And this week in Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire DREAM Teams demanded an end to the Secure Communities Program at the Roybal Federal building. Some activists were arrested.

As election season heats up, there will be more protest opportunities, especially as the President starts to publicly campaign. I suspect that if the implementation of Secure Communities continues as it has in the past that there will be even more actions. Undocumented activists are taking more public steps to speak out, which brings me to the following blog piece by Thay Alaffita:

Coming Out of the Shadows

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

“Civil and immigrant rights activists demonstrated Tuesday outside the state Democratic Party’s headquarters in Atlanta, calling on the Obama administration to scrap a federal fingerprint-sharing program aimed at deporting illegal immigrants.

The demonstrators complained the “Secure Communities” program is tearing families apart and distracting local police from other crime-fighting priorities. They timed their demonstration to coincide with protests in Chicago and other cities across the nation.

Also Tuesday, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and other groups released a lengthy report condemning the program. Among other things, the report says Secure Communities makes immigrants fearful of reporting crimes to police and results in the deportations of many people who have committed no crimes other than being in the country illegally.”

These actions are in response to the over 1,000,000 immigrants being deported since President Obama took office. With the upcoming Presidential election and the increasingly heated rhetoric coming from the GOP contenders on immigration (see Rick Perry’s drone statement), activists are taking the opportunity to really push the President to use some of the tools he already has to ease the deportation situation.

Already the White House is responding to these actions with Cecilia Muñoz, the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, writing this blog defending the Secure Communities program. And predictably, some in the community are calling for Muñoz to resign her position. That Muñoz is being dispatched to respond this week about Secure Communities shows that the White House is paying close attention.

Unless some changes are made, the calls for resignations, petition signing, and protests will continue. What are your thoughts? Should Latinos working in the White House resign over this issue or should they continue to defend the administration’s position?

If you have been following the news about the AT&T/T-Mobile merger, you are probably aware that AT&T will control nearly half of the cellphone market if the proposed merger goes through. And you know that less choice is just wonderful for the consumer, right? If you don’t like AT&T, you would just be left with Verizon and Sprint as alternatives.

According to Reuters:

“Now holding 27 percent market share, AT&T would gain a 44-percent foothold if the T-Mobile merger is approved by the Federal Trade Commission.

At present, only four companies control 90 percent of the U.S. cellphone market. With a takeover of T-Mobile, AT&T would face off against Verizon and Sprint for dominance, perhaps even triggering a further consolidation of the remaining two smaller players. Would this be good for cell and broadband users?

There’s no guarantee that economies of scale would trickle down to consumers. After all, T-Mobile’s aggressive pricing forced AT&T to offer better plans. Without a strong competitor, prices rarely drop, although that’s not how AT&T is pitching the deal.”

The fearless Latino organizational leaders have come out in support of the merger including the National Council of La Raza and LULAC. And this largely has to do with the amount of “support” NCLR and LULAC receive from AT&T.

However, there are some smaller organizations pushing back against this merger, and one of them includes the National Hispanic Media Coalition. You can read the NHMC’s statement on the merger here. But I just want to highlight this part about costs:

“Latinos pay more for mobile service than any other demographic group. Latinos, on average pay $102 a month on T-Mobile, compared to $120 a month on AT&T, $117 on Sprint and $115 on Verizon. 25% of T-Mobile customers are Latino, and many of them choose T-Mobile because of its affordability, flexibility and excellent customer service.”

You can contact the FCC and your congressional representative to express your support or concern about this proposed merger. But share your thoughts here as well. Do you think that Latino organizations have more to gain in telecommunications consolidation? Or do the benefits that the organizations receive outweigh the possible added costs to the individual consumer?

Here’s a clip describing the group’s latest efforts featuring it’s fearless leader, Dee Dee Garcia Blase:

Does this group inspire confidence and make you want to join their effort? Or does the name and “fiesta promoting” turn you off?

“The number of women sworn in to Congress this year fell for the first time in 30 years, leaving women with just 16% of congressional seats.

And the number of female lawmakers in state capitals decreased by 81 this year, the largest percentage drop in decades.”

By Milly Doolan

The United States has a poor track record of electing women to public office. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s world average of women in politics, the U.S. ranks 67th in the number of women in elected office and is tied with Turkmenistan. In fact the number of women in Congress as well as state legislatures is at its lowest point in several decades.

The problem is not that women aren’t winning elections, it’s that they aren’t running. Research has shown that women need to be asked and recruited to run for office. Moreover, women are more likely to come up with reasons why not to run – family constraints, concerns about privacy – than reasons to do so.

The 2012 Project, a national non-partisan campaign in partnership with Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics, aims to inspire record numbers of women to break barriers and run for public office in 2012. The election of 2012 presents a once-a-decade opportunity. Following the 2010 census, every congressional and state legislative district in the country is being redrawn, and new and open seats will be created. Previous elections have shown that women have more success winning open seats.

