Florida, Arizona voter drive kicks off
6/27/2004. Pioneer Press
About 100 college student and labor union volunteers are heading to Florida and Arizona to register immigrant voters in a drive that they say is reminiscent of the racial segregation-battling 1964 voter registration drive in Mississippi.

Inland Latinos Alarmed by New Border Patrol Sweeps
6/10/2004. The Los Angeles Times
U.S. Border Patrol agents have arrested more than 150 suspected illegal immigrants during a major sweep in Riverside and San Bernardino counties that has caused panic in some heavily Latino neighborhoods.

Events commemorate thousands killed, injured on the job
4/27/2004. Workday Minnesota
Every year, more than 60,000 workers die from job injuries and illnesses and another 6 million are injured in the workplace. Unions say that despite progress made in working conditions, more must be done to prevent these casualties.

Life in limbo
4/22/2004. Star Tribune
Milagros Jimenez spends her days working as a freelance translator and interpreter, caring for her 15-year-old son, singing in the choir at Incarnation Church in south Minneapolis -- and waiting to hear from her lawyer, with equal measures of hope and dread. After tangling with the INS (now the ICE, or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in the judicial jungle for nearly three years, it's become just another part of her routine.

Unity service promotes strength of minorities
4/21/2004. News Transcript
Solidarity has no color, nor does it have a religion, a specific occupation or a fancy address in an affluent neighborhood.

Treatment of Colo. immigrant workers unfair, report says
4/21/2004. Denver Post
Immigrant workers in Colorado are treated unfairly in terms of pay and working conditions, according to a report released late Tuesday by the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute.

Spreading the word
4/21/2004. Star Tribune
On weekdays, Pablo Tapia wears mechanic's coveralls, repairing cars at a body shop in Hopkins. Weekends, he puts on his best suit to follow his calling, encouraging fellow immigrants to become involved in community and political change -- through their churches

Different cultures, different styles
4/20/2004. Star Tribune
While the most populous immigrant groups in Minnesota share broad goals, they remain distinct because of cultural difference and the circumstances under which they arrived here

Amina Arte: A voice for Somali immigrants
4/20/2004. Star Tribune
The walls of Amina Arte's office cubicle are covered with clippings, Post-it notes, photos of her children. One thing stands out: a colorful picture of the United States and Somalia flags, side by side.

Judge drops case against Iraqi-born immigrant
4/20/2004. Kansas City Star
Kussay "Gus" Al-Sabunchi can smile again after learning that the U.S. government is no longer trying to deport him.

Summer of 2004
4/17/2004. San Francisco Chronicle
ALEK FELSTINER, a graduating senior from Yale, isn't returning home to Palo Alto this summer. "Too much is at stake in November for our generation to sit this out," he says. Neither are his classmates, Judith Joffe-Block, whose parents live in Oakland, or Zoe Palitz, whose family home is in Lafayette.

Speaking to the Need for Job Skills
4/17/2004. The Los Angeles Times
Alejandra Casado doesn't fit any old stereotypes of a welder. She is in her 40s, a mother of three, and an immigrant from Guadalajara.

Work nearly grinds to halt as immigrant-raid rumors circulate
4/16/2004. Houston Chronicle
Most days, teams of Latino immigrant workers swarm over the townhouses under construction near Gulfgate, filling the air with the buzz of power tools and orders shouted in Spanish.

Day one: Fighting for inclusion
4/16/2004. Star Tribune
In many ways, Armando Blas-Garcia is a typical suburban father. He works as a shipping clerk for the Instant Web Cos., a direct-mail operation in Chanhassen. His wife, Maria Luisa German-Flores, is a cook at Mystic Lake Casino. They live with their children -- Maria, 17; Areli, 15, and George, 12 -- in a $279,000 home they own in Chanhassen.

Celebrating Cesar's legacy
3/29/2004. Napa News
United Farm Worker founder Cesar Chavez may have passed away years ago, but many Napa County residents honored his life and message of "Si se puede" or "Yes it can be done," four days before his birthday at a celebration and immigration summit Sunday afternoon.

Worker Safety: Texas should take cue from other states
3/29/2004. Dallas Morning News
As Americans continue to depend on cheap immigrant labor, here is one statistic that we can live without: Mexican immigrant workers die on the job at the rate of one per day.

Chorus joins Iraqi-born Florida man in protesting deportation
3/29/2004. The Orlando Sentinel
National civil-rights and advocacy groups have joined forces in support of Kussay "Gus" Al-Sabunchi, an Iraqi-born Orange County resident who faces deportation for breaking the law after he sent roses to his ex-wife in 1997.

Feds Labor to Help Immigrant Workers
3/19/2004. Las Vegas Business Press
A new program to teach English proficiency to 2,000 immigrants training for jobs in the hospitality industry here as well as 450 current workers at 10 hotels will be added to the Culinary Training Academy (CTA) courses via federal government funding.

Resort Town Conflicted Over Alien Workers' Rights
3/17/2004. Fox News
The posh seaside community of Hilton Head (search) is a land of opportunity for thousands of immigrant workers, where each day many gather in vacant lots and wait for contractors to show up with job offers.

