Articles from MAS Raise Awareness of Muslims Engaging with Society–Check MAS out sometime!

Posted on March 31, 2010 by eslkevin

MAS Freedom Immigration National Coordinator Participates in North Carolina Immigration “Pilgrimage”

http://www.masnet.org/

Khalilah Sabra, MAS Freedom National Immigration Coordinator, joined the North Carolina Latino community and a broad based coalition in their campaign for comprehensive immigration reform and justice for Latino immigrant workers. The immigrant right campaign, called “Pilgrimage”, began last Sunday in Charlotte with a walk to the Charlotte immigration detention center, followed by a rally at Veterans Park on Monday, March 29th.

The walk continued in Hickory NC, and was joined by a major contingency from the Hickory Chapter of the NAACP. The coalition proceeded to US Representative Patrick McHenry’s office to discuss immigration issues and then walked to an immigrant gathering in Morganton, NC.
Khalilah Sabra stated that, “Immigrant homes are routinely raided. Hundreds of thousands of people are imprisoned, some for an indefinite period and without access to medical care. Thousands are deported away from their families without a fair day in court. In the past year, more than 500 illegal immigrants have been deported as a result of a fingerprint system at the Wake County sheriff’s Office in Raleigh that automatically tells federal immigration agents they are in the county jail. Wake County joined the Federal Secure Communities program about a year ago, along with Durham, Orange and seven other counties across the North Carolina. Since then, Wake County has placed nearly 700 undocumented people into federal custody – mostly for minor infractions of the law. According to an article in January 4th issue of Nation Magazine, there is a ‘secret detention center’ in Cary where immigrants are held before they are sent to Charlotte.”

MAS Freedom joined the walk to affirm our belief that we need comprehensive immigration policy reform, justice for farm workers and a change in United States trade policies.

On March 30th, the coalition will be in Greensboro, North Carolina, starting at Guilford College and later joining in a painting of a mural on the cost of war. Then the coalition members will march to downtown Greensboro and have a press conference at the site of the proposed new jail that will house immigrants.

When Isn’t It “Terrorism?”

TIME Magazine – I was a little stunned at what I didn’t read: Despite the laundry list of suspected offenses laid out by the FBI, I was a little curious as to why no one seems to want to say what seems quite obvious to me — that these guys are being accused of outright terrorism.

Prisoners sue over restrictions on outside contact

WASHINGTON POST — Inmates in a highly restrictive prison program are suing their jailers, arguing they aren’t allowed to communicate as frequently with families and friends as other federal prisoners. The Center for Constitutional Rights took the case to federal court on Tuesday. The center says the Communications Management Units in Terre Haute, Ind., and Marion, Ill., violate federal law and the Constitution. Lawyers for the inmates say there are 60 to 70 prisoners in the program, most of them Muslim. Some have been convicted of terrorism-related crimes.

Muslim Students Bring Food, Conversation to Florida Homeless

VOA – In the southern U.S. state of Florida, a group of American Muslim students is running a non-profit organization called Project Downtown. The project’s goal is to help the poor, poor people of all backgrounds and cultures. Our correspondent went down to the city of Tampa, Florida to learn more about Project Downtown and the Muslim students who belong to it.
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About eslkevin

I am a peace educator who has taken time to teach and work in countries such as the USA, Germany, Japan, Nicaragua, Mexico, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman over the past 4 decades.

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One Response to Articles from MAS Raise Awareness of Muslims Engaging with Society–Check MAS out sometime!

eslkevin says:

March 31, 2010 at 10:24 pm

Lighting the Impact on Immigrant Families

Children come to the United States with and without their parents, and from all corners of the world: Central America, Mexico, China, India, Romania, Somalia. They are fleeing political upheaval, extreme poverty, child labor, and abusive homes. In some cases they have arrived in this country as infants, unaware of their immigration status. Sometimes they’re too young to remember entering the United States.

