The US participated in the “Ottawa Process” that created this international treaty, but the Clinton administration decided at the last moment against signing and instead set 2006 as the objective for the US to join. In February 2004, the Bush administration reversed course and announced that it did not ever intend to join the Mine Ban Treaty.

The United States is already compliant with the key provisions of the Mine Ban Treaty. It has not used antipersonnel mines since 1991, has had an export ban in place since 1992, and has not produced since 1997. The US is already the world’s largest contributor to global mine clearance and victim assistance programs. Acceding to the treaty would reinforce President Obama’s stated commitment to international humanitarian law, protection of civilians, arms control and disarmament, and multilateralism.

Tell President Obama that you support the landmine ban and want to see the United States join the Mine Ban Treaty without delay.

Photo: Angola’s four-decade war ended in 2002. Parties to the conflict mined roads, high-voltage electricity pylons, reservoirs and dams. © Gervasio Sanchez

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First, what is “The DREAM Act”?

The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act (also called “The DREAM Act”) [is] a piece of proposed federal legislation in the United States that would provide certain immigrant students who graduate from a [U.S. high school], are of good moral character, arrived in the US as children, and have been in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill’s enactment, the opportunity to earn conditional permanent residency.

—Wikipedia ((23 March 2009)

Furthermore, as Kyle notes, The National Immigration Law Center has a basic information sheet (pdf).

Dreamactivist.org introduces it this way:

The federal DREAM Act (S.729 / H.R. 1751) will provide undocumented immigrant youth in the United States with conditional residency and a pathway to citizenship provided they came here before the age of 16 and maintained continuous residence for 5 years, graduate from high school or obtain a GED, attend 2 years of college or join the military and have no criminal records.

If Congress fails to act this year, another entire class of outstanding, law-abiding high school students will graduate without being able to plan for the future, and some will be removed from their homes to countries they barely know. This tragedy will cause America to lose a vital asset: an educated class of promising immigrant students who have demonstrated a commitment to hard work and a strong desire to be contributing members of our society.

Here’s a short video on the DREAM Act. And what bothers me about it is the blurred faces. It’s too perfect a metaphor for what we ask of the undocumented, of how we ask them to live. Without a face, without a self, without an identity.

A post I really recommend if you want to get a full understanding, complete with many links:

65,000 unauthorized migrant youth graduate from U.S. high schools every year. Many were brought to the U.S. before they could remember much else, and most know no other home except for the U.S. The cruel irony of their situation is made all the more apparent by contrasting it with my story. I was born in Guatemala and spent most of my life there. I was given the privilege of U.S. citizenship simply because I was born of U.S. parents. Meanwhile, DREAMers have lived most of their lives in the U.S., but are denied the privilege of U.S. citizenship because they had the misfortune of being born somewhere else.

If I had to sum up the DREAMer struggle in one sentence it would be this: DREAMers don’t even have a right to exist in the only country they know as their home. DREAMers haven’t even gotten to a point where they’re fighting against be considered equal humans, they’re fighting just to be recognized as humans. That’s a huge part of what inspires me about DREAMers. If any nation told me I didn’t have the right to exist, I would hate it, much less want to live in it. I’ve long joked that if I was a DREAMer, I would have started my own version of Marcus Garvey’s “Back to Africa” movement. The U.S. should be begging for talented youth like this, especially during this time of economic crisis. Astonishingly, DREAMers don’t hate the U.S., they work to better it. Where I probably would have been tearing the U.S. down, DREAMers instead fight to make the U.S. a better and more just place. They embody the essence of what it means to do good in this world.

