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"Immigration Day"

"Immigration Day?", said an infuriated Lou Dobbs this past Thursday, May first, regarding the Hispanic immigrant marches that for a third consecutive year in a…

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"Immigration Day?", said an infuriated Lou Dobbs this past Thursday,
May first, regarding the Hispanic immigrant marches that for a third
consecutive year in a row cried out for a fair immigration reform.

While
Latin America traditionally celebrated "Primero de Mayo" with
demonstrations calling for better wages and protesting against
unemployment, the trade agreements with the US and the rise in food
prices, in the US the "new unofficial celebration" focused the news
media's attention on immigrants, interviews with Hispanics, expressing
their concerns and also speaking about immigration critics.

It must
be difficult for Dobbs to see the Primero de Mayo celebration, with
street marches in various US cities becoming a tradition; not to
mention the broad news coverage given to this celebration by the US
press.  It must be a bit difficult to understand since Labor Day,
celebrated in September in the US, is a day for shopping and not for
marches or claims made by laborers.

However, from the looks of how
things are going for the US economy, soon the Primero de Mayo
proclamations in Latin America could be equally mirrored in the US.  
According
to a study revealed this week by the Center for American Progress, CAP,
the poverty rate for Latinos in this country equals 20.6 percent, well
below the 8.2 percent registered by the white population.

Those Hispanics on the threshold of poverty increased from 19.2 percent in 2000, to 20.6 percent in 2006.

According
to this report, African Americans and Latinos are the most vulnerable
with regard to the economic downfall, reporting "greater insecurity for
minorities than for the rest of the country".

This document
coincides with another from the Inter American Development Bank (IDB),
which projected a 25 percent reduction regarding Hispanics that send
remittances to their countries of origin. Such reduction, according to
the IDB, will affect over two million families in Latin America that
could fall below the line of poverty.

This deterioration in the US
economy and the lack of an immigration reform could produce very well
join the claims made by Latinos in Latin America and those of Latinos
in the US.

The only favorable point this week and that may
encourage the immigration debate was the growth of the Latino
community:  The US Census revealed that there are now 45.5 million
Latinos, conforming 15.1 percent of the US population.

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