Erika Eichelberger

Reporting Fellow

Erika Eichelberger is a reporting fellow in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. She has also written for The Nation, The Brooklyn Rail, and TomDispatch. Email her at eeichelberger [at] motherjones [dot] com.

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Young Immigrants Renew Push for Path to Citizenship

—By Erika Eichelberger

| Wed Jan. 23, 2013 11:15 AM PST

Cendy, an undocumented immigrant, tells her story for The Dream Is Now.

Undocumented immigrants' moment for political agency may have finally arrived. Obama says he will push for comprehensive immigration reform in the first months of his second term, and Republicans—who realize they can't just rely on old white people to win future elections—are praising similar plans. Now, as immigration proposals begin to take shape in Congress, the grassroots are rustling, too. Activists launched a new online campaign on Tuesday, called The Dream Is Now, pushing for the passage of DREAM Act-style legislation to give permanent legal status to undocumented immigrants.

Created by filmmaker Davis Guggenheim and Steve Jobs' widow, Laurene Powell Jobs—both education activists—the campaign's centerpiece is an "interactive documentary," where undocumented young people can "come out" as noncitizens and tell Americans how DREAM Act provisions would affect them. The immigrants, their families, and friends can also post photos and sign a petition to tell Congress to create a pathway to citizenship for undocumented youth. The Dream Is Now is all over the social medias, too (#thedreamisnow).

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

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Can These New Federal Rules Rein in Foreclosure-Frenzied Banks?

—By Erika Eichelberger

| Thu Jan. 17, 2013 9:52 AM PST

On Thursday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the federal consumer watchdog set up by the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, announced a new set of foreclosure-prevention rules focused on keeping loan servicers honest.

Servicers, which collect mortgage payments from borrowers and work out terms of a loan, are supposed to explore all alternatives to foreclosure before reclaiming a home, and to give homeowners a fair and clear evaluation process. But as millions of borrowers fell behind on payments in the wake of the financial meltdown, loan servicers got slammed by tons of added legwork and administration, and many more got perverse incentives to fast-track borrowers into default. Some servicers put on a spectacular show of incompetence and outright fraud, routinely losing paperwork, "robo-signing" people into wrongful foreclosures, and locking people out of their houses when the borrowers thought they were on road to loan modification. Much of this is still happening. The new CFPB rules are supposed to help fix it. (A similar set of regulations targeting mortgage lenders was released last week.)

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

JPMorgan Chase Gambles Away $6B, Gets "Slap on the Wrist"

—By Erika Eichelberger

| Tue Jan. 15, 2013 3:33 PM PST

Federal banking regulators have decided it's a bad thing that JPMorgan Chase lost $6 billion on a risky bet last year and failed to close money-laundering loopholes. But that's pretty much all they've decided.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve ordered the bank Monday to fix risk-management failures that led to the massive loss on a trade out of its London office in May 2012, as well as tighten up monitoring of cash transactions that may have allowed suspected terrorists and drug dealers to launder money. But there will be no fines or hard penalties levied for the bank's failures.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Greece's Latest Fiscal Solution: Create an Ecological Crisis!

—By Erika Eichelberger

| Mon Jan. 14, 2013 1:31 PM PST

The green crowd used to feel pretty rosy about Greece. After former Prime Minister George Papandreou was elected in 2009, he set up a government ministry to study the environment, energy, and climate change, and he talked up initiatives on eco-tourism and renewable energy. But now, after six years of recession, the country has begun buying into several new environmentally damaging development schemes to generate liquidity, the New York Times reports.

[Read more in the Blue Marble blog]

3 Years After the Earthquake, Haiti Is Still in Shambles

—By Erika Eichelberger

| Fri Jan. 11, 2013 12:02 PM PST

The devastating Haiti earthquake that killed 217,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless happened three years ago Saturday. For a year or so, the drama captured plenty of headlines and human interest; our own human rights reporter, Mac McClelland, traveled to Port-au-Prince to document the hazards that befell Haitians and the morass that doomed much of the nation's inbound aid. This year's anniversary hasn't generated much media attention, but that's not because everything in the island nation is fixed. Almost 360,000 people remain in tent camps, and the country's infrastructure is still in shambles. A lot of that is due to the failures of the international community.

Only half of the $13.34 billion in international aid allocated for Haiti reconstruction has been disbursed. And of that, only a small portion has gone to "reconstruction," strictly defined. Instead, the New York Times reported in December, "much of the so-called recovery aid was devoted to costly current programs, like highway building and HIV prevention, and to new projects far outside the disaster zone."

[Read more in the MoJo blog]