Trump News: DACA Trade-Off Proposals, Dreamer Data Not Protected, Wrong-Headed Gang Policy

This is what the White House wants in exchange for saving Dreamers from deportation

By Anita Kumar, McClatchy DC Bureau

September 26, 2017

WASHINGTON The White House is expected to ask Congress to approve a Republican wish list of

immigration policies as part of a deal to protect hundreds of thousands of young people brought into the country illegally as children, known as Dreamers, according to a preliminary document obtained by McClatchy.

Talking points written by the president’s Domestic Policy Council and given to some members of the conservative Freedom Caucus on Capitol Hill include a dozen proposals grouped into three broad areas — border security, interior enforcement and merit-based immigration.[…]

Read the full article:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article175484806.html

DHS Chief Can’t Promise She Won’t Hand Over Dreamer Data to ICE

By Sam Sacks, The District Sentinel

September 27, 2017 

The acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday that sensitive information about Dreamers could soon be handed over to federal deportation forces.

Under questioning from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), DHS Secretary Elaine Duke said she could not guarantee a promise made by the Obama administration to those who registered with the DACA program—known as Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.districtsentinel.com/dhs-chief-cant-promise-wont-hand-dreamer-data-ice/

The Wrong Way to Fight Gangs

Trump's MS-13 rant. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

By Lauren Markham, New York Times

September 28, 2017

Oakland, Calif. — Young migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador come to this country fleeing violence and lives that are often dictated by savage gangs. It’s expensive to get here. They often arrive with thousands of dollars of high-interest debt and little or no English skills. And they face an administration that insists that they are gangsters bringing bloodshed and gang warfare to American cities.

In fact, these young people are often fleeing gangs. And the challenges they face in the United States make them particularly vulnerable for recruitment into the same violent gangs they left home to escape.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/opinion/sunday/trump-gangs-soccer-education.html

Join WFP, SOA Watch, COPINH & More at the Border Encuentro Nov. 10-12!

From Witness for Peace

September 28, 2017

This year, from November 10-12, Witness for Peace staff, along with human rights activists, torture survivors, anti-war veterans, students, families, union workers, artists, and educators will converge in Eloy-Tucson-Ambos Nogales for the SOA Watch Border Encuentro. Register for the Encuentro HERE!

We hope you'll join us and our partners SOA Watch for three days of vigils, workshops, rallies (including at the Mexico-US border), music, and other collaboration to deepen the resistance against US-led militarism and other harmful policies throughout the Western Hemisphere.

WFP will be hosting a happy hour, to connect with our teams from around Latin America, meet our grassroots organizers from across the US, and learn more about our work on both sides of the border.  Join us on Saturday, November 11th from 5:30 to 6:30 PM at the Quality Hotel Americana in Nogales, Arizona: 639 N Grand Ave, Nogales, AZ, 85621.

Here's just one of the speakers (a partner of both WFP & SOAW) who'll present at the Encuentro:

Since 2014, Gaspar Sánchez has served on COPINH's leadership team as the Sexual Diversity & Rights Equality Coordinator. COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras) is the first Indigenous organization in Latin America to establish LGBTQI+ issues as a pillar of its work. Gaspar is a popular educator who works to shape the next generation of young Indigenous leadership, and serves as a spiritual guide for the Lenca people in their collective efforts to recuperate historical memory through the processes of life, land defense, and ancestral practices. Gaspar has represented COPINH all over the world: from Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, and Brazil, to the United States and the United Nations. He will be on tour throughout the US this fall--including with WFP in the Great Lakes, Midwest, and New England regions.

See you at the border in November!

In solidarity,

Witness for Peace

ICE arrests hundreds of immigrants in 'sanctuary cities'

Talia Inlender, a senior staff attorney at Public Counsel, which advocates for immigrants, criticized the focus on sanctuary cities. “It’s clearly a political move that is not actually geared toward public safety,” she said.

By Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times

September 17, 2017

Immigration officials on Thursday announced hundreds of arrests in an operation targeting communities where police and elected officials have refused to fully cooperate on enforcing federal immigration laws.

ICE said it arrested 167 people in and around Los Angeles, a region in which several cities and counties have been tagged by justice officials as being so-called sanctuaries — a loosely defined term used to describe local governments that restrict police from assisting immigration authorities identify and detain people suspected of being in the country illegally.

Arrests were also made in San Francisco and San Jose. Overall, ICE said it arrested nearly 500 people across the country over the last few days.[...]

