Video Showings-Dec. 1st and 5th
Tuesday, December 1st at 6:30 pm, Sequim Library, 630 N Sequim Ave.
Saturday, December 5th at 2:00 pm, Port Angeles Library, 2210 S Peabody St.
“Farmingville” documentary showing in Sequim and Port Angeles
The Stop the Checkpoints Committee will hold two showings of “Farmingville”, a documentary which puts a human face on the current debate around “guest worker” and other proposed immigration reforms. Filmmakers Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini spent a year in the small Long Island town making this 2003 Sundance award winning film.
Farmingville (80 min. English/Spanish w/English subtitles) portrays the chilling hate-based attempted murders of two Mexican day laborers in the small town of Farmingville, Long Island, which catapult the population and the immigration issue into the national headlines, unmasking a frontline of the new border wars – suburbia.
This bilingual, verité documentary allows many players in the story – long term residents, day laborers, elected officials, and advocates on all sides of the issue – to speak for themselves, offering a rare and intimate glimpse behind the headlines. The Stop The Checkpoints committee is working to start a productive local conversation about immigration policies and civil liberties, particularly as they play out on the Olympic Peninsula.
Showings, which are free and open to all, will be held at 6:30 pm Tuesday, December 1 at the Sequim Library and at 2:00 pm Saturday, December 5 at the Port Angeles Library. For information about the event contact Lois Danks, Stop the Checkpoints Coordinator at 452-7534. For more information about the film visit the website www.farmingvillethemovie.com.
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AFL-CIO Report: Immigration enforcement harms workers
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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2009 A comprehensive report issued today by the AFL-CIO, American Rights at Work and the National Employment Law Project finds that the federal government’s immigration enforcement in recent years — including a heavy reliance on raids and often inadequately trained enforcement agents — has severely undermined efforts to protect workers’ rights, to the detriment of immigrant and native-born workers alike.
“The balance between worksite immigration enforcement and labor standards enforcement must be recalibrated,” argued co-author Rebecca Smith of the National Employment Law Project. “ICE’s failure to uphold the firewall between enforcement of immigration laws and enforcement of labor laws has undercut both policies. Employers have been encouraged to violate wage and hour laws, OSHA requirements, and labor laws that protect collective bargaining rights. All workers, both immigrant and native born, are suffering from depressed core labor standards as a result.” ICED Out: How Immigration Enforcement Has Interfered with Workers’ Rights builds on a growing body of research that points to a decline in workplace protections — and details how the dramatic increase in immigration enforcement agents, arrests and prosecutions of immigrants in the U.S. has repeatedly taken precedence over labor law enforcement. Drawing on case studies from across the country — including California, Texas, Tennessee, Kansas, Iowa, Rhode Island, Florida and Oregon — the report examines a series of alarming incidents between 2005 and 2008 in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a division of the Department of Homeland Security, has:
In 2008, the report notes, ICE made 6,287 (5,184 administrative; 1,103 criminal) arrests for immigration offenses at workplaces, and only a small fraction of its arrests (2.1 percent) were of employers or employers’ agents. In August 2009, ICE reported having enrolled 63 agencies and trained 840 officers in a program to assist in identifying undocumented immigrants. However, the GAO recently criticized ICE for inadequate oversight and training under the program, and it has frequently been cited as contributing to racial profiling. “Focusing on raids and other types of immigration enforcement without regard to enforcement of labor and employment laws does not address what is really sustaining illegal immigration-the virtually unfettered ability of employers to exploit immigrant workers economically,” said Ana Avendaño of the AFL-CIO, a co-author of the report. At today’s conference Josue Diaz, an immigrant worker who was recruited from a day laborer corner in New Orleans to work on reconstruction efforts in Texas after Hurricanes Ike, shared his personal story. “We were forced to live in tents in an isolated labor camp at an abandoned oil refinery. We were made to work in toxic conditions without safety equipment. We were subjected racist and dehumanizing treatment… When we protested the discrimination and illegal treatment, our employer… called local police and ICE. We were arrested immediately. Instead of enforcing our labor rights against the company, the police and ICE tried to turn us into criminals.” Download a full copy of the report, and the authors’ specific recommendations for the Obama administration and several federal agencies on how to restore the proper balance between immigration and labor law enforcement.
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Copyright © 2009 – Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO |
New Report Documents Trail of Human Rights Violations Against Immigrants
Oakland, CA , October 6, 2009: A new report reveals that immigration policing is causing a disturbing pattern of abuses and human rights violations that threaten the livelihood and safety of entire families, workers and communities. Guilty by Immigration Status: A report on U.S. violations of the rights of immigrant families, workers and communities in 2008 calls for restoring due process and suspending detentions and deportations, and urges a thorough investigation into immigration enforcement practices.
