By Matt O'Brien
Oakland Tribune
11/16/2011
OAKLAND -- Alameda County officials said Wednesday they have no authority to stop immigration agents from detaining and deporting an Occupy Oakland protester who was arrested while meditating outside City Hall.
The District Attorney's office dropped misdemeanor charges against 36-year-old activist Pancho Ramos Stierle for loitering and refusing to disperse from Frank H. Ogawa Plaza as riot police were clearing out the Occupy encampment there on Monday.
But while the criminal charges were dropped on Wednesday afternoon, a federal immigration hold on Ramos Stierle remains in effect and friends fear he could be deported to Mexico.
"I don't have the authority to go against the federal government," said Alameda County Superior Court Commissioner Karen Rodrigue, speaking to dozens of Ramos Stierle's supporters who came to his arraignment in a downtown courthouse.
The peace activist was among those arrested as riot police cleared the Occupy encampment in a predawn raid Monday.
He had been meditating on the plaza for more than three hours as police officers surrounded the camp and most other protesters fled.
After he was booked in a county jail, a federal fingerprints database flagged him as a deportable immigrant from Mexico. Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent a note to jailers asking him to be held.
The activist's lawyers argued on Wednesday that the note -- called an immigration detainer -- is
merely a request for local authorities to keep him detained, not a demand, and that the county has the ability to reject it.
"Our position is that they don't have to honor the hold. That's clear as day," said lawyer Francisco Ugarte. "The federal government has said the hold is a request."
The sheriff's department and district attorney's office disagreed.
"The sheriff's department is going to pay attention to what the feds tell them to do," said Deputy District Attorney Josefa James, speaking in the courtroom to one of Ramos Stierle's lawyers.
On the immigration hold, James said, "we don't have anything to do with it, but there's nothing we can do about it, either."
About 50 activists and friends formed a meditation circle outside the courtroom and shared stories about Ramos Stierle as they awaited his arraignment.
Equipped with notepads, pens, cellphones and laptops, they spent hours making phone calls and writing emails and handwritten letters to local authorities.
"We all have the responsibility to do the right thing, and we're asking (District Attorney) Nancy O'Malley to do the right thing in this instance," said his lawyer, Yolanda Huang.
O'Malley did not return a request for comment.
Although Ramos Stierle is now in the county's custody, not the city's, Huang said county and federal authorities should respect ordinances approved by the Oakland City Council, which declared the city a sanctuary for all immigrants -- first in 1986, and then again in 2007.
"He was arrested on city property," Huang said. "He was arrested by Oakland police officers. And he's been held in the city of Oakland."
However, that "City of Refuge" policy has not been enforced, especially since Alameda County and all other Bay Area counties joined the federal Secure Communities network last year. Fingerprints of everyone arrested by local police get automatically sent to a federal database, which flags arrestees who appear to be immigrants subject to deportation, either because they are in the country illegally or committed a crime.
Lawyers and immigration authorities have declined to discuss how Ramos Stierle was able to live in the U.S. and whether or not he had permission to be living here.
"We are not at liberty to disclose further details about Mr. Stierle's immigration history," said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice, citing privacy restrictions. The agency has also not said if it intends to take custody of Ramos Stierle, but it did ask the county to keep him detained until agents decide if they wish to pick him up.
Lawyers said the immigration agency has 48 hours after the arraignment, which was late on Wednesday afternoon, to make that determination.
Friends said Ramos Stierle was from Mexico City and had studied at UC Berkeley on a student visa.
He dropped out of a graduate astrophysics program at the university in 2008 and became a full-time activist, they said.
A resident of Oakland's Fruitvale district, he gathered fruits from neighborhood trees and leftover organic produce from farmers markets and distributed the food for free to residents who needed it. He was involved in a range of causes, from immigrant rights to environmentalism, and had protested the city's gang injunctions. Much like a Buddhist monk, he lived off a "gift economy," supported by friends he inspired through his activism and secular spirituality.
"He only rides bikes," said friend Miriam Dowd, visiting the courtroom Wednesday. "He calls gasoline 'dinosaur juice.'"
Inspired by Gandhi, Ramos Stierle spent each Monday in silence, communicating only through writing. He was following that practice when Oakland police officers approached him after 6 a.m. Monday and arrested him.
When they asked him questions, he answered on a notepad. He maintained the vow of silence all day in the county jail, but cracked a smile every once in a while, said cellmate Paul Bloom of San Francisco.
"He was doing nothing but being a peaceful presence. That was our intention," said Adelaja Simon, 24, who was meditating with Ramos Stierle and another activist when the three of them were arrested. Simon, Bloom and more than 30 other arrested protesters were released later that day, but Ramos Stierle was kept in the county's custody because of the immigration hold.
Simon said Ramos Stierle was conscious of his actions and he did not feel worried about what would happen to his friend.
"He's calm and he's present, and wherever he lands, he'll still stand for love and he'll keep doing good work for the community," Simon said.
Staff writer Robert Salonga contributed to this story.
http://www.mercurynews.com/occupy-oakland/ci_19349925
Showing posts with label Comparative Protests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Comparative Protests. Show all posts
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Tennessee Latinos Angered Over Alleged ICE Racial Profiling
Fox News Latino
September 21, 2011
Advocates in Tennessee claim Latinos in Shelbyville were purposely coerced by federal officials during immigration raids.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) denies the allegations.
Saturday's raids came five days after a hearing attended by representatives from the U.S. Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security where Latino residents complained that they are the victims of racial profiling and illegal detention.
ICE agents showed up at the homes and businesses of at least two people involved in organizing the hearing, witnesses said. Neither person was arrested.
Megan Macaraeg, organizing director for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, described the way Shelbyville Latinos view the raids like this: "That'll teach you to speak up and say bad things about us and bring the feds in."
ICE spokesman Temple Black said in an email that allegations the raids were retaliatory are "without merit."
"ICE did not attend the meeting, track participants, or target supporters," he wrote. "Rather, wholly apart and distinct from the meeting, ICE identified and arrested three convicted criminals who were living at large in the community."
Regardless of the intention, the raids and a continuous show of force by ICE over the past several days has frightened residents, said TIRRC organizer Leticia Alvarez, who was in the store of one of the hearing organizers when ICE agents circled the parking lot, writing down license plate numbers.
"Everyone is scared," she said. ..."There is serious panic in the community."
A report on last week's hearing -- sponsored by TIRRC, Latinos Unidos de Shelbyville (United Latinos of Shelbyville) and the Washington, D.C.,-based Rights Working Group -- links many of the reported rights abuses to the implementation of Tennessee's "Jailer Bill," which went into effect in January. The bill requires jailers to try to determine whether inmates are legally in the country and alert ICE if they believe someone is an illegal immigrant.
According to the report, that has led some Shelbyville Police officers to deliberately target Latinos in an attempt to find and deport illegal immigrants.
TIRRC found through open records requests on traffic violations for the first quarter of 2011, that just four officers made 62 percent of the arrests of Latinos for traffic violations.
"Since Shelbyville police officers are assigned to patrol throughout the city rather than in a specific area, these statistics suggest that some officers may be intentionally targeting Latino drivers for traffic stops and arrests," the report states.
Shelbyville police Chief Austin Swing said he did not know how TIRRC had compiled its numbers, but he does not believe he has any out-of-control officers on his staff. He said he had not heard any complaints of racial profiling before the release of the report on Monday.
"If anything like that is going on, I'm not aware of it," he said. He added that he would investigate any substantiated accusations of officer misconduct.
The report also claims that, once in jail, Latinos are being held illegally past the time they should be released in order to give ICE more time to decide whether to pick them up for possible deportation proceedings.
Bill Geissler, a member of Latinos Unidos de Shelbyville, said he has been to the jail numerous times over the past year on behalf of immigrants and has seen the abuses firsthand.
Bedford County Sheriff's Capt. Tony Bennett disputed that, saying that jailers only hold inmates for the amount of time they are legally allowed.
“We're doing exactly what the immigration department has asked us to do," he said. And the report claims that ICE's Nashville Fugitive Operations Team asked the Bedford County
Probation Office to prepare a list of people with Hispanic-sounding last names to target for deportation.
"Latino probationers were profiled based on their perceived national origin," the report states.
Macaraeg said the allegations in the report were enough to make TIRRC call for a Justice Department investigation of illegal patterns and practices.
The raids on Saturday and a continuous show of force by immigrations agents since then have prompted them to request a fast-track of that process.
Based on reporting by the Associated Press.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/09/21/tennessee-latinos-angered-over-alleged-ice-racial-profiling/#ixzz1YgxjQRSc
September 21, 2011
Advocates in Tennessee claim Latinos in Shelbyville were purposely coerced by federal officials during immigration raids.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) denies the allegations.
Saturday's raids came five days after a hearing attended by representatives from the U.S. Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security where Latino residents complained that they are the victims of racial profiling and illegal detention.
ICE agents showed up at the homes and businesses of at least two people involved in organizing the hearing, witnesses said. Neither person was arrested.
Megan Macaraeg, organizing director for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, described the way Shelbyville Latinos view the raids like this: "That'll teach you to speak up and say bad things about us and bring the feds in."
ICE spokesman Temple Black said in an email that allegations the raids were retaliatory are "without merit."
"ICE did not attend the meeting, track participants, or target supporters," he wrote. "Rather, wholly apart and distinct from the meeting, ICE identified and arrested three convicted criminals who were living at large in the community."
Regardless of the intention, the raids and a continuous show of force by ICE over the past several days has frightened residents, said TIRRC organizer Leticia Alvarez, who was in the store of one of the hearing organizers when ICE agents circled the parking lot, writing down license plate numbers.
"Everyone is scared," she said. ..."There is serious panic in the community."
A report on last week's hearing -- sponsored by TIRRC, Latinos Unidos de Shelbyville (United Latinos of Shelbyville) and the Washington, D.C.,-based Rights Working Group -- links many of the reported rights abuses to the implementation of Tennessee's "Jailer Bill," which went into effect in January. The bill requires jailers to try to determine whether inmates are legally in the country and alert ICE if they believe someone is an illegal immigrant.
According to the report, that has led some Shelbyville Police officers to deliberately target Latinos in an attempt to find and deport illegal immigrants.
TIRRC found through open records requests on traffic violations for the first quarter of 2011, that just four officers made 62 percent of the arrests of Latinos for traffic violations.
"Since Shelbyville police officers are assigned to patrol throughout the city rather than in a specific area, these statistics suggest that some officers may be intentionally targeting Latino drivers for traffic stops and arrests," the report states.
Shelbyville police Chief Austin Swing said he did not know how TIRRC had compiled its numbers, but he does not believe he has any out-of-control officers on his staff. He said he had not heard any complaints of racial profiling before the release of the report on Monday.
"If anything like that is going on, I'm not aware of it," he said. He added that he would investigate any substantiated accusations of officer misconduct.
The report also claims that, once in jail, Latinos are being held illegally past the time they should be released in order to give ICE more time to decide whether to pick them up for possible deportation proceedings.
Bill Geissler, a member of Latinos Unidos de Shelbyville, said he has been to the jail numerous times over the past year on behalf of immigrants and has seen the abuses firsthand.
Bedford County Sheriff's Capt. Tony Bennett disputed that, saying that jailers only hold inmates for the amount of time they are legally allowed.
“We're doing exactly what the immigration department has asked us to do," he said. And the report claims that ICE's Nashville Fugitive Operations Team asked the Bedford County
Probation Office to prepare a list of people with Hispanic-sounding last names to target for deportation.
"Latino probationers were profiled based on their perceived national origin," the report states.
