14th
Phoenix, Ariz. - 11 July 2015

Donald Trump’s plans for illegal immigrants/El plan de Donald Trump para los inmigrantes

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versión en Español abajo

Donald Trump’s plans for illegal immigrants during the 2016 presidential elections may be the most aggressive position of any of the candidates. But just how much of his plans for illegal immigrants and his allegations against them are based on facts? The New York City businessman outlines his immigration reform strategy much like a business plan, listing the three core principles of “real immigration reform” and detailing his three-part plan. His three core beliefs, according to his campaign site, are:

“A nation without borders is not a nation.”
“A nation without laws is not a nation.”
“A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation.”

Also, his three plans for immigration reform are to build a wall along the U.S./Mexico border and make Mexico pay for it, “defend the Laws and Constitution of the United States” and “put American workers first.”

Trump officially announced his bid for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in Las Vegas, Nev., on June 16, 2015, by immediately taking a strong stance on immigration control, illegal migration from Mexico and suggesting hardliner plans for illegal immigrants. While the media have been reporting what they deem as radical and racist sentiments from Trump toward Mexicans and other immigrants, like calling them drug traffickers, criminals and rapists, Trump’s campaign page cites his allegations to credible news sources.

what
The number of Mexican immigrants has increased from about 2 million in 1980 to more than 11.7 million in 2014.

Immigration today in the United States

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To understand and discuss current proposals and ideas regarding immigration today in the United States and the reform thereof, factual information must be used to argue cases for and against said proposals. While the effects of both legal and illegal immigration can be studied various ways and the details skewered to represent one point of view or another, it would be more reasonable to evaluate the arguments against immigration. The most-apparent misconceptions are that all Hispanics are immigrants, they all immigrated illegally, they all are Mexican and they can’t speak English. The Migration Policy Institute lists the following statistics about immigrants in the United States:
– Approximately 316 million people lived in the United States in 2013. – Of those, approximately 41.3 million, or 13%, were immigrants.

what

Immigration in the 2016 Election

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“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” This has been our nation’s promise to countless numbers of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island and the United States in general from the world over since 1886. However, even as a nation of immigrants created for the freedom and safe-haven of other immigrants, we have polarized our beliefs about who should be here, how to manage their intake and what language they should speak as well as who should not be here and how to keep them out. As a result, the 2016 presidential election and party primary candidates have a tremendous focus on immigration and border security, with GOP front-runner and Washington outsider Donald J. Trump proposing to build a border wall, make Mexico pay for it and deport all illegal immigrants currently in the United States.

Arizona

Uncertain future for detained #Dream9: an example of sourcing the story

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(a post discussing sourcing with examples from backgrounding work I did on The New York Times July 23 piece 9 in Deportation Protest Are Held in Bid to Re-enter U.S.)

This week on Tuesday, I got invited to help locate sources and gather background information for a brief follow-up story that Julia Preston was working on. A big part of reporting is reaching sources – and this becomes doubly high pressure when working on a breaking news or developing story. The day before, nine protesters were intentionally apprehended in Nogales on Monday morning. In press releases sent out before the event, protest organizers said that eight young immigrants who’d grown up in the U.S. but then had either voluntarily left or been deported would be protesting family separation (a ninth person joined the initial eight during the protest). They’d try to cross the U.S.-Mexico border at Morley Gate, a pedestrian crossing between Nogales, Sonora and Nogales, Arizona and request humanitarian parole.

behind the scenes

Family through a fence

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A bittersweet reunion lets three young immigrants see – and reach for – their deported mothers through a fence. Read more here in the June 11 The New York Times piece: Immigrants Reach Beyond a Legal Barrier for a Reunion

As a young man and two young women approached the border from the Arizona side, a cry rang out through the bars of the border fence. Waiting for their children in matching turquoise t-shirts on the Mexican side were their mothers, separated for years since their deportations for being illegally present in the U.S.

The six came together, reaching through the spaces between the thick metal poles, with sobs and laughter under the watchful (and not always dry) eyes of organizers, reporters, Border Patrol, and Mexican Federales last Tuesday – the culmination of days of travel and two months of planning. All three children are in President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program which gives qualified applicants the ability to go to school, work and in some states get drivers licenses while they wait for a more permanent resolution to their legal status limbo. It’s a way for participants to start coming out of the shadows.

Arizona

MFM blog update: Article database over 1,000

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Need a place to start research or just want to learn more about border issues? Missing from Mexico’s database of articles, radio pieces, video and official reports about border issues, forensics and reporting is now over 1000 entries – and growing! Plus don’t forget – if you see something that should be in here, article submissions welcome here.