El Magonista | April 19, 2023 | Vol. 11, no. 13

With the prospect of a legislative solution for Dreamers – and the millions of undocumented immigrants in the country – as far off as ever, the California-Mexico Studies Center is raising anew the idea of a presidential pardon in its newsletter, “El Magonista.”

The idea is not new. In 2017, immigrant rights activists asked former President Obama to use his pardon authority in the days prior to then-President-elect Trump’s inauguration to protect undocumented immigrants or, at the very least, Dreamers.

Obama refused, and under Trump every effort was made to eliminate Obama’s signature DACA program, which offered temporary protection for those undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US as children.

While courts at the time protected DACA, it’s now under siege again and will likely come before the Supreme Court for a third time. It has survived similar legal challenges twice before, but all bets are off with the current makeup of SCOTUS.

The editorial by El Magonista calls on President Biden to use his pardon for “Dreamers and other undocumented peoples living in the United States.”

“No other viable solutions have been suggested by any other immigration groups or elected officials – PERIOD,” the authors argue. “The time has come for Dreamers to stand up and demand President Biden issue a full pardon to all undocumented residents.”

It’s been 21 years since the first DREAM Act legislation was introduced in Congress. Dreamers have since become a powerful advocacy voice within the US immigration policy arena... READ MORE

By Suzanne Monyak | Roll Call | APR. 17, 2023 | Photo by Tom Williams

Judiciary Committee scheduled to consider the 137-page legislation Wednesday.

House Republicans released sweeping immigration legislation on Monday that would tighten asylum eligibility, expand migrant family detention and crack down on the employment of undocumented workers.

The 137-page proposed bill represents the legislative response to high levels of migration on the U.S.-Mexico border from House Republicans, who have made border security a focal point of their new majority. The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to mark up the bill Wednesday.

But the legislation may still face hurdles to make it through the House, given internal disagreement within the House Republican caucus over border security. It’s also unlikely to gain traction in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

The committee action will follow previous delays on a border security measure, and the newest bill reflects some of the behind-the-scenes negotiations that have occurred over the past several weeks.

For example, the new legislation includes only some of the language from a border security bill introduced by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. Last December, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., had included Roy’s bill in a list of so-called “ready-to-go” legislation that would be brought to the House floor for a vote “in the first two weeks of 2023.”

But consideration of Roy’s bill was bumped in January after several House Republicans raised concerns that the bill went too far to restrict asylum.

The new bill includes provisions from Roy’s bill that would authorize the Homeland Security chief to block any foreign citizen from entering the U.S. if the official decides it “is necessary in order to achieve operational control over such border.”

But it does not include language from Roy’s bill that would also bar the government from allowing in asylum-seekers unless they can be detained or returned to Mexico.

The Judiciary Committee’s latest proposal — initially discussed as eight separate bills, according to congressional aides — was set to be released last month. But House Republican leaders asked Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio to delay those markups until after the House’s two-week April recess... READ MORE

Although many politicians will never admit it, the U.S. economy is currently performing far better than most analysts expected. We’re still adding jobs at a rapid clip; while inflation remains unacceptably high, it’s probably coming down. How are we pulling this off?

There are surely multiple reasons. But you may not have heard about one ingredient in the economy’s special sauce: a sudden, salutary rebound in net immigration, which soared in 2022 to more than a million people, its highest level since 2017. We don’t know whether this rebound will last, but it has been really helpful. It’s an exaggeration, but one with some truth, to say that immigrants are saving the U.S. economy.

About that economy: Despite sharply rising interest rates, the labor market remains stubbornly strong, adding 236,000 jobs last month. Not only has employment bounced back with stunning speed from the Covid recession, it’s actually running above pre-Covid projections. In its 2020 Budget and Economic Outlook, released just before Covid struck, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that the U.S. economy would add two million jobs over the next three years. In fact, we’ve added more than three million.

In today’s topsy-turvy policy environment good news is often considered bad news. The Fed is trying to slow the economy, maybe even generate a recession, to slow inflation. So strong employment numbers arguably should be worrisome, a harbinger of worse inflation to come.

