#morton memo

[dreamactivistfl]

URGENT: Consuelo WiIl Be Transferred, Deported PLEASE CALL!

http://action.dreamactivist.org/florida/consuelo

Consuelo has been detained at Broward Transitional Center since September 8th, 2012. Consuelo came to the United States from El Salvador in 2006 escaping poverty and gang violence. Two of her cousins have been assassinated in El Salvador, and Consuelo fears for her life if she is deported! Consuelo has two U.S. citizen children with her partner. Her 5 year old and almost 2 year old need their mother. Help us stop Consuelo’s deportation and possible death by making a call and signing the petition. Demand that Senators Rubio and Nelson intervene to to immediately stop Consuelo's deportation! TAKE ACTION - MAKE A CALL: Senator Rubio: Washington D.C.: 202-224-3041  Orlando: 407-254-2573  Senator Nelson:  Washington D.C.: 202-224-5274  Orlando: 407-872-7161  "I am calling to ask the Senator take a position on the case of  Consuelo Sanabria Hernandez (A# 200-120-628) from Broward Transitional Center. Consuelo's two cousins were assassinated in El Salvador, she fears for her and her two children's lives if she is deported. Consuelo is a low-priority case and should be released immediately. Why won't the Senator take a position on this case and issue a letter of support?

[reallifedocumentarian]

NIYA's "Internal Review" of Broward Transitional Center

This is what the "humane" immigration policy looks like. This is what the prioritization memos amount to. This is going on every day. It's not just Broward- this is systemic. Undocumented youth are demanding accountability and the release of low-priority cases. From NIYA's press release:

In order to challenge Immigration and Customs Enforcement and GEO Group, Inc. which owns the facility, we have placed multiple NIYA members inside Broward Transitional Center to find people who are eligible for deferred action, are low-priority cases. In this one facility alone, we have found over 100 cases of people who, according to the Obama policies of the past year, should be released back to their families. According to the information given to us by the organizers inside, there are:

people inside Broward who have pending application for a U Visa;

More than a dozen DREAM Act eligible youth;

Over 60 individuals with no criminal record or prior deportations, - - some detained as passengers in vehicles;

More than 3-dozen cases in which individuals are still eligible for discretion despite previous contacts with the system;

Several cases of immigrants in need of immediate medical care, including one individual with a blood clot in his leg and another with a bullet in the spine;

[undocumentary]

More evidence: deporting parents hurts kids

Photo: A child awaits his parents deportation in Charlotte, NC in September 2011. Members of Iglesia Buen Pastor in Raleigh claim they were harassed by Border Patrol agents who arrested them during a traffic stop in Louisiana in 2010. Video of the case here.

First, I'd like to quickly note that there is a direct correlation between my absence during the past several weeks and the editing lockdown that I've been under while working to get the next phase of this project completed. Expect the launch of theundocumentary.com and the release of "The Fighter," a new documentary about NC Dream Team activist and luchadora Alicia Torres-Don, early next month. Updates and teasers to come during the next couple weeks. 

This New York Times op-ed caught my eye this morning about deportations and kids. It seemed obvious enough: deporting a parent will screw up a child. But the extend of the harm and the high rate of such an occurrence is something that is just now gaining mainstream attention in the press. 

The piece, co-authored by Hirokazu Yoshikawa, the academic dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a developmental and community psychologist, reinforces what we already know about the deportation issue, however it pushes our understanding of the potential impact that this policy has on harming our country. Take this language, for example:

Having a parent ripped away permanently, without warning, is one of the most devastating and traumatic experiences in human development. Consider that quote: "one of the most devastating and traumatic experiences." To me, that puts deportation somewhere between a divorce and a death. Death.

And then there is the data:

From January to June 2011, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed 46,486 undocumented parents who claimed to have at least one child who is an American citizen.

In contrast, in the entire decade between 1998 and 2007, about 100,000 such parents were removed.

Let the logic game begin. We should question why we, as a nation, are deporting such incredible numbers of parents, many whose children are U.S. citizens, when we know that such actions are victimizing the children?

This makes President Barack Obama's visit to the UNC-Chapel Hill campus next Tuesday  for a talk about education that much more opportune. His speech is focused on students loans. But with a growing community of undocumented DREAM Act-eligible youth in North Carolina, questions must aught to be asked: What do we gain by having a quota of 400,000 deportations annually? And why has ICE not heeded Obama's directive for prosecutorial discretion/the Morton Memo and not deported noncriminals?  

About half of these deportations are of noncriminal parents who likely were detained at a traffic stop or riding a Greyhound bus. Aside from your view on why immigrants come to the United States, and what they take/contribute to our society, it is time to test our moral compass and ask ourselves if we, as a country, want to have a role in separating families for noncriminal actions. 

