By Maribel Hastings, New America Media.

Is it ever “the right time” to pass immigration reform and a path to legalization? Using the issue merely to score political points has been the norm for decades, among detractors and some proponents alike.

President Barack Obama is the latest political figure to attempt a comprehensive fix to the immigration system — or at least, he promised to do so in 2008, in the heat of the presidential campaign.

As January 20, 2010 rolls around — marking the end of his first year in office — Obama has not passed immigration reform, but his defenders predict that by that time the stirrings of the immigration debate will have started in the Senate.

“In this country people have always made excuses for delaying justice. But they’re excuses for inaction. The fact is that the president of the United States (Barack Obama) came to office in large part because he supports wholesale reform of the (immigration) system. It’s time for these politicians to turn their promises into reality,” Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., told MaribelHastings.com and Reform Immigration For America before introducing the bill H.R. 4321, presented to the House this week to stimulate immigration reform. Read more…

By Mary Kenney

While there is no question that Congress needs to step up to the plate and repair our broken immigration system through legislative reform, there are some fixes that can be made now without waiting for Congressional action. If the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) would stop narrowly interpreting existing immigration law, many noncitizens would be eligible to complete applications for legal status in the manner Congress intended.

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by Seth Hoy

According to the Associated Press, the Obama Administration said today that it will no longer detain asylum seekers who, in addition to other criteria, have displayed a credible fear of persecution in their home countries. According to the article:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement director John Morton says beginning Jan. 4, asylum seekers can temporarily enter the U.S. if they meet certain criteria. They must establish their identities, they cannot be dangerous or a flight risk, and they must have a credible fear of persecution or torture.

Currently, foreigners who come to the U.S. without valid documents can be immediately deported. Many are detained while their asylum requests are considered.

By Jacqueline Stevens

In addition to publicly listed field offices and detention sites, ICE is holding prisoners in 186 unlisted, unmarked locations, many in suburban office parks or commercial spaces.

“If you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.” Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008. Also present was Amnesty International’s Sarnata Reynolds, who wrote about the incident in the 2009 report “Jailed Without Justice” and said in an interview, “It was almost surreal being there, particularly being someone from an organization that has worked on disappearances for decades in other countries. I couldn’t believe he would say it so boldly, as though it weren’t anything wrong.”  read more…

By Jacqueline Stevens, The Nation

Guatemalans in the Boston area are seeing spies infiltrating factories, buses with tinted windows taking away unidentifiable co-workers, and men with guns grabbing their neighbors. For these survivors of state violence, it’s a traumatic reminder of the very thing they thought they had left behind. Twenty-six-year-old Julia, arrested in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid, said, “If they are taking children away and everything, then for me, that’s a second war.” She told her story in interviews with Professors Brinton Lykes and Dan Kanstroom of Boston College’s Post-Deportation Human Rights Project.  read more…

By Seth Hoy

Today, in a room filled with supporters and shouts of “Si, Se Puede,” Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez (D-IL) held a press conference to introduce the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 (CIR ASAP). Congressman Gutierrez introduced the immigration reform bill—which at last count had 89 original co-sponsors including the Congressional Hispanic, Black, Progressive, and Asian Pacific American Caucuses—before Congress heads home for the holidays “so that there is no excuse for inaction in the New Year.” - read more…

For those of us who live and breathe immigration reform, it’s hard to remember that immigration isn’t everyone’s top priority. Not surprisingly, public opinion polls and headlines constantly remind us that health care and the economy consistently top the concerns of the general public. Even among Latino voters, a new study shows that health care is the most pressing issue. But this is neither a big surprise nor should it lead to the conclusion that immigration isn’t important. Polls are snapshots, taking the picture of the public psyche on a given day, at a given time, in the context of a range of political concerns. read more...

Predator drones, the unmanned aircraft used by the U.S. military in the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones, will soon be employed to track illegal immigrants on the Mexico-California border.

The drone, which will be unveiled later today, will be operated out of the Antelope Valley by the military contractor General Atomics. The drones will fly above the border region with advancing electronic tracking equipment looking for illegal immigrants crossing into California.

According to the San Diego-based company, the drones will transmit information to U.S. authorities on human smuggles as well drug smuggling.

Such drones are already used on the border of Texas and Arizona.

Border Patrol officials told SignOn San Diego that the drone would initially be used to monitor ocean area, which has been used by human smugglers.

– Shelby Grad

LA Times Blog – LA Now

Last month, President Obama authorized the admission of 80,000 refugees into the U.S. in fiscal year 2010, something every President has done annually since passage of the Refugee Act of 1980. The United States has long recognized the importance of providing a safe haven for refugees. Beginning with laws granting refugee status to displaced persons after World War II and culminating with the comprehensive Refugee Act of 1980, the U.S. has sought to safeguard those who are unwilling or unable to return to their homeland based on a “well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

Despite this commitment to helping refugees resettle in the U.S. permanently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its sub-agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have adopted a policy of incarcerating refugees who have not adjusted to permanent resident status after one year of residency in the U.S.

read more…

Alex Sanchez has worked for years to calm the violence between the warring gangs that dominate Los Angeles’ Pico Union/Koreatown area — a role that has won him the respect of gang members as well as some of California’s leading politicians. But now he faces a deportation hearing that could not only end his peace-making — it might also lead to his own violent death.

Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2002/02/death_deport.html