EthnicMajority

(National Catholic Register) The Catholic Church in the United States stands with undocumented immigrants, declares a letter written by 33 of the nation’s Hispanic bishops.

The letter, released on Dec. 12, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, says the Church sees the suffering face of Jesus in the tribulations of immigrants.

Addressing themselves to those “who lack proper authorization to live and work in our country,” the bishops declare their solidarity with immigrants, promising them that they are not alone or forgotten.

“Many of you perform the most difficult jobs and receive miserable salaries and no health insurance or Social Security. Despite your contributions to the well-being of our country, instead of receiving our thanks, you are often treated as criminals because you have violated current immigration laws,” the bishops said.

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(Reuters) The nation's 33 Hispanic Roman Catholic Bishops released on Monday a strongly worded "letter to immigrants" suggesting illegal immigrants deserve thanks from Americans, and calling for "denunciation of the forces which oppress them."

The bishops have come out in support of comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants before, as they do again in the letter, but it uses stronger language and goes further in offering support to undocumented immigrants.

The letter was released by San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller and Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, the highest ranking Mexican-Americans in the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops.

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(LatinaLista.net) How long does a person have to live in a foreign country before he/she calls it home?

Six months? One year? Three years? Ten years?

The answer, of course, is however long it takes for that person to feel comfortable in their surroundings. While some people quickly adapt and make themselves at home, for others it may take a few years. But it's a safe bet to assume that if a person has been living in a foreign country for 15 years or more, then they're feeling right at home.

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(Huffington Post) For many immigrants arriving in the U.S., maintaining ties with their countries and cultures is becoming easier. Their countries, it seems, are coming straight to their doorstep.

Increasingly, Hispanics "have access to their cultural heritage and language through product and service offerings that are targeted to the Latino community," according to Hispanic Research Inc.

Take Pizza Patron, a new Mexican-themed pizza joint opening up in Fresno, California. "From the colorful decor to some of the pizza ingredients, which include Mexican-style chorizo sausage, Pizza Patron is committed to serving the Hispanic market," according to an article by The Business Journal.

Since 2007 all Pizza Patron restaurants accept Mexican Pesos (bills only) as payment. The Dallas-based pizzeria seeking to open franchises in predominantly Hispanic communities throughout the nation and hire bilingual managers and sales teams.

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(Care2) The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics report was released on November 14, and the numbers show a dramatic spike in crimes against Latinos.

The number was up 11% since last year to 66.6 percent of victims of ethnically motivated hate crimes in 2010. In California, they went up 50%.

These figures for those targeted because of anti-Latino bias are the highest percentage in almost a decade.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said of a previous spike in 2007:

There’s no doubt that the tone of the raging national debate over immigration is growing uglier by the day. Once limited to hard-core white supremacists and a handful of border-state extremists, vicious public denunciations of undocumented brown-skinned immigrants are increasingly common among supposedly mainstream anti-immigration activists, radio hosts and politicians. While their dehumanizing rhetoric typically stops short of openly sanctioning bloodshed, much of it implicitly encourages or even endorses violence by characterizing immigrants from Mexico and Central America as “invaders,” “criminal aliens” and “cockroaches.”

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(Bradenton.com) With growing signs that Hispanic voters are turned off by GOP positions on immigration, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is using his national profile to deliver a message to his party: Tone it down.

(CBS News) It was just another schoolyard basketball game until a group of Hispanic seventh-graders defeated a group of boys from Alabama.

The reaction was immediate, according to the Mexican mother of one of the winners, and rooted in the state's new law on illegal immigration.

"They told them, `You shouldn't be winning. You should go back to Mexico,"' said the woman, who spoke through a translator last week and didn't want her name used. She and her son are in the country illegally.

Spanish-speaking parents say their children are facing more bullying and taunts at school since Alabama's tough crackdown on illegal immigration took effect last month. Many blame the name-calling on fallout from the law, which has been widely covered in the news, discussed in some classrooms and debated around dinner tables.

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(Boston Herald) Jerry Spencer had an idea after Alabama’s tough new law against illegal immigration scared Hispanic workers out of the tomato fields northeast of Birmingham: Recruit unemployed U.S. citizens to do the work, give them free transportation and pay them to pick the fruit and clean the fields.

After two weeks, Spencer said Monday, the experiment is a failure. Jobless resident Americans lack the physical stamina and the mental toughness to see the job through, he said, and there’s not much of a chance a new state program to fill the jobs will fare better.

Gov. Robert Bentley has called such claims "almost insulting" to Alabamians. The new program has signed up about 200 people who want to work, but so far only one employer has sought one worker, the administration said.

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(FoxNews) The NFL’s decision to pick Arizona this week to host the Super Bowl in 2015 has outraged some Hispanic activists who had organized a boycott of the state after a controversial immigration law passed last year.

“In light of Arizona’s hate-based legislation, the action taken by the NFL serves as an endorsement of the state’s abhorrent actions against the Latino and migrant communities,” said Margaret Moran, national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the largest Hispanic civil rights group in the country.

“Instead of supporting efforts that would encourage stakeholders and community leaders to build alliances and re-direct state politics away from hate-based legislation, the NFL has chosen to prove an economic shot in the arm to state that will only continue to oppress an already disadvantaged community.”

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(Seattle Times) Alabama's strict new immigration law may be backfiring. Intended to force illegal workers out of jobs, it is also driving away many construction workers, roofers and field hands here legally who do backbreaking jobs that Americans generally won't.

The vacancies have created a void that will surely deal a blow to the state's economy and could slow the rebuilding of Tuscaloosa and other tornado-damaged cities.

Employers believe they can carry on because of the dismal economy, but when things do turn around, they worry there won't be anyone around to hire.

Many legal Hispanic workers are fleeing the state because their family and friends don't have the proper papers and they fear they will be jailed.

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