wnyc.org / 93.9fm / am 820

The ARMS act gives immigrant youth who were brought into the United States illegally as children the chance to change their status by attending college or joining the military under the DREAM Act.

Krys Lee talks about her collection of short stories, Drifting House. Her stories illuminate the Korean immigrant experience—from children escaping famine in North Korea to recent arrivals in America, whose lives play out in cramped apartments and Koreatown strip malls.

The GOP should talk more about that kind of entrepreneurship and acknowledge illegal immigrants who manage to hold down jobs and contribute to Uncle Sam.

In the last 15 years, California, Arizona, and Massachusetts have all replaced bilingual education with English immersion programs as a way to address the achievement gap between native and non-native speakers. Statistics show that only 11 percent of California’s English learners reached proficiency last year. How to teach new immigrants English has become an increasingly divisive debate in classrooms across the country with politicians like Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich chiming in to show their support of English immersion programs.

Immigration lawyer Stephen Yale-Loehr talks about putting together the book Green Card Stories, which presents portraits of today’s hardworking immigrants looking to contribute to U.S. society. The book features personal stories by Randolph Sealy and Angela Andrade, two immigrants, and they’ll discuss the debate over immigration in America, which has grown increasingly heated in recent years.

While a Suffolk University poll finds Mitt Romney opening up a 20-point lead on Newt Gingrich in Florida, data also show that 40 percent of Republicans in the Sunshine State are still waiting for a savior.

 

 

As eyes turn from South Carolina to Florida for the GOP primaries, one Republican Senator who isn't even running for president is sharing the spotlight with the Republican presidential candidates.

Currently, undocumented family members of legal citizens found living in the states must first exit the country and face a three to ten year ban before returning to apply for a green card. Under a new proposal by the Obama administration, the children and spouses of legal citizens could apply for a waiver which will allow them to remain in country to apply for their citizenship. Supporters say that it will keep families which face lengthy separation together while critics call the proposal “back door amnesty” and a move by the administration to court the much needed Latino vote.

Dr. Abraham Verghese first joined The Takeaway as part of the "My America" series. Verghese was raised in Ethiopia, by parents from India. He immigrated to the U.S. in the 1980s for a medical residency, and then to rural Tennessee treat gay men afflicted with HIV. Later, he became a professor at Stanford University Medical School and the author of the best-sellers, "My Own Country" and "Cutting for Stone."

2011 will be recorded as a turning point in the battle between conservative politicians in Arizona who supported laws like  SB 1070 a law that made it a state crime for a person to be an undocumented immigrant in Arizona – and the pro-immigrant rights groups that stood in opposition.

The hot line is intended to stem concern over local authorities conducting immigration screenings. The new measures come after reports that American citizens were being held on immigration charges.

A federal judge blocks portions of South Carolina's strict new immigration law intended to stop illegal immigrants. The judge says the state is taking over immigration powers that belong to the federal government.

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has been accused of flip-flopping on issues, chief among them immigration. But has his stance on immigration really shifted that much?

Finger-pointers wonder how Romney has the chutzpah to accuse Gingrich of being soft on immigration, claiming the former Speaker was opening “a new doorway ...

The country's "toughest sheriff" has had his gold star revoked. A scathing U.S. Justice Department report released Thursday found that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office carried out a blatant pattern of discrimination against Latinos and held a "systematic disregard" for the Constitution amid a series of immigration crackdowns that have turned the lawman into a prominent national political figure.

A controversial contract to house illegal immigrant detainees in a privately run facility was unanimously approved by the Essex County Board of Chosen Freeholders Wednesday night.

Since 2008, the Obama administration has deported over 1 million illegal immigrants, the highest number in six decades. However, this crackdown has not only affected illegal immigrants. A new investigation into the Secure Communities program finds that hundreds of American citizens have been detained because immigration officials thought they were illegal immigrants.

The Supreme Court has announced that it will rule on Arizona’s tough immigration law. The case is making its way to the highest court after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco blocked parts of the law in April. One of the parts of the law in question is a provision that requires state law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest.

The Obama administration has challenged the law, saying it encroaches on the federal government's jurisdiction.

An endorsement from "America’s Toughest Sheriff" may not be worth as much as it used to in the past.