Biden’s plan to offer a path to U.S. citizenship to nearly 11 million undocumented people is perhaps the boldest and most controversial of his proposals to overhaul the American immigration system. More than 60% of the immigrants the plan would benefit have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade and they have more …

Episode 2 of Netflix’s series “Surgeon’s Cut” features the story of Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, who was born in Mexicali, Mexico into a childhood of poverty, then became a migrant farmworker, and with determination and courage worked his way to Harvard Medical School to become a world-class neurosurgeon and a professor of neurosurgery at the Mayo Clinic. …

Six out of 17 executive orders signed by President Biden after his inauguration on January 20 are aimed at sweeping aside former President Trump’s anti-immigration policies, finally giving immigrants and asylum seekers in the American and global community reason for hope. With an executive order, Mr. Biden has bolstered the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals …

By Kathyrn Kramer from Vermont Almanac Gabriel says that the way to help cows not be scared of you is to touch them. Lay a hand, be gentle – it cuts down on their stress. You don’t want cows stressed because then they give less milk and have more difficulty conceiving. Since cows learn to …

In this book, recently published by Harper Collins, NBC news correspondent Jacob Soboroff documents the current administration’s policy of separating refugee children from their parents at the southern border between the U.S. and Mexico – imprisoning and traumatizing thousands of children and parents fleeing environmental disasters and gang violence in Central America.  Facing this influx …

Until Covid-19, volunteers with Central Vermont Reading to End Racism were going into elementary school classrooms to read high quality children’s books with students as a way of illuminating and discussing issues of multiculturalism, equity, racism, and immigration.  The goal is to raise awareness of the harm racism causes and help develop strategies to actively …

On NPR’s New England News Collaborative it was reported that in July Canada’s Federal Court ruled the United States is no longer a safe place for refugees.  The court condemned the treatment of asylum seekers at U.S. detention centers and said the Safe Third Country Agreement between the two countries in now unconstitutional. The agreement …

Suddenly You Are Nobody: Vermont Refugees Tell Their Stories by Jared Grange, published by Huntington Graphics in Burlington, gives a broad and vivid picture of Vermont’s refugee communities. The people we read about came to Vermont from Bhutan, Nepal, Russia, Bosnia, China, Ecuador, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tibet, Vietnam, Mexico, Palestine, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Iraq.  Their …

Thelma Gomez, a member of the Vermont migrant community and an  organizer with Migrant Justice states that grueling work schedules, limited access to medical care, language barriers, and cramped housing all contribute to farmworkers’ vulnerability to Covid19.  “Multiple workers share the same room and if one gets sick there’s no way for them to self-isolate or …