In the News
How Immigrants Change Their Towns
The story of immigrants creating jobs by starting new businesses is as old as immigration itself. While immigrants have made up, on average, just over 10 percent of the population for the past 160 years, more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, according to a report by the Partnership for a New American Economy.
Applying lessons of Agriprocessors to immigration reform
A contingent of Jews will travel this week to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to mark the fifth anniversary of a notorious immigration raid on the nation’s largest kosher meat producer. The Agriprocessors raid demanded that we answer the question: Does kosher food reflect Jewish values? Five years later, that question still resonates. It is time for kosher businesses from restaurants to factories to embrace the full range of rights of their employees — including the right to organize and bargain collectively. It is also time to fix our broken immigration system and protect the millions of immigrant workers who live in fear while contributing millions to our economy and trying to keep their families from being torn apart.
Israeli couple is face of gay family reunification efforts
The Immigration Equality Action Fund leads a coalition of about a dozen advocacy groups seeking relief for what Plummer estimates is 36,000 binational LGBT couples in the United States. Among the groups is Bend the Arc, the Jewish liberal activist group that has been leading efforts in the Jewish community for family reunification rights for gays and lesbians.
Time to adjust attitudes on immigration
Despite the do-next-to-nothing 113th Congress, bipartisan immigration reform appears to be moving forward, if haltingly. This week on May 1, to mark International Workers’ Day, liberal Jewish groups such as Bend the Arc and the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs took part in marches calling for immigration reform.
Israeli couple is face of gay family reunification efforts
A same-sex Israeli couple struggling against U.S. immigration laws are set to become the faces of the fight to extend one of the foundations of immigration policy to gays and lesbians. Bend the Arc is one of the groups that has been leading efforts in the Jewish community for family reunification rights for gays and lesbians.