DREAM Act
Update on Herta Llusho: Call Senator Stabenow Today!
Published August 14, 2009 @ 09:03AM PT
[Ed. I found the following message in my inbox this morning from Mo at Dreamactivist.org. Herta Llusho would be eligible for the Dream Act but it is stalled in Congress. Meanwhile, she is due to be deported next week, on August 19. Sign the petition to help her stay in the U.S. and find out other ways to take action here.]
Senator Stabenow, Levin and Rep. Kilpatrick all have information on Herta and we are in contact and working with all three asking that they provide a letter to DHS and also call DHS directly asking that they defer action.
We need to continue to put pressure on all of them, however Stabenow should get an extra push. The local office that deals with immigration is not so local to Herta, however it is where the calls need to be going.
Call (517) 203-1760 and leave a message of support for Herta.
If no one picks up and you need to leave a voice message then you really need to leave your name (say it slowly) and address (say it slowly) and / or your phone number (repeat number twice).
Call now, get your family and friends to also call. If you have already called it does not matter, call again!!!
Use the call script posted on the page BUT if you know Herta personally then make the call personal and let them know why they need to step up and stop your friends deportation.
Call now and call often - (517) 203-1760
Netroots Nation: Day 1
Published August 14, 2009 @ 12:01AM PT
My first day at my first Netroots Nation was pretty amazing. Not too surprisingly, the most productive interactions took place outside of the scheduled panels. Here's my typically disgruntled take on the proceedings (though I was told tonight that I am an optimist, and I agreed):
9:00 - The Global Netroots: My hope is that the day will come when a "global netroots" panel includes bloggers from countries that are not the U.S., and no, I don't mean American ex-pats blogging from Prague. I respect what these panelists are doing to raise awareness in the U.S. of social media activism in places like Iran or how they are engaging ex-pats in domestic U.S. politics. I support their work, but please next time change the title to "The Ex-pat Netroots" or "Promoting Imperial Narratives Through the Persian Lens." There's very little that's global about it as currently constituted.
10:30: Leveraging Strength: Effective Collaboration Between Online and Offline Organizations and Activists: I noted with interest James Rucker's account of the Jena 6 movement, which very effectively combined online and offline activism in the effort to push back against the prosecution of six black teenagers in Louisiana. Rucker made the point that I know is true from my work representing immigrants in court: money gets you justice in this country. Without money, you can't count on justice. I would love to see something comparable to Jena 6 develop around the Dream Act, but I'm afraid of what horrible thing might have to take place for that to happen.
Robert Greenwald urged attendees to take the long view and focus valuable time on issues that will change the way people think about things, not just reacting reflexively to the hot topic of the day. I agree.
I don't remember what sparked this thought during the panel, but I decided that online communities are imagined communities just as national communities are. You often never meet the people you interact with online, but you are connected to them in sometimes powerful ways. I continue to wonder how online communities can be pushed out beyond national borders, and what those communities would look like. This is the future of online organizing, and perhaps later the future of social interactions and one day political organization.
3:00 - How to Work with Unions in Your District: Elana Levin, who works for Workers United (whose members make Obama's suits), made a good point, which I agreed with in part and disagreed with in part. She said that her union supports immigrants because it is made up of immigrants, and it has always been made up of immigrants. She said tensions between unions and immigrants are exaggerated. I agree that unions have been how immigrants organized since the unions' inception, but the historical tension between native and immigrant labor is well documented in Zolberg's A Nation by Design. And it still exists today. I applaud the unions for working to move forward with common purpose in spite of those tensions.
Then there was Bill Clinton's speech.
Stop Herta's Deportation
Published August 12, 2009 @ 05:46AM PT
There is another Dreamer about to be deported who urgently needs your help. From Dreamactivist.org:
My name is Herta Llusho, I am 19 years old, and I writing this because I am about to be deported. I was born in Albania and was brought to the United States when I was 11 years old. With the help and support of my family, I have struggled through more than seven years of legal proceedings to find a way to stay in this country legally. Despite our best efforts, on August 19, I will be removed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from the only place I know as my home. I will be sent back to a country that has become a foreign place to me. I don’t even speak Albanian well anymore. My only hope of staying here is for as many people as possible to ask DHS to delay my deportation until the DREAM Act is passed.
