The latest news relating to the political world as it impacts the US Latino community.
Hispanic advocacy groups in California are urging Latino voters to attend public hearings and voice their concerns about proposed restricting maps unveiled earlier this month by a citizen panel appointed by the state. At a recent hearing, two dozen residents voiced their concern over the impact the proposed maps by the Citizens Redistricting Commission could [...]
Illinois Republicans and Texas Democrats are preparing to file lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act that will increase their respective states’ Hispanic-majority districts. It is evident that Latinos are disproportionately represented in Congress with only 24 House members (17 Democrats and 7 Republicans), but with over 50.5 million counted in the 2010 Census, the Hispanic [...]
A new map of legislative boundaries in Illinois drawn up by legislators violates the rights of Latino voters, according to a Latino legal rights group. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a non-profit that works to protect the legal rights of Latinos, says the plan denies Latino voters from Chicago’s South Side their [...]
An analysis of data from the 2010 Census by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund supports what many experts have been saying since the Census Bureau released its first data late last year, Latinos should see increased representation as a result of reapportionment. On Tuesday, NALEO released its study [...]
The first round of states to receive their census redistricting data last week shows that Hispanics and other minorities accounted for 85 percent of the population growth across the country in the last ten years. The data will have important implications as the states begin the process of redistricting. New Jersey, Mississippi, Virginia and Louisiana [...]
A challenge to a punitive law in Arizona against employers that knowingly hire undocumented workers will be heard today by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law, called the Legal Arizona Worker’s Act, is being challenged by an array of business and advocacy groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Immigration Law Center and [...]
California’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that undocumented students in California, who complete at least three years of high school and graduate, will be eligible for in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. Although undocumented students will still remain ineligible for state or federal financial aid, the ruling could save students up to $12,000 [...]
A three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals concluded Tuesday that Arizona cannot require residents to show proof of citizenship in order to vote as it violates the federal National Voter Registration Act. The law which was authored by Republican State Sen. Russell Pearce, who also wrote the controversial anti-immigrant S.B. 1070, was [...]
A coalition of leading civil rights groups in the nation, including the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) are uniting to help end the epidemic of child obesity. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is funding a [...]
Yesterday, a federal judge in Phoenix Arizona grilled attorneys on both sides of Arizona’s anti-immigration law. A coalition of civil rights groups and the Justice Department both made their case against S.B. 1070 in separate hearings. Both parties called on U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton to issue an injunction on the law (set to be [...]
