Center for Popular Democracy Names Jennifer Epps-Addison Network President
Center for Popular Democracy Names Jennifer Epps-Addison Network President
The Center for Popular Democracy Tuesday announced the appointment of Jennifer Epps-Addison as the new president of its...
The Center for Popular Democracy Tuesday announced the appointment of Jennifer Epps-Addison as the new president of its network of 43 state-based partner organizations. She will also serve as the social and economic justice organization’s Co-Executive Director.
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As Federal Reserve Selects New Top Officials, Coalition Calls for Public Input
New York Times - November 10, 2014, by Binyamin Appelbaum - A coalition of community groups and labor unions wants the...
New York Times - November 10, 2014, by Binyamin Appelbaum - A coalition of community groups and labor unions wants the Federal Reserve to change the way some Fed officials are appointed, criticizing the existing process as secretive, undemocratic and dominated by banks and other large corporations.
In letters sent to Fed officials last week, the coalition called for the central bank to let the public participate in choosing new presidents for the regional reserve banks in Philadelphia and Dallas. The current heads of both banks plan to step down in the first half of 2015.
The Fed’s chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, has agreed to meet on Friday with about three dozen representatives of the groups to hear their concerns.
“The Federal Reserve has huge influence over the number of people who have jobs, over our wages, over the number of hours that we get to work, and yet we don’t have discussion and engagement over what Fed policy should be,” said Ady Barkan, a lawyer with the Center for Popular Democracy, a Brooklyn-based advocacy group that is orchestrating the campaigns. “More people’s voices need to be heard.”
A spokeswoman for Ms. Yellen confirmed the meeting but declined to comment on the issues raised by the groups.
The Philadelphia Fed said in an email that the institution “is conducting a broad search for its next president and will consider a diverse group of candidates from inside and outside the Federal Reserve System.”
James Hoard, a spokesman for the Dallas Fed, said the bank’s board would meet on Thursday to discuss the search process.
The campaign is part of a broader increase in political pressure on the Fed, which is engaged in a long-running campaign to stimulate the economy that some liberals regard as insufficient and some conservatives see as both ineffective and dangerous. Mr. Barkan led a picket line in support of the Fed’s efforts in August outside the annual monetary policy conference at Jackson Hole, Wyo.
House Republicans, meanwhile, have passed legislation that seeks to reduce the Fed’s flexibility in responding to economic downturns, arguing that such efforts are destabilizing.
The Fed acts like a monolith, but it has a complicated skeleton. Most power rests with a board of governors in Washington, who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. But operations are conducted through 12 regional banks, each of which selects its own president. And those presidents rotate among themselves five of the 12 seats on the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets monetary policy.
The two presidents who have said they plan to step down are, by coincidence, among the most outspoken internal critics of the Fed’s campaign to stimulate the economy. Charles I. Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Fed since 2006, plans to retire at the end of March. Richard W. Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed since 2005, is required to step down by the end of April, though he has not set a date.
Their replacements will be selected by the board of each reserve bank. Each board has nine members, including three bankers, but under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, only the nonbank members can participate in the process. The banks in each reserve district, however, still elect three of those six nonbank members. The other three, including the chairman and vice chairman, are appointed by the Fed board in Washington.
By law, the boards are supposed to represent a diverse set of viewpoints, including “labor and consumers.” But the 72 nonbank board members are predominantly corporate executives. Just eight are leaders of community groups; two more are leaders of labor groups.
Corporate executives exclusively make up the boards of the St. Louis and Richmond regional banks. The Dallas Fed’s board includes the presidents of the Houston Endowment — a charitable organization — and the University of Houston. The Philadelphia Fed has five executives and the president of the University of Delaware.
“I look at that list and it doesn’t strike me that most of those folks are representing the public,” Kati Sipp, director of Pennsylvania Working Families, a nonprofit advocacy group that is one of the signatories of the recent letter, said of the Philadelphia Fed’s board. “We believe it is important for the people who are making economic policy to hear from the regular folks on the ground who are being affected by those decisions.”
The two dozen signatories also include the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, New Jersey Communities United and W. Wilson Goode Jr., a Philadelphia city councilman. The letter asks for the Fed to disclose basic information about the selection process, including the timetable, criteria and, eventually, names of candidates. It also seeks search committee seats and opportunities to question the candidates publicly.
