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REFLECTIONS ON MARCO ANTONIO FIREBAUGH
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When the history of the Dreamers is told, many younger Dreamers don't know the importance of California’s AB-540 legislation by the late Marco Antonio Firebaugh, as an assemblyman in the California State Legislature. For it was his legal acumen and skill as a policymaker that brought to the forefront a then-novel concept to grant in-state tuition fees to undocumented college students, who were being charged exorbitant out-of-state tuition fees to attend public California colleges and universities - for no reason other than being undocumented.
Born and raised in Tijuana, Mexico and brought to the U.S. as a child, Firebaugh knew that for the State of California (a right-wing bastion at the time) to charge undocumented immigrants more money to go to colleges and universities in their home state, was akin to "Taxation Without Representation." But when he accomplished being in a position to enact lasting change for the undocumented student population, he opened the door for a new special immigration designation for the children of the undocumented immigrants.
Sadly, Firebaugh's life was cut short in 2006 at the age of 39.
In 2012, his AB-540 California law became a critical basis for President Obama's Executive Order that created DACA. Thus, on this 16th anniversary of Marco's passing, we lift up his name and we cherish his memory as the “Godfather of Dreamers”, and the CMSC is proud to continue the fight for fair immigration policies in the U.S. with our Presidential Pardon for All Undocumented Immigrants Campaign.
We invite you to view a short documentary produced by the CMSC on Marco’s legacy here:
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EXCLUSIVE FOR EL MAGONISTA by Prof. Gonzalo Santos | MAR. 13, 2022 | Photo by G. Santos
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is Part III of a series on the many manifestations of chaos in the modern world-system. Part I analyzed the chaos in the world as a whole, (in Spanish only). Part II focuses on the increased chaos in Europe resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine (for the English version, go here).
How the migration regime in North America became the entangled Gordian Knot it is today.
I. INCOMING REFUGEE FLOWS. Of the manifold manifestations of chaos engulfing North America (which includes the Caribbean and Central America), no social aspect is more salient and pressing today than the issue of highly restricted, yet persistent flows of irregular international migration in and through the region – the ill-regulated, stigmatized flows of unauthorized economic migrants and asylum-seekers to the United States from neighboring countries – that have in large measure resulted, over the past four decades, from the implementation of what should be recognized by now as a deeply-flawed, U.S.-imposed, “neoliberal” architecture of regional integration, foisted onto a region that historically has been subjected to U.S. geopolitical interventions, which have left behind a trail of failed states, rampant corruption, and chronic street violence – on top of now being subject to periodic natural disasters associated with climate change.
The chaos runs very deep – structurally, ideologically, and even at the cognitive level.
At the ideological level of rampant U.S. and Mexican incongruence with their respective, much-vaunted “American values” and “Mexican solidarity,” and their purported adherence to a “rules-based international order” (which the U.S. regularly admonishes China and Russia of violating), it is instructive to compare the instant, welcoming, humane, and generous treatment that the most recent regional asylum-seekers in Europe – the 2.5 million Ukrainians that have fled the military invasion of Russia to date – are receiving, with the hostile, shocking and horrifying treatment that equally desperate, but much smaller cohorts of regional asylum seekers to the United States and Mexico – Central Americans, Haitians, Cubans, Venezuelans, and others – have been receiving since 2014, as tens of thousands of unaccompanied children and refugee families turned themselves in to U.S. and Mexican border patrol agents, after incredibly harrowing journeys – only to be detained, blocked from applying for asylum, and deported back to harm’s way, in flagrant violation of international law.
It has not always been the case that the E.U. has lived up to its humanitarian values (e.g., the appalling treatment of refugees from Syria, Libya, Yemen, etc.). But juxtaposing the welcoming of well-clothed Ukrainian children arriving with their caring mothers on board passenger trains and buses, with the caging of Honduran unaccompanied children after travelling on top of cargo trains or walking over two thousand kilometers to reach Brownsville, Texas, or watching Guatemalan and Salvadoran children been torn from their mothers, should jar the conscience of every American.
As Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez just said, “How the world treats Ukraine, and Ukrainian refugees, should be how we are treating all refugees in the United States.” I would add Mexico to the United States, which has notoriously abandoned all pretense of defending the international rights of asylum seekers under pressure from the U.S..