Macaraeg said the allegations in the report were enough to make TIRRC call for a Justice Department investigation of illegal patterns and practices.
The raids on Saturday and a continuous show of force by immigrations agents since then have prompted them to request a fast-track of that process.
Based on reporting by the Associated Press.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/09/21/tennessee-latinos-angered-over-alleged-ice-racial-profiling/#ixzz1YgxjQRSc
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Community rallies behind Mexican mom facing deportation
Fox News Latino
Published May 16, 2011
Denver – Jeanette Vizguerra, an Aurora, Colorado business-owner who is supporting a cancer-stricken husband and three young children, could be deported to Mexico after being stopped for a traffic violation, in a case that has rallied the community behind her.
Evangelical pastors, Catholic priests and a rabbi led a group Monday in front of the Denver federal court to pray for the undocumented Mexican immigrant.
"Our cries for justice before this court and our banners are a way of praying to God to intervene on behalf of those who suffer injustice. What we do is no different from what the prophets did in ancient times," the Rev. Anne Dunlap of Comunidad Liberacion/Liberation Community Church said.
Vizguerra, a native of Mexico City, moved to Colorado with her husband 14 years ago. In 2000, her husband was diagnosed with cancer, and the illness returned with greater severity three years ago, making him no longer able to work.
The mother of a grown-up daughter and three U.S.-born children ages 8, 6 and 3 months, the immigrant owns a moving and cleaning company with 12 full-time employees.
She also works two other jobs part-time to pay the medical bills and support her family.
Prior to the traffic stop, Vizguerra's application for permanent residence was proceeding normally, her supporters say.
"The first question the officer asked her was whether she was in the country legally or not. Since Jeanette couldn't present the documents the officers asked for, she was arrested and spent several days in jail," Rev. Daniel Klawitter of the Interfaith Worker Justice Committee of Colorado said.
After her arrest, Vizguerra's immigration status "crumbled," said Nicole Melaku, spokeswoman of Rights for All People, a pro-immigrant organization in Denver that is helping Vizguerra and her family.
According to Melaku, Vizguerra has no criminal record and has always worked and paid her taxes. But now that the order for her deportation has been issued, her only hope is that authorities at the Department of Homeland Security review her case and allow her to remain in the country for humanitarian reasons.
"But this isn't just about Jeanette. She is simply the symbol, the visible face of a situation that affects thousands and thousands of people nationwide. We want people to know who is being deported," Melaku said.
Nearly 85 percent of the more than 1.05 million people deported from the United States between 2007-2009 did not have criminal records, according to statistics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"Jeanette's only 'crime' was to come here and work hard in three low-paying jobs," Klawitter said.
For her part, Vizguerra, before attending her hearing, thanked everyone present for their "moral and spiritual support."
"There are no words to thank you enough for coming so early on a Monday morning to downtown Denver to pray for me and my family. It is immoral that we accept an immigration system that divides families, and it's horribly unjust that someone can be deported for a traffic violation," she said.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/05/16/community-rallies-mexican-mom-facing-deportation/#ixzz1MZ8Rg5EJ
Published May 16, 2011
Denver – Jeanette Vizguerra, an Aurora, Colorado business-owner who is supporting a cancer-stricken husband and three young children, could be deported to Mexico after being stopped for a traffic violation, in a case that has rallied the community behind her.
Evangelical pastors, Catholic priests and a rabbi led a group Monday in front of the Denver federal court to pray for the undocumented Mexican immigrant.
"Our cries for justice before this court and our banners are a way of praying to God to intervene on behalf of those who suffer injustice. What we do is no different from what the prophets did in ancient times," the Rev. Anne Dunlap of Comunidad Liberacion/Liberation Community Church said.
Vizguerra, a native of Mexico City, moved to Colorado with her husband 14 years ago. In 2000, her husband was diagnosed with cancer, and the illness returned with greater severity three years ago, making him no longer able to work.
The mother of a grown-up daughter and three U.S.-born children ages 8, 6 and 3 months, the immigrant owns a moving and cleaning company with 12 full-time employees.
She also works two other jobs part-time to pay the medical bills and support her family.
Prior to the traffic stop, Vizguerra's application for permanent residence was proceeding normally, her supporters say.
"The first question the officer asked her was whether she was in the country legally or not. Since Jeanette couldn't present the documents the officers asked for, she was arrested and spent several days in jail," Rev. Daniel Klawitter of the Interfaith Worker Justice Committee of Colorado said.
After her arrest, Vizguerra's immigration status "crumbled," said Nicole Melaku, spokeswoman of Rights for All People, a pro-immigrant organization in Denver that is helping Vizguerra and her family.
According to Melaku, Vizguerra has no criminal record and has always worked and paid her taxes. But now that the order for her deportation has been issued, her only hope is that authorities at the Department of Homeland Security review her case and allow her to remain in the country for humanitarian reasons.
"But this isn't just about Jeanette. She is simply the symbol, the visible face of a situation that affects thousands and thousands of people nationwide. We want people to know who is being deported," Melaku said.
Nearly 85 percent of the more than 1.05 million people deported from the United States between 2007-2009 did not have criminal records, according to statistics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"Jeanette's only 'crime' was to come here and work hard in three low-paying jobs," Klawitter said.
For her part, Vizguerra, before attending her hearing, thanked everyone present for their "moral and spiritual support."
"There are no words to thank you enough for coming so early on a Monday morning to downtown Denver to pray for me and my family. It is immoral that we accept an immigration system that divides families, and it's horribly unjust that someone can be deported for a traffic violation," she said.
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/05/16/community-rallies-mexican-mom-facing-deportation/#ixzz1MZ8Rg5EJ
Friday, April 29, 2011
Town hall gathering held in Oxnard to protest deportation
By Mark Storer
Ventura County Star
Friday, April 29, 2011
Denise Cabello spoke passionately in Spanish to the audience as she described her plight.
"Now, I can't stay here without documents," she said. "I'm afraid to pick up my children at school for fear of being arrested and deported."
Cabello was one of three people who spoke to more than 200 people gathered at Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church in Oxnard on Friday evening.
Many of those gathered wore green T-shirts that said "indocumentado" for "undocumented." They were there to rally against government deportations of undocumented workers and to hear U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, discuss the issue.
In a town hall meeting sponsored by La Hermandad Mexicana Nacional as well as Central Coast Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (known as CAUSE) and United Farm Workers, among others, Gutierrez listened to Cabello's story as well as those of Anthony Garnett and Miguel Rodriguez.
"I came to the United States when I was 8 years old," Rodriguez said. "Now, both of my parents are ill and rely on me as their primary caregiver."
Rodriguez said he was arrested once for driving without a license.
"The police thought I was an American citizen because my English was so good. So they kept me in jail for three days. I was released before the INS found out," he said.
At the meeting, Mila Medina, a volunteer for La Hermandad, said: "I'm here showing my support. It's important for our community. This is about policies, yes, but it's also about the treatment of individuals. There's a lot of injustice out there and it's time for a change."
Garnett spoke to the gathering about his wife, an undocumented worker who nevertheless earned an associate of arts degree from Oxnard College.
"She's a legal assistant, but now can't go on to get her law degree. Because we don't have the DREAM Act, the world is missing a great lawyer because of documentation," he said. "We have too many broken homes and families for the government to make more."
Gutierrez was introduced by Hank Lacayo, a businessman and activist.
"It takes honor and bravery to give these testimonies," Gutierrez said in English and Spanish.
While those gathered chanted "Si se puede!" and gave Gutierrez a standing ovation, he told them he was committed to comprehensive immigration reform.
"When communities are terrorized by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids and when people are detained without legal representation, when children come home to find their parents missing, the system has to change," Gutierrez said. "Those aren't my words. They are candidate Barack Obama's words. Thank you for your words, Mr. President, but it's time to replace them with actions."
U.S. Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., spoke to the audience in a pre-recorded message. She was unable to attend as she is still in Washington, D.C., with her family.
"I want you to know that I remain comprehensive immigration reform and I support the DREAM Act," Capps said to the cheers of the audience.
Beatrice Garcia, lead organizer with CAUSE, said: "Under President Obama, more deportations of undocumented workers have taken place than under any other president. We want to change legislation, yes, but we also want President Obama to use his executive power to provide relief to some of these people," she said.
Gutierrez said: "We're traveling to cities throughout the U.S. We came from Oakland today and we'll be in Los Angeles and San Jose tomorrow — and we won't stop until we get the reform that we truly need."
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/apr/29/town-hall-gathering-held-in-oxnard-to-protest/
Ventura County Star
Friday, April 29, 2011
Denise Cabello spoke passionately in Spanish to the audience as she described her plight.
"Now, I can't stay here without documents," she said. "I'm afraid to pick up my children at school for fear of being arrested and deported."
Cabello was one of three people who spoke to more than 200 people gathered at Mary Star of the Sea Catholic Church in Oxnard on Friday evening.
Many of those gathered wore green T-shirts that said "indocumentado" for "undocumented." They were there to rally against government deportations of undocumented workers and to hear U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, discuss the issue.
In a town hall meeting sponsored by La Hermandad Mexicana Nacional as well as Central Coast Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (known as CAUSE) and United Farm Workers, among others, Gutierrez listened to Cabello's story as well as those of Anthony Garnett and Miguel Rodriguez.
"I came to the United States when I was 8 years old," Rodriguez said. "Now, both of my parents are ill and rely on me as their primary caregiver."
Rodriguez said he was arrested once for driving without a license.
"The police thought I was an American citizen because my English was so good. So they kept me in jail for three days. I was released before the INS found out," he said.
At the meeting, Mila Medina, a volunteer for La Hermandad, said: "I'm here showing my support. It's important for our community. This is about policies, yes, but it's also about the treatment of individuals. There's a lot of injustice out there and it's time for a change."
Garnett spoke to the gathering about his wife, an undocumented worker who nevertheless earned an associate of arts degree from Oxnard College.
"She's a legal assistant, but now can't go on to get her law degree. Because we don't have the DREAM Act, the world is missing a great lawyer because of documentation," he said. "We have too many broken homes and families for the government to make more."
Gutierrez was introduced by Hank Lacayo, a businessman and activist.
"It takes honor and bravery to give these testimonies," Gutierrez said in English and Spanish.
While those gathered chanted "Si se puede!" and gave Gutierrez a standing ovation, he told them he was committed to comprehensive immigration reform.
"When communities are terrorized by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids and when people are detained without legal representation, when children come home to find their parents missing, the system has to change," Gutierrez said. "Those aren't my words. They are candidate Barack Obama's words. Thank you for your words, Mr. President, but it's time to replace them with actions."
U.S. Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., spoke to the audience in a pre-recorded message. She was unable to attend as she is still in Washington, D.C., with her family.
"I want you to know that I remain comprehensive immigration reform and I support the DREAM Act," Capps said to the cheers of the audience.
Beatrice Garcia, lead organizer with CAUSE, said: "Under President Obama, more deportations of undocumented workers have taken place than under any other president. We want to change legislation, yes, but we also want President Obama to use his executive power to provide relief to some of these people," she said.
Gutierrez said: "We're traveling to cities throughout the U.S. We came from Oakland today and we'll be in Los Angeles and San Jose tomorrow — and we won't stop until we get the reform that we truly need."
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/apr/29/town-hall-gathering-held-in-oxnard-to-protest/
Monday, April 4, 2011
Tempers flare at Secure Communities hearing
By Mike LaBella
The Eagle Tribune
Apr 03, 2011
LAWRENCE — A federal program intended to identify and remove arrested illegal immigrants from the United States drew both scorn and support at a public hearing yesterday.
