CHANNEL: Immigration

The mayor, police chief and Common Council of Danbury, Conn., are foolish to push an official police partnership with ICE – without knowing the specifics of the deal – says publisher Eliette Matos of El Canillita.

Laws should be enforced for immigrants who commit crimes, but the new partnership between Danbury, Conn., police and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is not the answer, says Celia Bacelar, publisher of the Tribuna. (**EM PORTUGUES**)

The head of a Latino nonprofit in Rhode Island says Gov. Carcieri's executive order against illegal immigration incompetently addresses the state's budget deficit and blames non-legal immigrants.

In February, Danbury, Conn., approved the 287(g) ICE program that allows police to enforce immigration law.  To date, a community task force has not been created to review the ICE-police partnership.  Meanwhile, recent police arrests show that cops can crack down on crime without the new ICE program, writes the publisher of the Tribuna newspaper.

The country's largest work-site immigration raid recently occurred in Iowa.  The feds approved plea agreements within days to deport workers, breaking up families and threatening the community with economic disaster.  "How could [the feds] do all this without virtually any national media attention?" asks Ben Harris in the Jewish Journal.

Erik Camayd-Freixas was a court interpreter for immigrants arrested at the biggest worksite immigration raid in U.S. history. The workers were criminally charged with "aggravated identity theft" and "Social Security fraud" - "charges they did not understand. And, frankly, neither did I," he writes for New America Media

The new Indian Americans of Lexington (Mass.) group is a bustling social and civic network for the town's 700 Indians. One member recalls when he was the lone (and lonely) Indian in town in 1970.

Wilson Hernandez, VP of the Ecuadorian Civic Center of Greater Danbury, and Danbury (Conn.) Councilor Tom Saadi disgree on a proposed city partnership with ICE that would allow their police to act as immigration agents.

The details of what the partnership's Memorandum of Understanding would spell out have yet to be revealed.

Danbury police participation with ICE would do great harm, says Celia Bacelar, publisher of a Portuguese- and English-language newspaper in Conn. And can police really tell by looking if you're from Ireland, Brazil or the Bronx? (In Portuguese and English)

Ve Y Vota (It's Time, Go Vote), a new nationwide campaign, seeks to mobilize immigrants to vote. Juan Vega, of Centro Latino de Chelsea, talks about the campaign and the progress and challenges of Latino enfranchisement.

Politicians, policy makers and the public in general have misformed perceptions about immigrants, says Vega, a former city councilor in Chesea, Mass.

One way to change mispercpetions is by getting people to vote, as Ve Y Vota intends to do.