My parents brought me to the United States because they believed in the promises this country had to offer. To them it was the land of opportunities, values, and ideals. They were faithful believers of the American Dream, meaning that through hard work, education, and good character their children could accomplish anything they wanted. In fact, they believed in it so strongly that they sacrificed their own lives, as well as their relationship to make it happen. My dad stayed in Albania with the hope of relocating to the US, while my mom left everything behind in pursuit of a better life for her children. To this day, even after many years of struggle and sacrifice, they still believe that it is all worth it, and so do I. I have been truly blessed in the many opportunities I have received. The United States has made me the person I am today. I would like nothing more than to contribute to the country that has given me so much.
You can help by taking the following actions:
1. Join the facebook group for immediate updates:
2. Sign the petition which will be hand-delivered to targets.
3. Use SEIU Click to Call Action Tool to call DHS [link forthcoming]
4. Call Senator Carl Levin at (202) 224-6221. Urge him to a) introduce private bill for Herta, and b) write letter to DHS asking them to stop Herta's deportation.
5. Call Senator Stabenow at (202) 224-4822. Urge her to a) introduce private bill for Herta, and b) write letter to DHS asking them to stop Herta's deportation.
6. Call Congresswoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick at (202) 225-2261. Urge her to a) introduce private bill for Herta, and b) write letter to DHS asking them to stop Herta's deportation.
Call in Script:
I'm calling to ask (Rep./Sen._________ )to help defer action on Herta Llusho's deportation by introducing a private bill and urging DHS to stop her deportation. Herta's case number is A-96-139-441.
Herta's parents brought her to the U.S. at the age of 11 with a dream of giving her a better life. They worked hard to provide for her and raised her to believe in the American Dream. She graduated from high school with a 4.05 GPA and was accepted, and currently attends, the University of Detroit Mercy. She wants to be an engineer just like many in her family.
Now, at the age of 19, she is facing deportation to a country that she has little memory of or connection to.
You have the power to do the right thing.
Please help defer action on Herta's deportation!
My Name is Daniela and I am Undocumented
Published August 07, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
This week's guest Dreamer is Daniela. Visit Dreamactivist.org to learn how you can help pass the DREAM Act.
My name is Daniela, I am 18 years old and I was born in Colombia. My mother and I came to the US when I was nearly one. We had to leave Colombia because my mother was not in a good situation with my father and she feared for our lives. When we arrived in the US my mother immediately began the process to legalize us. She did whatever little work she could to help us survive and we lived with her sister who was married and had been here for many years. Over time my mother met a man who seemed perfect; he treated her well and saw me as his own daughter. They got married had my two little brothers and were in love (or at least that’s what I thought). But after two years of being married, my mother’s husband got into heavy drugs and began to abuse her. I remember seeing this happen when I was very young. My mother finally left him a few months after the abuse began and we were on our own.
Since I was very young, I couldn’t say exactly how our paperwork process was going but I know that she got to the point of getting a worker's permit. Things got tough for my mother since she was single with three kids and a low paying job, so we had to move back in with her sister. In 2001 my mother became very ill with brain cancer; she had a tumor the size of a golf ball in her right frontal lobe. She went through two surgeries in the span of four years. After her first surgery she came out fine and her cancer went into remission. She continued her life of raising three kids and working harder that anyone I have ever met. In the middle of 2003, the tumor came back in the same spot, but this time it was the size of an apple. She went into her second surgery and did not come back the same. My mom was a vegetable; she could not talk, walk, or eat. My aunt refused to put her into a nursing home and instead we took her home and we took care of her with the help of hospice. For seven months our house was a hospital, we tube fed her, changed her diapers, gave her medication, bathed her, and spent every minute of the day with her. I remember my aunt telling me something about there being one interview she had with immigration that would settle everything with our papers, but it was impossible for us to transport her to the office and they did not give us the option of having them come to her. On January 3rd, 2004, she passed away.
This left me up in the air with my paperwork status. A few weeks later my aunt went to the immigration office and to see what this would make of my paperwork. We were told that because my case was attached to my mom, it had died with hers. We started my process over from the beginning and here I am 5 years later with nothing.
