By Yesenia Rivera, on July 29th, 2014 
Central American immigrants traveling on the tops of trains through Mexico in order to reach their final destination. John Moore/ Getty Images
These past seven months have seen a noticeable spike in the number of underage children crossing the border. So far this year, the number of unaccompanied children entering the United States that the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigrant and Customs Enforcement arrested surpassed 47,000. This alone is a 92% increase from last year’s numbers.
But why the drastic increase?
Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador are going through a turbulent time. According to Eric Olson, Associate Director of the Latin America Program at the Wilson Center, these three countries have some of the highest murder rates in the world.
Although, murder rates have decreased in comparison to last year, this does not mitigate the rampant violence that occurs throughout this region. Gang activity is as high as ever. Nevertheless, the lack of stability in this region is pushing parents to send their children to the United States.
Whatever doubts people had on the lengths these gang members are willing in order to continue their regional dominance is long gone now. People throughout this region live in consistent fear. Not only that, but there is no sense of continuity—the belief that life will get better by the time one’s children become adults—and widespread poverty does nothing to alleviate their living conditions.
Human traffickers, known as coyotes, are taking full advantage of this situation. They promote the idea that if there is any time to leave for the United States, that time is now. And parents in Central America buy it. They are willing to pay traffickers thousands of dollars despite being warned of the trip’s dangers and the numerous obstacles the children must face throughout their journey.
The problem becomes what to do with these minors.
Police cautiously monitoring the two opposing protesting groups in Murrieta, California as tensions mount while they all wait for immigrant detainees set to arrive by bus to the U.S. Border Patrol facility. Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times
Should the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement deport all of these children or provide them with temporary housing until each minor’s situation is determined? This question has created a rigid dichotomy amongst much of the population. Human rights advocates argue that these children should not be treated as immigrants but rather as refugees.
On the other hand, others, such as members of the Tea Party, blame President Obama’s approval of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), created to allow those who entered the country illegally while they were minors to receive a grant of deferred removal action. In other words, eligible immigrants remain legally in the United States for up to 2 years with a possible extension. This is not a path to citizenship, nor is it a guaranteed permanent residence but it allows immigrants who came here illegally to avoid deportation.
Some suggest that the U.S. government deport these minors immediately. However, some international organizations, including the United Nations, argue that many of these children have legitimate claims to stay as they are fleeing desperate situations.
Children detained at a center in Nogales, Arizona. Ross D. Franklin / AP
According to the New York Times, President Obama requested $3.7 billion from Congress in order to respond to this influx of child migrants. Previously, significant amounts of money were spent in trying to secure the border. Given this large influx of immigrants, it is evident that pouring more money into the border is not the solution.
Even if the Obama administration pushed to deport all unaccompanied minors with full force, it could not. The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 passed by the U.S. Senate during the Bush administration is intended to help human trafficking victims, however a portion of this act relating to unaccompanied illegal immigrants under the age of 18 makes immediate deportation for them difficult. As stated in a news article from The Oklahoman, “The legislation said they must ‘be promptly placed in the least restrictive setting that is in the best interest of the child.’ The U.S. Health and Human Services Department is to provide for their custody and care while deportation hearings are under way. The department is to attempt to find a parent or sponsor in the United States while providing free legal representation and a child advocate.”
This past Friday, the presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras . . . → Read More: Breakdown of America’s Recent Immigration Crisis
By Ronald Webster-Bey, on July 23rd, 2014 To you it may concern: I would like to share how I stay on target with my diet and eating the right foods to maintain my health. I know that I have two selves—the Moors refer to them as the higher self and the lower self. The higher self is the spirit seed of God, which lives within your soul inside your brain. The lower self, which is the body of desires influenced by your senses such as: sight, hearing, feeling, taste, and smell. Through these senses the body is able to determine what it cares for itself. You have to become acquainted with yourself. Think about your thought—before acting on it. Analyze your thought to see whether it is harmful or helpful to your health.
Plan to bring what you desire to eat when you are visiting someone. Be warned that they are likely not to have the type of food that you are dieting on or have the temperament to fix something just for you.
So, listening when I go to my Moorish meeting I bring my snack on Fridays such as: granola, mixed nuts, dates, raisins, sliced apples, and apple cider vinegar with water to keep my blood pressure down. At Moorish Sunday school class our host and friends usually fix eggs, grits, waffles, toast, and sausage for everyone. My appetite for this is good, but I know that the salt content in sausages will raise my blood pressure (which I know I will want to eat). Thus, I bring my own meal. Now, my wonderful host is happy in that everyone (including dieters) is fed and full.
