As ICE Reports Record Numbers, Two Cities Seek to Ensure Public Safety and Civil Rights By Limiting Agency’s Overreach

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Washington, DC.
Today Washington, DC Mayor Vincent Gray took strong steps to protect district residents from harmful immigration enforcement programs as Santa Clara, CA passed new legislation that leads the nation in setting the standard how to do so. After Santa Clara’s 3-1 vote banning county resources from being used to assist ICE in the enforcement of federal civil immigration laws, beyond what is legally required, Supervisor Shirakawa commented, “Today, Santa Clara County makes it official, we don’t do ICE’s job.”

Last year, the two cities were the first in the country to “opt-out” of the discredited Se Communities deportation program.

Now that the federal government has attempted to force their participation through the legally dubious maneuver of declaring the program as mandatory, cities are registering their opposition by seeking new methods to limit ICE’s overreach into local jurisdictions. DC’s executive order brings new transparency and safeguards to the justice system’s interaction with ICE while Santa Clara voted to decline to use any of its resources to respond to ICE’s civil immigration holds.

Sarahi Uribe, organizer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, explains, “DC should be proud that our city officials continue to strive to protect all the city’s residents. As a result of the Mayor’s order today, everyone in the city is safer. We’ll continue to work together to keep addressing the risks of harmful immigration enforcement.”
Mackenzie Baris, Lead Organizer with DC Jobs with Justice added, “This is a good step in continuing to ensure there’s a bright line between our local police and criminal justice system and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As our communities face growing threats by expanding ICE interior enforcements we will continue to ensure that families are safe and people rights are protected regardless of their status.”

“Santa Clara County is home to a diverse immigrant community and as residents of this county, we believe that all county practices should strive to keep families together and protect the human and civil rights of all people. Therefore, we applaud the Board of Supervisors for leading the way and doing what is right for our county. This policy sends a clear message to immigrant communities that local law enforcement is not ICE,” says Jazmin Segura, Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network.
“Santa Clara County sets a positive example for other localities across the country, first by being one of the first localities in the nation to declare its intention to opt out of S-Comm, and now by passing the most progressive anti-immigration enforcement policy in the nation. This policy demonstrates that local participation in the enforcement of immigration laws is not mandatory and that due process and equal under the law applies to all persons in the U.S.,” said Angie Junck, Staff Attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.

Similar policies have been implemented in Cook County, IL and San Francisco, CA. A new report released today from the Warren Institute condemning the overreach of Se Communities validates the cities’ new policies. Santa Clara’s new policy can be read at http://bit.ly/sccice

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ICE’s Newest Report: Se Communities Dragnet Includes US Citizens

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Reading Guide to Report Available Here

New York, NY – The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) welcome the publication of a new report by the Warren Institute at UC Berkeley School of Law that exposes the violations of the rights of both citizens and non-citizens alike by the Se Communities program. Released on the heels of the hard-hitting PBS expose, Lost in Detention, the new report, “SeCommunities by the Numbers: An Analysis of Demographics and Due Process,” is the first in a series to analyze federal government data related to Se Communities obtained through the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, NDLON v. ICE, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, NDLON and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. It exposes serious due process concerns with the continued implementation and expansion of the program.

“The Warren Institute study demonstrates how deeply U.S. citizens’ own rights have been eroded in the name of immigration enforcement. The Obama administration should treat this study as the final nail in the coffin of a program that should have been buried long ago,” explains Sarahi Uribe, Organizer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

The report reveals that over 3,600 U.S. citizens have been apprehended through the Se Communities program and more than one-third of the individuals identified for deportation have a spouse or child who is a U.S. citizen, thus extending the impact of the program to over 88,000 families with citizens. Furthermore, once funneled through the system, only 52 percent of detainees have a hearing before an immigration judge; and 83% of people arrested through Se Communities are placed in immigration detention.

Said CCR attorney Sunita Patel, “This new report further confirms what we know from the damning records released through our lawsuit and the experience of immigrant communities. Se Communities has been and will always be a dangerously flawed program. The Obama Administration must disconnect immigration enforcement from law enforcement. The results of merging the two systems are erosion of public safety and civil rights.”

For a short reading guide to the report, compiled by the Center for Constitutional Rights and NDLON, go to: http://uncoverthetruth.org/resources/warren-report/
To learn more about advocacy to end the Se Communities program, go to http://www.uncoverthetruth.org.

To read the full report, go to: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Se_Communities_by_the_Numbers.pdf


The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. Visit www.ccrjustice.org and follow @theCCR.

