A new blog post from Van Le, Digital Director of America’s Voice Education Fund, runs through an important immigration-related development that many have missed: President Trump’s commutation of a sentence for serial immigrant-abuser Sholom Rubashkin, of Agriprocessors infamy. Le writes: Donald Trump commuted the prison sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, the...
Continue
»
Last night, Donald Trump commuted the prison sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, the former owner of Agriprocessors, the Postville, Iowa kosher meatpacking plant that was the site of a huge immigration raid in 2008. Rubashkin, after the raid, was charged for immigration-related offenses but ultimately went to prison for bank...
Continue
»
Last Friday, Iowa Dreamers, community leaders, and allies gathered outside the Des Moines federal building to tell their members of Congress to support the Dream Act and TPS. The building is home to the offices of Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Rep. David Young (R-IA)....
Continue
»
Earlier this week, Jeff Sessions announced the Trump administration’s plan to start cutting federal funding off from cities with immigrant-friendly policies. It’s a stupid move that stands counter to improving public safety, and some three dozen cities have already announced lawsuits over the threat. But it’s not just big, progressive cities...
Continue
»
Donald Trump’s campaign may be faltering, but Trumpism is alive and well. Police are investigating the at least two dozen white supremacist fliers that were posted on two Iowa campuses this past week. At Iowa State University, some 20 posters reading “In 1950, America was 90 percent white. It...
Continue
»
Ahead of the upcoming United States v. Texas Supreme Court decision on President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, Kenia Calderon, a DACA-mented student at Drake University, reflects on the impact the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has had on her life in a new piece for the Des Moines Register. Calderon...
Continue
»
I’m an undocumented immigrant. My family and I grew up in New Hampton, Iowa. I’m an Iowan. I speak Spanish thanks to my mom, and I can cook like a Mexican. But I’m also an Iowan, and my family respects tradition and family values. This is why my mom...
Continue
»
It’s been one year since Pastor Max Villatoro was deported to Honduras and torn from his wife, four US citizen children, and Iowa home. Some deportation cases get local and state attention, but rarely do they receive the sort of national attention Pastor Max’s case managed to get. Support...
Continue
»
Immigrant youth and their allies in Houston, Texas said no to hateful rhetoric as Republican candidates took to the stage for the last night’s Republican debate at the University of Houston. Educational campuses should be places free of harassment. But it looks like that hasn’t been the case for teenagers at Perry High in Iowa,...
Continue
»
While most Americans who pay attention to politics were focused on the Iowa caucuses for the past few months, immigration activists, including DREAMers, have been actively engaged on the front lines in the state for the past several years. The results have been two-pronged: 1) Defining candidates on the...
Continue
»
