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My name is Henry. I grew up on a farm near Brooklyn, went away to serve during the turbulent 60s, came back to the Spring Green area, eventually moved to Green Bay then Wausau area and back "home" now after some 40 years.

During that time I served at various levels of government, including as town, village and city administrator/manager. That included stints in coastal North Carolina and the Ozarks of Missouri.

I have had the unfortunate opportunity to witness the widespread damage done by gerrymandered districts. It is so wrong for us to endure the ills of voting districts chopped up in order to assure partisan political advantage, all the while shunning citizens real needs and interests.

Gerrymandered political maps -- are sadly very much a fact of life in Wisconsin, and throughout too much of our nation. These rigged, non-representative political districts empower dark-monied special interests and are responsible for our current polarized government- state and federal.

Gerrymandering is hard at work creating non-competitive State Senate, Assembly and U.S. House districts that give rise to radical representation. That radicalization has caused stalemated government that fails to solve pressing issues -- be it climate change, gun safety, wage reform, competitiveness, immigration reform, police reform or minimum wage reform.

Perhaps moreso than ever, we need legislators who can govern, not bomb-throwers and anarchists who are so willing to tear our democracy asunder!

Senator Johnson and Senator Baldwin need to deliver the Freedom to Vote Act to the American people. To do that, they need to fix the Jim Crow era filibuster which is blocking progress of this overwhelmingly popular and urgently needed legislation.

The Freedom to Vote Act would protect our right to vote, end partisan gerrymandering and counter undemocratic and dangerous election sabotage efforts.

The time is now!

Henry Luxem

Fitchburg

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Letter: It's time to pass the Freedom to Vote Act - Fitchburg star

Jeyasre Kathiravel, a young Dalit woman who worked at a garment factory in South India, was murdered by her supervisor after facing months of sexual harassment. (Justice for Jeyasre)

There was a narrow hallway at my old job where my manager would stand, arms folded, and wait for female employees to walk by. For those of us who were undocumented, this hallway was a gauntlet of unwanted physical contact. I didnt want to speak up. Getting this fast-food job without a valid ID was hard enough, and there was always the threat of deportation.

Its been four years since #MeToo went viral. While the movement has shaken Hollywood, some corporations and certain political circles by holding a few harassers and rapists accountable and forcing leaders into important conversations about sexual violence, many of the most marginalized women still cant share their #MeToo stories for fear of retribution.

When I got the opportunity, I left the fast-food industry for an office job where I never experienced harassment (though I was still paid less than my male counterparts). While thats not the case for all office jobs, I certainly felt safer than before, especially once I received DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an immigration policy granting temporary deferred action from deportation. Today, Im the executive director of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, where were organizing to win a pathway to citizenship and advocating for the rights of undocumented immigrant communities. One of the reasons I do this work is so that no one has to fear walking down the hallway at their job.

However, this isnt only an undocumented womens issue. I recently learned about Jeyasre Kathiravel, a young Dalit woman who worked at a garment factory in South India and was murdered by her supervisor after facing months of sexual harassment. After Jeyasres murder, 25 other women from the same factory came forward with reports of gender-based violence and harassment.

Her murder and the outpouring of reports that followed sparked the launch of #JusticeForJeyasre, a campaign to hold global fashion brands accountable for the gender-based violence and harassment occurring in their factories. When the campaign organized a speaking tour that came to Arizona, I met Thivya Rakini, president of Jeyasres union, the Tamil Nadu Textile and Common Labor Union (TTCU). She shared Jeyasres story and how caste-based discrimination made Jeyasre a target for harassment. Thivya also shared how Jeyasre worked in the factory in order to fund her college education so she could become the first in her family to have a life outside of the garment industry, and how she organized with her union to try and make her workplace better for all of the women garment workers.

Jeyasre worked in the factory in order to fund her college education so she could become the first in her family to have a life outside of the garment industry. She organized with her union to try and make her workplace better for all of the women garment workers.

