Take a look at this article and video posted by local news station WLBT as the applications for Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival were made available on Wednesday, August 15th.
 
MIRA in the news.
 
 

The U.S. Supreme Court indicated Wednesday it appears ready to uphold one of the most controversial parts of Arizona’s immigration law: a requirement that police officers check the immigration status of people they think are in the country illegally.
Wading into a highly divisive issue in the middle of a presidential campaign year, conservative and liberal justices who heard oral arguments on Wednesday morning seemed to find no strong objection to that section of the law.
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Statement read by Bill Chandler, MIRA Executive Director
June 26, 2012
 
The United States Supreme Court correctly struck down wrongheaded policies that would have pushed families, workers, and senior citizens into the criminal justice system.  But the Court made a grave error in upholding the discriminatory “show me your papers” provision that violates people’s basic rights.  The justices are out of touch with what this law means in Arizona and where this section has been enacted.
 
Racial profiling and its consequences has always been a severe problem nationwide for African Americans.  As immigrants, …

June 25, 2001
In response to the United States Supreme Court decision regarding the U.S. Justice Department’s suit over the Arizona anti-immigrant law, SB 1070, MIRA, NAACP, ACLU, and other civil rights organizations will hold a news conference in the MIRA Office, 612 N. State St., Jackson, Mississippi at 2:00 pm today.
For further information:
Bill Chandler, MIRA 601-968-5182
Bear Atwood, ACLU 601-354-3408
 

by Bill Chandler, Exec. Director
June 15, 2012

 
The Mississippi Immigrants Rights Alliance applauds the announcement by the Obama Administration that it will grant deferred action to undocumented youth who were brought to the United States as small children and who have been raised and educated in communities around the country.
 
This policy change will affect as many as 800,000 immigrants who have lived in fear of deportation.  It also by-passes Congress and partially achieves the goals of the DREAM Act, which began as a bi-partisan proposal over a decade ago that included Sen. …

May 30, 2012

The problems at the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) operated facility in Adams County are becoming more obvious as we receive calls and reports from inmates’ families and other sources. For starters: the facility houses undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of a crime – but the “criminal record” most of these men carry is that of being deported once and then re-entering the country (a felony under current immigration law).
 
And though the prison is located in Mississippi, the vast majority of the inmates are imported by CCA from other states, …

The complaints we’ve heard about beatings, overcrowding, substandard food, and lack of proper medical care may have finally come to a head in the form of an inmate riot in the Adams County Correctional Facility, under the Federal Bureau of Prisons, (not Immigration and Customs Enforcement , commonly known as ICE). The 2,500 bed facility houses male immigrants, convicted of crimes, and serving time. Reports have it that they are primarily from Mexico.  It is a federal prison that’s operated by the private company, Correctional Corporation of America, (CCA).
Officials in …

by Josh Edwards The Vicksburg Post
May 14, 2012
About 100 City of Vicksburg employees and union organizers rallied on the steps of City Hall Wednesday afternoon in the second pro-union demonstration by city workers since February.
 
The rally had bout 40 city employees and 60 union organizers from across the country. City workers held a similar rally Feb. 16.
 
Since the push to unionize began, close to 100 city employees have said they want the Board of Mayor and Aldermen to recognize the Mississippi Alliance of State Employees/ Communications Workers of America …

Frank Curiel (R), an organizer for the Laborers Union and the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, talks with Samuel Holguin, owner of the La Veracruzana market in Laurel, MS. Photo credit: David Bacon.

Courtesy The Nation magazine

by David Bacon
April 20, 2012

In early April, an anti-immigrant bill like those that swept through legislatures in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina was stopped cold in Mississippi. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Tea Party Republicans were confident they’d roll over any opposition. They’d brought Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who co-authored Arizona’s …

The 2012 MIRA / SCLC 6th Annual Unity Conference, Stand With Us: Uniting the Interracial Interfaith Communities of Color in Mississippi, was a huge success! Activists and faith leaders from across the state and nation joined us for a series of dialogues on Islam, social reform, immigration reform, immigrant youth activism, and current legislation in Mississippi.
Among those in attendance was Father Jerry Tobin, a priest with a predominantly immigrant congregation in Carthage, Mississippi. He commented that this years’ conference was one of the best that MIRA has hosted. He particularly appreciated that …