Fast-Food Giant Ignores Rights of Workers
3/16/2004. Common Dreams
The world's largest fast-food company, appropriately named Yum! Brands, is being pressed by consumers and human rights groups to ensure that the rights of mostly immigrant farm workers who pick its tomatoes in Florida and elsewhere to safe working conditions and reasonable wages are fully respected.

Vegas program gets $1.8 million under Hispanic Worker Initiative
3/16/2004. New York Newsday
The nation's Hispanic workers will receive more language and occupational training under a $10 million grant program announced Tuesday by Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.

G.I. Seeks Conscientious Objector Status
3/16/2004. Centre Daily
Shaken by a gunfight in Iraq that killed innocent civilians, a 28-year-old U.S. soldier declared the invasion "an oil-driven war" and said he won't return to the Middle East and fight. Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia, of Miami Beach, surrendered Monday at an air force base in Massachusetts, where he was ordered to report to his unit Tuesday at the North Miami Armory in suburban Miami.

Hispanics Make Up Increasing Percentage of Gulfport, Miss.-Area Worker Deaths
3/14/2004. Miami Herald
Fifteen Latino or Hispanic workers have been killed on the job in Mississippi in the past four years. And although it may not sound like many, Spanish-speaking workers are at a greater risk of dying on the job than their white or black co-workers, labor records show.

Mexican-Born Workers More Likely to Die on Job
3/14/2004. The Los Angeles Times
The jobs that lure Mexican workers to the United States are killing them in a worsening epidemic that claims a victim a day, an Associated Press investigation has found.

Immigrants' rights forum scheduled
2/24/2004. The Press-Enterprise
College students and immigrant advocates are organizing a free public forum Saturday in Riverside featuring food, music and political updates."A lot of times, people are not familiar with their rights and the resources available to them," said Estella Acuna of UC Riverside's Chicano Student Programs, one of the conference sponsors. "We're using it hopefully as a springboard" to empower immigrants and their families, she said.

Students to Travel to FL for Voter Drive
2/23/2004. Columbia Spectator
This spring break, students will travel to Gainesville, Fla., to register residents to vote as part of what is being billed as the most extensive student voter drive in history. The organization responsible for the trip, Project Democracy, is a national initiative to increase voter participation that appeared on the Columbia campus shortly before winter break in 2003.

Rival Factions Vie for Sierra Club Control
2/17/2004. The Washington Post
A fierce battle is brewing over the future of the Sierra Club, and an unlikely issue is at the center of the debate: immigration.

Friends rally support for family
2/17/2004. The Oakland Tribune
Supporters of a Fremont family that may be deported to the Philippines this week crowded inside a small coffee shop Sunday to learn about immigrant rights and to rally behind their friends.

Judge Grants Permanent Resident Status to 22,000
2/13/2004. The Washington Post
A federal judge ordered the U.S. government to grant permanent-resident status to nearly 22,000 people nationwide and ensure that all asylum holders get the work permits they are entitled.

Shining light on deaths
2/13/2004. The Arizona Republic
For more than a decade young Mexican women of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua found murdered and abandoned in the desert have frustrated Parra and others who say enough is not being done to learn of their demise. So Parra, 30, and a group of Arizona State University students will ride to Juarez today to join others in a global effort to honor the women and shine attention on their deaths.

Minnesota union officer visits striking Utah miners
2/5/2004. The Militant
Two important solidarity events for the Utah miners on strike here against CW Mining will take place the first weekend of February. One is a February 6 benefit for the miners in St. Paul, Minnesota, at the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 789 union hall. The next day, a labor rally and other activities will take place here.

Labor site struggles
2/3/2004. The Journal News
For 18 months, the day labor site in Spring Valley has offered workers everything from social services to English lessons.

Patriot Act Has Made Impact; Palestinian At SIUC Says Being An Outsider Is Tougher Now
2/3/2004. The Southern Illinoisan
Abdel Mohammad has been studying at Southern Illinois University Carbondale for three years. This semester, the 32-year-old Palestinian doctoral student is working on his dissertation in comparative literature. Mohammad came to the United States as a Fulbright scholar, seeing the chance to study in a land where freedom is the order of the day.

A Vital Bloc, Realizing Its Power, Measures Its Suitors
2/2/2004. The New York Times
The Arizona primary was less than 48 hours away, and John Ramos, a 38-year-old Mexican-American Democrat who voted for the first time in 2000, had still not made up his mind.

Ex-agents get prison in immigrant's death
2/2/2004. Houston Chronicle
In rulings hailed as the first of their kind, a Houston federal judge sentenced three former immigration agents to prison Monday for denying medical care to a paralyzed immigrant who later died of his injuries.

The Border Angels and Their Unconditional Humanitarianism
2/1/2004. Pacifica News Service
In the face of the Bush Administration�s immigration proposal which would make undocumented immigrant workers legally exploitable for intervals of three years, thirty Border Angel volunteers, led by Enrique Morones, founder of the non-profit organization, caravanned from downtown San Diego to East County�s rocky desert hills to set up stations of water, food, and clothing.

