Diverse Chorus Applauds as Mayor Bloomberg Signs Two Bills Limiting NYC’s Participation in Widely Discredited Immigration Enforcement Programs
New York、NY
Intros 982 and 989, sponsored by Speaker Christine Quinn and Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito, respectively, will limit numbers of undocumented immigrants held...
New York、NY
Intros 982 and 989, sponsored by Speaker Christine Quinn and Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito, respectively, will limit numbers of undocumented immigrants held through the widely discredited ‘Secure Communities’ Program
A broad coalition voiced its support of legislation that Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed into law today that will further limit NYC’s collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the widely discredited program “Secure Communities,” which has been actively operating in New York City since May 2012. Secure Communities, which has caused substantial opposition across the country, connects local authorities like the NYPD to ICE databases and allows immigration to request that the police hold immigrants who they suspect of being deportable. The legislation (Intros 982 and 989) will prevent the NYPD and the Department of Corrections from holding and handing over certain categories of individuals, including those who have no criminal records, and a few categories of those with prior convictions for minor offenses. The proposals are a very positive step and build off of initial legislation passed in 2011 limiting the city’s collaboration with ICE in the Department of Corrections.
“The bills signed today are New York City’s call to the rest of the country, as national attention focuses on the possibility of comprehensive immigration reform,” said Nisha Agarwal, Deputy Director of the Center for Popular Democracy. “By limiting the impact of Secure Communities and punitive federal immigration enforcement policies, this legislation makes clear that we must—as a city and a country—choose a path forward on immigration that protects our families, sustains our communities and promotes the hard work and opportunity that boosts our economy.”
Javier Valdes, Co-Executive Director of Make the Road New York, said, “By signing this bill into law New York once again takes a step to protect immigrant families. As we continue to fight for family unity and immigration reform, we are proud that our city leads the way towards a system and country we want.”
“We applaud Mayor Bloomberg, Speaker Quinn and the New York City Council for enacting this important piece of legislation signaling that New York City will not stand for laws or regulations that harass immigrants and turn police officers into de facto immigration agents,” said Hector Figueroa, president of 32BJ SEIU. “Immigration reform is not simply a social justice issue, but a workers’ issue. Now, Congress must enact a complete package of common sense immigration reforms to protect the 11 million undocumented immigrants in our country and allow them to come out of the shadows and earn a good livi ng so they and their families can become part of the middle class.”
“This legislation will allow thousands of New Yorkers to return home to their families and will improve public safety by demonstrating that New York City is not an extension of the federal government’s inhumane deportation system,” said Lindsay Nash, Liman Fellow at the Immigrant Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
“As public defenders, we at Brooklyn Defender Services witness on a daily basis the devastating impact S-Comm has on our local communities,” said Lisa Schreibersdorf, Executive Director of Brooklyn Defender Services. “Today, New York City has demonstrated critical and very welcome leadership with this new law. We applaud our city’s leadership on this issue, and look forward to the protections this law will afford to immigrant New Yorkers and their families.”
“By exempting individuals with prior arrests or convictions for Prostitution and Loitering for the Purposes of Prostitution, this bill will protect many sexworkers, human trafficking survivors, and immigrants who are at risk of profiling, such as transgender women. We applaud the City Council and Mayor for seeking to protect these individuals from the danger of deportation,” said Lynly Egyes, staff attorney at the Urban Justice Center.
“We commend Mayor Bloomberg for signing this S-Comm legislation,” said Diane Steinman, Director of the Interfaith Network for Immigration Reform. “In doing so, the Mayor has acted with justice and compassion, and made a clear moral statement to our state and nation: immigrants who are good neighbors and contributing members of our communities deserve to remain among us, free from fear of deportation that shatters immigrant lives and families.”
Janet Yellen Meets With Community Leaders on Fed Policy, Jobs
The Wall Street Journal - November 14, 2014, by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa - Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen met Friday with a coalition of community activists who are urging...
