Carlos Rich: Defending the 14th Amendment

Originally posted at Imagine 2050. Imagine 2050 is project which includes activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.

Defending the 14th Amendment
August 16, 2010
By Carlos Rich
www.imagine2050.net

The 14th Amendment is the affirmation that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are, in fact, U.S. citizens. Efforts to dismantle are moving us backwards on American democracy.

It would take us back to a time when all other people, besides those of European descent, were not good enough to be first class citizens or worthy of attaining any status in this country.

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Anti-Immigrant Groups Blame Immigrants for BP Oil Spill

Originally posted at Imagine 2050.  Imagine 2050 is project which includes activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.

Anti-Immigrant Groups Blame Immigrants for BP Oil Spill
June 18, 2010

By Rebecca Poswolsky
www.imagine2050.net

Amidst an environmental crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, anti-immigrant groups in the John Tanton Network see the BP oil spill as an opportunity to – wait for it – blame immigrants.

BP can’t contain the oil spill and the anti-immigrant movement can’t control its tendency to blame immigrants for every bad thing in America. On the ground, people are cleaning up oil, protesting BP, and fighting to protect their communities. Anti-immigrant leaders associated with The John Tanton Network posit a different response all together.

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Earth Day Will Not be Rooted in Immigrant Bashing

Earth Day Will Not be Rooted in Immigrant Bashing
April 22, 2010
By Rebecca Poswolsky
http://www.imagine2050.net/

This Earth Day we must counter attempts to infiltrate our festivities. Anti-immigrant groups like California Population Stabilization (CAPS) and NumbersUSA are attempting to focus on overpopulation by specifically bashing immigrants and blaming them for environmental degradation. As environmentalists and activists, it is our responsibility on this day to define the significance and direction of our movement. We must address anti-immigrant bigots interested in a punitive immigration policy and decline their intentions to put forth openly racist agendas.

CAPS participated in Earth Day events in Santa Barbara this past Saturday and in San Diego last Sunday. It tabled and promoted its stance on the correlation between immigration and U.S. population levels. While CAPS considers itself an environmental group, it is important to understand where CAPS’s interests really lie. CAPS argues that immigrants are responsible for the “destruction of forests, national parks, and natural habitats….over-consumption of precious natural resources; deadly sewage on our beaches; continually expanding urban sprawl; and more.”

Rick Oltman, the media director for CAPS is also a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens, formerly known as the White Citizens Council. The Council of Conservative Citizens’ statement of principles says:

Continue article at http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2010/04/22/earth-day-will-not-be-rooted-in-immigrant-bashing/

Rebecca Poswolsky is a contributor to Imagine 2050. Contributors to the the blog include activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.

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10 Questions Legislators Should Ask FAIR Representatives

This week the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is in Washington D.C. to lobby legislators to discourage them from reforming America’s broken immigration system.

FAIR hasn’t been having a very good week. Turn-out to their "Hold their feet to the fire” event has been poor, the media has been discussing the report from the Southern Poverty Law Center that labels them a “hate group”, and the Smithsonian Institution publicly acknowledges it mistakenly rented space to the organization.

In effort to help out busy legislators and their staff, Rev. David Ostendorf at the Center for New Community has come up with a series of questions (and responses) that members of Congress can ask FAIR representatives when they come knocking:

