For those of you who didn’t get to check out the first day of Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, below is her opening statement. For more videos, check out America’s Voice.

Our partners at America’s Voice are sponsoring 8 immigration bloggers for this year’s Netroots Nation. Check it out:

The America’s Voice – Netroots Nation “Immigration Blogger Scholar” Contest is Here!

The annual Netroots Nation Convention, entering its fourth year now, is a unique gathering of progressive bloggers, activists, issue campaigns, and candidates.

This year, America’s Voice will send 8 immigration bloggers to Pittsburgh, PA to attend the convention, with the help of the Netroots Nation planning committee.

America’s Voice is committed to supporting a vibrant and independent pro-migrant blogosphere and we believe it is critical for bloggers who write about immigration to be well-represented at Netroots Nation.

So, do you know someone working at the intersection of new media and immigration, who blogs on the issue, and who needs some help getting to Netroots Nation?

Apply Today to be a Immigration-Blogger-Scholar at Netroots Nation 2009

APPLY TODAY and please FORWARD!

Here is another installment by our guest blogger, Robert Gittelson. This time, Robert asks the tough question: Are we ready to fight for immigration reform?

In the ongoing push to achieve legislative passage of a full and well considered CIR bill this year, it seems prudent to pause every once and a while, to get our bearings. Now seems as good a time as any to take stock of what has been achieved, and what exactly are the areas that could use some additional and well targeted effort, if our goal is to be realized.

The “Full Right for Immigrants Coalition” held an important panel discussion on Saturday, July 11, at the Loyola University Law School in Los Angeles, that addressed this issue: “Towards Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Next Steps.” The public forum called on “organized labor, immigration attorneys, elected representatives, and pro-immigrant rights activists to be a part of a serious political conversation about where the movement goes from here, and how to get to the finish line on immigration reform that fixes the broken immigration system.”

There is an underlying consensus among many of the coalition members that to date, action has been long on empty campaign rhetoric, and short on substantive achievement. The event will be a space for airing “concerns” at the event, and offering their ideas about getting this campaign firmly on a track for success. I was asked to participate in one of the panel discussions. In a nutshell, here is what I intend to brought up at the public forum: leadership.

Now, ultimately, President Obama has to assume the ultimate mantel of “Leader” on the issue of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, and slowly but surely, he seems to be cautiously sliding into that role. I can’t exactly say that he has taken the bull by the horns, but he has given indications that he will eventually get in the game. I guess that we have to take what we can get. For now, he has “delegated” leadership to others. Therein lay my greatest concerns.

The President has delegated the Executive Branch’s heavy lifting to his very capable Director of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and I think that is appropriate. She has a reputation of being a tireless worker, and for now, I am comfortable with her in this role.

On the other hand, since it appears that the game-plan in Congress calls for the Senate to assume the leadership position on moving this legislation forward, I admit to being somewhat less than entirely comfortable with the leadership in charge of this issue to date. Ultimately, leadership on this issue has to be assumed by Majority Leader Harry Reid, because the “buck” stops on his desk. In all candor, I was neither comfortable nor pleased with his performance on this issue in 2006 and 2007, as he lost both times. Has he learned from his previous mistakes? Time will tell, and he does face a serious challenge for reelection soon in a highly Hispanic state, so one would think that motivation is not the problem. It will come down to a question of competency. I would be more comfortable if there was some indication that progress is being made in the Senate on this issue.

However, as we saw last week, Harry Reid does not seem to have made significant progress on this issue. In analyzing the votes for e-verify and the border fence amendments this week, I only noticed one Senator voting differently now than they did two years ago – Senator Webb. Other than that one vote, it was déjà vu all over again.

And what of Senator Schumer? He is filling some difficult shoes, in assuming the leadership post on Immigration from Senator Kennedy. I praise him for having the courage to step up to the plate, and I wish him nothing but success, because he is in for the battle of his life. I want to be clear and up front. He is going up against Senator Jeff Sessions on this issue, and to date, Sessions is the undefeated Champion. There is almost nothing that I like about the politics of Senator Sessions on the issue of CIR, but I do have to offer my grudging respect. The man is competent, and a very worthy adversary.

Last week, let us call it as we saw it. Schumer went up against Sessions on the e-verify amendment, and Schumer got beat.

Sure, we can shrug it off, and assume that things will be different when the negotiations for a full CIR bill get moving – by Labor day, according to Senator Schumer. But why should they be different? At the end of the day, it is going to come down to horse-trading. However, ultimately, the pro-CIR side wants to trade earned legalization for enforcement. Schumer will give Sessions E-verify and the border fence, and Sessions will give Schumer earned legalization. That has always been the gist of it, and all the many other subsidiary issues are supposed to fall into place like dominoes.

