BOISE, Idaho — A major protest outside the Republican National Convention Tuesday will address anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies. Organizers of the Community Unity to Stop the Hate march hope to fill Cleveland's Public Square even as Idaho's delegates to the convention prepare to approve the party platform - which includes a call to build a wall on the Mexican border and subject foreign nationals to intense scrutiny if they come from certain regions associated with Islamic terrorism.

"We won't accept bashing of Muslims or Syrian refugees,” said Don Bryant, president of the Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network. "To close down legal channels makes it even more likely for people to come here illegally, and then we don't know who we have here."

According to Bryant, it is crucial that people from all faith communities get to know each other. All should be made to feel welcome, he said, so that those in the Muslim community will continue to work with authorities to identify potentially alienated young men such as those responsible for the terrorist attacks in Orlando and San Bernardino.

There have been several protests in Idaho against the resettling of Syrian refugees in the state. Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations used humor to call for tolerance, passing out gum packaged to look like medicine and labeled “Islamophobin,” a treatment for irrational fear of Muslims.

Bryant also called on RNC delegates to reject presumptive nominee Donald Trump’s attitude toward Mexicans. Trump has called Mexican immigrants “rapists," and questioned a judge's ability to preside over a case based on his parents' ancestry.

"We'd like to strongly denounce these anti-Mexican comments we've heard from Donald Trump, even regarding a Mexican-American judge,” Bryant said. "It's totally unacceptable."

The rally and march start at 11:45 a.m. Cleveland time - that’s 9:45 a.m. in most of Idaho.




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More than 60 Connecticut immigrant advocate groups sent a letter to Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., to safeguard asylum rights.

Murphy is the lead negotiator for the supplemental funding request for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Congressional Republicans asked for border protection funding to accompany the foreign aid package, which Democrats have agreed to. However, the final version of the bill would have severe consequences for asylum seekers.

Constanza Segovia, organizer for the group Hartford Deportation Defense, said the right to declare asylum should not be negotiable.

"They would be backtracking on decades of work and protections that really are non-controversial in terms of anyone concerned with human rights and the human right to seek refuge," Segovia asserted.

Segovia and other Connecticut groups are offering other suggestions for border security, such as increasing funding for asylum processing, reducing work permit waiting times and providing better resources for municipal and state governments to provide better services. Senate Republicans blocked the funding package in an initial procedural vote, to express their intent on passing the border bill as it is.

Connecticut and other states have found the number of migrants arriving is too much to handle. Although they have called on the federal government for funding assistance, their cries have fallen on deaf ears.

Segovia noted there is a disconnect between the number of people seeking asylum in the U.S., and those to whom it is granted.

"I've talked to people who are experiencing serious violence and still are not able to have a successful asylum case," Segovia pointed out. "To me what that means is the law could be less restrictive to include some other forms of violence."

Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reported in the past 20 years, asylum grants are only around 46% of all grants of relief the court awarded.

From construction and hospitality to business creation and consumer spending, a new report shows the oversized contributions immigrants are making to the labor force in New Mexico. The report shows that immigrants to Santa Fe County made up more than one in seven workers in 2019.

Asma Esa, manager of state and local initiatives with the American Immigration Council, explained their contributions cannot be overvalued in creating the area's vibrancy.

"Even though immigrants made up 11.1% of the county's total population, they actually made up 15% of its employed labor force, as well as 15.2% of the working-age population," Esa said.

The report, released by the American Immigration Council, also shows immigrants in Santa Fe County paid more than $122 million in taxes and held over $365 million in spending power in 2019.

Marcela Diaz, executive director of Somos Un Pueblo Unido - a statewide group founded in 1995 to promote worker and racial justice, said Santa Fe, like other cities, has an aging workforce and needs to employ and recruit younger workers - while also figuring out how to maximize the contributions of immigrants.

"And to be fully integrated into the city's economic development plans - we want to have more access to workforce development opportunities, and really be a part of the city's long-term vision, Diaz said.

According to the report, the 16,000 immigrants living in Santa Fe County in 2019 mostly arrived from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Roughly 93% reported they had lived in the United States for more than five years.


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A new survey found immigrant students need better help in school.

The YouthTruth, Re-Imagining Migration survey was designed to examine the perspective of immigrant students as to how they are doing in school. The survey showed immigrant students do not feel they can be themselves there. There were also middling scores when asked if they feel like part of their school's community.

Adam Strom, executive director of the nonprofit Re-Imagining Migration, described the importance of an immigrant student's native language to their education.

"If you're in a school where folks are encouraging you to speak your own home language when appropriate, your school experience is much better," Strom asserted. "You have a much stronger sense of belonging. You have a much stronger sense that your peers like you. You see yourself in textbooks more, you see yourself in the classroom more and what's being taught."

He noted if schools take the opposite approach, it can increase a students' sense of isolation. While there has been more attention paid to immigrant student's mental health, cultural and attitudinal barriers like stigma were a factor. Strom argued schools being more inclusive of immigrant students and their families can improve their education.

Though there are ways to ensure immigrant students feel included, there are some challenges to making the strategies work. Along with anti-immigrant sentiments flooding the country, teacher shortages mean educators cannot be one-on-one with their students.

Jimmy Simpson Jr., director of partnerships for YouthTruth, said another factor is immigrant students are more than immigrants.

"Thinking that there are migrant students also part of the LGBTQ community, Black immigrant students or brown, BIPOC immigrant students," Simpson outlined. "They have very different types of experiences than a migrant student who may be white."

Simpson added seeing people beyond just being immigrants goes a long way to creating a welcoming environment for immigrant students in schools.