New Program Arms Immigrants Facing Deportation with Legal Aid
WNYC - November 20, 2013, by John Hockenberry - Fifty years ago, in a case called Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme...
WNYC - November 20, 2013, by John Hockenberry - Fifty years ago, in a case called Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court mandated that those accused of a crime must be provided a lawyer, regardless of their ability to pay. With that decision the public defense system was born.
While Gideon has changed the equation for many indigent defendants, the law doesn't apply to all cases—just those in criminal court. Immigrants facing detention or deportation have no right to a court-appointed attorney and are left to advocate for themselves. In New York, at least 60 percent of detained immigrants lack access to counsel during their immigration proceedings.
But the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project is looking change that.
With funding from the New York City Council and Cardozo Law School in Manhattan, the Project—the first of its kind in the country—provides indigent immigrants representation in detention and deportation proceedings, regardless of whether they can pay.
The Project is the result of a task force of attorneys, activists and experts, chaired by Judge Robert Katzman, chief judge of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
According to the task force, immigrants facing deportation in New York courts that have the help of an attorney are 500 percent more likely to win their case than those who lack counsel. Judge Katzmann says he hopes the Immigrant Family Unity Project will allow more immigrants access to justice, while helping immigrant families to stay together.
Source:
The Health-Care Industry Is Sick
The Health-Care Industry Is Sick
I have ALS, a deadly, incurable neurological disease that is paralyzing my whole body, including my diaphragm. This...
I have ALS, a deadly, incurable neurological disease that is paralyzing my whole body, including my diaphragm. This makes it difficult for me to breathe while lying flat in bed. This month, my doctor prescribed me a Trilogy breathing-assistance machine, which would solve the problem (at least for now). Yet my insurance, Health Net, denied coverage, calling it “experimental.”
Read the full article here.
From Low Pay to High Stress: These Are the Absolute Worst Companies to Work for in America, According to Employees
From Low Pay to High Stress: These Are the Absolute Worst Companies to Work for in America, According to Employees
“American consumers have a love-hate relationship with drugstore chains and their pricey prescriptions, but it seems...
“American consumers have a love-hate relationship with drugstore chains and their pricey prescriptions, but it seems employees do as well. Disgruntled Walgreens employees site poor pay (cashiers are paid just $9 per hour) and other labor issues as major negatives. The Center for Popular Democracy tallied actual employee votes and named Walgreens the worst company in America. They’ve even been accused of promoting employees to salary positions to skirt overtime pay, resulting in employees earning less money per hour than their hourly counterparts.
Read the full article here.
Anti-gay laws drive significantly higher rates of poverty for LGBT people: report
Out and About Nashville - October 3, 2014 - A landmark report released today paints a stark picture of the added...
Out and About Nashville - October 3, 2014 - A landmark report released today paints a stark picture of the added financial burdens faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans because of anti-LGBT laws at the national, state and local levels. According to the report, these laws contribute to significantly higher rates of poverty among LGBT Americans and create unfair financial penalties in the form of higher taxes, reduced wages and Social Security income, increased healthcare costs, and more.
The momentum of recent court rulings overturning marriage bans across the country has created the impression that LGBT Americans are on the cusp of achieving full equality from coast-to-coast. But the new report, Paying an Unfair Price: The Financial Penalty for Being LGBT in America, documents how inequitable laws harm the economic well-being of LGBT people in three key ways: by enabling legal discrimination in jobs, housing, credit and other areas; by failing to recognize LGBT families, both in general and across a range of programs and laws designed to help American families; and by creating barriers to safe and affordable education for LGBT students and the children of LGBT parents.
Paying an Unfair Price was co-authored by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) and the Center for American Progress (CAP), in partnership with Center for Community Change, Center for Popular Democracy, National Association of Social Workers, and the National Education Association. It is available online at www.lgbtmap.org/unfair-price (link is external).
“Unfair laws deliver a one-two punch. They both drive poverty within the LGBT community and then hit people when they are down,” said Ineke Mushovic, Executive Director of MAP. “While families with means might be able to withstand the costs of extra taxation or the unfair denial of Social Security benefits, for an already-struggling family these financial penalties can mean the difference between getting by and getting evicted. Anti-LGBT laws do the most harm to the most vulnerable in the LGBT community, including those who are barely making ends meet, families with children, older adults, and people of color.”