The selection process is secretive, but control has increasingly shifted from the regional banks to the board of governors. Beginning under the leadership of Alan Greenspan, a former Fed chairman, the central bank has sought presidents who can contribute to making monetary policy. The board provides informal guidance during the winnowing process, and candidates travel to Washington to meet with the governors.
As a result of that trend, 10 of the 12 sitting presidents are former Fed staffers, economists or both. Mr. Fisher, a former investor, is one exception. The other is Dennis P. Lockhart, a former banker who leads the Atlanta Fed — and is the next president who will reach retirement age.
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La “Reforma” tributaria es un ataque disfrazado contra las comunidades de color
La “Reforma” tributaria es un ataque disfrazado contra las comunidades de color
Después de que miles de electores acudieron en masa a Washington DC para detener a los republicanos en su intento de...
Después de que miles de electores acudieron en masa a Washington DC para detener a los republicanos en su intento de derogar la ley de atención médica, pensamos que habíamos ganado cuando los republicanos del Congreso pusieron fin a la propuesta Cassidy-Graham.
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Harvard's Endowment Is Profiting From Puerto Rico's Debt As The Island's Schools Face Crippling Cuts
Harvard's Endowment Is Profiting From Puerto Rico's Debt As The Island's Schools Face Crippling Cuts
Bearing a large banner reading “Harvard Divest from Baupost,” hundreds of activists marched at Harvard Yard on...
Bearing a large banner reading “Harvard Divest from Baupost,” hundreds of activists marched at Harvard Yard on Wednesday. Members of the Harvard Student Labor Action Movement participated in the protest, along with union groups, community organizers affiliated with the Center for Popular Democracy, and anti-hedge fund activists with the coalition Hedge Clippers.
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For the Undocumented, Life Looks Different Outside a Sanctuary City
For the Undocumented, Life Looks Different Outside a Sanctuary City
This story was first published in Spanish on our sister site, CityLab Latino. The marker between two territories is not...
This story was first published in Spanish on our sister site, CityLab Latino.
The marker between two territories is not just a line on a map. Norma Casimiro knows this all too well. Seventeen years ago, she left her home state of Morelos, Mexico, with a young son. Since then, she has lived in Westbury, New York, a suburban town in Nassau County with a population of just over 15,000. She lives in a studio in a sublet single-family home with her husband, who is also undocumented, and their 8-year-old daughter who was born in the United States.
Now, in the aftermath of the presidential election, Casimiro is anxious. Westbury is 11 miles from Queens, which means 11 miles from the protections that a so-called "sanctuary city" offers undocumented immigrants.
"We’ve never really considered moving to the city because we have jobs here and we feel as if we’re a part of the community," Casimiro said. "But it does sometimes cross our minds because of what could happen after January 20."
She knows that New York City would provide better public services for her and her family. "You can feel safer over there," she said, "especially after I heard Mayor (Bill) De Blasio say he would defend all New Yorkers, regardless of their immigration situation."
Living in the middle-class suburbs comes with a number of everyday difficulties, like limited transportation, scant social programs and high cost of living. Now, Casimiro feels even more vulnerable, anxious over the president-elect’s campaign threat to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. She also lives in fear that Trump’s anti-immigration policies may leave her son without the benefits of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), a type of administrative relief from deportation created during the Obama administration.
Since the election, she's perceived a change in the way people in the community look at her. "I have noticed some disapproving looks that left me with a bad taste," she said. "In Westbury, there are more Latinos than in other parts of the island and you feel safer. But I still feel afraid of going to some stores alone."
She and her family know that Westbury law enforcement has collaborated with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the past. That's why the family generally avoids any type of conflict and rarely goes out at night.
Once, Casimiro had an incident while cleaning a house in the area, which left her shaken.
"I was taking the trash out ... and the alarm went off in the neighbor’s home," she said. "The police cornered me and asked me lots of questions. They asked for my ID. I wish I had one of those IDs they give out in New York. I told them I didn’t have it on me because the owner had brought me in her car. Luckily, the babysitter, who speaks good English, came and intervened on my behalf."
In 2014, the Nassau Sheriff’s Department ceased cooperation with ICE and stopped holding immigrants in jail for longer than allowed by law. The Sheriff’s Department also adopted a set of recommendations, such as that agents not ask anyone about their immigration status.