1. Do you live in my District/State? A. Really? I hope you’ll move out soon. B. No? Why are you wasting my time?
2. When are you going to return that racist $1.2 million FAIR got from the Pioneer Fund? A. Never? Why don’t you just pass it through to the Klan? B. There is no B.
3. Since the Smithsonian banned FAIR from using its space again, where will you hold your awards dinner next year? A. Glen Beck’s studio? B. Roy Beck’s basement?
4. For an alleged mass movement against mass immigration, why was your turnout this year so embarrassingly miserable? A. You’re all smoke and no Fire. B. You couldn’t organize more than fifty.
5. How’s your latest eugenics study going? A. There isn’t one? Why not? B. You don’t call your stuff eugenics anymore?
6. Why don’t you want immigrants to have good health care? A. You already had your flu shots? B. You want Joe Wilson to be President?
7. What’s up with your hanging out with the vigilante Minutemen? A. You’re too afraid to pack your own guns? Wow. B. You’re too lazy to defend the border yourselves? Wow.
8. Do you support the Constitution of the United States? A. Yes? But only if it’s printed on white paper? B. Yes? But only up to the Tenth Amendment?
9. Why aren’t there any African Americans in your contingent? A. The four members of your infamous Choose Black America front were busy this week? B. Black people have to be treated like immigrants too?
10. What’s with FAIR’s ties to white nationalists? A. You like the intellectual stimulation? B. There’s a growing market for “Whites Only” signs?

Read the full article at http://www.imagine2050/ or by visiting: http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/09/16/top-ten-questions-and-responses-members-of-congress-should-ask-fair-representatives/

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David Ostendorf: Roy Beck, Dairyman

Roy Beck, Dairyman
August 17, 2009

By Rev. David L. Ostendorf
www.imagine2050.net

The ever-media-hungry Roy Beck of NumbersUSA and The John Tanton Network hoisted on his virtual coveralls recently and pontificated on the growing number of immigrants whose labor puts milk on our tables every day. Roy—who likely doesn’t know a Holstein from a Jersey or a milk parlor from a Beltway parlor—ranted as usual about immigrants taking jobs on dairy farms at “… a time when we know it’s possible to find Americans to do this work.”

Roy definitely needs to get outside the Beltway more often…

The nation’s dairy farms are increasingly reliant on immigrant labor to do the hard work that, as most any farmer will tell you, “Americans won’t do.” Upwards of forty percent of the dairy workforce is comprised of immigrant workers, now responsible for two-thirds of the country’s milk production. As dairy farmer Ray Souza states in the same Wall Street Journal article citing Beck, “Once Americans get the job description, they lose interest real quick.”

Continue article at http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/08/17/roy-beck-dairyman/

Rev. David L. Ostendorf is the managing editor for Imagine 2050. Contributors to the Imagine 2050 include activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.

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Rev. David Ostendorf: White Hot -- The Health Care and Immigration Debacle

Rev. David L. Ostendorf is the managing editor for Imagine 2050. Contributors to the Imagine 2050 include activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.

White Hot: The Health Care and Immigration Debacle
August 12, 2009

By Rev. David L. Ostendorf
www.imagine2050.net

While not as crude as the raucous Rushian rabble with their swastika placards at town hall actions, serious white nationalists are unfolding their three-for-one strategy to derail health care and immigration reform, and the Obama Administration itself. In light of the tepid response of Administration and Congressional reformists to the health care debacle, the possibility of more setbacks on all fronts grows by the day: to wit, the President’s announcement this week that immigration reform will see action “when we come back next year.”

When Members of the U.S. House of Representatives lamely cut and run in the face of “angry crowds” screaming about the alleged repeal of Medicare, forced euthanasia of the elderly, and free health care for “illegal immigrants,” it’s clear that Congressional backbone replacement should be the health reform order of the day. One can scarcely imagine what the Members will do when the anti-immigrant crowds are cranked up and come out in force.

Continue article at http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/08/12/white-hot-the-health-care-and-immigration-debacle/

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Rev. David Ostendorf: So Much for “Post-racial” America...

Rev. David L. Ostendorf is the managing editor for Imagine 2050. Contributors to the Imagine 2050 include activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.

So Much for “Post-racial” America…

August 5, 2009
by Rev. David L. Ostendorf
www.imagine2050.net

Last November’s post-election euphoria led numerous pundits of all political stripes to acclaim the dawn of a new, “post-racial” America—a nation that had finally beat back its sordid racial history by electing an African American to the White House. The acclamation was ludicrous then; it is utterly unimaginable now. The vicious dogs of racism are being unabashedly unleashed in countless ways that make the Cambridge Gatesgate look like the normal, everyday profiling it was and is for men of color in America.

