IS THERE A SCHOOL DISTRICT FORCING LATINOS TO SIGN CONTRACTS STATING THEY ARE IN GANGS?

20120228-110919.jpg photo of Enrique Avila, 14, and 16-year-old brother Mario say school authorities in Gaston County forced them to sign contracts identifying themselves as gang members. (EFE) Photo from Latino FOX News

Gastonia, North Carolina – The U.S. Education Department is investigating a school district in North Carolina for allegedly forcing Hispanic students to sign contracts admitting that they belong to gangs.

At least three Hispanic families confirmed that the local school authorities had accused their kids of being gang members.

Enrique Avila, while a sixth-grader at Bessemer City Middle School, was suspended for 10 days for wearing a rosary that his mother gave him.
Evidently, rosaries are identifying symbols used by certain local gangs.
His brother Mario, then in 10th grade, was also accused by school authorities of having links with the 18 Street gang, and they forced him to sign a contract admitting he was a gang member.

Enrique, now 14, recalled that school authorities said that he had to sign or “we’re going to deport your mom or dad.”

Both students signed the contract without their parents being present.
“How is it possible that they didn’t call and warn me. They forced my sons to sign something without the consent of their parents. They have never had problems and are not gangmembers,” Mario Avila, the boys’ father, told Efe.
A similar situation occurred with the son of Silvia Calixto, Edgar Valentin, whom school authorities also supposed to be a gangmember when last year, at the age of 11, he brought a rosary that his mother had given him to school.

“They took me out of class and the school officials insisted that I belonged to a gang, and said if I didn’t sign the contract they were going to find my mother and deport her to Mexico. I have a little sister and I didn’t want anything to happen to her, and so I agreed and signed it,” Valentin told Efe.
The student said that now the police have him under surveillance, and they continuously check him seeking drugs or weapons, and they blame him for any incident of lack of discipline at the school.

Edgar’s mother, who came to Gastonia seven years ago, said that she feels indignant, since her son was forced to agree that he was a gangmember “when it’s not so” and his situation at school has been “very difficult.”

Byron Martínez, who for the past year has been helping these Hispanic families, told Efe that he learned about the abnormalities when he agreed to be a volunteer for a program and helps young people get out of gangs. That was how he came to know the Ventura family, who is of Honduran origin, in October 2011, when brothers Henry and Bryan faced difficulties at school because of their alleged links with gangs.

Alexandra Ventura, the boys’ mother, who brought her sons to the United States to get them away from gangs in Honduras, told Efe that the problems began when Bryan began going to Bessemer City High School.

“They told me he had to sign the contract or my son could not return to school just because he wore red clothing and gloves. In any case, they expelled him and that day he had to walk five hours to get home,” Ventura told Efe.

She said she did not understand what he signed because the document was in English and although later she was given a copy in Spanish, she did not have an interpreter present, or time to examine it because she got very nervous.

With her other son, Henry, he was marked as a gangmember because he was Bryan’s brother and wore a t-shirt with the signatures of several of his schoolmates.

“I didn’t want Henry to lose a whole year of school like his brother and the contract would serve to help him. I remember that the principal filled in all the information after I signed it and even selected the gang my son (supposedly) belonged to,” Ventura said.

Read more: Story by FOX News Latino

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KLEENEX ENGAGES MOM IN HISPANIC-TARGETED CAMPAIGN

THE HISPANIC BLOG BY JESSICA MARIE GUTIERREZ

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Last winter, Kleenex engaged Hispanic children in the US with its “Los Atrapaestornudos,” or “Sneeze Catchers,” campaign. More recently, the initiative began targeting Hispanic moms.

The bilingual campaign, created by Latin Works, MindShare, Mass Hispanic Marketing, Hispania Public Relations, and Studiocom, was originally focused on getting children to sign up online to be “official sneeze catchers” and persuading parents to buy Kleenex tissues. Children who participated in the campaign could play free games on atrapaestornudos.com and received free gifts.