Forum to look at reality of immigration (February 15)
1/29/2004. Workday Minnesota
A look at the reality of immigrants in Minnesota and at proposals for just immigration reform will take place Feb. 15 in a forum called �Strangers Becoming Friends.� Maria Elena Durazo, an international vice president with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union and the national leader of last year�s Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, will be featured speaker.

Immigration Committee Given Full Status in New York City Council
1/29/2004. The Black World Today
This move is applauded by immigrant advocates because it means the committee will receive more resources, financial and otherwise, that will empower it to play a much more pivotal role in this city in which over 40% of the residents are foreign-born.

Supermarket Picketers Return To Ralphs
1/25/2004. NBC4 TV
...Union officials also said the company may have coerced some workers, especially immigrant workers, with threats that they might not get jobs unless they agreed to cross the picket lines.

Striking Utah miners on labor tour in Bay Area
1/22/2004. The Militant
Juan Salazar, Ricardo Ch�vez, Benito Meza, and Alyson Kennedy arrived here January 12 for an intensive effort in the Bay Area to win solidarity with their struggle for union recognition at the Co-Op mine near Huntington, Utah. In the first five days of the labor tour, the coal miners spoke to 600 people and raised more than $8,500. The Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (AFL-CIO) in San Jose organized the tour.

Baltimore opens arms, outreach to immigrants
1/20/2004. Baltimore Sun
Jose Portillo left his native El Salvador 20 years ago for Baltimore and a better life. When his daughter followed 10 years later, she opened a business in the city's Spanish Town, but chose to live in Baltimore County.

Worker rights centers offer help
1/20/2004. The Journal Gazette
Immigrant and native workers can receive advice on their rights in the work place with toll-free telephone calls to the latest in a string of advocacy centers across Indiana. The Worker Rights Center, which opened Monday in a South Bend AFL-CIO office, takes calls in English, Spanish and Polish. Other worker rights centers across the state include The Workers' Project in Fort Wayne, Central Indiana Jobs With Justice and The Calumet Project in Lake County.

Rally focuses on immigrants� rights
1/20/2004. News Transcript
The inclement weather did not deter the motivation of those who came to honor the memory and the work of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Monmouth County Hall of Records Plaza, Freehold Borough, on Sunday.

King's message recalled, reapplied
1/20/2004. News-Record
Omer Omer doesn't need to be told about the importance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy. He's experienced it.After all, the civil rights movement in the 1950s -- led by King and others -- helped inspire an independence movement in Omer's native country of Sudan, in northeast Africa, that freed it from colonial rule in 1956.

Latinos organizing for strength
1/20/2004. The Desert Sun
Federico Reyes, a union organizer in Reno, Nev., is the new face of organized labor. In 1976, Reyes left Mexico to become a farm worker in California. He moved to Reno a year later to seek a better job in the city that was a gambling mecca, and worked as a dishwasher and kitchen helper. Twenty years later, he led a bitter struggle to organize one of the city�s largest hotels, the Hilton.

Business Cheers Bush's Plan to Hire Immigrants More Easily, but Labor Is Wary
1/12/2004. The New York Times
Every year Frank Romano has trouble hiring enough workers to fill the vacancies at his nursing home chain in Massachusetts, from $60,000-a-year nurses to $8-an-hour kitchen and laundry workers. Not only are there not enough American-trained nurses available, said Mr. Romano, who hires 300 new workers a year, but hardly any Americans are willing to take the lowly, sweaty jobs in a nursing home's kitchen or laundry.

Justices Refuse to Review Case on Secrecy and 9/11 Detentions
1/12/2004. The New York Times
In a significant victory for the Bush administration, the Supreme Court declined today to review the government's refusal to release information about foreigners held after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Imagining Life Without Illegal Immigrants
1/11/2004. The New York Times
Imagine America without illegal immigrants, the people who flip the burgers, clean the toilets, watch the kids and send their children to public schools. Would the grass be greener?

Bush to honor King in Atlanta
1/10/2004. Atlanta Journal and Constitution
President Bush plans to visit the King Center on Thursday as part of a weeklong observance of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday...A symposium Thursday at Ebenezer Baptist Church will focus on immigration and human rights. Speakers include former Atlanta Mayor and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young and Maria Elena Durazo, an organizer of the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, last year's nationwide bus trip to Washington that imitated the 1961 freedom rides to integrate bus terminals.

Activistas rechazan plan de visas de Bush
1/9/2004. La Opinion
El programa de visas temporales para trabajadores extranjeros propuesto por el presidente George W. Bush continu� ayer levantando reacciones. Esta vez por parte de organizaciones pro derechos de los inmigrantes.

New political climate awaits legislators
1/5/2004. Mercury News
With a number of contentious issues from last year still unresolved, laws addressing everything from driver's licenses for illegal immigrants to workers' compensation reform will loom large when the Legislature reconvenes today.