But this doesn’t seem to be happening. The debate among economists picking over the entrails of wage and price data, seeking auguries for the future, is mind-numbing even for those of us who are supposed to do this stuff for a living. Overall, however, it looks as if inflation is, if anything, subsiding despite torrid job creation.

How is this possible?  READ MORE

The DACA program has shielded hundreds of thousands of young adults from deportation, but they have not been able to access federal health insurance programs.

WASHINGTON — President Biden on Thursday said his administration would expand health care coverage for nearly 600,000 immigrants who were brought to the country as children and are protected from deportation.

The plan would allow those covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, to sign up for health insurance through Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, Mr. Biden said.

“They’re American in every way except on paper,” Mr. Biden said in a video posted to Twitter. “It’s past time for Congress to give Dreamers a pathway to citizenship.” He added that in the meantime, “we need to give Dreamers the opportunities and support they deserve.”

The change means that the immigrants, known as Dreamers, will be able to obtain Medicaid coverage in most states if they are poor, and that they can qualify for subsidies to buy private coverage in state marketplaces everywhere if they earn more. The nation’s uninsured rate is at a record low, and undocumented immigrants represent a major share of the country’s population that continues to lack coverage.

The White House statement said it expected “to get this done by the end of the month” — an ambitious timeline given that implementing new regulations, even through executive action, as Mr. Biden is doing, can often take months.

But the move comes as the fate of DACA is in legal limbo and the Biden administration is trying to increase pressure on Congress to protect the young immigrants. Unless lawmakers step in with a legislative remedy, the legality of the DACA program is almost certain to be decided by the Supreme Court.

“This shows that the Biden administration is not going to let Congress fiddle while DACA burns,” said Kevin Appleby, the interim director of the Center for Migration Studies of New York. “It is a winning issue with the American public and it sends a message to Congress to do its job and pass the Dream Act.”

About 80 percent of voters supported legislation that would create a pathway for DACA recipients to earn citizenship, according to polling conducted by Democratic and Republican research firms last year... READ MORE

Biden’s proposal to give access to health insurance is irrelevant. The real question is: What do we do with the millions of undocumented immigrants who we keep in the shadows?

San Diego, CA — When I think of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)—and what inspired the program more than a decade ago, namely the sketchy legal status of Dreamers (undocumented young people who came to the United States as children)—my mind goes to seesaws.

DACA participants get a renewable two-year visa that lets them work without fear of deportation and travel abroad knowing that they can return home to the only country they have ever known. This one.

Yet there are strings. To participate, individuals had to have entered the United States before they turned 16 years old and be under the age of 31 as of the program’s start date of June 15, 2012. They also had to turn themselves into law enforcement, get fingerprinted and photographed, and give their home address to the U.S. government.

This is the same entity that maintains a multi-billion dollar operation intended to detect, detain, and deport people like them. That is the action that is being “deferred.”

On one end of the seesaw is the vast array of accommodations that Americans might afford an estimated 580,000 DACA recipients to make their lives in the United States more comfortable, more livable and more equitable. Those accommodations range from driver’s licenses to money for college to the ability to open bank accounts.

On the other end is something that doesn’t often get mentioned when discussing DACA—the security and welfare of the estimated 10-15 million undocumented immigrants in the United States who do not qualify for the program. What happens to them depends on the tone of the immigration debate and how fed up Americans get with having to do right by people who shouldn’t be here in the first place.

Of course, undocumented immigrants are here. And, take it from someone who has written about immigration for more than 30 years, the U.S. economy couldn’t survive without them—especially now that so many Americans have, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, decided they don’t want to work anymore.

When one side of the seesaw goes down, the other goes up. Every time, we try to better the lives of DACA recipients, we risk aggravating the situation for other undocumented immigrants—a cohort that includes their parents, friends and siblings. DACA recipients are sympathetic, and sending them off in the lifeboat makes it less likely that the rest of the undocumented population will ever be saved... READ MORE

By Megan Messerly | POLITICO | APR. 14, 2023 | Photo by Kevin Dietsch

The proposed rule submitted by CMS amends the definition of “lawful presence” to include DACA recipients for eligibility for Medicaid and marketplace coverage.

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a plan to expand federal health care to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who came to the United States as children but do not qualify for government insurance plans because they lack legal status.

