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Category: Immigration
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Uncertain and afraid: Florida’s immigrants grapple under new law

By GISELA SALOMON, Associated Press, Sept 18, 2023. MIAMI — For many in Florida’s vast immigrant community, daily life in recent months has become one governed entirely by fear. Some try to drive as little as possible and make fewer trips to the supermarket. Others no longer take their children to the park and worry about

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Immigration

Campaigning in Texas, DeSantis reveals unsparing 2024 immigration platform

By JACKIE LLANOS , Florida Phoenix, June 26, 2023.  Gov. Ron DeSantis announces at a June 26 campaign event in Eagle Pass, Texas, his plan to tackle undocummented immigration if he wins the 2024 presidential election. Photo credit: Rumble Just days before Florida’s newest and most restrictive immigration law takes effect, Gov. Ron DeSantis pledged to allow

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Immigration

Use our law officers here, not in Texas

The following editorial was published in The Daily Sun on June 5, 2023.  OUR POSITION: We may need law enforcement resources here in Florida as much as they do in Texas. Gov. Ron DeSantis last month announced he was sending State Police troopers, National Guard troops, drones and aircraft to Texas in response to caravans and

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Immigration

Will DeSantis be charged with kidnapping?

By Jim Turner,  News Service of Florida, June 6, 2023. TALLAHASSEE — California officials are continuing to hold Florida responsible for flights Friday and Monday that brought South American migrants from El Paso, Texas, to Sacramento. The June flights come months after Gov. Ron DeSantis — who recently announced his bid for president — took credit for transporting

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Immigration

We need to welcome immigrants to America

The following Letter to the Editor was published in The Daily Sun on Dec 22, 2022. America considers itself to a kind and compassionate country, but our treatment of asylum-seeking immigrants is inconsistent with this image. Instead of welcoming those seeking refuge from countries with high crime rates and economic dysfunction, some of which is

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Immigration

Legislation to protect ‘dreamers’ is badly needed

The following Letter to the Editor was published in The Daily Sun on Nov 23, 2022. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is in grave peril. Congress should act before the end of the year to create permanent protections for the hundreds of thousands of people who were brought to this country as

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Immigration

No religious person can celebrate DeSantis’ abuse of immigrants

By Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post Columnist, September 21, 2022. You don’t need to be an expert in theology to know that a central tenet of the world’s major religions is to care for the sick, the weak and the vulnerable. Jews, who have been perpetual immigrants, hold dear to the Torah’s invocation: “When a stranger sojourns with

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Immigration

The U.S. needs immigration, not overheated rhetoric on migrants

By the Washington Post Editorial Board, Sept 6, 2022. Border Patrol agents are stopping unauthorized migrants coming from Mexico at record levels. Little wonder more than half of Americans now say an “invasion” is underway at the southern border, according to a recent NPR-Ipsos poll. At the same time, net immigration in the United States — the

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Events

45,000 Quilt Project comes to Punta Gorda

45,000!  It’s a huge number to contemplate.  On an average day in 2019, some 45,000 detainees were held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers. How do you visualize that? How do you memorialize each one of those individuals? Glen Ring, a member of the Human Rights Group of the Kent Street Coalition

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Immigration

Immigration advocates decry possible reopening of Homestead FL detention center

By Elitsa Bizios | Vanessa Borge HOMESTEAD, FLA. (WSVN) – Local immigration advocates sounded off on a reported decision by the Biden administration to consider reopening a detention center in Homestead as a temporary shelter for undocumented children. Speakers at a press conference held outside Homestead City Hall on Thursday expressed disbelief and disappointment after reports surfaced

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Pelosi to meet with Venezuelan exiles in Florida

TALLAHASSEE — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and South Florida Democrats plan to meet with Venezuelan exiles this week amid an ongoing stalemate in Congress over whether or not to offer protections to those who fled the South American country. Democrats have scheduled a forum on Thursday in Weston, a town that has seen an influx of Venezuelans

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All unaccompanied children removed from Homestead migrant detention facility

All unaccompanied children have been removed from the Homestead migrant detention facility in Homestead, Florida, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) confirmed on Saturday. Homestead, which has been criticized by politicians for its treatment of unaccompanied minors, was the nation’s largest facility for migrant children, housing 14,300 unaccompanied minors since March 2018. (Read more

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