Today President Obama met with leaders on the immigration issue and said that he is still committed to immigration reform. He also met with Senators Schumer and Graham who are crafting the Senate version of the immigration reform bill. Here is some footage from today with Josh Hoyt, the executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, upon leaving the meeting:

You can also read Ali Noorani’s statement about today. He is the Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum and was at the White House meeting.

Angelica Salas, the Executive Director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, offered this after the meeting with the President:

“We believe that his commitment to comprehensive immigration reform is real, but we also know we want results and so that’s what we’ll be expecting within the next couple of weeks.”

And President Obama issued the following statement today via the Office of the Press Secretary:

“Today I met with Senators Schumer and Graham and was pleased to learn of their progress in forging a proposal to fix our broken immigration system. I look forward to reviewing their promising framework, and every American should applaud their efforts to reach across party lines and find commonsense answers to one of our most vexing problems. I also heard from a diverse group of grassroots leaders from around the country about the growing coalition that is working to build momentum for this critical issue. I am optimistic that their efforts will contribute to a favorable climate for moving forward. I told both the Senators and the community leaders that my commitment to comprehensive immigration reform is unwavering, and that I will continue to be their partner in this important effort.”
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A few days ago, I had the opportunity to speak with Gaby Pacheco, one of the undocumented Trail of DREAMS walkers, who is on a journey from Miami to Washington, D.C. to raise awareness for the DREAM Act and humane immigration reform. Gaby was kind enough to take a few minutes out of her day to share her thoughts and ideas about what can be done to help bring undocumented youth out of the shadows and regularized into society.

Two questions kept running through my mind as I spoke to Gaby. One is: Why would we not want these motivated young people in our society? The other question is: Why should we limit young people who have persevered despite the odds being stacked against them?

As I have explained previously, DREAM Act students are undocumented individuals, who were brought to this country as children. They didn’t have any choice in the matter, but their parents were seeking a better future. Some may have been legal at one point and their status lapsed, and others may have entered the country illegally. However, children traveling with their parents are rarely ever in the driver’s seat. They travel with their caregivers, similar to how other youngsters have been traveling throughout time.

Gaby Pacheco has completed three degrees at Miami Dade College. She holds two associates degrees and a bachelor’s degree in education. She told me that if the DREAM Act became law tomorrow that she would apply for her master’s or another graduate program that would allow her to continue on to earn a Ph.D. so that she could practice music therapy. More specifically, Gaby wants to work with autistic children to teach them how to survive and be productive in the world. In expressing her dream, Gaby told me, “I want to teach them how to live. When I was in 12th grade, I saw a lot of kids in group homes who didn’t need to be there.”

It’s obvious that Gaby has the motivation and existing education to achieve a graduate degree, but her undocumented status is holding her back. In trying to figure out why the US would not want a motivated young person like Gaby fully contributing to our country, I did a little research on special education teachers with some data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment for special education teachers is expected to increase faster than average for all occupations because there is a shortage of people who specialize in working with youth who are disabled. Gaby could most certainly work with special needs children, but she could also train others to work with this population as well if she had her graduate degree(s).
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The following is a guest blog post by Aracely Panameño:

I have been banking since I started working at the age of 16. My first account was with Burke & Herbert in Crystal City, a small community bank in Virginia that has been in business for over 100 years. I started with checking and savings accounts. There were times when I was at risk of bouncing a check. I was lucky though, as the bank manager would call and tell me that I could authorize him to transfer the necessary funds from my savings and all would be fine, no insufficient funds, no overdraft, and no penalty fees. Yes, this was before PC banking, cell phones, text messages, and automatic overdraft protection plans.

A few years later, I moved to Woodbridge, Virginia where Burke & Herbert did not have branches and decided to transfer my accounts to another community bank with branches near my home. Through mergers and acquisitions, I ended up with Bank of America where today I am fully banked. There is something to be said about the benefits the bank offered me for agreeing to do more business with them -– free checks, no monthly fees, a safe deposit box, no-closing-cost mortgage refinance, and branch offices all over the country and abroad. The problem was I went from a valued customer at the bank where the branch manager knew my name and looked out for my interests to just being one in an infinite number of consumers who as individuals are insignificant.
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As the clock continues to tick and the number of deportations, detentions, and immigrant prosecutions continue in much the same fashion that occurred under the previous administration, Latino and immigrant rights groups are beginning to express their frustration publicly with the lack of leadership from the White House on this issue. The Department of Homeland Security has requested a more enforcement heavy budget for FY 2011. And the continued deportation policy has proven to not be very cost effective. Actually, back in 2005, the Center for American Progress conducted a cost analysis of a mass deportation policy and found this:

“Well, the Center for American Progress today released the first-ever cost assessment of a mass deportation policy for the 10 million undocumented persons currently in the country and the 500,000 that successfully cross the border each year. And guess what? It would essentially drain the Treasury. The data analysis estimates the cost to be at least $206 billion over 5 years ($41.2 billion annually), and could be as high as $230 billion. We arrived at this number even after assuming that 2 million of the 10 million would leave on their own–a pretty large assumption.”

Back when he was candidate Obama, we were led to believe that he would not walk away from the 12 million undocumented people living in the shadows here in the United States and that there would be a “humane and comprehensive” immigration reform. You can see that here:

And now here we are in March 2010, and the raids continue, but today the Department of Homeland Security tells us that it overstated the number of deportations during President Obama’s first year in office. It’s rather convenient that DHS chooses to correct its deportation numbers on the day that multi-ethnic, immigrant rights groups hold the following press conference. Please do watch the press conference on immigration reform on this C-SPAN link and share your thoughts. It definitely is a compelling news conference.

My thought is that President Obama could stop the raids at a minimum before enacting comprehensive immigration reform, but I’m not holding my breath. However, there is something we all can do if we are bothered by the continued raids and lack of movement on immigration reform, we can contact the White House online. I’m going to do it, and I encourage you to do so as well. Comments on this blog only go so far, but a comment directly into the White House will have a stronger impact.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about how former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez pulled papers to run for state treasurer in 2014. I speculated that whether we see Fabian Nuñez re-emerge in elected office will depend largely upon what happens with his son’s murder trail, which is scheduled to begin in May. Well, another one of his Esteban Nuñez’s friends has decided to testify against him according to the Los Angeles Weekly. Writer Christine Pelisek has been following this story, and she hit the nail on the head with this:

“Here’s why the political elite in California are watching this tragic murder case involving alleged killers who come from private schools and lives of power and privilege:

The case has elicited the involvement of California’s Democratic Party political stars, from Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to County Federation of Labor chief Maria Elena Durazo — all rallying around the accused while doing nothing to support the family of the widely-loved dead young man, who went, simply, by the name Lu.”

I think that Villaraigosa, Durazo, Romero, and De Leon should have said nothing publicly about Fabian Nuñez’s kid, Esteban and his trials and tribulations, especially without expressing sympathy for the real victim in this case, a deceased young man, Lu Santos. Politically a “no comment on this pending case” would probably have served all of these leaders better than expressing sympathy for Fabian Nuñez and his child, who is out on bail, in my view.