by Raisa Camargo

Editorial cartoonists delight in exaggerating the size of Barack Obama’s ears, but families being torn apart by federal immigration policies are wondering if he’s ever going to listen to them. In the latest attempt to repair the nation’s broken immigration system, more than 500 children paraded outside the White House on July 28 to prevent the deportation of their parents.

Elementary school students Jonathan Monterosa and Edgar, who didn’t reveal his last name, traveled from Chicago to stand and march for more than two hours under a blazing sun.

“We want to keep  ourfamily united,” Jonathan told Hispanic Link.

Edgar added that his father feared deportation as he described his personal terror — and he’d be left alone with nothing to eat.

An estimated four million children are citizens living in the United States, mostly born here to an undocumented parent, according to data collected in  2008 by the Pew HispanicCenter.

The number of children who risk losing their parents overwhelms the 400,000 persons the Immigration Customs and Enforcement Agency (ICE) anticipates deporting this fiscal year. That is nearly a 10 percent increase above the total in 2008 during the Bush administration.

Congressman Luis Gutiérrez of Illinois, speaking before the march, bared the empathy he felt for the children while stressing the importance of immigration reform to a crowd of more than 1,500 persons. He was arrested in May for civil disobedience along with 35 advocates in favor of the DREAM Act outside the White House.

“The next time I come to the White House and they shackle me, I am not going to bring $100 to pay the fine. If they let me go, I am coming back because of these innocent children,” Gutiérrez, who is Puerto Rican, said in Spanish. He repeated his promise severaltimes. “We are not going to permit leaving them without shelter, without justice and left in need of their parents’ love.”

Advocates and children representing organizations in states spread from coast to coast — Florida, Maryland, Illinois, Texas, Illinois, California — waved signs with slogans and wore shirts emblazonedwith such pleas as “Don’t Deport My Mom” and “It’s in your hands, Mr. President.”

Daisy Cuevas, the 7-year-old girl who told Michelle Obama this past spring about her mother’s undocumented status, energetically led the march.

The crowd shouted in unison, “¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido, Obama escucha, estamos en la lucha, aquí estamos y no nos vamos!”

Although the vibrant speeches captivated onlookers across the streets, for parents waiting on their deportation status, the march was more than just a gamble.

Viviana Oxlaj López worried about her six children’s wellbeing if she is deported back to Guatemala. She said her 10-yearold daughter was becoming ill thinking about the separation.  Hispanic Link.

sent by an anonymous author

A few days ago, Elena D’Angelo de Marcone, an Argentine lady of 86 years of age appeared in a public hearing of the Parliament of Tucumán to defend “with tooth and nail the family “  before the attempts to legalize the “marriage” between people of the same sex.

Doña Elena affected to the legislators and all present ones during one of the so many public hearings summoned by the Commission  of General Legislation of the Senate of the Nation, in order to know the opinion and desire the town of the provinces on controversial project of law that tomorrow will be put under voting.

“X X” for them? And that corresponding the psychological characteristics will accompany them until death? , it questioned.

Doña Elena considered that to give the force of law to the unions between people the same sex, “is like using a pair of shoes, both for the left foot, or both for the right foot. Is that how they spend their time?

Are the problems of those minorities are going to condition and change the healthy customs of the Argentine family? “It is possible that we are prepared to go to jail to deny to us to resign to our more expensive moral values? Or is that the laws are turned to so immense and absolute power that they make ever more useless the use of free will? You, men and women, Senators of the Nation are going away to make people in charge of so large felony?  Although in the House of Representatives this law already has been approved, you can still reflect and change history “, she reminded.

“Be that as it may,  they know one thing: the Argentine family lives,barks, and annoys in the belly of each generous and sacrificed mother, and in the heart of each male and courageous man who fights for life and to bring children into the world, or better, into the Mother country. This Mother country ours needs people and not of aborted children, nor drugs and ways to prevent births and less of these sterile pairs that form a culture of death! “, it added. See the problem of  gay marriage in the U.S.A.. http://www.gloria.tv/ ?media=79991

by Jorge Mujica Mexico del Norte

Some news this week… the Senate could hold hearings on the reform. Even more news, the hearings would be led, if they happen to happen, by four Republicans, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell along Jon  Kyl plus John McCain andLindsey Graham.

The last ones are, supposedly, about the only Republican Senators who support immigration reform… or at least used to… But the reform these Senators want hearings on is not immigration reform but the 14th Amendment reform. Our readers may wonder why Latinos should care if four Republican Senators discuss the U.S. Constitution, so let’s make it clear: if they change it, they could take away the citizenship status to millions of Latino and other immigrant’s kids.

The 14th Amendment is the one granting citizenship to all persons born between the line where Mexico ends and the line where Canada starts, plus a bunch of islands all over the planet and Alaska. It was approved on July 9, 1868, and it starts with  “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” It was approved to give citizenship to the sons and daughters of former slaves after the Civil War.