Under the proposed rule, nearly 580,000 people enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will be able to obtain health coverage through Medicaid or the marketplace, two public health insurance programs for which undocumented immigrants are currently ineligible.

“Health care should be a right, not a privilege,” Biden said in a Thursday tweet. “My administration has worked hard to expand health care, and today more Americans have health insurance than ever. Today’s announcement is about giving DACA recipients the same opportunity.”

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement that the proposed rule would “improve health outcomes for DACA recipients and would in turn improve the economic and productive capacity of America.” He estimated that roughly a third of immigrants enrolled in the DACA program are uninsured.

The details: The proposed rule submitted by CMS amends the definition of “lawful presence” to include DACA recipients, also known as “Dreamers,” for eligibility for Medicaid and marketplace coverage. Medicaid and exchange applications will have their eligibility verified electronically when they apply for coverage, the administration said.

While finalization of new rules usually takes some time, the Biden administration expects to have the new policy in place by the end of the month... READ MORE

Almost half of the immigrants eligible for DACA are uninsured. Biden is trying to fix that.

The Biden administration is expanding health coverage under Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act to beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), delivering a long-sought victory for immigrant advocates. 

The new rule means the 600,000 immigrants with active DACA status will be able to apply for coverage through their state Medicaid agencies and through the federal health insurance marketplace, where they may qualify for financial assistance based on income. But that victory might be short-lived if the DACA program itself is overturned in court, where it is currently under threat. If DACA is overturned, that could leave hundreds of thousands of DACA beneficiaries, or so-called “DREAMers,” at sudden risk of deportation. 

Since 2012, DACA has shielded 800,000 immigrants who came to the US as children without authorization from deportation and offered them work permits, but not access to government health benefits. That has made DACA recipients the exception among immigrant populations protected from deportation under other programs, including parole and temporary protected status. And it’s in spite of the fact that DACA recipient households pay $6.2 billion in federal taxes and $3.3 billion in state and local taxes every year, offsetting the costs of programs like Medicaid for Americans. 

The Department of Health and Human Services proposed a rule Thursday that would finally rectify that inequity, allowing the roughly 47 percent of DREAMers who are uninsured access to coverage. It would do so by explicitly including DACA recipients in the category of “lawfully present” immigrants. The White House set a goal of finalizing the measure by the end of the month. 

“This will be a welcome end to the longtime bar on eligibility that has kept many people from being able to access affordable health coverage,” said Shelby Gonzales, vice president for immigration policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Part of honoring their contributions and belonging is ensuring that they have access to affordable health coverage.”

The White House acknowledged in its announcement that “every day counts” in implementing the rule — and that might be because DACA itself is at risk. The program is not currently open to new applicants or those whose status has lapsed for more than a year as legal challenges to the program continue. Though President Joe Biden reiterated his call Thursday for Congress to pass permanent protections for DREAMers, it’s unlikely the Republican-controlled House will take up his request after more than a decade of failed negotiations... READ MORE

