to the general election?
The answer to these questions is coming into sharper focus. While the Democratic race still has some primaries to go, the delegate math suggests Clinton is well positioned to prevail, and she’s already begun shifting her attention to Donald Trump and the fall election. If the cynics were correct, this would be about the time we’d expect to see Clinton move gradually towards the center, eschewing some of her more progressive goals.
Except this week, we’re seeing the opposite, with Clinton backing Sanders-endorsed changes to the financial industry and touting her support for a public option.
Maybe Clinton is hoping to win over Sanders’ ardent fans who aren’t yet ready to back her candidacy in the fall. Maybe she believes these progressive goals are popular enough with the American mainstream that she’s not really taking much of a risk. Maybe she actually believes what she’s saying and none of this is calculated in any meaningful way.
Whatever the motivation, Clinton may be focusing her attention on the general election, but many of her key progressive ideals, at least for now, remain very much intact.
By Steve Benen
Source
On Day of Council Hearings, Congress Members Endorse "Municipal ID" Program
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
April 30, 2014
Contact: TJ Helmstetter,...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 30, 2014 Contact: TJ Helmstetter, Center for Popular Democracy (973) 464-9224; tjhelm@populardemocracy.org
Daniel Coates, Make the Road New York(347) 489-7085; daniel.coates@maketheroadny.org
On Day of Council Hearings, Congress Members Endorse "Municipal ID" Program Crowley, Meng, Nadler, Velazquez: Municipal IDs Will Benefit ALL New Yorkers & Provide Critical Services(NEW YORK) Earlier this year, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced plans to make city-issued identification cards available for all New Yorkers, which would particularly help residents who otherwise have limited access to identification documents, including immigrants and homeless New Yorkers. Similar municipal ID programs are in place in ten cities nationwide, as noted in the Center for Popular Democracy's report, "Who We Are: Municipal ID Cards as a Local Strategy to Promote Belonging and Shared Community Identity." Today, U.S. Representatives Joe Crowley, Grace Meng, Jerry Nadler, and Nydia Velazquez have each signaled their support for the proposal. Also today, the City Council held its first hearings on the bill introduced earlier this month. Advocates attended the hearing in support of the measure, which will improve interactions between residents and law enforcement, make cardholders less vulnerable to crime, and improve quality of life for the most vulnerable New Yorkers. QUOTES FROM MEMBERS OF CONGRESS: “Our city must be accessible to all New Yorkers, not just some. Creating a municipal ID card is a commonsense measure that will lift countless New Yorkers out of the shadows and ensure the integration of our most vulnerable communities. I commend Council Members Dromm and Menchaca for ushering along this very important effort and I look forward to New York City proving that we are at our best when everyone can participate.” “I applaud Mayor de Blasio and members of the City Council for proposing a plan to create municipal ID cards, and I urge that this critical initiative be enacted into law. Having an official form of identification is essential in today’s society. It is a must for so many things from opening a bank account to entering public buildings. It’s also critical for accessing important services and vital resources. Municipal IDs would go a long way towards improving the lives of thousands of New Yorkers, especially the most vulnerable in our city, and it would allow many to come out of the shadows. I am proud to support New York’s efforts to create municipal ID cards, and I look forward to the plan soon becoming a reality here in our great city.” "For thousands of people in New York City, the lack of meaningful, official identification is an unnecessary and damaging barrier. All New Yorkers should have access to an ID that they can use confidently with municipal authorities, private buildings, schools and other entities with which they interact on a daily basis. A Municipal ID would be a critical step in ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to be an integrated and participating member of our city. I am glad to see that Mayor de Blasio and the New York City Council are leading the way to make this idea a reality." "In New York, our diversity is our strength and this initiative would help a broader set of people engage with our city. I applaud the City Council and Mayor for moving forward to create a Municipal ID program, which will help some of our newest residents feel truly at home in joining our communities."
