Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (Photo: Flickr/The National Guard)

Former members of a task force on Secure Communities sent a letter this week to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano calling on her to suspend the immigration enforcement program.

The letter also expressed their concern that an Arizona law enforcement agency that has committed a “wide range of civil rights violations” still has access to Secure Communities.

Brittney Nystrom of the National Immigration Forum and Andrea Zuniga DiBitetto of the AFL-CIO write in the letter:

As former members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, Task Force on Secure Communities, we note with concern the multiple findings of racial profiling of Latinos and other civil rights violations by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on December 15.

The findings of a pattern and practice of racial profiling of Latinos in Maricopa County, Arizona, demonstrate that abuse can occur while the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is actively collaborating with enforcement agencies through both the 287(g) program and the Secure Communities program and through informal collaboration between DHS and law enforcement agencies.

“My understanding is that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is continuing to operate Secure Communities in Maricopa County despite the findings of discriminatory policing by that sheriffs department,” Nystrom tells The Florida Independent.

Secure Communities allows local law enforcement agencies to check the fingerprints of people they detain and match them up with federal immigration and criminal databases, with the stated goal of deporting undocumented immigrant criminals. All 67 Florida jurisdictions participate in Secure Communities.

Napolitano said in October that the termination of Secure Communities “would only weaken public safety, and move the immigration enforcement system back towards the ad hoc approach where non-criminal aliens are more likely to be removed than criminals.”

Opponents of Secure Communities have repeatedly called on the Obama administration to end the fingerprint-sharing program because immigrants who have committed no crime are being detained and deported, leaving behind U.S.-born children and families that, in many cases, will struggle to make ends meet.

Nystrom says that Homeland Security officials said they were “limiting” the Maricopa sheriff’s office’s “access to Secure Communities, but that in [her] thinking and Andrea’s thinking doesn’t go far enough to prevent someone who was picked up in a biased manner from being put into the deportation machine.”

The letter adds that the Secure Communities termination should also include Alabama, “where immigration enforcement laws that have been challenged as unconstitutional by the Department of Justice are in effect.”

GOP Senate candidate Craig Miller (Photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore)

Taking a swipe at an unexpected group, U.S. Senate candidate Craig Miller tells Creative Loafing Tampa that “young people” are too reliant on the government and need to “get off [their] butt, go get a job,” according to an interview posted yesterday.

During his interview with Loafing, Miller said:

“We’ve created a culture with our young people where ‘If you can’t find a job we’ll put you on the government payroll for 99 weeks, and we’ll extend it and extend it,’” he says. “At some point you have to step back and say, ‘Are we creating this whole idea that the government, every time somebody runs into a problem, is the outlet for the solution?’”

He then says his late father, who would have been 100 this year if he were still alive, would have laughed hysterically if he had to keep his son on his own health insurance plan until he was 26, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) does.

“It was the culture I came from,” he says. “Now it seems like every kid who gets out of school at 25, if there’s not a $50,000 job waiting for him, then he’s been unfairly treated. Okay? I say, get off your butt, go get a job.”

Current research shows that young people have been strongly hit by the economic problems in the U.S. — much more affected than many other groups.

A report released last month by Demos, “The State of Young America,” found that “the percentage of young adults with jobs is at its lowest point in a generation.”

Here is just an excerpt from that study:

Unemployment among the youngest adults is almost twice the national average. Almost 60 percent of survey respondents said they would rather be working and earning more; not surprising given their falling incomes, particularly for less-educated young men.

While young people show a remarkable belief in the power of postsecondary education and postsecondary enrollment numbers, graduation rates are abysmal and there remains a significant achievement gap when it comes to race. Rising tuition is taking its toll, sometimes closing higher education’s doors to low-income students or forcing them to take out ever-increasing loans. Americans now owe more student debt than they do on their credit cards.

The cost of health care is rising as well, though coverage levels will likely improve over the next few years due to recent reforms. In fact, that trend has already started as a million young people joined their parents’ insurance plan over the past year. Nevertheless, young adults remain the most uninsured age group in the country.