[savegerson-blog]

WE NEED YOUR HELP TO SAVE THIS YOUNG MAN'S FUTURE

Sign the online petition TODAY www.savegerson.com

A young man's future lies in the balance as he faces the consequences of a choice he didn't make to enter the United States as an undocumented child. Now an adult, his fate depends upon public awareness and interest. Forwarding this video and spreading the word about this story can preserve the future of one person's life. His name is Gerson. Sign the online petition TODAY www.savegerson.com

[thisisfusion]

Pew: Most Latinos disagree with Obama's deportation policies

Obama outlined a plan of action to address the nation's broken immigration system during a speech in El Paso in May. (Flickr: DVIDSHUB)

By JUAN GASTELUM Channel: Immigration

More than half of Latinos disapprove of the way the Obama administration is handling deportations of undocumented immigrants, according to a new report by the Pew Hispanic Center.

A nationwide survey of Latino adults revealed that 59 percent disagree with the administration's focus on ramping up deportations, up to a record-level annual average of 400,000 since 2009. Twenty-seven percent said they approved.

President Obama has said the administration's deportation policies are aimed at effectively using the funds allotted by Congress for immigration enforcement, and plans to continue deporting people at the same rate.

In August, the Department of Homeland Security announced a case-by-case review of all pending deportation cases using a set of guidelines meant to prioritize the removal of undocumented immigrants with criminal backgrounds or no ties to the United States. The program is currently being piloted in Baltimore and Denver, and the guidelines are also being applied to new cases.

Still, there are many accounts of undocumented immigrants considered low-priority under those guidelines that have been caught up in the administration's efforts to boost deportation numbers. Other enforcement initiatives backed by the administration like the fingerprint sharing program, Secure Communities, have also placed many individuals into deportation proceedings.

Latinos are disproportionately represented in deportations, according to an overview of the report. While 81 percent of the nation's 11.2 million undocumented immigrants are of Hispanic origin, the group accounted for 97 percent of deportees in 2010.

The report also notes that not all Latinos are aware that deportations have increased during Obama's term. Almost half said they thought the Obama administration had deported about the same number or fewer immigrants as the Bush administration. The actual number of deportations during Obama’s tenure is about double the annual average during Bush's first term and about 30 percent higher than the annual average during his second term.

Those who were aware of the increase were more likely to disapprove of Obama's policies, at 77 percent, compared to those who were not aware.

When it comes to competing priorities for addressing illegal immigration, the report says Latinos are nearly twice as likely as the general public to say the priority should be a path to citizenship for immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. Just 10 percent of Latinos say priority should be given to better border security and enforcement.

The number of apprehensions by border patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border has declined by more than 70 percent since 2005. 

The Pew Hispanic Center collected through telephone interviews with 1,220 Latino adults nationwide, 557 of whom say they are registered voters. The margin of error for the full sample is 3.6 percent. For the registered voters sample, the margin of error is 5.2 percent.

[thisisfusion]

It took the death of her child for the U.S. to allow Julia Casares to stay

Complex deportation cases illustrate the difficulties the Obama administration faces in implementing prosecutorial discretion guidelines. (Getty images)

By JUAN GASTELUM Channel: Immigration

When the Obama administration announced in August a plan to prioritize the deportation of undocumented immigrants who are new arrivals or who have committed violent crimes, many advocates for immigrant rights and immigration reform hailed the move as a step in the right direction.

They said they saw the shift as a relief for many undocumented immigrants with strong ties to the U.S. who were flagged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for minor infractions.

But in the weeks that followed, as some points were clarified — such as the fact that no group would be categorically excused — and others became less concrete — like how prosecutorial discretion would be implemented at the local level — many became wary of the new policy.

The case of Julia Casares, a 36-year-old Ecuadorian woman who suffered a miscarriage while on board the plane that was set to return her to her home country, illustrates why.

New York Daily News reports:

Casares has a 10-year-old shoplifting conviction, but she has no record of violence, and her two kids and four siblings are all American citizens.

But it wasn’t until she lost her baby in the feds’ custody that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials decided to allow her to stay, her family said.

“She fainted, and she started bleeding,” said Casares’ partner, Marco Guartan. “They couldn’t force her onto the plane in that state — she’s a human being.”

Casares had been on ICE’s radar for agreeing, but failing to leave the country after a previous pick up during a work-site raid in 1998. This past September, agents detained her at her home in Queens, New York, and moved her to a facility in Louisiana to be deported.

After Univision reported on Casares's miscarriage, which occurred on Oct. 22, senior ICE officials overruled a local Newark field decision to deport her. She will be released from custody on Thursday and allowed to stay in the country for at least one year.

Although Secretary Janet Napolitano has said that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to roll out the details of the plan to review 300,000 cases in the coming weeks, she has yet to provide any clear guidance on how those guidelines should be carried out.

The Obama administration has touted the new policy as a common sense approach to making best use of the limited funds appropriated by Congress, and a way to clear up the backlog of pending immigration cases. Yet, situations such as Julia Casares's continue to pop up.

There's no doubt that Casares had firmly implanted roots in the U.S, and her record didn't exactly scream "violent criminal." Her outstanding dispute with DHS was based on a practice (work-site raids) the department ceased, stating that it did nothing to enhance public safety. Yet, it was not until a top official responded to news that she lost an unborn child that her deportation was stayed.

Situations like this demonstrate the complexities that DHS will face when ironing out the details of, not only who gets to stay and who gets to go, but also, who gets to decide.