The report was produced by HURRICANE, the Human Rights Immigrant Community Action Network, an initiative of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR).
Guilty by Immigration Status details how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has built up over the last eight years an “immigration control regime,” whose goal is to deport everyone who can be deported. According to the report, DHS is almost exclusively promoting the criminalization of immigration status to detain and deport persons, often for minor offenses.
Catherine Tactaquin, NNIRR director, spoke to the urgent need to address the numerous problems revealed in the report: “Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Luis Gutierrez have each said they will soon announce their proposals for key immigration reforms. But unless the components of this regime are halted and dismantled, the long-held promise of immigration reform — the lifting of millions of immigrant workers and their families out of a life of fear and exploitation — will be severely undermined.”
Record Number Jailed Solely for Immigration Status
Guilty by Immigration Status describes how DHS, along with other police, public officials and agencies, routinely trumped the civil rights and constitutional protections of a person in order to question, detain and/or jail them solely based on their actual or perceived immigration status. The report also shows that such DHS detentions are taking place in record numbers, along with the relentless militarizing and policing of the immigrant and border communities.
Laura Rivas, coordinator of the HURRICANE initiative, said, “ICE police is unaccountable for the brutal treatment they exact on people for alleged immigration offenses. We have the case of Mr. Rebhy Abdel-Malak, an Egyptian; ICE agents beat him in an Atlanta cell and forced him to sign away his rights in order to deport him. ICE agents forced a pen into his hands and made him sign a document as they sat on him!
“In Sacramento, California, ICE stormed into the home of the Sarabia family, arresting a mother and, without a warrant, her son. ICE deported them literally overnight and dumped them in the streets of Tijuana like so much refuse, without letting the family know of there whereabouts.” She added, “Hundreds of persons are dying on the border, where the border control strategy deliberately funnels migrants into the desert and puts border communities under siege. It’s a deadly crossing for migrants because of the extreme weather and being hunted by vigilantes.”
Guilty by Immigration Status is the second annual report of HURRICANE. The findings are drawn from 141 stories of human rights abuse reported and documented by HURRICANE members and partners, including 25 interviews offering first-hand testimony from immigrant workers, families and community members directly affected by immigration enforcement policies and practices in 2008. The HURRICANE report also tracked 118 incidents of ICE immigration enforcement operations or high profile raids through extensive documentation from newspaper articles, scholarly journals, advocate reports, and interviews with affected persons, along with reporting by community groups and other institutions. [See links below to read the report and the chronologies of human rights abuses and ICE raids.]
According to Ms. Rivas, “The Sarabia and Abdel-Malak families are not isolated cases. We believe the Department of Homeland Security must be held accountable and the abuses investigated. DHS is putting the rights and lives of immigrant and refugee members of our communities at risk.
“The first step to ending this crisis is restoring due process rights and other constitutional protections. President Obama must suspend all detentions and deportations so that those who have violated rights and committed abuses are held accountable. Fair and humane immigration reforms can be achieved, but only by revitalizing our country’s commitment to justice and equality for all persons, regardless of their immigration or citizenship status.”
Read Guilty by Immigration Status at www.nnirr.org/hurricane/GuiltybyImmigrationStatus2008.pdf
Read the 2008 100 Stories Chronology of Abuses at www.nnirr.org/hurricane/100StoriesChronology.pdf
Read the 2008 chronology of ICE enforcement operations, or raids, at www.nnirr.org/hurricane/RaidsChronology.pdf
Anti-immigration forces prep for Town Halls on reform?
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Groups mobilize for the next immigration battle
BY CINDY CARCAMO
The Orange County Register
Former schoolteacher Evelyn Miller doesn’t plan to retire from the anti-illegal immigration movement any time soon.
She’s too busy organizing petitions, blasting e-mails, faxes and letters, and threatening politicians who are up for re-election.
The 76-year-old member of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform says she is driven by her belief that those in the country illegally are taking jobs and taxpayer services from Americans.
“We’re soldiers in the foxhole,” Miller said from her dining room in Irvine, which doubles as a home office.
Groups like Miller’s have proven so effective in mobilizing and delivering their message that they have halted two attempts at comprehensive immigration reform. In 2007 the groups literally shut down the Senate’s phone system at the height of discussion on changes that would have given millions without legal status a pathway to citizenship.
Now, with President Barack Obama’s most recent announcement of possible reform in the upcoming year, groups on both sides of the issue in Orange County and across the nation say they are energized and ready to gear up for the next battle. Some immigrant advocates say they’ve learned from the last round in the ring.
“We’ve had several years of the anti-immigration side making a lot of noise and able to organize themselves very effectively and contacting members of Congress,” said National Immigration Forum spokesman Douglas Rivlin.