—Citizen Orange

Actions one can take to help get this legislation passed:

1. CALL – The National Council of La Raza has a page to help you call your congressional representatives in support of the DREAM Act.

http://capwiz.com/nclr/callalert/index.tt?alertid=12988601

2. FAX – America’s Voice has a page to help you fax your congressional representatives in support of the DREAM Act.

http://americasvoiceonline.org/page/speakout/DaretoDream

3. EMAIL – Change.org has a page to help you email your congressional representatives in support of the DREAM Act.

http://www.change.org/ideas/932/view_action/ask_your_congressperson_to_support_the_dream_act

4. PETITION – Dreamactivist.org has the official petition in support of the DREAM Act.

http://dreamact2009.com/

5. TEXT – Text “Justice” (”Justicia” for Spanish) to 69866 to be the first to know when the DREAM Act is introduced. FIRM’s Mobile Action Network is an excellent way to stay connected and have maximum impact at just the right moment.

http://fairimmigration.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/action-join-the-fight-for-immigrant-rights/

—Citizen Orange

Sometimes I find it hard to advocate for things that seem common sense. I don’t know what to say to convince people that everyone should have air, or water, or love, or freedom of movement or opportunities such as this. It seems a win-win to me. Give people room to excel and contribute, give them the homeplace they already feel they belong to and do belong to, increase happiness and productivity all ’round. This can be a nation brimming with good will and joy and community. We just have to believe it is possible and make a few small steps toward that vision.

This is one.

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Counting people is harder than it looks. The 2010 census is morphing from sociological project into a political one: conservatives are crowing about the dangers of tallying “illegals,” and activists are seeking policy changes to guard against undercounting.

Immigrant advocates are leveraging the threat of an undercount to press for immigration reforms, warning that aggressive crackdowns drive undocumented immigrants further underground. An estimated 3 percent of the Latino population was undercounted in the 2000 census.

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, League of United Latin American Citizens, SEIU and other groups have partnered to launched a Spanish-language outreach campaign, ¡HAGASE CONTAR! NALEO argues:

The census is taken largely through the U.S. postal system, and factors such as unlisted addresses, households with large families and high mobility rates contribute to persons being missed. The recession and large number of foreclosures in the Latino community will make enumerating this population even more difficult in 2010.

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The segment follows Thindwa, a Zimbabwe-born community organizer who has worked for years to help workers in his community—from the nurses of Resurrection Health Care to the sit-in strikers at Republic Windows. He helps community members get involved in rallies, contact their elected leaders and participate in campaigns to improve their lives and those of their neighbors. As Moyers says, Thindwa’s tireless efforts are:

All in a day’s work for a man who spends his days organizing people to tackle issues they face in the workplace, from low wages and meager benefits, to corporate behavior.

Now Thindwa, like JwJ organizers and working families around the country, is taking part in the campaign to pass the Employee Free Choice Act—hosting rallies, gathering signatures, getting letters to elected officials and helping young leaders speak out in favor of the critical bill. He knows the importance of giving workers the freedom to form unions and bargain, and the role that unions can play in giving workers a stake in the economy, as well as giving them the tools to improve their own lives and participate in their communities.

Thimdwa understands how important unions are to a fair economy, where worker power  balances the overwhelming corporate power. He also knows the importance of good jobs to building strong families and strong communities. Says Thindwa:

The question of good wages, decent wages for workers, isn’t just a question of economic justice, isn’t just a question of fairness for that worker….It does have broad implications for social stability.

You can watch the entire segment here. It’s an inspiring story of one man’s effort to help make the economy work for everyone.

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A test case on same-sex fairness

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Shirley Tan is a 43-year old Pacifica homemaker and mother of twin seventh-grade boys. Tan also wears an ankle bracelet assigned by immigration agents after a dawn raid on her home two months ago.

Barring a legal miracle, she faces likely deportation to the Philippines on Friday. That result would devastate her family and friends. But her case also touches off two flashpoint issues – immigration law and same-sex marriage – that are combining in a way that shows the unfairness of this country’s laws.

If she is deported, Tan will be separated from her partner Jay Mercado, who is a naturalized citizen. For straight couples, there wouldn’t be a similar problem because a citizen can sponsor a spouse for residency. But under the federal Defense of Marriage Act, this right doesn’t exist for an estimated 37,000 same-sex couples where one partner is a noncitizen.