The mission of the National Day Laborer Organization Network is to improve the lives of day laborers in the U.S. by unifying and strengthening its member organizations to be more strategic and effective in their efforts to develop leadership, mobilize day laborers in order to protect and expand their civil, labor and human rights. Visit www.ndlon.org….

Marketing Lessons For Day Laborers

Marketing Lessons For Day Laborers

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Plans progress for opening of worker center.

By Bonnie Hobbs, clinic Saturday, there October 15, 201 | Source: Centre View (ConnectionNewspapers.com)

Marketing Lessons For Day Laborers

Sarahi Uribe advises CIF members and day laborers how best to market the Centreville Labor Resource Center.

When the Centreville Labor Resource Center opens, its organizers want it to be a success, so they recently invited two, day-labor marketing spets to give them .

And on Sept. 27, Sarahi Uribe and Francisco Pacheco spoke with members of the Centreville Immigration Forum (CIF), which will help with the center’s day-to-day operation, under the guidance of a full-time, professional director.

“With the economic situation so bad, it’s incredibly important to do marketing,” said Uribe in English, while Pacheco said the same thing in Spanish to the workers attending the meeting. “But it depends on each organization’s resources and the workers must be involved in the marketing strategy.”

The new center is to help Centreville’s day laborers find jobs, as well as to remove them from street corners near the library and a ping area. The CIF has been busily raising money for it and interviewing potential staff members and hopes to have it operational by the end of the year.

Al Dwoskin, who owns the Centreville Square Shopping Center, proposed the idea for the center and will donate one of his storefronts for it and will pay for utilities. Funding for salaries and other items is coming from grants and private donations.

“We’re in the process of interviewing applicants for the position of center director,” said CIF President Alice Foltz. “When that position is filled, we’ll be able to set the opening date. This means that plans for opening are contingent on our finding the right person and getting that person here and on the job. We hope this will happen in the next couple months.”

Meanwhile, plans are moving forward for the center, which will be open Monday-Saturday, from 6 a.m.-noon. Prospective employers will come directly there to hire workers, instead of picking them up from the streets. That way, an organized system will be in place, jobs will be fairly distributed among all the immigrants participating and workers will be paid for their labor.

Uribe and Pacheco, both regional organizers with the National Day-Laborer Organizing Network, shared their knowledge and tips with the CIF. “We’re based in Washington, D.C., but we work with day-labor centers all over the country,” said Uribe. “And it’s exciting that you’re going to open one here.”

To successfully market their skills, she said, they must first learn about the neighborhood’s needs. “For example, are there construction sites nearby?” she asked. “What is the demand for workers? What are the jobs you see in this area?”

Pacheco then asked the workers at the meeting to tell him their skills and he made a list of the types of jobs for which they’re qualified. These jobs included: Painting, remodeling, new construction, gardening, moving, installing hardwood floors, ceramics work, plumbing, electrical work, carpentry – both fine carpentry and for construction, restaurant work, roofing, installing siding, working in stores and cleaning.

Currently, said the laborers, more construction companies hire them – especially for remodeling jobs – than do individual homeowners. One female laborer said Americans often wonder if an employee is legal, but Koreans – a growing population group in this area – don’t worry about that.

Bill Threlkeld, who ran the day-labor center in Herndon, said that, when that center opened, the employers were 60-percent businesses and contractors and 40-percent homeowners. But, he added, “After awhile, those numbers reversed.”

Noting that she and Pacheco were giving Centreville’s workers just a brief work on marketing, Uribe told them, “You need to do this more in depth. Survey all the workers and employers [for their respective skills and needs]. Also, check with facilities for senior citizens to see what help they could use. Then you can start to better define your marketing plan.”

Uribe advised them to send out postcards and place hangers on people’s doors listing the jobs they can do and the center’s location. “You’ll need to determine how many postcards and door-hangers you’ll put out a month and how much money you have to them,” she said. “Consider advertising in newspapers and on the Internet on Craig’s List, Facebook, etc.”

Threlkeld said that, ultimately, “The most-important marketing is word of mouth.” But, added Uribe, “The best marketing doesn’t mean anything, unless the work is good.” So she stressed the importance of workers making sure they stick to the jobs for which they have the most abilities and be honest about what they can and can’t do.

Pacheco said the center advertising should have a specific color and a simple logo, plus slogans stressing the capable, dependable and skillful work the laborers will do. Uribe noted that, in the District, “Some churches let the workers come in and tell the congregation about the work they do.”

