Lela Ali was in the Legislative Building last Wednesday as the organization she is part of, Muslim Women For, works to oppose a bill that would require sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration officials. She also happened to be sitting in the House gallery that day as lawmakers approved a bill along party lines that takes responsibility for the state’s three schools for deaf and blind students away from the State Board of Education and gives it to local boards of trustees.
...
immigration
immigration
U.S. Marine vet from North Carolina: Congress should pass the Afghan Adjustment Act ASAP More than a year ago, as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, I concluded twenty-seven years of uniformed service. I spent more than a year of my life in Afghanistan, serving in special operations, a fact only relevant because it brought me into close contact with members of the Afghan National Security Forces and Afghan civilian interpreters.
...
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats said Tuesday that they remained hopeful Congress could create a legal pathway to citizenship before the end of the year for the more than 600,000 undocumented people enrolled in a program that is at risk of being deemed illegal by a lower court. Immigration rights advocates held a press call including Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Robert Menendez of New Jersey to stress the need for legislative action, following a recent 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that upheld a lower court decision in the Southern District of Texas.
...
‘The migrants are human beings, and we’ve got to treat them like human beings. They are being used as political pawns to get publicity,’ U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, of Texas, said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to airlift 48 migrants from San Antonio, Texas to the island resort of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. last week was depthless in its cruelty and cynicism, evoking the worst of America’s nativist and segregationist history.
...
Asylum-seekers in a Mexican shelter share their stories of hope and disappointment The inner courtyard of Casa del Migrante in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, looks like a day care center. Plastic toys are scattered from one end to the other. Tiny baby clothes hang on the chain link fence, drying in the sun.
...
In a red brick house on the south side of El Paso, Texas, Susana Correa sits in front of a wall of five computer monitors, the biggest filled with lists of the names of hundreds of LGBTQ asylum-seekers waiting to cross from Juárez into El Paso. To her left, one monitor features a long string of WhatsApp conversations with asylum-seekers — more than 200 messages await for her response. Sharing the screen are recorded messages from her coworkers who are interviewing people waiting in Juárez, administering COVID tests and arranging for border crossings.
...
WASHINGTON — Nearly 100 House Democrats are pushing the Senate to expand immigration protections in President Joe Biden’s massive social spending and climate bill, and advocates say that it may be a last opportunity for years to advance any reform.The letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Dick Durbin of Illinois, urges the Senate to include in its version a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people—something the Senate parliamentarian already has rejected twice in the bill, known as the Build Back Better Act.
...
WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats cheered on the floor of the U.S. House after approving President Joe Biden’s massive social spending and climate bill. But a major struggle lies ahead in the coming month in the U.S. Senate, where Democrats cannot lose any votes within their party if they are to send the so-called Build Back Better measure to Biden’s desk.
...
Violence, persecution and wars amid a global pandemic added to the growing number of displaced persons around the world last year. The United Nations reports that 11.2 million people were displaced from their homelands in 2020, bringing the total number of displaced persons in the world to 82.4 million. Of those forced to flee their homes, 1.4 million had to leave their country.
...
Immigrant rights groups are opposing a bill Senate Republicans filed Monday that would require local jail administrators to detain people if a federal agency requests it. The senators also filed a bill that would punish local governments that cut their law enforcement budgets by more than 1% a year.
...