deportation

‘Uncovering the Truth’: Day Laborer Network Leaders Travel to El Salvador

NDLON poster
NDLON poster

Leaders from the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), faith leaders, and academics are in El Salvador to assess the situation and determine why thousands of Central American children are traveling to the US, seeking asylum and relatives.

From NDLON:
Between Over-Complication and the Overly Simple:
Day Laborer Network Leading US “Deported Dreams” Delegation 
in El Salvador
Migrant RIghts Organizers, Faith Leaders, Academics to Convene Forums, Initiate Community Development, Release Study Profiling Deportees
 
On the last day of college, the director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Pablo Alvarado, left his home country atop a train headed toward the US with his little brother who had become the target of threats by death squads. Decades after their journey North, Alvarado is leading a delegation in the opposite direction to expand the conversation on migration, investigate root causes, and release a study of those Salvadorans who were returned by deportation instead of by choice.
 
Beginning Sunday, July 19th to the 27th, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network will bring organizers from the front-lines of the domestic immigrant rights movement accompanied by faith leaders and academics, hosting public forums on the dynamics of migration and releasing a new study “Deported Dreams” by the University of Central America in San Salvador.
 
“We are going to uncover the truth of what’s happening in Central America without the political spin,” explains Alvarado.  “To advocate effectively, we have to be grounded in reality and that is what we are going to witness in El Salvador.”

Read more

Cathi Herrod’s law firm spreads lies about birth control in federal suit

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

Herrod

Anti-choicers don’t have the truth or popular opinion on their side where birth control is concerned but that has not stopped the movement in its unrelenting quest to strip women of access to it. So they have devised a three part strategy to fool the public:

1. They have claimed repeatedly that effective forms of hormonal contraception used by women (IUDs, morning after pills, and even regular pills) are really “abortions” due to the slight theoretical possibility that such methods might interfere with a fertilized egg implanting on the wall of the uterus. I have yet to have an anti-choicer explain to me exactly how often they think an IUD or birth control pill snuffs out a fertilized egg* as opposed to working the way that the current scientific consensus holds that they do – by blocking fertilization. But scientific evidence is largely irrelevant to the anti-contraception crusaders.

Read more

Gov. Brewer still hatin’ on the DREAMers

brewer_hateAfter Governor Brewer recently lost in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals over her executive order to deny driver’s licenses to individuals qualified for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program aka the DREAMers under President Obama’s executive order, the Arizona Republic editorialized Save the headache, governor, and let ‘dreamers’ drive.

Just as this old crone gave President Obama the boney finger on the tarmac, she has now given the editors of The Republic and every DREAMer her boney middle-finger salute. This woman must really hate kids for breathing while brown. Governor seeking reconsideration of license ruling:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer asked an appeals court Friday to reconsider its earlier ruling that blocked her policy denying driver’s licenses to young immigrants who have avoided deportation under an Obama administration policy.

Read more

Bob Robb scolds “both sides” for “behaving badly” without mentioning the actual bad behavior of certain people

Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com Quoth Bob Robb: In the debate over what to do about juvenile illegal immigrants from Central America, both sides are behaving badly. I agree with some of the policy points in Bob Robb’s column on the Honduran refugee children situation but he’s talking about policy and not behavior. Now, I’m the last … Read more

President Obama to sign executive orders banning workplace discrimination against LGBT workers in federal employment

President Barack Obama on Monday will sign an executive order banning workplace discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender workers of federal contractors and the federal government. Huffington Post reports, Obama Finally Ready To Sign Executive Order Targeting LGBT Job Discrimination:

Pride-Flag-Thumbnail-Friday-3x2-256x171The executive order has two components: It prohibits federal contractors from discriminating against employees based on sexual orientation or gender identity — a move that affects 24,000 companies employing roughly 28 million workers, or about one-fifth of the nation’s workforce — and it explicitly bans discrimination against federal employees based on their gender identity.

Senior administration officials outlined details of the executive order in a Friday afternoon call.

To the relief of the LGBT community, there is no sweeping religious exemption in the executive order. Obama is simply adding the categories of sexual orientation and gender identity to an existing executive order that protects employees of federal contractors from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. President George W. Bush amended that executive order in 2002 to allow religiously affiliated federal contractors to prioritize hiring employees of their particular religion, however, and Obama is keeping that language intact.

“Obama’s executive order does not modify that Bush exemption,” said a senior administration official. “It stands.”

Read more