Threlkeld said the Herndon center had a community work day during which center workers wore shirts with the center’s logo and showed that they were giving back to the community. And Pacheco said it’s also important that the worker center be “open to all cultures and races and to women, as well as men.”

The next meeting of the CIF is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 25, at 7:30 p.m., at the Centreville Regional Library.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) Organizations “Come Out” Against ICE’s “Se Communities” Deportation Program

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October 11, 2011. SAN FRANCISCO, CA. Dozens of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) organizations across the country are adding their voices to the growing national movement to end ICE’s controversial fingerprint-sharing “Se Communities” (S-Comm) program. By forcing local law enforcement to share fingerprint data for every person arrested – no matter how valid or minor the charge – with federal immigration authorities, S-Comm has contributed to skyrocketing numbers of detentions and deportations.
Prompted by ICE’s unilateral move to make the highly debated program mandatory, national, regional, and local LGBTQ organizations—including the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) — felt compelled to mark National Coming Out Day by adding their voices to the national upsurge of opposition to S-Comm today.
“NCAVP is concerned by the impact of police/ICE collaboration on LGBTQ survivors of violence. It is not uncommon for LGBTQ survivors of violence to be arrested when they call police for help. NCAVP member programs know that many LGBTQ survivors do not access police for safety when they experience violence, and the Se Communities program may increase fear, barriers to safety, and risk of detention and deportation for LGBTQ immigrant communities,” said Chai Jindasurat, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) Coordinator at the New York City Anti-Violence Project. “In honor of this year’s National Coming Out Day, NCAVP calls for an end to a program that has severe consequences for LGBTQ people.”
In a statement released on National Coming Out Day, over sixty LGBTQ groups call on President Obama to take immediate action to eliminate this destructive program. California Assemblymember and longtime LGBTQ rights activist Tom Ammiano echoed this call: “Every day LGBTQ Californians are being unfairly deported leading to tragic consequences for communities both here and across the country. I am urging the Obama Administration to end the deception around S-Comm and suspend this damaging program.”
“The LGBTQ movement has often been an example of how to hold your head high with pride in the face of discrimination. As migrants, we’re inspired by National Coming Out Day and strengthened by this show of solidarity,” said Sarahi Uribe, Organizer of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
“We hear regular reports of LGBTQ people who find themselves in deportation proceedings after being profiled by their race, class, sexuality, and gender as they go about their daily lives or even as they navigate domestic violence,” said Morgan Bassichis of the San Francisco-based Community United Against Violence (CUAV), the country’s oldest LGBTQ anti-violence organization. “Rather than making anyone more ‘se’, S-Comm endangers all communities by tearing at the fabric of family and support networks and creating a culture of fear.”
The statement marks a historic confluence of movements for LGBTQ rights and migrant rights, and increased attention to migrant issues within LGBTQ communities. “On this National Coming Out Day, we recognize that LGBT immigrants need more than acceptance from family, schools, and neighbors to be “out”: they need to be free from profiling, detention, and deportation,” said Mónica Enriquez-Enriquez of Streetwise and Safe, an organization working with LGBTQ youth of color in New York City and signatory to the statement.
For background information on the Se Communities program, read “Restoring Community” at http://altopolimigra.com/s-comm-shadow-report/
Founded in 1979, Community United Against Violence (CUAV) works to build the power of LGBTQQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning) communities to transform violence and oppression. We support the and leadership of those impacted by abuse and mobilize our broader communities to replace cycles of trauma with cycles of safety and liberation. As part of the larger social justice movement, CUAV works to create truly safe communities where everyone can thrive.
National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) works to unify and strengthens is member organizations to be more strategic and effective in their efforts to develop leadership, mobilize, and organize day laborers in order to protect and expand their civil, labor and human rights.
Streetwise and Safe (SAS) is a New York City-based organization working to create opportunities for LGBTQQ youth of color who experience homelessness, policing, and criminalization to claim a seat at policy discussion tables as full participants, speak out on their own behalf, act collectively to protect and advance their rights, and demand choices that allow them to maximize their safety, self-sufficiency, and self-determination.
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Redondo Beach to ask U.S. Supreme Court to uphold day laborer law

Redondo Beach to ask U.S. Supreme Court to uphold day laborer law

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By Matt Stevens | October 6, try 2011 | 2:27pm | Source: L.A. Now Blog (LATimes)

 

Redondo Beach to ask U.S. Supreme Court to uphold day laborer law

Photo: Day laborers and supporters march on Redondo Beach City Hall. Credit: Brian van der Brug.