. . . While Abuses Are Confirmed
1/5/2004. The Washington Post
THE LATEST REPORT from the Department of Justice's inspector general on the treatment of immigration detainees rounded up after Sept. 11, 2001, is among the most disturbing to date. Elaborating on a chapter of an earlier report, it documents a pattern of physical and other abuses of inmates at the Bureau of Prisons' Metropolitan Detention Center in New York and apparent obstruction of the inspector-general's efforts to bring these to light.

Longer Road for Va. Drivers
1/3/2004. The Washington Post
Nardos Kefle waited for an hour and a half to get her Virginia driver's license yesterday, patiently standing in a long line that snaked out the door and down the sidewalk in front of the Alexandria office of the state's Department of Motor Vehicles. When at last she made it to the counter, she was turned away, snagged by a new state law that requires her to prove she is in the United States legally.

Bush to Seek Immigrant Benefit Protection
1/3/2004. The Washington Post
President Bush will propose protections for the Social Security taxes paid by the workers who would come into the country under massive changes to immigration laws he plans to announce on Wednesday, Republican officials said Saturday. Bush's plan would make it possible for such workers from Mexico and perhaps other countries to collect retirement benefits without being penalized by their home countries for the years they spent working in the United States, the officials said.

WHO-TV pulls 'borderline racist' ads
1/2/2004. The Des Moines Register
Central Iowa television station WHO has pulled the political ads that were criticized by Iowa labor leaders for their anti-immigration message. Jim Boyer, general manager for WHO-TV, said the ads took a position he did not want represented at the station. "We took a look and decided the ads were unnecessarily inflaming and borderline racist," Boyer said. "It was a piece of business we did not want."

TV station pulls political ad opposed by labor leaders
1/2/2004. Associated Press
One central Iowa television station has stopped airing political ads criticized by labor leaders for being an anti-immigration message while officials at a second station were discussing the ads. "We took a look and decided the ads were unnecessarily inflaming and borderline racist," said Jim Boyer, general manager for WHO-TV, who said the ads took a position he did not want represented at the station. "It was a piece of business we did not want."

Labor leaders urge immigration ads pulled
1/2/2004. Associated Press
Iowa labor leaders have urged two local television stations to pull anti-immigration political ads that appear to be sponsored by a coalition of workers.

Local 54 and casinos help keep workers legal
12/30/2003. Press of Atlantic City
A few years ago, officials of the Local 54 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union noticed that many of its 15,000 members were being suspended or fired because of immigration problems.

Striking Latino miners have little to celebrate this year
12/30/2003. The Salt Lake Tribune
Red Christmas lights surrounded the portrait of the Virgin of Guadalupe inside the weathered old trailer on the road to the Co-Op Mine. Like the Greeks, Chinese, Italians, Irish and Czechs before them, the mostly poor Latino miners are battling mine owners for basic rights such as safety, a living wage, a pension and health insurance.

Immigrant Rights Groups Sue Over Criminal Database
12/30/2003. NewsMax
A number of immigrant rights groups and advocates have filed suit in a New York federal court charging the Justice Department and the FBI are improperly enlisting state and local police assistance in enforcing immigration laws.

Middlemen in the Low-Wage Economy
12/30/2003. The New York Times
After federal agents raided 60 Wal-Mart stores in October and found more than 200 illegal immigrants in the cleaning crews, the world's largest retailer was quick to defend itself from this enormous embarrassment. Wal-Mart's officers said they had no idea those workers were illegal, insisting they knew next to nothing about the workers from Mexico, Mongolia, Russia and elsewhere because they were employed by contractors.

Congressional proposals focus on immigration
12/30/2003. The Island Packet
After being pushed aside following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, immigration reform is back on the minds of many in Congress. Bills introduced in the past several months seek to alter how borders are protected, undocumented workers are treated and guest worker programs are run.

New law is helpful gift
12/28/2003. New York Daily News
Just in time for the holidays, Intro 38A, the Equal Access to Human Services Act, was signed into law on Monday by Mayor Bloomberg. It is an important bill that reaffirms our city's tradition of fairness to all its people.

They Come to Prosper
12/28/2003. Press of Atlantic City
Hector Alvarez studied architecture in school, but he knew his experience farming sugar cane in Oaxaca, Mexico, would be more useful in finding a job when he sneaked across the American border in 1985. He made his way to southern California and picked prunes. Laboring in the heat for 10 hours a day, he earned more than was possible in Mexico. But Hector wished for a better way, not only to survive, but to prosper.

Culture classes
12/27/2003. Star Tribune
Sony Sly, an immigrant from Cambodia, doesn't know enough English yet to tell you very much about herself. But she's a whiz on pull-wires for electrophysiology catheters, and such terms as proximal, distal, calibration and traceability -- and other med-school-sized words.

Reaching out to minority employers to tell them how government can help
12/27/2003. NJ.com
Fine Fair Supermarket owner Ali Siyam was a little surprised when an employee told him that Department of Labor representatives wanted to speak to him. As Siyam descended the stairs from the upstairs office of his Bergenline Avenue store, Department of Labor employees stood smiling next to the refrigerated meats, waiting to extend their hands in greeting.

