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Leslie Berestein Rojas
Immigration and Emerging Communities Reporter
- @Multi_American
- Phone: (626) 583-5213
Leslie Berestein Rojas is KPCC's Immigration and Emerging Communities Reporter.
An award-winning journalist with several years’ experience reporting on immigration issues, Berestein Rojas most recently covered immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She has retraced the steps of migrants along desert smuggling trails, investigated immigrant detention contractors, and told the stories of families left behind in Mexico’s migrant-sending towns.
A native of Cuba raised in Los Angeles, Leslie has also written for Time, People, the Orange County Register and the Los Angeles Times. She has reported from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
Stories by Leslie Berestein Rojas
In the news this morning
A brief roundup of some of the top immigration-related stories this morning:
In case you missed it
There were two great segments today on 89.3 KPCC's Patt Morrison show that involved minority communities. One examined why it is that the residents of some of Los Angeles County's poorest cities (including Bell, where city officials earn six-figure salaries) pay some of the highest property taxes.
DREAM Act hunger strike continues, entering third week
Photo by DreamActivist/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Patt Morrison explores why poorest cities have highest property taxes
Speaking of Bell, where some city officials earn six figures, why is it that residents there pay the second-highest property tax rate in the county? At 1 p.m., Patt Morrison of 89.3 KPCC will discuss a new L.
American snapshot: Bell
Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC
In the news this morning
Now that the battle over Arizona's SB 1070 is set to take place in federal appeals court this fall, the immigration-related news this week is no longer all Arizona, all the time. But there are a number of other interesting stories unfolding, among them these:
As immigration politics play out, border deaths rise
Photo by rejuvesite/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Report charts a dramatic rise in immigration-related state legislation
Just saw these eye-opening numbers in a new report from the National Conference of State Legislatures:
Leaked federal immigration memo being debated on AirTalk
There's a lively debate going on right now on AirTalk regarding the controversial U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services "amnesty" memo, leaked late last week to media. Listen at 89.
After Arizona decision and protests: Now what?
Photo by Patrick Dockens/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Featured comment: One reader's take on the SB 1070 ruling
Among the comments that came in while I was in Arizona was this one, sent by a reader supportive of the state's position on illegal immigration, in response to a post about a federal judge's ruling last Wednesday blocking parts of the law from being implemented.
And Lady Gaga, too
Photo by Naomi Lir/Flickr (Creative Commons)
SB 1070 supporters have their day in Phoenix
Photo by Dave Dorman/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Opponents of a planned mosque protest in Temecula
If Temecula were a state, given the attention it is drawing lately, it could well be Arizona, albeit with wineries. In mid-July, the city drew clashing protesters when it adopted an anti-illegal immigration ordinance requiring businesses with more than one employee to screen workers using E-Verify, an otherwise voluntary online program provided by the federal government that allows employers to screen for immigration status and check Social Security numbers.
Federal memo is latest big immigration story
Back from Phoenix, to a new story out of Washington that’s generating a buzz: A leaked internal memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, whose contents Republican critics are saying suggest a “backdoor amnesty.
