Got roots? The American Family Immigration History Center has made available online the passenger manifests for all the ships that docked at Ellis Island from 1892 to 1924. It's searchable by name, and you can look at a photostat of the actual page of the manifest. I found my great-uncle (Demetrios Calisperis, from Samos, Greece, debarked Ellis Island Nov 1907, at age 11 -- hiya, Uncle Jim!). Free to register and search. Paid membership lets you build a family scrapbook about your ancestor that can be searched by other researchers.
posted by BitterOldPunk
on Jul 14, 2003 -
9 comments
Ranch Rescue is a organization dedicated to the notion of preserving
"Private property first, foremost, and always." Darlings of the
far right-wing press, they are not anti-tax or anti-regulation of business, they are a group that exploits laws allowing landowners to apprehend or shoot trespassers by organizing
armed expeditions of "concerned citizens" to hunt down undocumented border crossers. Begun in Arizona and Texas, they have recently expanded to all Mexican/American border states. Check out the different
state pages to learn of their upcoming
"operations". This site requires a lot of perusal to ascertain the reality of what these people are doing, but they do give you some insight as to
what the hell they are thinking.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly
on May 21, 2003 -
30 comments
Axing Foreign Acts — Now that immigration control falls under the rubric of Homeland Security [
+ |
+], ticket sales should pick up for Broadway shows: foreign culture exchange is
on the wane down the drain, says the Voice's Don Mattingly this week.
Students, too. Bureacratic transition pains or police-state policy? More info? Paranoid surmises?
posted by hairyeyeball
on Apr 10, 2003 -
6 comments
Don't like the US? Then Leave! Somebody posted
this to a newsgroup I read from time to time. Evidently, if you sign an agreement to leave the US for a year, you'll get a portion of what has been donated to the website (currently $53).
posted by synecdoche
on Apr 1, 2003 -
38 comments
Homeless Quints. When a white American has quints in America, companies fall all over themselves to provide money, goods, and services for this "miracle." When a dark-skinned Nigerian has quints in America, though, a somewhat harder time is in store.
Citizenship concerns aside, the lack of humanitarian concern here is staggering.
posted by FormlessOne
on Feb 12, 2003 -
26 comments
One big happy family Ottawa granted permission for three wives of a polygamist to stay in Canada permanently and an immigration official has warned that several more applications from polygamists' wives are likely on the way, according to internal government documents obtained by
The Globe and Mail.
The report says the women filled in "housewife" as their occupation on their applications for immigration. They stated they would receive financial assistance from Mr. Blackmore. Under marriage information, they wrote "not available."
posted by orange swan
on Oct 7, 2002 -
39 comments
The Weekly Standard: Patio Man and the Sprawl People There he is atop the uppermost tier of his multi-level backyard patio/outdoor recreation area posed like an admiral on the deck of his destroyer. In his mind's eye he can see himself coolly flipping the garlic and pepper T-bones on the front acreage of his new grill while carefully testing the citrus-tarragon trout filets that sizzle fragrantly in the rear. On the lawn below he can see his kids, Haley and Cody, frolicking on the weedless community lawn that is mowed twice weekly by the people who run Monument Crowne Preserve, his townhome community. More inside...
posted by gen
on Aug 6, 2002 -
65 comments
The upside-down world of the INS. On September 12th Deena Gilbey (the wife of Paul Gilbey, a EuroBroker that died when the towers collapsed) received a letter from the INS stating that she was now subject to arrest and deportation because her husband no longer retained a valid visa (he was dead). And so the
story begins of one Deena Gilbey and of her two children (born in the U.S.) and of the
Visa Express pilot program in Saudia Arabia and the UAE that permitted three of the hijackers to obtain a visa without having to go through a consular official.
posted by ( .)(. )
on Jul 30, 2002 -
21 comments
Non-citizens put on notice to file change in addresses The Ashcroft Gestapo strikes again!
