Immigration policy halted by Texas judge

NYT

According to the New York Times, a federal judge in Texas suspended  President Obama's recent executive action on immigration.

In an order filed on Monday, the judge, Andrew S. Hanen of Federal District Court in Brownsville, prohibited the Obama administration from carrying out programs the president announced in November that would offer protection from deportation and work permits to as many as five million undocumented immigrants.

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Some legal scholars said any order by Judge Hanen to halt the president’s actions would be quickly suspended by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.

“Federal supremacy with respect to immigration matters makes the states a kind of interloper in disputes between the president and Congress,” said Laurence H. Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard. “They don’t have any right of their own.”

It's disappointing, of course, but this is how our system works. I'm hopeful that the Court of Appeals will rule in favor of the president's recent executive actions and that the country can then take additional steps towards enacting humane and comprehensive immigration policies.

Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Northeastern Pennsylvania

I was asked to write-up a brief overview on Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Northeastern Pennsylvania for a round table discussion scheduled for an event at the University of Scranton on Monday. I was only asked to prepare a five-to-ten minutes so it is not very in-depth. Anyway, I thought that I would share it here.

According to several studies, approximately 41 million foreign-born immigrants were residing in the United States as of 2012. Mexican-born immigrants comprised approximately 28 percent of that total. Significant populations also came from India, China, the Philippines, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba and South Korea. In terms of Pennsylvania, like many states, we have a long history of immigration. Foreign-born immigrants comprise roughly 5.9 percent of the Commonwealth’s population. Recently, the Latino population has grown from 2 percent to 5.9 percent and the Asian population from 1.1 percent to 2.8 percent from 1990 to 2011.

In terms of undocumented immigrants, the estimated number has decreased from a high of 12.2 million or so in 2007 to between 10 and 11 million today. That decrease was caused in large part by growing opportunities in Mexico, increased security on our southern border, record-level deportations, and a significant slowdown in the US economy, particularly in the housing, restaurant and service sectors. While the number of Mexicans coming to the US has decreased rather significantly, we have witnessed a significant increase in undocumented migrants coming from the Northern Triangle of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, where people are fleeing violence caused by drug traffickers, gangs, organized crime, and petty street crime and the lack of economic opportunity. Many young people and families are going north to the United States to reunite with family members that have been here for years. In many ways we believe this is the same pattern that happened with earlier immigrant groups.

When it comes to Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties, an estimated 25,000 foreign-born individuals live here. The foreign born population in Lackawanna County has grown from 2.3 percent in 2000 to 4.6 percent in 2012 while the in Luzerne County, the foreign born population has grown from 1.9 percent to 4.8 percent. There has been a strong increase in the Latino population in the area, as well as increases in the Russian and Indian populations. As of 2012, Scranton also counted some 170 Bhutanese families from South Asia. 

According to the 2010 census, Lackawanna County’s Scranton’s population is approximately 80 percent white, 10 percent Latino, 5 percent black, and 3 percent Asian. In Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, approximately 79 percent is white, 11 percent black, and 11 percent Latino.

Guatemalan immigrant poised to win seat in US Congress

Norma Torres

Norma Torres sees herself in some of the Central American children who have flooded into the United States in recent months.

More than four decades ago in Guatemala, Torres' parents told her she was going to the United States on a vacation. They declined to tell her she would not be coming back. Now 49, Torres is the favorite in a race between two Democratic candidates to represent a Los Angeles-area district in the House.

"In many ways, I see the decision these children have made ... like the decision my parents made for me," Torres said in a recent telephone interview. "They wanted an opportunity for me to grow up and be a successful person."

Torres' candidacy takes place as Hispanics gain increasing political influence in the United States and as Congress struggles over how to proceed on immigration policy. Hispanics make up nearly 70 percent of the district that she seeks to represent, and nationally, Latinos overwhelmingly support Democrats. But in the House, Democrats are expected to remain in the minority after the November midterm elections.

Go here to read more about Norma Torres, a woman who might become the first person of Guatemalan descent to be elected to the US Congress.

A push is on in the US to reunite families torn apart by El Salvador’s civil war

Argentina has been in the news recently as two grandchildren disappeared during that country's dirty war have been identified, including the grandson of the president and founder of the Abuelas (Grandmothers) de Plaza de Mayo, Estela de Carlotto. The whereabouts of children stolen during wartime continues to be an issue for numerous Latin American countries, including Guatemala and El Salvador.