In what’s likely to be a final effort to salvage its controversial day laborer law, officials in Redondo Beach said they would urge the U.S. Supreme Court to review an appeals court ruling that declared the city’s anti-solicitation ordinance unconstitutional.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 9-2 last month to strike down the law, which has been on the books in Redondo Beach for about two decades.

Experts said the ruling could have consequences for dozens of other cities that have adopted anti-solicitation laws, which are often used to control day laborers who gather on public streets and sidewalks while seeking work.

City officials have maintained that the ordinance was meant to promote traffic safety, but it sparked controversy in 2004 when police arrested more than 60 laborers in a monthlong operation dubbed the Day Labor Enforcement Project.

Though the appeals court was decisive in its ruling, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski issued a sharply worded dissenting opinion, arguing that “when large groups of men gather at a single location, they litter, vandalize, urinate, block the sidewalk, harass females and damage property.

“The majority is demonstrably, egregiously, recklessly wrong,” he continued. “If I could dissent twice, I would.”

City Atty. Mike Webb said Redondo Beach modeled its law after a nearly identical Phoenix ordinance that the 9th Circuit upheld in 1986.

“If cities can’t do that then there’s no way for cities to be able to responsibly protect public safety and welfare,” Webb said.

But Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, one of the plaintiffs in the case, called the appeal a “scam of taxpayers’ money.”

“This is a violation of human and civil rights,” he said. “I thought this was going to be a time for dialogue, for openness, for finding constructive solutions — not engaging in this type of back-and-forth anymore.”

Photo: Day laborers and supporters march on Redondo Beach City Hall. Credit: Brian van der Brug.

Day laborer center to host fundraiser

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By Scott Brinton, sbrinton@liherald.com

Coloki, Inc., a nonprofit group set up by Merokean Liz O’Shaughnessy to run the Freeport Work Hiring Trailer that aids impoverished day laborers, will host a benefit fundraiser at Mulcahy’s Pub and Concert Hall in Wantagh on Saturday, Nov. 19, from 5 to 9 p.m.

The evening will include an open bar, open buffet and live music?featuring Cat Parr & Friends.

Tickets are $50 each. Tax-deductible donations of $50 per ticket should be made out to Coloki Inc. and sent to Liz O’Shaughnessy, 27 Surrey Drive, Merrick, N.Y. 11566, or donations can be made safely via PayPal on Coloki’s website at colokiinc.com.

Tickets sold on the night of the event will be $60. For more, call Liz at (516) 996-9298.

The Freeport Work Hiring Trailer, which is made possible in part by a grant from the nonprofit, Port Washington-based Hagedorn Foundation, provides immigrant day laborers with a warm, dry, safe place to stay while they wait for landscapers and contractors to pick them up for jobs. A the same time, the trailer offers warm meals to dozens of day laborers who might otherwise go hungry, along with English language lessons.

Day Laborers Respond to Secretary Napolitano’s Immigration Speech

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Pablo Alvarado, Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, responded to Secretary Napolitano’s speech today at American University with the following statement:
“We are happy to hear Secretary Napolitano mention S-Comm and ‘termination’ in the same sentence. Despite the political spin and marketing campaign to defend a failed program, S-Comm has proven to be a disastrous policy for our nation and for our communities. It should be ended before it leads to the further Arizonification of the country.
Facts do matter, and the fact remains that New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts have all rejected S-Comm while Alabama, Arizona, and Georgia embrace it wholeheartedly. The program has undermined public safety, imperiled civil rights, and moved the immigration debate in the wrong direction. Rather than bring us closer to immigration reform with legalization for millions of Americans-in-Waiting, S-Comm has been used to defend the false premise that the country needs enforcement quotas to maintain unprecedented rates of deportation. This insidious premise is resulting in the criminalization of an entire generation of our society.
Secretary Napolitano is correct that ‘two opposites cannot simultaneously be true.’ The Administration cannot set its sights on deporting more hardworking individuals than President Eisenhower’s “Operation Wetback” and at the same time authentically claim it is advancing immigration reform. It cannot criminalize and legalize people at the same time. Deportation rates must decline, S-Comm must be ended, and in places like Maricopa County in Arizona, human rights must be vigorously defended and prioritized by the Administration.
We acknowledge the Administration inherited broken immigration laws and a poisonous political environment, but S-Comm has made matters worse. We will continue to work with a growing chorus of voices calling for its complete termination.”
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Update from NDLON member organization VOZ Workers Rights and Education Project in Fight against E-Verify: Representative Blumenauer Declares Opposition to E-Verify Bill

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Representative Blumenauer Declares Opposition to E-Verify Bill