If a permanent resident doesn't file this change-in-address form, they are talking about penalties up to and including
deportion! Note we aren't talking about student visa holders or anything like that .. we are talking about people who have lived in this country for 10 .. 20 .. 30 years or more in many cases.
This country is really turning into a police state the way things are going.
posted by ssheth
on Jul 23, 2002 -
44 comments
Steven Berkoff deported from the USA for overstaying his visa by 24 hours, five years ago. Such heavy-handed behaviour must be more harmful than good for the USA as a country. Surely the rules can't be so rigid as to
force the authorities into doing this, so why do it? Couldn't they just caution, or even fine him? Or has he upset someone?
[via Wibbly Weblog]
posted by southisup
on Jul 1, 2002 -
31 comments
Anti-Immigrant feelings sweep Europe As economies tighten, populations build, hostility to "outsiders" seems to happen everywhere, but as E.O. Wilson noted a few years back, there is bound to be people from third-world nations seeking better lives by moving to nations perceived as better off.
We are told that inexpensive labor is a boon. But is this all that matters?
posted by Postroad
on May 15, 2002 -
23 comments
Deserts are dry? Sue. "The families of 11 immigrants who died [while] illegally crossing into Arizona from Mexico have filed a $41 million claim against two federal agencies, saying the government's refusal to put water out in the desert contributed to the migrants' deaths." Do they have a case?
posted by darukaru
on May 11, 2002 -
53 comments
Just a defacto "Nope". "Refugees" from the US seeking asylum in Canada will no longer have any hoops to jump through. The hoops are to be replaced by impenatrable legal barriers, otherwise known as "inking the deal".
posted by crasspastor
on May 7, 2002 -
6 comments
Utah politics you don't know whether to laugh or cry. From Paul Rolly's column in the Salt Lake Tribune
"The Republican state convention delegate was discussing with a prominent Utah GOP elected officeholder the issue of immigration when the delegate whined that a fence should be constructed to span the entire USA-Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants.
"What happens when they climb the fence?" asked the politician.
"You electrify it," said the delegate. "Then they won't touch it."
"But what if they touch it? You would let them die?"
"It would be their choice," said the delegate.
"What about a mother with a baby strapped to her back? You would let the mother and the baby die?"
"It would be the mother's choice to kill that baby," said the delegate.
"Then you're in favor of abortion?" asked the officeholder.
Dead silence. "
posted by onegoodmove
on Apr 28, 2002 -
24 comments
Anti-immigrant parties gain support in Europe as they tap long-standing fears about security and the dilution of national identity. The deep running concern, as in Israel, is that their countries are involuntarily becoming multicultural as guest workers and refugees, mostly Muslim, establish themselves in residence. There are about 15 million Muslims in Europe, making Islam the the continent's largest non-Christian religion.
How important is national identity? What would become of democratic values in a Europeann country with Muslim population explosion? How would it affect their economy, as the immigrants are largely unskilled, heavily relying on the welfare system?
posted by semmi
on Mar 29, 2002 -
9 comments
A Bush amnesty for a Mexican army. Perhaps hell has frozen over, but I find myself in agreement with Pat Buchanan.
"With this vote to grant mass amnesty to hundreds of thousands from Mexico, the House and the president abdicated their duty to defend the American Southwest from foreign invasion [...] Congress was inundated with phone calls and faxes pleading, "Don't do this!" But well after dark, Speaker Hastert, under a suspension of rules, did his business and ran it through, by one vote. White House lobbyists had greased the skids." I heard about this on TV last night, but this is the only story I've yet run across which really goes to the meat of the issue, even if I still think Buchanan is a meathead and even if it isn't exactly an unbiased news source. In time of "war," does this really serve the interests of
homeland security?.
posted by StOne
on Mar 15, 2002 -
25 comments
INS grants visas to deceased hijackers - on Monday, the folks at Immigration and Naturalization services finally got around to issuing student visas to Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi (who were aboard the two flights that struck the WTC).
posted by tpl1212
on Mar 13, 2002 -
18 comments
The great Australian lie? THE Australian navy released only two pictures from more than 100 taken of sailors rescuing boatpeople last October, images the then defence minister seized on to suggest asylum-seekers had thrown children overboard..