The Wall Street Journal - November 14, 2014, by Pedro Nicolaci da Costa - Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen met Friday with a coalition of community activists who are urging the central bank to resist pressures to raise interest rates before the labor market has fully recovered and calling for greater public input into the selection of regional Fed bank presidents.
At a press briefing outside the Fed before the meeting, organized by the Center for Popular Democracy and featuring workers, community organizers and liberal economists, the activists said the idea that the economy was close to full recovery was belied by the joblessness and underemployment of millions of Americans.
“We’re here to launch a national campaign for a stronger economy and for a reformed Federal Reserve,” said Ady Barkan, staff attorney at the center, a left-leaning national nonprofit organization. “The economy is not working for the vast majority of people,” he said, citing high unemployment, inequality and large racial disparities.
The Fed declined to comment on the meeting or the activists’ recommendations.
The Fed last month ended its bond-buying program aimed at supporting economic growth, citing “substantial improvement” in the outlook for the labor market. Those present at the briefing said the experience of many communities across the country suggests otherwise.
One of their biggest complaints was the inability of workers to find full-time work, a problem that has worried Fed officials and suggests the job market is still some way from full health.
“My job used to be steady, something you could count on,” said Jean Andre, 48, of New York, who works on logistics in the film industry. “I’m one of the names at the end of the movies that nobody reads. But I’m underemployed, I just can’t get full-time work anymore, not like I used to before the crash.”
With the unemployment rate 5.8% in October, Fed officials are debating when to begin raising interest rates from near zero. Many investors expect the central bank to start raising its benchmark short-term rate sometime in the summer of 2015.
Josh Bivens, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington, noted that black unemployment is generally double the overall level. Black communities would be among those hit hardest by potentially premature Fed rate increases, he said.
The activist group also called for greater public input into the selection of the presidents of the Fed’s 12 regional banks. This comes ahead of the retirements next year of Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher and Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser. The two have been some of the most vocal opponents of aggressive Fed efforts to reduce unemployment—such as holding short-term rates near zero and buying bonds to lower long-term rates–arguing such policies risk fueling excessive inflation and asset bubbles while doing little good for the economy.
Fed presidents are selected by the boards of directors of the regional Feds, with the approval of the Washington-based Fed board of governors. The regional boards are composed of bankers, business executives and community representatives,
Kati Sipp, a director of the Pennsylvania Working Families Party who spoke at the briefing, said many of the regional bank board members designated as community representatives are not truly representative of the communities they are supposed to serve. “Right now in Philadelphia we have Comcast CMCSA +0.10% executives that are representing the public, and we think that it’s important for us that real people are also representing the public in Federal Reserve policy making.”
Michael Angelakis, vice chairman and CFO of Comcast Corp., is deputy director of the Philadelphia Fed’s Board.
“In Philadelphia we’ve had an 8% average unemployment rate for this year and it’s a 14.5% unemployment rate for the black community,” Ms. Sipp said. If Mr. Plosser believes the economy is back to full health, she said, then he hasn’t visited many of his own city’s troubled neighborhoods. “If he had, he would not believe that our economy has really recovered.”
Mr. Plosser has said he believes the job market is close to full employment and the economic recovery is genuine, if unremarkable.
The Philadelphia Fed announced Friday that Korn Ferry KFY -0.15%, the executive search firm hired to conduct the search for a new president, established an email address “to receive inquiries.” Asked if the move was in response to the protests, a spokesperson said it was “one part of our broad search process.”
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Supreme Court deadlocks on immigration case
Karla Cano faces uncertainty. She had expected to qualify for deferred action under the Obama administration’s executive orders on immigration. But a tied decision by the U.S. Supreme Court...
Karla Cano faces uncertainty. She had expected to qualify for deferred action under the Obama administration’s executive orders on immigration. But a tied decision by the U.S. Supreme Court creates uncertainty for Cano and her family.
“All that is unjust about my situation will continue,” said Cano, 21, a senior at Mount Mary University and the mother of a 2-year-old son.
“I am in college so I can have a career helping others, but I cannot start a career like that without work authorization,” she said. “We just want to help this country and support our families like anyone else.”