Theres power in reclaiming your story, and the #MeToo movement gave an important platform to women who survived harassment and abuse. Unfortunately, we can only tell some womens #MeToo stories after its too late. If were going to realize the promise of the #MeToo movement for all women, we need to start with addressing the immigration, caste and other systems that harassers and abusers use to exert power over women.

I saw so much of myself in Jeyasres story, even though were from opposite ends of the world. We were both trapped in systems that only cared about the profit we could make for them. Our wellbeing, our safety, and our dignity didnt factor into their quarterly revenue reports, so they let business continue as usual.

I also saw a shared rejection of this status quo and a shared commitment to organizing for change. Just as Dreamers like myself have come together to form a powerful political force for immigration reform, the women of TTCU have organized fearlessly to stand up to multinational brands and their suppliers. Regardless of how enormous of a problem as gender-based violence and harassment in the workplace is, there are very concrete steps that can be won to take away tools of suppression like the threat of deportation or unequal treatment under the law for Dalit women that are used to harass and to silence.

Undocumented women in the fast-food industry need a pathway to citizenship so they can report and organize against harassment without fear of deportation. Democrats have held leaders in their own party accountable for sexual harassment and forced them to resign. But when they have an opportunity to grant millions of immigrants citizenship, just like they had in the most recent infrastructure bill, they repeatedly deprioritize and fail our community.

Unfortunately, we can only tell some womens #MeToo stories after its too late. If were going to realize the promise of the #MeToo movement for all women, we need to start with addressing the immigration, caste and other systems that harassers and abusers use to exert power over women.

Dalit women in the garment industry need global brands to reverse incentives in their supply chains that create conditions for gender-based violence and harassment in their factories and they need to take responsibility when it happens and use their enormous financial leverage to stop it. These brands make stated commitments to gender equality and safe working conditions but continue to profit from working with suppliers that keep costs low by coercing workers into producing high volumes of clothing for very low wages.

Whether its in our immigration system or our fashion supply chain, we need to fundamentally shift the balance of patriarchal power in our societies. Ensuring that all women can tell their #MeToo stories and end gender-based violence and harassment in the workplace means taking away the weapons that employers use against us: threats of deportation, caste-based discrimination and more. Its past time congressional leaders and global fashion brands took action to make that a reality. From Phoenix to Tamil Nadu, were organizing to make sure they do.

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Four Years After #MeToo, We Need a Movement Led by Women of the Global South - Ms. Magazine

Germn Cadenas was 15 when he packed up a few clothes, his beloved magic trick cards, a treasured coin box and a portfolio of his drawings.

It was 2002. Cadenas, his mother and younger brother were flying from their native Venezuela for a Christmas visit with Cadenass dad who had migrated to Maricopa county, Arizona, two years before hoping to send money to his family as Venezuela descended into chaos.

Reunited in Arizona over the holiday, the family decided what mattered most was staying together. They let their visas expire and settled in.

Cadenas lived in Arizona as an undocumented immigrant for nine years. Nearly 10 years later, hes 34 and a US citizen. Hes a professor of psychology at Lehigh University, and has published a prodigious body of research focusing on the psychology of undocumented immigrants.

For at least a decade, researchers have documented mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, PTSD and feelings of low self-worth in Americas immigrant communities.

Such mental health issues can stem from being marginalized, hunted and detained as well as from feeling dehumanized by xenophobic rhetoric, an exclusionary higher educational system, predatory employment practices, civil rights violations and the uncertainties of changing immigration policies, researchers and advocates say.

Its impossible to accurately say how many of the nations approximately 10.5 million undocumented immigrants and their family members are living with mental health issues tied to their immigration status. But the number of those afflicted is likely to increase as the climate crisis and geopolitical unrest drive more migrants to cross the nations borders.

In Arizona, the epicenter of the USs immigration wars, those who have experienced such traumas first-hand have also pioneered ways to respond to it and are training others seeking to treat it. The stories of Cadenas and other immigrants in Maricopa county illustrate the power of activism to reshape trauma and cope with it.

