Immigration

When the news media reported the arrests of hundreds of foreign students who were enrolled at a fake university that was set up by ICE, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) lambasted what they described as a cruel and corrupt scheme to entrap immigrants.According to immigration lawyer Jeremy McKinney, this is the latest example of the Trump administration's "hostility towards international students."It may not be a good idea to create fake universities to catch foreign students who commit student visa fraud, but it is not "a cruel and corrupt scheme to entrap immigrants." Student visa fraud is a very real problem, and the people complaining about using fake universities aren't suggesting a better way to deal with it.ADVERTISEMENTWho created the fake university scheme?This was not the brainchild of the Trump administration. The Obama administration created it, but that doesn't seem to matter.Democrats such as Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.) … [Read more...] about Trump keeps Obama immigration program, and Democrats blast him

President Donald Trump followed his campaign promises by signing two executive orders for the southern border wall and immigration policy.   The wall The plan is to start construction as soon as possible on the wall across a large section of the 2,000-mile-long border and to limit immigration from several countries with Muslim majorities, including Yemen, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia and Syria. Many of these countries are facing refugee crises due to U.S. or other foreign intervention. The executive order for the southern border wall caused Enrique Peña Nieto, the President of Mexico, to cancel his upcoming trip to the U.S.  No specific cost details have been announced, but Trump has said Mexico will ultimately pay for the wall, which is estimated to cost upwards of $20 billion or more. RELATED: UA students walk out in protest of President Trump's climate change vision Benjamin Fortna, director and professor of modern Middle East and Ottoman Empire history at … [Read more...] about Trump executive orders on immigration, border wall met with apprehension

While teaching her class, Pouye Khoshkoo, a graduate assistant teaching Persian at the UA was asked, “What do Iranian girls look like?”  Khoshkoo used the class time to look up photos and describe to students first-hand what she knew. They asked her specifically, “are they under the veil, covered, burqa?” Khoshkoo responded, “I’m saying no, it’s like what you see here and then we have to Google it.” Khoshkoo showed them what she described as fashionable, nice and colorful styles and some of the class still didn’t believe.  “Then you have to go show it on two different sources and make them believe that people are not different around the world,” she said. When she was younger, Khoshkoo said she had the energy to answer the student’s similar questions about the Middle East to try and eliminate any misconceptions that they have. Today, those same questions wear on her.  “When I was younger, I … [Read more...] about Definitions of humanity: Pouye Khoshkoo describes life after Trump’s immigration ban

Immigration has been a hot topic lately with concerns regarding the status of people who live in the U.S. under DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). The platform on the right is to clamp down on immigration and paint these undocumented migrants as criminals. The right fires up its base by using vocabulary that dehumanizes and criminalizes these migrants. Undocumented migrants are commonly referred to as illegal immigrants, or even just as illegals.  These names are not used by just one side either. They are used by people who are pro-immigration and anti-immigration alike. Rhetoric is extremely important when talking about these issues because it can create an inherent bias about how these people are perceived.  Over the summer, I interviewed Chelsea Halstead, deputy director for the Colibrí Center for Human Rights, which is a nonprofit organization based in Tucson that works closely with people who had migrant family members go missing.  I conducted this … [Read more...] about OPINION: Immigration rhetoric dehumanizes undocumented people

Marion Maréchal-Le Pen addressed the American Conservative Union’s CPAC conference Thursday afternoon, and discussed the place of France in Europe and the world and the rise of Islam in her home nation.Making her first political speech since bowing out of French domestic politics in 2017, Le Pen — who was France’s youngest modern-era parliamentarians after she was elected as a candidate of the populist Front National aged just 22-years-old — stressed the importance of the Franco-American friendship, slammed the European Union as a force destroying the identities and freedoms of European nations, and discussed the rise of Islam in Europe. WATCH LIVE: @MARION_M_LE_PEN at #CPAC2018 https://t.co/9kwBNOeUEX — CPAC 2019 (@CPAC) February 22, 2018 Speaking of how attacks on French culture by the European Union had left the nation weak and unable to resist Islamisation, Marion said: “I refuse the standardised world of the EU… all I want is … [Read more...] about WATCH: Marion Le Pen Tells CPAC That France is Becoming The ‘Little Niece of Islam’