March 23, 2011
BY M. SCOTT CARTER
THE JOURNAL RECORD
OKLAHOMA CITY – Despite the claims by some state lawmakers, immigrants in Oklahoma – both documented and undocumented – make substantial contributions to the economy, are not solely responsible for an increase in crime and did not, as one legislator suggested, cause the demise of a major retail center in central Oklahoma City, several studies show. Continue reading
By Ginnie Graham
Tulsa World, March 7, 2011
NORMAN – States are passing immigration laws, even laws outside the scope of their authority, because federal lawmakers have not tackled the issue, according to a panel of national advocates Monday. Leaders from groups advocating for different solutions to immigration regulation spoke at the Immigration in the Heartland Conference at the University of Oklahoma to groups of students and journalists….
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110308_11_A1_CUTLIN946666
By Vallery Brown
The Oklahoman, March 7, 2011
People on both sides of the immigration debate agreed on one thing at the Heartland Conference held at the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Oklahoma in Norman on Monday: Federal inaction is behind state efforts to write new immigration laws….
Read more: http://newsok.com/oklahoma-conference-debates-federal-state-immigration-policy/article/3546803#ixzz1GEEk1pSq
By Ginnie Graham
Tulsa World, March 7, 2011
In the flurry of state legislation proposed to discourage illegal immigration, one appears to have momentum for becoming law, which has drawn concerns from advocates for immigrants.
Rep. George Faught, R-Muskogee, proposed House Bill 1446 with language pulled from previously filed bills and from legislation passed in Arizona. The measure was approved last week by the House Judiciary Committee and is awaiting for action on the House floor.
Immigration reform in Oklahoma is being handled a bit differently than when the controversial House Bill 1804 passed in 2007…
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20110307_11_A1_Ihlryo165451
By Miriam Jordan
Wall Street Journal
During 10 years in the U.S. Army, Luis Lopez served in Iraq and Afghanistan, won medals and had a commander laud his service as a “critical part of the success of his unit fighting the global war on terrorism.”
Mr. Lopez is also an illegal immigrant. In late December, the staff sergeant was discharged from the Army after applying for U.S. citizenship. And because of his illegal status, the 28-year-old native of Mexico couldn’t work as he waited for immigration authorities to decide if he would be granted citizenship or find himself at risk of deportation.
Mr. Lopez’s case reflects the federal government’s complex—and seemingly inconsistent—relationship with illegal immigrants in the armed forces. Illegal immigrants aren’t allowed to voluntarily enlist for active duty. Yet if they find a way to join, a section of the Immigration and Naturalization Act provides them a path to citizenship….
The 1952 immigration law says foreign nationals who have “served honorably” during wartime may be naturalized “whether or not [they have been] lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence.” Continue reading
By Sandra Baltazar Martinez
The New Mexican
Published Monday, February 7, 2011 5:01 PM MST
When state Rep. Miguel Garcia was a teenager in the `60s, he stepped into a small New Mexico diner to order a hamburger and fries. At the entrance he saw a placard, “No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed,” but was too hungry to think much of it.“ `I’m sorry, we don’t serve Mexicans,’ the waitress told me,” Garcia said. “ `Well, I’m not Mexican, I’m Spanish,’ ” Garcia replied to the woman, who then agreed to serve him.
The anecdote prompted laughter from the dozens of people who gathered at the Capitol Rotunda to listen to at least a dozen lawmakers speak against Gov. Susana Martinez’s executive order that directs state law enforcement officers to question an arrestees immigration status.
Read more….
http://www.cibolabeacon.com/articles/2011/02/08/news/doc4d50844e29b45596084414.txt
Feb. 2, 2011
With the debate over immigration raging across the country, 15 journalists have been selected to take part in a fellowship program that challenges reporters to go beyond familiar sound bites and instead cover the complexities of immigration with depth and context. Continue reading
Jan. 31, 2001
By Ralph De La Cruz
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
When Gov. Rick Scott spoke before the Hispanic Leadership Network earlier this month, people periodically yelled out, often in Spanish-accented English, “Let’s get to work.”
During his talk to the group, Scott spoke about being an advocate for jobs, education and families. Not one word about immigration. Which makes a lot of sense, because immigration is not within the jurisdiction of the state.
And there was certainly no talk of instituting harsh Arizona-style immigration enforcement here in Florida — a promise he made during his campaign. In fact, he seemed to be, conveniently enough, backing away from that pledge at the time.
By Sandra Baltazar Martinez
The New Mexican
Gov. Susana Martinez’s executive order authorizing state police officers to inquire about the immigration status of a person arrested on a criminal charge has fueled debate across the state….
