Obama administration will stop deportation of immigrants elligible for DREAM Act relief
Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is announcing that the United States government will stop deporting younger undocumented people who entered the United States when they were children. The new policy is based on some of the goals of the DREAM Act, though the executive branch is unable to implement the full act. Congress has authority over who is entitled to a path to citizenship, so eventually, the DREAM Act will need to be passed. When this policy is implemented, these immigrants will no longer live under threat of deportation “if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16 and are younger than 30, have been in the country for at least five continuous years, have no criminal history, graduated from a U.S. high school or earned a GED, or served in the military.”
This is an enormous first step, that, according to the Associated Press, “will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation.” President Obama is addressing the new policy later today.
During the fight to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in the military, the LGBT community gained some important allies in the DREAM activists – the undocumented students and workers attempting to remain in the country and gain a path to citizenship through the Act. The DREAM Act and repeal of DADT were both coming up in Congress at the same time and the two groups were united, helping to rally support for both bills. Some suggestions were made that spending time trying to pass one bill would hurt the other bill’s chances, and at the time, Immigration Equality wrote:
“We’re smarter than falling for a ‘it’s either one or the other’ argument,” Heather Cronk, managing director of GetEqual, said.
Over the past two months, Cronk has worked side by side with immigration activists to draft protest strategy and letters to Congress.
But her group, which favors repealing the military’s ban on openly gay Americans, has also received pushback from gay-rights activists who believe the two issues should be treated separately.
“There have been folks in the LGBT community saying don’t work with DREAM activists because it will tear down our chances. We pushed back because it’s not okay to leave people behind,” she said.
The alliance came about partly because several prominent students in the immigration fight are homosexual. The two groups also share an affinity for civil disobedience.
As in any activist community on virtually every issue, part of the community of DREAM activists is LGBT, and many of them have come out as both LGBT and as an undocumented person living in the United States. If it’s hard coming out as gay, it’s even more difficult coming out as being a part of both communities:
You see, a lot of the young people at the forefront of this movement also happen to be gay.
Not only are these students proud to scream, “Undocumented and unafraid,” but some have challenged the status quo even further by coming out as queer, undocumented and unafraid.
From 2010’s Trail of Dreams, where three undocumented youth and a legal U.S. resident walked from Miami, Fla. to Washington, D.C., to the first-ever civil disobedience at the Tucson, Ariz. office of Sen. John McCain, undocumented gay activists have been key movers and shakers in actions that aim to bring attention to the DREAM Act.
At times, they risk death and deportation.
This was the case when Mohammad Abdollahi, who, along with undocumented students Yahaira Carrillo, Tania Unzueta, Lizbeth Mateo and legal U.S. resident Raul Alcaraz, participated in the Tucson action.
Abdollahi, an undocumented gay student from Iran, risked deportation to a country where homosexuality is punished with death. Undocumented queer activists Carrillo and Unzueta sat next to Abdollahi, and all three contemplated the possibility of being deported to countries they barely remembered.
Because we have shared goals of equality and coalition building, and because there are LGBT people in both camps, it’s a natural alliance:
Urvashi Vaid, the lesbian activist who once headed the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force, has often made that point about the need to show up at each other’s causes. She said race in the LGBT movement is seen “primarily as an issue of diversity or outreach, not as an issue of equity or fundamental justice that it is our business as a movement to achieve.” One person’s cause has really become another person’s outreach. Let’s get a person of color for our board. How about a gay person for our board?
After today’s announcement, Immigration Equality released a statement, pushing the administration to make further advancements in keeping LGBT families together:
Today’s announcement is great news for our country. The young people who will be positively impacted are our classmates, our colleagues, our friends. They are America’s up-and-comers: future entrepreneurs, scientists, and public servants. I can’t wait to see their vibrant potential realized.
Some DREAM-eligible young people – including many of the bravest leaders of the movement – are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. Many, gay and straight, are building their lives with Americans whom they love. This new policy will ensure these young people, many of whom have never known any home other than the United States, do not live in fear of separation from their family. Indeed, no person should face forcible separation from their families, regardless of their age. That is why the White House should follow today’s announcement with a proposal to extend that same relief to immigrants with U.S.-citizen partners and spouses across the board. Keeping families together is good policy, and all families, including those that are LGBT, should have the support of the President in the form of a similar policy.”
