A group of pro-immigrant rights activists in Arizona aim to develop a smartphone application that would help immigrants notify friends, family and their attorney if they are detained and arrested during a traffic stop.  The app will allow users to notify family, friends, attorneys and even their consulate when they get pulled over by law enforcement or when they are facing an emergency situation that puts their safety or civil rights at risk.

From New America Media: Each time Uncle Sam ventures abroad, he leaves an unfinished story, and nowhere is it most unfinished than the story of Iraq, where despite flowery speeches regarding freedom and sovereignty by the Obama administration, despite assurances that tyranny has been "cast aside," the tragedy caused by the U.S. invasion, occupation and inevitable abandonment is on an epic proportion.

From New America Media: Human and pro-immigrant rights groups renewed their calls for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s resignation, following findings by the Department of Justice of racial profiling and abuse of Latinos by his agency. The findings, announced Dec. 15, added fuel to the fire for those who want the federal government to put an end to national programs that give local police immigration powers.

From New America Media: Now that the architect of Arizona’s harsh anti-immigrant bill (SB 1070) has been recalled by voters and no longer represents Mesa, a group of citizens wants to take the immigration issue up a notch. They propose that the city adopt guiding principles that focus on keeping immigrant families together and enforcing the law in a humanitarian way.

From New America Media and ColorLines: Can GOP voters stomach a presidential candidate who talks about undocumented immigrants without calling them “illegals”? Such are the questions the Republican party has been grappling with in the days since Newt Gingrich, the GOP’s most recent frontrunner, broke away from the pack during CNN’s national security debate last Wednesday and uttered a fairly startling set of words on immigration.

From New America Media: In Mississippi, voters go to the polls today to decide whether the state constitution should be amended such that a human egg, at the point of fertilization, becomes a person. When combined with Alabama’s recently enacted HB 56, widely seen as the nation’s toughest anti-immigrant piece of legislation, the result is a uniquely bad situation for migrant women.

 

From New America Media: A Latino radio host and blogger is calling for Cecilia Muñoz to resign from the White House for her defense of the administration’s deportation policies. Presente.org, the immigrant rights group that led the petition to get CNN’s Lou Dobbs off the air, is demanding that Muñoz denounce the Secure Communities program. In response, a group of some of the nation’s leading immigrant advocacy organizations released a statement [this week] in support of Muñoz.