NDLON in the News

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Barrio Defense: How Arizona’s Immigrants are Standing Up to SB 1070

Shortly after the 2010 passage ofSB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration bill, 20,000 people gathered in Phoenix for a May Day march to protest the new law. Instead of ending with speakers or a formal program, as political marches often do, organizers broke the crowd into small groups and asked them two questions:

How will the new law impact you and your neighbors? What can you do about it?

And with that, a new phase of the migrant rights movement, based on an age-old model of community organizing, was born.

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Jun222012

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California’s TRUST Act: Countering Arizona

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 New York Times Editorial: June 21, 2012.

A bill moving through the California Legislature, aptly named the Trust Act, seeks to counter the damage done to community policing and public safety by the Obama administration’s Se Communities program. The program conducts mandatory immigration checks of everyone booked into local jails and has led to the deportations of many thousands of people with no criminal records, while impeding law enforcement.

Once the program identifies immigration violators, federal officials can issue “detainers,” or requests that people be held so they can be picked up for deportation. Local departments usually comply, even though police officials complain that doing so clogs their cells with traffic violators and other very minor offenders, including — because of database foul-ups — wrongfully detained citizens and legal residents.

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SB1070: Pushing the Gears of History Forward

 

clinic Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left;”>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.

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Defending Arizona in a SB 1070 Nation: What Side Are You On? – Jeff Biggers

With defiant Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer growing moreemboldened as the Supreme Court readies to unveil its ruling on the state’s SB 1070 “papers, please” immigration law, Arizona human rights group Puenteand their national allies are bolstering their “Barrio Defense Committees,” as “neighbors link with neighbors to learn their rights and make collective plans to defend themselves.”

They are also asking their fellow Arizona neighbors and politicians to take a stand.

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Community members rally against 287(g) – The Tennessean

More than 100 people marched up Seventh Avenue Thursday, their voices booming, as they chanted in English and Spanish, “What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now.” They walked from the Downtown Presbyterian Church to the Tennessee Supreme Court building to demonstrate their outrage against Metro’s participation in the 287(g) program – the federal immigration enforcement program that allows law enforcement to determine the immigration status of jail inmates and turn them over for federal deportation proceedings. The march occurred just hours before the Tennessee Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office’s authority to participate in the federal program. Protesters argue the Metro charter gives policing authority to the Metro Police Department, not the sheriff’s department. Speakers at the rally included leaders of state and national immigrant advocacy groups and legal representatives. They condemned 287(g) for the fear…

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Rally Takes 287(g) to TN Supreme Court

Tennessee Supreme Court Justices are deciding whether the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office’s contract with the federal government to enforce immigration law is legal. As Fox 17’s Erika Kurre shows us, those fighting against it say they 287G contract is not only illegal, it’s inhumane. Click for video

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