Rent as a share of income is also rising, and the economic downturn has not helped. Almost 40 percent of 18 to 34 year-olds reported that their personal debt increased in the last four years.

Raising a family is similarly difficult. While Americans have delayed marriage and kids for a variety of reasons in recent decades, the Great Recession has taken a toll as well. The economy has caused one in four young people to delay marriage, 30 percent to delay starting a family, and 46 percent to delay buying a house. The high cost of child care and lack of paid parental leave (almost 90 percent lack it) make it even harder.

Just this week it was reported that the Affordable Care Act provision Miller criticized helped 2.5 million young adults find health insurance. As the Associated Press pointed out, “traditionally, young adults were more likely to be uninsured than any other age group.”

“Some are making the switch from school to work,” the AP reports. “Others are holding down low-wage jobs that don’t usually come with health care. And some — termed the ‘invincibles’ — pass up job-based health insurance because they don’t think they’ll use it and would rather get extra money in their paychecks.”

Ad for The Awakening 2012 (Photo: Tea Party Manatee)

The Freedom Federation, a network of conservative faith-based organizations, will host its “Awakening 2012″ event in Orlando next year, featuring a long list of big conservative names as “invited speakers.”

Presidential hopefuls Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry have all been invited to Awakening, which will take place April 19-21 at Calvary Assembly in Winter Park. According to the group’s website, Republicans Sen. Marco Rubio, Rep. Allen West and Gov. Rick Scott have also been invited to speak, but have not yet been confirmed.

Other invited speakers include: Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Live Action founder Lila Rose, and James “Jim Bob” Duggar, subject of the TLC reality series 19 Kids and Counting.

John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council, is a confirmed speaker, along with Frank Gaffney, who penned a controversial op-ed insinuating that President Obama was “America’s first Muslim president.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also been confirmed to address the rally via video feed.

Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich made an appearance at the 2011 Awakening event, telling more than 100 faith-based leaders that House Republicans should not compromise on fundamentals because the budget is a “moral battle.”

The GOP-sponsored “Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act,” which extends payroll tax cuts and extends but reduces unemployment benefits through 2012, passed in the U.S. House Tuesday night, but it will not pass in the Senate.

The bill — filed by Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., and cosponsored by five other Republicans, including Rep. Ilena Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami — also cuts “$8 billion from the Harkin Prevention Fund“ and reduces “Medicaid spending by more than $4 billion.”

CBS News reports today that the “measure would keep 160 million workers from seeing their payroll tax jump on Jan. 1 from this year’s 4.2 percent back to its normal level of 6.2 percent,” and would “also renew expiring extra benefits for long-term jobless people.”

The National Employment Law Project said Tuesday the House vote, which includes cuts to unemployment insurance, “will hurt millions of unemployed workers and their families and will further damage the economy.”

The Employment Law Project adds that the House GOP bill would:

• Cut federal unemployment benefits by more than half in 2012, eliminating 40 weeks of payments.
• “Allow the last leg of the federal unemployment insurance extension – the 13 to 20 weeks of Extended Benefits (EB) that are available in the hardest-hit states – to expire, mostly over the course of the first half of 2012.”
• Cut extended benefits in states with unemployment rates higher than the national average, which stands at 8.6 percent.

The Law Project report indicates that under the GOP bill approved Tuesday night, Florida’s unemployed workers would see their unemployment benefits cut by 40 weeks.

Politico reports that the bill, which also “calls for construction of the controversial Keystone KL oil pipeline,” “is dead on arrival in the Democratic Senate and faced a veto threat anyway.”

According to The New York Times, “members of both parties said the payroll tax cut would put money in the pockets of consumers, increasing the demand for goods and services and shoring up a weak economy,” adding that the House bill “would extend jobless benefits for some of the unemployed, while reducing the maximum number of weeks of benefits that a worker could receive.”

