NDLON in the News

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May42009

THE 2ND ANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL COMMUNITY CELEBRATION TO HONOR THE LIFE OF DAY LABORER LEADER FERNANDO PEDRAZA

THE 2ND ANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL COMMUNITY CELEBRATION TO HONOR THE LIFE OF DAY LABORER LEADER FERNANDO PEDRAZA

THE 2ND ANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL COMMUNITY CELEBRATION TO HONOR THE LIFE OF DAY LABORER LEADER FERNANDO PEDRAZA

STUDENTS, treat DAY LABORERS AND COMMUNITY ALLIES HOLD THE 2NDANNIVERSARY MEMORIAL COMMUNITY CELEBRATION TO HONOR THE LIFE OF DAY LABORER LEADER FERNANDO PEDRAZA

Contact

Eddie Gonzalez (PEOC): (323) 422-8107

Suzanne Foster (PEOC): (310) 486-8499

Event Info

Date:          Tuesday, May 5, there 2009

Time:         10:00 AM Press Conference Begins, Memorial Ends at 12:00 PM

What:         Press Conference and Memorial Service to celebrate the memory of

day laborer leader Fernando Pedraza

Where:       Corner of Arrow Highway and Grove Ave in Rancho Cucamonga , CA 

Who:          Pedraza Day Laborers Coalition, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, the Claremont Colleges, Pomona Economic Opportunity Center (PEOC), National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), San Bernardino Community Service Center, Inc, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) 

( Rancho Cucamonga , CA ) – On Monday May 5th, at 10 AM at the corner of Arrow Highway and Grove Avenue in Rancho Cucamonga , day laborers and their allies celebrate the second anniversary memorial of day laborer organizer Fernando Pedraza by coming together to demonstrate community support for workers’ rights and dignity to the Rancho Cucamonga City Council.

“We are here to celebrate the life of Fernando. We will not let his memory die,” said Roberto Corona, Pastoral Associate of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church. “Fernando Pedraza’s body may not be here, but his ideals and dreams continue in each one of the thousands of men and women gathering on corners across our nation.”

The press conference and memorial service coincide with the day that Fernando Pedraza died two years ago. On Cinco de Mayo, 2007, an unplanned demonstration by the Minutemen against day laborers on the corner of Arrow Highway and Grove Avenue in Rancho Cucamonga ended with the death of day laborer leader Jose Fernando Pedraza. With the realization that there be dignity and respect for the day laborer community, Pedraza stood by his fellow day laborers across from the group of vigilantes who screamed racial attacks against the workers.  Fifty-seven year old Pedraza was hit and killed by a tragic car accident as he defended his fellow workers at the corner where he waited on a daily basis for work.

Pedraza, a Mexican immigrant and a father of five daughters and grandfather of seven, was killed at 1 p.m. on May 5, 2007, when an SUV, after hitting a car in the intersection, rolled onto the sidewalk where day laborers were gathered.  The day laborers were only there at that time on that day because of the Minutemen protest against their right to look for work.

“Honoring the Memory of Jose Pedraza reminds us to remember the struggle against injustices of the day laborer community in Rancho Cucamonga and to continue to empower each other to stand up for their rights,” said Eddie Gonzalez, Rancho Cucamonga organizer for the PEOC and Pedraza Day Laborer Coalition member. 

 

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Lou Dobbs Battles Al Sharpton and ACORN’s Bertha Lewis, Gets His Lunch Eaten

By Stephen Lemon
Phoenix New Times
Wednesday, Apr. 8 2009

Click here to view the embedded video.

I don’t know what CNN’s resident nativist Lou Dobbs thought he was doing when he invited the Rev. Al Sharpton and ACORN’s Bertha Lewis on his program yesterday. But suffice it to say that the bottle-blond senior citizen got owned on his own show by Lewis and Sharpton, help who were there to attack Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his racial profiling shenanigans under the federal 287(g) program.

The verbal bitch-slapping began from jump, with Lewis doing the slapping, and Dobbs being the, well, you know. Check this exerpt from the show’s transcript:

DOBBS: Let’s start. This is unusual and this investigation started with a call, Bertha, for an investigation by four Democratic senators — excuse me — Congressmen which looks on its face to be politicization of the U.S. Justice Department.

