Immigrant Rights

Immigrant Justice Organizers Get Involved

Recently, the Immigrant Justice organizing interns attended two events. On Friday, June 18th, we went to action with the NC DREAM Team at UNC-Chapel Hill where Senator Kay Hagan was the keynote speaker for a luncheon hosted by Action for Children, an organization that works to benefit the education of all children in North Carolina. We hoped to get Senator Hagan to support and co-sponsor the DREAM Act. While she did hold a brief meeting with the young women on a hunger strike, she still refused to support the bill. Later that day, we joined activists and allies at Senator Hagan’s office hours in speaking to her about the DREAM Act and immigration reform. These two meetings turned out to be the only opportunities that the activists had to meet with Sen. Hagan over the span of their two-week hunger strike. Although this day was seemingly frustrating, Hagan has since released a statement saying, "I believe the Dream Act should be considered in the context of comprehensive immigration reform.” On Saturday, we led a "Know Your Rights" training in Zebulon at a Latino church which has been targeted for police checkpoints scheduled during church services. We had adapted some aspects of the training based on the previous one held in Winston-Salem and found the changes to be more interactive. The congregation had plenty of questions for staff attorney Marty Rosenbluth about their rights and the state of immigration enforcement. Towards the end of the presentation, the focus shifted to organizing for immigrant justice and the level of energy reflected the need for reform.

National Call-in day for Iglesia Buen Pastor!

Today we are asking people to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement to ask that they drop the charges against 22 members of the Buen Pastor congregation. We are doing this in partnership with the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. If you haven't signed the petition, do so here.

Dial (800) 394-5855 and tell them:

Hello, I am calling from ______________________ to urge John Morton to drop the charges against all the families involved in the Buen Pastor congregation case in which 22 men, women, and children are facing deportation. Over 800 individuals have signed a petition asking for him to drop the deportation proceedings for this case but have not received a response.

- John Morton has the power to take action today to drop charges.


- Members of Buen Pastor are exactly the kind of individuals who should benefit from President Obama’s August 18th announcement that DHS should use discretion to close cases of individuals who are positive influences on our communities, and who furthermore, are victims of civil rights abuses.


- The church members have filed a complaint and now have an open investigation with the DHS office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties for rights violations including racial profiling, denied access to interpreters, denied access to legal counsel, and threats to take away their children.

Checkpoint Monitoring Training

At this training we will give interested community members the tools and information they need to monitor traffic checkpoints in the Triangle Area for evidence of racial profiling. We are particularly concerned about increases in profiling against members of immigrant communities as more and more local law enforcement agencies formalize cooperative agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Sign up online at http://checkpointwatch.eventbrite.com/

DOCUMENTED watch party 6/29!

The United States is home to a vast majority of people who are direct decedents of immigrants or who are immigrants themselves. Our politicians devote…

Statement of Support for the Trail of Dreams

The North Carolina organizations supporting the Trail of Dreams are inspired by the Dream Walkers' courageous commitment to their vision and to their journey from Miami to Washington, DC, to demand justice for all immigrants. We welcome the walkers into North Carolina as activists challenging multiple oppressions and look to connect their stories and struggles with organizing work of all oppressed communities in the South. We support their demands for fair and humane immigration reform, access to college education, workers' rights, and an end to unjust immigration enforcement policies. As organizations engaged in immigrants' rights work, we support the leadership and self-determination of those most directly affected by unjust policies. We also honor their place in a long history of social justice movements in our state in which young people have played a leading role. As each walker shares his or her story, it touches everyone - even to those who do not agree with their demands. We believe that storytelling humanizes policies and is a powerful tool for transformation. The courage of the walkers as they challenge injustice, in spite of the risks they face as undocumented youth, has brought energy and inspiration to our work in North Carolina. We honor them by continuing our work building and strengthening local and statewide movements for immigrant justice, human and civil rights, and progressive social change. Adelante Education Coalition of North Carolina North Carolina Justice Center Reform Immigration For America Southern Coalition for Social Justice Student Actions with Farmworkers To learn more, check out our Blog, Press Release, or some of this great press coverage by The News & Observer, The Herald Sun, and 1360 WHCL.