Groups that promote immigration reform are now more organized and building stronger alliances, he said. They are mobilizing young people, labor unions and even church leaders to carry their message, and utilizing social-networking tools more than before.
The message? Immigration reform, they say, is the only way to fix a broken system. The only reasonable solutions are to legalize the millions who are in the country illegally and provide a guest worker program, they add.
Matias, an activist from Placentia who is in the country illegally, said he and other activists are encouraging young people to reach out to lawmakers.
“A lot of times youth become active and they are more worried about putting a rally together or getting media attention and they don’t necessarily think about contacting their legislator, and now they are making sure we have all our bases covered,” he said.
The Register is withholding Matias’ full name at his request and under newspaper policy that recognizes the potential for retaliation against him.
In Orange County, the birthplace of Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project and ballot initiative Proposition 187, those who would like to restrict illegal immigration are already skilled in the art of getting out their message.
“Our direct e-mail list is well over 500 people but beyond that a good many of our direct e-mail lists are group leaders of other groups throughout the nation. It could get up to the thousands,” said Barbara Coe, founder of California Coalition for Immigration Reform.
The anti-illegal immigration group based in Huntington Beach co-authored Proposition 187 nearly 15 years ago. The initiative would have denied public services such as education to people in the country illegally. Voters passed the proposition, but a federal court eventually overturned it.
Still, some of the same people who pushed the initiative are still at it.
“That was what helped us defeat the amnesty of 2007. It was just a constant barrage of messages: ‘If you vote yes on this you’ll lose my vote and financial support.’ That was nonstop,” Coe said. “And we’re making the effort to do exactly the same thing. You betcha.”
TAKING A CUE FROM FOES
Some in the immigrant advocacy movement say the political dynamic helped defeat immigration overhaul. By the time President George W. Bush got around to pushing the bill, he was pretty unpopular and didn’t even have the political sway within his own party, they say.
Now, Obama is promising the legalization of millions of people who are in the country illegally. In addition he’s expressed the need for some type of temporary work program for people to come to the country legally and the enforcement of immigration laws already on the books.
Finding ways to mobilize supporters is now a priority for the pro-immigration reform groups, Rivlin said.
On June 1, activists kicked off The Reform Immigration For American campaign, which serves as an umbrella for various organizations — from labor unions to law enforcement and religious groups.
Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which is heading the campaign’s efforts, said the various groups were simply unprepared the last time around. Now, he said they have a database list of about 75,000.
Reaching out to youth is an important component in the push for immigration reform, Matias said.
He and his allies are promoting the DREAM Act, which would give students in the country illegally a pathway to citizenship. They use social networking tools, such as Facebook, twitter and their Web sites to organize rallies throughout the nation. On June 23 they held mock graduations in Orange County and about a dozen other sites throughout the country, the largest in Washington, D.C.
“I’m here in California … but I can contact people all over the country who are coming together,” he said. “We all have a shared experience… coming up with immigration reform. It affects us a lot and personally.”
RELIGION’S ROLE
The Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, a Lutheran pastor in Los Angeles, travels to Orange County regularly, setting up meetings with religious leaders from immigrant and non-immigrant congregations.
She’s serving as a liaison to help create understanding between both groups.
Orange County immigration advocates who were active in 2007 reached out to religious leaders in immigrant communities, said Salvatierra, who oversees the Orange County chapter of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice.
“It was very clear that was not effective by itself,” said Salvatierra, who is also executive director for the organization’s California chapter.
She said it’s her hope that a common Biblical belief in compassion will give non-immigrant religious leaders and congregation members a new perspective on immigrants — especially those who are in the country illegally.
In Orange County, 10 congregations, including mega-church The Crossing Church in Costa Mesa, have already committed to informal meetings with pastors who lead immigrant churches, such as Templo Calvario in Santa Ana.
“Orange County has a very rich county of people of faith who are serious about their faith,” Salvatierra said. “If your faith is Biblically based it’s not easy to ignore the scripture about welcoming they neighbor, loving thy enemy.”
TOWNHALLS ON IMMIGRATION REFORM?
Some anti-illegal immigration activists have been watching the heated town halls on health care reform and see the future.
“I think that what you’re seeing at the health care town halls may be a template for the immigration debate,” said Tara Setmayer, who handles immigration policy for Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. “I think it may be a template for the grassroots advocates who have been so involved and vocal in the past.”
But Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist said he doesn’t hold much hope for the movement, especially from what’s left of his group after years of infighting.
“The Minuteman movement has lost its mojo because of all this delusional mentality that has gotten into the movement… In our side of the argument they are all attacking each other,” Gilchrist said, alluding to his legal wrangling with Coe and other former allies — some who have formed new groups.
The slow disintegration of the Minutemen, he says mirrors the movement in general.
“I think amnesty will pass,” he said