Cadenas has focused his research on a psychological construct called critical consciousness. Hes found that when immigrants identify systems that psychologically harm them and then engage in social justice activism to resist and dismantle those same systems, their efforts serve as a coping mechanism that helps protect their mental health and helps others heal.

Cadenass interest in the topic stems from experience. His family settled in the Grand Canyon state at the very time it started to became overtly hostile to undocumented immigrants and their American citizen relatives.

Amid congressional paralysis on immigration reform, Arizona was just beginning to pass a series of immigration laws intended to either criminalize undocumented immigrants with deportable felonies or make their lives so miserable, they would leave the state.

Meanwhile, Maricopa countys sheriff, Joe Arpaio, partnered with federal authorities to conduct shock-and-awe immigration sweeps. Knowing how to capture the national spotlight, the sheriff also dispatched swarms of armed deputies to arrest undocumented immigrants traveling through the state or to raid workplaces in search of deportable workers.

It felt like nowhere was really safe, Cadenas recalls. We could be raided at work, or stopped while driving or Ice could come to our home. There was no place of refuge.

Knowing there were laws and voters who were OK with this was horrifying, he says. People like me were treated as if we were less than human.

Cadenas became an activist, publicly opposing the sheriff and state immigration laws while advocating for affordable in-state tuition for undocumented college students and the passage of the Dream Act, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for law-abiding people who arrived in the US at a young age.

This activism, he says, improved his psychological wellbeing. It gave him pride in his culturally rich and resilient Latinx immigrant community. The activism helped him understand he mattered.

Through his activism, Cadenas met other young immigrants who were coping with similar traumas.

Viri Hernndez and her mother Rita have been immigrant rights activists for well over a decade.

Now 30, Viri is the executive director of the Phoenix immigrant civil rights non-profit Poder in Action. When she first got into activism, her mother cooked and chauffeured her and other young activists to marches and demonstrations. Gradually, Rita became more involved.

Once, Viri and Rita helped block a major Phoenix street near an Ice office. The act of civil disobedience landed them both in Arpaios jail a stay Rita mostly remembers for its bad food, icy temperature and Ice authorities telling her she had no civil rights.

Rita was born in Morelos, Mexico, and was forced to marry Marcos, the father of her unborn child, at 17. The pair struggled, Rita says, trying to make a dysfunctional marriage work while living in extreme poverty. Their baby, a girl, died three days after being born prematurely because medical personnel in the area had no available incubator, she says.

Viri, short for Viridiana, was born in 1991. About a year later, mother and daughter crossed the US-Mexico border, Rita says, joining relatives already settled in Maricopa county.

Marcos followed six months later. The couple set down roots in Phoenix and would eventually have five more kids, all American citizens.

The Hernndez clan was now officially a mixed-immigration-status family in which all family members, regardless of immigration status, would experience trauma.

In 2012, sheriffs deputies raided the construction company where Marcos, a carpenter, worked. Hed clocked in early that day and was already out on a job when the raid took place, but he feared the deputies had checked his employment file and now knew where he lived.

The family considered fleeing the state, but instead moved to a hidden corner of the county.

Nothing has ever been easy, Rita says. Her own upbringing and journey to the US was rough. Her kids grew up terrified authorities would snatch their parents and are still working through that trauma.

But successful activism has lifted her spirit and diminished her anxiety, Rita says.

After being released from her short stint in jail, Rita dedicated herself to full-time social justice organizing and educating undocumented immigrants about their civil rights. She helped organize a voter outreach effort, risking getting stopped by sheriffs deputies during her daily 90-mile-round-trip commute. But it paid off, she says. Arpaio was voted out of office in 2016, proving that undocumented immigrants have a powerful voice.

Rita, who is now 49, serves as a leader at Poder in Action, where she organizes with her daughter. The non-profit aims to disrupt and dismantle systems of oppression and determine a liberated future as people of color in Arizona.

There are some things, though, that even activism cannot begin to heal. Every day of the dead, Rita puts on an ofrenda with Virgin of Guadalupe candles lighting up framed pictures of dead relatives, including the baby she lost. As an offering to the soul of the child she still grieves, she bakes bread in the shape of a doll, and sets it on the table along with a small container of yogurt, a glass of milk and a Sees Candy Lollypop.

