TO DO: Stop Deportation
Source: Migrant Lives Matter
http://action.ndlon.org/c/1509/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=18144
Dear Representative,
In preceding decades the Democratic party has enjoyed crucial political support from immigrant communities. This support has meant the difference between election and defeat for you and your party. Despite this support, your actions have been nothing short of disastrous for our communities. Since the election of the “Deporter-in-Chief,” President Obama, there has been no substantial improvement for our communities other than temporary measures which protect only a few. On the contrary, under your watch and often with your support, immigrants have been massively incarcerated, deported, and too many have died as a result.
We are writing to you today as Migrant Lives Matter, a campaign led by undocumented immigrants, our families, and communities in solidarity across California. These communities together have been at the forefront of fighting the deportation policies and practices that your party has initiated and supported. The Deferred Action measures that have been instituted so far have come into fruition only because of our unyielding efforts, not yours. The more devastating detention and deportation policies remain intact and continue to result in four hundred thousand deportations a year and rising. We are holding your party - The Deportation Party - accountable for your actions and inactions that have caused grave violence and injustice against our communities.
It is the Deportation Party that drafts, approves and implements policies of marginalization and criminalization which result in widespread incarceration and deportation. Now, the Deporter-In-Chief is manipulating the current humanitarian crisis of child refugees and families to request emergency funds to expedite their detention and removal. The vast majority of the $3.7 billion requested is to be used to further militarize the border, expand detention facilities and weaken due process rights for all migrants. This unconscionable rush to deport refugee children and families, and your party’s failure to oppose this effort, will cement your legacy as an unforgivable one for our communities.
Trust for you, your Party and your President among our communities has been broken —not irreparably, but deeply. The following demands are immediate measures that you must take to re-establish trust and regain our support.
We demand from you the following:
1. Advocate vigorously and publicly for the expansion of Administrative Relief to protect all undocumented immigrants and advocate in this same manner for an immediate end to all deportations and the release of all detained immigrants without delay.
2. Defeat, by any means at your disposal, the HUMANE Act and any and all other requests for funding that would further militarize the border, expand detention centers, and immigration enforcement.
3. Grant Refugee Status to all who are seeking asylum, including refugee children and families arriving at the US-Mexico border.
4. Extend existing protections to ensure that all refugee children and families can receive refugee status, including Mexican and Canadian citizens who are currently excluded.
Our communities can spare no more time and will mince not one more word about your role in our marginalization and criminalization. We expect a response to our demands by Thursday, July 31, 2014. Please contact Luis Ojeda from California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance (CIYJA) at lojeda@ciyja.org. We urge you to take action without further delay and show our communities the respect and dignity we deserve.
Sincerely,
Migrant Lives Matter Campaign
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