Mediaboss Marketing

American families is one of six topics to be addressed during the final presidential debate on Oct. 22. As the final 2020 presidential debate approaches, experts with the USC Center for the Changing Family based at USC Dornsife share the questions theyd most like the candidates to address. [3min read]

USC experts exploring the changing family hope to learn what the presidential candidates will reveal about their values at the final debate. (Image Source: Pixabay/Gordon Johnson.)

American families is one ofsix topicsto be addressed during the final presidential debate on Oct. 22. It will be the first time during the campaign that both candidates will speak to family issues.

Experts in law, social work and psychology with theUSC Center for the Changing Familybased at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences share the questions theyd most like the moderator to ask.

1. What values are you communicating?

When parents watch this debate, or your past town halls, debates and rallies, with their children, what are the core values that you hope will stand out to them and how do you live by these values?

Gayla Margolinis a professor ofpsychologyat USC Dornsife. Her research identifies how couple and family relationships can be sources of both risk and resilience for children and young adults.

2. What family-friendly policies do you support?

What family-friendly policies do you plan to implement at the national level?

Policies that offer paid family leave and the option for new mothers to work part time have the potential to minimize gender imbalances in the workplace, which helps to minimize them in the household. To successfully implement or expand such policies, labor market and workplace regulations to prevent discrimination against women are necessary.

Mara Pradosis a research scientist at theUSC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research. She studies the determinants of different dimensions of inequality and her research interests have to do with health, gender, labor economics and intra-household decisions.

3. What will you do to fix the social safety net?

Why is the U.S. social safety net so much weaker than those in peer nations and what can we do about it?

Many ideas have been put on the table, including: minimum wage hikes; a child allowance or baby bonds; child support guarantees so the government rather than noncustodial parent takes the risk of nonpayment; universal basic income; eliminating time limits on TANF (welfare) benefits or raising the federal contribution to TANF, which has remained at $16.5 billion since 1996. Which solutions would you support?

Clare Pastoreis a professor of the practice of law at theUSC Gould School of Lawand an expert on poverty, social welfare programs, access to justice, legal ethics, and civil rights. She is the co-author of the leading poverty law textbook and has litigated many cases in the areas of poverty and civil rights.

4. How will you protect the children of immigrants?

Will you ensure that families of mixed immigration status are able to remain together? What forms of immigration reform would you offer to protect immigrant families, especially the children of immigrants?

Blanca Ramirezis a doctoral candidate in theDepartment of Sociologyat USC Dornsife. She is researching the broader consequences of a deportation regime including the implications of immigration detention and deportation on the immigrant Latino family.

5. What will you do to support working mothers?

What plans do you have to support mothers in the workforce and ensure the strength of the early childhood sector?

Last week the Labor Department reported that 865,000 women left the workforce in September, nearly four times more than the number of men who left. Many of the jobs that women left were in sectors vital for American economic prosperity, including early childhood education and childcare.

Dorian Traubeis an associate professor at theUSC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. Her research focuses on early childhood education and development. She specifically examines the role of technology and social programs to assist families in need who are parenting children ages 05.

About the Center for the Changing Family

Comprising an interdisciplinary group of faculty members from throughout the university, the USC Center for the Changing Family supports and promotes the study of family systems, close relationships, and mental and physical health across the lifespan.

Read more:
Debating the American family: 5 important questions for Trump and Biden > News > USC Dornsife - USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and...

BY ISN STAFF | October 1, 2020

In 2004, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) made immigration reform a major public policy priority of the Catholic Church in the United States. In 2005, after engaging broad stakeholders, the USCCB created the Justice for Immigrants (JFI) campaign in an effort to unite and mobilize a growing network of Catholic institutions and individuals in support of humane treatment of immigrants and refugees and immigration reform.

Pope Francis sits with refugee children from Syria at the Vatican. [Image via USCCB/JFI]

We celebrate 15 years of the Justice for Immigrants initiative and the amazing accomplishments of Catholic organizations to welcome, protect, promote, and integrate immigrants and refugees coming to and living in the United States. While we are pleased to highlight the work that has been done by the Church and Justice for Immigrants to advance the humane treatment and legalization for immigrants, we note that the work is far from done. The Church redoubles its commitment to the Justice for Immigrants initiative and to recognizing the human dignity and rights of immigrants and refugees and the promotion of legalization and legislative reform. Our efforts are rooted in the Gospel and the need to recognize the face of Jesus in every person. Because of this, we will continue our work to educate Catholics about the Churchs teaching on promoting the human dignity of every person, including the immigrant and the refugee. We will also continue to encourage lawmakers and community leaders to prioritize reform of our broken system and to avoid politicization of our immigrant and refugee brothers and sisters.