Tan’s case also points up how ill-equipped and unfair immigration laws can be. She and her partner sought to legalize their status for years, pursuing their case through hearings and appeals with several lawyers.

But Mercado says the couple never learned of an adverse ruling in 2002, blaming the delay on a previous lawyer. Since then, the couple traveled, signed up for a real estate license and even passed a Homeland Security screening on a tourist visit to the White House. There was never a blip until the 6:30 a.m. door knock from immigration agents on Jan. 28.

There is a legal Hail Mary, a longshot chance via a rarely used power that members of Congress can use to single out individuals for a reprieve from deportation. Tan’s congresswoman, Democrat Jackie Speier, is considering her case.

But a fuller answer is needed: an overhaul of immigration law that would recognize special circumstances and also passage of the Uniting American Families Act. That measure would end the discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans and let them sponsor partners for immigration.

Keeping all families together is a goal worth achieving.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/01/EDB216Q4D8.DTL

This article appeared on page A – 14 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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As most of you know, last summer Congress completed step one in a two step process to remove the HIV ban on travel and immigration by removing the ban from the language of the Immigration and Nationality Act. To fully remove the ban, however, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must issue regulations which remove HIV from its list of “communicable diseases of public health significance.”

Please take a minute to visit the PHR page and call these Senators.

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Could this approach work in the United States? Probably not, unless every individual required to take an HIV test for immigration purposes refused to do so. While this article points out a novel approach to civil disobedience, it also highlights the fact that the U.S. continues to be among a small minority of countries with HIV-based restrictions for non-immigrants.

Eight months have passed since the statutory HIV ban was lifted. It’s time for the Department of Health and Human Services to issue regulations lifting the HIV ban on travel and immigration once and for all.

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With last summer’s passage of PEPFAR, Congress removed the statutory requirement to deny people living with HIV entry into the U.S as visitors and immigrants. However, HIV remains on the HHS list of “communicable diseases of public health significance,” preventing the entry of people living with HIV into the US, despite the lack of scientific evidence supporting the ban as an effective strategy for preventing HIV infections or reducing public healthcare costs. The current law also violates the human rights to privacy, freedom of movement and freedom from discrimination.

Pat Daoust, MSN, RN, the Director of the Physicians for Human Rights Health Action AIDS campaign, said today:

It is far past time for the US to join the community of nations whose HIV entry policies are rooted in sound public health practices, rather than discrimination and ignorance.

What You Can Do

Senators can use the confirmation hearings for President Obama’s Secretary of HHS to urge the nominee, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, to lift the ban swiftly once in office.

Contact Senate committee members Mikulski and Sanders and urge them to press Secretary-designate Sebelius on the Obama administration’s plans for repealing the highly discriminatory ban.

You may reach Senator Barbara Mikulski’s office at (202) 224-4654.

You may reach Senator Bernie Sanders‘ office at (202) 224-5141.

Suggested script for your call:

• Hello, I am a member of Physicians for Human Rights calling regarding the confirmation hearing of HHS Secretary-designate Kathleen Sebelius.
• I would like the Senator to ask a question regarding her plans to remove HIV from the list of communicable diseases that prevent entry to the US.

Travel restrictions violate the human rights of people living with HIV and place the US among 14 countries that either refuse entry of people living with HIV or require disclosure of HIV infection even for short-term stays. With your help, we can ensure that reducing HIV discrimination and defending human rights is a priority for Secretary Sebelius on day one.

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There’s noise now in Washington that policy makers are considering paying for health care reform, in part, by taxing health care benefits workers receive through employer-provided health coverage. Such an ill-conceived plan not only represents a big a tax hike for workers and their employers, but carries serious and hidden costs, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

In “Not-So-Easy Money: Taxing Health Care Benefits Comes with Costs,” Elise Gould, EPI’s director of health care policy research, warns

we should proceed with extreme caution before moving to cap or eliminate this tax exclusion.

