Posts

US Immigration Label

House Passes Immigration Bills To Grant Citizenship For Dreamers And Farmworkers

/in , /by

This week the House passed two proposals that would legalize the subsets of around 11 million immigrants who are living in the US without legal permission. The hope is to get the bill to President Biden’s desk as quickly as possible to give immigrants an easier chance at gaining citizenship and remaining in the US safely. 

All House Democrats and nine Republicans voted to approve the American Dream And Promise Act, which passed with a vote of 228 to 197. The proposal would “allow more than 2.3 million Dreamers, or unauthorized immigrants who came to the US as minora, as well as beneficiaries of certain temporary humanitarian programs, to gain permanent legal status and eventually, U.S. citizenship,” according to news sources. 

The House also passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act with a vote of 247 to 174. This act will grant legal status to the hundreds of thousands of farmworkers in the US who don’t have the proper paperwork but provide some of the most essential services and labor to the entire nation. Thirty Republicans voted in favor of the bill and one Democrat voted against it. 

Embed from Getty Images

Biden has continuously claimed that he plans to legalize most of the country’s undocumented population which has been met with a lot of Republican push-back. The two bills on their own are Democrats best chance at advancing these bills and getting these citizens documented. Nancy Pelosi recently spoke on the two bills:

“It’s always been a pleasure for me to sing praises of our Dreamers. They make us proud, for us, this is a day not only passing legislation, but a cause for celebration.”

If signed into law the American Dream And Promise Act would make all DACA recipients and other undocumented immigrants who were brought into the US before they were 18 eligible to apply for a 10-year period of conditional permanent residency. 

Embed from Getty Images

Applicants would be eligible to apply for permanent residence if they earn a college degree, enroll in a bachelor’s program for two years, serve in the military for two years, or if they work in the US for a three-year period. 

More than 300,000 immigrants currently live in the US with Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Enforced Departure, all of which could be eligible to apply for permanent residency under the bill if they meet all the requirements. 

“The Farm Workforce Modernization Act would allow immigrant farmworkers to apply for a temporary and renewable immigration status if they have worked at least 180 days in the U.S. during a two-year period. Eligible workers would be allowed to request green cards if they complete four or eight years of additional agricultural work, depending on whether they have performed such work for more than or less than 10 years,” according to CBS. 

The proposal would also make visa’s valid for three years. Congressional Democrats proposed to expand legal immigration and invest in Central American border controls as well. Dreamers, TPS holders and farmworkers could automatically be eligible for a green card under the proposal.

US Immigration Label

Joe Biden Faces Long Uphill Battle To Reform Immigration After Four Years Of Trump

/in , /by

Between the constant talks of building a multi-billion dollar border wall and families being separated from their kids who are then kept in cages, the last four years have been a major nightmare for immigrants all throughout the US.

Read more
TV Remote with TV

Study Finds An Over Emphasis Of Criminality In Immigrant Representation On TV

/in , /by

A new study performed from the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center’s Media Impact Project, which is titled “Change the Narrative, Change the World: How immigrant representation on television moves audiences to action,” examined 129 immigrant characters from 59 different narrative TV shows that have aired within the past two years. The goal of studying through 97 episodes of television was to better understand how Hollywood generally portrays immigrants/immigration in some of its most popular programs; such as Orange Is The New Black, Madam Secretary, and The Conners. 

Embed from Getty Images

The study found that there has been a major improvement in quantity of immigrant representation on TV, however, there’s a continued over-emphasis of criminality in practically all immigrant characters on these shows, and a majority of these characters only receive centralized plot lines if they’re undocumented. 

Specifically, the study found that about one-fourth (22%) of immigrant characters on the shows studies were associated with criminality to some degree and 11% with incarceration (either were imprisoned on the show or were previously imprisoned). In 2018, however, the same group performed a similar study and found that the number of incarcerated immigrant characters went down from 34% to that 11%. 

There was also a major emphasis in the study on how television still has an over-representation problem when it comes to portraying immigrants as undocumented. Of the TV characters observed 63% were claimed to be undocumented on their shows, compared to only 24% of American immigrants. 

Embed from Getty Images

The representation of immigrants as being undocumented and being profiled as such, however, has also increased during a time in politics where immigration is a major point of contention for many. For example, in Orange Is The New Black’s final season, a major portion of the episodes were spent in an ICE detention facility and was extremely graphic in terms of how these immigrant characters were treated by officers; while the show’s themselves are fictional, the real-life situations occurring at our border now that these plots are based on is unsettling for viewers. 

Half of the immigrant characters on TV in 2019 were of Latinx origin which is actually representative of the situation in the US, however, Asian and Pacific Islander immigrants continue to remain under-represented on TV, taking up only 12% of the characters observed. 

The study also discussed how practically every show ignored the very real reality of what it’s like to be a transgender or gender non-conforming immigrant, as well as undocumented black immigrants. These demographics of individuals are some of the most severely treated individuals in this country, however, you’d never know based on the lack of representation/coverage in mainstream media. There are currently 600,000 undocumented black immigrants in the US and a fifth of them are currently facing deportation in the middle of a pandemic. 

While there have been several LGBT+ identifying immigrant characters in TV within the past year, none of them identified as transgender or gender non-conforming. Transgender immigrants are often placed in the wrongly gendered detention camp, much like they are placed in wrongly gendered prisons. The issue has always existed in America, and yet Hollywood and the media has remained silent. While representation of these characters has improved over the past few years, there’s still a lot of work to be done.