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Customs and Border Protection "deported" a little girl from New York to Guatemala
The month of March went in like a lion and out like a lamb for a little girl from Long Island.
Four-year-old Emily Ruiz went on vacation with her grandfather on March 11 to see relatives in Guatemala and when they returned home, they were detained by customs officials after they saw he was flagged for an illegal entry in the 1990s. According to a lawyer for Emily’s family, a borders agent then gave her father two choices over the phone: She could be held at a juvenile facility in Virgina (after having flown into Washington’s Dulles airport) or go back to Guatemala with her grandfather.
Saying he feared his daughter would be put up for adoption, Leonel Ruiz chose to have her return to Guatemala.
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America's most racist kid?
Wonkette just posted a heartbreaking video of a young boy identified only as Andrew (for soon to be obvious reasons) who hosts his very own YouTube show. What’s his show about, you ask? Tween culture? Sort of. He does review Marmaduke. Politics? Kinda. He shouts out a book he found in the children’s section of the library about Barack Obama.
Mostly, though, it’s about his fear of Mexicans and Black people. That’s right, for eight episodes now, Andrew has been at the helm of a video series “for all the white kids out there” wherein he spews propaganda taught to him by The White Nationalist Movement.
I’ve dealt with openly racist adults – and children – before. Back in 2005, I wrote a very short blog post about then prominent twin, tween duo Prussian Blue, who were famous for their white supremacist tunes. Continue reading »
The United States is one of the few remaining developed countries that grants citizenship to any person born on its soil. That facet of our Consitution’s 14th amendment has put the children of illegal immigrants in the cross-hairs of a fierce debate on immigration, education and social welfare.
Who are these kids? What are their lives like? The New York Times offers up some answers with data from a large scale study on the children of illegal immigrants.
It’s a timely study. An opinion piece in ParentDish earlier this week explores the ways American culture and laws hurt illegal immigrants’ kids. Whatever you think of their parents’ decision to come here illegally, the children themselves are innocents. Often though, their lives are dramatically altered for the worse by circumstances beyond their control.
With all the tension in Arizona over immigration law, wouldn’t it be crazy if some local politician with a radio talk show started a campaign to have the faces of black and Hispanic children on a school mural lightened so that they looked white? That would be totally insane, right?
Right.
Which is why all hell broke loose this weekend in Prescott, AZ. Wonkette first reported Friday that “a group of artists has been asked to lighten the faces of children depicted in a giant public mural at a Prescott school. The project’s leader says he was ordered to lighten the skin tone after complaints about the children’s ethnicity.” Ordered by the principal of Miller Valley School, no less, because of pressure led by Prescott city councilman Steve Blair.
Prescott residents were riled by Blair’s inflammatory comments about the appropriateness of depicting a black student in the center of the mural. Blair said on his radio show, “I am not a racist individual, but… to depict the biggest picture on that building as a black person, I would have to ask the question, ‘Why?’” Continue reading »
Few things warm the cockles of my crunchy, alternative-education loving heart like the site of a thriving school garden carefully tended by the local elementary kids.
My daughter’s kindergarten has one where they grow the usual school garden fare: bulbs, herbs, a few hardy things that can’t be easily killed by a horde of overenthusiastic gardners.
This month’s Atlantic Monthly features a scathing take-down of this charming trend. Continue reading »
Cheyne Parham, a US Army Captain, fell in love while stationed in Korea. He married Mary Joy, a Philippine citizen, and they had twin daughters in August 2008. But he’s only seen his children for a fraction of their young lives, because the American Consulate in Manila won’t issue passports to his family, and visas to enter the US.
If a poor family in some Texas towns want a little help stocking the space under the Christmas tree, they’re going to need proof of their citizenship.
A number of Houston charities have been accused of doing immigration checks before they’ll hand out toys collected for the poor. Continue reading »
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