Immigration
As Trump said ‘we don’t want them’ in Mesa, migrant families arrived at Phoenix church
The smell of chicken soup, the sound of clapping and the faces of smiling parishioners welcomed the families to an outdoor stretch of grass where tables and chairs were set up for them to dine.
Do Latinos make Arizona worse? Conservatives, Republicans think so
When Rep. David Stringer made national news in June for saying “there aren’t enough white kids to go around” in public schools and that immigration is “an existential threat” to the United States, prominent Republicans distanced themselves from him. Some, like Gov. Doug Ducey and Arizona Republican Party Chairman Jonathan Lines, went so far as to call on him to resign for the nakedly racist comments.
A warm meal, a hair tie and shoe laces
Ana Sofia, 5, arrived Tuesday night with her gray T-shirt dirty around her neck. Her frizzy blonde hair was tied in a ponytail with a long silver piece of plastic. She and her mother, Patricia, spent several days in government custody after traveling from Honduras.
‘It’s a crisis’ as ICE releases hundreds of migrant families in Phoenix
Tuesday night was a first for Pastor Angel Campos. His Phoenix church had never accommodated migrant families just released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and in need of a place to stay. The congregation of mostly immigrants at Monte Vista Baptist Church mobilized Tuesday afternoon to feed, clothe, house and welcome about 44 people, all families from Central America.
Community groups want more Arizona gov’t oversight of migrant shelters
A coalition of Arizona groups seeking the release and reunification of migrant children and families are calling for state officials to implement stronger measures to address what they call a systemic pattern of physical and sexual abuse of children at Southwest Key facilities, which house migrant minors.
Government report provides insight into what went wrong during family separation crisis
A report published this week concluded the U.S. Department of Homeland Security “was not fully prepared to implement” the Trump Administration’s controversial Zero Tolerance Policy “or to deal with some of its after-effects.” The report by the DHS Office of Inspector General special, titled, Initial Observations Regarding Family Separation Issues Under the Zero Tolerance […]
Three migrant boys run away from Southwest Key shelter, one ordered deported
Three minors ran away from a shelter for migrant children operated by Southwest Key in Glendale on August 19. One of the boys, who didn’t show up to his immigration hearing Friday, was ordered deported to Guatemala by U.S. immigration Judge Linda Spencer-Walters. The boys were playing in a yard when they decided to jump […]
Naturalization backlog doubles to almost 15K in AZ, immigrant rights groups sue
Immigrants’ rights groups sued the government Sept. 17 over a backlog in processing citizenship applications that has left more than 753,000 people waiting to access lawful citizenship and voting rights. The lawsuit stems from failure by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that process and adjudicates naturalized citizenship, to provide documents requested through the […]
Two Latin American diasporas in Arizona
Did you catch Nelly Gonzalez saying this week how hard it is to send basic necessities to her family in Venezuela?