The latest news relating to the political world as it impacts the US Latino community.
The news last month was dominated by AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile. The proposed merger generated considerable debate within the civil rights and progressive communities, with some organizations, including many labor unions, strongly in favor and others, principally consumer advocates, deeply opposed. While NCLR did not take a position on the issue, in the aftermath [...]
Across the country states have been addressing their re-districting needs in recent months, redrawing voting maps that will fairly reflect new Census statistics from the 2010 Census. The latest figures showed that the population in Texas grew by 4 million people, giving the state 4 new congressional seats. The plan drafted by the three-judge panel [...]
In the largest residential fair-lending settlement in history, Bank of America’s Countrywide Financial Corporation has agreed to pay $335 million to settle a dispute over allegations of systemic discrimination against qualified Latino and African-American borrowers. Latinos made up about two-thirds of the cases investigated by the Department of Justice, which reviewed over 200,000 cases across 41 [...]
An exciting report this week notes that Latinos are increasingly applying to and attending medical schools in the U.S. and in significant numbers. Since 2004 applications by Latino students to U.S. medical schools increased almost 23%, representing a 6% rise from 2010 to 2011, the Association of American Medical Colleges reported. The numerical figure was from [...]
The findings by the U.S. Justice Department that Sheriff Joe Arpaio violated the civil rights of Latinos in his pursuit of undocumented immigrants have led to the expulsion of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office from a federal immigration enforcement program. The program, part of the Department of Homeland Security, allows trained deputies to enforce immigration [...]
The Supreme Court’s decision late last week to halt the recently announced Texas election maps proposed by a three-judge panel in San Antonio is raising concerns over the impact it could have on the rights of Latino voters in the state. The action is the most recent in the redistricting battle in Texas that started [...]
The number of undocumented immigrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border in the past fiscal year dropped to the lowest it’s been since the 1970s. According to statistics from the Department of Homeland Security released in late November, the total number of apprehensions, 327,577, is 53.5% lower than it was in 2008. The peak was in 2000, when 1.6 million [...]
A federal appeals court has upheld a previous ban that blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law today. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton issued an injunction in the lawsuit filed by the Obama administration last summer, just days before SB 1070 went into effect. Among the most contentious parts of the bill was [...]
Dewey Square/Latinovations Media and Dewey Digital released a Spanish-language version of its Web ad, “My Fight, Too,” on Friday backing the union workers who have been targets of attacks from political leaders in Wisconsin. As the fight shifts to include organized workers in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana, the new ad calls attention to the contribution of teachers, firefighters, and nurses who “Stand up. Negotiate. And win fights for all of us.”
The latest battle over immigration in Arizona ended in a resounding defeat for the anti-immigrant faction in the legislature after the Senate rejected five wide ranging bills targeting undocumented immigrants yesterday. “It’s time for us to take a timeout,” said Senator John McComish, a Phoenix Republican. “It’s something that the people don’t want us to [...]
