Immigrants

Immigrants Aren’t The Emergency

February 21, 2019 By Sarah Schulz, Otherwords.org Educate! Capitalism, Immigrants, Racism, Trump Administration

Midland, Michigan, where my husband and I are raising our two young children, is a small town surrounded by rural communities. Many of us living here have seen, generation-by-generation, that we’re falling behind. Our anxiety is real, but we wholeheartedly reject attempts by those in power to blame immigrant families who have their own struggles, or to suggest that a made up “national emergency” is any kind of solution. We know better. One of my friends and her husband both work full time and each have separate health insurance through their jobs — but their three children aren’t insured.

Nation’s Top Teachers Will Hold ‘Teach In’ at Child Detention Camp

January 11, 2019 By Madeline Will, Portside.org Organize! Class Struggle, Education, Immigrants, Immigration, Teachers, Undocumented

In February, educators will gather outside a massive detention camp for migrant children and stage a 24-hour "teach in." The upcoming protest at the Tornillo, Texas detention camp is organized by Mandy Manning, the 2018 National Teacher of the Year, who teaches newly arrived refugee and immigrant students in Washington state. When she met President Donald Trump at the White House in a May ceremony, Manning gave him a stack of letters from her immigrant students. (She also wore buttons supporting women's rights, LGBTQ rights, and other political causes in a silent rebuke.)

California Judge Blocks Trump Administration Effort To End Protections For Some Immigrants

October 5, 2018 Robert Jablon and Sudhin Thanawala, AP.org Resist! California, Courts, Immigrants, Trump Administration

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from ending protections that allowed immigrants from four countries to live and work legally in the United States, saying the move would cause “irreparable harm and great hardship.” U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco granted a request for a preliminary injunction against the administration’s decision to discontinue temporary protected status for people from Sudan, Nicaragua, Haiti and El Salvador. The judge said there is evidence that “President Trump harbors an animus against non-white, non-European aliens which influenced his ... decision to end the TPS designation.”

Rural America Stands Up For Immigrants

August 3, 2018 By Justin Vest, Otherwords.org Resist! Immigrants, Rural, Solidarity, Undocumented

This summer, people gathered in cities throughout the country to protest our government’s separation and incarceration of immigrant families. In Alabama, hundreds of local residents came together in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Dothan. It was only the Huntsville rally that made national news — after an armed counter-protester attempted to disrupt the event. Whether explicitly stated or not, the narrative was the same: A white Trump supporter threatening violence came to epitomize Alabama’s stance on immigration. It’s a convenient narrative that plays into the hands of anti-immigrant policymakers, who’ve been using Alabama to justify harsh immigration policies for years. In 2011, Alabama passed the notorious HB 56, the harshest anti-immigrant law in the country.

Hundreds Arrested In DC Protesting Immigrant Detention, Child Separation

June 28, 2018 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance Resist! Immigrant Rights, Immigrants, Women

Protests against the zero-tolerance policy on immigration that has resulted in children being imprisoned without their parents, going to court without an adult and families being detained have resulted in mass protests. We have reported on #OccupyICE protests that occurring across the nation, there were also mass protests in Washington, DC and around the country as part of #WomenDisobey. In Washington, DC women-led protests shut down streets and occupied a Senate office building as Congress prepared to leave the capital for the Fourth of July recess without resolving the immigration injustice that is occurring on a daily basis.

#OccupyICE Spreads Across The Nation

June 28, 2018 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance Resist! Immigrants, Occupy

Occupy ICE is taking off throughout the nation. We have reported on protests outside of ICE in Portland and in New York City, now these protests are becoming known as #OccupyICE and are spreading across the nation. In Portland where the Occupy ICE protests began, law enforcement moved in to dismantle the Occupy encampment. Occupy ICE PDX put out a statement in response to the police action. They emphasized they were nonviolent and police in riot gear coming to remove and arrest them was an over-the-top response. They pointed out that Portland is a sanctuary city that protects immigrants threatened by ICE, Homeland Security and Customs with arrest and deportation. On social media, they called for people to come to join them. The police blocked roads making that difficult. They also warned, "Arrest us today, we'll grow stronger tomorrow!"