Read the full article:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ice-raids-sanctuary-20170928-story.html

Photo: popularresistance.org

Arellano: Pelosi Sorprendida/ Pelosi Surprised

Pelosi Sorprendida

Photo: Lea Suzuki, Associated Press

Por Elvira Arellano, Sanctuary Movement

21 de Septiembre, 2017 

(English version follows below)

La congresista y lideresa de la bancada del Partido Demócrata en la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, se manifestó realmente sorprendida cuando un grupo de soñadores se apoderaron de su conferencia de prensa.  Los manifestantes exigieron que Pelosi y los Demócratas dejen de utilizar a los soñadores como una ficha en el juego de pactar un acuerdo con Trump que daría amparo a los soñadores a cambio de sacrificar sus propios padres y madres y los demás 11 millones de inmigrantes indocumentados en este país.

Esta reacción no debe haber sorprendida la congresista.  La propuesta ley DREAM durante años ha sido usado por muchos demócratas y algunos republicanos para esquivar la demanda popular de poner alto a la deportación de las familias. Durante años hemos escuchado a los demócratas decir que los soñadores no violaron las leyes migratorias a propósito, pues eran demasiado jóvenes cuando sus padres cruzaron la frontera, pero sus madres y padres sí.[...]

Lea el artículo completo:

https://groups.google.com/forum/ - !topic/sanctuarymovement/VQvaKHdpE2s

Pelosi Surprised

By Elvira Arellano, Sanctuary Movement

September 21, 2017

Congresswoman and Leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, looked genuinely surprised when a group of dreamers took over her press conference. They demanded that Pelosi and the Democrats stop using the dreamers as a bargaining chip in a deal with Trump that would win security for the dreamers but seal the fate of their parents and the eleven million undocumented.

The Congresswoman should not have been surprised. The Dream Act has long been used by many Democrats – and some Republicans – to sidestep the popular demand to stop the deportations of the families. For years we heard Democrats say that “the dreamers, unlike their parents, did not “knowingly” cross the border because they were too young when their parents brought them.”[...]

Read the full article:

https://groups.google.com/forum/ - !topic/sanctuarymovement/BsyIWRL6pOk

Miscellaneous News: Detention Center Lawsuit, Suppressed Refugee Report, World Citizenship Poll

Victory for Immigrant Hunger Strikers: Lawsuit Challenges Slave Wages at Private Jail

By Mike Ludwig, Truthout

NWDC protest. Photo: Thomas Soerenes/The News Tribune/AP

September 22, 2017

For three years now, incarcerated immigrants have staged hunger strikes and work stoppages to protest conditions at the Northwest Detention Center, an immigration jail in Tacoma, Washington, run by a private prison company that pays detainees as little as $1 a day to work in the jail.

"This week folks were offered chips or a soup for several nights of waxing the floors, so not even $1 [per] day," one person incarcerated in the jail recently reported to NWDC Resistance, an immigrant-led group fighting to end the deportation and detention of immigrants.

Five hunger strikes have been held so far this year, with participants and whistleblowers facing solitary confinement, threats of forced feeding and other forms of retaliation from prison authorities, according to NWDC Resistance.

Their efforts paid off on Wednesday when Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced a lawsuit against GEO Group, a massive private prison firm that runs the Northwest Detention Center under a federal contract.[…]

Read the full article:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/42028-victory-for-immigrant-hunger-strikers-lawsuit-challenges-slave-wages-at-private-jail

For earlier coverage of the Northwest Detention Center, go to:

http://thepoliticsofimmigration.blogspot.com/2017/08/new-trouble-at-geo-groups-northwest.html

Trump Administration Rejects Study Showing Positive Impact of Refugees

By Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Somini Sengupta, New York Times

September 18, 2017

WASHINGTON — Trump administration officials, under pressure from the White House to provide a rationale for reducing the number of refugees allowed into the United States next year, rejected a study by the Department of Health and Human Services that found that refugees brought in $63 billion more in government revenues over the past decade than they cost.

Photo: James Lawler Duggan/Reuters

The draft report, which was obtained by The New York Times, contradicts a central argument made by advocates of deep cuts in refugee totals as President Trump faces an Oct. 1 deadline to decide on an allowable number. The issue has sparked intense debate within his administration as opponents of the program, led by Mr. Trump’s chief policy adviser, Stephen Miller, assert that continuing to welcome refugees is too costly and raises concerns about terrorism.[…]

Read the full article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/us/politics/refugees-revenue-cost-report-trump.html

           

World Citizenship Is More Popular Than You Might Think

A poll of more than 20,000 people in 18 countries, conducted by GlobeScan for the BBC World Service from December 2015 through April 2016, found that 51 percent of respondents saw themselves more as global citizens than as citizens of their own countries.

By Lawrence Wittner, History News Network

September 17, 2017

Has nationalism captured the hearts and minds of the world’s people?