Good News: God is great. By listening to the still small voice in my soul and controlling my body wants, and the help of my doctor, my heart is much better and my next appointment will be six months from now.
By Caroline, on July 14th, 2014 
Something is missing from Washington DC’s Chinatown. Of course we can all notice the elaborate friendship arch topped with characteristic pagoda style roofing, and the yearly Chinese New Year festival. There’s a handful of bustling restaurants and decorations throughout its streets, and Chinese characters adorn each of the storefronts and street signs throughout the few blocks that constitute this cultural icon in our nation’s capital. But despite the Chinese decor, Chinese shop displays, and Chinese food, what’s becoming increasingly hard to find in Chinatown are Chinese people. The very human beings responsible for the existence of this much loved and increasingly desirable destination for so many. And with recent news of plans to demolish Museum Square, one of the two remaining buildings still home to low-income residents in Chinatown as well as the majority of the district’s Chinese population, it seems that those left are being perpetually pushed towards displacement.
Museum Square sits at 401 K Street NW, today surrounded by many new buildings of luxury apartments and condos, grocery stores, restaurants from Subway to Sweetgreen to wine bars and gourmet eateries, all interspersed throughout a plethora of new development. The building holds a Section 8 subsidy contract, and families living in its 302 units pay rent that is adjusted to be no more than 30% of their average monthly income. This contract has preserved most of the only remaining rental housing in the neighborhood still available to low income residents in the face of a wave of development and soaring housing prices that leave no corner of Chinatown unturned.
In October of 2013 tenants received a notice explaining that the owner of the building intended to terminate their contract with HUD, thus ending all meaningful affordability requirements. More recently tenants were issued another notice which revealed plans to demolish the building. The notice also offered tenants of Museum Square the opportunity to purchase the property, and was posted throughout the building’s hallways per the provisions of DC’s Rental Housing Act. This act has made the district notorious for its “tenant-friendly” laws, which require that before any rental property in the district can be sold or demolished, it must first be offered to the tenants who call it home. Theoretically, this creates opportunities for tenant ownership and long term affordability of rental property in DC, and could be instrumental for tenants like those of Museum Square who wish to preserve their building as affordable. But it only seems that way before taking into account the $250 million that it would cost to acquire the building, which works out to just over $827,800 per unit. In reality, the astronomically inflated price tags that developers are able to attach to these properties in up-and-coming areas of the city often render tenant purchase rights virtually useless for tenant ownership, or to aid tenants in avoiding displacement by maintaining affordable rents throughout the city.
In addition to the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, or TOPA, owners of buildings where at least 25% of apartments have rents considered to be affordable are also required to issue DOPA notices. Per the District Opportunity to Purchase Act, properties that are home to low-income tenants are offered to the city before they can be sold or demolished (in addition to being offered to tenants) as another opportunity to preserve affordable rents in DC. But out of the vast majority of rental properties sold in the district each year which qualify as affordable based on rent levels, only a tiny fraction comply with this part of the law requiring that they be offered to the district. And of the few that have complied over the years and issued the appropriate notices to the district, the city has not sent a single response to a DOPA notice, rendering DOPA another of the district’s efforts to preserve affordable housing that doesn’t extend beyond paper. If it were actually utilized, DOPA could be a beneficial tool to protect its residents’ housing in the face of economic interests in development that cause hundreds upon hundreds of people to be displaced each year. But again, to date this tool goes completely unused.
Washington DC’s Chinatown hasn’t always been such an expensive hot spot in the city. Even before the recent wave of gentrification that has resulted in a rapid drop in the number of Chinese businesses and residents, Chinatown has had a turbulent history of displacement and endurance. During the development of the Federal Triangle, DC’s original Chinatown was uprooted completely. Once established . . . → Read More: Chinatown to Lose More Affordable Housing
By Irene Burski, on July 3rd, 2014 
Tensions ran high between developers and community members last Wednesday night, June 25, during a meeting regarding the proposed redesign of the Southwest neighborhood held at the Capitol Skyline Hotel.
The Southwest Small Area Plan, still in its feedback and revision phases, plans for a “newly envisioned” Southwest neighborhood, including the M Street corridor, which is expected to see the most changes, according to Associate Director for Neighborhood Planning Tracy Gabriel.
The border boundaries of the area proposed are Maine Ave. SW, P St. SW, South Capitol and the Interstate 695, and the project has been in development for the last year.
The meeting, led by Gabriel as well as Ward 6 Community Planner Melissa Bird, noted the significant change already happening in and around Southwest, and depicted the proposed plans as the next step of an expansionary growth process.
