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A long-time immigrant rights activist offers a critique of The Left Case against Open Borders, by Angela Nagel.
We are all fighting to be recognized as citizens of a country where we’ve lived for close to 20 years now, and we also fight to be recognized as human beings. With the president recently expounding his racist view of people from non-white countries, it has become that much harder to hold onto my dream of American citizenship.
Immigration reform is desperately needed. Dreamers and TPS recipients need their legal status maintained and millions more need legal protection. It should be possible for those millions of immigrants working in this country to gain a route to legalization and citizenship. Instead, the Trump White House demands a border wall, more ICE, more border guards, and even less legal protection for immigrants.
The morning after, I felt a fear unlike any I had felt before. The right side of my chest hurt, my stomach felt strange. I was hungry, but couldn’t bring myself to eat. I could just think of one thing: if Donald Trump’s DHS Secretary does not approve our renewals, then we’d potentially be forced to return El Salvador. As of today, I have 81 days left on my TPS work permit if the designation isn’t renewed by DHS.
Reader Comments - Darren Wilson Acquittal - Reader Responses; Black Friday Protests; Election Lessons for the Left; Immigration Reform; Ursula K. Le Guin, Pension Reform(?); Water Grab; Facebook Drivers Vote Union; Berlin Wall's Fall - Reflections from the GDR; Israel Lobby and Ukrainian Fascists; Mexico - 43 students murdered; Israel, Palestine and Rasmeah Odeh; The Selfless Gene;
Announcement - New Politics Forum on the Environmental Crisis - New York - Dec. 9
In an address to the nation, President Obama lays out the executive action he's taking to fix our nation's broken immigration system
“A lot of people are using the term bittersweet, but I don’t think that’s enough to describe the amount of emotion I’m feeling right now”
Tonight President Obama issued an Executive Order to reform some of the broken immigration system in the country. This is not unprecedented - previous presidents have also used Executive Orders to accomplish their goals. Here is Pres. Obama's speech; along with responses from immigrant and immigration activists around the country, many outlining what more is needed.
Attacking allies does not move immigration reform forward. And, an argument from a position of moral correctness does not change policy. We need to be on the morally correct side but that is not enough to change policy because political and economic power largely controls this country. We have a political oligarchy- our government is dominated by corporations. We need to understand neoliberal capitalism, then, work to change it.
The furor in Murrieta illustrated the conflict between protecting the borders and the safety of immigrant families and children. "If these children were from Canada, we would not be having this interview," immigration rights advocate Enrique Morones told CNN.
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