True or false: No child in this country can be denied a public education. The answer is true, thanks to the Supreme Court's 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision, which held that schools could not exclude children based on their immigration status. This is settled law, but not for...

In 2004, a film called "A Day Without a Mexican" explored a thought experiment: what would happen if all of California's Mexican population suddenly vanished? The "mockumentary" was based on the premise of a magical-realist pink fog that descends on the state and takes away all residents with blood ties...

Since the DREAM Act failed to pass the Senate in December and Republicans took over the House of Representatives, many people have argued that any pro-immigrant legislation is impossible. The chances are indeed slim, but the movement that emerged to press for DREAM is far from accepting defeat. In fact,...

The last twelve months have been dispiriting for advocates of comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). First CIR didn't make it onto the 2010 legislative agenda. Then Arizona passed SB 1070, and other states expressed interest in following suit. Then the DREAM Act failed to pass the Senate and the new House...

Anyone who has ever played on a bad Little League team will recall the age-old wisdom that you learn more from defeat than from victory. While winning prompts celebration, losing demands critical reflection. The same is true in politics: any advocate worth her salt will use defeat as a learning...

With the House passing the DREAM (Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act last Wednesday and the Senate set to vote on it as soon as this Friday, now is a good time for a personal account of what's at stake with DREAM.

Gaby Pacheco, a 25 year-old...

Last Wednesday, immigration reform advocates cheered as the DREAM (Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act passed the House of Representatives. DREAM, which would provide a path to citizenship to undocumented youths brought to the US by their parents conditional upon them attending college for two years or serving...

Hair tightly braided and red, white, and blue flags in hand, two mischievous girls ran through the ballroom aisles towards their mother. There she sat, next to 28 others who were about to become American citizens, smiling anxiously as she looked out towards the Boston Harbor. Tigist Asrat, 31, arrived...

Over the last decade, organized labor has become a major player in the movement for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). With more members, resources and political clout than most other immigration reform supporters, union support has become a sine qua non for any potential legislation. As part of an ongoing series...

Over the past several years, grassroots groups across the country have held mass marches, lobbied government officials and used civil disobedience to call for reform of the nation's immigration system. As part of a continuing series of interviews on the prospects of comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) and the pro-CIR movement,...

Despite political pronouncements from President Obama and key legislators early this year, immigration reform now seems to have slipped off the congressional agenda. As part of an ongoing series of interviews on the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR), I spoke with Marshall Fitz to explore the current context in...

As part of a series of interviews on the prospects for comprehensive immigration reform, I recently spoke with Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Community Change (CCC). CCC has been a core group in the movement for comprehensive immigration reform over the past several years, playing...

One year ago this week, the Honduran military expelled President Manuel Zelaya from the country, unleashing waves of domestic tumult and international condemnation. After last November's election, the Honduran political establishment and the Obama administration were banking on the country moving beyond the coup domestically and normalizing relations with the...

Last week, Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa publicly acknowledged that the expulsion of President Manuel Zelaya from the country on June 28, 2009, constituted a coup. This was a startling admission from a man who won last year's presidential election in a climate rife with fear, repression and...

The Truth Commission mandated by last year's Tegucigalpa / San Jose Accord now appears ready to get to work in Honduras, but controversy has already ensnared it. Supporters of last year's coup are demanding that the government let sleeping dogs lie, while their opponents fear that the commission will fail...

On February 25, Guatemala's Constitutional Court ordered the removal of Education Minister Bienvenido Argueta for failing to provide the court with complete information regarding the beneficiaries of President Álvaro Colóm's flagship social program, Mi Familia Progresa. This latest development in a months-old political drama augurs poorly for Guatemala's...

Roberto Micheletti's de facto government is back in the news. Last week, news broke in Honduras that the official newspaper, La Gaceta, published two different versions with the same number and date in the last days of Micheletti's time in the Presidential Palace. The major difference? One version contained a...

For decades, impunity has reined in Central America. Dictatorial rule, coups, murder, and genocide have, for the most part, gone unpunished. This month, however, events in Guatemala have suggested a potential turning of the tide. In the last three weeks, Guatemalan authorities have solved the potentially destabilizing Rosenberg...

The global economic decline has hit Central America hard. Unemployment has increased, remittances from emigrants have declined and governments face rising deficits and debt that jeopardize their ability to meet increased social demands. The story is similar in much of the world, but the situation is particularly precarious...

Lynchings are wreaking havoc again in rural Guatemala. In a recent 15-day span, nine people have been lynched here by citizens who chose to take justice into their own hands. And in the past year, lynch mobs have attacked over 250 people, resulting in at least...