The organization Make The Road New York explains the difference between living in a city or the suburbs. "The very structure of a city offers more protection because of the existence of public transportation, a more dense population and lots of diversity," organizer Natalia Aristizabal said. "The mere fact of being surrounded by neighbors in an apartment building makes people feel safer than living in an isolated house."
New York City offers access to social programs and diverse community centers. A policy, passed last year, states that municipal IDs can be used as official identification and to open bank accounts. There are also a number of reliable lawyers for low-income people at risk of being deported.
Legislation also exists in New York that prohibits the Department of Corrections from sharing information about any prisoner with ICE before sentencing. Nor can other law enforcement agencies provide the federal government with any information about the immigration status of New Yorkers.
These protections disappear outside the boundaries of the five boroughs. And Long Island’s geography does not help. Immigrants usually own a car because of the lack of public transport, but driving without a license creates risk. "The racial profiling techniques used in the past to intercept a Latino in a vehicle and automatically report their immigration status are well known," said Walter Barrientos, the lead organizer for Make the Road New York in Long Island. "In some places, measures have been taken to control these actions, but not so much in Nassau."
Scattered infrastructure and lack of diversity facilitate more discrimination. "This isn’t Manhattan," Barrientos said. "It’s really easy to see who does and who doesn’t have papers here. It’s those who drive old cars or are walking towards the train station."
Nassau’s Police Department reported 32 hate crimes in 2015. The department also reports an uptick in these types of attacks since the election. "Over the last few months, our people have clearly seen how there are people who are incorrigible when it comes to expressing who they do not want in their neighborhoods," Barrientos said.
In Nassau, legal advice for immigrants is almost non-existent. So it's difficult to explain, for instance, that pleading guilty to a traffic violation could affect an immigration process. "Any problem with the justice system opens a door to deportation. This is the biggest fear of our community: that Trump’s promise to deport all immigrants with a criminal history may come true."
Ana Maria Archila, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, said it is important now to find creative ways to defend people against a Trump administration that "seeks to fulfill their promise of harassing immigrants." This includes establishing a network of allies within the community who are "willing to turn their homes into 'sanctuaries' where people can stay and feel safe," she said.
In the meantime, Norma Casimiro waits. In nearly 20 years of living in the United States, she has never felt so insecure about her future and the future of her children. "All we can do is fight so that our voices are heard," she said. "And hope that someday we will enjoy the same protections as those in New York City."
By MARÍA F. BLANCO
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Capital Pressroom - April 24, 2014: Scaffold Law
WCNY - April 24, 2014, by Alyssa Plock - AUDIO CLIP. We discuss the...
WCNY - April 24, 2014, by Alyssa Plock - AUDIO CLIP. We discuss the Scaffold Law with two people who hold opposing views on the issue: Dr. Michael Hattery, director of local government studies at the Rockefeller Institute, and Connie M. Razza, director of strategic research at the Center for Popular Democracy.
Listen to the discussion here.
Activists in Jackson Hole Pressure Fed on Inflation, Endorse Yellen
Activists in Jackson Hole Pressure Fed on Inflation, Endorse Yellen
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo.—The liberal Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign has criticized Janet Yellen’s Federal...
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo.—The liberal Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up campaign has criticized Janet Yellen’s Federal Reserve in recent years for raising interest rates, lacking diversity in its senior ranks and retaining a quasi-private legal structure for its regional reserve banks.
Green-shirted Fed Up activists again have set up shop outside the central bank’s annual retreat in Grand Teton National Park. But this year, their critique of the Fed is paired with praise for Ms. Yellen and a demand that she remain the central bank’s chairwoman for another four-year term.
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Milestone charter's credit fraud has produced no criminal charges
Milestone charter's credit fraud has produced no criminal charges
Milestone Academy is the latest New Orleans–area charter school where theft has gone unpunished for months after it was...
Milestone Academy is the latest New Orleans–area charter school where theft has gone unpunished for months after it was discovered. No one has filed charges against former chief executive D'Juan Hernandez for putting $13,000 of personal expenses on a school credit card, according to an audit released Monday (April 18).