The court on June 23 deadlocked on President Barack Obama’s executive actions taken to shield millions living in the United States from deportation.
The 4–4 tie means the next president and a new Congress will determine any change in U.S. immigration policy. The president said the court’s deadlock “takes us further from the country we aspire to be.”
Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for president, called the court ruling unacceptable and pledged to “do everything possible under the law to go further to protect families.”
The dispute before the eight justices — the case was heard in April, after the death of Antonin Scalia — was over the legality of the administration’s orders creating “deferred action for parents of Americans and lawful permanent residents” or DAPA and expanding “deferred action for childhood arrivals” or DACA.
Basically the actions would have provided protection from deportation and three-year work permits to about 5 million undocumented parents of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, as well as undocumented people who came to the United States before the age of 16.
The president announced the orders in 2014 and, soon after, they were challenged by 26 states led by Republican governors, including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
Federal district and appeals courts sided with the states and said the executive office lacked the authority to issue orders shielding immigrants from deportation.
The high court tie means the appeals court ruling stands. But the ruling in United States v. Texas did not set any landmark standards in the dispute over immigration.
The U.S. Justice Department brought the case to the Supreme Court, seeking to overturn the appeals court decision.
The American Civil Liberties Union was among the many groups to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the case.
Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said, the “4–4 tie has a profound impact on millions of American families whose lives will remain in limbo and who will now continue the fight. In setting the DAPA guidelines, President Obama exercised the same prosecutorial discretion his predecessors have wielded without controversy and ultimately the courts should hold that the action was lawful.”
Reaction from the U.S. progressive community was swift and compassionate.
“This split decision deals a severe blow to millions of immigrant families who have already been waiting more than 18 months for the DAPA and DACA programs to be implemented,” said Alianza Americas’ executive director Oscar Chacón. “The cold fact is that millions of parents and children will go to bed tonight knowing once again that their families could be torn apart at any moment.”
At the Center for Popular Democracy, co-executive director Ana Maria Archila said, “If the highest court in the land cannot find a majority for justice and compassion, there is something truly broken in our system of laws, checks and balances.”
In Wisconsin, Voces de la Frontera held news conferences in Green Bay, Madison and in Milwaukee. LULAC, Centro Hispano and the Southside Organizing Committee also were involved.
“This is very sad for me,” said Jose Flores, a factory worker, father of four and also the president of Voces de la Frontera. “I have been waiting and fighting for reform like DAPA for years. But we are not giving up. I refuse ... to shrink back into the shadows.”
Cano, a member of Voces de la Frontera, said, “I am not giving up on the struggle. We need more people to get involved in the upcoming elections, because this decision shows the importance of both the presidential and U.S. congressional elections and whom the next president will nominate to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
BY LISA NEFF
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Labor Activists Applaud First Statewide ‘Fair Scheduling’ Law
Starting next summer, companies in Oregon will have to give workers at least seven days’ notice about when they’ll have to work, according to legislation signed Tuesday by Governor Kate Brown. A...
Starting next summer, companies in Oregon will have to give workers at least seven days’ notice about when they’ll have to work, according to legislation signed Tuesday by Governor Kate Brown. A handful of major cities have passed “fair scheduling” laws, but Oregon is the first state to do so and the biggest victory on the issue so far for labor activists.
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Futures and Commodity Market News: United States : Sanders, Sherman Introduce Legislation to Break Up Too Big to Fail Financial Institutions
Futures and Commodity Market News: United States : Sanders, Sherman Introduce Legislation to Break Up Too Big to Fail Financial Institutions
The bill is supported by the AFL-CIO, Public Citizen, Americans for Financial Reform, Center for Popular Democracy Action and Demand Progress Action. Experts supporting the bill include: Simon...
The bill is supported by the AFL-CIO, Public Citizen, Americans for Financial Reform, Center for Popular Democracy Action and Demand Progress Action. Experts supporting the bill include: Simon Johnson, former IMF chief economist, Robert Reich, UC Berkeley, Bob Hockett, Cornell Law School, Jennifer Taub, Vermont Law School, Nomi Prins, former investment banker, and Rep. Brad Miller, Roosevelt Institute.
