Washington, District 4
Dreamer Wants to Give Back to U.S. — To Do So Needs DACA
Ana Ramirez grew up in north-central Washington, studying hard, earning good grades, and believing she had the same opportunities as her peers. It wasn’t until she was a freshman in high school that she learned the truth. After being accepted into a European summer study program, she ran home to… Read More
After Years of Waiting and Working, a Refugee Has the Chance to Give Back
Every day, Honey Omar wakes up excited to go to work. “It’s never a dull moment,” says Omar, a refugee case manager at YMCA International Services in Houston, Texas. Omar herself is a refugee. Born in Somalia, she came to the United States with her family in 2015 after having… Read More
American Farmer Recreates Fatal Trek of Guatemalan Boy, Calls for Immigration Reform
Gary Larsen has been harvesting asparagus on his farm since 1989. The vast majority of his workers are immigrants who supply documents attesting to their lawful right to live and work in the United States. Yet Larsen can’t be completely confident that their papers are genuine. “Not a day goes… Read More
Finding Workers in Washington to Harvest Fresh Produce Increasingly Difficult, Says Washington Asparagus Commission Director
In 2012, Washington farmers could not fully harvest their asparagus crops because there simply were not enough workers available. This highlights a larger trend in the state: Between 2002 and 2014, real wages of Washington field and crop workers jumped 18.6 percent, signaling a possible labor… Read More
Head of Washington Grower’s League Says Immigrant Farm Workers Do Not Steal American Jobs
As head of the Washington Grower’s League for 29 years, Mike Gempler knows how critical immigration reform is to American farmers. He says our guest worker program is complicated, expensive, and often does not bring workers into the country in time to work on highly perishable crops when they are… Read More
House Uses Unaccompanied Kids as Excuse for More Enforcement, Less Due Process
Congress adjourned last week without passing a supplemental spending bill to cover the costs of managing the influx of unaccompanied minors and families in the Rio Grande Valley. If the issue had simply been one of how much of President Obama’s $3.7 billion request actually would be… Read More
On Immigration, Some GOP Candidates Prefer Hostile Rhetoric to Policy Solutions
Over the weekend, Republican presidential hopefuls Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann made it clear that they were willing to increase their anti-immigration rhetoric in order to court voters. In the process, both confused the right to free speech with the responsibility of free speech, turning what should have been a debate on immigration policy into cheap and insensitive anti-immigrant rhetoric. Read More
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