The High Cost of Policing
The High Cost of Policing
To the Editor:
“Crime Is Falling, but Police Levels Remain Robust” (news article, Jan. 8) raises important questions about the need to keep expanding police forces as crime...
To the Editor:
“Crime Is Falling, but Police Levels Remain Robust” (news article, Jan. 8) raises important questions about the need to keep expanding police forces as crime falls. The United States spends a staggering $100 billion on policing a year. It also comes with serious trade-offs for municipalities short of cash.
Read the full letter here.
We Can Fight Back Against Trump’s Islamophobia
We Can Fight Back Against Trump’s Islamophobia
Taif Jany is a rising young policy expert who was born and raised in Iraq and now lives in Washington, DC. His family is Mandaean, not Muslim, but his birthplace and brown skin make him feel like...
Taif Jany is a rising young policy expert who was born and raised in Iraq and now lives in Washington, DC. His family is Mandaean, not Muslim, but his birthplace and brown skin make him feel like a target all the time. He sometimes looks over his shoulder when he walks through DC, where he works as policy coordinator for the Young Elected Officials (YEO) Network Action, a program of People for the American Way. Over the last year, his feelings of insecurity have only gotten worse.
This article was produced in partnership with Local Progress, a network of progressive local elected officials, to highlight some of the bold efforts unfolding in cities across the country.
“Personally I feel intimidated when I walk around the street,” said Jany. “I feel like I’m an easy target, even though I’m not Muslim. I hear from some of my Muslim friends about daily harassment in cities, suburbs, everywhere.”
And that was before Donald Trump won the presidential election.
Jany and his friends have good reason to be scared. Muslims, along with Arabs and South Asians more broadly, are under assault in the United States. While anti-Muslim bigotry has a long and grotesque history in this country, the shape and nature of the bias has intensified during the last few years, with Muslims suffering the fallout in deeds as well as words. In 2015, 78 mosques were targeted for arson or other forms of vandalism, more than triple the number of mosques targeted in the two years prior. Since 2010, ten states have passed “anti-Sharia” laws, with a majority of the rest pushing to add “anti-Sharia” measures to their books, never mind the fact that Sharia poses zero threat, legal or otherwise, to American constitutional law. And hate crimes are on the rise across the country, with official reports of anti-Muslim crimes jumping from 154 in 2014 to 174 in 2015.
Then there is the rhetoric—poison-tipped words and proposals deployed, not merely by fringe-racist characters like Pamela Geller but also by leading political figures who have turned Muslim bashing into campaign-season sport. Trump has rightly garnered the most attention with his pitch for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims” seeking to come to the country, followed by the allegedly toned-down version of that pitch—his call for “extreme vetting.” He has also said he would “implement” a database to track Muslims. But he has hardly been the only one to embrace bigotry. Almost all of his Republican primary competitors trafficked, at some point or another, in anti-Muslim slurs, with Ben Carson comparing Syrian refugees to “rabid dogs” and Mike Huckabee describing Muslims as “uncorked animals.” And such rhetoric hurts; it has real, often violent, consequences. One recent Georgetown University study found that anti-Muslim attacks corresponded with calls from prominent politicians to ban Muslim immigrants.
That’s why Jany, along with hundreds of politicians and local leaders across the country have begun pushing back. Under the aegis of the American Leaders Against Hate and Anti-Muslim Bigotry Campaign, progressive officials at every level of local government have begun introducing legislation and pressing for policies that combat Islamophobia. From school-district initiatives in California and elsewhere that require schools to monitor religious bullying, to advertising and education campaigns in cities like New York that aim to teach non-Muslims about Muslim communities, local officials are joining forces with Muslim constituents to show what true leadership looks like. In the last month alone, the city councils of Columbus (Ohio) and New York City passed resolutions condemning Islamophobia—and affirming support for Muslim communities.
