Stop the Raids and Keep Families Together

Tell the White House and Congress that you OPPOSE President Trump’s raids that are tearing families and communities. Despite continued outcry from faith communities and immigrants’ rights groups, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has restarted workplace and home invasion raids. They are carrying out President Trump’s recent executive orders to build a wall across the U.S. southern border, detain families and children seeking asylum, and force local police to serve as federal immigration agents. The administration is implementing these orders by targeting all undocumented immigrants, including a Methodist lay leader in Kansas, a DREAMer in Seattle and a mother in Arizona. Hundreds of individuals have been detained and are being processed for deportation.

Raids are an inhumane and unjust response to our broken immigration system, and as people of faith we must stand in solidarity with our undocumented brothers and sisters.

President Trump’s raids on immigrant families and communities will not make anyone any safer. Walling off America, reducing community safety, and failing to protect those in need are affronts to our country’s values of family unity, fairness, and equality. Faith communities have demonstrated unwavering commitment to our immigrant neighbors, including more than 800 congregations that have pledged support for the Sanctuary Movement and 1,000 faith leaders who have opposed policies that foster trust between immigrants and police. We draw from the scriptural call to love thy neighbor and welcome the sojourner by standing with our brothers and sisters to stop harmful deportations that tear families apart.

Call the White House and Congress TODAY

President Trump: (866) 961-4293

Your Senators and Representatives: (202) 224-3121*

*Please call this line 3 times to be connected with your 1 Representative and 2 Senators.

 

Sample Script: “I’m a Catholic Sister and your constituent from [City, State]. I urge President Trump to immediately STOP the inhumane and unjust ICE raids deporting our immigrant neighbors. Raids don’t make our communities safer. I am also OPPOSED to President Trump’s executive orders to build a wall, prevent asylum seekers from seeking safety, and force local police to serve as federal immigration agents.

These executive orders are unjust, run counter to who we are as a nation, and do not reflect the welcome for immigrants I see every day in my own community. I urge you to do everything in your power to see these orders are reversed, and to stand in solidarity with our immigrant neighbors.” 

 

If you’d like to learn more about how you can offer support of various types, including sanctuary, please visit www.sanctuarynotdeportation.org. 

Rally Against Immigrant Family Detention in San Antonio

More than 50 people showed up to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in San Antonio at 8940 Fourwinds Dr. Tuesday afternoon to protest the thousands of immigrant women and children being held in the Karnes and Dilly detention centers, where families can be detained for months on end or even close to a year.

Currently, the daily census for the two facilities in Texas is around 2,200 detainees, according to the Interfaith Welcome Coalition.
An August report released by UNICEF states that almost 26,000 unaccompanied children, mostly hailing from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras were apprehended at the U.S. border along with an additional 29,700 people in the first six months of 2016. Most individuals were traveling as families, specifically mothers and young children.

During the Tuesday rally, individuals continuously chanted “let our babies go,” and attempted to deliver oversized baby cards, baby shower balloons, pairs of socks, and diapers to the ICE office, a symbolic move aimed to represent the countless children held in detention.

When ICE office staff came outside, protestors requested to speak with ICE Regional Directors. Security officers said “we’ll see what we can do,” but nobody came outside. Rally attendees decided to walk across the front lawn of the building and placed all their cards and symbolic objects on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security‘s (DHS) office entrance sign.

Speakers at the rally included Rev. Marisol Caballero of the Texas UU Justice Ministry, Paul Pfeiffer of the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, Sr. Sharon Altendorf from COPS/Metro, and Jonathan Ryan, an immigration attorney and executive director of RAICES, a nonprofit charity that provides free and low-cost legal services to underserved immigrant children, families, and refugees. The speakers represent a coalition of faith and community leaders who are working together with the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC) to coordinate events around the country calling for an end to family detention.

The protest comes on the heels of the recent Aug. 18 announcement made by the U.S. Department of Justice, which stated that it will begin phasing out the use of private, for-profit prisons. Many hoped that that would include the immigration detention system, but those hopes were unfounded. Ryan said that pressure from the public and the media prompted the the DHS to announce plans to review the practice of using private immigration detention facilities.

“Their deadline to (come to a decision) is at the end of November,” Ryan said. “But really, this is a feeble attempt by the DHS to kick the can down the road and alleviate the pressure it’s under now.”

Caballero opened the event with a prayer and asked everyone to imagine the children in detention centers who do not have the luxury of leaving every morning to go to school, playing outside, or going to the park because they are incarcerated.