After concluding the first phase of the initiative, Kleenex and its agency partners decided to focus on getting moms to join the fight against the common cold. Moms who sign up on the campaign website have the chance to win a $100,000 gift card and a year’s supply of Kleenex facial tissues.

Kleenex will also work to attract moms by launching in-store events across the country. It will also add a section to its website devoted to explaining the company’s “Sneeze Shield” technology to moms.

During last year’s initiative, Kleenex saw a one-point market-share increase among Hispanic consumers and a four-point market-share gain in Miami, Los Angeles, San Antonio, and Houston, four key cities for the campaign.

Perhaps by reaching out directly to moms online and in person, the company will see even more of an increase in its campaign for Hispanic consumers.

Read More: http://app.prweekus.com/mobile/pages/apparticle.aspx?pagetypeid=128&articleid=229603

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WHAT IS PRESIDENT OBAMA DOING TO FIX THE IMMIGRATION SYSTEM?

THE HISPANIC BLOG

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FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

“We are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea—the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny. That’s why centuries of pioneers and immigrants have risked everything to come here…The future is ours to win. But to get there, we cannot stand still.”

President Obama is calling for a national conversation on immigration reform that builds a bipartisan consensus to fix our broken immigration system so it works for America’s 21st century economy, but he can’t do it alone. Help bring the debate to your community by hosting a roundtable.

CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION IN YOUR COMMUNITY AND HOST A ROUNDTABLE.

President Obama is calling for a national conversation on immigration reform that builds a bipartisan consensus to fix our broken immigration system so it works for America’s 21st century economy and security needs, but he can’t do it alone. That is why we are asking you and other Americans, including business leaders, faith leaders, law enforcement leaders and all Americans that understand that we cannot continue to live with the broken system the way it is – to continue the conversation in your community by hosting a roundtable.

Step 1:
Download the toolkit. Click on link below.

Step 2:
Tell us about your event using the form to the right.

Step 3:
Tell us how your event went and submit the completed toolkit on the follow up form.

http://m.whitehouse.gov/issues/immigration/roundtables

President Obama recognizes that our current immigration system is broken and he is deeply committed to building a new 21st century immigration system that meets our nation’s important economic and security needs. In his State of the Union Address, the President laid out his vision for winning the future. To secure prosperity for all Americans, we must out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world, and fixing our immigration system plays an important part in that plan. As we work to rebuild our economy, our ability to thrive depends, in part on restoring responsibility and accountability to the immigration system.

President’s Vision for Reform
The President plans to create a 21st century immigration system by:

-Continuing to fulfill the federal government’s responsibility to securing our borders;

-Demanding accountability for businesses that break the law by undermining American workers and exploiting undocumented workers;

-Strengthening our economic competiveness by creating a legal immigration system that reflects our values and diverse needs; and
Requiring responsibility from people who are living in the United States illegally.

-Building on Progress
During the last two years, the Obama Administration has taken important steps to improve our immigration system within the boundaries of existing laws. For example, the Administration has:

—-Dedicated unprecedented resources to secure the border;

—-Made interior and worksite enforcement smarter and more effective; and

—-Worked to improve our legal immigration system.

BLUEPRINT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE

Click to access immigration_blueprint.pdf

ACCORDING TO THE PRESIDENT:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama, expressing confidence he will win re-election in November, told a Hispanic audience he would use a second term to seek comprehensive immigration reform.

“My presidency is not over,” Obama said in an interview with Univision Radio when asked about his failure so far to push through an immigration bill. “I’ve got another five years coming up. We’re going to get this done.”

Obama is seeking to shore up support among Hispanic voters, whose strong backing helped him win the White House in 2008. But some in the Latino community are disappointed over the lack of progress toward overhauling the immigration system.

Obama – in an interview broadcast the day before his Thursday trip to Florida, an election battleground state with a large Hispanic population – sought to reassure Latinos he was committed to trying to pass broad immigration reform.

He rejected suggestions that he had broken a campaign promise and put the blame on Republicans in Congress who he said were “unwilling to talk at all about any sensible solutions to this issue.”