Portland, sick OR: In recent days, our fight to build the opposition against HR 2885, the E-Verify bill, has gained momentum! In a letter to the VOZ team, US Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) expressed his shared opposition to the bill. Blumenauer’s notes the technical flaws of the bill, as well as its misdirected ideology. Blumenauer notes, “E-Verify is a flawed system that too often misidentifies otherwise eligible workers.” He continues to argue that “even a flawless E-Verify program only addresses one aspect of a complex issue… We should reform border policy to address terrorists and cartels- not families’ simply trying to improve their lives.” While Blumenauer’s letter is a great step in building opposition to the E-Verify bill, there is still much work to be done. We are hopeful that the rest of the Oregon delegation will follow Representative Blumenauer and declare their opposition to the bill. You can help in this process! Call your representatives, and spread the word about E-Verify.

See the full letter here: Blumenauer Response on HR 2885

Help fight against E-Verify,  call your representative NOW!

Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama v. Bentley

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This case challenges the constitutionality of Alabama’s extreme anti-immigrant law, HB 56. On September 28, 2011, in a disappointing decision that departed from decisions in similar cases across the country, the district judge upheld the vast majority of the law.  Plaintiffs have appealed that decision to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. 

The one bright spot in the otherwise disappointing district court decision was the finding that the anti-day labor provisions of HB 56 likely violate the First Amendment.  Those provisions were subsequently enjoined, and have not taken effect. NDLON is co-counsel in the case, along with the ACLU, MALDEF, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the National Immigration Law Center, and others.

Rights of Curbside Jobseekers Upheld

Rights of Curbside Jobseekers Upheld

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By Robert Longley, Source: About.com Guide September 28, 2011

Rights of Curbside Jobseekers Upheld Apparently implementing its own plan to create new jobs, the San Francisco-based U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled 9-2 that your right to stand by roads holding signs asking for jobs is protected by the First Amendment.

It all started in May 1987, when Redondo Beach, California adopted an ordinance making it illegal for persons standing on streets, highways, sidewalks or alleys from soliciting drivers and passengers of vehicles for employment, business or contributions. The ordinance also made it illegal for drivers to “stop, park or stand” their vehicle in order to hire or negotiate with the curbside jobseekers.

According to a memo from its city attorney, Redondo Beach created the anti-street solicitation ordinance in reaction to traffic congestion, hazards and other “difficulties” resulting from the gathering of large numbers of day laborers – many of them migrant workers – at major intersections seeking work or contributions from motorists.

In 2004, two groups representing day laborers, the Comite de Jornaleros de Redondo Beach (Comite) and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), filed a lawsuit challenging the ordinance’s constitutionality.

In defending its ordinance before the District Court of Central California, a Redondo Beach’s police officer testified that the day laborers had not only caused traffic hazards, but had committed “acts of vandalism, litter, [and] urinate near the businesses” in the areas near the affected intersections.

The District Court sided with the day labors groups, finding that Redondo Beach’s ordinance unconstitutionally restricted the day laborers’ and “other persons’” First Amendment rights of free speech.

Also See: Do Undocumented Persons Have Constitutional Rights?

Redondo Beach appealed the ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the District Court’s decision finding the ordinance unconstitutional.

In its 9-2 decision, the Court of Appeals stated that the ordinance failed to meet the “time, place, and manner of expression” First Amendment standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court. Under the “time, place, and manner of expression” standard, the government is allowed create regulations limiting speech only if those regulations address a specific “significant government interest” and provide for “ample alternative channels of communication.”

According to the Court of Appeals, the goal of the Redondo Beach ordinance – traffic control – could have been achieved by enforcing existing traffic laws and regulations without restricting freedom of speech.

“Because the Ordinance does not constitute a reasonable regulation of the time, place, or manner of speaking, it is facially unconstitutional,” wrote the Court of Appeals in its decision.

Latino Rights Group Cheers Ruling: The 9th District Court’s decision was praised by the Latino legal civil rights organization MALDEF as setting strong precedent on the rights of day laborers.

“Today’s en banc (full court) Ninth Circuit opinion resoundingly vindicates the First Amendment rights of day laborers throughout the western United States,” said Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel, who argued the case before the Court of Appeals. “The dozens of similar ordinances throughout the region that purport to prevent day laborers from speaking on sidewalks are now even more plainly violative of the Constitution.

Saenz called on cities with similar ordinances to repeal them immediately. “The longstanding principle that the right of free speech belongs to everyone has been significantly bolstered by this decision,” he said.

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