By CARLOS GARCIA, Puente Arizona | Source: Politic365.com | July 20, 2012
The migrant rights movement in this country is about to enter a new phase and every person, no matter their position, will have to decide how they will relate to it.
While many are waiting to see the decision of the Supreme Court related to the Department of Justice’s SB1070 case, a human rights crisis of epic proportions is already roiling in Arizona.
The status quo we face now and the results of even the best possible decision from the Supreme Court still represent a steady march toward anti-immigrant attrition that the state has constructed over years. First we faced efforts to restrict our ability to function in society: drivers’ license bans, denial of social services, and English only rules. Then they built ways to humiliate and dehumanize us through Sheriff Arpaio’s outdoor jails and Florence’s expanding penal colonies.
From 2007 to 2010, even before SB1070 was introduced, our community faced checkpoints, bore witness to women forced to give birth in shackles, and traveled to work and school on a daily basis already wondering if we would reunite with our families and loved ones at the end of each day. In 2010, Arizona sought to erase us from history with a ban on ethnic studies and remove us altogether through SB1070.
By Robert A. Ratliff Special to the Press-Register | Published: Sunday, June 10, 2012 | Source: Blog.Al.com
Elvin Pabalo waves an American flag with opponents of Alabama's new immigration law as they get ready to march down Jefferson Street on their way to the Limestone County Courthouse to protest the law in Athens, Ala. Sunday Oct. 16, 2011. (The Huntsville Times/RobinConn)
Whenever I meet people and they learn that I am an immigration attorney, they always ask me this question: “Why don’t they just come legally like our ancestors did?”
The “they” in that question is often undefined. Do the questioners mean the babies and young children brought here by their parents and who know no other way of life?
Do they mean the hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans who arrived here on temporary work visas and just stayed?
Or do they mean the men and women fleeing Haiti who for political reasons do not receive the same benefits as Cubans who come to this country?
Regardless of who “they” are, the question reflects two basic misunderstandings about our immigration law and the history of our country.
First, what is the legal process today?
Our immigration law is a complex set of rules and regulations. We invite for immigration primarily two groups of people: those who are sponsored by an employer, and those with immediate family already legally present in the country.
Work-related visas are generally reserved to those with a high level of education or other skill. For unskilled workers, the wait can be years.
Family categories can be worse. The current wait for the brother or sister of a United States citizen from the Philippines is 23 years. The unmarried son or daughter of a legal permanent resident from Mexico must wait 20 years.
OPERATION ENDGAME Office of Detention and Removal Strategic Plan 2003-2012 Detention and Removal Strategy for a Secure Homeland Policy of the Obama Administration Immigration, Customs, and Enforcement Department (ICE)
Editorial Tupac Enrique Acosta
We, the Peoples: ENDGAME and Arpaio
The issue is public health and safety, and the responsibilities we share collectively in society to support the enforcement of public health and public safety policies that protect us all. We are ALL members of the PUBLIC, whether we possess or do not possess status as citizens or nationals within the REPUBLICS of the NAFTA regime (Canada-US-Mexico). The status of citizenship is a separate issue.
The rights of possession of status before the state are distinct from the exercise of responsibilities and Human Rights that are inherent to all Peoples equally anywhere in the world. The issue of status in terms of citizenship and nationality among the countries currently enjoying international recognition within the UN system and the Organization of American States in North America is relevant in the discussion, formation, and implementation of public health and public safety policy, but it is a separate and distinct issue. This is common sense.
It is common sense to stop at the red light of a traffic intersection. It could be said that this is the common law of public policy planetarily when it comes to the design and enforcement of public safety policies regarding vehicular traffic on public roadways anywhere in the world. It is a global standard of public safety and responsibility.
Check out Tucson grassroots community organization, Derechos Humanos, team up with Pan Left Productions for a video about their Cop Watch work to hold the Poli-Migra accountable and to inform the migrant community of their rights....
Last month six hundred workers at the Chipotle fast food chain were fired in Minnesota.
Their crime? Working.
In the last two years, thousands of others have been fired for the same offense—1800 young women at Los Angeles sewing machines, 500 apple pickers in eastern Washington, hundreds of janitors in Minnesota and California. They're all victims of the administration's "softer" immigration enforcement strategy.
Its logic is brutal: Make it impossible for 12 million undocumented people in the US to earn a living—to buy food, pay rent, or send money home to their children. Then they'll deport themselves. When their families hear they can't get jobs in the US, they won't join those already here.
