Salem-News.com Immigration articles Page 11

A Plea For My Sister`s Freedom

An open letter from the sister of a Cambodian refugee on the verge of deportation, and a very uncertain future.

(ELOY, Az.) - The U.S. fought a war in Vietnam that bled into Cambodia in 1970 and then was followed by a wind down period and eventual withdrawal of the last American combat troops from SE Asia in 1975.

The U.S. created a huge refugee problem in Cambodia, and today it should not forcefully deport a productive young woman adopted to American ways, back to Thailand, where her single past California drug conviction means an instant death sentence when she is returned.

Mexico`s Arizona Moment

Despite the dangers, migrants say they will continue to travel to the U.S.

(LAS CRUCES, NM) - If Arizona’s SB 1070 law, underlined by the continuing deaths of migrants in the inhospitable, blazing desert of the Southwestern state, dramatizes the crisis of US immigration policy, then the mass murder of 72 Central and South American migrants last week showcases a similar and widening crisis in Mexico.

The 22 August San Fernando Massacre was widely condemned by human rights advocates as the horrific culmination of years of corruption and neglect on the part of Mexican immigration and law enforcement officials.

The Border of Death

The summer of 2010 has been a deadly one for migrants.

(LAS CRUCES, NM) - Despite periodic campaigns to warn would-be border crossers of the dangers of jumping the US-Mexico line without papers, the people keep coming from the south. And instead of a better life in the Promised Land, many encounter horrible deaths.

US and international media reported this week that 170 people have been recovered from the scorching desert lands of Pima County, Arizona, this year. The bodies have been so numerous that forensic authorities have resorted to using refrigerated trucks to store the human remains.

Reconstructing Ciudad Juarez: Nation Building on the Border?

For now, the violence only seems to be worsening.

(LAS CRUCES, NM) - Even as mass slaughter continues to stain the streets of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, plans are underway to rebuild, reshape and redevelop the bloodied border city.

Front Row of a Drug War

If current policies and trends continue, the Mexican refugee situation could become an issue for the United Nations.

(LAS CRUCES, NM) - They could have been videos from the Middle East or Central Asia. But the images flashed to the crowd at Texas Congressman Silvestre Reyes’ annual border security conference at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) showed graphic scenes from the so-called narco war in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

After giving a content advisory, the presenter, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official Alonzo Pena, started the show.

One Border, Two Narratives

The issues of border security and violence will continue to be a live topic in El Paso this week.

(LAS CRUCES, N.M.) - One Border, Two Narratives As the US House of Representatives approved a $600 million border security bill August 10, polemics over the safety of the US-Mexico border intensified.

In language reminiscent of Iraq and Afghanistan, New Mexico Democratic Congressman Harry Teague praised the passage of the 2010 Emergency Border Security Supplemental Appropriation Bill (6080) as a concrete gesture of support for the first-term representative’s “border security surge.”

Oregon Immigrant Rights Coalition Applauds Injunction Against SB1070

Key parts prevented from going into affect on Thursday.

(SALEM, Ore.) - Today, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction preventing several sections of Arizona's racial profiling law from going into affect on Thursday.

SB1070, signed into law in April, is the most extreme legislation anywhere in the country to deal with the nation's broken immigration system. Opposition to the law includes law enforcement, a diverse coalition of faith leaders, immigrants' advocates, civil rights leaders, and legal scholars.

Mexican Migration and World Trends

The decrease in Mexican remittances was steeper than 2009’s average regional decrease of 9.6 percent for Latin America and the Caribbean.

(LAS CRUCES, N.M.) - Studies by Mexico’s BBVA Bancomer Foundation lay out the general trends of Mexican migration in an international context.

A periodic, bilingual publication sponsored by the Foundation’s economic services unit, Migration Watch Mexico, details demographic, geographic, economic, environmental and even technological characteristics of contemporary migration in Mexico and other countries.

Ghosts, Migrants and Visa Gold

Similar to the San Diego and El Paso areas, the influx of Mexican migrants fleeing crime and violence has spurred economic activity in south Texas and San Antonio.

(LAS CRUCES, N.M.) - A new report by Mexico’s National Institute of Geography, Statistics and Informatics (Inegi) provides aesthetic details on the emptying of the countryside in the Mexican state of Michoacan.

Of 537,000 homes in rural Michoacan, nearly one in four, or 23 percent, stand abandoned throughout the entire year or portions of it, the Inegi study finds.

Special Report - A Mexican Political Era Ends

Looking past the short-term political scorecard, unsettling and ominous trends resurfaced or strengthened in the July 4 elections that seriously call into the question the future of democracy in Mexico.

(LAS CRUCES, N.M.) - On July 4, while oil continued to pour out of British Petroleum’s crippled well in the Gulf of Mexico and spread its contamination to new shores, a rupture of political sorts was consummated in Mexico.

In state and local elections, Mexicans ended one political era, sowed the seeds for the possible rebirth of an old one and cast new doubts about the future of a fresh one.