Day of the Dead event lauds immigrant-rights activists
11/2/2003. Statesman Journal
Severo Ascencio sought a better life when he came to Oregon from Michoac�n, Mexico, in 1990. But as an immigrant farmworker, the 76-year-old said he has endured long hours harvesting crops for employers who have cheated him of his hard-earned dollars and erased hours off his timecards. So Ascencio became involved in pushing for better working conditions and gaining the recognition of civil rights for immigrants....

Let Uncle Sam's Cops Do It
11/1/2003. Los Angeles Times
Most police agencies in Southern California long ago dropped the idea of doing the job of federal immigration authorities. If victims won't report crimes because they're afraid of being deported, how can investigators find out about crimes, much less solve them?...

Lesson in Latino civics
11/1/2003. Milford Daily News
Framingham High School junior Gerardo Tejada came back from Washington, D.C., with some souvenirs and many lessons. Tejada took part in a four-day youth leadership seminar in the nation's capital with 42 Latino high school students from across the country....

People Power: Assuring rights for immigrants
10/30/2003. Miami News Times
Picking up its cues from the civil rights movement, the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, organized by a broad coalition of union-friendly groups and one cerebral celeb, recently launched a reform campaign targeting laws hurtful to new arrivals. Three weeks ago dozens of activist-laden buses departed from various American cities, stopping now and then for town meetings and generally raising awareness for their cause. Now these road-tested rights advocates, supported in part by some South Florida pols, are pausing before logging the next mile. ...

America works on promise
10/29/2003. Commercial Appeal
It's easy to be critical of America. The land of the free and the home of the brave doesn't always live up to its enormous promise. But more often than not, America works. Monday morning, on the first day of the Muslim observance of Ramadan, Nabil Bayakly found his faith in America restored. ...

ACTION ALERT: Protect Workers' Civil Rights: Oppose H.R. 2359
10/28/2003.
The Basic Pilot Program has many problems: the immigration databases used to verify work authorization are inaccurate and outdated, employers didn't use the system correctly, workers with authorization were fired because of incorrect data in the system, and employers violated civil rights by prescreening employees or firing them before they had complete information. ...

Federal Policy Becomes Family Matter
10/27/2003. The Los Angeles Times
Eleven-year-old Diana Cabrera is a straight-A honors student, hits top scores on statewide achievement tests and has never missed a day of class. The Los Angeles native studies as much as six hours a day....

Cleaner at Wal-Mart Tells of Few Breaks and Low Pay
10/27/2003. The New York Times
very night for months, Victor Zavala Jr., who was arrested on Thursday in a 21-state immigration raid, said he showed up at the Wal-Mart store in New Jersey to clean floors. As the store's regular employees left at 11 p.m., Mr. Zavala said, they often asked him whether he ever got a night off....

Blacks And Immigrants Fight Rise In Profiling
10/27/2003. The Sacramento Observer
The first time high school student Mark Joseph left Chicago was for a trip to Washington, DC., where he visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum. The second time was this month when Joseph - the 17-year-old son of an Iraqi father and a Lebanese mother3 - traveled on the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride to bring attention to the struggle for immigrant rights....

Graciela Ramirez: Her ride for freedom
10/27/2003. The Desert Sun
Graciela Ramirez expected the Immigration Workers Freedom Ride to be tough, but jail time? Ramirez signed on to a 12-day, cross-country journey knowing it meant long days on occasionally stifling buses, little sleep, cramped quarters and sporadic meals....