The Lawrence High School auditorium was filled with passionate pleas from those for and against the Secure Communities program.
"The Secure Communities program would trample and destroy our civil rights," said the Rev. Joel Almono, pastor of Grace Episcopal Church in Lawrence. "Rather than make them safer, we will make them less safe."
But Marty Lamb of Holliston, who came to the event on a bus filled with members of the Marlborough Tea Party group, said the Secure Communities program is misunderstood by people who believe it will result in racial profiling by police.
"This only deals with people arrested and booked, and not profiling, as some groups are claiming," he said prior to the hearing. "Fingerprints are color blind."
The Rev. Ralph Galen, minister of the Community Church of Immigrant City in Lawrence, said the Secure Communities program is neither for security nor communities.
"The U.S. needs immigration reform," he said. "This is not reform. This is a stopgap measure that creates fear and divisiveness in communities."
Many of those in the crowd yesterday believed the program would result in racial profiling by police, including Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua, who said he is opposed to Secure Communities.
He told The Eagle-Tribune that he worries it will give local law enforcement another tool for use in profiling people.
"Even though there is a law against profiling, it still goes on," he said. "In theory, it all sounds fine, but I'd rather they put resources into tracking down murderers and other criminals and solving serious crimes."
Yesterday's hearing was the third in a series of 10 community meetings the Patrick-Murray administration is holding to address concerns about Secure Communities, which allows the fingerprints of criminals who are arrested to be sent to Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) to determine if they are in this country illegally. More than 300 people attended the hearing.
Massachusetts Public Safety Secretary Mary Beth Heffernan, along with Curtis Wood, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Criminal Justice Information Services, and Richard Chacon, director of the Office of Refugees, outlined the plan and then opened the floor to comments.
Many in the crowd waved signs with phrases such as "Do your job, pass the law," while others had signs that said "Stop raids and deportations," and "Justice for immigrant families."
Nelson Butten, 37, of Lawrence was among those who waited in one of two lines to share his comments with the panel. He told Heffernan he is against Secure Communities, as it will perpetuate class and racial discrimination and separate families.
"One family with one income will have less chance of survival," he said.
State Rep. Marcos Devers, D-Lawrence, told Heffernan that he was disappointed in the Obama administration, saying that in the last two years many undocumented and "decent citizens of the world" were deported, and that it isn't right. He talked about the billions of dollars pumped into the economy by undocumented immigrants, to which a man in the back of the room responded by shouting "Illegal!"
Devers presented the panel with a bag filled with signatures of those who oppose the Secure Communities program.
The two-hour long meeting was often interrupted by shouts and expressions of anger from both sides of the controversial program, which the federal government wants to implement nationwide by 2013, and which has been operating as a pilot program in Boston.
Commissioner Wood told the crowd that the program is a technological change intended to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal illegal immigrants from the U.S. He said it does not give local or state law enforcement the power to act as vice agents in order to enforce immigration laws.
"It is not the same or similar to Arizona's law," he told the crowd.
Representatives from the Governor's Office of Community Affairs collected feedback from the public and said Heffernan plans to include this information in a letter to ICE before the program is fully implemented in Massachusetts.
Anyone wishing to comment on Secure Communities can contact the Governor's Constituent Services Office at 617-725-4005.
http://www.eagletribune.com/latestnews/x598327046/Tempers-flare-at-Secure-Communities-hearing
The Eagle Tribune
Apr 03, 2011
LAWRENCE — A federal program intended to identify and remove arrested illegal immigrants from the United States drew both scorn and support at a public hearing yesterday.
The Lawrence High School auditorium was filled with passionate pleas from those for and against the Secure Communities program.
"The Secure Communities program would trample and destroy our civil rights," said the Rev. Joel Almono, pastor of Grace Episcopal Church in Lawrence. "Rather than make them safer, we will make them less safe."
But Marty Lamb of Holliston, who came to the event on a bus filled with members of the Marlborough Tea Party group, said the Secure Communities program is misunderstood by people who believe it will result in racial profiling by police.
"This only deals with people arrested and booked, and not profiling, as some groups are claiming," he said prior to the hearing. "Fingerprints are color blind."
The Rev. Ralph Galen, minister of the Community Church of Immigrant City in Lawrence, said the Secure Communities program is neither for security nor communities.
"The U.S. needs immigration reform," he said. "This is not reform. This is a stopgap measure that creates fear and divisiveness in communities."
Many of those in the crowd yesterday believed the program would result in racial profiling by police, including Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua, who said he is opposed to Secure Communities.
He told The Eagle-Tribune that he worries it will give local law enforcement another tool for use in profiling people.
"Even though there is a law against profiling, it still goes on," he said. "In theory, it all sounds fine, but I'd rather they put resources into tracking down murderers and other criminals and solving serious crimes."
Yesterday's hearing was the third in a series of 10 community meetings the Patrick-Murray administration is holding to address concerns about Secure Communities, which allows the fingerprints of criminals who are arrested to be sent to Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) to determine if they are in this country illegally. More than 300 people attended the hearing.
Massachusetts Public Safety Secretary Mary Beth Heffernan, along with Curtis Wood, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Criminal Justice Information Services, and Richard Chacon, director of the Office of Refugees, outlined the plan and then opened the floor to comments.
Many in the crowd waved signs with phrases such as "Do your job, pass the law," while others had signs that said "Stop raids and deportations," and "Justice for immigrant families."
Nelson Butten, 37, of Lawrence was among those who waited in one of two lines to share his comments with the panel. He told Heffernan he is against Secure Communities, as it will perpetuate class and racial discrimination and separate families.
"One family with one income will have less chance of survival," he said.
State Rep. Marcos Devers, D-Lawrence, told Heffernan that he was disappointed in the Obama administration, saying that in the last two years many undocumented and "decent citizens of the world" were deported, and that it isn't right. He talked about the billions of dollars pumped into the economy by undocumented immigrants, to which a man in the back of the room responded by shouting "Illegal!"
Devers presented the panel with a bag filled with signatures of those who oppose the Secure Communities program.
The two-hour long meeting was often interrupted by shouts and expressions of anger from both sides of the controversial program, which the federal government wants to implement nationwide by 2013, and which has been operating as a pilot program in Boston.
Commissioner Wood told the crowd that the program is a technological change intended to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal illegal immigrants from the U.S. He said it does not give local or state law enforcement the power to act as vice agents in order to enforce immigration laws.
"It is not the same or similar to Arizona's law," he told the crowd.
Representatives from the Governor's Office of Community Affairs collected feedback from the public and said Heffernan plans to include this information in a letter to ICE before the program is fully implemented in Massachusetts.
Anyone wishing to comment on Secure Communities can contact the Governor's Constituent Services Office at 617-725-4005.
http://www.eagletribune.com/latestnews/x598327046/Tempers-flare-at-Secure-Communities-hearing
Sunday, February 27, 2011
ICE raids in Ellensburg commemorated, impact on family remains
KNDO/KNDU NEWS
Feb 27, 2011
ELLENSBURG, Wash. – More than a month after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted raids in Kittitas County, a vigil and rally were held Saturday to commemorate the event and remind the public of the impact it had on families.
"We remember and we're going to remember," said Jazmin Santacruz, the Eastern Washington Organizer for One America.
Speakers from the west side of the state along with members of the group from as far as the Tri-Cities came to the event. They were joined by the Ellensburg / Kittitas County Human Rights Coalition. The meeting of these two organizations comes a month after students protested outside the federal courthouse in Yakima.
Santacruz says its important to look to the future and understand the lasting impact.
"Those families are still suffering from the effects of what happened," she said. "Trying to piece their lives together as best as they could without their parents or brothers or sisters or, you know, whoever was taken by these raids."
I.C.E. charged 13 people with criminal offenses on Jan. 20 that included ID fraud and re-entering the country after deportation. The agency also said at the time that 16 others were accused of an administrative violation of being in the country illegally.
One America is advocating for changes to current laws and argues this is a humanitarian issue. Comprehensive immigration reform is the long-term solution, Santacruz said.
KNDO tried to contact a representative from I.C.E. but the agency does not have anyone available for media interviews on the weekend. In the past, staff have declined to comment on the Ellensburg raids.
http://www.kndo.com/Global/story.asp?S=14148861
Feb 27, 2011
ELLENSBURG, Wash. – More than a month after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted raids in Kittitas County, a vigil and rally were held Saturday to commemorate the event and remind the public of the impact it had on families.
"We remember and we're going to remember," said Jazmin Santacruz, the Eastern Washington Organizer for One America.
Speakers from the west side of the state along with members of the group from as far as the Tri-Cities came to the event. They were joined by the Ellensburg / Kittitas County Human Rights Coalition. The meeting of these two organizations comes a month after students protested outside the federal courthouse in Yakima.
Santacruz says its important to look to the future and understand the lasting impact.
"Those families are still suffering from the effects of what happened," she said. "Trying to piece their lives together as best as they could without their parents or brothers or sisters or, you know, whoever was taken by these raids."
I.C.E. charged 13 people with criminal offenses on Jan. 20 that included ID fraud and re-entering the country after deportation. The agency also said at the time that 16 others were accused of an administrative violation of being in the country illegally.
One America is advocating for changes to current laws and argues this is a humanitarian issue. Comprehensive immigration reform is the long-term solution, Santacruz said.
KNDO tried to contact a representative from I.C.E. but the agency does not have anyone available for media interviews on the weekend. In the past, staff have declined to comment on the Ellensburg raids.
http://www.kndo.com/Global/story.asp?S=14148861
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Trinity Student Organization Protests Possible Deportations
By Allison Pickens
The Trinity Tripod
2/22/11
Trinity students have joined together with Mariano Cardoso Jr., an engineering student at Capitol Community College in New Haven, Conn. who faces deportation only four months prior to his graduation date. Born in Mexico, Cardoso came to the United States 20 years ago with his father, both of whom live in Connecticut illegally. Cardoso and his father received a letter from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency demanding their deportation, and Cardoso fears they will be separated from his two American-born siblings.
On Monday, Feb. 14 more than 20 Trinity College students from the student group Stop the Raids protested Cardoso's deportation at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Office in Hartford.
Stop the Raids is a student-run group at Trinity "whose mission is to support the immigrant population locally and nation-wide," according to the group's Facebook page. The group "also works in solidarity with other organizations to spread awareness of the mal-treatment of undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants alike in the hopes of creating an immigrant support base that will prevent further illegal actions against immigrants in this country."
At the Cardoso rally, members of Stop the Raids marched to chants of "Yes Education, No Deportation." They also formed a picket line and made various speeches on immigration reform and immigrant rights.
Acting Executive Director of the Latino and Affairs Commission Werner Oyanadel promoted an upcoming public hearing regarding immigrant college tuition fees in March. Other attendees spoke against Cardoso's deportation and in favor of immigration rights, including Mayoral candidate for Hartford Edwin Vargas, who denounced President Obama for not doing enough for immigrants, Hartford City Council Minority Leader and Working Families Party Member, and People of the Faith leader Frank O'Gorman.
The protesters called for presidential pardons for illegal immigrants and increased awareness of immigrant issues during the hour-long rally.
The Trinity College Stop the Raids group is currently working with legal channels to keep Cardoso in the United States until he graduates college.
