By Miranda Rivers Cronkite News WASHINGTON – With a deadline looming for a federal program to give free meals to all students in certain low-income schools, some Arizona districts are finding there really is no such thing as a free lunch. State officials by (last) Friday had approved just 29 of the 247 school districts…
Arizona leads states for rate of deferred-deportation applications
By Aubree Abril Cronkite News WASHINGTON – Arizona has the highest rate of deferred deportation applications in the nation, with two-thirds of the estimated 34,000 eligible immigrants in the state signing up, a new report says. The Migration Policy Institute report cited a “mixed picture” for the two-year-old federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program,…
Declining minority representation in American newsrooms dominates discussion at convention of Hispanic journalists
By Aaron Montes Borderzine SAN ANTONIO – The celebration of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ 30th anniversary was brought to a sobering pause last week when Hispanic Link News Service publisher Charlie Ericksen voiced his dissatisfaction with the progress mainstream media have made in diversifying the staffs of their newsrooms. Hispanic journalists from all…
Border Youth Heal the Land and Culture
Frontera NorteSur (LL Editor’s Note: The following story was published July 31) Valerie Hernandez and Jailin Escobedo kneel on the weedy ground, pulling up pesky plants so a clump of tomatoes will have breathing space. A light but steady rain falls on this parched land, seeming at last to herald the start of the summer…
Arizonans join those urging White House to include immigrants in debate
By Julianne Defilippis Cronkite News WASHINGTON – Phoenix resident Gerardo Torres said immigrants have “ideas that are really going to help” communities affected by immigration policies – if only President Barack Obama would ask. Torres was one of a number of protesters outside the White House Monday urging the president to include immigrant voices at…
Massive Rights Violations Charged at New Mexico Detention Facility
Frontera NorteSur NEW MEXICO — After touring a New Mexico detention facility housing Central American refugees, immigrant advocates and lawyers have charged the Obama Administration with violating due process rights. In a July 24 telephonic press conference hosted by the National Immigration Law Center, representatives of an advocates’ group that were allowed to conduct a…