On Thursday July 14, advocates from around the state met with ICE Director John Morton and DHS’s Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Margo Schlanger to discuss Secure Communities. The meeting was part of a national tour by ICE to promote the program and tout the changes announced on June 17. At the meeting, advocates made clear our position that Secure Communities is fatally flawed at... 

Dear Friend, Massachusetts is only one of five states without anti-human trafficking laws. It is a heinous crime that disproportionately disrupts the immigrant community, and victims often face the double stigma of being exploited and undocumented.   Earlier this year the House passed a version of anti-trafficking legislation, and now thanks to your efforts the Senate has passed a comprehensive anti-trafficking... 

By Natalia Muñoz Hispanic Heritage Month has already begun. Usually celebrated between Sept. 15-Oct. 15, the 2012 presidential elections have moved up the deserved but obligatory Rita Moreno tributes and vida loca awards for Marc Anthony and JLo. On June 13, President Barack Obama was in North Carolina to talk about job creation in the crucial state  he needs for his own job continuation. In 2008,... 

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The Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, has updated its interactive maps and database on the Latino population in the nation’s more than 3,100 counties. The maps show the Latino population and share in U.S. counties for 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2009 and how its size and distribution across counties has changed since 1980. The population data are derived from the decennial... 

By Natalia Muñoz Driver’s licenses for undocumented workers will be on the agenda when Richard Chacón, executive director of the state’s Office for Refugees and Immigrants, presents his list of recommendations to Gov. Deval Patrick in July. “It’s going to be part of the conversation,” he said at last year’s community meeting in Springfield sponsored by the  Alliance to Develop Power,... 

By Natalia Muñoz The undocumented immigrant population in Springfield must be completely under the radar for educators, law enforcement, and city and federal officials who actually come into contact with them regularly. Because when they celebrated the move of the Springfield School Department into a shiny renovated federal building in June with the obligatory ribbon-cutting, they also cut out... 

By Natalia Muñoz A new “Survivor” season will begin soon, this time in Guatemala, a country still recovering from the ravages of a decades-long civil war. The game is a stain on its genre, reality TV. It’s an adult version of musical chairs with the savagery of “Lord of the Flies” thrown in. Today’s television set is Rome’s Coliseum, blinking and blasting... 

By Amanda Cohen Today, there is much discussion and debate over immigration reform and border security of the United States. In Arizona, deportation has reached a new level, as illegal immigrants and anyone of Hispanic heritage can be asked to show their papers. If they are in fact illegal, these people can be identified, prosecuted and immediately deported. These new types of laws are extremely...