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The Activist Beat with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco is a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents.

A number of immigrant rights and Latino groups rallied in six cities across the country yesterday to raise awareness about the record number of immigrants who’ve been deported by the Obama administration.

This might be hard to believe, but according to Presente, the group that organized the rallies, more than one million undocumented immigrants have been deported since January 2009. More immigrants have been deported under President Obama than his predecessor. In Los Angeles, demonstrators held signs saying: “Obama is Separating More Families Than Bush.”

Presente rally organizer Roberto Lovato told the Huffington Post, “We don’t need to discourage people from voting for President Obama. He’s doing a smashing job of it himself.”

The 200 activists who gathered in front of President Obama’s reelection headquarters in Chicago delivered 24,000 signatures demanding an immediate end to the so-called Secure Communities Program, which was established by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association recently released a report about the detained immigrants facing deportation. Examples include a woman in Minnesota who was pulled over for failing to signal a right turn. A man in Florida was a passenger in a vehicle pulled over in a traffic stop. The driver, his wife, is a US citizen.

Carlos Roa said the President could lose the Latino vote if he doesn’t change course. He said: “We have a president who promised in 2008 to pass immigration reform during his first year in office; he promised to be a friend for the Latino community. As president, he has delivered the total opposite of his promises. His decision to mandate [Secure Communities] is a direct and devastating attack to Latinos and immigrants. He must do the right thing and end [Secure Communities] now.”

President Obama is also under fire for his environmental policies. This coming Saturday, environmental activists will gather in front of the White House and in cities across the country to “defuse the largest carbon bomb in North America.” Demonstrators are asking the Obama administration to stop the Keystone XL pipeline. Keystone XL would carry tar sands from Alberta, Canada all the way down to Texas.

Organizers say this will not be a one-day action. “We plan for it to continue for several weeks, til the administration understands we won’t go away.”

Four grandmothers from Livingston, Montana are traveling to DC to intensify their commitment to the environment. They say it’s time to put themselves on the line.

Joan Kresich, Margot Kidder, Margarita McLarty, and Linda Kenoye write, “We are women whose grandchildren are growing up with a wild, beautiful Montana that may not be there for their children and grandchildren. This is personal for us. The four of us are only the few from our organization who can make the journey. Standing behind us are many, many others who have chipped in to help pay for our trip, have written us and called us and stopped us on the street to offer words of appreciation and support for what we are doing. Montana will be represented at the Tar Sands Action at the White House by four grandmothers who speak for generations of Montanans who say “No” to the Keystone XL Pipeline.”

The Washington Post ran an op-ed by environmental activist and rally organizer Bill McKibben. He writes, “The final call rests with Barack Obama, who said the night that he clinched the Democratic nomination that his ascension would mark “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” Now he gets a chance to prove that he meant it.” It’s time to help the President prove himself right.”

For more information, visit tarsandsaction.org.