Photo: Erin Pangilinan. Author with DREAM Activists Jose Antonio Vargas, JB Librojo, and Catherine Eusebio Last June, President Barack Obama issued a directive, dubbed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), that would protect undocumented immigrant youth from deportation for up to two years (with a possibility of renewal for another two years) and authorize legal work permits. On Wednesday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officially opened the application for the program. The Migration Policy Institute and the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that the initiative can benefit as many as 1.7 million people. To qualify, applicants must meet a series of [...]

Originally published in Hyphen magazine Whether it was progressive policymaking or a shrewd political move, President Barack Obama’s announcement to stop deportations for some undocumented immigrants in June was hailed as victory by immigrant rights activists. Since the 2001 introduction of the federal “DREAM Act” bill, which would grant higher education and a path to citizenship for undocumented youth, many of these youth have organized one of the strongest online and offline movements in American history. They staged sit-ins in June at Obama campaign offices around the country, putting additional pressure on the Administration and later resulted in Obama’s deferred action [...]

photo: Obama For America Nevada (OFA NV) Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are the fastest growing racial group in the United States, making AAPI voters a force to be reckoned with as a key constituency group for the 2012 presidential election. The Obama For America (OFA) campaign is attempting to capture the attention of ethnic voting blocs in various states. Unfortunately only 48 percent of AAPIs turned out to vote in 2008, making them the lowest registered group, compared to 62 percent of all Americans. Only half of eligible AAPIs are registered to vote, making AAPIs the lowest racial [...]

Pulitzer winner to discuss status on TV Cross-Posted at Philippine News by Erin Pangilinan Correspondent JOSE ANTONIO VARGAS has a chance to school Stephen Colbert on what living like an undocumented immigrant is really like. Vargas is scheduled to speak on the Colbert Report on July 14. Host Stephen Colbert is infamous for his participation in and congressional testimony on his experience working as afarmworker as a part of the United Farm Workers of America’s “Take Our Jobs” campaign. He demonstrated the difficult working conditions of farmworkers to turn attention to living as undocumented immigrant for a day. Now Vargas will help shed [...]

Check out my blogs on the Immigrant Rights Cause at Change.org!

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The House approved the DREAM Act December 8, paving a path to citizenship for students who are in the country illegally. The bill is now in the Senate where advocates said a vote is likely to be delayed. One of the likely beneficiaries of the proposed law is UCLA undergraduate Tagumpay Mendoza. “I came to the U.S. with my family when I was 12 (6 years ago). We originally had visas, but the renewal process was painfully laborious. My parents do not earn much, and paying for the immigration papers took much of our income. Right now, [...]

“They can pay us to die, but they can’t pay us to live” is a phrase often used to describe the plight of the forgotten Filipino veterans who fought in World War II yet were denied benefits due to their immigration status. Only now is their sacrifice for the United States starting to be remembered. The California State Assembly has taken up the fight for Filipino veterans equity with a proposed bill, AB 199, that would encourage the inclusion of the contributions of WWII Filipino veterans in the 7-12 social studies curriculum. The Rescission Act of 1946 stripped Filipino vets [...]

  Upon having its State Department of Justice endorse an agreement with Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) last October, Wisconsin joined 36 other states in officially signing onto the Secure Communities program earlier this month. This federal program is harmful to community policing and continually misunderstood by local law enforcement. Although local police like Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke admit that immigration is a federal issue to enforce and not a local one, Clarke and Brown County Sheriff John Gossage nonetheless continue to applaud the program for its ability to “share information.” Fortunately, unlike in Colorado, the Wisconsin program takes into [...]

The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC) and Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA) are speaking out against outgoing Colorado Governor Bill Ritter’s adoption of the Secure Communities program, a program under which local law enforcement report on immigration status. Acquiescing to immigrant rights advocates, Governor Ritter had requested that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) consent to certain conditions before adopting the federal program. However, advocates are criticizing Ritter for then adopting the program through an Executive Order without requiring that these conditions be met. The conditions included: exempting domestic violence victims from being targeted by Secure Communities; targeting only [...]

Secure Communities strikes again in Prince George’s County of Maryland: seven year resident Florinda Faviola Lorenzo-Desimilian faces deportation and separation from her U.S. citizen children, ages 10 years, 5 years, and 19 months. Immigrant rights advocacy organization Casa de Maryland launched a campaign to stop Lorenzo-Desimilian’s deportation, organizing demonstrations while she was being held at the county corrections facility. Casa de Maryland and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) point out that the Lorenzo-Desimilian family poses no threat to national security, nor do they meet any of the public safety objectives Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) claims is its priority, [...]