Immigration reform will save millions for deficit

While this may be just another study for many Anglo conservatives, the Latino community through the Latino press has taken notice of this report.

Immigration Law Changes Seen Cutting Billions From Deficit. New York Times.

By ASHLEY PARKER

WASHINGTON — Congressional budget analysts, providing a positive economic assessment of proposed immigration law changes, said Tuesday that legislation to overhaul the nation’s immigration system would cut close to $1 trillion from the federal deficit over the next two decades and lead to more than 10 million new legal residents in the country.

A long-awaited analysis by the Congressional Budget Office found that the benefits of an increase in legal residents from immigration legislation currently being debated in the Senate — which includes a pathway to citizenship — would outweigh the costs. While the report was a clear victory for immigration proponents, it came just hours after Speaker John A. Boehner raised potential new obstacles for the bill, saying he would not bring any immigration measure to the floor unless it had the support of a majority of House Republicans.

The report estimates that in the first decade after the immigration bill is carried out, the net effect of adding millions of additional taxpayers would decrease the federal budget deficit by $197 billion. Over the next decade, the report found, the deficit reduction would be even greater — an estimated $700 billion, from 2024 to 2033. The deficit reduction figures for the first decade do not take into account $22 billion in the discretionary spending required to implement the bill, however, making the savings slightly lower.

March on Washington - for Jobs and Justice

Organizing for Racial Justice

One of the very important aspects of DSA is to encourage our own education. The videos linked below are from the DSA - YDS conference in February. You can see the kind of intellectual preparation we offer to prepare young people for democratic socialism. There are more videos on the topics here. https://sites.google.com/site/sacramentodsa/

Remembering Bert Corona

Join the Mexican American Political Association and the Hermandad Mexicana in commemorating the 95th birthday of Humberto "Bert" Corona on May 29, 2013. Bert Corona was a legendary leader in the Mexican American, Chicano, Mexicano, and Latino communities throughout the United States, but also widely known and respected in Mexico among union and social movements, political parties, and even government officials. He was an activist and leader for 60 years in multiple social movements - labor, immigrant rights, peace, political/electoral representation and civil rights, and the academic institutionalization of Chicano Studies Departments in colleges and universities where he taught and/or lectured as a professor. He is considered the father and political architect of the immigrant rights movement during the 1960s and 1970s with the founding of the Center for Autonomous Social Action (CASA) - General Brotherhood of Workers along with his companion of many years, Soledad "Chole" Alatorre. In 1975 he co-founded with Chole and Socorro Alatorre, the Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, which had been originally founded in 1951 by Felipe Usquiano in the city of San Diego, California with other labor leaders of the Laborer's International Union and the International Brotherhood of Carpenters. Corona and Alatorre built CASA, and subsequently, the Hermandad Mexicana into a broad membership grassroots community-based organization as a fighting force against immigration raids and deportations and in favor of fair and humane immigration reform. Their efforts ultimately culminated in the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which legalized 2.7 million undocumented persons. More importantly, their practical teaching methods demonstrated that immigrants could successfully be organized into labor unions, community action organizations, electoral campaigns, lobbying visits to members of Congress and the state legislature, and build mass movements in the streets as an important form of political action. This they did against all counsel and advice from supposed political experts, foundation funders, legislators and traditional party leaders, union officials, and even left organizations who declared that the undocumented could not be organized.

When racists do research- even at Harvard

The Inside Story of a Harvard Dissertation Too Racist for the Heritage Foundation How Jason Richwine finally found a place to explore his absurd theories linking IQ to race at the elite university. Zack Beauchamp Think Progress May 22, 2013 http://www.alternet.org/inside-story-harvard-dissertation-too-racist-heritage-foundation What is a Hispanic?  The idea that some racial groups are, on average, smarter than others is without a doubt among the most discussed (and debunked) “taboos” in American intellectual history. It is an argument that has been advanced since the days of slavery, one that helped push through the draconian Immigration Act of 1924, and one that set off a scientific firestorm in the late 60s that’s hardly flagged since. Yet every time the race and IQ hypothesis reclaims the public spotlight, we are caught slackjaw, always returning to the same basic debates on the same basic concepts. The recent fracas sparked by Dr. Jason Richwine’s doctoral dissertation is a case in point. The paper is a dry thing, written for an academic audience, yet its core claim, that Latino immigrants to the United States are and will likely remain less intelligent than “native whites,” has proved proper tinder for a public firestorm. The Heritage Foundation’s Senior Policy Analyst in Empirical Studies is now a former Senior Policy Analyst — Heritage could not risk further tainting an immigration report it hoped would be influential by outright defending its scholar’s meditations on the possibly genetic intellectual inferiority of immigrants from Latin America. It might seem like the book is closed on l’affaire Richwine: he’s left his job, Heritage is left with a black eye, and not a single mind has been changed about the value of research into race and IQ. But there’s still one major unanswered question. If the dissertation was bad enough to get him fired from the Heritage Foundation, how did it earn him a degree from Harvard?

