Immigration

Not A Nation Of Immigrants

September 13, 2021 Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Monthly Review. Educate! Immigrant Rights, Immigration, Joe Biden, Trump

On George Washington’s birthday, 2018, the Donald Trump administration’s director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, L. Francis Cissna, changed the agency’s official mission statement, dropping the language of “a nation of immigrants” to describe the United States. The previous mission statement had said the agency “secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system.” The revised mission statement reads: “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values.”

Shadow Docket Supreme Court Decisions Could Affect Millions

September 4, 2021 Gary Fields, Associated Press. Educate! Abortion Rights, Immigration, Law, Supreme Court

Traditionally, the process of getting an opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court takes months and those rulings are often narrowly tailored. Emergency orders, especially during the court’s summer break, revolve around specific issues, like individual death penalty cases. Since Aug. 24, that truncated process known as the shadow docket has moved at astronomical speed, producing decisions related to immigration, COVID-19 and evictions and, most recently, abortion.

Will Investing In Community Groups Keep Immigrants Out Of Detention?

August 24, 2021 Angelika Albaladejo, Capital and Main. Educate! Community services, Detention Centers, Immigration, Solidarity

“It’s solidarity, not charity,” said Grace Kindeke, who helps people recently released from immigration detention with housing, food, legal and health services in her community of Concord, New Hampshire. Immigrants come to the United States looking for safety and stability. But instead, many find confusion navigating the complexity of the immigration system, said Kindeke, who works with the nonprofit American Friends Service Committee. Language barriers, limited cash and the federal government’s reliance on detention can prevent recently arrived migrants from getting a lawyer, understanding their legal obligations and settling into a new community, especially if they’re dealing with trauma, Kindeke said. In her experience, immigrants are highly motivated to comply with government requirements, as long as they understand what’s being asked of them and have the basics to get by.

The Climate Crisis Is Coming For Undocumented Farmworkers First

August 11, 2021 Maurizio Guerrero, In These Times. Educate! climate crisis, Farmworkers, Immigration, Worker Rights and Jobs

In July 2020, Claudia Durán felt compelled to complete her shift harvesting blueberries in the fields of Allegan County, Mich., before driving to the local hospital’s emergency room to be treated for dehydration, where she arrived dizzy, with an acute headache and chest pain. That same month, at least three of her coworkers also ended their shifts in emergency rooms to be treated for dehydration, she says. Durán and her coworkers get paid by the hour, 50 cents for every pound of fruit they pick, and they cannot afford to miss work time and lose income. That is why Durán, who is undocumented, rations her water intake throughout the day — to avoid going too often to the restroom, which is far removed from the harvesting fields.

Immigrant Leaders Shut Down ICE ‘Black Site’

July 20, 2021 Movimiento Cosecha. Resist! Blockade, ICE, Immigration, New Jersey (NJ)

Newark, NJ — Immigrant leaders and immigration justice organizers chained themselves together and blockaded the entrance of the Newark SAC office in response to escalating abuses by ICE. Protesters are calling this unidentified office located in a desolate industrial neighborhood in Newark, NJ an “ICE black site”; and are demanding #ReleasesNotTransfers as detainees continue to be transferred out of New Jersey jails to detention centers across the country and away from their families. Advocates say this Homeland Security Investigations office is where unmarked vans bring detainees and ICE processes all deportations and transfers in the state, a “transfer roulette” brought to a halt by the blockade today.

Dying To Be Regularized: Migrants On Hunger Strike

July 16, 2021 ROAR Collective, ROAR Magazine. Resist! Belgium, Hunger Strike, Immigration, Refugees

Farida is 51 years old. She was born in Belgium. Her entire family has the Belgian nationality. Farida has a steady job. She cleans offices and public buildings, for €6-8 per hour. Her last application for a regularization of her administrative status got rejected and she has received a state-issued order to leave the territory. Kiran fled a civil war in Nepal 16 years ago and applied for asylum in Belgium. While his asylum request was still pending, he got a job that paid €10 an hour. When his asylum claim got rejected, his wage fell to €2.5 an hour. His daughter, born in Belgium, is now five years old and speaks fluent Flemish, which she learned at school. The family submitted five applications to be regularized, they were all rejected.

There Are No Mass Migrations Without US Meddling And Militarism

July 9, 2021 Azadeh Shahshahani And Rhonda Ramiro, In These Times. Educate! Biden administration, Immigration, Latin America, US Imperialism

When Vice President Kamala Harris visited the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, on June 25, she repeated the claim she made during her trip to Guatemala and Mexico earlier that month: The Biden administration is serious about addressing the root causes of Central American migration. “This issue cannot be reduced to a political issue,” Harris said. “We’re talking about children, we’re talking about families, we’re talking about suffering, and our approach has to be thoughtful and effective.” Toward this end, the administration has set forth a four-year, $4 billion proposal to increase assistance to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, “conditioned on their ability to reduce the endemic corruption, violence, and poverty that causes people to flee their home countries.”

It Is Time To End Illegal Pushbacks And Abolish Frontex

June 22, 2021 Mark Akkerman, ROAR Magazine. Resist! European Union (EU), Human Rights, Immigration, Wars and Militarism

The European Union’s border regime has been rapidly expanding in the past years, especially since the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015, which put migration at the top of the European political agenda. It seems that there has not been much opposition against this expansion, which ranges from border militarization and the beefing up of the budget and mandate of EU border agency Frontex, to the extensive use of biometric databases, surveillance technologies and the increasing cooperation with non-EU-countries to stop migrants on their way to Europe. Nonetheless, many activists have campaigned tirelessly against the EU border policies for years, while others have done all they can to rescue and support migrants.