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Protested At Restaruarant

June 20, 2018 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance Resist! Immigrants, Migrant Children

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was unable to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Washington, DC as people discovered her presence and started chanting against her for her stand on immigration until she left. he was dining at MXDC Cocina Mexicana when a group of 10 to 15 protesters entered the restaurant and began chanting at her about the abusive immigration policy. The group chanted “shame!”, “end family separation!” “Sanctuary for all” and was incredulous that she was eating at a Mexican restaurant. One protester yelled, “How dare you spend your evening here eating dinner as you’re complicit in the separation and deportation of over 10,000 children separated from their parents? How can you enjoy a Mexican dinner as you’re deporting and imprisoning tens of thousands of people who come here seeking asylum in the United States? We call on you to end family separation and abolish ICE!”

The U.S. Has Been Breaking Up Families For Years

June 15, 2018 By Brian Sonenstein, Mintpress News Educate! Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Immigrants, Immigration

ICE under Obama averaged 309,887 arrests per year from 2009-2012, while ICE under Trump averaged 139,553 in 2017. Obama set records between 2008 and 2014 with the number of people arrested and placed in deportation proceedings under S-Comm. Those numbers plummeted by more than half in 2015, when S-Comm was replaced by the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP). Both programs use fingerprints collected during bookings by state and local police departments to identify individuals for deportation. The primary difference between the two programs is PEP attempted to put greater emphasis on deporting people who had been convicted of a crime.

One In Four Children Live In Immigrant Families

April 23, 2018 Samantha Artiga and Anthony Damico, Kff.org Educate! Children, Families, Immigrants

President Trump has intensified national debate about immigration by implementing policies to enhance immigration enforcement and restrict legal immigration. Recent findings show that the climate surrounding these policies has significantly increased fear and uncertainty among immigrant families, broadly affecting families across different immigration statuses and locations. The effects extend to lawfully present immigrants, including lawful permanent residents or “green card” holders, and children in immigrant families, who are predominantly U.S.-born citizens. In particular, findings point to both short- and long-term negative consequences on the health and well-being of children in immigrant families. Potential changes to public charge policies intended to reduce use of public programs by immigrant families, including their citizen children, could further increase strains on immigrant families and lead to losses in health coverage.

Immigrant Youth Stand With Survivors Of Parkland Mass Shooting & Will Take Streets On The March For Our Lives

February 24, 2018 Sheridan Aguirre, Unitedwedream.org Resist! Immigrants, Immigration, Mass Shootings, Protests, Youth

Washington, DC – On March 24th, immigrant youth will march in solidarity with the courageous survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and students across the country who are calling on Congress to protect the lives of young people and communities by enacting stricter gun control laws. Immigrant youth will organize marches at Pompano Beach High School (Pompano Beach, FL), Woodrow Wilson High School (Washington, D.C.), and Central Washington University (Ellensburg, WA) with more to come. Camila Duarte, high school student and immigrant youth leader at United We Dream – Florida, said: “The shooting in Parkland hit home. My friend’s brother was one of the victims at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and I can’t express just how much this has affected our whole community.

Nazis & Opponents Clash In DC Over SF Verdict Acquitting Immigrant

December 4, 2017 John Zangas, dcmediagroup.us Resist! Immigrants, Nazis, Racism, White Nationalism

By John Zangas for DCMG - Washington, DC–White supremacist Richard Spencer and about 20 of his followers expressed hatred for immigrants at the White House Sunday afternoon while protesting the San Francisco trial verdict in the shooting death of Kathryn Steinle. About 75 counter-protesters confronted Spencer and his Nazi group on Pennsylvania Ave. as they marched toward Lafayette Square, blocking them from reaching the front of the North Portico side of White House. Police scrambled to separate the two groups with a cordon as they met, then quickly inserted metal barricades between the two sides before any skirmishes could break out. “Alt-Righters” like Spencer and Eli Mosley and Traditionalist Workers Party neo-Nazis including Matthew Heimbach and Derek Davis were in attendance. Spencer and Mosley helped organized the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., on August 9 when Nazi groups, the KKK, the Alt Right, and other fringe supremacy groups protested the removal of a Civil War statue of General Robert E. Lee. That event turned deadly when a car driven by James Alex Fields Jr., 20, plowed into activists, hitting and injuring 20 and killing Heather Heyer, a civil rights activist. Attorney General Jeff Sessions admitted it was an act of domestic terrorism and vowed to investigate and prosecute it as terrorism.