The report documents the often-devastating consequences when the law fails LGBT families. For example, children raised by same-sex parents are almost twice as likely to be poor as children raised by married opposite-sex parents. Additionally, 15 percent of transgender workers have incomes of less than $10,000 per year; among the population as a whole, the comparable figure is just four percent. To demonstrate the connection between anti-LGBT laws and the finances of LGBT Americans and their families, the report outlines how LGBT people living in states with low levels of equality are more likely to be poor, both compared to their non-LGBT neighbors, and compared to their LGBT counterparts in state with high levels of equality. For example, the denial of marriage costs gay and lesbian families money; same-sex couples with children had just $689 less in household income than married opposite-sex couples in states with marriage and relationship recognition for same-sex couples, but had an astounding $8,912 less in household income in states lacking such protections.
DISCRIMINATORY LAWS CREATE A DEVASTATING CYCLE OF POVERTY
How do inequitable laws contribute to higher rates of poverty for LGBT people? The report documents how LGBT people in the United States face clear financial penalties because of three primary failures in the law.
Lack of protection from discrimination means that LGBT people can be fired, denied housing and credit, and refused medically-necessary healthcare simply because they are LGBT. The financial penalty: LGBT people can struggle to find work, make less on the job, and have higher housing and medical costs than their non-LGBT peers.
Refusal to recognize LGBT families means that LGBT families are denied many of the same benefits afforded to non-LGBT families when it comes to health insurance, taxes, vital safety-net programs, and retirement planning. The financial penalty: LGBT families pay more for health insurance, taxes, and legal assistance, and may be unable to access essential protections for their families in times of crisis.
Failure to adequately protect LGBT students means that LGBT people and their families often face a hostile, unsafe, and unwelcoming environment in local schools, as well as discrimination in accessing financial aid and other support. The financial penalty:LGBT youth are more likely to perform poorly in school and to face challenges pursuing postsecondary educational opportunities, as can youth with LGBT parents. This, in turn, can reduce their earnings over time, as well as their chances of having successful jobs and careers.
“Imagine losing your job or your home simply because of who you are or whom you love. Imagine having to choose between paying the rent and finding legal help so you can establish parenting rights for the child you have been raising from birth,” said Laura E. Durso, Director LGBT Progress at the Center for American Progress at CAP. “These are just a couple of the added costs that are harming the economic security of LGBT people across the country. It is unfair and un-American that LGBT people are penalized because of who they are, and it has real and profound effects on their ability to stay out of poverty and provide for their families.”
Paying an Unfair Price offers broad recommendations for helping strengthen economic security for LGBT Americans. Recommendations include: instituting basic nondiscrimination protections at the federal and state level; allowing same-sex couples to marry in all states; allowing LGBT parents to form legal ties with the children they are raising; and protecting students from discrimination and harassment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
“At a time when so many American families are struggling to make ends meet, the report's findings point to an even bleaker reality for those who are both LGBT and people of color," said Connie Razza, Director of Strategic Research at the Center for Popular Democracy. "Unchecked employment discrimination and laws that needlessly increase the costs of healthcare, housing and childcare are doing profound harm to our economic strength as a nation. This report offers real-life policy solutions that, if implemented, would protect some of our most vulnerable individuals and families."
“Reducing the unfair financial penalties that LGBT people face in this country because they are LGBT is not that complicated. It is a simple matter of treating LGBT Americans equally under the law. For example, extending the freedom to marry, including LGBT students in safe schools laws, and ending the exclusion of LGBT people from laws meant to protect families when a parent dies or becomes disabled,” said Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change.
Source
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...
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...
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
Fed Up Coalition comes to Jackson to join the conversation on Economic Policy
People in green shirts stating “Let Our Wages Grow” and “Who’s Recovery?” are all over the main lobby and outdoor areas...
People in green shirts stating “Let Our Wages Grow” and “Who’s Recovery?” are all over the main lobby and outdoor areas of the lodge.
As officials meet for the Economic Policy Symposium, the Fed Up Coalition consisting of workers, economists, and allies are holding a conference simultaneously to discuss ways to foster full employment, higher wages and racial equality.