Earlier this month, 4Legs published an article by Vice President of Stop the Raids Theresa Meehan '11 detailing Cardoso's situation and the current immigration laws in the U.S. In her article, Meehan criticized anti-immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere. "These laws show the recent rise in anti-immigrant sentiments," she wrote. "They have lead to an increase in racial profiling and have broken away from the original intent of the laws: to deport illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes. These laws enforce the view of a black and white world: immigrants without documents should be deported, no special cases, no maybes, no gray areas." To read Meehan's article in its entirety visit 4Legs.org
http://media.www.trinitytripod.com/media/storage/paper520/news/2011/02/22/News/Trinity.Student.Organization.Protests.Possible.Deportations-3979462.shtml
The Trinity Tripod
2/22/11
Trinity students have joined together with Mariano Cardoso Jr., an engineering student at Capitol Community College in New Haven, Conn. who faces deportation only four months prior to his graduation date. Born in Mexico, Cardoso came to the United States 20 years ago with his father, both of whom live in Connecticut illegally. Cardoso and his father received a letter from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency demanding their deportation, and Cardoso fears they will be separated from his two American-born siblings.
On Monday, Feb. 14 more than 20 Trinity College students from the student group Stop the Raids protested Cardoso's deportation at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Office in Hartford.
Stop the Raids is a student-run group at Trinity "whose mission is to support the immigrant population locally and nation-wide," according to the group's Facebook page. The group "also works in solidarity with other organizations to spread awareness of the mal-treatment of undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants alike in the hopes of creating an immigrant support base that will prevent further illegal actions against immigrants in this country."
At the Cardoso rally, members of Stop the Raids marched to chants of "Yes Education, No Deportation." They also formed a picket line and made various speeches on immigration reform and immigrant rights.
Acting Executive Director of the Latino and Affairs Commission Werner Oyanadel promoted an upcoming public hearing regarding immigrant college tuition fees in March. Other attendees spoke against Cardoso's deportation and in favor of immigration rights, including Mayoral candidate for Hartford Edwin Vargas, who denounced President Obama for not doing enough for immigrants, Hartford City Council Minority Leader and Working Families Party Member, and People of the Faith leader Frank O'Gorman.
The protesters called for presidential pardons for illegal immigrants and increased awareness of immigrant issues during the hour-long rally.
The Trinity College Stop the Raids group is currently working with legal channels to keep Cardoso in the United States until he graduates college.
Earlier this month, 4Legs published an article by Vice President of Stop the Raids Theresa Meehan '11 detailing Cardoso's situation and the current immigration laws in the U.S. In her article, Meehan criticized anti-immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere. "These laws show the recent rise in anti-immigrant sentiments," she wrote. "They have lead to an increase in racial profiling and have broken away from the original intent of the laws: to deport illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes. These laws enforce the view of a black and white world: immigrants without documents should be deported, no special cases, no maybes, no gray areas." To read Meehan's article in its entirety visit 4Legs.org
http://media.www.trinitytripod.com/media/storage/paper520/news/2011/02/22/News/Trinity.Student.Organization.Protests.Possible.Deportations-3979462.shtml
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Local immigration activists plan march on City Hall
By KENS 5
February 22, 2011
SAN ANTONIO -- Ex-employees of the Lone Star Bakery along with community activists are planning to march on City Hall.
The business laid off 300 of workers suspected of being in the country illegally.
In response, the Cesar Chavez Legacy and Educational Foundation says it plans to hold a demonstration, calling on President Obama to stop deportations of illegal immigrants until reform is passed.
Organizers say more than 1,200 working families are deported every day.
http://www.kens5.com/news/Local-immigration-activists-plan-march-on-City-Hall-116703399.html
February 22, 2011
SAN ANTONIO -- Ex-employees of the Lone Star Bakery along with community activists are planning to march on City Hall.
The business laid off 300 of workers suspected of being in the country illegally.
In response, the Cesar Chavez Legacy and Educational Foundation says it plans to hold a demonstration, calling on President Obama to stop deportations of illegal immigrants until reform is passed.
Organizers say more than 1,200 working families are deported every day.
http://www.kens5.com/news/Local-immigration-activists-plan-march-on-City-Hall-116703399.html
Friday, February 11, 2011
Prelates say words from Scripture should guide treatment of immigrants
By Catholic News Service
February 9, 2011
LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- In speeches the same day, Los Angeles' cardinal and its coadjutor archbishop talked about immigration in the United States, with one calling some of the rhetoric about the issue "not worthy of the Gospel," and the other saying the current system "is an immoral system that thrives upon the weakness and suffering of those without a voice."
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony told an audience at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill Feb. 2 that the ethical injunctions of Scripture require "compassion for the stranger, the alien, and the worker. Whatever economic, political or social policies we discuss -- and whatever discussion of constitutional rights and liberties -- we cannot turn our backs to this biblical legacy of hope."
Taking up the question of whether undocumented immigrants are good for the economy, Cardinal Mahony traced the roots of the word economy to its Greek origins, where the principal focus was not monetary but how a household is ordered.
"God's household, God's grand economy, is one in which holiness and truth, justice and love, and above all, peace ... prevail," the cardinal said. "In my view, what makes for a good economy is the full flourishing of everyone who is part of God's economy, household or community."
He said that no other commitments can trump the biblical tradition of compassion for the stranger, the alien and the worker.
"Whatever economic, political or social policies we discuss -- and whatever discussion of constitutional rights and liberties -- we cannot turn our backs to this biblical legacy of hope," he said.
Speaking the same day in Naples, Fla., to Legatus, a Catholic business leaders organization, Coadjutor Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles also drew on Scripture to explain that "the church's approach to immigration -- like the church's approach to every social issue -- is never about politics. It is about preaching the good news of God's love for all peoples. It is about transforming the city of man into the family of God."
As coadjutor, Archbishop Gomez will take over as head of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, when Cardinal Mahony retires, which is expected to be in late February.
Noting he is among those who are bothered by the illegal immigration status of some people, the archbishop said, "I don't like it when our rule of law is flouted. And I support just and appropriate punishments."
However, he added, "right now, we are imposing penalties that leave wives without husbands, children without parents. We are deporting fathers and leaving single mothers to raise children on little to no income.
"We are a better people than that. We have always been a nation of justice and law," said Archbishop Gomez. "But we have also been a nation of mercy and forgiveness. We can find a better way. It begins in seeing immigrants as human beings. As mothers and fathers. As children of God."
Archbishop Gomez said that as an immigrant from Mexico himself, he understands well that "family means everything for Hispanics," who make up the majority of new immigrants. "The Hispanic idea of community is a family of families -- great grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. And always, family is connected to the Catholic Church and to God."
That's why current enforcement policies "workplace raids, detentions and deportations are such a humanitarian tragedy," he said. "We are destroying families in the name of enforcing our laws."
In his speech in North Carolina, Cardinal Mahony told stories of families torn apart by immigration enforcement -- including that of three North Carolina children left by the side of the road for nine hours after their Honduran undocumented immigrant mother was taken away for not having a driver's license.
He also described his own experience of an immigration raid at his family's chicken processing plant when he was a child.
"It was an extremely terrifying and intimidating moment for those employees, all of whom had papers," he said. "I will never forget the terror that those men with their guns created in the workplace that day.
"These are American stories," he said. "Do these stories reflect who we are, who we want to be, and how we want to be remembered by future generations? Is this who we are at our best? In a word, no."
After elaborating on the economic model of God's household, the cardinal said that in Catholic thought people don't serve the economy, the economy serves humanity, "so that each person and his or her family can live in dignity and without want and can move, if needed, to find the place of hope."
"Our laws should be configured to ensure that even the low-skilled laborer, who sits at the bottom of the economic ladder, reaps the fruits of their labor in dignity and with full rights in the society," he said.
As today's system operates, however, "we accept their labor, their separation from family, their taxes, and their purchasing power, yet we do not offer the undocumented population the protection of our laws," said Cardinal Mahony.
"To restore order to God's household, we must ensure that all are welcome to the table," he said, meaning immigration reforms that protect those on the margins of the economy.
Calling current immigration laws unjust, the cardinal said society gladly accepts the toil and taxes of the immigrant work force, "but look the other way when they are exploited in the workplace, die in the desert, or are arrested and deported for the most minor of civil violations, like jaywalking.
"When convenient politically, we scapegoat the immigrant without acknowledging our complicity," he said.
He noted that of the nearly half million immigrants who enter the country without permission or stay beyond the limits of their visas, nearly 90 percent get jobs within six months, but there are only 5,000 visas available annually by which they might come in legally.
"This is a disordered system," he said. "hardly the arrangement of a household according to a plan where there is room enough for all at the table."
END
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1100540.htm
February 9, 2011
LOS ANGELES (CNS) -- In speeches the same day, Los Angeles' cardinal and its coadjutor archbishop talked about immigration in the United States, with one calling some of the rhetoric about the issue "not worthy of the Gospel," and the other saying the current system "is an immoral system that thrives upon the weakness and suffering of those without a voice."
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony told an audience at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill Feb. 2 that the ethical injunctions of Scripture require "compassion for the stranger, the alien, and the worker. Whatever economic, political or social policies we discuss -- and whatever discussion of constitutional rights and liberties -- we cannot turn our backs to this biblical legacy of hope."
Taking up the question of whether undocumented immigrants are good for the economy, Cardinal Mahony traced the roots of the word economy to its Greek origins, where the principal focus was not monetary but how a household is ordered.
"God's household, God's grand economy, is one in which holiness and truth, justice and love, and above all, peace ... prevail," the cardinal said. "In my view, what makes for a good economy is the full flourishing of everyone who is part of God's economy, household or community."
He said that no other commitments can trump the biblical tradition of compassion for the stranger, the alien and the worker.
"Whatever economic, political or social policies we discuss -- and whatever discussion of constitutional rights and liberties -- we cannot turn our backs to this biblical legacy of hope," he said.
Speaking the same day in Naples, Fla., to Legatus, a Catholic business leaders organization, Coadjutor Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles also drew on Scripture to explain that "the church's approach to immigration -- like the church's approach to every social issue -- is never about politics. It is about preaching the good news of God's love for all peoples. It is about transforming the city of man into the family of God."
As coadjutor, Archbishop Gomez will take over as head of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, when Cardinal Mahony retires, which is expected to be in late February.
Noting he is among those who are bothered by the illegal immigration status of some people, the archbishop said, "I don't like it when our rule of law is flouted. And I support just and appropriate punishments."
However, he added, "right now, we are imposing penalties that leave wives without husbands, children without parents. We are deporting fathers and leaving single mothers to raise children on little to no income.
"We are a better people than that. We have always been a nation of justice and law," said Archbishop Gomez. "But we have also been a nation of mercy and forgiveness. We can find a better way. It begins in seeing immigrants as human beings. As mothers and fathers. As children of God."
Archbishop Gomez said that as an immigrant from Mexico himself, he understands well that "family means everything for Hispanics," who make up the majority of new immigrants. "The Hispanic idea of community is a family of families -- great grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. And always, family is connected to the Catholic Church and to God."
That's why current enforcement policies "workplace raids, detentions and deportations are such a humanitarian tragedy," he said. "We are destroying families in the name of enforcing our laws."
In his speech in North Carolina, Cardinal Mahony told stories of families torn apart by immigration enforcement -- including that of three North Carolina children left by the side of the road for nine hours after their Honduran undocumented immigrant mother was taken away for not having a driver's license.
He also described his own experience of an immigration raid at his family's chicken processing plant when he was a child.
"It was an extremely terrifying and intimidating moment for those employees, all of whom had papers," he said. "I will never forget the terror that those men with their guns created in the workplace that day.
"These are American stories," he said. "Do these stories reflect who we are, who we want to be, and how we want to be remembered by future generations? Is this who we are at our best? In a word, no."
After elaborating on the economic model of God's household, the cardinal said that in Catholic thought people don't serve the economy, the economy serves humanity, "so that each person and his or her family can live in dignity and without want and can move, if needed, to find the place of hope."