This inhuman logic convinced Congress to pass the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. For 25 years employers have had to verify workers' immigration status, and cannot legally employ people without papers. The real impact, though, is on workers. It's become a crime to hold a job.
But that hasn’t prompted undocumented immigrants to leave the United States. Over those 25 years NAFTA and CAFTA, and pro-corporate market reforms in Mexico and other developing countries, profoundly deepened the poverty driving people from their homes. More people came than ever before.
Anyone who is a parent knows well that few things are able to change plans like the will of an eleven year old. Simple truths like this one may be the one missing piece on Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce's formula for rewriting the constitution.
Last week, the effort to take away the citizenship rights of Arizona's first generation children born of undocumented parents hit a wall. What the out-of-town conservative ringer, Dr. Eastman, could not accomplish in more than an hour and a half of testimony, Katherine Figueroa finished in four words; "We are the future."
These children of migrants speaking for themselves, family, and friends are at the crux of complicating the recent nativist attempts to revoke birthright citizenship to those born in the US. If we were to revoke citizenship to those born here, what would happen with those stateless children? When asked how they should be treated, the "constitutional expert" replied, 'as their parents with the same status would.' Completing that sentence ends with newborn babies in detention and deportation. In the context of Arpaio's Arizona, it means the tent city jailer would be issuing pink onesies the way he does underwear to prisoners.
Within that circle of doubt and due to the firm line of questioning of Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Adam Driggs, the judiciary committee of Arizona's Senate decided to hold the 14th amendment bill rather than put it up for an uncertain vote. The fact that it did not steamroll through is a setback for the nativist legislators. One caused by minors.
When twelve year old Heidi testified, she explained simply, "I may not be perfect but I don't think you should spend your time on discriminating laws." Like the young man from Iowa who scolded legislators for considering a bill that would impact his gay parents, the voices of those directly impacted by today's policies are at the forefront of leading this era of the immigrant rights' movement. They state what no amount of meandering about allegiance to the king or interpretations of the word jurisdiction can negate; that we are here. We are loved. We have dreams. Like my two US citizen children who excel in school and music and art, who love their father who came here from El Salvador, we are a part of the fabric of this society.
The US population is the same percentage foreign-born as it was when they signed the 14th amendment. We do not come as tourists or random visitors. We are as much the American family as anyone. We have come, like Katherine said yesterday, "to fight for kids' rights." Sí somos miliones, but sometimes it is the voice of an eleven year old girl that must be counted.
Whoever hears the bills next may wish to keep Katherine's words in mind as they vote. Not only because they ring true, but because they will be echoed by thousands who announced today that on April 23rd, they will be returning to march in the streets of Phoenix.
Editor’s note: This is the latest blog post from a 27-year-old college graduate who ran a small construction clean-up company in Arizona until he was stopped by police for a traffic infraction in late summer of 2010. After Yogi (not his real name) was arrested and fingerprinted his information was shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was then transferred from jail to ICE custody because he lacked proper immigration papers. Yogi has lived in the United States since 1990. Deportation Nation is publishing his letters as a blog from the Florence Correctional Center, a private detention center in Arizona that is owned by the Corrections Corporation of America.
I consider myself layman. It’s not because I consider myself dumb, ignorant or inept, but because I feel I can always learn something and grow. In here, I have been able to do things otherwise unimaginable to me, like helping fellow detainees with their cases.
I am, in reality, the most stupid person here, with two degrees, never had I been so humbled as I am when I speak to a fellow detainee about their case, how they came to this country, and why they are detained all these teachings add to why I want to help people as soon as I get out. I am not sure how but if its in the realm of helping migrants then that’s what I want to do.
So far in here, I have helped one man win his cancellation of removal and one win his asylum case. At the moment, I am helping two more fellow detainees, one with cancelation and another asylum. This is something I would have never imagined I would do. And all that from a prison cell. I imagine its not unheard of and in fact, I think they call people that do this “jailhouse lawyers” I guess out of necessity and seeing the desperation of others the least I can do is try, but when we were successful its extremely gratifying. Like doing the impossible, taking on an entire system without resources or previous knowledge.