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Arizona Rep. Isela Blanc arrested during DACA protest on National Mall in D.C.
Arizona Rep. Isela Blanc arrested during DACA protest on National Mall in D.C.
A video of the incident posted by the immigrant-advocacy group Living United for Change in Arizona on Facebook shows Blanc and other demonstrators being arrested after they staged a sit-in,...
A video of the incident posted by the immigrant-advocacy group Living United for Change in Arizona on Facebook shows Blanc and other demonstrators being arrested after they staged a sit-in, blocking a street on the mall.
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Ciudanía en Nueva York – Importancia de las Cooperativas de Trabajo
Comunidad Y Trabajadores Unidos - July 15, 2014 - El debate sobre los derechos de migrantes parece estar tan polarizado y por eso no vimos mucho progreso en la reforma migratoria ni en asegurar...
Comunidad Y Trabajadores Unidos - July 15, 2014 - El debate sobre los derechos de migrantes parece estar tan polarizado y por eso no vimos mucho progreso en la reforma migratoria ni en asegurar los derechos de los trabajadores. En Nueva York podemos ver cambios que muestran algunas oportunidades para los migrantes a nivel estatal. En este programa vamos a enfocarnos en dos de los cambios: la legislación que ofrece ciudadanía en Nueva York y el avance de cooperativas de trabajo para trabajadores.
Ciudanía en Nueva York
Hasta ahora el debate sobre la reforma migratoria solo pasó a nivel federal pero la legislación que se desarrolló recientemente, trajo el debate a nivel estatal. La legislación que se desarrolló ofrece ciudanía para en Nueva York para los migrantes y Andrew Friedman habla sobre el significado de esta ley. Andrew Friedman es el co-director del centro de democracia popular y es parte del movimiento que empuja para esta legislación. Friedman habla sobre por qué Nueva York debería desarrollar una legislación que ayude a los migrantes y sobre el papel importante que juegan los migrantes en Nueva York.
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Las ciudades advierten a las empresas que no cooperen con Trump
Las ciudades han sido los principales puntos de resistencia contra la política de Donald Trump, en particular sus planes de tomar medidas contra los inmigrantes.
Las ciudades se han...
Las ciudades han sido los principales puntos de resistencia contra la política de Donald Trump, en particular sus planes de tomar medidas contra los inmigrantes.
Las ciudades se han mantenido firmes y proclamado orgullosamente ser santuarios de inmigrantes ante las amenazas de la Casa Blanca de quitarles fondos federales. Han prometido apoyar el acuerdo de París sobre el clima después del sorpresivo anuncio de Trump de que Estados Unidos dejará de respaldar el histórico pacto.
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Women workers vow to fight back after Supreme Court ruling
Women workers vow to fight back after Supreme Court ruling
“In early 2017, I became network president and co-executive director at the Center for Popular Democracy, a national network of more than 50 grassroots community organizing groups in 34 states,...
“In early 2017, I became network president and co-executive director at the Center for Popular Democracy, a national network of more than 50 grassroots community organizing groups in 34 states, Puerto Rico, and Washington, D.C. In this capacity, I’ve had the opportunity to meet working women all across the country, and I’ve seen firsthand the commitment Freeman Brown is naming. Women, especially women of color, know that being a union member gives them greater economic security than their nonunion sisters have.”
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Celebs, supporters of Dream Act face off with anti-DACA protesters
For many DREAMERS, or undocumented young immigrants fighting to stay in the country, their battle could depend a lot on what happens in the next few weeks in Congress.
Supporters and...
For many DREAMERS, or undocumented young immigrants fighting to stay in the country, their battle could depend a lot on what happens in the next few weeks in Congress.
Supporters and protestors of those DREAMERS clashed in West LA Wednesday in front of Senator Feinstein's office.
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2 months ago
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