"Our laws should be configured to ensure that even the low-skilled laborer, who sits at the bottom of the economic ladder, reaps the fruits of their labor in dignity and with full rights in the society," he said.
As today's system operates, however, "we accept their labor, their separation from family, their taxes, and their purchasing power, yet we do not offer the undocumented population the protection of our laws," said Cardinal Mahony.
"To restore order to God's household, we must ensure that all are welcome to the table," he said, meaning immigration reforms that protect those on the margins of the economy.
Calling current immigration laws unjust, the cardinal said society gladly accepts the toil and taxes of the immigrant work force, "but look the other way when they are exploited in the workplace, die in the desert, or are arrested and deported for the most minor of civil violations, like jaywalking.
"When convenient politically, we scapegoat the immigrant without acknowledging our complicity," he said.
He noted that of the nearly half million immigrants who enter the country without permission or stay beyond the limits of their visas, nearly 90 percent get jobs within six months, but there are only 5,000 visas available annually by which they might come in legally.
"This is a disordered system," he said. "hardly the arrangement of a household according to a plan where there is room enough for all at the table."
END
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1100540.htm
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Immigrant Rights Group Wants Probe Of Deportation Program
CBS Chicago
January 15, 2011 4:55 PM
CHICAGO (CBS) – The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to investigate its own Secure Communities program for deporting illegal aliens after encounters with local police.
January 15, 2011 4:55 PM
CHICAGO (CBS) – The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to investigate its own Secure Communities program for deporting illegal aliens after encounters with local police.
John Hoyt, Executive Director of the Coalition, says the deportation program has been cooking its books to justify its mission. Federal immigration authorities say they’re just improving the accuracy of their data.
Hoyt says original Homeland Security numbers showed that 78% of all those stopped by local police and handed over to feds for deportation were non-criminals — had no prior criminal record.
But Hoyt says when asked about those numbers, Homeland Security revised its figures to show that only 44% were non-criminal.
Hoyt says either way, it still looks bad and should be investigated by the Inspector General of the Homeland Security Department.
Meantime, mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel’s suggestion to provide a local DREAM Act scholarship for children of undocumented immigrants in Chicago was drawing fire from his rivals and Hispanic leaders as too little, too late.
U.S. Rep. Luis Guiterrez said the scholarship idea is fine with him, but claimed Emanuel should have done more to prevent deportations in the first place while he was White House chief of staff and, before that, one of the top Democrats in the House of Representatives.
Mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun said Chicago should be doing more to aid children of undocumented immigrants.
“When you talk about the DREAM Act and when you talk about the fate of children who are separated from their parents, I have to reflect back on the fact that this belies and this stands in stark contracts to the higher traditions of Americans,” Braun said.
And mayoral rival Gery Chico blasted the Secure Communities program – an Obama administration initiative begun while Emanuel was White House chief of staff. The deportation program is designed to remove dangerous criminals from the country, but critics said many people who have been targeted by the program are simply motorists stopped for traffic violations.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/01/15/immigrant-rights-group-wants-probe-of-deportation-program/
Monday, January 10, 2011
Immigrant Advocates Push Rhode Island to Refuse “Secure Communities”
Posted by Deportation Nation
January 10, 2011
Even as Rhode Island’s new governor withdrew from a controversial immigration enforcement program last week, the state’s attorney general may enroll in a similar system that has generated mistrust between migrants and police.
“We’re quite concerned that what one public official has given, another is prepared to take away,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island ACLU.
Newly inaugurated Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee met a campaign promise last Wednesday when he rescinded an executive order signed by his predecessor that enrolled the state police in 287(g) and required businesses to check the status of employees through the E-Verify system. Latino voters who helped Chafee win his election looked on and welcomed the move with a standing ovation.
Chafee said the previous order that deputized state police to check immigration status “caused needless anxiety within our Latino community without demonstrating any progress on illegal immigration, an issue I strongly believe must be solved at the federal level.”
Studies documenting the impact of the old order revealed many immigrants had become afraid to leave their houses, while others had moved out of state. The governor said his new executive order encouraged “comprehensive dialogue with our immigrant communities, law enforcement agencies, and all interested parties … to reach a consensus on how best to enforce the law.”
But so far, dialogue with a key decision maker has been limited to protests and unanswered letters.
New Attorney General Peter Kilmartin, a former police captain, supports enrolling the state in “Secure Communities” by the end of January. The program shares arrest data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) so agents can locate immigrants, transfer them into federal custody and deport them.
In December, Kilmartin joined state and local police for a meeting with ICE officials to discuss Secure Communities. Afterward, he said, “I look forward to signing onto this program as Attorney General – which will help move our state towards a more secure future.”
Immigrant advocates protest in the lobby outside Attorney General Kilmartin's office after he refused to meet with them last Wednesday.
Immigrant advocates say Kilmartin has since refused their request for their own meeting to discuss the program.
“He is a public servant and in position to protect the public,” said Camilo Viveiros, director of Rhode Island Jobs With Justice. “He needs to be educated so he does not make a unilateral decision that puts our community in danger.”
Viveiros was among dozens of protesters who gathered in the lobby of Kilmartin’s office last Wednesday. He said Secure Communities has failed to meet its mandate of deporting dangerous criminals, and instead targeted “victims of a broken immigration policy that doesn’t allow a path to citizenship.”
In December Viveiros signed a letter to Kilmartin from several immigrant and civil rights groups that attempted to set the record straight on whether the program is voluntary.
“In suggesting that the harm flowing from the S-Comm program can be mitigated, you have been quoted as saying that local police departments in Rhode Island can opt out of participation,” reads the letter. “Unfortunately, there is substantial evidence that this is incorrect.”
The letter urges Kilmartin to “make clear that those fingerprints coming from “opt-out” police departments are appropriately tagged so that the FBI would be apprised to run those fingerprints only through their usual criminal databases, not the immigration databases that are at the heart of this controversy.”
It also suggests Kilmartin add provisions to the Secure Communities agreement that limit the state to sharing arrest data of persons arrested for Level 1 crimes, and to complying with “holds” that ICE requests for Level 1 offenders. Nationwide, the program has targeted mostly Level 2 and 3 offenders, as well people ICE refers to as “non-criminals.”
While the letters were addressed to Kilmartin and Chafee, a different official may actually be responsible for signing the Secure Communities agreement with ICE. Rhode Island State Police Superintendent Brendan P. Doherty signed the now invalid 287(g) agreement with ICE in October 2009, and agreements in other states have been signed by similar officials in charge of their state’s criminal justice information systems.
The state’s former 287(g) participation resulted in the deportation of 12 immigrants during the 2009 fiscal year, according to ICE.
In 2007, the state chapter of the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Rhode Island State Police for illegally detaining 14 Guatemalan immigrants after a traffic stop. The incident occurred when an officer stopped a van for changing lanes without using a turn signal. He confirmed the license and registration of the driver were valid, but then asked all of the passengers to provide identification and proof of U.S. citizenship. When they were unable to do so he said he would escort them to ICE, and threatened to shoot anyone who tried to escape.
For now, Rhode Island remains free from any agreement with federal immigration authorities to share arrest data. But Doherty said state police “will still communicate and cooperate with ICE in matters of mutual concern.
Newly-elected mayor of Providence, Angel Taveras, could become the first city to try to refuse participation in Secure Communities if the state joins the program.
http://www.deportationnation.org/2011/01/immigrant-advocates-push-rhode-island-to-refuse-secure-communities/
January 10, 2011
Even as Rhode Island’s new governor withdrew from a controversial immigration enforcement program last week, the state’s attorney general may enroll in a similar system that has generated mistrust between migrants and police.
“We’re quite concerned that what one public official has given, another is prepared to take away,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island ACLU.
Newly inaugurated Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee met a campaign promise last Wednesday when he rescinded an executive order signed by his predecessor that enrolled the state police in 287(g) and required businesses to check the status of employees through the E-Verify system. Latino voters who helped Chafee win his election looked on and welcomed the move with a standing ovation.
Chafee said the previous order that deputized state police to check immigration status “caused needless anxiety within our Latino community without demonstrating any progress on illegal immigration, an issue I strongly believe must be solved at the federal level.”
Studies documenting the impact of the old order revealed many immigrants had become afraid to leave their houses, while others had moved out of state. The governor said his new executive order encouraged “comprehensive dialogue with our immigrant communities, law enforcement agencies, and all interested parties … to reach a consensus on how best to enforce the law.”
But so far, dialogue with a key decision maker has been limited to protests and unanswered letters.
New Attorney General Peter Kilmartin, a former police captain, supports enrolling the state in “Secure Communities” by the end of January. The program shares arrest data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) so agents can locate immigrants, transfer them into federal custody and deport them.
In December, Kilmartin joined state and local police for a meeting with ICE officials to discuss Secure Communities. Afterward, he said, “I look forward to signing onto this program as Attorney General – which will help move our state towards a more secure future.”
Immigrant advocates protest in the lobby outside Attorney General Kilmartin's office after he refused to meet with them last Wednesday.
Immigrant advocates say Kilmartin has since refused their request for their own meeting to discuss the program.
“He is a public servant and in position to protect the public,” said Camilo Viveiros, director of Rhode Island Jobs With Justice. “He needs to be educated so he does not make a unilateral decision that puts our community in danger.”
Viveiros was among dozens of protesters who gathered in the lobby of Kilmartin’s office last Wednesday. He said Secure Communities has failed to meet its mandate of deporting dangerous criminals, and instead targeted “victims of a broken immigration policy that doesn’t allow a path to citizenship.”
In December Viveiros signed a letter to Kilmartin from several immigrant and civil rights groups that attempted to set the record straight on whether the program is voluntary.
“In suggesting that the harm flowing from the S-Comm program can be mitigated, you have been quoted as saying that local police departments in Rhode Island can opt out of participation,” reads the letter. “Unfortunately, there is substantial evidence that this is incorrect.”
The letter urges Kilmartin to “make clear that those fingerprints coming from “opt-out” police departments are appropriately tagged so that the FBI would be apprised to run those fingerprints only through their usual criminal databases, not the immigration databases that are at the heart of this controversy.”
It also suggests Kilmartin add provisions to the Secure Communities agreement that limit the state to sharing arrest data of persons arrested for Level 1 crimes, and to complying with “holds” that ICE requests for Level 1 offenders. Nationwide, the program has targeted mostly Level 2 and 3 offenders, as well people ICE refers to as “non-criminals.”
While the letters were addressed to Kilmartin and Chafee, a different official may actually be responsible for signing the Secure Communities agreement with ICE. Rhode Island State Police Superintendent Brendan P. Doherty signed the now invalid 287(g) agreement with ICE in October 2009, and agreements in other states have been signed by similar officials in charge of their state’s criminal justice information systems.
The state’s former 287(g) participation resulted in the deportation of 12 immigrants during the 2009 fiscal year, according to ICE.
In 2007, the state chapter of the ACLU filed a lawsuit against Rhode Island State Police for illegally detaining 14 Guatemalan immigrants after a traffic stop. The incident occurred when an officer stopped a van for changing lanes without using a turn signal. He confirmed the license and registration of the driver were valid, but then asked all of the passengers to provide identification and proof of U.S. citizenship. When they were unable to do so he said he would escort them to ICE, and threatened to shoot anyone who tried to escape.
For now, Rhode Island remains free from any agreement with federal immigration authorities to share arrest data. But Doherty said state police “will still communicate and cooperate with ICE in matters of mutual concern.
