New Orleans City Council Backs Immigrants in Latest Blow to Sheriff’s Deportation Practices

City Council Set to be first city in the South to Vote on Resolution On Civil Immigration Detainers

Immigrant workers and families will come closer to winning the Right to Remain in New Orleans today as City Council is set to vote on a resolution condemning Sherriff Marlin Gusman’s racial profiling-based deportation policy. Over the last two years the Sheriff has faced mounting pressure through civil rights lawsuits and public outcry to stop submitting to voluntary civil immigration holds also known as immigration detainers.

.Council members James Gray, LaToya Cantrell, and Susan Guidry will introduce a resolution limiting Sherriff Marlin Gusman’s practice of submitting to voluntary requests of federal immigration officials to detain individuals in Orleans Parish Prison. Immigrant workers who have survived the Sherriff’s policy will testify on the disastrous impacts on families; and advocates will testify on the impacts on city budget (the federal government does not reimburse jail costs) and constitutional integrity.

WHO: Council members Gray, Cantrell, and Guidry will introduce resolution. Immigrant workers and families, New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, Congress of Day Laborers, and advocates for criminal justice reform will testify.
WHERE: City Council Chambers, 1300 Perdido St., New Orleans
WHEN: 10 AM, Thursday, May 15, 2013
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Families Facing Deportation Confront Southern ICE Office, Ask Supporters to Make Calls

We Don’t Want to Be Deported Before the Path to Citizenship Opens

04.22.2013 – New Orleans, LA
This morning, five families who are facing deportation entered the Southern regional field office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to demand that the office’s public advocate, Bryan Acuna, fulfill his duties by taking on their cases to stop their removals and cease the violent raids and targeting of low-priority cases that are rampant across the region.