Arizona taking immigration law to U.S. Supreme Court

Gov. Jan Brewer says Arizona is going directly to the Supreme Court to appeal a ruling by a U.S. 9th Circuit panel that the state's immigration law is unconstitutional.

 By Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times  May 9, 2011

Jan 6, 2011 Immigration Crackdown: Mexico - Teenage Migrant Dies at Border

Mexico - Teenage Migrant Dies at Border - NYTimes.com: "The Mexican police say that a United States Border Patrol agent shot at a 17-year-old trying to cross illegally into the United States at the Arizona border and that the youth died. The Mexican teenager, Ramsés Barron, was found dead outside a hospital in Nogales early Wednesday after three men left him there, the police said. A Border Patrol spokesman said that an agent was involved in a shooting but that the events were unclear and that no injuries seemed to be involved." Jan. 5, 2011, Reuters

Friends,

Most immigration reform bills before Congress have an built-in bias and nativist prejudice toward immigrants, both documented and undocumented. These immigrants are presumed guilty until proved innocent.  

Many of us believe that a new approach toward immigration reform is urgently needed. Thats why we are joining the Dignity Campaign.  Hopefully, more individuals and groups will join in with this campaign.

Hasta La Victoria!

Mark Day

San Diego Day Laborers Association

On Wednesday, October 20th, in preparation for the National Days of Action Against Police Brutality (Oct 22-23), join the Black Student Union and Redwood Curtain CopWatch for the film...

"We're Still Here, We Never Left"

"Todavia Estamos Aqui, Nunca Nos Fuimos." 

*This Free Event starts at 6:00pm

*Location:  Gist Hall, Room #219  Humboldt State Campus, Arcata

*All are welcome (students and non-students alike)

This film details the police riot in MacArthur Park, Los Angeles on May 1st, 2007- which led to the founding of the Revolutionary Autonomous Communitues (RAC). 

RAC's Food Program and events bring communities together in resistance to police brutality and for liberation!

"We're Still Here, We Never Left" has footage never before seen on the mainstream media- documenting the truth about the police repression on May 1st, 2007, and showing the growing popular movement in oppressed communities.

Humboldt County, on August 10, 2010, signed onto the Secure Communities Program [S-Comm] with ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], an agency of the Department of Homeland Security.  The public had no say in the decision to adopt the invasive, unjust, and racist program for Humboldt County; the Board of Supervisors has not elicited public opinion about adopting this program, nor has it done anything to inform the public about it.

What is the "Secure Communities" Program?  If you are booked into jail, your fingerprints are taken and forwarded to ICE. The fingerprints are crosschecked with immigration and FBI databases. ICE evaluates each fingerprint scan to see what enforcement action, if any, will be taken against you. Enforcement actions can include arrest by ICE, transfer to ICE custody and/or initiation of removal proceedings (AKA deportation).

New America Media, News Report, Valeria Fernández, Posted: Sep 16, 2010

Students and Community Members Chain Themselves to Arizona State Capitol

ARIZONA’S APARTHEID STATE CALLS FOR A STATEWIDE AND NATIONWIDE CALLOUT FOR NONVIOLENT CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE! 

“Today we are chained to the Capitol, just like our community is chained by this legislation.”

20 April 2010 Phoenix, AZ —Nine students and community members chained themselves to the doors of the Arizona State Capitol today in protest of SB 1070, blocking the east entrance. They are calling for a national movement to employ nonviolent civil disobedience as the next phase of the Immigrant Rights Movement.

SB 1070 passed in the Senate and is on is scheduled to be signed by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. SB 1070 is sponsored by Russell Pearce and passed through the nation’s most extremist legislature—Arizona being the engine for all anti-migrant legislation in the country, with at least eleven states poised to follow suit, if Brewer signs this bill.

March 31, 2010   
By Nina Bernstein, NY Times

More than two months after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, at least 30 survivors who were waved onto planes by Marines in the chaotic aftermath are prisoners of the United States immigration system, locked up since their arrival in detention centers in Florida.

In Haiti, some were pulled from the rubble, their legal advocates say. Some lost parents, siblings or children. Many were seeking food, safety or medical care at the Port-au-Prince airport when terrifying aftershocks prompted hasty evacuations by military transports, with no time for immigration processing. None have criminal histories.

Supreme Court Limits Identity Theft Law

The Supreme Court has ruled undocumented workers using false papers cannot be charged with aggravated identity theft unless they knew their fake IDs belonged to a real person. The Bush administration frequently charged undocumented immigrants with felony identity theft, which carries a two-year sentence. Prosecutors had used the threat of a felony to persuade undocumented workers to plead guilty to lesser charges of document fraud.

Democracy Now! Headlines
May 5, 2009

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Aggravated identity theft was the tactic used against immigrant meat packers in the infamous Postville, Iowa raid of 2008.

Read about the Postville raid in these articles: