• Federal officials used their role as overseers of the nation’s immigration jails "to cover up evidence of mistreatment, deflect scrutiny by the news media or prepare exculpatory public statements after gathering facts that pointed to substandard care or abuse," according to a report in the January 10 New York Times. Since 2003 there have been at least 107 deaths in detention. "The Obama Administration has vowed to overhaul immigration detention, a haphazard network of privately run jails, federal centers and county cells where the government holds noncitizens while it tries to deport them."
• While the college grade point average and Law School Admission Test scores for Mexican-Americans have been improving in the last 15 years, their acceptance level for law schools has declined. Many "schools base their admissions criteria not on whether students have a reasonable chance of success, but how those L.S.A.T. numbers are going to affect their rankings in the U.S. News & World Report. Deans get fired if the rankings drop, so they set their L.S.A.T. requirements very high." - New York Times, January 7, 2010
• "One year after the election of President Barack Obama, black optimism about America has surged, while Hispanics have become more skeptical about race relations, according to a Pew Research Center poll." The poll found that "Hispanics, not blacks, now are seen as the ethnic group facing the most discrimination." - Daily Finance, January 12, 2010
• Alberto Riveron was featured in the December/ January issue of Hispanic as the sole Latino referee in the National Football League out of 120 officials. Riveron, a native of Cuba, played high school football in Miami then traded the shoulder pads for a whistle. He began officiating more than three decades ago in a Pee Wee League and worked his way up through the NCAA. He was hired by the NFL in 2004 and is proud of his work.
• Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has accepted a deal to go to the Dominican Republic when his term ends this month. Zelaya called the deal "a first step" toward national reconciliation. - New York Times, January 22, 2010
• "Sebastián Piñera, a billionaire businessman and former senator, broke the 20-year hold on power of a leftist coalition (January 17) becoming the first right-wing president to be elected in Chile since the dictatorship ended in 1990. Piñera is one of a handful of conservatives elected to head a Latin American country since the region began a strong swing to the left in recent decades." - New York Times, January 18, 2010
• A cable television channel critical of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was yanked off the air for defying new regulations requiring it to televise the socialist leader’s speeches. - Chicago Tribune, January 24, 2010