Immigration Reform on Bush Agenda
12/24/2003. The Washington Post
President Bush plans to kick off his reelection year by proposing a program that would make it easier for immigrants to work legally in the United States, in what would constitute the most significant changes to immigration law in 18 years, Republican officials said yesterday.

Freehold church will help day laborers
12/23/2003. News 12 New Jersey
One month after Freehold officials signed an ordinance prohibiting day laborers from gathering in public, a Baptist church has announced it will open its parking lot to the migrant workers. In November, town leaders argued that too many day laborers were coming from far away to meet in Freehold and look for work. They signed a law prohibiting the immigrant workers from gathering in a local "muster zone."

Guidelines Are Giving Workers A Helping Hand
12/23/2003. Wilson County News
There is good news for workers in America: the workplace is becoming a safer place-and workers are reaping the benefits. That's because injuries related to ergonomics-also known as musculoskeletal disorders or MSDs-in America's workplaces declined in 2001, according to the Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Not So Super Market
12/22/2003. City Limits
When Wal-Mart was raided by federal agents in October, it was front page news. The chain was accused of employing undocumented workers, many of whom were underpaid by the cleaning companies used by the chain. But, around the same time, a smaller version of the same story was unfolding here in New York.

Religious Procession Highlights Union Drive
12/22/2003. The Look Out News
The Posada, organized by Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism (SMART) in collaboration with St. Anne's Catholic Church, depicted the journey of immigrant workers to California to "highlight the social injustice experienced by immigrants here, all desperate people looking for a better life," said Derek Smith, SMART's community organizer.

When Workers Die: US Rarely Seeks Charges for Deaths in Workplace
12/22/2003. Common Dreams
Every one of their deaths was a potential crime. Workers decapitated on assembly lines, shredded in machinery, burned beyond recognition, electrocuted, buried alive � all of them killed, investigators concluded, because their employers willfully violated workplace safety laws. These deaths represent the very worst in the American workplace, acts of intentional wrongdoing or plain indifference that kill about 100 workers each year. They were not accidents. They happened because a boss removed a safety device to speed up production, or because a company ignored explicit safety warnings, or because a worker was denied proper protective gear.

Flash of Honesty
12/22/2003. The Washington Post
A glimmer of a change in Bush administration immigration policy appeared, not at a press conference or in a major speech but in an off-the-cuff remark during a town hall meeting in Miami earlier this month. Asked there about proposed immigration legislation, Tom Ridge, secretary for homeland security, replied that he thought Americans needed to "come to grips with the presence of 8 to 12 million illegals, afford them some kind of legal status."

Calif. Immigrant Initiative Revived
12/22/2003. The Washington Post
Backers of a contentious 1994 initiative denying some social services to illegal immigrants have resurrected their effort and are gathering signatures to qualify a new measure for the November ballot. The "Save Our State Initiative" would bar undocumented immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses and most public services, including non-emergency health care.

Backers of Prop. 187 Push for New Initiative
12/20/2003. The Los Angeles Times
Organizers who a decade ago wrote Proposition 187 � a landmark ballot measure that divided California � are now gathering signatures for a new initiative that again would attempt to prohibit illegal immigrants from receiving a broad array of public services.

Immigrant and Refugee Rights Organizations Nationwide Protest Post-9/11 Immigration Policy
12/18/2003.
Over 60 immigrant, civil, and human rights organizations around the U.S. today denounced U.S. immigration policies as endangering, not protecting, the rights of immigrants nationwide. �Immigrants and refugees continue to be the specific targets of intensified law enforcement and public scapegoating in the name of national security,� concluded a national statement endorsed by the organizations and which was released on the occasion of the United Nations� International Migrants Day.

U.S. Considers Expanding FBI Database
12/17/2003. The Washington Post
Homeland security officials want to add tens of thousands of illegal immigrants and foreign students to an FBI database designed primarily to help police apprehend wanted criminals, allowing them to instantly identify foreign nationals who have been deported or have violated student visas--raising concerns among some civil liberties advocates and law enforcement groups that fear it will bring police heavily into the business of apprehending immigration violators who have committed no serious crimes.

New Hope on Immigration
12/15/2003. The New York Times
Without more detail, it was hard to determine, exactly, what Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge meant when he called for an ambitious plan to give millions of illegal immigrants some kind of legal status. But his candid comments in Miami last Tuesday, which apparently caught the White House off guard, offer the first hopeful sign since the World Trade Center attack that the Bush Administration is returning to immigration reform.

New effort underway to protect immigrant workers
12/13/2003. KUSA TV Denver
The federal government is part of a new effort to try and improve safety for immigrant workers. According to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Spanish-speaking workers in Colorado get hurt on the job at a disproportionately higher level than non-Hispanics. The agency says immigrant workers often do not feel comfortable speaking out when they see unsafe conditions at work.

Ridge: Give illegal entrants 'status'
12/10/2003. The Miami Herald
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Tuesday that he believes the vast majority of illegal immigrants in the United States are not a threat to national security and should be given ``some kind of legal status.''

