Commonsense Care
As the U.S. Supreme Court deliberates over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, the law modeled after Massachusetts’ Health Care Reform, the Commonwealth is moving on to its next phase. Since the 2006 landmark health care reform law passed, the Commonwealth has achieved near-universal health insurance coverage (95%) of its residents, and almost all of its children. The goals ahead are maximizing efficiency, encouraging preventative measures, and recalibrating the payment system. But the inclusion of many documented immigrants was only recently affirmed after a long struggle.
Inalienable Rights: The Tide is Turning
In the context of years of paralysis in Congress, states have taken addressing our dysfunctional immigration system into their own hands. There has been a rising tide of “attrition through enforcement” legislation, most notably enacted in Arizona and Alabama. This “self-deportation” strategy aims to make life so hard for unauthorized immigrants that they have no other options but to flee. In Alabama, local police are allowed to detain individuals suspected of being undocumented. Parts of the law, later repealed, even rendered going to school and attending church risky decisions and assisting undocumented immigrants potentially illegal.
The Immigration Debate: Legality or Justice?
Today’s misguided immigration debate centers on the question of legality.
Many argue that immigrants with legal status should have rights to government benefits and services, but the undocumented should not, because they are illegal. If our government already doesn’t have the money to adequately provide for our own citizens, the argument goes, how can we extend services to those who came here illegally? Immigration is out of control and can be solved with more border patrols and ID checks.
Inalienable Rights – Immigration Resolutions for the New Year
The immigration debate, like virtually all political debates nowadays, is filled with toxic rhetoric and misinformation. Those who cover the issue, also tend to focus on the negative and tragic, not enough on the uplifting and optimistic.
Inalienable Rights: Ending Slavery in Massachusetts
It’s happening closer than you think. Human beings are being exploited for profit every day across the world and in our midst. Individuals are being held against their will as sex workers, sweatshop laborers, field hands, restaurant workers, and even domestic maids, more than there were slaves in the 19th Century – somewhere between 12 to 27 million worldwide.
Inalienable Rights -They Make Our Jobs
“They are taking our jobs!” That was a common refrain at the turn of the 20th century in the American West about the influx of Chinese laborers, which coalesced into the nation’s first and most blatant race-based anti-immigrant law: the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Last week, the US Senate celebrated the passage of a resolution to formally acknowledge and express regret for the discriminatory legislation. The law effectively made all Chinese settlers illegal for over 60 years, and barred access to citizenship and property rights. It was not overturned until it became politically expedient to pit Chinese allies against the Japanese Empire circa World War II
Tips on Import, Citizenship and Immigration Services
Don’t know how to acquire U.S. citizenship? Are you wondering what kinds of edible souvenirs can be brought back from a trip? The answers were available at the Import, Citizenship and Immigration Services talk featuring the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) on Nov.12. The Chinatown Main Street and Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) co-sponsored the event at the CCBA’s conference room on 90 Tyler Street, which attracted tens of attendees.
Large Turnout For 2011 Immigrant’s Day
More than 300 people rallied behind multiple speakers at the State House in support of this year’s Annual Immigrant’s Day on April 6. Forming a large crowd on and around the Grand Staircase at the State House, speeches made by immigrant advocates could be heard, calling for higher education, workers’ rights, integration, refugee services, English [...]
New Bostonians Community Day Celebrates 11th year anniversary
It was a celebration of multiculturalism at City Hall Plaza on September 23, as hundreds of immigrants and supporters partook in the in the city’s 11th annual New Bostonians Community Day. The daylong event featured ethnic food and live cultural music. Legal, housing, English-learning, job-training information for communities to learn about various services offered by [...]
Three Day Immigration Integration Conference Inspires, National Leaders and Immigration Advocates Assemble in Boston
US President Barack Obama congratulated a group of newly naturalized citizens in Boston’s Exchange Conference Center via video during the opening reception of the “Becoming Americans” National Immigration Integration Conference (NIIC). Hosted by the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, over 400 professionals, immigrant advocates and researchers, and speakers including Governor Deval Patrick and the [...]