Unfortunately, since last week, either through Session’s competency, or Schumer’s lack of preparation, Sessions now has both e-verify and the border fence in his pocket already. What motivation does he have to trade now? We already gave him the two things that he wants the most, and the game hasn’t even started yet!

Therefore, when it was my turn to speak on Saturday, and they asked me if I have any concerns, I brought this issue up.

Look, I do not mean to belittle Chuck Schumer. He is an extremely credentialed and well respected public servant, and a very good man, (and he also went to my mother’s high school – Madison in Brooklyn). I intend to support him 110% in his efforts on CIR, and I still believe that he will ultimately prevail on this issue. I just want to make sure that he has gotten the wake-up call this week. The Restrictionists have a very competent General in Jeff Sessions. We can leave no stone unturned, and we must dot every “i” and cross every “t”. We can not leave anything to chance. We have to have this game won in the locker room, before the kick-off. The other side is that good.

I’m sure that others out there have seen this cartoon before, but I just stumbled across it for the first time today. I thought it was good enough to merit its own blog post. I think that people often forget the history of Nativism in this country. If you take a step back and look at the big (and historic) picture of immigration to the United States, you realize that the tendency to scapegoat the immigrant of the era has always been there. Thankfully, there have also always been the people working to overcome prejudice, xenophobia and misinformation.

Check out USA Today’s WEBCAST of a National roundtable discussion on the language journalists use to talk about immigration. Should be interesting – there are speakers from USA Today, National Council of La Raza, and our dear old friends at Numbers USA.

Check out this great video from our partners at Somos un Pueblo Unido in New Mexico. And remember, if you want to receive up-to-the-minute action alerts and updates from the frontlines of the fight for immigration reform, text JUSTICE to 69866.

Last week, it was announced that the Department of Homeland Security was signing 11 new local law enforcement agencies onto the program known as 287(g). The program grants local law enforcement agents the authority to enforce federal immigration laws. The destructive program cultivates a culture of fear among immigrants and communities of color, pours resources into the rounding up of immigrants instead of the protection of public safety and has been condemned by everyone from independent think-thanks to the Police Foundation.

So why is DHS continuing this failed program? While the announcement was made alongside the pledge of a long overdue “review” of the program, it is a mistake to expand any failed enforcement program in the absence of satisfactory comprehensive immigration legislation.

Let me be clear, this is the program that gives Sheriff Joe “I don’t have to answer to the DOJ” Arpaio the authority to round up Latinos like cattle and ignore his commitment to the actual protection of the public. This is the program under which Juana Villegas de la Paz was shackled to her hospital bed while giving birth to her child. This is the program that was found to “create a climate of racial profiling and insecurity” by a leading national university.

I am disappointed that the announcement of a review of this program was accompanied by an ill-advised expansion. This, more than anything, points to the need for a FULL OVERHAUL of immigration policy. We cannot continue failed programs in the absence of comprehensive reform.

As an editorial in the NY Times today stated:

Enforcement-only schemes were the rage back when anti-immigrant demagogues were in full roar and Bush officials wanted to show how tough they were. They bring us no closer to an immigration system that works. Mr. Obama promised fresh ideas on immigration reform. So far we don’t see them.

Today marks the first day of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor.

Tune into the LIVE hearings here.

And for more on these hearings and the attacks on the Latina nominee, check out the America’s Voice blog.

Today, amid a mixed bag of news from Congress and the administration, an indpendent Council on Foreign Relations panel – co-chaired by former Florida governor Jeb Bush (R) and former Clinton White House chief of staff Thomas F. “Mack” McLarty III – publicly called for comprehensive immigration reform.

“The stakes are too high to fail,” says the report. “If the United States continues to mishandle its immigration policy, it will damage one of the vital underpinnings of American prosperity and security, and could condemn the country to a long, slow decline in its status in the world.” For this reason, the report urges: “The United States needs a fundamental overhaul of its immigration laws.”

More specifically, the report states:

A new effort to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill should be a first-tier priority for the Obama administration and Congress, and should be started without delay.

What makes this panel unique are its diverse members, among which are: Eliseo Medina, international executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union; Raul H. Yzaguirre, past president and chief executive of the National Council of La Raza; and Robert C. Bonner, former head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Edward Alden, the task force’s director and a Council on Foreign Relations fellow, had this to say:

“Politically, what this group shows is a consensus is possible on this issue.”

Yet another voice joining the chorus of people saying that not only do we need immigration reform this year, but its POSSIBLE to do so. Now, let’s see some action!