One such example is Representative Nydia Velazquez who was the first Puerto Rican woman elected to Congress. She was also the first to represent the newly redrawn 12th District of the state of New York.  This was in 1992 when 24 additional women were elected to Congress.

But 1992 was no accident. The so-called “Year of the Woman” was the product of a national coordinated effort by women’s groups aimed at reaching out to women to run for office. There was no similar effort in 2002 … and no gain for women.

The election of 2012 represents another year of opportunity for women, especially Hispanic women. As reapportionment maps show, states with a significant rise in the Hispanic population, such as Texas and Florida, are gaining 4 and 2 seats respectively.

The 2012 Project has assembled a faculty of former elected women legislators to share the facts about women’s under representation and the many benefits of public service. Women interested in taking the next step toward candidacy are connected to leadership institutes, think tanks, campaign training programs and fundraising networks designed to help them succeed in their own states. So far, 90 bipartisan allies, including MANA and the National Hispana Leadership Institute, and more than 50 former elected officials and consultants are helping The 2012 Project reach out to potential candidates.

Women make up 51 percent of the U.S. population yet only 16 percent of the U.S. Congress. The 2012 Project understands the urgency and the opportunity of the post-redistricting election cycle. Consider yourself invited to help find great women, or step forward yourself. It’s time. Ya es tiempo.

For those who have avoided a computer for the past few weeks, President Obama’s social media team is gearing up for his 2012 run with his ‘Are You In?’ campaign on Facebook. Essentially, one clicks that they’re “in”, gets bombarded with options to help with the campaign, and it’s off to the races. The only problem is that not everyone is “in.” If anything, Latinos are growing increasingly skeptical of President Obama’s ability to support our community beyond a White House Latin Music Night. As a close friend of mine stated, “I’m NOT in. Obama has my vote, no doubt. But I’m still not sure if he has my money or time. What happened to Immigration Reform? On that note, what the hell happened to the DREAM Act?” His point is valid, and allows us to dispense with the elephant in the room: President Obama has yet to deliver substance on the rhetoric he employed to secure the Latino vote. But more importantly, my friend’s comment embodies the demand that Obama be the “change” president for all disenfranchised groups.

When President Obama was elected, he became more than just the president. Every minority demographic and constituency who supported him felt he was the one to address their issues, and subsequently felt their needs warranted top priority in the Oval Office. Environmentalists saw him as the one to break our dependence on oil, the LGBT community saw him as the first glimmer of hope since Harvey Milk, education advocates felt he would fix NCLB, everyone thought he would end the wars, and the list is endless. I was guilty of this as well, feeling my time and money spent for Obama justified my demand he provide immigration reform, pass the DREAM Act, and end the Cuban embargo. It was incredibly misguided for people to think he would do everything for everyone in those first two years, especially since we didn’t know how eight years under Bubbles the Clown would derail “Change We Can Believe In.”

Simply, no one could have foreseen how the healthcare debate was going to turn into the actual Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, or how the economy was going to put nearly all American policy progress on hold. And of course, no one could have predicted a Republican Party platform of ‘Do absolutely nothing until Obama is out of Office.’ Even as we see a rebounding economy and know we’re much better off under Obama than we would have been under McCain, hardly anyone is happy. The tone of compromise and bi-partisanship looks like weakness, and has caused previous Obama season ticket holders to cancel their subscriptions. They’re still fans, just not willing to pay top dollar for an underperforming product. Indeed, it’s mind boggling to know that the Obama administration botched a prime opportunity to galvanize voters after Arizona kicked off a domino effect that showed the Republican Party’s true feelings towards Latinos. Even if Arizona is an outlier in the greater immigration debate, the reality is we’ve seen the American auto industry and LGBT community get more “change” than we have. Thus, I don’t blame my friend for hesitating to be “in” because Obama’s performance on Latino issues has been subpar at best.

This inaction becomes symbolic because it makes the Latino vote one in which we’ll essentially be choosing between the lesser of two evils. Republicans shouldn’t win the Latino vote by denying access to education for undocumented yet deserving students, and supporting the legalization of racial profiling. However, does that mean a Democrat should win simply because he doesn’t endorse such a platform? Ultimately, Obama wins the Latino vote because the alternative is reminiscent of some of the governments Latinos have fled their home countries from. Therefore, an Obama victory of the Latino vote should not be celebrated by any means, because it just means we will have picked the person who scares us less. If that’s the case, then why be “in”? For me, the answer is simple.

President Obama may not have delivered on what he promised, but he has set the stage to do so. We can’t have comprehensive immigration reform without healthcare reform, which took too long because people don’t have a consensus on healthcare as a right or a privilege. Then there’s the DREAM Act, which should have been passed, but wasn’t because Washington hasn’t found a way to sell it. And by sell it I mean people haven’t gotten the teacher’s unions to buy into it. It doesn’t take a viewing of Waiting for Superman to show us who is calling the shots educationally, meaning our pressure for the DREAM Act needs to start with the unions, not Washington. Combined with the fact President Obama inherited a three ring circus, we just can’t measure his success on two years that were dedicated to avoiding a depression and dealing with a political environment that is starting to mirror the drama of High School. Nor can we measure his success on catering to our needs over those of others, because he unintentionally became the “change” president for all marginalized groups.

