News Round Up In-Brief

US News

• According to immigrant rights advocates, unannounced deportation raids jeopardize undocumented immigrants’ mental health. These raids possibly violate federal disability law because many immigrants struggle with mental illness stemming from the trauma of escaping violence in their home countries.
• A former church in Buffalo, New York is currently transitioning into a safe haven for immigrants and refugees. It will be a center for education for these populations as well as a health clinic led by Catholic Charities of Buffalo.
• Federal officials warned a county in Kansas that their health department will lose grant funds if they continue to require clients to report their immigration or citizenship status when applying for the Women and Infant Children (WIC) benefits.
• Rather than discussing the importance of immigration reform for immigrants living in the United States, Presidential candidate Marco Rubio is addressing the topic of immigration as a “national security issue.”
• The DentaQuest Foundation is making efforts to ameliorate oral health disparities, especially in Hispanic and migrant populations. They aim to prevent cavities in 85% of all children up to age five by the year 2020.
• Lawmakers in Florida have lifted the five year waiting period for children of authorized immigrants to receive subsidized and free health services.
• In her response to President Obama’s final State of the Union address, Nikki Haley, the first minority and first female governor of South Carolina, highlighted her heritage as the daughter of Sikh Indian immigrants. She also discussed her pro-immigrant standpoint in her reply.
• Colorado residents raised concerns regarding a new facility for unaccompanied migrant children. Children are meant to spend on average 32 days in the shelter before being released to sponsor families while a decision is made about the child’s status in the country. Residents in the vicinity of the shelter are concerned about costs, resources, and safety of their families.
• A migrant health center reopens in Wyoming for agricultural workers after a name change that involved removing the word “migrant.”

 

International News

• The Red Cross Reports that the Canada Border Services Agency should protect immigrant children from detention and its horrors and only detain them in extreme cases. The Red Cross provides a list of alternatives to improve these conditions such as mental health services and secure holding places outside of the jails they are being currently held in.
• Three Maritime premiers in Atlantic Canada said Monday their provinces badly need more immigrants. A former New Brunswick premier proposed his own solution: require newcomers to live in the region.
• A new policy is proposed in Israel to ease the conditions for experienced immigrant dentists to practice in the country and to promote recognition of their professional credentials. Additionally, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech therapists and dietitians can practice in Israel without academic degrees if they have come from a country in which it is also not required to earn one.
• Lawmakers in Israel work on amending policies requiring certification tests for French immigrant doctors as well as professionals in other fields who fail to get recognition for their hard earned academic degrees. With the French healthcare system being the most advanced in the world, limiting the ability of doctors to practice in Israel simply does not make sense.
• Japanese government officials are contemplating accepting immigrants to prevent a government estimated tremendous loss in population size within the next hundred years; decreasing from 126.88 million that reside there today, to about 40 million.
• Policies designed to draw in Cuban health professionals into the U.S. create complications in the health cooperation between Cuba and the United States. A travel restriction on Cuban medical professionals was enacted in order to prevent a scarcity of those in these professions in Cuba.
• With temperatures falling below 0 degrees Celsius in the Balkans, medical professionals state there is a significant increase in illness among migrants in refugee aid camps. The escape from their violent countries to refuge has resulted in a “journey of death” because of the cold.

 

Special Issue: The 2015 Refugee Crisis in Europe

American Ethnologist has put together a special issue of articles focused on refugees in Europe, with articles by Access Denied contributor and co-founder Heide Castañeda.

 

Prepared by Jaziel L. Ramos-Ortiz