Ditching exams for a dream

Remarkable UNC Chapel Hill first year student and activist Wooten Gough will be missing finals this year. Gough has arranged with his professors to leave school early — in order to go for a very long walk. After meeting Trail of Dreams walkers and immigration reform activists Juan Rodriguez, Carlos Roa, Felipe Matos and Gaby Pacheco during their passage through North Carolina, Gough was inspired to join them. A member of Reform Immigration for American and the Coalition for College Access, Gough passionately believes that all students deserve access to higher education, regardless of their documentation status. “In class, I see these empty chairs around me where my friends could be here who are undocumented,” says Gough, “Why would I stop [pushing for reform]?” “I can no longer wait around to see what might happen, but instead stand up and fight for what is right! Each step on the Trail of Dreams is for a real person, a real face, a real life, and above all, each step is for the dreams of a student. This is not just a Latino issue, this movement is for anyone who has ever been told they cannot accomplish something, for anyone who has a dream.” Gough will join the dreamwalkers on their journey from Miami to Washington, D.C. for the final leg of their trip starting in Richmond, Virginia. Check out his blog. He needs to raise $1000 to pay for food and accomodations along the way. To help him, donate here. Check out the Daily Tar Heel’s video profile of Gough, or SCSJ’s Statement of Support for Trail of Dreams for more information.

Minor wrongs still risk deportation

The federal government said it was revamping its deportation agreements with local sheriffs to focus on ridding the country of dangerous felons. But some North Carolina sheriffs who signed the agreements have not been asked to change their practices. Lawyers and advocates say the controversial program, which allows sheriff's departments to help identify illegal immigrants and begin deportation proceedings, is operating virtually unchanged - resulting in the deportation of people charged with offenses as minor as disorderly conduct and driving without a license. A month after the new agreements took effect, Wake County is still putting into deportation proceedings more illegal immigrants who were arrested on misdemeanor charges than those detained in felony cases. Wake Sheriff Donnie Harrison confirmed that his department has not changed the way it implements the program. "We do the same thing if you're charged for murder or if you're charged with no operator's license," said Harrison, one of seven North Carolina sheriffs who have the program. "Nothing has changed for us." Officials with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced in July that they would ask all participating law enforcement agencies to sign new agreements, which they said would bring the program in line with its original goal of removing drug offenders and violent criminals from the country. Departments were required to sign the new agreements by mid-October. The revamp came after Joe Arpaio, sheriff in Maricopa County, Ariz., drew national scrutiny by using the program to round up illegal immigrants and imprison them in tents in the desert. Most North Carolina sheriffs use a different model of the program, in which they check the immigration status of those brought into jails for other crimes, but their programs have also drawn accusations of racial profiling. The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina says the program encourages law officers to jail immigrants on minor crimes for the purpose of checking their immigration status. ICE spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said last week that the new agreements discourage profiling by requiring that local agencies see through all criminal charges against illegal immigrants before they are deported. In the past, many minor charges were dropped and the inmates handed over to immigration authorities. She also said the agreements "clearly articulated ICE's priorities: identifying and removing criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety or a danger to the community." New intent, old methods The agreement, however, does not lay out new practices for sheriffs. All foreign-born people who come through participating jails - the vast majority of whom are accused of misdemeanors and nonviolent crimes - continue to have their immigration status checked and, if they are here illegally, to be processed for deportation. Harrison signed the new agreement Oct. 16. His statistics show that the number of immigrants put into deportation proceedings has not declined since it went into effect. In October, 150 inmates were processed for immigration violations, and 84 percent of their crimes were misdemeanors. So far this month, 82 illegal immigrants have been processed, and 60 percent of the charges against them were misdemeanors. Harrison said he continues to check the status of all foreign-born inmates; he would consider it discriminatory to "pick and choose" inmates to screen based on the seriousness of their alleged crimes. Harrison said checks sometimes reveal that immigrants arrested for minor charges are wanted for more serious crimes or have previous deportation orders. "ICE hasn't said anything to us about changing anything," Harrison said. Randy Jones, spokesman for Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson, an outspoken critic of illegal immigration and one of the state's first sheriffs to join the program, also said he has not changed the way he does immigration checks. "We're doing it just like we've always done it," Jones said. Jones and Harrison said it's the federal government's responsibility to decide which immigrants are deported. 'Really petty' Marty Rosenbluth, a lawyer with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice in Durham who provides free services to immigrants, said he has represented people deported after such crimes as playing loud music and missing a child's truancy hearing. A few months ago, two teenage girls ended up in deportation proceedings after being involved in a fistfight at Wakefield High School. Since the new agreements took effect, Rosenbluth said, he continues to field five to 10 calls a day, the majority from people picked up by local immigration programs. "It's mostly driving and minor misdemeanors in every county," he said. "Most of the cases we're seeing continue to be really petty." Rebecca Headen, an attorney with the Raleigh office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the new agreement does little to address concerns that the program allows officers to target immigrants for minor crimes. "It's more of an aspirational suggestion," Headen said. One North Carolina sheriff, Earl "Moose" Butler of Cumberland County, declined to sign the new agreement and dropped out of the program. Debbie Tanna, a public information officer for the Cumberland Sheriff's Office, said the program used county resources to help deport mostly minor criminals while largely failing to turn up dangerous felons or immigrants wanted for crimes in other states. "The sheriff did not like the way the program was working," Tanna said. "He said it was more of a headache than a working tool."

