On Nov. 4, Election Night, as spontaneous celebrations of Barack Obama's victory broke out all over New York City, Liberian immigrant Ali Kamara, 17, was brutally beaten by four white men armed with baseball bats who screamed "Obama" at him near his home in the Stapleton district of Staten Island. Kamara, a Muslim whose family arrived in 2000, was returning home at around 11 PM when the men jumped out of a car and assaulted him. He was left with a head injury which required staples. "Our hate crimes task force is investigating and treating this as a possible bias crime," said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. (Daily News, Nov. 6; ABC Eyewitness News, Nov. 5)

Voters in two US states Tuesday Nov. 4 defeated immigration-related ballot measures. In Arizona, Proposition 202 would have revoked the business licenses of employers that knowingly hire undocmented immigrants and would have strengthened penalties for identity theft. But in Florida, a referendum intended to protect immigrant rights went down to defeat. Amendment No. 1 would have changed the state constitution, deleting a provision allowing lawmakers to prohibit ownership of real property by undocumented immigrants. The Florida Legislature had never exercised its authority under the 1926 provision, enacted as a measure against Asian Americans.

Hundreds of high school and college students from throughout the San Francisco Bay Area skipped class on Halloween morning, Oct. 31, to participate in a youth-led "Stop the Raids" protest against immigration enforcement in downtown San Francisco. Transit officials shut down the Fruitvale and Coliseum BART stations in Oakland and the Richmond BART station after hundreds of East Bay students entered the stations and boarded trains to San Francisco without paying. Officials kept the stations closed for more than an hour. Some BART trains bound for San Francisco were delayed at the West Oakland station by protesters who held doors open and demanded that the Fruitvale station be reopened, passengers and BART officials said. Three people were detained at the Richmond station. (San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 1)

From Reuters, Oct. 27:

Skinheads held over Obama death plot
WASHINGTON - Two white supremacist skinheads were arrested in Tennessee over plans to go on a killing spree and eventually shoot Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, court documents showed on Monday.

On Sept. 24, US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced it will extend Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of El Salvador through Sep. 9, 2010. The extension allows Salvadorans who have already been granted TPS to re-register and maintain their status for an additional 18 months. An estimated 229,000 Salvadorans are eligible for re-registration. They have 90 days to re-register for the special status, which was set to expire on Mar. 9, 2009. TPS does not apply to Salvadoran nationals who entered the US after Feb. 13, 2001. (USCIS update, Sept. 24)

On Oct. 12, about 65 people marched more than three miles from the Mills Manufacturing plant in Woodfin, NC, to downtown Asheville to protest an Aug. 12 ICE raid at the parachute manufacturing plant and the impending deportation of the 57 workers arrested there. (See INB, Aug. 16.) The march concluded at the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office. Speakers blasted what they said was overzealous or selective law enforcement by local sheriffs, particularly Van Duncan in Buncombe and Rick Davis in Henderson. Activists also criticized Asheville City Council member Carl Mumpower, who claimed some responsibility for alerting ICE about unauthorized workers at Mills Manufacturing. A group of about 200 people also marched along US 25 to the Henderson County Courthouse in Hendersonville, NC, in defense of immigrant rights. Nuestro Centro, WNC Workers Center and the Coalition of Latin American Organizations sponsored both marches. (Ashville Citizen Times, Oct. 13)

On Oct. 7, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents executed a federal criminal search warrant at the House of Raeford's Columbia Farms poultry processing plant in Greenville, SC, arresting 11 workers on criminal charges and 320 workers on administrative immigration charges. (ICE news release, Oct. 9) About 100 ICE agents raided the plant during shift change. ICE officials kept the workers inside the plant for most of the morning as they sought to determine how many were present in the US without permission. (AP, Oct. 7; Charlotte Observer, Oct. 8)

A gas pipeline owned by EnCana near Tomslake in northern British Columbia was bombed for a second time in a week Oct. 16. Neither that explosion nor the earlier one on Oct. 11 significantly damaged the pipeline, which carries sour gas, natural gas that contains toxic hydrogen sulfide. The second blast created a small leak and forced a shutdown of the pipeline. Last week, news organizations in the region received anonymous letters demanding that local oil and gas projects be shut down.