New Report: ICE Records On Gynecological Abuse

June 17, 2021 Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Educate! Health Care, Human Rights, ICE, Immigration

Washington — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to properly monitor informed consent protocols used by a doctor accused of performing non-consensual gynecological procedures on women detained at Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, according to a new report published today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the National Immigration Project and Project South. The report also highlights other longstanding problems and systemic oversight failures that are currently the focus of several federal investigations of the facility. For years, advocates raised concerns about the mistreatment of immigrants detained at ICDC, a county-owned prison run by LaSalle Corrections that has contracted with ICE to detain immigrants since 2011.

Organizing Poultry Workers Starts With Learning Together

June 16, 2021 Olivia Paschal, Facing South. Organize! Food Industry, Immigration, South, Worker Rights and Jobs

She's been denounced by Tyson Foods as a "radical union organizer," but Magaly Licolli doesn't organize unions — she organizes workers. Licolli is a leader in the workers' center movement that since the 1970s has been organizing labor difficult to formally unionize. An immigrant who developed a passion for popular education through her theater education in Mexico, Licolli served as the executive director of the now-defunct Northwest Arkansas Workers' Justice Center, a nonprofit founded in 2007 to serve the region's poultry workers, where she worked with local community organizer Fernando Garcia. In 2019 Licolli co-founded Venceremos (Spanish for "we will win"), a nonprofit community center with a similar mission. Venceremos, like the NWAWJC, belongs to the Food Chain Workers Alliance, a coalition of over 30 similar worker-based organizations representing some 375,000 food workers in the U.S. and Canada.

Let’s Not Forget The Suffering The US Has Inflicted On Guatemala

June 13, 2021 Editors, In These Times. Educate! Guatemala, Immigration, Kamala Harris, US Imperialism

During her recent visit to Guatemala, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a frank message to Central Americans hoping to find refuge in the United States. “I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border,” she said at a press conference with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei on June 7. “Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border.” Harris’s comments drew criticism from organizations advocating for asylum seekers. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D‑N.Y.) wrote on Twitter that seeking asylum at the U.S. border is “100% legal” and called on the United States to “finally acknowledge its contributions to destabilization and régime change in the region.”

New Jersey Activists Halted Two Deportations

June 13, 2021 Sam Carliner, Left Voice. Resist! Deportations, ICE, Immigration, New Jersey (NJ)

The Bergen County Jail in Hackensack, New Jersey has been the site of recurring actions in solidarity with detained immigrants. On Tuesday, June 8, one such action ended with cops arresting 14 protesters who were trying to peacefully stop a deportation. The 14 people arrested had camped out at the Bergen County Jail the previous night to try and stop the deportation of Marvin Jerezano Peña, a father from Red Bank, New Jersey who migrated from Mexico to the United States as a child. He had been arrested by ICE and was being held for marijuana possession, something now fully legal in the state. Nevertheless, ICE planned to deport Peña. Protesters at the jail Tuesday bravely blocked an ICE van that afternoon in an attempt to stop the deportation.

There Is No ‘Border Crisis’

May 25, 2021 Josue De Luna Navarro and Khury Petersen-Smith, In These Times. Educate! Asylum, California, Customs and Border Patrol, Immigration

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) temporarily closed the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego on the morning of Nov. 19, 2018. With 100,000 people and 40,000 vehicles crossing each day, San Ysidro is one of the most heavily crossed land borders in the world — and CBP’s actions came during Monday morning rush hour.

End To ICE Contracts In Bristol County, Massachusetts

May 20, 2021 FANG Collective and Steve Ahlquist, UpriseRI. Resist! Human Rights, ICE, Immigration, Massachusetts

The FANG Collective is happy to announce that ICE will be cancelling all contracts with Bristol County, Massachusetts. This includes their 287(g) contract which trains deputies to collaborate with ICE and perform immigration agent duties, and their IGSA contract which turned the Bristol County House of Correction into an ICE detention center. See: Biden administration ends ICE contract with Bristol County Sheriff’s Office amid federal probe into alleged excessive force against immigrant detainees In the summer 2018, FANG launched its Shut Down ICE campaign in Bristol County with a nonviolent direct action that blockaded, and effectively shut down the prison for several hours.

Scotland: Hundreds Of People Block Detention Of Immigrant Neighbors

May 14, 2021 Peter Smith, ITV News. Resist! Immigration, Police, Scotland, Solidarity

Glasgow, Scotland - One of two men detained by immigration officers in Scotland and subsequently released after protesters blocked them from leaving has said he's grateful "fate" bought him to live among the demonstrators in Glasgow. On Monday evening, protesters sat on the road in front of the Home Office van parked on Kenmure Street in Glasgow. Police officers surrounded the vehicle. Hundreds of protesters were at the scene, chanting refrains like "Leave our neighbours, let them go" and "Cops go home". "I'm so happy that my fate brought me to live here in Glasgow, where the people are so connected that they'll come out onto the streets to help one of their own," Lakhvir Singh exclusively told ITV News.

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