“We were regressing into more and more Islamophobia,” said Daneek Miller, who represents southeast Queens as the New York City Council’s only Muslim member and who helped pass the New York resolution. “These last six months or so, with Trump, have made things worse. We had to do something to reverse the trend.”
These new efforts are taking root in cities and towns across the country, creating oases of tolerance in some of the most unlikely states. In Kansas City, Missouri, the school board recently passed a resolution that condemns hate speech against Muslims and those who might be mistaken for Muslims, and explicitly supports its Muslim students. The Metro Nashville Public School Board in Tennessee adopted a similar resolution on October 11.
The American Leaders Against Hate campaign is the joint creation of Local Progress, a network of hundreds of progressive local officials, and the YEO Network Action, which came together earlier this year in the hope of transforming isolated local initiatives into a national platform against Islamophobia. Even before the campaign began mobilizing officials, the occasional mayor or city council would attempt isolated interventions. (In Muncie, Indiana, home state of Trump running mate Mike Pence, for instance, the City Council passed a unanimous resolution promoting religious freedom this past March.) Since the campaign’s launch, these interventions have accelerated rapidly in number as well as kind.
The campaign has thus far come up with about a dozen policy solutions to reduce Islamophobia. Some of them are relatively easy lifts that can be done on a local level. For instance, school districts can write into their bylaws explicit support for Muslim students, and a commitment to hold those who discriminate based on race or religion accountable for their actions. Many school districts have begun to take bullying more seriously; the American Leaders Against Hate campaign suggests being extra-vigilant about bullying based on religion or skin color, including a formalized tracking system for incidents.
Schools can also work anti-bullying and pro-diversity information into their curricula. They can train teachers and guidance counselors to not only know more about Muslim cultures but also to know how to spot bias within themselves and their students, and how to deal with it. While these measures are relatively minor tweaks on their own, together they add up to providing more inclusive environments for Muslim kids and others whose place of birth or religion make them susceptible to Trump-style bigotry.
Other policy changes, such as establishing anti-profiling measures for police, will need to clear more hurdles. But the first step toward clearing those hurdles is to get local elected leaders together to create a national platform capable of tackling bigger issues. The American Leaders Against Hate campaign, for instance, has recommended that states curb surveillance, which disproportionately affects Muslim communities. In the age of NSA data mining, that might be a big ask, but local officials are already making some headway. In June, Santa Clara County, California, passed a landmark ordinance that will help inform citizens about new technology the government is using for policing and surveillance, and make the legal framework for using those technologies transparent and open for debate.
While many of the efforts have been warmly received, a few have run into the buzzsaw of anti-Muslim hysteria either during or after their passage. In Kansas City, for instance, the school-board resolution condemning anti-Muslim hate speech caused an uproar that spread well beyond the city. Despite the fact that the resolution doesn’t require any major changes to school curricula, conservative websites warned of “creeping Sharia law,” and the school district received thousands of angry, sometimes violent, e-mails, many originating from an extremist group called Act for America. The barrage was so intense that the school district had to set special e-mail filters so that its employees could conduct normal business.
That backlash, Kansas City Board of Education chair Melissa Robinson said, was further proof of the amount of work needed to combat Islamophobia. “It’s an illumination of the hate that’s going on around our country,” Robinson said. “As an African-American woman, thinking about the history of what it means to be black in this country, I can relate to what they’re going through in a very deep way.”
Robinson says Kansas City Public Schools joined the American Leaders Against Hate campaign because they understood that Islamophobia wasn’t limited to the city’s school district. The campaign allows local action, like the kind Robinson is doing in Kansas, to have national impact.
Progressives at every level of local government have begun introducing legislation that combats Islamophobia.