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/Martinez-s-immigration-order-stirs-heated-debate#
By Shajia Ahmad
The Garden City Telegram
Most all of the world is a place where parts of wholes are described. This understanding of our world has pushed me incessantly to make sense of these fragments. As a journalist, I’m asked every day to piece many of these parts together. While some days the pieces dovetail perfectly; other days, I am left senseless by their chaotic jumble. Continue reading
By Pat Schneider
The Capital Times
A controversy had been roiling over the Dane County sheriff’s practice of reporting undocumented inmates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement at booking since early 2008. But the story on exactly what was going on, and why, kept changing, and a picture of the practice’s impact on the community was difficult to come by given the reluctance of many unauthorized residents to speak at length at public forums or to the press. Continue reading
By Mary Sanchez
The Kansas City Star
The demands of immigration were daunting and relentless in 2010.
I don’t expect the topic to lighten its call to journalists anytime soon. In fact, the peak might arrive in 2011. Continue reading
It’s the dirty secret no one wants to spread: We are making money off illegal immigrants.
Not just as workers in our economy but as people used by law enforcement officers to fill their jails via agreements with the federal government. The agreements are lucrative, particularly for county jails receiving low per diem rates from their county, nearby municipalities and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections.
In some cases, these U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agreements to hold and transport suspected illegal immigrants finance entire jails, bring higher employment to communities and contribute to the economy in the area by bringing in more jobs and more workers. Continue reading
By Ron Jackson
OKLAHOMA CITY – Anger, partisan-politics and misinformation will always distort reality.
By the time I entered the IJJ’s 2010 Immigration in the Heartland fellowship, my adopted state of Oklahoma was at the epicenter of such visceral waters regarding the immigration issue. House Bill 1804 – then the most stringent anti-immigration legislation in the United States – had already been on the books for two and half years, although court appeals and the inability to enforce the law had left much in limbo.
Still, Oklahoma had clearly established itself as a hostile land for illegal immigrants.
Despite my passionate reporting on the human drama that is immigration, I questioned whether my work as a whole – or that of fellow Oklahoma journalists – had risen above the hyperbole swirling in our state with facts and information that elevated the conversation of these complex issues to a higher level. Painfully, the answer seemed obvious: No.
By Mary Sanchez
Kansas City Star
Jan. 17, 2011
The goal of some Republican members of Congress today is to undermine the standard of citizenship for every baby born on U.S. soil sealed by the 14th Amendment. The new vision is that the children of undocumented immigrants, the vast majority being Latino, shouldn’t be included.
To drum up support, backers trounce on historical accuracy.
Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/01/17/2590333/14th-amendment-outlines-just-what.html#ixzz1Bgqkhyj4
By Lee Rood
Des Moines Register
Jan. 17, 2011
I wish all journalism conferences could be like the one held in Oklahoma for the IJJ fellows. I walked away with so much: dozens of new resources and sources, the advice of some excellent reporters who had written much more about immigration than me, and on-the-scene reporting one of a places where immigration had taken center stage. Continue reading
By Stephanie Czekalinski
Jan. 15, 2011
ICE isn’t keen about discussing the fact that a lack of communication between agents and local prosecutors sometimes sends immigrants accused of serious crimes — from molesting children to dealing heroin — to their homelands before they can be indicted here, which denies justice for victims and their families. Continue reading
Click here to see Stephanie Czekalinski’s final project on the effects of Ohio’s aggressive deportation policies.
By Mary Sanchez
Sept. 24, 2010
How do you inform a young adult that their dream of a college education is collateral damage of the present insanity of American politics? If that person is an illegal immigrant to the United States, brought as a child by his or her parents, those dreams took a blow this week after the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, also known as the DREAM Act, died in a Senate filibuster.
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/24/3053999/they-dont-need-no-education.html#ixzz10pNig5Zw
By Chris Casey
Greeley Tribune, Sept. 22, 2010
With his bright smile and gentle manner, Asad Abdi personifies all that is good about the East African refugees in Greeley. Abdi has been a leader in the community since JBS USA, then Swift & Co., began hiring scores of East African refugees three years ago. He was a driving force in giving the 700 to 1,000 local refugees a place to gather, support each other and learn English in order to assimilate into American culture. Along with several elders from his homeland, Abdi launched the nonprofit East Africa Community in a small space at 938 13th St. in the summer of 2008. It only took a shift to a brick building a few blocks away, but Abdi is now more bullish — to use a completely American term — on the refugees’ prospects than ever before.
By Mary Sanchez
Kansas City Star, Sept. 19, 2010
By Miriam Jordan
Wall Street Journal, Sept. 18, 2010
LOS ANGELES—David Cho, an honor student and leader of the UCLA marching band, plans to join the U.S. Air Force after he graduates in the spring—if Congress lets him. Mr. Cho is among the potential beneficiaries of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors bill—informally known as the Dream Act—that would give some illegal immigrants a shot at becoming U.S. citizens.
