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Immigration

Over 100 Thousand Join “Day Without Immigrants” Strike

May 2, 2017 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org , , ,
By Staff for Cosecha. Immigrant workers in over 30 states across the country joined a national strike billed as a “Day Without Immigrants” today to demonstrate that the country depends on the labor of immigrants and working class people of color. Immigrant rights groups, worker centers and unions joined together for the largest national strike since the immigrant-led Mega Marches of 2006. The Cosecha movement was the first group to call for the “Day Without Immigrants” May Day strike, with a public launch in early February. Cosecha led strikes and marches in over 40 cities across the country, where thousands of businesses closed their stores. “This Day Without Immigrants is the first step in a series of strikes and boycotts that will change the conversation on immigration in the United States,” said Maria Fernanda Cabello, a undocumented leader and the May 1st campaign coordinator with Cosecha. “We believe that when the country recognizes it depends on immigrant labor to function, we will win permanent protection from deportation for the 11 million undocumented immigrants."

We Asked ICE About Prank Calls To Their Anti-Immigrant Hotline

May 1, 2017 Rafi Schwartz, www.fusion.net , ,
By Rafi Schwartz for Fusion - Adding to the frenzy was the fact that VOICE’s launch date of April 26 was also “Alien Day”—a reference to the moon featured in James Cameron’s 1986 classic, Aliens (LV-426. Get it?). Marine veteran Alexander McCoy told Buzzfeed News that he was inspired to call VOICE’s hotline after seeing #AlienDay trending on Twitter. “I told them I’d been abducted by a UFO,” he told the site. “There was a long pause. I heard them do a big sigh. And they closed out the conversation saying that they’d make a note of it and I should wait for the DHS to investigate my report.” As VOICE itself notes on its website, and in a recorded message to hotline callers, the line is not meant as a tip-line to report crimes. And the influx of hoax callers appears to have already taken its toll.

Terrorizing The Vulnerable

April 29, 2017 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com , ,
By Chris Hedges for Truth Dig - The acceleration of arrests by the Trump administration among the estimated 11 million undocumented people in the United States is spreading panic throughout communities such as Elizabeth, where at least half of the population is foreign-born. Elizabeth police officers in February joined ICE agents in raiding a popular small business in an unsuccessful attempt to arrest a woman, who at the time was there with her two small children. The February raid, especially because of the participation by the police, along with the call by the Trump administration for widespread deportations, has radically reconfigured life in this depressed New Jersey city outside of New York City, as it has in many other immigrant communities. Undocumented parents of U.S. citizens are signing power-of-attorney papers so that if they are seized by ICE agents someone will have the legal authority to care for the children they leave behind. Businesses in immigrant communities have seen a precipitous drop in sales as families hoard what little money they have so they will have some resources if they are deported.

Once Again, Trump Attack On Immigrants Rebuked By Federal Court

April 27, 2017 Jon Queally, www.commondreams.org , ,
By Jon Queally for Common Dreams - 'Under our system of government, the President cannot coerce cities, counties and states to become agents of federal immigration enforcement by threatening the loss of funds appropriated by Congress.' In the latest rebuke of President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant policies, a federal court judge on Tuesday ruled the administration's threat to withhold funds from so-called "sanctuary cities"—which offer modest safer harbor for immigrants and undocumented residents in the face of federal detention and deportation requests—as unconstitutional. Issuing a temporary injunction against a move by the U.S. Justice Department to refuse grant money from California municipalities, U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick said the Trump administration's effort to withhold more than $1 billion in federal grants from Santa Clara and San Francisco counties was illegal. Though the ruling affirmed the government may have some authority to seek local compliance with federal law...

Making Sense Of The Deportation Debate

April 26, 2017 Aviva Chomsky, www.tomdispatch.com , ,
By Aviva Chomsky for Tom Dispatch - Ever since he rode a Trump Tower escalator into the presidential race in June 2015 and swore to build his “great wall” and stop Mexican “rapists” from entering the country, undocumented immigrants have been the focus of Donald Trump’s ire. Now that he’s in the Oval Office, the news has been grim. A drumbeat of frightening headlines and panicked social media posts have highlighted his incendiary language, his plans and executive orders when it comes to immigrants, and the early acts of the Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents when it comes to round-ups and deportations. The temperature has soared on the deportation debate, so if you think we’re in a completely unprecedented moment when it comes to immigration and immigrants, you’re in good company. Trump has repeatedly claimed that immigrants, especially undocumented ones, are flooding the United States, causing crime waves, and depleting social service budgets. Never mind that the number of such immigrants has been in steady decline since 2008, that immigrant crime rates are lower than citizen crime rates...