“So far, we haven’t seen any of the Republican candidates even support immigration reform,” Obama said, taking aim at his potential opponents in the November 6 election.

The White House hopes that hard-line positions taken by Republican presidential contenders on illegal immigration and border control will help Obama with Hispanic voters in vital swing states like Florida, Nevada and Colorado.

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IS DREAM ACT ON PRESIDENT’S AGENDA?

THE HISPANIC BLOG

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College student Jasmine Oliver, of Warwick, R.I., top left, and Javier Gonzalez, of Pawtucket, R.I., top right, display a banner and shout their support for allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates while attending public colleges in the state, during a Board of Governors of Higher Education meeting on the campus of the Community College of Rhode Island, in Warwick, R.I. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)

President Barack Obama said Congress should take one step toward overhauling the country’s immigration system by passing the DREAM Act, a bill that would provide a path to citizenship for some children of undocumented migrants.

In an interview with Oakland, California-based Radio Bilingue that was rebroadcast Wednesday via Internet, Obama said his administration prioritizes the deportation of undocumented immigrants with criminal records and tries to avoid separating families.

The president said his administration is doing all it can to make the immigration system more humane, but that the most important priority is to fix the country’s immigration laws.

He noted that during his State of the Union address last month he urged lawmakers to approve the DREAM Act, which passed the House of Representatives in December 2010 but has stalled in the Senate.

That bill would offer permanent residence to undocumented high school graduates who enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces or attend college.

Obama said that legislation should be a priority this year, although he lamented that hard-line Republicans were refusing to work in a bipartisan fashion on the issue.

According to the president, it is important that Congress listen to the Hispanic community and other communities affected by the country’s broken immigration system.

An estimated 5,000 U.S. children whose parents have been deported or detained because of their immigration status have been placed in state foster care nationwide, according to an investigation made public late last year by the Applied Research Center.

Obama has acknowledged that his administration’s enforcement policies have caused the break-up of families in some instances and pledged to ensure that children are not separated from their parents without due process.

The president, who will seek re-election in November, supports a “comprehensive” immigration overhaul that would strengthen border security while simultaneously putting many of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States on a path to citizenship.

By contrast, most of the candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination, who on Wednesday squared off in a debate in Arizona, oppose such a plan because they say it would provide amnesty for lawbreakers.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/02/23/obama-pushes-congress-to-make-dream-act-priority-in-2012/#ixzz1nJp4jlpR

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WHICH LEADING HISPANICS WILL ADVISE PRESIDENT OBAMA ON LATINO VOTE?

THE HISPANIC BLOG BY JESSICA MARIE GUTIERREZ

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Prominent Hispanics from across the United States, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Texas Rep. Charles A. González and actress Eva Longoria, are among a group of 35 individuals who will advise Barack Obama in his bid for re-election in November, the president’s campaign team said Wednesday in a statement.

This group of national “co-chairs” of Obama’s 2012 campaign will “serve as ambassadors for the president, advise the campaign on key issues, and help engage and mobilize voters in all 50 states,” the statement said.

They include leading Latinos such as the mayor of San Antonio, Julian Castro; the executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, Maria Elena Durazo; Texas Congressman Charles A. González; the U.S. transportation secretary from 1993-1997 and U.S. energy secretary from 1997-1998, Federico Peña; and actress Eva Longoria.

Other co-chairs of the president’s re-election campaign will include Bill Daley, who served as Obama’s chief of staff from January 2011 to January 2012; Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel; and author and president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, Caroline Kennedy.

“The president’s national co-chairs will be tremendous assets on the ground as we build the biggest grassroots campaign in history,” Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, said in the statement.

“They each share the president’s vision for a future where every American can have a fair shot at success, where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded.”

The co-chairs “are proud of the president’s record and leadership in rebuilding the economy after the worst economic crisis in generations,” the campaign statement said.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/02/22/hispanic-leaders-to-advise-obama-on-re-election-bid/

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