Fix School Discipline

Cornerstone Theater Co. & The California Endowment Present

Talk it Out: A Community Conversation to Fix School Discipline

Featuring the World Premiere of a New Play

Willful



At the State Capitol in Sacramento, CA



Sponsored by the Office of Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento & Author of AB 420,
the New Play is Based on Real-Life Stories from the Sacramento Community,
Exploring the Overuse of “Willful Defiance” in School Discipline

Wednesday, June 26, 2013


SACRAMENTO, CA – May 21, 2013
 – Cornerstone Theater Company and The California Endowment, in partnership with The Black Parallel School Board, will bring the community, policy makers, and the media together to dramatize personal stories of school discipline and to discuss alternatives to harsh practices on Wednesday, June 26, 2013 at the State Capitol in Sacramento.   
This bridge building event, Talk it Out: A Community Conversation to Fix School Discipline, will feature a dramatic reading of a new play, Willful, performed by students, community members and professional actors, with a focus on the current debate over the excessive use of “willful defiance” in school suspensions and expulsions.  The event is sponsored by the office of Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento and author of AB 420, a new bill that would restrict the ill-defined and overused “willful defiance” rationale for harsh disciplinary measures. 

Gang of Eight Immigration Bill

I'm circulating my recent short essay on immigration, originally posted in the amazing blog dedicated to the law and immigration:

http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2013/05/alvaro-huerta-just-say-no-to-gang-of-eight-immigration-bill-.html

Alvaro Huerta

IN Support of Fair and Just Immigration Reform

An Open Letter to the Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee In Support of Fair and Just

Immigration Reform

May 20, 2013
Dear Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee:
As we stand on the threshold of a potentially new, sweeping immigration reform bill, we write to voice our support for fair, just and humane legislation that will not only bring distressed immigrant communities “out of the shadows,” but which will stay true to the country’s values and respect for human rights and commitment to justice.
Substantial improvements must yet be made to SB 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act. While the proposal includes some provisions that will benefit immigrant communities and future immigrants, we are extremely disappointed with both overarching themes and particular provisions that we believe will continue to undermine basic human and worker rights, foster greater racial discrimination and feed the separation and trauma of immigrant families and their communities. We fear that this bill will keep immigrants in an underclass.
We understand that this is a rare opportunity to engage sweeping immigration policies. Immigrant communities have waited years for the chance to reunite with family members, to be free from the threat of deportation after having lived, worked and raised families here for decades. They have waited for the same labor protections as their citizen co-workers and for the opportunity to become citizens and to vote.
The present proposal fails to reflect our communities’ needs and our collective concerns and aspirations for human rights, fairness and justice in U.S. immigration policy -- the promise of “equality and justice for all”. With the mark-up process underway and before the bill reaches the full Senate for consideration, we urge you to address the following:
Substantially improve the path to citizenship. This path should be inclusive, fair, and safe, without obstacles, undue burdens and lengthy waiting periods. 10 years in a provisional status is too long a wait to obtain a green card. The wait should be reasonable and humane and should not exceed five years, the same as DREAM eligible applicants. While work eligibility and ability to travel are important features of the current proposal, those on the path to citizenship should have access to healthcare and economic supports programs. This includes the removal of the five-year bar on access to vital healthcare and family economic support programs.

The continuing need for school reform

Important essay on school reform efforts in Los Angeles.

http://www.latinopov.com/blog/?p=8208

Shattered: The lives of young children

This is what is happening. Please read the letter below and take action.

Groups Call for Deportation Suspension for Immigrants Affected by Overhaul