BOSTON/Chinatown - Student Immigrant Movement organizers and supporters held a press conference at the encuentro 5 movement space last Wednesday to announce their participation in a national campaign to push for passage of the DREAM Act - a bipartisan bill that would grant some undocumented immigrant students conditional legal status and a path to citizenship. Currently, students of undocumented immigrant parents in many states - including Massachusetts - are not eligible for government financial aid or in-state tuition rates at state colleges. Even if they excelled in public K-12 schools.

BOSTON/Back Bay - Hundreds of immigrant advocates and supporters held a rally in Copley Square on Saturday to protest the controversial Arizona anti-immigrant law SB 1070 and a local appearance by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer at the annual meeting of the National Governors Association. Following speeches by several activists, the attendees marched in sometimes driving rain to the Sheraton Boston where they picketed outside the governors' meeting for a short time - surrounded by heavy security.

BOSTON/State House - A jubilant group of over 50 activists from the Student Immigrant Movement and allied organizations held a press conference on Friday to announce a victory in their campaign to get the Mass. legislature to overturn several provisions of an amendment to the Senate budget proposal for FY 2011 that they believe was an assault on immigrant rights.

The event was called on short notice after the Conference Committee - made up on an equal number of state representatives and senators - released its budget proposal on Thursday. Immigrant advocates quickly discovered that some of the contested provisions of Senate budget amendment 172.1 - including the proposed language that would have made it illegal for the children of undocumented immigrants that had grown up in the Commonwealth to ever qualify to attend Mass. public colleges at the in-state resident tuition rate - had been removed from the Conference Committee budget proposal.

BOSTON/State House - Over 11 days ago, activists from the Student Immigrant Movement began a vigil outside the State House to protest a budget amendment recently passed by the Mass. Senate that would - among other things - bar them from attending public colleges in the Commonwealth at the same in-state tuition rate as other area students.

SIM is led by children of undocumented immigrants who have attended public K-12 schools in Massachusetts, and has been organizing to win in-state tuition reform for the last few years. Many of its members were at the top of their classes in high school but have been denied state scholarships and financial aid solely because of their families' immigration status - and ultimately thanks to what they view as a broken federal immigration system.

BOSTON/Fenway - About 100 immigrant, labor, community and religious advocates held a picket outside the Boston Red Sox-Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game at Fenway Park on Tuesday in opposition to an Arizona law that they believe is discriminatory to immigrants. Organizers said that they were calling on Major League Baseball to reschedule the 2011 All-Star game to a city outside of Arizona - which is the target of growing international boycott since the April 23rd passage of the controversial legislation SB 1070.

BOSTON/State House - Over 200 immigrant, labor, religious and community advocates held a rally in front of the Grand Staircase in the State House on Thursday to protest anti-immigrant legislation that was recently passed by the Mass. Senate, and to demand that Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) start speaking out on immigration issues. Organizers said that Brown has "remained silent" on the immigration reform debate since taking office.

BOSTON/State House - The New Sanctuary Movement, an interfaith coalition of religious leaders and congregations, gathered at the State House on Thursday to publicly speak out against Arizona SB 1070, the law recently passed by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. SB 1070 requires that immigrants carry identity documents at all times or risk detainment, arrest, or deportation.

BOSTON/Boston Common - About 500 people rallied on the Boston Common at noon Saturday to commemorate May 1st, International Worker’s Day 2010. For the fifth year since the Boston May Day Coalition formed in 2006, the rally and subsequent march brought together a variety of students, workers and other activists. Represented groups included the ANSWER Coalition, the Student Immigrant Movement, the Worcester Immigrant Coalition, United for Justice with Peace and the Boston Anti-Authoritarian Movement (BAAM), among many others.

BOSTON/State House - In the face of continued conservative resistance to immigration reform proposals nationwide, over 100 undocumented immigrant students and allies attended the Wednesday January 27th hearing of the Mass. legislature's Joint Committee on Higher Education in State House Hearing Room B-2 in support of "An Act Relative to Equal Access to Higher Education and Generating Revenue for the Commonwealth" (S. 603/H. 1175). The bill would allow undocumented immigrant students who attended at least 3 years of high school in the Commonwealth to pay for tuition and fees at public colleges at the in-state rate. Currently, undocumented students are allowed to attend Mass. public colleges, but are required to pay the much-higher out-of-state tuition and fee rate - which advocates say effectively bars most of the students from attending college at all, given that most of them are from poor families.

BOSTON/Faneuil Hall – Proclaiming that “now is the time for citizenship,” representatives of the Boston-based Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) and its member organizations held a rally and press conference Thursday near the Samuel Adams statue outside Faneuil Hall to announce stepped up efforts to make U.S. citizenship a reality for many more immigrants living in Massachusetts.

MIRA Coalition Executive Director Eva Millona said “never in our lifetime has it been more important as this time to become a U.S. citizen.” Coalition members anticipate a long and contentious debate in Washington over federal immigration policy to begin soon after Congress and the Obama administration come to grips with health care financing reform.