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DREAMs Come Out of the Shadows in Chicago

4 Apr 2011

This past, March 10th, young people, many whom would be eligible for the DREAM Act (if politicians would just get it passed already), came out of the shadows and declared their immigration status, without fear and without apologies.

The following is a video from the “Coming Out of the Shadows” rally in Chicago, organized by the Youth Justice League.

The film moved me to tears, and I was really appreciative of how it showed the diversity of the young people involved in the struggle for the DREAM Act.

If you want to support these youth or want to learn how to get involved. Visit the Youth Justice League online or email them at info@iyjl.org.

Secure Communities : New Numbers Show Same Old Problems

7:36 am By Maegan La Mala · Cities|Immigration|Secure Communities · 34 Comments

25 Mar 2011

Yesterday, a coalition of organizations, including the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Center for Constitutional Rights and the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, who have been pressing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be real and transparent as to how Secure Communities actually works, released some new numbers and analysis of those numbers. The specific focus of the analysis is ICE’s claim that Secure Communities (S-Comm) focuses on “dangerous criminal immigrants”. The new analysis shows that claim to be completely false.

“Nationally, 1 in 4 people deported under S-Comm haven’t been convicted of any crime. That ratio jumps to over 50% in Boston, certain areas of California, and in multiple examples across the country..” Explained Bridget Kessler of Benjamin Cardozo School of Law

25 percent overall non-criminal deportations and in an urban area like Boston as jump to over half shows that the focus of ICE and of immigration policy under Obama overall, is deport as many as you can so you can claim success in “the war against illegals“.

When questioned during a recent House Appropriations Committee Hearing on March 11th, Director of ICE John Morton admitted,, “we do in fact remove non-criminals through Secure Communities.”

In other words it’s a shell game with words and lives. You can take a peek at some of the numbers below and they are disturbing, especially when looking at larger urban areas with large Latino immigrant populations. With the focus on rapid expansion of Secure Communities, it becomes clear whose security is being prioritized and it is not that of the families whose lives are torn apart.
Read more…

A Few Quick Updates and Announcements

11 Mar 2011

Started this morning with the frightening images of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Our prayers go out to all impacted.

Posting has been light this week, as mami’hood has been heavy as has been work on projects for events to come. I am ever appreciative of the support from VivirLatino readers.

In case you are interested, here is what Mala has been cooking up in her head, heart and soul :
I am thrilled and excited as can be to be participating in el Museo del Barrio’s Super Sabado FREE day, March 19th, on Art & Activism. I am the official storyteller for the day, leading two interactive storytelling segments, one at noon and another at 2, called COLORIN COLORADO in el Museo’s cafe. I promise this will be more than fairy tales and yes bring your children! This activity will be trilingual : English, Spanish, Spanglish.
Read more…

Save the Date: CLPP’s 30th Anniversary Conference April 8-10

12:09 pm By Maegan La Mala · Amherst|CLPP|Women · 2 Comments

11 Feb 2011

Yours truly, Mala, will be co-facilitating a workshop with two inspirational mujeres, T.K. of the New Mythos Project and Rachel Caballero, a Community Caregiver de Tejas on self-care and healing as an act of resistance against colonialism at the CLPP Conference April 8-10th in Amherst.

One of the things I will be sharing is how redefining media and using media to speak truth can be a healing and developmental process for M/Others, Mamis and Community Caregivers of Color.

I hope that those who can come out. I have never been to this conference so I don’t know how the space is like and that always makes me nervous and defensive. I will be blogging & tweeting as the network there makes possible.

You can find out more and register here.

Day of Action for DREAM Act

10:30 am By Maegan La Mala · chicago|DREAM Act|Immigration|youth · 12 Comments

7 Dec 2010

As expected, yesterday Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed cloture on the DREAM Act, moving things along for a vote tomorrow.

Today across the country there are actions in support of the DREAM Act. In Chicago, today’s action focuses on the psychological impact that being undocumented often has on young people following the suicide of a young DREAMer.

A DREAM DEFERRED A LIFE DENIED
Undocumented youth talk about suicide, mental health and the DREAM Act, in memory of those who took their lives because their dreams and futures were denied.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010
12:00 PM, Federal Plaza

From Reyna Wences, Immigrant Youth Justice League

“I graduated in June of 2009, a day after my graduation I attempted suicide because I was tired, because I did not want to tell my mom we’d have to pay for my education out of our own pocket. And when schools gave me scholarships I didn’t want to put her through the pain of telling me that we still couldn’t afford it. That’s when a funeral started to look less expensive than 4-years of education at the school of my choice. I’ve decided to come out about this because every day that passes by without addressing this is another day another student is probably thinking the same and I don’t want that anymore.

“I know that for the past months we’ve worked under an unpredictable legislative schedule and it has come down to this: a vote in the House and Senate as early as next week. I know that this is something that some of us have experienced, or thought about, and I can only imagine how many other undocumented people there are just like us, who need hope and inspiration. And others need to realize that this is what fighting for DREAM is about, fighting for our lives.”

Reyna Wences,
Immigrant Youth Justice League

If you are undocumented and someone who has thought about, or attempted suicide, or even if you know of someone who has, will you work with us to write and tell your story? Please contact iyjleague@gmail.com.

