Election 2008: What’s At Stake?

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In Pennsylvania’s 11th district, Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-Nanticoke) faces a serious challenge from Mayor Lou Barletta (R-Hazleton), who has earned a reputation as a crusader against illegal immigration since the Kanjorski last faced him in 2002.
The map above shows a few points of interest in the 11th, including major cities, historical landmarks […]

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Over the past several years, Hazleton, Pa., has attracted thousands of Hispanic immigrants, most of them from the Dominican Republic. This influx lead to conflict over illegal immigration in 2006 and 2007, thrusting Mayor Lou Barletta into the national news. This year, Barletta is running for Congress, his campaign based largely on that issue. “I […]

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At the Columbia News21 project on immigration and elections, we began our reporting this summer with many story ideas and a whole country to work with. To help focus our efforts, we put together a Google map (see below) where we indicated electoral races that might be useful in our coverage of immigration (blue pins), […]

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News21 reporter Elizabeth Mendez Berry and I have been talking to Cubans in Miami over the past week, as we report our story on challenges to their political power from other Latinos, and from within their own community. And we have noticed many events and people recurring as points of reference for this community.
For the […]

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When Arizona citizens supported Proposition 200 (pdf) in 2004, they became the first state in the nation to require proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Grassroots voter registration groups like Project Vote say the requirement has barred them from signing up one in nine eligible citizens who lack necessary documents, including 97-year-old […]

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The Congressional seat in the 22nd District of Texas has been much in the news in recent years. Former Republican Majority House Leader Tom DeLay held it for 11 years, until his indictment in 2006 (for campaign finance violations) triggered a bizarre chain of events, that included a general election with a Republican write-in candidate […]

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I’m off to Hazleton, Penn., today to follow Mayor Lou Barletta’s run for Congress and look at the impact of illegal immigration on his town and his district. Hazleton is a small city (pop. about 30,000) in Northeast Pennsylvania’s anthracite region. Its economy was once based on coal, but in recent decades the city has […]

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Last month, a federal court struck down an ordinance in Farmers Branch, Texas, that sought to ban landlords from renting to illegal immigrants. This Dallas suburb of 27,500 people is now waiting to hear from the court on a second ordinance - one that requires tenants to get a residency permit from City Hall […]

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Asian Americans make up the smallest racial group in the country, comprising about 5 percent (14.4 million) of the population. Yet they are the fastest growing sector, rising by 3 percent from 2004 to 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. With continuing immigration from Asia–especially China, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Korea–and […]

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For a recent multimedia project called “I Am New York” for NYCInteractive.org, I profiled one immigrant politician, Harjinder Singh Duggal, who is one of the many Sikhs who supports Sen. Hillary Clinton in her now-failed run for the Democratic presidential nomination. And he is just not ready to throw his support for Obama. Yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IWQyDQJj8E

Most […]

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