Hernandez quit in June 2014. The audit covers only the rest of that calendar year, but new Milestone chief executive LaKeisha Robichaux said Monday nothing had changed. In addition, Jefferson Parish clerk records showed no case against Hernandez.
This is hardly the first time that it's taken months for local charter school employees to face criminal charges for alleged financial crimes. Typically, lax oversight lets a member of the finance team profit from wrongdoing until someone notices odd gaps in the reports.
Ten months after someone stole almost $70,000 from the KIPP charter network, a criminal investigation was still underway.
Someone stole almost $26,000 from Lake Area New Tech High in 2014; more than a year later, police had not found a culprit.
New Orleans Military/Maritime Academy employee Darral Sims took $31,000 during the 2011-12 school year but had not been charged as of early 2013.
Lusher accountant Lauren Hightower had not been charged with a crime more than a year after she paid herself $25,000.
The Center for Popular Democracy issued a report in 2015 blaming Louisiana state education officials for cutting corners on oversight.
At Milestone, the theft followed a tumultuous year. The governing board dropped its for-profit management company only a couple of months before school was to start. Hernandez, the board attorney, stepped in to run the school. The school also struggled to improve long-languishing academic results and faced losing its Old Jefferson campus. It has since moved to Gentilly.
Hernandez quit in June, saying he was sick of a power struggle that also resulted in the departure of the principal. A month later, the financial wrongdoing emerged.
The board withheld $13,000 from Hernandez' $135,081 pay to cover the loss. It also "contacted the applicable law enforcement agencies regarding the unauthorized credit card usage," auditors from Hienz and Macaluso wrote. "However, as of the date of the audit report the school is not aware of any charges being filed in this matter. This was due to the lack of proper policies and procedures governing the acquisition and use of credit cards by the school."
Auditors said the school has since restricted credit card use to key employees. Under the new policies, no one may obtain a school credit card without written approval from the board's finance committee. All purchases "must have the same level of support as any other disbursement," auditors wrote. And school credit cards may not be used for personal purchases, cash advances or alcohol.
However, further conversations Monday showed the wheels of justice often did turn eventually:
The KIPP employee was prosecuted, spokesman Jonathan Bertsch said Monday. He added that although criminal charges took time, the charter group detected the crime within weeks.
Simms was convicted and paid restitution, Military/Maritime Academy Principal Cecilia Garcia said. The case went to court in late 2014 and early 2015. However, Simms has since had his record at least partially expunged, according to Garcia and Orleans Parish sheriff's records.
Hightower was prosecuted and convicted, Lusher spokeswoman Heather Harper Cazayoux said. Hightower's LinkedIn account indicates that she now works as a florist at a Harvey Winn-Dixie.
Former Arise Schools employee Quinton Barrow pleaded guilty on May 7, 2015, to stealing $9,000. He was ordered to pay restitution but then failed to appear to pay in June, according to Orleans Parish sheriff's records.
And the biggest local charter school crime resulted in serious jail time: Langston Hughes Academy's financial manager was sentenced to five years in federal prison for stealing about $660,000.
An employee stole about $2,000 from Lake Forest Charter in 2013. As of early 2015, the school's board president would not identify the employee or say whether anyone had been charged. School leaders did not immediately respond to a request for an update.
By Danielle Dreilinger
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Fed May Face Makeover Whether Trump or Clinton Wins White House
Fed May Face Makeover Whether Trump or Clinton Wins White House
The Federal Reserve may be headed for a shakeup regardless of who wins the 2016 election, though Hillary Clinton is...
The Federal Reserve may be headed for a shakeup regardless of who wins the 2016 election, though Hillary Clinton is seen as less likely to demand radical change than Donald Trump.
Clinton, a Democrat, has called for greater diversity at the U.S. central bank, while defending the practice of recent U.S. presidents from both parties of not commenting on monetary policy. Trump has been vague on how the Fed should change, but has spurned the tradition of respecting its monetary policy independence. The Republican nominee has slammed it for keeping interest rates low, which he claims is designed to help cement President Barack Obama’s legacy.
Trump has already suggested that if he won the White House, he’d probably nominate someone else to lead the Fed once Chair Janet Yellen’s term expires in 2018. That creates “uncertainty as to who would be the nomination,” said Michelle Meyer, head of U.S. economics at Bank of America Corp. in New York. Clinton, on the other hand, would be less inclined to overhaul the 103-year-old institution. “I think she’d keep the Fed status quo.”
