The Immigration Prof Blog points us to the just released report on “Immigrant Integration in Los Angeles: Strategic Directions for Funders”. The report focuses on Los Angeles where “one third of our residents are immigrants, nearly half of our workforce is foreign-born, and two-thirds of those under 18 are the children of immigrants.” The report explores potential avenues to immigrant integration that reflects “fundamental American values: opportunity in the case of economic mobility, democracy in the area of engagement, and openness reflected by host society attitudes and policies.”
Some key findings of the report include:
- Sixty-three percent of immigrants who migrated over 30 years ago own their own home, even though Latinos exhibit the lowest rates of home acquisition of all immigrants;
- English language acquisition often raises immigrant wages by 15 to 20 percent, but there is a shortage of English language learning opportunities for adults; and
- About 40 percent of college-educated Latin American immigrants and 25 percent of college-educated residents from Asia are stuck in low-wage employment.
The report offers specific recommendations to funders to increase opportunities for economic mobility for immigrants, their families and their communities; enhance civic participation opportunities for immigrants; and foster openness in the broader society.
The full report and executive summaries can be found here.
The “Just News” Blog informs us that the widow of Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng, a 34-year-old computer engineer who died of liver cancer while detained at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island has filed a lawsuit against the facility and ICE officials. A volunteer lawyer from the ACLU filed the lawsuit on her behalf.
In light of events in Arizona, Latina Lista examines US immigration enforcement strategies and reports that the majority of immigrants arrested by Sheriff Arpaio’s department over two years were rarely found guilty of other crimes. She cites research from the Migration Policy Institute, ICE and newspapers to question Sheriff Arpaio’s focus on criminalization and detention of immigrants as a workable immigration practices.
La Mariposa en la Paredshows us the effect of current immigration practices on Angel, a Mexican worker who planned to returned to Mexico to renew his visa and then return to work in the US, but was told there weren’t enough work permits to go around. She writes:
“If he stays in Mexico for a year to wait to re-apply (without any guarantee that he will be approved again) for a visa, he will lose his job. His boss will have to hire someone new, someone lucky enough to have gotten a work visa, or maybe he’ll have to hire someone desperate enough to work without one…But [Angel] does not want to lose his job. Instead, he will pay $2500 to be smuggled across the border. If he’s caught, he will be processed and will have a criminal record. He will face a ban of 10 years to enter the U.S. legally. He may go to jail.”
Ending on a hopeful note, Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Community Change gives his input on the Obama Administration and argues that immigration reform is necessary – “not just for its intrinsic value, but because of its significance to the larger social justice agenda.” He sees that anti-immigration sentiment is being used to undermine potential progressive policy changes, which reinforces the need for immigration reform. He argues that “an embrace of [the immigrant community] by the larger progressive community will be a key moral benchmark.”