The inane “birthers” lead the pack here, fronting the organized racist movement’s yen for obliterating the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (birthright citizenship) in its frenzy for the President’s Hawaiian birth certificate. The obnoxious “tea bag” protesters, fueled by the hate-filled Swift boaters, follow closely behind, swiftly destroying any iota of “non-partisan” credibility they may have claimed as they disrupt and destroy town hall meetings on health care reform during the Congressional recess. The anti-immigrant movement is part and parcel of the pack as well, cloaked in faux shirt-and-tie respectability as it attempts to mainstream its racist, eugenics roots and its dreams of a white nationalist future—an America of, by, and for white people.

Continue article at http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/08/05/so-much-for-%E2%80%9Cpost-racial%E2%80%9D-america%E2%80%A6/#more-2646

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Rev. David Ostendorf: ICEing the White House

Rev. David L. Ostendorf is the managing editor for Imagine 2050. Contributors to the Imagine 2050 include activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.

ICEing the White House

July 15, 2009

By Rev. David L. Ostendorf
www.imagine2050.net

Let’s face it. With the expansion of the 287(g) program, the new employer audit initiative, the growth of the Border Patrol, and the relentless, unconscionable construction of the border fence, the Obama Administration has completely succumbed to the ICE (and Democratic Party) enforcement agenda.

The new and expanded agreements that enable local and state law enforcement agencies to act as ICE surrogates build on a program (287(g))that has wreaked havoc across the country. In those jurisdictions where the agreements prevail, no immigrant has been safe from zealous law officers who turn a minor traffic stop, for example, into a wider deportation roundup. Instead of curbing the practice, the White House is expanding it into even more jurisdictions.

Continue article at http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/07/15/iceing-the-white-house/

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Jill Garvey: The John Tanton Network and the Anti-Immigrant Movement in America

Jill Garvey is the managing editor for Imagine 2050. Contributors to the blog include activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.

The John Tanton Network and the Anti-Immigrant Movement in America

July 7, 2009

By Jill Garvey
http://www.imagine2050.net/

One man is at the heart of the most influential anti-immigrant network in the country. This man, John Tanton, has created an empire of organizations consisting of lobbyists, lawyers, legislators, and “experts” that have permeated the very depths of social and political debate.

What appears to the public as a myriad of voices advocating for severe immigration enforcement is nothing more than a series of front groups, “coalitions,” and spin-offs seeking to overwhelm reasonable debate on immigration. Tanton founded the Federation for American Immigration Reform 30 years ago and shortly thereafter U.S. Inc. These two groups jointly fund and support most of today’s national anti-immigrant groups.

Continue article at http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/07/07/the-john-tanton-network-and-the-anti-immigrant-movement-in-america/#more-2448

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Jill Garvey: National Town Hall Meeting Focuses on Immigration Reform

National Town Hall Meeting: We Can’t Wait

By Jill Garvey
www.imagine2050.net

Among cheers of “Sí se puede!” and “Time is now!” hundreds packed into the Church of the Reformation for a National Town Hall meeting on Capitol Hill. Their calls were clear - we can’t wait, we need comprehensive immigration reform now.

Farmworkers certainly can’t wait. Last year a pregnant teenager, María Isabel Vásquez Jiménez, died after working in a California vineyard in blistering heat without access to water or shade. Her’s is just one of many deaths due to inadequate protections for undocumented workers. How many more farmworkers will die in the fields before our system is reformed?

Janet Murguia of NCLR said, “We need to see the change that was promised.”

Continue article at http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/06/04/national-town-hall-meeting-we-can%e2%80%99t-wait/

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Press Conference Highlights Need For Immigration Reform

At a press conference this morning in Washington D.C., the most respected voices on immigration, civil rights, labor, business, and faith joined together in an "unparalleled call for comprehensive immigration reform".