The announcement also comes on the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Plyler v. Doe, striking down an attempt by Texas to withhold education funds for children who are in the country without documentation. The Court held that the action violates the 14th Amendment, writing that, “no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment ‘jurisdiction’ can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful.”
There is still a lot left to be done to fulfill this principle, but this is a bold step.
H.R. 1981: “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011”
Crossposted at Daily Kos
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is back with a new anti-privacy bill that’s been on the radar of civil liberties organizations for several months now, though it hasn’t yet received much attention in the mainstream media. He introduced H.R. 1981, euphemistically the “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011” back in May 2011 and on July 28, 2011 it was passed onto the floor by the House Judiciary Committee where it is currently awaiting action.
The ACLU explains the ostensible purpose behind the proposed bill as well as the current privacy-related problems with the amended version:
The bill, HR 1981, the “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011,” – if only it were that narrow! – is a direct assault on the privacy of Internet users and overlooks some key fixes that could actually help to address the very real problem of child exploitation.
We blogged about the bill’s serious privacy implications back in May. Despite some recent amendments, the legislation still has fundamental problems.
The bill requires Internet companies to log all temporarily assigned network addresses, also known as IP addresses, for a minimum of one year. IP addresses directly link individuals to their online activity and can reveal very private information about everything from health concerns to political interests. And once all of this personal information about innocent Americans is collected, it would be available to law enforcement for any purpose.
Broad immunity provisions for companies in the bill also threaten to undermine state data breach laws and data security protections as well as potentially immunize companies against tort and other claims. At a time when high profile data breaches are daily news stories and identity theft is widespread, this provision seems ill-considered at best.
The bill also ignore steps recommended by the Government Accountability Office to make child exploitation investigations more effective, including devoting more resources to forensic analysis of computers and better coordination between law enforcement agencies.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation had this to say back when the bill was voted out of Committee:
Despite serious privacy concerns being voiced by both Democratic and Republican leaders and by thousands of digital rights activists using EFF’s Action Center, this afternoon the House Judiciary Committee voted 19 to 10 to recommend passage of H.R. 1981. That bill contains a mandatory data retention provision that would require your Internet service providers to retain 12 months’ worth of personal information that could be used to identify what web sites you visit and what content you post online. EFF had previously joined with 29 other civil liberties and consumer privacy groups in signing a letter to the Committee members that condemned the bill as a “direct assault on the privacy of Internet users.”
They note that the bill would “treat every internet user like a criminal and threaten the online privacy and free speech rights of every American[.]” The bill goes far beyond SOPA/PIPA. It is being called “Orwellian” both for its name – which has absolutely nothing to do with keeping children away from porn and everything to do with intruding into Americans’ privacy rights – and for the fact that it would allow the government to view a lot more of your daily activities than they’ve ever been legally allowed access to. It actually mandates that internet service providers keep a database of everything you do online and hand it over to the government when they want to see it.
It’s a very broad and sweeping proposal:
This is serious threat to our privacy. The ACLU has long been concerned about companies that follow us around the web and track our viewing habits for the purposes of advertising. They use this tracking to build personal profiles about us that can be widely shared. Forcing companies to retain data for long periods would bolster this practice. It would also make it much easier for the government to track everything we do online. No company would be able to promise not to record your visit — that would be barred by law. Respect for your anonymity online would be a thing of the past.
The legislation applies to a broad swath of internet sites and services. It would include all email providers (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail), all cloud computing services (Google-web based services like Picasa and Google Docs), all social networking sites and a whole lot more. In layman’s terms, the bill applies to every site that allows you to communicate with others or stores or processes your data — almost everybody.
Aside from the problems with civil liberties and privacy, there is the issue of cost to private businesses. In pushing strongly for this bill’s enactment, Rep. Smith and his 39 cosponsors are asking the government to impose a de facto tax on businesses in order for the provisions to be enforced (to the extent that the provisions of a bill of this magnitude could be enforced):
More recently, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has fast-tracked H.R. 1981, commonly known as “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011,″ a title rich with pathos and seemingly morally impregnable, though it will actually mandate tech companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) create massive user data bases to be made available to the U.S. government.
As noted by The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) in its report “Compliance with a Data Retention Mandate – Costs Will Skyrocket with Trends in Internet Addressing,” the data retention policy contained in the bill is troubling, not only because of privacy and civil liberty concerns, but because of the immense costs that will be levied upon tech companies and ISPs to create the Orwellian databases.
