We need America to hear our voices in support of immigrant rights. We've opened this space as another opportunity for you to share your struggle with others around the country-- SEND YOUR stories, resource tips, ideas, photos and FEEDBACK to Nicola Wells, nwells@communitychange.org
Governor Spitzer is expected to announce new DMV policy that will allow more new yorkers to be licensed and insured- this will open up licenses to more immigrants throughout the state. This is a battle that has been waged for a LONG time by the New York Immigrant Coalition and all of its partners. It’s a great step forward for new yorkers, and we hope more states can follow!
Thanks to Elana at DMI for pointing me to this great post at Firedoglake. The author really captures the heart of so many struggles in communities across the country:
My daughter told me when I dropped her off at work at Market Basket last week: “They got Walter.” The police, or the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), had come to the supermarket and picked up “Walter.” He was a young Latino who had worked his way up to full-time. Nobody on the job knew where he was taken, and nobody knew why he was taken. In the following days it was said he had a false Social Security number. The large-scale raids were supposed to be aimed at the MS-13 gang, but others, including a union organizer, were caught up, and terror spread through the “New Immigrant” communities like a thunderstorm across the Kansas plains.
White neighborhoods didn’t even know about the raids. But the Latino neighborhoods were deserted. Around the corner from my union hall in Lynn, Mass., Union Street has been transformed in the past 20 years from an abandoned district inhabited largely by drug dealers into a bustling commercial center of Latino businesses. When news of the raids was spread by the Spanish radio stations, an eerie silence spread over Union Street and other Spanish neighborhoods down into East Boston. The little store selling religious icons of Jesus and Mary was empty. White employers complained their workers disappeared. Parents kept their children home from school, behind locked doors.
Legal residents were affected, as well as those who had crossed the border illegally or overstayed their legal welcome. People knew from the workplace raids in New Bedford earlier this year that you could be arguing your case from a jail cell in Texas with little access to legal help and far from your children and even prescription medicines. Better to miss pay and risk discipline on the job and stay home with your children. Read the rest>>
PRLDEF has joined migrant families and individuals to sue ICE for unlawful raids on their homes. We’ve written several posts before saying that the media only focuses on major factory raids, but there are much more terrifying raids happening in homes everyday.
You’re asleep. You’re twelve. All of a sudden you hear a huge banging on your door. the next hing you knwo a gun and a flashlight are being pointed in your direction, your grandmother is screaming, your mother is being handcuffed and taken outside and you don’t know where your brother and father are.
Is this a night raid in a war torn country? No. It’s what’s happening to migrant families in your own backyard. These raids often happen at 2am, with little press coverage. they cause waves of fear in the community.
This type of targeting, invasion of privacy, and gestapo scare tactics are unamerican. It’s time Americans see the real actions of ICE in their own community.
Not sure if you’ve had a chance to read about a Music Scholar being blocked from the US without explanation. The young intellectual studied and reeived her degree from the University of California Berkeley, but when attempting to return to the US to use that hard earned degree, ICE officials told her she would be unable to reenter the country.
She has been arraigned, judged and sentenced by immigration officials without her knowledge. She doesn’t know even know what her crime is.
After a year of letters and inquiries, Ms. Ghuman and her Mills College lawyer have been unable to find out why her residency visa was suddenly revoked, or whether she was on some security watch list. Nor does she know whether her application for a new visa, pending since last October, is being stymied by the shadow of the same unspecified problem or mistake.
In a tearful telephone interview from her parents’ home in western Wales, Ms. Ghuman, 34, an Oxford graduate who earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, said she felt like a character in Kafka.
“I don’t know why it’s happened, what I’m accused of,” she said. “There’s no opportunity to defend myself. One is just completely powerless.”
When candidates refuse to debate on Univision, it isn’t just about Latinos. Because then they turn around and refuse to debate with PBS and Tavis Smiley at a predominantly black university. It’s about systematic discrimination that hurts EVERYBODY.