A new campaign has been launched in the United States to help identify children stolen during that country's civil war. The English and Spanish campaigns targets Salvadoran Americans who are seeking their biological parents.

“Were you separated from your child during the war in El Salvador between 1980 and 1992?  The Pro-Búsqueda Association of Disappeared Children from El Salvador will help you: Text the word FIND to 99000, or write to info@probusqueda.org.sv.” 

A good number of Salvadoran Americans have already reached out to Cristián Orrego Benavente, the director of forensic programs at the Human Rights Center, at the University of California, Berkeley. Read the story here.

My Spanish slowed down in order for my Mexican friends to understand me

Go check out A View From Within: How First Generation Salvadoran Americans See Themselves & Why It Matters. It contains a number of interesting reflections on what it means to be a minority within a minority.

“People didn’t understand that part of being Latino meant that there was a whole continent full of people with sub-cultures, so trying to enlighten people of my differences was sometimes annoying and difficult. Some didn’t want to hear it and just wanted to categorize everyone as ‘Mexican’ buy some were so interested. They wanted to know everything about the food, and mostly the language and accent. In other words, what makes me unique and awesome is also what makes me easily dismissed…

Growing up was kind of difficult since the vast majority of everyone else in our neighborhood was Mexican. Especially as a kid it would kind of suck because others would gang up to make fun of the Salvis. But I felt it helped me to embrace my identity because being Salvi is what set me apart from everyone else. However, I had to develop mechanisms to exist in that reality. My Spanish slowed down in order for my Mexican friends to understand me. Ultimately though, I feel like my family’s culture is what really kept me grounded in my identity. We would link up every weekend and hang out with all my uncles, aunts and cousins. We would be secure in our Salviness then.” —Betsy, 23, Bell Gardens, CA

Salvadoran-Americans win political office on Long Island

Approximately 100,000 Salvadoran and Salvadoran-Americans live on Long Island. (Long Island is not quite New York City, but it is close.) Only recently, however, have Salvadoran-Americans run for and won elected office. Four Salvadoran-Americans have been elected to office on Long Island, including a Babylon town council seat in 2009, a Uniondale school board seat in 2010, a Brentwood school board seat in 2012 and a Suffolk County legislative seat this year.

The Babylon town council and the Suffolk County legislative seats are occupied by a brother-sister combo of Tony and Monica Martinez

In one of the more contentious races, Salvadoran Monica Martinez, an assistant principal at Brentwood East Middle School, grabbed the Democratic nomination in the primary for Suffolk's 9th Legislative District from longtime incumbent Rick Montano. She then unseated him with 71 percent of the vote in the general election.

Martinez, 36, won in the immigrant hub spanning Brentwood, Central Islip and North Bay Shore by campaigning to end what she characterized as the district's neglect. She knocked on doors to share the story of her American journey as one of four siblings brought from El Salvador by their mother. She told it in English and Spanish

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Martinez, of Brentwood, said she was proud to campaign as "a product of the success of immigration" and saw her roots as a positive factor in courting voters.

"We are just another immigrant group following in the paths of others who came before us, including the Irish, the Italians," said her brother Tony Martinez, 44. He became the first Salvadoran elected in the state when he won the Babylon council seat in 2009 and ran unopposed this year.

"Part of it is that people have to integrate into the social fabric of America, and what that means is us getting involved in the democratic process," he said.

Growing up in a predominantly Irish section of Queens, Rockaway Beach, I can't say that I remember many Irish politicians. I interned with Lew Simon, a local Democratic official, and would run into Chuck Schumer, Audrey Pfeiffer, and Greg Meeks, among others. I remember going to a meeting with Geraldine Ferraro sometime in the early 1990s as well.

Anyway, one of the challenges for Salvadoran-American candidates on Long Island is that few Salvadorans actually vote. Estimates are that only about half of the Salvadorans on Long Island are US citizens. They don't appear to be politically active to vote in large numbers but that could be changing. But while it would be nice for local Salvadoran-American candidates to count on the support of Salvadoran-American voters, most people are not going to vote based upon their ethnic heritage anyway.

Either way, it's good to see Salvadoran-Americans running for and winning political office on Long Island.