TO DO: Homeland Security/Racial Justice
Source: Immigrant Defense Project
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ybTn1QeqeluOwQVqNJejMMr6QwK4fCMSI6zBzInI_SY/viewform
Sign on Letter to President Obama: No Ray Kelly for DHS Secretary
Dear President Barack Obama:
We, the undersigned, urge you to reject any consideration of New York Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Raymond Kelly for the position of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). We ask that you instead select an individual who will embrace human rights, equal protection under the law, and family and community unity as core principles of the Department’s work.
Ray Kelly is unsuitable to head DHS for a number of reasons. During his tenure as NYPD Commissioner, discriminatory practices have proliferated. Currently, the Center for Constitutional Rights is challenging the NYPD’s practices of racial profiling and stop-and-frisk in a federal lawsuit, Floyd v. City of New York. Another federal lawsuit filed in June of this year by the New York Civil Liberties Union calls for the end to NYPD’s religious profiling and the unlawful surveillance of Muslim communities. The NYPD is also the target of a citywide campaign, Communities United for Police Reform, to end discriminatory policing practices that recently led the passage of two bills in the New York City Council. At a recent protest led by Black and Latino law enforcement, Anthony Miranda, a retired NYPD sergeant and director of the National Latino Officers Association said, “The Commissioner has both codified and legalized racial profiling. We can’t allow him to take racial profiling to the national level.”
Despite the exposure of widespread civil and human rights violations by the NYPD and pressure on the Department to end its discriminatory practices, Commissioner Kelly continues to legitimate them in the name of “public safety” and “homeland security.” This is the same misguided justification employed by DHS to engage in the massive border build-up and an unprecedented number of deportations that have resulted in the destruction of countless families.
We have witnessed and experienced the devastation wrought by these policies. Rather than overreaching her authority and dividing communities, any future Secretary of DHS should have a proven track record that rejects the racial profiling polices carried out by Ray Kelly in New York City. We call upon you to use this opportunity to nominate a Secretary of DHS who can reverse course, uphold due process, and denounce these tired and unjust approaches to law enforcement that leave all our communities more vulnerable.
No comments:
Post a Comment