These Republicans say they wan to change it because, Lindsey Graham told Fox News “the birthright citizenship is a magnet for illegal aliens to the United States.” Graham added that it would be a move to stop something he calls “birth tourism, in which travel firms in China sell travel packages designed to allow pregnant women to give birth in the US.”. I can see the danger now! Can you imagine 100 million Chinese women coming to give birth in the U.S. each year? By 2015 we would be the Chinese United States!

In The Hands Of The Enemy

The argument is idiotic and the target here is not Chinese, but the sons and daughters of undocumented immigrants. Besides idiotic, it is not new. Back in 2008 the Republican Party discussed an amendment to the 14th

Amendment that read something like “To be a U.S. citizen you would need that at least one of your parents be a citizen of the United States and that neither of both have violated the immigration laws”. It was not approved under the consideration that it could harm John McCain’s presidential campaign…

To change the Constitution you need two thirds of the vote in each chamber in Congress, plus the approval of 34 state legislatures, meaning this amendment to the amendment is going nowhere except maybe …China or further away… As Republican delegates realized two years ago at their National Convention, taking away their citizenship to children of the undocumented would only increase the numbers of those in need of legalization to around 16 million instead of 12.

The question is, then, why proposing the amendment now? The answer is simple: elections.

It seems Republicans already decided Latino voters don’t decide anything. In other words, instead of trying to win back the Latino vote they have lost because of their anti immigrant politics, they are trying to win the white vote they lost in 2008 to Barack Obama. Wise strategy… in the short term, but Latinos will have more and more votes in a few years, so it is a short-sighted strategy for the long term. But obviously the issue here is not pregnant Chinese tourist and neither undocumented parents, but the U.S. perception of immigrants and how far to the right they can take the discussion of the immigration reform.

Democrats responded via Congressman José Serrano, who stated in an editorial that “the Constitution should never be changed for the worst”, and call the attention to the fact that the Republicans’ amendment would not affect undocumented immigrants but their U.S. citizen children, and that would be unconstitutional.

The only answer from the Obama administration came via Janet Napolitano, head of Homeland Security and therefore highest immigration authority, who declared herself “surprised” by the Republicans “they presented this idea instead of discussing immigration reform”. The bad part of her statement is that she added, “Immigration reform depends on the cooperation of the Republican Party. Democrats can’t do it themselves”.

To me that sounds like “immigration reform depends on the enemies of immigration reform”. It is to surrender. If Republicans do not deserve a single Latino vote, it looks to me like Democrats do not deserve a single one either…

México del Norte can read at: http: //mx.groups.yahoo.com/ group/mexicodelnorte/

by Jenny Thompson The Health Science Institute

A California researcher has called on the federal government to “step back on the amount of high fructose corn syrup in our diets.”

Right. I can see it now: Federal HFCS agents roaming grocery store aisles and hanging out beside soda machines where they’ll advise  consumers to step back on their HFCS consumption.

Or maybe this researcher– Dr. Anthony Heaney of UCLA–has something else in mind. Maybe he’s aware that the U.S. government has generously contributed to the HFCS boom by imposing high tariffs to discourage sugar imports, while subsidizing farms thatproduce the raw material for  HFCS: corn.

In any case, Dr. Heaney just wants to help cancer patients  live longer.

Can’t argue with that.

Cancer 101

When Dr. Heaney and his UCLA team recently exposed pancreatic cancer cells to fructose, they found that fructose prompted a dramatic growth of the malignant cells.

In the journal Cancer Research, they wrote, “These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation.” And even worse, they believe that fructose may have this effect on other types of cancer cells–not just pancreatic cancer.

Of course, the Corn Refiners Association immediately responded with a press release, calling the conclusions of the UCLA study “premature.”

Fair enough. After all, it was a lab study, and what happens in a Petri dish can be very different from what happens in the body.

Still, I’d be willing to bet a paycheck that further research will very likely show that fructose does play some sort of role in cancer cell proliferation. For two reasons: 1) HFCS intake has already been linked with increased pancreatic cancer risk, and 2) It’s all about sugar, which is 50% fructose and 50 percent glucose.

About 80 years ago, German Otto Warburg, Ph.D., showed that glucose is a potent fuel for cancer cell growth. And this wasn’t some harebrained theory. It was proof. And it won Dr. Warburg a Nobel Prize.

For decades, the medical community has been aware of the danger for cancer patients who eat foods with added sugars and refined simple carbohydrates. So for every cancer patient, this advice should be considered Cancer 101: Wean yourself from these foods, and then restrict consumption as much as possible.

As for high fructose corn syrup, if you have cancer, you can’t go wrong to avoid it completely. And if you don’t have cancer… well, you can’t go wrong to avoid it completely!

But whatever you do, don’t wait for the government to dream up some bureaucratic Rube Goldberg program designed to step back our HFCS intake.

