Several plans to overhaul the nation’s immigration system, including Senate Bill 744, contain important protections for U.S. and foreign workers that must be preserved as the legislation moves through Congress. But they lack critical protections to prevent foreign workers from enduring the kind of exploitation prevalent in the current H-2 guest worker program.
In a U.S. economy where tens of millions are struggling, guestworkers on H-2B visas are trapped at the bottom. These so-called "low skilled" temporary workers occupy fields from hospitality to construction to landscaping to food processing -- alongside 24 million U.S. workers in the same sectors. And the job quality of those 24 million depends on whether guestworkers can blow the whistle on abuse.
A federal court in California today heard arguments from SPLC attorneys challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Title 38 – statutes that prevent the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from granting equal benefits to gay and lesbian veterans and their spouses.
Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish Head Start program is denying impoverished Latino preschoolers access to the program – violations of federal laws and regulations that have led the Southern Poverty Law Center to demand the program stop this discrimination.
When violence erupts in a community such as Newtown, Conn., or Oak Creek, Wis., schools can play an important role in helping children navigate our sometimes-violent world, according to the inaugural Summer issue of Teaching Tolerance magazine, released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
As the Senate gets ready to debate the details of a broad U.S. immigration bill, a group of House of Representatives lawmakers is still struggling to write its own legislation, hung up in part over guest worker programs sought by businesses.
Fifty years after young people braved fire hoses and police dogs to end segregation in Birmingham, Ala., their courageous acts were commemorated in the nation’s capital last night as congressional staffers, SPLC members, civil rights advocates and journalists gathered for a screening of Teaching Tolerance’s Academy Award-winning documentary Mighty Times: The Children’s March.
A Louisiana school district at the center of a federal civil rights investigation prematurely pushes students out of classes for English language learners and ultimately “stifles educational opportunities” for these students, according to new findings uncovered by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Alabama’s appeal of a court decision that blocked part of its anti-immigrant law is further proof that immigration enforcement is not a duty of the states, but the federal government which must pass comprehensive immigration reform.