Ed Donaldson, who is with the San Francisco Alliance of Californians for Community Emplowerment is here to join the conversation on interest rates, unemployment and how the decisions of the Federal Reserve impact Americans.
“We are here exercising our democracy,” said Donaldson. “Monetary policy and the activities of the Federal Reserve are so very important.”
Between 75-100 representatives for the Fed Up Coalition from all over U.S. are at the Jackson Lake Lodge to voice their opinion.
“We have people here who represent every Federal Reserve district across the country. Many have met with Federal Reserve presidents in their area, which has been a very interesting dialog,” he added.
According to Donaldson, instead of looking at abstract data, it is important to have people who can tell you first hand how the economy is impacting them.
“I don’t think numbers tell the whole story about what’s going on. We have a high number of long term unemployed people and a high rate of underemployment. The Federal Reserve assisted Wall Street in getting them out of trouble and we think it’s only democratic that they begin to look at main street and look at ways they can help,” he added.
The Fed Up Coalition’s voice is beginning to be heard. Donaldson mentioned that the Federal Reserve is creating a Community Advisory Counsel, where they will select 15 people to help get insight from the ground.
“I am happy to be here. I think in many ways this is historic,” said Donaldson. “We sort of butted into the conversation, but I think it is far too important of an issue to let this conversation take place and not ask questions.”
The 2015 Economic Symposium’s central theme is “Inflation Dynamics and Monetary Policy,” and takes place August 27-29 at the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park.
Source: Buckrail
Sorry: You Still Can't Sue Your Employer
Sorry: You Still Can't Sue Your Employer
From Applebee's to Uber, employers require workers to waive their rights to class-action lawsuits—but there's something...
From Applebee's to Uber, employers require workers to waive their rights to class-action lawsuits—but there's something cities can do to help them.
Read the full article here.
Inside the Avengers Cast’s One-Night-Only Performance of Our Town
Inside the Avengers Cast’s One-Night-Only Performance of Our Town
The Avengers, and friends, assembled in Atlanta on Monday night, though without their usual armor, shields, and...
The Avengers, and friends, assembled in Atlanta on Monday night, though without their usual armor, shields, and superpowers. The event, dreamed up by Scarlett Johansson, brought together some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest stars—all in town filming Avengers: Infinity War at Atlanta’s Pinewood Studios—for a stage reading of Thornton Wilder’s theater classic Our Town, a benefit for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico.
Read the full article here.
Fed’s Mester Calls Case for Gradual Rate Increases ‘Compelling’
Fed’s Mester Calls Case for Gradual Rate Increases ‘Compelling’
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said there’s a “compelling” case for gradually raising...
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said there’s a “compelling” case for gradually raising interest rates, with the U.S. economy approaching the central bank’s targets on employment and inflation.
“Policy has to be forward-looking,” Mester told reporters Thursday following a speech in Lexington, Kentucky. “If you have a forecast and inflation is moving up to your target and you’re at full employment, then it seems like a gradual increase from a very low interest rate is pretty compelling to me. Pre-emptiveness is important.”
She declined to say precisely when she believed rate increases would be necessary.
The policy-making Federal Open Market Committee will meet Sept. 20-21 to decide whether to lift the target range for its benchmark rate. Fed Chair Janet Yellen said last week the case for an increase had “strengthened in recent months.”
Investors see a roughly one-in-four probability that the Fed will act later this month, based on pricing in federal futures funds contracts.
Too Low for Too Long
Mester, who votes this year on the FOMC, said the Fed must take seriously the risk to financial stability caused by keeping rates low for too long, although she said she didn’t think the central bank was currently “behind the curve.” Nor did she see signs of financial instability already in the economy.
In her speech, Mester rejected the argument made to a number of Fed officials last week by a coalition of community activists that continued low interest rates are needed to extend the benefits of economic recovery to disadvantaged minorities.
“I do not believe that at this point in the business cycle, the current very low level of interest rates is an effective solution to these longer-run issues,” she said.
Eleven Fed governors and regional presidents, including Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, met with organizers from the Center for Popular Democracy’s “Fed Up” campaign on the sidelines of the annual policy retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, hosted by the Kansas City Fed.
The U.S. central bank has kept rates on hold through five meetings this year following a rate hike in December that was the first in nearly a decade.
By Christopher Condon
Source
1 month ago
1 month ago