Progressive center machine-gunned in San Antonio Sunday morning. One Summer Intern critically wounded.

by Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice filed suit against the state of Arizona in an effort to overturn a stringent anti-immigration law passed in April. The move is a breath of fresh air for immigrant rights supporters. Democracy Now! and the Washington Independent have the story.

This morning, President Barack Obama condemned the “failure by those of us in Washington to fix a broken immigration system” and called on Congress to support reform this year.

While the United States’ legal system is founded on grand ideals like all humans being equal, the law is rarely as benevolent or efficient in practice, especially for immigrants. Different classes of people receive different consideration, and the subsequent disparities are glaringly evident in the lives of immigrants

One of the other folks at Workers United
On today May 1, huge demonstrations for immigrants’ rights will take place in Chicago and other cities. May 1 is an especially appropriate occasion for these demonstrations because it is May Day, International Labor Day.

May Day began in Chicago – in the fight not only for the eight-hour day, but also for immigrants’ rights.

On May 1, 1886, workers throughout the United States engaged in a massive strike to demand the eight-hour day. Chicago was the strike’s center. At that time, Chicago was the fastest growing city in the world. Chicago’s factories were being filled not only by young people being driven off the farms of the U.S. Midwest, but also by workers from England, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Bohemia, Sweden and many other countries.

With the economy sowing fear, and hate crimes against the immigrant
population and Latinos/Hispanics in general claiming victims left and
right, today’s Weekly Immigration Wire takes a look at what groups of
people coming together can do positively, as well as negatively. On
one side we have the GOP and groups like FAIR stoking racism,
xenophobia, and exclusivity, and on the other we have forces coming
together to unify, such as the case with the unions beginning to work
with immigrant groups in Chicago, and the “Compact for Racial
Justice,” formed by NYers in California.