To commemorate the 15 year anniversary, Justice for Immigrants will be conducting a webinar series and has also issued a new policy priorities document (available in English and Spanish) which is organized around what Pope Francis referred to as our response to the challenges posed by contemporary migration: Welcome, Protect, Promote, and Integrate. Visit http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org for more information about the USCCBs Justice for Immigrants campaign.

The Ignatian Solidarity Network is a national core committee member of Justice for Immigrants.

Here is the original post:
USCCB President and Migration Chair Celebrate 15 Years of Justice for Immigrants Initiative - Ignatian Solidarity Network

Central American migrants are seen inside an enclosure in El Paso, Texas, March 27, 2019. They were being held by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and turning themselves in to request asylum. Under Trump administration policy, the migrants must be returned to Mexico and apply for U.S. asylum from there. (CNS photo/Jose Luis Gonzalez, Reuters)

Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is marking the 15th anniversary of the Justice for Immigrants campaign to unite and mobilize Catholic organizations and individuals to welcome, protect, promote and integrate immigrants and refugees coming to and living in the United States.

In that time, the campaign and the Catholic Church as a whole have accomplished much to advance the humane treatment and legalization for immigrants, said Archbishop Jos H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the USCCB, and Auxiliary Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville of Washington, who is chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration.

But that the work is far from done, the prelates said in a joint statement Sept. 29.

The church redoubles its commitment to the Justice for Immigrants initiative and to recognizing the human dignity and rights of immigrants and refugees and the promotion of legalization and legislative reform, Archbishop Gomez and Bishop Dorsonville said.

Our efforts are rooted in the Gospel and the need to recognize the face of Jesus in every person. Because of this, we will continue our work to educate Catholics about the churchs teaching on promoting the human dignity of every person, including the immigrant and the refugee, they said.

The Catholic bishops, other Catholic leaders and the Justice for Immigrants campaign will also continue to encourage lawmakers and community leaders to prioritize reform of our broken system and to avoid politicization of our immigrant and refugee brothers and sisters, they added.

In 2004, the USCCB made immigration reform a major public policy priority of the U.S. Catholic Church.

A year later after engaging broad stakeholders, the USCCB created the Justice for Immigrants campaign in an effort to unite and mobilize a growing network of Catholic institutions and individuals in support of humane treatment of immigrants and refugees and immigration reform, according to a USCCB release.

The campaigns website, http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org, includes USCCB statements on immigration and related topics, including Dreamers legislation in Congress; Catholic social teaching; anti-trafficking resources; information on COVID-19 and its impact on immigrant communities; and the stories of immigrants themselves. Information on the site is routinely updated, according to the USCCB.

To commemorate its 15th anniversary, Justice for Immigrants is conducting a webinar series; it began Sept. 30 and will continue every Wednesday through Nov. 12.

It also has issued a new policy priorities document, available in English and Spanish, which is organized around what Pope Francis referred to as our response to the challenges posed by contemporary migration: Welcome, protect, promote and integrate.

Go here to see the original:
USCCBs Justice for Immigrants campaign marks 15 years of advocacy - The Record

A federal court has temporarily blocked a steep increase in fees for such services as citizenship and asylum application that was set to take effect Friday. Thats good news for migrants, but it poses a challenge for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which gets almost all its budget from fees for services. (Photo by University of Findlay/Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON A federal judge late Tuesday blocked a steep increase in application fees set to take effect Friday for people seeking U.S. citizenship, an increase that advocates feared would have locked many immigrants out.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White said that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services did not follow proper procedures when it ordered the higher fees. He also said the two men running USCIS and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, did not have the authority to approve the increases because both men serve in acting roles.

Arizona advocates welcomed the courts action, saying the increases would have almost doubled the cost of naturalization, from $650 to as much as $1,170, putting the cost of citizenship out of reach for many.

These community members are landscapers and they clean houses, so theyre not in the high-income bracket, said Petra Falcon, executive director of Promise Arizona. Applying for citizenship is a luxury.

A USCIS spokesperson said in an email that the agency is reviewing the ruling on the fee rule and has no further comment at this time.

While the ruling helps migrants in the short term, it could have long-term implications for the agency, which draws almost all of its budget from fees and currently faces a $1 billion shortfall.

Migration Policy Institute researcher Sarah Pierce said the ruling is a win for USCIS customers people seeking permanent residency, work permits and naturalization, among other services.

But of course theres a lot of concerns about USCISs budgetary problems, Pierce said.

Migration Policy Institute said fees were last raised in 2016, when the cost for a non-military immigrant to apply for citizenship was set at $650.