In 2008, more than 8,000 unaccompanied immigrant children were taken into custody by U.S. immigration authorities. Many were removed from homes. They were apprehended and then sent to shelters throughout the country where their stay can range from a month to as long as a year.

Through the MAS Freedom T. Marshall Child Advocacy Project, social work students and volunteers are trained to serve as friends of these children while being trained as child advocates. Their role is to figure out what brought the children to the United States, and then to advocate on their behalf. The advocates get to know the children, help sort out their stories, and help identify their eligibility for asylum or special protective visas. The advocates help ensure that actions are taken in the best interest of these children, whether they are eligible to remain in the United States, or compelled to return to their home countries.

Khalilah Sabra, the MAS Freedom National Immigration Coordinator, stated that, “The lack of an immigration reform really affects vulnerable children. We are currently assisting a young man who arrived in the United States as a toddler, and was unaware that he was “undocumented” until he applied for a job and his citizenship came into question. He now faces the dilemma of filing for legal migration or allowing for deportation -through no fault of his own.”

MAS Freedom is committed to its human service and policy advocacy program dedicated to advocating for the best interest – justice and well-being – of immigrant and refugee children who remain an unprotected class in the United States. We’re working to develop a national network of Child Advocates for immigrant and refugee children and to promote consideration of best interest and humanitarian justice in all decisions affecting immigrant and refugee children in the United States, especially those who bear no responsibility for being here.

The need for a comprehensive immigration reform bill is critical. “Citizen Children” are caught in the cross hairs of the nation’s illegal immigration battle.

The 2010 Census:The stakes of an accurate count

Published: Caribbean Life News

The results form the basis for the apportionment of congressional districts and the distribution of hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funds, as well as serving to guide a wide range of community-planning decisions across the country.

The Census is, however, no stranger to controversy, such as the suggestion by some activists that immigrants sit out the Census this year to protest the federal government’s failure to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

Yet, among demographic groups like immigrants and ethnic minorities who are typically under-counted in the Census, a boycott would be self-defeating.Moreover, anyone living in an area afflicted by a large under-count of any sort stands to lose out on political representation and federal funds. For instance, an undercount of Latino immigrants would impact anyone living in a state such as California, New York, or Illinois that has a large population of Latino immigrants – meaning that everyone in those states stands to lose political representation and access to economic and educational opportunities if their residents aren’t fully counted in 2010.

Reapportioning seats in Congress:

~According to the U.S. Census Bureau, “by providing the count of the population used to apportion the number of seats in Congress among the states and providing our state and local governments with the population counts necessary to redraw their legislative districts, the census has become the foundation of our democracy, as well as the nation’s factfinder.”

Allocating over $400 billion in federal grant money each year:

~According to a 2009 research report from the Census Bureau, roughly $435.7 billion in federal grant and direct assistance money “was allocated based on Census Bureau data”-including “annual population estimates, Decennial Census data, and other Census Bureau sources”-in Fiscal Year (FY) 2007.

~The 10 federal programs accounting for 83.4 percent of all funding “allocated annually using population and/or income statistics,” as of FY 2007, were {Figure 1}:

·Medical Assistance Program {Medicaid} ($203.5 billion)
·Unemployment Insurance ($35.9 billion)
·Highway Planning and Construction ($34.2 billion)
·Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program ($30.3 billion)
·Temporary Assistance for Needy Families ($16.5 billion)
·Federal Pell Grant Program ($13.7 billion)
·Title I Grants to Local Educational Agencies ($12.8 billion)
·Special Education Grants to States ($10.8 billion)
·National School Lunch Program ($7.8 billion)
·Head Start ($6.9 billion)

Undercounting of minorities and the less affluent:

~The National Research Council notes in a 2009 study that, “historically, a key issue has been, and remains, the differential net undercount of Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans, which has resulted in the repeated underrepresentation of areas in which those groups make up a large fraction of the residents.In particular, the differential net undercount of these groups has led to their receiving less than their share of federal funds and political representation.”

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