Homeland security chief endorses legalizing undocumented immigrants
12/10/2003. Sun-Sentinel
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told a Miami audience Tuesday that the country should legalize millions of undocumented immigrants living in the country. "The bottom line is, as a country we have to come to grips with the presence of 8 to 12 million illegals, afford them some kind of legal status some way, but also as a country decide what our immigration policy is and then enforce it," Ridge said at a town hall meeting at Miami-Dade Community College.

Protecting the right to unionize
12/8/2003. The Boston Globe
IMAGINE A PLACE where you were spied on just for speaking your mind. Imagine a place where you were forced to attend meetings pushing a line you disagreed with and weren't even allowed to speak. Imagine a place where you were fired just for signing your name. Does this sound like another country or something out of the distant past?

Knock on door: Is this Iraq?
12/4/2003. The Orlando Sentinel
He was only 8 years old and his little brother was barely 6 months born when Iraqi goons kidnapped their pharmacist-father from Kuwait and began torturing the man. It was a case of mistaken identity, Iraqi officials admitted years later.

One Answer for Farmingville Day Workers: Unions
12/2/2003. New York Newsday
Of all the approaches to the vexing problem of immigrant day workers clustering in Farmingville, one of the most positive and constructive is the one that the Empire State Regional Council of Carpenters has taken: trying to organize some of them as members of a union.

End of Special Registration Welcome but Will it End Discriminatory Treatment
12/2/2003. US Newswire
Amnesty International USA Senior Deputy Executive Director, Curt Goering, released the following statement regarding today's announcement by the US Department of Homeland Security that it would no longer require the "special" registration under the National Security Entry Exit Registration System (NSEERS) of Middle Eastern, South Asian and Muslim men: The end of NSEERS, as we know it, is a welcome step toward closing the gap between recognizing basic human rights principles of non-discrimination and the disparate treatment of a selected group of non-citizens in US policy. But today's announcement does not guarantee individuals targeted under NSEERS will not continued to be singled out for scrutiny in the "war on terror."

At What Cost Bargains?
11/26/2003. The Los Angeles Times
Las Vegas hotel worker Chastity Ferguson earns $400 a week and depends on Wal-Mart's low prices to feed and clothe her four children. Isabel Reyes, a Honduran laborer who struggles to push fabric through a sewing machine 10 hours a day, makes the bargains possible with her low salary, equal to $35 per week.

Licenses for Illegal Immigrants
11/26/2003. The New York Times
America's whole immigration policy is currently such a mess that communities are forced to try to regulate an irrational status quo. A perfect example is the current controversy over whether an illegal immigrant should have a driver's license.

Europe's Cheap U.S. Labor
11/25/2003. The Washington Post
In Europe, they pay their workers decently, tend to health and safety concerns and actually encourage their employees to unionize. When they cross the Atlantic, however, they find themselves in a brave new world where wages have eroded (a new Russell Sage Foundation study concludes that 24 percent of U.S. workers make less than $8.70 an hour) and employees' rights to unionize have been effectively abolished.

Give illegal immigrants licenses, suit asks
11/20/2003. Des Moines Register
Chariton lawyer has filed a lawsuit aimed at obtaining Iowa drivers' licenses for thousands of illegal immigrants whom he contends have been treated unfairly. Curt Daniels, who said he is suing on behalf of both legal and illegal residents, is seeking a court order that would force state officials to grant licenses without requiring applicants to have a Social Security number.

Immigrant Advocates Win Award: In Florida, Workers Cracked Slavery Ring
11/20/2003. The Washington Post
Romeo Ramirez came here from Guatemala, via Mexico, sneaking into the United States when he was 17 to pick tomatoes. Not long after he got here, he joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an advocacy group working to improve the lives of thousands of migrant workers in this swath of swampy South Florida.

Vitality and stability
11/20/2003. The Baltimore Sun
NEWARK, N.J., reached about as low an ebb in the 1970s and 1980s as any American city has had to endure. Torn by riots in 1967, it then proceeded to lose nearly half its population. The schools were terrible, politics were corrupt, business nose-dived, and everyone was scrambling to get out of town.

From foreign shores
11/19/2003. The Baltimore Sun
TAKE A STROLL down Broadway, and listen to the busy passers-by speaking Spanish. From Lombard Street to Fleet Street, you'll find more than a dozen Central American restaurants - and a lunch truck selling tacos. You'll see Spanish bookstores, music stores, beauty shops and groceries. You'll pass storefronts selling international phone cards and airline tickets; others offering wire money transfers or courier services to Latin America; still others advertising help with taxes and with the law. Pentecostal iglesias line both sides of the street.

Immigrant backers split on bills
11/18/2003. The Herald Sun
Advocates for immigrant workers said they support a federal bill that would increase opportunities for immigrants but are adamantly opposed to a bill that would require local police to enforce immigration laws.

Police May Join Hunt for Illegal Migrants
11/11/2003. The Los Angeles Times
Alabama Trooper Gary Hetzel patrols the highways of this Deep South state like a hunter, scouting the traffic lanes for speeders and reckless drivers, drunks and outlaws on the run. Now he can chase another kind of quarry: illegal immigrants.