The new fees that were set to take effect Friday would have raised citizenship application fees to between $1,150 and $1,170. Asylum seekers would have had to pay a $50 fee previously covered by other application charges and the cost of suspending a deportation would have grown more than five times.

When the new fees were proposed on July 31, USCIS said the increases were in line with previous years when the agency set a weighted average increase of 20% to help recover its operational costs. The July 31 statement said revenue from the fee increases would go toward increased costs to adjudicate immigration benefit requests, detect and deter immigration fraud, and thoroughly vet applicants.

Ira Mehlman, the media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, disagreed with the courts ruling that blocked the increase, saying USCIS should be able to charge what it needs to keep operating.

In order to be able to keep the agency afloat they needed to have the people who are directly using the services pay for the cost of maintaining this organization, Mehlman said.

But the agencys budget deficit has only become an issue in recent years, Pierce said, as business has declined and it has invested more in fraud detection and enforcement.

Applications to the agency, and thats fees to the agency, have significantly decreased over the last two years, Pierce said. In addition to that while their (USCIS) income was decreasing, their costs were increasing.

Pierce said the agency has been pushing austerity measures to cut costs or raise prices on customers moves that Falcon said targets poor immigrants and keeps them from becoming citizens. It would also increase the burden on nonprofit organizations like hers that may provide financial help to those seeking citizenship.

But that means were going to have to step up and raise money to support the people who normally would be afforded a waiver of application fees, Falcon said.

In August, USCIS made drastic cuts to its services to avoid furloughs for nearly 70% of its workforce.

Theres a good chance that this could be the final straw that pushes USCIS over the edge and make them go through the furlough that they have threatened twice before this year, Pierce said of the court ruling.

Theres another element of the ruling that could affect the agency, said Ilya Shapiro, an expert at the Cato Institute who wrote a brief opposing the fee increases: Its questioning of the authority of acting USCIS Director Ken Cuccinelli and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf.

A Government Accountability Office report in August found that Wolf and Cuccinelli are serving improperly because their appointments violated the laws governing federal nominations.

Shapiro said that makes it not a fees case, its a government structure case. Because their appointments were not made as required by law, their exercise of authority under the relevant immigration laws was improper as well.

That could have larger consequences for Trump administration immigration policy, Pierce said.

If other judges agree with this judge, then that could mean we have a domino effect of a series of decisions that unravel a lot of the Trump administration immigration policies, she said. It could be the start of a really significant and interesting trend.

The ruling came one day before the Senate Homeland Security Committee voted 6-3 to send Wolfs nomination to the full Senate. The party-line vote came more than a year after Trump nominated Wolf.

Shapiro said Wolf will likely win confirmation, which could make Whites ruling moot. At least until the next election.

Chad Wolf and maybe even Ken Cuccinelli will be approved by the Senate and then they can start the process of reimposing the fees again, Shapiro said. Ultimately this will be decided by whether the Trump administration is reelected or not.

Follow Cronkite News on Twitter.

More:
Judge halts fee hike that would have nearly doubled cost of citizenship - Cronkite News

KNKX's Take the Mic and South Seattle Emerald present Election 2020 - The Youth Vote: A conversation about leadership, ethics and values and how they factor into choosing a candidate, a free Zoom event on October 14 at 4 p.m. PT. The event will be hosted by KNKX News Director Florangela Davila and South Seattle Emerald Editor-in-Chief/Publisher Marcus Harrison Green.REGISTER HERE.

Young people make up a projected 37% of the 2020 electorate, yet historically they vote less than other age groups. Will it be different this time? The pandemic crisis and the call for racial justice and institutional changes are top concerns as we move closer to this high stakes election. Ethics and values also underpin our decisions. This virtual event aims to bring together first-time and new voters with older adults with a track record of civic leadership to discuss a number of issues through the lens of beliefs and values, touching on things like:

Because this is leading up to the general election, we want to frame this conversation around the power to change systems for the greater good and how that ties in with being an informed voter.

The six young interviewers will ask the four speakers questions relating to the themes of conflict/failure, challenges, accountability, transparency, priorities and representation, with the speakers drawing on their personal and professional experiences; and offering examples of how they have faced challenging situations and how that speaks to leadership and community building.

Speakers

Gary Locke - As Governor of Washington State (the first Chinese American to be elected governor in United States history and the first Asian American governor on the mainland), U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and U.S. Ambassador to China, Gary Locke has been a leader in the areas of education, employment, trade, health care, human rights, immigration reform, privacy, and the environment. Currently, Gary Locke serves as the interim president of Bellevue College, which is the third largest higher education institution in Washington State serving nearly 30,000 students annually.