Detention quotas are bad business


As the immigrant rights movement grows stronger, and as communities come together in defense of justice and dignity for all immigrants, we have the power…

Hazleton, PA Anti-Immigrant Law Is Unconstitutional, Federal Appeals Court Rules

PHILADELPHIA – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit today issued a sweeping decision striking down as unconstitutional the city of Hazleton’s law that would punish landlords and employers who are accused of renting to or hiring anyone the city classifies as an “illegal alien.” The case, Lozano v. Hazleton, has been closely watched across the country because the Hazleton ordinance has served as a model for similar laws nationwide and was challenged by civil rights groups in a lengthy trial. The suit has been underway for more than four years in the federal district and circuit courts. Today’s unanimous appeals court decision is the latest legal victory against discriminatory state and local laws that target immigrants and invite racial profiling against Latinos and others who appear “foreign.” Many cities like Fremont, Nebraska and Summerville, South Carolina have voluntarily tabled or blocked these laws under legal pressure and local opposition. “This is a major defeat for the misguided, divisive and expensive anti-immigrant strategy that Hazleton has tried to export to the rest of the country,” said Omar Jadwat, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project. “The Constitution does not allow states and cities to interfere with federal immigration laws or to adopt measures that discriminate against Latino and immigrant communities.” Hazleton adopted its first anti-immigrant ordinance in August 2006. A civil rights coalition including the ACLU, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the Community Justice Project and the law firm Cozen O’Connor immediately filed a lawsuit challenging the law on behalf of Hazleton residents, landlords and business owners. Today’s ruling upholds a July 2007 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania concluding that the Hazleton ordinances were preempted by federal law governing immigration. “Hazleton’s discriminatory law decimated a town that used to be bustling with life and commerce,” said Vic Walczak, Legal Director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania and a lead attorney in the case. “Divisive laws like these destroy communities and distract from the very real problems that local governments are facing across the country. Immigration reform needs to come from the federal level. Local ordinances like these have a toxic effect on the community, injecting suspicion and discriminatory attitudes where they didn’t previously exist.” During the trial, Hazleton officials claimed that undocumented immigrants were responsible for bankrupting the city, driving up healthcare costs and increasing local crime. In fact, the evidence at trial showed that from 2000-2005, Latino immigrants actually helped to transform a huge city budget deficit into a surplus, that the private hospital system made a $4 million profit and that the crime rate actually fell. “The Latino plaintiffs who brought this lawsuit knew this law was intended to drive them out of Hazleton,” said Cesar Perales, President and General Counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF. “The court clearly recognized this danger.” Friend-of-the-court briefs opposing the Hazleton law were filed by numerous civil rights, religious, labor and business organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the labor union coalition Change to Win, the American Jewish Committee, Capuchin Franciscan Friars, Lutheran Children and Family Services, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Legal Momentum, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, the Anti-Defamation League and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Related issues involving state authority to enact laws addressing immigrant employment are pending before the Supreme Court in the case, Chamber of Commerce v. Candelaria, brought by the ACLU and other groups challenging an Arizona statute. Attorneys on the case include Jadwat, Lucas Guttentag, Jennifer Chang Newell and Lee Gelernt of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project; Walczak and Mary Catherine Roper from the ACLU of Pennsylvania; Shamaine Daniels of the Community Justice Project; Foster Maer, Ghita Schwarz and Jackson Chin of LatinoJustice PRLDEF; and Thomas G. Wilkinson and Ilan Rosenberg of Cozen O’Connor. The ruling is online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/lozano-v-hazleton-opinion A video with interviews with ACLU attorneys and clients is online at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8vr66MYZn8 More information on the case, Lozano v. Hazleton, is online at: www.aclu.org/hazleton More information on the case, Chamber of Commerce v. Candelaria, is online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/chamber-commerce-v-candelaria