BERTHA LEWIS, CEO, ACORN: It didn’t start there. It started two years ago. Sheriff Arpaio has been doing his reign of terror for a very long time.

DOBBS: Did you just say reign of terror?

LEWIS: Absolutely, I mean that.

DOBBS: Ok.

LEWIS: It’s been arresting people simply because of the color of their skin, or their language. You can’t tell whether someone is legal or illegal, you know. And he’s using 287-G so the outcry that had come up from citizens across Maricopa County forced these Democrats to at least take some action and the Department of Justice has him under investigation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It continued on from there with Lewis and Sharpton ceding zero ground to Dobbs on the subject. I loved the part where Dobbs spat the blarney that ACORN is under investigation in 13 states.

DOBBS: Have you met [Arpaio]?

LEWIS: I’ve met him by his work. Our members in Arizona have been arrested time and time again; African-Americans who have been here for a long time.

DOBBS: What do you suppose would be said about ACORN, you’re being investigated in 13 states, for crying out loud.

LEWIS: Oh, I’m glad you brought that up. That’s not true. Check the facts. It’s not true. You can get on the phone right now, call the Department of Justice.

DOBBS: I didn’t say anything about the Justice Department.

LEWIS: ACORN is not being investigated anywhere in any state. You don’t have your facts correct. If you’re talking about people being prosecuted individuals, we are assisting in their prosecution so ACORN is not under investigation and has not been.

We asked the Justice Department in October, they confirmed it again and again, and you know what? Give them a call.

DOBBS: We will. We’ll do it. And I certainly will and I assure you it will be early tomorrow morning. How’s that?

LEWIS: That’s good.

Sharpton was excellent as well, but a bit muted by comparison with Lewis. Still, I’d like to see either Lewis or Sharpton on the same show as Arpaio. The old man wouldn’t know what hit him.

Dennis Gilman’s posted the Televised donnybrook on YouTube, with his own running commentary on Dobbs’ various inaccuracies. (Keep your eyes on the scrolling headlines below the talking heads.) It’s must-viewing for all Arpaio-watchers, con and pro.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2009/04/lou_dobbs_takes_on_al_sharpton.php

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Arpaio and Civil Rights Abuses Hearing//TUNE IN TOMORROW

April 1st, ask 2009
National Day Laborer Organizing Network

The momentum against Sheriff Arpaio and the entire 287(g) program keeps building. Only a few weeks after announcing joint hearings in the Judiciary Committee to investigate Arpaio and other civil rights abuses under the program, Conyers is following through on his word and holding the hearings tomorrow. We would like to urge you to watch as victims of racial profiling, Arizona, Mesa Police Chief Gascon, and experts on racial profiling tear the cloak off the Bush’s failed “immigration enforcement” and expose it for what it is: a civil and human rights crisis. Thanks for all your hard work in helping make this hearing happen.

Please keep an eye out for our action alert after the hearing. We’ll need your help writing to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and the Obama administration to immediately terminate Sheriff Arpaio’s 287(g) contract. Si se puede! Yes we can!

Please tune in Thursday April 2nd at 10am EST: http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/calendar.html

Abril 1, 2009
Red Nacional De Jornaler@s

La presion contra Sheriff Arpaio y todo el programa de 287(g) sigue creciendo. Hace solo unas pocas semanas el Congressista Conyers anuncio audencias en el Committee Judicial. Manana estas audencias seran una realidad. Nos gustaria invitarlos a ver la audencia a travez del internet. Alli veran victimas del perfil racial, el jefe de la policia de Mesa, Arizona, y expertos de perfil racial demascarar las policias de immigracion de Bush por lo que verdaderamente son: una crisis de derechos civiles y humanos. Gracias por todo sus esfuerzos en hacer esta audencia una realidad. Por favor esten al tanto del aviso de accion que mandaremos despues de la audencia el jueves. Necesitamos la ayuda de todos para mandarle una carta a Janet Napolitano, la directora de Homeland Security, y la administracion de Obama para inmediatamente romper el contrato de 287(g) de Sheriff Arpaio. Si se puede! Yes we can!

Pueden ver la audencia jueves abril 2 a las 10am EST: http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/calendar.html

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The People’s Sheriff

PBS NOW
March 27 2009

Is a hard-line sheriff crossing the line when it comes to immigration enforcement?

