Aggregated Immigration Stories

She was seeking that most American of dreams: a new life, and opportunities she couldn't approach back home. But along the way, Cruz says she has endured intimidation, humiliation, extortion and a long, painful separation from her young daughters.

Cruz is one of more than 300 teachers imported to Louisiana from the Philippines since 2007, a group of educators who say collectively they paid millions of dollars in cash to a Filipino recruiting firm, PARS International Placement Agency, and its sister company, Los Angeles-based Universal Placement International Inc.

Cases like those of Cruz and others prompted the American Federation of Teachers and its state affiliate, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers, to file a complaint on Sept. 30 with the state Workforce Commission and attorney general. On Oct. 20, AFT filed a lengthier complaint with the U.S. Department of Labor. The unions allege the companies kept the teachers in "virtual servitude" by holding onto their U.S. work visas unless they kept paying inflated fees, commissions and rents."

GREG TOPPO and ICESS FERNANDEZ in USA Today.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 08:32 AM | Permalink

"Hundreds of U.S. soldiers are facing the same trouble as they fight to legalize their spouses' status, a difficult process that has affected their military readiness, according to Margaret Stock, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves and an immigration attorney specializing in military cases.

Stock, speaking as a private attorney, said she gets at least one call a day from soldiers facing the deportation of spouses. Many are so stressed out they can't concentrate on their jobs, she said."

TERESA WATANABE in the Los Angeles Times.

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Posted by Dan Kowalski at 06:16 PM | Permalink

From New York to Jamaica, families struggle to stay together.  ColorLines investigates the effects of deportation on families of color.

[Funded in part by the Institute for Justice and Journalism, now based in Oakland, California, after nine years at USC's Annenberg School for Communication.]

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 09:58 AM | Permalink

"Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio cited a non-existent federal law and included a legal interpretation taken from an anti-immigration Web site in a document he distributed during a news conference last week.

Arpaio used the document to bolster his claim that he can continue to arrest undocumented immigrants during controversial crime sweeps even without a special agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

DANIEL GONZáLEZ in the Arizona Republic.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 12:57 PM | Permalink

"A 2-year-old program that gives the Cobb County sheriff's office power to enforce federal immigration laws has led to racial profiling and other problems, a civil liberties group said in a report released Monday."Terror and isolation in Cobb: How Unchecked Police Power under 287(g) Has Torn Families Apart and Threatened Public Safety" also claims that immigrants have been unnecessarily detained under Cobb County's 287(g) program."

KATE BRUMBACK for the Associated Press.

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"Getting into the federal building in Pecos, Texas takes political sophistication – something I was apparently lacking when attempting to enter the building for the trial of a couple of immigrant inmates indicted for their role in the Dec. 12-13 incident, let’s call it, at the immigrant prison in this far West Texas town."

TOM BARRY in Border Lines.

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"Gloria Garcia Barragan, 52, boarded a plane for the first time this summer to travel from her home in southern Mexico to Decatur. She came to this industrial central Illinois town to testify in the wrongful death lawsuit concerning her son, who died in 2007 at age 26 of burns from an accident at the BioProducts plant of Archer Daniels Midland. ...The Garcias decided to put their faith in a local jury, declining Archer Daniel's $500,000 and a later offer of $1 million.  On Sept. 11, a jury awarded the family $6.7 million, among the largest such judgments in state history for a childless man."

KARI LYDERSEN for the Washington Post.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 04:40 AM | Permalink

Born in Canada 62 years ago, he immigrated to San Diego with his parents when he was 6. His parents eventually became citizens, and he remembers going with them later to the federal building to file his own naturalization paperwork.

Gould went to American schools, fought with the American Army in Vietnam, voted in American elections, did American jury duty, paid American taxes.

But after he retired from his county government job this year and applied for Social Security benefits, he learned that as far as the government is concerned, he's not an American."

JOHN WILKENS in the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Posted by Dan Kowalski at 12:06 PM | Permalink

How a private prison pushed immigrant inmates to the brink.

"Last Dec. 12, on the outskirts of Pecos, Texas, the immigrants doing time in the world’s largest privately run prison decided to turn the tables on their captors. It was the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, an important religious holiday in Latin America. But the inmates were in no mood for celebration."

FORREST WILDER in the Texas Observer.

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