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The relief fund sets aside $2.1 billion for those who lost work during the pandemic, but, due to immigration status, were ineligible for unemployment benefits or federal stimulus checks.
“What strikes at my heart, is the inhumane way in which Libre shackled immigrants with homing devices so they could keep tabs on their investments.”
“We hope that it will be a good change, that it will help us, it will help others.”
For students, it’s a disorienting change during an already difficult time.
“We can’t stop right now. We have to continue fighting for our families, for our communities, for those who have lost their lives during COVID-19 without getting anything.”
“We’re asking for access to child care for food chain workers, financial relief for undocumented workers and health and safety regulations for all workers on the job, especially farmworkers.”
“As a 25-year law enforcement professional, it is unfathomable that information which could be used to prevent crime or a potential terrorist attack, is purposely being withheld.”
Attorneys say they believe the stop was racially motivated. The ACLU’s client was detained, then placed in ICE custody.
Cuomo says it’s likely the federal government’s decision was political “retaliation and reprisal” for New York’s law to allow undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses.
“It will slow down commerce, it will cost our economy. All while posing a significant threat to public safety.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo plans to challenge Homeland Security’s attempt to suspend enrollment in Global Entry and other trusted traveler programs for New Yorkers over access to state motor vehicle records.
“What’s happened is we’ve had refugee clients say they don’t want to reapply for benefits because they’re afraid it’s going to affect their status going forward.”
One of the bills now goes the governor for a signature, and the rest still have to pass the Senate.
“What it has done though, is galvanize this group of community groups to go out and make sure people don’t let that fear stop them from being recognized and counted.”
Immigration advocates gathered in Albany on Tuesday calling for state lawmakers to pass a bill that would prohibit ICE arrests at courthouses.
Immigration activists are holding up a Syracuse family as an example of how an aggressive immigration policy is playing out in upstate New York.
“I do know that the laws we are passing in this chamber, including this one, are certainly making it far more likely that someone who is here illegally will be registered to vote.”
The Green Light Law in New York went into effect this week. Some county clerks criticize the changes to allowable proofs of identity.
The Green Light Law came into effect on Monday in New York state. The law allows undocumented immigrants to apply for drivers’ licenses.
Advocates in New York have organized to help deaf refugees become self-sufficient.
Some county clerks say their offices are not ready, and it’s been a significant challenge for them to get more information from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
The new bill will allow visas for year-round workers and it provides a path to legal status for current farm workers already in the U.S.
“The law aims to make our roads safer, our economy stronger, and allows immigrants to come out of the shadows to sign up as legal drivers in our state.”
The controversial Berks Family Residential Center is one of three facilities in the US that detains undocumented parents and children together.
Gulalai Ismail spoke out against sexual assaults committed by Pakistani security forces. She was detained and threatened. Then she disappeared — until last week.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper began notifying lawmakers which projects will be canceled in their districts. “It is a slap in the face to the members of the Armed Forces,” Sen. Chuck Schumer said.
Even under current detention rules, licensing at the Berks County Residential Center is complicated.
“I can vote and do all the stuff a citizen can do. No more restriction.”
“What kind of person stands by silently, when somebody directs racist insults against his own colleagues?”
During a tour of immigrant detention facilities, New York 19th District Congressman Antonio Delgado said he saw human beings who were suffering.
“I’m thrilled that the people here are trying to do as best they can under the circumstances. But I think the underlying issue is, we should not be doing this.”
A group of Carnegie Mellon psychologists say the Berks Family Residential Center it is damaging the physical and mental health of the children who are held there.
The Congress Members are heading to the border Friday to see conditions at U.S. detention camps.
The group will head to the Rio Grande Valley
“There is a fear that the federal government is changing the immigration landscape in a negative way. I am not in support of the BCRC and its employees being associated with these extreme changes.”
Details on the raids seem to be in flux, but the New York Times and other outlets have reported they are slated for Sunday, and may target immigrants in at least 10 large cities who already have deportation orders.
In New York state, a new law that allows the immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses has safeguards against such searches.
The first lawsuit has been filed against New York’s new law to permit undocumented immigrants to apply for driver’s licenses, as Governor Andrew Cuomo continued to cast doubt on the effectiveness of the new law.
Some county clerks who are opposed to the law are pressing forward on a federal lawsuit.
“Predominantly, these are folks that are not legally in the country and that brings up a whole bunch of other questions. I have some concerns about that.”
Immigrant researchers and professors must often take low-paid “survival jobs” in the US. At Brooklyn’s summer Open Air University, they’re sharing their niche expertise.
