Tuesday, March 15, 2016

From Scapegoating to Solidarity: 2016 Is the Year to Turn the Immigration Debate Around

By David L. Wilson, Truthout
March 15, 2016

There are two surprising facts that most mainstream US media outlets have studiously ignored in their coverage of immigration and the 2016 presidential campaign:

First, the Republican candidates are promising to end a wave of unauthorized immigration that actually ended eight years ago.

And second, the same working-class white people who cheer billionaire candidate Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rants would themselves benefit from legalizing the immigration status of the approximately 11 million people who currently lack legal papers.

We'd be well on our way to ending the current anti-immigrant frenzy if only we could get these two facts across to a majority of the US population - and this might be the year to do it.[...]

Read the full article:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/35220-from-scapegoating-to-solidarity-2016-is-the-year-to-turn-the-immigration-debate-around

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Failing to Connect the Dots on Immigration: The Democratic Debate in Miami

As investigative journalist Allan Nairn said on Democracy Now! in January: "Well, you know, if you go and burn down your neighbor's house, don't complain when, as they run from the flames, they come onto your lawn."

By David L. Wilson and Jane Guskin, MRZine
March 13, 2016

The March 9 debate in Miami between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders was the first chance the two candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination had to discuss immigration and its connections to trade and U.S. policy in Latin America. Unfortunately, neither candidate took advantage of the opportunity.

The mainstream "immigration debate" generally avoids mentioning the forces that have driven millions of Latin Americans to move here without legal authorization over the past forty years. The media and the politicians treat the migration either as a natural disaster ("flooding over the border") or as a second-rate science fiction movie ("the aliens are invading") -- with either scenario seen as deserving an aggressive response.[...]

Read the full article:
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2016/wg130316.html