Meet Organizers Behind The Next ‘Day Without An Immigrant’ Strike

April 20, 2017 Sarah Aziza, www.wagingnonviolence.org , ,
By Sarah Aziza for Waging Nonviolence - When 26-year-old Catalina Adorno hit the road on March 28, she knew it would be at least six weeks before she’d sleep again in her own bed. Since that day, Adorno, a Mexican-born New Jersey resident with a strong voice and bright laugh, has criss-crossed from Pennsylvania to Maine as part of a regional support team for Movimento Cosecha, a national immigrant rights coalition. Her stops have included major cities and small towns, as she and her three teammates work to mobilize Cosecha’s vast network of “local circles” ahead of a massive day of coordinated action slated for May 1. On April 3, Adorno’s team stopped off in Washington, D.C. to hear Cosecha spokesperson Maria Fernanda Cabello make the formal call for a May 1 nationwide strike. The planned action, billed as “A Day Without an Immigrant,” is set to be the largest immigrant rights action for at least a decade, with hundreds of thousands already pledging to stay home from work for a day in protest of systemic discrimination towards the immigrant and undocumented communities. At the press conference, Cabello pointed to the massive labor and capital power represented by the immigrant community, including 11 million undocumented residents.

Fighting Fear, Hundreds Join Border Caravan For Migrant Rights

April 17, 2017 Laura Carlsen, www.counterpunch.org , ,
By Laura Carlsen for Counter Punch - The Federal Building looms overhead like a threat as the protesters gather. Washington policies have brought them here to Sacramento, to push the state government to protect its citizens and communities from the anti-immigrant orders of the 45th president. Union members, migrants, government officials and grassroots organizers—the categories often overlap—chant and march before stepping up to the mike to tell their stories and make their promises. Matching t-shirts read “Caravan Against Fear” with dates in April and a graphic of a child, her arms spread in a welcoming gesture, her face turned upward in hope. It’s the launch of an unusual caravan for unusual times. One sign reads “Somos el pueblo. Respeta nuestra humanidad”—We are the people. Respect our humanity. Since when do the residents of an advanced democracy have to plead for respect for their humanity? Apparently, since the election of Donald Trump. Although deportations and fear existed before, since November 2016 and the orders of the Trump administration to arrest, detain and deport up to 3 million undocumented workers the atmosphere has gotten much uglier.

Is Trump Waging A Stealth War Of Retaliation Against Sanctuary Cities?

April 1, 2017 Sarah Lazare, www.alternet.org , , ,
By Sarah Lazare for AlterNet - General Jeff Sessions doubles down on President Donald Trump’s threats to crack down on sanctuary cities, evidence is mounting that the administration has already made them the target of retaliatory immigration raids as part of a backdoor effort to force compliance. The term “sanctuary city” refers to the hundreds of jurisdictions across the United States that, to one degree or another, limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. CNN reported on March 25 that an unnamed “senior U.S. immigration official with direct knowledge of ongoing ICE actions” testified that federal authorities have descended upon sanctuary cities to pressure them to cooperate.

May Day Mass Action Will Be Historic ‘Strike From Below’

March 30, 2017 Sue Sturgis, www.facingsouth.org , , ,
By Sue Sturgis for Facing South - Hundreds of thousands of service workers across the South and the rest of the nation are planning to take part in a general strike for human rights and equality on May Day, which marks International Workers' Day. Organizers say the May 1 Strike, which aims to express the collective power of the country's most marginalized workers and to stop attacks by the Trump administration and its corporate allies, is the biggest general-strike organizing effort in the U.S. in over 70 years. "The Trump administration's dangerous attacks against food worker families and all marginalized people continue a centuries-long history of oppression," the organizers said in a statement.