“Democrat Senators had the opportunity to go against their One Party Leadership, but chose politics over the people.”
“We have to write a law that does not have an unintended consequence, that’s what the smart people are worried about.”
“We have to be mindful of those who also want to do us harm. That is something I don’t think this bill takes into account.”
A federal judge in New York says he is not planning to rule on the allegations until after the Supreme Court’s likely decision this month on the fate of the census question.
“Our immigration system is broken. This does not fix it, but what it does is it gives undocumented immigrants the opportunity to sit for a test, to get licensed, to get on the road, and to have insurance.”
“China (has) used the American consumer and producer for many years by creating barriers to letting our products in their country, while they want to overwhelm us with their products.”
The New York Farm Bureau said farmers need more workers and it wants the President to consider an expansion of a visa program.
“I mean it is inhumane to lock up families. That’s number one. You don’t lock up families, you don’t lock up children.”
A bill to grant drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants advances in the assembly
“I may just get a banner and put it across the front of the building that we will have ICE on speed dial.”
There is an ongoing controversy over the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in state and local courthouses, who are there to arrest immigrants appearing on unrelated cases.
The change means these convictions will no longer trigger automatic deportation proceedings.
The newspaper’s cover paired an image from the 2001 terrorist attacks with a partial quote by Omar. Fellow lawmakers and activists expressed outrage at the paper’s editorial decision.
They are concerned the proposed change might dampen responses. The Trump administration wants to use the census to ask people if they’re citizens.
Therese Patricia Okoumou has scaled public monuments, including the Statue of Liberty, to bring attention to the detention of undocumented immigrant children.
With budget negotiations continuing in Albany, activists from around the state gathered Tuesday in the capital to demand that legislation be included to expand access to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.
The New York Farm Bureau has announced their federal policy priorities on Wednesday. Immigration is top leading issues they want Congress to address.
Claims of massive illegal voting by noncitizens have routinely been disproved, but some noncitizens end up on the voter rolls, often by accident. Now, states are trying to fix that.
Two Western New York congressmen agree that the president’s declaration is inappropriate in this circumstance but they disagree on the resolution scheduled for a vote.
During a stop in Elmira, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer predicted lawsuits challenging the President’s declaration of a national emergency will be successful.
A coalition led by California has sued the Trump administration over its plan to divert billions of dollars to border wall construction.
A newly-released Siena poll of more than 770 New Yorkers suggests most folks want to ensure all New Yorkers are counted in the 2020 US Census. But they are divided over one potential question that could get asked: are you a US citizen?
Last year, ProPublica and The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Pennsylvania State Police had no guidelines preventing troopers from engaging in behavior that raised questions of racial profiling and unlawful arrests. That behavior is now forbidden in Pennsylvania,
In January, a group of Cornell Law students and one of their professors returned from working at the U.S. Mexico border. They were providing free legal help to families in Texas and Tijuana. Some of the children’s behavior was unsettling to the students.
Over the weekend, Republican congressman Tom Reed hosted a series of three town halls around his Southern Tier district. They came just after the partial federal shutdown ended.
The New York State Legislature late Wednesday approved a measure known as the Dream Act that would offer college aid for children of undocumented immigrants. But they stopped short of acting on a measure to offer driver’s licenses to immigrants in New York without documentation.
A study also finds that the unauthorized population from Mexico has declined by 1.3 million people since 2010.
A federal judge in New York has issued the first ruling out of multiple lawsuits over a question about U.S. citizenship status. The ruling is expected to be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.
The backlog of more than 800,000 immigration cases awaiting hearings, which has grown almost 50 percent under the Trump administration, is forecast to grow even larger.
A group of Cornell Law Students and their professor have been volunteering on the Texas border this week. They are helping mothers and children in the largest family immigration detention center in the country to file asylum claims.
The center is in Dilley, Texas. A remote town of about 4,000 people located over an hour’s drive south of San Antonio. The students have been interviewing women about the experiences that caused them to flee their homes and seek asylum thousands of miles away. From there they will be interviewed by an asylum officer who will decide if they have a “credible fear”.
Six Cornell Law School students and one of their professors have gone to border this week to volunteer at the country’s the largest family immigration center in Dilley, Texas. They are working with the Dilley Pro Bono Project. The Project has been organizing volunteers since the federal facility opened in 2014. Each week a group of volunteer lawyers, law students, paralegals arrived to assist mothers and children file their asylum claims.
Dilley is a remote town of about 4,000 people over an hour’s drive from San Antonio. Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer is an associate professor at Cornell Law School.
Representative Tom Reed said there are compromises available to both parties which would reopen the federal government and give them a victory. First, Reed says Congress must stop what he calls partisan ‘political theater’ and start working to each other.
