Change takes courage Mr. President!

Today the change takes courage campaign is taking action across the nation urging the Obama administration to use its power and take action. We urge you to join us in this campaign and sign the Petition!

Deportations under President Obama have reached record levels. It’s a moral outrage that families are being separated, young people are being robbed of their future and public safety is being threatened by a system the president knows is broken. This must stop.

Too many families have been broken up thus far. It's time to change, time to show courage:

The Change Takes Courage Campaign is urging President Obama to keep families together by:

1. Keeping families together.

• End the deportations of parents of U.S. citizen children. Separating parents from children is a morally reprehensible act. It’s violation of America’s core values.  Consider the plight of Raul Cardenas of Denver who has been married to a U.S. citizen for more than 8 years and has a young daughter who is also a citizen and now faces deportation.
• End the deportations of military veterans. Our nation must not turn on the very people who serve it and help preserve it. That is exactly what our broken immigration system is doing. Consider Muhammad Zahid Chaudhry, who served the Army National Guard and sustained injuries that left him in a wheelchair and now faces deportation.
• End the deportations of DREAM-eligible young people.   In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Obama said: “Let’s stop expelling talented, responsible young people who can staff our research labs, start new businesses and further enrich this nation.” He was right, and he could end the practice right now with a stroke of his pen. Here are two students to whom he should be true to his word: Jackie and Jaime, high school seniors in Maryland, have been fighting to gain in-state tuition that will allow them to continue their education.
• End the deportations of immigrants who have families, jobs and deep roots in America and are contributing to their communities.  Our economy and our communities are made stronger by immigrants and immigration. We need look no further than the story of Mauricio Bautista who has lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years, works at a bilingual school and is beloved by his community.
• Provide protection for all immigrants who are vulnerable to deportation simply because their paperwork is currently in process, and they are trapped in a bureaucratic backlog. It’s intolerable that our broken system is punishing people who have legitimate and legal claims to be in this country. For example, Saad Nabeel was deported unfairly to Bangladesh last year but should have been allowed to stay to give time for his case to run it course.

2. Discontinue ICE programs that undermine the public safety of all communities

Making local police the agents of the Federal government contributes to civil rights violations, terror in communities and makes our neighborhoods less safe.

• ICE should immediately clarify that states and municipalities are indeed allowed to opt out of Secure Communities.
• It is clear that programs such as 287g, Secure Communities and the Criminal Alien program increase the likelihood of civil rights violation. The aggressive promotion of these programs should end immediately.
• Where agreements already exist, ICE should defund/reduce funding.
• Secure Communities should only be used for its intended purpose, to remove only those convicted of Level 1 offenses.
• The Justice Department should immediately repudiate the memo from 2003 that purported to recognize the inherent authority of local and state law enforcement to enforce immigration law.

3. Protect all our workers

We must recognize the importance of those who live and work in our midst. No economic recovery can be achieved by our nation without respect for worker rights as a key element.

• Moratorium on I-9 audits by ICE and SSA no-match letters
• Protect workers’ rights to organize
• Prevent unscrupulous employers from using any ICE and other federal resources to break up unions.
• End use of E-Verify

PRESS STATEMENT: Immigrant Detainee Dies at Mass. Hospital

A Tragic Reminder that Detention System Needs Reform

BOSTON -- On Monday, October 19, Pedro Juan Tavarez, a 49-year-old native of the Dominican Republic in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, died at Women and Bringham's Hospital in Boston.

ICE was holding Tavarez on immigration violations at The Suffolk County House of Corrections, which transferred him to Brigham and Women's after the correction facility's medical staff suggested possible pneumonia. The hospital was treating Tavarez for heart and respiratory conditions when he died, but the official cause of death has not yet been determined by the medical examiner.

"Mr. Tavarez's death is a tragedy," said Eva Millona, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA). "We don't yet know if his passing could have been avoided. But we do know that the current immigration-detention system relies on a decentralized network of local jails that, in many respects, is simply inhumane. It treats the civil infraction of 'immigration violation' like a criminal offense, and it does not adequately protect the health of its most vulnerable detainees."

