April 20, 2010 at 3:42 pm · Filed under on immigration as a public policy issue
There will be marches on May 1 but that is only one story on one day.
How else can you cover immigration and keep it fresh and pertinent?
What has changed today here for immigrants and refugees? What are the stories that celebrate immigrants and the stories that they need?
With state and federal services evaporating in the financial meltdown that still touches many agencies, where are services being curtailed or cut?
Here are some tips from the IRE-Investigative Reporters and Editors – who recently held a workshop here for the ethnic news media. Look over these – there a number listed.
http://www.ire.org/training/uncategorized/tips-for-covering-immigrants
Again, please let me know if you are doing some reporting that you want to share.
Stephen
March 18, 2010 at 3:30 pm · Filed under Immigrant Stories, community reporting that matters, on immigration as a public policy issue
Day after day the story about immigrants is the story about immigration reform. The recent demonstration by undocumented students here showed that.
It is a powerful story of fear and courage and uncertainty.
Watch this audio slide show of the demonstration here in Chicago and tell me if you don’t agree. It is by Peter Holderness
http://www.peterholderness.com/iyjl/index.html
So the job for the ethnic news media now is to cover these developments, and to explain where they are going and what they may result in.
What will happen to these students? Are they truly the parallel story to the freedom riders of the 1960s’ in the American South?
Can you stay with this story by telling about one person, one group, one family over time?
The students’ coming out is a prelude to the march this Sunday, March 21, by thousands of groups to push for immigration reform in Washington.
As many as 6,000 persons in Illinois are expected to take part and this a story in itself. They are leaving on Saturday on dozens of buses, a scene that could easily become part of a longer story.
Who are these people? What are their hopes? What is different about immigration reform today in 2010 in terms of expectations of the average person?
These are the contacts for the march;
Catherine Salgado, 312.332.7360 x 235 or 630.362.6202 (mobile)
Salvador Cervantes, 312.593.6411 (mobile)
Kere Picon, 815.621.8065 (for details on buses & logistics)
If you write or broadcast anything let me know,
Stephen
December 3, 2009 at 2:20 pm · Filed under Uncategorized, community reporting that matters, on immigration as a public policy issue
They are angry but they are divided. What is right? What should be done?
How can families be broken? But, also, how can they live here – living outside the law.
It’s the story of immigrants without papers and the often disastrous collision with U.S. immigration laws.
But this story, as told below, takes place among Poles living in the U.S.
Read the editorial from the Polish Daily News, and then watch the trailer from a story about a Polish couple from Chicago that were broken up – the wife deported.
Here is this story as presented by our colleagues, the New York Community Media Alliance
Stephen
Defending the undocumented?
By JL, Nowy Dziennik, 27 November 2009. Translated from Polish by Aleksandra Slabisz.
There are an estimated 12 to 15 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. The Polish community also has individuals who neither have permanent status nor prospects of being granted it – we are unable to determine the number.
Among the immigrants who have already received green cards or have been naturalized as citizens, there are many – who knows, maybe the majority – who broke the law in some way, for example by entering the country as tourists but with the hidden intention to work and get paid under the table; by finding a sponsor for the green card who in fact was never going to employ them; by overstating their previous job experience; or by altering their credentials. Even those Poles who proudly claim that they have not fallen out of status for a single day may have committed small offenses, such as getting a driver’s license in another state where the requirements are less restrictive.
It would seem that reform of the immigration system is an important topic for an ethnic newspaper like the Polish Daily News. We editors believe so and devote plenty of coverage to the issue. We figured that our community (including some formerly undocumented immigrants) would sympathize with those Poles who have not been lucky enough to get sponsored for a green card. Frequent comments on our website in response to articles on the subject confirm this empathy. The fact that sales of our newspaper go up when the cover story is on immigration reform indicates there is interest within the community on the issue.