La FINANCIERA PARA EL BIENESTAR (FINABIEN) antes TELECOMM cuenta con más de 100 años de experiencia en el envío y cobro de las remesas internacionales en beneficio de todas las familias migrantes que mandan dinero a México desde países como Estados Unidos y Canadá.
Desde el 21 de octubre de 2022, por decreto presidencial Telecomm se transformó en FINABIEN, la institución encargada de realizar el pago de las remesas internacionales a mayor escala para que las familias que radican fuera del país y que envían dinero a México hagan uso de la amplia cobertura con la que cuenta la Red de Sucursales a nivel nacional ya que llegamos a donde nadie más llega principalmente en zonas donde no existe presencia bancaria. 
Además de proporcionar servicios financieros básicos y de telecomunicaciones a la población crea las condiciones para que los sectores más vulnerables logren su inclusión al reducir las brecha financiera y digital.
La persona beneficiaria recibe más pesos por sus dólares ya que, al realizar el cobro de su remesa en cualquiera de las más de 1,700 sucursales en el país, podrá comprobar que no hay ningún tipo de comisión para quien recibe la remesa, ni se le condicionará para que abra una cuenta o se le fraccionará el pago notando una disminución de tan anhelado recurso.
La FINABIEN trabaja con total transparencia ya que a quién envía a través de las principales empresas remesadoras en EEUU o los más de 200 mil puntos de pago, podrá informar a su familiar en México el monto que cobrará en pesos y el tipo de cambio que aplica la empresa por la cual se realizó la transferencia.
Una vez que se realizó el envío desde los EEUU las personas pueden tener su dinero en cuestión de minutos de manera rápida, segura y confiable. Además, brinda la Tarjeta FINABIEN como una opción para que las personas pueden depositar una parte del dinero que recibieron en la tarjeta para no cargar todo el efectivo y realizar compras en cualquier comercio dentro y fuera del país o en línea de forma segura ya que cuenta con un con chip y al hacer cualquier pago le solicitará el NIP, además de contar con servicio de atención telefónica 24 horas, todos los días del año. 
¿Cómo puedo obtener mi tarjeta en México o en Estados Unidos?
En México, la persona beneficiaría solo tiene que acudir a cualquiera de las sucursales de la FINABIEN y obtenerla sin costo presentando credencial de elector, dando un correo electrónico, indicar su CURP y hacer un depósito inicial de $50.00 que forma parte del saldo.
En Estados Unidos, muy pronto se lanzará la TARJETA FINABIEN-USA para que las familias que radican en ese país acudan a la Red Consular y adquieran su tarjeta que les servirá para hacer el envío de las remesas de una forma directa de TARJETA a TARJETA a través de la APP Financiera para el Bienestar.  

Con la App se podrá tener control total de los movimientos al bloquear y desbloquear la tarjeta, controlar el gasto que se realice, consultar saldos, movimientos, promociones y muchos más. 

Conoce más a través de https://telecomm.gob.mx/gobmx/remesa-paisano/ o si tienes dudas escribe a remesapaisano@telecomm.gob.mx. 

Latinx people, who today comprise roughly one in five U.S. residents, are forecast to soon account for three-quarters of net new workers and are increasingly pursuing higher education. 

But despite a growing need for research on everything from public policy to the history of Latinx communities, less than 4% of all four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. offer a Latinx studies major, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. 

In addition to a dearth of new programs, those that do exist are often underresourced and sometimes staffed solely with temporary lecturers instead of core faculty. Such “shell programs” stymie program planning, hinder recruitment of top scholars and inhibit research that would otherwise inform policies affecting more than 62 million Latinx people in the U.S., said G. Cristina Mora, a UC Berkeley associate professor of sociology and lead researcher on the study.

“If you don’t know your community, if you don’t know your history, if you don’t know these aspects of where it is that the community has come from or how it’s doing or whether it’s a community at all,” Mora said, “it’s hard to know the future... READ MORE

Latin American accents seem to be having a moment in Hollywood.

Diego Luna carried his into a galaxy far, far away as the titular character in Andor. Ana de Armas couldn’t shake her Cuban accent even when playing Marilyn Monroe in Blonde—though she won an Oscar nomination for her trouble. Guillermo del Toro took on the Hitchcock role in his Cabinet of Curiosities, Mexican accent and all.

Which brings us to our latest entry: Netflix’s Florida Man. Here, Édgar Ramírez plays the titular character Mike Valentine while sporting his Venezuelan accent unabashedly.

Valentine is an ex-cop whose gambling addiction got him in trouble with the mob. He works for them to pay off his debt, sleeping with the boss’s girl along the way. When she runs off to Florida, he follows her, and soon they’re chasing buried treasure through a plot line that is determined to tell as many Florida-as-idiot-filled-hellscape jokes as possible. For example, a man dies by exploding porta-potty after igniting his lighter while locked inside one.

We meet Mike’s sister Patsy (Otmara Marrero) and father Sonny (Anthony LaPaglia), and hear the mob boss describe Mike as “from somewhere, I don’t know where but not here.” What marks Mike as foreign is not his dress, skin tone or mannerisms, but his accent. And here’s where the trouble comes in.

Mike is supposed to be from Florida—as in, he grew up there and doesn’t appear to be an immigrant. Now, while it’s plausible that he still could have a Venezuelan accent, neither his sister nor his dad has one (his mom, we soon learn, is deceased).