Group Calls Driver's License Law Unconstitutional, Files Lawsuit
11/11/2003. The Los Angeles Times
Opponents of a controversial law that would grant California driver's licenses to some illegal immigrants on Monday expanded their campaign to repeal the measure with a lawsuit alleging that it violates the U.S. Constitution.

Quakers Promote Immigrant Rights
11/11/2003. The Los Angeles Times
American Quakers launched a $2.4-million initiative Monday to document and challenge abuses of immigrant rights, which they argue have escalated during the national war on terrorism.

Legendary labor leader Dolores Huerta to speak at annual awards dinner
11/8/2003. Register-Pajaronian
Legendary labor leader Dolores Huerta, recently appointed by Gov. Gray Davis as a Regent of the University of California, will appear at the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council's annual Labor-Neighbor Awards Dinner Thursday, Nov. 20, from 6-9 p.m. at the Monterey Hyatt Regency.

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.

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.

Immigration Officials Raid Wal-Mart Stores
10/24/2003. The Washington Post
Federal immigration officials raided Wal-Mart stores across the country yesterday, arresting 250 cleaning-crew workers they suspect of being illegal aliens. The raids, at 61 stores in 21 states, were part of an investigation into whether the world's largest retailer or its subcontractors knowingly hired illegal immigrants, the officials said.

Farmers hope to gain stable, legal work force
10/24/2003. The Orlando Sentinel
A controversial bill winding through Congress would legalize as many as 100,000 undocumented workers in Florida and retool an agricultural guest-worker program that farmers seeking cheap labor have circumvented for years.

Senate panel approves bill on illegals
10/24/2003. The Washington Times
The Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill yesterday allowing illegal immigrant students to gain legal status and to pay in-state tuition rates at state colleges and universities.

U.S. arrests 300 workers at 60 Wal-Mart stores
10/23/2003. Forbes
Authorities arrested about 300 workers at 60 Wal-Mart Stores Inc. locations across the country on immigration charges in an investigation into contractor cleaning crews, and some company executives knew about the scheme, U.S. officials said Thursday.

With elections on horizon, immigration bills have new momentum in Congress
10/20/2003. San Diego Union-Tribune
Speed citizenship for immigrants in the armed forces. Give work permits to illegal immigrants who pay taxes and study English. Legalize tens of thousands of high school students who sometimes discover only when applying for college jobs that their parents brought them here illegally. These ideas have been floating around Congress for years, promoted mostly by Democrats and immigrant advocates.

Non-Citizens Seek City Law Changes to Allow Voting
10/7/2003. Columbia Daily Spectator
This election day, more than four million residents from the Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island will line up at their nearest public school to exercise one of their most important rights as Americans--the right to vote.

An Immigrant President? It Could Happen
10/3/2003. The Los Angeles Times
Since the founding of the United States, the office of president has carried a qualification not required for any other elected federal post. Under the Constitution, only a "natural born citizen" can be president.

Bush aides anger GOP lawmakers on consular IDs
10/2/2003. The Washington Times
Bush administration officials yesterday angered lawmakers by refusing to take a position on illegal aliens obtaining U.S. driver's licenses and avoiding questions about its decision to recognize Mexican identification cards.

Opposition to mass immigration, newcomers growing in U.S.
10/1/2003. Sun-Sentinel
Opposition to mass immigration and resentment against newcomers appear to be growing in the United States, fueled by economic insecurity as well as fears arising from the Sept. 11 attacks, immigration experts say.

Project to ID bodies found at border
10/1/2003. The Washington Times
WACO, Texas (AP) � The sun-bleached bones are kept in a cardboard box in a locked cabinet � a skull, a thighbone, several ribs and vertebrae, pieces of a pelvis. To Lori Baker's trained eye, the remains found in a lonely corner of south Texas near the Rio Grande tell of a boy, about 13.

Repatriation Effort Earns Border Patrol Few Fans
9/29/2003. Los Angeles Times
In what U.S. officials call a rescue mission and critics dismiss as costly folly, thousands of illegal immigrants caught in Arizona this month are being flown in handcuffs to four Texas cities for deportation to Mexico � in the hope that they will not try again to sneak across the border in Arizona's killer desert heat.

Legal status out of reach for many
9/28/2003. The Clarion Ledger
About six years ago, Angelica Mazy of Clinton met and married her husband Abraham Mazy in Mexico, but he lived in the United States.

International court backs rights of migrants
9/28/2003. San Francisco Chronicle
The hemisphere's top human rights court has ruled that migrants have the same rights as other workers, even if they can be deported, Mexican officials announced on Thursday. The nonbinding opinion came in response to a Mexican complaint filed last year after a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a plastics company owed nothing to an illegal immigrant who was fired after involvement in union activities.

