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Blog — Immigration Reform
Thursday April 05, 2012
By Danielle Malaty
Arizona's notoriously controversial immigration law has captured the attention of minority communities across the country, and will certainly have a dramatic ripple effect on the way law enforcement agents interact with Arab American and American Muslim communities. Read More »
Posted by Guest at 1:24 pm / / Leave a comment
Tuesday February 14, 2012
It’s official. Two Arab Americans will face off for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords’s old congressional seat. Arizona State Senator Paula Aboud confirmed yesterday that she will run for office in Arizona’s newly redrawn District 2. Two weeks earlier, State Representative Matt Heinz announced that he would pursue the same office. The soon-to-be-formed District 2 will contain much of Giffords’s former district 8, which, due to her recent retirement, is now vacant. Neither Aboud nor Heinz (both Democrats) will run in the special election which is set for June 12. Both Candidates will leave former Giffords aide Ron Barber unchallenged for the Democratic ticket in the special election. It is unclear whether Barber will run for a full term, come November. Currently, Aboud and Heinz are the only two officially declared candidates running for Giffords’s seat in November. Read More »
Posted by Omar Tewfik at 2:29 pm / / Leave a comment
Friday December 16, 2011
One year after the spark of the Arab Spring, we remain inspired by the courageous efforts of ordinary people across the Arab world to rise up and change their countries. In recent months, Arab Americans across the country have engaged in various efforts to change the national narrative on a number of important issues facing our community. In October, a coalition of Arab American organizations launched Yalla Change, a national campaign devoted to bringing about the change we need here at home. Read More »
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Tuesday October 04, 2011
By Raja G. Khouri
Canadians have a love-hate, inferiority-superiority, affection-disaffection relationship with America. We know ourselves to be the junior partner, yet we think us the better one; we envy your greatness, yet mock your ignorance; we fear you, yet applaud the prime minister who dares defy you; we love you, yet hate that you hardly take notice of us; we vigorously consume your culture, yet vainly think ours more polished.
Read More »
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Saturday October 01, 2011
Watch coverage of the Arab American Institute (AAI) and National Network for Arab American Communities' (NNAAC) joint three-day National Leadership Conference, September 30 - October 2, 2011, in Dearborn, Michigan. The National Leadership Conference is a quadrennial conference at which the Arab American community discusses foreign and domestic policy priorities and strategizes for the national elections. Read More »
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Friday September 30, 2011
Today in Dearborn Michigan, leaders from across the Arab American community gathered for the 2011 National Leadership Conference hosted by the Arab American Institute (AAI) and the National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC). The first topic addressed by the conference was immigration reform post-9/11 and its impact on the Arab American community. Read More »
Posted by John Olivieri at 12:20 pm / / Leave a comment
Friday September 30, 2011
At a Friday morning panel at the National Leadership Conference, a group of distinguished presenters discussed challenges related to civil liberties, national security, immigration reform, and the intersection between these issues. Read More »
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Monday August 15, 2011
Jim Zogby, President of the Arab American Institute, helped organize a meeting of ethnic American leaders at the White House last week to discuss the urgent need for immigration reform. The leaders represented a great number of ethnic American communities, including Arab, Polish, Macedonian and Irish, Italian and many more. On their website, the White House Office of Public Engagement posted a blog about the meeting with White House Liaison to Ethnic Americans, Kyle Lierman reiterating the President’s dedication to reform the immigration system: Read More »
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Tuesday August 02, 2011
Immigration in this country is considered a national issue with obvious interstate implications. Consequently, it has long been the providence of the federal government to set and maintain U.S. immigration policy. Now, the state of Alabama wishes to crafts its own version of U.S. Immigration Law. Read More »
Posted by John Olivieri at 1:39 pm / / Leave a comment
Tuesday July 26, 2011
California Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) signed into law Assembly Bill 130, the California DREAM Act yesterday. The Los Angeles Times reports that AB 130 will provide “access to privately funded financial aid for undocumented college students.” Regarding the political implications of California’s Dream Act, the Times explains that the Governor’s signature on Bill 130 is a “gesture of goodwill toward Latino voters, who helped elect him in large numbers last fall. Legislation providing education funding to undocumented students has been a top priority for many Latino groups, which have found many of their efforts thwarted so far at the federal level.” Read More »
Posted by Adam Abosedra at 1:52 pm / / Leave a comment
Wednesday July 13, 2011
By Maryam Al-Zoubi
“I am Undocumented, Unafraid & finally Unashamed!” was the phrase that rang in Chicago’s Daley Plaza on March 10th, 2011.
