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Shaun the Sheep in St. James's Park in London.
This spring and summer Wallace & Gromit’s Children’s Foundation is bringing Shaun the Sheep (all 120 giant sculptures by artists, designers, and celebrities) to London and Bristol's green spaces for the public to enjoy. The sculptures will go to auction later in the year to raise charity funds to help sick children in hospitals across the United Kingdom. Shaun the Sheep sculptures will be in London until May 25th. Go say hi!
For decades there has been an increased militarization of the US-Mexico border. For most of the country’s history, the southwest has been culturally and economically connected to the northwest Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California Norte. After the 1980s, when hundreds of thousands of Central American refugees fled the wars in their countries and crossed our southern border, the US government began to construct walls and other barriers to stem the tide. In 1994, the government implemented Operation Gatekeeper, whose aim was to deter would-be migrants from crossing at the historic and well-worn crossings around the Tijuana/San Diego corridor. To some extent, the plan worked—fewer people crossed near the major population centers. But they did not stop coming. Instead, people were pushed out further and further into the extremely inhospitable terrain of the Sonora desert of southern Arizona. By the late 1990s, southern Arizona became the epicenter of a migration, and ground zero of an increasingly deadly journey. There do not appear to be good statistics of how many people die crossing into the US, but several thousand deaths have been documented over the last two decades, and it is estimated that several hundred die each year from dehydration, hypothermia, drowning, or exhaustion.
Read moreA shipwreck this past weekend off the coast of Libya has led to the death of 800 migrants and has prompted calls for the European Union to address the worsening migrant crisis in Europe. The boat, which set sail from Tripoli and is one of many unseaworthy vessels that human smugglers use, contained nationals of Gambia, Ivory Coast, Somalia, Eritrea, Mali, Tunisia, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh and Syria, and included children between the ages of ten and twelve. With only a reported twenty-seven survivors, it is the worst such disaster in the Mediterranean Sea. Italian authorities arrested a Tunisian man who is believed to be the captain of the boat as well as a Syrian national, who were charged with human trafficking and the captain also charged with reckless multiple homicide. The overall migrant death toll in the Mediterranean Sea this year has already surpassed 1,500 victims—a drastic increase from the same period last year. The record number of migrants including children seeking haven in Europe is reminiscent of the US/Mexico border surge and crisis last year.
Italian rescuer Vincenzo Bonomo told La Repubblica: "'It was a sight that broke the hearts of even men of the sea like us. I saw children’s shoes, clothing, backpacks floating in the water. Every time we saw a shoe or a bag, any sign of life, we thought we might have found a survivor. But every time we were disappointed. It was heart-breaking[.]'"
In response, the European Union agreed after emergency meetings to launch military operations against the networks of smugglers in Libya deemed responsible for sending thousands of people to their deaths in the Mediterranean in addition to increasing maritime patrols as well as naval search-and-rescue missions. Anas el-Gomati, a researcher at the Sadeq Institute, a Libyan think-tank, questioned the effectiveness of the European response: "'Military action is a deterrent; it’s not a substitute for a coherent and robust policy...It will do nothing to stop the flow of migrants coming from sub-Saharan Africa and address the reasons as to why they choose to take a perilous route such as the western coast of Libya.'"
Nigerian refugee Hakim Bello, who previously survived the dangerous sea voyage and now lives in Berlin, called the Mediterranean Sea "the deadliest border in the world" and tried to explain what motivates migrants to undertake the dangerous journey: "We all have different reasons for doing it: some people think they’ll find a better life in Europe, others just want to get away from a war zone. But everyone feels they have no other option."
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of Malta said: "'What happened on Sunday was a game changer...There is a new realization that if Europe doesn’t act as a team, history will judge it very harshly, as it did when it closed its eyes to stories of genocide—horrible stories—not long ago.'"
"I look in the mirror and see someone who is not myself."
Pastrami on rye with mustard and pickles from the famous Katz's Delicatessen in the Lower East Side.
Jon Blank, our hungry paralegal, trekked all the way to the Lower East Side (ok, he skateboarded) to Katz's Deli because he wanted a good pastrami on rye "with just mustard, nothing else, because that's the way it should be served!" He's a connoisseur.
It reminded us of The New York Times' thoroughly researched "A Field Guide to the American Sandwich" which is one of the most comprehensive and informative guides to the sandwich we've read. It also made us really, really hungry. The pastrami on rye, according to the Times, falls under the "Sliced Bread" category—the other categories include "Kaiser or 'Hard' Roll;" "Soft Bun;" "Hero or Sub Roll;" and "'Singulars,'" which fall "outside these other groups but are still vital to the sandwich landscape, like the muffuletta." Pastrami remains unsurprisingly "closely associated with Jewish delicatessens" and is a "Romanian-Jewish-American hybrid of barbecue, basturma (Turkish dried, spiced meat) and corned beef[.]” Oh yeah, and it's delicious!
The world is full of many talented artists—including those who design our public and private spaces. Often these talented artists want to come to the US to work in the numerous architectural firms that do business in the US. So, what visas do architects typically have?
H-1B: Probably the most common visa type for architects is the H-1B specialty occupation visa. As architects will most likely have at the very least a bachelor's degree, an H-1B may be the logical first choice; however, with the numerical limits of this visa type, the H1-B may not be possible.
E-3: Since architects are generally recognized as “specialty occupations” it is likely they will also be eligible for an E-3 visa if they are Australian.