It certainly seems to have emerged as a powerful force in recent years. Trumpeting their alleged national superiority and hatred of foreigners, political parties on the far right have made their biggest political advances since the 1930s. After the far right’s startling success, in June 2016, in getting a majority of British voters to endorse Brexit―British withdrawal from the European Union (EU)―even mainstream conservative parties began to adopt a chauvinist approach. Using her Conservative Party conference to rally support for leaving the EU, British Prime Minister Theresa May declared contemptuously: “If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.”[…]

Read the full article:

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/166809

ICE in NYC Courtrooms: “Secret Police” Nab Alleged Gang Members in Brooklyn

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents continue to detain immigrants in New York City courthouses. Go here for an earlier report.—TPOI editor

ICE Agents Make Arrests at Brooklyn Courthouse

Democracy Now!

September 15, 2017

In New York City, plainclothes ICE agents arrested four undocumented immigrants at a Brooklyn

Photo: Cameron Mease/Brooklyn Defender Services

criminal court building Thursday morning, in an unusual move targeting a courthouse for immigration enforcement. An ICE spokesperson later confirmed the arrests, saying the four men were suspected of gang activity. ICE policy prevents officers from making arrests at sensitive locations like schools, hospitals and places of worship, without approval from supervisors. Courthouses are not included on the list, but the practice is unusual and has been criticized by prosecutors, police and defense attorneys.

This is Katherine Poor of the Legal Aid Society: "It makes people very scared when they hear things like this happening, because they are told by the court that they have to return for their court dates. That’s something that they are ordered to do, and if they don’t do it, a warrant can be issued for their arrest. On the other hand, if people hear that there is ICE coming into the courthouse, if there’s ICE coming outside of the courthouse, and they have fear for their own immigration situation, that puts people in a very, very difficult position."

New York is a sanctuary city.

Watch the day’s headlines:

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/9/15/headlines/ice_agents_make_arrests_at_brooklyn_courthouse

Secret Police

ICE agents dressed in plainclothes staked out a courthouse in Brooklyn and refused to identify themselves.

By Leon Neyfakh, Slate

September 15, 2017

Cameron Mease, a senior staff attorney with Brooklyn Defender Services, was walking in downtown Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday morning when he saw a group of six or seven men shove someone against a fence, put him in handcuffs, and drag him into an unmarked van. The men were dressed in jeans and T-shirts. Given their behavior and attire, a passerby would’ve had good reason to think he’d just witnessed a kidnapping.

But Mease had seen such scenes unfold before, and he was pretty sure he knew what he’d just seen. He believed these were plainclothes agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and that they’d come to the Brooklyn courthouse to take someone into custody who they knew would be there for a court date.[…]

Read the full article:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/09/plainclothes_ice_agents_in_brooklyn_refused_to_identify_themselves.html

Federal Immigration Officials Will Continue Nabbing Suspects at New York Courthouses to Subvert Sanctuary City Status

By Linley Sanders, Newsweek

September 15, 2017

Federal immigration officers in New York doubled-down on arresting undocumented immigrants as they make appearances at courthouses this week—a decision that the local district attorney says is an "outrageous" tactic that "sends a chilling effect" and "undermines public safety."

Defying New York's status as a "sanctuary city" for undocumented immigrants, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), officers aggressively snatched four men outside a criminal court building in Brooklyn on Thursday.

“This was the most visible they’ve ever been,” Scott Hechinger, an attorney with the Brooklyn Defender Service, which provides legal representation to individuals who cannot afford a lawyer, told Newsweek. “It’s the most brazen that we’ve seen them be.”[…]

Read the full article:

http://www.newsweek.com/new-york-immigration-courthouse-arrests-continue-sanctuary-city-665797

Labor Unions Are Stepping Up to Fight Deportations

Organized labor is finding creative ways to protect immigrant members and families vulnerable in the Trump era.

By Dave Jamieson, Huffington Post

September 12, 2018

Yahaira Burgos was fearing the worst when her husband, Juan Vivares, reported to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in lower Manhattan in March. Vivares, who fled Colombia and entered the U.S. illegally in 2011, had recently been given a deportation order. Rather than hide, he showed up at the ICE office with Burgos and his lawyer to continue to press his case for asylum. 

Vivares, 29, was detained for deportation. That’s when Burgos’ union sprang into action.

Prepared for Vivares’ detention, members of the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ gathered for a rally outside the ICE office that afternoon, demanding his release. Union leadership appealed to New York’s congressional delegation, enlisting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D) to reach out to ICE leadership. The union president even disseminated the name and phone number for the ICE officer handling Vivares’ deportation and urged allies to call him directly.[…]

Read the full article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/organized-labor-steps-up-to-fight-deportations_us_59b6df97e4b03e6197afea7c?43t6zpqiy4oadzpvi

The national organization Mijente is offering new “defend your rights” materials:

https://mijente.net/2017/09/10/prepare-raids-new-defend-rights-materials-available/

A new "know your rights" booklet from Mijente