One of the most controversial figures in the illegal immigration debate is Joe Arpaio, the longtime sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County, whose aggressive hard line on local crime has received national attention.

But has Sheriff Arpaio, who’s made the most of federally-granted authority to enforce immigration laws, crossed the line when it comes to serving and protecting his community? Some critics have accused him of racial profiling.

This week, our colleagues at “Exposé” and local reporters from the East Valley Tribune reveal what Sheriff Arpaio was—and wasn’t—doing in the name of law enforcement.

In a special bonus interview, NOW Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa sits down with Joe Arpaio for an intense discussion about the issues and criticism swirling around him. Watch that interview below with Sheriff Arpaio.

Please follow this link and comment about Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s policies against the immigrant communities in Phoenix, Arizona.
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/513/index.html

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Notes From the Immigration Battlefield

By LAWRENCE DOWNES
NY Times 
Published: March 18, case 2009

Here’s a thought. What if illegal immigrants really aren’t America’s worst nightmare? A lot of energy has been spent insisting that they are, but are they really as dangerous as, say, zombie banks? Or as evil as retention bonuses?

In truth, our biggest domestic menace never was waiting outside Home Depot, hoping to clean your basement. Unauthorized immigrants are not about to destroy anything, not even when they get angry and loud and march in large groups. On the contrary, they are inspiring. Their ethic of self-reliance and hard work is one that Americans should recognize and celebrate.

Exhibit A: Riverside, Calif., where I went recently to watch immigrant advocates march against the Border Patrol.

Riverside is 100 miles from Mexico, but the Border Patrol has an office there. Its agents have accused supervisors of imposing arrest quotas — 150 illegals a month — that forced them to swoop into day-labor corners and bus stops to keep their numbers up.

The marchers wanted to make the point that arresting people in bulk because they look Hispanic is grossly unconstitutional. They wanted to denounce the raids as a cruel misuse of crime-fighting resources — fishing for minnows instead of sharky predators.

The day of the march dawned wet, cold and calm. The crowd at City Hall grew to about 300, then set off for the Border Patrol office, three miles away. They looked like any Americans, though maybe more cheerful. They chanted and sang and got soaked. The ink on their signs bled. They looked like poor people marching for a better life, the kind we root for in movies like “The Grapes of Wrath.”

Drivers gave friendly honks, but not everyone was nice. A guy on a townhouse balcony silently held up a Confederate flag as the Latinos marched by. When he saw my camera, he became a frightened little man. He whipped the flag behind his back, as if it were a dirty magazine.

At the march’s end, a band of Minutemen with American flags and bullhorns was waiting across the road. “We support the Border Patrol!” they yelled over four lanes of blacktop. “Viva la Migra!”

I had thought these outnumbered soldiers might be tense. But I saw no fear, only loathing. It was a party! I met a smiling man named Jim. “What’s your heritage?” he asked. As immigrant sons, we talked about what a great country it was.

I asked him why we couldn’t all just get along. He said because these aliens were not the good Ellis Island kind. They were soaking California for billions in social-service tax dollars while hatching evil schemes. “Reconquistas,” he called them, citing a Mexican plot to seize the U.S.A. through mass migration. It’s fictional, but Jim believed it.

He gave me his card.

Jim Gilchrist!

Mr. Gilchrist founded the Minutemen. I asked for a picture. He pointed to a tree and suggested posing there.

“With a noose hanging from it?” he said.

“Pardon me?”

“With a noose hanging from it?”

I asked him to repeat it again. He said he was joking. I tried to make the words fit together as humor, but couldn’t.

I went to the Latino side, where the singing was better. The speeches were interrupted when shoving broke out on the Minuteman side. Uh-oh.

I ran over and got Mr. Gilchrist out of a huddle. He told me one of his troops had been spit on by a reconquista. He was keeping everybody calm while the victim, a frail-looking woman, got ready to press charges.

A police officer was taking statements. A lawyer for the marchers, a skinny white guy, put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Did he really spit on you?” he asked.

“No,” she said, “but he could have.”

It was a Perry Mason moment. But it was more. It was the Minuteman worldview wrapped up in one sad little psychodrama: The alien threat, so scary, yet so imaginary. The officer took note.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/opinion/19thu4.html?_r=1&ref=opinion 

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