Like Viri Hernndez and Germn Cadenas, Reyna Montoya was heavily involved in Arizonas immigrant activist community as a student. But she struggled to find a community she felt aligned with.

Montoya had joined Arizonas immigrant activist community in 2010, after she came out publicly as an undocumented college student. She was already heavily involved when her father Mario, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was detained by immigration authorities at a Puerto Rico airport in 2012.

Mario had fled from Mexico to Arizona with his family in 2003 after he had received death threats and was kidnapped by corrupt members of Mexican law enforcement, Montoya knew. Now he sat in a Puerto Rican prison in an Ice unit facing deportation by the Obama administration. Should he be deported to Mexico, his family in Phoenix feared, hed be murdered.

Arizonas immigrant community rallied on her fathers behalf, Montoya says. But no one asked me, How are you doing? What does it mean for you to have your dad in deportation proceedings? That really hurt, although I understand. People who were hurting were hurting others. If you havent processed your own traumas, the cycle continues.

In 2016, Montoya founded Aliento, a Phoenix non-profit that she started with a Soros Fellowship and her desire to create a gentle, culturally sensitive healing environment for undocumented immigrants and their families.

Aliento is housed in a cheerful Phoenix office building with large windows that look out on to cactus gardens. The non-profit connects immigrants struggling with trauma with Spanish speaking therapists. It also focuses on training young leaders. You probably will not find Aliento fellows blocking streets in civil actions, even though they, too, focus on changing policies that are harmful to undocumented immigrants.

Aliento was key in getting on the 2022 ballot a measure that will let voters decide whether to grant in-state tuition and scholarships to all Arizona high school graduates regardless of immigration status, students often known as Dreamers.

Montoya and her partner, Jos Patio, the education and external affairs director for Aliento, are Dreamers themselves.

They have temporary protection from deportation through Daca, an Obama-era permit for Dreamers that some conservatives hope to dismantle in the courts.

Now 30, Montoya recently turned in her sixth Daca renewal application. The possibility of her application getting lost in the shuffle fills her with anxiety. Without Daca, she would become an unprotected, undocumented immigrant once again.

After years in deportation proceedings, Montoyas father was granted political asylum in 2019, Montoya says.

The Daca program that protects her was started by the Obama administration, which also put her father into deportation proceedings. Shes grateful for Daca, yet traumatized by the deportation nightmare. She wonders sometimes if shes the only person who thinks Obama has done bad things.

Maybe its a mistake to assume those who have experienced immigration trauma seek closure, she says. Maybe what they want instead is a simple acknowledgment that harm was done.

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'People who are hurting hurt others': undocumented immigrants pioneer ways to break cycle of trauma - The Guardian

Manchin noted that the Democrats social spending bill would amount to major changes in policy on taxes, climate and social services. While Democrats have brought down the price tag of the social spending bill to $1.7 trillion from $3.5 trillion, the West Virginia Democrat said Democratic leadership only changed the amount of time the policies would last.

One goes for three years, one goes for one year one might go for the full 10 years, do they not intend for those programs to last the full 10 years? Manchin asked. Well if you dont intend for that to happen, whats the real cost? Because were either going to debt-finance it if were not going to pay for it or come back and change the tax code again.

Manchins comments come as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is pushing for the Senate to finish up the legislation before the chamber leaves for the holidays. But the social spending bill still needs to undergo a so-called scrub by the Senate parliamentarian, to ensure that it complies with Senate rules.

And the fate of certain provisions remains uncertain. Manchin opposes including paid family leave in the social spending bill, arguing that any proposal should be bipartisan. In addition, Senate Democrats are pushing to include some type of immigration reform in the social spending bill. Those discussions could go into next week, leaving a tight window before Christmas.

Democrats will need Manchins vote to move forward on the social spending bill, and some Democrats are pushing for Schumer to put the legislation on the floor, even without a public commitment from Manchin. The West Virginia Democrat told reporters this week that he doesnt control the floor schedule and that its up to Democratic leadership to decide when to hold the vote.