MIRA applauds the Obama Administration's acknowledgment of the seriousness of the problem. In August, ICE announced plans to "move away from a jail-oriented approach to a system wholly designed for and based on ICE's civil detention authorities." (See the ICE fact sheet). But the process won't be complete for three to five years, and the gravity of this delay was recognized earlier this month in a report by Dora B. Schriro, then ICE's Office of Detention Policy and Planning Director, who wrote a top-to-bottom appraisal of the system before quitting to become New York City's correction commissioner. As The New York Times wrote, the report "calls for prompt attention to individual complaints about a lack of medical care." In an interview with the Times, Department of Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano could only promise "to implement a system to better place people with medical or mental health needs" within six months.

"Six months is not good enough," said Millona. "Five years is far worse. The detention system demands immediate reform because too often its flaws have led to fatal consequences. We ask Governor Patrick, Massachusetts county authorities, and the individual detention facilities to start implementing reforms now. For too many immigrant detainees -- many of whom are hardworking family members who have broken no criminal laws -- this is truly a life and death issue."

Series of Stories Highlight Injustice of U.S. Immigration System

A number of stories appeared in the news today that highlighted the various injustices that are currently masquerading as an immigration system in the U.S.

First, The Boston Globe's Kevin Cullen wrote an op-ed profiling the impact of ICE's indiscriminate enforcement policies on the families of hard-working, tax-paying immigrants in the U.S. A father now faces deportation, while the rest of his family and its livelihood slowly slips away. His wife is left with the job of explaining to the family's four year old what is happening to his father:

Their youngest, the 4-year-old, sat in the circle at play group the other day and tried to explain what was going on to his buddies.

"The 4-year-old can't begin to fathom it, and I can't fathom how to explain it to him," Leah Arteaga was saying.

What is ICE's response? Nothing out of the ordinary, they used their normal refrain of "routine, targeted fugitive operation." I wonder if this report backs that assertion up? If you don't have time to read it, the answer is NO.

The New York Times ran another story highlighting the deplorable conditions of immigrant detention in the U.S., where ICE is having a hard time keeping track of the number of detainees who have died in detention. If last week's Amnesty International report and Keith Olbermann's tirade against U.S. detention policy wasn't enough, the Times article discusses the vanishing act that DHS and ICE tried to pull when a detainee died of a heart attack in 2005.

There have been a number of high-profile cases involving the death of immigrants in detention as the article details:

As Congress and the news media brought new scrutiny to the issue, several detention deaths have highlighted problems with medical care and accountability. In one, a Chinese computer engineer’s extensive cancer and fractured spine went undiagnosed at a Rhode Island jail until shortly before he died, despite his pleas for help. In another, records show a Guinean tailor who suffered a skull fracture in a New Jersey jail was left in isolation without treatment for more than 13 hours.

These unjust and inhumane practices need to stop immediately. If they don't we'll continue to here stories like this one:

The union learned that the inspector general’s office had written up a synopsis of the allegations for investigation by the immigration agency, saying that “Ahmad Tander,” a Pakistani detainee housed at the Monmouth jail, had died “from a heart attack whose symptoms were obvious, severe and ignored until it was too late,” amid “conditions of neglect and indifference to medical needs.”

MIRA, Amnesty International, ACLU, and Others Protest Quadrupling of Immigrant Detention

On Friday, more than 300 people protested the dramatic rise of immigrant detention in New England, where the average number of currently detained immigrants has tripled, and the U.S., where that number has quadrupled.

"It is time for us to stand up and say enough," said Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA), who called on Congress to create a path to legal residency for the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. "The cycle must end."

Not only have the numbers increased, but conditions have continued to be deplorable, with many immigrants in detention lacking adequate health care and access to legal representation. Unfortunately, an alarming 74 immigrants have died in detention over the past five years.

And while it is trivial in the battle for human rights and dignity, detention is not cost-effective. Detention averages $94/night, while other alternatives to detention cost a mere $13.

Video Documents Impact of Raids on Families and Children

This video tells the story of the Carreno family, which has suffered at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. I.C.E. Took My Father from New America Media on Vimeo.

The raids must end.

Another Day, Another Report Critical of ICE

This time the report, by Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, criticizes Immigration and Customs Enforcement for their failures to provide adequate health care to detainees.

AP Analysis of ICE Database Reveals Expansion of Costly Enforcement-only Strategies that Infringe on the Rights of Immigrants in Detention

An AP report release yesterday shed more light on what immigrant advocates have known for years: The enforcement-only strategies of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are ineffective, inefficient and have little regard for the rights of immigrant detainees.