I watched nervously in the crowd as my good friend Alaa Mukahhal, an undocumented Palestinian American, shouted those words from the stage. I was afraid for what might happen to her if she stopped living in the shadows, but as tears streamed down my face, I know I was proud that she had the strength to stand up and fight for her rights. Read More »
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Friday July 08, 2011
Last week, U.S. Representative Hansen Clarke, speaking to a forum on racial profiling, said “I’m the son of an undocumented immigrant—and I’m proud to say that.” Clarke’s father emigrated from pre-partition India in the 1930s, and later settled in Detroit’s lower east side, where Clarke grew up. A Cornell graduate, Clarke began his career in public service on the staff of Wayne County Executive Edward MacNamara, before serving as chief of staff to Rep. John Conyers. Clarke went on to win the seat for Michigan’s 13th District in 2010. Read More »
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Friday June 10, 2011
Things are not looking good for comprehensive immigration reform, not to mention the DREAM Act. Yesterday, Alabama Governor Robert Bentley signed into law a new - and probably unconstitutional - immigration law. HB 56, which will take effect on September 1st contains many provisions that surpass even those of Arizona's controversial SB 1070 in its racist undertones and its draconian enforcement measures. Just to refresh your memory, SB 1070 grants law enforcement officials the right to pursue people they suspect might be in the country illegally. If the individual in question is unable to produce documentation, they are arrested and possibly deported. Sound bad? Alabama’s law is far worse. Read More »
Posted by Omar Tewfik at 1:00 pm / / Leave a comment
Wednesday May 11, 2011
Yesterday, May 10th, President Barack Obama delivered a major address on immigration in El Paso, Texas. The framework of Obama’s speech was the agreement Republicans made to support comprehensive immigration reform if border security was first dealt with effectively. Noting that his administration has delivered on its end of the deal (through a “now basically complete” fence on the border, more boots on the ground for border patrol, and substantially better results in terms of seized illegal drugs, weapons and currency), the President argued that it was now time for the Republicans to live up to their end of the deal by supporting comprehensive immigration reform. Read More »
Posted by AAI at 12:46 pm / / Leave a comment
Tuesday May 10, 2011
If either side of the debate continues to couch this discussion in narrow partisan or ethnic terms, they may still win some votes, but we will not achieve reform. Read More »
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Monday May 02, 2011
Representative Kavanagh apologized for his “poorly conceived” bill during a meeting with the Sodhi family and the Sikh American community. Read More »
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Tuesday April 12, 2011
Today from 12pm to 1:30 pm, the Center For American Progress (CAP) will convene a panel of experts entitled: Choosing our words Carefully: The Consequences of Heated Rhetoric to address the rise in xenophobic and bigoted rhetoric in politics and its affect on various ethnic and religious communities throughout the country. Citing the assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, the panel will also assess how heated political discourse has the potential to encourage irascible and discontent individuals to violence. This event will be live-streamed and we encourage you to tune in. AAI president Jim Zogby is among the featured panelists. Read More »
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Wednesday March 30, 2011
This afternoon, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will hold a hearing entitled “Securing the Border: Building on the Progress Made.” The hearing will be held at 2:30pm in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in room 342. There are three witnesses scheduled to testify: Read More »
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Thursday January 27, 2011
Yesterday, the House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement held its first hearing of the 112th Congress on what it called, “ICE Worksite Enforcement – Up to the Job?” Read More »
Posted by Nadia Firozvi at 3:27 pm / / Leave a comment
Monday January 10, 2011
Rep Steve King (R-Iowa) recently introduced a bill that would do away with the automatic granting of citizenship to children born in the United States as a first step in tackling immigration reform. Rather, H.R. 140, Rep. Read More »
Posted by Nadia Firozvi at 3:35 pm / / Leave a comment
Looking at Iran by James Zogby
Kahlil Gibran Awards Gala - April 16, 2013