The Research Institute on Social and Economic Policy at Florida International University said Tuesday that “if congress does not renew the Extended Benefits (EB) and Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) programs by January 1, 2012, tens of thousands of Floridians currently receiving unemployment benefits funded by the federal government will be cut off.”

The Research Institute, known as RISEP, adds that in Florida, “unemployment has been consistently decreasing since the end of 2010, but labor force participation rates have been decreasing as well. At the end of 2010, the labor force participation rate was 62.7%, but by October 2011, the percentage of working-age population in Florida looking for jobs decreased to 61.8%.”

The RISEP report (.pdf) also argues that whatever Congress decides to do, a law signed by Gov. Rick Scott in June, “will further reduce the number of weeks of federally funded benefits that unemployed workers will be eligible for”:

Last spring the Florida legislature reduced the maximum number of weeks of unemployment from 26 weeks to 23 weeks, depending on how high the unemployment rate is. Starting January 1, the approximately 15,000 people per week who file initial claims for unemployment benefits will be eligible for only 23 weeks of benefits. The state estimates this change will save the Unemployment Compensation Trust Fund $103 million annually, representing a savings to employers but a loss to families and businesses which depend on UC benefits.

In a statement announcing her decision, Sebelius said that although “the science has confirmed the drug to be safe and effective with appropriate use, the switch from prescription to over the counter for this product requires that we have enough evidence to show that those who use this medicine can understand the label and use the product appropriately. ”

“I do not believe that Teva’s application met that standard. The label comprehension and actual use studies did not contain data for all ages for which this product would be available for use,” she said.

Reproductive rights advocates immediately denounced the decision. Numerous groups have already released statements and written letters to Sebelius and the White House expressing disagreement with the decision.

The Washington Post reports that now a group of U.S. senators have written a letter to Sebelius requesting an explanation.

According to the letter:

We feel strongly that FDA regulations should be based on science. We write to you today to ask that you provide us with the rationale for this decision.

As numerous medical societies and patient advocates have argued, improved access to birth control, including emergency contraception, has been proven to reduce unintended pregnancies. Nearly half of all pregnancies that occur in the United States each year are unintended. Keeping Plan B behind the counter makes it harder for all women to obtain a safe and effective product they may need to prevent an unintended pregnancy.

We ask that you share with us your specific rationale and the scientific data you relied on for the decision to overrule the FDA recommendation. On behalf of the millions of women we represent, we want to be assured that this and future decisions affecting women’s health will be based on medical and scientific evidence.

President Obama has publicly supported Sebelius’ decision.

Gov. Rick Scott (Photo: flgov.com)

Public Policy Polling released a poll Tuesday showing that Gov. Rick Scott’s approval rate among Florida voters is at an all-time low.

Public Policy Polling, which has worked for businesses, elected officials, unions and Democratic Party organizations, explains (.pdf): “Florida’s Rick Scott has retaken the title of least popular governor in the country among the 36 on which PPP has polled this year. His job performance mark has tanked from 36% approving and 52% disapproving when PPP last polled the state in September to 26-58 now, a decline of 16 points on the margin.”

Scott’s “greatest fall has been with his own party, which stands at 46-31, down 22 points. Independents disapprove by a 30-55 margin,” according to Public Policy.

According to poll results, men had a higher approval rating (30 percent) for Scott than women (22 percent) and Scott’s disapproval rate was higher among women (59 percent) than men (56 percent).

African-Americans voters show an 80 percent disapproval rate for Scott, followed by Hispanics with 66 percent — while 52 percent of white voters disapprove of Scott’s job performance.

When asked if last year’s elections could be repeated, 53 percent of voters polled said they would vote for Democrat Alex Sink, and 37 percent said they would vote for Scott.

Public Policy results released today also show that Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has a 40 percent job performance approval among Florida voters, while 40 percent disapprove and 20 percent are not sure.

Rubio’s “poll numbers have declined every time PPP’s polled Florida this year.” Rubio “began 2011 with a +12 approval spread at 43/31.” Poll results indicate that Florida’s Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson has an approval rating of +1.

