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Immigrants

It Is Time We Cast All Medals Into Spearheads Of Revolution!

Mrs. Hidalgo, you want to get my medal for my solidarian action in the Mediterranean Sea, because our crews work to rescue migrants from difficult conditions on a daily basis. At the same time your police are stealing blankets from people that you force to live on the streets, while you raid protests and criminalize people who are standing up for migrants and asylum seekers. You want to give me a medal for actions that you fight in your own ramparts. I am sure you will be surprised that I decline the Grand Vermeil medal.

The ‘Gilets Noirs’: The Undocumented Migrant Movement In France

With France marking six months of ‘yellow vest’ rallies and civil unrest, a new movement is making itself heard. The Gilets Noirs, the largest collective of undocumented migrants in France, have been conducting a series of high profile actions, most notbaly the recent protests at Charles De Gaulle airport calling for an end to deportation flights. In this article, Luke Butterly reports on the movement. As France marks six months of ‘yellow vest’ rallies and civil unrest, a new movement is making itself heard.

‘We Are Running Concentration Camps’: Images From El Paso Stir Outrage Over Migrant Treatment

Hundreds of migrants are being held by border agents in a fenced in encampment under a bridge in El Paso, leading to anger and accusations that the American government is holding people in "concentration camps." Images posted online by reporters and advocates painted a disturbing scene in the Texas city. Lines of migrants behind fencing, being processed by agents from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), walked into a camp area that appeared to be standing room only.

Scaling Social Justice: A Latinx Immigrant Worker Co-op Franchise Model

Araceli Dominguez, an immigrant housecleaner living in Staten Island, New York, has a lot to be proud of. She is a founding member of a local branch of Brightly®, a worker-owned cleaning cooperative with ambitions to be part of a newly created franchise model looking to scale nationally. She has worked hard with her fellow worker-owners to launch their business. “Being in this co-op fills me with a hunger to learn,” she notes. “I am so full of pride. I am an inspiration to my daughters that they too can achieve their goals. Without this, I wouldn’t be the person I am today; I would be a different Araceli.”

Immigrants Aren’t The Emergency

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.