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DREAM Activists Held by ICE after Sit-In in McCain’s Arizona Office Released

6:40 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|arizona|Education|Immigration · 4 Comments

20 May 2010

A little bit of good news coming out of Arizona, the three undocumented DREAM activists, arrested and subsequently detained by I.C.E following a sit-in in Senator John McCain’s Arizona office have been released. Mohammad Abdollahi of Michigan, Yahaira Carrillo of Kansas, and Lizbeth Mateo of California were issued a field released supervision by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). They are facing federal charges of trespassing as well as deportation.

From Change.org:

“We are relieved to be released from ICE, however our hearts go out to all of the DREAM beneficiaries we met while we were being detained, all of whom would likely be deported because they do not have the same support that we do. We ask that leaders within both the Senate and our communities take the same stand we did and push for the DREAM Act to become a reality this year,” said Mohammad.

Upon release, Yahaira stated “We decided to own our power and make our voices heard. While we are glad to be out, remember that this action was not and is not about us as individuals. It is imperative for all to continue to push the DREAM Act, to work like we’ve never worked before and make this a reality this summer. We’ve surpassed the days of sitting idly by while others make decisions for us, while others tell us to wait. We cannot wait. Waiting is no longer a option. The DREAM Act must pass and it must pass now.”

I.C.E. Taking a Page from Late 90′s Policing

6:15 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|Immigration|Justice|Obama · 2 Comments

6 Apr 2010

My inbox is flooded with conversations regarding the latest “revelation” about ICE policies and really color me not surprised.

A report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) revealed the presence of quotas for identifying, arresting, and deporting the non-criminal undocumented.

You’ll remember that 287(g) which started under Bush and was expanded under Obama, essentially deputizes local police departments to act as immigration agents. From jump, this opened the door to racial profiling and violating the civil and human rights of all immigrants and of all Latinos really since the face of undocumented immigration is painted as brown and having a z at the end of your last name.

The fact that ICE is using the police to criminalize all immigrants was something using 287(g) was something that activists and “difficult” bloggers, like myself raised from the beginning (VivirLatino is one of hundreds of signers on a letter calling for an end to 287(g) sent last August) and many advocacy orgs purposely didn’t touch the issue with a 30 foot pole so as not to upset the delicate status quo or “coalition” of Comprehensive Immigration Reform work.

Back then and now, this whole public airing of what our communities have been living with, reminds me of the late 1990′s in terms of policing urban communities of color across the country. Broken windows didn’t work then, it’s not gonna work now.

Worksite raid today in Annapolis

4:42 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration · Comments Off

4 Feb 2010

Via Casa de Maryland:

WHAT: Protest Outside Baltimore Federal Building to Demand Constitutional Rights

WHEN: Thursday, February 4, 2010; 3:45 pm

WHERE: Federal Building, 31 Hopkins Plaza, Baltimore, MD 21201-2825

(Baltimore, MD) – Federal officials raided an Anne Arundel County restaurant today and have brought the restaurant workers to processing. Despite their internal policies, they have refused advocates requests to interview the workers prior to processing. People will protest outside ICE this afternoon to demand that the federal government comply with the law and allow the detainees to speak with attorneys.

Obviously this is an ongoing development. More information as it becomes available.

Update at 5:27 pm EST: According to sources on the ground, 7 people are being detained. All are from Honduras and one is a minor.

RESTAURANT RAIDED BY IMMIGRATION: DOZENS GATHER OUTSIDE FEDERAL BUILDING TO DEMAND THAT DETAINEES BE ALLOWED TO SPEAK WITH ATTORNEYS

Is the Immigration Reform Change We Were Told to Believe in Hidden in the Numbers?

7:52 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration · 8 Comments

4 Feb 2010

If it really is all about the economy (stupid) when it comes to legislative priorities, to get a sense of where Comprehensive Immigration Reform falls on that list we should look at the The Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security.

The two immigration-enforcement components of DHS—Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—consume 30% of the department’s total budget, while the immigration-services component, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, is allotted a mere 5%.

Hmm doesn’t seem like DHS is prepping itself for a pathway to citizenship.

It is notable that there are significant increases in the budget for Asylum and Refugee Services/Military Naturalizations and Immigrant Integration and Citizenship. However, given how DHS has treated many Asylum seekers (by putting them in detention), it would be nice to know a little more specifically where this money is going. And Immigrant integration? Can I assume that means English classes?

Via / Immigration Impact : A Project of the Immigrant Policy Center

Immigrant Detention in the U.S.

1:50 pm By la Macha · Immigration|Media · Comments Off

14 Jan 2010

I’m sorry for linking so many times to Democracy Now! in just one day–but this section is incredibly important as well. It centers on the state of immigrant detention and how deaths of people in detention are being covered up and otherwise handled very poorly (aka without morals or any sense of humanity).

The Obama administration has promised to overhaul immigration detention. But a scathing report in the New York Times last weekend reveals that federal officials used their role as overseers to prevent media from reporting deaths and abuses inside the nation’s immigration prisons. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, now admits 107 immigrants died in ICE custody since October 2003, but for years the deaths went uncounted in the public record.

CLERGY AND GRAMMY-AWARD WINNING ARTIST RALLY TO FREE JEAN Supporters Demand Release of Detained Immigrant Rights Leader on Hunger Strike

9:56 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration|New York City · 1 Comment

5 Jan 2010

I know it’s cold outside people, pero if you are in the NYC area and are able to, please represent.