Hispanic voters show a 52 percent disapproval rate for Rubio, followed closely by African-Americans at 50 percent, while white voters have a 46 percent approval rate for Rubio.

Public Policy “surveyed 700 Florida voters from November 28th to December 1st.”

The Pew report (PDF) adds that “nearly half are parents of minor children” and that “the characteristics of this population have become a source of renewed interest” after GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich endorsed a “proposal to create a path for unauthorized immigrants to gain legal status if they have lived in the country for a long period of time, have children in the U.S., pay taxes and belong to a church.”

Gingrich’s recent call for a humane path to immigration enforcement makes him the most recent conservative voice calling for solutions that encompass something more than the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.

Gingrich said, “I don’t see how the — the party that says it’s the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter century. And I’m prepared to take the heat for saying, ‘Let’s be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship, but by finding a way to create legality so that they are not separated from their families.’”

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has also said  “that Republicans would do better to tone down the overheated rhetoric and focus on a positive immigration reform agenda.”

The Pew Hispanic report adds that:

• 35 percent of unauthorized adult immigrants have resided in the U.S. for 15 years or more,
• 28 percent for 10 to 14 years,
• 22 percent for five to nine years, and
• 15 percent for less than five years.

Obama said during “The Beginning of the End of AIDS,” an online conference organized by ONE International, “a grassroots advocacy and campaigning organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa”:

Today, I’m announcing some new commitments. We’re committing an additional $15 million for the Ryan White program that supports care provided by HIV medical clinics across the country. Let’s keep their doors open so they can keep saving lives. And we’re committing an additional $35 million for state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs. Now, the federal government can’t do this alone. So I’m also calling on state governments, pharmaceutical companies, and private foundations, to do their part to help Americans get access to all the life-saving treatments.

Florida has the longest AIDS Drug Assistance Program waiting list in the United States. According to National Alliance of State and territorial AIDS Directors, “as of November 17, 2011, there were 6,595 individuals” (.pdf) on ADAP “waiting lists in 12 states.” More than 3,200 of those people live in Florida.

ADAP provides life saving medications for the treatment of HIV and AIDS for people who cannot afford to pay because they are unemployed, uninsured or underinsured. States have implemented a variety of cost containment measures that include waiting lists since 2010, when ADAPs began facing an ongoing funding crisis.

“With bipartisan support, we reauthorized the Ryan White CARE Act,” Obama said today. “And, as I signed that bill, I was so proud to also announce that my Administration was ending the ban that prohibited people with HIV from entering America. Because of that step, next year, for the first time in two decades, we will host the International AIDS conference. So we’ve done a lot over the past three years.”

The president added: “We know that treatment is also prevention. And today we’re setting a new target of helping six million people get on treatment by the end of 2013. That’s two million more people than our original goal.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Vital Signs November report issued this week indicates that in the U.S. alone “about 1.2 million people are living with HIV” and “about 240,000 don’t know they are infected.”

Vital Signs adds that “each year, about 50,000 people get infected with HIV in the US. Getting an HIV test is the first step to finding out if you have HIV and getting medical care.”

The National HIV/AIDS Strategy, approved in 2010, highlights among other measures the need for increasing access to treatment and focusing on HIV prevention programs.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., spoke at the ONE conference panel, saying HIV/AIDS “is a good example of how government can work with other institutions in society and around the world to be a positive difference maker.”

Rubio added Democrats and Republicans agree that “the U.S. was a great country in the 2oth century” and “some of the debate that’s happening now is whether the United States will remain a great country in the 21st century.”

The senator acknowledged that “we need to recognize that there are still thousands of people in the United States on waiting lists to receive medication, certainly in my home state of Florida that is the case.”

Rubio concluded that the “economy will be even tougher if people around the world are dying, can’t enter the workforce and can’t be our business partners in economic trade and development.”

