‘Tis the season for every media outlet (include yours truly) to make end-of-the-year lists. No surprise here, but North Carolina popped up on several national lists tracking politics and policy.
Having that same journalistic drive to create an end-of-the-year list, I collected several lists floating around the Internet that involve North Carolina politics and policy. Take a look, and offer up any other lists of interest in the comments section. Read More
We as Americans know when a person is arrested and jailed in our country he or she has the right to a lawyer regardless of ability to pay.
Here’s the thing, though. People –including American citizens — who are jailed on immigration violations DO NOT have those same rights.
An immigration lawyer sure would have been helpful in the case of North Carolinian Mark Lyttle, a mentally ill native of Rowan County who was deported TWICE to Mexico in 2008. And there’s this doozy, where a man (finally determined to be a U.S. citizen by birthright) whose father is a U.S. citizen was deported at least four times based on a non-existent passage in the Mexican constitution.
Yes. As crazy as it sounds, American citizens get jailed and deported. Regularly.
According to immigration lawyer Kara Hartzler’s 2008 testimony in front of the U.S. House of Representative’s Subcommittee on Immigration, her Arizona non-profit sees between 40 and 50 cases per month of people in immigration detention who have potentially valid claims to U.S. citizenship.
“These individuals will commonly be detained for weeks, months, and even years while attempting to prove their citizenship. While some are ultimately successful, others often abandon their cases in the face of what can feel like indefinite detention,” Hartzler states.
As Clayton Henkel notes below, the General Assembly returns to Raleigh today to override the Governor’s vetoes of a pair of bills dealing with immigrant workers and drug testing of public benefits applicants.
In response, the good folks at Public School First NC released a statement this morning that highlights what lawmakers ought to be doing now that they’re back in the Capital City:
PUBLIC SCHOOLS FIRST NC URGES LEGISLATURE TO REINSTATE FUNDS FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION
Despite Promises of Job Growth, Teaching Positions Cut Across North CarolinaRaleigh, NC—September 3, 2013— As the General Assembly convenes for a special session, Public Schools First NC urges legislators to acknowledge the drastic budget impacts already, affecting public education and to use this opportunity to restore funding. The predicted consequences of these cuts—the loss of teacher and teacher assistant positions, increases to class size, inadequate instructional supplies, and the trimming of special programs—comes on the heels of promises by elected officials to promote job growth. Read More
Proponents of the Joint Tax Plan claim that all taxpayers will benefit from cutting the personal income tax rate. During debate on the tax plan on yesterday, opponents highlighted analysis provided by Fiscal Research that confirmed that some taxpayers would indeed see their income taxes increase under the tax plan. Below are additional examples of taxpayers who would see their income taxes increase.
Despite the claims that North Carolina needs to cut taxes and shift the tax load on to middle-class and low-income taxpayers to remain competitive, such an approach will actually undermine the competitiveness that our state has achieved. If we look across a range of metrics on outcomes for North Carolinians, businesses and the economy, North Carolina is indeed competitive.
Tax rates are not the sole factor that drives the state’s economy nor does it make or break the reputation of North Carolina as a desired place to raise a family and operate a business. Below are four examples, among many, that highlight areas in which North Carolina has made positive progress. Read More
