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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

MI Groups Call on Obama to Stop "Immoral" Raids

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Tuesday, January 12, 2016   

LANSING, Mich. - Ahead of his final State of the Union address, some Michigan groups are calling on President Obama to end immigration raids of Central American refugee families.

The demand comes from 40 organizations representing faith, labor and civil-rights organizations in the state. The raids, described by the groups as "immoral," are targeted at families who entered the country from Central America after May 1, 2014.

Michigan State University sociology professor Ruben Martinez said the families faced poverty and violence in war-torn countries.

"Children fleeing these countries are regularly subjected to gang violence and sexual assault," he said. "The children are ordered to join the gangs as young as 10 years of age, and if they don't comply, they will be beaten and sometimes killed."

Other demands from the groups include the assurance that due-process protections are in place. Grand Rapids attorney Richard Kessler said most refugees had removal orders, but lacked proper representation in their asylum cases.

"These procedures of the so-called 'rocket docket' and calling these people in immediately, and treating them faster and moving their cases ahead of other people before they could be prepared, was basically a program targeting them for failure, and targeting them to be deported," Kessler said.

The Rev. Paul Perez with the Detroit Conference of the United Methodist Church said the Obama administration also needs to work with Central American governments to create a clear, regional refugee response plan. He contended that refugees will continue to flee to the United States until the underlying causes of violence are addressed.

"We can pretend that the collapse of governance in Central America can be dealt with by raids and deportations," he said, "or we can rise to our higher American values and fight for the well-being of families and a dignified future for all."

The Department of Homeland Security has defended the raids as necessary to secure the U.S. border. More than 120 people have been apprehended so far in raids in several states, although none yet in Michigan.


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