It doesn't look good for the ruling government, but Australian public opinion is so heavily weighed against the 'illegal immigrants' that the bulk of voters will move on. They'll forget and probably forgive. After all, we expect our politicians to lie and/or manipulate. Don't we?
posted by skinsuit
on Feb 17, 2002 -
14 comments
Cybracero: Wave of the future . No longer will immigrants have to cross borders to do manual labor thanks to this visionary and exciting technology. Telerobotics mean that manual labor from 3rd world countries can now do their work from home! Check out the video and technology pages for examples of how this revolutionary idea will change the world!
posted by cell divide
on Feb 4, 2002 -
4 comments
Hellooooo internment camps!! "The Bush administration today announced a major expansion of its power to detain immigrants suspected of crimes, including new rules prompted by last week's terrorist attacks that would allow legal immigrants to be detained indefinitely during a national emergency."
posted by fooljay
on Sep 19, 2001 -
47 comments
In the desert on the U.S.-Mexico border,
charity becomes political protest as humanitarian groups seek to put hundreds of gallons of water in the form of "watering stations" -- a few gallons of water and a blue flag -- on federal, military, private, and Indian lands.
posted by sudama
on Jun 11, 2001 -
3 comments
hitler's secret? - i wonder. take note of the nationality. a search for that name (Czarne Hitler) on google yielded lots of mostly polish discussions. any ideas?
posted by subpixel
on May 2, 2001 -
9 comments
The American Family Immigration History Center™ will use state-of-the-art interactive computer technology to bring the immigration records on ancestors who came to the USA as long as a century ago to one's fingertips. The data is being taken directly from the ships' passenger manifests, which are currently on microfilm at the National Archives and Records Administration. To be completed in Spring 2001.
posted by frednorman
on Apr 17, 2001 -
6 comments
New administration, same old Zoe Baird problem. Labor Secretary-Designate Linda Chavez housed an illegal Guatamalan immigrant and gave her spending money in the early 1990s. Will it nuke Chavez's confirmation? Or will Senate Democrats not touch it out of fear of appearing anti-Hispanic?
posted by aaron
on Jan 7, 2001 -
24 comments
Fidel's victory over the U.S. is complete. Elian will return to Cuba, probably before the next sunrise. Why did this decision take so long? The negligent bungling of the Clinton adminsitration, the Department of Justice, and the INS. When Elian first arrived, the INS placed him in the custody of his nearest kin here in America, and advised them to seek a state court ruling on custody. They relied on that advice and did so. Then, for political resonas, the administration betrayed both the family and the boy, critically undermining our foreign policy objectives in the process.
His future as a pawn of the Castro tyranny looks bleak indeed. We can only hope he and every other Cuban are soon freed from Fidel's rule.
posted by mikewas
on Jun 28, 2000 -
34 comments
In the late 90's, Sophonie Telcy's mother illegally entered this country from Haiti, looking for a better life for herself and her daughter; last spring she turned the care of the 6-year-old child over to an old friend, returned to Haiti to see a doctor, and died.
Sophonie's father is unknown. She has no legal standing in the US, no residency papers, no health insurance...and, despite a loving family who is willing to care for her,
very little chance to stay here. Congressman Alcee Hastings filed
House Resolution 4179, "for the relief of Sophonie Telcy," but the bill will almost certainly fail. (
read more about it here.)
The bill has been referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims. I'm not sure what to do here to help, but I have listed all the members of this subcommittee on
my website if you'd like to write or call.
Any other ideas?
rcb
posted by rebeccablood
on Apr 26, 2000 -
2 comments