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have proposed legislation in recent years to limit the central bank’s authority, including a monetary policy audit for which Trump has voiced approval. Tweaking the Fed legislatively would require either bipartisan support in Congress or one party sweeping the election on Nov. 8 so that it commands both the House and Senate and can bulldoze through its reforms.
Obvious Change
That means the most obvious change facing the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee will come through the traditional power of presidential appointment. Both Yellen and Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer will see their terms expire in 2018, and there are two existing vacancies on the seven-member Fed Board in Washington.
“I would think for Trump, you’re looking much more outside the box, at successful corporate raiders, successful hedge fund managers, people he may have had business relationships with,” said Aaron Klein, an economic studies fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and a Clinton supporter. While he declined to speculate on who Clinton would choose for Fed chair, he said that should she win “you’ll tend to see more continuity at the Federal Reserve.”
Any appointment will be subject to Senate confirmation, creating a potential check. Meyer and her colleagues at Bank of America wrote in a Sept. 29 note that “the biggest risk for change comes under a Republican sweep,” which would potentially pave a way for Trump appointments in the Senate.
There’s some speculation that changes to Fed leadership could come even earlier than 2018. Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics in Toronto, said Yellen could resign if Trump were elected. Morgan Stanley strategists included a Yellen resignation as a possible post-election outcome in their election briefing earlier this year, though they rated it low-probability.
An abrupt departure would set a "bad precedent" and is unlikely, said Joseph Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute in Washington and a former senior Fed economist.
“I don’t think she’d want to encourage that,” he said.
Annual Audit
Though legislative changes to the Fed will be harder to achieve, the 2016 Republican platform includes a plan to implement an annual audit of Fed activities and create a commission to “investigate ways to set a fixed value for the dollar.”
While Trump hasn’t explicitly endorsed the return to a system that backs the U.S. dollar with gold, his economic adviser Judy Shelton wrote in a Financial Times column on Sept. 28 that his running mate, Mike Pence, has urged a rethink of the international currency system and Trump has nodded toward the possibility.
“As Mr. Trump often urges: It is time to start thinking big once again,” Shelton wrote.
Economists agree that the gold standard is a failed and impractical system, and it would “take a Herculean effort of international coordination” to re-institute a metal-base for the currency, said Peter Conti-Brown, an assistant professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. It’s pretty improbable that Trump would try to reinstate it, he said.
‘More Representative’
If Clinton is elected, a different set of changes could be in store for the central bank.
The Democratic platform promises to protect Fed independence to carry out its dual mandate -- for low inflation and full employment -- against threats from new legislation. But it also said it would ensure bank executives don’t serve on regional Fed boards, and to “reform the Federal Reserve to make it more representative of America as a whole.”
The U.S. central bank consists of a Board of Governors in Washington and 12 regional branches.
“If Hillary Clinton is elected, there’s going to be widespread interest among members of the House and Senate in pursuing, at minimum, the aspects of Fed reform that are included in the Democratic Platform,” said Jordan Haedtler, one of the leaders of Fed Up, a progressive, grass-roots campaign aimed at reforming the central bank.
‘Long Overdue’
Clinton has called for greater diversity at the Fed, and a spokesman for her campaign said in May that “commonsense reforms -- like getting bankers off the boards of regional Federal Reserve banks -- are long overdue.”
There’s already a push in Congress to deal with these issues. Yellen regularly gets asked about Fed diversity when she testifies on Capitol Hill and Representative Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio, introduced legislation on Sept. 28 that would require the regional Fed banks to interview at least one diversity candidate when appointing new presidents.
Even absent congressional action, the Fed is actively working on diversity internally and that’s likely to continue under either a Clinton or a Trump administration. In fact, Clinton and her supporters may have a reason to avoid advocating for legislative reform of the Fed and let internal changes run their course.
“When you’re talking about the Federal Reserve and reforming it in any kind of way, it’s really taking the genie out of the bottle,” Conti-Brown said. Pushing structural changes to the Fed through Congress could open up the possibility of other proposals becoming law, including making it subject to a monetary policy rule, as some Republicans have advocated.