While policy is the end goal of the nationwide campaign, its organizers also see it as a chance for ramping up pro-diversity rhetoric. Just as Donald Trump’s verbal attacks on Muslims have led to an increase in anti-Muslim violence, members of the American Leaders Against Hate campaign are hoping that by highlighting Islamophobia and the need for diversity and tolerance, they’ll be able to spur action in the other direction. That’s why the first part of the campaign has involved getting hundreds of local leaders to sign a letter pledging their support for Muslim communities: to show there is a large and effective counterweight to hateful rhetoric.
As the letter demonstrates, countering hateful rhetoric doesn’t have to involve arduous policy change. Instead, it can involve leaders using their positions of power to call for greater tolerance. Under New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, for example, the city has begun an ad campaign to not only promote tolerance, but also ensure that Muslim New Yorkers feel welcome in the city. And in Minnesota, which has the largest Somali population in the United States, Abdi Warsame, a City Council member and Local Progress stalwart, has been using his platform to call for greater understanding between the Muslim and non-Muslim community, and to push for city services to be accessible to people who speak different languages, a boon to the city’s large Somali population.
“It’s very important to highlight the issue of Islamophobia in the same way we’d highlight anti-Semitism or homophobia, and start having a dialogue and discourse,” Warsame said. “We want to bring people together to discuss this issue. It’s not just about Muslims. It’s about who we want to be as cities, as states, as a country.”
By Peter Moskowitz
Source
Chicago Activists, Lawmakers Deliver Petitions To SEC For Action On 'Toxic' Interest Rate Swaps (VIDEO)
Chicago Activists, Lawmakers Deliver Petitions To SEC For Action On 'Toxic' Interest Rate Swaps (VIDEO)
Chicago community activists and local elected officials delivered 88,000 petition signatures to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) regional office Thursday morning, urging the...
Chicago community activists and local elected officials delivered 88,000 petition signatures to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) regional office Thursday morning, urging the agency to investigate complex financial agreements called interest rate swaps.
Those who delivered the petition signatures, collected online by the Grassroots Collaborative and several other organizations, say cash-strapped local and state governments are being squeezed by the "toxic swaps" they entered into with banks before the Great Recession. The complicated deals, which come with hefty penalties and termination fees, were intended to save taxpayer-backed organizations money, but they backfired when the economy crashed.
"These are the same toxic swaps that have drained millions of dollars out of our city, state and (Chicago Public Schools) budgets and are hurting cities and states across the country," Saqib Bhatti, director of the ReFund America Project, said outside the SEC's Chicago regional office, 175 W. Jackson Boulevard.
Illinois State Reps. Robert Martwick (D-Chicago), Emanuel "Chris" Welch (D-Westchester) and Chicago Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th Ward) joined activists at the petition delivery.
Petitioners want the SEC to "investigate the 'toxic swaps' Wall Street is using to impoverish our cities and towns -- and make bankers return all ill-gotten profits from deceptive and fraudulent sales."
The state of Illinois has already paid $684 million for interest rate swaps and could be forced to pay an additional $870 million in November if "the state does not sue or renegotiate these deals," according to the Grassroots Collaborative.
Interest rate swaps, Ramirez-Rosa said, have cost the city of Chicago and CPS over $1 billion in combined payments, plus $600 million in costs associated with terminating the agreements.
"That $600 million in ransom to the banks went to go pad their bottom line," Ramirez-Rosa said. "The banks don't need more money. Our neighborhoods desperately need these funds. ... The SEC can act now to recuperate some of that money for the city of Chicago and the Chicago Public Schools, and they can act now to defend the state of Illinois from further payments, from paying a larger ransom, to these banks."
Welch said he is "disgusted" that "big banks continue to profit at the expense of our most vulnerable." He urged Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS CEO Forrest Claypool to join the push for an SEC investigation into swap agreements.
"We ask the governor and our leaders in this city to stop putting banks before books," Welch said.
Here's more from the lawmakers at the petition delivery:
Organizers and the elected officials dropped off the petition signatures at the SEC's Chicago office, where a receptionist said she would give the documents to the regional director.