It’s rather odd that a Republican such as Rep. Smith would place such a financial burden on the tech business sector, which would create a de facto internet tax on their operations. Indeed, the operating costs have long been a barrier to this legislation, which was originally introduced six years ago by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), a porcine slime ball if there ever was one.
The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office took note of the private sector costs:
CBO estimates that the total costs to private entities of the mandates in the bill would exceed the annual threshold established in UMRA for private-sector mandates ($142 million in 2011, adjusted annually for inflation). According to data from the Census Bureau, there are approximately 3,000 providers of electronic communications services. Based on information from industry experts and data technology professionals about current practices and the cost to design and install the data systems that would be required by the bill, CBO estimates that the aggregate cost of this mandate to the private sector would be more than $200 million.
The one thing it doesn’t do is protect children from internet pornography. [It’s very difficult for me to avoid making a “That would be socialism!” joke here.]
It really seems like extreme overreach from our ‘small-government conservatives’ in Congress. They are mandating yearlong recording of our computer records, taxing our businesses, ignoring responsible and effective ways to investigate the exploitation and abuse of children and imposing their own will on the populace under the guise of “protecting children.”
Seriously.
But there is some hope – while this may be a bad bill, it’s not the only option:
There is an alternative: Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has been a leader in ensuring an open Internet. Last March, Wyden introduced a bill that would protect children from sex trafficking and support victims of sex crimes. The bill does not, however, require the tracking of individuals’ online activity or financial transactions, essentially making it a safer alternative to the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act.
Known as the Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Deterrence and Victims Support Act, it has 12 sponsors but has been tied up for months in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
If we need potentially ineffective laws for absolutely everything we may be afraid of, we should at least make sure it’s the less intrusive bill that becomes law.
OutServe Magazine on “The New DADT: Transgender Service”
Crossposted at Daily Kos
OutServe is an organization for LGBT military servicemembers that was created in response to anti-gay harassment that servicemembers were receiving under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. They became a major player in the campaign to repeal DADT, working on the Pentagon’s repeal survey and actively approaching the media to tell their stories. In March 2011, OutServe began publishing a magazine online and in print at military bases worldwide.
Metro Weekly is reporting in an exclusive that their January/February 2012 issue confronts the next step in the long-term battle for equality:
Jonathan Mills, a staff sergeant in the Air Force, serves as the executive editor of OutServe Magazine. He tells Metro Weekly that ”after the smoke cleared” from the repeal of ”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” which took place on Sept. 20, 2011, the ”common sentiment echoed by our staff and members was, ‘When are we gonna start pushing the T of LGBT?'”
OutServe Magazine interviewed six servicemembers who are transgender and want to serve without fear of being rejected or kicked out of the military for their gender identity.
One of the servicemembers who uses the pseudonym “Bryan” says:
”I want to speak out about it because I know a lot of people are not going to, and I feel like for anything to change … a group of people are going to have to step up to the plate and talk about it … like people did during the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal.
”I want to be part of that so maybe one day I can … serve openly, and so other people can.”
The regulations related to transgender military service are separate from the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell because they’re not codified in law the way 10 USC § 654 was. They are simply DOD regulations. Servicemembers Legal Defense Network explains:
[After a physical examination] the military may reject the potential service member if he or she has had any type of genital surgery. Furthermore, even if the potential service member has not had surgery but identifies as transgender, the military considers this to be a mental health condition which disqualifies them from entering military service[.]
Activists are involved in serious discussions about how to lift this ban. When we talk about equality, it means equality for everyone. Scott Wooledge reports from the Creating Change conference that:
[Sue] Fulton [OutServe member and West Point Advisory Board member] and Katie Miller presented a panel at the Gay & Lesbian Task Force’s national Conference Creating Change this weekend, titled: “The Death of DADT and the Path Forward.”
Under the path forward portion Outserve identified four tasks still to be accomplished by advocates for the LGBT community:
- Acquire full equivalent spousal benefits for same-sex couples
- Lift the DOD ban on Trans servicemembers
- End the ban on HIV-positive servicemembers in non-combat roles
- Create an mechanism for accountability for instances of LGBT discrimination.
Metro Weekly notes that Miller herself wrote the OutServe article:
Katie Miller, the former West Point cadet who resigned over the discrimination she faced under DADT, wrote the OutServe Magazine article. ”I knew Katie was a great writer,” says Mills, “but once I got the piece, I was blown away. She did such a great job, and I’m so proud of everyone who was involved in this specific article.”
