Social Policy

Florida's Republican Director of Hispanic Outreach Is Now a Democrat

How badly are Republican's efforts to win over Hispanic voters in Florida going? Well, the man once in charge of the effort announced that he's quit the party and is now a registered Democrat. Pablo Pantoja, the former State Director of Florida Hispanic Outreach for the Republican National Committ ... More >>

20 Arrested for Pretending to Be Cubans to Get Immigration Benefits

Twenty immigrants who were trying to pretend they had dry feet were caught red-handed. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement rounded up the suspects yesterday for posing as Cuban immigrants in order to take advantage of the U.S. amnesty policy. The arrests are part of a growing trend in which imm ... More >>

Rick Scott and Florida Republicans Backing Down on Obamacare Opposition

Not only did Floridians vote to reelect President Obama on Tuesday, they also, by a wider margin, voted down a proposed state constitutional amendment that sought, in theory at least, to limit the effects of Obamacare in Florida.Dejected, Rick Scott, the former health care CEO, is now backing down o ... More >>

Two Activists Infiltrate a Center Where Illegal Immigrants Are Held

Obamacare Isn't All Good or All Bad

Luke's Gospel: Obamacare Is as American as Apple Pie and Free Speech

Marco Rubio's Grandpa Was Nearly Deported, Book Reveals, Complicating Immigration Policy

As if Marco Rubio's attempts to moderate the GOP's immigration stance weren't difficult enough: A Washington Post reporter has released part of a biography revealing that Rubio's grandfather ignored deportation orders from a Miami immigration court -- a detail that, combined with Rubio's own call fo ... More >>

White House Confuses University of Miami for That Ohio School

President Barack Obama was just at the University of Miami, so you'd think that his staff could get the name of the school correct. Apparently not. The White House sent out a press release today describing University of Miami president Donna Shalala as "President of Miami University." Miami Uni ... More >>

"Obamacare" Has Already Saved Floridians $142 Million

​Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi may be fighting to repeal President Obama's healthcare reform laws in court, but the new laws have already saved Floridians close to $142 million, and most of the laws haven't even gone into effect yet. The savings come from Medicare recipients who now pay l ... More >>

Rick Scott Still Mum on Casinos, Wants More Lotto Sales

​The debate over whether Florida should allow destination casinos is certainly one of the biggest in the state. Yet Gov. Rick Scott has remained mostly silent on the issue. That's not to say he doesn't have some form of gambling of the mind. To fund a $1 billion increase in the education budget, h ... More >>

Miami-Dade County Commission Unanimously Asks Florida Legislature to Chill Out on Crazy Immigration Laws

​It's hard to get the Miami-Dade County Commission to agree on anything, but every single member voted today for a resolution that asks the state legislature to cool it on all those crazy conservative immigration bills they've been trying to pass. The Florida Legislature will, more than likely, to ... More >>

Jackson Memorial Apparently Only Hospital in the South That Cares About Gay People

​We wouldn't wish a trip to Jackson Memorial Hospital on our worst enemies. Yet according to a new report from the Human Rights Campaign, the public Jackson Health System is the only hospital in the entire southern United States cited this year for providing equal care to LGBT patients. That's a b ... More >>

Rick Scott wants to drug-test his brother

Achievement Gap Between White and Hispanic Students Still as Wide as it Was in the 1990s

Some children are apparently still left behind. ​Nearly 10 years ago President George W. Bush signed into law the "No Child Left Behind" act. Among other goals, Bush believed his education reforms would help close the achievement gap between white and minority students. Well, the Department of Edu ... More >>

Marco Rubio tricked the Tea Party into thinking he was part of the clan

Marco Rubio Tricked The Tea Party

​Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness once made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke reassesses Sen. Marco Rubio's Tea Party credentials.I need to thank Marco Rubio. He really stuck it to the Tea Party. He ... More >>

Lady Gaga Jumps into Immigration Reform Debate

​Rick Scott failed this year on his campaign promise to bring Arizona-style immigration laws to Florida, but if he tries to push the controversial reforms next year, he could make himself a very powerful enemy: Lady Gaga. Never one to shy away from GLBT issues, the Fame Monster has now expanded he ... More >>

Miami Northwestern Students Get Shaft From Education Bureaucrats

Education Commissioner Eric J. Smith says no to Miami Northwestern.An assistant principal's mistake led Miami Northwestern High to get graded a D instead of a C last year. But the state's education commissioner won't grant Miami-Dade Public Schools' request to give Northwestern the higher grade. As ... More >>

Cuban Operative Posada Carriles' English Questioned in Court

via newscomHow good is Luis Posada Carriles' English? That has become a central issue in the trial of the 82-year-old Cuban, who is charged with 11 counts of perjury, obstruction and immigration fraud for lying during immigration proceedings. On Wednesday, Federal prosecutors played tapes of the CI ... More >>

What would immigration reform look like if the Feds got off their duffs?