Vasquez slams efforts to aid illegal immigrants
9/25/2003. Idaho Statesman
Canyon County Commissioner Robert Vasquez on Wednesday issued a searing condemnation of efforts by Idaho�s congressional delegation to support legislation to help illegal immigrants. �I am accusing Larry Craig, Mike Crapo, Butch Otter and Mike Simpson of collaborating with the unarmed enemy invading America,� Vasquez wrote in a news release issued on his official commissioner stationery. �All for a vote to stay in office.�

PBS Series of 6 Movies "Matters of Race" Airs September 23 and 24
9/23/2003. PBS

Let legal immigrants vote in city
9/22/2003. New York Daily News

Candidates stump the state
9/21/2003. The Mercury News

Labor Fights for Rights
9/11/2003. AlterNet.org

Ready to rumba
9/1/2003. The Providence Phoenix

Union forging a voice for immigrant workers
9/1/2003. The Houston Chronicle

Group blames illegal immigrant students for big chunk of deficit
8/29/2003. The Pasadena Citizen

St. Paul Labor Day features music, workshops
8/27/2003. Workday Minnesota

Calero joins Atlanta driver�s license protest
8/25/2003. The Militant

8 Members of Congress Urge Release of Immigrant
8/22/2003. New York Times

Bill Allowing Driver's Licenses for Illegal Immigrants Hits Roadblock
8/22/2003. Los Angeles Times

Assembly Panel OKs Bill Giving Illegal Immigrants Driver's Licenses
8/21/2003. Los Angeles Times

Top Border Official Defends Broad Powers
8/20/2003. Las Vegas Sun

MALDEF APPLAUDS GOV. DAVIS FOR PLEDGING TO SIGN DRIVER�S LICENSE BILL; PRAISES SEN. CEDILLO
8/15/2003. Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)

Lee joins immigration meeting
8/3/2003. Alameda Times-Star

Outreach effort informs Asians of workplace rights
7/31/2003. Houston Chronicle

ID debate ignores real immigration issues
7/29/2003. Kansas City Star

McCain, Flake and Kolbe introduce immigration legislation
7/26/2003. Arizona Daily Sun

Governor joins opponents of immigration initiative
7/22/2003. The Arizona Republic

Advocate sings praises of Latino immigrants
7/22/2003. The Salt Lake Tribune

Report examines immigration policy
7/21/2003. The Ithaca Journal

Patriot Act report documents civil rights complaints
7/21/2003. CNN

Agency Documents Abuse Under Patriot Act
7/21/2003. The Associated Press

Plan would allow guest workers in U.S.: No path to citizenship
7/16/2003. Daily Texan

Sen. John Cornyn files bill for guest workers
7/11/2003. San Antonio Express News

Immigrant bill already has its share of foes
7/7/2003. Austin American Statesman

Death march
7/5/2003. Arizona Republic

Politics, demographics spur calls for turning foreigners into Americans
7/3/2003. Associated Press

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico says immigration reform up to American Congress
7/2/2003. Associated Press

Immigration Tears Family Apart
7/2/2003. Oakland Tribune

Immigrants March for Rights, Respect, Dignity
7/2/2003. Minnesota Spokesman-Reporter

Civics Lessons From Immigrants
7/1/2003. The American Prospect

Mexican ID Helps City, Immigrants
6/27/2003. The Journal Gazette

Study: Post-9/11 Immigration Crackdown Ineffective
6/27/2003. Miami Herald

March to Capitol June 28 promotes immigrant rights
6/27/2003. Workday Minnesota

ID Cards Called Risky
6/27/2003. Los Angeles Times

Immigrant Pins His Hopes on Drivers Bill
6/25/2003. San Bernardino Sun

Two who registered with immigration see uncertainty in future
6/19/2003. Ventura County Star

Report Faults Handling Of Immigrant Children
6/19/2003. The Washington Post

Indefensible Secrecy
6/18/2003. Washington Post

San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales symbolically endorses immigrant driver's licenses
6/17/2003. The Mercury News

Legislation could legalize undocumented workers
6/16/2003. News 8 Austin

Former INS Head Warns of Rights Abuses
6/15/2003. The Washington Post

States Take the Lead on Policies for Immigrants
6/9/2003. Los Angeles Times

Mayor: Make Undocumented Immigrants Citizens
5/16/2003. NY Newsday

Portrait of Courage: Mexican Mother's Day
5/11/2003. The Desert Sun

Organization Helps Immigrants Realize Citizenship Dreams
4/27/2003. Las Vegas Review Journal

Council Backs Citizenship for Troops
4/17/2003. Los Angels Times

Advocates' Groups to Fight Local Pursuit of Immigrants
4/13/2003. New York Times

Senate considering bill to create temporary DLs
3/20/2003. The Morning Sun

Illegal Migrants Anxious for IDs
3/10/2003. The Arizona Republic

Airport Sweeps Net Immigrants/Miss Terrorists
3/1/2003. Chicago Reporter

TV station pulls political ad opposed by labor leaders
1/2/2003. Associated Press
One central Iowa television station has stopped airing political ads criticized by labor leaders for being an anti-immigration message while officials at a second station were discussing the ads. "We took a look and decided the ads were unnecessarily inflaming and borderline racist," said Jim Boyer, general manager for WHO-TV, who said the ads took a position he did not want represented at the station. "It was a piece of business we did not want."

The Kill Floor Rebellion
. from American Prospect