Miller had attended West Point Academy and was ranked in the top 10 of her class until she resigned after repeatedly being harassed and becoming increasingly unwilling to compromise her identity:
I have created a heterosexual dating history to recite to fellow cadets when they inquire. I have endured unwanted approaches by male cadets for fear of being accused as a lesbian by rejecting or reporting these events. I have been coerced into ignoring derogatory comments towards homosexuals for fear of being alienated for my viewpoint. In short, I have lied to my classmates and compromised my integrity and my identity by adhering to existing military policy.
But this policy needs to be eliminated just as much as Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell needed to be repealed. The same problems are occurring over and over. The same urgency is necessary. If people want to serve in the military no one should prevent them from doing so based on outdated and misguided ideas of gender and sex that somehow ended up as military regulations.
The toll this is taking on human beings who only want to serve their country is horrifying. As Bryan says, people just want to serve and they want to be considered a respected part of their communities:
”I love being able to say I’m in the Army, being able to say I’m an M.P., love the training I do, the camaraderie I’ve built. I just want people to know we’re out there serving our country, just like any other soldier – straight, gender normative, gay or lesbian, whatever. It’s tearing soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines apart. It’s tearing us apart as a family and as a community, and it’s really detrimental to our lives.”
OutServe is taking a historic step in this and since their magazine reaches military bases, it might help to open the minds of people who may not have thought about gender identity and military service and the repercussions of persecuting fellow servicemembers. If everyone can come together and fight this ban relentlessly, we can get it done.
MoveOn.org Petition demanding TN Rep. Floyd resign for violent transphobic comments
MoveOn.org is circulating a petition demanding that Tennessee state representative Richard Floyd should resign. Floyd, along with state senator Bo Watson, introduced a transphobic “bathroom bill” in Tennessee’s General Assembly recently. Shortly thereafter, Watson withdrew his version of the bill after pressure from state and national organizations and blogs, and after Rep. Floyd made a comment that he would “stomp a mudhole” in women who are transgender and who choose to use the same dressing room/restroom as his wife or daughter at the same time they’re using it
Violent transphobic rhetoric is one thing but he appears to want to back up his words with state-sponsored action against people who are transgender in a state that’s already hostile to that community.
Help sign and spread this around!
What’s with all the pity?: On liberal niceness
So it seems that people feel sorry for me. I’ve been trying to understand why – my whole life – and I can never come up with any sort of rational answer. But I reached a point of exhaustion so long ago. I can’t even discuss the ongoing issues of my life because all people want to do is feel bad about it.
I’m not trying to make you feel bad. Continue reading
Why The Voting Rights Act Is Still Necessary Today
Originally published by Criminal Injustice at Critical Mass Progress
After the end of the Civil War, Congress ratified the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The 13th Amendment ended slavery “except as punishment for crime” which left state governments with the ability to enforce enslavement through other means:
Although the creation of African-American free communities and institutions during Reconstruction were almost immediately threatened by new configurations of white power and supremacy, freed slaves continued to exercise their right to vote and hold office in order to enact their own plans for education, land ownership, and self-determination. This incomplete transformation was cut short by vigilante justice and racialized violence, as well as by the state-sponsored criminalization of African Americans.
In the past decade, several influential studies of this period have revealed the relationship between emancipation, the 13th Amendment, and the convict lease program (Lichtenstein, 1996a; Mancini, 1996; Davis, 1999). Built into the 13th Amendment was state authorization to use prison labor as a bridge between slavery and paid work. Slavery was abolished “except as a punishment for crime.” This stipulation provided the intellectual and legal mechanisms to enable the state to use “unfree” labor by leasing prisoners to local businesses and corporations desperate to rebuild the South’s infrastructure.
The prison industrial complex is still in full force today. Through enforcement of stringent drug laws and through police violence and harassment, a disproportionate number of black Americans and especially black men are residing in our nation’s prisons. This is no accident; it’s a byproduct of the fact that our nation never fully took seriously the task of ending slavery and allowing incorporation of black people into society as full citizens of the United States through appropriate legal and constitutional means. Simply eradicating pieces of an institutionalized system of oppression that had its roots in the early 1600s is not good enough. The number of prisoners who are racial minorities is staggering:
Continue reading
burn after writing 