I would obviously never want to be incarcerated again, but to help someone get out is unexplainably special. It is self-rewarding and humbling simultaneously. The weird part comes when you see people leave you are overjoyed and jealous at the same time. I suppose it’s because of the uncertainty of how long you will be in, and continuing to wait for that fateful cry of:
Editor’s note: This is the latest blog post from a 27-year-old college graduate who ran a small construction clean-up company in Arizona until he was stopped by police for a traffic infraction in late summer of 2010. After Yogi (not his real name) was arrested and fingerprinted his information was shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was then transferred from jail to ICE custody because he lacked proper immigration papers. Yogi has lived in the United States since 1990. Deportation Nation is publishing his letters as a blog from the Florence Correctional Center, a private detention center in Arizona that is owned by the Corrections Corporation of America.
I was supposed to be the best man at my friends wedding. I was supposed to go to Vegas to watch a big fight, flight and tickets paid for. I was supposed to compete in my first Judo tournament. I was supposed to be the role model for my godson that I never had. I was a partner in two small businesses, and the breadwinner for my girlfriend and her two boys.
From in here, this whole experience seems surreal, I like many of the men in here, don’t believe imprisonment should be the way about solving this migration issue. Although at the moment I have no solution either. Al I know is that in my cell alone, there are two men who have had their green cards for 24 and 30 years, respectively, after 5 years with permanent residency people are eligible to apply for citizenship, but after 20 you would think it should be automatic.
I guess that just is another question I would like to put out in the universe.
Regardless of what your view is on the subject, I am sure you believe there needs to be some kind of reform or solution. Unmistakably, I believe that there are too many families at stake not to give an opportunity to those hardworking individuals who have spent decades contributing to this country without status. How is it just for people to be ineligible, or have to wait 15 to 20 years, to become permanent residents after all those years of struggling here. Why do people have to be arrested and humiliated to have the opportunity of a work permit? In the respect I agree with many politicians and like other folks like to say, the system is broken.
Just. Plato writes that justice is or does something for good. I cannot see incarceration, humiliation, and a systematic Gestapo tactic to do anything with just. Whether you think so or not, I am as you and you are as me, at least in the sense that I am a person with his own feelings and notions. I want to be a part of a better society just like you. I have a set of ideals and one voice that can only say
Join us as more than 20 poets lend their energy and language to a group reading in response to Arizona Senate Bill 1070 and in resistance to the atmosphere of national xenophobia under which the bill (and its emerging counterparts) were created.
Confirmed readers include: Francisco X. Alarcon, Luis Alberto Ambroggio, Tara Betts, Sarah Browning, Regie Cabico, Carmen Calatayud, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Susan Deer Cloud, Martín Espada, Odilia Galvan Rodriguez, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Aracelis Girmay, Randall Horton, Juan Felipe Herrera, Dorianne Laux, Marilyn Nelson, Mark Nowak, Barbara Jane Reyes, Joseph Ross, Abel Salas, Sonia Sanchez, Hedy Trevino, Pam Uschuk, Dan Vera, Rich Villar, and Andre Yang. Hosted by Oscar Bermeo.
The 112th Congress will hold the first hearing of its Congressional Subcommittee on Immigration on January 26, 2011.
The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) believes this hearing should be watched carefully for both its policy prescriptions and the tone it sets regarding immigrant workers. Our network includes more than 40 organizations of day laborers located throughout the country. It is our understanding that the Immigration Subcommittee will focus its first hearing largely on strategies for targeting immigrant workers for deportation through their worksites.
NDLON believes that this focus demonstrates at best, a lack of understanding about how to protect workers’ rights, and at worst, a mean-spirited scapegoating of immigrant workers that can increase bias, dehumanization, and violence.
Immigration crackdowns do not protect workers’ rights or local communities: Crackdowns and raids at the workplace have never proven effective in protecting the rights of any workers, US-born or immigrants. On the contrary, aggressive targeting of immigrant workers facilitates their exploitation by unscrupulous employers, who are only too willing to use immigration status as a threat against workers who might complain. In workplaces where immigrants are exploited, this brings down the wages of native-born workers as well.