Something is definitely jarring and chaotic – not to mention shameful and highly hypocritical – when the United States and Mexican governments instantly champion the cause of harboring European asylum seekers fleeing extreme violence, while they collude to block and return to harm’s way the refugee flows from their own region. This includes turning a blind eye to the U.S. routine deportation of tens of thousands of Mexico’s own asylum seekers – including unaccompanied children – fleeing from its violence-infested... READ MORE
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By Michael Wines & Maria Cramer | NYTimes | MAR 10, 2022 | Photo by Christian Monterrosa
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The Census Bureau said that the overall population total was accurate but that counts of minorities were skewed. Advocacy groups threatened to go to court.
The 2020 census faced a series of challenges. The pandemic shut down much of the count just as it was beginning in April 2020, forcing the bureau to extend its work by nearly two months. Later in the year, wildfires in the West and coastal hurricanes upended the bureau’s work just as door-knockers were fanning out to survey millions of households that had not filled out their forms.
The Trump administration later moved up the deadline to finish the counting, raising concerns about an undercount. The problems led many experts, including some senior Census Bureau officials, to worry that the final count would be fatally flawed.
In September, a 59-page analysis of the 2020 Census that was commissioned and reviewed by the American Statistical Association said the count appeared accurate enough for its overriding constitutional purpose: reallocating the 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
But the experts who drafted the report limited their findings to the overall national tally and counts in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Much more study would be needed, they said, to gauge the reliability of local population totals and characteristics such as race and ethnicity that are vital parts of every census... READ MORE
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By Gustavo Solis | KPBS | MAR 11, 2022 | Video by Matthew Bowler
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On Thursday, with the help of several lawyers, a Ukrainian family who also fled the war was allowed into the country. They remained in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody Friday.
Although hundreds of Ukrainian and Russian asylum seekers have crossed into the United States through San Ysidro in recent years, these are the first cases of asylum seekers coming since the invasion began... READ MORE
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By Zeynep Tufecki | NY Times Opinion | MAR 11, 2022 | Photo & Illustration by the New York Times
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This article is part of Times Opinion’s reflection on the two-year mark of the Covid pandemic.
We cannot step into the same river twice, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus is said to have observed. We’ve changed, the river has changed.
That’s very true, but it doesn’t mean we can’t learn from seeing what other course the river could have flowed. As the pandemic enters its third year, we must consider those moments when the river branched, and nations made choices that affected thousands, millions, of lives.
What if China had been open and honest in December 2019? What if the world had reacted as quickly and aggressively in January 2020 as Taiwan did? What if the United States had put appropriate protective measures in place in February 2020, as South Korea did?
To examine these questions is to uncover a brutal truth: Much suffering was avoidable, again and again, if different choices that were available and plausible had been made at crucial turning points. By looking at them, and understanding what went wrong, we can hope to avoid similar mistakes in the future... READ MORE
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Por La Opinion | MAR 9, 2022 | Photo by Chip Somodevilla for Getty Images
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El líder del Senado, el demócrata Chuck Schumer, habló por primera vez de su respaldo total a desobedecer a la parlamentaria sobre una reforma migratoria que proteja a millones de inmigrantes indocumentados, a través de un plan que preparan congresistas.
El Senado podría tener que tomar acciones más extremas si quiere avanzar en una reforma migratoria que proteja a millones de indocumentados, por ello el líder de la mayoría, el demócrata Chuck Schumer (Nueva York), confirmó que apoyará desobedecer a la parlamentaria Elizabeth MacDonough.
“Hay una oportunidad para una reforma migratoria”, dijo Schumer.
El senador explicó que varios de sus colegas hispanos, incluido Bob Menéndez (Nueva Jersey), presidente del Comité de Relaciones Exteriores; Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada), Ray Luján (Nuevo México) y Alex Padilla (California), presidente del Subcomité de Inmgiración, podrían patrocinar una propuesta para un camino a la ciudadanía para indocumentados sin tomar en cuenta a la parlamentaria... READ MORE
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Please consider sponsoring our program today!!!
To be a sponsor contact Professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos at:
armando@calmexcenter.org or 562-972-0986
Please support the CMSC's 2022 projects, initiatives, and campaigns, including our advocacy to provide and facilitate our National Campaign to Seek a Presidential Pardon for All Immigrants and our Summer 2022 California-Mexico Dreamers Study Abroad Program and our Winter 2023 California-Mexico Dreamers Study Abroad Program!
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