anticapitalist:

“So-called undocumented immigrants have a legal right to subsidized healthcare,” Christian Democrat head and social affairs minister Göran Hägglund said at a Thursday morning press conference unveiling the migration policy agreement.

The healthcare agreement will give undocumented immigrants who entered Sweden illegally the same rights currently offered to legal asylum seekers.

Children up to 18 years of age will have the right to health coverage. Adults will also receive subsidized care for conditions that require urgent medical attention.

Maria Ferm of the Greens thanked the government for the cooperation on the issue, which her party says was key to a previous pledge to work with the centre-right Alliance parties on a common immigration policy.

“Children and adults are getting an extended right to healthcare and I want to say thank you that we are able to ensure an important step in human rights. The right to healthcare is a human right,” she said.

The original goal of the Green party was to provide the same healthcare rights for undocumented immigrants as those with permanent residence permits in Sweden.

Although this goal won’t be achieved, Green Party spokesperson Åsa Romsonsees the proposal as a step in the right direction. 

“This has been a really important reform for the undocumented immigrants to have confidence in Swedish healthcare and to be able to get care when they need it, and to be able to turn to the hospital and health clinics,” she said.

The biggest success, according to her, is that children under 18 will have the same rights as Swedish children.

This means that they will not only have the right to emergency care, but also to dentistry and preventive care.

THIS is healthcare reform.

Imagine if the United States were this humane.

theatlantic:

What the Heck Is Homeland Security Doing With $180 Million in Drones Mostly Sitting Around?

A few years ago, the Border Patrol started buying unarmed Predator drones. By the end of 2011, they had 10 of these $18 million machines, and very little idea of what exactly they wanted to do with them.

That’s my takeaway from a new report released by the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security. The drones only flew 37 percent as often as they were supposed to, logging 3,909 hours in the air in a 12-month period that should have seen them in the air for more than 10,000 hours.

One big problem, according to the report, is that there weren’t enough ground stations and support. This is like signing an expensive free-agent running back but forgetting you need offensive linemen. Drones are sexy! The ground control stations that run the drones, not so much.

Read more.

This does what for our community? Couldn’t this money be funding something our community needs?

Wouldn’t it have been great if Sen. Dianne Feinstein signed on to this, too? Anastasio was killed in her jurisdiction, his children still live there, too. What’s more, she sits on the Senate Subcommittee which supposed to be responsible for border security, she is supposed to be directing the actions of the Border Patrol.

The tasing death of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas involving Border Patrol agents is the subject of a new documentary to air Friday on PBS. The program reveals new footage that shows a crowd of agents surrounding Hernandez Rojas while he lays on the ground.

“First Look: Crossing the Line” looks at the alleged use of excessive force by border agents against illegal immigrants. In the past two years, eight individuals have been killed along the border under disputed circumstances. The case of Hernandez Rojas, who died in May 2010, has raised numerous questions and kicked off an investigation by authorities.

“The report raises questions about accountability. Because border agents are part of the Department of Homeland Security, they are not subjected to the same public scrutiny as police officers who use their weapons. It also questions whether, in the rush to secure the border, agents are being adequately trained. And it raises the question: Why aren’t these cases being prosecuted?” according to PBS.

The show was created in partnership with the Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute, which provides editorial support and research grants to reporters undertaking investigative journalism. It will air in San Diego at 8:30 p.m. Friday on KPBS.

stfuconservatives:

from-roses submitted: “Uriel Alberto was speaking at a North Carolina immigration policy meeting and was arrested for civil disobedience. He has lived in the United States since he was a little child. However, he is now facing deportation, because of his immigration status. It is important he…

The USA does not need another fatherless Latino child. Uriel is necessary for Julian to become a citizen of this nation.

univisionnews:

Mitt Romney’s long struggle to lock up the GOP nomination comes at the expense of appealing to Latinos. (Flickr: Gage Skidmore)

By FABIAN NUÑEZ
Channel: Politics

This week could prove to be a turning point for Mitt Romney, in ways good and bad.