Newly-elected mayor of Providence, Angel Taveras, could become the first city to try to refuse participation in Secure Communities if the state joins the program.
http://www.deportationnation.org/2011/01/immigrant-advocates-push-rhode-island-to-refuse-secure-communities/
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Campaign forms in San Diego to halt ICE raids
By Rocky Neptun
OB Rag
November 9, 2010
Roaming through neighborhoods they were the enforcers of ethnic purification. Their unspeakable atrocities against human beings in the name of the law still lacerate our sense of humanity. And while the ends of their sickening purposes still surface occasionally in places like the Sudan, Rwanda and Bosnia; their means continue to be used as weapons against targeted peoples like today’s Department of Homeland Security thugs.
In Los Angeles, a young girl, 15 years of age (the same as Anne Frank when she died in the camps from typhus), is knocked to the floor, terrorized and forever scarred by fear as Federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents, dressed in black, wearing helmets of steel and thick plastic, their bodies encased in leather and metal, looking like robo cops, bust in the door of her home, brandishing shotguns and automatic weapons.
Bleeding, sobbing hysterically, (like millions of Jewish children in the dark times, when the world ignored the government’s technique of national law enforcement); she watches as her father is beaten to the ground, hand-cuffed and shoved through the front-door. Her mother, screaming, crying, is tackled by big men, drug by her hair as she struggles to get near her horror stricken daughter.
Child services takes her into “custody;” her parents are off to be concentrated in camps. For the crime of attempting to secure a decent life for their daughter; they will be branded as criminals against the state, threats to “the fatherland’s (homeland) security,” and deported.
In Grand Island, Nebraska, a single-mother, working at the Swift packing plant, in obvious pain from the plastic cuffs, screams to the crowd as she is pushed toward waiting ICE police buses with whited-out windows, for someone to please pick up her daughter from school. Meanwhile, a school bus driver, later that day, has to drop two toddlers off at a church because their parents were seized and failed to pick them up at the bus stop.
‘Stop the ICE Raids’ Movement Develops in San Diego
As federal troops intensify their attacks on migrant families, including the largest Gestapo type raid on a workplace in San Diego County history with over 50 armed agents participating October 14th, in an industrial section in Otay Mesa, near the border with Mexico, community groups, church organizations and individuals are organizing a bloc of citizens of conscience who are calling for an end to “state sanctioned terrorism.”
Forty-one workers were seized at the S&S Bakery, more than half its employees. Whole families were snatched in subsequent home invasions. At a November 3rd community forum, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, three young Latina students tearfully recounted how their parents were taken and the effect on their families. Some employees had worked at the bakery for 9 years and their children are legal citizens who must now face life without financial support.
Also supporting the forum, where workers and family members testified to their plight was the San Diego Raza Rights Coalition who sponsored the dialogue “to demonstrate our solidarity with the families and to deepen our understanding of the government’s strategy that represses workers right to work.” The theme of the forum was “working is not a crime, it is a right.” Bags and boxes of groceries, diapers and paper goods were collected at the meeting; while the AFSC calls on the community at-large to continue to donate food and money to these beleaguered families.
Meanwhile, over 300 San Diegans joined a rally in support of immigrant families in City Heights November 5th. Two-thirds of those protesting were young people and half of those were teenagers, revealing how these targeted raids are radicalizing a whole generation of Latinos.
Most of the youthful speakers, bellowing through a mega-phone, not only called for the ICE raids to stop but called for amnesty. Maria Ayala, of San Diego Pro People Youth, announced that the rally in City Heights was ironic, “this gentrified community used to be our community.” A member of the Filipina organization, Affirm, announced that “if any one is good enough to work here, they are good enough to stay here.” Enrique de la Cruz, of the San Diego Zapatista Collectivo, spoke of the need to change the entire economic model, “for a few people to be rich, a whole lot of us have to be poor.” Calling the workplace invasions “racist raids,” members of San Diego State’s Students for Solidarity with Palestine, spoke in solidarity those victimized the U.S.’s war on immigrants. Others student groups called for an immediate moratorium on all raids, deportations, incarcerations and the separation of families.
Amnesty Will Help All Workers
Justin Akers, a professor at San Diego City College, a community forum several months ago outlined the history of the United States’ “war on immigrant workers.” He spoke of the growing public movement to expose the terrorism occurring in local communities which has “impacted thousands of lives, broken families and literally shut down entire towns.”
While he mentioned the “deep roots of anti-Mexican racism,” Akers suggested that the police state persecution of immigrants was more about “a means of controlling people.” He pointed out that immigrant workers are the fastest growing segment of union efforts in the country and that most ICE raids have occurred at factories and packing facilities that are in the process of being unionized. Five of the six Swift & Company meat packing plants raided, netting over 1,300 workers, were represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). The sixth was in the process of becoming unionized.
While the use of Federal troops for union busting goes back to the 19th Century in the U.S. it has never occurred on such a scale or as part of an over-all specific strategy against a minority group by powerful interests. Across the board from the militarized nature of law enforcement to the courts; an actual conspiracy against labor exists, not just migrant workers. Injunctions against the raids are routinely turned down, while union lawyers are denied access to arrested workers.
Corporate oligarchs fear a growing Latino union movement, with their cultural strengths of familial and community bonds, its solid sense of solidarity: influencing large, staid, self-interest driven unions. And, as New America Media associate editor, David Bacon, points out, these brutal raids and persecutions in immigrant communities have one fundamental political purpose to create a vast exploitable, cheap labor pool of close to 600,000 “guest workers.”
Beginning in 1942, a similar program recruited temporary immigrants who were exploited, cheated and deported if they tried to organize a union, go on strike or advocate for decent wages or living conditions. Like China’s rural slave labor, transported to the city to live in squalid conditions and work in dangerous environments, the “Bracero” program allowed employers to drive down wages against U.S. workers, and was finally ended in 1964 after Ceasar Chavez and other Latino organizers fought it.
As researchers for Project Censored announced in a 2008 study, “the demand for undocumentated labor in the US economy is structural.” With the de-unionization of the workplace and heavy emphasis on subcontracting, which shields large employers against worker protections and responsibilities, immigrant workers have become a necessary component of US competitiveness in a world market.
Carlos Pelayo, a local organizer for the United Domestic Workers of America, spoke of the efforts of corporate employers to create a two-tier caste system, where millions of people are denied decent wages, social benefits and fundamental rights. He urged community residents to begin thinking beyond “ethnicity” to a general worker consciousness.
Another community meeting is scheduled November 16th to support the rights of immigrants. Under the banner of “stop the raids and repression in our communities” the City Heights gathering will be at the Activist Center, 4246 Wightman St. The human rights get together will focus on three areas. (1) Education and information – organizing “know your rights” events in City heights and other places ICE regularly harass immigrants. (2) Community defense – the formation of a local defense committee to be called the Comites de Defensa del Barrio in City Heights and (3) to discuss the organizational structure of Puente Arizona and their people’s assemblies and defense committees.
Now that the “war on terror” has become a “war on immigrants” all people of conscience need to step forward and support amnesty. Herding people into concentration camps, separating and destroying families, shipping people off to countries they have never known or speak the language, making the workplace a place of fear and intrigue, these are issues the family and friends of Anne Frank faced during the nightmare of fascism, lets not let it happen in the United States or our children will be stained by our lack of moral authority and compassion.
http://obrag.org/?p=27198
OB Rag
November 9, 2010
Roaming through neighborhoods they were the enforcers of ethnic purification. Their unspeakable atrocities against human beings in the name of the law still lacerate our sense of humanity. And while the ends of their sickening purposes still surface occasionally in places like the Sudan, Rwanda and Bosnia; their means continue to be used as weapons against targeted peoples like today’s Department of Homeland Security thugs.
In Los Angeles, a young girl, 15 years of age (the same as Anne Frank when she died in the camps from typhus), is knocked to the floor, terrorized and forever scarred by fear as Federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents, dressed in black, wearing helmets of steel and thick plastic, their bodies encased in leather and metal, looking like robo cops, bust in the door of her home, brandishing shotguns and automatic weapons.
Bleeding, sobbing hysterically, (like millions of Jewish children in the dark times, when the world ignored the government’s technique of national law enforcement); she watches as her father is beaten to the ground, hand-cuffed and shoved through the front-door. Her mother, screaming, crying, is tackled by big men, drug by her hair as she struggles to get near her horror stricken daughter.
Child services takes her into “custody;” her parents are off to be concentrated in camps. For the crime of attempting to secure a decent life for their daughter; they will be branded as criminals against the state, threats to “the fatherland’s (homeland) security,” and deported.
In Grand Island, Nebraska, a single-mother, working at the Swift packing plant, in obvious pain from the plastic cuffs, screams to the crowd as she is pushed toward waiting ICE police buses with whited-out windows, for someone to please pick up her daughter from school. Meanwhile, a school bus driver, later that day, has to drop two toddlers off at a church because their parents were seized and failed to pick them up at the bus stop.
‘Stop the ICE Raids’ Movement Develops in San Diego
As federal troops intensify their attacks on migrant families, including the largest Gestapo type raid on a workplace in San Diego County history with over 50 armed agents participating October 14th, in an industrial section in Otay Mesa, near the border with Mexico, community groups, church organizations and individuals are organizing a bloc of citizens of conscience who are calling for an end to “state sanctioned terrorism.”
Forty-one workers were seized at the S&S Bakery, more than half its employees. Whole families were snatched in subsequent home invasions. At a November 3rd community forum, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, three young Latina students tearfully recounted how their parents were taken and the effect on their families. Some employees had worked at the bakery for 9 years and their children are legal citizens who must now face life without financial support.
Also supporting the forum, where workers and family members testified to their plight was the San Diego Raza Rights Coalition who sponsored the dialogue “to demonstrate our solidarity with the families and to deepen our understanding of the government’s strategy that represses workers right to work.” The theme of the forum was “working is not a crime, it is a right.” Bags and boxes of groceries, diapers and paper goods were collected at the meeting; while the AFSC calls on the community at-large to continue to donate food and money to these beleaguered families.
Meanwhile, over 300 San Diegans joined a rally in support of immigrant families in City Heights November 5th. Two-thirds of those protesting were young people and half of those were teenagers, revealing how these targeted raids are radicalizing a whole generation of Latinos.
Most of the youthful speakers, bellowing through a mega-phone, not only called for the ICE raids to stop but called for amnesty. Maria Ayala, of San Diego Pro People Youth, announced that the rally in City Heights was ironic, “this gentrified community used to be our community.” A member of the Filipina organization, Affirm, announced that “if any one is good enough to work here, they are good enough to stay here.” Enrique de la Cruz, of the San Diego Zapatista Collectivo, spoke of the need to change the entire economic model, “for a few people to be rich, a whole lot of us have to be poor.” Calling the workplace invasions “racist raids,” members of San Diego State’s Students for Solidarity with Palestine, spoke in solidarity those victimized the U.S.’s war on immigrants. Others student groups called for an immediate moratorium on all raids, deportations, incarcerations and the separation of families.
Amnesty Will Help All Workers
Justin Akers, a professor at San Diego City College, a community forum several months ago outlined the history of the United States’ “war on immigrant workers.” He spoke of the growing public movement to expose the terrorism occurring in local communities which has “impacted thousands of lives, broken families and literally shut down entire towns.”
While he mentioned the “deep roots of anti-Mexican racism,” Akers suggested that the police state persecution of immigrants was more about “a means of controlling people.” He pointed out that immigrant workers are the fastest growing segment of union efforts in the country and that most ICE raids have occurred at factories and packing facilities that are in the process of being unionized. Five of the six Swift & Company meat packing plants raided, netting over 1,300 workers, were represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW). The sixth was in the process of becoming unionized.