But Manchin also argued hes been consistent and his colleagues shouldnt be surprised by his position in the same way they are not surprised by the progressive positions of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Manchin added that he has no intention of leaving the party.

The only thing Ive told my colleagues, I said that if you guys are upset, just go out and elect more liberals, Im not liberal, he said. I dont know what to tell you, I love you all, Im just not. I dont try to change Bernie. Bernie is true to himself, I respect and appreciate that. Why do they want to change me?

Original post:
Manchin issues warning about rising inflation, as clock ticks on social spending bill - POLITICO

While a pathway to citizenship was nixed in the most recent version of the Build Back Better Act, a flagship legislation part of President Joe Bidens agenda, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and immigration advocates still welcome the protections from deportation expected to impact about 6.5 million undocumented immigrants.

Under the House version of the spending bill, Democrats included the third iteration of an immigration plan in the Build Back Better Act. A previous version of the legislation included a pathway to citizenship for certain undocumented immigrants, such as people brought to the country as children, essential workers, farmworkers and those with Temporary Protected Status. That provision was removed from the bill following a ruling by the Senates parliamentarian.

During a press conference on Monday, Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., who chairs the 38-member caucus, explained that legislators instead proposed a parole program which would provide temporary protections of deportation, a five-year work permit and drivers license to eligible undocumented immigrants who pass a background check.

The drivers license would be available in states like Arizona that currently dont issue them to undocumented residents. The drivers licenses will be required to meet federal requirements for identification in domestic airports, allowing immigrants to travel by air without fear of encountering federal immigration enforcement.

The version of the immigration plan in the budget legislation that passed the House applies to people living in the U.S. with no immigration status who arrived in the country before Jan. 1, 2011. They must also meet certain criteria related to criminal record, similar to the current requirements for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, said attorney Ray Ybarra Maldonado in an explainer video posted on Facebook.

For months, immigration advocates have pushed federal lawmakers to pass citizenship for millions within the budget reconciliation process this year.

Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, of United We Dream, an organization that advocates for immigration reform, said groups will continue pressuring the Senate.

This is far from the relief that our immigrant communities deserve, its not what they promised us but we know it will be life-changing. The fight is not over. (Democrats) can still deliver on their promise of a pathway to citizenship, she said.

Ruiz said the version of the bill that the House approved last week will cut the costs of child care, health care and housing for most Americans. The universally subsidized preschool and the expanded child tax credit will help Americans who are still bearing the brunt of the economic downturn caused by the pandemic, he said.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who also spoke in the press call, explained the plan will be entirely paid for by tax increases on high income earners and corporations. He said the plan is intended to benefit people like his parents, families like his.

My dad worked picking crops and in construction of roads, my mom in hospital offices. They never earned a lot, but they worked a lot, Becerra said. We are investing in them, in those families that want to give much more.

United We Dream explained that undocumented children will also be able to use their Individual Taxpayer Identification Number to apply for the expanded child tax credit under Build Back Better. Immigrants with no authorization to work in the U.S. use ITIN to file taxes with the Internal Revenue Service. Currently, a Social Security number is needed to be eligible for the payment, which under BBB would be of $250 or $300 monthly, depending on the age of the child.

Ruiz urged the Senate to keep immigration provisions that will create a parole program for millions of undocumented immigrants, and expand the plan to provide a pathway to citizenship.

The legislation faces a tough and lengthy path and some likely changes in the evenly divided Senate, where Democrats will need every vote in their caucus for the measure to reach Bidens desk.

The Senate will use a legislative procedure known as budget reconciliation, which allows Democrats to bypass the 60-vote threshold needed to break a Republican filibuster.

During a Friday press conference with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in Phoenix, Democratic U.S. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly didnt commit to supporting the Build Back Better Act as passed in the House, but said theyll continue negotiating on the plan.

Continued here:
In lieu of path to citizenship, advocates cheer immigration reforms in spending bill - Arizona Mirror