Nebraska: Grassroots Leaders in Training

(posted 8/8/08 on FIRM

On August 2nd and 3rd, a group of 15 Nebraska grassroots leaders participated in their first-ever Democracy School program. Democracy Schools, which are a project of FIRM, aim to develop basic leadership skills among new grassroots immigrant leaders across the nation....(more)

No volunteers yet in San Diego for self-deportation
There were no takers in San Diego Tuesday for a trial self-deportation program initiated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement." San Diego Union-Tribune, Aug. 5, 2008.

Both of My Grandfathers Were Illegal Immigrants (and Lou Dobbs' Would Be Today)
by Steven Wishnia, AlterNet

My grandfathers, like many other illegal immigrants, helped usher in the world's greatest period of working class prosperity.

Unauthorized Immigrants Getting Railroad Justice in Flashy ICE Raids
by Kathleen Walker, New American Media, AlterNet

Federal immigration officials swept into Postville, Iowa on May 12 and detained nearly 400 workers at a meat processing plant. This new high-speed judicial railroad required extensive planning and coordination between the U.S. Attorneys' office in Iowa, the Department of Homeland security, and the Federal Judiciary. The tracks laid down to carry this new enforcement train were designed to force rapid guilty pleas under the threat of serious jail time, avoid the inconvenience of trials, limit access to immigration counsel, eliminate the prospect of all future relief, and impose criminal sentences and removal orders simultaneously. (This op-ed piece, written by a past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association expresses the group's deep concerns with the process.)

No Human Being Is Illegal
Peter Rachleff, July 26, 2008. Peter Rachleff is a Professor of History at Macalester College in St. Paul, and a specialist in labor and immigration history.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18264