The White House has signaled it may not shut down the government over $5 billion for a wall along the Southern Border. But central New York’s congressional representative said the issue is not going away.
One study found a 1200% increase in arrests and attempted arrests across New York state from 2016 to 2017.
Only 40 percent of nurses trained abroad pass the US licensing exam the first time. But educators say it’s not because they aren’t qualified.
The White House’s immigration policy targets people in the criminal justice system — whether or not they are convicted of crimes — and will likely most affect refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries. Many of the members of African Communities Together are part of all of those groups.
A photo of three pioneering women doctors has been circulating in social media — but they’re not wearing white lab coats. They’re wearing culturally significant dress and they represent the first women doctors from their countries, back in the 1800s.
U.S. Border Patrol agents are boarding buses and stopping cars from private lines like Greyhound and Concord Coach within 100 miles of a U.S. border, asking passengers if they’re American citizens.
American universities have created a consortium that offers temporary academic homes for refugee scholars threatened by war and authoritarian governments.
Their day in court? That is less the case for some detained immigrants in the New York area, at least for those hoping for proceedings conducted in person.
The ACLU and other groups are scouring Guatemala to track down parents who were separated from their children in the United States and deported back home without them.
SYRACUSE, NY (WRVO) – As the New York State Fair gets underway, immigration rights advocates are calling attention to the need for undocumented farm workers to be able to drive. Undocumented workers are currently barred from obtaining a driver’s license.
HARRISBURG, PA (WSKG) — A coalition of activists intent on shutting down the Berks County Residential Center is trying to convince Governor Tom Wolf to take more extreme action on the issue.
“The Trump Administration is pushing an unrealistic and mean spirited executive order,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted.
Pablo Villavicencio was turned over to ICE on June 1 after a guard at Fort Hamilton declined to accept his identification card and ran a background check, discovering a pending 2010 deportation order.
Advocates say the state is turning a blind eye to violations of state law by allowing the Berks County Residential Center to remain in operation.
A Pennsylvania judge heard uncontested evidence that ICE agents violated constitutional rights during an arrest last year, but that wasn’t enough to stop deportation proceedings.
HARRISBURG, PA (WSKG) — As national attention remains focused on the treatment of undocumented immigrants on the southern border, a group in Pennsylvania is calling attention to a situation closer to home.
Several community organizations who serve local refugees and immigrants are uniting to denounce the Supreme Court decision upholding President Trump’s travel ban from seven nations, including five featuring Muslim-majority populations.
About 15 protesters took over Congressman Tom Reed’s office, demanding he condemn the “zero tolerance” immigration policy and work to reunite families separated under it.
ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) – Immigration officials say they’ve arrested 40 undocumented immigrants across the state, many of whom had been charged with prior crimes.
ALBANY, NY (WSKG) – Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced steps that New York officials will take to help detained immigrant children separated from their families, but he said he isn’t getting a lot of details from the federal government.
HARRISBURG, PA (WSKG) — State Attorney General Josh Shapiro is suing the Trump administration over its family-separation policy for undocumented immigrants on the US-Mexico border.
SYRACUSE, NY (WRVO) – The House of Representatives is expected to vote on an immigration bill next week, meant to be a compromise among Republicans. Central New York Rep. John Katko (R-Camillus) worked on the bill.
ALBANY, NY (WSKG) – Governor Cuomo says there are as many as 700 immigrant children in child care services in New York State, and he’s demanding that state health care professionals have access to them.
ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) – No policy should be built on the backs and hearts of children. That was Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s response to the immigration policies running under the Trump administration.
ALBANY, NY (WSKG) – Governor Cuomo says he plans within the next several days to file a lawsuit against the federal government over the treatment of immigrant children separated from their parents.
ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) – Congressman Tom Reed is calling for bi-partisan action to solve the immigration crisis.
SYRACUSE, NY (WRVO) – Vice President Mike Pence visited central New York Tuesday and said Congress is working on immigration reform this week that will address issues including the separation of children and their families crossing the Southern border.
Opposing the Trump administration’s practice of separating immigrant families, Maryland brought back its troops from the U.S.-Mexico border and Massachusetts is canceling a planned deployment.
Judge Alison J. Nathan has stopped the deportation of Ecuadorean immigrant Pablo Villavicencio Calderon until at least July 20. He was detained on June 1 while delivering food to a Brooklyn Army base.
Pablo Villavicencio, an Ecuadorean immigrant, was attempting to make a delivery at Fort Hamilton when he was detained and handed over to immigration authorities.
