Monthly Archives: December 2010

Rally for fired Chipotle workers (photo by Sally Jo Sorenson)

Langston Hughes understood dreams, those deferred and those denied. For too many immigrants, the American dream “sags, like a heavy load,” heavier now because of the double blows of the defeat of the DREAM Act and the Obama administration’s unrelenting pursuit of undocumented immigrant workers in the workplace.

Chipotle workers marched in Minneapolis last week, protesting recent firings attributed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pressure on their employer to clear the payroll of any possibly-undocumented workers. The tool ICE uses is workplace audits, which have pushed deportation numbers to a record high this year. The timing of the Chipotle workers’ firing—after training in non-Latino replacement workers and before receiving long-awaited Christmas bonuses—tasted particularly bitter.

Our immigration system is broken. Despite the incessant repetition of “why don’t they just get in line to immigrate legally?” the truth remains: there is no line. There is no application for an undocumented worker to file, no line to stand in, no way of ever obtaining legal permission to live and work here. There is no legal immigration route for the millions of undocumented U.S. workers. There is no legal immigration route for the high school students whose parents carried them across the border when they were infants or toddlers. There is no way

Comprehensive immigration reform is needed, but comprehensive immigration reform has been blocked for years. Even back in the day when Senator John McCain supported it, comprehensive immigration reform never got close to passage. So the Obama administration, though promising to prioritize immigration reform, decided to seek Republican support by imposing a hardline enforcement and deportation regime.

Rather than focusing its enforcement efforts on finding and deporting criminals, ICE went after workers. Reporting on record deportation numbers, MPR talked to  John Keller, director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota:

“What we think is happening is that ICE itself is continuing to want to show an increase in the number — the raw number — of people that it’s removing from the United States,” Keller said. “And the only way they can do that is by getting the easiest people that fall into their laps.”

The DREAM Act would have offered a circumscribed, on-your-best-behavior opportunity to become legal residents to a limited number of young people. Young people brought to the United States before the age of 16 who have lived here for more than five years and then attended college or served in the military would have qualified to apply for legal residence. Even that was voted down by a Senate that is hamstrung by filibuster rules.

In a July interview, John Keller warned about a growing credibility gap for the president on immigration. He suggested that the president could take some executive actions even if he could not get comprehensive immigration reform through Congress, such as granting deferred enforced departure (DED) to students who would come under proposed DREAM Act provisions.

On December 21, President Obama said he will not give up:

“It is heartbreaking,” President Obama said of the failure of the Senate to pass the legislation, which would provide a path to citizenship for children brought to the country illegally if they serve in the military or attend college. “The kids are going to school, like any other American kid.  They’re growing up.  They’re playing football. They’re going to class.  They’re dreaming about college. And suddenly, they come to 18, 19 years old, and they realize, ‘Even though I feel American, I am an American, the law doesn’t recognize me as an American.  I’m willing to serve my country.  I’m willing to fight for this country.  I want to go to college and better myself, and I’m at risk of deportation.’“One thing I hope people have seen during this lame duck: I am persistent,” the president said. “I am persistent.  You know, if I believe in something strongly, I stay on it.  And I believe strongly in this.”

Though a handful of Democrats also played a role in defeating the DREAM Act, the president said he would engage on immigration reform with Republicans whom, he said, “in their heart of hearts, know it’s the right thing to do, but they think the politics is tough for them.  Well, that may mean that we’ve got to change the politics and I’ve got to spend some time talking to the American people.”

The president is not the only one who can act. In that July interview, Keller issued a call to action to all who care about immigrants and immigration reform:

“If we give in to the political calculations that the president repeated today, that we can’t do anything unless the Republicans join us, it saps our commitment and energy … It turns our back on the very people who are too vulnerable to raise their voices and who are counting on us to fix this issue for this generation. I would challenge anybody who’s frustrated and angered by the lack of action out of Washington to channel that into positive phone calling, conversations with neighbors, working with faith communities, unions, professional associations, Minnesota’s business and other employment-based associations, etc.”

Walk a mile in Minnesota winter? Carrying a baby or groceries? No problem, thought the Central Corridor planners. Then the Stops for Us coalition gave a voice to the folks who live and walk or take the bus home along University Avenue. Because of their efforts, the Hamline, Victoria and Western stops on the Central Corridor line were added to serve the people living in the heart of the Frogtown and Summit-University neighborhoods. On December 15, the federal Environmental Protection Agency recognized the work of Stops for Us, naming it one of five winners of the 2010 Environmental Justice awards

for its efforts to form a broad-based partnership to secure the construction of three new light rail transit stations, which will provide access for the transit dependent communities of East University Avenue and connect residents to housing, jobs, education, and the many amenities located throughout the Twin Cities metropolitan region.

The coalition’s members include:

• Alliance for Metropolitan Stability
• Asian Economic Development Association
• Aurora St. Anthony Neighborhood Development Corporation
• Community Stabilization Project
• District Councils Collaborative of St. Paul and Minneapolis
• Got Voice, Got Power!
• ISAIAH
• Jewish Community Action
• Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
• Transit for Livable Communities
• UFCW Local 789

The official award describes the work of Stops for Us partners:

The Central Corridor Light Rail Transit Project, a nearly $1 billion investment connecting downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis, will provide improved transit service through the heart of the region, particularly for residents living in environmental justice neighborhoods located along the planned route. Construction of the three light rail transit stations will directly benefit the 8,331 people who live within a quarter mile of the stations (81% minority; average median household income for homes near the three stations is $32,000). The Coalition worked extensively to: influence public officials; research station spacing; map demographics; participate in and leverage to the fullest extent possible the National Environmental Policy Act process; draft state legislation; monitor public meetings; testify at public hearings; and implement a media strategy. Moreover, the Coalition has been able to establish a Central Corridor Community Agreements Coordinating Committee to ensure equitable community benefits from related development.