When our court system, as a function of our broken immigration system, unjustly rips migrant families apart, it isn’t just about immigrants. Because then our court system in Louisiana attempts to jail young men for a school yard brawl that should be nothing more than a misdemeanor, if that. It’s about institutional discrimination that hurts EVERYBODY.
Today is the rally in the smalltown of Jena where local and national advocates are fighting to save the lives of 6 young men [action items below]. Immigrant advocates will be among those rallying in Jena, and wearing black in solidarity across the country. Because we know that your struggles are our struggles, as ours are yours.
Hate groups try to tell working class African Americans that immigrants are the cause of their economic and societal problems. Those groups are the same people that want to see the Jena 6 jailed and the key thrown away.
UPDATE:
On Friday, Sept. 14 the Louisiana Third Court of Appeals reversed the aggravated battery conviction of Mychal Bell, ruling that the youth should not have been tried and convicted as an adult for his alleged role in last year’s fight with a white high school student in Jena, La. The NAACP believes this was appropriate and just.
On Sept. 17, NAACP officials presented a petition of more than 60,000 signatures to Louisiana Gov. Blanco at the State Capitol. The thousands of online signatures were gathered via the NAACP website. They are a symbol of those concerned with the unequal treatment of the defendants and the pubic acknowledgement that the hanging of the three nooses is a serious hate crime offense.
WHO:
Thousands expected expected to participate in a rally for justice and equality in Jena, La. Read the rest of this entry »
Do you ever watch CNN or read a NYTimes article on immigration where a reporter is quoting an “expert” and you’ve NEVER heard of this person in your life. You know the type - they’re on that Carson show, or they’re status quo on Lou Dobbs. You don’t know what organization they work for, and you aren’t quite clear where their information is coming from.
Well, you aren’t alone. Henry Fernandez at the Center for American Progress is digging a bit deeper:
Know Your Sources: The Mainstream Media Keeps Finding Wacky Immigration “Experts”
Amid the most recent immigration debate on Capitol Hill, many of us for the first time met a whole new group of spokespeople arrayed against immigration. But did we really meet them—or just the face they would like the mainstream press to see?
It turns out that many anti-immigrant leaders have backgrounds that should disqualify them from even participating in mainstream debate. What is sad is they manage to get the American press to quote them without ever noting their bizarre and often racist beliefs.
Are you looking for resources on integration plans for your local community? Want to hear the latest integration stories from around the country?
Check out www.immigrantintegration.org. The site is still new, but they are expanding. They are searching for new resources to add to their website. If you have a doc or powerful story to share, you should contact the site directly (info on the page).
Police officers detained noted journalists and community leaders who were attempting to report a crime. It appears that the police cared more for THEIR immigration status than for the actual investigation of the crime.
What do you think? Did the NJ police do the wrong thing?
This week is the best chance we will have to see the Dream Act passed in 2007.
This morning we had a great press conference at the National Press Club, as a part of the National Day of Action for the DREAM Act. (Did anybody catch Durbin on the Senate floor yesterday? - Hey Senator Durbin: We’re still waiting for you to drop that amendment for DREAM!)
DREAM students, joined by Bishop Wensky of Orlando Florida, Rep. Diaz-Balart, and others, spoke about the need for the DREAM Act to a packed pressroom! Mainstream and ethnic media interviewed students throughout the morning. The delegation, comprised of students from CHIRLA and Casa de Maryland, headed to the Hill to lobby numerous representatives and senators for the DREAM Act. Spending time with these students has been a pleasure and an honor. Their commitment and energy is contagious. Frankly, they rock. If spirit could get us workable, valuable legislation, we’d already have the DREAM act.
They’ll be on the Hill all day. I’m keeping one eye on c-span waiting for the amendment- Let us know if you get wind of it being introduced!
Migrant worker’s rights are everyone’s rights. Let’s keep spreading the word. Just thought I’d share this video to brighten your day!
from the description: “[AFL-CIO/Unite HERE] take down a stuttering Dobbsian sycophant with one truth: wages have more to do with the ability of workers to organize than they have to do with an influx of migrants.
“We need to protect the rights of all workers in the United States, whatever their status” - Thea Lee.
