El Magonista | Vol. 10 No. 2 | January 13, 2022

Stewart Rhodes, the leader and founder of the far-right Oath Keepers militia, was arrested on Thursday and charged along with 10 others with seditious conspiracy over what prosecutors said was their wide-ranging plot to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6 last year and disrupt the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s electoral victory.

The arrest of Mr. Rhodes, 56, was a major development in the sprawling investigation of the Capitol attack. He and the other Oath Keepers are the first to be charged with sedition among the more than 700 people accused so far of taking part in the assault.

Mr. Rhodes was arrested shortly before 1 p.m. at his home in Granbury, Texas, his lawyer, Jonathon Moseley, said.

Beginning only days after the 2020 election, Mr. Rhodes oversaw a seditious plot “to oppose the lawful transfer of presidential power by force,” prosecutors said. Some members of the Oath Keepers under his command broke into the Capitol in a military-style formation on Jan. 6 and went in search of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the indictment said. Others, it said, were stationed in a hotel in Alexandria, Va., as an armed “quick reaction force,” ready to rush into Washington if needed... READ MORE

The head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce used a speech this week to call for the doubling of legal immigration into the United States as well as a "permanent solution" for illegal immigrants who came to the country as children.

CEO Suzanne Clark said in the speech Tuesday that fellow CEOs and business leaders believe there is a "workforce shortage" posing a crisis that is "contributing to supply chain disruptions and rising inflation."

"So, who wants to put their talent to work and pursue their dreams in a dynamic economy flush with opportunity? Immigrants of every skill level. Where are they going to go? The U.S. or Canada? Let’s make it Austin or Boston, Atlanta or Denver, or any of the countless U.S. destinations in search of top talent," she said.

"We must double the number of people legally immigrating to the U.S. And we must create a permanent solution for the 'dreamers' – those young men and women who know no other home and who contribute to their communities, but whose legal status is in limbo," she said.

"Dreamer" is an activist-preferred term to refer to immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, many of whom were given temporary protection under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. There have been a number of pushes in Congress to give a more permanent legal status to those protected from deportation... READ MORE

In his first few days in office, President Joe Biden moved swiftly to deliver on promises to Hispanic voters, signing a directive to protect "Dreamers" from deportation and unveiling an outline for sweeping changes to immigration laws.

Tuesday afternoon, the president announced a task force to reunite families separated at the border and an executive order that reviews a Trump administration policy requiring migrants seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while they plead their case. 

But executive actions are not permanent, and the White House already has begun tamping down hopes for passage of an omnibus reform measure. 

That leaves some Latino advocacy groups looking at an untested fallback plan: a mass presidential pardon for at least some of the estimated 11 million people in the country illegally.

“We believe this is a viable option if the Senate fails to act on comprehensive immigration reform,” said Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens... READ MORE

On March 28, I traveled to Guatemala City to follow the story of Emily Ruiz, the four-year-old Long Island girl who, despite being a US citizen, was sent to Guatemala when her grandfather was deported earlier that month.

With the approval of her lawyer, David Sperling (who also blogs on this website), I was lucky enough to meet with Emily and her family on the night before her flight out of Guatemala. Various news outlets, including CNN and the Spanish-language news agency EFE, picked up the exclusive video and photos from the meeting.

The following day, Emily boarded a flight bound for Kennedy Airport where she would soon reunite with her parents. But instead of following her back home to New York, I stayed in Guatemala for the rest of the week to seek out stories similar to that of Emily.

I soon met with two local migration experts who greatly assisted my reporting: Marila Rojas de Prinz, who has worked for various Guatemalan government agencies related to migration, most recently as the coordinator for the National Forum on Migration in Guatemala; and Richard Avena, the former Southwest regional director for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, now teaching immigration law and policy at the University of San Carlos in Guatemala City.

With their help, I found my way to San José Calderas, a small village a few hours outside the capital.

Calderas stands out from other Guatemalan villages in that it is populated by former residents of Postville, Iowa – a town best known for a 2008 immigration raid that led to the deportation of hundreds of undocumented immigrants and devastated the economies of both Postville and its sister villages in Guatemala, which had grown dependent on remissions... READ MORE

On January 11, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in Garland v. Gonzalez, the latest in a series of cases the court has taken on immigration detention. The case presents a basic question: whether the federal government can lock immigrants up, for months or even years, without a hearing to determine if their detention is justified. And the Biden administration is decidedly on the wrong side of this fight.

The plaintiffs in Gonzalez are all people who were previously deported from the U.S., but came back because they faced persecution or torture in their countries of origin. One plaintiff, Arturo Martinez, was kidnapped by police officers after being deported to Mexico, tortured, and held for ransom. Another, Eduardo Gutierrez, was tortured by gang members because of his sexual orientation... READ MORE

The kids are not all right.

Comments are reminiscent of Harris' previous statement to asylum seekers, "Don't come."

Vice President Kamala Harris’ incoming communications director Jamal Simmons hadn’t even made it to his first day on the job yet when he was forced to apologize Friday for tweets he posted in November 2010 about siccing Immigration and Customs Enforcement on “undocumented folks.”

The newly resurfaced tweets sparked immediate backlash from some progressives—criticism that only intensified when former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, notorious as the architect of the Trump administration’s harshest immigration policies, chimed in on Twitter to say he agreed with Simmons’ 2010 tweet and “there must be deportation” for those who “break into our nation." 

President Joe Biden has put Harris in charge of managing the crushing surge in migrants at the border, and many reacted to Simmons’ years-old tweets by questioning whether he’s the right person to be the face of that... READ MORE

The law affects permanent residents, work visa holders and DACA recipients in the Big Apple.

The Republican National Committee on Monday challenged a recent measure allowing foreign citizens with legal work permits living in New York City to vote in local elections.

The RNC, along with a group of New York Republican lawmakers and naturalized American citizens, claimed in their lawsuit that the new law — which would make roughly 800,000 foreign-born New Yorkers eligible to vote in local elections — conflicts with the state constitution and state election laws.

They also contend the measure, which took effect Saturday, “will dilute the votes” of American citizens and “cause an abrupt and sizeable change to the makeup of the electorate.”

It would also require the RNC and other Republican officials “to adjust their strategies and how they allocate their resources to help elect Republicans in New York,” the officials said in the complaint, filed in New York... READ MORE