The Guardian reports on life for immigrants as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement carries out more aggressive immigration raids. ICE is “now going after all the estimated 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the US at once – drawing little distinction between hardened criminals and productive community members who have started businesses, bought homes and paid their taxes. This includes a 10-year-old with cerebral palsy Ice arrested in October 2017 after she left a Texas hospital for treatment; undocumented adults who volunteer to take custody of children who crossed the border by themselves; and an elderly couple visiting their pregnant daughter-in-law and her husband at a military base in New York for the Fourth of July holiday. ‘The idea is to try to send the message to communities that everybody is at risk of deportation by arresting all sorts of people who are no kind of threat and who very well may be productive members of their communities with US citizen family members and people who rely on them and all that sort of thing,’ said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project... Lawyers and advocates said this “papers, please” mentality has led to Ice targeting more people at sensitive locations such as schools and hospitals, more vulnerable populations and more people eligible for immigration relief… ‘I’m actually living like I’m still locked up because any minute they could come and pick me up and deport me,’ [Nak Kim] Chhoeun, a 43-year-old who came to the US as a Cambodian refugee in 1981, told the Guardian. ‘Everything I have now is just temporary.’”
A new study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health compared premature birth rates among US-born women and immigrants before and following the 2016 presidential election. Premature births rates are often used as an indicator of overall population health, with premature births influenced heavily by exposure to stress and trauma. While preterm births in the population as a whole have risen since November 2016, premature birth rates among immigrant women – especially Latina women born in Mexico or Central America – have risen the most dramatically. The study’s lead author, Nancy Krieger, observed that the Trump administration’s policies “take a toll at many levels… one of them is on the health of the people now who are pregnant and the next generation to whom they give birth.”
CityLab reports on evidence that nuisance calls spike in gentrifying neighborhoods: “Using 311 data available on [New York City’s] open data portal, [the research] team mapped the per capita noise complaints in 41 census tracts in New York City—things like banging, loud music, and loud talking. Then, using the methodology employed by New York University’s Furman Center, the team identified the neighborhoods that gentrified between 2011 and 2016. (Think: Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Bushwick, and Flatbush.) After running their analysis through statistical tests, they found something significant: Per capita 311 calls increased in all neighborhoods, but they rose at a 70 percent faster rate in the gentrifying ones. Specifically, the per capita volume of 311 calls in gentrifying neighborhoods rose two times as fast compared to high-income ones (that weren’t eligible to gentrify) over the six-year period; they rose 50 percent faster than low-income neighborhoods (that did not gentrify)… Earlier in the year, Buzzfeed also conducted a 311 analysis. Their snapshot of New York census tracts showed per capita calls were higher in gentrifying tracts. They zoomed into the dynamic in one block in Harlem, finding that the rise in calls coincided with the influx of whiter, richer residents… But what all these analyses do is provide evidence that the erasing of deep-rooted color and class lines may cause tensions between neighbors. Perhaps newcomers call authorities because they do not know how to speak directly with existing residents. There may be language or culture barriers; they may see long-established neighborhood rituals—playing dominoes on the sidewalk, convening drum circles in the park, or playing music—not as ways the existing community members connect with each other, but as sources of nuisance.”
A Grist article explored the substantial evidence “that meaningful communities and lasting change can come out of disaster.” Eric Holthaus writes, “For example, we know that schools often form the heart of communities dealing with acute climate disaster. Last year, after Hurricane Harvey, Houston Public Schools moved immediately to provide three free meals for every student for the entire school year, providing a ballast to struggling families. Despite a crumbling post-storm budget, the program was a success at keeping kids in school, so the school district is doing it again this year. After other hurricanes, artists have lept into action. In Miami, the arts community banded together to work on cultural preservation in the face of future storms and in New Orleans, public art now highlights the evacuation routes. There are convincing signs that our ongoing climate disaster is motivating people to rethink human society altogether. There’s a “Transition Towns” movement growing in 50 countries around the world. In this new model, citizens work together to sustain a “circular” economy, one that’s entirely carbon neutral and not focused on economic growth. In times like these, and it may sound wistful, I look to my friends for courage. I know all of this [waves hands wildly] is not on me alone to change, nor should it be. It’s only through talking with each other, innovating with each other, that we’ll be able to find our way
through.”
The San Francisco Examiner reports on the US Supreme Court’s refusal to hear an appeal from paint companies, clearing the way for three paint companies to pay $409 million to 10 California counties and cities for lead abatement. “Santa Clara County Counsel James Williams, whose office led the filing of the lawsuit in 2000, said, “This is a major victory for the tens of thousands of California children who have been poisoned by lead paint. “Sherwin Williams and its co-defendants knew their product was toxic, yet still sold it to families. After almost two decades of litigation, they will finally be held responsible,” Williams said in a statement. The other local governments that joined the lawsuit and will share in the fund are Alameda, Los Angeles, Monterey, San Mateo, Solano and Ventura counties and the cities of San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego. The three paint makers are Sherwin-Williams Co.; NL Industries Inc., formerly known as National Lead Industries; and ConAgra Grocery Products Co., which took over the former Fuller paint company. Exposure to lead in paint dust and chips can cause brain damage, learning disabilities, slowed growth and kidney damage in children. The federal government banned the use of lead-based paint in residences in 1978. Kleinberg originally ordered the companies to pay $1.15 billion to remedy lead paint in houses and apartments built before 1980. But last year, the state Court of Appeal upheld the finding of liability but narrowed it to houses built before 1951. The appeals court said the liability should apply only to older houses because there was no evidence the companies advertised the use of lead-based paint, as opposed to paint in general, after 1951.”
In an op-ed for 48 Hills, Dr. Leslie Suen argues that San Francisco needs to do more to address homelessness and cites her experience as a physician troubled that her clients’ treatable medical conditions can’t be properly addressed when they lack housing: “What do you do as a physician when you have all of the best medicines in the world, but can’t treat a patient’s disease simply because they don’t have a place to call home? This was the question I struggled with as I entered Ms. Anderson’s hospital room. Ms. Anderson was a San Francisco native and shipyard worker for the majority of her adult life before she was laid off over thirty years ago. Due to a work injury, she couldn’t find another job and lost her home, living on the streets for the past three decades. Like the overwhelming majority of homeless in San Franciscans, she was formerly housed in San Francisco...”