ICE Raid in Nashville Shows U.S.’s Immigration Agenda

6:40 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Nashville · 3 Comments

30 Oct 2010

While the Tea Party and the candidates they support constantly twist the U.S. Constitution to fit their agenda, the current administration seems to have it’s own constitutional issues especially with how it treats those suspected of being undocumented.

On October 20th Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted a raid at The Clairmont, a South Nashville, Tennessee apartment complex. As is the usual line, the raid was supposed to target the “dangerous” or “bad” undocumented, in this case alleged “gang” members from MS-13 and SUR-13.

From the Tennessean:

“In this case, ICE’s Fugitive Operations Team was assisting local law enforcement with field interviews of suspected street gang members and targeted ICE fugitives,” said ICE spokesman Temple Black from the New Orleans field office.

Except residents and advocates have a different perspective.
Read more…

Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Jail

6:38 am By Maegan La Mala · arizona|Phoenix · 4 Comments

14 Oct 2010

Maricopa Country Sheriff Joe Arpaio (yup he’s still around) was trying to not fix the inhumane conditions inside the jails within his jurisdiction as ordered by a lower court’s ruling. The court ruled that jails in Maricopa County do not meet constitutional minimums when it comes to food quality and housing conditions for inmates on psychotropic drugs. Yesterday, The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s appeal of the 2008 U.S. District Court Judge Neil V. Wake’s decision.

Now Arpaio must end severe overcrowding and ensure all detainees receive necessary medical and mental health care, be given uninterrupted access to all medications prescribed by correctional medical staff, be given access to exercise and to sinks, toilets, toilet paper and soap and be served food that meets or exceeds the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s dietary guidelines. Basically, the judge ordered that yes Sheriff Joe, the incarcerated are humans and need to be treated as such.

The ACLU proved at the 2008 trial that the sheriff routinely abused pre-trial detainees at Maricopa County Jail by feeding them moldy bread, rotten fruit and other contaminated food, housing them in cells so hot as to endanger their health, denying them care for serious medical and mental health needs and keeping them packed as tightly as sardines in holding cells for days at a time during intake.

Via / AZ Central and the ACLU

Image Via / SPLC

Seattle Police Videotaped Beat Down Not a Crime

1:26 pm By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Justice|Seattle|Violence · 2 Comments

7 Sep 2010

Remember this incident caught on video…..

Apparently in Seattle, two officers beating an unarmed man and calling him “a Mexican”, and not as an identifier but rather as a slur, is not a hate crime.

From Colorlines:

King County prosecuting attorney Dan Satterberg wrote in his decision:

Cobane will not be charged with the felony crime of malicious harassment because prosecutors have found that he did not intentionally target or assault a person because of their race or national origin, as required under the State’s hate crime statute.

Satterberg explained that in order to charge Cobane with a hate crime, the 15-year Seattle Police Department veteran would have had to “maliciously and intentionally target[ed] Mr. Monetti due to his ethnicity.” Cobane merely “lawfully detained Mr. Monetti and the other two men because they had a reasonable belief that the men were involved in two armed robberies.” The prosecutor acknowledged that Cobane detained Monetti and his companions because they fit a description of Latino males who had been involved in a robbery nearby.

Satterberg also defended Cobane’s verbal and physical abuse. Cobane’s actions toward Monetti were not racially motivated, the prosecutor wrote, because he did not also beat up the two Latino men Monetti was with. The prosecutor also wrote that police have the right to use physical force “beyond what an ordinary citizen would be allowed to use so long as the force is reasonable in the performance of their duties.”

Community and Organizations Join to Stop Deportation of Maine Student

1:58 pm By Maegan La Mala · DREAM Act|Immigration|Maine|Portland · 3 Comments

1 Sep 2010

Earlier this month, as part of the DREAM Now Letters to Barack Obama series, we introduced you to Selvin Ovidio Arevalo, a Guatemalan student living in Maine who is facing immediate deportation.

There has been much talk by the right wing and some Republicans about returning to the “good ole American values rooted in Christianity”. While one could argue about what the values of this country really are and their history, what cannot be argued is that often the rhetoric against immigrants by those same people is anything but merciful. Selvin is a young man of faith and I wonder how many within the faith community, across party lines would step up for a young man like Selvin.
Read more…

Ivan Nikolov Released from Jail but Still Faces Deportation

8:00 am By Maegan La Mala · Detriot|DREAM Act|Immigration · Comments Off

24 Aug 2010

VivirLatino has been actively supporting the DREAM Act students and have been publicizing many of their stories here. Recently, we asked for your support for Ivan Nikolov, who was transported to the local jail in Dearborn, Michigan last Friday. Dearborn is often the last stop for many undocumented immigrants before being deported. It was the last stop for Ivan’s mother, who was deported two weeks ago. It was feared that he too was going to be deported immediately. Instead, yesterday, Ivan was released.

Ivan’s struggle is not over. He is currently under electronic monitoring and still has a deportation order pending. Ivan’s struggle is just example of countless struggles, not just of students and young people, but millions of undocumented living in fear not just because there is no comprehensive immigration reform, no DREAM Act, but because the federal government has swung to the side of detaining and deporting first…all else later, if ever.

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