Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

Reporting from a new generation of journalists. A News21 blog.

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Obama’s Aunt is an Illegal Immigrant. Will Voters Care?

November 1st, 2008 · No Comments

Obama’s Aunt’s Boston apartment building. (AP Photo)
The news hit the Drudge Report yesterday that Barack Obama’s half-aunt, a Kenyan immigrant named Zeituni Onyango, is living in the United States illegally after her application for asylum was rejected. The Times of London “discovered” her in a Boston housing project, where neighbors described her as “living quietly.” [...]

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Weekly Immigration News Round-Up 10/25

October 25th, 2008 · No Comments

A new Pew Hispanic Center report says that Latinos made up half of the nation’s growth since 2000. By 2007, they accounted for 15 percent of the population.
USA Today takes a look at immigration in Arizona, where the issue is very much on the political radar.

The collapse of the housing industry has led [...]

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More Than 300 Arrested in South Carolina Immigration Raid

October 9th, 2008 · No Comments

A four-year-old waits for word of his mother, arrested in an ICE raid. (AP Photo)
Raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement continue after a sweep netted more than 1,100 suspected illegal immigrants in California last month. On Tuesday, another 300 were arrested in a raid on a poultry processing plant in Greenville, S.C. (video). In a [...]

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Update on Arizona: Fears of Latino Voter Fraud Lead to Massive Disenfranchisement

October 7th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Disenfranchised voter Shirley Preiss, 97. (Photo by Stokely Baksh)
In an article for The Indypendent, former News 21 reporter Renee Feltz revisits Arizona, where thousands of potential voters have been unable to register due to new identification requirements. These voters, most of whom are poor, elderly and/or Latino, would have tended to vote Democratic. Thus it [...]

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Kobach Suing Over In-State Tuition for Illegal Immigrants

September 30th, 2008 · No Comments

News 21 readers are by now familiar with Kris Kobach, the one-man army against illegal immigration. Kobach, who has litigated everything from Hazleton, Pa.’s defense of its immigration ordinance to a suit against San Francisco’s sanctuary law, is also fighting Kansas over a law that lets illegal immigrants who have attended state high schools to [...]

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Weekly Immigration News Round-Up, 9/27: Raids Update

September 27th, 2008 · No Comments

Though the country’s attention has been focused on an ongoing financial crisis, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids are continuing, and there have been developments in the aftermath of past raids. News 21 gets you up to speed:

“Fear. Stress. Isolation,” says the Hattiesburg American, listing themes in the lives of detainees’ families after the raid [...]

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Oklahoma’s Illegal Immigration Law Has Unintended Consequences

September 11th, 2008 · No Comments

In May of last year, Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry (D) signed a law making it a felony to transport or harbor illegal immigrants and establishing strict enforcement and identification policies. Now, the Columbus Dispatch reports, up to 25,000 Latinos have left Tulsa and thousands of Oklahomans have had difficulty getting drivers’ licenses or applying for [...]

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No Go on Illegal Immigrant ID Cards

September 8th, 2008 · 1 Comment

Until recently, Richmond, Ca., leaders, including Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, were considering a program to provide illegal immigrants with municipal identification cards. But the Contra Costa County Municipal ID Task Force decided to shelve the proposal, after San Francisco backed down from its plan amid controversy.
San Francisco has lately been under fire for its lax attitude [...]

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Australia’s Immigration Issues Echo America’s

September 4th, 2008 · No Comments

The United States is the country most identified with immigration, but it is not the only destination of people fleeing poverty or oppression in their native land. A recent story in The Australian shows that immigrants to that country face some of the same challenges as America’s immigrants. The town of Robinvale, in the Australian [...]

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In Largest Raid Ever, ICE Arrests Almost 600 Suspected Illegal Immigrants

August 27th, 2008 · No Comments

U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement detained 595 suspected illegal immigrants after a raid at a Mississippi electrical parts plant on Monday. The raid targeted Howard Industries, one of the largest employers in Laurel, Miss., a city of about 18,000. Eight of the immigrants are facing federal charges of using stolen social security numbers, according the [...]

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