The new law in Arizona authorizing police to arrest individuals who cannot show documents proving that they are in the country legally has set off a fresh bout of acrimony. But as in the past, much of the debate is founded on mythology.

5 Myths about immigration

 

News, Politics and Issues

Residents of War-Torn Ciudad Mier Slowly Return Home

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Articles - News, Politics and Issues

by Julian Aguilar, The Texas Tribune

The Mexican city of Ciudad Mier is limping back to normalcy a month after residents were forced to abandon their homes amid threats by the notorious Los Zetas cartel.

Mier, which sits about a half-dozen miles from the Texas border in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, looked this week like a city rebuilding after a war between the Zetas and the Gulf cartel closed schools and businesses and left a majority of buildings abandoned and strewn with broken glass. The police station is now a charred shell in which a filing cabinet sits half-opened and riddled with bullet holes. Just blocks from the city’s northern entrance, a worker with the federal electric company, Comisión Federal de Electricidad, was installing transformers after a ferocious gun battle between the warring gangs knocked out power to the main thoroughfare. Add a comment

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A Flare-Up in the Quiet War over Caribbean Rum

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Articles - News, Politics and Issues

The battle between Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands erupted last fall after Congress stuck $192 million in rum tax rebates for the U.S. territories into the $700 billion financial bailout package.

The rum provision was small potatoes but highly symbolic. Opponents of the bailout bill derided the rebate as a subsidy for rum-makers. Liquor industry interests howled that the money went to the territorial governments, not the rum-makers. When Congress passed the bailout, the furor died – but politicking over the obscure rebate program continues.

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First Presidential Debate and Latin America

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The focus of the presidential debates last night was supposed to be on foreign policy.  All of the issues mentioned affect Latinos in the United States and likely those in other countries.  But in major debates, I also try to look at how the candidates look on issues more specific to Latinos and Latin American or Hispanic countries.

This year, there was next to no mention of Latin America.  While many complain about "losing Latin America," it looks like the trend of ignoring positive connections with Latin America will continue.

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Letter from Barack Obama to Puerto Rico

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Barack Obama wrote a letter to the people of Puerto Rico to express his views on Puerto Rican status, citizenship, jobs, health and their place in America.

 

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Barak on Puerto Rico

 

FBI Files Reveal Years of Surveillance of SOA Watch

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Declassified FBI Files Reveal Years of Surveillance of Peaceful Demonstrations by FBI's Counterterrorism Division



ACLU and School of the Americas Watch filed for documents; much information blacked out, some pages not released

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Georgia today released new evidence that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting counterterrorism investigations into School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch), a faith- and conscience-based human rights group. SOA Watch, which organizes yearly nonviolent demonstrations calling for the closure of the School of the Americas, a controversial training school for Latin American soldiers located at Fort Benning, charges that the files demonstrate a clear attempt to stifle political opposition.

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