Children As Young As 3 Detained 500 Days And Counting In Disgraceful Immigrant Prisons

March 23, 2017 Sarah Lazare, www.alternet.org , , ,
By Sarah Lazare for AlterNet - For more than 600 days and two Christmas holidays, Marlene and her seven-year-old son Antonio have languished in indefinite detention at Pennsylvania’s “Berks Family Residential Center,” a glorified term for an immigrant prison. Her child has been granted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), which the U.S. government says is supposed to “help foreign children in the United States who have been abused, abandoned, or neglected.” But instead of sanctuary, or even a fair hearing, Marlene and her son face open-ended incarceration and “expedited removal” orders, compounding the trauma they endured when they were forced to flee their home in El Salvador under threat of gang violence.

Immigration Crackdown Sparks Silicon Valley Protests

March 22, 2017 Dave Johnson, www.nationofchange.org , ,
By Dave Johnson for Nation of Change - The event, which attracted hundreds to downtown Palo Alto, was co-organized by Silicon Valley Rising, a coalition of community, faith-based and labor organizations that represent tech’s service workers. “We hope the event not only sends a message, but creates new opportunities for the low-wage, largely immigrant subcontracted janitors, security officers, cafeteria workers and shuttle drivers,” said Derecka Mehrens, Silicon Valley Rising’s co-founder. Participants carried signs like “Silicon Valley is powered by diversity” and “No ban, no wall -welcome all.”

A Movement For ‘Sanctuary Campuses’ Takes Shape

March 16, 2017 Dulce Morales, www.otherwords.org , , ,
By Dulce Morales for Other Words - With spring midterms on the horizon, this time of year is often stressful enough for college students. Yet for some students this year, the stress goes far beyond the normal pressures of tests and quizzes. For many immigrant students and their families, it’s now an issue of safety. Two executive orders recently signed by Donald Trump are to blame. The first is an updated version of the so-called “Muslim ban,” which restricts travel from six Muslim-majority countries. The other gives local officials more power to detain undocumented immigrants and makes it easier to deport them. Travel bans will do next to nothing to keep out terrorists...

Number Of Sanctuary Cities Nears 500

March 15, 2017 Stephen Dinan, www.washingtontimes.com , ,
By Stephen Dinan for The Washington Times - Nearly 500 jurisdictions are now sanctuary cities, according to a group that’s tracked the issue for more than a decade, and who said there’s been a massive surge in the number of places trying to thwart federal immigration agents since President Trump’s election. The Ohio Jobs & Justice Political Action Committee has added more than three dozen new cities and counties to its list in 2017 alone, as jurisdictions rush to try to shield illegal immigrants from what they expect to be a new push for deportations under Mr. Trump. “More will be coming,” said Steve Salvi, founder of OJJ. “A lot of communities now, there’s resolutions in the works and citizens groups encouraging city councils to pass them.”

No More Saturday Marches

March 9, 2017 Nelson Lichtenstein, www.jacobinmag.com , ,
By Nelson Lichtenstein for Jacobin Magazine - The brilliance of strikes and stoppages like the Day Without Immigrants and the Women’s Strike lies in organizers’ willingness to halt business as usual. In mid-February, as thousands of people were pondering what to do about a midweek “Day Without Immigrants,” one of them called up a union office in Chicago to ask if he should call in sick when going on strike for the day. “You can’t say you are calling in sick. You’re on strike!” replied an agitated union official. “If you are calling in sick, you’re just sick.” This little bit of confusion illuminates larger and more important questions facing all those seeking the best way to protest President Trump...

Three Lessons From Fighting Obama Raids To Organize Under Trump Regime

March 8, 2017 Jacinta Gonzalez, www.mijente.net , , , ,
By Jacinta Gonzalez for Mijente - As many community members start to plan out emergency response teams and community defense, there is a need to think out short and long term organizing strategies that we can use so that we do not fall into patterns of solely doing individual deportation cases, press and mobilizing work, but are also thinking about long-term power building. While enforcement under the new regime represents an expansion and escalation, it is built upon past practices that can provide us with key lessons now. In 2013, the New Orleans community was facing an increasing ICE presence in immigrant neighborhoods including raids
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