The latest government figures show that in 2007, 70 percent of the 253 million people with health insurance received at least some of their coverage through employers. Currently, the money spent on providing health care coverage is tax deductible to the employer and the employee is not taxed on it.

Workers who get their health care coverage through employment, and the employers who provide it, already have seen years of their costs climbing and their coverage shrinking through higher premiums, bigger co-pays, larger deductibles and more exclusions in coverage.

On top of that, workers’ paychecks have stagnated as they have given up pay raises to funnel those funds to cover the higher health care costs and maintain coverage.

UAW Legislative Director Alan Reuther recently told The New York Times that proposals to tax health care benefits

would represent a tax increase on working families. They would undermine good health care coverage.

Not only are the proposals a tax hike on workers, but, says Gould, they also could accelerate the decline in employer-provided coverage.

The current policy of excluding health benefits from taxation provides employers with an incentive to offer health insurance to their workforce. When large groups of workers (and their families) sign-up for health insurance through employers, “risk pools” are formed. The key to these risk pools is that people are not grouped according to their health, creating a viable and stable insurance pool.

Taxing health insurance benefits would encourage the young and healthy to opt out of these pools; upon their exit, premiums would likely rise for those remaining.

Consequently, a policy that taxes health benefits would likely accelerate the substantial erosion in employer-sponsored insurance that has occurred since 2000 and thus cause more people to lose insurance coverage altogether.

Those pushing the health care tax also claim it would reduce health care costs by discouraging workers from so-called “wasteful” health care spending and steering them away from more comprehensive, quality coverage to lower-cost, more bare-bones coverage. Says Gould:

…taxing high-priced health coverage will heavily burden two groups: workers in small firms and workers in employer pools with higher health risks, such as those with a high percentage of older workers.

Small businesses are paying high premiums for the insurance they provide to their employees not because the plans are especially lavish, but because they have high administrative costs and include too few employees to constitute the broader risk pool that would qualify them for lower premiums.

Employees whose characteristics cause them to be classified as higher risks make them more expensive to insure. Adding a tax on top of the cost of premiums they and their employers pay will likely drive more of them into the ranks of the uninsured.

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The call by a key national newspaper to end discrimination against gay and lesbian couples in immigration laws is a major step forward in the fight for equal immigration rights.

Separation Anxiety
Gay couples should be allowed to stay together in the United States.

Monday, March 16, 2009; A16

THE UNITING American Families Act would allow gay and lesbian Americans and permanent residents to sponsor their foreign-born partners for legal residency in the United States. The bill, introduced last month in the Senate by Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and in the House by Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), would add “permanent partner” and “permanent partnership” after the words “spouse” and “marriage” in relevant sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act. If passed, it would right a gross unfairness.

Under the proposal, a “permanent partnership” is defined as a “committed, intimate relationship” with another adult “in which both parties intend a lifelong commitment.” The couple must be financially interdependent and not married to or in a permanent partnership with anyone else. And the partners can’t be related. The benefit comes with the same immigration restrictions and enforcement standards that apply to heterosexual couples. Fraudulent permanent partnerships face the same penalties as fake marriages: up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.

“Under current law, committed same-sex foreign partners of American citizens are unable to use the family immigration system, which accounts for a majority of the green cards and immigrant visas granted annually by the United States,” Mr. Leahy said upon introducing the bill. “The promotion of family unity has long been part of federal immigration policy, and we should honor that principle by providing all Americans the opportunity to be with their loved ones.” According to the most recent census, he added, about 35,000 binational, same-sex couples are living in the United States. The new legislation would ensure that the family connections valued under immigration law are extended to gays and lesbians.

The strain of the status quo on gay and lesbian binational couples should not be discounted. Because their relationships are not legally recognized by the United States, some couples have resorted to illegal marriages where the foreign nationals marry Americans to get green cards that allow them to stay in the country permanently. In other cases, Americans have exiled themselves to be with their partners. Sixteen countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the United Kingdom, allow residents to sponsor same-sex permanent partners for legal immigration. American gays and lesbians should not have to choose between their country and their partners.

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