The Philippines is the last country in the world that does not allow divorce.
Garífuna people escaped violence to join relatives in the South Bronx. And now, they say, being shackled is humiliating.
Over initial objections by House GOP leaders, the House is expected to take up immigration legislation next month that threatens to further divide the party in the middle of an election year.
A growing number of House Republicans want to force votes on immigration legislation this summer despite opposition from GOP leaders, including Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
Trump has ended temporary protected status for nearly 60,000 Hondurans. A Honduran who was deported 18 years ago gives them a preview of what life will be like when they return.
SYRACUSE, NY (WRVO) – Immigration activists in Syracuse have been filming federal border patrol agents questioning the citizenship status of travelers at the Regional Transportation Center. But U.S. Customs and Border Protection said those agents are following the law.
ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) – Current U.S. immigration policies pose an economic threat to New York’s struggling dairy industry, according to the director of a farmworker program at Cornell University.
SYRACUSE, NY (WRVO) – Democratic candidate for governor Cynthia Nixon said Gov. Andrew Cuomo could be doing a lot more to protect undocumented immigrants in New York State. This comes after last week’s raid on a dairy farm in Rome by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The staff of a health center in New York State noticed that farm workers were struggling to get to clinics. So the staff decided to bring check-ups to them — through video.
“The executive order, at its heart, says Yemeni people are bad and they need to stay away. We say no! We are part of the fabric of the country,” says a Yemeni-American whose mother was denied a visa.
ITHACA, NY (WSKG) – On Wednesday evening, in Ithaca, a small group gathered in the Tompkins County Public Library in Ithaca to learn about the plight of Assyrian Christians from Iraq. The gathering was organized by the Ithaca Coalition for Unity and Cooperation in the Middle East.
HARRISBURG, PA (WSKG) – Pennsylvania’s state police force is reviewing its interactions with the federal immigration and customs enforcement, in the wake of a series of investigative reports questioning the legality of troopers using traffic stops to detain people in the country illegally. It’s still not clear how law enforcement agency will change their procedures, or when. An investigation by ProPublica and the Philadelphia Inquirer found the Philadelphia Immigration and Customs Enforcement office–which oversees Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia–arrests more undocumented immigrants without criminal convictions than any other ICE office in the country. Unlike police in many other states, Pennsylvania state troopers don’t have official partnerships with ICE –nor do they have limits on questioning people about their legal status. It’s largely up to individual troopers to decide whether to question people about their immigration status or contact ICE agents.
The new lawsuit comes more than a week after California filed a similar lawsuit in San Francisco federal court against Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Census Bureau officials.
Trying to flee the war in Yemen, some U.S. passport holders are stuck in Djibouti due to slow immigration processes and the Trump administration’s ban on travel from countries including Yemen.
A coalition of immigrant rights groups and farm workers are campaigning for undocumented people in New York to be allowed to get a driver’s license.
Lauren Hilgers’s new book Patriot Number One: American Dreams in Chinatown charts the journey of Chinese dissident Zhuang Liehong, who immigrates to Queens, N.Y., from his village in Guangdong, China.
With millions of lives in immigration limbo, the long-term effects of uncertainty are beginning to worry mental health experts.
ALBANY (WSKG) In the midst of a national debate on immigration, the New York State Assembly this week passed a bill to give children of undocumented immigrants access to financial aid for college.
HARRISBURG (WSKG) – Protesters around Pennsylvania spent Wednesday urging the commonwealth’s Republican US senators and congressional representatives not to support a budget bill that routes significant dollars toward enforcing immigration laws–including $1.6 billion to build a wall on the Mexican border. One group braved torrential rain to bring the message to Congressman Lou Barletta’s office in Harrisburg–and they even brought props. After waiting out a downpour, a handful of constituents, local organizers, and members of pro-immigration reform group CASA filed into the conservative Barletta’s quiet office. They carried with them a box of shoes, which CASA regional director Elizabeth Alex said is a significant gesture. “These shoes are representing the empty shoes that are left behind when a family member is detained or deported by ICE,” she explained.
East of Salinas takes us to the heart of California’s “Steinbeck Country,” the Salinas Valley, to meet a bright boy and his dedicated teacher — both sons of migrant farm workers. With parents who are busy working long hours in the fields, third grader Jose Ansaldo often turns to his teacher, Oscar Ramos, for guidance. But Jose is undocumented; he was born in Mexico,. Like many other migrant children, he is beginning to understand the situation— and the opportunities that may be lost to him through no fault of his own. East of Salinas follows Jose and Oscar over three years: the boy is full of energy, smarts, and potential, while his teacher is determined to give back to a new generation of migrant children.