Caballero asked the audience to answer the question: “What would move a mother to go on such a perilous journey with a small child, or carrying a child through pregnancy?” She added that these people are incarcerated for the crime of risking everything for the love of their children, so they can have a better life.

(Continue reading HERE)

End "Diapers in Detention" Aug 29 - Sept 1

Join the campaign to end “Diapers in Detention”—August 29-September 1 and help us raise awareness about the continuing scandal of family detention!

The Interfaith Immigration Coalition under the leadership of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) is planning a week of action to draw attention to U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s policy of incarcerating mothers and children.

The center piece of the campaign is our “Diapers in Detention” baby showers which we plan to hold at ICE offices across the country during the week of August 29-September 1.  We’ve developed a “Diapers in Detention” tool kit which provides all the details.

In addition to inviting you to join a “Diapers in Detention Baby Shower” near you, we’d also like to ask you to:

• Send a baby card to  Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson.
• Send an op-ed or letter-to-the-editor to your local paper.
  • Send a prewritten letter to the editor to your local newspaper at www.fcnl.org/endfamilydetention .
  • Find a sample letter to the editor at:https://cliniclegal.org/sites/default/files/advocacy/diapersindetention/sample-letter-to-the-editor.docx
• Send an email to your local ICE office asking them to end family detention. Find email addresses at:https://www.ice.gov/contact/ero.
• If you’d like, join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/diapersindetention. You might find people interested in arranging a baby shower in your area.
• You might also make some noise on social media. Advocate on social media using #diapersindetention.
  • Tweet:
    • Babies don't belong in jail. Tell .@ICEgov to end #familydetention! No #diapersindetention .@cliniclegal .@lcwrjpic
    • Tell .@ICEGov: No #diapersindetention! End #familydetention and keep families together while they apply for asylum .@cliniclegal  .@lcwrjpic
  • Facebook:
    • Headline:  Baby jails in the U.S.? No way!
    • Post: “Did you know that in the United States, dozens of babies and toddlers under two are in prison with their mothers? Even worse, a recent court ruling requires the release of the children but not the parents, which opens the door for families to be separated. They are refugees from Central America fleeing violence and instead of jail, they deserve due process to pursue asylum. Tell ICE: no baby jails. End family detention, and keep families together!”

PLEASE, let us know you plan to participate. Sign up at: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSckcA0gHtUgErAwxm630_yo7K6BUYjGUxpMl2yLQVXELFoH2w/viewform

If you have questions about this project, please contact Ashley Feasley at CLINIC. She is the prime mover behind the campaign and has graciously volunteered to field questions. You can reach Ashley at:afeasley@cliniclegal.org or 301-565-4831.

National Day of Action to #EndFamilyDetention

Monday, February 22nd is the National Day of Action to #EndFamilyDetention. Join moral activists across the country in sending a message to ICE: prisons are not childcare, and these kids need our help.
 

A federal judge has ruled that locking up children in “family detention centers” violates the law – but that’s not stopping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials from twisting policies to keep family detention centers up and running and kids locked in.

The government wants us to believe they’re complying with Judge Gee’s ruling by licensing family detention centers as childcare facilities, as though licensing will improve conditions for kids. In fact, Texas officials just agreed to downgrade their childcare licensing standards just to allow family detention centers to keep jailing kids.

Conditions in these centers are shocking. Legal observers and community activists have reported abusive treatment by facility staff, malnourishment, psychological damage – even suicide attempts. Mothers locked up with their children in the Berks County Residential Center issued a letter saying, “[Many of our kids] have suffered health wise because of this confinement, and not to mention the racist abuse and poor treatment from certain members of the staff…but especially by the agents of ICE that play and mock our dignity as immigrants.”

 That’s why  we’re inviting you to join the National Day of Action to End Family Detention and flood ICE offices with phone calls TODAY Monday (2/11) demanding an immediate end to ICE’s unnecessary and immoral jailing of refugee children.

Call the ICE offices in Pennsylvania and Texas that oversee Family Detention Centers:

Pennsylvania
Action: Call ICE Regional Director Thomas Decker
Number: (215) 656-7164, 0 # – ask for Thomas Decker

Texas
Action: Call ICE Field Director Enrique Lucero
Number: (210) 283-4711 – ask for Mr. Lucero


Script: I’m calling to ask that you comply with Judge Gee’s ruling and stop detaining refugee children in jail-like conditions. Prisons are not childcare, and these kids need our help.

And Tweet At ICE:
Script: Hey, @ICEGov, #PrisonsAreNotChildcare – comply with the court: #EndFamilyDetention via @uusc

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