In addition, technology-based screening programs such as “E-Verify” are prone to errors and tend to drive undocumented workers further underground. These programs confuse good employers and provide the most abusive employers with an additional scheme to be used in violating workers rights. Piecemeal worksite verification programs only exacerbate this problem by incentivizing exploitation by predatory employers seeking unfair competitive advantage. Immigrant workers and their families, whether documented or undocumented, are a crucial part of the United States economy, and they are members of local communities across the country. Raids targeting workplaces have been devastating to these families and have been particularly harmful to their children. As the new congress pushes the re-set button on an immigration debate that has been on the national agenda for a decade, we implore the subcommittee to take note of the following:
Blaming immigrants for the economic situation of the country will increase violence: Day laborers and other immigrants are not to blame for the financial crisis and the resulting rise in unemployment. However, too often, political demagogues attempt to blame immigrants for the lack of jobs available to native-born workers. Our organization is very concerned about a rise in violence and hate based attacks against the Latino community in general. Across the country, a rise in political rhetoric and scapegoating has resulted in bias attacks against immigrants: in the most tragic of these cases, the murders of immigrants in Pennsylvania, New York, and Arizona.
We ask that the Immigration Subcommittee members refrain from using language that scapegoats immigrant workers. The immigrant community will be observing the hearings closely, to see whether the inflamed anti-immigrant rhetoric dominates these proceedings. It is our hope that the rhetoric at least, will reflect some of the civility lessons that many in politics professed to have learned after recent events in Arizona. Rather than attacking newcomers and turning a nation of immigrants against itself, we ask that Congress listen to the voices of these Americans in Waiting. Over the past year, immigrant families have spoken at various hearings regarding the impact of repressive immigration tactics on display in Arizona. The Immigration Subcommittee would do well to listen and learn from these voices.
Editor’s note: This is the latest blog post from a 27-year-old college graduate who ran a small construction clean-up company in Arizona until he was stopped by police for a traffic infraction in late summer of 2010. After Yogi (not his real name) was arrested and fingerprinted his information was shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was then transferred from jail to ICE custody because he lacked proper immigration papers. Yogi has lived in the United States since 1990. Deportation Nation is publishing his letters as a blog from the Florence Correctional Center, a private detention center in Arizona that is owned by the Corrections Corporation of America.
The lockdown lasted for two days and it was never made clear why it happened. They don’t need to give a reason, I suppose, but when you are punished for something without explanation it’s a little unnerving. Aside from that, we weren’t even allowed to take showers! Nevertheless, the ingenuity of a person with limited resources does not cease to amaze, we put together two boxes we would normally use for personal belongings and took “bird baths”. In other words, we used the stream that shoots past the sink next to the toilet to cleanse ourselves.
State Feels Spurned by Anti-immigrants’ Expanded Focus
“I used to be Tanton’s one and only,” Arizona sobbed in a confessional interview last week, speaking of John Tanton the head of the FAIR network responsible for today’s anti-immigrant climate.
Arizona called for the interview last week after attention began to drift as other states such as Kentucky and Mississippi introduced and passed SB 1070-like legislation in their own legislatures.
Arizona has had a rough time lately. The tragic shooting of January 8 is the latest in a long line of challenges the state has faced over the last few years. As Arizona residents, all of us here have felt the stress of these challenges. We empathize with those who have felt the pain of recent events directly.
We are here today to state that we are proud to live in Arizona, and to ask our state’s lawmakers to seize the silver lining in these tragic events.
Calls for greater civility in politics have gone out across the nation as a result of the tragic shooting in Tucson. President Obama, Governor Brewer, Senator McCain, and others all called for “a more civil and honest public discourse” at the memorial for the fallen just last week.
Yogi (not his real name) is a 27-year-old college graduate who ran a small construction clean-up company in Arizona until he was stopped by police for a traffic infraction in late summer of 2010. He was arrested and transferred to a detention center because of his lack of proper paperwork. Yogi has lived in the United States since 1990. Deportation Nation is publishing his letters from the Florence Correctional Center, a private detention center owned by the Corrections Corporation of America.
It’s odd to think I am writing it from a jail cell.
Although, I should mention that officially I am not a prisoner, I am a detainee. Much like the people held in Guantanamo, I suppose, but my charge isn’t terrorism. My main charge is not being a US Citizen.
My story is much the same as many kids who grow up in the US, Honor Roll K-12, captain of Football and Wrestling teams. Then off to college I went to learn and prepare how to master the “Real World”. Except my story is different, like the fact that I have been adopted twice or that I was born in Mexico.
The latter point drastically changes my current situation. It makes me, shall we say, susceptible to deportation from the country I grew up in.
A traffic violation leads me to my present position, the corner lower bunk furthest from the iron door, and toilet. A 16 men cell with one stainless steel toilet with no door to block your duties, one stainless steel sink. No contact with the outside letter except letters and now this blog.