The message was that America "needs a common-sense solution to our broken immigration system in 2009".

The press conference kicked off a National Immigration Summit being hosted by Reform Immigration FOR America, a united national effort that brings together individuals and grassroots organizations with the mission to build support for workable comprehensive immigration reform.

Over 700 representatives from all over the United States have come to Washington D.C. for the three day summit and to call on members of congress to pass fair and just immigration reform this year.

Get the full story from Imagine 2050 by linking here.

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Eric Ward: Memorial Day Is About Honoring the Righteous

By Eric Ward
http://www.imagine2050.net/

Memorial Day, a chance for families and friends to camp, drag out the grill, and take that long anticipated fishing trip. For others the holiday is an opportunity to spend an additional night on the town clubbing and Monday buying out the Mall. For most of us Memorial Day holiday is simply a rare and deserved 3-day respite from work that occurs between the long winter and Labor Day in September.

At least that’s how I used to see Memorial Day up until two years ago. Back in 2007 I found myself in Portland, Oregon browsing for books at Powell’s Books. It’s one of those bookstores where, if you are a book lover, you don’t dare take your credit card. I was on the hunt for a book on the Abolitionist Movement in the United States. I had been making the argument in presentations that those working both to secure immigrant rights in the United States and defeat the anti-immigrant movement were the descendants of the early Abolition Movement.

Continue article at http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/05/25/memorial-day-is-about-honoring-the-righteous/

Eric Ward is the national field director with the Center for New Community based in Chicago. He is a regular contributor at Imagine 2050 blog, a project of the Center for New Community. Contributors to the blog include activists, immigrants, artists and students who are invested in a future nation that embraces multiculturalism and tolerance.

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Local Blog gets National Attention for Exposé on Immigration Restrictionist Group

Today, a local blog titled Opposing Bigotry has received national attention for an exposé they did on Oregonians for Immigration Reform. Imagine 2050, a project of the Center for New Community, ran a story about how the Oregon based immigration restrictionist group seized on the tragedy of a woman being raped to further their own political agenda.

According to the article, in response to media reports about the rape, OFIR went after the owner of a Milwaukie Wendy’s protesting the alleged "failure" of the restaurant to investigate the immigration status of their employees. The author of the article asked, “Do OFIR’s calls actually have anything to do with an interest in women’s rights, worker safety, or justice?”

Get the full story by linking here and here.

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President Bush Removes Right to Legal Counsel

In a heartless move, the Bush Administration has stripped the right to legal counsel from immigrants facing deportation.

The American Immigration Law Foundation reports that “the Attorney General (Michael Mukasey) declared that henceforth, immigrants, asylum seekers, and all others in removal (deportation) proceedings do not have any right under statute or the Constitution to representation by a lawyer before they can be ordered deported.”

This move by the Bush Administration is just one of the many last ditch efforts to create problems for the incoming Obama Administration. It is imperative for President-elect Obama to correct this at the earliest opportunity to protect families struggling to stay together, and those struggling to escape persecution in their home countries.

For more on this story, visit our allies at Imagine 2050

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Blaming Immigrants for the U.S. Economic Crisis?

According to an article over at Imagine 2050, the Federation for American Immigration (FAIR) released a report this month blaming immigrants for the U.S. economic crisis. Apparently, among other things, FAIR's report went so far as to use questionable numbers to estimate that Coloradans would save over a billion dollars in "arenas of health care, education, and incarceration if undocumented immigrants didn’t exist". For the full article about FAIR's report, link here.

Suspect Data Used to Blame Immigrants for Economic Crisis

By Jessica Acee

To counteract the growing momentum for realistic immigration reform anti-immigrant bigots seek to inject false data into the conversation. A new report entitled “The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Coloradans” was released by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). It’s apparent that FAIR prefers to dump their resources into faulty reports in an attempt to stir up more fear and hatred in an already tense economic landscape. Read on>>

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