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The agricultural immigrant conundrum in Europe and the United States
By: Dr. Gonzalo Santos, Exclusive for El Magonista ~ March 27,2020
The vital, indispensable, highly valuable role “guest” foreign farm workers play in the food supply of Europe has now become evident, demonstrating that their customary low status, criminalization, and stigmatization is entirely a social construction, artificially imposed on these hard workers so as to super-exploit them, keep them from asserting their labor rights, and discard them as a flexible, disposable “factor of production.”
This is but a harbinger of what is about to happen in the United States, which has steadfast refused to decriminalize, fully legalize and protect, and re-valorize this vital immigrant labor force. But the pandemic will now force this country to confront reality.
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In Memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s’ Death
By: Ernie Suggs ~ Atlantic Journal Constitution ~ April 2, 2019
It was at about 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. stepped out onto the balcony of Memphis’ Lorraine Motel and was gunned down by a sniper.
And it’s around that time, more than a half century later, that multitudes around the nation will commemorate the death of the world’s preeminent civil rights leader. Click on image below to watch video
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TRO requiring the Trump Administration to promptly and safely release thousands of children
By: Peter Schey ~ March 28,2020
Yesterday United States District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles issued a nationwide temporary restraining order requiring that the Trump administration “make every effort to promptly and safely release” from custody thousands of class members in the Flores v. Barr case. LINK TO RESTRAINING ORDER.
Class members in the Flores case include all minors detained by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in family detention centers and all unaccompanied minors detained by the HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. There are over 5,000 children in detention. The order requires prompt release under Paragraph 14 of the Flores Settlement which sets out an order of preference for release including parents, relatives, group homes, and other responsible unrelated adults.
The restraining order also requires that by April 6 the Government provide the court, the court-appointed Special Master, and the lawyers representing the children data on all minors not released by then including their names, dates of apprehension, places of detention, and why they have not been released in eight states. Read Full Article Here
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What’s Inside the $2 Trillion Coronavirus Aid Package
The CARES Act Provides Relief to Several Groups Impacted by the Coronavirus Pandemic
By: Kelsey Snell ~ NPR ~ March 26, 2020
The Senate has passed a roughly $2 trillion coronavirus response bill intended to speed relief across the American economy. This is the third aid package from Congress and is meant to keep businesses and individuals afloat during an unprecedented freeze on the majority of American life.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., described the legislation, known as the CARES Act, as necessary emergency relief and vowed to put partisanship aside to get it done.
“No economic policy can fully end the hardship so long as the public health requires that we put so much of our commerce on ice,” McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday. “This isn’t even a stimulus package. It is emergency relief. Emergency relief. That’s what this is.”
There are seven main groups that would see the widest-reaching impacts: individuals, small businesses, big corporations, hospitals and public health, federal safety net, state and local governments, and education.
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Undocumented U.S. Immigrants and COVID-19
By: Kathleen R. Page, M.D., Maya Venkataramani, M.D., Chris Beyrer, M.D., M.P.H., and Sarah Polk, M.D., M.H.S., New England Journal of Medicine ~ March 27, 2020
In 2019, as the “public charge” rule made its way through the U.S. court system, many low-income immigrant parents of American children in the Johns Hopkins pediatric practice asked our case managers to disenroll their children from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), fearing it would affect their chances of obtaining legal status in the future or lead to deportation.
The new public charge rule, which went into effect on February 24, 2020, states that “aliens are inadmissible to the United States if they are unable to care for themselves without becoming public charges” www.uscis.gov/greencard/public-charge).
On the day of its implementation, there were 14 cases of Covid-19 in the United States. A month later, with more than 30,000 U.S. cases confirmed, the following message could be found on the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) Public Charge web page: “USCIS encourages all those, including aliens, with symptoms that resemble Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) (fever, cough, shortness of breath) to seek necessary medical treatment or preventive services. Such treatment or preventive services will not negatively affect any alien as part of a future Public Charge analysis.”
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Cuban doctors head to Italy to battle Coronavirus
By: Nelson Acosta ~ Reuters ~ March 21, 2020
Communist-run Cuba said it dispatched a brigade of doctors and nurses to Italy for the first time this weekend to help in the fight against the novel coronavirus at the request of the worst-affected region Lombardy.
The Caribbean island has sent its “armies of white robes” to disaster sites around the world largely in poor countries since its 1959 revolution. Its doctors were in the front lines in the fight against cholera in Haiti and against ebola in West Africa in the 2010s.
Yet with the 52-strong brigade, this is the first time Cuba has sent an emergency contingent to Italy, one of the world’s richest countries, demonstrating the reach of its medical diplomacy. Read Full Article Here
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California Today: How to Apply for Unemployment Benefits
By: Sona Patel and Jill Cowan ~ The New York Times ~ March 25, 2020
If you’ve lost work as a result of the coronavirus outbreak in California, here’s what to know
California hit grim milestones on Tuesday, as the number of cases in the Bay Area topped 1,000 and Los Angeles County officials said that a teenager’s death was linked to the virus; if the cause of death is confirmed as the coronavirus, he would be one of the youngest victims of the outbreak in the country…
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CMSC initiative to provide mental health services to all immigrant communities
The CMSC’s initiative to create awareness about the need for immigrants’ mental health services is more critical than ever !!! This initiative intends to inform and educate the public regarding the psychological crisis affecting the immigrant population throughout the U.S., due to a pervasive state of fear generated by the Trump administration since coming into office in 2017, the targeted acts of violence as the August 3, 2019 El Paso, Texas mass shooting at a Walt Mart store, and the hate-crimes aimed against immigrants, Mexicans and Latinos.
Please watch this short explainer video about our initiative, available in English and Spanish.
Learn more about this initiative here
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COVID-19 Resources for Undocumented Californians
As COVID-19, more commonly referred to as the “coronavirus,” begins to make its impact in the United States, we want to take this moment to remind undocumented youth and their families to prioritize their health to the best of their abilities.
Given that not all of us can take paid time off, and that we have limited health access for undocumented people, especially those detained, we are sharing the following resources:
Read more about all resources available