“Southwest is incredibly unique, and we want to move forward in the best way and best tools to preserve that,” Ward 6 Community Planner Melissa Bird said. “People want to make sure there is a place for everybody to stay in Southwest.”
However, the plan’s potential changing of traditionally low-density areas of Southwest to areas of high-density is a cause of concern and conflict for many community members.
“I count 17 different building properties on this list, and unless I’m wrong, all but for two, the density goes up. Twenty years from now, SW will have double the population if all of these things happen,” 15-year Southwest resident and activist Rick Bardash said. “We want a neighborhood, and we can’t have a neighborhood when density is twice as much.”
Even more of a concern for community activists was whether or not the plans and expansion will displace residents of Greenleaf Gardens Apartments, a public housing complex just south of M Street.
Community activist and 38-year District resident Thelma D. Jones noted that there is deep distrust held by lower income residents for developers, lingering from a long citywide history of redevelopment and gentrification.
“What they do know and remember is that when urban renewal occurred before, more than 23,000 people were displaced,” Jones said. “That fuels even greater fear and anxiety. The people have lost faith.”
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The DC Office of Planning is accepting feedback regarding the plan until July 9 . The proposed plans are available here.
By Ronald Webster-Bey, on July 1st, 2014 
The heart says, “I will take care of you; if you will take care of me!”
According to The New People’s Physician the human heart is a hollow muscular organ located in the breast that pumps blood received from the veins into the arteries. The heart beat is regulated in two different ways: the heart muscle itself possesses what is called a rhythmic quality of its own and if removed from the body and placed in proper environment it will go on contracting at about forty beats a minute, and may maintain its natural rhythm indefinitely. The heart in its normal function, however, beats seventy to eighty times a minute, and is responsive to all the calls which the body makes on it. The blood in the course of its circulation traverses three varieties of blood vessels when it leaves the heart.
Blood enters the arteries which from there move through capillaries to feed our tissue (i.e., muscles and skin). Capillaries are arteries that divide again and again, until they finally become so small that they are invisible except through a microscope. They are arranged in the form of a network, the size of the mesh depending on the needs of the particular tissue. The blood flows through the capillaries at the speed of about an inch per minute to join the veins. The capillary bed is the great controlling factor of subcutaneous and muscular circulation. The blood flowing through the capillary vessel holds oxygen, and carries away carbon dioxide and other metabolic end products. Life can continue only if the composition of the blood is kept constant by circulation through the organs that replenish its expendable constituents and rid it of its wastes. So small is the reserve of oxygen contained in the blood and tissues that when the heart stops life goes out, in higher animals in a matter of minutes. The rate of circulation varies at different hours of the day; in the afternoon it is at the maximum; in the early morning hours, when we are asleep it is at its minimum.
The arteries are strong, thick and elastic tubes, whose walls are made up of three distinct layers. The innermost is thin and smooth and allows the blood to flow over it without friction or obstacle; next comes a layer of muscle, which by its contraction can lessen the size of the artery and thus diminish the amount of blood flowing through it; the outermost layer is gifted with great elasticity by which it retains an even pressure on the blood in the vessel, and by its recoil gradually drives it on wards. The artery is surrounded with a bed of loose tissue, which allows it a certain amount of freedom of movement. The muscular middle coat of an artery is an exceedingly important provision of nature. The blood supply to an organ must vary with its demand for blood, and this is not constant. The stomach, for instance, during digestion, when it is manufacturing gastric juice, obviously requires a much larger supply of blood than when it is in the resting state. This variation of the supply depends on the state of contraction of the muscle fibers in the walls of the arteries. If the vessels are narrowed the supply of blood is lessened, and vice versa.
The contraction of the arterial walls has another important effect. If it occurs simultaneously in many arteries throughout the body, by offering resistance to the flow of blood, it must increase the blood pressure. An efficient water supply to a town or to a house can be maintained only if the water pressure is sufficiently high, and the same is true of the supply of blood to all parts of the body. In most arteries the branches communicate freely with those of other arteries, a condition known as anastomosis. In this way, if the blood supply of one trunk artery is cut off the supply can be maintained through another. The largest and thickest artery is the aorta. It is the main trunk artery leading out of the heart and conveying the whole stream of blood from that organ to the various parts of the body. In an adult man it is a tube large enough to accommodate two or even three fingers. It runs upwards out of the heart and then sweeps to the left in a wide curve. At the top of this curve it gives off its first large branches, the vessels . . . → Read More: The Human Heart and How It Works
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