Read More

As governor of Massachusetts, Romney offered a more open mind on immigration. but as a candidate in Arizona, he’s positioned himself to the right of controversial sheriff Joe Arpaio. Romney called the unconstitutional Arizona law that allows police to racially profile Latinos based on appearance a “model” for the nation. This came after he recently blasted the Dream Act, which would help kids go to college, as a handout and committed to vetoing it. He also now talks about his plans for “self-deportation,” the fantasy that 11 million undocumented people will present themselves and leave the country.

mohandasgandhi:

thenoobyorker:

PRESENTE.ORG presents NO SOMOS RUBIOS - I am appalled that Senator Marco Rubio is being utilized by the GOP to woo Latin@/ Hispanic voters. Senator Marco Rubio’s positions do not reflect what the very broad Hispanic/Latin@ community would love to see implemented. “No Somos Rubios” is a pun (We Are Not Blonde/Blanco) and the slogan of the campaign to educate voters and the media on these issues.

Republicans want Florida Senator Marco Rubio to be their Vice President. 

The GOP thinks that Rubio can “deliver the Latino vote,” but Rubio stands with the Tea Party more than he stands with Latinos on the issues we care 

 I don’t make many requests on this blog but if you could, please watch and circulate this 1 minute video. We may not have the advertising dollars but we have social media and unconventional techniques.

If you want to know more, visit http://presente.org/

Tumblr, do your thing. Marco Rubio needs to be put in his place.

mohandasgandhi:

carlosjuarez:

Struggle for a Dream - 15 Year-Old’s Story

I walked into the classroom today thinking I would be there to help students in their pursuit to higher education and came out changed by one student’s story of crossing the border from El Salvador to Guatemala, from Guatemala to Mexico, and from Mexico to the US… a story, so casually told as if it was just any other story, of her pursuit to be reunited with her mom and brothers in Los Angeles who had been separated for 8 years. I’ve heard some amazing stories of other undocumented students at UCLA and only ever watched touching documentaries of people affected by immigration throughout Latin America, but today… I heard the elaborate testimony of a fifteen year-old high school student who shared with me her story coming to the US as if she was living each moment in her heart right in front of me, and undoubtedly so as it is surely still so freshly ingrained in her mind, having gone through such an experience at thirteen, and continues to live it today at home. I was introduced to her story by my question about her mom, when I started to find out that she had actually been detained for selling food without a permit on the streets of LA - the only job she had to sustain the lives of them both. 

While listening to her story, I felt like those US-born “citizens” who made time to talk to me face to face or among an audience of listeners who wanted to learn of immigration through general questions to a panel of undocumented students… the feeling that no matter what part of my experience I chose to share that day, my audience would not fully understand my struggle unless they personally shared it, too. As an undocumented person myself, who remembers in vague detail my own experience crossing the US-Mexico border, I must say I did not go through a fraction of the hardships that she detailed so bittersweetly for me in Spanish. Bittersweet because of how privileged I felt to have someone share an intimately life changing story with me, but angry that I could even catch and point out my own privilege and call such thing a “privilege” to be able to listen to a story of struggle. Meanwhile, all she could share with me were her well understood emotions and thoughts using her own words to describe her first-hand experience with border patrol, with the push and pull forces of moving across a law-governed space… and various other valued academic concepts of Sociology or Chicana/o Studies that held less value from the heart shared by this student. So I’ll insert a disclaimer here: that I don’t think any of my words will ever be enough to fully humanize the experience she shared with me as I vocalize a few of my thoughts on her words that are only hers to share with the world again. I hope she’ll one day write a book or use her experience to shape a movement. I am glad to have met such a powerful fifteen year-old mujer. 

I’ll summarize her words and hold back the tear-wrenching details of how a teenager was running in fear from militarized, Mexican-Guatemalan border patrol; living for 3 days without food traveling rough terrain in fear of being caught by immigration officials; tactics she used to remain hidden from enforcement; seeing dead bodies as she crossed a crocodile-infested river; the moment when running away from a cute dog with a tracking collar led to her capture in the hot desert; treated in her own words, like an animal as she was grabbed by the neck by US-border patrol; detained for three months in detention centers in Arizona and Los Angeles; the inhumane treatment of undocumented migrants in Arizona and her transfer to a psychiatric ward where she was forced into blood tests for refusing to eat when she gave up hope that she’d ever leave; not knowing how long or how many days she had been in a jail with no windows or opportunity to see daylight; making friends in the child immigrant detention center in LA and not wanting to leave from the better conditions; and finally seeing her mom and brothers for the first time in eight years… only to hate living in her new home in LA where things were not as expected from her hopes of an American Dream. 

And now there she is, committed to living her life for her mom by going to college. And throughout it all, here I am inspired to do more for others and more for myself and more for my family to survive as we’re at the brink of losing our home in this depression. I am happy these students are changing my life… every one of them. I hope I can do the same in return. 

If you only read one thing today, let it be this.