Mediaboss Marketing

FWD.us President Joe Green has resigned as head of the tech-backed immigration reform group, according to a blog post from the organization.

Green had led FWD.us since its founding in 2013 as tech leaders poured millions into the immigration advocacy group started by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Greens departure comes as congressional efforts to reform the nations immigration laws have stagnated. And President Barack Obama has said executive action on that front will wait until after the midterms.

Re/code, which first revealed Greens departure, reported that he was pushed out of the top spot.

While FWD.us has achieved important milestones in the fight to reform immigration laws, Joe and the Board agreed a change in leadership was necessary, the group wrote in the Friday blog post.

A FWD.us spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment.

Todd Schulte, the groups executive director and former chief of staff at super PAC Priorities USA, will serve as acting president.

Obama is expected to unveil a broad immigration reform executive order after the November elections, but the exact scope of that effort remains unclear. Tech companies are seeking more visas for high-skilled foreign workers.

See the original post:
Green resigns top spot at Zuckerberg's FWD.us

An immigration reform advocate from Marshalltown whose brother is facing deportation led a community discussion on immigration Thursday night at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church.

Two dozen people attended the event, which was hosted by A Mid-Iowa Organizing Strategy, a community-building group active in Ames. Karina Mendoza-Alvarez, a 19-year-old student at Marshalltown Community College, led the conversation with Mark Grey, a professor of anthropology at the University of Northern Iowa.

Mendoza-Alvarez described her mothers five-year ordeal in the immigration court system to gain legal residency after she was swept up in an immigration enforcement raid of Marshalltowns JBS Swift meatpacking plant in 2006, when Mendoza-Alvarez was just 11 years old.

In the week following the raid, Mendoza-Alvarez was taken care of by her older sister, Maria, who is now 25 and in the country legally as part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. Mendoza-Alvarez was born in Iowa, but her mother, sister and brother, 23-year-old Diego, moved to Iowa from Villachuato in west-central Mexico.

Now, Diego is going through the immigration court system, his legal status unclear and the chance of deportation a real possibility.

With a broken immigration system, its never going to end, said Mendoza-Alvarez, who in July was one of more than 100 people arrested in Washington, D.C., outside the White House protesting for immigration reform.

Grey, the lead author of Postville: USA, a book on the infamous 2008 Agriprocessors Inc. meatpacking plant raid in the northeastern Iowa town, spoke before Mendoza-Alvarez. He described the influx of Mexican immigrants into Iowa that began around 1993 but subsided after the Postville raid.

Some AMOS volunteers, like Mendoza-Alvarez, voiced support for comprehensive immigration reform, which could provide a path to citizenship for many of the 11 million or so undocumented immigrants estimated to be in the country.

A major second-term initiative of President Barack Obama, immigration reform has been stalled in Congress for more than a year in large part because of resistance to such a broad-based approach, often criticized as amnesty for illegal behavior, in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, one of the Houses most vocal opponents of immigration reform and programs including DACA, was invited to attend Thursdays meeting by AMOS volunteers at an August town hall the congressman held in Ames. King said he would probably be in Washington, D.C., Thursday but would be willing to send a representative on his behalf.

More:
AMOS hosts immigration conversation

The Awful Reason Obama Is Delaying Immigration Reform
White House officials said this week that Obama plans to delay any potential executive action on immigration until after the midterm elections. Watch the vid...

By: Rubin Report

Read the original here:
The Awful Reason Obama Is Delaying Immigration Reform - Video

(Photo : Getty Images )

With the rise of ISIS and the looming threat of American involvement in another foreign conflict, the nation has shifted its attention away from immigration reform and onwards to the Middle East. However, as 2016 slowly creeps closer, immigration reform will undoubtedly be one of the strongest firing points for both parties when it comes to the presidential election.

In a recent poll conducted by Politico, participants were asked numerous questions that sought to observe how the national perspective of immigration reform is centered. The poll was conducted between Aug. 29 and Sept. 7, making it one of the latest to come out after congress entered its break period.

The first question sought to direct the participants' attention to the president and his direct handling of the issue of immigration. 64 percent of participants disapproved of the way that President Obama has handled the situation, while only 35 percent approved.

One of the underlying problems with polls is that they pose 'yes' or 'no' questions without allowing the participant to explain the reasoning behind their verdict. There is never the opportunity for the public to explain how they would tackle immigration reform and what they would do differently than President Obama.

The trend against the Democrats continued when 34 percent compared to 31 percent felt that the Republican Party could handle immigration reform better. This will be an important faction with the mid-term elections coming up in Nov. When asked if immigration reform was an important issue that would affect the midterms, 75 percent to 25 percent felt that the issue was of extreme importance.

Depending on the midterms, President Obama could find it far more difficult to do business with Congress. The House already has a GOP majority and if the Senate were to fall to the Republicans then President Obama will either be forced to compromise or use executive orders (more than he already has).

What the poll did confirm was that the American public is behind "comprehensive immigration reform" 66 to 33 percent. The problem is that "comprehensive" is not defined in the poll, and both parties have thrown the word back and forth. Public opinion understands that reform is necessary, but a literal plan on how to get the nation there remains unknown.

2014 Latino Post. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

Read the rest here:
Immigration Reform 2014 News Update: Polls Say Nation ...

It wasnt part of the jobs message he planned to pitch, but Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that immigration reform would help boost the economy.

Immigration reform will help our economy, but youve got to secure the border first, the Ohio Republican said after a speech at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute. Weve got a mess and everyone knows weve got a mess.

His immigration comments, in response to an audience question, werent part of his prepared remarks. They followed a 20-minute-speech in which Boehner laid out his five-point plan to jump-start Americas economy.

The AEI address served as the GOPs closing argument before the November midterm elections and came just as the House was wrapping up its final day of votes before sprinting to the campaign trail.

Boehner didnt offer many surprises in his speech: He called for fixing the U.S. tax code, cutting spending, reforming the legal system, reining in federal regulations and boosting education.

And the Speaker said opening up more areas for oil exploration and building the Keystone XL pipeline would really get our economy humming.

We do these five things in a meaningful way, along with the coming energy boom, we can reset the foundation of our economy for the next two or three generations and beyond, Boehner said.

Boehner argued that GOPs first priority should be tax reform. He said all the focus on so-called corporate inversions where U.S. corporations buy foreign companies and move their headquarters abroad to avoid taxes was short-sighted.

Inversions are really just visible symptoms of a much deeper problem: our tax code is terrible. No one understands it, certainly not the IRS, Boehner said. So all this talk about inversions is just making the problem smaller.

Its fussing over a divot when the road is loaded with potholes.

More here:
Boehner: Immigration reform will help economy