(From the Feet in 2 Worlds blog ...)

Could the nation’s undocumented immigrants please stand up? The government will be happy to deport you.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) will encourage the nation’s roughly 12 million undocumented immigrants to voluntarily turn themselves into immigration authorities for deportation in the coming months in an unorthodox new program designed to help the agency combat unauthorized immigration.

ICE Director Julie Myers leaked the new federal effort on Univision this past Sunday at the end of an interview with Jorge Ramos, the anchor of the popular public affairs show ‘Al Punto’ and in advance of an anticipated formal announcement next week.

In a landmark announcement Tuesday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared that all 100 city agencies that serve the general public are now required to translate key documents and provide interpretation for the city’s millions of immigrant residents in the top six languages spoken by New Yorkers.

The new policy, outlined in Executive Order 120, reflects the linguistic diversity of New York, where half of city residents speak a language other than English at home. Now communicating to residents in Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian, and French Creole will be given the same priority as English. The new citywide policy is expected to assist the nearly 1 in 4 New Yorkers who have a limited ability to read, write or speak English with accessing city services.

What’s more, the announcement of Executive Order 120 spins the government requirements as a matter of customer service and government accountability. The new policy mandates the creation of a new Customer Service Group, housed within the Mayor’s Office of Operations, to help city agencies figure out how to make sure their services and programs are reaching immigrant New Yorkers.

The announcement establishes New York City at the forefront of policymaking efforts to encourage immigrants to access government services. It also provides a stark contrast to the reinvigorated local initiatives that seek to declare English the sole language for signs and services. Many cities and states are also increasingly opposed to policies that help immigrants access government services, even if they are legally eligible for them.

(Read the full post by checking out Feet in 2 Worlds blog...)

Most of you know that I was born on the Caribbean island called Trinidad; as such, the issue of immigration is near and dear to me. Most of you also know that my core belief is that most individuals born in the USA are xenophobic, and that’s why the issue is so volatile. I don’t make this claim lightly. I have been dealing with this issue for over thirty years. With all this as a backdrop, let me say that it was refreshing to hear Brooklyn congressman Ed Towns (10th) call for a national commission to deal with the issue of immigration. Towns want to empower a commission to thoroughly study the issue and to come up with recommendations for resolving it, once and for all.

The congressman believes that the immigration issue is too complicated for the current legislature at this time, especially since many divergent interests have crowded the field and captured the debate. He believes that a commission should be staffed with experts from various areas of human endeavor, all intent on seeking binding solutions. He suggests economists, legal scholars, academics, diplomats, politicians, and experts in the areas of health, customs, immigration, national security, the military and the like. He would like to impanel this commission as early as yesterday, since he believes that there is urgency to this: given the current state of the economy, and given perpetual changes in world markets.

Towns said that it is obvious this Congress is at an impasse. He said that this issue (and all the ancillary issues that relate) transcends party lines. He still thinks however that Republicans should carry most of the blame for the failure to comprehensively overhaul the system, especially since they have been the point-guards on this since President Bush came into office in 2001. Still he refuses to place all the blame on the shoulders of only Republican members of Congress, stating that some democrats were indulging in demagoguery once this issue hit the floor.

AfterDowningStreet.org has an amazing historical overview on why tomorrow there will be massive demonstrations and labor union strikes all across the country : 122 years of the 8 hour week and end of child labor, 5 years of "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, 3 years since the discovery of the Downing Street Minutes, 2 years since the nation-wide immigration rallies of 2006, almost 2 years ago when Nanci Pelosi and Democrats in Congress and the Senate took the impeachment of George Bush for misleading the country to war, "off the table". Yet in one of the most mindboggling examples of the Bush Administration's information war against Americans, May 1st has been declared Loyalty Day.

And here's the thing : You and I know that when it comes down to it, the war against immigrants is a war against labor which is part of a larger attack from the only people who benefit from the other kind of corporate-led violence like the occupation of Iraq.