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., founding co-chair of the first ever congressional HIV/AIDS caucus, highlighted today the need to increase HIV testing at the domestic level, adding, “We need a domestic PEPFAR; that’s what we are working on.”

PEPFAR, the United States President Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, was created to “help save the lives of those suffering from HIV/AIDS around the world.”

Photo: President Barack Obama (Flickr/The White House)

Scott acknowledges in his statement that Florida has the third highest rate of HIV infection in the U.S., “with 135,000 Floridians living with the disease.”

The Florida GLBT Democratic Caucus points out in a written statement that Florida:

• [has] the greatest number of people living with HIV/AIDS incarcerated in a state prison;
• [has] the greatest number of people on a wait list to access HIV-medications through the state’s AIDS Drug  Assistance Program (ADAP)
• [has] a greater number of people living with HIV/AIDS who are victim to HIV-criminalization and being arrested because Florida has laws that are outdated and not based on modern day science;
• falls short in its in HIV/AIDS care, treatment and prevention programs;
• bans evidence-based programs like syringe-exchange programs, despite the fact they are proven to decrease the  number of new HIV and Hepatitis C-infections;
• ignores the realities of LGBT-youth who are most at risk of infection by failing to establish a minimum state standard for sex education, inclusive of LGBT-people;
• fails to have a strategy to effectively reduce the number of HIV-infections, reduce health disparities or improve access to care and health outcomes for People Living with HIV.

Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said this week “we have the tools to stop HIV from spreading in the individual patient and we have the tools to greatly reduce its spread in communities.”

Frieden added that a recent study shows “that treatment for HIV can prevent spread of HIV to others. For too many years there has been sometimes friction between HIV treatment and HIV prevention, and this study brings home that treatment is prevention, that treatment is essential to prevention.”

A public service announcement launched today by the National Minority AIDS Council and Gilead Science Inc. states: “HIV is not the same epidemic it was 30 years ago, but it is far from over,” telling viewers to “take the 20 minutes to get tested”:

The ADAP Crisis Task Force (PDF) and Gilead Sciences announced today that they reached new terms “that extend additional voluntary discounts and rebates for most Gilead products purchased by state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs).” This at a time when Florida is home to almost 50 percent (more than 3,200 people (PDF)) of all the individuals on AIDS Drug Assistance Program waiting lists in the U.S.

ADAP provides medications for the treatment of HIV and AIDS for people who cannot afford to pay because they are unemployed, uninsured or underinsured. States have implemented a variety of cost containment measures that include waiting lists since 2010, when an ADAPs began facing an ongoing funding crisis.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. (Pic via Facebook)

According to the press release via The Miami Herald,

“In a short period of time, Marco Rubio has proven himself a courageous force in the U.S. Senate and a rising star of the national conservative movement,” said ACU Chairman Al Cardenas. “The American Conservative Union is proud to announce Senator Rubio’s return to CPAC, and proud to host the nation’s premier venue to highlight conservative leaders, principles and policies in 2012.”

Every year, the ACU brings thousands of grassroots conservatives and conservative leaders together in Washington, DC for three days of blockbuster speeches, policy discussions and networking opportunities – all celebrating the shared principles of smaller government, a strong national defense and traditional values. Based on this year’s theme, “We STILL Hold These Truths”, CPAC 2012 will feature grassroots training and strategizing to strengthen the conservative movement and ensure conservatives have the resources and tools necessary to defeat the Obama agenda in 2012.

Rubio is among the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate. He opposes almost all forms of government spending, recently voting against the president’s American Jobs Act because it had too much spending. Rubio cosponsored a bill that would eliminate one out of every 10 federal jobs.

Rubio is also opposed to abortion. He introduced a complicated anti-abortion bill this year that would make it hard for a young woman to have an abortion outside of her state of residence. It would also require that all states uphold other states’ parental notification laws for minors seeking abortions.

Rubio has liked to pit himself against what he calls “extreme liberals” in the past, which has made him a favorite among conservative circles.

He spoke at the 2010 CPAC. Here is the video: