Immigrant Rights

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Meeting focuses on day laborers

From The Chapel Hill News covers a workshop held to find a solution to a dispute over a gathering spot for day laborers on the…

Buen Pastor Vigil Unites Dreams

They say prayers are the same in every language. This was the hope behind the vigil held at Pullen Memorial Church on Thursday, June 16. Members of Raleigh’s Buen Pastor gathered together with members of the community to unite their voices and speak out against the violation of human rights. Prior to the vigil, SCSJ organized a press conference for Buen Pastor to share their stories with the media and announce the filing of a complaint with the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties over the incident. Coming home from a church conference in April 2010, 44 congregation members, including small children, were detained by Border Patrol agents. They say they were held for over six hours, until dawn, and were mocked, humiliated, and denied the right to a lawyer and interpreter. They told SCSJ that the police forced them to sign documents that they could not understand by saying that they would take custody of their children. “We were intimidated. We are frightened,” said Jeremias Villar, one of the members of Buen Pastor. Border Patrol allegedly claimed that, when they stopped the van, they thought the congregation members were illegally crossing the Mexican-American border. The group was 300 miles from the border at the time of their detention. Six church members were deported immediately. SCSJ’s Elizabeth Simpson is representing the group in immigration court. While members of the congregation shared their reflections of this horrific incident, the atmosphere was one of hope and progress. Even if you did not speak Spanish, it didn’t take an interpreter to understand the strong sense of community inside those walls, a community speaking of unity, peace and action that can fight injustice and restore dignity.

Dozens of church members face deportation

From More coverage on the vigil and Buen Pastor case. More coverage on the vigil and Buen Pastor case. Source: ABC 11 From http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=8195815…

Border Patrol Arrests Families in Louisiana Returning Home from Faith Event

On April 15, 2010, in Louisiana, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents detained over forty members of the Evangelical Latino congregation, “El Buen Pastor.” The families were returning home to Raleigh, North Carolina. The church members were traveling on Interstate-10 in Louisiana, returning from an annual jubilee in Texas, called the “Santa Cena” or “Holy Week.” The vans were not cited with any traffic violations; rather the stop and the arrests were motivated by CBP’s suspicion — based on Latino appearance — that the church members may be undocumented. CBP claims that they can use race as a factor to make stops and arrests within a 100-mile radius of the border. CBP also claims that the southern shoreline is border territory. Primarily families — men, women and children members of El Buen Pastor — were traveling in the vans. When CBP stopped them, the agents aggressively questioned the travelers. CBP agents handcuffed many of the men and took them away in patrol vehicles. Some of the churchwomen recounted the impacts they suffered at the hands of the CBP agents: The officials were banging on the door. My sister in law told the officials to lower their voices. . . All of us were scared. We said, “we are coming from a church event.” There were babies in the car and they were all crying. However, the officials did not change their tone. My niece is special needs and she started to moan and throw her arms around in the air. Her father was worried that she was going to accidentally detach herself from the feeding machine . . . As my children watched the officers handcuff my husband they started to cry . . . As we were driven to the CBP office by the officers, one of my aunts was crying and upset trying to pray and sing hymns in a quiet voice. Everyone else was crying and the official just laughed, asking if God would save us from this. CBP agents coerced the parents into signing documents they did not understand, despite trying to uphold their rights to remain silent and to consult with an attorney. The CBP agents threatened that if they did not sign, the men and women would be sent to separate detention facilities and the children would become wards of the state. Everyone else was crying and the official just laughed, asking if God would save us from this. For hours, the church members were crammed into the office as each family was processed. One churchwoman explained, “We waited in the office but there wasn’t really anywhere to sit. I remember my older son was tossing and turning because he wanted to sleep but there was nowhere to lie down. The children were crying.” CBP Official: “Like winning the lottery” The church members felt their rights were violated by the way officials treated them; CBP officials mocked them for wearing head coverings. Despite explaining that their dress is a way to demonstrate respect for God, the officials humiliated them, joking that the real reason they wear the veils is to disguise their messy hair. The officers spoke of the church members as objects. “At the time of shift change a new official came in and I heard him say to the others, ‘Good job, congratulations.’ He told them they had caught a bunch and because there were so many of us it was like winning the lottery.” The CBP arrest and treatment traumatized the families, especially the children. A Call for Support Now, church members are fighting to stop their deportation proceedings and uphold their human rights. With the support of Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ), the families are fighting for suppression of removal in Immigration Court because the government did not legally obtain the information regarding the documentation status of the church members. SCSJ represents the members in a suit against CBP for withholding public records about the arrest. SCSJ will also represent them in a suit based on emotional abuse CBP agents inflicted on congregation members and other violations of their constitutional rights.Buen Pastor is organizing with other faith communities and allies, in particular, Latino congregations that have suffered abuse by Immigration and other law enforcement authorities. On February 18, members of El Buen Pastor led a vigil attended by over seventy people. They called on their faith to give them strength and courage to continue fighting for their human dignity. Their next Immigration Court date is June 23rd, 2011 in Charlotte, NC. The congregation is asking for other Latino and allied churches to write letters denouncing the CBP abuses inflicted against them. If your congregation would like to write a letter or you would like to become involved contact staff organizer, Rebecca Fontaine at Rebecca@southerncoalition.org. To follow the case, sign up on SCSJ’s Twitter or Facebook account. Click here to read press articles about the arrest. Rebecca Fontaine works at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice as an immigrants' rights organizing and as a bilingual immigration paralegal. Labels: border, Border Patrol, El Buen Pastor, faith, Holy Week, immigration, Louisiana, NNIRR, racial profiling, SCSJ, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, undocumented

Buen Pastor Church Case

Members of Raleigh’s Buen Pastor Church are fighting and praying to stop the deportation of twenty-six of its congregants. The church group was travelling together back to North Carolina after attending a religious retreat when Customs & Border Protection (CBP) pulled over three church vans in Louisiana. Some forty-five congregants were transported to the CBP processing office – at least half of them young U.S. citizen children. While there, the group was subjected to religious taunts and the congregants’ repeated requests to call a lawyer were denied. The children spent six to eight hours on the floor, without food or drink. At the end of the process, adults were told that if they refused to sign the papers, they would be deported, and the United States would “keep” the children, putting them into orphanages. SCSJ has filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to seek CBP records about the stop and arrest. In immigration court, SCSJ will file a Motion to Suppress Evidence & Terminate Proceedings based on CBP’s constitutional, statutory, and regulatory violations. Read more about the case in this news article.


Take Action! As part of the evidence for SCSJ's suppression of removal case -- which demands that the government drop the original case -- SCSJ is calling on churches with strong a Latino and immigrant base to express their outrage about the Buen Pastor stop. Attached below is a letter to download which you can sign and return to SCSJ. The letters will then be submitted alongside a legal brief to show the impact of racial profiling in immigrant and Latino communities. Download the letter return it to Rebecca Fontaine, SCSJ Immigrant Rights Organizer, via fax or email. Fax: 919-323-3942 Email: rebecca@southerncoalition.org