FAIR-y tales: The immigration saga continues

Arizona-Style Immigration Bill Introduced in Florida Senate

​Well, with Rick Scott set to take the Governor's chair and Republicans with super-majorities in both houses of the legislature, it was only a matter of time before the Florida GOP got cracking on delivering Arizona-style immigration laws in the sunshine state. Senate President Pro Tempore Mik ... More >>

Letters from the issue of November 4, 2010

Hispanics Might Skip Midterm Election, Leading to Tougher Immigration Laws

​Despite the fact that immigration issues have become a central theme of the 2010 midterm elections, a new poll finds that many Hispanic voters are disillusioned and might not vote at all. Meanwhile, voters who are in favor of Arizona-style laws are fired up and ready to vote, resulting in a clima ... More >>

Kendrick Meek, Undocumented Students Rally at Miami-Dade College In Favor of DREAM Act

​Standing before a row of undocumented Miami-Dade College students downtown this morning, Senate hopeful Kendrick Meek urged Congress to pass a long-debated bill that would give college graduates and military members a quick path to full citizenship. Democrats plan to attach the DREAM Act to a def ... More >>

Mario Diaz-Balart Lies About Alex Sink's Stance on Arizona Immigration Laws

​Rick Scott, now the official Republican nominee for Governor, has made Arizona-style immigration laws a main issue in the election. The controversial laws are none-too-popular amongst Hispanic voters (in fact, some are theorizing that Bill McCollum's hard right flip-flop in favor of them may have ... More >>

Phoenix, Arizona: America's kidnapping capital is brutal

Miami Activists Deliver Letter to Bill McCollum: Florida Doesn't Need Arizona's SB 1070

​At 10:30 this morning, twenty local activists will descend on Attorney General Bill McCollum's Miami office on Brickell Avenue bearing a letter with a simple message: Back off Arizona's SB 1070. McCollum, the brilliant legal mind who spent six figures of your tax dollars to hire Rent Boy ... More >>

Badlands: From ground zero of the immigration crisis along the Mexican border

Abortion Bill Requiring Ultrasounds Passes Florida House

a first trimester ultrasound image​After Democrats shut down the body yesterday and hours of heated debate (during which young children were advised to leave the chamber) the Florida House has approved controversial language in a health care bill concerning abortion. During the debate, one member ... More >>

Fox News Wonders if Local Mom Battling Leukemia is "First 'Death Panel' Victim"

​In the News Roundup each morning we've been keeping an eye on the plight of Diana Smith, a local mother battling a rare form of leukemia. Smith was almost denied a life saving treatment when Social Security disability payments made to her son raised her income enough to where she no longer qualif ... More >>

RPOF Says Alex Sink is Basically Florida's Fidel Castro

​Fidel Castro took some time out of his busy schedule of not dying to pen a piece for a state newspaper that said President Obama and the Democrat's recent passage of health care reform is a "miracle." Well, the Republican Party of Florida took time out of their busy schedule of basically giv ... More >>

Health Care Reform Passes, No Thanks To Your South Florida Politicos

If you're half as cool as the staff here at Riptide, you were flipping between March Madness and C-SPAN last night like your life depended on it. Which to pick?photo by Sage Ross, via Wikimedia CommonsThe power of cardboard signs and megaphones was not enough to derail health reform.On CBS, Korie Lu ... More >>

Democrat Maurice Ferre Doesn't Back Democrat Health Plan One Day After Democrat Loss

​Former Mayor of Miami Maurice Ferre, who somehow thinks he is running for US Senate even though he is trailing in the primary race for the party that is trailing in the general election race, has announced that he doesn't support the Democratic healthcare plan.  "It is a special-interest pla ... More >>

Illegal Immigrant Crackdown

Can you say "profiling"?

Hialeah Boat Captain Gets 3 Years for Human Smuggling

The young Hialeah boat captain caught transporting eight immigrants to Boynton Beach this past January will serve up to three years in prison. U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth A. Marra sentenced 28-year-old Jovel Dominguez-Hernandez to 36 months yesterday for human smuggling. The indictment notes ... More >>

The Deadly Road Through Mexico

When Cubans leave their homeland, things can get lots worse.

Joyce Kaufman Hates Immigrants!

Well, not exactly. But she sure doesn’t speak well of them.

Miami Immigration Judge a Would-Be Pol

Letters from the Issue of November 21, 2002

Haitians yearning to breathe free -- in Miami

Little Goes A Long Way

Immigration attorney Cheryl Little spent years banging her head against INS bureaucracy, until a Haitian boat cracked it open

Admitting Terror, Part 3

Four more cases of egregious ineptitude at the Immigration and Naturalization Service

Used, Abused, and Forgotten

What happens when you muster the courage to complain that you've been sexually assaulted at an INS facility? Not much.

Wages of Welfare War

Down in the Liberty City projects, a growing number of women's voices are just saying no to workfare as we know it

Life in the Echo Chamber

The Smuggler as Savior

Juan Garcia Pino was obeying a higher law when he rescued nineteen family members fleeing Cuba. But a more mundane law ruined everything.

Welcome to America. Now Go Home.

Granted sweeping new powers by Congress, the INS is quickly earning a global reputation for cruel and capricious conduct at Miami International Airport

Go On, Beat It! We Really Mean It This Time!

As Congress works to curb illegal immigration, a new INS regulation targets aliens who are already here

To Have and Have Not

Activists in Miami Beach's north shore neighborhoods say government-subsidized housing is crowding them out