A press release from Stops for Us cites ongoing issues that remain, including “to help small businesses survive, preserve an adequate supply of affordable housing, and enable low- and fixed-income residents to stay in place.”

An awards ceremony is being planned for the Twin Cities in 2011.

CRIME: “As of Dec. 13, violent crime year-to-date has dropped 5.2 percent compared to 2009, which had among the lowest levels in more than 25 years,” says a press release from the city. Mayor R.T. Rybak and Police Chief Tim Dolan will elaborate at a press conference today. What about all the murders at the beginning of the year? “While the number of homicides is up since last year, 2008, 2009, and 2010 to-date have the three lowest homicide levels in 25 years (2009 was the lowest in more than 30 years).”

HOUSING: Good news for landlords may be tied to bad news for homeowners, with rental vacancies down and foreclosures continuing high, according to the latest report from the Minnesota Housing Partnership:

• As unemployment remained high, vacancies in the Twin Cities rental market fell sharply to a two-year low of 4.2%, down from 5% last quarter.

• Over 7,200 Minnesota homes foreclosed during the third quarter, the second highest number for any quarter.

• For the third quarter of 2010, family homelessness declined by 3% compared to the third quarter of 2009, but this reflects a 62% increase over 2006.

• 30% of homes for sale were foreclosures or short sales, while the average number of jobs in residential housing construction continued its low ebb at 9,500 jobs per month, the lowest since 1993 for the quarter.

CHIPOTLE: The Grinch targeted Latino workers at Chipotle restaurants, with “dozens” or “at least 80” workers fired, according to Patch Richfield and City Pages. An ICE audit triggered the terminations. City Pages reports:

At another local Chipotle branch, Latino workers have been asked to train in a recent batch of non-immigrant new hires, and fear that they will be fired as soon as their replacements are ready.

“Many of these are people who have been with the company for years,” Sigal said. “The firings come a couple of weeks before Christmas, which means they won’t be getting the usual Christmas bonuses. There’s a real Scrooge element here.”

SNOW: As snow heads our way again, a few reminders:

• Minneapolis has its winter parking ban in full force, with parking banned on the EVEN side of non-Snow Emergency routes until April. That’s every day, whether it’s snowing or not.
• For special snow events, Minneapolis has info on its snow emergency hotline – (612) 348-SNOW – and on its snow website, where you can also sign up for a phone alert.
• Across the river, St. Paul also has a snow website, a snow hotline (651) 266-PLOW (7569), email alerts, and a Twitter link.
• The St. Paul Fire Department asked all of us to dig out our local fire hydrants, down to the ground, at least a foot around the hydrant and out to the street. Even with crusty, piled-up snow, I dug out the corner hydrant in about 15 minutes yesterday. Check yours – the life you save could be your own.

NPR’s Long Goodbye for Infamous Public Housing Project caught my ear this morning. Cabrini Green is in the news again, as the city of Chicago prepares to move the last two families out and tear down the last standing high-rise.

I lived in Cabrini Green for a while during my college years, learning at least as much from Cabrini Green and friends I made there as I did from the University of Chicago, at the other end of my hour-long bus-and-subway commute.

Like many of the people in the high-rises, I came to Chicago straight off the farm. Drinking coffee and whiskey and dancing were all new experiences for me. Singing in a gospel choir on Sunday morning was different from my country Catholic upbringing. I learned to be wary of cops and Cobra Stones. I went door to door, precinct organizing for one unsuccessful grassroots independent political campaign after another. I got robbed a few times. I  learned about rat traps and steel wool and rat poison, and the futility of all three.

My time in Cabrini was more than 30 years ago, and people in Cabrini were already predicting that they would be removed from what was then and is now some of Chicago’s most valuable real estate, walking distance from the Gold Coast and the Loop. The only real surprise is that it took this long.

I understand the logical arguments, and even agree with them. High-rises are not good places for families with small children, Cabrini Green (and other high-rise housing projects) were warehouses (at best) or concentration camps (at worst) for poor, black families. They were segregated, isolated, and often permeated by violence, gangs and drug dealers.

But that’s not the whole story, as the residents interviewed by NPR point out. Cabrini Green was also a place of community, where people raised families and supported one another. The row houses where Miz Thornton and Miz Hendley lived had front stoops and tiny yards where people could sit and visit. The high-rises were tougher, but even in this rocky ground, human relationships grew.

I spent only a few years in Cabrini. Kenneth Hammond, who was interviewed by NPR, lived their his whole life. Living there for 41 years, he says he felt the community was “like one big family.”

People in a family take care of each other. Moving people out of their community takes away their support systems.

Roosevelt University professor D. Bradford Hunt told NPR:

“I would say that some residents are better off. … They’ve moved into these new mixed-income communities. We know that they feel safer. We know that their housing conditions are better.”

But Hunt says some Chicago public housing residents are in new communities, just as high crime and high poverty as the one they left, and without the friends, family and community network of support they had in Cabrini.

And that’s the crux of the problem: destroying high-rises leaves lots of people out in the cold. Replacement housing in mixed-income communities never has enough room to accommodate all of the  public housing residents displaced by the urban renewal/people removal projects. Tearing down buildings is easier than building up communities.