A recently implemented immigration program in Oakland subjects anyone booked at local jails to a fingerprint check to determine if they are in the country illegally. The deportation scheme is part of a $1.4 billion federal program that is supposed to be running in every jail in the country within a few years.
It’s a sad day for anyone who is not a xenophobic, anti-immigrant militant: Arizona has passed the harshest anti-immigrant bill in the country, giving police the authority to detain anyone on “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally and arrest them if they don’t have papers.
It’s been a wet and deadly winter for illegal immigrants crossing into Arizona from Mexico, with nine border crossers dying from hypothermia since November. That equals the number who died trying to make the crossing in the previous three winters combined.
Taking an ambulatory cue from the Freedom Riders of the civil rights era, four immigrant students—three of whom are undocumented—are walking from downtown Miami to Washington, D.C., in a four-month protest against the Obama administration’s inaction on legislation that could give legal status to immigrants.