Victoria Woodards - Victoria Woodards has called the City of Destiny her home for nearly her entire life. She is a proud graduate of Tacomas Lincoln High School and served as a soldier in the United States Army. Before becoming Mayor of Tacoma in 2018, she served for seven years as an at-large member of the City Council. During that time, she launched the Citys Equity and Empowerment initiative which led to the establishment of its Office of Equity and Human Rights. She spearheaded the Citys Project PEACE initiative which bridged community members with the Tacoma Police Department and has worked to more fully engage the City's youth in community decisions that impact them every day, by expanding Student Government Day and establishing the Mayor's Youth Commission of Tacoma..

TraeAnna Holiday - TraeAnna Holiday is a true Seattleite who has watched her city change in many ways. She took her creative passion to Howard University, where she studied theater management in her first year of college. Then through the communications program at UW Tacoma, she began to understand her value in the field; always wanting to tell the stories she saw before her. In a Communities in Economics course, she learned about the academic version of displacement- gentrification. Through studying abroad and being displaced by gentrification, she's now fueled to tell her neighborhood's story through film and education while working on the solutions. Working with Africatown Community Land Trust and producing content with Converge Media are two of the ways shes begun to do just that. As a steward of community with a passion for storytelling, she brings her ideals to life and strives to help others do the same.

Michael Liang Since 2018, Michael has been Program Director of Spaceworks, with the aim of making Tacoma culturally vibrant and economically strong by providing space, training and resources for artists and creative entrepreneurs. Prior to that, he spent ten years as a designer and creative leader with the National Park Service. Michael has a B.F.A. in art and design from the University of Michigan, a certificate in natural science illustration from the University of Washington, and is currently finishing his M.S. in Education. He is passionate about building community and tapping into the transformative power of the arts for social good.

Young Interviewers

Bitaniya Giday, age 17, is the 2020-2021 Seattle Youth Poet Laureate. She is a first-generation Ethiopian American residing in Seattle. Her writing explores the nuances of womanhood and blackness, as she reflects upon her familys path of immigration across the world. She hopes to restore and safeguard the past, present, and future histories of her people through traditional storytelling and poetry.

Alicia Ing, age 18, is a freshman at the University of Washington, pursuing her studies in International Business and Diversity. Alicia has been active in community advocacy and leadership for over four years, and currently works as the Program Coordinator for the Seattle-based nonprofit Hey Mentor.

Mia Dabney, age 16, is in the 11th grade at Cleveland High School in Seattle, and is a youth council member for Skyway Youth Network Collaborative. She is currently working with the NAACP youth council to bring ethnic studies to the Seattle School District. Mia says, I believe changes will come if we continue to rise up together and value and respect each others differences.

Brooklyn Hose, age 18, graduated from Curtis Senior High School and is currently a student enrolled at the University of Washington with an interest in either a major in English or Business and a minor in Ethnic Studies. She is a local artist in the Tacoma community and emphasizes through her work the importance of empowering the voices of the underrepresented and marginalized.

Dylan Tran, age 22, is a full-time educator at Lincoln High School in his hometown of Tacoma, Washington. He is a child of Southeast Asian refugees and a graduate of Lincoln High School and the University of Washington.

Maeve Glackin-Coley, age 17, is currently a junior at Stadium High School in Tacoma. Shes interested in social justice, philanthropy, painting, and skiing. Maeve is a member of Greater Tacoma Community Foundations Youth Philanthropy Board and the Tacoma Mayors Education Youth Committee.

Event Hosts

Florangela Davila has been the News Director at KNKX since 2019. She spent 14 years working in both news and features at The Seattle Times, earning local, regional and national awards. As the managing editor at Crosscut/KCTS9, she helped transform the newsroom, driving online and broadcast coverage about immigration, equity and the arts; she hosted the TV news segment Crosscut Now; and she chaired the organization's Race and Equity Committee. A former faculty member in the Department of Communications at the University of Washington, she also worked in communications at Forterra, an environmental nonprofit where she curated and produced the Ampersand stage show. She has a B.A. in both Political Science and French from University of California-Berkeley and a Master's in Journalism from Columbia University. She got her start in public radio as a freelancer at KPLU in 2008.

Marcus Harrison Green is the publisher of the South Seattle Emerald, and a columnist with The Seattle Times. Growing up in South Seattle, he experienced first-hand the neglect of news coverage in the area by local media, which taught him the value of narratives. After an unfulfilling stint working for a Los Angeles based hedge-fund in his twenties, Marcus returned to his community determined to tell its true story, which led him to found the South Seattle Emerald. He was named one of Seattle's most influential people by Seattle Magazine in 2016.

Read this article:
Join Us For Election 2020 - The Youth Vote Event - knkx.org