While the use of Federal troops for union busting goes back to the 19th Century in the U.S. it has never occurred on such a scale or as part of an over-all specific strategy against a minority group by powerful interests. Across the board from the militarized nature of law enforcement to the courts; an actual conspiracy against labor exists, not just migrant workers. Injunctions against the raids are routinely turned down, while union lawyers are denied access to arrested workers.
Corporate oligarchs fear a growing Latino union movement, with their cultural strengths of familial and community bonds, its solid sense of solidarity: influencing large, staid, self-interest driven unions. And, as New America Media associate editor, David Bacon, points out, these brutal raids and persecutions in immigrant communities have one fundamental political purpose to create a vast exploitable, cheap labor pool of close to 600,000 “guest workers.”
Beginning in 1942, a similar program recruited temporary immigrants who were exploited, cheated and deported if they tried to organize a union, go on strike or advocate for decent wages or living conditions. Like China’s rural slave labor, transported to the city to live in squalid conditions and work in dangerous environments, the “Bracero” program allowed employers to drive down wages against U.S. workers, and was finally ended in 1964 after Ceasar Chavez and other Latino organizers fought it.
As researchers for Project Censored announced in a 2008 study, “the demand for undocumentated labor in the US economy is structural.” With the de-unionization of the workplace and heavy emphasis on subcontracting, which shields large employers against worker protections and responsibilities, immigrant workers have become a necessary component of US competitiveness in a world market.
Carlos Pelayo, a local organizer for the United Domestic Workers of America, spoke of the efforts of corporate employers to create a two-tier caste system, where millions of people are denied decent wages, social benefits and fundamental rights. He urged community residents to begin thinking beyond “ethnicity” to a general worker consciousness.
Another community meeting is scheduled November 16th to support the rights of immigrants. Under the banner of “stop the raids and repression in our communities” the City Heights gathering will be at the Activist Center, 4246 Wightman St. The human rights get together will focus on three areas. (1) Education and information – organizing “know your rights” events in City heights and other places ICE regularly harass immigrants. (2) Community defense – the formation of a local defense committee to be called the Comites de Defensa del Barrio in City Heights and (3) to discuss the organizational structure of Puente Arizona and their people’s assemblies and defense committees.
Now that the “war on terror” has become a “war on immigrants” all people of conscience need to step forward and support amnesty. Herding people into concentration camps, separating and destroying families, shipping people off to countries they have never known or speak the language, making the workplace a place of fear and intrigue, these are issues the family and friends of Anne Frank faced during the nightmare of fascism, lets not let it happen in the United States or our children will be stained by our lack of moral authority and compassion.
http://obrag.org/?p=27198
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Arizona on the Delaware? Philadelphia Police Aid Deportations
By Jen Rock
The Defenestrator
Sat, 2010-06-05 16:25
In late April Arizona Governor signed Senate Bill 1070 into law. SB 1070, also know as the ‘Papers Please’ law, mandates that all police officers inquire about immigration status if the officer has “reasonable suspicion” that a person is undocumented. This state sanctioned racial profiling has received intense opposition from across the country, with major political and cultural figures such as basketball player Charles Barkley speaking out against it.
Philadelphia has been participating in a program similar to SB1070 for the past 2 years.
The Philadelphia Police Department collaborates closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency that focuses on deportation and detention. In the early winter of 2009 Mayor Nutter re-established a policy of "non-inquiry," which prohibits police officers or any other city employee from asking about immigration status.
Despite this policy, once a person is in police custody ICE has the opportunity to interview and/or detain that person. This happens in two ways. The first way is though a national program called Secure Communities, which shares fingerprints from local jails with ICE. In the same way that finger prints get sent to the FBI, they are now sent to ICE. The Obama administration plans to implement this program in every jail across the country by 2013.
The second way ICE obtains information is through a contract between city officials and ICE, granting ICE access to the city database listing anyone in police custody at any moment. This database is called Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System (PARS) and includes name and country of origin, among other things. ICE can interview and/or detain anyone born out of the country who has been arrested, including green card holders, asylum seekers, people with Temporary Protective Status, and undocumented immigrants.
While ICE claims that these programs target violent offenders, the reality is that over 80 percent of people are deported due to minor charges including traffic violations. (Also, these policies mean that immigrants who are arrested are deported or in deportation proceedings, before any trial or conviction, undermining due process.)
Police and ICE collaborations wreak havoc in immigrant communities. Fear of deportation eliminates the opportunity for immigrants to reach out to police services when they are needed. For example, if someone is robbed, they are not going to call the police for fear that they will be arrested, and then face deportation. Or, if someone is involved in a domestic dispute, they won’t call the police out of fear that they or their spouse will be arrested and consequentially deported. This collaboration furthers marginalization of these communities through fear of police and any other government agency.
ICE claims that because these programs rely on electronic data sharing, there is no opportunity for racial profiling. On the ground, we see an escalation of all too common practices of racial profiling within the Philadelphia Police Department. Traffic stops that already happen as a result of racial profiling, can now lead to deportation. Extreme punishment for “running a stop sign.”
We don’t need Arizona’s SB 1070, or our own HR 2479. It is already happening right here in Philadelphia.
New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia and many other groups around the city are working to end all collaboration between the Philadelphia Police Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Join us at a Public Forum in South Philadelphia on June 27th where community leaders will share their experiences and concerns about these programs with city officials, decision makers and hundreds of supporters. The location will be announced in early June.
For more information about local organizing around this issue check out www.sanctuaryphiladelphia.org. To get involved, email Jen Rock at nsmphiladelphia@gmail.com. There is a growing national movement calling for the end of all collaborations between local law enforcement and ICE. Check out http://uncoverthetruth.org, for a compilation of resources about communities in resistance.
http://defenestrator.org/ppd_aids_ice
The Defenestrator
Sat, 2010-06-05 16:25
In late April Arizona Governor signed Senate Bill 1070 into law. SB 1070, also know as the ‘Papers Please’ law, mandates that all police officers inquire about immigration status if the officer has “reasonable suspicion” that a person is undocumented. This state sanctioned racial profiling has received intense opposition from across the country, with major political and cultural figures such as basketball player Charles Barkley speaking out against it.
Philadelphia has been participating in a program similar to SB1070 for the past 2 years.
The Philadelphia Police Department collaborates closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency that focuses on deportation and detention. In the early winter of 2009 Mayor Nutter re-established a policy of "non-inquiry," which prohibits police officers or any other city employee from asking about immigration status.
Despite this policy, once a person is in police custody ICE has the opportunity to interview and/or detain that person. This happens in two ways. The first way is though a national program called Secure Communities, which shares fingerprints from local jails with ICE. In the same way that finger prints get sent to the FBI, they are now sent to ICE. The Obama administration plans to implement this program in every jail across the country by 2013.
The second way ICE obtains information is through a contract between city officials and ICE, granting ICE access to the city database listing anyone in police custody at any moment. This database is called Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System (PARS) and includes name and country of origin, among other things. ICE can interview and/or detain anyone born out of the country who has been arrested, including green card holders, asylum seekers, people with Temporary Protective Status, and undocumented immigrants.
While ICE claims that these programs target violent offenders, the reality is that over 80 percent of people are deported due to minor charges including traffic violations. (Also, these policies mean that immigrants who are arrested are deported or in deportation proceedings, before any trial or conviction, undermining due process.)
Police and ICE collaborations wreak havoc in immigrant communities. Fear of deportation eliminates the opportunity for immigrants to reach out to police services when they are needed. For example, if someone is robbed, they are not going to call the police for fear that they will be arrested, and then face deportation. Or, if someone is involved in a domestic dispute, they won’t call the police out of fear that they or their spouse will be arrested and consequentially deported. This collaboration furthers marginalization of these communities through fear of police and any other government agency.
ICE claims that because these programs rely on electronic data sharing, there is no opportunity for racial profiling. On the ground, we see an escalation of all too common practices of racial profiling within the Philadelphia Police Department. Traffic stops that already happen as a result of racial profiling, can now lead to deportation. Extreme punishment for “running a stop sign.”
We don’t need Arizona’s SB 1070, or our own HR 2479. It is already happening right here in Philadelphia.
New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia and many other groups around the city are working to end all collaboration between the Philadelphia Police Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Join us at a Public Forum in South Philadelphia on June 27th where community leaders will share their experiences and concerns about these programs with city officials, decision makers and hundreds of supporters. The location will be announced in early June.
For more information about local organizing around this issue check out www.sanctuaryphiladelphia.org. To get involved, email Jen Rock at nsmphiladelphia@gmail.com. There is a growing national movement calling for the end of all collaborations between local law enforcement and ICE. Check out http://uncoverthetruth.org, for a compilation of resources about communities in resistance.
http://defenestrator.org/ppd_aids_ice
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Immigration reform vigil near Obamas' home
WLS
Sunday, May 30, 2010
May 30, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- A group calling for immigration reform held a vigil Sunday night near Pres. Barack Obama's South Side home.
Many of those taking part were immigrants who have loved ones in the military.
They called on the president to stop deportations saying they separate families.
The protestors say their contributions to this country and the military go unnoticed.
One of the participants in Sunday night's vigil was a young woman who is undocumented and also married to an American in the military.
"He's worried... Husband comes back," said Fanny Martinez.
" The main message... Deported themselves," Sonny Garcia said.
Members of the group said they planned to be out all night Sunday and that they would hold another prayer vigil Monday morning.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=7470473
Sunday, May 30, 2010
May 30, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- A group calling for immigration reform held a vigil Sunday night near Pres. Barack Obama's South Side home.
Many of those taking part were immigrants who have loved ones in the military.
They called on the president to stop deportations saying they separate families.
The protestors say their contributions to this country and the military go unnoticed.
One of the participants in Sunday night's vigil was a young woman who is undocumented and also married to an American in the military.
"He's worried... Husband comes back," said Fanny Martinez.
" The main message... Deported themselves," Sonny Garcia said.
Members of the group said they planned to be out all night Sunday and that they would hold another prayer vigil Monday morning.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=7470473
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Advocates question choice to halt deportations into Mexican border city
By David Agren
Catholic News Service
Thursday, May 13, 2010
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (CNS) -- The Ciudad Juarez Migrant Shelter used to fill beyond capacity on the days that U.S. officials would send deportees back across the Rio Grande.
However, the shelter has often been empty since early March. That is when the U.S. government stopped discharging large numbers of deportees into Ciudad Juarez, where a turf war between drug cartels and their affiliated gangs has claimed at least 750 lives this year.
But the shelter director, Dominican Brother Gerardo Arias, and others working with migrants say that even with the rampant violence, discharging deportees into Ciudad Juarez is not an entirely foolish proposition -- especially since other ports of entry to the southeast such as Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros can be more dangerous for migrants.
"In many ways, Juarez is a safe city for migrants," said Brother Arias, director of the Ciudad Juarez Migrant Shelter. In his city, he added, criminal gangs are not kidnapping and extorting migrants.
The March decision to stop discharging so many deportees into Ciudad Juarez was meant to spare migrants any exposure to the ongoing violence, but it came after intense lobbying from the municipal government and Mexican officials.
Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz blamed the influx of deportees -- many of whom had been in U.S. prisons -- for aggravating the city's crime problem by ending up in either one of the warring cartels or the gangs carrying out such crimes as extortion, robberies and kidnappings.
"Previously Ciudad Juarez was the destination for all those leaving (U.S.) prisons," said Mauricio Rodriguez, spokesman for the Ciudad Juarez municipal government.
Rodriguez was unable to say if the crime rate had diminished since deportations were scaled back.