TN: Since “architect” is one of the professions allowed to apply for a TN visa, architects who are nationals of Canada or Mexico could be eligible for this visa category.
Read moreRecently introduced legislation, the Asylum Reform and Border Protection Act, sponsored by Representative Jason Chaffetz, would criminalize being an unauthorized immigrant in the US and also make it more difficult for applicants to prove a “credible fear of persecution claim” for US asylum. Included in the legislation is also a provision to help homeschoolers (and their families) persecuted in their home countries by granting up to 500 asylum claims per year based on persecution because of their preference for homechooling. Jürgen and Rosemarie Dudek, a German couple, who were sentenced to prison for three months because they were homeschooling their children, a practice that has been officially banned in Germany since 1938, could potentially benefit from such legislation. All Jürgen Dudek wants is “to be able to educate his kids without worrying about fines or prison” and said that the passage of the homeschool provision “would send a message to the German government that parents deserve the freedom to educate their children in the way they best see fit.”
Michael Donnelly, the director of global outreach for the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), which helped draft the bill, called it “groundbreaking” and said that a "'country that bans homeschooling is violating the basic human rights of their citizens.'" HSLDA also supported another German family, Uwe and Hannelore Romeike and their seven children, after a Tennessee judge initially granted the family asylum but the Obama administration overturned the decision, arguing that Germany’s homeschooling ban was not a form of religious persecution and therefore could not be used as a basis for US asylum. The Romeikes, like many homeschoolers, are religious and incorporate Christian teachings into their homeschool curriculum. While The Supreme Court declined to hear the family’s case, the Department of Homeland Security granted “deferred action,” allowing the Romeikes to remain in the US.
The homeschooling asylum provision, however, is puzzling to many, as it could actually weaken what has traditionally been a tough asylum standard. Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration professor at Cornell University Law School, "questions whether homeschooling bans rise to the level of persecution or whether they are more about discrimination and could set a more generous precedent, including those the overall legislation is intended to prevent." He said: "'Most courts have defined persecution as being something pretty significant...Generally, it’s hard to win asylum and they don’t want any decisions to make it seem easier to get asylum.'"
Representative Luis Gutiérrez questions whether it is right to offer asylum to homeschoolers while making asylum more difficult for those fleeing drug and gang violence. Gutiérrez said: “The Republicans have put homeschooling as a priority for asylum in the United States ahead of murder, rape, child abuse[.]'”
"I was well into adulthood before I realized I was an American. Of course I had been born in America and had lived here all of my life, but somehow it never occurred to me that just being a citizen of the United States meant I was an American. Americans are people who ate peanut butter and jelly on mushy white bread that came in plastic packages. But I was ITALIAN.
For me, as I am sure for most second generation Italian-American children who grew up in the 40's or 50's, there was a definite distinction drawn between US and THEM. We were Italians. Everybody else....the Irish, German, Polish, Jews, they were the "MED-E-GONES". There was no animosity involved in that distinction, no prejudice, no hard-feelings....just, well, we were sure ours was the better way, For instance, we had a bread-man, a coal-man, and ice-man, a fruit and vegetable man, a watermelon man, and a fish-man; we even had a man who sharpened knives and scissors, who came to our homes or at least outside our homes. They were the many peddlers who plied their wares in the Italian neighborhoods. We would wait for their call, their yell, their individual distinctive sound. We knew them all and they knew us. Americans went to the stores for most of their foods. What a waste! Truly I pitied their loss. They never knew the pleasure of waking up every morning to find a hot crispy loaf of bread waiting behind the screen door...
There was another difference between US and THEM. We had gardens. Not just flower gardens, but huge gardens where we grew tomatoes, tomatoes and more tomatoes. We ate them, cooked them, and jarred them, Of course, we also grew peppers (hot and sweet), basil, parsly, lettuce and zucchini. Everybody had a grapevine and a fig tree....and in the Fall, everyone covered the fig-tree and made home-made wine, lots of it. Of course, those gardens thrived so, because we also had something else our American friends didn't seem to have. We had a GRANDFATHER!! It's not that they didn't have a Grandfather; its just that they didn't live in the same house or on the same block. They VISITED their Grandfathers. We ate with ours...and God forbid, if we did not see them once a day."
- Elvira S. Oliver
The Joy of Growing-Up Italian
An "Apa" mask from the Becoming Another exhibit at the Rubin Museum
"Apa is a well-known and unruly character in the dances of the Monpa and Sherdukpen peoples. Alternating between playing the village chief (with a yellow form of this mask), an animal hunter (a black or dark red form), a lustful drunk (an orange form), or a senile old man, he appears in multiple village and monastic dances. This mask of Apa most likely represents the farcical drunk, who in the dance tries to seduce and intoxicate eleven women of high rank. The performance ends with Apa realizing his wrongdoing and excusing himself to the women."
As an immigration attorney, it gives me great joy to tell our clients that their Green Cards (giving them permanent residency status in the US) have been approved. My husband is himself a Green Card holder so I know firsthand how important the freedom and security that permanent residency in the US provides for immigrants; at the same time, it’s also important for Green Card holders to know their rights and responsibilities as permanent residents—including how to maintain their permanent residency to ensure that they keep their Green Cards and, if they so desire, apply for citizenship down the road!
The following dialogue is a fictional example of a conversation I often have with our clients about maintaining permanent residency. (No Daryanani & Bland client information is used or revealed and any similarity to real people is entirely coincidental!).
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