The Detroit non-profit brings health care and medicines to Mirebalais, a town in Haiti. (Photo: Haiti Outreach)
Non-profit group Haiti Outreach, based out of St. Blase Church on Detroit’s east side, sends physicians and medical supplies to Mirebalais, a remote town in Haiti.
In a new piece for Detroit public radio’s Detroit Today show, Feet in 2 Worlds and WDET reporter Martina Guzmán reports on the group and its missions to Haiti, where people “will do anything to see a physician,” including standing in a mile-long line, say members Dominique Monde and Soledad Nelson.
“The relationship between both communities is mutually beneficial –reports Martina–. By helping a town in Haiti, Haitian-Americans help themselves maintain their identity.”
Together with David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute and assistant professor of political science at the University of San Diego, Diego spoke about the mid-term elections in Mexico, where the PRI, the party that controlled the country for seven decades until 2000, has made a stunning comeback.
The election had a turnout rate of less than 50% and it saw almost 6% of voters casting nullified ballots as a protest against the political party system.
In a poignant gesture in this age of democratized communications, Twitter user @priscilliana decided to vote for the social network’s Fail Whale:
(Photo: Priscilliana/TwitPic -- Click on image to visit.)
Hondurans protest against coup in D.C. - Photo: Peruanista blog
Hondurans in the United States are intensely following the events in their home country, after the military on Sunday rushed President Manuel Zelaya out of bed and sent him into exile in Costa Rica.
But not every talk-show caller nor every demonstrator in American cities is asking for the swift return of the democratically-elected president. Many Hondurans in the U.S. support the coup and the government that took power in Tegucigalpa, despite unanimous condemnation from the international community — including President Barack Obama.
“I think it’s a good thing that they took him away, because he would have won the election on Sunday, and he would have been in office another four years,” restaurant owner Marlen Nunez told WDSU in New Orleans, where there is a big Honduran community. She was referring to Zelaya’s botched attempt to conduct a non-binding national referendum asking voters if they wanted to change the constitution to allow him to run for a second term.
“Constitutionally, a president shouldn’t be in office more than four years … that’s not a democracy,” Nunez said.
President Barack Obama finally sat down with legislators from both parties last week to talk about immigration reform and the news media saluted the meeting with editorials and op-ed pieces on how to proceed.
The meeting, said Los Angeles newspaper La Opinión, was “the first step toward immigration reform. In itself, the start does not guarantee that new legislation will be feasible this year despite the urgent need, but the fact that it has begun is hopeful.
“The cards are now on the table –the newspaper said–. We hope that they will be well played.”
Pro-immigration reform demonstrators in New York on May Day. (Photo: Jocelyn Gonzales/Feet in 2 Worlds)
What: President Barack Obama will meet Congressional leaders from both parties to discuss the way forward in fixing the U.S. immigration system. The White House has insisted on tamping down expectations, saying this is just the beginning of the conversation. Pro-immigration advocates, on the contrary, are anxious for Congressional action to start. Anti-immigration activists seem to be waiting to hear what exactly the Democrats’ plan will include — but they reject any kind of legalization proposal.
When & Where: After two postponements attributed to the president’s busy schedule, the meeting will be held today at the White House.
Who: While White House officials had first said the meeting would involve not only lawmakers but also activists and others involved in the immigration debate, today’s conversation will only include members of the Senate and the House who are part of relevant committees.
No official list of attendees has been announced. But Los Angeles newspaper La Opinión, quoting unnamed sources, published this list: Democratic Sens. Robert Menéndez (N.J.), Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Patrick Leahy (Vt.); Republican Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Mel Martínez (Fla.), John Cornyn (Texas) and Jeff Sessions (Ala.); Democratic Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Xavier Becerra, Howard Berman (all Calif.), Luis Gutiérrez (Ill.), Nydia Velázquez and Anthony Weiner (both N.Y.); Republican Reps. Lamar Smith (Texas), Adam Putnam and Lincoln Díaz-Balart (both Fla.)
One key player from the last Congressional immigratio reform debate will be absent: the ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy (D.-Mass.), who’s now focused solely on health-care reform.
Pro-immigration activists want the Obama Administration to approach immigration reform with a much stronger sense of urgency than it has shown so far, as Feet in 2 Worlds reported yesterday. As Thursday’s much-awaited –and twice-cancelled– White House meeting with lawmakers on the issue approaches, some activists are trying to ramp up the pressure.
News and advocacy organization New America Media is asking ethnic media nationwide to simultaneously publish the same editorial “calling for urgent immigration reform.”
The editorial asks the White House and Congress to “move quickly” to pass reform that will “remove the term ‘illegal or undocumented immigrants’ from the dialogue in this country,” according to a copy provided by NAM. It calls the current immigration system “inefficient, inhumane and economically debilitating” and “broken” for both undocumented and specialized workers, as well as for families trying to reunite.
The text also urges ethnic media readers and viewers to contact their representatives in Congress “and let them know that immigration reform must be a national priority.” [ You can read the full text below. ]
A May Day immigration reform demonstration in Massachusetts. (Photo: Eduardo A. de Oliveira/EthnicNEWz.org)
Despite the sense of urgency among immigration advocates, the White House seems prepared for a drawn-out debate over immigration reform. The conversation should start this Thursday in a meeting with lawmakers from both parties, if President Barack Obama’s schedule finally permits it.
In San Antonio this week for their annual spring meeting, the bishops said in a statement by their president, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, that immigration is a “humanitarian issue” and U.S. society should not “tolerate a status quo that perpetuates a permanent underclass of persons and benefits from their labor without offering them legal protections.”
Law enforcement officials from around the country say that the current immigration system creates obstacles to their work because undocumented immigrants who are victims of hate crimes are often afraid to report them. The comments came in the same week that a civil rights organization reported that a hate crime occurs in the nation every hour on average and Attorney General Eric Holder called for updating the laws against those attacks.
There is no new date set for the immigration meeting. (Photo: WhiteHouse.gov)
Friday afternoons are often when bad news is made public in Washington D.C. Pro-immigration advocates were reminded of this last week when they learned that President Barack Obama for the second time postponed a bipartisan meeting on immigration reform due to “scheduling conflicts.”
But activists are keeping a sunny outlook in the face of increasing doubts about the White House’s commitment to have significant work done on the issue this year.
“We’re disappointed at the delay, but this does not diminish the importance of passing comprehensive immigration reform this year,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D.-N.Y.), president of the Hispanic Caucus in Congress, told Los Angeles newspaper La Opinión.
The bipartisan meeting, which is expected to include members of both houses of Congress, was scheduled initially for June 8th, then rescheduled for Wed. June 17th. Now, there’s no certainty about the new date.
Univisión.com’s Jorge Cancino quotes an unidentified White House official as saying the meeting would take place this week, although the source mentions no date or time. La Opinión reports it has been pushed to next week.
Posted by D. Graglia 
Posted by D. Graglia 
Posted by D. Graglia 
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