Immigration

As we continue in our quarantine, we must ask ourselves:  How will school closures exacerbate educational inequalities for children of immigrants?

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala’s health minister said Tuesday that deportees from the United States were driving up the country’s COVID-19 caseload, adding that on one flight some 75% of the deportees tested positive for the virus.

HOUSTON (AP) — Elsy was on the phone in an immigration detention center when guards showed up with face masks and forms to sign.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala again began receiving deportation flights from the United States this week after a one-week pause prompted by three deportees testing positive for COVID-19.

PHOENIX (AP) — The $2.2 trillion package that Congress approved to offer financial help during the coronavirus pandemic has one major exclusion: millions of immigrants who do not have legal status in the U.S. but work here and pay taxes.

Latino Rebels Radio: April 12, 2020

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A U.S. Border Patrol agent wouldn’t let Jackeline Reyes explain why she and her 15-year-old daughter needed asylum, pointing to the coronavirus. That confrontation in Texas came just days after the Trump administration quietly shut down the nation’s asylum system for the first time in decades in the name of public health.

The Supreme Court must withhold a decision on DACA while the country —and the world— deals with the pandemic.

In a study published on April 6, I found Latino U.S. citizens’ deportation fears to be on the rise. Whereas 41% worried about deportation in 2007, 48% did in 2018. This amounts to about 13.6 million Latino U.S. citizens fearing deportation.

Most of these workers are employed seasonally to perform the hard manual labor of cultivating and harvesting crops. One-half to three-quarters of them were born outside of the United States, with the majority holding Mexican citizenship.

While a canceled request for N95s is a move in the right direction, the agency must take it a step further. The fact remains that ICE still holds an untold amount of PPE being used for raids.

CHICAGO — To be undocumented means, first, to be on the run. Then, on the lookout. Always.

Fearing widespread coronavirus outbreaks in federal detention facilities, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus this week called for the release of thousands of immigrant detainees nationwide.

“This immediate use of force was conducted consistent with agency protocol,” an ICE spokesperson said.

Rural states like Mississippi have small immigrant communities, and since most people find ways to learn English or keep to themselves, the medical, legal, and business sectors rarely consider language justice as a part of their services or strategy.

Detained migrant children are among the most vulnerable and invisible population in this public health crisis.

Latino Rebels Radio: March 31, 2020

Latino Rebels Radio: March 29, 2020

Latino Rebels Radio: March 28, 2020

The order finds that ICE has been and continues to be deliberately indifferent to serious medical needs and ignores the threat caused by COVID-19 “that will likely cause imminent, life-threatening illness.”

In audio recordings, detained immigrants at the for-profit Stewart Detention Center describe cramped conditions, a lack of a plan to deal with outbreak, and increasing panic within the detention center.