“There are lots of risks in doing wholesale governance reform, and I think the Clinton administration would be mindful of those risks,” he said.
By Jeanna Smialek
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Rally calling for immigration reform include scores of undocumented immigrants
Penn Live – August 5, 2013, by Ivy DeJesus - Close to 100 protesters rallied on Monday within ear shot of a political...
Penn Live – August 5, 2013, by Ivy DeJesus - Close to 100 protesters rallied on Monday within ear shot of a political event in Harrisburg headlined by House Speaker John Boehner and Rep. Scott Perry (PA-4) to demand immigration reform.
Chanting in English and Spanish, protesters made their way from the City Island parking lot up to the path leading to Metro Bank Park where the Republican lawmakers held a fundraiser.
Protesters carried placards and shouted in unison a string of chants, including: “Serve the needy, not the greedy,” and “Move Boehner, get out of the way. You’re not welcome in Pa.”
The rally was organized by a coalition of advocacy groups, among them Keystone Progress, Pennsylvanians United for Immigration Reform, Center for Popular Democracy and Central PA Area Labor Federation. The majority of participants drove in from other parts of the state or were bused in.
As House members return to their districts for August recess, representatives of the coalition said they intended to take their messages to lawmakers’ local offices.
Perry’s 4th congressional district encompasses York County and parts of Dauphin County.
Hiro Nishikawa, one of the protesters, said that the long-simmering debate is finally getting widespread public attention.
Nishikawa said immigration policy continues to be dictated by outdated laws, including the 1996 law that mandates detention and apprehension of undocumented immigrants who have any prior police records. The law has led to approximately 400,000 undocumented immigrants being detained under the Obama Administration.
“People recognize things are messed up,” Nishikawa said. “The huge concern is the fairness of the law. It needs to be changed.”
Amid widespread calls for an immigration policy overhaul, a deeply divided Congress has been unable to advance any comprehensive reform. President Obama has used his executive power to push some laws that provide pathways to citizenship, including an amnesty program for qualified young people. In spite of a bipartisan Senate bill approved in June, Washington insiders are largely in agreement that the House is not likely to agree on a major bill this year.“We are entrenched in the culture that is America..we are part of the people that are here.” – Jorge Salazar
Rally participants represented a diverse group of people, including church and labor groups, immigrants from a number of countries, and even undocumented immigrants.
Carmen Guerrero, a community organizer from outside Philadelphia, said lawmakers have not given the immigration issue the urgency it deserves.
“The law is broken,” Guerrero said in Spanish. She came from Mexico 13 years ago. “This is a country of immigrants. It’s a country where immigration has to keep moving forward with its law. It’s been too long without reform. It has been reformed but only to attack the immigrant community, to suppress the community.”
Guerrero said that U.S. immigration policy is so cumbersome, many immigrants prefer to sidestep the system and enter the country illegally. She said most countries face daunting obstacles for legal entry, including excessively long waiting periods.
“The opportunity to come here legally is too small,” she said. “At the end of the day, we rather break the law. There is no realization to be able to come legally and be part of society, as we should.”
Guerrero, a single mother of three who has worked two full-time jobs back to back as a hotel housekeeper and restaurant dishwasher, says she pays taxes and is in no way taking jobs away from citizens.
“We are the landscapers, the service, the dishwashsers at the restaurants and hotels,” she said. “I don’t think a professional would want those jobs.” -Jorge Salazar
Another undocumented immigrant, Jorge Salazar acknowledged that it would be difficult to process 11 million undocumented immigrants through the immigration system, but that in the end, it would not burden taxpayers.
“It’s not going to be costly,” he said. “We are going to pay for it. Immigration is one of the few government programs funded by the applicants.”
Salazar’s family arrived from Bolivia 23 years ago, but due to a series of legal mistakes, his family found itself staying put once their visa expired.
Salazar said he considers himself a part of the American society; he said he works and goes to school and is an active member of his community. He traveled to Harrisburg from his Philadelphia suburb home.
He said he and his family were concerned that they were risking deportation by being vocally and actively involved in calling for immigration reform.
“The reality is we have to do this,” he said. “People need to know that we are your neighbors, we are next to you in school, we are next to you in church. All my friends are American citizens. We are entrenched in the culture that is America..we are part of the people that are here.”
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7 days ago
7 days ago