The latest news relating to the political world as it impacts the US Latino community.
The Obama administration is proposing new rules that will reduce the amount of time undocumented immigrants are separated from their families while they apply for a green card. Under the current process, undocumented immigrants must leave the country to obtain a visa in their home country but this can lead to a decade-long separation for [...]
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 [...]
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 announcement today from San Antonio Congressman Charlie Gonzalez that he will retire when his term expires has reconfigured the cast of candidates looking to get to Congress in 2012. Now, Joaquin Castro is set to run in Gonzalez’s seat, district 20, paving the way for former Congressman Ciro Rodriguez to run in the newly created [...]
The three-judge panel in Washington released its interim map proposals for the state house and senate today. The maps can be found here. The senate map is Plan S163. The house map is Plan H298 (Judge Smith also has a dissenting state house proposal, which is H299). The parties have been asked to submit any [...]
The media is reporting that the Department of Homeland Security will begin reviewing the backlog of deportation cases in the country and also started training enforcement agents and prosecuting lawyers in an effort to prioritize the expulsion of the most dangerous criminals versus those with no criminal record. The New York Times reported yesterday that, [...]
A Statement From The Office of Congressman Luis V. Gutierrez Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and nine other House Democrats are traveling to Alabama on Monday for an ad hoc hearing on immigration and Alabama’s HB56 immigration law. A group of five of those traveling held a press conference today in Washington to discuss the trip. [...]
A new study found that while the high school dropout rate among Latinos remains high, the number of Latinas enrolled in college now matches that of their white counterparts. The study, “UP FOR GRABS: The Gains and Prospects of First- and Second-Generation Young Adults, by the Migration Policy Institute, examines the discrepancies in educational attainment [...]
A new report found that Chicago’s local Latino population is a vital contributor to the local economy. The report, “The State of Latino Chicago 201: The New Equation”, by the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies concluded that Latinos contribute almost $1.2 billion more in tax revenues than they cost in the delivery [...]