December 11th, 2008: Southern Human Rights Organizers Protest "287g" Program and Treatment of NC Immigrant Community

SOUTHERN COALITION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE http://www.scsj.org For Immediate Release: Thursday, December 11, 2008 Contacts: Elena Everett, Media Coordinator, 919-323-3380x112, cell 919-413-1276 elena@southerncoalition.org SOUTHERN HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZERS PROTEST "287(G)" PROGRAM AND TREATMENT OF NC IMMIGRANT COMMUNITY DURHAM, NC – Participants in SHROC (the Southern Human Rights Organizers Conference) will hold a vigil and demonstration in front of the Wake County Jail on Saturday, December 13, from 5pm-7pm to protest the county's 287(g) program. SHROC is a biannual conference of human rights organizers from across the Southeast. SHROC leaders are particularly concerned about the targeting of immigrant communities throughout the South through the 287(g) program. The Wake County Sheriff's Department is one of eight law enforcement agencies in North Carolina to enter into a 287(g) agreement with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Proponents claim that these programs make our communities safer by facilitating the deportation of "dangerous convicted criminals." In reality, this program has been mostly used to target people accused of minor offenses. In Wake County, even victims of crime have been arrested under 287(g) and deported. Jose Sergio Ruis was deported after he reported a break-in at his home. He was told by police that his fingerprints were needed to distinguish them from those of potential suspects. Police ran his fingerprints through the ICE database and found that his immigration paperwork was not compliant. He was deported. Incidents like this have led many in immigrant communities to be fearful of cooperating with police. The NC Sherriff's Association reported that 33% of the over 3,000 people deported under the 287(g) program were detained for driving related offenses, other than DWI. This has led to widespread suspicion that police are using racial profiling and that people are being arrested solely to give law enforcement the ability to check their immigration status. For example, community members report a marked increase in police checkpoints in areas with a high Latino populations, including in front of Spanish-language churches on Sunday mornings. "Every member of our community has the right to live without fear. The 287(g) program is being abused and making our community members and immigrant families feel less safe," said Marty Rosenbluth, staff attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. MORE INFORMATION Southern Coalition for Social Justice; http://www.scsj.org 919-323-3380 Southern Human Rights Organizers Network; http://www.shroc.org ~ END ~