Reyes told reporters in late March that the number of deportees fell by 80 percent to as few as 6 per day -- mostly migrants caught trying to pass into El Paso without the proper documents.
Organizations working with deportees and migrants in Ciudad Juarez reject claims from the municipal government that those being sent back to Mexico join gangs in especially large numbers. Brother Arias said most of the deportees with U.S. criminal records were sent back for nonviolent crimes such as illegally entering the United States or driving without a license.
However, he agreed with the mayor that an influx of returning migrants had been straining resources.
His shelter welcomed approximately 2,000 guests in 2008. Arias says the figure exploded to approximately 7,000 guests in 2009 -- a result of increased deportations and a focus on discharging deportees into Ciudad Juarez. In 2010, the figure reached 1,700 before the change of policy, he said.
Others working with migrants say the city -- despite the violence -- has an established migrant-support infrastructure such as shelters, while a municipal program would provide those anxious to leave the city with money to travel home.
"The federal government has said it wants to have safe and orderly deportations for the young migrants," said Diana Rodriguez, director of a human rights center affiliated with the shelter.
"We definitely don't believe that they're doing it securely or orderly if they're sending (migrants) to other border crossings that are just as dangerous or worse than here," she said.
Rodriguez cited the border crossing at Ojinaga, Mexico -- which borders Presidio, near the Big Bend region of Texas -- as a municipality that lacks a migrant shelter and other services, although it is receiving deportees.
Further east, in Nuevo Laredo, Father Gianantonio Baggio, director of the Nazareth Migrant Shelter, has noticed a change in the type of migrants passing through northeastern Mexico.
Father Baggio said his shelter now serves a diminishing number of Central American migrants -- who are avoiding northeastern Mexico because of the rampant kidnappings and violence -- while the number of deportees has doubled over the past two months.
"The dangers of the journey (north) and the border have increased," Father Baggio said.
The northeastern border region of Mexico "is just as dangerous" as Ciudad Juarez, he added.
Father Baggio said the Mexican and local governments have attempted to make deportations safer in his part of the country by having more deportees quickly transported away from the border region to either their hometowns or the north-central city of San Luis Potosi, a nine-hour drive south of Nuevo Laredo.
"This help a lot," Father Baggio said, but he added, "there isn't enough money" to return all the migrants to their hometowns.
Copyright © 2010 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Catholic News Service
Thursday, May 13, 2010
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (CNS) -- The Ciudad Juarez Migrant Shelter used to fill beyond capacity on the days that U.S. officials would send deportees back across the Rio Grande.
However, the shelter has often been empty since early March. That is when the U.S. government stopped discharging large numbers of deportees into Ciudad Juarez, where a turf war between drug cartels and their affiliated gangs has claimed at least 750 lives this year.
But the shelter director, Dominican Brother Gerardo Arias, and others working with migrants say that even with the rampant violence, discharging deportees into Ciudad Juarez is not an entirely foolish proposition -- especially since other ports of entry to the southeast such as Nuevo Laredo, Reynosa and Matamoros can be more dangerous for migrants.
"In many ways, Juarez is a safe city for migrants," said Brother Arias, director of the Ciudad Juarez Migrant Shelter. In his city, he added, criminal gangs are not kidnapping and extorting migrants.
The March decision to stop discharging so many deportees into Ciudad Juarez was meant to spare migrants any exposure to the ongoing violence, but it came after intense lobbying from the municipal government and Mexican officials.
Ciudad Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz blamed the influx of deportees -- many of whom had been in U.S. prisons -- for aggravating the city's crime problem by ending up in either one of the warring cartels or the gangs carrying out such crimes as extortion, robberies and kidnappings.
"Previously Ciudad Juarez was the destination for all those leaving (U.S.) prisons," said Mauricio Rodriguez, spokesman for the Ciudad Juarez municipal government.
Rodriguez was unable to say if the crime rate had diminished since deportations were scaled back.
Reyes told reporters in late March that the number of deportees fell by 80 percent to as few as 6 per day -- mostly migrants caught trying to pass into El Paso without the proper documents.
Organizations working with deportees and migrants in Ciudad Juarez reject claims from the municipal government that those being sent back to Mexico join gangs in especially large numbers. Brother Arias said most of the deportees with U.S. criminal records were sent back for nonviolent crimes such as illegally entering the United States or driving without a license.
However, he agreed with the mayor that an influx of returning migrants had been straining resources.
His shelter welcomed approximately 2,000 guests in 2008. Arias says the figure exploded to approximately 7,000 guests in 2009 -- a result of increased deportations and a focus on discharging deportees into Ciudad Juarez. In 2010, the figure reached 1,700 before the change of policy, he said.
Others working with migrants say the city -- despite the violence -- has an established migrant-support infrastructure such as shelters, while a municipal program would provide those anxious to leave the city with money to travel home.
"The federal government has said it wants to have safe and orderly deportations for the young migrants," said Diana Rodriguez, director of a human rights center affiliated with the shelter.
"We definitely don't believe that they're doing it securely or orderly if they're sending (migrants) to other border crossings that are just as dangerous or worse than here," she said.
Rodriguez cited the border crossing at Ojinaga, Mexico -- which borders Presidio, near the Big Bend region of Texas -- as a municipality that lacks a migrant shelter and other services, although it is receiving deportees.
Further east, in Nuevo Laredo, Father Gianantonio Baggio, director of the Nazareth Migrant Shelter, has noticed a change in the type of migrants passing through northeastern Mexico.
Father Baggio said his shelter now serves a diminishing number of Central American migrants -- who are avoiding northeastern Mexico because of the rampant kidnappings and violence -- while the number of deportees has doubled over the past two months.
"The dangers of the journey (north) and the border have increased," Father Baggio said.
The northeastern border region of Mexico "is just as dangerous" as Ciudad Juarez, he added.
Father Baggio said the Mexican and local governments have attempted to make deportations safer in his part of the country by having more deportees quickly transported away from the border region to either their hometowns or the north-central city of San Luis Potosi, a nine-hour drive south of Nuevo Laredo.
"This help a lot," Father Baggio said, but he added, "there isn't enough money" to return all the migrants to their hometowns.
Copyright © 2010 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Dallas-area group to join immigration law protests in Arizona
By JULIÁN RESÉNDIZ / Al Día
The Dallas Morning News
Thursday, May 13, 2010
More than two dozen North Texas residents are headed for Arizona to join protests against that state's new immigration law.
The trip is organized by the Megamarch Committee, the same group that held a march through downtown Dallas on May 1 to promote an immigration reform bill that would legalize millions of undocumented workers and their families. Committee members said they want to show support and lend expertise to Latino activists in Arizona.
The Arizona law gives police broad powers to check the paperwork of anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. Critics say it will lead to racial profiling, while advocates say it's necessary because the federal government has failed to stop illegal immigration.
"We have a responsibility to continue our struggle for justice for everybody, so what threatens our brown brothers and sisters is also a concern for us," said the Rev. Peter Johnson, who was boarding a charter bus in Oak Cliff early Thursday.
The North Texas bus riders, including both immigrants and American-born citizens, were to hook up with immigration-rights activists in El Paso and Las Cruces, N.M. Organizers say they will drive in a caravan to Nogales, Ariz., where a demonstration is scheduled Friday on the international bridge leading into Nogales, Mexico. The group, which says all of its demonstrations will be peaceful, returns Sunday.
"I'm first-generation but the rest of my family is from Mexico, so I want to help them," said Raul Garcia, a Dallas painting contractor who carried a poster of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a revered religious symbol for Mexican Catholics, in a stylized pose reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty.
"We're going over there to open their eyes, to let them know that we're hard-working people just like them and that we deserve to be treated with dignity. The fact is that (immigrants) contribute a lot to our community."
Daniela Sánchez, a 23-year-old recent graduate of the University of North Texas, said she hopes the national attention being drawn to Arizona will actually foster debate on a national immigration reform bill that includes legalization for undocumented immigrants.
"I do believe we need some kind of immigration reform, but what (Arizona) has done is really unfair," said the Plano resident. "We're living in a society that is more diverse and multicultural than ever before and it's time everyone in government acknowledges that."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/051310dnmetarizonaprotests.17b97dc.html
The Dallas Morning News
Thursday, May 13, 2010
More than two dozen North Texas residents are headed for Arizona to join protests against that state's new immigration law.
The trip is organized by the Megamarch Committee, the same group that held a march through downtown Dallas on May 1 to promote an immigration reform bill that would legalize millions of undocumented workers and their families. Committee members said they want to show support and lend expertise to Latino activists in Arizona.
The Arizona law gives police broad powers to check the paperwork of anyone they suspect is in the country illegally. Critics say it will lead to racial profiling, while advocates say it's necessary because the federal government has failed to stop illegal immigration.
"We have a responsibility to continue our struggle for justice for everybody, so what threatens our brown brothers and sisters is also a concern for us," said the Rev. Peter Johnson, who was boarding a charter bus in Oak Cliff early Thursday.
The North Texas bus riders, including both immigrants and American-born citizens, were to hook up with immigration-rights activists in El Paso and Las Cruces, N.M. Organizers say they will drive in a caravan to Nogales, Ariz., where a demonstration is scheduled Friday on the international bridge leading into Nogales, Mexico. The group, which says all of its demonstrations will be peaceful, returns Sunday.
"I'm first-generation but the rest of my family is from Mexico, so I want to help them," said Raul Garcia, a Dallas painting contractor who carried a poster of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a revered religious symbol for Mexican Catholics, in a stylized pose reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty.
"We're going over there to open their eyes, to let them know that we're hard-working people just like them and that we deserve to be treated with dignity. The fact is that (immigrants) contribute a lot to our community."
Daniela Sánchez, a 23-year-old recent graduate of the University of North Texas, said she hopes the national attention being drawn to Arizona will actually foster debate on a national immigration reform bill that includes legalization for undocumented immigrants.
"I do believe we need some kind of immigration reform, but what (Arizona) has done is really unfair," said the Plano resident. "We're living in a society that is more diverse and multicultural than ever before and it's time everyone in government acknowledges that."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/051310dnmetarizonaprotests.17b97dc.html
Monday, May 3, 2010
¿DO I LOOK ILLEGAL TO YOU? A WEEK OF PROTESTS AGAINST ARIZONA LAW SB1070 at UMASS AMHERST
A Week of Protest Against Arizona's Anti-Immigrant Law (SB 1070)
Monday May 3rd *Kick-off Event*
5:30 pm - Meet at the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latin@ Studies (522 Thompson Hall) after Monday's colloquium to receive your "Do I look Illegal to you?" T-Shirt and to make posters. (Please bring poster-making material and if possible donations to defray costs of shirts).
Tuesday May 4th *Silent Demonstration*
We will meet at noon in front of the UMASS Student Union to stage a silent demonstration from the Union to the Campus Center. Please bring your posters and come wearing your t-shirt.
Wednesday May 5th *Teach-In*
Teach-In featuring speakers [Prof. Angelica Bernal (Political Science) and José Angel Hernández (History)] including faculty and local activists beginning at NOON.
Location: Outside in front of the Student Union.
Rain Location: Cape Cod Lounge
Friday May 7th *Media Memorial*
Video/Photographic memorial and testimonial of week's events to be distributed virtually via YouTube and
Saturday May 8th *Mass Rally: A Community Call to Action*
Mass Rally at Amherst Commons beginning 1:20pm. Will feature roster of speakers, music, and please bring poster and t-shirt.
NOTE: this is a tentative schedule. The confirmed scheduled will be released in a couple of days at which time we ask that you distribute it widely, and help us poster. If you have any questions, comments, additions and input please email me at abernal@polsci.umass.edu
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