Maybe you didn’t know a detention center like this existed. I know I didn’t. And yet, here I sit within a maximum-security facility, where hundreds of ICE detainees are housed. And my hope is that my writing this blog will bring awareness to something that is very real.
My intention is to relate and relay what I can attest to, what I have been through, what I do and most importantly the endless stories of other people from around the world that join me amidst these walls. I am in a most advantageous position in the respect. And given that time seems abundant in here, I think I will be able to do just that. Relate and relay.
Last year, state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema introduced a bill that essentially would have outlawed civilian border patrol groups like the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.
The proposal went nowhere, just as she expected. "It got a brief mention in (Phoenix) New Times and that was it," she says.
As a liberal Democrat operating in a Legislature controlled by conservative Republicans, Sinema understands the odds against the passage of such a proposal.
Still, this year, she introduced her bill again.
House Bill 2286 reads, in part:
"An individual or group of individuals commits domestic terrorism if the individual or group of individuals are not affiliated with a local, state or federal law enforcement entity and associate with another individual or group of individuals as an organization, group, corporation or company for the purpose of patrolling to detect alleged illegal activity or to individually patrol for the purpose of detecting alleged illegal activity and if the individual or group of individuals is armed with a firearm or other weapon."
Sinema said that it isn't the honest intentions of most people affiliated with such organizations that bother her but a belief that they attract racist extremists and other xenophobic recruits to their cause.
Perhaps not since the full-on throes of the Civil Rights era has a single state been so beset by crisis, conflict, and now catastrophe. Chronicling Arizona politics has been a trying and tiresome experience on many levels, with few points of optimism at hand to buffet the constant blows of injustice and brutality. The open persecution of people of color at the level of both bodies and minds; the outright hijacking of the state's politics by far-right figures with white supremacist ties; the bankrupting of the economy while private interests gain tax breaks and write favorable laws for themselves; the decimation of the public infrastructure including the education and health care systems -- all of this and more has been front and center for beleaguered Arizonans in recent years.
GENEVA – “Today, we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families*, a key day that has been marked by worrying trends in the situation of migrants, both regular and irregular, around the world.
What should be an opportunity to celebrate the successful adjustment of countless migrants to their new environments, enriching their new societies with their cultures, ideas, technologies, skills, or the diversity that they bring, has become a dire warning to renew our efforts to effectively address the legal, social and practical challenges that migrants face.
This year, we particularly note with concern the increasing trend towards criminalization of migration in irregular situation. This criminalization makes migrants in irregular situation more likely to face discrimination, exclusion, exploitation, abuse at all stages of the migration process.
We are especially concerned at the recent rise of intolerance, xenophobia and racism directed at migrants and their communities, which has sometimes manifested itself in acts of extreme violence against migrants in transit and in destination countries. Migrants can also easily fall prey to criminal traffickers and smugglers. Their irregular status often makes these men, women and children afraid or unable to seek protection and relief from the concerned authorities.
In Arizona we’ve deeply encouraged by the actions of solidarity we've seen come from throughout the nation. We’ve seen it all – from people who took leave from their jobs to help us organize, to volunteers that help care for kids, to people from the community who cook delicious meals for us, to people who house visitors and donors near and far. We know you understand the need for us to come together in order to combat the anti-migrant sentiment n Arizona.
And so we are excited to that in only a few days the Puente Movement and our dear friends from The Sound Strike will be hosting a large Community Posada in central Phoenix.
At this community event we will distribute over 40 tons of food to 5,000 families in Arizona. This is incredibly important as many of us are facing a various challenges. - from the economic recession that is affecting many throughout the world to the added pressure of senseless attacks on our communities.
With the help of The Sound Strike, NDLON, Presente.org, the Committees for the Defense of the Barrio (CDBs) and countless business, and selfless individuals we’ll also be hosting a large Toy Giveaway for Arizona’s children. We will do this to provide a bit of joy for the kids and to highlight the fact that at the end of the day there are children who are most affected by the anti-migrant laws.
The Community Posada which is aimed at empowerming our communities will take place on December 18th - International Migrants Day. International Migrant Day was established in 2000 by the United Nations. It was established in order to raise awareness about the increasing numbers of migrants due to the disastrous effects of globalization. Millions of people are displaced each year and forced to migrate in order to help their families.
Thanks to all who’ve participated and to those who haven’t and would still like to please text “ARIZONA” to 50555 to donate $5 or donate online: http://bit.ly/donateaz
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