With no advance warning to schools or social service agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents launched raids on 7 food processing plants in Mississippi on August 7, arresting 680 workers. Advocates, service providers, and lawyers in Mississippi and others from outside the state are joining in the effort to help the families affected. This is a traumatic experience for entire communities, with long-term consequences for children.
Archives: Voices
Enough is Enough
People of conscience have a choice. We can go numb, or we can demand action. Numbness was overtaking us as the news of El Paso, then Dayton, then Chicago flooded the media. The needless deaths, lives cut short in split-seconds. The heroic mother and father. Hate assaulting the innocent. But how can we let this wash over us and not try – once more – to do something that could save lives?
We must be undeterred. Mr. President, inciting white supremacist, anti-immigrant impulses has led to people’s deaths. In their memories, let us take this single-minded step together to enact background check legislation. Please call your Senators. And let that be the first of many steps away from hate and violence.
The color of money
“The problem with democracy, is that it has not yet been tried.” This was the W.E.B. Du Bois quote that Mehrsa Baradaran employed to end her presentation at a recent Economic Policy Institute event, The Color of Money with Mehrsa Baradaran. She followed up, grinning triumphantly and sharing her sentiment that maybe it’s about time to give real democracy a try. Her most recent book, The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap is, in short, stunning.
Patricia Okoumou: Immigrant Warrior
James Abro was introduced to Patricia Okoumou at Middle College Church in Manhattan on July 7. He is a member of the church’s social and economic justice committees. She was there with a film crew to screen a documentary they are working on about Okoumou and her work. Ms. Okoumou is famously known as the woman who scaled the Statue of Liberty on July 4, 2018, protesting the Trump Administration’s immigration policy and inhumane detention practices.
CHN Report: President Trump Attacks Baltimore, and is Trying Hard to Make Things Worse
Residents of the city of Baltimore have now endured days of racist tweets from President Trump attacking their popular congressman, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), and their city, which Trump called a “rodent-infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.” CHN this week released an analysis detailing just what effect the Trump Administration is having (or will have, if it has its way) on Baltimore as well as other urban areas in the U.S. We examined a number of areas: housing, wages, nutrition assistance, education, health care, infrastructure, and consumer protections across a number of areas, including racial discrimination in housing, the home mortgage market, predatory and discriminatory lending, and fraudulent student loan practices.
‘Kids Count’ report shows improved child well-being in U.S. – but barriers remain
The latest edition of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book is out, and for America’s 74 million children, the news is both good and bad. The good news is that the annual report found, broadly speaking, that children in the U.S. had a better chance of thriving in 2017 than in 1990, with improvement in 11 of the 16 KIDS COUNT index measures of child well-being. The bad news is that racial and ethnic disparities persisted; the U.S. has failed to tear down barriers affecting children of color; and there’s been virtually no progress on child poverty since the publication of the first Data Book in 1990.
Lessons for Healing Our Divided Society: A Conversation with Alan Curtis
In 1968 the Kerner Commission concluded that “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” The commission had been established by President Lyndon Johnson to explore the origins of the 1967 race riots. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication, the Eisenhower Foundation, the private sector continuation of the original Commission, released an update of the report entitled “Healing Our Divided Society.”
The latest CHN Human Needs Report: Budget update, a new attack on immigrants, ACA litigation, minimum wage, and more
CHN just released another edition of the Human Needs Report. Read on for the latest on Congress’s spending deal, a new attack on migrants, a victory for minimum wage workers, and more.
Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream in Crisis?
“The American Dream.” Americans hold this phrase close to heart. People come from other areas of the world hoping to experience it firsthand. Yet at the same time, an increasing number of people seem to share in the belief that it is an unattainable myth.
CHN applauds passage of minimum wage increase: ‘Today is not the end of this fight. But perhaps it is the beginning of the end.’
CHN this week applauded the U.S. House of Representatives for its vote to increase the minimum wage. We know that $15 an hour is the absolute minimum workers need nationwide in order to survive. Lifting low-income workers is the right and moral thing to do, pure and simple, and the Senate should take up the Raise the Wage Act of 2019, H.R. 582, for its consideration.
Trump administration plan to change how inflation is measured concerns advocates for poor
The Trump administration is weighing a plan that uses a different definition of inflation to determine who lives in poverty and who does not. If implemented, the measure would affect people’s eligibility for food stamps, Head Start, school lunch programs, parts of Medicaid and Medicare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and other federal programs.
Save the date! National Call-in Day Monday, July 22. Tell your senators: No cuts. No government shutdown.
Once again, the Trump Administration and Congress are headed towards the brink. In September, services we need may come to a screeching halt unless new funding levels and the federal government’s authority to borrow are renewed. Since Congress will be leaving for August recess in a few weeks, these vital funding conversations are happening this week! Congress must act soon to agree on spending levels and to raise the limits on federal borrowing (the “debt ceiling”). And the time to speak out is NOW! On Monday, July 22nd, please join in a National Call-in Day.