The picture gets complicated though once we read the comments. Their tone is rather surprising. For the most part, Poles who share their thoughts on our website regarding immigration issues seem not to favor the reform. Many of the comments are sharp and contemptuous: “They broke the law, why should they be rewarded now?” Many call the undocumented immigrants freeloaders, who shun paying taxes and are a burden on the recession-stricken economy. Others believe that granting amnesty for those who have broken immigration laws will encourage other immigrants to remain here illegally, in hope that they will be forgiven via another amnesty.
Even Poles who used fake Social Security numbers, provided false proof of having worked in Poland, or gave an address different from that of their home address for the driver’s license application have now transformed into law defenders and ethical purists.
There are times that they too will admit concern for Poles living in the States illegally. Some would even grant amnesty to close friends who are undocumented while not showing mercy for others, believing that the real illegal immigrants are those coming from southern countries – Poles who do not support immigration reform don’t welcome the inflow of Latinos into the United States, and the resulting changes in the social structure. One can say they are racist; someone else might argue that they fear for the economy. Whatever their reasoning, Polish Americans have turned their backs on undocumented immigrants, including their own.
In editorials section of Edition 401 3 December 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NZGQwSO4xw
Tony and Janina\’s Story
August 12, 2009 at 1:58 pm · Filed under community reporting that matters, on immigration as a public policy issue
Here is a story by Fabiola Pomareda of La Raza that takes a news event and puts it into a bigger context, that brings forward news resources to give the story a larger meaning and uses good writing and a sense of humanity to make it so readable and compelling
CHICAGO, Ill. — Time seemed endless for Luis León Ortega, who spent nearly seven months in various Illinois detention centers after being caught by immigration officials and scheduled for deportation hearings.
The shadowy world of immigration detention has been in the spotlight lately with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials being forced to make public a series of reports about conditions at numerous detention centers throughout the country. The reports tell the stories.
Luis León Ortega has the pictures. “I used to draw to pass the time,” says León, a native of Guanajuato, Mexico. “There was a Hispanic guard who always had pencils, so I asked her to lend me one and she did.”
León’s drawings are simple, yet provocative. One traces the very symbols often used to highlight this country’s greatest attributes: an august bald eagle, the prominent Statue of Liberty, a bold Sears Tower, the nation’s stately capitol dome.
But these images are ominously juxtaposed against a symbolic wall — the U.S.-Mexican border wall — that twists into a serpent bearing its sharp jaws, mouth wide open and ready to strike. In the drawing the serpent is poised to devour a man trapped in its mouth, presumably the artist.
Images of Stability
There are 35 sketches in all. Some of them depict innocent childhood subjects like Disney characters, a dog with a Chicago White Sox baseball cap. Others are more conceptual, like the one depicting a tree whose vine-like branches covered in spines twist around a heart – a common image in Mexican culture that could either reflect a loss of faith in God, or suffering of the heart. There is also the famous crime-fighter Batman – one of his son’s favorite drawings — and an eerily simple depiction of his own isolation in jail cell number 115.
To add a bit of color to his drawings, León purchased Kool-Aid packets and mixed in a little water.
Six Months, Five Transfers
León’s journey through the murky world of U.S. immigration detention centers began on a normal Chicago winter day, back in February 2008. He was pulled over by police and charged with driving without a valid driver’s license. Authorities quickly discovered his undocumented status, and he would spend the next 30 weeks rotating between five different Illinois correctional centers. He only remembers the names of two – the McHenry County Adult Correctional Facility and the Pontiac Correctional Center.
Every day, officers would try to get him to sign a voluntary deportation order.
“The first thing they do when you go to breakfast is try to convince you to sign your deportation papers. They did this every single day,” León recalls.
“We weren’t allowed to have anything in our cells. Masked guards armed with large, rubber-bullet guns would search our cells. They swarmed in as if they were the SWAT team. If they found even a packet of sugar, we were confined to our cells for 15 consecutive days,” he says.
His cell was just large enough for two beds, a shared toilet and a sink.
During meals, detainees were forbidden from speaking, so León would look forward to the little time he could talk on the telephone with his wife and children. But even that was complicated, as phone calls were limited to 20 minutes each day and phone cards were costly. A $20 card yielded only three calls.