­

by Jonathan Farrell

The gloomy forecast reaching the media lately is that by the year 2037 Social Security will run out of money. Yet groups like the Gray Panthers who made protest outside the New Federal Building on Mission at 7th Street in San Francisco on Aug. 14th say Social Security is not going broke.

Dozens from various groups like SEIU Local 721, SF Central Labor Council and others gathered that Saturday morning to let the public know Social Security is doing well. As the longstanding government benefit program celebrates its 75th anniversary this month, they want people to know that the information the press has been given is inaccurate and misleading.

Current media blitz reports that the Baby boomer generation as they retire will bankrupt the funds. And, that by 2037 Social Security will be struggling to pay out benefits.

This is misleading “Social Security will be solvent for a-very long time, said Paul Van de Water from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Van de Water worked for Social Security. He now specializes in Medicare, Social Security, and health coverage issues.

He explained the missing details. “Social Security will not be able to pay out 100 percent of promised benefits by 2037, that’s if Congress was not to do anything to remedy the situation.” Yet still by that time benefi ts will continue, contrary to the headlines.

He and other analyst experts such as Eric Kingson and Alex Lawson say that with the over 2 trillion in a trust fund that Social Security holds the Social Security Administration has the funds to pay benefi ts. By 2037 benefits will still be paid. Yet, only if nothing is done by that time benefi ts would be reduced by 20 to 30 percent. This is where the information got mixed up.

Kingson and Lawson are among those groups trying to alert the public that the news they are hearing about Social Security is not all bad news. “In fact, Social Security is functioning extremely well, it is not broke,” said Lawson. But they warn that greedy powers are at work to alter or perhaps raid Social Security as a means to address defi cit woes.

Founded in 1935 by President FDR and his cabinet Social Security was designed to help the American people stay out of poverty. Social Security was and is one of the best retirement benefi t programs in US history. Even as this economic recession has a fl uctuating income revenue,  Social Security is secure.

Analysts and SSA advocates say there are simple ways for the predicted short-fall to be addressed such as raising the earning cap. A percentage of the population is in an earning bracket where they do not pay Social Security taxes. Perhaps it’s time to include those high-earners too?

By law, SSA is not allowed to go into debt. In fact, some budget analysts point out that SSA has had surplus funds which it then reinvests. That all adds to the 2 trillion trust fund which incidentally is expected to reach over $4 trillion by 2037. For more info about the facts of Social Security’s stability visit: http://socialsecurityworks. org

by Michael Marcell & Luis Carlos López

A study released Aug. 11 by the Pew Hispanic Research Center shows that 340,000 of 4.3 million (8 percent) babies born in the United States in 2008 were the progeny of undocumented immigrants — with most coming from Hispanic parents.

Pew found that nearly four in five of the 5.1 million children under age 18 of unauthorized immigrants were born in this country and therefore U.S. citizens.

“Overall, Hispanics who live in the U.S. have higher rates of fertility than do whites, blacks or Asians,” the Pew said. “Among Hispanics, the foreign born have higher rates of fertility than the native born.”

The study comes as some senators are making strides on Capitol Hill to redefine what it takes to be a U.S. citizen.

Currently, section one of the 14th amendment of the Constitution states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

Some have proposed changing the amendment to exclude U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants from being considered citizens to help resolve the illegal immigration problem. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) held hearings Aug. 3 to discuss such possibility.

Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop said addressing the issue of birthright citizenship would move comprehensive immigration reform legislation forward because it would be one method of preventing more undocumented immigrants from entering this country.

President Reagan addressed the first wave in 1986 when he signed an amnesty bill that provided a path to citizenship for 2.7 million persons.

Bishop told Hispanic Link Aug. 6, “We are now in the second wave of illegal immigrants…Senator Graham is committed that we don’t have a third wave.

Bishop stressed Graham’s position that changes should not jeopardize the status of people who have already been granted birthright citizenship .

Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza, said in a statement that Graham and McCain, once leading Senate advocates for comprehensive immigration reform, in joining with Senate Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl in support of repealing birthright citizenship, have led her to “conclude that, with some exceptions, the Grand Old Party has either taken leave of its senses or of its principles.”

Elizabeth Weidruff, chief counsel for the ConstitutionalAccountability Center, said, “The text and history of the 14th Amendment clearly include children of non-citizens or undocumented immigrants in the guarantee of citizenship for those born on U.S. soil.”

Others are echoing Graham’s call to action and have a different interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said that being a U.S. citizen implies a deeper connection to one’s nation that someone who comes to the U.S. for opportunistic reasons cannot understand.

“The amendment says ‘all persons born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof’, are citizens,” He said. “The issue is: what does it mean to be in the jurisdiction of the United States? Does it mean, simply, that you’re here and you have to stop at the red lights like the rest of us, or is their some deeper meaning to the concept of what it means to be in the jurisdiction of the United States?” Hispanic Link.