I have lived here all my life, I know nothing of Colombia, and I graduate in two weeks. I will be going to college, but I have no job and I am not allowed to drive. I have been a great student ALL my life despite my obstacles and I have NEVER gotten into trouble with the law. All I want to do is continue my studies and become someone who can put forth good efforts into the community and make changes. Unfortunately that is hard to do with such restraints. I am fully Americanized; I know so much more of American history and the land we live in here than anything of Colombia. As cheesy as it may sound, it is my dream to one day be able to say, “I AM PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN”.
Campus Progress/CAP Promoting DREAM
Published August 06, 2009 @ 10:51PM PT
Campus Progress/Center for American Progress now has a Dream Act page and has released the video you see above. Way to go Dreamers, you are working your way into the mainstream blogosphere!
Dreamer on NBC Nightly News
Published August 04, 2009 @ 10:26PM PT
NBC covered the story of Noe Guzman last week--DreamActivist covered Noe's story on change.org back in March.
Why are we deporting Noe Guzman? We should have better things to do with our money.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Immigration Raids Increase Pressure to Migrate
Published August 02, 2009 @ 08:40AM PT
Your weekend links:
- In the context of the Gates arrest in Massachusetts, Maria-Theresa Hernandez writes about her experience with a border patrol officer (ICE wasn't formed until 2003) a decade ago.
About 10 years ago, I was crossing the international border to the United States from Mexico with my cousin, who is a Mexican citizen. She was going to visit me for a few days.
The ICE officer she was speaking to about a tourists visa was outrageously rude. She is a retired school teacher, which is stated on her I.D. Instead of using the word "retirada" (retired), he said she was "retardada" (retarded). She and I were shocked at his audacity. Yet, neither one of us said anything. You cannot say anything to an ICE officer, or he'll find a way to make your life miserable. In that particular situation, she would not have been able to cross over with me.
Unfortunately, while not true of all ICE and CBP officers, disrespect and abuse of power are still prevalent among many. I see this as an attorney with my clients--far worse goes on when no attorney is present.
- Representatives of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights visited U.S. immigration detention centers recently and found that "many men, women and children detained in those facilities are held in unacceptable conditions, and the right of those persons to due process remains, in many cases, compromised." The ACLU has more.
- Aspiring immigration lawyer Cynthia Mazariegos guest-blogs at Latina Lista about her trip to Guatemala to visit Postville deportees.
- And Frontline journalists Greg Brosnan and Jennifer Szymaszek went to Guatemala and Postville to interview people in the aftermath of the federal raid. Watch the video here.
- Glenn Greenwald explores how both Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann have been censored by their corporate masters at GE and News Corp. But this is emblematic of how U.S. journalism too often bends to the will of corporate conglomerates.
- Dee brings word that Minuteman and former Aryan Nations soldier Gunny Bush is now a suspect in a fourth murder, this one in 1997 in Washington state. Bush is separately charged with the murders of nine-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father Raul.
- Writing in the Washington Blade, Julie Kruse from Immigration Equality encourages LGBT voters to support a comprehensive immigration reform package that includes an option for Americans to sponsor their same-sex partners for legal residency. Bringing the broader LGBT community into the debate adds momentum for both positive immigration reform and LGBT equality, she argues.
- To give credit where due after I wondered whether Senator Schumer was getting his immigration talking points from restrictionist websites, he has now written in the Buffalo News that "Daniel Stein, head of an extremist group called FAIR [the Federation for American Immigration Reform], distort[ed] my position on immigration in order to scare the American people using false and distorting arguments."
- Underground Undergrads tells us that Education Secretary Arne Duncan now supports the DREAM Act.
Yet, the bigger question is: Did the raid deter future migration to the United States? No.
The reality of the severe poverty found in Guatemala is still enough reason for fathers, mothers, and children to leave their families behind and make the life-threatening migration north. What the massive raid in Postville did was to create more financial difficulties for a population that is already in poverty.
She also reminded me that family separation is a problem for families in sending countries as well as those that travel to the U.S. or form here. Children in entire communities grow up without one or both parents, who have traveled abroad for work to support the families they've left behind.
[Image: Guatemalan Human Rights Commission meeting with Postville deportees. (Michelle Cassel, via Latina Lista)]