“Once they told me a lawyer was coming to meet with us. But there wasn’t enough time. There was only one lawyer for 300 people. He managed to speak with only 10 people, and I wasn’t one of them.”
If access to legal help was nearly impossible, so too was León’s ability to turn to religion for comfort. In order to visit the chapel, detainees had to add their names to a list two or three days in advance. They were forbidden from having religious items in their cells, except for a Bible. A prayer card sent by his wife was intercepted and confiscated. The chaplains who did visit detainees spoke only English.
“Once a week they would allow us to see our families for 30 minutes. But we didn’t get to see them in person. We had to look at each other projected on a screen and we had to speak to each other on a telephone. I would go to a room where the telephone was, and my family would be in another room below me,” León said.
After six months, he was released on bond. The six-foot-tall, 43-year-old had lost a significant amount of weight. Pictures of León before his arrest show a much heavier and healthier man. Today, his hands sweat when he recalls those months spent behind bars, where he was isolated from his wife and two children who lived at the family’s Southside Chicago home.
Authorities have begun the deportation process against León. His two U.S.-born children wonder if they’ll have to live in a country they know little about, or face living without a father at home. León’s next hearing isn’t until 2011, perhaps enough time, he hopes, for something to be done by President Barack Obama, who as a candidate promised swift immigration reform.
In the meantime, León holds down a job and provides for his family by working six days a week at a local supermarket.
Pulling Back the Veil
For years, ICE officials fought to keep the treatment of immigration detainees a secret. Last month, a three-year legal battle ended with an order for ICE officials to make public a series of reports that documented inspections at numerous detention centers throughout the country. On August 6, ICE Director John Morton announced that one center, the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, which held up to 400 detainees, would no longer be used for detaining families.
The reports, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and lawsuits brought by rights groups, confirm many of León’s allegations of ill treatment at the hands of authorities.
In Illinois, a report by delegates from the American Bar Association, who visited the DuPage County Jail in 2003 and the McHenry County Correctional Facility in 2006 (one of the centers where León was held), found that detainees could not speak to legal assistants without an attorney present; could not see a doctor without a judge’s order; were denied dental care; and in at least one incident suffered physical abuse. The report also confirmed León’s allegation that detainees were unable to freely practice their religion.
Mary Meg McCarthy, director of the National Immigration Justice Center – one of the groups that successfully sued ICE for public access to documents describing detainee conditions — says she is happy the documents were finally made public. But she recognizes that many conditions detainees face remain unchanged.
“When the telephones don’t work properly and visiting time is strictly limited, the individual rights of detainees continue to be violated,” McCarthy says.
According to Gail Montenegro, regional spokesperson for ICE in Chicago, in 2007 ICE contracted the private companies Creative Corrections and the Nakamoto Group to inspect the centers where detainees were held.
Creative Corrections issued reports annually through June 2009 before being replaced by another company, MGT of America. According to Montenegro, Nakamoto continues functioning as an “on-site” monitor of conditions to guarantee that detainees’ rights are not violated.
ICE stopped sending detainees to DuPage County Jail in August 2004, but ICE officials say the decision was unrelated to the 2003 inspection by the American Bar Association delegation.
In a statement, Montenegro wrote that ICE officials learned of the attorneys’ delegation report on McHenry County Jail in early 2007 and quickly began addressing the report’s criticisms of detainee treatment.
“(McHenry County Jail) currently complies with ICE detention standards and was recently rated ‘Good’ by Creative Corrections in its most recent 2008 annual inspection,” Montenegro wrote.
One key issue left unresolved, however, is whether Congress and the Obama administration are willing to pass laws that protect detainees’ rights. Advocacy groups representing former detainees are lobbying for these laws, and at least two bills are under discussion in Senate committees.
But Homeland Security authorities acknowledged that a complete overhaul of the U.S. immigration detention system could take years. In the meantime, tens of thousand of undocumented immigrants remain in detention, their fates as uncertain as León’s.