As my friend Roberto Lovato said earlier, paraphrasing ActUP, "Silence = Death". If you are like me, you hate marches but you go to them because you know that as a symbol of solidarity in dissent you need to go.

So dust off your walking shoes and get your arse to the streets and square tomorrow at 2 or 3pm.

This is the last of the videos I shot at Elizabeth Upton's class at LaGuardia Community College. They are recent (and not so) immigrants who are in her English as a second language class (or the CUNY Language Immersion Program).

Here is part one of the series.

Then mozie on to part two.

Sultana asks the questions we all've been waiting for:

The students worked hard at coming up with questions. Sultana is actually asking the question for another student, Malva, who knocked it out of the part but was too shy to get on camera to speak her own words.

Believe it or not, some people want to know my opinion on things. Some of those things have to do with politics. For months now I've been telling people that Spitzer is not reaching out to the people he needs the most : The activists and advocated who pounded the pavement for him election.

Elizabeth Benjamin published yesterday an article that describes the sentiments of not only Democrats in Albany but everybody I know in the progressive grassroots.

In Clue us in, Democrats growl at Eliot Spitzer, Elizabeth gets on the record what people have been saying on the off since the Troopergate scandal broke off : Eliot has a serious communication problem with his base and this is not a problem we can just lay on his staff.

Here's the gold :

"He didn't consult us before, he didn't consult us now," said state Sen. Ruben Diaz (D-Bronx). "He let me go on the Senate floor and make a fool of myself. Now I have to take the time to stand up, eat crap and apologize. Eat my pride."

Some Spitzer allies saw the driver's license debacle as

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!"” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
– “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

This poem graces the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. For decades, this poem symbolized the American attitude toward immigrants. Our expanding country needed people to fill the jobs that were being created by the millions; immigrants filled those jobs, and built a life for themselves and their children.

March is an insane month for the amount of political events you can go to. The proof is in the amount of political heavy hitters DL21C was able to wrangle during that month : Jon Kerry, Wesley Clark, John Tester, John Edwards, Bill Richardson. It is also an insane month for the amount of technology and media conferences you can get invited to, the most important (at least for me) being SXSW --but there's eTech and IDPI as well.

I missed almost all the events involving presidential candidates because of the amount of conferences I was involved in during the month of March. Once I was done with my last one, ARC's national conference on "Facing Race", I was free to enjoy a candidate or two by the end of the month. I wasn't able to make it to the John Edwards event (I was having some fun at a party with Nancy Pelosi).

So 3/26 was Bill Richardson's lucky number.

Can you get free from the burdens of work and seder preparation on Monday morning? The Drum Major Institute is sponsoring a most-of-the-day talk-fest on New York City and the Middle-class.

Featured speakers include form Gov. Mario Cuomo, Mayoral-possibles Rep. Anthony Weiner and Comptroller William Thompson, Just-re-elected UFT President Randi Weingarten and NYC Finance Commissioner Martha Stark and Bronx Beep Adolfo Carrion Jr. You can read more about it here.

I personally had to move heaven and earth to clear the morning and will have to seder-prep all weekend, but I'm going.

Monday April 2, 2007 8:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m.
Baruch College Conference Center, Newman Vertical Campus
55 Lexington Avenue at 24th Street, 14th Floor

Try calling, emailing DMI to RSVP.
See you there.

On March 25th 1911 (sorry, should have posted this yesterday!), 146 people died in the very building I work in. The result of their deaths was the rapid growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and the real beginning of the fight against sweatshops. It also was the beginning of fire regulations in American cities.

The story of the fire and the missed opportunities to prevent it are chilling. But what is more chilling is the fact that America has forgotten why we need unions. Even some unions have forgotten what unions are all about, but I want everyone who doubts the need for unions to remember the events of March 25, 1911.

I work in what is now known as the Brown Building at NYU near Washington Square. But in 1911 it was the Asch building. The top three floors of the Asch building comprised the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. For the record, a shirtwaist is essentially a woman's blouse. I work a couple of floors below where the factory was. Today I look out my lab's window and I see the annual commemoration of those who died in 1911.