In addition to the Grassroots Collaborative, the online petition was circulated nationwide by Americans for Financial Reform, the Center for Popular Democracy, CREDO Action and Rootstrikers.
Read Progress Illinois' past reporting on how interest rate swaps work and their financial impact on the state, city of Chicago and CPS.
by ELLYN FORTINO
Source
Activists Counter Federal Reserve Gathering With Push Against Interest Rate Hikes
The two-day event, Whose...
The two-day event, Whose Recovery: A National Convening on Inequality, Race, and the Federal Reserve, is organized by the Fed Up campaign, a coalition of groups led by the nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy. It serves as a counter-conference to the annual Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City symposium, where Fed officials come together to discuss monetary policy -- and which is currently taking place at the same resort as the Fed Up gathering.
Fed Up’s member organizations brought over 100 primarily low-income grassroots activists from across the country for the gathering. It's a dramatic increase from its inaugural visit to Jackson Hole last year, when the campaign brought a group of 10 activists.
The size of Fed Up’s delegation of activists and presence of prominent economists -- including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz -- attests to the rapid growth of a once-unlikely campaign that began just a year ago. Fed Up has managed to turn the esoteric issue of central bank interest rates into a key element of the progressive agenda -- and a rallying cry for low-income workers.
Rod Adams, a recent college graduate from Minneapolis, said he was attending the convention because he was disappointed in the job market. Despite his college degree, he currently makes $10.10 an hour working at the Mall of America.
“I have seen Wall Street’s recovery and corporate America’s recovery -- where is ours?” Adams demanded, eliciting cheers at a spirited press conference outside the Jackson Lake Lodge on Thursday.
The activists oppose the Federal Reserve increasing interest rates before the economy creates enough jobs to generate substantial wage growth for all workers. They believe that a premature interest rate hike would be especially harmful to workers in communities of color, who continue to suffer higher rates of unemployment than the overall population. Activists say this is partly the result of discrimination in the job market. Fed Up released a report on Thursday that uses original data to show that if there was the same low unemployment rate in every community in America, African-Americans and American Indians would experience the largest income gains.
The delegation plans to present officials attending the exclusive Fed symposium with an online petition opposing an interest rate hike that bears 110,000 signatures. The petition effort was the result of Fed Up's collaboration earlier this month with online progressive heavyweights including CREDO Action, Daily Kos, the Working Families Organization and Demand Progress. Robert Reich, former secretary of labor and an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, gave the petition drive a high-profile boost with a popular video promoting the effort.
A similar petition that Fed Up brought last year had 10,000 signatures.
The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, which convenes the annual Jackson Hole symposium for Fed officials, declined to comment on this year's parallel protest conference.
Kansas City Fed President Esther George met with Fed Up activists during last year's symposium.
Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, is not attending this year's symposium, precluding even the possibility of an impromptu encounter with protesters.
“Janet Yellen is missing a great opportunity to see what real people look like,” Adams said. “We are not data on a spreadsheet.”
Proponents of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike in the near future argue that the Fed should begin raising rates to prevent excessive price and asset inflation. The Fed has a dual mandate to maintain full employment and stable price inflation.
William Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, signaled on Wednesday that they would postpone an interest rate hike that Fed officials had previously indicated would occur in September. Dudley said turmoil in China and other emerging market economies that sparked massive swings in the U.S. stock market earlier in the week made a September rate hike “less compelling.”
Josh Bivens, the progressive Economic Policy Institute’s research and policy director, applauded the Fed’s move away from an interest rate hike, but said the reason for the Fed’s decision confirmed the need for more grassroots activism.
“A week ago the case against raising rates for the labor market was clear as day, but all of a sudden when wealthy people lost money in the stock market the tide turned against a rate increase,” Bivens said at Thursday's press conference. “I’m happy rates are less likely to go up because of that, but it is a terrible reason.”
Source: Huffington Post
18 hours ago
18 hours ago