Bottom line, we all think President Obama needs to satisfy our agenda now, even though history tells us he won’t. We also know his being reelected doesn’t guarantee that our issues are addressed, especially if Congress stays divided. But what we should also know is that reelection guarantees eight years of work towards a progressive policy agenda that affects all Americans, and will ultimately be shaped by Latinos in the coming decades. To ensure this happens, we need to be “in” and do more than just vote. The alternative of choosing a party comprised of Arizona-supporters, not voting, or casting a vote for independent candidates who will never win leaves too much to chance. Regrettably, what my friend said is probably the norm for a good number of Latino voters. Obama has their vote, but probably won’t have their time, money, or energy like he did the last time. I just hope that changes, because not being “in” is too risky.

Matthew Stieglitz received his BA in Communication from the University of Delaware. He is currently a 2011 Master of Public Administration candidate at Cornell University concentrating in Government, Politics, & Policy Studies. After receiving his MPA, Matthew will attend law school in order to merge his public affairs background with a legal education to most effectively advocate for Latinos.

As you can see from the attached photo/flier, the title of the talk was supposed to be “The DREAM Act: The Status of Immigration Reform”. Listen to the clip below (I apologize for the shaky camera, as I did not have a tripod with me):

Untitled from LatinoPolitics on Vimeo.

The speech was very light on policy and very heavy on self-promotion. Yes, we know that there are few Latinos in Congress, and yes, Bob Dornan (the incumbent Sanchez defeated) was not a very nice guy. She was preaching to the choir — a room filled with mostly Latino Claremont Colleges students. But Representative Sanchez was not addressing grade school or middle school students; she was delivering this talk at the elite Pomona College (consistently ranked in the top ten liberal arts colleges in the country with only 16% of all applicants accepted). It’s disappointing that she chose to avoid addressing the DREAM Act and the current status of immigration reform and instead chose to self-promote.

I was able to ask Sanchez a question about the DREAM Act and what she is doing to advocate for immigration reform and the DREAM Act (starting at 23:00), and she provided an interesting answer. Most notably, Sanchez said that immigration reform is not dead, but that it is now harder to do. Then she gave the normal spiel about being an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform instead of piecemeal legislation, along with the usual talking points about securing the borders and the number of visas awarded. Congresswoman Sanchez did talk about separating families in deportation and how un-American those situations are, but she did not say that she would advocate for a deportation moratorium or ask Secretary Napolitano or the President to stop deporting DREAMers, which is what I asked and what some organizations like the Fair Immigration Reform Movement are proposing.

Basically, this speech was a Loretta Sanchez infomercial. So after the Congresswoman was finished, I spoke with two Latina students who viewed the speech, and they too expressed disappointment in the Congresswoman’s remarks. Mayte Sanchez, a second year student at Pitzer said, “I was expecting her to tie in the DREAM Act, but she didn’t do it until asked.” Another student, a senior at Pomona College, added, “She kept this talk very personal to avoid addressing political issues.” I sensed that other students felt that Congresswoman Sanchez condescended to them by not covering the DREAM Act or the status of immigration reform more thoroughly. Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time Sanchez has treated her audience this way or avoided answering questions about immigration related issues.

What are your thoughts? Should Congresswoman Sanchez speak more about immigration reform or continue to share her life story with us?

Actually, Congresswoman Sanchez has been in a position as a senior member of the House Committee on Homeland Security to probe into the detention situation, the deportation of US citizens by ICE and much more. This past summer Representative Sanchez praised President Obama for mentioning immigration in a speech and said, “That is where he really can make this an important, grass-roots base issue in many members’ districts. Maybe not this year, next year or the following year. But he’s working on it and that’s a positive thing.” Saying that President Obama is working on immigration while his administration has now set a record for the number of deportations (sometimes removing citizen children in the process) sends conflicting messages to the pro-migrant community. Sanchez is definitely in a position to advocate more forcefully for humane immigration reform and policies and has an obligation to call out the current administration when it lets enforcement run amok and when its rhetoric doesn’t match its actions.

If you happen to be in the Los Angeles area on Monday and follow immigration issues, I would encourage you to attend this talk and ask Congresswoman Sanchez what she is doing now in the current congress to advance immigration issues, and it would be a good idea to ask her what took her so long to get behind the DREAM Act. I wonder if all of the publicity that the DREAM activists were getting had something to do with it.

This kind of political action is what is needed across the country where individual states are enacting punitive and often confusing immigration bills. If the Latino communities in these various states can pull off sustained boycotts successfully, meaning that businesses start to be impacted and legislators in turn feel the heat, the immigration issue will remain on the policy agenda and hopefully, we can better mobilize for action at the federal level. Money talks, and elected officials are motivated by money and votes. For those in our community who cannot yet vote, engaging in a boycott or using one’s money in a political effort will definitely help convey a message.