Labor Fights End To ‘Temporary Protected Status’ For 59K Haitians

November 25, 2017 Max Zahn, transform-network.net Resist! Class Struggle, Haiti, Immigrants, Labor, Undocumented

By Max Zahn for Waging Nonviolence - Wilna Destin, a UNITE HERE organizer, fled political unrest in Haiti 17 years ago for asylum in the United States. After arriving on her own in Miami, Florida, she worked restaurant and hospitality jobs in Orlando, eventually gaining accreditation as a nursing assistant. She married and had two children. She built a life. When the Trump administration announced on Monday night that it would end temporary protected status, or TPS, for approximately 59,000 Haitians in 2019, Destin learned that she will have to leave in a matter of months. “I was shocked,” she said. “I’m not ready to go back.” Labor advocates across the country aren’t ready to see her and her fellow Hatians go either. In the latest surge of labor opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, union leaders and rank-and-file members rallied on short notice Tuesday, vowing to fight the TPS decision and seek a path to citizenship for the Haitians affected by it. TPS is an immigration status granted to foreign-born residents unable to return home due to dangerous or challenging circumstances in their native countries. In 2010, the Obama administration granted TPS to Haitian-born residents after a devastating earthquake struck Haiti that year. “This is a very, very terrible moment for us in the labor movement,” said Gerard Cadet, vice president of Service Employees International Union 1199, at a press conference in lower Manhattan on Tuesday morning. According to Cadet, who was born in Haiti, over 12 percent of SEIU 1199 members are Haitian immigrants.

America Was Never White

August 25, 2017 Joe Krulder, historynewsnetwork.org Educate! Immigrants, indigenous, Race, Racism

By Joe Krulder for the History News Network. Events in Charlottesville recently cascaded into domestic terrorism. Three dead and dozens wounded as neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other “alt-right” members descended upon the university that Thomas Jefferson built; their purpose, it is alleged, to defend a statue – a monument – to the Confederate Civil War soldier, General Robert E. Lee. These radical rightists arrived from all across the United States upon the college town of Charlottesville to protect, in their words, their “white” heritage. Among the many problems I have with so-called “white supremacists” is their purposeful mixing of “heritage” with “history,” rhetorically pining for a once proud “white” America. But history proves that America was never white. That I need to make this statement, and worse, that some may take offense from it, shows the blurring rhetoric between what is Heritage and what is History.

Hidden History Of Japanese American Incarceration And Defiance

August 8, 2017 Elliott Gabriel, www.telesurtv.net Resist! History, Immigrants, Japan

By Elliott Gabriel for Tele Sur - Filmmaker Konrad Aderer's grandparents were among those incarcerated in the camps. In his latest documentary, “Resistance at Tule Lake,” viewers are presented with a long-stifled aspect of the tragedy of Japanese American detention, with the organized mass resistance bravely waged by the 12,000 residents branded as “disloyal” to the U.S. government taking center stage. Detained under color of law at the Tule Lake Segregation Center along California's northern border, the protagonists of “Resistance” defy attempts to marginalize their suffering or their defiance. The documentary, which is being screened at select venues, gives audiences a rarely-heard opportunity to listen the voices of those who were unexpectedly plunged into “a hell,” as one survivor recounts, but maintained the strength not only to survive, but also to fight back. “The resistance that arose in the incarcerated Japanese American community is a story that has been largely hidden until now,” Aderer told teleSUR. “And it holds so much more much more meaning now, can be better understood in this post-post-9/11 era when, absent any new major attack in the United States, Islamophobia and anti-immigrant hatred has managed to become even more vicious and influential."

Immigrants In Georgia Detention Centers Put In Solitary For Hunger Strikes

May 8, 2017 Kevin Gosztola, www.shadowproof.com Resist! Detention Centers, Immigrants, Immigration, Undocumented

By Kevin Gosztola for Shadow Proof - Georgia immigrant detention centers frequently put asylum seekers and other migrants into solitary confinement as punishment for going on hunger strike. In a report [PDF] produced by Project South and the Penn State Law Center for Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, human rights abuses at Stewart Detention Center and Irwin County Detention Center are examined. Twenty-four year-old Somali asylum seeker Sadam Hussein Ali describes how he was punished in 2016 at the Stewart Detention Center. “The staff put me in segregation for several days because I participated in the hunger strike that happened around Thanksgiving. They also fired me from my kitchen job for participating in the strike,” Ali said. “About twenty other Somali detainees were put in segregation. In segregation, I couldn’t see outside. I lost track of whether it was day or night. I had to request to use the bathroom every time; then I was chained; and then a guard would walk me to the bathroom in chains. I participated in the hunger strike because we have been detained for far too long. The nurses actually threatened to force-feed all of us on the hunger strike.”

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