Undocumented Workers Vital to Reconstruction Face Discrimination and Abuse

-- by Elise Foley, The Washington Independent:

-- by Darrell M. West, Brookings Institution:

The United States is shockingly irrational in the way it handles immigration. Unlike other nations that strategically use immigration to pursue national goals, we lurch from concerns about border security to illegal immigrants to drugs and crime without considering our long-term political and economic priorities. 

-- by Margot Roosevelt, The Los Angeles Times:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday rebuked Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp., which operate refineries in Wilmington, for bankrolling a measure that would effectively scuttle the state's efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

-- by Steve Miletich, The Seattle Times:

A Seattle police detective who sparked a public outcry after he stomped a prone Latino man and used ethnically inflammatory language in April will not be charged with the felony of malicious harassment, the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office announced Wednesday.

America's First and Only Channel Developed for Latino Preschoolers

-- from PR Newswire:

Today Vme strengthens its commitment to Latino families with the launch of a new channel for preschoolers – Vme Kids, America's first and only 24/7 channel to focus specifically on preschoolers for whom Spanish is the home language.

The annual inflow of unauthorized immigrants to the United States was nearly two-thirds smaller in the March 2007 to March 2009 period than it had been from March 2000 to March 2005, according to new estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.

This sharp decline has contributed to an overall reduction of 8% in the number of unauthorized immigrants currently living in the U.S.-to 11.1 million in March 2009 from a peak of 12 million in March 2007, according to the estimates. The decrease represents the first significant reversal in the growth of this population over the past two decades.

-- from The Associated Press:

Civil rights lawyers filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against a government contractor that was the target of an immigration raid this summer, accusing the company of bilking illegal workers out of pay and violating their rights.

The suit accuses Terra Universal Inc. and its owner, George Sadaghiani, of denying illegal immigrant workers overtime and sick pay and discriminating against them because of their visa status.

-- from The National Council of La Raza:

-- by Beth Reinhard, The Miami Herald: