Immigrant Rights: No hay ser humano ilegal

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The New Colossus (Statue of Liberty poem) by Emma Lazarus

Throughout America's history, the topic of immigration has engendered strong emotions - especially as most of the continent became populated with foreign born families. And while arguments for and against immigration have varied only slightly through the years (they will bring disease, take away jobs, etc.) the heart of the matter is racism and religious prejudice - a willingness or unwillingness to welcome the other.

Chinese laborers, African slaves, Irish, Italians, Morovians, Jews … the list is long of those who came to America only to face the brunt of "nativists" who subversively (i.e. KKK) terrorized and institutionally created barriers to those not born within the country's boundaries. Nativism is even enshired in the U.S. Constitution's provision that excludes immigrants from attaining the highest elected office - that of the President.

It's happening again.

Along with the neoconservative ideologies that grew out of the post-Nixon era, anti-immigration sentiment has grown to become a major political issue. The 1994 Contract on America launched the current crisis when supporters ..... MORE Page 2>

TX housing agency sued over discrimination

The Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs is being sued by Inclusive Communities Project, a Dallas civil rights group, over claims that claims the agency has awarded housing tax credits primarily to apartment complexes in minority-dominated urban areas with high rates of crime and poverty. The suit asks for an equal number of credit in both minority and non-minority census tracts.

"Tax-credit housing is now the largest program for providing affordable housing in the country, the state and in this area," Mike Daniel, an attorney for the Inclusive Communities Project, told the Morning News. "Like all the other affordable housing programs, it is still marked by racial segregation which reduces its value to many of the people it's supposed to serve by subjecting them to conditions of slum and blight in order to get the housing."

Creation "science" degree rejected

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board voted last week to reject the Institute for Creation Research's application to offer a master's degree in science education. The Board flatly rejected that teaching creationism was "science". “Evolution is such a fundamental principle of contemporary science it is hard to imagine how you could cover the various fields of science without giving it [evolution] the proper attention it deserves as a foundation of science,” said Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes.

Texas public school biology classes teach that the universe and organisms evolved over millions of years. Creationists, advocate a literal, Bible-based theory that God created the earth and all life forms instantly in their current state. However, most religious people reject this view of the world (and also know that the earth revolves around the sun, not vice versa).

Welfare for the rich

Rackspace is a much-admired successful and profitable technology firm in San Antonio that is getting ready to launch a $400 million IPO. The company's CEO/investor, Graham Weston, is a wealthy scion whose family is a member of the billionaire asset class. Graham's uncle, is reportedly worth $9.4 billion and the Weston family's holdings also include Fortnum & Mason, a famous department store in London founded in 1707, and the $1 billion British department store Selfridges & Co.

However, that hasn't stopped Governor Perry from giving the company $22 million of taxpayer dollars from his crony capitalism fund. In a state where business owners complain about raising the Federal minimum wage to $6.55 per hour in July and where median household income is only $46,715 (2005 Dollars), Texas taxpayers do not need to give corporate welfare...especially by the hand of weak-willed "public servants".

25% of 8th-graders failing math

More than 70,000 eighth-graders failed the math portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test this year, according to the Texas Education Agency (TEA), much worse than in past years. Students who don't pass the math and reading exams (they have 2 more tries), could be held back this year.

"I think we've just had a larger, more intense focus on reading over the years for this group of students," said Debbie Ratcliffe, spokeswoman for the TEA. "We've increased our math focus, but reading still has dominated. We know that students who can't read have trouble not only in reading class, but in social studies and even in math class because there are so many word problems."

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