By Ginnie Graham
Tulsa World, Sept. 16, 2010
The Tulsa Jail is the sixth-largest immigration detention center in the U.S. with no legal aid services available for detainees and among the 10 facilities farthest from any legal aid organization, a nonprofit group says in a report. Tulsa County officials dispute the findings, saying that they did not participate in the “Isolated in Detention” study and cannot verify its data.
Read more from this Tulsa World article at http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20100916_11_A9_CUTLIN204546
Des Moines Register, Sept. 12, 2010
Tucson, Ariz. — Two fences – one concrete to block cars, the other barbed wire to block people – cut through a wide valley in the Tohono O’odham Nation Reservation west of Tucson.
Ground sensors and infrared night-vision cameras scan the vast terrain. Teams of Border Patrol agents comb dirt and concrete roads, perch at roadside checkpoints and search the Sonoran Desert by air and ATV.
Welcome to the nation’s busiest border and epicenter of the U.S. immigration debate. In April, Arizona adopted Senate Bill 1070, a polarizing state law that attempted to give state authorities more authority to crack down on illegal immigration. This spring and summer, as an angry electorate clamored for more immigration enforcement, Congress and President Barack Obama committed more federal resources than ever to border security.
What’s happened here since: a sharp drop in apprehensions of people attempting to cross the border, an economic hit because of fewer legal Mexican visitors, and declines in school enrollment.
Des Moines Register, Sept. 12, 2010
If you lived hundreds of miles away and listened only to the sound bites leading to passage of Senate Bill 1070, it would be easy to imagine some parts of Arizona as every bit as lawless as fabled Tombstone, circa 1881… But with some 800 federal agents now working in the city of 20,000, crimes affecting local residents are few and far between.
Des Moines Register, Sept. 13, 2010
Salt Lake City — … In Utah, an embarrassing crisis caused some leaders to take a detour from the rush toward a hard-line, restrictionist route. In the works is a pilot program that would balance greater enforcement with business needs and a legal avenue for undocumented immigrants already in the state to keep working.Proponents say they will complete a draft of their plan as soon as this week. They believe it could be a temporary solution some states are looking for as the country awaits the reform missing from Congress.
By Dan Kowalski, IJJ Senior Fellow
In 2006 the city of Hazleton, in northeastern Pennsylvania (pop. approx. 25,000,) enacted a series of local ordinances aimed at unauthorized aliens living and working in Hazleton… The Hazleton ordinances were designed to prevent unauthorized aliens from obtaining employment or rental housing. Individuals and groups sued the city, alleging the ordinances are unconstitutional and violate federal and state statutes.
Beyond the constitutional issues of interest to lawyers and legislators, what lessons can the general public draw?
By Dan Kowalski, IJJ Senior Fellow
For years, restrictionists such as Mark Krikorian and his Center for Immigration Studies (“CIS”) have touted the concept of “attrition through enforcement” as an alternative to mass detentions and deportations.
Does this notion hold water?
Decades of in-depth, scholarly research done at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (UC San Diego) gives us the answer, a resounding “No.”
“Austin at a Crossroads: 25 Years After the Hormel Strike”
(A three-part radio and online series on Minnesota Public Radio)
By Elizabeth Baier
IJJ “Immigration in the Heartland” Fellow, 2010
I went into this project with the vague idea of exploring the changing demographics of Austin, Minn., one of dozens of meat-packing towns in the America Midwest.
Thousands of immigrants — mostly Mexican and Guatemalan — have landed in Austin in the last decade lured by jobs at meat processing giant Hormel. Continue reading
By Miriam Jordan
Wall Street Journal, Sept. 9, 2010
A denial of birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants would end up increasing the size of the nation’s illegal population, according to a new study released Wednesday.
Several Fellows wrote reports on this breaking news story:
Miriam Jordan: “Illegal Immigration to U.S. Slows Sharply,” Wall Street Journal, Sept. 1, 2010
Dianne Solis: “Study: Illegal immigration from Mexico declines overall, but not in Texas,” Dallas Morning News, Sept. 1, 2010
Vallery Brown: “Report shows Oklahoma’s illegal immigrant numbers don’t follow national down trend,” the Oklahoman, Sept. 2, 2010
Ginnie Graham: “Fewer illegal immigrants living in U.S.,” Tulsa World, Sept. 2, 2010
By Chris Casey
The Greeley Tribune, Sept. 1, 2010
David White is something of an oxymoron in the polarized immigration debate. It’s an emotional debate that mostly concentrates people into one camp or the other. Few bother to wade into the vast gulf between the nuanced and complex area where there is no black and white. White, 75, is a retired technical writer who became interested in immigration for a few reasons… Those elements resulted in a piece, “Fernando and Sara’s Story,” which is one of eight stories about immigrants in his manuscript called “I Am An Illegal Alien.”