WHAT: On December 30th, ICE detained for deportation to Haiti Jean Montrevil, a green card-holding immigrant since 1986, father of four U.S. citizen children and renowned immigrant rights activist. Two days later, Montrevil, now held in Pennsylvania’s York County Prison, has begun a hunger fast to protest the deportation and detention system that tears families apart. At the rally, Montrevil’s children will demand from ICE that their father be released and clergy will join youth in vows of fasting and other forms of resistance until the government releases Montrevil and the immigration system is reformed.

WHO: Janiah Montrevil, Jean Montrevil’s 11-year-old daughter
Janay Montrevil, Jean Montrevil’s wife
Additional children of immigrants facing deportation or already deported
Rev. Robert B. Coleman, Chief Program Minister at The Riverside Church
Dan Zanes , Grammy Award winning Family Music Artist
Over 100 community supporters

WHEN: Tuesday, January 5th, at 12:30pm

WHERE: Varick Street Detention Center
201 Varick Street (at Houston Street)
New York NY 10014

Update on Nashville Family that Lost Children to State after Surviving Violent Attack

2:51 pm By Maegan la Mamita Mala · children|Family|Immigration|Nashville|Women · 1 Comment

7 Oct 2009

It reads like a bad novela if it weren’t the real nightmare that so many families are living in the United States. First, Maria Gurrola is violently attacked and her newborn, Yair Anthony Carillo, is abducted by a woman claiming to be an ICE agent. Then, once reunited with her baby, Maria lost Yair and her other three children, this time to State authorities who cited vague “safety issues”.

Yesterday, the petition to remove the children from the home was withdrawn and Gurrola has been reunited with all of her children.

Tuesday’s hearing was planned at Juvenile Court to discuss allegations that the family may have known of a plot to sell the baby for $25,000. Court documents did not detail who made the allegations.

Metro police spokesman Don Aaron released a press release saying that Metro police agree that the children should be returned to the parents after extensive interviews by Metro, TBI and the FBI over the last day. All the agencies are in agreement, he said.

“At this time, (authorities) do not believe the parents, Maria Gurrola and Jose Carrillo, are involved,” Aaron said. “Significant unanswered questions remain, however, including why Gurrola and her newborn son were chosen by alleged kidnapper, Tammy Renee Silas. Statements made to law enforcement by Silas are part of the continuing investigation.”

Now if only all the babies can be reunited with their mothers, like Cirila and Angeline.

Via / USA Today

Fake ICE Agent Kidnaps Infant, “Misrepresenting how the Government Works or Behaves in this Country”

3 Oct 2009

ALeqM5jmKc6IsGwelpJZpUA6AiJRxvKq2g Four day old Yair Anthony Carrillo and his mother, Maria Gurrolla of Nashville, Tennessee were doubly victimized by the fear that is the current immigration system in the United States on Tuesday, when the infant was kidnapped by a woman claiming to be an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.

The fake official slashed Gurrolla after she initially refused to hand over the child though in the end Carillo was taken away from her.

As if having your newborn child violently taken from your arms weren’t traumatic enough, enter Yuri Cunza, president of Nashville Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and publisher of La Noticia, a Spanish language newspaper in Nashville who instead of connecting the long history of how immigration enforcement separates parents from their children, from Elvira Arellano to Cirila Baltazar Cruz, asks Latino immigrants communities to trust law enforcement and other state agencies who act as de facto ICE agents.

“I am really concerned about the possibility of newborn babies and Hispanic women can be targeted because of a level of vulnerability,” Cunza said…

Cunza said that the suspect posing as an immigration officer will create a chilling effect for Hispanics who regularly interact with immigration authorities. “It is misrepresenting how the government works or behaves in this country,” he said.

From Postville to Patchogue, the cries of immigrant mothers and children tell what is just another day on the job for those who continue to terrorize Latino immigrant communities and the carriers of hate who spread their racist gospel via the mainstream media. It is why children at a young age learn to stay close to their mothers in immigrant communities and maintain a low gaze in the presence of law enforcement. It doesn’t even matter if the ICE badge is real or not, just ask el espiritu de Brisenia Flores and her father. Yair Anthony Carrillo, with four days on this earth, is learning how to live in fear when he should be in his mother’s loving care and Latina motherhood is criminalized and victimized.

Updated: Late last night, after I wrote this post, Yair was found safe.

Via/ The Latin Americanist, Standing Firm, The Unapologetic Mexican

No Room at the Inn for Detained Immigrant Families

7:53 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · children|Family|Immigration · Comments Off

10 Aug 2009

Article_6326405 Seems like there are problems with the closing of T. Don Hutto as an immigrant family detention center. Under the announced restructuring of oversight of immigrant detention centers, the controversial Hutto center will no longer be used for families with children and will only be used to house women immigrants. Families were to be transferred to another immigrant detention center, Berks Family Shelter Care Facility in Leesburg, Pennsylvania. Except no one checked with Berks, which apparently has no room for more immigrant families.

County Commissioner Kevin S. Barnhardt, who is chairman of the county prison board, said he was unaware of the move by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Kenneth A. Borkey Jr., executive director of the Bern Township facility, which houses families awaiting immigration hearings, said the center is at capacity.

Oye I.C.E, Enough is Enough!

7:35 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Activism|Immigration|media justice · Comments Off

31 Jul 2009

The change the people in the United States were promised under the new presidential administration and his appointees has been slow in reaching some the most vulnerable, including the undocumented who despite loud “si se puedes” still live in fear in their own homes and at their jobs. For all the talk of rule of law, seems that Immigration and Customs Enforcement can’t be bothered by that little something called the Constitution.

America’s Voice has launched a petition asking the Department of Homeland Security to cut their shit (my words, not theirs).

VivirLatino