[Educationforall] spam con huevos labor news, views and concerns, 2.19.12-I

Mon Feb 20 08:23:17 UTC 2012

Florida Lawmakers Defeat Prison Privatization Amid National Push for For-Profit Jails (Video)  Economists Shoot Down the Wall Street Journal's Claim That Extending Unemployment Harms the Unemployed  President Obama: Continue to strengthen American manufacturing  4 States Where Right-Wingers Are Promoting Shocking Measures to Keep Women Barefoot and Pregnant  What Does it Mean When "30 Rock's" Jack Donaghy Declares: "We're on the Verge of a Class War?"  Chinese Labor, Cheap No MoreImmigration enforcement program to be shut down‏ Perfect Storm Threatens Long-Term Unemployed  'Downton Abbey' and 'The Help'--What Their Nostalgic Portrayals of Domestic Service Get Wrong   Is Your Local Restaurant Relying on Exploited Women's Labor?  @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Florida Lawmakers Defeat Prison Privatization Amid National Push for For-Profit Jails (Video)Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now!: "The Florida State Senate has defeated a measure to privatize at least 27 prisons, which would have created the largest corporate-run prison system in the country. Despite the vote, Republican Gov. Rick Scott could still privatize the prisons through executive authority. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the number of prisoners being added to privately run jails is outpacing the overall prison population by 17 percent compared to 4 percent." Watch the Video and Read the Article 

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Economists Shoot Down the Wall Street Journal's Claim That Extending Unemployment Harms the Unemployed
Read the Article at Media Matters for America

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President Obama: Continue to strengthen American manufacturingBy rss at dailykos.com (Barbara Morrill) | Daily Kos
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4 States Where Right-Wingers Are Promoting Shocking Measures to Keep Women Barefoot and PregnantThe birth control skirmish is not the only regressive, anti-woman, anti-science battle being waged in this country.READ MORESarah Seltzer, Lauren Kelley / AlterNet
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-What Does it Mean When "30 Rock's" Jack Donaghy Declares: "We're on the Verge of a Class War?"It's a double-edged sword: the popular recognition nods to Occupy's resonance, but also wields capitalism's sharpest tool – recuperation. READ MOREBy Natasha Lennard / Salon
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Chinese Labor, Cheap No MoreBy MICHELLE DAMMON LOYALKAThe low-cost labor that has made China's factories nearly unbeatable is not so cheap anymore.
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Coalición de Derechos HumanosContact:
P.O. Box 1286Tucson, AZ 85702Office: 520.770.1373
or 1.800.682.4280
Fax: 520.770.7455
www.derechoshumanosaz.net

Coalición de Derechos Humanos is a grassroots organization which promotes respect for human/civil rights and fights the militarization of the Southern Border region, discrimination, and human rights abuses by federal, state, and local law enforcement officials affecting U.S. and non-U.S. citizens alike._____________________________________________

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Immigration enforcement program to be shut down

By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is starting to shut down a program that deputized local police officers to act as immigration agents.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have trained local officers around the country to act as their agencies' immigration officers. Working either in jails or in the field, the officers can check the immigration status of suspects and place immigration holds on them.

The program, known as 287(g), reached its peak under President George W. Bush, when 60 local agencies signed contracts with ICE to implement it. But that trend slowed significantly under President Obama- only eight agencies have signed up since he took office, and none has done so since August 2010.

Now, in their proposed budget for the upcoming year, Department of Homeland Security officials say they will not sign new contracts for 287(g) officers working in the field and will terminate the "least productive" of those agreements - saving an estimated $17 million. All the contracts between ICE and local police agencies run for three years, so that portion of the program could be finished by November when the last contract for field officers expires.

In its budget request, DHS said officials instead will focus on expanding Secure Communities, a program that checks the fingerprints of all people booked into local jails against federal immigration databases. The followup work in those cases is done by ICE agents, not local police.

"The Secure Communities screening process is more consistent, efficient and cost-effective in identifying and removing criminal and other priority aliens," the department explained in its budget request.

The program had been criticized by Homeland Security inspector general reports, which found that local officers were not being properly trained and there was not enough oversight to ensure that local agencies weren't using the program to engage in racial profiling.

A study last year by the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank, found that immigrants developed "fear and mistrust of authorities" when they realized that local police could act as immigration agents.

The main complaint Friday from groups that oppose 287(g) was that the program isn't being terminated immediately, and that its replacement - Secure Communities - is not much better.

"The 287(g) program has been repeatedly called into question by advocates as well as the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, and should be terminated rather than sustained with taxpayer money," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. "The Secure Communities program is surrounded by grave concerns about the impact to public safety, community policing and civil rights abuses."

Defenders of the program, such as Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, say Homeland Security is "putting politics ahead of public safety" by cutting back the 287(g) program. She said Secure Communities is helpful but that local officers working in the field are better able to identify illegal immigrants who may not have their fingerprints in federal databases, making it harder to identify them.

She said some agencies such as the Colorado Department of Public Safety have used their 287(g) officers to suppress drug and human smuggling, gang activity and identity theft and said many sheriffs and police chiefs prefer the program to Secure Communities.

"The problem for ICE is that while they may feel that they get political brownie points for this kind of gesture, in reality what the anti-enforcement groups want is for them to end 287(g) and Secure Communities, not curtail (them)," said Vaughan, director of policy studies for the center. "So it's futile - they end up making everyone on both sides angry."

Read the article online
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Perfect Storm Threatens Long-Term UnemployedGreg Kaufmann, The Nation: "In December, there were more than 13 million unemployed workers and about four people looking for work for every available job. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), 5.5 million people have been unemployed for more than half a year, up from 1.2 million in 2007, and the average duration for an unemployed person is over nine months.... So it's particularly alarming to see Congress playing games with an extension of unemployment benefits that are set to expire at the end of the month." Read the Article 

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-'Downton Abbey' and 'The Help'--What Their Nostalgic Portrayals of Domestic Service Get WrongWhat is with our obsession with servants? And are these shows letting us off the hook? READ MOREBy Sarah Seltzer / AlterNet'@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
-Is Your Local Restaurant Relying on Exploited Women's Labor?A new study warns that when Americans eat out, they feed into an industry fueled by exploitation and rampant discrimination against women. READ MOREBy Michelle Chen / Ms. Blog
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